More Trouble for Deerfield Beach Vice Mayor and Friends

Gloria Battle, an ally of Deerfield Beach Vice Mayor Sylvia Poitier, may have committed a crime by voting to authorize more than $12,000 in funding to the Haitian American Consortium, a nonprofit corporation for which she is the secretary.Based on a post by city activist Chaz Stevens on his blog,…

Judge Porter Photo With Public Defender Only Looks Like an Endorsement

As the Broward judicial races heat up, candidates are looking to seize upon every possible advantage. So it seemed a suspicious bit serendipity last week when Lisa Porter, the Broward Circuit Court judge running for reelection, appeared in a photograph with Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein on the legal community’s…

Muslim Group Happy to Host Protesters

Muhammed Malik really knows how to spoil the fun of an anti-terrorism rally. The executive director of South Florida’s Council on American-Islamic Relations is actually glad that Joe Kaufman’s Americans Against Hate will be demonstrating outside the Broward County Convention Center tomorrow during CAIR’s fundraiser.”I don’t know whether to thank…

With a Straight Face, Fox News Asks Rubio if He’ll Run for President

Now there’s an interview with a strange arc. The CliffsNotes version:Fox News: Marco Rubio, you’re all about fiscal discipline, but what’s this about you charging personal expenses to the Republican Party’s credit card?Rubio: That’s absolutely not true, pretty much. Let’s talk about something else.Fox News: OK, will you please be…

George LeMieux Very Worried About Your Children

National economies present some of the most complex problems in the world. At this very moment, some of the globe’s most eminent minds are debating how to pull mankind out of its recent economic torpor. And yet somehow, those Nobel Prize-winning economists can’t see what’s perfectly obvious to Florida Sen…

Whig Party Comes Back From Dead to Court the Tea Party

Hark! Be that the ghost of Sen. Henry Clay, former champion of the Whig Party? The Great Compromiser was a fierce opponent of Andrew Jackson and is credited with creating the Whigs, a party that vanished around 1856, shortly after Clay’s death; but it’s being revived in Florida because, why…

Mark Foley’s Little Shop o’ Horrors

In the market for a pile of tasseled silk pillows? A pair of matching swan figurines? Or perhaps you hanker to collect the tchotckes of disgraced former pols. Ex-U.S. Congressman Mark Foley has opened a furniture consignment store in West Palm Beach, the Post reported yesterday. The shop, at 1930…

Florida’s First Couple Attend Weekend Event (Together!)

Above: video evidence that Gov. Charlie Crist is acquainted with his wife, Carole. The two can be seen together at a party in New Port Richey. It’s not clear whether they came together or if they bumped into each other by sheer coincidence. The legitimacy of this marriage has been…

UPDATE: Wes Blackman on Lake Worth Boardinghouse Brouhaha

OK, we take it back. Lake Worth blogger and citizen activist Wes Blackman is a reasonable man: Maybe he didn’t dive headfirst into the deep end —  he just dipped his toe in. Blackman sent the Juice an email of bullet points about his recent complaint to the Florida Department…

Democrat AG Candidates Play Round of Endorsement One-Upmanship

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz this morning announced that she had given her endorsement in the Florida Attorney General’s race to State Sen. Dan Gelber. But Gelber’s news-cycle victory was short-lived. Because just a few hours later, his opponent, State Sen. Dave Aronberg, announced that Congressman Ron Klein was endorsing Aronberg’s…

Is Kendrick Meek Campaign Scandalously Dull?

Charlie Crist sparked controversy by hugging President Obama; Marco Rubio had a whirlwind romance with Florida Republicans only to be blindsided by a credit card spending scandal. But neither of those campaigns for U.S. Senate has been dealt as devastating a blow as Kendrick Meek’s. The leading Democrat candidate’s crime:…

Jeb Bush Criticizes Crist for Supporting Stimulus

He still hasn’t officially endorsed Marco Rubio, but former Gov. Jeb Bush is sending plenty of signals that that’s his pick for Florida’s next U.S. senator. The most recent piece of evidence came in an interview with a conservative website, Newsmax, in which Bush called Charlie Crist’s support of the…

To Hell With War on Terror — Allen West Wants War on Islam

Well, congressional candidate Allen West had to do something to stand out at last week’s CPAC. That’s newly posted video of his speech. At 3:35, he says:A nation goes to war against an ideology. We are against something that is a totalitarian, theocratic, political ideology, and it is called Islam…

Suit Accuses Former Deerfield City Manager of Racially Charged Comments

Larry Deetjen, the longtime city manager of Deerfield Beach now working in the Midwest, has landed his new city in legal trouble. The landlords of a minority-dominated housing complex in Oak Lawn, Ilinois, say that Deetjen, as village manager, made racially insensitive remarks about the building’s tenants. Last week, those…