It’s only May, but South Florida super-lobbyist Ron Book is already having one hell of a year in Tallahassee. This week, lobbyists filed their reports for 2012’s first quarter and since January, Book has already topped $1 million in fees. Who’s paying him all that cash? Along with every other…
Howard Knepper wants your vote for president. He also wants to invade Cuba. Most importantly, however, he wants you to tell you a story about a chimpanzee named Jerome and his donuts.The completely unheard of Republican businessman from North Miami doesn’t seem to have raised any money. And he doesn’t…
When Cindy Hewitt thinks about what happened here at this now-defunct laboratory near the Miami River back in 1998, she shivers with disgust.She was a human resources manager for a medical company called Dade Behring when Bain Capital began tinkering with its bottom line. Under CEO Mitt Romney, Bain shut…
Today, Rep. Connie Mack IV announced his “Social Conservatives for Mack Coalition” in a bid to shore up some far-right-wing support for his troubled Senate campaign. In the press release, his campaign declares that Mack “is one of the most conservative and hard-working members in the United States Congress.”Well, that’s…
Speculation that Marco Rubio could be the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee dates back to pretty much his first day in office as senator, and even Mitt Romney has mentioned Rubio as a possible candidate. Politico, however, reports that Senator Rubio is not being seriously considered as a potential running…
On a muggy autumn afternoon, 400 of Miami Beach’s most prominent names packed into a luxury Loews Hotel ballroom. As waiters hoisted trays of food, WSVN’s Belkys Nerey took the stage and introduced a big-screen video. With a cinematic splash and to copious applause, billionaire Norman Braman, Miami Beach Mayor…
There are worse things for politicians to be than boring moderates, sure, but Bill Nelson is a boring moderate through and through. So, it’s really no surprise that his stance on gay marriage is predictably off in some vague, boring, moderate middle land…
Back when the Bush administration was using “enhanced interrogation techniques” on suspected terrorists — also known as “torture” to most of the West — the most hotly debated trick was waterboarding. That’s the one where you make a prisoner think he’s drowning by slowly pouring water over his face while…
We already know what Mitt Romney thinks of gays. They should not be allowed to marry, and their long hair should be forcefully cut by prep school bullies such as himself. What does Ol’ Mittens think of gun rights? According to his website, it’s quite contradictory: As president, Mitt will…
Not everyone is happy with President Barack Obama’s announcement yesterday that he personally supports the idea of gay marriage, least of all the evangelical Florida pastor who is an important adviser to the president. Rev. Joel Hunter, leader of an Orlando-area megachurch, says he is “disappointed” by Obama’s decision…
Miami Beach residents are happy, the city is a well-oiled machine and — despite a string of embarrassments by the police and a mass FBI corruption bust last month — the majority of city employees do good work. That was City Manager Jorge Gonzalez’s upbeat message, at least, to an…
In an interview with ABC News, President Barack Obama announced this afternoon that he now supports gay marriage. It’s a striking change from the commander-in-chief on the same day that North Carolina’s voters followed in Florida’s footsteps in passing a gay marriage ban. “I think same-sex couples should be able…
Plan B is not actually an “abortion pill.” It’s an emergency contraceptive intended to be taken within three days after intercourse to prevent pregnancy. However, many Republicans aren’t deterred from referring to it as a form of abortion. Mitt Romney, in fact, has referred to medicines like Plan B as…
Bad news, you guys: it appears the chances that Sofia Vergara will ever be Florida’s first lady have dwindled. “Wait,” you ask, “there was a serious chance Sofia Vergara could have been the first lady of Florida?”Well, she was dating Nick Loeb, some rich guy from a powerful and politically…
It’s official: Gov. Rick Scott’s biggest single fuck-up in office is not his spectacularly failed plans to drug test everyone in Florida, his botched ideas for fixing the economy or even his refusal to pee in a cup when the Daily Show asked him so nicely. No, his biggest catastrophe…
Left-leaning Floridians are probably not too enthused that the Republican Party is descending on Tampa to crown Mitt Romney as its official nominee in August. But don’t worry, you hippies — there’s now something for you to get excited about, too. The Daily Show has announced it’ll tape a week’s…
Mitt Romney will be tearing through Florida next week and hopes to leave the state with somewhere between $5 and $8 million in his campaign’s coffers. He’ll be making stops in Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Tampa, Jacksonville and Boca Raton during the fundraising flourish on Wednesday and Thursday, and Miamians…
Abraham Uccello, the man appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to head a task force to reduce waste in state government, once received a $400,000 no-bid contact from the state to provide “technology consulting.” Uccello, by the way, is close friends with Steve MacNamara, Scott’s chief of staff.Here’s a good idea…
Josue Larose is perhaps one of Florida’s most interesting political figures. He’s not particularly influential or powerful, mind you. He ran for governor in 2010 and got 121 votes. But he has run for multiple offices, including three at once. He’s also formed over 600 PACs and 64 SuperPACs. He’s…
According to a blog report, at an event promoting his support of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Republican Senate Candidate Connie Mack IV called a heckler a “jackass.” In a bizarre response today, Mack IV denied that he actually called the man a “jackass,” but then insinuated that he did…
Most polls of Florida voters taken in the past few months have shown President Barack Obama with a slim but definite lead over Mitt Romney, but now that Romney is all but the official nominee it seems that he’s now taken the slimmest of leads in the Sunshine State according…
May Day was supposed to mark Occupy Miami’s reemergence as a force for good. Instead, it raised questions about how much longer the movement will survive in Miami.City police arrested three protesters during yesterday’s downtown march, leading to another late-night protest outside the county’s pretrial detention center. Yet, while arrests…
