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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: BayGBM on June 14, 2015, 02:28:13 PM
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Marco Rubio’s Career Bedeviled by Financial Struggles
By STEVE EDER and MICHAEL BARBARO
WEST MIAMI, Fla. — For years, Senator Marco Rubio struggled under the weight of student debt, mortgages and an extra loan against the value of his home totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. But in 2012, financial salvation seemed to have arrived: A publisher paid him $800,000 to write a book about growing up as the son of Cuban immigrants.
In speeches, Mr. Rubio, a Florida Republican, spoke of his prudent plan for using the cash to finally pay off his law school loans, expressing relief that he no longer owed “a lady named Sallie Mae,” as he once called the lender.
But at the same time, he splurged on an extravagant purchase: $80,000 for a luxury speedboat, state records show. At the time, Mr. Rubio confided to a friend that it was a potentially inadvisable outlay that he could not resist. The 24-foot boat, he said, fulfilled a dream.
Among the serious contenders for the presidency, Mr. Rubio stands out for his youth, for his meteoric political rise — and for the persistent doubts about his financial management, to the point that Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign flagged the issue when vetting Mr. Rubio as a possible running mate in 2012, interviews show.
Many of those troubles have played out in an unusually public way, leading even some of his supporters to worry. As he rose in politics, he sometimes intermingled personal and political money — using a state Republican Party credit card years ago to pay for a paving project at his home and for travel to a family reunion, and putting his relatives on campaign payrolls.
Other moves seemed simply unwise: A few weeks ago, he disclosed that he had liquidated a $68,000 retirement account, a move that is widely discouraged by financial experts and that probably cost him about $24,000 in taxes and penalties.
In the past week, he sustained a new loss when he sold his second home in Florida’s capital, Tallahassee, for $18,000 less than he and a friend paid for it a decade ago. The house had previously faced foreclosure after Mr. Rubio and his friend failed to make mortgage payments for five months.
Acknowledging Missteps
These were not isolated incidents. A review of the Rubio family’s finances — including many new documents — reveals a series of decisions over the past 15 years that experts called imprudent: significant debts; a penchant to spend heavily on luxury items like the boat and the lease of a $50,000 2015 Audi Q7; a strikingly low savings rate, even when Mr. Rubio was earning large sums; and inattentive accounting that led to years of unpaid local government fees.
Mr. Rubio has acknowledged missteps: using personal credit cards to pay for his campaigns (a bad idea, he said); appointing his wife, Jeanette, as a treasurer of a political action committee (ill advised, he said); and using the party money for the reunion trip (an accident, he said). Mr. Rubio, in his 2012 memoir, “An American Son,” confessed a “lack of bookkeeping skills” and an “imperfect accounting system.”
In private conversations, Mr. Rubio has told friends that he learned how to manage money through trial and error. His poor, immigrant parents — his father a bartender, his mother a hotel maid — had little money to manage, he told them.
In a statement to The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said, “Like most Americans, I know what it’s like for money to be a limited resource and to have to manage it accordingly.”
He added: “Our primary financial motivation over the last 15 years has not been to become wealthy. It has been to provide for our children a happy upbringing and the chance at a great future.”
Mr. Rubio’s allies said his financial blunders were the scars of a self-made man, who rose to prominence despite lacking the wealth and connections that eased the path for so many of his rivals.
“It’s a two-edged sword,” said Dennis Baxley, a Florida House member and fellow Republican who served in the Legislature with Mr. Rubio. “That’s part of the excitement of Marco.”
It shows, Mr. Baxley said, that “an ordinary person without the financial support structure can do this with a tremendous amount of drive.”
The Rubios have taken steps to stabilize their finances in recent years, aided primarily by proceeds from his two books. Since 2012, they have put away at least $150,000, given $60,000 to charity and refinanced the mortgage on their primary home to lower the monthly payments. (Mr. Rubio set up college funds for his four children at birth, an aide said.)
But as Mr. Rubio, 44, seeks to counter questions about his stature and readiness for the presidency, his financial history creates particular complications. It has made him unusually reliant on a campaign donor, Norman Braman, a billionaire who subsidized Mr. Rubio’s job as a college instructor, hired him as a lawyer and continues to employ his wife.
And it could undermine Mr. Rubio’s well-crafted political persona: The senator has long portrayed himself as a champion of financial austerity, railing against excessive government spending and runaway debt.
“We have a country,” he said in 2013, “that borrows too much money.” In 2010, he diagnosed the problem this way: “If you allow politicians to spend money, they’ll do it.”
As he campaigns for president, Mr. Rubio is embracing his rough financial patches as he seeks to connect with an electorate saddled with debt and stuck in low-paying jobs. After cashing out the retirement account last year, he explained the decision in a deliberately folksy way: He needed to replace a broken refrigerator, and was also preparing for personal expenses related to his campaign.
“I’m not poor,” he said, “but I’m not rich, either.”
Mr. Rubio entered public life in a deep financial hole of his own making.
Soon after he was elected to the Legislature in 2000, he reported a net worth of zero, about $150,000 in student loan debt, and $30,000 in what he called assorted credit and retail debt.
It was the inauspicious start to a decade of big financial ups and downs. In interviews, friends and advisers describe Mr. Rubio as a young politician entering public life just out of law school, whose charisma and stardom quickly outstripped his financial acumen, leaving him unprepared to manage the expensive campaigns and lucrative career opportunities that came his way.
By 28, he was juggling a new family, earning a modest salary in the Florida House in addition to his law firm work and nursing a desire for higher office that required continual travel across the state.
“A lot of it was a function of age,” said Mr. Baxley, who mentored Mr. Rubio in the Florida House and remains close to him. “It was very challenging for him. He was a clear example of when you enter early, you have to do all of these things at the same time. And it’s hard to do them all at the same time well.”
Even as his government career took off, Mr. Rubio’s financial picture grew grimmer and the demands of the Legislature endangered his work for the Florida law firm, where his bosses became impatient with his lack of focus.
Despite an income of $90,000 in 2001, Mr. Rubio wrote in his memoir, monthly expenses became so strained that he and his wife sold one of their two cars and, along with their young daughter, moved into the home of his mother-in-law.
But the belt-tightening was short-lived. In 2003, he bought his mother-in-law’s home in West Miami for $175,000, putting no money down.
Within a few years, Mr. Rubio had landed a job at a high-profile Miami law firm paying him $300,000 a year. As he would later do with the proceeds from his book, Mr. Rubio spent heavily.
First, he bought a house in Tallahassee with another state lawmaker for $135,000, again putting no money down.
Then, by the end of 2005, the Rubios had completed the purchase of a new home, twice the size of their previous one, for $550,000. The house, among the more expensive in West Miami, stood out from the aging homes nearby: It includes an in-ground pool, a handsome brick driveway, meticulously manicured shrubs and oversize windows.
Soaring Liabilities
Within a few weeks of the home purchase, Mr. Rubio, then a Republican leader in the House, borrowed $135,000 through a home equity line to pay for improvements to the house, from a politically connected Miami-based bank, U.S. Century, after the house was reappraised at $735,000.
Suddenly the owner of three homes, the Rubios saw their liabilities soar to $1 million from $330,000 in just a year. Harold Evensky, a longtime financial adviser who reviewed Mr. Rubio’s public financial disclosures at the request of The Times, called the rapid accumulation of debt “staggering.”
“This was someone that was living financially dangerously,” Mr. Evensky said.
Little of Mr. Rubio’s income at this time went into savings. An analysis of his financial disclosures by Jude Boudreaux, a longtime financial planner and an adjunct professor at Loyola University New Orleans teaching personal finance, shows that Mr. Rubio earned $2.38 million from 1998 to 2008 but ended up with an estimated net worth of $53,000 (slightly more than Mr. Rubio disclosed himself). His savings rate during that period was about 2 percent.
“Practically nothing,” Mr. Boudreaux said.
Still, Mr. Rubio’s advisers said that the mortgages did not create a financial strain, and that his debt-to-income ratio did not exceed the 43 percent rate that the federal government considers worrisome. (The campaign declined to provide a specific figure.)
It was during this period of growing indebtedness, in the mid-2000s, that Mr. Rubio’s personal finances converged in unusual ways with his political activities. As he climbed the ranks of the Legislature, determined to reach the prestigious post of House speaker, Mr. Rubio set up political action committees to bankroll his political endeavors and obtained a credit card from the Republican Party of Florida.
But he struggled with the new financial responsibilities. “It was a learning curve for him to make sure everything was being paid out of the right canister,” said Mr. Baxley, the lawmaker.
The structure of the PACs was unorthodox, by Mr. Rubio’s own admission. One of them was run by his wife, and was used to reimburse the couple thousands of dollars for meals, gas and long-distance calls. The other employed three of the Rubio family’s relatives.
During his Senate campaign in 2010, his opponents pounced on the arrangement, suggesting he had used the PACs to subsidize his family’s lifestyle. “It wasn’t true,” Mr. Rubio later wrote, “but I had helped create the misunderstanding my opponents exploited.”
His use of the Republican credit card for personal expenses was harder to explain. Records showed that he charged the party’s card for stone pavers at his house and travel to the family reunion in Georgia.
Mr. Rubio blamed a travel agent for the reunion charge and said he had pulled out the wrong credit card to pay for the pavers. “I wish that none of them had ever been charged,” he wrote in his book. He eventually covered the costs of each himself, he said.
But similar practices carried over to Mr. Rubio’s campaign for the Senate, and to the fund-raising group that he created after his election, Reclaim America PAC. A review of campaign finance records shows that Mr. Rubio employed two nephews who had worked for his local PAC years earlier, as well as close friends.
Since 2009, Mr. Rubio’s political organizations have paid at least $90,000 to companies registered by one of the nephews, Orlando Cicilia III, which provided consulting and video production services.
Mr. Rubio’s supporters said his reliance on close friends and even family was not a case of patronage so much as necessity: He was running for the Senate against Florida’s popular governor, Charlie Crist, who commanded the loyalty of the state’s Republican operatives and strategists.
After the race, a new problem arose. The Federal Election Commission repeatedly cited Mr. Rubio’s campaign — and fined it more than $9,000 — for running afoul of campaign finance rules. In one case, the commission found $210,000 in improper donations, many of which violated contribution limits.
The Senate has provided Mr. Rubio with a prestigious platform, to write books, travel the world, deliver speeches and, today, mount a run for the White House. But he has told friends that the job has imposed its own form of financial hardship, and he expressed occasional envy of colleagues in the private sector.
Mr. Rubio’s Senate salary of $174,000 is far less than he earned as a lawyer and consultant, and the Rubio family expenses are significant. All four of their children attend parochial school.
He has looked for other ways to bring in cash: Shortly before running for the Senate, Mr. Rubio agreed to teach at Florida International University, for $69,000 a year. (The salary was later reduced.) Those involved in the negotiations said it was clear that Mr. Rubio’s finances were stretched.
“I think that was an issue,” said Steve Saul, who was vice president for government relations at the university when Mr. Rubio was hired. “He needed the money.”
The Rubios have further supplemented their income with royalties from his two books and Mrs. Rubio’s work for Mr. Braman, Mr. Rubio’s wealthy campaign donor.
But Mrs. Rubio’s firm, JDR Events, has had its own bookkeeping lapses. Over the past few years, she failed to pay annual business licensing fees to the City of West Miami, despite nine written notices and repeated phone calls to her home, records show.
After The Times made an inquiry with the city on May 26, a check arrived from Mrs. Rubio two days later for the $637.50 she still owed. In a handwritten note to the city, she said she had mistakenly believed her payments were up to date.
“My apologies,” she wrote.
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lmao.....hahahahaha.
24' "Luxury speed boat" hahahaha. You mean the normal price for a sport fisher. Hahahahahahahahaa.
