The Miami mayoral election

The New Neo Posted on by

The fact that a Democrat won the post of mayor of Miami yesterday was both perplexing and somewhat alarming, as was the coverage. This was a contest I’d previously read next to nothing about, and I had no way to explain what was going on.

Commenter “physicsguy” has posted this link, which offers some reasonable explanations, particularly for the extremely low turnout:

The “nonpartisan” mayor of Miami holds a largely ceremonial role. Real executive authority rests with the city manager, who can only serve with the approval of the five-member city commission. That “nonpartisan” commission currently has a stable 3-2 Republican majority.

So this isn’t a conventional mayoral post.

The article goes on to add that the city remains slightly Democrat, and that despite his wins elsewhere in Florida Trump lost there in 2024 by a small margin.

Perhaps some of you can shed more light on what’s spin and what isn’t.

Fuentes the fake phenom

The New Neo Posted on by

It was always clear that at least some of Nick Funetes’ traffic has been the result of bots. The only question is how much. Lately I have become more and more suspicious that the answer is “an enormous amount.” But it’s not as though I had any way to tell.

Now, this article on the subject has come out, and it seems pretty persuasive. The author, Colin Wright, cites this report from something called the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI).

Wright states:

The report’s most shocking finding is just how wildly Fuentes’s engagement numbers differ from those of other political influencers. NCRI compared the first 30 minutes of engagement on 20 of his recent posts with those from four major online figures—Elon Musk, Hasan Piker, Steven “Destiny” Bonnell, and Ian Carroll. Incredibly, Fuentes outperformed all of them in early retweets, including Musk, whose follower count is over 200 times higher.

None of this makes sense if the engagement is organic. According to NCRI’s report, this is explained by the fact that 61 percent of Fuentes’s early retweets come from accounts that repeatedly retweeted several of his posts within the same 30-minute window. This is not what you’d expect if these were random users scrolling their feeds. Rather, these accounts appear to be waiting for Fuentes to post so they could amplify his content almost instantly.

When NCRI dug into who these accounts actually were, 92 percent were completely anonymous. … Many openly identified as “Groypers,” members of Fuentes’s online fan base, and their feeds consisted almost entirely of retweets or replies to him. Some even labeled themselves as Fuentes “signal boosters.” These accounts appear to be part of a coordinated network built to push his content as widely and quickly as possible.

NCRI uncovered another major red flag. When they examined Fuentes’s most viral posts—three from before the assassination of Charlie Kirk and three after—it found that nearly half of all retweets came from foreign accounts, heavily concentrated in India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Indonesia. These regions are known hubs for low-cost engagement farms.

Crucially, Fuentes is not merely a passive beneficiary of this manipulation—he actively coordinates it. NCRI shows that he routinely gives his viewers direct instructions during live broadcasts to retweet his content, often just seconds after posting a link. This is meant to trigger the early spike in engagement that algorithms reward, a tactic that may violate X’s own rules against coordinated inauthentic activity.

And the effects of this manufactured engagement didn’t stay online. They spilled into mainstream news coverage. …

The media believed it was responding to a real political shift. It wasn’t. It was responding to a manipulated signal created by anonymous amplification networks and foreign engagement farms. Even TPUSA’s own social-media replies showed growing Groyper infiltration as Fuentes tried to capitalize on the vacuum left by Kirk’s death.

This is very much in line with recent revelations about the foreign origins of many social media accounts from supposed American patriots and America-firsters who are posting from places like Pakistan. That’s not to say that there are no real Fuentes supporters (“groypers”), but they are almost certainly far less numerous than one might originally have thought.

One result of all of this is to demoralize the right and also make it appear every bit as bigoted and moronic as the left says it is. As for Fuentes himself, aside from fame and money, what are his goals and who is backing him?

The are other related internet phenomena on the so-called “woke right” (often rabidly anti-Semitic and heavily conspiracy-theory oriented) such as Candace Owens. Are they the beneficiaries of a similar process as that which has made Fuentes famous? I think so, but probably to a lesser extent because prior to Owens’ going off into her current fringe/cringe content, she did seem to have a more conventional following on more conventional platforms.

The same is true of Tucker Carlson to an even greater extent; during his Fox News years he was a popular and at least somewhat mainstream figure on the right. A fair amount of his current traffic is almost certainly a carryover from that. But how much?

