TAMPA, Fla. - Truck drivers Ron Baker and Craig Dawson have been eating at Brocato's Sandwich Shop on 5021 East Columbus Drive in Tampa for 40 years.

But state inspectors had a different opinion of Brocato's, writing up 226 violations in less than a year from February 2015 to January 2016 and needing to return 12 times for follow up inspections due to repeat violations.

***

Those temperature violations were so severe in October that inspectors issued a stop sale on 10 pounds of Spanish bean soup, 10 pounds of cooked green beans, and 10 pounds of black beans because they were improperly cooled and at dangerous temperatures.

The state also finding over a dozen other items in the cooler at temperatures that could make you sick. They include cut tomatoes at 52 degrees, butter at 70 degrees, cut lettuce at 57 degrees, cheese at 46 degrees, breaded chicken at 44 degrees, sofrita at 46 degrees, chorizo at 47 degrees, cooked pork at 46 degrees, and crab meat at 47 degrees.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/money/consumer/dirty-dining/dirty-dining-state-writes-up-tampa-landmark-for-200-violations-with-major-food-safety-issues

http://www.wcnc.com/story/news/local/2016/02/16/us-marshals-arrest-stafford-man-late-student-loan/80488576/



STAFFORD, Texas -- It sounds like the beginning of every college graduate's nightmares: unpaid student loans and the feds in hot pursuit.

One Stafford man says it became a reality all because of a forgotten student loan from 30 years ago.

"I was accosted like I was El Chapo," said Paul Aker, who is no Mexican drug lord. "The worst thing I've ever done is gotten a traffic ticket."

But this past Thursday, the Stafford resident says his past caught up with him from 1987 when he was a freshman at Prairie View A&M University.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-protesters_us_56c3e141e4b08ffac1270477

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Tuesday praised two audience members who tackled a protester at his rally in South Carolina.

"That was so great," Trump said after the takedown. "Who was the person who did that? Put up your hand, put up your hand. Bring that person up here. I love that."

Trump rallies are frequently raucous affairs that get confrontational, with the real estate mogul ejecting protesters and rallying supporters against them.

After summoning the two men at Tuesday's event to the stage, Trump asked them to speak to the crowd. "Do not let them intimidate you!" the first man said of the protesters. Praising Trump's candidacy, he told supporters: "We need to get some fresh blood up there, some fresh thinking. Donald Trump, you're the best we've got by far!"

https://www.facebook.com/TheKellyFile/videos/vb.1413426908872170/1763416807206510/?type=2&theater

“The idea that somebody could have stopped 9/11, based on the kind of information we had available at the time, is simply nonsense.” — Karl Rove

George W Bush’s support for Jeb is a reminder of his disastrous legacy
Owen Jones



http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/16/george-w-bush-elections-jeb-campaign-reminder-disastrous-legacy

As a fan of the zombie genre, perhaps I should welcome the resurrection of George W Bush. The former president has been largely discreet and absent since his calamitous reign ended more than seven years ago: perhaps hoping that, if temporarily forgotten, we would all forget his misdeeds, and history would eventually look at his presidency more kindly. But as he takes to the stump in an effort to re-energise his brother’s flagging presidential campaign, there is little doubt that Jeb Bush is a victim of the political polarisation his elder sibling helped unleash.

Not that it’s as simple as to say we live in the world Dubya built. A US foreign policy that, all too often, engaged in disastrous wars and backed dictatorships and terror groups predates his reign: so does the stagnation of living standards for millions of Americans. US power – after its temporary post-Soviet boost – was already in relative decline. And faced with the ranting demagoguery of Donald Trump, a certain nostalgia for Bush’s refutation of anti-Muslim bigotry is almost understandable.

But if history ever does one of those “Ah, was he really all that bad?” revisions, the answer has to be: “Yes, he was.”

Bush proclaimed a “war on terror” in 2001 with the mission of eradicating terrorism: more than 14 years later, terrorist and fundamentalist extremist groups are more powerful than they have ever been. The incalculable reputational damage suffered by the United States because of his policies – Guantánamo has still not closed, the use of torture and the illegal invasion of Iraq - has not dissipated. He bequeathed his successor the most disastrous economic situation since the 1930s, and we still remain in the aftermath.