Gov. Rick Scott spent $73 million of his own money in the 2010 governor’s race. When asked in April if he’d be cutting more checks for reelection in 2014, he responded, simply, “I won’t have to… I don’t know what it will cost, but we’ll have the money to win.”And…
Last month, MAOS blogger (and new Sunshine Brigade member) Chaz Stevens submitted a complaint to the Federal Election Commission after we questioned whether Rep. Connie Mack’s $18,000 postcard “mistake” actually constituted an illegal campaign contribution.Mack, who today announced an endorsement from Attorney General Pam Bondi, says it was a mistake that…
A year ago, a local union did what public employees across the state and the nation would have liked to do: stood up and declared its disgust with the Republican Party, encouraging its Republican members to drop their affiliation.This was the Broward County Police Benevolent Association, which held a “Party…
Frank Biden, Ocean Ridge resident and younger brother of Joe Biden, has been talking for years about developing a country club in northwestern Costa Rica. On Friday, the Tico Times published an article saying backers of the $106 million Guanacaste Country Club “hope to begin construction in the next two…
It’s a Wall Street Journal editor’s wet dream, splashed across the opinion page today: “Castro Endorses Obama.”Mariela Castro, niece to the tracksuit guy and daughter of Raul, calls herself a “sexologist,” and her work, according to Journal columnist Mary O’Grady, “has something to do with advocating for gay, lesbian, bisexual…
You’re out of luck if you were hoping a debate or two would help better understand Connie Mack’s “freedom pilgrims freedom America” policy positions on his campaign website. The Tampa Bay Times invited Mack to debate his Republican primary opponents, and his campaign responded by challenging Bill Nelson to a…
One day in February, we sat down for a get-to-know-you interview with Scott Israel, who’s running in the Democratic primary this August to challenge Al Lamberti in the Broward County sheriff’s race. Since then, his campaign has retweeted our story dozens and dozens of times — we can’t count exactly…
People have a lot of opinions about our quaint little corner of the country, but there’s one thing that’s above dispute: Florida never defies expectations.So when you hear that a report was released yesterday laying out state-level statistics about public corruption, which state would you expect to be at the…
Quick audible on today’s Jeb Bush update: This post was originally about Bush endorsing Republican Rep. Connie Mack in the Senate race for Bill Nelson’s seat, which is news because people like Jeb and a former governor endorsing a primary candidate means it’s either a sure thing or Bush thinks…
Odebrecht, the giant Brazilian company that has a $225 million contract to help build the new runway at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, is suing the state over a histrionic law that Rick Scott signed last month in Miami, banning state and local governments from doing major business with companies with…
It looks like Deerfield Beach has a twofold problem: The first fold is that the “office manager/comptroller” responding to emails for Housing Authority Chairman Keith Emery has no idea how to read a four-sentence request for simple public records.The second is that they’ve been throwing those public records away.MAOS blogger…
Cesar Conda, Sen. Marco Rubio’s chief of staff, received $50,000 to $100,000 from the lobbying firm he used to work for, according to an investigation by campaign finance website Republic Report.Though Conda left the firm before taking the job at the head of Rubio’s office, Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told…
Back in 2005, Ozzie DeFaria was ordered by a judge to stay away from both his ex-wife and her new boyfriend.Now, both of them are endorsing him for Congress.It’s just one detail of a knotted public relations quagmire that came to the surface last week, when shark-tank.net political blogger Javier Manjarres…
Gov. Rick Scott’s campaign to purge “noncitizens” from the voter rolls less than three months before a primary election violates federal law, according to the Department of Justice.In a letter sent yesterday to Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, the chief of the DOJ’s voting section gave Detzner six days…
Donald Trump, devoid of any meaningful role in American culture outside of a television show in which he fires marginally famous people from imaginary jobs, has settled nicely into a new, strange role as a political commentator, a role with all the hubristic indulgences of his campaign for president without…
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told Italian news website Linkiesta that “If Romney would offer me the post of vice president, I would consider the proposal very carefully.” At least according to a rough translation of the website.I don’t know how Saint Petersblog writer Peter Schorch found it, but he…
Dear Rick Scott,Just a quick note to congratulate you on returning Florida to the electoral Dark Ages. You began by reinstating an archaic rule that forces ex-felons to wait five years after completing their sentences to have their voting rights restored. Very strategic thinking on your part. Twelve years ago,…
I was checking out at Publix a few days ago when a man came up behind me in the express lane, put down his sandwich, and started muttering about whether they would screen him for putting terrorist weapons in the sandwich and how there is “no freedom left in this…
The Fort Lauderdale chapter of the food-sharing network Food Not Bombs gathered on Friday afternoon, as it has done most weeks for years, to serve free vegetarian food with a side of anarchist literature, guitar-strumming, and antiestablishment conversation. We covered them in a feature story a while back and returned…
There has been a lot of blogspace spent on the Sunlight Foundation’s latest study, which found that the speech patterns of members of Congress have gotten markedly simpler over the past 15 years or so.”Is Congress getting dumber, or just more plainspoken?” its headline asks, and the whole country at…
Quinnipiac University has been ringing Florida phones off their hooks the past week or two — a poll yesterday showed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pulling ahead of Barack Obama in the state, and there’s a poll about Florida baseball that came out this morning that’s of pretty much no…
Every Friday for the past few years, Food Not Bombs has been gathering at Stranahan Park in downtown Fort Lauderdale to pass out food to the homeless, hungry, or just plain bored. Our cover story on the group last year found the local chapter bracing for a local crackdown on…
