Category: Uncategorized

To paraphrase a line from Hamilton, well, you’re never gon’ be secret’ry now. 

The local axis of Donald Trump sycophant/enablers stands steadfastly by its man. Nick Langworthy, Chris Collins, Carl Paladino have no problem with anything that Trump has said or done. Muslims, Mexicans, Immigrants, women, Miss Teen USA contestants, Apprentice sound guys, Miss Universe winners, Gold Star Parents, a native-born federal judge of Mexican descent, fallen soldiers, veterans with PTSD – there seems literally not to exist a person or group that Donald Trump won’t demean and degrade, and there exists a concomitant bottomless pit of resulting delight from his core supporters. 

To Trump’s cult, degradation and insult are added value, not a flaw. 

You can’t be surprised, though. Langworthy doesn’t react because no one in the local press corps asks him to. Collins? On October 12th, he’s reportedly doubling down on his support of Trump, despite saying on October 8th that Trump’s admission of sexual assault was, “frankly unacceptable”. Well, clearly it’s acceptable, after all. I would guess that the difference in Collins’ attitude and tone has to do with admonitions from the Trump campaign and its perimeter guards like Carl Paladino, who just a year ago quite literally went out of his way to defend a guy caught on tape calling the Mayor of the City of Buffalo and other local African-American politicians, “nigger”. 

What we’re left with, America, is a situation where the guy who boasted to Billy Bush about how he makes unwanted sexual advances and assaults on women still finds support for his Presidential bid, while Billy Bush is fired from NBC for laughing at them. 

At the Tire Fire 2nd Presidential Debate last Sunday, Anderson Cooper asked Trump whether he had actually committed the sex assault he bragged about. Trump denied it. That prompted more of his victims to finally come out and tell their stories. A former Miss Teen USA Kamie Crawford tweetstormed a disturbing story about Trump’s racist attitude towards Black people. Two separate women, Rachel Crooks and Jessica Leeds, went to the New York Times, explaining in detail how Trump groped them. Mindy McGillivray told the Palm Beach Post that Trump grabbed her buttocks while she was working as a photographer’s assistant at Mar-a-Lago. Other Miss Teen USA contestants, including Tasha Dixon, told the press how Trump would barge into the dressing room while girls as young as fifteen were naked, according to former contestant Mariah Billado. Indeed, Trump boasted of this inappropriate dressing room conduct to Howard Stern. People Magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff wrote that, “We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.” The next morning, Trump arranged for Stoynoff to have a massage in a fully booked facility, and skulked around, lying in wait. She passed on the massage. Finally, to turn the creep factor up a bit, a 46 year-old Trump commented about how he would be dating a passing 10 year-old girl in 10 years. 

The timing? These women are coming forward because Trump lied in response to a direct question about whether he had engaged in this sort of sexually aggressive, assaultive, indecent, and improper conduct. He denied it, and they’re going to tell their stories. 

Trump campaign attacks the New York Times for doing exactly what the Trump campaign has been doing to Bill Clinton pic.twitter.com/yuTSLUXO99

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) October 12, 2016

So, after being appropriately admonished, Trump’s first congressional backer – the guy who wants to be Secretary of Commerce – is today quite adamant about his continued support for Trump. Let’s start with this startling admission: 

Collins said he has not had talks with the Trump campaign in the wake of The Washington Post story that exposed that 2005 video where Trump spoke crudely about women.

But when asked, Collins went on CNN and the Fox Business Network to defend the candidate after the video surfaced.

Collins did so even though he’s never seen the full video that caused the controversy. Instead, he said he’s heard snippets of it and read full accounts of it in the news media.

Asked why he had not seen the full video, Collins said: “Because I’d rather watch ‘American Pickers,’ ” a reality show on the History Channel that documents the travels of two antique collectors.

That’s Collins’ favorite show, but as for the controversial Trump video, Collins said: “I had no reason to see it.”

He never saw the tape he was defending. Never heard it. Went on TV, and talks to Jerry Zremski from the Buffalo News about how he continues to support Donald Trump even after the release of a tape he knows nothing about. 

The litmus test for finding fault with Trump’s comments is merely, “decency”. So, setting that aside, Collins has daughters, a wife. If someone talked of them this way, would he feel differently? “I did try and fuck her. She was married…I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look…Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything…Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

@jbarro It’s almost like buying a beauty pageant is kind of a creepy thing for a rich old man to do.

— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) October 12, 2016

Zremski continues,

Collins was combative, dismissing Trump’s comments in the video as mere words and, like Trump, contrasting them to the actual sexual indiscretions that resulted in the impeachment of Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Got that? Bill Clinton is a womanizer, therefore two wrongs make a right. 

How interesting that Donald Trump is now calling multiple women, who are alleging sexual assault, liars. Didn’t he accused Hillary of that?

— John Aravosis (@aravosis) October 12, 2016

 

“I was concerned” upon hearing about the video, the Clarence congressman said in a phone interview. “They were inappropriate words, to say the least, and I’ve said that. I needed to hear Donald Trump apologize, and he did.”

The relevant text of Trump’s apology: “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize.” I think the Howard Stern tapes reveal these words to exactly reflect who he is. I think his vitriol towards any woman who criticizes him – Rosie O’Donnell, Alicia Machado, Megyn Kelly – reveals exactly who he is.  

Moreover, Collins noted that Trump said he never actually touched a woman the way he described in the video. “He didn’t do it,” Collins said. “He said he didn’t do it. But we do know that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted women.”

What? The woman against whom Trump made these advances has been identified as Nancy O’Dell of Access Hollywood. But again: if it’s bad when Bill Clinton does it, doesn’t it follow that it’s bad when Donald Trump does it? (And he’s very much alleged to have done it – not just to adults, but to juveniles.) After bringing up Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky, Collins makes the failed connection to Hillary Clinton: 

“Bill Clinton preyed on women for decades with her (Hillary Clinton), frankly, acting as his enabler,” said Collins, dubbing the Democratic nominee “a phony feminist.”

That was just part of a tirade Collins launched against Hillary Clinton – about her role as secretary of state during the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and a host of other instances throughout her career.

“She’s had 30 years of abject failure in every job she’s held,” Collins said. “The country can’t survive four years of Hillary Clinton as president.”

That’s what they said about the first four years of Obama. 

And the second four. 

It’s a lie.

It’s just propaganda uttered by another Washington insider career politician. Collins just wants the cabinet post he’ll never, ever get. Here’s the pitch: 

Trump is the “change agent” Washington needs to bring back jobs, to secure America’s borders and to get tough on Russia, Collins said.

Challenged about Trump’s praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Collins dismissed the question as “a liberal bullshit line,” and threatened to hang up.

