Free Republic

Ignorance of the law helped clear Sheriff Jerry Demings' political lobbyist of wrongdoing for handing out gun owners' restricted driver's license photos last year in Tallahassee to lobby against an open-carry law, Orange County sheriff's records show. Capt. Mike Fewless set off a statewide controversy in a April by distributing eight photos from a secret intelligence file that he claimed were outlaw bikers with valid state Carry Concealed Weapon permits. The lobbying was part of an effort by the Florida Sheriff's Association to persuade legislators that tourists would avoid Florida if gun owners were allowed to openly display their firearms....

To Celebrate Black History Month, Congressman West took to the House Floor with a remarkable speech on the relationship between African-Americans and the Republican party...

ALLEN WEST UNDER ATTACK! YOUR HELP NEEDED NOW!Congressman Allen West (R-Florida) is a freshman pro-troop conservative Member of Congress. As an African-American former military officer with service in Iraq, he has been under constant attack by the left. We are outraged that one of his political opponents – a little rich kid with inherited wealth and no achievements to his name – had the audacity to call Colonel West “a coward.� They are going all out to defeat West by redistricting him out of office, and the pro-troop community must rise up to help this patriotic American stay in...

Republican Congressman Connie Mack now runs dead even with incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson in Florida’s 2012 U.S. Senate race. But Nelson outdistances two other potential GOP challengers, former Senator George LeMieux and businessman Mike McCalister. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Florida Voters finds Mack and Nelson earning 41% support each. Five percent (5%) like some other candidate in the race, and 12% remain undecided at this early stage. (To see survey question wording, click here.) In Rasmussen Reports’ first survey of the Florida Senate race last November, Mack, a congressman from the Fort Myers/Naples area, posted...

Florida executed a 65-year-old man on Wednesday who had spent more than three decades on death row for the murder of a woman he met at a bar. Robert Waterhouse was put to death by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, the fourth inmate executed in the United States this year. He was pronounced dead at 8:22 p.m. local time, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Jo Ellyn Rackleff. He was sentenced to die for the January 1980 murder of Deborah Kammerer, a 29-year-old St. Petersburg woman who encountered Waterhouse at a bar in the Tampa Bay area.

n his New York Times bestselling book, Throw Them All Out, Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer revealed how members of Congress enrich themselves and their relatives using earmarks and insider information. Now, the Washington Post, following in Schweizer’s footsteps, has conducted a study that found 16 members of Congress have used their power of the purse to benefit companies, colleges, and community groups tied to their relatives. *snip* Among those cited in the Washington Post report were the following (below):

A new team is set to join the NASCAR racing league, a sport currently holding the number two spot in revenues and number of viewers (after football) – American Israel Racing (AIR). The goal behind the new initiative: "Promote awareness of and support by Americans for Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East." The new team is planning on having their car, adorned with an Israeli flag; participate in the Daytona 500 which is set to take place at the end of the month in Florida. The race is considered one of the most watched sporting events in...

A misty “tsunami” has hit the coastline of Panama City, Florida, USA. A helicopter pilot managed to capture rare phenomenon and has posted breathtaking photos on Facebook. ­JR Hott, who makes his living, flying tourists in a helicopter over the city and the Gulf of Mexico, took photos of clouds of fog developing over buildings while hovering over Panama City’s coastline.

TAMPA -- Two Democratic U.S. senators on Friday accused Florida's Republican-led Legislature of plotting to deny citizens their most basic and inalienable right: the right to vote. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin rendered that verdict after listening to two hours of testimony at Tampa's George E. Edgecomb Courthouse. Durbin came to town as chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights to investigate whether the state law denies voters their constitutional rights. Republican legislators passed the law last year, saying it would prevent voter fraud and save county election supervisors...

Did anyone see Marco Rubio just speak 9:30am?

A billboard "welcoming" illegal aliens to Florida and sarcastically thanking Gov. Rick Scott appeared on Interstate 75 Wednesday. Produced by Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, the billboard calls out Scott for the state's failure to adopt an E-Verify law. "This is a wake-up call for Governor Scott, who promised Floridians he would work to get mandatory E-Verify in the state to protect our legal workers," said Jack Oliver, legislative director of the group that goes by the name FLIMEN. The 40-foot-by-10-foot illuminated billboard is along I-75's southbound lanes between the Georgia border and I-10. Georgia, along with neighboring Alabama and South...

