“¡Cobarde! ¡Mudo!”
Coward! Voiceless! These are the names the narrator calls Congressman Carlos Gimenez in a video released Thursday that shames the former Miami-Dade mayor for his silence and complicity on Donald Trump’s immigration policies, including the rollback of protected status for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, many of whom live in his community.
“Where is Carlos Gimenez hiding? Trump is stripping 500,000 cubanos, nicaraguenses y venezolanos of legal status, sending them back to hell,” the narrator says in the 30-second spot, which is viewable on YouTube.
“Nuestros compatriotas are stranded in tyranny and dictatorship and this monster is killing millions that fund charities and people that would have helped them,” the narrator says, in very cubanaso language, referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development. “He even blew up Radio and TV Marti.”
Read related: Downtown Miami protest planned Saturday vs Donald Trump policies
Ladra can’t help but wonder if Gimenez and the other Cuban-American legislators are proud that Trump was able to do something that Fidel Castro tried desperately for decades to do but could not — end Radio and TV Marti.
“And all this time Carlos Gimenez has stayed silent. Coward! Mute! Betraying us all,” the man in the video says.
Well, not entirely silent. Gimenez was on WPLG Local 10’s This Week in South Florida last month and admitted to Glenna Milberg that he was not “entirely sure” what Trump’s cuts mean for TV Marti and Radio Marti. While Democrat Congresswoman and non-Cuban Debbie Wasserman-Schultz blasted the end of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Gimenez seemed to stand by Trump’s decision, while still promising to do something — in the future.
“I think it has to be evaluated and each agency head is going to do that. The people may be placed on administrative leave for a while, but you can be certain the the three republican members from South Florida will be fighting to maintain effective broadcasting to Cuba,” Gimenez said on the popular Sunday morning show. “There may have been some doubts about the effectiveness of TV Martí and Radio Martí recently during the Biden administration. We want to make sure that if it is reconstituted and it continues, that it’s effective.”
What? So Biden is being criticized now for the way the OCB communicated during the last four years? Can you imagine what would happen if Biden or another Democrat had called for the end of Radio and TV Martí? Protests that paralyze the expressways and shouts of  “¡Communista!” on Cuban radio. That’s what would happen.
The video ends with a call to action and the display of the congressman’s district office phone number. “Call Carlos Gimenez and tell him to man up to Trump.”
That number, by the way, is 305-222-0160.
The ad is sponsored by Keep Them Honest, Inc., a group that has formed to call out these liars and hypocrites. There is no political action committee or information on the Florida Division of Corporations website. And their address in Kendall is of a shared workspace office. This is their first video.

Cubanos Con Biden co-founder Chris Wills, who also worked with former Key Biscayne Mayor Mike Davey in his congressional campaign last year, told Political Cortadito there would be more.
“As somebody who was born and raised in South Florida, the son of a Cuban exile mom and a Venezuelan exile dad, I’m hearing from my own family, my neighbors, my friends that not only is there an incredible amount of fear over this mass deportation and taking away of legal status from those who have fled dictatorships, but increasingly there is a lot more disappointment and feeling of betrayal from Carlos Gimenez,” Wills said.
He said Gimenez and his counterparts on the Miami-Dade delegation have the power, because they represent three Republican votes, to force the administration to change its position on temporary protected status, which was revoked last month for more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.
“If the three of them would unite and hold their votes, it would stop the Trump agenda in its tracks, until he resolves TPS,” Wills told Ladra.
Read related: Cuban American congress members stay silent on TPS, immigrant detention
Gimenez and Congress Members Mario Diaz-Balart and Maria Elvira Salazar, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a true hypocrite who has gone against everything he used to stand for, were also targets of a billboard off the Palmetto Expressway — right smack between Hialeah and Doral — paid for by the Miami-Dade Hispanic Democratic Caucus calling them traitors to the community and the American Dream.
While Congresswoman Frederica Wilson and Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava demand tours of the Krome Detention Center, where there are reports of overcrowded chaos and unsafe and unsanitary conditions, these Cuban-American politicians — who pander to the Venezuelan and Colombian vote, also — have not. Emails to his spokesman, Roberto Lugones, have gone unanswered. Constituent Services Director Beatriz Viera, reached at the congressional district office Friday morning, said she did not know anything about a tour but assured Ladra that Gimenez was “working very closely with the administration.”
So, then, he’s not just silent. Gimenez is complicit.

