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

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Very rarely do we ever earn a win here on Because Miami, but two things happened during our week off that had Billy Corben cackle with joy...literally. Find out what they were. Plus, Miami Herald investigative reporter Sarah Blaskey joins the program to talk about why Miami mayor Francis Suarez refused to speak to the media following the State of the City address. And journalist Jason Garcia tells us about the laws bandying about the Florida Statehouse that helps not a single resident in the godforsaken state. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network. There's nowhere you can run 63.5 million In assets The marshals are gonna take em Which arm do you want to take blood from? Your bed Shows full of books you've never read The box you threw at your wife's head You know bed

The marshals are gonna take em I've been an honest public serpent. Bring the fire squad. I do have some furniture your screw nothing here belongs to you your twinkies and your child stature your big big bed the marshals are gonna take them double my underwear my socks each one of your picking your finger pumps your comic we've had swimming I don't have money to pay. Your old you of M.W. Whenbreaker, your hideous bewegan car, Marjorie's Orisha Candle.

This is so bias. The Marshalls are gonna take up tonight. Got all your ways to go. Oh I'm being eaten. Oh I'm being eaten. Got all your ways to go. I would have to go somewhere, maybe in the street, to the tent or something. You sectional and your bar stools, your coffee table and vacuum, the marshals are taking those too.

This is not fair, this is America. Your fourth wife is gonna leave you, goodnight. This is very, very unpleasant. ROLLING Roy, while you were in Vegas at the Super Bowl... I... Celebrating a Super Bowl of my own here in Miami. Wife, either. I'm so petty.

Little Billy Corbin. So, yes, the US Marshals, while you were away, while we were on hiatus, went to Joe Carollo's house and put a notice of Levy on the door, informing him that they are indeed going to begin the process of seizing his property to satisfy the $63.5 million corruption judgment against him for weaponizing city government to target the little Havana business owners who own,

among other things, the very popular and historic ball and chain bar on Coyote Show. There might be some footage out there if you're watching the video version of this program where I was caught outside of Joe's house while this was happening, cackling my little ass off. This is your little Twitter account, little Billy? I mean, the feds brought the Black Chevy Suburbans and everything, man.

They were ready to go. Full drama. Full drama. I mean, this telo Novella, man. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Overdue this man has been a cancer on this community bullying his wife his daughters the citizens and residents of Miami for 40 years. I mean his time has come Your boy Joe Corolla. Oh, no, no, we're not doing that. We're not we're not doing that in God We trust this has been an incredible I mean we have a lot of catching up to do we're gonna talk to talk to Sarah Blaskey, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist

from the Miami Herald about what's been going on in Miami. We're going to talk to Jason Garcia about what the hell is going on up in the Florida state capital, Ron DeSantis' free state of Florida. But, Joe Carollo is the big story here. You know what else is the big story? While we're doing shameless victory laps, the response has been overwhelming and I want to thank everyone for going to cocainecowboys.com and checking it out. And thanks to everyone here at Meadow Lark who helped make it happen.

Anything I could do to help Billy. Roy, I was, I meant Jason and GQ. What? That's what I meant. What do you mean? That's the, I meant the people who actually produced and directed the thing for us here at Meadowlark. Well, you're welcome anyway. Thank you, Roy, as always.

And, you know, shit gets real with Michael Corleone Blanco. I ask him finally, as the series winds down, what his mother, Gudi Zelda Blanco, thought of our documentary, Coking Cowboys, when it came out almost 20 years ago. When Coking Cowboys, the first documentary, started circulating, what was your mother's reaction to the documentary? She was mad. I said, mom, what are they gonna cut a check?

She said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Billy, you almost got that knock on the door. Crisselta. The dramatic music, Cappy. Crisselta is the one who knocks, Roy. Crisselta is the one who knocks, and the US Marshals were the ones who knocked on Joe Corolla's door. You see what I did there?

You see what I did there? You see what I did there? You're a petty businessman. You see what I did there? You see what I did there? You see what I did there? You know what? Really, it's not just me. So my yo's laughed? It's a conspiracy of the entire court system apparently,

where he is losing every single motion and every single lawsuit. It is a conspiracy of the media, I guess, for telling the truth about him and his corruption The latest is he tried to go to the court and say hey Will you delay the seizure of my house while I figure out what's going on here and the judge was like No, thank you. No, no Judge Rodney Smith who presided over the month-long corruption case last year, he is already done,

absolutely done with this guy. And he's like, no, you owe this money, start paying it, I mean you're never going to be able to pay 63.5 million, so give him your house, give him your drawers, give him your underwear. I'm going to go to an auction, Roy, and I'm gonna buy Joe's mother's costume jewelry, and I'm gonna wear it all to the next city commission meeting, like Walter Mercado. Okay, I'm gonna buy a cape, too.

