Miami-Dade Dems launch billboard campaign
The smug mugs of the four Miami-Dade Cuban American Republicans in Washington, D.C., who have sat silently by as the Donald Trump administration rolls back protections afforded to refugees from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua, are now featured on a billboard seen from the busy Palmetto Expressway with the word “Traitors” next to them.
Last week, the Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus launched a billboard campaign taking aim at the “Gang of Four” — Sen. Marco Rubio, now Secretary of State, and Congress Members Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar, who last week had the audacity to take credit and thank the Trump administration for a last minute reprieve to Venezuelans that is actually being appealed by the Trump ministration. They have done nothing while the Donald Trump administration moves to massively deport immigrants, even those with legal status, including more than half a million who had temporary protected status, a legal status that was taken from them in the middle of the night.
They are traitors “to immigrants, to Miami-Dade, to the American Dream,” the billboard says.
The first billboard has gone up on Palmetto Expressway between Doral and Hialeah, two of the cities that are most impacted by the reversal of temporary protected status, which gave legal status to more than half a million immigrants in the U.S. Read that again: The federal government made legal immigrants suddenly illegal in order to boot them out of the country.
“Marco Rubio, María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez and Mario Díaz-Balart have turned their backs on us,” Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus President Abel S. Delgado, a Cuban-American, said in a statement. “Rather than standing up for our families, they’ve stood silently while immigrant communities are targeted, detained, and deported.
“They’ve forgotten where they come from — but we haven’t,” Delgado said, promising more would come.
Read related: Maria Elvira Salazar takes credit for judge extending TPS for Venezuelans
Meanwhile, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who is not Cuban but knows how to represent her constituency, has written to Department of Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem to request a tour the Krome Processing Center, an immigration detention facility on Krome Avenue, where immigrants are being held in what many have described as overcrowded, unsafe and inhumane conditions.

“I’m deeply worried about reports of overcrowding and dangerous conditions at the federal Krome Processing Center. We must keep our communities safe while also acting with compassion and human concern,” Levine Cava wrote on her social media, posting the letter she wrote, in which she says that some of the immigrants “now being held in federal facilities, detained indefinitely without a clear process, include green card holders and long-standing members of our community who were contributing to our economy, supporting their families and paying taxes.”
Detainees are seen sleeping on the floor next to each other or in chairs in a viral video that was taken, obviously under cover, by a Mexican detainee near tears and provided to NBC6 Miami. Some detainees have had to sleep outside. They have reportedly not been allowed to communicate with loved ones or legal representation regularly. Some family members of detainees say they are not given enough food or even water. In February, a Ukranian immigrant died at a nearby hospital after getting sick at Krome.
“The increase in detainees being sent to the Krome Processing Center has caused conditions to deteriorate, creating an unsafe and inhumane detention environment,” Levine Cava wrote in the April 3 letter. “Allegations of substandard conditions include inadequate access to water and food, unsanitary confinement, medical neglect and abuse such as prolonged shackling.”
No wonder Marquito doesn’t want to go there. And where are Gimenez and Salazar? Ladra sent an inquiry by email to two of the Gimenez communication staffers asking if the congressman had requested a tour. Crickets.
Instead, on Tuesday, Gimenez held a House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security hearing to assess the security of U.S. travel systems in preparation for high-profile international events like the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and proclaimed his support for President Donald Trump’s recent Executive Order creating a White House Task Force focused on the 2026 World Cup.
Seems important.
Gimenez and the other three Cuban-American Republicans are also notably absent in a letter sent Tuesday to Noem, signed by 49 congress members who say the closure of several oversight offices last month “raises serious questions about DHS’s transparency and compliance with the law,” according to a story in The Miami Herald. The cancelled guardrails include the investigation of and response to alleged human rights violations in immigration detention centers.
Seems convenient.
Read related: SOS Venezuela: A trendy 2014 Florida campaign theme
Ladra still remembers when Rubio very heavily courted the Venezuelan vote, posing for a photo opp with the country’s flag and then Gov. Rick Scott — who has also been silent — and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera at El Arepazo 2 in Doral. They were joining the community’s protest of the Venezuelan government’s crackdown on demonstrators and asking for U.S. sanctions.
Bet Rubio won’t go order an arepa there today.
