Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government.

Mary Jo MeloneJune 16, 2016

Driving I-4 through Orlando, you see them. The billboards proclaim what is now ho-hum in this country. #OrlandoStrong #LoveOrlando #PrayforOrlando Add this to the list, please. #AmericaSickandTired Have you noticed the phrase “take him out” is now part of our everyday language? We are accustomed to terms like “SWAT team,” “active shooter,” “on lockdown,” “armored […]

Jim RosicaJune 15, 2016

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Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested she was the victim of a CNN hit job a day after Anderson Cooper challenged her position on gay rights in a live interview. Bondi was a guest on WOR-New York’s “Len Berman and Todd Schnitt in the Morning” radio program Wednesday. Cooper, who came out as gay in 2012, spoke with Bondi […]

Associated PressJune 15, 2016

Anderson Cooper faced the camera, his voice freighted with emotion, and took a stand on covering the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. “We will not say the gunman’s name or show his photograph,” Cooper told CNN viewers on a telecast Monday. “It’s been shown far too much already.” The withholding of such information is an […]

Diane RobertsJune 14, 2016

It’s back to business as usual: hating Muslims, loving guns. We had just celebrated the life of Muhammad Ali, the most famous, most beloved Muslim in the nation’s history. For a minute, one sweet minute, Americans might have been moved to think more expansively about Islam. And race. And violence. Some of us dared hope […]

Mitch PerryJune 14, 2016

Democrats returned to Washington Monday determined to push for gun control legislation in the wake of the Sunday morning shooting massacre in Orlando — and they’re concentrating their energies on a bill that would bar suspected terrorists from acquiring guns or explosives. “If we can’t at least come together to figure out how to get rifles out […]

Mitch PerryJune 14, 2016

When it comes to foreign lands, Americans can sometimes be strangely provincial. Polls traditionally show Americans think we give too much foreign aid. The Kaiser Family Foundation found last year that the average respondent estimated 26 percent went toward assisting other countries, when in fact it’s just less than 1 percent. So when Donald Trump says in […]

Associated PressJune 13, 2016

The gunman whose attack on a gay nightclub left 49 victims dead appears to have been a “homegrown extremist” who espoused support for a jumble of often-conflicting Islamic radical groups, the White House and the FBI said Monday. As Orlando mourned its dead with flowers, candles and vigils, counterterrorism investigators dug into the background of […]

Scott PowersJune 13, 2016

Florida’s senior Sen. Bill Nelson told the U.S. Senate today that hate calls are pouring into his Orlando office today about the Pulse nightclub massacre and Nelson implored that America has got to find a way to unite. Nelson, an Orlando resident who spent most of the past two days at the Orlando command center, said […]

Martin DyckmanJune 13, 2016

What fools we are. What willful, stubborn, persistent, incurable fools. Americans submit by the millions to the Transportation Security Administration’s multiple indignities and inconveniences. The TSA will cost us $5.1 billion this year. We’ll fill its trash barrels with tons of cosmetics, lotions and bottled water that we can’t carry on board. This is in […]

Jim RosicaJune 13, 2016

Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, whose office also handles security guard licenses and concealed carry permits, says the Orlando shooter held security guard licenses that allowed him to carry firearms. Putnam spoke Monday to a group of reporters outside the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee. The commissioner said Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce had a “D” license […]

Tag: Omar Mateen

Mary Jo Melone: Not a column; a plea for Orlando

Pam Bondi strikes back against CNN, Anderson Cooper

Orlando gunman’s face, name become journalism challenge

Diane Roberts: Muslims, immigrants aren’t the problem. It’s guns.

Ted Deutch says terror watch list gun ban vote is ‘the very least we can do’

Mitch Perry Report for 6.14.16 — Will Trump’s tough talk help him?

Orlando killer appears to have been ‘homegrown extremist’

Bill Nelson says hate calls are pouring in

Martin Dyckman: By electing pro-gun politicians, we are the ally of home-grown terrorists

Orlando shooter was licensed as armed security guard in Florida