Search Results for: fusion

The Buffalo News, which has taken something of a sharp turn to the right, published an “Another Voice” column penned by a health insurance broker. The conflict negates the opinion, but it deserves a fisking because it is so fundamentally dishonest. 

Literally every industrialized democracy in the world has figured out the question of how to ensure that its populace is not bankrupted by medical bills. Some, like Switzerland, rely on a tightly regulated private market where every resident is mandated to purchase a basic level of comprehensive health insurance. Some, like Germany, offer hybrid systems of state-regulated and private insurance. Some, like Britain, offer a comprehensive national single-payer system with a separate private tier of care available to those who can afford it. Some countries have a system run by the central government while others rely on state, cantonal, or provincial management. 

There exist literally myriad ways to solve the problem of paying for everyone’s health care, but the United States has failed and refused to do so, to everyone’s harm. We spend more per capita on private health insurance and derive generally worse outcomes than most of our international peer nations. 

It doesn’t matter what you call it – socialism, democratic socialism, social democracy – the idea is that everyone contributes, and everyone benefits. 

Dan Judge, the president of the “Greater Niagara Frontier Chapter of the New York Association of Health Underwriters” is certain, however, that it would be foolish to kill his job, and he’s got the scare tactics to prove it. 

As an an independent insurance broker in the field of health and employee benefits, I, along with a vast number of my insurance industry colleagues, truly understand and empathize with many of the opinions voiced lately regarding the confusion and frustration in our U.S. health care system. But that doesn’t mean we should throw it out for a single-payer, government-run system.

It is not just “confusion and frustration”, not when even the slight gains won through the Affordable Care Act, like coverage for pre-existing conditions, remains at constant peril from Republican hard-liners. While Washington lobbyists and their paid-for Congresspeople fritter away people’s coverage and health security, we have insurance underwriters desperate to explain that this idiotic, Frankenstein system of ours is worth preserving. 

Single-payer, as proposed under the New York Health Act, would completely disrupt, if not dismantle, our health care system. Mandating that all New Yorkers would be forced to give up their current coverage and be lumped into one government-controlled system would not only be an administrative nightmare, it would also have a negative impact on access to care.

Disruption of a stupid, wasteful, redundant system of multiple private bureaucracies is exactly the point. Our health insurance system is broken. Single-payer is but one option available to remedy that. If insurance brokers are scared of that, then they should propose some other solution. Scaring us with PR-tested phrases like “administrative nightmare” won’t work because any American saddled with some garbage private health insurance has at least one horror story about what a waste of time, money, and effort it is. 

Single-payer is just that – one insurer. Of course, “single-payer” could take the form of a statewide contract through RFP for handling of every medical claim by one company. It doesn’t necessarily have to be administered by a state agency. But yes, instead of paying thousands of dollars to a private insurer of some sort, it would all go to one place, and that one place would pay the bills for doctors, hospitals, testing, therapy, etc. Doctors would have only one place to go to for billing issues, rather than a cafeteria list of various and disparate private entities and coverages, each one posing a bureaucratic nightmare for physicians and staff who just want to get on with the task of treating and helping patients. 

If we look to Canada (the closest single system we have to compare to) we see what life is really like under single-payer. The libertarian Fraser Institute of Canada publishes a “Waiting Your Turn” report every year, highlighting dramatic increases in wait times for specialists and procedures. Patients wait several months just to start cancer treatment. This has an increasing number of people choosing “medical tourism,” traveling to places like New York, rather than waiting in Canada for care.

You cannot stan for a system that prioritizes insurance claim bureaucracy over patient care and then complain, ‘but muh Saskatchewan wait times’. 

Generally, taking one’s cues from a “libertarian” institute is a fool’s errand. If you don’t like Canada’s system, here’s an idea: take what works, omit what doesn’t, and improve upon it. People from Canada do not, generally speaking, travel to the United States to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars out-of-pocket to receive treatment that comes free back home. For instance, if you navigate to Kaleida’s website, it has a page dedicated to Canadian patients, inviting them to “fast-track” their procedure in Buffalo. The highlighted services are cardiovascular, orthopedics, weight loss (bariatric), general surgery & oncological surgery, neuroscience, and diagnostic services. Although “oncological surgery” is in the pull-down menu, when you click through, it offers hernia repair, laparoscopic surgery, orthopedic surgery, weight loss, gynecological, and urological surgeries. Nothing specific there about cancer. 

Not that Canada’s system is perfect; it’s not. No system is perfect, and the quest for perfection is a red herring when even a modest improvement will do. The benefit, if there exists one, of waiting this long to figure this out, is that we have so many different models from which to choose that have been implemented abroad in real life for real care for real people. Pick what works and improve upon what doesn’t. Don’t stick to the status quo – do something better. 

The NHS, by contrast, has a two-week legislated maximum wait-time for urgent cancer referrals. The biggest problems facing government-run systems is cut-backs and austerity, not the system itself. 

Much of the savings proponents of the New York Health Act point to are dependent upon major cuts to hospitals and doctors. In Erie County, nine out of the 10 hospitals would see funding decline dramatically under single-payer. Your doctor may decide the lower pay and higher taxes aren’t worth practicing in New York anymore. This will also make it harder to recruit new doctors, leading to provider shortages.

On the other hand, doctors could lay off the staff they have on hand who exist solely to navigate the various and sundry insurance schemes that do or do not pay for care, as the case may be, thus keeping more money for themselves. It’s actually a quite cynical and disgusting charge to lay upon physicians, as if money was their motivator, rather than helping sick patients. Do you think a doctor would be happier if he would get paid regardless of whom he saw as a patient, and regardless of whether there was a proper referral, etc., or if he had to maintain the status quo and deal with referrals and co-pays and collections and insurance appeals? Imagine if a doctor would never again have to turn away a patient based on ability to pay. Imagine if a patient could get the care he needed regardless of ability to pay, and not bankrupt his family in the long run. 

And then there are the massive tax increases. Analysis conducted by the RAND Corp. last year estimated that taxes would need to increase by $139 billion in the first year alone under a single-payer system; including long-term care increases this amount by an additional $43 billion in taxes. The NYHA would create the largest state tax increase in U.S. history, ballooning to more than $250 billion a year when fully implemented.

How does that compare with the money New Yorkers now pay to their private health insurers, and in co-pays and deductibles? Every single private health insurance scheme goes to pay for each company’s massive payment-related and medical approval bureaucracy. Eliminate that redundancy.

That same RAND corporation study that Judge cites actually shows a net savings to New Yorkers if this scheme is implemented. If we kept the status quo, New Yorkers would pay $311 billion for health insurance. Taxes would increase and replace that. We would save 6.5% or $20.4 billion in reduced administrative costs, 5.2% or $16.3 billion in reduced physician and hospital administrative costs, $18.6 billion or 6% in reduced prices for drugs and medical devices, totalling a savings of $55.1 billion. The increases in cost would be $17.1 billion or 5.5% to insure everyone, improved fees for providers of $8.8 billion or 2.8%, and $18 billion or 5.8% for enhancements to long-term care coverage.  New Yorkers would save $11.4 billion. 

It is literally cheaper to cover everyone. 

The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office recently determined that a national single-payer system “would significantly increase government spending and require substantial additional government resources.” Just like the RAND Corp., they also noted the possibility of less access to care while facing an increased demand that could not be met.

