The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - #BecauseMiami: A Literal Victory Lap

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

This week on Because Miami, Jeb Lund joins Billy Corben to talk about how the "war on woke" for Ron DeSantis failed miserably. Fernand Amandi comes on to tell us why Democrats continue to fail in Florida. And Billy explains the beef he has with Miami commissioner Art Noriega. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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and grab a DiGiorno Classic crust pizza from the grocery store today. It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno. ["The Daily Show Theme"] Welcome back to Because Miami. Roy, how are you feeling ever since the breakup with you in Spring Break? Neglected. You're feeling, you're right.

Yeah, I'm feeling depressed. Are you happy to not be on Ocean Drive? Of course I am. I'm ecstatic not to be over there right now. Yes, but it's Ultra Week and you are six feet away from like the porta potties here at ultra I mean, why do you have to bring me down like this? I mean, come on I'm trying to celebrate not being in South Beach, but now you just making me sad again I got to deal with this over here with the young people Roy is rolling right now The kitchen is fully stocked with Molly this week and for ultra music festival here in Miami

We literally is feet away. Literally feet away. Yeah, they do sound tests and the whole building shakes over here from the base. I'm very, very excited, Roy, because the Florida legislative session has mercifully ended. Thank God. And what we celebrate more than anything these days

in Florida is the laws that don't pass in the Florida legislature. Like that's like, we're like, whew, oh shit, dodge that bullet, you know, because really, the less they get done, the better it is for Floridians, it seems. And some of the the headlines out of Florida following the legislative session is the war on woke is, if not over, has been a failure. And this is obviously since DeSantis is unceremonious end to his presidential

primary campaign came in third place this week in the Republican presidential primary here in Florida. People are talking about all the shit that he wanted to get done. Some of the high profile anti woke legislation that failed this session. of the high profile anti-woke legislation that failed this session. To talk about it is Florida man, and new college graduate, and a writer for The Guardian, Rolling Stone,

Gawker, Deadspin, NBC, Esquire, Vice, most recently truthdig.com. You know him as Mobuto. Mobute, Mobute, Mobute, Mobute, Mobut, Mobut? This is what Ron DeSantis complains about during my boot, my boot, my boot. What are you doing? What's that?

How do you say it? How do you say it? Oh, that's BS. No, totally, totally BS. It was, it was Mobute. That was what I picked. Mobute, my booty, my booty, my boot. Who's booty?

Mobute, yeah. Your booty, boot who's mo booty? Yeah, your booty. Okay Most importantly Jeb you are the co-host of the podcast. It's Christmas town, which does the important work of Explicating like the complex stories and poetry that they are Hallmark movies Right. Yeah. Well, I mean as a Florida resident, I want to be prepared for my golden years here. I don't want to go in blind. So I'm already watching what they watch. I love it. There should be a Hallmark movie that takes place in the villages, which I guess maybe they couldn't because it would just be about them passing STDs around to each other, I feel. Right. And having different sort of truck nuts for your golf cart,

I guess, that are kind of color coded for what it is you're willing to do. Yes, that's all, it's all, you don't know about this, Roy, you look blank-faced. No, I had no idea. Truck nuts? Yes, truck nuts. They're like these sort of like scrunchie looking, like colored things that like the red and blue and green

and orange and yellow and purple, and you put them on your golf carts, it's like a golf cart community, and it indicates to other denizens of the villages what sex acts you're willing to partake in. Okay, these old people. Well yeah, the villages is a retirement community, effectively, yeah.

You wanna talk more about, it's also like the STD capital of the state of Florida. It's a myth. I think we should talk just about this now. It's gonorrhea town. That's going to be the new hall. Do they have a gazebo? You know, in a Hallmark movie, you have to have a gazebo. Yes, pretty standard. I don't know what the villages has, but I do like the idea that we're taking rumors

about what kids do on the bus so we can have a moral panic about teenagers. And now we're making it about senior citizens. It's like, he's got lavender truck nuts. That means he's into cuck play. We've got to get granddad out of there. Wait, I know what Villages has, syphilis. That's what the Villages has. So Jeb, the Washington Post reported

among some of the failed legislation this session, the banning of rainbow flags from public buildings in Florida, the banning of the removal of Confederate monuments, requiring transgender people to use their sex assigned at birth on driver's licenses, forbidding local and state government officials from using transgender people's pronouns. None of these things made their way through the legislature this year. Some people are sort of celebrate, you know, the war on woke is dead. What does this indicate to you?

