What an amazing day for America, to so prominently recognize a female black hero who saved lives, fought for equality, civil rights, and women’s suffrage. There’s no law that says our paper money has to have dead Presidents or Founding Fathers on it, and honoring achievement in science, the humanities, literature, music, and history makes sense. In contemporary times, Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony made their way to the seldom-used dollar coin. Twenties are comparatively ubiquitous.
Harriet Tubman was born a slave, and dedicated her life to freeing slaves via the Underground Railroad; we honor and commemorate the stops peppered throughout the Buffalo area, where people stopped en route to freedom in Canada. She was a spy for the Union during the Civil War. They called her “Moses”, leading her people out of slavery to freedom. She is quite literally one of the greatest Americans who ever lived.
On Facebook, WBEN posted about it thusly,
As usual, “your thoughts” is Trumpist shorthand for, “your overtly racist epithets”.
Steve Kirk says, “makes sense when you see the stacks of 20s on the table after a drug bust…”
Jen Marie says “That is 1 ugly 20, thats scarey lookin ill carry 5,10,50,100s instead…, i wouldn’t even be able to look in my wallet, wtf is this.”
Erik Rusinek says, “Want to honor her put her on a coin…Bills are for dead presidents and founding fathers”. Not, evidently, people who saved slaves.
Peter Benham reacts to a freer of slaves and suffragette with, “Obama’s gang just has to s**t on history!”
Dawn Curto, perhaps mistaking Harriet Tubman for Rosa Parks says, “To the back of the wallet, behind the C notes!”
Phil Pantano reacts to Harriet “Moses” Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson with, “America continues it’s attempt to cleanse history…”
Timothy Grabowski says Harriet Tubman on the 20 is, “Stupid pandering+”
Stephen Bolt says “Guess I’ll just carry 50’s”, rather than a 20 with a black face on it.
Kimberly Zappia implores, “Omg are you kidding me ? Why ?”
Richard Besant thoughtfully comments, “I’m surprised it is interesting obama on the new $20”. I’m surprised it is interesting, too!
Bill Richards says, “Nice because we have nothing else to spend money on. Yet we owe trillions of dollars. But this def is a must.”
Jane Wisnier says, “NO WAY …… She was a criminal .. according to the law of the land”
Harriet Tubman on a $20? Joseph Stephen says, “They should put Tubman on food stamp bills.”
George Griffenham adds in a stream of dumb consciousness, “That will be one ugly $20 bill at least it doesn’t have Obama on it then it would have an IOU on it.”
Daniel Neu adds, “Shouldn’t she be on the fiddy dollar bill?”
Bernie Misura adds, “Protest by not using it accepting 20’s…Great use of tax dollars… Smh”
UPDATE: This one appeared today. From the looks of the avi, it’s a white supremacist. What a great platform WBEN offers!
All of this, obviously, is as sick as it is [sic].
So, thanks, Buffalo’s AM talk radio enthusiasts for your predictably shameless overt racism, and thanks to the powers that be at WBEN and the Entercom corporation for allowing your social media accounts to become bulletin boards for nihilist, eliminationist racism.
I listened to a small portion of the speech and found it to be quite possibly the most vapid, Kardashian-esque, stream-of-consciousness nonsense I’ve heard since the last time I watched a Survivor tribal council or Big Brother head of household nomination ceremony.
Last night’s Trump rally attracted 11,400 people to the First Niagara Center with three weeks’ notice, beautiful weather, a 7pm start time, and complete media saturation.
Last week’s Bernie Sanders rally attracted 11,500 people to UB with three days’ notice, pouring rain, and a 5pm start time and the region’s top-rated AM newsradio station was not completely in the tank for him, nor did it link on its own website to Sanders tickets, nor did it push a text alert regarding when tickets became available.
So, let’s say western New York is arguably way more Bernie Country than Donald Country.
In any event, here are some things to remember about the Trump performance:
1. Our generation’s Pearl Harbor took place in September – not July. If a Democrat had made this gaffe, there would be howls of derision from all the usual suspects.
2. During Trump’s paean to the 7/11 first responders, he extolled the virtues of police, fire, MTA workers, and other members of public sector unions. On this we can agree. Does he agree that they deserve fair benefits and remuneration?
3. This may become one of the most iconic images of the 2016 Presidential election – an anti-Trump protester being ejected from the First Niagara Center, courtesy of the Buffalo News’ Derek Gee:
Polls are open now through 9pm throughout Erie County; they open at noon in many other counties throughout upstate NY. Only registered Republicans and Democrats can vote in our closed primaries. Donald Trump, naturally, is going to crush on the (R) side, but Hillary Clinton really needs a big win against Sanders in the state she served in the Senate.
I’ll be providing analysis on WGRZ tonight at 10 and 11, and some sort of webcast is planned between 9 – 10. Follow along on Twitter to watch the fun.
