Columns

You may be thrilled by the feats of Katie Ledecky, mesmerized by the grace of the women gymnasts, startled by Rio spectators mocking U.S. soccer star Hope Solo with chants of "Zika! Zika!" (the first recorded instance, noted one wit, of a stadium rocking to the invocation of a virus). Allow me, however, to interrupt the prepackaged, heart-tugging, tape-delayed Olympic coverage to bring you the real sporting news of the year.

Nevada, which calls itself the "Battle Born State," actually was born prematurely because of Republicans' anxiety. Now, 152 years later, it again is a subject of their anxiety.

Flush with cash, state Rep. Irv Slosberg was giving incumbent Sen. Jeff Clemens fits in very blue SD 31 -- until Jose Lambiet did his thing this morning.

This week, health officials reported there are now more than 400 travel related cases of Zika in Florida along with 21 locally transmitted cases.

Seated in his office here, wearing neither a necktie nor a frown, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is remarkably relaxed for someone at the epicenter of a crisis now in its second year and with no end in sight. But, then, stress is pointless when the situation is hopeless. Besides, if you can ignore the fact that self-government is failing in the nation's fifth-most populous state, you can see real artistry in the self-dealing by the Democrats who, with veto-proof majorities in the state Legislature, have reduced this state they control to insolvency.

Tuesday morning's Joe Negron Show was great political theater. It's going to win Republican Negron and his wife Rebecca a lot of votes in their home district, but it isn't going to get Treasure Coast folks the 60,000 acres of private property south of Lake Okeechobee he circled on a map.

Our American nation is the greatest experiment in freedom the world has ever known. It’s given generations of citizens the blessings of liberty ever since the Founding Fathers risked their lives in what seemed like an improbable bid for independence. While the republic they created was one of imperfect freedoms, for 240 years the arc of progress and liberty has moved ever-upward. Even in times of economic crisis and war, our nation has been a singular source of hope for people throughout the world yearning for liberty, dignity and opportunity.

If Patrick Murphy can't behave before he's elected, what will he get up to as a United States senator?

Like shipwrecked mariners clinging to a floating mast, many Republicans rationalize supporting Donald Trump because of "the court." This two-word incantation means: Because we care so much for the Constitution, it is supremely important to entrust to Trump the making of Supreme Court nominations. Well.

Until I saw the latest copy of The American Spectator, I was starting to feel like the only soul in America who couldn't swallow President Barack Obama's almost sneering dismissal of the $400-million-for-hostages scandal.

Donald Trump, the man who defied every political rule and prevailed to win his party's nomination, last week took on perhaps the most sacred political rule of all: Never attack a Gold Star family. Not just because it alienates a vital constituency but because it reveals a shocking absence of elementary decency and of natural empathy for the most profound of human sorrows -- parental grief.

I am opposed to government corporate welfare programs,‭ ‬where the government picks winners and losers by giving financial grants and tax breaks to certain politically connected businesses.‭ ‬This is blatantly unfair to the remaining businesses and creates an uneven playing field.‭ ‬You can also label me a man-made climate change skeptic,‭ ‬to put it mildly.‭  

In the 1870s, when Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall controlled New York City, and in the 1950s and 1960s, when Chicago's Democratic machine was especially rampant, there was a phenomenon that can be called immunity through profusion: Fresh scandals arrived with metronomic regularity, so there was no time to concentrate on any of them. The public, bewildered by blitzkriegs of bad behavior, was enervated.

Yes, the United States really did bribe Iran for the release of four American prisoners. The Obama administration's denial is hogwash.

To gauge the opportunism and hypocrisy that define Donald Trump's Republican Party, consider this: Imagine the scalding rhetoric that would have boiled from the likes of Newt Gingrich, that Mettern