Deep Something

Brittany Lyssy’s School-Board Training Network Deserves a Closer Look

September 21, 2026 B. John 102 Views 0 Comments Moms For Liberty, Bridget Ziegler, Brittany Lyssy, Leadership Institute, Hillsdale College, school board politics, Hillsborough County Schools

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

This entry is in the series Education

Brittany Lyssy cites her work with the Leadership Institute’s School Board Leaders Program as part of her education-policy experience. A closer look at that program shows a national conservative network built around recruiting, training, and supporting school-board candidates, with direct connections to Moms for Liberty and to policy resources from Hillsdale College and the Heritage Foundation.

One connection deserves particular attention. Bridget Ziegler, an early figure in Moms for Liberty, served in leadership of the same Leadership Institute school-board program where Lyssy worked on communications, policy analysis, ethics, and governance. Public records do not show that Lyssy belonged to Moms for Liberty or adopted every position promoted within that network, but the institutional ties are clear enough to warrant scrutiny.

The larger question is what parts of that philosophy Lyssy would bring to Hillsborough. The full article follows the connections among the Leadership Institute, Moms for Liberty, Hillsdale, Ziegler, and Lyssy’s own policy background, then asks what voters should examine before deciding how much those ties matter.

Places Tampa Politics Legislature Society Crack Pots Featured

Josie Tomkow Discovers Homeowner Rights

September 21, 2026 B. John 82 Views 0 Comments attorney fees, Florida insurance reform, Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights, Senate District 14, Josie Tomkow, campaign contributions, homeowners insurance

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

Josie Tomkow says she wants to create a Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights and make sure insurance claims are fully paid. This sounds reassuring, especially in a state where rising premiums and storm losses have made things tough for homeowners. There is just one awkward detail: Florida already has a Homeowner Claims Bill of Rights. Even more, Tomkow spent years voting for laws that made it harder and more expensive for policyholders to challenge insurers when claims were denied or underpaid.

Campaign records also show ongoing support for Tomkow from insurance companies, industry groups, civil-justice organizations, and a former Florida Insurance Commissioner who now works in insurance advisory.

So is this a real change of heart, or just a shift for campaign season? Her voting record, contribution history, and new promises make it worth taking a closer look.

Crack Pots Business Culture Economy Featured Politics Constitution Society Education

Some Things Should Not Be Run for Profit

September 15, 2026 B. John 151 Views 0 Comments Public Education, education policy, public good, School Choice, Florida Schools, Education Funding, Educational Equity, School Vouchers

This entry is in the series Education

What if the biggest mistake in Florida’s education debate is assuming schools should work like ordinary businesses?

Markets reward efficiency, control costs, and give consumers choices. Public education has a different job. It has to serve every child, including the student who needs far more support, the student who needs advanced opportunities, and the student whose family could never afford to buy those services on its own.

That is why I think the debate over vouchers and school choice has to go deeper than whether competition can improve some outcomes. The real question is whether K-12 education should be organized around market incentives at all.

In this essay, I look at what happens when we confuse efficiency with public duty, and why some things may work better when the goal is not profit, but making sure everyone is served.

AI Image of choice schools and State Constitution

Politics Society Education Crack Pots Business Economy Featured Places Tampa

When “School Choice” Stops Meaning Public Education

September 13, 2026September 13, 2026 B. John 158 Views 0 Comments Education Vouchers, Henry Mack, Public Education, Public Schools, School Choice, Florida Schools, Education Funding, Educational Equity

This entry is in the series Education

Florida’s new Education Commissioner has said the state does not need to run schools at all. That raises a question that goes well beyond vouchers: what happens when “school choice” starts replacing the idea of public education itself?

Florida’s Constitution requires a system of free public schools. Yet an $8,000 voucher does not guarantee admission, does not guarantee a free education, and means something very different to a family that can add another $30,000 than it does to one that cannot. That is why the slogan “fund the student” leaves out so much.

At our Voices of Justice: Speak Up for Students program earlier this year, USF education policy professor Dr. Bill Black asked a simple question: “What is public in public education?” With Florida moving further toward publicly funded private education, that question deserves a much closer look.

Featured Places Tampa Politics Election Society Gay Issues Crack Pots

Ambition, Attendance, and the Race for HCSB District 2

August 31, 2026 B. John 195 Views 0 Comments Hillsborough County, Tampa Politics, Hillsborough School Board, District 2, Brittany Lyssy, Local Governance, Public Education

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

When someone wants to lead a multi-billion-dollar school district, authenticity comes first. Brittany Lyssy’s campaign for Hillsborough School Board District 2 asks voters to believe that a family of five lives in a 680-square-foot, one-bedroom condo while also keeping a homesteaded home in Manatee County. From barely attending advisory board meetings to repeating national talking points, District 2 voters deserve real community representation, not a staged political act.

Culture Crack Pots Art Hate Groups Movies County Commission Theater Featured Places Tampa Politics Society Technology Software

Real Waste, Fake Waste, and Things Republicans Just Don’t Like

July 24, 2026July 25, 2026 B. John 257 Views 0 Comments public accountability, Hillsborough County DOGE, political ideology, county grants, DEI programs, nonprofit funding, government waste, film incentives

This entry is in the series Hillsborough DOGE Report Analysis

Not every proposed cut is the same. Unused software licenses, underused vehicles, vague contracts, and weak bidding rules are real places to look for waste.

