Friday, July 23, 2010

Shame on Laura Ingram

As many of you are aware, I also host a talk show. Today, I was listening to one of my (was anyways) favorite talk shows, Laura Ingram. There is a reason why it is no longer my favorite.

Her guest today was Attorney General Bill McCollum, candidate for the Florida Governors race. She handed him softball questions and when a more challenging question was presented, he went well off topic and she failed to get him back on topic. Not only did she fluff up his questions, she had the nerve to attack Rick Scott for not calling in. She wanted to host the first debate in this race to push up her ratings.

When she didn't get her way, she went on the attack towards Scott. If her or her producer did any research, they would of known Scott was addressing a group of several hundred at the time she wanted him on.

Then she allowed staged questions from the audience for Bill and took no phone calls. Laura, you are a disgrace to talk radio.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Flip Flop McCollum on Border Security

McCollum Fences with Immigration after Flip Flop

Bill McCollum, the Florida attorney general running for governor, did a 180 on the Arizona immigration bill. He seen the polls and changed his mind!

By coming out in favor of the law, McCollum joined U.S. Senate contender Marco Rubio in abandoning his previous opposition to the toughest crackdown on illegal immigration in the nation. Both have said they changed positions in light of amendments that aimed to outlaw ethnic and racial profiling by the police.

''I support Arizona's law as amended, and if the federal government fails to secure our borders and solve the problem of illegal immigration, I would support a similar law for Florida,'' McCollum said in a statement Thursday.
Gee, I wonder why he did that?
McCollum's flip-flop comes days after a recent poll showed him losing ground to an unexpected and well-financed Republican rival, Rick Scott, who backs the Arizona law. After spending at least $4.7 million on a statewide television blitz, the little-known former healthcare executive is capturing 24 percent of the Republican vote, according to a Mason-Dixon poll. McCollum, who has been in politics for two decades, received 38 percent in the survey.

This country has laws and as top law man in Fl, McCollum has to serve. He thinks he can do as he wants, a vote for McCollum is a vote for more illegal activity at the border. We neede to rid our Country of career politicians with arrogance like his.

McCollum grabs headlines before doing his job

Taken from the PB Post

Earl Stewart is the owner and general manager of Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach. The dealership is located at 1215 N. Federal Highway in Lake Park. Contact him at www.earlstewarttoyota.com, call (561) 358-1474, fax (561) 658-0746 or e-mail earls@earlstewarttoyota.com.

Listen to him on Seaview AM 960 and 95.9, which can be streamed at www.seaviewraido.com every Saturday morning between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m.


We elected Bill McCollum to be our attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer in Florida.

Unfortunately, it seems that the only thing he has on his mind is being governor of Florida. His actions in the AG's office have suggested that he's had this on his mind since his first day on the job as Florida's attorney general.

From the get-go, he chose businesses and individuals to prosecute based on how much publicity it would generate and not on the negative impact on Florida's citizens.

A good example was the large sums of money he spent on, what seemed like thousands of TV commercials paid for by us taxpayers, featuring himself as the "protector" of Florida's children from child molesters. Our money would have been better spent had he featured pictures of convicted, freed sex offenders than himself.

If there was any question how bad Bill wants to be governor, all you have to do is turn on your TV. Within 2 minutes you'll see Bill and Rick (Scott) calling each other crooks and liars in political commercials.

Rick Scott, a very wealthy businessman, has spent about $15million so far and Bill is catching up fast. In fact, he has caught up so fast that the Palm Beach Post wrote an editorial accusing him of using illegal campaign fundraising tactics.

Suing the U.S. government over the new health care bill, passed by the House and Senate and signed into law by President Obama, was pure grandstanding. Every legal scholar knows that it has no legal merit and the purpose is to garner votes for governor.

Of course, my axe to grind with Bill McCollum is his politically motivated decision to give car dealers who practice unfair and deceptive advertising and sales tactics a "free pass."

The strong lobbying groups, the Florida Automobile Dealers Association and the South Florida Auto Dealers Association have always supported Bill McCollum, as have many individual dealers.

Do you really think that car dealers give large sums of money to Bill McCollum because they want to protect the citizens of Florida? This is partially true because they do want to protect some citizens, those who are car dealers. And they want to protect those car dealer citizens from having the Florida attorney general enforce the laws of Florida, specifically the Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act as it specifically pertains to car dealers.

If you live anywhere in Florida, all you have to do is pick up your local newspaper and take a look at the auto classified section. Saturday is the best day to look because almost every car dealer likes to advertise on Saturday.

In these ads, you will see many that are actually illegal. Dealers advertise prices that don't include their dealer fee, which is required by Florida law. They advertise prices that don't include "freight," which is already included in the price of the car by the manufacturer. They deduct what your down payment must be from the "price" they advertise, understating the price by $3,000 or $3,500. They also deduct rebates from the price that you can only qualify for if you are a recent college graduate, an active member of the military or if you drive the same make of car that they sell. This is all clearly illegal but I know of no dealer who has been charged with any of this.

It's not like Bill McCollum can't easily check any newspaper in the state, even from Tallahassee. He can do this online or he has AG representatives in every major community in the state.

Also, what I just described to you happens just as blatantly on TV, radio and in direct-mail advertisements. The electronic ads are even more flagrantly deceptive. The fine print on TV is illegible and is flashed on the screen for such a short time that you couldn't read it if it were legible. The verbal disclosure is almost comical. They use a subdued voice and speed up the tape with the obvious intent of making it unintelligible.

Car dealers know that they can run any kind of advertisement and use any kind of deceptive sale tactic they want without fear of prosecution. This encourages the "bad guys" to run even more illegal ads.

Another negative consequence is that this "hear no, see no, speak no evil" policy of our attorney general forces the "good guys" to advertise in ways that they don't like, but feel they must.

Imagine for a minute that you are a Nissan dealer. Your closest competing Nissan dealer advertises cars below his cost. If you sell a car for the price he advertises you will lose thousands.

The way he gets away with this is by adding back in $3,000 + $740 + $799 + $500 to the advertised price.

The $3,000 is the down payment the customer must pay. The $740 is the freight that the manufacturer has already included in the price once. The dealer fee is required by law to be included in the price. The $500 is only if you are a graduate of a four- year accredited college within the last six months. The price the prospective customer sees in the ad is understated by more than $5,000!

If the "honest dealer" advertises his car in the newspaper at a price that he can make a profit on, he will drive business to the dealer who knows he can advertise any way he