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Remember when the new Lululemon in the Walden Galleria had to remove a mosaic at its threshold because people took offense at its invocation of local sports horrors such as “wide right” and “no goal”? Uber is now doing something worse on TV screens throughout western New York—shaming Buffalo for political gain.

App-based cyber-hitchhiking corporation Uber already has the state Senate and the governor on its side. Now, it has to convince the state Assembly to advance a bill that will legalize app ride hailing upstate. Most Western New York politicians—especially Republicans—would have you believe that legalizing Uber and Lyft are the answer to something, and directed $100,000 of public money to Visit Buffalo Niagara in order to help subsidize Uber’s expansion and marketing campaign. 

Uber even delivered ice cream and, more recently, Lloyd Tacos to app users as part of its marketing scheme. It’s all very cute, but it masks serious issues and questions. Uber doesn’t hire people, so if you drive for the company, you’re using your own insurance. However, your car insurance is likely voided if you drive someone for hire, so there needs to be some guarantee that there is valid coverage on an Uber car at all times.

Uber wants to offer a group umbrella policy of $1 million, but state government has balked at that. In New York City, where Uber and Lyft are allowed to operate under tight regulation from the city’s taxi and limousine commission, drivers must obtain a commercial hack policy.

The newest Assembly bill would allow local municipalities to permit and regulate ride-hailing, but that could lead to a hodgepodge of areas with different rules resembling a rural AT&T LTE coverage map. The Assembly also wants drivers to hold car policies with limits of $100,000 per person/$300,000 aggregate, plus $1.5 million while transporting a fare. (The mandatory minimum policy limits a regular passenger car must carry is $25,000/50,000).  While Uber evangelists argue that this is onerous, no one has any information on what the $1.5 million in-ride umbrella policy would cost drivers. Perhaps Uber could just subsidize that cost with the money it saves by not running ads anymore.  

In short, there is a balance to be struck between the public desire upstate for ridesharing and the public good it serves; and the social cost of allowing people to hitch a ride from a stranger on an app and the risks inherent in that transaction and activity. Certainly there is a way for the Assembly and the ride hailing lobby to strike a deal, and it should be noted that taxi companies are lobbying Albany heavily to ensure that, whatever shakes out, the ride-hailing services’ competitive advantage is not disproportionately large. 

Ride hailing proponents go out of their way to publicize people’s horror stories about taking cabs in Buffalo, and while Uber literally pays for political ads to expand and market in New York, without irony it denigrates the cabs as “special interests”. You’d think we were talking about some sort of critically important civil right, not a company that brings about stories with quotes like these, from CityLab: 

To name a few of the most spectacular ones: In late January, a firestorm erupted over Uber’s perceived strike-breaking amidst protests against President Trump’s early immigration ban, which coined the #deleteUber hashtag (and boosted the fortunes of arch-rival Lyft). February saw a video emerge of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s callous treatment of an Uber driver, a gut-wrenching chronicle of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination within the company by the former engineer Susan Fowler Rigetti, and revelations of the company’s use of a potentially illegal enforcement-deceiving software.

If these weren’t enough blows against the Uber empire, there’s also the fact that the emperor might not be wearing any clothes to begin with. The company is reportedly operating on huge losses. Writes Ryan Felton on Jalopnik: “Uber is doomed because it can’t actually make money.”

Uber only makes about 78 percent of the cost of an average fare—venture capital literally makes up the difference, and Uber is burning through cash. 

Now, with all that being said, I support the expansion of app-based ride-sharing in upstate and western New York, and I think that the Senate and Assembly should get together with the governor and hash out an acceptable compromise that does not effectively punish ride-hailing companies or treat them significantly differently from cabs upstate. I just don’t think that ride hailing is the civil rights issue it’s being made out to be. 

Which leads us to Uber’s most recent marketing push here in Buffalo. A handful of first round NCAA March Madness college basketball games will be held here over the next few days. A big event like this is another opportunity for Uber and Visit Buffalo Niagara to dip into their pockets to pay for some propaganda. Late last year, county government approved what amounts to a gift of $100,000 of public money to be paid to the convention and visitors’ bureau in order specifically to assist in Uber’s and Lyft’s marketing and expansion efforts. Now, Uber is running TV ads in Buffalo effectively shaming us for not having ride sharing. The ad is directed not to locals, asking them to contact their Assemblymembers; it’s not directed to Albany itself—it’s directed at visitors and all but shames us for being an anachronistic backwater because we don’t have Uber. 

Here is the copy:

If you’re in Buffalo for the NCAA Tournament, the biggest surprise isn’t going to be a 16 seed knocking off a 1

It’s finding out you can’t use Uber to get to the game

Or Uber to grab some wings to celebrate your team’s win

Or use Uber to get anywhere

Yeah, we’re kind of surprised about that, too

Buffalo is the largest city in America without ridesharing

So, while players can’t travel on the court, fans are going to find it pretty hard to travel off it

Let’s tell Albany, the ball’s in their court

Yes to Uber. No to special interests

Paid for by Uber Technologies

“If you’re in Buffalo” is about visitors—not locals. So, insult the city and harm our image to visiting basketball fans for something over which the local municipalities have no control. I guess, God forbid you walk, or use the NFTA, or use a designated driver, or *gasp* take a cab. You’d think that the world had never existed or functioned without ride-sharing apps. I’m old enough to remember not having a cell phone at all, much less carrying a mini-computer connected to the world in my pocket. Sure, it’s inconvenient that we don’t have Uber or Lyft, and Albany should figure this all out, but I don’t get the strategy of shaming Buffalo—directed at residents and visitors—to change Albany policy. 

From Uber’s press release, 

Today, Uber launched the #UberMadness campaign to mobilize residents and visitors who come to Buffalo for the NCAA Tournament. Buffalo is the largest city in America without ridesharing. The campaign urges them to tell Albany to make this the last Buffalo event without Uber. The campaign includes a TV ad, radio ad, microsite, rider email, in-app message and web ads.

“The fact that visitors and residents can’t use Uber to get to the games is pure…madness,” said Josh Mohrer, General Manager, Uber Tri-State. “Buffalo is the largest city in the country without ridesharing and, as the city increasingly becomes a center for tech, food and other events, it’s critical that Albany listen to residents and act to bring services like Uber to Upstate.”

Nowhere does the ad offer a phone number or other means of contacting Albany pols to urge them to support ride-hailing. It doesn’t single out local (or downstate) legislators who are the impediments to this expansion. Just “tell Albany”. Albany already knows. 

As Uber’s own press release shows, polls already show that people favor the addition of ride-hailing upstate. So, whom are they trying to convince? We’ve already told Albany. Our Albany representatives, for the most part, all support Uber’s upstate expansion. The people who need to be convinced are downstate Assemblymembers and, most critically, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. 

Lecturing Western New Yorkers and our visitors about what an ignorant backwater we are seems like a poorly considered strategy. 

White nationalism is a polite term for “racist Nazi scumbag.” 

White nationalists believe that whiteness is not just a race, but also a national identity. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors and exposes hate groups, says, “white nationalist groups espouse white supremacist or white separatist ideologies, often focusing on the alleged inferiority of nonwhites. Groups listed in a variety of other categories – Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, racist skinhead, and Christian Identity – could also be fairly described as white nationalist.”

