South Florida pols sticking to party lines on fiscal cliff

WASHINGTON --
Don’t expect South Florida’s congressional delegation to stray too far from party lines when it comes to dancing on the edge of the fiscal cliff, the end-of-the-year spending cuts and tax increases set to take effect if Congress and the president don’t address them.

Democrats are firmly with President Barack Obama, whose proposal seeks to raise $600 billion over a decade by eliminating tax deductions and $960 billion over the same period by raising tax rates for the top 2 percent of income earners. Many Democrats sounded as though the highly charged presidential campaign was still under way.

Republicans are just as committed to their party.

There’s been "no evidence thus far" that Republicans are truly interested in the middle class, said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, of Weston, who the president just asked again to head the Democratic National Committee.

"We need to continue to focus on rebuilding our economy from the middle class out," she said during an appearance on MSNBC.

"President Obama talked eloquently and passionately during the campaign about making sure that we can get a handle on this deficit, that we can rebuild our economy from the middle class out, that we can focus on creating jobs and getting the economy turned around," she added.

Equally firm: South Florida Democratic Reps. Alcee Hastings, of Miramar and Frederica Wilson, of Miami. Both are members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which released a statement of principles this week calling for the Bush-era tax cuts to expire on the wealthiest Americans.

Social Security should be completely off the table, the caucus warned, and it said it would oppose any plans that change the eligibility for Medicare or cut Medicaid, the statement said.

Some Democrats made conciliatory moves, however. Sen. Bill Nelson said that during his campaign, voters told him they want consensus and an end to partisan gridlock.

"They want bipartisanship," he said in a video message. "They want to stop the ideological rigidity."

It’s the only way to rebuild the economy and reduce the federal deficit, while preserving Social Security and Medicare, he said. He called on people of both political parties "to reach across the aisle and work together so America doesn’t go over the cliff."

That’s unlikely to come from his Republican counterpart, Sen. Marco Rubio, who along with former vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin was featured in a speech this week in Washington.

Rubio blamed the "complicated and uncertain tax code" for "hindering the creation of middle-class jobs." He gave no hint he would be interested in supporting the president’s tax proposal on the wealthiest Americans.

"You can’t open or grow a business if your taxes are too high or too uncertain. And that’s why I personally oppose the president’s plan to raise taxes," Rubio said. "This isn’t about a pledge. It isn’t about protecting millionaires and billionaires. For me, it’s about the fact that the tax increases he wants would fail to make even a small dent in the debt but it would hurt middle-class businesses and the people who work for them."

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, of Miami, was one of the few Republicans from South Florida to suggest she’d be open to tax reform, saying there needs to be a review of the tax code "to remove special interest tax loopholes used by the wealthy."

But she warned that the country’s debt exists "not because tax rates are too low, but because government spends too much."

Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, also of Miami, said he was less optimistic about a resolution now than he was right after the election.

He said he feels as though Republicans have moved closer to the president without getting credit for it.

"I’m very disappointed with the president’s response," he said in an interview.

"The speaker put forward a proposal, and whether you agree with it or not, there are a couple of things beyond debate: He’s gotten closer to the president’s position."

Even those on their way out of Congress made no move to cross party lines. Republican Rep. Allen West, of Plantation, who was ousted by Democrat Patrick Murphy, warned constituents in a letter that he didn’t think there was a true plan to reduce spending.

Rep. David Rivera, a Republican who lost his re-election bid and who will be replaced by Democrat Joe Garcia, did not respond to a request for comment.

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US designates Syria’s Jabhat al-Nusra front a ‘terrorist’ group at lightning speed

The US State Department designated the Jabhat al-Nusra militia fighting Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria a foreign terrorist organization today.

The speed with which the US government moved to designate a fairly new group that has never attacked US interests and is engaged in fighting a regime that successive administrations have demonized is evidence of the strange bedfellows and overlapping agendas that make the Syrian civil war so explosive.

The State Department says Jabhat al-Nusra (or the “Nusra Front“) is essentially a wing of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the jihadi group that flourished in Anbar Province after the US invaded to topple the Baathist regime of secular dictator Saddam Hussein. During the Iraq war, Sunni Arab tribesmen living along the Euphrates in eastern Syria flocked to fight with the friends and relatives in the towns along the Euphrates river in Anbar Province.

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The terrain, both actual and human, is similar on both sides of that border, and the rat lines that kept foreign fighters and money flowing into Iraq from Syria work just as well in reverse. Now, the jihadis who fought and largely lost against the Shiite political ascendancy in Iraq are flocking to eastern Syria to repay a debt of gratitude in a battle that looks more likely to succeed every day.

