Taking out the Trash (Part 1)

When political hit pieces go wrong.

This was meant to be my post on the CGNA; a pre-election palate cleanser to lighten the mood. One part exposé, two parts send-up, the idea was to reveal the organization’s man behind the curtain, so to speak, and to have a few laughs at their expense in the process. The jokes write themselves after all, especially when you consider the fact that many of the CGNA’s movers and shakers are almost old enough to have been cast as the actual ‘man behind the curtain’ in the original The Wizard of Oz. I even had a catchy title, "Gables Neighbors Unhinged,” and custom cover art ready to roll:

The kind of art you get when you feed AI the CGNA’s emails and ask it to draw the author.

But alas, my timing was off, for clearly, this is no time for cracking jokes—at least not the intentional kind. Apparently, it’s jump the shark season for professional journalists and wannabes alike; a time for eradicating what little remains of one’s credibility; for abandoning even the slightest pretense of good faith, and frankly, basic human decency. It’s a time for pieces like this:

Indeed, it appears Elaine De Valle of Political Cortadito infamy read the Tess Riski article I covered last week and said, “hold my Vicodin-infused triple Smirnoff on the rocks, I’ve got a reputation to destroy too!” Here is Elaine for those who want to put a face to the name:

Wait, I’m sorry. I messed up there. That’s actually Mama June from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Let me fix that. Here you go:

No, dammit, that’s not her either. Sorry. That’s Hatchet-Face from the film Cry-Baby. It’s just they all kind of look alike when you’re scrolling through your…ah…found it. Finally! Ok, this is Elaine De Valle:

Really though, how else do you explain a piece like the one above other than as an act of self-immolation? A piece that is so contrived and so desperate and so vile that even with the help of Elaine’s burner accounts and KFC/union bots working double duty in the comments section, it still got ‘ratioed’ to high hell? If this was supposed to be some kind of October surprise, some kind of eleventh hour bombshell, then it was a decidedly bad one, as the only casualties here are Elaine and her paymasters.

Actually, that's not true. There are other casualties. Regardless of how gross and outlandish Elaine's hit piece may be, and despite how it might even energize Lago's political base, it has undoubtedly inflicted immeasurable harm on Lago's wife and two daughters, not to mention his chief of staff, Chelsea, who isn't running for public office the last time I checked.

Indeed, there’s a particular cruelty to this kind of political scorched-earth tactic and the way it burrows past the public sphere and into the sanctity of a family's private life. How it happily accepts—perhaps even relishes—the idea of children becoming collateral damage; children, who bearing no responsibility for their parents' chosen careers, are suddenly thrust into a maelstrom of whispers, innuendos, and sidelong glances at school. How it gives no thought to Lago’s wife, who regardless of her own grace and resilience, must now contend with text messages from concerned friends and the subtle shifts in social dynamics that such rumors invariably trigger.

This isn't politics. It's psychological warfare, and against innocents no less. And for what? For a few clicks? For the illusion that one is somehow on the offensive in the final days of an election that one’s clients are poised to lose? So that Kirk, who I hear is reeling from not getting the Miami Herald’s endorsement, can fire off one last broadside before the sinking ship that is his political career disappears under the waterline once and for all? Whatever one thinks of Lago himself, surely we can agree that his family deserves better than to be sacrificed on the altar of Elaine's financial desperation and KFC's terminal vindictiveness.

Of course, some are bound to dismiss this as mere moralizing on my part, as empty rhetoric, as little more than my opportunistically claiming the high ground after Elaine and KFC so foolishly surrendered it.

If they only knew.

If they only knew the 'tips' I've received about KFC over the past two years, and in some cases the copious amount of substantiating evidence (photographs, screenshots, text and email chains) that goes with them. Tips that would make for stories that would melt your monitors, many of which involve manifestly private matters, all of which, based on how low Elaine has set the evidentiary bar, would be fair game by simple tit-for-tat standards.

But I have not and will not touch any of it, because, quite simply, there are lines you simply don’t cross. Whatever private issues members of KFC are struggling with are exactly that—private. This is something even the most cold-blooded political operatives used to understand, an agreement that served as the cornerstone of what was once a kind of modus vivendi between warring political factions, an omerta among even the most ruthless adversaries.

Make no mistake, I’m electrified by the prospect of exposing KFC’s misdeeds as public servants, their lies, their hypocrisies, even their potentially unlawful conduct. But I have no interest in what goes on in their private lives, no matter how juicy and how damaging it might be to their political prospects. Moreover, I remain firmly opposed to any story that targets, directly or otherwise, one’s family. I think I’ve been nothing if not consistent about this from the beginning. Here is what I had to say on this subject back in October 2023, in a post fittingly titled “My CGNDA:”

But every so often I’ll get an email that contains what you could charitably call a “tip,” although “gossip” is probably more appropriate, and they come from individuals who seem to think I should be penning seedy hit pieces about their enemies. Mind you, I’ve gotten tips aimed at both sides of the aisle, but lately most seem to be coming from supposed CGNA defectors who claim to have dirt on the organization’s top brass. So, with that, I’d like to make a couple of things clear. Consider this my NDA with the CGNA:

• I clearly don’t care for the current CGNA, but no matter how poorly its leadership behaves publicly, I am not interested in “stories” about someone’s private or family life. The same thing goes for similar stories about “the establishment.” Do not shop them to me. I won’t write them.

Come to think of it, now that it's out there, I should add that KFC and their minions have been saber-rattling with this canard for years. In fact, there have been various and sundry Lago rumors bouncing around City Hall and various chat groups since before KFC's time—many of which are rather, shall we say, internally inconsistent. The first iteration of this rumor involved a completely different employee—she knows who she is—but this version lost too much steam when said employee came out as passionately anti-Lago.

Undeterred, the rumor mill churned out version 2.0, which pivoted to claim that Lago was actually gay and having affairs with several men in and out of City Hall. Why Lago being gay was supposed to be disqualifying is anyone's guess, but that's what they went with.

Next, and this is my personal favorite, Lago became a steroid dealer who was running an underground operation out of the mayor's office. I can only hope he was still gay at this point, because somehow the image of a gay steroid dealer is a lot funnier than that of a straight one.

And finally, as you know, they made Lago straight again, presumably so that he could have this alleged affair with his chief of staff. By the way, I intentionally left out some real gems like trying to beat up a septuagenarian city manager, slashing colleagues’ tires, flying surveillance drones over Dr. Castro’s 13th-floor condo miraculously located in an eight-story building, owning half or sometimes all of Little Gables, siphoning billions from City coffers, and a few other doozies because, honestly, who has the time?

Anyway, I could probably close the book on this subject right here and simply let the stench of that trashy piece linger in the room. But a tiny morsel of intrigue emerged almost serendipitously during my due diligence on the CGNA, one that seems worth exploring at the very least. And while I’ll have to save the full analysis for part two, I'm not one to leave you entirely in suspense either:

See you in part two…