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Touched A Nerve?

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I guess this touched a nerve.

For how many years now have these narcissistic loons been prattling on about what a big, bad “alpha” Putin is? How often have these cult followers made snide remarks about “betas” and being “cucked” and “snowflakes” that “melt” and similar language that is supposed to somehow portray them as a sort of manly-man “alpha”?

The word for all of it is “projection”.

Let’s look at their Christian nationalist alpha, Vladimir Putin. (Indeed, one preening ex-candidate for NY-24’s Republican nomination, whose claims of intelligence mimic those of Wile E. Coyote, continues to maintain his strident support of Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.)

Putin is no “alpha”. He’s a coward who plays alpha on TV. He’s squirreled away in a bunker in the Urals, and so petrified of Covid, or maybe assassination, that he meets with even his own generals at a 20-meter long table. He has kept other countries subjugated or at bay through threats of Russian military might. While the Russian military has proven itself to be reckless, lawless, and ruthless in Ukraine, it has in many respects also revealed its incompetence. If I was a Russian vassal state, say Belarus or to a lesser degree Serbia, I would be strongly re-thinking my reliance on the promises of the Russian military.

You see, the problem with spending 30 years setting up an authoritarian kleptocracy versus, I dunno, a functional pluralist democratic republic founded on the rule of law, is that the focus is set on billion-dollar dachas and multi-million dollar yachts for oligarchs, apparatchiki, and siloviki as opposed to investment in the boring stuff like functional tires for military vehicles. When an entire system is founded on buying into the dictator’s own delusions, that is not a good foundation upon which to fight a war against a smaller, weaker, but better-trained professional defending force.

I watched Ukrainian President Zelensky challenge Putin. Come meet me. Face-to-face. What are you afraid of? Talk to me. I’m a man – not 30 meters away at a ridiculous table, but within arm’s reach. He invited the press to his bunker and brought a chair to sit and answer whatever questions came his way. It is Zelensky who shows courage and strength while Putin – nominal “alpha – cowers and hides behind his insane ruthlessness and mentally deranged propaganda.

But Mychajliw and the rest of the Groyper alt-right are projecting like an IMAX. They spew pre-masticated talk radio swill about the snowflake libs. Underneath all the fake bravado and bit-too-loud bluster, they’re like every other loudmouth bully – insecure little frauds.

Stefan has successfully glommed on to the Covid denial clique that orbits Robby Dinero. Now go back and look at all of Stefan’s carefully-crafted propaganda videos he posted to Twitter over the last couple of years while he was supposed to be doing the people’s business. For a guy who makes a lot of noise about re-opening everything, about unmasking everyone, and about getting back to normal, he sure as hell spent a lot of time filming little movies in his garage. He sure as hell spent a whole lot of time at home, rather than at the office. Fake bravado. Hell, just last week he went on a podcast with the “Financial Guys” (buyer beware) and appeared via zoom instead of in person because Covid is such a big nothing.

I guess people should pay attention to what they do, and not what they say.

Qualifications And Byron Brown

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Reluctant campaigner Byron Brown denigrates the qualifications of Democratic Nominee India Walton.

Yet India Walton is literally the only candidate who was able to get her name on the November mayoral ballot.

Tell me more, Mayor Brown, about how inexperienced and unprepared she is. Because she’s been cleaning your clock since at least June 22, 2021. March 25th, if we want to go by the filing deadline.

During the Democratic Mayoral primary campaign, incumbent Byron Brown pretended as if it wasn’t happening. He did not campaign. He refused to debate his opponent. He refused even to acknowledge her existence or to use her name as part of his ill-fated “rose garden strategy“. Indeed, every act and omission of the absent Brown for Mayor primary campaign was designed to keep turnout low.

India Walton won that campaign because she worked hard and treated it – and the Democratic voters in the city of Buffalo – seriously. She campaigned. She showed up.

You don’t earn a fifth term by telling your voters to stay home.

Byron Brown’s rose garden strategy was, frankly, insulting to the electorate and his constituency. They didn’t show up so he naturally lost. Not only because he did not show up, but because he has always been little more than a caretaker mayor. (Example: if you’re the mayor of a city famous for snow and you can’t plow side streets until days after a storm, you’re not going to be some sort of beloved figure.)

Now that Brown lost, he has suddenly decided to take India Walton seriously. He deigned to debate her (as well as a couple of other write-in candidates no one’s heard of). At that debate, he said:

He is? He created a brand-new, bespoke little political party line for himself and submitted petitions months too late. He lucked out for a week or so, but on Thursday the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and the NY Supreme Court’s 4th Appellate Division overturned the lower courts and ruled that he blew a perfectly reasonable and legal deadline and that his name and party line would not be on the November ballot. As a matter of fact, if Brown had taken the primary race seriously and done his little “Buffalo Party” petitions months ago to meet the deadline, he’d have been fine.

He messed it up because he is not qualified to be on the ballot, on the debate stage, or in City Hall, frankly. The developers and fatcats who support him can do their worst, but ultimately they’re funding a write-in campaign that quickly became startling in its blatant illegality.

Byron Brown has had 15 years to become an iconic mayor who would deserve to remain in that role indefinitely. Almost every positive thing that Buffalo has to tout has happened around him or in spite of him. It is state money and county money and federal money, people, and politicians who have helped to improve Buffalo since 2006.

The big appeal of India Walton, which most of her detractors don’t seem to get, is that Byron Brown’s City Hall remains mired in a uniquely Buffalonian nostalgic hangover from the good old days. It’s the 21st Century and it’s high time the city had a leadership that looked out for all Buffalonians, and not just the ones with deep pockets and wallets perpetually opened for “Brown for Buffalo” and his other various political clubs and entities. It’s time City Hall worked well and efficiently for everyone equally, fueled more by excellence rather than patronage.