I think that I mean, well, two things like DeSantis is cooked. So his legislature no longer needs to humor him because he's not going anywhere. You know, they have to run again in Tallahassee this November, or many of them do. He doesn't. So I think there is just obvious self-interest there. But I think also they've taken a look at what's happened in these special elections recently around the country. And they figured out that, like, once America gets to meet the people from Moms for Liberty, they don't like them.

Most of the more un-woke stuff has been a net loser. Moms for Liberty, one of them was nominated to be on the State Ethics Commission. She did not get voted through. Obviously they had a humiliating appearance on 60 Minutes. You had DeSantis coming out last month, effectively saying, maybe we screwed up with this book ban or whatever,

that maybe it's going, some people are abusing it or taking it too far, which is exactly, it's like, who could have predicted that? Everybody could have predicted that. So he was walking back the book ban. Now you have the courts, conservative courts no less, judges that were appointed by Donald Trump saying that they've gone too far, that the appeals court slammed Florida's stop woke law for committing quote, the greatest first amendment sin and quote, in trying to regulate how businesses train

and treat their own employees. Is there a tide turning here or is this just wishful thinking? You know, I'm torn. I always wanna think that there's a tide turning, but I vote for Democrats. So I just assume that there's some horrible twist where I'm gonna lose right at the end.

Yeah. You know, it might've just been bad timing on his part. You know, if he waited another couple of years, if he'd had, you know, if this had been his first term and he could wait until a second, you know, the federal judiciary might have become so bug crazy that that got through, but there seems to be enough, you know, I think it probably didn't help that so much of the Republican rhetorical cause has been the defense of free speech

Everywhere, you know with you know, no limitations So to suddenly have this imposition just seemed a little bit too baldly gross And now there's a settlement by the state to clarify quote unquote clarify The don't say gay law and now you can say gay the don't say gay law. And now you can say gay, because teachers, parents, administrators were all petrified about what you could and couldn't say. And now it's like, okay,

as long as it's not in the context of actual curriculum, you can have books in school libraries with LGBTQ plus characters and themes, if students wanna bring up in the course of conversation, but not curricula you know questions about their sexuality i mean again all very predictable no right yeah it's i mean the the problem with this practice or these laws as they were practiced was that they built in enough loopholes for anybody who didn't have any say in the local school system to create havoc. Right?

So you have a case of a guy up in the northern part of the state who is responsible for, I think, you know, 400 different attempts at pulling books from the curriculum around the rest of the state. And that, that incentivizing chaos that works for you eventually becomes, you know, impracticable for people who want to live in it. Right and we could have you know all the critics of this these laws Could have told you the same thing like the idea of removing sexual orientation from the classroom is a farce because it's already Present in the classroom

We don't take it as an expression of sexual orientation every time you read a book that has a man and a wife in it. Right. Right. Heterosexuality is represented. And so if they just sort of taken a look at how often that comes up naturally, it would have been very easy to see like, okay, well, here's all the ways that we're going to get sued because people are going to be fed up.

It's going to be too difficult to negotiate. And that's exactly what happened. Maybe again, you know, if they waited waited a couple years and the federal judiciary was more compliant, then fine. But as experienced on the ground, people don't like it. People want to be able to send their kids to school and have them read books. And they don't want to write a permission slip. They don't want to deal with extra forms

to let them read something that was in the curriculum three years ago and nobody blinked at. Before we go, I don't mean to give this short shrift, but we are running out of time. I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about something you wrote about recently at Truthdig. Our friend, Florida journalist, Tim Burke, who was recently arrested for, from what I could tell,

doing a journalism. What happened? Where is the injustice here and how can people help? Okay, so anybody listening who recognizes the name Tim Burke, but can't quite place it, he was the guy who instantly had all those gifts up on Twitter for deadspin for years. And if you ever saw that video of news anchors all saying the exact same op ed in, you know, 20 different newsrooms around the

country, that was him. Tim is very, very good at pulling video. And what he did was he pulled video that Fox News had streaming, essentially, to other Fox employees of Kanye saying extremely Hitlerrific stuff off the record to Tucker Carlson that Tucker Carlson and his show edited out because they didn't want to admit that they were interviewing a completely insane Nazi. So Tim found that and he published it.

