Charlie Crist takes questions from the Palm Beach Post editorial board and readers
by Michael C. Bender | February 26th, 2010The Palm Beach Post’s Editorial Board met with Gov. Charlie Crist this morning.
A replay of the video will be available here early this afternoon, so check back.
In the meantime, recap Crist’s most notable quotes from his talk on Twitter @pbpOpinion.
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.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:19 am
liar liar pants on fire, i voted for you liar you promised to lower my property taxes but they have gone up ever since i voted for you, go to hell charlie crist.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Political expediency in a state with rampant deterioration of all the services needed to build a strong economy for the 21st Century always generates the simplistic cure of “no more taxes!” Hey, you all, there is no such thing as a free lunch and if you think that bad schools, mechanistic health care, and an economy based on serving the rich and tourists is great for the future – keep it up. Wait until you experience declining response capabilities from our firefighter and police, then you’ll really be happy. Ever wonder why the “Sunshine State” is losing population and there is a glut of unsold homes and condos? Probably not.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Charlie will lie just to see his lips move. All he says is, “I think, going forward and its all about educations and jobs.” Thats the total sum of his vocabulary.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:37 am
I voted for him once and won’t make that mistake again. He never does the hard work only rides out the photo ops for all they are worth. I’ll vote for a one eyed goat before I’ll ever vote for him again.
February 26th, 2010 at 11:59 am
I had enough of him when he was make believe Attorney General. I voted for Davis. I would vote for a junk yard dog before I would vote for this lying sucker.
February 26th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
I will not vote for him once he tried to sell out to the foreigners regarding SR 60. And to sell out to the sugar company for the land 2x what it was worth. Your pockets are fat now, but you will not gain any popularity with tax payers who believed in you. Your true colors show through as well as your preference for soulmates.
February 26th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Hey Charlie, I’ve got a question. Is it true you will waller one around in your mouth? Bruce Carlton Jordan said you did!
March 10th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
I’m behind Charlie Crist because we don’t need another unproven young punk in Washington who will let the elders run all over him.
March 11th, 2010 at 9:11 am
Greg, count me in on the one-eyed-goat vote.
March 11th, 2010 at 9:52 am
The goverment should be making tourist that have children in our school system pay taxes or a fee. Not raise our taxes, we already pay enough. Goverment should check the school system and propose a new law to save millions of dolares, if children that are here with a tourist visa should not be able to go to school for free, most of these people come to U.S with money and they are abusing the system. When they apply for a tourist visa to come to U.S, they know that going to school or working is not allowed. Please check on that issue.
March 13th, 2010 at 11:57 am
Does the Palm Beach Post encourage you to find job opportunities or do they discourage you. I saw that you should voluntary yourself to a job opening you know what that means you don’t get paid. Wow I guess the person writing the article doesn’t need money or income. Personally I would not voluntary myself to work for someone who is going to pay for my gas to get you obviously can’t walk or go on a bus in this city you never get their.
March 27th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Florida Bar Association’s Alimony Gulag
In these troubled economic times, the Florida Bar Association has hit upon a sure-fire money making scheme for its members that is now before the Florida Legislature, cleverly disguised as HB277, or the “Alimony Bill”. Spearheaded by state Representative Jim Frishe (Pinellas Park, FL), HB277 is touted by the Florida Bar Association as the remedy to the “alimony problem” in Florida’s already overburdened Family Law system.
However, instead of simplifying or even eliminating the current corrupt alimony laws, the Florida Bar now wants to have the Florida Legislature expand the scope and authority of lawyers and judges in Florida’s Family Law system, and their fees. With over 85,000 divorces in Florida annually, Florida Bar Association lawyers rake in more than $1-billion in fees related to alimony. But Florida taxpayers will foot the bill on HB277 for the increased court costs caused by this hideous piece of tyrannical legislation.
HB277 is Rep. Frishe’s latest crusade to increase state government power over couples involved with divorce and forever after. By contrast, in Texas, which has never permitted permanent alimony, divorce rates and alimony payments have actually declined. Yet Frishe and his Tallahassee Good Ole Boy pals at the Florida Bar Association no doubt feel they have really hit paydirt with this extortionist Alimony Bill that would make their Mafiosa colleagues green with envy. They clearly see a threat to their alimony gravy train posed by efforts to abolish or reform alimony.
Cloaked under what is called “discretionary power”, a Family Law judge can strip a citizen of his right to be free from Involuntary Servitude under the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and his right to Due Process, Equal Protection and Privacy under the 14th Amendment, and be forced into a state-sponsored peonage-slavery contract to another adult person for life simply by calling it “alimony”. Anyone who objects to being forced into alimony slavery by the Florida Family Law system is summarily found in “contempt of court” and sentenced to lengthy prison terms like a common criminal.
In fact, anyone who repeatedly ignores an alimony-contempt order can be deemed in “criminal contempt” and can be jailed indefinitely in a kind of “debtor’s prison” and classified as a criminal. No other form of debt incurs such harsh punishment. Make no mistake, the current alimony system is a legalized extortion racket using Gestapo tactics for the purpose of maximizing lawyer’s fees, subjugating the public and providing job security for Family Law judges.
