GOP pre-session plan: Mardi Gras, Universal and Benatar

Florida's Republican leaders may be in for one of the most difficult sessions of their legislative careers but this weekend they're ready to rock at Universal Studios and the Seminole Tribe's Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando.

The weekend-long event is being sponsored by the Republican Party of Florida which is parlaying the gathering of Florida's legislators into a fundraiser. Lobbyists, lawmakers and their families are invited to join VIP tours of Islands of Adventure & Universal Studios on Saturday morning, dine at lunch and enjoy a dinner reception and "Mardi Gras Celebration Parade" in the evening.

After dinner, they'll be escorted to a "VIP viewing of the Pat Benatar Concert.''

Incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon of Orlando believes the event is fine, even as lawmakers debate stripping the state budget of more services and jobs. "The fact we are doing fundraising to support our members is appropriate,'' he said. "This promises to be a a particularly challenging session and we want our spouses and children to have a brief chance to fellowship before we embark on the 60-day session.''

Cannon said he is sensitive to the economic climate and that's why he cancelled all social events related to his designation on Monday as speaker designate. "We are well aware this is not a time to celebrate, it is a time to get to work,'' he said.

Comments

[Vote all Republicans Out!]

Republicans partying it up while at the same time they insist on laying off teachers, firefighters, police, librarians, and scores of other people across Florida. Nice. How about trying to raise revenues to save some other people's jobs besides just your own? Remember in November!

I've been reading this blog for at least three years now and have yet to see a Democratic fundraiser posted.

What are the Democratic lawmakers doing pre-session? Someone report both sides.

[Greg]

Republicans supports the Stimulus to bring it back to those individuals who are hurting most of the community. Besides, the solution of our current economic downfall is not even in stimulus package. I really disappointed with the 1st month of Obama. I think He is going similar path with Bush.

Well, The GOP is taking aim at newly picked Democratic candidate Scott Murphy in the 20th Congressional race, saying he owes $21,550 in back taxes and penalties in 1997 and 1998 for a company he owned, Small World Software, Inc.---it might really work.

Scott Murphy for Congress Tax Liens

Vote obama out. The Democrats are ruining our economy and our childrens future. So much for free market economics.

[Barack "Lying Fool" Obama]

History is written by the victors, so they say, and Obama famously declared, "I won." So the evidence he sponsored earmarks (which he is publicly speaking against) must be destroyed. Jonathan Allen of CQ Politics reports on the process of hiding the evidence:

Congress will scrub President Obama's name from a list of earmark cosponsors in the $410 billion omnibus spending bill.

The reason: Whether Obama cosponsored the earmark depends on what the definition of earmark is and when an earmark becomes an earmark, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The provision itself is still considered an earmark, and it's staying in the bill (HR 1105) - but it's losing the Obama brand. ...

Subsequently, Senate Appropriations Committee spokesman Rob Blumenthal said Obama's name would be removed from future versions of the congressional report identifying earmarks and their sponsors.

The irrepressible Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light reminds us that this is an old game.

I asked Steve who was removed, and he wrote back: "Nikolai Yezhov, who was who was Stalin's Water Commissar. The photo was taken by the Moscow Canal when Yezhov was water commissar. After he fell from power, he was arrested, shot, and removed from the photo by the censors."

What do all the venues have in common? Nice men's rooms!

[You can smell the stench of desperation as control is taken from the cons and returned to the people]

10:09 Blah blah blah blah like anybody reads your lame Limbot talking points.

[Hardy Har Har]

rumor has it that Louisiana's Bobby Jindal - you know, the Governor with NO speaking skills who lies about his interaction with a Sheriff during Katrina ...

he and his family are in Orlando this weekend.

Seems as though their Gov takes as many vacations as our Gov.

And this being the big weekend of several Lincoln Dinners across the state? guess they didn't want "those" republicans there.

what to be a fly on the wall in the same room as Bobby and Charlie.