“This ‘Gang of Four’ is lying and betraying a community that trusted them—people who fled tyranny seeking freedom,” said María Corina Vegas, a board member of the Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus. “As a Venezuelan American who watched my country fall into dictatorship, I see the warning signs. Their complicity is shameful. We will make sure everyone knows exactly the traitors they are.”
The billboard campaign, Delgado said, is the first step in a sustained effort to hold these officials accountable and engage the Miami-Dade community to fight back against anti-immigrant cruelty and political betrayal.
“We will not be quiet. We will not let them hide behind pretend patriotic speeches while our families are ripped apart,” he said. “These billboards are just the beginning.”
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Fresh from his re-election Tuesday, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, in his third term now, doesn’t have time to rest. He has to make sure that his commission candidate, who will give him back the majority on the dais that he lost almost two years ago, wins in a runoff two weeks from now.
Richard Lara, general counsel for the Spanish Broadcasting System network of radio stations, got 47% of the vote on Tuesday, which was a majority but not enough to cinch a victory. Lara, who is Lago’s hand-picked pocket vote, heads into a runoff against attorney Tom Wells, who sits on the city’s charter review committee, who came in second with 39%.
“Now we have to get out there and support Richard Lara for the next two weeks. We have a runoff,” Lago said Tuesday night in a short victory speech clip for the A Day In Miami podcast’s Instagram account. The mayor already has one vote with the re-election of Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson — who won with 58% of the vote Tuesday — but he needs another guaranteed ally if he’s not going to stay on the losing end of a 3-2 avalanche for the next two years.
“I’m counting on your support to bring civility, trust and respect back to the city of Coral Gables,” Lago said in his short clip.
He’s one to talk.
Read related: Vince Lago, Rhonda Anderson handily coast to re-election in Coral Gables
Claudia Miro, a transit lobbyist at Freebee and one-time assistant to former Miami City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, came in a distant third with 13.5%.
But she’s the darling on Wednesday because both Wells and Lara, and their respective campaigns, will want Miro’s endorsement. Throwing her support — and 1,356 votes — one way or the other could make or break either one of the two runoff candidates.
“I haven’t even thought about that yet,” Miro told Political Cortadito late Tuesday, adding that she was proud of her campaign and had no regrets.

“I would have regretted not running,” she said. “I can hold my he’d up high. I had a clean campaign and ran on my own attributes and qualifications. I still think I was the best choice but, as we know, sometimes the most qualified candidate doesn’t win.”
Ouch.
Well, lots of other people are thinking about her endorsement, and speculating that Miro — who was once Anderson’s appointment to the planning and zoning board until she upset the mayor with a vote and got kicked off — was always a spoiler sleeper candidate who will throw her weight behind Lara.
This could be because she was standing on the same side of the street near Lago during early voting over the weekend.
Or because she has complained about Wells’ negative campaigning.
Wells, whose motto is “neighbors restoring civility” and who signed a clean campaign promise form — the only one in the race to do so — has taken some digs at Miro. She’s noticed.
Or maybe because Sarnoff and Mason Pertnoy, an attorney who represents Lago (and Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo), gave her $1,000 each for her campaign.
Commissioner Kirk Menendez, who lost to Lago 55% to 38%, was more forthcoming in his support for Wells and said in his concession speech Tuesday night that the attention had to be turned to the runoff.
“We have to do everything we can to help Tom get over the hump,” Menendez told a small crowd of family and friends at Birdie’s Bistro. He said he had known Lara for more than 25 years but was voting for Wells because of Lara’s association with Lago.
Read related: Coral Gables candidate Richard Lara has not voted in the city since 1999
“I don’t endorse anybody but I’m voting for anybody who is not linked to those who don’t have our best interests at heart,” Menendez said, and it’s more complicated that it sounds. He is voting against Lara.
“There is still a fight in us left and it’s fighting for Tom. And by fighting for Tom, it’s a fight for our community,” Menendez said.

It’s going to be a hard fight. Lara will certainly have more money and more people working for his campaign. He raised more than $169,000 as of April 3, according to the most recent campaign finance report, and still had about $75K in the bank. Wells has financed his own campaign to the tune of $36,000 plus, according to his reports.
And while the mayoral race is no longer a draw on the ballot, and the runoff hits on Easter week, Lago will use his organization and campaign machinery, as well as financial support, to help Lara win. He will get his people out to vote.