Basic journalism, but it is being treated as hacking. So he had his entire livelihood seized by the federal government, all his computers, all the stuff that he uses to do work. And he's facing jail time. And we've seen some really ugly op-eds from the Tampa Bay Times, which is nominally a wonderful paper,

trying to classify him as not a journalist. And it's absurd on its face. I mean, he had contracts out to do journalism work for the entire time I've known him, which is about 15 years. He has always operated as a journalist, whether full time or not. And you know, if he winds up going to prison for basically grabbing hold of something that was very easily accessible via non illegal means, right? That is extraordinarily terrifying for journalists everywhere. And

he also needs help. So if you want to go to the Tim Burke Legal Fund, I believe it is B-U-R-K-E Tim Burke, or just Google something like Tim Burke Legal Fund, you can donate and he really needs the help. Hitlerrific I think is the name of Kanye's new album, if I'm not mistaken. Jeb Lund, thank you so much for being here, always a pleasure. Yeah, thank you. Howdy folks, it's Mike Ryan, it's springtime and while every time is a good time for Miller Lite, springtime is among the best. I was sitting out in my backyard watching some flowers bloom and some beautiful birds swimming from Royal Fishtail Palm

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Hiring is easy when you have that many quality candidates. So easy, in fact, that 86% of the small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. On On Tuesday of this week, Florida had its presidential primary elections, although it turns out it was just a Republican presidential primary election because the Democratic Party of Florida canceled the Democratic primary election, which seemed to have a bit of a down ballot effect because in addition to the primaries, there were local elections, Roy. You know, there were mayors and commissioners and council people that were elected. And you know, I'm always saying the Democrats

never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Well, the headlines out of Florida this week are Florida Dems in Disarray. Here decide whether or not that's fair, that's just, you know know the media engaging in some Dem bashing is the president of the Dixon Amandi International one of Florida's most prominent pollsters Headquartered here in Miami Fernand Amandi, what do you think Florida Dems in disarray fair unfair?

Billy I think it's fair maybe not just only on this one incident, but rather what we've seen in this trend line that's been a very negative one for Florida Democrats, really dating back now 12 years, going from the halcyon days of having delivered the state of Florida's electoral votes in 2012 again to Barack Obama after having done so in 2008. It's just been a record of futility since. And I think what we saw this past Tuesday is another reminder of why Florida Democrats are just not in a good place right now. The chair of the Florida Democrats, Nikki Fried,

getting a lot of criticism for canceling the presidential primary, basically handing it to Joe Biden, who I think it's fair to say would have been the inevitable winner regardless, or irregardless as we say in Miami. But the criticism now is that what that has done is it depressed voter turnout, which already depressed statewide,

it was like 20% statewide voter turnout, but it was particularly bad for Democrats and may have had an effect of getting Republicans elected in some of these local races. Is that accurate? Billy, it is. And I think there's really two schools of thought on the whole, should we or should we not cancel the Florida Democratic primary?

If there were no other races on the ballot on that day, in other words, if it was just people voting for the presidential ballot, there's an argument to be made that why waste time? Why waste resources? No need to do that where it becomes indefensible. And I think part of the reason why the FTP is getting so much criticism today is because as you alluded to, there were other municipal races on that ballot on that day. And by in essence, sending the message to Democrats, don't really bother, don't worry about this because we're not gonna have the primary election, the presidential primary election.

A lot of folks took the message or understood the message that there was no other election that day. And because of the unintended consequences where we did see a lot of Democrats lose races or flip seats in seats that should be democratically held today. I think you can see why there's so much consternation and angst over the decision. You've got locations where Biden was like plus 20 plus 30 whatever that elected Republican mayors or commissioners, right? That's exactly what I mean. I think the starkest example is the city of Delray Beach, right, which is in West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, a very democratic county, almost one of the heart of

the democratic areas. And this is a seat that a Republican has no business winning under any set of circumstances, particularly in this kind of polarized environment where we find ourselves that a lot of these municipal races, Billy, are partisan proxy races. But in this kind of polarized environment where we find ourselves, and a lot of these municipal races, Billy, are partisan proxy races. But in this case, a Republican won because Democratic turnout in Delray, despite being an overwhelmingly Democratic city, was just horrible.