At the Commander-in-Chief Forum in September, 

I’ve already said [Putin] is very much of a leader. The man has very strong control over his country. You can say, “Oh, isn’t that a terrible thing,” I mean, the man has very strong control over his country. Now it’s a very different system, and I don’t happen to like the system, but certainly in that system he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader.

At various other times, 

[Putin is] “doing a great job” in “rebuilding Russia,”and “I think I’d get along very well with Vladimir Putin.” After Putin called Trump a “talented person” last year, he returned the favor: “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”

It may be a “liberal bullshit line”, but it’s also one that apparently concerns the cadres at the National Review. 

Here are some more examples of Chris Collins’ Presidential candidate heaping praise on a neo-fascist authoritarian dictator: 

• October 2007: “I mean this guy has done—whether you like him or don’t like him—he’s doing a great job in rebuilding the image of Russia and also rebuilding Russia period.”
• June 2013: “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow—if so, will he become my new best friend?”
• March 2014: “I believe Putin will continue to re-build the Russian Empire. He has zero respect for Obama or the U.S.!” Also: “Putin has become a big hero in Russia with an all time high popularity. Obama, on the other hand, has fallen to his lowest ever numbers. SAD”
• May 2014: “I was in Russia, I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.”
• October 2015: (Re: the downing of MH17), “They say it wasn’t them,” he says. “It may have been their weapon, but they didn’t use it, they didn’t fire it, they even said the other side fired it to blame them. I mean to be honest with you, you’ll probably never know for sure.”
• December 2015: “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country.”
• July 2016: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he says during a news conference. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Finally, as to the criticism that Donald Trump insulted the Gold Star Khan family, Collins reveals,

It makes my skin crawl when I hear people say that Donald Trump insulted a Gold Star family, that he’s best friends with Vladimir Putin,” Collins said, referring to the family of the late Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq.

Well, then it must make his skin crawl a lot. Here’s what Sen. John McCain said about the Khans in response to Donald Trump’s unhinged, insane defamation of them:

“It is time for Donald Trump to set the example for our country and the future of the Republican Party,” McCain said. “While our Party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us. Lastly, I’d like to say to Mr. and Mrs. Khan: thank you for immigrating to America. We’re a better country because of you. And you are certainly right; your son was the best of America, and the memory of his sacrifice will make us a better nation — and he will never be forgotten.”

And Senator Lindsey Graham: 

This is going to a place where we’ve never gone before, to push back against the families of the fallen. There used to be some things that were sacred in American politics — that you don’t do — like criticizing the parents of a fallen soldier even if they criticize you.”

Because Donald Trump said this about the Khans: 

“Who wrote that? Did Hillary’s scriptwriters write it?” Trump said in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “I think I’ve made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard.”

and

Mr. Trump told Mr. Stephanopoulos that Mr. Khan seemed like a “nice guy” and that he wished him “the best of luck.” But, he added, “If you look at his wife, she was standing there, she had nothing to say, she probably — maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say, you tell me.”

and, 

I’d like to hear his wife say something.

The fact remains that Chris Collins and Donald Trump would implement a complete ban – a religious test – on Muslims entering the United States. It’s not going to be a “virtual wall”, and Trump isn’t discussing a “rhetorical deportation” of 12 million people. All of this white identity and race hatred is something that might play well in some pockets of western New York, but is nevertheless wholly unbecoming of a representative who is sworn to serve all the people – not just the white Christians. Maybe Collins sleeps better at night by kidding himself about what he’s promoting. 

Chris Collins is just another bullshit artist culture warrior, deflecting people’s attention from his horrific record as County Executive and his worthless, achievement-free time moistening a seat in the House. Here’s something else Collins wants: a ban on all abortion, even when the life of the mother is at risk, or where the pregnancy is the result of the kind of rape that his candidate Donald Trump stands accused. Collins’ opponent, Democrat Diana Kastenbaum, characterizes this as Chris Collins’ “war on women”. 

Kastenbaum, by contrast, had this to say about Trump’s boasts of sexual assault, 

I am sickened by the comments that have been made by Donald Trump regarding women. They have also been reinforced by his surrogates who continue to defend him and his misogynistic old boys’ club. Even my opponent, Rep. Chris Collins (R), stands by his man.

There is a particular type of ugliness when women are made fun of, degraded and dismissed. However, we shouldn’t be surprised because we’ve seen it before throughout Donald Trump’s campaign. What is most disturbing though is the merry band of men and women who support him and echo his words. Some may not say it out loud, but their very support of him speaks volumes.

He crossed the line years ago when he accused President Obama of not being a U.S. citizen. He crossed the line when he called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers. He crossed the line when he mocked a disabled reporter. He crossed the line when he said John McCain was not a hero and that POWs were not heroes because they allowed themselves to be captured. He crossed the line when he disparaged a Gold Star family. And yet, his defenders tried to tell us how we misinterpreted or misread his statements. We waited patiently for the press and media to question him, call him out on his bigotry and prejudices, but the lies kept coming and his surrogates kept getting their sound bites.

Now the attack is on all women – our daughters, our mothers, our grandmothers. Finally people are getting angry and saying they have crossed the line for the last time. But have they? Mr. Collins has not. In spite of the now growing list of Republicans saying they cannot support a President who says such things, Mr. Collins has said “there is no change in my support of Mr. Trump as our nominee”.

This latest degradation of women should offend everyone, even Chris Collins, and it is amongst a long list of abusive behavior. I am a Mom who has a daughter. My instinct is to immediately try and shield her from these horrible comments, just as my Mother would have done for me and my grandmother before her. I ask myself, “who brought this man up?” Who raises these people to hate women so?

Mr. Trump and Mr. Collins, women are 51% of the population and we vote. We are married to men who respect their wives, their mothers, their daughters and they vote. We have sons and daughters whom we have brought up to be fair, open, non-prejudiced, wonderful human beings who want a better world without bullies, bigots and misogynists and they vote too.

The time has come for all the voters in NY27 to take a long, hard and unbiased look at the candidates and when you cast your vote I hope you take into consideration the kind of country you want to leave to your children. It has to be about issues, but it must also be about a person’s character as well. We should all keep in mind the words of Billy Graham, “when wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.”

It’s not exactly a war on just women. It’s a war on decency. I guess there’s not much more to expect from guys like Chris Collins, who casually demand a “lap dance” from prominent businesswomen. Trump and his cult have crossed too many “lines” to count, and all of it – in the aggregate – would have destroyed a thousand campaigns. 

