Subject: Bill Nelson

• Dire Emergency for Internet Radio!!

  July 13, 2007

• Does Bill Nelson Want to Raise Taxes on Your Alcohol?

  I was reading I Can Has Cheezburger in my RSS Reader when I saw this ad below all the LOLcats. Apparently, Sen. Bill Nelson wants to raise the taxes on my wine by 233 percent! The ad leads to the Freedom Work's website, where it explains "a massive new tax hike" to pay for health care, which also includes a 145 percent tax increase on a six-pack of beer and 19 percent on liquor. Those damn D.C. bastards, trying to price me out of getting ass-drunk every night! The plan comes out of the Senate F

  June 2, 2009

• Either Sen. Nelson is a Surprise VP Choice or Obama's Webmaster is About To Get Fired

  August 22, 2008

• Bailout Is In

  October 3, 2008

• Only One Of These Men Has A Reason To Smile

  Republicans across the nation may, for some reason, prefer Sarah Palin over Charlie Crist in an imaginary primary, but Crist can take solace in knowing he's the most popular man in Florida. According to the latest numbers 68% of voters approve of Crist's handling of his job. 50% said they'd vote for him in 2010, while only 28% would commit to a generic Democratic challenger. Republican Sen. Mel Martinez isn't so lucky. He has a ho-hum 42% approval rating (though slightly up from 37% in Septem

  November 18, 2008

• Nelson Wants To Make Sure Lil' Lieberman Doesn't Make a Fuss

  via Ybor City Stogie Yeah it's all insider baseball type stuff that most voters don't care about, but I am pretty sure Floridians didn't elect Bill Nelson on a platform of Save our Liebermans. After the weird psychodrama that has been Joe Lieberman's political life of the past few years (lossing a Dem primary, leaving the party, kissing Bush, and stumping for McCain), it's reckoning time. Some want to strip ol' Sore Loseman of his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, but o

  November 18, 2008

• Same Ol' Party

  Lieberman gets to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee and instead loses his position on a subcommittee of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Maybe Bill Nelson changed a few votes with his phone campaign. Lieberman seemed to think so and publicly thanked him. Now let's hope Nelson can continue to use that astronaut charm for something Floridians actually care about. --Kyle Munzenrieder

  November 18, 2008

• Sink May Put a Drain On GOP Senate Hopes, Yet

  "Sink not running against Martinez," technically this Politico.com headline from Monday is correct, as no one will be running against Mel Martinez, ever again. But their assertion that she wasn't throwing her hat in the ring to become Florida's junior Senator in 2010 may have been off the mark. Naked Politics, the "Internet blog," is reporting that she still hasn't made up her mind. They also point out that Sink's hubby, Bill McBride, took a strong beating in the 2002 Gov race against possible R

  December 4, 2008

• Florida's Congressional Delegation Shockingly Not That Old

  USA Today reports that the incoming Congress will be the oldest on record for both houses. The average representative is 57, while the average senator is 63. New Times has the same high-tech tool as USA Today -- a calculator -- and decided to probe further. Since Florida has the oldest average population of any state, you'd figure we'd be sending cases of Fixodent and Depends to Washington with our congressmen, but it turns out the average age of a representative from Florida rounds down to

  January 6, 2009

• Rocketman Nelson Bets His Pipes on BCS Bowl

  Friendly bets on sporting games by officeholders is a hallowed tradition in which headline-hungry politicians make cheap bids for soft coverage. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom recently got a nice batch of stone crab claws from Miami Mayor Manny Diaz when the Hurricanes lost the Emerald Bowl to Cal. Which made little sense, considering UM is in Coral Gables and UC Berkeley is in, duh, Berkeley. But why let that stand in the way of cheap publicity? The bet between senators Bill Nelson of Florid

  January 7, 2009

• The Perfect Resumé for a Florida Senate Seat

  Political math god Nate Silver put together a handy pie chart showing that the career stop for a majority of current U.S. senators is a U.S. House seat. Good news for Kendrick Meek, Connie Mack IV, and the handful of other representatives who might be angling for the seat, but don't expect to see a Meek vs. Mack matchup anytime soon. Looking back on our senators of the past 50 years, which comes out to a nice even number of ten individuals, we found only three have come directly from U.S. H

  January 13, 2009

• Two Senators Declare They're "Gonna Be High as a Kite by Then"

  Keeping up the grand tradition of politicians making friendly wagers on sports games, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson made a bet with Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn over the BCS Championship. Instead of a traditional bet, the two decided the loser would have to sing for the winner. Nelson of course won, and Coburn had to sing "Rocket Man." Back then we said, "Let's hope someone will get this Nelson song-and-dance number on YouTube, which would provide excellent blog fodder." Well, here it is, courtesy of

