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Weppner: We’re On a Mission from God

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It took Kathy Weppner over a week to get around to thank her volunteers and the people who cast a vote for her. A modicum of decorum and grace would prompt someone in her position – having been blown away by a popular incumbent – to do the thank yous sooner than this.

While Weppner made a campaign issue about how Higgins “refused” to debate her, she made it clear through her campaign’s tweets and other declarations that they knew full well how to get in touch with Higgins and his people when it suited their needs.

As of this writing – a week after Election Day – Weppner has not called to concede or congratulate the victor, nor has she publicly congratulated Congressman Higgins in any way.  Instead, petulance:

So, here is Weppner’s “thank you”:

The signs are finally all down and eventually things will return to “normal.” I wanted to say thank you and tell you all how much it meant to spend the last eight months with you. The decision to run was a quick one and I decided early on that money was not the thing that would win this. The numbers are reality. So I would talk about our country’s tremendous debt, economy, immigration, Obamacare and all of the issues that Mr. Higgins is on the wrong side of, with as many people as possible.

Is Higgins on the “wrong side” of the issues she lists? 71% of the electorate seemed to disagree with her conclusion.

I want to thank all of the Democrats I spoke to all summer. Most of you were very polite and many more appreciated the information. My reports on these issues will remain up on my website. Candidates must respect the voters. Those running for office should consider their rights, as Americans, to be given the information so they can make educated choices when electing their leaders. A Republic depends on these leaders being of great character and of integrity in order for the Republic to remain.

Her “reports” staying up on her website means that pre-2014 Kathy is gone. No more “Str8t Talk” website or radio archive. Her past will remain sanitized for her protection. She talks of candidates respecting voters; that’s nice. But they should also respect the voters’ intelligence.  I’ve got loads of evidence that she didn’t – that she was more than willing to spout falsity and nonsense in order to score points in a quixotic battle in a Democratic district with a popular incumbent.

The privilege of running for office was unexpected at this time in my life and I continually prayed for God to send me the people needed to help me do this. It started with Laura and continued to build a group of people who were unlike any I have experienced. They gave up their beautiful and fleeting summer days and weekends, to walk lawn lawn fetes, parades and festivals 305 times. Thank you so much! The campaign was going to be about conversations. Hopefully those conversations were carried over to kitchen tables and family rooms.

And blogs. But watch this: it’s not Kathy’s fault she lost. It’s your fault.

There are solutions to the problems we are facing but we must fix ourselves in order for these problems to be fixed. This will not be easy. One third of the people who voted wanted solutions to our national problems; two thirds just don’t believe we have these problems. Lack of information caused by filtered news is a serious problem.

Seldom have I seen such self-important, arrogant delusion.

All summer long I heard from fans of Mr. Higgins about his great conquest and development of our waterfront. The truth is that it is because of Mr. Higgins we have the highest electricity rates in the country instead of the lowest. His fans don’t know this. This impacts every Western New Yorker every month when they pay their bills. We all have less money in our wallets because of him and it is for the next fifty years. Shame on him. This lump sum payment for him to use, instead of cheap electricity for all of us everyday, has given him the ability to buy all of his elections with no bid contracts and developer friends who employ his friends and relatives. This is all taking place while the country is in trouble and the world is on the edge of evil winning out over good.

Well, no, dummy. We don’t have the “highest electricity rates in the country” because of Brian Higgins. New York was  already paying high electricity rates before Higgins forced NYPA to reinvest a ton of that money here in western New York. But, as point of fact, Hawaii has the highest electricity rates in the country, and customers of Con Edison and other companies pay much higher rates than Niagara Mohawk and NYSEG customers. As a federal representative, he has little actual ability to dismantle a New York State public authority, but he certainly has the clout to force changes.

The country is always “in trouble” depending on which paranoiac you listen to, and the notion that “evil” is “winning out over good” is downright idiotic. A veritable electoral trouncing has taught this woman nothing.

The people suffer from no debates to participate in, a newspaper that picks the winners and assures victory and television studios that do not report on the candidates. They all come together to actually cover races where their chosen candidate is behind but otherwise not. This only gets fixed if we fix it.

Whaa whaa whaa. I’ve heard less whining from Caillou. There was a debate. Government AP students ran it.  Weppner whined  and was rude about it, never missing a chance to don the mantle of victimhood. No one reported on this race in any serious way because it was an incredible joke, and the results proved that.

