Public Finance

Appeals Court (Maybe?) Sides With Rick Scott on State Employee Drug Testing

This is obviously why it takes three years to get through law school: the courts are whack as hell. Case in point, today's decision coming out of the federal appeals court on whether Rick Scott can pee-test state employees for drug use. Following the announcement, both sides of the dispute are claim ... More >>

Florida Man Threatens TV News Crew with Knife, Caught on Video

According to the news crews over at Channel 10, a reporting team was filming in the street outside of a private residence Tuesday night when a man -- since identified as 33-year-old Louis Dominic Paolino III -- came out of the house wielding a knife. He began slicing electric cords, smashing lightbu ... More >>

White House Kitchen Affected by Sequestration

The federal government's budget cuts are being felt everywhere these days -- including in the White House kitchen.In an interview with reporters, the White House's assistant chef and senior policy adviser for the healthy food initiative, Sam Kass, announced that he was being furloughed, according to ... More >>

Allen West Getting His Very Own Lighted Holiday Sign on Saturday

As you may have heard, Allen West lost his election battle with Patrick Murphy, as well as math. But the fine folks at Stand Up Florida want to remind West not to lose his battle with common sense. On Saturday, local constituents will be putting up a lighted message at Cultural Plaza in downtown L ... More >>

Obama Signs Disaster Declaration For Counties Damaged by Isaac

Remember Tropical Storm Isaac? What a pain in the ass storm that was. It was particularly damaging to Palm Beach County, which got smacked harder by Ike than Miami-Dade or Broward, leaving more than 8 to 10 inches of rain in the southeast part of the county, damaging schools, homes and leaving ... More >>

Joe Biden Tells Florida Seniors Romney's Plan Will Tax Their Social Security

Joe Biden got medieval on Romney and Ryan's asses over the weekend. Biden rallied supporters at his events in Boca Raton and Tamarac over the weekend, which were filled with Florida seniors. Biden went around telling the many, many seniors who attended his rallies that Romney's economic plan coul ... More >>

Who's Behind the Obama-Bashing Billboard?

Strax Rejuvenation CEO Jeffry Davis Has Criminal Record

​The CEO of the high-volume plastic surgery center in Lauderhill where a patient died last month is an ex-felon. Jeffry Davis was convicted of financial crimes related to his former company, which made replicas of vintage cars.Long before he became head of Strax Rejuvenation and Aesthetics Institu ... More >>

Broward Inspector General Report Slams Lauderdale Lakes Administration

​Lauderdale Lakes is in some hot water, and not all of it is old news.A preliminary report dated yesterday outlines the findings of the Broward Office of the Inspector General regarding the "gross mismanagement of public funds" in Lauderdale Lakes. The OIG says preliminary reports aren't public re ... More >>

Kansas City Businesswoman Facing Criminal Charges Found Dead in Fort Lauderdale

​Karen Pletz, the former president and CEO of the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, was found dead in a Fort Lauderdale condo this morning, according to Fort Lauderdale Police Detective Travis Mandell.Pletz, 64, was indicted in March on 24 charges after allegedly embezzling more ... More >>

Rick Scott Approval Rating Climbing Out of the Toilet; Voters Don't Know if He Raised Taxes

​Gov. Rick Scott received his highest approval rating and lowest disapproval since April, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.The new survey shows 35 percent of respondents approved of the way the governor is handling his job, compared to 52 percent who said they disapproved." ... More >>

Obama Lunches at Good Stuff Eatery for Birthday

Goo Stuff EateryDidi POTUS eat an Obama Burger at Good Stuff Eatery today?​President Barack Obama took his staff to Good Stuff Eatery for a pre-birthday lunch celebration after debt negotiations were finished.According to NBC's Washington bureau,  President Obama, who turns 50 tomorrow, waite ... More >>

Rick Scott Gets Told on CNN -- Again (Video)

​Gov. Rick Scott took his armchair president skills to CNN this morning as part of his belief that he has a say in federal government, and the CNN anchors made him look like a fool -- again.In early June, the governor went on CNN to defend his advocacy of drug-testing welfare recipients. He was as ... More >>

Scott Rothstein's Watches at Auction: Even Better Than Bernie Madoff's Socks?

