Columns

We got the headline on Tuesday's Citizens' rate increase story wrong. It wasn't the abuses that forced a 5.3 percent average increase in Citizens' insurance policies in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. It was the Florida Legislature, pure and simple.

You can fool some of the people all of the time. You can fool all of the people some of the time. You can't fool all of the people all of the time. Stephen Bittel isn't fooling the majority of black folks right now.

"Contrary" does not quite capture Steve King's astringency. The Iowa native and conservative congressman was born, appropriately, in Storm Lake, and carries turbulence with him. He also carries experience of actual life before politics, when he founded a construction company, which is one reason he has long advocated an excellent idea -- repeal of the Davis-Bacon law.

In one of Walker Percy's brilliant novels, "The Second Coming," protagonist Will Barrett keeps falling down for no apparent reason. He also suffers trances during which he contemplates existential questions.

I probably should have called Peter Schorsch out a long time ago. But in a sea of liberal Tallahassee media who show Sunshine State News nothing but clenched teeth, Schorsch occasionally threw us a bone. So I let a lot slide.

The House Ways & Means Committee has held its first hearings on tax reform this year and the business community in this country is optimistic that our elected officials may be able to pass legislation to fix our tax code. This is an opportunity that may not come again and it is imperative that something be passed as soon as possible, because the American economy cannot wait another 30 years for reform.

Sparkling in the sunlight that inspired 19th-century romantic painters of the Hudson River School, Sing Sing prison's razor wire, through which inmates can see the flowing river, is almost pretty. Almost. Rain or shine, however, a fog of regret permeates any maximum-security prison. But 37 men -- almost all minorities; mostly African Americans -- recently received celebratory attention. It was their commencement -- attended by Harry Belafonte, 90, and the singer Usher -- as freshly minted college graduates. Their lives after prison will not soon, if ever, commence, but when they do these men will have unusual momentum for success.

Yesterday Sean Phillippi printed a column in The Florida Squeeze, in which he alleged I was a Republican plant, out to singlehandedly destroy the Florida Democratic Party.

Ever since the Special Session ended, the mainstream media in Florida have been breathlessly reporting that John Morgan, the Orlando attorney, who financially spearheaded both amendment drives to install medical marijuana in our state Constitution, is going to sue the state because the Legislature didn’t allow the smoking of marijuana.

Clearly the new regime at the Florida Democratic Party learned nothing from the chorus of boos that Debbie Wasserman Schultz received at the DNC convention.

Does anybody besides John Morgan believe Richard Corcoran saved the day for Amendment 2 in Florida? 

As you know, Florida is a state that continues to grow exponentially year after year. In fact, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2016 annual report, our population increases by 1 percent annually, bringing an additional one million people to Florida every five years. We are fortunate that our great state continues to flourish, however we will need to continue to invest in things like energy infrastructure if we want to continue to live, play and work in the sunshine state.

As far as I know, light beer is still beer. It may be watered down, but it is still beer.

Sensing that his Scottish enemies had blundered at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650, Oliver Cromwell said, "The Lord hath delivered them into our hands." Philip K. Howard, were he the exulting type, could rejoice that some of his adversaries have taken a stand on indefensible terrain. Because the inaccurately named Center for American Progress has chosen to defend the impediments that government places in its own path regarding public works, it has done Howard the favor of rekindling interest in something he wrote in 2015.

This column is a vehicle for a number of items in a bits-and-pieces, strictly opinion, sometimes irreverent format. Look for "Just Sayin'" to run once a week in this spot.