So I think that was one of the bigger examples. You also see municipalities, mid-sized cities like Clearwater, where there was a Democratic wipeout in what used to be Democratic-leaning Pinellas County, other parts of Broward County, Lauderdale by the Sea, races where Republicans are building their bench, having folks now serving in municipal office in seats that should be and would have been held for the Democrats had probably that presidential primary taken place. And now in a pretty vital presidential election year, national election year 2024,

you also have a situation where Democrats in Florida are just, they're not exercising the muscle, right? Of voting, of getting involved this year at the risk of the muscle atrophying. And there are also new laws in the state of Florida about VBMs, about vote by mail, which basically purge, people were getting for a while,

like signed up for automatic ballots, right? Just send me my ballot, when I get it in the mail, I'll vote and I'll send it in. Now they purge that system, and so you have to stay engaged and involved. And now Republicans, in addition to an advantage of voter registrations, probably have a disproportionate advantage on vote by mail, which just means more Republicans, even if they didn't have a voter registration

advantage, more Republicans will be voting. Is that a problem? I mean, of course it's a problem. I mean, all the more reason, and as you well lay out, the Republicans are not playing fair in the state of Florida. They clearly are trying to stack the deck, so to speak, and take advantage and lean into their total control of all the elements of the state. All the more reason, though, why Democrats should take advantage of every possible opportunity to, as you say, exercise that muscle, develop and build the voting behavior, get some of the enthusiasm going again, having people go out, even if it's casting a ballot

to affirm why they're supporting President Biden again for reelection, which is in and of itself kind of an empowering thing to do. I just don't understand the reason for why they wouldn't do it. We've heard arguments by the way, Billy, like precedent. Well, you know, they didn't do it in 96 when you had a Democratic incumbent for president

or 2012. And my answer to that is, so what? You know, rules are meant to be broken and precedents are meant to be changed. Why not take advantage of doing an opportunity here where you can get the base going? And especially with these municipal races on the ballot, that's where I think it now runs into malpractice territory. And it's a whole new world. The state has changed. The demographics have changed. Like how can you say, oh we're gonna do the same shit we did 20 years ago or

whatever or even 10 years ago or even six, seven years ago, you know, eight years ago for that matter. Fernando, we're gonna do a top five and feel free to jump in at any point. I might ask for your reaction. Of the most embarrassing tweets to come out of the Florida elections this week, they will include both cringe tweets from Democrats and Republicans dunking on the Democrats. Let's start with number five from Tanyel, who is the editor-in-chief and founder of Bolz Magazine. It says, quoting a tweet from Drew Savicki that says, looks like the decision to cancel Florida's Democratic primary has gone poorly for Florida

Dems. Apparently Republicans have flipped several mayorships in some heavily Democratic cities. Tanyal adds zero dimensional chess. Oh man. Number four is from Florida Senator and former Florida GOP Chairman Blaise Engaglia. Roy, you might know him by his porn name, Blaise Engaglia. It says, you look like you're gonna chime in there, I wasn't sure. No. If you had anything to enjoy. Roy's rolling, Fernand, it is, it's ultra weak here. Secondhand rolling.. Blazing Goggle writes, if I had made the same egregious strategic blunder Nikki Fried and the Florida Dems made when I was chairman of the Florida GOP, people would have called for my resignation full stop, but then he continues after the statement full stop. I'm guessing there are some pretty unhappy candidates who will do so after tonight.

What a dumb move. Has a dumb move. There's a hashtag there. There is a hashtag, flop hole. Yes, flop hole. Ouch. Ouch. Number three is from Philip Perez,

who is the executive director of the Florida Democrats. He quote tweets a chart from Marco Ferreri that shows the rankings from the Florida Republican primary with Donald Trump getting 81% of the vote, Nikki Haley getting almost 14% of the vote, and Ron DeSantis getting less than 4% of the vote. And Marco writes, losing close to 20% to retired candidates in your home state of Florida with a crusty face emoji. Philip Perez, the executive director of the Florida Dems, puts three red sirens followed by a Trump is in trouble in Florida.

