News

Category: Analysis
View by Month
Analysis

Uncertain and afraid: Florida’s immigrants grapple under new law

By GISELA SALOMON, Associated Press, Sept 18, 2023. MIAMI — For many in Florida’s vast immigrant community, daily life in recent months has become one governed entirely by fear. Some try to drive as little as possible and make fewer trips to the supermarket. Others no longer take their children to the park and worry about

Continue Reading »
Analysis

DeSantis gets mixed reviews from 1st GOP presidential debate

By MITCH PERRY, The Florida Phoenix,  Aug 24, 2023  MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – AUGUST 23: Republican presidential candidates (L-R), former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy participate in the first debate of the GOP primary season hosted by FOX News at the Fiserv Forum on August 23, 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Continue Reading »
Analysis

Using Frederick Douglass to rationalize slavery? In Florida, Yes!

By Charles M. Blow, Opinion Columnist, New York Times, Aug. 16, 2023. Gov. Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign may be floundering as he struggles to win over Republican voters with his deadpan robotic demeanor, and he may be shuffling campaign staff like he’s taking a mulligan, but the damage he did to Florida to get himself to

Continue Reading »
Analysis

Work won’t set you free

By Maya Vinokour, The Boston Globe, August 13, 2023. In late July, Florida’s Board of Education approved a new social studies curriculum that claims enslaved Black people in America “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.’’ Endorsed by Governor Ron DeSantis (who has since attempted to distance himself from

Continue Reading »
Analysis

The Florida Board of Education’s new standards for African American history

By HEATHER COX RICHARDSON, Letters from an American, July 22, 2023. The Florida Board of Education approved new state social studies standards on Wednesday (Jul 20, 2023),  including standards for African American history, civics and government, American history, and economics. Critics immediately called out the middle school instruction in African American history that includes “how

Continue Reading »
Analysis

Make America Great Again? Really?

By Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, Jul 8, 2023. On July 9, 1868, Americans changed the U.S. Constitution for the fourteenth time, adapting our foundational document to construct a new nation without systematic Black enslavement. In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution had prohibited enslavement on the basis of race, but it

Continue Reading »
Analysis

What is the difference between nationalism and patriotism?

By JOSHUA HOLZER, The Missouri Independent, June 29, 2023.  During his presidency, Donald Trump said, “We’re putting America first … we’re taking care of ourselves for a change,” and then declared, “I’m a nationalist.” In another speech, he stated that under his watch, the U.S. had “embrace[d] the doctrine of patriotism.” Trump is now running for

Continue Reading »
Analysis

SCOTUS rulings swing pendulum of progress backwards

Tallahassee, FL — Following three rulings handed down by the ultra-conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried issued the following statement: “This week, a Supreme Court stacked with Trump sycophants has taken us back to the dark ages, swinging the pendulum of progress backwards and emboldening a new wave of discrimination,” said FDP Chair

Continue Reading »
Analysis

Ethics complaints allege DeSantis abused his office ‘for personal gain’

By Zac Anderson, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, June 26, 2023. Reporting by the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida revealing that top staff in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office helped line up endorsements for his presidential campaign is fueling ethics complaints against the state employees. The Florida Democratic Party announced Wednesday that it has filed complaints with the Florida Commission on

Continue Reading »
Analysis

What can Ron DeSantis do now?

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells The New Yorker, May 26, 2023. Presidential campaigns are usually launched in a bright burst of hope. Slick videos are posted, bus tours of the hinterlands are announced, e-mails seeking donations flow into in-boxes like the tide. The candidacy of Governor Ron DeSantis, of Florida, contains some extra, darker emotional layers: defensiveness,

Continue Reading »
Analysis

DeSantis’s anti-woke laws can’t stand up to the First Amendment. They’re still dangerous — The silencing has begun

By Kimberly Atkins Stohr, Boston Globe, May 19, 2023. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s anti-wokeness crusade to trample on the First Amendment with a series of state censorship laws aimed at everything from college administrators to Mickey Mouse is a sure loser. After all, when one of the most conservative appellate courts in the nation agrees

Continue Reading »
Analysis

Far right sets its sights on gutting the Constitution

Russ Feingold, Boston Globe, May 23, 2023. The far right has been conducting a multiyear stealth campaign to persuade state legislatures to pass legislation asking Congress to call a constitutional convention. The past few years have seen the rise of a modern American authoritarian movement in this country. The people driving this movement, the Steve

Continue Reading »
Analysis

MEMO: Democrats Could Win a Trifecta in 2024

By  Mike Lux and Celinda Lake, Mike Lux Media, May 12, 2023 TO: Interested Parties FROM: Mike Lux + Celinda Lake RE: Democrats Could Win a Trifecta in 2024 If we do the basic blocking and tackling of great field and GOTV work, and focus on executing an effective strategy for working-class voters, all the

Continue Reading »
Analysis

Housing crunch: How bad is it?

By Mike Sunnucks, APG National Enterprise Editor, Apr 24, 2023. Part I of II Charlotte County Commissioners and North Port city leaders each held workshop discussions in February 2020 about affordable housing. It’s a problem human services advocates and business owners all say is a top concern. Lack of affordable and workforce housing has been

Continue Reading »
Analysis

Voters again defend abortion rights. Republicans should be scared.

By Renée Graham, Globe Columnist, The Boston Globe, April 9, 2023   As she made the media rounds before last fall’s midterm elections, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark said, she was “repeatedly’’ asked one particular question during interviews — “Haven’t Democrats put too much emphasis on abortion?’’ Her answer, she said, was always the same:

Continue Reading »