Unanswered questions about Senator Lauren Book's nude leak controversy

First off, when I made Ron and Lauren Book exposed, I obviously was not referring to seeing either of the idiots nude. 

That being said, there are certainly some questions I have about this story, questions that others have as well.  

Considering Lauren Book's track record of lying about being stalked, I can't help but wonder if this story is true, partially false, or a complete fabrication.

Just how exactly did these photos go from shared only with a "close friend" into the hands of this alleged blackmailed? 

I wonder why she waited until she was being heavily criticized for failing to attend special sessions on FloriDUH public policy to bring this out? Considering her penchant for playing the victim role at the first opportunity,  it seems odd she kept the story covered for over a month.  

There is way more to the story I am sure. But I shudder to think someone has seen these offensive photos. I bet this person may need a cure for petrification!

On a related note, I am not interested in the least about these photos, and I will not publish them if sent to me. Do not send them to me, I do not want to see them! I like not being blind and/or traumatized. 

I hope Lauren Book at least learns a lesson regarding making assumptions about people. She is not a big deal outside FloriDUH and people are already speculating about her personal life, just like she has done to others over the years. 

ADDENDUM 3/10/22: The South FloriDUH Sun-SLANTinel published the following:

"Democratic Sen. Lauren Book, who became the victim of an extortion attempt by a Broward County teenager who threatened to release images stolen from her. During the investigation, she learned the images, including video of her and her husband, were being sold and traded online."

So does that mean that alleged fellatio video wasn't as fake as she claims? Or is the Sun-SLANTinel pulling a Yahoo News?

The Florida Democratic Party is dying under the impotent leadership of Senator Lauren Book

 A running joke among football fans is to name a player on the opposing team their own team's MVP whenever the opposing team's player is so inept, that player's actions lead to multiple points for his opponent. 

Right now, Senator Lauren Book's ineptitude as leader of the Florida Democratic Party is making her the MVP... for Florida Republicans. Instead of doing her job, she doesn't bother to show up for work and falls back on her lame excuse of claiming to be harassed by Internet trolls. (I wonder if the FBI is getting sick of the Senator who cried wolf yet?)

If Florida Democrats want to survive the coming red wave, they need a real leader, not a sock puppet for corporate interests and that of her lobbyist dad. 

Senator Lauren Book, seen here at the latest Senate caucus....
Of wait she was absent. Nevermind.

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/fl-op-com-bousquet-democrats-hopeless-tallahassee-20211119-7ta6pfyh2vdpjhplpvczltbitq-story.html

If Democrats don’t even show up, what’s the point? | Steve Bousquet

By STEVE BOUSQUET

SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL |

NOV 19, 2021 AT 2:00 PM

TALLAHASSEE — Florida is in trouble. The last line of defense against the extremism of Gov. Ron DeSantis are the 16 Democrats in the state Senate. But it’s a caucus in chaos, and at the worst possible time.

When Senate Democrats are in disarray and bickering with each other — when they bother to show up, that is — everything is so much easier for Republicans and harder for the people of Florida. The just-ended special legislative session on DeSantis’ anti-vaccine agenda provided the latest display of Democratic ineptitude.

Sen. Lauren Book, D-Plantation, took charge of the caucus in April after Democrats ousted her predecessor, Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point, and she vowed things would change.

“It’s time to have a united caucus,” Book said, with redistricting and an election-year session on the horizon.

Seven months later, the caucus still doesn’t have its act together, and Democrats just blew a golden opportunity to derail DeSantis’ dangerous agenda.

Senators were called to a caucus meeting just before decisive floor votes Wednesday on four pro-DeSantis bills, including a sweeping new exemption to the public records law to keep employee complaints secret. The First Amendment Foundation called it overbroad, ill-conceived and likely unconstitutional. The choice was to side with DeSantis or support the First Amendment. It’s an easy call.

A plan was hatched to take a united caucus position against the bill (HB 3B). All 16 votes were enough to defeat it if they stuck together, because passage of a public records exemption requires a two-thirds super-majority (27 of 40 votes). Farmer pushed the idea on the theory that it would put Florida in violation of federal laws protecting confidentiality of personal health information.

The strategy was obviously disruptive, but killing a bill would reaffirm Democrats’ belief in transparency, slow DeSantis’ runaway anti-vax train and make Democrats relevant for once. Even the threat of a caucus position can be effective leverage to extract concessions from Republicans, but only if Democrats are united and willing to fight.

When it came time to decide, nearly half of caucus members didn’t show up. Nine were there, and one, Sen. Darryl Rouson of St. Petersburg, left. But it didn’t matter because Book backed new caucus rules that required a two-thirds vote to take a caucus position.

Besides Book, the absentees were Sens. Loranne Ausley, Randolph Bracy, Janet Cruz, Tina Polsky, Linda Stewart and Annette Taddeo. Farmer remains a polarizing caucus figure, but when the minority party’s only path is to disrupt, Democrats need to act. They didn’t, and what little relevance they had in this slam-dunk session slipped away as their absences blocked a caucus position.

“It’s sad,” said Sen. Audrey Gibson, D-Jacksonville, looking at the empty chairs. “I guess some people are not interested.”

Sen. Perry Thurston, D-Lauderhill, anticipating trouble, urged colleagues “not to walk away from this vote.” But that’s what happened, as four Democrats did not vote: Book, Ausley, Randolph Bracy of Orlando and Bobby Powell of West Palm Beach.

Ausley had an excused absence. Bracy and Powell were on the floor, failed to vote and abandoned their constituents. That’s a dereliction of duty. Every time a Democrat “takes a walk,” it enables Republicans.

Two other Democrats, Rouson and Stewart, of Orlando, voted for the secrecy bill as it passed 26-10. Stewart told The Orlando Sentinel she was lobbied on the bill by Disney and FP&L, among others. She voted the wrong way, but at least she showed up.

Book, who also missed floor votes, was out of sight, and sources said she was the target of a cyber threat being pursued by the FBI. An FBI spokeswoman declined to confirm that an investigation was underway. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Senate president’s office declined to comment.

For Senate Democrats, the refusal to play rough with Republicans feeds the dissident narrative that Book and her allies are cowed by the GOP and beholden to big-money donors.

Wednesday’s meltdown wasn’t the first time Senate Democrats discussed DeSantis’ anti-vaccine tactics. They met Tuesday afternoon but didn’t notify the media or the public. That closed-door session ran afoul of Senate rules requiring that legislative discussions between more than two senators “shall be open to the public,” including “political caucuses.”

Ten senators attended a prearranged meeting called by Book’s staff and chaired by Book. A person with direct knowledge said the specific bills were listed on a whiteboard. Farmer called for a united stand against employee and employer secrecy. Sen. Victor Torres, D-Orlando, backed him.

“Gary’s right,” Torres said. “We can kill it.” Another senator warned that the meeting was not noticed. Book refused to recognize Farmer. Talk then returned to the four pending bills — in private.

“There was no discussion about views or stances regarding pending legislation,” said Book’s spokeswoman, Cathy Schroeder. She confirmed that she refused to let Tampa Bay Times reporter Lawrence Mower attend the meeting, and called it “a huge oversight on my part.”

Senators meeting in secret, skipping a caucus, refusing to vote — we expected better from Book. But the caucus is a microcosm of what’s wrong with the Florida Democratic Party. It’s a lack of unity, excessive infighting and too many people out for themselves, not the greater good, in the face of an unprecedented power grab by a Republican governor.

Never has Florida more urgently needed a stronger, more relevant two-party system. Thanks for nothing, Senate Democrats.

https://floridaphoenix.com/2021/11/18/where-were-all-the-missing-senate-dems-during-the-caucus-meeting-earlier-this-week/

Where were all the missing Senate Dems during the caucus meeting earlier this week?

BY: ISSAC MORGAN - NOVEMBER 18, 2021 4:51 PM

Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book was not in attendance Wednesday at a caucus meeting with colleagues. She also was gone when senators debated and voted on special session legislation in the Florida Senate chamber that evening.

It’s still not entirely clear why so many Senate Democrats failed to attend a caucus meeting earlier in the day.

But Book was marked as “excused” during the special session in the Senate chamber Wednesday evening, according to legislative records, when members voted on key initiatives that Republicans approved related to COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates.

The Phoenix contacted her office multiple times, but has yet to receive a response.

In addition, state Sen. Loranne Ausley was excused . She represents several North Florida counties.

Members of the Senate caucus met Wednesday before the special session in the Florida Capitol, with only nine members out of 16 in attendance. The situation was troublesome to some lawmakers who were focused on legislation related to a public-records exemption, which blocks personal information about medical histories and religious views of workers challenging workplace vaccine mandates.

State Sen. Gary Farmer, a Democrat representing part of Broward County, acknowledged Thursday that  “historically we’ve had some attendance issues with caucus.”  Previously, Farmer expressed frustration about the lack of attendance at Wednesday’s meeting, saying that members should follow rules by requesting an excused absence.

“When there’s major legislation going on, we usually have pretty good attendance,” Farmer said in a phone conversation with the Florida Phoenix on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, we did not yesterday,” he said, adding that he wasn’t aware of any members requesting an excused absence.

State Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democrat representing part of Miami-Dade County, was absent from the caucus because she had “multiple meetings scheduled for Wednesday before the time of convening,” according to a legislative aide. Records show Taddeo casted her vote against COVID-19 vaccine mandate legislation on the Senate floor Wednesday evening.

