Category: Local Politics

You read that right. Untie the hand you keep fastened behind your backs come election time. The other side fights dirty. They lie. They exploit deep prejudices and fears. They break the law, they break the rules. They make stuff up.

This is your 2021 election take. The analysis of what happened last night in Erie County, New York does not lend itself to easy or quick or lighthearted takes. (I have nothing to offer about any other races anywhere else in the world).

The right in this country is still poisoned by Trump and has jettisoned any pretense of holding policy positions in favor of sloganeering, jingoism, and culture war bullshit. To the extent that Democrats have an enrollment advantage here, it isn’t indicative of a monolith. There are a lot of racist, right-wing, Trumper, WBEN listening “Democrats” out there who just need to see the word “socialist” or a slogan like “defund the police” or be incited by the WengerBauerleBellavia axis of disinformation to vote (R) (or (R) adjacent, like BB).

Yes, it is good that Hardwick won but it should not have even been in question, based on the utter lack of a campaign from his opponent.

(On this point, especial and specific denunciation goes out to that narcissistic toxic avatar of reverse-Midas-touches, Nate McMurray and his dopey henchpeople. If McMurray has proven one thing it is that he has taken the pulse of some the fuck other place and applied it to WNY, and gets it wrong time and time again. Call me when he gets elected to something without the help of a local fascist or when he doesn’t defame good candidates like Kevin Hardwick by regurgitating Republican or Eagan talking points whilst simultaneously trying further to burnish some novel leftist bona fides.)

Yes, it is good that Hoak won and finally that horrific creep who ran against him is out of public office. Hopefully in perpetuity.

But turn to Garcia and Brown. It seems as if you can never run too far right around here and be punished, but if one runs too far left you get destroyed.

Garcia’s ad linking Walton and Beaty as two black female socialist cop-firers was nothing less than racist. It was not a dogwhistle, it was blatant. Brown’s messaging against Walton was similar. She is an “other”. She is not one of us.

“Never count a Buffalonian out” yelled the guy from Jamaica, Queens at a woman born in Buffalo who’s lived and struggled here all her life.

Beaty will literally abolish the police, said Garcia, despite the fact that she is police and outranked him at any given moment.

As to Beaty, if she loses, she was defeated by good old-fashioned racism and misogyny. She is head and shoulders more qualified than any of her opponents.

As to Walton, I think she ran a clean and issues-driven, people-driven campaign and she deserves kudos for that. Unfortunately, that works much better in a primary (especially if your opponent sits it out) than it does in a general. Once you challenge the establishment (writ large – not any specific one) in any way – everyone from developers to city employees – you’re going to catch hell and your path is much steeper. Brown played up people’s fears against Walton and it worked. She was not well-funded when he decided to run this write-in, and she lost an opportunity to define herself before her opponent did it for her.

But here’s what I want to be really really deeply taken in by Democrats in this area. The issue isn’t whether Jeremy Zellner fucked something up or whether the DSA people should take things over. That – and the people who continue to exploit any available factionalism – is an epic distraction that, itself, fucks us up.

The Republicans and the right in this region prove time and time again that it’s ok to just lie, defame, and break rule after rule. And? They are a monolith. Use city cops in your ads? Sure! City workers using city stuff on city time to help BB? Go for it! Kim Beaty the cop wants to abolish the police? Run it!

Beaty went negative against Garcia and brought up some obtuse stuff about his company being shady. Walton and WFP did their best to remind people of accusations and evidence of BB’s relentless and longstanding corruption.

OK, but if Democrats did what Republicans routinely do, we would (and should) non-stop over and over show violent images of the Trumper Q-Anon army storming the Capitol on 1/6 and linking Garcia (and Brown and Mychajliw and Dixon etc. ad infinitum) to the people who would overturn our elections and democracy itself.

Same with Walton – BB wants Republican help? He should wear 1/6 and Paladino’s racist words and all of it.

