National Poetry Month with Tampa’s Poet Laureate, James Tokley In 1996 under then mayor Dick Greco, James Tokley was named the first official Poet Laureate for the city of Tampa. And in 2013 the Hillsborough County Commission honored him as Hillsborough County’s Official Poet Laureate. James Tokley has recited poems during the inaugurations of mayors and… Read more »
Tallahassee Tries to Limit Local Government Power to Decide Transportation Future In recent days you may have been stuck in long traffic jams on the interstate highway system here in the Bay area. First there was a grassfire that shut down I-275 in Pinellas County during Friday afternoon rush hour. Then there was the multi… Read more »
Janet Long, the current Chair of the Pinellas County Commission, appeared in studio on the Tuesday, April 18th edition of MidPoint with guest host Mitch Perry. A former state legislator who was initially elected in 2012 to the board and subsequently reelected in 2016 (without an opponent), Long has been a big proponent of regionalization… Read more »
This Saturday in Washington, D.C. is a national March for Science, and there are local marches as well; Sean spoke with two people helping out with the March for Science in St. Petersburg, Florida on Monday’s MidPoint program. Brittany Combs is a graduate student in oceanography at the USF College of Marine Science. She’s also a… Read more »
Columnist Scott Maxwell on the investigation into Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi A southwest Florida prosecutor assigned by the governor to investigate a bribery complaint against President Donald Trump and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has found insufficient evidence to move forward. Fort Myers-area State Attorney Stephen Russell presented Gov. Rick Scott last week with… Read more »
How do context and persuasion affect the ability of presidents to achieve their goals? One of the top presidential scholars in the country, George Edwards , spoke Thursday night at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg. Host Rob Lorei interviewed him about the Trump presidency. Edwards has authored many articles and written or edited 25 books on… Read more »
Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Glenn Frankel has just written his second straight book about the making of an American classic western film in High Noon:The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic. It’s a story of Hollywood’s golden age, as High Noon achieved instant box-office and critical success. But what is often overlooked is that High Noon was made… Read more »
Renewed effort by activists to win support for Medicare for All Changes in the Affordable Care Act are stalled in Washington as Republicans cannot agree how to go forward. That’s despite President Trump’s promise that he would repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with something that would cover everyone, while also reducing premiums… Read more »
Syrian-American journalist and attorney Alia Malek was our guest for the first part of today’s program. She’s just written a new book, The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria, about living in Syria just as the Arab Spring was taking root in early 2011, and how the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad… Read more »
What is happening? This reminds me of what I call the shadow. I have been lucky to observe eagles and hawks in nature (eagles do not always fish). I have watched them do their dive after a rabbit or a squirrel and in the moment before the talons strike, a shadow comes over the prey… Read more »
Should Florida have open primary elections? Before general elections we have primary elections where political parties ask their members to select from a roster of candidates who will be the party’s slate of candidates in the general election. In Florida you must be a member of a political party to vote in that party’s primary… Read more »
Failure of Republican Health Care Plan Draws New Interest to Single Payer / Medicare for All Almost everyone agrees our health care system needs improvement, and there are growing calls for a single payer health care system in the U.S. Rob Lorei talks with some Florida single payer activists. President Trump and his fellow Republicans… Read more »
Why Did Evangelical Christians Vote in Such Big Numbers for Donald Trump? Robert P. Jones, author of The End of White Christian America, joined Rob Lorei on Radioactivity. He spoke on Thursday, March 23 at 6PM at the St. Petersburg College Seminole Campus Conference Center. Christian conservatives overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump for president. How… Read more »
Some scientists at the University of South Florida are worried that science is under attack by President Donald Trump; but so far they’ve been mostly disappointed after requesting moral support from leaders at USF. Last week several scientists met with some members of the USF administration, including general counsel Gerard Solis. Erin Sauer, a graduate… Read more »
Joe Redner has been called a Tampa legend, and as he turns 77 this summer, he certainly doesn’t appear to be ready to slow down anytime soon. The adult club entrepreneur and activist received a little less than 10 percent of the vote in his last bid for public office last fall, falling to Republican… Read more »
Rob Lorei interivews Steven King, Executive Director of Meals on Wheels of Tampa about proposed budget cuts Last week the Trump administration unveiled its blueprint for a new federal budget. Domestic programs would be cut while military spending would receive a 10 percent increase. One of the domestic programs that would be cut would be… Read more »
Rob Lorei interviewed Hope Jahren, renowned geobiologist and author of award winning best seller Lab Girl Rob’s first guest today is being compared to Oliver Sacks and Stephen Jay Gould for the quality of her writing on science. She is geobiologist Hope Jahren, who writes about becoming a scientist — interspersing her personal story with chapters about… Read more »
Thursday morning in Tarpon Springs about 20 people held signs opposing Trumpcare; Paul Robinson is an emergency doctor and a pediatrician living in Tarpon Springs. “In Florida today, 2.6-million children are covered under Medicaid and our version of CHIP, which is called Florida Kid Care. The marketplace, under Obamacare, added another 122,000 covered children. So between… Read more »
The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the “Trumpcare” Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act Thursday — are the Tampa Bay area Republican members of Congress on board? It’s pretty difficult to say, since many of them did not respond when WMNF News reached out to them. Congress members Dennis Ross… Read more »
How will Floridians fare under the American Health Care Act (AHCA)? Jeff Johnson, the state director for AARP Florida, says: not well. Johnson also says Floridians on Medicaid – especially those in nursing homes – might be harmed by the AHCA. Listen to the story here: “Well, there are a couple of things, particularly from… Read more »
How easy is it to generate fake news? We’re going to find out in a moment when we talk with the founder of a fake news website which already has been visited by a million people—just three weeks after it was created. A former Clearwater resident began generating fake news last month; news that was… Read more »
We had three different guests on today’s program. Jon Sherman, Senior Counsel for the Fair Elections Legal Network, spoke about his organization’s lawsuit against Rick Scott and other states officials on attempting to automatically restore former felons’ voting rights and eliminate Florida’s “arbitrary and opaque process for re-enfranchisement.” Also, Penn State University professor Sophia McClennan on why the media isn’t doing… Read more »
Trumpcare is Rigged! Not to worry – health care is and always has been available for all – if you can afford it. If you can’t, don’t get sick. It’s hard to imagine after 8 years of attacks, including 60 attempts by Republicans in Congress to overthrow the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it has come… Read more »
The 2016 election didn’t just bring a new administration into the White House or spark new energy in the building progressive protest movement. Apps and websites have been springing up to help people get their resistance on. Many of them are built by people in their late teens or early 20s, which might be an interesting… Read more »
The week for Congress members to spend in their districts is wrapping up and many of them held town hall meetings to hear from constituents; but a number including Sen. Marco Rubio, also skipped any town halls. For example, on Sunday afternoon nearly fifty people stood outside the Resort at Longboat Key Club on Longboat Key… Read more »
