Jeb Bush may be getting all the major scrutiny right now, but he’s not the only guy from Miami who is running a not-quite presidential campaign. Senator Marco Rubio has been busy the past few months fundraising, touring early primary states on a book tour and considering his future. Sure…
Jeb Bush’s fledgling not-quite-campaign has a lot of problems, not the least of which is that conservative radio talk show hosts don’t particularly like the guy. That includes the king blowhard himself, Rush Limbaugh. The grandaddy of conservative talk took to the airwaves on Wednesday to claim, in great horror,…
In many ways, Jeb Bush is sitting pretty. He’s the only major 2016 candidate who has publicly announced he’s actively exploring a presidential run and is busy hauling in cash for his Right to Rise PAC. He’s sitting atop many national polls of GOP contenders, and the media has anointed…
Apparently we are to assume that all minor instances of basic human interaction between Gov. Rick Scott and President Barack Obama are of the utmost importance. So what to make of the fact that this afternoon Scott was on hand to greet Obama before his appearance at Florida International University…
President Barack Obama will visit the main campus of Florida International University this afternoon to speak at a town hall meeting about immigration. He’ll sit down with TV news anchor Jose Diaz-Balart, and the event will air on Telemundo at 7 p.m. and on MSNBC at 8 p.m. Exciting stuff…
Joe Garcia, the Cuban American former Democratic congressman who lost in November to newcomer Carlos Curbelo, is not running for office again. Instead he’s joining a bank. Today QueensFort Capital, a Miami-based bank that specializes in large capital foreign investment, announced Garcia was coming on board as senior vice president…
Some Republicans in the state legislature may be ready to legalize medical marijuana (though only if it’s the nonsmokable stuff), but at least one Democrat wants all weed legalized. Sen. Dwight Bullard, a Democrat representing Cutler Bay and current chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, introduced SB 1176 yesterday. The…
What else do you expect from a state that isn’t sure if gay sex meets the legal definition of sex and let beastiality remain technically legal until 2011? It’s been technically illegal in Florida since the late 1800s for unrelated and unmarried man and woman to cohabitate. In fact, it’s…
Back in 2013, Jeffrey A. Benjamin came in second place to Tomas Regalado in Miami’s mayoral race with 10 percent of the vote. You may remember that as the year when Regalado’s only real competition, Francis Suarez, abruptly dropped out of the race, leaving Regalado practically unchallenged. Still, Benjamin was…
Want to pick up a bag of baby carrots, a carton of Hefty bags, and a fifth of vodka all in one quick trip? Well, lawmakers are currently debating whether to allow grocery and drug stores to sell hard liquor alongside other wares. See also: Beer Growlers May Finally Be…
Marco Rubio swept into the Senate with more hype than any politician since, well, Barack Obama. The then-Tea Party wunderkind promised he wouldn’t let the hype go to his head and would concentrate on the job he was elected to do. So much for that. Turns out, of every single…
Photo by Omar Vega / Courtesy of Lauren’s Kids As she climbed the hill leading to Florida’s State Capitol last spring, Lauren Book broke from a walk into a run. The 29-year-old blond with a pink ribbon wrapped around her ponytail raised both arms in triumph and flashed a huge…
Florida politics is a chain of dominoes right now as everyone waits to see whether Sen. Marco Rubio will go forward with a run at the White House. Well, Politico reports that some insiders are saying South Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee, might run…
For years, Republicans in certain circles have been salivating over the possibility of a Jeb Bush presidential campaign, except for one notable exception: Jeb’s own mother, Barbara Bush. America’s favorite blunt Republican matriarch has spent the better part of the past two years saying there’s already been enough Bushes in…
In early 2014 all of Miami was horrified by the story of “D.J.”, a local 13-year-old runaway who was held against her will and forced into prostitution and exotic dancing at Club Madonna in South Beach. See also: Three Arrested in Miami-Dade for Forcing 13-Year-Old Into Prostitution, Stripping at Club…
Gov. Rick Scott’s first term honeymoon period was legendarily short before his approval ratings begin slipping to some of the worst in the nation, and it appears there’ll be no second honeymoon this time around. Despite reelecting him, a new poll finds that more Florida voters still disapprove of Scott’s…
A state Senate bill to legalize medical marijuana in Florida now has a companion in the House thanks to two Republican representatives. Reps. Greg Steube of Sarasota and John Wood of Winter Haven joined together to sponsor the legislation just a few weeks after Sen. Jeff Brandes, a St. Pete…
Raquel Regalado hasn’t actually declared she’s running for county mayor yet, but that hasn’t stopped her from funding a new poll that shows her chances of winning the job are “very, very positive,” the school board member tells New Times. The internal poll, commissioned by billionaire Regalado backer Norman Braman…
It’s no secret that County Commissioner Xavier Suarez is gearing up a campaign for mayor. Now, the former city mayor’s first real broadside at county hall is closer to heading to voters: a petition that would cap most county salaries at the same pay earned by Florida’s Supreme Court Justices,…
This year’s GOP primary is shaping up as a battle royal for Sunshine State conservatives’ two favorite sons. But that doesn’t mean Florida Republicans are evenly divided between Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. In fact, Coral Gables’ favorite son trounces South Miami’s brightest political star in a new poll, with…
It’s 2015, and vaccination, a well-established medical practice for decades, is somehow the hot-button issue of the day. Though no prominent politician has come out as a hard-core anti-vaxxer, several Republicans, including Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have had no problems pandering to that crowd…
For the past month, Gov. Rick Scott has weathered a growing firestorm over his removal of veteran FDLE chief Gerald Bailey. The scandal began with Bailey slamming the governor for claiming he’d left voluntarily, then deepened when Scott’s own cabinet members turned on the governor and demanded an independent investigation…
