December 19, 2017

Dean Trantalis

PO Box 81241

Boca Raton, FL 33481

Candidate Trantalis,

Even if there were no other reason to vote against you – and believe me, there are many – your return address is more than sufficient. The office you seek is that of the Mayoralty of Ft. Lauderdale. Were no PO boxes available here?

#1 – You tout your vote against the Bahia Mar project as something approaching a “Profiles in Courage” moment, if not a Thomas More scenario. How did it turn out?

#2 – Thank you for protecting “public land from private profit? May I infer that while you are opposed to “private profit” you are not opposed to public profit or, heaven forefend, generic, sectarian, or non-denominational profit?

#3 – Should a minor te deum be raised because you are opposed to “poor planning”? Logic would dictate, with Logic being the bete-noire of modern American Liberals, that you are in favor of “good planning”. Which is your favorite model?  Cuba? Zimbabwe? Venezuela? Candidate Obama, a noted community activist cast in the successful templates of Lenin and Hitler, promised in 2008 to “cool the earth and calm the seas”. How did that work out? Can you say less?

#4 – Congratulations on getting a law degree without ever reading the Constitution. Which part of the First Amendment don’t you understand? The only occupation specifically mentioned and protected by the Constitution is lobbying. Look it up, you twit.

The First Amendment, the one that allows, indeed encourages, NARAL, NAMBLA, and the Westboro Baptist Church to make public nuisances of themselves, is the same one that protects “the pursuit of private profit from public lands” and the accompanying advocacy thereof.

The same right – “Free men speak with free tongues” – that allows Kathy Griffin to parade around with severed head of Donald Trump is the same right that allows me to say that if, God help us, you become Mayor you probably shouldn’t stand too close to anybody named Moscone.

When Steven Colbert said that “Trump’s mouth was a cock holder for Putin” could that have been seen as a homophobic slur?

Kevin Smith

PS – The front of your mailing piece shows a maritime setting of boats and condos. In addition to the photo being out of focus, I have reason to believe that while the ocean is visible it is not the ocean directly East of Fort Lauderdale. That’s the ocean that will take you to the Bahamas and to Bayonne, France. Could you tell me the name of the South/North street between the marina and the potentially raging and perpetually rising sea? While you’re at it, what is the name of the East-West street between the condos and the marina?

Another, perhaps touchier subject. 

George Moscone and Harvey Milk were murdered during the glorious reign of Jimmuh Carter. They both are still dead and will be dead for a long time. Whatever the panoply of Moscone’s public/private peccadilloes were, paedophiliac pederasty, unlike Milk’s plentiful CV, is not to be found. Why is Milk on a stamp while the just as dead Moscone is not? Roman Polanski went on the lam to avoid the consequences of paedophilia. Judge Moore, accused of the same, will be opening a riding school soon. Harvey Milk gets a ship named after him. Go figure.

December 17, 2017

Commissioner Tim Ryan

115 South Andrews Avenue

Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301

RE: Tax breaks, tax cuts…and who gets the shit end of the stick? The undeserving poor, victims of life’s circumstances all, the wretched of the earth, that’s who! Some comments on your unlinkable mini op-Ed in today’s Sun Sentinel, on how fire-breathing modern American Liberals, nit-wits, jackanapes, and mountebanks like you, always can tell the buttered side from the dry.

Commissioner Ryan,

Tell me again, and in time for Festivus, why tac cuts have to be “paid for” but spending increases and tax increases don’t have to be counter balanced?

You speak of the Broward County Commission doing some inside baseball, lateral arabesque maneouvers that will enable property owners who are mostly White and decidedly upper middle class to tax shelter $ from the clutches of the tax man.

Tell me again how this benefits inner city moms, all of whom are women of color with children in need of a good Ritalin program who are denied the benefits of Midnight Basketball because of a lack of affordable public transit.

Residents of Section 8 housing, at least in Broward County, are invariably people of color and almost all of whom are “are unlucky in life’s lottery”, don’t own municipal bonds. The melanin-challenged landlords do. How can you proclaim your devotion to the succor of the former while serving the economic interests of the latter? It sure as Hell sounds like bullshit to me, particularly from someone who is devoted to manatee suffrage.

I figured you to be a zealot for Ida Tarbell, the Beards, and Howard Zinn, but it seems that you have sent them to Coventry. You say it will save taxpayers “millions”. Even though I am not from Ferguson, another trip wire for modern American Liberals, can I ask you to “show me”?

