Florida Dem Nikki Barnes At GOP Rick Baker's Election Party In St. Pete

Democratic National Committee Member Nikki Barnes at the Florida Democratic Party hangs with Florida GOP Rick Baker.

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 "Why in God's name is an elected Democratic National Committee member from Florida celebrating election night with the Republican candidate for St. Pete Mayor?? Nikki Barnes needs to resign immediately, go far away from the FDP and take her buddy, Leslie Wimes, with her. This is beyond outrageous!" Bryan Farris

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Join the conversation

 "Progressives have to take back this broken Party." 
Scott Shoup

Let's Talk Labor In Seminole Heights

With 2 of Tampa Bay's top labor activists

Kelly Benjamin 

and Marc Rodrigues

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Stephanie Baxter-Jenkins the Executive Director for the Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association, Mike Ruso Adjunct Professor of English at the University of South Florida and Bradley Van Waus will also be there.

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Guest speakers 2018 candidates 

Sky U. White and Andrew Learned

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8.31 - 7 PM

Seminole Heights Library

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What do the 40-hour workweek, overtime pay, and child labor laws all have in common? They are all results of our wonderful labor unions in this country. This meeting focuses on labor activists in Tampa Bay. Come learn more about the organized labor movement and how you can get involved in their struggle for human dignity.

Why Florida Democrats Will Lose The Governorship In 2018

Florida Democrats, losers in the state for years will probably nominate Gwen Graham as their candidate for governor. She calls herself an environmentalist, she has criticize the Scott administration she says has battered Florida’s environment.  

“Too much of Florida’s beauty is being lost to development and neglect,” she said in the May 2 speech formally rolling out her campaign. Yet one month before the speech she took $50,000 from James Finch, a Panama City developer who in the past has been hit with large fines from environmental regulators.

Finch has also given $65,000 to the Republican Party of Florida since 2004. At the federal level, Finch has given tens of thousands of dollars, mostly to Republicans.

He praise Graham’s time in Congress, specifically when she voted in 2015 to support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which was championed by the oil and gas industry and decried by environmentalists.

 Another centrist Dem. another loss. 
Alex Sink, Charlie Crist?
here

Hillsborough County Demand Transit Now

This is one of the only opportunities to share our thoughts on the county budget. Please join us and share this if you agree Tampa, Brandon, Temple Terrace and all of Hillsborough County deserve better transit now. here

Toss Dennis Ross in 2018

here

The Democratic Progressive Caucus of Tampa Bay August Monthly Meeting

8.31 - 7 PM

Seminole Heights Library

info

Democrat Kathy Castor Votes Yes On Bill Allowing Warrantless Searches of Homes

In the Commonwealth of Virginia, the State of Maryland, and the District of Columbia. here

Democrat Steny H. Hoyer Sponsored it.

Other Florida yeas Bilirakis, Buchanan, Curbelo, Deutch,

Diaz-Balart, Frankel, Gaetz, Hastings, Lawson,

Murphy, Ros-Lehtinen, Ross, Rutherford, 
Wasserman Schultz, Wilson and Yoho

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Only 5 Opposed It. None from Florida

DeSantis, Rooney and Webster did not vote.

Even Pelosi voted for it.

 Please tell us the difference in parties again. 

Ybor Graffiti

7th Ave

Florida Homeless Bill of Rights Campaign

The Florida Homeless Bill of Rights Campaign page exists to promote a statewide, grassroots movement to decriminalize homelessness, to protect life-sustaining activities which unhoused persons must perform in public, and to demand fundamental rights to housing, income and healthcare. The campaign is a project of Florida Homelessness Action Coalition (FLHAC), which is comprised of homeless advocates from across the state. here

Kevin Rouse For North Port

"North Port citizens will not be denied Medical Cannabis. While other cities continue their oppressive ways The City of North Port chooses to represent the will of the people, as Government was always meant to do."

Kevin Rouse

Florida Racist Woman Gets Her Ass Kicked

here

A History Of The Cuban Club And Ybor

What Pilar Had For Lunch

Pizza and Pepsi

At Mama Rosa's Pizza in Ybor

4 Florida Villages Say No To Marijuana Dispensaries

Last November, 72 percent of Florida voters — an overwhelming majority supported medical marijuana. Now 4 Florida wannabe cities could care less what voters want.  Elected officials are essentially telling people your vote means absolutely nothing. The wanna-be cities are: 

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Lauderdale-by-the-Sea 

Royal Palm Beach

 Southwest Ranches 

Sea Ranch Lakes

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Boca Raton and Coral Springs are considering a ban. 

here

Flipping The Hillsborough County Commission

I first met Julio the creator of this blog a couple of years ago as we were both waiting for the library downtown to open. He had just been to an event at Gaslight Park and wanted to post his Images. I was there for research on a book I have been working on. He offered me a guest blogger spot on his blog. I have to admit I have been slacking. He is going through a hard time right now and I want to help him. The following is something we have talked about many times. He never wanted to post this because he didn't want to call anyone/group
(Sunshine Citizens) out. But I will.  

The case off Jeffrey Zampitella

I just came across a new site www.flipthecommission.com 

Last year we had a chance to take out Sandy Murman. (We had a great candidate) The effort by the grassroots just wasn't there. 