Thank you to every Western New Yorker for sharing a part of your summer with me, but especially those who walked literature, made calls, and prayed incessantly not only me but for our country. We will continue to pray for our leaders. Throughout history, those who live under the threat of genocide, starvation and terror, have always prayed that Americans would show up to save them. We were the world’s hope. We cannot become the hopeless.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4YrCFz0Kfc]

Finally, I want to thank my wonderful family. God blessed me with parents who loved me dearly, embraced how very different I was and were and are always there. Mom and dad I hope I have your energy when I am eighty. Eighty years old and walking door to door and in parades all summer. To my “Once in a lifetime,” husband who talked me into running: I can’t believe God sent you into my life at 17 and how amazing you are. I am so blessed to have you each and every day of my life. Thank you for loving me so much. To my beautiful children who put t-shirts on and walked with me and recruited friends when necessary, I love you all so much. Thank you!
God Bless You and may God watch over us.

Thank God indeed. Thank God this clownshoes campaign is over and everyone can get back to the important work of calling into Limbaugh and WBEN to regurgitate crap that a simple visit to Snopes would disprove.

Guns, Ebola, Torture, and a Sour Weppner

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Image Credit: WBFO.org

At long last, Kathy Weppner got her debate against Brian Higgins yesterday. The candidates vying to represent NY-26 in Congress faced off in front of an audience of about 1,000 students and faculty at St. Joe’s. The debate was moderated by the AP Government teacher, and students selected and asked the questions. 

Here’s what Brian Higgins tweeted after the debate: 

And here is what Kathy Weppner tweeted about it:

 

So, the shorter version is Brian Higgins thanking St. Joe’s and its AP Government class, teacher, and students for a lively and fun debate, versus Kathy Weppner denigrating the kids and their questions, just one step away from accusing them of perhaps conspiring with Higgins’ campaign because she had to face tough questions. 

Also, Higgins accused Weppner of missing two recent candidate fora – not three. She skipped the Good Government Club and the Association of Retired Federal Employees events in the last few weeks. She was invited to them both. For someone who’s spent the last few weeks whining about how the League of Women Voters has conspired with Brian Higgins to support only Demoncrats, you’d expect her to attend everything offered to her. 

The Weppner campaign has been one of the best campaigns ever to be run in western New York, but not for the reasons you think. I don’t objectively mean it was “good” or the “best”; instead, it’s the best insofar as it has enabled regular people to hear and consider things that are usually kept in the deepest basements of AM hate radio. It’s rare that malicious and false right-wing misinformation sees the sunlight, and when it’s taken even a millimeter outside of its typical venues, it’s revealed to be so false and dumb that regular people simply dismiss it as “crazy”.  For instance, 

Yesterday, Brad Riter and I recorded an hourlong podcast where we set out to dissect yesterday’s debate. There’s so much there, we only made it through about 15 minutes’ worth.  You can listen to the podcast here. 

You can listen to the entire debate here, at WBFO’s site. Did you catch how Weppner whined about how Higgins conspired with WBEN to let the entire debate audio to be shared online? Weppner evidently didn’t read the rules, because the prohibition on recording and re-use of the debate was only as to the campaigns themselves – there were myriad cameras and microphones present, and the rules were quite clear that media could share their recordings. Indeed, after spending so many weeks whining about the lack of debates, you’d reckon that Weppner would scream bloody murder if the debate wasn’t shared with voters, right? 

In terms of substance, the student-led, teacher-moderated debate touched on several issues, none of which are trivial. More importantly, they were things that the students themselves deemed interesting. The first question dealt with the apparent epidemic of school shootings – a uniquely American problem. Weppner’s response to this question was typical right-wing pablum; more guns will lead to a more polite society. Weppner said things about how only “good” people with guns – like she – can protect society from bad people with guns, as if there were no other alternatives. Higgins affirmed people’s 2nd Amendment rights, but added, 

Good people should be able to carry guns but the framers of the Constitution could not have imagined this kind of hell,” Higgins said. “If you are a good guy with a gun then what’s wrong with reasonable background checks? What’s wrong with reasonable gun control?

