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the-most-humble-blog · 15 days ago

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💰 U.S. TAXPAYERS: SPONSORING MIAMI CLUB ROUNDS & UKRAINIAN WAR GRAVES One’s a Hero, the Other’s a HOE-ro! 🤡

🪖 Expendable War Meat vs. 👠 Escapist Bottle Rat

Wanna hear the biggest scam since student loan forgiveness? We’re out here funneling billions into Ukraine’s war machine while their men are physically locked in a meat grinder with no escape, and their women? Oh, their women are out here in Miami, getting plastered, shaking ass in VIP sections, and collecting American simp bucks like a side quest in Grand Theft Welfare.

Meanwhile, back in their "homeland," any Ukrainian man caught trying to escape is immediately snatched up and shipped straight to the front lines like a disposable Walmart-brand Stormtrooper. Doesn’t matter if he’s 18 or 58—he’s getting sent straight into the meat grinder where he can either die in a trench for "freedom" or get blown into government-issued confetti by a drone strike.

But women? Nah, they get a free pass. No forced service. No accountability. Just a direct pipeline to American sugar daddies and a fast-track entry to bottle service culture.

WHERE’S THAT "EQUALITY" YOU LOVE SO MUCH?

Oh, I know exactly what some weak-minded clowns are about to say— "Men are the protectors, women are the providers." 🚨 Bullshit detected. 🚨

🔹 Israel makes both genders serve in the military. Try again. 🔹 Russia isn’t stopping Ukrainian women from going back to "fight." They just don’t want to. 🔹 Feminism mysteriously vanishes when these club rats are dodging the draft in stilettos.

These Ukrainian women aren’t "providers." They’re out here being provided for by clueless American men, drinking $30 cocktails and slurping up tax-funded handouts like government assistance was their birthright.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is selling the "bravery" of their men as cannon fodder, trapping them in a warzone they never asked for. If a man dares to run? He’s getting dragged back kicking and screaming like a medieval serf, because Ukraine isn’t a "democracy"—it’s a government-run kill box.

WOULD UKRAINE ACTUALLY BE WORSE OFF UNDER RUSSIA?

This is the question that no one wants to answer. The U.S. and Europe have been funding this dumpster fire like it’s a GoFundMe for military-industrial kickbacks, but let’s get real:

🇺🇦 Under Ukraine:

Men are forced to fight and die. No escape.

Women are free to party, get ran through, and post "support Ukraine" hashtags while sipping mojitos.

The economy is a black hole that only survives on unlimited Western handouts.

🇷🇺 Under Russia:

The same level of corruption, minus the illusion of democracy.

Ukraine wouldn’t need infinite U.S. tax dollars to function.

The same women would still be hoeing overseas, but without the victim narrative.

Be honest—what’s actually different? The West gets to pretend Ukraine is fighting some grand battle for "freedom," while the reality is that the entire country is just a high-yield money-laundering scheme with a body count.

Meanwhile, in Miami, Ukraine’s "victims" are deep-throating Grey Goose bottles and getting flown out by NBA benchwarmers. Yeah, let’s keep writing blank checks for that. Sounds legit.

WHY SHOULD I GIVE A SINGLE F*?**

Ukraine doesn’t care about the lives of its own men. Why should I?

The entire country has become a human sacrifice ritual where men are treated as expendable chess pieces while the women get to ride out the war with luxury shopping sprees. And you’re telling me I should care? For what? So Ukraine can keep existing as an open-air money-laundering operation? So its women can keep racking up American simp dollars while their men get body-bagged?

Miss me with that nonsense.

Ukraine is not a democracy. It’s not a victim. It’s not our problem. If they don’t even care about their own men, why should we?

🔥 REBLOG if you’re tired of funding foreign wars while Americans suffer.

💬 COMMENT if you see through the Ukraine scam.

🚀 FOLLOW if you’re here for the raw, unfiltered truth.

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rachelroams · 2 months ago

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Cheers to 2024!

Cheers to the close of another year! 2024’s been a rollercoaster, full of the highs, lows, and in-betweens that make life a true adventure.

As the year comes to an end, I’m reflecting on some of the year’s highlights, both professional and personal. This year, I’m particularly proud to have:

— Produced keynotes, awards shows, and live event programming for clients like Google, Intel & Braze, delighting thousands of attendees from around the world

— Consulted for 10 iconic brands and agencies across the media, advertising, travel, and tech spaces, including YouTube, Meta, and MAS

— Hosted 30+ media segments as an on-camera travel expert for TV & radio stations across the nation

— Shot and produced 51 new travel videos for my @rachelroams channels, with content spanning 12 countries and 5 continents

— Delivered keynote speeches, led panels, and moderated book launches

— Written for publications such as National Geographic, AFAR, Hemispheres, USA Today, and Parents

— Joined a whole bunch of podcasts as a featured guest

— Explored and worked across 8 countries and 8 U.S. states

— Glacier trekked, kayaked, SAT ON A MARS ROVER, indoor skydived, snowshoed, went big-tree climbing, camped, bouldered, summited mountains, and journeyed over 1600 miles on foot

— Run my fastest timed mile since junior high school (6:29!)

— Mentored students and young professionals via The Explorers Club & Miami University

— Served as a Refugee Champion for the UN Refugee Agency

— Volunteered for organizations such as Trailkeepers of Oregon

— Delighted in (and was commensurately challenged by) parenting a just-turned three year-old

— Celebrated 10 years of marriage!

It’s been a wild and winding year, and those highlights serve to remind me that for every valley there’s a summit, and for every challenge there’s a community with whom to problem-solve.

Thanks for being my community.

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A post shared by ＲＡＣＨＥＬＲＵＤＷＡＬＬ (@rachelroams)

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#travel #adventure #rachel rudwall #rachelroams #rtw #traveling #outdoors #photography #tourism #tv #Instagram

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Scarface: Where Tony Montana Went Wrong

https://ift.tt/3oFBFiL

“All I have in this world is my balls and my word, and I don’t break them for no one,” Tony Montana declares in the 1983 gangster classic, Scarface. Yet Al Pacino’s antihero breaks both in his quest for money, power, and women. And just as he is on the brink of winning the trifecta, he is blown away like so much dust up a nose.

Did he lose because the Cuban mobster didn’t heed the advice of his first crime boss? Or is it because he just couldn’t stand to see his sister and his best friend wearing his-and-her pajamas? In truth, Montana’s fall can probably be traced back to when he learned to speak English by “watching guys like Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney.”

Directed by Brian De Palma, and written by Oliver Stone, Scarface is a remake of Howard Hawks’ vastly influential 1932 mob movie, so Montana’s explosive descent was preordained. Tony Montana continued Pacino’s run of criminal icons, which included Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon and the ultimate crime family head, Michael Corleone in The Godfather films. The actor supplanted Paul Muni’s Tony Carmonte as the recognizably scarred face of the title role. Pacino would go on to play Carlito in Carlito’s Way and Lefty in Donnie Brasco, but while each hoodlum brings a new facet to his rogues gallery, none of his gangsters ever achieve their ultimate desires. They almost all reach dizzying heights, and everyone of them sees the dream slip through their fingers. Still, Montana experiences perhaps the greatest fall of all.

The original 1932 film took place during Prohibition when crime was a viable means of survival. De Palma’s adaptation happens in the Reagan era, a time when lucky opportunists could get their lips around the spigots of cash before it got a chance to trickle down. Tony’s economic theory is much more succinct: “You know what capitalism is? Getting fucked.”

Scarface is a rags-to-riches-to-self-destructive fireball story, and nothing succeeds like excess. Montana’s first crime boss in America, Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia), has weathered the climate change from President Carter to the Gipper, and warns Tony to never “underestimate the other guy’s greed.”

In the original Howard Hughes production, Tony was an immigrant from Italy. In the Cold War era film, Montana is a refugee from Cuba. Their shared first mistake is to believe in the American Dream.

The World Is Yours

These words are flashed in both films and hit each of the two criminal aspirants as hard as the “give me your tired, poor, and hungry” promises carved under the Statue of Liberty. Scarface opens shortly after the Mariel boatlift, the 1980 exodus which followed Cuba’s economic crash. Montana seeks asylum, telling immigration officers he is a political prisoner who doesn’t agree with his country’s politics and owns nothing under communism. He says even American prison is better than his life on the Caribbean island. The officers note his criminal past, the telltale tattoo on his arm, and the scar on his face, which despite their insults was obviously not caused by oral sex.

In exchange for a Green Card, Montana and his friend Manny Ribera (Steven Bauer) assassinate Gen. Emilio Rebenga, who tortured the brother of the crime boss Lopez. Tony settles in sunny Miami. And when he gets out of the kitchen and into the heat of crime, he hits the ground running. “The World Is Yours,” after all. All you have to do is take it, and Montana has both hands out.

Frank warns his protégé, “The guys who last in this business are the guys who fly straight – lowkey, quiet; and the guys who want it all – chicas, champagne, flash – they don’t last.” But Montana is a meteor, bound to burn up in the atmosphere. He gets caught on the orbit of Alejandro Sosa (Paul Shenar), agreeing to supply cocaine from Bolivia independent of the other drug lords. Within a few years, Montana is doing so well, the feds target him for tax evasion.

Tony’s Betrayal of Frank Lopez

Montana’s betrayal of Frank Lopez is crucial to his downfall. Frank is the father figure who initially took a chance on Tony. He let him rise through the ranks, even as he tried to bite off more than he could chew. Frank’s biggest mistake is not making sure his underlings follow his sage advice. He also ignores one of his own commandments. Lopez underestimates Montana’s greed. He trusts Tony to accompany his trusted second-gun Omar Suarez (F. Murray Abraham) to Bolivia to meet with Sosa, and continues to let Tony operate after the druglord hangs Suarez from a helicopter.

The deal Montana makes behind Frank’s back is a major step toward the fall. The vow Tony takes never to betray Sosa ultimately leads to the last splash. Montana breaks his word to both of these men, and they bust his balls as a result. When Tony returns to Miami, Frank is suspicious over Omar’s death and his returning soldier’s independence. As Montana begins to build his own cocaine empire, Frank orders a professional hit.