Kevin Smith

PS – Poor Black folk subsidizing rich White folk? Whodathunk? Do something with that picture. It looks like you have your too small, no exit,l tighty-whiteys on backwards

December 13, 2017

Randy Schultz

Randy@bocamag.com

One of the acceptable minor vices of modern American Liberals, and let there be no argument that you are the paradigmatic template of same, is the constantly unconscious need to prove over and over that Orwell was right.

Your Op-Ed in today’s Sun Sentinel, the one titled “Prepare for next attack on the Ag Reserve”, proves my point.

“Animal Farm” and “1984”, 2 Orwell books that your ideological and political forebears tried to blacklist and ban because they were thought – and rightfully so – to be disrespectful of Stalin, said “All pigs are equal; some pigs are more equal than others”. Hold that thought.

The Ag Reserve, a scheme that proves that Progressives love mankind but hate people, denies citizens use of their land for living purposes. The most endangered species in America is a rational, working bi-pod who wants to provide for his family. Some citizens of Palm Beach County cannot afford to live on Worth Avenue or Manalapan or Wellington. A wily capitalist, doubtless aided and abetted by the notorious Koch Brothers and their pursuit of the filthy lucre dangled as bait by an insidious Mammon, wants to use public land to build private houses. Perish the thought.

In your first paragraph, herein printed in its entirety, you write

“For the third time in six months, a proposal to undermine the will of Palm

   Beach County voters has been withdrawn, supposedly for further review.”

The Sun Sentinel

Today

You

[italics mine]

You speak of the will of the people as if it were holy writ, as if it came ex cathedra. How can anyone tamper with the will of the people?

Vox populi is great.

Some vox populi is not as great as others.

There is no sense being a modern American Liberal unless you Major in Eclectic Indignation and Minor in Eclectic Memory

62% of Florida’s voters voted against same-sex marriages. In fact, no state where it appeared on the ballot voted in favor of it. Would that qualify as “undermining the will of the people”?

I guess “the will of the people” only counts when it corresponds with the will of those who know what’s best for the “people”. If it doesn’t, tough tittie.

Another common point shared by modern American Liberals is hating all lobbying and all lobbyists. I may have to walk that remark back. “All” is too catholic a term. NARAL hacks are good; anyone representing SEIU thugs is OK; feral felons, the non-melanin challenged ones, caterwauling about Black Lives are just fine…. there may be a pattern developing here, no?

I mention lobbying because it is the only profession mentioned in the Constitution. It’s right there in the First Amendment. “…the right of the people to peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances” shall not be abridged.

Look it up. Get back to me.

Kevin Smith

WARRIORBARDIT@BELLSOUTH.NET

December 10, 2017

“Mayor” Commissioner Beam Furr

115 S. Andrews Avenue

Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301

RE: Climate Change, “settled science”, and why do modern American Liberals always want more power? Some comments on your mini Op-Ed in today’s Sun Sentinel

“Mayor” Commissioner Furr,

Pop Quiz

What ended the last Ice Age?

Global Warming. Honest. You could look it up.

Speaking of “settled science”, Ptolemy’s version of the universe was “settled” for 15 centuries. What “unsettled” it? Hint. Google Galileo.

Since we all know that sea levels are rising – Think stone crabs cavorting in the Sawgrass Mall by next June – do you have Plan B for dealing with dropping water front property values and the concomitant drop in tax revenues? Do you think mortgage applicants should be apprised of the certain risk of their indentured property becoming a manatee refuge? Why should the Feds insure water front property?

Other than being compared to the world’s tallest midget or the 3^rd largest non-commercial building in Wichita, what does the “Mayor” of Broward County do?

Kevin Smith

PS – I know life ain’t easy for a boy named Sue. How about Beam?

December 10, 2017

Former Mayor Barbara Sharief

Broward County Commission

115 S. Andrews Avenue

Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301

RE: Some comments on your earth-shattering mini Op-Ed in today’s Sun Sentinel.

Former Mayor Sharief,

If it wasn’t a misprint or sabotage, you are in danger of having your epaulets ripped off and your name being struck from the rolls of the “I Love Margaret Sanger and Dr. Mengele Amazon Brigade”.

You say that pregnancy is to be included in the Broward County Human Rights Act as a protected status.

Logic would dictate that you must begin to condemn abortion in as loud a voice as you have. Since 35% to 40% of all the abortions performed in this country since 1973 have been done on Black women there is also the genocide factor to consider. The force of law is on your side.

