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Florida Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 15, 2018 63 Comments
BuzzFeed News dropped a bombshell today with a report that the FBI received a warning last fall from a YouTube vlogger and bail bondsman about a comment from a Nikolas Cruz. He supposedly said, "I'm going to be a professional school shooter." 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz attacked students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Wednesday and killed 17 people. Officials charged him with 17 counts of premeditated murder on Thursday.

Posted by Jared Samilow on February 01, 2018 17 Comments
U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker in Tallahassee has ruled that Florida's process for restoring voting rights to convicted felons violates both the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The implications of the ruling, however, may not be so far-reaching since the judge hasn't yet decided on a specific remedy. The Order (pdf.) is embedded at the bottom of this post.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on January 24, 2018 50 Comments
Florida is one of three states who require convicted felons to obtain clemency before their voting rights are restored. Now, voters will decide if a change to the more than hundred-year-old law ought to be made. Thanks to the legwork of advocacy group, Floridians for Fair Democracy, surpassed the 766,000 signatures needed to put the put the measure on the November ballot.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on January 20, 2018 14 Comments
Last Jan. 20th, I celebrated the inauguration of President Donald Trump by binge-watching all the coverage while drinking champagne labeled "Liberal Tears". Courtesy of my friend and fellow Egyptophile, Terry Lee Ebert Mendozza, I was able to drink more champagne to commemorate the first anniversary of his administration with many of President Trump's initial campaign supporters during the Red, White, and Blue Celebration at Mar-a-Lago hosted by Trumpettes USA.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 02, 2018 38 Comments
As we look toward the 2018 midterms, it's interesting to note that the GOP has reportedly given up on Florida's 27th District.  The district is in the Miami-Dade area and is largely Cuban-American, including as it does "Little Havana."  Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) has served this area when it was the 18th and now that it's the 27th since 1989.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 24, 2017 1 Comment
Term-limited Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) cannot run for governor again, and the 2018 Florida governor's race is starting to heat up.  President Trump tweeted his support for Representative Ron DeSantis (R-FL06), saying that DeSantis would make a "GREAT" governor of Florida. While DeSantis hasn't yet entered the race, it's an open secret that he intends to do so.  DeSantis was the early fundraising front-runner in the 2016 Senate race until Senator Marco Rubio (R) announced that he was going to run again after losing the GOP presidential nomination.

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 10, 2017 15 Comments
Roll Call has unveiled another instance of taxpayers paying for a lawmaker to hide his disgusting behavior. This time, us taxpayers forked over $220,000 so Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) could settle a sexual harassment lawsuit:
Winsome Packer, a former staff member of a congressional commission that promotes international human rights, said in documents that the congressman touched her, made unwanted sexual advances, and threatened her job. At the time, Hastings was the chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, where Packer worked.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 18, 2017 11 Comments
Safe spaces are all the rage on campuses. The safety promised is not physical safety, but emotional safety from ideas that do not fit the progressive and social justice warrior narrative. At Vassar College, my planned lecture on "hate speech" and free speech was so *scary* to the intolerant far-left that they not only engaged in a smear campaign against me, they also organized safe spaces replete "coloring books, zine kits, markers, construction paper etc."

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 17, 2017 17 Comments
The all Democrat Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CBC) rejected Rep. Carlos Curbelo's membership bid. The CBC actually thinks HIS motives were political, even though he is a Cuban American and "represents a Latino-heavy district in Miami." So why wouldn't they want him? Well, according to Politico, the Democrats have eyed his seat for the 2018 midterms.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 11, 2017 14 Comments
Florida has seen an influx of Puerto Ricans since 2000, and in the wake of Hurricane Maria, many more Puerto Ricans are fleeing their devastated homes and moving to Florida. It's not clear how many of these newly-arrived Puerto Ricans will stay, but as many as 100,000 could impact not only the state's politics but national elections. Writing two years, Pew reported that Florida's Puerto Rican population increased 110% since 2000.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 11, 2017 8 Comments
Naples was expected to be Irma's bullseye, but first reports suggest the storm may not have caused the damage everyone expected. On CNN this morning, Chris Cuomo interviewed Naples city manager Bill Moss. After the introduction, Cuomo said, "we didn't expect what happened yesterday, making history in the wrong kind of way, with the gusts we got, and then that surge."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 10, 2017 7 Comments
(Updates added to end of post) The nation's eyes are on Florida this weekend, as Hurricane Irma storms through the Sunshine State. Once rated as a Category 5 tempest, Irma has expended enough energy buffeting the coast that it now "merely" meets Category 3 criteria.
Hurricane Irma bludgeoned Florida on Sunday, snapping trees like matchsticks and turning Miami streets into rivers. And there's plenty more damage to come. Naples and Marco Island will endure some of the strongest winds in the next few hours, the National Hurricane Center said.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 06, 2017 32 Comments
I get not liking someone and especially elected officials, but for all the talk of Trump's policy decisions being "cruel", you'd think there'd be a bit more self-awareness when wishing a monster storm rain fire, brimstone, and destruction on someone's home. And yet... Many, most in fact, invoked their Climatology religion (that's really what it's become), in their prayers for destruction of Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate.

Posted by Andrew Branca on July 05, 2017 50 Comments
“Stand-Your-Ground” was back in the headlines against over the just-concluded Independence Day weekend, thanks to a 14-page decision by Miami-Dade Circuit judge Milton Hirsch that recent legislative changes to Florida’s self-defense immunity law were unconstitutional, reports the Bradenton Herald newspaper and other sources. (That decision is embedded below.) Specifically, the recently signed law switched the burden of persuasion on pre-trial self-defense immunity from the defendant to the state, and changed the standard of evidence required from a preponderance of the evidence to one of clear and convincing evidence. (We wrote about these changes more extensively here: “Florida Changes Burden of Proof of Self-Defense Immunity.”)
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