Columns

There is one group in Hillsborough County Jeff Vinik can’t buy.

Could House Minority Leader Janet Cruz’s insults to African-American voters cut any deeper than bragging about endorsements from Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, an unapologetic racial profiler, and the Tampa Bay Times which took many not-so-subtle racist jabs at Andrew Gillum during the Democratic primary?

Just a few weeks ago, analysts thought that control of the U.S. Senate was in play this November and that momentum was shifting to the Democrats. Thanks to their brutal campaign of character assassination against now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, those chances appear to be slipping away.

Six months ago no National Football League team would be caught dead involving itself in a state election.  But now look: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Miami Dolphins have sunk $500,000 apiece into a committee to defeat Amendment 3, the 2018 ballot measure that would give voters the power to reject any expansion of casino gambling.

James Madison Institute's just-released analysis of the two main governor candidates' economic platforms could wither a cactus. 

The devastation in the Florida panhandle left in Hurricane Michael's wake has been heartbreaking. Lives are in chaos, and any help that can be sent is needed and welcome. That's why questioning what's behind Sen. Bill Nelson’s motives to drive donations to the area has been difficult for me. Nobody, least of all myself, would want to curtail dollars sent in to help the storm victims of the panhandle.

When my husband, Lubek, moved from communist Poland to America many years ago, he thought he had left behind Kafkaesque tribunals where government officials suppressed speech under vague or non-existent laws. But that was before we had the wall outside our house in Mount Dora painted with a mural in the style of Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.”

If Monday's Supreme Court decision doesn't light a fire under Florida's conservative base, I have no idea what will.

More Americans would go to the polls if somebody would just entertain them when they get there. Sad, but apparently true. There's research to prove it. Throw a parade, a picnic, a barbecue, a block party in enough cities and Florida polling places could lure 4 percent of the otherwise lazy and disengaged.

When the Democratic Progressive Caucus issued its endorsements this week, one prominent name was omitted: Janet Cruz.

Donald Trump may be remembered as the most honest president in modern American history.

With the rapid development of Hurricane Michael in the Gulf of Mexico, most Floridians saw an imminent life-and-death threat to the panhandle and Big Bend region of their state. 

Public power utilities in the Florida panhandle are bracing for the impacts of Hurricane Michael, which will make landfall sometime Wednesday afternoon as a potential Category 3 hurricane. Currently, the Florida public power utilities of Tallahassee, Havana, Chattahoochee, Quincy and Blountstown are all in the potential impact zone.

As Florida braces for a direct hit from a powerful hurricane, we must be on the lookout for more than just the approaching storm. Anyone who has suffered damage to his or her property can become the target of unscrupulous scams involving dishonest contractors and their dodgy trial lawyer buddies. And we thought hurricanes were the destructive force!

You wait. Michael will go down as the most political hurricane in Florida history.