Free Republic

October 16, 2013 A ground-breaking, new high-luxury residential tower, emblematic of contemporary and revolutionary architectural design, is showing signs of being the most anticipated project in the history of Miami Luxury Real Estate. The Porsche Design Towers, slated for erection sometime in 2016 on 2.2 acres of beachfront property along Collins Ave in Sunny Isles, will be one of the world’s first residential condominiums to have large glass elevators that transport residents-while still inside their cars- to their apartments. As residents arrive at the building and switch off their engines, an automatic platform will extend, scooping up the car and...

Less than a decade ago, Miami's inner city was mangy. The tropical city could have become the next Detroit. When businesses, law firms, and government offices downtown closed, few people remained in its seedy core, fleeing to suburban Miami-Dade and Broward counties for their gated, manicured subdivisions and soccer fields, or to the glamorous nightlife across the causeway in sleek South Beach. But that's all changed. Miami is booming again. Construction cranes dot the skyline as a new wave of baby boomers, international residents, and businesses converge on the city. Call it the tale of two cities: Detroit sought to...

In between bowls of chicken poodle soup and deciding to provide air cover for al-Qaeda in Syria, our Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama, found time to meet with mayors from our crumbling major cities. From Justin Sink of The Hill: *** "President Obama told a collection of big-city mayors Tuesday at the White House that he would continue to use executive actions to combat gun violence plaguing major cities. In the meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder and the mayors of 18 cities from across the nation, Obama discussed commonly applicable strategies to reduce youth violence. 'He also vowed to...

...In 1972, the Miami Dolphins won 14 regular season games, and another three in the post season, leaving them with a perfect season, and a Super Bowl trophy. President Barack Hussein Obama invited the team to the White House, which has been closed to US citizens since March 9th, 2013. Known as “the People’s House,” the tours were shut down under the Obama administration, as part of a set of “sequester” budget cuts championed by the president. Critics have noted that Obama continues hosting extravagant events, despite the economic downturn, and earlier promises to resume tours as soon as possible....

Bob Kuechenberg has always spoken his mind. Don't like it? Leave the room. Some say the former NFL standout and member of the Miami Dolphins undefeated 1972 team is just a grumpy guy who complains about everything. Ex-Dolphin Jason Taylor once quipped, "Bob needs a hug and a hobby." This much can't be denied: Kuechenberg is one of pro football's greatest players ever at the guard position, starting 176 of 196 career games and winning two Super Bowl championships (VII, VIII). His name was consistently in the Hall of Fame conversation from 2002-09. On Tuesday, the 1965 Hobart grad and...

@stevebruskCNN : White House says Pres. Obama will honor the '72 Miami Dolphins on August 20th. Only undefeated team in NFL history never got an invitation. I guess there's nothing to do or going on...might as well do this.....sigh.

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.