  January 15, 2009

• The Week That Was: Celebrating our Freedom of Choice

  Some fanatical pro-life group got itself all worked up because Krispy Kreme dared to use the word "choice" in some dumb Inauguration promo. This weekend I choose to eat one Krispy Kreme doughnut for every page view that post received. I will probably be dead by Saturday. Meanwhile the Hollywood Foreign Press Association chose Mickey Rourke as the best actor in a Dramatic picture. Rourke chose not to deny steroid rumors, to pose for PETA, and in his weirdest choice, to suck face with worst-dress-

  January 16, 2009

• Crist Is as Popular as Obama, No One Knows Any of These Senate Wannabes

  Charlie Crist is still enjoying a quite enviable approval rating, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, with 65 percent of Floridians approving of his job performance. That's about the percentage President Obama is getting in nationwide polls. Meanwhile, of all the names being thrown around for the 2010 Senate election, only Bill McCullom has major statewide name recognition. Fifty-four percent of Floridians were able to form an opinion about the attorney general. Compare that to

  January 21, 2009

• McCollum or Boyd Won't Be Your Next Senator

  Both sides of the Senate 2010 fray just lost significant rumored candidates. Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum and Democratic Congressmen Allen Boyd have both said they won't seek the open seat. McCollum has sought a Senate seat twice before. He claimed his party's nomination in 2000, but lost to Democrat Bill Nelson. He tried his luck again in 2004, but lost in the primary to Mel Martinez and got called "the new darling of the homosexual extremists" as a parting gift. Instead McCollum w

  January 28, 2009

• Oh, Look, We Already Have Front Runners for 2014

  They don't share political idealogies, but they do share a hair stylist. It's a sign of just how much dominance Charlie Crist has in Florida politics that both races he could conceivably run in 2010 - Governor or, less likely, Senator - are having a hard time attracting big name candidate, but the next open race in Florida - for Governor all the way in 2014, barring Bill Nelson's retirement - already have front runners on both sides. After Democratic CFO Alex Sink decided not to seek the senate

  January 30, 2009

• Bill Nelson Wants to Keep Snakes Off Planes

  While this entire stimulus bill saga is gripping DC, Senator Bill Nelson found time to tackle another problem. He filed legislation on Tuesday seeking to ban the import and interstate trade of reptiles. Nelsons interest in the matter stems from the problem of alien pythons in the Everglades, who we all know do terrible, terrible things to our native alligator population. When and if the legislation comes up for debate we can only hope that Senator Nelson take to the podium and sternly tells his

  February 5, 2009

• Polls: Charlie Crist Would Win Senate Race 2-to-1

  Floridians can only juggle the names of 4 or 5 state politicians in their heads at a time, and right now the only Democrat in the mix, Bill Nelson, is already in the Senate. So it's not surprising that a new Strategic Vision poll shows Charlie Crist winning pretty much every match-up with any given Republican by a 2-to-1 margin. The best the Democrats can muster is Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio. Charlie only beats her by 28 points (57% to 29%). Dan Gelber, the state Senator from Miami Beach, does relati

  February 12, 2009

• Nelson Campaign Cash Caught up in Stanford Saga Too

  Robert Allen Stanford is the latest money manager accused of defrauding his investors out of billions. He is also the latest major Bill Nelson donor caught up in controversy. Yesterday, we told you about the tens of thousands of dollars Sen. Bill Nelson accepted from embattled lobbying firm PMA. Now we're here to bring you up to speed about the tens of thousands in campaign donations he took from the PAC and employees of Stanford Financial Group. Nelson received $45,900, according to the Cent

  February 18, 2009

• Local Legislatures On Both Sides Get Good Grades on Poverty Issues

  The National Center of Poverty Law put out their annual Poverty Scorecard, and while scrolling through it we started seeing a pattern. Democrats were all getting As and A s, while Republicans were all getting Cs, Ds and Fs. Take our Senators for example: Democrat Bill Nelson got an A , Republican Mel Martinez barely passed with a D. This pattern held up pretty well until we got to South Florida's congressmen. Our entire delegation, regardless of Party identifications, all got As! Kendrick Meek a

  February 19, 2009

• Katherine Harris Enjoyed a Nice Caribbean Vay-cay with 'Mini-Madoff' Allen Stanford

  There are quite a few South Florida connections to the ongoing "mini-Madoff" scandal surrounding Texas billionaire R. Allen Stanford, who faces civil charges from the SEC that he orchestrated a "massive, ongoing fraud" to the tune of $8 billion through his Stanford International Bank. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons Don't you miss her?Stanford operated a large office in downtown Miami, where brokers pushed the suspiciously overperforming investments to wealthy Latin American buyers, the gove

  February 26, 2009

• Why So Few Women on The JNC?

