Opinion and Commentary since 2003
Elected racist Carl Paladino, Muezzin of the upstate alt-right, is spreading fake news via his chain email news network.
The email:
The links:
The crime of “treason“:
Obstructing a federal proceeding and lying to the FBI are definitely crimes, but they’re not “treason charges”.
In April 2017, Congressman Chris Collins uncritically cheered President Trump’s military strike against Syria – the same type of action that President Obama had proposed in 2013, and which Collins vehemently opposed as “ill-conceived”. Is there some substantive difference, or is it just a craven partisan about-face?
Collins’ obsequiousness in the face of Trump’s missile strike is informed only by naked partisanship and the Republican policy of de-legitimizing President Obama not only as President, but de-humanizing him. Chris Collins’ positions can be summarized as: Trump good, Obama bad, even when the topic at hand is practically identical.
In August 2013, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians living in Damascus’ eastern suburbs – a war crime. President Obama believed that this attack compelled some sort of American military response, most likely launching missiles from Navy ships at military targets. From CNN,
“It is not in the national security interests of the United States to ignore clear violations” of what he called an “international norm” banning the use of chemical weapons, Obama said at a meeting with visiting heads of Baltic nations Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
He called the Syrian attack a “challenge to the world” that threatens U.S. allies Israel, Turkey and Jordan while increasing the risk of such weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.
Our NATO allies, however, preferred that any military action first be sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council; however, it had failed to act, in part, because of the Russian veto. Domestically, some Congressmen signed a letter asking that President Obama seek Congressional approval before any military action.
Chris Collins (NY-27) also demanded that President Obama seek Congress’ okay before launching any naval strike on Assad. In a press release dated August 28, 2013, Collins cited his belief that any military action would, “impact the ongoing civil war within Syria, but possibly have ramifications throughout the region”.
Within days, President Obama acquiesced to demands that he first consult with Congress.
In one of the riskiest gambles of his presidency, Mr. Obama effectively dared lawmakers to either stand by him or, as he put it, allow President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to get away with murdering children with unconventional weapons. By asking them to take a stand, Mr. Obama tried to break out of the isolation of the last week as he confronted taking action without the support of the United Nations, Congress, the public or Britain, a usually reliable partner in such international operations.
“I’m prepared to give that order,” Mr. Obama said in a hurriedly organized appearance in the Rose Garden as American destroyers armed with Tomahawk missiles waited in the Mediterranean Sea. “But having made my decision as commander in chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I’m also mindful that I’m the president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.”
Congressman Collins responded on August 31, 2013, again citing that any military action against Syria could have regional ramifications.
In the ensuing days, Russia intervened on behalf of its longtime client, Assad, and war was averted through a deal whereby Assad would destroy his chemical weapons under Russian supervision. It was a weak response that only served to strengthen Assad – and Russia’s influence in the immediate region – and gave Republicans in Washington an excuse to reject Obama’s half-hearted request for military authorization.
Congressman Collins, like most of his Republican peers, used the Russian “diplomacy” as a partial excuse to tell Obama to pound salt. He released a statement indicating that he would not vote to authorize Obama’s proposed missile attack to punish Assad for his deliberate chemical targeting of civilians, adding that he was “unconvinced” that any such strike would be in America’s “best interests”.
Characterizing President Obama’s plan to launch a targeted missile strike in Syria as “ill-conceived”, Collins demanded that any such request for military action include a “clear set of objectives” and a “clear exit strategy”.
Collins even released a video:
In the ensuing three years, America took a hands-off approach to Syria, arming anti-Assad rebels who found themselves battling each other, Assad, and ISIS. ISIS ran roughshod throughout northeastern Syria and northwestern Iraq, and its tyrannical horrors became emblematic of the worldwide disease of jihadist terrorism. Russia intervened militarily on behalf of the Assad regime, and the US and Iraq intervened to back, among others, Kurdish fighters battling ISIS.
Throughout Obama’s Presidency, regime change in Syria was American policy. On March 30, 2017, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled a dramatic change:
In the last sentence of his news conference later Thursday with Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, Tillerson said the “longer-term status of President (Bashar) Assad will be decided by the Syrian people.” That is a highly significant departure from the long-time stance of the Obama administration, which always insisted the Syrian dictator — accused of killing thousands of his own citizens in indiscriminate bombing — must step down as part of any negotiated political solution to the crisis.
Last week – a few days after Tillerson’s declaration – Assad’s regime again launched a chemical weapons attack targeting civilians. Had Assad actually destroyed his chemical stockpile? Apparently so, according to the team of international inspectors sent to monitor the situation. The Sarin that Assad used was either hidden from inspectors, or part of a fresh batch. This article lays out the chemical realities of the creation, storage, and usage of Sarin. It is chemically difficult to store, so it is either synthesized in flight or shortly before being used. Based on Syria’s capabilities, it is most likely that it was a new batch.
To date, all of the nerve agents used in the Syrian conflict have been binary chemical warfare agents, so-named because they are mixed from several different components within a few days of use. For example, binary Sarin is made by combining isopropyl alcohol with methylphosphonyl difluoride, usually with some kind of additive to deal with the residual acid produced.
President Trump launched a missile attack from US Navy ships last Thursday night without first seeking any Congressional approval. There was no statement of intent – no plan or exit strategy. In essence, President Trump revealed that this military action was brought about due to the emotions he felt while watching television images of the attack and its victims. Critics accused the Trump Administration of effectively green-lighting Assad’s attack on his own people; it was April Glaspie 1990 all over again.