But the Hillsborough County DOGE report also targets nonprofits, equity work, community outreach, and cultural programs. In this essay, I separate genuine control problems from programs that appear to have been labeled “waste” because committee members do not like their purpose.

Political opposition is fair. Calling it financial analysis is not.

Featured Places Tampa Politics Society Crack Pots County Commission

Cutting a Program Is Not the Same as Making Government Efficient

July 23, 2026July 25, 2026 B. John 309 Views 0 Comments Hillsborough County DOGE, indigent health care, county spending, government efficiency, Medicaid gap, voter-approved tax, Tampa General Hospital, public services, health care access

This entry is in the series Hillsborough DOGE Report Analysis

The Hillsborough County DOGE committee calls the county health care plan a source of major savings. But ending care for more than 22,000 low-income residents is not the same as making government more efficient.

This essay looks at what the program actually does, why voters approved the tax that funds it, and what happens when needed care disappears from one budget line only to reappear in emergency rooms, hospitals, charities, and family finances.

Cutting a program may make a spreadsheet look better. The harder question is whether the community pays more when the service is gone.

Featured Politics Society Crack Pots County Commission General

They Did Not Find $678 Million in Waste

July 22, 2026July 25, 2026 B. John 282 Views 0 Comments indigent health care, budget oversight, political ideology, public accountability, Hillsborough County Commission, Hillsborough County DOGE, county budget, government waste, taxpayer spending

This entry is in the series Hillsborough DOGE Report Analysis

The Hillsborough County DOGE committee says it found roughly $678 million in potential savings. That sounds impressive, until you look at what the number actually includes: entire public programs, contract limits, fund balances, possible management changes, and spending choices committee members simply do not support.

In my latest essay, I take a closer look at the report and the difference between finding real waste and labeling any disliked program as waste. The committee may have raised some fair questions about fleet use, software licenses, contracts, and oversight. But cutting a service is not the same as making government more efficient, and a large number is not proof.

Featured Places Tampa Politics Legislature Society Education Crack Pots

The Price of Political Playacting: Michael Owen’s Assault on Hillsborough Schools

July 9, 2026September 16, 2026 B. John 328 Views 0 Comments Hillsborough County, Culture Wars, Local Governance, school referendum, state preemption, Michael Owen, political overreach, Public Education

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

This entry is in the series Education

Hillsborough County Public Schools, the seventh-largest district in the nation, is facing a top-down assault disguised as “local accountability.” State Representative Michael Owen’s House Bill 4027 calls for a referendum to eliminate our professionally appointed superintendent in favor of a partisan elected office. The schools are already governed by an elected board of education. This change is not about transparency; it is a calculated effort to force a toxic culture-war agenda into our local classrooms and strip our school system of seasoned, professional leadership.

The structural fallout of this power grab is devastatingly clear. Instead of an experienced educational administrator focused on student performance, our district risks being handed over to a political partisan. Under an elected model, policy decisions on curriculum, budgeting, and student safety will inevitably bow to the need for campaign survival, turning every fourth year into a multi-million-dollar reelection spectacle. This essay shows how Owen’s legislative overreach, paired with his habit of distorting local facts for political points, threatens the shared institutions our children rely on.

Society Crack Pots Featured Places Tampa Politics Legislature

Is Karen Gonzalez-Pittman Representing South Tampa or Tallahassee?

June 29, 2026 B. John 303 Views 0 Comments wage recovery, South Tampa, Karen Gonzalez Pittman, Home Rule, local control, Tallahassee preemption, housing policy, infill redevelopment, school boards

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

Karen Gonzalez-Pittman represents South Tampa, but her voting record raises a fair question: is she representing this community, or carrying Tallahassee’s agenda back home? Again and again, she has voted for bills that take decision-making power away from local governments, local school boards, and local voters.

From housing and tenant protections to infill redevelopment, school policy, civilian oversight, and local employment standards, Gonzalez-Pittman has sided with state preemption over home rule. For South Tampa, where traffic, flooding, housing pressure, schools, and neighborhood character are intensely local concerns, that record deserves much closer scrutiny.

Featured Politics Society Crack Pots County Commission

The Architecture of Abandonment: The Performance of Josh Wostal

April 30, 2026 B. John 930 Views 0 Comments Public Transit, Developer Subsidies, Fiscal Conservatism, Local Government, Voter Suppression, Asset Stripping, Patrimonialism, Hostile Wostal, Hillsborough County Commission

This entry is in the series 2026 Elections

In the sterile halls of the Hillsborough County Center, he is known as “Hostile Wostal”—a man who treats the public treasury like a distressed asset ripe for liquidation. While he preens for social media as a fiscal hawk, his actual record is a masterclass in calculated abandonment, trading essential bus routes in South County for high-end sprawl subsidies that line the pockets of mega-developers like Lennar and Homes by WestBay. It isn’t “saving” when you strip the foundation of a community to pave the private driveways of the donor class; it is patrimonialism disguised as prudence.

Wostal’s governance is a performance of cruelty, evidenced by his crusade to defund the Supervisor of Elections and dismiss 100,000 of our neighbors as mere “ghost voters.” This isn’t about the bottom line; it is about rigging the game by silencing the voices he can’t win over. From stranding essential workers on the roadside to attacking the ballot box, Wostal has shown us that he knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. It is time to decide if we want a county that serves its people, or a family business that serves only its patrons. Follow the paper trail and learn more about how we can build a Hillsborough that belongs to everyone.

← Previous