Earlier this year, the federal government announced it was closing a massive camp full of immigrant kids in Tornillo, Texas. Immigrant-rights activists say the camp was a humanitarian nightmare — most of the kids had been sent there after U.S. immigration officials ripped them from their parents in contravention of…
By now, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz has made it almost blatantly clear he’s in the pocket of the gun lobby. Less than two weeks after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Gaetz tweeted, “The @NRA is an organization that takes 100% of the blame for the conduct of 0% of its members.” Then, in May, he accepted a $2,500 campaign donation from the organization. To no one’s surprise, the NRA endorsed Gaetz, a Republican who represents the Pensacola area, for Congress last July.
Former governor, now-senator, and future Demon-King Paimon does not like democracy. Sure, he says he does: He’s been talking tough for years about the transgressions of various “dictators” in Latin America — but at the same time, he sure seems to hate the concept of democracy in his own home…
At least one Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee in the “Miami field area” — which includes Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands — is on a hunger strike to protest detainment, ICE officials have confirmed to New Times. The exact location is unclear. The ICE spokespeople declined to say where the person is located or how he or she wound up in custody.
Senator and flesh-hungry Nordic draugr Rick Scott has spent a lot of time lately attacking Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. He is, in Scott’s estimation, a “dictator.” Scott’s tough talk, though, would be a lot less hypocritical if Florida’s newly minted U.S. senator weren’t also begging President Donald Trump to do some very dictator-like things of his own.
Vice President Mike Pence is coming to Miami today to show his support for Juan Guaidó, leader of the opposition in Venezuela, whom many, including President Donald Trump, would like to lead the embattled South American country.
Sen. Marco Rubio’s career has improbably rebounded since Donald Trump humiliated him during the 2016 election season. It didn’t seem to matter that Rubio used an LGBTQ mass murder as an excuse to break his own promise and run for Senate again. Now Trump has basically deputized Rubio to serve as what some politicians are calling “virtual secretary of state for Latin America”…
In May 2018, a Miami woman named Marlene Garcia filed state paperwork to create Peacock Consultants, Inc. Since then, the company hasn’t produced any sort of website or presence on social media. Garcia did not respond to a message sent on social media, so it’s difficult to determine the firm’s area of expertise.
It’s 2019 and Florida lawmakers still want to debate the existence of evolution and human-caused climate change. For that, you can thank longtime state senator and proud son of the Confederacy, Ocala’s Dennis Baxley, who recently teamed up with a fringe-right, virulently Islamophobic group to push yet another anti-science bill.
Last year, a group of progressive activists convinced the Florida Democratic Party to stop accepting campaign donations from private, for-profit prison companies. The industry, which makes billions by keeping other human beings behind bars, immorally incentivizes cities to needlessly lock people up, many activists agree. One of America’s two largest…
While Broward Supervisor of Elections employees counted ballots after this past November’s vote, an angry crowd gathered outside the door. The riled Republican protesters carried signs accusing those inside the Lauderhill office of stealing the election. They waved Trump flags and chanted against socialism and for draining the swamp. Most…
On a Saturday morning in November 2003, Dorsey Miller called his old friend Brenda Snipes and asked if he could drop by. Miller, an adviser to then-Gov. Jeb Bush, didn’t explain his motivations over the phone. He knew he’d have a better chance closing the deal in person. Expecting just…
In fall 2018, a 14-year-old girl fled Mexico after a violent group of men killed three of her uncles, broke into her home, and threatened her at gunpoint. She arrived in the United States November 6 and was briefly taken to what she called a “jail-like” holding facility in San Diego. Named “M.C.L.” in court filings…
One of the less reported aspects of the United States deportation system is its profitability. Private, for-profit companies and contractors are paid billions of dollars to carry out the Trump administration’s will. In short: People are getting rich by keeping immigrant kids behind bars.
Today the FBI raided the Fort Lauderdale home of Roger Stone, the openly racist Trump confidante who dresses like a penny-farthing bicycle salesman. Stone is charged with lying repeatedly to the FBI and threatening federal witnesses in the most obvious and stupid ways possible.
The 24-page indictment of South Florida shyster Roger Stone could be the best thing to happen to Florida politics ever. Filed this morning after agents raided Stone’s home in Fort Lauderdale, it not only clearly lays out how the political provocateur whom New Times reporter Jerry Iannelli once wrote has…
The Trump administration’s family-separation and child-immigrant-detention policies have forced innocent children into horrid, inhumane conditions and, in some cases, have violated international law. But housing immigrant children has been extremely lucrative for the private contractors running detention facilities…
The worst tragedy during Donald Trump’s time as president likely already occurred: A spate of recent studies have shown that nearly 3,000 Americans died after the near-category-five Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017. The numbers suggest the Trump administration also likely suppressed or failed to adequately report the…
In May 2018, the state of South Carolina passed a bill lawmakers said was aimed at fighting anti-Semitism in the state’s public school system. But many critics were instead alarmed: Rather than simply cracking down on speech critical of Jewish people, the bill instead banned criticism of the state…
President Trump’s government shutdown has hit South Florida in several visible ways. Bags of trash are piling up at Everglades National Park. Shipments of produce and flowers are being delayed because federal inspectors have been furloughed. An entire terminal at Miami International Airport was closed because there weren’t enough TSA workers to screen travelers.
Earlier this month, Israeli-born Hallandale Beach Commissioner Anabelle Lima-Taub called Rashida Tlaib, one of America’s first two Muslim congresswomen, a “Hamas-loving anti-Semite” who might someday “become a martyr and blow up Capitol Hill.” Lima-Taub was then widely condemned for her big mouth, even by the Anti-Defamation League. But the commissioner won’t back down…
If you want an example of the painfully transactional and conflicted nature of U.S. congressional committee assignments, consider the case of Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The new, Democrat-controlled House of Representatives was sworn in at the beginning of the month and leaders began handing out committee appointments. Wasserman Schultz, who represents…