“The senator was in a pre-scheduled meeting with constituents who traveled up to Tallahassee from our district in Miami during the time that the caucus meeting was called for…we were unable to reschedule when we were notified about the caucus meeting that same morning,” the staffer said in an email to the Phoenix.

Taddeo is a gubernatorial candidate in the 2022 election.

That bill and three others passed and were signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis during what appeared to be a campaign-style press event Thursday, with several GOP members present to tout Republican efforts to block employers and school districts from vaccine and mask mandates.

The Phoenix reached out to other Democratic senators about the situation but only a few had responded as of Thursday afternoon.

At the end of April, Farmer “was jettisoned as Democratic Leader in exchange for Senator Lauren Book,” another Broward County lawmaker, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The two have clashed in the past, and Farmer resigned the leadership role before the end of the regular 2021 session, the news outlet stated.

Senator Lauren Book quietly changed law on cyberstalking in her continued effort to silence critic

It seems that FloriDUH State Senator Lauren Book, still butthurt at Derek Logue's victory over her in the courts, has abused the legislature to pass a bill allowing her to silence her critics yet again. 

CS/HB 921, signed into law on 7/6/2021 (as Chapter No. 2021-220), contains a rather vague provision to the state's cyberstalking law:

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/921/Amendment/725860/PDF

(d) “Cyberstalk” means:

1. To engage in a course of conduct to communicate, or to cause to be communicated, directly or indirectly, words, images, or language by or through the use of electronic mail or electronic communication, directed at or pertaining to a specific person;

**********

The underlined and emboldened words are the additions, and they emphasize the fact that Lauren Book's intent with the changes is to criminalize criticism. 

As noted in Logue v Book 297 So. 3d 605 (Fla. Ct. App. 2020):

"Respondent’s website is essentially a blog that primarily republishes news articles about Petitioner and her father, detailing what Respondent describes as “their questionable activity.” As a result, most of the website’s content is culled from various third-party sources and contains information published in other media. It is undisputed that Respondent never directly communicated with Petitioner about any of the posts, nor did he ever send them to her or any of her associates. According to one witness who testified at the injunction hearing, Petitioner and her group only learned of the posts from third-parties, and became concerned because “it seemed to be the language was maybe more inflammatory and very opinion based, using language that was . . . kind of angry or derogative, insulting, personally insulting in addition to being just kind of a disagreement of opinions and ideas.” Even in the light most favorable to Petitioner’s view of the content and assuming that description to be accurate, none of the posts are sufficient to support an injunction, because none of them constitute either a threat or harassment under the cyberstalking statute..."

"Finally, the Third District emphasized that, regardless of the forum, actions designed to harangue or threaten violence are not protected: Angry social media postings are now common.

Jilted lovers, jilted tenants, and attention-seeking bloggers spew their anger into fiber-optic cables and cyberspace. But analytically, and legally, these rants are essentially the electronic successors of the pre-blog, solo complainant holding a poster on a public sidewalk in front of an auto dealer that proclaimed, “DON’T BUY HERE! ONLY LEMONS FROM THESE CROOKS!” Existing and prospective customers of the auto dealership considering such a poster made up their minds based on their own experience and research. If and when a hypothetical complainant with the poster walked into the showroom and harangued individual customers, or threatened violence, however, the previously-protected opinion crossed the border into the land of trespass, business interference, and amenability to tailored injunctive relief. The same well developed body of law allows the complaining blogger to complain, with liability for money damages for defamation if the complaints are untruthful and satisfy the elements of that cause of action. Injunctive relief to prohibit such complaints is another matter altogether. Id. at 1092..."

"Considering the various events alleged, we cannot say they were so devoid of a legitimate purpose as to make them actionable under the statute. Each party in this case is a vocal advocate for opposite positions on sex offender laws. Despite Petitioner’s complaints, Respondent’s Tallahassee protest was by all accounts peaceful—even if unpleasant to Petitioner in its scope and message—and non-violent. See § 784.048(1)(b), Fla. Stat. (2016) (stating that “constitutionally protected activity such as picketing or other organize protests” are specifically exempted from being included in the definition of “course of conduct.”). The parties’ opposing viewpoints on such laws are widely debated within what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once described as the “free trade in ideas.” Abrams v. U.S., 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting). True, one side of this debate has far greater public support than the other, but that does not make the Respondent’s advocacy illegitimate."

"Respondent did not drive by Petitioner’s home, take a picture of her private residence, and then disseminate that information. Petitioner’s home address as an elected official is a matter of public record for the purposes of validating her residency. Additionally, Petitioner chose to use her home for business and politics. While she is certainly free to do so, she cannot then obtain an injunction against someone who elects to further publicize that widely available information. Respondent did not unjustifiably expose her private residence address to the public as Petitioner contends; he merely republished the corporate address of Petitioner’s PAC along with other information about it culled from public disclosures. See Palm Beach Newspapers, LLC, 183 So. 3d at 483 (“Where matters of public concern are involved, privacy interests give way to the First Amendment right to publish lawfully obtained, truthful information about such matters.”). Unless Petitioner’s home address was otherwise private or confidential, and it was not, her actions conducting her public advocacy from the residence placed it well into the public domain. When Petitioner chose to have her non-confidential home address double as her business address, thereby voluntarily combining certain aspects of her private life with her public one, she lost the ability to claim a concurrent privacy interest in the areas that overlapped. Therefore, Respondent had the constitutional right to republish that unprotected information."

"Petitioner alleged that she was in fear of Respondent due to his actions, but her subjective fear cannot be the basis for the injunction’s issue. “[C]ourts apply a reasonable person standard, not a subjective standard, to determine whether an incident causes substantial emotional distress.” Schack, 192 So. 3d at 628 (quoting Touhey v. Seda, 133 So. 3d 1203, 1204 (Fla. 2d DCA 2014)). However, we need not make any determination about whether Petitioner’s fear was objectively reasonable because the Tallahassee protest, Respondent’s attendance at the film festival, and the social media posts did not satisfy the statute’s requirements to support the injunction."

" Though her frustration is understandable, expressions of opposing views, even as insults, are not the same as harassment or threats.

This exchange from the injunction hearing, a colloquy between counsel for Respondent and a law enforcement officer witness, sums up the case well:

[Respondent’s counsel]: What intentions and threats can you articulate that were made by Derek Logue against Lauren Book?

[Officer]: Not one specific, sir.

[Respondent’s counsel]: Okay. How about any?

[Officer]: The use of the song to communicate his feelings and thoughts.

[Respondent’s counsel]. Other than the song.

[Officer]: His anger that he has expressed, which I understand is okay to do.

Simply put, the officer was correct. Publicly expressing anger toward an elected official is not a basis for entry of an injunction. In public debate, elected officials must tolerate insulting remarks—even angry, outrageous speech—to provide breathing room for the First Amendment. See Fox v. Hamptons at Metrowest Condo. Ass’n, 223 So. 3d 453, 456 (Fla. 5th DCA 2017). Respondent’s methods and posts, as boorish, crude, and crass as they may be, must also be considered “against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public  issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” N.Y. Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964); see also R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 414 (1992) (White, J., concurring in the judgment) (“The mere fact that expressive activity causes hurt feelings, offense, or resentment does not render the expression unprotected.”). Respondent’s actions and comments, while distasteful, are precisely the kind of “vehement, caustic, and . . . unpleasantly sharp” political speech which has historically been protected by the First Amendment and which fall outside the Florida harassment statutes. See Sullivan, 376 U.S. at 270."

"Additionally, Petitioner’s subjective response to Respondent’s speech does not change the fact that, even though both she and law enforcement considered him “threatening,” he neither made a credible threat against her nor did his actions constitute harassment. Viewing someone as a  “threat” does not mean the person can be subject to an injunction as if he or she actually made one. Whether Petitioner has understandable concerns is not the debate. The standard for obtaining an injunction is not lessened in cases involving delicate complainants, nor is every statement or action that causes a listener fear, discomfort, embarrassment, annoyance or offense transformed as a result into a “threat” providing the basis for an injunction. See Horowitz, 160 So. 3d at 533"

"Clearly, Respondent seeks to bring about political and social policy change. It is immaterial whether he enjoys significant public support for his positions. While his methods may be bombastic and extreme— particularly his many unfortunate and insulting references to Petitioner and her father—this type of political hyperbole does not take the communication out of the protections of the First Amendment."

****************

Senator Lauren F. Book (The "F" should stand for Fraud) and her thrice convicted father Ronald "Stagger-Lee" Book have spent the last 15 years putting people under bridges and along railroad tracks while raking in millions of dollars. If they believe no one listens to Derek Logue, why do they fear him so much? Just read the rest of this blog to see why. Derek Logue didn't write the articles posted by South Florida media, he simply compiled it. Everything here other than the opinions of Mr. Logue and other contributors to this blog are from third-party sources. 

But if Lauren Book has her way, she won't even allow ANY criticism against her whatsoever. That is why the language of the new law is a major First Amendment issue. "Indirect" speech and speech that mearly "pertains to" someone means you don't have to talk directly to that person; you simply have to talk ABOUT that person and person can access it. Senator Rhymes-With-Crook can look at this very blog, see something that "triggers" her, then go press charges. 