Hey Bay, how about providing a link to this story. lol
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Killary claims broke and Illegal contributions to her foundation. Sharpton owes millions in back taxes that he refuses to payback but still gets invites to the house of corruption. Just keep quiet dude, you're making an ass of yourself. lol
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Killary claims broke and Illegal contributions to her foundation. Sharpton owes millions in back taxes that he refuses to payback but still gets invites to the house of corruption. Just keep quiet dude, you're making an ass of yourself. lol
I'll keep posting, thanks. If you are not interested feel free to turn your attention elsewhere. As for making an ass of oneself... I suspect you are more expert at it than I. :-*
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I'll keep posting, thanks. If you are not interested feel free to turn your attention elsewhere. As for making an ass of oneself... I suspect you are more expert at it than I. :-*
Like the left on here you post inaccuracies, lies and spin with nothing substantial. You won't even post the link where this story came from. I would imagine though it's from some leftist rag creating hit pieces so the uninformed voter can feed from it. (Mother jones, MSNBC, CNN, media matters) all come to mind.
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Like the left on here you post inaccuracies, lies and spin with nothing substantial. You won't even post the link where this story came from. I would imagine though it's from some leftist rag creating hit pieces so the uninformed voter can feed from it. (Mother jones, MSNBC, CNN, media matters) all come to mind.
You forgot FOX your favorite network.
Or is FOX the truth in your mind?
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rubio is doing what a lot of people do - living large. He knows he'll have good money, he'll always be able to earn. Does he meticulously invest it? Goodness no. Is he a financial wizard? Definitely not. but it is his money, it's how he chooses to spend it. So I don't stress him too much for it. He married a miami dolphins cheerleader? You don't do that while driving a hyundai, you lease an Audi you can't afford, that's how lol.
now, if Rubio made some claim that he exemplifies fiscal wisdom in his own life, it'd be laughable. But if he's just a lawyer i his 20s/30s spending big and living big... that's his call. Nobody is claiming Rubio is a disciplined, fiscal wizard. He's a big earner, big spender. and a lot of people love that, cause they live that too.
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Killary claims broke and Illegal contributions to her foundation. Sharpton owes millions in back taxes that he refuses to payback but still gets invites to the house of corruption. Just keep quiet dude, you're making an ass of yourself. lol
do you have any idea how fucking bizarro this is coming from you
you're the undisputed champion of making an ass of yourself on this site.
didn't you just melt down a few weeks ago and run away claiming this site was too toxic for you
jesus christ you're the last person that should be telling anyone to keep quiet
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rubio is doing what a lot of people do - living large. He knows he'll have good money, he'll always be able to earn. Does he meticulously invest it? Goodness no. Is he a financial wizard? Definitely not. but it is his money, it's how he chooses to spend it. So I don't stress him too much for it. He married a miami dolphins cheerleader? You don't do that while driving a hyundai, you lease an Audi you can't afford, that's how lol.
now, if Rubio made some claim that he exemplifies fiscal wisdom in his own life, it'd be laughable. But if he's just a lawyer i his 20s/30s spending big and living big... that's his call. Nobody is claiming Rubio is a disciplined, fiscal wizard. He's a big earner, big spender. and a lot of people love that, cause they live that too.
Having an $80k "luxury" (haha) is hardly living large. Especially if it's financed over 15 years. His payment might by around $300 per month. This is just another bulkshit hit piece made up by the left because they're scared shitless of him.
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do you have any idea how fucking bizarro this is coming from you
you're the undisputed champion of making an ass of yourself on this site.
didn't you just melt down a few weeks ago and run away claiming this site was too toxic for you
jesus christ you're the last person that should be telling anyone to keep quiet
Go back school and learn the word "hiatus" I know you already know the definition of "strawman".
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do you have any idea how fucking bizarro this is coming from you
you're the undisputed champion of making an ass of yourself on this site.
didn't you just melt down a few weeks ago and run away claiming this site was too toxic for you
jesus christ you're the last person that should be telling anyone to keep quiet
I wasn't going to go there, but since you did . . . Ouch! :-X
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I wasn't going to go there, but since you did . . . Ouch! :-X
Where's the link.
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Where's the link.
On NYTimes, CNN, ABC, Washington Post, Huff Post etc.
You read far right babble written by insane people so it's likely they're keeping the 'truth' from you. Or in your case, if it hits you in the face you'll still ignore it.
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Having an $80k "luxury" (haha) is hardly living large. Especially if it's financed over 15 years. His payment might by around $300 per month. This is just another bulkshit hit piece made up by the left because they're scared shitless of him.
did you read past the boat? He's saving under 2% and selling off his retirement packages to fund an Audi lol.
It's completely his right to spend his $ any way he wishes. I'm not hating on him.
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Who else also miss 33366? At least the right wing fundies were funny being led by him. Quite a few right wing panty sniffers quit this forums and now all we're left with is an illiterate tyre flipping dwarf :-\
We need the Republicans to rise again on Getbig.
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did you read past the boat? He's saving under 2% and selling off his retirement packages to fund an Audi lol.
It's completely his right to spend his $ any way he wishes. I'm not hating on him.
If I'm not mistaken most of the house politicians make around $174k per year. They work a 4 day work week and (if I understood this correctly) get an additional $1mil stipen. I read past the boat part, the left clearly is making a big deal out of this unlike Kerry's multi-million dollar yacht that he tried dodging paying the tax on. Everything else past that point is an attempted media hit job. You know it, Bay knows l, straw is too stupid to know so we'll just leave him out of it.
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We need the Republicans to rise again on Getbig.
repubs are no longer a party. They're 2 parties now.
You have the RINOs who love Christie, who believe Jeb is awesome, who believe Huck is a conservative. Nothing changes with them. Nothing.
Then you have the conservatives that love ted cruz way of changing everything, getting hugely fiscally responsible as a nation.
At least the dems/libs stick together. They like Sanders but will support hilary without blinking. Repubs, on the other hand, did NOT in 2008 or 2012, and again will not in 2016.
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If I'm not mistaken most of the house politicians make around $174k per year. They work a 4 day work week and (if I understood this correctly) get an additional $1mil stipen. I read past the boat part, the left clearly is making a big deal out of this unlike Kerry's multi-million dollar yacht that he tried dodging paying the tax on. Everything else past that point is an attempted media hit job. You know it, Bay knows l, straw is too stupid to know so we'll just leave him out of it.
That's it Joe, you tell them. You're squarely in The Know, seeing through every media lie apart from when it has a negative spin on the Democrats, then everything is true.
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If I'm not mistaken most of the house politicians make around $174k per year. They work a 4 day work week and (if I understood this correctly) get an additional $1mil stipen. I read past the boat part, the left clearly is making a big deal out of this unlike Kerry's multi-million dollar yacht that he tried dodging paying the tax on. Everything else past that point is an attempted media hit job. You know it, Bay knows l, straw is too stupid to know so we'll just leave him out of it.
Coach, this article establishes the facts. Down the road, if Rubio claims that only HE can be fiscally responsible as prez, someone will ask about what lessons he learned from his own $ woes. It works on dems too. Apply it to hilary if you'd like, same result. Rubio is not a fiscally cautious man. We all agree on that. Nothing wrong with it - he knows he'll be a millionaire, and you ain't getting an NFL cheerleader without living large lol. So let him live how he likes. As long as he never lectures others on personal financial responsibility, that's all. Live and let live. but don't tell others to save, don't tell others to live within means, etc.
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repubs are no longer a party. They're 2 parties now.
You have the RINOs who love Christie, who believe Jeb is awesome, who believe Huck is a conservative. Nothing changes with them. Nothing.
Then you have the conservatives that love ted cruz way of changing everything, getting hugely fiscally responsible as a nation.
At least the dems/libs stick together. They like Sanders but will support hilary without blinking. Repubs, on the other hand, did NOT in 2008 or 2012, and again will not in 2016.
Probably. I find it secretly strange that they're even concerning themselves with 2016. That was a write off in '12 already when the most beatable president in history wiped the floor with them. They should be focussing on 2020 and hitting Hilary in her bid for a 2nd term.
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Probably. I find it secretly strange that they're even concerning themselves with 2016. That was a write off in '12 already when the most beatable president in history wiped the floor with them. They should be focussing on 2020 and hitting Hilary in her bid for a 2nd term.
insane how beatable obama was. Truly. polling lower than carter at that point. Romney's 47% comment. Ugh. he was leading after the 1st debate. Some silly people were even laughing about a republican 'landslide', believe it or not.
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Allowances not stipends
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Coach, this article establishes the facts. Down the road, if Rubio claims that only HE can be fiscally responsible as prez, someone will ask about what lessons he learned from his own $ woes. It works on dems too. Apply it to hilary if you'd like, same result. Rubio is not a fiscally cautious man. We all agree on that. Nothing wrong with it - he knows he'll be a millionaire, and you ain't getting an NFL cheerleader without living large lol. So let him live how he likes. As long as he never lectures others on personal financial responsibility, that's all. Live and let live. but don't tell others to save, don't tell others to live within means, etc.
Remember when the left said Herman Cains supposed affairs were "facts"? Remember all the "facts" about Sarah Palin and Mit Romney? When are you going to Learn that the left doesn't deal in "facts".
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Remember when the left said Herman Cains supposed affairs were "facts"? Remember all the "facts" about Sarah Palin and Mit Romney? When are you going to Learn that the left doesn't deal in "facts".
Ironically, this article is loaded with actual facts from public records and filings. They didn't make up the price of the boat or the Audi - Rubio has to file those.
And your examples are odd... Cain did admit paying off the lesbian whore for over a decade, and apologized for it. The left didn't make that up, did they?
I think if you read the article closely, you'd see the facts are public record and this article is nothing but establishing a baseline in case Rubio starts telling americans how to invest and manage their money. As long as he doesn't do this, he is fine. Just a normal "big hat, no cattle" upper class semi-rich dude living check to check. No big deal, he's fine, he'll be fine, FOX will make him rich in a few years if nothing else.
If i"m wrong, you can tell me which fact in that article has been fabricated. ???
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Ironically, this article is loaded with actual facts from public records and filings. They didn't make up the price of the boat or the Audi - Rubio has to file those.
And your examples are odd... Cain did admit paying off the lesbian whore for over a decade, and apologized for it. The left didn't make that up, did they?
I think if you read the article closely, you'd see the facts are public record and this article is nothing but establishing a baseline in case Rubio starts telling americans how to invest and manage their money. As long as he doesn't do this, he is fine. Just a normal "big hat, no cattle" upper class semi-rich dude living check to check. No big deal, he's fine, he'll be fine, FOX will make him rich in a few years if nothing else.
If i"m wrong, you can tell me which fact in that article has been fabricated. ???
There wasn't a lick of evidence with him having one affair let alone multiple. Paying someone off to keep your family out of political controversy is a wise investment. Isn't it funny that the day the dropped out was the last day you ever heard anything about his "affairs".
As for Rubio, it's a left hit job. PERIOD. Guaranteed. Who cares about the cost of the boat or the car? Seriously. Mitt Romney 2.0? lol
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There wasn't a lick of evidence with him having one affair let alone multiple.
Are you kidding? Really?
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Are you kidding? Really?
A payoff isn't evidence or an admission of guilt. Why do think it went away the day after he pulled out of the race?
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A payoff isn't evidence or an admission of guilt. Why do think it went away the day after he pulled out of the race?
his own lawyer admitted the affair. You are saying cain admitted paying the whore for 11 years - and that was a lie? LOL seriously, that's beyond conspiracy theory.
being mad that the shit left media picked on cain is one thing - but denying he cheated? Tell us you're as sure Cain was "framed" as you are that obama is a bad president. ??? See, that's why ya can't put it on the line for a shit liar like Cain. And yes, he was lying, from the moment he smirked when asked about taking a polygraph and I posted immediately we'll never see it, and he's shit guitly.
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A payoff isn't evidence or an admission of guilt.
Sure. What about the decade of phone calls and texts between the two? A whole lot of pillow talk lol...
Cain answered the phone himself when a reporter called. Lots of sex texts (61) between him and the woman he paid off for 11 years.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/From-the-Wires/2011/1129/Ginger-White-Her-phone-bill-has-61-calls-or-texts-from-Herman-Cain-video
Did you know this? And now that you do - do you now agree with the lib media that Cain was LYING?
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Go back school and learn the word "hiatus" I know you already know the definition of "strawman".
Is the definition: "cried like a little bitch, lurked for 72 hours and then started posting again"?
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lmao.....hahahahaha.
