In Weatherford’s case, the answers are riddles within riddles.

During his six years in the Legislature, the young Wesley Chapel Republican has filed reports stating his major source of his personal income as a company called Breckenridge Enterprises. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Breckenridge hasn’t been registered in the state of Florida since 2007.

When the newspaper recently asked about the speaker’s role with Breckenridge, he said he isn’t actually employed by that firm. The company he really works for is a Texas construction outfit called Diamond K Corp., he said, for which Breckenridge handles the payroll duties.

Except it doesn’t use the name Diamond K in Florida. Here it goes by T. King Construction, Inc.

Got all that?

By the time Marco Rubio finished his profitable tenure as House speaker, he was pulling down more than $400,000 a year. He definitely wasn’t putting in 40-hour weeks with all the folks who were paying him, or he would have had no time to run the House. Rubio’s successor, Ray Sansom , didn’t fare so well. Sansom quit as speaker in 2009 after it was revealed that he’d helped steer $25 million in questionable funding to Northwest Florida State College, which was paying him a $110,000 salary for . . . well, something.

Weatherford, one of the rising stars in the state GOP, clearly needs emergency assistance in polishing his financial disclosure forms.

The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting recently revealed that the speaker is a founding member and ex-director of a Texas firm that has received $826,676 from Citizens Property Insurance, Florida’s beleaguered state-run insurance company.

"The Republican pastor has no choice"

"Bill Gunter, the Presbyterian minister running to fill the House seat vacated by Mike Fasano last week, is looking for a new home. The Republican pastor has no choice if he wants to continue his candidacy. Gunter lives outside House District 36, the seat vacated when Fasano became Pasco's tax collector Wednesday, and election rules mandate that candidates live in the district they represent." "Candidate for vacated House seat must move to run".

Weak FlaGOP bench

The best the GOPers can do? "Freshman Rep. Joe Saunders, D-Orlando, drew an opponent this week in Edward Nelson Rodriguez, a retired law enforcement officer who has been active in business and with the Orange County GOP. . . . Despite a failed bid for the Orange County Soil and Water Board in 2010, Rodriguez told Sunshine State News he was looking forward to hitting the campaign trail as he runs for the Florida House." "Joe Saunders Draws a Republican Opponent in Orange County".

Here's another one: "Second GOP Challenger Guns for Linda Stewart's Orlando Seat".

"Fouling fishing grounds and making water unsafe for human contact"

"Lake Okeechobee's rising water level is expected to hit 16 feet Thursday, continuing to climb despite the deluge of lake water getting dumped out to sea for South Florida flood control. . . . While those lake discharges help avoid flooding in South Florida, they are having damaging environmental consequences on coastal waterways — fouling fishing grounds and in some areas making water unsafe for human contact." "Lake Okeechobee rising as drainage problems grow".

Rubio's "juvenile delinquency"

Daniel Ruth: "Two of the leading voices on repealing the Affordable Care Act are Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Never mind that the two men have been collecting a public paycheck in one form or another for virtually their entire adult lives. Yet they are threatening to shut the government down unless Obamacare is defunded, an idea many other Republicans, who haven't sipped from the tea of spite, regard as naively loopy."

The reckless scheme to fiddle with the fiscal security of the United States by Rubio and Cruz and their pals is irresponsible.

Most of the nation's Republican governors, even those who adamantly oppose Obamacare, have cautioned Rubio, Cruz and the Gang of Kaztenjammers that shutting down the federal government would have a catastrophic impact on their state economies.

But Rubio and Cruz have never had to manage a business or a bureaucracy. Threatening to shut down the country because you didn't get your way is not statesmanship. It's juvenile delinquency.

It is hard to believe that this "juvenile" is a "possible 2016 presidential candidate".

However, as Alex Leary explains, when Rubio "helped write the Senate's immigration reform bill [he] got scorched by conservatives, not just for working on the legislation but for working with Democrats." So, after dipping his toes into the swimming pool of adulthood, Rubio is reverting to form, and

is now helping lead the government shutdown threat, a move popular among the tea party groups he turned off on immigration but deemed reckless by mainstream Republicans.

"When do you realize that your stupidity is getting in the way of conservatives winning national elections?" Republican commentator Joe Scarborough said on MSNBC last week, referring generally to the hard-liners Rubio was eager to align himself with. "You've lost a popular vote five out of six times in presidential races. Do you want to lose the next five or six? Do you really want Hillary Clinton to be president for the next eight years?"

Some call it treason

"Florida's largest companies are holding at least $9.4 billion in foreign profits, shielding the earnings from U.S. income taxes, according to an Orlando Sentinel review of financial statements." "Florida companies stash billions abroad to avoid taxes". See also "Florida's biggest corporate holders of offshore profits".

