The Jeb Bush Nobody Knows -- Part 12: The Top 3 Reasons Alec Baldwin Visited Jeb in FL

Lt Gov Brogan: "I told Alec he could meet us here -- in front of the flag."
Gov Jeb Bush: "Geesh; no wonder he's lost…"

The Jeb Bush Nobody Knows -- Part 12: The Top 3 Reasons Alec Baldwin Visited Jeb in FL

Written by summer - a former Dem, now an independent and a FL certified teacher

Reason #3 - THANK YOU, JEB. Although not reported in the media, Alec actually came to Tallahassee to personally thank Jeb, for instituting an equal opportunity program - one which the Clinton/Gore Administration approved as complying with federal and state civil rights requirements. (Gov. Jeb Bush's equal opportunity program is known as : "One Florida.")

From this statement, by Gov. Jeb Bush:

"The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights has found the One Florida Initiative fully consistent with Florida's historic federal/state civil rights partnership agreement. This welcomed action by the Clinton/Gore administration suggests that the truth about One Florida's positive impact is beginning to shine through. I remain committed to sharing that truth with all Floridians."

Reason #2 - THANK YOU, JEB.Although Gov. Bush Jeb and Alec were mentioned today on Page Six in the NY Post, the brief blurb did not include another reason Alec came to thank Jeb. Gov. Bush recently appointed two highly qualified, new judges to serve FL's highly diverse population:

(a) Gov. Jeb Bush appointed a highly qualified male immigrant was appointed to the bench in Pinellas County. This new judge may be the first Korean to be appointed to such a position in FL.

More information is available here.

An excerpt from above link:

Tuesday, March 5, 2002

St. Petersburg Times

Judge is pioneer on the bench

By William R. Levesque

Seung Woo "Sonny" Im moved to Florida from his native South Korea in 1974, an 11-year-old overwhelmed by a different language and culture.

Before long, he found himself fascinated by the government of his new country.

"Coming from a country where political leaders came to power by various means, it amazed me in the United States to watch people step down from power in a peaceful way. I became fascinated with the Constitution," Im said.

On Monday, Im fulfilled his parents' immigrant dreams when Gov. Jeb Bush appointed him to a Pinellas County judgeship, making Im the first Asian-American in Pinellas-Pasco, and perhaps the entire Tampa Bay area, to be appointed to the bench.

Im, 38, said he thinks he may be the first Floridian of direct Korean descent to be appointed to a Florida judgeship.

"It's a validation, of sorts," said Im, a Republican who specialized in criminal and corporate law. "If you had stopped us at the Miami airport in 1974 and pointed to me and said, "That boy is going to be a judge,' they might have laughed at you."

This is Bush's second notable judicial appointment in the area. In November, the governor appointed Debra Roberts as a Pasco judge, the county's first African-American jurist.

...The Asian population in the Tampa Bay area has more than doubled in the past decade, according to the U.S. Census. In Hillsborough, about 21,000 people listed their race as Asian for the 2000 census. In Pinellas, the figure was nearly 19,000.

Prabodh C. Patel, president of the Florida chapter of the Asian-Pacifica American Bar Association, said he thinks Im is the second person of Asian descent to have been appointed to a Florida judgeship. He said another judge in Broward holds the distinction of having been the first.

Patel said Bush's appointment sends a positive message to the Asian community.

"I think we are achieving racial balance in the appointment of judges," he said. "I would say that it inevitably leads to more understanding of cultural and social problems of the Asian community."….

(b) Alec also thanked Gov. Jeb Bush for appointing another highly qualified person to the bench. Alec read about this "unexpected but widely acclaimed choice" in a Miami Herald article here.

Excerpt of Miami Herald article:
Tuesday, March 5, 2002
Miami Herald

Black lawyer appointed judge of Circuit Court

By Beth Reinhard and Brad Bennett

In an unexpected but widely acclaimed choice, Gov. Jeb Bush on Monday appointed an African-American lawyer born in a Fort Lauderdale housing project, Elijah H. Williams, to serve on the Broward Circuit Court.

Williams, 42, joins Judge Ilona Holmes to become the second black judge on the current Broward circuit bench, and only the fifth ever.

He has been in charge of legal affairs at the Broward Sheriff's Office since 2000. As a youngster, he worked at a Fort Lauderdale florist's shop and dreamed of joining the stream of lawyers coming and going at the courthouse.

A black man has not served on the circuit bench for nearly two decades, since Henry Latimer resigned in 1983.

''The historic significance will be irrelevant unless I do an outstanding job as judge,'' Williams said in a statement.

Greg Durden, president of the T.J. Reddick Bar Association of black attorneys, said: ''The whole black community is buzzing with the news.''

Only three of Broward's 77 judges are black: Holmes on the circuit court and Mary Rudd Robinson and Zebedee Wright on the county court. ….