24' "Luxury speed boat" hahahaha. You mean the normal price for a sport fisher. Hahahahahahahahaa.
Hey Bay, how about providing a link to this story. lol
Right? I literally laughed out loud when I saw the pictures . . . and this thread. :) Liberals are so desperate to smear anyone they deem a threat. First the traffic tickets and now this? Saul Alinsky at work here.
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Saul Alinsky at work here.
dems know that as long as the republican party is divided, the alinsky tactics work. Ask presidents mccain and romney about that.
we've been hearing the yelling about the saul tactics since 2007. What has GOP leadership done to neutralize the effectiveness of these tactics?
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Right? I literally laughed out loud when I saw the pictures . . . and this thread. :) Liberals are so desperate to smear anyone they deem a threat. First the traffic tickets and now this? Saul Alinsky at work here.
Four since 1997..lol.
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Four since 1997..lol.
Apparently this is the luxury speed boat. He is living large. lol
(http://www.newsmax.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=e4863dba-4993-457e-9ca9-c1a4b23f1be4&SiteName=Newsmax&maxsidesize=600)
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http://www.boatingmag.com/senator-marc-rubios-boat
Some of these FB responses are hilarious..lol
https://www.facebook.com/boatingmag/posts/10153211547437107
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Rubio needs to get a crib like Hillary so he'll have room to store his luxury boat.
(http://therightmics.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-11-at-9.41.42-AM.jpg)
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:D
(https://thisistwitchy.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/rubio-vice.jpg)
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Is Hillary not much wealthier than Rubio?
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Is Hillary not much wealthier than Rubio?
Her net worth is tens of millions greater than Rubio.
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Her net worth is tens of millions greater than Rubio.
I suspected as much.
Double standard anyone?
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Rubio was barred from working as a lobbyist, yet he filled out an application to be a lobbyist... signed the form and later claimed that applying was an accident. How do you accidentally apply to be a lobbyist? ???
How Marco Rubio turned political star power into a soaring personal income
By Tom Hamburger and Sean Sullivan
Marco Rubio was 28 when he was elected to the Florida legislature. He was about to become a father and was struggling to balance the financial demands of a growing family with his political aspirations.
About a year and a half after taking his seat in Florida’s part-time legislature, Rubio got a financial boost, accepting a job at the Miami law firm of Becker & Poliakoff for $93,000 a year. Although Rubio was a lawyer by training, his colleagues quickly recognized the advantage of having a charismatic, high-energy politician in the office.
“It was as simple as saying, ‘Marco, who should I call in this place about this issue?’ ” recalled Perry Adair, a real estate lawyer in charge of the firm’s Miami office, where Rubio worked from 2001 to 2004. “Marco knew the staff everywhere. He had been in politics all his life.”
During nine years in Tallahassee, as Rubio rose in prominence and ascended to the state House speakership, he became increasingly well-compensated as he walked a narrow line between his work as a lawmaker and an employee of outside firms with interests before the state government.
Although he began his legislative career as a man of modest means, Rubio in 2008 reached an income level that placed him in the top 1 percent of American earners. His outside work included helping real estate developers navigate city hall bureaucracies, assisting a law firm in adding ethnic diversity to its client base and lawyer roster, teaching college-level political science classes, and coordinating conference calls for a Washington lobbyist seeking federal funding for Miami hospitals.
Rubio’s annual income grew from about $72,000 when he was elected to the state House in 2000 to $414,000 in 2008, when his two-year speakership ended, according to financial disclosure forms and interviews with Rubio campaign staff.
About 80 percent of his total income during his state House tenure came from Florida law firms that lobby state and local governments, according to a Washington Post analysis of state financial disclosure forms. Much of the rest was his legislative salary, typically about $29,000 a year.
Now, as the 44-year-old U.S. senator runs for president, he is facing questions about his personal finances and his spending practices. He bought an $80,000 boat and his wife leased a high-end SUV, expenses first reported by the New York Times, and he disclosed cashing out some retirement savings. He had previously come under fire over his use of a state Republican Party credit card for personal expenses when he was a state lawmaker, and he reimbursed the state GOP $2,400 in travel expenses that he acknowledged he had mistakenly received for official government travel.
On the campaign trail, Rubio makes his humble beginnings and middle-class lifestyle central components of his pitch to voters, even bragging at times that he is among the least wealthy candidates in the race. In a subtle dig at his rivals, such as Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Jeb Bush, Rubio often jokes that his detractors think he is “not rich enough” to be president.
Even so, Rubio’s time in Tallahassee marked a financial turning point for the lawmaker and his family.
The bulk of his private-sector income during his Tallahassee years came from his employment at Broad and Cassel, one of Florida’s top law and lobbying firms, which hired Rubio at $300,000 a year in 2004, months after he secured the support from his House colleagues to be in line for the speakership.
Rubio declined to be interviewed for this article. A campaign spokesman, Todd Harris, said that Rubio’s private-sector income was not unusual for state lawmakers, and reflected the unique skill set he offered prospective employers.
“Unlike Congress, the Florida legislature is a part-time body, meaning virtually every legislator makes their living from outside employment,” Harris said.
“When Marco was hired at Broad and Cassel, he was in line to become the first Cuban American House speaker in Florida history,” Harris added. “That gave him an enormous profile, along with some very marketable experiences and qualifications.”
Although the annual session plus year-round committee meetings and constituent work often add up to full-time work, many state lawmakers maintain private careers as lawyers, business owners and in other jobs.
A review of Florida financial disclosure forms shows that Rubio experienced an unusually large jump in his private-sector salary. His outside pay grew proportionally more than any of the nine other Florida House speakers who served between 1997 and 2014, the documents show.
Many already earned six-figure incomes as they began climbing the leadership ladder. Generally, they experienced more modest growth during their years in the leadership, the records show.
Harris said it was “impossible, and frankly irrelevant,” to compare salaries of state House speakers in a part-time legislature in which members have a broad array of financial backgrounds.
“Some were millionaires before they were ever elected,” Harris added. “Others, like Marco, started with significantly less.”
Some former colleagues say Rubio charted an unusual path, entering the legislature before establishing an outside career. He had been a city commissioner in tiny West Miami, and had focused on building his political networks rather than a lucrative legal portfolio.
Johnnie Byrd, who was House speaker several years before Rubio, explained the difference, noting that he was a “country lawyer” working for a small firm in a small town while Rubio opted for a big firm with political connections.
“My memory of Broad and Cassel is that they were a really rapidly rising firm at that time,” said Byrd, who said he supports Rubio’s presidential bid. “They were one of the big firms in Florida that was doing a lot of government work.”
Rubio’s income raised some concerns among his colleagues, particularly after his big jump upon securing the speakership, said Mike Fasano, who as House majority leader in 2001 gave Rubio an early leadership post but became a critic and backed Rubio’s 2010 Senate rival, Charlie Crist (D).
“Other members of the Florida House do not see their salary triple overnight,” said Fasano, who is backing Bush’s presidential campaign. “I feel confident in saying that if he had not been selected to the speaker-designate, his salary would not have shot up to $300,000.”
When Rubio first arrived in Tallahassee in 2000, he was employed by Ruden McClosky, a law firm that paid him $72,000 a year, a total that Rubio recalls in his memoir was barely enough to make ends meet.
In 2001, Rubio met Alan Becker, a former state legislator building a lobbying and law firm. Becker offered Rubio $93,000 to join his firm.
“I didn’t hesitate a moment,” Rubio wrote in his book, “An American Son.”
Becker, in an interview, said he hired Rubio to work on zoning and land-use issues. He said he knew that Rubio, focused on the legislature, would have limited time for the firm.
“I was paying him accordingly,” Becker said. “If he was devoting 100 hundred percent to the law business he would have been paid more because he was worth it.”
During his time at Becker’s firm, Rubio registered with the Miami-Dade County government to lobby on behalf of real estate and other interests. Democrats later cited this to attack him as a lobbyist, but Rubio has said his county-level work focused on local zoning issues and was not lobbying in the traditional sense.
Adair, the Miami lawyer, recalled that Rubio was especially effective in helping real estate developer clients cut through the clutter of local government bureaucracies. Adair said Rubio never sought to influence local officials’ decisions.
“It can be hard to get meetings with local government officials and it can be hard to get answers,” he said. “Marco was a good guy to have around because he could help you get an answer that would otherwise have taken two months.”
In December 2003, Rubio was registered as a federal lobbyist for Becker & Poliakoff in Washington, according to records maintained by the House and the Senate and never previously reported. The registration form, which includes Rubio’s signature, declares that he would concentrate on “budget appropriations and health care.”
Harris said that Rubio could not recall filling out the registration form and that he did not lobby. Firm officials said it had been an error, and the firm sent a letter in 2005 asking the Senate to revoke the registration.
At the time that Rubio’s form was filed, Becker & Poliakoff had formed a joint venture with a Washington lobbying firm hired by Miami-Dade County to help find federal funding for Miami’s public hospitals.
As part of his work for the Becker firm, Rubio helped Jonathan Slade, one of the Washington lobbyists, learn about the county’s federal needs, Slade said.
Rubio arranged conference calls between Slade and county officials to discuss hospital issues, Slade said. Rubio was usually on the line for the calls, Slade added, but did not participate in the conversations. Slade said that he was not aware that Rubio did any federal lobbying, and that he was surprised to learn Rubio had once registered.
By 2003, Rubio had lined up the commitments he needed from his GOP House colleagues to secure his place in line to assume the speaker’s gavel. Soon thereafter, he began to receive other high-income offers.
During a 2004 dinner with Rubio and his wife at Chef Allen’s, a popular restaurant north of Miami, Becker persuaded him to stay by offering him a 50 percent raise. It was less than one of the competing offers, but enough to keep Rubio, at least for a while.
But when Broad and Cassel offered to more than double his salary, Rubio was compelled to listen.
Becker told Rubio that he would be “out of his mind” to say no.
In his memoir, Rubio described himself as “torn.”
“I had been in difficult financial straits when Alan Becker had offered me a job, and I was indebted to him,” Rubio wrote. “But I couldn’t afford to refuse the financial security the Broad and Cassel offer would provide.”
Rubio described his circumstances at the time: 33 years old and the sole earner in his household.
“I had a mortgage, student loans and other debts, and we lived paycheck to paycheck,” he wrote. “We had outgrown our two-bedroom home in West Miami, and my salary at Broad and Cassel would make it possible for us to buy a bigger house and settle some of our debts.”
Broad and Cassel was known for its real estate, litigation and government relations practice.
But Rubio’s role, aides said, was non-political. He was prevented by law from lobbying. The firm’s offer letter to Rubio, dated June 18, 2004, forbade him from introducing legislation that would affect the firm or its clients. The letter also mandated, in accordance with state laws, that Rubio’s salary would not include any money the firm received from lobbying.
Instead, the son of Cuban immigrants was brought on board largely to help the firm diversify its mostly white, male Miami office.
“Because of my political obligations it was understood that my primary responsibility would not be to handle individual clients,” Rubio said in a written response to questions from The Post. “Instead, my job was to raise the firm’s profile in Miami, help attract younger lawyers to build for the future, and opening new doors for the firm, particularly in the Cuban American business community where Broad and Cassel had limited ties.”
Rubio said that, today, the firm’s Miami office is “thriving,” adding that, “I am proud of the leadership role I played to help make that happen.”
Vivian de las Cuevas-Diaz, a lawyer recruited to the firm, said she had been reluctant to accept a long-standing offer but changed her mind after hearing Rubio’s pitch. Over lunch, she recalled, Rubio acknowledged that Broad and Cassel had not kept pace with Miami’s economic and ethnic transformation. But he said the firm would be a good home for an ambitious young lawyer. “He said it would be a great state platform” to build visibility and a client base, said De las Cuevas-Diaz, now a partner with Holland & Knight.
As he became speaker, Rubio still made time to talk with the lawyer he had helped recruit.
“I find it incredible that it didn’t matter what was going on — when I said I needed something, he was always available,” she said.
Rubio continued to work at the firm for the two years he was speaker, a term that started in November 2006.