In the absence of strategy or concern for the ramifications of action, Congressman Chris Collins, who is President Trump’s loudest and most consistent Congressional cheerleader, issued this statement:
Gone now is the hand-wringing over Constitutionality of Presidential military action. Absent are the concerns about how American intervention might adversely affect the Syrian civil war or regional stability. In essence, Collins was cheering for the exact same thing he had opposed three years earlier, with literally the only difference being who occupies the White House.
Why shouldn’t we have not tolerated the “status quo” in 2013? How many Syrians have been slaughtered between 2013 and 2017?
Trump’s missile attack? Within sixteen hours, Syrian jets were taking off from the base that had been targeted. Military expert Malcolm Nance noted that the Pentagon has runway busting munitions, but didn’t use them.
No plan, no strategy, no consultation, no effect, but Collins supports the same action Trump took that he denied Obama.
To my mind, Chris Collins’ is complicit in bringing about every “status quo” death and refugee arising out of the Syrian conflict since 2013. His flip-flop is anti-American partisanship at its most craven. Shame on him and his blatant absence of principles.
As the Republican-led Senate and leader Mitch McConnell are poised to change Senate rules to allow for a simple majority vote on Donald Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, it helps to put things in perspective.
Until now, it has effectively required 60 votes in the Senate to advance a Supreme Court nomination, because that is the number of votes needed to invoke cloture and break a filibuster – cloture is how the Senate votes to end debate on a bill or resolution without it being rejected. Because there do not exist 60 votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the Gorsuch nomination, McConnell’s only option is to change the Senate rules to effectively forever require only a simple majority to advance a Supreme Court nominee.
It’s called the “nuclear option”, and Harry Reid famously did this in late 2013 with respect to unprecedented obstruction of President Obama’s nominees by the then-minority Republicans in the Senate. Then in 2016, McConnel basically broke the Constitution by refusing even to meet with Merrick Garland, much less grant him a hearing in the Senate. This didn’t happen in September, but in March after Justice Scalia’s death in mid-February. That was a dereliction of duty specifically designed to deny the sitting President any further SCOTUS seat. It was unprecedented. Article II, section 2 of the Constitution is clear on Presidential power to make appointments.
Now, McConnell is whining that the Democrats are going to filibuster Gorsuch using language that can be charitably characterized as ironic, if not hypocritical.
When Harry Reid went nuclear on Senate appointments it was only after the Republicans had filibustered or otherwise blocked fully 82 Obama nominees – almost as many as under all previous Presidents in history, combined. For Trump? McConnell is willing to go nuclear on one single, solitary nominee who by all rights shouldn’t even be under consideration because it should have been Obama’s seat to fill, under the law.
I guess what goes around, comes around. McConnell and the Republicans will live to regret this.
Three area elected officials organized and participated in a rally in Buffalo’s Niagara Square that was billed as “pro-Trump”. Assemblyman David DiPietro, racist old troll Carl Paladino of the Buffalo Board of Education, and Sheriff Tim Howard all appeared, and addressed the assembled crowd. Notably, Sheriff Howard appeared in uniform.
Here is some video that local photographer and environmental activist Jay Burney recorded (UPDATE: Burney advised Tuesday morning that he had re-configured his settings to private due to harassment and threats from Trump supporters. The videos are, therefore, not visible to people not already connected with him): Many photographs that emerged from that rally, a few stood out. Especially this one:
The man in the camo is “Scott Lacy”, whom WKBW uncritically interviewed a few days before this rally. Next to him is Todd Biro of Niagara Falls.
Horace Scott Lacy (aka Scott Lacy, aka HS Lacy), the man who recently leafleted Lewiston with white supremacist propaganda, appears to have come to Western New York to recruit for his Houston-area Neo-Nazi group, the Aryan Renaissance Society (ARS).
WKBW reporter Ali Touhey, who interviewed Lacy, did not further inquire or report on Lacy’s affiliation with the ARS. A YouTube video posted to a White Lives Matter account depicts the entire interview, including Lacy’s statement to Touhey that he is a member of the Aryan Renaissance Society, Touhey’s expression of incredulity that NYS Gov Cuomo was investigating Lacy’s propaganda, and Touhey’s agreement to accompany Lacy and a third party to the Lewiston police station for an interview.
Beyond just spreading offensive rhetoric, Lacy’s associations with violent offenders causes concern that his activities could escalate and pose a serious threat to Western New Yorkers. The following consists of original research into Lacy’s history and associates through social media profiles on Facebook and on VK, the Russian social networking site preferred by white nationalists, and news reports and public documents. Note that this Twitter account ends with “88”, which is white nationalist code for “Heil Hitler”; the number 8 denotes the letter “H”, the 8th letter in the alphabet.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Lacy was arrested in 2007 after a police chase in a stolen truck. Shortly thereafter, Joshua Aaron Kennedy, the half-brother of the woman in the truck with Lacy, was arrested in possession body armor and military explosives along with Sean Dolan White, an AWOL soldier. The Chronicle identified Lacy as a “high-ranking member” of the Aryan Circle prison gang. Kennedy was later sentenced to 50 years in prison for plotting the murder of a sheriff’s deputy while in jail on an unrelated charge.
In 2009, an article attributed to a Howard Scott Lacy appeared in the white supremacist magazine American Renaissance, describing the Aryan Circle gang, as well as other aspects of prison life from a white supremacist’s viewpoint.
In August 2016, Lacy was quoted in a news story where he and his organization protested outside the Houston headquarters of the NAACP.
