unprogrammed

“Donors to the fund since my last update include Newsmax Media, $3,000 from Florida Crystals Corp., several donations from businessman Earle Mack, $3,000 from the David & Sondra Mack Foundation, and $3,000 from private equity investor John K. Castle. In fact, it’s worth noting that McCollum’s latest wave of donations from people either in the real estate or banking/investment sector.’”

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Counties ask Crist to deep-six growth re-write

posted by Aaron Deslatte on May 15, 2009 3:37:05 PM

The bill, SB 360, is a dramatic departure from the growth management reform lawmakers passed in the midst of boom times back in 2005. Instead of strengthening transportation “concurrency,” the bill repeals it throughout most of the state, along with getting rid of other regulations on large-scale developments.

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Rod Smith, a Gainesville attorney and former state senator, said Wednesday he’s considering running for state attorney general.

State Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, said last week that he will run for attorney general if McCollum enters the governor’s race. Aronberg represents a district that stretches across the state, including left-leaning counties such as Palm Beach and right-leaning counties such as Lee.

Crist has called him a “rock star,” a quote Aronberg has touted in ads.

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Rod Smith’s Bio

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says people in Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands are the most content with their lives. The three ranked first, second and third, respectively, in the OECD’s rankings of “life satisfaction,” or happiness.

There are myriad reasons, of course, for happiness: health, welfare, prosperity, leisure time, strong family, social connections and so on. But there is another common denominator among this group of happy people: taxes.

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The Miami Herald

In the Americans for Tax Reform pledge for federal candidates, Crist promises to oppose income-tax increases. Crist’s Republican rival for the Senate seat, Marco Rubio, also signed the pledge on Thursday. Crist and Rubio had signed a similar pledge for state officeholders.

But Crist is about to break that promise if he doesn’t veto most of the $2.2 billion in new taxes and fees that legislators approved May 8.

Any major vetoes by Crist are likely to cause hard feelings among lawmakers and probably would guarantee a special session of the Legislature because the budget would be out of balance. Controlled by Republicans, the Legislature had to put in a week of overtime work to settle major disputes over taxes and savings.

CHOICES

Crist has three options: Sign the $66.5 billion budget, veto specific items, or allow it to become law without his signature. Asked whether he would exercise the last option, Crist said Wednesday: “I haven’t decided yet.”

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“My 19 year old son was water boarded, among other despicable things, and I had encouraged him to succeed at SERE. They did more to him that he has yet to explain to me, one thing that went on long enough for him to start hallucinating and to think he was dying….

Now we all have found that the two men who came up with this program were using my son and everyone else who went through SERE as guinea pigs for their sick, sadistic torture program. Then they sold their torture program to the sadists in the Bush Administration and became overpaid military contractors who spread this poison throughout our military.”

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Antoniette Santopadre of Valley Stream was expecting a $250 stimulus check. But when her son finally opened it, they saw that the check was made out to her father, Romolo Romonini, who died in Italy 34 years ago. He’d been a U.S. citizen when he left for Italy in 1933, but only returned to the United Stated for a seven-month visit in 1969.

The Santopadres are not alone. The Social Security Administration, which sent out 52 million checks, says that some of those checks mistakenly went to dead people because the agency had no record of their death. That amounts to between 8,000 and 10,000 checks for millions of dollars.

The feds blame a rushed schedule, because all the checks have to be cut by June. The strange thing is, some of the checks were made out to people — like Romonini — who were never even part of the Social Security system.

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Freshman Grayson called Sessions, a Texas congressman, “crazy, “a lunatic,” “demented,” and “paranoid” in a fundraising e-mail to supporters.

Grayson attacked Sessions for stating that President Obama wishes to “inflict damage and hardship on the free enterprise system” and for the national party’s attempts to blame Grayson personally for the national debt.

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Served 20 years in the U.S. House and 23 years in the Naval Reserve, retiring as a commander.

Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum plans to announce Monday that he’s running for governor instead of seeking a second term, a political source close to McCollum said Thursday.

The only other major Republican discussing a gubernatorial run is Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, who is leaving office because of term limits.

Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, however, called for party unity behind McCollum.

“We’re obviously in a difficult election cycle, and I think it’s critical that if the Republicans want to maintain the governor’s mansion, there has to be unity of purpose,” said Kottkamp. “It’s important that we all get behind the candidate.”

Kottkamp said he, too, considered a run for governor, but now says it’s “almost a certainty” he will run for attorney general. He said he will make a decision over the weekend after talking to his wife and Crist.

Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink was the first major Democrat to get in the race, announcing Wednesday that she will forgo a second term to run for Crist’s seat.

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Bill McCollum, Alex Sink and Charles Bronson, hope to become marquee names to Florida voters during the next 18 months.

Two potential Republican candidates said Tuesday they wouldn’t run.

Bush said through a spokeswoman that he is “not considering a 2010 gubernatorial run in Florida.” And U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Gulf Coast Republican, also decided against running for governor. “Representing Florida’s 13th district in the U.S. House is an honor and a privilege,” Buchanan said in a statement. “I look forward to the opportunity to continue serving the people.”