The Weppner plan can be summarized thusly: 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLjNJI54GMM&w=480&h=360]

Weppner came out in support of a travel ban from West African countries, while Higgins said we should follow the lead of medical professionals, and not politicians, on these sorts of issues. Weppner said, 

The CDC has spent 6% of its $3 billion over the last few years on silly studies instead of on infectious diseases. We’ve been squandering the money that we do have. So I believe, yes, there should be a quarantine. They’re quarantining our soldiers in Germany for 21 days. 

According to Weppner, if the CDC spent 6% of $3 billion on “silly studies”, then that still leaves 94% to study and prevent infectious diseases. However, typically, she’s got her facts wrong. She seems to be parroting a Politico article penned by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who claims, 

Consider the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a new series of annual mandatory appropriations created by Obamacare. Over the past five years, the CDC has received just under $3 billion in transfers from the fund. Yet only 6 percent—$180 million—of that $3 billion went toward building epidemiology and laboratory capacity.

By contrast, the CDC’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness Cooperative Agreement Funding, which helps municipalities deal with outbreaks of disease, has decreased dramatically in the last decade. The CDC’s overall 2015 budget is not, incidentally, $3 billion, but almost $7 billion. That also represents a decrease of 3.5% over FY 2014, and you can see specifically what the administration sought, and what the tea party Congress granted. 

Weppner got two applause lines – the first when she said that marijuana “kills ambition” and leads kids to sit on the couch, watching TV, and eat Doritos. Not shockingly, teenage kids love the idea of sitting on the couch, watching TV, and eating Doritos, and cheered. Weppner also rejected medical marijuana, claiming,

If there are medicinal purposes that medical marijuana can be used for then we need to study it. We wouldn’t put a medicine on the market without studying it. If there are properties that help seizure disorders then we need to study what properties those are and put it into a little inhaler.  We can’t open pot stores. We need clear thinking young people to attack the problems we have. Not people that are going to sit back with a bag of Doritos and watch television.

Even Channel 2’s Michael Wooten pointed out on last night’s news that Weppner is lying about medical marijuana not having been studied. It’s been studied plenty, and shown to be effective in treating nausea in chemotherapy patients, glaucoma, chronic pain, seizures, and other maladies. UC San Diego has an entire department devoted to the study of medicinal uses for marijuana, a plant that grows in nature. 

The mic drop moment, though, came when the candidates were asked about the use of torture in interrogation of enemy combatants and terrorists. Weppner claimed, 

I don’t think sleep deprivation or waterboarding is something, if we are going to get valuable information that can save lives, is a horrible thing. I really don’t.

The notion that torture generates valuable information is categorically, scientifically false. While Weppner shocked the Catholic schoolboys with her pro-torture position, Higgins’ one-sentence response resulted in huge applause, prompting Weppner to whine about it later on Twitter (seen above). 

Torture should not be tolerated in any context in any part of the world.

The candidates’ reactions on Twitter aren’t an accident – Higgins’ performance was competent, relevant, and rational. Weppner’s was defensive, offensive, and bizarre. This is the shorthand to describe both candidates and their campaigns, overall. 

You think I hate Weppner or her right-wing followers? I don’t. I feel sorry for them, frankly, because it must really suck walking through life being angry and afraid of everything, always. I hate people who commit crimes and hurt others, I don’t hate people who think differently from me, however misguided I think they are. Part of what I do through this blog is highlight thoughts, ideas, words, and deeds that I believe to be ugly or nice – dangerous or helpful – reactionary or progressive. I pay attention to what my ideological opponents have to say because I refuse to formulate my opinions in a left-wing echo chamber. I read and listen to lots of points of view from lots of sources – so if I see, for instance, that the local AM talk radio station leaves a comment up for over an hour, which calls for the extermination of all Muslims on Earth, I feel it’s my duty as a normal human being to call that to the station’s attention.  It’s not only Nazi thinking, it’s violative of that station’s Facebook terms of service, “… will not tolerate racist, homophobic, sexist or abusive comments”. 

The real hatred comes from those who shut down dissent, and get called out in other venues. The real hatred comes from those who are utterly allergic to scrutiny or criticism of any kind. The real hatred comes from people who cower in their echo chambers, treating as unpatriotic or insane anyone who dares to disagree. The real hatred comes when the local news radio station blocks you on Twitter, because you pointed out that maybe “all Muslims need to be exterminated” doesn’t belong on their Facebook page. 

