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So GG, are you still as big a fan of Crispy as you were before he was elected? I can say from where I sit, he's just as I expected he would be as governor, which is why I'm not at all disappointed with how things have gone thus far since he came to office. I think Crispy likes Tallahassee, and his views seem moderate enough to reach out to both sides of the political spectrum. He's not the typical "hateful" republican, and I like that. He gets my stamp of approval so far. :thumbsup:
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So, all Republicans are "typically hateful?" OK. I will make the claim that all Democrats seek to purposely keep certain racial groups down so that way they can claim to keep trying to help them at election time. I think you may need to watch your wording.

But to answer your question, no, Im not at all happy with Crist. I posted why a few days back.

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"hateful" <======== :shades:

And while you may not like to admit it, its true. Many in that party are driven by some sort of hatred, be it for the Iraqis, liberals, gay marriage, taxes, public schools, a woman's right to choose... it's there. Which is why Republicans tend to be more passionate and eager to vote.

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"hateful" <======== :shades:

And while you may not like to admit it, its true. Many in that party are driven by some sort of hatred, be it for the Iraqis, liberals, gay marriage, taxes, public schools, a woman's right to choose... it's there. Which is why Republicans tend to be more passionate and eager to vote.

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Oh no GG, I'm not gonna be pulled into this one. :) It's Memorial Day Week and I'm heading to the beach on Thursday and won't be back until Tuesday, so I'm keeping it light this week.

I will say that all the things TJ described seemed more like fear of something as opposed to hatred of something. That's all I was saying.

What are you doing GG for the long weekend?

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No, I wasnt meaning to pull you into it. What you said makes more sense, but what he said was just totally irrational.

Anyway, Im heading down to the flats of Boca Grande and Charlotte Harbor, my "One Particular Harbor/Margaritaville" all-in-one wednesday for the weekend! Were going after some snook, redfish, trout and tarpon. Which beach are you heading to?

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It's not irrational. And I wouldn't necessarily call what I'm talking about fear, although they love to use it to their advantage. Truth is, many of today's republicans do "strongly dislike" those things I listed above, we can call it "hateful" which is a word my grandmother often uses to describe people who always seem angry and upset, or we can call it "strongly dislike". But republicans seem to be driven by this force more so than democrats.
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So Passionate GG!! :D

GG. It's really not that serious. I didn't say anything personal about you or your republican beliefs. Weren't we talking about Crispy and how he doesn't fit this mold I've percieved about republicans my entire life.

Iraqis may not be suffering under Saddam's regime anymore, but we didn't go to war with that nation to fight for their freedoms. We went because of weapons of mass destruction (and crude oil).

Republicans use the term liberal in a derogatory manner. Liberal people are those who stick out their hands to help others when others can't help themselves. Sure, sometimes this means the government may have to pitch out an extra penny or two from time to time to help certain groups of Americans survive, and live the American dream, yet republicans show loathing toward this. Yet no one is to complain when "conservatives" waste money.

Your party says we want to minimize government influence in our lives YET we're trying to have politicians and judges dictate what a woman can do with her body, tell individuals who they can and can't marry, force religion into our schools (which I'm personally in favor of), and tap our telephones.

I'm not a political expert, and never claimed to be, but I know bad leadership when I see it (W). I think Charley Crispy is good leadership and I was simply pointing out that he's alot different from most others in the republican party.

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So Passionate GG!! :D

GG. It's really not that serious. I didn't say anything personal about you or your republican beliefs. Weren't we talking about Crispy and how he doesn't fit this mold I've percieved about republicans my entire life.

Iraqis may not be suffering under Saddam's regime anymore, but we didn't go to war with that nation to fight for their freedoms. We went because of weapons of mass destruction (and crude oil).

Republicans use the term liberal in a derogatory manner. Liberal people are those who stick out their hands to help others when others can't help themselves. Sure, sometimes this means the government may have to pitch out an extra penny or two from time to time to help certain groups of Americans survive, and live the American dream, yet republicans show loathing toward this. Yet no one is to complain when "conservatives" waste money.

Your party says we want to minimize government influence in our lives YET we're trying to have politicians and judges dictate what a woman can do with her body, tell individuals who they can and can't marry, force religion into our schools (which I'm personally in favor of), and tap our telephones.

I'm not a political expert, and never claimed to be, but I know bad leadership when I see it (W). I think Charley Crispy is good leadership and I was simply pointing out that he's alot different from most others in the republican party.

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Dang you boys make is SO hard for me to continue in the "vacation mind-set" I've got going here. I know I know, you're not forcing me to read your post, but I'm weak that way. :)

The only comment I'll make on this whole discussion is what's w/the group think? Why can't we just all think for ourselves and not completely on party lines. That IMHO is what's really wrong here, not here in this discussion, just in the political world. I personally believe "X" which if it's a social policy coming from me I'm sure my position is extremely liberal. However if it's a fiscal policy my belief "X" is probably moderately to extremely conservative. This type of "group think" makes it extremely hard for someone like me to find a politician or candidate that I can support wholeheartedly.

