At the county courthouse in Tallahassee, across the street from the state Capitol, what it says is that someone is suppressing a grand jury report that the people of Florida deserve to read.

That someone might just be Florida’s attorney general.

The grand jury report, known as a “presentment,” concerns the $10 million in Medicaid money that was laundered into Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign to defeat the 2024 initiative to legalize recreational marijuana.

That amendment received nearly 56% of the vote, but it failed because constitutional amendments need 60% to pass in Florida.

About Hope Florida

It’s an open secret, effectively confirmed by courthouse sightings of likely witnesses and subsequent choruses of “no comments,” that a grand jury has been probing the Hope Florida Foundation scandal, so named because the money went through First Lady Casey DeSantis’ prized charity.

There’s no showing that she arranged that, but James Uthmeier, DeSantis’ chief of staff at the time, chaired the political committee, Keep Florida Clean, that spent the laundered money.

Rep. Alex Andrade, the Pensacola Republican whose subcommittee investigated the diversion, publicly accused Uthmeier of wire fraud and money laundering, which he denied.

Uthmeier is now Florida attorney general, appointed to a vacancy by DeSantis, and is up for election this fall.

Florida law allows at least temporary concealment of a presentment that isn’t accompanied by an indictment. Anyone it criticizes can object to its publication, which keeps it secret until a judge decides whether to release it. There’s no deadline, so if this presentment involves Uthmeier, it could remain hidden until after the election, if not forever.

Uthmeier, Andrade and courthouse officials all deferred inquiries from a public interest group, the Florida Center for Governmental Accountability, in ways that implied a presentment exists. If there weren’t one, they could say so.

Make it public

If there is one, it needs to be made public. One reason is to kick-start Senate action on legislation the House passed 116-0, Andrade’s HB 593, to prohibit the sort of intrigue that diverted the $10 million. Sadly, the Senate shows zero interest in Andrade’s bill.

The money was in a $67 million settlement with Centene, a company the state claimed had overbilled for Medicaid services. The DeSantis administration demanded that $10 million of the settlement be set aside for the Hope Florida Foundation.

Andrade’s bill bars any future third-party diversions from money refunded to the state. It forbids officials from coercing anyone else to make political contributions, curbs excessive travel and eliminates an existing provision allowing the governor to appoint non-Florida residents to university boards. It’s all good, but only if both houses pass it.

Federal money comprises about two-thirds of Florida’s Medicaid budget, which provides care to more than 4 million people. There should have been a federal investigation into the $10 million diversion.

DeSantis and Uthmeier have been crowing over reports that claimed federal prosecutors were not interested in pursuing the case.

Nonetheless, the state sent $10 million back to Washington, meaning some of Florida’s own money went into the reimbursement. Shevaun Harris, acting administrator of the Agency for Health Care Administration, told a Senate committee that was done “in an abundance of caution” to “avoid any future liability or litigation.”

Many millions plundered

All told, according to the Tampa Bay Times, the DeSantis administration plundered an additional $27 million from state agency budgets for an advertising campaign against the marijuana amendment.

There appears to be no law expressly forbidding the use of public funds to influence voters. If not, there should be.

Meanwhile, Uthmeier needs to explain how he’s getting $100,000 a year to teach two law courses at the University of Florida, far more than other adjuncts make. That’s atop the $140,000 he’s paid for being the state’s chief legal officer. The Tampa Bay Times reported that UF bent its own rules to approve the deal.

His first course was titled, appropriately, “Executive Power.”

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

The Florida Senate would invite that horror by voting for this year’s most dangerous health care legislation.

SB 1756, the “Medical Freedom” bill, would expose more of the state’s children to measles, polio and other diseases that can cripple even when they don’t kill. It would all but nullify the Florida law and policy requiring schoolchildren to be vaccinated against 11 diseases.

It’s scheduled for Senate approval in the session’s final days, following a 14-8 vote in the Rules Committee as three Republicans, in a rare mini-mutiny, joined all five Democrats in voting no. A Senate floor vote could come Monday.