She's proven to be a useful idiot for the right-wingers in Florida, who also wanted this law to go after critics. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is already trying to abuse state law to silence his critics.

One case in particular has parallels the ongoing fight between our main contributor here and Senator Book. As noted in the Gainesville Times, Daniel Uhlfelder, a lawyer who dresses as the grim reaper and goes to the beach as a public protest of Desantis's COVID policies has also created a political action committee called "Remove Ron." And just like this blog, Uhlfelder has said some mean things about his target. It seem's we both may agree that Ron should be deposed, we just have a different idea of which Ron (although I wouldn't see Ron DeSantis deposed as well). 

I have a feeling this law will be struck down, but not until some unfortunate soul spends (up to 15) years behind bars for malicious prosecution, likely by a politician like Senator Book. 

Ronald Stagger-Lee Book gets slap on wrist for nearly killing a man while drunk

 https://floridapolitics.com/archives/456429-lobbyist-ron-book-pleads-no-contest-to-reckless-driving/

As reported in FloriDUH Politics and the Sun-Slantinel, Ronald Stagger-Lee Book pleaded to a lesser charge of reckless driving, will get no jail time and no mark on his criminal record. 

While I am not shocked by this development,  I am disappointed nonetheless.  Ron flipped a car and nearly killed a man by his reckless actions. He was drunk as a skunk. He refused to take a breathalyzer.  And yet not once was he held accountable for his actions. At least he is still being sued in civil court. I am sure he will eventually settle. 

However, Ronald Stagger-Lee Book is free to drink and drive. Maybe next time, he will kill a kid when he flips another car. 

Lauren's Kids releases dubious study basing claim of widespread campus sexual abuse among athletes

A recent claim that one in 4 college athletes are sexually abused by authority figures conjured up by Lauren's Kids made its rounds among the mass media around the end of August, primarily USA Today. As I've stated on other blogs, we have to watch out for dubious studies. The link to the study (not prominently displayed) can be found at:

https://laurenskids.org/college-athletes-report-high-incidence-of-sexual-abuse-by-campus-authority-figures-survey-finds/

PDF here -- https://laurenskids.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/21-CRU-001-Campus-Sex-Abuse-Report-V2_5.pdf

Interestingly, Lauren's Kids did not provide detailed results, including methodology and breakdown of actual numbers for download. All we get is the summary of their findings. 

As with any dubious survey, there are a few problems the media did not consider at all: 

1. The study was not only commissioned by Lauren's Kids, an already questionable charity, it was also conducted by Ben Crump and Richard Schulte, two attorneys looking to rake in millions of dollars over sexual abuse claims on the campuses of Ohio State and Michigan. 

2. The survey was of around 1500 "college educated people", with about half "under the age of 45." While older Americans occasionally go to college, it is far more likely many older survey takers went to college long ago in a different era. Why did they go this route rather than go to a college and survey current students? Where was the surveys conducted? Did they limit themselves to just colleges where a current scandal occurs? It is unclear since they never bother to mention methodology. I would not be surprised if it was a survey directly of people in direct contract with victim advocate groups, which would skewer the results.  

3. The survey jumps from saying based on a survey of 1500 'college educated people' they jump into the claims that "one in four student-athletes "endured inappropriate sexual contract". Nowhere in the survey does it state the number of those surveyed who were student athletes.

Without knowing the answers to the latter two questions, and knowing the source of these clais, this report should be taken with a grain of salt. This appears to be just another PR stunt by Senator Book. 

Senator Book's plan to use GoFundMe to fund teachers "smells like bribery", says Florida's Chief Financial Officer

If Senator Book actually cared about the teachers, she could start by taking the millions she rakes in to her personal "Lauren's Kids" charity. 

While i'm a left leaning person and would otherwise think this is a good idea, I can't trust Senator Book with a dime of my taxpayer dollars since she's the single biggest leech of Florida tax dollars today. 

https://floridianpress.com/2021/08/patronis-says-senate-democrats-gofundme-school-board-move-sounds-like-bribery/

Patronis Says Senate Democrats’ GoFundMe School Board Move ‘Sounds Like Bribery’

Republicans and Democrats square off in what could be an epic integrity brawl

Javier Manjarres, AUGUST 10, 2021

No sooner than Senate Democratic Minority Leader Lauren Book and fellow Democratic leaders, Sens. Jason Pizzo, Bobby Powell, and Lori Berman penned a letter announcing that they would be setting up a GoFundMe account to subsidize the salaries of school officials if they are suspended for not complying with Gov. Ron DeSantis  ‘no mask mandate’ executive order, CFO Jimmy Patronis calls into question the potential criminality of the move by Senate Democrats.

“If Governor chooses to defund public education and withhold salaries from educators as punishment for protecting students’ health and safety, we will fill the gap to support them in this fight,” stated Leader Book.

“Giving money straight to a public official by using @gofundme to affect an outcome? asked Patronis. “Sounds like bribery.”

Patronis continued, tweeting, “The second any of these superintendents or school board members accept a cent, they may be breaking the law. Maybe a good question for @IntegrityFL?

Patronis’ comments come as several county school boards have openly stated that they would not comply with the governor’s order. The embattled Broward County School Board, which is openly supporting Critical Race Theory and praises Malcolm X  and the Nation of Islam,  was recently served with a warning letter from Florida Department of Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran, who told the board he was opening an investigation into their “non-compliance” and potential violation of the Parent’s Bill of Rights that was recently signed into Florida law.

State Senator Manny Diaz (R) spoke to The Floridan today moments after Gov. DeSantis concluded a press conference in Surfside where he was asked about his order to cut the pay of school officials who defied him.

Sen. Diaz defended Gov. DeSantis, asserting that school children would not be affected by the salary cuts.

“To be clear. what he (DeSantis) has said is he’s not withholding the funds that are going to affect the students, what he’s saying is if you’re in one of these positions, if you are a Superintendent or school board member, where you have a responsibility to follow the law. If someone violates state law and they are in a position where they swore to uphold that, then there are consequences,” Diaz said.

We reached out to Sen. Pizzo for a response to Patronis’ remarks but the senator did not want to comment, yet.

Senator Lauren Book violates Senate rules by not voting on important bill, was too busy chatting with colleague to vote

Way to show those leadership capability, Senator Book. I guess the airhead just did what airhead blondes typically do, i.e., spacing out. 

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-edit-five-bad-decisions-veto-desantis-20210515-eiga7as4ivcvbobgwobw36pgfu-story.html

Five of the worst bills deserve a four-letter word: V-E-T-O | Editorial

By SUN SENTINEL EDITORIAL BOARD

SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL |

MAY 15, 2021 AT 7:00 AM

Home-based businesses (HB 403)

This bill poses the most immediate threat to Floridians’ quality of life by blocking cities and counties from sensibly enforcing local zoning laws to control home-based businesses. Under the guise of promoting free enterprise, it’s another Republican attack on home rule. Possibly coming to a street near you: boat repairs, scooter rentals and car stereo installations. (Hey, turn it up!)

If that won’t justify a veto, try this: It passed the Senate 19-18, with three senators present but not voting, a violation of Senate rules. One of the three was Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book, D-Plantation, who told us she was distracted talking to a colleague and the electronic voting system closed too fast. Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point, called for a re-vote, but Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Trilby, said Farmer’s point of order came too late.

If any one of the nonvoting three had voted no, this awful bill would not have passed. Only DeSantis’ pen can stop this abomination.

FL Senator Gary Farmer says a ‘stench’ surrounds the actions Senator Lauren Book on gambling deal

It has been a rough few months for FloriDUH Senator Gary Farmer. He's been in a feud with Senator Lauren Book, and Book has used her influence to replace him as Senate Democratic leader. Senator Book, whose only reason for being in her position is because of her lobbyist father is now among the most powerful politician in the state. Most politicians have to work of it, but like many thinks in Lauren Book's life, she's had it handed to her on a silver, money-stuffed platter.

I have made my feelings about the Book Crime Family clear. But at least with Ron Book, what you see (a vile, hateful, disgusting creature) is what you get. Lauren Book is far worse because she puts on a mask and pretends to care about people and acts nice and sweet. But while Ron Book will attack you head on, Lauren Book will pretend to listen, then stab you in the back. 

Don't forget, Lauren still takes marching orders from daddy, just like she did when she voted to reinstate Sheriff Israel, a slap to the face of the Parkland school shooting victims. This led to the following condemnation by one of the victims of the shooting:

"Eight deputies were outside while shots were being fired," Pollack added. "Something I'm so disgusted about the last few days is Florida Sen. Lauren Book, someone who has served on the MSD commission. [She] knew all the facts, watched my sister get murdered, but still voted to reinstate Sheriff Israel. She sold out the community of Broward county and put our children at risk."

In this feud, the Books once again try playing the victim angle, and through out the "misogynist" label, a label Lauren used recently on her social media to attack the community of people derogatorily called "incels":

Senator Book is quite good at hiding behind a victim narrative and hiding behind feminist propaganda. This simply goes to show that Democrats are just as backwards in FloriDUH as the Republicans are. 

