Politics & Government

There are tight elections, and then there’s yesterday’s race for the Group IV seat on the Miami Beach City Commission, which was so close it makes Gore-Bush look like a cakewalk.

The first day of Roger Stone’s criminal trial fittingly descended into a circus, cut short by health emergencies, protesters, and a 30-minute bathroom break by the defendant mere minutes into proceedings.

It’s a bad time to be an immigrant in the United States — and an especially bad time to be one in Florida. The Sunshine State has become a spill tray for the various anti-immigrant initiatives spewing from the White House.

Here’s pretty much all you need to know about Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio: He has questionable ties to Roger Stone, he thinks it’s funny to use racist and homophobic slurs, and he was banned from Twitter after threatening to report undocumented immigrants to the feds as a method of retaliation against his critics.

State Sen. Joe Gruters — a man who wants to protect hate speech online and has a racist poster hanging in his government office — just can’t stop himself. After pushing through a ban on so-called sanctuary cities earlier this year, Gruters vowed to introduce even more anti-immigrant legislation during the upcoming legislative session. Now, the leader of Florida’s GOP wants to check the immigration status of every new employee in the state.

For the second time in one week, police were called to investigate a disturbance at a senior housing complex following a visit from Miami City Commission District 1 candidate Alex Diaz de la Portilla — this time over the alleged assault of an elderly woman.

When was the last time you stormed your parents’ bedroom in a fit of childish rage for not getting that thing you wanted? When you were a petulant little shit of a 6-year-old, maybe? So before diving into Rep. Matt Gaetz’s recent shenanigans, it’s worth noting he is 37 years old and, seemingly, a fully grown adult man.

Just five months after facing allegations of ballot tampering after a WhatsApp chat was leaked to New Times, Miami-Dade County Commission District 1 candidate Alex Diaz de la Portilla is now accused of further misconduct on the campaign trail.

In January 2017, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez became nationally known as the first big-city official in the nation to comply voluntarily with President Donald Trump’s demands to ban so-called sanctuary cities, which refuse to detain people for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a news conference this afternoon, Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, announced to the media that the president will host the 2020 G7 Summit — a meeting in which leaders of the seven largest economies on the planet meet to discuss world issues — at Trump National Doral Miami, which the president owns (and profits from).

When Ben Carson was in Miami two years ago, he got stuck in an elevator at an Overtown housing complex. The Housing and Urban Development secretary had gone on a national “listening tour” of public housing developments weeks after his 2017 confirmation.

For months, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office has been reportedly looking into whether Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo — known to some as “Loco Joe” — broke campaign-finance laws to help his old pal, former state Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, in 2018. But in an explosive new lawsuit, Carollo’s former aide cut directly to the chase: In a suit filed Monday, the aide, Steven Miro, said publicly for the first time that he witnessed Carollo straight-up “engaging in a felony” while serving as a city commissioner.

Yesterday afternoon, Wall Street Journal politics reporter Tarini Parti was the first to announce that Wayne Messam — the mayor of Miramar, in Broward County — had raised just $5 this quarter for his incredibly long-shot bid for the 2020 presidency.

Florida’s next legislative session doesn’t begin until January, but already, lawmakers have filed dozens of bills with the potential to drastically change the way things are done here in the Sunshine State.

October 11, the top Democratic leaders in the state will meet in Orlando for the Florida Democratic Party’s annual convention. After a disastrous outcome in the 2016 election, the 2019 conference is perhaps the most important in recent history.

Last year’s American Priority Conference was, according to attendees, a bit of a joke. According to a Politico reporter who went to the inaugural event, the conference — pitched as some sort of yearly gathering for people who love Donald Trump and “American nationalism” — played to a lot of empty seats.

A person barred from buying a gun under Florida law is also prohibited from buying ammunition — but currently, there’s nothing to stop them from going to a gun shop and walking out with a few boxes of ammo.

Last week, New Times reported on a brouhaha stirred by a recent Facebook post from Pembroke Pines Commissioner Jay Schwartz, who has been accused of racist dog-whistling for writing, seemingly out of the blue, that “Dade County politics” are not needed in Pembroke Pines.

In a recent Facebook post, Pembroke Pines Commissioner Jay Schwartz wrote a single sentence in simple white text on a purple background: “I am sure you will agree, we don’t need Dade County politics in Pembroke Pines.” What came next was a flood of confused comments followed by much debate and…

A bill that would ban abortion after six weeks and criminalize the medical procedure was filed in the Florida House yesterday, the same day a federal judge in Atlanta temporarily blocked similar legislation in Georgia.

Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin and the founder of the Trayvon Martin Foundation to help families that have lost loved ones to gun violence, has picked up several major endorsements from members of the Democratic Party this week.

As the United States moves closer to admitting record low levels of refugees, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez says the county is ready to resettle additional people. But that might not be up to him anymore.