March Brunch – “Los Tres Amigos” – 2019

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In what has become an annual event, the March meeting of the RCNPB featured “Los Tres Amigos”. This year’s lineup consisted of Palm Beach Gardens Councilman Matthew Lane, CD21 likely candidate Christian Acosta, and the perennial favorite, former PBCGOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein. Florida Representative Rick Roth also made an appearance.

Matt Lane, who took this opportunity to announce his bid for re-election next March, described his view of the responsibilities of a city official. First up is public safety and security, and the Gardens is now providing city police resources to patrol the local schools. With increased demands following the Parkland shootings, the School system was grateful to accept the help and is paying the city for the effort. After the Pittsburg synagogue shootings, the city is also stepping up security activities surrounding the Jewish centers around Hood Road.

Other priorities include fiscal restraint with the public purse and transparency of government operations. As we have witnessed on multiple occasions, Matt will frequently pull large dollar items from the consent agenda for public discussion, particularly when it is not clear that an open bidding process was used. In Matt’s view, understanding the way contracts are adopted is the way to keep tabs on public spending.

Lastly he mentioned term limits, pointing our that he was the lone vote against placing the ballot questions in 2018 that sought to weaken the charter provisions that had only recently passed. Fortunately, the voters soundly rejected this attempt and the 2 terms of 3 years is still in effect.

The second amigo to speak was Christian Acosta who has announced his exploratory quest to unseat CD21 Congresswoman Lois Frankel in 2020. This D+17 seat was uncontested in 2018, allowing the incumbent to remain in office without campaigning for the privilege. Stretching along the coast from Singer Island through Delray Beach and encompassing most of the county south of Southern Boulevard, including Wellington, it deserves a Republican challenger.

Christian is a resident of Boynton Beach and teaches Electric Power Engineering at Palm Beach State. A nuclear engineer and Pittsburg transplant, Christian has been making the rounds of the Republican clubs and plans to introduce himself at the Trump-45 Club next month. He claims that he is no relation to that “other Acosta” who is known for his rude behavior in the White House press corps.

Although not billed as one of the “tres amigos”, FH85 Representative Rick Roth spoke briefly about some bills of interest that are moving through Tallahassee. The Republican controlled legislature did not always work smoothly with Rick Scott, but so far they are in a honeymoon period with Rick DeSantis. The allowance for smokable medical marijuana is moving through the process at the Governor’s request, and they appear willing to embrace his initiatives in education, the environment and water policy, and health care reform. The Legislature also may be able to place a ballot question next year that would end the constitutional revision commissions that work their mischief every 20 years. The onerous multiple-issue questions that last year’s commission placed on the ballot may have been enough to spur action.

Keynoting the meeting was Sid Dinerstein. With a couple of pages of handwritten notes, he took the audience on a tour of all the hopeful things that have happened since the last election, and why the loss of the House was a two edged sword.

Arguing that following the 2016 election (which was a peak year for the GOP), we are now in a sweet spot, Sid explained that yes, the Democrats run the House, but the GOP didn’t do much with their majority when they were in charge. This led to the shutdown which we lost, because to win you need to have the media on your side. Consider that a “bottom”.

The Democrats can always be counted on to overplay their hand. For example, by delaying the State of the Union for a week, Pelosi didn’t realize that she moved it just past the greatest jobs report ever, completely strengthening the President’s hand. Putting on a great show, which was a masterfully done tribute to America, Trump was able to “hold the cross up to the vampires” by declaring “America will never be a Socialist Nation!”. Thus begins the 2020 campaign.

One of the President’s most valuable skills is to get his enemies to actually tell the truth.

In the past few months we have seen them reveal what they really think:

– How great is Venuzuela
– How they will not rebuke their anti-semites – Farrakhan, Sharpton, Omar
– How abortion is not enough – we need nothing less than infanticide
– That their signature transportaion project – the California “train to nowhere” is a failure
– How they will not deal with their three “friends in Virginia”
– Jesse Smollett
– Green new deal (“kill all the cows”) – is outlawing volcanos next?
– We don’t want your stinking jobs (Amazon in NY)
– Dem PACs pulling out of Ohio
– Reuters sitting on the Beto hacking story

Making the case that Trump will likely win 44 states, Sid ended on a note of optimism. Hugging the flag at the beginning of the CPAC speech says it all – that is the entire campaign.