A jubilant email landed in the inboxes of Miami Heat season ticketholders yesterday signed by owner Mickey Arison and trumpeting an agreement with Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez for a new ten-year deal to keep the team at the American Airlines Arena. “We thank Mayor Gimenez for his vision,” Arison crowed…
Will Florida’s 2014 governor’s race become the election that was over before it even began? Ever since Governor Rick Scott’s approval ratings plummeted shortly into his tenure, rumors have floated that Charlie Crist would officially become a Democrat and trounce Scott in an election … and that seems to be…
Jeb Bush’s head must be pounding from all the pondering he’s doing these days. Yesterday, he told yet another GOP crowd that he hasn’t ruled out a bid for the White House, this time eliciting an ovation by announcing he’s “thinking about running for president.” He’s probably also doing a…
Let the library funding wars begin. At 9:30 this morning, the Miami-Dade County Finance Committee will meet for a first discussion on budgets for the upcoming fiscal year — chief among them the county’s beleaguered library system, which is facing a further $20 million cut without new taxes. Activists and…
Miami may be the site of the first part of Hillary Clinton’s coronation …or as it’s officially known, the 2016 Democratic National Convention. After local leaders officially let the DNC know that they would be interested in hosting the shindig, the DNC selected Miami as one of 15 cities that…
In 47 states, beer drinkers can happily purchase and imbibe from 64-ounce growlers, the glass jugs commonly sold at smaller or craft breweries. In Florida, Prohibition-era laws have kept the size illegal, prompting a years-long effort by Sunshine State craft brewers and supporters to join the rest of the nation…
Rick Scott has apparently never met a person he doesn’t want to test for drugs. Whether welfare recipients or state employees, the governor has created quite the controversy throughout his first term by unleashing strict plans to drug-test Floridians — only to see those plans challenged and derailed in court…
Around 6 p.m. last night, Gov. Rick Scott took off his jacket, perched onto an uncomfortable folding chair in an empty room and flipped open his Macbook to have a reasonable Facebook question-and-answer session with the fine folks in his state. But then somewhere around the 19th personal attack wedged…
Former governor Charlie Crist addressed the non-partisan Forum Club of the Palm Beaches on his plans to unseat current governor Rick Scott. The Scott campaign responded by sending Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera to give an instant response to the media. Crist, apparently channeling his inner Frank Underwood, pulled a major…
Gov. Rick Scott’s plan to randomly drug test every single state employee in Florida — from department heads to minimum wage DMV janitors — has already failed the common-sense test and an appeals court ruling. A trial run of the program found that almost no state employees were failing, while…
Pundits, Republican insiders, and pollsters all seem to think former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is planning on making a presidential run in 2016, but you’re not a real presidential contender until you’re properly parodied on Saturday Night Live. Well, on Saturday the show brought out new cast member Beck Bennett…
According to estimates, Florida is slated to become the third most populated state in the nation sometime in the next few years. Though, one of our senators seems to think it’s already happened. “My state of Florida is now the third-largest state,” Sen. Bill Nelson said last week during Senate…
Remember a few years ago when it seemed everyone in Miami was getting spammed text messages by someone promising to buy their “junk car?” Yeah, well the Florida Senate is looking at a way to make it easier for Floridians to get out of receiving spam by adding text messages…
Because the National Rifle Association has never met a problem it doesn’t think it can solve with more guns, it’s backing a bill in Tallahassee that would allow anyone with a clean criminal history to carry a concealed weapon in the event of a riot or natural disaster even if…
In his long municipal career, Pat Salerno has shown two consistent tendencies: bringing big-money, landscape-changing projects to fruition and rubbing other government officials the wrong way with his management style. Six years after that latter habit got him run out of Sunrise, Salerno abruptly resigned this morning as Coral Gables…
Miami is looking ever more likely to be the gravitational center of the GOP battle for 2016’s Presidential race. Locally grown Sen. Marco Rubio has already promised to make a call within the next year about whether to toss his hat into the wide-open Republican field and now the man…
Florida’s beer laws are already about as logical as David Samson’s Survivor strategy. Thanks to the oversized influence of big money distributors, antiquated laws like one banning 64-ounce growlers (which are legal in 47 other states) stay on the books. Craft brewers have spent four years trying to change that…
Rick Scott’s 2010 campaign was such a Tea Party-assisted, out-of-nowhere effort that many Floridians barely had time to fully comprehend his past. Well, this time around Democratic groups have ample time to remind voters of the governor’s checkered business past. Democratic political committee American Bridge is out with a new…
Another Florida legislative session. Another bill that would allow for destination casinos in Miami-Dade. Another quiet death? With the legislative session hitting the halfway point, House Speaker Will Weatherford admitted today that it’s looking more and more likely neither the House nor Senate will take action on the bill this…
Ever since Marco Rubio was first elected to the senate over four years ago he’s carried out his career like a guy who may one day run for president, but he rarely openly talks about those ambitions. Well, at a Reuters Health Summit in Washington he openly addressed his future…
A few months before the 2012 presidential election, Gov. Rick Scott sold a massive voter purge as a way to eliminate hundreds of “non-citizens” who were supposedly threatening democracy. Instead, the effort was a xenophobic joke. In Miami alone, hundreds of mostly Latino voters were forced to prove their citizenship…
“As I travel the district, I hear the exact same things,” Florida Republican congressional candidate Jacob A. Rush writes on his campaign website. “People are nervous; they don’t understand their government anymore — it literally makes no sense.” Rush, however, has now been outed as an active member of an…
