Category: Local Politics

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, 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:

As of today…
Buffalo doesn’t have any buildings over 2000ft tall
Buffalo doesn’t have a saltwater port
Buffalo doesn’t have a downtown ski slope
Buffalo doesn’t even have a real elephant roaming the northtowns

I’m sick of pretending all of this is normal

— Malarious Quorum (@MalariousQ) February 8, 2023

Nate McMurray thinks that the Erie County Executive – who has not been in any office for “20 years” – has the authority to magically introduce a train service into a different country.

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:

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,

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,

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.

This is being written directly to the Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Williamsville – Deb Rogers and Dave Sherman.

Shame on you both. You two are nothing more than hucksters who, like many hucksters before you, are using the Holocaust cheaply and disproportionately to advance some sort of contemporary political agenda – in this case, quarantining of people with infectious diseases. Even if a legitimate objection exists, there are literally a million better ways to go about raising them than jumping right to a blatant and stupid violation of Godwin’s Law.

Honestly, the substance of the proposed rule is beside the point. Whether Deb Rogers and Dave Sherman are happy to encounter at Wegmans, say, an “individual health choice” advocate with Ebola who won’t self-isolate is not important here. This is about dumb people using dumb rhetoric to make a dumb point. Literally no one asked the Village of Williamsville what it thought about anything, and all of this was designed specifically to get Deb Rogers in the paper or on Bauerle’s show to whine about the culture war thing du jour.

It goes without saying that in the year of our Lord 2022, two grown adults in a position of governmental authority should not have to be lectured about the facts and nature of the Holocaust from a centenarian survivor of it.

Literally, add that to your resumes – “said something so stupid once that a local Jewish group had to send a 100 year-old Holocaust survivor to explain why what I said was stupid.”

When you compare the quarantining of an Ebola patient with Nazi Germany’s systematic genocide of 11 million innocent European civilians, including 6 million Jews, you are, Deb and Dave, an idiot. A cretin. I’m shocked that you didn’t equate mask mandates with Kristallnacht. I’m even more shocked you have the mental wherewithal to pull your socks up in the morning.

And then after all of this sturm und drang, they did not really apologize.

“So again, for any pain, or embarrassment, I caused anyone – and this gentleman, God bless you, I could never have done what you did – I apologize for creating the wrong impression, or stirring up the wrong emotions,” Sherman said, nodding toward Leibovic.

No, it’s not about the “pain” or “embarrassment” you caused anyone else, Dave Sherman. It’s about the embarrassment you foisted upon yourself with your pathetic rhetoric. It’s about how fundamentally crass and ignorant it is for some corduroyed schmuck to equate a health rule with the slaughter of 11 million people.

As for Mayor Deb,

Mayor Deb Rogers, who at one point left the board room to collect herself, insisted that her own comments from the earlier meeting had been misrepresented, and that she’s received threats as a result.

Rogers said following the discussion that she hoped to work with members of the Jewish organizations on a joint statement, or news conference, to make a show of unity.

“We can all acknowledge that maybe we said some things that we shouldn’t have said. We have learned from those experiences, learned from those mistakes, and we can step forward and be a beacon in the community of getting together,” she said.

Who’s “we”? Why is this being bothsidesed? Why are these people so fundamentally unable or mentally unwilling to simply say that their words were completely inappropriate, that it was the height of stupidity and ignorance to equate any state health regulation with the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis, and that they are profoundly sorry for their stupidity, ignorance, and inappropriateness, and that they will take time to re-assess their entire lives in the wake of this colossal self-own?

Rogers said it was like Communist China, which is stupid in a whole other way.

Of course, Sherman and Rogers instead see this as a key moment to do the right thing for the community and for healing at this time – cast themselves as victims of “threats.” No one condones threats, obviously, but you’re not the victims here.

They got their phony bloviation, and Williamsville continues its descent into laughingstock territory.

Look who’s calling people “racist.” Could it be the same guy who said that immigrants or minorities or people of color would “infest” the town of Hamburg if he lost his race for town supervisor?

And what “troubling warning signs” does this right-wing culture warrior deem worthy of investigation?

From the article he himself posted:

The state police responded. They investigated. They interviewed the subject. And they felt at the time it was appropriate to have that individual brought in for a mental health evaluation

Buffalo police commissioner Joseph Gramaglia

The article goes on to explain that the shooter made a generalized threat against his school last June. The threat was identified and reported. The police responded and investigated. The suspect was interviewed and then sent to the hospital for a mental health evaluation. So, on what planet does Mychajliw get the idea that “NO ONE acted”? Did he not read the article he linked to? And why did he bring up supposed investigations of “moms at school board meetings”? Obviously, we know why – he is still clinging to the Covid fights of yore, but I did not see anything in the NPR piece about moms at Conklin, NY school board meetings being investigated? Did you?

So, while Mychajliw – who is gratifyingly out of public office and is now a full-time right-wing professional propagandist – accuses the “left” of focusing on “feelings + ignor[ing] facts” he offers up feelings and ignores facts. Mychajliw says that the shooter was on police and school radar, and then says the school and police failed to “act”. Yet, according to the article he links to, the system involuntarily hospitalized him in the psych ward. The same guy who says facemasks are tyranny is telling you an involuntary psych hold is a lack of action.

The Republicans in this region have literally the most to answer for, yet they are completely absent from this situation, except for Nick Langworthy dropping some flowers off on Jefferson. Not so much as an effort to get their people to donate food or money to the people most directly victimized by a violence that is at least in part fueled by their rhetoric.

But let’s give Mychajliw the benefit of the doubt – that he is truly concerned about liberals substituting feelings for facts. This kid was investigated and held involuntarily for a mental health evaluation due to threats against his school. Yet he was able to purchase and possess the military hardware that enabled him to commit mass murder in a grocery store, and avoid injury from retired Buffalo cop Aaron Salter, Jr.’s gun. Want to eschew “feelings” and talk about facts? Talk about that.