Columns

The shortest honeymoon on record is officially over. Normally, newly elected presidents enjoy a wave of goodwill that allows them to fly high at least through their first 100 days. Donald Trump has not yet been sworn in and the honeymoon has already come and gone.

If Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for drug czar, marijuana advocates might not be as disappointed as they imagine.

In 1929, Chief Justice William Howard Taft convinced Congress to finance construction of "a building of dignity and importance" for the Supreme Court. He could not have imagined what the court will ponder during oral arguments this Wednesday. The case concerns the name of an Asian-American rock band: The Slants. And surely Taft never read a friend-of-the-court brief as amusing as one filed in this case. It is titled "Brief of the Cato Institute and a Basket of Deplorable People and Organizations."

As the week wound down, the Everglades Foundation (EF) and South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) already had produced more sequels in their epic battle over Everglades reservoirs than we ever got from "Clash of the Titans."

Stephen Bittel succeeded in buying his way into the FDP chair position. He conned people -- enough of them, anyway -- into believing money will win elections.

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.

As Rob Bradley's Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Environment and Natural Resources moves forward, its members might want to "weight" some of the scientists, engineers and other "experts" they're relying on to educate them.

Republican challenger for state party chair Christian Ziegler denies he is running a "scorched earth" campaign, as some committee men and women around the state complain.

Who was it who said, "When liars figure, figures lie"? I have no idea, but he sure as heck could have been talking about those wily coyotes at the Everglades Foundation/Coalition/Trust.

Donald Trump says he will make America great again. Well, not to be outdone, Stephen Bittel is going to make the Florida Democratic Party great again folks!

Suppose you are a surgeon who is called to see a patient who is bleeding from something in his abdomen. You are to consider an exploratory operation to try to find the bleeding point and stop the hemorrhage.

First, a history refresher: For the past nine years, a smattering of Americans, most recently led by our now president-elect, have insisted that Barack Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya.

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.  

Our elected officials at the state and local level drop everything in the hours, days and weeks following the horror of a terrorist attack to show up. They set up makeshift offices to make themselves available to the community, they light candles at prayer services and meet with the grieving families.  I am sure they do these things because they care and because their presence somehow reassures people that someone is in charge and taking care of things.  

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., the chairwoman  of the U.S. House Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, took to the House floor to speak in support of a non-binding resolution opposing a UN Security Resolution calling Israeli settlement in disputed territory “illegal.”