WBEN, Riding the Nativist Derp Train to Fraudville

It used to be that references to undocumented immigrants as “invaders” were reserved for the outermost fringes of the body politic. 

Stormfront. Short wave. Nazi/Racist/Neo-Confederate bulletin boards. Infowars.

Now, because of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, the right-wing freakout over “illegal” “invaders” has become commonplace. Neo-Nazi hate-speech is now mainstreamed. 

Add to that the spectacle of underemployed, underinformed, angry white folk, (whose immigrant ancestors came from somewhere), who have nothing better to do all day than to turn parts of the American desert into little clones of Afghanistan – complete with weapons and extralegal checkpoints

Not to put too fine a point on it all, but what’s going on along the US-Mexican border is unprecedented – youngsters are crossing into the US en masse and rather than running from Border Patrol in order to get further into the US, they are surrendering immediately upon arrival, just like the Cubans do under our unusually generous “dry foot” policy

(Hint: Just tell the wingnuts that these kids are from Cuba, and maybe they’ll treat them as human beings.)

Unsophisticated, poor families in places like Guatemala and Honduras – economically awful, socially violent, and politically dysfunctional places – are being tricked by human trafficking cartels to pay to send their kids to the US, where, they’re told, the kids will be able to claim asylum and stay forever.  Of course, there’s no federal “DREAM” Act, but a 2008 law requires the government to grant any kid from a non-border country an asylum hearing

These children and their families are being taken advantage of by con artists. They are the tired, the poor – the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  Tempest-tost wretched refuse, these children and their families are naive victims. Yet when they come here, our nativist right wing freaks out. Peak temper tantrum, hurling hateful invective not only at these Central American tweens, but at Obama, the liberals, and everyone else who doesn’t slap a Gadsen flag on their bumper and an eagle on their timeline. 

It is a humanitarian crisis because these children come with nothing – have nothing – and because ours is a country of laws, we are not empowered simply to shove them back on a bus across the Mexico border. We have due process.  We have laws. We have to detain them – humanely – while we process them all. That is how a 1st world country works, and that is what the law requires. 

It’s gotten to the point where any school bus filled with brown people is suspect. An Arizona state legislator running for Congress stoked the confrontation, and hatefully declared that food and shelter for a bus-full of brown-skinned children isn’t compassionate, but an “abrogation of the rule of law“. 

As it turns out, it wasn’t a bus-full of undocumented migrants, but a bus-full of Arizonan kids on their way to YMCA camp. Seriously

While the wingnuts with all that extra time on their hands accost kids on their way to the Y, other kids are dying. The border patrol is a law enforcement agency – not a refugee non-profit. The government is unprepared to deal with something like this, because of its massive scale and the unprecedented nature of what’s going on. Washington alternates between grandstanding and dithering

By treating these kids as “invaders” and an “army”, you dehumanize them as well as any World War II-era cartoon of a bespectacled, slanty-eyed Tojo. By focusing on blaming Obama rather than trying to solve a legal and humanitarian crisis, the right wing contributes not only to the further erosion of whatever was left of its Latino support, but exposes itself for the craven practitioner of racialist, nativist politics that it’s become in recent years. 

At the local forefront of this racial animus is hate radio WBEN, led by right-wing kook and operations director Tim Wenger. 

Sometime on Tuesday, this appeared at WBEN’s scat-strewn Facebook page: 

First of all, it links to “Gateway Pundit”, who is widely regarded by anyone with a brain to be one of the stupidest people in the right-wing blogosphere. Not just wrong – stupid.  Here, he links to something called “Mad World News”, which I’ve never heard of, and which certainly doesn’t seem like a completely credible source. 

Because it’s not.

I won’t link to either one, but if you go to “Mad World News”, it seems that some nosy hausfrau encountered a busload of brown-skinned people getting off a school bus at a Wal-Mart in rural North Carolina. She tried to communicate with them, but these durn Messikinz didn’t speak any English. So, she simply leaped to the conclusion that, because one of them had managed to communicate with her that they were recent arrivals to America, they must be “illegals”. Not only that, but our brave Mexican-whisperers concluded that this busload of “invaders” was paying for its Wal-Mart goodies with “EBT cards”; welfare handouts. 