Sun-SentinelA man and his timepieces.​Ever since Scott Rothstein's billion-dollar Ponzi empire crumbled in late 2009, there's been a load of loot from his extravagant lifestyle sitting around. In a 2008 story, New Times visited his law offices and described his material wealth, including a bevy of ... More >>

Richard Rubin Sentenced to Ten Months in Federal Prison

Richard Rubin (right) and Diana Wasserman-Rubin.​Richard Rubin -- husband of former Broward County Commissioner Diana Wasserman-Rubin, who still faces seven felony charges of her own -- was sentenced this morning to ten months in federal prison.Rubin, 66, pleaded guilty in April to federal tax eva ... More >>

Palm Beach County Tea Party Director Quits After Chairman Rags on Rep. Paul Ryan

​Standing up for what you believe in apparently isn't in the South Florida Tea Party manifest.Pam Wohlschlegel -- the director of the Palm Beach County chapter of the South Florida Tea Party -- called it quits after Chairman Everett Wilkinson declared House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's Medicare ... More >>

Hallandale Neighbors in a Schvitz About Proposed New Charter School

Deutsch​Around 100 Hallandale Beach residents who live near the Hallandale Jewish Center have signed a petition opposing the opening of a new K-8 charter school on the site. The school would be run by the Ben Gamla Charter School, which already has locations in Hollywood and Sunrise.Broward Bulldo ... More >>

Lauderdale Lakes City Manager Fired -- With Attitude (Video Included)

lauderdalelakes.orgGloria Lewis had a thing or two to say about City Manager Anita Fain Taylor​Lauderdale Lakes City Commissioner Gloria Lewis had some attitude to give before ousting City Manager Anita Fain Taylor last week -- including a rip on Ray Charles and blind three-legged dogs.Apparen ... More >>

Florida is a Great Place For a Walk -- If You Want to End Up Dead

nj.com​Fact of the day: You're more likely to wind up dead while on a walk in Florida than in any other state.That's according to what an advocacy group called Transportation for America released Tuesday, with Florida taking the cake for the highest "Pedestrian Danger Index" rank in the nation, an ... More >>

Hollywood Faces Budget Crisis Surprise; City Manager Hit with Corruption Investigation

The Miami HeraldCameron Benson​Cameron Benson has worked for the City of Hollywood since 1995 and as city manager since 2002. Historically, he has shunned attention -- newspapers are still referencing interviews he gave in 1995 -- despite periodic allegations of questionable behavior.He's known ar ... More >>

High-Speed Rail Money Rick Scott Rejected Goes to Other States

Our friends in New York, Chicago, Detroit, and California are now benefiting from the questionable fiscal decisions of Florida's Tea Party governor. Thanks, Governor, for sending money to our friends up north.​They're receiving a large portion of the $2.4 billion in federal funds for a high-speed ... More >>

Reader Rails Against "Virtual Black Baby Genocide"

West is offended by Planned Parenthood clinics in black neighborhoods.​The federal budget deal congressional leaders inked late Friday avoided funding cuts to Planned Parenthood, but a future Senate floor vote on the issue still looms. The Juice has given you U.S. Rep. Allen West's views on the or ... More >>

WTFlorida: 10 Reasons Why Florida is Better at Everything

Miche Ratto​Here in Florida we're really good at a lot of things. Topping the list we have: growing indoor marijuana, staging car accidents, and throwing children in jail. And boy are we good at all of those things.To learn more about the awesome state you live in click the image.

Rick Scott Goes Straight Up George Bush On Pill Mills: Launches 'Strike Force'

Will Gov. Scott's strike force take down pill mills like Sosa's hit squad took out Tony Montana? ​These pill mill doctors may have misunderestimated Gov. Rick Scott but he's gon smoke em out. And he doesn't need no Office of Drug Control or a geeky little database to track dealers of mass destruct ... More >>

Broward County Will Reopen Four Parks After $100,000 Analysis Found That Closures Didn't Save Taxpayers Anything

​Broward County's ill-fated attempt to save money by closing parks midweek actually cost taxpayers $98,961, plus a year and a half of potential revenue that the parks could have brought in.  Next Tuesday, four county parks will reopen seven days a week, according to the Broward County Parks a ... More >>

Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos Slammed for Using Taxpayer Money to Write Useless Book

​It was fodder for Florida columnists all week. By Saturday, the hypocrisy and intellectual ineptitude of Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos was on national display via the New York Times' op-ed page. Last week, the AP reported that Haridopolos, a so-called fiscally conservative Republican, ... More >>

Whose Dole Is It, Anyway?

FAIR-y Tales

Russell Pearce and other illegal-immigration populists rely on misleading, right-wing reports to scapegoat immigrants and terrify penny-pinched Americans.

