We are definitely living in strage times.

Take lobbyist Eric Zichella. He's a guy, who along with his partner Les Pantin represent a long list of clients at both the City of Miami and Miami-Dade County.

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

Zichella has also for the last several years served as the Interim Chairman of the city's Finance Committee, a position he holds because of his appointment to that committee by Commissioner Joe Carollo.

You would think that being both a high-priced lobbyist, and also the Interim Chairman of a powerful committee overseeing the City of Miami's finances that he'd has some sense about making essentially racist comments on Twitter.

He didn't.

Yesterday, in response to a Twitter post from Stephen Hunter Johnson, an attorney with Lydecker Diaz, about the comments that NBA Coach Doc Rivers made about the police shooting in Wisconsin, Zichella weighed in by posting the comments below.

Hunter Johnson's response was:

Of course, not only do I not have any guilt about how I conducted myself in prison but he did not even remotely "establish" anything revealing that I was part of any white supremacist prison gang, although I've written in the past about my years as the President of one of the first Jaycee prison chapters in the country, and my involvement as both the Chairman of the Inmate Council in one prison I spent 4 years in, and well as being one of the leaders of the 1972 state-wide prison strike in Ohio - all incidents that were documented by newspapers in Ohio at the time - and I have posted on this site copies of stories I wrote about prison conditions, including this story about a Black guy on the verge of death at the Springfield medical Facility back in 1980.

In Zichella's diseased mind, I guess he would think this would qualify me for membership in some white supremist prison gang.

And then I showed up.

I don't mean to brag, but there are thousands of folks who have come to appreciate and look forward to my engaging in good, free-fo-all Twitter fight at 240 characters a punch.

Zichella and I exchanged about an hour or two of punches over the implications of his revealingly racist opinions about what is going on in our country as the result of the continued shooting and killing of unarmed Black men, and as it became apparent that more folks were joining in to take shots at him, Zichella, in the tried and true method of trying to shoot the messenger instead of dealing with the message, shifted from the issue of racism and started implying that  I must have deep dark secrets of how I was able to survive the 20 years I spent in various prisons around this country, first insinuating, before finally coming right out and stating that I only did so by being a member of a racist, white prison gang.  

I guess the big thing that really pissed Zichella off was when I accused him of legally, "bribing public officials."

It was after another hour or so of back and forth that I told Zichella I was moving off of Twitter to my blog to deal with this issue in depth.

I'LL GO OUT ON A LIMB AND SAY THAT IF THIS ISN'T BRIBERY, THEN DONALD DUCK IS A KANGROO

On September 30, 2019, Miami City Commissioner Joe Carollo's ECO, Miami First, received a $10,000 from Zichella's lobbying firm, P3 Management NA LLC.

What's interesting about the timing of this "donation" is that TEN DAYS after Zichella made this "donation" to Carollo, Carollo returned the favor by reappointing him to the City's Finance Committee, where he presides as the Interim Chairman.

How sweet was this?  Did Zichella bribe Carollo to reappoint him to the Finance Committee. He'll say no, but NO ONE goes around giving an elected official who has the ability to appoint them to a public board $10,000 just out of the goodness of their heart, especially when the elected official returns the favor 10 days later.

Even more basic is why would a lobbyist who represents clients before the Miami City Commission even be allowed to sit on a committee as powerful as the City's Finance Committee?

In addition to the $10,000 that he gave Carollo, Zichella seems to have covered his bets not only on the commission, but also on the possibility that current Miami City Commissioner, and county commission candidate Keon Hardemon would be sympathetic to his clients by giving him $9000 in October of 2019.

And just to make sure that he took care of the new Big Dog on the City Commission, Zichella has given Alex Diaz de la Portilla a total of $25,000 in donations. Two for $10,000 on June 30th and August 12 of 2020, and two for $2500 on October 31,2019 and May 7th, 2020.

All of this is from a guy who had the gall to write:

It's always amazing to read this kind of racist tripe from a guy whine about why anyone else would be ungrateful for having, "benefited from the largess of this Country," when the way they've managed to become a millionaire was by bribing politicians and peddling influence.

It's Miami. Bitches!