Wellington Candidate Forum on Monday, October 8th
The elections in November are critical to our nation and to Florida! On your ballot, there will be some key seats up for grabs. The winners of these seats will work hard to change the course of our federal and state governments — one way or the other. You must meet and hear them firsthand!
David DiCrescenzo will moderate our last PBCTP candidate forum of the 2012 elections season on Columbus Day, October 8th in Wellington. The confirmed candidates are:
US Congress: Cesar Henao (District 21)
FL Senate: Melanie Peterson (District 25)
FL House of Representatives: James O’Hara (District 81) and Tami Donnally (District 86).
Place: Binks Forest Country Club
Time: Doors open at 5:30 p.m. An all inclusive buffet for $15 will be served from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. The candidate forum will begin at 7:00 p.m. and end no later than 8:30 p.m.
Address: 400 Binks Forest Drive, Wellington.
Directions and map: Click here
We anticipate a full house so be sure to RSVP by clicking the link below.
The NFL Analogy
The National Football League attempting to have a successful season with amateur officials managing the games is analogous to the country trying to be a success in the world when managed by amateurs.
Leading Global Islamic Terrorism Expert to Speak
Boca Chapter and SF912 Present: October Candidate Forum!
Please join us for our OCTOBER CANDIDATE FORUM, on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012. It will be held at the Boca Greens Country Club (Map HERE), and the doors will be open at 5:30pm for a cash bar, and dinner will follow from 6pm to 7pm (as usual, the cost is $15, which includes tax and gratuity). This as an ideal opportunity to learn about our local and state candidates in a safe and fair environment which our leadership ensures will be the model of civility. Since the Tea Party represents a powerful and influential voting base, combined with the fact that we can present candidates in a NON PARTISAN manner, this event is sure to be an influential and substantive endeavor to learn about how the candidates stack up.
The format will be simple: After the National Anthem, sung by Carlos Manuel Santana, Alex Berry will make announcements, and then introduce our moderator, David DiCrescenzo. He will ask the field candidates (to date: Tom Gustafson, James Ryan O’Hara, David Lutrin, Cesar Henao, Melanie Peterson, and Joe Abruzzo— check back here for regular updates) a question, and each candidate will receive 3 minutes to answer. In the event that an opponent is mentioned in a response, that opponent will receive :30 to rebut or address the answer which mentioned his/her name. The questions will not be a surprise to anyone, as they will center around many of the top issues facing your district. Further, the question will address one or more of the Tea Party’s 3 tenets: Fiscal Responsibility, Free Markets, or Limited Government, and how they will be manifested in your approach towards the office. We will have a volunteer timer, who will hold up cards letting each candidate know when they have 1:00 and :30 seconds remaining. A bell will ring to stop anyone who goes over time allotted.
This should be a VERY positive, enlightening and exciting evening for all of us!!! All we ask is that you RSVP immediately by clicking the RSVP button below!
Phone Bank Prizes: From Gift Cards to a Free Trip to Tallahassee!
Hours and Locations
Boca Raton: 3200 N Federal Highway, Suite 215, Boca Raton, FL
Monday, Tuesday, Saturday: 10am – 7pm
Friday: 10am – 3pm
(Located across the street from a Denny’s)
Palm Beach Gardens: 3970 RCA Blvd Suite 7003, Palm Beach Gardens, FL
Wednesday & Thursday: 2pm – 8pm
(We are across the street from the Hampton Inn. Our office is tucked behind in the corner behind the American Flag.)
We have two competitions for phone banking and canvassing.
1. Weekly Competition
- See me for a personal PIN to compete
- Scores reset to zero each Monday at 9am
- Top 3 phone bankers will receive: 1st place: $25; 2nd place: $10; 3rd place: $5 to the restaurant or gas station of their choice.
- Past winners include: Mel and Barbara Grossman, Ed and Anna Lee Wolff, & Tom Miller. YOU could be next!
2. Win a FREE trip to Tallahassee
- Win a free trip to attend AFP’s Tallahassee Days: March 19 – 20, 2013
- Prize includes bus transportation to and from Tallahassee, lunch on the bus, hotel accommodations at a Marriott hotel, entry into the “Patriot Dinner” at University Club Center located in FSU’s Doak Campbell Stadium
- 2 ways to win: Phone Banking and Door Knocking
Contest #1: Freedom Phones – In order to be eligible to win in this category, you must make a minimum of five hours of phone calls for AFP. The prize will be awarded to the individual who makes the most total calls after calling for at least five hours. The Field Coordinator will award one phone banking champion per week. An individual is only eligible to win two times in the eight remaining weeks. This enables you to win a trip for yourself and a spouse or friend (double occupancy).
Contest #2: Door Knocking – In order to be eligible to win in this category, you must spend a minimum of two hours knocking on doors for AFP. For every two hours spent walking and knocking, your name will be entered into a fishbowl. The more hours spent, the higher the chances your name will be drawn. On November 6th, your Field Coordinator will draw four names from the fishbowl to determine the contest winners (limit two per person).
