Rubio placed a dismal seventh at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in a straw poll of likely GOP presidential hopefuls, where his kind of immigration talk doesn’t sit well with the GOP fringe, political or lunatic, writes Andrew Skerritt.
Florida & Beyond, and All Opinions
NRA-Backed Measure to Let Armed Vets and Ex-Cops In Schools Triggers Controversy
Under the bill, opposed by the state School Board Association, principals and school superintendents could appoint staff members or volunteers who are military veterans with honorable discharges, active military or retired law enforcement officials as gun-toting “designees.”
Al Sharpton Leads Call For Repeal of Stand Your Ground in Florida Capitol March
Sharpton marched alongside the parents of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, two teens the marchers said were wrongly killed under Florida’s first-in-the-nation law, which allows people to use deadly force when they feel their lives are in danger and provides immunity from prosecution.
A Florida Panther Struck By a Car Last May Is Returned to the Wild After 10-Month Rehab
The 9-month-old kitten was panther was rescued in Collier County last May after a homeowner saw it drag her hind leg. She went through two surgeries and rehabilitated in a 10-acre enclosure before she was released back into the wild on March 10 by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The Dangers of Problematic Prescribing: A Double Dose of Warnings
Two new reports from the CDC show the dangers of overprescribing narcotics and antibiotics. Is there a way for doctors and consumers to make better decisions? An instructive set of answers.
Palm Coast’s Red-Light Cameras: How the City Council Locked In a Fraud on Taxpayers Through 2019
Palm Coast’s red-light cameras siphon off more than $2.5 million out of the local economy every year, in the share that goes to the state and to ATS, the company that runs the scheme, yet the city council quietly approved the deal through 2019, long past the terms of every one of the council members and some of their successors.
Supreme Court Calls on Florida Legislature to Legalize Right of Undocumented Immigrant “Dreamers” To Practice Law
The Florida Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that undocumented immigrants cannot be admitted to The Florida Bar, calling on the Legislature to change state law to allow so-called “Dreamers” to become attorneys.
Economy Adds 175,000, Reversing
Early Winter Plunge; Unemployment at 6.7%
Despite successive cold spells and snow storms in the east, the national economy added 175,000 jobs in February, reversing a two-month trend that saw job creation fall. The unemployment rate, however, ticked up a decimal point, to 6.7 percent.
Life Without Parole for Juveniles: Florida Struggles to Comply With Supreme Court Ruling
Florida sentences more juveniles to life in prison without parole than any other state, but the pressure is on the Legislature this year to comply with restrictive U.S. Supreme Court rulings because without sentencing guidelines, the Florida judiciary is filling the gap one case at a time.
Speed Limit of 75 Advances Against AAA Opposition as House Panel Endorses Measure
The House Transportation & Highway Safety Subcommittee voted 13-1 to support the measure (HB 761), which would direct the state Department of Transportation to determine the safe minimum and maximum speed limits on all divided highways that have least four lanes.
Trouble at the Tampa Bay Times, D.C. Decriminalizes Pot, Mozart’s “Kiss My Ass” Canon: The Live Wire
The Tampa Bay Times is losing readers and money, Orlando gets its first natural gas station, Washington D.C. sees the light on pot, Hollywood, Fla. police has a problem, Sherwin Nuland dies, and Mozart’s potty mouth takes expression in a musical piece.
With His Job in Mind, Gov. Scott Campaigns to “Keep Working” in State of the State Address
The half-hour speech, delivered before a joint meeting of the Legislature, plowed little to no new ground on the policies the governor will tout during the 60-day session that opened Tuesday. But Scott used the speech to connect his family’s financial troubles when he was young to his quest to bring more jobs to the state.
Angel’s Diner in Palatka: Radiant Relay
Angel’s Diner in Palatka is reported to be the oldest diner in Florida, across the street from the stately Larimer Arts Center and a toast’s throw from the St. Johns River. It’s also proving to be the ideal relay on the way to a nuking.