Does anybody know where I can buy a cape, like a Walter Mercado style? I'm sure we have something in the wardrobe. I have no doubt that you do. Something from the Greg Cody collection. I'm sure there is a cape and now The plaintiffs who won this judgment against him They want to go through his fourth wife Marjorie's

Financials too because they're alleging fraud that Joe moved assets and money To his wife her name her accounts her business And they want to be able to examine that too. And I gotta tell you, that motion is pending, and I think that's gonna go their way as well. Here's the funny thing about these motions and lawsuits that Joe keeps losing, his lawyers keep winning. Why?

Because they keep billing the Miami taxpayers for every hour they waste on these losing, frivolous, defective motions. So, you know, as they say in litigation, what I say, the only people who win in litigation are the lawyers, and that's no difference here because they're playing with the house's money. They don't care.

There's total perverse incentives here because they're like, hey, any other client, we'd say, hey, listen, we have to be selective about this, we're gonna lose this motion, we shouldn't appeal this, we'd say, hey, listen, we have to be selective about this. We're going to lose this motion. We shouldn't appeal this. We have to be strategic. Here, they don't care. They file crap for everything, build the taxpayers,

lose it, and keep going. It's really deplorable. And speaking of deplorable, we tried to warn you last year. Remember this character, Sabina Kovoh? That's right. She was a city commissioner for nine months. Well, nine months is all it took, Roy, for this to happen. the which is the corruption piece. That's former candidate James Torres on Because Miami's podcast after last November's elections.

He talked about Kovoh coming to him for his support in her runoff. What is it gonna take? And can I offer you a position at the OmniCRA as a contractor making over $120,000? Kovoh was chair of that CRA. We're auditing right now. Where we stand with the Omni-CRA.

She became chair when then commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla was charged with corruption and suspended. It was taken aback by that because I'm like, is this the right thing? Like, this is doesn't sit. It was just weird. And if true, possibly illegal, which may be why Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office launched an investigation for allegations of remuneration by candidate for services support, et cetera, and bribery. That's right, in just nine months serving as a city of Miami commissioner, she is already under investigation for bribery. As you heard on that local 10 WPLG report from Glennon Millberg, the story, if this is what the investigation is all about was broken right here in this very room Roy

Nice shout out about and by the way the video nice a little call out the Ron McGill because the sign was in the background Oh, yeah, you see very very prominent Ron McGill cameo in that clip and I mean listen, this is what we do here really so we take a victory lap I don't know that any crime was committed here this is obviously like a he said they said but the circumstantial evidence so far is pretty compelling that it looked like based on what former candidate James Torres told us on this very program last November there might have been a quid pro bro

going on here in the city of Miami, if you can believe it, right? I'm glad you're sitting down, because you seem stunned by this revelation. I can't believe it. And listen, we tried to warn Miami about this, and incidentally, Miami listened because she was unelected last November after that, because Miami episode,

which aired on Friday, and the following Tuesday was the runoff election. So over the weekend, that story greatly impacted the early voting and ultimately the election day voting for the runoff, but we're sort of like, oh geez, on this. Yeah, all it took was a song. Do you remember what we warned? Do you remember what we told folks? Say no to Kovu.

Just say no to Kovvo. Just say novo to Kovvo. When it comes to commissioner for district 2, I'm not asking you politely, I'm telling you don't vote Kovvo. Please don't vote for Kovvo. Not a vote for Kovvo. I have no idea. beer knowing that I made the right decision, there are a few wonderful moments that I value more than Miller Time on this planet. It's just one of the best things going. Miller Light with a taste that I can depend on, no games, no gimmicks, just a great beer for people who like beer. They don't have that many demands. We just want to know that we're getting the same flavorful taste out of our light beer and we get it every single time with a beer that's brewed for taste that hits different than other light beers. Simple ingredients, like malted barley for rich, balanced, toffy no flavors in the iconic golden color. Miller Lite, great taste, 96 calories. Go to MillerLite.com

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Experts only available with TurboTax Live. Following the state of the city speech, the mayor's movements were managed, protected, directed. He would take questions from one reporter at a time, behind closed doors. Do you think those companies would have you on the payroll if you were not in a position of power in the city of Miami? So again, your question already has a flawed premise

that I'm working for 12 companies. The mayor suggested I and others did not do enough homework, jumped to wrong conclusions. To respect that position, I rephrased the question. I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. Thank you, I'm done. One company, one company that's hired you, I'm done. One company. I'm done, I'm done.

