If our generations had been around in the 1930s, we’d still be in the Great Depression with prominent lawmakers telling each other we need a smaller government, argues Donald Kaul.
Guest Columns
Parent Trigger Bill: A Trojan Horse of Corporate Charter Schools
The so-called parent-trigger bill does not empower parents. Rather, it empowers out-of-state corporate interests and their lobbyists to siphon Florida tax dollars away from our already underfunded public school system, argues Paula Dockery.
Sarah Palin in Lakeland: Locking and Loading Assault Weapons With Jesus
Sarah Palin urged her faithfuls to “cling to your god, your guns, your Constitution,” a seamless ideology that would have Jesus waving the American flag with one hand and clicking off the safety of his assault rifle with the other, writes Cary McMullen.
Drawing the Line on Big Beer
AB InBev is truly a beverage behemoth, owning 200 beer brands, including Budweiser, Becks, Stella, Michelob, and St. Pauli Girl. It wants to take over Mexico’s Grupo Modelo, which owns the Corona brands and others. Consolidation is raising prices and narrowing consumer choice.
Florida Ethics Commissioner to Legislature: Close Loopholes in Reform Bill
Ethics Commissioner Matt Carlucci says an ethics reform bill adds teeth to previously weak enforcement, but would also open a loophole that would give politicians greater immunity from prosecution while increasing the costs of ethics cases.
Beyond Sheriff Joe’s Tactics: Looking at Prison Reform in Florida With Fresh Eyes
Analyzing Florida’s prisons and jails is a revelation of unsustainable incarceration rates and prison-building, argues Milissa Holland, who explores more logical alternatives to end the vicious cycle of punishment and recidivism.
Sunshine Week: Improving State Legislatures’ Transparency
Think about the American Legislative Exchange Council’s secret lobbying in favor of “Stand Your Ground” legislation to at least 15 states. Lobbyists were backed by corporate special interests – a fact the public was left in the dark about. Additionally, there was little way to easily track how this law was passed in Florida. That’s just one example of the kind of copycat legislation peddled to state legislatures.
Sequestering Florida’s Children And Their Schools
The across-the-board federal budget cuts, known as sequestration, will slow our economic recovery and cost upwards of a million jobs nationally. But here in Florida, the sequestration knife cuts especially deep, particularly in the already underfunded field of public education, writes Katie Hansen.
Give the Post Office a Break
If the Postal Service were run like Congress, postal workers would only show up on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays — except when they were on vacation, which would be a lot, argues Donald Kaul.
In Search of Civility in Our Political Life
How have we reached a point when anger, obstructionism, bipartisanship and manufactured crises have replaced diplomacy, cooperation, negotiation and problem solving? Paula Dockery asks and answers.
Repeat Folly: Florida Prepares to Boom Again By Busting Local Environmental Authority
Bills in the Florida Legislature would take away Flagler’s and other counties’ authority to ensure that development doesn’t sprawl without required infrastructure, and would virtually demolish environmental land acquisition programs. Milissa Holland argues that such bills make a mockery of local control.
In Rubio’s Republican Party, Appeals To Victimhood Are Getting Old
Republicans over the last decade or so have become a party that tethered their Election Day successes to an appeal to the lesser angels in people, on convincing voters they need to fear forces trying to take things away from them, that they need to look out for Number One, argues Dan Gelber.
From Guernica to Who Gives a Damn: Modern Warfare’s Droning Savagery
There was a time when people could actually be shocked by the slaughter of civilians during a war. No more. We kid ourselves that our warfare is moral and clean and good and that it’s the other guys who commit the war crimes. Don’t believe it, argues Donald Kaul.
Online Booking Companies’ Tax Evasion Fleeces Flagler Tourism and Florida Dues
Online booking companies like Expedia and Hotels.com are short-changing Flagler and Florida of millions of dollars in sales and bed taxes, and unfairly competing with local hotels, argues Milissa Holland, yet the Legislature is looking to give those companies more tax breaks. It’s not the way to go.
Rubio’s Rebuttal: A GOP Disaster Reminiscent of Romney, With Hispanic Hues
The performance by Florida’s junior senator following President Barack Obama’s State of the Union was an epic failure, argues Rhonda Swan. If Marco Rubio is the savior of the Republican Party, members of the GOP should start looking for their lifeboats.
Short Skirts, and How Fatherhood Is Changing My Politics
Since having a baby, Peter Schorsch finds himself agreeing more with Rick Santorum and less with Beyoncé, whose short-skirt performance at the Super Bowl left his tongue hanging, but not out of desire. He has a daughter to think about.
