Obama fundraiser, convicted of fraud, spills beans.

Tallahassee Democrat, 11 October 2008

CHICAGO -- Jailed political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer who helped launch Barack Obama on his political career, is whispering secrets to federal prosecutors about corruption in Illinois and the political fallout could be explosive.

Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, whose administration faces multiple federal investigations over how it handed out jobs and money with advice from Rezko, is considered the most vulnerable.

Rezko also was friendly with Obama - offering him a job when he finished law school, funding his earliest political campaigns and purchasing a lot next to his house. But based on the known facts, charges so far and testimony at Rezko's trial, there's no indication there'll be a so-called "October surprise" that could hurt the Democratic presidential nominee - even though Rezko says prosecutors are pressing him for dirt about Obama.

>> Read more...

Crist: Florida banks are still offering home loans.

Miami Herald, 10 October 2008

After meeting at the Governor's Mansion, Crist encouraged people to see their banker whether they're interested in buying a new home or having problems paying their mortgages. The ever-optimistic governor also urged people to buy homes because they should be able to get great bargains due to the glut of residential property.

''Florida banks are open for business,'' said Mike Fields, Tallahassee area president of Bank of America. Fields told Crist his bank is prepared to restructure about 80,000 subprime and other troubled mortgages in Florida to avoid foreclosing on those properties. That includes a settlement with the attorney general over loans made by Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America purchased. That program will start in December.

>> Read more...

Updated: New ads rolling out today in Florida against proposed marriage amendment.

Tallahassee Democrat, 9 October 2008

Opponents of Amendment 2, the gay-marriage ban, today rolled out television ads in what will be the most contentious campaign among six proposed constitutional amendments on November's ballot.

****************

"Our opponents are going to unleash an avalanche of fraud and dishonesty," said John Stemberger, an Orlando lawyer and organizer of the citizen's initiative to put Amendment 2 on the ballot. "They're not going to take on the policy debate of whether homosexual marriage is good for society."

Amendment 2, which would define marriage as between one man and one woman only, remains below the required 60 percent approval threshold in polls.

Editor's Note -- Below 60%? How can that be?

>> Read more...

Axing Shuttle Won't End as Many Jobs as Feared, NASA Says.

Tampa Bay Online, 9 October 2008

WASHINGTON - NASA plans to tell Congress today that the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 won't result in as many job losses as initially anticipated, according to congressional sources and documents obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.

A rosier forecast would be a boon for Kennedy Space Center, which has been told to expect a worst-case estimate of 6,400 job losses. Some officials say that NASA is forecasting at least 1,000 fewer job losses, and that the worst-case number of job losses is likely to be fewer than 5,000.

The reason for the newfound optimism in the report is that NASA's next manned space program, called Constellation, should employ more shuttle workers at NASA centers nationwide.

But no specific numbers were immediately available.

>> Read more...

Palin Holds Nothing Back in Florida Stops

The Lakeland Ledger, 6 October 2008

ESTERO | When Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin made her first campaign trip to Florida two weeks ago, she and John McCain were enjoying a post-convention boost and leading in the polls. She made a few jabs at Democrat Barack Obama, mainly over issues such as energy and the Iraq war.

The state of McCain's campaign and Palin's approach were far different when she returned to Florida on Monday. McCain's lead here has vanished. And Palin was in full attack mode before thousands of supporters in Clearwater and, later Monday, in a hockey arena near Fort Myers.

Proclaiming "the heels are on, the gloves off," Palin went straight for Obama's character, citing his ties to 1960s radical William Ayers. She promised more bare-knuckled politicking in the 28 days before the election.

"From now and until Election Day, hang onto your hats because, you know, it may get kinda rough here," Palin said with her signature sass. "Campaigns have to step up and kinda take the gloves off and start telling the truth."

Editor's Note -- Of course, Obama will now try to bring up Keating Five but the many shady years of Obama versus the transitory McCain misjudgement are damning. For The Economist's positive review of Freddoso's book chronicling those corrupt years and Obama's troubling agenda, The Case Against Barack Obama, The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of Media's Favorite Candidate: Here's looking at you, kid.

>> Read more...

Constitutional Amendments: What You Need to Know.

Miami Trend, 6 October 2008

The 2008 presidential race isn’t the only high-stakes political battle playing out in Florida this fall. On Nov. 4, voters will face a lineup of six ballot initiatives that cover everything from gay marriage to creating tax breaks for marinas and conservation lands. Each measure will require 60% approval by voters to pass.

Only one of the measures originated in the state Legislature: Amendment 1, a proposal to delete an obsolete provision in the state Constitution that allows the Legislature to prohibit property ownership by “aliens ineligible for citizenship.” Amendment 2, a proposed constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, is the only proposed amendment that came from a citizens’ initiative. Florida4Marriage.org, the group that sponsored the proposal, collected 649,346 signatures — the law requires at least 611,009 — to get it on the ballot.

>> Read more...

Lockheed Orlando unit could gain from F-35 sale to Israel.

Orlando Sentinel, 6 October 2008

A potential $15 billion deal involving the sale of the Joint Strike Fighter to Israel could inject millions of dollars in new revenue to Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Central Florida operations.

U.S. defense officials recently notified Congress that the Pentagon wants to sell up to 75 of the advanced F-35 fighter jets to Israel, according to a report last week in The Wall Street Journal.

Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed -- the nation's largest defense contractor -- is the F-35's prime contractor, led by its aircraft division in Fort Worth, Texas.

Hundreds of jobs in Central Florida are tied to the work. The Lockheed Orlando simulation training unit makes the F-35 flight- and maintenance training systems; Lockheed's Orlando missiles unit builds weapons-targeting systems for the fighter jet.

>> Read more...

Restoration of felons' voting rights in Florida has 'never been easier.'

Tallahassee Democrat, 4 October 2008

With felons who have served their time now having a much easier path back to the voting booth, the 2008 political season has led to some efforts to harness a newly accessible voting bloc.

Since April 2007, when new procedures were approved to rescind much of Florida's Jim Crow-era voting practices, 123,000 felons have had their rights restored and could help decide where Florida's 27 electoral votes go in the presidential election. There are still 56,502 cases pending for felons seeking to get back the right to vote.

"It's never been easier," said Parole Commission spokeswoman Jane Tillman of felons getting their civil rights restored. "They don't have to do anything but call us. They can e-mail us, fax us or go online."

Editor's Note -- That's a lot of new Dims.

See: : State office is inundated with new voter registration forms.

>> Read more...

Popular class-size amendment may be sidelined by economy.

Orlando Sentinel, 2 October 2008

Florida's popular class-size amendment may be put on ice, thanks to a weakening economy and a statewide budget crisis.

Despite strong public support, a broad consensus is forming that the goal of limiting class size is simply too expensive during the current economic crunch.

Even advocates of the amendment told the Orlando Sentinel this week that it might need to be scaled back.

School superintendents, grappling with cuts, would welcome the move. And the Florida Education Association, the state's teachers union, said it would not object -- but only if the changes were temporary

>> Read more...

Gotti arrest recalls Florida mob history

Miami Herald, 30 September 2008

TAMPA -- The ghosts of Tampa's old-time wiseguys awakened this summer when Mafia scion John ''Junior'' Gotti came to town in handcuffs, accused of pulling the strings in a bunch of classic mobster crimes.

The federal indictment against him reads like a plot summary for The Sopranos. The 44-year-old Gotti -- son of the late ''Dapper Don'' of the notorious Gambino crime family -- allegedly had his fingers in everything: whacking rivals, trafficking in cocaine, bribery, kidnapping and money-laundering. Earlier convictions show Gambino crews worked for years to get a foothold in the Tampa area's criminal underworld.

If the charges against Gotti are true, then he was a Johnny-come-lately. The Tampa region's history is rich with stories of ruthless gangsters who grabbed control of illegal gambling and liquor distribution during Prohibition, executed rivals, bribed public officials, controlled the drug trade and eventually broadened their influence across the Sunshine State and pre-Castro Cuba.

Editor's Note -- More Florida rogues: 10 of Florida's Biggest Crooks. A list of Florida Trend's top 10 characters and white-collar crimes of the last 50 years. It wasn't easy to get it down to 10.

>> Read more...