Columns

WASHINGTON -- Children, children. Here we are in the midst of a bloody clash in Egypt, more than 100,000 slaughtered in Syria, another looming debt crisis at home, and we're consumed with angst over a rodeo clown who wore an Obama mask and invited the crowd to cheer for the bulls.

"Sire, clear the square with gunfire or abdicate." That was the message one of his generals gave the young czar Nicholas I in December of 1825, as thousands of civilians and soldiers massed in Senate Square to challenge his claim to the throne.

WASHINGTON -- As a reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, many federal drug laws carry strict mandatory sentences. This has stirred unease in Congress and sparked a bipartisan effort to revise and relax some of the more draconian laws.

The U.S. tax code is complicated, unfair and punitive. And thats putting it mildly.

WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama's increasingly grandiose claims for presidential power are inversely proportional to his shriveling presidency.

By almost every measure from national rankings to our economic climate, Floridas teachers and parents have many reasons to be proud. But we also know that success is never final.

WASHINGTON -- Three years out and you'd think the deed was done: Madame President Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton.She's everywhere these days because: (a) It's August; (b) Reporters are bored with President Obama; (c) Reporters are bored with Joe Biden; (d) Clintons are never boring.

Tampa superlawyer John Morgan has pledged to put a constitutional amendment on the 2014 ballot that would let doctors prescribe marijuana to patients who might derive some medicinal benefits from it.

Two recent events -- one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast -- raise painful questions about whether we are really serious when we say that we want better education for minority children.