Doing early voting up to election day Julio spent every day at the Jan Platt Library waving a Pat Kemp sign. Not once did anybody come and hold Jeff's signs. No one even came to put any up. The only sign there was the one Julio brought. 

Murman had people there that she was paying to hold her signs. (Notice how the GOP sticks together) 

Pat Kemp's people were everywhere

So you can put up all the fancy websites and Facebook pages you want but if the effort is not there on the ground it is all for not.

Tampa Bay Times: Right Wing Propaganda?

The once proud Liberal Tampa Bay Times has taken a turn for the worse. Their effort to woo subscribers from the radical right has destroyed what little remains of its credibility.

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 The infusion of $15 million by local investors into the economically flailing newspaper. Every one of the benefactors that have been identified–Frank Morsani, Richard Rothman, and Jeff Vinik have donated gobs of dough to Republicans including Trump, Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, Rick Scott, Paul Ryan, and Jeb Bush. Now they are backing  Rick Baker, (an unrepentant Donald Trump supporter) that if elected could embolden extremists and their racist followers to transform a tranquil, diverse, progressive St. Petersburg into a literal and ideological battleground.

here

What Pilar Had For Lunch

Prime Rib

With Rice

At Carne Chophouse in Ybor

HART Ride

12:10 PM #39 - Riverhills Dr. and 56th St. 

12:40 PM #15 - Net Park Transfer Center

1:10 PM - Destination: Columbus Dr and Gomez Ave

Water Street Tampa Illustration

Water Street Tampa Illustration from Water Street Tampa on Vimeo.

Florida Right Wing Infestation Hillsborough County Chapter

Flip The Commission

An Immigrants Story

My father Arsenio Rodriguez was born in Pinar Del Rio, Cuba in 1923. His love of cooking came early in his life. In his twenties he owned a small place at the Lanchita de Regla, the place where you could catch a ferry to Havana. (Yes Cuba had a ferry across a bay over 70 years ago) There he would cook Cuban delicacies (Frituritas de Bacalao, Fritas, Croquetas, Papa Rellena, etc.) . Nearby there was a park where singles would come to mingle. The men would walk around the park clockwise, the women counterclockwise. That is where he met my mom. They soon married and had me and my brother. 

He went on to work at The Hotel Nacional De Cuba as a chef and cooked for the workers building the Havana Tunnel till the job was finished. He then became a Merchant Marine. Cooking on ships that traveled all over the world. In 1959 when Batista was overthrown he was in Tampa, he never got back on the ship. He did the paperwork necessary and brought my mom, brother and I in September of 1962 to Tampa. We moved to the Ponce De Leon housing project. We lived at 3 different locations there, Cano Ct., 23rd Ave and 26th Ave. I was 6 years old. I started 1st grade at Orange Grove Elementary. I knew no English. They put me in Mrs. Castellano's class who was trilingual (English, Spanish and Italian). The next year I got lucky and she was teaching 2nd grade so again she was my teacher. Doing this time my mom and dad added 2 girls to the family.

 My father worked hard, most times working 2 jobs. He would cook at one restaurant for lunch and another for dinner. He worked at many restaurants in Tampa, Spanish Park, Las Novedades, Valencia Gardens but his favorite was always The Columbia in Ybor City. He loved Cesar Gonsmart and was always bragging that he was a chef there. In 1967 he bought a 3 bedroom house in the East Tampa neighborhood of Highland Pines. He put $150 down and was paying $54 a month. We lived there for years till we moved to West Tampa where my mom still lives.

This beautiful wonderful man saw me come into this world.
 On August 21, 2017 at 5:10 PM I saw him leave.
I will never forget him!

Will be back!

RIP: Chef Arsenio Rodriguez

1923 - 2017

Born in Pinar Del Rio, Cuba. He loved to cook and was a veteran of Hotel Nacional de Cuba, JD Sandwich Shop, Spanish Park, Las Novedades, Valencia Gardens, Martha's Cantina and his favorite The Columbia - Ybor. 
more

Jessica Vaughn's Lengthy Political Rant

At the end of the day, the only thing that defines you are the choices that you make in your life and how you treat yourself and other people. Not your skin color, your religion, your wealth, your gender, your age or any of the other ways you chose to identify or define yourself. 
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We are all one.
I really believe that good will triumph in the end. more

Andrew Gillum On Confederate Monuments

Joe Redner First Freedom

Tampa's own. Smart business & smart government. Free speech. Due process. Science. Compassion. Question authority. Respect facts. Environmentalist. 
Bernie 2020.

JOIN HERE

Florida GOP Hurt Sick Kids To Help Big GOP Donors

In the spring and summer of 2015, the state switched more than 13,000 children out of a highly respected program called Children's Medical Services, or CMS, a part of Florida Medicaid. Parents and Florida pediatricians raise questions about the true reasons why

Florida's Republican administration switched the children's health plans. They question whether it was to financially reward insurance companies that had donated millions of dollars to the Republican Party of Florida.

"This was a way for the politicians to repay the entities that had contributed to their political campaigns and their political success, and it's the children who suffered."

here

Watching The Right Wing Since 3.19.03

Tampa Paparazzi

Meet Jane

At Net Park Transfer Center collecting signatures 

to get ex-felons their right to vote back.