For gangsters, the only good cop is a bad cop, and it is advisable to grease the wheels which move crime. Mel Bernstein (Harris Yulin) demands his take early in the film at the Babylon Club, which has the perfect cocktail napkins for bribery notes. Bernstein was willing to overlook the murders of Rebenga, “Hector the Toad,” and “that bloodbath at the Sun Ray Hotel.” Tony should have taken him at his word when the cop said he could clean up Tony’s Lopez mess.

Before Tony eliminates Frank, he is hungry. The money and drugs are not a distraction. After he begins to accumulate power, he lets his public profile rise and indulges in conspicuous consumption. Montana keeps a chained-up tiger in front of his compound just to let everyone know how powerful he is. There are real life precedents for this. Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar imported hippos for his private zoo. Brooklyn mobster “Crazy” Joe Gallo kept a pet lion named Cleo in the basement of his headquarters. The scenario was also probably inspired by Miami’s most notorious drug lord, Mario Tabraue, whose predilection for wild cats was featured in the Netflix documentary Tiger King. But the most conspicuous acquisition Montana leveraged cut Frank the deepest.

It’s always a mistake to go after the boss’ girl. James Cagney’s Tommy Powers knew this in The Public Enemy (1931). James Woods’ Maximillian “Max” Bercovicz skirts this in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America (1984). Montana sets out to steal Frank’s trophy wife, Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer), from the moment he lays eyes on her, though he waits for the height of his reign to claim her. He does it as much to emasculate his former boss as he does it out of desire. It’s a betrayal equal to having Manny whack Frank while he pleads for his life.

The new couple is married by 1983, but with a marriage always on the rock.

Don’t Get High on Your Own Supply

Montana’s downfall is aided, abetted, but most of all mirrored in his descent into addiction. He probably took his first sniff from Elvira’s stash, but even as Montana bemoans, “I got a junkie for a wife,” he doesn’t get wind of his own problem. “Another Quaalude, and she’ll be mine again,” he reasons as the trophy wife climbs off the pedestal and up on a shelf.

Montana is in deep drug denial when Elvira leaves him after he openly complains she can’t have children because she is polluted with the yaya he’s been peddling. He should at least entertain the notion when she openly wonders if he would even be alive to raise their child.

In American Gangster, Denzel Washington’s Frank Lucas knows enough not to dip his nose into the supply. And while Pacino’s slide into the junkie aspects of his character is physically more subtle than Ray Liotta’s bug-eyed Henry Hill in Goodfellas, the results are just as devastating. When Montana was crushing the competition and bagging the Sandman, he had discipline. His mind gets muddled as his drug use spirals out of control. He makes rash decisions, dips into schizoid delusions, and succumbs to white powder paranoia. He can’t see his way through the haze to find alternatives. He walks right into the undercover cop’s money laundering bust.

The drugs dull his instincts. If Tony wasn’t high at the security command center, he would have seen Sosa’s soldiers encroaching his compound over the cameras. He had 10 bodyguards on the property, he could have positioned them defensively. The only thing his ultimate hit man is hiding behind is a pair of killer shades. He never should have been able to sneak behind Montana’s back. Tony also wouldn’t have gotten rid of his most trusted weapon.

Over and Underestimating Little Friends

Tony Montana’s right-hand man would have been the best, first defense against the Sosa attack. What Tony does to Manny Ribera is his worst action. The two are virtually brothers. Their bond goes beyond being partners in crime, it tightened in the “Freedomtown” concentration camp, and solidified in the Miami chainsaw massacre. It is because Manny is Tony’s most trusted soldier that he will never be good enough for Tony’s sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). Tony’s saving grace is he believes he is doing all this to ensure a better life for his sister. Gina is supposed to represent the innocence he sacrificed, but she is also an unattainable sin.Tony’s mother doesn’t try to separate her children merely because her daughter might be swallowed in the criminal life; she is curbing what she sees as Tony’s unnatural urges.

Movies

The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone Proves a Little Less is Infinitely More

By Tony Sokol

Movies

Al Capone: 9 Actors Who Played the Original Scarface

By Tony Sokol

Even if Tony doesn’t see Manny as a rival for his sister’s affections, he still sees him through the eyes of a fellow criminal, and a womanizing one at that. Tony is just like his mother, who rejects him. Tony brands his friend, and ultimately seals his fate with it.

The problem is Ribera wasn’t made to be a gangster. He is a loyal and efficient consigliere and soldier for Tony’s crew, but he would have been happier slapping his name on knockoff designer jeans. Besides the bubbling incestuous tension exacerbated by the coke haze, Tony doesn’t want to see his best friend happier than him, and denies Gina a real chance at the happiness he wants for her.

It’s the one thing Tony can’t buy for her. Gina and Manny fully expect Tony to be thrilled by their marriage. They were going to surprise him with the news. Tony’s incestuous protectiveness speeds his downfall. He murders Manny as a punishment. Gina is shot by Sosa’s men. Montana loses the two most important people in his life, and his inability to control his lusts destroy them all.

“Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy”

The biggest contributory factor in Tony’s downfall is his humanity. In The Godfather, Sonny Corleone advises his brother Michael not to take things too personally in business. When Lopez gives Montana the mission of delivering a bundle of cocaine to Columbian dealers, the rising mobster takes things very personally. The deal goes bad when Montana’s friend Angel Fernandez is murdered with a chainsaw in a scene so aurally graphic (watch it again, there’s no violence shown, only heard), it almost got the film an X rating.

It was allowed in the film in the name of education, Stone pointed to a DEA report which detailed the exact scenario. Tony teaches the Colombians a lesson in humanity. Not content with leaving with the cash and the coke, he kills every single gang member who had anything to do with Angel’s death.

Tony also lets his conscience be his guide when he’s working the GPI on a hit. Faced with serious jail time for his tax evasion arrest, he makes a deal with Sosa, who is also under fire. Montana agrees to fly to New York and assassinate a journalist before he can give a speech on Sosa’s organization. A bomb has been planted in the journalist’s car, and Tony is in charge of tailing until the perfect detonation point. But when Tony arrives on the scene to assassinate the journalist, he notices the man’s wife and children are with him. Montana not only breaks his word, the promise to protect his powerful partner, but he murders Sosa’s right hand man, Alberto, rather than kill the children playing in the back seat.

“I Always Tell The Truth. Even When I Lie.”

Tony Montana may have been the ballsiest and most charismatic of his machismo mob, but he wasn’t the brightest. He acknowledges his intellectual shortcomings, “I come from the gutter,” he admits. “I know that. I got no education, but that’s okay. I know the street.” But he doesn’t read signs. He can’t tell a freeway from a dead end. Frank Lopez may be a blowhard, but his words of wisdom could have been carved in the cement.

All the concrete Tony brags about has gone to his head, making his skull thicker than Pacino’s accent. Montana is brash and unbending, narcissistically adherent to only his own advice, and his own worst counsel. His anger blinds him, the battery is running low on his foresight, and he’s so flashy his enemies can see him coming from miles away. And he can’t see them when they’re standing close enough to breathe on the back of his neck.

Final Massacre

Of course the most obvious reason Tony ends up the way does is because he fights off an army by himself. He’s got quite an arsenal, and the coke probably makes it seem like a good idea at the time, but the decision to stay and fight is vastly miscalculated. Even if Tony had survived the last assassination attempt, Sosa’s men would always be hunting for him. It would have been a short hunt. Tony Montana would have died of a heart attack from all that coke he snorted.

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ofparadice · 3 years ago

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Everyone suspects ALEJANDRA LUCÍA RUIZ of at least one of the cardinal sins, but in Nevada, the worst sins are bound by blood and SHE has yet to roll the dice. HER fixation on the neon lights of Nevada started EIGHTEEN YEARS ago but when the lights start to hum, they close their eyes. Under the desert sun, they claim the act of BURLESQUE DANCER. They’re often mistaken for ANA DE ARMAS before those crimson colored glasses slide down their nose. ALE better get busy living, or they’ll get busy dying by the ripe age of THIRTY. There are no second acts in a marked life, and it’s measured out by the melody of ULTRAVIOLENCE BY LANA DEL REY.

CHARACTER FULL NAME: Alejandra Lucía Ruiz

CHARACTER AGE AND DATE OF BIRTH: Thirty, March 13th, 1991

CHARACTER GENDER AND PRONOUNS: Cis Woman, She/Her

FACE CLAIM: Ana De Armas

HOMETOWN: Miami, Fl

OCCUPATION: Burlesque Dancer

TRIGGER WARNING: abuse, pregnancy, death

CHARACTER BIOGRAPHY:

Alejandra's parents came over from Cuba in search of a better life for their daughter. They knew the the communist country was no place for their child, so they came to the U.S. as refugees, in search of opportunity. Despite everything working against them, they thrived and her childhood was filled with happy moments. As most Cubans, they settled in Miami, originally, but as living costs rose, they moved to somewhere cheaper, Las Vegas, when she was twelve. As she grew, she blossomed into a beautiful girl who loved dancing and her parents did the best to nurture her talent with the money they had. They didn't realize that when she decided to make a career out of dancing, it was going to be burlesque. Her father yelling that they didn't come to this country for her to take her clothes off. Ale, being a headstrong woman refused to stop and eventually, was disowned by her father, who never wanted to see her again. Her mother, kept in touch with their daughter secretly.

Despite the sadness of losing her family, she had a family at Vicky's, a burlesque club downtown where she worked her way up to a headliner at the club, which included her singing Spanish. Working her way through the club, she met the charismatic owner Oleksander Lysytsya, or as the girls called him 'Ollie'. It was the first time she felt romantic love, even though she knew that he had a wandering eye and a temper that flared. It didn't stop her from falling for him. She didn't know everything about the man she thought she loved and had no idea he had a secret life separate from the one he had presented to her. When she figured out there was more than meets the eye with him, she decided it was time to end things. She knew he was bad for her, but she found out she was pregnant and everything changed. She told him and he wanted to run with her, for reasons she didn't understand, but for the sake of their child, she decided to.

