Good Morning Florida Keys

Below are three perspectives of President Bush’s wars accompanied by more of my two cents’ worth.

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I have enjoyed your recent American Politics writings. I see just now on the internet that John Edwards has announced he is withdrawing from the race. Now we are down to Obama. Clinton, Rommney and McCain. Rommney and McCain are out of the question for me and Hilary is too much like them on the war, leaving Obama unless someone else runs as third party. You accurately describe Mc Cain as learning absolutely nothing from the Vietnam experience. He is definitely a warmonger–and he believes what he says about that.

Hawkman

[Hawkman is an old Alabama amigo. Hawks are his spirit totem. In 1972, he participated in full military dress in Dewey Canyon III, a week-long Vietnam Veterans Against The War demonstration in Washington, D.C.  This was when John Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This was the first time American vets opposed a war while American troops were still fighting in the war. In 2003, wearing his Vietnam ribbons, Hawkman marched in Washington D.C. with veterans and civilians against the Iraq War, which was one month old. In 2005, he marched in a similar demonstration in Atlanta. He often stood on street corners holding a “Peace” poster. He told me Vietnam Veterans against The War now mentors members of Iraq Veterans Against The Iraq War. He supported John Kerry in his bid for president, which I could not do, because Kerry started talking like he was more of a hawk than President Bush, in an effort to get the hawk votes. Kerry eventually disappointed Hawkman, too.]

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Hillary Clinton and her advisers have portrayed themselves as strong opponents of President Bush’s “surge” in Iraq and proponents of withdrawing US troops. Yet last night, according to The Hill, Clinton seemed to applaud the president’s Iraq policy during his State of the Union address

When Bush proclaimed, “Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among terrorists there is no doubt,” Clinton sprang to her feet in applause but Obama remained firmly seated. The president’s line divided most of the Democratic audience, with nearly half standing to applaud and the other half sitting in stony silence.

[Just pulled off Yahoo News. As many problems as I’ve personally had with Barack Obama and his campaign, I stand and salute him and the Democrats who sat in stony silence, while the rest of them stood and cheered President Bush. I stand and salute them for supporting our troops and freedom. I stand and salute them.]

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Only an ingrate would not be thankful to our veterans no matter what war they fought in. Our POW men and woman deserve to be treated with respect and we should all be giving them gratitude for the rest of their lives. When a veteran is shot down as a pilot and spends 2 years in a box, eating eggplant without even salt on it, not to mention the torture and anguish they went through; and you want to sit on your ass and tell them that their service had nothing to do with your freedom or defending America? How dare you use the words that were only given to you by the freedom that we have here in this country. If you are that ignorant keep it to yourself, it only makes you look stupid. If that is how and why you vote it’s a pity you have received that right from the veteran who graciously gave it to you.

[Just pulled off Coconut Telegraph file of bigpinekey.com. Only an idiot still believes there was something noble about America being in Vietnam. Only and idiot still believes our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are defending our freedom and America. What our troops are doing over there is defending President Bush’s mistakes, and if they do not see this yet, then God help them. God help them, for we surely cannot, although we surely have tried. We surely have tried.]

Birmingham:

I was directed in dreams last night to send my Birmingham email list a series of political essays recently published in the Florida Keys and copied to a few people elsewhere. Except for a few old salts from way back when there, I’m always hesitant to send anything to Birmingham, which sometimes seems like a step sister or brother to me, even though I was born and raised, and lived and worked there for quite a few years at different times in my rather peculiar life. Peculiar by today’s standards, although I have little trouble finding somewhat similar parallels in the Old and New Testaments. Somewhat similar. Yet not so similar.

Any of you not already doing so, who wish to keep up with that similar and not so similar, can do so by tracking what is posted nearly daily to the Today’s Fla-Key Drivel file of goodmorningfloridakeys.com and to the Today’s Cock-a-doodle-doo file of goodmorningkeywest.com. The home pages of each website provide a snapshot of my own twisted version of life in the Keys and elsewhere, elsewhere not necessarily being anywhere on this planet, but on it nonetheless.

Were I asked to give anyone in the Keys, or anywhere, advice, it would be to get down on your knees and give sincere thanks to God and your lucky stars that you are not having the similar and not so similar experiences I am having. Having done that, you then might wish to ask God how come I am having experiences nobody else you or I know or know about is having? If any of you get an answer I’d appreciate your passing it along to me, so we both will know how come.

The essays follow in separate emails, one at a time, in the order I was directed to write them. To those of you who have already received some or all of them, I say maybe this is a mulligan.

Sloan

Today is the Florida primary. The National Democratic Party says it will not recognize Florida’s votes, because Florida held its own Democratic primary sooner than the National Democratic Party wanted Florida to hold it. Meaning, maybe only the Republican primary means anything today. Non-partisan, I don’t know if I can even vote today. Even if I can, I don’t know if there’s a candidate on the ballot I can vote for. I’ll find that out when I reach the voting booth.

If I can vote, I will not vote for John McCain. I cannot vote for someone who fought in Vietnam, was a prisoner of war, who still defends that war knowing it was wrong, knowing it had nothing whatsoever to do with defending America. I cannot vote for a veteran who learned nothing in Vietnam. Nothing. We toppled that country’s government, installed our own. It didn’t work. We did the same thing in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it isn’t working, and will not work. I cannot vote for someone who is blind, death and dumb, or is another George W. Bush but with a military background.

What do I know about Iraq and Afghanistan? I know they are about oil. Pure and simple. They are about oil. What do I know about Vietnam? It was about rubber trees. Pure and simple. It was about rubber trees. Perhaps if I write more about that it will somehow get back to John McCain. Perhaps it will somehow wake him up, turn him around. Perhaps. But perhaps he really is just another George W. Bush but with a military background. Perhaps John McCain is simply addicted to war, like America is addicted to oil.

Perhaps, though, John McClain is simply still trying to win in Vietnam by winning in Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps he’s been trying to win in Vietnam ever since America pulled out of there. Perhaps America has been trying to win in Vietnam ever since it pulled out of there, because it got beat. Perhaps that is why America has taken the role of being the world’s policeman, going into war after war, claiming some sort of manifest destiny to do so, some sort of divine authority for it. Because it got beat in Vietnam.

Perhaps if what I know about Vietnam is written, again, here, perhaps it will somehow get back to John McClain. Perhaps it will reach other Americans like him. Perhaps it will wake them up, turn them around. Perhaps.

Let me go to the spring of 2004, in the Unitarian Church in Key West. To a weekly meeting I was attending on Wednesday afternoons. To when we somehow got onto the subject of Iraq and Afghanistan, and some were pro and some con, and one of the pros, who seemed a bit older than me (I was sixty-three), said he was involved in a clandestine op in Vietnam when the French were still trying to reclaim it. It had been a French colony before World War II, and had fallen to the Japanese. The French wanted Vietnam and its rubber plantations back. The French Foreign Legion was in there trying to take it back, and the Vietnamese Resistance were trying to get rid of the French.

