Category: Uncategorized

Later today, Representative Chris Collins (NY-27) is expected to introduce something called the “Second Amendment Guarantee Act”, or “SAGA”. He intends for this legislation – if passed – to repeal key parts of the New York SAFE Act. According to a press release, SAGA would, “limit the authority of states to regulate conduct, or impose penalties or taxes in relation to rifles or shotguns.”

The Federal 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the NY SAFE Act is Constitutional, and the Supreme Court refused to undertake a review of that decision, tacitly upholding it. 

Collins’ proposed legislation only applies to long guns, not to handguns. It would also expressly reserve for Washington the sole ability to regulate and tax long guns. This might work now for Mr. Collins and his gun-toting base in his largely rural district, but query what happens if Congress were to flip from Republican control and pass restrictions on long guns even stricter than the SAFE Act. Under this proposal, Collins’ top-down, big government, Washington one-size-fits-all solution for gun regulation might not go over so well. 

Just as the 1st Amendment is not absolute – restrictions on libel, obscenity, and inciting a riot are examples of restrictions on speech – neither is the 2nd. There are as many sets of laws and restrictions on gun ownership in the United States as there are states. In some cases, individual municipalities have their own restrictions, such as New York City’s stringent handgun laws. Furthermore, individual states have long maintained their own firearms regulations. After all, what works in Wyoming might not work in Rhode Island. 

It is odd here that a Republican Congressman is introducing legislation that usurps from the states their power to regulate, and hands it to the federal government. After all, conservatives have long agitated for government power to be exercised, whenever possible, not by Washington, but by state and local governments.  Their stated intent is to preserve the intent of our federal system and to comply with the 10th Amendment. Collins’ proposal effects that very usurpation, ripping power from the states and handing it to Washington lawmakers and bureaucrats. After all, 

…as Judge Frank Easterbrook of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit explained in the Highland Park case, the Constitution not only guarantees rights, but also “establishes a federal republic where local differences are cherished as elements of liberty, rather than eliminated in a search for national uniformity.”

Maybe the polling reveals that Trump isn’t so popular and Collins’ relentless cable TV appearances to defend whatever the President does may not play so well. Given the way in which a Collins aide shared the news of this proposal on Twitter, it would appear that this will go nowhere, and is merely an appeal to his base, as Mr. Collins evidently can’t wait to run for governor. 

If the Trump family are the Bluths, Donald, Jr. is Gob. 

The New York Times obtained an email string from early June 2016 in which an intermediary contacted Junior to set up a meeting with Russian “government” operatives who supposedly had dirt on Hillary Clinton. The meeting was to be with Putin/Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, whose primary brief has been to push for repeal of the Magnitsky Act. Magnitsky was a lawyer whom Putin harassed before having murdered, and Congress passed the law to deny visas to – and freeze assets of – Putin cronies. In retaliation, Putin blocked Americans from adopting Russian orphans. This was set up by an Azerbaijani pop star, “Emin”, and his manager, Rob Goldstone.

When people tell you this is about “adoptions”, it’s not. It’s about sanctions that Congress passed that are specifically targeted at evil Russian malefactors. 

Some in the American intelligence community think this meeting was a “dangle” by the Russians – an effort to sniff out how receptive the Trump people would be to meddling. Quite receptive indeed, it turns out. Go look at Goldstone’s emails again – he seemingly goes out of his way to identify these people as Russian government agents who are part of an official Russian government effort to help Trump. 

Emin’s father is a Putin stooge and big-time developer in Russia. Goldstone was involved in Trump’s production of the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, and that interconnection led to this, which may arguably be even uglier than collusion to fix an election: 

In response to the first Times article, Don, Jr. issued this statement, written on Air Force One en route home from the G20 in Hamburg and signed-off on by the President: 

It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.

The the New York Times reported that the meeting was set up to get Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton, Junior said: 

After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.

Later, after the Times reported that Trump, Jr. was told it was part of a Russian government effort to help the Trump campaign, Junior tried to pass it all off as just a regular guy getting some opposition research from a friendly source. 

Obviously I’m the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent… went nowhere but had to listen. https://t.co/ccUjL1KDEa

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 10, 2017

When the Times contacted Donald, Jr. to let him know it had the emails themselves, her released them on Twitter and wrote, 

To put this in context, this occurred before the current Russian fever was in vogue.

The Washington Post characterizes Donald, Jr.’s changing stories thusly: 

• I never represented the campaign in a meeting with a Russian.
• Actually, I did, but the meeting was about adoption.
• Well, the pretext of the meeting was incriminating information about Clinton, but we didn’t actually get any.
• This kind of meeting is totally normal.
• The meeting didn’t seem like such a bad idea at the time because the media wasn’t focused on Russia yet.

What the email string shows quite clearly is that when approached by a middleman peddling Russian government intelligence on Hillary Clinton, Donald, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner reacted enthusiastically and acted fleetly. The issue is – what happened next? Because the timeline of what happened after that June 9 meeting with Veselnitskaya – a person who frankly had no business being in the country in the first place – a lot of interesting things happened.

Two days before the meeting, Trump gave a speech promising to give a “major speech” about Hillary Clinton’s “crimes” on June 13th. 

I am going to give a major speech on … probably Monday [June 13th] of next week and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. I think you’re going to find it very informative and very, very interesting.

After Veselnitskaya’s visit to Trump Tower, it was as if a dam had burst. Literally within the hour after the June 9th meeting, Trump tweeted his first reference to Hillary’s “missing” “33,000 emails” – he had never said that before, but said it almost daily since. This jibes perfectly with the allegations in the Steele Dossier about Russia peddling supposed intelligence on Clinton to Trump’s campaign. After those in the Trump orbit spent a year falsely denying any communication – much less collusion or coordination – during the 2016 election, and after Donald, Jr. changed his story three or four times on this June 9th meeting, what rational person would believe that the meeting was a “nothingburger”, or inconsequential? Even Trump, Jr. admits that the meeting was set up so he could obtain secret Russian kompromat on Hillary Clinton, but that Veselnitskaya instead talked of “adoptions”. Even taking that at face value, the kompromat was the quid pro quo for weakening or repeal of the Magnistky Act. 

Even Grover’s sells “nothingburgers” smaller than this June 9th meeting. The circumstances surrounding the aftermath of that meeting reveal that much more was likely discussed and agreed-upon. 

Within days, Julian Assange crowed that Wikileaks would be publishing things about Hillary Clinton. A few days later, the news broke that the DNC’s computer network had been hacked by Russian operatives, and “Guccifer 2.0”, took credit. The US Intelligence community has identified Guccifer 2.0 as a fictional construct created by Russia’s GRU and FSB. Three weeks after the meeting, DCLeaks published the first hacked DNC emails. Within a few days after the meeting with Veselnitskaya, membership in the /r/the_donald subreddit spiked larger than at any time before or since. 

