Perhaps no piece of news illustrates how depraved and broken the Florida political system is than what just went down in Tallahassee. Just six days after Nikolas Cruz used an AR-15 assault rifle to murder 14 teenagers and three adults at a high school in Parkland, the Florida House of Representatives voted down a measure to ban purchases of assault rifles and large-capacity magazines statewide.
A whole lot of pro-gun activists, conspiracy theorists, and general piles of garbage want to pretend these children don’t exist. But today, hundreds of South Florida students have walked out of class and are marching in the streets to demand increased gun-safety laws after 17 students and teachers were shot to death last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
In the days after their classmates were massacred by a disturbed kid who was allowed to purchase military-style weaponry, hundreds of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High survivors have become fiery gun-control advocates. Their message is simple: Nikolas Cruz never should have been able to buy the assault weapon that he used to mow down 17 people in mere minutes.
A federal grand jury filed charges against 13 Russian nationals Friday for allegedly stealing identities, wiring money overseas, and staging a small series of flash mobs to help tip the 2016 election in Donald Trump’s favor. It’s unclear whether the social media campaign had any actual impact on voting…
The FBI today revealed the biggest news yet in the ongoing investigation of Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russian agents: A grand jury charged 14 Russian nationals with interfering in the U.S. electoral system beginning in 2013 or earlier.
Congressman Ron DeSantis is arguably the frontrunner to become the Republican Party’s candidate for Florida governor in 2018 thanks to President Donald Trump’s nearly random endorsement of him weeks ago.
Yesterday, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz carried an AR-15 rifle into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, riddled the building with bullets, and killed 17 students and teachers. The massacre was worse than Columbine. Cruz showed about as many warning signs as a suspected school shooter possibly could (and had likely been reported to the FBI)…
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.