Over the last few days, Representative Steve King (R-IA) made news by going full white nationalist with this Tweet: 

Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies. https://t.co/4nxLipafWO

— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) March 12, 2017

King approvingly quotes Dutch anti-immigrant extremist and Geert Wilders, who wants to ban and expel all immigrants and close all mosques in the Netherlands. It’s standard European far-right fare – Dutch for the Dutch. In today’s anti-everything environment, Wilders’ party stands to win a majority of seats in Holland’s parliament. 

Immigration in Europe is a very big deal because it hasn’t historically existed – at least in this form. European immigration has, in the past, been a byproduct of imperialism – think Jamaicans and Indians and Pakistanis in the UK, or North Africans to France. Conquered nations who were, at least in theory, all part of the same empire; British or French by invasion. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were true multi-national states, because they conquered their neighbors and kept going.

After World War II, Germany’s economic miracle was in desperate need of workers, so hundreds of thousands of “guest workers” (Gastarbeiter) were imported from Turkey and, later, Yugoslavia. 

But for the most part, European nation-states equate citizenship with ethnicity or nationality. Dutch people live in Holland, French people live in France, German people live in Germany, Irish people live in Ireland, and Danish people live in Denmark. Only a couple of European states are multi-ethnic – think Switzerland, Belgium, the UK, and the former Yugoslavia. Part of the reason theorists believe that fascism took hold in Italy and Germany has to do with the fact that those states were created late – in the late 1800s. The concept of German or Italian nationhood as citizens of a unified state was a new one. 

The United States and Canada are different, however. The British, French, and Spanish conquered and eliminated the people they found on this continent, and the eventual nation-states they left behind brought in immigrants. American and Canadian citizenship is not wrapped into the concept of ethnicity and nationhood – you can be any color, any religion, or from any nation and still be an American or Canadian. Our borders never connoted any ethnic or religious homogeneity, making King’s racist nonsense so ignorant and outrageous. 

So, that’s all a roundabout way of getting to racist scumbag white nationalist Carl Paladino’s emails. 

Before we get to them, it bears mentioning that when Italian immigrants came to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, they were subjected to hatred and denigration not dissimilar from that now spat at immigrants from majority Muslim or Latin American countries: Dirty. Lazy. They refuse to assimilate. Their ways are backwards. Their religion and culture are not compatible with the American way of life. They are taking our jobs. Speak English! They are a drain on the economy. They are on the dole. They’re here to destroy us.

They lynched Italians in 1891 New Orleans. Teddy Roosevelt said the lynchings were a “good thing”, and the leader of the mob later became Governor of Louisiana. In fact, there were about 50 lynchings of Italians until the 1920s. Paladino could use a primer on that history of anti-Italian animus. 

On Monday, elected school board official Carl Paladino sent a mass email with the “re” line: “Good Ones”. It contained memes. 

Not surprised. Republicans love Putin now, overlooking his far-right, para-fascist, autocratic, kleptocratic, expansionist nationalism because Putin’s security services interfered in our election to help Hillary Clinton lose to Donald Trump. They think that Putin’s deliberate efforts to destabilize western democracy and institutions like NATO and the European Union are great. 

Putin and his ruling party – United Russia – have struck deals with far-right political parties throughout Europe, like Austria’s far-right FPÖ, Italy’s Lega Nord, Moldova’s PDM, three parties in Serbia, has funded Marine Le Pen in France, and has links to Hungary’s Jobbik. All are either EU-skeptic or virulently anti-immigrant. Why? Putin is waging war in Ukraine and illegally annexed Crimea in a brazen land grab with a phony plebiscite. The US and EU imposed sanctions that specifically targeted Putin and his oligarchs, and adversely affected their ability to access and spend their stolen money. So, Russia is now funding the biggest Calexit group, and anyone who will help dismantle the EU. 

Paladino is down with all that. 

The Obamas stayed in DC so that their daughters could finish up school there. Protests, though, are bad because now they’re directed at Trump now. The 1st Amendment is in deep peril. 

Isn’t it funny to see Carl Paladino complain about hatred whilst spreading hatred? 

Because all those lucky duckies who don’t work get paid for nothing. 

Yes. The left hates fascism and racism. It’s really nothing new, and again – isn’t it precious to see this guy who called First Lady Michelle Obama a male gorilla – complain about “hate”? 

Cuba and China are horrible dictatorships that oppress people, for sure. But by making this comparison, Paladino is defending the oppression of LGBTQ people in North Carolina. I suppose it makes sense for Americans to be concerned about the treatment of their own people within the 50 states. But here, this is just homophobia couched in concern-trolling about human rights. 

Again: the hypocrisy here is that they love Putin, a dictator who oppresses people – especially LGBTQ people. 

Carl Paladino, an elected school official, thinks murder is funny. 

But he saves the best for last. His pièce de résistance: 

Hug a white person because you need to take personal responsibility for “your own bad choices”. If you’re not white. A reverse image search reveals that this meme is used to mock and demean “Black Lives Matter”, and non-white people in general. 

Gosh, who ever would have known this Paladino guy was an unrepentant, despicable, degenerate racist? 

When running for congress in 2012, Representative Chris Collins went on WBFO to claim – falsely – that Obamacare was identical to Canada’s single-payer Medicare system. While an overwhelming 86.2% of Canadians are satisfied with their health insurance system, in the US, it’s about half that. 

Obamacare isn’t perfect – no system is nor can be – but it did drop the rate of uninsured Americans from 20% to 9%, and polls now show that, by a wide margin, Americans want Obamacare fixed, rather than repealed. For the first time, a slim majority of Americans now says it wants to keep Obamacare rather than “repeal and replace”. 

Collins has been in Congress since 2013, and has a distinguished record of legislation renaming a few post offices. He has voted to repeal or cripple the Affordable Care Act multiple times; indeed, Republicans in Congress have had seven years to offer their own alternative to Obamacare that would lead to universal health insurance coverage using some scheme different from the individual mandate. They certainly voted to repeal Obamacare or its key elements on dozens of occasions during that time,  but never publicly offered a plan of their own, instead repeating pablum about insurance being available across state lines and restricting injured patients’ access to the courts to seek redress. 

We finally got a plan this week – a plan drafted in secret, kept in a locked room, and bearing no score or analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.  In normal times, it would be laughed out of Congress; nowadays, it might be the most serious and credible thing in town. The disastrous plan isn’t so much “repeal and replace” as it is, “placate and worsen” – it placates the people who like that insurers can’t exclude pre-existing conditions and who want to keep their kids on their policies until age 26. But make no mistake – this plan would fix none of the problems that people have with the ACA, namely that it’s too expensive in some cases and that it relies too heavily on high deductible plans that amount to an added tax on already cash-strapped families.

But the tea party wing of the Republican Party is already balking. They demand full repeal of Obamacare, without regard to the fact that such a move would automatically take away insurance held by about 30 million Americans. The tea party, however, is concerned about ideological purity rather than winning elections and majorities, and mainstream Republicans see that they’re between a rock and a hard place wholly of their own construction. They can’t simply repeal the ACA, and any replacement that takes away people’s insurance or makes it more expensive or harder to get sort of defeats the purpose and betrays everything they’ve complained about for the last seven years. 