Ready to escape with the father of her child, she waited and waited for Ollie but he never showed. Showing up to the club, she saw the other girls in tears as they gave her the news: Ollie was shot outside the club, murdered. At the moment, she realized there was a lot more to the father of her child than she realized. She knew soon it would come out that she was pregnant, but to protect herself and her future child, she'd have to keep the father a secret. She then wondered what dark forces moved the chess pieces around her.

#muse: alejandra #alejandra: intro #intro #nevernevada.intro

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altarflame · 8 years ago

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I recently mentioned a friend of mine who is helping Syrian refugee families get settled in the greater Miami area (in this post). These are her words and pictures from Facebook, shared with permission, and all so beautiful:

“So this happened tonight. Muslims, non-Muslims and recently resettled Syrian families all gathered around the table. Our first south Florida Syrian Supper Club. I really don't have words. Maybe they will come to me in the next few days once I've digested this spectacular evening a little bit more. These (first two) are photos of us after dinner, listening to the Syrian families tell their stories. The best part? When they said that although they've been here for seven months, this was the first time they had a feeling of home: gathered together with friends, under the night sky, sharing food and good conversation. Thank you to all of the guests who attended and everyone who gave generously to support this event. Thank you to the families who cooked the most delicious Syrian food for all of us and shared their culture and their journeys. Thank you to the amazing planning committee we created Sahar Shaikh, Sara Fathima, Yasmine Saib and Kate Cruz. I'm so grateful to all of you... for seeing the potential in this kind of event and each doing your own unique and amazing part to make it a huge success. I cannot wait for the next one!”

If you are interested in participating in one of these beautiful fundraising and community building events being put together by Project Motherpath and the Muslim Women’s Organization of South Florida, visit Syrian Refugees Supper Club of South Florida.

#Miami #South Florida #Syrian refugees #community initiatives #305 #what you can do #how can i help #Project Motherpath #Syrian Refugee Supper Club #Muslim Women's Organization of South Florida #resist

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mint-moon25 · 2 years ago

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thechashow · 4 years ago

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Please join me, for what will be a lively discussion on all things Justice, Empathy & Sitting with HARD topics. @molly.borst and I will be on IGTV Live today, Tuesday 10/13 at 10am EST. I always ask for a Bio. Nobody ever has one. However, Everyone always throws together some pretty great stuff. Here’s what Molly threw my way: Molly Borst was born and raised in Ohio and relocated to Charlotte 4 years ago, with her husband Mike and their four boys. . She and Mike met at Miami University. They’ve been married for over two decades. . From a young age she knew there was something different about her that she could quite pinpoint. As she has grown and matured she realized it’s not a difference but a gift; a deeply held belief that empathy can help heal the world. . One of the best things she did was create an online book club (long before Covid made that a normal thing) to discuss necessary, and uncomfortable, topics like systemic racism, the eviction epidemic, refugees/defectors and our current mental health crisis. . She finds it energizing to meet and chat with others who are doing their own hard work of the heart; healing, learning, growing, changing and moving towards wholeness. . She loves Mary Oliver’s poetry, everything Bryan Steveson does, moving her body, reading and her virtual book club sisters, who have provided her with a profound sense of belonging. What I love about Molly is that she makes us “regular” folks know that we can change the world. Starting with the small social world we orbit. Daily. We all need to be encouraged right where we are. Molly will do that for you. Check you later on the gram! #thechashow #socialjustice #socialjusticewarrior #empathy #compassion #bookclub #systemicracism #brianstevenson #maryoliverpoetry #hardtalk #ally #jesusfollower (at Charlotte, North Carolina) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGSJnVxpGxN/?igshid=alheeuye33p6

#thechashow #socialjustice #socialjusticewarrior #empathy #compassion #bookclub #systemicracism #brianstevenson #maryoliverpoetry #hardtalk #ally #jesusfollower

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queernuck · 7 years ago

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The Blue and the Browns

Sports are no stranger to radicals the world over, many an Antifa flag has flown at European soccer matches, and one of the better mirrors of Euro Soccer seen in the US has been in the proliferation of Antifa supporters’ groups for soccer clubs across multiple professional levels. Of course, in both cases there is a ready fascist presence to oppose: entire clubs in Europe have identities based in supporting fascist politics, and fascist supporters’ groups are not unknown in the United States, either, although soccer is largely not the first choice of American white supremacy. If one had to guess the first choice of the average white supremacist when it comes to sports, it would be fair to guess that their choice would be like that of Americans at large: football, specifically the NFL.

The NFL in America is an artistic medium unto itself, a culture that overinscribes upon weddings, work, football itself. It is part of a unified hyperreal of sport in the American consideration, in the age of ESPN, but no sport can match it for the sheer breadth it contains. Postmodern American Football is a sort of simulacra of a larger football culture nationwide: regions such as Texas or Alabama have their fixation upon High School or College football, but it is all made possible thanks to the NFL. Whether directly, through grants and training of future coaches, or indirectly through providing a sort of goal to strive for, the NFL is more important to understanding America than perhaps any other singular organized body outside the US Military. America is, in short, the NFL, and the reversal of that notion is just as true. The way in which black labor, a consistent brutalization of black bodies, is paradigmatic to the realization of the sport is just one aspect of how it contains a sort of simulacra of American realization of the self: the repeated simulation of an American dream, a sort of ejaculatory wet dream played out on the same field over and over and over, is just the most focused aspect of the entity that is football. There is so much of football that occurs off the field, and the use of defying conventional recognition of the National Anthem as a means of protest is the one most important to discuss.

It started with Colin Kaepernick. The former NFC Champion quarterback spent the preseason sitting out the anthem, before opting to take a knee on the sideline during the regular season. Attributing his protest to police brutality, to a sense that he is not considered American due to his blackness and the specific antiblackness necessary to structure American police as an entity, he refused to take part in the Anthem as he felt no affinity for it so long as this violence continued. Over the course of the season, Kaepernick did a reasonably good job as backup quarterback to a horrendous 49ers team, and was eventually released after opting out of his contract, an albatross of a deal that made him effectively untradable. With the beginning of the 2017-18 season looming, Kaepernick still has no team, while players such as Richard Sherman point out the obvious ridiculousness of this. Sherman pointed to the Jets, a team whose solid defense could support any even mildly competent quarterback, something the Jets entirely lack. Jay Cutler, a former quarterback for the Chicago Bears, was signed out of retirement by the Miami Dolphins despite even his best years coming shy of some of Kaepernick’s leaner ones. Notable here is the fact that Kaepernick in fact played against the Dolphins soon after Fidel Castro’s death, and reactionary NFL fans across the nation took joy in the 49ers losing to a team whose support base includes many Cuban emigrants and refugees, and the winning tackle coming from Kiko Alonso, himself Cuban. Kaepernick had worn a shirt weeks earlier depicting Malcom X meeting with Castro, and this was seen as a comeuppance for him despite it being one of the few games that season where the 49ers looked even vaguely competitive. In short, Kaepernick has been left out of the NFL, and has been left out for obvious reasons.

While he is a particularly important case due to his role in starting protests like his, Kaepernick cannot be considered as the only one. Marshawn Lynch of the Oakland Raiders, who sat through a short retirement in order to maneuver himself towards a comeback with his hometown team, continued to sit during the anthem in a manner consistent on previous comments about the protests. Notably, and as I would like to examine in more depth, multiple members of the Cleveland Browns knelt in a circle during the Anthem, away from the sideline: the largest and most dramatic of these protests to date, and one that requires a special sort of analysis to understand. The size of the protest is not the only notable part: predictably, the local police union voiced its displeasure in reactionary terms that barely concealed the racial slurs uttered during its writing. The police union, however, was joined by a union representing EMTs and dispatchers. This reaction allows us to examine multiple structures nascent in the city of Cleveland both as a sports city, and as a particular example of how larger concepts of the Thin Blue Line are realized.

The particular aptness of Cleveland as a team to this action is in part due to their position within the league. The Cleveland Browns are a hapless team who have been such for a while, perennial losers in a town known for them, one of the worst franchises in American sports, let alone the NFL. Of course, due to some interesting maneuvering and divestment from previous failed projects, the Browns have cultivated an exciting young roster for the first time in quite some time. Myles Garrett, the first overall pick of the 2017 draft, is a promising player likely to become a perennial pro-bowler, while the team has decided to let the starting gig at quarterback go to rookie Deshone Kizer, a black player picked in the same round as Garrett and one of the few black quarterbacks who will start the season. As a result, the largely young and undifferentiated roster of the Browns makes it so that there is little for any individual player to lose by joining in with a protest: their replaceability is rather low because the roster represents the culmination of a long process of gathering and eventually using picks and prospects to put together a team for a future, a team that will develop itself over time. Given their proximity to a major city which has experienced the fear of police brutality in recent memory, and the Browns become a perfect (or perfect enough) team for such a large action.

The team’s front office, meanwhile, had planned to have the American Flag carried at the home opener by Cleveland police, fire, and EMS members in a rather clear move to show official support for these institutions. However, even the barest of criticism is too much, and immediately it was intimated that the police would pull out of the ceremonies, with a representative of the union for EMS/EMTs and dispatchers specifically claiming that it was a slight against them, as well. Using the ever-present figure of the American Veteran in their statement, justifying internal colonialism with the infinite debt of neocolonial control and the genocidal policies of American warfare, the EMTs in question showed a certain unity of culture with police that is important to note, as it shows what is part of a larger hegemonic structure of the Thin Blue Line. In the past, for their own safety, many EMTs sought to wear drastically different uniforms from police, to avoid being attacked as if they were officers when treating patients. However, as part of the codification of state power contained within unifying these services into a singular whole, the ideology of the EMS as part of the police response, as primarily intended to support police violence rather than ameliorate it, is realized as a growth of an already-present sentiment in the concept of the EMS service. The way that “first responder” becomes a sort of singular designation, a means of describing police, firefighters, and EMTs as a single group is often used in discourses on 9/11 and other disasters, but largely is part of figuring these groups as part of a force that can be likened directly to the military as a larger apparatus of support, the realization of the military as far more than just infantry and armor.

