Mayor Carlos Gimenez, wishy washy as ever, was a day late and a dollar short Thursday when he put out a statement supporting the deferred action on immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

“This morning, I was briefed on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). I fully support the extension of DACA until Congress can approve and our next President can sign comprehensive immigration reform which addresses the status of our Dreamers and the millions who lack legal status throughout the country,” reads the mayor’s statement, more likely written by his spokesman, Michael Hernandez.

“Miami-Dade County is home to thousands of young people who through no fault of their own were brought to the United States by their parents and are currently undocumented. They deserve an opportunity to achieve the American Dream. I encourage the next Congress to prioritize common sense immigration reform.”

But Gimenez apparently passed on signing a letter from 19 other U.S. mayors hand delivered Wednesday to President-elect Donald Trump, asking him to extend the temporary stay from deportation given to students and young people brought into the U.S. illegally as children by their parents and guardians.

Maybe it would have made the next round of golf awkward?

According to the Miami Herald, Gimenez’s office acknowledged getting the request to join the mayors from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. They were told that the mayor asked for a “policy briefing” to “help make up his mind.” But that didn’t happen before the letter was delivered.

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Did it happen before Gimenez issued his statement Wednesday morning? What exactly was the mayor told at this policy briefing to help him “make up his mind”? Why do these young people “deserve an opportunity to achieve the American Dream” today and not last week? What is different for DACA Dreamers today? What does the mayor of the seventh largest county in the U.S., a region rich with immigrants from all over the world, not know about DACA?

Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, on the other hand, wasn’t even asked to sign the letter. Emanuel should have asked Regalado, who wouldn’t have blinked. Regalado told the Herald that he would have signed “in a heartbeat.” Because, really, what is there to think about? Yes, comprehensive reform is needed, but what does that have to do with extending DACA for Dreamers? You can do that with or without the reform, which is going to take years and years if it ever happens (Ladra thinks its convenient for both parties to keep up this chaos, but that’s another story).

So what was the hold up for Gimenez?

Ladra bets that “policy briefing” is really code for a chat with his son, CJ Gimenez, a lobbyist who had The Donald as a client in Doral. After all, Papi ya la chivo when he backed off of giving Trump our public Crandon Golf Course on Key Biscayne. Then Mayor Gimenez — in the throes of a heated re-election where he needed black and Anglo votes — said he voted for Hillary Clinton!

Maybe he doesn’t want a strike three.

It’s understandable. People want to vent.

To say that not everybody is happy or even okay with the presidential election Tuesday would be so much more than the understatement of the year. Everybody is so not okay.

Thousands of people from Portland to New York City marched to protest the election results, chanting “Fuck Donald Trump” and “Love trumps hate” in the same ironic breath. Even in London, there was a protest at the U.S. embassy. There was a candlelight vigil at the White House Wednesday. The hashtag #notmypresident is trending. People are unfriending longtime pals on Facebook, shutting down highways and burning flags and trash in the streets of Oakland and Chicago.

Burning flags and trash in the streets! Like if this was Venezuela or something!

It wasn’t so long ago that President-elect Donald Trump was criticized, by some of these very same people, for intimating that he might not accept the election results. And now Hillary Clinton supporters are the ones calling for … what is that they want, exactly? For the election not to count?

Do we still live in a democracy? I may not agree with the presidential choice of “the people have spoken,” but I will die to defend him. Seriously, people. Don’t make me die for this idiot clown.

It is not easy to sit here and defend The Donald. Ladra does not like him. I did not vote for him. Of course, I didn’t vote for her either. Until the two major parties in this country provide me with better options, I’ll vote Libertarian or not at all. But I knew full well it was a protest vote and that Gary Johnson was not going to win. And I was ready to accept whoever did.

And I’m not about to unfriend my mom because she voted for Trump or unleash a obscenity-laced verbal attack on my sister via twitter because she voted for Hillary.

Read related story: Donald Trump win is scarier than an unlikely civil war

Because we still live in a democracy, right? We are supposed to defend their right to vote for whoever they damn well please. Write in Fidel Castro if you want to. Write in David Dukes. You’d be stupid, but whatever. It’s your vote. It’s your right. And that is one of the main reasons my parents came to this country — so they and we could openly support whoever we want, so that we could celebrate elections without the riots and street fires and state brutality that permeates the process in so many other countries.

We also have a right to protest peacefully, as some Hillary supporters are planning to do at 6 p.m. tomorrow at Bayfront Park. But I have to wonder what that accomplishes? What exactly are the demonstrators’ demands?

The word impeach has been used, although I am not sure you can impeach someone who isn’t even president yet and I don’t know what “high crimes” would be cited. At the very least, the call for impeachment is premature. Protesters should wait until after Trump is tried for conning those poor university students. They don’t have to wait long. The trial is scheduled for later this month.

