South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is one of the Democratic Party's fiercest defenders of Israel. She was the first Jewish congresswoman elected from Florida, she backed George W. Bush's hardline approach to peace negotiations in Palestine, and she was instrumental in the U.S. declaring May "Jewish American Heritage Month."

But apparently that wasn't pro-Israel enough for Stanley Tate, co-chair of Mitt Romney's Miami campaign committee and a member of the congregation at Temple Israel. Tate was outraged when he learned that Wasserman was scheduled to speak at the synagogue tonight. When the temple wouldn't allow him to give a rebuttal, he resigned.

Now the synagogue has canceled the congresswoman's speech. Oy vey. It's an election year.
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Ivon David Rojas

In a $1.8 million effort to control crowds (and, lets be honest, discourage Urban Beach Week festivities from happening in the future), South Beach will resemble nothing short of a police state this weekend. Though, The Miami Herald's Miami Beach reporter David Smiley tweets that "projected Memorial Day weekend Miami Beach hotel occupancy remains way below last year's actual occupancy figures," the Miami Beach Police Department, under the leadership of new Police Chief Ray Martinez and pressure from locals, is preparing for the worst. Here's all the reported measures police will be taking on Miami Beach this weekend.
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​Every Friday, Riptide brings you the most eye-catching mugshots taken the previous week (or thereabouts) in Miami-Dade County. Yes, there is some mockery of bad neck tattoos, but also adulation directed at perps who just plain look more badass than we ever will. This is the italicized intro to that series.
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Is there such a thing as reading too much into the schedule of a book tour? Maybe, maybe not, but the Associated Press just got a hold of Marco Rubio's touring schedule to promote his upcoming memoir, An American Son, and, well, what do you know, it hits up a whole lot of battleground states. Apparently every little thing Marco Rubio does now will be scrutinized for possible hidden messages about whether he wants to be Mitt Romney's running mate or run for President himself one day. Which is what happens when every little thing Rubio does lately is so transparently meant to promote his own national profile.
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Today's photo comes from Rober1000x's Flickr. If you'd like to see your photo here join our Flickr group.

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Every once in a while, whatever deity-like being that controls crime in Florida (some religions refer to him as Saint Crackerious of Tallahassee) takes out three hats. One contains the names of every Florida town, the next holds the names of a fast-food restaurant, and the other has a series of comical crimes. This week's winners: West Palm Beach, McDonald's, and pulling out a gun to cut someone in the drive-thru line. This is just the latest in a long, long, long list of fast-food-related crimes in Florida.
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Kyle Morrison, 22, has been arrested for trying to storm the American Airlines Arena court without pants during the Miami Heat's win against the Indiana Pacers Tuesday night. He now faces charges of disorderly conduct, resisting an officer with violence, battery on an officer, trespassing, and indecent exposure. Apparently the guy did it because Rick Ross dared him to. More >>

Florida Gov. Rick Scott is taking his political follies to the international level.

King Juan Carlos I is feeling the fallout of one of the biggest controversies of his life for going on an elephant hunting trip in Botswana. It's a touchy subject in the country right now. Scott is on a trade mission to Spain this week and met with the King, and all the guv wanted to talk about was this hunting trip to Botswana. The king was not amused, and now the exchange has become a source of political comedy in Spain.
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Another day, another poll, another outcome. Yesterday, Qunnipiac released a poll in Florida that found Mitt Romney had taken the lead in Florida, and today they've released a poll showing that Bill Nelson and Connie Mack IV are now tied in the Senate race. Though, today also saw the release of an NBC-Marist poll which claims that President Obama and Nelson each have four point leads in their respective races in the Sunshine State.
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At least five innocent bystanders were shot by police in this melee.

Remember last Memorial Day weekend on South Beach? Yes, that was the one when Miami Beach cops unloaded more than a hundred rounds into the car of Raymond Herisse, a Palm Beach resident police say tried to run them over on Collins Avenue. Not all those bullets hit Herisse, though. More >>

Ever notice how New Yorkers have such strong opinions about what makes a person a "real" New Yorker? (The answer: You have strong opinions about what makes one a real New Yorker.) The phrase "Real New Yorker" has 802,000 Google results. The phrase "Real Miamian" nets only 347 results.

