Author: buffalopundit

Narcissists Don’t Listen

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I said what I said.

The next time this guy “listens” will be the first.

To rebut his anticipated attacks, I don’t do business with the County of Erie, I don’t derive any income from the County of Erie in any way, I do not work for – nor am I on the payroll of – Mark Poloncarz, I am not a contractor for or otherwise retained by the Poloncarz campaign, etc. I am not an ECDC Committee member, nor a member of any local Democratic committee. I do not owe my job to Mark Poloncarz or Jeremy Zellner or any other political person or entity. I am a private citizen who has known Poloncarz for about 18 years and who has also had dealings with Nate McMurray over the last five or so.

I think it’s definitely important for politicians to listen, but it’s more important for them to think. To have humility. Humor. To have empathy and have a capability of seeing things in different ways. I know Poloncarz has those abilities. His opponent does not.

In the last 5 or so years, I have given McMurray much more of my time and money than I have to Poloncarz, which honestly isn’t saying much. I’m older and it’s not 2006. As to McMurray, I regret every nanosecond and every penny. It was wasted on someone who fixates on a daily compendium of Quixotic battles with enemies real and perceived. (Usually, perceived until he gets going, then they’re real).

Never had I heard from an adult public figure such a broad but shallow collection of grievances and victimhood. Want a well-documented example? Here you go. How many times, and how many different ways, can this intemperate man scream about all the people who supposedly won’t help him and are, thereby, out to get him?

Literally I cannot think of one Democrat whom he has badmouthed – in public or private – who has not at least begrudgingly lent to him their vocal and financial support. Kathy Hochul, Mark Poloncarz, Jeremy Zellner, Brian Higgins – all of his many bêtes noires have dutifully lined up to get people to vote for him and to give him money. He thanks them by hurling at them an endless reserve of rhetorical feces, e.g., getting his surrogates to demean hard-working campaigners for other candidates as “errand girls” and the like. Heaping scorn and derision on Kevin Hardwick for being an ex-Republican when Nate himself relied on under-employed fascist convicted vote fraudster Rus Thompson to get him elected to the one government post he ever held, in a town where you have to cross a bridge and pay a toll to get to a hospital.

As an aside, you know to whom I owe an apology? Natalie Baldassarre. She and her family were right all along and they had his number when the rest of us were too busy thinking there was something there.

The endorsement process should be amusing.

Erie County Priorities

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When not offering up epochal cultural changes or international implementation of transit pipe dreams for his future as County Executive, Nate has really drilled down to the important priorities:

Buffalo doesn’t have a Costco. But one is coming to Amherst soon. We also have at least a couple of Sam’s Clubs and a handful of BJ’s clubs. Suffice it to say, there is no shortage of places to get your fleet of candy bars or platoon of cheese snacks.

Buffalo doesn’t, indeed, have an IKEA, but shouldn’t Mr. Binational here know of the one in Burlington, and the ones farther away in Vaughan or Etobicoke? Also, we’re getting a pickup shop in Cheektowaga.

We do not, alas, have a “real Nike store.” There’s an outlet in the Falls, and another in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Last time I checked, they sell Nikes at Laux and Dicks. Also, y’know, the internet.

There’s a Tops we all know on Jefferson, but there’s also an Aldi and a couple of Sav-a-Lots. Obviously, this is not ideal, but it’s hardly a County Executive’s job to do site selection for supermarkets.

But the best response of all is this:

Thinking Deep with Nate McMurray

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Nate McMurray has packed up his grievance and delusions and decided to run against one of the most competent technocratic politicians we have enjoyed in countywide government in WNY. Mark Poloncarz is an easy target for the anti-mask, anti-vaxx ignorance brigade, but now he is facing a challenge from young Master Nate from the nominal “left.”

Unsatisfied with having lost elections against an indictee and an insurrectionist, McMurray is going after a guy who actually managed to defeat Chris Collins.

In the coming weeks, we will parse and Fisk Nate’s online ramblings and pronouncements because it is amusing.

Here’s one to start:

Ah, yes. refurbishing the Central Terminal so as to welcome the five people from Seoul who might give enough of a shit to attend a Bills game.