TAMPA -- The funds for a planned high-speed rail line in Florida were rejected by Gov. Rick Scott last year. The governor contended that the proposed line between Tampa and Orlando would have ended up losing money, but a new state report suggests otherwise. According to a report the Florida Department of Transportation sent to the Federal Railroad Administration late last year, the rail line could have generated an annual surplus of between $31 million and $45 million within a decade of operation. About $2.8 billion in federal funds had been pledged for the project, which would have connected Tampa...

Teacher called student 'little chocolate boy': ComplaintA Pompano Beach high school teacher who's previously faced discipline for inappropriate conduct towards students is once again in hot water after she allegedly called a student "little chocolate boy," according to an administrative complaint. Leslie Rainer, a teacher at Blanche Ely High School, is facing suspension over the comments allegedly made last May, according to the Broward School Board complaint. Rainer attended a meeting before the school board Tuesday, where Superintendent of Schools Robert Runcie postponed making a decision on whether to recommend a three-day suspension without pay and require her to attend...

A Florida lawmaker is pushing a bill that would ban the use of food stamps to purchase snacks and sweets, such as cookies and cakes. Republican State Sen. Ronda Storms, of Valrico, says her goal is to stop a small percentage of recipients who misuse food stamps. Her bill would also require food stamp recipients to take state-run classes on healthy eating and how making your own baked goods is cheaper than store-made sweets. The bill is moving through state committees in Tallahassee. Critics say the government shouldn't be telling people what to eat.

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Spain has won a major victory in its long court battle with a Florida-based deep-sea salvage company over rights to an estimated $500 million in silver and gold coins, officials said Wednesday. The treasure was recovered in 2007 from a 19th century sunken ship off the Spanish coast. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Tuesday turned aside another motion from the U.S.-based company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, and Spanish officials said they now expect the coins -- nearly 600,000 of them -- to arrive in Spain soon. "With the ruling by the appeals...

Ann Liston and Eric Adelstein are hardened Chicago Democratic consultants. Their behind-the-scenes role helping the Wisconsin Democratic Party collect more than 1 million signatures to recall Gov. Scott Walker has put them in a campaign unlike any they've ever seen. The two 40-somethings said Facebook's power to reach voters, combined with a recentU.S. Supreme Court ruling that unfettered limits on corporate and union political spending, has rewritten their industry's game plan. "It's horrible for democracy but great for business," Adelstein said Tuesday, referring to the Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision. Voters in Wisconsin, South Carolina and Florida have been...

Over at Hot Air, Wolf Howling penned a comment that perfectly sums up my feelings about the Florida primary. I’ve spent the last few weeks watching Romney run the most intellectually dishonest campaign against Gingrich that I could imagine. Romney isn’t making the case that he has a better conservative pedigree, nor that his vision for America is superior or more conservative than Gingrich’s. He spent 17 million doing nothing but trying to delegitimize and demonize Gingrich with gross distortions of history. I haven’t seen anything like this since what the left did to Sarah Palin. And the last time...

MADRID - Spanish oil firm Repsol YPF SA has begun offshore drilling in Cuban waters as part of its global exploration operations, a person familiar with the situation said Thursday. Deep-water exploration drilling began about 50 kilometers north of Havana and will take at least 60 days to complete, this person added. Repsol is resuming exploration in the area after it failed to find exploitable oil in 2004. The U.S. Geological Survey has said there could be a substantial amount of untapped oil off the Cuban coast. The Repsol well is much closer to Florida than any other well in...

George LeMieux has two big problems to overcome in his campaign to become the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate. One is Connie Mack, and the other is Charlie Crist. LeMieux has taken a lot of heat in this race because he was Crist's strategist and helped guide him into the governor's office. That is a legitimate concern for conservatives, but I don't put a lot of stock in that criticism because, as a former political consultant, I know it's incredibly rare for a consultant to agree with his client about everything. The relationship, no matter how close, is fraught...

Hooded Mergansers for the most part. I used to see a greater variety when I was hunting, I can't get far enough off the road these days.