He has to. The mayor will continue to be powerless without Lara on the commission.
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It was over in Coral Gables in about 15 minutes.
After months of campaigning and negative attacks, it only took the first results that trickled in after the 7 p.m. closing of polls Tuesday to know that Mayor Vince Lago and Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson won re-election with comfortable margins their opponents would never bounce back from.
Lago, who is now on his third term, got more than 55% of the vote in the mayoral race next to Commissioner Kirk Menendez, who got almost 38%. Michael Anthony Abbott‘s nearly 7% of the vote wouldn’t have made a difference. Anderson did even better, with more than 58% of voters returning her to office over architect Felix Pardo, who got a little more than 37%, and Laureano Cancio, who got 4%.
Anderson’s strong support was the biggest surprise for many on Tuesday, seeing as how she had seemingly lost a lot of her base as far back as two years ago when she became what many call Lago’s luckiest lackey. Ladra is going to go out on a limb here and say that maybe people found Pardo to be a little pushy.
Did anybody notice that 52 more people voted in the mayor’s race than in the vice mayor’s race? What’s up with that?
The turnout for Tuesday’s city election was more than 29%, which is more than the 20% that participated in the 2023 election — where there was no mayoral race because Lago had no opponent — and more than the almost 29% that participated in 2021, where there were three contentious races, like now.
If the votes are a referendum on Lago and his administration, and many said this election would be, then the mayor may have just gotten a mandate. And if we thought he was an arrogant jerk before, he is really going to be insufferable now. Insoportable.
Read related: What transparency? 22 reasons NOT to vote for Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago
“The city has spoken, the residents have spoken. Your mayor is back,” Lago said in a short clip on the A Day In Miami podcast’s instagram account. His election night watch party was to be at Wolfe’s Wine Shoppe on Miracle Mile, and the video captures his friends and campaign workers high-fiving it and yucking it up in the background.
“Thank you for your support. Thank you for your trust in me. It’s an honor to serve you for the next two years,” Lago says.
So, what happened? Some people were shaking their heads Tuesday night, flabbergasted that the results would be so lopsided. They expected it to be closer. Ladra is among them. People were given hope by the outcome of the 2023 election, when the two underdogs funded and supported by Lago and his loyalists lost to Commissioners Melissa Castro and Ariel Fernandez.
But those two seem to have benefited from the mayor’s absence on the ballot two years ago. And it was a wrong move by Menendez and Pardo to lean so heavily on the anti-Lago vote and the positive reaction they got when they were door-knocking.
Lago pulls. How else could anyone explain the 47% pole position enjoyed by Richard Lara, Lago’s handpicked candidate in the Group 3 race, going into the runoff with attorney Tom Wells, who was the anti-Lago candidate. Folks agree Lara is a lousy pocket vote candidate. Worse than Alex Bucelo, someone said.
If Lara wins, then Lago will have scored the trifecta (more on that next).
Also, Menendez could not get above the flood of messaging Lago paid for with a hefty campaign treasure chest. According to the latest campaign finance reports, tracking contributions and spending through April 3, Lago had nearly half a million in his campaign account (including a last minute $1,000 from former Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who is now a lobbyist for billboards). He also spent another half a million from his political action committee, Coral Gables First, since January of last year.
Read related: Fundraising for Coral Gables election slows, incumbents count on max gifts
And that $467,000 or so spent by the PAC is only through December. The next report, for the first quarter of 2025, is due later this week. Ladra is willing to bet it doubled.
The Lago campaign was organized and relentless. A drip, drip, drip that started more than a year ago and ended in a barrage that was not about how great a mayor he has been for the past four years, but rather how bad a choice Menendez would be after having voted for commission raises and the hasty firing and hiring of a city manager or two and against a tiny tax break and inspector general. The text messages, mailers, emails and social media posts were almost daily. Like a hammer.
And Menendez, while he blew those issues out of the water in live forum events and wherever he spoke, was not able to counter Lago’s messaging across to more voters. The former assistant Miami city attorney turned real estate agent raised a mere $41,000 in his campaign account. Lago likely spent more than that just on text messages. And how do you message against a “101% raise” headline anyway? It’s complicated.

Menendez also has a PAC, The Coral Gables Way, with zero funds raised as of the end of December and a report that is also due later this week. But Ladra suspects it will not be much. Because he could not amplify his message.