One company that's hired you, do you think they might have if you were not the mayor? There would be no more questions and not at all for Miami Herald reporters who had been waiting their turn. Talked about transparency, but what about transparency

in your own private business? Mayor Suarez, is there a reason you don't want to talk to the Miami Herald today? That was Miami Herald investigative reporter Sarah Blaskey giving chase to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez at the recent state of the city address. She is joining us now. Sarah, was there a reason that Mayor Suarez did not want to answer questions from the Miami Herald after having given interviews to every single TV station

in town? Well, if there was, he didn't give us that reason. He didn't speak to us at all that day or any day subsequently. What I can tell you is that the Miami Herald had published an investigation that morning into another one of the more than a dozen side jobs this part-time mayor has held over the past two years. And in this case, it was a small tech company that had big dreams and very little to show for it at that point that

was trying to make a partnership behind closed doors. it at that point that was trying to make a partnership behind closed doors. And it turns out it was trying to make a partnership with a different company more established that was in the process of negotiating a business relationship with the city of Miami. But not just that, that would already be a potential problem, right? The mayor's company, the city of Miami, but in this case it was actually the mayor's office that was pushing this software sale on the city and mind you it was for a software that was for something the city was already doing. It was a completely redundant service. The city didn't need it but yet

the mayor's office was pushing it and if that's not enough there is one final point to this story which is that well the mayor's office was pushing it. And if that's not enough, there is one final point to this story, which is that while the mayor's office is pushing the software for this company N-Zero, it is also the mayor's chief of staff at the time is actively engaged behind closed doors on his city email, on city time, also promoting the private partnership

between that company and a company called Redivider, which Mayor Suarez has paid about $220,000 a year to be a consultant for that company and is a tiny minority owner of the company. So he had a lot to gain from anything that would benefit that company, a partnership, a lucrative business deal from the city, etc. That was the story we were trying to ask him about that day at the state of the city. Hill- And that Glenda Milberg from WPLG Local 10 that you heard there was trying to ask him about as well, your story. And this just seems to be another in the litany of alleged

conflicts of interest in which Mayor Francis Suarez is exploiting his public position for private profit, often in this case even appearing as though he is working as an unregistered lobbyist within the city. Also enlisting people in his office, in his public office, I should say, to do that as well. Investigators are looking into Francis Suarez's very lucrative side hustles. Another story you wrote earlier last month ahead of the state of the city, that is a result in no small part of your investigation called Shakedown City from late last year that detailed some of these allegations, including one in which it appears as though the mayor might be working as an unregistered foreign agent. So this just, the hits just keep on coming.

It's no wonder that he tried to get his steps in running away from you at the state of the city. But that wasn't all for Miami Mayor. I actually, oh, here's the cart machine, right? It's hiding behind my laptop. Hang on, I got- Oh, he found it. I found it.

I've been hiding it from- I'm sorry, just getting sure I've been hiding it from- Fancy posterity times. Sorry, just getting, getting sure we've been on hiatus, you know, I'm just stretching here. Sarah Blaskey, your most recent story, Super PAC backing Mayor Suarez's presidential bid. I have to laugh, of course, when you say presidential bid.

Mayor Cripto Bro. What if he runs for president? So obviously, Mayor Suarez has received, deservedly so, a lot of scorn for this presidential campaign, which is one of the shortest and most embarrassing in the history of the United States. And we were all wondering, what is this really all about? Is this a money grab?

Is this some kind of laundering operation? What the hell is going on here? It seems like what you've dug up isn't really very compelling in terms of, I would say, the legitimacy of the operation. It seems like there was money being made, but it wasn't necessarily being spent on the campaign. What is this most recent report? Sure.

There's the campaigns for right, for president, and then there are the super PACs that make all the money. They can raise unlimited sums, right? And in the case of Francis Farah, the super PAC was called SOS America. And so that super PAC, we just got the federal financial disclosures from that PAC.

There's a huge delay. So the campaign ended six months ago And we just found out about some of the spending from the super PAC back in the campaign and the top-line item here is that the super PAC Spent more on a single fundraising consultant So, you know a person that goes out and tries to raise money for the super PAC usually spent more on the consultant Then the super PAC usually spent more on the consultant than the super PAC actually raised. What? So generally there's all kinds of ways for this to happen but often consultants make

a percentage of the total fundraising effort right so 10 percent 15 percent it's a commission. Okay that's fair. There might be a flat fee other people do it in In this case, the commission was, if it was a commission, would have been well over 100% of everything that the Super PAC raised. And so a couple, a couple points here to be fair to everyone involved. So the first thing is the Super PAC is not the campaign. To be fair to people getting 110% commission, we have to be fair. All right, go ahead. I'm sorry. There's nuance. And you know, the super PAC gave us this response and also the consultant himself gave us this response So first I should point out that super PACs are not campaigns and legally they cannot coordinate So so Mayor Suarez pointed us to the PAC and

Said ask them because legally that would be what you would have to do. He shouldn't know. The second thing is that the fundraiser said he wasn't raising money for the PAC. He was actually raising money for the campaign which is incredibly unusual. I don't want to say unheard of but incredibly unusual because they're not supposed to coordinate. But in this case, there was a very tricky little thing that was one of the downfalls of Mayor Suarez's campaign for president, and that was the RNC to get on the debate stage.

