Tioga Herald

Florida Foreshadowing with the Bush Family and Charles Colson of Naples, FL, One of the Nixon Watergate Lawyers

As a historian, I consider what can be learned from history.  Being an avid viewer of Murder, She Wrote, Perry Mason, and [Ben] Matlock, Poirot (Agatha Christie), Murdock Mysteries (produced and broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.), I often consider what it takes to research what is happening, both historically and during our current days. Actually, I have been doing research about much of what has been happening with political figures since I was a librarian working at a Florida corporation where Lawton Chiles (“Walkin'” Lawton who won his U.S. Senate seat after walking the entire state of Florida). While I spent most of my time researching environmental impacts of zebra mussels on hydro plants, nuclear energy and cold fusion as an alternative, alternative fuels, and self-insuring the corporation following losses due to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, I was also assigned projects by the CFO of the company who likely got the orders from “Walkin'” Lawton who was serving on our board of trustees after he departed the U.S. Senate and was preparing for a run for governor.  

The assignment was to research the possible impact of Jeb Bush on our company should he run for governor. In the process, I discovered “Jebbie’s” interests were strong in gambling and attempting to make gambling legal in Florida. (“Jebbie” was the name used by a Republican in Florida whom I had known most of my life who had come from Newark Valley – speaking as if he knew “Jebbie’ personally; he may have; coincidence: once gambling happened in Florida, the guy spent a great bit of time at the gambling casino; the CFO of that company was related to the founder of the Publix chain which, along with “Walkin'” Lawton, stood firmly against legalization of gambling; another note: the one from Newark Valley was the widower of a former mayor of Newark Valley; both were in two different political parties, but at that time, I was still a registered Republican; that guy was also a veteran of the U.S. Army Air Corps of World War II). Apparently there were a number of us who were looking into Jeb Bush and in various arenas in Florida and who knows where else.  

As a result, when Lawton Chiles ran for governor in 1994, his opponent was “Jebbie” Bush.  “Walkin'” Lawton defeated “Jebbie” Bush in that 1990 election.  It likely really angered “Jebbie” and I believe I have felt the target of vengeance, among many others.  For during that time, there was an influx of Republicans beginning to work a hostile takeover of our company where I owned company stock.  They were working with two that I know of.  Kenneth Lay of a natural gas company based in Houston, TX (where possibly – speculative – a NV Baptist and former Democrat racist bigot turned Republican was employed – his family enemies to my mother).  The other person was Charles Colson. Colson had bee released from prison and made his home in Naples, FL.  Other we had not found as much about him in this regard.  My bet is that he was far more involved than we knew.

If one reads the details of Charles Colson in a Wikipedia article, one discovers there is a great deal of connection to both “Jebbie” and George W. Bush.  First of all, Governor “Jebbie” pardoned Colson and returned Colson’s right to vote, in spite of being a convicted felon.  Hypocrite “Jebbie” later created a privatized prison system in Florida for the purposes of jailing black folk.  The reason? To arrest young black folk on misdemeanor charges in which white fold were NOT arrested, putting those young folk in jail with hardened criminals.  Once released those kids were often tied up with the criminals in jail and often got framed for crimes they did not commit and ended up back in jail.  Eventually they became felons who could not vote.  Do we know a church where the pastor was formerly imprisoned and framed after returning to society?  Framing is a common way to put good people away and remove their rights as citizens entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the land with “liberty and justice for all.”  It was a device used in Florida quite frequently, especially with black folk. Our Peace & Justice Ministries, an ecumenical group, worked to fight that as much as we could.  We had Protestants and Roman Catholics all working together to work in the name of Christ and top the BS being done by racists in Florida.  People up here say, “why should we be concerned because it can never happen here.”  Think again.  THINK… as Thomas J. Watson would say.

While president, George W. Bush gave an award to Charles Colson.  Did he deserve it?  Not on your life did he deserve it.

Furthermore, “Jebbie” pushed for a law called “Stand Your Ground.”  It was sold as a means to stop people with guns.  It was actually a law to shoot down black folk.  For example, shortly after the law was passed, a young black man in a car turned the volume of his rap music up to high levels.  Some white guy shot the guy and killed him.  The white guy gets off for murder based on that law in Florida.  Yet, as with Renee Good of Minnesota, the young man never threatened the white man.  