Election Day is next Tuesday. The tea party point of view is out in the sunlight for all to see. Reject it. 

Kathy Weppner: Victim

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Kathy Weppner, for whom you should totally never vote, scored a few points on Monday.  

Not against her opponent, but against the Buffalo News. She even recorded a radio ad blasting the News, because she is accusing its Washington correspondent, Jerry Zremski, of misogyny and sexism. For instance,

Here’s something I’ve not said before – Weppner has a point. When I read that passage, I thought that Zremski’s description of Weppner’s manicure was out of line; it’s simply not a way you write about a female candidate for office. But look at the passage within its context: 

Looking out over Canalside from the plaza outside downtown Buffalo’s new Courtyard by Marriott on Friday, with the new HarborCenter rising to his left and his brownish hair flying every which way in the breeze, Rep. Brian Higgins talked a bit like a proud father.

“It’s campaign season, so I’ll say it: We had something to do with this,” said Higgins, a Buffalo Democrat whose strong-arming of the New York Power Authority provided the funds to begin the city’s waterfront boom.

But a day earlier at the Lake Effect Diner in University Heights, Higgins’ opponent laid two immaculately manicured hands, with 10 long hot-pink fingernails, out across a pile of paper that foretold doom of one kind or another, and spoke like a very worried mother.

The emphases are mine. Zremski described something about Higgins’ appearance, and described him as a “proud father”, and then described something about Weppner’s appearance, and described her as a “worried mother”. He was more descriptive about Weppner’s nails, admittedly. 

He wasn’t blindly mocking Weppner’s fingernails – he was trying to illustrate for readers something about each candidate’s demeanor and appearance. You’ll note that no one quotes the Higgins passage, and plenty of people locally poke fun of Higgins’ sense of style. 

Interestingly, the people screaming loudest about this insult are the people who scream loudest against things they call “political correctness” and the “war on women”. People like this guy: 

I mean, if you’re going to be a hypocrite, I guess it’s best to do so within the same thread. But you can’t with a straight face complain about PC and then accuse someone of being a celibate or gay or whatever Bauerle’s trying to do here. Bauerle and his buds make all kinds of cracks about Higgins all the time. Their buddy Carl goes so far as to reportedly call Higgins a “cocksucker” in private, and he means it literally. That’s OK, I guess. 

But does Weppner not want people to notice her nails? I mean, they neither qualify or disqualify her for office, but they’re quite palpably there. 

This is a candidate who refers to women as, “girls” in a video mocking the very notion that there exists a “war on women”.  Now she’s a victim of it? 

She complains that she never had a professional manicure, but Zremski never said she did – he simply said they were manicured – he didn’t say who did it. 

Here’s what I wrote in May about Weppner’s dismissal of the “war on women”: 

The “war on women” has been coined as shorthand for policies and proposals that specifically target issues relating solely to females.  These can include restrictions on reproductive rights and choices, lax enforcement of workplace anti-discrimination regulations and statutes, outrageous slut shaming of feminists who advocate for women’s rights, and still-prevalent positions held mostly be men that, for instance, women who are beaten or raped must have contributed to their own victimhood; that they brought it on themselves or “deserved” it.

It’s perfectly reasonable for people to argue about how to deal with these sorts of things from different political and moral perspectives, but it’s not reasonable to simply deny that the problems themselves exist. It’s not reasonable to suggest that it’s ok that women are treated like inferiors in the labor market, for instance.

But instead of praising the women who have worked tirelessly for decades to improve the lot of all, Weppner denigrates their fight for equality as the real “victimhood”. Was Susan B. Anthony displaying weakness when she demanded equal rights and suffrage? Were the suffragettes just playing as weakling whiners when they demanded the vote? How about the women who, in the mid-19th century, gained the right to be treated as more than mere chattel under the law?

I do like that this lecture is being delivered from an all-American kitchen with a dollar-store flag in the background. Because patriot.

Kathy Weppner, an allegedly serious person supposedly running for federal elected office, can get on the YouTubes and allege that, when women fight for equality and liberty, they’re really waging war on men.  But I’ve got a transvaginal ultrasound right here that says Weppner’s wrong .

Weppner: she rejected the “war on women” before she decided it was politically expedient to become its victim. 

