The Florida Gov. JarJar Binks Thread...

[lil mike]

60 years ago the interstates were considered a "boondoggle".

Do you really think commuters, et al., that would ride a high speed rail would take a bus? Any idea how long it takes Greyhound to go from Point A to Point B?

Chris Christie is an idiot. After Scott made his announcement, the congressional delegation from New Jersey was the first out there to say "Give it to us, we'll take it!" I'm sure many other states will follow.

I don't know where you got that the interstate was considered a boondoggle.  Of course it's outside our living memories, but I kind of doubt it.

I don't think commuters are going to be riding high speed rail at all.  There are just not enough people commuting from Orlando to Tampa and visa versa to make the project worthwhile.  It is budget candy. It's high tech and shiny and more of a tourist attraction than something that would actually be useful, and I just don't think there would be enough ridership to even break even.

The problem with the federal money is that it's just bait.  If the feds were picking up the entire cost of construction and maintence, I could see Scott taking it, but not when Florida taxpayers will eventually wind up with the bill that we can't pay. 

It's a boondoggle because unlike the interstate, there is no real economic need to the finished project, but a lot of expenses associated with it.

[Howey]

I don't know where you got that the interstate was considered a boondoggle.  Of course it's outside our living memories, but I kind of doubt it.

It's said in the news clip from the period...and in news items:

June 29, 1956

Washington (DC) - The raving socialist President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 today, a huge federal government boondoggle that will end up costing taxpayers $182 billion .

This is despite the obvious fact that this wasteful Interstate Highway-building scheme doesn't pay for itself, a point hammered home by the 1939 report to Congress, Toll Roads and Free Roads. The report showed that "revenue from tolls on most segments would not support the bonds issued for their construction."

We need to send Ike a message: we will not accept Federal Aid funding for this government waste!

Source: Eisenhower Interstate Highway System -Frequently Asked Questions (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htm)

I don't think commuters are going to be riding high speed rail at all.  There are just not enough people commuting from Orlando to Tampa and visa versa to make the project worthwhile.  It is budget candy.

"Budget candy"? Like Boehner's engines or NASCAR advertising for the Army?

Fact is: We don't know who will be riding high speed rail once the system is finished in what, 10 years? Just like we didn't know who would use the interstates way back when...

The problem with the federal money is that it's just bait.  If the feds were picking up the entire cost of construction and maintence, I could see Scott taking it,

You're kidding right?

[lil mike]

It's said in the news clip from the period...and in news items:

Source: Eisenhower Interstate Highway System -Frequently Asked Questions (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htm)

I think the fact that your quote from the fifties starts out with, "The raving socialist President Eisenhower..." shows this was not exactly a mainstream opinion back then.  Do the polls from that era that it was considered a boondoggle?

"Budget candy"? Like Boehner's engines or NASCAR advertising for the Army?

Didn't the engines get voted down?  Yeah!

The Nascar advertising budget is a drop in the bucket to high speed rail.  Do you really think that's a logical comparison?

Fact is: We don't know who will be riding high speed rail once the system is finished in what, 10 years? Just like we didn't know who would use the interstates way back when...

You're kidding right?

If you can't even make a good estimate on ridership than it's not a serious project,  Those numbers are key to calculating costs.   I would say I'm double right on the boondoggle.

[44nutman]

I for one don't think high speed rail will have the ridership to support the rail.  Disney has signed on which will help but still how often will locals use it. YOu can go from the airport, I-drive(Universal), Disney and then points in Tampa. The conudrum I have is losing the money(which will go somewhere else) but we will be on the hook for maintenance ,meeting payroll, etc.  I just don't think there will be enough riders to support those costs.
I think high speed rail does work in other countries because the large cities were built without thinking of cars. A majority of Euros, toll around on Vespas and every family does not have 2 cars. It is tough to function in Orlando without a car and everyone already has a means to get somewhere without cars. The buses aren't great and I had to use them for about 3 months about 10 years ago, so they may have gotten better since my experience, but gettting around that way is a huge time sink.

[Howey]

I think a high speed rail from Jacksonville to Tampa and another from Jax to Miami would work.

[lil mike]

I think a high speed rail from Jacksonville to Tampa and another from Jax to Miami would work.

Work in what way?  Technically?  Sure. 

