August 30, 2012

For some downtown businesses, RNC is a bust

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/19412566/2012/08/29/for-some-downtown-businesses-rnc-is-a-bust

Again, proof of the same stuff I posted about before. What is really bad is that this station is a FOX affiliate that acts like Fox News Junior, so when THEY call the RNC a bust, it measn the truth has already begun to stink to high Heaven. Do not be fooled about Ybor though, yes, the old civic clubs may be getting buisness, but I will bet hard cash that the main bars are not.

August 29, 2012

Ann's speech

Hi Ann, you will never know me, nor I you, and I suspect both of us will be better for that. However, since I am in Tampa, I fogured I could comment on your speech. It was very flowery, very pretty, the sort of speech your husband has trouble with. That is fine, both he and Obama both seem to be more comfortable working than talking.

However, there are some points you missed:

You said:
I read somewhere that Mitt and I have a "storybook marriage." Well, in the storybooks I read, there were never long, long, rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once. And those storybooks never seemed to have chapters called MS or Breast Cancer.

No, those storybooks miss the rough parts. And I will not deny you have lived through rough chapters. However, the bad parts of storybooks have more hope when you do not have to worry about Money. Now, I know compared to the Sheldon Addisons, you and Mitt are not as wealthy, and I am sure you have bills. You however do not have to worry about the chapters that most poor people, and for that matter, most middle class people go through.

You will never be the star of chapters like: "I can't afford to go to the Hospital", or "I am going to be homeless". Now, imagine you having MS, but no way to pay for the care. I have jhad to go to many hospitals, and see people in just that predicament. There is a despair that comes when a bunch of insurance companies want to throw your life in the trash, because some CEO wants to make his books look better. That is a true "death panel"and it happens every day.

Yes, I did read the part about living off pasta and tuna fish, but there are many, especially those on food stamps, who will not even get the pasta or tunafish. The way America's sotrybook used to read was "If you work hard, and show virtue, you will succeed." Well, the problem is, for many people, who played BY THE RULES, who worked, saved, prayed, the storybook has a bad ending. Worse, for the Wall Street crooks, who did things that would make Mitt go "guys, what are you doing?" , the ending is happy.

In case you did not realize, many of those are the same folks that talked in very nasty ways about Mitt, rants full of cigar smoke and whiskey. And deep down, I think you know that they still hate him, and that they will backstab him in any way to get what they want. The problem is, this is no longer a story about Mitt Romney, nor even Barack Obama. This is the story of a bunch of greedy, nasty people who simply do not care who they have to hurt, or how. You read the first chapter of that storybook, when Chris Christie did everything he could to make this speech the opening of his 2016 campaign. The GOP congress has succeeded in filibustering, lying, stalling on everything Obama has tried to do, do you think they will not do that to your husband? Remeber grover saying that we do not need a leader, that includes Mitt, and you know it.

I can applaud the fact you came from a humble background, and even applaud Geroge Romney, who did seem decent, for making his son try to earn his way, not like a certain ex president you GOP had the good sense to exclude from Tampa. But the fact is, the storybook is not true anymore, people who work, study and do the right things are slammed, while people who earned their money in crooked ways win. That is because we made wall street crooks the good guys of the story, to where the Grover Norquists and Koches can go to Mitt and tell him what to do. Also, as far as immigrants go, there was a time people would have hated your ancestor, but America kept it's doors open. Wlesh accents, which I am sure you know, are singsong, much like Mexican ones are. That is becuase both people were oppressed and forced to speak the languiage of a conqueror, which was not like their own tongue. Many of those in Tampa want to deny the chance that someone gave your ancestor. Part of America's story is of immigrants making good, and the GOP wants to end that.

My point is this: you want to belive in your story, calling it "real" bottom line is, right now, that is not the American story, nor the one the GOP wants to tell anymore. Think of how much of Addison's money comes from Red China, aka Macau. These folks do not care if Americans are just one of several servants, like so many horses mant to be worked to death and boiled into glue (a fate thankfully rafalca will never know.)

August 29, 2012

GOP convention not boom for Tampa merchants

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-08-28/gop-convention-not-boom-for-tampa-merchants

Excerpt:
"This has been a ghost town," Morzella said Tuesday morning, standing outside his restaurant named FRESH. Streets surrounding the block were barricaded. The biggest source of downtown traffic for the past few days has been police officers on bicycles, but they have been eating at meal stations catered by outsiders, not local restaurants, Morzella said.

OK, I am a Tampa resident who goes to the Channelside district (where the convention is) a lot. This place has had to sell itself to local merchants, who were tired of ghost own buisness. It is surrounded by HUGE condominium areas, which are slowly picking up, emphasis on slowly. It does not help that some in Tampa are hoping that covention success in the Channelside area will lead to a new baseball stadium, so they can steal the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team away from nearby St. Petersburg.

