After 10 Glorious Years, Sunshine State News and I Are Passing the Baton

With Washington gearing up for a continued fight over the federal budget, freshman Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Dennis Ross said on Wednesday that he was helping back legislation to ensure Social Security, Medicare, military pay and veterans' benefits would keep flowing even if a shutdown occurred. But he also insisted President Barack Obama was to blame if a federal shutdown did occur.

Mosaic Co.'s woes continue as a federal judge Monday extended an order keeping the fertilizer producer from expanding one of its Florida phosphate mines. Mosaic's stock opened the day Tuesday 5.2 percent down. The company has vowed to fight both the ruling and a related lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club. The environmental group claims Mosaic's South Fort Meade mine operations damage not one but two watersheds.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul will not seek re-election to the Texas U.S. House seat he's represented for nearly 24 years, and instead will concentrate on getting the Republican nomination for president to run against President Obama in 2012, a Texas news service reported Tuesday. "I felt it was better that I concentrate on one election," Paul told The Facts, a news service covering Brazoria County, a portion of which the libertarian-leaning Paul represents.

Former U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson just will not go quietly into that good night. The bilious Grayson, apparently not chastened by his double-digit smackdown at the hands of Daniel Webster in the 2010 election, nor ashamed of tagging his opponent "Taliban Dan" in an egregiously unfair attack ad during the campaign, announced Monday that he is running for Congress again.