I would caution against anyone extrapolating any kind of national political analysis based on what happens in Florida. The political culture and "debates" that happen in Florida are unlike any other state.

That partly explains the red wave in Florida, and nowhere else. The "Florida is a glimpse of the future" rhetoric is wishful thinking. Name me another state where candidates can refuse to debate + win landslide elections up and down the ballot literally based on fear of the word "socialist" alone. It doesn't exist.

Wall Street investors bought a total of 40 percent of single family home purchases in the Atlanta area the third quarter of 2021, we just heard in this Senate hearing. And they made up 70 percent of evictions.

Truly an astonishing number. And it's only accelerating + spreading. Investor-owned rental properties are a relatively small part of the market. We've heard about 2 percent.

But it is accelerating very very quickly -- coming into the housing market, jacking up rents and not keeping same maintenance standards as mom and pop landlords.

Was just assaulted for doing my job at an anti-mask mandate protest @MDCPS headquarters by this Proud Boy in the yellow, for taking this photo. (I took many photos of many people on the scene.)

Some @MiamiPD officers came and pushed the Proud Boys off of me. No arrests. The police escorted me across the street, and for a minute all eyes were on me on both sides of the line.

But it's not about me, it's about the story. A little bit of an awkward position.

So I kept doing interviews + shooting photos on both sides. Journalism!

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction just issued likely its final "lessons learned" report about US activities in Afghanistan.

If we don't want to make the same mistakes again, this doc should be read and reread. (thread)
sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslea… I'm just going to screenshot the biggest lessons learned after 20 years of activities. Again, this is the US Government saying what went wrong. This is a brutally honest self-critique

But first, how the report starts..

More than a year in, virtually no systemic changes made, and we're still having this debate.

The fact that the debate is even happening kinda proves the point that it's not a very good slogan, at least for short and medium term.

https://twitter.com/JessPish/status/1424404245365760008

And yes there is a big difference between the slogan and the call behind the slogan. A lot of people take criticism of the slogan as criticism of the call behind it.. when it's literally the slogan that elicits the debate, not the call itself.

NEW from me: The State of Florida went on a hunt for Chinese communists to hold accountable for the pandemic.

It hasn't found a single one.
wlrn.org/2020-09-28/flo… A small sampling of the response the state actually got.

I'm having flashbacks to Miami Gardens police killing Lavall Hall when his mother called them to help during a mental health episode.

splinternews.com/mother-calls-p…

https://twitter.com/whec_bbrean/status/1301174625586622465

Also reminds me of police killing Tenisha Anderson in Cleveland when they were called during a mental health episode. cleveland.com/metro/index.ss…

My monthly day at the library always yields these little nuggets.

Florida's first electoral recount was in 1876. A margin of 195 votes dragged the state into the Democrat-led Jim Crow era. I wish journalist jobs gave us one paid day per month to spend just looking thru archives, government files and books.

These monthly sessions have rounded out my understanding of what I cover so much, but it's all extracurricular.

Excited to announce the beta launch of a little side project I have chipped at over the last month or so. Badge Watch is an app and a website that tracks Miami PD officer complaints, use of force incidents and more. badgewatch.org Huge shout out to @CodeForMiami and @iGregoryJohnson for making this happen. I approached them literally a week ago about this. Within two days we had a functional prototype. And today we’re launching this beta. Please give us feedback!!

Honestly don't know what to call this other than suppression.

The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition says it's had almost 500 people w/ felony convictions apply to its fines and fees fund "simply because they cannot identify their LFOs or navigate state systems themselves." These are people currently eligible to vote who are unable to get the final green light from the state telling them they can indeed vote.

So they're not planning to vote, because they could be prosecuted if they get it wrong.

NEW from me: For the last decade the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office has been pushing defendants to donate money to “charities” it created and for which it makes decisions. wlrn.org/post/how-miami… Millions of dollars have been raised into these charities from defendants. I found a single payment of $100,000 into one of these funds as part of an agreement for stopping prosecution. wlrn.org/post/how-miami…

BREAKING: US Supreme Court sides with Florida and blocks hundreds of thousands of people with felony convictions from participating in upcoming elections.

Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Kagan dissent.
supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf… From Sotomayor's dissent

Police in Tallahassee are using Florida's Marsy's Law -- passed in 2018 -- to block names of officers in a use of force incident from being released. Because involved officers are treated as "victims" of a crime.

Which is exactly what observers expected would happen. We knew would happen before it was voted on. How? It's already been happening across the country.

And this case is not the first time this happens in Florida.

yoursun.com/westvillagessu…

Random Monday thought:

It's wild to me that Miami doesn't have a street named for Janet Reno, a Miami native, first female attorney general in US history and longtime state attorney here. Yet there's a street named after our current state attorney (12th Avenue). I can think of one potential reason for this, and I think we all know what it is.

Florida budget veto time.

- $500k cut for @browardsheriff "Real Time Crime Center" -- the surveillance project was started in response to Parkland shooting

- Miami-Dade Homeless Trust - $250k cut

- South Florida Behavioral Network (mental health center) got a $4 million cut - North Miami Food Pantry got a $100k cut

- Tons of stormwater/ floodplain drainage project money cut across the state

- Zoo Miami not getting a planned $200k grant

- Miami's Biscayne Baywalk not getting a planned $2 million

- @eMergeAmericas getting $500k cut

Mixed feelings about this piece on the legacy of Miami crime reporter legend Edna Buchanan. Some important passages on the "capture" of relying on police sources, and story framing.

But also incredibly naive parts about "why do we need crime reporters?" popula.com/2020/06/25/edn… Miami was the murder capital of the nation in the 1980s. To suggest that maybe someone shouldn't have been meticulously documenting that era in the way Buchanan did -- as flawed as it was -- is a ridiculous assertion.

NEW: The recording of a 911 call contradicts the police reports for the arrest of four people at FIU a few weeks ago.

Police said a woman called 911 saying her vehicle was "surrounded" and “assaulted by a large crowd” of protesters. Not true at all.
wlrn.org/post/911-call-… Let's list the ways:

- A man called, not a woman
- There is no mention of a white vehicle
- There is no mention of a crowd (only a single "lady" is mentioned)
- There is no mention of an alleged "assault"
- The dispatcher ends the call while the man who called is mid-speech

Just came to my attention that a Muslim woman arrested in a Miami protest last week had her hijab removed & was forced to take a mugshot without it. That was later broadcast and posted online.

I'm taking off my reporter hat here: this is an inexcusable violation of her rights. Her brother is circulating this petition asking for accountability from the @MiamiPD. The mere existence of her mugshot without a hijab is evidence of a human rights violation, according to federal and state laws.
change.org/p/miami-police…

In case anyone wanted to see it in one place, here's the data for Miami-Dade hospitalizations due to COVID-19 since early May.

Upshot is we're slightly worse than then, but better than a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, the reopened economy is bouncing back from bottom. I put this out there bc the number of positive cases alone is not a very good measure of how we're doing. There's context. Graphs like this are causing panic in my timeline. (Florida does not provide statewide hospitalization numbers, but Miami-Dade does)

https://twitter.com/aaronecarroll/status/1273253396762562563

The Miami-Dade commission just voted to create a new independent review panel for Florida's largest police department.

Passes 9-4. No votes: Diaz, Martinez, Souto, Bovo. Here's a link to that ordinance miamidade.gov/govaction/legi…

Just reading this federal order denying Florida a stay in this major voting rights trial that the state lost.

"States sometimes took positions like this in the 1950s and '60s. States have rarely done so since."

Welcome to Florida, circa 2020! In case there were any doubts, Hinkle laid this out there.