This former covert operator said outwardly the United States Government was supporting France and President De Gaulle because we wanted French support in international affairs. But covertly we were supplying the Vietnamese Resistance with what they needed to defeat the French. We did this because we wanted the French out of there, so we could go in ourselves and get what had been theirs. In the end, the former covert operator said, we ended up fighting the same people we had supported. Then, they beat us the same way they beat the French. This is what John McCaine fought for, was shot down for, was interned in a prison of war camp for. This is what every American fought for in Vietnam, knowingly or unknowingly. Sort of makes you sick, doesn’t it? It’s suppose to make you sick.

Maybe you would be even sicker if you knew that I asked the former covert operator that afternoon: Did he realize the importance of what he just told us? He looked as if it was no big deal. When I made more noise, asked the group if they realized the importance of what they’d just heard, something none of us or anyone we knew had ever heard?, they looked as if it was no big deal. I was in disbelief. How could they hear what we’d just heard from someone who was part of it, and not be as affected as I was? I wanted to throw up. I wanted to throw up because I lost two friends in Vietnam; because I had a wife who was one of the students fired upon my national guardsmen at Kent State for protesting that war and she never got over it and the national guardsmen not being prosecuted; because I had felt guilty about not fighting in Vietnam; because this former covert operator and a room full of Americans didn’t seem to see anything wrong with it; and because I’m an American.

In August 1988, I attended a Downtown Rotary Club meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. The upper crust Rotary Club in the Birmingham area. I went as my father’s guest, we traveled in the same car. The guest speaker was the President of the National Geographic Society. His topic was “Getting To Know Our Neighbors.” Our foreign neighbors. He said the Geographic felt that a great deal of good could come out of Americans getting to know people of other lands. He said a study showed that most American high school students could not locate most foreign countries on a map. Like ninety-five percent of American high school students could not locate Vietnam on a map.

After the speaker ended his presentation, someone in the audience asked what was the Geographic’s position on Vietnam? The speaker said the Geographic had correspondents in Saigon when the huge street demonstrations occurred,  Vietnamese carrying signs in English, begging America to come to their aid. Aired on American television. The Geographic correspondents spoke French and/or Vietnamese and interviewed many of the demonstrators. None spoke English. None knew what was on the signs they carried. None lived in Saigon. They lived in the countryside and were paid money by the South Vietnamese Government and bussed into Saigon to demonstrate. Later digging by the Geographic, the speaker said, turned up that the South Vietnamese Government had gotten the money to pay the demonstrators and make the signs from the U.S. Government and U.S. Corporations.

You could have heard a pin drop in the room. The look on the older Rotarians’ faces, most were World War II, Korean or Viet Vets, was shock. My father, a World War II combat vet, looked like he wanted to throw up. He did not speak of it in the car after we left the meeting. He never spoke of it to me. But he came in a dream yesterday, during a nap, and I told him I wasn’t through writing about American politics. I still may not be through, but I can only write so much each day; I can take only so much pounding in my body and spirit, as I’m geared up to write the next piece, and after I write it. I spent most of yesterday in bed after writing yesterday’s Hillary.Obama. I may have to take to my bed after posting this today. If it doesn’t make you sick, too, then maybe you need to see a doctor to find out what’s wrong.

This morning I ran across an invitation I received last week from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The invitation came from Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, inviting me to a dinner honoring Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Sunday, February 24, 2008, at the home of Amarilis and Claudio Osoro, 15 Star Island Drive, Miami Beach, Florida. For $28,500, the maximum amount accompanying material says an individual can contribute to DDCC ($57,000 per couple), I can attend the VIP Reception and Dinner. For $10,000, I can attend the Dinner. No other options given. Contact information is: Missy Kureck at (202) 485-3455. Or Kurek@dccc.org. At the bottom of the invitation is, “Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.”
 
I felt much better reading that. Much better. At least I know it isn’t a Republican Party fundraiser, which it otherwise sure seemed to be. The Republican leading candidate is John McCain, who favors the war in Iraq, which makes him a candidate for Supreme Commander of NAMI (National Alliance of the Mentally Ill). I also felt much better because I know the gig in Miami Beach isn’t a fund raiser for Brack Obama or Hillary Clinton, whom I really can’t tell apart from George W. Bush. At least John McCain fought in combat, was a prisoner of war. At least he knows which end of a gun to hold, so he won’t shoot himself in the face. Maybe not a bad idea, but still, he does have experience under fire. He might, therefore, listen better to his generals and admirals than George W. Bush listened, or Hillary or Obama will be able to listen.
 
I don’t speak that language either, but I know which end of a gun is the business end. If I wuz elected president, first thing I’d do would be tell the generals and admirals to bring our troops home immediately, from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from everywhere. God only knows how much money we’d save, not to mention lives and psychological and spiritual damage, our troops, the other sides troops’, and non-combatants on all sides. God only knows. From what I’ve heard, Ron Paul thinks along similar lines. From what I’ve heard. I never met the man and only heard of him for the first about six months ago. I have felt this way a long time, and applaud Representative Paul for thinking, it seems, similarly. Sandy Downs, who is running for Sheriff of Monroe County, told me that the two times last year she drove to her roots in Kentucky and Indiana, in small towns there were Ron Paul For President signs everywhere. He was being talked about in those towns. No other candidates had a presence. Small towns.
 
In this morning’s Key West Citizen is an interesting letter to the editor from Randolph Becker of Key West. He says he served a congregation in Barack Obama’s home state, Illinois. He has been supporting Obama but he feels a higher approach is needed. Barack and Hillary need to bury the hatchet and put aside partisan arguments. They need to be on the same ticket, blacks and women coming together. Let them put their names in a hat, and someone draws out one name, Democrat presidential candidate, and the other is the vice-presidential candidate. Wow, that really comforts me. It really comforts me because Randolph Becker is not screaming his head off for our troops to be brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan yesterday. I really comforts me because Hillary and Barack might win if they do what Randolph suggests. They might beat John McCain. And I do not hear them screaming their heads off to bring our troops home yesterday.

In today’s Key West Citizen, Cokie Roberts and her husband, Steve, wrote about these three, “How the Democrats could lose — personal conflicts, Achilles heels and McCain.” They said John McCain is ahead of both Clinton and Obama in the polls. Cokie and Steve did not suggest the rabbit out of the hat trick. They just don’t want John McCain to win. According to the italics ending to their column today, Cokie is chief congressional analyst for ABC News, and Steve is a professor at George Washington University and contributing editor at U.S. News 7 World Report. Their syndicated column appears in major newspapers around the country. They can be contacted by e-mail at stevecokie@gmail.com.
 