  Judging by the moose-shootin' hockey mom on the presidential ticket this past fall, political strategists have discovered a little secret: Women outnumber men in this country. And that shows up at the polls.It's for this reason that Florida Senator Bill Nelson might want a re-do when it comes to a decision he made last week. His office just released the names of the state's new Federal Judicial Nominating Commission - an esteemed group of lawyers that recommends judges and U.S. attorneys. The pr

  March 17, 2009

• The Fall of a Titan

  A downtown Miami firm allegedly helped build an $8 billion Ponzi scheme. It could have been stopped.

  April 9, 2009

• Gonzo Gore

  March 23, 2006

• Confessions to Clinton

  June 8, 2006

• Loaded

  September 23, 2004

• BEST LOCAL GIRL MADE GOOD

  May 15, 2003

• Space Cowboy

  August 16, 2001

• One Last Push

  January 11, 2001

• The Untold Story

  November 30, 2000

• Riptide

  April 22, 1999

• The Mayor's Strong Arm

  May 7, 1998

• Ambitious to a Fault

  August 1, 1996

• Florida Senate Delegation To Remain Firmly Anti-Burmese Python

  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will be touring the Everglades tomorrow at the invitation of Sen. Bill Nelson. The day will kick off with a briefing on the efforts to trip and track invasive Burmese pythons that make their home in the 'Glades Most of the snakes loose in the National park are former pets that were dumped by their owners, and now compete for resources with indigenous species, if they're not busy eating them. They have a taste for raccoo

  May 27, 2009

• Bill Nelson Will Filibuster the Hell out of Offshore Drilling

  Bill Nelson went to space one man, he's seen some things. We don't even know why we're trying to meet our energy needs with oil anymore, when we all know if we could tap into the source that powers Sen. Bill Nelson, we'd be able to meet the global projected power needs for the next two centuries, at least. Bill Nelson is just that bad-ass. If you try to drill within ten miles of Florida's shores, Bill Nelson is just going to punch you and send you flying twice that distance. And if you don't l

  June 16, 2009

• The Atlantic, Important Political and Foreign Affairs Magazine, Now Rates Tweets

  For the past year, in the dimly lit corridors of congressional office buildings the very men and women we've elected to make the laws of this fine country sit in front of their computers, trying to makes sense of this twitter thing. This phenomenon that was first embraced by the 20-something, internet savvy populations of metropolitan regions as a way to feed their slight narcism, or as a way to catalog their drunk thoughts so they can remember them in the morning, or most often a

  June 17, 2009

• Daily Kos Has Wet Dream About Charlie Crist Coming Out as a Democrat

  Markos 'Kos' Moulitsas of The Daily Kos has a dream that one day Charlie Crist will do some soul searching, look deep inside himself, and finally come out ...as a Democrat. And it will all be Marco Rubio's fault. See, Marco Rubio is calling upon the dark forces of the right wing --the wingnut blogs, the garbage spewing talk radio hosts, the ideological PACs and interest groups-- to create a tsunami that will ruin Crist's good name amongst Republicans, thus causing him to lose the

  July 1, 2009

• Senator Nelson Takes Strong Stance Against Burmese Pythons

  via Wiki CommonsLast week, a 12-foot-long pet Burmese python snuck into the crib of a 2-year-old Florida girl and killed her. Now, Florida Sen. Bill Nelson has taken to the Senate floor to push a ban on importing the potentially dangerous snakes. "Sooner or later, a Burmese python will get the endangered Florida panther. Sooner or later, for an unsuspecting tourist in Everglades National Park, there will be an encounter with a human," Nelson said. "Tragically, it took this event of the strang

  July 7, 2009

• Annette Taddeo Won't Run For CFO

  Miami-are business woman and former House candidate Annette Taddeo announced today she won't run for CFO, despite mentioning interest back in May. The Democrats are currently with out a CFO candidate, and considering CFO is the only state wide elected office the party currently holds aside from Bill Nelson's senate seat they should be keen on keeping it. The Buzz seems to think Miami Mayor Manny Diaz better throw his hat in. One of his most trumpeted achievements of mayor was getting City H

  July 7, 2009

• Bill Nelson Proposes a Giant Python-Killing Party in the Everglades

  In certain times and places in U.S. history, the answer to every political problem was probably "Let's get a bunch of guys with guns together and solve this." Nowadays, this idea seems to be seriously considered only in matters of Middle East diplomacy, but Florida Sen. Bill Nelson is suggesting a giant snake-hunting party in Everglades National Park. Nelson has hated this slithery alien creatures for a long time, but the last straw came three weeks ago when a pet python killed a toddler. Now