I’ll pass along another anecdote about what kind of world Donald Trump is enabling – breathing new life into racial animus and white supremacy. Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year – began at sundown on October 2nd. After services, Diana Kastenbaum exited Temple Emanu-El on Bank Street in Batavia before her husband and daughter to get in the car, and she heard unusually loud male voices coming from a house on the street. As the Kastenbaums pulled into the street, they heard someone shout “Heil Hitler” at them.  Shocked, they drove to the corner and decided to come back down the street again.  As their car approached the house from where the epithet came, there were two or three men sitting on a darkened porch.  Someone on that porch shouted, “Heil Hitler” at the Kastenbaums two more times, very loudly. They stopped in front of the house and rolled down the window and Kastenbaum’s husband, Hiram Kasten, said, “what’s up with that?”  The anti-Semites on the porch immediately backed down and said, “we didn’t mean anything by it”.  Kasten then said, “why don’t you come out here to the street and let’s talk about that”.  They said again, “we didn’t mean anything by it”.  Kasten yelled at them that it was against the law and anti-Semitic.  They did not say anything else and the family drove home. 

People like the Batavia porch nazis that Kastenbaum’s family had to endure after New Year’s services have become emboldened by Donald Trump and his appeals to white resentment, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and race hate. It’s called the “Trump Effect” and it’s polluting the country. 

It’s producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom. Many students worry about being deported.

Other students have been emboldened by the divisive, often juvenile rhetoric in the campaign. Teachers have noted an increase in bullying, harassment and intimidation of students whose races, religions or nationalities have been the verbal targets of candidates on the campaign trail.

Carl Paladino can defend misogyny, sexual assault, and racism yet still be elected to a school board in western New York. Chris Collins can pretty much do whatever he wants and be Congressman for life. Let’s at least try and make a dent on the latter. Contribute to Diana Kastenbaum, a CEO running for the NY-27 seat. Like most of us, she has the common sense to know right-wing apologia for sexual assault, racism, and abject contempt for everything America stands for. Freedom, opportunity, and a new nation of immigrants striving together to do the right thing even in difficult times.

This isn’t a bankruptcy he can discharge with other people’s money. 

At long last, a line appears to have been crossed with Donald Trump’s own boastful admission about his propensity to engage in sexual predation and unwanted advances towards women. On top of that, CNN revealed some excerpts of Trump interviews with Howard Stern that likely made for great radio, but the content of which is wholly unbecoming a serious political candidate. Every indication is that there is more – much more and possibly much worse – to come. 

The Trump campaign’s response is to claim that this was all “locker room” banter, and to try and pivot to Bill Clinton’s own history of sexual predation. The key difference is that Bill’s sexual predilections were litigated ad nauseum throughout the 1990s; Trump’s have never been relevant to a national political audience until now. To most, Hillary Clinton was one of the victims of Bill Clinton’s womanizing – not an enabler or proximate cause. Right-wing provocateurs claim now that she was somehow worse than her husband; that she viciously dealt with Clinton’s accusers in some poorly sourced and mostly false ways. 

This is the Breitbart wing of the Republican Party having its day in the light. The problem is, that light isn’t coming from the sun. 

For years, the extreme right wing – call them the tea party or whatever – have lamented that the Republican presidential candidate behaved presidentially; they slammed John McCain and Mitt Romney for not behaving more like they. The tea party came into existence in the wake of President Obama’s election as the global economy was in freefall. Things like the stimulus, cash for clunkers, and Obamacare signaled for this constituency that Obama wasn’t a real American, but instead a “globalist” or “socialist” Manchurian candidate hell-bent on destroying this country. Now, they’re literally claiming that Hillary Clinton is a “demon” – literally a supernatural being from hell, because such a thing apparently exists – and that, if elected, she intends to destroy the world. At the debate on Sunday, Donald Trump – the Republican presidential nominee – called Hillary Clinton “the devil” and said she has, “tremendous hate in her heart“. 

That is the foundation of the slimy pit, the mud and mire, occupied by right-wing talk radio, Drudge, Breitbart, World Net Daily, and all the other myriad outlets and commentators who push conspiracy theories about, e.g., Agenda 21, FEMA camps, 9/11 trutherism, and President Obama’s birth certificate. Before the internet, these people occupied the political fringes, relying on pamphlets and short wave radio to spread conspiratorial lies. In the waning days of the Reagan Administration, Rush Limbaugh breathed new life into this world, and when Bill Clinton was elected, it grew like a weed. It saw the advent of the militia movement and conspiracy theories galore; the Clinton “body count” and how anyone with a (D) after their name was coming for everyone’s guns. Fox News, ultimately, mainstreamed the fringe. 

The right-wing tea party extremist fringe used to be something the Republican Party could control. Not anymore. Apologists for this new phenomenon like to say that this is a reactionary jettisoning of the Washington (and other) elites. Not so much. This isn’t about regular folks taking their country back – that was what Bernie Sanders‘ movement was about. Trump’s may be anti-elite, but that’s masks an ugly movement founded on hatred – of immigrants and minorities, and based on fear of pretty much everything. Real leaders would take people’s economic insecurities and channel them into positive change; demagogues direct them towards rage. 

Late last week, audio emerged of Donald Trump talking to Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush, discussing his technique and prowess with respect to committing sexual assault. From the New York Times: 

Unknown: She used to be great. She’s still very beautiful.

Trump: I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down on Palm Beach. I moved on her, and I failed. I’ll admit it.

Unknown: Whoa.

Trump: I did try and fuck her. She was married.

Unknown: That’s huge news.

Trump: No, no, Nancy. No, this was [unintelligible] — and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping.

She wanted to get some furniture. I said, “I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.” I took her out furniture —

I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.

Billy Bush: Sheesh, your girl’s hot as shit. In the purple.

Trump: Whoa! Whoa!

Bush: Yes! The Donald has scored. Whoa, my man!

[Crosstalk]

Trump: Look at you, you are a pussy.

[Crosstalk]

Trump: All right, you and I will walk out.

[Silence]

Trump: Maybe it’s a different one.

Bush: It better not be the publicist. No, it’s, it’s her, it’s —

Trump: Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Bush: Whatever you want.

Trump: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

Bush: Uh, yeah, those legs, all I can see is the legs.

Trump: Oh, it looks good.

Bush: Come on shorty.

Trump: Ooh, nice legs, huh?

Bush: Oof, get out of the way, honey. Oh, that’s good legs. Go ahead.

This exchange resulted in days’ worth of chaos for the Trump campaign, even compelling the candidate to release a middle-of-the-night non-apology apology explaining that his “locker room talk” wasn’t as bad as whatever Bill Clinton had done. 

