When Rick Scott Slithers Out Of The Governor’s Mansion

Ever wonder what will be left of natural Florida when Rick Scott slithers out of the Governor’s Mansion for the last time? Look at the Indian River Lagoon. Once a 150 mile-long bay of clear water filled with manatees, sea grasses and oysters, it has become a brown, stinking monoculture where only algae thrive. The fish are dying or dead. Look at the St. Johns River, or the Santa Fe River or Wakulla Springs and Silver Springs — all choking in toxic algal bloom fed by filthy runoff courtesy of Big Ag, Big Development and Big Sewer. No, not all of our environmental degradation happened on Scott’s watch. Previous governors have had a hand in it. here
Last year, the FWC Foundation gave him its top conservation award. That’s like giving Richard Nixon a merit badge for honesty. It’s absurd, appalling and entirely in keeping with the obsequious political vandals with which this governor surrounds himself.

Alan Grayson: Organize. Organize. Organize.

Alan Grayson has introduced legislation that would make it easier for workers who want to form or join a union, and make it harder to employers to stop. The Florida Democratic Representative’s Employer Free Choice Act of 2016 (HR 5000) says that if a majority of workers in a workplace sign cards authorizing a union, they get a union. here

Florida GOP John Mica's Taxes

Mr. Mica ripped into the District's finances at a hearing on Metro last week, fuming that he won't "bail out Washington, D.C." by funding the transit system. District tax records reveal that Mica isn't so fiscally responsible when it comes to his own share of the city's tax money. Between them, Mica and his wife Patricia Mica own six units on Capitol Hill. Between 2006 and 2013, they've racked up $1,071.81 across 17 penalty payments for paying their property taxes late. In 2006 alone, the Micas were hit with $608.29 in combined late penalties. here

Tampa Vote No on Go Hillsborough

Hillsborough commissioners approve transportation plan. here

No Rail, No New Taxes! 

Why do you keep wasting our time!
Check out the crap they are trying to sell us.

Prince RIP

Lee's Grocery Paparazzi

Lee's Grocery in the Heights

Visit them here

Rick Scott Big Trump Supporter

“Donald Trump will either have a majority of delegates or he will be very close. If we want to win in November we don’t want four more years of Barack Obama’s policies that are injuring our families. If Trump is in that position we need to rally around him.” 

Rick Scott

Grayson vs. Jolly Debate

Ask Congressman David Jolly and Congressman Alan Grayson about the issues that are most important to you -- then vote and tell others! Watch the Florida Open Debate for U.S. Senate right here on Monday, April 25, at 7:00 pm EDT. All questions will be chosen from among those that receive the most votes online. here

Feds Say Florida Can't Block Medicaid Funding To Planned Parenthood

A key federal health agency on Tuesday notified Florida that they may not ban Medicaid funding for family-planning services at clinics that also offer elective abortions. here

Vigil at Sheriff Gee's Office In Ybor

Today 5:30 pm

info

Hillcrest Healthcare In Hollywood Hiring Scabs At $18 Per Hour

The Hillcrest Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home in Hollywood is hiring scabs at $18.00 per hour to replace strikers making $11.00 per hour. here

Please note: They are only looking for seasonal workers until the strike ends.

Tampa Wants Robust Urban Transit

“My proposal is we wait and do it later, we don’t want to kill it, we want to modify it,” Bill Carlson echoing the criticism among Tampa liberals that there is far too little rail in the plan. He insisted, adding that the only people who will gain from the proposal is the Tea Party and the consultants who will work on the campaign. “We should have robust urban transit, Go Hillsborough doesn’t do that.” Ed Turanchik here

We are about to take it deep!

The history of GO Hillsborough

The Skyway Trap & Skeet Club Is Dangerous To Our Health

For 60 years it has been polluting Sawgrass Lake Park
a public wetland that feeds 
into Tampa Bay. An estimated one million pounds of the hazardous stuff fell on the property,They were told to build a wall but never did. here

Pic credit - Skyway Trap & Skeet Club archive

The Citrus Taliban Infestation of Hillsborough County Schools

There are currently 40 Fellowship of Christian Athlete clubs operating in Hillsborough county, including those at 10 public middle schools, 25 public high schools and the University of South Florida.

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Adult leaders with Fellowship of Christian Athletes clubs were banned from Hillsborough County public schools until they can undergo special training on district policies and procedures. here
Also check this out!

La Gaceta's Best of the West Tampa Poll

here

We recommend "Guido Maniscalco" for 
favorite current politician. 

Tampa Tea Party Paid Agitator Sharon Calvert

Where's my money?

“Several of your county commissioners want to be re-elected or seek other office (sic), some of them this year. Nothing has a bigger impact on them than ordinary citizens (not paid agitators) showing up at their meetings,” local tea bagger Sharon Calvert writes in an email. here

We didn't get paid?

Louisiana GOP Bill Cassidy: We Don't Want Your Shit On Our Shores

Florida great Bill Nelson won this round. But a Louisiana colleague sponsoring a measure that encourages states like Florida to open up their waters to oil drilling promises the issue won’t go away. here
We will keep fighting you!