I wrote about it as early as July of last year. 

By mid-July, the Trump campaign, led by Paul Manafort, worked to remove language from the Republican platform that called for military aid to Ukraine to counter Russian military hostility. Days later, Wikileaks released thousands of DNC emails. On July 27th, Trump said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the 33,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” A few weeks later, Roger Stone told a Republican apparatchik, “I actually have communicated with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation but there’s no telling what the October surprise may be.”

On August 21st, Stone tweeted, “Trust me, it will soon [sic] the Podesta’s time in the barrel.” On October 7th, a “Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence” formally accuses Russia of hacking the DNC to “interfere with the US election process”, the Access Hollywood pussy grabbing tape is released, and within one hour, Wikileaks has published the first of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s private emails, which continued to be released in daily dribs and drabs until election day for maximum anti-Clinton impact. On October 12, Stone confirms that he communicated with Assange through an intermediary, who is now thought to be former UKIP chief Nigel Farage. 

After the election, President Obama applied some targeted sanctions against Russia for its interference in our electoral process, and Russia threatened retaliation before now-disgraced Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn intervened. 

The Trump people are now saying it was a rookie mistake. Here’s why that’s a bullshit cop-out: not a lot of people ever work on more than one Presidential campaign; they’re all pretty much rookies at that level. 

They’re trying to say that everyone collects opposition research, and this was no different. Except it is different for this reason: opposition research is stuff that is “researched”; i.e., you hit Lexis and find articles, you check clerk’s websites and court dockets. You talk to associates and enemies of the target. It is completely different – and not routine “opposition research” to be approached by people identifying themselves as representatives of a hostile dictatorship who purport to have compiled a secret intelligence dossier on your opponent. Donald, Jr. knew exactly who these people purported to be, and what they were offering. His response? “If it’s what you say, I love it. Especially later in the summer”. 

The last round of talking points referred to the June 9th meeting as a “nothingburger”. But they’ve been saying that all along – not just about this meeting, which is only now coming to light, but about the entirety of the Russian hacking, disinformation, and other active measures interference with the 2016 election. Trump repeatedly calls it “fake news”, and tweets out warnings about not believing stuff that’s attributed to anonymous sources hours before yet another damning report is published about his campaign’s ties with Russian agents. 

Wikileaks is one of the glues that bonds this whole sordid affair together. Julian Assange and his website long ago transformed into anti-American, anti-Western, anti-democratic pawns of the Putinist regime. Yet he claims to have an open communications channel with the Trump family. 

“But…but the Democrats colluded with Ukraine“.  This is an old Russian propaganda tactic called “whataboutism” – e.g., during Soviet times, if an American complained about the repression of free speech or dissent, the Russian would not address the complaint, but instead point out something that happened in the US, such as lynchings.

A few things: 1. Ukraine isn’t a nation hostile to the United States; 2. Ukraine is a nation that has been the victim of Russian theft of the entire Crimean peninsula, and years’ worth of war along its eastern frontier; 3. Ukraine has been on the front lines against Putinism for years; 4. Manafort had worked extensively in Ukraine, working for the Putinist quislings. A Democratic strategist researched this in Ukraine to find out what she could about Manafort’s dealings there.

At no time was there an operation run out of Kyiv by Ukrainian governmental operatives or intelligence.  The evidence that Manafort was paid over ten million dollars to elect Putinists in Ukraine was leaked by a Ukrainian parliamentarian in the Ukrainian press.  It’s not even in the same solar system as what Trump’s campaign is alleged to have done with Russia, even based on the scant public evidence available now. 

They had a good thing going, relentlessly denying that they solicited or obtained any help from Russian government agents. Until Gob Bluth Don, Jr. tweeted out the first bit of incriminating evidence. 

Come on. 

Last week before the G20 summit in Hamburg, President Trump gave a speech in Poland that seemingly recast American ideals, and our role in the world. Trump’s Stephen Miller/Steve Bannon-fed Weltanschauung eschews the optimism and idealism of democracy and liberty in favor of something more exclusionary, authoritarian, and sinister. Trumpism isn’t so much about freedom, but about a “West” where hatred and fear fuel an epic clash of civilizations, which can only be won through sheer force of will. 

ISIS, al Qaeda, and other jihadist terrorist organizations themselves couldn’t have written a better third act. This is exactly what they want. 

James Fallows writes in the Atlantic, comparing past Presidents’ rhetoric with Trump’s. Reagan, Carter, Bush, and Obama all spoke of the idea – and ideals – of America, and how the postwar expansion of pluralist democracy throughout western Europe united us as people who aspire – almost as one – to liberty and equality. If you look at the world wars that laid waste to Europe’s humanity and property twice in the first half of the last century, America and her ideals came in to help rebuild the countries that wanted it, and to protect them from the competing ideology of expansionist Stalinist oppression. 

America is an immigrant nation. We aren’t brought together by blood, race, ethnicity, or religion, but by the law and ideas. Europe is different. Generally speaking, European national boundaries are – more or less – drawn around an ethnicity, with nationality intertwined with statehood. The history of multiethnic European states is about hereditary monarchy, oppression, ownership, and submission. The notion of national self-determination was popularized after WWI, although not applied with care. Since at least the end of the cold war, however, Czechs, Croats, Serbs, and Slovaks have their own nation-states. Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo. The French live in France. The Portuguese live in Portugal. The Norwegians live in Norway. The Italians live in Italy. These states aren’t just political constructs, but have their own shared language, ethnicity, and – in many cases – religion. Some have monarchs, but all have pluralist democracies of one sort or another.

Historians believe that the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy is due, in part, to the fact that those countries were late to unite under one flag. Germany only united its various principalities and city-states to become a nation-state in the mid-19th century. Italy followed a similar timeline. The idea of being “Italian” or “German” was relatively new in the 1920s and 30s, so totalitarian ultra-nationalism became a popular and viable choice, especially as a reaction to the rise of the Soviet Union. 

America is a nation united by our laws and ideals. We pledge allegiance to a flag – not a person. Our elected officials pledge to uphold the Constitution, not to do the will of some potentate. Anyone can be an American, regardless of their nationality.

As Fallows writes, 

When John F. Kennedy gave his celebrated remarks in Berlin a few months before his death, he presented both the United States and free West Berlin as proud illustrations of a larger idea: “Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was ‘civis Romanus sum.’ Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’” (You can read the text of the speech, and see a video of its still-remarkable five-minute entirety, here.)

Nearly 25 years later, when Ronald Reagan went to the Berlin Wall, he gave a speech that became famous for its rhetorical plea, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” But the surrounding tone was like Kennedy’s.

There’s been a change since January. 

But the major departure in Trump’s speech was its seeming indifference to the American idea. At least when speaking to the world, American presidents have emphasized an expanded “us.” All men are created equal. Every man is a German. Ich bin ein Berliner. Our realities in America have always been flawed, but our idea is in principle limitless. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Trump gave grace-note nods to goals of liberty and free expression. Mainly, though, he spoke not about an expanded us but instead about us and them. He spoke repeatedly about our “heritage,” our “blood,” our “civilization,” our “ancestors” and “families,” our “will” and “way of life.” Every one of these of course has perfectly noble connotations. But combined and in practice, they amount to the way the Japanese nationalists of the early 20th century onward spoke, about the purity of “we Japanese” and the need to stick together as a tribe. They were the way Mussolini spoke, glorifying the Roman heritage—but again in a tribal sense, to elevate 20th-century Italians as a group, rather than in John F. Kennedy’s allusion to a system of rules that could include outsiders as civis romanus as well. They are the way French nationalists supporting Marine LePen speak now, and Nigel Farage’s pro-Brexit forces in the U.K., and “alt-right” activists in the United States, and of course the Breitbart empire under presidential counselor Steve Bannon. They rest on basic distinctions between us and them as peoples—that is, as tribes—rather than as the contending ideas and systems that presidents from our first to our 44th had emphasized.

Here is the theme of Trumpism, from his speech in Warsaw: 

We have to remember that our defense is not just a commitment of money, it is a commitment of will. Because as the Polish experience reminds us, the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail and be successful and get what you have to have.

The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?

Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail. Our people will thrive. And our civilization will triumph.

This clash of civilizations isn’t about freedom vs. totalitarianism or liberty vs. communism. It’s about the triumph of the will against the savages. This is Bannon’s and Miller’s America – what they see as the last bastion of white Judeo-Christian – but mostly Christian – people against the atheist socialist libtards and the brown Muslim people who would destroy it. It’s not even nationalism so much as it is tribalism.

Whatever best distracts from, e.g., ripping health coverage away from 22 million Americans, I guess. 

Poland is, indeed, one of America’s closest European allies. A member of NATO and the European Union, Poland sees America as a bulwark against the constant threat from the east. It was America that supported the Solidarity trade union against Soviet-compelled martial law. It was America that helped Poland’s transition from failed communist planned economy and one-party totalitarianism to regulated free markets and pluralist democracy. 

In recent years, however, Poland has been governed by a right-wing nationalist party that doesn’t necessarily abide the freedoms that come along with the American ideal. The press has been harassed and suppressed, and the “Law and Justice Party” is emblematic of the backlash against liberalism that has popped up in Europe since the 2008 global financial meltdown. Trumpism reflects what the Poles and Hungarians will abide, but the French recently rejected. 

What hasn’t gone unnoticed in the Israeli press, for instance, is Trump’s historic refusal to visit Warsaw’s memorial to the Ghetto Uprising. Polish Jewish leaders specifically condemned this as a “slight”. 

…ever since the fall of Communism in 1989, all U.S. presidents and vice presidents visiting Warsaw had made a point of visiting” that site,  representing Americans “who had played such a central role in bringing down Fascism,” at a “universal commemoration of the victims of the Shoah, and condemnation of its perpetrators.”

Ivanka went, and placed a wreath at the memorial, but her father didn’t. The “Law and Justice” party thereby scored a win, according to Politico. 

The Law and Justice party has been highlighting the role of the Poles who fought against Nazi Germany while downplaying the persecution of 3 million Polish Jews who perished in the Holocaust. After all, if you believe in blood and soil, and you call for the will to triumph against the savages, you have to keep up appearances. 

In the days following this re-configuration of “Western” ideals, Trump held a pathetic love-in with murderous dictator Vladimir Putin in Hamburg, and the news came of the first concrete evidence of possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia in 2016, or at least a willingness to collude. 

On June 9, 2016, Donald Trump, Jr. met with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Kremlin-linked lawyer, who promised harmful intel on the Clinton campaign. He attended that meeting at the urging of a mutual friend, alongside campaign chief Paul Manafort and his brother-in-law, Jared Kushner. The meeting, according to Trump, Jr., soon turned to issues surrounding adoption and the Magnitsky Act. After the Act was enacted, Russia blocked all American adoptions of Russian orphans. You can read more about what the Magnitsky Act was, and what it was a reaction to, here. 

What can be easily inferred from Trump, Jr.’s own releases is that the meeting at Trump Tower on June 9th was to set up the parameters of a quid-pro-quo whereby Russia would provide anti-Clinton intel to Trump (or Wikileaks) in exchange for a reversal of the Magnitsky Act.  It was, perhaps not coincidentally, later on June 9th that Trump first Tweeted about Hillary Clinton’s “33,000 emails”. After all, the email he received to set up the meeting specifically informed him that it was part of a Russian government effort to help his father; he took the meeting. Trump, Jr. has since lawyered up, retaining a guy who specializes in defending a different kind of don. 

The first page of the Steele Dossier – dated June 20, 2016 – which contains raw intelligence concerning alleged ties between Trump and the Russian regime reads, 

[Trump] and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.” 

Richard Painter, who served as an ethics counsel for George W. Bush, says that this is all getting very close to treason, 

This was an effort to get opposition research on an opponent in an American political campaign from the Russians, who were known to be engaged in spying inside the United States…If this story is true, we’d have one of them if not both of them in custody by now, and we’d be asking them a lot of questions…This is unacceptable. This borders on treason, if it is not itself treason.

It bears mentioning that when someone leaked Bush’s debate prep materials to the Gore campaign, Gore’s debate advisor called the FBI. By contrast, when a Kremlin lawyer offered negative intel on the Clinton campaign to Donald Trump’s campaign, Trump’s people took the meeting and kept it secret until very recently. 

Day by day, it grows clearer that the Trumps are more Bluth than Gotti. 

All of this raises a serious question: what does Trump think the West stands for, exactly? Which values & civilization is he talking about? How does his dalliance with Putin advance either one? 

Certain rabidly pro-Trump commentators recently began shifting the Trump/Russia narrative from flat-out denial and rejection to, paraphrasing, “so what if he did, it’s not illegal“.

Cue the Ron Howard voice-over: “it is.”

Yesterday, the reliably conservative Wall Street Journal reported on the first concrete proof that elements in the Trump campaign solicited assistance from Russian hackers – notably in this case to try and hack and reveal the “missing” messages from Hillary Clinton’s private email server. 

