Rally In Tally HD Video with commentary

Below is my video review of the 2015 Rally in Tally. The coverage of the event is pretty comprehensive, and now people will need a better excuse to not attend future events besides fear of arrest.

A quick update about the Rally In Tally

The JTC Camp display that was part of the Rally in Tally

I know everyone is wondering what happened at the Rally. I had technical difficulties so I could not live stream as I hoped to do. There will be a full report on the Rally but it is safe to say that Lauren's Kids spent a lot of money to try to censor us. We were completely blocked off by a tight wall of uniformed FDLE motorcycle cops, they used colored smoke to hide the Books as they RAN past us, and, according to some reports, even threatened us with arrest. Lauren's Kids alluded to us and how they were going to deal with us on her website. However, we were there, and there was some press coverage:

http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Walk-in-My-Shoes-Arrives-in-Tallahassee-300716231.html

-- Tom Madison is interviewed and given a moment in the WCTV vid (can anyone record it for us?)

http://floridapolitics.com/lauren-book-ends-statewide-trek-with-tally-rally-to-protect-florida-children-19921/

-- I got coverage in the Florida Politics website, though for some reason they said we identified ourselves as Anonymous members. I did no such thing.

Here's the thing-- the local news was more concerned about FSU QB Jameis Winston's crab legs theft than the Lauren's Kids event. None of the local media gave it any significant coverage save for a generic AP blurb. I would have though they would have received more press, but what little coverage was there included us. Lauren failed to completely censor us but they pulled out all the stops.

A couple of independent film crews also recorded us for future projects for this is all the immediate coverage for now.

There will be an open conference call on Monday, April 27, at 8pm EST.

Call in # 712-775-7031

Meeting ID # 490-643-495

L'Oreal provides the makeup to hide the monster Lauren Book has become

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. – Friedrich Nietzsche

It is often said a picture is worth 1000 words. This particular picture speaks volumes. This picture was taken some time during the international embarrassment known as the Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony, a.k.a. “Bookville.” Standing in the forefront is the notorious Ron Book, along with his daughter Lauren, standing defiantly. Behind them is a homeless camp created by the very policies these two worked to create, along with two people the Books forced to live under the bridge. Together, Ron and Lauren Book campaigned to create the most onerous residency restriction laws in the country in Dade County, forcing a number of registered citizens to live under a bridge. Years after the homeless camp was dismantled, homelessness remains a problem among a significant portion of Miami's registered citizens.

Much of the focus over the years has been on Ron Book, while for the most part his daughter Lauren has been pretty much relegated to the view of her of Ron’s lackey or puppet. After all, Ron was by far the more visible and vocal of the two. Ron is the powerful and corrupt South Florida lobbyist, while Lauren has always been invoked whenever Ron needed a victim to justify his policies. Ron is even the president of Lauren's Kids, a victim industry organization named for Lauren. We seemingly forget the role that Lauren has played in the debacle that was Bookville.

Lauren's annual “Walk in My Shoes” campaign turned into campaigns and even legislation designed to further erode the rights of the accused. In fact, the state of Florida passed the “Walk in Their Shoes Act,” which expanded the admissibility of collateral crime or “similar fact” evidence in cases where a person is charged with child molestation or a sexual offense. In other words, the Act allows hearsay evidence such as a prior allegation, even a false allegation, as evidence in abuse cases.

It was brought to my attention that L'Oreal Paris has an annual award event entitled, “Women of Worth,” and Lauren Book was given the award in December 2013. Considering the recent controversial actions that Lauren Book has taken, the L'Oreal company should reconsider giving an award to a person like Lauren Book. It is obvious that Lauren, in her quest to fight “monsters,” has become Nietzsche's proverbial monster herself.

Consider her more recent actions. Last month, during Lauren's annual Walk in My Shoes campaign, Lauren stopped to give her blessing to a pocket park that was built specifically to force registered citizens to move out of a community, driving untold numbers of registrants into homelessness. “I can't tell you how many times I ask parents, ‘Do you know who's living next door?' and they're afraid to look,’” Lauren said. “So, it's being educated within the law: know who's around you and use examples like (Bayberry Lakes), where you build a park to keep a vulnerable section of your community safer.” Lauren is now encouraging other communities to build pocket parks in order to force registered citizens out of communities. She wants to make the rest of Florida like Miami-Dade County.