Moral Monday Comes to Florida as NAACP Leads Capitol Protest, and Right-Wingers Respond
“Moral Monday” included an array of left-leaning groups calling for lawmakers to expand Medicaid, stop the state’s voter purge and roll back the “stand your ground” self-defense law, while a right-wing group later held its own event to oppose expanding Medicaid and support overhauling the state’s pension system, cut taxes and expand school vouchers.
Gov. Scott’s Secret Travels, Boy Scout Bigotry Loses Disney, Here Come Hillary and Jeb: The Live Wire
Gov. Scott travels secretly on his private jet, claiming a dubious security exemption, the Boy Scouts deservedly lose Disney grants for insisting on remaining homophobes, a town in Nebraska enshrines anti-immigrant racism in its ordinances, Israel invites tourist target-practice against Palestinians, and a farewell to Paco de Lucia.
Enterprise Florida’s Version of Economic Development: Lavish Perks at Steakhouses, Hotels and Yankee Stadium
Enterprise Florida, The state’s economic development agency, is under fire again. This time, a recent report highlighted lavish spending by its staff, which prompted a watchdog group to ask the governor to launch an investigation.
From Child Protection to Early learning, Advocates Aim For More Serious Funding From 2014 Legislature
With Florida’s coffers filling again and state leaders focusing on child protection, advocates are hopeful the 2014 legislative session will bring both policy and funding gains for children’s services as high-profile issues include a massive crackdown on sexually violent predators and an overhaul of the child-welfare system.
Permanent Temp Workers in the U.S. Are at the Mercy of Some of the Weakest Labor-Protection Laws in the West
“Permatemping’ cases highlight a lack of U.S. protections for temp workers., who are exposed to more dangers in return for far less job protection or benefits. Other countries limit the length of temp jobs, guarantee equal pay and restrict dangerous work.
Denying Service to Gays and Lesbians: Right of Conscience Vigilantism Meets Stand Your Ground
Bills in four states that would let businesses deny service to gays and lesbians on religious-freedom grounds are based on the same faulty justification of Stand Your Ground laws on self-defense grounds. In both cases, the 1st and 2nd Amendments are perverted into defenses of vigilantism rather than protection of rights.
Lock and Load: NRA-Willing, Florida Legislature Takes On Slew of New Gun Legislation
Bills dealing with toaster pastries and insurance policies are just two of more than a dozen gun-related measures lined up for the 2014 legislative session that starts Tuesday. As in previous years, many of them will go nowhere, especially if Marion Hammer, the National Rifle Association’s powerful Florida lobbyist, doesn’t like them.
Ten Issues to Watch as Florida’s Legislative Session Starts
Florida lawmakers will start the 2014 session Tuesday with a budget surplus and an eye on the November elections. But they still will have to address some tough questions before the session ends May 2. Among the questions: How can Florida better protect vulnerable children? Is it time to overhaul the state pension system? And should the state allow resort casinos to set up shop? Here are 10 issues to watch during the next two months.
Lawmaker Files Bill Favoring Trauma Centers Run by HCA, Gov. Scott’s Former Company
The proposal, opposed by numerous Florida hospitals, would help the HCA health-care chain keep trauma centers open and could short-circuit a debate about how the Florida Department of Health determines where new trauma centers should be allowed to open.
Convicted in Trooper’s Murder, Paul Howell Is Executed, Gov. Scott’s 15th
Howell was convicted in 1994 in the 1992 murder of Florida Highway Patrol trooper Jimmy Fulford in 1992 when a bomb Howell manufactured exploded in the trooper’s hands after a traffic stop.
Senate President Says No to More Authority and Prescription Power For Nurse Practitioners
A House bill would give advanced-practice nurses more authority, including prescribing of controlled substances, and set up a pathway to independent practice, not supervised by physicians. But Senate President Don Gaetz opposes it.
