A couple of bombshell stories published in the Orlando Sentinel and Miami Herald confirms what some of us have been warning about for a long time. A corrupt group of pay to play political consultants are working with corporate actors to undermine Democratic candidates who challenge corporate power.
The story stems from a larger investigation into Florida Power & Light’s schemes to corrupt our democratic process in the 2020 election cycle. The corrupt energy monopoly funded fake no party affiliated candidates in State Senate races across Florida with the hope of confusing voters. For example, in Senate District 37, they recruited a ghost candidates in the same race as incumbent Democratic Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez, who would ultimately lose his reelection by a mere 32 votes with his independent opponent, Alex Rodriguez, drawing more than 6,000 votes.
Former Republican State Senator Frank Artiles, who resigned over his use of the n-word against colleagues, has been charged in this election fraud scheme and Alex Rodriguez has confessed to having been bribed to run for the seat.
Jose Javier Rodriguez had long been a thorn in the side of FPL because of his environmentally friendly policies. In the interest of full disclosure to the reader, I’d like to note that I briefly served as Rodriguez’ district aide and got to witness his fight against the expansion of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant and his advocacy for environmentally friendly policies that FPL opposed. The utility monopoly has admitted that it wanted Rodriguez out of office.
It turns out that before there was a fake candidate scheme, a “top” Democratic Party consultant named Dan Newman drafted a plan to primary Jose Javier Rodriguez for a firm called Matrix LLC that was retained by FPL.
If you want to see the memo, I got my hands on it and published it on my Twitter account. It’s an illuminating read on how transactional some of these political operatives can be. They behave and work as mercenaries for the highest bidder:
I also encourage folks to read the story published by the Orlando Sentinel on this memo and their other story detailing how FPL has been funding the play to pay publication “The Capitolist” to smear lawmakers, advocates, and journalists who are critical of the utility company.
I actually got a hold of some emails that have yet to be reported or released between folks from The Capitolist and a slew of FPL linked consultants. They expose exposing just how rotten and corrupt our political system can be.
Below we can see the first email from Brian Burgess, former Communication Director for Rick Scott and publisher of the Capitolist, asking Matrix LLC consultant to “swing” him $2.04 million dollars, followed by a smiley face. Matrix LLC was the firm retained by FPL that was involved in various election fraud schemes, including Dan Newman’s memo detailing the plan to recruit a primary opponent against Jose Javier Rodriguez and the funding of fake candidates in various state senate races in Florida. In the email Burgess also talks with this FPL linked consultant about his plan to recruit Florida journalists Matt Dixon, Gary Fineout, and Marc Caputo into his pay to play grift. It’s also worth noting that Burgess states his salary ask of $150,000 but also says there are “a lot of ways” he is “willing to be compensated” if his $2.04 million dollar price tag is too much for FPL.
Here is another email consisting of a sales pitch for his pay to play media outlet.
Below is where the sales pitch starts getting interesting. Under a section called “Revenue Sources”, Burgess details his plan to receive “Sponsorships and Advertising Packages” from “Florida’s business community, public relations firms, and lobbying groups” who would serve as the “primary source” for advertising dollars. That doesn’t seem like it would create much of an incentive to hold these powerful entities accountable.
Even more revealing, Burgess states that trade groups and individual businesses who would be the bulk of their sponsors would “have already demonstrated a willingness to support media outlets that are perceived as free-market friendly.”
Further breakdown of the total costs outlined for the Matrix LLC consultant in the initial $2.04 million request:
The email below is particularly disgusting. Burgess and another consultant named Tim Fitzpatrick talk about the different corporate actors they could “squeeze” for revenue, including the sugar industry, private prisons, Disney, and healthcare companies.
When making the pitch to these corporate actors, Burgess talks about the need to have them understand that this pay to play fake media outlet will be a “better use of PR dollars” than their actual public relations firms but complains this is tricky because of the notion that media should be “objective” and that pay to play is “icky” to big corporations.
In a section that now seems prophetic, Burgess mentions that HCA Healthcare likes to see attacks against their competition if they aren’t linked back to the company. Burgess notes that if the Capitolist starts “taking shots” people will wonder “who paid for that hit published by the Capitolist.”
That’s exactly what was exposed recently with the recent revelation that FPL was paying them to smear critics and journalists.
Also worth noting another disgusting part in which Burgess mentions the Mosaic company as a possible sponsor while dismissing their pollution of our water supply through the mining of phosphorous and dumping of fertilizers and other chemicals into the ecosystem.
Here is a larger revenue projection breakdown of how they planned to squeeze money out of various business groups and lobbying entities. These people had absolutely zero desire to do journalism or hold the powerful accountable. They wanted to be a secret public relations firm for corporations while lying to the public and masquerading as a real news outlet.
This email discusses Americans for Prosperity, a Koch Brothers group, that is known for its opposition to environmentally friendly policies, labor unions, the expansion of Medicaid, and the raising of the federal minimum wage that has shamefully stagnated at $7.25. Apparently AFP is funding an individual named “Peter” who is involved in Florida based media. I have no way of confirming if this is true or who “Peter” is but folks can make their own assumptions.
Below is an email detailing how Dan Newman was working with Matrix LLC consultants to smear South Miami Mayor Phillip Stoddard for his environmentally friendly policies and opposition to a lot of FPL’s schemes. Tactics include filing an ethics complaint and a lawsuit against stoddard and a line item includes what is deemed as “preliminary research” into now Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava and then State Senate District 39 candidate Anna Hockamer, both Democrats who were deemed to be environmentally friendly.
What is most ominous about this email is that a “pullback in fees” regarding a private investigator related to the “Stoddard work” is discussed, insinuating they had the former South Miami Mayor followed.
Here is a window on how Newman used 501c4 entities to move money around for FPL:
In the next email Burgess discusses a plan to Matrix LLC consultants involving asking Rick Scott if he can provide the revenue to “buy ALL Florida Newspapers… we could let all the clown reporters go, save a fortune, eliminate print, and syndicate content across the entire state.” He even cynically discusses how they can do this without anyone knowing “who’s actually pulling the strings.”
Here is one of the most shocking emails. It’s from FPL's CEO Eric Silagy to a Matrix LLC consultant asking them to make the lawmaker’s life a “living hell” because he filed a bill that would democratize solar power in Florida.
This is the corrupt nature of our pay to play political system, brought to you by corrupt individuals who have nothing but contempt for democracy and view the political process as nothing more than an ATM machine. They are willing to do anything and sell out anyone for dollars.
Tom hell of a piece on the total corruption of DeSantisStand (Formerly Florida) by Sen Rick Capitolist Crook Scott you know the guy who bilked Medicare out of millions. Surprise NOT.... FP&L has been a dirty money bank for so much DeSantisStand political corruption it's hard to add it all up without a high price calculator.
Adolf DeSantis, Rick Scott, Marco Rubio, Matt Gaetz and Mike Waltz total pig pen scum of the earth power vultures. I refuse to call them human beings as they have no blood in their bodies. Even Zombies have better character. Vote 4 Charlie Crist #VoteBlue2022 Great Read Tom
As documented by the police, I confiscated alcohol that minors snuck into a party, the exact opposite of serving alcohol to minors. These people are consummately dishonest.