Florida State Senator John Thrasher is moaning about the power of unions in the Sunshine State. The powerful Republican in Tallahassee was quoted as making that comment after the push to privatize South Florida prisons went down narrowly yesterday in the state Senate.

Some of Tampa's most powerful developers and real estate representatives have unveiled their much awaited report on how to make the Cigar City more business-friendly.

Even though Mitt Romney doesn't seem to be that popular among Republicans, he does have more money than everybody else. That financial edge helped him carpet-bomb Newt Gingrich with negative ads in Florida, but Rick Santorum has a new ad up mocking Romney for his negative ways.

And a personal remembrance of the late Freddie Solomon, who passed away Monday in Tampa.

Good morning everyone. If you aren't digging the rare winter-like weather we've experienced in the past 24 hours, don't worry. It'll be near 80 degrees again tomorrow.

While there is rioting in the streets in Athens, Greece because of sweeping new budget cuts, most folks in the U.S., particularly of a certain generation, were absorbed by the powerfully sad news that pop star Whitney Houston had died. I try to avoid nostalgia as much as possible, but remembering when she came on the scene in 1985 brought back powerful memories of that era: MTV, Miami Vice, Madonna, Larry Bird vs. Magic. Live Aid. So sad.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney narrowly edged out a victory in the Maine Caucus Saturday night, though there is still some dispute about the results there. He also earned some love from the folks attending CPAC in D.C. over the weekend. Speaking of CPAC — we checked out Sarah Palin's speech to the crowd there Saturday afternoon.

President Obama announced what he said was a compromise regarding the controversy on contraception health insurance to Catholic institutions, but Republicans aren't buying it.

And over the weekend, faculty members at USF Polytechnic reminded those in the Florida Legislature who are hot to allow that campus to become independent from the USF network that there's a little problem they may not have realized.

Good morning everybody.

Both local dailies have some interesting news about the Republican National Convention, and we have one as well: Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn not dismissing the idea of allowing some of the thousands of protestors coming to Tampa in late August from sleeping overnight in one of the city's parks.

President Obama earlier this week reversed himself regarding endorsing Super PACS, those 3rd party fund-raising operations that can and have raised millions of dollars from individuals in political campaigns. A look at the record shows that this isn't the first time the President has reversed himself regarding campaign finance.

And Tampa's Kathy Castor will be part of what should be an overwhelming vote for a bill in the House today that tightens rules on insider-trading for members of Congress. The vote comes a day after a new poll shows Congress at their lowest approval rating ever.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Mitt Romney coronation last night - he was severely derailed in three states, getting absolutely annihilated by Rick Santorum in Missouri, and even falling in his supposed safe state of Colorado.

Speaking of Republican elections, although only Jim Norman and his attorney are calling his ethics commission hearing last Friday a success, the state Senator is still the odds-on favorite to win re-election to his seat this fall. But now he has a Republican challenger who says he will seriously make a run at the former Hillsborough County Commissioner.

And speaking of former County Commissioners, Ronda Storms is all over the news these days, including an appearance on Fox News yesterday touting her bill that would prevent those on food stamps in Florida from buying junk food.

Current Hillsborough Commissioners were among those discussing why the light rail measure went down to defeat in 2010, leading to discussions about pushing the Legislature to allow cities, and not just counties, to hold tax referendums.

It's only been a week since the Florida presidential primary election came and went, and tonight the cable news networks will crank up their political coverage once again as three more states hold primaries and/or caucuses: Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri, with Rick Santorum hoping to put a dent into those stories about Mitt Romney and his inevitability in getting the GOP nomination.

There are now two board members on the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) who campaigned against the light-rail tax measure that the agency was promoting in 2010. On Monday Governor Rick Scott named Josh Burgin to the agency. Burgin ran against Mark Sharpe in 2010 specifically because of Sharpe's support for the penny tax.

Speaking of HART, their CEO referred yesterday to some actions going on in Washington that could seriously imperil the transit agency's ability to run a decent bus system in the near future.

Happy Day after Super Sunday to y'all. Whether you rooted for the Giants, the Pats, or one of the other 30 NFL teams, hope you enjoyed football yesterday - since we won't have another game to watch for 7 more months!

Back to the political world. Mitt Romney won in Nevada over the weekend (not that they've finished the counting or anything there), but a new poll shows that the bloody battle with Newt Gingrich is hurting his image.

Over the weekend approximately 50 people concerned about the current sanctions and possible military action against Iran protested in Tampa.

The GOP candidates and others are still criticizing the White House for their decision regarding requiring Catholic hospitals and charities' health insurance policies to include coverage for birth control.

And Hillsborough/Pasco County GOP Representative Jim Norman may face a fine after the state ethics board found probable cause he violated ethics laws in not reporting the $500,000 gift that the late Ralph Hughes gave to Norman' wife to purchase a vacation home in Arkansas.

Welcome to your Super Sunday weekend. Although thoughts of making the Monday after the Super Bowl a national holiday are probably never going to happen, some sports talk-show hosts have floated the idea of moving the game to a Saturday night in the future, all the better for those with major hangovers to contend with the morning after the big game. But then you couldn't call it Super Sunday, could you?

In any event, I'm not making any predictions on the game per se, but I do have strong feelings about the New England dynasty over the past decade.

Whatever your thoughts are about the Susan G. Komen for a Cure foundation/Planned Parenthood dispute, there is no question that the latter group is winning the public relations war.

In St. Petersburg, the City Council has approved the Lens Design as the one to move forward on regarding the Pier.

Marco Rubio is being slammed by a California based Latino advocacy group for his stance on immigration in a new ad .

And if you haven't had a chance, check out our story of the week leading up to Tuesday's GOP presidential primary.

Welcome to the post-Florida presidential primary world....except, after spending the past 10 days intimately with Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, we can't quit them now.

Mitt of course, stepped on his own story before 8 a.m. yesterday with his "poor" word choice, while we examine a couple of interesting figures coming out of Tuesday night's primary.

The big news out of Tallahassee Wednesday was the heavy-handed move by Senate President Mike Haridopolos, telling Pasco County state Senator Mike Fasano "You're fired!" after Fasano again delayed bringing up a prison privatization plan for facilities in the southern part of the state.

And the news that the Susan G. Komen foundation is going to stop funding Planned Parenthood clinics is creating quite a kerfuffle.

Good morning everyone.

Well, the Florida presidential primary is history, and with it, almost any idea that somebody other than Mitt Romney could become the Republican nominee for president against Barack Obama later this year. Romney took the Sunshine State decisively, winning by 14 percentage points in a race called immediately after the polls closed in Northwest Florida.

Although there are still plenty of primary races to come (46 states to go! as the signs at the moribund Gingrich headquarters said last night), the heads of the Republican and Democratic national parties couldn't help but use the presidential primary date as an excuse to project who might take the state in November, where Florida's 29 electoral votes will be crucial.

The legislative session up in Tallahassee is nearly half over. Today there's a big vote on privatizing most of the prisons in South Florida.

Good morning, everybody.

We're in the last hours of the Florida GOP presidential primary, and every poll under the sun says Mitt Romney is headed for a big win — though Newt Gingrich insists he's gaining and will surprise folks Tuesday night (link coming).

Over the weekend the Democratic National Committee decided they couldn't let the Florida primary go by without trying to get their message out. They did so by sending their Vice-Chair, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak to town to open a new campaign office for Barack Obama in St. Petersburg on Saturday, and then provided two everyday Americans whose companies were taken over by Bain Capital, Mitt Romney's former private equity company. The two blast Romney as being a hypocrite when it comes to his boasts about being a job creator.

And if you missed it, we were in the Tampa courtroom on Friday afternoon for the hearing on Florida's controversial elections bill that Democrats say will suppress the vote this November.