In October 2016, Lacy and his group, some of whom armed themselves with guns, protested at the Anti-Defamation League. Lacy posted a video to YouTube before the protest of himself and his sister Barbara Jo Vidrine, (aka BJ Faulk) attempting to gain access to the ADL office. Lacy is known to the ADL, which describes him as,
… a felon with an extensive criminal history dating back to 1985, including convictions for possession of a controlled substance, aggravated robbery, and multiple theft charges. He was arrested in April 2016 on aggravated robbery charges.
A cursory Google search reveals a dossier on Lacy and his White Lives Matter movement from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC identifies White Lives Matter as an initiative of the Aryan Renaissance Society (ARS), a Houston-area Neo-Nazi organization.
The profile names Lacy, along with a woman named Rebecca Barnette, as the moderators of a White Lives Matter facebook group for Oklahomans and Texans. Barnette was also the organizer of the White Lives Matter rally held in Buffalo’s Cazenovia Park in July 2016, but was not in attendance. This summer’s rally, followed by Lacy’s March 2017 leafleting suggests that ARS is attempting to recruit in Western New York. A comment on a photo from one of Lacy’s several Facebook accounts supports this conclusion. The photo shows Lacy with Todd Biro of Niagara Falls; the sole comment on the photo, posted on March 14, 2017 reads “Recruit u fucks…”
Please take note of the emblem on top of the flagpole behind the two men in the photo.
Todd Biro’s Facebook profile is an account called “Marie N Todd Biro,” which also belongs to Marie Basile. Basile was identified in a post on It’s Going Down as a participant in the White Lives Matter protest at the Anti-Defamation League attended by Lacy. (Curiously, Basile also appears to have been engaged for a time to John Bobbitt, the Niagara Falls native whose then-wife Lorena severed his penis in the 1990s.)
The “Marie N Todd Biro” account is friends on Facebook with an account belonging to Lacy’s sister BJ Faulk aka Barbara Vidrine. Further corroborating that the man in the “Recruit u fucks…” photo is Biro is a photo from an account named “Todd Andrew Biro” that clearly shows the same man.
In the image shown above, Biro’s hat bears the number “14”, which is a symbol in Nazi circles of their “14 words” slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
Biro has had run-ins with law enforcement in the past, and was once on the list of Niagara Falls’ most wanted, for grand larceny. Todd Biro’s brother, Brett Biro, is currently running for Niagara Falls City Council, according to his Facebook page.
Also, the “Marie N Todd Biro” account posted a message on WKBW reporter Ali Touhey’s Facebook page thanking her “again” for her story on Lacy, implying that Basile or Biro had already thanked Touhey once.
Biro appears to have been posting videos on a Facebook group called “White Lives Matter III” since at least September 2016. In a September video, Biro makes reference to an upcoming ARS protest outside the Anti-Defamation League, which occurred in October 2016.
Other videos posted to the page as early as 2015 do not have Biro in them, but depict the hanging of a “White Lives Matter” banner on what the cameraman calls “the most heavily trafficked road in Niagara Falls.” Posts on the page are geotagged in Niagara Falls and Connecticut, and include several videos of Lacy’s interview with WKBW and of news coverage of the leafleting in Lewiston.
A post on the account, shared by Kevin Myers Harris, who appears to be the Connecticut-based administrator, claims to be audio of Todd Biro calling a school and threatening to a class-action lawsuit against any teacher that wears a Black Lives Matter shirt. However, the school he refers to appears to be in Philadelphia, rendering it unclear whether Biro actually has children at the school or if he was just harassing a school hundreds of miles away.
A YouTube video posted by a Melissa Lacy, allegedly of Biro’s wedding day, depicts Todd Biro and Marie Basile begins with a white power salute and includes Biro telling Basile to get off the phone so they can “kill a n*****.”
There were myriad confederate flags at the rally as well, which led to Sheriff Howard being photographed thusly.
On Monday, the organizer of the rally, Rus Thompson said that the image was “photoshopped” – a charge echoed by the Sheriff himself.
Looks like Thompson doesn’t understand what Photoshopping is, as opposed to telephoto lenses.
Here are other images of Howard that Jay Burney took at that time on that day:
No one reporting the lie that these images are “Photoshopped” ever asked Jay Burney, the photographer, about that. Here are some more:
Also, get a load of this guy, who so hates Senator Chuck Schumer that he likens one of the country’s most visible Jewish politicians to Hitler’s SS. Nice shirt, too!
UPDATE: The man depicted in this photo is perennial candidate Rick(y) Donovan. In 2014, Donovan – a member of the so-called “Independence” Party – lost his own party’s primary to Democrat Tim Kennedy. Donovan is a state employee – a corrections officer at Albion earning over $63,000 in public money.
After Saturday’s pro-Trump rally, County Legislator Betty Jean Grant and Erie County Democratic Party Chairman Jeremy Zellner called on Tim Howard to resign, assailing the Sheriff for addressing a crowd including confederate flag wavers and “White Lives Matter” Nazis.
Here is the text of Sheriff Howard’s speech – again, delivered in full uniform at a partisan pro-Trump political rally – that uniform offers an official county impimatur on it all. He wasn’t there as a private citizen, but as the Sheriff of, ostensibly, the entire county. (all [sic]).
I am proud to be here today among fellow patriots – but must first recognize that the meaning of the word Patriot has been diluted by political rhetoric over the years
Historically the American Patriots were the colonists who rebelled against British rule, and ultimately gave birth to our nation.