The Nusra Front has gone from victory to victory in eastern Syria and has shown signs of both significant funding and greater military prowess than the average citizens’ militia, with veterans of fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya among its numbers.

The US of course aided the fight in Libya to bring down Muammar Qaddafi. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the chance to fight and kill Americans was the major drawing card.

In Iraq, the US toppled a Baathist dictatorship dominated by Sunni Arabs, opening the door for the political dominance of Iraq’s Shiite Arab majority and the fury of the country’s Sunni jihadis. In Syria, a Baathist regime dominated by the tiny Alawite sect (a long-ago offshoot of Shiite Islam) risks being brought down by the Sunni majority. Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is in the odd position of now rooting for a Baathist regime to survive, frightened that a religiously inspired Sunni regime may replace Assad and potentially destabilize parts of his country from Haditha in Anbar’s far west to the northern city of Mosul.

For the US, the situation is more complicated still. The Obama administration appears eager for Assad to fall, but is also afraid of what might replace him, not least because of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile. If the regime collapses, the aftermath is sure to be chaotic, much as it was in Libya, where arms stores were looted throughout the country. The presence of VX and sarin nerve gas, and the fear of Al Qaeda aligned militants getting their hands on it, has the US considering sending in troops to secure the weapons.

That’s the context in which today’s designation was made – part of an overall effort to shape the Syrian opposition to US liking, and hopefully have influence in the political outcome if and when Assad’s regime collapses. But while the US has been trying to find a government or leadership in waiting among Syrian exiles, Nusra has been going from strength to strength. Aaron Zelin, who tracks jihadi groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, notes in a recent piece for Foreign Policy that 20 out of the 48 “martyrdom” notices posted on Al Qaeda forums for the Syria war were made by people claiming to be members of Nusra.

Zelin writes that it’s highly unusual for the US to designate as a terrorist group anyone who hasn’t attempted an attack on the US. In fact, the US only designated the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan, which had been involved in attacks on US troops there for over a decade, this September.

His guess as to why the US took such an unusual step?

The U.S. administration, in designating Jabhat al-Nusra, is likely to argue that the group is an outgrowth of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). While there is not much open-source evidence of this, classified material may offer proof — and there is certainly circumstantial evidence that Jabhat al-Nusra operates as a branch of the ISI.

Getting Syria’s rebels to disavow Jabhat al-Nusra may not be an easy task, however. As in Iraq, jihadists have been some of the most effective and audacious fighters against the Assad regime, garnering respect from other rebel groups in the process. Jabhat al-Nusra seems to have learned from the mistakes of al Qaeda in Iraq: It has not attacked civilians randomly, nor has it shown wanton disregard for human life by publicizing videos showing the beheading of its enemies. Even if its views are extreme, it is getting the benefit of the doubt from other insurgents due to its prowess on the battlefield.

Will it hurt the group’s support inside Syria? It’s hard to see how. The US hasn’t formally explained its logic yet, but it’s hard to see how that will matter either. The rebellion against Assad has raged for almost two years now and the country’s fighters are eager for victory, and revenge. The US has done little to militarily assist the rebellion, and fighters have been happy to take support where they can get it.

Most of the money or weapons flowing into the country for rebels has come from Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and some of that support, of course, has ended up in the hands of Islamist militias like Nusra.

Usually the US doesn’t like support flowing to its designated terrorist organizations, and leans on countries like Saudi Arabia to cut off support. But in this case, a doctrinaire enforcement of its will could look like helping Assad (who has insisted everyone fighting his government is a terrorist since long before Nusra even existed).

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Will and Jaden Smith Survive After Earth

Will Smith and his son Jaden haven't shared the big screen since 2006's The Pursuit of Happyness. Now the father-son duo pair up once more for M. Night Shyamalan's post-apocalyptic thriller After Earth, and we're showing you the new trailer.

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In the film, opening June 7, 2013, a father and son crash land on a now-abandoned Earth. While the father, General Cypher Raige lies dying after the accident, his 13-year-old son Kitai must play the soldier, searching for the rescue beacon -- their only chance to be saved.

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Man executed on busy Midtown street in planned ‘hit’

David McGlynn

Police investigate the scene where a man was executed on West 58th St.

A man in a business suit was executed in broad daylight on a Midtown street packed with holiday shoppers, tourists and workers returning from lunch yesterday, in what authorities called a carefully coordinated “assassination.”

