FL Legislator's "Revenge" Bill Goes After Children Allowing ALL Discrimination! (Take That Indiana!)

#161 of My Stupid State

The Florida wingnuts just can't freaking stand not being in the spotlight.  They couldn't give us ONE day for Indiana to take the heat off with their inane hate bill.  We always have to be #1 in bigoted buffoonery.

OK, here we go:

40 years ago, this state passed a gay adoption ban. When it was recently, (and finally), challenged in Court, the only so-called "expert" the GOP politicians could find (and pay) to defend it turned out to be a self-hating, male hooker.  Yes, that happened.  Somehow, the GOP lost the case.

Fast forward this week.  Because the GOP lost that case, one of our dumbest state legislators, Rep. Jason Brodeur,  proposed legislation that he is literally calling a "revenge" bill that plays with children's lives.

Jason Brodeur is a name I've mentioned before.  He is my own legislator and already infamous for proposing that psychiatrists/docotrs be fined 5 million for asking someone if they have a gun in the house.

Now he has created legislation that will allow taxpayer-funded private agencies to deny kids parents for practically any reason.  I give you PCB HHSC 15-03, the Conscience Protection for Private Child-Placing Agencies:  READ MORE

• Civil Rights
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• My Stupid State

'Stand your ground' task force just political theater

Beth Kassab

8:16 a.m. EST, November 17, 2012

This is why Florida is the butt of the nation's jokes.

We can't count our votes on time. The road to CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus' downfall veered straight off Interstate 4 and into the mansion of "Tampa Kardashian" Jill Kelley. We order government studies to answer questions that are already painfully obvious such as whether texting and driving is dangerous (Yes!).

And when we have the opportunity to do something serious — something that could make us a leader for improvements and reform — we waste it

I'm talking about fixing the law that made Central Florida the epicenter just nine months ago for explosive debates about racism, gun rights and when one person has a right to kill another.

But memories seem short since George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin on that cold and rainy February evening.

The law at the center of it all known as "stand your ground" caused two prosecutors to come to two wildly different conclusions.

People rightfully began to scrutinize "stand your ground," a 2005 law written by National Rifle Association lobbyist and Tallahassee puppet master Marion Hammer that removed the "duty to retreat" from Florida's self-defense statute.

In other words, if you believe you are in danger, Florida law says there's no need to run away or get yourself out of the situation if you can. You can just pull out your piece and fire, with immunity from prosecution.

Trayvon's death shined a light on other cases that had invoked "stand your ground": a gang member who got off scot-free for a shooting. A case of road rage that ended with one man stabbing another with an ice pick.

Feeling pressured to do something, the governor named a task force to study the law and make recommendations.

But this was nothing more than political theater. Gov. Rick Scott stacked the committee with members already convinced it was a good law and not in need of major reform.   READ MORE

Woman Gets 20 Years for Claimed Warning Shot; Judge Rejected Stand-Your-Ground Immunity

Marissa Alexander

Posted May 23, 2012 9:01 AM CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The latest controversy over Florida’s stand-your-ground law concerns a defendant who argued without success that the defense should bar her prosecution.

Jurors deliberated only 12 minutes before convicting Marissa Alexander of Jacksonville, Fla., who says she fired a warning shot in an attempt to scare off her abusive husband, report the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press and the Florida Times-Union. She was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced earlier this month to 20 years in prison.

A judge had refused to bar the prosecution based on Alexander’s claim she had immunity because of the state’s stand-your-ground law.

The case stems from an August 2010 incident. Alexander had gone to her former home to retrieve her belongings, and encountered her estranged husband there, Time magazine reports. He went into a rage after discovering texts to another man, she says, and threatened her. She went out to her truck, was unable to open the locked garage door, and got her gun from the vehicle, according to her account. She went back inside and fired. The bullet hit the wall.   READ MORE

George Zimmerman Neighbors Complained About Aggressive Tactics Before Trayvon Martin Killing

First Posted: 03/12/2012 9:13 pm Updated: 03/13/2012 8:02 am 

A volunteer community watch captain who shot an unarmed Florida teenager to death last month had been the subject of complaints by neighbors in his gated community for aggressive tactics, a homeowner said.
George Zimmerman has not been charged in the Feb. 26 shooting of Trayvon Martin, 17, who was walking home from a convenience store in Sanford, Fla., near Orlando. Zimmerman, who patrolled the Retreat at Twin Lakes development in his own car, had been called aggressive in earlier complaints to the local police and the homeowner's association, according to a homeowner who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

At an emergency homeowner’s association meeting on March 1, “one man was escorted out because he openly expressed his frustration because he had previously contacted the Sanford Police Department about Zimmerman approaching him and even coming to his home,” the resident wrote in an email to HuffPost. “It was also made known that there had been several complaints about George Zimmerman and his tactics" in his neighborhood watch captain role.

