Emails & Opinions

Mitch PerryDecember 16, 2016

Good morning to you all on this, the last Friday MPR I’ll be filing in 2016 … Good news for those of us on the Affordable Care Act: While the GOP-led House of Representative promise to repeal the ACA within the first 100 days of the Trump administration, the date that the provisions of the […]

Florence SnyderDecember 15, 2016

With 11 shopping days ‘til Christmas, Yahoo dropped a lump of coal into the stockings of 1 billion of its users with news that their accounts had been “breached.” That’s tech-speak for “bad guys forged your cookies” — and they are not talking about the sweets you leave next to Santa’s glass of milk. Worse, […]

Mitch PerryDecember 15, 2016

St. Pete City Council members are scheduled to receive a report on the progress of the St. Petersburg Pier at City Hall this morning. Architects from ASD Architects, Rogers Partners Architects + Urban Designers, representing the Pier and W Architecture and Landscape Architecture and Wannemacher Jensen Architects, representing the Pier Approach will present updated renderings of the new Pier. […]

Martin DyckmanDecember 15, 2016

Early in the Cold War, Hollywood was targeted by politicians and flag-waving pundits who accused Communists in the motion picture media of trying to subvert the United States with pro-Soviet propaganda. Hundreds of people were blacklisted and 10, including the Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, went to prison for refusing to testify before the House Un-American […]

Florence SnyderDecember 14, 2016

Vladimir Putin may be the highest-tech mass murder on the planet, but he has not been able to silence the men, women and children in Syria who are writing their last wills and testaments on Twitter. One of them is a seven-year-old girl named Bana. With a little tech support from her mom, she tweeted […]

Guest AuthorDecember 14, 2016

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently published a report stating that federally issued Direct Student Loans placed in Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plans will cost the government $74 billion, which is higher than previously estimated. According to the GAO, as of June of this year, 5.3 million student loan borrowers are repaying their loans in IDR […]

Darryl PaulsonDecember 14, 2016

Opioid abuse is a growing medical problem in the nation and in Florida. In 2015, 52,404 Americans died as a result of drug abuse, or about 142 individuals every day. This makes opioid abuse a greater killer than automobile accidents or gun-inflicted homicides and suicides. About one-third of the deaths are from opioids prescribed by […]

Guest AuthorDecember 14, 2016

Key questions always loom large for parents of homeschooled, college-bound students, such as: “What happens when my child actually gets to the university level? Will they be able to keep up?” As a faculty member, I get the chance to interact with a variety of undergraduates in a number of ways, principally in the classroom […]

Joe HendersonDecember 14, 2016

If we have learned anything from the just-completed election, it is this: People are fed up with the political status quo. I mean, isn’t that obvious? Apparently not to St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman. He wants to shift an additional $14 million into his city’s Pier project, which could bring the overall cost to $80 […]

Peter SchorschDecember 14, 2016

House Speaker Richard Corcoran says he’s “proud of the way” his subcommittee chairs were chosen – which makes you wonder what devils were in the details. In a statement, the Land O’Lakes Republican said he wanted to “decentralize authority” in selecting the chairs for the next two legislative sessions. The decisions were made based on “member consultations, […]

Emails & Opinions

Mitch Perry Report for 12.16.16 – Friday follies

Christmas is a-‘comin’ and the geese are gettin’ hacked

Mitch Perry Report for 12.15.16 — Pier politics, part VIII

Martin Dyckman: The Red Menace redux

#NeverAgain is the lie that’s always trending

Dennis Ross: Responsible solutions to repaying student loans

Pain, pain, go away: Finding a middle ground in Florida’s opioid epidemic

Ali P. Gordon: Homeschooled students bring own skill set to university campuses

By asking for more Pier money, Rick Kriseman misreads political mood

Reading between the lines: Richard Corcoran’s subcommittee appointment choices