Cokie was the keynote speaker at my oldest daughter’s graduation from Bryn Mawr College, near Philadelphia, some years ago. Bryn Mawr was the early women’s movement answer to Harvard and Princeton. The Ivy League. Cokie seemed intelligent. She no longer seems intelligent. She no longer seems intelligent because she is not screaming her lungs out for American troops to be brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan. She no longer seems intelligent because she is not supporting Ron Paul. She no longer seems intelligent because she is supporting Democratic candidates who are playing safe in an election year, candidates who surely know these wars were a really bad idea in the first place and still are a really bad idea, and yet they are not saying that the very first thing they will do, if elected, is order our troops home. Far as I’m concerned, Hillary and Barack are really no different from John McCain, except he knows which end of a gun to hold.

All of that aside, I wonder if it ever occurred to Cokie what it might be like for a woman president undergoing menopause. Or what it would be like for America to have such a president? Or vice-president? In never occurred to me wonder that, until a Keys woman brought it to my attention. It also never occurred to me before just now that people would vote for Hillary just because she is a woman, or for Obama just because of his African roots. I would hope they would vote for a candidate who is best for the entire country. Dream on, I suppose. Dream on.

After posting yesterday’s Sandy.Sheriff to Today’s Fla-Key Drivel at goodmorningfloridakeys.com and Today’s Cock-a-doodle-doo at goodmorningkeywest.com , I left Sippin’ Internet Café and headed back to my flat. Near Walgreen’s, I saw Monroe County Mayor Sonny McCoy crossing Duval Street and called out to him. When he turned around, I said, “Good Morning, Sonny, Sloan Bashinsky.” He smiled, walked back to the sidewalk, and then commenced a maybe five minute talk about architecture. Sonny’s an architect. He mentioned books he’d written about architecture, and said, yes, they are in the county libraries. He said he’d even met Frank Lloyd Wright once. When he asked what I was doing in Key West?, I said I live nearby, in a flat in the back of the Wyland Gallery building on Duval. He said he thought I lived up the Keys. No, I live in Key West, I said. He said he was born just around the corner in his family’s home. It was a longer conversation, but that was the gist before we said out goodbyes and he crossed Duval and I continued to my flat wondering what that was all about?

Sonny didn’t know I live in Key West. I have to live in Key West and be registered to vote here to run against him in the upcoming county commission race. I made that announcment in several emails and on two Keys radio stations. I had to live in Key West and be registered to vote here to run in the recent city mayoral race. Sonny lives in Key West. He has received copies of my near-daily missives for quite a while. Years. Does he know I’m running against him? Does he know I ran for mayor? Was it just a senior moment? What was the meaning? Would I write about it? Those were my thoughts walking back to my flat behind Wyland Gallery, where I have lived since last March 21, according to the date on my one-year lease. Actually, I moved in a couple of weeks later. First, I moved all of my art work in and hung it, covering the walls with other people’s and my own art, creating a mini art gallery. Then, I brought down furnishings and kitchen stuff. Then, me and my clothes, wondering why I was back in Key West? Pretty soon I knew I would run for mayor, again. I knew because dreams told me. Just as dreams later told me to run against Sonny.

My dreams throughout last night were a shift in emphasis, away from county politics toward national politics. I’m not sure where that will go for me personally, and rather than speculate, I leave it at that for now. What I can say is that there was plenty of hullaboo yesterday in the national news about Barack Obama trouncing Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in that state’s primary. So maybe I should write a little about Barack, as I’ve had some dealings with his campaign, and have had none with the other two’s campaigns.

Early on, I was moved to make a donation to the Obama campaign, which I sat on until I came up with an amount, which was $2,300. What most appealed to me was his pledge that he wanted to have a dialogue with his constituents. So I started attempting to have a dialogue with him. All that ever came back was something generated by a computer. I kept pointing that out and kept getting back computer replies. Finally, I wrote a hand written letter, which did get a human response. Incredulous that I actually expected Barack to reply to me, he was a busy man running for office, it was unreasonable for me to expect a personal reply. I wrote back that it was not unreasonable at all, saying again that he had said he wanted a dialogue with his constituents, and that is why I contributed $2,300 to his campaign. I asked for a return of my contribution. I received no reply.

Some time passed. I received an email invitation from one Jessica Clark (jessica.clark@barackobama.com) to attend a high-end fundraiser dinner affair near or just above Miami. Barack’s wife, Michelle, would be there, but not Barack. The invitation asked me to contribute $2,300 as my cost of admission. I emailed Jessica back, telling her my history with the Obama campaign and asking if their computer did not know that I had already donated $2,300, and was I going to get that refunded? I received no reply.

Quite a while passed. I received a call on my cell phone from a fellow who identified himself as working for the Obama campaign. At last, I thought. He said he was checking in with me because I had contributed to the Obama campaign. I told him my history with it all the way up to what you have read above. He tried to defend Barack, he’s a busy man, he’s running for president, I should not expect a personal dialogue. I felt like I was talking to a computer. I said I’d still like my contribution back. He said he’d look into it and get back to me. Maybe two weeks later he called me back, said he thought he had been able to do some good and I might be receiving a check refunding my contribution. I thanked him. That was about two months ago. Right, no refund check.

What about Hillary? Birds of a feather flock together. What about John Edwards? Doesn’t look like we are going to have to wonder what about John Edwards. What we have to wonder about is how come the Democrats don’t have anything better to offer than Barack and Hillary? That is if we are Democrats. I’m not. I’m just an American, and while this is a place to start, I’m worried about a lot more than those two. A lot more. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I found myself wondering during the night of many dreams about turning my focus toward national politics, if maybe Sonny McCoy was God’s messenger nudging me away from county politics toward something a bit bigger and a bit more important.

Sloan Bashinsky
Key West
27 January 2008

Following, the text of email exchanges yesterday with an old friend in the mid-west, triggered by yesterday’s Gestapo.Keys.
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Wow. Talk about Trouble in Paradise!?!
 
Today’s post from you – putting thoughts of the Keys back fresh in my mind – leaves me both more intrigued and wanting to spend a day or two there in PARADISE in spite of the corruption, but also wondering IS a tourist SAFE there?!? . What a healing space I found most all of the Keys to be when there last… which was when, Feb 2001, I think?…..that time whole time there I kept thinking about you and “sensing” your presence… and looking toward the face of any man we passed who was about our age…. wondering IF I would recognize you from the one photo I had seen of you IF we’d see you on the street… though not having any reason to know you were there at that time….. yet it turned out you WERE there and we might have crossed paths unnoticed…. or maybe didn’t…. then within days after arriving back home we connected and I learned you were in the Keys at exactly that time. Strange.
 
However, I am DETERMINED that one day I will get to meet up with you in the Keys and we will at least enjoy dinner, lunch or coffee somewhere… you have such a way of bringing the Keys to life in the mind of the readers of your articles.
 
Gloria
 
Hi, Yankee Sister.
 
Visitors are generally welcome and well-treated in the Keys. It’s people who live here who have do deal with the trouble or live or try to live around it. Tell Marty I said “Hi.”
 
Sloan
 
Will do. And it’s good to know that we aren’t likely to end up in some interrogation camp hosted by the sheriff’s deputies if we look at the beach wrong or something!!!!! What a Soap Opera there seems to be going down there. If someone wrote it as a nighttime drama… no one would believe it. Gloria.
 
Some people still don’t believe it, or don’t want to believe it, or pretend they don’t want to. If you want to see what Sandy Downs looks like, her mug shot is on the homepage of sandyforsheriff.com now. Grab your best hold. She got so much free advertising in the past 24 hours, a big Keys radio station played a taped interview with her done yesterday several times today; the Editor of the only Keys daily newspaper was interviewed on the same station today, and said that Sandy’s Sheriff Captain opponent has been so drowned out that he’d have to go to candidate forums dressed in drag to get any attention. It’s a while before the candidate forums, months actually, but it’s a hell of a jump start she’s had, from almost unknown to moving toward being a household name. The really scary thing is she is telling the truth and has the documents and tape recordings to back it up. A whole room full of filing cabinets and boxes of stuff. The history is what’s really important, because it’s all with the Sheriff’s Office. Who knows who hacked the two websites? Could have been a sheriff employee, or could have been someone who had it in for the Sheriff’s Department, or for the Sheriff Captain running against Sandy. A friend here told me yesterday the lawyer who also has announced is a real slime bag and has the people working for him and contacts to hack the websites. I hope people will not let the website hacks divert them from what brought Sandy into the race to begin with, which is one helluva story. Sloan
 
Oh WOW, Sloan. Her energy exudes as that of a very authentic lady!!! I hope she wins this race and is able to make a difference. (LOL! on the opponent having to go to the candidate forums in drag to get attention!!!!).
 
I believed every word of what was in that first email [Gestapo.Keys]… and that’s why I had to ask IF tourists are even SAFE there!!!!
Actually though this exact same sort of crap plays out in so many places these days…. mostly because decent folks either don’t have the time or don’t take the time to take on these (in so many words) gangsters.
 
Gloria

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Postscript. It is very, very important that we in the Keys keep ever in mind that the website hacking is a sideshow. Maybe an important sideshow, but a sideshow nonetheless. The main event is the story Sandy has to tell about her and her family’s and other people’s experiences with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. It is for that reason that I wrote to Sheriff Rick Roth yesterday morning. It is his Office still. It will be his office until his successor takes over after the general election next November. In the meantime, he needs to be doing everything possible to get to the bottom of what Sandy has tried before to get him to get to the bottom of in his own department, and now she is trying again. All Sheriff Roth has to do is hear her out, then have her polygraph examined. He will see the needle does not spike when she tells her incredible story. He will see the documentation she has, hear the tape recording of the detective threatening one of the boys who was hauled out of his home by sheriff deputies without a warrant, threatening death. Then, Sheriff Roth will have names. Then, he will have reason to offer those names an opportunity to clear themselves under polygraph. He will get to see how they respond to his request. Why would any of them refuse, if they are innocent? Why would any of them refuse, if they have sworn to uphold and enforce the law? They wouldn’t refuse, unless they have something to hide. And if Sheriff Roth doesn’t go in this direction, if he does not sit down and talk with Sandy, if he does not have her polygraph tested, what does that say about him? Does it say he already believes her? Does it say he has something to hide? Maybe he should go first in being examined under polygraph. Yeah, maybe he should. It’s his office that’s under fire, the best place to start digging is at the top. If he’s clean, he should eagerly agree to be the first to be polygraph tested. Eagerly agree. Otherwise, Gloria and Marty and everyone else above the Keys should stay home until this brutal war is over. Who knows who might get shot or blown up just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time? The hacker must really hate the Keys to do something so incredibly mean and stupid. Must really hate the Keys. For what he did is generating emails to Sandy from all over the country. He’s made the Keys a national curiosity, the macabre kind the Tourist Development Council and our financially struggling county and city governments, which depend so very heavily on tourism, do not want the Keys be. Thank you very much asshole whoever you are. Maybe Sheriff Roth will find you and put you away for the rest of your natural life. What a service that would be to the Keys. To put you and his own wayward troops away. What a way for him to go out of office. A real law enforcement officer. The kind of law enforcement officer Sandra Downs will be. The kind of law enforcement officer tourists want looking out for them when they come to the Keys. The kind of law enforcement officer Keys people want looking out for them. That kind of Sheriff. Sheriff Sandy.
 
Sloan Bashinsky, 626 Josephine Parker Rd. #102, Key West.
 
I give out my home address so any assholes who read this will know where I live. Come get me. Pick on someone your own size. Just joking. No fucking way you can take on Archangel Michael and the angels Melchizedek. No fucking way. Sandy’s their candidate. Get the picture yet? She just got a million dollars worth of free and believable advertising all because of you. All because of you. Ain’t that just a hoot? Well, ain’t it? How come you ain’t laughing? Don’t you believe God works in mysterious ways? Don’t you believe God can even use assholes to get done what God wants done? Believe it. Thanks to you, all eyes now are on Sandy and Sheriff Roth and his Office, where those eyes ought to be. Thanks to you. What a sense of humor, God’s. What a sense of humor.

Dear Sheriff Roth (rickroth@keysso.net):

Below is the text of an email yesterday from the owner of BigPineKey.com to Sandra Downs, who has filed to run for Sheriff. Captain Conch set up my two websites and is a personal friend. I sent Sandy to him so he could set up her campaign website. He told Sandy he would post this below to the Coconut Telegraph file of his website, which he was most of yesterday getting straightened out after a hacker broke into that file. Then, he would repair the damage done by the hacker to her website.
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From Captain Conch:

This will be the lead comment:

(Ed: It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that Wednesday’s Coconut Telegraph got hacked. Only the one Coconut Telegraph file was hacked. All other BigPineKey.com computer files were left untouched. Microsoft has confirmed that fact.

The attacks seem to be directed at the Sandy Downs for Sheriff Campaign. Wednesday was the day she posted a rebuttal to a critic and announced the address of her website on the Coconut Telegraph. That is the day she went online with her new campaign website sandyforsheriff.com

Within hours the Coconut Telegraph was hacked and her posting was removed. During that same time her new website was hacked and the page telling of her experiences with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office was destroyed. Only that page. There are forces in Monroe County a lot bigger than me and with a lot more resources than bigpinekey.com. We’re just the small website with the big voice.)

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Here is what was deleted from the My Experiences With Injustice file of SandyForSheriff.Com. [I saw this on Sandy’s website before the hacker removed it.]My Experiences: Part 1A group of boys played hide and go seek at Sugarloaf Elementary School. A teacher’s son was caught on the roof, and he was warned to not go up there again, because of the danger. The deputies of MCSO [Monroe County Sheriff’s Office] sent the teen home and that was the end of that. This is a misdemeanor trespassing offense, because no damage was done. If the deputies had wanted to pursue this misdemeanor offense of trespassing, they would have to have done so immediately, “in fresh pursuit” to have legal authority to arrest.