Before the 2016 presidential election, a longtime Republican opposition researcher mounted an independent campaign to obtain emails he believed were stolen from Hillary Clinton’s private server, likely by Russian hackers.

In conversations with members of his circle and with others he tried to recruit to help him, the GOP operative, Peter W. Smith, implied he was working with retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, at the time a senior adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump.

“He said, ‘I’m talking to Michael Flynn about this—if you find anything, can you let me know?’” said Eric York, a computer-security expert from Atlanta who searched hacker forums on Mr. Smith’s behalf for people who might have access to the emails.

Whatever you think about the Russian hacking of the DNC and John Podesta, it remains a fact that Vladimir Putin ordered his intelligence services to interfere in our electoral process in order to sow discord and distrust in our system. Circumstantial evidence – Roger Stone’s “perfectly legal back channel” to Wikileaks, Trump begging Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel” [sic] – all point to Trump campaign operatives having intimate prior knowledge of the Russian hacking effort in order to gain electoral advantage against Hillary Clinton. They were seemingly happy for the Russian help.

Even Donald Trump finally acknowledged the Russian meddling, because it offered him an opportunity to blame President Obama for 

These tweets were in direct response to this blockbuster article from the Washington Post, which outlined the Obama Administration’s reaction to Russian hacking. Trump is wrong, of course. President Obama took the hacking very seriously, and was balancing his reaction against a desire to not be perceived as interfering in the election himself. He warned Putin in person about what he was doing, kicked out 35 Russian diplomats, closed two of their “diplomatic” spy compounds, imposed sanctions targeted against Russian foreign intelligence, and tried to warn and help state election boards, but the reaction from Republican state and DC officials ranged from shrugging to hostility. 

One thing is for sure – there is going to be a lot more evidence not only of Russian meddling, but I have no doubt that bad actors involved in the Trump campaign knew and conspired with the Russians and Wikileaks to help Trump. 

And if that didn’t upset you quite enough, then consider this interesting opinion from Fox’s Bill O’Reilly replacement, Republican WASP elitist caricature Tucker Carlson, 

#Tucker: Why does America benefit from having tons of people from failing countries come here? @FoxNews

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 30, 2017

The responses, which detail the sacrifices and hard work of America’s immigrants, are fantastic. 

ACT I

Interior, office boardroom

The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority will charge $3.50 for each pickup or drop-off, a cost that will be passed on to riders…Other airports across the country have enacted similar fees for ride-hailing services.

“The fee is imposed to develop revenue for support of the airport system, preserve revenue and to compensate the NFTA for its operational costs (repair and wear and tear on the roads, maintenance, plowing, etc.) resulting from the usage of [Transportation Network Companies] driver vehicles on airport property.”

The NFTA will also charge ride-hailing companies a $5,000 “permit fee.”

Act II

County offices

This is completely ridiculous! The NFTA continues to be out of touch with the needs of our community. Pure Greed!https://t.co/nEXkRJ5n8D

— Joseph Lorigo (@JosephLorigo) June 22, 2017

The misguided philosophy of money grubbing, unelected bureaucrats to tax anything that moves must stop. #uber #lyft https://t.co/ul8dSza3RP pic.twitter.com/fGCB9t0qih

— Stefan Mychajliw (@StefanMychajliw) June 23, 2017

ACT III

The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority has reached separate deals with Uber and Lyft, which will allow both ride-hailing services to pick up and drop off passengers traveling to and from the Buffalo Niagara International Airport and the Niagara Falls International Airport.

“Thank you to the NFTA for coming to the table and reaching an agreement that best serves the people of Buffalo,” Sarfraz Maredia, general manager for Uber NY, said in a statement Friday…

“Thanks to this agreement, Buffalo’s visitors will be able to arrive at their destinations more easily than ever, while helping to support the Buffalo economy and improve safety on the road,” said [Kirk Stafford, senior manager of airports and venues at Lyft].

EPILOGUE

The offices of Everyone Relax, Ltd.

 

Buffalo Airport Taxi, the company with the exclusive rights to pick up passengers at the airport in Cheektowaga, pays a few cents for every passenger who disembarks a plane under the terms of a five-year contract. The agreement, which runs through the end of 2018, charged Buffalo Airport Taxi 3 cents per deplanement in 2014, a rate that will keep increasing until the charge reaches 4 cents per deplanement in 2018, according to a contract summary provided by the authority.

Those fees, in addition to a yearly base fee, led the taxi company – also known as the Independent Taxi Association – to pay the NFTA $630,829 last year alone.

The base rate for the Buffalo Airport Taxi contract in 2014 was $500,000 and will be $600,000 in 2018, according to the NFTA.

FIN

Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through. 

Gabrielle Giffords was a congresswoman from Arizona from 2007 to 2012. On January 8, 2011, Giffords held a “Congress on your Corner” at a supermarket in Tucson, where she was meeting with constituents. Suddenly, an well-armed lunatic shot 19 people, killing six, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl.

See what a rent the envious Casca made.

Giffords was severely injured as one of the bullets entered the front of her head and exited the rear. She has undergone rehabilitation since then to regain her ability to move, speak, and write, and has become a proponent of common-sense gun control legislation so that others don’t have to endure what she did—others like Congressman Steve Scalise, who now recuperates in hospital after being gravely injured by another well-armed lunatic just last week. 

Through this the well-belovèd Brutus stabbed. 

Locally, right-wing commentators and politicians have attempted to blame Democrats for the Alexandria shooting that injured Scalise and others. The gunman was revealed to be a progressive supporter of Bernie Sanders and a vehement opponent of President Trump. The problem with the “violent Democrat” meme is that no Democrats, mainstream or fringe, have called for any sort of violence against anyone. Clumsy attempts to equate the “Antifa” black bloc movement with, say, Hillary Clinton are downright laughable. No violent anarchists were big supporters of the woman that even Bernie supporters derided as a “neoliberal shill.” If it were up to Democrats, Scalise’s shooter never should have been able to obtain a concealed carry permit, and even his ability to buy any firearm would have been restricted. After all, Scalise’s assailant has a well-documented history of domestic violence, one of the markers for mass shootings. 

And as he plucked his cursèd steel away, 

It is utterly contemptible and disgusting for anyone to shoot and kill any innocent victim without provocation. There ought to be no safe space in our society for mass shootings in general or attempted political assassinations in particular. No political party is immune from homicidal lunatics, and people who wish or effect physical harm on political opponents should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Yet just last week, Representative Chris Collins blamed Democrats for the Alexandria attack, before anyone knew anything about the shooter’s affinity for Bernie Sanders. He later recanted that accusation and apologized, and now pairs his calls for civility with a concealed handgun. Yet just a week earlier, he referred to Governor Andrew Cuomo thusly, “He’s a thug. He’s a bully. He’s an extortionist. He’s a blackmailer. He wants all the authority.” I’m sure it’s not the first time our Italian-American governor was condemned with language reserved for the mob or Mussolini, but it’s notable that a Congressman thought it ok. 

Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it, 

And when performing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, throwing in a contemporary spin and showing the betrayal and assassination of a Donald Trump character today—or, in 2012, a Barack Obama lookalike—isn’t the outrage you’re being told it is. Julius Caesar is not a play that extols the virtues of political assassination. That fact becomes evident literally minutes after the conspirators murder Caesar. 

As rushing out of doors, to be resolved 

For the sake of civility, I will take the American right’s concern about tone at face value, and not more cynically as a way to exploit a tragedy for political gain. But in order to take this seriously, the right wing have to take a good, long look in the mirror and actually confront what they’ve done and condoned over the last nine years. President Obama was not, as the current President claimed, a secret Kenyan Muslim who literally founded ISIS. Tea partiers routinely referred to President Obama as an African witch-doctor, or an ape, or a traitor to be hanged, or a dictator not dissimilar from Stalin or Hitler. Google it. While this newfound concern about tone and how propaganda can lead to violence is welcome, it’s come dramatically too late. It’s as if John Salvi never shot up a Brookline Planned Parenthood clinic, or James Kopp never shot Dr. Barnett Slepian in Amherst, or Eric Rudolph never set off a bomb at the 1996 Olympics. Tell it to the family of Richard Collins, III, or the brave passengers on a train who were stabbed to death after confronting a white supremacist harassing a Muslim girl. The ascent of Donald Trump has emboldened the violent right fringe. 

It’s almost as if a member of the Buffalo school board never wrote in a New Year’s Eve article that President Obama and Valerie Jarrett should be murdered, and that Michelle Obama was a male Zimbabwean ape. 

Before you accuse me of whataboutism or tu quoque, understand that I don’t think dehumanizing your political opponents is ever appropriate. By portraying the other side as something not human, or as an illegal usurper – whether it’s George W. Bush or Barack Obama – you give well-armed homicidal cretins an excuse to commit mass murder. If you believe that Obama isn’t a human or founded a nihilist terrorist group, then that’s one less thing stopping some ignorant loner with a rifle from shooting not just the politician, but any of his supporters whom he might encounter. Democrats made this point continually during the tea party protests, and Republicans guffawed at the suggestion that hateful speech could lead to violent action. Now, suddenly, they’ve dramatically changed their tune about tone – even Michigan’s favorite no-hit wonder, Ted Nugent now says he regrets calling President Obama a “subhuman mongrel” who should “suck on [his] machine gun” before being “tried for treason and hung.” Newly minted Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte has also found the word “civility” in his dictionary, just a few short weeks after he beat the shit out of a reporter fro the Guardian who had the nerve to ask him a question about health care. 

So, as we consider tone and civility, consider this, from a man recently convicted of election fraud and his pals, discussing a woman who lost part of her brain in public service. 

If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no. 

Rus Thompson, incidentally, appeared this past weekend on a radio show on WBEN alongside David DiPietro, a sitting Assemblyman. 

Take a look, if you can get past the misspellings – or mistaking Gabby Giffords for NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. In describing the naming of a Navy ship for the wife of a Navy pilot and instructor who took a bullet through the brain while meeting with the people she served, at least two people thought it clever to refer to Ms. Giffords as, “brain dead” and that the ship would have “no guns” and “only turn left”, and that it would likely be nicknamed the, “grey matter splatter”. Only one person had the morality to challenge this barrage of unmitigated hatred directed at the victim of a horrific crime who served her country with honor and courage. 

If you want to lecture people about tone, first make sure your own hands are clean. 

This was the most unkindest cut of all. 

 

While former FBI Director James Comey was testifying about what a repugnant liar Donald Trump is, the remainder of the Senate was working feverishly to ram through a repeal of Obamacare and replace it with Trumpcare. Congress will effectively take away health insurance coverage from about 23 million people. 

The Republican Congress will ensure that health care is taken away from its constituents in silence and under cover of night or diversion. The replacement will be garbage. 

As Mr. Comey explained that he leaked information about his conversation with the President, the right wing howled. But Trump had already “leaked” details of those conversations in the letter firing Comey. In any event, at the time, Comey was a private citizen describing non-classified, non-privileged information. After all, the other person in that conversation had already revealed details from them in an open setting. Lordy, I hope there are tapes. 

As Mr. Comey detailed how President Trump pressed him to drop the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael “Lock her Up” Flynn, Republicans whined that Mr. Trump was too ignorant to realize that he was obstructing justice or violating the FBI’s independence. 

While Republicans claimed in sound bites and memes that Comey finally put the Russia collusion allegation to bed, they must have not been paying attention. 

COTTON: Let’s turn our attention to the underlying activity at issue here. Russia’s hacking of those e-mails and the allegation of collusion. Do you think Donald Trump colluded with Russia?

COMEY: That’s a question I don’t think I should answer in an opening setting. As I said, when I left, we did not have an investigation focused on President Trump. But that’s a question that will be answered by the investigation, I think.

I wouldn’t put down those Matryoshkas just yet, comrades. Trump fired Comey on May 9th, soon after Comey refused to pledge his personal loyalty oath to the President and to drop the Flynn investigation. 

In the wake of the 2008 global financial meltdown, Congress decided to pass legislation that would help prevent a recurrence. The Republican House voted to repeal that bipartisan law – Dodd Frank – while you were watching James Comey give his powerful testimony. Part of Dodd Frank involved protecting consumers. For some reason, that is anathema to Congress nowadays. 

While your Republican friends are wrongly claiming that Trump has been vindicated, Republicans are chugging right along towards rolling back the Medicaid expansion. This expansion ensured that millions of working poor families could obtain health coverage. 

While Washington plunges into a dark age of punitive dysfunction, everyone should be paying very close attention indeed to what just happened in the UK. After almost a decade of austerity and cuts, the Tories lost their majority to a Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn, whose politics are closer to Bernie Sanders than Tony Blair. It was a dramatic and wholly unexpected defeat – Theresa May had called this snap election in order to grow her majority and earn a mandate going into Brexit negotiations. To say that didn’t work out as she intended is a dramatic understatement.

Not only is the Republican-controlled Senate going to ram Trumpcare through while you’re distracted by Comey and Russia, they’re not even going to bother to hold a single hearing on it. 

“Will there be a hearing on the health care proposal?” Senator @clairecmc asked today in the Finance Cmte. You should watch: #Trumpcare pic.twitter.com/rmKB0rGnTM

— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) June 9, 2017

Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill (D) asks a simple question in the Senate Finance Committee – will there be a hearing?

