Author: buffalopundit

The Cult of Trump

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This is a tweet posted yesterday by Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel: 

It’s likely I don’t have to tell you this, but this ridiculousness is straight-up anti-democratic dictatorship cult worship stuff. They’re not even trying to hide it anymore. 

Sort of like the mural at this former Wal-Mart that’s been repurposed into a jail for refugee children whom the government has separated from their parents. 

That’s pretty astonishing. It goes without saying that the Trump-cult right wing would be flipping out if even a fraction of what’s going on was happening under President Obama. As Tom Nichols, a conservative professor at the Naval War College explains, Trump is everything conservatives accused Obama of being. 

Going all the way back to the 2008 presidential race, Republicans were certain that Obama would be more attuned to the needs of America’s worst enemies than willing to discuss the shared interests of America’s best friends; this captures the destructive arc of Trump’s actions from last week’s Group of Seven meeting in Quebec to the spectacle in Singapore.

Republicans were scathing about Obama’s immense (and obvious) self-regard. But Trump has shown himself to be beyond any of the GOP’s worst nightmares about Obama. A political narcissist transfixed by his own image and utterly addicted to television coverage, Trump is unwilling to be briefed, incapable of being educated and has now blundered into a summit with a monster in exactly the way Republicans were once certain Obama would do if a camera was pointed at him.

That’s all well and good, but don’t forget: your President has identified the real enemy. Our free press. 

Dovetailing nicely with this whole cult / authoritarian theme, and as evidenced by the tweet showing the Trump mural, our government is busy separating families and throwing kids into jails. These aren’t criminals – they are refugees, mostly from Central American countries fleeing violence and crime. The American government will rip breastfeeding infants from their mother’s nipples because they crossed the border illegally. 

The American government refuses to process asylum claims at the Mexican border for people crossing legally, giving asylum-seekers no choice. It is inhumane and unconscionable for our government to rip apart asylum-seeking families who have endured so much struggle just to get here, and to specifically and carefully set up the conditions to do so. To bar the pathway to legal asylum processing and then punishing them for illegal entry is tantamount to framing someone for a crime. It’s clear that the real aim is simply to bar brown people from entry and criminalizing refugees. 

Consider, 

“Every day we hear that parents are being separated from their children and are given different reasons for the separation. Some are told the truth,” Mr Nogueres told The Independent. “Others are told that they’re children are being taken for a break to play, or bathe, or sleep, … little white lies to ameliorate an exploding situation.  The parents will realize they were lied to when they meet us before court.”

On top of this manufactured and artificial Catch-22, Jeff Sessions’ DOJ says it will no longer approve asylum applications from people fleeing gang violence or domestic abuse; in essence, sending them back to injury and death and fear. On the one hand, Trump will accuse MS-13 of being the worst scourge of “animals” America has ever endured, while throwing parents and children who flee that violent gang right back into the worst of it. And let’s not tiptoe around any of this: the separation of children from their parents is not mandatory. It is discretionary, and right now it is an intended result of Trump administration / Jeff Session-implemented policy. Separating asylum-seeking children from asylum-seeking parents is morally repugnant, totally antithetical to everything for which the US purports to stand, and is not legally necessary. It is cruelty for cruelty’s sake. It is a set of conditions manufactured specifically to exclude and harass one set of refugees. If they could do this at airports, they’d do it to implement their Muslim ban, too. 

Trump says some law the Democrats are somehow to blame for is forcing him to separate refugee kids from their parents.  

Before the Trump administration, immigrants entering illegally as families were rarely prosecuted, said Sarah Pierce, an associate policy analyst of the U.S. Immigration Program at the Migration Policy Institute. Instead, immigrants were held in family detention centers until they were sent to appear before an immigration court or deported.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on April 6 the Homeland Security Department would now be referring all illegal border crossings to the Justice Department for prosecution. Facing criminal charges, parents would go to detention centers, leaving their children unaccompanied.

