Saturday, April 4, 2015

[UPDATE] Being a protester can be a cool gig—"It's off to Tallahassee!"

Christine Stapleton at The Palm Beach Post with another story about protesters, titled: "Enviro group paying for students to urge lawmakers to “buy the land”

The big difference about the story today (4/4) is it appears in the "B" section on page 2 as opposed to the story yesterday on the Broward actors who got paid $75 to protest: that was in the "A" section, front page.

Here is how the "enviro" protesters are being treated, from the article by Christine Stapleton:
     Besides sending a “Buy The Land!” message to lawmakers,the college students and other advocates on the bus probably will have good seats to a free concert by Jimmy Buffett and commentary from best-selling author Carl Hiaasen on the state Capitol steps Tuesday.
     The charter buses will leave from Miami, West Palm Beach Stuart and Fort Myers on Monday. After a group dinner, the travelers will meet other advocates. Tuesday begins with lobby training before meeting with lawmakers, followed by the concert and rally at the Capitol and the drive home.
The irony wasn't lost on U.S. Sugar spokeswoman Judy Sanchez. Christine Stapleton includes this quote from Judy Sanchez:
     “Just wondering why the Everglades folks have never been called out for doing the same thing,” Sanchez wrote in email to The Post on Friday after reading about Thursday’s protest. “Providing free bus fare to Tally ($100?) and free hotel room ($150) to a bunch of college students and putting them through “lobby training” to have them learn your message – oh and then you throw in a free Jimmy Buffett concert ($100+)—that’s not buying people to show up at your rally?”
     “What’s the difference here and what happened yesterday?” Sanchez wrote.
Good question, Judy Sanchez.

If you go to the Post On Politics blog you'll see the image below which Christine Stapleton was able to locate and publish: