Today on Context Florida:
Donald Trump’s campaign manager is now part of the Jupiter, Florida police blotter, says Bob Sparks. His victim, according to the probable cause affidavit, is a battered and bruised former reporter for the conservative Breitbart News. Corey Lewandowski and Michelle Fields were not household names before this avoidable public spectacle. If the cable news outlets and bloggers have their way, the video capturing the incident will loop over and over again. As all of this plays out, there is every reason to believe that neither will emerge as sympathetic figures. Breitbart News, Fields’ now-former employer, did not bathe itself in glory with the way it handled this incident.
Florida has felt the effects of 59 federally declared natural disasters since 2010, but Mark Ferrulo points out that our region is far from the only one to have experienced the devastating impacts of natural disasters. Floridians don’t have time to waste, however, climate change is happening and Ferrulo says we’re feeling the effects now. And that makes it all the harder to understand why Florida’s Attorney General Pam Bondi would join a lawsuit against the biggest action ever taken by the U.S. to tackle climate change, signing with countless polluters in a quest to stop climate action. As the defender in chief of Floridians, why is Bondi so determined to stop something that would directly benefit people across Florida?
Florence Snyder notes a dreary predictability to the cycle of corporate child abuse funded by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). It matters not whether the governor is a Democrat or a Republican. DJJ’s patience with well-connected private contractors is limitless, no matter who’s in office.
After the death of a friend and colleague, Catherine Durkin Robinson explains that sometimes, in suicide, the bad voice inside wins. Robinson says she has friends who suffer from depression and they tell her all the time: We can do what we can do, but, in the end, some people cannot be saved.