Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus Thinks You're Soft

Does the drone story represents an escalation between Russia and the United States? Or is it a story blown out of proportion by grifters like Steve Neuhaus and the Orange County Republican Committee?

(Image courtesty of the Des Monies Register.)

Someone asked the other day if I were to re-release "Social Media Is Bullshit" (St. Martin's Press), would it just be 200 blank pages with a single, lonely sentence at the end that said, "I told you so."

For about a decade now, the answer was yes. There's not much I said in 2012 that I would change today in 2024.

But watching this drone story develop, there would be one thing I'd add to the old book.

Before we go any further, I want to stress: We don't know much about the drones beyond what the BBC first reported last month. That is to say, drones have been spotted in the UK near military bases housing American military assets. A few weeks later, drones are being sighted around military installations in New Jersey, according to the Department of Defense. Last night, one of the drones briefly closed down a runway at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh.

The drone sightings in the United Kingdom started about a week after the United States — finally — permitted Ukraine to fire US-made missiles deep into Russian territory, with the first such missile being launched into Russia on November 19th.

Due to Orange County's proximity to New Jersey (the border between Monroe, New York, and Greenwood Lake, New Jersey, for example, is under eight miles), readers of The Monroe Gazette have seen these drones and asked that we cover the story.

If I had to guess, and it's only a guess, the drones are Russia's response to allowing US missiles to be launched into their territory. They’ll likely vanish once Trump becomes president and forces Ukraine to give in to Russia’s chief demand: That they don’t join NATO, and that Russia gets to keep much of the territory they stole. Much of this war is about who gets to control food production on a planet with less and less airable land, as depicted in the documentary “The Grab.” Ukraine feeds a whole lot of people on this planet, and Mr. Putin would very much like that land to further entrench his soft power around the world.

But ... We don't guess here at The Monroe Gazette, at least when it comes to things well beyond our depth of knowledge. I'm not an International Affairs expert. I'm not a military correspondent. According to the Unelected Woodbury Village Trustee, Rhonda Fabbro, and her friends on the Committee to Elect Woodbury Democrats, I'm not a "real journalist."

That's okay, Rhonda. You're not a real Village Trustee either, so I guess we're even.

So, our official position on the developing drone story is as follows:

- "I don't know."

- "It'd be foolish to guess when we're not experts."

I'd also add that the Department of Defense has proposed a budget of $849.9B for 2025. With that kind of money, you figure we'd have an answer—both the real one and the one that's safe for public consumption. (And if they don’t have either, there are 650,000 homeless Americans, including many military veterans, who could probably make better use of that money than the Pentagon. Let’s cut that in half and give the rest to the working class people of America like Liberals have been asking to do since the 1970s.

And I’ll remind you, it was a Republican, President Eisenhower, who warned about runaway military spending back in 1961. So don’t go thinking I’m trying to recruit you or something. I mean I am trying to recruit you. I want you to leave the Republicans and Democrats in the 20th Century and join the New York State Working Families Party here — but the out-of-control defense budget spending is a far more bipartisan issue than you think it is.

Why Two Answers?

There would need to be two answers because a lot of weirdos would lose their minds if they were told by the government that we're entering a slow motion World War 3 against God King Donald Trump’s Best Friend Forever, Vladimir Putin. (Sorry Elon. You may have spent a quarter of a billion dollars on his campaign, but Trump is never going to love you back. Just ask Eric.)

Remember: During his first term, Trump smeared Ukraine, withheld funding and weapons from them, and repeatedly sided with Putin during it. This led to Trump's first of two impeachments as president. That doesn’t excuse Slow Joe Biden and his own mishandeling of the war, but we don’t get to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine without Trump’s first term in office, and Obama’s failure to stand-up to Putin when he invaded Crimea in 2014. All three of our previous presidents are at fault for this mess, but only one of them is BFFs with the guy doing all the criminal shit. And now he’s back for another round of drinks with his friend.

With me so far? The drone story is still developing. A lot will probably change after I press publish, but … There is one possibility that I want to talk to you about concerning the drone story. Because it represents a real problem when you elected a bunch of lying grifters to be your Town Supervisors, County Executives, and yes, President of the United States. It’s all connected, which is why we’re talking national politics on what’s supposed to be a local news website. (Well, local news until or before November 15th, 2025, when I switch over to Fascists & Weirdos full-time.)

And as long as we all acknowledge together that we're discussing a possibility here, we can proceed with this week's story.

And that possibility suggests that, while the drones in New Jersey and the UK are indeed a serious issue — as I said, they only started to appear after Ukraine fired a US-made missile deep into Russian territory — the story is getting blown way out of proportion by social media platforms and opportunistic grifters like Crooked Orange County Executive Stefan "Steve" Neuhaus.

That Dipshit Again?

Yup. You should know that in November of 2025, not only are Clovewood Kathryn (Woodbury Town Supervisor Kathryn Luciani) and Mussolini (Monroe Town Supervisor Tony Cardone) on the ballot, but Crooked Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus is too. People are already lining up to run against him — I’ve now talked to two of them — and I have a series of stories coming your way in 2025 about Orange County’s own version of Dobby the House Elf. One of them deals with his constant, false claims about Medicaid spending in New York, wherein he accuses people receiving Medicaid in the state of not working, despite the fact that more than half of them do so. The other is his consistent pattern of telling tall tales, like that time he went to the border and encountered a man with enough fentanyl on his person “to kill everyone in New York City.”

He also mumbled other whoppers, like the one about saving a grandmother on Christmas morning, but like every patented Steve Neuhaus Tall Tale, he doesn’t respond to emails to provide any further details on his stories, and Orange County’s press person doesn’t either.

This week though, we’re just focused on the intersection between a serious news story, out of control social media companies, and political grifters.

It’s a long one. So I’ve honestly split this article into multiple parts. You’ll get the next one soon.

For now, I want you to watch this “very informative” video posted by Dobby, where he calls everyone in America soft. No. I’m not kidding. You can see for yourself:

"So let me tell you, first off, you know, I am definitely concerned about it [The drone sightings]. I don't think there's something that you guys should be panicking about, and there's an immediate threat, but I am definitely concerned about it. And I read your comments, and I respond back to a lot of your comments. I think just the whole thing coincides with the state of our country right now. I think we're getting soft. Some people compared us to pre 9/11, days. I was down at the border earlier this year. It's a disaster down there, and I'm … I'm in the military. Still, I go all over the world on a regular basis. I've traveled across the down south, out west, out to the all over the world, and things are not good.

Got all that? You’re soft, according to the County Executive.

I’m not quite sure what that has to do with people expressing their concerns about these drones to him — maybe he thinks you’re a bunch of suckers and losers too like his idol does, but Dobby messed up big time in saying this.

He also later bragged in the same video about having top-secret security clearance and emailing people “directly at the Pentagon” concerning the drones.

Yes. I have FOILED Mr. Neuhaus’s office to get these emails to the Pentagon, if they actually exist. Yes, I have also been in touch with the US Navy because it seems kind of weird for a Navy Reservist like Mr. Neuhaus to brag about having top-secret security clearance and having direct contact with people at the Pentagon. (Mr. Neuhaus and the County Press representative have not responded to requests for clarification.)

It may be true he has this clearance. More than a million people do. But given Mr. Neuhaus, like Tony Cardone, like Kathryn Luciani, compulsively lies when putting information out to the public, someone’s gotta double check it. And if it’s true Mr. Neuhaus has such clearance, one would think his videos on this drone situation would be a hell of a lot more informative given its potential links to Russia. Right?

… Right?

We’ll have part two of this story for you soon.