Florida, other state secession petitions due White House response

We told you last month about the state seccession petitions that popped up on the White House's "We the People" website shortly after President Barack Obama won re-election. The window to garner enough signatures to warrant a White House response passed this week for most of these petitions; Florida and other states met the mark.

Petitions must have at least 25,000 signatures within 30 days of their submission.  The New Yorker reported that petitions were filed on behalf of all 50 states, but only eight met the threshold needed for a response. Here is that list and the number of signatures the petitions have received as of this blog posting:

-Texas, 119, 617
-Louisiana, 37,430
-Florida, 35,310
-Georgia, 32, 448
-Tennessee, 31,479
-North Carolina, 30,808
-Alabama, 30,580
-South Carolina, 25,064

Mel Martinez on higher taxes: “Republicans are going to have to swallow the pill."

Florida’s former senator and a one-time head of the national Republican Party, Mel Martinez, said Thursday that members of his own party need to get ready to go along with higher taxes.

“Republicans are going to have to swallow the pill they don’t want to swallow,” Martinez said on a conference call with reporters about the effects of the so-called “fiscal cliff” debt talks in Washington.

But, Martinez said, Democrats also need to “confront the most-ardent of their supporters” as well. They need to help tackle the “elephant in the room:” entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

If there’s no debt deal between Republicans and Democrats in Washington, Martinez warned, tax increases will rise on everyone, federal programs will be cut, recession could ensue and, according to a defense-industry study, Florida could lose 80,000 jobs.

Bondi says 'Obamacare' already having negative effect on businesses

Other Republican leaders in Florida may have softened their tone on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but not Attorney General Pam Bondi. Addressing business leaders at the Florida Chamber's Annual Insurance Summit via video, Bondi said the Supreme Court ruling in June allowed an unjust law to take effect.

She had the sharpest words for the individual mandate provision that Florida challenged but the high court upheld because the related penalties could be viewed as a tax.

"We all know this law would never have gotten through Congress if it had been sold as a new $4 billion tax on the American people," she said. "In this case, the Constitution’s limits on government power did not fail. Political accountability failed because the president and supporters of this law apparently were not straight with the American people."

Bondi also painted a grim picture for how the law is already beginning to impact Florida businesses.

"Unfortunately, national studies are already showing the negative effects that the healthcare law is having on businesses and our economy," she said. "Businesses across the country are raising their prices in order to compensate for their added costs due to Obama’s healthcare plan. If they aren’t raising prices, they’re cutting jobs as a result of the added cost, both of which hurt our economy."

Marco Rubio, Earth and the Elections Industrial Complex

Don’t let the calendar fool you. It’s already 2016.

Like it or not, the Elections Industrial Complex has unofficially declared it so.

We are in a state of constant campaigns brought to you by the political-consultant class, polarizing bloggers, cable TV personalities, political reporters and the ubiquitous partisan trolls who patrol Twitter in search of the latest outrage.

And they’re eying and arguing nonstop over people like Marco Rubio, Florida’s junior senator.

Key West man's death linked to Obama's re-election

A Key West man who told his partner that "if Barack gets re-elected, I'm not going to be around" was found dead on Nov. 8, with the words "F--- Obama!" scrawled on his will and two empty prescription bottles nearby.

Henry Hamilton, 64, owner of Tropical Tan off Duval Street, was "very upset about the election results," his partner Michael Cossey told Police Officer Anna Dykes.

Police spokeswoman Alyson Crean said a cause of death is awaiting autopsy results from the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office but said, "There's absolutely no evidence of foul play."

According to Dykes' report, Cossey returned to the South Roosevelt Boulevard condo he shared with Hamilton after a late night of playing cards with friends and fell asleep on the couch around 6 a.m.

More here

Secession petitions from Florida, other states gain steam after Obama victory

The media has begun to pick up on a new trend seen on "We the People," the White House's citizen-led petition drive site. According to Buzzfeed, over a dozen petitions were filed on the site this weekend asking for the federal government to allow various states to secede from the union, with Texas' being the most popular.

As you will recall, this weekend was when Florida was officially declared a state won by President Barack Obama, essentially putting to rest the presidential election season and finalizing his re-election victory. 

A petition filed by "Nicholas J." on Saturday asks the White House to "Peacefully grant the State of Florida to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government." As we write this post, the petition has 6,215 signatures but the count is steadily rising.

If this petition receives 25,000 signatures by Dec. 10, the White House will respond. By contrast, the Texas petition needs only 2,700 more signatures by Dec. 9 to warrant a response.

The Florida secession petition makes no mention of Obama, nor does it give any specific reasoning other that "in today's world the Federal Government has not led our citizens justly and with honor." It ends with a quote from Benjamin Franklin: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Vote suppression. HB1355. And Florida's latest election debacle

Edgar Oliva waited to vote at Shenandoah Elementary School and fretted.