You go, girl!

Kevin Smith

December 10, 2017

Mayor Mike Ryan

City Hall

10770 West Oakland Park Blvd.

Sunrise, FL 33351

RE: The people have spoken, the reptiles – Some comments on your mini Op-Ed in today’s Sun Sentinel

Mr. Mayor,

Do remember Sheriff Kenneth the Short? He backed a referendum that would have made him Mayor for Life. His first act would have been to invade and occupy Palm Beach.

And when he picked up more Black Hawk helicopters he and his Praetorian Guard would have taken over the Bahamas.

In a fit of common sense, something not commonly found in Broward County the paradigmatic template of modern American Liberalism, the people said nyet to his skinny little tight ass. In a fit of pique, he turned to a life of crime and went to prison.

Speaking of the populi voxing, the “deplorable” electors voted overwhelmingly against same-sex marriage, remember?

Maybe the next time an important question is on the ballot all votes should be made public.

Kevin Smith

December 6, 2017

Michael Putney

The Miami Herald

RE: Specifically, all hail the Bramans for funding an art museum in Miami. Universally, all hail dead rich White guys for funding all sorts of good stuff.

Michael, 

A digression of sorts, one that takes me back to Bayonne.

I am without a phone or computer since Monday afternoon. And when was the last time you heard Spiro Agnew being cited in other than damning terms? It was he who was on the receiving end of a technological SNAFU approaching FUBAR when he declaimed “the perversity of inanimate objects” as the culprit.

The uptick is that I went back – temporarily – to newspapers. The Sun Sentinel is  D to D+ while the Herald is making progress to being B-.

And there you were praising the Bramans for spending their money on things other than undrowning polar bears, supporting the right to arm bears, 4^th trimester abortions, and finding miracles attributable to Wide-Bottomed Hillary. 

Which brings me back to Bayonne.

I grew up thinking all libraries were as big and beautiful as mine was. As I grew older it became majestic. This was not a “shovel ready” job, financed by mendacious Mandarins. [Speaking of Chinese money-lending, Hillary spent her entire time in the Senate raling against borrowing money from the Chinese. When she was confirmed as Secretary of State she filled a plane with Monica Lewinsky wanabees to convince the same wily Orientals to continue to do so.] It was built and paid for by Andrew Carnegie.

Back from Holy Cross and into the land of counterpane

but my electronic escape routes have been restored

Thank God for wretched excess! Thank God he made it, kept it, and then gave it away.

One of the physicians who treated me today has a daughter at Vanderbilt. I told him to offer a minor te deum for dead rich White guys.

Caitlin the Fair, my eldest granddaughter, is on the Dean’s List at SCAD. And she had 3 5 credit courses! She has had several big sales. Maybe you could use your considerable juice to slip her into the not quite starving student section of the new museum.

KS

PS – Leonard Pitts, who use to be one of my favorite polemicists, has devolved into a “one tool fits all” polemicist. Since his tool is a hammer, everything must be a nail. His universal nail is race with all its divers diverse diversions and divisions

December 3, 2017

Commissioner Barbara Sharief

115 S. Andrews Avenue

Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301

RE: You cite an impressive list of accomplishments when you were “Mayor” of the Broward County Commission in your mini Op-Ed in today’s Sun Sentinel. Pray, permit me to take a peek behind the curtain.

Commissioner, nee Mayor, Sharief,

Are you familiar with the term “tits on a bull”? That is the only valid description for “Mayor” of the Broward County Commission.

You say the unemployment rate “dropped to 3.3%” when you were Mayor. Before I get to the 25 century-old Logical fallacy, a fallacy discovered and codified by the original DWEMs – Dead White European Males, not to put too fine a point on it – can I ask you if you are responsible for the Patriots winning the last Super Bowl? It happened when you were Mayor, didn’t it? My eldest granddaughter made the Dean’s List this semester. Should I send you flowers also?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been growing like Topsy. Did you have a hand in that? How about the weather? Was it you or Vivaldi? We have an opioid crisis, plus the ongoing teen-age bullying and obesity crisis. They happened when you were “Mayor”. Are you responsible for any of them?

I can say “tits on a bull” for 2 reasons.

#1 – “Free men speak with free tongues”

#2 – “tu quoque” – If Kathy Griffin can walk around with a severed head looking like Trump I can say “tits on a bull”, right?

