If, as some of you believe that I've doubled down recently on my criticism of the Miami Herald, you're absolutely right.

My focus has always been on the topics of municipal governance, public corruption and misuse of public money, and on those topics  the level and quality of coverage by the Herald has been getting worse every year.

I admit that I cover the politics of political campaigns with less enthusiasm than others do, and I do tend to sidestep or ignore the daily political fist fights between candidates.

Instead, my focus tends to be on the money collected and spent by candidates by both their regular campaign accounts and by the ECO's and PAC's created to support their candidacy.

In this regard, I not only find the Miami's Herald's coverage woefully slanted, but worse it's reflective of what so many now recognize as the Family and Friend's Plan that has become woven into the fabric of both politics and governance in South Florida.

THE "BIZARRE" STORY OF ROGER SANTANA

In the hot house of South Florida politics very few people have ever heard of Roger Santana, which is because he's a guy who ran for and lost - came in 3rd - a seat on the Bay Harbor Village Council.

Of all the stories of funny money, political hanky-panky and devious actions intended to screw the pooch that have occurred so far this year among well known, and seriously funded political campaigns the Herald decided to go with revelations about the low level mopery committed by Santana in failing to report how he spent $3,250 of money that he had loaned his campaign - in fact the story claims that Sanatana's campaign was financed solely by himself - was worthy of a full blown, detailed story with expert commentary by local elections expert, attorney JC Planas, on how he was "at a loss" to explain Santana's failure to provide an explanation for why he had not revealed that he had not provided a detailed accounting of the payments he made to a local political operative, "mailers and consulting work." (You can read the complete story HERE.)

Copyrighted:  2011,2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020

This story allowed the Herald to claim that they were reporting on political hanky-panky while making sure that they did not embarrass or step on anyone's toes that was currently under the protection of  the Family and Friend's Plan.

THERE'S A CORNACOPIA OF STORIES WHEREVER YOU TURN

After reading Leibowitz's story I chided him on Twitter for making this story into a "federal case," when in fact it was a case of low level mopery in the third degree, and then went on to provide a list of other, more worthy stories that involved real South Florida political players and real money.

The first involved former Miami City Commissioner, and now lobbyist and attorney for the City Commission in the lease for the Mel Reese Golf Course Marc Sarnoff, and his and my pal, Commissioner Joe "Comemierda" Carollo, who Sarnoff donated $40,000 to Carollo's ECO from his PAC, Truth Is The Daughter Of Time, and which mysteriously never showed up in Carollo's ECO's financial reports.

$40,000 IS REAL MONEY, and given both the proclivity of Sarnoff to engage in "Pay For Play" - who at the time had several major lobbying clients in need of favorable votes by the commission - and Carollo's history of shaking down folks needing a favorable vote by the commission, it was not an unreasonable assumption to believe that the $40,000 represented a bribe in the form of a campaign donation. HERE

Putting aside speculation as to intent, the fact is that $40,000 was reported in BLACK and WHITE to have been donated to Carollo's ECO from Sarnoff's PAC, and was never accounted for by Carollo's ECO. HERE.

Then there was the revelation that days before the primary election, when Renier Diaz de la Portilla did not know whether he would win, lose, or end up in a runoff - which is in fact what happened - he made two transfers of $25,000 and $50,000 to his brother Alez's PAC.

The transfers are not in and of themselves illegal, but given both Alex's well documented history of looting his campaign and PAC accounts to cover his living expenses, and the stories that have been making the rounds of Renier sitting with Alex in his office and other locations when he engages in meetings with individuals looking for his assistance and vote on an issue important to them, there is a legitimate question as to why Renier would transfer $75,000 THAT HE NOW NEEDS FOR HIS RUNOFF CAMPAIGN to his brother's PAC.

And then of course there are the questions about who is behind some of the donations like the 2 donations totaling $80,000 that Renier's PAC received from a Delaware company being fronted by Miami attorney William Riley.

