Miami-Dade police launches absentee-ballot fraud probe

Miami-Dade law-enforcement authorities have launched an investigation into potential absentee-ballot fraud connected to next month’s primary election.

Rumors swirled late Wednesday that two women were being questioned by police after being caught with a bundle of absentee ballots in Hialeah, a political hotbed where many elderly residents prefer to vote by mail. But few details were available from police and prosecutors.

State Attorney Katherine Fernández Rundle, herself on the Aug. 14 ballot, issued a statement urging voters to take special care with their ballots. Her statement, regarding “an ongoing investigation of individuals collecting or handling absentee ballots,” noted a county ordinance makes it a misdemeanor for anyone to pick up or return more than two absentee ballots other than their own.

“All of Miami-Dade County’s voters should be very careful with their absentee ballots,” Rundle said. “The ordinance contains very specific language on how absentee ballots are now to be handled.”

The target of the investigation, by the Miami-Dade police public corruption unit, is unclear.

Political Cortadito, a local blog run by former Miami Herald reporter Elaine de Valle, reported that two women were detained by police in Hialeah on Wednesday afternoon with about a dozen absentee ballots. Police and prosecutors declined to confirm or deny the report. More here.

Romney camp features Tampa govt. contractors who say they don't need... government

TAMPA -- Two local business owners the Mitt Romney campaign tapped on Wednesday to speak out against President Barack Obama and government interference couldn't have been more contradictory choices to speak out on the topic.

The point of the 11 a.m. news conference was to stress that small business owners succeed because of their own grit and determination and don't need government to do it. It's part of a Romney campaign line of attack that's tring to capitalize on comments Obama made in July 13 speech. Obama was talking about how even the most successful business owners didn't do it completely alone, that they were helped by others, including those in government.

The Romney campaign is using a snippet of the speech to suggest that Obama is instead saying that government is solely responsible for the success of private busines owners. That's not so. Obama isn't anywhere close to saying that. But in TV ads, that's the point Romney is making.

And it appears to be working. The line of attack spread Wednesday to 24 events in swing states across the country, from Columbus, Oh., to Palm Beach and Raleigh, N.C. In Tampa, the campaign spotlighted Rebecca Smith, owner of the construction company A.D. Morgan Corp., and Lou Ramos, owner of Value Enterprise Solutions, an information technology company.

"None at all," Ramos said, when asked what role government have fed into their success.

"I was asked the other day on whether I feel government doesn't support small business," Smith said. "And I think the answer is resounding. Not only does (Obama) seem not to understand business, and he doesn't seem to want to accord the business leadership with the credit of making the choice to lead and risk in starting a business, I would go one step further and say that our president seems to oppose the success of small business."

One problem with having Ramos and Smith, both registered Republicans, as speakers on this topic: they both said they didn't see the entire Obama speech that they find so personally insulting. Ramos said he later read the complete trancript, but couldn't remember from where he got it. Smith acknowledged she saw only news reports of the speech, either on NBC or FoxNews.

But the other, more puzzling problem the two have for this particular Romney message is that rather than wanting to get out of the way of big government, Smith and Ramos have embraced it and benefitted from it greatly. They just won't admit it.

The A.D. Morgan Corporation employs 50 people and has annual revenues of about $80 million, according to its website. The company lists more than 130 projects and developments. Impressive, no doubt. But the list is nearly all government projects. (One of the few not to be: the Poynter Institute for Media Studies). From the Sumter County jail expansion, Woodlawn Elementary School, the library at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, interior sign at James Haley Veterans Hospital, the Plant City Courthouse, a Florida Department of Transportation weigh station, the projects that have made A.D. Morgan the success it is have been government, big and small, state and local.

Weldon flubs the number of Connie Mack's missed votes

U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, R-Fort Myers, has been criticized for missing votes while campaigning for U.S. Senate.

A Republican rival, former U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon of Indialantic near Melbourne, aired a robocall recently that picked up that story line:

"How angry would you be if you hired someone to do a job and they only showed up half the time? You know -- they only cut half the grass, or they charged you for four hours when they really only worked two? Well, that’s what candidate Connie Mack has done. This year in Congress he has missed almost half of his votes, and now he not only wants to be paid for not showing up, he wants to be promoted into the U.S. Senate."

PolitiFact explores if that number was correct.

Divorce, pornography, arrest and restraining orders, and the Colorado killings; Barreiro-Diaz de la Portilla Miami House race is vicious

The state House District 112 race looks like it's the most-vicious in Miami, if not Florida, as former state Rep. Gus Barreiro squares off against former state Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla. Both are Republicans. Both hail from political families.

And both sides are eviscerating each other.

This week, two Republican blogs endorsed Diaz de la Portilla and took Barreiro to task for, among other things, getting fired in 2009 from the Department of Juvenile Justice over his apparent use of a state computer to troll the singles-and-swingers Adult Friend Finders dating website, which left hundreds of pornographic pictures on his laptop. Barreiro said he was set up.

TEA Party Miami' Eric Von Tausch compared the former Representative with Colorado Joker Killer James Holmes by posting a blog with this headline: "WHAT DO GUS BARREIRO AND THE AURORA MASS MURDERER HAVE IN COMMON?"

"Now the New York Post reports that alleged Aurora mass murderer John [sic] Holmes also trolled the Adultfriendfinder.com website seeking kinky sexual contacts with women and couples," Von Tausch wrote. (Note: John Holmes is the dead porn star).