Public opinion is against it, but Gov. Ron DeSantis and his quack surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, are all for it, as they cater to a clamorous, reckless minority.

Despite Senate support, the bill is stalled — a further rejection of the departing governor’s out-of-step policies.

Dead in the House

House Speaker Daniel Perez of Miami says the House won’t take it up, obviously aware that mandatory childhood vaccines poll well even among the MAGA base. For some, this is too dangerous to touch, especially in an election year.

That should be the end of this nonsense with a week left in the session.

But the Senate should still vote it down, if only to send a strong message.

The number of fully vaccinated Florida kindergarten students hit a low of 88.7% last year, down from 94.1% a decade ago. Recorded religious exemptions rose to 4.6%. Irresponsible legislators are encouraging more opt-outs.

Present law allows only religious and medical exemptions, which are negligible. The bill would take the barn door off the hinges by adding a “conscience” excuse, which covers anything from benighted superstition to plain laziness.

The bill also requires the state boards of medicine and osteopathic medicine to adopt a joint statement about the vaccines to be signed by a parent before a child gets the shots.

State-approved recklessness

It also allows pharmacists to provide ivermectin without a prescription. It’s the worming medicine claimed — wrongly, according to the best medical analysis — to be a treatment for COVID-19.

Perhaps most stunning and short-sighted, the bill would also forbid any future Florida surgeon general from requiring immunizations no matter what new pandemic might be raging.

It reflects how few if any Florida senators are old enough to remember the fear that gripped American parents as summers often brought a new outbreak of polio, which can paralyze and kill.

The worst U.S. epidemic took more than 3,000 lives in 1952, just before the vaccines came along to save millions of lives worldwide.

The U.S. was considered to be measles-free too thanks to the MMR shot that also protects against mumps and rubella (German measles). Florida is a state where measles is back, with 104 cases reported in 10 counties, including two cases in Broward. Collier, on the southwest coast, stands out with 73.

Raging in the Southeast

Nationally, there have been 1,136 confirmed cases in just two months, compared to 2,281 in all of 2025. South Carolina leads with 990 cases.

Measles is wildly contagious even before symptoms appear. It has spread into nearby North Carolina, where new signs on the door of a pediatric practice tell parents to return to their cars and phone in for measles screening.

It is deadly error to dismiss measles as a trivial childhood disease. At least three children have already died from it this year. Others will suffer encephalitis and pneumonia.

The willful refusal to vaccinate eligible children threatens the lives of those who are too young for the shots.

Dr. Sarah Marsicek, a pediatric hospitalist at Gainesville who testified against SB 1756, tells of “life-threatening breathing pauses in a two-month-old” due to whooping cough, a nine-month-old with seizures from pneumococcal meningitis “and is now neurologically devastated” and a toddler with Hib meningitis who is now cognitively impaired.

“These are just a few of the kids I have cared for in the past year with vaccine-preventable diseases,” she says.

Florida senators should not want any more of them.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

Two months after Project Tango erupted in controversy, the tech user behind the proposed massive Palm Beach County data center has not been officially identified. The investigative news site Seeking Rents reports that the developers are Palm Beach Aggregates, a rock-mining company, and Phillips Inc., a Tennessee-based infrastructure contractor. But the end user remains unknown.

Legislation in Tallahassee might stall development by requiring studies, buffers and oversight, but even the toughest of the data center bills, HB 1007, allows economic development agencies to keep a company’s identity hidden for 12 months.

Project Tango is a case study in why that is a bad idea.

This project has flown under the radar and without scrutiny by thousands of nearby residents in western Palm Beach County. It ballooned from a 206,000-square-foot data center, initially approved in 2016, to a 1.8 million-square-foot behemoth. Almost unnoticed, Tango’s expansion popped up on a Dec. 10 commission consent agenda, reserved for non-controversial agenda items.

This is not merely a bigger project. It’s a different project entirely.

The data centers of 2016 and the massive data facilities now fueling the AI boom are a world apart. It’s the difference between building a stall for three horses and building a racetrack, said County Commissioner Maria Sachs. Outraged residents of Wellington, Loxahatchee and the nearby Arden community are right to feel blindsided.

