State Senator Caught Looking At Porn On Senate Floor

Everyone knows how boring a debate on a controversial abortion bill can get on the Senate floor. So it's no wonder that Florida State Sen. Mike Bennett took the time to look at a little porn and a video of a dog running out of the water and shaking itself off. From the article: "Ironically, as Bennett is viewing the material, you can hear a Senator Dan Gelber's voice in the background debating a controversial abortion bill. 'I'm against this bill,' said Gelber, 'because it disrespects too many women in the state of Florida.' Bennett defended his actions, telling Sunshine State News it was an email sent to him by a woman 'who happens to be a former court administrator.'"

Re:A setup

[characterZer0]

Honestly, I would rather my senetor [wikipedia.org] spend his time in the Senate looking at pictures of pretty girls than voting or cramming pork into every bill he can find.

I Don't Think So

[eldavojohn]

Purely a setup. Notice how the presence of a black bar insinuates that it's covering something offensive? If you look at the picture, there's all fully clothed, the straps to their tops are visible, including the top themselves under and above the bar.

He's wrong for viewing pictures of girls in bikinis while on government time... but there is no porn here.

I disagree. If you zero reference the women from left to right, women one and three have no visible straps that would hold the top part of their bikinis up. While it's still possible they had something around their chests, I don't know what would be holding up so little material. I do agree that he was just opening up an NSFW e-mail sent him to him and it didn't look like he was "viewing" it as it seemed to be closed as soon as his brain registered what he was looking at. Three seconds and then closing the window is not really "looking at porn" in my book. Accident at best. Even Slashdot has embarrassed me at work [photobucket.com].

Re:Missing the Point

[Majik Sheff]

That's primarily because they are in full lock down right now due to their deep minority status. Unity is their only hope for stopping the opposition, even on bills that the individuals disagree with the party on. When there is some wiggle room in the balance of power certain legislators are able to put their vote counter to the party because it won't matter. The democrats did exactly the same thing when they were backed into a tight minority in the 90s. Welcome to the game that is American politics.

Wait until the census comes out and the gerrymandering begins! Then we'll see some gamesmanship.

Re:Hardly qualifies as porn

[Lumpy]

Asking a senator to pay attention?

Next, you will ask they actually read and understand the bill they are voting on...

You forget how this country works.

Re:Hardly qualifies as porn

[d3ac0n]

Yes.

Now, do YOU understand that the image was:

A) Of Bikini-clad women. Not nude, and not even (as TFA falsely states) topless.

B) E-mailed to the Senator uninvited and unannounced, with a deceptive filename.

C) Sent by a female co-worker.

Basically, it's looking more and more like this Senator got Punk'd.

But hey, let's not let a few facts get in the way of a salacious story! This IS /. after all.

Re:Hardly qualifies as porn

[kramerd]

Pornography is material with little or no artistic merit. Under obscenity laws, yes, porn is illegal. Or to be more accurate, sexually explicit material is only illegal if it's porn (this one off those squares are rectangles arguments), but pornography is not necessarily sexually explicit.

Re:Bingo

[shadowrat]

His job is to vote yes or no. It's actually not a hard job. I'm not certain he needs to or should be paying attention to do his job well. The R behind his name implies he's going to vote against abortion. It's not his responsibility to listen to the other side of the aisle and all their arguments. His job is to vote the way he thinks the people who put him there want him to vote.

whether or not these guys should be paid so much to do such an easy job is up for argument.

Re:Missing the Point

[Straif]

Can you list off these numerous filibusters? And quoting Obama doesn't count.

For 7 months the Democrats had a filibuster proof majority, meaning the Republicans could not filibuster any bill/motion even if they wanted to.

The oft cited cloture stat is next to meaningless as cloture and filibuster are not directly linked.

A filibuster is a tool use by the minority party to prevent a vote. Which as already pointed out was impossible for Republicans to do without Democratic support for at least 7 months.

Cloture, on the other hand, is a tool use by the majority to close off further debate. This could be because of a filibuster or simply because they just don't want to discuss the matter further.

And if you want to talk about improper actions taken in the Senate, the Democrats win this round hands down. To protect their filibuster proof majority and to help push their agenda forward, they violated the rules of the Senate which they themselves demanded previously by allowing the interim Senator from Mass. to continue to vote even after Brown had won the seat. The rules of the Senate clearly state that in the conditions present at the time newly elected Senator Brown was legally permitted to hold his seat and vote the day the election was completed and he was recognized as the winner; and the Senate rules specifically don't even require State certification. The Dems actually held several votes after the election in Mass. and prior to them recognizing Brown (at least 17). Previous, the Republican majority had recognized Democrat winners of special elections the following day, even when important legislation was on the floor.

Of course you could also extend the improper actions to the very appointment of a interim Senator to fill Kennedy's vacant seat since the Dems had to change a law THEY PUT IN PLACE just a couple years before to even do that. But I guess that was on the state level and not the federal so that's ok.

Re:Missing the Point

[Attila Dimedici]

You do know that the Republicans introduced at least 4 health care reform bills (all of which were short enough to read and understand)? You do know that when the Republicans wanted to negotiate on the "stimulus bill", Obama's answer was "I won"? Further, were you aware that a national bill on education was one of George W. Bush's top priorities when he was elected (before 9/11), so he asked Ted Kennedy to write the No Child Left Behind Act (when Republicans were in the majority)?

Re:Republican

[sonicmerlin]

The top tenth of 1% of the population receives half of every available dollar of income (almost as much as the bottom 50%). The question is whether they are paying "more" like they were 30 years ago, prior to income taxes becoming more regressive, before their share of the national income quadrupled while the average American lost ground.

I mean, is it a good thing that 300,000 Americans quadrupled their incomes, and pay less tax on that money today than they would have 30 years ago? To the "less tax" crowd that may sound like an ideal world. But, is that ideal when, at the same time, average income dropped 10%?

In 1980, Ronald Reagan asked "are you better off today than you were four years ago?" He got elected and proceeded to make income taxation less progressive. The result has been as described above.

But, if the average American asks the same question Reagan did, he's accused of being a "deadbeat," "wanting something for nothing."

I won't go into details on the massive deficits Reagen wracked up, the destruction of environment, the elimination of a great deal of government funded basic scientific research, etc.