This post scratches two of Nate’s itches at once – that the Bills stadium should be in downtown Buffalo, and that we need some sort of enhanced rail service to Canada. Witness,

So, we actually have rail service to Toronto. The Maple Leaf Express runs from downtown Buffalo, Depew, and Niagara Falls to Toronto. If you’re more adventurous, you can take the Go Train (or Bus with connection in Burlington) from Niagara Falls, ON to Union Station in Toronto. Admittedly, the rail services in this area are somewhat antiquated and slow, but Amtrak has already announced a modernization of its entire fleet.

More to the point, in order for there to be the sort of economic integration that McMurray envisions, you cannot rely simply on free trade but also on free movement of people. You would need a North American Schengen with customs and passport controls harmonized between Canadian and American authorities. (Where have I heard this before?) You would need buy-in from political leaders to assent to what would amount to a dramatic shift in what we understand to be national sovereignty, and the ability of people in Canada and the United States to live and/or work in either country without precondition, emigration, or visa.

The likelihood of this happening is zero.

So, instead, one would reckon that Canadian rail would focus on the introduction of high-speed rail along the Windsor – Quebec City corridor, to incorporate the most populated region in that country. The fact that our more European neighbor has yet to introduce such service is significant. On our side of the border, one would suppose that we might someday see a regional high speed rail system that connects to Acela at Boston and New York, using Albany as a hub. It could extend north to Montreal and west through Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and Niagara Falls. There, one might someday connect to a Canadian high-speed rail system.

But none of this is within the purview of an Erie County Executive.

Finally, our young propagandist queries,

Mark Poloncarz has been County Executive since 2012. I make that to be 11 years. He was County Comptroller before that, taking office in January 2006. I reckon that to be six years. So, to me, you’re conning people if you’re starting off with exaggerations and lies.

What I can say about Erie County since Poloncarz has been its County Executive is that the population grew for the first time in some 40 years according to the 2020 census. The job market has palpably and objectively improved, and we have a 3.2% unemployment rate, which is not at all bad, historically speaking. Roads have absolutely improved, and ECMC has definitely been improved since the times of Giambra and Collins. Ask the culturals whether their lot has improved since Giambra and Collins.

In the last several years, the housing situation has improved and childhood poverty is down. I don’t know what “we got to lose” but what we stand to lose is a competent, compassionate, and professional executive.

Farewell to Bob

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So, Bob McCarthy – a longtime target of my ire and occasional appreciation – is leaving the Buffalo News. I can’t say I am sad about it because I thought that he was too often little more than a willing stenographer of politicians’ petty accusations and prevarications. He relied too much on sources who were obvious (Illuzzi, Pigeon, Lorigo) if not completely disgraced. But what I really disliked was McCarthy’s relentless focus on the horserace aspect of politics – who had more cash on hand, who was ahead in polls. He seldom called out politicians who broke campaign finance laws or tried to promote push polls. Illuzzi’s death definitely dealt a blow to his reporting but the last nail in the coffin was Pigeon’s long-coming descent into criminality and disgrace.

There does not exist even one thing I have ever written about, or one story I “broke” in all of my time doing this, that shouldn’t first have been covered by the Buffalo News’ political reporter and commentator.

I started blogging in 2003, and a lot of changes have happened, but a lot remains the same – so many of our acute and chronic problems in WNY come down to bad, lazy, corrupt leadership. It’s like we live in this corner of the country that is somehow insulated from everyone else and immune to good ideas. Sure, there are some exceptions but just look at Byron Brown clinging to office for 16 years and his city unable to handle a gentle snowstorm, never mind a blizzard. Buffalo is too good of a place to deserve that sort of “leadership.” Buffalonians are too good of a group of people to deserve the sort of sleepy one-step-forward-two-steps-back political leadership they too often get.

Just the other day I was thinking about Canalside and Bass Pro. That was a lifetime ago – it is an issue that dates back 15 – 20 years and as it stands now the only retail that exists within the Canalside area is two museum giftshops. There isn’t so much as a permanent toilet.

Artvoice is gone. The Public is gone. Alt-weeklies are basically dead. Print is dead. Investigative Post does good work most of the time, but we deserve more than that.

So, I wish Bob good luck and Godspeed in his retirement, secure in the knowledge that the new owners of the Buffalo News – an entity that had 15 years to adapt to the death of print and the rise of digital – will undoubtedly not replace him and instead rely on wire services and contractors to do the work. The politicians – the elites who relied upon McCarthy to give their bullshit a boost – will only benefit from the diminished threat of scrutiny, to everyone’s detriment.

