News & Public Affairs
Tampa City Council gets code enforcement update listen
09/18/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Tampa City Council, code enforcement, public health
Tampa City Attorney Chip Fletcher today provided an update to the City Council on the situation involving liens against city property deemed to be in violation of code enforcement laws.
Fletcher said the city has been working on collecting fines from properties worth $175,000 and up. He said there are currently millions of dollars in outstanding fines, but he admits that the liens are more expensive than the value of the properties in some cases so the city will never realize that amount....
Be the first to commentObama campaign discusses strategy listen
09/18/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Wall Street, economy
Jim Messina is one of the top people in the Barack Obama campaign that you’ve never heard of.
He’s the Campaign Chief of Staff, hired in June after serving as chief of staff to Montana Sen. Max Baucus.
In the hierarchy of the Obama team, he reports directly to Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe.
Yesterday Plouffe said the Obama camp will spend $39 million in an effort to win Florida this November.
Yesterday, Obama unveiled a 2-minute commercial outlining his economic policies, a...
Be the first to commentSiegel: Triumph of culture over politics - Part 2 listen
09/18/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Lee Siegel, politics, culture
New polls released in the past few days indicate that John McCain’s bounce from the Republican National Convention and his selection of Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin has subsided.
The election remains neck and neck, 47 days before Americans go to the polls. But there is no doubt that the selection of only the second woman on a presidential ticket has added a new dimension to the race.
Some analysts have said that the insertion of the pro-life, pro NRA Palin has brought the culture wars back...
1 commentsBartlett Park residents get free energy audits listen
09/17/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Energy conservation, Progress Energy, St. Petersburg, Bartlett Park
Residents of the Bartlett Park neighborhood in south St. Petersburg are getting free energy audits of their homes. The program, sponsored by Progress Energy, kicked off this morning with a press conference and some home audits.
Goliath Davis, deputy mayor for Midtown Economic Development with the city of St. Petersburg, said this is the city’s second collaboration for home audits with Progress Energy – the first was in Child’s Park.
Davis said resident...
Be the first to commentWill St. Pete join with county for curbside recycling? listen
09/17/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Recycling, St. Petersburg City Council, Rick Baker, Pinellas County
Pinellas decided last week to move ahead with a plan to offer curbside recycling for all county residents by next year. Despite opposition from the mayor, several St. Petersburg City Council members are trying to get the county’s largest city on board.
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker has long opposed curbside recycling citing environmental and financial costs. On Monday, St. Petersburg City Council member Karl Nurse wrote a letter to officials from the city and Pinellas County suggesting...
1 commentsEffect of climate change on Caribbean nations studied listen
09/17/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Hurricanes, Gustav, Ike, Caribbean
Hurricane Ike killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean before reaching the United States. Gustav, which slammed the U.S. two weeks earlier, killed more than 70 people in Hispaniola and Jamaica when it was still a tropical storm.
Ramon Bueno is co-author of a recent Tufts University Study entitled, “Caribbean and Climate Change: The Costs of Inaction.” He spoke to WMNF today.
For more information go to sei-us.org.
Be the first to commentVoting rights activist looks at upcoming election
09/17/08 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Wednesday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Caging lists, electronic voting, paper trail
Good afternoon, welcome to WMNF’s Radioactivity. I’m Rob Lorei. Coming up, we’ll talk about some unusual letters the Republican Party is sending to voters. Some voting rights activists think it might be a way to deny people the right to vote in the presidential election.
But first, some listener comments about yesterday’s program. Yesterday we heard parts of speeches by John McCain and Barack Obama addressing how they would deal with the financial problems on Wall Street.
This morning ...
1 commentsFlorida CFO blasts John McCain on economy listen
09/17/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: 2008 Election, John McCain, Barack Obama, economy, Wall Street
Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink waded into the presidential race today when she discussed the recent Wall Street meltdown. Sink blasted John McCain several times on a statewide conference call for his comment on Monday that the "fundamentals of the U.S. economy are sound."
