Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can we petition to have Florida senator Bill Nelson listed as an "injurious species"?

His son was almost jailed for assaulting a police officer in Orlando. You know that saying about the "Fruit not falling far from the tree". I've said all along that Bill Nelson should be more worried about his own household than what I keep for pets in mine. BTW there was a story in the Slantinel I believe last Sunday that was tying Bill Nelson to some type of medicaid fraud ring somehow. I don't remember exactly how but I figured I'd throw the info out there since the subject of "spaceman spiff" came up. So you can google it if you want and dig up some more dirt on him.

One of the things I have noticed about the type of legislation we are facing is it seems to come up when politicians are on the ropes. Don't get me wrong I am against this bill but lets face it there are a lot more problems out there for our country than banning our pets. The unemployment rate here in Fl. is "officially" 12% unofficially it is a lot higher. Nationwide it is over 10% officially. We basically have almost no manufacturing jobs in this country to speak of people are losing there homes we are stuck in 2 wars that the current administration managed to use as a way to get into office on the promise of an exit strategy that isn't there. We are a few trillion dollars and deficit and the answer for that from are officials is to spend more and on top of that they want to initiate a healthcare plan that we require us to spend even more money.
There are no easy solutions to these problems and they know it and they are fully aware that there are a whole lot of unhappy unemployed people out there ready to (in the best case scenario,I'll let you read the history books and determine the worst case scenario on your own.) kick them out office.
Of course they don't want to lose their jobs so they come up with the type of legislation they are coming up with now. I mean lets face it a lot of people don't like snakes so this is an easy sell. They can't do a thing about all the other problems that have a serious impact on everyones lives but they can ban snakes. There is another bill out there to limit the volume on tv. comercials as well. I haven't been able to afford cable for two years now but assuming I get back to work at some point it's nice to know I won't be bothered by loud comercials if I decide to get cable again.
I think that what we really ought to do is go on the offensive on them (nicely obviously) and call them on it. Instead of writing them these "please don't outlaw my snakes" letters we should be holding their feet to the flame about the economy and let them know that if they don't stop worrying about snakes and tv comercial volume they will absolutely be out on their butts.
Face it they are already scared for crying out loud Ted Kennedy's senate seat was lost to a republican do you even begin to realize how profound that is????
I am a big proponent of the idea of totally cleaning house (both parties would be nice but let's take what we can get) I am far from alone on that and our representatives know it. I think it's time we take advantage.

I agree. For what it's worth, below is an e-mail I sent to one of the sponsors of that idiotic Rhode Island bill proposal regulating/banning just about every animal under the sun. (His response was very lame, but on the bright side it was a personal response, so I'm pretty sure he actually read my e-mail.)

From now on, I will vote in every election and vote for a 3rd party candidate. I think if everyone who wanted to vote 3rd party did the same (as opposed to thinking they are wasting a vote) did so, things might change for the better.

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Dear Senator Tassoni,

I recently became aware of the proposed legislation (S.2027) which would regulate and ban ownership of hundreds of types of pets, most of them completely harmless even under ANY circumstances. I’m wondering what possible, logical
justification can be put forth to even come up with this bill, much less put it into effect. It seems like a hysterical, knee-jerk reaction to extremely rare events such as the chimpanzee attack in Connecticut. Given that one is much
more likely to get hit by lightning than attacked/killed by an “exotic” pet, this proposed law makes no sense. It would make more sense to regulate how and when people can go outside so as to avoid getting struck by lightning.

This proposed legislation is a perfect example of why the sleeping giant of “we the people” is waking up and starting to vote out those who waste valuable time on bills such as this. Aside from personally losing your credibility, do you really want to make little Johnny’s parents get a permit to get him a pet frog or lizard??

Please shoot down this ridiculous, oppressive piece of proposed legislation. Also, if you want to see how “dangerous” boas and pythons (mostly which are not “giant” snakes) are, please spend some time with some actual owners and looking up the statistics rather than believing hype and propaganda. Here are some
statistics on “exotic” animals:

[link to site with stats]

Thanks for your time,

>>What, out of curiosity, was his reply?
>>-----

Cliff,

Glad you asked. Here is his reply to my e-mail:

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"I was asked to put this in for a number of people who contacted me. Thanks

John J. Tassoni, Jr."
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That was it. I wonder if a number of people contact him and ask him to dress up in a chicken suit and run around singing the Barney theme song, would he do it???

Seriously, what's really disturbing is that if I gave that answer to my boss after he asked me to justify something I proposed, I'd probably get fired.

Thanks,
Ed

Politicions from both sides were raised to talk out of both sides of their mouth at the same time,

It's an art form.