Tuesday evening, the one-term commissioner — he beat Bucelo then won a runoff against Javier Baños with 52% (a 358 vote margin) in 2021 — thanked his family and volunteers at a small gathering at Burger Bob’s, er, Birdie’s Bistro, “not just for being here, but for your friendship, your support, for being such an important part of my life.
“Tonight is not an end,” Menendez said. “It’s just a continuation of what we’ve all done, which is give back to our community, serve our community. It’s not about the politics, it’s about how we can make the lives of others better. And that’s why I ran. And that’s why I was a commissioner. And that’s why you all supported me in this campaign.
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago camp uses Jesus image to hit Kirk Menendez
“As they say, God has a plan. And what that plan is, I’m sure will manifest itself sooner or later.”
Menendez said he would likely stay involved in the city as a non-elected.
“The result is not what I think any of us thought. We saw a path forward that we all wanted the city to go. I think that path is still there. It will always be there. And we don’t lose hope. We stay working together, making sure our voices are heard… for a better Coral Gables.
“Not a better Coral Gables for some, but a better Coral Gables for everyone.”
Certainly, Wednesday will see a better Coral Gables for Vince Lago and Rhonda Anderson.
The post Vince Lago, Rhonda Anderson handily coast to re-election in Coral Gables appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Incumbent Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago talks a lot about transparency, but the guy is anything but. He thinks that having open office hours for photo ops with foreign visitors and town halls attended mostly by city staff snd his lackeys means transparency. Or he thinks that Gables voters are stupid and will believe that’s being transparent.
From his personal life, to his business ties and official actions taken as an elected mayor, Lago has been secretive and deceitful.
Remember when he dramatically signed an affidavit at a public meeting swearing not to have any conflicts of interests through himself or any member of his immediate family with the annexation of Little Gables? Remember how the definition of immediate family, purportedly taken from the Miami-Dade Code of Ethics definition, did not mention siblings and step siblings and half siblings. That was not an innocent omission. The mayor’s brother, Carlos Lago, was at one time the registered lobbyist for the largest Little Gables property owner, which owns the trailer park and has plans for a major real estate project. A Moorish village.
Read related: Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago may have conflict of interest in Little Gables
That’s being the opposite of transparent. That is intentionally misleading or hiding the truth. He’s been misleading people ever since, saying that he was never investigated about owning property in Little Gables when nobody ever said he owned property there. He’s very crafty with words.
Let’s make that the first reason why not to vote to re-elect Vince Lago as the mayor in this election that ends Tuesday, April 8. As early voting is about to begin Saturday, here are some more:

He intentionally left the words “siblings” out of the affidavit he dramatically and publicly signed about conflicts of interest in Little Gables, trying to pull one over on voters.
Lago will not say that he won’t keep trying to annex Little Gables — despite the fact that 63% of Gables voters do not want to pay the $23 million cost just over the first five years — and, in fact, many suspect he still has that goal in his sights.
For years, Lago has often said that he only works for BDI Construction. But in a candidate forum recently, he said he was a “private business owner,” with “50 plus employees in my engineering and construction management firm.” Curious, Ladra searched the Florida Division of Corporation records for BDI Construction, where Lago says he is a partner with 33%. But he is not listed in the principals. It is owned by Carlos and Teobaldo Rossell III.
For years, Lago misled residents about police staffing. The police union, representing the officers, had to make public statements to correct his lies. The city is still more than 20 officers short. Recruitment and retention is a problem with lots of agencies. But Lago doesn’t have to lie about it. Thursday, the city manager sent his first email out to residents citywide providing them with his assurances that the police and fire departments couldn’t be stronger. It smells like a political campaign statement, which would be wholly inappropriate.
City Hall fell apart on his watch. He didn’t even want to hear about the safety issues when they did come up last year. Basically, Lago was forced out of the building. If it were up to Lago, the commission would still be meeting in chambers on the second floor of City Hall.
Lago nearly got into a fistfight with the former city manager, Amos Rojas. While a police investigation found that there was no real assault committed, because, allegedly, Rojas never really thought the mayor was capable of striking him, nobody says there wasn’t an argument that escalated and that Lago threw off his jacket, put up his dukes and called Rojas a coward. And nobody has said what the fight was about, but sources told Ladra it was because Lago wanted to go around the process to install a particular piece of art in a public place.