“Fresh Pursuit” expired when no attempt was made to arrest that evening or the next day. A zealous Detective asked for the case days later. So intent on prosecuting these teens, the Detective swore under oath in a statement that damage had  been done to the school property all the while knowing it had not. He attempted to obtain a warrant for the teen’s arrest, but was denied. This did not deter him. He sent three squad cars with 5 deputies to the homes and school of 5 teens. Without warrants, the officers entered the homes, ignoring the warnings and protests of the homeowners and the subjects. They handcuffed the juveniles, 5 of them. They were taken to the adult jail. No process of incarceration was adhered to. National and international rights were violated. ACLU and two attorneys said the arrests were illegal, the incarceration was illegal, and what went on in the adult jail for over 10 hours was illegal.

The paperwork was destroyed, altered, and later became missing. The parents attempts to retrieve the paperwork ended in threats of their arrest. They were threatened, harassed and lied to and dismissed.

Parents filed a petition to MCSO for an investigation. A cover up began. Parents learned MCSO Internal Investigations Department Head, Cindy Peryam, is the wife of Captain Peryam in the MCSO. One parent attempted to go to FDLE. Head of FDLE is the wife of a Key West Police Officer. The parent went to FBI. They would not investigate the matter. An attempt was made to have FDLE in Tallahassee investigate. This met with another dead end.

The lesson learned is: The Sheriff’s office runs independently and void of any oversight. If the Sheriff’s Officers or personnel are found to have committed a violation, a felony, etc. the most an outside agency can do (FDLE) is take away their accredidation, which means they lose some government funds. There is no one that can correct a lawless situation in the MCSO, except MCSO, the Governor or the State Attorney, Mark Kohl. Absolutely the State Attorney Mark Kohl was not willing to investigate, nor did he require the Deputies to answer about these felony offenses they had committed. But he did attempt to prosecute the youth, knowing the trumped up charges were fraudulent. He showed disrespect for the law and for the taxpayers money in his attempts to “persecute and prosecute”. The Judge found no evidence of a crime and dismissed the charges against the youth.

These officers committed felonies when they crossed the line into the home without a warrant and another felony when they seized a person without a warrant. They committed felonies and international civil rights violations when they incarcerated youth in an adult jail facility for 10 hours. They committed violations of jail proceedures when they did not do intakes, medical assessments, notification of parents, etc. They committed violations when they used the jail for “interrogation purposes.” They committed violations when they fingerprinted the juveniles and incarcerated them for a misdemeanor after the “fresh pursuit” had expired. They committed felonies when they swore under oath to false statements. They committed felonies when they denied the juveniles the presence of a parent or attorney, and moreover when they hid the teens for 10 hours. This is considered kidnapping by the UN.

MCSO acted in a lawless and careless manner, which begs the question of the integrity of our laws and those enforcing them. They exhibited an extremely terrifying example of corruption and breaches of public trust.

When MCSO violates international laws as well as national laws, and nothing is done about it, it is time for a visit to the Sheriff himself. Sheriff Roth said, “I cannot control my deputies.”

This experience contributed to my decision to run for Sheriff. This also serves as an example of why we need an oversight committee (Citizens Review Board).

I respect our laws. I respect our civil rights. I believe in firmness aand fairness. I will make sure the Officers and all Sheriff personnel have a complete understanding of the laws of the US, or have access to someone who can educate them. The MCSO personnel must have a complete understanding of their job, their duties and obligations. It is incredible and completely unacceptable that such a blatant series of violations and felonies committed by these officers would go unaddressed and unexplained. Behavior such as this creates a community that has fear of the Department and it’s officers, but no respect. It is impossible to undo this kind of damage without accountability within MCSO. Certainly it is a conflict of interest that the Director of Internal Affairs is the wife of a Captain. It seems impossible that she would be able to administer without prejudice. Certainly it would be natural for a wife to defend and protect her husband and his interests, and it is a difficult concept to imagine that her interest would be in justice more than damage control.

I am for JUSTICE for all. It has been said, “If you are not willing to fight for freedom, then you do not deserve it.” The laws and their application MUST be fair to have any order in society. If the laws are not equally applied, then they mean nothing. If the laws are only words in a statute, then they mean nothing. If civil rights abuses are occuring, then we have already crossed a threshold of lawlessness. If officers can violate international sanctions and rules, and there is no recourse in the Florida Keys inside the US, then we have already strayed beyond what any of us want.

I am proud to say that I have not been part nor will I ever be a part of this problem. I have seen many great and wonderful officers go because of the unfair situation in MCSO. I am interested in making it possible for those good officers to return. It is important that good and responsible behavior be rewarded with elevations in position and rank. I am afraid this has not been the method of evaluations and promotions for far too long.

Psychiatrist Erik Erikson said, “The most deadly of all possible sins, is the mutilation of a child’s spirit.” I run for Sheriff for the youth. They will no longer live in fear of the MCSO. They will be treated fairly. And both the youth and MCSO will abide by the laws. The few bad apples in either sect will not sever the relationships and disrupt the input that could be derived from the ongoing positive involvement of our deputies with the youth of the Keys. We don’t need to teach our children to live in fear of the law, but to have respect for it and the safe society it attempts to create. These children are our next generation, and what we do to them as children affects them forever.

_____________________________________________

Alas, Sheriff Roth, the above is only a mild summary of what Sandy told me actually happened. For starters, one of the five boys was one of her sons. Three Sheriff cruisers came to their home one morning and deputies came inside without permission while Sandy was cooking breakfast. They took her son without a warrant, as Sandy kept asking to see one. No witness, including the other boys, placed him at the school. He was the only boy prosecuted. The judge nolle prossed the case after none of the ten witnesses subpoenaed, including the other boys and the school principal, and four deputies, could place Sandy‘s son at the school. That’s as nice as it gets, Sheriff. A bad dream that you do not wake up from and it goes away.

Sandy and her family’s lives are at risk, Sheriff. In your shoes, here’s what I’d do.

1. Offer immediate round-the-clock SWAT protection of Sandy and her family and their residence throughout the Sheriff’s race.

2. Sit down with Sandy and her lawyer at their earliest convenience, on your Office’s dime, that is, you pay her lawyer’s fee, and hear Sandy out. This could take a day or two. (I am not her lawyer, nor do I practice law in Florida.)

3. Offer to have Sandy examined under polygraph by an examiner approved by her lawyer, in the presence of you, her lawyer and a representative of the press approved by her lawyer, on your Office’s dime. That is, you pay for the polygraph and her lawyer’s fee.

4. Ask everyone in your Office named by Sandy as having anything to do with what she wrote that was hacked off her website to take a polygraph conducted by an examiner approved by her lawyer, in the presence of you, her lawyer and a member of the local press approved by her lawyer, on your Office’s dime. That is, you pay the cost of the polygraph examinations and her lawyer’s fee.

5. Ask the Florida Attorney General to conduct an immediate, thorough and independent investigation of everything Sandy wrote that was hacked off her website.

6. Ask the F.B.I. to find out who the hacker and any of his accomplices and/or superiors are, and prosecute to the full extent of the law.