Except not a word of it was true, and the tea party says so

OK, OK – yes, a busload of foreign migrant farm laborers did show up at a Wal-Mart in North Carolina, but they weren’t “illegals”, but legal guest-worker migrant farmworkers; people who had valid visas to enter the US and perform all the horrible manual farm labor that you consider to be beneath you

They weren’t paying with welfare cards. Their wages are paid to rechargeable debit cards, which they used to buy items for themselves at Wal-Mart in rural North Carolina. 

They weren’t on a government bus, but were instead being transported by their employer to the Wal-Mart for a shopping trip. 

But, you know, brown people on a bus using plastic at a Wal-Mart. Because right wingers instinctively think the worst of everyone and everything, these had to be (what else?) “illegal” “invaders” spending welfare EBT cards thanks to Obama inviting them to the US. 

So long as the tea party remains “diligent” when they really mean “vigilant”, we’ll all be a little safer and don’t forget your gun. 

Now, despite that this is completely untrue, having been factually debunked by WBEN’s own partisan allies, this radio station continues to perpetrate this fraud on Buffalo and its listenership by refusing to delete or update the post to point out that it’s a lie. Rather than be “accurate” as a putative “news” entity, WBEN sides instead with the people who would “go to war” against these kids

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, that story about n0bummer giving some of these kids a resort experience in Weslaco Texas is also completely false

In the meantime, the administration and Democrats will try to find a humane and legal solution to this problem while the Republicans continue to antagonize Latino voters and Millenials.  In the meantime, sane and rational people will call out wildly horrible local hate radio for the embarrassment it is. 

Not every problem is one that needs to be solved with hatred and guns. 

(Crossposted to Little Green Footballs)

WBEN: Fascism Advocacy

Over the next week, consider for a moment that the radio station that brings you the traffic and weather together in the morning, along with a roster of commentators whose extremism builds as the day rolls along. 

But in the last few months or so, the station’s operations director, Tim Wenger, has developed for himself something of a largely off-air personality. In some ways, it’s even more malignant than that of his top talkers. He conducts himself like the most deluded and hateful trolls on the WBEN Facebook page. 

Consider Wenger’s completely unprofessional and false attempt to shame WEDG’s Josh Potter, and this series of horrible, reactionary pronouncements from Wenger’s own Twitter account, as well as the control he obviously enjoys over the WBEN Twitter and Facebook accounts at various parts of the day.  

Whatever personality Wenger is trying to manufacture for himself, it’s horrible and repugnant. 

It culminated in these two Tweets from him, one of which was, of course, simultaneously posted to the WBEN Facebook page. 

No, actually, I’ve never felt like “throwing a shoe” at any American political figure. Mostly because I’m not a violent moron, but also because I feel secure enough in the political system and in debate and discussion that “throwing a shoe” or otherwise committing an assault and battery doesn’t enter into it.  Remember when an Iraqi reporter threw a shoe at President Bush? Did Wenger think that was acceptable? Reasonable? Rational?

I didn’t think it was persuasive or appropriate. People enter politics, and they should expect to be vetted, scrutinized, and questioned. They should not expect to dodge physical assault. They do not deserve battery – no matter how much you disagree with them. For everyone who thinks Hillary Clinton deserves to be hit by a shoe because of Benghazi, I can probably find you two who think that Bush should be behind bars for war crimes. 

So, there’s nothing at all funny or appropriate about someone throwing a shoe at George Bush or at Hillary Clinton. Anyone who thinks differently is no different from a fascist blackshirt, trying to do with violence what they can’t do with words. It is beyond un-American. 

 

The video Wenger loves shows a small handful of protesters minding their own damn business. They had in no way attacked, provoked, or otherwise antagonized the two servicemen who attacked them. You can see in the last few frames, one protester with his hands to his side – he’s asking to reason with them.

In response, they curse at him – this from Tim Wenger, who just can’t tolerate the profane blogs. It’s ok to say “fuck” if you’re a Marine intimidating, assaulting, battering, and robbing a couple of guys on a moped. 

That protest, by the way, took place in Albuquerque.  The people on the moped were protesting an epidemic of police brutality in that city, culminating in the homicide of an unarmed homeless man. The people on the moped were exercising their right to free speech, protesting police shootings. Their use of an upside-down flag wasn’t an act of disrespect – the upside-down flag is a distress signal, used in many protests as political speech indicating that the republic is in danger. Go look at the title card for “House of Cards”.  Should belligerent and ignorant young men throw shoes, perhaps, at TVs displaying it? 

