It’s a late morning here in ReidReport land. I’m getting ready to head out to Channel 2 to tape a segment of “issues,” but before I go, here’s a bit of what’s going on in the sunshine state:

Rubio on the Run: this Daniel Ruth op-ed on Marco Rubio’s duck and hide response to his credit card and family employment plan with other people’s money is worth it just for all the different ways he messes with Rubio’s political title. On the substance, the bottom line is that Marco is taking a page from the Sarah Palin playbook: when scandal calls, don’t answer the door; hide under the bed and stock the foyer with pre-screened, adoring fans.

Meanwhile, if the problem is politicians treating donor money like their personal slush fund, why is the answer to bring back even more political slush funds?

Here’s something you don’t see every day: the Meek campaign forwarding around a post from the Daily Kos. The occasion: a new DKos/Research 2000 poll that finds two things: 1) Marco Rubio’s supporters are nuts ( about 3/4 of them are birthers) and 2) Kendrick Meek has a shot of winning if Rubio is the nominee, because thankfully, most Floridians are not nuts. The upshot (including bad news from Kos to Crist):

For the past year, I’ve been arguing that Crist’s collapse in the GOP primary was inevitable, that his only path to the Senate was by switching parties and becoming a Democrat. Well, that window of opportunity has closed.

Senate General Election

Charlie Crist (R) 45 (50)
Kendrick Meek (D) 36 (33)

Marco Rubio (R)   41 (38)
Kendrick Meek (D) 40 (30)

I’ve been nothing but dismissive of Meek. But the numbers certainly suggest this could be competitive. And it’s because of this:

Favorable/Unfavorable/No opinion

Charlie Crist 44/45/11 (59/23/9)
Marco Rubio 29/36/35 (21/22/57)
Kendrick Meek 25/18/57 (23/9/68)

Meek is still invisible. But Rubio is now well into net-negative territory. And particularly disturbing for him, that fall has come from independents, going from 18/21/61 last November, to 26/38/36. Independents aren’t liking what they see from him. It would be nice if Meek improved on his numbers, but at this point, he’s the only candidate left with a net-positive favorability rating.

Coming from Kos, who’s clearly not a Kendrick fan, that’s practically a love letter.

BTW, Kos also has nice round-ups of the whip count and the punditry on healthcare reform.

To Miami, where darned if embattled ex-and maybe future commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones doesn’t have herself an actual case against Charlie Crist. And this Erik Maza piece quotes a legal expert saying that Miami-Dade’s un-savvy prosecutor might have even screwed up her original case by going after Spence-Jones so aggressively (and transparently.) Even local reporter Michael Putney, who’s been tough on Spence-Jones, is asking the question: if it’s illegal to take a bribe, why isn’t it illegal to give one?

In non-political news, two disturbing stories:

First, a teenaged girl’s text about a school-mate’s brother who committed suicide leads to a brutal attack. The boy kicked the girl in the head several times with steel toed boots, and now faces serious jail time, while she’s in critical condition. This took place in the same middle school where last year, five boys doused a schoolmate with alcohol and set him on fire. Welcome to the suburbs.

In the WTF category: over at Sea World, trainers have resumed brushing serial killer whale Tilikum’s teeth.

Politico has a decent summary of the newly posted reconciliation bill (plus the full text) with the key changes it makes to the Senate legislation. The CBO score looks good, and the vote is expected on Sunday, with the president delaying his Asia trip to wait for the moment. As we get closer, right wingers are getting nuttier and nuttier, with Glenn Beck and his wacked out real-life counterpart Steve King saying the Sunday vote is “an affront to God,” and Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma issuing the most convoluted threat in modern American political history. Democrats shouldn’t be scared of these guys, they should be laughing at them. It’s getting to the point where you have to use words like “pathetic,” “desperate” and “bizarre.”