It’s the decision to prosecute parents that is causing the separations.

It’s a lie, and as always happens in cults, the followers just swallow it whole. This is happening because Trump and Sessions want it to happen. They don’t want it to happen to deter anything, they want it to happen because it harasses brown people and triggers the libs, which seemingly are the last two vestiges of conservative dogma. 

And, as the GOP Chairwoman reminds you, get the fuck in line behind Donald Trump’s every action or you, too, will suffer the consequences. Pastor Niemöller warned us – this happens incrementally, in steps. First they come for the asylum-seekers, then they’ll come for the green card holders, then they’ll come for the naturalized citizens, then they’ll come for the kids born here as citizens. 

I wrote about it in August 2015; you can’t say Trump didn’t warn you. Elections have consequences. 

Kim 1: Trump 0

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George_Osborne_on_Twitter___Today’s__EveningStandard_as_Trump_meet_Kim…__

At an historic summit meeting, North Korean hereditary communist dictator Kim Jong Un won a massive concession, and in return, America got nothing. Not even a promise of future denuclearization; just some pablum while Trump called the military exercises we conduct with our South Korean allies “provocative”. 

The Singapore summit gave Donald Trump the pomp and circumstance he seemingly craves – far more so than what he experienced with America’s historic allies last weekend in Charlevoix, Quebec – but all of the show was a win for North Korea, which got everything, and in exchange gave up nothing. Trump claimed that the cost savings from halting the war games was some sort of “win”. 

Kim gets to go home to his brainwashed and subjugated population and show them pictures of KIm and Trump together on the world stage – an elected president and a hereditary dictator treated as equally legitimate. Equals. When Nixon met Mao in 1972, they put the flags away. There’s no doubt that North Korea insisted on the bank of American and North Korean flags, and the Trump team acquiesced, apparently without realizing what a propaganda coup it was to put these symbols on equal footing. Equals. 

I’m all for peace and diplomacy, but I’m not in favor of blind obsequience to regimes like Kim’s – not without some major concessions, anyway. For Kim, the meeting itself was the win – his father agitated for years to get a summit with an American President, and the closest he got was Bill Clinton in return for halting his nuclear ambitions. The meeting didn’t happen, and North Korea kept building nukes. Kim won by securing the meeting; Kim won through the symbolic framing of the imagery of the leaders from the summit; Kim won by getting a massive concession from the US in exchange for nothing. 

I’ll withhold judgment until this whole process is played out, but I don’t get how this advances much at all, but certainly it doesn’t seem to be in line with “America First”. What it does is weaken an historic military and political alliance for free. I haven’t seen Trump’s “Art of the Deal” yet. 

Collinscare in #NY27

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PigeonmemecouponCollins

 

 

According to an article WGRZ published on Wednesday, some New York health insurers are asking for massive premium increases for 2019.

This isn’t the health insurance solution President Trump promised us, is it? 

No one will lose coverage. There will be insurance for everybody. Healthcare will be a “lot less expensive” for everyone — the government, consumers, providers.

That was the promise of Donald Trump and his most obedient Congressional lapdog, Chris Collins (NY-27). Even before the Republicans’ failed efforts to “repeal and replace” Obamacare saw a vote, it was estimated that tens of millions of Americans would lose their coverage. These people had literally a decade to come up with an alternative plan that was better – in any way – than Obamacare, and when the time come they had nothing. 

So, in December, Trump got his tax cut, and in it was a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate. 

The goal of Obamacare was to expand access to affordable, quality health insurance. It forbade the sorts of scammy plans that took your money but offered no meaningful coverage. It wasn’t perfect, and it was flawed in its planning and implementation, but it was something.

