Yes, we love Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL)! And hope the rest of the world can learn to love him as much as we do!
But they can’t love him if they don’t know him!
So to help, we’d encourage BRAD BLOG readers who may be familiar with many of the interesting facets of the Republican Congressman’s life to share some of that interesting information on the Wikipedia page devoted to educating millions about Mr. Feeney!
The Wikipedia, for those who don’t know, is a public domain encyclopedia of sorts, where you — dear, BRAD BLOG readers — can add information on the life and accomplishments of patriotic Americans such as Mr. Feeney, so that citizens and school-children the world over may learn about one of the wonderful and impressive elected officials we have in our country!
Speaking of “elected” — here’s a fun fact you may wish to add to the Wikipedia on Mr. Feeney — did you know that Mr. Feeney just “won” “re-election” on November 2nd to the United States Congress without a single vote being cast for him?!
That’s right! He won a prestigous post in the United States Congress without ever even appearing on the ballot! He even gets to sit on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee!
How did he do it?! Due to the wonderfully streamlined ballot system in the State of Florida — as helpfully legislated by (guess who?!) Tom Feeney who served for years in the Florida State legislature before become its House Speaker! — a candidate who runs unopposed in his or her district won’t even appear on the ballot!
According to Section 101.151 of the Florida Statues, “…the names of unopposed candidates shall not appear on the general election ballot. Each unopposed candidate shall be deemed to have voted for himself or herself.”
Isn’t that wonderful?!
This convenience saves time for the busy American Florida voter, and keeps election officials from having to decipher any of that messy handwriting that — in other, less sunshiney states — might end up as a write-in vote against such an unopposed candidate!
That small annoyance won’t be happening in Florida anytime soon! Hoo-ray for Mr. Feeney!
But don’t worry, even though he was running against nobody, Mr. Feeney was able to raise (and spend nearly all of!) $928,127 to finance his 2004 campaign! All of it from individuals and businesses and political action committees who were simply interested in seeing the finest legislator for Florida’s 24th Congressional district that money could buy!
You may even know the names of some of those contributing individuals and businesses! Names like Yang and O’Quinn and the like!
Winning a U.S. Congressional seat without even having a single vote cast for him, is just one of the many interesting facts about Congressman Tom Feeney from Florida that you — devoted BRAD BLOG readers — now know!
Why not share that knowledge — and all the rest you may have learned — with the world via the Wikipedia’s Tom Feeney page right now?! You can even add links to your favorite sources and articles on Tom Feeney!
As it says on his website (Where you can still donate to his 2004 campaign!): “…It takes courage…It takes Tom Feeney!” It sure does! So let’s all show that same kind of courage, and share what we know with the whole wide world!
Evidently Feeney’s 2002 race was quite contentious. His friends, I mean those people with whom "his only connection was as an attorney prior to 2002", Yang Enterprises, solicited their employees (and subcontractors) to contact television stations to demand they "cease and desist from running" his opponent’s "outrageous" political ads.
Why? Because "Mr. Jacobs accuses his opponent, Tom Feeney, of using undue political influence with the Florida state government to obtain contracts for YEI and also to get state employees fired for reporting such undue influence."
According to Yang, these accusations "are bold face lies and are unconscionably calculated, for political reasons, to harm innocent families and business people – such as you and I."
Poor Yang Enterprises. The fake outrage continues: "Negative political campaigns are bad enough in America today, but when they are calculated to harm innocent bystanders, it is too much. They indicate a gross and reckless disregard on the part of Mr. Jacobs and his political cronies of the truth about YEI and its longstanding and respected professional and personal competence in the business community."
Oh stop it, Mrs. Yang! You’re killin’ me.
Source: http://eqs.sdrdc.com/eqs/searcheqs Search case #5336.
lmao!!!
Brad~
lol! Tom Feeney for Emperor!!
It takes courage! It takes Tom Feeney to commit fraud, run unopposed, get bribed and join the Wikipedia’s Hall of Fame.
Joan, right you are! Tom Feeney for Emperor!
Goodness!!! Did I detect a little sarcasm in Brad"s post. Nah! Sometimes the truth is more than laughable.
