By JAY BOOKMAN, Florida Phoenix, Oct 25, 2021. The narrative about a stolen election is completely fabricated. None of it is true. None of it happened. None of it, not in Arizona, not in Georgia, not anywhere, none of it. All “evidence” offered to support that narrative is likewise a mirage; it vanishes completely upon
By Heather Cox Richardson, Oct 23, 2021. This morning, Jonathan Martin at the New York Times reported that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has warned Republican political consultants that they may not continue to work for both him and Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is vice chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January
By TRISH ZORNIO, Florida Phoenix, Oct. 18, 2021. More than 44.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. Of them, over 715,000 have died. But what about the millions who lived? Have they fully recovered? According to new research, perhaps not. We often talk about the symptoms of a
By John Kennedy, Capital Bureau, USA TODAY NETWORK—FLORIDA, October 8, 2021. TALLAHASSEE – When Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered Florida’s secretary of state to investigate Facebook, alleging it may have manipulated 2020 elections in the state, he made sure his donors didn’t miss the news. Forty-eight hours after the Republican governor dispatched Laurel Lee last month on a search for
By David Leonhardt, The NY Times, October 7, 2021 An 80/20 issue In the late 20th century, the Democratic Party moved to the right on economic policy. Bill Clinton and his allies in Congress cut taxes on investments, deregulated Wall Street and embraced a more corporate-friendly image. The shift was in part a genuine attempt
Editor’s note: Yes, we DO need to worry. Click HERE for another great Washington Post analysis of our constitutional crisis. By Robert Crawford, The Nation, Sept 1, 2021. With Trump no longer president and the January 6 insurrection thwarted, the danger may appear to be behind us. “Democracy survived.” But did it? Yet few observers and
By DIANE ROBERTS, Florida Phoenix, Oct 4, 2021. Ron DeSantis, presidential candidate and part-time governor of Florida, celebrated the decline in the numbers of men entering higher education, citing a Wall Street Journal article that says 60 percent of college students are now women, while in 1970 the number was closer to 40 percent. “I guess there
By Marc Elias, Democracy Docket, September 27, 2021 Donald Trump is the Republican Party’s useful idiot. He was their useful idiot when he turned over the selection of federal judgeships to the Federalist Society. He was a useful idiot when he became the improbable candidate of the white evangelical movement. But, nowhere has his idiocy
By Bill Welsch, Indivisible Action SWFL Following the Civil War, citizens of Southern states, feeling humiliated and disheartened, set to work re-writing history. They wasted no time. In a manner befitting modern-day communications experts, the South got to work framing a revised narrative, one that became “truth” in our educational system and media. Even books
By John Kennedy, Capital Bureau, USA TODAY NETWORK-FLORIDA, Sept 4, 2021. TALLAHASSEE – With recent polls showing Gov. Ron DeSantis losing support among Floridians as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge, Florida Democrats sense a political opening. But DeSantis’ stumbles also are being greeted with a cold dose of reality among Democrats exiled from state leadership for more than
On Friday, Leon County Circuit Court Judge John C. Cooper ruled that Governor Ron DeSantis acted beyond the boundaries of his authority when he signed an executive order blocking local school boards from enacting mask protocols. The ruling came after a four-day trial in a case brought to court by concerned parents from Hillsborough, Pinellas,
Newly released July 2021 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirms that Florida’s Biden recovery remains on track. Year over year, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the state has plunged by 6.4%, moving from 11.5% in July of 2020 to 5.1% for last month. Preliminary, seasonally adjusted data also indicates there were over
As Florida experiences a dangerous spike in COVID-19 cases, it is important to remember that when Marco Rubio had the chance to deliver billions of dollars in funding to speed up vaccinations, get personal protection equipment (PPE) to frontline workers, and keep Floridians safe he didn’t have the courage to do what was best for
By Louis Jacobson and Miriam Valverde, PolitiFact in the Tampa Bay Times, August 8, 2021 As coronavirus cases spike nationally, and especially in Florida, a blame game has erupted between President Joe Biden and Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. Florida has the second-highest per-capita coronavirus case load of any state as of Aug. 6, exceeding its level at any point
By John Kennedy and Jeffrey Schweers, Capital Bureau USA TODAY NETWORK – FLORIDA, August 9, 2021. Florida’s second summer of COVID-19 is looking a lot different than 2020’s midyear surge, when the state was locking down, masking up and eagerly awaiting the arrival of vaccines. One big difference: This time, there’s plenty of vaccine that
By Danielle J. Brown, Florida Phoenix, July 26, 2021 By the spring of 2020, reality was setting in that the Covid-19 pandemic would stick around for quite some time, and Florida’s school districts were confronting an unknown education world. Districts started talks about the next school year, considering mask mandates, staggered classroom schedules and other
By John Kennedy, Capital Bureau, USA TODAY NETWORK–FLORIDA, July 24, 2021 TALLAHASSEE – The last time Florida’s ruling Republicans were tasked with redrawing the state’s political districts, a judge concluded they turned it into a “mockery” by secretly and illegally working to enhance their command of the state. Fast-forward to this summer, and an even more powerful GOP-led Legislature
By Bill Welsch, Charlotte Dems contributing writer ‘If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.” George Bernard Shaw During the Reconstruction period following the U.S. Civil War, it was not uncommon for African Americans to be elected to local and state offices. Although election to
By John Kennedy, Capital Bureau, USA TODAY NETWORK-FLORIDA, July 9, 2021 TALLAHASSEE – A year after George Floyd’s death exposed deep divisions over race and policing, a new Florida law seeks to spark what supporters say is a needed cultural change across many law enforcement agencies. The measure orders that every police department have use-of-force policies, bans chokeholds and makes it
By Trish Zornio, Florida Phoenix, July 7, 2021 As the delta variant takes hold, the unvaccinated are in for a rude awakening. It’s not just ignorance — they’re begging for a Darwin Award. Unfortunately, thanks to all these unvaccinated knuckleheads, vaccinated Americans are now being put more at risk, too. The delta variant is a
By Issac Morgan and Diane Rado, Florida Phoenix, June 16, 2021 While the Biden administration is pushing to vaccinate Americans, Floridians who aren’t fully vaccinated are concerned about potential side effects, misinformation about vaccines and other issues, according to a study by the University of South Florida. Researchers at USF’s School of Public Affairs on Wednesday