Florida & Beyond, and All Opinions

Trump’s nostalgia is more than simple retrospection. Trump’s appeal isn’t just about a better economic past or a more stable society. It serves as an evocation of a time in America when women and minorities had less power.

Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision, more than half of U.S. adolescents, ages 13-19, now live in a state with severely restricted or no legal abortion access. As a result, today’s young people are coming of age in what one expert in health law and bioethics has termed an “era of rights retractions.”

Veepstakes media coverage deserves its poor reputation as little more than an electoral parlor game. Too bad: Given the vice presidency’s importance and the media’s opportunity to educate Americans about who could be next to serve in the office, it should be so much more than that.

If Donald Trump would have suffered fatal injuries, the level of violence witnessed so far will be nothing in comparison to what would have happened in the next couple of months. It would have unleashed a new level of anger, frustration, resentment, hostility that we haven’t seen for many, many years in the U.S.

In more than 90% of U.S. public school districts, school board elections are nonpartisan and have been for centuries. But that long tradition may well be changing – and putting at risk the quality of the country’s education system by introducing divisive national political issues into the process by which a local community governs itself.

The raised fist is is full of meaning and has a long and varied history: It’s been used by fascists, socialists, communists, Black Power advocates and even golfer Tiger Woods. Will the world see that same gesture as Trump formally clinches the GOP nomination at the party’s Milwaukee convention? And if Trump does indeed raise a clenched fist at the convention, what will it mean?

The Romance Writers of America, once the world’s largest and most powerful authors’ association, filed for bankruptcy on May 30, 2024. In its filing, the nonprofit blamed “disputes concerning diversity, equity and inclusion” for its membership declining by a jaw-dropping 80%. It shows how quickly organizations can collapse if they don’t serve the needs of all their members. This debacle could serve as a warning to universities, companies and other groups now abolishing and scaling back inclusion efforts.

When Biden ran against Trump successfully in 2020, the selling point he made to those already concerned about his age was that he would be a bridge to the future, perhaps only serving one term. So why is Biden still clinging to power, even after broadcasting his frailty to the 50 million people who tuned in to the first debate?

Even before Douglass arrived in Ireland in 1845, he was aware of the rich tradition of Irish men and women involved in the transatlantic movement to bring an end to the U.S. system of enslavement. In particular, he was an admirer of the Irish nationalist leader Daniel O’Connell. A vocal critic of enslavement, O’Connell had played an important role in bringing it to an end in the British Empire in 1833.

The first 3D-printed firearm emerged in May 2013 with the release of the Liberator, a handgun created by Cody Wilson, a University of Texas law student and libertarian pro-firearms activist. Essentially a proof of concept, Wilson let the BBC film him firing the gun before releasing the open-source design for anyone to download.

France’s extreme-rightist National Rally was ahead after the first round, but alliances are likely to coalesce between the leftist, centrist and moderate right political parties to form a united front against far-right candidates in most electorates in the second round of voting. This would likely make it difficult for National Rally leader Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella to secure enough seats in the National Assembly to win an absolute majority after Sunday’s vote.

Federal Chevron deference is dead. On June 28, 2024, in a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court overturned the 40-year-old legal tenet that when a federal statute is silent or ambiguous about a particular regulatory issue, courts should defer to the implementing agency’s reasonable interpretation of the law.

Sovereign citizens have long been active in the U.S. and other countries. At the core of their beliefs is the denial of the government’s legitimacy. They commonly do not register their vehicles, acquire driver’s licenses or car insurance, or pay taxes. And they pose a significant threat to the public.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against an estimated US$6 billion Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan on June 27, 2024, that would have shielded the Sackler family – which owned and controlled the company – from legal liability. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from opioid-related overdoses since Purdue rolled out OxyContin in 1996. The company helped spur a public health crisis through its deceptive marketing and aggressive sales of OxyContin, a prescription opioid painkiller.