Category: Florida

Democrat Election Official Resigns

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She failed to steal the election, so she’s quitting:

Just hours after finishing a tumultuous election recount, Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes submitted her resignation, ending a 15-year tenure full of botched elections, legal disputes and blistering criticism. . . .
In the final version of the resignation letter, sent to Gov. Rick Scott, Snipes said it was her “passion and honor” to have served in the office. “I am ready to pass the torch,” she wrote in the letter, which made no mention of controversies surrounding the 2018 election. . . .
During the just-completed recount of the midterm election, Scott was a fierce critic of Snipes, accusing her of years of incompetence and asking the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate what he said “may be rampant fraud.” . . .
Broward’s vote counting was an outlier among the state’s 67 counties, taking a long time to complete. For days, Snipes wouldn’t say how many ballots were outstanding and uncounted and her office wasn’t reporting updated results as frequently as the law required.
And there were repeated hiccups during the recount period, including Snipes’ acknowledgment on Saturday that her office couldn’t find 2,040 ballots that had been included in the first vote count but not in the machine recount of state elections.
She said she was sure they were somewhere in her office, probably mixed in with other ballots.

Thank God these corrupt Democrats are so incompetent. If Snipes actually knew what she was doing, she might have gotten away with it.

UPDATE: Will Snipes be the scapegoat for Nelson’s defeat?

A telltale sign of bad ballot design in Broward (where the Senate race was tucked below the instructions in the lower left-hand corner) was how Broward’s undervote rate in the Senate race was so much bigger than in any other Florida county. Unlike Miami-Dade to its north and Palm Beach to its south, Broward County had fewer votes for the top of the ticket Senate race than governor (as well as the three Florida Cabinet posts). Thousands of people just undervoted the race because they probably didn’t see it on the ballot. . . .
If we assume Broward would vote like demographically/geographically/politically similar Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, then Broward Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes’ bad ballot may have killed Sen. Nelson’s political career. In Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, an average of 0.34 percent more ballots were cast for Senate than governor. If we apply that percentage increase to Broward’s governor’s race (709,179 votes), then the Senate race would have had 711,610 votes (instead of 683,636). And if that happened, then Nelson would have netted 10,674 more votes than Scott. Nelson therefore would have won Florida by 641 votes.
If Democrats want to argue that Snipes helped cost them a Senate seat, the above numbers (which are just estimates, and not the only ones) are reasonable grounds for that. But the criticism has been muted. Snipes is a Democrat. And Democrats signed off on this ballot design without objection. Maybe that’s why team Nelson wanted to argue that faulty tabulating machines (and not bad ballot design) were to blame? The manual recount put that theory to rest.

Yeah, Democrats blaming the black woman because the old white guy lost the election. Go with that theory. It’s perfect.



 

Rick Scott Wins, as Democrats Admit Nelson Doomed in Florida Recount

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The bungling dimwits in Broward County are still counting ballots, but there’s no hope left for Democrats to keep the Senate seat:

Sen. Bill Nelson has run out of time, run out of favorable court rulings and is about to officially run out of votes.
After losing to Gov. Rick Scott on Election Day, losing after an automatic recount and appearing to not make up the gap following a manual recount Friday, Nelson’s campaign was dealt a mortal blow later that evening by U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker, who crushed the Democrat’s last major hope by upholding a Florida law that forbids county election offices from counting vote-by-mail ballots received after 7 p.m. Election Day.
“It’s done. But it was done before today. This was a total Hail Mary,” said a top Democrat involved in Nelson’s campaign who didn’t want to speak publicly before the Democratic Party icon conceded defeat to one of the party’s most-hated rivals. . . .
Without favorable court rulings to expand the available ballot pool, Nelson has no way to make up his 12,603-vote deficit with Scott. . . .
The counties officially have to submit their manual recount totals to the state Sunday. The election is supposed to be certified Tuesday. . . .
While party officials refused to discuss the hopelessness of the situation on the record, the Florida Democratic Party on Friday continued to fundraise off the recount, suggesting to donors that Nelson had a shot when his own top backers knew he didn’t.
Nelson, a three-term U.S. Senator, was the last Democratic statewide elected official in Florida for years. . . .
Scott’s defeat of Nelson certifies him as a Democratic giant-killer who continues to prove party elites wrong. In three straight elections, Democratic insiders have predicted his defeat. Scott first beat Alex Sink, the woman once thought to be the future of the party, in his first gubernatorial race. Then he defeated former Gov. Charlie Crist, a once-highly popular governor. And now he has bested the one politician Democrats thought was unbeatable in a Florida general election, Nelson.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) In case you missed it earlier, Republican Ron DeSantis will be Florida’s next governor, defeating Democrat Andrew Gillum by more than 30,000 votes, enough to avoid a manual recount. So, it would appear, #StopTheSteal was effective. Good work.