If Democrats want to win we need to take the fucking gloves off and stop pussyfooting around what these people are. Stefan Mychajliw? He’s a nazi. John Garcia? He’s a racist. Byron Brown? He’s a corrupt puppet of deep-pocketed developers. They all of them get support from the likes of guys who routinely refer to black people as less than human. All of them are in a symbiotic relationship with the people who would destroy America itself – the insurrectionists and the cop-killers and the traitors.

Fucking say it.

There are eight stages of genocide, according to “Genocide Watch.” Among them are “us vs. them” classification of preferred and targeted groups and symbolization of the targeted group through imposition (e.g., yellow star) and the exploitation of stereotypes or unique cultural attributes.

We focus here on “dehumanization”

In this stage, the perpetrating power begins to equate the targeted group or groups to sub-human status. Members of groups are likened to animals, vermin, insects, and/or diseases. Dehumanization allows average people to overcome the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda is in print and other media are used to vilify the victim group. To combat dehumanization, incitement to genocide should not be confused with protected speech. This rhetoric is harmful and can lead to the killing of hundreds of thousands. Local and international leaders should condemn the use of hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable.

Just this week, Stefan Mychajliw thought it necessary within the context of a *checks notes* town supervisor race to play around a bit with some dehumanizing genocidal language. For a guy who once made a big deal about his family’s travails through the Holomodor and emigration westward and then northward, it would ordinarily be counterintuitive for him to take on the language of genocide perpetration. Yet, believe it or not, here we are.

It is not enough to ignore Mychajliw’s incitement. It is important to highlight it and to condemn it for what it is.

India Walton. AOC. Radical socialist Randy Hoak. Three comrades endorsed by the Working Families Party. Their mission: defund police and raise taxes in NYS $94 billion. They want to infest Buffalo and Hamburg. Their candidate survey: “how will you CO-GOVERN with WFP?” Co-govern? pic.twitter.com/OGROboe15n

— Stefan Mychajliw (@StefanMychajliw) October 26, 2021

Hamburg homeowners: want your property values to plummet? Want the value of your home to sink like a rock? Radical socialist Randy Hoak will infest Hamburg by building low income apartments in your neighborhood. Here’s a direct quote from his Working Families Party questionnaire. pic.twitter.com/LXBvoU3qKo

— Stefan Mychajliw (@StefanMychajliw) October 25, 2021

Those are two tweets sent from Mychajliw’s official, verified Twitter account (I urge you to report them to Twitter for targeted hate speech against a group) within a day of each other. Mychajliw is attacking his opponent for suggesting that it would be good to re-evaluate zoning regulations in the town to allow for more multi-family housing. Mychajliw’s reaction to this is literally to call this an “infestation”.

One does not talk about an influx of people as an “infestation” unless one intends to dehumanize those people in such a way as to direct hatred at them. After all, whom do you call for an “infestation”?

The exterminator.

This is not hyperbole. This is a local Republican who once had aspirations to serve as County Executive or in Congress suggesting that a zoning change to allow for minority or low-income people to move into a town is an “infestation”.

Mychajliw’s antics cannot be chalked up to culture warrior banter anymore. This isn’t funny. This isn’t something to take lightly or to disregard. It cannot be stressed strongly enough that we have here a local prominent Republican running for office who refers to entire classes of people – poor, minorities, immigrants, refugees – you name it – as parasites or vermin.

The next time Mychajliw sells you some story about how his grandpappy went AWOL from the Wehrmacht, ask him why he feels comfortable using Nazi terminology to describe his fellow Americans who happen to be less white or less well-off than he.

In his risibly facile Op-Ed, Mychajliw wrote,

What I have is a love for the promise of America, and a loathing for those who seek to destroy it.

Mychajliw should look in the mirror, and loathe what he sees glaring back at him.

A neighbor heard from someone that India Walton once drank a beer.

According to the neighborhood grapevine, Walton once spoke with a person who, years later, committed a crime.

A cop phoned in an anonymous tip because he heard from a colleague that Walton once drove 35 in a 30 zone.

A political opponent illegally gained access to Walton’s credit report and phoned in that Walton had missed a credit card payment one time years ago.