The victim, 31-year-old Los Angeles resident Brandon Lincoln Woodard, had just left a hotel and was walking on West 58th Street shortly before 2 p.m. when his silent assassin came out of nowhere, authorities and witnesses said.

Woodard, the father of a 4-year-old girl, was texting before the shooting, sources said.

Getty Images

GORY DETAIL: With a barrier to shield the bloody scene from passers-by, police look over the scene where Brandon Lincoln Woodard (right) was gunned down yesterday.

The killer walked up behind him, whipped out a silver semiautomatic handgun and fired once into the back of his head.

SEE A MAP OF HOW THE MURDER WENT DOWN

Woodard fell on his back with blood pouring from his face outside St. Thomas Choir School, a Christian boys boarding school at 202 W. 58th St., about a block from Carnegie Hall and Columbus Circle.

The shooter disappeared as if he were “a ghost,’’ one witness said.

He coolly hopped into a waiting light-colored Lincoln sedan, with a getaway driver behind the wheel.

The car headed east but initially was caught in traffic and stopped at a red light at the intersection.

But both coldblooded riders didn’t panic and stayed inside the car — just feet from Woodard’s body — before turning down Seventh Avenue and disappearing.

“There was no rush,” NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said of Woodard’s killer. “He just walked up, shot him and walked away.”

A police source said the shooting was “definitely a hit, an assassination.”

Investigators are probing a possible connection to drug dealing.

Woodard was charged with cocaine possession in California last June and has prior arrests for robbery, petty theft and leaving the scene of an accident.

Police are also exploring to what extent Woodard — who once claimed he was roughed up by bodyguards working for R&B superstar Usher — had ties to the music industry, law-enforcement sources said.

Woodard, who was wearing a black suit, was dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital.

The shooter was described as black, wearing a dark coat with a brown hoodie and khaki pants.

David Mirambeau, 29, a UPS worker delivering packages, said the sound of the gunshot reverberated down the street.

“I just heard a gunshot. It was loud. There was blood all over his face,” he said of Woodard. “He was gasping for air. He was still alive.”

Mirambeau said several cellphones and an iPod lay near the man’s body.

The grisly exit wound on Woodard’s face led witnesses to report he had been shot in the front, not the back, of the head.

Witnesses ran to a firehouse at 215 W. 58th St. to say a man had been shot.

“I ran over to the Fire Department, banged on the door, and they came out immediately,” said Benny Harris, 44.

“Within minutes, they were cutting the guy’s clothes off,” he said.

“We didn’t see the perp,” Harris added. “We all ran over there, and nobody was around. He must’ve been a ghost.”

Police sources said investigators had found surveillance footage of the gangland-style murder but were unsure whether to release it because it doesn’t show the killer’s face — and it’s extremely graphic.

A single shell casing was recovered, police said.

Relatives poured into the Woodard family home in LA to pay condolences, but declined to comment.

“Brandon was a wonderful man — kind heart, smart, good person,” said family friend Chrissy Roussel, who added that Woodard was attending Whittier Law School in California and was visiting friends in New York.

Woodward’s father, J. Lincoln Woodard, 72, said, “It was a shock.”

The victim worked at United International Mortgage, an LA firm founded by his mother, Sandra McBeth-Reynolds.

Additional reporting by Chuck Bennett, Matthew McNulty and Jamie Schram in New York and Genevieve Wong in Los Angeles

kirstan.conley@nypost.com

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U-Haul chase suspect appears in Miami-Dade court on Sunday

The suspect arrested in connection with Friday’s chase through the streets of Miami-Dade in a rental U-Haul truck appeared in front of judge Sunday morning.

Darrell Conyers, 45, made his first appearance in bond court.

Conyers faces a number of charges including grand theft, fraud and resisting arrest with violence.

During the hearing, the judge noted that the only charge before her was driving with a suspended license. For that she set bond at $2,000. Conyers will return to bond court at a later time for the additional charges.

Conyers was scheduled to appear in court on Saturday but was unable to do so because he was still in the hospital being treated for injuries he sustained at the end of the chase which apparently started as an attempted robbery at a tool shop on South Dixie Highway.

For 45-minutes the U-Haul truck weaved in and out of city streets, jumping on and off the Palmetto Expressway and headed in different directions along Southwest Eighth Street and Flagler Street.

The chase finally came to an end 12:45 p.m. next to Miami Senior High in Little Havana on Flagler Street and 26th Avenue.

When officers moved in to apprehend the driver, an unidentified Miami-Dade Police officer was injured when he was pinned between the U-Haul truck and a police vehicle. He was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital where he was treated for a broken leg.