Dear Mr. President – Ignore Bauerle Like The Rest of Us

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Mr. President:

Don’t listen to that guy. He’s not right.

I am fully vaccinated American and I am frustrated and angry with my fellow citizens who have chosen to NOT be vaccinated.

I believe that Americans should be required to have something injected into their bodies by law or regulation when necessary to promote public health and welfare, such as those for smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, and polio. I am also informed enough to know that there is no such thing as the “Nuremberg Medical Protocols of 1946.” I do, however, know that there exists something called the “Nuremburg Code,” which, in 1947, established that medical experiments should not be performed on people against their will. I furthermore recognize that it is, at best stupid and at worst evil, to equate the Covid-19 vaccines with, e.g., Dr. Mengele.

What makes me angry is malicious disinformation and propaganda being laundered as “medical choice.” I know, because I am not an idiot, that herd immunity through mass inoculation is the safest and fastest way out of the Covid crisis, and that disinformation is literally killing people.

Mandating a safe and effective vaccine is safer, cheaper, and more effective than simply allowing people blindly to be exposed to and sickened by a disease that has prematurely killed almost 700,000 of my fellow citizens of all ages, races, classes, and nationalities. Indeed, it is outrageous to me that as we commemorate 9/11, we remember how 3,000 lives taken through violence united us, but now we coddle and excuse exponentially more now-preventable deaths in 2021. We lost more than half a 9/11 from Covid on September 13th alone. There’s no unity now, alas, thanks to malicious disinformation and pseudoscience.

I realize that the virus can only be stopped when it runs out of people to infect. I understand that viruses mutate rapidly to bypass our efforts to halt it and that the continued resistance of people to take a literal miracle shot is ruining it for the rest of us throughout the world.

You have urged people to follow the science, and the science is clear that the frail elderly are at higher risk for COVID, as are people with known and unknown comorbidities. The greatest tragedy is when a healthy young person discovers too late that they have an undiagnosed susceptibility to Covid, and they die. I recognize that while children may not become as sick as older people, it is no help for them to lose a parent or become orphaned. I am intelligent enough and completely not a hack propagandist, so I will not equate a communicable respiratory disease to “dying from drowning” for political gain.

While it is great that therapeutic options exist that can, in some cases, help people suffering from Covid, I understand that prevention of disease is far more effective than treating it once you get it. I also realize that studies conclusively show that wearing masks helps prevent the spread of a deadly virus that is transmitted through aerial droplets, most of which are too large to make it through a mask’s filtration layers. Anti-maskers are killing people, too.

Furthermore, you ridicule the conclusions of trained physicians who dare to differ from the Fauci and mainstream media as “conspiracy theorists.” Thank you for this. It is high time we called things what they are.

Thank you for protecting susceptible, weakened patients already in hospitals from being inadvertently infected by health care workers who refuse to be inoculated. The people at greatest risk deserve the highest form of protection, and “freedom” means that you don’t have a constitutional right to be a health care worker, and if you won’t undertake simple protective measures for yourself or your patients, you should find another profession.

You actually believe the economy is robust under your stewardship, when working Americans are seeing their dollars buying less and less? Inflation is, indeed, a symptom of a re-heated economy, and we see this the European and British economies, as well.

There is a trope flying around about refugees bringing Covid into the country and causing the current wave, which is completely false, ascientific and merely an effort by right-wing authoritarians to heap hatred and scorn on immigrants and refugees.

Mr. President, I know that a local right-wing commentator who once equated President Obama with al Qaeda wrote, “what a sad day for America, where “my body my choice” apparently only applies in some circumstances.” Amazing irony. He apparently supports the Texas ban on abortions even in cases of rape. Even in the case of incest. Mr. Bauerle would, based on this quip, demand that the government force a 13 year-old girl to give birth to a child conceived through the most disgusting and horrific criminal violence, while insisting that one’s “liberty” demands that the government not require vaccination to protect himself and those around him against a deadly disease in limited circumstances. This is beyond pathological. It is psychopathy.

To the unvaccinated: this vaccinated American is frustrated and angry with you, but does not blame you. I realize that your hesitancy or refusal is a direct result of utter bullshit being fed to you by quacks, killers, idiots, charlatans, and propagandists. Everything was looking up in June until vaccinations hit a wall and Delta came to the US from India via Europe. I only hope that you see that the hospitals being overrun right now are overrun by victims of Covid-19, while exactly zero hospitals are being even mildly populated by people somehow sickened by the vaccines themselves. I guarantee you that the science bears out the fact that the risk of contracting Covid puts you at an exponentially higher risk of complication and harm to your body than any side-effect of any vaccine in the US.

Most importantly, I reject the notion that it’s perfectly ok if 1.5% of Americans drop dead from Covid. There are 330 million Americans, so Mr. Bauerle here is directly stating that 5 million preventable deaths is perfectly ok. I do not consider 5 million American lives to be disposable on the altar of misbegotten “choice”. I guess not “all lives matter”, right, Tom?

Your orders as to federal workers and contractors gives me hope that more people will get the vaccine and prevent their own illness or deaths – and the illnesses or deaths of those around them.

In Buffalo, we are used to snow blizzards, but I feel like I just got struck by a bullshit blizzard of epic proportions, thanks to the relentlessly harmful and misguided rhetoric of malevolent talk-show hosts. Shame on Audacy and its management for allowing its talent to urge people to go ahead and die in the name of “liberty.”

And what if everybody affected just said “no” to your mandates? Well, if they’re federal employees or contractors, they’d be fired is “what”.

There is a reason that India is not ruled by England anymore: peaceful civil disobedience led by Mohandas Gandhi. India’s slow vaccine uptake, incidentally, led to the Delta mutation, which is now killing people here in the US.

America has nothing whatsoever to learn from right-wing talk show hosts and everything to gain from a safe and effective vaccination. The Covid vaccines were developed under Trump. Why not own the libs by getting the jab?

