Quote of the Day

"If anyone knows about grandstanding, it’s him with his 6-foot yardstick."

Frank Reddick, Tampa City Councilman

Mayor Bob Buckhorn accused members of the Tampa City Council of "grandstanding" on the red light camera program. There has been consesus to kill the program. Buckhorn and the City Council have disagreed on how revenue from tickets acquired from the program should be spent.

Reddick 's comment referred to Buckhorn's support for a six foot limit law between patrons and dancers in strip clubs. Buckhorn attempted to outlaw lap dances when he was on the Tampa City Council. Strip club owner Joe Redner vowed to take every arrest of his dancers to trial. The City of Tampa hasn't enforced the law in years.

Reddick's quote perfectly called out Buckhorn for grandstanding.

Food Not Bombs at Tampa RNC

WUSF reports that Food Not Bombs will be feeding protesters during the Republican National Convention. Food Not Bombs will be at Voice of Freedom Park during the convention.

Food Not Bombs founder John McHenry told WUSF that the Tampa RNC was chosen for their world gathering because of Florida's strict anti-homeless laws. Food Not Bombs have had several run-ins with law enforcement for feeding the homeless in public parks. Apparently, the parks are public until someone tries to feed homeless people.

Voice of Freedom Park is owned by Joe Redner, the owner of Mons Venus and liberal activist. Redner is currently letting Occupy Tampa use the park. The Tampa Police Department is forcing Redner to evict Occupy Tampa by September 15th.

"I am not making them leave," Redner says. "The city was kicking protesters out of public parks downtown. They were being harassed and getting put in jail. I thought I was doing the city a favor by letting them stay at my park, but I know they can't stay forever."

Redner also said that the Occupiers have caused no problems for the surrounding communities. The area near Voice of Freedom Park is poor. Occupy Tampa is hardly dropping the property values.

Strippers Prepare For GOP Convention in Tampa

The Young Turk has a story on Mons Venus and other stips clubs are preparing for the Republican National Convention coming to Tampa next year. I remember reading a Village Voice blog written by a woman that worked in a strip club during the 2004 convention in New York City. The blogger wrote about how Republicans love partying in strip clubs. That tells me that Republicans will lose their family values issues when they don't even believe in the anti-sexual issues they stand for.

Joe Redner Run for Florida House

Tampa strip club owner Joe Redner is running as a NPA candidate for Florida House District 58. Redner is a smart guy and has been a strong activist for smart development, gay rights and the environment. That said, no way in hell should Redner be anywhere near public office. Redner has chased (annoying) street preachers with noisemakers and got a chair thrown at him on a public access show. I wrote, "Redner is destined to become the Paul Paulson of Hillsborough County politics. He is a political train wreck and takes away attention from real issues." My opinion hasn't changed.

Someone please convince Redner he will never win an election.

Mons Venus Business Is Down

Sign that the economy is bad. Mons Venus owner Joe Redner told The Chicago Tribune his gentlemen's club's business is down 25 percent. More women are coming to the club to dance to make end's meat. Maybe John McCain will propose a titty club tax break to help jump start the economy.

Florida Election News

Wayne Garcia covered a Democratic debate between Kevin Beckner, Joe Redner and Denise Layne. The candidates are vying for the Hillsborough County Commission district 6 seat. The winner faces Republican incumbant Brian Blair.

Garcia reports no local media covered the debate. The St. Petersburg Times can spare Josh Gillin to blog The Juice.

The candidates talk about transportation. As usual, Redner comes off the smart. Redner is a great policy wonk, but too crazy to be in public office. Denise Layne is an also ran. Beckner has the party's backing and will win the primary.



In related news: Meowmissy does a roundup of the Supervisor of Election races across Florida. She cites the Hillsborough County race between incumbant Buddy Johnson and Democratic challenger Phyllis Busansky as one to watch.

My question is will Johnson or Busansky implode first. The DCCC heavily backed her. She was a more experienced candidate than Gus Bilirakis. She still lost. The Tampa Democratic establisment love Busansky, but she hasn't won a race in years.

Johnson has been one media shit storm after another. I have blogged to death about Buddy and have trouble keeping track of all his bad publicity. Busansky should never run again, if She loses to the unpopular Johnson.

Bible Research Center Behind USF Student Harassment

"We don't preach a feel good message. We preach a feel bad message."

Larry Keffer

Just as I suspected: the street preachers behind the sexist harassment of a USF student is the Bible Research Center. What they specialize in is starting altercations with the public and police. They then place their skewedly edited videos on Youtube, portraying themselves as innocent bystanders. An easy way to spot them around Tampa is they carry a sign about 20 feet high. They have been cited for noise violation for using megaphones. There is this caption from a video of the preachers being cited in Ybor City.