From the following:

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/florida-playbook/2021/05/19/desantis-denied-victory-in-cdc-lawsuit-farmer-vs-book-stench-vs-bs-mast-joins-rebellion-over-mask-rules-gets-fined-492906

STILL THERE’S TURBULENCE — “Gary Farmer says ‘stench’ surrounds actions of Florida Senate Democratic leader on gambling deal,” by POLITICO’s Gary Fineout: A long-running feud between two Broward County Democrats exploded once again into the open as Sen. Gary Farmer criticized fellow Sen. Lauren Book for sponsoring a change to state gambling law sought by lobbying clients of her father. It’s yet another chapter of the saga between Farmer and Book (D-Plantation). Just last month, she replaced Farmer (D-Fort Lauderdale) as Senate Democratic leader after Democrats pushed to oust Farmer from the job.

Farmer’s opinion — He amplified those remarks to reporters afterwards, calling Lauren Book’s actions improper and that it had a “stench” surrounding it. “I think it was inappropriate for anyone to handle the amendment, but especially her,” Farmer said. He added that “I think if someone else had done that amendment, it would at least take away some of that stench. Get used to it.”

The Books blast back — Lauren Book called his assertions “ridiculous” and said his criticism is linked to the “drama and bulls—” surrounding the recent decision by Senate Democrats to replace him with her. “It’s clear that’s what this is about,” Book said… Ron Book went further than his daughter, accusing Farmer of “gutter politics.” He contended that Farmer, an attorney with long-running ties to the group that represents trial attorneys, often sponsored measures that benefited trial attorneys and lobbied his colleagues about it. “This is more bad misogynistic behavior by Sen. Farmer,” said Ron Book, referring to past dust-ups between Farmer and his daughter.

Ron and Lauren Book's own words bluntly show their long seeded animus towards people on the sex offense registry

No one has to "trick" Ron or Lauren to revealing their animus towards Registered Persons. They freely spew their venom because they belileve they are above the law. They've done this long before they even heard of any Anti-Registry Movement. Just listen to the myriad of available videos on Youtube and elsewhere. Videos from as far back as at least 2008 show the Book Crime Family using the same tired talking points they will say today. 

The only difference between Ronald Stagger-Lee Book and Bimbo Book is that Ron Book doesn't even try to hide the BS. Lauren puts on an act pretending like she's rational or nicer but it doesn't take a lot  to get her to drop the sweetness act. The worst type of bullies are those who play the victim role, and use that victim role as a shield to deflect any criticism that comes her way. 

While I think both of these lowlifes disgust me immensely, I actually have more respect for Ron than his braindead daughter because he doesn't try to hide the fact he's a piece of trash and would stab you in the chest while staring you in the face, whereas Lauren will try to pretend to care about people but will stab you in the back, just like she did to the Parkland School Shooting Victims. 

I present to you, Ron and Lauren Book. The quotes below stand out to me. While they're not ALL about Registered Persons, all quotes give us insight into the mind of these two unsavory characters. 

Here are a few choice quotes from the Untouchable documentary:

Quotes from Ron & Lauren Book from “Untouchable”

Ron Book Quotes

Ron Book: “Hate? Vengeance? You bet, you bet. Do I want to ever keep that from happening to anybody else ever again? To the last gasp of air in my body. To the last breath of air in my body. I couldn’t possibly do enough. I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t. There are bad people out there. 

Ron Book: “I believe there is an absolute certainty that pedophiles will reoffend. Sentence them to having their fingernails pulled out of their hands, pulling their hair out one at a time. Sentence them to waterboarding every day. Throw the keys away. I used to be a liberal democrat and then a crime hit my family and I realized just how conservative I was.”

Ron Book: “The day that I learned that the nanny urinated and defecated on her as a control mechanism, you have to be a pretty crappy human being as a parent not to be driven, not to just fix your selfish family thing, but I’m a guy with access and I’m a guy with resources. I will do anything I can. Anything I can. Anything I can. Driven by my daughter, you bet.”

Ron Book: “At a time when we were in the middle of the development and expansion of residency restrictions for pedophiles, our department of corrections was simply telling people, ‘Hey there’s a bridge, you can go live under the bridge!’ So they had a little sex colony under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami-Dade County, which became internationally recognized as a sex colony.”

Ron Book: “Wake up every day thinking about it, thinking about how you’d just as soon line them up and shoot them.” (Clip from NBC 6 as Ron Book testifies before the City of Miami Beach Commission)

Ron Book: “There are people who will come and march on my capital on the last day of my daughter’s walk with people from across the country who have either been convicted of being a pedophile or a predator and their family members. Our last mile of our walk is about kids coming together. I don’t want them anywhere near those kids. It terrifies me. I can tell you that every law enforcement agency that’s in this town will be on a high alert. We have already met with them. We are deeply concerned about it. Remember what these people are.” 

Ron Book: “On the issue of whether or not residency restrictions are working and they’re protecting kids, much like I can’t necessarily produce statistics that say that our communities are safer as a result, I do have some level of common sense. If you’re keeping them away from kids, you’re reducing some of the risk. And this notion that we’ve rendered them homeless, that we’ve put them out on the street, that’s a bunch of bullshit. At the end of the day, their sexually deviant criminal behaviors are what caused them their problems.” 

Ron Book: “You have an automatic right to go live wherever you want, and you lost some of your rights because we as the citizens of the United States of America determined that the public policy was you commit a crime against a child, we’re treating you differently. Forever. Forever.”

Ron Book: (Texting while driving, to cameraman) “No, you can’t turn this stuff over to the law enforcement people… making a citizen’s arrest for bad driving. I think I’m a pretty good driver myself.” (Honking horn as Ron Book barely misses another driver) “Aah. Sorry about that.”  

Ron Book: (Watching L&O:SVU, a show he say he “loves”): “I hate the bad guys. Yeah, I’m harder today. I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. Those people who came to march on Tallahassee, they probably wish they could put that back in the bottle, all 12 of them. They ought to have figured that out, that all they’re doing is recommitting me, refocusing me, and refocusing my daughter on our agenda to make this place safer for others. They don’t believe there should be registries. They don’t believe there should be notification of people where predators and pedophiles live. They think they should be restored all of their rights and go out and infiltrate our communities.”

Ron Book: “Don’t tell anyone I have a fish tank. They would say, ‘Oh, if he’s got a fish tank, he’s got a shark in it.’ I did have a shark in my tank, actually.” 

Ron Book: Do I want to continue to have materialistic things? Drive nice cars? Eat fancy meals? Yeah, I’m a capitalistic pig. But I give back and I put back exponentially… You know what I like? I come through the gate. I’m left alone. I like getting home and watching my crime shows. I love the Law and Orders, I love the CSIs, I love Blue Bloods. I love them all.”

Ron Book: “While I may have this, like, deep-seeded ‘stab you in the heart and kill you’ for committing crime against the kid, I find sexual abuse as a whole abhorrent, unacceptable, punishable, I’m sorry, I put them away.” 

Ron Book: “Look, I don’t care what the critics say, because what they say is, ‘I don’t have any statistics.’ I suggest to you, their statistics are made up, and they’re phony baloney. They make it look like something other than it is. It’s underreported because people don’t report sex crimes because they’re embarrassed, they’re ashamed, they’re intimidated, their threatened, their lives have been threatened, just like my daughter’s life was threatened”

Ron Book: “If you’re not a victim of sexual abuse, you just don’t have a clue. And if you aren’t a parent of a child who’s been sexually abused, don’t tell me about leniency. Don’t tell me about compassion. Don’t tell me about what rights your kids should have or shouldn’t have. Get out of my face. Get out of my world. Get out of my everything. Because at the end of the day, walk in my shoes.” 

Ron Book: “Senate Bill 1666 automatically upon conviction as a sexual predator you lose your parental rights to your kids. See you later, adios, have a good life on your own. Go live out in the middle of nowhere, because you’re not going to have any relationships with your kids, nor should you. Whether your crime was against your kids or not, you shouldn’t have that right to be that close to your kids. Because they have a hardwire problem. A pedophile sees that picture of that three-month-old, or that 5-year-old, or that 12-year-old, and they get stimulated, and they want to go have sex. They want to go have sex with that little child.”

Ron Book: “My daughter’s favorite issue this year. Now on your driver’s license there’ll be a notation you are a sexual predator.”

Ron Book: (On Lauren’s ALLEGED abuser) “I’ll be 74 when that bitch gets out of prison. I’ll be waiting for her and when they put her on the plane to Honduras, I’ll be right behind her, I’ll be right behind her—with an army of other people. I’ve had people on my payroll for 13 years in Honduras. I know where every family member lives.”

Ron Book: “These people need to be put away till they’re too old to walk. I told you before, I don’t try to be what I’m not. I don’t try to be anything other than who I am.” 

Lauren Book Quotes

Lauren Book: “It goes back to control. We need to have different pieces in place that make it much easier for law enforcement officers to put these individuals back in prison, because it’s not a matter of IF, it’s a matter of WHEN. It’s not IF they reoffend, it’s WHEN will they reoffend. And I don’t want to take that chance.”

Lauren Book: “I have spoken to family members who have to give up children because they cannot live in a home with a sex offender father or they have to sell their home, they have to move, they’re living in cars and are very, very, very angry. So there is a place for anger. There is a place where that has to fire you along to get something done. And the only reason that we’re sitting here today is because a young lady who had no voice and felt invisible for so long was tired and pissed.”