At Sunday’s debate, Trump seemed more prepared than at his first outing, but he wasn’t prepared meaningfully to address issues brought up by the undecided voters asking questions. He came instead prepared to humiliate Hillary Clinton and re-litigate 20 and 30 year-old accusations against Bill Clinton. This was the Breitbart gambit – the Roger Stone moment of the campaign; the primal WorldNetDaily style reintroduction to 90s Clinton bashing, and I have no doubt that it pleased Trump’s base of support. The same people who dismiss admissions of sexual assault as mere banter, and stand by while their candidate defames Mexicans, Muslims, war heros, Gold Star parents, African-Americans, immigrants, women, etc. 

As Republican leaders and candidates distanced themselves from Trump over the weekend, the defiant candidate and his cult found themselves like a cornered animal, lashing out in whatever way conceivable with whatever was at hand. 

Locally, Trumpist Congressman Chris Collins had nothing whatsoever to say for about 24 hours after the sexual assault tape came to light. Trump’s first congressional endorser told the Buffalo News’ Jerry Zremski that Trump’s remarks were, “frankly unacceptable,” but added: “There is no change in my support of Mr. Trump as our nominee because he remains the only candidate who will bring our jobs back, secure our borders and stand up to our enemies.”

But Trump’s remarks weren’t merely “frankly unacceptable”; they were an admission of a crime. How does a sitting Congressman face female constituents after expressing continued support for someone who cavalierly admitted to assaulting women without their consent and “grab[bing] ’em by the pussy”? This isn’t some one-off “locker room banter”, but evidence of a pattern of behavior. 

Earlier this year, the New York Times interviewed dozens of women who’ve worked with Donald Trump. Temple Taggart, a former Miss Utah who was 21 when she met Trump in 1997, described Trump behaving exactly as he boasts in the recording.

“He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, ‘Oh my God, gross.’ He was married to Marla Maples at the time. I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s inappropriate.’”

and

“That’s exactly what Trump did to me,” [CNN anchor Erin] Burnett said, quoting her friend. “Trump took Tic Tacs, suggested that I take them also. He then leaned in … catching me off guard and kissed me almost on the lips. I was really freaked out.”

In 1997, Jill Harth sued Donald Trump for sexual harassment, claiming he attacked her and groped her without her consent. In a deposition, Trump’s first wife, Ivana, accused him of rape during the marriage. An anonymous woman recently sued Trump, accusing him of tying her up and raping her when she was just 14 years old. 

Trump’s response to all of this is to say that Bill Clinton is bad, too? Despite all this, Chris Collins supports Trump for President.

Not to be outdone, local alt-right degenerate Carl Paladino went on TV with Chuck Todd and, appearing as what can only be described as a sedated, scheming right-wing Teddy Ruxpin, spouted rote recitations of far-out conspiracy theories. FBI Director Comey suppressed evidence! Benghazi was part of an arms deal Hillary cut to aid ISIS! This man is not a serious person and frankly has no business overseeing the education of Buffalo schoolchildren. 

It redefines insanity. Trump may be unqualified, but Paladino is just nuts. Inexplicably, he’s loving this. Finally! A candidate not afraid to be hyperaggressive! 

PALADINO: (laugh)  You know, it is not a big deal to me.

TODD: Why? He talked about unwanted sexual advances.

PALADINO: Chuck, Chuck, listen for just a moment what matters to me and the middle class of America what matters to me is what Hillary has done to America. The negatives of Hillary. The unindicted felon who, under subpoena, erased tapes, gave Gennifer Flowers $800,000, who we know found out was complicit with Obama in starting the Iranian/ISIS thing, who we know know Benghazi has something to do with her shipping weapons over to the ISIS people. This untruthful government has got to stop and that is a lot more important than listening to Trump talk about women 15, 10, 11 years ago.

TODD: You just talked about Benghazi was about a secret arms deal. You are trying to mainstream a whole bunch of speculation and innuendo, none of which are factually correct here. 

PALADINO: You guys missed it. Do you really feel James Comey did a great job for the American people and maintained the integrity of the FBI?

TODD: So let me ask you this, do you assume that because he didn’t bring charges he did a bad job? Why don’t you assume that he didn’t bring charges because he didn’t find enough evidence?

PALADINO: Oh, oh, he gave Mills a walk. He gave Heather Sandstone a walk…

TODD: is it possible he didn’t have evidence to bring charges?

PALADINO: He destroyed the evidence. Part of the agreement was that he wouldn’t look at evidence was January 15th…

TODD: You are accusing the FBI director of destroying evidence?

PALADINO: The man should resign. The man is a parasite on the American people. He has destroyed the integrity of one of the greatest institutions. 

TODD: I will let you go. I know you are full of passion. But you can’t just do this, throw this out there.

PALADINO: The press is out of control….

TODD:  I will let it go there….

TODD: You are accusing the FBI director of destroying evidence?

PALADINO: The man should resign. The man is a parasite on the American people. He has destroyed the integrity of one of the greatest institutions.

TODD: I will let you go. I know you are full of passion. But you can’t just do this, throw this out there.

PALADINO: The press is out of control….

TODD: I will let it go there….

Carl Paladino doesn’t think sexual assault is a big deal probably because it doesn’t even come close to the equine stuff he’s into. He also thinks that Infowars is news. To the Washington Post, Paladino reacted to Trump’s proclivity for sexual assault thusly, 

Carl Paladino, Trump’s New York state co-chairman, a former gubernatorial candidate who had his own scandals over sexism and racism, said Trump’s “gutter talk” was something “all men do, at least all normal men.” 

The only people concerned with this are Hillary people right now and the treacherous ones in the Republican Party,” Paladino said. “The people in America look at this and say it’s another day in the life of Donald Trump. It doesn’t matter to them.”

Get that – Carl Paladino says that “normal men” – query what, precisely, he means with that adjective – boast about unwanted sexual advances against female strangers. Remember that Paladino is an elected official in a school district overseeing, among other things, issues relating to inappropriate sexual misconduct. As of right now, an online petition demanding Paladino’s removal from the school board has over 1,600 signatures. Channel 4 got a hold of this faux moralist, 

“I think I was probably misstating when I said that all men do that. I meant to say a great deal of men do that. I think it’s very unfortunate, unfortunate that it happened. I think Donald Trump apologized. I think in 99 percent of the cases, it’s exaggerated.”

The petition also references the proposed gender identity policy in Buffalo schools. It would allow a transgender student to use the restroom and locker room that corresponds with their gender identity. Paladino has spoken out against the policy.

“I don’t think that the notice of parents is adequate. I don’t think we should expose the sensitive and gentle minds of children at young ages. ..that’s what they’re upset with. they have another agenda here,” Paladino said.

The “sensitive and gentle minds of children” are ill-served by degenerate rape apologist Carl Paladino. 