And hey Audacy? When your afternoon talk show host’s “opinion” has to come with a disclaimer, you’re part of the problem.

Totalitarianism, Texas Style

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New State Emblem of TexasSetting aside the fact that the new Texas state statute effectively banning all abortions, (but purporting only to ban them after 6 weeks’ gestation – well before most women even know they are pregnant), the way in which the law is set to be enforced is especially egregious and anti-American in all its facets.

The law does not make an exception for cases of incest or rape.

This means that a school in Texas cannot protect young women against catching Covid-19 through a mask mandate based on “body autonomy”, but the Texas state government can force, say, a 14-year-old victim of statutory rape to carry her tormentor’s baby to term. It is distinctly unconstitutional, based on 50 years’ worth of jurisprudence. It is, truly, medieval and barbaric. It is literally a leap backwards to women being mere chattel with no right to control their bodies.

The same people screaming about not being told by the government whether to wear a mask or take a vaccine during a deadly pandemic based on “choice” are literally legislating away every Texas woman’s right to reproductive healthcare.

Well, not every Texas woman’s. Those with money and connections can always fly to a blue state for a procedure. The men in the Texas legislature who accidentally impregnate their mistresses will undoubtedly find a way to flout these restrictions. So, it’s really a law designed to punish the poor and the underprivileged.

The technical, stated reason why the Supreme Court majority of anti-Roe activists refused to block this patently barbaric law has to do with how it is to be enforced. The statute empowers literally anyone to simply call in a tip and inform on any person who performs, aids, or abets an abortion procedure that is violative of the law. Texas requires women seeking abortions to get “counseling” to discourage abortion, and then wait another 24 hours. This requires two trips to the clinic with the state requiring that the provider ply the patient with propaganda.

This law also empowers private individuals to make anonymous reports to the government about abortions. The law specifically creates a private cause of action allowing people who otherwise have no standing to sue individuals, groups, and institutions that “aid and abet” in providing abortions. This sets up a lucrative incentive for people to lie and engage in punitive behavior and harassment, obviously. But it also empowers average citizens to form anti-abortion bounty hunting posses. That will further act to chill any abortions from being performed – including a D&C of a miscarriage. Yep, a woman with a dead fetus inside of her will be required by law to birth it and not have it surgically removed because there will be no medical providers willing to risk fines or jailtime to do it. Like I said, barbaric. Medieval.

The reason why the right-wing court majority did not enjoin enforcement of this distinctly un-American piece of legislation? Because no one had yet dropped the dime on anyone, so the issue is not ripe. How convenient.

Why do I say this is un-American? Barbaric? Medieval? Because it comes directly from the “my first totalitarian dictatorship” playbook. Under both communist and fascist totalitarian regimes, secret police have regularly recruited and encouraged average citizens to inform on their friends and neighbors. This sort of institutional snitching would result in the informer receiving money or perks, like a citizen of East Germany being granted permission to visit the west. Totalitarian regimes regularly consolidate their illegitimate power through denunciation.

This is how the Texas abortion ban is designed – to institutionalize and legitimize denunciations and to subject women and medical providers to civil and criminal penalties, harassment, and possibly personal harm.

This was predicted when Clinton lost in 2016, and it was predicted when Trump got to pick Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement on the Court. People like Susan Collins and a bunch of male pundits and leftist Clinton haters told people not to worry.

Fully a third of this country – the Trumpers and the political Christianists – no longer support freedom or democratic institutions. They have transformed themselves fully into totalitarian ultra-nationalist one-party authoritarians. This Texas bill is not even the beginning.

Rus Thompson Gets the Attention He Ordered

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John “Rus” Thompson, who pled guilty in 2017 to a misdemeanor arising out of voter fraud and lying under oath, is ordering up a steaming heap of attention this week. He and a few other guys in Oakleys will be driving their pickups counterclockwise in downtown Buffalo to protest the state’s emergency orders related to Covid-19.

The novel coronavirus is a viral pandemic that so far has killed 41,000 Americans. By this time next week, it will have taken more American lives than the Vietnam War. 

The Public covered Thompson’s 2016 episode of lying under oath here, here, here, here, and here. 

The reality under which we are now living is frustrating at best, and millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their health insurance, and their overall economic security. It is precisely this sort of situation for which our welfare safety net was created and designed. To say that it is, for many, woefully inadequate is a dramatic understatement. This reality underscores how this country has done too much to accommodate the wealthy and well-to-do while ignoring the middle and working classes. In no other industrialized country do the newly unemployed face the loss of their health coverage, because in no other industrialized country is health cover connected to employment. That $1,200 “stimulus” check would barely cover one COBRA payment for a typical furloughed American worker. 

Because everyone is hunkered down and trying to stay safe and healthy, it feels like wartime. The uncertainty and indefinite quality of it all is making people upset and anxious. All of that is understandable. 

If, as Thompson and his cohorts suggest, the shelter-in-place should be lifted because western New York is “not NYCity” [sic], then why congregate in one place? If they need a job, there are loads of jobs going for people willing to work in an essential industry. Volunteer to pack lunches for people. Donate to – or volunteer at – the food bank. There are desperate ads on TV looking for people to fill jobs to work as carers for disabled WNYers. 

Instead of doing literally one single thing – symbolic or substantive- to help families in need or medical professionals or nursing homes in this pandemic, Rus Thompson and his pro-virus squad are going to honk their horns while driving counterclockwise for the right to get sick. It is a completely frivolous tantrum that flashes a middle finger at the people working under dangerous conditions to maintain some semblance of a quality of life for all WNYers – sick and otherwise. It laughs at and mocks the thousands of WNYers who have caught the coronavirus, and the hundreds of your friends and neighbors who have died from complications related to it. 

