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More dog whistles and bad behavior


Posted

It was three years ago last month if my memory serves me right.

One of our reporters at the time, Jesse Hollett, made a phone call to the Venice, Florida-based offices of Eric Robinson to inquire about a certain Political Action Committee that had been mailing out campaign materials in Clay County. Robinson, a certified public accountant, manages several Florida-based PACs and also sits on the Sarasota County School Board.

Jesse waited and waited for Robinson to call him back, but that never happened. What happened was a call, like the old cliché says, that “Came out of the blue,” from an Orange Park resident named Matt Justice. Many Clay County residents know Justice as he has served on at least one iteration of the Charter Review Commission and been involved in local politics. He so involved that his tale drew the curiosity of The Al Jazeera TV Network so much so that they sent two reporters here to interview 10 years ago.

When Jesse picked up the phone that fateful day, Justice, who owns the political consulting firm Reliant Florida Consulting LLC, said Robinson’s office had asked him to call on his behalf. Keep in mind at the time, Jesse had never met Justice before nor knew of any connection he had with Robinson.

When Jesse began asking specific questions about specific PACs, Justice dodged every question in what Jesse described as an intimidating manner.

“I like money. I like capitalism. Capitalism is good,” Jesse recalled Justice saying.

Jesse, admittedly shaken from the call, had just experienced mob boss-like intimidation from a hired hand. Welcome to the world of dark money.

Many PACs are simply funded by other PACs, which makes it difficult to track contributions and expenditures, thus the term ‘dark money.’ PACs function much like internet trolls who can go online and create fake Facebook accounts they then can use to try and bully and intimidate others who may share an opposing view simply for sharing an opposing view.

And again, here we are in 2018, PACs are playing dirty pool in Clay County again.

On Aug. 15, a PAC named Committee to Protect Florida with ties to Robinson – and assuredly Matt Justice – sent out a disturbing set of lies disguised as a mail piece to local voters. The piece clearly plays to the psyche of what has become known in political circles as “the low information voter.”

First off, the piece labels three Clay County School Board candidates as RINOS – Republican In Name Only – who just so happen to be the opponents of Justice’s political consulting clients – candidates, Ashley Gilhousen and Betsy Condon. And while Justice is not on the consulting dole from the Latanya Peterson campaign, it’s clear that the mail piece was designed to derail Peterson’s opponent, Janice Kerekes.

Whoever created the RINO acronym is probably viewed as a clever hero to some, but it’s just another tool to divide our society further. It’s just as disgusting as the belief that a person cannot be a Christian and be a Democrat or be a union member and also be a Republican. They constantly forget that we are all different people who are entitled to our own beliefs and it’s none of their business.

Using a clip of an “article” from the biased blog The Daily Signal, the RINO mail piece attempts to tie Kerekes, Lynne Hirabayashi Chafee and Tina Bullock to Planned Parenthood. This is a low blow, but worse than that, it’s another petty dog whistle. The Daily Signal is an outgrowth of The Heritage Foundation – a think tank headed by former Republican senator and Tea Party leader Jim DeMint. The Daily Signal’s offices are even located inside the Foundation’s offices. In other words, it’s not journalism or a journalistic entity that wrote the “article;” it’s a slanted blog that seeks to divide and misinform just like that mail piece does.

Further proof that the “article” on the mail piece is not journalism is that it quotes a secretive front group called the Center for Union Facts, a group headed by a Washington, D.C.-based public relations executive named Rick Berman who has close ties to the Heritage Foundation.

Someone called the paper the other day asking why Gilhousen, Condon and Peterson had not advertised with Clay Today and why only Kerekes, Bullock and Chafee had? It turns out on a recommendation from Mr. Justice, his candidates are boycotting Clay Today; they’ve taken their marbles and gone home.

Just like in 2016, Clay County voters have some big decisions to make at the polls this year. Do voters want to turn over the school district to the charter school interests for good with Condon, Peterson and Gilhousen or do voters want to keep the county’s “A” school district moving forward.

The bottom line is bullies need to go back to the playground and keep out of the boardroom.