It began with a Declaration of Independence – and a statement of fundamental beliefs – if you reject these beliefs you are not a modern day patriot
To be an American Patriot you must accept that:
All men are created equal,
That we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights – including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
That government is instituted to protect these rights, and
That government powers come only from the consent of the Governed
That led to the Revolutionary War, followed by the drafting of our Constitution -and various amendments thereafter
To be a modern day patriot you must both possess and display a strong passion and loyalty
To the fundamental principles upon which our nation was formed, and to the constitution which establishes our form of government.
Many of you have heard me proclaim my support for the Second Amendment’s protection of our right to keep and bear arms.
If you really listened you heard my support of our entire constitution including our choice of religion, freedom of speech, our right to peacefully assemble as we are doing here today,
I also continue to support the freedom of the press, even when they are that is not equally supportive of me.
I have often quoted, or misquoted, the expression “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Last night I searched for the author – and learned that history had incorrectly attributed it to Voltaire when in fact it was written by a woman, Beatrice Evelyn Hall writing about Voltaire. The point I wish to make -is that we must respect the rights of others to express opinions contrary to our own.
I also want to encourage everyone to do their own thinking. Another great quote attributed to both Benjamin Franklin and Edgar Allan Poe, suggests that you should believe not of what you hear and only half of what you see.
Let me tell you some other things that I believe –
I believe in the American people – regardless of where they came from
I believe, as stated by Civil Rights Activist Malcom X, that just being in America doesn’t make you an American, nor does being born in America make you an American, just as sitting at a table does not make you a diner, you have to be eating from what’s on your plate to be a diner.
Adding my own comment to this thought – To be an American you must embrace the principles of patriotism, those irrevocable principles cited in our declaration of independence.
I believe that we cannot reject the ideas of one president without rejecting those same ideas as once held by former presidents. By way of example – about 100 years ago President Theodore Roosevelt stated “every immigrant who comes here should be required within 5 years to learn English or leave the country.
He also said “In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.
But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. President Roosevelt also denounced divided alliances, and stated that one absolute way of bringing our nation to ruin is to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.
President Ronald Reagan stated that “a nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.
I also believe, as stated by American Journalist Bill O’Reilly, that the most powerful nation on earth should be able to pass a fair, effective immigration law that combines compassion with responsibility and does not injure hard working Americans who are taxed up to here”
I believe that we may be a life boat for the world, but there is a limit to what any life boat can hold, and the responsibility to determine that ultimately rests with the captain, or in our case, the president.
Having spent most of my adult life in policing, I must spend a few minutes addressing the impact of the immigration and border debate upon police community relations.
The police have a responsibility is to assist all victims of crime. About 12 years ago the Erie County Sheriff’s Office partnered with Federal authorities on a human trafficking task force, one of the first in the nation. We know that residents of other countries are often lured by the American dream and place their trust in deceitful people – only to find themselves as modern day slaves. We still have an obligation to help them, and we know that the individuals who smuggle honorable, hard working, but naïve people into this country – are just as willing to smuggle those who would do us harm These smugglers are motivated by greed, and nothing else.
We also know that many of the illicit drugs killing our children are smuggled across our borders, like the heroin from Mexico and fentonil from China that more than 100 Erie county residents already this year, including 7 this week within a 24 hour period.
This week the International Association of Chiefs of Police,IACP released this statement on behalf of the majority of police agencies across our great nation;
Immigration enforcement is a complex and Challenging issue for communities and their law enforcement agencies throughout the United States.
State and local agencies are steadfast in their commitment to removing from their communities dangerous criminals and others who pose a threat to public safety Any suggestion to the contrary is simply inaccurate.
The IACP agrees that illegal immigration and border security issues directly impact the safety of communities and that effective action is needed to meet this challenge. At the same time, however, state and local law enforcement agencies depend on the cooperation of immigrants, legal or not, in solving a wide variety of crimes. Striking the proper balance between enforcement and cooperation requires the full participation of elected officials, community leaders, and their law enforcement agencies.
The IACP has and always will strongly oppose the use of sanctions to drive policy; this was true with prior administrations and remains true with the current administration. The funds provided through the Department of Justice support a wide variety of crime fighting , crime prevention, and public health initiatives. Penalizing communities by withholding assistance funding to law enforcement sgencies and other critical programs is counter-productive to our shared mission of reducing violent crime and keeping our communities safe.
We stand ready to work with the administration to help identify thoughtful, effective solutions to this complex and challenging issue.
Let me end on a lighter note with a prayer, paraphrased from an Irish toast;
God bless those who support our constitution and defend our American way of life, and to those set on destroying our freedoms, may God turn their hearts, but if He cannot turn their hearts, may he at least turn their ankles, so we might know them by their limp.
Howard also said that “Black Lives Matter” was there protesting. They weren’t – the people dressed in black and wearing masks were Antifa, which is short for “Anti-fascist”. The organizers of the rally have been twisting themselves like pretzels to try and rebut the notion that there was any sort of white nationalism going on at their rally. One of the louder complainers posted this to his Facebook page:
The organizer of the rally, recent voter fraud convict Rus Thompson reacted thusly,
So, there weren’t confederate treason flags at the rally, and even if they were, they’re not racist even though they are emblematic of a regime that was created on the basis that white people should be allowed to buy, sell, and own black people. The tea party, which can’t seem to stop lying, could have – but didn’t and won’t – put this all to bed with one simple statement:
“I condemn hate speech & don’t support the confederate flag“
That they won’t speaks volumes. That the sheriff won’t is worthy of removal.