So, I begin to preachbut no one is checking my decibles. (their spelling)

I didn't lower the volume.

When the preacher returned from being cited, he informed the other preacher that he told the officers he would turn down the volume if he "could see the decibel meter." They do to make themselves feel like little martyrs. What they fail to mention is they have been cited by noise violations for years. Businesses and patrons have complained. The officer knows they are playing a game every time they ask to see the decibel meter. The officer angry because he is tired of playing this charade with the preachers.



Street preacher Larry Keffer attempted to get a gay man arrested. He then verbally attacked the female officer on his megaphone after she didn't arrest the man. Keffer refered to the gay man as a she in a caption.

She said, "He wins."

Keffer got into a well-publicized run-in with strip clubowner/political activist Joe Redner at Mons Venus. Redner attacked the preachers with bullhorns after they refused to turn down the volume. The preachers called dancers "whores" and patrons "masturbators." On the public access show the Bleeping Truth Keffer bragged coming back to Mons Venue with louder equipment.

I'm amazed that he says we came to an understanding and lowered our volume. Actually, after his litte air horn debacle, I actually went out and bought a larger megaphone. One that had a hands free, so I could have a headset. And it was actually much loader. So, and we we're louder.

Keffer and his crew are breaking the law. The reason they haven't been arrested is because law enforcement doesn't want to deal with the controversy of arresting members of a Christian group. There are many bar strips and adult establishments. The Bible Research Center goes to the Mons Venus and Ybor City because they know they will receive media attention.

Keffer admitted calling women whores at Mons Venus. Fellow evangelist John M. Kranert called a USF student a "whore" and "prostitute." The BRC come on the USF every few weeks and verbally attack women regularly. They feel they can get away with harassment because of the First Amendment have an attched to video equipment stronger than Linus to his blanket. If anyone attempts to stand up to them they post the heavily-edited incident on Youtube and ask the police to arrest the person. These people are sick.

Classic Sticks of Fire

"Redner is connected to the adult industry that many people find offensive, if not downright immoral. And let’s face it. Of all the shady businesses to own, a strip club is among the very darkest. The nature of the business brings out all sorts of drunks, drug addicts and just uneasy people."

Tommy Duncan, editor of Sticks of Fire.

Take that Joe Redner. It is a good thing Mr. Family Values sells these T-shirts of his Sticks of Fire Cafe Press site.

Joe Redner Will Run Again and Again...

Someone please tell Joe Redner his opportunity to serve in public office came and went.

Redner confirmed this afternoon that he’s planning to run for a Hillsborough County Commission seat. That race won’t be decided until November 2008. (This will be his eighth try for an elected office, for those keeping score.)

He says he doesn’t know which seat he’ll vie for, but unless Redner’s planning on moving, he can only run for the District 6 seat currently held by Brian Blair. The other two seats coming up for a vote are currently held by Ken Hagan and Al Higginbotham – but Redner doesn’t live in either of their districts.

Redner admitted, in the article, that offering free admission to Mons Venus to any person voting in the Tampa City Council race was a mistake.

“I didn’t keep people’s minds on the issues,” Redner said. “This time I will not deviate from the issues at all.”

Redner also didn't have no GOTV ground organization and lost to the weakest incumbant on the Tampa City Council. He will get smashed if he runs against Brian Blair and hurt a serious Democratic candidate. If he really wants to better the community he can use his wealth and name-recognition to support causes he cares about.

Redner is destined to become the Pat Paulson of Hillsborough County politics. He is a political car wreck that provides press fodder and takes away attention from real issues. Ralph Nader has a better chance of becoming President than Redner getting elected in Tampa.

Joe Redner's South Tampa Problem

This Tampa Tribune article points out how badly Joe Redner blew the Tampa City Council runoff.

Any chance Joe Redner had of winning Tuesday's runoff election depended on strong support from south Tampa.

It never came.

South Tampa precincts tended to favor Redner over incumbent Gwen Miller in the first election this month, when four other candidates were in the race. On Tuesday, according to a precinct analysis, a sizable number of voters who supported those other candidates backed Miller rather than Redner.

Redner had no GOTV campaign or election day presence of volunteers holding signs or driving enderly voters to the polls. When a candidate loses districts he should of won it's proof he is a disaster. The worse part is Redner plans on running again.

Tampa City Council Runoff Results

All the precincts have been counted in the dictricts 1 and 7 Tampa City Council races. It's bad news for Joe Redner.