Almost since its beginning, the internet has been a place where deception is easier than in the non-virtual world. We’ve had trolling, bot farms, catfishing, phishing, sock puppets, and more recently the spread of AI, and now fake internet phenoms such as Fuentes. No wonder he’s smirking.

Trump on Europe’s immigration policies

The New Neo Posted on by

Harsh, but correct.

Here’s what he had to say [emphasis mine]:

President Donald Trump denounced Europe as a “decaying” group of nations led by “weak” people in an interview with POLITICO, belittling the traditional U.S. allies for failing to control migration and end the Russia-Ukraine war, and signaling that he would endorse European political candidates aligned with his own vision for the continent. …

“I think they’re weak,” Trump said of Europe’s political leaders. “But I also think that they want to be so politically correct.”

“I think they don’t know what to do,” he added. “Europe doesn’t know what to do.”

Many of Western Europe’s leaders have backed themselves into a corner. Their countries have already imported large numbers of mostly Muslim unassimilated newcomers, whose values are antithetical to European tolerance, who commit a disproportionate number of crimes against women, and who put a strain on generous welfare benefits. And yet the current leaders commitment to “tolerance” and fears of seeming racist or “nationalist” have them paralyzed in terms of doing much of anything about it.

Trump is determined not to let the US fall into the same trap. Under Obama and then Biden it came very close. Trump’s not-so-secret power is that he doesn’t care to tiptoe around the issues, and he’s unafraid of being called racist.

Without a change in border policy, Trump said, some European states “will not be viable countries any longer.”

Using highly incendiary language, Trump singled out London’s left-wing mayor, Sadiq Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants and the city’s first Muslim mayor, as a “disaster” and blamed his election on immigration: “He gets elected because so many people have come in. They vote for him now.”

Squatters rights on steroids

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an infuriarating story:

A local homeowner who said she’s in the fight of her life trying to get a squatter out of her house has spoken exclusively to 7News.

The alleged squatter, Shadija Romero, originally got into the house through Airbnb, claiming her home had been damaged in a fire and she needed somewhere to stay while it was being repaired, which was back in February.

Rochanne Douglas said she didn’t know she was opening her life up to a nightmare when she accepted Romero’s Airbnb reservation almost ten months ago.

That reservation ended on March 29th, after 32 days. After being a guest for 30 days, Romero started to claim residency at the home and is claiming forms of tenants’ rights and refuses to let Rochanne enter the property.

“I never gave her any tenancy,” said Douglas. “I never gave her a lease.”

The story is datelined 12/3/2025, so this has been going on for many many months. There will be a court hearing in a few days; let’s hope the squatter gets evicted. However, the venue is Washington DC, so I wouldn’t count on it.

More here:

The accused squatter allegedly tried to place utilities in her name and has tampered with security cameras.

She removed Douglas’s personal property from the fully-furnished unit and has blocked the owner from entering to conduct maintenance, repairs, inspections and preparations needed to sell the home, the filings stated.

Douglas also alleged Romero has verbally threatened her, engaged in repeated abuse of police and judicial processes, and attempted to have her work vehicle towed by falsely claiming ownership of the home.

That article also indicates this isn’t Romero’s first squatter go-round:

… Douglas has since learned that Romero was evicted from her previous address after accruing approximately $50,000 in unpaid rent for 13 months of residence.

The filing accused Romero of ‘attempting to use the same tactics again to avoid lawful removal’ from Douglas’s home.

‘Her unstable employment and documented eviction history further demonstrate her pattern of manipulating legal protections intended for legitimate tenants, not transient Airbnb guests,’ the document said.

Romero claims she’s been paying Douglas, but whether or not that is the case isn’t really the issue. If the owner wants her out, she needs to get out.

It would seem that Romero knows exactly what she’s doing.

There is an adverse possession law in DC, but Romero doesn’t qualify:

In Washington DC, people who occupy a home without permission can gain legal rights to the property through a process known as adverse possession, according to the House Buyers of America.