It’s an Obama-era regulation with such broad support, even many Breitbart commenters can’t believe it’s being repealed.
Over the past week, the Republican Senate and House voted to strike FCC Internet privacy rules which would have, “required home Internet and mobile broadband providers to get consumers’ opt-in consent before selling or sharing Web browsing history, app usage history, and other private information with advertisers and other companies.” So, Spectrum and FiOS and Comcast Xfinity can track the websites you visit and sell that data to advertisers.
Local Representative Chris Collins (R-NY27) voted in favor of allowing internet service providers collecting and monetizing your web and app histories, without your knowledge or consent. It seems like a no-brainer – the only rationale that backers of this rule have proffered is that websites had some sort of unfair advantage over ISPs. So, Facebook and Google would remain free to monetize your online activity, but your ISP wouldn’t. The problem with this logic is that people have a choice whether to visit Google or Facebook or any other website – there is seldom any meaningful competition among ISPs. Most of western New York has only Spectrum for Broadband service. A small handful of communities have FiOS. That’s it – the ISPs enjoy the advantage of monopoly.
The only entities cheering this development are ISPs and advertisers, which stand to profit from Congress selling out your internet and app history. You revert back from being a broadband customer and internet user to being a marketing data point. Your ISP can continue to make money off your online behavior, while you deal with internet speeds that are fraudulently slow or ridiculously poor.
The privacy concerns are legitimate:
ISPs can’t see encrypted traffic, so if you visit an HTTPS site, ISPs will see only the domain (like https://arstechnica.com) rather than each page you visit. But that’s still plenty, said Dallas Harris, an attorney who specializes in broadband privacy and is a policy fellow at consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge.
ISPs might be able to figure out where you bank, your political views, and your sexual orientation based on what sites you visit, Harris told Ars.
“You don’t need to see the contents of every communication” to develop efficient ad tracking mechanisms, she said. “The fact that you’re looking at a website can reveal when you’re home, when you’re not home.”
An ISP might notice that a particular tablet often visits children’s websites. From that, “they can infer that this tablet then belongs to a child” and deliver advertising targeted to kids. “The level of information that they can figure out is beyond what even most customers expect,” Harris said.
This Republican handover of web traffic data to ISPs didn’t come cheap. The Verge has tallied how much the telecom industry donated to each of the 265 Republican (and it was only Republican) lawmakers who voted to sell you out, revealing that Chris Collins received $57,500 from the telecom lobby.
$57k to a guy who has deep pockets to self-finance is a drop in the bucket, so this isn’t so much about money as priorities. You – as a consumer or a constituent – have less value to Collins than any big corporate entity. That’s why Collins votes against your privacy in order to further enrich monopolistic telecom giants. It’s also why Collins opposes net neutrality – the rules put in place to ensure that ISPs can’t prioritize what traffic gets to you fastest. For instance, if your ISP, Spectrum, bought Hulu, net neutrality prevents it from throttling or slowing traffic from Netflix or any other competitor; net neutrality stands for the proposition that you – not your ISP – should have the freedom to choose what traffic your broadband connection should deliver to you.
One enterprising activist is raising money to buy the internet browsing and app histories of the Republicans who voted for the repeal of this privacy rule. Check it out here.
Of course, Representative Collins didn’t, doesn’t, and won’t care what you think about any of this. His only point of contact with any potentially disgruntled constituent will be the phones lackadaisically operated by a gaggle of unpaid fugitive from this month’s Vineyard Vines catalog. No town hall, no meetings with privacy advocates – nothing.
Not that it would have mattered. Not only did Collins vote for the anti-privacy bill…
Some people living in Lewiston say someone is spreading racist fliers across the village. They were found on driveways on three different streets Thursday morning.
Lewiston Police told News 4 they received about 20 complaints from residents that were alarmed and outraged.
“It’s an absolute disgrace,” said Lewiston resident, Jackie Rapp.
“I hope whoever has done this knows that they are not welcome here,” said Wendy Swearingen, resident.
Dozens of people found baggies filled with fliers in their driveways that they say are clearly racist. The baggie contained three fliers- all informational about white lives matter, stopping illegal immigrants and black on white crime. On the bottom of the flier were two hashtags, one said Aryan Renaissance Society.
“It was like a supremacist type letter, something I’ve never seen in my life before,” said Linda Alaimo, Lewiston resident.
“I think it’s reprehensible, introducing the racist, neo-nazi element in our village,” said Swearingen.
Lewiston Police say none of the fliers advocated any violence or threats.
“The content doesn’t really rise to the point of being a criminal act because again there’s nothing in there, just informational. The only thing we’re looking at and the reason that we looked into that is because of the distribution, the way they distributed them because they were left and thrown on driveways, so technically that would be a littering offense,” said Chief Frank Previte, Lewiston Police Department.
Chief Previte says they’re looking into possible suspects, but he doesn’t believe the person lives in Lewiston. He says he’s never seen anything like this before.
“It’s the first time we’ve ever had something of this nature in our jurisdiction,” said Previte.
“I’ve never seen anything like that the whole time I’ve lived in Lewiston and I grew up in Lewiston,” said Alaimo.
People in the neighborhood say this kind of act will not be tolerated.
“People are becoming emboldened to become more racist and it’s very ugly and we don’t want it here,” said Swearingen.
The fliers were mostly left on driveways on Mohawk street, Chicora and Lower River road. Because the fliers don’t contain any threats, police say the only thing they can do at this point is charge whoever is responsible with a violation.
