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Updated: 8-9-18 at 3:19 PM EST (Campbell responds)
–Senator Daphne Campbell has been accused of illegally sending mailers to Republican voters in an attempt to trick them into voting for her, a Democrat.
–Campbell says that it is her opponent Jason Pizzo who is behind the ploy.
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Miami has a long and rich history of politicians playing dirty tricks on each other.
And signs are pointing to another example of that in 2018.
William Stuttgen is a registered Republican who lives in the Belle Meade area of Miami.
He’s retired and really dislikes his State Senator- Daphne Campbell.
He even has a campaign sign for Campbell’s opponent, Jason Pizzo in his front yard.
So when he received a letter in the mail last week that apparently came from a group of local Republicans that endorsed Campbell in the District 38 primary on August 28th, he was incensed.
Since no Republican or Independent registered to run in the general election in November, all voters in the district will be able to vote in the Democratic Primary.
Whoever wins in three weeks will be the district’s next State Senator.
And Stuttgen thinks that Campbell is using a classic dirty trick to get unsuspecting Republicans to vote for her.
“Someone got a list of the registered Republicans,” Stuttgen said in an interview at his home with RISE NEWS. “Pizzo didn’t do this. This is a Campbell thing.”
The chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party Juan Cuba said that they will be investigating whether Campbell is behind the flyer, as first reported by the Miami New Times:
The @MiamiDadeDems steering committee will be investigating/ sending @SenCampbellD38 a letter inquiring whether her campaign is involved with this mailer, & asking her to renounce this illegal tactic.
— Juan Cuba (@juancuba) August 7, 2018
Stuttgen said that the flyer was mailed to his house and had a stamp on it.
But it had no return address.
The name of the organization that claimed to pay for the flyer- “your Republican Neighbor” is not a registered political group in Florida and it is not clear where the money for the mailing came from.
It is also not clear how many people received the mailer.
Pizzo told RISE NEWS that his campaign has received another flyer from a voter in Miami Beach.
A Pizzo-supporting dark money group called FloridaStrong also said that have received a flyer from a voter who lives in Miami Beach that came from the same “your Republican Neighbor” group.
RISE NEWS canvassed six random houses on the street that Stuttgen lives on in Belle Meade.
None of the people we spoke to, including a registered Republican had received the flyer as of Sunday.
“Given my opponent’s unethical practices, there should be little doubt that she and her campaign coordinated this slate card,” Pizzo told RISE NEWS.
In a wide ranging phone interview that lasted nearly 45 minutes, Campbell denied the claims that she was behind the flyer.
She said that it was Pizzo who paid for the flyers to go out.
“He made it. It’s Christian Ulvert,” Campbell said of Pizzo’s political advisor. “I don’t have no money to do a slate. It’s them doing it. They’re so stupid.”
“Jason Pizzo can not take me down because I’m a people person,” Campbell said. “I’ve done so much for the communities I serve.
“Pizza wants developers from New Jersey to get rid of Haitians from Little Haiti,” Campbell said. “This is an attack on a black woman. I pray to God that August 28th that he gets his results. I leave Jason in God’s hands.”
On the campaign trail, Campbell has claimed that Pizzo is a secret Republican who wants to buy the election.
“I’m a proud Democrat,” Campbell said at a recent event in North Miami.
While Stuttgen is a Republican, he said that he is moderate on social issues.
Campbell is a pro life, anti-gay marriage Democrat who has been consistently supported by one of Florida’s most conservative religious groups, the Christian Family Coalition.
“She thinks people vote party line and they don’t look at the names,” Stuttgen said. “This is lunacy.
Campbell has a long history of controversy and borderline criminal behavior.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, RISE NEWS uncovered that Campbell had used her personal connection to an FPL lobbyist to try to get power turned on at the house of her “mother” before her other constituents.
Stuttgen said that if Pizzo loses to Campbell, he will be leaving Miami for good.
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Miami’s Shame: Little Farm Trailer Park Sinks Into Slum As Chinese Land Owners Ignore Resident’s Plight
The closest that most of the world has come to the Little Farm was during the pilot episode of HBO’s original series Ballers.
In the show, retired NFL player Charles Greane works as a salesman at the very real Tropical Chevrolet car dealership (8800 Biscayne Blvd) before Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson swoops in to convince him to get back on the field.
But three blocks away at the Little Farm trailer park in El Portal (8500 Biscayne Blvd), the HBO cameras wouldn’t dream of going. No luxury to be found there. Just unspeakable despair.
There, one of Miami’s former great working class neighborhoods has been turned into a slum by years of bad landlords and poor governmental oversight.
Photo Credit: Rich Robinson/ RISE NEWS.
The Little Farm is not talked about much- mostly because few people seem to know about it and even fewer care.
There’s lots of poor people in Miami and the area’s middle class is somewhat used to the idea that poverty is close to home.
Homeless men and women are a ubiquitous site at most I-95 off ramps in the area, meaning that it is near impossible to avoid the thought of abject poverty on your daily commute.
And yet, we ignore it and go home to our comfortable lives filled with Netflix and minor inconveniences.
But the Little Farm is different.
Empty trailer at the Little Farm in El Portal. Photo Credit: Rich Robinson/ RISE NEWS.
I’ve lived six minutes away my entire life and didn’t know about it until a few months ago when one of our reporters wrote about it.
And even then, I didn’t fully comprehend what was happening there until I got off my ass and drove into the development last week.
“They Didn’t Tell Us Nothing”
Clairmise Blanc is fed up.
A youthful looking Haitian woman in her early 70’s, Blanc is the defacto point person for outsiders to the Little Farm. She also lives right next to a burnt out trailer that stinks to high heavens.