But back to Sunday’s debate – seriously, leave it to these morons to once again transform Hillary Clinton into a sympathetic figure. Trump says that if more audio of him being misogynist or racist come out, he’ll hit Bill Clinton even harder. Trump, it should be noted, lied repeatedly throughout the debate. He is a liar and a huckster trying to argue that Hillary Clinton is dishonest. He is an admitted sexual assailant whose best defense is that Bill did it, too. Trump is a guy who doesn’t pay taxes that pay to make “America great”, makes our allies nervous and our enemies excited. This is bizarro world stuff. 

The debate itself was a contrast in tone and demeanor. On the one hand, you had an intelligent and informed woman answering questions from the audience and responding to challenges from the moderators and the predator with whom she shared the stage; and on the other hand, you had an uninformed man whose only play was to try and humiliate his opponent, and accuse her of being a criminal or worse. 

Much has been made of Trump’s pledge to throw Hillary Clinton in prison should he become President. Rightly so. It is the stuff of banana republics. It is not strong, broad-shouldered American strength, but politically weak dictatorial threats. It’s no surprise Trump so admires Vladimir Putin; they’d be birds of a feather if Trump had even a fraction of Putin’s experience playing this game. Donald Trump is the guy who literally kicked off his campaign by tweeting a picture of Waffen SS with an American flag overlay. One of his first pronouncements was that he would ban birthright citizenship. This campaign is founded on race hate. 

Last December, in the wake of Trump’s Muslim ban announcement, I wrote that his campaign was nothing more than a hate group. In July 2015, I wrote, “Trump is one of about 15 Republican Presidential hopefuls, and he not only threatens the viability of his own brand, but the Republican brand in general. The more nonsense that comes out of his unfiltered mouth, and the more he beats up on the most vulnerable and powerless in our society, and the more he demeans his fellow candidates, you’d not be crazy to think that he might actually be a liberal plant setting up the GOP for self-immolation. Enjoy the ride, Republicans, but remember that whatever Trump’s doing, he’s only in it for Trump.”

For us in western New York, we hold an especial responsibility here, because the Trump ascendancy was largely spawned by our local ultra-right politicians, consultants, and media. Trump skulked behind Clinton like a predator, interrupted her, and otherwise fed the Breitbart beast that makes up his base. He had to reassure them that he was still in this fight, and that he would fight as dirty as necessary. The problem for Donald Trump is that he can’t win with just his base, and polls are showing a precipitous drop in his support right now. Sure, this could all change on a dime, but the trend right now looks very bad for him. That’s why he’s irresponsibily claiming that the polls are “rigged” and that if he loses, it’s due to voter “fraud”. Because, in his mind, he can’t lose fair and square – it has to be a fix. That’s dangerous talk that’s, frankly, un-American. 

Donald Trump is not running for President of the United States. He’s running for dictator of some other country – one without long-standing functioning institutions of state and the rule of law. 

If he loses, after so many years of the hard right demanding that their candidates talk and act like Trump, what will they say next? The only thing happening here is the hastening of the dismantling from within of the Republican Party. 

For the past several weeks, City of Buffalo Councilmember Ulysees Wingo has raised his fist in protest during the rote recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of council sessions. Wingo instead recites a prayer to himself. He began doing this after seeing the video of the homicide of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed African-American man with his hands up, who was shot by a Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer because of aggravated car breakdown while Black. 

“That could have been me,” Wingo said. “Enough is enough. I’m tired. This country is tired. My people are tired. When is it going to stop? And it needs to stop now!”

Wingo, 36, said later that the Pledge of Allegiance phrase “indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” does not reflect the reality for many African-American citizens whom he said routinely face discrimination, racism and segregation in big and small ways.

“Clearly, the flag doesn’t mean the same thing to all people,” he said. “This is in response to every black person who has died without a weapon in their hand.”

It does seem quite astonishing that, for instance, the guy accused of setting off bombs in Manhattan can be subdued and arrested rather than killed, but Black men selling loose cigarettes on the street or for a traffic violation or being homeless or having car trouble end up shot dead, or arrested for sitting on their mom’s porch. 

This being a free country, Wingo is perfectly within his rights to substitute whatever he wants for recitation of the pledge to the flag. You don’t have to like it, and you don’t have to agree with it. But it’s pure, unadulterated political speech and anyone who believes in the ideals that flag represents – the “Republic for which it stands – should – must – support Wingo’s right to protest. 

On Thursday, Wingo posted an image of a letter he received from someone purporting to be a Buffalo Police Officer. It repeatedly calls Wingo a “nigger”. Wingo wrote this caption, 

I didn’t read your letter– and I won’t. But I’ll have my very resourceful and loving residents of Buffalo read this letter for me. My staff DID inform me that you are law enforcement. You, SIR, are the reason I won’t stop protesting. If my fist in the air offends you, then YOU readily need to take an immediate introspective analysis of your life.

Now, to my black, brown, and white WNY family who acknowledges the need for me to keep going… JOIN ME in council chambers on October 18th at 2:00pm and show this —- how Buffalo will lead the nation in showing unity and solidarity. There’s definitely a lot of work to be done! Let’s get this work!!! 

Here is the letter: 

Cowardly white supremacy in full effect. Racist. Councilman Wingo’s point proven. This person purports to be a cop and walks drives around a town with a large minority population with an attitude like this against the people he’s sworn to protect. Buffalo hasn’t had any police shootings like the ones in other cities, so it wasn’t about you, buddy. Put your fragile white identity away. He even said that it’s not about you. Maybe pay attention. 

As Mr. Wingo says, “there’s definitely a lot of work to be done”. 

When Trump fanboy Chris Collins is challenged by a journalist, he loses his cool. Brianna Kielar pressed Collins on Trump’s taxes. While Collins wanted to talk about how Putin fanboy Trump would be tough on Putin or about all the fresh misogynist energy and new white supremacist blood Trump brings to our polity, Kielar wanted to push back on Collins’ suggestion that only she – and no one else – cared about what was in Trump’s tax returns.

A CNN poll reveals that 73% of the electorate cares. So, Collins and Trump are way out of touch. 

This is really something to watch. Collins quite clearly isn’t up to the pretty light challenge. Some might remember that Collins, too, refuses to release his tax returns, preferring instead to “show” whatever he chose to the Buffalo News’ Jerry Zremski and Bob McCarthy. Transparency is anathema to Collins, who is too good to be bothered by the notion of an informed electorate. He thinks that his “competitors” would get sensitive information if he released his tax returns, but that never stopped other businessmen running for office from revealing their returns. This is what Collins said about his taxes and his refusal to release them, and it reveals everything you need to know about his attitude towards voters: 

“My federal return is probably 25 pages long,” Collins added. “It’s too much for the public to absorb.”