The number of veterans who are involved in “first responder” circles as well as the proliferation of white supremacist ideology amongst them, the way in which racist structures of hegemony are replicated even within these colonizing structures, is vitally on display here in that an EMT can in fact not only be witness to police violence, but can go on to realize it through refusing or neglecting treatment at the behest of law enforcement. By working closer with police, by making themselves part of a group that organizes and shows solidarity with police ideologically, they reterritorialize themselves as part of colonial occupation within the domestic structure of neocolonial ideology. This all becomes part of a larger apparatus whereby support for the police becomes support for fascist ideology, and the way that this bleeds over into sport can be all too apparent at times.

Cleveland is a city that has seen many a bad season, the lone bright spot being LeBron James leading the Cavaliers to an NBA Championship in 2016. The Warriors posted an unmatched 73-9 during the season, even better than any of Jordan’s Bulls teams were able to do, before falling in 7 games to the Cavs after being up 3-1 going into Game 5. This was the second of three consecutive meetings between the teams in the finals, and the sixth of seventh consecutive NBA Finals appearances for LeBron. While he had won twice previously with the Miami Heat, there was a certain acceptance of LeBron that was conducted after this win, a reversal of his previous decision to leave Cleveland for Miami, one that was met with the burning of jerseys and an open deluge of racist condemnations, some subtle and some less so. There was a collective hatred towards LeBron, one of the best basketball players of all time, that was only undone when he returned to Cleveland, a city that had rejected him and embraced a white supremacist paradigm in disparaging him, and even then only once he had won the city its first professional sports championship in over half a century. Of course, later in 2016 the Cleveland Indians, another often hapless team that had come across the right combination of pieces and seemed poised to follow the Kansas City Royals as the next unlikely MLB champion, lost to the Cubs in extra innings as they broke a 108-year World Series drought, one that the Cubs had to claw their way to after falling behind by that same vital margin, 3 to 1.

That a team can even be named the Indians in the MLB in 2017 is unsurprising given the settler-colonial ideology of America, but that its logo is known as “Chief Wahoo” and is a caricature so openly racist that even its defenders acknowledge it, opting instead to argue for tradition or irrelevance, is oddly enough similar to the means by which police argue for their own goodness. Even if it is wrong, it is not as wrong as this, or that, or another unrelated ill, and only a spare few actually find themselves offended, and it seems to be a problem only now because of snowflakes or millennials or PC Liberals or whatever else it is that the ideology wishes to distance itself from. The resistance in question relies not on actually defending any particular principle, but rather in defending the principle of freedom from a visibility of critique the principle previously enjoyed, a resistance to the sort of transformation that has been undergone by the event within the structure of late capitalist experience. With smartphones and social media, the ridiculous nature of these defenses is on full display, but neither cops nor Cleveland seem terribly willing to back down on their ideological standpoints.

That the lovable loser Browns were the ones to make such an enormous gesture, a team collectively acting in the same spirit as Kaepernick, as their city’s own LeBron, as numerous other athletes across their sport have is inspiring, it is hopeful, it presents some possibility for radical organizing within the scores of American football fans. The way in which the exploitation of the worker can be explored through the well-to-do peasantry of the NFL, the sort of labor aristocracy formed by certain sorts of players, the white supremacy so often on display, and the local pride that a team can generate all present enormously important opportunities for generating solidarity, affinity, really radical action. So long as the NFL remains in bed with the Department of Defense, the league itself is not going to allow any radicalism past what it is legally unable to stop. However, this should not be mistaken for a lack of radical potential, but rather a point at which to begin its proliferation. Gains are made in nickels and dimes, yard by yard, and few understand that better than football players. The shifting intensities of the sport, the way the ball in the air represents all potential possibilities at once, these are the ways in which the sport is realized and these are the means by which we may look to a future of the left in America.

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michaelfallcon · 5 years ago

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An Interview With Coffee-Loving Hip Hop Artist Propaganda

For about as long as there has been popular music, there have been songs about coffee. From Frank Sinatra to Otis Redding, Kate Bush to Black Flag, Bob Dylan to Johnny Cash, coffee has been the topic of songs from some of the most famous singers in American music history. Mostly recently, Kelly Rowland added her own very good entry to the coffee canon with a single titled, simply, “COFFEE“. But save for maybe 90s punk act The Descendents—a bunch of dorks and caffeine fiends who sang about coffee regularly and had multiple pieces of coffee-related merch—the world’s favorite beverage is rarely more than a device to tell a different story.

Enter Propaganda, the stage name of Los Angeles-based hip-hop and spoken word artist, author, podcast host, and activist Jason Petty who has just today, Friday, May 22nd released a new song, “If Coffee Were A Man.” As the title suggests, the spoken word over a beat piece imagines what coffee would be like in the context of personhood. Appearing on both the upcoming book and album for the LA-based polymath, the new track draws from his deep affinity for and knowledge of coffee—how many songs do you know that reference a Porlex hand grinder or have a video that begins by making a pour-over? But the message runs deeper; it’s a track that rewards repeat listens.

We spoke with Propaganda via digital communique to learn more about the making of “If Coffee Were A Man,” this visuals in the video, and his own coffee journey.

youtube

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Hey Prop! By way of introduction, can you tell our readers a little more about yourself?

Sure, my name is Propaganda. I am from South Central Los Angeles and I’ve lived in pretty much every corner of LA County. I am a hip hop/spoken word artist, and as of last week an author! I do a lot of justice and advocacy work around black and brown communities. I serve on the board of directors for Preemptive Love, a non-profit organization operating in Syria, Iraq, and Venezuela. Pretty much anywhere there is a refugee crisis Preemptive Love is. I also lead a podcast with my wife Dr. Alma Zaragoza Petty, PhD in educational equity called the Red Couch Podcast as well as another podcast called Hood Politics. And I drink a ton of coffee.

So where did the idea for “If Coffee Were A Man” come from? What’s the message you want listeners to take away from it?

The idea originated with some homie Sekajipo from Panther Coffee in Miami and from Black Rooster. This idea of 4th wave coffee being coffee for the people. So he was the one that said the first line to me as a writing prompt, “If coffee were a man, it would be a black man.” The poem is a part of my new album and book called Terraform, set to be released later this year.

I guess one of the biggest takeaways is a reclaiming of a narrative of sorts. Coffee, like many things the world enjoys, was invented by or originated from people of color. More specifically black people. A lot of times, this truth get lost. And I feel like it’s important not only for us consumers but for all the farmers across the world, who have to live along the equator for the coffee to even grow, to know and to recognize what a gift the people are to us, also the gift that sits right in our cups. Hopefully people will catch the metaphor of how we could be treating each other so much better than we actually are. Ultimately I would hope that it would inspire people to treat each other better.

You drop quite a few deeper coffee references—Porlex, natural processing, etc—what’s your involvement with specialty coffee? How plugged in are you with that world?

Basically my intro to specialty coffee happened by accident. In the process of touring as an independent artist, you stop before the show and grab a cup of coffee and notice how much longer this cup takes than the cup at 7-11. And then in those late-night rides between cities you stop at a gas station and get some coffee to keep you up for the drive and now you can totally tell the difference. If I’m really specific I’d say the city of Portland basically converted me. My record label is based there and we just got used to a certain quality of coffee. Next thing I know baristas are recognizing me as I walk into shops, my music was featured in A Film About Coffee, and I would get @ mentioned on social media that baristas had my music playing out of the booths at Expo. Once upon a time, I owned a little micro roaster called Left Roasters. But as you know, you can’t launch a specialty coffee brand part-time. So I was content with just learning on my own and really just being a fan of specialty coffee.

In the video, there are quite a few scenes set in Africa, including a coffee ceremony. Was this a coffee-related origin trip?

The trip was with a relief organization called Food for the Hungry. I was with them doing some relief work in Ethiopia. I specifically asked to go to Ethiopia obviously for the coffee, but also on a personal note. Throughout my life I’ve been mistaken for Ethiopian. And not just by anyone but by actual Ethiopians. As a matter of fact while we were in the country, the security guards never checked my passport. We would be at restaurants and the waiters would look to me to translate for everyone else. So for me there was the relief work, there was my passion for coffee, being at the birthplace of coffee, but also in the homeland of my ancestors.

I know that’s a much deeper answer than you were asking but the moment was so special. And that coffee ceremony that’s in the video was completely impromptu. The video doesn’t show me balling in tears from the beauty! Lol I met that lady that served us, not even an hour before that moment. She is one of the family’s Food For The Hungry servers. We struck up some small talk. I bought something from her little corner store. She was also convinced my ancestry was Ethiopian, and it just kind of moved her so much that she invited us to her backyard to make some coffee.

During quarantine, you’ve also been doing Pourigami Fridays on Instagram. Can you tell us a little more about that?

Yes! So Pourigami Fridays came out of a conversation with me and Brian Papé, the founder of the drinkware company Miir, who are the inventors of the Pourigami pour-over product. We’ve been cooking up some cool partnership ideas, including a coffee club in the style of a wine club. As the seriousness of quarantining was becoming more and more obvious, we were trying to think of ideas to A. sell some merch! B. keep spirits up, and finally figure out a way to support all these rad roasters that have lost all their foot traffic. So every Friday morning on my Instagram live I feature a different roaster then I shoot the breeze and I make a pour-over with one of my artist friends. We then post a discount code on my website for the folks to order from that roaster.

What’s been cool is a lot of my buddies have gotten into specialty coffee because of me. But they didn’t have all the tools and know all the language that I know around coffee culture so they felt like they weren’t in the know enough to participate. But they really love coffee. I feel like that represents pretty much the rest of the world. We all love coffee but everyone doesn’t have a burr grinder. So I just wanted a fun way to have some entertainment and support all of my coffee partners. And also lead the way in knowing that the best cup of coffee is the one in your holding.

Thanks Prop!