But in the district, squatters can only obtain legal ownership of the residence if they have occupied the property for 15 years or more and meet five criteria …

Mamdani’s dream team: Imagine there are no prisons

The New Neo Posted on by

All is proceeding as foreseen. Mamdani has assembled a group that’s brimming with ideas. Some of those ideas may seem vaguely familiar to you, if you came of age in the late 1960s and spent some time on college campuses. Now these stale warmed-over Rousseauvian theories come out of the mouths of young people who are running the show in NYC rather than shooting the late-night breeze in the dorm while passing the bong around:

Late last month, the mayor-elect released the roster of his transition team’s Committee on Community Safety, a 26-person group that will advise him on criminal-justice and related issues. The list contains several activists who are not only openly hostile to law enforcement but also reject the very concept of carceral punishment.

What could possibly go wrong?:

Brooklyn College professor Alex Vitale, the author of The End of Policing, has argued, for example, that policing is “fundamentally a tool of social control to facilitate our exploitation.” He has also described police as “violence workers,” who should be turned to only as a “last resort.”

And he seems like the conservative on the team, compared to several others:

Advocates like Vitale and Olderman often cast the criminal-justice system, and even America itself, as a villain. In doing so, they echo the worldview of transition-team member and former Women’s March leader Tamika Mallory, who said days after the death of George Floyd in 2020, “We are not responsible for the mental illness that has been inflicted upon our people by the American government institutions and those people who are in positions of power. Don’t talk to us about looting. We learn violence from you.”

There is a tiny kernel of something true in all the claptrap, and that “something” is that the causes of crime and related social ills are multifaceted, and that a lot of criminals really are mentally ill and/or addicted, something that’s also true of the homeless. It’s interesting that a great many of the solutions suggested by the Mamdani appointees involve intervention by social workers rather than police; good luck with that, is what I say having known a great many social workers, most of whom are not the least bit eager to be the first on the scene of a potentially – or actually – violent situation.

The idea of protecting the non-criminal public from criminals seems to be the furthest thing from the minds of Mamdani’s crew.

Perhaps my favorite part of the article is this. Kassandra reminds me most forcibly of the type of thinking that one would often hear back in the late 60s and early 70s. Let’s reminisce, readers:

Kassandra Frederique, head of the Drug Policy Alliance and another Mamdani committee member, has framed her advocacy in “abolitionist” and revolutionary terms. During a 2021 appearance on a web show, for example, she discussed the prospect of black revolutionaries “tak[ing] over the state.” She also seemed to endorse drug use as a way for some advocates to embrace more radical positions. “There are some people in our movement that need to be high so that they can imagine the world that we can’t see currently,” she said.

Imagine.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Scott Johnson of Powerline fisks the mendacious local coverage of the Somali fraud cases.

(2) Today SCOTUS heard oral arguments in Trump v Slaugher, a case that bears on the question of whether “a president should be able to have full control over government agencies, even those set up by Congress to be shielded from presidential interference.”

In the 90-year-old ruling known as Humphrey’s Executor, the court found that, while the president has the ability to remove executive officers without cause, such a power does not apply to agencies like the FTC that are “neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative”.

During oral arguments on Monday, the four conservative justices on the court appeared to disagree with Ms Slaughter’s lawyers’ arguments that this would be an unacceptable expansion of Trump’s powers.

Arguing for the Trump administration, US Solicitor General John Sauer called the Humphrey’s rule an “indefensible outlier” and “decaying husk” of a Supreme Court decision that should be overturned.

(3) Quite a few Republican House members will be retiring, but at least they seem to be coming from so-called “safe seats.” I keep reading anxiety-provoking articles about the House in the 2026 midterms, though.

(4) Homan says that the Trump administration has saved about 62,000 “migrant” children whom the Biden administration had lost.

(5) What are they teaching the kids of San Jose, California? Then again, this was probably inspired by TikTok or other social media; it was shared on Instagram:

Eight San Jose high school students formed a human swastika on their school’s football field in a horrifying display of antisemitism that has sent shockwaves through the Silicon Valley community.

The disturbing scene was photographed and shared in a since-deleted Wednesday social media post that featured an antisemitic 1939 quote from Adolf Hitler.

“If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe,” read what appeared to be an Instagram caption.

Everything old is new again.

Chauvin lawyer asks for a new trial

The New Neo Posted on by

I think Chauvin very much deserves one. And it shouldn’t be in Minneapolis, either. Having followed his trial closely, and written about it at length, I’ve been convinced for a long time that his trial was anything but fair.

