The late Ralph Hughes, shown with state Sen. Ronda Storms in 2006 at a Plant City Republican event.

The Tampa Tribune is reporting that a new court filing by the Internal Revenue Service has more than quadrupled the amount of money it says it is owed by the estate of the late Ralph Hughes, a powerful anti-tax power broker in Hillsborough County.

From the Trib story:

Before he died last year, conservative powerbroker Ralph Hughes fraudulently took millions of dollars of his companies’ assets, leaving the businesses insolvent and owing nearly $300 million to the IRS, the federal government says in a new court filing.

Earlier this month, Hillsborough County Commissioners voted to remove Hughes’ name from the county’s Moral Courage Award. Hughes’ family asked that his name be taken off the award after The Tampa Tribune and TBO.com revealed the Internal Revenue Service claim that Hughes died owing more than $69 million in federal taxes.

Hughes’ family has disputed the IRS charges, saying he paid millions in taxes and would not avoid his responsibilities to the government.

That breaks down to “$128 million in back taxes, $117 million in penalties and $54 million in interest.”

On Wednesday, Hillsborough’s Moral Courage Award became respectable again. The County Commission voted 7-0 to remove Ralph Hughes from the award’s name. It also agreed to not to assign any honorary name to this award, going forward.

I attended this week’s commission meeting to throw my 2 cents in when I saw that Commissioner Rose Ferlita had put the Moral Courage Award discussion on the agenda.

During public comment I thanked Ferlita for having the COURAGE to bring this disgraceful item out in the open. I told Commissioners Ken “Half-Truth” Hagan, Al Higginbotham, Kevin White and Jim Norman that they should be ashamed of themselves for putting the name of a convicted felon and alleged tax cheat on this award.

Don’t they realize that it’s not about repaying your financial backers by naming awards after them??? It’s about respecting what the award means to the people who win it. Many of these board members just don’t get it. Last year, when a previous award winner tearfully gave the award back to the commission after the Hughes renaming, Half-Truth Hagan took the award back from the woman and threw it in his wastebasket. They act like there are only two groups that exist in Hillsborough County, themselves and their developer money men. Citizens? who are they? Did they contribute the max to my campaign? No? Let them eat asphalt!!!!

Norman still thinks that having an award named after a convicted felon and alleged tax cheat is a great idea and he said so during the discussion. He thinks that Hughes was some type of hero because he fought for what he believed in. Fighting for what you believe in regardless of what others think might be admirable, but it’s the other things that Hughes was known for that made him less than respectable. He used his money and influence to strong-arm elected officials to favor business interests over public interest. His actions in that regard amounted to pure political patronage and, as such, were the worst examples of moral courage that I have ever seen. And Norman still wants to honor that? He will never get it.

Side Note: An interesting thing occurs when you address the board during public comment. The citizen-oriented commissioners look at you intently, focusing on what you have to say. Team Sprawl, on the other hand, shuffles their papers, looks at their watches, doodles on paper, twits on their blackberries, leans over to chat and joke with each other. They openly show their disdain for the average folks who weren’t heavy contributors to their campaigns.

Hillsborough County commissioners will discuss dropping conservative activist Ralph Hughes’ name from the county’s Moral Courage Award on Wednesday.

Commissioner Rose Ferlita put the controversial issue on the agenda for discussion weeks after the federal government said Hughes died owing $69 million in unpaid taxes.

Ferlita told the Tribune on Tuesday that Hughes’ son Shea has sent a letter to the commissioners asking that his father’s name be removed from the award.

UPDATE: County commissioners did just that. The vote this morning was unanimous.

Three Republicans continue The Suck.

Ralph Hughes died owing more than $60 million in back taxes.

Brian Blair beat the shit out of his teenage sons on Father’s Day.

Mark Sanford cheated on his wife.

None of this surprises me.

A rich man gets greedy and leaves his heirs to deal with the consequences? Yawn. Wake me when Wall Street 2 comes out.

A former wrestler produces two problem children and beats them when they turn out like their old man? Yawn. Wake me when Brian Blair and Hulk Hogan star in their own reality show.

And I don’t even care about what Mark Sanford does… I mean, have you seen his wife or heard her go on and on about The Lord? Christ. Don’t cry for him, Argentina.

I try very hard not to get angry about what is typical. What really pisses me off is the goddamn hypocrisy.

Ralph Hughes, Mr. Moral Courage Award, supported politicians who railed against welfare moms and illegal immigrants. He hailed himself as fiscally conservative and hated people or policies that drained our society of precious resources.

Yet he was fleecing more money than a Mexican Mama with a dozen brown babies.

Brian Blair benefited from Ralph Hughes’s donations and influence. In return, Blair voted against protecting gay victims of bullies in school and bemoaned the lack of traditional family values in our morally bankrupt society.