Yes, because money you now pay in deductibles, co-pays, and health insurance would instead go to one other place, cost less, and provide more. Call it “taxes” to scare people, but I’d rather pay a smaller sum in taxes than I do for health insurance and annual deductibles in order to have complete, comprehensive medical, vision, dental, and long term care coverage. It is a no-brainer for anyone who has any experience with the American system. 

The majority of New Yorkers – 95% – are currently covered by health insurance. (In Western New York, that number rises to 96.8%.) The state should be looking at ways to help cover the remaining 5% instead of ways to create more frustration and confusion under a single-payer health care system.

tl;dr: it’s not so much important that people have adequate health insurance, so long as the health insurance brokers can pay for another Cadillac. 

If people want to have a debate on the merits as to what sort of medical coverage scheme best works for New York or the United States, that’s fine. The status quo, both pre- and post-Obamacare is inadequate and results in literal deaths from people without adequate coverage, money to pay deductibles, and avoidance of medical care due to financial anxiety. 

Americans deserve better. Want to make America great again? Cover every American. This is how it should be: 

When I lived in Iceland, I found a lump. I had no idea how to navigate finding a doctor, so I went to our show’s production manager.

Me: I found a lump. Can you help me find a doctor?
PM: Just go to the cancer center.
Me: Okay. How do a get a referral?
PM: What’s a referral?

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

After I explain what a referral is, he looks baffled.

PM: Just go to the cancer center.
Me: But…referral?

He shrugs and hands me the phone number to the cancer center. I call and explain.

CC: A lump, ah yes. You should come in.
Me: Don’t I need a referral?
CC: A what?

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

Having accepted that I don’t need a referral, I say, “How do I make an appointment?”
CC: An appointment? Yes, we can do that if your schedule is very busy, otherwise just come in.
Me: I don’t need an appointment?
CC: You found a lump! You know your body, yes? Come in.

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

So I go. The nurse checking me in apologizes because, since I’m not Icelandic, I’ll have to pay for the visit.

It’s 3 krónur.

That’s 3 dollars at that point.

I pay and sit down to wait.

CC: Kowal?
Me: Already?
CC: You found a lump.

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

She escorts me into an examining room and palpates the area.

CC: Yes, that does feel like a lump. Let’s do a mammogram.

I prepare to hear about making an appointment for that.

CC: I’m sorry, but it’s across the hall. Do you mind following me?

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

I’ve been in the building for about twenty minutes at this point when I’m strapped into the mammogram — WHICH HAD WARMERS — and she does her thing.

CC: There is something there, you are right. I want to see it with an ultrasound.

And then she leads me next door.

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

She does the ultrasound and when we’re finished, she tells me to get dressed and to meet her in the waiting room.

I head out to the changing room, put my top back on, and walk out to the waiting room. I sit down to wait.

CC: Kowal?
Me: Already?
CC: It is only cyst.

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

Forty-five minutes after walking into the Icelandic Cancer Center and 3 krónur poorer, I had the answer.

In the US, a similar lump took two weeks and three different office visits.

I think about this every time I have to fight with medical insurance in the US.

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) June 3, 2019

and

The US healthcare system baffles me. Here in the UK my dad was treated for a stroke & diabetes. My mum beat cancer & was in a coma following a heart attack (now recovered!) I have given birth twice, my daughter has had ear surgery and I had eye surgery. We only paid for parking.

— Kat Lawrenson (@kat_lawrenson) June 4, 2019

Our individualistic, libertarian paradise, however, is very different.

Another story: When I found a lump in my breast in 2009 and living in Nashville TN, I didn’t have insurance due to preexisting conditions. I was also unemployed. It took me three months to find a care provider.

— Kelly Gregory (@KellyLGregory) June 3, 2019

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your transmittal of April 8th. Evidently you were responding to a tweet from County Executive Mark Poloncarz that you failed or neglected to reprint in its entirety: 

Hi everyone! Please watch this important message from me about an unexpected primary I am facing and how a donation in any amount you can make to me at the link below will send a message to those who oppose us that we will not go back to the old ways. https://t.co/rmgJNAWnNd pic.twitter.com/PSE273vIQf

— Mark Poloncarz (@markpoloncarz) April 9, 2019

As a preliminary matter, I do not know how my personal email address came to be added to your list. Secondly, reading and listening are both useful skills. 

You ask, “How would you define the “Bad Old Days”? 

As a matter of fact, Mr. Poloncarz both wrote and said “bad old ways”. 

Not days. Ways. 

Were the “Bad Old Days” the days when the Party Chairman appointed himself to one of the highest paying jobs in county government? Were the “Bad Old Days” the days when there wasn’t one person of color employed at party headquarters? Were the “Bad Old Days” the days where in the first 7 years of your administration you didn’t have one African American in a leadership role? Were the “Bad Old Days” the days where you ordered the re-appointment of a disgraced Water Authority Chairman, whose removal was recommended by a state oversight authority? No Mr. Poloncarz, these were not the “Bad Old Days”, this is your County Democratic Party of today!! 

I’m sure it will come to a surprise to everyone – especially party headquarters – that there is “not one person of color employed at party headquarters.” Call and ask for the Executive Director. Ask her about it. 

In any event, I would like to address the “concerns” contained within your intemperate rant.  

The “bad old ways” involved all those years when other disgruntled nominal Democrats spent a fortune in order to destroy and sabotage good Democratic candidates in order to harm party headquarters and to accumulate money, power, jobs, and influence. 

Pedro Espada says hi. From jail. 

The “bad old ways” were the times when a former Democratic chairman –  deposed for being a divisive failure – undertook a well-funded, two-decades-long political jihad to systemically weaken the party committee he hoped again to run, and scorched Democrats who were trying to better their communities. The “bad old ways” saw a former Democratic chairman open a business with notorious right-wing propagandist Roger Stone in order to destroy local Democrats. 

Pigeoning: pi·geon·ing ˈpi-jən-iŋ: (n) the action of using money and influence, oftentimes pushing the election law envelope, to actively sabotage and undermine the Erie County Democratic Committee.

Now, we have some people trying to Pigeon sine Pigeon, trying so desperately to cling to the bad old ways. 

The “bad old ways” were when your boy did the crimes, like felony bribing a Supreme Court Justice, and felony directing a $25,000 foreign donation to Governor Cuomo. 

The “bad old ways” were the times when Democrats cut deals with the homophobic Conservative fusion Party, and paid Joe Illuzzi for an ad to curry the favor of a Springville barber in order to secure for them the Independence fusion Party line. Never forget that the Conservative fusion Party is the party of Angela Wozniak and Joe Mascia. 

The “bad old ways” were the times when Conservative Party Democrats conspired with Chris Collins to undertake a Republican coup of the Erie County Legislature in exchange for a few dollars thrown at pet projects. The “bad old ways” even include the recruitment of three criminals to help ensure a Republican coup in the State Senate. 

The “bad old ways” were quieted after two brave politicians – People of Color, one of whom now works in the Poloncarz Administration – filed a complaint with the Moreland Commission against your friends in the the WNY Progressive Caucus, or “AwfulPac“. 

In a sense, the “bad old ways” according to Poloncarz includes the times when you and your associates had control over the Water Authority patronage pot. 

Mark Twain once said “There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded”.

Query what the everliving f-ck you’ve done, kind sir, except help to weaken and sabotage the committee. If you don’t like Zellner, challenge him. Run. None of you ever do – full of sound and fury when it suits you, but helping no Democrats – not even Dobson – when November rolls around. 

Welcome to 2019. Pigeonism is over, and his bad old ways have been consistently rejected by Erie County Democrats.