This past week, Coward Paladino – a man struck dumb by an 18 year-old opponent – took shots at John Kasich, a Presidential candidate who has experience serving in Congress, and later as Governor of Ohio.
Carl Paladino on Friday targeted Ohio Gov. John Kasich over a vote he made in Congress 22 years ago to ban 19 types of semiautomatic weapons and large-capacity magazines.
Paladino called Kasich “the Ohio version” of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
“New York gun owners cannot trust John Kasich,” Paladino said during a news conference in Ellicott Square. “He will not be a president that we can trust with our guns.”
Gunsgunsguns. Remember how Obama was coming for people’s guns? Amazingly enough, they’re still waiting, these gun-huggers, for how “registration leads to confiscation”, as it ostensibly does for things like cars.
The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution was set up to allow citizens to arm themselves as part of state militiae. At the time, the United States had no standing army, and militiae were the nation’s only line of defense. In recent years, the 2nd Amendment has oddly lost its historical and legal context, and now people have a right to bear arms for sport and protection. Absolutists – who are legally and historically wrong – believe that any restriction on the type of weapons they’re allowed to possess is an illegal overreach. They seem shocked to discover that government has an interest in not permitting random people to maintain mass-murder-friendly arsenals. Coward Paladino is one of these people who incorrectly believe that any restriction on arms is an illegal overreach. In Heller v. DC, the Supreme Court expressly stated that governments can implement these restrictions, just like restrictions exist on the freedom of speech.
Paladino, who is backing Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, said Kasich cast a key vote in May 1994 when House members voted to approve the ban by a two-vote margin.
The Public Safety and Recreation Firearms Use Protection Act was part of a larger crime bill signed into law later in 2004 by President Bill Clinton, which has already become a controversial issue in the Democratic primary race for president.
Paladino, who was Cuomo’s Republican opponent in 2010, is decrying Kasich’s role in passing the legislation and contended language from the 1994 bill was copied as part of the New York SAFE ACT gun control law passed in 2013.
“When he was in Congress, he was no supporter of the Second Amendment,” Paladino said inside the Trump campaign’s local headquarters. “Today, when he wants to be president, he wants to go around the state and have you believe that he’s changed his stripes. Zebras don’t change their stripes.”
Not to defend Kasich, or to suggest that he’s a facile absolutist like our cowardly friend in Ellicott Square, but that last line – “Zebras don’t change their strips” is simply not something that Carl Paladino believes. He can’t. Can he?
No, he can’t, because, for 30 years – until 2005, Carl Paladino wasn’t the angry right-wing coward who can’t/won’t debate an 18 year-old; he was a registered Democrat.
If recent Democrat Carl Paladino says that a zebra can’t change its strips, query how someone who gave thousands to Brian Higgins, Louise Slaughter, Chuck Schumer, and Hillary Clinton in the last 10 years can be some sort of gun-nut tea party Republican. After all, Hillary Clinton is the same person now – with the same positions and beliefs – that she was in 2008 and 2004.
“Donald Trump doesn’t lie. He tells the truth,” Paladino said. “I’ve known him for that and he takes great pleasure in being known as a truthful man of integrity and character.”
Paladino concluded the news conference saying “You can’t take the guns away from the people.”
Americans are angry. I hear it from the former factory workers who lost their jobs to other countries because of bad trade deals, the veterans who wait months to see a doctor at a Veterans Affairs hospital and the small-business owners who are struggling to stay afloat because of the Affordable Care Act’s crippling regulations. The professional politicians they trusted and supported have repeatedly sold out our country in favor of special interests and the status quo. Finally, millions of Americans are saying, “Enough is enough.”
The VA is understaffed and underfunded by the Republican Congress. (Can’t have big government). More Americans have quality, real health insurance than at any time in history; not dying is a “special interest”. Manufacturing? Collins should know as well as anyone that it’s been automating or shifting overseas for generations.
I see the failures of career politicians in the experiences of the hardworking men and women in Western New York whom I represent in Congress. The safe manufacturer SentrySafe, which once employed hundreds in the Rochester area, will close its doors this June and shift much of its operation to Mexico. That means the loss of good-paying jobs because our state and national leaders do not know how to encourage businesses to stay and grow in the United States.
When given the chance, Chris Collins – a man who has been in politics for almost two decades – manufactured his bike balance thing in China. Not in western New York.
America cannot afford another professional politician residing in the White House. We need a leader who has faced tough real-life situations before, and won. As Republicans prepare to vote in the New York primary on Tuesday, I hope they will send a resounding message that they believe Donald J. Trump is that type of leader.
Over the past several decades, Mr. Trump has built a family business into a network of highly successful enterprises. One of the many reasons Americans are rallying behind him is his record of success and commitment to taking the lessons he’s learned to the White House. When he talks about being a president who would create jobs, win negotiations and stand up to enemies, people believe him because he has done it before.
To fix the mistakes made by President Obama, our next president needs to speak frankly about the problems that exist, explain how he or she will correct them and have the fortitude to take necessary actions, no matter how unpopular they would be with Washington elites.
