Columns

You can kick the can down the road, but when Kim Jong Un announces, as he did last Sunday, that "we have reached the final stage in preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic rocket," you are reaching the end of that road.

The Hill, one of the most reputable newspapers in Washington, reports this afternoon Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is a hair's breadth away from going to work for Donald Trump's White House. 

We thought "retired" Justice James E.C. Perry had served his last day on the Florida Supreme Court last Friday, Dec. 30. We thought it was Justice Alan Lawson's turn. Apparently not.

Enough is enough. We will no longer sit back and let the eco-activists spin the fairy tale that buying another 50,000 or 60,000 acres of farm land south of Lake Okeechobee is the one-size-fits-all, silver-bullet solution to every environmental ill of the entire region.

We like to refer to ourselves as the "big tent" party. We say there is room for everyone within the Democratic Party. 

So Charlie Crist waits hours, not even days after being sworn in as a member of Congress on Tuesday, to show up for his first fundraising effort -- and the Tampa Bay Times tells us Charlie will make his way back to Florida for a couple of fundraising soirees, Jan. 16 and 17 in his honor in Sarasota and Miami Beach.

Senior citizens, don’t be fooled. The federal government asserts that Medicare sets a high bar for medical care and we are lucky to have it. Not so. It does, however, claim a virtual monopoly on health insurance coverage for all eligible persons.

When all is said and done, like it or not, that is the ultimate question the new FDP chair is going to be asked by Democrats in this state.

Viewing 2016 in retrospect -- doing so is unpleasant, but less so than was living through it -- the year resembles a china shop after a visit from an especially maladroit bull. Because a law says "the state of California may not sell or display the Battle Flag of the Confederacy ... or any similar image," a painting of the 1864 Siege of Atlanta was banned from display at the Fresno County fair.

Now that Amendment 2 on medical pot has been approved by Florida voters, the hard work of creating a fair but flexible regulatory scheme to oversee the implementation is critically important.

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.

Looking back on 2016, a turbulent year for sure in politics, we often saw the biggest rivalries and the loudest pundits take center stage. All along, my main focus was always working hard on behalf of Florida’s 12th District. We accomplished some important legislative wins for our communities, with 16 initiatives I wrote being signed into law this year.

"When the chips are down, I have Israel's back."      -- Barack Obama, AIPAC conference, March 4, 2012

Why so much fright about Dwight? This morning I had an email with a column from The Florida Squeeze about the Florida Democratic Party chair's race. This article was particularly interesting because it focused on me just as much as it focused on the candidates and the race for chair. It also mainly trashed Dwight Bullard, no other candidate. 

It is axiomatic that if someone is sufficiently eager to disbelieve something, there is no Everest of evidence too large to be ignored. This explains today's revival of protectionism, which is a plan to make America great again by making it 1953 again.