Remember President Trump’s promise: “insurance for everyone” with “much lower deductibles”. 

I guess “insurance” may end up being the weasel word here, because you can cobble together any kind of thing sold on late-night TV and call it “insurance”. Senator Schumer said 

“After years of howling at the moon about Democrats rushing through the Affordable Care Act — the mantra they said over and over and over again on the floor here and in the House, ‘read the bill’ — Republicans are having committee votes two days after the bill is released,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor. “No wonder they don’t want anyone to know what’s in the bill.”

This isn’t governing. It’s grandstanding, and now without the threat of a Presidential veto, these clowns actually have to follow through. 

other than that it seems perfect pic.twitter.com/vFa24j8ed1

— Chris Jackson (@ChrisCJackson) March 7, 2017

Seinfeld and “Repeal and Replace” each ran for 8 years. One was a show about nothing. The other was Seinfeld. https://t.co/ZCrn3073bY

— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) March 7, 2017

Collins will go along with whatever the White House tells him to do. He will vote to take away people’s health insurance without a second thought.

Where are the grownups? 

Luckily, the Buffalo News’ Rod Watson wrote this opinion column, so I don’t have to. Watson succinctly spells out why and how Collins’ refusal to meet with constituents in a town hall, (or other setting), is disgraceful and cowardly. In a nutshell: Collins works for us, but he doesn’t see it that way. 

…Collins, the Clarence millionaire, explain[s] his refusal to hold town hall meetings by telling WGRZ-TV such sessions are “useless.” In fact, he explained, “They are not what you hope they would be, which is a give-and-take from people actually interested in getting some facts.

You see? Collins sees constituents as people who should dummy up and listen to him to “get some facts”. Never in his world could it feasibly work the other way around. Oh, sure, when someone’s kid gets into West Point or asks for Passport help or needs a Capitol tour, Collins’ office is as responsive as anyone’s; however, we’re not talking about constituent services – we’re talking about policy.

By the way, Collins has literally never held a town hall meeting, nor any other event for constituents that was open to the general public. How would he know whether it would be “useless”? 

Collins is now a Trumpist – a branch of the Republican party that until recently I was calling “Palinist“. You may know them as the loudmouths formerly known as the “tea party”. They’re not conservatives in the traditional sense – they’re nativists; nationalists. They oppose free trade, environmental conservation and protection, and programs for the elderly and poor. They are for withdrawal from a world that they find scary or useless. 

Watson continues, 

The primary purpose of a town hall is for the politician to listen. The aim is for him to get the facts from the folks intimately affected by government policy so that he has a better understanding of how his votes and the policies he pushes affect average people, not just those is in his income bracket.

Yet the guy Roll Call pegged as worth $23.8 million in 2015 thinks he knows all about your life without ever coming out to listen to you.

Imagine that. A public employee who lives in a million-dollar mansion believes he has nothing to learn from people who don’t. The median income in NY-27 is $55,000 per year. 

A group of average constituents got together to demand a town hall meeting from Collins – over $7000 was raised for three billboards evoking “Where’s Waldo” publicly to shame Collins to meet with residents of NY-27 and listen to them. 

Why? Because, for example, every time Chris Collins denounces the Affordable Care Act as a “disaster”, there’s a family in his district that is petrified that they’ll lose their health insurance and, in turn, be bankrupted by medical expenses. That family deserves to tell Collins its story to his face; he works for them. They deserve to experience the satisfaction of telling their representative what will happen if his policies are carried out. 

Chris Collins’ constituents don’t owe him anything – he owes them everything. 

But it’s all for naught. Collins isn’t going to hold any town halls, mostly because of the political math. He represents the most conservative district in New York, and he’s safe in his +7 (R). His last two Democratic opponents were unknown and not well-funded, so he cruised to re-election both times. His defenders always point to those electoral successes as evidence that Collins’ constituents are satisfied. More on that below. 

But the opposition must have struck a nerve. If Collins was as safe as all that, the ragtag, poorly organized but motivated group’s billboards would have merited only silence as a response. Instead, the Republican establishment retained the services of crisis communications specialist Michael Caputo to push back. (He claims not to have been paid for this endeavor, and that he’s doing it for “fun”. Nevertheless, he acknowledges having given Erie GOP chair Nick Langworthy and Collins’ people a heads-up.) He started the GOP’s own billboard campaign, and here’s the text of the press release: 

A billboard funded by an online fundraising drive will start to be displayed in Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) district Monday, March 6 for a week – on the same Hamburg billboard where Collins detractors bought a billboard trying to force the Congressman to have his first town hall meeting.

The billboard art is attached. The location is 4536 Big Tree Road in Hamburg, New York.

“Sixty-seven percent of constituents in New York’s 27th Congressional District voted overwhelmingly to re-elect Rep. Chris Collins just a few months ago. Our simple and direct billboard thanks our congressman for a job well done,” organizer Michael Caputo of East Aurora said. “In fact, our billboard will be displayed on the same board where his opponents bought space last month.”

67% of constituents who bothered to vote – which was 66% of eligible voters – voted to re-elect Mr. Collins. My math might be wrong here, but 67% of a 66% turnout means that 44% of “constituents eligible to vote” re-elected Collins – the same amount who stayed home or didn’t tick the box. Not exactly the ringing endorsement being sold. Also, let’s not forget that people who are not eligible to vote, including kids, immigrants, and the migrant workers who seasonally toil in local farms, are all constituents. The population of NY-27 is 713,000. So, 220,000 people voted for Collins, given a Trump bump in turnout. That’s 30% of his constituents. Of eligible voters, 66% of the 66% who came out voted for him; fully 34% didn’t bother to vote at all. The results showed that, of ballots cast in NY-27, 25,500 of them were blank on the congressional line, meaning they voted for other offices, but didn’t bother with the Collins race.

The fundraising drive, hosted on GoFundMe.com, raised $1,700 in just one day – a testament to the strong support Rep. Collins enjoys in his vast district that spans across rural and suburban Western New York. The campaign was in response to a similar drive by Collins’ leftist opponents who have failed miserably to defeat him in three Congressional elections. 

Collins barely squeaked out a narrow victory against Kathy Hochul in 2012; it was 50.8 – 49.2. Is that a “miserable failure”? I don’t think so. There were 66 donations made to Caputo’s billboard effort. Caputo says he raised “$1,700 in just one day”.  I hope a media outlet checks that before reporting it as fact, because GoFundMe shows that 66 people raised $1,732 over the course of a twelve day long campaign.  

More to the point, those 66 donations only came in on four separate days: $160 on February 19th, $220 on February 20th, $1,132 on February 21st, and $220 on February 22nd. So, that’s $1,700 in four days, not one. 

“Rep. Collins represents the most Republican district in New York, by far,” Caputo said. “The leftists’ failed effort to force him to have a town hall meeting was just an attempt to give marginal activists from outside the district a forum to scream at the Congressman – a theatrical production designed by national groups as part of a national leftist program. Needless to say, they failed.”

Now, Caputo is lying. I’m a member of the group that organized the billboard and as been demanding town hall meetings with our employee, Mr. Collins. It’s not “theatrical”, it’s not “marginal activists”, and they’re not from “outside the district”. This is a slander. Query why it’s necessary. 