Get that? You can fix bad policies and systemic failures by “speak[ing] frankly”. He will build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. He will drop nuclear bombs on “ISIS”, without regard for innocent civilians who are vaporized. He will commit torture, abrogate the Geneva Conventions, and murder terrorists’ innocent relatives (but likely not, by example, the parents of Timothy McVeigh, who slaughtered 168 innocent men, women, and children). Chris Collins endorses all of it.
Yes, being a blunt-spoken political outsider gets a nominee only so far. But Mr. Trump continues to win because his message and his ideas for fixing America are resonating with voters. He is committed to securing our borders, taking back the manufacturing jobs that have been stolen from the middle class by Mexico and China, and standing up to enemies threatening our way of life. These are things people in my district care about. His demand that foreign countries stop cheating on international trade is especially welcome in Western New York, a region devastated by the North American Free Trade Agreement and other poorly negotiated trade deals.
“Red China Chris” Collins is a political insider who has done nothing to abrogate or challenge bad trade deals. On the contrary, he outsourced his own product to China, because he could and because it was cheaper than employing western New Yorkers to do it.
Even some of his supporters don’t agree with everything he says. I believe his plan to deport the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States is unfeasible, and his proposed temporary ban on Muslims entering our country will not end radical Islamic terrorism.
“Avoidable humanitarian crisis of Biblical proportions” can now be euphemised into “unfeasible”. Make no mistake – the rounding up, detention, and deportation of 11 million men, women, and children will be nothing more than contemporary concentration camps. They’ll be Dachau and Omarska for the 21st Century. Banning Muslims – even American Muslims – from entry or re-entry isn’t just something to avoid because it won’t work, but because it’s fundamentally illegal, unconstitutional, stupid, and ignorant. Trumpisti are quick to say it would be “temporary”, but that’s not true; something “temporary” has an expiration date. The proper word is, “indefinite”. Chris Collins endorses all of it, despite his weak and mealy-mouthed protestations.
However, there is something to be said for a candidate who is willing to put forward proposals to protect our nation, rather than skirt uncomfortable issues — as President Obama and Hillary Clinton all too often do. His lack of political correctness shows that he is independent and understands the things people care about. Unlike career politicians who take policy positions based on their fear of losing elections or angering deep-pocketed special interests, Mr. Trump is accountable to no one but the voters.
Hey, my candidate might say horrible, wretched, and unworkable things, but gosh he’s willing to say them! Also, “political correctness” has become Republican shorthand for, “let’s treat people like garbage again”.
Republicans recognize that the remaining Republican candidates have all advanced conservative solutions to the problems our nation is facing, as evidenced by the record voter turnout we have seen. But while Senator Ted Cruz and Gov. John Kasich both have strong visions, neither possesses Mr. Trump’s proven negotiating skills or ability to enact real change.
I know firsthand how important Mr. Trump’s private-sector know-how is to improving the way government operates. I spent my career buying and rebuilding distressed companies, which created and saved hundreds of middle-class jobs. I put that experience to use in 2007 when I ran for executive of Erie County, a region that had been devastated by losses in manufacturing jobs.
In office, I made the necessary tough choices and turned a nearly bankrupt, debt-ridden county into one with a surplus. I believe Donald Trump will achieve the same results for America.
Shorter Chris Collins: Trump needs the assistance of an imposed control board to lead.
Americans have a chance to set our country back on course and restore the possibility of the American dream for our children and grandchildren. For too long the political class has denied everyday Americans a real voice in government. This election, voters are finding a leader who is listening to them over the clamor of Washington special interests, and voters are speaking loud and clear. They want a leader like Mr. Trump; a chief executive, not a chief politician.
Here’s a news flash for Red China Chris: you are a member of the political class, and you never schedule or attend events where you might have to deign to hear from people who don’t agree with you and buy into your Spaulding Lake shtick. Your policies were so horrible for western New York’s middle class that you were ejected from county office after one unnecessarily turbulent term. You are an embarrassment to your constituents, to your town, and to yourself.
National general elections in Canada and the United Kingdom take weeks. Our interminable system is now a billion-dollar industry, where each party’s rules differ in each state, and the thing drags out for well over a year.
At the very least, one would hope that all that time and money would get us some pretty incredible candidates. We get quantity; quality? Not so much.
I recently finished watching the 4th season of House of Cards – a fictional political soap opera set during a very contentious Presidential election. The reality has literally become stranger than fiction. Now? The Republicans are down to a reality show clown, a radicalized theocratic demagogue, and what appears to be the very last Republican who believes in the idea of governing. The Democrats are locked in a typically annoying battle between the centrist corporate type and the progressive true believer. Judging solely by my social media feeds, there is an overwhelming, bottomless glut of self-righteous proclamations of Bernie’s/Hillary’s lefty ideological bona fides. It’s a gusher!
