Free testing available at County Hall next week
We’re No. 1! But we probably don’t want to be this time.
Miami-Dade is the nation’s leader in new HIV cases reported every year, according to the Center for Disease Control.  In fact, the county has had the highest annual rate of newly diagnosed HIV infections of all cities and counties in the United States monitored by the CDC since at least 2017 (42.9 cases per 100 000 residents back then). According to the Florida Department of Health, one in 82 adults in Miami-Dade County were known to be living with HIV in 2022.
This week, the Miami-Dade County Commission instructed the mayor to apply for up to $73.4 million in federal grants to test and treat people for and with HIV.
“Miami-Dade County once again leads the nation in new HIV cases,” said Commissioner Rene Garcia, who has been working to bring the number of HIV cases down for years, since his days in the state senate. “I think it’s important for us as a board to come together and the community to come together to see how we confront this epidemic once again in our community.”
Garcia told his colleagues on Tuesday that black and Hispanic women are the ones who are currently most affected and that he is going to work on some kind of awareness program through the healthcare community.
“We need to do a lot better job in making sure our people are tested and get them treatment,” Garcia said.

The resolution approved Tuesday retroactively authorizes the county mayor or her designee to apply for a combined total of up to $73,402,688 in Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative (EHE) funds from the United States Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (HHS) and expend them during a five year period from March 1 this year through Feb. 28, 2030. The funds would address Pillar Two (treat people with HIV rapidly and effectively to reach sustained viral suppression) and Pillar Four (respond quickly to potential HIV outbreaks to get prevention and treatment services to people who need them) of this initiative, according to the memo attached to the resolution.
At the same time, the commission approved the authorization of a one-year extension of existing contracts providing services already “in anticipation of this grant award” to “ensure that client services are not unnecessarily disrupted while a new RFP can be developed.”

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It’s been 19 days. Less than three weeks ago, President Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, the de facto leader of the free world. But it seems like it’s been several months already. Maybe a year.
Ladra is exhausted. Numb. Scared. Angry. Dumbfounded. All at the same time. People are calling it emotional whiplash.
It’s weird that it keeps getting worse, even though you think it can’t get worse.
It couldn’t get worse than calling it the Gulf of America. Then it couldn’t get worse than approving immigration raids at schools and churches and hospitals. Then it couldn’t get worse when he rescind the 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity Act. Then it couldn’t get worse than the dumbest trade war in U.S. history, maybe world history. Then it couldn’t get worse than calling Canada a potential 51st state of the union. Then it couldn’t get worse than abolishing the Department of Education. Then it couldn’t get worse than proposing we “own” Gaza and redeveloping it into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” as if it were some real estate deal.
Then, Thursday, Russell Vought, co-author of Project 2025 — remember when Trump said he knew nothing about it? — was confirmed as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, which often goes under the radar but can be key in implementing Project 2025, er, the president’s agenda. As has become the norm, it was a totally partisan vote.
“Confirming the most radical nominee, who has the most extreme agenda, to the most important agency in Washington,” is what Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called it in a floor speech. “Triple-header of disaster for hardworking Americans.”
It shouldn’t be surprising anymore and to some degree, it’s not. People have Trump fatigue. Our news alerts have never come in so fast and furious. Mental health experts are urging us to shut off notifications.
“Trump officials eye daily migrant detainee flights to Guantanamo Bay.”
“Illinois locked in legal battles with Trump administration over immigration policy.”
“Trump imposes sanctions on International Criminal Cout for investigating Israel.”
“Trump’s tariffs will raise the roof on home prices.”
“How Elon Musk boosted false USAID conspiracy theories to shut down global aid.”
“Miami-Dade teacher with DACA faces deportation after being detained by Ice.”
That’s just a small sampling over a 24-hour period.
The last one is about a middle school science teacher in Miami-Dade, a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, otherwise known as a DREAMer (someone brought to the country as a child), who had gone to a regularly scheduled immigration hearing, which is the process to legalize one’s status. This is someone who was raised here, educated here and certified here to teach our children. In other words, not a criminal.
Miami-Dade Public Schools, preparing for the impending raids, saying that student information is protected and that immigration officials can only enter a school campus if they have a judicial warrant.
This rapid fire of changes and information is a strategy, folks. They call it “flood the zone” and it is meant to overwhelm the media and public opinion so they can sneak shit in.
Did anybody catch the fact that Trump signed an executive order Tuesday pulling out of the United Nations Human Rights Council? Probably not. But it makes sense. He’s violating human rights right here in America, so why be a hypocrite?