It’s necessary because the Republican strategy is to de-legitimize anyone who opposes them. Average citizens – housewives, teachers, fathers – who have organized a billboard campaign must be “marginal” professional outside agitators so that they can be dismissed and ignored. Caputo continues, 

Well-funded national activist organizations connected to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and billionaire George Soros were behind thousands of AstroTurf groups across the country similarly harassing Republican congressmen when they returned home for their February district work period. Rep. Collins ignored the local contingent’s demands and, according to Caputo, won’t suffer a bit for it in 2018.

George Soros. When they invoke the name of the International Jew, you know they’re spooked. Well, I guess we’ll see about that. I’ve been involved in every congressional campaign around here ever since Tom Reynolds defended Mark Foley’s pederasty by trotting out a bunch of kids. Only in the Hochul vs. Corwin special election race did I see anyone from the outside help in a concerted way, and that was the DCCC. Not George Soros. 

Here’s what Collins’ spokesman said to the Buffalo News about the anti-Collins billboard: 

The left-wing activists, many of which reside outside of NY-27, organizing these publicity stunts will never be satisfied, despite having multiple opportunities to share their message,” McAdams said. “The fact is only three months ago, voters in NY-27 overwhelming elected Congressman Collins with 68 percent of the vote.

I guess it’s not plagiarism when you’re all working from the same script. 

Here’s the billboard Caputo put together for the GOP: 

Your “Real Constituents”. 

So, first of all Caputo’s accusations of outside money AstroTurf (fake grassroots) related to the anti-Collins billboard is projection. Secondly, this GOP propaganda should be commended for finally putting in writing what Chris Collins truly thinks of constituents who disagree with or oppose him; they simply don’t count – they aren’t “real” constituents.

Caputo said on social media that it’s meant to be “snarky”.  It is, I guess. But Collins is already thought of as arrogant, inaccessible, and someone who doesn’t believe he has any duty or need to listen to people who might disagree. This billboard doesn’t help – it proves the very point “Citizens Against Collins” has made. In the battle of the billboards, Collins’ opponents are winning $7,000 – $1,700, and 3:1. 

Perhaps Tom Dolina of the local satirical site the “Tommunist” put it best, 

George Soros was unavailable for comment. 

All hail the new pogrom. 

I didn’t watch this President’s speech; I don’t want his “more presidential” delivery or his faux “conciliatory tone”. I’m reading some of the takeaways, and learn that this President wants to set up a special office through the already-Orwellian Department of Homeland Security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to further perpetuate the utter fiction that immigrants commit disproportionately more violent crimes than native-born Americans. Called “VOICE” for “Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement”. Trump said that VOICE would offer “a voice to those who have been ignored by our media, and silenced by special interests.”

Does the visa status of a perpetrator of a crime render it a federal matter? Does an assault by a Green Card holder get removed to federal court? 

The underlying justification simply isn’t true. It’s a lie, but because this President is all about white nationalist populism, targeting immigrants (regardless of visa status) as inherently dangerous and in need of special police scrutiny is quite literally the first step in the direction of camps and genocide. His presidency is one of executive orders and fearful, hateful, false pronouncements. 

The violent crime rate is dramatically lower now than in, e.g., 1990, and immigrants – whether documented or not – commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. The baiting and demonization of immigrants by this President, and the cheering from Republicans, is a dark chapter from another century. I guess it plays well with his base, and the demonization and hatred of immigrants is nothing new. All of this, however, is a Schande.

Tea Party figurehead and Paladino chauffeur John a.k.a. “Rus” Thompson pled guilty Thursday to a misdemeanor count of “offering a false instrument for filing in the second degree”. District Attorney John Flynn offered to withdraw the felony charges, and Thompson’s plea will enable him to avoid the possible 1 year jail sentence for three years of probation. 

You can read about Thompson’s jaunty gallop through the criminal justice system here, here, here, here, and here. 

Thompson and his wife were evicted from their home on Grand Island in 2014, and in October of that year, his wife notified the Erie County Board of Elections that they were moving out of the county and to remove them from the voter rolls. You don’t get to vote where you feel at home, but where you are actually domiciled. That means Thompson was eligible only to vote at his new home in Niagara County. Instead, when Thompson showed up to vote — improperly — on Grand Island, where he didn’t live — he knowingly and falsely completed a sworn affidavit averring that he was eligible to vote there.

This was a lie made under oath. He was indicted for felony voter fraud – something Thompson once considered to be treason. Thompson was offered a plea, but rejected it despite the overwhelming evidence against him. His defense seems to be: 1. it’s not like he voted twice!; and 2. he just did what the election inspectors told him to do. The real question is whether Thompson committed voter fraud out of stupidity or malicious intent. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t vote twice; he voted to influence elections that have nothing to do with him, and the election inspectors undoubtedly recognized Thompson when he showed up at his former polling place on Grand Island and certainly would have helped him with a provisional ballot — that’s because how are they supposed to know that he no longer lived there? Throughout, he blamed his enemies – real and perceived – for the underlying eviction, for the prosecution, and everything else that could feasibly enable him to avoid responsibility for his own crime; at least until Thursday’s guilty plea. 

The DA’s office sets the facts out succinctly, and confirms that Thompson knew exactly what he was doing, and did it multiple times: 

The misdemeanor crime of offering a false instrument for filing in the second degree is defined as a situation where a person, knowing that a written instrument contains a false statement or false information, offers or presents it to a public office or servant with the knowledge or belief that it will be filed with, registered or recorded in or otherwise become a part of the records of such public office or public servant.

In order to convict someone of this crime, the prosecution would need to prove: 

1. That the defendant offered or presented a written instrument to a public office or public servant;

2. That the defendant did so with the knowledge or belief that it would be filed with, registered, or recorded in, or otherwise become a part of the records of that public office or public servant;

3. That the written instrument contained a false statement or false information; and

4. That the defendant knew that the written instrument contained a false statement or false information.

So this isn’t about something being accidental, or that Thompson can blame some innocent poll worker for telling him to do the wrong thing – pleading guilty to this specifically lays out that Niagara County resident Thompson presented a false statement under oath to an Erie County Board of Elections worker in order to vote illegally in Erie County.

Congratulations, convict! 

The intragovernmental tug-of-war over Presidential power is as old as the republic; there’s nothing new under the sun. In recent days, however, President Trump’s band of malignant sycophants and apologists have declared that the President wields some sort of supreme power over matters relating to immigration and whatever he deems, “national security” – power so all-consuming and superior that not even the courts have the right to review it. 

To examine these claims, we turn to the courts themselves, and juxtapose the law concerning our uniquely American system of government with three co-equal branches, with the authoritarian claptrap from the haphazard oligarchs who discuss national security matters over dinner at Mar-a-Lago. 

The Government contends that the district court lacked authority to enjoin enforcement of the Executive Order because the President has “unreviewable authority to suspend the admission of any class of aliens.” The Government does not merely argue that courts owe substantial deference to the immigration and national security policy determinations of the political branches—an uncontroversial principle that is well-grounded in our jurisprudence. See, e.g., Cardenas v. United States, 826 F.3d 1164, 1169 (9th Cir. 2016) (recognizing that “the power to expel or exclude aliens [is] a fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the Government’s political departments largely immune from judicial control” (quoting Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 792 (1977))); see also Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 33-34 (2010) (explaining that courts should defer to the political branches with respect to national security and foreign relations). Instead, the Government has taken the position that the President’s decisions about immigration policy, particularly when motivated by national security concerns, are unreviewable, even if those actions potentially contravene constitutional rights and protections. The Government indeed asserts that it violates separation of powers for the judiciary to entertain a constitutional challenge to executive actions such as this one.  – 3 Judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Washington v. Trump. 

