SunRail opponents are calling on Gov. Rick Scott to require a voter referendum on the controversial commuter train before releasing any tax dollars to fund the project. Doug Guetzloe, founder and chairman of Ax the Tax, issued the demand Thursday afternoon, just hours before Scott is expected to announce a decision on the planned 61-mile rail line. "The cost to taxpayers is well in the billions and billions with no end in sight for this train from nowhere to nowhere," Guetzloe said.

Calling Barack Obama "a failed president," U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio said the tone of Wednesday's White House press conference "was more appropriate for some left-wing strong man." Quite frankly, I am both disappointed for our country and shocked at some of the rhetoric, Rubio told National Review Online after Obama fired more class-warfare salvos. It was rhetoric, I thought, that was more appropriate for some left-wing strong man than for the president of the United States.

With a recent poll from Fox News showing his bid for the Republican presidential nomination garnering less than 1 percent, former Louisiana Gov. Charles Buddy Roemer went on the attack on Thursday, blasting the leadership of President Barack Obama. The president's policies are truly meandering through the wilderness, said Roemer on Thursday. The time is now for a true American leader, not the administration that most people are having buyer's remorse over."

An early morning hearing for the lawsuit brought against Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature for requiring state employees and other local government workers to contribute 3 percent of their salary to their retirement plans has been delayed until the afternoon.

Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis is the grandson of Greek immigrants and serves as a co-chairman of the Hellenic Caucus in Congress. But looking at the collapse of the Greek economy and recent actions of that European nations government, Bilirakis said there was a lesson here that the U.S. should heed.

This could be the biggest FCAT horror story yet. North Port police have launched an investigation into a high school principal who hypnotized three students who later died, the U.K. Daily Mail reports. George Kenney was suspended from his job after he admitted hypnotizing a 16-year-old boy who committed suicide a day later. Another hypnotized student subsequently killed herself and a 16-year-old died in a car crash days after seeing the principal for the private session, the Mail said.

One hundred and twenty-three South Florida Water Management District employees who worried their jobs were on the chopping block did what probably was the smart thing: They accepted the district's contract buyout before the ax fell. This is their last day of work -- Thursday, June 30.

Sen. Don Gaetz, unofficially tapped to be the next Florida Senate president after Mike Haridopolos' term expires in 2012, will get the official title of Senate president-designate during a ceremony scheduled for Sept. 19 at the Capitol. Gaetz is one of the most powerful Republican leaders in the Senate, and chairs the Redistricting Committee.

A poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP), a firm with connections to prominent Democrats, showed Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson ahead of three leading Republican candidates who remain mostly unknown.

Another Republican has entered the GOP primary to challenge U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fort Lauderdale. Joe Kaufman, founder of Americans Against Hate, announced he will seek to take on the four-term congresswoman in 2012. Karen Harrington, who ran against Wasserman Schultz last year, announced earlier this year that she will run again. Kaufman has the support of Tea Party Fort Lauderdale, says that group's leader, Danita Kilkullen.

In a 2-1 decision, a 6th Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld Obamacare on Wednesday, ruling that the law's individual mandate requiring the purchase of health insurance is "a valid exercise of Congress's authority under the Commerce Clause." The decision came in a lawsuit filed by the conservative Thomas More Law Center. It was the first time a federal appellate court ruled on the controversial law. Full story upcoming.

With Republicans beginning a push for a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida joined his GOP colleagues in backing the idea on Wednesday. Washingtons massive spending and fiscal mismanagement has gone on long enough, and it is time for a balanced budget amendment to be enshrined in our Constitution, said Rubio. Our unsustainable debt and ever-rising deficits are not victimless practices -- they cause uncertainty that is actively killing jobs and threatening to leave future generations stuck with the bill.

Gov. Rick Scott's poll numbers are in the basement, leaving some Republicans to get skittish about how he might affect the 2012 elections, but so far he doesn't have to worry about a primary challenge in 2014 when his current term runs out. Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, thought by some to be the next likely Republican gubernatorial candidate after Scott's run is over, played down the notion that he would attempt to unseat Scott in 2014.

The itinerary during the Republicans' Presidency 5 summit in Orlando this fall is filling out. The American Conservative Union announced Wednesday that its first regional Conservative Political Action Conference will be held on Sept. 23. ACU will host the event a day after a Fox News presidential debate. The P5 presidential straw poll is scheduled for the summit's concluding day, Saturday, Sept. 24.

The Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in the lawsuit alleging Gov. Rick Scott overstepped his constitutional authority in issuing an executive order halting new agency rules from being finalized until they had his approval.