If you’ve got a baby on board you might want to start throwing your butts out. A Republican legislator from Jacksonville has filed a new bill that would make it illegal for anyone to smoke in their car or truck while a minor is also in the vehicle…
Florida hasn’t had a lieutenant governor for 256 days, but now Gov. Rick Scott has finally gotten around to forming a short list of candidates to replace the disgraced Jennifer Carroll. Naturally, one of the candidates in the running has already dropped out…
Smoke it if you’ve got a prescription. That’s what the vast majority of Floridians say about marijuana. A new Quinnipiac poll shows that 82 percent of Floridians support the use of medical marijuana. But only 48 percent support decriminalization of small amounts of pot for recreational use, which, hey, is…
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have gotten to satirize a lot of things over the years, but they’ve never gotten a chance to rip into a sitting member of the U.S. Congress getting busted for drugs. That’s because no such thing had happen during the shows’ runs until…
Well, the possibility of a rival team in Miami wasn’t the only thing that had soccer fans in Orlando booing last night. Rick Scott showed up to the announcement of the new Orlando MLS team and was promptly booed off stage…
Florida, usually North America’s go-to source for general bizarreness and political corruption, has been watching the saga of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford unfold with a bit of a smirk on our face. Hey, at least none of our mayors smokes crack. Then Southwest Florida Congressman Trey Radel had to ruin…
South Miami is a strange town. So strange, in fact, that Commissioner Bob Welsh seems to fit right in. Around town he’s known as “Bicycle Bob” for pedaling neighborhoods on a girl’s blue cruiser distributing flyers. During the Mariel boatlift, he handed out his own Spanish-language joke books to newly…
Charlie Crist has only been running for governor for 12 days, but he’s already raised nearly $900,000. And according to the first poll released since his announcement, he has a 10-point lead over incumbent Rick Scott…
A cavalcade of Hummers and F-150s headed down to the University of Miami on Saturday. They contained scantily clad female models bearing bullhorns, beer pong tables and boxes of pizza. Bros instantly materialized, got drunk and danced to the sounds of DJ Joey. And because no tailgate would be complete…
Last Tuesday, Miami Beach voters overwhelming voted in favor a symbolic vote for medical marijuana and a real vote to approve a queer- and trans-inclusive non-discrimination ordinance. It’s not exactly conservative-land. So it seems strange that a mysterious e-mail went out recently attacking commission candidate Michael Grieco for *gasp* living…
Philip Levine managed to narrowly avoid a runoff in Tuesday’s dramatic Miami Beach mayoral election, and because that margin was so low (just 0.47 percent), state laws mandated an automatic recount. The results of that recount are now in, and Levine is now officially mayor-elect. No runoff against Michael Gongora…
Shortly after Charlie Crist announced he’d be running for governor as a Democrat on Monday, word came that he’d be doing his first big cable news interview as a candidate on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. Crist was likely hoping this would be a chance to raise his national profile…
This year has not been kind to Marco Rubio. It began with talk of Florida’s junior senator being the savior of the GOP. But then the prodigal son got parched on national television, and his insipid immigration reform was roundly rejected by fellow Republicans. In recent months, Rubio has begun…
Good morning Miami Beach. Are you feeling sore and tired from swilling too many flutes of celebratory champagne last night? Are you surprised to find yourself wearing a campaign T-shirt altered to say “Philip Levine Latrine”? Is your living room floor littered with more flyers than a Free Tibet rally?…
Today voters across the county went to the polls for elections in Miami, Miami Beach, Hialeah and Homestead as well as a county-wide referendum concerning funding for Jackson Memorial Hospital. As always, we’ll be keeping an update post on those results as they come back. We’ll update results at the…
Since at least 2004, Club Madonna owner Leroy Griffith has been clamoring to overturn a ban on adult entertainment venues serving alcohol on South Beach. It’s unfair, he says, that he has to serve ARIEL wine and O’Doul’s at his strip joint when others across the causeway can be one-stop-shops…
Well, Republican-turned-Independent-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist officially announced he’s running for his old Governor gig again this morning, cementing one of the more improbable political evolutions in Florida history. Crist’s name instantly started trending on Twitter, and the Twitoverse isn’t sure what to make of the announcement. See also: Is Charlie Crist…
On Monday it becomes official. After more than a year of speculations, Charlie Crist is reportedly set to announce he’s running for Governor as a Democrat. What was once Florida’s biggest political “What if?” scenario is actually happening…
Back in 2007, the city of Opa-locka made headlines by passing an ordinance aimed directly at the hip-hop trend of sagging your pants so low that half of your boxer shorts are on public display. Any man caught exposing his underwear in public could be fined $250. Now the city…
Bill Nelson finally dragged his feet to supporting a bill that prevent job discrimination for LGBT citizens, but his fellow Florida senator, Marco Rubio, continues to sip on some watered-down Anita Bryant-style orange juice and has reiterated his opposition to the bill. What’s his excuse? Oh, a bunch of things…
Aside from Senator Bill Nelson, former CFO Alex Sink is the only Democrat to get elected statewide in Florida in recent memory, which makes her one of the party’s highest profile pols. She ran a close race with Rick Scott for governor in 2010, opted out of a rematch, and…
Last month, Riptide revealed Michael Góngora’s shady connections to a smear campaign launched against his rivals for mayor of Miami Beach. Now the man targeted by those attacks ads is hitting back, filing complaints and a lawsuit against his detractors. Philip Levine, a self-made millionaire who has spent at least…
