The Bill McCollum campaign TV ad with public money saga continues as he tried to defend himself against a public records request by the FDP. We've seen that he's spent money on everything from make-up to flights from Pennsylvania for his campaign ad guys to fly down to Florida.
That is why we're pissed off, and unless the RPOF wakes up and realizing that Michael Steele staying in power and Charlie and Bill's approval ratings aren't the most important thing in the world -- then they won't be in power much longer.
But the truth is simple -- he could have asked the legislature to use that money for anything -- he CHOSE to use it for TV ads that feature him. He could have used it to fund more investigations, a bigger better cyber crime unit, one time capital for computers and equipment that unit might need, or even other investigations to protect consumers if he thinks that they have more than enough money in the unit itself.
The letter from Sandi Copes, his Communications Director, to Eric Jotkoff of the FDP, sent three documents with pointed critiques:
- First, she says these aren't taxpayer dollars. Saying they are "settlement funds, not taxpayer dollars." The check AT&T was to write, according to the settlement deal, was made payable to the "Legal Affairs Revolving Trust Fund" This fund pays for much of the Attorney General's office the fund is held by the State of Florida, the peple of Florida. I would like Bill McCollum to explain why this isn't taxpayer money. Especially since he called it that himself when trying to support his bill about lawyer fees.
- Second, she cites that CFO Sink's office approved the contract. But when you look at the approval and the criteria they are asked to judge it on it makes sense it was approved. The RPOF is using this to portray Sink as supporting the ads, but her communications director called out the ads as questionable in these times. Sink was bound to approve the contract due to the laws of the state. It doesn't mean that she approves of the way he spent the money, who he spent the money with, and the content of the ads themselves.
- Third, she includes a letter from a mother whose child was a victim of this type of heinous crime. She says she found out about his initiative from the ads on TV, after not being told about it by about a dozen different groups, and thanked him for having this program. First question that comes to mind is why AT&T and the rest of the cabinet doesn't know about this issue --- guess Bill was too busy in make-up to make a phone call. But she also talks about wanting to catch the guy who did this and hopes that her Sheriff's department can do that. My question is simple -- what do you think she would say if she learned McCollum took money away from working with her sheriff's department trying to catch these criminals to run those ads? I think we all know.
The defensiveness of the letter is obvious -- they are trying to use these heinous crimes to deflect from their decision to run these ads.
McCollum and Copes aren't alone, the RPOF has joined them. Just look at Katherine Gordon's twitter feed where she tries to mock Jotkoff by repeating the crap about this not being taxpayer dollars and then today talks about Oprah's segment on the great work of the cyber crime unit.
Lets get this clear, Attorney General Bill McCollum, and the team at the Cyber Crime unit are doing very important work. Our children must be protected from these predators and they need to be locked away. Which is why these TV ads are sick. This money should have stayed in the fund that would cover legal fees and fund investigations by the Cyber Crime unit or even asked to be moved there by the same authorization process they asked for it to be used for the ads. He asked for it to be used for this, not actually fighting crime.
And now the RPOF and Attorney General McCollum won't admit what he did. He took money from investigation to fund these vanity ads. He took money from these investigations to pay a political consultant. He took money from these investigations to look pretty for the camera. He is using these stories and statistics to distract people from questioning this action.Calling people against this against catching child predators -- and that is sad.
That is why we're pissed off, and unless the RPOF wakes up and realizing that Michael Steele staying in power and Charlie and Bill's approval ratings aren't the most important thing in the world -- then they won't be in power much longer.
Leave a comment