You had to have 40,000 individual donors, which is a lot for someone that is not well nationally known. And there were some other requirements too. And so the argument from the PAC and from this fundraiser, Ryan Coyne, was that they were attempting to make the Suarez campaign go viral in order to raise those 40,000 donors. So while this is still an extraordinary amount of money, if you were to divide 2.2 million by 40,000,

that's a lot for every donation. Their argument was this was worth it. It was absolutely necessary in order to meet this. The ROI was there is the argument. OK, I'm sorry. Did you say the fundraiser's name is Ryan Coin? Is that a cryptocurrency or is that a human being? Ryan Coin owns a company called starboard LLC out of Virginia used to be Olympic media and

He recently the company acquired parlor. So not Bitcoin, but one of the other tech world. Sure. Okay, so Ryan coin would you like to buy some Ryan coin Roy? No Ryan coin would you like to buy some Ryan coin Roy? No. Okay. All right. I was just when I'm looking for that's what I was looking for. Sarah Blaskey miami herald com there has been no dearth of spectacular characters and stories out of the city of Miami which is just one of 34 municipalities in Dade County certainly the largest but like one of my favorite characters who has come after me as well is who I refer to as a city attorney and mob lawyer, Vicky Mendez. I call her a mob lawyer because she doesn't exactly follow the law as much as she comes up

or attempts to come up with legal justifications for every corrupt or illegal thing that the city government does. And so she had a very bad week last week. Your story about her, the headline was, Miami city attorney investigated by Florida Bar over ties to alleged house flipping scheme. In the interest of full disclosure, there was two bar complaints that you were writing about, which we'll get into, but tell me a little bit.

We've talked about on this show before this scheme that Vicky Mendez or Tricky Vicky, as she's known in the city, and her husband have been involved in this kind of house flipping scheme that appears to prey on elderly homeowners using the work of a county charity to kind of force them out of their house, and before the homes are ever listed, they appear to swoop in and at under market value

buy them, refurbish them without ever pulling the appropriate permits, allegedly, and then flip them sometimes like the same day or the same week or the same month for like hundreds or even thousands of percent profit. So what is this bar complaint all about? Sure. So the city attorney in the city of Miami, Victoria Mendez, is she's facing a lawsuit about exactly what you described, a situation where someone said that they weren't given the proper context and that she had worked behind the scenes with her husband, who runs this other company to buy their home at below market value and then flip it and make a

huge amount of profit. And the allegation is that this is an exploitative scheme. This is a corrupt practice because she has extra information. She's preying on vulnerable people. This is all spelled out in the legal complaint. And then of course there is the WLRN, the NPR affiliate in Miami here, who they did a fabulous investigation last year that dug into this particular program that you were mentioning about. There's a county program basically that helps people pay their bills, their medical bills and whatnot by selling their house. If you have no other option, here's a way to pay your bills. Here's a way to get through.

The argument is that the city attorney was profiting. Her family was profiting off of this program. So that is also involved here. And sometime last year, someone, and we don't know who, made a complaint to the Florida bar saying, you know, hey, look at this lawsuit. And they started investigating. We know that that was before April 9. We don't know when it started, but before April 9, 2023, it's been going at least that long. But the news just broke. We didn't know. And it's not actually that common for bar complaints to be made public.

And certainly not at this part of the investigation, which is considered confidential. So it's unusual to find out what exactly is happening behind the scenes. In this case, it was attorney Mendez herself who told us at the Herald that when we asked her about what the bar complaint was about, she said,

well, it's about this lawsuit that was brought against me. And then also the WLRN investigation. So that's one. And I'll get to that second complaint. Well, I don't want to jump in here. I want to make sure we're running out of time that first complaint that you're talking about came to light while I was filing my own complaint against Miami City Attorney Tricky Vicky Mendez in the interest of full disclosure. And that is as a result of the now viral meltdown. To be fair, Tricky Vicky has been having an ongoing meltdown for like several weeks,

if not months. Now in what you might remember, Roy, she called me. You are a vile little man. Yes, she did. At a city commission meeting. And so I filed that bar complaint about her lack of decorum, her unprofessional misconduct. And that was the second bar complaint