There is nothing to love about what that Marine does to the protester, whether he’s an “ass” or not. (More profanity! Shock! Horror!). Engaging in street fights with political opponents is what the blackshirts and brownshirts did in the 20s and 30s. That is the only context within which this assault and robbery of a flag can be viewed. The only lens through which we can see this as acceptable or lovable behavior is the lens of fascism. 

 

So, understand that Buffalo: the guy who runs operations for the Entercom corporation locally is a proponent of violent, fascist behavior. He is an outspoken, unabashed fan of violence and intimidation for political ends. To say this is un-American is a dramatic understatement. But even more insidious is that – whether he holds these views sincerely or not – he is encouraging that sort of behavior from the malinformed people listening to WBEN who think Michael Savage is too liberal. 

Tim Wenger and WBEN are encouraging violence against people who hold different political views from them. I don’t know why this is not a big deal. 

If this was happening in the 1930s, this newsreel would be appropriate: 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaqvCAhne4k&w=640&h=360]

The Weppner Files

I know some of you think that it might have been a little much with the Weppner posts over the past week or so.  You have my sincere sympathies.  My most fervent wish is to never again have to dive into the fever swamps of ultra-right wing fascistic chatter in order to find tidbits of information that render local tea party candidates, to my mind, unelectable. 

The scary thing is that, in terms of politics, opinions, and pronouncements, there’s hardly much difference between Weppner’s lunatic ravings and Chris Collins’ constant drumbeat of anti-middle class millionaire resentment; it’s a very fine line between WBEN caller and representative from NY-27. 

A few weekends ago, the Buffalo News’ Jerry Zremski picked over some of the more malodorous parts of the Weppner mindswamp, and asked her for an interview. She declined, and agreed instead to answer via email. The result was a glorious, factual recitation of some of the things she’s promoted and said, and her weak explanations for them. (Weppner Vetted 3/24/14) Much of it surrounded her very outspoken involvement in the “birther” nonsense, questioning whether Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, or part of some half-century-long conspiracy to overthrow America. 

The candidate’s response to Zremski’s article was jaw-droppingly horrible. (Kathy Weppner Tries to Explain; Fails 3/25/14) I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. The passive-aggressive whining about being on vacation, the declaration of war on the librul meediya. 

Among Weppner’s defenses was that she was just asking questions, like everyone else, about the birther issue, and other halfhearted denials about being part of some wider birther movement. A quick listen to an online radio show on which Weppner appeared reveals not only that she was more than just “asking questions”, she was an active believer in the lunatic rantings of the fringe dead-ender birther movement. (How Not To Be A Birther, By Kathy Weppner 3/26/14). 

Now, much of the information that the Buffalo News and I had been using to vet Weppner came from recordings of her own WBEN radio show, as well as materials that she published on her blog “str8talk.wordpress.com”. Up until Zremski’s article, that site was still intact. After Zremski’s piece, she began selectively deleting certain passages, such as the racist “White Guilt” article she reprinted, verbatim, without comment. Soon, she took the entire site down altogether, and redirected the url to her campaign website; it remained, however, still visible via the waybackmachine. Finally, by 3/31, her campaign had successfully petitioned Archive.org to remove her entire internet archive from its site, and we are now left with not a single piece of evidence that she ever published a blog or had a radio show. Despite the fact that she proudly touts her WBEN radio show on her campaign bio, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any lasting evidence of its existence. (Kathy Weppner: So Proud of Her Radio Program She Deleted All Evidence of It 3/31/14). 

All we’re left with now is transcripts of her several calls to the Rush Limbaugh radio program.  Everyone knows who Rush Limbaugh is – he’s the fascist, racist, drug-addled, misogynist radio troll who spits hatred on a daily basis over the publicly owned airwaves. 

In 2008, Weppner called in with a particularly dumb theory about how Hillary Clinton was going to get the Democratic nomination because Obama was such a racist who “bathed his children” in hatred of white people.  Also, “October Surprise” and other such half-baked nonsense. (Kathy From Williamsville Calls Rush Limbaugh in 2008 3/31/14). That same day, I found a campaign image on her Facebook page that used the House seal, in direct violation of federal law. (Kathy Weppner Violates Federal Law 3/31/14)

In 2011, Weppner called Limbaugh to vent about how people need to start attending tea party rallies, or else we’d have “nothing left”. Also, her kids are serving in the military to protect things like Chris Lee and sovereign debt. It was a quick recitation of a couple of dopey talking points generating no discussion whatsoever. (Kathy Weppner: Why Are American Troops Fighting for Shirtless Chris Lee? 4/2/14). 

