In case you missed it, check out this episode from a Republican-led House committee last week in which Rep. Curt Clawson from Bonita Springs, Fla., embarrasses himself, his family, his state, his party and the nation. It’s not just that he was completely and utterly wrong in his assumptions, his wrongness is compounded by the smug sneer he wears throughout his exchange with the witnesses.
If this video — from a FOX affiliate! — doesn’t explain why Florida Democrats and independents are willing to embrace the previous flip-floppin’ governor (Charlie Crist) to get rid of the current one, nothing will.
Warning: Rick Scott’s countenance will haunt your sleep.
A recent pronouncement that Florida is the scariest of all 50 states leaves us conflicted. I mean, hey, we’re number one at something! But looking closely at the criteria used, you can’t help but find the competition rigged.
Realtors awarded this distinction, based on 15 things that incite fear, and placed Florida first in three categories: hurricanes, tornados, and shark attacks.
Here at the real estate search site Estately we know there are hundreds of worries when choosing where to buy a home, so to help house hunters make a more informed decision we’ve mapped out where Americans’ darkest fears are most readily found.
But do realtors know their natural disasters? If they did, they’d give Missouri the first place ranking for tornados. Joplin, anyone? Instead, Missouri was given first place in meth labs, an enterprise usually associated with Alaska, or since Breaking Bad, New Mexico.
Earthquakes didn’t make the list. If they had, Oklahoma, which thanks to fracking recently surpassed California in temblors, would excel. Mud slides, another California specialty, were also not even counted. The nearest California got to a category header was number two — for spiders. And number six for dentists.
Jump in Disney’s profit, year over year, announced a few days before California’s Disneyland raised its price for visitors age 10 and up by $4, to $96 each. The price of a one-day “hopper” ticket between the Disneyland park and Disney California Adventure will soar $13, to $150 each.
Florida’s public servants couldn’t be blamed for feeling that someone painted targets on their foreheads after Rick Scott (GOP/Tea) took over as governor three years ago. He eliminated many of their jobs, leaving the survivors with crippling work loads. He reduced their salaries by an amount equal to the state’s contribution to their pensions, so they have less money to spend each week and only the same amount they had before for retirement.
But treating public employees as guilty of taking illegal drugs until proven innocent is one of the most overt ways Scott’s contempt for the state’s workers has been evidenced. The new governor demanded that state employees line up and pee in a cup to prove that they’re drug-free, as if being willing to work for the government places them among the criminal class.
Margin by which Charlie Crist (D) is leading Gov. Rick Scott (R) in the governor’s race, according to a new Quinnipiac poll in Florida. Pollster Peter Brown: “The best number in this poll for Crist — and the biggest problem for Scott — is that a majority of Florida voters say the current governor does not deserve a second term in Tallahassee. Voters also give Crist a higher job approval for when he ran the state than any approval rating Scott has received in his three years on the job.”
A Florida newspaper is inviting readers to volunteer as proofreaders for three hours a night, with the person catching the most typos winning a free dinner. But you’re going to need more than three hours to find all the typos in the Flurdah Son Tims.
Floridians led the nation in signing up for health insurance on the federal exchange since its inception on Oct. 1. Almost 18,000 state residents from all backgrounds have enrolled, despite the refusal of far-right Republican leaders to facilitate access to health care for the uninsured, noted in a recent Tampa Bay Times editorial.
Florida is stuck with a tea party governor who won’t talk and a tea party House speaker who won’t listen. Gov. Rick Scott refuses to repeat his earlier support for Medicaid expansion, and House Speaker Will Weatherford refuses to hear the economic and moral arguments for accepting billions of federal dollars to cover the poor.
But thanks to healthcare.gov, residents don’t need the permission of state officials to do what’s best for themselves and their families. And they are doing just that.
Tampa Bay Times: ‘Florida is stuck with a tea party governor who won’t talk and a tea party House speaker who won’t listen’
Since the site launched at the beginning of October, 281,517 Floridians have taken the first step in applying for coverage and 75,480 are eligible for a subsidy to help pay for it, according to federal health officials… [Navigator Jodi] Ray said Florida applicants don’t fit a particular profile, so far.
“They’re not necessarily the sickly. They’re not necessarily the poor. They’re not necessarily the white or Hispanic. They are a whole range of demographics,” she said.
The numbers show the need among working age people and children. While Florida is first in federal health exchange enrollment, it is fourth in population, with many of its residents seniors who are presumably already covered by Medicare.
Police in Seminole County, Fla. must be getting tired of seeing George Zimmerman’s face. The man who shot and killed the unarmed teen Trayvon Martin and was then acquitted of murder under one of the country’s most lax definitions of self-defense* was arrested again, this time for domestic violence against his current girlfriend. WESH-Orlando:
He was arrested at about 1 p.m. Monday at his girlfriend’s home on Topfield Court in Apopka following a 911 call. Neighbors told WESH 2 News that they didn’t know the woman was dating Zimmerman, and they thought the man might have been an undercover cop because he walked around like an officer.
Neighbors said they thought [Zimmerman] might have been an undercover cop because he walked around like an officer
Neighbors said his truck had been parked in the neighborhood for about a month.
Let’s review.
Zimmerman was let off scotfree for killing Trayvon Martin.
Zimmerman was let go without being issued a ticket 15 days after the end of his murder trial, when he was pulled over for speeding in Texas and told the officer he was carrying a gun.
In the diplomatic ranks, trained professionals toil,
To keep the peace and tamp down foreign turmoil.
But for Greek ambassador,
Trump picked an artful dodger —
The grifting, drunken blackmailer Kimberly Guilfoyle.
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats, reports Florida Phoenix. Across the 46 states with legislative seats on the ballot, a total of 3,824 women are running — up from 2022’s previous record of 3,621 women candidates, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Women make up 35.5% of all state legislative candidates this cycle. Currently, women hold about one-third of state legislative seats across the country — a record level of representation but nowhere near parity.
“Prediction markets about the 2026 midterm elections have surpassed $1.4 billion in trading volume as Election Day fast approaches,” CNN reports. “This year has seen massive growth in the prediction industry, where people can bet on real-world events like sports, entertainment and the weather. While small-scale election markets have been around for a while, they gained traction before the 2024 presidential election and have seen huge numbers for the 2026 midterms.”
G. Elliot Morris: “Low-knowledge 2024 voters say they backed Trump by 8 points, according to our poll. Today they give him a net job approval of ?27, a 35-point shift. Compare that to Trump’s approval rating among voters who got both questions right: These voters backed Harris by 1 point and now give Trump a net ?24 approval, a 23-point shift. … Low-information voters have moved against Trump at a higher rate than high-information voters, by 12 points.”
President Donald ?Trump’s approval rating fell to a record low as Americans worried about high gasoline prices and appeared ready to punish his Republican Party in the November 3 congressional elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on Monday. Some 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s ?performance in office, down a percentage point from two weeks earlier and the lowest level in ?either of his presidential terms, the four-day poll showed.
KFF Poll: “With the 2026 midterm campaigns in full swing and early voting about to begin, there is a wide enthusiasm gap between partisan voters, with Democratic voters 25 percentage points more likely than Republican voters to say they are ‘more motivated’ than usual to vote (63% vs. 38%).”