But as a project I don't see how any of them make sense.  The only part of the country that has the population density to possibly make it work is the Northeast.

All of these projects benefit a few, and spread the costs on everyone.
Case in point, the new Amway arena, just today, this story came out:

http://www.wftv.com/news/26932159/detail.html

Amway Center Profits Lower Than Old Arena


The new Amway Center was supposed to provide a boost to Orlando's economy but so far that isn't exactly what has happened.

Some people would call the new Amway Center the best arena in the NBA. But Eyewitness News found out the new facility is pulling in a lot less money than the old Amway Arena.

In the Amway Center's first quarter, it pulled in close to $4.7 million in revenue, roughly the same as the Amway Arena in the previous year. But the Amway Center's expenses are $1.3 million more than the old arena. In the end, the Amway Center had only $34,000 worth of net income. The old Amway Arena made over $1 million in the same amount of time, 30 times more than the Amway Center.

So we spend 400 million to earn less money.  Great going.  I've posted on the muche studies about the new rail lines in California.  Almost always, the costs underestimated, and the ridership is overestimated.

If they made sense from an economic point of view, a private consortium would be doing it.

It's just pyramid building.

[44nutman]

They should run a high speed train from all the other states to Florida, that way it would be easier for out of towners to access the "pill mills". Think of all the revenue we would gain by making it easier for drug dealers.

[Howey]

Huh. Looks like our esteemed Democratic Senator Nelson stole my tweet!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41639399/ns/local_news-fort_myers_fl/

"If Florida would've had a governor who rejected President Eisenhower's idea, we wouldn't have an interstate system," U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who has been vocally supportive of the project even as conservatives attacked him for it, said via Twitter Wednesday afternoon.

[Howey]

Welcome to the regime of Rick Scott! Racial profiling in BizarroAmerika2011!

http://www.wtsp.com/news/mostpop/story.aspx?storyid=178322&provider=top

Tampa, Florida -- Meet Joel Chandler, who just paid his $1.00 toll on the Polk Parkway with a $100 bill, he is not allowed to leave unless he provides personal info to the toll taker. The toll taker tells Chandler this is what happens when they get large bills. She says this is what they have to do.

Chandler says to the toll taker, "So I'm being detained?" She says yes sir.

It is a policy the Florida Turnpike authority instituted for people who paid with $20, $50 or $100 bills. After it happened once, Chandler kept testing the system and taped his encounters as he went through the toll booths.

One time a toll taker told him, she wouldn't give him his change unless he gave her the information. Chandler replied, "So I'm being detained." He asked why he was being detained but never got an answer.

Chandler says this is a serious criminal offense, to detain someone without proper legal authority. He says that is exactly what the department is doing.

When Chandler called and e-mailed the Florida Department of Transportation to complain about the policy, he was told there is no policy to detain people who give large bills. He says that made him more concerned, because that meant there were individual rogue toll takers detaining people.

Added: Know what's strange about this? All the right wing blogs, radio shows, and other crazies are pissed about this.

Don't they realize they're the ones who put this bozo in office?

[Howey]

Love, love love! the comments on here!

http://www.infowars.com/motorists-illegally-detained-at-florida-tolls-for-using-large-bills/

[lil mike]

Welcome to the regime of Rick Scott! Racial profiling in BizarroAmerika2011!

http://www.wtsp.com/news/mostpop/story.aspx?storyid=178322&provider=top
 

Added: Know what's strange about this? All the right wing blogs, radio shows, and other crazies are pissed about this.

Don't they realize they're the ones who put this bozo in office?

What does this have to do with Rick Scott?

[Howey]

What does this have to do with Rick Scott?

Buck stops here? He's the Governor. Shouldn't he have told the DOT head to establish the policy? Wait. He doesn't have one. Seems like someone screwed up.

http://floridaclarion.com/2011/01/scott-staff-botches-fdot-pick/

For the last three weeks, Governor Rick Scott’s liaison to the Florida legislature, Hayden Dempsey, has been trying to get a commitment from Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos that the Senate would confirm Washingtonian Tyler Duvall, a former Assistant Secretary of Transportation in the Bush Administration, as Secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation.

Duvall, who has no Florida roots, was selected for the job by D.C. lawyer Enu Mainigi. No Florida based candidate was considered, according to a source in the Governor’s office who declined to be interviewed on the record.