This one is one of my favorites – Kathy Weppner complaining about how no one from Congress held any town hall meetings in WNY so she and her cohorts could go and disrupt them. Yet she is so deathly afraid of the opinions and pronouncements that she spat when no one was looking, she deleted all evidence of them. I can only hope that Weppner takes her own advice and hosts some town halls.  I have some questions for her. (Kathy Weppner on Town Halls 4/3/14

Weppner called Limbaugh in July 2008 to ramble off a litany of groups whom she resents.

You know, we have ended up with a society where all the people that work in government, all the politicians, the teachers, the firemen, the policemen, all of our state governments, municipalities, and we are in a very heavily governed area here in western New York, all of them are living inside the castle walls, and all of us, everybody else is living outside of the castle walls. And all of the rules they make protect them, where our people, the public employee, they can retire at 55 here and they live to 85.

Yeah! To hell with our first responders and educators! Good talk, Kathy! (Kathy Weppner on Whom She Resents 4/4/14). 

Finally, there was the call to Limbaugh in 2009 – just a month after Obummer overthrew ‘Murrka, and Weppner threatened to go Galt because Barry and his cadres were going to just take everything anyway and give it to the lazy takers, (ostensibly the aforementioned teachers, firemen, policemen, and lazy blacks). Meanwhile, I learned that even physicians who receive Mexican medical degrees can earn a tremendous amount of money here in the United States. Weppner. What a card! (Kathy Weppner on Going Galt 4/4/14)

The best part? This campaign has barely started. 

Kathy Weppner on Whom She Resents

On July 14, 2008, Kathy from Williamsville called Rush Limbaugh to whine about those greedy teachers, firemen, and policemen who rape the poor taxpayers who earn over $250,000.

CALLER: You know, we have ended up with a society where all the people that work in government, all the politicians, the teachers, the firemen, the policemen, all of our state governments, municipalities, and we are in a very heavily governed area here in western New York, all of them are living inside the castle walls, and all of us, everybody else is living outside of the castle walls. And all of the rules they make protect them, where our people, the public employee, they can retire at 55 here and they live to 85.

You see, it’s not the wealthy families of physicians who live in castles – it’s the teachers and firemen and policemen.  We need to begrudge them their pensions because they didn’t do important work, teaching our kids and protecting our families. They’re the classic “takers” to people like Kathy “from Williamsville” Weppner. 

Limbaugh shares her resentment, and the Republican running against Brian Higgins declared, 

Well, New York is slated to go bankrupt first, and we are a state that’s shrunk in population and grew in government workers, again. And I don’t understand why they don’t get that this model is not gonna work.

RUSH: Well, there’s a simple human nature answer for that, and that is until it happens to them, it’s not happening.

CALLER: Well, they’re just saying, “Well it’s not going to happen in my lifetime, so it doesn’t matter.” That’s what it is. 

RUSH: That’s true, too, because the things that this generation, couple of generations before us have caused, they’re trying to insulate themselves from dealing with.

CALLER: Well, I’ll tell you, I know the car companies, we have GM and Ford here, and my dad used to sell to them, and I said, “What were they thinking?” He said, “They were thinking that by the time that it all crumbles, I’ll be retired,” and that’s it. These people that are in office right now —

RUSH: I know, I know. 

CALLER: — in our state capital, just don’t think it’s going to happen in their lifetime, so who cares.

RUSH: I know. A lot of people outside government think that, too. They really do. Look, that’s great, Kathy, I appreciate the call.

Seriously, who the fuck even understands what she’s talking about anymore? She just babbles on and on about her resentments and her idiotic semi-literate predictions of imminent doom and failure because the left is busy taking America down. This person begs to be taken seriously, but it’s an impossible task. She is the perfect reflection of tea party inanity. 

