Cowardice: Week ending October 25, 2026
I need your help. Seriously. Somehow, I've talked myself into doing yet another thing, though, it is still immigration focus. While I work on the documentary, I've accepted a temporary position with a non-profit here in Miami-Dade County to find a solution to some aspect of the immigration crisis facing this county and our country.
The goal is to have a meaningful solution to the challenges facing our county–the only county in the country where the majority of residents are immigrants–immigrant population.
What will the solution be? We don't even have a properly identified problem to solve (let's fix immigration is way way too big, so we'll work to narrow it down to something doable).
I'm asking you today to help defer the cost of my stipend by supporting the organization I'm working with People Acting for Community Together.
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington DC in February of 1968.
Table of Contents
Finite
Disappointment
Deporting people too sick to be deported
I wrote this piece earlier this week but can update it here. 80 people who are not from Africa were deported to the Central Africa Republic this week including both men and women.
Philip Cardella
It's the Corruption, Stupid
Voters in almost every election worry about corruption. This is as old as the Republic itself and not without reason.
Russ Choma
As Russ Choma, a reporter who built his career on covering political corruption notes in Mother Jones this week, this may be reaching a bit of a crescendo in 2026:
Back in May, a Brennan Center poll found 92 percent people, of all political affiliations, believe corruption is a major problem in politics. Those respondents had pretty broad and varying definitions of what “corruption” means. But almost everyone agreed that politicians using their offices for personal gain, or putting the interests of billionaires and big corporations over the interests of voters, qualified. And, just like the participants in the GOP focus group, 79 percent of the Brennan Center respondents felt that corruption was getting in the way of the government’s solving everyday problems.
In September, a Gallup poll found quite similar results—89 percent of respondents thought that corruption was “widespread” in the government. Those figures seem to match a more recent Gallup poll that shows the public’s trust in the government’s ability to handle big problems is at an all-time low.
This national climate is an interesting lens to view a report by the Miami Herald this week that Republican Governor candidate Byron Donald's built his wealth on state funded charter school contracts and now stands to be in charge of the very system he's profiting off of.
His wife isn't even subtle about it, "Erika Donalds has promised that as governor, her husband will pave the way for an “economy of education” where “profit is not going to be a bad word,” according to reporting by Claire Heddles.
Five state-funded charter schools have paid more than $30 million over the last four years to two private companies run by Erika Donalds, whose husband is Florida’s Republican candidate for governor, according to a Herald/Times analysis of tax filings and state audits.
Now, one of those companies is set to receive its largest payout yet. Her virtual reality curriculum company OptimaEd LLC is on track to charge the online school Optima Classical Academy $15.7 million in service fees for the 2026 and 2027 school year, budget documents show.
Heddles reporting goes on to note that Donalds, of course, denies that his wealth is built on charter schools exclusively, and that if he's elected governor he'll erect a bit of a firewall around her businesses and his administration.
“I don’t know if any governor in particular has the same kind of personal wealth accumulated in that one space over which they then would have regulatory authority,” Bruce Baker, a charter school expert and education professor at the University of Miami told Heddles.
Florida
Gonna Florida
Last month the once venerable Miami Herald, now a dependant of Canadian newspaper destroying Chatham Financial, fired 30 of its reporting staff, including some from the Editorial Board.
This week the Miami Herald, the paper of record for Florida, declined to endorse a candidate for US Senate.
In the age of bombastic, social media-driven politicians, Moody has stayed above the fray. But her campaign’s main strategy seems to be riding President Trump's coattails. So don’t expect her to hold the president accountable on anything from tariffs to mass deportations and the war in Iran.
Democrat Angie Nixon, a state representative from Jacksonville, has had an impressive trajectory. Despite being vastly out-raised in the August primary, she won the contest by 12 points, a victory that shook up Florida politics. She comes off as a fighter for working people, but we worry about her ability to reach consensus and get things done in a Congress so narrowly divided.
Got that? One candidate is going to continue to support, albeit quietly, the least popular President in modern American history, a President whose policies are directly targeting South Florida residents for what has been decried by Amnesty International as torture, the other may or may not be able to get the nice things done she wants to do so the Herald has no choice but to throw their hands up.
"That leaves us with the difficult choice of issuing NO ENDORSEMENT for U.S. Senate," what's left of the Editorial Board writes.
I'm begging you to read the column. It goes on to list a series of dubious actions by Ashley Moody as Attorney General juxtaposed with a series of highly popular things Angie Nixon wants to do. Moody, the column states, actually prosecuted unproven claims of election fraud, played a major role in the notorious-in-Florida Hope Florida scandal, and making it harder to vote.
The column states that Nixon on the other hand has a solid track record of getting things done at the state level and wants popular things like abolishing the Senate filibuster, creating pathways to citizenship, a moratorium on evictions and Medicare for All.
Ashley Moody, is at best, a Trump stooge, per her own words and highly scripted responses to anything even appearing to be like a question, but Angie Nixon has friends with the Democratic Socialists of America and therefore the Herald can't endorse anyone.
Historic
Interlude
A new documentary presented in a unique format is showing in Miami Beach. I hope to catch it. This article on it is fascinating.
Sachi Kitajima Mulkey
Infinite
Hope
Four years ago in my youngest kid's first performance with the Miami Children's Chorus, the group participated in the annual America Viva! production. America Viva is a visual and sound spectacular telling the story of Hispanic culture in the Americas. That year it was at the Arsht Center and featured special guest Willy Chirino. As we walked to the car after the spectacular show my kid turned to me and said, "I want to be in this choir next year."
One performance and the kid was sold.
This and that happened at it wasn't until this year that the America Viva production returned to the Arsht Center. This time I came prepared with a camera and a long fast lens and snapped some shots.
To be honest, the spectacular show is a bit strange in some ways–especially this week's performance, which was toned down for children and painted Columbus as a hero rather than a murderous Italian conqueror.
Still, the show is sensational and you should check it out if possible next year. Below you'll find some photos in the link.
Philip Cardella
While I think America Viva! is more style over historic substance than I'd like, the reality is the message is great and I fully approve: America is a land of complex histories that come together to make us who we are. Coming together to celebrate this gives me hope.
Bear
The History Hound Finds
Samantha Michaels
Francesca D’Annunzio, McKenzie Funk, and Kirsten Luce
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