Lauren Book: “People are afraid of predators; people are scared, and they should be. The aftermath is catastrophic and cataclysmic. Unless we’re putting them in prison and throwing away the key, we’re getting out. They’re going to live in your neighborhoods. They will be there. We need to be smart. We need to be strategic about the way we do things to create a more effective system than what we currently have. But we can’t be driven by fear.”

Lauren Book: “One of the things that no survivor ever talks about, none of us, every survivor that I’ve ever talked to, has this little deep, dark hole inside of us that we feel that that monster exists; That there is a Waldi in me, that if I’m not careful, she’s going to come out and she’s going to hurt another kid.”

Lauren Book: “He’s an angry dad who had to watch his kid endure a tremendous amount. But I’m that kid who had to endure a tremendous amount who doesn’t want that to happen to other kids. 

Exchanges Between People

(Discussing the Rally in Tally 2015)

RON BOOK: You know, it’s going to be a big crowd tomorrow. You know there’s a counter demonstration tomorrow, right?

UNKNOWN: No way.

RON BOOK: Group of pedophiles and predators coming from across the country. Oh yeah. You can’t make it up. They have been organizing for four months. We’ve intercepted loads of their emails.”

(Exchange between Ron and Untouchable interviewer)

Ron Book: “In my role as chairman of the Homeless Trust, I didn’t go under the Julia Tuttle Causeway once to meet the enemy, I was there dozens of times. Different hat that I wore.”

Interviewer: “I was gonna say, that seems…” 

Ron Book: “A lot of people found it that way, but I don’t support homelessness. But I don’t want them near kids, either.”

(Exchange between Ron and interviewer)

INTERVIEWER: Which of these laws would have been most effective in protecting your daughter?

RON: You know, most of the laws that we have passed would likely have done nothing to protect my daughter. But I believe had we properly educated my daughter on how to be safe, had we properly trained her on safe touch and unsafe touch, had we properly trained her about secrets, and that no secret is forever, I am absolutely convinced that the abuse would have been short lived. It may not have prevented that first act or that second act, but my daughter would have told, my daughter would have figured it out, my daughter would have told, my daughter would have told, she would have told, she would have told.”

(Exchange between Lauren and Interviewer)

Lauren Book: “You cannot broad brush this issue. And the minute that you do so, you will create policies that are dangerous that cannot be enforced. That’s where I try to temper some of where dad comes from. What can we do to create smart policy to again, do what? Not be punitive; to keep kids in our communities safe.

Interviewer: And what does your dad say to that?

Lauren Book: I don’t know what he would say to that. He would probably tell me to lock ‘em up and throw away the key and there’s no use for them back out here in the community… But we don’t always agree on policy. He believes that we need to do all that we can to restrict predators, and when we started, that’s what I was doing too. When I went back and got my Master’s degree, I realized, if you don’t work to prevent sexual abuse through education and awareness, then you can’t be effective. To be able to educate, you have to understand. So I will still interact with predators, where dad will not. 

Statement About Ron Book, Val Jonas, FL Civil Rights Attorney: “You know, the perfect paradigm of what’s wrong with lobbying, where people with a motive, whether it’s a financial motive or a psychological, emotional level get to write the laws. It’s not really a stretch to say that he’s one of the few most powerful people in the state, has been for many, many years. I cannot count the number of successful professional people who have refused to go on record saying anything critical about Mr. Book, because they feel it is dangerous to their professional standing in Florida. So, it’s a real problem, and I won’t pretend that I’m not frightened. There you have it.”

QUOTE FROM RON AND LAUREN FROM OTHER SOURCES

Lauren Book: “These monsters can be put away for the rest of their lives, they murder children’s childhood, my childhood was taken from me.” (“Petition gains support for ‘Cherish Law’”. WXTL, Sep. 3, 2013) 

Lauren Book: “In so many instances these individuals should never ever be allowed out for a second chance. They’re ticking time bombs, it is not a question of if they reoffend, it’s a question of when they reoffend.” (“Petition gains support for ‘Cherish Law’” WXTL, Sep. 3, 2013)

Ron Book: “Look, um, I’ve not been bashful about my feelings about people who commit offenses against children. I have referred to them as monsters. Everybody under the bridge knows that.”  (ABC News.com 2009)

Ron Book: “No matter what, you commit a crime against a kid, we’re treating you different. You committed a crime, a heinous crime. You stole a – you stole MY daughter’s childhood. Go to hell, you son of a bitch! And that is why we require you to be registered, because we want the public to know you are a potential problem.” (BBC, Stacey Dooley Investigates: Second Chance Sex Offenders)

Ron Book: “I think it’s fair to have that discussion and that debate. Yes, it’s difficult. Nobody said that someone exiting the prison system after committing a sexually deviant act on a child has a right to dictate where they live… I have a daughter who was 12 years old when she was molested and raped. I have a different perspective than many people. I sleep very comfortably knowing that we have made our communities safer.” (ABC News.com, 2009)

Ron Book: “I wear these two hats. In this particular case, they have run into one another, I don’t want to use the word ‘colliding’, but they’re run into one another. (ABC News.com 2009)

Ron Book: “Are they monsters? You bet they are. You bet they are! And it only takes one unfortunate bad circumstance that affects your family for you to realize what monsters they are. They are monsters.” (Nick Ahlmack “Monsters of Miami” 2008)

Ron Book: “The ACLU is wrong on this one. They know they’re wrong on this one. And some of these cases are winding their ways through our- through our courts here in the United States. And the courts so far have said the public’s right to have their health, safety, and welfare protected is – is as fundamental a right as anybody has, and those rights, I’m sorry, come ahead of the criminal’s right in this particular set of circumstances. You just don’t get all your rights back overnight, or sometimes ever, when you’ve broken the law. You chose to break the law.” (Nick Ahlmack “Monsters of Miami” 2008)

Exchange between Books and interviewers from BBC)

Ron Book: (Asked about guilt over letting Lauren be abused) “I’m not sure I’ve ever felt guilty…”

Interviewer: But Lauren, you thought he did, didn’t you?

Ron Book: She does.

Lauren Book: I don’t know how a parent couldn’t. Our job is to keep them in ways that we – that I wasn’t able to be kept safe…

Interviewer: So you think your dad struggles with it still?”

Lauren Book: “Yeah. Of course he does.”

Interviewer: “And you think that’s why he is so militant in comparison to you?”

Lauren Book: “I think that’s a piece of it, but I would murder somebody who hurt my kids. I would. I would. As would you.”

Lauren Book: Today you see somebody that’s pretty put together. Um, but, you know, I still suffer night terrors, um, where I wake up beating my husband in the middle of the night. I still have to be sedated when I go to the dentist because I can’t be laying down with people putting things in my mouth. So I get very angry when I hear, you know, we’ve served our time, you know, we’re still being punished… We take away their civil rights, that is something that is very serious, that is not something that should be taken lightly, but if you commit a crime against a child if-if that is the kind of-of-of thing that turns you on no you shouldn’t have a second chance. Why? Because I - I Lauren Book is not willing to allow you to have a second chance, because if you make a mistake if you ever backslide, who are you hurting? Not yourself? (BBC 2018)

Interviewer: So you two don’t always agree, you two don’t always see eye to eye? What do you disagree on?

Ron: We have a different set of thoughts on residency restrictions. 

Lauren: I don’t want people that are desperate, that will lash out and harm a child. I don’t want the excuse to be well I couldn’t shower and I didn’t have a place to live-- and so this is what happened. 

Ron: And I don’t buy that bullshit as excuses. (Speaking over Lauren)

Interviewer: I’m repulsed by what they’ve done. It disgusts me in the same way that it disgusts you. But I don’t think that leaving them out on the streets is the solution. 

Ron: I agree with that, but…

Interviewer: But your law that you campaigned for, isn’t that a direct result of…

Ron With all due respect, No! Their actions, their rapes of children, put them in that class of people that are subject to certain restrictions. (Grabs a paper and pen) I want to live in this box, where my mother is, where my daddy is, but there’s a child here and a child here, oh, and a bus stop here and a school here and a daycare. I’m sorry! You don’t get to do that! Your bad behavior put an X on you.”

Interviewer: Are you saying they can’t be rehabilitated? 

