Transparency in state government has little hope if the attorney general isn't on board. Florida is fortunate. Pam Bondi, the Sunshine State's attorney general, most definitely is. She was anxious last week to talk about her respect for the First Amendment and Florida's open government laws. And her conversation with me about them (video below) is central to my "Heroes and Zeroes" column in Monday's Sunshine State News. Stay tuned in the morning.

While most economists look for signs the United State is climbing out of bad times, Yale University Professor Robert Shiller claims chances are "substantial" that the country is heading right back into another recession. Economist and author Shiller points to a weak U.S. housing market and a murky global economy, and he claims the country is at a "tipping point," at the edge of "a fresh economic contraction."

Mass transit skeptic Wendell Cox tackles what he calls "exaggerations" by SunRail advocates in an article in New Geography. Shooting down claims of large-scale job creation and healthy ridership, Cox concludes that the planned 61-mile commuter line is a financial boondoggle that won't make a dime's worth of difference to Central Florida's clogged highways. "Every cent of the likely cost overruns will be on a blank check drawn on the account of Florida taxpayers," Cox predicts.

Gov. Rick Scott released his weekly radio address on Friday afternoon andfocused on jobs and Fathers Day. This week Floridas unemployment rate declined for the fifth month in a row. At 10.6 percent for the month of May, it has dropped from 12 percent since I became governor in January. In that time, Florida companies have created approximately 80,000 jobs, said Scott. While we still have a lot more work to do until we create jobs for every Floridian who wants one, we see evidence we are on the right track.

Politico is reporting that state Rep. Luis Garcia, D-Miami Beach, will challenge Republican U.S. Rep. David Rivera in 2012. While Garcia, who fled Cuba at an early age, barely held on to his state House seat in 2010, which represents parts of Miami-Dade County, he is no easy mark by any means. Having served as Miami Beach fire chief and having spent more than 50 years in the area, Garcia is well-established in the community.

A new poll found New Hampshire is Mitt Romneys to lose.

A member of the Republican congressional majority from Florida turned up the heat on President Barack Obama to get serious about three free-trade agreements currently stalled in Washington. U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan urged passage of the agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. Buchanan, Floridas only member of the Ways and Means Committee, said that the committee was poised to move on the agreements, perhaps as early as next week.

After whiffing on attacking former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts on health care in Monday nights debate, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty attacked the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination over the issue on Friday.

Florida's unemployment rate dropped slightly again in May, falling 0.2 percentage points to 10.6 percent overall, according to numbers released Friday by the state Agency for Workforce Innovation. It's the Sunshine State's lowest unemployment rate since August 2009, when the jobless rate was also 10.6 percent. The year-over-year decline in the jobless rate is 0.7 percent, and there are 980,000 unemployed workers out of a total work force in the state of 9.25 million. There were 28,000 nonagricultural jobs added in May.

A recent Politico story mentioning the National Education Association's support of AT&T's multibillion-dollar buyout of T-Mobile exposed some more dirty and not-so-little secrets about the country's largest teachers' union. Now Mike Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency connects more dots. The Politico story noted that the NEA Foundation received $75,000 from AT&T last year, suggesting the donation may have influenced NEA boss Dennis Van Roekel.

After watching the Republican presidential candidates debate on Monday night, a prominent conservative offered some words of praise for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. Ken Connor, currently with the Center for a Just Society and formerly with the Family Research Council, and well-known to Floridians for leading the state chapter of the Christian Coalition and running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1994, on Friday offered his thoughts on the Republican field and had some kind words for Paul.

In the face of a legal challenge from the ACLU of Florida over drug testing state workers, Gov. Rick Scott has slowed down the process for the implementation of the policy, but promised Thursday that he is still "moving forward" with the screenings.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts may be the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination -- but according to a new poll, he is hearing the footsteps of the newest GOP hopeful, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

As he continued to campaign and fundraise in the Sunshine State on Thursday, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts -- the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination -- announced the support of three Florida congressmen and one of the leading figures of the state Senate.

Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan cheered the House Judiciary Committee for forwarding a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution and urged the House leadership to schedule a floor vote as quickly as possible. "We can't wait any longer," said Buchanan, who has introduced similar measures since first taking his seat in Congress in 2007. "The time is now for Washington to make the tough choices necessary to balance the budget for taxpayers today and for future generations."