More recently, Lauren put her support behind a controversial bill that would literally play scarlet letters on the driver's licenses of registered citizens. The state of Florida already marks the driver's licenses of registered citizens with the number of the statutes under which they were convicted. Under the new law, those the state considers “sexual predators” will have the term sexual predator written on their licenses in scarlet letters. It is interesting that Lauren Book invokes both the term scarlet letter and the TSA in the following statement:

 “This designation is a tool that we as community members – from law enforcement officers to TSA agents to teachers, daycare workers, doctors, nurses and everyone in between – can use to further protect the children and families of Florida… I believe a statutory reference is too benign. This is a scarlet letter that clearly states ‘WARNING! Keep this individual away from children!’ They are a clear and imminent danger, and parents and families have a right to know.”

If there is a true imminent danger to our society, it is individuals like Lauren Book using her position and the law to harm other individuals. Perhaps the most distressing of all is the fact that Florida passed a bill this year that gives victim industry advocates like Lauren a place on a committee that determines which registrants become candidates for civil commitments upon their release from prison.

I guess to some small degree we can reasonably expect a makeup company to do a very good job of screening candidates for some meaningless award created by their company. In our society, it seems the victim industry is rarely, if ever, scrutinized for the policies that they support or advocate. What Lauren Book advocates for is summarized by a picture. Lauren Book advocates for the suffering of human beings. Lauren Book is just as responsible for the Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony as her father was. It was not just Ron we thought of when I and fellow members of SOSEN started calling the colony “Bookville” in 2009.

However, I also feel it is our responsibility as citizens to scrutinize those who use of emotional stories to justify sweeping laws that cause potential harm to thousands of citizens. It seems Lauren Book has failed to heed Nietzsche's warning, choosing to become a monster to fight those she considers monsters. Not even all the makeup produced by the L'Oreal Corporation could cover a Miami sized blemish on Florida's sex offender policy. Giving Lauren Book such an award is as much a faux pas as naming Hitler time magazine's Man of the year.

Bookville II: The sequel no one wanted to see

It seems the saga of the Miami Sex Offender Colony has spawned a sequel. I'm not surprised. They were warned that without a change to the current laws, they were merely playing musical sex offender. Well, the Julia Tuttle Causeway Camp is now the Shorecrest camp.

Read my take on this latest development at The Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/crime-in-cincinnati/the-sequel-no-one-wanted-bookville-ii-return-of-the-miami-sex-offender-camp

Its okay to tell.... the truth about Ron and Lauren Book.

From one exploiter of sex offenders to another: Lauren Book fawns over Mark Lunsford's infamous "Save a child, Hang a Pedophile" badge. I wonder if Lunsford was drunk that day, too.

I have to admit, I flat out despise Ron Book and his daughter Lauren Book-Lim. My faorite memory of Ron Book will always be the day I got Ron Book so angry he was screaming on the ARC Talk Radio (around the 1:35:00 mark) show. I'm not the only one who dislikes the Books, and it is not just because he was the Emperor of "Bookville" (a.k.a. The Julia Tuttle Causeway Causeway Sex Offender Camp). I have an entire article on that saga already, so I won't go too deep into that subject. I will, however, bring up some more of the Book's recent controversies.

Book is currently under investigation by the FBI for issues related to South Florida corruption in politics:

In Broward and Tallahassee politics, influence peddling comes in countless forms. Here's one currently under investigation by the federal government:

A powerful lobbyist, seeking to curry favor with a state senator and benefit a major client, helps to secure the senator's boyfriend a job at the development firm the lobbyist represents. The boyfriend also happens to be a Housing Authority honcho who goes on to oversee two new multimillion-dollar publicly financed projects with the very developer who hired him.

This is one scenario that sources say the FBI is currently investigating as part of a major probe that involves recently convicted GOP fundraiser and lobbyist Alan Mendelsohn, who had deep ties to numerous politicians, including former Gov. Charlie Crist, former Senate President Ken Pruitt, embattled Congressman David Rivera, and state Sen. Eleanor Sobel. The same federal investigation also involves several figures from the massive Mutual Benefits Corp. Ponzi scheme, including MBC fraudster Joel Steinger, who is awaiting trial on federal charges himself.

Here are the players in the scenario:

The lobbyist: Ron Book, who represents a host of governments, including Broward County, and private clients, including the Miami Dolphins, as perhaps the most powerful lobbyist in Florida.

Ron Book apparently has not reformed since his own conviction for illegal campaign contributions in the mid-1990s.From what I've seen, corrupt South Florida politics are par for the course. Maybe that is partly the reason why he remains one of the most sought-after lobbyists in Dade County (in fact, many local news hounds call him the uber-lobbyist). For the right price he'll even represent both sides of the issue (though it is unethical if not illegal).

