Columns

Dear Senator Baxley, About your statement that a Florida Slavery Memorial would "celebrate defeat" -- your opportunity to kill a tribute the entire Florida House voted for: There are those who are giving you the benefit of the doubt.  I'm not one of them.

The following video is Rep. Katie Edwards' impassioned plea to Rep.

Medical marijuana seems to be the topic du jour as the Legislature is getting ready for its final week of session.

In this month of legislative apology for atrocities done to child victims, there's a forgotten group of survivors out there. And they're asking, "What about us? Where is our apology?"

A lot of time and attention in schools is focused on the well-known “Three Rs”:  reading, writing and arithmetic.  These are considered the foundations of a basic-skills oriented education program and are seen as the areas of core-competency children must master in order to progress in their education and—ultimately—succeed in life.  However, there is a 4th “R” that is essential to the foundation of a child’s education and development.  An “R” that we often forget or take for granted:  Recess.

Nothing could be more confusing than fees charged by hospitals and doctors. There are many reasons why hospitals would like to keep it that way.

In a House of Representatives that makes a priority of members behaving ethically, how is it Rep. Cary Pigman gets to come back from a DUI arrest where his dishonor and dishonesty were on full dash-cam display -- and carry on as if nothing happened?

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah, we honor the memory of the six million Jews and other political, religious, and social minorities who were murdered in the worst genocide in human history. We take this moment to not only pledge to never let their memory fade, but solemnly rededicate ourselves to never allowing something so evil and heinous to occur again.

Foreign leaders and local interlocutors, aka pundits, might as well take a vacation for the next few minutes until Donald Trump's next foreign policy "strategy" surfaces from deep within his amygdala.

Happy Birthday, Frank Artiles. 

It took me less than five minutes with Pat Neal over a cup of coffee at the Doubletree in Tallahassee to see why he and Gov. Rick Scott are such good friends.

Three months ago, State Trooper Jonathan Otto, 33, of the Arizona Department of Public Safety pulled over a car that had caught his attention by traveling 104 miles per hour long after midnight, just south of Kingman. He smelled marijuana in the car. It was driven by a man with an adult female wearing only lingerie. Their passenger was a female juvenile whose fake document showed her to be 18. She was, Otto says, "not wearing a whole lot of clothing."

Frank Artiles is a racist lunatic. That is obvious. He is also a coward. That is obvious. He seems to pick on people who are smaller physically than he is.

William Forrester was on disability, and recently had a lung removed due to cancer. After he was unable to obtain painkillers legally, Forrester forged a prescription for 120 oxycodone pills, which he then filled at a drug store. When he did it again, the pharmacist called the doctor to confirm the authenticity of the prescription. After the doctor told the pharmacist he had not authorized the prescription, Forrester was charged with trafficking 15.6 grams of Oxycodone.

Senate President Joe Negron's immediate response after he heard about Sen. Frank Artiles' racial slur and other defamatory remarks delivered to fellow senators at the Governor's Club wasn't good enough.