The video for “If Coffee Were A Man” is available today on Youtube. To check out all of Propaganda’s endeavors, visit his official website and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

An Interview With Coffee-Loving Hip Hop Artist Propaganda published first on https://medium.com/@LinLinCoffee

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shebreathesslowly · 5 years ago

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An Interview With Coffee-Loving Hip Hop Artist Propaganda

We spoke with Propaganda via digital communique to learn more about the making of “If Coffee Were A Man,” this visuals in the video, and his own coffee journey.

youtube

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Hey Prop! By way of introduction, can you tell our readers a little more about yourself?

So where did the idea for “If Coffee Were A Man” come from? What’s the message you want listeners to take away from it?

You drop quite a few deeper coffee references—Porlex, natural processing, etc—what’s your involvement with specialty coffee? How plugged in are you with that world?

In the video, there are quite a few scenes set in Africa, including a coffee ceremony. Was this a coffee-related origin trip?

During quarantine, you’ve also been doing Pourigami Fridays on Instagram. Can you tell us a little more about that?

Thanks Prop!

The video for “If Coffee Were A Man” is available today on Youtube. To check out all of Propaganda’s endeavors, visit his official website and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

from Sprudge https://ift.tt/2XrN5ea

#Sprudge

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ladystylestores · 5 years ago

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Your Thursday Briefing – The New York Times

Xi’s chance to cast himself as indispensable

President Xi Jinping of China has seized on the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity in disguise — a chance to redeem the Chinese Communist Party after early mistakes let the pandemic spin out of control.

Shaping the narrative: Beijing is focusing on the disarray in the U.S. and other countries as China appears to have its outbreak under control. It is a dramatic turnaround from only months ago, when Mr. Xi faced a shaken public whose frustration even censors could not fully silence.

What Mr. Xi wants: To restore the pre-pandemic agenda, including his pledge to eradicate extreme poverty this year, while cautioning against complacency that could lead to a second wave. If he succeeds, he could chart a path to another term.

Biggest challenge: The economy contracted for the first time in more than four decades. Mr. Xi will have to keep hope in his leadership alive even as rise in prosperity on past levels is no longer certain.

“Great historical progress always happens after major disasters,” Mr. Xi said during a recent visit to a university. “Our nation was steeled and grew up through hardship and suffering.”

Cyclone slams into India’s coast

Cyclone Amphan knocked down trees, brought ropes of rain and sent villagers rushing into shelters when it made landfall on India’s eastern coast on Wednesday afternoon. Meteorologists say it is one of the most powerful storms in decades.

India and Bangladesh are still under coronavirus lockdown, which complicates a huge evacuation operation. One of the biggest challenges is how to protect people from getting infected while they are packed inside emergency centers.

Around three million people have been sent to shelters, but there are now fewer of them because the government converted many into quarantine centers.

First reports of deaths: At least two people were killed, including one child who died after a mud wall collapsed on top of him, according to Indian news reports.

What we’re tracking: Nearly a million Rohingya refugees are preparing for the worst in camps near Cox’s Bazar, in Bangladesh. And Kolkata, one of India’s historic cities, sits directly in the cyclone’s path.

Since the coronavirus broke out, the Trump administration has deported hundreds of migrant children alone — in some cases, without notifying their families. This is a reversal of years of established practice. Above, Sandra Rodríguez with her son Gerson, 10.

Our reporter looked at the policy shift and spoke with families, who described confusion, fear and chaos. One 16-year-old, Pedro Buezo Romero, was taken from his bed in a shelter in New York and told to pack a suitcase for a court appearance in Miami. Instead, he was put on a series of flights over two days and finally told he was being deported to Honduras.

Israel cyberattack: Israel was behind a cyberattack on May 9 that disrupted operations at a major port in Iran, according to intelligence officials and experts. The hacking of the port’s computers was in response to a failed Iranian cyberattack on an Israeli water facility last month.

What we’re listening to: The podcast “Wind of Change,” which explores a rumor that the 1990 ballad in the title, by the German band Scorpions, was written by the C.I.A. as part of a plot to change hearts and minds behind the Iron Curtain. Mike Wolgelenter, one of our editors in London, writes: “What’s not to love about a heavy metal-tinged deep dive into Cold War espionage?”

Now, a break from the news

Cook: A comforting, one-pan tuna casserole is just what we need right now. It has creamy white beans and a crunchy potato chip topping.

And now for the Back Story on …

Coronavirus rejiggers Germany’s politics

Germany’s measures for containment and careful reopening have been viewed as a model of a science-led approach. Melina talked to Katrin Bennhold, our Berlin bureau chief, about how the coronavirus crisis has shifted the political landscape in Germany, with the far right sidelined.

Something seems to have shifted for the far-right AfD, or Alternative for Germany, party during this pandemic. Their approval rating has been down in some national polls. Can you explain?

The pandemic has marginalized them. In February, the fallout from an inconclusive election in a small eastern state showed what a potent and disruptive force the AfD had become. It ultimately brought down Angela Merkel’s anointed successor. But when the pandemic hit, everything changed. Their narrative didn’t cut through anymore.

They struggled for three reasons: Merkel rose to the occasion. Her government basically managed to avoid the disaster that was unfolding in neighboring countries. Her approval rating surged — and this was a chancellor whose party had been tanking. So it became hard to attack her when about 80 percent of public opinion was behind her.

Second, AfD’s signature issues — especially migration — were no longer salient.

Third, the government was doing a lot of the things in the context of this health crisis that the AfD had been arguing for. Suddenly Merkel was closing borders — she became emblematic of a strong nation-state.

Will that last?

The reopening has given them a chance to step back into the national conversation. They’re trying to sort of turn Merkel’s measures around and say, Look, it’s possible to close the borders, and the nation-state is actually the relevant entity, not Europe, not the world. They are trying to co-opt some of the corona protests that are currently playing out on the streets of Germany.

The ultimate test will be the country’s mood after the economic crisis that has only just begun. The far right is banking on a meltdown, and the government is throwing money at this. For example, a short-term work program allows employers to cut employee hours while the government makes up some of the difference.

What does Germany’s reopening actually look like, and why did the containment work so well?

Success in this pandemic is basically a combination of some things that were already in place, like a robust health care system, and then a science-led approach. Merkel consulted very early with scientists, got testing off the ground and then coordinated with state governors. There was a sense of unity.

The reopening is happening in phases, and Merkel handed it back to the states this month. First it was shops and some schools. Restaurants opened last week in Berlin, where I live. It felt like a big moment.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Melina and Carole

Thank you To Melissa Clark for the recipe, and to Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the rest of the break from the news. You can reach the team at [email protected].

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is on racial disparities in the coronavirus death rate. • Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Worker in Santa’s workshop (three letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • The Times won six medallions and three merit awards in the Silurians Press Club’s Excellence in Journalism competition for work from the Metro desk.

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walterfrodriguez · 5 years ago

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South Florida’s top real estate news of 2019

(Credit: Getty Images)

South Florida’s place in the real estate big leagues was cemented in 2019, as uber-wealthy hedge funders and other investors from high-tax states poured millions of dollars into luxury properties. Palm Beach gleaned many of the benefits, with sky-high record sales.

At the same time, major players from New York, the Kushners and Michael Shvo — set their sights on South Florida, with big development plans.

The year also saw a few major milestones for big local projects. Condo towers underway for years, including Paramount Miami Worldcenter, Brickell Flatiron, Residences by Armani/Casa and Ritz-Carlton Residences in Miami Beach, were completed. Magic City was approved. And developers caught on to the short-term rental craze, with several launching plans for mid-priced condos that can be rented by the day.

Opportunity Zones continued to be top of mind for investors. And in breakup news, sister-and-brother Jackie Soffer and Jeffrey Soffer divided up their business.

Here is a sampling of the top real estate news of 2019.

SALT tax refugees Fleeing state income taxes and new limits on deductions, deep-pocketed investors continued to sink their cash into ultra-luxury homes and condos in South Florida. In Miami Beach, nine single-family homes priced at more than $5 million, each, sold for a combined $120 million in the first quarter, alone, according to The Real Deal’s analysis of multiple listing service data.

Palm Beach is hot In Palm Beach two homes sold for about $105 million, setting all-time records. Billionaire hedge funder Steven Schonfeld and his wife Brooke closed on a 10-bedroom waterfront estate for $105 million in December, six months after the estate of the late Broadway producer Terry Allen Kramer sold her sprawling Palm Beach home for $104.99 million. In September, billionaire hedge funder Ken Griffin bought the 18,452-square-foot Palm Beach mansion of billionaire and real estate investor Frank McCourt for $99.1 million.

Kushner and Shvo head south

Charles Kushner

Entering South Florida for the first time, New York-based Kushner Companies rolled out plans to build three major apartment projects in South Florida that will create a total of 3,000 units at a cost topping $1 billion.

And New York developer Michael Shvo and his partners, Bilgili Holdings and Deutsche Finance America, bought three neighboring hotels on Collins Avenue in South Beach, with plans for a 200-foot-tall residential project. In February, they bought the Raleigh Hotel for $103 million from Tommy Hilfiger and the Dogus Group. In August, they closed on two adjacent properties, paying $87.85 million for the Richmond Hotel and $52 million for the South Seas. In all, Shvo and his partners paid $242.85 million for the three hotels.

Luxury condo towers completed Major condo towers opened their doors to residents this year, capping years of construction. They included Dan Kodsi’s Paramount Miami Worldcenter and Ugo Colombo’s CMC Group’s Brickell Flatiron, both in Miami; Lionheart Capital and Elliott Management Corp.’s Ritz-Carlton Residences, Miami Beach; Dezer Development, the Related Group and Armani Group’s Residences by Armani/Casa in Sunny Isles Beach; and The Bristol in West Palm Beach.

Magic City approved After five public hearings where strong opposition was voiced, the Miami City Commission in June approved the Magic City Innovation District, a $1 billion mixed-use project in Little Haiti. Magic City is planned to have a 30,000-square-foot studio, a 15,000-square-foot innovation center for start-ups and co-working tenants, retail spaces, and 2,670 apartments in buildings up to 25 stories tall. The project’s development group now includes Neil Fairman’s Plaza Equity Partners, Cirque du Soleil partner Guy Laliberte, Metro 1’s Tony Cho, and New York developer Zachary Vella.

