Solivita Democratic Club President Ellis Moose III, who is also chair of the Polk County Democratic Executive Committee, stood up for all Democrats at a recent meeting of the Tiger Bay Club.

Moose told the group that Florida Democrats concentrated too much money and time to the governor’s race and left Democratic candidates in the state without enough support to win.

“There was way too much time and money on the governor’s race and not enough on others,” he said.

Moose shared the stage with the chairman of the Polk County Republican Executive Committee, Jim Guth. The pair had been asked by the group to assess the 2014 elections in the state.

Interestingly, both Moose and Guth are residents of Solivita.

A good-sized contingent of Democrats attended the meeting to support Moose including several members of the Solivita Democratic Club.

The Polk County Democratic Executive Committee will open a year-round office in Haines City beginning February 3, 2015. The office will be staffed by volunteers five days a week at the OK Arcade, 651 E. Main St., Suite 10.

“Polk County Democrats have traditionally opened offices across the county only during campaign periods,” said Ellis Moose III, chair of the Polk County DEC. “This year, with the growing numbers of Democrats in the county and the upcoming switch of Haines City and much of eastern Polk County to Congressional District 10 from District 9, we felt a permanent location in Haines City would help us get out the vote in 2016.”

Ruth Ann Eaddy, Democratic State Committee Woman who will manage the office, said “We will have an emphasis on helping provide photo ID cards to citizens who have been disenfranchised by the new laws.”

The new Democratic office will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2p.m. Staffers will provide voter registration information, volunteer services and campaign materials to support Polk County Democratic candidates.

An open house and reception will be held in the new offices later in February.

What Republicans are really saying when they attack Obamacare

When you hear Republicans attack Obamacare it’s hard not to wonder what they’re mad about. They said its costs would rise, insurers would flee, premiums would go up and the number of people without insurance would stay the same. None of that happened. So what’s the problem?

You can get a serious hint from a recording of the Republican nut bird Senate candidate Joni Ernst, who just got elected to the U.S. Senate from Iowa. Radio Iowa recorded Ms Ernst talking to voters before the election. Here’s the quote:

“We’re looking at Obamacare right now. Once we start with those benefits in January how are we going to get people off of those. It’s exponentially harder to remove people once they’ve already been on those programs … we rely on the government for absolutely everything. And in the years since I was a small girl until now into my adulthood with children of my own, we have lost a reliance on not only our own families but so much of what the churches and private organizations used to do. They used to have wonderful food pantries. They used to provide clothing for those that really needed it. But we have gotten away from that. Now we’re at a point where the government will just give away anything.”

It’s hard to know where to start with this quote provided by New York Magazine. First, well, if she thinks food pantries are gone she should visit any of the number of them in our area, including the one run by St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Kissimmee which is supported by so many Solivita people. The same goes for places that supply clothing for those who need them.

But wait a minute, medical care isn’t a pair of pants or a can of beans. Medical care is a basic human need that can’t be provided by a team of volunteers with no skills. And yes, there are free clinics and organizations such as Doctors Without Borders who provide free care. But they can’t begin to meet the need.

So where does that leave conservatives like Ms Ernst? How does a poor person who needs regular medication get it? In fact, how does a poor person find out he/she needs regular medication if they can’t afford to see a doctor?

It seems her answer is “If God wanted you to be healthy he would have seen to it that you were born with wealthy parents.” Of course, she would have given the same response to how does a poor kid get a good education.

The writer for New York Magazine summed up his response:

“That’s the fundamental belief that motivates most, if not all, the conservative opposition. Health care should be a privilege rather than a right. If you can’t afford health insurance on your own, that is not the government’s problem.”

So the answer is that they oppose Obamacare because they don’t want to see poor people getting the same medical care as the more affluent. Because then what’s the use of having money?

Koch Brothers Exposed is a hard-hitting investigation of the 1% at its very worst. This full-length documentary film on Charles and David Koch—two of the world’s richest and most powerful men—is the latest from acclaimed director Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: the High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed, Rethink Afghanistan). The billionaire brothers bankroll a vast network of organizations that work to undermine the interests of the 99%. They are key players behind the Tea Party movement; the assault on health reform, workers’ rights, the Environmental Protection Agency; Wall Street Financial Reform; and climate change deniers, to name just a few. This film uncovers the Kochs’ corruption—and points the way to how Americans can reclaim their democracy.

Watch the Koch Brothers Exposed movie

1. Koch Industries, which the brothers own, is one of the top ten polluters in the United States — which perhaps explains why the Kochs have given $60 million to climate denial groups between 1997 and 2010.

2. The Kochs are the oil and gas industry’s biggest donors to the congressional committee with oversight of the hazardous Keystone XL oil pipeline. They and their employees gave more than$300,000 to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2010 alone.

3. From 1998-2008, Koch-controlled foundations gave more than $196 million to organizations that favor polices that would financially enrich the two brothers. In addition, Koch Industries spent $50 million on lobbying and some $8 million in PAC contributions.

4. The Koch fortune has its origins in engineering contracts with Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union.

5. The Kochs are suing to take over the Cato Institute, which has accused the Kochs of attempting to destroy the group’s identity as an independent, libertarian think-tank and align it more closely with a partisan agenda.

6. According to the Charles Koch Foundation, if you earn $34,000, that puts you in the wealthiest 1 percent. They came to this conclusion by comparing Americans to Ethiopians’ income.

7. Since 2000, the Kochs have collected almost $100 million in government contracts, mostly from the Department of Defense.