The meeting was attended by Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee, the detective assigned to the investigation and an unnamed member of the city council, according to the homeowner’s association newsletter. The chief couldn't immediately be reached for comment about the complaints. A member of the homeowner’s association board, who asked not to be quoted by name, said she “hadn’t heard about any complaints” about Zimmerman. Zimmerman's phone number is disconnected and efforts to reach him have been unsuccessful.   READ MORE

The 'Gunshine State': Six Awful GOP Laws That May Harm Florida Forever

Florida Republicans bring gun mayhem, Jim Crow, teacher firings, insurance industry payoffs and misogyny to the Sunshine State.

April 11, 2012

While millions of residents and visitors are working on their tans, shady politics are prospering in the Sunshine State. What residents are now learning is that the negative impact of the work of the Republican-dominated legislature and Republican Gov. Rick Scott will haunt them for years to come.

Most of the new measures were approved over the past 12 months, but as we are all learning, seven-year-old legislation is causing excessive pain, heartbreak and anger in 2012.

 

1. Stand Your Ground

2. The Gunshine State

3. Resurrecting Jim Crow

4. Who Needs Public Schools?

5. Limiting Car Insurance Claims and Payments

6. Florida's GOP War on Women

And the List Goes On 

  READ MORE

 

      

Trayvon Martin and the American Lynch-Mob Mentality

Trayvon Martin, 17, was fatally shot by George
Zimmerman. (photo: ABC News)

By David A. Love, Guardian UK

08 April 12

Prosecutorial misconduct, police corruption and 'stand your ground' laws are part of the lingering lynch-mob mentality.

he shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, has exposed the issue of official misconduct, as police have failed to arrest, and prosecutors have refused to indict, George Zimmerman, Martin's self-professed killer. Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch volunteer, claimed Martin looked suspicious and that he shot him in self-defence. Although a federal investigation is under way, Martin's parents have asked the US department of justice to investigate possible meddling by the state's attorney's office with investigations by Sanford police the night of the killing. Martin's family believe that state attorney Norm Wolfinger and Sanford police chief Bill Lee overruled the recommendation of the chief homicide investigator that Zimmerman be arrested and charged with manslaughter. Further, the "stand your ground" law implicated in this case enables vigilantes who wish to perform private, extrajudicial executions and become a legalised lynch mob. The law breaks with centuries of legal tradition by allowing a person to "stand one's ground" and use deadly force wherever he or she feels threatened, without a duty to retreat.
  READ MORE

Man lives to tell of Florida "Shoot First" horror

By Tom Brown

MIAMI | Fri Mar 23, 2012 6:12pm EDT

(Reuters) - On June 5, 2006, not long after Florida enacted the first "Stand Your Ground" law in the United States, unarmed Jason Rosenbloom was shot in the stomach and chest by his next-door neighbor after a shouting match over trash.

Exactly what happened that day in Clearwater, Florida, is still open to dispute. Kenneth Allen, a retired police officer, said he shot Rosenbloom because he was trying to storm into his house.

Rosenbloom told Reuters in a telephone interview this week he never tried to enter the house and was in Allen's yard, about 10 feet from his front door, when he was shot moments after he put his hands up.
Now living in Hawaii, Rosenbloom said he had been unaware of the growing outrage over last month's shooting in Sanford, Florida, of an unarmed black teenager by a neighborhood watch captain.

Trayvon Martin, 17, was shot by George Zimmerman on February 26 while walking back to the house where he was staying with his father in a gated community. Sanford police have not arrested Zimmerman, largely because Stand Your Ground requires them, without clear evidence of malice and in the absence of eyewitness testimony to the contrary, to accept Zimmerman's argument he was acting in self-defense.
Allen was not arrested in the shooting of Rosenbloom. Sergeant Tom Nestor of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said Allen was found to have acted in self-defense when he pumped two rounds into Rosenbloom with his 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

"He meant for me to be dead and he never called 911," said Rosenbloom, 36, adding that Allen, now 65, bent over him and using an expletive, warned him not to tangle "with an ex-cop" as he lay bleeding on the ground.

"The police closed it on his words alone," said Rosenbloom, explaining how the case that began with a complaint about him leaving eight trash bags on the curb instead of the regulation six, was closed after what he described as only a summary investigation.

"They made me the bad guy," he added.    READ MORE

Religious Freedom? Florida Passes One Bill Allowing Prayer in Public Schools, And One Cracking Down on "Sharia Law"

At a time when the national political debate is dominated by questions of religious freedoms, dueling headlines on the Miami Herald’s website underscore how self-described defenders of faith are often only interested in promoting freedom for some and not for all

Yesterday, within the span of 24 hours, the Florida House passed a bill to allow prayer in public schools and another to crack down on the supposed threat of Sharia law.

In a lopsided 88-27 vote, the chamber okayed a bill to allow any student to deliver “inspirational messages,” including religious prayers, at public-school events. “Look at what just happened in Ohio,” one lawmaker said, referencing the recent school school shooting there. “The kids need to have prayer at school.” Another explained the need by citing the “sex, gambling and all of the moral decay that’s on our televisions and radios.”  READ MORE