Zero Dark Thirty’s Tortured, Losing Premise
Zero Dark Thirty is a movie the CIA wants you to see. Torture is illegal under U.S. and international law and it is utterly immoral. It doesn’t “work,” but that’s beside the point to the movie-makers, argues Chris Toensing. The result is disturbing for all the wrong reasons.
Ending American Agriculture’s Unhealthy Journey Toward the $4.99 Bag of Potato Chips
We can’t begin to reduce our surging healthcare costs in this country without addressing affordability and accessibility to healthier foods, by not educating the users of the system on personal responsibility and choices, and by moving toward more locally grown food, argues Milissa Holland.
Gov. Scott, a Big-Spending Liberal? Not So Fast.
As everyone anticipated, the attack on Gov. Rick Scott by liberals has begun. No surprise there, as he is the next conservative in the cross-hairs. But at times it borders on the absurd, argues Lloyd Brown.
The Missing Link in Ever-Rising Health Care Costs: Personal Responsibility
Car insurance costs go down when drivers drive responsibly for a few years. A similar approach to health care could help bring costs down, but first, Milissa Holland argues, people must take responsibility for their own health and lifesrtyles–and the way they seek out medical help: the ER is usually not the answer.
The Problem With Florida’s Medicaid Program Isn’t Cost. It’s Too Many Working Poor.
Florida has too many working poor whose employers don’t provide health insurance. Rather than complaining about the costs of coverage, we should try to increase the earnings of our people, argues Rick Outzen.
Beyond Doctor’s Orders: When Health and Fitness Are Not Always a Matter of Choice
The discipline it takes aside, getting healthy can be costly, writes Milissa Holland, in many more ways than one: healthy food is more expensive, exercise isn’t always as easy as deciding to do it, and even health insurance plans for the poor are becoming intractable. An invitation to discuss a central issue in most people’s lives.
When Doctor-Assisted Suicide Is the Humane Option
In oncologists’ offices and Alzheimer’s nursing homes, illness is not “a portrait in blacks and whites, but unending shades of gray, involving the most profound of personal, moral, and religious questions.” Including when may it be right to help end a life.
Transparency 101: Rick Scott’s Pay Raise Ploy
Florida’s “education” governor wants to give teachers a $2,500 across-the-board raise. Translation: He wants to get re-elected in 2014. He’s not popular. So he’s trying to win votes by any means necessary, argues Rhonda Swan.
Coke’s Obesity Campaign: Get Real
For the first time, Coke is using its slick commercials to address obesity. But the company’s new ads, which are brimming with misleading statements, just put lipstick on this pig, argues Jill Richardson.
Blaming the Gun-Violence Epidemic On Mental Illness Doesn’t Begin to Resolve It
With a startling personal revelation of her own, Milissa Holland argues in her latest column that if mental illness is to be a focus of gun control, it must be much better defined–and far more de-stigmatized. Otherwise, it’s a shield behind which politicians will do nothing.
An Epidemic of American Anger In Search of Stoicism
From Angry Birds to the Angry Whopper, road rage and mass murderers, we’re in an age of anger that appears driven by frustrated expectations and imagined grievances.
Let’s Holster Incendiary Rhetoric and Get Flagler Started on Meaningful Gun Talk
Flagler County must have an honest, open dialogue about the place of guns in our community, Milissa Holland argues, but to do so the extremists on both sides must be willing to calm down and let reason facilitate the dialogue.
How the Word ‘Retarded’ Hurts The Developmentally Disabled
Americans with developmental disabilities still remain second-class citizens in the eyes of the law and our fellow human beings. There is no greater symbolic gesture of the ridicule they endure than the accepted use of the word “retarded” in day-to-day speech.
Obama’s Inauguration Sells Out
President Barack Obama, reversing his own honorable precedent for his first inaugural, has chosen this time to have corporations pay for his second round of big shindigs. This multimillion-dollar infusion of corporate cash is a crass intrusion by favor-seeking private interests into what ought to be a purely public occasion.
John Thrasher, Travis Hutson, Plus One: Airing Out Flagler’s Legislative Delegation
The inaugural guests on Milissa Holland Live Friday on WNZF will be Holland’s ex-opponent Rep. Travis Hutson, and Sen. John Thrasher, as Holland hosts an informall follow-up to December’s at-times contentious legislative delegation meeting on short-term rentals and other issues of local concern.
Accused Chilean Murderer Pedro Pablo Barrientos Buys a Home in Deltona
Barrientos was recently accused by an investigating judge in Chile of the murder in September of 1973 of the internationally popular theater director, teacher and folk/protest singer Victor Jara, then 40 years old.
Put God Back in Public Schools?