And that something resulted in a lot of Americans getting health coverage who otherwise wouldn’t be able to – people working jobs with no benefits, people who were self-employed, people who earned too much to get on Medicaid and couldn’t afford astronomical individual plans. Obamacare was a national implementation of a conservative think-tank’s idea for universal health care – something Republican Governor Mitt Romney had introduced to Massachusetts in 2006. It wasn’t a federal takeover of health care, but a regulated system of private marketplaces offering insurance. The way to get closer to universal coverage was to obtain buy-in from the insurance industry. To do that, you needed the individual mandate because without it, only sick and older people would sign up while younger people would opt out. By opting out, you’d have too many payouts and too few premiums to cover it. The only other way to achieve universal coverage was to just have some sort of public plan – the “public option” on the exchanges, or Medicare for all Americans. 

Republicans wanted no part of it. They agitated against it from the get-go, and held countless meaningless votes to repeal it. But when they controlled Washington, they had no alternative and everything they came up with guaranteed that people would lose coverage en masse. 

So, let’s take a trip down memory lane and juxtapose that against the facts in WGRZ’s article. 

 

“The state’s 14 private health insurers are requesting on average a 24 percent increase in rates next year, citing growing costs and a major looming change to federal health care.” – WGRZ June 4, 2018

 

“The insurers on Monday released their proposed rate increases for individuals and small group plans for 2019.

“They said they need the substantial increases in part because the individual mandate under the federal Affordable Care Act is being repealed.” – WGRZ June 4, 2018

 

“For individual plans, the largest increase being sought is 39 percent by Fidelis, which serves 1.7 million members.” – WGRZ June 4, 2018

 

“The proposed premium rate requests are reasonable, reflecting the cost of care and taking into account a number of factors contributing to rising health care costs,” said Eric Linzer, president of the state Health Plan Association, which represents insurers.” – WGRZ June 4, 2018

 

“EmblemHealth, which largely serves the New York City area, asked for a 32 percent increase.” – WGRZ June 4, 2018

 

“The individual mandate was a key piece of Obamacare in 2010 because it required people — particularly healthy, young people — to buy insurance.

“The goal was to limit the risk pool and lower rates, but President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress said the measure was ineffective and repealed it last December.

“Still, Vullo said insurers cited the loss of the individual mandate as the main reason for large increases sought by insurers.

“The individual mandate, a key component of the Affordable Care Act, helped mitigate against dramatic price increases by ensuring healthier insurance pools,” Vullo said.” – WGRZ June 4, 2018

 

“Any increase approved by the state could affect the rates paid by people on private insurance, as well as the 4 million New Yorkers enrolled in its health exchange.

“The state put the rate increases squarely on the repeal of the individual mandate, saying without the change, insurers would be seeking increases of about half as much.” – WGRZ June 4, 2018

(Incidentally, as of 6/7/18, only three people clicked “like” on Collins’ 2013 tweet).

 

“Insurers cited other cost factors, too, such as the increase in prescription-drug prices.” – WGRZ June 4, 2018

 

“[Bill Hammond, director of health policy at the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany], said it is the fifth year in a row that insurers have sought double-digit increases.

“Even after DFS knocks the requested rates down a little bit, the final increase is on track to be in the double digits for the third straight year,” Hammond said.” – WGRZ June 4, 2018

In response to all of this, Collins is silent while his opponent, Democrat Nate McMurray has renewed his invitation to debate Collins at any time, in any place. 

Let’s see if this “Representative” will bother to debate his opponent on issues affecting his constituency. 

The Difference is Guns

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LOCKDOWN

Despite the best efforts of the federal government, America is still a first-world country. Just barely.

America is unique among her peers in the modern industrialized world in that access to firearms is practically unfettered. It doesn’t take much effort for any American to amass a veritable arsenal. The gun manufacturers’ lobby – the NRA – advocates for this very thing based on a fundamental and intentional misrepresentation of the 2nd Amendment. Instead of looking at the ease with which people can arm themselves, gun activists point to issues surrounding mental health. That’s a fair point until one realizes that many of these same people spent a decade agitating universal health care for every American, including mental health services. 