Florida's Culture Of Corruption: Ben Albritton

For nearly 60 years, visitors to the Skyway Trap & Skeet Club in St.Pete fired at targets using shells filled with lead pellets. Often, their ammunition traveled into neighboring Sawgrass Lake Park. Over the decades, it accumulated there in prodigious quantities. Lead shot is toxic, and can leach into water and soil. An estimated one million pounds of the hazardous stuff fell on the property, polluting a lake that feeds into Tampa Bay, a fragile marine estuary. Under a legal deal struck in 2004, Swiftmud agreed to pay for removing the lead from the park, and Skyway said it would build a barrier to stop spent ammunition from falling on state property. That wall never went up. So last year, the water management agency sued the gun range. Then the NRA got involved. They brought in Florida GOP Ben Albritton. This guy is a powerful GOP lawmaker involved in setting the agency's budget.  In February, Swiftmud abruptly dropped the lawsuit without explanation. here

VOTE

What Stogie Had For Lunch

Chicken in Garlic Sauce

With rice. At Top China in Dundee

Visit them here
Eat Local!

Pam Bondi: Worst Attorney General Ever

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has added our great state to the lawsuit that is currently blocking the implementation of Obama's executive actions on immigration. While she would be quick to tell you that we need to fix our broken immigration system, her consistent refusal to meet with constituents to discuss the issue of immigration paints a different picture of her intentions. here

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A PPRI poll reports that nearly four out of five Floridians wish that immigrants "be allowed to stay" in the country. Moreover, the same poll indicates that Floridians view immigrants as assets to our country's customs and values. Bondi has shown that she is willing to ignore her constituents in Florida and embroil our state in a wasteful lawsuit that benefits no one but Republican hard-liners.

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In Florida, where up to 229,000 immigrants could benefit from the president's executive actions, this translates to an estimated $9.4 billion growth in our state's GDP. And that is not all: A report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that Florida's state and local tax coffers would grow by $17 million per year.

VOTE!

11th Annual Sunscreen Film Festival In St. Pete

info

Ybor City Drone Tour 4K

2016 Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida Annual Conference in Tampa

Saturday, April 30, 2016 9:00 AM 

Hillsborough Classroom Teachers Association

3102 North Habana Avenue, Tampa info

Florida GOP Tea Party Congressman Allen West Standing By To Be Vice President

Former one-term Florida Tea Party congressman Allen West is ready to stand up and serve his country as the Republican vice presidential nominee. If God is approving and my wife and my two daughters are of approval -he told talk radio host Jeffrey Kuhner on Wednesday. here

Florida Prison: ‘You play their game or get raped’

Orlando Sending Tampa Their Homeless

Hillsborough County is so successful at dealing with its homeless problem that social welfare organizations in other counties are taking notice and sending their homeless here, 

local advocates say. here

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This past week, an Orlando agency that helps find jobs for the disabled bought bus tickets for a single mother and her three young children and sent them to Tampa with no money or idea where they would stay or how they would provide for themselves. The woman has no family or friends in Tampa and falsely was told that arrangements were made to put them up at Metropolitan Ministries.

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office deputies, Tampa police officers and a cadre of homeless advocates managed to put the family up in a motel for a night and feed them and then put them back on a bus to Orlando, where the agency that sent them here in the first place promised to take care of them.

Ybor City Tour with Dick Greco

2nd Annual Spring Leaf Freedom Festival In The Heights

3.30 - 2PM

Red Star Rock Bar in Seminole Heights

info

Welcome To Tampa

Where even bus riders have to wait

Trashing Dana Young

Florida Strong, the independent advocacy organization, is going after South Tampa House Republican Dana Young, alleging that she is more aligned with her campaign contributors than her constituents. here

I4/275 Destruction Through Tampa

TCentral Avenue Black Business District was an area in the Central Park (South Nebraska) neighborhood in Tampa. It was a hub for over 100 black stores and restaurants such as the Cotton Club where famous performers such as Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald came to perform. Performers, minorities, and whites all could come and experience culture, get something to eat, shop, 

or find a place to stay. In fact, Ella Fitzgerald wrote her hit "A Tisket a Tasket" at the historic Jackson House on Scott Street. In the 1960s the neighborhood became almost completely non-existent with the construction of Interstate 4 and I-275 through downtown Tampa. here

Check out this awesome interactive display at 

Robert W. Saunders, Sr. Public Library

Ybor City May Day Celebration Celebración del Primero de Mayo

Sunday May 1 - 2pm

José Martí Park - Ybor City

info

Florida GOP Tim Tebow

Florida Republicans seek to draft 

Tim Tebow for a congressional run. here

New Transit Poll - No Rail

A new poll indicates a majority of Hillsborough County voters would support a half-cent-per-dollar sales tax increase for transportation improvements if a vote were held today.  The ballot question does not mention light rail — a mode of transportation that opponents focused on and that was highly unpopular among suburban voters. here