Ron: No, I don’t believe they can. I don’t lie awake at night thinking about how I can stick it to these bastards, these dirtbags, these scumbuckets. But, man, when we think of them, we’re going after them.” (BBC video, 2018)

Lauren Book: The residency restrictions were something that came up, um, a little bit after the abuse had started. Um, my father and I advocated for the residency restrictions, where there were 2500—that sexual offenders and predators cannot live within 2500 square feet of any school, park, day care center, or wherever children congregate. Um, that number came about because you can’t have a bar, a tavern, or an adult entertainment facility 2500 square feet around any school, park, or day care center. So why would we want a sex offender living within those perimeters? So we went ahead and we were advocating for these laws, um, there was some unintended consequences of those ordinances which are the people who take up residence under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.” (Chuck Fadely, Miami Herald, Sept. 2009)

Lauren Book: “Me and my family are working really hard to get these predators put in jail where they belong and they can’t hurt our children. I don’t have any sympathy for any of the predators who are down there.” (Chuck Fadely, Miami Herald, Sept. 2009)

Lauren Book: We’re gonna close that colony down and we’re gonna fence off the area so that those people can’t go back.” (Chuck Fadely, Miami Herald, Sept. 2009)

Lauren Book: We still believe in residency restrictions, I still do believe, um, that they work. I don’t want sex offenders living around our children. These people are really not easily rehabilitated, if at all rehabilitateable. Um, which is why we at Lauren’s Kids and me and my family are working very hard to get these predators put in jail where they belong. And they can’t hurt our children. It was a real difficult thing for me to reconcile in my brain—we don’t want homelessness, we need to end homelessness, but what do we gonna do with these sex offenders? (Chuck Fadely, Miami Herald, Sept. 2009)

Ron Book: “I don’t want them living across the street from the park where my children are-are playing on the playground. I’m sorry! And-and you know what? I’m not really sorry because it does not bother me at all I have nothing to apologize for--for advocating for the adoption of these ordinances and these laws to protect our kids.” (Nick Ahlmack “Monsters of Miami” 2008)

FL Democratic State Senator Lauren Book is trying to cover multimillion dollar donations (with a lot of Republican support)

Nothing about the Book Crime Family surprises me. Is any of this new to me? No. The only thing that shocks me any more is that anyone even notices. They've done it so long that it is a given. Lauren Book has never been anything more than a money and power hungry person, just like her daddy. 

https://www.floridabulldog.org/2021/05/new-senate-democratic-leader-lauren-book-conflict-of-interest/

New Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book has conflict of interest as Republicans quietly shower taxpayer millions on her charity

Lauren Book

Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book Tuesday discussing her amendment to the state’s $500-million gambling compact with the Seminoles that aided her father’s lobbying client, the Town of Davie. Photo: The Florida Channel

By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org

Lauren Book, the newly anointed leader of Florida’s Senate Democrats, has a financial conflict of interest that’s raising questions about her loyalties as her beleaguered party prepares for the challenge of redistricting in January.

For the past two years, House and Senate Republicans decisively showered the Senate Minority Leader’s charity – Lauren’s Kids – with $4 million in taxpayer dollars.

The appropriations, including $2 million awarded in the regular session that ended April 30, were camouflaged to make it difficult for the public to spot them.

Since 2011, the Republican-controlled Legislature has lavished $19.69-million in grants on the sexual abuse prevention charity founded and led by the Plantation Democrat. In addition, Lauren’s Kids has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from other Republican OK’d funding mechanisms, notably a specialty license plate.

State records indicate the charity intends to ask for another $2 million next year. “There is not currently a source of funding available that can be used in lieu of state funding,” says Lauren’s Kids most recent funding request.

Lauren’s salaries – and bonus

According to the latest available federal tax records, Lauren’s Kids paid Sen. Book an annual salary of $200,000 plus an incentive bonus of $15,000 in 2019. The bonus was not further explained.

The compensation Book received from Lauren’s Kids rose 49.1 percent between 2016, when she first took office, and 2019. Her salary from the charity in 2011 was $68,000. Her current Lauren’s Kids salary is $220,000, according to spokeswoman Claire VanSusteren. Book also draws a state senator’s salary of $29,697.

Book has said in the past, and VanSusteren reiterated this week, that “none of these dollars were derived from public funds.” That’s true, as far as it goes. State records show that millions in Lauren’s Kids grants were structured to pay for programs and staff salaries other than Book’s. But Book’s large salary would not be possible without the huge infusion of state dollars that have annually underwritten the charity’s other expenses.

Sen. Book, the daughter of influential lawyer-lobbyist and Lauren’s Kids chairman Ronald Book, did not respond to Florida Bulldog requests for comment. Ronald Book and his Aventura firm lobbied the Legislature for the grants, records state.

In a 2017 interview with Florida Bulldog, Sen. Book said she would not abstain from voting on matters involving her father’s clients or on measures sending millions of state dollars to benefit Lauren’s Kids. “In ALL matters, I will vote my conscience and in what I believe is best for my district, for Broward County and for the people of the State of Florida,” she said.

“I have met with the Counsel of the Senate and have been advised that it is proper that I do not abstain on these matters unless funding directly inures to my benefit, which it does not.”

Political life with father

Just this week, Sen. Book acted to benefit one of her father’s clients, the Town of Davie, that she likewise represents by sponsoring an amendment to the state’s $500-million gambling compact struck with the Seminole Tribe on Wednesday. The amendment changed the formula for determining how much local governments adjacent to the tribe’s reservation casino near Hollywood are entitled to receive.

Lobbyist Ron Book Monday before the House Select Subcommittee on the Seminole Gaming Compact Photo: The Florida Channel

Because of Book’s amendment, Davie will rake in tens of thousands of dollars more annually at the expense of the more populous and more racially diverse Hollywood. The compact is a 30-year deal. U.S. Census Bureau estimates as of July 1, 2019: Davie’s population of 106,000 was 8.8 percent black; Hollywood’s population of 155,000 was 18.2 percent black.

The Legislature’s largesse toward Lauren’s Kids, while no secret to many Republicans or Democrats who, like Sen. Book, voted for it, nevertheless was curiously kept out of public sight. Indeed, Tallahassee insiders Florida Bulldog spoke with were unaware of the millions earmarked to Lauren’s Kids in 2020 and 2021, nor did any Florida media outlet report on those large payouts last year, or while covering this year’s record $101.5-billion state budget.

Why? The House and Senate legislators who sponsored the Lauren’s Kids grants modified the name of those appropriations.

Underlying documentation clearly identifies Lauren’s Kids as the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity that requested the twin $2-million grants to be funneled through the Department of Education. But unlike past years when “Lauren’s Kids” identified the recipient, the grant’s name was changed to “Safer, Smarter Schools” – the name of the Lauren’s Kids curriculum.

The result: the annual list of state-funded charities in the final appropriations bill no longer mentions Lauren’s Kids as receiving any funds. (See page 30 of this year’s SB 2500.)

State descriptions of the Lauren’s Kids program for 2020 and 2021 both say, “Funding will be utilized to continue to provide child abuse prevention curriculum and resources to Florida’s public schools, parents and communities.” This year’s description adds, “The onset of COVID-19 has elevated the need for these critical resources due to the documented rise in child abuse, maltreatment, digital exploitation & trafficking during the pandemic.”

The COVID-19 language looks like window dressing. No documentation to support the assertion that child abuse, exploitation and trafficking increased last year was provided when the funding request was filed on Feb. 17.

‘Troubled’ by camouflaged grants

The sponsors of the 2020 Lauren’s Kids grant were then-state Sen. Bill Montford, D-Marianna, and then-state Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Naples. This year, the sponsors were state Sen. Doug Broxson, R-Pensacola, and state Rep. Vance Aloupis Jr., R-Miami.

This year’s Republican sponsors for Lauren’s Kids $2-million grant. Sen. Doug Broxson, right, and Rep. Vance Aloupis Jr.

Florida Bulldog contacted some prominent South Florida Democrats to ask them about the  recent disguised, multi-million dollar giveaway to Lauren’s Kids by the Republican-dominated Legislature.

“I am troubled by what you’re telling me,” said a former state senator who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It sounds bad, certainly. It may be bad. I don’t know. If I were still in the Senate,I would want to know a lot more.”

Another former legislator now in local elective office said she was “concerned” both by Book’s sizeable compensation from Lauren’s Kids, as well as her charity’s dependence on Republicans for continuing support.

“The challenge for her is going to be that she needs to bend over backwards to be more ethical than other people. Everybody’s watching her,” she said. “She should step aside from the charity while she’s the Democratic leader.”

Florida Bulldog reached out to several key Senate Democrats for comment, including Miami’s Annette Taddeo, Tampa’s Janet Cruz and Jacksonville’s Audrey Gibson. None responded.

Lauren Book sees additional Republican funding

Even before Book was elected to the Senate, her father was a significant presence in Tallahassee. In 2013 Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, filed a bill that amended state law to allow Lauren’s Kids to collect $25 fees from the sale by specialty license plates sold by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

Further, the DMV allows Lauren’s Kids to insert in every auto tag renewal notice mailed to more than 6 million vehicle owners a brochure asking the public for donations. Miami-Dade and Broward counties facilitate individual $1 donations by including a box for people to check on their car registration renewal forms. 

In 2019 alone, Lauren’s Kids reported that the department paid it $536,000.

Lauren Book, who was sexually and physically abused by her nanny for six years starting at age 11, founded Lauren’s Kids in 2007. She was elected to the state Senate without opposition in 2016 and again in 2018. She’s running for re-election next year.

To date, her campaign has raised $170,000 and the political committee she chairs – Leadership for Florida – has collected another $246,500. A chunk of that money comes from at least a half-dozen of her father’s lobbying clients.

Incumbent Book, 36, has a Republican opponent in 2022, Davie resident Diana Bivona Belviso, 34. Belviso’s campaign reports receiving a single in-kind contribution: $300, for professional photographs.

Lauren Book established Leadership for Florida in 2014 with the help of Tampa accountant Nancy Watkins, who remains the political committee’s treasurer. Watkins and her husband, Robert, have for decades kept the books for numerous Republican candidates and conservative political groups in Florida and around the country. The Tampa Bay Times reported in 2019 that Watkins’ clients have included then-President Donald Trump, Sen. Marco Rubio and Fort Lauderdale resident Roger Stone’s legal defense fund.

The new Senate Minority Leader has had generally warm relations with Florida’s Republican governors. Gov. Ron DeSantis, not known for praising Democrats, put out an effusive statement calling her “an internationally respected child safety expert” who fights “for Florida’s families.”

