Politics & Government

Florida charges way too many people with felony theft for a simple reason: Under state law, anytime someone steals something worth at least $300, it qualifies as “grand theft.” That threshold is among the lowest in America. Florida has not raised that amount since 1986 despite the fact that the U.S. dollar has undergone inflation in those 32 years and other states have raised their limits to as much as $2,500 to qualify as a felony.

To understand YouTube star Jake Paul, look no further than the video “Failed Icy Hot Bath Challenge,” which has been viewed more than 19 million times. In the clip, Paul fills a bathtub with Icy Hot ointment, pulls on swim trunks, lowers himself into the vat of ooze, and screams. It turns out you are definitely not supposed to bathe in Icy Hot…

In National Rifle Association-dominated Florida, the extremely modest gun-control measures Florida’s legislators just passed apparently count as revolutionary. The state Legislature recently voted to send a bill to Gov. Rick Scott’s desk that raises the minimum gun-buying age from 18 to 21 and institutes a three-day waiting period for gun purchases. The bill, HB 7026…

Asking why this country makes it extremely easy for deranged teens to by military-style rifles clearly doesn’t persuade politicians to enact basic gun control laws after yet another mass killing. Florida lawmakers, in particular, aren’t really moved by appeals to their hearts, morals, or consciences, and it’s debatable whether some or…

Stormy Daniels’ attorney made the rounds on morning talk shows today to demolish any doubt about whether President Trump slept with the porn star while he was married to Melania. “Did she have a sexual relationship with the president?” a Today show host asked Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti. “Yes,” he replied.

Every public school teacher in West Virginia is on strike. This fact has, rightfully, brought cheers from a certain sector of the progressive left. But some of the nation’s more center-leaning pundits have found odd ways to scold the demonstrators. MSNBC host and full-time Twitter troll Joy Ann Reid opined that the striking workers apparently deserve their situation for not voting enough Democrats into office.

Florida’s Senate is backing off its ludicrous post-Parkland massacre plan of arming school teachers, so your child might end up getting accidentally shot by a math teacher after all. But a librarian, school nurse, or guidance counselor might still accidentally wind up pulling a gun on your children. During a debate…

The absolute worst thing you can ask Florida’s current cadre of politicians to do is solve a problem. Tallahassee is, by design, filled with barely literate Cro-Magnons who basically just put their name on whatever bill a lobbyist places between them and a free sandwich. Floridians saw the worst of…

After Parkland massacre survivors roasted Sen. Marco Rubio like a pig in a caja china at CNN’s nationally televised town hall, he took to Twitter to complain that their demands for an outright ban on the military-style assault weapons that helped slaughter 17 people at the school were “well outside the mainstream.”

Sen. Marco Rubio is very bad at standing in front of human voters and saying words. It’s his biggest weakness. He sweated his career away when he responded to the 2013 State of the Union address, flunked out of the 2016 Republican presidential primary for robotically repeating the same phrases…

Dressed in head-to-toe camouflage, Ron Bergeron emerges from a yellow thicket and gazes at the open pasture. A heavy rainstorm has left behind a field of black mud and wet grass in Big Cypress National Preserve. The sky is gray and the land bare, save for a herd of deer…

U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz tried like hell this week to defend the National Rifle Association from scorn after Nikolas Cruz used to an AR-15 rifle to kill 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Onstage at the BB&T Center Wednesday night in front of thousands of grieving Floridians, including some family of the 17 students and teachers mowed down by a teen with a military-style weapon at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch showed at least a little decency. She admitted Nikolas Cruz shouldn’t have had the AR-15 he used in the massacre and that Florida’s background-check system doesn’t work.

Everyone knows Florida is run by rubes, fools, and con men. But most people likely weren’t aware just how stupid the state’s legislators really are here on a daily basis until this week, when a brutal Florida school massacre forced national reporters to ask the state’s Republican intelligentsia how they feel…

“Shame! Shame! Shame!” a man wearing a “Ban the AR-15” shirt yelled as Sen. Marco Rubio entered the BB&T Center for Wednesday night’s CNN town-hall special about the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High massacre.

Are you, perhaps, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student who is sad or upset that a disturbed 19-year-old was able to buy an AR-15 rifle legally and kill 17 of your friends and teachers last week?

There’s a reason right-wing groups seem to be terrified of the Parkland shooting survivors. The brave kids who lived through the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High massacre have begun a nationwide #NeverAgain protest movement: As shooting survivors speak today in the Florida Capitol, thousands of middle- and high-school students across the state are walking out to demand gun-control laws for the second day in a row.

Give Philip Levine this: He knows how to grab the pressing issue of the day and run with it for maximum media exposure. As Miami Beach’s mayor, Levine leveraged his office on the sea-level rise threatened barrier island to become an international voice for climate change, appearing regularly on CNN,…

Say what you want about Tampa-area state Rep. Ross Spano, but he truly cares about the dangers our children face in the 21st Century. Just six days after Florida was forced to live through one of the most horrific school shootings in American history, in large part because a…