Almost literally overnight, Facebook groups and websites popped up to support and promote protests against governors who issues stay-at-home orders. The President this weekend tweeted exhortations to “liberate” some states – as direct an order as possible to people to congregate and sicken themselves and each other. Like the well-organized AstroTurf tea party movement of 2009, when thousands of people protested Barack Obama’s health insurance marketplace, stimulus package, and purported country of origin, this is a top-down fake grassroots stunt operated by movement conservative people and groups whose purpose is to disrupt things and get people killed in the name of – no one really knows. 

What have our local media been doing about all of this? Covering an event that hasn’t happened; inadvertently promoting it by interviewing its organizer and informing you as to when and where it will be held, and how to get involved yourself. It is a completely irresponsible act of promotion. Only Caitlin Dewey Rainwater at the Buffalo News did a deep dig into the misconceptions and lies that Thompson is spreading, and she deserves kudos for her effort. 

Stay home and keep yourself and your loved ones healthy and safe. Do not succumb to misinformation or disinformation. Local media should stop amplifying it. 

And hey, Rus: 

Month One of the Event

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British comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb (you may know them as Mark and Jez from Peep Show), had a sketch show a decade or so ago, which in its later seasons included a sketch about a post-apocalypic game show, “The Quiz Broadcast,” held in a sort of bunker.

The apocalypse is referred to in this sketch simply as “the Event”, and the contestants on the show are each physically and mentally scarred by the Event. Peter was blinded, and Sheila needs to be taken to be “voltage-calmed”, while the third contestant is sometimes an “unknown male” or a bunch of candy.

The contestants are playing for food or fuel. At certain parts of the program, the words “Remain Indoors” flashes on the screen. It is a bit of dark humor that was always funny to me, but is now just a bit on the nose. The writers responsible for the “Quiz Broadcast” discussed it recently within the context of the Coronavirus pandemic a few weeks ago. 

Here is a compendium of the episodes for your amusement. 

So, our “event” is slow-moving rather than some big bang, but it has completely altered our society, our economy, and our politics in one short month. I may start writing here with some more frequency as this goes on – now through May 15th in New York, at least, but wanted to simply ask you to be safe, follow the advice of health professionals and scientists, and to be as patient, kind, and generous as your personal situation circumstances allow. 

A revamped Buffalo Rising has done a great series of videos catching up with people in quarantine, but I want to highlight the work that the Buffalo News’ Andrew Galarneau has been doing lately. The hospitality industry in general, and restaurants in particular, are especially hard-hit by this, and if your circumstances allow it, you should try and help save your favorite locally owned place. 

We try to do take-out twice per week now, and we have done Jay’s Artisan Pizza and Bar-Bill North. Today, we’re doing Mulberry. If you can, do it. If you can, tip with wild abandon. 

Stay safe. 

My Democratic Primary Endorsement

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The only thing that matters in 2020 is the overwhelming defeat of the incumbent President.

When I say overwhelming I mean such that no one can try and manufacture some sort of idiot conspiracy theory about it. When I say the only thing that matters it means just that.

I supported Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primary race. I thought that she was a uniquely prepared, competent, smart, and qualified candidate who had correctly identified specific, major systemic and substantive problems and then offered up a detailed plan for how to correct them.

The only thing that matters in 2020, however, is the overwhelming defeat of the incumbent President.

Warren is not a demagogue or an extremist, but someone who thinks that the last 30 – 40 years of economic policy in the US had done disproportionate harm to the middle and working classes. Warren believes that government should exist in part to protect the little guy from the criminality, fraud, and excesses of the big shots in our country.

The only thing that matters in 2020, however, is the overwhelming defeat of the incumbent President.

Clearly Warren’s time isn’t now. Maybe in 2024, but not now. So the question becomes: which candidate is best positioned to overwhelmingly defeat the incumbent President? It’s down to Bernie and Joe. They both have their merits and demerits. Each person is free to weigh those pros and cons however they see fit. I have big problems with both of them, but I respect and honor them, as well. After all, no one is perfect and politics isn’t Doordash or Netflix, where you can serve up exactly the product you want, on-demand.

Senator Warren is taking some time to assess whom (if anyone) she will endorse. I could tell you how I’m leaning, but I am not going to tell Democrats what to do this year. There will be a primary in late April, and a convention in June. From that convention will emerge a Democratic candidate who will mount a campaign against the most corrupt and dysfunctional administration in American history.

The only thing that matters in 2020, however, is the overwhelming defeat of the incumbent President.

No matter what your big issue is – college debt, healthcare, foreign policy, the restoration of constitutional norms – none of it happens if Trump is there – more to the point, I suspect that none of it ever happens if Trump is there in January 2021. Not in our lifetimes.

The only thing that matters in 2020, however, is the overwhelming defeat of the incumbent President.

This is it, guys. This is real fucking life. This country has sunk so low and overfed its worst impulses, yet people tolerate it because the economy hums along. For now. All of the big structural and substantive change you want to see – all of it is important to fight for. All of it is worth your time and effort. I encourage and welcome your struggle to make your life better and to better everyone’s lives.

But the house is on fire, and we desperately need something to put it out. Some say we need a hose. Some say we need an extinguisher. It doesn’t matter the exact way in which we put the fire out, and we don’t have to agree on it. We can work together to put that fire out through whatever method is available to do it.

We need to keep the House.

We need to take the Senate.

“Senate Majority Leader Elizabeth Warren” has a nice ring to it.

I warned in 2015 that this guy was a danger. A fascist.The America you knew before 2017 is almost gone, and it may take generations to fix. 

Or we can start doing it right now. This year.

Fight for your preferred candidate – if you like Bernie, do your thing. If you prefer Biden, go do that. No hate from me, either way. Make calls, give money, canvass, lit drop, volunteer. And after the convention, use everything you have to ensure the overwhelming defeat of the incumbent President. That is the only thing that matters right now.