Another Miami officer cut his hand from broken glass. Police say that happened when officers had to break the glass on the U-Haul truck to get the suspect out of it.

Police said Conyers has had previous run-ins with the law and has convictions for firearm violations, fleeing police and carjacking.

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HTC still tripping Samsung up in Windows Phone race

It is not clear that Samsung (005930) even cares — but HTC (2498) continues outmaneuvering its far bigger rival when it comes to Windows Phones. The budget HTC Windows Phone 8S is no available from UK operator Three starting at the notably low £17 per month contract price. This is about half of what the monthly contract price of Samsung’s ATIV S Windows Phone model is expected to cost in the UK. Once it finally arrives. Possibly during the last week of the year. There is no firm word on when ATIV S might arrive on AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) at this point.

So not only did Samsung miss the U.S. and European Christmas sales seasons completely with its first Windows Phone 8 device, HTC actually managed to get both the high-end Windows Phone 8X and the budget 8S out before Christmas in some key markets. And Three now actually seems to be giving robust marketing support for HTC’s Windows Phone devices. They are featured prominently on the website and 8X buyers get a free Windows Pro upgrade for their PCs.

It is worth noting that the Windows Phone 8S looks very competitive in the UK prepaid market with a £180 price tag at Three. The Samsung Galaxy S Advance  is £270 and Nokia’s (NOK) Lumia 710 is £200.

HTC recently started looking like Jessica Biel — too bland and too expensive — but with the 8S, it might be getting some of its European budget groove back. It is now starting to look like the November sales momentum HTC just showed will extend to December.

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Singer Jenni Rivera Feared Dead in Plane Crash

The remains of a private plane carrying singer Jenni Rivera have been found in Mexico with no survivors following a suspected crash. 

Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, Mexico's Secretary of Communications and Transportation, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that, on Sunday, officials found the remains of an airplane that was carrying the Mexican-American superstar and her entourage who were traveling from Monterrey to Toluca, Mexico.

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The small jet had been carrying seven passengers (Rivera included) and lost radio contact with the airport a few minutes after departing in the early hours of the morning following a concert, reports THR.

The singer's father and brother later confirmed to Telemundo that Rivera died in the crash.

With the sad news, Latin artists all over the world took to Twitter to express their heartbreak.

Gloria Estefan mourns, "Our deepest sympathy to the family & fans of @jennirivera & those that accompanied her on what was to be her last voyage. Rest in peace."

Ricky Martin says, "This is sad. A bit in shock. Much peace to your family." (Translated from Spanish)

Eva Longoria writes, "My heart breaks for the loss of Jenni Rivera & everyone on the plane. My prayers go out to her family. We lost a legend today."

William Levy tweets, "My heart goes out to the families. I wish them all the strength in the world." (Translated from Spanish)

Paulina Rubio mourns, "My friend! Why? There is no consolation. God help me!" (Translated from Spanish)

Pitbull writes, "I highly respected #JenniRivera 4 being a gr8 performer but more then tht being real & gr8 example 4 us all que dios la bendiga &may she RIP"

Rivera, 43, was currently a featured coach on The Voice Mexico. A California native, the singer earned several Latin Grammy nominations and recently signed on to star in an American sitcom with ABC titled Jenni.

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Long after storm, LIRR restores normal service

The Long Island Rail Road is running on a normal rush hour schedule for the first time since Superstorm Sandy forced it to trim service.

The busy commuter railroad suffered a big hit when floodwaters rushed into two critical rail tunnels beneath the East River, damaging the signal system used by LIRR and Amtrak trains.

Repairs are still ongoing, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Saturday that work crews had restored enough of the system for the LIRR to resume a regular schedule on Monday. Trains have been running for weeks, but service had been limited.

That meant bigger crowds on some trains and platforms.

Work will continue on the signal system in a second tunnel over the next few weeks.

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Back in the fast lane: AutoNation expanding again

Despite an agonizingly slow economic recovery, the country’s largest auto retailer, Fort Lauderdale-based AutoNation, is thriving again as demand for vehicles expands.

The company, one of Florida’s largest, is posting increasingly strong profits and revenues. Just last week, in a sign of confidence, Autonation announced a major acquisition — buying six large auto stores in Texas — that will add about 700 employees to its national payroll of 19,400.

In announcing the deal Tuesday, which is expected to provide AutoNation with $575 million in additional revenues next year, the company’s CEO and chairman, Mike Jackson, expressed optimism about the prospects for continued growth in vehicle sales.

“You want to know what I’m thinking, look at what I do,” Jackson told viewers on CNBC’s Squawk Box program.

