Charles Dickens’ opening line in A Tale of Two Cities came flooding back to me Wednesday on reading two headlines in Florida.
You remember. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness…”
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One thing is clear from the recent Venezuelan presidential election: Expect more Venezuelans to move to South Florida.
Another is that the opposition movement against the winner, socialist Hugo Chavez, is better organized and stronger than at any time since Chavez was first elected president in 1998.
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We enjoy many freedoms in America because "we the people" choose our leaders though open and fair elections. Previous generations have battled for the right to vote due to their race or gender. And the brave men and women of our military have put their lives on the line to protect these freedoms and rights.
An open, transparent and fair election is the bedrock of our political system. So any...
When you review your ballot either in the mail or at the polls, you might think it unusually long and confusing. Don’t feel bad. The ballot was purposefully crafted to be long and confusing.
In a year when Republican leaders hope to suppress the vote by reducing early voting days by more than half, they also added nearly a dozen constitutional proposals that more resemble a push-poll than thoughtful policy ideas....
Now we have yet another group whose feelings have been hurt by the political warfare of 2012.
Along with various minority and ethnic groups, it seems the super-rich are stung, really stung, by complaints about their limited participation in the income tax system.
We're talking about not...
It’s hard to explain to high school kids today, but there was a time when teenagers were conscripted -- against their wills -- into military service and sent halfway around the world into live-fire combat zones that make Afghanistan look like a training exercise.
I faced that prospect. Reports of full-on battles in jungle terrain against trained, regimental-strength troops have a way of focusing...
MEMORANDUM
FROM: A newspaper dinosaur
TO: Florida citizens
The traditional newspaper is dying. Large cities – New Orleans, Syracuse, Harrisburg – no longer have papers delivered to...
There is really no good reason for denying convicted felons the right to vote once they finish their prison sentences and resolve other obstacles to full citizenship, like completion of probation and restitution to victims.
But the state of Florida is settling for a couple of bad reasons.
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Private investors aren’t big on nuclear power. It’s not cost-effective. That’s why not a single new nuclear reactor has been built in the United States in three decades, despite generous federal loan guarantees and tax credits to utilities that shift much of the cost to taxpayers.
But in 2006, the Florida Legislature decided the rules of free enterprise don’t apply to big utility companies....
In 2008, “Hope and Change” ran against the “George Bush Record.”
And this year, President Obama’s campaign says “we don’t want to go back to the policies that got us in trouble in the first place.”
I couldn’t agree more.
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