Tag: florida

Follow The Money: Florida Subpoenas DSA Over Cuban, Chinese Cash Days After Socialist Election Sweep

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Tuesday issued an investigative subpoena to the Democratic Socialists of America, saying his office is examining whether DSA accepted contributions or support “from foreign sources of concern, including the regimes in Cuba and China,” and whether its fundraising from Florida donors has been “fully transparent and lawful.”

In a video announcing the probe, Uthmeier said the subpoena was issued under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the state’s laws on the solicitation of funds. It covers “recent DSA delegations to Cuba, where national leaders and national political committee members met with Cuban government officials, as well as a delegation to China,” he said, along with travel fund solicitations that “sought tens of thousands of dollars to cover costs for those trips and related activities involving Florida chapters.”

Uthmeier’s office has not alleged that DSA actually took foreign money, and he said the subpoena “seeks the documents needed to determine compliance.” The law he is leaning on is SB 700, signed in May 2025, which bars charities and fundraisers soliciting in Florida from accepting contributions from people tied to “foreign countries of concern,” a list that includes Cuba and China. Knowing and willful violations carry criminal penalties, according to a Holland & Knight summary of the law. “We will not allow foreign adversaries to influence Florida through the back door of nonprofit fundraising,” Uthmeier said.

A national DSA spokesperson told the Florida Phoenix that the group is “aware of the situation” and has “no comment at this time.”

The subpoena landed a week after DSA-backed Democrat Ashley Herrmann ousted Republican incumbent Danny Alvarez in state House District 69 in Hillsborough County, which Creative Loafing called the first Democratic Socialist elected in Florida.

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Ending An 8,000-Year-Old Landlord Relationship: Florida’s Property Tax Revolt Begins

With Amendment 3 written into the state constitution, Florida leaders are eyeing full elimination of homestead property taxes—backed by state surpluses, tourism sales tax revenue, and a mandate to rein in bloated local spending.

For nearly eight millennia, governments have operated on a simple, inescapable reality: land cannot pack its bags and move across state lines.

In ancient Sumeria, temple administrators used clay tablets to assess rotational taxes on fields and livestock. In Egypt, royal scribes measured Nile farmland after every flood to calculate what farmers owed the Pharaoh. Rome’s Emperor Augustus standardized an annual 1% levy on land value, and in 1086, William the Conqueror compiled the Domesday Book to ensure no parcel in England escaped the Crown’s reach. When the Pilgrims and Puritans landed in New England in the 1600s, they brought that same centuries-old fiscal machinery with them.

For thousands of years, the underlying bargain never changed: you might hold the deed, but if you fail to pay the sovereign’s annual tribute, the tax collector can slap a lien on your land and take it away. Even after paying off a 30-year mortgage, homeowners remain perpetual tenants—renting their own property from the government.

In Florida, that ancient arrangement just collided with modern reality—and voters decided they had had enough.

On November 3, Floridians approved Amendment 3, a sweeping constitutional overhaul that triples the state’s non-school homestead exemption to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, cuts the annual assessment cap on non-homestead properties in half from 10% to 5%, and places strict constitutional guardrails on how local governments spend property tax dollars.

Yet as far as Florida’s political leadership is concerned, Amendment 3 is only the opening salvo.

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Flavio Bolsonaro Reveals Why He Fled To Miami; Then Makes One Big Admission…

Flavio Bolsonaro, the Brazilian senator who fled to Miami two days after losing the presidential runoff to Lula, sat down with Glenn Greenwald on Thursday for his first on-camera interview since leaving the country – and spent much of it arguing the election was taken from him.

“I didn’t lose the election to my opponent,” Bolsonaro told Greenwald, saying the vote had been “taken over” by the system.

But when Greenwald pressed him on evidence, Bolsonaro conceded, “I have no proof of fraud.”

“That’s why I’m not going to challenge this in the Brazilian courts, because I don’t have proof and I never will,” he added, arguing that investigating the matter is forbidden in Brazil.

The nearly hour-long interview, released Friday on Greenwald’s Substack and YouTube channel, covered Bolsonaro’s escape, the probes that led Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes to order him to surrender his passports, money from disgraced Banco Master banker Daniel Vorcaro, and whether he still considers himself Brazil’s rightful president. Bolsonaro is under investigation for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in two cases, including allegations that a sports betting company was used to launder fraudulent deductions from government pensions. He denies wrongdoing.

