Viewpoints Editor Jay News Today

It won’t be easy to find another Florida governor who inflicted so much cruelty on its people as quickly as Ron DeSantis did with a single signature. One of the worst single actions by the 2024 Legislature, House Bill 433, prohibits all local governments from taking any steps to protect outdoor workers from heat or from requiring their contractors to pay employees more than the Florida minimum ...

For Floridians caught up in the emotional and legal tumult of Monday’s conflicting duo of Supreme Court abortion rulings, we have a suggestion: Take a break, and have some pot. Or at least take the time to peruse the equally complex — but far more amusing — ruling that will let voters weigh in on whether marijuana should be legalized for all Floridians over the age of 21. (The question, ...

Gov. Ron DeSantis brought his failing presidential campaign back to Florida Tuesday in the guise of his annual State of the State speech, delivered to a joint session of the Legislature and dozens of other dignitaries. The setting was the state Capitol in Tallahassee and the audience included most of the state’s political infrastructure. But DeSantis could have been giving his stump speech to ...

It would not occur to most people to think about the semantic legal difference between “procedural” and “substantive.” But in Florida, it’s a question of life or death. Depending on how the courts eventually answer that question, prisoners could be put to death under a law that was passed after they committed their crimes. That is not justice. Our federal and state constitutions both prohibit ...

Floridians, take notice. Your right to a representative government is being stolen away. Recent headlines document angry eruptions among an audience of people who show up to meetings ready to tell their leaders what they think — only to be muzzled by time limits that shut down some would-be participants before they could utter a single word. More often, however, the exclusion is happening ...

Once upon a time, a powerful wizard came to Central Florida from a far-distant land with a promise. He would transform a vast spread of drowsy acres dotted with orange groves and forests into a beacon of happiness and prosperity that would shine around the world. In return, he demanded a high price — a gift of power over that land, something he said was needed to support the magic he planned ...

What’s most disconcerting about Rep. Mike Johnson, the new House speaker, is not his extreme social and political conservatism, his wafer-thin resumé of seven years in Congress or his conspicuous efforts to help Donald Trump overturn the 2020 election. It’s that Trump was instrumental in elevating this election denier to the speakership. The ultra-conservative Louisiana politician, who in the ...

Working remotely has become immensely popular since the COVID-19 pandemic. But it is ridiculous that two of the University of Florida’s new highest-ranking and highest-paid officers will continue to reside in the Washington, D.C., area, some 775 miles from Gainesville. UF President Ben Sasse, himself a former Washington insider, has made himself an avatar of cronyism by appointing those ...

In the latest developments of Florida’s book-banning boom, much attention has been paid to the hours-long pornothons organized by Moms for Liberty chapters at select School Board meetings across the state. It’s comedy gold, to be sure. Ultra-right wingers rattling off lists and counts of naughty words, or reading steamy prose in robotic tones: “…and we’re kissing watering tongue springy lips ...

Over the past few years, Americans have heard a lot about the potential for artificial intelligence to take over jobs now handled by humans. And like it or not (for the record, we don’t) journalism has been at the top of many of those lists. Last month, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch decided to put Microsoft’s Bing Chat AI through its paces with the prompt: “Write a newspaper editorial arguing ...