Very truly yours, 

@buffalopundit

It should not come as a surprise to anyone that in the era of Donald J. Trump, millionaire, American politics have become incredibly dumb and unconscionably threatening. There exists in the world zero excuse – none – to threaten violence or bodily harm on one’s political opponent. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat, Republican, or a member of some corrupt or washed-up marionette fusion party, under no circumstances is it ok to threaten someone over a political point of view. 

We come to learn this week that County Executive Mark Poloncarz has accepted a security detail from the Sheriff’s office due to threats he has recently received. The Buffalo News reports: 

On the Friday before St. Patrick’s Day, a suspicious package arrived at his office addressed to him as “personal and confidential.” It had been hand-delivered to his office and had no return address. Nothing inside turned out to be dangerous, but the incident put building security on alert, he said.

Fair enough. I understand that county resources are limited, and I have no doubt that Poloncarz accepted the security detail reluctantly at someone else’s recommendation. In fact, he tells the News exactly that. 

He accepted police protection upon the recommendation of Buffalo police, Erie County Central Police Services and the Sheriff’s Office, he said. That includes special transportation measures and two sheriff’s deputies who travel with him to his scheduled events, among other security measures that he declined to publicly discuss.

and 

He said he does not know how long he will continue to have the security. He hopes it is temporary.

“It’s completely changed how I have to go about my work routine and daily life,” Poloncarz said. “I’m not thrilled with it.”

Erie County Undersheriff Mark Wipperman said he could not elaborate on the details of the open investigation but confirmed the additional protection was recommended.

“Based off the recent threats made against the county executive, we believed a security detail was needed,” Wipperman said.

Also fair. I think that if an elected official received a credible threat of harm, he or she ought to implement whatever reasonable security measures law enforcement might recommend. Obviously he doesn’t need an armored car or a full motorcade, but being accompanied by deputies on the recommendation of the police seems reasonable for an elected official who by no means signed up to get threatened by Facebook trolls whose behavior escalates into potential assassin territory.

In that Buffalo News article, however, one prominent Republican and one member of the washed-up, marionette “Independence” fusion Party attempted to make political hay out of the protection of a fellow elected official. 

“If there is a credible threat to him and he is in need of security, then that’s fine, but I have questions,” said [County Executive candidate Lynne] Dixon, adding that she wants an update on the status of the investigation.

Ms. Dixon should have stopped at “fine.” Everything after that is irresponsible and macabre. 

Wipperman said the deputies, detectives and supervisors who are trained in dignitary and executive protection work come from different parts of the Sheriff’s Office.

“They are assigned on a rotating basis so that none of our normal operations and investigations are hampered,” he said.

On what basis is Lynne Dixon, a county legislator, in any position to demand an “update on the status of” a police investigation that does not affect her? Never fear, dear reader, because Dixon’s ghoulishness is dwarfed by Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw’s colossal grotesqueness. 

“I’m sure there’s a significant cost involved in removing these highly trained officers from their specific detail to protect the county executive like he’s the president,” he said.

Think on that for a second. Mychajliw is quite literally putting a price on Poloncarz’s head. This is professional-grade concern-trolling. I mean, is there a “cost” threshold that Mychajliw or Dixon can stomach to prevent a political rival, his loved-ones, and his staff from being harmed? If so, then why isn’t that being established? Why are the media dutifully transcribing these bloodthirsty sentiments without challenging them.

How much is too much, Stef? What is the most taxpayer money that can be spent to prevent the murder of the County Executive, Lynne? Somebody ask these questions. 

I call upon members of the Erie County Legislature immediately to introduce a bill that delineates the maximum amount of public money that can be spent to protect an elected official against whom a credible threat of violence has been made. 

From a practical standpoint, I believe that it’s smarter for Poloncarz to take security advice from professional members of law enforcement rather than from former journalists with no law enforcement experience who made names for themselves by wearing red parkas.

In February 2017, Mychajliw said he received threats from an inmate, believed to be mentally ill, who threatened to “exact revenge” against him with a gun. That led Mychajliw to apply for a concealed carry pistol permit and purchase a Glock at his own expense. The inmate has since been in and out of jail.

Poloncarz said Mychajliw should contact Central Police Services and the Sheriff’s Office if he has serious concerns.

Mychajliw said he contacted the sheriff when the issue first arose.

“I thought it would be silly to ask for 24/7 police protection,” Mychajliw said. “Our law enforcement should be used to fight crime on the streets, take drugs out of the community and fight the very serious opioid epidemic.”

Mychajliw here presumes that Poloncarz asked for police protection, and the very article in which he is quoted proves him incorrect. To put a finer point on all of this, Mychajliw amazingly does not consider the protection of elected officials from credible threats of harm to be “crime on the streets”. I’m pretty sure it is. His invocation of the “opioid epidemic” is clumsy politicization of all of this. Stefan Mychajliw’s office’s remit does not extend to telling law enforcement how to do its job. 

Wednesday morning, Mychajliw appeared on WBEN and took surprisingly pointed questions from Susan Rose on all of this. He parroted the propaganda he fed to the Buffalo News’ Sandra Tan, and demanded that the Rath Building’s security footage be immediately released so as to apprehend whomever delivered the suspicious package to Poloncarz’s office. 

Except there’s a problem with that. It wasn’t just the suspicious package. 

Five days [after the package was delivered], an incident occurred at [Poloncarz’s] house that prompted him to call the police. He declined to elaborate, saying he doesn’t want the information to harm the investigation or encourage copycats.

Mychajliw said nothing of that, completely ignoring so as to advance his sadistic narrative that Poloncarz is a spendthrift drama queen.

Mychajliw suggested that Poloncarz do what he did – get a concealed carry permit and then cross your fingers that cosplaying Hopalong Stef is better protection against lunatic cranks than foillowing the recommendations of law enforcement. Note that in Mychajliw’s case, he says he contacted the sheriff; the article does not go into any further detail, so we are left to wonder whether the department considered the threat against Mychajliw to be as serious or credible as the ones made against Poloncarz in recent weeks. Perhaps Mychajliw’s concealed carry permit wasn’t just some cynical political ploy to pander to the SCOPE/Abolish the SAFE Act crowd and was instead a well-considered and proportional response to the threat he received; by the same reasoning, perhaps Poloncarz’s reluctant acceptance of a security detail is a proportional and reasonable reaction to the threats he received. 

We are all just trying to be people in this society. If law enforcement had recommended that Mychajliw accept a security detail because some crazed leftist was making credible threats, literally no one would begrudge him that. When the security of public officials takes a back seat to cost, then the country is truly in a sorry state. If there is truly a “concern” about cost, then this could be handled quietly. The fact that it’s in the paper tells you that this is a political stunt and not a serious or credible concern at all. This is a Republican effort to make Poloncarz seem like he is taking something from taxpayers to which he is not entitled. Shame on Dixon and shame on Mychajliw. 

The only appropriate response to learning of a credible threat of bodily injury against a fellow public servant is to ask “what do you need”. These Republicans would sooner see Poloncarz harmed than spend a dime on his protection.

I think the media should stop “both-sidesing” stories like this and instead probe why Mychajliw and Dixon are so eager to see harm come to Poloncarz and his family, friends, and colleages. 

The Trump Crime Syndicate is poised to close all 21 overseas offices of the Citizenship and Immigration Service. Immigrant visa applications will now be handled by already overworked consular offices, and this will result in delay and slowing of visa applications, family reunifications, and adoptions. The rationale is that the Trump Crime Syndicate is opposed to all immigration – legal or otherwise. This will please Trump’s “base”, which is all about keeping America white.