A woman in Tonawanda heard from her cousin that Walton once defended herself against false and scurrilous accusations at work and clearly did not know her place.

The friend of an acquaintance of a Lancaster man says he once heard a rumor that Walton had the nerve one time to question a white man’s judgment.

Steve Pigeon, awaiting sentencing, never heard of India Walton.

The ghost of Joe Illuzzi complained that Walton wouldn’t buy an ad on his site and didn’t pay off the head of the Independence Party for an endorsement.

One guy overheard someone at Ralph Lorigo’s weekly breakfast say that India Walton is a dirty commie.

A Conservative Party apparatchik / city worker with a secret home in Cheektowaga was on his fifteenth coffee break one day when he overheard someone say that India Walton ripped the tags off her mattresses.

A former boss who wishes to remain anonymous reported that India Walton did not, in fact, avoid the Noid.

The head of a city department heard from his neighbor that the neighbor’s girlfriend’s husband once saw India Walton cross Delaware Avenue against the light.

Byron Brown, Grassroots, and the Conservative Party have a lot of informants and had put together a comprehensive and dirty opposition playbook against India Walton but never thought they’d have to use it.

The hedge-funder landlord of India Walton overheard from neighborhood chatter that India Walton let someone with a lot of friends stay in her home.

I hope I’m doing this right.

The 60th Senate District: is there something in the water? Are the fumes from the NOCO tanks near the South Grand Island bridge getting to people? Senator – now Judge – Mark Grisanti was elected to represent that district twice – until the tea party ousted him in an almost comically outrageous fit of pique. Was it about gun control and the SAFE Act, or was it about his change of heart on same sex marriage? It doesn’t much matter, because the ingenious political machinations from the tea party resulted in liberal Democrat Marc Panepinto now occupying that seat. 

Think about the sheer stupidity here. The tea party thought Grisanti was too liberal of a Republican – a “RINO” – that they engineered a win for a genuine liberal Democrat, instead. 

The tea party’s preferred candidate was Kenmore attorney Kevin Stocker, who is now likely eligible to have the word “perennial” precede the word “candidate”.  Stocker beat Grisanti in the primary, but lost in a four-way race, and all but told head tea party derpegist Rus Thompson to pound salt. 

A decade ago, Panepinto was firmly in the Sam Hoyt / Len Lenihan camp of the oft-squabbling Democratic Party. Now, however, he is perceived to be more closely aligned with the breakaway Democratic faction whose figurehead is Steve Pigeon. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Panepinto finds himself challenged for the Democratic nod. Under normal circumstances, he should be fine. He’s got the power of incumbency and the support of big labor – especially NYSUT, the state teachers’ union. Challenging him, however, is Parkside community activist Amber Small. 

The winner of this contest will get to run against multimillionaire developer, closing time changemaker, and County Clerk Chris Jacobs. 

This being New York, however, we have to pay some minimal attention to the almost criminally fraudulent fusion parties. The Independence Party is neither independent nor a party, having no principles or manifesto. Statewide, it backs whomever it thinks will win. Locally, in the past few cycles, its endorsements have almost universally mirrored the GOP slate. So, in WNY, the IP has become a GOP front group, designed to trick people who think they’re voting for “independent” candidates. It’s an elaborate fraud designed to trick the poorly informed.  

The Greens don’t do fusion, so that leaves two sides of the same coin – the Working Families Party and the Conservative Party. 

The WFP exists so that the more self-righteous left has a party line to select. Think union stewards and everyone you know on Facebook whose posts have become insufferable all-Sanders all the time. If you’ve ever uttered the term, “corporate Democrats”, the WFP is for you. Its principles and platform are not especially flexible or centrist. They begrudgingly backed Governor Andrew Cuomo’s re-election bid, but the true believers really wanted Zephyr Teachout. 