Finally, someone who can pronounce “Iran” and “Iraq” correctly. Way to turn the page, ABC! (You gave us a scare last week…) Christiane Amanpour will be the first woman to host a Sunday show, and I’m sure she’ll be great (and give the show more of an international view.) Meanwhile, CNN just went down another notch, having lost Ms. Amanpour and gained Erick Erickson. I see doom on the horizon in Atlanta …

A couple of weeks ago, I asked a prominent attorney involved in the case of an elected official who was charged with corruption for using his city-issued credit car for personal expenses, including dinners at Red Lobster with his girlfriend, what the material difference was between that alleged crime (the pol is pleading not guilty) and Marco Rubio using his party-issued card as his personal funds, in contravention to the rules governing the card (it’s supposed to be used for electioneering.) The answer was “none.” It’s all about whether the state attorney (or the IRS) chooses to pursue it in one case versus another. Whether you’re talking public money, or private money, misuse of a corporate, government or party-issued credit card is potentially hazardous to your freedom. Interesting. And so is this, from columnist Fred Grimm, writing in today’s Miami Herald:

A decade ago, Broward County Commissioner Scott Cowan tried to explain away political contributions going to hire relatives for mysterious jobs or to pay for repairs to the family car. His ledger sheet included a number of inexplicable purchases. As if he was using his campaign fund as his personal bank account.

“When looking back on how I handled expenditures . . . it certainly wasn’t the best judgment,” Cowan said, as revelations about his inappropriate spending habits became public. “Everything was legal. But it was poor judgment.”

… Everything was not legal. Cowan’s poor judgment translated into criminal charges. He pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors and served 125 days in jail. His wrecked political career should have sobered other ambitious politicians with a penchant for inscrutable expenditures or hiring relatives to perform amorphous duties.

Well guess who Marco Rubio is blaming for his free spending with a donor-funded party credit card, and for payments to his teenaged relatives (and his wife) for “courier” and other services out of campaign committee money?

A series of checks totaling about $10,000 went to young relatives of Rubio for “courier” services — a designation his campaign now calls erroneous, an accountant’s mistake. Odd that an accountant had repeated the same mistake a dozen times over 14 months. As if Rubio had hired Scott Cowan himself to keep the books.

A Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times examination of Rubio’s two political action committees discovered a $3,500 check written to his mother-in-law for a rental car. His wife received $5,700 for “gas and meals.” Rubio accounted for $51,000 he had withdrawn from committee funds as simply “travel expenses.”

148 VENDORS?

Some $74,000 were reported as going to undisclosed vendors — legal only if the total expenditures to any one recipient amounted to $500 or less. (Which means at least 148 different vendors must have been paid for their services to Rubio’s committees.)

And that’s on top of the $89,000 for “political consultants,” which frankly can mean damned near anything down here, and $34,000 in just plain unaccounted for expenses, which Team Rubio has yet to explain. Grimm adds that Rubio “managed to spend $65,000 in a single year for his own travel — Florida’s own frequent flier.” And he sarcastically suggests that maybe Rubio should have hired Mr. Cowan as one of his consultants. He could have explained to him that sometimes, “poor accounting” can have serious legal consequences.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party and its new chief, Sen. John Thrasher, are busy re-upping scandalous “leadership funds” (a polite term for slush funds) and passing legislation to hide the records of any credit card purchases out of those funds from the donors paying for them, faster than you can say IRS audit.

Corrupt much?

The big question here, besides whether the IRS or, I don’t know, the Miami-Dade State Attorney, might have an interest in looking into Rubio’s spending habits with other people’s money (or as Rubio calls it “my money,”) something that is unlikely on the state attorney level since someone, probably the party itself, would have to file a complaint, which ain’t gonna happen, but far more likely on the IRS side, if he failed to report the party sponsored spending as income … is when, if ever, the cultish supporters of the Cuban Ronald Reagan will cry “enough.” Will the tea partiers ever get tired of the hypocrisy, or are they so drunk with the giddy rush of possibly taking down a sitting governor, beating the evil “progressive” Democrats, and maybe even putting a right wing ideologue in the Senate that they’ll put up with darned near anything? In the end, have these people any decency, or are they just partisans disguised as principled activists? We’ll see.