“Actually, I didn’t leave Brazil, I left for Brazil,” Bolsonaro said of his departure, adding that he sees no conditions for a return while things in Brazil remain as they are.

His case that the vote was rigged rests largely on arithmetic. Lula, who was reelected by roughly 4.4 million votes, added 10.3 million votes between the first round and the Oct. 25 runoff, Bolsonaro said – more than the roughly 9 million votes cast for every other first-round candidate combined. “There’s no mathematical or statistical explanation, nothing, for Lula having gotten all those extra votes,” he said. “It’s impossible, unless the result was manipulated.”

He also pointed to a ruling by Justice Cristiano Zanin – Lula’s former lawyer – extending voting in Bahia by two hours, which he said was issued at 5:01 p.m., after polls had closed. When Greenwald noted that Bolsonaro’s own campaign had asked for extensions too, Bolsonaro said it only did so because the Workers’ Party had, that a little over 34,000 people voted in that window, and that the two-hour delay in releasing results was so “something could happen.”

Greenwald pushed back: if the left had the power to manipulate the result, why didn’t it do so in the first round, when Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party swept? Bolsonaro, who earlier boasted that his allies won 19 of 27 governorships and will hold 286 of the 513 seats in the lower house, didn’t take up the question, asking instead what could explain Lula’s surge in 21 days.

He also floated the idea that criminal factions such as Comando Vermelho and the PCC, which he said dominate areas home to more than 50 million Brazilians, may have forced residents at gunpoint to vote for Lula. Asked whether that actually happened or was just a possibility, he said: “I want an investigation.”

As we reported, a version of his post-election letter declaring him Brazil’s “true president-elect” circulated last week before being pulled. Bolsonaro told Greenwald that wording came from a first draft he had already vetoed, that it “ended up becoming public” without his doing, and that only the final version – calling him Brazil’s “leader” – went out on his account. Asked whether he still considers himself president-elect, he said “neither I nor Lula can say with 100% certainty that anyone was elected president of Brazil.”

Bolsonaro refused to say who planned or paid for the private flight out. “I’m not going to give details about anything,” he said, claiming anyone around him would be persecuted. He said he left Brazil with his driver’s license and entered the US with his passport, legally, and denied speaking with the US, Argentine or Israeli governments before the trip. He also declined to say whether, as has been reported, an Israeli national tied to the Mossad was in the car with him, while insisting it had nothing to do with the Israeli government. Since arriving, he said, he hasn’t spoken with anyone in the US government and now plans to start regularizing his immigration status – consistent with Marco Rubio’s claim last weekend that the US had no direct role in his departure. (translated)

He described the moment Federal Police notified him he could no longer leave the country – at the gate of the house where his father, Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest for attempting a coup after his 2022 election loss. His father, eyes welling up, told him he knew where they were going with this, Bolsonaro recalled. “Dad, I know, and don’t worry – I know what I have to do,” he said he replied.

Asked why he didn’t stay and fight the cases, as Lula did before his 2018 imprisonment and as his father did when he returned from Florida in 2023, Bolsonaro called his father’s return a mistake. “I learn from President Bolsonaro’s mistakes and successes, and I’m not going to make the same mistake,” he said. “I’m innocent. It’s the judge who would judge me who isn’t innocent.” (translated)

On Vorcaro, Bolsonaro said the money for “Dark Horse,” the film about his father, went to the production company as a private investment in exchange for a share of the profits, and claimed police had since acknowledged there was no public money in the film and no favor from him as a senator. Greenwald noted that Bolsonaro had initially denied seeking money from Vorcaro; Bolsonaro said the deal was covered by a confidentiality agreement.

He said he would vote to impeach Moraes, citing the R$129 million he said Moraes’ wife received from Banco Master for supposed legal work. “Everyone knows she didn’t practice law,” he said. “The one who practiced law was Alexandre de Moraes himself.” (translated) Asked about Justice Kassio Nunes Marques, a Jair Bolsonaro appointee whose son Greenwald said received millions from Banco Master, he declined to give an opinion, saying only that any justice who broke the law should be impeached.

Bolsonaro said he will keep serving out his Senate term, which ends Jan. 31, 2027, voting remotely as he did this week on Lula’s public-security constitutional amendment, and that he is living on savings for now, with income as a lawyer and from a business that makes graphene helmets. He said he would run for president again in 2030 if his party agrees – and that if his father regains his eligibility, “he’s my candidate.”