that was covered in this Miami Herald article. Sarah, before we go, I do want to play a clip. That same day that you published your story last week about Vicky Mendez and the bar complaints. She appeared at a hearing in the lawsuit that we were just talking about, and continuously, repeatedly, not only interrupted the judge. She was pretty chill in mild manner,

but was interrupting her own attorney and was filibustering and making political speeches. The judge had to multiple times try to regain kind of order and decorum in his Zoom courtroom. And here's one of those scenes. This has been, you know, you're trying to hurt my family, hurt me trying to say that I did something wrong. Whatever he said at that hearing, whatever he said at that hearing. I have nothing to do with this property. I had nothing to do except doing my job. When someone calls me and asks me about a property.

Your Honor, I have to answer this. No, it is not a problem. Now I've been forced to mute you. You refuse to stop talking when I'm trying to address you. So please listen carefully if a witness refuses to listen to the court not only can they be silenced but they can be removed from the courtroom but i did not think it was productive to remove the witness from the courtroom

she can behave herself are a file contempt on Zoom? Behave yourself. Hang on, hang on. I have a I have a a card for that. Where is it? You goddamn right, meatball. That's right. Meanwhile, I can relate to that. Roy's always muting my my microphone. That's true. How can I help? So I am helping. What is, what is, myself, how can I help myself is more like it. What a scene. Clearly, this things are not going well in the city of Miami and Sarah Blaskey is doing her best to shine a light on it all

as the cockroaches scatter. And before we go, we have a top five Roy with Sarah Blaskey because but I don't know how she's able to narrow this down, but we have a top five Miami city officials that are under criminal investigation. I got to start here by saying we have to narrow it further than that. Oh, under criminal investigation that started by the Miami Dade SAO. So the state attorney's office. All right. So starting at five, four, three, all in one go here.

So five, four, three are Manolo Reyes, Alex Diaz de la Cortilla, and Joe Corio. They were all the subject of a complaint by former police chief, Art Acevedo. And that complaint or that memo, I should say, was the subject of an ongoing investigation that was kicked from Miami-Dade County to the Broward SAO, basically alleging that there was a misuse of their public office.

That's ongoing. We don't know what's happening. Those are 543. All right. On to two. We have Alex Diaz de la Portilla. A second time, of course, he ends up behind bars briefly in an orange jumpsuit last year for a different bribery allegation.

He's facing charges of bribery for that one. Since he was already named, we're gonna call a second two here. That's also commissioner. I get to do this, it's in the rule book. So it's tie? Oh, it's a tie. There's a tie. Is it tie. There's a tie.

Is it a tie? There is a tie. So number two, second number two is Sabina Coveau. This is former Commissioner Sabina Coveau recently as of this past Saturday, we learned that she is also under investigation by the State Attorney's Office. This one for an alleged bribery kickback scene where she was allegedly trying to solicit endorsements during the runoff race in the November election. She did not win that race. This is an open investigation. It was also kicked to Broward for conflicts of interest

between some witness in this case, we're not exactly sure who, and the state attorney's office, Catherine Fernandez-Brundle here in Miami. So number one, our first place here, this is Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez started this investigation, began as an investigation into his relationship with Rishi Kapoor, a developer that had swars on the payroll while the mayor's office was sort of getting involved with a zoning issue that investigation has subsequently broadened.

And now it's into a lot of the mayor's side gigs throughout his tenure, including Redivider, the company at the beginning, the tech company that was trying to partner with the company seeking city business. So that's number one. And yet, Catherine Fernandez-Rundle, the Miami-Dade State Attorney, who's recused herself from all of these other investigations involving the city of Miami, has yet to recuse herself from that, which we will talk about the next time you're on the program, because this is really the crux of everything we talk about on this show, because Miami is Catherine Fernandez-Rundle, the lead prosecutor in Miami-Dade County

for the last 30 years. That's three-zero and up again for reelection. This year, Roy, is there anything more fun than when someone does a top five for the very first time on this show? It's just chaos. It's just absolute chaos. And by the way, there are outside looking in

because Sarah, if we broaden the horizon to be like Florida bar investigations or ethics investigations, there's even more people and more officials at the city of Miami who are under investigation. But this is your little Twitter account, little Billy. So we won't get into that right now. Maybe next time. Sarah Blaskey, MiamiHerald.com.

Thanks as always for being here. Thank you. The MiamiHerald.com MiamiHerald.com MiamiHerald.com MiamiHerald.com MiamiHerald.com Going viral this week Roy, I don't know if you saw it, there is a MiamiDade County public schools parent or legal guardian permission form.