Who would be so eager to see Renier Diaz de la Portilla on the County Commission that they would pony up $80,000? Or for that matter, why would the donations of so many on the list below be tied to companies inside the City of Miami that currently have business before the commission on one issue or another?

The antics involving the Diaz de la Portilla brothers will continue, and  while they certainly deserve a lot more coverage than they've gotten to date concerning the who, how and why's of the money that Renier has collected, and Alex has spent, a more interesting story about campaign money involves the PAC created to support the candidacy of Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle's reelection.

KFR AND THE PAC THAT SUPPORTS HER

Fernandez-Rundle received a dubious, and high controversial, "With reservations" endorsement by the Herald the weekend before the primary election which set off a firestorm among some in the community over the obvious thumb on the scale that this endorsement, coupled with a lack of in-depth coverage - you can see just how much coverage the Herald has given Fernandez-Rundle HERE - that for the most part focused narrowly on just two complaints about her management of the state attorney's office: A failure to prosecute cops who have killed civilians over the last 27 years regardless of the circumstances or evidence, and the failure to prosecute anyone for the murder of Darren Rainey in the shower at the South-Dade Correctional Facility.

There are so many other issues that the Herald has ignored or sidestepped over the years, from the failure of Fernandez-Rundle to prosecute public corruption which starts with her failure to prosecute former Congressman David Rivera even after preparing a 51 count indictment, to Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo who has violated the City Charter's Section 4 (d) on bypassing the City Manager to order city employees to do his bidding so many times that it might as well be removed from the Charter, or to the antics of any of a handful of other high profile Cuban politicians who she's protected over the years like a mother duck herding her little collection of baby ducks across a busy highway.

There's also her willingness to accept what have to be considered as legal bribes from lawyers, law firms, sundry lobbyists and high rollers in the community, that by my calculation came to over $109,000 when I did my last accounting of her FORM 9's last year, and that's before the revelations unearthed by Danny Rivero of WLRN on the hundreds of thousands of dollars her charity received from a handful of rich criminal defendants resulting in their cases being dismissed or downgraded to misdemeanors.

The Herald has always demonstrated a convient amnesia when it comes to chronicling the past history of local politicians at election time, and Fernandez-Rundle has certainly been a beneficiary of that amnesia, because along with the issues above the Herald got amnesia when they failed to include any mention of her association with Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez during her last reelection campaign, or the $110,000 in donations from Puerto Rico - many of them from fictitious individuals and addresses - that showed up in her campaign accounts back in 2012, that were alleged to have been funneled to her from her boyfriend.

For a public official whose supposed to be above the fray, and conduct her personal and professional life with an eye on avoiding even the appearance of corruption, Fernandez-Rundle and the people who she entrusts her reputation seem to like to skate on the edges.

For instance, on July 5th, I posted a story revealing that several of Fernandez-Rundle's supporters had created a PAC called, Citizens For Justice PC, to support her reelection.

At the time of my story, the PAC had collected $133,500. Since then, the PAC collected another $117,500.

Buried in the list of the latest donations was one for $3000 that was logged in as deposited on August 13th, that should cause folks in the news media to say, "What The Fuck!"

Right under a nice $10,000 from MASTEC - aka Jorge & Jose Mas of Melreese Golf Club/David Beckham fame - is one from Armor Correctional Health Services.

Who are they you ask? Here's the link to page one on Google who tells you who they are.

You would think that one of those crackerjack, smart new reporters that the Herald has hired to juice it's so-called reporting would have been checking on the money going into these local PAC's, and that if a story about some guy who nobody knows about failed to properly account for the $3000 plus that he loaned himself and spent on his failed campaign, that maybe, just maybe, somebody at the Herald might have thought that $3000 from a major private prison medical provider with a laundry list of allegations of abuse of prisoners UNDER THEIR CARE might be of interest to readers, seeing as Katherine Fernandez-Rundle has a soft spot for prisoners being murdered by prison guards.

It's Miami. Bitches!