Climate scientists are lending their computer modeling and data analysis and research findings and learned assumptions to the new governor’s first state hurricane conference this week. Gov. Rick Scott seems fine with that, as long as the brainy guys confine their theories to the short term.

In his short speech opening the conference Wednesday, for example, Scott didn’t object to warnings that Florida is statistically likely to absorb a big hit in 2011. He promised Florida would be ready. “We’re going to be very prepared.”

When state legislators across the nation introduce similar or identical bills designed to boost corporate power and profits, reduce workers rights, limit corporate accountability for pollution, or restrict voting by minorities, odds are good that the legislation was not written by a state lawmaker but by corporate lobbyists working through the American Legislative Exchange Council.

ALEC is a one-stop shop for corporations looking to identify friendly state legislators and work with them to get special-interest legislation introduced. It’s win-win for corporations, their lobbyists, and right-wing legislators. But the big losers are citizens whose rights and interests are sold off to the highest bidder.

Donald Trump, the developer and would-be presidential candidate, portrays himself as a swashbuckling entrepreneur, shrewder and tougher than any politician, who would use his billionaire's skills to restore discipline to the federal government.

In his disdain of big government, however, Trump glances over an expensive irony: He built his empire in part through government largesse and connections.

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and other top House Republicans are warning President Barack Obama not to issue a proposed executive order requiring disclosure of political donations by federal contractors, calling it "a blatant attempt to intimidate, and potentially silence, certain speakers who are engaged in their constitutionally protected right to free speech."

The proposal, which has not been formally introduced by Obama yet, would require big federal contractors and their top corporate officers and directors, to disclose their political donations, even to outside groups involved in "independent expenditure" campaigns. Business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are already infuriated by the move, and GOP congressional leaders in both chambers have come out against the initiative.