Adam Weinstein

There is a chance — slim, to be sure, but a still a chance — that Florida’s capital may finally get the newspaper it deserves. Which is to say, it may finally get a newspaper. It’s hard to describe what Leon County residents currently have, the Tallahassee Democrat, as anything other than an expensive wrapper for coupons; I know many subscribers for whom the weekly discount flyers are the biggest draw. Though a few of the Democrat’s most talented longtime…

Keep Reading

With the loss of Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana’s run-off election last weekend, Southern Democrats have just about gone extinct. For the first time since Reconstruction, no state in the Deep South has a Democrat in the Senate or the governor’s office. As a Southern liberal, I say: Good. America will be better off without them in the long run. But every time Democrats hemorrhage numbers in the South — a trend that’s gone on steadily since the Newt revolution…

Keep Reading

In 1994, at the height of the nationwide electoral wave against Bill Clinton — a force so great and enduring it would be remembered as “the Republican revolution” — there was one bright spot for Democrats: They held on to the Florida Governor’s Mansion. Lawton Chiles, a self-described cracker and populist, fought off a challenge from a political novice named Jeb Bush. (Chiles’ volunteers wore anti-Bush buttons that read: “I didn’t vote for your daddy, either.”) In the 20 years…

Keep Reading

I’ve been trying to catch up with Marion Hammer, the former president of the NRA and top lobbyist for the pro-gun group here in Florida, for years. I’m a lifelong gun owner, but she’s never accepted my offers to meet up for a range day. So I was glad to see she’s writing here at Context Florida now. I’d like to take a minute to chat with Hammer about her post last week praising the state’s recent “Docs vs. Glocks” law. Marion,…

Keep Reading

Last week, as the number of unaccompanied minors reaching the U.S. border from Latin America exceeded 50,000, Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., gave voice to a concern that U.S. immigration opponents have long leveled against the huddled masses yearning to breathe free: that they were breathing diseases into America’s pristine air. “Reports of illegal migrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis are particularly concerning,” he wrote in a letter to the CDC, without ever citing those…

Keep Reading

Perhaps we’re so jaded today that we just assume all politicians are brazen opportunists. But Gov. Rick Scott’s campaign turned the opportunism up to 11 this week, all for a cheap “tough on crime” photo shoot. At a re-election campaign appearance in Tampa Monday, Scott burnished his law enforcement record, complete with a cadre of uniformed peace officers from Florida Fish and Wildlife, Hillsborough County, and Tampa proper. It sure looked like the officers were endorsing him. Except they weren’t. They claimed…

Keep Reading