Stand Your Ground’s Fatal Flaw, DNA Meets Dog Poop, Arizona’s Bigotry, Adidas’s Sex Tourism: The Live Wire
How John Locke would have interpreted–and derided–Stand Your Ground, child obesity’s encouraging trend, several states copy Arizona’s anti-gay bigotry, devaluing honor classes, Raymond Chandler’s 10 rules of writing a detective novel and Mozart’s full 21st piano concerto.
Florida Lawmakers Reeling Up Billion-Dollar Tax Breaks For Film and TV Industries
Less than a week after a measure was introduced in the House to provide $1 billion in tax credit to film and television production efforts in Florida, the Senate Commerce and Tourism Committee released a proposal that offers $300 million in tax credits.
Politicians’ Pot Dilemma: Whether To Inhale Florida’s Medical Marijuana Joint
The elevation of medical marijuana to a theological level is not unique to Florida. Many legislators from Georgia to Kentucky to Iowa have invoked conversations with God as they came to embrace medical pot.
Forget Vegas: Florida Senate Wants
You to Gamble in State’s Backyards
The Florida Senate has released an ambitious gambling proposal that would authorize two Las Vegas-style casinos in South Florida, create a gambling commission and allow voters to decide if they want to control future gambling expansions.
Global Warning Olympics: Closing Ceremonies for Winter
Watching the Olympics requires too much of a suspension of disbelief to make the effort worth the time or the self-deception. There was an added and quite massive invention to these games: faking winter in a warming world, though in that regard we’re all self-deluded Russians.
When a Senator Turns Anti-Union Goon: A Labor Defeat Reverberates Across the South
In light of the failed vote to unionize a VW plant in Tennessee, why should we care about the travails of labor unions in our country? Because, with no one in Washington able to effectively represent workers nationwide, unions are the only ones left to fight for a living wage.
State Pensions, Tuition for Immigrants and Common Core Revisionism: Tallahassee Week in Review
Before lawmakers returned to their districts for the last week before the 2014 legislative session begins, they capped off a week of discussions about living arrangements and homecomings.
Clarence Thomas as a White Playwright: “Race” Inflames City Rep’s Stage, With Sequins
David Mamet’s “Race” turns the table on an old American convention: the white rapist of a black woman. This time getting away is not an option in a thrill-ride of a play that turns the tables on stereotypes and prejudices. No one is immune. It is the Palm Coast City Repertory Theatre’s big event of the year, under the direction of John Sbordone.
Memo to Florida Legislature: Quit Bashing Public-Employee Pensions
A determined cohort of elected officials in our Legislature is trying to turn working and retired people against each other, to better the odds of a dangerous bill becoming destructive law. If ever there were a legislative wolf disguised in sheep’s clothing of “fiscal responsibility,” this would be that perpetually hungry beast, argues Daniel Tilson.
“Massive Expansion” of School Vouchers Would Fund Private Education at Public Expense
Under the proposal, retailers could divert sales-tax payments to the system; middle-class families would qualify for partial scholarships; and each scholarship would cover more of the cost of attending a private school.
Grim Reaping: Gov. Rick Scott Now Florida’s Record Holder For Most 1st Term Executions
Juan Carlos Chavez’s execution last week was the 13th on Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s watch — a record among first-term Florida governors since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, and a record Scottt is smashing with yet more death warrants he is signing in his fourth year.
Florida Lawmakers Edging Toward Offering In-State Tuition for Some Undocumented Immigrants
A measure allowing some undocumented students to receive in-state tuition was easily approved Wednesday by a House subcommittee, but the bill still faces a steep climb in the Senate.
State Board of Education Approves Common Core Changes But Opposition Persists
The approval followed a raucous public hearing that seemed to indicate that passionate opposition to the benchmarks remains despite a concerted effort by Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Department of Education to tamp down conservative anger over the standards.
Obamacare Enrollment Surging in Florida Despite Resistance from State Officials
By the end of January, nearly 300,000 Floridians had enrolled in a new health plan through Obamacare — a surge that left most other states in the dust, despite state officials’ opposition to the Affordable Care Act and the relative scarcity of helpers available.