ARTHUR: I am your king!
WOMAN: Well, I didn’t vote for you.
ARTHUR: You don’t vote for kings.
WOMAN: Well, ‘ow did you become king then?
ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake,
[angels sing]
her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur was to carry Excalibur.
[singing stops]
That is why I am your king!
DENNIS: Listen — strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
ARTHUR: Be quiet!
DENNIS: Well you can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just ’cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!
ARTHUR: Shut up!

In Washington v. Trump, the 9th Circuit directly addressed the notion that the President’s actions relating to immigration and security are not subject to judicial review: 

There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy. See Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723, 765 (2008) (rejecting the idea that, even by congressional statute, Congress and the Executive could eliminate federal court habeas jurisdiction over enemy combatants, because the “political branches” lack “the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will”). Within our system, it is the role of the judiciary to interpret the law, a duty that will sometimes require the “[r]esolution of litigation challenging the constitutional authority of one of the three branches.” Zivotofsky ex rel. Zivotofsky v. Clinton, 566 U.S. 189, 196 (2012) (quoting INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919, 943 (1983)). We are called upon to perform that duty in this case. Although our jurisprudence has long counseled deference to the political branches on matters of immigration and national security, neither the Supreme Court nor our court has ever held that courts lack the authority to review executive action in those arenas for compliance with the Constitution. To the contrary, the Supreme Court has repeatedly and explicitly rejected the notion that the political branches have unreviewable authority over immigration or are not subject to the Constitution when policymaking in that context. See Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678, 695 (2001) (emphasizing that the power of the political branches over immigration “is subject to important constitutional limitations”); Chadha, 462 U.S. at 940-41 (rejecting the argument that Congress has “unreviewable authority over the regulation of aliens,” and affirming that courts can review “whether Congress has chosen a constitutionally permissible means of implementing that power”). Our court has likewise made clear that “[a]lthough alienage classifications are closely connected to matters of foreign policy and national security,” courts “can and do review foreign policy arguments that are offered to justify legislative or executive action when constitutional rights are at stake.” American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm. v. Reno, 70 F.3d 1045, 1056 (9th Cir. 1995). 

This is not a new or radical law or phenomenon. We need only to re-read the words of the subject of a hit musical on Broadway, and it’s not King Mongkut or Arthur: 

[T]he courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges as, a fundamental law. It, therefore, belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. – Alexander Hamilton Federalist No. 78.

If the words of the ten dollar founding father aren’t enough, here’s what the Supreme Court wrote in Marbury v. Madison, the 1803 landmark case dealing with the Constitution and judicial review of statutes and executive acts (and omissions). 

It is the essential criterion of appellate jurisdiction that it revises and corrects the proceedings in a cause already instituted, and does not create the cause.

The authority given to the Supreme Court by the act establishing the judicial system of the United States to issue writs of mandamus to public officers appears not to be warranted by the Constitution.

It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must, of necessity, expound and interpret the rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the Court must decide on the operation of each.

If courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the Constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.

But contrast the words of our Founders and the federal court with those of Trump’s uncanny clone of Roy Cohn, Stephen Miller: 

Well, I think that it’s been an important reminder to all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become, in many cases, a supreme branch of government. One unelected judge in Seattle cannot remake laws for the entire country. I mean this is just crazy, John, the idea that you have a judge in Seattle say that a foreign national living in Libya has an effective right to enter the United States is — is — is beyond anything we’ve ever seen before.

The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned. – Presidential advisor Stephen Miller.

DENNIS: I mean, if I went around sayin’ I was an empereror just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me they’d put me away!
ARTHUR: Shut up! Will you shut up!
DENNIS: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
ARTHUR: Shut up!
DENNIS: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
HELP! HELP! I’m being repressed!
ARTHUR: Bloody peasant!
DENNIS: Oh, what a give away. Did you here that, did you here that, eh? That’s what I’m on about — did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn’t you?

Not to be outdone, Representative Chris Collins (R)(NY-27), Trump’s chief apologist, said this on MSNBC: 

I think the job that President Trump and his team have done is exceptional, especially given the fact he doesn’t even have his whole team put together. You know, you take one step at a time, in this case a judge ruled on the executive order on the travel ban, pointed out some ambiguities – that he thought were ambiguities – easy enough to fix, easy enough to come forth with a new executive order that addresses that. Call that a very small bump; we move on, we keep the border secure, we keep the country safe. What the press is saying … you know, ‘disarray’ or ‘confusion’ or whatever they may want to say I don’t think is that at all. We just – continuous improvement, we move forward, I think we may see a new executive order coming forward that addresses those concerns, and then we just – again – we move on. I don’t see the disarray, I mean, President Trump’s been in three weeks, he doesn’t have his full cabinet, and, it’s true, what he’s been able to accomplish is extraordinary. 

When it comes to the President’s authority to secure our borders and decide who does or does not come into this country, [the President] does have absolute powers, and there’s no question about it. The ambiguity surrounded Green Card and maybe visa holders…when it comes to immigration, I think if you read it, he does have… that is a power that rests in his hands, and the judge nitpicked Green Card holders and visa holders – that can be easily addressed. But the President of the United States clearly has the authority to close the borders to people that he does not believe should be coming in, that would put our nation’s security at risk, and that is not to be questioned. 

Miller’s and Collins’, “the powers of the president…will not be questioned” is the modern equivalent of the Führerprinzip, the concept of supreme executive power that governs within a fascist totalitarian system: that the leader’s word is above all written law and not subject to review or contradiction. 

To call all of this ignorant and un-American is a dramatic understatement.

Whither the EOs? 

During his first week in office, President Donald Trump’s executive orders produced unprecedented chaos. Trump’s ban on travel to the United States imposed upon Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Druze, and Baha’i passport holders of certain countries has received the most attention, including its deliberately cruel exclusion of permanent resident aliens – immigrant holders of “Green Cards” who live and work in the U.S. Receiving a smaller amount of attention has been Trump’s re-configuration of the principals committee of the National Security Council, effectively replacing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence with his senior advisor, former Breitbart editor Stephen Bannon.

While the inclusion of Green Card holders in the sudden, immediate ban on U.S. entry for passport holders from Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Iran seemed at first to have been accidental or inadvertent, it was anything but. It was a deliberate act to trigger outrage on that one point and to distract your attention. It’s why citizens with Muslim names are being detained without explanation upon entry to the US. 

The travel ban has been stayed, and a government appeal of that stay is now before a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. 

But Trump’s rookie blizzard of clumsy and thinly vetted diktats suddenly stopped. For instance, the promised executive order to investigate “voter fraud” never materialized. This appears to be the governmental equivalent of taking away Trump’s smartphone to keep him from Tweeting. The chaos, however, wasn’t a flaw but a feature. One need only read this piece, which quotes Bannon promising exactly that. 