In 2015, then-Gov. Rick Scott, now a U.S. senator, hugged Lauren Book and appeared with Ron Book on the steps of Florida’s Historic Capitol amid a rally for Lauren’s Kids.

Book rose to become minority leader less than a month ago after Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point, was ousted following a unanimous vote of no confidence. Book, who became next in line for minority leader after Fort Lauderdale state Sen. Perry Thurston filed to run for the late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings’ seat in Congress. Book is scheduled to remain minority leader until 2024.

Ronald Lee Book is currently responsible for almost four-fifths of Miami's transient population, assuming his numbers are true

Ron Book claims there are only 555 "unsheltered" homeless in Miami-Dade, according to the Miami Times article dated April 13th. 

This morning, I made a count of the homeless Registered Citizen population of Miami-Dade county (i.e., persons listed on the state "sex offense registry"). Of the 1300 Registered Persons listed as living in Miami-Dade County (not counting dead, deported, incarcerated, or absconded Registrants), 432 are listed as "transient." That means 33.2% (roughly a third) of Miami-Dade's registrant population are homeless. Even this number is a misnomer, as 107 Registrants are listed at 18201 SW 12th St., Miami, FL 33194-2700, i.e., the Krome Detention Center. (Despite adjusting the search to exclude incarcerated persons, some were still listed during the search. If adjusted to remove those at Krome, the homeless registrant population is 36.2%. 

If Ron Book's claim of 555 unsheltered homeless number is to be believed, then Ron Book is directly responsible for 77.8% of the unsheltered homeless issue in Miami. 

No one else wants to call him out. I have no problems doing it, of course. Yet,Ron Book still keeps this Homeless Trust gig, desite having lived in Broward County for over half a decade. He has no business running the Homeless Trust. 

https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/city-of-miami-doubles-down-on-homeless-sweeps/article_2e78aecc-9c9a-11eb-8d27-b718e6c44a45.html

City of Miami doubles down on homeless sweeps

Lack of affordable housing blamed by some for ongoing problem

Erik Bojnansky Miami Times Senior Writer Apr 13, 2021 Updated Apr 14, 2021

The City of Miami will ramp up its campaign to dismantle homeless encampments, in spite of concerns that such actions might violate the civil rights of the people living there.

On April 8, the Miami City Commission unanimously authorized the city to ramp up “homeless cleanup response” sweeps to twice a week.

William Porro, assistant director of the city’s human services department, said the cleanup frequencies need to be increased and improved in order to reduce Miami’s homeless population in an effective, yet humane way. As of January 2020, the latest demographic survey by the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, nearly 57% of Miami-Dade County’s homeless population was Black.

“We truly do want to give individuals dignified, humane assistance in referring them to the established continuum of care, [and] this includes housing,” Porro told commissioners at last Thursday’s meeting.

Since Feb. 10, the City of Miami has conducted 23 “major cleanups” utilizing personnel from 10 city departments including police, sanitation and human services’ “green shirts” – a team of formerly homeless individuals. During those cleanups, Porro claimed that more than 20 tons of garbage were carted away. The sweeps were launched four months after an appellate court scrapped a 1998 legal settlement known as the Pottinger Agreement that governed how the city could treat people living on the streets. It also accompanied legislation banning the feeding of the homeless outside of designated areas, or giving them tents.

Benjamin Waxman, president of the Greater Miami chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said his organization has no problem with the city cleaning up the sidewalks near the makeshift encampments, or offering shelter beds. What the ACLU does object to is city employees harassing the homeless or throwing away their property.

“The city is supposed to be committed to assisting homeless people, not making their lives more miserable,” Waxman said.

The ACLU denounced the first set of sweeps in a Feb. 23 letter to City of Miami.

“City workers seized and destroyed people’s belongings, including their tents. One person reported sustaining injuries while being dragged in the street inside his own tent as it was being taken to be placed in the garbage. … While at least some (homeless) were offered hotel rooms, they were not given any information about how long they could stay or what would happen after their stay at the hotel room ended,” the ACLU letter stated.

Porro admitted he’s in the process of adjusting how the sweeps are conducted.

“I have … asked for a legal review just to clarify … the things we can and cannot do in terms of the tents and a lot of the nuances that entails,” Porro said during the April 8 city commission meeting.

David Peery, a formerly homeless individual-turned-homeless advocate, said those adjustments were apparent during an April 7 city sweep of encampments in Overtown at NW 10th and 11th Streets between NW 3rd and 5th Avenues. While a few disheveled tents were dismantled and thrown away, city workers did not touch tents that were on the sidewalks. Instead, municipal employees used pressure cleaners to clean around the tents. Peery opined that the city’s actions that day mainly had to do with the fact that several homeless advocates were present to watch the city employees.

“We had a large contingent of people show up. They were looking at us looking at them. It was kind of weird,” Peery said.

Waxman said the respectful attitude city employees displayed at the April 7 sweep was very different than what he witnessed a week earlier in downtown Miami at NW 1st Court and 1st Place.

“That cleanup effort was, in my estimation, very chaotic. It was not respectful of the people’s rights, and was much more aggressive,” the ACLU attorney told The Miami Times.

During his testimony to city commissioners, Porro said his teams are still up against “well-meaning individuals” who still insist on giving tents and food to the homeless. Porro also acknowledged that homeless encampments continue to pop up at certain “hot spots” after sweeps.

“We’ve got to tweak the whole continuum of care and outreach,” Porro said. “They’re doing an amazing job getting people referred to shelters. But shelter-resistant individuals, for a variety of reasons, are put back on the street after two weeks. Seriously, it is really a difficult situation.”

Commissioner Joe Carollo said the city has done a much better job dismantling homeless encampments in Little Havana. However, Carollo added, “tent cities” are still very visible in downtown Miami.

“I have to say that downtown is beginning to look like a war zone,” Carollo told Porro.

Porro replied that 54% of Miami’s unsheltered homeless, 355 individuals, congregate in that area. In comparison, Overtown, a neighborhood with the second-largest concentration of homeless, has 89 unsheltered individuals, or 13% of Miami’s homeless population.

Commissioner Jeffrey Watson, whose district includes Overtown, asked Porro if additional funding was needed.

“Are there any financial commitments not fulfilled?” Watson asked.

“We are all looking at that very carefully with a sharp pencil, because we don’t want to increase costs, obviously,” Porro replied, adding, “There are some positions in our outreach team that we need to fill.”

Homeless advocates insist there aren’t enough shelter beds to accommodate the county’s entire unsheltered population, which is why some people donate tents to the homeless. However, Ron Book, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, insisted that the city’s estimated unsheltered population of 555 is the lowest since August 2014. At the same time, Book said he’s been able to leverage COVID-19 federal funding to obtain additional beds in local hotels.

“During the course of the pandemic, we have seen the greatest allocation in U.S. history of new federal money for housing and homelessness, and we are scaling up. We have more than 1,000 households referred to housing right now and that number grows daily,” Book wrote in an email to The Miami Times. “We want to engage people effectively and get them in the pipeline to benefit from these tremendous new resources.”

On Friday, April 9, in a press conference at Camillus House’s main shelter at 1603 NW 7th Ave., Mayor Francis Suarez announced the donation of 150 new, adjustable mechanical beds from Reach Out America, a Texas-based nonprofit that provides disaster relief supplies. Hilda Fernandez, CEO of Camillus House, said the 150 beds would be deployed within the organization’s 11 facilities throughout Miami-Dade County, which already encompasses around 1,800 beds.

Suarez said the bed donations will help Miami combat homelessness, adding that his city was even now developing plans to reduce the unsheltered population to “functional zero.”

“We want to get to the point where they are all able to reintegrate into society … in a humane fashion,” Suarez said.

The best way to do that, Waxman countered, is to build more housing that’s actually affordable for low-income individuals and families.

“That is why they keep coming back [to the street]. The alternatives are simply not there,” Waxman said.

Lauren Book is eerily silent as political ally Matt Gaetz is accused of sex trafficking a minor

 

Senator Lauren Book claims she "fights sex assault on all fronts." She was quick to condemn her pediatrician on a mere accusation, and yet, Lauren Book is silent as a close political ally, Matt Gaetz, is publicly under investigation for sex trafficking a minor. 

How are we supposed to see Lauren Book as a serious child victim advocate is she's willing to stay silent when it is one of her political allies accused of a crime?

Lauren Book is a hypocrite and a pathological liar. She abuses the registry for personal gain and has no interest in victiom advocacy except where it advances her career. 

Like peas in a pod: Who is Lauren Book's Tallahasse area ally Barney Bishop?

 Last week, a lobbyist started bashing Tallahassee's City Walk Urban Mission for allowing Registered Persons to enter a shelter during inclement weather, and when confronted about it, he responded by saying, "“I’m working right now [ ]with Sen. Lauren Book and we’re going to make it even more difficult for a homeless shelter that take in registered sex offenders without properly notifying the surrounding community to do so.” 

So just who is Barney Bishop? Here are a few things to know about him:

1. Bishop is a lobbyist who largely represents his own interests: Barney Bishop is a registered lobbyist who represents a handful of interests, primarily two of Bishop's own organizations (Florida Smart Justice Alliance and Barnet Bishop Consulting LLC, both at 204 S Monroe St, Ste 201, Tallahassee, FL 32301), another association ("Citizens For Responsible Spending" another of Bishop's largely on-man shows), as well as a number of sheriff's offices, including the Wakulla County Sheriff's Office. In 2020, Wakulla County had to pay City Walk $160,000 to settle a lawsuit. Bishop must still be smarting from that loss. 

