Rewind to the Summer of 2012: A group of Ron Paul loyalists set its sight on the Miami-Dade County Republican Executive Committee and recruited several candidates throughout the county to “take over” the party, as some called it. This effort was apparently not limited to Miami-Dade County, but I digress.

At the August primary, this group managed to elect a near-majority of Republican district committee members (due to the size of the county, the Miami-Dade GOP elects its committee members by districts instead of precincts as most other counties do).

The Ron Paul faction, whom I affectionately refer to as the “Ronulans,” put together a slate for party officer positions. Although unable to elect a chairman from their slate, they were successful in electing other officers, including Treasurer at the December organizational meeting.

However, there was some confusion during and immediately after the vice chairman election, since the Ronulan candidate committeewoman Rosa Palomino won a slim plurality over longtime Republican activist Marili Cancio, but failed to receive an actual majority of the vote because of a third candidate.

The rules required a run-off, but due to the exhausting hours-long organizational meeting, this was overlooked and Palomino was erroneously declared the winner. Some members eventually noticed that Palomino failed to garner a simple (50%+) majority, so the chairman declared there would be the required runoff. However, the runoff never took place after Palomino decided to not pursue the position apparently due to some internal squabbles.

Ultimately, one of the leaders of the Ronulan pack Emmanuel “Manny” Román decided to throw his hat in the ring.

Manny Román

Román failed to win his district committeeman election in August 2012 and was therefore not a member of the Republican Executive Committee. However, one of his allies happened to win in Román’s district, so he resigned his committeeman post so Román could fill the resultant vacancy and qualify to run for vice chairman.  All this was apparently the result of a compromise reached with party leadership so the Ronulans could have an additional officer position.

Everyone was getting along and everything going well until the Ronulans decided to present a resolution against the taxpayer-funded Joe Robbie Stadium modernization proposal (that’s right…I still call it Joe Robbie Stadium, because he built it with his own money).

Unlike proposed resolutions in previous years, this one was not drafted with input from a standing committee, but instead was drafted by some of the Ronulans and presented at the actual committee meeting it was going to be voted on.

Román reportedly spearheaded the drafting and passage of the resolution.

During the meeting in which the resolution was debated, members almost unanimously agreed with the resolution’s intent to express opposition to the taxpayer-funded Dolphins proposal, but disagreed with the resolution’s abrasive, personal tone and wording that went so far as singling out some Republican legislators by name, including Hialeah Representative Eddy González (more on why González matters here later).

Ultimately, the hotly debated resolution passed narrowly and received some coverage in the press, which naturally irked many committee members, especially those legislators it targeted (full text of the resolution here).

One of the members irritated by the passage of the resolution was longtime party leader and GOP State Committeewoman Liliana Ros, who makes a great, loyal ally, but a really tough adversary. Although she shared the Ronulans’ position on the stadium proposal and personally opposed it, she along with several others felt the resolution was unnecessarily harsh and went against the local party’s ultimate mission, which is to elect Republicans, not bash them.

“We have passed resolutions for and against amendments and ballot questions in the past, and we could have done that in this case too,” Ros said in an e-mail. “But we don’t draft resolutions behind everyone’s back and certainly not word them so harshly or use them to attack our Republican elected officials.”

Bryan Avila

So committee members upset with the handling of the resolution and concerned with Román’s political judgment reached out to longtime Hialeah area Republican activist Bryan Ávila to see if he would run for vice chairman, and he agreed.

Why  Ávila? Because aside from having solid Republican Activist bona fides, he is strongly considering a run for the open State House District 111 seat currently held by Reprsentative Eddy González.

And who else is reportedly considering a run for that seat? Manny Román.

Ávila appears to enjoy some support among area activists and elected officials. However, if Ávila ever had a concern that his support among some legislators and their allies was soft, he now has Román and his fellow Ronulans to thank for solidifying it.

As an aside, I endorsed Ávila for vice chairman because of his many years of direct Republican activism. In fact, in 2010 yours truly managed the Hialeah operation for the Rubio campaign and Republican Party of Florida, and Ávila was one of the most dedicated and disciplined volunteers during that effort. He didn’t just hang out at the headquarters for free Cuban coffee, pastelitos, and photo-ops, but actually walked door-to-door for Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, and the rest of our candidates. If there is anyone who deserves to occupy a Republican Party leadership position, it is someone like him who has paid his dues with his own sweat–literally.  He is definitely #ReaganistaCertified.

But I digress.

To his credit, Román was endorsed by a handful of College Republican clubs, a local tea party group and billionaire/political player Norman Braman, who has led the effort against the taxpayer-funded Dolphins stadium proposal. But despite his support from these groups, there was still lingering animosity over the resolution issue among those who can actually cast a vote.

In the weeks leading up to last Thursday’s election, things got a little weird–or weirder than usual, by Miami politics standards.  GOP Committeewoman Roxanna Greene received a threatening “cease and desist” letter from attorney and key Ronulan figure Saúl Escobar who recently ran unsuccessfully for the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee. The letter sent by Escobar–a Román ally–reportedly accused Greene of spreading a false rumor, which she denies.