Unfortunately, Florida state law requires that the secretary shall be appointed by the Governor from among three persons nominated by the Florida Transportation Commission. The Florida Transportation Commission met last Friday in Orlando and selected the names of three potential Transportation secretaries. Due to a stunning screw-up by the Governor’s staff, Duvall’s name was not on the list.

Governor Jeb Bush solved this problem simply by having his choice for Transportation Secretary apply to the Commission and letting the Commission chairman know he wanted his choice on the final list of three. Governor Charlie Crist did the exactly the same thing. No such call was forthcoming from Scott or his staff.

The Florida Transportation Commission’s deadline has passed. Over thirty individuals applied to be included on the list, but Mainigi’s hand-picked choice was not one of them. “I can’t tell if this is arrogance or just plain incompetence,” one Florida Transportation Commissioner told the Clarion. “The Governor will have to pick from our list. I never heard of this Duvall fellow, myself.”

Mainigi headed Scott’s transition which ended Jan. 3. Since then she has continued to personally interview and select all candidates for appointment in the Scott administration, raising eyebrows in Tallahassee because Mainigi is not a state official and has no formal authority.

A lawyer with the D.C. based firm of Williams & Connolly, Mainigi has refused media requests for her post-Jan. 3 emails, which are public information under the State Sunshine law. Williams & Connolly serves a litigation counsel for a number of companies with business before the State.

One state senator told the Clarion that Duvall wouldn’t have been confirmed by the Senate anyway. “When Rick Scott pledged to create new jobs,” he said, “we thought he meant for Floridians.”

btw...Wasn't the DOT one of the hundred state agencies Scott moved to the Governor's office?

[lil mike]

Why be so desparate to make stuff up to pin on Scott?  Don't you have confidence in his ability to fuck up on his own?

[Howey]

Why be so desparate to make stuff up to pin on Scott?  Don't you have confidence in his ability to fuck up on his own?

I have every confidence in the world on that. Just trying to help...but. Are you saying that the Governor's unaware of a policy set forth by a Department directly under his supervision?

[ekg]

Howie here's more of your 'disenfranchisement'.. only it's JarJar's version...

State makes it tougher for felons to ask for rights back
March 09, 2011|By Dara Kam, The Palm Beach Post

TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Cabinet on Wednesday imposed a minimum five-year waiting period for felons to apply to have their rights restored, setting up a tougher standard than the state has used for years.

Florida now joins Kentucky and Virginia as the only states that require felons who have completed the terms of their sentences to apply to have their rights restored. Critics say the new process is a return to post-Civil War Jim Crow laws crafted to prevent blacks from voting.

"The Board today didn't just go back to before the Gov. Crist reforms; they went way, way past that — placing brand new, long-term restrictions on getting basic rights restored," said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida. "The new administration that runs Tallahassee today demonstrated their hostility to the fundamental right of any democracy, the right to vote."


Scott and the Cabinet, acting as the board of executive clemency, approved the new rules unanimously after hearing 30 minutes of public comments limited to two minutes per speaker. The rules were not available for review until minutes before the board's meeting began late Wednesday morning.

Under the new rules, felons convicted of non-violent crimes can apply to have their rights restored without a hearing five years after they have completed their sentences and paid restitution, while felons convicted of violent crimes must wait seven years to apply and then win approval in a hearing.

Florida had a five-year waiting period for all felons from 1975 to 2004, when then-Gov. Jeb Bush eliminated the waiting period for non-violent felons but required them to apply for the restoration of rights. In 2007, Gov. Charlie Crist and that Cabinet put in place the automatic restitution of rights for non-violent felons who had completed their sentences.

"Felons seeking restoration of civil rights demonstrate they desire and deserve clemency only after they show they're willing to abide by the law," Scott said before the vote by the all-Republican panel made up of Attorney General Pam Bondi, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. All four were elected in November.

Bondi, a former prosecutor, had floated the idea of the rules changes at the new board's first clemency meeting two weeks ago.

But on Wednesday, it was Scott who was calling the shots.

page 2


coming from a guy who took a fine of $1.7b instead of trial,  this would be entertaining if it was another state.. it's almost like the whole King <3's the IRA terrorists while investigating all Muslims just in case one of them might not turn in a terrorist....