This email will be posted to bigigpinekey.com, goodmorningkeywest.com, goodmorningfloridakeys.com, and copied to about 250 Keys private citizens, Florida U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, the Governor and Attorney General of Florida, the State Attorney, quite a few Keys newspaper and radio journalists and a few journalists elsewhere, and numerous county employees, including the County Commission.

Do your duty, Sheriff Roth. Take no prisoners, leave no stone unturned.

Yours truly,

Sloan Bashinsky
626 Josephine Park Rd. #102
Key West, FL 33040
305-407-4285

P.S. Just received below is what Sandy sent this morning to Capt. Conch to post to BigPineKey.Com, which he will post to her website in due course.

Hello CAPT CONCH AND VIEWERS,

I knew that going public with the truth was going to be dangerous, create difficulties for myself, my family and my supporters; and also expose fear-driven hate.

However, I did not expect that someone would immediately violate federal laws and commit felony offenses hacking websites to try to stop this information from getting out on DAY ONE.According to an attorney, the documents I have “calls for indictments” in the Sheriff’s Department. They are damning beyond what any of you might imagine. It is this information that is terrifying to some. I will be detailing in depth each incident and attempting to explain the violations and felonies that were committed along the way by MCSO. I will start first with an in-depth 3 part series which details “My Experiences” with violations under color of law. Since that is the page that was shut down, it will be my priority to get this information out ASAP on my website.

My efforts to expose this will generate hatred, fear, and retaliation I am sure. So don’t be surprised when you hear more of this, not less. I am not a martyr, and I don’t enjoy this ride. But these injustices must not happen again and exposure is the only way to prevent it..as is proven over and over and over in history. The story has to be told.

For those of you who want to keep me quiet or peg me as a lunatic, I will tell you that I was both a victim of crimes and a witness. I not only have the right, but also an obligation to report it. I should feel safe in doing so. Unfortunately the very ones that committed these crimes were in uniform. That fact should create an urgency to address them.

The pages that reported Mark Foley, the informants in Watergate, Whitewater, Enron, Abu Gharib, the victims of the Holocaust, slavery, Darfur, were they also just a bunch of trouble makers, liars, crackpots?

When the truth gets out, it ain’t pretty is it? It stinks, nauseates you, and repulses you. How unfortunate for those that would rather be comfortable in lies than deal with the truth.

I was a victim and I will report the “rape of my civil rights” and expose the “rapist”. I will not stand idly by and watch the Keys turn into a secret breeding ground for felony violations and cover-ups. It is more than apparent that the Sheriff’s Office is not going to clean up the Sheriff’s Office. The corruption is at the top levels. I decided to run for Sheriff to offer an alternative from the candidates within the Department. There is not going to be a corruption cleanup if an insider stays in. I promise the citizens if elected, I will restore it to justice.

If when the stories are told, you want this type of government, then elect them back in. Our Pledge of Allegiance, remember this part?…. “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberties and JUSTICE FOR ALL.”

If you think abuse by uniformed officers and public officials should be kept secret, then you are just not getting the point. Either our laws mean something or they don’t. I’m just trying to find out if we are already in a police state down here and from computers getting hacked on day 1 of My Truth Campaign, I have to tell you……

It’s not looking too promising for FREEDOM.

Sloan:

Well, I think you are unknown here in the Upper Keys. I did recognize the name on this email, at least I thought I did, but at age 80, I forget a lot.

Anyone who runs against McCoy must be good, but it won’t be a easy run. For a man so dumb and totally out of touch with reality, he does appear to be a hellva politician – these two do not make good government!

Some how you must gain at the minimum of name recognition throughout MC and it is not easy as I found out supporting Kim Wigington in the in the last election.

You are not just running against Sonny, but all his henchmen as Kim was against Dixie – who I supported when she originally ran and then totally turned 180 degrees. I will never support McCoy and Sorenson!

How do you and Kim see our solutions?

From your email I assume you are supporting Sandy for sheriff. I am supporting Bob. Neither should have any problems with Mandino but I see he is running a Republican this time.

