For logistical purposes, CL has been consolidating its multiple blog platforms into one, and now it is The Political Whore’s turn to hang out the “We’re Moving” sign. It makes sense: we can’t use a common search engine among more than one blog right now. And we have to cross-post Green Community posts to both sites, to use just one example of content that fits into both blogs.

This will be the last post in this old blog site (Friday, August 21, 2009). Future PoHo posts will appear in our Daily Loaf blog, which also includes Green Community, arts, entertainment, sports, sex & love, film, TV and other pop culture posts.

You can read PoHo news pretty much the same way you read PoHo now, if you just want news & politics and not the rest of the Daily Loaf fare. Just change your bookmark from http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/politicalwhore/

to

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/category/politics/

And the RSS feed changes from http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/politicalwhore/feed

to

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dailyloaf/category/politics/feed

See you over at the Daily Loaf.

Bill Foster wasted no time in getting the Times recommendation on his website

The drumbeat that the St. Petersburg Times was considering an endorsement (errr, recommendation, as the Times will always let a candidate know its preferred term) of Bill Foster. On its surface, it seems ludicrous. After all, Foster is the same guy who wrote to the school board a few years back making a strong pitch against teaching Darwinian evolution alone in public schools, hoping it would mix in a bit of “intelligent design.”

But the lack of an emerging alternative to Foster left the Times in the inexplicable position of endorsing an anti-gay rights, anti-evolution mayor of St. Petersburg. More to the point, however, the editorial board chooses a candidate based on who will play ball with it. Which candidate will kiss the ring over on 1st Avenue S? That’s what gets you the recommendation. Disagree with the Times on a core concern at the paper — say, firing Police Chief Chuck Harmon, as Scott Wagman as vowed to do — and you are at a disadvantage, to say the least.

It is OK to disagree with the Times on social conservative issues, as long as you play your cards right, promise not to let those views play out in public policy at City Hall and generally keep your wingy-ness in the closet. After all, the Times’ former editorial chief, Phil Gailey, was totally tight with Rick Baker, who was also a social conservative who refused to recognize gay pride parades or appear in them.

From its recommendation today:

As mayor, Foster would offer comforting continuity. He recognizes Baker’s considerable efforts to improve public education and pledges to continue them. He would maintain the conservative approach to building city budgets, offering neither wild new spending plans nor drastic cutbacks but a methodical effort to make government more efficient. He has been measured and responsible on the campaign trail, avoiding the rashness of other candidates who have called for the quick removal of the police chief, the hiring of dozens of new police officers and the spending of city reserves on recurring expenses that would risk St. Petersburg’s fiscal stability.

Yet Foster would chart his own course as mayor. He recognizes there is the public perception, at least, that police do not go after drugs and nonviolent crimes in Midtown as aggressively as they would in more affluent neighborhoods. He calls for the police to pay more attention to drugs, prostitution and burglary. He would shift police resources to where they are most needed, seek a gradual return to community policing, stress crime prevention and give Chief Chuck Harmon an opportunity to embrace his priorities.

As for Foster’s right-wing bent? The Times explains it away:

At times, Foster has spoken in haste and escalated the rhetoric rather than cooling passions. We also have disagreed with his conservative social views, including those in his intemperate letter to the School Board last year promoting creationism. Those views have little to do with being mayor. Foster makes a convincing argument that he recognizes the weight his words and tone would carry if he is elected, and his campaign reflects that maturity. He has articulated a reassuring commitment to civil liberties and constitutional rights, and that would be the yard stick to measure his performance.

Next, Scott Wagman’s from last week:

Finally, Deveron Gibbons in “He Knows This City:”

That item on the consent agenda even got past me but not Beckner. He pulled the item for discussion and said he would not support giving taxpayer money to them in light of the reservoir concerns until they had redeemed themselves. He got some arguments from Commissioner Jim Norman and even a county attorney, but Beckner stood strong. While he couldn’t get the support to completely blackball the company, he did get everyone’s support to send the item back to staff for further review.

Last week during budget talks, he presented fellow board members with an idea to save the Victim’s Assistance Program and the Consumer Protection Agency which were both on the budget chopping block. Beckner asked why should the cost for these programs be borne by law abiding citizens? He suggested that the officials charge criminals more for booking in order to support the Victim’s Assistance program and the Consumer Protection Agency. After all, it is the criminals supplying the need for these programs so shouldn’t they be funding them? Ultimately the sheriff has to approve these increases in booking fees that Beckner suggested. Beckner told the board “Crime doesn’t pay but I believe in Hillsborough County criminals will.”

