Politics & Government

The secret to defeating Donald Trump? A big orange balloon, obviously.

To much heckling, City of Miami commissioners voted to sharply reduce pay and pensions for employees when the Great Recession nearly toppled the city’s economy a decade ago. They also closed the pension program for incoming elected officials, but commissioners unsuccessfully tried to quietly restore it three years ago.

In a November 19 interview with Fox Business, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida claimed the Trump impeachment proceedings lack due process and drew comparisons to “communist China or Venezuela.”

Walking into the United States Capitol Building does not magically remove the title of Florida Man or Woman. Here are some of the craziest Floridians running for Congress in 2020

Stone was found guilty on seven counts of lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstructing the investigation into Russian interference of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

When voters get pissed off enough about what their local politicians are doing, they can try to oust them. It happened in March 2011 when then-Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez was removed from office following a high-profile campaign bankrolled by billionaire car dealer Norman Braman.

Once again, money tied to Publix Supermarkets’ founding family is propping up a hard-line conservative campaign.

The first week of Roger Stone’s criminal trial in Washington D.C. began with an impressive number of unfortunate events and theatrics. A courtroom spectator had a seizure, Stone left early the first day of jury selection because of “food poisoning,” InfoWars jackass Alex Jones threatened to out a juror (Hello, Justice Department?), and the presiding judge ordered the jury not to watch The Godfather.

Donald Trump’s first campaign for president was already bizarre before the appearance of Maurice Woodside, AKA Michael Symonette, AKA Michael the Black Man. At an October 2016 rally, political Twitter exploded after a group of men in white T-shirts reading, “TRUMP & Republicans Are Not Racist!” stood behind Trump’s podium at a rally and waved signs reading, “Blacks for Trump.”

In 2013, then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi announced she wouldn’t bring criminal or civil charges against Trump University, the online for-profit so-called college Donald Trump founded that did not actually offer university courses and was long accused of being a scam designed to defraud vulnerable people looking to get ahead.

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.