This obviously did not sit well with Greene, so she did what anyone in politics would do to an accuser: went on a dirt-digging expedition.

So Greene did some research on Manny Román and found that he had been a registered Democrat who supported Barack Obama in 2008, had not switched to the Republican Party until recently, and even failed to vote in the crucial 2012 presidential election. She put all this in an e-mail and fired it off to the entire executive committee. Her e-mail was even picked up by The Miami Herald’s “Naked Politics” blog.

The e-mail caused a flurry of activity on the Miami-Dade GOP’s FaceBook page, and Román even issued a statement where he compared himself to Ronald Reagan in reference to the former president’s time as a Democrat earlier in his life.

Nevertheless, the election was held on Thursday, and much to many committee members’ surprise, several Miami-Dade Republican legislators–who are at-large members of the committee–showed up to the special meeting to cast a vote, which they rarely do. It is no surprise that Representatives Eddy Gonzalez and Erik Fresen who were both singled out in the Ronulans’ resolution showed up, and one can assume it was not to vote for Román. A Reaganista.com source at the meeting identified State Senator Rene García and Representatives Frank Artiles, Manny Díaz, Jeanette Núñez and José Oliva. There were possibly other legislators.

The result? Ávila won 61-49.

The 2014 HD-111 primary should be fun.

If an election were held today between Nobel Prize Laureate Barack Obama and the Man who actually helped liberate hundreds of millions of people from the shackles of tyranny by winning the Cold War, the latter guy would win.

According to the survey, President Reagan would defeat Obama with a whopping 58% of the vote.  What’s even more shocking, is that the then-septugenarian former president would carry 51% of the young 18-34 year-old demographic, which is safe to say does not remember the good old days of the Reagan Administration.

The survey also shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans (74%) believe that the country was better off in the 1980s than it is today after four years of #HopeAndChange.  76% actually believe the country was safer and the government better run back then.

Not surprisingly, respondents prefer 80s music, too.

(Source: National Geographic Channel)

Imagine if an American celebrity supercouple chose South Africa–of all the countries in the world–to vacation in the 1980s at the height of the Apartheid era during rampant human and civil rights abuses.

Imagine them staying at hotels reserved only for whites, dining at restaurants that only allow whites, dancing and partying in clubs where only whites are welcomed, and infusing thousands of American dollars into a regime that will only use that money to continue oppressing its people.

And if all that wasn’t enough, imagine the regime covering and touting these celebrities’ every move on state television, showing what a great time they had as a propaganda ploy to distract from its own oppression and undermine dissidents’ efforts to call international attention to their plight.

What would have been the reaction of American politicians? Would the Congressional Black Caucus have remained silent? The same CBC that shepherded the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 that imposed economic sanctions on South Africa for its human and civil rights abuses?

What about Dr. Leon Sullivan, the African-American reverened and civil rights activist?  Remember, he conceived the “Sullivan Principles,” which eventually turned into a massive campaign to pressure American corporations against transacting business with South Africa. Would he have condemned those American celebrities for undermining his noble efforts by vacationing in South Africa while its people were continually tormented by that government?

What about the American press? How would they have covered such a visit? Would they have contrasted the celebrities’ posh vacation there with the hardships and persecution the average South African faced on a daily basis? Or, would they have merely regurgitated the propaganda coverage fed to them by the regime’s state media?

The obvious result to an American celebrity couple vacationing in Apartheid South Africa in the 1980s is that there would have been outrage on a massive scale.  They would have been excoriated by the American public for their utter disregard and for so arrogantly turning a blind eye to what was going on in that country as they feasted on the backs of those oppressed. In short, they would have probably seen their careers crash and burn–and rightfully so.

Which brings us to the present.

American pop singer Beyonce Knowles and her rapper husband Shawn Corey Carter, better known by his stage name “Jay Z” made headlines over the last week for choosing the Stalinist dictatorship of Cuba as their wedding anniversary vacation venue.

Cuban state media have relentlessly covered the couple clad in flashy 1950s wardrobe as they stroll down the few streets of Old Havana that have actually been kept up for tourists.

Funny how the Cuban regime promotes the whole 1950s throwback imagery when according to them, it was the island’s darkest moments. But I digress.

Meanwhile, as the couple vacations in the dictatorship’s synthetic paradise, the average Cuban is forbidden from stepping into, much less eating at the restaurants where the couple indulges itself, is not allowed to bathe on the white sandy beaches the couple is enjoying, cannot dance at the island’s iconic clubs and cabarets where the couple drink and party, and does not have access to the medical care or facilities reserved only for high ranking government officials, their families, and tourists.

But those are some damn good cigars, aren’t they, “Jay Z?”

In other words, Cuba’s best is reserved only for tourists with hard currency and those Cubans directly connected with the regime. Regular Cubans are relegated to dilapidated housing and squalor. It may not be racial apartheid, but apartheid it is.