The county followed its procedures. Notices went out. Agendas were made public. So were votes.

The relevant economic development agencies can legally keep the identity of a new business secret. A hyper-scaled data center is not just a business, though. It is an environmental disruptor, with serious implications for quality of life, electric grid buildout, higher utility bills, excessive water use, unrelenting noise and property values.

Massive energy demands

What other standalone business is capable of using as much electricity as 100,000 homes? What other business needs enormous amounts of water every day? What other business emits day and night “humming” from massive cooling systems and electricity transmission that can be heard for miles?

What other industry in Florida is talking about building its own mini-nuclear reactors?

A hyper-scale data center should always start with rigorous transparency. But instead, NBC News found, data center and tech companies across the country are working overtime to make sure no one knows what’s being built or who’s building them.

Everything about Project Tango could have been disclosed from the start, from terms of its deal with Florida Power & Light for electricity to identifying the actual end user. Community discussions could have been part of early planning, answering the most basic question: Where is the benefit to the community here?

Commissioners on April 23 will discuss the project, now scaled back to “only” a million square feet. A grass-roots group, Stop Project Tango (stopprojecttango.org), is mobilizing opposition online. This issue is certain to dominate the 2026 Palm Beach County Commission elections.

Don’t expect the Legislature to rein in data centers’ worst excesses. Despite Gov. Ron DeSantis’ call for an AI “Bill of Rights” in Florida, it appears that nothing will pass because House Republicans will defer to the Trump administration on AI regulation.

If Tallahassee does not demand full transparency, then Palm Beach commissioners should. It’s in data centers’ best interests, too. Anyone who watched hundreds of county residents booing and catcalling at a recent Town Hall trying to explain Project Tango could state the obvious: Too much secrecy never succeeds.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

Elected by Broward voters in 2024, Peffer now faces a 30-day suspension, $10,000 fine and public reprimand from the Florida Supreme Court for actions she describes as “tremendously stupid.”

Running for judge two years ago, Peffer told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board of the need to rebuild trust and confidence in the courts, but her efforts backfired spectacularly. She cited as proof a self-published book by a fired courts employee in Orlando and a fabricated recording of a phone call that imitated the voices of two justices of the Florida Supreme Court.

To make matters worse, the “deepfake” 18-minute recording was laced with racist references to a prominent Orlando judge. Peffer emailed the phony recording to Sun Sentinel reporter Rafael Olmeda after he asked her to corroborate references in this editorial board’s candidate questionnaire to “revelations” as proof of an “image crisis” in the courts.

A full JQC investigation

In an investigation by the state Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC), Peffer acknowledged she never read Brett Arquette’s book, nor did she try to verify the legitimacy of the fabricated recording.

“I didn’t do what I was supposed to,” she told a JQC panel at a December hearing in Fort Lauderdale.

“By making no attempt to verify the false and embarrassing portrayals of the judiciary — which she perpetuated as part of her effort to obtain a newspaper endorsement — Judge Peffer exhibited gross negligence,” says the JQC’s findings and recommendations. “While the evidence suggests that Judge Peffer’s time on the bench has been positive and productive, it is not enough to overcome the events she set in place by her poor judgment.”

The transcript of Peffer’s hearing, held in the county courthouse on Dec. 16, 2025, shows that Peffer considered publicly retracting her statements at the time, but decided against it after consulting with her campaign manager, Jennifer Gottlieb.

‘It will be okay’

“I didn’t know what to do,” Peffer recalled, according to the transcript. “I think the advice — everybody was kind of patting my hand and telling me not that many people read the newspaper anymore, it will be OK, you can lose the endorsement and still win a campaign.”

That’s what happened. The Editorial Board endorsed Peffer’s opponent, Emilio Benitez, and chided Peffer for “poor judgment” in citing the book and recording. Peffer won a six-year term on the bench with 54% of the vote.

She’s the fifth Broward judge to face serious sanctions in the past two years.

Former Circuit Judge Gary Farmer resigned last August after being suspended indefinitely and former County Judge Marti Levey Cohen, elected three times by voters, resigned in December after she was suspended and reprimanded.