The Conservative Party purports to have principles, but it’s just an arm of the Republicans. Gosh, one might think that the Republican Party is so unpopular in New York State that it needs to gerrymander districts and control a bunch of extra fusion lines to win the occasional election. Locally, the Conservative Party is run by attorney, power broker, and professional breakfastist Ralph Lorigo. His party hands out endorsements, and his party committeepeople get jobs. It has backed Democrats occasionally – again, depending on likelihood of success, and that jobs might result. Its platform is made up of all the WBEN bogeymen – anti-choice, anti-LGBT, anti-gun control. But it has endorsed pro-LGBT or pro-choice Democrats when it’s suited them. 

Lately, the Conservative Party has been known for its deep bench of candidates, like not-ready-for-primetime Assemblywoman Angela Wozniak and vulgarian Joe Mascia. 

Which all brings us to the relationship that Democrats have with the Conservative Party. Quite simply, one shouldn’t exist. In 2015, Mark Poloncarz somewhat publicly refused to solicit the Conservative endorsement. He didn’t need it, and he didn’t want it. I have, in the past, urged Democrats to reject the Conservative Party fusion line because it is the complete antithesis of everything for which Democrats are supposed to stand. More specifically, the Conservative line has been used in deals between Lorigo and nominal Democrat Steve Pigeon to back candidates who would not be loyal to Democratic county HQ. For instance, in 2012 Pigeon and Lorigo backed the Senate candidacy of homophobe Chuck Swanick. 

This all brings us to the current Senate race. Amber Small is challenging Marc Panepinto for the Democratic nomination for SD-60. She made a bit of a splash by “scoffing” in a press release at any suggestion that she might seek the Conservative line. This is significant because Panepinto is telling everyone who will listen that Small is a DINO who will align herself with the Independent Democratic Caucus, which backs the Republicans in the state Senate and gives the GOP their majority. So, she needs to beat back the IDC smear. 

So, it’s somewhat ironic, then, that Panepinto would be openly courting the Conservative line. One would suspect that County Clerk Jacobs would more quickly win that slot. Small explained that, “The Conservative Party is anti women, anti LGBT, anti environment, and anti reasonable gun safety laws.  I will never sacrifice my progressive beliefs to curry political favor and campaign contributions. I am running for State Senate to focus on bettering our communities and providing the 60th district with the resources we deserve.  I am a Democrat, and I am committed to providing every child with a quality education, fighting for the rights of women and families, protecting the environment, and creating economic opportunity.  I think the residents of this district are fed up with Albany insiders and the games that they play.”

So, it’s pretty straightforward. If you believe in the things in which Democrats are supposed to believe, you eschew the Conservative line. 

Small said, “I’m a progressive Democrat with progressive Democratic values and that’s something the voters need to know.” 

The last time around in SD-60, the Conservatives didn’t run a fusion ticket, but a placeholder, who got almost 7,000 votes just by virtue of the “Conservative” label. That candidate did no campaigning and had no money. While Lorigo points to this as proof of his party’s clout, it really means that almost 7,000 people voted for a candidate who had the word, “conservative” next to his name even thought they didn’t know anything else about him. That’s how fusion works – it’s a trick. It’s a scam. It is about patronage, and it’s the very root of Albany and New York political corruption. In 2014, it drew votes away from Stocker and ended up helping Panepinto. Think of it as a non-endorsement endorsement. 

All candidates should reject the phony Conservative and Independent lines, and fusion should be repealed. If these minor parties want to run candidates, run them. A system that relies on trickery should end. But most importantly, no Democrat should solicit or accept the Conservative fusion line, ever. 

History will remember that until early 2016, Chris Collins was a largely irrelevant GOP congressional backbencher. Safely ensconced in an almost loss-proof suburban/rural Republican district, all he had to do was continue to be white, rich, and Republican in order to cruise to re-election. Having been a failed one-term county executive, he bought himself one last plaything – a seat in Congress. An American peerage.

But on a rainy Wednesday in late February 2016, Chris Collins became something more sinister and dangerous than just a casual Obama-hating millionaire seat-warmer. He joined the Trump bandwagon.

His protestations notwithstanding, Mr. Collins has bought himself Mr. Trump’s views about Mexican immigrants, Muslim visitors, Trump’s cut & spend tax plan, and building walls.

