Category: State & National News
St. Pete Times: Scott-O-Meter
PolitiFact Florida has compiled promises that Rick Scott made during the 2010 campaign and is tracking their progress on its Scott-O-Meter. The St. Pete Times…
Two stories from Sunday
These two stories of corruption in local government caught my eye. The first one is by the Miami Herald “Robaina at center of Hialeah’s ‘shadow…
Gov. Scott’s Twitter war
Orlando Sentinel has an AP story on the Twitter battles between governor’s office and capitol press corps. Read more.
Brownsville sale not on agenda, third consecutive month
The sale of Brownsville Middle School failed to make the April agenda for the Escambia County School Board. In January, George Hawthorne and Superintendent Malcolm…
Ingram fights for manure, not ARC
While ARC Gateway Pensacola is laying off staff and eliminating in-home support, day care and supported living services. State Rep. Clay Ingram’s fertilizer bill, HB…
Floridians disapprove of Scott, 4-1
“Today, Scott is a four-letter word to many Florida voters, but political popularity can change with time,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the…
LeMieux to run for U.S. Senate
Former U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, who served for 16 months after he was appointed to finish the term of Mel Martinez, announced this morning that…
“Merit” pay could be based on flawed system
Florida Tribune: Florida’s new performance pay law would put in place a evaluation system that has been questioned nationally. The teacher evaluation portion of the…
Wachovia laundered money for Mexican drug cartel
Something you won’t find in the local daily today: The Observer reported in its Sunday edition that Wachovia Bank laundered billions of dollars for the…
GOP continues to mix God and Politics
New York Times: Revitalizing the Religious Right was the agenda for a special meeting held in Iowa last month. The program, sponsored by the Iowa…
State Roundup: Sunday editions
Miami Herald: Florida Republicans are on pace to dismantle regulations, cut jobs and adopt significant changes to Medicaid and abortion rights — because they have…
Rubio in the limelight
Florida’s junior U.S. senator, Marco Rubio, is taking led on the federal debt debate. According to the New York Times, in the space of 24…
Rhee strikes back at USA Today
Taking a lesson from Jeff Bergosh, former chancellor of D.C. schools Michelle Rhee says USA TODAY’s investigation of erasures found on standarized tests is an…
House bill wipes out most consumer protections
The Florida House leadership, of course, has a different, grander purpose for its vast deregulation bill, HB 5005. They say they are after “Job-killing regulations.”…
Scott pays his dept. heads more
Austerity, pay cuts and sacrifice don’t apply to Gov. Rick Scott’s new agency heads who are earning $20,000 more than their predecessors. Read Florida Tribune.
Manslaughter charges considered for BP managers
The Guardian is reporting that BP executives, including ex-chief executive Tony Hayward, may be charged by US authorities over the lost of lives caused by…
Scott and lawmakers set to put growth in local hands
The Florida legislature doesn’t want local governments regulating fertilizer (Rep. Clay “Cow Patty” Ingram) or shooting rangers (Sen. Greg “Lock & Load” Evers). However, the…
Scott’s advisor Rhee caught in possible cheating scandal
As the District of Columbia’s former public schools chief, Michelle Rhee rode soaring student test scores to a national reputation as a model education reformer….
Scott signs bill tying teacher pay to test scores, ends tenure
At KIPP Impact Middle School, a charter school in Jacksonville, Gov. Rick Scott signed Senate Bill 736, ironically named “Student Success Act,” into law. The…
At least Pensacola is not Detroit
The City of Pensacola shrank last decade, dropping 8 percent from 56,255 in 2000 to 51,923 in 2010. Detroit, Michigan saw its population drop a…