In 2008, during his final months as speaker, Rubio’s income rose yet again — this time the result of a new teaching job at Florida International University, a large state school in Miami. The part-time position paid Rubio $69,000 a year.
Rubio’s private income got another boost shortly after he ended his two-year stint as speaker and left state office — signing on as a consultant for public hospitals he had recently championed as a lawmaker.
Rubio and a former aide signed consulting contracts worth $102,000 with Jackson Hospital Systems and $96,000 with Miami Children’s Hospital, according to Senate disclosure forms and interviews with Rubio aides.
Then came the 2010 campaign, when Rubio secured his spot as a national Republican star.
Fame followed, as did lucrative book deals — earning him at least $1.2 million, according to financial disclosure forms — and a chance to become president.
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A payoff isn't evidence or an admission of guilt. Why do think it went away the day after he pulled out of the race?
Damn you are stupid.
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Damn you are stupid.
LOL! http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=575410.0
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LOL! http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=575410.0
Should I post the links to the various birther and gay Obama threads?
::)
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Rubio was barred from working as a lobbyist, yet he filled out an application to be a lobbyist... signed the form and later claimed that applying was an accident. How do you accidentally apply to be a lobbyist? ???
he was shady with this. it came up a lot when he was running for office. but it wasn't enuogh to exclude him.
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Should I post the links to the various birther and gay Obama threads?
::)
No. You should post the link to the fake news story you posted, while calling someone else stupid. lol
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How Rubio helped his ex-con brother-in-law acquire a real estate license
by Scott Higham and Manuel Roig-Franzia
When Marco Rubio was majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives, he used his official position to urge state regulators to grant a real estate license to his brother-in-law, a convicted cocaine trafficker who had been released from prison 20 months earlier, according to records obtained by The Washington Post.
In July 2002, Rubio sent a letter on his official statehouse stationery to the Florida Division of Real Estate, recommending Orlando Cicilia “for licensure without reservation.” The letter, obtained by The Washington Post under the Florida Public Records Act, offers a glimpse of Rubio using his growing political power to assist his troubled brother-in-law and provides new insight into how the young lawmaker intertwined his personal and political lives.
Rubio did not disclose in the letter that Cicilia was married to his sister, Barbara, or that the former cocaine dealer was living at the time in the same West Miami home as Rubio’s parents. He wrote that he had known Cicilia “for over 25 years,” without elaborating.
Rubio has avoided discussing Cicilia’s case in detail and has declined to answer questions about his relationship with his brother-in-law. Earlier this month, prior to The Post publishing an article about Cicilia’s case, Rubio declined to answer a written question about whether he had helped win the approval of his brother-in-law’s real estate license.
Rubio also declined to say whether he or his family received financial assistance from Cicilia, who was convicted in a high-profile 1989 trial of distributing $15 million worth of cocaine. The federal government seized Cicilia’s home; the money has never been found.
Cicilia, 58, could not be reached for comment. He still lives in the same home as Rubio’s mother and has appeared at campaign events for his brother-in-law. Rubio-affiliated PACs and campaigns, including his ongoing presidential operation, have paid Cicilia’s two sons more than $130,000 in the past decade.
“Orlando made some very big mistakes almost 30 years ago, served his time, and has paid his debt to society,” Rubio’s presidential campaign adviser, Todd Harris, said in an email. “Today he is a private citizen, husband and father, simply trying to make a living. It is appalling and shameful that The Washington Post continues to drag him into the spotlight.
“Marco has recommended scores of Floridians for various professional positions and after Orlando paid his debt to society, Marco was happy to recommend him as well. He believed Orlando should be judged on his own merits and felt it would be highly inappropriate, and could be perceived as exerting undue pressure, if his letter stated that Orlando was a relative.”
Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group in Washington, said Rubio’s role concerned her.
“Someone who serves their time should be a productive member of society, and it’s important for families to help each other, but it’s wrong to use your public office for personal or private gain,” Brian said.
By not disclosing his relationship, Rubio withheld a key piece of information from the real estate board, Brian added. “The general rule of thumb I apply to conflicts of interest is, if you can’t eliminate them, you need to manage them by disclosing the conflict,” she said. “I’m uncomfortable that he didn’t acknowledge the conflict.”
Rubio, a Republican who represents Florida in the U.S. Senate, was a 16-year-old high school junior in 1987 when Cicilia was arrested in one of the largest drug cases in Florida history. There has never been any evidence that Rubio or his family knew that Cicilia was dealing cocaine, although Drug Enforcement Administration surveillance records show Cicilia stored cocaine from the drug ring at his home, a few miles away from where Rubio and his parents lived.
By 2002 — when Cicilia applied for his real estate license — Rubio was accumulating significant power in Tallahassee. He had been tapped as majority whip, and he added to his growing portfolio when he was named chairman of the prominent Task Force on Florida’s Tax Structure. Later that year, he was selected as House majority leader, a position that put him on the fast track to become speaker of the House.
While Rubio was making his mark in Florida politics, Cicilia was reintegrating into the Rubio family and acclimating to life as a free man after 11 1/2 years in federal prison. Cicilia lived with his wife and Rubio’s parents in the future GOP candidate’s childhood home, according to Cicilia’s real-estate-license application. Shortly after his release, Cicilia took a job on the sales staff of a Miami food company and worked his way up to be head of the sales team, according to his application.
Cicilia’s cocaine conviction presented a complication for his application. Unlike some states, Florida does not prohibit felons from holding real estate licenses. Their applications are considered on a “case-by-case basis” by seven members of the Florida Real Estate Commission, who are appointed by the governor. The governor, at that time, was Rubio’s political mentor, Jeb Bush — who is now running against the Florida senator for the Republican presidential nomination. The budget of the agency is controlled by the Florida legislature, where Rubio wielded considerable influence.
Cicilia had one technical issue in his favor. In general, the board frowns upon applicants who have been convicted of fraud and related charges — he had been convicted in a drug trafficking case. Regardless of the charge, felons can plead their cases before the board members and can ask character witnesses to submit letters or testify on their behalf.
“If someone has been found guilty of fraud, that’s going to go against them,” said Chelsea Eagle, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which oversees licensing in the state. “It all depends on the circumstances of the case.”
Cicilia applied for his license in February 2002, and he answered “yes” to a question about whether he had been convicted of a crime. State regulators wanted to know more. Cicilia responded on June 5, outlining his cocaine conviction and sentencing, and saying he had an “impeccable record” during his time in prison.
At the suggestion of an official in the Florida Division of Real Estate, Cicilia asked for his application to be considered at a hearing of the Real Estate Commission in July 2002. Along with his request, he sent three recommendation letters. One was from a real estate executive who said he had known him for 30 years; another was from his boss at the food sales company, who described him as “efficient, punctual, meticulous in his work and in every way a model employee.” The third was from the majority whip of the Florida House of Representatives — his brother-in-law.
“I have known Mr. Cicilia for over 25 years,” Rubio wrote in a July 1, 2002, letter to an official in the Real Estate Division of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. “I recommend him for licensure without reservation. If I can be of further assistance on this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.”
Cicilia got his hearing. A letter from the Real Estate Division let him know that his application was placed on the agenda for the Real Estate Commission’s July 17, 2002, meeting.
The next day, he was approved. He was officially a real estate agent.
Three years later, when Rubio was looking for a new home, he turned to the real estate agent in the family to help him arrange the purchase: Orlando Cicilia.
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Rubio donors might have beef with him giving 160,000 donor dollars to a cokehead family member for undisclosed services. We know how that usually goes.
But just vouching for a family member, I can sEE most doing that. The payoff the guy 160k, well, that gets risky, of course. Rubio using repub party money for Disney trips and to pay his house bills...
Well,it starts to pile up when it comes to rubio
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Rubio donors might have beef with him giving 160,000 donor dollars to a cokehead family member for undisclosed services. We know how that usually goes.
But just vouching for a family member, I can sEE most doing that. The payoff the guy 160k, well, that gets risky, of course. Rubio using repub party money for Disney trips and to pay his house bills...
Well,it starts to pile up when it comes to rubio
Human Resources 101: Do not attempt to provide a reference for a family member. It's called a conflict of interest. Especially when you fail to disclose that the person you are endorsing (with your government stationary) is your brother in law.
One does not need a law degree to see the problem here. ::)
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Rubio called Trump a dangerous ‘con man.’ Now he says Trump should be president
By Ed O'Keefe
Over the course of his presidential bid, Sen. Marco Rubio called Donald Trump a “con man” who was “dangerous” and unqualified to control the nation’s nuclear codes. He ridiculed his manhood and warned the businessman would “fracture” the Republican Party if he was the nominee.
By March — a few days before he dropped out — Rubio said with a cracking voice that it was “getting harder every day” to envision supporting his rival.
But now Rubio is onboard, saying that he plans to attend the Republican convention in Cleveland and that he would be “honored” to help Trump however he can.
“I want to be helpful. I don’t want to be harmful, because I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president,” Rubio said in a CNN interview that will be aired on Sunday.
Long a star of the mainstream conservative movement, Rubio is now one of the starkest symbols of the GOP’s rapid capitulation to Trump. Nearly every prominent Republican — from lawmakers to governors to former White House officials — has acquiesced as polling shows Trump’s support building.
Rubio’s shift also comes as GOP leaders are pushing the senator from Florida to reconsider his decision not to seek reelection. Rubio has said “maybe” he would run, with conditions.
Trump thanked Rubio indirectly by issuing a tweet Thursday night supportive of a bid: “Poll data shows that @marcorubio does by far the best in holding onto his Senate seat in Florida. Important to keep the MAJORITY. Run Marco!”
The words are a remarkable about-face for Trump, who spent months during the campaign deriding “Little Marco” as a dishonest lightweight who was “a disaster for Florida” and who “couldn’t get elected dogcatcher.”
Many of Rubio’s supporters were outraged by the move, saying they felt betrayed by a 44-year-old politician who had campaigned as a young representative of a more optimistic, inclusive GOP. The episode also adds to Rubio’s reputation as a shape-shifter who abandoned his own immigration reform bill when it became unpopular among conservatives.
Bryan McGrath, a Hudson Institute fellow who advised Rubio’s campaign on defense issues, noted that Rubio had explicitly said Trump could not be trusted with the nuclear arsenal.
“He said all the things I was thinking and all the reasons I remain dubious about Trump being the president,” McGrath said in an interview Friday. “So to see him bend a knee, it just bothers me and just reinforces the thing that’s getting Trump elected in the first place: the sense that politicians don’t tell the truth or are capable of switching on a dime if it looks like it’s good for them.”
Rubio responded to the criticism with a series of Twitter messages: “If you can live with a Clinton presidency for 4 years thats your right,” he wrote in one. “I cant and will do what I can to prevent it.”
The move came after several phone calls between Rubio and Trump in recent weeks, according to people familiar with their interactions. Some of Trump’s children also reached out to woo Rubio, these people said.
In the CNN interview, portions of which were released Thursday and Friday, Rubio said he would speak on Trump’s behalf if the candidate asked.
“I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president,” Rubio said. “If there’s something I can do to help that from happening, and it’s helpful to the cause, I’d most certainly be honored to be considered for that.”
He also shrugged off questions about his deep policy differences with Trump, who among other things has called for the mass deportation of an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.
“Look, my policy differences with Donald Trump — I spent 11 months talking about them. So I think they’re well understood,” Rubio said.
Supporters back home in Florida said that Rubio’s moves reflect political reality in his own back yard.
“If you are a Republican leader, I think that’s what you have to do. Period,” said Ninoska Perez Castellon, the host of a popular talk show on Miami’s Radio Mambi and a friend of the senator since his days as a West Miami city councilman. “You might not be happy with who the candidate is, but that’s the right thing to do.”
While Trump easily won the Florida GOP primary in March, Rubio prevailed in his home county of Miami-Dade with the support of Cuban American voters. Months later, attitudes have shifted.
Nelson Diaz, chairman of the Miami-Dade GOP, said that a Trump campaign official attended a party meeting on Thursday night.
“Everyone in the room was onboard,” Diaz said. “When I said we need to unite, everyone was in agreement. There were about 100 local leaders in the room. Not a single person disagreed, everyone stood up and clapped.”