From WKBW Eyewitness News (the video embed link is broken, so catch the link instead):
Scott Lacy is setting the record straight.
“There’s been misrepresentations of what was on those flyers and why they were passed out in the area they were passed out in.”
Lacy’s responsible for distributing flyers condemning illegal immigration and promoting the “white lives matter” message in Lewiston last week.
Why? “The purpose of these flyers is to raise awareness with whites about the plight our people face in this country,” he said.
Lacy is new to the area and chose to leave the flyers in predominately white areas based on a suggestion from a friend. He said all of the information is factual. “There was crime statistics based on race which is part of the FBI database. It’s not something fabricated out of the blue, you know?”
Blair Hoplight is one of several dozen who woke up Thursday morning to find a “stop illegal immigration” flyer inside a plastic bag on his driveway. “This gave me the impression they were putting other people down. That doesn’t work. It’s not going to make our country any better,” he said.
Lacy sees things differently. “I consider myself a racist but not because I believe in hatred towards anybody else. It’s because I love my own people.”
Lacy said he’s actually received positive feedback since he distributed the flyers. That’s why he plans to hand the out in other communities. He says he won’t stop standing up for what he believes in.
From the Anti-Defamation League:
Horace Scott Lacy. Lacy is another ARS member from the Houston area; like Chism, he is one of the oldest WLM activists, born in 1967. Before Lacy was involved with ARS, he was a member and “special assignments major” in the large and violent Texas-based white supremacist prison gang known as the Aryan Circle. He became an Aryan Circle member in the 1990s and was still a member as late as 2009. Lacy is a felon with an extensive criminal history dating back to 1985, including convictions for possession of a controlled substance, aggravated robbery, and multiple theft charges. He was arrested in April 2016 on aggravated robbery charges.
What does Mr. white pride have to be proud of?
In case anyone’s wondering, the flyers weren’t just filled with what “some say” are racist things; they’re racist, full stop. Mr. Lacy can come here from Texas and condescend to tell us about all the white pride he has, but the flyers aren’t about positivity and pride – they’re about hatred of anyone not white, and demonization of immigrants and minorities.
Remember the white supremacist flyers distributed in Lewiston last week? We’re speaking w the man claiming responsibility for them. @WKBW pic.twitter.com/nIOOnukPXs
— Ali Touhey (@Ali2e) March 26, 2017
That’s “Voice of the Aryan Renaissance Society”, which the ADL says is a, “…small but long-lived white supremacist group that has resembled both a racist skinhead group and a prison clique at times. It has had members from a variety of places, but many came from Texas and New Jersey. Its logo is a phoenix image superimposed with a lightning bolt and a runic symbol.
.@NYGovCuomo urged state police to investigate the matter yesterday. Likely facing a littering offense and not any kind of hate crime. @WKBW pic.twitter.com/tjEHE276mf
— Ali Touhey (@Ali2e) March 26, 2017
The trash that organized a Nazi rally last year in Cazenovia Park used to be in with the “Renaissance” society.
A similar shit lit drop happened in Connecticut, and someone did a little digging – it didn’t take long to find a swastika. Take a ride down the hashtag train, and it’s all a bunch of nobodies yelling about how “diversity is code for white genocide”.
Who is most culpable for the grotesque, murderous terrorist attacks in Westminster this week? Could it be the perpetrator, who is reportedly a man born in the UK and whose vicious, murderous attack was influenced by homicidal Islamist terrorism?
No.
They – like Donald Trump, Jr. – have identified the real culprit. It’s London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who happens also to be Muslim.
You have to be kidding me?!: Terror attacks are part of living in big city, says London Mayor Sadiq Khan https://t.co/uSm2pwRTjO
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 22, 2017
London Mayor: Terrorist attacks are a part of living in a big city.
Really now? https://t.co/6v4cwlonHF
— Bauerle and Bellavia (@BauerleBellavia) March 22, 2017
@DonaldJTrumpJr You use a terrorist attack on our city to attack London’s Mayor for your own political gain. You’re a disgrace.
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) March 22, 2017
What was this all about?
To sum up, it’s a blood libel; accusing Mayor Khan of being insensitive or cavalier about terrorist attacks in big cities. As the New York Times explains,
Mr. Trump mischaracterized the London mayor’s remarks. Mr. Khan did not describe terrorism as “part of living in a big city,” as if bombings and shootings were an inescapable fact of life. He said that terrorism preparedness, including providing sufficient support to the police, was “part and parcel of living in a great global city.”
“That means being vigilant, having a police force that is in touch with communities; it means the security services being ready, but it also means exchanging ideas and best practice,” Mr. Khan said in a video interview published by The Evening Standard, another British paper. (For the record, Mr. Khan did say the victims of the Chelsea bombing were in his “thoughts and prayers.”)
“Nothing is more important to me than keeping Londoners safe,” Mr. Khan added. “I want to be reassured that every single agency and individual involved in protecting our city has the resources and expertise they need to respond in the event that London is attacked.”
To label as irresponsible Trump Junior’s and Bauerle/Bellavia’s reaction to a fiction is a dramatic understatement. Bauerle and Bellavia’s criticism of Mayor Khan perpetuates a worldview that perceives all Muslims as suspect or, as Bauerle has put it multiple times, “not compatible with Western democracy“.
It’s not the first time Bauerle and Bellavia have similarly misquoted a Muslim public figure in order to defame him. Just last November, they circulated a lie about the owner of Chobani Yogurt – a Kurdish Muslim immigrant from Turkey, claiming that he once said he wanted to “choke the United States with Islam” – something he never said ever to anyone in any place in any way. It bears mentioning that the Kurds have been an historically oppressed minority in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.