  July 15, 2009

• Manny Diaz Urges Senators to Vote No on Bill That Could Water Down Concealed Weapons Laws

  via Drab Makyo's flickrCity of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz has come out against the "Respecting States Rights and Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2009." The bill, introduced by Sen. Jon Thune (R-ND), would allow citizens who have a license to carry a concealed firearm in their state to carry one in another state if that state issues concealed firearm licenses. It could water down the existing concealed weapons laws of many states. Only states who don't issue concealed weapons legislation

  July 16, 2009

• The Week That Was: Miami Social Makes Us Want to Burn Down a Castle

  JipsyCheck our Swim Week photo collection here.Something purporting to be a television program called Miami Social infected airwaves this week. We introduced you to the cast, and they proceeded to do nothing. Though, the show seems to be less infectious than Swine Flu. Also, Glenn Garvin made a funny joke, that makes us love him, that is until he writes his next weird libertarian political missive.The County may just cut there entire arts and culture budget, because it's not nearly as important

  July 17, 2009

• Volusia County GOP Censures Charlie Crist

  ​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 insurance (what?), supporting amnesty legislation, and not doing enough to support certain Repu

  August 3, 2009

• Will Marco Rubio Lead The March of Conservatives out of the GOP?

  ​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 something of a conservative antithesis of grass roots, liberal blog The Daily Kos. You might remember Kos head honcho Markos Moulitsas theorizing that Charlie Crist does

  August 3, 2009

• News Roundup

  Over the weekend, pretty much every newspaper editorial board in the state wrote mean things about new Sen. George LeMieux. [Buzz]Oh, and word on the street is LeMieux might be interested in running for U.S. Senate against Bill Nelson in 2012, or for attorney general. [Buzz]Debbie Wasserman Schultz held a telephone town-hall meeting and publicly declared her love for the public option. [SunSent]Robert Schindler Jr., father of Terri Schiavo, died of heart failure over the weekend. [UPI]

  August 31, 2009

• Florida: 47th Most Powerful State in DC

  ​Florida ranks 47th our of the 50 states in terms of influence and seniority in the US Congress according to an analysis by The Sarasota Herald-Tribune. A dismal ranking by any means, but even more so considering we're the 4th most populace state. Our legislators have less swagger on the hill than those from tiny states like Vermont and Rhode Island -- States where the total population is less than half of all of Miami-Dade County. The Herald-Tribune took into account Roll Call's annual i

  September 9, 2009

• George LeMieux Takes Office Today, Hints at Possible Run Against Nelson in 2012

  Florida's 33rd senator, George LeMieux, will be sworn in today at 2:45 amid concerns his Broward law firm helped secure visas for foreigners to work on a hotel and condo project in Bal Harbour, depriving Americans of jobs. As our brothers in blog-arms The Juice point out, a Capital News Service video confirms what's been whispered about: LeMieux obviously won't run for Senate in 2010 against his former boss, Charlie Crist, the man who appointed him to the position, but might

  September 10, 2009

• When It Comes to "Government Waste," Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balarts Might as Well Be Democrats

  Cover art from CAGW's Waste Watch​The Citizens Against Government Waste's name pretty much says it all. The fiscally conservative think tank hates pork and government waste, which apparently includes programs such as expanding health care to kids in low-income families, providing low-interest loans to college students, and requiring insurance companies to cover mental health issues. No-good, useless, evil, reckless waste like that. In its annual ratings, CAGW chose 48 bills from the

  October 13, 2009

• News Roundup

  Like Christina Milian, the gods of weather are going to dip it low, and after a week of record highs, we might see record lows. These weather gods are obviously bipolar. [CBS4]Wow, Bill Nelson's senate committee is done with health care, and what does he instantly start up on again? Chinese drywall. [Herald]So, 20 Cuban spies walk into American embassies post-9/11. No, seriously, Fidel Castro tried his best to confuse U.S. intelligence in the months after 9/11. [Herald]Three people were injured

  October 19, 2009

• Miami-Dade Democratic Chairman Booted by State Party

  ​Just days after sending out a fiery letter calling for the resignation of Florida Democratic Party chair Karen Thurman -- a letter that made liberal use of his word processor's bold and underline features -- Miami-Dade Democratic chairman BJ Chiszar has been given the boot. Chiszar's letter is five pages of "inside baseball," but here are a few highlights to give you an idea of the generally unprofessional tone: He calls the University of Miami Democrats "rich little snobs."&nb

  November 12, 2009