Sink said she came to that conclusion after briefing Gove. Charlie Crist and fellow board members about the hit taken on the state’s treasury from the bankruptcy filing of investment banking giant Lehman Bro...
Be the first to commentAward named after controversial conservative listen
09/17/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Moral Courage Award, Ralph Hughes, Hillsborough County Commission
Despite searing criticism from some members of the public, the Hillsborough County Commission voted today to rename the Moral Courage Award after former GOP power broker Ralph Hughes.
Hughes died in late June at the age of 77, and was called “the father of conservatism” in Hillsborough County by former Commissioner Joe Chillura.
Because of his pro-development and conservative ideology, Hughes was a controversial prescence in Hillsborough politics over the years, and several people came ...
Be the first to commentMcCain blames greed for economy's problem listen
09/16/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: 2008 Election, John McCain, Barack Obama, economy, energy resources
A day after telling a campaign crowd "the fundamentals of our economy are strong,” Republican presidential nominee John McCain dedicated most of his 18-minute speech in Tampa to criticizing the damage that Wall Street’s “unbridled greed” has done to the country’s economy.
McCain was joined on stage today at the Tampa Convention Center by his wife Cindy, Sen. Mel Martinez, former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez and former Sen. Jack Kemp. McCain said that if he and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sa...
1 commentsMcCain, Obama present ideas for dealing with Wall Street meltdown
09/16/08 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Tuesday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, deregulation, Phil Gramm, derivatives, credit default swaps, John McCain, Barack Obama
Yesterday the New York Stock Market dropped more than 500 points. Today presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama talked about how they'd deal with the financial mess created by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions.
First we'll hear from John McCain, who used the first section of his speech today at the Tampa Convention Center to addresss the financial crisis. Then we'll hear from Barack Obama who offered his solutions at a speech in Colorado.
Af...
Be the first to commentOffshore drilling bill discussion begins in Congress listen
09/16/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
The House of Representatives began debate today on lifting the federal moratorium on offshore drilling. The bill is being supported more by Democrats than Republicans, who say the legislation would keep too many coastal areas off limits.
The bill also includes measures to strip oil companies of billions of dollars in tax breaks and to require electric utilities to use more wind and solar power.
Brooksville area GOP Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite spoke out against the bill on the floo...
Be the first to commentProgressive think tank urges media to raise the stakes listen
09/16/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: 2008 Election, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, media
Today a group of progressive leaders said they are challenging the mainstream media in the U.S. to raise their game in covering this year’s presidential election.
The Institute for America’s Future is a liberal think tank based in Washington. Today it’s president, Robert Borosage, announced that the group was launching a seven-part ad campaign in the New York Times.
Borosage said the media’s coverage has descended in recent weeks to a road to nowhere. But he says his group isn’t naïve...
Be the first to commentCritic on 'The Triumph of Culture over Politics' listen
09/16/08 Mitch E. PerryWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Lee Siegel, financial crisis, Barack Obama, John McCain
Lee Siegel is a cultural critic who wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. In “The Triumph of Culture Over Politics,” Siegel writes that liberals always think there’s something broken in politics, while conservatives always think there’s something wrong with the culture. And because of that, he says, Sarah Palin and the Republicans have the edge in November.
WMNF spoke with Siegel today from his home in New York City, and began by asking if he agreed with ...
Be the first to commentCastor pushes for better health coverage listen
09/15/08 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Monday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: health care, health insurance, Kathy Castor, FCAN
Tens of millions of Americans do not receive quality health care because they simply can’t afford insurance or their coverage is inadequate. This morning, a coalition of consumer groups and activists demanded health care for everyone outside a South Tampa health center.
A woman pushed her crying baby in a stroller along the sidewalk and through the front doors of the Floyd “Doc” Kelton Community Health Center. Minutes later, Tampa-area U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor kic...
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