As I said last week, I have some of the sharpest readers on Substack. Case in point, roughy half a dozen of you reached out to me after my last post with essentially the same observation, to wit: that there’s a 0% chance that Mr. Rojas’ coming to Coral Gables was not the product of collusion on KFC’s part; that there is no way Kirk 2.5 and Dr. Castro were not already aware of Ariel’s plan going into the Feb 27th commission meeting. In fact, Paul A (nice Dune reference) went so far as to say this in the comments section, which has been brimming with insight thanks to many of you:
Aesop, you know who this wasn't hidden from? The biggest bully there is in all the land, Maria Cruz! If you watch the video, as the discussion nears the vote, she is pacing like a caged tiger about to be fed a filet mignon. Her chest heaves in anticipation to the extent that I thought a defibrillator might be needed. She knew what was up before any of us did. Glad at least she is in the sunshine! LOL.
So very true. Missus Cruzchev’s political allegiances have nothing to do with policy and everything to do with deference. Thus, Missus Cruzchev will carry water for her allies on virtually anything, so long as they make her feel relevant and valued.
Still, that one or even a handful of VIP residents had foreknowledge of the commission’s plan is only peripheral to the main problem, which is that there was even a plan at all. After all, members of the commission aren’t supposed to be able to put a plan together, at least not without committing a massive Sunshine violation.
Can I prove in the strictest epistemological sense that KFC colluded over the hiring of Rojas? No, not anymore than I can prove in the same sense that the Earth doesn’t actually look like this:
That said, in order to conclude that KFC didn’t coordinate over Rojas, you would have to ignore a metric ton of circumstantial evidence. You would also have to believe that Dr. Castro, who can barely think at all much less think on her feet, was somehow able to catch on to KFC’s spontaneously introduced corruption narrative completely on the fly. What’s more, you would have to believe that the following performance wasn’t a complete put on (By the way, I have been having some fun with these videos for the sake of comic relief. But just know that meme’s aside, there is no deceptive editing at play, which you can see for yourself here):
OMG, like, hahaha what a surprise! What a surprising surprise that is so very surprising! The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Also, I’m not sure that gushing over seeing Rojas in the flesh as if he were Brad Pitt helped sell the scene either. Less is more, Doc.
Then there was Kirk 2.5, whose entire contemptuous worldview seems to be defined by the belief that he was born in a manger while the rest of us were born yesterday. For the second meeting in a row, and as if we wouldn’t notice, Mr. I’m Still Listening had a prepared statement ready to go on an item he was supposedly undecided on. I guess it’s that divine guidance that helps him write speeches for moments he is not supposed to know about in advance:
Not for nothing, but a cesspool is basically a septic tank. You can’t be adrift in a cesspool much less find safe harbor in one. But, alas, this is your brain on KFC.
In any event, good on Kirk for defeating the world’s weakest straw man. No one said that being a former federal marshal precluded Rojas from doing other things. They simply said that his having been a federal marshal, in and of itself, did not make him qualified to serve as a city manager.
Then again, we should probably cut Kirk some slack here, as it must be incredibly difficult to track a conversation while telepathically traversing multiple dimensions of time and space to retrieve his written remarks from the future. Come to think of it, maybe this explains why Kirk spends so much time during each meeting tilted back in his chair with that dazed and absent look on his face—he’s dream walking!
Collusion With a Side of Lies
So here is where we are for those of you not keeping score. Back in early February, and just after Ariel issued his infamous I’m-going-to-fire-the-manager memo, KFC took a second trip to Tallahassee. But unlike their earlier one, they very curiously insisted that no city liaison accompany them. Then just days after returning from that very intimate excursion to Tallahassee, KFC fired Peter Iglesias and nominated Ralph Cutié as his replacement in the very same commission meeting. I suppose it did not occur to KFC that they should at least try to conceal the fact that they had hatched this plan on their Tallahassee junket the week before.
Nevertheless, and mere days after being nominated, Cutié backed out, which KFC will have you believe was because of text messages and not the fact that their candidate came to the realization that he was about to go work for a trio of idiots for whom it was not worth leaving something like this behind:
Fast forward to the last meeting, during which Ariel used Lago and Anderson’s agenda item to ambush them—and, allegedly, Kirk and Dr. Castro—with the Rojas nomination. It was in this meeting that we witnessed the telenovela overacting highlighted above, as well as Kirk’s clairvoyantly composed pre-vote statement.
You are free to believe that all of this is sheer coincidence, and that in addition to being paragons of honesty and ethical integrity, KFC shares a kind of permanent Vulcan mind meld that facilitates their phenomenal ability to act in perfect synchronicity without any coordination whatsoever. And you can believe that Ariel was so utterly confident that Kirk and Dr. Castro would consent to his surprise candidate for city manager that he would have him fly down from North Carolina to attend the meeting in person.
Or, you can believe what basic common sense tells you: that the same people who tried to keep their raises a secret, and their attempted up-zonings a secret, and where they have been living in recent years a secret, and their handpicked city managers a secret…just might be trying to keep the extent of their unlawful collaboration a secret as well.
Ugh… KFC is burning my brain cells. Does anyone actually believe that Ariel came up with this candidate for CM all by himself? Every sunshine law here was broken. How many more individuals beside Mrs Cruz were involved in this decision? No offense Mr Rojas, grapevine says you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. You should have never accepted that position. You are insulting every resident that has the ability to think for themselves. You are a pon in this game of wit and deception.
As Fidel Castro used to say: the 'useful idiots' are critical for the 'revolution' to succeed. Ariel Fernandez taking a page of the Banana Republic Dictator handbook, has secured several 'useful idiots' to pursue his political (and financial) agenda.