Many of Trump’s former rivals, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, have endorsed him, but a number of others are still holding out. Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney remains firmly opposed to Trump and has been involved in talks of trying to find a third-party challenger. Members of the Bush family — including former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who ran against Trump for the nomination — are not expected to support Trump. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) reiterated this week that he was not yet ready to endorse him.
On Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — another former Trump rival — told an Oklahoma radio station that “I am looking and listening to see what the candidates do.”
As Rubio was back in Florida meeting with Venezuelan college students Friday, prominent party officials were pushing him to reconsider plans to leave the Senate.
Jeff Atwater, the state’s popular chief financial officer who almost ran for Rubio’s seat, told the Tampa Bay Times that the senator should “pull aside some quiet time and contemplate” running again.
“He would be the best candidate to prevail,” Atwater said.
Brian Ballard, a well-connected Tallahassee GOP lobbyist, said that Rubio is “by far our best chance to hold the seat.”
The aggressive push to recruit Rubio went public earlier this week when one of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s top political advisers took to social media to encourage Rubio. The orchestrated effort included calling on him to run during the Republican senators’ closed-door weekly luncheon and a public letter from Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on which Rubio serves.
None of the five Republicans running to succeed Rubio enjoys his level of name identification and would need roughly $50 million to mount a serious bid in the coming months, he said.
Democrats dismissed Rubio Friday as “a terrible fallback option” for Republicans, noting that he has taken positions on abortion, domestic violence and the economy during his presidential bid that would make him unpopular with Florida voters.
“Rubio spent months making clear how much he disliked his current job while he asked voters for a promotion, and it would be a tall order to convince voters they should send him back,” the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said in a statement.
In the CNN interview, Rubio said he would not run again because his longtime friend, Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, is one of those vying to succeed him.
Would Rubio reconsider if Lopez-Cantera dropped out?
“Maybe,” he said. “I enjoy my work in the Senate — I always did.”
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So pointing out facts about this twerp is called "smearing him because people think he is a threat?"
What kind of threat is he? Certainly not one in this election as the little twerp put on a dazzling display of garnering support in his own state. Remind us again how well that little performance turned out? 1-67?
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Rubio called Trump a dangerous ‘con man.’ Now he says Trump should be president
By Ed O'Keefe
Over the course of his presidential bid, Sen. Marco Rubio called Donald Trump a “con man” who was “dangerous” and unqualified to control the nation’s nuclear codes. He ridiculed his manhood and warned the businessman would “fracture” the Republican Party if he was the nominee.
By March — a few days before he dropped out — Rubio said with a cracking voice that it was “getting harder every day” to envision supporting his rival.
But now Rubio is onboard, saying that he plans to attend the Republican convention in Cleveland and that he would be “honored” to help Trump however he can.
“I want to be helpful. I don’t want to be harmful, because I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president,” Rubio said in a CNN interview that will be aired on Sunday.
Long a star of the mainstream conservative movement, Rubio is now one of the starkest symbols of the GOP’s rapid capitulation to Trump. Nearly every prominent Republican — from lawmakers to governors to former White House officials — has acquiesced as polling shows Trump’s support building.
Rubio’s shift also comes as GOP leaders are pushing the senator from Florida to reconsider his decision not to seek reelection. Rubio has said “maybe” he would run, with conditions.
Trump thanked Rubio indirectly by issuing a tweet Thursday night supportive of a bid: “Poll data shows that @marcorubio does by far the best in holding onto his Senate seat in Florida. Important to keep the MAJORITY. Run Marco!”
The words are a remarkable about-face for Trump, who spent months during the campaign deriding “Little Marco” as a dishonest lightweight who was “a disaster for Florida” and who “couldn’t get elected dogcatcher.”
Many of Rubio’s supporters were outraged by the move, saying they felt betrayed by a 44-year-old politician who had campaigned as a young representative of a more optimistic, inclusive GOP. The episode also adds to Rubio’s reputation as a shape-shifter who abandoned his own immigration reform bill when it became unpopular among conservatives.
Bryan McGrath, a Hudson Institute fellow who advised Rubio’s campaign on defense issues, noted that Rubio had explicitly said Trump could not be trusted with the nuclear arsenal.
“He said all the things I was thinking and all the reasons I remain dubious about Trump being the president,” McGrath said in an interview Friday. “So to see him bend a knee, it just bothers me and just reinforces the thing that’s getting Trump elected in the first place: the sense that politicians don’t tell the truth or are capable of switching on a dime if it looks like it’s good for them.”
Rubio responded to the criticism with a series of Twitter messages: “If you can live with a Clinton presidency for 4 years thats your right,” he wrote in one. “I cant and will do what I can to prevent it.”
The move came after several phone calls between Rubio and Trump in recent weeks, according to people familiar with their interactions. Some of Trump’s children also reached out to woo Rubio, these people said.
In the CNN interview, portions of which were released Thursday and Friday, Rubio said he would speak on Trump’s behalf if the candidate asked.
“I don’t want Hillary Clinton to be president,” Rubio said. “If there’s something I can do to help that from happening, and it’s helpful to the cause, I’d most certainly be honored to be considered for that.”
He also shrugged off questions about his deep policy differences with Trump, who among other things has called for the mass deportation of an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.
“Look, my policy differences with Donald Trump — I spent 11 months talking about them. So I think they’re well understood,” Rubio said.
Supporters back home in Florida said that Rubio’s moves reflect political reality in his own back yard.
“If you are a Republican leader, I think that’s what you have to do. Period,” said Ninoska Perez Castellon, the host of a popular talk show on Miami’s Radio Mambi and a friend of the senator since his days as a West Miami city councilman. “You might not be happy with who the candidate is, but that’s the right thing to do.”
While Trump easily won the Florida GOP primary in March, Rubio prevailed in his home county of Miami-Dade with the support of Cuban American voters. Months later, attitudes have shifted.
Nelson Diaz, chairman of the Miami-Dade GOP, said that a Trump campaign official attended a party meeting on Thursday night.
“Everyone in the room was onboard,” Diaz said. “When I said we need to unite, everyone was in agreement. There were about 100 local leaders in the room. Not a single person disagreed, everyone stood up and clapped.”
Many of Trump’s former rivals, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, have endorsed him, but a number of others are still holding out. Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney remains firmly opposed to Trump and has been involved in talks of trying to find a third-party challenger. Members of the Bush family — including former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who ran against Trump for the nomination — are not expected to support Trump. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) reiterated this week that he was not yet ready to endorse him.
On Friday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) — another former Trump rival — told an Oklahoma radio station that “I am looking and listening to see what the candidates do.”
As Rubio was back in Florida meeting with Venezuelan college students Friday, prominent party officials were pushing him to reconsider plans to leave the Senate.
Jeff Atwater, the state’s popular chief financial officer who almost ran for Rubio’s seat, told the Tampa Bay Times that the senator should “pull aside some quiet time and contemplate” running again.
“He would be the best candidate to prevail,” Atwater said.
Brian Ballard, a well-connected Tallahassee GOP lobbyist, said that Rubio is “by far our best chance to hold the seat.”
The aggressive push to recruit Rubio went public earlier this week when one of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s top political advisers took to social media to encourage Rubio. The orchestrated effort included calling on him to run during the Republican senators’ closed-door weekly luncheon and a public letter from Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, on which Rubio serves.
None of the five Republicans running to succeed Rubio enjoys his level of name identification and would need roughly $50 million to mount a serious bid in the coming months, he said.
Democrats dismissed Rubio Friday as “a terrible fallback option” for Republicans, noting that he has taken positions on abortion, domestic violence and the economy during his presidential bid that would make him unpopular with Florida voters.
“Rubio spent months making clear how much he disliked his current job while he asked voters for a promotion, and it would be a tall order to convince voters they should send him back,” the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said in a statement.
In the CNN interview, Rubio said he would not run again because his longtime friend, Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, is one of those vying to succeed him.
Would Rubio reconsider if Lopez-Cantera dropped out?
“Maybe,” he said. “I enjoy my work in the Senate — I always did.”
Politics as usual, no? Is anyone surprised by this?
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Politics as usual, no? Is anyone surprised by this?
No. Rubio is just a third tier twerp that never had a chance in the first place. The best performance of his in any debate was nothing more than childish taunts and play acting.
He ended up being the bukkake bitch between Christie and Trump. They absolutely destroyed him and his flimsy campaign with no effort at all. So now he is back to kissing ass and hoping for some crumbs to be dropped under the table.
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I wonder if Rubio is hanging out on his luxury speed boat?
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I wonder if Rubio is still hanging out in parks with drug dealers and male hustlers?
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He was looking everywhere for a Kielbasa Stand, you see. So he found himself in that park, and...
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I wonder how much it costs to maintain that luxury speed boat? Must be a fortune.
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Probably why he was selling drugs and hustling in the first place. $20 is $20.
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Probably why he was selling drugs and hustling in the first place. $20 is $20.
When was Rubio selling drugs? And what was he "hustling"?
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Surely he wasn't in that park to campaign. I'm pretty sure he lost that district as well.
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No. Rubio is just a third tier twerp that never had a chance in the first place. The best performance of his in any debate was nothing more than childish taunts and play acting.
He ended up being the bukkake bitch between Christie and Trump. They absolutely destroyed him and his flimsy campaign with no effort at all. So now he is back to kissing ass and hoping for some crumbs to be dropped under the table.
Ouch! :'(
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Surely he wasn't in that park to campaign. I'm pretty sure he lost that district as well.
When was he selling drugs? Where are you getting that from?
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When was he selling drugs? Where are you getting that from?
He may have been Bowling for Boners in that park. That's what Lurker is saying.
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He may have been Bowling for Boners in that park. That's what Lurker is saying.
He said Rubio was selling drugs.
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He said Rubio was selling drugs.
Nope. Too busy pulling tricks.
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When was Rubio selling drugs? And what was he "hustling"?
LOL you're a little out of the loop ;)
Arrested in a drug/sex park for "loitering" or something like that. Threw a lot of foam parties in college.
Right up your alley? ;)
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LOL you're a little out of the loop ;)
Arrested in a drug/sex park for "loitering" or something like that. Threw a lot of foam parties in college.
Right up your alley? ;)
Maybe Rubio had found a way to advance science through intense study of other guys' dicks.
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Maybe Rubio had found a way to advance science through intense study of other guys' dicks.
Maybe dos equis will pretend he had no idea about this.
imagine obama being arrested in a sex drug park. I bet that wouldn't matter either, huh? ;)
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When was he selling drugs? Where are you getting that from?
Oh, you mean Little Narco wasn't suspected of pill popping on tv during his campaign? Who said he was just selling drugs? Dude has quite the behavior characteristics of people who use them. Just ask Trump. That's the reason for his shifty eyes, constant water downing, restless twitches and excessive sweating.
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Maybe dos equis will pretend he had no idea about this.
imagine obama being arrested in a sex drug park. I bet that wouldn't matter either, huh? ;)
Rumor has it that the dude that robbed Carson at Popeyes was on a bad batch that he scored from the same park. ;)
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Oh, you mean Little Narco wasn't suspected of pill popping on tv during his campaign? Who said he was just selling drugs? Dude has quite the behavior characteristics of people who use them. Just ask Trump. That's the reason for his shifty eyes, constant water downing, restless twitches and excessive sweating.
A lot of Floridians are on drugs, it's a big drug state. Can't hold that against Rubio if that's the lifestyle he chooses.
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To be fair, I don't think he was selling the drugs. It was more likely that he was selling his keister.
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Lol, but to be fair to him about his hanging around that park drinking beer -- I believe that's what he was busted or cited for -- he was a teenager. So he may have been completely unaware of what the place was known for.
The 'foam parties' and stuff, I don't know, but I remember James once made a post about it.
And don't think for one second that we've seen the last of Narco. He'll be back again, with some of the peculiarities worked out and a little more polished. His backers will be sure of it.
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Lol, but to be fair to him about his hanging around that park drinking beer -- I believe that's what he was busted or cited for -- he was a teenager. So he may have been completely unaware of what the place was known for.
The 'foam parties' and stuff, I don't know, but I remember James once made a post about it.
