Commentary

COMMENTARY

I don’t see any “white privilege,” do you?

BY: - July 26, 2019

Editor’s note: This is satire. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of all the haters. White people invented everything–Big Macs, sales tax, Spanx, malls, Lite beer, Taylor Swift, the NFL–every single dang thing that makes the US of A the greatest nation in the galaxy. You’re welcome. Now all of a sudden, we’re […]

COMMENTARY

Importing prescription drugs into Florida is more show than serious policy

BY: - July 18, 2019

During a visit to The Villages last month, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed SB 1528 into law, legislation that establishes a prescription drug importation program that would allow the state of Florida to import less expensive prescription drugs from Canada. Florida joins Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia to use such laws to address rising […]

COMMENTARY

A newspaper helped victims get justice when it seemed impossible

BY: - July 15, 2019

If there’s ever any question why journalism matters, look no further than the case of Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Because of dogged investigative work by the Miami Herald – and the courage of Epstein’s victims who spoke out – Epstein sits in a New York jail right now, facing charges that he sexually exploited […]

COMMENTARY

Wait, you’re not going to drink that, are you? (Or swim in it or even touch it?)

BY: - July 10, 2019

The water is trying to kill you. The Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, plus Florida’s rivers and springs and lakes and streams and sloughs and marshes and creeks and sinks, can be–and often are–deadly. Wait, you’re not going to drink that, are you? What comes out of Florida’s taps can be a bit […]

COMMENTARY

We celebrate the birth of our nation but not the latest assault on our principles

BY: - July 4, 2019

Today we celebrate the Fourth of July and the 243rd anniversary of our nation. Ours is a country founded on the principles of freedom and self-determination. It took some time – and the passage of many amendments and federal intervention – to address the suppression of the vote of Black people and women. But we […]

COMMENTARY
Florida wetlands

On environment, Florida Legislature refuses to close the barn door

BY: - July 1, 2019

Florida lawmakers came away from this spring’s session congratulating themselves on the heroic job they did in defense of Florida’s environment. After the Rick Scott years, that wasn’t hard. Unfortunately, it wasn’t true. With Gov. Ron DeSantis’ leadership they did a heroic job of spending money on trying to repair self-inflicted damage. They did nothing […]

COMMENTARY

Cruelty, Inc.

BY: - June 28, 2019

You will have heard the news: on Monday, June 24th, Customs and Border officers removed a couple of hundred children from a filthy, overcrowded “detention center” on the Mexico border. Come Tuesday, June 25th, 127 of those same children were returned to that same detention center, a place called “inhumane” by lawyers who had seen […]

COMMENTARY

Refusal to close the Medicaid coverage gap echoes a dark era from the South’s past

BY: - June 24, 2019

This column originally appeared 6/11 on NC Policy Watch, one of our sister news sites in the Newsroom network. Like North Carolina, Florida has refused to expand Medicaid to cover more needy families.  In his recent “must read” book on the history of Jim Crow and how it shaped (and was itself shaped) by a […]

COMMENTARY

The monarch butterfly migration is amazing. A new public-private partnership proposal might help

BY: - June 17, 2019

In the vast, big-sky coastal marshes of St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge south of Tallahassee, the air is thick with migrating monarch butterflies on certain fall days. Driving through, it’s impossible not to hit some, and when I do, I’m appalled that I’ve just exterminated an insect that may have flown over 1,000 miles to […]

COMMENTARY

More women are running for president than any time in U.S. history: How cool is that?

BY: - June 9, 2019

UPDATED Check it out: There are more women running for president right now than at any time in American history. We have six women (four of them sitting U.S. senators) vying for president in 2020 – all Democrats. We also have 102 women serving in Congress – the largest contingent in American history. When the […]

COMMENTARY

Sandy D’Alemberte: A legal giant who fought for the little guys

BY: - June 3, 2019

On the day former Florida State University President Talbot “Sandy’’ D’Alemberte died, a young lawyer named Jose Godinez-Samperio learned he had just won an appeal on behalf of 17-year-old woman who had been facing jail. Godinez-Samperio was one of thousands of young “dreamers’’ brought to this country by his parents when he was 9 years […]

COMMENTARY

Who says American elected officials have to stay in America to do their jobs?

BY: - May 29, 2019

Why all the fuss about Gov. DeSantis, the Florida Cabinet, and 94 of his besties making a little pilgrimage to the Holy Land? When the Count of Toulouse set off for Jerusalem in 1096, he brought with him a dozen clerics, at least 40 nobles, and a few thousand French soldiers, plus his wife and […]