Do that, and the rest will follow. Fail, and we’ve failed a generation.

WBEN is not Impartial

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WBEN says it is “partnering” (whatever that means) with legitimate news outlets WIVB and WROC to host a debate in the race for the 27th Congressional District between Democrat Nate McMurray and Republican Chris Jacobs. 

WBEN is not a legitimate news outlet and hasn’t been for some time. It is a partisan Republican propaganda organ that deigns to run a nominally straight newscast during morning drive. The other 20 hours of every day are replete with right-wing talk radio that ranges from inane to insane. I don’t know what the nature of this “partnership” is, but if WBEN personnel are involved in the questioning then the Democrat on the stage will be debating two distinct opponents – the Republican candidate and the front for questions from Carl Calabrese or Michael Caputo. 

Consider this: there are no Democratic commentators on WBEN. During the morning “newscast”, when there is to be some sort of political analysis, Republican lobbyist Carl Calabrese is there dutifully refering to the “Democrat Party” and reciting whatever GOP talking points are on the agenda for that day. Who is the Democrat? Seldom anyone. This is partly due to the fact that few self-respecting Democrats would be caught dead on WBEN’s air because it is not a fair and impartial news outlet but a blatantly partisan organ of the Republican Party. 

But never mind literally any of that. Here are two solid reasons why WBEN belongs nowhere near any sort of putatively impartial debate newscast: 

1. The “Gun Rally Express”

Just weeks after a lunatic with easy access to a Bushmaster assault weapon gunned 20 first-graders and 6 staff members in an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut – and in direct response to that avoidable massacre – the New York State legislature enacted the NY SAFE Act. As a reaction to that, in late February 2013 hundreds of Second Amendment absolutists trundled off to Albany to protest. WBEN did not merely send a reporter to Albany to cover the protest – it helped to organize it; WBEN “partnered” with various Carl Paladino-related sponsors to send busloads of WBEN listeners to the protest – complete with a banner and everything – and pretended to “cover” a protest it was actually helping to promote.

That’s the banner – it found itself a home in the WBEN newsroom after the rally. Poor Steve Cichon was there as a “reporter” reporting on, among other things, the busloads of WBEN listeners there. The key takeaways are that WBEN is not an impartial observer and reporter of news, but instead feels perfectly justified in becoming part of the story and creating news.

On bus number two, it was “a dismal day to ride aboard the Albany Gun Rally Express, but spirits [were] high on both buses!” People were asked to “Click LIKE to support them and leave your messages for the riders…”

WBEN’s ostensibly straight newscast has been misused for partisan ends before, and given the stakes in NY-27 it is perfectly reasonable to expect this to happen again. 

2. Tim Wenger

Wenger is the Operations Manager and Program Director for WBEN and basically runs the whole station. Rather than recount all the various and myriad ways Wenger renders WBEN unsuitable as an impartial partner for a debate such as this, I will again bring up one salient example from 2014.

Well, no, Mr. Wenger, I have never felt like assaulting Secretary Clinton, or President Trump for that matter. Take a look at the video to which he linked and tell me exactly what’s funny or good or positive there. 

This is straight-up right-wing bloodlust and Wenger is so free from consequences that the Tweet remains online. Here’s what I wrote about Wenger’s inappropriate sentiment at the time (well before Trump ever decided to run for office). 

No, actually, I’ve never felt like “throwing a shoe” at any American political figure. Mostly because I’m not a violent moron, but also because I feel secure enough in the political system and in debate and discussion that “throwing a shoe” or otherwise committing an assault and battery doesn’t enter into it.  Remember when an Iraqi reporter threw a shoe at President Bush? Did Wenger think that was acceptable? Reasonable? Rational?

I didn’t think it was persuasive or appropriate. People enter politics, and they should expect to be vetted, scrutinized, and questioned. They should not expect to dodge physical assault. They do not deserve battery – no matter how much you disagree with them. For everyone who thinks Hillary Clinton deserves to be hit by a shoe because of Benghazi, I can probably find you two who think that Bush should be behind bars for war crimes. 

So, there’s nothing at all funny or appropriate about someone throwing a shoe at George Bush or at Hillary Clinton. Anyone who thinks differently is no different from a fascist blackshirt, trying to do with violence what they can’t do with words. It is beyond un-American. 

I even did a mock Newsreel depicting how Wenger’s sentiments would have played in the 1930s.

Here, Wenger cheered on a guy committing assault and battery on a protester with whom Wenger apparently disagreed. None of this is okay, and all of it acts as a foreshadowing of our current state of affairs. 

Tim Wenger is not an impartial observer or the head of an impartial news-gathering organization. Sure, it pretends to be one at various times of the day, but mostly it’s just Republican people spouting Republican talking points for an older Republican audience. It is the station of Tom Bauerle and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. 

I think Nate McMurray is a strong enough candidate that he can comport himself perfectly well even under questioning from a Republican front organization masquerading as a news entity, but I don’t think he needs to stand at a podium battling two opponents. WBEN can broadcast whatever it wants, but it has no business being treated as if it was just another impartial news outlet. It is no more or less partisan than I.

The State of the 27th

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On Friday January 17, former congressman Chris Collins was sentenced to 26 months in federal prison for his lying to the FBI and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. It is a fittingly ignominious end to a particularly nasty and petulant politician. 

In advance of his sentencing, Collins and his lawyers asked friends and supporters to send letters to District Court Judge Vernon Broderick to advocate for a lenient sentence. Those letters were posted to PACER, the federal online filing system, as were many letters advocating for a harsh punishment. Most of them came from family, a few former colleagues, party hacks, and business partners. There weren’t that many. He was not well liked, and he didn’t need anyone.

Until suddenly, he did. If I’m being generous, the turnout on his behalf was middling. 

