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Florida Gov. Rick Scott held an emergency meeting Thursday night with pro-Trayvon Martin protesters that staged a sit-in outside his office to demand an end to Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law. Scott, who has been under fire from activists in the wake of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in Martin’s death, met with protesters at the State Capitol and reminded them that he agrees with Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, but that he’s calling for a “statewide day of prayer for unity” to help people of all persuasions move beyond the verdict. Sean Rossman @SeanRossman Dream Defenders meeting with @FLGovScott at the...

VARNEY: Now, back in March of 2012, right after the event, the president made a statement -- went in front of the cameras and made a statement about the Trayvon Martin case -- and right after the verdict was delivered, he made another statement which I will quote from in a moment. But, first, do you think that the president inserted himself into the judicial system? Because that has been the subject of some criticism. SCOTT: Sure. I don't know if he did or didn't. What I just think about is, I think about the family, I think about the...

From Lee Stranahan, Breitbart News: A coalition put together by Dream Defenders took over Florida Gov. Rick Scott's office in Tallahassee on Tuesday to demand a special legislative session that they say will address "the issues at the center of the Trayvon Martin tragedy." The coalition contends that "stand your ground vigilantism, racial profiling and a war on youth that paints us as criminals and funnels us out of schools and funnels us out of schools and into prison" is part of the culture that lead to the tragedy. Governor Scott was out of the office and not expected to...

(Corey and Stooges) The prosecution of George Zimmerman should fill every American with fear and trepidation regardless of their political persuasion. What the prosecution and subsequent trial demonstrated is that a spineless governor and a prosecutor who has set their eyes on higher political office can and will financially ruin you and put your liberty in jeopardy for grins. We have passed into that twilight of the Republic where we are no longer citizens but rather subjects of a bureaucratic juggernaut at the service of mob rule that will cheerfully kill you and impoverish your family if it furthers...

I don’t normally write a complete opinionated commentary on things here at Freedom Outpost, but I really think there are probably some people out there, like myself, that think someone in authority, preferably Florida Governor Rick Scott, should step up and say what needs to be said in the matter involving the George Zimmerman trial. So here goes. I believe the Zimmerman trial should have never come on the national stage. Barack Obama simply used an occasion to stir up the black community. It’s part of the Alinsky tactics. However, from all the evidence we’ve seen and the railroading of...

Gov. Rick Scott is more popular, according to a new poll by Quinnipiac University, but 50 percent of voters say he doesn’t deserve to be re-elected and that he would lose handily to former Gov. Charlie Crist if the 2014 election were today. Scott’s standing with the public has been so persistently grim that any improvement looks like a breakthrough. His approval rating cracked 40 percent for the first time in the latest poll — 43 percent of voters approve of his handling of his job, 44 percent disapprove.

If Charlie Crist runs for governor as a Democrat, he’s going to lose. He’ll either get rubbed out in the Democratic primary, or he’ll lose to Gov. Rick Scott in the general. If Crist runs for governor, rank-and-file Democratic voters will never again trust the party leaders who support Crist. Terence McCoy, of the alternative New Times Broward-Palm Beach, made some excellent points in Five Reasons Charlie Crist Will Not Run For Governor, which I urge everyone to read. McCoy thinks Crist won’t run, but every Democratic leader I know who’s been talking to Crist says he will, and they’re...

Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) is looking for a lieutenant governor, and he believes former Congressman Allen West fits the bill. According to Tampa Bay's 970 WFLA, Scott has not determined exactly when he will appoint a replacement for Carroll. He said he plans to wait until the current legislative session is over before taking the matter up. However, he has made clear that West would be a good choice. Said Scott: "[Allen West] is a great American and a great patriot... he'd be a great Lieutenant Governor."

TAMPA (970 WFLA) -- Governor Rick Scott hasn't picked a new Lieutenant Governor, and it's not clear whether he will, but he says at least one Florida politician would make a superb choice. On AM Tampa Bay, the governor responded to a question by saying West "is a great American and a great patriot... he'd be a great Lieutenant Governor." Scott has said he would wait until the end of the session before working on finding someone to replace Jennifer Carroll, who resigned earlier this year after being questioned about an indicted charity that ran internet cafes. Her resignation was...

Shortly after Barack Obama won reelection in November, New Jersey governor Chris Christie pointed out that Republicans’ cloudy political prospects had a bright silver lining. “One of the reasons you have 30 Republican governors in America, and why we’re the only organization to add Republican strength,” Christie said, “is because people see us getting things done.” Christie’s stance countered most of the elite postelection commentary, which gleefully pronounced the Republican Party’s political irrelevance. But the governor was right. Since Obama first took office in 2008, Republicans have picked up a net nine governorships, bringing their total to 30 states,...

