Manny Diaz wasn’t arrested for throwing a box of tea at his wife. He never showed up mad as hell, in his pajamas, at a constituent’s house at 5 a.m. He never lead the city’s budget into complete shambles. So, really, by those standards, he should leave office this fall as the best mayor…
Woah, boy. Grumpy Sen. Mel Martinez has apparently had enough of this “serving the people” stuff. Several sources report he will resign, possibly as early as today. His term would expire in early 2011, and he had previously promised to serve the rest of it. But the race to replace…
Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate today. No big surprise there. Every member of the Democratic caucus, save for Ted Kennedy who remains ill and could not attend, voted for Sotomayor. That would include, of course, Bill Nelson. While only nine republicans offered their “yays,” including Mel Martinez. She’ll…
Kendrick Meek’s hiring of Steve Hildebrand to run his Senate campaign was supposed to be a message that his candidacy was to be taken seriously. Hildebrand was deputy national campaign director for a little campaign you might have heard of — Barack Obama’s run for president. Hildebrand spent the closing days in…
Remember Keith Meinhold? Yeah, Riptide didn’t either — mostly because we were more into reading Goosebumps books back when the gay Navy officer made headlines in all the big newspapers. It was the summer of 1992. And even the paragon of media integrity The Rush Limbaugh Show followed his story. It was…
Perhaps if today was a different day this post would include such phrases as “gentle teasing,” “a pinky finger and some spit,” “ky jelly,” and “latex glove and a vat of crisco,” but we simply aren’t in the mood. However, in case you weren’t aware Ray Samson, the former Speaker of…
Look at this big, bright, blue collection of states we call America. Gallup released their latest report of political party affiliation and it is not looking good for the Republicans. In fact, according to Gallup there’s only 4 real red states left, with one leaning. Democrats meanwhile have huge voter…
We simply do not get this Obama as the Joker poster that’s making the rounds. What does the joker have to do with Socialism? The Joker = anarchy, right? Which is pretty much the antithesis of socialism. It would pass for something resembling humor if it said “Why So Socialist?”…
If there’s one point Riptide has been consistently making about Marco Rubio is that his values and policies are more in line with the right-wing, super-conservative blogosphere then they are with Florida voters. He pretty much hammered that point home this weekend by speaking at the RedState Gathering. RedState.com being…
Some of the county-level Repulican party organizations have been mumbling not-so-nice things about Gov. Charlie Crist, but yesterday the Volusia County GOP passed a motion censuring him. Among Crist’s crimes: Appointing Democrats to political positions, appointing so-called liberal judge James Perry to the state Supreme Court, supporting the stimulus bill, nationalization of property…
One day, when we are all living under the Sink administration –no, no, not just in Florida, but in the entire nation– we can look back at this Washington Post blog post as the first public utterance of a possible Alex Sink presidential run. Chris Cillizza isn’t saying Sink will be President, or…
State Rep. Doug Holder filed a bill today, for the third year in a row, to ban texting while driving in Florida. We have a few questions. If we’re updating our Twitter status while driving, does that count? What about checking our email? Playing a game of solitaire? Can we take pictures on our…
Seems that Marco Rubio’s fledgling senate campaign has another group of detractors? The graphic design community. Last night we were browsing You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice, a blog dedicated to pointing out blatant design rip-offs. Six pages in we saw the name “Marco Rubio,” and seriously thought our weird obsession with…
In an unanimous vote yesterday, the City of Miami Comission passed a resolution condemning the military’s anti-gay “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Introduced by Joe Sanchez, the resolution cited the dismissal of translators, inability to meet recruiting levels, and the blatant discrimination. The measure even went as far as to call some of…
Marco Rubio’s valiant fight to reclaim the GOP for people who refresh the Free Republic website all day and attend tea parties with “Obama Is a Socialist” signs isn’t going so well financialy. So much so he’s been forced to drop his campaign manager, Brian Seitchik, and top fundraiser, Ann…
Miami Police Chief John Timoney was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today weighing in on the Henry Gates dispute. If you’re not up to speed on the latest media-made controversy, Henry “Skip” Gates is a highly respected Harvard professor. Upon returning from a recent trip, he couldn’t get into his own…
It’s really sad there are so many high-profile Republicans out there sending out racist jokes about our president on their email that I’ve kind of gotten sick of reading them. It’s just depressing. So, I’ve seen this picture about a million times today online and finally decided to break down…
Every election cycle, both parties’ congressional election committees identify their weakest incumbents in order to throw massive amounts of cash at them and hope they don’t get booted out of congress. The cash is nice, but it’s never good news for those on the list. Too bad for Mario Diaz-Balart, who was recently…
Rep. Kendrick Meek has joined a small group of house Democrats asking that any health-care reforms not lead to federal funding of abortion, according to the Washington Post. The possibility of taxpayer money being used to pay for abortions is becoming a hot-button issue in the health-care reform debate — one that Republicans might…
Charlie Crist had been awkwardly mum on whether he would support the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Now that it’s almost assured she’ll get confirmed, he has finally decided to let everyone know that, no, he would not vote to confirm this lady. Here’s his statement (via Naked Politics): “Judge…
Mustached Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp will file paperwork today to kick off his bid for attorney general, becoming the first high-profile Republican to do so. It seems likely, like many of the state races in 2010, the Republican establishment will rally around him, giving him a clear path through the primaries. The…
The Republican Party of Florida is hosting a big shindig for the youngins next month in Orlando called Drive the Discussion ’09, and they have concocted one of the most spectacular three ring circus of speakers ever to grace a political stage. Olympian turned Village People musical co-star turned plastic surgery victim turned…
