News & Public Affairs
Gelber on recent conviction of "mini-Madoff" listen
10/22/10 Kate BradshawWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Dan Gelber, Pam Bondi, 2010 election, Florida politics, fraud, investment fraud, attorney general's race
Yesterday a New York judge sentenced Art Nadel to fourteen years in prison for defrauding hundreds of investors in a Sarasota-based ponzi scheme. The 78-year-old Nadel is known to some as a mini-Madoff, and will be doing his time in the same prison as Bernie Madoff. At a roundtable today in Sarasota, state senator Dan Gelber, the Democratic nominee in the attorney general’s race, announced that’s he’d assemble a unit to tackle investment fraud if elected. Today WMNF spoke with Gelber, who say...
Be the first to commentInterview with US Rep Alan Grayson who faces uphill battle for reelection listen
10/22/10 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Friday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Alan Grayson, Daniel Webster, federal stimulus, Iraq War, Afghanistan War
One of the most progressive members of the U.S. Congress represents parts of the Orlando area … and his seat is in danger.
Democrat Alan Grayson is in an uphill battle against his main opponent, former state House Speaker Daniel Webster. There are two others in the race for Florida’s 8th Congressional District as well, Peg Dunmire, with the Tea Party, independent George Metcalfe, and write-in Steven Gerritzen.
WMNF made several requests to interview Daniel Webster, but they have not b...
Be the first to commentUSF holds straw poll, shows Sink victory but conservative turn listen
10/21/10 Kate BradshawWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: USF, elections, straw poll, Alex Sink, Rick Scott, Kendrick Meek, Charlie Crist, Marco Rubio
Polling may shape many people’s outlook on the upcoming midterm elections, but some say they don’t offer an accurate sampling of who will actually show up at the ballots. Today a mock election took place at the University of South Florida, and the results show a turn to the right.
If the University of South Florida were an accurate representation of Hillsborough County on the whole, Alex Sink would be the next governor, getting 53 percent of the vote to Scott’s 33 – a 20-point margin. All ...
Be the first to commentBurton Hersh, author of "Edward Kennedy: An Intimate Biography"
10/21/10 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Wednesday)
Burton Hersh first met Ted Kennedy when they were undergraduates at Harvard. Hersh has written for Esquire and the New York Times and has covered the Kennedy family for years. In this new book, Hersh draws on his close association with Ted Kennedy to reveal a lot behind Chappaquiddick, Watergate, Ted's private life and his emergence as one of the most effective US senators in recent memory. The book is EDWARD KENNEDY: AN INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY (Counterpoint Press). Hersh will be speaking this Sat...
Be the first to commentInterview With George Packer Of The New Yorker Magazine
10/21/10 Robert LoreiRadioactivity: Live Call-In (Thursday) Listen to this entire show:
Tags: George Packer, New Yorker, ponzi state, St. Petersburg Times, Poynter Institute, Times Festival of Reading
Good afternoon, welcome to Radioactivity. I'm Rob Lorei. George Packer is a writer for The New Yorker. He's known for his long-form reporting and for interviewing dozens if not hundreds of people for each story he writes. He's covered border issues, the war in Iraq, the stimulus program, Israeli peace activists, and Florida's housing crisis (in a famous article entitled "The Ponzi State"). He'll be in St. Petersburg at the Times Festival of Reading this Saturday and be speaking at The Poynter...
Be the first to commentAlex Sink and Rick Scott duke it out in TV debate listen
10/21/10 Lisa Marzilli, Seán Kinane, FPRWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: 2010 election, Alex Sink, Bill Clinton, Rick Scott
Florida's gubernatorial candidates went head to head last night in a lively debate at Nova Southeastern University in Davie. Polls show Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Alex Sink in a close race that's coming right down to the wire.
True to a playbook that he's used earlier in the campaign, Scott portrayed Sink, Florida's Chief Financial Officer, as a failed fiscal watchdog.
Sink responded after Scott coined a new term for her fiscal plan: he called it "Obama Math."
But Sink took...
Be the first to commentFair Districts Florida amendments 5 and 6 seek to stop gerrymandering listen
10/21/10 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Thursday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Fair Districts, redistricting, amendments, amendments 5 & 6, Corrine Brown, ACLU, NAACP, labor
Florida voters are deciding on two proposed amendments to the state Constitution that establish new rules for redistricting. Some say the current system is unfair and point to the statistics: over the last six years, only three incumbents have been defeated out of more than 420 races for the Florida Legislature. But opponents say minorities could lose seats.
If passed, Amendments 5 and 6 would establish more guidelines for the Legislature to follow when districts are realigned. They call ...
5 commentsIndustry-sponsored "Clean Gulf" conference draws fire listen
10/20/10 Kate BradshawWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Gulf oil disaster, Deepwater Horizon, Corexit, Noralco, BP, FDEP
Six months ago today, an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers. The deep water well may have been dead for three months, but the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed left a stain on the Gulf Coast’s environment as well as its economy. Entities involved in the cleanup touted their response efforts, but not without getting an earful from critics.
The annual Clean Gulf conference is in its twentieth year, but this is the first one since the Deepwater Hor...
Be the first to commentAmerican consumers partly to blame for BP oil spill, says first book on Gulf disaster listen
10/20/10 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Wednesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: BP, BP oil spill, Gulf oil spill, NRDC, fossil fuels, alternative energy
Today, several environmental groups sued BP for the effect of the oil disaster on endangered Gulf of Mexico wildlife.
The groups, Defenders of Wildlife, Gulf Restoration Network and Save the Manatee Club, accuse BP of violating the Endangered Species Act and want the fossil fuel giant to restore habitats and mitigate the impact of the disaster that began six months ago today.
Meanwhile, the first book on the BP oil disaster has been released. It’s called [*In Deep Water – The Anatomy of...
Be the first to commentPalestinian village of al-Walaja being surrounded by settlements. listen
10/19/10 Doris NorritoWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Palestine, Israel, settlements, Middle East
You won't find al-Walaja on a map of Israel: The tiny Palestinian village close to the Green Line is fast disappearing, swallowed by settlements encroaching on Palestinian land in the West Bank.
Be the first to commentFlorida Attorney General candidates Dan Gelber and Pam Bondi debate in Orlando listen
10/19/10 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Dan Gelber, Pam Bondi, 2010 election, attorney general, health care reform, gay adoption, LGBT
In their only TV debate, Attorney General candidates Pam Bondi and Dan Gelber tangled over issues like gay adoption and the new health care law. If elected, Republican Bondi wants to push ahead with a law suit challenging the federal health care reform law.
But Gelber, a Democrat, thinks the lawsuit is frivolous and has no chance of succeeding.
Gelber opposes Florida’s ban on allowing gay couples to adopt, a policy a judge recently found to be unconstitutional.
Bondi says she’ll foll...
Be the first to commentAlex Sink ad has video of 1995 Rick Scott deposition listen
10/19/10 Seán KinaneWMNF Drive-Time News Tuesday Listen to this entire show:
Tags: Alex Sink, Rick Scott, health care, 2010 election
The Alex Sink for Governor campaign is out with a new ad. It contains clips of her Republican opponent, Rick Scott, answering questions during a 1995 deposition. Or, more accurately, not answering questions.
It’s posted on YouTube and is pieced together from a video deposition from 1995 when Scott was head of Colombia/HCA:
