The touch-screen voting machines aren’t accountable. The chief vote counter in Broward County was handpicked by Gov. Jeb Bush, who proved his brother-borne bias in 2000. Glenda Hood — the new, improved, and possibly even more vote-absorbent Katherine Harris — lurks in Tallahassee. Paranoia runs deep among Broward Democrats, who…

Pembroke Park is the little town that Broward County forgot. It’s a decidedly working-class, if not poor, industrial burg on the Miami-Dade County border with about 6,000 people, most of whom live in mobile homes. Town officials have long complained that the County Commission has largely ignored the town. Last…

Like most bad government deals, it wasn’t on the agenda. Broward County Commissioner Ilene Lieberman brought it up without giving staff or her colleagues on the dais time to study it. Her motion may have seemed misguided at the time, but it now seems to be something much worse. On…

President Bush is coming to town Thursday night to debate John Kerry and try to earn your vote. But the question emerging now is not whether he should be elected but if he should be impeached for war crimes. Remember when the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal broke with all…

The life of Felix I. Rodriguez provides a tour through the dark heart of America. From the Bay of Pigs fiasco to Vietnam to the El Salvador death squads to the Iran-Contra scandal, the Cuban exile and self-described “CIA hero” was there. His most famous assassination mission came in 1967,…

So last week, I told Tim Donnelly, head of the Broward State Attorney’s Office public corruption unit, that his office seemed pretty much useless. And Donnelly came back with: “Well, it seems like when we do prosecute public officials, nobody notices.” Which public officials had his office prosecuted? “The sheriff…

Broward County Mayor Ilene Lieberman should know ethics. As a lawyer, she specializes in defending politicians against ethics complaints. And her law partner, Stuart Michelson, is likely the most prolific defender of accused pols in the county. The pair met back in the early 1990s, when Lieberman, then mayor of…

A man with a horribly painful case of shingles can’t get medicine. A woman suffering from an agonizingly abscessed tooth is denied care. A homeless man with pneumonia is released from the hospital with no medication and no instructions to see a doctor. These are just a few true stories…

In a lawsuit filed against the South Florida Business Journal in May, a former reporter alleges the publication, part of a national 41-newspaper chain, has drastically inflated circulation numbers to increase advertising revenues. If true, the significance of such a revelation won’t be lost on those who have watched the…

Wearing all-black, flowing garments, red-haired Maureen Reilly looked like a would-be high priestess as she addressed the Hollywood City Commission last week. But she went by another title: The Sludge Queen. Reilly flew from Canada at the invitation of Schwing Bioset, the sewage company that was lobbying to keep a…

Corruption and conflicts of interest have already sullied the City of Hollywood’s multimillion-dollar sewage deal. Now it appears the March vote to choose a company with financial ties to Commissioner Keith Wasserstrom was based on false claims. The City Commission decided to hire Schwing Bioset to treat and haul tons…

Well-run cities are all alike; every corrupt city is corrupt in its own way. Hollywood is a good example of the latter. Dragged by its dysfunctional mother, Mayor Mara Giulianti, the city keeps sliding further into the stinking sludge. I mean that almost literally, since the latest scandal centers on…

North Broward Hospital District Commissioner Dorsey Miller appears to have used his influence to help Enterprise Security, a minority-owned Fort Lauderdale firm, land a contract worth about $500,000 a year to help guard the district’s four hospitals. At the same time, Enterprise was paying the commissioner’s company, D.C. Miller &…

If Broward County had only listened to Miriam Oliphant, taxpayers could have saved millions of dollars and had a more efficient democracy. Stranger words were never spoken. But it’s true. The mega-maligned former Broward supervisor of elections — who Gov. Jeb Bush forced out of office last November — tried…

She’s a first-rate sound-bite slinger, a newsroom Rolodex regular, and as accessible as 411. When reporters need a quick political quote, they call Susan MacManus at her office, home, or cell. If she doesn’t pick up, she’ll almost surely phone back before deadline. MacManus, a political science professor at the…

Dorsey Miller, one of the most powerful black Republicans in Florida, often plays the role of civil rights champion. And, as the former diversity czar for Broward County schools and current commissioner for the North Broward Hospital District (NBHD), the nation’s sixth-largest public health entity, he’s usually in a position…

January 26, 2004 (Sun-Sentinel): In an annual survey released this month, the influential American Jewish Committee found that the number of Jews who considered themselves Republican had increased from 9 percent in 2000 to 16 percent in 2003. The GOP sees this as a big opportunity for the party, and…

Florida’s top court has taken away Michael Satz’s favorite excuse, so the Broward State Attorney will have to find a new reason to let corrupt officials slide. For years, Satz’s public corruption unit has been giving free passes to politicos based on its strict interpretation of Florida’s unlawful compensation statute,…

Imagine owning a business that is in cut-throat competition with a similar enterprise across the street. Your rival undercuts you at every turn and ruthlessly tries to steal your customers. And it not only doesn’t pay taxes but it benefits from an infusion of near limitless public dollars. While you…

Frank Luntz isn’t a neutral pollster, but he does play one on TV. The cherubic Republican guru, who wears his orangish hair in a bowl haircut and seems to favor Gap clothing, is a regular on MSNBC, where he gauges instant responses from focus groups about the nation’s political happenings…

Hand it to Hollywood City Hall — even when the commission is dealing with raw sewage, it still reeks more than anything else in town. A deal to treat the city’s raw sewage is fraught with millions of wasted dollars, conflicts of interest, and very likely illegal conduct on the…

So, what do you feed Dick Cheney when he comes to dinner? Considering the vice president’s heart problems, fish or chicken breast might seem the best choice. But you don’t want to go too far with the light stuff or he might suspect you’re one of those latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving,…