As a Democrat, for me it’s quite simple – if Bernie gets the nomination, I’m voting for him. If Hillary gets the nomination, I’m voting for her. The Republicans will never, ever pick someone sane like Kasich, so my decision in November will be easy, regardless of what happens between now and then. I think both Sanders and Clinton are reasonable and qualified. Frankly, I’d like to see Clinton win and Sanders take a cabinet post dealing with education or health & human services. So, while I don’t know how I’ll vote next Tuesday, I’m all set for November.
But you Republicans should take a good long look at yourselves. Donald Trump is no conservative, and he’s about as thoughtful as a toddler at a bounce house. Ted Cruz is one of the ugliest human beings Texas or Alberta ever shat. He is ugly in visage, he is ugly in mind, he is ugly in idea, ugly in policy, and he is a dishonest opportunist seeking a bizarre ultra-right Christianist abolition of civil society. John Kasich? He won Ohio. Yay.
In 2000, the candidate who inspired people was John McCain; he dropped out shortly after South Carolina. In 2004, it was Howard Dean, who barely made it out of Iowa in one piece. In 2008, it was Obama, who actually won. Now, it’s Sanders and Trump, both of whom have tapped into the same anxieties, but Sanders’ solutions exist in the real world while Trump’s are pure nonsense. Do we spend billions to help people, or to build a wall? Do we help people get an education, or round up 11 million men, women, and children into detention camps in advance of a mass deportation? Do we educate and care for our people, or set in motion a “final solution” of the immigrant question?
But if the fundamental thesis of Sanders and Trump is that “shit is all fucked up and bullshit”, I’m telling you that the very way in which we select the President falls deeply into that category. I am fundamentally fatigued by this entire process. Donald Trump is going to crush it next Tuesday. Hillary isn’t going to crush it like the reality TV star, but she’ll do fine. Sanders has hopefully energized young kids and the disillusioned, and I hope to God that his “revolution” translates into people staying involved or interested in politics, and that they pay close attention to local and state elections, as well.
In years past, I might have been excited that New York’s late April primary still mattered.
It’s a messy four-way stop where bigotry, ignorance, arrogance, and nastiness intersect, within the context of kids’ lives.
On Monday April 4th, the Clarence school board held what what supposed to be its annual budget adoption meeting. This was postponed by a week, however, so that trustees could digest an unexpected, unprecedented influx of state aid and decide how to allocate it. Superintendent Dr. Geoffrey Hicks presented the administration’s recommendations – sock some away in the fund balance, use some to further reduce the tax levy, and hire a handful of needed teachers and aides. It was all very calm and tidy. For a district that has been under constant siege by people who don’t believe in public schools, it was a welcome respite.
During the generally free-wheeling public comment section, some had questions about the budget, but all the speakers were supportive of its inherent equity. Notably absent were two members of the anti-school cabal who have attended every budget meeting to interrogate the members of the board about things ranging from fiction to half-truths. Whether they’re being advised by – or colluding with – either Jason Lahti or Roger Showalter, the two tax protest members of the board, isn’t exactly known. Yet for some reason these budget-process regulars didn’t show up for what was quite an important and pivotal budget hearing.
Perhaps they were advised to stay home because the 2016 school election season isn’t going to be about money, but about something altogether different.
Susan Gugliuzza – a parent and nurse who had assailed the proposed transgender policy in November, also spoke. Her comments were not dissimilar from what she had talked about then, but now had the added bonus of complaining about the alleged bureaucratic complexity of: by what name an infinitesimal handful of kids choose to be called. Ms. Gugliuzza also said that this could all lead to a lawsuit, which is, indeed, possible. One gets the impression, however, that she wasn’t so much warning the board against a potential lawsuit, but hoping for one.
Finally, Jacob Kerksiek – one of last year’s anti-school candidates for the board – attended a meeting for the first time in over a year, and his second board meeting, ever. Everyone was curious about his sudden re-appearance after he embarrassed himself last year, lecturing people about school finances with what could charitably be called unclean hands. He spent an inordinate amount of time disrespectfully hectoring the board over a gender identity policy enacted in January, and asking about why and how it was passed, which he could have learned by (a) attending prior meetings; (b) reading the minutes of past meetings; or (c) watching the videos posted to YouTube of every relevant school board meeting.
Here’s Brad Riter and me dissecting this transphobic eruption via Trending Buffalo podcast:
What could have so suddenly and unpunctually energized our anti-trans triumverate? Evidently, a transgender boy posted a triumphant picture of himself at a urinal in an empty men’s room to Instagram. Regardless of whether there were any victims in that instance, or whether it in any way indicts the gender identity policy, these people – especially Gugliuzza – were sufficiently outraged by that – something that most people had no idea about; even people who are generally up on what’s going on in social media. Sorry, but even bathroom selfies do not lend a government justification to violate an LGBT student’s basic dignity and human rights.