Circuit Judge Stefanie Moon was suspended and fined, and County Judge Woody Clermont faces a reprimand for misconduct. Both remain on the bench.

Broward has 90 county and circuit judges, and the vast majority of them are competent, ethical and professional.

Before Peffer’s problems arose, she made a memorable statement in her Sun Sentinel candidate interview in 2024. Her description of what was wrong with the Florida judiciary is a part of the JQC’s findings and recommendations.

“It’s a bad situation that requires, you know, really strong ethical stances to those coming up in the future judicial races and generations,” Peffer said.

In a couple of months, this newspaper will send questionnaires to dozens of candidates for judgeships and other offices. We urge all candidates to take them more seriously than Lauren Peffer did.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

Stephanie Bendoym’s resignation Monday was the right call. But it won’t erase her bad judgment, which prompted a complaint with a regional Board of Realtors, as columnist Steve Bousquet reported Sunday.

The Hollywood real estate agent voted in the majority on Feb. 10 to approve zoning exceptions to allow a mikvah in the single-family Hollywood Lakes neighborhood. The decision is unpopular among area residents, and more than 1,500 people signed an online petition against it. After her vote, Bendoym wrote to nearby residents who might be considering selling their homes, offering to help “regardless of past differences,” she wrote.

Bendoym never should have sent the letter. She was trying to profit from her vote as a city board member, a terrible look for the city. We call on Hollywood elected officials to reaffirm the need for board appointees to keep their public duties devoid from their private business interests always.

“At no time have I used, nor intended to use, this civic position to advance any private business interests,” Bendoym wrote in her resignation letter. “Unfortunately, recent circumstances have created a perception that has made it increasingly difficult for me to continue serving in a manner that feels emotionally sustainable.”

The code commands them to be truthful in dealing with the courts, the public and each other.

Bondi’s contempt for legal ethics is so notorious that 384 fellow Stetson Law alumni called on the school to formally disapprove her. They received no reply. Media inquiries produced silence.

Dozens of Florida lawyers similarly struck out when they petitioned the Bar last year to discipline Bondi. The Bar refused to accept the complaint. The Supreme Court ruled they had no legal right to it.

In stark contrast, the Bar, at the court’s command, is persecuting Uhlfelder for an offense so minor in comparison that the Taylor County circuit judge who heard it recommended only the least possible sanction of an “admonishment.”

Uhlfelder, who practices in Santa Rosa Beach in the Panhandle, would also have to attend the Bar’s Ethics School and pay $7,447.40 in costs.

The Bar wants blood

An admonishment, said Judge Gregory Parker, acting as a referee, “would appropriately balance the seriousness of the conduct with appropriate rehabilitative measures.”

But the Bar wants blood. It announced that it will appeal Parker’s recommendation. The 91-day suspension it has been demanding would be just long enough to require Uhlfelder to prove his “fitness” to resume practicing, which could sideline him indefinitely.

Uhlfelder’s offense is that he failed to notify Florida’s First District Court of Appeal that his two co-counsels had withdrawn from a lawsuit against Gov. Ron DeSantis before he appealed it.

As ethics offenses go, it’s the moral equivalent of jaywalking. Compare that to how Bondi prostituted the Justice Department to a vengeful president and bungled the entire Epstein matter.

Uhlfelder’s ordeal reflects poorly on not only the Bar but two of Florida’s most important courts: The state Supreme Court, which controls the Bar, and the First DCA in Tallahassee.

Uhlfelder drew wide attention by dressing in a Grim Reaper costume to protest DeSantis’ refusal to shut Florida beaches during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Then he sued the governor. That failed, although the circuit judge who dismissed it suggested that he appeal.

The odor of politics

A three-judge panel dismissed the appeal as frivolous, lacking any “good faith” basis, and ordered the attorneys to show cause why they shouldn’t be punished for “an improper use of the appeal process.”

Uhlfelder replied, but not just on paper. He sounded off to the media, calling it “interesting” that the panel’s criticism came two days after he organized a political committee to oppose DeSantis.