Until a few days ago, First Class Chris Collins had supported Jeb Bush, who found himself utterly unwanted by the Republican primary electorate in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada; Trump had swept all but one. Given that the Erie County Republicans had recently chosen Trump in their straw poll, and with our Palinist bizarro-intelligentsia, led by Carl Paladino, firmly in Trump’s barnyard, Collins decided to go with the hometown favorite. After all, Trump came to Depew to raise money for the ECGOP quite recently.

Collins, however, was out on his own on this one. The relatively shoestring Trump campaign isn’t equipped, really, to deal with a bunch of elected officials’ endorsements. The Republican establishment is likely to coalesce behind Marco Rubio, who has emerged to take Jeb’s place as the safe alternative. But some people who value loyalty don’t like that Rubio ran when it was Jeb’s year; Jeb was Rubio’s mentor.  Chris Collins, for all his faults, is a guy who values loyalty.

Collins’ move as the first GOP congressman to openly back Trump took some balls. He hasn’t been a memorable or effective congressman – he’s just a solid vote for whatever the Speaker wants. There was an almost Frank Underwoodian tactical brilliance behind this move to make Collins’ 2016 more exciting. By making this announcement, Collins has suddenly, single-handedly, forced the hand of every Republican in the House and Senate to pick a side.

Vote your district, vote your conscience: just don’t surprise me. Well, Collins surprised them. He surprised the entire Washington GOP establishment. He surprised the Trump campaign – Donald Trump called Collins personally Wednesday to thank him.

Collins took a leap of faith here – he might crash on the cliffs below, or sail gracefully into the best move he ever made. Time will tell, as we move towards an almost MMA-style brawl between two of the most ruthless campaign apparati in contemporary American politics. This will be a showdown so epic that both sides had better prepare for an inevitable recount process.  It’ll be 2000 all over again, and Roger Stone’s Brooks Brothers rioters will be suited up for Trump.

But this is Chris Collins we’re talking about – anti-net Neutrality, anti-consumer protection, anti-birth control, SNAP abolitionist, and condescending prat, so let’s examine his campaign statement.

CLARENCE, N.Y. – Calling for an “end to business as usual” in Washington, Congressman Chris Collins (NY-27) today announced that he is endorsing Donald Trump to become America’s next President.

As if anyone really cared whom Collins would be “endorsing”, or whether Trump needed or wanted this “endorsement”.

The end of “business as usual” in Washington is code for two things:

1. that Chris Collins is up for re-election in 2016, and he wants to ingratiate himself with the suburban and rural upstate Republican voters who will almost certainly overwhelmingly back Trump in the coming election; and

2. if Trump wins, Collins wants a cabinet position. Secretary of Commerce? That’d look good on the Wikipedia entry.

The reactionary, nativist, populist, authoritarian right is ascendant, after all. Collins knows which way the wind is blowing, and he wants to make sure his voters – and the Trump campaign – know he’s with them on this.

“Donald Trump has clearly demonstrated that he has both the guts and the fortitude to return our nation’s jobs stolen by China, take on our enemies like ISIS, Iran, North Korea and Russia, and most importantly, reestablish the opportunity for our children and grandchildren to attain the American Dream,” said Congressman Chris Collins.  “That is why I am proud to endorse him as the next President of the United States.”

Trump has made this demonstration by, e.g., firing Omarosa on S01E09 of the Apprentice, manufacturing the tchotchkes and schmattes bearing his name in China, and cowering at the intimidating might of Fox’s Megyn Kelly.

The line about the American Dream is typical Collins. If you navigate to his official Congressional page, his idiotic “vision” statement is still up there, that “the United States of America will reclaim its past glory as the Land of Opportunity, restoring the promise of the American Dream for our children and grandchildren.” Imagine the gall of this apparently self-made millionaire suggesting that the American Dream is a thing of the past – he lives it. I live it. The entire region is awash in new economic activity through our startup culture and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. We are still the land of opportunity, and the American Dream remains a real, present thing. To suggest otherwise is ignorant, insulting rubbish.