Kathy from Williamsville Calls Rush Limbaugh in 2008

On June 5, 2008, a “Kathy from Williamsville” called into the Rush Limbaugh program. The topic? Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Kathy began, 

You know, I gotta tell you, if I thought Hillary was going away, I would remortgage my house and throw a big party, but I know, I have a very strong feeling that about a week before the Democrat National Convention, something is going to leak out about Obama that all of these superdelegates know that he will be unelectable, and she will get the nomination. I just don’t think for a minute she’s giving up that. I really don’t.

RUSH: In this market, you would remortgage your house and throw a big party?

CALLER: I would, if I thought they were going away, oh, my gosh, yes! I can’t stand her! And Obama is absolutely reaping the rewards of people’s disdain for the Clintons. That’s the only reason he’s there. People hate her enough and him, too, to throw their votes on the other person.

That’s some pretty cutting-edge political analysis. Obama was running because Democrats allegedly didn’t like the Clintons, and vice-versa! 

The other thing that I’m really upset about is a couple of years ago I told myself that I would vote for whichever candidate was going to fight the war on terror, period, because I know our country is in jeopardy, the UK is almost gone, they’re almost down that dark tunnel and there’s no turning around, and we could be there, and I am so ticked off that I’m going to have to go into the voting booth and vote for McCain! Because at least I know on that one issue that he will at least take care of business and we’re going to be back to Jimmy Carter, 70% income taxes and everything else, and I am just really ticked off that our party — you know, I’m ticked off at you, that you didn’t talk up Mitt Romney more because he was a true conservative candidate. You know? You talked up Operation Chaos. Why didn’t you convince people to cast their vote for a conservative candidate? Because now we’re stuck with, you know, Curly, Larry, and Moe.

 Having visited the UK in 2013, I can vouch for the fact that it is still there. Having paid income taxes, I can assure you that nobody in the United States pays 70% income taxes (Reagan dropped it to 50% for top earners until 1987). 

Then Limbaugh reassures “Kathy from Williamsville” by playing the audio of Clinton advisor Harold Ickes: 

ICKES: Barack Obama is a strong candidate; he’s a powerful spokesman; he’s run a good race. The fact is he is not going to be able to win the general election against John McCain. That is the message. And he can’t win it for two reasons: We don’t know enough about him, there may well be an October Surprise. And, two, he doesn’t have the general election electoral base that Hillary has.

RUSH: Do you hear the reference to Ickes about an October Surprise?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: It dovetails with your theory out there, Kathy.

CALLER: Yeah, it sure does. It sure does. She’s not down. She’s not gone. She will be the Democrat nominee.

RUSH: What’s this going to be? What is this earth-shattering news?

CALLER: I have no idea. It’s going to maybe be a Vince Foster, a Monica Lewinsky, I don’t know. It would have to be worse than that. I have no idea. But there’s going to be something. And the superdelegates are going to be scared to death, and they’re going to go and they’re going to give it to her.

Kathy from Williamsville thought there’d be a “Vince Foster” or “Monica Lewinsky” October Surprise to ensure that Hillary Clinton would snatch victory from the jaws of electoral defeat at the hands of Barack Obama – a man who not only defeated John McCain, but even “real conservative” Mitt Romney. 

But when? When will these revelations take place?

I think it’s going to happen right before their convention, and even if it’s underground where the high rankers know what’s going to happen and I seriously, I don’t think Obama is going to be the candidate, because I don’t think he’s — he’s electable at all, I really don’t. Between Reverend Wright and Reverend Pfleger or the priest, gosh, I can’t believe he’s a priest, you know, he absolutely bathed himself, bathed his children in these sermons of hating white people and we’re the problem and I can’t imagine that being palatable to a majority of Americans regardless of party. The other thing is, is that if John McCain does get elected and it’s a disaster, like it’s going to be domestically and economically for everyone, you know, we’re going to get blamed for voting when probably a lot of Republicans are going to stay home and the Democrats are going to elect ’em. And it’s a mess.

Kathy from Williamsville is a white person who is dreadfully oppressed by the tyranny of “Reverend Wright and Reverend Pfleger” and Barack Obama, who “bathed his children” in hatred of white people. That was a popular trope among the pre-tea party ultra-right; that the Obamas, by dint of being black, hated white people.  It was also widely believed that a “whitey tape” existed where Michelle Obama was said to have spewed hatred towards “whitey” as a homophone of “why’d he”

Of course, this supposed hatred of white people was non-existent propaganda ginned up by people who felt that any expression of African-American pride was a logical denunciation of Caucasians. It was racism. 

