When Miami’s comically inept leaders signed off on the worst stadium deal in American history, one provision they proudly pointed to required team owner Jeffrey Loria to share a chunk of the profits if he sold the franchise. That seemed only fair, considering taxpayers were artificially inflating the worth of the club by gifting him a $2 billion ballpark.
Florida’s law preventing ex-felons from voting is an actual Jim Crow law that’s somehow still on the books. It was passed in 1868 because white supremacist lawmakers were pissed off at the 14th Amendment granting black people citizenship. Thanks to the efforts of an activist group led by ex-felon Desmond Meade, Florida voters will finally be able to cast ballots on a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to more than 1.5 million former felons this November.
There are Miamians now close to graduating from high school who were freshmen when David Beckham announced he planned to bring a Major League Soccer team to Miami. When Beckham took the stage at Pérez Art Museum, Pharrell’s insidious earworm “Happy” had recently topped the charts and The Lego Movie was tearing up the box office. It was a long-ass time ago.
Casting a vote is the most basic right in any democratic society. The entire system of government rests on the idea that every person of a legal age has a chance to make their voice heard in the distribution of power. Don’t like the way things are going? Vote, you…
Last week, Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen asking her to investigate two of Florida’s most prominent Democratic leaders, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, for running “sanctuary cities” that refuse to detain immigrants on behalf of the…
Florida’s law denying the right to vote to anyone ever convicted of a felony is racist. Full stop. It was passed in 1868 by white-supremacist lawmakers enraged at the 14th Amendment, knowing full well that a crooked criminal justice system would ensure far more blacks than whites would be stamped with lifetime voting bans.
Floridians still don’t have an answer to what might be the most pressing statewide political question of 2018: What does Bill Nelson stand for? After Nelson voted yesterday to end the brief government shutdown without forcing Republicans to agree to protect undocumented immigrants, Floridians still don’t know the answer to that question…
Bill Nelson has been representing Florida in Washington, D.C., since 1978. He was promoted from U.S. representative to senator in 2001. But he might lose a reelection bid this year to Florida’s governor and ageless Lich-King, Rick Scott, unless the 75-year-old can make Florida voters feel some enthusiasm for the scarecrow-made-from-used-mulch that is Bill Nelson.
Donald Trump’s election in 2016 famously sparked mass protests all over the world, including Miami, a city previously known for lackadaisical activism and a population that doesn’t enjoy taking to the streets if the weather is too hot, too cold, or just warm enough to go to the beach. The city’s newfound protest spirit even prompted a few news pieces.
North Bay Village has a hard-earned reputation for political shenanigans. The tiny city, comprising three man-made islands between Miami and Miami Beach, spent its early years as a meeting place for mobsters and other shady characters. Since then, it’s been rocked by one sordid saga after another.
The central question facing the American empire in 2018 is whether Donald Trump has permanently broken U.S. politics or if the nation can revert to a country full of staid, run-of-the-mill public servants. Signs don’t look good: For one, even liberals now want Oprah Winfrey to run for president, which is a horrible idea.
Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which lets you shoot anyone who threatens your life, even if you provoked the encounter, is so shitty it’s been clearly tied to a huge uptick in murders since it was passed in 2005. It sucks so bad it let George Zimmerman kill 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, in 2012…
If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he probably would have hated all of the bullshit, racist Florida politicians quoting him today. And they likely would have despised him right back.
Donald Trump infamously visited Miami’s Little Haiti in 2016, stood in front of the city’s Haitian-American community, and promised to be a “champion” for Haitians. He was clearly lying through his teeth.
It’s about time someone apologized for bringing Donald Trump to Miami’s Little Haiti in 2016 and letting him blather on about how he planned to be a “champion” for the Haitian people. Asking Trump to apologize and reconsider his recent actions is a fool’s errand.
Commissioner Ricky Arriola is reportedly the subject of an investigation into attempted sexual battery, the Miami Herald reported minutes ago. Both Miami Beach Police and Arriola himself confirmed the existence of the investigation to the Herald. He has not been charged with a crime.
Broward and Miami-Dade County U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a leading Democrat, just helped hand Donald Trump, a man too dumb to tweet the word “tap” correctly, extra powers to spy on American citizens without a warrant. She joined 54 other Democrats in voting down a measure to rein in the U.S. National Security Agency’s unprecedented warrantless spying program.
When you’re pals with the dumbest person ever elected U.S. president, it’s pretty easy to convince the Leader of the Free World to do some stupid shit that makes you look good. Take Florida Governor Rick Scott: After Donald Trump’s Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, announced a plan this…
For one brief moment, it appeared the congressional race to replace retiring GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in her central-Miami district would be boring. The Republican candidates, led by the charismatic-as-a-rock Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, couldn’t scrape together 10 cents among them.
Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine wants to be governor, but the outlook is bleak.
Today marks the official beginning of the 2018 Florida legislative session (joy!), which means Tallahassee’s brightest and most powerful lawmakers are rolling out their signature legislative proposals for the year. In the leadup to today, Richard Corcoran, the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, has filled out the equivalent of an entire “lunatic Republican” bingo card. During the past few weeks, he has:
Few American airports shuttle more travelers out of the country than Miami International. But many travelers who’ve flown internationally from MIA since September 1 have been stopped by agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and guided to a small kiosk with a camera inside that resembles an iPhone the size of a shoebox.