Some have suggested we throw out the electoral votes and go by the popular vote, which Hillary won by 233,400 votes — which, frankly, is really not something to be so proud of. Shouldn’t it have been considerably more? And that’s not the way it works, by the way. We have a democratic process that calls for electoral votes. Otherwise the people in California, New York, Texas and Florida would always pick the POTUS. Why would people vote in any other state?

“We saw a campaign that was filled with racism and misogyny and whole host of other terrible tactics that ultimately were successful for winning the electoral college.” said Ethan Miller of Jobs with Justice, an organization that defends workers rights to unionize and one of the groups that organized the D.C. vigil.

“But we’re not going to let a Donald Trump presidency stop the progress in this country.”

What exactly are we afraid that he might do?

Palmetto High students in Pinecrest walked out of class Thursday just after noon — in the middle of fifth period — to chant “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.” And while I have to applaud these teenagers’ engagement, do they know what they are chanting? Or is this just an excuse to get out of algebra? As far as I can remember, Trump denounced the KKK leader’s endorsement. Did Hillary denounce Fidel Castro’s blessing?

It doesn’t help that many of the protesters seem to have agendas of their own. Whether its Black Lives Matter or Occupy Democrats, equal marriage activists or just plain and proud communists, it’s hard to believe many are really protesting the election results as much as they are protesting the impact on their particular issue.

Man up, people! Get over it! That’s the price of living in a free democracy. 

Read related story: ‘Latino-loving’ GOP silent on Trump insults

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do believe that Trump has acted like a racist, misogynist, homophopic, xenophobic pig, a pervert and a conman and a tyrant-in-the-making with zero public service experience or even respect for public service, little knowledge of world affairs and a fifth grader’s vocabulary. I do believe there should be some concern that someone with Trump’s temperament and judgement just became the leader of the free world, which comes with a red nuclear “go” button and control of the Supreme Court bench.

I also believe the racists who supported Donald Trump — and while my mom has her own reasons and is not racist there are definitely racists among his core base — have been emboldened and could feel empowered. Gays, Muslims, blacks, Mexicans or people who just look gay, Muslim, black or Mexican have legitimate reason to fear not Trump, himself, but what he may have unleashed. Just as we’ve seen protests of the election results, we’ve seen people in pick-up trucks shouting and waving confederate flags at impromptu honk-and-wave Trump rallies, yelling at people who don’t look exactly like them to go home — not knowing that home is Hillsborough County, USA.

Illegal immigrants have legitimate reason to worry that enforcement and deportation may be stepped up in a Trump administration. But, unfortunately, their lot always changes with the political winds. What they need is to get out of that storm permanently. What the people protesting Trump for Dreamers and immigrants need to be protesting is the fact that this country needs bipartisan immigration reform that is humane while it also makes us more secure. Now. Regardless of who is president. Trump is a symptom. The disease is our broken immigration system.

In fact, all these protests against the election results are misdirected. These energies should be invested, instead, toward the issues and values we hold dear, not the person chosen as our national leader by voters in a fair election.

Let’s organize to protect our rights and ourselves from the new hope found by those who hate.

Let’s work harder to elect people who do espouse our values and who treat women and minorities right and who don’t mock the physically challenged among us. Or, better yet, let’s run for office. 

Let’s demonstrate to save the EPA or the Department of Education, both of which might disappear in a Trump presidency. Let’s protest any action he makes to limit our rights — if and when he makes them. Let’s demonstrate for or against the repeal of Obamacare, for or against a wall, for or against domestic partnership benefits in every state.

But to protest the election results is ridiculous. Because it is our own damn fault. The truth is neither candidate was perfect. And Democrats are as much to blame for the election results as Republicans. We share the responsibility for President Trump.

If you don’t want to hear it from Ladra, then listen to Hillary herself:  “I hope that he will be a successful president for all Americans,” she said in her concession speech Wednesday.

“I still believe in America and I always will. If you do, then we must accept this result and then look to the future.”

When we went to sleep last night, it really looked like there was going to be President Donald Trump today. Shiver.

But that’s not the only bad news.

We also have a new state senator in sucker-punching homophobe bear hunter Frank Artiles. Sigh.

U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a lobbyist with a secret client list and a penchant for lying to get his way, won another two years basically solidifying his congressional seat for the next decade. Gosh darnit.

And we get four more years of the Carlos Gimenez gravy train for his friends and family members and those who gave to his $10-million campaign. Shake my head.

It’s enough to make Ladra wanna cry.

