More questionable Crist contributions?
by Michael C. Bender | March 2nd, 2009
View Larger Map
A federal indictment released this week claims Gov. Charlie Crist received 10 illegal campaign contributions of $500 each from these 5 homes in Southern California in 2006.
But campaign finance records show that Crist received a total of 40 $500 contributions on the same day from nearby neighborhoods, as shown in the map below.
Crist said he won’t return any contributions because his campaign, which collected $2.5 million in 2006, has closed.
But there is precedent for “returning” money years later.
In 1998, then-state Sen. Katherine Harris was running for Secretary of State and sent $20,293 of her own money to the Florida Election Commission. She did so after a controversy erupted over donations she received in 1994 from Riscorp, whose founder was imprisoned in an elections scandal.
Read the story here.
Where's the money? Use The Post's interactive database of who wants and who's getting federal dollars.
Use these interactive graphics to find and contact Palm Beach County and Treasure Coast legislators.
March 3rd, 2009 at 9:19 am
When are you going to give equal time to the democratic representative from Maryland, Bobby Wexler? If I am not mistaken, and I am not, he received more money than Crist did from Sargeant’s deal. Crist received $5000 and Wexler received >$38,000. What don’t you understand or are you that much in the bag for Bob?
July 16th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
[...] Search a database of contributions to Charlie Crist’s 2006 campaign for governor. Database | Questionable donations ______________________________________ What are Palm Beach County & Treasure Coast lawmakers hoping [...]
July 20th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
As a republican who’s shifted a little to the left in recent years, I had no real concerns for issues in Florida when Crist took over following Jeb Bush.
However, since I’ve seen a Nazi-like solution, conceived by by Bill Nelson, be so easily implemented by Crist on how to deal with a so called Python problem in Florida’s Everglades; there is nothing I will be more focused on than doing everything I can to see neither of these cowards continue to represent any public office.
Through a public campaign of lies, exaggerations, misinformation, unsubstantiated hypothetical problems that do not exist, Crist and Nelson have managed to incite fear and hysteria that plays on the ignorance of the public about exotic animals, and what each species really presents that is dangerous.
From this, Crist and Nelson have stolen tax payer’s resources to further their own political agendas in building an infrastructure of government subsidized projects, so called “research” studies, that misdirect public funds based on hysterical conclusions not that are supported by any accurate scientific data or factual history of a problem with Pythons.
This is especially egregious, when the task of Florida Conservation and Wildlife and Fish not only fail to use their resources for issues of higher threats to the public and the environment, but now will also benefit from additional public funding that is misused on a problem they’ve helped Crist and Nelson create that never existed.
They’ve all created a problem of a species through lies about the species, using hysteria to drive the public opinion for support of their need for money and now laws that sanction an unreasonable and Nazi-like solution which abuses their authority to represent us, as a nation democracy built on compassion for all life, while balancing that with our obligations to protect this nation and all its resources through accurate information.
Crist and Nelson, relying on cronies with a like agenda for political and financial support at the expense of the taxpayers, has breached this mandate. Much the same way that we were drawn into a war with Iraq based on the same manipulation of a threat, and false information that was never accurate.
Aside from the financial costs to the public that is unwarranted and unaffordable, the smell of laws coming which will take away our rights to possess exotics will create another drug culture-like war, trying to enforce the underground market that will be created, with more Gestapo-like enforcement efforts that cannot be won, anymore than the war on drugs has been won.
The Burmese Python is already an endangered species. The examples that have been captured represent no accurate yardstick for building any of the projections being used by so called experts.
I have studied these animals for over 25 years, and none of the allegations being made to its temperament or threat to humans is anywhere close to accurate. There are far more dangerous snakes of similar habitat backgrounds which are also loose in the Everglades. But the only one singled out, ironically, is among the most docile, passive, and trusting of humans which has made them excellent companions to people who understand them and respect them, and take care of them properly.
The number of alligator attacks, and many other issues with Florida wildlife finding compatibility with human’s encroachment on their domain, far, far outweighs any incidents with Burmese Pythons, either captive or wild.
Any Governor and any Senator who will corrupt the public’s trust by using its limited resources on programs created solely to milk tax payer money that is predicated on lies and misinformation, needs to be replaced at the next election.