"Pollution killing Everglades"

"Pollution is killing Everglades, Miccosukee warn".

"Jeb!" defends his scandal ridden schemes before private school crowd

"In the wake of a growing school-grade scandal that led to the resignation of former Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett, [Jeb] Bush defended the standardized test-based school accountability movement he helped launched as Florida governor. Bush spoke on Friday to the American Legislative Exchange Council conference in Chicago on the importance of setting standards for student performance." "Jeb talks education at ALEC conference".

ALEC is a great forum for Jebbie. After all, it is all about "promoting voucher programs that drain public schools of resources by using taxpayer dollars to subsidize private school profits, and specifying that those schools must remain unregulated." "ALEC at 40".

Rick Scott claims credit for merely "being there"

Aaron Deslatte: "The University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research reported this week that the state's population grew by 184,000 people last year, or roughly 500 a day. That means the economy will continue to grow – not with a sonic boom, but slow and steady." "Florida's economy may redeem Scott's awful summer".

Much like the protagonist in Jerzy Kosinski's allegorical tale, "Being There", Rick Scott passes through life, being credited for things he has little to do with.

However, "state sales-tax estimates are being revised downward by one-quarter of 1 percent starting this summer due to the sequester, which took effect last March."

Overall, the economists' projections for the coming year are down from the 7.2-percent growth in tax collections during the fiscal year that just ended June 30. In all, the state collected $25.3 billion, mostly from taxes on sales, corporate income, insurance premiums and real estate sales.

A very wealthy man

"Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Friday turned over additional details on his personal fortune in order to make sure he is complying with a new state law."

The multi-millionaire governor turned in to the state's ethics commission a list of nearly $74 million assets he placed in a blind trust more than two years ago.

It shows, for example, Scott transferred into the trust $1.42 million in shares he owned in a social networking company that came under fire from some conservatives because it had partnered with Playboy magazine in Mexico.

Scott established the trust to remove direct control over his finances and avoid questions of conflicts of interest. But when he set it up, he was not required to disclose what his money was invested in.

A new sweeping ethics law passed this year by the Florida Legislature says that public officials who set up blind trusts now must disclose the initial assets placed in the account.

Scott is not bound by the new law since the Florida Commission on Ethics had previously approved his blind trust. But Scott's general counsel said the governor is turning over the information now in “abundance of caution.” Scott is also requesting the commission to confirm that he is compliance with the new law.

But the filing makes it clear that there are no plans to divulge what assets are held by the trust currently and whether there have been any changes in the last two years. The trust is managed by a New York firm that includes two of his former business associates.

Sheriffs like SYG

"Florida Sheriffs: Keep 'Stand Your Ground' as Written".

A Florida story

"Mommy blogger who wrote viral ‘Walmart pink headband’ post Baker Acted in Central Florida".

In a letter co-signed by Florida's nine other House Democrats, Deutch says the law takes away Florida's ability to "negotiate lower rates with companies or refuse rates that are too high."

The Aug. 1 letter goes on to ask the U.S. Health and Human Services Department to "protect Florida consumers — since Gov. Scott, the Florida Legislature and Insurance Commissioner (Kevin) McCarty will not."

Did the governor and Legislature prevent the commissioner from negotiating lower rates?

Florida's U.S. House Democrats say the governor and legislators refused to allow the state insurance commissioner to "negotiate lower rates with companies or refuse rates that are too high." We rate the claim True.

Is Medical Marijuana group just a front for Charlie Crist?

"Libertarian political consultant Roger Stone has had a falling out with a Florida medical-marijuana group and accused it Tuesday of acting like a front for Democrat Charlie Crist if he decides to run for governor next year."

“No Republicans or Democrats who aren’t supporting Charlie Crist need apply,” Stone wrote on his Stone Zone blog Tuesday, noting Crist works for the head of People United for Medical Marijuana [("PUFMM")].

PUFMM’s de facto manager, Ben Pollara, denied Stone’s claims as “untrue” and disputed his interpretation of a proposed constitutional amendment that allow the medical use of marijuana in Florida.

“Roger is a complicated character, as you know,” Pollara said, declining to discuss the falling-out with the libertarian consultant once known for being a GOP dirty-trickster.

Stone’s criticism comes at a tough time for PUFMM, which is struggling to collect more than 683,000 valid voter petitions in just a few months in order for the amendment to make the 2014 ballot.

With petition-gathering as a focus, Pollara said, the group has rebuffed paying consultants from all ends of the political spectrum, including Stone, because “we’re on a shoestring budget.”

But Stone, an early backer of the effort, wrote that he noticed a change in PUFMM after it was recently taken over by trial lawyer John Morgan, a major Democratic fundraiser who employs Crist in his legal office.