Another example.  A black person in a theater was talking during the movie.  He was shot to death by a white person. Another example. An inter-racial couple at a stop sign in Fort Lauderdale were shot dead by someone “standing his ground” because he did not believe that there should be inter-racial marriage.  

If anyone thinks this “foreshadowing” of events could never happen here?  You are mistaken and we need to be prepared for such.  

One more issue with “Jebbie.” He joined the SAR at the same time I did.  When some of us wanted to admit black folk descended from veterans of the American Revolution, “Jebbie” was opposed to such.  That would mean that my black relatives (inter-racial marriages) in Binghamton would not be able to join the SAR, based on the same ancestors I have.  

Oh, yes.  Can I forget when I was at St. Mary’s Medical Center in North Palm Beach (where “Jebbie” was on the board of directors), I was blackmailed by some woman on staff there who had said she knew “Jebbie.”  Hmmmmm.  Her last name was Ellis.  Do you know what JEB is?  JOHN ELLIS BUSH – related to the Ellis family.  She tried to blackmail me unless I expressed support for Donald Trump.  That was 2018 during Trump’s first term.  Furthermore, I am still wondering why I was carted a long distance by helicopter to St. Mary’s when there was a trauma center within a short driving distance from my home and that hospital was where my own primary care physician worked.  

The question still remains.  In the last month of “Walkin'” Lawton’s term as governor, as “Jebbie” was about to assume the office of governor, he suddenly died.  There has been talk “on the street” that Bush and that family was responsible for the death of Chiles.  But it has never been proven.  After reading the article about Charles Colson of Naples, FL, I have to speculate, based on the number of times that Colson used poisons and LSD against people whom Nixon had a vengeance.  One person was against a reporter named Jack Anderson who had released a defamatory story about Nixon just prior to the 1960 election.  Nixon held a vengeance against Anderson, blaming him for losing that election of 1960.  And even today, we still live with this bullshit with the Man-baby and the Kennedy Rose Garden and the Kennedy Performing Arts Center.  

Do I have proof that Colson was involved with Governor Chiles’s death?  No.  I do not.  Only circumstantial evidence and hearsay “on the street.”  A huge part of the circumstantial evidence is the popularity of Governor Chiles so as to defeat “Jebbie” in 1994.  It was widely known that the Bush family was scared of Governor Chiles as he had plans to run for president in 2000 and the governor of Texas was favored by the Republicans:  George W. Bush.  Chiles could have beaten Bush, for sure.  

It is also said that many who would be good leaders have been frightened by these events and don’t want to get involved in politics.  Is this true?  I don’t know.  

There is also evidence that Teddy Roosevelt may have had ADHD. In those days, there was no medications to curb ADHD, as today.  The claim has been made that those today who are like Teddy Roosevelt with ADHD would be pushed off into a background job of accounting or technology and not seeking leadership positions at all.  Is this true?  I don’t know for sure. TR’s father, Teddy Roosevelt, Sr., like many people of wealth, had purchased his way out of the draft in the Union Army of the American Civil War.  TR reacted to that by insisting, during a later stage in his life, joining forces in the Spanish-American War where he led forces up San Juan Hill in Cuba.  

 But in 2007, Democrat Lee Iacocca wrote a book titled, Where Have All the Leaders Gone? It was not conclusive, but did bring up many questions for consideration.  Iacocca did mention the favored status of the Saudi government by the Bush regime as it exited members of that royal family out of the USA following Osama Bin-Laden’s 9/11 fiasco.  And much of what was happening with the corporation where I was working – Kenneth Lay, etc. – was related to the Saudi Arabians. I have a suspicion that the attack on Iran is more than just Netanyahu and Israel.  Here we are in 2026 and the same ones who gave us high oil prices under Nixon are likely still involved with what is happening today, one way or another.  

Side note:  I have discovered that Lee Iacocca was at Lehigh University at the same time that a former Tioga County legislator from Newark Valley was at Lehigh University. 