Did you know that hours after her confirmation, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi created a “weaponization working group” to review all the cases against Trump? Let’s call it a political retaliation group because that’s what it is.
And while we were busy reeling at the crazy confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, nobody paid attention to the fact that employees at the new Elon Musk DOGE department were told to stop using a team communication platform called Slack at work until they can transition to a different platform that is “not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.” They don’t want anyone to know what they’re up to.
That’s the whole philosophy behind this “flood the zone” rapid fire strategy: Get people so confused and exhausted that they can’t really see the big picture. But we have to resist. We must stay vigilant.
Drink more coffee. Take your vitamins. Do whatever you have to do to stay on top of the Trump administration and its efforts to dismantle our democracy.
It’s only been 19 days. We have 1,442 days to go. At least.
The post President Trump intentionally sows chaos fatigue, a ‘flood the zone’ strategy appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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With Hialeah Mayor Esteban “Steve” Bovo‘s pending departure from public service to become a Washington D.C. lobbyist — because his relationship with Secretary of State Marco Rubio is suddenly very valuable — there is wide speculation about who might run for the post this year now that it’s become an open seat.
Council President Jacqueline Garcia-Roves will serve as interim mayor until November — which Ladra bets nobody thought about when they made her council president. She is the first female mayor in the City of Progress. But not for long. Nobody expects her to run for the permanent job.
Former Councilman Bryan Calvo — who resigned to run for tax collector, losing in the Republican primary to Dariel Fernandez, who went on to win the general — has become the first candidate to jump into the race. City Clerk Marbelys Fatjo confirmed Thursday that Calvo had submitted an “Appointment of Campaign Treasurer and Designation of Campaign Depository for Candidates form designating Mayor as the Office Sought.”
Other potentials that have been mentioned are Miami-Dade Commissioner Rene Garcia and Hialeah Councilman Jesus Tundidor. Either or, but not both, because Tundidor will likely run for county commission in District 13 if Garcia runs for mayor.
Garcia did not return calls from Political Cortadito, but he told the Miami Herald, which first reported Bovo’s move, that he was in a wait and see mode. “Until I hear from Steve Bovo directly on what he is or isn’t doing, there’s no point in me discussing what I may or may not be doing,” Garcia is quoted as saying.
Many observers say he’d be an immediate front runner.
Longtime campaign consultant and former Hialeah Absentee Ballot Queen Sasha Tirador — who now dedicates herself to a podcast called The Sasha View (with 6.8K subscribers!) — thinks it is highly likely that Garcia, a former state senator, gets in.
“No one remembers county commissioners. Nobody remembers state legislators,” Tirador told Political Cortadito. “This is the time to set his legacy.
“He loves the city. He hates injustices and he loves Hialeah,” Tirador added. “This is the city he grew up in.
“Rene Garcia is an old school politician. And old school politicians care about legacy,” she said.
She also called Calvo a “clown.”
Calvo, who is likely to cast himself as the anti-Bovo candidate, told Political Cortadito that although he lost the Republican primary for tax collector last August, he won in all the Hialeah precincts. “And this was with Steve Bovo sending out mailers and radio adds endorsing my opponent.
“Obviously, it still didn’t make up for other places in the county, but it shows that what I’ve done for three years as councilman resonated with the people.
“I have a track record,” Calvo said.
Read related: Hialeah mayor, councilman clash over tax collector election endorsement
That includes voting against water increases and taxes and getting into an infamous fight with Bovo over the city’s 911 response time. In 2023, Calvo sued Bovo to get records from the beleaguered 911 center (it was dismissed in January of last year).
The deadline to qualify for the Hialeah Nov. 4 election is 5 p.m. Monday, July 28.
If Garcia jumps to Hialeah, the District 13 seat becomes open and there will likely be a special election to fill it. As Ladra said earlier, Tundidor might go for that. But he won’t be alone. Las malas lenguas say that State Rep. Alex Rizo and Miami-Dade School Board Member Roberto Alonso are possibilities. Either, or, because both are represented by David Custin, the political consultant who represents Bovo.
There is also a promised upcoming special election to replace Miami-Dade Commmissioner Kevin Cabrera, who should shortly be approved as the U.S. Ambassador to Panama. State Sen. Bryan Avila is said to be eyeing that one, but so is West Miami Mayor Eric Diaz-Padron, West Miami Vice Mayor Natalie Milian Orbis –who happens to be wife of Cabrera’s office Chief of Staff Manuel Orbis — and Francisco Petrirena, who is the director of the city of Miami’s government relations department.
