Free Republic

MIAMI GARDENS – Library closures, treating the mentally ill and the state of the fire-rescue service took center stage Tuesday when Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez hosted a town hall meeting at the North Dade Regional Library to discuss his proposed $6.3 billion budget for the new fiscal year. “What are your priorities and what do we cut?” asked Marilyn Lieberman, a self-styled community activist. . . Linnea Pearson, a Florida International University professor and former teacher of Travon Martin’s brother Jahvaris Fulton, said one of the reasons Trayvon got into trouble was because he was suspended. “As an educator, one...

SNIPPET: "Gufran Ahmed Kauser Mohammed, 30, and Mohamed Hussein Said, 25, face an indictment charging them with conspiring to provide and attempting to provide material support to three U.S.-designated terrorist organizations that have operated in Iraq, Syria and Somalia, according to authorities." SNIPPET: "The defendants, while based overseas in 2011-13, allegedly sent thousands of dollars via Western Union to an al-Qaida terrorist affiliate, al-Nusrah Front, which is fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. They also allegedly sent funds to al-Shabaab, another terrorist group seeking to overthrow the U.S.-backed transitional government in Somalia."

What do northwest Washington, D.C., South Beach Miami and upper Manhattan have in common? Less than 50 years ago, the now vibrant communities didn't look much different from most of Detroit, says emergency manager Kevyn Orr—whom Gov. Rick Snyder tapped in March to revive the broken Motor City. This is what gives him hope that Detroit can stage a comeback. "D.C. in '91 was still burned out from the 1968 riots," recalls the youthful 55-year-old attorney who worked for 22 years in D.C., at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Resolution Trust Corporation, Justice Department and Jones Day law firm. "You...

Stephen Ross, the billionaire owner of the Miami Dolphins, is recruiting tax-and-spend puppet candidates to challenge fiscally conservative Florida Republican state legislators in the 2014 Republican primaries. The New York real estate investor’s actions are the latest in his campaign of personal destruction against fiscal conservatives who voted against massive taxpayer subsidies for Ross’ Sun Life Stadium. Ross, a real estate investor from Michigan who now lives in New York, owns 95 percent of the Miami Dolphins and Sun Life Stadium. Ross sought funding this year from Florida state and local taxpayers to cover much of the expenses for $350...

Some guns turned in at a Phoenix event The same day the Racine gun turn in event produced a poor showing, with about 10% of the 77 guns turned in being bought specifically for the event, twin events in the Miami, Florida area also resulted in small numbers being turned in. This trend continues the tradition of low turn in numbers for the Miami area.   CBSMiami writes that three turn in events in 2012, only yielded "more than 200 guns", a very low number for such a large metropolitan area.  The twin events in the Miami area resulted in...

More than 1,700 American cities and towns – including Boston, New York, and Miami – will have significant populations living below the high-water mark by the end of this century, a new climate change study has found. Those 1,700 towns are locked into a watery future by greenhouse gas emissions already built up in the atmosphere, the analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday found. For nearly 80 of those cities, the watery future would come much sooner, within the next decade. "Even if we could just stop global emissions tomorrow on a dime,...

The pretty thing won't have to serve another day in a U.S. prison. A federal judge in Miami, FL has sentenced Sandra Avila Beltran to time served after pleading guilty to her role in the Sinaloa cartel which once was headed by boyfriend Juan Diego Espinosa Ramire, and the Queen of the Pacific soon will return to her native Mexico where she's known to indulge in a lavish lifestyle and cosmetic surgery as reported by Hannah Strange for The Telegraph: "the judge sentenced her to 70 months in prison but ruled that the penalty had been fulfilled by her five...

The National Bar Association will hold a news conference Monday in South Florida to discuss legal issues surrounding the George Zimmerman trial and the implications of the stand-your-ground law. Trayvon Martin's parents, along with their attorney, Benjamin Crump, association President John E. Page and religious leaders will attend the news conference. . . . "The verdict," Page said in a statement. "says an unarmed college-bound Black teen can be profiled, stalked, confronted and killed by an armed neighborhood watchman with hollow tip point bullets.

Apparently the TRUTH Behind Our Investigations are reaching the mainstream blogosphere. American Spectator has picked up the story. So too has Atlasshrugs:M-DSPD instructions developed and enforced by Chief Hurley reveal that their police reports were not created for the purposes of law enforcement, but for school disciplinary actions. â—¾The re-qualifying/redefining of student-police contacts ordered by the School Superintendent and the School Police Chief are at the heart of the issue that surfaces surrounding the Trayvon Martin case; and the involvement of Martin with the Miami-Dade School Police Dept â—¾It was during 2009/2010 that the police chief had instructed his officers...