Brazil’s judiciary, he said, needs its credibility restored after Moraes threw it “in the trash.” “Today, Brazilian citizens look at the Supreme Federal Court and feel disgust.”

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Charges dropped against Pinellas deputy who ran 381 ALPR inquiries on woman

Prosecutors say they are dropping charges against a disgraced Pinellas County deputy after they found that Florida law does not support criminal charges for his reported conduct.

In a September press conference, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Karl Gwynne, 57, used the agency’s automated license plate reader database to run 381 searches for one license plate, 207 of which were made while off duty.

The vehicle was registered to a 35-year-old woman whom Gwynne arrested in 2010 and had reconnected with through social media in 2024. Gwynne initially told detectives he repeatedly searched her license plate for official purposes, but eventually admitted that she had rejected his romantic advances.

Gwynne was arrested and charged with official misconduct and four counts of accessing a computer network or electronic device without authority.

However, the State Attorney’s Office for the Sixth Judicial Circuit filed a No Information on Oct. 30, saying the current Florida Statutory provisions do not address Gwynne’s reported conduct.

According to the Florida Senate’s website, a person commits an offense against users of electronic devices without authorization when they access the device knowing it is unauthorized, or their manner of use exceeds authorization.

The court document said the state attorney’s office will seek to have the legislature “correct this situation” in the next legislative session, which is scheduled to begin in 2027.

In a Thursday press conference announcing the arrest of a deputy who allegedly used official systems to track his estranged wife, Gualtieri commented on the recent developments in Gwynne’s case.

The sheriff said he was working with the state attorney’s office on Gwynne’s case, noting “disagreements about interpreting the elements of the statute,” but saying he believed they could work through it.

“They filed that No Information last Friday on Gwynne; I wouldn’t have arrested Scott today unless I knew that the elements had been established,” Gualtieri told reporters.

The sheriff also said the state attorney’s office could charge Gwynne a second time.

“Just because they filed a No Information doesn’t mean that they can’t file an Information,” Gualtieri said. “They’re looking at it, and I’m comfortable that it’ll get to the right place.”

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Another One: Second Florida Woman Arrested for Threatening to Kill Trump and “Whole Entire Bloodline” – “I Am Here to Slaughter the F*ck Out of Y’all”

Another Florida woman has been arrested after threatening to kill President Trump during his latest Florida rally in Daytona Beach last week.

This comes after another woman in Daytona Beach was arrested after threatening on social media to go to the Trump rally and “shoot him with my Glock,” The Gateway Pundit reported.

The suspect, 21-year-old Allison Albro, was seen crying in her mugshot, hilariously.

Now, another woman, Tammy Teresa Williams, has been indicted for threatening Trump during his latest Florida rally, according to court records.

Breanna Morello reports that Williams is accused of writing on social media, “I am coming to kill off Trump whole entire bloodline! And so many more! I am here to kill off Rodney fake ass family and I am! I am here to slaughter the fuck out of y’all humans and Tammy is!”

According to Morello, “Williams’ criminal history shows a 1996 charge of carrying a concealed firearm (adjudication withheld) and a 2019 charge of Battery on a Law Enforcement Officer.”

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Florida Poly makes history with first flying police vehicle

The Florida Polytechnic University Police Department has become the first law enforcement agency in the nation to integrate an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle into its operations.

The manned aircraft, dubbed Astro in a double nod to science and the dog from the classic Jetsons cartoon, marks Florida Poly’s entry into the rapidly developing field of advanced air mobility (AAM), creating new opportunities to explore how the emerging technology can support public safety.

“Advanced air mobility is a technology on the rise, and we can either choose to be proactive or reactive as it develops,” said Aaron Murray, the University’s police chief. “We want to stay at the forefront of this technology and understand how it can be used to advance public safety and airspace safety altogether.”

Florida Poly is in the final stages of seeking approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to use the aerial patrol vehicle in its operations. Murray said Astro can enhance the department’s ability to monitor campus and surrounding acres, reach areas difficult to access by traditional vehicles, assist with post-storm recovery efforts and deliver emergency supplies quickly when needed.

The University Police plans to collaborate with law enforcement agencies throughout the region to deploy Astro in support of emergency response and other public safety operations.

First in the U.S.