I am just afraid that this guy is way too good to stay very long in Hillsborough’s little backyard game of politics. Might as well enjoy him while we can.

By George Niemann
PoHo contributor and R-LAND and UCAN activist

Wednesday’s proceedings were like riding a roller coaster. Here’s the highlights:

• Alyssa Ogden’s mother cries as she tells about learning of the sexual harassment.
• White’s father badmouths the alibi-busters who didn’t corroborate White’s story.
• Alyssa’s sister tells about how White lusted after her, also.
• Whites lawyers file a motion to throw the case out of court.
• White goes back on the stand, and his testimony causes a firestorm of protest from Alyssa’s attorney, as well as the judge.

The details:

First to testify was Alyssa Ogden’s mother, Diane Kaulave. Alyssa’s mother heard about the sexual advances from the guy who had arranged for White to interview Ogden for the job originally, Gerry Bowles. When she got the call from Bowles, she was on her way to bankruptcy court, where the family had just filed for protection from creditors. Bowles is a friend of both the Ogden and White families. Kaulauve said she was supportive of her daughter filing the sexual harassment complaint, even though she never personally witnessed the harassment. She was very tearful while on the witness stand. As the lawyers argued points of law in one of the sidebars that occurred, she looked intently at her daughter as if to say, I’m here for you.

Alyssa’s sister, Crystal Lauren Ogden takes the stand. She tells how she accompanied her sister to lunches with White and to some special events. She tells of one incident at the Bamboo Club Restaurant where she walked up to the table and White exclaimed, “WOW!!!” He then comments how her pants are so form-fitting and he asks her to turn around once more so he can see it from all angles. She claims she rebuffed him and did not turn around. At the next lunch at Jackson’s Bistro on Harbour Island, she said he gawked at her the whole time. He then started discussing their breasts sizes and asked Crystal if she was bigger than her sister and if she had a “C” or a “D” cup. At the next lunch at La Terrazza, she said White gave her a box of chocolates. He continued to tell her that he would like for her to work for him.

Crystal said she feared for her life and for her family. She had heard her sister talk of White’s boasting, on occasion, of being in the Black Mafia and having killed people when he was a police officer. Alyssa also told her sister of an instance when she was in White’s car and — during a cell phone conversation with someone about a deadbeat that owed him money — he said that if the person who owed him money didn’t pay that he’d kill him and they’d have to bail him out of jail.

Then between witnesses, the plaintiffs (White and Hillsborough County) filed a motion with the judge asking for a summary judgment to throw the case out of court. They claimed that Ogden didn’t dispute the fact that she couldn’t do the job, along with the fact that she hasn’t established sufficient evidence to show that the sexual harassment was to the level of being “severe and pervasive.”

Judge Lazarra called their claim preposterous. He said he would make a ruling later in the proceedings, though.

White’s wife, Jenny Navarro White, took the stand. She said she worked at St. Joseph’s Hospital as an RN and was always on call. When asked if she ever saw her husband make any advances toward Alyssa Ogden, she said, “My husband would never do that in front of me.” That made me wonder if they should have asked her if she thinks he might do it behind her back.

Next up was Gerald White, Kevin White’s father. Being a big man (6’2”-plus and probably close to 400 lbs.) he lumbered slowly to the stand. White’s father tried to refute statements made by Blythe Andrews that implicated his son. He said that Andrews wanted to avoid being implicated in this scandal, implying that Andrews lied in his video testimony. He also said that he saw Andrews hand wads of cash to Alyssa Ogden on three separate occasions, totaling approximately $700. He denied that his son ever told him that he loved Ogden and wanted to have a relationship with her.

Kevin White was put back on the stand by his attorneys. He gave some of his background to the jury – He was born out of wedlock in New York City but was raised in Tampa, mostly by his grandparents. His mother worked full time for Verizon. He knew who his father was but had little to do with him and rarely saw him.

He said he never looked at Alyssa in a sexual context. He claims he even took issue a few times with the fact that her attire was not appropriate for the office (low-cut blouse, skirts with slits up the thigh and 5″-6” spike heels). When asked why he seemed to do a lot of interviewing and personnel management while dining at restaurants he said, “when you look at the White family, you can tell that our lives evolve around food.”

As his testimony was coming to an end, all hell broke loose in the courtroom. Here’s why — his attorney was setting him up so that he could give a parting speech to the jury. The attorney asks him to tell the jury how he has been affected by this case. Well, White proceeds to give a long rambling statement about how his life, his family’s lives, the taxpayers, and his constituents have been irreparably harmed by this lawsuit. He adds that he has never broken any laws.