MIAMI (CBS4) – Rachel Jeantel opens up about her friendship with Trayvon Martin, calling him a good and true friend. “He’s got an energy that makes you laugh, he’s real funny, and I like that in a person,” Jeantel said. “Trayvon never judged me, because I always had an under bite. It’s an under bite I need to get done. He never judged. He just said ‘oh, okay, that ain’t no problem’.”

The U.S. Justice Department’s long-awaited report finding excessive use of force by Miami police officers might not be a criminal indictment, but it reads like one. The findings, released last week after a 20-month investigation, depict a dysfunctional department with poor firearms training, tactics and supervision — along with sloppy internal investigations of police-involved shootings that often drag on for years with no discipline or accountability. Justice’s civil rights division, prodded into action by seven fatal police shootings of African-American men, found that the Miami Police Department had fully investigated only 24 of 33 shooting incidents from 2008 to 2011,...

Miami-Dade School Board member Carlos Curbelo threw his hat in the ring as a Republican candidate for Florida’s 26th Congressional District Tuesday. His family in tow, Curbelo made the announcement in his backyard in west Miami-Dade. The 26th Congressional District – which stretches from western Miami-Dade County across to Florida’s west coast and includes the Florida Keys – is currently represented by Democratic Congressman Joe Garcia, who handily defeated then-Republican congressman David Rivera last November. It was a slugfest campaign with charges of phony candidates and ballot rigging. Now, Garcia is plagued with an investigation of a former top aide...

Quietly at first, and now quite publicly, the city of Tampa has courted Cuba in hopes of becoming its future trading partner. Business owners in Tampa talk of how they’ll capitalize when the island opens up, and politicians make trips there and have come out against the embargo. Things are far different across the state in Miami. Elected officials there favor the trade embargo. Business leaders, fearful of retribution, rarely speak about future trade with the island nation. Miami may seem poised to benefit most when the embargo ends, with its close proximity and much larger Cuban-American population. There are...

NORTH BAY VILLAGE, Fla. (WSVN) -- Police are on the scene after the back section of a South Florida restaurant and bar collapsed into Biscayne Bay. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue received a call after reports of the back section of Shuckers Bar & Grill collapsed into Biscayne Bay on Thursday night.

Congressman Joe Garcia’s chief of staff abruptly resigned Friday after being implicated in a sophisticated scheme to manipulate last year’s primary elections by submitting hundreds of fraudulent absentee-ballot requests. Friday afternoon, Garcia said he had asked Jeffrey Garcia, no relation, for his resignation after the chief of staff — also the congressman’s top political strategist — took responsibility for the plot. Hours earlier, law enforcement investigators raided the homes of another of Joe Garcia’s employees and a former campaign aide in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation into the matter. “I’m shocked and disappointed about this,” Garcia, who said he...

FULL TITLE: Miami cannibal victim learning to play guitar as part of treatment a year after most of his face was chewed off in horrific attack A homeless man whose face was mostly chewed off in a horrific attack last year in Miami has learned to play guitar as he continues to receive treatment for his injuries. As the first anniversary of the attack nears, Ronald Poppo has spoken publicly for the first time. In a video released by hospital staff, Mr Poppo thanked all the people to have supported him through his difficult recovery. He said: 'I thank the...

Michael Steinbach, former head of the FBI’s counterterrorism division and now special agent in charge of Miami, told over 30 congressional staffers in March of 2012 that, contrary to the White House's classification, the bureau does not refer to the Fort Hood shooting as "workplace violence." As head of the FBI counterterrorism division, Steinbach oversaw the investigation into the mass murder at Texas Army base. Steinbach made this claim during an unclassified counterterrorism briefing on Capitol Hill.

The defeated North Miami mayoral candidate who claimed that Jesus Christ endorsed her now says that the city chose Lucifer over the son of God. In a post-election statement on her Facebook page, Anna Pierre questioned Tuesday's results, in which she finished last among seven candidates. She also re-affirmed her Christian faith.

Been doing some quick looks at the local news coverage....ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC..... Basically NOTHING on the murder of our people in Libya....about 30 seconds worth among all the stations...... How did YOUR stations do?

A Saudi family who “fled” their Sarasota area home weeks before 9/11 had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001,” according to newly released FBI records. One partially declassified document, marked “secret,” lists three of those individuals and ties them to the Venice, Fla., flight school where suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained. Accomplice Ziad Jarrah took flying lessons at another school a block away. Atta and al-Shehhi were at the controls of the jetliners that slammed into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people. Jarrah was the...