Tucker Carlson is no proletarian populist, but he plays one on TV. Carlson is also either a white nationalist, or a guy who is perfectly fine repeating white nationalist (read: Nazi) tropes and memes to his nightly audience of omniphobe boomer bigots. 

Where the living fuck are Tesla’s solar roofs? What are they doing in there? 

The people who used to ride with Steve Pigeon are out and about, trying to take over bits and pieces of Cheektowaga town government and circulating petitions for a Democratic County Executive primary. It’s nice that there are about 7 people nostalgic for the good old days of conspiring with the fusion parties to ratfuck endorsed Democrats. 

Speaking of which, fusion voting got some attention in the last few weeks because the Working Families Party – a lefty, union-funded fusion party that famously endorsed Cynthia Nixon over Andrew Cuomo last year – decided to mount a push to combat a Democratic push to abolish fusion altogether. Never mind that New York is one of only a few states that allow this practice, fusion voting is nothing but a way for political malefactors to cut dirty deals; e.g., endorsements in exchange for jobs. Fusion is what led to former Senate majority leader Malcolm Smith to go to jail. Fusion was the way Steve Pigeon colluded with Republicans to screw Democrats over. Fusion is what enables the criminal “Independence Party” enterprise to continue to operate and confuse voters. Sure, voting is too restrictive in New York and the system could use an overhaul, but fusion is not some sort of voting rights bonus. It’s a conduit for criminality and graft, and has been for some time. People with longer memories will remember how rumormonger Joe Illuzzi would sell ads to politicians as part of a package that would (a) prevent Illuzzi from printing nasty, false rumors about that politician; and (b) buy the Independence Party line from a Springville barber who ran its local committee. 

Brexit has turned into an utter shambles. With just days left before Article 50 triggers an automatic exit from the European Union, MPs yesterday rejected Theresa May’s clumsily negotiated exit deal for a second time. Brexit has turned out to have been brought about through what appears to be electoral fraud and cheating, assisted in part by Russians intent on striking back at the west for EU and US sanctions brought about in the wake of Russia’s illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula. It is against this shambolic backdrop that New York’s worst legislator – David DiPietro – suggests breaking up New York into several states. After all, what better way to counter the utter moral and political bankruptcy of your political party and ideology than to basically do two mini-Brexits, and enable WNY to lose its downstate subsidy and become Mississippi-on-the-Lake. Re-drawing the political map to make WNY “redder than Texas” and poorer than Alabama. The rationale is, at least partly, an effort to force poor people who rely on programs like Medicaid to leave. 

We haven’t even talked about the Trump kids and their fake security clearances, or Trump’s relationship with Chinese sex traffickers whom he has allowed to sell rich Chinese access to Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

His own felony convictions may have finally ended Conservative Fusion Party operative Steve Pigeon’s yearslong operation to ratfuck western New York Democrats. It’s fair now to call it a crime syndicate. Since Pigeon’s indictment, remnants – stragglers – leftovers have popped up to give the old playbook a try, but in the last few cycles these irrelevant candidates have made no impact whatsoever. Long gone are the days where some shadowy committee would pop up seemingly out of nowhere with six figures’ worth of funding at the ready to destroy and obliterate endorsed Democratic candidates, to considerable Republican and Conservative fusion Party glee.

On Tuesday, two of Pigeon’s top lieutenants pleaded guilty to election law misdemeanors in connection with the rampant fraud and illegality surrounding 2013’s Western New York Progressive Caucus, a/k/a “AwfulPAC”. Pfaff and Mazurek were sentenced to a one-year conditional discharge – a punishment barely registering a figurative slap on the wrist, and unlikely ever to meaningfully deter some budding future criminals from illegally coordinating PAC business with campaigns in the future. 

According to admissions made by the defendants at the time of the plea, from August 2013 through September 2013, Mazurek and Pfaff knowingly and willfully attempted to engage in illegal campaign coordination while acting on behalf of the Western New York Progressive Caucus, an unauthorized political committee, in regard to the nomination for election of an Erie County Legislature candidate in the September 10, 2013 primary. Campaign coordination is a crime under the Election Law. The crime is committed when a person knowingly and willfully, solicits, organizes, or coordinates the activities of an unauthorized committee with the activities of a candidate or the candidate’s agents and where the expenditures made by the unauthorized committee on behalf of the candidate exceed the contribution limit for the candidate’s race. 

On behalf of the Western New York Progressive Caucus, Mazurek and Pfaff sought input from an Erie County legislative candidate with respect to campaign literature and a photo shoot. Western New York Progressive Caucus paid expenses on behalf of the candidate that exceeded the $1,476.50 contribution limit of that race by over $16,500. 

Pigeoning: pi·geon·ing ˈpi-jən-iŋ: (n) the action of using money and influence, oftentimes pushing the election law envelope, to actively sabotage and undermine the Erie County Democratic Committee.

Mazurek entered a guilty plea to an attempted violation of Election Law section 14-126(5), a class A misdemeanor; Pfaff entered a guilty plea to attempted violation of Election Law section 14-126(3), a class B misdemeanor, today before Hon. Donald F. Cerio, Jr., in Erie County Supreme Court. 

The Western New York Progressive Caucus was created by G. Steven Pigeon and Kristy Mazurek in August 2013 as an independent expenditure committee designed to support Democratic candidates in the 2013 Democratic Primary.   

In 2013, Pigeon, Pfaff, and Mazurek created the AwfulPAC in order to raise money and operate campaigns on behalf of several candidates, including Dick Dobson for Sheriff, and Erie County Legislature candidates Rick Zydel and Wes Moore. Pfaff and Mazurek admitted through their plea that they illegally and improperly coordinated PAC and campaign activities and fundraising. Acting Attorney General Barbara Underwood said that the AwfulPAC was created to “skirt the law”. 

I am having a hard time reconciling the clear illegality with the extremely light sentences here. I don’t know how these people can do what they did and get away with it. Small consolation we can call Mazurek and Pfaff convicts. New York voters deserve better. 

On Saturday afternoon, Erie County’s elected Comptroller tweeted the following: 

I’m a loyal, team player. I worked hard for friends & fellow Republicans at all levels. We fought to keep NY27 in Republican hands. It was my mission to help elect fellow Republicans that shared my values of smaller govt, cutting taxes & reducing spendinghttps://t.co/MRhoMBDbxT

— Stefan Mychajliw (@StefanMychajliw) November 17, 2018

I didn’t really have to click through to the linked-to Buffalo News article to know exactly who wrote it and what it was. But, I’m a glutton for punishment, so…

Bob McCarthy, dutiful Republican stenographer. https://t.co/5TweT5TFtf

— Buffalo Pundit (@buffalopundit) November 17, 2018

I don’t begrudge Mychajliw – one of the most camera-thirsty pols in town – his puff piece. I’m trying here to understand how the Buffalo News can allow itself to be a platform for unilateral, unchecked propaganda, here masquerading as a news story about an ambitious elected who is ostensibly ruffling feathers in his own party. 

But I got an interesting reaction from one of McCarthy’s former colleagues; someone who runs a non-profit that does investigative journalism locally: 

A dishonest cheap shot by @buffalopundit. https://t.co/9Js5As0ImK

— Jim Heaney (@JimHeaney) November 17, 2018

Has Heaney explained why my “cheap shot” was “dishonest”?

