Nationally, the Occupy movement has been relatively moribund for months. But today, May Day, a comeback is being planned of sorts around the country. What that will entail remains to be seen.
Locally, Occupy Tampa has not at this moment announced any big plans for today, but they do include this message on their website:
"Don’t go to work or class. Don’t shop. If you can’t strike, call in sick, or at least slow your work down. Let us celebrate what we do for the world and interrupt the system exploiting us."
Today Governor Scott's task force analyzing Florida's controversial Stand Your Ground law holds its first meeting. Yesterday state Senator Chris Smith released the recommendations of his own task force.
60 days from today the interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans for college students is scheduled to jump from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Democrats and Republicans in Washington both say they want to keep the lower rate, but disagree on how to pay for it. In St. Petersburg yesterday, Kathy Castor said the GOP wasn't sincere in wanting to keep the rate low.
The big story this morning in Tampa is on how the Republican Party of Florida got screwed when it came to hotel assignments for the Republican Convention this August. Committee on Arrangement officials deny that having the Sunshine State delegation farmed out to Palm Harbor is in any way a penalty for the state blowing off RNC bylaws on moving up the presidential primary date. At least Reince Priebus is showing more integrity about the threats issued about penalties than the last RNC Chair, Mike Duncan (Okay, I admit I had to look his name up!).
This article appears in Apr 26 – May 2, 2012.