No voter redo for Florida

• No voter redo for Florida - Democrats

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Not bad for a town whose population is 70,000 people.

http://news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080921/NEWS0107/80921022

(CNN) -- A Florida circuit judge Tuesday struck down a 31-year-old state law that prevents gays and lesbians from adopting children, allowing a North Miami man to adopt two half-brothers he and his partner have raised as foster children since 2004.

"There is no question, the blanket exclusion of gay applicants defeats Florida's goal of providing dependent children a permanent family through adoption," Judge Cindy S. Lederman wrote in her 53-page ruling.

"The best interests of children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption."

The state attorney general's office has appealed the decision.

Lederman said there is no moral or scientific reason for banning gays and lesbians from adopting, despite the state's arguments otherwise. The state argued that gays and lesbians have higher odds of suffering from depression, affective and anxiety disorders and substance abuse, and that their households are more unstable.

Lederman said the ban violated children's right to permanency provided under the Florida statute and under the federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997. Whether the ban violated the state's equal protection clause by singling out gays and lesbians should be considered, she said.

Lederman's ruling paves the way for Martin Gill to legally adopt the two half-brothers, ages 4 and 8, whom he has cared for since December 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union said.

The two boys, who are referred to as John and James Doe in court documents, were removed from their homes on allegations of abandonment and neglect.

On that December evening, John and James left a world of chronic neglect, emotional impoverishment and deprivation to enter a new world, foreign to them, that was nurturing, safe, structured and stimulating," Lederman wrote.

In 2006, the children's respective fathers' rights were terminated, court documents said, and they remained in the care of Gill and his partner.

"Our family just got a lot more to be thankful for this Thanksgiving," Gill said Tuesday, according to the ACLU, which represented him.

Florida is the only state that specifically bans all "homosexual" people from adopting children, although it does allow them to be foster parents.

This month, Arkansas voters approved a ballot measure to prohibit unmarried partners -- same-sex or opposite-sex couples -- from adopting children or from serving as foster parents. The measure is similar to one in Utah, which excludes same-sex couples indirectly through a statute barring all unmarried couples from adopting or taking in foster children.

Mississippi allows single gays and lesbians to adopt, but prohibits same-sex couples from adopting.

Neal Skene, spokesman for the Florida Department of Children and Families, said the appeal was filed so a statewide resolution on the law could be determined by an appellate court. He noted that another Florida circuit judge declared the law unconstitutional this year but that ruling had not been appealed.

"We need a statewide determination by the appellate courts," he said.

Gill's adoption petition cannot be approved until the appeal process is finished, Skene said, but the children will remain in Gill's home.

"These are wonderful foster parents," Skene said. "It's just that we have a statute, [and] the statute is very clear on the issue of adoption."

Several organizations -- including the National Adoption Center, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics -- have said that having gay and lesbian parents does not negatively affect children.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, a nonprofit organization that studies adoption and foster care, hailed the decision.

"This ban, which was the only one of its kind in the country, has done nothing but undermine the prospects of boys and girls in the foster care system to get permanent, loving homes," said Adam Pertman, the Adoption Institute's executive director, in a written statement.

"So this decision by Judge Lederman is a very important, hopeful ruling for children who need families."

Frankly I do not see much good coming from the policies of the last 8 years. An out of sight deficit, home foreclosures, terrible price hikes and job losses, I can;t see the pluses in these. Has Iraq made us safer? My gut tells me no. If there had, in fact been weapons of mass destruction than I would feel differently. I think what has matterd the most protecting the US have been more careful survellience domestically in the form of airline survelliences and the like.

I think Obama has the potential to make some positive changes, domestically and worldwide as well. While there is no guarantee of that I really don't feel that McCain will do to much except to continue more or less to promote the same policies as in the last eight years. We can do better than that. The post 9/11 politics of fear are eating the country alive economically.  While there is never a guarantee that another terrorist attack will not occur, as they do every so often world-wide,  I think it is foolish to sink your economy and play on the fears of its people on the remote chance that another one 'might occur someday.'