I don’t know if I agree with the “war on women” rhetoric, but I do believe that women should be treated as equals with men. I also think that the media need to be mindful of the ways in which they describe female candidates, and Zremski’s attempt to contrast Weppner’s and Higgins’ appearance was clumsy, at best. But there’s nothing here to indicate that he was displaying any animus, or that it was in any way an attempt to de-humanize Weppner because she’s a woman. He should have simply added something more about Higgins’ appearance. 

You can’t spend all your time complaining about political correctness, and then try to be politically correct. It’s either a valid concern, or it’s not.

In the end, none of this renders Weppner any more or less electable than she was on Sunday morning – i.e., not remotely. 

UPDATE: Here is one of the few remaining clips of Weppner’s WBEN show that exist on the internet, courtesy of WNYMedia.net. In it, she denigrates activist Sandra Fluke for her sex toy agenda or something; “contragestives are being snuck in under the name ‘Ella'”. Sandra Fluke was famously insulted as a “slut” by Viagra huckster Rush Limbaugh for daring to suggest that contraceptives be included in health insurance policy. 

When Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “slut”, Kathy Weppner piled on. She is a hypocrite of the highest order. 

Also, a commenter on Twitter suggests that it wasn’t the crack about the fingernails that was insulting, but that the juxtaposition of “proud father/worried mother” is just as troubling. I think it’s an interesting point, although I think that the whole passage was more about color commentary than about substance. 

Weppner Disrespects Canada’s Fallen

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Just a few weeks ago, tea party stereotype Kathy “Infected Poors” Weppner tried to raise funds off the severed head of an American journalist brutally slaughtered by the ISIS death cult. 

Yesterday, a terror attack was carried out in Ottawa, Canada and details are still rolling in. It’s likely to have been perpetrated by some homegrown death cult wannabes. But not one to let a good tragedy go to waste, Weppner wanted to score political points off the deaths of a Canadian serviceman.  

I don’t even know what that means. That Canadians don’t want to “protect themselves”? That their sane and rational gun control laws render them unprepared to handle some random homicidal lunatic? 

Also, “Canadiens” is a team, “Canadians” describes the residents of the country of Canada in English. 

 

But despite a uniformly negative reaction to Weppner’s poorly considered and misspelled Tweet, she doubled down, as she does.  

Most savvy politicians or compassionate, human people would express sympathy and outrage at the murder of a Canadian serviceman, shot dead while ceremoniously guarding the nation’s Cenotaph.  Not our Kathy, though.  She sees this as part of the gun-hugging cause. 

Incidentally, the closest thing we have in the US to the Cenotaph is the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetary. 

The tomb guards in Virginia, USA carry M14 rifles with ceremonial stocks.  The weapons are kept unloaded. Here’s a message to Kathy Weppner and tragedy trolls like her: 

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

Kathy Weppner is morally depraved, and it’s shocking that she’s endorsed by anyone, except people like Carl Paladino. 

Kathy Weppner on ISIS and Ebola

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The silly radio lady – our own politically backward version of Mariann from Brooklyn, Kathy “Infected Poors” Weppner – is following up her big May hit, “Stop Common Core in NY” with this doozy that links together Islam, ISIS, and Ebola.

Remember – this is a serious candidate for Congress. Not a joke. Not at all. Now, on with the countdown. 

Kathy Weppner on ISIS and Ebola and Islam

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/243984430/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&show_recommendations=true

Kathy “Purple Penguin” Weppner

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Step 1: See what appears to be regurgitated, unvetted nonsense likely spreading rampant through the fascist blogosphere in order to assail the imminent destruction of ‘Murrka by n0bummer and the Alinskyite cadres. 

Step 2: Not being privy to the rampant dementia infecting the idiot fasict blogosphere, Google it and find who’s talking about it. 

Step 3: Be a curious and intelligent person, and try to get to the truth. 

Step 4: Find out that the whole fascist outrage is not only false, but damningly critical of an attempt to make kids feel comfortable in the classroom. In other words: based on evil. 

1372

How Did Kathy Weppner Warn Us About ISIS in 2013?

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Rus Thompson at the Tea Party

Weppner with Costumed Pal

Remember how morally depraved Kathy “Infected Poors” Weppner tried reprehensibly and crassly to fundraise over the severed heads of American journalists murdered by “ISIS”?  She’s tried to make this into an issue, but as with most things she touches, she inadvertently reveals her own fundamental ignorance about everything.