And don't think for one second that we've seen the last of Narco. He'll be back again, with some of the peculiarities worked out and a little more polished. His backers will be sure of it.
So you are saying those people with a blatant man-crush on him will continue to make excuses for this twerp and back him in the future no matter what?
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So you are saying those people with a blatant man-crush on him will continue to make excuses for this twerp and back him in the future no matter what?
Yes, they will insist on forcing their boy-toy Narco on the rest of us. That's what our 'democracy' has been reduced to, I'm just so sorry to say.
I wish these creeps would buy their own island already and leave us out of it.
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Yes, they will insist on forcing their boy-toy Narco on the rest of us. That's what our 'democracy' has been reduced to, I'm just so sorry to say.
I wish these creeps would buy their own island already and leave us out of it.
And will these nut huggers then cease all harping and blabbering over him to go silent once he implodes again and looks like the fool he is? (Directly making them look like the fools they are)?
Until next time.
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And will these nut huggers then cease all harping and blabbering over him to go silent once he implodes again and looks like the fool he is? (Directly making them look like the fools they are)?
they drooled over herman cain.. believed he was framed even when a dozen women accused and he admitted, after all those texts.
they drooled over carson, even with his obvious lies.
they drooled over palin, even with her world salad and overall ignorance/immaturity/obvious medical abuse.
they continually choose woefully flawed/unprepared candidates because they fit this religious narrative they have.
With rubio, I think they just want to play pocket pool for 8 years at their desks while watching him talk as POTUS. They like his dimples and his "maybe just a little" questionable sexual past history. They're open-minded but cannot admit it.
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they drooled over herman cain.. believed he was framed even when a dozen women accused and he admitted, after all those texts.
they drooled over carson, even with his obvious lies.
they drooled over palin, even with her world salad and overall ignorance/immaturity/obvious medical abuse.
they continually choose woefully flawed/unprepared candidates because they fit this religious narrative they have.
With rubio, I think they just want to play pocket pool for 8 years at their desks while watching him talk as POTUS. They like his dimples and his "maybe just a little" questionable sexual past history. They're open-minded but cannot admit it.
QFT!!!
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Maybe dos equis will pretend he had no idea about this.
imagine obama being arrested in a sex drug park. I bet that wouldn't matter either, huh? ;)
More lies
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And will these nut huggers then cease all harping and blabbering over him to go silent once he implodes again and looks like the fool he is? (Directly making them look like the fools they are)?
Until next time.
Depends whether they can get him in, first. In that case, I'm sure they'll be happy he's a fool at our expense.
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More lies
explain rubio's arrest to us. Do your own research then explain it to us ;)
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Oh, you mean Little Narco wasn't suspected of pill popping on tv during his campaign? Who said he was just selling drugs? Dude has quite the behavior characteristics of people who use them. Just ask Trump. That's the reason for his shifty eyes, constant water downing, restless twitches and excessive sweating.
You said he was selling drugs:
Probably why he was selling drugs and hustling in the first place. $20 is $20.
When was he selling drugs?
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explain rubio's arrest to us. Do your own research then explain it to us ;)
I did. It was debunked. Another left hit job. Not hard to find but it seems you can find the propaganda just fine.
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You said he was selling drugs:
When was he selling drugs?
I said "just" selling drugs. Could have been buying them. Or could have just been campaigning with the hustlers. Gotta get the money for the foam parties somehow. Other than the few people with man crushes on him like yourself, no one cares what the twerp was doing. He was insignificant then, just as he is insignificant now.
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I said "just" selling drugs. Could have been buying them. Or could have just been campaigning with the hustlers. Gotta get the money for the foam parties somehow. Other than the few people with man crushes on him like yourself, no one cares what the twerp was doing. He was insignificant then, just as he is insignificant now.
So now you're saying he "could have been buying them"?
You said this:
Probably why he was selling drugs and hustling in the first place. $20 is $20.
When was he selling drugs? Or did you just make that up?
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Instead of splitting hairs because you feel the need to defend the object of your man crush why not tell us about how he is now kissing the ass of the man that turned him out like the little bitch he is.
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Instead of splitting hairs because you feel the need to defend the object of your man crush why not tell us about how he is now kissing the ass of the man that turned him out like the little bitch he is.
Probably why he was selling drugs and hustling in the first place. $20 is $20.
When was he selling drugs?
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Hours before his customer robbed Carson at Popeyes.
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Hours before his customer robbed Carson at Popeyes.
I see. So you just made it up? Why did you lie? Plenty of other ways to attack the man after his crash and burn.
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Lie? These are "Carson Facts". You don't have a problem with them I recall.
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Lie? These are "Carson Facts". You don't have a problem with them I recall.
I'm talking about your representation that Rubio was selling drugs:
Probably why he was selling drugs and hustling in the first place. $20 is $20.
Why did you lie about this?
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I did. It was debunked. Another left hit job. Not hard to find but it seems you can find the propaganda just fine.
what was debunked? that he was arrested?
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Carson Facts don't need to be explained. Any further proof can be located in the pyramids beneath all that grain.
You seemed focused on the drug selling part but not mentioning the hustling part. Anything you might want to share with us? You are former client of his hustling days or something?
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Carson Facts don't need to be explained. Any further proof can be located in the pyramids beneath all that grain.
You seemed focused on the drug selling part but not mentioning the hustling part. Anything you might want to share with us? You are former client of his hustling days or something?
Don't worry, the default line of "that's already been debunked" means no further explanation is needed.
I can imagine getting caught in bed with a hooker, telling the wifey "Ohhhh, that's been debunked" hahahahaha
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Carson Facts don't need to be explained. Any further proof can be located in the pyramids beneath all that grain.
You seemed focused on the drug selling part but not mentioning the hustling part. Anything you might want to share with us? You are former client of his hustling days or something?
I am focused on you claiming that Marco Rubio sold drugs:
Probably why he was selling drugs and hustling in the first place. $20 is $20.
Why do you lie about this?
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http://conservativefiringline.com/marco-rubio-gay-arrest-debunked/
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http://conservativefiringline.com/marco-rubio-gay-arrest-debunked/
that's an opinion piece using words like "breathlessly" to tell us how heroic Rubio is.
I don't care what his preferences are, but that source is absolute shit man. You should be ashamed to bring it to us.
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that's an opinion piece using words like "breathlessly" to tell us how heroic Rubio is.
I don't care what his preferences are, but that source is absolute shit man. You should be ashamed to bring it to us.
There you go again the same thing you do all the time. Place your bullshit spin on. Is this an opinion?
An article began making the rounds on the internet this week alleging that Marco Rubio
79%
had been arrested for soliciting a gay prostitute in a Miami park in 1990. If true, the allegations could shatter the campaign of the Republican candidate who is currently surging in the polls.
The Marco Rubio gay arrest allegation, published on a website called The Political Insider, further claims that Angel Barrios, one of the teens arrested with Rubio that night, was later implicated in a gay porn ring. The article also contains a photo of a “gay foam party” with an arrow pointing to a man that is allegedly Marco Rubio. The Political Insider “bombshell report” concludes with a video from Infowars that makes many of the same allegations.
The Political Insider piece is based on two articles, one from the Washington Post and another from the Miami New Times. The article gets some details of Rubio’s 1990 arrest right, but omits and misrepresents crucial facts that are readily available in the same sources that Political Insider cites. It is true that Marco Rubio was arrested in Wainwright Park in Miami with two friends on May 23, 1990 when he was 18 years old. Political Insider paints this arrest as being connected with gay prostitution and implies that there was no other reason to be in the park at night, but neither original source makes these claims.
According to the Post story, a local homeowner association cited complaints about the park including “gang warfare, gunfire, prostitution (straight and gay), drug dealing and muggings.” The Post also quotes Delrish Moss, a Miami police public information officer, as saying, “It was very dark and had lots of trees. People went out there to smoke illegal substances, have sex, drink.” The Political Insider ignores everything except the gay prostitution angle.
Todd Harris, a spokesman for the Rubio campaign, told the Post, “When he was 18 years old, he [Rubio] violated a municipal code for drinking beer in a park after hours. He was never taken into custody, never hired a lawyer and never appeared in court. Why The Washington Post thinks that is a story is beyond me.”
In response to the Rubio campaign’s response, The Political Insider breathlessly notes that “the police incident report never mentions alcohol!” The reason is explained in the Post article. The arrest was for the misdemeanor offense of being in the park after it was closed. The Post further explains, “There’s no indication that Rubio was involved in any illegal activity other than drinking beer and being in a public park after closing. The police incident report, which does not mention alcohol, states that drug activity was ‘not applicable.’” The misdemeanor charges were later dropped.
The Political Insider goes on to say that Angel Barrios, one of the boys arrested with Rubio that night, “was sued for running a gay pornography studio in a property his company owned.” The Insider quotes the Miami New Times which says that “Barrios was associated with perhaps the most notorious gay porn ring in Miami history….” Pretty damning guilt by association, right?
Not exactly. At the time, Barrios owned a property management company which rented a house to the firm that produced the porn. Barrios is quoted in the same article that the Insider cites as saying, “We are not in the gay porn business. We are not in the straight porn business. We are not in the porn business. My poor father, he had no idea what was going on in there.” The report continues, “Barrios says that he moved quickly to force the business out and that the gay porn site was gone within six months.” The incident occurred in 2007, 17 years after Barrios’ arrest with Rubio.
The New Times report goes on to say that the City of Miami sued Barrios and Cocodorm, the porn company, for illegally operating an adult business in a residential area. Barrios and Cocodorm countersued. Eventually the city waived the fines against Barrios and removed a lien from the house.
“They [Cocodorm] offered to pay all the attorneys’ fees if we sued the city,” Barrios explained to the New Times. “I was looking at these huge civil citation fines from the city for something I had nothing to do with. So I was happy to let them go to court to try to get rid of these fines.”
Barrios denied that he and Rubio had a sexual relationship. “I have nothing against gay people, but this is just so far from the truth,” he said, “I have kids, and now they’re reading all this garbage online. It’s insane.” The New Times reported that Barrios “laughs out loud at the idea of having had a sexual relationship with Rubio.”
Neither source presents any evidence that Rubio and Barrios had any contact after the 1990 arrest.
Barrios did talk about the arrest and his friendship with Rubio in the Post. Barrios says that, while in school, they “were just messing around and partying. Trying to get pretty girls.” Barrios did not recall why they were at the park that night. “We never even used to go to that area,” he said. “That might have been the first time I went there.”
He also said, “I don’t think we got handcuffed and taken to jail.” Instead, they got a “piece of paper.” The Post describes this as a “promise to appear” in court, but Barrios said, “I don’t think we even ended up going to court.” The Post notes that the charges were dismissed two months later and that “record searches turned up no evidence that mug shots were taken.”
As to the foam party, on the Jimmy Fallon Show Marco Rubio did talk about going to a foam party once, but there was no indication that it was a “gay foam party.” Rubio indicated that he did not enjoy the foam party since the foam ruined his boots, a tacit indication that he was clothed, unlike the men in the Political Insider photo.
The Insider links the picture to a gay website called Towleroad.com. Not mentioned by the Insider is Towleroad’s description of the picture: “Another photo shows a gay foam party at the ’90s South Beach gay nightclub Warsaw Ballroom, and show’s a man’s profile which Madsen says ‘is believed to be’ Rubio. The face is obscured, so it really could be anybody” [emphasis mine].
An additional photo on Political Insider allegedly shows Rubio dancing in what the New York Observer called a “Chippendales performance” when it published the photo in April 2015. The Insider does not provide any context for this photo, but far from being a strip club act, the picture was taken at an annual male talent show at South Miami Senior High School in 1989. The Observer identifies Rubio and the other dancers as members of the school football team, the Cobras. Rubio also performed a rendition of “Still” by Lionel Ritchie. He did not win the title of “King Cobra.”
One final question is who “The Political Insider” really is. The site makes no pretense of objectivity with its claim that “we break down the barriers employed by the government and the liberal media….” To underscore the site’s pseudonews status, the byline of the Marco Rubio article is an anonymous handle, “Kosar,” not the actual name of a writer. The terms and conditions page of the site invites submissions and makes no mention of journalistic standards, editorial supervision or basic fact checking.