Collins will be forever disgraced and a convicted felon. He has selfishly destroyed not only his own life, but that of his family and his son’s soon-to-be in-laws’. People who think that Collins’ greed and above-the-law attitude were a one-off are deluding themselves. This was a pattern for him, and got what he deserved. More significantly for our purposes, the Republican establishment in western New York supported him wholeheartedly in 2018 despite the overwhelming evidence against him, not to mention the federal indictment.

As a result of Collins’ lawlessness, there will be a special election held (probably) on Tuesday April 28th, the same day as the New York State Democratic primary. (Despite Republican hyperventilations, it makes sense to do this, because the various NY-27 Boards of Elections will already be mobilized to handle that race, so it is in the interests of the taxpayers to do this all at once.)

There will be a proper, regular election again held on Tuesday, November 3rd – so basically there will be a race all year. 

Democrat Nate McMurray has sewn up the Democratic nomination, despite a brief challenge from newcomer Melodie Baker, (who subsequently had an intemperate airing of grievances on Twitter about her withdrawal). Query whether she will run again if McMurray’s effort proves unsuccessful in April. 

The Republican race for NY-27, on the other hand, is crowded. Well, it was until the Republican chairs held a super-secret meeting in their rural lair to interview and choose their fighter. The major candidates are State Senator Rob Ortt of North Tonawanda, Fox commentator and lawyer Beth Parlato of Darien, State Senator Chris Jacobs of Buffalo Orchard Park, and County Comptroller/bathroom aficionado Stefan Mychajliw of Buffalo Hamburg. Ortt and Parlato are right-wing ideologues. Jacobs and Mychajliw have found it temporarily convenient to mimic Ortt’s and Parlato’s sharp-elbowed, omniphobic, ultra-right, alt-lite positioning.

As political philosopher Cyndi Lauper once wrote, “money changes everything,” and so it was that the party bosses selected perennial Buffalo News endorsee Chris Jacobs to run for the special election. Jacobs is that sort of effete cosmopolitan country-club Republican the Trumpsters love to hate, so it should come as no surprise that the bosses’ decision brought with it some butthurt. Mychajliw especially went out of his way to denounce the backroom deal, invoking Jeb Bush and incoherently alleging that no one would have heard of reality game show host Donald Trump but for the 2016 primary. 

I do not recall a time when the Republicans in western New York were so fractured and toxic. This is largely uncharted territory. Now that 2020 will be a year-long race, the Republican contest in NY-27 is going to be all about yelling loudly and punching down. All of them seem to think that they can ignore genuine problems and issues the voters in NY-27 feel and instead regorge Fox News/Breitbart talking points that are broad and shallow – they don’t really have any bearing on anyone’s real life, but they make people feel better about themselves whilst giving them someone weaker to blame or hate. 

Each of them has one thing in common: to sell voters that he is the true way – the only obedient vassal to the master, King Donaeld the Unready. 

Chris Jacobs – Ri¢hie Ri¢h

Jacobs – the Parkside scion of a prominent billionaire family – would have you think that he is all in for Trump. Among his first tweets – since conspicuously deleted – was this: 

I can guarantee you that refugees and undocumented immigration on the Southern US border isn’t a big issue for people in NY-27. Hell, we have an actual border ourselves that’s only a few miles away, as opposed to the one that’s 1,000 miles away. The goal here should be to make the Canadian border easier for regular people to cross, and not harder. People in the area making up NY-27 have had poor or non-existent representation for far too long. People here have concerns about things like predatory lenders, employment, farm labor, and healthcare, but here’s the Buffalo developer feeding anti-immigrant pablum to the masses. 

When Jacobs ran for Senate against Democrat Amber Small, he was continually asked about whether he supports Donald Trump, and he remained silent. Now? He pretends like he’s Trump’s biggest fan. This is sheer opportunism, but Jacobs has money, friends, and name recognition in the Buffalo media market, at least.

Beth Parlato – the Evangelist

What about Beth Parlato? When Jim Kelly and his wife aren’t stanning for their fellow Christian Central Academy parent and tagging Donald Trump in the tweet…

…she has things like this to say: 

“Our families are under attack. Christian values are mocked, drugs and dangerous illegal immigrants flow through our broken borders, late term abortion is protected, and our schools teach what’s politically correct instead of the truth. Will you help me fight back?”

People literally cannot afford the medication and healthcare that keeps them alive, but this person is going to solve these problems by launching a culture war. Chances are that Parlato, doing her best Betsy Devos impression, hasn’t set foot in a public school in decades, if ever. The only people “mocking Christian values” are the ultra-right holy rollers who think Christianity is about getting rich, and that Jesus was a gun totin’ pickup-drivin’ immigrant-hater. And that the rapture is around the corner. Parlato continues, 

As an attorney, as a judge, as an activist and most importantly, as a mother, I have seen up close the harm that the liberal extremist agenda has caused here in Western New York.

And when our families are hurting, so is our nation.

I’m running to fight back against the enemies of freedom who glorify socialism and show disdain for America’s entrepreneurs.

I’m running to create a better and safer world for all of our children.

I’m running because there are stronger voices for women than Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

I’m an educated, conservative woman who can make a logical argument; which means the Left and the mainstream media is going to hate me. But, I won’t shy away from talking about the same values you talk about every night at the kitchen table.

What specifically has she seen in WNY that has fallen prey to some “liberal extremist agenda” – she doesn’t say because it is enough simply to say it. “Glorify socialism”. “Enemies of freedom.” “Liberal extremist agenda.” “Nancy Pelosi.” “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.” Parlato’s campaign is all about division and scare-tactics, and this sort of Fox trash talk should be – and will be – rejected. But at least Parlato is sincere about her myriad fears and hatreds. Query how someone so concerned with “Christian values” can support a guy who adulterously fornicated with a porn star while his third wife was pregnant, and then paid her off, or the guy who said his status and wealth made it easy for him to “grab [women] by the pussy”. (See, e.g., 1 Corinthians 7:2, Colossians 3:5, Ephesians 5:3, Hebrews 13:4, Matthew 5:32, Matthew 19:9, Revelation 21:8, Proverbs 6:32, and Exodus 20:14).   