 

More Florida News: Democrats Send in Soros-Connected Lawyer Marc Elias

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It’s not a “conspiracy theory” if there actually is a conspiracy:

What could stand a good airing is the history of “Hillary lawyer” Marc Elias, of Fusion GPS-hiring, dossier-commissioning fame, with working on some of the most contentious recounts in the last 20 years.
Elias leads the delegation of Democratic lawyers “descending on Florida,” to use Rubio’s expression. And vote recounts and voting-rights lawsuits were well known as Elias’s specialty long before he gained notoriety as Hillary’s man at Perkins Coie, the go-between for the Steele dossier in the 2016 presidential campaign.
It’s worth noting at the outset, as always, that Elias’s voting-related activities over the years have benefited from funding by George Soros. . . .
Elias is the house lawyer for the national Democratic Party, a fixture whose specialty is working the mechanics of voting in order to get the big, high-profile Democrats elected to the big, high-profile offices.
In this guise, he has been involved in most of the spectacular recounts in recent memory, starting with the Florida recount of the presidential vote in 2000.
Funny how everytime Mr. Elias shows up so do uncounted ballots — out of thin air.

It’s that Broward County magic, folks. Did I say “magic”? Oh, I meant fraud:

“Earlier today the attorneys for Chelsey Marie Smith released her sworn statement today alleging voter fraud.”



 

Who Democrats Really Are

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If you’re watching CNN — and I have no idea why you would, unless you’re trapped in an airport — you have no idea who Democrats actually are, and what they actually intend to do if they get elected. On a CNN panel last night (I watch CNN so you don’t have to), there was a lot of discussion about college-educated suburban white women as the anti-Trump “swing voters” Democrats are targeting in this midterm election.

In a column at CNN’s website last week, the network’s “senior political analyst” Ron Brownstein offered this assessment:

A CNN analysis of the demography of the most competitive districts in the House of Representatives, almost all of which are now held by Republicans, shows that the outcome in 2018 appears poised to reinforce the divides familiar from Trump’s election in 2016.
Democrats’ top opportunities to capture Republican-held seats are concentrated in well-educated, higher-income and preponderantly white districts. Most of these seats are centered on economically thriving suburbs around major metropolitan areas where Trump faces widespread resistance among white-collar voters, especially women, on cultural and personal grounds.
With only a few exceptions, Democrats face more uncertain prospects in Republican-held House seats centered on the blue-collar, exurban and rural communities where Trump remains popular, the analysis found.

You can read the rest of that, but my point is that the Democrats and their media allies know whose votes they need to win Tuesday, which is why their propaganda messages (both in the liberal media and in Democrat campaign ads) are stressing certain themes, and ignoring any facts that might tend to alienate their targeted audience. Unless you seek out alternative news sources on the right — Fox News, Breitbart, etc. — there are some facts you simply don’t know about Democrat candidates and their policy agenda. For example, in Florida:

The 2012 slaying of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin ignited both the Black Lives Matter movement and the political career of Andrew Gillum, whose campaign against Florida’s “stand your ground” personal defense law was instrumental in elevating him to Tallahassee mayor.
Mr. Gillum is now on the cusp of winning Florida’s governorship — but BLM activism has been mostly disarmed as a political movement.
The demonstrations that dominated the 2016 election, cowing presidential contenders and dominating cable television shows, is missing in action in this year’s campaigns. . . .
Mr. Gillum, who would be Florida’s first black man elected to statewide office, invoked Martin’s name during a Democratic candidates debate before clinching the nomination in an upset. Since then he repeatedly accused his Republican opponent, Ron DeSantis, of racism.

Did you know that Gillum was part of #BlackLivesMatter and had made opposition to a homeowner’s right to self-defense a central focus of his 2014 campaign for mayor of Tallahassee? You probably didn’t, and I doubt most Florida voters have been reminded of this fact, nor have they been encouraged to think what this might mean for public safety in the Sunshine State if Gillum wins the gubernatorial election Tuesday.

Did you know the murder rate in Tallahassee is worse than Miami?

Sometimes I feel bad about having to constantly report unpleasant truth like this, almost as bad as I feel watching CNN to research how the “news” is being reported by the Democrat propaganda machinery.

UPDATE: Who’s campaigning for Democrats in Georgia?

Nothing to see here. Move along.