We don’t need to make America great again; America is great now.

“The results of Barack Obama’s failed presidency have been devastating.  America is no longer seen as the world’s leader.  Our jobs are gone.  Our middle class is struggling.  And, the federal government has grown too large and wastes too much of our hard earned money,” added Collins.  “The last thing we need is a third Obama term which we would get with either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.”

Private sector jobs are up and government jobs are down. Government has grown large bipartisanly – under Republicans who fight trillion-dollar wars of choice, as well as under Democrats who dramatically reduced the ranks of the uninsured. Neither Bernie Sanders nor Hillary Clinton would be a “third Obama term”, but that doesn’t matter. Collins’ people and the Trump campaign believe it to be so, and faith trumps evidence or knowledge. This is Collins’ cover letter for that job in the Herbert Hoover Building. Don’t think Trump and his team haven’t taken especial notice of this.

“We need a president willing to make the tough decisions necessary to restore our country to greatness.  I believe Donald Trump is the man for the job, and I am proud to provide him with my support.”

Both Trump and Collins share a strong private sector background.  Before entering public service, Congressman Collins was in the private sector for over 35 years where he built a successful career as a businessman and entrepreneur.

Both as an Erie Country Executive (New York) and a Member of Congress, Collins has advocated running government like a business. “If we want to get our nation’s economy growing again and deal with the daunting fiscal issues threatening America’s future, it’s time to say no to professional politicians and yes to someone who has created jobs and grown a business,” added Collins.

“America has the potential to once again become the land of opportunity.  Donald Trump understands the importance of American exceptionalism, and has the unique qualifications to make America great again,” concluded Collins.

Cover letter. Dear Mr. Trump, I’m just like you. I also think Obama is yucky, and I know you’ll make America more friendly for us one-percenters. Enclosed please find my very pro-business CV, and I look forward to a Six-Sigma-efficient confirmation hearing. Yours, etc., Chris Collins.

The question then becomes, if (God forbid) Trump wins in November, who will run in the special election for NY-27?

There’s nothing in the world worse than an ultra right-winger who adopts the language of civil rights because he feels the system has wronged him. But Friday’s arrest of Gia Arnold, one time right-wing challenger for what was then Republican George Maziarz’s Senate seat, is emblematic of the hilarity of the dominant Palinist wing of western New York’s tea party scene.

That’s the same brain trust that pushed centrist Republican Mark Grisanti out of office in favor of Kevin Stocker, only to find themselves in a 3-way race, handing the race to current Democratic State Senator Marc Panepinto. Their tactics are bad and their strategy worse.

In 2014, the Palinists’ bête noire was State Senator George Maziarz. The reasons why they hated him were vague and poorly defined, but their feelings were so strong they even accused him of the worst thing their minds could concoct: being gay. Ever the adolescents, they eschewed establishment candidate Rob Ortt in favor of Gia Arnold, who played them like a fiddle.

Gia Arnold is very young – she’s 26 now – and attractive. She was married and co-owned a business with her husband, and they had three kids. She loved the 2nd Amendment, hated the NY SAFE Act, but was otherwise bereft of serious thought or policy. Her personal story was the centerpiece of her appeal. That, and her pandering to the SCOPE and Oathkeepers crowd. She announced in February 2014, and by March she had wrapped up this endorsement:

That’s right-wing darling Carl Paladino and his driver/perennial candidate Rus Thompson clasping hands with Mrs. Arnold.

Western New York’s ammosexual community embraced her, and she them. The image that accompanies this piece depicts how she showed up to campaign at an event in the summer of 2014. But in mid-August 2014, she abruptly dropped out of the Senate race because her marriage had failed, she had been having an affair for the preceding few months, and arglebargle. She went on WBEN, whose afternoon host begged her to reconsider.

So, she did.