Meanwhile, my favorite comment below the Herald story comes from someone called Chenzo, who writes:

What a lying, hypocritical thief. He will do well.

“The funds, outlawed in 1989, allowed legislative leaders or those who aspired to leadership posts to take unlimited amounts of money from corporations and unions and funnel it to candidates who would support them. ‘This should be called the grand jury employment act because that’s what it’s going to result in,’ said Sen. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, who argued for the amendment to eliminate the leadership fund.” [St. Petersburg Times, April 29, 2003]

From the New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn:

Democrats in the administration and Congress have agreed on a set of amendments to the Senate health care bill. And, according to House leadership, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is certifying that the amendments will reduce the deficit. That should fulfill the parliamentary requirements of the reconciliation process, satisfy the demands of many nervous Democrats, and clear the way for the House to vote on health care reform.

Overall, according to leadership aides, the underlying Senate health care bill plus the amendments will reduce the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years and $1.2 trillion in the second ten years. Democrats are calling it the “biggest deficit reduction measure in 25 years”–that is, since the 1993 Clinton budget.

To which the Huffpo adds:

The source said it also extends Medicare’s solvency by at least 9 years and reduces the rate of its growth by 1.4 percent, while closing the doughnut hole for seniors, meaning there will no longer be a gap in coverage of medication. The CBO also estimated it would extend coverage to 32 million additional people.

The CBO score is the last piece House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was waiting on before putting the puzzle together on the House floor. A contingent of Blue Dogs has been holding out support, insisting that the bill be fully paid for and not increase the deficit. The numbers give a major boost to Pelosi and her leadership team, which can now begin the whip count in earnest and can specifically point to the cost savings.

The 72 hour countdown to a House vote starts now.

It’s District 5 day for me today. My Herald column focuses on the very little the district has seen go right over the last few decades, and answers this column by Luther Campbell in the Miami New Times:

A clip:

It’s almost an urban legend in Miami. The “black seat” on the City Commission is cursed, its occupant subject to special scrutiny. The belief that something is rotten in lawless-land is so common that one celebrity friend of Michelle Spence-Jones recently wrote in a local newspaper that “you have to be the pope” to hold the seat.

Indeed, since 1995, every elected District 5 commissioner (though not the various appointees) has found themselves in legal trouble, including the twice-removed Spence-Jones, recently indicted for soliciting a $25,000 bribe from developers (and of redirecting county grant money to a family business before she became commissioner).

The idea of a “curse” is a bit paranoid. The history of Miami is littered with the multicultural remains of political careers torched by scandal. There are former commissioners (Angel Gonzales, Johnny Winton, Art Teele), mayors like Xavier Suarez and Joe Carollo (whose ghosts now haunt City Hall in the form of their relatives), the men of Operation Greenpalm (Miami commissioner Miller Dawkins, ex-city manager Howard Gary and County Commissioner James Burke); and another former manager, Cesar Odio. Plus, the near-misses: Barbara Carey-Shuler, whose alleged bribery “bag man” came forward too late, and the recently departed police chief, John Timoney, whose career was run over by a free SUV. …

Read the whole thing here

If it’s Thursday, it must be time for an orange alert! John “moneybags” Boehner had some sage advice for his banker friends when he spoke before an enthusiastic crowd at an American Bankers Association “government relations” (that’s lobbying to you) summit: “don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves.” Yeah, bankers, fight the power! Boehner plans to try and stall Wall Street reform in the House for at least a year.

Well that went well … President Obama finally appeared on one of Fox’s “news” programs … and a hockey game broke out.

Meanwhile, back in the sunshine state, Charlie Crist has some advice for Kendrick Meek that he’s offering purely for effect since he knows Meek won’t take it, and really what’s the point? He’s urging the Miami Democrat to vote against the healthcare bill (as if). He even wrote Kendrick a letter about it! Well, at least it makes Charlie sound more “Republican,” meaning devoid of policy solutions but loyal to the “party of no” strategy, which should please, well … no one who hates Charlie Crist. Good work!