Steroids are bad for your health.
The mayor got part of a $640,000 commission in the 2023 sale of a Ponce De Leon Boulevard lot where real estate developer Rishi Kapoor — who was later investigated by the FBI after paying Lago pal and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez $170,000 in “consulting fees” while seeking development approvals there — planned to build a luxury high-rise, for which he likely needed zoning variances. The payment went to a brokerage firm owned by former Hialeah Councilman Oscar De La Rosa which listed only five real estate agents hanging their licenses there, including Hialeah Mayor Esteban Bovo, lobbyist Bill Riley (who was arrested with former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla on public corruption charges in 2023), Lago and his chief of staff at Coral Gables City Hall, Chelsea Granell.
Lago and his partners — including Baby X cousin Esteban Suarez — also rented a retail space, a former karate studio across the street from the Ponce development site, to Kapoor for about $12,500, according to sources cited by the Miami Herald. Kapoor rented the space shortly after Lago and his partners bought it in order to open a sales office for the luxury condo he wanted to build at 1505 Ponce de Leon and paid more than $152,000. But the space sat empty all the while.
Lago gave $5,000 from his political action committee to another PAC run by Alex Diaz de la Portilla in 2023, just six weeks before the latter was arrested on public corruption charges, bribery and money laundering, for a negotiated deal to give away a public park for more than $300,000 in cash and in-kind political campaign contributions. ADLP was at the mayor’s 2021 Victory Party, looking a bit disheveled.
While Lago complains about the salary increases that commissioners voted to give themselves, he also created a non-existing and completely unnecessary position of chief of staff for his aide, which elevates her multiple pay grades at once, for a current salary of more than $90,000, to oversee a staff of none, now that the part-timer has left after just a couple months.
Hypocrisy is relevant. It is further evidence that Lago is a political opportunist who sees every relationship as transactional and doesn’t understand anyone who might do anything just because it is the right thing.
The part timer only lasted a couple of months.
The mayor pushed for a “tax cut” that would have benefited developers and large property owners with huge savings while netting most homeowners less than $100 a year and would have almost certainly led to service cuts.
Lago condones (or directs) the trolls on social media that attack the three commissioners he disagrees with (and yours truly, and Billy Corben, and The Miami Herald), using body shaming and discriminatory comments and arguably sexually harassing Commissioner Melissa Castro. He knows about these trolls, one of whom was already proven to be his friend, Manny Chamizo, who is a waterfront committee board member and just got probation on a criminal stalking case (more on that later). These hate speech cyber threats have been reported to Coral Gables Police and brought to his attention on several occasions. Ladra herself has texted him and sent him screenshots of the cruelly insulting and defamatory remarks to be met by crickets. He’s either tolerant of these kind of baseless, dehumanizing attacks or complicit. It’s hard to believe that his friends would be doing this without his permission.
He has friends like Manny Chamizo and Alex Diaz de la Portilla. Dime con quien andas…
He lied, or at least stretched the truth, about the alleged FP Journe clock that he so dramatically installed on Miracle Mile — remember he wanted to do it on September 11 — which seems like a knock off. He said it was a $100,000 clock being donated to the city, and he would pay the installation himself (receipts?). But according to emails to the city from employees at Electric Time Company in Massachusetts, they built the clock, stuck an FP Journe sticker on it, and it would cost $23,000 to replace. Not $100,o00. FP Journe letter lago clock
He wanted to unveil the Miracle Mile clock on Sept. 11, saying it was “not a national holiday.”
Lago’s petition to put three charter amendments on the ballot failed so miserably, having thousands of signed petitions rejected as invalid (more on that later). Was it fraud or just carelessness?
The mayor, or rather his proxies, have weaponized the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust, making complaints against his political enemies. Two complaints were filed against activist Maria Cruz, who spearheaded the unsuccessful recall effort against Lago, were dismissed in recent months. The first was filed by Lago’s campaign fundraiser, Brian Goldmeier, who accused Cruz of targeting his home on a code enforcement violation, and the second by lobbyist Jorge Arrizurieta, Lago’s appointment to the city’s board of adjustments — until someone notified the administration that he had moved out of Coral Gables — who said that Cruz acted as a lobbyist without registering. The ethics commission found no probable cause for the first complaint and no legal sufficiency for the second, because it was an obvious lie. There was no legal sufficiency, either, for three complaints filed last November by Gonzalo Sanabria, one of his most loyal lackeys, against Commissioners Melissa Castro, Ariel Fernandez and Kirk Menendez “alleging unspecified” of the ethics code and city’s hiring practices in hiring of former City Manage Amos Rojas. Sanabria said it was a violation of the city’s hiring procedures and the item was not on the agenda for the Feb. 27 meeting. But it was on the agenda. Also, why did Sanabria wait more than eight months to make the complaint in November? There’s no way these complaints were not made with, at the very least, Lago’s permission, or, at the very most, his direct orders.