Bet there’s going to be a lot of tears Wednesday. A lot of Monday morning quaterbacking, too. But the regrets? They’ll come later. Like when Artiles sponsors a law in the Senate legislating bathroom use. And when the mayor goes back to his key role — giving away pieces of the county to his connected friends and fam.

Everyone knows Ladra supported Raquel Regalado, even before we joined her campaign team. Because everyone knows Ladra lost her love for Tainted Boy Gimenez long ago. But now they will see why. Because with no future election to hold him back, Gimenez now has four years to collect as many contracts as he can for his friends and family before he is forced out by term limits in 2020.

He has no incentive to fulfill any of his promises. There is no reason for him to fix the broken transit system. There is no reason for him to open libraries five days a week. There is no motivation for him to hire  more police officers. He certainly won’t think twice before violating process again. The voters have said they don’t care about those things so he’ll make sure he keeps doing what he’s been doing — giving millions away to friends in high (and low) places.

He has billions in capital improvements for transportation and federally- and state-mandated water and sewer improvements to dole out. Can’t you see all his contributors salivating already?

And then, buoyed by this victory that he will call a “mandate,” and — tapping those same people again for another $10 million investment that they will happily pay to continue feeding on the public trough — he will run for Miami mayor in 2021.

Just watch.

Carlos Gimenez — and the decisions he makes in the next four years — will haunt us for decades to come.

I’m not scared of what might happen if Donald Trump loses.

We woke up Thursday morning to a new climate of fear among political observers and junkies after the Republican presidential candidate hinted during the last debate Wednesday that, should he lose, he may not accept the election results.

For days now, and less than a month before the election, Trump has claimed that the election has been rigged against him by the media, the Department of Justice, the FBI and a group of “global special interests.”

On Monday, he tweeted “Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!” On Wednesday, he said there are “millions of people that are registered to vote that shouldn’t be registered to vote” and wouldn’t commit to accept whatever happens.

“I will look at it at the time,” Trump told moderator Chris Wallace and the projected 70 million or so American people watching. “I will keep you in suspense.”

This wait-and-see response seems to have caused a rippling shudder across the media and social media platforms as the Twitterverse bristles with murmurs about a possible civil war. After all, the last time someone didn’t accept election results was in 1860, when a Republican named Abraham Lincoln won the election — and we all know what happened after that.

But c’mon! Civil war? In 2016? Maybe I’d be a little more frightened if a sitting president were to say that he was not going to accept the results. A sitting president can command the military. But what power does Trump have? What on Earth can he do except whine and pout? He is just doing what The Donald always does — ranting like a lunatic because he can’t accept reality. What a cry baby. Look how much he complained about a silly little skit on Saturday Night Live.

Maybe he just wants to secure his TV time after the election. He’s addicted to it. In fact, the thing that scares me most about his not accepting the results is that it could mean six more months of 24/7 Trump TV.

Ladra has relatives, friends and acquaintances, however, who are truly scared of possible riots and uprisings. They think the “basket of deplorables” — which is admittedly one of the worst things a politician has ever said about a wide group of voters, clueless and disenfranchised as they may be — will drop their chicken wings, grab their rifles and AK47s, leave their trailers, hop in their pick-up trucks, raise the confederate flag and go all postal on the electorate. Especially the bad hombres of the electorate. You’re probably at greater risk if you are black, Hispanic, gay, a journalist, use solar energy, wear Jesus-like sandals or are otherwise suspected of being even the teensiest bit liberal.

If you think about the last year of the Trump campaign as a precursor to incite racial and xenophobic violence, it almost seems like some kind of conflict is inevitable when Trump loses. Hopefully it will be contained to isolated incidents by crazy White trash militia people who are immediately arrested. Maybe Trump can be arrested, too. If his intent to destabilize the post-election environment ends in violence and domestic terrorism.

But you know what? I’m more scared of what could happen if Donald Trump actually wins. Those are the truly frightening results.The

He could also appoint Supreme Court justices that will set us back decades as far as equality and women’s rights. Women could die from alley abortions. Married gays may have to get divorced. Mosques could be outlawed. People could be arrested for having Muslim friends.

Global warming will happen faster without the Environmental Protection Agency that he would eliminate and civil rights may be violated at schools because there will be no Department of Education to keep tabs on that stuff. The poor will stay poor.

The first amendment could be a thing of the past as President Trump limits media access to him, the White House or any federal agency to only those reporters who are “nice” by his standards. Our information from the government could be reduced to meaningless catch phrases repeated over and over again.

Rudy Giuliani could be our director of Homeland Security. Chris Christie could become Attorney General. We could have a group of thugs with tri-state accents running our federal government.

And, most frightening of all, maybe Trump could have SNL cancelled and Alec Baldwin jailed.