Bernan, he tweeted that multiple times during Tuesday night. Is it delusion? Like, what is he talking about? To me, the debate is, is Trump going to win Florida by single digits or double digits, right? Look, I think the only thing wrong in Phillips defense with that tweet is the last two words, right? In Florida. I do think that the results for Trump in Florida are indicative of what could be the national problem, because it's a

pattern, Billy, that we've now seen play out everywhere. Despite Trump basically having won the nomination for the Republican party, he continues to struggle to get north of 80% of that vote. So that 20% that we're seeing everywhere, that's gonna hurt him nationally now. Is it gonna hurt him in Florida?

Is he in trouble in Florida? I'm not quite ready to say that yet. I think it's anything but truthfully. I mean, come on, dude. Number two, this is right from the Florida Dems. Cringe, man. With some sort of a link to a secure ActBlue fundraising page with an image that says,

take back local grassroots support wins. The tweet reads Democrats showed us yesterday that Florida is winnable. All caps. We're building momentum in 2024 and we can't do it without your continued support. 2024 and we can't do it without your continued support. Fernanda Mandy, you are a pollster. Is Florida winnable for the Democrats? What is I don't even know what that means anymore. Billy, you know, at the risk, I don't want this to sound like at least you or me are piling on

for the Democrats. Obviously, I'm a Democrat. I want Democrats to win. I've seen Democrats win in the state before I was involved and helped lead campaigns where we won the state. But I actually think that these types of messaging are doing a great disservice to the ability for Florida Democrats to win

because it is creating this totally false sense of expectations about where the party is, where the standings are now, how the registration numbers are. Look, anything can happen in politics and I'm not discounting some sort of, what's that, something like a deep, not a deep water horizon, perfect storm type of event

that could all of a sudden deliver Florida in November. But the odds are overwhelmingly against it and until Democrats I think acknowledge, hey look we're looking at it six to eight to ten year plan. Let's not make it about the direct election cycle in front of us, let's use it as an opportunity to build out the infrastructure and the capacity so that soon we're competitive again. This happens in sports all the time. Teams say, look, we're going to have a rebuilding year or two so that we can position ourselves to then compete for championships in the future.

I think the unwillingness of Florida Democrats to be honest about that, given the standings of where things are now, that's hurting the party efforts. I really believe that. Sports. I think that metaphor was apt though, because I've only been a Democrat since 2018 here in Florida. And nothing prepared me better for that than being a Dolphins fan. I'll tell you the last 40 years. I'll tell you that. Now, number one on our top five is going

to be somewhat redundant after your statement. It's from Dave Trotter, who writes, the Florida Dems are no longer electable statewide. I've run a number of models just for the hell of it and the GOP floor in Florida is 53% no best-case scenario quote-unquote gets the Democrats over 50% unless a third-party candidate takes votes from the GOP it's over. I'm sorry we had to play that that sound effect there there's nothing to from the GOP, it's over. I'm sorry we had to play that sound effect there. There's nothing to celebrate here.

By the way, there's nothing to celebrate even if you're a Republican. I mean, certainly not if you're an American. You should want as many healthy, vibrant political parties in the market of ideas and policies as possible. I mean, if you're a capitalist, competition is good for the marketplace. One party rule is not healthy. It's not capitalistic. It's not democratic.

But Fred Ann, numbers guy to numbers guy. Do Trotter's numbers bear out? Well, first, I mean, I think you make such an important point. Look, the truth of the matter is the Republican Party of Florida that have had total control over the state now for over a generation. Think about it, since 1998, that was over 25 years ago. They've had the governor's mansion. They've had now virtual total control of the legislature for well over 20 years.

Super majority. Super majority. They own it, right? And they've done extraordinary destruction to this state. So none of us say this with any joy. There's no schadenfreude here at all. But unfortunately, I think Dave Trotter's tweets, if you look at the fundamentals now are in line.

Democrats now have an 850,000 vote registration disadvantage. Billy, if you go back to 1988, in 1988, Democrats had an 860,000 vote advantage. So we're talking about an almost 2 million vote swing in something like 35 years in what used to be the nation's prized swing state. So unless something fundamentally and radically changes here, where people are willing to invest over the short and long term, put in real resources, have an accountable strategic plan and say, we're gonna do the building block steps little by little to position Florida to be competitive again.