Yet he’s a piss-poor parent, the head of a traditionally dysfunctional family.

But perhaps worst of all, Mark Sanford is a man who would take rights away from others in order to protect the “sanctity of marriage.” He dared to get on national television and hold himself up as a man of God and used the power of Jesus to get elected.

Then he goes to South America for some strange.

Again, it’s the hypocrisy that frustrates and angers most free-thinking adults. Through the magic of Facebook and Twitter, here is what some of you had to say:

About Ralph Hughes…

“Just one more example of the Hills Co cesspool of political corruption bubbling over to expose its very messy underbelly.The honest workers of Hills Co who have tried in vain for years to report corruption are having a good laugh now.”

About Brian Blair…

“I noticed he’s listed as unemployed, Maybe he was thinking about making a wrestling career comeback, and figured he’d get some practice in on his kids?

He was best known for his sleeper hold.
silly bee”

About Mark Sanford…

“I’m sure Sanford never would have had an affair if the gays didn’t ruin marriage.”

From her story:

The agency has filed a claim with Hughes’ family trust seeking more than $69 million in unpaid income and business taxes and interest for the years 2003 to 2007.

Hughes’ beneficiaries – his widow and two of his three children – are contesting the IRS claim, arguing Hughes paid millions in taxes.

After Hughes died at age 77 on June 27, 2008, Hillsborough County commissioners voted to rename the county’s Moral Courage Award for him. The decision was controversial, with detractors accusing commissioners of repaying their benefactor and injecting politics into what was supposed to be a nonpartisan award.

The Tampa Tribune has “suspended” its summer internship program in a cost-saving move. Managing Editor Duke Maas told internship seekers in this e-mail (obtained by Romenekso):

From:
Date: Tue, Jan 6, 2009 at 9:55 AM
Subject: The Tampa Tribune 2009 summer internship program.

To:

I bring you sad news regarding The Tampa Tribune’s 2009 summer internship program.

Due to our current economic situation, we have had to make some difficult choices regarding our newsroom budget.

It is unfortunate, but we have decided to suspend our 10-week summer internship program for this year.

I apologize to you for how all of this has unfolded. I know you have invested time, energy and hope in the applying for the positions we posted six months ago. Unfortunately, we were unable to foresee the current conditions that have led us to suspend the program.

My hope is that this news reaches you in time to apply for other opportunities with internship programs.

I wish you good luck in your search.

Sincerely,

Richard (Duke) Maas

Managing Editor
The Tampa Tribune

This, of course, is the same program that brought intern Jessica DaSilva (now an editor at UF’s Independent Florida Alligator daily) to the Tribune so she could blog how much she supported Coats’ efforts to reinvent the newsroom, even in the face of staffing cuts. Her blog post boosting Coats became a point of contention in the media blogosphere.

On the other side of the bay, the St. Petersburg Times is airing a television ad touting how popular it is and how chock-full of news its sections are in counterattack to Janet Coats-Denise Plumber’s frong-page declaration of war. I saw it yesterday morning on Bay News 9. (I’m told the video has been on the Times website for a few weeks.) The ad is shot at the Panera Bread location on S. Howard Avenue in South Tampa, where a Trib and Times box appear side by side. Times readers throughout the ad keep popping in two quarters to make the St. Pete purchase, while at the end of the and the Trib box is opened to show a super-huge stack of unpurchased Tribunes. (I’m trying to catch the ad on DVR so I can post it for you, but if you get a copy before me, holler.)

Game on!

This from the tbo.com coverage:

Eileen Hart wiped tears from her eyes minutes after she gave back her Moral Courage Award at today’s Hillsborough County Commission meeting.

Two weeks ago, the commission voted to rename the award, which is given to citizens who challenge government, for controversial political activist Ralph Hughes. When Hart, who won the award in 1996, learned Hughes was a conservative power broker who helped finance commissioners’ political campaigns, the award lost its meaning, she said.

“It’s pathetic that they would name an award for a person when it’s a nonpartisan award,” Hart said outside the commission chambers. “It should have nothing to do” with politics.

Now, that took moral courage!

Hart is now a contender for our own Moral Courage Award, which CL took over after the county sullied it beyond repair. Here are the details on how you can nominate someone for their moral courage.

The answer seems to be no. Earlier this year, in January, the remaining dollars in the PAC’s bank accounts — more than 700,000 of them — were spent, leaving less than $8,000 in the PAC that was originally endowed with a $1 million check from Hughes’ Cast-Crete company. The vast majority of the money went back to Cast-Crete, listed as a “prorata return of contribution.” The rest went to state and federal income taxes and accountants.