Yeah, I saw that shit. Terrible. It's on screen now. The activity or event name is called Read Aloud. And the description or nature of the activity or the event is that students will participate and listen to a book written by an African-American. This is, of course, Black History Month.

And apparently, according to Florida state law, in the free state of Florida, by the way, Roy, you need a permission slip signed by a parent or legal guardian in order to hear a book read aloud that is written by an African-American author. So while we're not banning books, we are limiting access to books written by, well, not just particular people,

but particular races of people. People who are not white. I think that's the fairest way of putting that. Joining us now, Jason Garcia, friend of the show. He's an independent journalist seeking rents, fl.com. He covers how big business influences public policy in Florida, which is basically in every conceivable way. Isn't that right, Jason?

Welcome back to the program. We can segue right away here. It's like speaking of racism in the state of Florida, there is a bill actively making its way through the limited time that the Florida legislature has every year to actually do the work of the people of Florida and that is to block the removal of Confederate Monuments and in fact to if I'm not mistaken Jason. What does this do this punishes people who try to remove? What what the hell is this?

Yeah, that's right And just to give you an idea of how important is the the Florida Senate Senate worked late one night last week, and that was on this particular bill, which would essentially prevent cities and counties from removing publicly owned statues or other memorials that honor Confederate war figures or other supporters of slavery. It goes so far as if you have like a local city council person that votes to do this anyway It they get hit with a per with a fine that they have to pay out of their like own personal funds So it like personally penalizes anybody who tries to remove a civil war statute. Why? Well because I think

You know the supporters would say it's about protecting American history not bad about any particular history But what was interesting about this late night meeting? Is is a guy actually right right quit Roy's leaf? African-American history that's exactly right system, but they want to keep the Confederacy Right. Yeah, they wanna ban black history and they wanna celebrate slavery. I think that's a perfectly fair and I would say- They wanna celebrate traders.

Absolutely, people who committed sedition and revolution and violence against the United States and tried to destroy the United States. Hashtag because Miami. Jason, I'm sorry, you were saying? That's right. And what was wild about this is because, again, the talking points from Republicans carrying this bill are about, this is about all history. We're just trying to protect history.

A guy showed up at the meeting to testify and supported this bill, and he said the quiet part out loud. He said, we need this bill because we need to protect the culture war being waged on white society. And just in case there was any confusion about what he meant by this, he was asked, are you supporting white supremacy? And he was like, yes, yes I am. I don't want to interrupt. I want to show, not tell. We have this clip here from this committee meeting that is chaired in fact by Florida state senator from Miami Alexis Kaladiyud and this guy is a fan of history by the way but only are mostly the slavery part. I'm speaking in favor of this because I am a student of

history. This dispute that you're seeing right now is an extension of what was left of the Civil War after the shooting ended. The shooting ended in 1865, but the Cultural War has continued ever since. And that's exactly what you are asking, you're looking at in everyday lives of Floridians that are being affected by this. Now this product of removal of a statues that have historic significance that are over a hundred years old is part of the culture of war being waged against white society. And I'll tell you who else are the targets of this. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Francis Scott Key. Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. Thank you and thank you for your comments. I want to ask you a question. You said that you're a historian and you spoke to the importance of teaching history. Yes.

Are you in support of teaching racism, sexism and oppression as a part of that history? No, I am not. And in fact I I'm opposed to critical race theory, which is what this whole thing is based on. I never said critical race theory. I said it because that's exactly what this, your actions are based on. Excuse me, sir, that type of conversation to a member of the Senate will not be appropriate.

I have a question. I do not believe people who support this policy share your perspective on supporting white culture or supporting the concept of the need to push white supremacy is what I heard. White culture, white supremacy. So I just want to clarify that was your intent in your public testimony today. Yes, it was. Thank you, sir.

By the way, for the audio audience, he looks exactly how it sounds. Yeah, like a racist old coot. They could probably draw him just from the sound of his voice. So what's amazing, he was reading from prepared remarks, by the way. He knew exactly what he wanted to say. Oh, he wrote it down.

We're gonna do a top five here of like the shittiest and dumbest laws that they are wasting time in the state capital of Tallahassee right now trying to pass while all of us are suffering here. I mean, we got the insurance rates. I mean, if you can get insurance, inflation, we are like ground zero for the worst of everything in this country.

And nobody seems to be doing anything about it. So the question is, Jason, what are they doing about it? Actually, I want to put this up on screen real quick. This is the Republican legislative agenda. By the way, the Republicans have a super majority in Florida. So I don't even have to say Republicans. Like when we say legislature, it is Republicans. They run the entire state top to bottom. There was this leaked legislative agenda, Jason, from

some meeting that like nothing here really impacts our life. It's their top 10 legislative priorities for 2024. And it is like disconnected entirely from like the reality of what we are living here in Florida. It's mostly culture war, bullshit, and distractions that affect nobody. And I guess basically it's just raw meat for their donors and base to get reelected, but we all have real problems. Their base has real problems that they're not addressing.