*Please note, the limit is two wins per person per category. Therefore, an individual could potentially win a total of FOUR trips. Additional trips won can be transferred to your spouse and/or friend(s). Once an individual has won a trip, he/she may also purchase an additional trip for a spouse or friend at the discounted rate of $150.00.
Please contact Kathy Salerno with questions at 954-815-4307 or KSalerno@afphq.org.
Senator Rubio Marks Constitution Day
Frustrate the Terrorists!
Since the U.S. Government is unable to protect our embassies from being overrun by terrorists, the least we can do is provide the embassies with non-combustible flags so all we will have to watch on TV is terrorists unsuccessfully trying to burn our flag.
The Commander-in-Chief is AWOL
There is no record of intelligence briefings for Obama the week before the embassy attacks
According to a GAO Report the President has only attended 43.8% of the briefings since taking office.
The Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) provided to the President by the CIA the first thing every morning provides insight into what is happening around the world, information on what to expect in the coming days, an analysis of the collected intelligence and the significance of the events.
A President who decides to skip the PDB is a President who has no need for it because it is a President who would not know what to do with the information once it was received and a President who consequently, by inaction, leaves the country vulnerable to our enemies and our citizens exposed to danger.
Book Report: Left Turn by Tim Groseclose
Tim Groseclose is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics at UCLA. The author has made two major claims: 1) The main vehicle of bias in the media is distortion, not lying and 2) the bias is significantly liberal and this bias really matters by what scholars refer to as the “media effect”. Professor Groseclose describes precisely and in great detail the extent to which the “media effect” affects the thoughts and behaviors of people. I will not attempt to cover the extensive research presented (including many mathematics concepts such as the exogenous effect and equations) in this book report. Professor Groseclose and his partner Professor of Public Policy Jeff Milyo from the University of Chicago began work on the media research project in the spring of 2002. The results of their research was published in the Harvard “Quarterly Journal of Economics”, the oldest scholarly economics journal, which, in my view, is all one needs to know about the unquestionable level of scholarship and peer review of the research this book is based upon.
Professor Groseclose admitted that he had formerly been persuaded by the logic that the “media effect” was really not a factor and found it difficult to believe that voters could be systematically fooled into thinking and voting against their natural tastes and values. In other words, the “media effect” could not override rational choice. However, the good professor has changed his view, after all of his and his colleague’s hard work set forth in the book. Distilling their thesis down to its most bare essence to answer the question of “To what degree has the media distorted the political views of the average voter” here’s the formula: 1) The political views of the typical voter are a weighted average of two things; i) his/her natural views (the so-called political quotient he/she would have absent media bias) and (ii) the average slant quotient of the news that he/she receives, the so-called media mu. This weighted average is referred to as the media lambda.
The above may seem confusing without reviewing the mountain of data supporting these conclusions. Trust me that it all makes sense when you read the book. Professor Groseclose’s Epilogue entitled “Small Steps Toward a Better Media”, i.e., a more responsible media, was a real shocker for me. I had always placed many in the media (not all) in the same smelly basket as many politicians, both on the lowest end of professions worthy of scorn and ridicule from the rest of us. However, the good professor after eight solid years studying both concluded the more he came to respect politicians and the less he came to respect journalists! This is no joke. The reason is simple. While politicians, whether we agree with them or not, under our system of government they cannot hide their votes (Art. I, Sec. 5, US Const. – yeas or nays on the floor, no secret ballots, which is routinely used in both chambers). Politicians can attempt to hide from or distort their records or their opponent’s record but the record is available for all to see, even on cable TV – C-SPAN. Speaking of C-SPAN, Martha Radditz of “ABC News”, while appearing on C-SPAN was asked by a viewer who called in about what party she was registered to. She made the standard mainstream media non-reply that she would not disclose (“we don’t talk about those things”) and made the absurd claim that she is just an objective reporter! These left biased media people falsely maintain the charade of objectivity. Ms. Radditz and her ilk, according to the author, are conspiring against the people.
Professor Groseclose has a two part suggestion to begin to reverse the media “Left Turn”. 1) Liberal journalists should actually have conversations with conservatives, much like politicians are forced to do in the halls of Congress and the Capital, even individuals who can’t stand each other. Washington correspondents vote 93-7% for Democrats, according to the research in the book. Therefore, he suggests the best place to start for them would be a trip to King County, TX and Washington County, UT, two Counties that are nearly as conservative in voting as the correspondents are liberal. The correspondents gaining real world perspective could be beneficial to us, the electorate, if they become more balanced in the process. Professor Groseclose calls this suggestion “Mr. Journalist Goes to Washington County” in an obvious salute to the much beloved classic Jimmy Stewart film “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
I highly recommend this work of non-fiction, particularly in this very contentious political season. Happy reading!
How do you take your tea?