Anyone who refuses to be coerced into alimony payments, no matter how unfair, can be dragged from their homes in the dead of night and jailed in a county forced-labor camp even though this is a violation of the Federal Anti-Peonage statutes 42 USC 1994 and a Federal crime under 18 USC 1581. Moreover, current alimony laws are in flagrant violation of U.S. Supreme Court decisions US v Kozminski and Bailey v Alabama. Yet our government is more concerned about freedom for Iraqis than it is about freedom for Americans.
The HB277 proposed legislation will only make this situation worse resulting in more Floridians jailed due to losing their jobs in the current economic downturn. Yet the Florida Bar Association expects us to believe that alimony supersedes the U.S. Constitution, Federal statutory law and all the principles of Contract Law.
Now, the Florida Bar Association wants to expand its power even more under the guise of alimony with its oppressive HB277 Alimony Bill. Here are just a few of the outrages associated with the nightmarish HB277:
1. Creates three additional categories of alimony available to the Family Law courts dependent solely on the “discretion” of the judge;
2. Expands the scope of alimony beyond providing for necessities to permit lavish lifestyles by an ex-wife;
3. Eliminates statutory duration for the new alimony forms;
4. Allows gifts and inheritances to be included in the new alimony decisions;
5. Permits unbridled invasion of our 14th Amendment Privacy Rights;
6. No minimum limit for length of marriage to receive permanent alimony;
7. Gender bias and discrimination will now be permissible in violation of U.S. Supreme Court decision Orr v Orr;
8. Overrides Federal tax codes with further civil-court judicial discretion;
9. Permits case law to override statutory limitations on alimony;
10. Increases the power of judges to jail anyone who is unable or refuses to pay alimony even if the amounts will force him or her into permanent bankruptcy;
11. Prevents removal of alimony debts under bankruptcy;
12. Requires ex-spouses paying alimony to take out a life insurance policy for the benefit of the ex-spouse receiving alimony;
13. Increases discretionary power of judges thereby increasing the number of Floridians trapped into paying perpetual alimony;
14. Creates an “exceptional circumstance alimony” without defining what is meant by “exceptional circumstances” or why this is legal.
15. Allows for alimony payments to be increased for a “substantial change” without defining what this means, leaving it to the judge’s discretion;
16. Increases the number of alimony “modification” cases thereby further increasing lawyer’s fees and court costs to taxpayers and litigants;
17. Expands the power of Family Law judges to create a virtual debtor’s prison.
The position of the Florida Bar is that if forced-labor camps were good enough for Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, then they are good enough for any Floridian who happens to be an ex-spouse. And besides, the theory of oppressive government tyranny has already been tested in German, Russian and Cambodian courts. The Florida Bar’s Family Law division realizes that it is merely necessary to disguise this oppressive program with pleasant-sounding euphemisms like “alimony”, “public good” or “agrarian reform” and just about anything is possible. In legal parlance, the term is known as “compelling state interest”. Today even 90 year-old men and invalids in Florida are forced to pay alimony, and HB277 will make matters even worse and cause increased domestic violence as well.
With HB277, there is no limit to the amount of alimony nor is there a limit to the time someone can spend as a government slave. Under these alimony laws, a lifetime alimony payer either becomes a peonage slave or goes to jail in a state-sponsored forced-labor camp. It is well to remember that the forced labor camps in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia were the direct result of a worldwide depression in the 1930s. We are less than a century away from the Great Depression and are now facing a similar situation. Our government recently afforded generous bailouts to bankers and Wall Street firms that created our current economic crisis. However, the general public was afforded next to nothing with the exception of small “tax incentives” which were only possible if you had a job in the first place.
The next step will be the use of “labor camps” for those who cannot pay their debts. Alimony is the test case. If the state can lock up citizens for nonpayment of alimony, it can lock up anybody for nonpayment of any debts and ship them off to forced labor camps. HB277 is the first test of the state’s ability to create debtor’s prisons and forced labor camps. During the period of 1931–32, Stalin’s Gulag had approximately 200,000 prisoners in the camps; in 1935, approximately 800,000 were forced into camps and 300,000 in colonies (annual averages); and in 1939 — about 1.3 million were forced into camps and 350,000 in colonies. That many and more were enslaved, tortured and even murdered in Nazi forced-labor camps.
If you object to slavery and find it completely offensive to our freedom and American way of life, please send a message via an email or letter to your representative in the Florida Legislature that you are opposed to tyranny and slavery in any form and to vote “NO” on the HB277 Alimony Bill. And please send a contribution to Florida Alimony Reform at http://www.alimonyreform.org to help us fight threats to your freedoms by the Florida Bar Association and the Family Law system. Or better still, join the Florida Alimony Reform Alliance and become part of the solution.
April 8th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Back to Charlie:
IF Charlie was an animal – he would be that funny looking anteater…
IF Charlie was a tree – he would be a weeping willow…
IF Charlie was a governor – he’d support changing Florida’s tax base to pure Consumption: 6% Sales Tax; No Exemptions, No Property Tax!
That would restore our economic engine and power our future progress!!