So Jason, let's do your top five of the worst bills working their way through. In fact, I'm sorry, what happened from that committee meeting? Yeah, yeah, so it was just two things. One, all this stuff exists to distract people from the fact that while they protect Confederate statues and sort of ban books written by black people, they're also cutting wages for workers.

They're also giving away rights of insurance policyholders to insurance companies. They're doing nothing to bring down the cost of insurance. So that's the real value of these culture warfights is they distract from all the corporate stuff they're doing. And what was remarkable about this hearing is it didn't show up in this clip, but right before this meeting ended,

a couple of folks made a point of really sort of expressing how disgusted they were by this guy and they did not agree with his remarks and they were abhorred by it and then they did exactly what he wanted them to do and they voted for the bill right so it passed out of this committee so we are still on track in Florida to preserve Confederate statues because of the guys like that. Crystal fascist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nazis are his base. Yeah, so we had we we we disowned this guy. We have nothing to do with this guy. We do not agree with anything he said,

and we're going to vote for exactly what he wants us to vote for. Maga Taz, Jason Garcia, top five worst bills working their way through the Florida legislature this session. OK, this is going to be where I thought of this as the most absurd bills because top five worst is just a really hard thing to do. So number five, murdering black bears. Why is it going to be black bears, Jason? That's the bears that are around to murder, basically.

This is, I'm not even joking. This is stand your ground but for black bears and it will allow people to shoot a black bear if they feel threatened or if they feel their home is threatened. Can we just do ballpark here? Percentage of Floridians impacted by insurance, whether it's property insurance, car insurance, what percentage would you say? You know, I'm going to say you're getting pretty close to 100% impacted by insurance percentage of Floridians impacted by black bears I'm gonna guess one one thousandth of one one thousandth of one percent. Do you think the insurance covers the black bears? damage to the property

That's right Yeah, this is tort reform number four number four Teaching communism to kindergartners Number four. Number four. Teaching Communism to Kindergarteners. I'm sorry, they can't even read books by black authors without getting 17 signatures from parents and legal guardians. What do they want to teach? Communism to Kindergarteners?

Why? They want to teach about the evils of Communism to Kindergarteners. And sort of what gives away the game here is the initial version of this bill specifically said we had to teach them about cultural Marxism which uh... which is a right wing conspiracy theory is not like an actual academic about Jews that basically june's are the og communists and we need to stop these jues from poisoning the minds of our children am i wrong that's that that's the root of it yes and so that was in the original version

of this bill and i was reading this article on clickorlando.com with a quote from Jay Collins, the state senator who I think filed this bill where he says that examples of other communist movements other than Cuba, for example, provided in the bill include the Third Reich of Nazi Germany, not communists, by the way, not... Comunists!

Comunists! And here's the quote from Collins. Yeah, sorry, worry. Hold on for a second. So, critical race theory is a collegiate course, correct? They're trying to teach communism to kindergartners. But make sense. The evils of communism,

because this is what the bills filer and primary sponsor Florida Senator Jay Collins said, quote, frankly there is no benefit to communism. It leads to the same inevitable stain on the human experience period. Loss of life, pain, trauma, families destroyed. Yeah, six year olds look at that. What about slavery that they don't wanna teach?

What about crony capitalism, which is a real threat every single day in this country, in this community? There's no communist threat in this country. Nobody wants communism. It's ridiculous. Yeah, and Billy, you've got to be careful of a communist regime because one of the things they might end up doing is stopping me from reading books written by black people. Oh, and what about, right, censors, government censor, big government censorship. They might tell women what they can do with their bodies and doctors what they can do for their patients. Loss of life, pain, trauma, families destroyed. What about marijuana prohibition is responsible for all of those things

and they don't want to have a real conversation about decriminalization or legalization of it's so hypocritical. It's so repugnant to me, and I don't even know what number we're on, I'm so pissed about this. It doesn't make sense. If you wanna talk conservative values and small government, that's what I'm talking about right now. Why is the government interceding in,

I'm sorry Jason, I don't even know that I know how to count because I'm a product of the Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Number three. Number three, banning lab grown meat in Florida. I'm sorry, Jason. I don't even know that I know how to count because I'm a product of the Miami-Dade County Puppets School. Number three. Number three. Banting lab-grown meat in Florida. Don't play this. Don't play the Tadah for that. What the hell is that? What does that even mean? So thank you. This bill, again, we're doing the most absurd bills. This bill is just utterly Stupid there is you know a bunch of venture capital is is being poured into cell cultivated meat

It's sort of seen as a way to like raise meat in a climate friendly way and without like slaughtering animals eventually But a bunch of Republican legislators want to ban it before it can start and it's it's kind of like this perfect marriage of Prone capitalism to protect the beef and poultry industries, but also with like MAGA culture work, because this is basically like, don't you be bringing that hippy meat coming after my steak? Ha ha ha ha!