You can watch the video of the meeting here:
Kerksiek rambled on incoherently and rudely about his genitalia and where he can and can’t use them. (BREAKING: he evidently exclusively uses urinals for his toileting). He continually interrupted board President Maryellen Kloss when she attempted to answer what weren’t so much questions posed, as accusations spat. Gugliuzza is a nurse, but that alone doesn’t give her some sort of especial clinical authority to opine on other people’s kids’ childhood developmental issues. Instead, it all reeked of personal hatred, bigotry, and animus wrapped loosely in a thin pretense of dubious clinical experience. By contrast, Mrs. Showalter was calm, asked some probing questions, and Dr. Hicks answered them. Of the three, she was the only calm and courteous one.
You don’t have to understand or agree with the gender identity policy; it doesn’t matter. That’s because the school board discussed and debated it, and took public comment about it throughout the fall and early winter. That was the time to comment. Not now, not so rudely, and not with such hate ranging from misinformation to fiction. A budget hearing is not the place to publicly hector the board about its long-ago passed gender identity policy.
Are kids confused about gender? Yes. That’s why the gender identity policy can’t even be triggered unless mental health professionals, administrators, and a kid’s parents are consulted. A kid cannot decide day to day that he wants to use the girls’ bathroom or locker rooms. It’s not how it works, and that sort of commentary is fundamentally rude – bullying, if you will – of the tiny number of transgender kids in the district. It assumes that transgender kids who want to use the bathroom that corresponds with their consistently expressed gender identity are creepers, peepers, and pedophiles. It’s mind-numbingly insulting and derogatory.
Are there privacy issues at play? Yes. That’s why the administration has implemented ways to ensure that all kids – transgender and not – feel comfortable in bathroom and locker room situations. The district doesn’t have to adopt the transphobic absolutism of Gugliuzza and Kerksiek in order to protect the privacy of the vast majority of students who are not transgendered. If these people are really all that concerned about nudity, sexuality, modesty, and dignity, why do we let kids of any gender get naked in front of other kids at all?
Could there be a lawsuit? Yes. About anything. On any day. A lawsuit does not necessarily have to be meritorious to be filed. All you need is money for the filing fee; you don’t even need a lawyer.
But the notion that transgendered people are pedophilic predators is slander. The notion that this is something kids can just do and undo on a whim, day to day, is a lie.
The policy passed 3 months ago and no one has yet complained about it, and even if they did, there’s an internal administrative process to handle it.
This is all about an election that can’t be about taxes and fiscal policy, so they’re going to make it about modesty and misinformation. I’m appalled by and condemn the patent transphobia that was on display, and I have no doubt that it was a spectacle choreographed by the two incumbents who are up for re-election, and whom we must defeat.
The school board has a special meeting Monday April 11th at 7pm to vote on the proposed 2016/2017 budget, which includes an equitable distribution of additional state aid. It will be interesting to see if the board changes its rules for public comment to require that they be relevant to the budget process.
In the Brave New World Donald Trump has developed around himself, it is “political correctness” that led to his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski standing accused of misdemeanor battery.
In the regressive dystopia of North Carolina, hatred of LGBT people and suspiciously eyeing the notion of “civil rights” remains in vogue.
More to the point, there didn’t need to be a mark. There just had to be an intentional unwanted touching, however slight. Corey Lewandowski is not a law enforcement or Secret Service agent or in any other capacity that would lend him immunity from a battery charge.
Fields’ story has never changed. She claimed Lewandowski grabbed her very hard and almost lost her balance. She made the error of attempting to ask a Presidential candidate a question as he moved through a ballroom where he had just pretended like Trump Steaks and Trump Magazine still existed. Luckily, he didn’t attempt to argue that Trump Shuttle was still around.
What we learned is that Trump values his “brand” so much, he’ll affix his name to any old tasteless tack. Like his campaign effort.
Holy shit, I can’t believe he just did that. That was so hard. Was that Corey? You should have felt how hard he just grabbed me.
Fields detailed what happened in a story at Breitbart, and at first the website called on Lewandowski to apologize, highlighting how he and Trump were accusing Fields of making it all up. But the outfit was too afraid of Trump to stand by its reporter, and like a petulant little army of amateur Jim Garrisons analyzing myriad Zapruder films, began questioning her story immediately. Seriously, consider the idea of a putative “news” outlet trusting its reporter enough to hire her, but not enough to back her up when she says someone from a campaign put his hands on her. Fields and her colleague Ben Shapiro left Breitbart on March 14th over this, and some more people quit a few days later.
Ms. Fields said she was trying to ask Mr. Trump a question about affirmative action when Mr. Lewandowski grabbed her and nearly knocked her off her feet. She posted on Twitter a picture of finger-shaped bruises on her arm.
Mr. Lewandowski denied touching her, but Ms. Fields pressed charges three days later. The investigating officer, Detective Marc Bujnowski, took statements from her and from a Washington Post reporter, Ben Terris, who was a witness.