So it is OK for Obama to raise a billion in campaign cash to attack Republicans, but it is not OK for Republicans to raise money to defend themselves. I don't remember seeing many stories about how Obama out raised McCain 8 to 1. Isn't cash the evil of all politics? Doesn't that make Obama the most evil.

I guess the Democrats aren't going to raise any money, out of respect for the poor economy. Of course if they did, we would not read about it on this blog.

[Jason Straight]

As the GOP contol of Florida reaches the end of an Era a goood party is in order..In 2 years the passage of the Redistricting Amendment will wipe out their majority..Party while Florida burns..You guys are outta step with America your days are numbered!

7:07 - So are the Democrats raising any money for the redistricting amendment? Will you find any special interest money on their contributor report? My point is hypocrisy, in case I need to point it out to you.

Of course the press would prefer that candidates and political parties raise no money. That way the press would completely control the information that the public gets on candidates for office. Gee… I wonder which party would benefit then?

repiggie this, repiggie that, repiggie repiggie repiggie. MOM, MAKE ME SOME MEATLOAF, AND WASH MY BUZZ LIGHTYEAR SWEATPANTS NOW!!!!!!

www.davidrivera.org

what a sad excuse for a website. Where's the disclaimer?

Ah...the sight of little legislative repiggies enjoying even more privileges...just heartwarming...

As always, the John Birch Society is actively posting its anti-Obama drivel. They are furious that so many do not accept their definition of our nation as a white evangelical nation.
They will just have to get over it.

[Republicans=Capitalism and wealth; Democrats=Socialism and misery.]

Did you notice that when Gov. Sarah Palin was campaigning for vice-president she talked about "reform?" Candidate Obama campaigned on a different theme, "Change We Can Believe In." In case you weren't paying attention, he had the slogan on the emblazoned on the front of his lectern.

The word "Change" is a curious one. In politics it is most often used in the context of "Time for a Change." It speaks to the periodic need to throw the rascals out. But in left-speak it means something more. It evokes the need for "social change" or "transformative change." Change in this sense means the secular hope for salvation in this world that the left substitutes for the transcendental hope of religion.

Conservatives do not subscribe to the notion of secular salvation. We believe that salvation only comes in the next world. So we don't need to inject transcendental hope into politics. We think in terms of Reform, not Change.

Reform is like cleaning and tidying up a living room before a party. You know that in a couple of hours your room will look like a disaster. But you still do it anyway.

Change is like a makeover. You imagine that,with a new hairstyle, new clothes, and new makeup you life will change and a different kind of man will address himself to you.

It's a good time to start thinking about this as we conservatives watch the change machine at work and yearn instead for good conservative reform, of the kind we might expect from a President Palin or a President Jindal, both of whom already established records as reform governors.

But, whatever we do, let's not start the Palin or the Jindal administration in the clueless manner of the Obama administration.

We don't yet know what the damage from the Obama administration's zero-for-three first month will be. Nobody can. We won't know until November 2010. But at least Republican candidates now have talking points about Democrats:

•The party that talks about ethical government but hires tax cheats;
•The party that talks about open government but practices lobbyist-friendly government;
•The party that talks about stimulus but enacts "porkulus."
Above all the Democratic Party is the party that takes care of its special interests before it steps up to fix the credit system, a party that reverses welfare reform without even a public hearing, a party that criticized a president's defense policies for eight years and then turned around and continued them.

If Republicans are not to stumble like the Democrats we have to get our principles straight before we return to political power. It's not enough just to have a reform program. Here are three good ones.

•1. The Hayek principle: The man in Washington cannot know enough to administer the US economy.
•2. The Novak principle: Think of society as three co-equal sectors: economic, political, and moral/cultural. None of the three should dominate the other two, and no two sectors should gang up on the other one.
•3. The Perrow principle: Watch out for "system accidents" in complex close-coupled systems.
Readers that know about Hayek and Novak may not know about Charles Perrow. He's the liberal sociologist who wrote Normal Accidents: Living with Hish-Risk Technologies after the Three Mile Island accident. He warned about our love affair with efficiency and complexity. It leads to accidents that can't be controlled.