But what’s even worse, is that while the regime plays the role of “gracious host” to Beyonce Knowles and Shawn “Jay Z” Carter and feeds those images to a complicit American media to replay, it regularly and systematically beats and imprisons peaceful dissidents, independent journalists and other critics of the regime. Those imprisoned are tormented by their cowardly captors, kept in the worst conditions imaginable, and their families helplessly subject to public “acts of repudiation” and mob violence.

In fact, it wasn’t too long ago when a prominent black Cuban dissident, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, was allowed to die in prison when he went on a hunger strike to protest the repeated beatings and other blatant abuses by Castro’s thug prison guards.

Meanwhile, back home many of the politicians who rightfully fought for sanctions against the Apartheid regime of South Africa just 30 years ago, today openly favor lifting all sanctions against the Stalinist, apartheid Castro regime without precondition.  That is, they want Americans to visit and do business with a country that suppresses independent media outlets as a matter of law, a regime that persecutes peaceful dissidents, a tyranny whose bastard constituion forbids opposition political parties, a dictatorship that beats women in the streets and imprisons pro-democracy activists, and a nation divided between wealthy government elites and impoverished citizens reeling from 50+ years of a failed socialist experiment.

But those mojitos are great, aren’t they Beyonce?

I done turned Havana into Atlanta… Boy from the hood… I got White House clearance… Politicians never did shit for me except lie to me, distort history… They wanna give me jail time and a fine. Fine, let me commit a real crime. 

…Hear the freedom in my speech… Obama said, ‘Chill you gonna get me impeached. You don’t need this shit anyway, chill with me on the beach.

What the hell is the “Cat Fund” and what does this mean for the average Floridian?

Some background: The Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund (AKA: “Cat Fund”) sells reinsurance to every property insurer selling coverage in the state of Florida.  Reinsurance is insurance for insurance companies. Florida law requires property insurance companies to purchase a minimum amount of this coverage from the Cat Fund, and the rest they can purchase from the private reinsurance market.

The purpose of requiring insurers to purchase some of their reinsurance coverage from the Cat Fund is to keep insurance prices relatively stable for consumers, as the price of private reinsurance can fluctuate from year-to-year.  As such, the Cat Fund is meant to stabilize the Florida insurance market.

However, a potential shortfall of the Cat Fund is anything but stabilizing. Because every insurer in the state relies on the coverage they purchase from the Cat Fund to pay claims in the event of a storm, if it is unable to pay out what it has promised each company after a hurricane, then quite simply those consumers who rely on their insurance companies for coverage may not get their claims fully or quickly paid.  On a larger scale, the consequence would be that many of the state insurance companies would themselves go insolvent (aka: broke) or close enough to it where state insurance regulators would have to take some type of action.

Needless to say, mass insurance company insolvencies after a hurricane and the resultant inability of storm-ravaged areas of the state to quickly rebuild would have a catastrophic impact on the state’s economy, not to mention the thousands of families reeling from the aftermath of a hurricane who count on their insurance companies to come through.

This week, the Florida Senate Banking & Insurance Committee is scheduled to consider legislation that would gradually decrease the amount of coverage the Cat Fund can sell to a level where it could reasonably be expected to pay all it has promised. Similar legislation in the House has yet to be scheduled for a committee hearing–but should.

Currently, the law requires the Cat Fund to sell $17 billion worth of coverage. It has roughly $8.5 billion in reserves and would have to go out into the bond market and sell another $8.5 billion in bonds to pay out the full $17 billion.  However, the Cat Fund’s internal managers and outside firms alike believe that the Cat Fund will only be able to sell roughly $7 billion in bonds, which would leave a $1.5 billion shortfall.

Legislation up for consideration would gradually decrease the fund’s capacity from $17 billion to $14 billion over three years.

Similar legislation was filed last year, but was rejected by the Legislature because decreasing the Cat Fund by $3 billion would have required insurance companies to seek that coverage from the private reinsurance market, which is generally more expensive than the state-run Cat Fund.  As such, this would have driven-up insurance rates, albeit by just a little more than one percent per year.  Florida’s Insurance Consumer Advocate Robin Westcott also opposed the legislation on these grounds.

This year, however, private reinsurance rates are projected to continue declining, which would make it an ideal time to consider right-sizing the Cat Fund.  In fact, the aforementioned Ms. Westcott who opposed last year’s legislation favors it this year.  After running the numbers with the projected decreases in private reinsurance, her office actuary (AKA: number-cruncher) projected that rates would either remain the same, but more than likely would DECREASE if these reforms were enacted by the Legislature.

As such, legislators in the House and Senate insurance committees no longer have last year’s hard choice to make between slightly higher rates and gambling with the state’s economic future.

This year the choice is a lot easier: they can secure the state’s economic future without raising rates; or do nothing and continue peddling false, phantom coverage at great risk to the state.

The choice would be a clear, no-brainer… if this wasn’t Tallahassee.