Security video footage from the Trump golf club “parallels what Fields had told me,” the detective wrote: Mr. Lewandowski “grabbed Fields left arm with his right hand, causing her to turn and step back.”
Indeed, the new security-camera images show Mr. Lewandowski reaching for and then grabbing Ms. Fields’s arm, tugging at her clothing as he pulls her, then walking ahead of her as she reacts, close behind Mr. Trump. The entire episode takes less than four seconds.
The abuser is being prosecuted. Police – who have no axe to grind – interviewed witnesses and reviewed audio and video tape to determine that probable cause exists to charge Lewandowski. Whom are you going to believe? Donald Trump and his paid staffer, or your lying eyes and ears?
Turning to North Carolina, its legislature bulldozed a law onto the books that would allow businesses to discriminate against LGBT people, mostly over bathrooms. Lawmakers had to ask for five minutes to read its text. Under pressure from businesses and professional and amateur sporting associations, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory is playing defense.
This law basically nullifies any policy made by any municipal entity that would allow transgendered people to use the bathroom or locker room of the gender with which they identify. While private businesses can do whatever they want – including discriminating against LGBT patrons – state facilities require that a person use the bathroom or locker room that corresponds with what it says on his birth certificate.
50 years ago, the South was the epicenter of denying black people equal rights. Today, the South is the epicenter of denying rights to LGBT Americans. How far we’ve come.
This wild intrusion into people’s privacy would seem to require a bathroom police to check people’s birth certificates. Will this be via checkpoint or random enforcement? Will North Carolinians and visitors be required to have their birth certificates on their person when they use a bathroom stall? Where will the checkpoints be set up?
Think of it this way: 81 year-old Renee Richards, who made headlines in – and has lived as a woman since – the mid-70s, might be forced to use the men’s room at a North Carolina highway rest stop. McCrory says people who undergo sex change operations can get their birth certificates changed, but all this underscores that North Carolina will need to set up some sort of Birth Certificate Police infrastructure – a Toilet Stasi – to ensure compliance.
When a transgender person is using a bathroom stall – any bathroom stall – whose rights or privacy are under assault?
In other words, the only way to respect people’s difference is through discriminatory legislation. North Carolina’s Attorney General calls the law an embarrassment and won’t defend it in court. Here is what Governor McCrory said:
We have not taken away any rights that currently existed in any city in North Carolina — from Raleigh, to Durham, to Chapel Hill, to Charlotte. Every city and every corporation has the exact same discrimination policy this week as they had two weeks ago. There’s a very well-coordinated campaign — a national campaign — which is distorting the truth — which is frankly smearing our state in an inaccurate way — which I’m working to correct… We have not changed one policy of any business in North Carolina or one policy of any employment status of any city government or county government in North Carolina.
Except that’s not at all true. The state has now overridden any NC municipal government that offered anti-discrimination protection stronger than the state’s own, including laws in Charlotte, Asheville, Boone, Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, Bessemer City, Durham, High Point, and Winston-Salem – and several counties. The UNC system can no longer enforce its own LGBT anti-discrimination policy, and these schools are now expressly prohibited from accommodating transgender students, faculty, alumni, and parents.
“We are too much politically correct. This political correctness in our nation has taken over common sense, and the common sense is not to have a government regulation telling a business who they allow in what restroom, or locker room, or shower facility. I’m going to let them decide.”
“We’re throwing away basic etiquette,” he claimed. “I wonder if your daughter or son was showering and all of a sudden a man walks into the locker room and says, ‘This is what I am.’ Would you want that for your child?”
Of course, Charlotte’s law, like LGBT protections in cities and states across the country, would have done nothing to allow for any inappropriate or illegal behavior in restrooms. By calling transgender women “men” and suggesting that they are somehow a threat to children, the governor is relying on ignorance and fear to support his position.
New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo barred any and all non-essential travel to North Carolina on the state’s dime. Governor McCrory shot back,
Syracuse is playing the Final Four in Houston where voters overwhelmingly rejected a bathroom ordinance that was also rejected by the state of North Carolina. Is Governor Cuomo going to ask the Syracuse team to boycott the game in Houston? It’s total hypocrisy and demagoguery if the governor does not, considering he also visited Cuba, a communist country with a deplorable record of human rights violations.
Syracuse is a private institution. Cuba may be a communist country, but unlike North Carolina, it is opening up – not going backwards. Also, non-essential state-funded travel to Cuba is also not permitted.
Finally, odious Representative Chris Collins, who endorsed for President the guy who said this:
Trump in Wisconsin: “The problem is we have the Geneva Conventions, all sorts of rules and regulations, so the soldiers are afraid to fight”
Someone ask this depraved opportunist what the state policy is for non-essential state travel to Cuba. Hint: it’s not allowed. This whole “Cuba” thing is not only the dumbest argument, ever, but it’s completely outside this clown’s jurisdiction. He should stick to stealing other people’s patents and manufacturing shit in Communist China.