Displaying the sort of level-headed judgment she would presumably bring to the Senate, on that Friday, she un-dropped out of the race. Not surprisingly, WNY’s youngest political vacillator lost the (R) primary to Ortt by an epic margin, and didn’t have enough valid signatures to access the Libertarian Party line in November. She was taken to court over the validity of petition signatures that evidently came from outside the district. She was rather un-gracious in defeat, telling her mostly middle-aged male acolytes,

If you happen to have a Rob Ortt for State Senate sign in your yard this election cycle, you are a fool to support the elite establishment that counts on your ignorance and apathy in order to continue to control our elections, state and national governments. VOTE ANTI – ESTABLISHMENT this year. Do your research.

She ended up endorsing the Democrat. The whole thing was a typically tea party Rus Thompson three-ring circus.

Fast-forward to February 2016, and Gia Arnold is now under arrest, and this microaggression has triggered the tea party fanboys. The Buffalo News reports,

She was arrested earlier this week with an 18-year-old Niagara Falls resident on felony charges of criminal possession of a loaded rifle and handgun along with a combat knife that were found in the front section of her vehicle, according to Niagara Falls Police Capt. Michael Trane.

Arnold and Halim Johnson were arrested Wednesday night and offered no explanation for why they had the weapons. A black ski mask was also found in the Pontiac Vibe, police said.

The vehicle was stopped at 10:30 p.m. by Officers Tommie Caldwell and Marsha Gee, members of the department’s Roving Anti-Crime Unit, after they noticed Johnson failed to use a turn signal at the intersection of Haeberle Avenue and 15th Street, Trane said.

As those officers were conducting a records check, a second anti-crime unit arrived and Arnold was asked to step out of the vehicle by Officer Michael Tarnowski, who spotted a loaded magazine clip on her passenger seat.

“Before she got out, she had pushed her coat over the rifle, which was wedged between her seat and the door jam, trying to hide the rifle,” Trane said. “Tarnowski immediately placed her in handcuffs. Caldwell then had Johnson step out of the vehicle and Caldwell spotted a handgun with a red bandana around its grip in the driver’s side door cup holder.”

It’s not every day you have a former tea party politician caught in a car in the Falls with an 18 year-old driving her car, an AR-15, a ski mask, a handgun, and a KA-BAR combat knife. As you’d expect, the anti-SAFE Act tea party crowd perceives this all to be a massive civil rights violation. They’ve even set up a page on a site begging for donations.

On Feb 10th Gia Arnold and her boyfriend became victims of the NYS (UN)Safe Act and racial profiling. We are asking all patriots to Rally behind her and help her get out of this horrid mess. Think about this, you get pulled over for not using a turn signal and it turns into a felony charge because you invoked your constitutional right to remain silent.

Halim Johnson is Gia Arnold’s boyfriend, according to this post. A 26 year-old mother of three is dating an 18 year old from the Falls?

When Gia said they would no longer answer questions (a right protected by the Constitution) she was arrested for “Obstructing the duty of a Government Official” (sound like Oregon anyone?). Following her arrest her vehicle was searched for these drugs they were so sure they had. No drugs were found. But a Non-Compliant rifle under the NY (UN)Safe Act was found….

…On the way to the jail the officers told her that they were pulled over for “not using the turn signal in time.” This is obviously a load of crap they racially profiled her boyfriend and made up the charge after the fact. “He’s black he must have drugs.”

We are asking all patriots to Rally behind her and help her get out of this horrid mess. Think about this, you get pulled over for not using a turn signal and it turns into a felony charge because you invoked your constitutional right to remain silent.

Racial profiling! Like I said, the worst lefty is a wronged tea partier. All of a sudden the cops are monsters and racial profiling is a thing, because their darling is under arrest. What I recall is this same crowd of so-called “patriots” sharing pictures of Trayvon Martin blowing smoke out of his mouth and posing provocatively on his Facebook page, to prove he was a thug and deserved to die.

Well, the gentleman dating Gia Arnold also has a Facebook page. Here’s the happy couple:

But why would the cops “racially profile” him, and assume he’s a drug dealer?

Drugs? Perish the thought.