Viera, who was only in the office to receive the submissions for a congressional art contest, downplayed any criticism, saying that there were many people who supported how Gimenez was handling the current administration.
“That sign is irrelevant,” she said about the billboard. “That’s the party that’s against him.”
Wills said that Gimenez an the others “have refused to actually take any meaningful action to help those immigrants and families who are living with monumental fear.” He added that business owners are also feeling the pinch as fewer people fill restaurants and retail stores, staying home instead to avoid the authorities. He’s also noticed an increase in police presence, even before Doral and Homestead became the latest cities in Miami-Dade to sign 287g agreements with the federal government to help the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department in the identification and detention of illegal immigrants (more on that later).
Read related: Maria Elvira Salazar takes credit for judge extending TPS for Venezuelans
“This is not the America that Carlos Gimenez, Maria Elvira Salazar, Marco Rubio and Mario Diaz-Balart were brought to or raised in, to believe that we all should be hopeful of achieving the American Dream,” Wills said. “We have an immigrant community that is living the American nightmare.”
Where is Carlos Gimenez hiding? Behind a bill he has proposed to create a federal task force to focus on security for the upcoming major intentional events coming to the U.S. over the next four years — including the FIFA World Cup, some of which will be played in South Florida, America’s 250th birthday celebrations next year, and the 2028 Olympics. He’s hiding behind a call to end travel and remittances to Cuban families on the island prison from Cuban families in the U.S. (mostly in Miami). He’s hiding behind a petition to the Department of Homeland Security to deport Cuban nationals he believes to be regime agents. While Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen visits the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, to make sure that Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a man married to a U.S. citizen with U.S.-born children who the Trump administration admits was deported in error and ordered returned by a federal judge — hasn’t yet been killed, Gimenez is hiding in Guantanamo on a trip to check out the concentration camps where Trump had planned to send illegal immigrants.
He couldn’t help but take a selfie, ’cause he was in Cuba for the first time in 64 years.
Gimenez is just too busy to stand up for his community, right?
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Healthcare business titan Benjamin Leon Jr.,  who founded Leon Medical Centers and made a fortune off Medicare patients — and who gave more than $3 million in campaign contributions last year — was appointed this week by President Elect Donald Trump as his new ambassador to Spain.
Think of it as a thank you.
More than half of the contributions that Leon made to different candidates and political action committees in 2024 went to help get Trump elected, according to records with the Federal Election Commission. He poured $1.18 million into the Make America Great Again PAC and nosher $928,000 to the president’s Trump 47 Committee. Leon also gave $413,000 to the Republican National Committee and $10,000 each to every state Republican Party — including Guam’s.
He has given to both sides of the aisle, but favors GOP candidates, giving $46,000 to Sen. Rick Scott‘s efforts and more than $13,000 to support Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar. He only have $6,000 to Democrat Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Trump wasn’t his first choice in 2016, however, when records show he gave $2.5 million to Sen. Marco Rubio‘s presidential bid.
“Benjamin is a highly successful entrepreneur, equestrian, and philanthropist,” Trump wrote this week on his own personal social media platform, Truth Social. Why does he include equestrian? Are horses the main way of transportation in Spain?
“He came to the U.S. from Communist Cuba at 16-years-old, with only Five Dollars in his pocket, and proceeded to build his company, Leon Medical Centers, into an incredible business,” Trump continued. “He has helped support many worthy causes, like La Liga Contra El Cancer, and important medical research at Johns Hopkins and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
“Benjamin has also invested in training our future doctors and nurses by supporting Miami Dade College’s Benjamin Leon Jr. School of Nursing and the Benjamin Leon Center for Geriatric Research and Education at Florida International University’s Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine.”
He also recently gave a $10 million gift to FIU for the new home of the school’s CasaCuba, a gathering spot for scholars, artists and activists to discuss Cuba’s past, present and future.
Read related: Kevin Cabrera tapped as Panama ambassador; so who will replace him?
Leon’s net worth is estimated at $500 million, so it’s easy to give back. Especially for naming rights.
He got the thumbs up from several Miami area Republicans (though not Salazar), including Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, who posted on his social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Congratulations to my dear friend, Benjamin Leon Jr., a true titan in the healthcare field, who is making a profound difference in the lives of seniors and families in Miami-Dade County.
“As an outstanding member of the exiled Cuban-American community, he consistently gives back, advocating for freedom and standing up for those who are oppressed,” Diaz-Balart wrote. “Benjamin embodies the American dream and is a true patriot who will represent U.S. interests with great honor in Spain.”
Said Miami Dade College President Madeline Pumariega: “Like my parents, he came to this great country from Cuba in search of freedom and opportunity and has dedicated his life to giving back. His leadership and generosity, exemplified through his transformative support of our Benjamin León School of Nursing, have changed countless lives.” 
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told Trump it was a “great pick,” on his social stream. “I couldn’t be happier for my good friend. Seeing Benjamín become U.S. Ambassador to Spain is a testament to his hard work, big heart, and dedication to helping people.”
How is this 80-year-old equestrian — because he bought a bunch of expensive horses and a stable in central Florida — qualified to be an ambassador? Especially in a country with universal healthcare that doesn’t cost its citizens anything at the point of delivery? Is he going to learn anything to bring home? The U.S. Mission in España is considered a critical European outpost, with a bunch of U.S. agencies working on economic, political, and defense and security matters.
Someone said on X that Leon is just going to shake hands, make introductions and throw flamenco parties. So this is what to expect of our ambassadors?
Those parties better not run too late.
Leon becomes the seventh person from Florida that Trump has named to a cabinet position or ambassdorship. Rubio has been nominated for Secretary of State, longtime campaign chief, Susie Wiles, for chief of staff and former State Attorney General Pam Bondi for U.S. Attorney General after Congressman Matt Gaetz, who has faced allegations of sexual misconduct, withdrew his name from consideration.
Trump also nominated Kimberly Guilfoyle, his son’s fiancee, to be the ambassador to Greece and Miami-Dade County Commissioner Kevin Merino Cabrera, who has also helped on his campaigns, to be the ambassador to Panama.
The post Prolific campaign donor Benjamin Leon tapped by Trump as Spain ambassador appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Miami-Dade voters painted the town red Tuesday when ballots counted showed that Republican candidates had won all but one local partisan race.

The only exception: Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, who handily beat her opponent, Jesus Navarro, with 71% of the vote.

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Parade of who’s who in the Florida GOP poured praise on ex POTUS

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Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar is a copycat.

Yeah, yeah. All Republican candidates pull the socialist card like it’s campaign gold, because it is in some voter demographics. But Salazar came out last week with a TV commercial in which she says, almost word for word, what Sen. Marco Rubio has been saying for weeks.

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By now, everyone has seen them. Congresswoman Val Demings, presenting a very real challenge to Sen. Marco Rubio, has released a pair of TV commercials that show she’s getting aggressive in this race.

The first ad positions the Democrat, a former Orlando police officer and chief from 2007 to 2011, as the law and order candidate. Demings walks across a timeline with photos of her 27-year law enforcement career and says she will fight against “bad ideas” like defunding the police.

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