Overtime - "When lawmakers return for the last day of the special session Tuesday, they'll dig into a full plate of other issues as well. In fact, there are so many heavy topics on the agenda that Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday added six hours to the session, so lawmakers can work until midnight instead of quitting at 6 p.m." See "Bush adds hours to session"
And "lawmakers once again failed to address problems with Florida's sales tax collections and avoided considering more effective ways to raise new revenue to pay for essential state services." See "Budget Done, Future Shaky".
Not Exactly "Living Within Our Means" - "[T]he state's budget will grow by $2 billion to $52.3 billion, based in part on increased tax revenues and increased fees, but mostly by the state digging itself deeper into a hole. Of the $21.1 billion in ongoing expenses, such as salaries, in the spending plan that lawmakers are set to approve Tuesday, $1.3 billion will be paid for using so-called "nonrecurring" revenue -- money, like court awards or leftover proceeds from the previous year, that legislators cannot count on being there in subsequent years. 'We've dug ourselves a deeper hole for next year,' acknowledged Senate President Jim King, shortly after publicly putting a happy face on what most Capitol observers are calling the worst budget year in more than a decade." See "Lawmakers reach budget deal".
Ahem . . . Shouldn't "Jeb!" Have Thought About This Before Now? "Thousands of Florida high-school seniors unable to graduate because they failed the state's high-stakes FCAT assessment test might still have the chance to get diplomas with their classmates. Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday expanded the scope of the Legislature's special session to consider a measure that would help some students get standard diplomas if they fared well on national college placement exams, calling it a "common sense measure to meet the real needs" of students without lowering standards." See "Bush plan offers failing seniors a second chance". Could it be that Bush is acknowledging the the education legislation he rammed through the Legislature has flaws? Nah, it was someone else's fault.
Bush Signs Host Of Symbolic Veterans Bills - We read that our Governor, who managed to avoid military service ("Jeb!" was 18 years old in February of 1971, the draft continued through 1973, and the war did not end until 1975), has "sign[ed] military bills for Memorial Day". WIth all due respect, legislation that allows"condominium owners to fly service flags on patriotic holidays regardless of association rules" just doesn't get it; neither does a bill that makes it easier for someone to claim he or she is a "wartime veteran" (as an aside, you may remember this GOP bright light claiming he "served in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, [when he] was actually living out of harm's way at home in South Carolina, where he was processing wills and other paperwork for the Air Force during the entire course of the conflict"). What he ought to do is stop wrapping himself in the flag and lobby his brother to do something real and substantial to improve the lot of current and former servicemen and women. See "Bush Spurns Veterans".
"Irony And Personhood In Florida" - "[I]f you were Jeb Bush, you too would prefer to have the focus on a fetus. Florida's Department of Children and Families, where J.D.S. languished, is a service so scandal-ridden that it "lost" hundreds of children in the system, including a Miami girl missing for 15 months before department officials knew she was gone. But this was also a preemptive strike, a political pro-life ploy to give the 'unborn' the same legal status as the born. Bush's move is part of a well-calibrated attempt to legally define a fetus as an "unborn child" and define a fertilized egg as a 'person.'
"As an ally and antiabortion activist, Brian Fahling of the American Family Association said approvingly, 'Something has to be said, finally, about who occupies the womb.' Well, something is being said. And not just in Florida."
"We're witnessing a linguistic coup through laws and regulations designed to separate the woman from her womb and, of course, from her right to decide.". . .
"J.D.S. suddenly, briefly, cynically became the center of attention. Not as a woman but as a womb. We know little about her health, less about her fetus's health. She was lost in a battle of words, a fight over language as biased as the label "pro-life." She now returns to her normal status: neglect" See "Irony and Personhood in Florida". 6:32 AM
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