More condo buildings offer short-term rental option

From left: Santiago Vanegas, Harvey Hernandez, David Arditi, and Russell Galbut

Amid the ongoing slowdown in luxury condo sales, some developers are choosing to build a new product type: more affordable units that buyers can rent out however and whenever they want. The projects are mostly clustered in downtown Miami and Brickell, with prices in the $300,000 range and up – a sharp contrast to the glut of $1 million-and-up condos on the market in Miami. Among them: Smart Brickell, by Habitat Group; YotePad by Aria Development Group and AQARAT; Natiivo, by NGD Homesharing; and an as-yet unnamed project by the Related Group and ROVR Development.

Opportunity Zones make progress

Steven Mnuchin and a map of Opportunity Zones (Credit: Getty Images and Enterprise Community Partners)

The federal government released its long-awaited and latest set of Opportunity Zone regulations in April, spurring investors to begin developing projects in distressed areas nationwide, including in South Florida.

Real estate developers are seeking to raise funds into the billions of dollars for the investment. The federal program gives developers and investors the ability to defer or potentially forgo paying capital gains taxes if they invest in a designated Opportunity Zone.

The Soffers split

Jackie Soffer and Jeffrey Soffer

After 25 years of joint ownership of the family real estate development company, Turnberry Associates, siblings, co-CEOs and co-chairmen Jackie and Jeffrey Soffer split up in March to pursue individual projects.

Jackie Soffer retained the Turnberry Associates brand as CEO and chairman, and is the principal owner of Aventura Mall and Town Center Aventura. She is also continuing to develop the 800-key hotel connected to the Miami Beach Convention Center with Terra’s David Martin, and owns various select-service hotels in Florida, among other projects. Jeffrey Soffer now heads a separate company, Aventura-based Fontainebleau Development. He owns the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, as well as the JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort & Spa and Turnberry Ocean Club Residences, and is pursuing other projects.

The post South Florida’s top real estate news of 2019 appeared first on The Real Deal Miami.

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continuumsouthbeachexpert · 6 years ago

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Continuum South Beach is One of The Best Miami Beach Condos for Tax Refugees

Making a Move to Miami? | The Best Miami Beach Condos For Sale in 2019

Many high-net-worth individuals are leaving the high-tax states behind them and make a move to Miami. As we have dealt with many relocating families we have grown to understand that condos are equally desired as single family homes. Many of those who come and settle in Miami, are global nomads with a mobile and international lifestyle. For this demographic condos are a great option as you can lock them up and leave without worrying. Many individuals who move from NYC to Miami also prefer a condo over a single family home.

Therefore The David Siddons Group selected 10 condos on the beach (Miami Beach, Bal Harbour, Surfside and Sunny Isles Beach), that are perfect for those who appreciate spacious floor plans, ocean views, 5 star services, and privacy. All of these condos are located on oceanfront parcels and are listed in no specific order.

Eighty Seven Park, Miami Beach

87 Park is located in Miami Beach, just meters away from Surfside in a less touristic and more private part of Miami Beach. This condo by architect Renzo Piano offers only 17 floors and to the south of the building there is a large park. The 70 units range from 1 to 5+ bedrooms and from 1,000 SF to 4,140 SF+ of interior space. Generous wrap-around terraces (Almost all the terraces are 60% to 90% the size of the interior space) create a seamless transition from indoor to outdoor spaces. This is the only building on the Beach that offers water views (The ocean in the east and the intracoastal in the west) as well as views over a park. The location of the park is providing this condo with a 270 degree panoramic view avoiding side views into other buildings. The 02 line is the best line in the building, although this is completely sold out at the moment (Many buyers in the building have bought combined units and included this line). As with most of Miami’s prime buildings, Eighty Seven Park offers a high level of finishes, including high quality kitchens and flooring (the units come finished), 10 ft ceilings and extremely large terraces. The building starts selling at $2.15M for smaller 1 bedroom units and is expected to be delivered by the end of 2019. Saving the best for last, the Eighty Seven Park penthouse is now listed for $68 Million.

Search directly for Eighty Seven Park Units for Sale

Fendi Chateau Residences, Surfside

The condo by the Chateau Group has the Fendi logo and branding. A great project with a genuine high feel of quality with units ranging from 3,325 SF to 7,500 SF. This is not a temporary project, where the shine comes off after a few months. The best line is the 01 line, which is a large (5,000 SF+) corner unit. As you go up, the building gets more narrow and therefore the floor plans change slightly. The 06 Line is also a good line to consider, which is the corner unit at the other side of the building. Prices at this condo range between $5.5M and $20M.

Search Directly for Fendi Chateau Residences for Sale

Palazzo della Luna, Fisher Island

Palazzo della Luna is the latest brand new development on ultra-private and luxurious Fisher Island. The condo offers 10 stories with 50 residences that range from 3 to 7 bedroom and 3,724 SF to 10,194 SF of interior. All units come with expansive terraces ranging between 752 and 9,315 SF. The floor plans at Palazzo della Luna are contemporary and spacious and units offer panoramic water, city and island views with deep terraces offering porcelain flooring. Palazzo della Luna is truly high-end living in the US’ most expensive zip code and in Miami’s most exclusive island community. Price Range: $6.5 – 40 million

Search directly for Palazzo della Luna Units for Sale

Sales Prices are taken over 2018 and 2019

Eighty Seven Park and Palazzo della Luna are Pre-construction condos at the time of publishing this blog and prices indicated here are listing prices!

Oceana Bal Harbour, Bal Harbour

Oceana Bal Harbour offers two condo towers with 240 units that range in size from 1,285 SF to 5,300 SF+. Prices at Oceana range between $2.7M and $15M. Bal Harbour is a beach town and mostly known for the Bal Harbour Shops. A great place to live. The best lines here are the 01 lines in the South and the North Tower; both are large corner residences. Amenities and residences include, but are not limited to a large relaxation pool, olympic-style lap pool, two oceanfront jetted spas, full poolside restaurant (Bar & Grill), fitness center with ocean view, yoga/meditation/pilates area, two tennis courts, a World-class spa, chef’s kitchen & bar within salon and a private climate control wine locker

Search directly for Oceana Bal Harbour Units for Sale

Faena House, Miami Beach

Faena House in Miami Beach is a 47 units counting ultra-luxury condo that is located in the desired “Faena District“. Units at Faena House range from 1,185 SF to 12,500 SF+. It has balconies that can be used like Brazilian verandas, connecting the various spaces in your condo. These deep wrap-around balconies (4′ to 37′ depth) are called aleros that feel like rooms really and are interconnected, sort of doubling as hallways.

Sometimes referred to as the ‘Billionaire Beach Bunker’, because of its attraction to Wall Street’s wealthiest, this already iconic condo offers a prime beachfront location, outstanding architecture and all the amenities desired by today’s super-rich which match the modern-day Miami Beach lifestyle such as a pool, fitness center, spa, children’s room and attended private residential Beach Club (with cabana service)

The best lines (besides the Penthouses) are the A and the B lines (Floor 4-13), which are expansive units with superb water views. Units trade between $2M and $60M, which was paid for Penthouse B.

Search directly for Faena House Units for Sale

Miami Beach Waterfront Mansions for Sale

Wealthy Individuals or families that move to Miami are often looking for Miami waterfront mansions. We selected the best waterfront communities in Miami Beach

The Best Waterfront Communities on Miami Beach

The Mansions at Acqualina, Sunny Isles Beach

The mansions at Acqualina offer 79 residences over 47 floors. The residences are expansive 3,4 and 5 bedrooms starting from 4,609 Sq.Ft up to 10,000 SF+ and they come with terraces ranging from 461 till 3,000 SF+. Some floor plans offer two floors of living experience. All Mansions at Acqualina luxury condominium residences and penthouse homes feature “flow-through” floor plans with terraces and room views to the east and west, for morning sunrise over the ocean views and golden sunset views over the Intracoastal Waterway each and every day from your oceanfront condominium home. Interiors are designed by Fendi Casa and include high-end imported appliances, fixtures, cabinetry and flooring. Some of the larger units include a private spa, pool, butler room, theater room and/or a grand salon.

Amenities and services include: a glamorous movie theatre and media center, a grand room exclusively for homeowners, a fitness center, a children’s center, virtual golf, poolside private cabanas, fire pit, reflecting pool, adog park and a Hammam ultra-luxurious spa for the ultimate indulgences. Prices range between $4.45M and $17M

Search directly for Mansions at Acqualina Units for Sale

Regalia in Sunny Isles Beach

Regalia is a 47-floor tower offering just 39 units, with only one residence per floor. Most units offer 5,515 SF, with the smallest unit offering 4,992 SF and Penthouses providing for an incredible 10,755 SF of living space. All units have wrap-around terraces of 2,100 SF+ and of course 360 degree views! The11-foot deep terraces surrounding the residence on four sides allows light to permeate to the center of the home. Numerous wet walls within each unit allow for limitless floor plan arrangements by bringing plumbing to any place one wishes. The terraces also come with summer kitchen barbeque opening to terrace. Regalia offers very large master suites overlooking the ocean and beach and providing for a 240 SF. oceanfront balcony.

Services and amenities are flawless with 5 Star international concierge services and building services like a custom designed and branded security system with high-tech access control, Private poolside cabanas equipped with refrigerator and sink, Private beach and poolside service, State of the art fitness center, Yoga/meditation room, a professionally trained spa manager and so much more.

