The mail brought a pleasant surprise one day, a check for some $30 or so, just enough for a modest dinner out. It was from some lawyers I didn’t know and hadn’t ever talked to. But with my passive consent -- that is, by my not objecting to the notice of class action lawsuit that I had received, they had represented me (and many thousands of others) against a big, bad bank.
They had sniffed out what...
"In God we trust" may be the planet's most familiar national motto, appearing on trillions of U.S. coins and treasury bills circulating everywhere. But perhaps the time has come for a new one, more reflective of how the rest of the world sees us:
"In guns we trust."
If the NRA continues to have...
Jeb Bush and I have never comprised a mutual admiration society, and no one will ever likely confuse us with one. However, there were passages to admire in his recent speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, which seems to have been applauded more warmly elsewhere than there.
There were also things not to like, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
...
Florida's Republicans and Democrats have a common problem that they could solve simply enough. They most likely won't. Nonetheless, I offer this palliative for their angst:
Restore the runoff primary.
Large numbers of people in both parties are unhappy with the candidates they think are doomed to...
The Republicans have lost the popular vote in four of the last five presidential campaigns. Only some of them are drawing the appropriate conclusion--that to survive, they most broaden their appeal to an America that is increasingly less white and more tolerant. The rebirth of immigration reform reflects that line of thought.
Some others are simply scheming to win without the popular vote, as they did in...
In the month since the Newtown massacre, people the world over have overwhelmed the small Connecticut community with messages of love, condolence and grief, and enough gifts -- 4,600 boxes full -- to fill a warehouse. There are two teddy bears for every man, woman, and surviving child.
And how have some other Americans responded? By thronging to gun stores, stripping bare the shelves for fear of what...
Ben F. Overton, the retired jurist who died this month, wasn't the most famous of the four Supreme Court justices appointed by former Gov. Reubin O'D. Askew. That distinction belongs to Joseph W. Hatchett, Florida's first black justice, and Askew has often said that selecting him was the most gratifying experience of his eight years in office.
But it was Overton's appointment, the first of the four,...
Hey, hey, NRA, how many kids will we kill today?
We tend to think of anarchists in America as relics of the past, caricatured as bearded fanatics throwing bombs, worthy of no attention except at the hands of the law.
This is a grave misperception. Anarchism - defined as a...
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will be re-elected today.
No, this isn't some prediction that we forgot to publish on November 6.
It's to take note that the only votes that matter under the Constitution are the ones actually being cast today by 538 party loyalists and functionaries...
The current battle of the deficit owes to waging two wars on credit cards while simultaneously cutting taxes to reward special constituencies. Since the Republicans were primarily responsible, it's not unfair of President Obama to demand that they now say in detail how they would make the country atone for it. Although House Speaker John Boehner has come up with a plan, it omits the key specifics on what tax deductions and loopholes he would close. The devil is truly in those details, and there's no...
