Politics & Government

According to a story today in the Washington Post, revenue at Trump National Doral Miami is plummeting — and has been since 2015.

Amendment 4 was supposed to automatically restore voting rights for former prisoners after their sentences were over. But Florida Republicans clearly weren’t happy about that and passed a law forcing ex-inmates to pay a slew of exorbitant court fines and fees before getting their rights back — a law derided as a 21st-century version of a Jim Crow-era “poll tax.”

During his TV appearance, Sen. Marco Rubio essentially dared the Iranian regime to attack the U.S. and see what the hell happens. And despite the fact that the U.S. is preparing plans for an Iranian invasion while sailing an aircraft carrier into the region, Rubio is spinning the entire ordeal as something the U.S. is nonsensically being forced to do.

The Florida GOP is, in a nutshell, using the larger powers of the state to restrict small governments everywhere — actions that expose the party’s “small government” platform as a flat-out lie. Here’s a list of bills that explain why.

City of Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo allegedly spent a good chunk of time last year filing politically motivated code complaints against his unwitting nemesis — Bill Fuller, the owner of Little Havana’s most iconic bar, Ball & Chain. But now Fuller says his own investigation has uncovered numerous code violations dating back a decade at Carollo’s Coconut Grove home.

Giancarlo Granda, the former Fontainebleau pool attendant who bizarrely received $1.8 million in loans from famous evangelist Jerry Falwell Jr., officially denies knowing anything about alleged “racy” photos referenced in a Reuters story published yesterday.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida declared yesterday that this was, by its estimation, the worst legislative session for civil rights in ten years.

This past Friday, CBS News confirmed that John Kelly — the former Homeland Security chief and White House chief of staff under Donald Trump — had joined the board of Caliburn International, the for-profit company that runs the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in South Miami-Dade. The news is…

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has two sons who magically keep getting involved in some pretty lucrative deals with the Miami-Dade government. Julio Gimenez is reportedly part of a group looking to build an “eco-friendly” steel mill in Miami-Dade County. And, in what absolutely must just be a coincidence, the county has proposed selling Julio’s company a plot of public land for $16.8 million in a no-bid deal.

Importantly, local cops have warned the measure will likely make Floridians less safe.

Tomas Kennedy, one of the more active civil rights organizers in Florida, helped put together a large-scale protest at the Florida capitol. In response, he’s been banned from the public building for a year and can’t come back for next year’s session.

The Florida Legislature today passed a bill legalizing the use of self-driving cars statewide. Naturally, Uber — which could save gobs of money by replacing human drivers with robots — is quite pleased.

In a statement sure to remind critics of the runup to the Iraq War in 2003, longtime Miami Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart suggested on Fox News last night that Russian agents in Venezuela currently have the capability to strike the United States with nuclear bombs. Diaz-Balart, part of the coalition of Florida lawmakers advising Donald Trump on Latin American issues, provided no evidence to back up his claims.

Early this morning, Juan Guaidó announced he and a seemingly small band of low-ranking Venezuelan military guards were mounting a revolt against Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro’s government. Sen. Marco Rubio has spent the morning loudly cheerleading Guaidó’s efforts while lobbing melodramatic threats at the Maduro regime.

Since his son’s death at MSD, Manuel Oliver has been traveling the country painting murals. On Saturday he featured Matt Gaetz gripping an assault rifle.

Florida politicians are giving a lot of cover to extremists and racists as of late. Here’s a handy list of officials who have yet to suffer major consequences for propping up white supremacists, Islamophobes, conspiracy theorists, and the like.

Ralph Andrade, a registered lobbyist for Beach Towing who has also worked for Tremont, is fighting to stop a City of Miami Beach audit allegedly showing rampant violations by the two companies. The latest audit is expected to be released next week, and, apparently, the findings are not favorable to the tow-truck industry.

On April 17, Gruters held a news conference to support SB 168, the anti-“sanctuary city” bill he’s pushing that would force towns to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigrant-rights groups say the bill, if it became law, would rip apart families just to appease some racist Republican voters.

State Sen. Joe Gruters has a hideously racist sign outside his office that purports to show the “Faces of Criminal Illegals Deported from Sarasota County.” According to a video posted online yesterday by activist Thomas Kennedy, Gruters apparently saw no issue with keeping this abominable sign up while a child begged him not to pass a bill that would hurt his family.

Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber was so irked by a Memorial Day weekend event flyer with a bikini-clad woman and the tag line “No rules!! Anything goes!”, he included it in an email blast to residents explaining why the city needs, well, more rules. Attaching a screenshot censoring the woman’s body, he declared, “Ocean Drive should be the postcard image for our city — not a stretch where residents are sometimes afraid to go and visitors think anything goes.”