While the electorate in NY-27 may be made up, in Collins’ mind, primarily of innumerate hicks like the Tops store manager who’s “not paying federal taxes”, that’s why we have journalists, who can use tax accountants to help parse the information in tax returns to determine whether our elected officials have any conflicts of interests, and whether they pay any federal income taxes at all. 

On the issue of Trump’s tax avoidance, sure, no one pays more than they are legally required to pay, but that’s not the point. The point here is that this is a person who manipulates what amounts to a bespoke code for billionaire tax avoidance while dumb schmucks like you and I pay until it hurts. Remember: when Clinton confronted him with the probability that he didn’t pay any federal income taxes, he – uninvited – blurted that this made him “smart”. What it makes him is a freeloader. Not only is he such a piss-poor businessman that he lost a billion dollars in the casino industry and real estate during a growing economy with rising real estate values, but his completely absent business “acumen” allowed him to be worse than any “taker” Trump and his ilk have been denigrating for their low incomes and lack of federal tax exposure – the 47% Mitt Romney so casually denigrated in 2012. 

Donald Trump is awful, yes. His manipulation of the tax code, by the way, doesn’t make him a “genius”, as his surrogates would have you believe. If anything, the genius is his accountant. The issue is that Donald Trump die-hards have their decision already baked in. Ditto the Clinton Democrats. As always, these contests come down to undecided voters in swing states. When a Donald Trump – awful as he is – is revealed to be a guy who not only didn’t pay taxes, but thinks that the reason you and I do is that we’re stupid, that won’t play well where and with whom it matters.

Collins subscribes to the whole maker/taker class warfare. Literally. Chris Collins reckons a supermarket store manager is so privileged that she doesn’t pay federal income tax. That is an actual thing that an actual federal representative said to a TV reporter on the record, on the air. 

Go check out Diana Kastenbaum, the Democrat running in NY-27. She’s a businesswoman from Batavia who doesn’t treat the electorate as subjects or idiots. 

The town of Clarence’s Industrial Development Agency is doling out welfare to a multimillion-dollar development being planned on Transit Road. The IDA approved tax incentives for Russ Salvatore, Jr.’s plan for a mixed-use complex near Casey Road under its “adaptive reuse” policy. Unfortunately, however, Salvatore demolished all the structures on the parcel, thus rendering any “adaptive reuse” wholly impossible. 

Salvatore’s project may be laudable in every way, but here it invites public scrutiny because it is applying for an opportunity not to pay sales and property taxes that would otherwise be due. 

The town of Clarence is a sleepy exurb that has beautiful parkland, wide open spaces, quaint neighborhoods, and sprawling subdivisions. On its website, the Clarence IDA boasts having created 500 jobs in the last 10 years. A public benefit corporation, the IDA exists to assist businesses that locate and grow within the town. The IDA does this, in part, by offering tax incentives such as sales tax relief on construction materials and equipment, assistance with bonding and leasing, and other tax exemptions. 

New York has high taxes and thick red tape. Since no one is serious about changing the state’s business inhibition schemes, the incentives that IDAs like Clarence’s dole out are meant to counteract the general burden of “New York” in exchange for job creation and, usually, payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT). These incentives are not available to you as a member of the general public – there is a process that must be followed before an applicant is considered worthy of the tax breaks. From the IDA’s minutes from the public hearing held April 21st, 

This project is eligible for adaptive re-use and it is in the Transit Road Enhancement Area. It will be a 20,000 sq. ft. office mixed use building including residential and retail use. The project amount is approximately $2.5M. The assistance will include mortgage tax abatement and sales tax on materials and/or equipment purchased for incorporation into the Project. There will be no property tax abatement. 

The Erie County IDA defines “Adaptive Reuse” as, “rehabilitating buildings that have been empty for three years or more and are at least 20 years old.” The strategy behind this policy has to do with the large local inventory of distressed, aging properties and the unique – often prohibitively expensive – challenges companies face when considering the possibility of renovating a long-abandoned structure into something new. What adaptive reuse is not, is the demolition of existing structures and starting from scratch with a parcel of shovel-ready land.

Yet, that’s exactly what Salvatore has done on Transit Road, and the Clarence IDA has taken money out of your town’s and county’s coffers, and taken money away from the school district, in order to subsidize a private multi-million dollar project. The County Executive is threatening to sue, 

“When you tear the structure down and remove everything associated with it, that is not the adaptive-reuse policy contemplated by Erie County and others,” Poloncarz told the Erie County IDA board Wednesday. “I was very disappointed to see the Clarence IDA give a tax break for a project when the entire site was demolished.”

The $2.5 million project is two-thirds residential and one-third retail in nature, which also does not qualify for incentives under common policies developed and adopted by all of the area’s IDAs, Poloncarz noted.

Lawrence M. Meckler, town attorney for Clarence, disagreed with Poloncarz. “As part of adaptive reuse, you can demolish a building if that’s necessary. Nothing in the regulations would disqualify demolition as adaptive reuse,” Meckler said. “… The question is, does it or doesn’t it qualify for incentives? And it absolutely qualifies. … We did everything by the book.”

As a retail project, it doesn’t qualify for any IDA incentive program.  Astonishingly enough, the developers should have to pay sales taxes and mortgage recording taxes like you or I. It is ineligible for any “adaptive reuse” program, because no existing structure is being adapted or reused. The town attorney says, “nothing in the regulations would disqualify demolition as adaptive reuse”. But it is completely antithetical to the policy itself. Meckler twists logic here by suggesting that the town is subsidizing the “adaptive reuse” of a structure by demolishing it. 

…he said the project qualifies because it’s an “adaptive reuse” despite the fact the developer is demolishing the building. Meckler said it’s an 85 year old dilapidated structure that would only be developed through incentives.

No one opposes the project – just its welfare handouts. The biggest recipients of welfare and taxpayer handouts in Clarence are developers and businesses. It is shameful and outrageous for the Clarence IDA to forfeit mortgage and sales taxes that benefit the town and the county – including school taxes to help fund education – to enable Russ Salvatore’s grandson to develop a parcel of land on Transit Road for private retail and residential use. To do so under a wildly disingenuous and impossible interpretation of the words, “adaptive reuse” is shameful. This is illegal and this is theft. This is the town’s business interests and one-party Republican rule stealing from you. Literally this is your family – your tax dollars – going to subsidize a wealthy developer’s project. The rich and powerful business interests scratch the backs of the Republican hegemony, and vice-versa, and you pay for it. 

That’s what happens when there exist zero checks and balances within a one-party dictatorship. 

Monday night, the world watched an adult female, who had spent time and effort preparing for an important meeting with her opponent, debate a petulant, unprepared child who eschewed preparation, relying instead on interruptions, one-liners, and lies. 