Lago has threatened to sue Ladra for defamation and libel for reporting the truth, while he knowingly falsely claims in both public commission meetings and on public podcasts and other media programs that she is pay-to-play. He also filed a meritless, frivolous lawsuit against Actualidad Radio. He just wants to silence his critics.
Instead of saying what every p0litician knows is the right thing to say — “I condemn these acts… blah blah blah…” — Lago accused Commissioner Fernandez of a “campaign stunt” when the latter blasted what he called recent security threats against his family and the other two commissioners. There are police reports about these incidents — which culminated Tuesday when police stopped a private investigator who had been hired to follow Fernandez. By who? We don’t know.

Ladra is sure she could come up with more reasons. This list started with 12 then went to 17 and there are things I’m leaving out because they don’t live up to the others or they are unconfirmed and I ran out of time.
But readers are invited to please feel free to add their own reasons in the comments below.
Maria Cruz, you will be cut off after three comments so think about it!
The post What transparency? 22 reasons NOT to vote for Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Once again, Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar is trying to take credit for something she didn’t do.
Salazar, who was re-elected last year, was called out when she said she had brought millions in federal dollars to her district and the Miami-Dade area when she actually voted against two federal bills during the Biden administration, including the bipartisan critical infrastructure bill that funded $2.5 million to expand healthcare for seniors and families, $8 million for flooding mitigation along the Miami River and in Little Havana and $3.75 million for police initiatives, among other projects.
She posed for photo ops with big, cardboard checks and then lied about not knowing how she voted on Jim DeFede’s Sunday politics show, Facing South Florida.
This week, Salazar took credit for getting the temporary protective status of Venezuelans extended for 18 months for 350,000 Venezuelans in the U.S. whose TPS had been rescinded by President Trump.
“¡EXCELENTE NOTICIA,” she exclaimed on the platform formerly know as Twitter with an alert emoji. “@DHSgov and @SecNoem will extend TPS for Venezuelans for 18 more months. I have led this fight and I have been asking for this for MONTHS! Thanks to the administration for doing the right thing.” She signed off with U.S. and Venezuela flag emojis.
Except she didn’t do anything. Supporting the introduction last month of the Venezuelan Adjustment Act (H.R. 1348) that was sponsored by Democrat Congressman Darren Soto may have given legal status and a path to citizenship for some Venezuelan nationals who arrived before on or Dec. 31, 2021. How would this stop the deportations of Venezuelans who were scheduled to lose their protections this coming Monday.
It was a federal judge this past Monday put stop to the deportation, something the Trump administration is appealing.
The order by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem‘s reversal of those protections “threatens to: inflict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States.”
Chen also said the government failed to provide evidence of “real countervailing harm in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneficiaries” and that there is a likelihood that the secretary’s actions “are unauthorized by law, arbitrary and capricious, and motivated by unconstitutional animus.”
Read related: Maria Elvira Salazar sends campaign mailers from congressional office
So, it wasn’t Salazar, after all. It was Chen and the attorneys who argued in front of him on behalf of the immigrants. In fact, Salazar’s dear friend Noem already filed an emergency appeal.
But Salazar isn’t fooling anyone. Not only is there a “readers added content” note saying the congresswoman is “deliberately lying,” but she also got more than comments on her X post Thursday in less than 12 hours — all calling her a liar and an opportunist.
“But it was the Trump administration who took it away [TPS status], it was a judge that restored them, not DHS. But lady!! Do you live in a parallel universe or are you just acting like a crazy person,” asked one user.
“Si, ella tiene la cara bien dura,” responded someone else, using the Cuban term for being able to lie with a straight face.
“You’ve led this fight? This chic talks shit,” says one comment.