Feeney is on my top ten list of GOP basterd’s that I would most want to see do the perp walk. The added bonus would be if the smut on Feeney lead a trail to the most evil corrupt Florida politician of all, JEB!
Yes, please, don’t forget us blues, stranded on that hopeless iceberg known as the state of Florida. My fellow citizens have been so disenfranchised and lied to that they wouldn’t recognize the truth to save their lives. Many of us are in therapy and/or on Prozac just to deal with the daily cognitive dissonance which is our life. Battered Voter Syndrome.
I said it during the sElection and I’ll repeat it again: Don’t count on Florida. This state is far too gone, we are way too embedded with GOPer’s. Please, send help!
Sorry Brad, as much as I’ve appreciated virtually all your blogs to date, this one seems more like flailing than substance. It tends to dilute past and promised future Feeney arguments.
I truly believe that the 2004 election was stolen and was hoping that the Feeney stuff might be a way to unravel the facts. Unless I am missing something, this blog does nothing toward that end.
So where did that nearly million dollars in campaign money go if there was no campaign? Voting software? 😛
re #7 : George, I mean this with no disrespect to the Brad Blog, but how many people do you think read Wikipedia? Getting information about Feeney onto a site like Wikipedia seems like a great idea to me. If the major media won’t spread the word then we might as well use the alternatives, no?
Re: #7 …George
Consider this.
If a candidate runs "uncontested", shouldn’t voters have the opportunity to write-in a candidate of their own choosing? Especially when redistricting has created a political advantage for a specific party. At least give those 40% in the minority a voice and a choice, even if it’s a feeble one. If I interpret this correctly, this statute was added in 2003. Who proposed it, and why? If redistricting eliminates possible challengers, isn’t that also voter manipulation and control? If I’m not mistaken, Mr. Feeney was also quite acitve in the redistricting in Florida.
As to the exposure of Mr. Feeney on Wikipedia, he has accumulated an enormous amount of political influence, and with that in mind, his past, present and future proposals, bills, amendments, etc., will impact all of us. Information has to be available on a wide variety of sites – we all need to be informed – especially when we have an administration which thrives on mis/disinformation.
Lori – great point.
In our little town, when there are no "declared" opposition candidates listed on a ballot, spaces are provided for write-ins. That’s the law. That’s the only democratic, as opposed to autocratic, way to go about things. For a "candidate" like Feeney to declare he has "won" an election when his name doesn’t even appear on the ballot is pretty far along – just about there, in fact – on the road to a dictatorial regime.
BTW, on Nov. 2, several Progressive candidates for town offices were elected, ousting (or at least diluting, in the case of committees) a couple of old-guard entrenched conservatives. It works. That’s why they changed the law in Florida.
Try searching on "Bridgette Gregory" or "Bridgette A Gregory" along with "Feeney" for some funny results.
#12 …News Junkie
Thanks for the very entertaining search suggestion.
#11 …Peg C
Always enjoy your posts.
Hi all,
I would love to invite everybody to come to Wikipedia and help! If you’ve never contributed to Wikipedia before, check out our welcome page and our neutral point of view policy, probably before you contribute.
We love newcomers, but sometimes it can take a little while to get the hang of contributing.
Also, please note: Wikipedia is not public domain. It has a very liberal copyright policy meant to encourage the creation of freely-reusable texts, but it protects ourselves from somebody taking our text, changing it, and not letting us use the changes.
Look forward to seeing you there!
What a totally odoriferous piece of work Tom Feeney is! Thanks, NEWS JUNKIE, for the linkage.
And today, Amy Goodman on Democracy Now was citing him as a leading hunter of "lenient judges" who uphold the law and impose sentences in line with evidence and criminal history instead of minimum guidelines.
Maybe those "soft judges" will be just what he needs when HE stands before the judgement seat…
:O And we’re teaching Iraq about democracy. What lesson covers crony capitalism. I hope he has a good seat at the inauguration. I say just appoint Diebold to the Iraq elections and the Iraqis will never even have to leave their homes to vote. The head of Diebold has already guaranteed that Bush’s appointed candidate will carry Anwar province. We will teach them democracy if we have to kill everyone to do it.