It’s a bullshit puff piece that McCarthy ONLY has time to write for Republicans. Democrats get short shrift and are more often than not demeaned. Ask @ZellnerforECDC or @Marinucci4Clerk more here. https://t.co/WcHCT7Xfj4

— Buffalo Pundit (@buffalopundit) November 17, 2018

Not yet. Not to me, not to the several other people who rose to defend my terse take.

This isn’t some new, haphazard observation I make with no evidence just to throw rhetorical stones. I have for years pointed out McCarthy’s dependable, friendly stenography for powerful conservative males and his dismissal of females, Democrats, and political figures coming up through the ranks. 

In 2014, for instance, someone – most likely East Aurora political consultant and renowned shitposter Michael Caputo – arranged for McCarthy to accompany Donald Trump on his private 757 to Buffalo. There was a big Erie County GOP fundraiser being held at Salvatore’s and Trump was the marquee guest. McCarthy’s resulting column was pitiful and risible. I mocked it at the time, likening McCarthy’s frequent descriptions of Trump’s gilded plane to objectum sexuality. Passages like: 

Dissecting the strategies of a statewide race around an exquisite oak table is exactly the kind of political scene you might envision involving a top Republican like Donald J. Trump, especially when he’s mulling a challenge to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

But when the conversation takes place thousands of feet above New York State, aboard what he proudly calls “the world’s most luxurious airplane,” you get a sense of just how unique this campaign might be.

and 

So during a Friday afternoon interview with The Buffalo News aboard Trump’s $100 million Boeing 757 en route from New York to Buffalo, the Manhattan real estate mogul laid down his conditions in the clearest language yet.

and 

Trump has no problem dwelling on that “very nice life.” Watching a golf tournament on the 57-inch screen stretching across mid-cabin, he casually drops the fact he has won a string of club championships.

“I’m a good golfer,” he said.

But he also thinks the opulence that surrounds him could prove his point.

“People want to see success; I would like to show my financial statement,” he said. “I’m one of those guys who says let’s make a lot of money so we don’t have to cut, even though I know that last part doesn’t sound very Republican.”

McCarthy challenged nothing Trump said; his attacks on State GOP Chairman Ed Cox were met with nothing. No comment from Cox, nothing even to vet whether or not Trump is a good golfer. It was just raw, uninterrupted Trump proclamations, and a star-struck McCarthy writing it all down, with frequent allusions to Trump’s opulent lifestyle and gold-plated things. 

Fast-forward to this year’s Collins-McMurray race, just a few weeks ago I again criticized McCarthy’s careful efforts to promote the profile and propaganda of male right-wing figures. On just one Sunday, the Buffalo News published no fewer than three ridiculously one-sided, Republican-friendly McCarthy pieces. One – amazingly – about Chris Collins’ indicted son’s wedding still being on. Another was a glowing profile of Chris Collins himself – front page of the Sunday paper. Finally, echoing the 2014 ride-along on the Trump jet, Caputo (probably) set McCarthy up to interview fascist wino Steve Bannon on his limo ride back to Prime Aviation, where the nominal populist would catch his private jet back to Teterboro. Like the coal miners do. 

Despite the fact that Bannon insulted McCarthy’s entire profession as the “opposition party”, (McCarthy didn’t try to rebut this slander), the News scribe dutifully transcribed and spat back at his readership whatever propaganda Bannon wanted out there. No facts were checked, no claims were vetted. He just wrote it all down. Example: 

“Man, [Trump] knows China,” Bannon said. “He knew chapter and verse in 2010 about China. I can’t have that conversation with five guys in Washington. They wouldn’t understand what he was talking about.”

I think anyone who pays even casual attention to the Trump Administration knows that Trump may be many things, but he’s no policy wonk. 

Let’s turn back to what noted local journalist Jim Heaney characterizes as my  “dishonest cheap shot” at McCarthy’s “analysis” of Stefan Mychajliw’s involvement with the Collins campaign. 

Mychajliw, 45, emphasizes his ubiquitous presence on the campaign trail was aimed at preserving the district for Republicans, and that he worked for other candidates too. But he acknowledges his interest in Washington.

Mychajliw was the Zelig of this congressional campaign season, popping up at opportune moments to shed the “Comptroller” mantle and do a quick-change into a Bannonist neo-fascist spitter of malignant talking points. Literally one day he was using transphobic language to insult County Executive Mark Poloncarz, and the next he was on the radio, falsely accusing Democratic Congressional candidate and Grand Island Supervisor Nate McMurray of threatening him. 

After Collins’ indictment, Mychajliw was loudest among the faux-alt-right crowd ready to enter the fray against McMurray. I wrote, 

The campaign strategy has already been polled and formulated. All they have to do is plug in an avatar for the carefully crafted pro-Trump/anti-Pelosi messaging that attacks family man and in-house corporate lawyer—Democrat Nate McMurray—as some sort of antifa radical. Mychajliw, especially, is trying to paint McMurray as some sort of Marxist guerrilla rebel leader slightly to the left of Che Guevara who will feed you a Venezuelan existence. Imagine: a supporter of Donald Trump’s robotically parroting someone else’s talking point about McMurray’s demeanor. To call it insane would be an grave insult to insane people. 

With his oddly aggressive table reads of this season’s script, Mychajliw pivots awkwardly from his putative 2019 Erie County Executive race by simply replacing “Poloncarz” with “McMurray.” Mychajliw tells you absolutely nothing about what he’s for, except one thing: Donald Trump. They love to invoke Nancy Pelosi, who has as much influence on the average Western New Yorker’s day-to-day life as, say, the Ancient Aliens guy, but these people need to play to the WBEN-listener rubes who hate Democratic women from the coasts, for whom they have choice one-word nicknames. 

Not a word of that is inaccurate. QEMFD. But here comes Bob McCarthy, raising Mychajliw’s profile and setting him up for his special election when Collins gets sent to the slammer. 

But after Collins re-entered the race on Sept. 17, Mychajliw shifted into support mode for him and others. He accompanied Assemblyman David J. DiPietro of East Aurora on his rounds, helped town justice candidates and spent several nights a week working the phones for others – earning political chits that may be someday redeemed.

Imagine the hubris of Stefan Mychajliw – largely unknown outside of Erie County – lending his clout in support of DiPietro and Collins out in the rural counties. This junket as DiPietro’s and Collins’ obedient travel companion was wholly self-serving – Mychajliw hasn’t been a journalist for a decade. His name is not a household word in the easternmost parts of NY-27, and if he’s going to run for NY-27 again, he needs to raise his profile. 

“It was a real eye-opener, to be able to talk to voters every day,” Mychajliw said. “It will make me a better candidate in the future, no doubt about it.

“We’re ready to do it now if the opportunity presents itself,” he added.

Oh, I’ll bet it was. I’ll bet you are. 

Again, let’s go back to Jim Heaney calling me out for my “unfair cheap shot”. Here’s a quote from McCarthy’s Mychajliw piece: 

After raising more than $100,000 in three months for the county campaign, he was already aiming at Poloncarz as a “vulnerable, out-of-touch, liberal extremist.”

“He’s more interested in banning plastic bags, the Paris climate accords and allowing grown men to use the same bathroom as my daughter than anything else,” Mychajliw said in July. “I think Mark has totally checked out.

“I’m telling friends and supporters to stay tuned,” he added.

I think that – apropos of literally nothing – pull-quoting and composting Mychajliw’s most dishonest, transphobic, and outrageous attack on Poloncarz and allowing it to fester there on the page, unchallenged, is dutiful transcription of right-wing talking points. It is a pattern, and it should be pointed out. Oh, sure, McCarthy got on the horn to Paladino, who was pissed at Mychajliw for cutting the line in front of him for the opportunity to run for the Collins seat, but he cleaned it up by running this: 

“I don’t think anyone should begrudge me for wanting to advance a political career,” he said, noting that the local political world “blew up” following Collins’ Aug. 8 indictment.