OK back to vacation think. I'll just be going over to Mexico Beach to help out my 80+ year old folks who will be having 20 friends and family members visiting them this weekend. I know they'll be lots of fishing going on including some night flounder gigging. Also to bring it back to topic, half the people visiting think and have beliefs pretty much like GG while the other half think and have beliefs like TJ. Me? This typically light drinker will be the one all weekend w/the dazed look in his eyes and the bottomless drink in hand! Just nug me when it's time to eat or turn over in the sun.

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OK back to vacation think. I'll just be going over to Mexico Beach to help out my 80+ year old folks who will be having 20 friends and family members visiting them this weekend. I know they'll be lots of fishing going on including some night flounder gigging. Also to bring it back to topic, half the people visiting think and have beliefs pretty much like GG while the other half think and have beliefs like TJ. Me? This typically light drinker will be the one all weekend w/the dazed look in his eyes and the bottomless drink in hand! Just nug me when it's time to eat or turn over in the sun.
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  • 1 month later...

Here's a good opinion piece from the Mayor about the state of Biz in Tally. While I'm sure some of you will read this article as cheerleading or references to missed opportunities; what I take from the article is once again how short-sighted our County Commission was on the Turbocor deal. Of course that incompetence was lead by Silly Ole Bob R.

While Turbocor may not have been the biggest or brightest catch in history, look at what they've done for the local company GT Tech. Look what happens when you provide financial incentives to bring outside companies here....local biz grows too.

Silly Ole Bob R. and his gang of misfits want to give to local biz only, I agree that local biz absolutely needs help too, but these outside draws help locals too. We should support both.

Besides I'm still waiting to hear about Silly Bob's local incentives money and what that has done for the economy. That's the reason they stated for turning down giving monies to Turbocor and Torrey Pines. They stated they would follow and start up a local plan instead. I hope their program does work for the good of us all, but so far I can't seem to find any results. Can you guys?

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Poonther, honestly I don't see anything being borne from the County's business incentive plan. I hate to say this, but many local businesses aren't that agressive about growth, therefore the county isn't really putting itself out for much.

That said.

How is it possible for these small rural counties to chase down and capture economic development opportunities, and our county government cannot? Look at Jackson County's distribution park with the new Family Dollar! Look at Gadsden... heck, Franklyn with the new manufacturing facility in Carabelle... (and we've got an interstate running through this community!)

Said Frankly... the Leon County Commission isn't serious about economic development. People like Ratcliff, Sauls, Proctor, and Thaell in many ways seem anti-business to me.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I already posted this in the FAMU forum, but I'll post it here in local politics also for good measure along with a link to the actual article that includes some other great info about his recent failures to actually serve the Commission and the people he's supposed to be representing (he's already missed 6 of 14 special meetings and workshops this year).........this guy is an absolute joke. Every student that has sat in his "class" at FAMU should receive a full refund of their money, and it's too bad that they'll never be able to be compensated for the lost time out of their lives that they spent listening to his self-serving blather.

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/07/11/State/FA...tor_sails.shtml

FAMU instructor sails through hot water

Trouble follows him in high-profile jobs.

By RON MATUS

Published July 11, 2007Florida has had its share of political Houdinis, but Bill Proctor may best them all.Since 1996, Proctor, a Leon County commissioner, has represented a thick slice of the state capital in Tallahassee despite repeated dives into political hot water. A state attorney investigated him. The Florida Ethics Commission penalized him. The Florida Elections Commission hit him with a huge fine.And yet Proctor managed not only to get re-elected three times, but also to land a plum job in an ivory tower.

Florida A&M University hired him as a visiting professor in August 2000 - one week after he settled a highly publicized case with the Ethics Commission and while an investigation into his campaign finances was going full bore.

He's still there, making $50,000 a year.

He teaches political science.

Proctor doesn't see anything unusual. He says he's more qualified than any political science professor in Florida. He says the late Gov. Lawton Chiles - one of the legends of Florida politics - wouldn't have been re-elected without him. And he says his political life on the edge is a plus when it comes to teaching.

"I don't think nobody brings experience to the classroom in political science that I'm bringing," he told the St. Petersburg Times last week. "I'm the one teacher out of all of them in the state of Florida who can say, 'Yeah, I know how the Elections Commission works, how the Ethics Commission works, how the administrative courts work.' ... I know because I've been in them. ... I've survived them all."To some observers, FAMU's decision to put Proctor on the payroll - and then to keep him despite a torrent of embarrassing headlines - only adds to its reputation for questionable hiring.

FAMU is in Proctor's commission district, and his ties to the school run deep. Now 48, Proctor had been an adjunct instructor at FAMU for more than a decade when he applied to be an assistant professor. His application was approved by then-provost James Ammons, who became FAMU's new president last week. His contracts are year to year.

By fall 2001, students were complaining. The campus newspaper wrote about Proctor skipping class. The dean gave him a stern reprimand.

"Mr. Proctor, you must report to the department chair and give authenticated reasons for your absences from work," wrote Arthur Washington, then head of the College of Arts and Sciences. "If the reasons are not satisfactory and accepted, a review of your continuous successful employment at the University will be made."

And yet the complaints continue.

