A conflict at the Broward Courthouse is shedding some light on the highly political nature of justice. The spat involves the courtroom of Elijah Williams, a juvenile judge who is running for reelection. The prosecutor assigned to Williams’ courtroom is Sheila Alu, who also happens to be a sitting Sunrise city…
Coconut Creek Mayor Marilyn Gerber told me today that she thinks her city’s $60,000 payment to Coconut Creek Life to subsidize her column and other city content is one of the few ways to inform voters what is going on in their city. “The major complaint we always get, always, always, is that people…
A Coconut Creek man has filed a complaint with the Florida Attorney General’s Office alleging that Coconut Creek Mayor Marilyn Gerber has violated a new Florida law that prohibits taxpayer money from being spent to advocate for the passage or defeat of any issue going to a public vote. And I think…
Well, Maj. Pat Roberts can’t claim to be an ethics crusader anymore. The veteran officer with the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco lost the moral high ground. Now he’s just another mercenary playing politics and looking to make a buck. Roberts, as you may recall, went on a…
Well, the school year is underway in earnest fashion. Not including charter schools, which have about 13,000 empty seats, there are about 20,000 empty seats in our regular public schools, according to the recently issued 10-day count numbers. So I decided to check out the most under-enrolled schools in Broward County…
The Florida Panthers people are trying to get new breaks from the county in the form of a loan and debt restructuring. The parent company, Sunrise Sports & Entertainment, is also asking commissioners to approve the giant pie-in-the-sky development it calls Oz (an apt name, really, because it seems to be all…
One thing we never hear about when journalists get laid off is what happens to their work after they are led out of the building. The leftover work — notes, databases, even finished stories — obviously belongs to the newspaper, but when it is published, what is the newspaper’s responsibility to the…
It seems only fitting that the man who tried to turn last night’s presidential address into an angry tea-bagging town hall comes from the dead center of South Carolina and learned at the knee of Strom Thurmond. What’s ironic is that Joe Wilson was lying (to put it in his blunt terms) when…
Mega-wealthy lawyer, businessman, and political backer Scott Rothstein called me recently and told me he was the “Jewish Avenger” and was out to destroy me. Rothstein wasn’t joking during the August 25 phone call; he was seething. He told me he was going to sue me and my wife and bankrupt our household. Rothstein, managing partner of…
When I wrote last week about some phone calls with aspiring mogul Scott Rothstein, his mostly nameless detractors came out of the woodwork. And Rothstein says one of them went way too far. Last Thursday morning, Rothstein called me and claimed that he received a threatening phone call Thursday morning from a Pulp “follower.” He said…
As the subtle effects of Barack Hussein Obama’s speech to our children — our children, mind you — slowly settled upon their impressionable minds, I decided to deprogram my 7-year-old as soon as she got home from school yesterday. Broward County was ground zero for the presidential indoctrination, since Supt. Jim…
It’s a good day for justice. Anthony Caravella, who was wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of Ada Cox-Jankowski when he was 15 years old, is being freed from the Broward County Jail right now, according to the Public Defender’s Office. He’s now 41 years old after losing 26 years…
Former Deerfield Observer Editor David Volz, who has been kicking around these parts committing community newspaper journalism for 20 years, has started his own online publication. Or is it a blog? Well, it’s in blog form, but Volz says he’s going to cover all the things that community newspapers do, from…
As the newspaper industry dies, there’s been some talk of how the government should subsidize investigative reporting. When I hear that, I tell people to watch PBS’ show Issues on WPBT 2 before endorsing the idea. Watch that show enough and you’ll realize it’s probably best for the free market to take care of our journalistic needs. If…
I asked Mitchell Kraft a simple question on the phone Wednesday morning. Here’s how the call went with Kraft, husband of School Board Member Stephanie Kraft: Kraft: Hello? Pulp: Hi, Mitch. This is Bob Norman with the New Times. Kraft: [Unhappily] Oh yes. Hello, Bob. Pulp: Yeah, I have heard you…
After months or “reorganizing,” the rubber hits the road today at the Palm Beach Post. By the end of working hours, some 20 newsroom staffers will be gone in the latest round of buyouts/layoffs. Some have already packed their bags and taken the reduced severance package. Award-winning feature writer Christine Evans…
So DNA tests seem to have exonerated another man wrongfully convicted by the State Attorney’s Office for murder in Broward County. That makes at least seven of them. Anthony Caravella, 41, has been locked up for the 1983 murder of Ada Cox Jankowski since he was 15. There never was any good evidence in…
Mega-wealthy lawyer, businessman, and political backer Scott Rothstein called me last week and told me he was the “Jewish Avenger” and was out to destroy me. Rothstein wasn’t joking; he was seething. He told me he was going to sue me and my wife and bankrupt my household. Rothstein, the managing partner of the law firm Rothstein Rosenfeldt &…
Remember that video the Sun-Sentinel put up on its high-powered homepage for two days that purported to show Michael Jackson jumping out of a coroner’s van after he was supposed to be dead? Well, it was, of course, a hoax. But more than that, it was an…
Amid a renewed budget battle with the County Commission, Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti has said he has nixed his plan to shut down the stockade and instead will loose upon society the jail’s “criminally insane” population, a purge he promised would include “rapists, murderers, and other ne’er-do-wells.” “These inmates not only require incarceration…
In case you missed them, here are the Top Ten most popular posts on the Daily Pulp during August: 10. Banned by the PGA: Tiger Woods Fart 9. The South Florida Herald-Post-Sentinel 8. Broward School Board Versus the Pulp 7. Alex Taylor Timeline 6. Jason Wetherington Steals Pastor’s Daughter’s Rings…
You know that AshBritt audit that showed the Broward County School Distrist was overcharged some $765,000 after Hurricane Wilma? You know, the one that Supt. Jim Notter and the board members were outraged about because it told the truth about what was happening? Well, a very similar circumstance with AshBritt…