As the American right hastens its march to the depths of anti-intellectualism, it now denigrates hard work and preparation, likening it to “cheating”. Donald Trump’s embarrassingly cringe-worthy debate performance probably didn’t move the needle for him. With his rudeness, condescension, and incomprehensible word salad, he behaved like any similarly situated D student with disciplinary issues might. On the C-Span split screen – which was devoid of vapid anchors and hot takes – Secretary Clinton appeared calm, poised, professional – Presidential. She took the hits and interruptions with a smile. Understanding Trump’s brand of domination politics, she wouldn’t refer to him the way all of his sycophants are likely instructed to on their non-disclosure forms, “Mr. Trump”. She called him Donald, and the more she got into his head, he dropped the faux-respectful “Secretary Clinton” in favor of dismissive pronouns. The candidates didn’t need to play to their respective bases – they’re chasing after undecided voters in swing states, and Clinton was the better salesperson. Here’s a chart recording his interruptions: 

Trump kept up a running commentary while Clinton was speaking, although he seldom wrested the floor from her. https://t.co/loX3erQrYw pic.twitter.com/HoHf2ib0Qp

— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) September 27, 2016

He sounded okay when discussing trade deals, if ranting repetitiveness is your jam. But when the topic turned to race relations and temperament, Clinton was as cogent as Trump was weak. Clinton went after Trump for what she termed the “racist birther” issue, and it hit him hard, knocking him far off-balance. There were no raucous audiences to cheer him on, there was no array of right-wing demagogues for Trump to insult and demean – just one smart, prepared woman who was ready, willing, and able to hit back. President Obama released his long-form birth certificate in 2011, and Trump didn’t stop until August 2016 – for that he offered African-Americans, “nothing“. Trump never denied Clinton’s charge that he paid “no taxes”, ranting instead about how the government spends them in a way he dislikes, and claiming he’s “smart”. 

When asked what he meant when he said Secretary Clinton lacks a “presidential look”, Trump said he meant she doesn’t have stamina, all the while audibly sniffing, pounding back glasses of water, and losing his cool at the slightest provocation. When confronted on his refusal to release his tax returns, he got a cheer from his audience partisans when he said he’d do it, even against his “lawyer’s advice”, when Secretary Clinton releases the 33,000 emails she deleted. Maybe Clinton should demand that Trump then produce proof that he’s actually under audit – he keeps saying it, but doesn’t uphold for himself the standard he sets for everyone else. 

Meanwhile, the Clintons have released 30+ years’ worth of tax releases, and Trump is the first candidate in modern times to refuse to release any. I wonder why a lawyer is advising him not to show them? 

The most effective part of Clinton’s presentation, however, was after a particularly ugly and ill-informed swipe Donald Trump took at our friends and allies in various military alliances – Germany and Japan, in particular. He insulted them as deadbeats whom America shouldn’t protect if they won’t pay for the protection. Clinton didn’t respond to Trump, looking instead at the camera and reassuring our friends and allies around the world that she knows the election has caused them a lot of consternation, but that they can be sure that America will uphold its commitments under our various military alliances, then reminded Trump that the only time NATO invoked its mutual self-defense clause under Article 5 of the treaty was after September 11th, and our NATO allies continue to fight terrorism around the world. 

Trump? “I haven’t given a lot of thought to NATO”, he said before launching into his spiel about how the other members need to pay up. 

Clinton also came prepared with the story of Alicia Machado, a former Miss Universe from Venezuela, whom Trump had derided as “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping”. 

Donald Trump called her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping.”

Her name is Alicia Machado. #DebateNight pic.twitter.com/0wrISjJe6z

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 27, 2016

If “telling it like it is” means being unable to handle 90 minutes’ worth of predictable questioning from a network anchor, and coming across as a ranting, lying lunatic, then I guess Trump’s base came away satisfied with his performance. But if you think being President is an important job that demands thought, good temperament, information, and preparedness, then there’s only one candidate who showed up Monday night to meet that standard. Amazingly enough, being President is more complex than calling in to “Fox and Friends”.

The Republican Chairman of the Erie County Legislature, John Mills, impels me to post this question. The word, “bribery” and “bribe” has come up recently in two instances; the first involving Governor Cuomo’s body man, Joe Percoco, and the second where Mr. Mills accused County Executive Mark Poloncarz of attempting to “bribe” him. 

Bribery, as you might imagine, is a criminal offense. A felony, New York’s Penal Law generally defines “bribery” as a situation where a person, “confers, or offers or agrees to confer, any benefit upon a public servant upon an agreement or understanding that such public servant`s vote, opinion, judgment, action, decision or exercise of discretion as a public servant will thereby be influenced.” What’s not clear there for Mr. Mills is the “benefit upon a public servant” part, I suppose. 

In the case of Mr. Percoco, he allegedly solicited “ziti” – payoffs and bribes – from an energy company and a Syracuse developer. For instance, the energy company allegedly sent Mr. Percoco on a vacation, paid for a fancy meal, and gave Percoco cash payouts, all amounting to almost $300,000. Those are items from which Mr. Percoco profited personally. Likewise, Percoco, with a help of a friendly lobbyist, allegedly pressured the energy company to secure a $7,500/month job for Percoco’s wife. 

So, bribery is conferring a benefit upon a public servant from which he profits personally – a payoff, a kickback, a well-remunerated no-show job. 

Here’s what bribery is not. 

No one really knows how the game is played
The art of the trade
How the sausage gets made
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in
The room where it happens 

It’s not a government executive fashioning a budget soliciting a deal from an adversary. Hell, in Hamilton, there’s a whole song about it – Room Where it Happens, which musically dramatizes the Compromise of 1790. Hamilton was desperate to get Congress to pass his plan for the federal government to assume the various states’ Revolutionary War debts via an excise tax, and to issue new bonds to refinance the national debt. Southern agrarian interests, led by Representative James Madison, were staunchly opposed, as they had largely paid off their debts. On the other hand, the Southerners wanted the capital moved further south from New York City. 

Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton appealed to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson for help, and Jefferson arranged a meeting between Hamilton and Madison. In exchange for Madison backing off his opposition to Hamilton’s debt plan, Hamilton agreed to move the seat of national power to the banks of the Potomac, shared between Maryland and Virginia. 

No one really knows how the
Parties get to yes
The pieces that are sacrificed in
Ev’ry game of chess

This was political horsetrading – you have a thing you want for your people, I have a thing I want for my people, let’s work something out. This is how things happen every day. Compromise is at the very heart of American democratic government where there exists an adversarial, two-party system, and a checks and balances on power. 

So, John Mills ran to the media with an audio recording. 

In the voicemail, Poloncarz mentions $800,000 available to repave a major road in Mills’ district and also mentions his desire to speak with the Orchard Park Republican about several other issues of importance to him, including pending legislation and union contracts.