The vote in question will probably happen Sunday, after the 72 hour waiting period Speaker Pelosi has called for following release of the bill’s CBO score.

The Senate managed to pass something yesterday (a jobs bill). Isn’t that precious?

Bart Stupak dismisses the nuns who support passing healthcare reform, saying he prefers to consult the much more masculine bishops on the matter, plus Focus on the Family. … Focus on the Family? Bart Stupak is a Democrat, right? Well, maybe not for long. NOW has joined the fight to defeat him in his next primary. Stupak is about to appear on MSNBC to splain himself.

UPDATE: Stupak is on now, still insisting that the Senate bill funds abortion, through “refundable tax credits.”

Other clicks: Roger Ailes has told his “reporting” staff to stop pooping on Glenn Beck in the tent.

Bernie Madoff caught a beat-down in prison … in a dispute over money …

And Madoff isn’t the only crook in the bush. Wachovia, my former bank, turns out to be one big, fat money launderer (for the Mexican drug cartels.) Mmmm … schadenfreude …

And a question: if everybody hates Jay Leno, why are so many people watching Jay Leno?

Norm Ornstein says it all:

… I can’t recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news. It reached a ridiculous level of misinformation and disinformation over the use of reconciliation, and now threatens to top that level over the projected use of a self-executing rule by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times, and was no stranger to the concept of “deem and pass.” That strategy, then decried by the House Democrats who are now using it, and now being called unconstitutional by WSJ editorialists, was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld). Dreier used it for a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that his fellow GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration. I don’t like self-executing rules by either party—I prefer the “regular order”—so I am not going to say this is a great idea by the Democrats. But even so—is there no shame anymore?

Actually, no.

In the Florida race: ideology vs. substance

In his never-ending quest to become the worst political candidate in Florida history, Bill McCollum continues to ignore a pivotal issue in the up-coming governor’s race: Florida. I mean he literally has nothing to say about Florida, the state he presumably wants to govern. You get the feeling he’d rather be back in Washington, co-sponsoring legislation that let’s Wall Street destroy the country and voting himself taxpayer-funded pay raises so that he doesn’t have to “sacrifice the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed,” rather than rambling around the governor’s mansion, doing boring stuff like figuring out how to dig Florida out of the ditch his party has driven the state into. It’s almost as if McCollum isn’t really running for the job he truly wants …

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger … Alex Sink has released her business plan for the state. Personally, I’m a big fan of the b-plan idea for governing. It has worked wonderfully for my favorite mayor, Shirley Gibson of Miami Gardens, and helped that city get on track fast (it still has issues, but is doing a damn site better than much older cities and areas with similar issues and demographics.) And releasing a business plan emphasizes what voters will probably like most about Sink: that she is a smart, pragmatic businesswoman who can finally turn around Florida’s faltering economy and 11.9 percent unemployment (while not emphasizing what they will probably like least: that the business she used to be in was banking.) Overall, gotta give Team Sink an A on this one. Shows she and they are on the ball, and focused on the topics that are most on everyone’s mind: jobs and the economy. As for Bill Keep bleating on about that healthcare bill you no longer have anything to do with because you’re not a friggin member of Congress anymore. Knock yourself out. It’s very becoming, in an irrelevant sort of way.

‘The Sink plan can be found here. It centers around using the chief executive office to promote Florida as a great business climate, rather than just a great vacation spot, making it easier to both attract and do business in the state, better promotion of all the state’s regions, so none feel neglected (a big problem here) and on the jobs front:

Revive our Economy for the Short-Term: Creating Jobs Quickly

Alex Sink has the turnaround expertise and business know-how to jumpstart Florida’s economy with a three-pronged strategy for creating and saving jobs in the short-term:

• First, help stabilize and expand small businesses – the major generator of jobs in our state.
• Second, work with Florida’s businesses to keep jobs here and start expanding again.
• Third, revive the economic sectors that can create jobs quickly with targeted marketing of Florida’s assets.