“The last straw is to give yourself credit for solid a problem that your boss is responsible for. Thanks to the judge and all the Venezuelans who made this possible,” says another.

Someone calling himself Juan Fuentes said “Fuera #MariaMentiraSalazar for being a shameless liar and hipócrita with no principles or values. You are afraid of Trump and MAGA and want to fool the victims. The party doesn’t matter. Out with the hypocritical liar.“
Tomás Castellanos said, “Lying comes easy to this woman.”
Carlos Viana wrote that the judge had ordered the TPS extended and that Noem called them “basura,” or garbage. “You supported it and didn’t move one finger. We are not idiots, Maria Elvira. Stop being the ridiculous one.”
Richard Lamondin had harsh words, too: “You had nothing to do with this. This victory was won by the valiant Venezuelans who dared to defy the cruel actions of the government. The silence and absence of Congress are the reason why the courts had to act. Do your job.”
“Thanks to who????!!!!!. Please Representative,” posted someone else, “don’t play with the intelligence of your constituents. It was a JUDGE who decided to maintain the 18 month extension that Secretary Mayorkas gave them under the BIDEN administration.”
“You and your entire Republican gang are scoundrels with no morals whatsoever. TPS for Venezuelans continues because a judge prevented the TPS CANCELLATION issued by Kristi Noem and the Trump administration. YOU’RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE,” posted another user.
And it goes on and on and on. Ladra would not be surprised if there are more than 1,000 such comments by morning.
Maybe Salazar wouldn’t have to take credit for doing things she didn’t do if she would actually do something.
The post Maria Elvira Salazar takes credit for judge extending TPS for Venezuelans appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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Well, here we go again.
Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago has once more threatened to sue Ladra and Political Cortadito. This time, it’s over a post a few days ago that exposes his unprofessional relationship with his “Chief of Staff to None” Chelsea Granell and how that is not only evidence of Lago’s duplicity and hypocrisy, but also a liability for the city. Granell wants to sue also.
This is according to their respective attorneys, Mason Pertnoy — who also represents Miami Commissioner Joe Carollo — and David Rothstein, partner at the prestigious Dimond, Kaplan and Rothstein firm. Don’t worry, dear reader. Granell can afford it. She was promoted by Lago five whole pay grades at once, as chief of staff where there is no staff, and makes more than $90,000 a year. Their attorneys would have you believe that this is not relevant, nor connected to the personal, emotional relationship they have.
Ladra refuses to use the word romantic because, well, ew.
Mason Pertnoy
“We are aware of certain defamatory and libelous statements made by you and/or your agents on https://www.politicalcortadito.com/ (the “Website”) regarding an alleged affair between Mayor Lago and his Chief of Staff, Chelsea Granell (“Ms. Granell”),” Pertnoy’s letter, giving me five days to retract, starts. “Specifically, on March 27, 2025, you (writing through your admitted pseudonym “Landra”) falsely stated, inter alia, that Mayor Lago and Ms. Granell were engaged in an adulterous, emotional, and physical affair. The headline of the “article” itself (“Mayor Vince Lago’s personal affair with chief of staff becomes campaign fodder”) is false, libelous, and defamatory.”
This is an interesting paragraph for various reasons. First, agents? I have agents? This is news to me. Second, it’s not Landra, it’s Ladra. Sloppy work for a high-priced suit. Third, Ladra never used the word “adulterous,” because, again, ew.
And, also, we didn’t have to.
Read related: Mayor Vince Lago’s personal affair with chief of staff becomes campaign fodder
The letter puts the word “article” itself in quotations.
“The message in the article is clear. You allege Mayor Lago and Ms. Granell engaged in a ‘real affair’ and Mayor Lago abused his position of power by providing her with improper benefits and unearned compensation. These statements are patently false, and wholly unsupported by the referenced public records request from an unverified person with blatantly suspicious intentions.”
For the record, these statements are not false. She is the chief of staff of nobody. There was a part timer who lasted a couple of months before she left. The “referenced public records request” has been amended to request information about her exit from the mayor’s employ. Also, the statements don’t have to be supported by the public records request, they are supported by other sources, facts and simple observations. Like that Granell is chief of staff of a staff of none.
Also, for the record, the post in Political Cortadito specifically mentions the “suspicious intentions” of the public records request. It looks like a campaign tactic. But a public records request is a public record. And the documents and records sought — including texts messages and other communications — seemingly show an inside knowledge of events surrounding the, ahem, alleged affair.