We're a transient, melting pot of a city, sure, and it's difficult to define our people, but we thought we'd try to establish some basic requirements for 305 realness. Take our test to find out if you're a "real Miamian." Don't take it too seriously, though. No real Miamian would.
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Supremely bizarre baseball slugger-- and South Florida resident-- Manny Ramirez has had a long road back to the game. He abruptly retired from the Tampa Bay Rays in 2011 after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. He was arrested for allegedly battering his wife in their Weston home.

Then he decided to try to make it back to the bigs, did aqua aerobics with abuelitas at a local pool, and got signed by the Oakland Athletics.

He's joining the A's minor league team on Friday, and the major league squad on May 30-- upon the completion of his suspension.

Manny's back! And his dusty official website is a nice refresher course on how weird he is. Let's take a look-see, shall we?

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Who knows what goes through a basketball player's mind when he spends the vast majority of the time sitting on the bench during such a heated and important playoff series. Perhaps the Miami Heat's Dexter Pittman thought to himself, "Man, the whole world is watching this series, and ain't no one gonna know the name Dexter Pittman. I gotta do something. I gotta make people aware I exist." After realizing he was the third best center on a team that doesn't have a single good center and that he plays on a team with two of the best basketball players in the world, he quickly crossed "taking over the game" off his list and may have thought, "Imma sucker punch a chump. Then people will be talking 'bout Dexter Pittman."

He has briefly succeeded, as the NBA has suspended him for three games.
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Photo by Bill Cooke/Random Pixels

The chief of Miami Beach Police is insisting that his officers do not have a 2,000-arrest quota this Memorial Day weekend. But the department's union vice president tells Riptide that he witnessed a major announce the quota at an officer roll call -- and that his department has such quotas every year during the predominantly-black party weekend on South Beach.

"It's racial profiling," says Det. Gustavo Sanchez, "and it's against our operating procedure."

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Let's not put the cart before the horse, but there are other Miami matters to think about besides whether or not the Hurricanes leap to the Big 12 or stay relegated to the ACC. And that's mostly the fate of the Orange Bowl. The game has already lost a lot of its luster in the BCS era, but could news of conference realignment and a possible playoff system further hurl it towards irrelevance? It's looking that way.
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Today's photo comes from JuanChi003's Flickr. If you'd like to see your photo here join our Flickr group.

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Are Miami Beach Police planning to arrest 2,000 people during the notorious Memorial Day weekend parties on South Beach? As in they've actually set a quota regardless of whether or not 2,000 deserve to be arrested. To put that in prospective, the record number of arrests over Memorial Day weekend ever in Miami Beach was just over 1,000.

Rumors of such a number emerged this week, but Police Chief Raymond Martinez has denied that his department has set a real quota.
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We demand a recount. The INRIX Traffic Scorecard says that Miami only has the 12th worst traffic congestion in the country. Anyone who has ever been stuck in Miami traffic knows it's the worst thing ever. No, literally the worst thing ever. The official ranks of worst things ever might as well go something like: 1) Miami traffic 2) Hell 3) Crocs.

Yet, we guess we can't argue with actual scientific numbers, and, according to the data, Miami's traffic congestion problem has actually gotten better in the past few years.

Though the scorecard has found the absolute worst time to drive in Miami: Thursday afternoon near 4 p.m.
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Less than six months after a penthouse at the Setai sold for $21.5 and set a new record for the highest price ever paid in Miami-Dade for an apartment, that record has been smashed. A penthouse in South Beach's exclusive Continuum towers has been sold for $25 million according to the New York Times setting a new record. The previous owner of the apartment had bought it for just $9.9 million three years ago.
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A kindergarten classroom in St. Petersburg had an interesting yet unplanned show and tell recently after a six-year-old student pulled three ounces of marijuana and a scale from their backpack and proclaimed to the classes' teacher, "Look what I got."

How'd it get there? Apparently the student's father put it in the backpack, and once he realized what he did he rushed back to the school told someone in the front office that he needed it back to "take care of business."
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