This is why you don’t give WBEN callers attention, or run them for office. 

In a radio spot airing now, which sounds like the rapid-fire disclaimer at the tail-end of a used car commercial, Weppner claims that if you want to “defeat ISIS” you have to “change your congressman”; i.e., replace Higgins with Weppner. 

which sounds like the rapid-fire disclaimer at the tail-end of a used car commercial

She argues that Higgins, as a member of the foreign relations committee, was briefed numerous times about ISIS over the past year, and nothing was done. The idiocy is HUUUGE-AH. Here’s why:  

1. Higgins is a minority member of the foreign relations committee.  It is led by – its agenda set by – Republicans (specifically, Ed Royce R-CA). If there is blame, it rests not with Higgins, but with the whole of the GOP-led committee.  

2. There is no guarantee that, if she were to win, Weppner would be appointed to the same committees as Higgins. Her entire argument about “change your congressman” is premised on that misconception. Is she ignorant about how Congress works, or is she assuming that you are? 

3. What did Weppner have to say about Syria and ISIS in 2013 on her radio show, or on her blog? Ha ha! Sorry, suckers! You’ll never know, because she deleted all of it from the internet. 

4. You could, of course, opt to “change your congressman” and hire the woman who can’t properly format a document, and who thinks there’s a country called “Cypress”, or thinks ISIS is a “caliphate move”; that “caliphate” is an adjective, not a noun. 

5. Back in the summer of 2013, the President was proposing to launch air strikes against Syria in opposition to the regime and in support of the rebels. That never came to a vote because a deal was cut whereby Assad promised to dismantle and give up his chemical weapons. However, in the run-up to that potential vote on a resolution to authorize military action in Syria, almost all Republicans in Congress opposed any such action. There is absolutely no proof that Weppner would buck the GOP, especially as a freshman backbencher. Her entire argument is ludicrous. 

Has it come time yet to demand that the Republican Committees distance themselves from this ignorant and morally profane freakshow? Is it too early to demand that Republicans not only reject – but condemn – her use of American martyrs as campaign props and fundraising totems? 

Cognitive Weppner Dissonance

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The big news Tuesday afternoon was that the first case of Ebola was diagnosed Stateside, down in Texas. By the late afternoon, we knew that the afflicted man had flown from Liberia (a former American colony) to Texas to visit relatives. 

Around 4:45 pm, walking, talking insult to your intelligence Kathy Weppner tweeted and posted this to the Bookface: 

I enjoy the anti-vaxxer weighing in with his idiot opinion, but I actually can’t fault Weppner here. We should deal with it medically and not politicize a disease, and we should be ensuring that the disease is not spread. The CDC worked last night to remind people that you can only catch Ebola by coming into contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has the disease. 

Yet just 30 minutes later – at 5:16 pm – Weppner asked this question on social media: 

Wait a cotton-pickin’ minute. I thought we were supposed to deal with this medically, not politically! But here we are, worrying not about containing the spread of this virus, but how much it’s going to cost and whether the person is here “illegally”.  

I’m guessing the fact that the person had traveled to a place other than Ireland, they must be – according to Klownshoes Kathy – likely illegals. Of course, when someone flies to the United States from Liberia, they need to apply for a visa, their passport is checked prior to departure and their identity transmitted to the US authorities to ensure that they’re not on any list. Upon arrival, the traveler must go through passport control at the port of entry, as well as a customs check. Just like any of the other millions of travelers who come to the U.S. annually from non-visa-waiver countries. 

But, you know, all brown people are probably illegals.

Weppner also inadvertently makes the case for Obamacare or some other universal coverage construct – who’s going to pay?! Who knows? Who the hell cares? Who paid for the American volunteers in Africa who caught Ebola and were flown on private jets back to the States to get treatment? I don’t give a crap, and neither should you.  I’m just glad they’re ok. Likewise, I hope our Liberian visitor gets the medical care he needs so that he can enjoy his family and go home healthy and safe. One Ebola Liberian isn’t going to bankrupt the Republic. 

