Category Archives: Florida

Our National Tragedy

      No Comments on Our National Tragedy

With all the madness surrounding the George Zimmerman verdict Americans are having to deal with a whole series of tragedies. First and foremost is the death of Trayvon Martin. The second tragedy is that the Sanford Police department, inexperienced at handling complex crime scenes, just did a poor job of thoroughly processing the area of the murder. They should have canvassed the entire neighborhood looking for every possible witness. They simply didn’t have all the evidence that could have been gathered and presented to prosecutors.

But there were more tragedies: The political involvement of Florida Governor Rick Scott, who was pressured to appoint a special prosecutor, Angela Corey.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, in an interview with CNN, said Angela Corey has a horrible reputation in Florida for overcharging suspects. And there’s now plenty of evidence that Corey intentionally hid important evidence from the defense, a massive violation of legal ethics. It took a whistle blower to come forward and produce the evidence that Corey was illegally holding back. And she has now fired that whistle blower. In fact, Professor Dershowitz says Corey’s misbehavior borders on “criminal conduct.” Dershowitz is certainly no fan of George Zimmerman or of racial profiling. But he notes that all the racial profiling in this case was done by the news media.

And that’s the greatest tragedy of all. In a country where racial sensitivities are raw, a huge opportunity is being lost. The search for mutual understanding is being drowned out by the activists and the noisemakers and by those who have no understanding of how our legal system works. The Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman trial was not the place to have those conversations. The ‘show trial’ just ginned up more disrespect for the law on both sides of the fence.

 http://tinyurl.com/pwjzs5h 

 

Zimmerman NOT GUILTY for Trayvon Murder! Told you so!

      No Comments on Zimmerman NOT GUILTY for Trayvon Murder! Told you so!
images

Trayvon Martin

A young man is dead, and that certainly is a massive tragedy. But another man’s life was ruined with all the racial allegations connected with the ‘murder’ of another man, and possibly ruined by a vengeful prosecutor who went to the bar with no evidence.

My big question is, should the prosecutor have charged Zimmerman in the first place? I’ll speak to some of the reasons he should not have, but first let’s look at a case of prosecutorial misconduct that happened at Duke University. Yes, the Duke Lacrosse team.

There was zero evidence of a rape of two strippers hired by the lacrosse team. Yet Durham County prosecutor Mike Niphong continued pushing, publicly calling it a gang rape, and making other outrageous statements about the alleged guilt of the lacrosse players. The players were later exonerated, Niphong lost his job as a prosecutor, and then was stripped of his law license by the North Carolina Bar Association.

Scales_of_justice2[1]

Did justice prevail?

But let’s toss in one final bit of knowledge in the Trayvon Martin case. Everyone involved in the case knows that Florida has one of the strongest ‘stand-your-ground’ laws in the country. All you have to do to pull the trigger is to “reasonably believe that you were facing death or great bodily harm.”

Zimmerman had injuries to his face and the back of his head. If he didn’t believe he was facing great bodily harm, he would have been an idiot.

The prosecutor had to prove Zimmerman did not have reason to have such fear. Yet his star witness was a perjurer and was still allowed to testify. The standard for the jury is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Did the prosecutor think he could prove BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT that Zimmerman was not afraid of bodily harm?

There are still some interesting things left to come. From the beginning, the national media and many public figures have tried to exploit every possible racial trigger. It’s impossible to predict how the public will react once the final outcome is announced.

imgres

George Zimmerman

I guarantee you, homes in The Retreat At Twin Lakes Homeowners Association are not going to be selling well.

If at all.

George Zimmerman has an incredibly good case against his Homeowners Association for not supporting him in his time of need. They were the ones who wanted a neighborhood watch. They were the ones who accepted Zimmerman’s offer to walk the streets at night. But when the time came for him to show heroism and stand up against a potential burglar, they walked out on him.

This neighborhood has already tried to walk out on Zimmerman by paying Trayvon’s attorneys a million dollars to ‘settle’ this case. But it’s not settled, not by a long shot. Now, it’s Zimmerman’s turn.  

This particular Homeowners Association, The Retreat At Twin Lakes Homeowners Association, is about to bite the ‘big one’.

They’re going down the toilet.