But if this convention remains the fiasco, a lot of small buisness will take a dive, especially as the whole "we will be the next great convention area" will prove to be a load of hype. What worries me is that, as many have pointed out, the Channelside area is the result of Democrat mayors investing money into the area. The trolley, the museums, all of it a prime example of where government invested in the economy. In true fashion,what I fear is this: the GOP will suck everything up they can, complain about everything, then Rick Scott uses that as the excuse to kill urban development, period. It does not help that many GOP types hate Tampa, wanting the state to focus on the red counties, the rural jaizzzzuz-lovin places.

Now, part of me is feeling schaenfrude, as many of us tampa lefties warned the democratic mayors that there was too big a risk having this convention in town. We already had to blow 50 Million on security, and the Channelside area looks more like a bunker than a place to relax. Of course, many of the restaurant owners, the ones who are often solid Republicans, thought they would make a mint, but in true fashion, the GOP "outsourced" the buisness, making sure that they did not even have to leave the complex to mingle among the locals. Of course, many GOP types here are already complaining, as if we servants deserved to be thrashed for not meeting their demands. I do not want to gloat, especially as I know that I am in the blast radius, but I saw this coming a while away.

August 27, 2012

If you meant this as sarcasm

I advise you to say so upfront, as today there are actual headlines that sound like jokes Comedy Central would have rejected. If so, would you kindly ignore the rest of this rant?

If you actually MEANT THIS, to all those who DO mean it:

I will only offer that when I became disbaled, the funniest sight I saw were the formerly wealthy. These were people who NEVER thought they would need ANY help. They are the ones who drove in using the expensive cars they earned in better times, who came dressed in Sunday Best, and who always tried to leapfrog ahead of the rest of us, because they were thinking that they should not even have to be in this "part of town." They are the ones who had the Bush stickers on their car, and the church stickers, from the same Church that told them they could do nothing for them, even though the preacher drove a Cadillac!

You looked at their face and saw that their mind could not realize that they were disposed of, that they had become the people they used to hate, and that it was absolutley not because they did anything wrong. They went to school, they worked hard, they saved, but someone got sick, or someone got outsourced, or some sheer mockign bit of fate that disproved the world they knew.

I wanted to be kind, and help, and maybe console them. After all, I was a fellow suburbanite that got smacked around by fate. But then I heard one of the children call me a dirty spic. And then I heard the father snicker. The second that they got better, I knew they would be kicking sand in my face yet again.

A lot of people will be in that office, and what is sad is, the power brokers will not be one penny closer to having enough, even as they piss it away in Shanghai, Dubai, or any of the new harbors set up for these pirates. And the churches will still sing hallelujah.

August 26, 2012

Daniel Ruth: Republicans on a major scavenger hunt

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/daniel-ruth-republicans-on-a-major-scavenger-hunt/1247433

Tampa's best writer nails the GOP.

Choice sample:

After the Republicans have their big soiree in Tampa, aren't the Democrats supposed to get together in Charlotte?

That's the plan.

So who throws the better wingding?

That's easy. Republicans hands down.

Why is that?

Simple. Pay attention now. This is important. As a general principle Republicans = open bar. Democrats = cash bar.

August 25, 2012

The true irony about Tampa getting the GOP

Now, I know that Tampa being the swing part of a swing state has a lot to do with it, but the fact is, up until a few yeasrs ago, we were nowhere near ready to hose a major event. The only things we had to offer were Ybor City (our Latin Quarter) and the old Tampa Stadium.

What happened was that a group of Democratic mayors, starting with Sandra Freeman, and including Pam Iorio and the current one, Bob Buckhorn, decided to SPEND on various things to attract investors. One of which was the convention center itself, the other is the Tampa Bay times Forum (aka the "ice Palace.) These are the places that are literally housing the convention; if you do not know them now, you will when you see John Stewart and Rachel Maddow running about, or riding the Trolley. Oh yes, you see, there is a trolley that connects the convention center to Ybor City, which means that the people getting drunk in Ybor will not crash and burn, or search for parking. That trolley connects to a complex called Riverwalk, home to the Museum district, where there will be fancier galas.

Of course, all of these things; the trolley, the forum, the convention center, were all considered boondoggles, and all hated by the state, which prefers to cater to rural citrus barons. It should also be noted that people wanted the trolley to extend to Franklin Street, which was the home of downtown Tampa, but is now a ghost town. Of course, that was denied. But of course, NOW, since the hotels did not provided enough space for parties, the whole of that street, the empty Woolworth, the empty Kress, all of them have been converted to temporary party spaces, for the MOST exclusive clientele. And of course, the right wing is saying that since these are all private, they are proof Private is better. NO, it is proof that you were choking the life out of downtown for years, and only intend to use it long enough for you to get your damned photo ops.