“My husband died on April 22, 2011 and left me here alone,” Blanc said to me, causing me to pause and offer my condolences. “I’d like to live here. But there’s no future in this. Everything is down, especially at the nighttime. Too many people are drug addicts here. I don’t like it no more. I’ve tried to find other places to go.”
Clairmise Blanc. Photo Credit: Rich Robinson/ RISE NEWS.
Born in Haiti, she moved to the United States in 1981 and has lived at the Little Farm for eight years. She owns her own trailer, but it is poor shape, with holes in the windows and a sagging look to it. She also pays $450 a month for the trailer to sit on her small plot.
At one time, hundreds of trailers dotted the 17 acre property, but after a Chinese company bought the property last year, people started getting evicted. Then came the buy out offers– $2,000 to up and leave.
If you didn’t take the deal, it wouldn’t matter much because you had to leave under the terms of a deal the Village of El Portal signed with the Chinese company- Wealthy Delight.
From a Miami New Times report on Little Farm a few months ago:
“One day last February, everything changed. Little Farm was sold for $14.25 million, and Wealthy Delight, a company based in Coral Gables but whose owners are difficult to trace, took over. Soon it became clear the Village of El Portal had agreed to forgive more than $8 million in liens on the site if the new owners paid $575,000 and razed the mobile home park.”
Many people took the buy outs and soon their trailers were razed.
A lot where a trailer once stood. Photo Credit: Rich Robinson/ RISE NEWS.
Legal action has delayed the complete eviction of the remaining residents at Little Farm, but only around 40 people remain according to Blanc. And they will all certainty will be pushed out in the coming months.
“They didn’t tell us nothing,” Blanc said. “They’ve tried to push us away. It’s not fair.”
The Fire
According to multiple witnesses, a fire broke out in a Little Farm trailer on the evening of February 19th.
“It was a mother, son and a daughter was living in there,” Blanc said.
While no one was hurt, the fire was intense and devastating.
The family living there had to move- one less eviction for Wealthy Delight to conduct.
Blanc’s trailer sits less than 15 feet away from the burnt out trailer. Nearly two months after the blaze, little has been cleaned up and the smell is starting to become unbearable for the remaining residents in the area.
Photo Credit: Rich Robinson/ RISE NEWS.
Photo Credit: Rich Robinson/ RISE NEWS.
Photo Credit: Rich Robinson/ RISE NEWS.
“I’m tired of that smell, it just stinks,” Blanc said. “I want them to clean this thing. It is a mess. People can’t live like this.”
I start to cough after the breeze picks up and I notice how disgusting the burnt out remnants really are.
“That’s the office right there,” Blanc said while pointing towards the land lord management building across the road.
The view of the burnt out trailer from Blanc’s trailer. Photo Credit: Rich Robinson/ RISE NEWS.
The view of the burnt out trailer (behind the trees) from the porch of the land lord management building. Photo Credit: Rich Robinson/ RISE NEWS.
The burnt out unit is directly in front of the office, which means that the land lord would have to see it everyday as they arrive for work.
“They don’t care,” Blanc said of Wealthy Delight. “You think if they cared, they would have cleaned it a long time ago. But it’s been two months now. If they cared, they would have cleaned it because people are living here.
I ask her if she thinks the trailer hasn’t been cleaned up as a way to get her to move.
She demurs and says that in order for her to leave they are going to have to fork out more money.
El Portal Village Manager Jason Walker told RISE NEWS that he had not been aware of the fire but that it was the landlord’s responsibility to clean it up.
A representative for Wealthy Delight refused to answer questions on the phone and asked for questions via email, which they have also not answered.
Have a tip? Email us at editor@risenews.net.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us
All Photo Credits: Rich Robinson/RISE NEWS.
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Secret Service Agent Slams Down Time Mag Photographer At Trump Rally
We’ve heard this story before. But it still doesn’t get any easier to understand.
At a Trump rally Monday, a Secret Service agent slammed down a photographer for Time Magazine.
Gif of the moment in question in case Instagram gets pulled. Brutal. pic.twitter.com/Lh9Q65WW07
— Brian Ries (@moneyries) February 29, 2016
The incident took place at a Trump rally in Redford, VA a day before the critical Super Tuesday slate of primary elections across 13 states.
According to CNN’s Jim Acosta, the photog is named Chris Morris and he is planning on pressing charges despite being attacked by the agent.
Here’s moments prior. The reporter says “f*ck you” — that’s when it got physical pic.twitter.com/h9K2wIbEWQ
— Joe Perticone (@JoePerticone) February 29, 2016
The rally had been interrupted by numerous Black Lives Matter protestors according to Talking Points Memo.
Morris claims that he stepped out of the predetermined photography box by about 18 inches and then was assaulted.
Time photog Chris Morris tells me how he was grabbed and taken down at Trump rally pic.twitter.com/XKDJarpXda
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) February 29, 2016
Turns out that a Fascist Presidential candidate can even turn the Secret Service into a mob.
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The NRA Just Blamed “The Media” For What Happened In Parkland
Seriously.
From The Washington Post:
“After a week of media silence following the school shooting in Florida, the National Rifle Association went on the offensive in its first public response to the massacre, pushing back against law enforcement officials, the media, gun-control advocates and the teenage survivors of the massacre who have pleaded for stricter gun laws.
“The NRA also released an advertisement Thursday morning that said ‘the mainstream media love mass shootings’ and claimed that members of the media benefit from covering mass shootings in an effort ‘to juice their ratings and push their agenda.’”
This story is from The Miami Monster, a new brand focused on telling the true stories of what life is like for a young person living in South Florida. Be sure to also follow our founder Joel Franco on Twitter to keep up to date with the latest breaking news in the area. You can send news tips to editor@risenews.net.
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