Today’s Logic lesson, a gift from those long dead – 25 centuries – DWEMs. Dead White European Males for the great unwashed. It is called post hoc ergo propter hoc. Also, add tautologies and circular reasoning. As a card carrying, fire breathing modern American Liberal it sure as Hell beats thinking. You go, girl!

Kevin Smith

December 3, 2017

Representative Kristin Jacobs

4800 W. Copans Road

Coconut Creek, FL 33063

Ms. Jacobs,

It is painfully obvious that the experimental stem cell treatment, the one that was trying to get your IQ over the ambient temperature, hasn’t worked. I am loath to pile on when you say something so egregiously dumb – think spiking an injured baby seal in the end zone – so I will spare you the much-needed lecture on the Theory of Nullification.

Nullification was the theory posited by John C. Calhoun that was proved wrong at Appomattox in April, 1865.

You not only – think flogging a dead horse – do CPR on it but you are attempting to expand it exponentially. [“Exponentially”? Send a SASE] 

Welcome to the world of Sanctuary Swamps!

I’m from New Jersey.

You can call everything north or south of Alligator Alley anything you want. Everglades has a nice euphonic ring to it. [“Euphonic”? Send a SASE] In Jersey, it would go by its proper name: Swamp.

You congratulate one state official for disobeying another state official, with the latter having jurisdiction over the former. It is not quite a Thomas More moment [Thomas More? Send a SASE] But it is yet one more example of the smarmy modern American Liberal contempt for the Rule of Law.

The not-quite Thoreau “Why aren’t you in jail, Ralph?” moment – [“Thoreau/Ralph/jail” Send a SASE] – is all about issuing drilling permits in the aforementioned swamp.

Full disclosure requires me to tell you that I fracked my first well in January, 1974.

Logic would dictate that if you are opposed to drilling you must therefore be opposed to the so-called benefits of drilling. Logic would dictate [Logic? For a modern American Liberal? Send a big SASE] that you must do the following:

#1 – Turn off all the A/Cs you control

#2 – Ban the use of cars for all public employees.

#3 – Ban all plastics, particularly in hospitals.

#4 – Ban all bovine, porcine, corvine, and equine eructations.

#5 – Manatee suffrage. Immediately

Jeezus Hiatch Keerist but you are a boob.

Kevin Smith

December 3, 2017

Fred Grimm

The Sun Sentinel

500 E. Broward Blvd. 

Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394

RE: How dare they pay a coach for failing? Some comments on your award-winning homage to Harriet van Horne, the Queen of Lachrymosity [“Another lash on the backs of the poor!] in the glory days of the pre-Murdoch New York Post when Schiff and Wechsler kept us apprised of the latest Republican outrages as outlined in your Op-Ed column in today’s Sun Sentinel. And God Bless Coach Bear Bryant.

Mr. Grimm,

It’s easy being an ink-stained modern American Liberal when it gets down to “nut-cutting” time, “lick-log” time in mixed company, if you prefer. Something is either “fair” or it isn’t. Once that determination has been made, one made much simple by removing the thinking portion of the decision equation, the rest is easy. Fill in the blanks, paint by the numbers, no?

[Jeff Bezos had his net worth increase by $20,000,000,000 in one day last week. That is a prima facie case of “unfair” but since he likes to stick a sharp stick in the Trump’s eye so modern American Liberals will withhold judgment.]

How “unfair” is it for the University of Florida to give fired coach Jim McElvaine a $7.5 million-dollar golden parachute when inner city Moms, usually women of color, with children destined to be feral teenagers who could have been helped by the salubrious effects of Midnight Basketball but were denied access to a Ritalin clinic because of the lack of public transit to serve those neighborhoods filled by people who are “unlucky in life’s lottery. Don’t forget that these gallant ladies are constantly abused and victimized by the siren-call of low prices at Walmart. It must be Hell!

Anyway, and listen up you horse’s ass. It was in his contract. Both parties agreed to it. There was no duress, no subterfuge, no Luca Brasi holding a gun to someone’s head. One solution to the existential “unfairness” of it all would be to do away with scholarships, followed quickly by getting out of the TV contracts. Naturally, there would be no charge for tickets. Only Florida residents could play for the Gators. Saturday day games would start at 8:00 AM before the afternoon sun gets too hot. You may want to take a peek at the University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, and New York University as example of athletic powerhouses changing directions 

As to Coach Bryant…when he began to win championships by the bushel he decided that he would be paid one dollar less than the chancellor of the university. When the Bear got a raise, everybody got a raise.

That was “fair” wasn’t it?

Kevin Smith