Neighborhood Buzz
A Blog for Democrats and Independents
Editor - Jerry Meyer
jerrymeyer.meyer1@gmail.com
thevillagesdemocrats.org
sumterdemocrats.com
Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald
A Blog for Democrats and Independents
Editor - Jerry Meyer
jerrymeyer.meyer1@gmail.com
thevillagesdemocrats.org
sumterdemocrats.com
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Update on The Villages June 8th meeting!
Location: La Hacienda Rec. Center 1200 Avenida Central
In the Theater Room
Speakers: State Rep Anna Eskamani and Andrew Gillum
Seating: The room will accommodate 500 people, which is
100 more than our usual meeting site.
Village I.D. Everyone attending must have a Villages I.D.
Club I.D. Paid members will be admitted immediately.
Club I.D. A separate entrance will be set up for members who
may not be current with dues and wish to renew.
Club I.D. A standby line will be set up for non-members who
will be admitted if space is available.
Wrist Bands: Blue Wrist bands will be issued to assure only
500 are admitted to the room. Bands will be
given to members, then if seats are available,
issued to non-members on a first-come, first-
served basis.
Time: Doors open at 9:00 am.
Meeting starts at 9:30 am.
Tables: Due to the location change, not all of the usual
Tables: Due to the location change, not all of the usual
display tables will be set up, However:
The Food Bank Collection Table will be open!
The Food Bank Collection Table will be open!
Thank you for helping make this a comfortable and successful meeting for everyone.
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Political Moderates Discussion Group
The Political Moderates Discussion Group will meet from 6:30 to 8:00 pm on Monday, June 3rd at Seabreeze Recreation Center. This month's speakers are from the League of Women Voters. The topic is "The U. S. Constitution and the Balance of Power: 3 Branches of Government." The powers of and the interrelationship between the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of government will be described, followed by discussion. For more information contact: Sue at sdubman@gmail.com.
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Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald
This week these two papers reported the following story:
Ever since a leaked classified intelligence document revealed that Russian hackers had tried to access Florida's elections networks in 2016 by crafting malware-laced emails, made to look like they came from a software vendor, reporters all over the country have been searching for electronic correspondence sent three years ago to the state's 67 elections offices.
But, could emails crafted by the elections offices themselves hold the clue to determining which two jurisdictions were in fact hacked?
This week, in response to hacking questions sent to every supervisor of elections in the state by the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald, two offices issued the same, legalistic, non-denial. Almost word for word, they gave the same response when asked if their voter registration networks were hacked in 2016, explaining they could not answer questions because to do so could, "directly or indirectly," help determine the answer---which has been deemed classified by the FBI.
It now turns out that at least one of the two offices was, in fact hacked.
Citing anonymous sources the Washington Post and Politico reported that hackers gained access in 2016 to the voter registration database in Washington County, a panhandle jurisdiction of about 16,000 voters. But the identity of the second hacked supervisors' office remains a mystery since the FBI won't say which counties were hacked and Florida's Governor and members of Congress were sworn to secrecy..
Meanwhile, though the FBI has stressed that no data was manipulated by the hackers, there isn't a single one of Florida's 67 supervisor of elections that has admitted to being hacked.
But email responses to hacking questions from elections supervisors in Washington and Sumter might be clues. Both offices issued jargo-filled non-denials to the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald that were nearly identical, save for pronouns and a single sentence. Neither responded to follow-up questions.
Here's how Washington County Supervisor of Elections Carol Rudd responded to the question of whether her office was hacked:
"As your request relates to the potential communications between my office and various federal agencies, including (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) and FBI, and because my answers could either directly or indirectly allow yourself or others, including nation states trying to do harm to our elections process, to ascertain details harmful to national security, I will exercise the protections offered (under the Freedom of Information Act) and (the Cybersecurity Information Security Act) of 2015 in regards to your request," Rudd wrote.
She continued: "I hope you understand that while I am a public official entrusted with and committed to maintaining and promoting fair, accurate and transparent elections, I am also entrusted with maintaining the security of elections. I take this trust very seriously."
Rudd had also issued the same response to a Sun-Sentinel records request for copies of any of the spearphishing emails that were sent by Russian hackers in 2016 and made to appear as if they came from elections vendor VR systems. The Washington Post reported that Rudd declined to address their information that her office had been hacked.
Rudd's email was also notable for this reason: Out of all 67 counties contacted by the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald , one other elections office sent an almost identical email. That email, sent from a general office email account from the Sumter County Supervisor of Elections, included much of the same language.
The Miami Herald checked with two other Florida elections offices, which said they had never seen the text in the emails sent by Sumter and Washington's elections offices. That makes it unlikely that the federal or state governments provided the emails as templates on how to respond to questions from reporters.
Neither Rudd nor Sumter's elections offices responded to follow-op questions about where they'd received the texts in the emails.
That of course doesn't mean that Sumter County - a largely Republican Central Florida Jurisdiction of about 100,000 voters -- was, in fact hacked.
Bill Keene, the current supervisor in Sumter, told the Miami Herald in a brief interview that he has no reason to believe that hackers penetrated his county's voter registration database. Keene, however, qualified that statement by saying he was elected in 2016 and wasn't the supervisor when hackers were trying to spearfish their way into Florida's election networks.
And Keene's office quickly followed his comments by sending an email with the same non-denial language as Washington County. Asked if they were retracting Keene's denial, elections administration coordinator Melissa Steele responded, "Yes, that's the most recent update we have."
Keene' predecessor, however, said that she has no reason to believe Sumter was hacked and said the county's elections network was "heavily guarded." And the Sun-Sentinel reported that Sumter County responded to its records request by denying it had received any of the spearphishing emails.
"The FBI, they were involved in the whole process. They were watching Florida very closely, I don't think or believe in my heart that we were hacked at all," said Karen Krauss, who retired following the 2016 election. "As far as Sumter goes, we were well protected and well guarded by both the State Division of Elections and by the FBI."
But here's the thing about denials: Rudd in Washington County denied her office was hacked last year in an interview with the Panama City News Herald. "There is nothing we have discovered. We really want to put that to rest, because we've worked really hard and have used grant funds in recent weeks to fortify our security systems."
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cltampa.com
The following was posted by Colin Wolf on May 20, 2019:
Leave it to Florida Republican Dennis Baxley to find an incredibly racist reason to ban abortions.
Florida Sen. Dennis Baxley, a descendant of a Confederate soldier and literally the only person to vote against removing the name of a racist judge from a building at Florida State University, is now arguing that Alabama's new oppressive abortion laws are a good thing because, well, the country needs more white people.
While speaking on WLRN's "The Florida Roundup" program, the Ocala Republican stated that he would 100% support a Florida version of Alabama's new anti-abortion laws, which not only makes providing an abortion a felony, it also bans abortions involving rape and incest.
"I certainly expect that this discussion will continue and that I will be part of it." Baxley said on the program.
Of course this is expected from a guy who just last session sponsored a bill that would have required parental consent for minors seeking abortions, and another that banned abortions after a fetal heartbeat was detected.
But during the program, Baxley's well established anti-abortion stance also got a heavy dose of anti-immigrant racism when he essentially said the country needs less abortions to keep "western" culture alive and well.
From WLRN
(Baxley) also suggested that access to abortion is deteriorating the fabric of society and warned of its economic and demograpic impact.
"When you get a birth rate less than 2 per cent, that society is disappearing," he said of Western Europe. "And it's being replaced by folks that come behind them and immigrate, don't wish to assimilate into that society and they do believe in having children. So you see that there are going to be long range impacts to your society when the answer is to exterminate.
(Wolf)
In other words, immigrants are having babies and therefore we (white people) need more babies or our way of life will be replaced.
Never mind that abortions are at an all time low, or that everyone, not just white women should have access to women's healthcare. But this is all very on brand for Baxley whose "heritage not hate" mentality seems to only extend to his very Caucasian heritage. The Ocala Senator has been a regular voice for keeping Confederate statues prominently displayed in public places. But in 2017 Baxley also tried to block a statue from being erected in Florida that was dedicated to the history of slaves. At the time, the senator argued that he wanted the monument to focus on the lives of the slaves and not the institution that caused the suffering. Gee, I wonder why?
History is important, so let's not also forget Baxley's history---like how he authored Florida's incredibly racist Stand Your Ground Bill, or the time he refused to disavow pro-Confederate group just days after the deadly "Unite The Right" rally in Charlottesville, or that other time he sourced an Islamophobic fringe group for an anti-climate change bill.
We don't need a statue to remember any of that, Dennis.
Reprint of a Colin Wolf column on CLTampa.com
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The Miami Herald checked with two other Florida elections offices, which said they had never seen the text in the emails sent by Sumter and Washington's elections offices. That makes it unlikely that the federal or state governments provided the emails as templates on how to respond to questions from reporters.
Neither Rudd nor Sumter's elections offices responded to follow-op questions about where they'd received the texts in the emails.
That of course doesn't mean that Sumter County - a largely Republican Central Florida Jurisdiction of about 100,000 voters -- was, in fact hacked.
Bill Keene, the current supervisor in Sumter, told the Miami Herald in a brief interview that he has no reason to believe that hackers penetrated his county's voter registration database. Keene, however, qualified that statement by saying he was elected in 2016 and wasn't the supervisor when hackers were trying to spearfish their way into Florida's election networks.
And Keene's office quickly followed his comments by sending an email with the same non-denial language as Washington County. Asked if they were retracting Keene's denial, elections administration coordinator Melissa Steele responded, "Yes, that's the most recent update we have."
Keene' predecessor, however, said that she has no reason to believe Sumter was hacked and said the county's elections network was "heavily guarded." And the Sun-Sentinel reported that Sumter County responded to its records request by denying it had received any of the spearphishing emails.
"The FBI, they were involved in the whole process. They were watching Florida very closely, I don't think or believe in my heart that we were hacked at all," said Karen Krauss, who retired following the 2016 election. "As far as Sumter goes, we were well protected and well guarded by both the State Division of Elections and by the FBI."
But here's the thing about denials: Rudd in Washington County denied her office was hacked last year in an interview with the Panama City News Herald. "There is nothing we have discovered. We really want to put that to rest, because we've worked really hard and have used grant funds in recent weeks to fortify our security systems."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cltampa.com
The following was posted by Colin Wolf on May 20, 2019:
Leave it to Florida Republican Dennis Baxley to find an incredibly racist reason to ban abortions.
Florida Sen. Dennis Baxley, a descendant of a Confederate soldier and literally the only person to vote against removing the name of a racist judge from a building at Florida State University, is now arguing that Alabama's new oppressive abortion laws are a good thing because, well, the country needs more white people.
While speaking on WLRN's "The Florida Roundup" program, the Ocala Republican stated that he would 100% support a Florida version of Alabama's new anti-abortion laws, which not only makes providing an abortion a felony, it also bans abortions involving rape and incest.
"I certainly expect that this discussion will continue and that I will be part of it." Baxley said on the program.
Of course this is expected from a guy who just last session sponsored a bill that would have required parental consent for minors seeking abortions, and another that banned abortions after a fetal heartbeat was detected.
But during the program, Baxley's well established anti-abortion stance also got a heavy dose of anti-immigrant racism when he essentially said the country needs less abortions to keep "western" culture alive and well.
From WLRN
(Baxley) also suggested that access to abortion is deteriorating the fabric of society and warned of its economic and demograpic impact.
"When you get a birth rate less than 2 per cent, that society is disappearing," he said of Western Europe. "And it's being replaced by folks that come behind them and immigrate, don't wish to assimilate into that society and they do believe in having children. So you see that there are going to be long range impacts to your society when the answer is to exterminate.
(Wolf)
In other words, immigrants are having babies and therefore we (white people) need more babies or our way of life will be replaced.
Never mind that abortions are at an all time low, or that everyone, not just white women should have access to women's healthcare. But this is all very on brand for Baxley whose "heritage not hate" mentality seems to only extend to his very Caucasian heritage. The Ocala Senator has been a regular voice for keeping Confederate statues prominently displayed in public places. But in 2017 Baxley also tried to block a statue from being erected in Florida that was dedicated to the history of slaves. At the time, the senator argued that he wanted the monument to focus on the lives of the slaves and not the institution that caused the suffering. Gee, I wonder why?
History is important, so let's not also forget Baxley's history---like how he authored Florida's incredibly racist Stand Your Ground Bill, or the time he refused to disavow pro-Confederate group just days after the deadly "Unite The Right" rally in Charlottesville, or that other time he sourced an Islamophobic fringe group for an anti-climate change bill.
We don't need a statue to remember any of that, Dennis.
Reprint of a Colin Wolf column on CLTampa.com
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