Regard NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch’s argument here: 

Oh, yes, by all means let’s engage Ms. Loesch in her fantastical charade. Right now, the NRA is literally on the record supporting the sale of, e.g., AR-15s to 16-year-olds who beat their girlfriends. The NRA opposes restrictions on the sale of firearms to people on terrorist no-fly list. Does she really think we believe that her organization would go along with the government preventing the Parkland shooter from obtaining a firearm because of some pesky criminal record? 

When Britain had a mass school shooting, its society and government took decisive action, and that is not an event that has recurred. 

America tolerates a new Dunblane every few months. 

When Australia had a mass school shooting, its society and government took decisive action, and that is not an event that has recurred. 

America tolerates a new Port Arthur every few months. 

Some point to knife attacks and other isolated acts of violence in Australia or Britain. Sure, restrictions on gun ownership don’t get rid of every crime, nor is that a promised result. But the difference is quantitative in terms of potential harm done. An AR-15 does more damage more efficiently than a knife or a Ford Transit on a sidewalk. 

Every other first-world country has troubled kids. Every other first-world country has suicidal kids. Every other first-world country has Nazi kids and “incel” kids. Every other first-world country has kids who are homicidal lunatics and bullies and victims of bullies and kids seeking some sort of revenge. Every other first-world country has social media and video games – even violent ones. Yet no other first-world country has mass school shootings.

I’ll give you two reasons why that might be: 1. No other first-world country offers its citizens what amounts to unfettered access to firearms; and, 2. every other first-world country offers all of its citizens some form of universal health care, including mental health care. It’s as simple as that. This is a uniquely American problem facing a uniquely American refusal to deal with it. (Not inability – refusal). 

Instead, we keep on watching innocent kids die in school. Politicians keep offering empty thoughts and trite prayers. People tiptoe around the one issue that separates the American experience from that of other free, rich nations: guns. The people who refuse to consider that guns make the difference want to arm teachers – as if gunfights in school are a good idea. Some want to turn schools into prisons – I don’t think the pods in Oz‘s Em City would have made for a good learning environment. They will literally exercise door control before gun control. 

And when kids speak up about it, the gun lobby and its useful protectors brand these kids as traitors; as un-American; as bought & paid for by some sort of liberal group. It rises to the level of attempted murder by SWATting. 

I don’t really think our kids or yours did anything to deserve living in a country that tolerates this song, sung to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle” or the Alphabet song: 

But so long as this new reality goes unaddressed by our government and our society, we might as well give the NRA a publishing credit. 

There’s an element of exhaustion and hopelessness in all of this, isn’t there? Columbine, Sandy Hook – ancient history. But if the mass murder of twenty 1st graders didn’t provoke this country into doing something meaningful about average citizens’ access to military arsenals, literally nothing will. The body count will grow. Your kids, whose grandparents had to “duck and cover” from Communist H-bombs now have to undergo lockdown drills lest a disgruntled and well-armed alum bursts through the door with an AR-15 and twenty-two 30-round magazines. For what? Not all speech is protected, so how can the Constitution guarantee a person’s right to amass this sort of military arsenal? So modern-day minutemen can arm themselves against the tyranny of a group of 1st graders? The Constitution isn’t so permissive.

All of this is a broken issue in a broken, bloodthirsty country. The gun lobby and the politicians it has on the payroll will never allow our country to confront this sickness. The only thing we can do is vote those politicians out. 

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please contact the Erie County Suicide Prevention Hotline at 716-834-3131. If outside Erie County, call 1-800-273-TALK. 

What Is A Clerk?

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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. 

Schneiderman Resigns

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Attorney General Eric Schneiderman will resign today after a blockbuster expose in the New Yorker revealed four women’s credible accusations against the state’s top cop of abuse and harassment in several of his personal relationships. Schneiderman is a former state Senator and was elected Attorney General in 2010, and re-elected in 2014. His resignation leaves the AG race wide open, and the legislature will select an interim AG to serve out his term. 