Latest NRA Push: Let County Tax Collectors Issue Concealed-Weapons Permits
The Senate Agriculture Committee will consider a proposal that would allow county tax collectors to accept applications for concealed-weapon or firearms licenses. The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services currently accepts the applications at regional locations, but supporters of the bill say it would address increasing demands. The proposal comes as lawmakers move forward with bills backed by the National Rifle Association. But it also comes as a verdict this weekend in a highly publicized Jacksonville shooting places renewed focus on Florida’s gun laws.
The Dark Money Man: How Sean Noble Moved the Kochs’ Cash into Politics and Made Millions
Sean Noble was a former congressional aide just starting as a political consultant when he was recruited to help run the Kochtopus — Charles and David Koch’s multi-layered political network.
Neither Marx Nor Hannity: Pope Francis’s Cool Embrace of Simplicity
Even for a pope as refreshingly humble and open-minded as Francis, it’s too much to expect that he will remake the worldwide Catholic Church into one big hippie commune, argues Cary McMullen. Those on the political left may eventually be just as disappointed in him as those on the political right.
Busy Tallahassee as Red-Light Camera Ban, Pension Phase-Out and Pot Phase-In Animate Lawmakers
Lawmakers seemed to be drawing closer this week to giving a green light to a limited form of medical marijuana, while some of them complained that red-light cameras were spreading across the state like weeds.
A Heartfelt Thank You To Brian McMillan and Flagler County
Palm Coast Observer Editor Brian McMillan surprised FlaglerLive Editor Pierre Tristam with a moving, supportive column this week, illustrating the contrast between the two competitors, and the true meaning of community.
Another Tax Cut for Business: Putnam Proposes Reducing Electricity Sales Levy By Half
By phasing in the reduction from 7 percent to 3.5 percent, the impact to state revenue should be a reduction of about $85 million the first year, and an additional $70 million in each of the two following years. Residential customers would see no tax cut.
State Employees Would Be Shifted to 401(k)-Like Plans, Ending Florida Retirement System for Almost All
The Senate proposal dramatically overhauling the pension plans for many future public employees sets off a highly anticipated election-year fight between unions and Republican legislative leaders. Only firefighters and cops would be allowed to stay in FRS.
5 Years After 7-year-old Gabriel Myers’s Suicide, Psychotropic Drugs Still Overprescribed in Foster Care
At the time, about 5 percent of all U.S. children were treated with psychotropic medications, but in Florida’s foster care system, 15.2 percent of children received at least one such medication. Of these, more than 16 percent were being medicated without the consent of a parent, guardian or judge. Not much has changed.
Stand Your Ground: Florida is Not My Castle. And It’s Not Yours, Either.
The right to stand one’s ground against aggression in one’s home is unquestioned, but, argues Julie Delegal, in public, spaces must be shared, peacefully. The castle doctrine cannot be extended to cover the entire state, as Florida’s Stand Your Ground law does.
State Study Skeptical of Red-Light Cameras’ Effectiveness Buoys Senator’s Push For Repeal
The report from theFlorida Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability found there were fewer fatalities but more crashes at electronically monitored intersections, and that fines issued due to the technology cost motorists nearly $119 million last year. The study cast doubt on cameras as safety-inducing devices.
How Obamacare’s Enemies Turned a Victory For Workers’ Freedom Into a “Job Killer”
The prediction that Obamacare will lead to the equivalent of 2.5 million fewer jobs has nothing to do with businesses cutting the workforce and everything to do with workers being finally free of job-lock, now that they don;t need to stay in a job to have health insurance. That’s a good, and very American, thing, not the job-killing catastrophe Obamacare’s enemies make it out to be.
Ignoring PTSD Crisis at Home: Americans Shot and Stabbed In Their Own Neighborhoods
Americans with traumatic injuries develop PTSD at rates comparable to veterans of war. Just like veterans, civilians can suffer flashbacks, nightmares, paranoia, and social withdrawal. But Americans wounded in their own neighborhoods are not getting treatment for PTSD. They’re not even getting diagnosed.