No information was released on the cost of the transactions, but in recent years auto dealerships sometimes sold for three to five times revenue, which would represent a significant investment for the company.

Tough times

To be sure, AutoNation has struggled through some tough times. It was battered by the Great Recession, which depressed sales and pushed the company into a $1.2 billion loss four years ago. As sales began to improve in 2010 and 2011, it was blindsided by a shortage of Japanese-made cars last year after the earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 shut down Japanese manufacturers of some essential components.

Since then, however, AutoNation has rebounded. Unit sales, revenues and profits all performed well in the first three quarters of this year, and the company expects new vehicle sales to continue their recovery nationwide, rising to the mid-14 million units this year, up from about 12.7 million in 2011. In the third quarter of 2012, AutoNation’s new car unit sales grew by 21 percent over the same period in 2011, doing better than an estimated 15 percent increase industry wide. November’s sales of new vehicles increased by 21 percent over November 2011 .

The big dealerships acquired sell Audi, Porsche, Volkswagen and Chrysler products in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth markets. They are expected to sell 14,000 new and used autos this year, and will add substantially to AutoNation’s future sales.

“We are in the right industry at the right time,” Jackson said during an interview. “The recovery in new vehicle sales is being driven by replacement demand,” added Jackson, who has 42 years of experience in the auto business. “The average age of the light vehicle fleet in the country has increased to 11 years, and even though cars and trucks last longer today, they can’t go on forever. About 12 to 13 million vehicles are scrapped every year and need to be replaced.”

Other factors are contributing to stronger demand for vehicles. “The population is growing, interest rates are low, there is ample credit available and manufacturers are producing a wide range of new models that offer attractive styling, power and greatly improved gas mileage,” said Jackson, who took over as AutoNation’s CEO in 1999. “Auto financing is more available than it has been in recent years. A little known fact is that people are more likely to default on a mortgage than on a vehicle loan.”

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State scraps plan to have private vendors make license tags

TALLAHASSEE --
Backing away from a possible court fight, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced Friday that it will halt its attempt to bid license tag services to private vendors.

Tax collectors — who distribute state tags — and two manufacturing groups tried to block the change by lobbying elected officials and filing legal action against the department.

Highway Safety Chief Julie Jones had wanted to save money by paying private companies $31.4 million over two years to make tags and distribute mail and online orders, but she abandoned the idea under pressure from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, among others.

“We listened to what everyone had to say, considered questions that vendors posed and received information from our tax collector partners,” Jones said. “Based on the input, we have decided to withdraw [efforts to privatize].”

The decision will keep Florida out of administrative court, which is where it seemed headed Tuesday after department lawyers shut down tax collectors’ requests to retract its invitation to bidders.

Jones’ change of heart earned praise from Bondi, who said the department “did the right thing.”

Manufacturing company Avery Dennison and St. Petersburg-based PRIDE, a nonprofit organization that uses prisoners to manufacture tags, filed formal protests and met with state officials this week.

For them, the state’s decision may only be a temporary victory.

Stephen Hurm, an attorney for the state highway agency, told tax collectors Friday the department will not seek to privatize plate distribution but could reignite the push as early as January to bid out the manufacturing role.

The state may want to switch from raised tags to the more modern flat tags that are thought to be more legible for red light and toll cameras. PRIDE doesn’t have the equipment to make flat tags.

Hillsborough County Tax Collector Doug Belden says he will fight the state if it moves to exclude PRIDE.

“Why change a system that is working well and that customers enjoy? My job as an elected official is to provide the most friendly, capable customer service for the best price. We’re doing that,” said Belden, who criticized Jones for excluding tax collectors in her decisions.

Belden, along with PRIDE lobbyist Wilbur Brewton, argue that flat tags are no easier to read and are more expensive — which will result in more fees for motorists. The company may try to invest in new technology if that’s what it takes to continue working with the state, Brewton said.

“Is the equipment currently sitting in the plant to do it? No,” he said. “This could cause harm, but we would have to calculate that once we see the details.”

Jones hasn’t committed to any tag — flat or raised, she said. She just wants something legible and well-priced.

“We want to get the best product moving into the future in terms of technology, but at a cost that’s affordable,” Jones said. “This is going to be done in a cost-effective manner.”

The controversy over the tags is not expected to stall a planned redesign.

Floridians can continue to vote on four designs for a new state tag at Vote4FloridaTag.com. About 50,000 people have weighed in. The deadline is Dec. 14.

Brittany Alana Davis

can be reached at bdavis@tampabay.com .

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