Great piece Mitch! Lends specificity, history and context to the issue. Most people just hate Putin for who he is without understanding everything behind it.
Very good article. The simple solution to funding Social Security is to remove FICA cap on earnings. Doing this will provide 1.3 Trillion dollars in new revenue for Social Security. SS will not need that much so the FICA rate can be reduced putting more money in worker take home pay and reducing employer costs also.
Josh Cramer talking about the weather - how informative. What about all the raw sewage being dumped into the river, Josh? How about answering one of my emails related to the 150 thousand gallons of water per day for over 3 weeks that spewed out in my neighborhood due to a broken pipe that the city couldn’t fix? What about the city’s awarding so many contracts to Ron Allen’s NDC Development? What about doing something about the homeless? What about cleaning up all the trash and litter on the east side of your district between 9th and 14th street? You do not deserve to be a public representative - I hope someone runs against you.
Property insurance premiums continue to rise despite State lawmakers and Governor Desantis giving the insurance everything they've asked for. Homeowners are being kicked off Citizens and forced to take more expensive private market policies. Citizens is required to artificially increase their premiums to the level of the private market to protect private insurance companies. Insurance companies are protected from having to pay a plaintiff's legal fees even when the insurance company is found to have ripped off the policy holder. On top of all that, a report was recently released showing that insurance companies are secretly paying themselves, claiming the payments are expenses in order to show losses. They have falsely claimed these losses in order to win legislative protection. Senator Boyd surely knew this as an insurance company owner. All of these problems, yet no local legislator is sponsoring any meaningful responses. In Manatee County, we have shown we can become informed and vote for our own interests at the County commission level. We now need to expand our due diligence to the state level. Boyd, Robinson and Conerly are voting against our interests and should be voted out.
Mayor Gene Brown and his staff have agreed to a public forum to discuss City of Bradenton water and sewage issues, status and updates. There will be a question and answer period. This forum will be held on Wednesday, March 26th, 2 to 3:30 PM at Bradenton Woman's Club, 1705 Manatee Ave. W., 34205. This is free and open to the public. Sponsored by Manatee Democratic Environmental Caucus. Ruth Lawler, 941-350-6085
Years of poor planning and poor maintenance of the sewer system resulted in this catastrophic events taking place. They have known about this problem for years probably decades. Now they wanna borrow 25 million from the counties federal funds that they received because of their poor vision and maintenance policy.
They have no problem, rubber, stamping, multimillion dollar, high-rise condos for a larger tax base revenue and selling off their price possession of City Hall at a fraction of its real replacement value. This is the City Of Bradenton’s leadership and vision.
I have to tell you in all honesty when I was a substitute teacher. I immediately saw the pitfalls of having cell phones in schools. First and foremost it’s not fair to the teachers or the taxpayers because on a daily basis 30% of your time is telling the students to shut off their phone put it away. Stop it from ringing And we are there to instruct not be glorified babysitters at the taxpayers expense think about how much more a student can learn and a teacher can accomplish in actually teaching the extra 30% of that day. Not to mention the insane arguments from students why they have to have it… High school students saying oh what if something happens I have to call my mommy… Some of the parents are just as bad. They have to have that helicopter connection line that benefits no one but encourages the student to push back on why they should have once.. glad it’s finally done at a state level because local school districts are unwilling to move in this direction.
The concept of insurance was originally started as a not for profit shared risk concept by the English ship owners. They knew that a percentage of their ships would be lost at sea but they didn't know whose ships would be lost so they created a pool of funds to help cover this risk. We should remove the profiteering element from today's home owner insurance using the actuaries to calculate risk assessment and charge rates accordingly. The system can be voluntary or mandatory depending on the will of the people. If it is voluntary and you choose not to participate then the risk is all yours. By cutting out the profiteering the rates should be more affordable based on the level of coverage you opt for. This type of risk assessment already exists in the current for profit industry.
This has been a total waste of tax payer money. They have destroyed a renounced liberal arts university, appointed political cronies with ridiculously increased salaries at tax payer expense and created a public boondoggle. The current joke of a college should be absorbed into the Sarasota USF campus and the highly payed president and his cronies dismissed.
Anything to distract from the endless font of disrespect and harm.... His default is to talk about guns when he's not able to solve the more pressing problems.
I definitely plan to call Scott and Buchanan in support of making DST permanent.This is long overdue. How can people be 50-50 about darkness at 5:15pm? Who likes to walk their dog in the dark? Who likes to be stuck indoors after getting home from work? Is it 50-50 because Anheuser-Busch and Netflix have their thumb on the scale? Instead of being able to go for a bike ride, or work in the garden - early darkness limits our options.
People need to be paying attention to this attempt to take away our voice, especially how Boyd, Robinson and Connerly vote. The law already requires 60%, and has increased the number of signatures required while also shortening the time to collect them. Now they want to make it impossible so that only lobbyists make legislation. DeSantis and Tallahassee is the swamp.
Since I've seen Ladapo take 1 out of 6 studies to support his recommendations, when the other 5 showed the opposite, he has no credibility. Pharmaceutical companies donate a lot to politicians to make sure they can maximize their money. Treating sick people makes them more money then keeping people from getting sick, and my view is that Ladapo is benefiting from that system.
This isn't the same set of meeting notes I received from the LWV. Why does TBT's leave out the concluding NOTES ON GOOD GOVERNANCE? In the email I received from the LWV, they conclude:
"During the discussion of Annie’s Bait Shop, Commissioner Bearden was emotional and disrespectful to his fellow commissioners. We applaud the commissioners that did comment with reasoned discussion of their positions and although empathetic, voted appropriately.
We appreciate the commissioners paying attention to having their microphones on and speaking into them."
Manatee County has a real problem in enforcing the laws of the land. The paving of 51st. St. E. as a corridor to 44th ave. caused it to become a raceway! It's now extremely dangerous for walkers! At least 6 new 30mph signs need to be erected on the road, three on each side. And then the law should be enforced!
Russell Owens
Manatee County currently gets a 25% discount through a voluntary program by being more restrictive than the minimum National Flood Insurance Program based on Title 44 Code of Federal Regulation called the Community Rating System. Losing the discount while bad is not the worst that could happen to the county. The county could be put on probation which you would get no discount but would be charged an additional charge. If FEMA deems the county to not in compliance with regulations, the county could be kicked out of the NFIP. That means no new policies and no renewals. That will greatly impact anyone trying to get a mortgage as flood insurance is required to get a mortgage that is federally backed or insured. Only option would be private flood insurance.
While Annie's is an old building, without the designation of being on the National Registry or the Florida Master Site File there is no exemption or variance accepted by FEMA to keep it at the elevation it currently is.
There is usually some truth to these persistent complaints. The animal shelter volunteer complaints over the years have some merit to them. However, based on what Sarah Brown has been hired to manage, her position holds way too many responsibilities for one person. The county administration is at fault for asking any one person to perform oversight of too many departments including probation defendants, children services, adult and aging services, veteran services and animal welfare. The position she is accepting sounds outrageously impossible to be performed at a competent level. I could understand complaints coming from citizens in any and all of these departments as normal.
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