“Everyone’s plans changed that day,” he said.

Mychajliw is an excellent retail politician, but as Comptroller he doesn’t set policy. He has never, ever served as a representative. He’s never passed or drafted a law, and he’s never really had to set forth a platform of policy positions because that’s simply not what a comptroller does. Call me crazy, but the newspaper reporter might have pointed out that fact. So far, Mychajliw’s only policy is to talk shit about other politicians who take strong stands on policy, and regurgitate things fed to him by campaign consultants. 

And it’s not just Republicans – McCarthy has also been a reliable mouthpiece for Conservative fusion party operative Steve Pigeon. Seriously. Click that link and read that piece I did during the Preetsmas series, as the walls closed in on Pigeon and his collaborators. I wrote,

As recently as May 24th, the Buffalo News’ political columnist, Bob McCarthy, dutifully did Steve Pigeon’s bidding, producing an opinion piece that amounted to faithful stenography of a longtime source’s spin. In this case, it was Pigeon spinning about why he had ended what had until recently been a likely mutually beneficial relationship with a Rochester-based law firm. Pigeon told McCarthy it had nothing to do with any investigation — but the state and federal raids came literally four days later. 

But don’t take my word for it. Ask Angela Marinucci, a Democrat who ran for Erie County Clerk this year against political opportunist Mickey Kearns, 

Shame on @TheBuffaloNews & @bobmccarthybn. Your bias is showing. Read more here: https://t.co/PV1bpwxmAw

— Angela Marinucci for Erie County Clerk (@Marinucci4Clerk) November 11, 2018

This is from Marinucci’s expanded comment: 

…let’s review how the Buffalo News treated our race:

I sat in front of the Buffalo News Editorial Board, made up of four 50+ year old white men for 35 minutes explaining my plans for the Clerk’s Office & my opponent’s fiscal irresponsibility. I quoted, without notes, exact statistics & Ed Board comments FROM THE BUFFALO NEWS to show how the office was being mismanaged.

When the Buffalo News endorsed my opponent, they wrote 2 sentences about me – belittled me by calling me a “rookie” & referring to my COLLEGE internships from 15 years ago while praising my opponent’s demonstrably false claims about how he’s running the Clerk’s Office.

Here is how this “rookie” with the college internships contrasts her experience with Kearns’: 

I am a published attorney, graduate of a Tier 1 law school, running for a quasi-legal position who earned the endorsement of our Lieutenant Governor, our County Executive, no less than 7 local town Supervisors / Mayors and 2 Council Presidents, numerous town board members across the county, and many community leaders. My opponent ran on being a former garbage man career politician who was an “independent” voice in Albany because he flip flopped party loyalty so many times.

When Marinucci turns to our mustachioed hero, watch out. 

This morning Bob McCarthy wrote a column once again belittling me. He claims that my opponent won with a “hefty cushion” & said my “last-minute” ads feature me “flipping pancakes”, with no mention of my qualifications which featured prominently in my ads. Apparently, math isn’t Mr. McCarthy’s strong suit. I outraised my opponent & my campaign was able to finance a 2 week TV ad buy as well as a substantial digital buy, more than double what my opponent was able to buy (spending every dollar in his campaign account) – but he did put is smiling face on a racist Willie Horton-style political mailer.

“Reporting” such as this encourages the worst among us. Failing to even acknowledge my credentials is part of the reason why a man commented “Stay home & raise your kids” on an article from the Buffalo News just three days ago saying my race was too close to call. It’s part of the reason why I receive comments & messages on my campaign FB page saying things like “hell no!!!!!!!” & “the only thing going for you is that you’re a woman.”

THIS is why it matter that we have women in positions of power. Shame on Bob McCarthy & shame on the Buffalo News. I am disgusted.

It’s true that I took a “shot” at McCarthy, but the debate here is whether that shot was “cheap” and/or “dishonest”. There’s my explanation; there are the facts that inform my opinion that Bob McCarthy is a dutiful Republican stenographer. Meanwhile, Jim Heaney hasn’t responded to anyone’s request that he explain precisely how my critique of McCarthy was cheap or dishonest. 

Maybe it was Heaney’s unexplained, undefended shot at me that was both cheap and dishonest. 

It wasn’t too long ago that Christopher Collins and Steve Pigeon were co-conspirators in a perfectly legal, albeit scummy, scheme to transform a Democratic majority in the Erie County Legislature into a shaky “reform coalition” controlled by Republicans to do Collins’s bidding. Who can forget how a small handful of nominal Democrats conspired with Pigeon throughout 2009 to hand the legislature over to Collins. Everyone got something out of the deal except for the people of Erie County, who were shafted, as was routine. In the end, as with many Pigeon-orchestrated hijinks, the effort crumbled into failure. Collins lost his re-election bid in 2011, but the damage that Pigeon, his money, and his cohorts could do to good Democratic candidates continues even today, despite 2013’s “WNY Progressive Caucus” (a.k.a. AwfulPAC) blowing up in their faces and resulting in Pigeon’s recent conviction for felony bribery, Frank Max’s conviction for election law violations, and the pending prosecutions of Kristy Mazurek and David Pfaff. 

But memories are short and convenient, and the villains of January 2010 have largely not been drummed out of local politics. This is a testament, I supposed, to that whole “city of good neighbors” thing. You can back your enemy for short-term tactical political gain, and you will still be tolerated within Democratic ranks later on. 

Steve Pigeon’s rogue political machine was a cancer on the Erie County Democratic Committee. Like any cancer, people tried valiantly to halt its spread, to attack and counter-attack, to do as little damage to healthy tissue as possible while killing the cancer. Getting rid of Pigeon as chair was just excising the tumor—the margins weren’t clear, and the battles continued. Unlike most cancers, however, we know exactly what fed and enabled Pigeonism: electoral fusion. Without the ability routinely to screw over Democratic HQ through malignant wheeling and dealing with the execrable “Independence Party” (which is neither independent nor, really, a party) or the so-called “Conservative” Party, Pigeonism couldn’t have existed.

As with most cancers, Pigeonism brought good days and bad days; but the prosecutions over 2013’s WNY Progressive Caucus seemed a miracle cure. The cancer got sloppy and an exciting trial of a new drug called “Enforce Existing Rules and Laws” showed promise. The cancer is now in remission, but there is no known cure. Steve Pigeon may be a convicted felon, and he may be disbarred for it, but there is nothing stopping him from re-infecting our political organism. Even this primary cycle, aberrant cells of breakaway Dems mounted failed attempts to play the same old game, but it doesn’t work anymore; not like it used to. Not remotely. 

Preetsmas carries on, and we must remain vigilant against the cancer returning. 

Pigeon’s co-conspirator from 2010, Christopher Collins, also finds himself facing criminal charges. He stands accused of various types of fraud and is out and campaigning on $500,000 bail; evidently, he’s a moderate flight risk. After suspending his campaign and pledging to step aside, Collins—ever looking out for himself over the good of his constituents—flip-flopped and decided to stay in the race. So far, “campaigning” means throwing up racist, lying TV ads and showing up to events where he is guaranteed a friendly, placid audience. Christopher Collins can’t really debate anyone in any meaningful way. After all, he is under arrest and subject to a Miranda warning—everything he says can be used against him in a court of law. 