The information presented in this article is readily available. Much of it came from the same sources that the Insider linked in its piece. If a reader bothers to click the link and read the articles from real news sources, the truth is readily apparent. Instead, The Political Insider selectively quoted and misrepresented the real news accounts.
[Author’s note: An attempt was made to contact The Political Insider for this article, but no response was received. I have elected not to provide a link to the original article to avoid driving traffic to a fake news story. Caution should be exercised in visiting The Political Insider site. My computer got slow every time I went to the site.]
Rubio’s previously undisclosed arrest is a legitimate issue. Just prior to the 2000 election, news broke that George W. Bush had a previously undisclosed arrest for DWI in 1976. Bush had been leading in the polls, but the news of the arrest was enough to sway the popular vote to Al Gore.
Even though Rubio’s arrest was real, the charge that he is a closet homosexual is unsupportable by fact. The article from Political Insider is nothing more than a very thinly veiled attempt to destroy Rubio’s character and standing in the conservative community.
Related:
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whole lotta smoke you just shared, coach.
foam party + busted at a park where that goes down + the south beach club + chippendales + the website links with him
hey man, that's a lot of smoke for there to be no fire ;)
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whole lotta smoke you just shared, coach.
foam party + busted at a park where that goes down + the south beach club + chippendales + the website links with him
hey man, that's a lot of smoke for there to be no fire ;)
How is it smoke if it's public record?
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Your hero, Rubio, is a male slut, Coach. Deal with it.
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;D ;D
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We need Herman Cain on here to confirm that Little Narco has been faithful to his conservative principles against homosexuality and did not engage in queer activity in public parks. He only engaged in public restroom activities.
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There you go again the same thing you do all the time. Place your bullshit spin on. Is this an opinion?
An article began making the rounds on the internet this week alleging that Marco Rubio
79%
had been arrested for soliciting a gay prostitute in a Miami park in 1990. If true, the allegations could shatter the campaign of the Republican candidate who is currently surging in the polls.
The Marco Rubio gay arrest allegation, published on a website called The Political Insider, further claims that Angel Barrios, one of the teens arrested with Rubio that night, was later implicated in a gay porn ring. The article also contains a photo of a “gay foam party” with an arrow pointing to a man that is allegedly Marco Rubio. The Political Insider “bombshell report” concludes with a video from Infowars that makes many of the same allegations.
The Political Insider piece is based on two articles, one from the Washington Post and another from the Miami New Times. The article gets some details of Rubio’s 1990 arrest right, but omits and misrepresents crucial facts that are readily available in the same sources that Political Insider cites. It is true that Marco Rubio was arrested in Wainwright Park in Miami with two friends on May 23, 1990 when he was 18 years old. Political Insider paints this arrest as being connected with gay prostitution and implies that there was no other reason to be in the park at night, but neither original source makes these claims.
According to the Post story, a local homeowner association cited complaints about the park including “gang warfare, gunfire, prostitution (straight and gay), drug dealing and muggings.” The Post also quotes Delrish Moss, a Miami police public information officer, as saying, “It was very dark and had lots of trees. People went out there to smoke illegal substances, have sex, drink.” The Political Insider ignores everything except the gay prostitution angle.
Todd Harris, a spokesman for the Rubio campaign, told the Post, “When he was 18 years old, he [Rubio] violated a municipal code for drinking beer in a park after hours. He was never taken into custody, never hired a lawyer and never appeared in court. Why The Washington Post thinks that is a story is beyond me.”
In response to the Rubio campaign’s response, The Political Insider breathlessly notes that “the police incident report never mentions alcohol!” The reason is explained in the Post article. The arrest was for the misdemeanor offense of being in the park after it was closed. The Post further explains, “There’s no indication that Rubio was involved in any illegal activity other than drinking beer and being in a public park after closing. The police incident report, which does not mention alcohol, states that drug activity was ‘not applicable.’” The misdemeanor charges were later dropped.
The Political Insider goes on to say that Angel Barrios, one of the boys arrested with Rubio that night, “was sued for running a gay pornography studio in a property his company owned.” The Insider quotes the Miami New Times which says that “Barrios was associated with perhaps the most notorious gay porn ring in Miami history….” Pretty damning guilt by association, right?
Not exactly. At the time, Barrios owned a property management company which rented a house to the firm that produced the porn. Barrios is quoted in the same article that the Insider cites as saying, “We are not in the gay porn business. We are not in the straight porn business. We are not in the porn business. My poor father, he had no idea what was going on in there.” The report continues, “Barrios says that he moved quickly to force the business out and that the gay porn site was gone within six months.” The incident occurred in 2007, 17 years after Barrios’ arrest with Rubio.
The New Times report goes on to say that the City of Miami sued Barrios and Cocodorm, the porn company, for illegally operating an adult business in a residential area. Barrios and Cocodorm countersued. Eventually the city waived the fines against Barrios and removed a lien from the house.
“They [Cocodorm] offered to pay all the attorneys’ fees if we sued the city,” Barrios explained to the New Times. “I was looking at these huge civil citation fines from the city for something I had nothing to do with. So I was happy to let them go to court to try to get rid of these fines.”
Barrios denied that he and Rubio had a sexual relationship. “I have nothing against gay people, but this is just so far from the truth,” he said, “I have kids, and now they’re reading all this garbage online. It’s insane.” The New Times reported that Barrios “laughs out loud at the idea of having had a sexual relationship with Rubio.”
Neither source presents any evidence that Rubio and Barrios had any contact after the 1990 arrest.
Barrios did talk about the arrest and his friendship with Rubio in the Post. Barrios says that, while in school, they “were just messing around and partying. Trying to get pretty girls.” Barrios did not recall why they were at the park that night. “We never even used to go to that area,” he said. “That might have been the first time I went there.”
He also said, “I don’t think we got handcuffed and taken to jail.” Instead, they got a “piece of paper.” The Post describes this as a “promise to appear” in court, but Barrios said, “I don’t think we even ended up going to court.” The Post notes that the charges were dismissed two months later and that “record searches turned up no evidence that mug shots were taken.”
As to the foam party, on the Jimmy Fallon Show Marco Rubio did talk about going to a foam party once, but there was no indication that it was a “gay foam party.” Rubio indicated that he did not enjoy the foam party since the foam ruined his boots, a tacit indication that he was clothed, unlike the men in the Political Insider photo.
The Insider links the picture to a gay website called Towleroad.com. Not mentioned by the Insider is Towleroad’s description of the picture: “Another photo shows a gay foam party at the ’90s South Beach gay nightclub Warsaw Ballroom, and show’s a man’s profile which Madsen says ‘is believed to be’ Rubio. The face is obscured, so it really could be anybody” [emphasis mine].
An additional photo on Political Insider allegedly shows Rubio dancing in what the New York Observer called a “Chippendales performance” when it published the photo in April 2015. The Insider does not provide any context for this photo, but far from being a strip club act, the picture was taken at an annual male talent show at South Miami Senior High School in 1989. The Observer identifies Rubio and the other dancers as members of the school football team, the Cobras. Rubio also performed a rendition of “Still” by Lionel Ritchie. He did not win the title of “King Cobra.”
One final question is who “The Political Insider” really is. The site makes no pretense of objectivity with its claim that “we break down the barriers employed by the government and the liberal media….” To underscore the site’s pseudonews status, the byline of the Marco Rubio article is an anonymous handle, “Kosar,” not the actual name of a writer. The terms and conditions page of the site invites submissions and makes no mention of journalistic standards, editorial supervision or basic fact checking.
The information presented in this article is readily available. Much of it came from the same sources that the Insider linked in its piece. If a reader bothers to click the link and read the articles from real news sources, the truth is readily apparent. Instead, The Political Insider selectively quoted and misrepresented the real news accounts.
[Author’s note: An attempt was made to contact The Political Insider for this article, but no response was received. I have elected not to provide a link to the original article to avoid driving traffic to a fake news story. Caution should be exercised in visiting The Political Insider site. My computer got slow every time I went to the site.]
Rubio’s previously undisclosed arrest is a legitimate issue. Just prior to the 2000 election, news broke that George W. Bush had a previously undisclosed arrest for DWI in 1976. Bush had been leading in the polls, but the news of the arrest was enough to sway the popular vote to Al Gore.
Even though Rubio’s arrest was real, the charge that he is a closet homosexual is unsupportable by fact. The article from Political Insider is nothing more than a very thinly veiled attempt to destroy Rubio’s character and standing in the conservative community.
Related:
Wait. This is it? This is hilarious. lol
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How is it smoke if it's public record?
my point is that you just showed us 5 things that make a lot of smoke around little marco.
youre hurting him more than youre helping. Seeing as you're a former clinton supporter, I see why.
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my point is that you just showed us 5 things that make a lot of smoke around little marco.
youre hurting him more than youre helping. Seeing as you're a former clinton supporter, I see why.
No, it was bullshit all along. "5 things that made a lot of smoke" like what? More 240 spin and lies.
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Marco Rubio sure sounds like he might be prepared to run for reelection, after all
By Amber Phillips
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sounds a lot like a guy prepared to make a sharp reversal and seek reelection to the Senate after repeatedly saying no.
No, we don't have any inside information at this time. But we've been closely watching how Rubio talks over the past month about the pressure he's getting to run for reelection, and it's clear his words mark a trajectory from no way, to maybe if things were different, to it's possible.
In an interview Monday with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, Rubio indicated that the mass shooting in Orlando has caused him to rethink his place in this debate — and perhaps, by extension, the U.S. Senate.
"I've been deeply impacted by it," Rubio said, "... It really gives you pause to think a little bit about your service to your country and where you can be most useful to your country."
Some will be quick to label these comments opportunism — Rubio finding an excuse to do something he wanted to anyway, despite his previous promises not to. But it's also clear that Rubio has been rethinking his decision — to one degree or another — for weeks now, and the events in his home state provide a possible tipping point for him to make that decision and feel justified in doing so.
When he launched his presidential campaign last year, Rubio thought he was forfeiting his seat. Florida doesn't allow you to appear on the ballot twice, and given it's a swing state, he wanted to clear the field for other Republicans to get in and not have to wait and see whether his presidential bid succeeded.
Now that the presidential campaign didn't work out, you can make the case that Rubio still has lots of reasons not to run: A good friend, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, is in the race; Florida didn't even vote for him in the presidential primary; he could shore up his family's finances in the private sector; etc.
But if Rubio does reverse course, Senate Republicans would be elated. That Republican field Rubio wanted to make way for isn't panning out, and they think Rubio is the strongest candidate to help them keep the seat Republican. If Rubio's seat can stay Republican, the thinking goes, their job to keep the Senate gets a lot easier. And they've made little secret of their preference here.
What's more, lots of Florida Republicans apparently want Rubio to reconsider, too. A recent Florida-based Mason-Dixon polling firm found that almost half of the state's voters — including 77 percent of Republicans — say Rubio should change his mind and run for reelection.
The evolution of Rubio's public thoughts on all of this suggests he's more on board with the idea than he has been at any other time since leaving the presidential race. Here's quick rundown of the evolution of what he's said about running for reelection in the past few months that now makes us think that, yes, Rubio is really getting closer to running again.
No way:
"I’m not running for reelection to the Senate," he told reporters in March, shortly after returning to the Senate from his failed presidential campaign. "I'm going to be a private citizen in January."
Unlikely:
"Unlikely," Rubio told Politico in a May 26 interview. "I don't have anything new to say from what I said in the past. ... I made that decision and I've lived by that decision. Nothing's changed." In that same interview with Politico, Rubio opened the door ever so slightly after being pressed by a reporter: "I don't think anything's going to change."
Maybe:
"Maybe," Rubio told CNN on May 29 about running — if Lopez-Cantera weren't in the race. "If there’s an opportunity to serve again in a way I’m passionate about, I'll most certainly think I would explore it," he said. “I don’t think you run for positions because they’re available," Rubio told CNN in that same interview. “You run for positions because you’re passionate about what you can contribute."
Thinking about it:
Hewitt asked Rubio on Monday: "Does this horror change anything about your resolve not to seek reelection?"