The three judges did not like the implication, so they ordered the state attorney in Uhlfelder’s district to file charges against him with the local court as well as with the Bar, citing a rule against impugning the integrity of judges. They also implied Uhlfelder should be prosecuted for criminal contempt, a threat still pending.

The Bar Board of Governors eventually recommended only an ethics retraining course. But the Supreme Court ordered the Bar to try again.

One of the three district court judges who started it, Adam Tanenbaum, was appointed by DeSantis last month to the Supreme Court. The Bar’s promised appeal could result in not just Uhlfelder’s suspension but his disbarment.

The case exposed lax ethics on the part of the Bar itself. It failed to disclose that the two other lawyers in the original case, who would be witnesses against Uhlfelder, also faced Bar discipline on unrelated matters. Concealment of such a potential conflict of interest would get a criminal case dismissed or a conviction overturned.

Excessively harsh

Former Florida Bar President Henry “Hank” Coxe of Jacksonville joined Uhlfelder’s defense team and filed a motion unsuccessfully asking referee Parker to dismiss the case on account of the Bar’s “cheating.”

Meanwhile, the other two lawyers in trouble got off lighter. A public reprimand was ordered for one, a 60-day suspension for the other. But the Bar still intends to ask the court to punish Uhlfelder much more harshly.

It’s impossible to ignore the politics at work. DeSantis appointed six of the seven sitting Supreme Court justices. They have long circled the wagons around him, consistently ruling his way except for his appointment of a justice who had not been a member of the Bar long enough to qualify.

In 2021, the newest judge on the panel that lowered the boom on Uhlfelder was Tanenbaum, who had previously been general counsel for the Republican Florida House. The district court has consistently ruled for DeSantis too.

For four years, the First Circuit state attorney has had to file monthly reports with the court on the status of its case against Uhlfelder.

The underlying issue there was his freedom of speech. The Bar was prudent to not pursue that. But after settling on a minor ethics violation instead, it has unwisely pursued a drastic punishment. The referee’s recommendation was reasonable. To appeal it would be unfair.

“It will be a five-year odyssey for Mr. Uhlfelder,” said one of his attorneys, Scott Tozian. “Enough is enough. But apparently not for the Florida Bar.”

But Bondi, who has done incalculably greater damage, remains untouchable.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

Trump started a war with no consultation with Congress, let alone the consent the Constitution still requires. He confides more in the Israeli government, his war partner, than in our own.

It would betray the American people, our armed forces and our Constitution for Congress to indulge Trump in this new war.

He claims that diplomatic negotiations failed, that Iran was preparing to attack U.S. interests in the Mideast, that it was close to building a nuclear weapon, and even an ICBM that could reach the United States.

The problem is, Trump has taught us to not believe anything he says.

A monumental tragedy

The greater likelihood is that Israel and Saudi Arabia put him up to it, as some media outlets report.

The war is already disgraced by a monumental tragedy at the outset. The bombing killed not only Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but reportedly at least 153 people at a primary school, including children. There is no conceivable excuse. The U.S. and Israel are experts at precise targeting when they choose to use it.

Regime change, the overthrow of Iran’s government, is a different, far less defensible and much more difficult goal than targeted strikes at Iran’s nuclear weapons capability, which Trump said he had “obliterated” in bombings carried out last summer. Khamenei will not be mourned outside of Iran, but Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is still in power.

Iran’s notoriously brutal regime murdered at least 6,000 of its own people during recent protests. It is religious fanaticism in the mailed fist of corrupt fascism, carried out by the leading state sponsor of international terrorism.

That said, there are practical and legal limits to what any democracy such as ours can do about such a place. China and Russia are greater threats to the U.S. in the long term than Iran is now, or could be, and yet Washington doesn’t contemplate regime change against them.

Trump, who promised no more “forever wars,” appears to be clueless about what happens next.

The removal of a leader sometimes changes nothing else. Cuba is still a dictatorship nearly 10 years after Castro’s death. So is Venezuela with Nicolás Maduro in a New York jail, while Trump seems content to do business with his successor.