You did not misread the headline; and it’s not just a truism about Mr. Gingrich’s political orientation, I mean he’s correct—that Florida’s winner-take-all primary system isn’t fair. According to Republican National Committee guidelines, all contests held prior to April 1 must allocate delegates proportionally. But Florida, not wishing to change procedures or fall behind other states, decided to flout the RNC rule, which means that Mitt Romney will get all 50 of its delegates. Mr. Gingrich—who came in second—will get none. Under a proportional system, Mr. Romney would receive 23 and Mr. Gingrich 16. Not only that, NPR has calculated...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: You know, all of this is my fault. All this Trump stuff is my fault. (interruption) I do. I think I caused it. And, no, I don't know. I said, "You want to go play golf?" He said, "Sure." I said, "Who you gonna endorse?" He said, "What tee time do you want?" This is Thursday. So it must have been Tuesday, because on Monday I got the e-mail from Jonathan Martin at Politico. Jonathan Martin sent me a note last night, "Look, you understand this Florida 'cracker' stuff. I mean, that's what people up there call...

The Florida primary may have delivered a decisive victory for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, but the exit polls also revealed a bright spot for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — the tea party. Gingrich racked up a decisive victory of his own among voters who said they “strongly support” the tea party movement, according to exit poll data compiled by Fox News. Overall, 45 percent of those voters chose Gingrich over Romney, who finished with just 33 percent of support from strong supporters of the tea party movement. The tea party is also thought to have played a key...

The Newt Gingrich campaign is gearing up to challenge the results of the Florida Republican presidential primary based on the Republican National Committee's own rules which state that no contest can be winner-take-all prior to April 1, 2012. It was assumed that Mitt Romney, who won Tuesday's contest, would gain all 50 of the state's delegates. But the Gingrich campaign plans to challenge Florida's allocation and demand the delegates be divvied up proportionally. Fox News has learned exclusively that on Thursday, a Florida Gingrich campaign official will begin the process of trying to have the RNC rules enforced so that...

"See below what I received from FNC Carl Cameron! This is really wild! More possible Florida election problems?" — Tampa, FL — Florida’s primary might not be over just yet. The Newt Gingrich campaign is gearing up to challenge the results of the florida primary based on the Republican National Committee’s own rules which state that no contest can be winner take all prior to April 1, 2012. (See attached RNC memo.) The Gingrich campaign plans to challenge Florida’s winner take all status & demand proportional allocation of delegates. Fox News has learned that Thursday, a Florida Gingrich campaign official...

The Senate has confirmed our fears and on Thursday they will be proposing a new tax on Internet purchases. During a full-fledged recession, leave it to the Florida Legislature to propose a new tax - and one that they have questionable constitutional authority to enact.On Thursday morning the Senate Subcommittee on Finance and Tax, chaired by Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, will propose SB 7206 for consideration. This bill would institute a new sales tax on Internet purchases if the retailer uses affiliates or referrals in the state. This bill aims to tax transactions by companies like Amazon, and has been proposed...

Today, Patrick Murphy, the underdog in the Democratic primary for Congressional District 22, called incumbent U.S. Rep. Allen West -- a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, and a combat veteran, mind you -- "a coward." Responding to West’s decision to run in a newly drawn district further north, Murphy posted the following statement on his website: Allen West went from talking tough this weekend and telling progressives to "get the hell out of this country" to abandoning the people who elected him. There is no other way to interpret this: Allen West is a coward. The truth is...

Former Florida House Majority Leader and now former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Adam Hasner will announce that he is running for Congress in Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, currently held by Congressman Allen West, who just announced yesterday that he will be running for re-election in congressman Tom Rooney’s congressional district, according to a close West source.

While Mitt Romney may have taken a step closer to the nomination Tuesday in Florida, the scorched earth he leaves behind tells me he took a few steps further away from the White House -- and what's more, he knows it.

Gingrich concession speech a rousing call-to-arms: 'We are going to contest everyplace, and we are going to win, and we will be in Tampa as the nominee in August.' 'If (Obama) can have a record this bad, unemployment this bad, deficits this bad, policies this bad, gasoline prices this high -and still get reelected- you can't imagine how radical he'll be in his second term.' 'There's a core question, both in the primaries and in the general election, and it's a simple question: If you're comfortable with the way America is decaying, then we don't have to do much... we...