It is a shocking fall for the man whose office prosecuted everything from the Steve Pigeon crew’s electoral racketeering to the Trump University fraud, and who has worked since Trump’s election to lead other Attorneys General in countermanding the dismantling of environmental and other regulations. 

When the New Yorker first released its article, Schneiderman released an odd statement about “role playing”, but within hours submitted his resignation after, e.g., Governor Cuomo demanded it; there was no way forward through this, given the seriousness of these on-the-record allegations. 

It is right and good that we hold our most powerful people – and in the case of Schneiderman’s public acts, our best political actors – to high standards. 

Isn’t it? 

America: Great Again?

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ICE

There are two hugely anti-American things going on right now that are getting very little, if any, regular mainstream media attention. The first is the absolutely disgraceful process to restore power to Puerto Rico. The hurricane that knocked the American territory’s power out on September 20th, and as of earlier this week only a fraction of electricity had been restored to the island…before a freak accident knocked it all out again this week. 

We complain when NYSEG doesn’t get us a restoration time within a couple of hours – imagine being without power since September. National newscasts should all start with “day 210” like this countdown at the Daily News.  It’s 2018 – there’s no legitimate excuse for this. 

The second story has to do with ICE – the Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal police force. Since Trump’s inauguration, there have been myriad stories from throughout the country that are straight up Gestapo or Stasi tactics. Warrantless searches and arbitrary apprehensions. Families torn apart. Parents detained by ICE and sent to detention facilities thousands of miles away, out of nothing more than animus or spite. Children left without parents. We’re talking, for instance, about people with some form of legal status who were abiding by all of ICE’s rules being suddenly apprehended and imprisoned indefinitely pending deportation – the check-ins ultimately providing nothing more than the time and place best to make the arrest, in many cases with kids around. We’re talking about people being thrown out of the country over minor paperwork errors or delays. 

Now, we have this story from near Rome, New York, where ICE came onto a farm to rough up and apprehend a Guatemalan farmhand who had legal status. When the owner of the farm confronted ICE about them being on his property without a warrant and tried to take cellphone video, they knocked the phone to the floor and handcuffed the farmer. 

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand tweeted this: 

Efforts to restore power to Puerto Rico are making America great again, if by “again” you mean “2005” and if by “America” you mean “New Orleans”. ICE is making America great again, if by “again” you mean 1961 and by “America” you mean East Germany. The two most affected groups of people happen to have one thing in common. 

Naters gonna Nate

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Just around lunchtime Monday, the Buffalo News’ political columnist, Bob McCarthy, tweeted this: 

What a bombshell, right? “Last minute efforts are underway” to replace Nate McMurray, the Democratic challenger to Chris Collins, with former Congresswoman and current Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul. McCarthy indicates that Hochul’s people were unavailable for comment, but omits any mention of McMurray’s campaign. The whole thing was worded to make it seem like a fait accompli – omitting McMurray made it seem as if they had somehow confirmed the story. McCarthy says he has two sources! Efforts are “underway”.  It’s a done deal, people! 

Within seconds, I had McMurray on the phone and he vehemently denied that he was stepping aside. McCarthy later posted a story to the Buffalo News site going into more detail about this story, but the damage was already done. 

Democrats are in disarray! They are disappointed with McMurray, whose fundraising figures, released this week, were lackluster compared even to the guys who stepped aside in the race! McMurray was a placeholder for Hochul this whole time! With one ill-worded, semi-accurate Tweet, the Buffalo News’ coiumnist had done someone’s work for them, and helped sink the Democrats in the process. 

Did Illuzzi call from the grave? Did Pigeon call so he could help some crony get a job? 