The cash flows for Enterprise Florida employees

"Scott defends Enterprise Florida bonuses". See also "Enterprise Florida board approves $70,000 bonus for CEO".

Brogan outa here

"Frank Brogan, a higher-education executive and former Florida lieutenant governor, was picked to be the next chancellor of Pennsylvania’s 14-university State System of Higher Education." "Florida ex-Lt. Governor to lead Pennsylvania university system".

Scott transition team member, president of Florida League of Cities arrested in FBI sting

"In March, Sweetwater Mayor Manuel Maroño and lobbyist Jorge Forte dined at a local restaurant with a couple of supposed Chicago businessmen. At the end, the dessert was green — as in $10,000 in cash hidden inside a notebook on the table that Forte accepted and split with the mayor, federal authorities say."

In July, Miami Lakes Mayor Michael Pizzi met with lobbyist Richard Candia in an office closet at Medley Town Hall, where Pizzi worked as the town’s attorney. The reason for the clandestine encounter? For Pizzi to collect an envelope stuffed with a $3,000 cash kickback, according to authorities.

What the mayors and Forte didn’t know was that they were targets of an FBI undercover operation — and the money exchanging hands was soon to be used as proof of political corruption in Sweetwater, Miami Lakes and Medley.

Miami federal prosecutors said the two mayors and two lobbyists accepted thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for championing purported federal grant applications for their towns. But in reality, the men were in cahoots, intending to line their pockets with the grant money — not to bring dollars into municipal coffers, the feds said.

Many of their conversations were recorded by undercover agents and on phone taps.

The two corruption cases, which started with a confidential tip to the FBI two years ago, were remarkable even by South Florida’s standards, because the crackdown snared two municipal mayors and two lobbyists on the same day. Attempts to take down other public officials in the same sting were unsuccessful because they wouldn’t bite. . . .

Pizzi is accused of breaking the law with Candia, who resigned from Becker & Poliakoff after the charges were filed Tuesday. Candia was a legislative aide for state Sen. Mario Diaz-Balart in the mid-1990s. Pizzi allegedly received $5,000 in cash kickbacks for the Miami Lakes grant deal and an additional $1,000 cash and $750 in campaign contributions for the Medley deal. . . .

In Sweetwater, people also expressed shock about the mayor’s arrest.

Maroño, a member of the city commission since 1995, was elected mayor in 2003.

Like Pizzi, Maroño also has a prominent profile for a small-town official. He is currently serving as president of the Florida League of Cities[*], with a membership of more than 400 cities, towns and villages in the state. In 2011, Maroño also played a role on Gov. Rick Scott’s transition team.

The Miami Herald editorial board: "Florida’s disgraceful distinction: corruption". More: "Fabiola Santiago: 'Hidden gem' city had secrets".

- - - - - - - -

*Maroño has apparently been dumped as League of Cities President, and scrubbed from the League's website.

The next purge

The Miami Herald editors: "Hang on to your proof of citizenship. You may need it if the state’s latest effort to purge voter rolls is as inept as the last one." "Another voter purge".

True colors

"Gov. Rick Scott and other Republicans have repeatedly expressed indignation about critical comments made last week by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. And judging by the governor’s inbox, the indignation is playing well." "Residents back Gov. Rick Scott’s stance against Jesse Jackson".

Florida a "hotspot" for human trafficking

"Although hard statistics are elusive, Florida is often seen as a trafficking hotspot. An estimated 385 teen girls are involved in the sex trade in Florida each month, according to a 2011 study commissioned by the Women’s Fund of Miami-Dade, and the state ranks third in terms of calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center tip line." "Florida a magnet for traffickers".

Even Sopchoppy?

"Sopchoppy, "a small Panhandle town best known for its annual Worm Gruntin' Festival is at the center of an investigation into charges the white city clerk suppressed the black vote in an election where the black mayor lost by a single vote and a black city commissioner was also ousted."

Both losing candidates and three black voters have filed complaints, now being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, that City Clerk Jackie Lawhon made it more difficult for blacks to cast ballots by questioning their residency.

The candidates also allege Lawhon abandoned her duty to remain neutral and actively campaigned for the three whites on the ballot.

Orlando SA will review shooting during FBI interrogation

"Orange-Osceola State Attorney Jeff Ashton confirmed his office is reviewing the death of Ibragim Todashev, a friend of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, who was killed during an interrogation in a condo in Orlando."

Todashev, 27, was killed May 22 while he was being questioned by a Boston-based FBI agent, Massachusetts state troopers and other law-enforcement officers. The FBI has released little information about the shooting.

"Governor to launch new purge of Florida voter rolls"

"Gov. Rick Scott will soon launch a new hunt for noncitizens on Florida’s voter roll, a move that’s sure to provoke new cries of a voter 'purge' as Scott ramps up his own re-election effort."

