After an October press conference on former Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo‘s controversial and politically-motivated dismissal, Mayor Francis Suarez left his talking points on a podium for all to see. Among the people copied on the email with the talking points and packaged answers to potential questions was Otto Boudet.

The name didn’t mean anything to Ladra but others noted that some high falutin’ developer type had gone to work in the mayor’s office.

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It isn’t enough for former Congressman Carlos Curbelo to be an NBC News political analyst and contributor. Now he wants to make it easier for us to smoke weed.
Curbelo is now the new strategic adviser to the Cannabis Trade Federation, a group comprised of cannabis business interests who have come together to advocate for looser pot laws. He will be raising funds, communicating the organization’s messages and helping with strategic planning (read: lobbying).
It his second job since he narrowly lost his re-election to Congresswoman Debbie Murcarsel-Powell in November, but he — or, rather, “his wife” — still owns Capitol Gains, a lobbying firm with a P.O. Box on Sunset Drive.
“During my time in Congress, I worked closely with the Cannabis Trade Federation,” Curbelo said in a statement issued by the group. “Today, I am joining CTF’s team because I know that they are the most effective cannabis industry lobby and that they have the resources, talent, and professional acumen needed to pass game-changing reform at the federal level.
Read related: Doctors and nurses say vote yes on medical marijuana
“In my home state of Florida, 71 percent voted in favor of legalizing medical cannabis, and voters in 33 states and D.C. have also decided to legalize cannabis in some capacity. This is a states’ rights issue. That’s why I was an original co-sponsor of the STATES Act and why I continue to support the goals of this legislation today,” Curbelo said, referring to legislation that would end the federal enforcement of marijuana regulations.
He also backed last year’s Medical Cannabis Research Act that would allow medical groups and universities to bypass marijuana laws to do research on its effects, and a data collection law. He will likely support both efforts through the organization’s lobbying.
“While CTF’s team has already established itself as the go-to cannabis industry organization in D.C., it is only half a year old,” Curbelo said. “I look forward to working with the other members of our talented Executive Team to ensure that the will of the people is heard and to help this organization continue to grow into the powerful association the cannabis industry needs.”
Read related: Poll indicates support is high for Florida medical marijuana
The Federation’s CEO, Neal Levine, obviously noticed Curbelo’s stance in Congress.
“As a member of our Executive Team, he will continue to be the voice of states’ cannabis rights and will be an essential part of our organization’s strategic growth,” Levine said in a statement. “It is an honor to have someone with Carlos’s impressive background and skill set on board.”
Curbelo becomes the second local Republican lawmaker to join the grass movement after leaving office. In 2014, former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla was named vice chairman of Florida For Care, a blue ribbon commission of doctors, patient advocates, law enforcement officers, educators and policy makers tasked with writing the legislative rules and regulations under which legalized medical marijuana would operate in the Sunshine State in the case that Amendment 2 passed.
Maybe running for office so much has gotten in the Dean’s way.

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Congressman Carlos Curbelo has made a big deal of the contributions collected by his first viable challenge since he beat former Congressman Joe Garcia in 2014. But his own money ain’t so clean.
Curbelo has taken at least $5,400 — $2,700 in 2016 and $2,700 again this past June — from billionaire conspiracy theorist Rex Sinquefield, who once said public schools were the product of the KKK while he worked to support private school vouchers, champion charter schools, and to bring an end to teacher tenure.
“A long time ago, decades ago, the Ku Klux Klan got together and said: ‘How can we really hurt the African American children permanently? How can we ruin their lives?’ And what they designed was the public school system,” Sinquefield said in a 2012 speech at a university in Missouri, where he is actively working to undermine the public school system.
It became quite a controversy and drew outrage from most if not all public officials and educators. Sinquefield is known as the equivalent of the Koch Brothers in Missouri, personally contributing more than $10 million to state and federal legislators that support his agenda.
Read related: Carlos Curbelo legacy in first term: Nod to cruise industry
Curbelo got money from another foe of public schools: Donald Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos contributed $1,000 to Curbelo when he ran for the Miami-Dade School Board.
This begs the question: Does Carlos Curbelo share the same disdain for public schools that they have?
Probably.
In 2014, when he was running against former Garcia in the primary, Curbelo bragged in a debate about cutting 1,000 jobs from our school district. In 2011, as a school board member, he voted on a budget that cut 280 jobs, including guidance counselors and college advisors.
Read related: Attack on Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is Carlos Curbelo being a hypocrite
There is a reason why the United Teachers of Dade have endorsed Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in the race for congressional district 26.
“We believe Debbie will make a difference in Congress by fully funding our public schools, supporting educational policies that put our students first and working to improve the lives of working people,” said UTD president Karla Hernandez-Mats.
“Every day, our teachers are working to improve the lives of over 350,000 children in Miami-Dade County. They deserve a representative who will fight for better schools and to ensure every student has a chance to fulfill their potential.”
That ain’t Carlos Curbelo.

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A new radio and TV ad in the highly contested race for congressional district 26 attacks Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by tying her husband to a Ukranian oligarch accused of bribery, embezzlement and even contract murders.
But the ad, which started airing last week, really only proves two things: One is that Carlos Curbelo and those who support him — like the Paul Ryan super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, that paid for the attack ads — are very worried about losing this seat in one of the most closely-watched and turnable contests in the nation.
The second is that Curbelo et al are hypocrites.
Read related: Primary elections bring few local surprises, leaving general on the hook
The ad bashes Debbie because her husband did legal work for Igor Kolomoisky, a billionaire banking magnate once called the Ukraine’s “secret weapon” because of a privately-funded army to fight off separatist forces.
“Mucarsel-Powell’s family got rich working off Kolomoisky’s businesses, and Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign has received thousands of contributions from Kolomoisky’s associates,” the narrator warns us in the 30-second spot. “Shady money from a shady foreign syndicate.”
But the ad doesn’t tell you how they know this. It’s because Mucarsel-Powell put it on her financial disclosure that her hubby got paid $700,000 in 2016 and 2017 from a Miami metals business whose parent company is partly owned by Kolomoisky. Her campaign has since said that any implication there was any actual connection or contact with Kolomoisky is an “enormous stretch” and Powell said in a statement that he never “worked for, represented, answered to, or received any payment from Mr. Kolomoisky at any time.”
But the point here is she disclosed it. Carlitos Curbelo could actually learn a lesson from that.
Read related: Carlos Curbelo hides lobbying client list under wife’s skirt
If you all will remember, Curbelo intentionally put his federal lobbying firm in his wife’s name before running for office precisely so he wouldn’t have to tell us who his clients were. He purposefully and very meticulously went through a process to hide his client list from us. Even after it was brought to his attention, he continued to hide his list of clients.
He had to admit to Jim DeFede that he represented Roberto Isaias, a convicted embezzler in Ecuador who is living as a fugitive in South Florida. And las malas lenguas say he also represented at some point Juan Carlos Tovar, the son of a Venezuelan government insider.
And that’s who we know about. What don’t we know?
Curbelo’s tendency to hide under his wife’s skirt and his reluctance to tell us who his “wife’s firm” represented was far more alarming and dangerous than Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s husband’s six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon separation to the Russian mafia.
In fact, her transparency is a breath of fresh air.
 
 