If the person was Texan and didn’t have insurance, that means they’re either in violation of the Affordable Care Act’s coverage mandate, and possibly that they fell into the gap left by indictee-cum-Texas Governor Rick Perry’s refusal to expand Medicaid in the U.S. State with the lowest rate of people with health insurance. Texas refused federal money to ensure that people who make too much for Medicaid, but too much for Obamacare subsidies to render private insurance affordable for their incomes. It was a deliberate, political choice to do harm to the most vulnerable people in Texas society. Perry is the person who was feted last night by local thug Carl Paladino and the tone-deaf Erie County Republicans and fusion Conservatives. 

So, yes, Kathy – we should treat the Ebola patient with medical care, and not politicize it at all. 

It’s high time you asked Thug Paladino and the local Republicans and fusion Conservatives why they’re backing this abhorrent, repulsive candidate. 

Weppner and the Parenthetical Hitler

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Hey, the candidates are replying to questionnaires. Let’s take a look! 

Kathy Weppner appears to be the only candidate vain enough to list “Patriot” as a qualification-slash-experience for public office.  That’s just breathtaking. I mean, Harvard Shmarvard. Being a “Patriot” is basically a silent pre-requisite for running for any public office in the U.S., like “sentient being” or “has central nervous system” or “skeleton”. 

Let’s compare the candidates’ “community involvement”, and watch Higgins mop the floor with Weppner’s “hey, I show up when people ask me to” slacktivism. 

Well, well, well. There are so many issues that the government should be addressing, and Higgins focuses on some key ones that fit neatly within a Congressional backbencher’s wheelhouse. But Weppner – she identifies the debt as “our top challenge”, and that if interest rates – that the Fed sets – go up, we won’t make the payments? The US has never defaulted, even in the 80s under Reagan’s debt and double-digit interest rates. People like Weppner who conflate public debt with family debt don’t really understand what they’re talking about. 

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.

Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves…

…It’s true that foreigners now hold large claims on the United States, including a fair amount of government debt. But every dollar’s worth of foreign claims on America is matched by 89 cents’ worth of U.S. claims on foreigners. And because foreigners tend to put their U.S. investments into safe, low-yield assets, America actually earns morefrom its assets abroad than it pays to foreign investors. If your image is of a nation that’s already deep in hock to the Chinese, you’ve been misinformed. Nor are we heading rapidly in that direction.

Now, the fact that federal debt isn’t at all like a mortgage on America’s future doesn’t mean that the debt is harmless. Taxes must be levied to pay the interest, and you don’t have to be a right-wing ideologue to concede that taxes impose some cost on the economy, if nothing else by causing a diversion of resources away from productive activities into tax avoidance and evasion. But these costs are a lot less dramatic than the analogy with an overindebted family might suggest.

I don’t know what Congress is going to do about “leadership” in a “dangerous world”, but whatever. She’s running a chain-email campaign. 

Now, on to income inequality. If you haven’t, you should read Monday’s Krugman, and then look at this: 

Every time an increase in the minimum wage is proposed, the wealthy egotists who think themselves ‘job creators” and their minions whine about how the jobs will all be lost! They do this, of course, while simultaneously denigrating the jobs and their occupants as losers, slackers, teens, or all of the above.

But the loss of jobs doesn’t happen. At all. If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation over the last 40 years, it would be $10.90/hour.  Instead, the federal rate is $7.25. No one’s talking about making everyone earn the same – this isn’t some Stalinist march to the kolkhoz, but ensuring that people who work earn enough to live, and that we halt policies that disproportionately enrich the already rich at the expense of the poor and middle class. You know, to stop this: 

But note the rhetoric about how “immigrants…started with nothing, did anything, and ended up great! About that…

So, on the one hand, immigrants do just great! But on the other hand, they’re all lawbreaking terrorist welfare queens who want to bankrupt the republic. 

See? It’s your own fault that we don’t know who’s funding campaigns. The word salad that Weppner sharts out here is utter nonsense. 

LOLWUT? First of all, I’d like someone to ask Weppner about the science of global climate change and see if she says the same thing. She completely fails to answer the question posed in any meaningful way, and just punts, adding that we like totally really need to be able to transport her phantom resources “based on science”. 

Common Core is not a federal program, isn’t administered or run from Washington, and was not a federal government initiative. Other than that, awesome!

So, on the one hand, she brings up a separation of powers issue that’s been pretty much resolved for some time – the Commander in Chief does not need a declaration of war to commit US troops. But the last time Congress declared war was World War 2, to combat, among others, Hitler – who appears here parenthetically.