I missed this incident of Academia Gone Wild when it happened, as I was in Rome covering the papal conclave, but it has all the hallmarks of cluelessness and faux “tolerance” that we’ve come to expect from higher education. It started with a professor of intercultural communications (no, seriously) at state-run Florida Atlantic University requiring students to write the name Jesus in large block letters on a piece of paper, and then stomp on it. One student — one? — refused to comply and told the professor that he would file a complaint over the assignment, which offended his religious...

A Florida academic institution that had a professor tell his students to write the name Jesus on paper and trample on it has issued a formal apology for the lesson. "This exercise will not be used again. The University holds dear its core values. We sincerely apologize for any offense this caused," said Florida Atlantic University, a multi-campus institution, in a prepared statement posted on its website. "Florida Atlantic University respects all religions and welcomes people of all faiths, backgrounds and beliefs." FAU also stated that "no students were forced to take part in the exercise" and "that no student...

Hall of Fame basketball player Earvin “Magic” Johnson spoke out on behalf of President Obama’s healthcare law on Monday. “ObamaCare is working. I talk to a lot of CEOs of hospitals. It is working,” he said on MSNBC. Johnson was speaking on "NOW with Alex Wagner" about the NCAA basketball tournament, but he veered into politics at the end of the segment, lauding conservative Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) decision to accept the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. II’m glad that Gov. Scott down in Florida accepted ObamaCare because it will work,” he said.

A stunning announcement out of Florida this week. The state that was exhibit A for economic disaster two years ago is now experiencing a tremendous rebound thanks to Gov. Rick Scott’s pro-growth policies. Washington should take a page – no several pages – out of Scott’s book. Since December 2010, one month before Scott took office, the unemployment rate in Florida has dropped from 11.1 percent to 7.8 percent – that rate is lower than the national average. After two years of Scott’s policies, 282,000 private sector jobs have been created; in the previous four years the state had lost...

TALLAHASSEE -- Lieutenant Gov. Jennifer Carroll has turned in her resignation to Gov. Rick Scott. The governor's office confirmed Carroll submitted her resignation Tuesday. Scott will hold a presser on the resignation this afternoon. Carroll was the first female elected as lieutenant governor in Florida and the first African-American elected statewide.

In February, Republican Gov. Rick Scott announced his intention to accept Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion in Florida. Since then, the governor has taken a lot of heat: heat from conservatives accusing him of betraying conservative principals; as well as heat from Democrats saying he didn’t go far enough... We’ll lay it out in a very plausible hypothetical. Imagine if Mr. Scott flew around the Sunshine State telling voters that Medicaid is broken and needs reform; that expanding the rolls and adding dependents to a broken system doesn’t make sense; and that when the federal cash starts to run out in...

In the wake of Gov. Rick Scott's appointment of Alan Forst to the Florida 4th District Court of Appeal, Sunshine State News has discovered that state Supreme Court Justices Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince donated nearly $30,000 to the liberal activist group that opposed Forst's candidacy. “I believe this is the first time in our history that two sitting Supreme Court justices have diverted campaign cash to a group that used the money to attack a fellow Florida Bar member nominated to the appellate court,” a former high-ranking government attorney tells SSN. “This action has the potential to undermine the...

When Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, decided in February to sign on to Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid, he made a much bigger splash than the other six GOP governors who have made the same decision. It was a complete reversal of the pledge Scott made last summer after the Supreme Court upheld the law: “We’re not going to expand Medicaid, because we’re going to do the right thing.” The stunning nature of his flip-flop has invited comparisons to his predecessor Charlie Crist, the Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat who developed a reputation for being as flexible in his principles as Gumby. In reality, Scott remains...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the Republican Party should abandon its efforts to curb voter participation through voter ID laws and restrictions on hours for early voting. “Should we really have gone after reducing the turnout of voters in those places where we thought it would make a difference?” he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, referring to November’s election, Politico reports. “The Republican Party should be a party that says, ‘We want everybody to vote,’ and make it easier to vote and give them a reason to vote for the party, not to find ways to keep them...

On August 23, 2011 the FBI arrested Imam Abu Taubah aka Marcus Dwayne Robertson. The charge was possession of a firearm by a previously convicted felon, Case Number: 6:11-mj-1380 Attached to Imam Abu Robertson’s case is a Notice of Intent To Use Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Information (FISA). The U.S. Government’s intention to use its FISA powers signals probable cause to charge Imam “Taubah” Robertson “the target of such search is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power”. The facts presented in these filed charges leads this reporter to suspect an element of foreign intrigue may be...