Regalia units sell between $5.5M and $11M

Search directly for Regalia Units for Sale

Jade Signature in Sunny Isles Beach

Jade Signature was delivered in 2016, offering 192 units (From 1 to 5 bedrooms + PH’s) plus 6 Signature Guest Suites in a 57-floor tower. While there are smaller units ranging between 1,000 and 2,000 SF, most units offer expansive 3,500SF+ floor plans all the way up till 10,000SF+. The best floor plans are the 01 and the 05 lines, which are the corner residences. All units come with private elevators and terraces are expansive, designed for outdoor living (comprising 30% of total livable space). Lots of studies have been done to make this truly a one-of-a-kind building. For example, there are no pillars within the units, all pillars can be found only on the balconies and the architects created all rounded features to create a certain flow within the unit. Also the building is built in such a way that is optimizes the hours of sun per day. Finally the flow from the living room to the balcony is not obstructed by any thresholds, the architects tried to minimize thresholds so the living room and balcony become one. Jewelry glass has been used for the balcony windows in order to avoid sun reflection and to enhance the residents’ view over the ocean. The larger 3,4 and 5 bedrooms come with service / staff quarters with full bathroom. Services and amenities include (but not limited to) two pools, a health and wellness center with a co-ed hammam, a library, business center and conference rooms, private beach club amenities, a private restaurant at beach level and a “man cave” Sales prices range between $3.75M and $18.5M.

Search directly for Jade Signature Units for Sale

Continuum on South of Fifth

The resort-style complex offers 521 units divided over the North and the South Tower. Continuum provides for a unique living experience, because of its ideal location on the most southern point of South of Fifth. It enjoys spectacular water views and offers many very large units (3,500SF+), which is desired with buyers. The Continuum condo is known for amazing amenities and first class services. All units are accessed by private or semi private elevator foyers. The north tower opened its doors in 2008, while the south tower has been open since 2002. For the South Tower, the best lines are the large corner units overlooking the government cut and the Atlantic Ocean, which are lines: 06 (Floors 5-21), Line 05 (Floors 22-29) and Line 04 (Floors 30-39). The best line in the North Tower is either the 01 or the 02 line above the 22nd floor. Both are expansive, corner units with superb water views. Continuum units start selling just below the $1M mark, for smaller, low floor units without any spectacular views and go all the way up till opulent $27.5M units.

Search directly for Continuum South Beach Units for Sale

Apogee, South of Fifth

This boutique condo offers 22 stories and 68 residences and is ideally located on the most Southern Point of South of Fifth offering excellent water views. With only four residences per floor this condo is considered a perfect condo for privacy. All residences (there are only three floor plans available apart from the Penthouses) are extremely spacious with either 2,756 SF, 3103 SF or 4145 SF. The penthouses measure 6,853 SF – 8,271 SF. All units at Apogee offer flow-through design to give each unit both a water view and a city view. Units are accessed via private elevators. Other features that make this condo extremely desirable are the extra large balconies and the concierge level services. Units at Apogee are selling between $7M and $15M. The corner lines 01 and 04 are the largest and most desirable floor plans.

Search directly for Apogee Units for Sale

Contact David Siddons for more information about Continuum on South Beach, moving to Miami or luxury condos in Miami.

David Siddons | [email protected] | +1.305.508.0899

David Siddons is a luxury real estate agent and consultant with nearly $100M in yearly sales. He is known as a market analyst and has been quoted by Bloomberg, Miami Herald, the Real Deal and CNBC. David is the author of several of Miami’s most influential real estate reports and forecasts!

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nebris · 6 years ago

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Report: Prepare for the Climatic Collapse of Civilization

Two authoritative Australian experts, backed up by a retired admiral of the Royal Australian Navy, recently issued a dire report that warns of an impending collapse of civilization from human-caused climate change. The report, titled “Existential climate-related security risk:

A scenario approach,” is not the product of alarmists, but of two authors with expertise in their professional areas. Only one of the authors is an environmental expert. He is David Spratt, a Research Director at the Australian National Center for Climate Restoration in Melbourne. The other, Ian Dunlop. Is an unlikely harbinger of environmental doom. Dunlop comes out of the executive ranks of the coal, oil, and gas industries – the usual opponents of climate science. Dunlop is a member of the Club of Rome and the former chairman of the Australian Coal Association, not places where one would normally discover climate change proponents.

Backing up the authors is retired Admiral Chris Barrie, the Chief of the Australian Defense Force from 1998 to 2002. It is no longer unusual to find military services warning about the impending catastrophic effects of climate change. In January 2019, the US Department of Defense’s

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment issued a report to the US Congress, “Report on Effects of a Changing Climate to the Department of Defense,” without the usual fanfare accompanying such an alarming finding. The Pentagon report, which forecasts US military bases susceptible to recurrent flooding, drought, desertification, wildfires, and thawing permafrost, was introduced in a low-key fashion due to the anti-science dogma of Donald Trump and key members of his administration. The Pentagon’s study sees 79 military bases to suffer from the effects of climate change. They include bases in Virginia, California, New Mexico, Utah, Florida, Colorado, Washington DC, Alaska, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, Hawaii, Guam, and even the National Security Agency (NSA) complex in Maryland and the Pentagon building, itself, in Virginia.

Although the Pentagon report avoided the global aspects of climate change, the Australian report was stark in its predictions for the immediate future. British author Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel about a post-nuclear war planet, titled “On the Beach,” which was followed by a 1959 film by the same title and produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, saw Australia as the last holdout on the planet from deadly radiation. Eventually, the radiation from the northern hemisphere crept southward, eventually eradicating the last human life in Australia. Many Australians prepare for the inevitable end by committing mass suicide in a national euthanasia program. The picture painted by the recent Australian climate impact report presents an opposite scenario from “On the Beach,” one that points to Australia being among the first regions to succumb to civilization collapse from climate change.

Admiral Barrie presents an “On the Beach” scenario in his foreword to the climate change report: “In Australia recently we have seen and heard signals about the growing realization of the seriousness of our plight. For example, young women speak of their decisions to not have children, and climate scientists admitting to depression as they consider the ‘inevitable’ nature of a doomsday future and turn towards thinking more about family and relocation to ‘safer’ places, rather than working on more research.”

The Australian report’s conclusions are sobering. It states: “Climate change now represents a near-to mid-term existential threat to human civilization.” Predicting the advent of a “hothouse Earth” by 2050, the report’s authors foresee devastating weather extremes, including wildfires, heatwaves, drought, and massive flooding. The loss of the Asian monsoons, glacial and polar ice, slowing of the Atlantic Gulf Stream, and collapse of the Amazon and other eco-systems will result in massive population shifts. The report states that such conditions will result in “outright chaos” and the “end of human civilization and modern society as we have known it.”

Although the report calls for a “Marshall Plan” on a national security level to immediately deal with the threat of civilization collapse, we have seen critically important nations elect political buffoons, all climate change deniers, to their leadership. These include Mr. Trump in Washington; Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who disregards climate science and plans to massively develop the Amazon Basin, known as the “lungs of the planet;” Argentine President Mauricio Macri; and Australia’s recently- reelected Prime Minister Scott Morrison; with the possibility that either “Mr. Brexit,” Nigel Farage, or climate change erratic skeptic Boris Johnson ending up as British prime minister.

It is the collapse of food production that spells the onset of civilization collapse, according to the Australian report. The disruption of the human food supply will be brought about by heat waves, floods, storms, and the decline in beneficial insect populations. Food and water shortages will lead to social upheaval on a scale virtually unknown in modern times. Oceanic flooding of some of the world’s agriculturally-important river deltas – including, the Mekong, Ganges and Nile – will result in massive population movement to areas where there is food and clean water. Seawater inundation will also make major cities uninhabitable and Chennai, Mumbai, Jakarta, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Shanghai, Lagos, Bangkok, and Manila will be abandoned. Even entire countries, like Bangladesh and small island-states, will lie empty.

The starkest prediction in the Australian report predicts that “even for 2°C of warming, more than a billion people may need to be relocated and In high-end scenarios, the scale of destruction is beyond our capacity to model, with a high likelihood of human civilization coming to an end.” The report points to the beginnings of climatic collapse with the current loss of Arctic sea-ice, the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Shelf and Greenland and Himalayan Ice Sheets, and global destruction of and coral reefs.

With limited human life-sustainable resources available, the Australian report foresees wars on an unimaginable scale and the breakdown of political and social order the lead-in to civilization collapse. The report states: “The flooding of coastal communities around the world, especially in the Netherlands, the United States, South Asia, and China, has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities. Armed conflict between nations over resources, such as the Nile and its tributaries, is likely and nuclear war is possible.” These scenarios are already beginning to play out, as Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia are already bickering over Ethiopia’s dam on the Blue Nile. The Nile is the lifeblood of Sudan and Egypt. For example, staking a newly-emergent claim for regional identity are the people of the Volta region of Ghana, who see the central government draining their water resources with the Akosombo Dam on the Volta river. Restive inhabitants of Argentina’s Patagonia region complain about foreign billionaires buying up property in their pristine homeland for the purpose of re-locating Jewish climate refugees from Israel, the United States, and Europe. Other emerging eco-separatist “go-it-alone” movements are springing up in Australia’s island state of Tasmania, the US state of Vermont, the Canadian region of Labrador, and the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda.

The breakdown of social order will see an increase in the kidnapping of foreign tourists in countries for the payment of ransom, piracy on the high seas, looting of stores and warehouses, bank robberies, and other law-breaking activities by people desperate to provide food and clean water for their families.

The authors of the Australian report believe that mid-21st century is the “point of no return” for Earth’s climate. However, other scientists believe that we have already reached that point with extreme weather already resulting in massive crop losses and flooding now routine in Miami, Houston, Venice, Dhaka, and other major cities.

Report after report warning of the disastrous consequences of climate change are not coming from environmental activist groups, but from the intelligence, national security, and defense sectors. In November 2018, the Trump White House issued the Fourth National Climate Assessment, based on the research of 300 scientists and 13 federal agencies, including the Defense Department. The report concluded that climate change now poses a direct threat to human life, ecosystems and the US economy. Trump dismissed his administration’s own report. In January of this year, the US Intelligence Community’s annual Worldwide Threat Assessment concluded that environmental degradation will “fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond.” And recently, the White House blocked the testimony before Congress of a State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research expert who planned to warn of the immediate effects of rising sea levels and ocean acidification. The blocking came as Trump dismissed the climate change warnings of Britain’s Prince Charles after their meeting in London.