Several students told the Times that Proctor's class is widely viewed as the easiest A on campus. One said Proctor - who was reclassified as an "instructor" several years ago - did not give tests, rambled during lectures and allowed students to leave after they signed the roll. Among other classes, he's listed as teaching state and local government and American constitutional law.

Sakina Bowser, a 21-year-old senior, said Proctor's attendance continued to be a problem. It was "frequent enough to where one person would go to class and call everybody if he was there," said Bowser, who took a local government class with Proctor two years ago.FAMU officials should not be surprised.

On his application, Proctor noted his last job before winning the commission seat was as a special assistant to Chiles. Under "Reason For Leaving," Proctor wrote: "Original supervisor left. New supervisor wanted different style from mine. Worked at pleasure and new guy did not extend the pleasure."

The new guy was Chuck Wolfe, Chiles' director of external affairs. Reached in Washington, D.C., Wolfe said he essentially fired Proctor because Proctor was a "professional mess."

"He would show up whenever he wanted," said Wolfe, who now works for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. In fact, a frequent question in the governor's office was, "Where's Proctor?"

One of Proctor's duties was building contacts in Leon and a handful of other counties, so the governor's office would know who to reach in case of, say, a natural disaster or pressing policy issue. But "when I would ask, 'Show me your list of contacts in each county,' there weren't any," Wolfe said.

Proctor said Wolfe's characterization is "total BS." In fact, he said, he's the reason Chiles won a tight race against Jeb Bush in 1994. "You subtract my work and you don't have Chiles re-elected," he said. He would not elaborate.

So why was he essentially fired? Proctor's first response: "Why don't you ask the governor?" Chiles died in 1998.

His second response: "I have no idea. The ideas that I have are certainly not politically correct to disclose." Again, he would not elaborate.

Wolfe said as far as he can recall, nobody from FAMU ever contacted him about Proctor's employment.

In a written response to questions from the Times, Ammons said Proctor was hired based on a recommendation from the political science department. "I am not aware of any 'issues' at that time which would have prohibited" Proctor's hiring, Ammons wrote.

Gary Paul, who chaired the Department of History, Political Science, Geography and African American Studies in 2000 and recommended Proctor be hired, did not return calls and an e-mail for comment. Neither did current department chair Juanita Gaston.

Proctor's position was not advertised in 2000, but there probably would have been no shortage of other applicants had it been. Even a nontenured, teaching position like the one Proctor snagged would likely generate 30 or 40 hits from applicants with doctoral degrees in political science, said the chair of the political science department at another Florida university.Proctor's take? "I'm overqualified."

Over the course of a 25-minute interview, he compared himself, in different respects, to Scooter Libby, Deion Sanders and former Florida State University president Sandy D'Alemberte.He repeatedly cited his work in the governor's office as one reason he was especially qualified - even after agreeing he had been essentially fired. "The experience I had working for Chiles was still experience working for Chiles," he said.

He said he had degrees in public relations and political science and a juris doctorate, "the same degree that the president of Florida State University has" - meaning former president D'Alemberte, a legal titan who once headed the American Bar Association.

Proctor did not offer, until pressed, that he merely minored in political science at Howard University. Or that he failed to pass the Florida bar exam.

Even after he became a professor, Proctor's MIA reputation dogged him.

In a well-publicized incident in 2001, he missed a court hearing on his elections violations case, even though a court reporter testified she saw him that morning in the courthouse. In 2003, his driver's license was suspended for failing to pay a traffic ticket. In 2005 and 2006, the IRS put liens on him for not paying his taxes.

Still, FAMU renewed his contract.

Tallahassee political observers say Proctor is a reliable vote for FAMU. Last year, for example, he helped convince fellow commissioners to award a $300,000 contract to a small business development center at FAMU. This year, he mounted a vigorous defense when commissioners moved to cancel it.In March, Proctor was one of the few people with FAMU ties who traveled to Gainesville to watch Ammons' confirmation as FAMU president. "That just makes sense, sir," he said. "I talk to other leaders on a regular basis."

Back at FAMU, a former editor of The FAMUAN, the student newspaper, said it planned to write about Proctor last spring, but its staff was too swamped covering, among other things, FAMU's fiscal woes.

Ammons said he could not comment on whether FAMU students were getting quality teaching from Proctor. He cited Florida statutes and FAMU rules regarding the confidentiality of academic records.Proctor said the complaints are off base. He said his attendance has improved but doesn't dispute his class is a breeze. "I can accept that," he said. "But I think I have the discretion and academic freedom to grade my courses as I deem."

"This is political science," he continued. "It ain't high technology and how many bolts of steel you need to have in a 40-story building." Times researcher Caryn Baird and staff writer Nicole Bardo-Colon contributed to this report. Ron Matus can be reached at [email protected] Comments can be posted on the Times education blog, The Gradebook, at blogs.tampabay.com/schools.

2007 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times

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Earlier today I heard on the that Bill Proctor will be the guest on the live public issues show, "Perspectives", on WFSU-FM this Thursday from 11 AM - Noon. Can't wait to see how long it takes him to pull the race card and blame all his problems on everyone else....should be an interesting show!

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