Perhaps this is all instructive on how free societies should react to terror and murder. Hunt down the terrorists and terror cells who plot to do us harm. Arrest them, prosecute them, jail them. Use everything legally available to disrupt them and their networks. What we can’t do is sit there and mix fear with ignorance in order to brew up some fresh hatred. Islamist terror is not going away anytime soon, and our law enforcement and intelligence agencies are tasked with doing whatever they can to prevent these acts from occurring. They won’t always succeed. Banning immigrants or refugees won’t work, because most of these attackers are home-grown, radicalized on YouTube and message boards.
Here is Mayor Khan’s actual reaction to yesterday’s terror attack:
Londoners will never be cowed by terrorism. pic.twitter.com/LTLhgZ7OLQ
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) March 22, 2017
Mayor Khan is right – preparedness, intelligence, and providing needed support to police agencies are now routine in big cities in order to do battle against cowards who would attack civilians to advance some sick perversion of a political or religious motive. Belonging to a jihadist cult is appealing to unemployed foreign youth living in western countries where they don’t feel they belong. That doesn’t, however, explain people like Adam Lanza who murdered twenty 1st graders in a matter of minutes for no known reason whatsoever.
In any event, this reaction seems typically British, profanity and all.
.@DonaldJTrumpJr I think I speak for Londoners when I say, go fuck yourself you disgusting, entitled, chinless, ignorant, bigoted cretin.
— Unnamed Insider (@Unnamedinsider) March 23, 2017
This is London in 1993 after an IRA truck bomb. We didn’t ban Irish people or Catholics, we understood it was just a small group of cunts pic.twitter.com/DMo5L41yoX
— Unnamed Insider (@Unnamedinsider) February 12, 2017
By the way, as it turns out the perpetrator was a Briton – born in Dartford in Kent – who had apparently converted to Islam and become radicalized. He was a loser and a thug who had been imprisoned for various assaults in the past. On the day of the attack, Bauerle and Bellavia accused a different violent Islamist criminal as the perpetrator. On the radio all afternoon, and twice on Twitter. They were wrong; that guy was in jail at the time.
I eagerly await all the ways that things like Trump’s travel ban would prevent native-born Americans – or even native-born Britons – from committing terrorist acts in the US.
Republicans have had 7 years to repeal Obamacare.
They failed.
They lied about it for 7 years, scaring you with false claims about “death panels” and rationing.
They had 7 years to come up with a better or cheaper plan that would insure the same number of people, or more.
Over 7 years, they took no fewer than 60 votes to repeal Obamacare, or key parts of it.
They failed.
They had 7 years to devise, develop, disseminate, and sell an alternative health insurance scheme.
They failed.
They wanted to hold the vote on March 23rd – the 7th anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
They failed.
They held a meeting at the White House to discuss women’s health care. The result was downright Saudi.
Fail.
They’re now promoting Trumpcare, which is a tax handout to the wealthy and takes away 24 million people’s coverage.
It seems that this, too, has failed.
They tried to fix it.
A Quinnipiac Poll revealed that a whopping 17% of Americans back the Trumpcare proposal.
Failure.
Obamacare was a yearlong process, and about 100 Republican amendments made their way into the bill. Trumpcare was devised in secret, kept in a secret room, is incomplete, and no one will know what’s in it until the vote is held.
Failure.
Representative Chris Collins openly called for “retribution” against Republican Congressmen who vote against Trumpcare.
Ever notice how the news sounds more and more like we’re living through a fascist coup?
They’ve decided to take away the requirement that insurance actually cover essential healthcare benefits, “doctor’s visits, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity care, mental health and substance abuse treatment, prescription drugs, lab tests, pediatrics, rehabilitation, and preventative services.” They say – with serious voices and not as a joke – that men shouldn’t have to pay for prenatal or pediatric care.
Here, they fail morally, ethically, and vocabularily, apparently not understanding how insurance works.
Trump is throwing around ultimatums. “You’re going to win so much you may even get tired of winning“.
When your defining ideology is little more than lying nihilism, you fail.
Representative Chris Collins is one of the biggest cheerleaders for Trumpcare, which will cost Americans more money for no guarantee of coverage for essential medical services, and throw 24 million people off their health insurance. Mr. Collins, a multi-millionaire, can afford whatever insurance he wants, or use the health insurance offered to him as a member of Congress. He also refuses to hold meetings or town halls with constituents who are concerned about losing their insurance, or not being able to afford it anymore.
Trumpcare is an unmitigated disaster; when the CBO score showed that it would reduce the deficit by over $300 billion over time, and throw 24 million off of their insurance, Republicans went back to the drawing board. What they came up with has been scored by the CBO as reducing the deficit by half as much as the original proposal, and throwing the same 24 million people off their policies.
Their fix was to spend $186 billion more for no gain in coverage.
But what’s also evident is that no one knows what’s in this health insurance revocation act. It was literally thrown together in a couple of weeks, done in secret, and Democrats have been completely shut out of the process – not one Democratic amendment has been considered, as opposed to Obamacare, which included around 100 Republican amendments.
Chris Collins, ever the cheerleader for Donald Trump, predicts “victory”, and asks his constituents to be patient.
“In my district right now there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what it is we’re doing,” Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) told MSNBC’s Brian Williams. “And once we get it done, and then we can have the chance to really explain it.”