Stéphan D’haene, CEO of Jetson, said the California-based company fast-tracked Florida Poly’s order of the Jetson ONE vehicle despite a three-year waiting list because of the University’s STEM focus and the police department’s public safety purpose, both of which reflect Jetson’s goals for the future of safe flight.

“In our business plan and in alignment with our mission, we have always been looking for the use case beyond the recreational intent,” D’haene said. “We believe that this project is so important and aligns so much with what we want to do that we made it a priority.”

A new educational horizon

Beyond its public safety applications, Astro will become a hands-on learning and research tool for Florida Poly students and faculty. The University launched its new aerospace engineering degree this fall, providing students an immediate opportunity to study emerging flight technology in a real-world setting.

“At Florida Poly, we want our students working with emerging technologies before they become commonplace,” said Dr. Brad Thiessen, Florida Poly’s provost. “Astro gives our students and faculty a living laboratory where they can analyze real-world data, tackle new engineering challenges and help shape the future of advanced air mobility.”

Faculty and students are already coordinating efforts to use real-time operational data from Astro for academic research and senior capstone design projects.

“Connecting an educational component to this technology is a big deal,” Murray said. “We are a technology university, and this aerial vehicle delivers more opportunities to learn, build partnerships and explore ways to keep our airspace safe, while connecting the work of our police department directly with our students.”

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Florida governor candidate David Jolly suggests boys have a constitutional right to play on girls’ sports teams

David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who is now running as a Democrat against U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds to replace Ron DeSantis as Florida governor, is raising eyebrows in the Sunshine State with his suggestion that boys have a constitutional right to play on girls’ sports teams.

His comments came during the “To the Contrary” podcast Charlie Sykes last year, and were unearthed Wednesday by Libs of TikTok.

Sykes had asked Jolly outright: “How do you navigate that issue?”

“I fundamentally think it’s an issue for the courts,” the Democrat replied. “And I don’t think one rule should apply to everything.”

“I think some latitude among the sports leagues to make decisions, but ultimately, it’s a constitutional question that the courts are gonna have to decide.”

Jolly continued: “I think where I fundamentally diverge from Republicans on this issue is you can immediately see where leaders and voters are either working in good faith towards equity or in bad faith against it. This is a new and novel moment for us as a country.

“It’s OK to wrestle with it. But you’re either wrestling to resolve it on behalf of all Americans, their fundamental and constitutional rights, their respect and their dignity, or you’re working to humiliate them. And I think it’s pretty disgusting what we’ve seen from Republicans in the past several years on this.

“I don’t think we need to knock down that youth soccer player who is working with their family and their doctor on whatever their current crisis is personally. I think it can be supportive of them to allow them to play in youth sports.

“If it’s a question of Olympic trials, obviously I think you get too far down the road there saying, Maybe it’s a bridge too far to let trains athletes in certain sports, but let’s leave it to the sports leagues.”

Donalds is a staunch opponent of biological males competing in girls’ or women’s sports, and his campaign posted video Wednesday of the Republican blasting Jolly’s stance.

“My opponent’s somebody who says it’s OK for boys to be in girls’ sports. It’s just him and the WNBA,” Donalds said.

“They’re the only two that think this is OK. Everybody else has said, ‘No, that’s actually quite stupid.’ Even the Europeans are realizing that’s dumb. But this is where the radical Democrats have gone in America today, and it’s sad to see.”

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High school student arrested after being accused of attempting to make explosives for ISIS

A 15-year-old high school student in Alachua County, Florida, was arrested after an investigation by local authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) purportedly discovered that he was attempting to build explosives for a terrorist organization.

The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) and FBI conducted a joint search on Friday at the home of 15-year-old Jude Sleeper, after investigators discovered he was communicating online with members and supporters of the Islamist terrorist group ISIS.

Sleeper was charged with making or attempting to make a destructive device after authorities discovered he was seeking advice on how to build drones and explosives to attack people at an unknown location. Additional charges are possible as the investigation continues, ACSO and the FBI noted on Tuesday.

The ACSO office also added that they spoke with the15-year-old’s parents, who allowed police to search their home and their child’s phone.

Upon searching Sleeper’s phone, they reportedly found files containing instructions for making explosive devices and chemical compounds — as well as ISIS-related content and propaganda.

Inside his bedroom, investigators found two jars. Sleeper reportedly admitted they contained chemicals used to manufacture triacetone triperoxide (TATP), a highly volatile explosive. The residence was immediately evacuated, and the ACSO Bomb Squad responded to secure the scene and evaluate the hazardous materials.