Jerry

Hi, Jerry, and thanks for writing back. It’s still months before we have to qualify to run and I’m already in this race against Sonny. I agree with your assessment of what I’m running against. I’ve been going pretty hard after Mario and Morgan McPherson, and not too easy on Dixie and Sonny. I was interviewed on radio in Key West this morning for almost an hour, and asked what I would do if elected? I said I don’t know what I will do tomorrow yet, and I sure don’t know what I will do if elected. The way it goes for me is day to day, I deal with what’s put in front of me by God, Fate, or whatever someone wishes to call it. I receive constant instruction/advice in dreams mostly, and sometimes in other ways, about how to deal with what’s on my plate, politically and in all other areas of my life. I flat do not like politics, would not be involved in this race but for the fact that it’s what I’m told to be doing. As I said on the radio program this morning, I got tired of being swallowed by the whale like what happened to Jonah, except the whale that swallows me when I try to get out of something is a lot rougher on me than the whale that swallowed Jonah seemed to be on him. I view the whale as God, not an actual sea creature, but it’s a pretty good analogy nonetheless. I ran against George Neugent in 2006, while living on Little Torch Key. I like George, and said a few times during that campaign that he was the only county commissioner I really didn’t want to be running against. I was glad Sylvia Murphy won, and wrote a few emails during her campaign that went out widely in support of her candidacy. I’m non partisan, don’t like any political parties, and was not, therefore, in the primary during that election season, nor was George, because there was no Democrat running. We were on the ballot in the general election and of 22,000 or so votes cast I received just over 7,000. I don’t imagine over 100 of those people actually knew me. I’m pretty well known in Key West because I’ve run for mayor here twice, and what I write and post to goodmorningkeywest.com and send out to my Keys email contacts, about 250 people, almost daily, gets passed around. Last month there were over 5,000 visitors to that website. I’ve never campaigned in the traditional way, using a publicist, campaign adviser, campaign workers, paid advertising, signs, mailings, etc. What does that tell anyone about a candidate?, I keep asking. Nothing, really, except the candidate wants your vote. I never ask for votes. What I say is I’m out of the box, always. If you don’t want change, if you want things to stay much as the are, then you sure as hell don’t want to vote for me. Said that on the air today. My experience is that people say they want change, different people in charge of their government, but they keep putting into office people who pretty much keep things going mostly like they have been going. Doesn’t matter if they are Democrats or Republicans, far as I can tell. None of them really are willing to take and stick to a stand that leaves them way out on a limb, because they want to be elected a lot more than they want to be different and not get elected. I often say, publicly even, that anyone who wants to be in an elected office is either a lunatic or a maniac, and for that reason alone should be disqualified from serving. I also say that anyone who is not prepared to die, that is, be bumped off, does not have what is needed to get the job done. As you see, I really am not a politician. As far as what I see needs to happen in the county government, the Gang of Three need to be eliminated, starting with Sonny and Dixie whose terms are ending and they are having to stand for re-election. I hear rumors that Sonny’s family is pressing him not to run again, due to his age and their having to find someone else to drive him to county commission meetings up US 1 from Key West. I hear Heather Carruthers might run against him, also. I know Heather somewhat. She might make for a strong candidate, but she’s mainstream, part of the business establishment, which I am not. I am not part of any establishment this world knows. I owe no money, accept no campaign contributions, have no political debts, and often say things that turn people off who might vote for me if I’d kept my mouth shut. I attend all candidate forums and media interviews and gatherings to which I’m invited. I answer all emails, and sometimes I publish email exchanges with citizens. I leave them anonymous, unless they are already public figures. I call a spade a spade, mince no words. I am flat opposed to any more new commercial development, period the end, even that disguised as redevelopment. The Keys already are way over-developed, no one can stand before a mirror and honestly deny this. The county commission has wasted millions and millions on baubles, government edifices to county commissioners (Key Largo government center, Key West airport redevelopment), a restaurant on Stock Island, a Navy ship to be sunk off Key West, a new justice center underway in Key West, the whatever it is going up at the Marathon airport, even as it’s cutting back on county workers and their salaries and libraries, and doing nothing about living up the state-ordered installation of modern sewerage throughout the Keys. The county pays a private attorney [it was his radio show this morning] enviable sums, which this former attorney would love to be paid, to advise it on affordable housing, which developers cannot build because there’s no profit in it for them. I favor building rental housing for the poor working stiffs on county land, partnering with land trusts, with the county continuing to own the properties. If I could, I’d deport all developers to Siberia. I told people from Marathon recently, at that library’s Coffee & Books weekly meeting at which I was invited to speak, who are very active in that city unincorporating and going back into the county, that they do not want to come back into the county as long as the Gang of Three are still running the county commission. I come back to that, Sonny, Dixie and Mario need to go. We can’t do much about Mario because his seat is not up for election. But we can put in two new commissioners in Sonny’s and Dixie’s seat. If I am one of them, I will do everything in my power, with God’s necessary help, to take the Keys in a new and better direction. I love the Keys, have since I was fourteen, when I first spent time here almost fifty-two years ago with my family. We stayed at the Ocean Reef Club, when it was a laid-back reasonably-priced out-of-the way homey resort with a nine-hole golf course on a saltwater creek where I caught lots of Spanish mackerel with each change of the tide. I said on the radio this morning that I weep whenever I leave the Keys, and I weep when I return. I weep in sorrow when I leave, in joy when I come back. The Keys are my home, the only place on this world, and I’ve been around, where I feel I belong. I used to call Islamorada my soul home when my father had a place on Lower Matecumbe for nearly forty years, which he purchased in 1963. But in 2000, I was moved, so to speak, to Key West, which I knew somewhat, and it is here that I now feel the most at home. Maybe because I feel less weird here than anywhere else. That, and it just feels right in my soul. It’s like that for many people who live in Key West, and in the Keys. There’s something different here. Well, I ramble a lot, maybe too much. Maybe this is the longest paragraph in the history of Key West writers, which is something I do a lot, write, but I do not run with writers. What I really am, Jerry, is a priest, and I do what I’m given to do, which often does not suit my tastes. I’m affiliated with no church or religion, although I was raised Protestant. As I said on the radio today, Jesus still rides herd on me, but it’s so very different from anything I learned in churches growing up. I told a woman friend this afternoon that if the angels assigned to look and keep after me treated everyone the way they treat me, then this would be a very different world. Maybe they will start doing that. Maybe they will start in the Keys. Couldn’t hurt, and it might help a lot. Again, thanks for writing. Sorry if I wore you out. It sometimes happens. Sloan

P.S. I don’t know Kim Wiggington and wonder if you can make introductions? Sheriff candidate Bob Peryam’ wife is head of Internal Affairs and has been so for many years, and there’s no way he should be running for sheriff with his wife still in that position. No way. The very next thing that happened after he decided to run should have been for his wife to resign from Internal Affairs, and that this did not happen is solid proof of just how much like what you describe as Sonny’s and Dixie’s political machines the Sheriff’s Office is, and just how sorely we need someone at the helm who has never worked there and a Citizen’s Review Board to back her up. So I hope you change your mind and support Sandra Downs. We need a sheriff who enforces the law across the board, granting no favors, even among her own troops. I will be doing the same in the county government if I get on the county commission, of that I have no doubt. The details I don’t know yet, but the heat will go up considerably and no one will be spared it, not even other county commissioners. God doesn’t spare me, and I like company in the oven. Lots of company. Do unto others what is done to me. Or, if you will, the beatings will continue until morale improves. Arrrrrhhh!

Paid apolitical advertisement, I suppose.

Sloan Bashinsky, county commission candidate

Key West Citizen reporter Tim O’hara recently wrote a long piece commemorating the retirement of Monroe County Sheriff Rick Roth and his many years of service. The article painted the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) a paragon of law enforcement and ended with Sheriff Roth saying he fears some of his troops might not be allowed to remain. Sheriff Roth has been on my email list for quite a while, so if he reads what I send out, he probably knows me pretty well by now. I don’t recall that he and I ever met, and I really don’t know much about him. I knew former Key West Police Chief Buz Dillon quite well, though; we remain friends to this day. I know Bud had plenty of problems in his own troops that he had to deal with, and I can only imagine the same has been true for Sheriff Roth. If Tim O’Hara had done a bit more investigation, he could have found out and written of some of Sheriff Roth’s troubles within his own department. Perhaps troubles that might cause some of his troops to have to leave the Sheriff’s Office.

Who could Tim have spoken with to learn about the internal affairs of the Sheriff’s Office? He could have spoken with Sandra Downs of Cudjoe Key, who is running for Sheriff, that’s who Tim could have spoken with. If he’s been reading my postings, which he has received for as long as Sheriff Roth has received them, years, Tim knows that I’ve been saying Sandy has the scoop on the underbelly of the Sheriff’s Office, and the general public needs to know what that scoop is. But Tim didn’t go to Sandy. He was content, it seems, to blow her off in his article about her candidacy, in which he chose to leave out some of what she told him, and summed it all up by the title of the article labeling her a gadfly. Maybe Tim will be pleased to know Sandy did some research on gadfly, and found that Socrates was called a gadfly in his day and took to being proud of it, of telling it like it was even though people didn’t want him to tell it like it was. Sandy said she wonders if taking on the gadfly mantle suggests she will end up like Socrates ended up. Based on what she’s told me about her and her family’s dealings with the Sheriff’s Office, that is not an entirely unreasonable thing for her to wonder. Not entirely unreasonable at all.