In complex industrial, space, and military systems, the normal accident generally (not always) means that the interactions are not only unexpected, but are incomprehensible for some critical period of time. In part this is because in these human-machine systems the interactions literally cannot be seen. In part it is because, even if they are seen, they are not believed.

Does this seem familiar? Forget the dangers of nuclear plants. Today we worry about excessively complex political and financial systems. And right now, it is painfully obvious, we are saddled with a credit system in which any component failure can bring down the whole system.

We've seen, in the last month what Change means. It means shoveling taxpayers' money at the Democratic base to bail out the Democratic state and local governments that overspent in the boom, and to bail out Democratic homeowners who bought houses they couldn't afford.

The next version of Republican Reform better be different. It needs to start from rock-solid conservative principles

Look for the huge in-kind contribution to the RPOF. The RPOF will not pay full freight for this event! It's the new way around the gift ban.

Repiggies = predatory capitalism.
Try getting any health insurance if you have been dropped, you dumb bozo. The market doesn't work, because it isn't a market. It is a monopoly run by greedy scum who make medical decisions in place of competent physicians.
Post as much drivel as you want, but get your head out of your patootie some time and look at reality. Your party needs a good dose of it.

This blog item is about a Republican Fundraiser. I ask again, are the Democrats attacking Republicans on this blog claiming that the Democrat Party is not doing fundraisers or taking money from special interests?

Also, I may not be a fan of Democrats, but I am adult enough to actually use the name of their party instead of some childish comparison to a pig. My second grader is mature enough not to find that funny.

12:58 – They can’t help the name calling, it is all they have. They have no real arguments, so they resort to name calling.

Repiggies, Repiggies, Repiggies, Repiggies, Repiggies, Repiggies… OK you are right, name calling is all we have.

looks like repiggies are getting a bit sensitive...

It has nothing to do with sensitivity. I am actually making fun of you, but it is going over your head.

I know you are but what am I?

I am rubber and you are glue, whatever you say bounces of me and sticks to you.

Looks like we have some Obama supporters on the blog… too bad they are not old enough to vote.

Looks like we have some Obama supporters on the blog… too bad they are not old enough to vote.

MOM, THE MEATLOAF!!!!

This is the life of the repiggie poster:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bMs04JK0BQ&feature=related

Come on 5:11, it is Republicans who believe you should work for what you earn… it is the Democrats that want to provide handouts for those who don’t work. That clip is much better suited to describe the liberal… or if not the liberal, the beneficiary of liberal (socialist) policy.

9:10,

You missed the point. I was simply describing the life of the individual that refers to Republicans as "repiggies." I believe him to be an unemployed adult who lives in his mothers basement screaming for meatloaf frequently.

10:50 – My bad. I catch most of them, but missed that one. I should have known that the liberals are running away from this thread after getting pummeled.

www.davidrivera.org --- what a sad excuse for a website. Where's the disclaimer?
Posted by: | February 28, 2009 at 10:18 AM

Hey, I thought only non-profit groups could use ".org"?

Disgusting. Great place though and just what they need, more goofy cartoon characters.
When will the people of Florida take electing people seriously?

[morgan]

So what do you care of the RPOF goes partying while the state spends FAR too much money?
They didn't do it with taxpayer money, did they? I guess it's NONE of your business.

Florida's fantasy capitol - Disney World. What a perfect place for reality challenged Republicans to spend their excessive salaries while pretending it is just good clean fun to fleece the citizens.

Or did they have Jindal show up thinking he could conduct another of his exorcisms -- & and maybe save them from their greedy ways? It is the "magic" kingdom -- and only magic would make Bush/Reagan voodoo economics seem like they really work.