Let the dominos fall where they may.
 
The post Bryan Calvo becomes first candidate to file for November Hialeah mayor’s race appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Florida State Rep. and House Speaker Daniel “Danny” Perez attended some of the inauguration festivities in Washington D.C. last month, as did many other South Florida electeds who were there. But Perez flew to DC in a private jet with fundraiser Brian Goldmeier and several political influencers, including John Ruiz, the University of Miami booster who wanted to build a stadium at Tropical Park and who is under federal investigation for fraud.
Perez would not comment on the flight and refused to answer any questions about the passengers and whether or not he was provided the air transportation via an in-kind donation or gift. He referred all inquiries from Political Cortadito to his deputy chief of staff, Amelia Angleton, who also did not return phone calls and text messages. Ladra has given her lots of time told Ladra Friday morning that the Speaker paid for his flight. She said that “there was no legislative business” on the trip so the office has no further information on who was paid and how much. It was a personal flight and he paid personally, she told Political Cortadito.
Maybe Perez has been too busy fighting with Gov. Ron DeSantis on the immigration bill that is likely to be vetoed. Perez, who didn’t even agree with having a special session, went on Jim DeFede’s Facing South Florida show last weekend to defend the bill that the legislature passed to “disincentivize” illegal immigration and blast DeSantis and his own version of the bill, which was rejected.

“The problem is he has two years left and unfortunately he is trying to stay in a place of relevance,” Perez said about DeSantis, reminding viewers that DeSantis lost in the primary to Donald Trump, “one of the greatest presidents this country has ever had.
Read related: Rep. Danny Perez enters Miami-Dade politics — as precursor to mayoral run?
“At this point, there’s no time for pride and ego. We just have to find a solution that gets us to the end point, and the governor is getting in the way of stopping illegal immigration in the state of Florida,” Perez said, also blasting the guv’s idea to appoint an immigration czar. “He wants to appoint some bureaucrat inside his office, not elected by the people, so he has all the power.
“This is about Ron DeSantis wanting to be the deporter in chief and the legislature wanting it to be President Trump.”
Perez sounds like he’s still high from the trip to the capitol.
There are rules about accepting gifts that are valued at more than $100 as an elected Florida official. Perez may have would have had to report the flights as a gift if he didn’t pay for it — or if it wasn’t his plane. Ruiz has a private jet, a Boeing. Ladra is still waiting to hear from Angleton who the Speaker paid for the flight and how much it cost.
Ladra doesn’t recognize all the people aboard on the flight, but Ruiz is the guy on the left in gray. He is a University of Miami booster whose Coral Gables based company, LifeWallet, is being investigated by federal authorities, according to the firm’s recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year. It has been characterized as a Ponzi scheme. Federal civil and criminal subpoenas have sought corporate documents about the company’s data analytics as well as its stock price decline, marketing materials and agreements offered to potential investors.
Goldmeier’s wife, LSN Partners Chief Operating Officer Nicole Gomez Goldmeier, was also on the flight, which served as a gender reveal party for their impending parenthood. It’s a boy, by the way. ¡Felicidades!

Also on the private jet ride was Mexican actor and “Catholic” activist Eduardo Varestegui, who is MAGA’s man in Mexico, even though he could not gather the signatures necessary to run for president (he tried).
Varestegui was a member of the boy band Kairo before going solo and embarking on an acting career and then political life.
One of Ladra’s followers on the platform formerly known as Twitter identified the two flanking in front as Sean and Ana Wolfington. Sean Wolfington is a technology entrepreneur with businesses in the automotive, ad-tech and film industries. He is founder and chairman of CarSaver, a mobile auto buying platform that is Walmart’s exclusive partner for auto sales, finance and insurance. The person identifying them said they are good people and probably don’t know how dirty Ruiz is.
But Perez should. He willingly went on this private jet with Ruiz knowing the trouble he’s been in.
And then, he didn’t want to talk about it.
The post Florida Speaker Danny Perez takes private jet with insiders to inauguration appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Miami Commissioner Crazy Joe Carollo, accused of using the Bayfront Park Management Trust as his own personal piggy bank, has gone nuclear with his proposed solution: Abolish the agency altogether.
Sued last month for abusing his power and getting kickbacks in shady deals as chairman of the Bayfront Trust, Carollo put an item on the agenda for next week’s commission meeting would just get rid of the Trust and replace it with a new “Division of Bayfront Park and Maurice Ferre Park” within the Department of Parks and Recreation.
