The Florida Department of Environmental Protection yesterday announced it would take legal action against the Dan A. Hughes Co., the Texas oil prospectors busted late last year for unauthorized drilling in the Big Cypress Swamp watershed. Tough talk, but it could mean little more than locking the barn door after…

Rick Scott couldn’t have found a better man than Bill Scherer to be special counsel in the Digital Domain fiasco. A veteran litigator with more than his share of courtroom wins, Scherer is sure to look for every possible legal grounds to sue the authors of flim-flam man John Textor’s…

The environmental keystone of the South Florida ecosystem, the Everglades, remains the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, and a landscape of almost mystical power. “Grassy Waters,” the Seminole first called it; “River of Grass,” the Anglos later said. See also: Dropping Acid in the Everglades: Fracking War Drags…

We know that Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford’s stubborn, hypocritical decision not to expand Medicaid in Florida (aided and abetted by Governor-for-the-Moment Rick “Robot” Scott) is costing the state $50 billion in federal aid over the next ten years — and likely resulting in the deaths of an estimated six…

So there’s a big party and fundraiser for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi tonight, in some swanky digs in Clearwater. If you’re in the neighborhood and have a spare grand, you might wanna drop by. Just be prepared to be audited at the door. Not IRS audited. Scientology audited. See…

A year in the making and with a lead-in quote from techno-visionary Buckminster Fuller, Miami-Dade County’s Sea Level Rise Task Force today made public its final report and recommendations to county leaders. See also: Sea Level Rise: Will Cities Be Held Liable for Failure to Plan? In the report’s introductory…

The battle over oil drilling in the Everglades rolls on, having taken several new turns since mid-June, when officials with the Department of Environmental Protection tried to bully Collier County officials into dropping a lawsuit over a controversial oil-drilling operation in the Big Cypress Swamp watershed. See also: – DEP…

Leave it to South Florida 9-12, the local offshoot of political charlatan Glenn Beck’s 9-12 Project, to lasso a fraud like David Barton and bring him here to preach his bogus version of American history. Texas native Barton holds a degree in Christian Education from Oral Roberts University and is…

Nan Rich’s relentless campaign for the Florida Democratic Party’s nomination for governor touches down in welcoming territory tomorrow, the gay-friendly, multi-ethnic confines of Lake Worth, AKA “South Florida’s Coolest City.” See also: – Can Nan Rich Lead Democrats to Victory Over Rick Scott ? The former state senator from Weston…

In an effort to sabotage development of Briger Forest, the last major tract of undeveloped land along I-95 in Palm Beach County, an anonymous band of self-described anarchists claims to have booby-trapped “countless trees” in the area and to have vandalized the work of surveyors. See also: Scripps Project at…

“Apres moi le deluge,” Madame de Pompadour supposedly said, shortly before the people of France rose up and removed her head: “After me, the flood.” See also: – WPB Sea Level Rise Symposium Keynoter: “There Will Be Catastrophe” South Florida’s coastal cities are beginning to say the same. But one…

Palm Beach Gardens city leaders greenlighted the bulldozers early this month, cheering on the clearing of Briger Forest, the last major tract of undeveloped land along I-95 in Palm Beach County. Jobs! Progress! Townhomes! But as night follows day, local environmental activists soon replied with a renewed assault on the…

How grand was Charlie Crist’s arrival at yesterday’s Democratic Party rally in Boynton Beach? See also: – Is Charlie Crist Florida’s Next Governor? The silver-haired politico entered handshaking, working his way through the crowd as it rose to its feet; then he spotted, across the hall, the Rev. Edrena Houston…

In an ominous public statement this week, regulators at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection told Collier County officials to back off a legal challenge to a controversial oil-drilling operation in the Big Cypress Swamp watershed. In effect, the DEP told the Collier Commission “Trust us; we got this.” See…

The fall elections approach, and like clockwork, GOP operatives begin priming the faithful with horror stories of rampant Democratic Party voter fraud. How much substance is there to their tales of electoral chicanery, and how great is the need for stern measures to deter it? See also: Republican Voter Suppression…

A state judge yesterday overruled legal challenges to an exploratory oil well in an area of the Big Cypress Swamp watershed adjoining the habitat of the Florida Panther, near the Naples residential neighborhood of Golden Gate Estates. See also: – DEP Bends to Oil Company Seeking to Drill in Everglades…

Medical marijuana activist John Tracey acted on two eminently reasonable beliefs late last July. The result? He got busted. Belief 1: That a Black Sabbath concert would provide a mother lode of support for a petition to put a referendum on medical marijuana on this fall’s ballot. Belief 2: That…

In the aftermath of his February firing by Florida Atlantic University, Stephen McCulloch, who founded and for 16 years led the school’s marine mammal rescue program, claims the program has fallen apart. Last week, his complaints were picked up and amplified by the Vero News. See also: – Stephen McCulloch,…