Barney Bishop doesn't exactly strike people as an effective lobbyist. The Eye on Miami blog says this about Barney Bishop: "And what is AIF ass Barney Bishop doing on the Board of the Collins Center anyway?... Whomever put Barney Bishop on this Board should be shot. He knows as much about public policy and smart growth as I know about Bible studies and the Torah -- yep, nothing!" To which one person responded, "Any board that includes Barney Bishop is a fraud from the start."

In fact, the Eye on Miami blog has an entire metatag just for Barney Bishop articles. To say he is not well-respected by anyone is an understatement

2. Barney Bishop was forced to step down as CEO of Associated Industries of Florida: "Several media reports speculated that his resignation came after some AIF board members grew upset with statements Bishop had made earlier this year. In June, the St. Petersburg Times alluded to a possible ouster of Bishop after he "butted heads" with the AIF board by calling for replacement of the entire board of state-run Citizens Property Insurance at a May press conference. The Palm Beach Post, meanwhile, reported that Bishop had caused a stir by declaring earlier this year that the "No. 1 job" of AIF's board is to defeat U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012 — a position that may have unsettled some on the board. In an interview with Florida Trend earlier this year, Bishop acknowledged that his outspokenness has occasionally ruffled feathers of AIF board members... Erika Alba, chair of the AIF's board, praised Bishop for his "passion and unequaled round-the-clock effort to rebuild AIF" and pointed to his success with record dues and membership levels. Indeed, the group's form 990 filings with the IRS show that AIF's dues income increased from $839,063 in 2008 to more than $1.1 million in 2009. The income from dues, however, still fell well below AIF's expenses, which totaled $4.2 million that year. Only some $4.9 million in "investment income" kept the group from being in the red for the year." 

So, in addition to being a loudmouth, his lobbying didn't actually do much good for AIF, as a $250k increase isn't a lot of money in relation to the controversies Bishop caused by his mouth. 

3. Bishop's "Florida Smart Justice Alliance" group lost tax exempt status for refusing to pay taxes, and most of the board resigned in 2015: Speaking of Barney Bishop looking out for only himsrlf, we have more evidence from FloridaPolitics.com (a site that has offered unwavering support to Lauren Book over the years) --

A Tallahassee-based advocacy group led by veteran lobbyist Barney Bishop has had a mass exodus of board members in recent weeks, including one who accused Bishop of being motivated by “self-aggrandizement and personal gain.” As of Monday, group founder and former chairwoman Lori Costantino-Brown and members Pamela Alvarez, Catherine Craig-Myers, Jim DeBeaugrine and Mary Lynn Ulrey had all turned in resignation letters to the Florida Smart Justice Alliance. Copies were provided to FloridaPolitics.com. Craig-Myers said the resignations were from those who supported a motion to fire Bishop and lost.

And last month, the Internal Revenue Service posted a notice it had “automatically revoked” the alliance’s tax-exempt status. The group is formed as a 501(c)(6), a category for “business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, etc.,” according to the IRS website. The reason for the revocation: The organization has not filed its annual financial disclosure as required by federal law for three consecutive years...

“Florida business leaders recognized that the state’s approach to criminal justice was costing too much without effectively reducing recidivism,” it says. The organization’s mission is to “make Florida’s communities safer, save the taxpayers money and hold offenders accountable while providing the tools for them to live law-abiding lives.”

But in her Sept. 3 resignation letter, Costantino-Brown said the organization “no longer represents the ideals it was founded upon.” That was also the date that current chair Don Eslinger, the sheriff of Seminole County, called an “emergency meeting” to discuss the group’s yearly Justice Summit, scheduled for December in Sarasota. At that meeting, Ulrey – CEO of the Tampa-based Drug Abuse Comprehensive Coordinating Office – said she suggested the group use a less expensive event organizer than last year’s. Her suggestion was quickly shot down, she added. “When you don’t feel valued in a situation like that, it makes you feel leery about continuing to be involved,” she said in a phone interview. Ulrey, the board treasurer, also quit the board on Sept. 3. When asked whether she was referring specifically to Bishop, Ulrey said, “Well, he’s in the driver’s seat … Barney certainly has his agenda and that’s fine. I just no longer felt I was a good match.”

In fact, Costantino-Brown said in her letter that she could not “support or engage in an entity that is associated with Mr. Barney Bishop in any capacity.” “It was brought to my attention over the last few months that Mr. Bishop’s operations with regard to ‘smart justice’ were directed towards self-aggrandizement and personal gain, as well as substantially damaging to its reputation and advancement of mission,” Costantino-Brown wrote.

On a related note, the Florida Smart Justice Alliance's website and social media pages have not been updated since 2015, suggesting this was the death-knell for the Alliance as a "group". 

4. Barney Bishop suggests vigilante violence is his idea of "smart justice": Barney Bishop, in a testimony to the Florida House Judiciary Committee on March 3, offered this gem of a comment regarding a proposed 50 year minimum sentence for sex offenses law in committee:

"We think that very long sentences are warranted; in fact, we'd like longer sentences. And I would just say in closing that with respect to smart justice that maybe what we ought to really be doing is thinking about giving the victims’ families an opportunity to have visitation with the perpetrators and a pair of scissors. That's our idea of smart justice, Mr. Chairman, not anything short of that."

(it is worth noting he was working alongside Lauren Book's father and fellow lobbyist Ron Book that day. 

When Derek Logue of OnceFallen.com emailed Biship to explain these words, Bishop made threatening remarks to Logue while denying making such statements: 

“Mr. Logue, you (sic) memory is failing you terribly…I have NEVER said anything remotely like that, and I never would…there are many people who testify that use the words Smart Justice, but that doesn’t mean they can speak on behalf of Smart Justice…

If I ever hear from you again – in any fashion – your will be REPORTED to the authorities and I can assure you that you will suffer the consequences…it sounds like you enjoy jail and being confined and I can help you get that good ole feeling again…

Just respond to this email, or try to ever contact me again…I’m a former private investigator, and I’m an NRA member, I would NEVER resort to just scissors….and I will find your picture and put it into my Outlook file…you pic will be burnt into my memory…PLEASE contact me again, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

5. While Bishop feels silencing and threatening a Registered Person expressing his First Amendment Rights is okay, Bishop believes silencing the KKK and Nazis is wrong: It is funny how Bishop, in a span of a few hours, goes from threatening to permanently silence an Anti-Registry activist to saying the KKK has the right to freedom of speech, and if you don't like the speech, just walk away. 

https://www.facebook.com/RamonAlexanderFL/videos/564139997892070

"Ladies and Gentlemen, It doesn't matter whether you like the speech. It doesn't matter whether you like the speakers. It doesn't matter, Rep. Alexander, if it's the KKK, if it's the communists. It doesn't matter if it's the Nazis. It doesn't matter one single bit. Everybody, EVERYONE in this country has the right to freedom of speech and freedom of thought. You don't like it? Walk away. You don't incite violence. Students at Catholic Georgetown feel it is unsafe because a pro-life speaker was invited. Tufts University promotes a retreat to root out racism among white Christian folks, just white Christian folks." 

When Rep. Alexander responded by saying, "“For you to suggest that I should walk away (at) Florida A&M University (from) the original terrorist organization in this country is just shameful, Barney. It’s shameful,” Barney respondede, "The KKK is not the original terrorist organization."

As reported in the Tallahassee Democrat:

"Alexander called Bishop "shameful" a total of five times. Bishop once sat on FAMU's Board of Trustees, as did Alexander. “Complete BS. And you are not a Democrat either,” Alexander went on, referring to Bishop, a former executive director of the state's Democratic Party. The contretemps happened in the House Postsecondary Education & Lifelong Learning Committee.  “To suggest that I should walk away from an organization that dehumanized, murdered and lynched people who looked like me, just because of the color of their skin, is extremely offensive,” Alexander continued. 

After their heated exchange, tempers had not cooled for either Bishop or Alexander. The state representative was hesitant to comment because, he later said, he didn't want to focus attention on what he called Bishop’s “wacko" interpretation of the First Amendment. 

“I had to speak up," Alexander told a reporter. "If you do not stand for something, you will fall for anything.” 

Bishop in turn dismissed Alexander’s protestation as “theatrical”: “He proved my point about the 'cancel culture' and how the left is unable to have a debate without bringing up victimhood or racism or to infer violence.”

Bishop said he spoke at the meeting as a representative of Citizens for Responsible Spending, a Tallahassee-based watchdog group focused on transparency and accountability in government spending...

“Nobody compels anyone to go to these events,” Bishop said in a phone interview. “I may be offended by BLM (Black Lives Matter). I may be offended by antifa, but I am not going to protest to keep them off any campus because I am not afraid of their ideas."

TO SUM IT UP

Barney Bisop is seen as a self-serving lobbyist (already a profession of ill-repute) and has no qualms about expressing what ever opinion serves his own personal interests at the moment. A person like him has no right representing anyone else. It should come as no surprise, then, when he supports a corrupt politician like Lauren Book. 

Barney Bishop should be more mindful of his big mouth. It may only be a matter of time before he is dragged to court over it.