August 23, 2012

The Seven People You’ll Meet At The Convention

This is from the local Tampa "alternative paper."

http://cltampa.com/gyrobase/the-seven-people-youll-meet-at-the-convention/Content?oid=3280968&showFullText=true#.UDX78qOluM8

Samples:

THE CONVENTION DELEGATE

Easily the happiest people you’ll meet at the convention, the delegates will be known to you by their patriotic attire and the abundance of political flair they’ll be wearing on their persons. They’re a mix of grassroots activists and people with great political connections. The job of the convention delegate is simple: They hold signs for the teevee cameras, for hours. Still, they pull this off with superhuman levels of enthusiasm, somehow. They will likely be exhausting to talk to.



A WISER, MORE BITTER VERSION OF YOURSELF

Once the convention is over and the madness has moved on, you’ll have a chance to take stock of what you’ve just experienced. If you’ve come to the convention city, you’ll have eaten too little, drunk too much, and not had a normal night’s sleep or a stress-free bowel movement in days. If you’ve endured the convention as a resident of the host city, you’ll be relieved to have your streets clear of security checkpoints and your bars free of out-of-town douchebags. If you’re smart, the convention is something you’ll not want to do again anytime soon. If you’re lucky, you won’t have to.

August 23, 2012

Yet another reason why we cannot lose this election

Now, to all those who are angry at Obama, I really do hear you. At best, he has tried to re-do Clinton era centrism, when many people like myself voted exactly against that. But truth be told, there are reasons that we simply cannot let Romney/Ryan in.

I will not go over the obvious ones; the supreme court, the gutting of medicare and SS, the likelihood of war with Iran. Those have been discussed to death, and someone who was not moved by those arguments will not be moved now. Granted, the picking of Ryan should have laid to rest any idea that Romney would be a moderate, as he has shown he will buckle to pressure from the Tea Party.

However, let me offer you a whole new angle. Yes, we all know that Obama was about as Socialist as Bill Clinton, yes we know he did not try to go hard left, but we also know those in control of the narrative will not let that truth show. Even some of the folks on Huffpo, the Lynn Rothchilds, the Jon Huntsmans, speak of him as if he demonized big business, and that supposed demonization is why he failed. If Obama fails, the MSM will scream to the rooftops that he is TOO FAR LEFT. That of course will mean that the Democratic party will not embrace the Liz Warrens; the farthest left we may get is a Hillary Clinton that will NOT go left at all, but trot out Bill to show Wall Street and the Oil companies that they are in control. After all, Bill already tried to stop Obama from attacking Bain, or the pipeline that will pour swill into the Mississippi. The left will bulldozed out.

The only hope of progressives is to force America to realize that,no the sky does not fall when there is not a GOP in the Oval Office; then, as the banks continue being themselves, we can feed them the more progressive types, as they will have nothing else to eat. The GOP will also be forced to tamp down it's image, as a MITT collapse would be a complete fiasco for them.

August 22, 2012

Romney raising cash from traditionally Dem cities

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505245_162-57498151/romney-raising-cash-from-traditionally-dem-cities/

Ok, what do we make of this? That a bunch of people who got rich thanks to cities that spent money on their infrastructure want to cut their own throat?

August 21, 2012

To those wishing Hurricane Issac would blow Tampa away

Look, I am in Tampa, a Democratic voting city. A city that is not so thrilled about the fact that the Mayor is seeking to attract all those GOP asshats into our town, in hopes of making Tampa a convention star. We are annoyed that they shove all these "road improvements" in our face, when we ask why the hell these things were only ok when they were meant to keep out of town GOP happy? No, we do not like the fact that we will be stuck in traffic while a bunch of bad tipping, bad driving assholes come into the town.

So for all of you hoping Hurricane Isaac hits us,please, there are some collateral damage folks here. I can truly understand the image of several GOP asshats being washed out to sea, bloated and rotting like the Katrina victims they made fun of. I would love the idea that they would get flooded into Ybor City or Channelside, then ask "why is it so flooded" then they can ask Rick Scott where the funds were to improve the sewer (but I cut that so we could get a tax break).

However, I can assure you, the people that would suffer would be us, not them. I can easily see them use a disaster as an excuse to call in Blackwater goons, and I have no doubt they would use it to take over the state, making any democrat a proestor or felon, keeping them in jail well after elections.