Here’s how the story goes: the rumor comes courtesy of Governor Andrew Cuomo. Seeing a challenge from the left from current Working Families Party endorsee Cynthia Nixon, Cuomo knows he’s got trouble downstate. In the City and its environs, there’s not a lot of love for Hamburg’s Kathy Hochul, and she may be especially vulnerable in the Lieutenant Governor’s race against the WFP candidate, Brooklyn’s Jumaane Williams. City residents don’t care about the SAFE Act or Buffalo Billions shenanigans, but they do care about the fact that the state-run MTA is falling apart and affecting people’s ability to get on with their lives. Nixon has siezed on that issue. 

The Governor primarily tasked former Assemblyman and more recent Empire State Development executive Sam Hoyt to be the point man to cajole McMurray to hand the race over to Hochul. This would solve Cuomo’s “I need a leftist” problem downstate, and give Hochul an exciting re-match in a suddenly and unexpectedly competitive NY-27 race. 

Cuomo’s emissaries spent the weekend alternately offering McMurray the sun, moon, and stars, and mixing a little bad cop in the mix, too. 

McMurray had already been viewed suspiciously by some in the anti-Collins coalition because he was endorsed by party bosses over people like Sean Bunny and Nick Stankevich, who had announced their candidacies earlier. It would be sheer insanity for McMurray now to do the same in favor of Hochul. Not only would it underscore a “Democrats can’t shoot straight” narrative, but McMurray and his people just spent a month or so collecting signatures in the snow for him; not for Kathy Hochul. The governor’s exercise was an insult to the grassroots that has coalesced behind McMurray in recent weeks. 

As an aside, I like and respect Kathy Hochul and love that she still represents our interests in Albany. I don’t believe she was the impetus behind this effort – I have heard nothing to indicate this to be the case. This was more about Cuomo’s war on two fronts, rather than Hochul wanting in on a rematch against Collins. 

If Andrew Cuomo is spooked by Cynthia Nixon, that’s not a problem that he’s going to solve by strong-arming plucky Congressional challengers in a rural upstate race. It is unconscionable that he attempted to toy with this race in this way – first, do not harm. The harm here is incalculable, not because of the clumsy effort to shunt McMurray aside – that could have come and gone without a peep. The harm comes from the idiotic and ill-considered yammering to McCarthy’s dutiful transcription service, which took to twitter to word it as a done deal. 

The Republicans are already crowing about McMurray’s fundraising. We really could have done without the Democratic Governor giving them even more nonsense about which to crow. 

I won’t be sold on Cynthia Nixon until she visits an upstate city not called “Albany” Buffalo and sets out her platform for areas not within the five boroughs, but right now I’ve lost an amazing volume of respect for the Governor, and Nixon’s job just got a whole lot easier. After all, she’s not gone to the media to sabotage any local Democratic campaigns, of which I’m aware. (Updated to reflect that she did, in fact, visit Syracuse on 4/5, and Rochester on 4/6. She has not, however, visited Buffalo nor mentioned it in any meaningful way.)

In any event, Gen Xers will appreciate McMurray’s clever web ad taking on Collins’ positions on Social Security. 

Collins Hand-Picks His Green Party Surrogate

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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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Trump Cares About Innocent Civilians

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The United States’ record of military intervention in the Middle East over the past three decades has been an abject failure. Our great adventures in Kuwait, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria have not resulted in the promised peace or democracy. More to the point, none of this has resulted in regional stability and security – for anyone. Not the US, not Israel, not Egypt – no one. 

Last night, the US, Britain, and France hurled some missiles into Syria to punish its dictatorship for gassing its innocent citizens. 

So, Trump, who Tweeted this… 

…has evidently changed his tune. Trump retained bellicose neoconservative John Bolton to be his new National Security Advisor, and literally within days launched unauthorized missiles in the general direction of Syria. President Trump denounced Syrian dictator Assad for gassing, “innocent men, women, and children.”

It’s nice that Trump makes mouth-noises about chemical weapons being used against innocent Syrian people, but these are the same innocent people for whom Trump has slammed shut America’s doors. 

I reject this idiotic and disgusting meme, but honestly – we’ll bomb the Skittles but not give the Skittles refuge? There is nothing honorable going on here. 

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