 

Money Grab In Florida Ruled Illegal

      No Comments on Money Grab In Florida Ruled Illegal

The Supreme Court of Florida has slapped the pinkies of some municipalities that were trying make a little extra money from homeowners by trying to do what Homeowners Associations do all the time. When a homeowner buys a property in an HOA or CID or condo association, the buyer agrees to pay off his HOA dues before he makes a house payment. Thus the HOA actually has more power to punish miscreants by liening and auctioning off the house before the mortgage company gets its take. Thus, HOAs have a super-priority lien over the main lender on the property. The super priority. The ability to have super-priority status is built into the original developer’s Covenants Controls and Restrictions usually because that’s what the local municipality ordered.

The City of Palm Beach, seeing a chance to cash in on struggling homeowners the way Homeowner Associations did, passed local regulations giving themselves the same kinds of super priority status as HOAs. After all, weren’t municipalities charged with enforcing some of the same kinds of codes as the typical HOA?

Not so fast, said the State Supremes. Yes, the Florida Constitution gives broad powers to municipalities to take other people’s stuff…but only as far as what the state legislature allows. Still, this particular legislature has done some pretty goofy things to homeowners over the years. You just can’t predict when these parties will all be back in court over some ‘new’ taxing powers handed to them by lawmakers. “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe when the Legislature’s in session.” -Mark Twain

http://tinyurl.com/mx8b9r3

 

 

 

 

Wacky Trayvon Martin Juror

      1 Comment on Wacky Trayvon Martin Juror

Actually, he was only a potential juror who was tossed out of the jury pool when defense attorneys discovered some prejudicial FaceBook postings.

But this goofball, Jerry Counelis, had apparently posted a comment that said, “Justice for Trayvon” two weeks before George Zimmerman was arrested for Martin’s murder. Then he lied about it during voir dire.

When Counelis was ousted from the jury pool he came back into the courthouse and tried to get into the jury room. He was yelling that his anonymity had been taken away from him. And this is the kind of nut case who could have gotten onto the jury? Dear Lord God!

Counelis was finally arrested and jailed for trespass. His mug shot will ensure that he has no anonymity. Ever.

Zimmerman was an HOA crime watchman for the Retreat at Twin Lakes Homeowners Association in Sanford, Florida. He says he shot and killed Trayvon Martin after the teenager attacked him. Zimmerman was on a cell phone talking to police when the shooting happened.

This Homeowners Association has already paid Martin’s family more than a million dollars to settle a lawsuit against the HOA. But homeowners there haven’t begun to see the real costs of their gated neighborhood zeal. If Zimmerman is found ‘not guilty’ (as is probable), he’ll have a heck of a lawsuit against his own HOA. They put him at risk. They didn’t support him when he got into trouble while serving his official crime watch duties.

I would not want to be a member of that HOA when the special assessments start arriving.

That’s one HOA that could be going down the drain.

http://tinyurl.com/l2rbpaw

original source:

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/deputies-escort-dismissed-george-zimmerman-juror-from-courthouse/-/1637132/20575140/-/oyd2jo/-/index.html

HooRay for Florida!!!

      3 Comments on HooRay for Florida!!!

Boy, howdee folks, this here Colorado cowboy never thought he’d see this day. But it looks like another fascist HOA state has just dipped its little toe into the waters of a free man’s land.

Governor Rick Scott has just signed HB-7119 into law! This law isn’t terribly radical. It just requires that all Homeowners Associations (or common area maintenance communities) in the state get registered. They have to report their federal tax I.D. numbers, the number of parcels within their subdivison. Most radical of all? They have to report their mailing and physical addresses. Ah yes, and they have to report their annual revenues and expenses for each association.

Sounds suspiciously like Open Government, doesn’t it?

Guess who viciously opposed this bill and demanded that the governor veto it? Two guesses? OK, three guesses. It’s the HOA board members and the industry that manage the HOA scam. Somehow, financial transparency scares the crap out of these people. Somehow, transparency unravels embezzlement, extortion, kickbacks, and pay-to-play schemes.

There are some heroes who stood up to the many bullies in the HOA industry.

Jan Bergemann. God bless you.

Rep. Michael Larosa. God bless you.

Rep. Debbie Mayfield. God bless you

Sen. Alan Hays. God bless you.

And God bless the American people who are slowly waking up to what has to be one of the most massive financial scams in the history of our country.

Sadly, there’s still such a long way to go to bring freedom to all of our people.

Such a long, long journey.

But it begins with a step.