It's hard to argue with Dave Trotter's analysis. Two things real quick before we go. First, a yes or no question. I presume what you just told us, the Democratic National Party knows what you know. It is not a swing state anymore. Biden, not only is he not gonna win Florida, he doesn't need Florida to win the presidency.

So yes or no, do the Democrats at a national level care about who gets elected locally or governor of Florida? And are they going to invest anything in Florida when they don't need it to win nationally? Well, yes, they obviously care They would love to see Florida have a Democratic governor and be competitive again Is it you know as it's enjoyed being for the last several cycles prior to the last two? But really the second question you ask, I think is the most

important one. Will they actually invest? And there's an argument to be made, a credible argument that says, look, maybe they shouldn't. We know Florida is a critically expensive state. And right now the most important priority for the country-billion in the world is for Joe Biden to be reelected and preserve our American democracy against the autocratic totalitarian project that day one dictator Donald Trump will take over if he regains power. He does not need Florida to do that. So I think if you think about it from a triage perspective, number one, you got to get the 270 and I wouldn't waste a cent in Florida getting there. Now, if this time in August, September, but the floor falls out from Trump, he totally collapses.

Florida looks like it might be in play, but then again, so might Utah and Wyoming and other states that aren't on the radar right now. Sure, maybe you put a little money in there to push it over the top. But I think you got to focus first on winning the presidency reelection, holding the White House. If that happens, then they can look into 26, 2028, 2030, 2032 about fortifying Florida because it's just too important and too big of a state and the national conversation to completely ignore and let go.

Fernandamondi at Amandie on air on Twitter on your way out the door and outside looking in from Evan Power the current Florida GOP chair obviously after the Ziegler threesome sex scandal you might remember the Moms for Taking Liberties Roy scandal he took over he wrote his he drove his DUI right into the seat of power the chairmanship of the Florida GOP he's dunking on Nicky Fried good morning Florida especially to Nicky Fried who is invaluable to the success of the Florida GOP. May your term be long. To be clear, this is the chairman of the Florida GOP

wishing the chairwoman of the Florida Democrats, thank you for all of your help and may your chairwomanship be long. have the conversations you have with really, really good friends. The conversations you have when you share a love of something, about ideas, when you want to hear about everything. I feel really lucky to have these conversations. Cue with Tom Power, available now on Spotify. In his 20 years running the Miami Parking Authority and four years as city manager, the highest paid position in the city, Art Noriega, who does not live in the city, appears to have exploited his public position for private profit,

directing at least $2 million in taxpayer money to his wife's overpriced furniture company. Can't fight City Hall, Roy, but that doesn't stop me from trying, I'll have you know. I mean, you've been beaten up by City Hall for a very long time now. I'm doing my fair share of pushing back. I don't know, it's like a handicap match now. They're jumping you. Using chairs, sledgehammers. Trying to punch up here, Roy, because this is effectively

a criminal racketeering enterprise masquerading as a municipal government that is running this town, the city we are sitting in right now that mercifully neither of us live in. You're damn right. And you should hang on. You're goddamn right, Meatball. So the latest scandal, which we may have talked about

before, is the city manager. His wife has this overpriced furniture company and he first is the Miami Parking Authority executive director and now as the city manager has been directing contracts to his wife's company. To the tune, I think the total so far is two million dollars in counting that we know of and this was a scandal that was revealed in early January of this year by WLRN, our friends Danny Rivero and Josh Sabayos. And he responded to it at the January 11th meeting. In spite of the fact that most of the information that's been put in the public realm

is either inaccurate or incomplete, I wanted to just put forth to you my intent to come back ahead of the next City Commission meeting with a full reporting and accounting of exactly the vendor relationship. I'm gonna address it and I'm gonna address it head-on. Head-on Roy. He said ahead of the next city commission meeting, which was would have been January 25th. Right. Any guess what happened on January 25th? He went head-on past it. Not again, not a goddamn thing happened. Crickets, all right, nothing, nothing. And then the meeting after that, nothing. And the meeting after that, finally he says, you know what, I'm gonna deal with it at the March 14th