He never called himself a “populist” or an “American nationalist,” as so many think of him today. “I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed.

Shocked, I asked him what he meant.

“Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Bannon was employing Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.

The difference, however, is that Lenin sought to destroy a decrepit, corrupt, and brutal monarchy that had brought war and famine at the expense of the peasants. The United States has its problems, but is a pluralist democratic representative republic with individual freedoms that were codified and protected by an independent judiciary. We have a system of three co-equal branches of government that act to prevent harmful and illegal excesses by any one of them. 

But Leninism wasn’t just about destroying one state and creating something new, because Lenin ultimately replaced one corrupt autocracy with something arguably worse. Russia wasn’t industrialized in 1917, so it had no real proletariat to speak of, yet Lenin’s governing principle was vanguard-party takeover. With the party at the helm, a “dictatorship of the proletariat” would be created whereby absolute and complete control over every aspect of public and private life – government and individuals – became subordinate to the party.

This isn’t to say Bannon or Trump are revolutionary communists – far from it. They are, instead, nascent oligarchs. By smashing existing institutions of party, media, and government, they can bring about a new one-party hegemony that will obliterate our American freedoms as we’ve recognized them since at least the middle of the last century. This isn’t just about economic insecurity in a changing world economy, or “anti-globalism” and protectionist capitalism; this isn’t just about the changing face of America, or rolling back the New Deal, or the decline of the boomer generation and the ascent of its successors. It’s all of these things. 

Anti-democratic leaders and movements are generally fueled by grievance; real, imagined, or magnified. In order to wield power in a post-democratic country drunk on nationalism, you need to identify the victims and the culprits. The Trump Administration is running a huge surplus on enemies – liberals, intellectuals, the media, Gold Star parents, refugees, immigrants, and Muslims, just to name a few. But think back to the 2016 election – Trump’s win was secured through vicious clashes with competitors and enemies, whereby it wasn’t enough to just win, he had to dominate. It’s why things like Obama’s larger inaugural crowd are such triggers for Trump’s intemperate early-morning Tweets on an unsecured Android phone: only when he is dominating his enemies is he winning. 

Trump and his coterie of malignant sycophants will continue this “us or them” game throughout the pendency of this administration. The world as black and white is much easier to deal with than shades of grey, after all. 

Supporters of Trump’s executive orders on immigration will lecture you on social media, claiming that they are no different from things President Obama did, yet liberals remained mum. This is a lie. Trump himself said,

“My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months. The seven countries named in the Executive Order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror.”

While it’s hilariously ironic for Trump to seek cover behind President Obama, his action is dissimilar from Obama’s. The 2011 Obama action applied only to one certain type of immigrant visa applicant from one country – Iraq – and only for a 6-month period. It was implemented in direct response to two arrests of Iraqi refugees 

Generally, passport holders from every country on Earth need a visa to enter to the United States for any reason – pleasure, business, or immigration. There is a visa waiver program in effect for the citizens of certain – mostly wealthy – countries who are not required to obtain a visa for business or vacation travel. In February 2016, the Department of Homeland Security suspended the visa waiver program for passport holders from waiver countries who had traveled to Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran – the same countries covered in Trump’s executive order. However, the 2016 action was not a complete or indefinite ban, 

Individuals impacted will still be able to apply for a visa using the regular immigration process at our embassies or consulates. For those who need a U.S. visa for urgent business, medical, or humanitarian travel to the United States, U.S. embassies and consulates stand ready to provide visa interview appointments on an expedited basis. The new law does not ban travel to the United States, or admission into the United States, and the great majority of Visa Waiver Program travelers will not be affected.

Trump has wide latitude and discretion to exclude classes of people from entry to the US based on national security concerns. President Obama, for instance, banned entry for people accused of crimes against humanity, and people who were subject to a UN Security Council travel ban.  President Bush barred entry to people who would thwart the implementation of the 1995 Dayton Accords, ending the pre-Kosovo wars in the former Yugoslavia. 

The Trump action against immigrants and refugees has nothing to do with the law or security. Like everything Trump is doing, it’s about feelings – making people FEEL safe, making people FEEL like something is being done, making people FEEL like their own insecurities and fears are being recognized and addressed. Fighting populist authoritarian leaders can’t just be done with marches, mockery, or litigation. A few pointers from a Venezuelan:

1. Trump says the media are the enemy. Then the muslim immigrants/refugees from some failed states, soon it will be the liberals or intellectuals. Your very Americanness will be attacked.

2. Do not show contempt for Trump or his supporters or try to shame them – it feeds their narrative of “us vs. them”.

3. Don’t lose your cool and constantly demand his removal because what he does is abhorrent, but not impeachable. This will alienate independents, whom you’ll need in the coming elections.

I think a newly elected President has the right to announce a fresh look at our immigration and refugee vetting processes, and to make changes that experts believe are appropriate. Pausing new applications for a period of time would be acceptable – thwarting the travel of people already approved for visas and whose travel plans are set is cruel. Keeping students away from returning to their classes is cruel. Keeping permanent resident alien green card holders out is cruel. Unless there is some imminent threat of harm from this class of people, it shouldn’t have happened. This is all part of a wider anti-immigrant furore that the new President is leading, and it doesn’t stop at so-called, “illegals”. 

The sudden and unexplained halt of the executive orders following the chaotic roll-out of the Muslim ban is probably a net good thing for the country. 

The Tchotchke President

Last week, President Trump Tweeted this: 

My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017

What stood out for me first was the admission that Ivanka has to “push” him to “do the right thing”, thus revealing that his impulse and instinct must be to do the opposite. But look at the Nordstrom thing – Ivanka Trump licenses her name to a bunch of cheap Chinese-made schmattes and tchotchkes, and they weren’t selling well at the high-end Nordstrom chain of stores. So, Nordstrom made a business decision and dropped the brand. (Incidentally, TJ Maxx and Marshalls also made news with Ivanka’s clothing line). But Trump’s reaction here is astonishing: Nordstrom insulted Ivanka and treated her “unfairly” – a complaint echoed by toddlers to their parents daily. As if private businesses now owe some bizarre, feudal loyalty oath to the new lord of the manor. Sean Spicer doubled down on this later in the day, prompting a response from Nordstrom directly. 

New Nordstrom stmt. refutes Spicer’s claim that dropping Ivanka was due to politics; company reiterates it was due to poor sales performance pic.twitter.com/2xZsXjuNJl

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 8, 2017

The following day, his spokeswoman said, from the White House, “buy Ivanka’s stuff!” 

“Go buy Ivanka’s stuff!” Kellyanne Conway tells “Fox & Friends” viewers from the White House briefing room. pic.twitter.com/noIhnVgcAk

— Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) February 9, 2017

This is unspeakably corrupt and illegal. Specifically, all this puffery of Ivanka’s merch is a likely violation of the ban on federal employees using their public office to endorseme products. 5 CFR 2635.702.