District 1

Gwen Miller - 56.47 percent
Joe Redner - 43.53 percent

District 7

Joseph Caetano - 59.54 percent
Frank Margarella - 40.46 percent

Okay gang. Question for the comments. Did you want to see Redner win or are you glad that he is not going to serve on City Council. It seems like he blew his momentum by offering people free admission to Mons Venus if they voted.

The Joel Award

I noticed Sticks of Fire's back-to-back spiels on informing the public that Tampa City Council candidate Joe Redner runs a strip club. It's rather amusing for a blog that ceaselessly attempts to draw traffic by writing about strippers to chastise Redner for a business that gives them so much blogging cheesy material.

The Joel post is particularly hysterical.

What supporters of Redner’s ideas need to consider is that Redner could potentially hurt his and their cause rather than move it forward.

I love the fact that someone who brags about not supporting progressive causes feels entitled to give us advise.

I think you're just bitter that your party has to spend so much money trying to attract chafed fence-sitters like myself. I'd hate to tell you this, but you're going to need me and my fence to make sure 2006 is more than just a hiccup.

Joel does a strange thing in the post. He list a series of reasons why Redner should not serve on the City Council. Then he provides the disclosure that he can't give an opinion on whether Redner is the better candidate because... he spent a whole post providing his opinion on Redner? WTF.

Why does he even after to provide a disclosure? Since when is living in Temple Terrace a conflict of interest.

Joel has a history of making mind-bogglingly bizarre statements. He denies that he defended Rachel Moran for her beat on the homeless post.

And I'm hoping you can remind me at what point I defended Rachel for that post.

I am more than happy to remind people.

I do hope that anyone offended cuts both Rachel* and Sticks some slack. Make your displeasure known please, but please don’t let this drive you away.

Pushing Rope officially announces the start of the Joel Award. This award is given to a blogger who makes glaringly obvious contradictory statements. (It's a nice way of saying less than honest.) I will have Zen make a banner that does Joel's geeky visage justice.

Update: We will add journalists and public figures that make dishonest flip-flopping statements.

Joe Redner Endorsed by St Petersburg Times

The St Petersburg Times Joe Redner for the Tampa City Council district 1 seat. I'm thinking more and more Redner is going to win these.

Gwen Miller is the dream candidate for Redner. She speaks without passion. Miller is afraid to go negative on a candidate with huge baggage.

Redner just sent out a clever direct mail ad. It's clearly a dig at Miller.



If Redner wasn't a strip club owner he would be an unstoppable candidate. He is smart, charismatic, wonkish and articulate. Redner will still have his horrible temper as an Achilles’ heel.

Ronda Storms Shuts Down Myspace Parody Site

Is Ronda Storms sensitive or what? She is mad over a satirical Myspace parody of her. I linked to it back in March. Storms complained and took the profile down. If she is paranoid that people will believe the profile is really than I can assure her not to worry. I knew it was a paroldy the moment I saw it.

Thanks to Google cache, you can still view the profile.

"You poorly cover the threats, downplay them when they occur, and then publicly mock me when I take them seriously, so they escalate," she said in an e-mail Monday.

Getting hate email is common. Especially, with someone as a controversial profile as Storms. Maybe the reason people don't take Storms seriously is that she constantly cries wolf against people who disagree with her. Her overreaction to a fake Myspace profile is a classic example. Storms feels entitled to use her position to verbally abuse others. Her assault on Castor (video clip) is a perfect example. Storms comments towards Keystone residents maybe the most insulting.

"Y'all aren't getting little sheds out there, you know, with toothless people."

This woman has no shame.

Update: Give me a break Tommy.

There’s even a Joe Redner myspace. Although I guess this one might be real. But that’s the point of this - you don’t know if they are real or not.

Tommy posted "heh" in the comments when I first blogged about the fake Ronda site. Obviously he knew it was fake. That is the same line of reason as the Colbert Report is a real conservative show (on Comedy Central) and Airplane! is a true story. The parody Storms describes her musical tastes as "I'm a little bit country, I'm a little bit rock and roll." There are a small percentage who will be foolish enough to believe the Ronda Storms site is real. Those are the idiots who posted angry comments at Roxanne Cooper's parody Michele Malkin blog. If the blog's first post on April 1 wasn't enough of a hint then nothing would be.

As far as arguments go, lumping online predators to parody sites is lame. Back it up. Tommy, do you believe the Onion is a threat to democracy because they write fake news articles and attribute fake quote from politicians?

Tommy, if you want to know if the Joe Redner Myspace site is real then contact him. Redner's in the phone book.