Earlier this week we wrote about a story in the Daily Beast called “A Tale of Two Jeffreys”
This post is a Tale of Two Laurens, only here the two Laurens are the same person. Senator Lauren Book and Lauren Book, founder of the not-for-profit Lauren’s Kids.
In the year prior to being elected as senator, the State of Florida gave $3.8 Million dollars to Lauren’s Kids. Up went billboards for the organization prominently featuring Lauren… who then ran for Senator. Many questioned whether the money given to Lauren’s Kids was used to promote Lauren Book the political candidate. Even after she won, Lauren the Senator used her political position to vote on State contributions to her own charity, which according to her Public Disclosure of Financial Interests, pays Lauren a $184,999 annual salary.
So now Lauren’s charity gets millions of dollars a year from the State, which in turn promotes bills that Lauren the State Senator Sponsors… hmmm. How can this not be a conflict of interest?
Take for example the article in Florida Politics, yesterday, which stated, “Sen. Lauren Book is continuing to mine for the public support the Plantation Democrat hopes will pressure Gov. Ron DeSantis into launching an independent investigation into how the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office handled sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.” Where is the Senator mining for that support? Through a petition promoted by her charity. “There are several thousand signatures on the petition. Still no response from the Governor’s office,” Claire VanSusteren, a spokeswoman for the senator, said. Wait, is Ms. VanSusteren a spokeswoman for the senator or the charity? According to her LinkedIn page she’s working for both.
In general, Lauren Book has a very defined agenda that not everyone agrees with. It gets very murky when over 10 million dollars of Florida Taxpayer money goes to an organization that so closely promotes one of it’s politician’s agendas. It’s almost as questionable as the same person who pushed for a class of people he called “monsters” to be legislated into homelessness being appointed as the Chair of a County’s Homeless Trust and tasked with the job of helping those he called “monsters” find housing.
Would this merit a Federal investigation into Lauren Book and her unseemly activities?
It SHOULD
Now Lauren is going after other vile people…veterinarians who declare cats. I wonder what conflicts of interest she has in this too.
https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-bill-would-ban-declawing-cats/28610538
Good Lord! Thanks for bringing this “woman” back to our attention. 58 bills have already been filed for the 2020 session!!!
Mz. Crook has authored 17 or nearly 30% of them.
http://flsenate.gov/Session/Bills/2020?chamber=both&searchOnlyCurrentVersion=True&isIncludeAmendments=False&isFirstReference=True&filedBy=M_5189&citationType=FL%20Statutes&pageNumber=1
Watch out for this one:
SB 84: Sexual Battery http://flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2020/84/BillText/Filed/PDF
Amending s. 794.011, F.S.; redefining the terms
“consent” and “sexual battery”;
(a) “Consent” … A person may withdraw consent after he or she has given it.
(h) “Sexual battery” means … ejaculating on another person or his or her clothing;
She may have a tougher time getting this one passed:
SB 94: Transfers of Firearms [Read: Gun Control]
http://flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2020/94
I’ve had people tell me that Ron Book answers the phones at Lauren’s statehouse offices. Nepotism apparently is okay in the Sunshine state.
When it involves Ron Napoleon Book and little Miss Precious, it most definitely is OK. I don’t know how many people’s balls those two hold in their hands, but it apparently must be a lot for no one, and I mean absolutely NO ONE, to stand up and come against them in this state.
I also find it very peculiar that nobody can seem to know what is happening with Ron’s DUI case down in Broward. I’m sure it has already “went away” just like we knew it would.
MJ,
Why do you insist nobody knows what’s going on with his DUI case?
The case is public information and everything is publicly available.
You can search it at https://www.browardclerk.org/Web2 and pull his docket under his name or case number (19005520MU10A). There is a calendar call in 3 days for anyone that wants to go in person to the Broward County Courthouse and hear for yourself.
We have a small handful of volunteers and need to focus on our own cases. If you are interested, please volunteer to update on his case periodically so we can focus on cases we are active in.
Sounds like I hit a nerve. I got the response I was hoping for. Thank you. And just for the record, I do my part thank you. I’m the one that sent you 2 articles on the Duval jail incident. If its goes on in Jacksonville or north FL, I try to keep you guys informed. I’m living life as a RSO too. Workin 3 jobs, living in poverty, and fighting the system. I just wanna see the crooks that lord themselves over us get theirs.
You mean to tell me, there’s nobody in the “big, bad” city of Miami where former mobsters and gangsters go to “hide”, that can take down this Book crime family? I mean, it’s only a daddy and his daughter for cryin out loud! I’m so sick and tired of these idiots.
**But in their defense, they aren’t the ONLY criminals in our state and national governments.
For those new to this site, above is meant as joke and parody. No one here condones that sort of thing (though “Book crime family” has a nice ring to it, I might borrow that).
A good source of the bookends shenanigans:
http://ronandlaurenbook.blogspot.com/
I’ve written before that both Books run 501c3 which have very strict rules about lobbying about laws if enough people report them to the irs they will eather fine them or take the nonprofit use from their cause ju st Google irs and search on the site nonprofit you can report anonymously so?
Great piece, FAC. Miami Herald quality. Thank you.
The feds need to be alerted to this. If someone with credibility (ie FAC, NARSOL, etc) were to demand investigation with a similarly well written complaint, the feds would be forced to investigate.