 

Crazy People Are Dangerous: The Fake Seminole Steroid-Using Stripper Bomber

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Cesar Sayoc as a North Miami High School senior, 1980.

The arrest today of a 56-year-old Florida man as the suspect in the mail-bomb case was, on the one hand, profoundly disappointing to me, in that I couldn’t believe any Trump supporter would do such a thing. On the other hand, the suspect wasn’t exactly your typical Republican voter:

Although a sticker on Sayoc’s van reads “Native Americans For Trump” and his Twitter feed includes several references to the Seminole Tribe, Seminole spokesman Gary Bitner said there are no records of Sayoc having ever been a member of the tribe.
According to Ancestry.com, Sayoc’s father immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines and was naturalized in 1970 in North Miami Beach.
Public records show that Sayoc had been arrested numerous times in South Florida.
He was arrested in Miami-Dade in 2002 for making a bomb threat against Florida Power and Light, court records show. Sayoc called FPL because he was upset about the amount of his bill. “The defendant then stated that he didn’t deserve it and that he was going to blow up FPL,” according to files released by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
“FPL will get what they deserve and will be worse than 9/11,” Sayoc said, according to the case notes.
Sayoc also told an FPL employee he “was going to blow her head off,” according to the case file. . . .
Sayoc was also arrested on petty theft charges in Miami-Dade in 1992 and 2014 and sentenced to probation.
Sayoc also had multiple run-ins with the law in Broward County, including for grand theft and battery. Sayoc pleaded no contest to charges of third-degree grand theft and battery on a merchant in 2014, and was arrested in 2004 for possession of a controlled substance without a prescription and with intent to sell. . . .
He was also involved in a domestic violence dispute with a woman named Viola Altieri, who appears to be his grandmother. Altieri filed a civil complaint against Sayoc for domestic violence in 1994. She later filed a request to dismiss the complaint. . . .
While on probation for a felony theft charge in 2014, Sayoc asked the court to let him travel for his job a road manager for “a variety of traveling male revue shows, Chippendales, International Gold Productions, Cesar Palace Royale Burlesque Show, etc.,” according to Broward County court records. A judge granted his request.

Yes, you read that correctly — “traveling male revue shows”:

 

The man suspected of sending mail bombs to prominent Donald Trump critics across the country previously worked as a male stripper. Cesar Sayoc said on his now-deleted LinkedIn page that he worked as a promoter for the Chippendale male stripper organization as a promoter, as well as being a promoter for a burlesque show in the Miami-area. While on his Facebook page, Sayoc said that he was employed by the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Florida. . . .
Speaking to the Washington Examiner, Ohio event promoter Tony Valentine said that Sayoc had previously worked for him. Valentine described Sayoc as a “big muscle head” who “wanted to be a professional wrestler.” Valentine added, “He really couldn’t find his niche in life, and I guess he found it now. Back in the nineties, he was running around from Minnesota to the Carolinas to Florida. He was like a gypsy. He would show up and do an individual act and leave. He was dancing for a guy out in Oklahoma, too.” Valentine said that Sayoc’s career as a stripper was over saying, “He’s like 900 years old now. I wouldn’t hire a 50- or 60-year-old stripper.”
The Chippendales put out a statement denying that Sayoc ever worked for them. TMZ reports that Sayoc actually worked for Gold Productions, a company that has been sued multiple times by the Chippendales for infringement. 

He’s crazy and his mother is a Democrat:

He was mentally disturbed, told his Democrat mom he hated her and likely aggravated his anger with steroid use.
That’s the portrait of Florida bombing suspect Cesar Sayoc painted by lawyer Ronald Lowy, a family friend who represented Sayoc in multiple criminal cases over the years. . . .
“I met with his mother. It’s a very sad situation. She’s obviously very distressed. Her son has been mentally disturbed for a very long time. They’ve encouraged him to get assistance, therapy and treatment, but he’s always refused,” Lowy told the Daily News.
“She’s a Democrat. She finds all of this so shocking and painful. She’s asked me to express her empathy for the victims who had to receive these packages and be in fear. She’s in shock it could have been her son, and if so, she’s deeply regretful,” he said. . . .
Sayoc was also charged in 2004 with felony possession of testosterone-based steroids. Online court records show the case was ultimately dismissed.
“We convinced the state attorney to treat it as they would narcotic. He got in a diversion program to hopefully try to get him off steroids. Sadly, it’s our understanding he went back and continued using them. We think that is probably part of problem. Steroids can create heightened emotions and anger. It’s a very dangerous drug,” Lowy said. . . .
“He’s someone who doesn’t exhibit the sophistication to commit such a sophisticated crime. He’s always shown a diminished capacity in dealing with society, a difficulty conforming or carrying on substantial tasks without supervision,” Lowy said.

The ultimate “Florida Man” — a Filipino-American who pretended to be a Seminole, worked as a male stripper for a fake Chippendales company, used steroids, suffered from mental illness, hated his mother and terrorized the country by sending fake bombs through the mail.

We’re living in Heinlein’s “Crazy Years” . . .

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!



 

 

BREAKING: Suspect in Mail-Bomb Hoax Scare Reportedly Arrested in Florida; UPDATE: Identified as Cesar Sayoc, 56

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Fox News reports:

A suspect was arrested in Florida on Friday morning in connection with the rash of suspicious packages sent to prominent Democrats nationwide, a law enforcement source confirmed to Fox News.
Federal authorities had been focusing on Florida as the location where the majority of packages originated.
“Some of the packages went through the mail,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Fox News. “They originated, some of them, from Florida. I am confident that this person or people will be brought to justice.”
Several of the packages went through a U.S. postal facility in Opa-locka, Florida. The Miami-Dade County Police Department confirmed Thursday it was helping federal agents who were at the facility as part of the ongoing investigation. . . .

UPDATE: Rick Leventhal just reported on Fox News that his sources tell him the suspect is a white male in his 50s, a native of New York with a prior history of being arrested for making terroristic threats. The suspect was reportedly arrested in the north Miami suburb of Aventura.

UPDATE II: More from the Miami Herald:

The Miami Herald has learned that the suspect who has been arrested is a man in his 50s from Aventura. He is being questioned by FBI agents with the joint terrorism task force since his arrest this morning at about 10 a.m.
Live shots from a Local 10 news helicopter show federal agents examining a white van covered in a blue tarp.
A law enforcement source tells the Miami Herald the arrest was made at an auto parts store in Plantation. Miami Herald news partner CBS4 reports a “loud explosion” was heard at the time of the arrest, possibly from an FBI flash bomb device.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice confirmed on Twitter one person is in custody and the department plans to hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m.

UPDATE III: TV news showed a white van being towed from the parking lot of the auto parts store in Plantation, Florida, where the suspect was reportedly arrested. Observers say windows of the van were covered in stickers with pro-Trump and other “right-wing” slogans.

UPDATE IV: Multiple sources are now identifying the suspect as Cesar Sayoc Jr., 56, of Aventura, Florida, who is a registered Republican voter.

UPDATE V: A close-up of the suspect’s van (click to enlarge):

 

This photo was taken by a Miami-area resident who says he “saw him at a stoplight one day and thought [it] was very strange.”

UPDATE VI: The British Sun tabloid reports:

Online records show Sayoc has owned companies called Native American Catering & Vending, as well as Proud Native America One Low Price Drycleaning.

Sayoc was also apparently a bodybuilder.

UPDATE VII: From the London Daily Mail:

Cesar Altier Sayoc was taken into custody on Friday morning in Plantation, Florida in connection with the 12 suspicious packages that have been discovered this week.
According to Sayoc’s Facebook page, he is a Trump fan who posted pictures and videos of himself at one of the President’s rallies in October 2016.
He posted a photograph of himself wearing a MAGA hat in front of the US Capitol in 2017.
He is Native American, and according to a picture posted on his social media page, he is a member of the Seminole Tribe of Florida.
In a post a year ago, Sayoc shared a photograph of Governor Rick Scott and Donald Trump, writing: ‘The greatest Governor in Country Fla Rick Scott and great friend of We Unconquered Seminole Tribe . Trump Trump Trump’
He shared bodybuilding pictures and appears to have worked in a strip club.

Fox News reported that federal authorities got a warrant Wednesday to obtain Sayoc’s phone records. So he came under suspicion almost immediately after the first suspicious packages were found.

 

 

Do Not Trust Polls, Period

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This morning, I woke up and clicked the TV over to CNN just to see what they were talking about. They were touting a new CNN poll that shows Democrat Andrew Gillum leading by 12 points (!!!) in the Florida governor’s race. My immediate thought was, “What the f–k? Trump won Florida two years ago, but now they’re going to elect the mayor of crime-ridden Tallahassee as governor?” So I fixed myself a cup of coffee, logged onto the computer, and clicked over to Real Clear Politics, where I learned that three previous polls had shown the Florida governor’s race neck-and-neck between Gillum and Ron DeSantis. How could it be that Gillum had suddenly opened a double-digit lead?