Imagine if Sasha or Malia Obama had profited off their surname and President Obama had publicly complained about a private business deal in this way. Heads on the right would have exploded. Here, they’re angry not at the Trump family’s blatant profiteering off of the government, but at Nordstrom for its lack of fealty. Not to be outdone, when filing a defamation lawsuit against someone who accused her of having once been a prostitute, First Lady Melania Trump’s complaint averred that, 

The economic damage to the plaintiff’s brand, and licensing, marketing and endorsement opportunities caused by the publication of Mail Online’s defamatory article, is multiple millions of dollars

[The] plaintiff had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person, as well as a former professional model, brand spokesperson and successful businesswoman, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, each of which could have garnered multimillion-dollar business relationships for a multi-year term during which plaintiff is one of the most photographed women in the world.

Republicans howled at “Moochelle” (whom they notably referred to as a man, if not an ape), for daring to try and get kids to eat fruits and vegetables. They have nothing whatsoever to say when Melania Trump blatantly admits her desire to profit from her position as First Lady. Incidentally, Mrs. Trump does not live with her husband in the White House, but has stayed behind in Trump Tower. This arrangement costs the taxpayers of this country hundreds of thousands of dollars per day in extra Secret Service protection. The Trumps can live however they want – I don’t care. I also don’t mind that Trump’s family receive the protection to which they’re entitled. Imagine, however, if “Moochelle” had done something similar. She caught flak when taking her daughters on vacation. 

What all of this reminds me of is Central Asia – specifically, Uzbekistan, which was a constituent republic of the USSR until its independence in 1991. From independence, Uzbekistan was ruled by a dictator named Islam Karimov, whose term ended when he died last year. The US tolerated Karimov’s domestic oppression because he was an ally in the “war on terror”. He outlawed dissent, tortured opponents, forbade freedom of speech and assembly, and and rigged elections so he would be re-elected by incredible, Soviet-style hyper-majorities.

Take a look at Trump’s systematic attempts to de-legitimize the judiciary, the media – indeed anything and anyone – which contradict his lies. Trump claims to be not only the sole arbiter of truth, but the only person who can “solve” our problems. This is downright Soviet. 

Karimov did what corrupt, third-world dictators usually do: enriched himself and his family. Notably, his daughter Gulnara Karimova was appointed to various diplomatic and government posts, and took the stage name, “Googoosha” to try her hand at becoming a pop star. Alas, Karimova had a falling-out with her father and found herself accused of becoming a billionaire thanks to rampant corruption: 

One U.S. businessmen claimed that after his company turned down Karimova’s offer to buy in to his telecommunications firm, “the company’s frequency [was] jammed by an Uzbek government agency.” A Swedish television investigation this month found she forced a Swedish telecom to pay bribes in order to enter the Uzbek market. In July, the Russian mobile-phone operator MTS claimed that Karimova orchestrated the hostile takeover of the company’s Uzbek branch, Uzdunrobita, according to Foreign Policy.

“She plays a role in most business deals in Tashkent, and if she gets angry, she has the power to impose really severe consequences,” Foust said.

Karimova is accused of taking over $1 billion in bribes during her time at the top of her late father’s autocratic kleptocracy. Her father imposed an indefinite house arrest on her in 2014. The Karimov family treated their political position as a way to enrich themselves. Karimov assumed complete power and enabled his friends and family to profit due to whom they knew, not what they did. 

When Donald Trump and his aides promote Ivanka Trump’s clothing line and demean a retailer that dropped it, they are engaged in the very same type of kleptocracy, albeit on a smaller scale. For now. 

When Jimmy Carter became President, he put his family business in a blind trust, 

While he serves as president, Jimmy Carter placed the family farm supply business into the protection of a blind trust before he left for Washington, D.C. in 1977. This trust allowed for a law firm in Atlanta to take full administration of the farm supply business during his years in the White House. The Carters felt that relinquishing the business to someone else’s care would separate them from these affairs and avoid the possibility of their financial holdings resembling any conflict of interest while President Carter was in office. Their personal counsel, Charles Kirbo of the Atlanta law firm, was their financial trustee. Following the election loss in 1981, the Carters were informed by Charles Kirbo that because of three years of drought and several changes in warehouse management, they were over $1 million in debt.

Donald Trump couldn’t be bothered to do the same thing and follow President Carter’s selfless example. Trump and his daughter have both claimed that they no longer handle the day-to-day affairs of their private enterprises. If so, why is the President tweeting insults at Nordstrom? Why are Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway exhorting Americans to buy Trump-emblazoned tchotchkes? 

The corruption is swift and breathtaking. It is Uzbeki in its brazenness.  

Kathy Hochul served as Congresswoman for the 26th Congressional district from 2011 – 2012. She defeated former Assemblywoman Jane Corwin in a special election, but later lost to Chris Collins, who was sworn in on January 3, 2013. 

Here’s an October 2014 letter to the editor of the Buffalo News I found. It avers that, while running against Hochul, Collins was asked in a debate to,

…give a letter grade to incumbent Kathy Hochul’s performance. Collins gave her an “I for ineffective” for failing (by that point) to pass any bills of her own. Collins promised, “As a member of the majority, I guarantee voters when I introduce a bill, I’m gonna have the kind of support that gets those bills passed.”

Collins has now been in Congress for four years. He has been in the majority in the House for that entire time. In those four years, only two of the bills he introduced have been signed into law; each of them involve the naming of a post office.

That is clearly an impressive record of achievement that more than justifies the $174,000 annual salary and federal benefits package that this distinguished gentleman from New York “earns” for the important legislation that he has introduced and “guaranteed” passed. 

On a similar note, Mr. Collins stands accused of using his knowledge and power as a congressman to promote legislation that might help his own personal investments; particularly in a small Australian penny stock trading at 70 cents per share called “Innate Immunotherapeutics”. (See here, here, and here). 

A CNN reporter caught Collins replying to “all” in an email when he meant only to reply to the CEO of Innate, who was coming to Collins’ defense. 

“Simon. Yellow journalism. Making the story fit a bias regardless of the facts. Distorted,” the email began, in apparent reference to the WSJ report. “In fact the offer was made available to every US shareholder who had ever participated in any share offering in the US. Interesting how he somehow distorted that.”

Collins, who both invests in and sits on the board of Innate Immunotherapeutics, continued on to say that “many US shareholders” — including his own children — declined to participate “because of the perceived risk.”

He went on to whine, 

Collins confirmed in a follow-up email to CNN Tuesday morning that he had “replied all by mistake,” before venting his frustrations about a “witch hunt where the press goes after my friends and family.” In the case of Price’s investment in Innate Immunotherapeutics, a “standard private placement” has been incorrectly portrayed as “some kind of insider special deal,” Collins said. “I was venting to Simon as he shares my frustration.”

Get the whaambulance. 

The Australian reports that Congressman Collins appears to be in violation of Australian law. 

A US Republican congressman has allegedly breached Australia’s corporations law by failing to make key disclosures about his family’s significant investment in a listed, Sydney-based health company, including that two of his children and other close associates bought parcels of the company’s stock.

and 

The Australian can reveal ­allegations that Mr Collins has breached Australian corporate law by disclosing he was a “substantial shareholder” — that is owning more than 5 per cent of a company’s shares — only after almos­t 18 months, instead of within two business days of acquis­ition, as required by law.

Mr Collins has owned more than 15 per cent of Innate Immunotherapeutics shares — three times the threshold — since before its December 2013 float, but only made the disclosure in May 2015.