Pertnoy is educational in his approach.
“As I am sure you know, Florida law provides an unusually high protection of personal reputation,” he wrote, citing a case that has to do with a surgeon at a hospital in Ft. Pierce. He gave me five days to retract the story or face possible litigation.
Thanks for the quick lesson, Mase.
Chelsea Granell, fourth from left, on what looks like Halloween, where she and Mayor Lago have matching pirate costumes.
And, as I am sure Mr. Pertnoy knows, courts don’s see politicians and surgeons in the same light and haven’t given the same unusually high protection for elected officials, who are public figures. With criticism from independent journalists, no less.
And, as I am sure Mr. Pertnoy knows, the threshold for libel in Florida is pretty high. There are three elements that have to be proven. First, he would have to prove that Ladra knew the information posted on Political Cortadito was false. It’s not. Ladra spoke with several sources, some very, very close to Granell, who provided context and details.
Secondly, they would have to prove malice. That means he has to prove that Ladra posted the information with evil intentions in mind. The only reason the exposé was posted was because there was a public records request that has apparently made the rounds — Ladra spoke with several people who had seen it and sent it to her — and because it is relevant as the mayor campaigns with attacks about a 101% raise that commissioners, including his opponent, gave themselves, which means they still make less than Granell.
The hypocrisy is relevant.
Read related: Kirk Menendez strikes back at Coral Gables Mayor ‘Lyin’ Vince Lago’
The last thing that has to be present for there to be libel is that the plaintiff’s reputation must be sullied. That’s hilarious. Not just because the people who read Political Cortadito mostly have their minds made up — there are the fans who hate L’Ego already and the haters who love him no matter what — but because Lago has done enough to hurt his own reputation. He needs no help there.
All three elements have to be present.
Ladra doesn’t blame Pertnoy — who also represents Lago in his equally baseless defamation lawsuit against Actualidad Radio — for taking this on, despite its obvious lack of merit. These are billable hours for him. It’s Lago that is to blame for trying to silence his critics. Granell is just being taken for a fool.
That post about the relationship has been met with some mixed reactions. Some, and not just Lago lackeys, think it crossed a line and is in bad taste. But it has also received praise from others who say Ladra exposed a situation that is not just inappropriate — and a real character trait of a mayoral candidate — but relevant. And it could pose a risk to the city. How do we know that he didn’t coerce this young woman into a relationship with a powerful man? How do we know she’s not going to claim sexual harassment later? What if someone with knowledge of the relationship used it to pressure (read: blackmail) the mayor into a vote?
Ladra hadn’t even thought of that last one until someone raised the concern in a comment.
This is not the first time that a personal out-of-office relationship between two city employees in the Gables becomes political fodder. There was once a city manager who was sued for sexual harassment by the secretary of the then-mayor, which was part of the reason that manager resigned.
So, the relationship is relevant. To say otherwise is like saying the relationship between Gary Hart and Donna Rice was not important. Just business as usual and not monkey business (sorry, I had to).
Needless to say, the deadline came and passed. The five days to respond were up on Wednesday, and crickets. This is an obvious bluff. I am anxiously awaiting the lawsuit so I can depose the mayor and Granell on a bunch of stuff.
Read related: Under fire, Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago sues Cuban radio station for libel
They already got my answer, though. A big fat no. I mean, through my attorney, a big fat no.
“In response to your request for a retraction, the answer is ‘no,’” wrote David Winker to Pertnoy. “My client rejects your assertion that this is a false statement. And she stands by the article as true and accurate in all respects.”
He also added something Ladra wishes she had thought of, and that’s why Winker is her attorney: “Please be sure to have your client, Vince Lago, save all relevant emails, texts, and ‘chats’ regarding his relationship with his Chief of Staff, Chelsea Granell.”
There has been no response to my his letter — nor any lawsuits filed.
Demand for Retraction from Mayor Vince Lago’s attorney to Elaine de Valle, award winning journalist at Poli… by Political Cortadito on Scribd

Letter from Chelsea Granell’s attorney demanding a retraction and threatening to sue by Political Cortadito on Scribd

The post Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago and chief of staff threaten to sue Ladra appeared first on Political Cortadito.

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