This Week in Politics

The Republican party of Florida hatched its own Acorn this week, when it was revealed that it had paid well over a million dollars to a very questionable firm that was to register conservative voters. It turns out that they've been registering them fraudulently, with over a hundred cases already showing up across the state.

Could it be that the reason Florida Republicans were so concerned with making it harder to vote at the polls (despite almost no evidence of in-person voter fraud) be because they had the inside knowledge that comes with being the one perpetuating it? No, because the rules they passed like shortening early voting time and increasing in-person ID requirements wouldn't have mattered to the one place where fraud can occur most easily – registering voters fraudulently and then using brokers to deliver their absentee ballots in your favor.

****************************************************************

Apparently the competition of ideas for educating our kids has come down to ... free video games. Check out the ad, from charter school Manatee School of the Arts and Science, which offers a "Free Nintendo DSI-XL" to families who enroll prior to 10/11/12 - a $200.00 value! If this sounds like little more than a bribe as incentive to increase enrollment just prior to the full-time enrollment count, what can I say ... it probably is. It sort of gives you an idea of what a future American education landscape may look like if certain people get their way and for-profit education becomes the norm - Walmart gift cards, Disney passes, maybe even VIP tickets to Jingle Ball.

****************************************************************

It's been a tough week for the Keith Fitzgerald campaign. On the heels of having his sister endorse his opponent, he's now had to part ways with his communications director, Ana Maria Rosato, after postings on her blog sassypoliticalinsights.com turned up, which outrageously suggested that many Republicans are miserable, sexually-repressed individuals who “aren't getting any lovin'.”

*****************************************************************

It looks like the Manatee County Convention Center will now be the Bradenton Convention Center, even though it's still in Palmetto. I guess that makes sense in a state that until recently had the Tampa Lightning and Storm both playing in the St. Pete Times Arena, which was located in Tampa, while the Tampa Rays and Rowdies both play at facilities in the city of St. Pete.

But why add to the confusion, when there is already a facility that markets itself as the Sarasota-Bradenton International Convention Center? As Manatee County Commissioner and former Palmetto Mayor Larry Bustle explained at last week's BOCC meeting, there might not even be a Palmetto in a few years.

What??? Bustle did sort of correct himself by way of denying he'd said what he'd just said. Perhaps they should just take a page from the City of Bradenton playbook and call it the Mosaic Convention Center at Riviera Dunes and collect a minute naming-rights fee.