Sandra Downs is a nuclear device when it comes to the Sheriff’s Office, made so by the Sheriff’s Office itself, in the way it treated Sandy and her family, in the way it treated people Sandy knows, in the way it looked the other way for the rich, in the way it came down on the poor working stiffs and their families, in the way it protected its own troops even though they needed to be subjected to the same laws they swore a solemn oath to protect and enforce. I told Sandy yesterday that maybe she should take the nickname “Hurricane Sandy” for her campaign, but she said thanks, she’s sticking to gadfly. “You’re going to ram it down their throats, aren’t you,” I said. It wasn’t a question. “Yeah,” she said. Yeah, like the Loop Hurricane of 1935 rammed itself down the Middle Keys’ throat. Yeah, like I find myself thinking right now what would have happened if Sandy had been Sheriff when Monroe County Mayor Mario Di Gennaro ordered a deputy to escort Keys activist Kay Thacker out of a county commission meeting simply for giving a thumbs down to a county commission decision. Imagine that deputy soon having a prayer meeting with Jesus and Sheriff Sandy. Imagine that deputy being told to go see Mario and tell him next time he does something like that he’s going to straight the county jail. Sandy told me that she keeps drug testing kits in her home and administers random tests in her family. One has to wonder how many deputies and other Sheriff’s Office personnel do that? Probably not many. Probably not any.

A couple of other tidbits before pasting in below what Sandy sent me, which is being posted to SandyForSheriff.com. The wife of one of her opponents, Captain Bob Peryam, for a long time has been head of Internal Affairs in the Sheriff‘s Office. I imagine she guards her husband and the other chickens very well. Sandy’s other opponent, Islamorada Lawyer Philip Mandino, a veteran of Sheriff campaigns, who once represented Linda Loveless of DEEP THROAT fame according to this morning’s Key West Citizen, is pretty much copy-catting Sandy’s entire platform, including reform within the Sheriff’s Office, starting with the creation of a Citizen’s Review Board. Sandy told me she will circulate a petition to get a County CRB on the ballot at the same election we will vote for Sheriff. Sandy may like being a gadfly, but she sure as hell looks like a Cat V hurricane to me. She sure as hell does. For ongoing hurricane advisories, visit SandyForSheriff.com. Ya’ll come! Suuueeee Pig! Well, they do have a pig or two in the petting farm under the county jail, don’t they?

_________________________________________

I had hoped that I could run a positive campaign and avoid turning my campaign into an exploration and exploitation of my experiences of being persecuted by MCSO [Monroe County Sheriff’s Office]. If elected I had hoped to clean up the corruption at the top levels. It wasn’t to exact revenge, the damage has already been done to my family and cant be undone. I had hoped to prevent it from ever happening again to another family or individual in this county. I had also hoped to convince the citizens and deputies that a Citizens Review Board was necessary in the Sheriffs Department, as an oversight should be available to citizens and law enforcement employees as well. The corruption is at the top levels. I believe many good and valuable deputies have been discriminated against, denied promotions they deserve and have had to follow orders that were not lawful, though they were misled into believing they were.

There is evidence to support links between corruption in the Department and former Commissioner David Rice and his son Major Mike Rice. Salaries and commissions to them are in excess of $500,000 per year from documents I have seen. They appear to control entirely who is hired and fired at MCSO. There appears to be a link between them and Attorney David Paul Horan. It appears that Mr. Horan’s influence extends into Planning commissions, affordable housing, etc.

Sheriff Rick Roth is a wonderful person we all agree. However, he stated to me in 2005 that he couldn’t control his deputies. So who did? He also referred to Becky Herrin on the radio as doing a wonderful job when speaking about transparency and Internal Affairs. But Sheriff Roth knows this was completely misleading and deceitful. Becky Herrin is not in charge of Internal affairs. A wife of a Captain in the Department is in charge of Internal Affairs. This is a conflict of interest and appears it is a violation of nepotism and other laws. Why didn’t Sheriff Roth expose this fact? There are so many questionable violations and breaches of public trust of this kind at the top levels.

There is an outcry in this community to clean up corruption, but when you launch a campaign to do so, the accusations are immense. If the citizens really want this corruption to end, then they have to be willing to investigate the claims that are made that indicate it. And they have to go out and vote for those individuals that would end it.

I am beginning to understand that in order to gain or maintain credibility, I will also have to defend myself against false accusations. I will attempt to address them one at a time in depth on this website. There are concerns about what my family members have been accused of, and I can only say that by the end of this campaign you will understand more than ever, what impact corruption can have, and how far it extends.

Several people have asked, “Can a sheriff deal with corruption of local officials?” I will tell you that most corruption involves crimes, whether it be white collar crime or others. There has been an extension of laws to prosecute these criminals, and remedy is available now more than ever. But people have to come forward and report these crimes, and they must feel safe in doing so. They cannot fear retaliation or persecution. I’m afraid in the Keys, they do have fear and many stay silent. They also have to trust the State Attorney to prosecute these offenses, and I think its apparent that Mark Kohl has to go for that to happen.

In 2004, I reported the Chair of the Republican Party’s parents for destroying 8000 sq ft of mangroves on our state owned lands. Carey Goodman’s parents ruined our state property so they could have a “better view” from their 3 story home. The Goodman’s wrote in an e-mail to DEP that they “hoped this would be the end of Sandy.” What does the end of someone mean to you?

The fines for destruction could have been hundreds of thousands of dollars. What do you think money means to these people? The rich value it immensely. And the Goodman’s are very rich. They also raised more money for the Republican Party than has ever been raised before in Monroe County. Who were the recipients of this money? Check the republican line-up. Sheriff Roth, State Attorney Mark Kohl, former Commissioner David Rice, Commissioner DiGennaro, Commissioner Dixie Spehar, Commissioner McCoy, etc. All of the powerful positions are controlled by the Republican Party. What do you think would happen to someone who reported the Goodman’s, the source of all the Republican Party’s money they need for their campaigns?

Well, you can’t imagine. I’m lucky I’m alive. My son was not so lucky. His death is not how it was reported. Nothing is as it was reported. I will tell these tales, I will provide the documents and the proof and you will be a believer after I am finished. This corruption has to stop first with the Sheriff’s Department. Nothing good can happen until that situation is corrected.

When there is no law, selective enforcement, false arrests or criminal activities, then citizens lose all respect for and faith in the law. They will not come forward to report violations. They will live in fear. Without citizen involvement the law can’t work. To prosecute, there needs to be cooperation from the citizens. The citizens have to report it and show up as witnesses. If witnesses aren’t protected, there will be no witnesses. Therefore there will be no prosecutions, save the few derelict ones that don’t correct the real problems.

I am very concerned about the future of the Keys. All of the corruption is intertwined. Give me a chance and I will stop it. I have more experience in legal matters than some lawyers. I may not have a degree in criminal justice but this does not mean I have no knowledge. Degrees do not equate competency, they only create an illusion of competency. If you study the law for years as I have, you understand it quite well. There are on line degrees that you can get, but there is no way to check if you actually did the work. I understand that is the type of degree Capt. Peryam has, an on line degree. Things are sometimes not as they seem at first glance. We know from living in the Keys, that sometimes a windy day is not just a windy day, it is a Hurricane.

Sandra Downs