Following that long-winded dissertation, Ogden’s attorney jumps up and wants to cross-examine. He begins to question White’s admission of guilt in the now infamous Florida Elections Commission campaign finance case. In that case White admitted that he wrote checks in the name of a fictitious company (Robins Consulting) to hide the fact that he was illegally using campaign funds to buy personal items, such as custom-made suits. Objections are now flying around the room like a developer chasing a land-use approval. The judge rips into White’s attorneys for letting their client make broad sweeping claims that he never did anything wrong in his life. During his tirade the judge comments, “You should not have opened that door.” Now that White has made those grandiose statements, the plaintiff’s attorneys can dredge up his past in detail to show the jury that he’s not as pure as he says he is.

More to come tomorrow.

Join me and other CL writers tonight starting just before 7 pm here as we live blog the Bay News 9/St. Petersburg Times mayoral forum from the Palladium Theater in downtown. i love the title: “Conversation with the Candidates.” I seriously doubt it will be anything that approximates a real conversation.

Watch along on Bay News 9 and throw in your comments, as well. It runs from 7-8:30 pm.

We’ll be providing live fact-checks, analysis and satirical snide comments in the comment section below.

It was a horrible choice in the first place, and the idea that Shelton Quarles was going to be the happy face of a regional tax referendum to pay for rail transit was pretty ludicrous. So today we hear that Quarles, the former Tampa Bay Bucs linebacker, will step stepped down. Bay Buzz reports:

Shelton Quarles, the former Bucs linebacker turned transportation authority chairman, is resigning from the board, vice chairman Frank Hibbard said today.

“I was just told yesterday that Shelton had resigned,” Hibbard said, saying the resignation was effective immediately and he would begin overseeing the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transportation Authority board.

Read my story “Tackling Transit,” on Quarles when he was first appointed and the controversy about his selection.

And read Quarles PR statement released late today after the news already broke. Good job getting out in front of it, TBARTA:

Shelton Quarles, Chairman of the Tampa Bay Area Transportation Authority (TBARTA), informed Florida Governor Charlie Crist in a letter this week that he will not seek re-appointment to the TBARTA Board.

In the letter he writes, “I regret that I will not be able to serve another term; I finish my current term knowing this region is on its way to implementing and building a world class transportation network.”

“My continuing and growing responsibilities with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are such that they need more than my full-time attention. I have always prided myself in the fact that when I commit to an endeavor, I give it my all. I do not want to be in a position where I am not able to carry out all the required and necessary responsibilities of a TBARTA board member,” Quarles said.

Quarles was named Chairman of the TBARTA Board by Governor Crist in September 2007. In the two years he served as Chair, TBARTA created a transportation vision for the Tampa Bay region by developing and adopting a Regional Transportation Master Plan. Development of the plan included engaging more than 47,500 people in the region during the process.

“Shelton has been a tremendous asset to our organization. His leadership has helped us to come this far in just two short years,” said TBARTA Executive Director Bob Clifford.

Quarles term expires on September 20, 2009. However, he will remain a member of the TBARTA board until such time that the Governor names a replacement.

I was out of the office (and to some degree, out of touch with the important breaking news of the day) for the past two days, so the whole flapdoodle over First Lady Michelle Obama wearing (gasp!) shorts on her family vacation to the Grand Canyon got right by me.

But this morning, I got gobsmacked by the “news” when I broke my prohibition against watching The Today Show and saw not only a produced package report on it but an interview about it with the author of an upcoming book on Mrs. Obama.

So I’m damned if I write about this nothingness (because by doing so I am just perpetuating the media echo chamber on this particular non-news item) but if I sit by and let this phenomenon continue to go unchallenged I look either a) out of touch or b) like I condone such piffle.

So let’s be clear: Blame the Internet, blame the increasingly content-hungry online news media who will write about anything as long as it gets pageviews and resonates and gets Reddit’ed or Digg’ed or whatever’ed. But mostly, blame ourselves, the consumers of this mental junk food, because if we weren’t eating it, they wouldn’t be feeding it to us.

By Al Coryell
PoHo correspondent

RECESSIONOMICS

Question: Do you think the Federal Reserve is going to be able to guide us out of this economic catastrophe?

I’m going to tell you a story -  a story of corruption, deceit, greed and political intrigue. As it turns out, a true story, one stranger than fiction as true stories usually are. But amazingly, this story is little known by most of you, for the parties whom the story is about do a masterful job of hiding their true intentions while convincing you they are your best friends. They insist you need them, and without them your lives would be chaos. It’s all smoke, of course. But I assure you, most of you believe them because the machine they control is incredibly powerful. So powerful, in fact, that… well I get ahead of myself.