meeting. So we all wait with bated breath nine weeks later after he promised this. We all wait for it. Now, what happened was that this was a long commission meeting. He basically ran out the clock, right? So it's after nine p.m. at night already last week. And we're waiting for this full accounting, this conflict of interest scandal involving his wife's furniture company that is spending all this money taxpayer money mind you and basically it comes time for him to speak it's like it's after 9 p.m. as I said and the commissioners are like hey listen why don't we defer this to the next meeting in April it's late we want people to be here to be able to hear this in a public,

as you promised, a full public airing and reporting and he has a total meltdown. I'm not waiting another month to make this presentation. I'm not going to sit here and be subjected to the kind of stuff that was said today, by the way, which half of it was lies made up and fabricated. I'll distribute the report. I'll meet with each of you individually. You can grill me to no end. I will release the report to the media so that there is a full disclosure of what happened and what transpired.

But this has been a little arduous to kind of wait and wait and wait. And in all fairness, I'm just getting hit with really a lot of misinformation, a lot of allegations that are completely untrue. Three important things to note there. First of all, he's complaining about waiting another month and this having been hanging over his head for all these weeks, for all these months, the delay was solely his doing.

So it's like, it's such gaslighting. He's like, he's like, well, this has been hanging over my head. It's like, dude, you promised this on January 25th. There's nobody to blame but you for this. You were free and clear to present your side of the story at any time that you wanted to, and you're the one who failed to do it. And so now he's like, like I said, he ran out the clock and then tried to play it like, like, this is an inconvenience to me. Three of the five commissioners, three of his five bosses push back, but he told them to go pound sand.

The insubordination, Roy, is extraordinary. It's off the charts. Second thing I wanted to point out, Roy, is he's calling me a liar. Did you hear what he said? Oh, these lies and this mis- He didn't say your name, but we all know who he is. Well, that was about my commentary from the beginning that you heard a few minutes ago on the show and that I made live to his face a public comment.

He's calling me a liar, Roy. But he did say my name, Roy. I'll sit with Billy Corbin across the table and I'll present everything to him. I have no issue with that at all, by the way. Billy Corbin to me is someone that clearly has a lot of followers and a lot of people that are interested in what he says. I'm happy to give him the information. I'm happy to sit with him.

I'll answer whatever questions he has. I have a long history with Billy Corbett. So I'm not hiding from it and I won't run from it. You know, we have a chair right there to your left. We got lots of chairs here. We got chairs to your right as well. Yeah. We've got lots of chairs here. We've got lots of chairs here. Right as well. Yeah, his- With microphones.

Yeah. Have you turned on? Did we buy these chairs from his wife's furniture company? They're about six, $700 from his furniture company. When he said Billy Corbin is an individual, I thought he was gonna say, you are a vile little man. So that's some good news, Roy.

Yeah, so you got a long history with him, by the way. We've got our, I don't know what he's talking about, our brief but bitter affair? Oh, what is he, what the hell does. You got a long history with him, by the way. I don't know what he's talking about, our brief but bitter affair? Oh, what the hell does he mean? A long history. Whatever it is, he is welcome on this show. Any of these chairs from Pruderry Furniture, from his wife's furniture company,

maybe he has an exclusive contract, he can only sit his tuchas on a chair from his wife's company. Where he can stand then. Now, here's the thing. Friday came and went, no report, but Monday morning after we started to point out the fact that where the hell is this thing he promised to distribute

to the mayor and the commissioners and the media, he finally released the report. But you're not gonna believe what happened, right? Or maybe you will. Yeah, I believe it. After calling me a liar and saying that the press reporting since January has been filled with misinformation, the headline.

He lied in the report. It's filled with incomplete misinformation. And he had to walk it back immediately. As soon as we called him out on it, we're like, wait a second, these figures aren't right. The math ain't mathing here. This Miami math here, 2.2 pounds is a kilo. That's all the only Miami math I know.

But Miami City manager walks back data on furniture spending, and now he won't answer questions, Roy. So first of all, he says, I'm gonna bring this report immediately. It takes him nine weeks to put it together. He says, I'll answer anybody's questions. I'll sit down with anybody. I'll sit down with Billy Corbin.