Just as she did in her twenty-six-year business career, Alex will work collaboratively with key stakeholders across Florida – non-profit and for-profit businesses, community leaders, statewide organizations, university research programs, economic and fiscal experts, the Legislature and many others – to fine-tune these initiatives for implementation in the short-term.

Not bad. I’m giving this one a solid “you go girl.”

Kendrick Meek is definitely running to the right, perhaps protecting himself from a general election attempt to paint him as a pinko lefty. And Florida has a large Jewish population, particularly in crucial South Florida, that needs catering to. Maybe that’s why the Meek camp issued this pretty striking statement today that echoes other Democrats who have been (in generally milder terms) taking on the White House for rebuking Israel over settlements, but seems to take it up a notch, AIPAC-style:

“What started off as an internal, domestic disagreement within the Israeli government has turned into an unnecessary international dispute complicated by some undiplomatic language from U.S. administration officials. Opponents of peace, nations and terrorist organizations that wish to do harm to Israel will always seize an opportunity to create a wedge between our nation and Israel. They seek comfort watching these recent events unfold. To give our enemies the false impression that the United States and Israel disagree on fundamental issues within the region sets the peace process back. I urge restraint and a resumption of talks that result in a lasting peace that ensures Israel’s security,” said Meek.

Meek’s statement is strange for a number of reasons. First off, seems to take a harder line than almost any other Democrat who has spoken out on the issue, and most of them are Jewish. Besides Meek, no Democrat has called the dispute “unnecessary,” all have at least acknowledged that Israel deserved criticism for announcing new settlements on the day of the vice president’s visit, (something even Israelis have blasted their government over) and most of the critics have sniped at the administration mostly for its tone, and not the substance. Meanwhile, the two most notable people who are talking up terrorists and enemies seeking “comfort” from the stated position of the President of the United Sates, his Vice President, his Secretary of State, and the senior Democratic leadership in both the House and Senate, not to mention the United Nations, are Sarah Palin and Joe Lieberman. From Politico:

“It was personal, and I think it shouldn’t be personal. It’s clear to me that [Netanyahu] was blindsided as well” by the announcement, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO. “The timing was wrong, and it should have been criticized, but that should have been it.”

“Two days later we see this upswing in criticism, almost as if we wanted to grab onto the issue and use it,” he said.

“The appropriate response was a shake of the head — not a temper tantrum,” said another New York Democrat, Rep. Anthony Weiner. “Israel is a sovereign nation and an ally, not a punching bag. Enough already.”

A handful of other Democratic members of Congress, including New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Christopher Carney (D-Pa.), echoed the sentiment, while others issued more cautious statements affirming the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

“The administration, to the extent that it has disagreements with Israel on policy matters, should find a way to do so in private and do what they can to defuse this situation,” New York Rep. Steve Israel said.

Republicans and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, meanwhile, attacked Obama in sharper terms.

“It’s time to lower our voices, get over the family feud between the U.S. and Israel. It just doesn’t serve anybody’s interest but our enemies,” Lieberman said.

“The Obama administration needs to open its eyes and recognize that it is only Iran and her terrorist allies that benefit from this manufactured Israeli controversy,” said former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. “It’s time for President Obama to push the reset button on our relations with our ally Israel.”

The increasing criticism from Republicans and the most pro-Israel Democrats, however, wasn’t matched by key lawmakers in the House and Senate, as committee chairmen and members of leadership offered silence — and tacit support — to the confrontational White House stance.

I guess this is a feature of Florida politics, but we are still in a primary, and just like the oddly timed op-ed, this one’s kind of a head scratcher. Meanwhile, we’ve yet to see anything like that statement from Florida’s staunchest pro-Israel member of Congress, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

Meanwhile, at the Beast, Leslie Gelb, who is very much pro-Israel, says that country is playing with fire.

And Gen. Petraeus makes the most pivotal point of all: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is harmful to U.S. troops and to the United States more broadly. That, at the end of the day, is what we care most about.