The only humor that can be found amid all the dire and depressing warnings about impending societal collapse is the fact that among the first victims of rising sea levels will be Trump’s billionaires’ club estate at Mar-a-Lago, located on the barrier island of Palm Beach on Florida’s Atlantic coast. Currently, king tide effects are causing some sewage and septic tank systems on the island to fail. The steady rise in sea levels means that within the next ten to fifteen years, Mr. Trump’s vacation Shangri-La will be inundated with sea water and raw sewage. For Trump, who withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, it will be a fitting end for his seaside playground.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/06/13/report-prepare-for-the-climatic-collapse-of-civilization/

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juditmiltz · 6 years ago

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A wild ride: South Florida’s top real estate news of 2018

From left: The Jills, Jeff Bezos, Kevin Tomlinson, and David Beckham. (Credit: Getty Images)

It was a tumultuous year for South Florida real estate, which began on an upbeat note when Miami was shortlisted in January in the competition for Amazon’s second headquarters.

While Amazon went another direction — north to New York and Virginia — local voters did approve the David Beckham-led bid to build an Major League Soccer stadium and complex at Melreese Country Club.

The collapse of the Florida International University bridge in March, which killed six people, was a low-point, and prompted a federal investigation that is ongoing.

Meanwhile, former broker Kevin Tomlinson went on trial, accused of extorting Coldwell Banker star brokers “The Jills.” The case, which gained national attention, exposed an industry-wide secret: rampant manipulation of the Multiple Listing Service.

In perhaps the biggest scandal of the year, federal prosecutors in July filed charges against eight defendants tied to a $1 billion Venezuelan money laundering scheme allegedly using South Florida residential real estate. More charges and guilty pleas have followed.

All the while, demand for luxury homes skyrocketed from tax refugees — ultra-wealthy residents of states with income taxes.

And in national news that touched South Florida, the federal Opportunity Zones program that provides tax incentives to developers who pour money into underserved neighborhoods sent investors scrambling to take advantage.

Read on for a look at some of the biggest stories to drop in 2018.

Amazon’s HQ2:

Miami and South Florida made it to the shortlist of 20 sites Amazon announced in January for its second headquarters, dangling the possibility of constructing 500,000 square feet of office space by 2019, and about 8 million square feet of space by its planned completion in 2027, while creating 50,000 new jobs.

South Florida’s bid offered eight sites: five in Miami-Dade, two in Broward County and one in Palm Beach County. The list included three locations in and around Overtown, including the Miami Worldcenter site, as well as Downtown Doral in Doral.

As the months dragged on, South Florida eventually lost the race, as Amazon announced in November that it would split its two new headquarters between Long Island City and Crystal City. And in a last-minute surprise, the company also revealed it will be opening a “regional hub” in downtown Nashville.

FIU bridge collapse:

March 15 was a tragic day in Miami, when the Florida International University pedestrian bridge under construction on Southwest Eighth Street collapsed, crushing cars and leading to the deaths of six people.

Munilla Construction Management, a prominent, Cuban-American, family owned construction business built the 289-foot-long bridge, and FIGG Bridge Engineers designed the pedestrian bridge.

In November, federal highway investigators said that designers miscalculated the load-bearing strength of the north end of the pedestrian bridge. The design errors were consistent with cracks in the FIU bridge before it collapsed, investigators said. However, the National Transportation Safety Board has not cited those design errors as the cause of the bridge collapse, and its investigation of the catastrophe is expected to continue into next year.

Kevin Tomlinson’s trial:

Former real estate agent Kevin Tomlinson was sentenced at the end of August to an extended period of probation and was banned from the industry for extorting Coldwell Banker’s the Jills and threatening to expose them for manipulation of home sales data.

Tomlinson, who faced up to 30 years in prison, was convicted by a jury in June on two counts of extortion for his demand that Jill Eber and Jill Hertzberg pay $800,000 in exchange for his silence.

It all began in 2015, when, after four months of digging through the Jills team’s listings, Tomlinson filed a complaint with the Miami Association of Realtors. He detailed 51 listings the Jills manipulated a total of 552 times between 2011 and 2015. Tomlinson said the combined value of those properties totaled more than $372 million, and that the Jills erased nearly 23,740 days on market from those listings in an effort to make the real estate more attractive to potential buyers.

When Tomlinson confronted the Jills, they went to the police and eventually recorded conversations in which he demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep quiet.

In March 2016, the Miami Association of Realtors implemented a new fine structure for agents manipulating the MLS. For every violation, members are now required to pay $5,000.

Venezuelan money laundering:

Alejandro Andrade, a former national treasurer of Venezuela, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in November for his role in a $1 billion money laundering scheme in which much of the money allegedly went into South Florida real estate.

Andrade had admitted in a guilty plea that he received over $1 billion worth of bribes from his co-conspirator, Venezuelan TV mogul Raul Gorrín, and other co-conspirators. In exchange, he allowed them to tap into Venezuela’s special fixed currency exchange rate, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The fixed rate is much more favorable than the market rate.

Federal prosecutors said Andrade received cash as well as private jets, yachts, cars, homes, champion horses, and high-end watches from his co-conspirators. As part of his guilty plea, he agreed to forfeit his assets, which included five real estate properties in Wellington, Delray Beach and Palm Beach.

Authorities are also seeking to seize about two-dozen properties allegedly tied to Gorrín. Those residences include luxury homes in Miami’s Cocoplum neighborhood and six in Manhattan.

In a separate billion-dollar money laundering scheme, federal prosecutors in July charged eight people in an alleged scheme in which top Venezuelan officials siphoned funds out of the state oil company, and into assets throughout the world.

In both cases, some of the money is alleged to have been poured into two units at Dezer Development’s luxury Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach.

South Florida as a tax haven:

All year, ultra-wealthy out-of-state buyers have been flocking to South Florida, scooping up multimillion-dollar homes and condos with plans to establish residency in order to avoid shelling out money to the government as a result of last year’s tax reform.

The out-of-staters are largely top-earning hedge funders, real estate bigwigs, big-time entrepreneurs and CEOs from states such as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California and Illinois — places with state income taxes as high as 13.3 percent, and even city taxes in the case of New York City. Florida, on the other hand, has no state income tax.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed in December 2017, limited the ability of taxpayers to deduct state and local taxes (SALT) from their federal taxable income in 2018, leading to the surge of interest in Florida.

David Beckham’s group’s MLS soccer stadium complex:

In November, city of Miami voters gave David Beckham and his partners the green light to move forward with their plans to bring a Major League Soccer stadium and an ambitious mixed-use project to Miami.

Called Freedom Park, the complex could include a 25,000-square-foot soccer stadium as well as more than 1 million square feet of retail and office space and about 750 hotel rooms on a site that is now home to Melreese County Club, a public golf course. In total, the development is valued at $1 billion and will be built on 73 acres out of the 131-acre country club.

The city still has to negotiate a 99-year lease with the group, led by the soccer superstar, along with Jorge and Jose Mas, Sprint’s Marcelo Claure and Softbank’s Masayoshi Son. Once negotiations are complete, four out of five Miami commissioners will have to give final approval to the lease.

Still to be determined is exactly what the owners will pay for the development site. The Beckham group previously said it would pay an annual rent of at least $3.6 million — or fair market value as determined by two independent appraisals — plus $20 million to fund the park’s construction, paid in annual installments of $666,667 for 30 years. The city ordered appraisals for the 131-acre site by CBRE and Joseph J. Blake.

Also key are the costs associated with the environmental remediation of the site, which includes dealing with coal ash buried underneath the golf course. The Beckham group has previously said it would be responsible for paying up to $35 million for these costs.

Opportunity Zones:

In October, the federal government issued expanded guidelines for the Opportunity Zones program, which was part of the Trump administration’s December 2017 tax overhaul. It provides tax deferments and breaks for developers who invest in projects in designated low-income neighborhoods across the country.

There are 8,700 communities that have been designated as Opportunity Zones nationwide, including 67 in Miami-Dade County. Many large investors have already started setting up funds to invest in Opportunity Zones.

from The Real Deal Miami https://therealdeal.com/miami/2018/12/31/a-wild-ride-south-floridas-top-real-estate-news-of-2018/ via IFTTT

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nicolesrollins · 6 years ago

Text

A wild ride: South Florida’s top real estate news of 2018

From left: The Jills, Jeff Bezos, Kevin Tomlinson, and David Beckham. (Credit: Getty Images)

It was a tumultuous year for South Florida real estate, which began on an upbeat note when Miami was shortlisted in January in the competition for Amazon’s second headquarters.

The collapse of the Florida International University bridge in March, which killed six people, was a low-point, and prompted a federal investigation that is ongoing.

All the while, demand for luxury homes skyrocketed from tax refugees — ultra-wealthy residents of states with income taxes.

Read on for a look at some of the biggest stories to drop in 2018.

Amazon’s HQ2:

FIU bridge collapse:

Munilla Construction Management, a prominent, Cuban-American, family owned construction business built the 289-foot-long bridge, and FIGG Bridge Engineers designed the pedestrian bridge.

Kevin Tomlinson’s trial:

Tomlinson, who faced up to 30 years in prison, was convicted by a jury in June on two counts of extortion for his demand that Jill Eber and Jill Hertzberg pay $800,000 in exchange for his silence.

When Tomlinson confronted the Jills, they went to the police and eventually recorded conversations in which he demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep quiet.

In March 2016, the Miami Association of Realtors implemented a new fine structure for agents manipulating the MLS. For every violation, members are now required to pay $5,000.

Venezuelan money laundering:

Authorities are also seeking to seize about two-dozen properties allegedly tied to Gorrín. Those residences include luxury homes in Miami’s Cocoplum neighborhood and six in Manhattan.

In both cases, some of the money is alleged to have been poured into two units at Dezer Development’s luxury Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach.

South Florida as a tax haven:

David Beckham’s group’s MLS soccer stadium complex:

Opportunity Zones:

from The Real Deal Miami & Real Estate News News | & Curbed Miami - All https://therealdeal.com/miami/2018/12/31/a-wild-ride-south-floridas-top-real-estate-news-of-2018/ via IFTTT

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