Rubio replied: "I haven't even given it thought in that perspective, other than to say I've been deeply impacted by it. And I think when it visits your home state, when it impacts a community you know really well, it really gives you pause to think a little bit about your service to your country and where you can be most useful to your country."
We'll find out in the next week or two what he ultimately decides. Florida's filing deadline is June 24.
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Marco Rubio says he will reconsider leaving Senate
By Mike DeBonis
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who pledged for months not to seek re-election to the Senate as he waged an ill-fated campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, said Wednesday that he is rethinking that decision and could enter the race as soon as next week.
Rubio said his decision followed a Sunday conversation with his friend Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera (R), who is running to succeed him in the Senate, on the sidelines of the scene of the terror attack in Orlando.
“Obviously, I take very seriously everything that’s going on — not just Orlando, but in our country,” Rubio said. “I enjoy my service here a lot. So I’ll go home later this week, and I’ll have some time with my family, and then if there’s been a change in our status I’ll be sure to let everyone know.”
In that conversation in Orlando, according to a Politico interview with Lopez-Cantera, the lieutenant governor urged Rubio to reconsider his decision not to run and pledged to exit the race if he decided to do so. The primary election is Aug. 30.
“I have asked Sen. Marco Rubio to reconsider his decision and enter the senate race,” Lopez-Cantera wrote in an e-mail to supporters obtained by The Washington Post. “The decision is his and his alone to make. … I am still in this race and nothing has changed. However, if Marco decides to enter this race, I will not be filing the paperwork to run for the U.S. Senate.”
National Republicans are eager to retain the Florida Senate seat as they fight to retain control of the Senate majority in a year when they worry their presidential nominee, Donald Trump, may endanger it. They believe that Rubio offers the best chance to keep the seat in their column instead of enduring a costly, five-way primary in August before fending off Democrats in the general election.
Rubio told reporters Wednesday he was rethinking his stance as he entered a closed-door briefing on the Orlando attack with law enforcement and homeland security officials. He did not respond to questions after making a brief statement.
Rubio faces a June 24 deadline for declaring his candidacy. That night, he is scheduled to headline a fundraiser for Lopez-Cantera in a Coral Gables hotel.
Besides Lopez-Cantera, four Republicans have mounted credible campaigns to succeed Rubio. One of them, Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.), has openly said he will bow out of the race should Rubio decide to seek re-election and has scheduled a Friday news conference to announce whether he will remain in the Senate race, run for re-election to the House, or bow out of politics altogether.
At the Capitol Wednesday, Jolly sounded unlikely to continue his Senate run. “I think [Rubio] decides to get back in,” he said. “But it’s just a supposition; it’s not based on any conversation, any knowledge.”
Another Republican, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), has not addressed the Rubio scenario. Two wealthy political outsiders seeking the office, businessmen Carlos Beruff and Todd Wilcox, told The Washington Post earlier this month they would not clear the field for Rubio if he ran.
Wilcox formally filed to enter the race Wednesday, and spokeswoman Erin Isaac said he had no intention to reconsider should Rubio run. Beruff spokesman Chris Hartline said Florida voters “value real world experience more than political experience” and confirmed Beruff plans to continue his campaign regardless.
“They’re sick of career politicians and power-brokers in Washington who care about one thing: holding on to power,” Hartline said. “They don’t get to pick our candidates.”
Two congressmen — Alan Grayson and Patrick Murphy — are battling for the Democratic nominations. Murphy has the support of the national party campaign operation and has already raised more than $7.7 million for his campaign — more than any of the Republican candidates.
Public polling has shown uncertain prospects for any of the current Republican candidates.
An early-May Quinnipiac University poll showed each of the five Republicans statistically tied with or losing to Murphy, and none could open a statistically significant lead against Grayson. A Public Policy Polling survey done early this month found Beruff and Jolly running well behind Murphy in head-to-head matchups, while Rubio and Murphy were statistically tied in that hypothetical race.
The PPP poll found that Rubio’s approval rating is badly underwater after his presidential run, with only 32 percent of voters endorsing his job performance.
The calls for Rubio to reconsider have vexed the other candidates in the race, who have seen their campaigns enter suspended animation as donors and supporters wait until Rubio makes a final decision.
Jolly faulted national Republican leaders and campaign officials for poisoning the GOP field and accused them of having “done nothing to lift a finger in the past 10 months.”
“If they are unsuccessful in getting Marco in the race, boy, they have done a lot of damage to the Republican field and, in many ways, have made an in-kind contribution to the Senate campaign of Patrick Murphy,” he said.
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Sounds like he is running. Leaving a lot of money on the table in the private sector.
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Marco Rubio will seek Senate reelection, reversing pledge not to run
By Mike DeBonis, Ed O'Keefe and Sean Sullivan
Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday he will seek reelection to the Senate, reversing a pledge he made a year ago to either assume the presidency or return to private life in Florida. The decision instantly transforms an already competitive race and improves Republicans’ chances of maintaining the Senate majority.
Rubio (R-Fla.) issued a lengthy statement explaining his decision to reverse course, citing the Senate’s power to “act as a check and balance on the excesses of a president” as a central reason.
“Control of the Senate may very well come down to the race in Florida,” he said. “That means the future of the Supreme Court will be determined by the Florida Senate seat. It means the future of the disastrous Iran nuclear deal will be determined by the Florida Senate seat. It means the direction of our country’s fiscal and economic policies will be determined by this Senate seat. The stakes for our nation could not be higher.”
His entry into the race comes shortly before a Friday deadline for candidate filings and after weeks of pressure from national GOP figures who urged Rubio to reconsider his frequently repeated intention to either become president or a “private citizen” come 2017.
Those entreaties were rooted in blunt political reality: Rubio, with his near-universal name recognition and proven fundraising capacity, would give Republicans their best chance of winning the swing-state seat and, perhaps, retaining the Senate majority.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who played a leading role in persuading Rubio to run, smiled Wednesday morning when he was asked about reports that Rubio would enter the race. “If that were to happen,” he said, “that would be a great outcome.” He said Rubio’s entry would move the seat from a likely loss for Republicans into “likely retention.”
Josh Holmes, a close political adviser of McConnell’s, called Rubio’s decision to run “potentially the tipping point that allows Republicans to hold the majority in the Senate.”
“It is hard to overstate how important this development is for every Republican-held seat, given that this could take the most expensive state to defend entirely off the map,” Holmes said. “This is a massive win for Florida, America and the Grand Old Party.”
The decision to continue his career in elective politics comes barely three months after Rubio, 45, ended his presidential campaign after an embarrassing loss in his home-state primary, finishing nearly 20 points behind Donald Trump and winning only one county outright — his home base of Miami-Dade. But the handful of candidates seeking to succeed him in the Senate each struggled to break out as Rubio sent a series of signals that he might be willing to seek reelection.
Trump was among those encouraging Rubio to run, tweeting: “Important to keep the MAJORITY. Run Marco!”
But Rubio said in his statement that his decision to run was motivated as much by his concerns about Trump as by his concerns about presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“No matter who is elected president, there is reason for worry,” he said. Clinton would mean “four more years of the same failed economic policies” and “the same failed foreign policy,” he said. And if Trump is elected, he continued, “we will need Senators willing to encourage him in the right direction, and if necessary, stand up to him. I’ve proven a willingness to do both.”
Rubio, who is expected to mount another presidential campaign as soon as 2020, first publicly acknowledged he was rethinking his decision last Wednesday, when he told reporters as he entered a Capitol Hill briefing on the Orlando terrorist attack, “I take very seriously everything that’s going on — not just Orlando but in our country.”
“I’ll go home later this week, and I’ll have some time with my family, and then if there’s been a change in our status I’ll be sure to let everyone know,” he said.
That same day, a close friend who had been running to succeed him, Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, told supporters in an email that “if Marco decides to enter this race, I will not be filing the paperwork to run for the U.S. Senate.” He confirmed Wednesday morning he will exit the race.
Another Republican who was running to succeed Rubio, Rep. David Jolly, announced Friday he would withdraw from the Senate race and instead seek reelection to the House in his St. Petersburg-area district.
It is unclear what now happens to the remainder of the Republican field. A poll released Friday by Saint Leo University showed Rubio easily outpolling any of the already declared GOP candidates, winning the support of roughly half of likely primary voters.
Rep. Ron DeSantis, a Senate candidate who has seen some success in tapping a national network of GOP donors, has told Republicans that, with Rubio now in the race, he intends to run for reelection to his House seat, according to three Republicans with knowledge of the talks. A spokesman for DeSantis’s campaign said an announcement of his plans would be made shortly.
But two wealthy businessmen who have launched runs — home builder Carlos Beruff and defense contractor Todd Wilcox — both said this week through campaign aides that they would remain in the race if Rubio chose to run.
Democrats have a bruising primary of their own, pitting Rep. Patrick Murphy against Rep. Alan Grayson. Murphy has the support of the national party apparatus and has raised more than $7 million for his campaign — much more than any of the current Republican candidates. But he may have to spend a considerable chunk of it to beat Grayson, a liberal firebrand with a dedicated following among progressive activists, in the Aug. 30 primary.
In any case, Rubio’s entry instantly makes Florida one of the country’s most competitive and closely watched Senate races. Democrats are confident that they will be able to use Rubio’s absenteeism during his presidential run, his series of dismissive remarks about the Senate and his conservative voting record against him. A Democratic super PAC, American Bridge, on Friday released a 2½-minute video chronicling the many times Rubio has complained about or vowed to leave the Senate.
In a hint of the hard-fought campaign to come, Murphy issued a statement Wednesday morning accusing Rubio of being “only out for himself” and slamming him for missing scores of Senate votes, voting in favor sweeping restrictions on abortion and opposing Democratic amendments this week that would tighten gun laws in the aftermath of the Orlando attack.
“Marco Rubio abandoned his constituents, and now he’s treating them like a consolation prize,” Murphy said. “Unlike Marco Rubio, I love working hard every single day for the people of Florida.”
There is also the Trump factor: The presumptive GOP nominee is expected to be a drag on down-ballot Republicans in a state where nearly 20 percent of the voting-age population is Hispanic.
Donors on both sides are likely to be highly motivated — Democrats by the prospect of delivering a knockout blow to Rubio’s political career, Republicans by the necessity of keeping the Senate majority and supporting a breakout star of the party. Rubio and his team called some of his top donors on Wednesday morning, asking them to help raise funds quickly for what could easily be the most expensive Senate race of the year.
Anna Rogers Duncan, who served as Rubio’s national finance director on his presidential campaign, emailed supporters Wednesday morning to inform them Rubio would provide them with a “political update” via conference call in the afternoon, according to a copy of the note obtained by The Washington Post.
Upon launching his presidential campaign, Rubio said he would not leave the door open for a return to the Senate, explaining that he did not want to treat the job as a fallback. On the campaign trail, he frequently described his frustration with Capitol Hill. Only after leaving the trail did he modify that assessment, blaming Democratic leaders for his poor attitude toward the Senate.
For months after the campaign ended, those closest to Rubio insisted he was determined to return to Miami, explore lucrative private-sector opportunities, raise his young family and regroup for another presidential run. But GOP leaders deployed a variety of arguments to lure him back into the race, such as the need to keep the Senate majority, the security threats facing the nation and the coming exodus of lawmakers from the Florida congressional delegation.
“It’s a very dangerous world out there, and Florida is losing a lot of key people,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), a Rubio ally. “I really think the country and the state needs him. . . . This is not something he was looking at doing, but a lot of folks are asking him to do it.”
Jolly, however, suggested Rubio’s reversal was not quite as spontaneous as it appeared. “It’s textbook,” he said, noting the slow crescendo that started with an uptick in Rubio’s legislative presence, followed by a open draft movement led by McConnell, culminating in a dramatic exchange in which Lopez-Cantera privately urged Rubio to run after the two visited the scene of the Orlando attack — a conversation that was detailed in a Politico story Wednesday, released hours before Rubio publicly acknowledged he was rethinking his future.
The draft-Rubio campaign, Jolly said, killed any chance any other Republican had to win Rubio’s seat: “Generously I would say it froze the field, but also I could make the argument that it eviscerated it. . . . There were other ways to handle it.”