For the day’s top political stories in the Sunshine State, start with the Florida Five:

Florida Gov. Scott makes 3 requests in meeting with Obama: Florida Gov. Rick Scott met with President Obama Monday, urging him to use his pen and his phone to stop raiding Medicare to pay for Obamacare and undo the devastating National Florida Insurance Program rate hikes on Florida families. Scott also called on the president to stand with the people of Venezuela by considering “sanctions against Venezuela as long as they limit free speech,” according to a statement from his office. Read more.

Marco Rubio rips into White House’s defense budget: The Obama administration started unveiling its 2015 defense budget on Monday and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is up in arms, insisting the cuts are too deep and are leaving America unprepared for military action. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with the media on Monday to highlight the 2015 budget which eliminates the A10 aircraft, a staple of the American military since the 1970s, and would reduce the Army to 440,000-450,000 soldiers, its lowest level since before World War II. Hagel’s proposal, which has the backing of the Joint Chiefs, meets the $496 billion defense cap included in the budget crafted by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and signed by President Barack Obama. Read more.

DOE releases teacher data: The Florida Department of Education released reams of data Monday on how well teachers did in increasing student learning — but both the agency and the state’s largest teachers union cautioned parents against reading too much into the numbers. The dizzying array of spreadsheets made public under court order included results for schools, districts and individual teachers. As a result, some of the documents were dauntingly lengthy — in one case, a spreadsheet including results for the state’s math teachers contains 133,580 rows of results. Read more.

Ben Carson fires at liberal media out ‘to destroy anybody who is telling the truth’: Outspoken conservative Dr. Ben Carson joined alongside keynote speaker U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to give attendees their money’s worth Sunday at the Palm Beach County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner. Urging those gathered at Donald Trump’s lavish Mar-a-Lago mansion to “pick up the mantle of courage,” the retired Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon stood firm on recent remarks he made that had the “PC police” on the left in an uproar. Read more.

Lawmakers call for restriction on Venezuelan oil, gas imports: Two Florida congressmen are demanding the Obama administration to take a strong stand against Venezuela and restrict oil flowing from the South American nation into the United States.In September, Maduro’s government accused the top American diplomat and two other embassy officials of supporting plots to sabotage the country’s economy and electrical grid, ordering the trio to leave the country immediately.The South Republican congresswoman was joined by fellow South Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz Balart in calling for stranger opposition to the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Read more.

BONUS :

Florida’s Governor Rick Scott and the Great Tax Migration

Jeb Bush Continues to Shape the GOP in Florida

For more Florida political news, visit BPR’s FLORIDA NEWS page

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Michele Kirk

Michele Kirk is the vice president and senior managing editor for BizPac Review. Michele can be reached at [email protected]

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