The Rehnquist - Bush Scandal Breaks - Now, too late to help Bill McBride, the Bush pension audit scandal is breaking. The story began months ago, but has been dormant until last week when it was reported that "The daughter of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist resigned her government job yesterday amid a cloud of scandal - including allegations she abused her position to help reelect Florida Gov. Jeb Bush" by delaying a pension audit until after John Ellis Bush's campaign for reelection. Now we learn that Rehnquist was doing Bush quite a favor in agreeing to his "urgent" request to delay the audit:
"A draft of an audit, delayed at the request of Florida Gov. [John Ellis] Bush's office by Health and Human Services inspector general Janet Rehnquist, concludes the state's pension fund owes the government more than $500 million, officials familiar with the report said Tuesday.
"The state then created a contingency reserve that did not meet federal standards, which resulted in federal programs being overcharged for the pension costs." Read the entire AP story: "Draft of delayed audit shows Florida owes U.S. $500 million".
We will be interested in seeing how the Florida media covers this scandal - as it turns out, it is getting at least some play (in that the wire story is being picked up) in the Bradenton Herald, the Tallahassee Democrat, a late addition of the wire story to the Orlando Sentinel's web page, and perhaps some others that we missed and/or late additions to some media web sites. The story will presumably be picked up by all the state's major papers. The real test will be whether it is the subject of any independent investigation by Florida reporters and/or pundits.
Instead of Focussing on the Rehnquist - Bush Scandal, The Media Is Going Wild About Martinez - Florida's media is going gaga over a Martinez Senate run: "White House courts ex-Orange chief", "Federal housing secretary considers Senate campaign", "Hispanic wooed for Florida U.S. senator", and so on. And this tidbit - Governor "Bush, who presides over the Florida political organization that helped put his brother in the White House, said Tuesday he knows nothing about the White House's push to lure Martínez into the race . . . ". In any event, when are we going to see some coverage about the John Ellis Bush - Rehnquist scandal?
And He's Still Doing It - "'Jeb Bush charmed the pants off you,'" Reno says of reporters.
The Education Governor - "Florida continues to fall behind other states in school spending, according to a new U.S. Census Bureau report that shows that the state has not kept pace with the massive increases of new students." And, "Florida ranked dead last -- 51st in the nation -- in the survey of the 50 states and the District of Columbia when school spending was compared with the average resident's personal income." See the story in the Orlando Sentinel.
Dems Continue To Win Mayoral Seats - First Orlando, then Tampa (two Dems in the runoff), now West Palm Beach. With Jax next up, the Dems may have mayors in every major city in the state (except St Pete). See an earlier article on this phenomenon, "Democratic Mayoral Wins Help Party". You may be intersted in the Grapefruit's prescient discussion on this issue.
Killing Children - And isn't it nice that there is no one in the Florida House sponsoring a bill to prohibit the execution of 16 year olds. The Senate has such a bill, but a House sponsor for a companion bill is nowhere to be found.
These Bills Stink - "You can drape a bad idea in the American flag, and pin on a banner that says 'Support our Troops.' You won't make it any better. Such is the case with two bills that dramatically expand this state's voucher program and gut public oversight. The bills both address Florida's 'corporate scholarship' program, which allows corporations to write off, dollar-for-dollar, money they devote to private-school tuition in the form of scholarships. One dramatically increases the amount of money allocated to these tax-credit vouchers. The other expands the number of children who would be able to use the vouchers by an as-yet-uncalculated figure." Read what the Daytona Beach News Journal thinks about these bills (hint: they think "the whole affair raises an odor that no amount of flag-waving can disperse").
Bashing Teachers - You would think the Florida Legislature would be spending its time on things other than bashing teachers like this. How about spending a little time on doing better than this, as noted above: "Florida ranked dead last -- 51st in the nation -- in the survey of the 50 states and the District of Columbia when school spending was compared with the average resident's personal income."