If we’re going to put God back in schools, which God are we talking about? Adam Hamilton, founding pastor of a United Methodist Church, calmly argues against the notion that God has ever left the public schools, and need not be forced back in.
From Poughkeepsie to WNZF: The Evolution Of a Campaigner for Flagler County
In her debut column for FlaglerLive, Milissa Holland traces the journey that brought her from New York to Palm Coast and her father’s influence, in life and death, on a career still defined–as it will be in writings and on her radio talk show–by her passion for Flagler County.
Losing “Protection”
In Florida’s Environmental Agency
Some of the state’s strongest protectors of our natural resources were recently expelled from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Fifty-eight of the most knowledgeable and long-serving employees were let go in order to fulfill the governor’s promise/threat of less regulation.
Amend the Second Amendment
If we want to transform American society for generations to come, tinkering with our existing patchwork quilt of federal, state, and municipal laws dealing with firearms is a waste of time. The only transformational vehicle for meaningful action, writes Angel Castillo, is to change the Constitution.
Time to Get Serious About
Mental Health in Florida
Florida ranks near dead last nationally in the level of expenditures for front-end community-based mental health services. Let’s not be penny wise and pound foolish when so many precious lives are at risk, argues Paula Dockery.
Title IX Lets Girls Be Both Quarterback and Homecoming Queen
Erin DiMeglio made history as the first female in Florida to play quarterback in a varsity high school game, and was elected South Plantation High’s homecoming queen. That wouldn’t have happened without Title IX, the landmark legislation assuring females the same opportunities as boys at both the high school and college levels.
How Legal Weed Might Wash in Florida
Full marijuana legalization is coming, eventually. But if you’re planning to go into the marijuana business, Bill Cotterell argues, you might want to ask Joe Camel what happens a few years down the road.
Civil Citations for Non-Violent Offenses Can Reduce Jail Needs, Court Costs, and Undue Arrests
Even with no criminal intent, we can easily be caught breaking a law. Until now, law enforcement officers in Florida have had only two choices in these circumstances: let you go or arrest you. Civil citations are the smarter alternative, argues Mark Flynn, CEO of the Florida Smart Justice Alliance.
Bullish on 2013: Palm Coast and Flagler Housing Markets in Full Recovery
Have we returned to a normal market? No yet, writes Toby Tobin, but in a bullish analysis of Palm Coast’s and Flagler County’s current housing markets, he expects momentum to build into 2013, with all segments of the market are rising.
Lone Star Reds: The Secessionist Tempest From Texas
Once again, there’s a tempest brewing in the national tea pot. We’re talking secession. Well, some of us are, writes Jim Hightower. Actually, very few are — and some of them aren’t too tightly wrapped.
For African-American Voter Turnout, a New Normal
Ever since the process toward full citizenship of African Americans began with the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, politicians and others have been trying to stop us from exercising the hard fought, hard won right to vote, writes Leslie Watson Malachie. It’s not working anymore.
Donald Trump’s Disciples: Obama’s Victory Still Birthing Dispute in a Tallahassee court
In a largely forgotten court case being litigated in Tallahassee, lawyers are still arguing about whether President Barack Obama was qualified to run for president in the first place.
Jeb Bush Redux: Defeated and Deflated, Republicans Look for Viability in 2016
Early Republican favorites for 2016 include Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Paul Ryan and Jon Huntsman, but the most formidable — and electable — candidate for the Republican Party right now is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, argues Steven Kurlander.
The Conservative Case Against Compromise
A Democrat and one a conservative say Republicans in Congress need to compromise so the government can “get things done,” and that it is better to do something than nothing. No. It is not, argues Lloyd Brown.
Election Post-Mortem
Democracy, or Rule of the People, is still the name of the ridiculously idealistic vision of organizing all of the infinite variations of the delightful human tadpole into a semblance of a community that functions nearly as well as a coterie of Prairie Dogs. We aren’t there yet, but we’re working on it.
Do Prisoners Have a Constitutional Right to Dental Floss?
In Florida, five inmates have separately sued Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw in federal court, claiming deprivation of federally protected civil rights through the denial of dental floss. The sheriff is denying it to them. Angel Castillo argues the sheriff is wrong.
Corporal Punishment: When a Religious Exemption Becomes a License to Brutalize
A harrowing recent series in the Tampa Bay Times detailed how for 30 years a handful of homes for troubled youth have used a misguided exemption in Florida law to get away with all manner of abuses by using religion as a shield.
Dan Gelber: Time for a Constitutional Amendment to Ensure Voter Access
It’s very sad that the citizens of Florida need their rights protected from their own government. But if there is anything this last election has taught us, it’s that our right to vote is clearly imperiled in Florida, argues Dan Gelber.