No end seen, and higher prices

Our nation may be in for a long war.

Trump has conceded that more service members will die. “That’s the way it is,” Trump callously said Sunday.

There are questions about the short supply of our munitions and missile interceptors. Iran has retaliated throughout the Mideast. Gas prices will soar, along with the price of nearly everything else, if the Strait of Hormuz — the passage for 20% of the world’s petroleum products — is closed.

This is all the work of a president who repeatedly promised to do no such thing. In 2016, he declared regime change to be a “proven, absolute failure.” In 2024, he warned that Kamala Harris would “get us into a World War III, guaranteed.” During that presidential campaign, Stephen Miller, JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard all claimed that a vote for Harris was a vote for war with Iran, while a vote for Trump meant peace.

This also isn’t what most MAGA voters expected. Last June, three months before his assassination, the young conservative leader Charlie Kirk warned expressly against attempting regime change in a Mideast country as massive as Iran, which he said would be a “quagmire.”

A convenient distraction

Conveniently for Trump, his new war is a distraction from the Epstein files — and from polls showing him with a dismal 37% approval rating. Oblivious to appearances as always, he began this war from his gilded Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, where he held a fundraiser for his super PAC, reportedly at $1 million a plate, as he sent our troops into danger.

If Congress lets Trump get away with this, it will own what he does next. He has already threatened to take control of state elections without the approval of Congress.

This crisis is summed up best by Alex Vindman, an authentic American hero running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Florida.

Vindman, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who was a Mideast expert at the National Security Council, acknowledged that Iran’s regime is evil and has “inflicted death and destruction on Americans and our allies” for decades. Vindman himself was wounded by an Iranian-made bomb while serving in Iraq.

But, he added, “Wars without a plan are dangerous.” He warned that “Forever wars drain American strength, put our troops at risk without clear purpose, distract from real strategic priorities and divert resources we should be investing at home.

“The president owes Congress and the American people immediate answers,” Vindman said. “What is the mission? What is the strategy? What is the end state?”

Bipartisan resolutions are pending in both houses of Congress to reign in the White House warmonger. Sponsors want action this week. It’s imperative for Congress to pass them despite a certain Trump veto. Congress needs to take a stand before it’s too late.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

Under Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Department of Health is severely restricting access to medications for thousands of people with HIV or AIDS who are uninsured or underinsured and receive coverage through ADAP, the AIDS Drug Assistance Program.

Citing rising insurance premiums as the cause of a $120 million shortfall in the federally funded program — a claim disputed by AIDS advocates — the state will limit eligibility to 130% of the federal poverty level as of March 1, a steep reduction from the previous level of 400%.

In real-life terms, eligibility would fall from a patient’s annual income of $63,840 to a drastically lower $20,748, hurting an estimated 16,000 Floridians. Without insurance, medications can cost more than $4,000 a month. Experts warn that new restrictions will increase homelessness and hospital costs and increase the spread of HIV in Florida.

Once again, Florida’s LGBTQ population justifiably feels targeted by the DeSantis administration.

The state also has said it would remove Biktarvy, the most widely prescribed HIV medication, from its coverage, while restricting the availability of a second drug, Descovy, to patients with renal insufficiency.

The medical news site Positively Aware has comprehensive details of this crisis and how the public can voice its concerns.

Panic and fear

“There is panic. There is fear. People are crying,” Michael Rajner of Fort Lauderdale, who has lived with HIV since 1995 and who relies on ADAP, told the Senate Appropriations Committee at a Jan. 14 hearing.

For weeks, Rajner has been a persistent presence at the Capitol in Tallahassee. Until he showed up and began testifying, some senators said they were not aware of the ADAP crisis.

Rajner has prodded lawmakers to act while also accusing DOH of illegally diverting money from ADAP without adequately notifying the public of the implications of the severe cutbacks.

“There’s been no communication with the community or transparency,” Rajner told senators on Jan. 14.”We’re afraid for our lives.”

Blame for that rests squarely with the Department of Health. Its repeated and outrageous communications failures have heightened public outrage and anxiety.

