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THE RPOF LAVENDER POLITICAL OPERATOR ANTHONY PEDICINI
I am Jon Susce the Publisher of Sarasota Phoenix Media Inc. We are currently being sued by political operative Anthony Pedicini, who the Florida Trident states "regularly employ deception, such as false allegations or fake support from ideological enemies, to mislead voters". Pedicini is using the legal system with "lawfare" tactics to damage or delegitimize Jon Susce and the Sarasota Phoenix. In using lawfare tactics, Pedicini has access to the $ millions from Pedicini's dark and dirty PACs and LLCs funneled in and from the Florida Republican establishment centered in Tallahassee. Mr. Susce and the Sarasota Phoenix need funds to continue to take on the likes of Pedicini and this lawfare lawsuit. Fundraiser for Jon Susce by Concerned Citizen : Support Local News against "Lawfavre"
GRUTERS DARES DeSANTIS NOT TO SELECT HIM CFO AND DEFY TRUMP
It was a crowning moment last week in the New College’s Sainer Auditorium for State Senator Joe Gruters. Long derided by Tallahassee’s ‘in-crowd’ of the state’s political establishment, Gruters had led the charge of San Juan Hill in January to spit in his fellow Republican governor’s eye, ignoring Ron DeSantis’ demands for his immigration law, and rallying an internecine revolt the likes no one would have said was possible just 12 months prior, when Desantis was on top of the world and magazine covers as the new standard bearer for MAGA conservatism nationally.
The lost 21st century Camelot
Denuded, defanged, and declawed by Donald Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, DeSantis spent all of the summer and fall gazing at his navel and wife, exploring how the 21st Century Camelot GOP Kennedy couple could reengineer a run at political relevancy and road to the White House.
Like the one trick pony that GOP candidates have ridden on for the past 16 years, DeSantis would hitch his and Casey Desantis’ broken saddles to President Trump’s hallmark anti-immigrant orientation. DeSsantis calculated that his gambit would be unassailable – Trump couldn’t question or oppose it, and it would catapult him, his wife and Florida back into the headlines and favor of all of the MAGA world.
Unfortunately, something happened on the way to the Forum, er State’s largest phallic symbol – our beloved Capitol halls, and DeSantis’ call for a special session on immigration immediately prior to the start of the 2025 Legislative Session – was met with all of Senator Brutus Gruters’ daggers and knives.
Ignoring the Governor, Gruters crafted his own immigration bill and brought nearly all of the GOP House and Senate with him. DeSantis and his minions threw a social media hissy fit deriding their GOP Senators as “The Amnesty Caucus”. Gruters and gang stood firm, if not openly pushed back, making fun of the impotent princeling, passing their bill with impunity.
Donalds
Trump made a similarly bold and unprecedented move days later that was in no way coincidental, endorsing Ft. Myers’ Congressman Bryron Donalds as the state’s next governor, almost two years before the next gubernatorial election and a harrowing shot across Casey DeSantis’ bow of ever having a chance at keeping the family home in the Governor’s mansion.
The problem with Florida, however, is that the real, capital “S” Swamp is not in a football stadium in Gainesville, it is in Tallahassee. While it gives Gruters great joy to have fully neutered the antisocial DeSantis dog, his political ambitions have been oversized since he first ran for the State House when he was twenty against Democratic incumbent, Shirley Brown.
Gruters is currently eyeing the state Chief Financial Officer position, being vacated in the coming days by Jimmy Petronis, who is running for the open Congressional seat formerly held by Matt “Beavis” Gaetz.
Gruters getting Trump and Wiles endorsement at Mar A Lago
So Brutus aimed to shiv the governor and then dare him to not name him as acting CFO with DeSantis turning his back on Trump and Trump's Chief of Stdff, Susie Wiles endorsing Gruters for the CFO position. Gruters owns stores of credit he has with President Trump. Remember in the first Trump presidential campaign, Gruters led Sarasota County’s Republican party to be the first in the state and one of the first in the nation to endorse Trump, putting him among the ‘most favored children’ status nationally with Trump. Raised a devout Catholic, Gruters wanted to be the US Ambassador to Vatican City, only to have secured the plum assignment of being on the Amtrak oversight board.
Homan
DeSantis interjected himself at the New College event where he was originally not on the program with the MAGA national icons, Border Czar Tom Homan and acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf.
DeSantis’ intended for the three of them to tell the audience how great a job they all were doing, making the January civil war in Tallahassee something that could be long forgotten and that there was still unity in cause and purpose.
So, did the Trump loyalists sharing the stage with the erstwhile enemy of the Trump campaign signal a temporary détente and that little Ron wasn’t completely relegated to the kids’ table for the next two years?
Could it come with a catch? Desantis would name Gruters to replace Jimmy Petronis in the coming days as State CFO and ignore his loyalist who wants the job bad, Blaise Ignolio?
