Rick Nolte gets close to Polk's kids and money today, with Ron DeSantis' blessing

From self-declared crime to "T.I.T.S." manifestos, the governor endorsed this clown. He owns him; let's never let him or Grady Judd or Brian Haas forget as we make Nolte miserable on your board.

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I had planned to attend today’s swearing-in of Rick Nolte to refer to him accurately as the most ridiculous, gross, and obviously, self-avowedly criminal elected official in Polk County history — with the possible exception of Ku Klux Klan Sheriff Dan Daniels in the 1980s.

But, apparently, there isn’t going to be any public comment today. So I’ll just wait until the next meeting.

The Ledger’s Gary White had a good summary story of Nolte madness yesterday. According to White, Nolte had until Monday to file a “termination report” for his campaign, amending the $5,200 cash contribution he says he gave himself in March into something that isn’t a felony. Of course, if Nolte did actually give himself $5,200 cash and tries to amend it to say he didn’t, he will commit yet another crime. He’s already confirmed and confessed to 10 misdemeanor cash donation crimes. The felony $5,200 is the remaining issue.

As of this writing, Tuesday morning, the Supervisor of Elections has not posted any amended reports.

I’ll be your “T.I.T.S.” Nolte clearinghouse

Part of me remains shocked that corrupt power in this county and state is going to let “T.I.T.S” Nolte take office. But that feeling of shock is a weird triumph of hope over experience and observation. I know better than I how feel about it.

So it’s time to put away shock and deal with reality. And I intend to make Rick Nolte regret he ever cheated to win an election and defiled a Bible to take the oath of office.

You can help.

If you work in or have an interest in the Polk County school system and Rick Nolte does or says some gross or criminal thing to you, please let me know immediately. I’m easy to reach. And word of advice: do not be alone with him. I certainly would want a witness to every interaction I had with this guy, if I worked in a school.

The Ledger, as an institution, lacks the will or capacity to focus scrutiny on Nolte’s behaviors in an ongoing way. It’s a miracle Gary White got that story about Nolte in what’s left of The Ledger at all. I’m grateful.

But I’m a different animal — and the attention-paying public is with me. Nobody wants this dude on the board. Whether power removes him now over his self-reported crime or removes him in four years with some bought election is the only question.

But I intend to make every moment Nolte does spend on the board as miserable and isolating as I can make it — as an object lesson. So I want to know when “T.I.T.S.” pulls a T.I.T.S.

Economic development and “Leadership Whatever” groups should be horrified that “T.I.T.S.” Nolte is now on their menu for prospective industry executives, new residents, and leaders, thanks to DeSantis and Judd and Haas. I guess LEDC and Lakeland Leads, once so concerned with schools, will work around him.

But I won’t work around him.

Boss DeSantis humiliates America’s Sheriff Grady Judd

Again, this all goes away the moment someone in power grows a spine and deals with Nolte.

But it won’t be Grady Judd, who Ron DeSantis has rendered impotent in addressing an obvious, self-declared felony. This, from Gary White’s article, is hilarious:

Since submitting the complaints about Nolte, Townsend has publicly questioned why the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit have not taken action. Scott Wilder, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, said that PCSO is not investigating Nolte and that state agencies enforce campaign-finance laws.

Imagine that: Grady Judd thinks it’s important to stay in his lane on something.

Grady Judd, who invented a riot that didn’t happen so he could roll armored personnel carriers into a Lakeland intersection in 2020; Grady Judd who exploited the worst kind of grief to showboat pointlessly about the failures of elected School Board members in Broward County as part of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas commission; Grady Judd who tried to help the vanquished CCDF dictate to parents what their kids can read in Polk schools; Grady Judd who helped remove another county’s state attorney with public smack talk; Grady Judd who never met a camera he wouldn’t turn into a meme or an act of horrible violence he wouldn’t turn into a viral and potentially deadly joke.

That Grady Judd is quiet as a church mouse now — letting his honorable spokesman Scott Wilder take the heat, like a coward — rather than speaking up personally to explain why he’s ignoring the campaign felony a School Board member is waving in his face. All because he doesn’t want to embarrass Boss DeSantis.

There is no corner of your life Grady Judd will not invade if he feels like he will get loving attention for trash-talking about it — and if he has permission from DeSantis. He’s spent way more time doing all of that above than trying to bring down the Polk murder rate that exploded (more than any other large Florida county) in 2020.

And memo to the sheriff: 99.9 percent of the statutes you enforce are state statutes, as are election statutes. You don’t pawn felony robbery investigations off on FDLE. Don’t pawn off felony election cheating on the ponderously slow and DeSantis-corrupted Florida Elections Commission.

Cash and “T.I.T.S.”: The Rick Nolte story in pictures

Anyway, we clearly can’t trust Polk’s elected law enforcement leaders, who work for the corrupt governor, not us, to do anything at all about Nolte. All we can really do is mock them with their own absurdity. And here’s a little gallery of sorts, in rough order of importance, of various crimes, gross things, and suspicious things that real law enforcement would deal with concerning Ron DeSantis’ guy in Polk.

It’s all explained here, if anyone cares at all about doing their law enforcement job.