Here: Compare the CNN poll of 759 likely voters, conducted Oct. 16-20, to the St. Pete Polls Oct. 15-16 survey of 1,974 likely voters. CNN’s poll was conducted by a Pennsylvania-based firm, whereas St. Pete Polls is a Florida-based firm, and this may or may not reflect on the validity of the results. However, notice this in the CNN poll:

Among the entire sample, 32% described themselves as Democrats, 29% described themselves as Republicans, and 39% described themselves as independents or members of another party.

Whereas the St. Pete Poll reported their sample was 39.4% Democrat, 37.1% Republican and 23.6% independent. Why the apparent oversample of independents in the CNN poll? We don’t know, but the difference in the party affiliation numbers between the two polls is entirely sufficient to explain the dramatic difference in the topline numbers.

Anecdotally, a friend in Florida tells me that he’s seeing more Gillum ads than DeSantis ads, and if the Republican is being outspent on TV, that may account for why Gillum is doing surprisingly well, but I seriously doubt that Gillum could win Florida by double digits. What we know is that midterms tend to be “base” elections. It’s about getting out the vote among the core supporters of each party, and if anyone thinks the people who vote in Florida on Election Day will be 39% independent, they’re out of their minds. That is a bad poll. Don’t trust it.

Also, don’t trust polls in general. The DeSantis campaign insists their own internal polls show the Republican actually leading. Considering the popularity of Florida’s outgoing Republican governor, Rick Scott, who’s challenging Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson, and considering the state’s large population of prosperous senior citizens, the campaign fundamentals favor Republicans in a state where, as say, Trump won in 2016.

A midterm backlash against the new president is possible, of course, and historic precedent favors Democrats this year, but nothing is certain, and what counts is who votes on Nov. 6. Trust no polls.

UPDATE: I solicited the opinion of a source who is in the polling business, who replied: “Your analysis is spot-on. No way the independents are that high. I do believe there are more independents because Democrats have been drifting away from the party but not 39%.”

Let me add something else: On Election Day 2012, I believed Romney would pull off an upset victory. This was based on analysis of county-by-county turnout by experienced operatives. What went wrong? Well, the operatives were running numbers based on 2008-2010 party alignment in the electorate, and the Democrats had succeeded in reaching enough so-called “low-information” voters to make the winning margin for Obama.It is very difficult to know in advance what the actual electorate — the people who show up to vote — will look like on Election Day, and attempts to “model” the electorate involve mere hypotheticals. Honestly, Republicans have to be worried about the poll numbers in Florida, considering what I’ve heard anecdotally about there being more Gillum ads than DeSantis ads on TV. But worried voters are also energized voters: If you’re a Trump voter in Florida who wasn’t necessarily fired up to vote this year, the danger that Andrew Gillum might become your governor should be all the incentive you need.

Oh, Scott Adams predicts the biggest GOP turnout ever.



 

 

Good-Bye, ‘Blue Wave’? Clintonista May Lose Key House Race in Florida

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Of all the many fossil remnants of the Clintonian epoch, few deserve more contempt than Donna Shalala. During her tenure as Secretary of Health and Human Services, she turned the department into a federal advocacy program for the 1960s “Sexual Revolution” ethos. Promiscuity, abortion and homosexuality were actively promoted by HHS during Shalala’s tenure. After she left office, she spent the next 14 years as president of the University of Miami, and ruined it. In the 20 years prior to Shalala taking over at Miami, the Hurricanes had won five national football championships (1983, 1987, 1989, 1991, and 2001). After Shalala took over? Zip, zero, nada. How bad was it? From 2010-2016, Miami lost to archrival FSU seven consecutive times. Hurricanes fans have no reason to love Shalala, and it seems that local voters also have their doubts:

The congressional seat was supposed to be the easiest of Democratic pickups. Hillary Clinton carried the Miami-based 27th District by nearly 20 percentage points just two years ago. Donna Shalala, the Democratic nominee, was a well-known, former Cabinet secretary with a talent for raising money.
But now local Democrats are dismayed as Shalala is struggling to put away her Republican rival, a popular former Spanish-language television newswoman named Maria Elvira Salazar.
According to internal polls from both campaigns obtained by POLITICO, Salazar is either ahead — or just narrowly trailing — Shalala.
Salazar leads the former Clinton Foundation head by 7 percentage points in a poll conducted for the Republican’s campaign that was completed Thursday. In a poll from Shalala’s campaign, completed Sept. 1, the Democrat leads Salazar by 4 percentage points.

(Hat-tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.) Guess what? Maria Elvira Salazar is a University of Miami alumna and my Spanish is a little rusty, but I believe muy caliente is appropriate the phrase.

MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR for CONGRESS

 

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