A day after Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam became the first state Cabinet officer to back a presidential candidate, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts unveiled the endorsement of Florida CFO Jeff Atwater on Wednesday. With the support of Putnam and now Atwater, Romney is the only Republican presidential hopeful to have the backing of leaders who currently hold statewide office in Florida.

Is the GOP co-opting the tea party movement, or are tea partiers taking down the establishment and sending the RINOs packing?

A lengthy New York Times magazine article this week quoted several establishment Republicans crowing over what they see as the demise of the two-year-old tea party activism.

Bill Kristol, the neoconservative editor of the Weekly Standard and a Fox News contributor, said the tea party peddles "an infantile form of conservatism."

The Department of Juvenile Justice has run afoul of a key senator over the use of psychotropic drugs on youth in its lockup facilities, and the question of whether the agency takes concerns about the issue seriously enough.

Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Children, Families and Elder Affairs, scolded agency officials earlier this week after they responded to questions about DJJ's policies on medicating children without mentioning the agency's internal investigation into the practice.

While Herman Cain and Rick Perry chip away at Mitt Romney, does Michele Bachmann deserve a second look?

Gov. Rick Scott, Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, CFO Jeff Atwater and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam took a bus to the Kennedy Space Centers Operations and Checkout Building. Missing was Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had attended the earlier Cabinet meeting at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

"The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government ..."
-- U.S. Constitution