Florida population of 19,000,000 and Mitt gets a whopping 4% to turn out and vote for him! 774,000 votes out of 4,000,000 registered Republican voters! How many of those 774,000 votes were from liberals who changed party to vote for mittens?

Romney is being portrayed as having locked up the Republican nomination with his Florida victory, but he’s a long way from the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch, and voters in other states deserve to be heard. Yes, Mitt Romney had a big win in Florida last night. He’s won two of the first four primary states, totaling 84 delegates to date. But he needs 1,144 to clinch the Republican nomination—he’s just 7 percent of the way there. So call off the coronation—give people in the other 46 states a chance to vote. “We’re in the first quarter,” says John Brabender,...

Four down, forty-six to go! First, I would like to Congratulate Mitt Romney! No, really! Between he and his Super PAC, Team Romney dumped over 25 million dollars into Florida since the beginning of the campaign which, along with the diabolical coordination with formerly credible GOP media personalities in a massive Establishment smear campaign, resulted in Mitt Romney getting less than 200,000 votes more than he got four years ago! The result was a plurality win in a four-person primary where only two candidates even attempted to win the state. At least as impressive a performance as winning a basketball...

An exuberant Ann Romney said on the evening of her husband’s Florida primary win Tuesday that she was amused by attacks on the former Massachusetts governor that characterized him as a “moderate” or a “liberal.” “It’s been funny to me. What’s next, a communist? I don’t know, it’s been humorous,” she said with a laugh during an interview with CNN moments before the network called the state for Mitt Romney. “We are looking forward to a win tonight.” Ann Romney said that she knew where Mitt’s true beliefs lay. “I know where his values are on a personal level. He...

Instead of appealing to voters to vote for him based upon x,y and z, he panders for votes by trying to increase his opponents negatives (as in FL) above his own by massively outspending them on negative ads. This approach has led to his negatives skyrocketing and his positives declining among independents and moderates. Fivethirtyeight and others have been monitoring this, and it isn't pretty. With each battle won (temporarily in Iowa and now Florida), he is headed to surpassing Obama's negatives or having lower positives (some show he already has) and he will ultimately lose against Obama if he...

Last week, Mollie raised an interesting point about what a Mitt Romney nomination means for the Republican Party. In the comments, I shared my concern concerning the lean-Republican independents who make up much of the Tea Party, and who prior to 2009 were mostly inactive in politics beyond regularly voting. The Tea Party is a collection of people who felt compelled to transition from citizens to activists in favor of limited government and fiscal restraint. Many sacrifice time away from family, work, and life in a desperate attempt to save the nation they love, from their perspective. My concern is...

I came home and was totally bummed by the results so far. I looked for anything on FR to cheer me up. Finally I succumbed and went to the former-other favorite website Drudge and begrudgingly clicked on the 'Landslide' article - blah blah blah and there, at the very bottom - I found my glimmer of hope: In a positive sign for Gingrich, exit polls showed evangelical voters trending for the former House speaker. The exit polls showed Gingrich with 40 percent among that group, and Romney with 36 percent. But the margin was wider for Romney among seniors and...

TAMPA, Fla. — Mitt Romney rolled to victory in the Florida primary on Tuesday evening, according to early returns and exit polls, dispatching an insurgent threat from Newt Gingrich and reclaiming his dominant position in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

How can any right thinking Christian, conservative or tea party supporter justify voting for Romney? Romney is an empty suit. A complete fraud. Worse, he's anti-tea party, anti-conservative, anti-liberty! He has absolutely zero conservative accomplishments to his name. His ONLY accomplishments in government are liberal, ie, tax payer funded abortion, gay marriage, gun control, RomneyCare, mandates, etc. He is Obama-lite. Are these voters uninformed, terrified, brainwashed, or just plain nuts?

The Republican establishment is pulling out all the stops to try to keep Newt Gingrich from becoming the party’s nominee for president of the United States — and some are not letting the facts get in their way. Among the claims going out through the mass media in Florida, on the eve of that state’s primary election, is that Newt Gingrich “resigned in disgrace” as speaker of the House of Representatives as a result of unethical conduct involving the diversion of tax-exempt money. Mitt Romney is calling on Gingrich to release “all of the records” from the congressional investigation. But...

