In his fiscal year 2014 budget, Gov. Rick Scott proposes to eliminate 2,355 jobs by privatizing health services for state prisoners. Privatization of prisons is a national fad among Republican governors and legislatures. States unload thousands of employees and their pensions and the private companies squeeze the inmates and their staff to make a profit.
The governor isn’t waiting for state lawmakers...
The Republican Party has learned that crazy no longer sells in general elections, particularly the kooky tea party version of conservatism. It worked in 2010 in wrestling away control of the U.S. House of Representatives from the wily Democrats, but no longer.
And GOP party leaders appear ready to dump the lot of them.
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The James Madison Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Tallahassee, recently released a policy brief on Medicaid expansion in Florida under the federal Affordable Care Act.
The James Madison Institute is agin’ it, which should be no surprise.
The brief, “Florida’s Best Medicaid Option...
Charlie Crist will likely be the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer to run against Republican Governor Rick Scott in 2014.
Crist was Florida’s 44th governor and a lifelong Republican before he, dropped his party affiliation in 2010 and then, last month, became a Democrat. However, the latest poll by Public Policy Polling has him far ahead of faithful Democrat Alex Sink, who served as the state’s Chief...
When did we become a nation of gullible fraidy cats?
For the National Rifle Association, FOX News and others to get us to support unfettered gun sales they only have to say that we are being attacked. Then they denounce any opposition for lack of its patriotism and for exposing us to danger. It works every time.
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Gov. Rick Scott made a big deal out of his recent meeting with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to supposedly discuss the impact of the Affordable Care Act on our state’s Medicaid budget.
Instead of a meaningful discussion, the meeting appears to have only been a backdrop for the governor to attack the Obama administration, play to Scott’s conservative base and possibly help...
Southern journalists are a different breed. We fight for tolerance and justice in a land that oftentimes has been closed-minded, even hateful. We question those who don’t want to answer and we write for readers who may not what to hear the reply.
We know that glory is fleeting, but we must believe our words matter. The editor of the daily newspaper in my hometown was Hodding Carter II. With his tiny...
The movie adaptation of the hit musical Les Miserables hit the theaters on Christmas Day. Based on the classic of the same title by Victor Hugo, the movie is about the quest of Inspector Javert to capture escaped convict Jean Valjean, originally an honest man who served 20 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving family.
Upon parole, he gets a fresh start under a new name, rising to mayor of a village where he owns a factory. Fantine, an unwed mother at his factory, loses her job because she refuses the advances of the foreman.
The starving...
Military budget cuts are coming, and they should. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, our nation spends nearly three times more than China and Russia combined on military. Our military spending of $711 billion is 40 percent of the entire world’s spending on military, $1,735 billion.
We have withdrawn our troops from Iraq and will complete the same process in Afghanistan...
Mandatory sentences make most people feel safer. They keep those no-good, bleeding-heart, liberal judges from releasing criminals out onto the streets before they have duly been punished for their evil ways.
However, the mandatory sentences carry a high price tag in lives and dollars. We have tripled our inmate populations nationwide, eating up county and state budgets. Nearly one in 100 adults in...