The claims:

Early on in the document, Joseph [Chauvin’s attorney] notes that five years have passed since Chauvin’s high-profile trial and convictions, enough time for the emotion that surrounded Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests to subside.

“This Court is removed from the hysteria of the day and can finally look at the facts and evidence through a clear lens,” the documents read. “It is the first time a judicial officer can view the case without the pressure of the public mood.”

Unfortunately, although five years have indeed passed, I don’t think we’re nearly removed enough from “the pressure of the public mood.” That may be especially true in Minneapolis, where the hysteria – and threats – always ran very high and hot. Will any judge there have the guts, even now, to go against that? I doubt it. And if Chauvin loses this fight in state court, will an appeal to SCOTUS be heard? His last appeal was denied such a hearing.

Nevertheless:

While wide-ranging, the crux of the appeals argument boils down to four major assertions by the defense:

– That then-Minneapolis Police Chief Maderia Arrandono, Inspector Katie Blackwell, and training coordinator Lt. Johnny Mercil allegedly lied on the stand when they said the “hobble” technique used by Chauvin to control Floyd was not part of MPD training and therefore a violation of department policy.
– The defense argues that state experts testified on the cause of Floyd’s death based not on his autopsy or medical tests, but on what they had seen in videotapes from the scene at 38th and Chicago.
– Prosecutors allegedly abused videotaped evidence, using it despite its lack of a medical foundation. The defense cited the findings of Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker, who testified that severe heart disease and the presence of fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system played a major role in Floyd’s death. Baker’s testimony said he found no sign of asphyxiation.
– That jurors were given faulty instructions by Judge Peter Cahill, including misstatements of law.

The documents reference a book written by journalist Liz Collin and Dr. JC Chaix that is critical of Chauvin’s trial and conviction, and say that since it was published in 2022, 34 current and former MPD officers have come forward to provide sworn statements saying the knee-to-neck restraint used by Chauvin to subdue Floyd was part of their training.

“Not only was the knee-to-neck/upper shoulder restraint trained, its use was common knowledge and part of MPD policy,” one wrote.

I can attest to the fact that the technique was certainly part of the online manual/information for the policy of the Minneapolis police, at least at first. I saw it there myself shortly after Floyd’s death, but it was erased a while later. I had taken notes, however (I should have taken a screen shot, I suppose), and in August of 2020 I wrote this post on the subject. Read it and you’ll see what I mean.

One of the many terrible results of the Floyd death and the Chauvin trial was that health authorities showed themselves to be complete hypocrites. While the country was mostly locked down to a large extent, and in many places people weren’t even allowed to gather in groups outside, the health authorities announced that protests against Floyd’s death were just fine and well worth any possible health hazards. This added to the profound distrust so many people now have for health authorities.

When the only lettuce was iceberg

The New Neo Posted on by

During Thanksgiving week I usually make turkey sandwiches with leftovers, and this time I bought some iceberg lettuce for that purpose. I cannot remember the last time I bought iceberg lettuce, but it may have been about forty years ago. I bought it this time because I remembered that it used to be good in sandwiches, having a bit more heft than a lot of the other kinds of lettuce.

Yesterday I made some salad with the remainder of the lettuce, and eating it reminded me that I really prefer other kinds of lettuce these days. But it got me to thinking about the times when iceberg lettuce was just generic lettuce, and I didn’t know there was any other kind.

In my home, when I was growing up, we used to have salad with dinner most nights, and that salad was iceberg lettuce and a few tomatoes and cucumbers. With Wishbone dressing. There was no thought of any other kind of salad until years later.

Life was simpler and choices were much simpler. Iceberg lettuce, or no lettuce.

The only sneakers were Keds, and Converse for basketball.

The girls all wore penny loafers and and circle pins. At least, for a while.

I don’t recall any foreign cars, either, except VWs. We had Chryslers, Chevrolets, and Fords. Maybe I’m wrong about that because cars were not really on my particular radar screen, but that’s what I remember.

There was meat and there was potatoes and there was a veggie such as green beans. In our house, we rarely had dessert, but if we did it tended to be a Sara Lee cake.

Broadway shows cost a few dollars, and you didn’t have to take out a loan to go to Disneyland.