The Gruters hanging out at Selby Garden gala
Adding to the fun was how the momentous event was hosted in Gruters’ Sarasota district and on the New College campus, where his wife, Sydney Gruters, oversees all fundraising. The Gruters and Desantis family interests converge on the Sarasota Bayfront now, as the governor and Gruters aim to create a fortress around New College – demanding the integration of the Ringling Museum and the USF-Sarasota/Manatee campus into New College. What’s a little graft among rivals?
It was an opportunity the Governor couldn’t refuse. He even brought his wife Casey along with him.
Corcoran
New College President and former state Speaker of the House, brother to the principals of one of the state’s largest lobbying firms (Corcoran Partners), Richard Corcoran presided over the pacification ceremony between DeSantis and Trump’s deputies.
Corcoran did an admirable job hosting a political rally under the backdrop of the “Socractic Stage” with the two hundred protestors outside hoping that meant those on stage would all be drinking Socrates’ preferred beverage of hemlock. UF dropout Corcoran introduced the elite, Yale-educated governor to the audience in a traditional fashion for a state college president, as “the best damn Governor out of all fifty states in the past twenty years”.
Corcoran should be indebted to DeSantis to the tune of $1.2 million dollars annually – what he’s hauling in to preside over a 700-student population on Sarasota Bay – not including his housing and car allowance.
Lil Ron reciprocated the bootlicking and said Corcoran was a turnaround guru and that while he attended Yale and Harvard Law School, if Casey has her way, their children will be attending New College. Those in the audience, including New College alum and supporter of Corcoran, Sarasota Film Festival Director Mark “It’s Satire” Famiglio, roared in approval!
This in spite of the fact that enrollment has barely moved since Corcoran's arrival, in spite of the fact that he’s literally paying for athletes to attend New College. The Mighty Banyans baseball team has 120 players this year – enough to field 12 teams!
The state cost per student at New College is currently $91,000! If you include the millions that Lil Ron and the Legislature are sending to New College for capital improvements, the tab gets up to $150,000/student. It is a farce and a fleecing of Florida taxpayers. We could pay to send the 700 Florida students to Yale, cover their food, housing, books, and airfare and save us all a lot of money.
Walsh
Where is our local libertarian leader Matt Walsh of the Sarasota Observer calling out this graft? For years, Matt would infamously write about the boondoggle of funding SCAT public transportation in Sarasota and suggest we buy the small number of people who rode the bus their own cars and it would save us money. Strange why he would be so silent on this then.
Beruff
Maybe real estate developer and local GOP king maker Carlos Beruff understands this and that is why he’s giving Corcoran $1 million dollars to help build the baseball stadium. It’s just enough rope to allow Corcoran to finally hang the Hillsdale of the South and a down payment to grab the 100 plus acres of bayfront property that could be Sarasota’s next luxury, gated housing development brought to you by Beruff’s gold Medallion Homes.
It stands to reason why Gruters, his wife and Corcoran want to take the Ringling Museum from FSU – so they can better hide their graft and miserable results in managing New College – taking on a significantly larger operation with positive cashflow and healthy endowment that would double New College’s dwindling endowment, overseen by Sydney Gruters.
Speaking of whom, in a normal ethical world. Senator Gruters would never opine much less vote on something like this that would directly benefit his spouse, but not so much in the great, corrupt state of Florida. Gruters gladly has shared with multiple media outlets how this move will be a good thing, and he supports it.
The same is true for ignoring all of the local philanthropy that’s been cultivated over the past 20+ years to build USF Sarasota/Manatee’s campus, as Gruters similarly opines that it will be a good thing to strip that from USF and pass it on to Corccoran, further helping to pad his numbers and somehow suggest that it’s rational to pay the man $1.2 million/year. (In a fun twist and maybe why USF Rhea Law mysteriously upped and quit a few weeks ago, Corcoran Partners is USF’s official lobbying firm in Tallahassee. Blood is thicker than money in this instance, President Law.)
Gruters doesn’t care that there are billionaires who are publicly opposing these moves – it’s his crowning moment. Gruters window of opportunity is here. He’s going to climb that ladder; he’s going to position his wife and her future compensation incredibly well; he’s going to jump through this window of opportunity that President Trump has opened for him and take what’s his, even if he has to shiv everyone in his path along the way, including the taxpayers of Florida and his hometown of Sarasota.
The Sarasota Phoenix team is the last guardian in Sarasota of the vital fourth estate. While the rest of local, mainstream media outlets have been overtaken by profit driven directives, the Sarasota Phoenix is the only local media outlet laying bare for all to see how Sarasota local government is operat like a Latin American Junta..
"As usual, Jon Susce offers great insight found nowhere else in Sarasota and State of Florida Republican politics." Kevin Wright of the Manatee Republican Liberty Caucus.
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"Jon is easily the very best investigative reporter to ever work this market." Don Schilke a Director for Sarasota Alliance for Fair Election.
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