One thing about J.B. Fletcher, the character in Murder, She Wrote, was that she had taught English in the Cabot Cove High School. She often used literary elements in her work as a mystery writer and in assisting solving murders.  Often she mentioned the use of foreshadowing in literature and applied it to real life situations.  In this case, I see Charles Colson with Nixon and others, plus Florida events from the 1990s until the present day as foreshadowing what we are seeing now.  People must not be familiar with this idea of “foreshadowing.”  Most of my writing for the past 20 years is meant to be a foreshadowing based on what we all experienced in Florida.  

Instead, I got this.  “Don’t talk to me about politics.”  It’s not politics.  Sometimes what happened in Florida had to do with murder , framing, and blackmail by people who have no morals, scruples, or ethics.  

Rather than look at what I say as a “foreshadowing” and an environment to learn from history, as I pass the historical experiences and information to others, people shoot holes in the information before even considering it.  Listening to one another?  You have to be kidding.  

The Democrats who ran the corporation where I worked often had us doing brain-storming.  NO ONE was to shoot something down and all was to be like placing our cards on the table before even discussion and communication.  But there was NEVER to be shooting at something as if some person’s ATTITUDE was that the idea was stupid.  If that shooting happened, such a person was only thinking about themselves, how THE PERSON could win, and push their narrow part of the world. Such ones had no capability for viewing the wider picture.  

There is too much shooting down of ideas and solutions among the Baby Boomers and younger.  In brain-storming of the 1980s and 1990s, those in the WWII generation were less likely to do such a thing.  They had experienced this nation going through quite a hassle in Europe and the Pacific, besides experiencing the Great Depression.  They had witnessed how this nation had to solve the problems of those days so such WWII people knew what to do in brain-storming.  The idea for researching self-insuring rather than relying on big corporate giants of insurance so as to protect against hurricanes came out of one of the quality circles brain-storming sessions.  Before we could take it any further, the GD Republicans swerved in and shut us down.  An example of how much those bastards only like big corporate billionaires, which was something I viewed in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Florida.  In those years, the Republicans shut down R&D for cold fusion and the R&D moved to Europe where they have made progress in that area, even if it is still not solved.  As with the treatment of Einstein and 19th Century “Clinton’s Ditch” builder, narrow-minded Republicans scoffed at the ideas as if they could not be used to solve problems.  Of course they could not when Republican strategy is to destroy by sabotage, as they have done with forms of public retirement and retirement healthcare which could provide capitalist ROI for retirees.  To Republicans.  It is called “capitalism, stupid.”  Capitalism with balance and profits which is not an evil thing. Meanwhile,  the one-sided lop-sided bulging pockets of billionaires is NOT capitalism. The 1000% PLUS increase in CEO salaries is NOT capitalism.  

Colson did quite a large amount of damage to this nation and then was pardoned with his rights as a felon overturned so he could vote, and then awarded a presidential award.  Life is not about winning and being vengeful when not winning.  Such actions are described in the Hebrew Scriptures with verses about vengeance such as “you must take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  In this time of Holy Week, we need to remember that Christ overturned that Hebrew Scripture.  Christ also would not have accepted the Machiavellian words of selfishness and greed:  “the end justifies the means.”  Colson and others all follow such a principle or else they would not have invaded the Watergate Hotel and then validated their actions by putting down those who challenged them on their evil actions because “the end justifies the means.”

And with Nixon and Watergate, we thought it was all over when Nixon resigned in 1974.  It was not.  Democrat turned Republican Ronald Wilson Reagan reared his ugly head and challenged Gerald Ford from the moderate wing of the Republican Party, setting up the path for the fascists in that party.  And going back even further, fascist Howard Taft  and Herbert Hoover of that political party.  Taft had challenged Teddy Roosevelt and the party was split in 1912.  The difference was that, in the 1970s, Gerald Ford did not know how to “speak softly and carry a big stick” when Reagan came on the scene.   That was also the beginning of huge increases in CEO salaries for people who don’t know how to make money the old fashioned way – “to earn it.”  

Man-baby Trumpty Dumpty has no idea what it means to “earn” money.  And this was known before he even ran for president in 2016, but did people take it seriously?  Nope.  

There is more. Charles Colson and the Christian Nationalists. Another day. Maybe?

Charles Colson, Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Colson