This wouldn’t protect the parks, of course. Everybody knows that Carollo is capable of weaponizing a city department against the citizens. He’s done it with the code enforcement and legal department. The parks department is a piece of cake.
It’s just a reaction to a discussion item that was placed on the agenda earlier by Commissioner Miguel Gabela about the chairmanship of the Bayfront Trust. Sources say he wants to be the chair. Sources also say he has the votes. Even Commissioner Damian Pardo would support Gabela becoming the char.
“He listens to people,” Pardo told Political Cortadito on Wednesday. “I think he’d do a good job, listening to downtowners. That’s all I want.”
Read related: Miami Joe Carollo Bayfront scandal snares Coral Gables pal Javier Baños
Pardo has never taken issue with Commissioner Manolo Reyes begin chairman of the Downtown Development Authority, which is also in his district. “Why would I? He’s doing a great job.
“There’s enough work to go around,” Pardo said.
Gabela did not return calls and texts from Ladra. But in an interview with The Miami Herald’s Tess Riski, he called his item a “vote of no confidence” in Carollo, who he said should “relinquish” his post because of the “controversy.”
Commissioner Miguel Gabela at a meeting in December
The controversy is a whistleblower complaint filed last month by two former employees — Jose Suarez, who lasted less than a year as executive director of the Trust, and Jose Canto, who lasted less than that as the new finance director — who say they were forced to resign after they uncovered irregularities in the accounting. Irregularities is being kind.
Carollo and Trustee Javier Baños, who is Carollo’s personal and campaign accountant and probably knows a bunch about his finances, are both named in the civil complaint, which has detailed accounts about the “lack of proper accounting practices and procedures that enabled Carollo to (a) use the Trust’s funds to pay for Carollo’s own political ventures; (b) use the Trust’s funds to support Carollo’s District 3 Political Office (c) use the Trust’s funds to pay and overpay Carollo’s political allies; (d) use the Trust’s funds to overpay Carollo’s District 3 Social Media provider, (e) waste the Trust’s funds on a 2007 Vet mobile that was never used and that had a suspicious and seemingly untraceable past; and e) seek to use the Trust funds to pay for Carollo’s Holiday Party.
“Together, these wrongful expenditures totaled hundreds of thousands of dollars of misused and wasted Trust funds in less than one year, and Carollo has Chaired the Trust for the past eight years without any legitimate oversight,” the complaint states.
The allegations in the lawsuit should have led to multiple criminal investigations already. It should definitely be the nail in the coffin for Carollo’s rule at the Trust.
Read related: New petition drive aims to oust Miami’s Joe Carollo from Bayfront Park Trust
“And if Carollo wants to go to battle with me because of that, we’ll go to battle,” Gabela is quoted as saying in the Herald article.
Fun. There’s going to be a battle at the commission meeting Thursday.
This would be at least the second time Gabela raises the issue, after talking about changing the chairmanship last June (it was deferred). Back then, Carollo said he would step down in January. This past January. There was also a petition from downtown residents and others last year, asking for his resignation as the chair.
“All of us are elected for a certain time. That’s why we have term limits, so new fresh ideas can come in,” Carollo said, reminding everyone that he had about 17 months left in his term and suggesting that the commission make the change six months later. He probably had more graft to make sure of.
“I think there should be a new chairman when we bring this up again in the first meeting in January,” Carollo said at the June 18 commission meeting, and you can hear and see it yourself in this video clip. “It is good government that whoever has the institutional knowledge stays on for those last 11 months so that whoever comes into the new position can have the ability or possibility, if they need it or want it, to go back to that institutional knowledge that the colleague had before.”
Without violating the Sunshine Law, of course.

So, what happened? January came and went and Carollo now wants to abolish the institution he once made look súper important. This is a regional park, after all, with events that impact and benefit the whole community, right?
Read related: Miami paid $150K for one long Joe Carollo commercial on New Year’s Eve
He’s being a petulant child, again. If he can’t have the Bayfront Trust for his own personal use, then nobody can. If he can’t play, he’s going to break the toy.
Luckily, Carollo won’t get away with it this time. It’s just too much already. Observers expect at least three votes in favor of making Gabela chair. Commission Chairwoman Christine King should join them and make it 4-1.
In fact, it is time to bring back Pardo’s idea from last year of overhauling the Trust and making the commissioners trustees, much like the community redevelopment agencies, with two additional members appointed from the downtown area. Gabela can still be chairman.
But Carollo should recuse himself, at least until the civil lawsuit and/or any completely appropriate criminal investigation is resolved.
The post Joe Carollo wants to abolish Miami’s Bayfront Park Management Trust appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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