Performative Culture War Takes A Village

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Go ahead and tell me what an American small-c conservative stands for nowadays. Better yet, tell me one concrete policy that is a Republican Party priority.

You can’t. There is no idea or ideology there anymore. In the long ago, when politics was fun and made a modicum of sense, you could say that Republicans and conservatives were for a strong military, low taxes, minimizing public spending, and generally limiting the scope of public involvement in the economy.

Then came the 90s and Newt Gingrich. The internet. Drudge. Lewinski. Bush. 9/11. War in Iraq. Katrina. 2008 financial crisis. Obama.

Gingrich was a demagogue who lay the foundation for today’s excuse for conservatism. Bush weakened America through his ill-advised adventurism in Iraq. He showed that a poorly managed government generates poor results with Katrina. The 2008 crisis really underscored how it seemed as if Republican governance exists for the sole purpose of ruining the economy and leaving it to Democrats to repair. Hence, the Keynesian responses to that 2008 meltdown.

Obama broke a lot of right-wing brains and led to idiocy like the birther debacle, which led ultimately to the election of an ignorant empty-vessel culture warrior in 2016, Donald Trump. Trump is now the leader of a cult that still idolizes him as the anti-Obama who unironically called his ideology “America First” as he further weakened and divided America. Every accusation is a confession – from “snowflake” on down.

Covid came along and, ultimately it became Republican dogma to reject vaccination, reject masks, and reject pretty much even the gentlest public health measures that were put in place to mandate that people give a shit about each other, since there is clearly no way in hell that such a thing would happen in this country voluntarily. It’s why professional assholes like Ben Carlisle don’t think people should have a choice to wear a mask to protect themselves from disease – he thinks those people should be mocked.

Now, the Republican Party doesn’t even have a platform anymore, really. It was supposed to have dominated the midterms, but didn’t. Its biggest and brightest stars are walking, talking culture war memes who rail against Ukraine, masks, Covid, vaccines, etc. ad infinitum.

It is this descent into neofascist anti-democratic hero-worship of Trump that results in people such as “Mayor Deb” in Williamsville. She isn’t the first weird right-winger to run for office in the town of Amherst, but boy did she make a splash by drawing attention to herself and her town with things that really were beside the point of running a village.

The thing that people tend to forget is that while these culture war people who, e.g., get upset that M&Ms aren’t sexually attractive enough for them anymore and whose existence and political ethos can be summed up as “owning the libs” make up a small percentage of self-identified Republicans. No matter what happens, this country will continue for the foreseeable future to have about 30 – 35% of its population in the thrall of a right-wing populist like Trump. Now, I happen to think that right-wing populism is a bad thing and objectively so.

Mayor Deb shows what the vast majority of regular people – “normies” think of her idiocy. When no one was paying attention, she won election. When people paid attention, she lost in a landslide. Like her buddy, Ben.

These culture warriors may win the occasional cancellation of M&Ms characters and the firings of hospital administrators over their Facebook posts, but luckily America isn’t quite stupid enough to keep them around elected office.

“Libs of TikTok” and the Right’s Hysterics over Drag Shows

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Incidentally, Twitter is dead. It is now a private company owned by a right-wing narcissist who behaves there like a 13 year-old incel reply guy. He has reinstated Trump and Kanye West, he pushes right wing dogma and memes, and he is a completely toxic personality who has done real harm to his personal brand. Not just that, but his repugnant antics now render Tesla and his other brands unappealing and something I won’t support, ever, as long as he is still at the helm.

Musk’s solar roof tile business in South Buffalo was supposed to be cruising right along by now, producing a revolutionary product that would expand solar use at a cost equivalent to that of a conventional roof. How is that working out? How many properties in WNY, for example, sport a solar roof?

With that out of the way, the right wing – nationally and locally – are in a constant state of vitriol and panic over – of all things – drag shows. Among the usual suspects on the right, drag queens are all pedophiles and “groomers” and drag shows are tantamount to the peep shows that used to line the streets in and around Times Square before the 90s.

What do these people like Chaya Raichik and Matt Walsh and local malcontents think goes on at drag shows? Obviously, some are NSFW and adult-themed through language and sexual content, but what are these people so threatened by if a man dresses flamboyantly to read stories to children at a library? How is “dress-up” not age-appropriate?

Their rhetoric now comes dripping with the blood of innocent people who were minding their own business. They don’t care.

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