Chairman Orrin Hatch (R) can’t answer and needs to be fed a talking point from a staffer – a talking point that is so glaringly false that McKaskill immediately swats it away for the lie it is. 

That’s the sound of Congress effectively revoking the health coverage of 23 million Americans, and doing so in a fundamentally undemocratic fashion. 

About 13 years ago, I met Amy Maxwell when she headed up “Revitalize Buffalo”, a civic group that sprung out of a series of articles in the Buffalo News that amounted to a Generation X “what’s next” for the region.

She was a tireless worker, organized, strong, smart, but above all, she was relentlessly positive, a great friend, and filled with love. Anyone who knew her, loved her. She was one-of-a-kind; an original. She also wasn’t a self-promoter creating a brand. She was a citizen helping to make her city better, without seeking out accolades or fanfare. 

All of the good thoughts and feelings people now have about Buffalo got a big boost from Amy Maxwell a decade ago.

I had the privilege of working with her through Revitalize Buffalo, and she and I helped keep the SantaLand at Chestnut Ridge Park up and running for two years after county budget cuts eliminated it. She later helped to spearhead a centennial revival of Buffalo’s “Old Home Week“, which has since morphed into Citybration. 

Amy’s death was sudden and unexpected. Buffalo could use a lot more Amy Maxwells, and we should honor her memory.

Visiting hours for Amy will be on today, June 6th from 5-7 pm at Emmanuel United Methodist Church in Lockport, NY. Funeral services will follow at 7pm.

Please keep Amy and her family in your thoughts. 

In 2014, WBEN’s Tom Bauerle made it into the Buffalo News because of a neighborhood disturbance that led to police intervention. At the time, I wrote two pieces (here and here) explaining that I didn’t find the matter especially newsworthy. While Bauerle is a public figure, that doesn’t automatically make everything about him public. There was no arrest, no one swore out a complaint, and the neighbors didn’t seek any sort of protective order or nuisance injunction. I argued at the time that there was little public interest outside, perhaps, a mention in the Amherst Bee‘s police blotter. 

Practically every journalist and blogger disagreed with me—often strenuously. But if any other commentator or journalist had an episode that resulted in a psych evaluation, how is that information regionally newsworthy, if not primarily a massive violation of HIPAA or FOIL privacy rules? When the News followed up on the story, it had moved from Sunday’s A1 to “Life & Arts.” I wrote: 

It didn’t take long for this Page Six gossip column to be relegated to the section where you’ll find the Golden Globes, a psychic, the Buzz, and a plan for an art barge on the Erie Canal. It would seem that the information the News obtained from two unnamed police sources was likely an improper release of private personal information, and cannot be corroborated. 

Just because you don’t like Tom Bauerle isn’t justification for his intimate medical details to be printed in the Buffalo News. 

After that 2014 episode, I have no idea what happened. I don’t know if Bauerle undertook any sort of legal action against the News or the Amherst cops or anyone else. The details from the News‘ article led to howls of derisive laughter at Bauerle for believing he was being spied on by invisible men in trees who have magical shoes that don’t leave footprints in the snow. It’s funny stuff, but I’m not always so sure it’s that funny.  

Earlier this week, I was alerted to this article that Bauerle wrote for the Canada Free Press, a site replete with conspiracy theories masquerading as “news,” not dissimilar from WND and Infowars. (Query whether Entercom is thrilled with its talent publishing content to other sites.) The article is one-third a regurgitation of a previous article published about Bauerle, regarding his explanation about the backyard neighborhood spying, one-third a weak legal threat that he’ll sue if you mock him, and one-third an effort to link what he believes happened to him in his backyard to the “deep state” intelligence community’s fisticuffs against Donald Trump. Its premise reads like a Sesame Street/Black Mirror crossover episode. 

To a large degree, the article isn’t so much about cloaking technologies, spying, or the president as much as it is about Tom Bauerle.

It begins with Bauerle establishing his pro-Trump bona fides; he had Trump on his show, Trump invited him to the Buffalo rally, Trump was looking for Bauerle to “hang out” with him. He mentions that his radio show is popular, and that he is putting his job at risk by publishing the article. Trump came on myriad right-wing talk shows in the run-up to the New York primary, and none of this is especially interesting, except insofar as it attempts to thrust Bauerle into Trump’s orbit. 

The article then pivots Donald Trump’s Tweets accusing the Obama administration of “wire tapping” him. Bauerle offers empathy, adding, “President Trump, have your aides briefed you on real-life invisibility technology?” and, “[h]ave your people briefed you on non-linear optics and adaptive camouflage?” This is the subject-matter of this article, whereby Bauerle expounded on what he believes was happening in his backyard that led to the incident about which the Buffalo News wrote in 2014. 

Bauerle goes on to cite unvetted, uncorroborated claims that national alt-right talk radio hosts Michael Savage, Alex Jones, and Sean Hannity have made about supposedly being surveilled. As if the government has the intent or resources to spend huge sums of money to randomly surveil right-wing talk radio dummies using invisibility cloaks. Somehow it’s good right-wing talk marketing to convince your audience of your victimhood. 

As the article proceeds into its sub-headings, it bears mentioning that we don’t yet know what facts or allegations underpin the central theme of the article. We’ve established that Bauerle believes that he was the subject of high-tech surveillance, that other talk radio hosts think they were also spied upon, and that Bauerle likes Trump, and vice-versa. That’s it. 

Under the first sub-heading, “Team Bauerle” broadly regurgitates the claims that Bauerle made about the goings-on around his house in 2014. The second, “Tom Bauerle: Radio’s True Patriot,” recounts Bauerle’s claims to have been the victim of a butt-dial from some DNC staffer, and later by someone from a military contractor. According to this series of February Tweets, however, a woman claiming to be Bauerle’s son’s ex-girlfriend avers it was all a prank (read bottom to top). 

According to Fries, Bauerle’s son found the phone number through Wikileaks and prank-called it. The person then called back, and voila— one of Bauerle’s loved ones has an unexplained incoming call from a 215 area code listed in the Wikileaks DNC email dump. I reached out to Fries via Twitter, but have not heard back. I cannot vet the truth or falsity of what she wrote, only report that she wrote it. 

UPDATE: Mr. Bauerle’s son contacted me via Facebook Messenger to tell me that, “I would just like you to know that your source is false, I just wanted to let you know because not only does it make you look bad when you use fake sources from an x-girlfriend, but it makes journalism look bad. Just wanted you to know so that it doesn’t blow up in your face down the road.” 

