Nancy Smith

The Florida Democratic Party strikes me as a spotless leopard right now. Aren't these the folks who in 2016 called themselves the Party of Intellectuals and joined Hillary in crowing about their superiority to "deplorable" Republicans?

It's one thing to politicize a tragedy that's left dozens of your constituents grieving. Unsavory as it is, it happens every election year on both sides of the aisle. 

It really was -- as Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-Spring Hill, called it -- "a disingenuous political stunt ... the very definition of dirty politics." 

You can count on it. Every time there's a mass shooting in this country, the Left comes out of the woodwork to hurl obscenities and point its finger at ... who else? The National Rifle Association.

The shooting deaths of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland last Wednesday has inspired in its aftermath far more than a political outcry for a conversation on gun control.

However the Legislature decides to reshape Florida's gaming landscape between now and the end of March, one thing is certain.

Folks who play fantasy sports have been able use their credit cards to do it. Not so, for horseplayers who want to bet on the ponies online.

During his early days in office, Gov. Rick Scott convinced the Legislature that Florida would reduce prison costs by $1 million if it privatized services and competitively bid healthcare contracts. 

Talk about a misnomer. The inappropriately named "Campus Free Expression Act," approved Tuesday by a 7-4 vote of the Florida Senate Education Committee, would offer students about as much freedom as a prison yard.

Florida Forever finally found its land champion in Senate Appropriations Chairman Rob Bradley.  

As it did last year, the Wall Street Journal this week lashed out at Florida senators -- particularly Insurance and Banking Chair Anitere Flores, R-Miami -- who oppose reform-minded Republicans "trying to shut down a trial-bar scheme that's bleeding property insurers and sending Sunshine State premiums skyrocketing."

Maybe now -- four deaths later -- state and federal officials can stop looking at opposition to All Aboard Florida/Brightline's high-speed rail service as the product of a few sour Treasure Coast residents trying to hold back progress.

No matter how well it performs, VISIT FLORIDA apparently has to beat its chest publicly for every crumb before a skeptical Legislature. It shouldn't have to, frankly. 

Either Bill Nelson has been standing too close to Charlie Crist, or his memory is beginning to go south. Or, more probably, he just doesn't think you'll notice. The point is, when it comes to offshore drilling, Florida's senior senator has developed a conspicuous case of the flip-flops.

I had the privilege of being part of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s magic when I heard him speak in 1962, while I was in college in North Carolina. There -- in a segregated city where whites used one toilet and "coloreds" another, where the largest hospital admitted blacks only to windowless basement rooms -- the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a single afternoon, welded into one thousands of people, black and white.