For the partisan-politics weary cynics among us who question whether those we elect can ever work across the aisle for the common good, the answer here in Florida is yes, in at least two instances this legislative session. And the common good is very good indeed. Last Tuesday, Gov. Ron ...
Spring in Southwest Florida is glorious but the pre-summer lull brings more than great weather and less crowded beaches. May heralds in what local animal shelters call “kitten season,” and no, all love for the fuzzy, furry little hairballs packed with cuteness aside, it’s not a welcome ...
Saying Florida’s relatively new medical marijuana program “is a recreational drug program masquerading as a medical marijuana program,” House District 79 Rep. Spencer Roach has introduced legislation to address “the long-term societal carnage attendant with unfettered access to ...
Are there any words more terrifying to us taxpayers than Ronald Reagan’s famously shared “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”? It always amuses us — and not in a good way — when self-proclaimed fiscally conservative, small government, pro-business politicians trot out ...
Parents of children set to start kindergarten this fall have a new option for their little ones — Young Five. It’s a VPK-to-kindergarten “bridge program” for children whose birthdays make them eligible to start kindergarten — but just barely. Known as transitional kindergarten, ...
Lee County School Board members got an update last week on the District’s plans to improve the way it processes public records requests. District staff has soft-launched new software, GovQA, and plans to have it up and running next month. The software system, estimated to cost $18,500 for ...
Lee Health issued an urgent call to our community this week: The need for blood donations is critical. To supply the needs of the health care system’s four acute care hospitals—Cape Coral Hospital, Gulf Coast Medical Center, HealthPark Medical Center and Lee Memorial Hospital and its ...
Seventy years ago, a then-freshman senator from Maine addressed what she saw as unbridled political opportunism rearing within her own party. Margaret Chase Smith, in the budding days of what has come to be known as McCarthyism, took a stand against her party’s shooting star, delivering ...
The roots of Thanksgiving 2020 run deep. Four hundred years deep. In 1620, 102 passengers sailed from England for what those travelers hoped would be a better life. Sixty-six days of adversity later, they made landfall in a new world, still far from their intended destination. As ...
“The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ...