Bring on the civil war then. It will make for good skits.

It seems like every Democrat candidate is using Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in their mailers against their counter party opponents. Our mailboxes are full of Trump comparisons in what is a very obvious concerted effort to motivate Democrats and keep disgusted Republican voters home (read: GOTV and voter suppression). 

But Trump isn’t enough for Sen. Anitere Flores. So the Florida Democratic Party has thrown the entire GOP conservative bloc against her.

In their attempt to turn that Senate seat blue, the state Dems have sent out mailers attacking Anitere on her time as president of Doral “College,” an extension of charter high schools that is still not accredited, and her votes on guns. That’s the one that shows not only Trump but a menagerie of the most right Republicans of our time.

“On a scale from 1 to extremely wrong on gun issues, Anitere Flores is off the charts,” says the mailer, next to a photo of the senator and photos of Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Rick Scott and Ben Carson. Ted Freaking Cruz?!

What? No George Bush? When did he stop being the villain we blame for everything?

And you’d think the smart consultants at the Florida Democratic Party would do Congressman Patrick Murphy a solid by including a photo of Sen. Marco Rubio in this photographic line-up, but noooooo. Maybe they didn’t want to piss off all the Cuban voters.

The mailer goes on to say that Flores is a “radical Republican… endangering our community and our families” and that she voted to let guns at Disney World, public parks and workplaces. But not really.

In 2008, she did vote for a bill — which passed and was known as the “Bring Your Gun to Work” law — that would let anybody who already has a concealed weapons permit, except teachers and people who work with fireworks, to take their guns to their place of work and leave them in the car. More recently, in 2015, she voted to strengthen “stand your ground” laws that make it difficult to prosecute questionable “self-defense” shootings.

But that’s not putting guns in daycares.

And when it says she voted to remove all local gun laws, what it means is that she voted for a statewide law that would not allow local municipalities to keep or create their own gun legislation.

What it doesn’t say is that Flores was also the only Florida Republican who signed off requesting a special session on gun control after the mass Orlando shooting this year.

Sarah Palin would not approve.

There have been a few protests of Donald Trump‘s immigration positions and proposals at the Doral Resort and Spa he owns. Now, it’s his side’s turn to picket.

Latinas Por Trump — “a 100% volunteer coalition of Latina influencers that networks and stays true to the promises created by the Trump campaign and the needs of Hispanics” — is calling on local supporters of the Republican presidential candidate to bring their “homemade signs” and join a protest of the Univision television station, also in Doral.

“Our mission is to inform and educate the public with the truth from now until the elections in November,” said a statement. “We plan to reinforce the values, needs and importance of Latinos/Hispanics in MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Yes, the statement yelled with all caps. They really take that “staying true” to the Trump campaign seriously. Either that or they did it because they sent the press release on #ALLCAPSTHURSDAY.

Read related story: Local Latinas come out for Trump with Brickell event

“This is a peaceful protest to call attention to the liberal media bias especially with regards to the Spanish networks like Univision. #LatinasPorTrump is tired of responding to the lies perpetuated by the liberal media and people like #MrJorgeRamos.”

Univision star anchor Jorge Ramos, if you remember, is the national Spanish-language journalist who first challenged Trump and got into a little tussle with him last year after Trump cut him off mid-sentence in a press conference. Seemed The Donald didn’t like the question about, you guessed it, his immigration proposals. And he had Ramos thrown out of the press conference. Reminds me of someone in Hialeah.

Ramos has not let up the heat, however, staying critical of Trump. Most recently, he got into a tweet rant ripping Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto on Wednesday after the president met with Trump. Clearly upset that Trump has not apologized for his comments Mexicans being all criminals — and, specifically, rapists — Ramos called Peña Nieto’s attitude a “weak and shy response.”

“What a poor, lukewarm and fearful answer from @epn when facing Trump. Where is the indignation with Trump’s insults,” said one tweet.

That’s the kind of thing that rubs the Latinas the wrong way.

“We are hosting this protest and sign-waving event to once again show that the liberal media does not represent the millions of Legal Immigrant Latinos in this country,” read the statement. “The Latino community has been fed lies since Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy last June.

“Latinos are extremely important to this election especially in key swing states like Florida and we plan to make sure they come out in support of Donald J Trump for President. This event will emphasize the fact that #JorgeRamos and #Univision do not represent all Latinos,” it said.

Well, neither do Latinas for Trump. Let’s agree on that.

The protest will not be in front of the Univision studios on Northwest 41st Street but at Doral Central Park, 3000 NW 87th Ave., several blocks away. There’s plenty of parking, sure. But do Latinas hope Univision execs drive by on their way home from work?

Interestingly enough, it is scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. — during the news show.