Williams had asked Collins how he would explain the bill to residents of his district who may stand to lose insurance coverage.
“I don’t believe that’s the case,” Collins responded.
I wish there existed a way for a Chris Collins to come before his constituents to fix their “misunderstanding” and “really explain it”.
Sounds a lot like we have to pass the bill before we can explain to people what’s in it. Nihilism is a failing ideology.
An Albany Grand Jury yesterday indicted state Senator Robert Ortt (R-N Tonawanda) and former state Senator George Maziarz on felony election law violations arising out of Maziarz’s 2012 and 2013 campaign finance disclosures. The details of the indictment remain under seal, so the details are unknown, but investigations into the handling of Maziarz’s campaign accounts have been swirling since the time of the defunct Moreland Commission. Former US Attorney Preet Bharara took over the Moreland investigations after Governor Cuomo dissolved the commission, and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has had parallel investigations underway, which generated these indictments.
Bharara’s office transferred to Schneiderman’s the investigation into allegedly improper spending from Maziarz’s campaign accounts – the term “money laundering” had been used in prior reports. Maziarz’s still-active campaign committee recently sued its former treasurer over $200,000 in spending. The Gazette reports that the former treasurer has been cooperating with authorities.
Former Niagara County Republican Committee chairman Henry Wojtaszek pled guilty to related election law misdemeanors yesterday. Wojtaszek was chairman until 2009, when he returned to his law practice. Questions are now swirling over whether he can keep his gig as head of the regional Off-Track Betting organization.
Maziarz now works for an Albany lobbying outfit whose clients include Wojtaszek’s OTB operation.
Ortt and Maziarz are both from North Tonawanda, and the Buffalo News reports that Ortt will face three charges of “offering a false instrument for filing”. Ortt testified before the grand jury on the eve of his surprise indictment, as did his wife, Meghan. Meghan Ortt was given immunity, and Senator Ortt waived immunity. The Niagara Gazette reports,
The Gazette confirmed Meghan Ortt’s service as a consultant to a pair of Niagara County companies are also involved in the investigation, including Lockport-based Regency Communications, a public relations firm established in 2011 by former Niagara County lawmaker and one-time aide to Maziarz, Glenn Aronow. The other company is Synor Marketing Co., a Lockport firm that has for years specialized in the production of campaign materials for candidates and political parties in Niagara County.
Both Aronow and Synor have also been subpoenaed in the Maziarz case.
Meghan Ortt, who received her associates degree in fine arts from Niagara County Community College and who also has a bachelor’s degree from Buffalo State College, was under retainer with both Synor Marketing and Regency Communications in the past.
In an ethics disclosure report filed with the state in 2014, Robert Ortt listed income in the form of consultation fees paid to his wife by Regency Communications in an amount described as more than $1,000 and less than $5,000.
Meghan Ortt is not believed to be a target of the investigation. Maziarz’s side has been silent, but Ortt has retained an Albany criminal defense lawyer and big-money crisis communication firm, which went out of its way to suggest that Ortt is the real victim because he’s a veteran, and that Attorney General Schneiderman is a Democrat. No joke.
One thing is clear: the only reason I am included in this is to make their case politically appealing. As multiple news organizations have documented, Eric Schneiderman has been obsessed with using his political office to persecute his political enemies and protect his political allies…We look forward to telling voters the truth about Eric Schneiderman and exposing him for the power hungry, political opportunist he is and I will fight this ridiculous charge.
It cost Ortt a lot of money – likely from his campaign account – to get that much deflection from high-priced PR people. But really, when you’re in a hole, stop digging. The Attorney General’s Public Integrity Unit doesn’t exist to blindly wage personal vendettas on Schneiderman’s behalf, and Ortt’s efforts to delegitimize this prosecution – which was presented to a grand jury before which Ortt himself testified – may work for Donald Trump, but sounds craven in this instance.
The Maziarz investigation commenced in 2014 over $140,000 in unitemized campaign spending, indicating that people had possibly been essentially embezzling the fund for personal use. Shortly after that commencement, Maziarz retired, and Ortt was elected to replace him, defeating Democrat Johnny Destino. In 2014, Destino assailed the Niagara County GOP for valuing “loyalty over competency”, citing a panoply of fiscal issues and mismanagement in Lockport and Niagara County.
New York’s campaign finance laws are lax, and enforcement is spotty. Manipulating the weaknesses in campaign finance requirements for political or personal gain has been a hallmark of the now-hibernating world of Steve Pigeon, and allegations of campaign finance irregularities should be taken seriously and pursued by law enforcement because they represent a breach of public trust – when a campaign treasurer files reports with the state they certify, under oath, that they’re true and accurate.
While Ortt tries to grasp and hurl back some of the shit smearing his fan, it will be interesting to find out what the specific charges and underlying alleged facts are, in order to ensure that our elected officials are not knowingly or intentionally filing false reports in order to hide some wrongdoing.
UPDATE: Ortt pled not guilty this morning.
The charges unsealed in court stem from Ortt’s time as the mayor of North Tonawanda. Prosecutors allege Ortt’s wife was given a no-show job, being paid $21,500 between 2010 and 2014, in order to make up for a $5,000 reduction in his annual pay as mayor.
“No show jobs and secret payments are the lifeblood of public corruption,” Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. “New Yorkers deserve full and honest disclosures by their elected officials-not the graft and shadowy payments uncovered by our investigation. These allegations represent a shameful breach of the public trust – and we will hold those responsible to account.”
Ortt faces up to 1-1/3 to 4 years on each count.