Bauerle then offers up a photograph of some backyard foliage and alleges that he invented a way to detect people hiding in it, adding, “and I’ve never even taken a physics class.” One could conclude this, from that “evidence.” It shows nothing. For $300, anyone can buy a FLIR thermal imaging add-on for their iPhone or Android device. Presumably, if there were people in the trees, cloaked or not, they would emit heat that one could pick up on the FLIR device. 

What is also unclear is – why? Why would the agents of an out-of-office president care to spend big bucks using sci-fi technology to spy on the guy who is number 63 on the Talkers Heavy Hundred list? The “Monsters” out of Orlando are number 62; wouldn’t they be a slightly more compelling target? 

We move on to subheader “Persistence,” wherein Bauerle finally connects the dots from what he thinks transpired in his foliage to the President. 

Mr. President, I now believe there is a high probability that those engaged in the harassment of me and several loved ones and friends are operatives of the Shadow Government trying to bring you and your presidency down.
 
The reason I asked CFP to report on what I reasonably believed was a settlement that would be honored with those responsible for the illegal surveillance?

In 2014, when all of this came up in the first place, Bauerle believed that he was the target of surveillance by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Now it’s the “Shadow Government.” At what point did these people move on from state positions to ones with the federal government? To and from what agency? Who are the individuals leading this state and federal effort to “harass” one half of an afternoon drive talk radio show? How large must the budget be for the state and federal shadow authorities to maintain this surveillance and harassment of Bauerle? None of these logical questions are addressed.

The settlements to which he is referring are somewhat broadly mentioned as follows in the earlier article: 

In late Spring 2016, Bauerle reached settlements with the people behind the long-term research operation around his home, and we have the legal documents that prove Bauerle deserves an apology from the Buffalo News, and bloggers who accused him of having a ‘psychotic episode’.

I am that blogger. Laughably enough, I threw out the “psychotic episode” quip to defend him against improper publication of private medical information. I have no idea whether or not he had a psychotic episode, nor do I know whether he was taken in for psychiatric observation, as the Buffalo News reported. (He has since acknowledged that he was.) So, to that end, I apologize for suggesting that he had a “psychotic episode” as defined in medical literature; I should have prefaced it with “alleged” or “apparent.” But that’s not based on any settlement he may have executed with anyone; I haven’t been shown any legal document to establish anything at all. What I know is that Bauerle believes that first Andrew Cuomo and now, apparently, Barack Obama and the “Shadow Government” or “deep state” used secret, advanced technology to surveil him, undetected, on and around his property, and that this also might be happening to the current president. I do not believe any of that to be likely. 

The next section is titled “Butt-dial mystery call from ‘April Melody.'” This recounts the perhaps debunked allegation that one of Bauerle’s family members received a silent butt dial from a DNC staffer during the Philadelphia convention. Bauerle is suspicious of this call, which a woman saying she’s Bauerle’s son’s ex says was all a prank: 

I do not trust the Clintons or the Obama Mob, and I wanted that call and my story on the public record, lest I have a sudden heart-attack induced by hacking my ICD, or a lightning strike, or have my vehicle suddenly accelerate and crash.

If the “deep state” really wanted a Buffalo talk show host dead, couldn’t they easily have accomplished that by now, using wholly conventional means? Why would they go to the trouble of hacking his pacemaker or directing at him a “lightning strike”? Bauerle then takes that mysterious butt-dial, and his subsequent fears and concludes, 

President Trump, I have tried reaching out to you through mutual friends, but I have recently realized that even you may not know about the surveillance techniques under development right now, because no one from the White House ever got back to me.

One of your closest aides had no idea of my situation when it was brought to his attention.

I am concerned about you and believe it a strong possibility that you are being kept in the dark by Obama holdovers at the FBI, NSA and CIA because they WANT you to look like a paranoid lunatic.

Has anyone in our government advised you not to upset the intelligence apparatus, Mr. President?

I believe we are not just talking about the Obama “progressives” currently employed in intel, but those who may be doing private contract work after leaving the service.

I have decided to release these photos,with many more to come, complete with instructions on how to defeat these technologies, to help keep you safe.

If, as Commander in Chief, you request I not release additional photos and videos of this technology in action, I will obey, Sir.

Isn’t it odd how many of your PRIVATE conversations were leaked to certain people?

With all of the leaks from your “inner circle”, there is something rotten going on.

The President of the United States is protected by the Secret Service, an organization boasting intelligence and technological capabilities that average Americans likely can’t begin to comprehend. In his article Mr. Bauerle includes an image of a box of candy from Barack Obama’s Air Force One to establish the truth of conversations he held with a Secret Service agent who purportedly confirmed Mr. Bauerle’s fears about the extent of the surveillance against him. Yet, at the heart of Mr. Bauerle’s premise is that the people employed to protect and defend the President don’t know what they’re doing – they need a radio host in Buffalo to tell them how to do their jobs. I believe this to be, at best, wildly presumptuous. If the President had telephone conversations with people who were under surveillance – whether by FISA warrant or because they were members of foreign intelligence services – then those intercepts are perfectly legal. There are, indeed, lots of leaks coming out of the Trump White House. It’s no secret who the leakers are. 

The next subheading is “President Trump, The Swamp is a bitter enemy and they will do anything to drain you.”

Giggidy. 

But seriously, Mr. Bauerle goes on to explain, 

I have concluded the people who have illegally surveilled me (and loved ones) since at least 2013 and who continue to do so, hacked my electronics as well as those of my loved ones and friends (like former White House Travel Chef Tracy Martin, whose phone was hacked and had his home broken into days after appearing on my show to confirm that the real Hillary Clinton has no use for our black brothers and sisters and frequently uses the “N”-Word.) are most likely Deep State people and those who simply cannot accept the fact that you beat The Swamp’s choice. (See: Tom Bauerle: Can Satellites Reprogram Voting Machines?, and DNC intimidation of Tom Bauerle loved ones exposed by Wikileaks)

He goes on to say that he expects to be remunerated for the harassment, including the multiple times his home has allegedly been broken into. Then, this open letter to the President goes here: 

And I will be litigating against ALL involved.

We should be talking about a MAJOR amount of compensatory and punitive damages here.

I believe the only reason I am alive is because of Team Bauerle and the info we gathered on them and their operation which dates at least back to 2013.

Well, the statute of limitations is probably three years, so tick-tock. 

In “Strange Coincidences”, Mr. Bauerle repeats his earlier allegations by asking questions about supposed coincidences. There are the butt-dials again, license plates he sees in the neighborhood, and a Rottweiler whom he didn’t recognize at his front door. It is at this point that we begin the third of the article that reads as a legal threat. 