''I want to thank the governor for helping to diversify the bench,'' Holmes said. ''This is historic.'…'

Reason #1 - THANK YOU, JEB. In addition to thanking Gov. Bush for his recent, historic appointments to the bench, Alec wanted to thank Jeb for setting an example worthy of notice to People for the American Way, as that organization reportedly opposes a judicial nominee supported by blacks in Mississippi, as explained here:

NYT - NATIONAL DESK | February 17, 2002, Sunday

Blacks at Home Support a Judge Liberals Assail

By DAVID FIRESTONE (NYT) 1641 words
Late Edition - Final, Section 1, Page 22, Column 1

LEAD PARAGRAPH - Back in Washington, his opponents have depicted Judge Charles W. Pickering as the personification of white Mississippi's oppressive past, a man so hostile to civil rights and black progress that he is unfit for promotion to a federal appeals court.

But here on the streets of his small and largely black hometown, far from the bitterness of partisan agendas and position papers, Charles Pickering is a widely admired figure of a very different present….

Thank you, Governor Jeb Bush, for being the one to set an example others should follow.

The "Animated" Alec: "Thank --- you ---JEB!!!"

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Note: The above "Animated Alec" was created by: pt17, FR poster.

Hope I'm not repeating but just look how this turns into beating that tired old election 2000 drum.

Posted on Fri, Mar. 08, 2002

Tallahassee Democrat
Actor compares 2000 election to Sept. 11
Alec Baldwin says disputed vote damaged democracy
By Bill Cotterell
DEMOCRAT SENIOR WRITER

Florida's 2000 presidential election fiasco damaged democracy as badly as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks hurt the nation, actor Alec Baldwin said Thursday.

Baldwin told a Florida A&M University audience that President Bush and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, are hoping that a wartime "moratorium on criticizing the government" will help Republicans in the fall elections.

Baldwin, a New Yorker, said memories of Sept. 11 have overshadowed public doubts about the 36-day recount of Florida presidential ballots. He said the war makes it hard for Bush critics to remind voters of "this other disaster that we faced in this country - a disaster that ... has done as much damage to our country as any terrorist attack could do, in some ways.

"I know that's a harsh thing to say, perhaps, but I believe that what happened in 2000 did as much damage to the pillars of democracy as terrorists did to the pillars of commerce in New York City," Baldwin said, drawing applause from the breakfast audience of about 200.

Bush spokeswoman Elizabeth Hirst said the governor signed legislation last year providing $24 million in election-reform funding over two years, including $6 million for voter education and $2 million for a statewide registration database. Much of the rest will go for replacing punch-card voting equipment and training poll workers to avoid what happened in the presidential election.

"Florida has moved on and America has moved on," she said. "We've got a president with incredibly high ratings now."

The governor also is running substantially ahead of Democratic challengers in Florida polls.

Baldwin is a board member of People for the American Way, a liberal lobbying group that sponsored the two-day observation of the second anniversary of a mass march on Tallahassee. The march protested the governor's 1999 executive orders that supplanted affirmative action in university admissions and state contracting.

As in a rally at St. Mary's Primitive Baptist Church on Wednesday night, speakers at the FAMU prayer breakfast focused more on the disputed 2000 presidential election than the One Florida protests they were commemorating. Baldwin and other speakers warned that voters will face new challenges this year because legislative and congressional redistricting is changing political boundaries.

He said the White House and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, along with the governor and other Republican leaders, are banking on the news media and voters staying distracted by the war on terrorism.

"When Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon spokespeople say to you, 'Well, this is going to be a long war, we're going to be in Afghanistan for the long haul,' what that euphemism means is that the moratorium on criticizing the government must be extended longer and longer and longer - ideally, beyond the 2002 election," Baldwin said.

Participants in the rally and prayer breakfast included Sen. Kendrick Meek, D-Miami, and former Rep. Tony Hill of Jacksonville. The two staged a sit-in at the lieutenant governor's office Jan. 18-19, 2000, demanding to see Bush about One Florida. The sit-in led to a March 7 march of about 12,000 protesters on the Capitol and a voter-registration drive that boosted black turnout by about 65 percent in the presidential election.

Meek said the governor could be in trouble if people "remember in November" what happened two years ago.

"It's like a hurricane, starting like a tropical storm and going to Category 1, Category 2," Meek said. "That's what I feel is coming in November. In this upcoming election, for the first time in state history, we're going to make sure everyone's vote is counted."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contact reporter Bill Cotterell at (850) 599-2243 or bcotterell@taldem.com.

He said the war makes it hard for Bush critics to remind voters of "this other disaster that we faced in this country - a disaster that ... has done as much damage to our country as any terrorist attack could do, in some ways.

Mr. Bladwin, do you have a clue what is going on this world? It's not about you and your poor widdle dem buddies who think you all got shafted.

If you could remove your mellon from you rear, you self centered reprobate, you'd see THAT WE ARE IN DANGER! NOBODY GIVES A RATS REAR THAT YOU THINK THAT BECAUSE YOUR DUPE DIDN'T WIN THAT'S MUCH WORSE THAN 3,000 DEAD CITIZENS.

Are those rocks you carry around in your head heavy Mr. Baldwin?

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