I like the message of hope and change that Obama speaks of, and if elected I hope that he is able to achieve some of his goals.

CNN just reported in Raleigh, NC-- people standing in line for 2 hours, and opps, all the sudden there are no ballots....there they are.....they are wet and will not go through the machine, so just put those to the side and we'll run them later. 

Flyers going out saying if you are a dem then voting day is Nov 5.

If you are in college your parents will get taxed if you vote at school.

There seems to be a HUGE list of this kind of stuff.  And who benefits from a lower voter turnout?  Hmmm. 

First, let me say this testimony by a Cal State professor of economics pertaining to the proposed "cap-and-trade" program isn't light reading, but it isn't very long or overly technical, either. It's only a little over 3 pages, double-spaced with generous margins, and takes less than 10 minutes to read, especially since the whole first page is taken up with the economist's credentials and background which you can skip if you wish.

Second, we have to bring a certain mental framework to things like this, which I compare to digging the meat out of a walnut shell.  People like this don't typically use the kind of sensational language that we're accustomed to hearing on the news, and they tend to be rather polite and very low-key in the way they say things, especially when they're addressing a Congressional committee.

So nothing here is "bolded" or "underlined" in the way it's expressed, and ordinary reader like ourselves can easily miss the significance of what this economist is trying to tell the committee, which - if you want to cut right to the chase - is that "cap-and-trade" will destroy our economy.  Now, the economist uses somewhat less drastic terms but only SLIGHTLY less so, and if you simply think about the consequences of his predictions (which he expects the committee members to do), his meaning is quite clear. 

Cap-and-trade is admittedly INTENDED to make energy costs higher, on the theory that higher prices will induce reductions in energy use, hence pollution, etc., etc.  While this might sound like a good theory (odd, though, that those who support it are the very same people who laugh at "trickle-down" economics, which is exactly what this is, in reverse), it actually hides new taxes that consumers will ultimately pay for either directly or in the form of higher prices for literally everything because every good and every service includes an energy cost of one sort or another (and that, in turn, will also mean another layer of increased tax because you pay a higher sales tax when the price of anything goes up - a double whammy, in other words). At 8%, something that costs you $10 today = $10.80.  If the price goes up to $15, you pay $16.20 - which is not only a 50% increase in the price, but also a 50% tax increase on that item.  (It's critical to learn to think in percentages, and also to learn how prices are related to taxes!)

Cap-and-trade may just be the most horrendous idea ever to come down the pike.  This economist thinks so, calling it the "most anti-consumer" idea proposed to any Congress in our history.  This has nothing whatsoever to do with any political party.  It's simply another example of the absolute madness that seems to grip Washington these days - and members of both parties are afflicted with this insanity.

So, as always, here's the link for those who wish to paste it into their browsers, and it's also in the clickable link below.  This is a PDF file and I can assure you that there's no virus risk.

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/robert-michaels-testimony-april-23-2009.pdf

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suburb up the road says farmer is an ignorant redneck who does not check facts.

I'm just a working stiff who relies on the government for certain things, one of which is to preserve my right to vote and for my vote be counted.  It's just wrong that Democratic delegates will not be seated in the state of Florida (for whatever reason).  It's obvious there needs to be some major reconstruction somewhere... gosh... where to start... Very, very upset about this. 

http://larrysinclair-0926.blogspot.com/2008/09/obama-campaign-launches-voter-fraud-web.html

You're making dinner and trying to sit down with your family to eat after an exhausting work week and pouring over your 401K loss report.  You have just found out that the $42,000 you had accumulated as of last spring is now worth $26,040.  You've just turned off the burner under the hot veggies when, BRRRINNNGGGG, the phone rings.  It's the McCain campaign delivering an urgent message to you in the privacy of your own home, assuming you never listen to network news, read a paper or go on line and are unaware of their latest breaking news....telling you that Barack Obama is a terrorist who hangs with other terrorists, on the off chance that it might capture your previously uncommitted vote.  If it happened to me, I would be up with the chickens Monday morning at the early voting polls telling every single peson within earshot that I had just voted a straight Dem ticket.  How dare they?