Blindsiding the public

DOH executed its restrictions in secret and failed to solicit public feedback through an administrative path known as rulemaking, which caused a legal challenge by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

But rather than respond to the legal challenge, DOH blindsided the public a second time.

The agency enacted emergency rules that short-circuited legal proceedings, imposing a new 14-day legal clock that allows it to implement the restrictions. Rajner arrived at a state office Wednesday hoping to attend a hearing, but he instead discovered the state’s action. In an online video, he called it “outrageous and insulting.”

All states receive federal money through the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program to help low-income people get FDA-approved medications. Passage last year of President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” cut Medicaid funding and access to insurance under the Affordable Care Act, which the state cites as reasons for the new restrictions.

The Senate is tackling this crisis. The preliminary Senate budget (SB 2500, pp. 126-127) orders the Department of Health to restructure ADAP later this year “to improve long-term sustainability and maximize access for eligible individuals within available resources” and to insure “as many eligible Floridians as possible within existing resources.”

DOH is also directed to provide monthly reports to the Legislature, starting Aug. 1, how ADAP money is accounted for and spent.

“At the end of the day, we are the appropriators,” Senate Appropriations Chairman Ed Hooper, R-Palm Harbor, told Department of Health officials in January.

In a state holding an enormous budget reserve of nearly $17 billion, legislators must resolve this manufactured health care crisis. No other state has imposed such severe income restrictions on the ADAP program.

Other states — Pennsylvania, Delaware, Kansas and Rhode Island, to name a few — have found solutions that minimize the impact to vulnerable people. Florida should too.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

The Trump Organization said Trump was “deeply honored that the people of Florida are considering renaming his hometown airport in his honor.”

But the people of Florida did no such thing. The gerrymandered Legislature rammed it through, led by, among others, Rep. Meg Weinberger, who won her northern Palm Beach County district and Trump’s blessing by advertising herself as “MAGA Meg.”

Not one of 12 airports bearing presidents’ names was retitled when those presidents were still in office, and there’s a reason why.

Racing to stick a sitting president’s name on buildings is not about honoring his service. It is about forcefully reminding people of his power. The same rush to rename buildings, erect statues, hang massive banners of faces and publicly declare fealty to the leader in power is on display in North Korea, Cuba and the former Soviet Union.

It is a hallmark of cult government — not democracies.

The trademarking of Trump

To their discredit, according to voting records, Senate Democrats Kristen Arrington, Tracie Davis, Barbara Sharief and Shevrin Jones initially voted for the bill in committees. They later joined other Democrats in voting no. However, given criticism that the Democratic Party is failing to stand up to GOP overreach, their early support is especially tone deaf.

Then, as it became obvious that the Legislature would greenlight the name change, a Trump Organization company rushed to secure trademarks for the names President Donald J. Trump International Airport, Donald J. Trump International Airport and DJT.

The company emphasized that the president and his family will not receive any royalty, licensing fee or financial consideration from the renaming. But legislators pushed through an amendment requiring a license agreement with the president’s business as part of the renaming.

The new trademarks cover a laundry list of travel merchandise, including carry-on bags, flight suits, aircraft fueling, pet carriers and plastic slippers to keep socks clean when going through security.

Of course Trump is going to find a way to make money off the airport’s new name. This is a man who put his name on a $1,000 Bible.

From cologne to energy drinks

It’s at the core of the family business. Before Trump won the presidency, he cashed in on selling the right to use his name on real estate projects across the globe. He has used his name on a long list of lesser deals: steaks, a board game, a gambling video, a winery, cologne, vodka, furniture, a bicycle race, even an energy drink for the Israeli and Palestinian markets.

The self-marketing and hucksterism may have worked in business deals, but in the Oval Office, it has morphed into a presidency fueled by vanity, greed and graft.

The New York Times Editorial Board analyzed public data and found that Trump has used his presidency to pocket $1.4 billion, a haul roughly equal to 16,822 times the median U.S. household income.