You would do quite well to refer to the statement by Dr. Marshall (Canada Free Press) attesting to my sound mental health. Mr. Bauerle “does not need psychotropic medication.”

My attorneys and I will vigorously pursue any unfair injury to my brand which may arise from false accusations that I have “delusions” or any such mental health issues.

I do not, and never have.

You’re on notice: you’d best think twice before you call my “sanity” into question, and you may wish to reflect on the multiple corroborations of my claims by private citizens and the inventor of the technology, the above mentioned Richard Schowengerdt, who confirmed the photo below as “proof beyond any doubt” that I was correct about being under high tech surveillance.

I believe in the First Amendment, but I will not allow my reputation to be unfairly slandered or libelled and will be aggressive in pursuing any such damage to my brand.

You are put on notice: while I am a public person, and slander and libel claims have to meet a higher threshold to be actionable, my attorneys and I will have a keen eye on media outlets and their reporting on this, and will vigorously pursue any hint that I am “mentally ill” or delusional.

I mean, I guess consider yourselves on notice? For something billed as an open letter to Donald Trump, it sure seems odd to – in that letter – start threatening to sue anyone who calls you crazy. Like, why would Mr. Trump care? 

Dr. Marshall did, in fact, execute a letter to Mr. Bauerle’s attorneys as part of the effort to get his firearms returned, indicating that he didn’t pose a threat to himself or anyone else, and that he didn’t need “psychotropic medications”. These are the medications most typically prescribed to people suffering from disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc. Here’s the thing, though, about “mentally ill” and “insane”; while I personally don’t think it’s wise to throw those terms around, they can be expressions of people’s opinion and not actionable at all. This isn’t legal advice, but if a casual reader of Mr. Bauerle’s Canada Free Press article about cloaking and surveillance concluded that it’s “crazy” and that anyone believing such a thing is, “insane”, that could be a legally valid expression of opinion and not at all actionable. Because he is a public figure thrusting all of this into the marketplace of ideas, the First Amendment bumps violently into Mr. Bauerle’s oddly placed threats. On the other hand, if I were to make a statement of fact, and allege that Mr. Bauerle was under psychiatric care, or had been diagnosed with a particular ailment, etc., that would be different. No such evidence exists. Under New York law, if your opinion relies on accurate reported facts, it’s not actionable as long as it is clearly opinion and does not allege criminal or illegal activity. 

I don’t know whether Mr. Bauerle’s story about surveillance and cloaking is true or accurate, but I do think that what he is alleging happened in and around his property is extremely unlikely, and that any extrapolation of that experience to White House leaks or the intelligence community’s disdain for the President is not supported by facts or evidence.

In other words, although I think it’s bullshit, I can’t conclude whether his sincere belief in that bullshit is, e.g., delusional. 

This thread continues into the next heading, “The personal safety of truth-tellers is left hanging perilously in the balance.” Here is the text of that section: 

I am not an attorney, but you would be well-advised to speak with your legal counsel about the “reckless disregard for the facts” standard and ask yourself “If a jury sees these pictures, the unambiguous corroboration from the man who invented cloaking technology they show , the statement from Dr. Marshall attesting to my sound mental health, what would the preponderance of evidence suggest? That I have mental issues, or that I am and have been telling the truth.” So as much as it may pain you, I am very aware of the law in this regard.

Again, isn’t this a letter to Donald Trump? Then why is he using the second person to address bloggers and the media? So, let’s back up a second. Bauerle is a public figure, and this is a Sullivan v. NY Times / Gertz v. Robert Welch issue. If someone publishes a false statement of fact about a public figure, he can be liable for defamation if the publication was made with “actual malice”. Within the context of defamation jurisprudence, that doesn’t mean “hatred”, but that the author either knew the statement was false, or acted with “reckless disregard to the truth or falsity” of the statement. In New York, if the paper accurately publishes an article about a private person who has been convicted of stealing from his employer, you are protected from liability if you say or write that this person is an embezzler – it is both privileged opinion, as well as fact. 

And I just need 51% proof, even though it is my opinion as a layman I can exceed “reasonable doubt” in any claim.

Choose your words very, very carefully when describing my claims.

I don’t know whom he’s threatening here. You don’t need “51% proof”, you need to convince a jury that you were defamed by a preponderance of the evidence, which is typically described as being anything in excess of 50%, although evidence can’t really be quantified in the way in which Mr. Bauerle suggests. Credibility counts for a lot with juries. 

I’ll be happy to undergo a polygraph.

To the extent a polygraph measures anything at all, it measures whether a person believes what he’s saying to be true. It’s not typically admissible in court, as it is not reliable evidence. 

And any ad hominem attack regarding my mental health will be dealt with appropriately.

That isn’t a threat.

It is a promise, and I’m doing you a favor in advance.

It all depends on the context within which someone, for instance, calls someone “crazy”. Again, a lot of verbiage being spent in a letter to Donald Trump to warn random third persons not to insult Mr. Bauerle’s sanity. It’s like Otto in “A Fish Called Wanda” admonishing everyone to not call him “stupid“. 

I did not and will not pursue any action against the Amherst Police Department, because I respect law enforcement, and as I have stated, at that time I was making claims without substantiation. In their shoes, I also would have wanted a psych-eval.

You members of the media and bloggers will receive no quarter at all from me should you recklessly disregard the facts of my case. Not just corporations, but individual reporters and bloggers’ work will be scrutinized carefully for any damage done unfairly to my “brand” and future income potential

Not for nothing, but what about this constant drumbeat of conspiratorial articles in Canada Free Press? How does one quantify the damage to your “brand” that is brought about by publishing this somewhat nonsensical, illogical “open letter”? It’s not like the Canada Free Press is a trustworthy, objective, or reasonable publication. The events of 2014 aren’t anything anyone wants to talk about, except you. How can we forget it if you keep bringing it up? 

Meanwhile, here’s the thing: The personal safety of truth-tellers is left hanging perilously in the balance.

If they can do this to the duly elected President of the United States, what’s to stop them from doing it to the rest of us.

The entire article can be summed up as follows: 

1. I believe that bad people surveilled me in and around my home with sci-fi capabilities; 

2. They could – and might – do this to the President; 

3. There is nothing, however, to conclude that sci-fi surveillance of the President is, actually, taking place; and 

4. Don’t call me crazy, or I’ll sue you to kingdom come. 

I don’t get the point of any of it. Most every American wants the President to be kept safe, regardless of who it is or what party he’s from. (Well, to be fair, Mr. Bauerle didn’t have a problem, however, posting things like this about the previous occupant of the White House): 

I don’t understand people sometimes. 

---

Editor’s note: Because of the discussion of mental illness in this article, we’d like to include the Crisis Services emergency hotline: 716-834-3131.