Little Billy Corbin. One-on-one, he releases the report and 24 hours later goes, what? My bad. And now he's not answering anybody's questions. He has not committed. I've now asked for over a week starting last Thursday night to get it on the books, get him on the show, get a sit down one-on-one with him, ask him anything

as he offered publicly right there. Nothing. The Miami Herald had an interview scheduled with him for Wednesday a couple days ago. Didn't happen. he canceled it immediately. So the guy who called me a liar said the media reports were filled with incomplete and false narratives and misinformation, releases. I mean, the amount of disdain and disrespect this guy has for his constituents, this guy is the highest paid city employee, he makes over $400,000 a year plus benefits in a city where the median household income is $47,000. This guy had three out

of his five bosses on the city commission saying, you need to make this presentation at the next meeting. And he just told told everybody gave us all just a great big middle finger and the fish rots from the head down and like this is the city manager and then you have a mayor like And in his immortal words if you put garbage in you're gonna get garbage out I mean, it's pretty funny. He just basically said two plus two equals Thomas Jefferson. It's Miami math.

Or equals Julia Tuttle. I don't know what would be the Miami version of that. Claude Pepper. So Claude D. Pepper. That's right. And the final insult of the week from this guy, just giving everybody the middle finger, this lying lying corrupt Miami

Mafioso he just announced a new Miami mafia member has been initiated into the Omerta Art Noriega who as we just discussed is under fire for a conflict of interest scandal involving millions in taxpayer dollars and his wife's furniture company he just hired disgraced ex-Dural City Manager Barbie Hernandez after she was fired in January for, quote, lack of integrity and judgment, a clear conflict of interest, and deliberate misuse of city funds, personnel, and equipment for the personal and political benefit of her husband. Hmm. The city manager under fire for a conflict of interest scandal involving city money and his wife, hires a woman who was just fired as the Doral city

manager because of a conflict of interest scandal involving city money and her husband. You say that again like I'm surprised. She's too corrupt for Doral, okay? She's too corrupt for Doral, but Arden-Noriega hires her for the city of Miami to quote oversee operations for the departments of code enforcement, general services administration, by the way who buys the furniture for the city, human services, innovation and technology, parks and recreation, and solid waste, which is good because they're all full of shit. But all of those departments are among some of the most corruptible and vulnerable in the city.

And remember, Roy, this is the same tactic that criminal organizations use. You bring in compromised people, right? People who have no opportunities, who you know will be loyal because you've brought them in and given this woman's going to get paid six figures. So she presumably will do their bidding regardless or irregardless of laws or ethics because you got to protect the hustle. It's mutually assured destruction because they all have

some kind of grift going and so she is gonna come in there presumably allegedly to protect the hustle but it's not all yeah I mean the Miami Mafia remains undefeated I guess to your point at the top of the of the segment but there are some Because Miami victories to celebrate. Oh, why, we won something? We actually won something. You remember the town of Surfside? Yes, yes I do.

Shlomo, Danzinger, the real estate, and then there was that real estate hustler, bully vice mayor, Jeff Rose, who had an 18 year old activist arrested by the Tonton McCoute there in Surfside. Well, clean sweep at the elections on Tuesday. Wow. Everybody's out. Everybody's out. Hashtag because Miami. Shlomo's out. Jeff Rose is out. Their third complicit co-conspirator, Fred Landsman got rejected. So it's like a whole new government there in Surfside.

And the reason why we're celebrating is because I think we might've, you know, that parody song, shout out to Andrew Streeter, might've influenced the outcome. By the way, there are only like 4,000 people vote in that whole town in that whole election. And I think the guy who, the former mayor who beat Shlomo Danzinger won by like a hundred votes.

And so our Miami moment, which is really a Surfside moment, and a shout out to the voters in Surfside for saving their town at least for another two years, there was a random dude, literally bro, making a victory lap around Surfside Town Hall, and he was blasting on the radio while waving bye-bye to the former mayor, Shlomo Danzinger and Jeff Rose, who were cleaning their offices out at that time on Tuesday evening. He is blasting our Because Miami parody song about Surfside and the elections and how to be more responsible voters.

And man, man, it feels good, Roy, to have a small victory in a city that is all of eight blocks, by the way. Eight blocks, but this guy is making a victory lap, literally, bro, cocaine's. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this.

I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. I don't know what to do with this. Howdy folks, it's Mike Ryan, it's springtime and while every time is a good time for Miller Light, springtime is among the best.

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