By Elaine DeValle, a.k.a., Ladra, Published on Political Cortadito September 20, 2016
It’s like he’s been backed into a corner.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez lied again last week and slandered, again, a pair of animal activists who 
worked hard to get the Pets’ Trust Initiative passed by 65% of the voters in 2012 and who are brave enough to keep fighting ever since for that vote to be respected.
Michael Rosenberg and Rita Schwartz certainly have been very active in politics since Gimenez first funded the Pets Trust initiative and then scratched it in 2013. They may get a little too excited sometimes. They certainly get creative — Ladra particularly loves this video with the chihuahua — and they certainly get passionate.
But they do not, ever, incite violence. In fact, their email blasts and protests seem exceedingly polite to a man who has repeatedly ignored these people while telling others that all Rosenberg and Schwartz want is the millions for themselves, a ludicrous and impossible claim since they would have absolutely no control over the county’s funds. Ladra has seen some of the many emails they send Gimenez gatekeeper Michael Hernandez to try to meet with the mayor or just set the record straight. They might be a tad bit sarcastic, but they are exceedingly polite. There’s no other way to describe their approach.
The mayor knows this. He knows that these two animal lovers do not incite violence. So when Gimenez outright makes that claim to a misguided Miami Herald reporter and then on TV to a Univision 23 cameraman, he is basically giving them a victory in court with their slander lawsuit.
There are three things one must establish to prove slander: The source must know he or she is spreading a lie. Check. He must have an intent to hurt or discredit the subject of the lie. Check. And the lie causes the subject’s reputation to be tarnished. Check.
Because some people might believe him.
But that will be the hardest part to prove. Because most people realize that this is Cry Wolf Gimenez’s desperate attempt to keep his job and maybe even an acknowledgement that the 65% of the people who voted for the Pets’ Trust knew what they were voting for and will prove it to Gimenez by voting him out of office Nov. 8. He knows that Mike and Rita pull votes. He knows that the Pets’ Trust supporters are one of the reasons he is facing a runoff in the first place. He knows that he is really hated by thousands of animal lovers who may have even voted for him in 2011 and 2012 but now feel he is the devil himself and hold him personally responsible for the continued killing of thousands of dogs and cats at the county shelter.
Many of these people do comment on Facebook and in stories in the Miami Herald. Many of these comments are entirely too personal and passionate. Some people say they want him to suffer what the animals have suffered. They call him an asshole and other names. They are understandably frustrated by his disrespect of their votes and the continued and, perhaps, even worsening conditions for animals in Miami-Dade.
I hadn’t seen any death threats, however, until the Herald story about the single one they quoted.
“Better watch yourself in Miami i don’t have much to lose, ever see what s person that nothing to lose is capable of?? i WILL kill you if not ill start with your family and loved ones,” wrote someone calling himself “nakmuaythai.” Turns out his name is Daniel Bowes and he lives in Ottowa. And Rosenberg has never heard of him.
“Daniel who,” Rosenberg asked.
What’s more, a Miami-Dade police spokesman told the Herald that detectives do not consider the posting a “viable threat” (they were probably pissing in their pants from the laughter) but the investigation is “nevertheless ongoing.” Really? With our limited police resources? Because this is what the mayor considers a police priority?
to call attention to the plight of our stray animals.
For the mayor to speculate that the threat was at the direction of Rosenberg and Schwarz is just ludicrous. For him to speculate out loud is dangerous. There are many people (Ralph Garcia Toledo et al) who stand to lose millions of dollars if Gimenez is not re-elected. They might go to great lengths to silence his detractors — who have now been singled out by name.
“I’m calling them out,” Gimenez told the Herald.
“The people responsible are Michael Rosenberg and Rita Schwartz,” he said in his choppy Spanish. “They have led a campaign called ABC, Anybody But Carlos, and that is part of their campaign, pretty dirty and with lies.”
Let’s forget for a minute that the ABC campaign you see on bus benches throughout the county has been paid for by the Dade PBA. Ladra doesn’t think she has ever seen any public official — let alone the mayor of the fourth largest county in the country — talk like that publicly about a couple of civilian activists. And for what? He knows that Mike and Rita have no ties to that man in Ottawa. But he’s mad at them and, boy, there is hell to pay for going against him.
In fact, Ladra wouldn’t be surprised if this story was pitched by someone on the Gimenez camp. Because we certainly have seen similarly hateful and vitriolic comments on the Facebook posts of stories about Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump or Marco Rubio or David Rivera or Rick Scott. Especially Rick Scott. Why was the story just about Gimenez? Perhaps because it was pitched by someone on the Gimenez campaign in order to discredit a group that was hurting his re-election chances?’
Or was it to put a bull’s eye on Mike’s and Rita’s backs?
Rosenberg fears for himself and his family. He has gotten a police watch order on his home. They obviously think it’s 
a more viable threat than the comment against the mayor.
He also wants an apology from the mayor. He should get one, but he won’t. Gimenez is so arrogant that he is literally blind to the fact that he is wrong more often than he is right. In this case, he knew he was lying to begin with. It matters nothing because it’s all about perception.
It’s too bad that David Ovalle or some other Herald reporter doesn’t spend as much time as they did stringing together the worse comments they could find to actually investigate the claims of the animal activists — that the death count is only down because the county has changed the way it counts euthanized cats and dogs, that the increases in animal services funding has mostly gone to salaries and benefits, not spay and neutering programs.
There is still time to actually do a fact check on Gimenez with this, David. Wouldn’t that be more challenging? It’s a better story.
Meanwhile, Ladra is going to make a complaint about some commenter herself. We have taken to moderating reader comments here on Political Cortadito in recent weeks, since some people are (or one person specifically is) trying to use my space to malign others and myself without any context and to make threats. I have been told that I deserve to be “trashed,” whatever that means. And I have received multiple threats from the same source about shutting the website down. I haven’t taken them seriously but people say that I should and, in light of this story, perhaps they are right. Because some of Ladra’s friends and loyal readers say the commenter — who sometimes goes by the name of Got-A-Point and sometimes other names but with the same IP address — is Gimenez spokesman Mike Hernandez. Others say he is the mayor’s son, CJ Gimenez.
So let’s find out. Ladra will print out some of those comments and see if the Miami-Dade Police Department can’t find out who the commenter is.
But I am willing to bet that whoever it is is far more directly connected to Carlos Gimenez than some loudmouth in Ottowa is to Mike and Rita of the Pets’ Trust.