The story begins just after the turn of the 20th century, when, in 1910, seven men board a train in Hoboken, N.J.

The men were ostensibly on a duck hunting trip to a remote and exclusive Georgia coastline resort called Jekyll Island Club. It was a resort and hunting club owned by some of the richest men in North America, one of whom was J. P. Morgan. One of the men boarding the train that day carried a borrowed shot gun with him although, it was later revealed, he had no idea how to hunt. The shotgun was merely part of a cover story were he to be recognized by the press. Each man arrived at the train station separately. They spoke to no one, not even to each other until they had boarded a railroad car owned by Sen. Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island, Republican “whip” in the Senate. The senator’s railroad car was not attached to the rest of train during the boarding period. Only after the train left the Hoboken station did it stop, reverse direction onto a side track, and couple the Aldrich car onto the very back of train, behind the caboose. No passengers on the train ever saw any of the men or even knew that they were on the train. Thus no one was aware that in that single car attached to back of the Georgia bound train, representatives of fully one-quarter of the wealth of the entire world were meeting clandestinely to reshape the monetary system of the United States of America.

Six of the seven men aboard that train were bankers. The six represented the three most wealthy families in the world, the Rockefellers and the Morgans from America, and the Rothchilds from Europe. The seventh man aboard was Aldrich, who was also chairman of the National Monetary Commission, and a business associate of J.P. Morgan. All were well known at the time, particularly to the newspaper media so they all dressed incognito, gave false names on the train roster, and called each other only by their first names. It was important no one recognize them lest their plan be discovered and forced to be abandoned. In his N.Y.Times bestseller called The Creature from Jekyll Island, G. Edward Griffin described the meeting this way:

The purpose of the meeting on Jekyll Island was not to hunt ducks. Simply stated, it was to come to an agreement on the structure and operation of a banking cartel. The goal of the cartel, as is true of all of them, was to maximize profits by minimizing competition between members, to make it difficult for new competitors to enter the field and to utilize the police power of government to enforce the cartel agreement. In more specific terms, the purpose and, indeed, the actual outcome of this meeting was to create the blueprint for the Federal Reserve System.

The blueprint was indeed completed at that meeting on Jekyll Island in Nov. 1910, and just three years later, Congress voted the creation of the Federal Reserve System into U.S. law as the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The nature of that vote is a controversial subject. Detractors submit that the Senate Republicans conspired to delay the vote on the Fed’s establishment until the anti-Federal Reserve Democrats had left town on Christmas vacation. Federal Reserve supporters claim that there was no such conspiracy and that the accusation is unfounded. What is not in dispute is that the vote was taken in the late evening hours of Dec. 23, 1913, with the entire Republican constituency in attendance but very few Democrats and no proof seems to exist as to whether or not a quorum was in attendance. Of the 96 Senators at the time, it is claimed 27 of them, all Democrats, were not in attendance that night leading to conspiratorial accusations by the anti-Federal Reserve detractors that the vote was illegally taken and therefore the Federal Reserve Act was unconstitutionally passed. Supporters of the Fed have portrayed these accusations as fabricated myths. The following website is just one of many which support the efforts of the Federal Reserve and attempt to debunk the anti-Federal Reserve accusations:    Debunking the Federal Reserve Conspiracy Theories

Regardless of conspiracy theories or the constitutionality of the enactment vote, with that vote any semblance of a true free market economy disappeared and was, instead, replaced with a centrally managed economy, patterned after the Rothchild central bank of Europe and privately owned by the heads of the wealthiest families in the world. It remains that way today. Ironically, the moniker Federal Reserve Bank is a complete misnomer, a fraud if you will. The privately owned, for profit corporation we fondly call the Fed is neither federal nor has any reserves, nor is it even a bank. And we can be quite certain that the misnomer was not an accident.

The Federal Reserve’s connection to the European central banking system remains as strong today as it has ever been. Because of the current “economic crisis,” the Fed’s secretive operations are coming under heavier scrutiny today by some of those in Congress who have finally awoken to the reality that perhaps the Fed is complicit in the problems, i.e. they are more part of the cause of this catastrophe than they will be a solution to it. One of the enlightened is Florida Congressman Alan Grayson. Watch him grill Ben Bernanke as to why we are loaning European central banks money to loan around the world when our own American businesses and corporations can’t find lenders to help them stay afloat here at home.

