The first person to hug Marco Rubio as he stepped away from the cameras at the Miami Freedom Tower, having announced his intention to run for president of the United States, was Big Sugar billionaire Julio Fanjul. Here is a photo taken from TV coverage of the event:
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| "Florida used to be the state where everything that was not nailed down was for sale. Today it is a state where everything that is nailed down is also for sale." |
CNN once called The Fanjul family of Palm Beach and Coral Gables, "The First Family of Corporate Welfare". That serves the GOP and Democratic Parties just fine, because both parties are addicted to political contributions by Big Sugar.
Julio Fanjul covers the Republican side of the family politics. Alfie, his brother, covers the Democratic side. (Alfie has been a golfing partner and confidante of Bill Clinton for decades.)
To understand how cynical the Rubio/Fanjul marriage of convenience is, consider: Rubio has planted his flag against the Obama White House thawing of relations with Cuba. Who was one of the first billionaires to travel to Cuba? Julio's brother, Alfie. ("Cuba: Here comes Miami, ready or not!")
Rubio owes his political career to Big Sugar. He was an ambitious local Miami politician, with no credentials other than serving as Jeb Bush's chief lieutenant in the state legislature until then Gov. Charlie Crist made a deal with US Sugar to acquire its lands in the Everglades Agricultural Area. The Fanjuls -- the other half of the Big Sugar cartel -- poured money into Rubio's 2010 senate campaign, propelling him to the stage this week at the Freedom Tower.
Jeb Bush has already blessed Marco Rubio's participation in the GOP presidential primary. And why wouldn't he? As governor, Jeb was the driver of the 2003 change to state water quality law in Tallahassee. At the time, Big Sugar flooded the hallways of the state capitol with lobbyists. There were more lobbyists than state senators plying their program to undermine federal law, changing the Everglades Forever Act that intended to regulate Big Sugar's pollution of the dying River of Grass, to the "Everglades Whenever Act".
Everglades water quality protections -- and costly provisions to enforce them -- were delayed at least a decade while environmental plaintiffs and the Bush EPA sorted things out in federal court. (Big Sugar is still appealing in the 3rd District Court in Atlanta.) The point: the same Big Sugar money flowing to Marco Rubio will also find its way into Jeb Bush's primary campaign.
With Citizens United -- the horrid decision by the Bush Supreme Court -- there is no way to track exactly how much money flows to political candidates. Florida used to be the state where everything that was not nailed down was for sale. Today it is a state where everything that is nailed down is also for sale.
When it comes to Big Sugar and politics, there is no favorite son. It's just business, and if you are Big Sugar billionaire, presidential primaries are your personal ATM.
11 comments:
Like I said, anywhere else in the world and we - including the mainstream press - would call this systemic corruption.
And because it is systemic, not petty, corruption, the people are resigned to it and the press will not call it by its name.
Steve, I agree. It's atmospheric, and most people are either too resigned or too busy coping or too busy making as much as fast as they can … Fred Grimm has an excellent piece in the Miami Herald today, along this line.
Citizens United applies to all parties.
Does George Soros come to mind?
He has tried, and succeeded, in "influencing" elections at almost every level of government.
And yes, Citizens United is horrible but it makes for even odds.
The Kochs give a hundred times more money than Soros.
There are way more Soros' out there than there are Kochs...
AND NEWSFLASH! - they all give evenly to both parties/candidates.
?
Losing IS NOT AN OPTION!
They cover both bases. That's why Wall Street is doing so well while Main Street is still in a hangover without an end in sight.
Ssshh! Same folks who donated, en masse, to W., donated to Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Instead of having a pissing contest over which side gives the most money and has the most influence, why don't we do something about campaign finance reform?
Clinton was so beholden to Alfie Fanjul, he took a phone call from him when Monica Lewinsky was in the Oval with him, presumably under his desk..
And the billionaires give way more to Republicans, I am sick to death of the Soros false equivalency. and it's Republican policies that benefit the billionaires, just look what they did this week, eliminated the estate tax, which effects only the .02 wealthiest Americans. Don't try and say both parties do it , I will call BS every time. It's the repupugnantcans that do the billionaires bidding, not the Dems.
The radical right depends on false equivalences.
I didn't know that Clinton did that with Fanjul on the line.
I thought the story went that he did that with Lewinsky while talking to Yasser Arafat of the PLO.
Who knows, maybe it was a tradition with him.
Marco? Fanjul? Destroyer of the Everglades?
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