We didn’t fight Hitler because of his crimes against humanity – we fought him because he declared war on the US on Pearl Harbor Day, and because the Nazis had overrun Europe and North Africa. Germany, Italy, and Japan were imposing militarist fascist totalitarian dictatorships all over the place, and we fought Nazi Germany because it had to be done. Weppner alludes to ISIS and its vicious reign of terror, but why isn’t the beheading and crucifixion of adults also a “crime against humanity” justifying American action? 

“Why do we deliver humanitarian food and shelter when humanity is threatened but we do not see the same need when life itself is threatened”.  What on Earth does that mean? We fought crimes against humanity in Bosnia and Kosovo in the last 20 years. What is she saying? 

She started her recent career as a caller to ultra-right-wing hate radio. She graduated from there to being a host on ultra-right-wing hate radio. Now, she feels entitled to a title, and in so doing is simply regurgitating nonsense she hears on ultra-right-wing hate radio. She’ll be lucky to hit 20% because the vast majority of WNY voters are not fascist idiots.

Donovan and Arnold: Out-Weppnering Weppner?

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You guys, I think I might have found a current right-wing candidate even more unintentionally hilarious than Kathy Weppner. I know, Kathy “infected poors” Weppner has been highlighting the dramatic threat to our Republic by a bunch of brown-skinned teenaged economic refugees, and she’s even tried to fundraise over the bodies of dead Americans, BUT SHE NEVER SALUTED WITH A COFFEE CUP IN HER HAND IMPEACH!!1!

I’m not a huge fan of Senator Tim Kennedy’s, mostly because of his hard work sabotaging the county’s Democratic Committee and by executing a Republican coup of the Erie County Legislature in 2010. 

With that said, the tea party has a doozy in this Donovan character. 

Donovan is a registered member of the Independence Fusion Party, and lost his own party’s primary to Tim Kennedy! How hilarious is that – his own corrupt little political club voted for the money and the bennies that an actual electable candidate offers. He is, however, running on the Conservative Fusion Party line and the Republican line.  Check this out, too: 

Take a closer look at the letter that Donovan shared: 

Dude lives in Kentucky. 

How, exactly, did Governor Cuomo and Senator Kennedy or, I’m guessing, the NY SAFE Act do anything to cause a problem that a guy in Kentucky has with a Federal agency? Does this ostensibly serious candidate not understand the federal system set up by the Constitution he purports to love? Does Rick Donovan think that NY SAFE applies to federal agencies or the Commonwealth of Kentucky? 

Including, I guess, the right to enslave and be enslaved. 

UPDATE: tea partier Ricky Donovan is an employee of the great State of New York as a corrections officer at the Albion Correctional Facility – a medium security female prison. Socialism is, evidently, ok if your name rhymes with “Nicky Flonovan”. 

On another note, check out what our favorite vacillator Gia Arnold is up to up in Niagara County. She apparently didn’t have enough valid signatures to be on the Libertarian Party line in November in the race to replace George Maziarz in SD-62. She lost the Republican primary to North Tonawanda Mayor Robert Ortt in a downright blowout, and she was taken to court over the validity of her Libertarian petitions. Specifically, signatures came from outside the district. Our ballot access laws may be too cumbersome, but as Weppner says, if we don’t enforce the laws, we become a lawless society. 

As Arnold announced that she’d not appear on any party line in November, Ortt was professional and on-point: 

While I am glad the integrity of the process was upheld, my focus remains where it has been since day one — speaking directly to voters, sharing my vision for how to create more good paying jobs for Western New Yorkers and fighting for our shared values in Albany as their next State Senator.

But Arnold? Not so much. 

If you happen to have a Rob Ortt for State Senate sign in your yard this election cycle, you are a fool to support the elite establishment that counts on your ignorance and apathy in order to continue to control our elections, state and national governments. VOTE ANTI – ESTABLISHMENT this year. Do your research.

Carl’s and Rus’ inexperienced, unqualified, naive one-issue candidate embarrassed herself throughout this process (see here, and here, and here), and lost dramatically to the established Republican elected official who is a serious person. Voting anti-establishment is great and all, but wildly aggressive fits of pique because you torpedoed your own campaign are bad form. She seems to be really bad at this whole “politics” thing, because what she’s doing is great if you want to be elected to chief rabble-rouser, bad if you want to be elected to any sort of elected statewide office. 

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