Next installment: What is a “free market” and why did the creation of the Federal Reserve System eradicate its existence from the face of the earth? The answer will surprise you. I’ll bet you thought we had a free market economy. I’ll bet you thought it failed and that’s why we are having to get control of (read “regulate”) the big corporations and greedy financial institutions.  Well, we haven’t had a true free market economy since 1913. I will explain why. Stay tuned.

By George Niemann
PoHo contributor and R-LAND and UCAN activist
The second day of Commissioner Kevin White’s sexual harassment trial covered a lot of ground.

Two very important things happened today. White himself testified. In addition, the video depositions of his uncle, Andre Moses White, and his longtime family friend C. Blythe Andrews were entered into evidence and viewed by the jury.

The bottom line on White’s testimony: His testimony was far from plausible.

The bottom line on the Andre White and Blythe Andrews testimony: They blew away White’s alibi.

Before all this happened, Alyssa Ogden’s psychiatrist testified. Dr. Walter Afield, MD took the stand in the morning. He said he started seeing the 23-year-old Ogden in September of 2007. Dr. Afield diagnosed her as having suffered post-traumatic stress disorder, following her ordeal working for Commissioner White. She had suffered trauma before, he said; her father molested her when she was between 8 and 9 years old. The molestation involved inappropriate touching, but not intercourse. According to Dr. Afield she shoved these horrible feelings “under the rug” for many years. Then when White, using his position of power, tried to manipulate her, it brought back all those feelings of guilt and depression. He said she was profoundly depressed and confused. She had thoughts of suicide but he didn’t think it was profound enough to hospitalize her.

She also feared that White might kill her or members of her family if she exposed him. She told the psychiatrist that one day she went into White’s desk to retrieve a work item and saw that he had a gun in his desk. That heightened her fears.

Then White himself got on the stand. Ogden’s attorney asked him why he told Alyssa not to tell anyone, not even her mother, that they were going to Atlanta. White said that he didn’t want to give the wrong impression to anyone. He said that Alyssa told him that she was going to Atlanta to be with his friend, C. Blythe Andrews. He inferred that she had made separate arrangements with his friend to have a rendezvous in Atlanta. When asked why he went to Atlanta that weekend, he replied that, “It was a boy’s weekend.” So his claim is that Ogden went to Atlanta not because he asked her to, but because she was going to have a relationship with a 75-year-old man with terminal cancer that she previously arranged on her own. He then asked White why cell phone records showed that he called her three times between 2 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. that night, if he had nothing to do with her and she just happened to be traveling to the same city at the same time as he was. He responded by saying that even though she was on her own in Atlanta, he still wanted to make sure she was safe. He had told her to call him to let him know how she was doing and when he didn’t get a call from her, he had to make sure she was safe so he called her on her cell. Yeah, but three calls, and at 2:30 a.m.???

Nothing he said made sense. He said he paid for her ticket but got reimbursed by Andrews. When asked about a record of reimbursement he said he was paid in cash by Andrews, so of course there was no record.

Then came C. Blythe Andrews’ testimony, recorded on January 28, 2008. Andrews looked to be very sick on the video. His voice was barely audible at times. Andrews testified that he had no interest in Ogden whatsoever. He said that White brought Ogden to Atlanta to be with him. At one point he questioned the logic of what a 75-year-old man with terminal cancer would do with a 22-year-old girl anyway. He seemed disappointed over the fact that White was trying to implicate him in some kind of sex affair. He said he never paid for anyone’s airfare but that White paid for his own and Ogden’s. Commenting about the whole affair he said, “I had no interest in that girl…nobody can put it off on me because of my high status…my wife is hardly talking to me over all of this nonsense…I never even touched her hand.” His testimony blew White’s alibi out of the water, for sure.

Then came the video testimony of White’s uncle, Andre Moses White. If you recall, White claimed that he never went to Alyssa’s room at the Airport Marriott in Atlanta. He claimed that he spent the night at his uncle’s home in Stone Mountain, Ga., so he couldn’t have been with Ogden. Well, Andre White blew that alibi out of the water. There was a discrepancy over a statement he had signed earlier saying that Kevin White stayed with him, but he fully recanted that previous testimony. He said that his nephew never stayed with him that night. Here’s another interesting comment he made. He said that Kevin White referred to Ogden as a “lady of the night.”

So far, it appears to me that White’s version of what happened in Atlanta is a bit of a stretch (no corroborating witnesses).

What’s on tap for tomorrow?

More video testimony from White’s uncle; some video testimony of White, and two new witnesses: Alyssa’s mother and sister.

Stay tuned…