8. Koch Industries has an annual production capacity of 2.2 billion pounds of the carcinogen formaldehyde. The company has worked to keep it from being classified as a carcinogen even though David Koch is a prostate cancer survivor.

9. The Koch Brothers have amassed a combined fortune of roughly $50 billion.

10. The Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs accused Koch Oil of scheming to steal $31 million of crude oil from Native Americans. Although the company claimed it was accidental, a former executive in this operation said Charles Koch had known about it and had responded to the overages by saying, “I want my fair share, and that’s all of it.”

Oh No! What do we do now? 

OK. So, that’s what the FL Republican Legislature would say.  😆

Click here to see the latest revelation about ObamaCare.

(Excerpt from WalletHub 2014 Report by John S Kiernan)

States with Democratic Governors or Legislatures have fewer uninsured workers than red states. Low-wage service employees are less able to see a doctor in red states.

A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) provides the best estimate to date of the proportion of private health plan enrollees under Obamacare who previously lacked health insurance and therefore would be gaining coverage under the new law. Based on their nationally representative survey of adults who purchase their own insurance, KFF finds that 57% of private plan enrollees were previously uninsured.

Combining this new data point with information on the number of new Medicaid recipients and private plan enrollees under Obamacare, WalletHub analysts are now able to offer an initial projection of uninsured rates post-Obamacare for 43 states and the District of Columbia.

As more Floridians become aware of how important this election year is, the FDP Leadership Blue Gala set new records for attendance and fundraising. The featured speaker, President Bill Clinton, got the crowd fired up and ready to go!

(Reprint of July/August Edition of Politico by Multi-millionaire Nick Hanauer)

This is, in other words, an economic approach that can unite left and right. Perhaps that’s one reason the right is beginning, inexorably, to wake up to this reality as well. Even Republicans as diverse as Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum recently came out in favor of raising the minimum wage, in defiance of the Republicans in Congress.

One thing we can agree on—I’m sure of this—is that the change isn’t going to start in Washington. Thinking is stale, arguments even more so. On both sides.
But the way I see it, that’s all right. Most major social movements have seen their earliest victories at the state and municipal levels. The fight over the eight-hour workday, which ended in Washington, D.C., in 1938, began in places like Illinois and Massachusetts in the late 1800s. The movement for social security began in California in the 1930s. Even the Affordable Health Care Act—Obamacare—would have been hard to imagine without Mitt Romney’s model in Massachusetts to lead the way.

Sadly, no Republicans and few Democrats get this. President Obama doesn’t seem to either, though his heart is in the right place. In his State of the Union speech this year, he mentioned the need for a higher minimum wage but failed to make the case that less inequality and a renewed middle class would promote faster economic growth. Instead, the arguments we hear from most Democrats are the same old social-justice claims. The only reason to help workers is because we feel sorry for them. These fairness arguments feed right into every stereotype of Obama and the Democrats as bleeding hearts. Republicans say growth. Democrats say fairness—and lose every time.

But just because the two parties in Washington haven’t figured it out yet doesn’t mean we rich folks can just keep going. The conversation is already changing, even if the billionaires aren’t onto it. I know what you think: You think that Occupy Wall Street and all the other capitalism-is-the-problem protesters disappeared without a trace. But that’s not true. Of course, it’s hard to get people to sleep in a park in the cause of social justice. But the protests we had in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis really did help to change the debate in this country from death panels and debt ceilings to inequality.

It’s just that so many of you plutocrats didn’t get the message.

Dear 1%ers, many of our fellow citizens are starting to believe that capitalism itself is the problem. I disagree, and I’m sure you do too. Capitalism, when well managed, is the greatest social technology ever invented to create prosperity in human societies. But capitalism left unchecked tends toward concentration and collapse. It can be managed either to benefit the few in the near term or the many in the long term. The work of democracies is to bend it to the latter. That is why investments in the middle class work. And tax breaks for rich people like us don’t. Balancing the power of workers and billionaires by raising the minimum wage isn’t bad for capitalism. It’s an indispensable tool smart capitalists use to make capitalism stable and sustainable. And no one has a bigger stake in that than zillionaires like us.

The oldest and most important conflict in human societies is the battle over the concentration of wealth and power. The folks like us at the top have always told those at the bottom that our respective positions are righteous and good for all. Historically, we called that divine right. Today we have trickle-down economics.
What nonsense this is. Am I really such a superior person? Do I belong at the center of the moral as well as economic universe? Do you?

My family, the Hanauers, started in Germany selling feathers and pillows. They got chased out of Germany by Hitler and ended up in Seattle owning another pillow company. Three generations later, I benefited from that. Then I got as lucky as a person could possibly get in the Internet age by having a buddy in Seattle named Bezos. I look at the average Joe on the street, and I say, “There but for the grace of Jeff go I.” Even the best of us, in the worst of circumstances, are barefoot, standing by a dirt road, selling fruit. We should never forget that, or forget that the United States of America and its middle class made us, rather than the other way around.

Or we could sit back, do nothing, enjoy our yachts. And wait for the pitchforks.

Nick Hanauer is a Seattle-based entrepreneur.

Shown from left: Harold Miller, John and Michelle Green, Michael and Ilene Malpero, Ellis Moose

The SDC “Blue Balls Bowlers” cleaned up in Lakeland on Sunday, June 8. Michael

Malpero rolled the high game for men and new board member, Michelle Green took top

honors for women.