I don’t think this is Kale:

Interesting pose and use of emojis:

To be clear, recreational marijuana should be legal in New York State, but dealing drugs, and pretending to aim a handgun when posing for the camera under emojis spelling out the word, “gang” isn’t a good luck for the barely legal boyfriend of a tea party darling. The fundraiser must be working, because while Ms. Arnold has bonded out, Mr. Johnson remains incarcerated. This raises the question of how his Facebook profile picture and relationship status were changed while he remains behind bars. Indeed, Mr. Johnson’s high school-age friends seem upset and ready to fight Ms. Arnold. The spectacle, however, of the tea party coming to the aid and defense of Ms. Arnold and her paramour is interesting, but not as interesting as this:

But some of Arnold’s supporters during her failed senate campaign were not as quick to back her up on Friday. Tea Party activist Rus Thompson said he was concerned for Arnold but didn’t want to make any comment about the situation until he had all the details about what happened.

Meanwhile, former gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who attended Arnold’s announcement when she entered the senate race in 2014, had even less to say. When called for comment, he asked who Arnold was.

Rus Thompson taking what might be his first “wait and see” position in history, and Carl Paladino denying knowledge of the candidate with whom he clasped hands and posed just two short years ago. This is a perfect coda to the Gia Arnold for Senate clown car.

A fundamental, structural pointlessness. The County Legislature isn’t a necessity. County government as an entity generally exists to carry out state laws and policies. Of its $1.1 billion budget, the legislature has discretion over how about 1/10th of it gets spent. We are lucky enough to have a reasonably competent county government that carries out the policies, programs, and standard of living that Albany and residents demand. We’re not cutting funding for things like libraries, culturals, and rat control anymore. We never should have, in the first place.

This week, the County Legislature spent many hours and taxpayer money to debate when bars should close. This is not something for which the community is clamoring; a 2:00 AM call time isn’t an issue. This was a manufactured nontroversy pulled out of the clear, blue sky by big-time developers of downtown housing. The people pushing this want to sanitize gritty city living for prospective buyers and tenants. All that talk about safety and families and domestic violence are just fronts; smokescreens. More troubling is that county government wasted time holding a lengthy public hearing about this pointless nonsense, and then took it up at its Thursday session, only to see it fail 7 – 3, with one abstention.

Powerful developer-donors hijacked the legislative agenda to push a pet project at the expense of Buffalo’s vibrant, growing hospitality industry.

It’s hard enough out here for business, the last thing we need is developers making it worse for others.

The legislature’s only mandate is to approve, reject, or make changes to the executive’s proposed budget.  Everything else is surplusage. During the dark Collins years, the legislature admirably added back Collins’ cuts to funding for programs and culturals that contribute to everyone’s quality of life. It’s a necessary check on reckless executive leadership. But is there another way to accomplish this? A cheaper, less political way? How about an appointed part-time budget commission? What about the control board, which still exists, and will exist for a longer period of time than it needed to, due to borrowing that it carried out at Collins’ insistence?

The spectacle of 11 elected, paid officials (plus staff and counsel) spending hours considering something as idiotic as restricting bar times is an insult to Erie County residents. There’s got to be a better way.

New York is overweight with governments and taxing districts. We’ve known this for a while, yet we don’t do anything about it. Efforts to abolish village governments routinely fail, underscoring that people enjoy the rhetoric of less government, but don’t really want it in practice. Right now, there is an effort underway to merge Onondaga County and city of Syracuse operations. We’ve had this debate, too. It always fails for a variety of reasons, not the least of which include prejudice and the self-interest of elected officials and their personnel.

If we want business and industry to thrive in this region, we need to make it easier for them to open and operate. Taxes, fees, red tape, and regulations are all too high and too much. We should become a national model for 21st century streamlining of government, and providing a predictable, easy-to-follow process for businesses to start up and stay open. No one’s doing that. No one’s even talking about it. Can’t we recruit some of these new hospitality companies and start-ups to head up a commission to recommend changes and modernization of our laws and regulations?

Instead, our elected county legislature is busy spending time on killing hospitality and jobs on behalf of short-sighted developers of high-end apartments.

Get with it, people. It’s not 1960 anymore.