Rob Ortt – the Maziarz/Wojtaszek Machine

Likewise, North Tonawanda’s Maziarz guy Rob Ortt is a true believer. I heard his radio spot on WBEN and noted firstly that he is going out of his way to explain away his corruption, and this: 

Some people want to go to Washington and bring everybody to the table. I want to flip the table over.

That one line should be instantly disqualifying. Like his opponents, Ortt isn’t running to represent the people of the 27th district; he has a constituency of two: himself and Donald Trump. 

Politics is bloodsport, but government is supposed to be about doing things that are in the best interests of one’s constituents. One can have strong positions about things, but in the end the art of politics is about compromise and inclusion – not, as Ortt suggests, violent, over-emotional exclusion. If that is his ethos, it is no wonder he has been so feckless and useless in Albany. 

When you click on “issues” on Ortt’s website, the first line that greets you contains the word “Trump”. One of the bullet-pointed “issues” reads as follows: 

Fight Back Against the “Hate America” Voices of the Extreme Left

Honestly, I almost feel sorry for Ortt and the people like him. They are so consumed with hatred and fear that they go out of their way to agitate against people who advocate for things like libraries, schools, and healthcare. These weak-minded people aren’t running against opponents, or for any ideas – they are merely running against the things they reckon their voters reflexively hate. 

It is also important to be clear about something: what Ortt and his people did may not have been a crime, but it sure as hell was sleazy and corrupt.

Come to think of it, corrupt sleazery may exactly be why Ortt stans so hard for corrupt sleaze Trump. 

Stefan Mychajliw – the Phony

Finally, we have young master Stefan Mychajliw, who did not have supporters available to launch his campaign with a rally. Instead, he posted an awkward video, replete with the same sort of divisive, hate-filled rhetoric as his rivals. Also like his opponents, Mychajliw is running for two people – himself and Trump. It is as if Trump and these people are one. To call it a cult would be insulting to most cults. 

Like Ortt, Mychajliw’s first thought is of Trump: 

SEND TRUMP AN ALLY: As President Trump fights to drain the swamp in Washington, he cannot do it alone. We need uncompromising conservatives to stand with him to Keep America Great by fighting for a secure border, fair trade policies, and economic solutions that continue record-setting results. Simply put, we cannot rely on self-dealing Albany moderates who only support President Trump when it’s politically convenient. We deserve a proven conservative we can trust — no matter when the next election is.

Mychajliw was once a Buffalo mensch. Since entering political life and becoming a career politician, he has successfully alienated everyone who used to matter in his life. He trades on his status as a first-generation American, (only half-true), while in the next breath heaping scorn and derision on refugees. Mychajliw targets Jacobs especially (Albany moderate) and ignores the Rev. Parlato and winger Ortt; Mychajliw isn’t a proven conservative, but a purely performative one. He has never had a truly competitive race for Comptroller, so it will be interesting to see how he fares over the summer, and just how low he’s willing to go. He is wholly unqualified for – and uninterested in – the job he has, and it shows. He has spent the last year traipsing across the farms and meadows of NY-27 and having his picture taken, all the while vocally supporting a person under felony indictment who has since resigned in disgrace. 

Of Mychajliw, the Investigative Post’s Jim Heaney writes, 

The growing body count at the two county jails says all that needs to be said about Tim Howard.

Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw says a lot of ugly things, takes campaign contributions from some very ugly people, and seems to be using his office more for political purposes than for protecting the interests of taxpayers.

Ditto for County Clerk Mickey Kearns, who seems intent on spending tax dollars on frivolous lawsuits aimed at demonizing undocumented immigrants.

I call the three of them the Bigot Brothers.

Kearns, Mychajliw, and Howard fit the mold of the Erie County Republican Party, which mimics the tone being set at the national level. Gone are the days when more moderate voices held sway. Now it’s the party of Carl Paladino, Michael Caputo, and the like. Which is to say: wingnuts.

The Bigot Brothers indeed. 

And now that Mychajliw has formally announced what everyone’s known for a year – that he’s running for Congress – he will need to address the fact that he apparently used campaign funds from his state office treasury to pay for federal office expenses.

Even money an undeclared candidate for federal office raises and spends “testing the waters” — that is, laying the groundwork for a campaign, lining up support, conducting polls, etc. — must eventually be reported to the FEC, Svoboda told Investigative Post.

“You can defer filing if your fundraising and expenditures are solely for the purpose of testing the waters,” Svoboda said. “But your expenditures must eventually be disclosed if you run. And they must be solely be about the decision to run or not. They can’t manifest actual candidacy.” 

“Testing the waters” means gauging support, not soliciting it. But Mychajliw appears to have spent money doing both — and well in excess of $5,000.

The fact that some of that money came from corporations – something not allowed in federal races – means that Mychajliw, the “swamp drainer” can’t even run this campaign in an uncorrupt fashion.

The people of NY-27 have been victimized by an unresponsive and predatory Republican for almost 10 years. Now four (maybe five if you count the late-coming Trump apparatchik no one’s heard of), candidates vie for approval from a President who is more the head of a crime syndicate than an administration. They each of them look to raise their profile in a region where the Republican Party has found itself with something of a weak bench. 

The efforts of Ortt, Parlato, Mychajliw, and Jacobs to trip over each other in their fear-mongering veneration and worship of Trump and Trumpism leaves an opening for the Democrat Nate McMurray to simply say to the district voters: I will go to Washington and work for you, the people. You will be my bosses and no one else.

