"Is Bush A Thug?" "Eager to send a message to the National Governors Association to reflect a GOP majority, the White House for the first time excluded Raymond C. Scheppach, the NGA's executive director, from the governors' annual dinner at the White House last month. Encouraged by the administration and its allies, a few Republican governors -- including the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush -- threatened to stop dues payments or quit the group. After a bipartisan NGA committee drafted a statement seeking more federal money for the states, the White House let its displeasure be known to the governors, and Republicans arrived at the meeting last month demanding the rejection of the "partisan" statement." See "Bush's Strong Arm Can Club Allies Too" via TAPPED.
Just How Principled Is the Florida House? "'Hardly a day goes by in Johnnie Byrd's Florida House of Representatives that you don't hear about "principled leadership,' typically defined as 'cutting the size and scope of government" and "living within our means.' But how "principled" are Byrd's followers?" "House has peculiar notion of 'principled'", by the St Pete Times' Steve Bousquet. And this from Buddy Nevins, "Dictatorial House speaker shortchanges state." We agree that "[a]lmost nobody in South Florida [or Florida as a whole] even knows who this ideological, dictatorial self-promoter is."
The Florida Dems Are A Mess - "State Rep. Chris Smith of Fort Lauderdale, a charismatic 33-year-old who once backed Republican Jeb Bush for governor, says he's got the votes to become leader of the Democratic minority in the Florida House in 2004."
Republican Education Chiefs Ignore Law Requiring Charter School Accountability - While Gov. Bush and the GOP pound public schools with phoney FCAT based ratings, "Charter schools go untested". This is unbelievable: Gov. "Bush has been praising the success of charter schools, [yet] state education officials were ignoring a Florida law requiring them to evaluate how well those perform compared with regular public schools. . . . Charter schools are Bush's pet project. He started the state's first charter school . . . . But the state has come up with no hard evidence that charters are succeeding." State law requires accountability of charter schools, but, hey, the Bushies run state government, so to heck with the law.
And, Tallahassee actually tried to hide its violations: "When the Orlando Sentinel requested the latest report, education officials said for weeks that it was being prepared. When the newspaper made an official public-records request for current and past annual reports, officials acknowledged that the analyses never had been done."
Billboard Company Receives Local Government Charity - Never known for its competence, the Pinellas County Commission gave Clear Channel, a communications company, "40 more years to take down billboards the county sign ordinance made illegal as of March 1999." "Pinellas: Just sue us"
Malpractice Schisim - "The legislative schism over medical malpractice insurance became official Friday as the state House passed a controversial package of changes that is expected to be dead on arrival when it gets to the Senate." See "House approves cap on damages"