The healthcare reforms Collins said he would push would be tort reform and open up competition in insurance by allowing policies across state lines.
Collins also argued that modern healthcare is expensive for a reason.
“People now don’t die from prostate cancer, breast cancer and some of the other things,” Collins said.
Do better, America. We didn’t spend 240 years building our country to let it be so shoddily treated by misogynists, homophobes, and craven, despicable nouveau-career politicians.
Senator Antoine M. Thompson of Buffalo, a freshman Democrat, made a fiery speech on the Senate floor last week, denouncing the bill to increase legislators’ salaries when it came up for a vote in his chamber. He cited the lack of raises for Buffalo city workers, police officers, teachers and sanitation workers, and said, “I can’t in good conscience vote for myself, or anyone else, a raise.”
That led Senator Frank Padavan, a Queens Republican, to pose a question:
“Why did your conscience allow you to be a sponsor of this bill?”
Indeed, all 29 Senate Democrats, including Mr. Thompson, had co-sponsored the bill days earlier, but, in a speedy turnabout, almost all of them ultimately voted against the measure, as the governor urged.
Now, embattled ethical basketcase Assemblywoman Angela Wozniak (C-143), (see here, here, and here) took to the floor of the state Assembly to apparently speak out critically of a bill she sponsored. From the Daily News’ political blog, Wozniak
…raised eyebrows when she expressed fears during a floor debate last week that a bill to legalize mixed martial arts could open the door for sex offenders to prey on kids at MMA training schools.
The comments struck many on both sides of the aisle as odd given that Wozniak (R-Erie County) was not only listed as a co-sponsor of the MMA bill, but also recently was sanactioned by the Assembly for retaliating against a staffer with whom she had an extramarital affair.
“It made no logical sense what she was saying,” said one Democrat.
Wozniak during the debate on the bill raised concerns that legalizing mixed martial arts would somehow lead to registered sex offenders owning schools that teach amateur mixed martial arts to kids.
Pay special attention to the following passage:
“We can’t be naïve to the fact that these people target these schools,” she said. “They know what they’re doing. They know that if they’re teaching a child they can put that child in a situation where they’re doing a maneuver perhaps to touch them in a way that that the child might not even realize they’re being touched or they can gain trust with that child and really harm that child.”
What is the pathology here where Wozniak assumes that anyone and everyone is out to sexually assault children? What is she talking about when she says that sex offenders would run MMA training facilities? What sort of a “maneuver” could lead to an MMA teacher touching a child in a way “that that the child might not even realize they’re being touched”?
She urged passage of a separate MMA bill she introduced that would regulate the amateur levels of the sport.
Noting that much money had been spent on lobbying for passage of the legalization of professional mixed martial arts, Wozniak said “I really hope it isn’t just about the money. I think that’s deplorable.”
She then voted in favor of the bill.
So, blusterblusterbluster, assume everyone’s out to be weird with kids, and then vote the way you were going to vote anyway. All the while, you’ve just been sanctioned for sexual harassment. But that passage I highlighted above reminded me of what Wozniak told WGRZ’s Danny Spewak in December, when she appeared at a Lancaster School Board meeting to demagogue against a proposed LGBT anti-discrimination policy and displayed knowledge that was both an inch wide and an inch deep. She “explained” her position thusly,
How is a child s’posed to feel safe and have dignity when they’re having to be forced into a situation where they’re having to be watched when they’re potentially naked in front of someone of the opposite sex who sexually prefers them. This is wrong, and this I think that’s why we have such a strong turnout of parents speaking out against it tonight.
Again: arglebargle and assume everyone wants to be weird with kids. It really deserves to be seen (start at 1:58):
Wozniak seems preoccupied with all the sex offenders who are going to rush out to run amateur MMA training centers, and upset that the proposed bill doesn’t address that, but, (a) chances are pretty high that registered sex offenders whose crimes involved minors are already barred from having contact; and (b) the proposed bill involved the legalization of professional MMA bouts and had nothing to do with amateur MMA or the training of fighters. So, Wozniak got up to get some screen time during the debate on a bill likely to attract media attention, and looked ridiculous in the process.
Astonishingly, it’s now been several weeks since Wozniak was admonished and censured for sexual harassment of a member of her staff, yet she’s still in Albany, she’s still running for re-election, and neither GOP chairman Nick Langworthy nor Conservative fusion Party Chairman Ralph Lorigo have publicly demanded her resignation or withdrawal from the race.
Representative Chris Collins has never been a thoughtful politician, and has always been something of a hypocrite. He’s a tough-talking Spaulding Lake elitist millionaire who spent his time as County Executive cutting services to the middle class and poor to pay for things like his multi-million dollar Six Sigma experiment.