But there is one constant that has helped to accelerate the growth of the cancer on our body politic represented by Pigeon and Collins, and it is beautifully embodied by this Buffalo News article. Written by dutiful longtime Pigeon stenographer Bob McCarthy, it seems simply to regurgitate a Collins campaign press release announcing a new television ad that will attack Democratic, un-arrested challenger Nate McMurray for supporting Medicare for all. 

“Nate’s push for European-style health care shows how radically out of touch he is with the 27th District,” said campaign spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre. “His plan raises spending by $32.6 trillion, doubles taxes for every American, and jeopardizes care for our seniors while severely raising their taxes. Voters should take Nate McMurray at his word – at least until he deletes this video.”

Let’s operate under a few assumptions, all of which give accused criminal Christopher Collins the undeserved benefit of the doubt. We start with the premise that the status quo, as it relates to American healthcare and insurance, is inadequate or unacceptable. Collins has spent years deriding Obamacare as a “socialist” failure, so he bears a substantial burden of proof to offer up an alternative. Not just any alternative—but specifically an improvement upon not just Obamacare’s status quo, but the pre-Obamacare years, as well. The goal is ostensibly to maximize how many are covered, the type of coverage, protection for pre-existing condition coverage, and lower cost. The pre-Obamacare system left too many people uninsured. President Obama cobbled together a Frankenstein compromise to maximize coverage within the context of the American private health insurance system, and expansion of Medicaid. 

Here is a post from June detailing Collins’ relentless attacks on Obamacare and how he helped make everything even worse. 

Although Obamacare was by no means a perfect solution, it has succeeded in expanding coverage, increasing the number of people insured, and guaranteeing a minimum standard of what “health insurance” should include. Despite all of this—despite it being a national roll-out of Romneycare, a single-payer alternative thought up by the ultra-conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank—Republicans accused Obama of being a Kenyan socialist and Obamacare was an un-American socialist government takeover of healthcare. 

So, let us assume for a moment that Republican attacks on President Obama and his signature health insurance scheme were somehow grounded in reality or even remotely sincere. Obamacare was passed into law in 2010. The Republicans had eight years to devise some sort of cheaper, better alternative. When they gained control of both houses of Congress and the White House, however, they couldn’t do it. All of their anti-Obamacare “repeal and replace” bluster was revealed to be little more than lies when they failed to actually do what they said they would do. For his part, Christopher Collins proudly went on TV and told his constituents that he hadn’t even bothered to read the bill for which he voted.

That video is, itself, disqualifying for re-election. Collins doesn’t care about you or your mommy or your daddy or your grandma or your farm or your business. He serves masters higher than his constituency—his political party and his relentless greed and ambition. 

In recent years, the idea of expanding Medicare—the hugely popular single-payer health insurance plan for senior citizens—to all Americans has grown in popularity. It has become a viable and politically tenable alternative concept. As it stands now, Americans’ loudest and most sincere criticisms of private health insurance in the era of Obamacare is that it is too expensive, and deductibles are untenable and unaffordable. Medicare for all alleviates both concerns. So, Christopher Collins and his shills—experts at using ruthlessness as a cut-rate replacement for talent—deride Medicare as “radically out of touch” with people in the district. Go tell it to seniors. Go tell it to common ratepayers who devote thousands every year to cover healthcare costs and get little out of it. Tell it to people who can’t afford their medication. Tell it to people who fundraise for chemotherapy treatment through coin jars at convenience store check-outs. For the best and richest country in the world, we operate our healthcare like a tropical kleptocracy. Christopher Collins has no work ethic—he’s not trying to devise a reasonable alternative health insurance scheme. Christopher Collins has no ideas—he’s just a coward too afraid to even show up to debate his opponent on this or any other issue. Christopher Collins talks a big game when his high-priced DC swamp media gurus get a hold of him, but he trembles at the idea of a debate or being challenged. 

Who cares what Christopher Collins says? I don’t get life tips from guys at Rikers, either. 

Collins has no ideas, can’t be bothered to defend the few he purports to have in a public forum, and is just an empty vessel—an abject failure as a “representative” whose political survival is wholly dependent only on his party affiliation. When Bob McCarthy regurgitates a Collins press release, and then calls the McMurray campaign for comment, that is the laziest form of “journalism” available. Like Collins’s excuse for representation, it is a poor excuse for fact-finding. When Collins and his shills attack Nate McMurray for wanting to expand Medicare, why isn’t McCarthy asking them simple questions: What system do you prefer? What system do you propose? What changes would you make to McMurray’s plan? What changes would you make to ensure that health insurance and healthcare are comprehensive and affordable? 

Sure, McMurray supports the expansion of Medicare to all Americans. No American should be faced with an illness and not have the means or opportunity to seek and obtain necessary medical treatment. McMurrayCare might indeed be a reduction in health insurance bureaucracy into one simple plan. (Ask doctors what they would prefer.) So, what is CollinsCare, except free access to a mason jar to use at cash registers to pay for your kid’s leukemia treatment? 

Erie County Clerk Michael “Mickey” Kearns says he’s a Democrat, but he’s just another Trumpublican. He is now taking a cue from Sheriff Tim Howard and threatening to disobey state law. Whereas Howard pledged not to enforce the duly enacted New York “SAFE” Act, Kearns is promising to ignore (if enacted) a proposed law requiring NYS clerks to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. 

Kearns is Erie County’s clerk; not an Erie County legislator. His job is purely ministerial; he is not given power to set policy, nor is he granted any sort of discretion in performing his duties. His job is to issue licenses, record and file paperwork, and that’s about it. More to the point, there is literally nothing within the clerk’s power that gives him authority over immigration law enforcement. 

While it’s now politically popular to shit all over immigrants generally—and undocumented immigrants in particular—Kearns’s effort is stupid and ham-handed. Undocumented immigrants aren’t criminals; lack of proper visa status isn’t a crime, it’s a violation of immigration laws and regulations. These are not enforced by the DMV, but by federal immigration agents and law enforcement. Kearns’ pronouncement, coming just hours after Donald Trump referred to undocumented immigrants as “animals”, is just pandering to a hateful and xenophobic base. 

What does Kearns care about immigration—documented or not? We live in a region that has been shrinking for decades. Who, exactly, is threatened here by any sort of immigration? Someone who overstayed their visa is enemy number one? This is utter nonsense.

What this really amounts to is treating migrants as outlaws to pwn the libs. 

The oath of office for the county clerk is: “I do solemnly swear…that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the State of New York, & that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Erie County Clerk according to the best of my ability.” Where does it say that Mickey Kearns gets to decide which laws to carry out? Where does it deputize Mickey Kearns as an immigration officer? Where does it say, “except for the Messicans”?

It’s a license to drive—if the person fills out the forms and passes the tests, honestly, who is being harmed by this? What he’s promising to do is to not “faithfully discharge” his duties as clerk and issue licenses to people because of their visas.

He is threatening to break the law to stick it to lawbreakers; the logic of cretins. 

Maybe stop treating immigrants as “animals” and criminals. Their visa status is literally none of your business. It may play well with your new Republican and Conservative fusion masters, and it may fend off a registered Republican’s primary against you, but you’re just a hateful disgrace who doesn’t understand his oath or his authority. 

Did you hear the news? Mike Zak is running for Congress on the Green Party line. 

No, not that Mike Zak, the Green Party member and environmental entrepreneur who helped to start a “Gro-operative” for sustainable food production. 

