Guest Author
Failed Democratic presidential candidate and Biden campaign megadonor Michael Bloomberg is executing a scheme straight out of some third world, banana republic election. He’s giving millions of dollars to Florida’s criminals to pay off the fines and fees they owe as part of their sentences.
Why? It certainly isn’t out of the goodness of heart. Bloomberg is paying them so that they’ll vote for Joe Biden. As shameful as it is to openly admit that convicted felons can be relied upon to vote for your preferred presidential candidate, Bloomberg is brazenly exploiting a loophole in Florida’s new ex-felon voting amendment that allows him, in effect, to directly pay such people to vote.
In 2018, Floridians voted to restore the voting rights of most ex-convicts who had completed their sentences and probation. The referendum in question, Amendment 4, immediately added 1.4 million eligible voters to Florida’s election rolls — voters that Bloomberg and other liberal elitists are convinced will vote Democrat. The Republican-controlled legislature, the state courts, and the federal courts all quickly agreed that completing one’s sentence included paying the fines and fees associated with conviction.
Bloomberg and the Democrats see this as an opportunity, not a setback. Now they can directly pay off those debts for a huge number of criminals and instantly make them eligible to vote as a result.
In essence, Bloomberg is telling felons who may owe thousands of dollars in fines that “I’ll take care of those debts for you — just make sure to vote.”
This is not what we voted for. Amendment 4 was about our fellow Floridians who had fully paid their debt to society. That’s why we didn’t extend the offer to those convicted of especially heinous crimes such as rape and murder, which are affronts to civilized society that can never be fully rectified.
By a margin of almost two-to-one, Floridians voted to let people like people who have paid their debt to society for less-serious felonies participate in our elections again if they so choose.
But the people who voted for Amendment 4 were not voting to enable a New York billionaire Democrat to come down to Florida and literally pay tens of thousands of felons to vote.
My Congressman in Florida’s 1st Congressional District and himself an attorney pointed out that giving something of value for a vote is a felony in Florida. It might be just desserts if Billion-dollar Bloomberg had to pay off his own fines and serve his own time for skirting the law to steal an election.
This is the sort of thing that happens in a failed state — oligarchs paying ex-convicts based on the expectation that they’ll vote for candidates from a certain party. Unfortunately, it’s not the start or the end of the Democratic Party’s effort to appeal to criminals this year. All over the country, they’re giving offenders their most fervent wish by “eliminating cash bail” — a dangerous policy that vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris wants to implement nationwide.
The old gangster movie cliché — “I’ll be back out on the streets by suppertime” — now applies to everyone arrested of a crime in some Democrat-controlled cities. New York City, the town Michael Bloomberg used to run as a “tough-on-crime” mayor when that was politically advantageous to him, is finding out the consequences of that policy right now.
The guy who deliberately derailed a subway train this week was allowed to go free without so much as posting a bond after an earlier arrest, and he’s just the latest example of a career criminal doing exactly what any sane person would expect them to do with the gift of unearned freedom.
Democrats should be ashamed to count convicted felons as a key voting constituency. But as Michael Bloomberg just demonstrated, they care only about amassing political power by any means necessary.
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Mike Huckabee was the 44th Governor of Arkansas and a 2016 Republican candidate for President. He is currently the host of “Huckabee” on TBN.
11 comments
Sonja Fitch
September 25, 2020 at 4:05 pm
Prove it huckabuck! Vote Blue ! Vote Democrat up and down ballot!
Cristobal Betancourt
September 25, 2020 at 4:09 pm
This is nonsensical. Bloomberg is not paying them, he is paying their poll tax. The fact that there is a poll tax should frighten everyone. Poll taxes were abolished by the 24th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It’s a fact. Before everyone starts calling me a commie or a liberal…I am NPA. I just get upset when a cut and dry fact is politicized.
LINDIESUE
September 25, 2020 at 4:55 pm
Folks question why FL expects felons to pay restitution/court costs/fines. I am a FL victim whose Home shot into w/BB gun by teenagers who bullied my handicapped son in school. We went through 5 nights of terror. To catch them, I had to hire a PI paying well over $2,000 of my property taxes savings (while raising 2 sons). VICTIMS DESERVE RECOMPENSE FIRST AND FOREMOST. I could have lost my home had I not been able to replace the money to pay my property taxes. There is often a major cost for victims. Paying the above by felons is PART of the sentencing all of which needs to be completed before rights are restored. Also, the Restoration of Rights Bill does not include women and children who were victims of Domestic Abuse. It covers only sex crimes and murder. So felons who beat their wives/girlfriends/children can now have their rights restored immediately.
carl viener
September 25, 2020 at 5:41 pm
I agree with you
Pam Gray
September 27, 2020 at 11:33 am
People who are convicted of a crime should be made to pay restitution to the injured party as a result of that crime. PERIOD. I think our prisons should be rehabilitative rather than simply punitive in nature. People get into trouble and commit crimes for reasons as vast and varied as our planet and range from drug addiction, to feeling they have no opportunities or no available alternatives, they suffer from mental illness that has gone untreated or even diagnosed, they suffer from childhood abuse and continue the cycle, to just lazy or bored spoiled kids who never grew up.
That said, I think people should work while in prison–Learn a trade like building homes for the homeless or work in the fields to help out our migrant farm workers. For this, they should earn money to learn that there is value to hard work and the money earned should go straight back to the victims of their crime(s) and they can’t be released until full restitution is made. That might make them think twice about re-offending.
It is difficult for people returning to society after incarceration. The majority of them are unskilled and/or uneducated and end up reoffending because it is the only way they know how to survive. Being saddled with court fees and fines re the last thing freshly released prisoners are going to worry about paying when they need to pay for food, clothing and shelter first. I applaud Bloomberg for giving these folks a leg up when reentering society. He is allowing them the opportunity of every other citizen in the country… the right to vote. And if these fines & fees included restitution to the victims of their crime(s), well I’d say that was a win for everyone and the victims might want to thank Mike Bloomberg.
Pam Gray
September 27, 2020 at 11:40 am
People who are convicted of a crime should be made to pay restitution to the injured party as a result of that crime. PERIOD. I think our prisons should be rehabilitative rather than simply punitive in nature. People get into trouble and commit crimes for reasons as vast and varied as our planet and range from drug addiction, to feeling they have no opportunities or no available alternatives, they suffer from mental illness that has gone untreated or even diagnosed, they suffer from childhood abuse and continue the cycle, to just lazy or bored spoiled kids who never grew up.
That said, I think people should work while in prison–Learn a trade like building homes for the homeless or work in the fields to help out our migrant farm workers. For this, they should earn money to learn that there is value to hard work and the money earned should go straight back to the victims of their crime(s) and they can’t be released until full restitution is made. That might make them think twice about re-offending.
It is difficult for people returning to society after incarceration. The majority of them are unskilled and/or uneducated and end up reoffending because it is the only way they know how to survive. Being saddled with court fees and fines re the last thing freshly released prisoners are going to worry about paying when they need to pay for food, clothing and shelter first. I applaud Bloomberg for giving these folks a leg up when reentering society. He is allowing them the opportunity of every other citizen in the country… the right to vote. And if these fines & fees included restitution to the victims of their crime(s), well I’d say that was a win for everyone and the victims might want to thank Mike Bloomberg. He is just giving them their voices back after paying their debt to society.
S.B. ANTHONY
September 25, 2020 at 5:39 pm
Failed presidential candidate Huckleberry criticizes Bloomberg. Another anti-Semite from the hills. Do these people even hear themselves talking?
Palmer Tom
September 25, 2020 at 6:37 pm
Huckabee is still a loser. You’re not from Florida. Butt out of our business.
LINDIESUE
September 26, 2020 at 2:54 pm
Oh, but Bloomberg can butt in? Screw you.
Josh
September 25, 2020 at 6:50 pm
He pay their vote tax that republicans create. He dont care if the vote red or blue. But after some much love republicans show to them. They expect them to vote for a Republican?
Yeshua
September 27, 2020 at 10:20 pm
Bloomberg isn’t telling anyone who to vote for.
There are trump events where they are paying black people “prize money” to come out and trump just promised seniors a $200 check .
There is a stick in your eye, Mike.
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