09 December 2011

Almost a year later: Rick Scott is still Florida's Number One Dictator!

Soon we will be approaching the one year aniversary to the day that Florida's 45th Chief Crook Executive, Rick Scott, took office as Florida's 45th Governor.

Lately in the St. Petersburg Times The Daily Show's Aasif Mandvi happened to crash not one but two press conferences, one with Rick Scott and the other with Florida's Attorney General Pam Bondi. One of Rick Scott's unpopular acts was to require anyone seeking welfare benefits to submit to drug testing. During both news conferences, Aasif Mandvi asked both Scott and Bondi to submit to a urine sample in the same manner as Florida's welfare recipients.

I commented on that article as to how both Rick Scott and Pam Bondi are both destroying the State of Florida as we see it. Back in a previous blog entry on how Rick Scott deals with dissenters, here is a reminder of how Rick Scott is doing a major disservice to the people of this great state:

Rick Scott = Adolf Hitler

The Republican Party of Florida and the Florida Chamber of Commerce = the Nazi Party

Law enforcement commanded by Rick Scott to deal with and threaten dissenters with trumped-up criminal charges such as trespass (and trespassing after warning, too) = the Nazi SS Troops

And we need to add this to the list:

Pam Bondi = Nazi People's Court Judge Roland Freisler

(After all, Roland Freisler was state secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice and president of the Nazi People's Court, set up to deal with people who said no to Hitler. People who voiced their opposition to Hitler's rule, such as Sophie Scholl and the White Rose Movement, ended up paying the ultimate price.)

Now why is Pam Bondi trying to do to make life more miserable for us Floridians? First and foremost, right after she took office as Florida Attorney General she made it very hard for anyone convicted of a felony to seek a pardon, even after the prison time and/or probation was served, fines paid, court orders complied with, etc. After all, these people who were convicted felons wanted to put their past behind them and get on with their lives so that they can become productive members of society once more.

In short, Pam Bondi wants to make things a lot easier for Floridians - especially law abiding Floridians - to acquire a criminal record upon arrest (yet make it harder to get a pardon or even a criminal record seal/expungement for that matter). That would be simple enough - law enforcement can arrest a person on trumped up charges of trespassing after warning (using the recent arrests of members of the Occupy Movement in Tampa and Orlando as great examples) and find ways to upgrade the charges to felony charges.

Simple trespassing charges in Florida Statute 810.09 are misdemeanor charges. However, the law goes on to state that if you are even caught within a certain distance of a specified property (and I do not mean going onto the specified property itself), the misdemeanor trespassing charges become felony trespassing charges.

Even if the charges are later dropped by the State Attorney or if you are found not guilty in the courts, you still have an arrest record. You can go through the hoops with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to have your record sealed or expunged, but most people don't do it due to the high cost among other things.

And one more thing: A St. Petersburg Times reader whose name is Fighting Irish replied to my comment. Although he disagreed with my comparison between Rick Scott and Adolf Hitler, still he agreed that Rick Scott is doing everything to destroy our great state.

I replied to Fighting Irish thus (the reply you see here is different than the reply I made at the St. Petersburg Times article, as comments and replies are limited to 1,000 characters but the content is basically the same):

Be glad we live in America and in a free country where we have freedom of speech and freedom of lawful expression. In Thailand, freedom of speech and freedom of lawful expression are less than half-existant; an American was recently arrested in Thailand for violations of their very strict lese majeste laws, which mean one can be arrested and jailed for criticizing the Thai Royal Family.

Just imagine for a moment if Florida was an independent nation and we had Thai style lese mejeste laws: Our jails and correctional facilities would be extremely overcrowded with people arrested and convicted of criticizing Rick Scott. Just be glad we don't sing Phleng Chat - the National Anthem of Thailand - at a Tampa Bay Rays home game at Tropicana Field!

Just a reminder of what a way of life we Floridians have to endure under a governor that does not care about the people and now an attorney general that will not go after the real criminals: The people in Florida who are responsible for the real estate and mortgage crisis that sent property values downward and put millions of Floridians underwater on their mortgages. Just remember this blog entry the next time you pass by the Welcome to Florida sign at the Florida Welcome Center on Interstates 75 or 95 when you cross into our great state.

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