Well, whats a person to do while his Empire slowly closes in on him? Like Rod Blagojovich and Bobby Jindal, the best way to divert attention is to bring up the sex offender issue. Ron Book is President of an organization that bears his daughter's name (Lauren's Kids). An organization that lobbied for a law named for Lauren which, among efforts to deny the accused the right to a fair trial, also put $1.5 MILLION DOLLARS into an already fully funded program. Book is denying he asked for that money while admitting he asked for TWICE as much. Well, you can always use that money to shelter those Bookville residents now forced to sleep in the parking lots at the Florida Dept. of Corrections:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/legislature/nonprofit-run-by-lobbyist-ron-books-daughter-nets-15-million-but-not-for/1169436

TALLAHASSEE — It pays to be the daughter of a super lobbyist, but things can get complicated.

In the final days of the legislative session, lawmakers amended a bill to protect children from sexual abuse that gave $1.5 million to Lauren's Kids, a nonprofit run by the daughter of Ron Book, the Tallahassee uber-lobbyist from Miami.

The problem is, according to all accounts, neither of the Books asked for the money. The bill, HB 215, says the money must be used to finance a 24-hour abuse hotline and pay for sexual abuse prevention education in schools — programs already offered by Lauren's Kids without state funding.

The money the Books did ask for but did not receive: $3 million to finance the cost of relocating victims of sexual assault who are too threatened to remain at home. Instead, the late-session allocation was tacked onto a bill victim advocates had worked on all year. Among other things, the bill limits a defendant's access to child pornography evidence, allows the admission of prior sexual crimes as evidence and ensures the HIV testing of sex offenders.

The House sponsor, Rep. Chris Dorworth, R-Lake Mary, says the House objected after the Attorney General's Office raised concerns that the Senate plan to put $3 million into the victims relocation fund would not be enough to pay for relocation of sexual abuse victims. It didn't want to risk running out of money and having to tap funds for a current program that pays for relocation costs of domestic abuse victims. Book and other supporters disagreed, but the House wouldn't back down. "There is no denying our staff had trouble with that,'' Dorworth said. But he quickly added: "The language didn't originate in the House."

No one disputes the issue got attention from House and Senate leadership because it had Book's name attached.

The commenters are showing how South Floridians are catching on to the corruption:

geoteacher May 13, 2011 4:17 PM

Corruption Period! Paying off legislators with taxpayer funding Repbulican friends. What a way to do business. Let's ask Bondi to put them in jail? Nah, can't do that, she is a Republican.

JohnQCitizenMD May 13, 2011 3:55 PM

Shenanigans, period.

seminolebuck1 May 13, 2011 5:05 PM

can you say "bribery"? Ronnie is super scummy!

JohnQCitizenMD May 13, 2011 6:14 PM

Here are your Republicans being fiscal hawks. The area they demand the money be used in (1.5 MILLION) is already being funded without state aid. This is right up there with the Taj Mahal.

sundog May 13, 2011 9:39 PM

another fine example of the florida legislative branch's complete sense of entitlement fueled by self interest and their never ending quest for personal power and especially personal profit.

FL Geezer May 14, 2011 3:21 AM

Let's see. About 20 Large for Hari-dope's Senate campaign gets you $1,500,000 from Hari-dope's "Money Pit." What a country !!!

seminolebuck1 May 14, 2011 11:06 AM

how long is Ronnie gonna milk his daughter's misfortune?

mattgordonmd May 15, 2011 12:08 AM

"It's always going to be difficult when a high-priced lobbyist advocates for or against something, but that doesn't make it bad,'' said Book"

- Ron, you are being disingenuous. The bill that granted your daughter's "foundation" $1.5M did not write itself. Indeed, it is very "bad" when a bill is passed and the author is anonymous. Perhaps it was intended as a "gift" from the state "pot" of spare money? The pols claimed money was tight, budgets were being trimmed, worthwhile programs defunded... yet, there is a "pot" of money not yet allocated?

With very few exceptions, this is the most untrustworthy group of legislators Florida has had the displeasure of being violated by in a long time. If their sociopathy continues at this pace, then the next session should be held at the mental hospital in Chattahoochee.

Realist 1 May 17, 2011 7:58 AM

It is not his daughters Ron is the president of the non profit.

Follow The Leader: As usual, Daddy Book takes charge, with Lauren behind him.

One of the happiest days of my life will be the day all those corruption finally catches up to Ron Book. At a time when the economy is at an all time low, do we need to give our money to rich (and corrupt) people who can blow a cool million on a wedding that barely lasted a full year while rubbing it in to those they forced to live under bridge? I'd like to "walk in your shoes" but I'm not a rich family, just another guy with a criminal record. Well we have ONE thing in common.