South Hollywood Floods Have Neighborhood Activist Plotting Regime Change

There were puddles all over Broward County on Monday, thanks to the steady rain over the weekend, but in Hollywood, there were lakes, as you can see in the video above.The worst of it is in South Hollywood, where activists have long complained about poor drainage, among other infrastructure problem ... More >>

Sen. Nan Rich: Seriously, Florida, It's Time to Stop Humping Animals

Flickr​With the state finances in disarray, 2009 was not the year for Florida legislators to spend their valuable time passing a law that would make it illegal to have sex with animals. But this year, with the state finances again in disarray, maybe Weston-based Sen. Nan Rich will finally get her ... More >>

LeMieux to President: Cut Federal Spending! (Except on Businesses That Paid Me as a Lobbyist)

It's surreal to hear a conservative like LeMieux campaigning for mass transportation, typically a crusade for liberals. But when it comes to the railroad industry, to which LeMieux has deep ties from his halcyon days as a lobbyist, LeMieux turns liberal.As we've mentioned on Juice this month, LeMieu ... More >>

Boynton's Own Ghost Tower: An Empty Promenade

Lisa Rab The Promenade is begging for residents.​Boynton Beach is now giving Sunrise a run for its money in the competition for ghostly condo buildings. These 14-story cream-colored towers perched on the edge of the Intracoastal Waterway are part of a project known as Promenade, where just four ye ... More >>

Is Greyhound Racing Doomed in Florida?

C. Stiles In the past two weeks, two greyhound racing tracks have announced that they are either ending live racing or shutting down completely: one in Arizona and one in Texas. Both tracks had been in operation for more than 50 years. With every track closing, opponents of racing look aga ... More >>

Palm Beach Rebs Threaten Secession

Rebellion, Palm Beach-style​Nothing secedes like excess. We here at the Juice thinks it makes  sense: Palm Beach town councilman William Diamond urged his fellow confederates at yesterday's council meeting to consider seceding from Palm Beach County and forming a  new county of its very ... More >>

That's Low-Down: Pembroke Pines Man Gets Rich by Stealing From Disabled Cousin

John Kopras, formerly of Pembroke Pines, entered a guilty plea in Fort Lauderdale's federal court Thursday to charges that he raided the Social Security accounts of a cousin who was mentally disabled.According to the federal prosecutor's news release, Kopras set up trust accounts at Wachovia Bank th ... More >>

Trouble's Her Middle Name: Vice Mayor Is a Woman in Distress

Sylvia FergusonDeerfield Beach Vice Mayor Sylvia Ferguson (previously Poitier) may have had a financial interest in a nonprofit corporation for which she voted to award public funds. Acts of Sedition blogger Chaz Stevens has posted financial documents of the Westside Deerfield Businessmen Associatio ... More >>

No More Taxes on (Almost) All Things Fancy

Photo courtesy Tom Fancy StudiosIf that looks like your shopping list then, well, thank you, good sir, for generous contributions to the State of Florida, but you probably should have waited till after the legislative session. A bill recently passed by the House Finance and Tax Council would remove ... More >>

Children With No Financial Future To Be Jailed

Hopefully the cops won't mistake the protesters for real criminals.If you have children, and you'd like to exploit those children for your political gains, and if you have the money to rent those children prison uniforms, you should totally bring them to downtown West Palm Beach on Wednesday. That's ... More >>

Call Centers Overwhelmed With Floridians Needing Public Assistance

You know things are bad when the people who are paid to help the folks applying for public assistance need help themselves. More than five million Americans are seeking unemployment benefits, the most since records of such things have been kept. Now Florida call centers (not pictured ... More >>

West Palm Mayor Forgets to Ask Obama to Fix City; Mice Apparently Do Frankel's Bidding

Frankel's got moves on the dance floor. In city hall, not so much.West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel met with President Obama to talk about how she'd like to spend the stimulus money. Frankel, if you haven't been following things, is the mayor who broke a bunch of shit, like downtown and city roads ... More >>

Food Stamp Nation - Florida Leads The Pack

The Miami Herald reports that "In the last two years, the number of Floridians on food stamps has increased more than 40 percent to 1.7 million. That increase is the highest in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture."The numbers read like this, 356,000 food stamp recipients li ... More >>

Fun With Headlines, Etc

Naugle Sends Pulp A Parable

Capitol-izing on Ineptitude

Best Place to Donate Your Clothes

JCC Thrift Store of West Palm Beach

Letters for April 28-May 4, 2005

Best Park

Snyder Park

Angel of Mercy

Gail Norton is a one-woman task force, helping Broward's aged to cope at home

Foodstuff

Best Place to Buy Cigarettes

Gator Tobacco Outlet