Once the home was rendered safe, ACSO detectives obtained and executed a second search warrant.

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The Fallout From Corruption: How Did a Florida Mayor Defraud Thousands With a COVID-19 Program?

There’s nothing that bothers me more than when a person is elected to a position of power, but then chooses to abuse that power instead of actually doing something good with it. And that’s the case with Kissimmee, Fla., Mayor Jackie Espinosa, who has reportedly defrauded a large number of people with, of all things, a COVID-19 scheme.

According to this report from ABC News, Espinosa was arrested earlier this week on charges of theft and fraud, with her and family members running some kind of COVID-19 business relief program – under her own administration.

Charges include grand theft, a second-degree felony, as well as an organized scheme to defraud, which is a first-degree felony.

This comes from a case where she reportedly utilized $50,000 in funds through the city’s Business Boost 2.0 program for her own personal use.

“This is the local government equivalent of insider congressional stock trading,” noted Blaise Ingoglia, who serves as Florida’s chief financial officer.

Espinosa has been charged, posting a $70,000 bond and pleading not guilty to the charges.

But the details get more disturbing. According to the report, the money, provided through grant funds in the program, went towards businesses including a dance studio, a diner, and a real estate company, all owned by Espinosa’s family.

“The evidence makes it very clear that there was intent to engage in this conflict of interest that ultimately abused her office to enrich herself,” said Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier in a statement. “Mayor Espinosa demonstrated an intent to create, streamline and simplify, reduce oversight of, and more easily enable a process where by herself and immediate family could apply for and receive city funds to which she was not entitled.”

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Florida Wants to Put an Age Gate on the Entire Internet

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has announced a legislative proposal that would bring age verification to the app store, the operating system, and AI chatbots.

The announcement was made at Polk State College in Winter Haven, and Uthmeier was joined by Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and education leaders.

Under the proposal, app stores and similar marketplaces would have to “determine the user’s age, link minors to a parent’s account, and obtain parental consent before a minor downloads or buys an app from a covered platform.”

In addition, the operating systems would have to “apply age-appropriate restrictions at the device level based on the user’s age,” while AI chatbot operators and platforms “must determine account holder’s age.”

The proposal, that has not yet been turned into a bill, is full of invasive promises, including that “all age determination must use commercially reasonable, privacy-protective methods,” as if that’s possible.

However, no method is named, and this is the same promise made with most age-check laws, while reports of identity document leaks keep showing that the promise is not being kept. As Reclaim The Net reported in April, Discord’s earlier experiment with government ID age checks ended in a massive breach that exposed over 70,000 government-issued IDs.

Other provisions of the proposal include forcing social media accounts of those aged 14 to 17 to have a “quiet mode” that blocks access from 11 pm to 7 am, and from 8 am to 3 pm on school weekdays. The release says, “Muting notifications is not enough.”

For the same age group, screen time would be capped at two hours a day and 60 hours a month, “including messaging and long-form content.” Like counts would be hidden, autoplay and infinite scroll would be off unless a parent turns them on, and cosmetic filters would be disabled. Teen accounts would not be recommended to unconnected adults, who may not message them. Every three days, teens would get a prompt to switch to a non-personalized feed that they cannot dismiss.

Reports of child sexual exploitation would get human review within 48 hours, with a “one-strike” rule for adult offenders.

AI chatbots would not be allowed to offer minors features that “simulate companionship through personification, emotional engagement, user-data retention, unsupervised therapy, sexual content” or ones that “suggest the chatbot is a real human” or “encourage isolation or discourage help from appropriate adults.”

The press release said that knowing or reckless violations would be considered unfair practices under Florida Statutes section 501.1736, and would carry a fine of up to $50,000 per violation. The AG’s office would also be able to “maintain a public website to track incidents.”

Uthmeier said, “Parents deserve real control, and companies must design for safety, not addiction.” He also noted that “Florida already prohibits social media accounts for anyone under 14, and the Eleventh Circuit just upheld that law. The Safe Screens Act goes further.”

“If you invite Florida’s children onto your platform, you have a duty to keep them safe,” he also said.

Judd, meanwhile, praised the proposal, saying, “It takes the power and determination of an Attorney General to keep large social media and gaming companies from exploiting and endangering our children.”

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