In the meantime, Kathy “from Williamsville” Weppner has had her campaign scrub from the internet any and all evidence of her previous pronouncements

The Voice of Just Awful

Just awful. It’s just awful. Some examples: 

1. Wednesday morning we experienced the coldest temperatures of the season. There was, however, no wind to speak of, so it didn’t feel like it. Howard Stern was a repeat, so I tuned into WBEN to hear the weather, “news”, and traffic. There, the static duo of John Zak and Susan Rose yukked it up about how all those pussy schools and all those pussy kids had “cold days” a few weeks ago, but on the actual coldest day of the season, they seemed to make their way to school just fine. 

The subtext, of course, is what WBEN had  been pushing all that week that schools closed – all these soft people and union schools are un-American jerks for closing schools for cold weather. Every one of their local shows had that as a topic at least once that week. They constantly beat the drum about this complete and utter non-issue. 

So, when the morning newsreaders mount their high horses and criticize schools and kids for not closing on the actual coldest morning, they’re setting up a lie. The schools didn’t close because of low temperatures, they closed because of windchills of -20F and worse. The notion of even kids who are bundled up sitting outside waiting for buses in that sort of dangerous cold just isn’t worth the risk. But WBEN didn’t bring that up – they just left the lie out there so the olds who listen could feel superior to these pussy kids and pussy union schools.

Whatever chump runs the WBEN Twitter feed got sarcastic with me instead of addressing what I wrote. 

 

 

 

If we don’t call them out on stupid little lies, imagine the big ones they get away with on a daily basis. 

2. They put up a picture of the Slovak Olympic hockey team, thinking it was team USA, before changing it. 

I don’t know who’s running their social media feeds, but God almighty. 

3. On Thursday, Facebook added ways for people to identify their gender. The normal human reaction to that is to either cheer this, or shrug. OR TURN IT INTO BREAKING NEWS.  Literally, this “news” went out to people who subscribe to WBEN’s breaking news text service: 

This is, of course, not breaking news. What WBEN was doing was riling up its right-wing omniphobe listenership over the assault on hetero rights in Obama’s America.  You should see the comments to the thread

Facebook. An internet sharing service that is completely free of charge, wholly voluntary, which implemented a change that helps some people and has zero effect on other people. Why would that upset anyone? If it’s so offensive to you, quit. 

The assault on American values comes not from progressives or Obama or same-sex marriage or acceptance of people who are different from you. The real assault on American values comes from hatred, fear, and blatant lies.

UPDATE: 

4. This morning, Buzzfeed (of all places) published a fantastic take-down of the Trump political con game. This exchange occurred: 

 

WBEN even took to Facebook to try and make something of it, 

Here’s the thing about this. First of all, Mark Poloncarz is free to “worry” about whatever the hell he feels like worrying about. If he wants to poke fun at WBEN’s incessant massaging of Donald Trump’s prostate, then that’s his prerogative. It has, after all, been hysterical. But the subtext here is that Poloncarz shouldn’t be taking time out of his day to Tweet things to a local media outlet because taxpayers or something. So, look at the time stamp: 8:06. What’s he supposed to be doing at that time? Whose time is he stealing? Also, he’s a professional – he doesn’t punch a time clock. 

 

 If this is the “voice of Buffalo”, then Buffalo must be a horrible, awful place. 

The Trump Gambit

Yesterday a junket of desperate Republicans met with noted Birther and tack merchant Donald Trump, urging him to run for governor of the state of New York against Andrew Cuomo. Among them was local political consultant and public relations maven Michael Caputo and birther tea party freshman Assemblyman David DiPietro. 

In this episode of “let’s recruit the rich guy“, the Republican left on the sidelines is Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, a solid Republican executive with wins under his belt, but little name recognition outside of downstate.  Astorino also doesn’t plaster his name on all kinds of stuff or have a billion dollars, nor is he the Sarah Palin of billionaires. But New York State Republicans are not beneath screwing the guy who earns something in favor of the self-funding rich guy. Right, David Bellavia

New York State has a population of just under 20 million people, almost half of whom live in the five boroughs of New York City. Add a million from Westchester, 1.5 million in Suffolk County, 1.4 million in Nassau, 317k in Rockland, 375k in Orange, and 100k in Putnam, and you have about 13.5 million of 19.5 million residents living within the immediate New York City metropolitan area – people who largely have no use for Albany or upstate in general, not to mention western New York. 