Republican activist Christian Camara wrote on his Reaganista blog that Barreiro is a "chivato" (basically a rat) for his role in filing a 2006 complaint against then-fellow Republican Rep. Ralph Arza for allegedly using a racial slur amid a squabble with then-School Superintendent Rudy Crew, who's reviled by some in the exile community for refusing to ban the book Vamos a Cuba, viewed as a work of Castro propaganda.

Also, some voters have received robo-calls in the district calling Barreiro a "pornographer."

Barreiro supporters have been ripping Diaz de la Portilla apart at the same time. A shadowy Melbourne-based political committee called Conservatives United has sent at least two mailers in the district highlighting Diaz de la Portilla's tough and messy divorce with lobbyist Claudia Davant, who is pictured in one of the flyers. In another, a stand-in female model is depicted weeping and distraught.

"I did not authorize nor do I condone anyone using me personally for political purposes," Davant said. "I am horrified." She said she's having a lawyer send the committee a cease-and-desist order over the unauthorized use of her likeness.

Davant isn't the only person made queasy by the mailers. One constituent told us she had to throw away the mailers so her kids didn't see the disturbing images.

Barreiro said his campaign had nothing to do with the mailers. And he said Diaz de la Portilla "will do anything to win. He has no respect." Said Diaz de la Portilla: "These people are outright liars. What can you expect from a desperate man who is a known deadbeat dad and a pornographer? I suspect he's simply trying to cover up his lack of moral character."

Diaz de la Portilla's divorce became news in 2010 when Davant  received a now-lifted temporary restraining order against him that accused the then-Republican state Senate leader. The mailer excerpts from her court filing in which she said she feared for her life and worried about his temper when he drinks. Then, last year, a Tallahassee judge issued an arrest warrant for Diaz de la Portilla after he refused to give Davant one of their dogs -- named Priscilla and Elvis -- as they divided their property in the divorce. The arrest warrant has been stayed as Diaz de la Portilla's brother, attorney and state Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, fights the matter at the First District Court of Appeal.

Almost as shocking as the charges and countercharges is that Barreiro and Diaz de la Portilla actually worked well together in the Legislature. Obviously, that was before they ran against each other. Just imagine what either side might do to the Democrat (Jose Javier Rodriguez squares off against Alex Dominguez) after the Aug. 14 primary.

Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2010/05/senators-divorce-getting-ugly.html#storylink=cpy

Jim Greer case costs GOP more to fight ($260k) than settle ($124k)

It has been two years since officials at the Republican Party of Florida signed a controversial agreement to pay ousted chairman Jim Greer the remainder of his 2010 salary.

It would have cost the party about $124,000.

Instead, the party has already paid more than $260,000 to three Tallahassee lawyers who are defending the party, former chairman John Thrasher, Senate President Mike Haridopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon against a civil suit brought by Greer over the agreement.

And there is no end in sight.

A campaign finance report filed earlier this month indicates the party has paid Stephen Dobson $88,276, Steven R. Andrews $101,509 and Dean R. LeBoeuf $70,299. Dobson and Andrews are lawyers representing the party. Andrews also represented Cannon, but is now representing Brian Ballard, a lobbyist and fundraiser who is a witness in the case. LeBoeuf represents Haridopolos.

The report does not yet include payment of fees to lawyer Kenneth Sukhia, who is representing Thrasher.

A number of other witnesses have also hired lawyers, making the civil suit into a mid-summer bonanza for the capital's legal community.

Greer, meanwhile, says he is broke. His family is living on food stamps and his children have no health insurance. Greer has been unable to pay Damon Chase, the Lake Mary lawyer who represents Greer in the civil case and in a pending criminal case stemming from Greer's time as party chairman.

-- Lucy Morgan

From union-busting to carpetbaggers to David Rivera-bashing, D-26 Dems take off gloves

The Democrats running to unseat Republican Congressman David Rivera ripped the scandal-plagued incumbent on Tuesday.

But they also turned on each other.

Candidate Gustavo Marin, of Perrine, suggested that fellow Democrats Joe Garcia and Gloria Romero-Roses were “butterflies and carpetbaggers” because they didn’t live in the newly drawn Kendall-to-Key West district.

But the real tensions came at the end of the Miami Herald editorial board interview Tuesday when Garcia and Romero-Roses rehashed the substance of their attack-ad mailers.

Garcia, a lawyer, suggested Romero-Roses, a businesswoman, was anti-labor. He pointed out that she worked for a company that managed employees at Miami Beach’s Sunset Harbor South condominium, which was at the center of a Services Employee International Union dispute.

“When you have a woman that has three children, is making minimum wage and asks for healthcare and can’t get it and gets fired because of it, that’s not right,” Garcia said. “And that is a place where we disagree. We have serious value differences.”

Romero-Roses shot back that Garcia had “mischaracterized” her actions and took a “cheap shot.” She said she had nothing to do with the dispute in which the National Labor Relations Board rapped the company for violating the National Labor Relations Act.

“When I was employed by the Continental Group, my roll was to make sure employees had access — full access — to their health insurance, as well as their 401(k) plan,” Romero Roses said. “And what he is referring to, occurred at an NLRB finding in 2004 before I was even employed by the company.”

Garcia, in turn, took issue with Romero-Roses for linking him to failed energy giant Enron.

More here

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/24/2910603/dems-rip-rep-david-rivera-then.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy