• Paula Dockery

The overwhelming message that school president Judy Genshaft and members of USF's Board of Trustees Monday night was for everyone who gives a hoot to contact state legislators and tell them not to support the proposed 58 percent cut.

Some legislators however, hardly need to receive the message, as they've already expressed their support for the institution against the power play being demonstrated by Republican Senate Budget Chairman J.D. Alexander.

Two of those legislators are Bay area based Senators whose terms will in Tallahassee soon: Pasco County's Mike Fasano and Polk County's Paula Dockery.

Although the huge news in Tampa last night was the emergency meeting held by the USF Board of Trustees regarding what school President Judy Genshaft described as "draconian" budget cuts by the Florida Senate, props to Tampa Tribune columnist Joe Henderson for his quote from Wesley Chapel Representative Will Weatherford in his column today.. Weatherford tells Henderson that the chances of USF's budget getting cut by 58 percent are between "slim and none." Weatherford represents the House, whose own plans to cut higher education aren't nearly as severe as the Senate's. Nevertheless, last night's meeting was quite intense.

House Republicans in Washington blinked yesterday, and now will go ahead and extend the current payroll-tax reduction for the rest of this year without spending cuts. Yet they are not budging regarding extension of unemployment benefits, and drug testing and compulsory GEDs for welfare recipients.

And as discussions continue on the redesign of St. Petersburg's Pier, a determined bunch of St. Pete residents prefer that the Pier remain just as it is. On Saturday night those activists held a meeting at the Pier, and are hoping to get a measure on the ballot in St.Pete later this year allowing citizens to weigh in on the issue.

• Judy Genshaft

But whether they'll be successful is anyone's guess. Nobody in the Florida Senate to date has shown any inclination to stop the jihad of Senate Budget Committee Chair J.D. Alexander has declared on the Tampa campus.

Overall, the Senate is recommending that $400 million be cut from the entire state university system, with the most — $74 million — coming from USF. School officials say that the budget cut increases to $128 million once other factors are taken into account, including loss of funding for the pharmacy program, loss of funding for USF Polytechnic and absorbing the costs of salaries for Polytechnic staff and faculty.

USF Chief Operating Officer John Long said that if the cuts go through there would be zero cash reserves, and only $50 million left to run the school. "The rainy day has come and gone because there's no dollars," he said starkly. When asked by an official why USF in particular was being hit so hard, he said the obvious.

"It's political."

He of course was referring to Alexander's personal vendetta against USF after tensions with the school surfaced with his drive to make USF Polytechnic independent last year. After initial resistance by President Genshaft, the state's Board of Governors announced in November that that USF Poly could go independent, in due time.

But a bill passed last week in a committee could allow that split to happen much quicker, and the budget cuts revealed late Friday could devastate much of Florida's higher education system, not just USF.

For conservatives, Romney's support for a universal health care plan in Massachusetts has always been problematic. He's argued that it's a states' rights deal, and for Republicans who support Romney, that's good enough.

For the rest of the GOP electorate, that answer is pretty weak. The question has been why it's taken so long for some of his opponents to hammer him on the issue, though Rick Santorum did so with steadfast intensity at the last debate in Jacksonville last month.

But in an interview less than two years ago, Romney had lots of praise for the Obama health care plan, including the right's bête noir, the individual mandate.

So the clock ticks again for negotiators, who have a little over two weeks to get a deal done. Democrats want to cover the cost of the payroll tax for the rest of this year by imposing a tax on those making more than $1 million a year, as well as eliminating some corporate tax subsidies. Republicans want to pay for it by freezing pay for federal workers, cutting some pension benefits and raising Medicare premiums paid by wealthy seniors.

Regarding unemployment benefits, Republicans want to give states the option to require drug testing for recipients (a move that would be superfluous in Rick Scott's Florida), and require those collecting benefits without a high school diploma to enroll in a GED program.

As the sun set outside the inverted pyramid Saturday, around 75 people attended a forum on the third floor of the pier. Residents and business owners came to learn about the petition for a public vote on the pier.

• Arielle Stevenson
• Residents gathered to hear about a petition for referendum on the Pier Saturday.

Architectural Designs, Inc. of Tampa presented their plan to "renew" the Pier within budget and without closing it down. According to their architect, Ken Kroger, the Pier was actually designed to have additional floors, which could be an option. Kroger said the foundation and causeway need replacing but the base of the pyramid is fine.

"Right now you can't appreciate the full effect of this inverted pyramid," Kroger said. "It's diluted by the buildings underneath it. The one-story buildings that surround the structure have to be demolished in this plan."

• J.D. Alexander

But that arrangement never seemed to mollify Alexander, and last Wednesday the bill calling on the Polk County campus to acquire its independence immediately was slipped in at the last minute — bypassing the specific requirements that the Board of Governors listed as necessary.

There's now a new development in the ongoing drama: a letter sent by the Faculty Senate at USF-Poly on Saturday that expresses "great dismay" over Lynn's proposal, specifically for assuming that separate accreditation for the campus is now going to happen.

"This measure seems to have been introduced based on two primary assumptions," USF Polytechnic Faculty Senate President Sherry Kragler writes in a letter to Lynn and other members of the Florida Senate.
"1) that USF Polytechnic faculty and staff are NOT currently working toward separate accreditation and independence in a timely manner; 2) that achieving accreditation for the new university through Valencia College/University of Florida will be faster/easier than the current process for USF Polytechnic's separate accreditation. While we cannot speak definitively to the second assumption, we, as engaged faculty members, can attest that the first assumption is erroneous."

After a week of white-hot controversy that cable news bookers have thoroughly enjoyed, President Obama announced on Friday that his administration was offering a compromise (which critics call an accommodation) on offering employees of Catholic hospitals, universities and service agencies contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans, saying the insurance companies, and not the institutions, would pay for that coverage.

But Friday night the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops rejected the compromise, as did every Republican who graced the airwaves on Sunday morning public affairs programming.

And now there's legislation sponsored by Missouri Republican U.S. Senator Roy Blunt that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in its health insurance plan, a move that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supports.

"If we end up having to try to overcome the president’s opposition by legislation, of course I’d be happy to support it, and intend to support it,” McConnell said Sunday on CBS's Face The Nation. “We’ll be voting on that in the Senate and you can anticipate that that would happen as soon as possible.”

Since she opted not to run for the Republican nomination for president, Sarah Palin's contributions to the 2012 campaign have been limited to her commentaries on Fox News.

Though she has yet to endorse a candidate, she has steadfastly maintained that the GOP should avoid coalescing around a single candidate this early in the primary season. She repeated her stance that competition is healthy for the race for president during her 36-minute address to close out CPAC in Washington D.C. Saturday afternoon, but not before warning candidates and their campaigns not to do the work of the "far left and their media allies" by tearing each other apart and dividing the party.

Two years ago at CPAC, Palin's signature line was "How's that hopey, changey thing workin' out for ya?" This address also included some carefully crafted putdowns of President Obama, such as when she said his presidency was a failure of leadership: "We know how to change that, oh yes we do, oh yes-we-can. Hope and change, yeah. You gotta hope things change!"

She also parodied Obama's classic line from his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention: "We're not Red Americans, we're not Blue Americans, we're Red White and Blue, and President Obama, we are through with you!"