More like crony carnivorism. I mean, what like, I don't even, oh, that, that deserves something really. Thank you. Priorities, priorities in the free state of Florida. Number two, Jason. Number two, criminalizing homelessness. So let me get this straight.

Rents are out of control. Worst housing market in the country here. I mean, while inflation has been coming down in every other state and major city in the union, here it's through the roof. Insurance through everything. People are losing their homes and out on the streets because of the incompetence and lack of attention

from this government. And now it's like, well, you can't be in a house and you can't be out of a house. Like what does this do, this bill? Yeah, this is actually probably the most duplicitous bill of session. Because it doesn't like technically criminalize homelessness.

But what it says is basically local governments can't let anybody sleep on public property. The only place they can put them are in these camps, but these camps have to meet a bunch of conditions and it provides no funding for them. And it also empowers any neighboring property owner to sue if they don't want the camp there. So it basically says, you know, you got to round up all these homeless people and it also empowers any neighboring property owner to sue if they don't want the camp there. So it basically says, you know, you gotta round up all these homeless people and it doesn't really tell you what to do with them. And so the, essentially people are gonna end up in jail.

Would these be camps that effectively they could go and think about their lives? They can kind of concentrate on what it is that is, you know, bothering them and concentrate. Like concentration camps where they can really think these things over do I want to know number one Jason or should we just quit while we're behind. I think we got to do number one we've come this far together.

So number one rolling back child labor laws. Well at least my daughter can have a job now at six years old. On a construction site. Well, what kind of, what kind of, what kind of, what, huh? What? Huh? Yeah, there's a, there's a, apparently a class of the Florida legislature that yearns for the days of Charles Dickens, but there are, there are actually a bunch of bills around

this. One would roll back the hours kids can work and essentially allow employers to make high school kids work 40 hour work weeks while they're in school or work a 12 hour work day the night before a school day. And then there's a separate bill, and this one is written directly by shockingly the home building industry that would allow home builders

to use as many 16 and 17 year olds as they want on residential construction sites. Well, on the upside, children can now build houses for the homeless. So everybody's a winner. Everybody's a winner. And the other irony, we didn't talk about, obviously this is the Florida legislature,

so there's a pile of bills moving to like demagogue immigrants and make their lives harder to essentially drive them out of the state. And that's what you're seeing here, right? They've passed a number of really anti-immigrant policies last few years. And so you've had farm workers and construction companies, particularly complaining they can't find workers. So what's the solution?

Give them more kids to work. And what's crazy, of course, is they do this under the guise of like crime prevention. But reality, immigrants are the lifeblood of the economy, of not just the state of Florida, but really the country. These are quite literally jobs that no Americans want to do. When you look at agriculture and hospitality and service industry jobs, this is where a lot of these folks are. That is the economy of the entire state.

Jason Garcia, it's always depressing to see you and to speak with you. SeekingRenceFL.com is just fantastic and compelling. And as depressing as this is, it also is incredibly interesting. I see a headline from you on social media or on your sub-stack every single day that makes my head just explode. Thank you for what you do. Keep it up. Oh, thanks very much.

That means a lot coming from you. Roy, you know there is yet another lawsuit filed against Miami Commissioner Joe Corrillo. There's more? There's more? Of course there's more. God damn right, meatball. The latest one is pretty bad because this one says that when he lost that other lawsuit and was found to have violated the constitutional rights of business owners in the city and effectively violated the charter of the city of Miami, that he then violated the citizens

bill of rights that calls for his immediate removal. So as soon as that other verdict was certified, he theoretically under the city charter of Miami should be removed from office. And at the last city commission meeting, Joe got a little visit from a process server. Hashtag because Miami. Cocanes.

Morning. Good morning, Madam Chair. My name is Jose Mejia. I'm a process server, Joe Coroio. I was summoned to complain for you to have you removed from office, providing the city chair. Sir. You can accept service. Yes, ma'am. Please step away from the podium. That is not on the agenda. If you are here to do a service or process, please do that. Step to the side. It's here. Thank you. Thank you, Joe Coroio. Good bye. to the side. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. decision, there are a few wonderful moments that I value more than Miller Time on this

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