His US associates — including family members, political donors and employees — have also bought shares in Innate Immunotherapeutics in recent years, many in private offerings at a 12 per cent discount to the traded share price at the time.

Mr Collins has also allegedly breached section 606 of the Corporations Act — known as the “20 per cent rule” — which prevent­s any party holding a “rele­vant interest” in more than 20 per cent of a company’s shares without gaining shareholders’ approv­al and making disclosures. The maximum penalty for breaching the 20 per cent rule and for breaching substantial shareholder disclosure laws is sixth months’ jail.

Law and order! The Australian report seems to contradict Collins’ allegation that HHS nominee Tom Price and others didn’t get a special price on this junk stock in a company with no products or revenue. As for Innate, the Australian reports that its CEO, Michael Quinn, used to run a company that delivered a flawed, smelly waste treatment plant to the Cairns city council in North Queensland. 

In its first year of operations, the plant’s Bedminster rubbish ­digesters repeatedly crashed, two were put “out of commission indefinitely” and the council later sued the company for contractual ­issues.

Later, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered the plant reduce odours following problems with filters — which had to be ­replaced at a cost of $100,000 — and in 2010 the plant was again deemed inoperable after a large section of suspended concrete collapsed.

and 

In a highly unusual move for a listed company, EWT has gone to ground in recent days, with calls to its offices in

Sydney and Auckland ringing out and ­executives failing to respond to ­repeated texts and emails.

The Australian revealed on Monday that Mr Collins had ­allegedly breached Australia’s corpor­ations laws by failing to make key disclosures about significant investments in Innate made by two of his children and other close ­associates.

Sydney barrister James Wheeldon wrote to Innate last Friday, highlighting the alleged breaches, but was yet to receive any ­response.

To sum up: 

1. Chris Collins once derided Kathy Hochul as “ineffective” for having passed no laws in her less than one year in office. In four years in office, Collins has passed two laws, both to name a post office. 

2. Collins allegedly broke Australian securities law and could be prosecuted and sentenced there to 6 months in jail. 

3. The company for which Collins is an evangelist is run by guys who couldn’t properly build and run a garbage dump. 

Incidentally, Collins has never – not once – held an in-person town hall meeting that was open to the general public, and which was publicized in any way to his constituency at-large. People have been trying to set one up with him, to no avail. In Geneseo and Lancaster, people have been unsuccessful in getting a meeting with him. So, be sure to contribute to this Gofundme to get a billboard up asking Rep. Collins to show his face in the district and answer constituents’ questions. He works, after all, for us. 

I’d grade that an “I” for ineffective, an “F” for failure, and “G” for garbage. 

The kakocracy is working great for some, at the expense of everyone else. 

What happened in your life to turn you into such a dick? What part of your Christian faith enables your ignorance and lying? 

You traveled to Washington to watch your leader, Donald Trump’s, inauguration, and in the process posted this: 

(The plural of “bus” is “buses”). You took to social media and purported to relay some statement that a cop supposedly told you as fact. How did you verify the truth or falsity of what the cop told you? Did you go and ask the protesters in those buses whether they were being paid? Sounds like nonsense to me. But before we even get to that, all I see is buses – no people. How do you know those buses transported protesters and not average spectators? This is hearsay on top of speculation – an absolute joke of a status.

Guys like you on the right have been spewing this lie for weeks about how the protesters are all paid for by George Soros, or whatever other bogeyman you’ve concocted. It’s completely and utterly false, but if you repeat the lie often enough, it becomes an immutable truth to the people backing the autocrat. Put another way, you and your ilk are completely incapable of engaging in meaningful or thoughtful debate about issues, so you instead make up lies about their illegitimacy. We know this because you spent over 8 years doing exactly that to our President, repeatedly calling him a foreign Kenyan un-American Muslim. 

Utter stupidity, as it prompted responses such as this ignorant drivel: 

Assemblyman, do you believe it was a “COUP” as President Obama – a man you think is a foreign-born Muslim – handed the country over to a perverse madman? LOL, who knows? Your private pronouncements are routinely unbecoming of an elected official. 

Enter Colleen Aungst, your constituent, who politely called you out on your “rumors and fake news”. In response to your false and made-up garbage about buses in Washington and who was in them, she asks you – her Assemblyman – to “work MORE on uniting and getting work done and LESS on complaining and finger pointing.” 

Did you – an elected, sitting Assemblyman – respond graciously to the criticism? Did you ignore it? Or did you say, “screw you” to your constituent? We know you; we already know the answer. 

Now, let’s unpack this for a second. Aungst was calling you out for making up lies (or repeating lies) about buses that allegedly transported paid protesters. It had nothing whatsoever to do with your claims that the anarchist black bloc shoved you or your wife, or yelled nasty things that your daughter heard. What the hell does the bus post and Aungst’s reply to it have to do with your supposed interaction with anarchists at a major political event? That was the gist of Ms. Aungst’s reply, 

Another lie: you accuse Aungst of “defending” the anarchists who “attacked” your family, when she did no such thing. Aungst didn’t mention – much less defend – the actions of the black bloc, whom you claim you encountered on Inauguration Day. In fact, your fact-free lumping of the black bloc in with everyone who protested Trump’s inauguration is just a lie, as is your claims that they’re all paid by George Soros. (Also, it’s “you’re” – how does NYSUT justify endorsing you?!). 

You’re a banal oaf who is allergic to the truth. 

Barack Obama is a Muslim,” said DiPietro, former East Aurora mayor. “I don’t like the president. I think he’s a Muslim. I think he’s a foreigner to our nation. I oppose every principle he stands for.”

There’s nothing wrong with being Muslim – you’re just saying this out of race hate and birtherism. 

You’re the same deceitful asshole who tried to defraud and cheat his own constituents by claiming Hillary Clinton voters could “text” their votes and stay home. If a Democratic elected official did something similar to try and fool Trump voters, you’d be howling with righteous indignation. But they didn’t – they respect the process and their constituents too much to try that. You? You’re an anti-democratic weasel.

It amazes me that you get the endorsement of teachers, since you’re such an outspoken proponent of hatred against Muslims, and you casually start hate campaigns against entire religions over a children’s book.  

Let me make a prediction: at least one person will comment here or on social media with something about how you’re going to sail to re-election. This is probably true; you will. You’re safely ensconced in a predominately Republican district that was almost tailor-made for you. To sail to re-election, all you have to do is shout about downstate, about how much you hate Cuomo, and stick to your three main issues: guns, guns, and guns. A Republican Assemblyman from upstate is nothing more than a seat-moistening collector of time in the state pension system. 

But sometimes, things don’t go according to plan. You have to answer to your constituents every once in a while. Perhaps many of them go along with you because of your stance on guns and whatnot, but if you’re exposed as the hateful liar you are, that might change. Who knows? 

Go back to Albany and post dumb shit to your social media about how awful Andrew Cuomo is on taxation and spending while you collect your $80,000 annual public salary, plus an extra $9,000 “lulu” as ranking member of some small business committee, plus $172 per diem for Albany travel. Moan and whine about Obamacare while being on the rich and generous state employee health insurance plan. Have fun hating the state while banking in time towards a fat, state-tax-free pension. 

And every time you badmouth an earnest constituent on social media, remember in the back of your withered mind that you’re a fake, phony, fraud.