That is, after all and at long last, what this should be about.

A Letter Regarding the Sentencing of Convict Chris Collins

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convict

Hon. Vernon S. Broderick
United States District Judge
United States District Court
Southern District of New York
Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse
40 Foley Square
New York, NY 10007

Re:      U.S. v. Christopher C. Collins
            18 Cr. 567                             

Dear Judge Broderick:

I write to you as a former constituent of Christopher Collins, the Defendant in the above-referenced matter. I am an attorney duly licensed in the State of New York and am also admitted to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

I have also been a political commentator in western New York area since 2003. During that time and in that role, I observed and chronicled this Defendant’s tenure in public office – first as Erie County Executive, and later as the Congressman for the 27th District of New York.

Recent media reports indicate that probation recommends a one year and one day prison sentence for the Defendant. I believe that this is woefully inadequate and wholly disproportionate to the crimes of which he stands convicted involving fraud and dishonesty.

There exists a certainty that the Defendant, who is also a successful businessman and investor, knew exactly what he was doing when he transmitted material, nonpublic information concerning Innate Immunotherapeutics’ MIS416 drug trial to his family, friends, and colleagues.  There exists a similar certainty that he knew or should have known that his behavior was wrong and illegal at that time.

Respectfully, this Defendant has always comported himself in his public affairs with hubris and arrogance. He quite simply saw himself as above the law, laced with condescension, self-promotion, and self-aggrandizement.  

The Defendant took an oath of office pursuant to 5 U.S.C. §3331, which he disregarded through his fraud, theft, and deceit; but this Defendant regularly politicized his long-time affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America – an organization that also has both an oath and a foundational law to which this Defendant purported to adhere. The Scout oath is a promise:

On my honor, I will do my best

To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;

To help other people at all times;

To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

Defendant Collins has violated this most basic, boyhood promise to do his best to do his duty to his country. He has violated the law through lying, fraud, and deceit. He did so knowingly in order to unjustly enrich members of his inner circle at the expense of other, honest investors. Rather than “help other people at all times,” this Defendant has gone out of his way – throughout his political career – to comfort the comfortable and further to afflict the already afflicted, by advocating for policies and laws that would help to enrich wealthy people like him, and punish the poor and underprivileged.

His tenure in office hardly justifies any paeans to “public service”. He was there for a political career that could help him and people like him – the wealthy and well-connected. His fraud and deceit is hardly evidence of being mentally awake or morally straight. He cannot follow the law of the Boy Scouts, much less the United States.

The Scout Law demands that a person be Trustworthy; Loyal; Helpful; Friendly; Courteous; Kind; Obedient; Cheerful; Thrifty; Brave; Clean; and Reverent. This Defendant may be loyal to his party and the ultrawealthy like himself, but he was never trustworthy, courteous, or kind in his public affairs. His crimes show that he was not obedient. His demeanor was seldom cheerful. His only bravery took place in order to advance his political career.  

I have seen news reports that this Defendant is of “advanced age” and that he accepts responsibility for his crimes. He is 69 years old and of sound mind and body, not some feeble octogenarian. He has accepted responsibility pro forma, but shows no remorse for his crimes. Instead, he is sad for the effect they have had on his and his family’s reputations. He is sorry only that he was caught.

At the time he took his plea, he acknowledged that he knew that what he did was “illegal and improper,” yet he spent months claiming exactly the opposite. He claimed to be “sorry with regret,” but that had not stopped him from spending the period between August 2018 and 2019 predicting imminent and full exoneration. What sort of person knowingly exposes his own child to criminal jeopardy?

When confronted through this process with his criminality, this Defendant did not come clean or confess. He ran for re-election. He claimed total innocence. He spent months denying culpability and defaming anyone who suggested otherwise, including his political opponents. Not one act or omission of this Defendant’s was indicative of any acknowledgment of personal responsibility or contrition.

This Defendant’s attorneys are quoted in news reports as arguing that society will “gain no benefit” from incarcerating this “husband, father, and grandfather.” Then what of these crimes? In what way is home detention at a luxury Florida estate a deterrent to others who might engage in similar criminality?

The convicted Defendant did not serve me as Congressman with dignity or honor. His first instinct was not to obey the law, but to enrich his family, friends, and other “downstream tipees”, most of whom have somehow, miraculously, avoided legal responsibility for their own knowing criminality. This Defendant was never looking out for the people he was elected to serve. He was only looking out for his own wallet and to expand the reach and scope of his political influence.

Shame and humiliation should come naturally in a situation such as this. That is an emotional and mental process involving some degree of self-awareness and conscience. It is not enough that this Defendant feel merely shame and be confined to his mansion. This honorable Court must use this high-profile criminal as an example to others and uphold the law this Defendant so cavalierly ignored.

This Defendant’s fall is no surprise – it is what comes from such a conspicuous absence of morality and scruples. I spent years chronicling the ways in which he cheated and mistreated the most vulnerable people in western New York. I wrote of his petty arrogance – from misogynistic remarks he made to women, and illegally parking in a spot reserved for the disabled. He would attempt to disregard legislative vetoes as “null and void,” as if he was some sort of dictator. He would refuse to spend money that the legislature had duly allocated. He held private business meetings in his publicly funded office, and worked hard to ensure that people could not get the health insurance they need to survive. He played endless political games to grow his influence.

This Defendant knew he was guilty at the time of his indictment. He should have resigned immediately – that would have been the honorable and “morally straight” thing to do. Instead, he used his continued tenure in Congress as a bargaining chip – as leverage in this very case. He is – and will always be – a crook and a liar. He stole not only from the honest investors in Innate, but from the people in the 27th district who expect and are entitled to honest representation.

I urge this honorable Court to sentence this Defendant to the maximum possible sentence available under federal guidelines.

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