Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Mitch PerryDecember 1, 2014

Welcome back to the working week. This holiday weekend I did what I do most weekends – see a motion picture at a local movie theater. Actually I saw two over the holiday break; the Jon Stewart directed “Rosewater,” and “Citizenfour,” the documentary directed by Laura Poitras on NSA leaker Edward Snowden (of which I’ll […]

Mitch PerryNovember 24, 2014

The news that broke over the past few days that President Obama has decided to authorize a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned has alienated some anti-war activists, but Tampa Democratic Representative Kathy Castor is fine with the idea. The revelation – first reported in the New York […]

Guest AuthorNovember 18, 2014

First impressions matter. It’s one of the truisms we must live with. Unfortunately, that’s a fact seemingly lost on new Florida State University President John Thrasher. Exhibit 1 is the former legislator’s tone-deaf response to last week’s New York Times article highlighting another instance in which an FSU football player not named Winston might have […]

Guest AuthorOctober 20, 2014

When defining the ethnicity, gender and race of American society, I find it is interrelated with the cultural dialogue. The African-American experience has always been tied to those topics. In America, the concept of the “one-drop rule” — that a single drop of “black blood” makes a person a black — was founded on sub-Saharan […]

Diane RobertsOctober 13, 2014

Hard rain falling here in the land where college football is the élan vital. First, the very large, very detailed, story in the New York Times: seems the Tallahassee police habitually cut Seminole football players some slack — a lot of slack — when they vandalize property, steal, and assault women. Fox Sports News had […]

Adam WeinsteinOctober 9, 2014

The capital of Florida used to have a good newspaper, I’m told. It’s hard to know, because by the time I started working there — 2006 — Knight Ridder had sold the Tallahassee Democrat to Gannett, the cigarette-perfumed, drunken used-car salesman of media corporations, and the paper was a ghost of itself. There was always […]

Guest AuthorOctober 7, 2014

If you haven’t yet heard about political writer Matt Bai’s book on the failed presidential hopes of Gary Hart, you will. Bai, once political editor for the New York Times’ Sunday magazine and current political editor for Yahoo, asserts that one week in 1987 forever changed politics in America. Bai is on the interview circuit […]

Martin DyckmanSeptember 14, 2014

The widely denounced Citizens United decision that did a great disservice to the nation and disgraces five Supreme Court justices is only the tip of a hulking iceberg. An urgent effort to melt that iceberg began in the U.S. Senate last week. You probably didn’t hear about it. The foundation for Citizens in 2010 was […]

Guest AuthorAugust 21, 2014

When a telephone and a stamp were the social media of choice, smacking down trolls was pretty simple: hang up or toss it in the trash can. It could have been that simple in the wicked web world. Today, it’s easy to troll. A handful of keystrokes, dump, run, repeat. The anonymity, the ease of […]

Julie DelegalJuly 21, 2014

Judge Terry Lewis’ ruling invalidating the boundaries of two congressional districts was issued on July 10 — a Thursday. Lawmakers quietly “considered” whether to appeal on Friday. They deliberated over the weekend, and thought some more on Monday. It turns out, as we’ll see below, that their period of deliberation may have been, well, deliberate. […]

Tag: New York Times

Mitch Perry Report – 12.1.14

U.S. Rep. Castor OK with U.S. troops staying in Afghanistan into 2015

Andrew Skerritt: FSU’s president should be tougher on football player misconduct

Anthony Major: Playwrights helped explain the black experience to America

Diane Roberts: We rabid sports fans are loving college football to death

Adam Weinstein: Another bloodbath at the deteriorating Tallahassee Democrat

Doug Clifton: Miami Herald was right to pursue tip about Gary Hart dalliance

Martin Dyckman: Media must report nascent efforts to curb power of money in politics

Linda Grist Cunningham: Web trolls are winning because the rest of us won’t smack them down

Julie Delegal: Timing of decision not to appeal districts ruling was questionable