Politics & Government

The bay off South Beach’s Sunset Harbour glitters with the reflection of city lights. Onshore, Purdy Avenue is empty save for a few glossy cars with quiet, expensive motors and the occasional scurrying cockroach. It’s midnight on a Friday, and the only people around are the three security guards stationed…

Miami is effectively run by an oligopoly of useless, competing, familial political dynasties: There are the Regalados, the Hardemons, the Suarezes, the Carollos, the Diaz de la Portillas, and so on. To make a clichéd reference, Miami politics are like Game of Thrones if every player had shrapnel lodged in their brains.

Even in the “Gunshine State,” the National Rifle Association is rapidly becoming politically toxic. After the Parkland school massacre February 14, every politician closely aligned with the NRA took a rightful beating: Sen. Marco Rubio was ridiculed on live TV during a CNN town hall, and GOP gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam has still not lived down calling himself a “proud NRA sellout.”

When several explosions rattled the quiet neighborhood near Melreese Country Club last night, startled neighbors pulled out cell phones and began filming. They watched in shock as flames leapt dozens of feet above the pro shop at the city-owned golf course.

Accused collegiate rapist and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston was suspended for only three games this year for groping an Arizona Uber driver in March 2016.

After a barista in Philadelphia called police on two black men waiting for a friend, Starbucks temporarily closed 8,000 stores to train its U.S. employees about how not to be horribly biased toward customers. The Seattle-based company said it would continue to introduce anti-bias initiatives and publicly released its May 29 training materials online for others to use.

A referendum on David Beckham’s proposed Major League Soccer stadium was approved today in the most Miami of ways: Three commissioners voted to move the plan forward after multiple weeks of abrupt public proposals, last-minute plan changes, accusations of lawbreaking and corruption, and a whole lot of general bloviating and confusion.

Marion Hammer, the National Rifle Association’s longtime lobbyist in Florida, basically runs a portion of the state Legislature. She quite literally writes huge portions of state gun laws and commands a cadre of followers whom she orders to vote against those who cross her. She is notorious in Florida political circles for calling lawmakers traitors to the Constitution.

Before David Beckham’s group abruptly ditched plans for a stadium in Overtown, one of the biggest roadblocks to that proposal was an ongoing lawsuit by a local activist who claimed the city broke the rules by agreeing to sell the group public land without bidding for other offers.

In December 2016, Janice Antoine was working as an aide to North Miami Councilman Philippe Bien-Aime when she was asked to take a ride with him to Doral, she says. Bien-Aime told her he needed to drop off a campaign check at the Miami-Dade County Elections Department.

Sonny and Rico. Gloria and Emilio. LeBron and Dwyane. South Florida has had some iconic pairs over the years, but none tops our OG local couple: Dade County and corruption. Everyone knows our swampy metropolis is the kind of place where business is done via cash-stuffed envelopes swapped in bathroom…

South Florida activists used to joke that locals couldn’t be bothered to protest anything — the weather is either too hot, too rainy, or too darn nice for people to stand outside chanting for civil rights. But that’s changed. The Trump presidency has ignited a sustained groundswell of political action and anger, even in apathetic South Florida.

Soccer star and professional attractive person David Beckham spent a small portion of Thursday’s carnival-esqe city commission meeting complaining that anonymous Miamians haven’t been smiling at him as often lately. Only one woman publicly flashed him on Thursday! Poor Becks. Many Miami residents are, rightfully, skeptical about Beckham’s latest proposal in…

Ever since David Beckham and his new partners, Jorge and Jose Mas, abruptly abandoned their Overtown stadium plans and pivoted to the Melreese Country Club, skeptics have piled on about potential hangups: the traffic, the loss of a city-owned golf course, the last-minute proposal that could hand the Mas brothers…

For the last 24 hours, Miami officials have been furiously pushing the latest pitch from David Beckham and financier Jorge Mas for a new soccer stadium at Melreese County Club, largely by insisting the deal would pour millions into city coffers. City Manager Emilio Gonzalez repeatedly estimated that…

Technically, Melreese Golf Course is a green space. In satellite views of Miami, it is a large space that is green. The grass and smattering of trees around the links are, in fact, green. This is undeniable. But is Melreese a “green space,” as claimed by some opponents of David…

Y’all ready for two full days of civility? Who’s eager to reach across the aisle to catch some T-shirts? Everybody ready to get those lighters waving for Democratic fundraiser and billboard tycoon Tom Steyer? Prepared to watch Libertarian tax-extremist Grover Norquist shatter a beer bottle and cut his chest open onstage…

The Trump era has been horrible for many of us, but few have suffered more than immigrants and those seeking asylum from oppressive regimes. But Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown has been fantastic for South Florida’s massive private-prison corporation, Boca Raton’s GEO Group. According to a breakdown of current ICE contracts…