More than $800 million has come from crypto asset sales, Reuters found, much of it from unidentified “foreign interests.” Trump once derided crypto. That was before a Trump meme coin made him a small fortune and the lucrative launch of his cryptocurrency trading platform, heralded as “an improvement on official U.S. currency.”

The courting of crypto

He has been courting crypto ever since. They are returning the favor: Crypto investors have commissioned “Don Colossus,” a 15-foot, $360,000 gold-leaf statue of Trump raising his fist.

His core supporters may not see it, and the Florida Legislature may refuse to admit it, but at this point in his presidency, Trump is stunningly unpopular. Even if his polling numbers weren’t in the basement, most Americans want their government to run in the background — not in their faces while they squeeze themselves into an airplane.

But Trump’s ego requires it. As GOP strategist Steven Hilding explained, putting his name before the public will ensure he is remembered. And he will be — but not for airports.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

House Republicans passed a proposed constitutional amendment (HJR 203) that would — if 60% of voters approve — eliminate non-school property taxes on about half of Florida homes in 2027. For most cities in Broward and Palm Beach counties, it is a slow-motion fiscal catastrophe.

Such a massive tax cut superficially sounds good, so many uninformed voters are likely to vote yes. The appeal is obvious to people burdened by ever-rising insurance premiums and paying more for everything from eggs to pickup trucks. Single-family homeowners who would benefit the most are also the ones most likely to vote. The measure also could benefit from “aspirational voting” by people still chasing the elusive dream of home ownership.

For those who don’t yet own a home but vote for this ballot measure, the effects would be especially cruel. If cities and counties raise other taxes or fees to cover some of the estimated $18.3 billion they will lose annually, they will burden low-income Floridians who are renters. Also pinched would be small businesses that create most new jobs in Florida.

This assumes that local governments will shift the tax burden and try to keep tax revenues stable to keep parks open and garbage trucks on the road. Many county and city commissioners will probably first opt to power through their reserves, those “rainy day funds” set aside for disasters. Now, that money may have to cover a disaster that was entirely man-made.

The unkindest cuts

Next, they will look first for places to cut, and that could get ugly fast.

The problem is this: Most people don’t really understand what local property taxes pay for — both directly, as city or county functions, and indirectly, as grants to community organizations that provide a wide range of services. Local communities even pick up a portion of bigger expenses such as Medicaid coverage for low-income families.

So where will local officials look for cuts? Expect them to start with things many people consider “extras” — sports programs, community festivals, libraries and environmental preservation. In communities like Parkland and Cooper City, where the largest percentage of the tax base is residential, the impacts will hit the hardest.

One area walled off from service cuts is public safety, the biggest cost-driver for cities and counties. A clause in the proposed amendment would force them to fund police, fire-rescue and first responders at current budget levels, which creates another budgeting trap.

In the House’s party-line vote of 80-30, Republicans cast every yes vote but one, and Democrats cast every no vote. The one House Democrat voting for this ruinous legislation was freshman Rep. Leonard Spencer of Orange County. He said he thinks it will benefit residents of his district, which includes most Walt Disney World properties.

He’s partly right. It will be a massive tax windfall for the millionaires, living in their gated splendor. If the owners of an estate near Windermere, the priciest home in Orange County when it sold for $32 million in 2023, were to claim homestead, their tax break would be $273,322.

Renters everywhere, beware

But for low-wage workers in Broward and Palm Beach counties who wait tables and clean hotel rooms, living three or more in an overly expensive two-bedroom rental unit? Not so much.

Their rent will go up when their landlords’ tax bills do too.

Still, it’s too soon to panic. The House tax cut bill, HJR 203, lacks a Senate companion.

Senators, less impulsive by nature and treading cautiously, plan to address property taxes in a special session DeSantis plans to call in late spring. But the House’s aggressive first step was clearly designed to raise public expectations for the final product.

Until then, the best Floridians can do is let lawmakers know that they understand basic math and the cruel calculation behind this reckless legislation.

This will be a long, mostly uphill fight, and there’s reason to worry. If lawmakers aren’t careful (and right now, they are being the opposite) any tax-cut legislation will hurt far more than it will help.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.