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Sorry Ladra has had to take a week to recover from the primaries and, yes, I am talking mostly about congressional district 27, where I was part of the campaign. My candidate came in third and, even though she was always the underdog and most expected her to do worse, it still hurts a bit.
But not as much as the dread of November, where I have to choose between Republican Fidel fawner Maria Elvira Salazar and former UM queen bitch Donna Shalala.
I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.
The rest of the primary was oh so blah — Andrew Gillum‘s upset win being the only real bright light — that there was just no urgency to report or analyze the results or local impact or winners and losers. Even though former Miami Beach mayor Phillip Levine sure lost — even in hometown Miami-Dade — but I’ll get to gloat another day.
To be fair, on election night I was also watching two House races in real time: District 115, where I live and where Republican nominee Vance Aloupis rode his attack ads and establishment money to a short-lived victory — Jeffrey Solomon is poised to take this seat blue in November — and District 103, where Cindy Polo beat the plantidate and is well on her way to becoming a state rep. Former Miami Lakes Councilman Frank “Fat Chance” Mingo just got a new nickname.
Read related: Possible plantidate forces Democrat primary in House 103 for the GOP
True, there was that empty gut feeling after every county commission incumbent — even former Sen. Javier Souto, who is really going to embarrass himself now — won re-election. The problem is that nobody is getting serious about putting up real candidates and then giving them the support they need to win.
Ladra was surprised as anyone that Analeen “Annie” Martinez, the commissioner’s daughter, was unable to win the Republican primary, even though she was better financed than anyone by far — and than Juan Fernandez-Barquin by at least $100,000 not counting any PACs — and, one would think, have the more experienced campaign team. But Martinez came in 23 points behind Fernandez-Barquin, who got 44% of the vote.
There were some happy results, including David Perez for the Democratic nominee in the Senate race against Manny Diaz Jr. (more on that later), Jason Pizzo and Dotie Joseph over incumbents Daphne Campbell and Roy Hardemon, respectively, and former Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Grieco over the other two duds in that race. Grieco (photographed right) becomes the defacto state rep because that district is just bluer than the sky and will go Dem in Novem. I like Mike. I hope he is basking in this, which is a double whammy for Levine.
Now we move on to the general, which has to live up to all the 2018 election hype all by itself because he primary fizzled. Which races become important to Ladra now?
Read related: Michael Grieco best choice in House 113 race
Well, the governor’s race. I am Team Andrew and want to start looking into that election and those issues. Because almost anyone is better than Ron De Santis anyway. And, while I have to watch FL27 as a reluctant voter, I am more interested now in FL26 as a blogger and political junkie. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell has a real chance to take this seat away from incumbent Republican Carlos Curbelo, if she does it right. Part of that will be to expose him for the sniveling, lying opportunist that he is. Call me, Debbie.
We are also looking forward to the contest between Sen. Annette Taddeo and Republican superwoman Marili Cancio. Ladra sure hopes Annette is not taking her for granted. People tend to like Marili. Lots of people. Purple people, too. Even I like Marili.
Read related: GOP’s Marili Cancio vs Dem Sen. Annette Taddeo in ‘year of the woman’
But at the state level, Ladra is, as promised months ago, a single issue voter. Parkland is still fresh in my mind. Maybe it’s because my daughter was at a very similar high school in South Florida that day. Maybe its from the way I saw young people get woke. Maybe it was from watching Republican after Republican deny legitimate and worthy amendments and turn what could have been a national model for gun reform into a way to put guns in schools.
The real test of the impact the school shooting will have on elections is not in the primary, after all. It is in November. And it will be difficult for many of us to support any Republican this year because of their behavior after Parkland.
But it will be fun to watch them try.

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Former Congressman Joe Garcia, who lost his seat to Rep. Carlos Curbelo first in 2014 and again in last year’s bid to regain it, has joined his former campaign consultant, Juan Peñalosa, at the the mostly Democrat consulting and lobbying firm Mercury LLC, which will open an office in Miami.

Garcia’s addition as co-chairman of Mercury was announced Wednesday. He is tasked with expanding the new Miami team and the firm’s reach in Florida, across the country and south of the border.

Read related story: Joe Garcia releases first web ad in congressional contest

Which means he won’t have time to run against Curbelo or anyone else in 2018. “It’s pretty certain that I won’t be on the ballot next year,” Garcia told Ladra Wednesday morning, adding that he was excited abut this new venture in government and public affairs, which is nothing new to him.

“I’ve been in public service all my life and when this opportunity came along, it was perfect. I’m working with people I highly respect and I’ve known for a better part of a decade,” Garcia said, referring not only to Peñalosa but also Mercury Partner Ashley Walker, who he worked on the Obama for America campaign.

Said Walker: “We are excited to welcome Joe Garcia to the Mercury family. His extensive policy experience will be invaluable as we expand our footprint in Miami, and across the Sunshine State.”

During his time in Congress, Garcia, an attorney, served on the House Judiciary Committee — which is where he was caught on a C-SPAN camera in 2014 eating his own ear wax — where he was on the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Border Security, and the Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law. He was also a member of the Committee on Natural Resources, including its Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources; Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs; and Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation.

Read related story: New Joe Garcia ear wax footage — great TV, bad PR

Prior to being elected, Garcia was appointed in 2009 by President Barack Obama to the Department of Energy as Director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity. Garcia is also former Chairman and member of the Florida Public Service Commission. Before that, he served as board member and Executive Director of the Cuban American National Foundation, and is credited with the group’s softened stance on Cuba policy.

“We are pleased to welcome Congressman Garcia to the Mercury team. His extensive policy experience in the energy and utility sectors, as well as his deep relationships in Washington, will be a tremendous asset to our clients,” said Mercury Co-founder and CEO, Kieran Mahoney.

The job also gives Garcia an opportunity to work on the same issues that he held near and dear in D.C. — like immigration (where he is right) and the U.S.-Cuba relations and policy (where he is wrong). Garcia is attending a Haitian activists’ event Wednesday night to advocate for the expansion of Temporary Protected Status. And he wants to also preserve the Obama administration’s Cuba policy.

In addition to growing Mercury’s Miami and Florida presence, Garcia said he will be paying attention to issues and campaigns in Latin America, “which is playing a bigger role in local politics.”

Will he ever be on a ballot again? Ladra says probably.

“Public service is a calling. And I love doing it.”