Trump’s especial brand of anti-Obama birtherism plays well for like-minded fellas like David DiPietro and his tea party cohorts. While much is being made of the duration of yesterday’s meeting, and the fact that Trump is no longer ruling anything out, this may have something to do with Trump’s new feud against Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Schneiderman’s office recently brought a $40 million fraud lawsuit against something called “Trump University” – or as the AG called it, a “nationwide scam” and  bait & switch fraud. Trump just this week filed an ethics complaint against Schneiderman, citing the prominent case of Argle v. Bargle

Really what this amounts to is recruiting a richer, downstate-friendly Carl Paladino. Trump is just as plainspoken, just as filled with scandal, just as flawed as our local loudmouth developer, but the difference is that Trump has name recognition downstate, to whom Paladino was a profane stranger, and Trump has actual friends in downstate media – even the NY Post was against Paladino. 

Donald Trump is the dream candidate for the angry, defeatist white male upstate voter with a “repeal NY SAFE Act” lawnsign because to the WBEN listener Rus Thompson set, Cuomo is the devil, and Obama isn’t even human. They aspire to be just like Donald Trump, and they love that he thinks like they do – and he has the money and name recognition to not care what anyone thinks. His downstate bona fides explain why he’s being wooed. 

Donald Trump would accomplish nothing in New York State. He would do nothing for education, for the poor, for upstate’s economic malaise, for Buffalo, or for anyone except the tea party and the ultrarich. I will also bet you that part of the strategy is a fusion party line or two, meaning that Trump would take advantage of the single-most corrupt process in New York politics. 

The headlines yesterday should have read, “Lawmakers to Massage Trump Ego, Trump Reacts Favorably”. 

“I Am Sickened By This”: Right Wing EmoCringe

Here is a perfect example of knee-jerk, fact-free, emotional, feeling-based hatred of Obama. There’s something sickening, alright, but it isn’t the supposed absence of “enough flags for Rus Thompson to not become physically ill”. 

First: 

The outrage grows: 

WHERE IS THE FLAG? Our correspondent is sickened!

LOOK AGAIN! NO FLAG! OUTRAGE!1!

Voice of reason criticizes getting “crazy”:

Forget the fact that Obama has a flag on his lapel, for God’s sake. There’s a flag embedded within the Presidential seal on the bug on the screen. The apparent optics of having a flag in the shot is so important to Rus Thompson that he says he becomes physically ill at its absence. This is, people, utter and sheer insanity. 

Diagnosis: Acute Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Prognosis: Poor.

RX: 10mg Chillaxa PRN

The Aristocrats

Yesterday, many western New Yorkers received the strangest email from Carl Paladino. Here it is in its entirety: 

I hesitated to click the link because, frankly, it looked like spam. But I did, and it was a portion of the iconic clip of the opening scene from the HBO show “The Newsroom“. In the clip, “Will McAvoy” is part of a college panel consisting of him – a conflicted moderate Republican news anchor, a conservative pundit and a liberal pundit. A ditzy-seeming co-ed  asks the panel what makes the US the best country in the world. The pundits respond with one-sentence platitudes. After eviscerating the pundits, McEvoy assails the questioner’s theory.  He then goes on to assail essentially the last 30 years’ worth of American decline. Much of it is critical of the last 30 years’ worth of Limbaughistic “conservatism”, whereby we used to fight “a war on poverty, not a war on the poor”.  Yet Paladino is one of the most reactionary “conservative” tea party types in the nation, and it boggles to imagine he finds that McEvoy clip compelling. 

The re-election of Barack Obama has driven many on the right quite literally insane. 

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Also yesterday, the George W. Bush library was dedicated. If the Bush administration had been a joke, the punch line would be “the Aristocrats!” 

Principle

Xavier University has suddenly announced it will cancel birth control coverage for its employees. As Atrios writes

Obviously this is an incredibly principled move based on deeply held religious beliefs that they discovered about 5 weeks ago.

In other words, around the time that the GOP made contraception a campaign issue, and people began bleating about how the uniform application of a civil statute constitutes a violation of “religious freedoms”. What will race hustler Barry NObama think of next? 

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