… And Secretary of State Marco Rubio
A new non-profit that produced videos earlier this month critical of Congress Members Carlos Gimenez and Mario Diaz-Balart — calling them cowards for their silence and complicity in the detention and deportation of thousands of immigrants from our community — has ramped up its campaign with billboards in many of the neighborhoods they and other Cuban Americans in the Republican Party.
¡Ya tu sabes!
Keep Them Honest, Inc. a “nonpartisan public information organization,” announced on Monday the launch of a “paid advertising initiative aimed at exposing the cruelty and complicity of South Florida’s top Cuban-American Republican officials as immigrant families face unprecedented threats under the Trump administration’s inhumane and un-American executive orders.”
The multi-platform rollout — billboards, digital advertising, commercials and targeted social media messaging — the campaign specifically calls out Gimenez, Diaz-Balart, Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a former Florida House rep and U.S. Senator, for failing to represent the very communities that elected them.
They haven’t even raised their voices for Cuban mother Heidy Sanchez, who is in Havana today, having been separated from her U.S.-born husband and 1-year-old daughter in Tampa and deported.
Read related: Video blasts U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez for silence on ending TPS, deportations
“The Secretary of State and these Members of Congress are the children of immigrants and represent Miami-Dade County, but their cowardice and silence has created fear throughout the community and this initiative calls upon them to speak up and take 
action on behalf of their constituents whom they have thus far betrayed with their silence and inaction,” reads a statement from the organization.
Earlier this month, Keep Them Honest posted their first video, calling Gimenez a coward who has betrayed his community, not just for staying silent on the revocation of Temporary Protective Status and parole protections for over 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, but also on the defunding of Radio and TV Martí. They later followed up with a similar video targeting Diaz-Balart.
“Mario? Bro? Wake up,” it says.
They are now placing billboards — like the one that the Miami-Dade Democratic Hispanic Caucus has on the Palmetto Expressway between Doral and Hialeah — across every major highway in the county and web app in the districts that Diaz-Balart, Gimenez and Salazar represent.
“These ads spotlight the urgent need for these elected officials to speak up for human decency and take action for the people of South Florida,” the statement said.
Seven total billboards will be purchased on the Palmetto, the Don Shula Expressway, and the Florida Turnpike, said Chris Wills, the former co-founder of Cubanos Con Biden and vice president of Keep Them Honest, Inc.
“No matter where you go in Miami-Dade County, whether you are one of these congress members or one of their constituents, you will see the message loud and clear,” Wills says. One of the digital ads says “Deporting good immigrants back to dictatorships is cruel.”
The photos chosen of the “Gang of Four,” as the Hispanic Caucus President Abel S. Delgado calls them, are not flattering.
Keep Them Honest is a 501(c)4 non-profit and does not have to disclose who is funding this campaign.
Read related: Cuban American congress members stay silent on TPS, immigrant detention
There are Trumpistas in South Florida who hysterically accuse the group of being funded by foreign enemies. “For all we know it’s Diaz-Canel people or the Chinese,” posted one of the crazy right-wing fans of Political Cortadito, referring to Cuban President (read: Dictator) Mario Diaz-Canel. She also said that Gimenez “doesn’t need to acknowledge provocateurs.”
This is what the Trumpistas think of anyone who disagrees with them. They are “provocateurs” that need not be acknowledged. Sound familiar? That’s exactly what Diaz-Canel says.
The most likely source of funding is some rich and outraged Cuban-American, like healthcare mogul, philanthropist and serial campaign contributor Mike Fernandez, who wrote an “open letter” to the Cuban-American politicos earlier this month calling their silence “complicity and cowardice.” Or someone like him.
“We don’t disclose our donors,” said Wills, a former Republican who is listed as the non-profit’s Vice President in the Florida Division of Corporation records. The president is Juan Carlos “JC” Planas, a former Republican state rep who later switched parties and ran for Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections last year, losing to Alina Garcia.
“As a former Republican who helped elect Republicans and JC Planas being a former Republican legislator, it would be a hard press to tie us to any communist organization,” Wills said, adding that they are getting checks “from people who agree with us, which is growing more and more by the hour.”
It’s apparently enough, he said, to make an “unprecedented” media buy in a year with no state or national elections.
“We’ve never had, especially in a non-election year, this level of investment into ensuring that the voice of the community that needs to be heard is heard,” Wills is quoted as saying in Florida Politics.
Planas, who is tasked with the organization’s legal compliance, said that the non-profit operates much like conservative non-profit Citizens United and others who have the right, protected by the Supreme Court. They have a CPA. They report to the IRS. Their bank would issue a red flag for any foreign deposits or checks.
“How do we know Citizens United wasn’t funded by the Russians,” Planas asked. “Because there are checks and balances.”
Well, so far. But that’s something that is also being attacked by the Trump administration — as the Gang of Four stand by.
Campaign ramps up vs Miami’s Cuban, Republican congressional delegation added by Ladra on
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