This month’s Irreverent View lunch will be next Monday, October 24^th at 11:45 a.m. at the Tampa Club. 

This month’s guest: Our special guest this month is State Senator Mike Bennett http://www.flsenate.gov/senators/s21 who represents portions of Sarasota and Manatee counties. Mike is Senate President Pro Tem and he serves on the Banking and Insurance and Criminal Justice committees – among others. He is a successful small businessman and Navy veteran who served 4 tours in Vietnam.   Mike flirted with running for Congress next year but decided the rigors of a campaign and days in Washington were more than he wanted. Mike is a no-nonsense legislator who calls it exactly like he sees it. And when I say exactly like he sees it, I mean he gives the unvarnished truth as he sees it – political correctness be damned.  Mike will speak for 10-15 minutes about current issues facing the legislature including improving the economy and legislative redistricting. He will also take a few questions about issues. This is a speaker not to be missed!

Please RSVP by noon Saturday (October 22nd) .  As always, feel free to bring a friend. There is plenty of parking (bring your stub to the lunch to get it validated for a discount). We will have a private meeting area for our lunch, just ask for the Irreverent View lunch when you arrive. The address is: Read the rest of this entry »

The police assume they were thieves, but perhaps they’re just very smart Americans trying to shut-up our do-nothing president…

HENRICO, VA (WWBT) – NBC12 has uncovered one of those stories that makes you think: “How in the world does that happen?!”  A truck filled with President Obama’s podiums and audio equipment was stolen in Henrico just days before his visit to Chesterfield.

We confirmed an investigation with the U.S. Defense Department.  There are still a lot of questions.  The biggest one being did the thieves intentionally target the President’s truck or did they take advantage of a crime of opportunity and give a big “uh-oh” when they saw what was inside.

When you see President Obama speak, there is a pretty typical setup including the presidential seal on a podium, the see-thru Teleprompter and a portable sound system.

Thieves saw the truck carrying that equipment and couldn’t resist the target.  Read the rest of this entry »

Protecting perceived “rights” of dirtbags more important than protecting kids from violence in the home

By Chris Ingram

Earlier this week I wrote about the murder of a nine-year-old little girl whose murder was allegedly at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend. Today I went on Fox News Live to talk about a solution to this problem that I proposed in my column (see link to video below).

Liberal do-gooders and ACLU-loving types (inlcluding Tampa’s La Gaceta newspaper) are already up in arms — preferring to protect the liberties of evil-doers over the rights of innocent children from being the victims of preventable crimes caused by people who live in their homes.

Of course the thing these liberals fail to acknowledge is that Read the rest of this entry »

By Chris Ingram

The Tampa Tribune

Published October 12, 2011

Last week Joseph Kenneth Oliver Jr. was arrested for aggravated child abuse after he dropped 9-month-old Aaliyah Siler on her head. According to police, Oliver said he was playing with the girl by tossing her in the air when he accidently dropped her. The child began crying. When she wouldn’t quit crying, Oliver took her to the bathroom and intentionally dropped her on her head two times, police say. He then put the battered girl in her crib, where she remained lethargic for several hours before Oliver took her to the hospital.

Little Aaliyah later died, and police have since upgraded the charge against Oliver to first-degree murder.

Oliver is no stranger to police — he has a criminal history that includes multiple charges of domestic violence and a charge of battery on a law enforcement officer. Mr. Rogers he is not.

Unfortunately, cases like Aaliyah’s are all too frequent.

While nothing will bring her back, society has a duty to protect other innocent children, and something needs to be done — quickly.

In Florida we now require Read the rest of this entry »

In reversal, source tells Irreverent View he is “less certain than ever” of governor’s intentions

By Chris Ingram

Speculation about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie entering the Republican presidential race has run rampant for weeks, but one thing more than any other suggests that the candidate has had a change of heart: his wife.

Photo: Governor Chris Christie

First lady of New Jersey Mary Pat Christie has heretofore poo-pooed the idea of the governor becoming a candidate for president. She and her husband have both repeatedly stated that the interests of their young children have put national ambitions on the back burner.

But Mrs. Christie has apparently started to reconsider. A source close to the Christies was recently quoted Read the rest of this entry »

Fellow black Republican perpetuates stereotypes of blacks

By Chris Ingram

I received the following Facebook posting from Eddie Adams of Tampa earlier this morning:

“Eddie Adams Jr
New meaning for Black on Black Crime!
Herman Cain Beating Barack Hussein Obama II in 2012!!!”

For those of you who don’t know him, Eddie is black. He’s also a perennial candidate for Congress, having run against Kathy Castor several times. He’s lost those races every time by overwhelming margins. Still, what Eddie lacks in a vision and a campaign people are buying into, he makes up for in dogged (some say stubborn), determination to run again.

Photo: Eddie Adams

After reading Mr. Adams’ comment, I posted the following response on Facebook: Read the rest of this entry »

By Chris Ingram

The Tampa Tribune

Published September 26, 2011

Remember back in the 1980s when reports surfaced about the Pentagon paying $400 for toilet seats you could buy at a hardware store for 20 bucks?

Today the fleecing continues, but this time it’s the U.S. Department of Justice with its hand in the taxpayers’ cookie jar. A recent Inspector General’s report on DOJ spending found the department spent more than $120 million in a two-year period to hold meetings and conferences for its lawyers to get together and sit around and act lawyerly.

Among the many egregious findings, the report noted that DOJ paid $4,200 for 250 breakfast muffins — that’s $16 per muffin. At another conference, the department paid Read the rest of this entry »

Why Herman Cain won, and why you might see Rick Perry in Mickey Mouse slippers next week

By Chris Ingram

Herman Cain’s upset victory in the Republican Party of Florida’s straw poll has political watchers wondering what happened; but the explanation is rather simple.

Caption: God, please give my pollsters the wisdom they need to help me.

Before explaining the Cain factor, back up a few weeks to the Iowa straw poll where soon-to-be-former candidate Michelle Bachman won that state’s less meaningful poll. But despite Iowa’s “sold to the highest bidder” reputation, the win for Bachman was an upset the more established candidates shouldn’t have ignored. How does a wingnut, fringe candidate with little money and even less sense appeal to enough people to win?

Although flawed, Iowa’s straw poll can’t be completley discounted as irrelevant. Creating a following takes money, and money only comes when people believe in something you are saying.

Bachmann’s Iowa victory and brief moments in the limelight came because despite the fact that she’s nuttier than a pecan pie, she communicates her rhetoric in a manner that is real. In other words, she believes her nonsense. And so did enough other believers who share her views and sent her some money.

But the frontrunners didn’t believe that the believers are looking for someone who is also a believer. Translation: voters are looking for someone who calls a socialist president a socialist, not whatever euphemistic poll-tested answer Mitt Romney calls President Obama.

Mitt and Rick didn’t get the post-Iowa message and continued operating their campaigns how their D.C. handlers told them to run.

Fast forward to last Thursday night at the GOP debate in Orlando. The two establishment candidates Romney and Perry engaged in little more than platitudes about their plans for the nation, and a few barbs at the other guy (or attempted barbs as in Perry’s case) for good measure.  Meanwhile, a few podiums to the right Herman Cain was delivering honest answers to serious questions.

The audience roared when Read the rest of this entry »