Commentary

COMMENTARY

We are losing our lions, the men and women who have given much of themselves to Florida

BY: - February 24, 2023

We are losing our lions, the people who have been Florida leaders for a long time. One by one we are losing a generation of the men and women who helped Florida become a decent place to live. The men and women who have given much of themselves to Florida and its well-being are leaving […]

COMMENTARY

Florida attorney general tries to make it easier to pave over wetlands

BY: - February 23, 2023

Court cases can be quite entertaining. And I don’t just mean the fictional courtroom dramas on TV, ranging from “Perry Mason” to “LA Law” to “Law and Order: No Not That One, The Other One.” In the four years I spent covering criminal courts for Florida’s largest newspaper, I saw some amazing cases. I saw […]

COMMENTARY

‘Don’t say Kim?’ Governor’s bill would regulate schools’ use of nicknames

BY: - February 19, 2023

The Republican Party’s obsession with sex and gender identity has reached a fever pitch in the Iowa Statehouse this year. Gov. Kim Reynolds and her gang of helicopter mothers are clutching their pearls so hard they must be cutting off oxygen to their brains. At this rate, they will end up banning rainbows before the […]

COMMENTARY

In Hurston’s Florida hometown, development plans inspire a revolt

BY: - February 16, 2023

Florida has inspired a lot of great writers, but which one would you say was the toughest? Was it Ernest Hemingway, who once punched out a poet in Key West? Or Carl Hiaasen, who was a hard-nosed investigative reporter before becoming the sharp satirist we all love to laugh along with? Or how about darkly […]

COMMENTARY

Fulton indictments coming in 2020 election probe, just not reeling big fish

BY: - February 16, 2023

There will be indictments. They are coming at the federal level – you don’t subpoena a former vice president in a high-profile criminal case unless and until prosecutions are likely — and they are coming at the state level here in Georgia. At least, I think so. That prediction is not based on leaks. To […]

COMMENTARY

DeSantis won’t let our young ‘uns be exposed to that ‘literature’ they push in government schools

BY: - February 13, 2023

What would you think if your child came home with a book about a boy running away to float down the Mississippi River on a raft with an adult Black man who calls him “Honey?” If that’s not grooming, I don’t know what is. And did you hear about the play they’re reading in English […]

COMMENTARY

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Please stop saying ‘crazy’

BY: - February 12, 2023

On Tuesday night, like millions of Americans we cooked dinner, turned on our television, and listened intently to President Joe Biden offer his perspective on the State of Union. We stayed to also listen to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders from Arkansas give the Republican response to the president’s speech. Because I lived in Washington, D.C., […]

COMMENTARY

White nationalism gets a hearing in the Republican House

BY: - February 11, 2023

Xenophobia is the original offense of the Trump era. The former president launched his campaign in 2015 by saying of Mexican migrants, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” It was a gross mischaracterization of facts, but the nativist message resonated with a Republican base primed by far-right media figures to despise non-white immigrants. When […]

COMMENTARY

‘We could save a lot of money if we got rid of the FL House and Senate altogether’

BY: - February 10, 2023

I’m wondering what happened to the Florida Legislature. I’ve kept up on happenings in the state Capitol over the years, and usually, lawmakers seemed to have brains and the guts to take action and solve the state’s problems. Now they merely bow down to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and do his bidding. We could save […]

COMMENTARY

Proposed natural gas plant in FL Panhandle tried to sneak through approval process

BY: - February 9, 2023

For years, whenever I had to drive through Port St. Joe on U.S. 98, I made sure to roll the windows up tight. Even when the air-conditioning had cut out on my old rattletrap car, I made certain there wasn’t the tiniest crack for the outside air to get in. That’s because this Panhandle town […]

COMMENTARY

Whose House? Biden’s House

BY: - February 8, 2023

Normally, when you’re a guest in someone’s house, it’s good manners to roll with the punches, and take whatever comes your way. Bed too hard? It’s only one night. You’ll live. Don’t like the soup they served for dinner? Maybe you packed snacks in your duffle bag. And if someone says something off-color or hostile […]

COMMENTARY

Bookman: Newt Gingrich is father of today’s compromise-is-surrender GOP politics

BY: - February 3, 2023

In an NBC News poll last month, just 23% of Americans said they believe the country is headed in the right direction. Among Republicans, just 7% liked the way things are going. (Among Democrats it was 41%.) In any country with such deep discontent within a major faction, this one included, it shouldn’t be a […]