The Shark Tank has learned that Congressman Tom Rooney has announced that he is running for re-election to Congress in one of Florida’s two newly created congressional districts, and that Congressman Allen West will run for re-election in Congressman Rooney’s 16th Congressional District. The speculation will now begin as to which Republican will run in Allen West’s 22nd Congressional District. It is possible that either George LeMieux or Adam Hanser could abandon their Senate candidacies and run in the district, as both are from the area. The possibility exists that other current candidates for Congress in adjoining congressional districts could...

Allen West has decided to switch to the newly proposed 18th district in Florida for reelection. Here is his statement below: “After much prayer, reflection and discussion with my close friends and family, I am announcing today my decision to seek reelection in Florida’s proposed 18th Congressional district. I have always believed the state of Florida would be best served by having both Congressman Tom Rooney and myself in the House of Representatives working to solve our nation’s most pressing problems. I have never waivered from my vision; to work to create jobs, restrain federal government spending, reduce America’s ever...

Ok...I've been wrong before and I will be again....But here's my predictions for tonights' Florida Primary: Newt will fare much better than expected. Santorum will do a little better than expected as well. Romney may win this, but it will be a much closer race than most people think. Almost every poll in South Carolina put Romney almost exactly where he ended up and the same was true in New Hampshire. To me, this denotes that undecideds are going heavily toward Gingrich, or other candidates as was the case in New Hampshire. In South Carolina, most of the polls showed...

<p>The spate of Florida Republican presidential primary polls released over the past two days have consistently shown Mitt Romney with an 8-9 point lead over Newt Gingrich. The lone exception is the Dixie Strategies/The News-Press/First Coast News poll.</p> <p>Our poll has Gingrich leading Romney by an eyelash — 35.46 percent to 35.08.</p>

Juiced by super PACs, this year’s presidential contest has seen a 1600 percent increase in interest-group sponsored ads over 2008, according to a study by the Wesleyan Media Project of Middletown, Conn. (SNIP) That’s a 65:1 ratio. Unless that disparity closed in the final six days, 20 percent might be pretty good for Gingrich tonight

My take on the Florida Primary: First there was South Carolina where the Conservative base rallied to push Newt Gingrich over the top instead of Mitt Romney, the GOP establishment RINO darling. The establishment went into meltdown mode after South Carolina. Now Florida’s winner-take-all primary has become the latest firewall in the Tea Party’s and grassroots Conservatives’ fight to stop Romney from a pre-ordained coronation by elite party insiders.

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Mitt Romney might want to relish his likely victory in Florida because he has trouble ahead of him in Missouri and Ohio. According to a new Public Policy Polling poll, Romney is trailing Newt Gingrich 30-24 among likely Missouri caucus voters. Sandwiched in between Romney and Gingrich is Rick Santorum who polled at 28 percent in Missouri’s caucus. Missouri is voting in both a caucus and primary this year. The primary election won’t select the candidate the state is giving delegate to because Missouri was going to be penalized for moving its state election up this year....

Mitt has a problem. He’s had his chance to run away with the GOP nomination – but the man that so many were eager to name the “GOP frontrunner” has won only one primary, the same number as his two major competitors, Gingrich and Santorum. One would think that Romney might have had more success in the primaries so far, given the clear weaknesses of his competition. The most distinctive things about Santorum are his religion and his sweater vests. Newt has his own problems, named Jackie, Marianne, and Freddie Mac. Romney gets to be the “frontrunner” by default, but...

by Alan McBride The last day before the Florida primary left the contest very much up for grabs between Newt Gingrich and rival Mitt Romney. Less than 24 hours after a poll taken by Quinnipiac University showed Newt Gingrich trailing Romney by 14 points, a new poll showed late-breaking and heavy movement in favor of the former House Speaker. According to the InsiderAdvantage poll of 646 likely Republican voters, Gingrich was just five points behind Romney, and the gap was closing.

(CNSNews.com) – Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has pledged multiple times that he would repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform law. However, his repeal proposals are light on specific details. “If I were president, day one I will take action to repeal Obamacare. It's bad medicine. It's bad economy. I'll repeal it,” Romney said at the Jan. 26 GOP debate in Florida. “And I believe the people -- I believe the people of each state should be able to craft programs that they feel are best for their people.” However, Romney’s plans...