What did you do last week, Kelli Stargel and Carey Baker?

Ex-politician crony hires by Florida Polytechnic and Property Appraiser Neil Combee should name five accomplishments. Failure to do so should be "taken as a resignation."

If it’s good enough for National Park rangers, cancer researchers, IRS accountants, air traffic controllers, FBI agents, veterans and veterans caregivers, nuclear weapons oversight personnel, Ebola fighters, international aid workers, et. al. — you know, people who actually work for the common good — it’s good enough for Kelli Stargel.

When I last checked in on ex-Florida state Sen. Stargel’s now-$175,000, taxpayer-funded fake job with Florida Polytechnic, it was very clear Lakeland’s worst-ever public official had mastered work-life balance. As I noted back in May of 2023:

During her first full month "working" for Florida Poly, 8 of 20 work days of the nepo former senator Stargel's official calendar showed no meetings or interactions or work activity of any kind.

Full article posted below, with images of Kelli’s calendar. It is hilarious — if you don’t mind being cheated out of the public service effort you buy from Nepo hires.

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Kelli Stargel's hilarious hire shows nobody cares about Florida Polytechnic University

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Kelli’s performance and work ethic earned her a promotion from the equally hilarious “anti-woke” takeover of a campus too tiny and too empty on the weekends to even notice “woke” was ever a fake thing.

Full account below of Florida Poly’s hostile takeover by the Southern Group lobbying firm.

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Was the Southern Group/Henry Mack "railroad" of Florida Poly and NWFSC just too obvious and too thirsty?

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I hear there are other highly dubious recent hires at Poly that an actual DOGE not run by incels who call themselves “Big Balls” could whittle around in.

If you’re too cheap to qualify in Lake County, just come see your good ‘ol buddy Neil Combee in Polk for an easy check

Meanwhile, ex-Lake County Property Appraiser Carey Baker, a long-time political ally of new Polk Property Appraiser Neil Combee, suffered the funniest defeat of any Florida public official in the last election.

He was too cheap to shell out the qualifying fee, so he banked on running unopposed as a write-in. He had done this in 2020 and saved himself $11,000. Entitlement is a powerful drug. Only this time, a fellow GOPer outsnoookered Baker at the last moment and qualified with his name and party on the ballot.

Baker got smoked, which shows how little most voters actually pay attention to any individual running for office. See article here:

We lost the race for property appraiser. It appears it’s sort of important to actually have your name on the ballot,” Baker posted Wednesday on his Facebook page…

LOL, dude. Pay the money. You can afford it. Can’t you? Anyway, Baker had a back-up plan set up pretty quickly.

As for Baker, he says he will back to his gun shop once his term is up in January. He also says other property appraisers around the state have reached out to him, so he might advise some appraisers as they take on their new roles.

He may also try to run for office again in four years.

“I don’t think I’ll have much trouble as long as my name is on the ballot,” he laughed.

Hmmm. Advise?

Baker is now Polk County Property Appraiser Neil Combee’s “chief deputy,” according to Combee’s very helpful assistant, who I spoke to yesterday. Neil himself hasn’t answered me.

(Don’t yell at or otherwise mess with your assistant, Neil. She seems very nice. Let me know if he does, ma’am. )

I don’t know what Baker is paid or what his duties are — hence the “what did you do last week” request. He does not show up anywhere on Combee’s office website. Combee’s assistant said Baker is commuting from Lake County. I am not sure if this a net new or replacement position. Combee’s assistant said she thinks former Property Appraiser Marsha Faux had a similar deputy who left when Faux retired.

We do know that Carey Baker’s personal instinct is to avoid doing vaguely hard things — like shelling out or raising $11K for the honor of “serving” the public. Don’t you wonder how that instinct plays out as he governs/serves you, here in Polk County.

DOGE is, of course, a grift, supported and executed by shameless grifters

The Trump/Elon sabotage of vital government services is just a re-run of the DeSantis/Corcoran grifter destruction of New College, with galactically larger human consequences — this time for MAGAs, too.

Just as there is no plan to replace New College with something different or better (a bad, transient 80-kid baseball team designed to goose enrollment so Corcoran gets to collect absurd grifter bonuses does not count), there is no plan to replace the services Actual President Elon and Big Balls are (at least temporarily) destroying. It’s just a mafia-style bust-out.

We’ll have to rebuild these services from scratch. And I think we will — but it will take time.

For now, DOGE and Big Balls are going to “replace” all those veterans they’re whacking (about which Gary Clark has jack shit to say) with a handful of selfish people like Kelli Stargel, Neil Combee, Carey Baker, and Gary Clark — all of whom are cheering on the tolling of DOGE.

Well, grifters, one day … the DOGE may toll for thee.