He’s also a political opportunist, willing to back a neofascist charlatan like Donald Trump for his own political gain. It’s a gamble, for sure – but it’s a calculated risk that takes Collins’ own ambitions into account, at the expense of his constituents. Remember that Collins is neither leader nor follower – he is an anti-democratic tax-raising bureaucrat’s bureaucrat. This is a guy who, when a majority of the representative County Legislature overrode his veto, simply tried to declare the override, “null and void“. With those dictatorial bona fides, maybe Collins has more in common than Donald Trump than we thought.
In the couple of weeks since Collins officially boarded the Trump roller coaster, we’ve come to find out more about how and why it happened. Specifically, we can turn to this interview with Collins that appeared in the Huffington Post. Before you yell, “smear job” and “nonsense” notice that this story transcribes actual questions posed to – and answers given by – a sitting Congressman from WNY.
I know Carl Paladino has been aggressively pushing all of you to endorse Trump. And I know he has indicated he will start ‘attacking’ NYers who don’t endorse Trump. You may or may not care, but he does have a formidable email list.
So, here’s a sitting Congressman sending a text message to other sitting Congresspeople, playing “good cop” to Paladino’s “loud and obnoxious cop”. The HuffPo interviewer catches Collins at first denying that Paladino had anything to do with his Trumpdorsement, before acknowledging quite clearly that this was all about Paladino.
Collins told HuffPost that his role between Paladino and the other New York Republican members was brokering a sort of detente, where Paladino would lay off pushing for an endorsement before the primary filing deadline and Collins would remind his colleagues that, once the deadline had passed, Paladino would be back at it.
This is about appeasement. If you want the bully to be quiet, you don’t confront him or ignore him – you give him exactly what he wants. Collins went on to explain his rationale for backing Trump,
He’s the only chief executive, not chief politician.
Collins evidently agrees when Trump says that “wages [are] too high.” He was then confronted about Trump’s more ridiculous and sexist comments, and the exchange went like this:
When asked whether he has any concerns about some of Trump’s more egregious behavior and remarks, Collins came up with an explanation that was downright Trumpian.
“What I’m going to say is he’s been misquoted many times,” Collins said.
When pressed that he’s clearly been accurately quoted many times, saying horrific things about women and minorities, among others, Collins said, “Well, he’s also been misquoted, and they’ve taken things out of context.”
After some crosstalk, Collins said, “I’m very comfortable with his stance on defense, I’m very comfortable with his stance on jobs, I’m very comfortable with — his actions speak louder than words on the women’s issues.”
Pressed about Trump’s statements on women, Collins interrupted the question and blurted out, “I’m saying actions speak louder than words!”
I mean, such as?!
Trump’s stance on defense and jobs are taken from the same playbook of dominance politics that informs Trump’s entire disjointed series of thoughts that make up his platform. If you can set forth a narrative portraying America as a loser who is being humiliated and defeated by everyone at every turn, then you make your central thesis about turning the tables and getting back at our perceived tormentors.
Carl Paladino, Donald Trump, and Chris Collins are three New York politicians who are allies because of their patent similarities. They are millionaires. They believe that the very wealthy are victims of the poor and middle class. They appeal not to our better angels, but to our darkest prejudices. They focus on what divides us.
Donald Trump is going to win the Republican primary in New York State not only because he’s a local, but because he’s on track to become the Republican Party’s nominee for President. Donald Trump is going to win the Republican primary here because he has widespread support from right-wing upstaters, and because a plurality of downstate Republicans are attracted to his message, and the remainder are split between Kasich and Cruz.
Normally, Kasich would be the perfect New York Republican pick. Unlike Trump and Cruz, he’s not a lunatic. Unlike Trump and Cruz, he’s as close to a political centrist as you’re likely to get out of a contemporary Republican nationwide candidate. Having just finished seasons 3 and 4 of House of Cards, I’m amazed that the real-life 2016 is crazier than the soap opera version.
Kasich, however, isn’t going to win New York because Donald Trump is a reality TV icon, a right-wing hero, and a guy with whom downstate New Yorkers have been familiar since Abe Beame was mayor.
Congressmen and women, who have been duly elected to serve and represent a particular constituency, have earned the right to back whomever they want for President of the United States. But this isn’t just for electeds – under normal circumstances, inter-party squabbles are held in abeyance for the purposes of Presidential primaries, because people recognize each other’s right to vote their conscience. Just because you support Sanders over Clinton – or vice-versa – doesn’t make you any less of a Democrat.
But Paladino and Collins are teaming up to make the New York GOP primary a litmus test for the Paladino/Palin wing of the tea party, which in New York makes up a minority faction of a minority party. They’re loud, but they’re ineffective – don’t believe me? Ask Senator Kevin Stocker. They are a paper tiger, and any self-respecting Republican elected official in New York should feel perfectly comfortable rejecting these empty, childish threats from political gangsters. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a Harvard graduate with solid GOP credentials, should feel perfectly comfortable ignoring Collins’ and Paladino’s Trump protection racket.
Do you side with thoughtfulness and principle, or do you side with threats and intimidation?