The line was too long. The clock was ticking. He had to get to work across town.

Twice before, during in-person early voting, he tried to vote but he had to leave because lines were even longer. Tuesday was his third try at voting in between one of his two jobs, cleaning carpets in Doral and working at an airport hotel.

About 4 p.m. on Election Day, he gave up.

“I had the intention of voting but there were always a lot of people,” Oliva, a native of Guatemala, told a Miami Herald reporter as he left the scene.

Oliva had so much company on Tuesday.

Voter after voter who spoke to Herald reporters on Election Day said the longer early voting lines dissuaded them from casting early ballots in person. And then the unexpected long lines on Election Day just compounded the sense of frustration in some places. Many dropped out of line.

The experience played out across the state. Data show the 71.13 percent turnout percentage in 2012 fell well short of the rates in 2008 (75 percent) and 2004 (74 percent).

With all 67 counties in, Obama still the Florida winner, now ahead by more: 73k votes

Palm Beach County, which lagged behind the 66 others, has finally finished counting its absentee ballots and it only helped President Obama.

Obama picked up a net 6,910 more votes over Republican Mitt Romney. That helped increase Obama's overall lead in Florida to 73,694. That's an increase of mroe than 15,600 since Thursday, when The Herald first reported Obama had little chance of losing and that a Romney adviser acknowledged the Republican loss.

Obama's lead now stands at 50.01 percent (4,234,522 votes) to Romney's 49.13 (4,160,828 votes). The results are due now at the Secretary of State's office.

Counties are still counting provisional ballots, which are cast when a voter's status is in doubt. And overseas ballots are still not in. The former often favor Democrats. The latter have favored Republicans. But Obama has pulled relatively strong military support, so the chances that Romney can make up for the loss with overseas ballots looks less and less likely as Obama's lead has grown.

The race won't officially be called until Nov. 20, when the state canvassing board meets to certify the results.

Obama-machine casualty Chris Dorworth says goodbye to FL House he would have led

How the mighty fell amid the Obama machine.

A little while ago, Chris Dorworth sent an email to his Florida House colleagues saying goodbye. Dorworth, R-Lake Mary, was supposed to be House Speaker in just over two years. But he was knocked out by no-name Mike Clelland instead on Tuesday.

To my friends and colleagues in the Republican caucus of the Florida House:

 

Five years ago, I was given one of the greatest honors of my life when the voters of house district 34 elected me in a special election.  Two and a half years later, my classmates in the class of 2008 chose me to serve as the leader of their class.

Why Obama wins Florida

Though votes are still being tallied, President Obama is all but assured a victory in Florida because the lion’s share of the outstanding ballots come from Democratic-heavy counties.

Obama leads Republican Mitt Romney by 58,055 votes — or 49.92 percent to 49.22 — but there just aren’t enough votes from Republican areas to allow the challenger to catch up.

Romney’s Florida campaign has acknowledged their candidate lost in Florida as well. Romney already conceded the national race after he lost the other battleground states.

“The numbers in Florida show this was winnable,” Brett Doster, Florida advisor for Romney, said in a statement to The Miami Herald. “We thought based on our polling and range of organization that we had done what we needed to win. Obviously, we didn’t, and for that I and every other operative in Florida has a sick feeling that we left something on the table. I can assure you this won’t happen again.”

With Florida’s 29 Electoral College votes, Obama will have 332 votes to Romney’s 206.

“We feel we will be the official winner in Florida later [Thursday],” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said. Preliminary results are due from the counties to the state by noon Saturday. The final results are to be certified Nov. 20.

The numbers in Florida look unlikely to change in Romney’s favor.

Miami-Dade finished tallying a backlog of 54,000 absentee ballots Thursday and it marginally increased Obama’s lead.

Still outstanding:

• Broward County. It has about 8,000 absentee ballots outstanding. Obama won Broward 67-32 percent. If those numbers hold, it would give Obama 2,800 more votes.

• Palm Beach County. It could have as many as 8,000 votes yet to add to its tally. Obama won that county 58-41 percent. If those numbers hold, Obama would pick up another 1,360 more votes.

• Duval County. The only non-South Florida County, Duval has about 3,600 absentee ballots to be counted. Romney won it narrowly, 51-48 percent. At that rate, Romney would pick up only 108 more votes.

Even if the estimates from South Florida were reversed and Obama’s extra projected votes were handed to Romney, the Republican would come nowhere near to winning.

The wild card: Provisional ballots. These are cast by voters whose status is in doubt. Often they’re rejected, in part because people vote in the wrong precinct. Most studies show, however, that provisional ballots are more likely to be cast by Democrats than Republicans.

** This post is updated