In a dramatic display of weakness and fear, the Chris Collins for Congress campaign recruited a MAGA white power guy to run on the Green Party line. This is a typical game the Republicans play because evidently, having the Conservative Fusion Party line, and the so-called “Independence Party” line locked up just isn’t enough. The re-election of Chris Collins will depend, at least in part, on Republican apparatchiks collecting petition signatures for some hand-picked goon who will do nothing but squat on the Green line. The strategy preys on people’s ignorance, and they can count on maybe 1 – 2% of the left-of-center electorate to fill in the green ovals on their ballots. 

The Green Party, for its part, is sick and tired of Republicans co-opting their line. It’s not the first time it’s happened. In 2016, the Greens went to court over the Republican hostile takeover of their party line. They should do so again. After all, the four pillars of the Green Party platform are “peace, ecology, social justice, and democracy”. 

Collins and his coterie of disingenuous goons talk a big game, but actions speak louder than words. They’re afraid this year. The Democrats are going to vote for McMurray, and the hardline Conservatives will vote for Trump’s reliable TV shill, Collins. But there’s a mushy area in the middle of the (R) constituency that doesn’t like Collins and really doesn’t like Trump.

It’s hard to know whether these are, e.g., suburban parents who don’t like taxes but really don’t like kids getting shot in schools, evangelical types who don’t like the pornstar payoff eruptions, or whether it’s people with Infowars stickers on their car bumpers who hate interventionism. Either way, Collins doesn’t have the entirety of the district’s right-of-center electorate nicely tied up in a bow; he has a sale to make this year, and Trump isn’t the key. Instead, he will try and paint McMurray as an effete liberal “Obamapelosi” Democrat who is coming for your guns, and stealing the Green Party line is just a convenient, extra hedge.

If Nate McMurray is the joke they accuse him of being, they’d be ignoring him; but the Collins crew’s attacks on McMurray have been vicious and relentless, and this sort of behavior is by no means what one would expect from a Republican candidate in a safe Republican district. Sort of like calling earnest high school kids “radical partisans”, Collins is known for hyperbole that’s as breathless as it is disproportionate. The totality of what’s going on reveals that they’re spooked by this year’s numbers, and they know McMurray has a shot, remote though it may still be. They know that it wouldn’t take very much for McMurray to reveal himself to be a reasonable, middle-of-the-road candidate who, above all, isn’t afraid to put himself in front of people who are predisposed to disliking him and his policies. Unlike Collins, who cowers in abject horror at the thought of listening to a middle-schooler advocating for the right to not be shot in math class, McMurray will talk and listen to anyone. 

What if “Obamapelosi” isn’t the magic word in 2018 that it was in 2014? 

In 2015, Republican committee chairman Nick Langworthy himself collected petition signatures for someone to squat on the Green Party line in a county legislative race. Republicans did the same thing to Amber Small in the SD-60 race in 2016. Even Ted Morton did it in 2015. The Green Party does not play the fusion game – they do not issue Wilson-Pakulas granting non-members permission to run on their line. Instead, Republicans take advantage of the “opportunity to ballot”, which allows non-members to run on the line of a party to which he does not belong. Even better? Just find some dupe to register as a Green voter and go out and collect petitions. 

That’s what Collins’ crew did this month. They found Mike Zak – not the Buffalo eco-startup guy, but a West Seneca version who shares – publicly – Trump memes and ‘white lives matter’ stuff on his Facebook page. Mr. Zak registered as a Green on or about April 5th. His petitions – 77 signatures in all – were exclusively circulated by Republican patronage hires; he needed 66.  

Ross Kosetcky is the designated contact for Mr. Zak’s petition filing, and he collected fully 63 of the 77 submitted petition signatures. He is a member of the Republican staff at the Erie County Legislature, and was an alternate delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention, the year he ran on the Republican line against Crystal Peoples-Stokes for the State Assembly. Dennis Ball, a member of the Aurora Republican Committee, collected signatures for Zak’s candidacy when he wasn’t collecting checks for Collins fundraisers (link now deleted) or the Director of Operations at the Erie County Water Authority.  The remaining signatures were collected by someone from Niagara County whose signature is illegible, and Brian Pollner, the “director of operations” for the Republican County Legislators, and a full-time employee of the County Legislature’s Republican Caucus; he is a co-worker of Kosetcky’s. 

Mr. Zak, the nominal Green “candidate”, did not obtain a single petition signature. His own wife didn’t sign a petition for him; not a single signature was collected for him in his hometown of West Seneca, mostly because he lives in Higgins’ district, and not in Collins’. (So much for the “McMurray is a carpetbagger” argument). A former West Seneca school board candidate reached out and recommended a glance at Zak’s Facebook. This is the person whom Collins hand-picked to help his candidacy, and I have to assume that he endorses all of this. 

Here’s the origin of the whole “it’s OK to be white” meme. None of this exactly screams “Green Party”.

As an aside, in 2010, we needed sources to provide us with Carl Paladino’s emails. In 2018, people just have these things hanging out on their publicly accessible Facebook accounts. 

Upon learning of this latest party-raiding scam, McMurray reached out to the Green Party, and posted this: 

…I spoke to Eric Jones, Chairman of the Erie County Green Party, and he shares my shock, horror, and disappointment—they especially do not want to play spoiler for Collins
· You see, this race could be close, and the two or three percentage points that might go to the Green Party could possibly take votes away from me.

Why is this wrong?

· If the evidence available is correct, it is not only terribly shocking that the GOP and Collins would circulate petitions in this manner, but that they would do it for this particular man
· Specifically, people who likely hate the Green Party lied to Green Party members by going door-to-door and telling unsuspecting people, “We have a great candidate we want to get on the ballot, do you mind signing?”
· This does not happen in most jurisdictions
· It happens mostly in Erie and Niagara County
· It is the unethical act of a strong party (and wealthy candidate) taking advantage of the Green Party
· It’s also anti-Democratic, because they are trying to fool voters

What can we do?

· I will petition to open the ballot, which means we are collecting signatures this weekend
· Even if I get enough signatures, however, my name will not appear on the ballot
· Green Party members will have to write my name in
· Spread the word—don’t let them get away with this scam

Transparency and an aversion to trickery and cheating. What a refreshing thing from a Congressional candidate. 

Chris Collins and Mike Zak are united in interest, and one has to assume that Collins’ crew of bright young Republican stars checked out and vetted their surrogate. There is no sunlight between Collins and Zak, the anti-McMurray partnership.  

UPDATE: Early Monday, the Erie County Green Party released the following statement: 

For Immediate Release

Green Party denounces theft of ballot line by Republicans in CD-27

Erie County Green Party officers and members are greatly disturbed by the actions of local Republican operatives acting on behalf of Congressman Chris Collins to place a fake candidate on the Green Party line in the 27th congressional district. These operatives misled Green Party members into signing a petition for a candidate who does not represent the Green Party.

The candidate in question has been identified as a supporter of right wing causes who only recently registered as a Green for the sole purpose of stealing the line. He does not represent in any way our party’s four pillars: Ecological Wisdom, Social Justice, Grassroots Democracy and Non-Violence.

By filing this petition Chris Collins and the local Republican Party have shown voters how they truly feel about democracy. They would rather trick residents of the 27th congressional district into voting for a false candidate than provide them with an honest election. This would be a deplorable action for any candidate, but it is especially so for a sitting member of Congress.

The Green Party is an international progressive political party. The Erie County Green Party currently has 1,700 registrants. For more information, please visit our website www.eriecountygreenparty.org.

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