Columns

Medicaid patients in Florida are finding it more and more difficult to find a primary care provider. Only 5 percent of Florida physicians accept patients on Medicaid.

NEW YORK -- While sorting through the perennial lip-pursing tempest about a certain word in Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" -- the "N-word," as we now say it -- I turned for inspiration to the master himself. "The difference between the almost-right word and the right word is ... the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning," Twain wrote.

"He possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy." That's what Barack Obama said as he announced the appointment of his new chief of staff, William Daley, before a crowd of admiring White House staffers.

The Senate and the House convened the 112th Congress, passing and adopting mostly routine housekeeping measures and conducting leadership elections.

"The success of a party means little except when the nation is using that party for a large and definite purpose," said Woodrow Wilson in his first inaugural. "No one can mistake the purpose for which the nation now seeks to use the Democratic Party."

This week in Florida we witnessed the inauguration of our 45th governor, Rick Scott, a candidate unlike any who came before him in his approach to both the election and to governing.With his election also comes a belief that he will usher in a new era of leadership in the Sunshine State.

The Illinois Department of Transportation has reached a cooperative agreement with Union Pacific and Amtrak that permits the release of a $1.1 billion federal high-speed rail grant to the state of Illinois to fund passenger rail improvements between Chicago and St. Louis.

Curious fact, unearthed by Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal. The average age of Republican House members in the new Congress convening this week is 54.9, younger than the Republicans' average age in the previous Congress, 56.5. But the average age of House Democrats has risen, from 58 to 60.2.

Our national media elite reviewed 2010 with great sorrow for how America has besmirched itself in the eyes of the world with its "seething hatred" of Muslims. CBS anchor Katie Couric announced on her Internet show that there wasn't enough evaluation of "this bigotry toward 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide" which was "so misdirected, and so wrong -- and so disappointing."

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is considering canceling the results of the November elections by changing the Senate rules when senators conduct their opening day procedures Wednesday.