It not only bothers Ladra that Hialeah Mayor Carlos “Castro” Hernandez gets away with his abuse of power and intimidation of critics and that law enforcement does nothing to stop this obvious crook from corrupting his office and the city any further.
It bothers me far more that several respected leaders elected to represent us let him get away with this.
I mean, I don’t expect anything else from Miami-Dade Commissioner Esteban “El Bobo” Bovo. Ladra is pretty sure Bovo is in cahoots with the absentee ballot fraud that is rampant in Hialeah. And I used to think State Sen. Rene Garcia (R-Hialeah) was a pretty good guy, but that was before his involvement with known boletera Deisy Penton de Cabrera, who he may or may not have taken a pan con bistec — because he doesn’t remember, people — to the night after she was stopped by police with multiple ABs on her as she popped in and out of Bovo’s district office and the Hialeah campaign headquarters for Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, whose own tolerance of — or, rather, evil alliance with — Castro and his crooks broke Ladra’s heart last year.
I did expect more, however, from Commissioner Rebeca Sosa, the chairwoman of the board and a schoolteacher who is not slow to verbally spank most people. But instead of telling him to stop intimidating people and violating their rights and to stay away from the absentee ballot fraud he routinely commits with elderly voters who she says she works to defend, she poses with him for a his cameras and hers then posts them on her social platforms for the world to see. Smile.
I understand that Sosa’s district includes part of East Hialeah and that the event was a beautiful and deserved street naming for the Pedro Pan Operation that got minors out of Cuba without their parents in early exile.
But that doesn’t mean she has to be all friendly with a man whose abuse of power and corruption of the electoral process mirrors his mentor — Cuba’s Fidel Castro. You can go to support the event, and skip the hand-shaking photo op. She should take a lead from State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, who — perhaps for different reasons, like he is rumored to want the mayor’s job and is arch enemies with his campaign consultant Sasha Tirador — did not pose for photos with Castro at the dedication earlier this week of a bus bench in front of City Hall. In fact, I am not sure the mayor even let him speak.
I called Sosa and also posted this on Sosa’s facebook wall in a comment under her photo album, of which she is apparently way too proud.”The street designation is warranted. But what worries me is how our county commission chairwoman has no qualms standing with and smiling with known crooks who corrupt the system and intimidate people and violate their rights. C’mon Commissioner Sosa. You should say something to the Hialeah hoodlums. Something other than “Hello, queridos amigos.”
At least she still calls me back. Not like Gimenez, who was likely urged to shun Ladra by his new friends in Hialeah. And the chairwoman said she cannot be held responsible for Mayor Castro’s behavior, which tells us right there that there is questionable behavior.
“I can only answer for my own behavior. The behavior of others corresponds to them,” Sosa said. Even though I am questioning her actions, namely chumming up to a bully crook who abuses his power with critics and wages retribution against city employees who dare support someone else or expose his corruption and who has been linked to the loansharking activities of his predecessor and one-time mentor, former Hialeah Mayor Julio Robaina.
“I stand next to people who have been professional with me all the time. The details you tell me about, well, I believe everyone is innocent until proven guilty,” Sosa told Ladra.
“I love Hialeah and its people. I love Miami Springs and its people. I love Westchester and its people,” she said, referring to the cities in her district. “I respect whoever these people elect and I have to work with these elected leaders for the betterment of the community.”
But that community includes people that are harassed and intimidated by the mayor and his henchmen, too, doesn’t it? It includes city employees who are retaliated against and whose lives are made impossible on his personal whim? One of those very same employees, a friend who I spoke to after chatting with the Chairwoman, said “So, she pretty much gave you the political answer, huh? Exactly.
But that’s not the point. The point is that all evil needs to prevail is the silence of good people, or something like that. And a teacher, of all people, should know that. After all, there are no after school specials about going along with the bad guys because, hey, he’s getting away with it and it’s the way of the world and easier to do than call things as they are. We always rout in the movies for the heroes who do the right thing and not the easier thing. We are raised by parents who, for the most part and if they’re doing it right, tell us that two wrongs don’t make a right and that we must always defend what is correct and honorable, even when it’s uncomfortable. Hell, especially when it’s uncomfortable.
Posing and smiling with bullies and cheaters isn’t doing that. Somehow, the value of standing up for the principle of things has been lost in politics.
Rebeca Sosa turns blind eye to Hialeah’s ‘Castro’ Hernandez added by Ladra on
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