Similar searches a year ago were rife with errors, found few ineligible voters and led to lawsuits by advocacy groups who said it disproportionately targeted Hispanics, Haitians and other minority groups. Those searches were handled clumsily and angered county election supervisors, who lost confidence in the state’s list of names.

If the next list is anything like the last one, its burden will fall most heavily on [Democratic] urban counties with large Hispanic populations, notably Miami-Dade.

Another fine Jebacy biting the dust?

"The national push to grade schools has slammed into an unexpected roadblock, causing even supporters to question the validity of the widely celebrated A-F system that Florida started 14 years ago." "Tony Bennett scandal sparks new discussion on validity of school grading".

Scott panders to his base

We like golf as much as the next guy here at FLA Politics, but this was too good to pass up: "Gov. Rick Scott helps Golf Channel celebrate 88 new jobs".

Flabaggers: Rubio a "back-stabber," a "liar" and a "flip-flopper"

"This wasn't the revolution the tea party had in mind."

Four years ago, the movement and its potent mix of anger and populism persuaded thousands of costumed and sign-waving conservatives to protest the ballooning deficit and President Obama's health care law. It swept a crop of no-compromise lawmakers into Congress and governor's offices and transformed political up-and-comers, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, into household names.

The baggers are even outraged at Rick Scott. After all,

Scott, a former health care company executive who won office by attacking the health law and calling for deep cuts to state spending, has embraced the health law and signed one of the largest budgets in state history, complete with pay raises for teachers. . . .

One sweltering July day, a half-dozen tea party protesters gathered under a tree in front of Rubio's Miami office, seeking shade as they denounced his support for an immigration overhaul. But the protest soon turned into more of a support group, with the four men and two women grousing to each other about how Rubio had turned into a "back-stabber," a "liar" and a "flip-flopper."

"And that doesn't include his wife's money"

"'I will have $25 million in the bank by the end of the year and will use it in early 2014 to define my opponent,' Gov. Rick Scott declared last week."

Nobody doubts Scott will have a vast campaign account for his re-election, but $25 million on hand by January?

Unless he's planning to dig into his own $84 million net worth (and that doesn't include his wife's money), the governor will have to spend A LOT of time raising money over the next five months.

Raw political courage

"Gov. Scott to give Air Force general 'Great Floridian' award in Orlando".

"Public money going to private contractors with very snuggly ties to state officials"

Fred Grimm: "Tony Bennett slunk away from his job as Florida commissioner of education, leaving us with an ever-deepening distrust of a school-reform movement dominated by for-profit education conglomerates and big-money political donors."

He was undone by a grade-fixing scandal of his own making back when he was Indiana superintendent of education (until unhappy voters tossed him out of office in November). He lost his job in Florida because, in his previous incarnation, he manipulated the statewide grading formula to fabricate an A rating for a K-10 charter school in which two-thirds of the high school classes flunked algebra, while 30 percent failed English.

But Florida citizens had another reason to doubt Bennett’s objectivity when it comes to charter schools. The Indianapolis Star reported last week that his wife, Tina Bennett, was hired in June by Fort Lauderdale-based Charter Schools USA. It was another of those sweet, moneyed coincidences in Bennett public service. In 2011, he had awarded this very same company nice fat contracts to take over two failing high schools and a middle school in Indianapolis. (One of those schools, T.C. Howe High School, happened to be one of those two schools that had requested but were refused the same kind of waiver granted Christel House last September. Such a small world.) And Charter Schools USA has become one of the big players in the Florida rush to charters.

Similar questions have loomed over other instances in Florida’s fire sale of state-owned assets. The move to privatize state prisons has been so larded with corporate political donations and intense lobbying that no one can quite say whether the real goal is to bring market efficiencies to a big clunky bureaucracy or simply to deliver public money to influential corporate entities.

On Saturday, the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting reported that Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford has failed to disclose that he was a former director of a Texas contractor that was paid $826,676 from Citizens, Florida’s state-run catastrophic insurance company. Weatherford’s wife, apparently, has replaced him on the company board of directors.

Will Weatherford, technically, may not have had a legal obligation to report the apparent conflict of interest. But this was yet another murky instance of public money going to private contractors with very snuggly ties to state officials.

Dream Defenders mark 18th day of protest

"The Dream Defenders marked their 18th day of protest at the Capitol by bringing together faith leaders for a 'Can We Pray Together' rally." "Capitol protesters hold prayer rally".

"Graham is expected to amass an impressive war chest"

"Political newbie Gwen Graham is expected to amass an impressive war chest in her bid for a north Florida House seat, thanks in part to her father, former Democratic senator Bob Graham." "Heiresses apparent: Daughters take their turn for the political dynasty".