“That, to me, is a bribe,” Mills said. “He made the call to do this, and it was wrong.”

No. It is not a bribe. Not objectively, not legally, not ethically, not morally, not linguistically. Had Poloncarz offered to transfer $800,000 to Mills’ bank account, that would be a bribe. Had Poloncarz sent the money to Mills in bags of cash, that would be a bribe. Had Poloncarz offered to coerce some donor to give Mills’ family member a no-show job, that would be a bribe. 

“I will allocate this county money to fix a road in your district, rather than using it to pay for any one of a number of other public priorities that others like you have presented to me as pressing, in exchange for your assistance on moving legislative matters and union contract negotiations along” is not a bribe in any sense or under any definition. 

Poloncarz replayed the voicemail for a Buffalo News reporter. In it, he mentions the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees blue-collar union and Erie County Medical Center.

Poloncarz tells Mills: “I know you’ve got a number of things to talk on, not the least of which is the charter, but I want to talk about AFSCME, I want to talk about ECMC borrowing, and also roadwork.

“You saw the letter that was sent over by Loffredo,” Poloncarz continued in the voicemail, referring to Public Works Commissioner John C. Loffredo. “We have about $800,000 that’s not allocated right now for roadwork. As I said to you before, I can do Boston Springville Road, but I want key commitments on a couple things, then I’ll sign over that stuff to get that road done. Give me a call when you get a chance.”

Mills said that $800,000 had been committed for repaving of Boston Springville Road four months ago by the Department of Public Works.

Poloncarz said that he doesn’t save personal voicemails from legislators asking him to consider their various pet projects in exchange for their support on other issues, but that he receives such requests regularly. When the county executive sought the release of money to boost his efforts to prevent lead poisoning or respond to the opioid crisis, he said, legislators wanted commitments from him to pave their district roads first.

“Hey, John, I’ll make the road in your district a priority over other roads in other districts that are in worse shape if you’ll work with me on these other initiatives.” is not a bribe. I don’t think John Mills knows what a bribe is. I don’t think he knows how bribery works, or why it’s inappropriate to publicly release a private voice mail – or, better yet – stupid to release one that quite clearly contradicts the very point you’re purporting to make. Two things: 1. I guess voice mails are now subject to public consumption; and 2. New York is a one-party consent state. 

Perhaps, like Hamilton in 1790, if Mr. Mills wants to get county crews fixing that road in Springville anytime soon, he should take a piece of advice from Aaron Burr: Talk less. Smile more. 

Nine people were arrested across upstate and western New York, indicted for allegations of bribery and bid-rigging in connection with Governor Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion initiative. Cuomo’s own deputy, Joe Percoco, stands accused of bribery, soliciting a $90,000 no-show job for his wife in exchange for exerting his influence in the capital on behalf of a Syracuse power company and developer. Lobbyist and Cuomo family confidante Todd Howe pled guilty and is cooperating with authorities. Howe’s firm handled lobbying for the Syracuse power company and developer, and for local development firm, LPCiminelli. SUNY Polytechnic’s Alain Kaloyeros, local developer Lou Ciminelli, and executives Michael Laippe and Kevin Schuler all stand accused of rigging bids for construction that unfairly and illegally favored LPCiminelli. 

All of this speaks to the culture of quid pro quo in Albany – private firms spending big money to lubricate the gears of government to win big contracts and earn big profits on the public’s dime. It was pretty open and rather brazen, as it happens when the alleged gangsters in question are unencumbered by omerta. 

It was as comically bad as this: with respect to the Percoco bribery charges, the parties involved referred to the bribes as “ziti”, harkening back to the mafia series The Sopranos, whose characters used the euphemism “boxes of ziti“. 

Perhaps, on the bright side, this episode might lead Unshackle Upstate and other business-entity advocacy groups to dummy up. They’re doing just fine in New York’s “anti-business” climate, because they know better than anyone how to navigate and exploit political money and speech for private gain. 

More seriously, however, good job, defendants. Nice work destroying and degrading something that had/s the potential to do so much good for so many people in this region. Thanks so much for taking an initiative that perhaps balances as much risk as it does hope for economic activity and jobs and turning it into an abbreviation for bribery, graft, and typical upstate corruption. Sure, they’re “innocent until proven guilty” in court, but the public relations damage is already complete. The Buffalo Billion is no longer a risky public investment in private enterprise, but a corrupt public scandal. The Watergate Hotel sympathizes. 

Here’s what this means. Buffalo and New York are run by a mafia. Not mafia in an ethnic sense, nor in any sense strictly parallel to what you find in a Scorcese movie. It’s not based on neighborhood or nationality, or even political partisanship. It’s a mafia based solely on money and power, and it is allowed to thrive within a system that has been especially designed to incubate it; that no one has the political will – or ability – to smash.

It is a system that is self-perpetuating, too. Like Matt Damon in The Martian, we plant potato seeds of corruption, graft, and bribery to yield bountiful and plentiful kickbacks, no-show jobs, and phantom profits. The mafia bosses are the three men in the room. Their staffs are the underbosses. The appointees are their caporegimes. Sometimes they co-opt other, smaller families, like the IDC, for their mutual gain. The dictatorship of the bureaucracy – those are the soldiers; the countless people who close their eyes, do their jobs, and shut their mouths until pensions vest. 

New York government is populated with gangsters, and the whole operation is a racket. How else do you explain, for instance, paying $50,000 for an actual person to man a toll booth and act as a human ticket dispenser in the year 2016? 

It’s tough to bring down a mafia family. Preet Bharara and his US Attorney’s Office, as well as Eric Schneiderman and his AG’s office, are the New Untouchables.

Last weekend, a New Jersey man planted myriad bombs throughout the tri-state area, intending to kill innocent passers-by.  A couple of the bombs went off, and although no one was killed, dozens were injured on 23rd between 6th and 7th. This New Jersey man, Ahmad Rahami, was born in Afghanistan in 1988 and came to the United States with his family in 2000; when he was 12 years old. His father opened up a fast food stand in Elizabeth, which ran into some flak with neighbors and there was activity within the city council and in the courts over its operation. Rahami was a naturalized American citizen.

In the aftermath of an act of terrorism perpetrated by an Afghani-American, the Republican presidential nominee’s son Tweeted this: 

This image says it all. Let’s end the politically correct agenda that doesn’t put America first. #trump2016 pic.twitter.com/9fHwog7ssN

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 19, 2016

The image “says it all”, how? Not only is this facile Skittles analogy all wrong, it’s right out of Julius Streicher’s Der Stürmer. 

That’s the cover of Der Giftpilz, or the “Poisonous Mushroom“. This children’s book taught German kids in the 30s and 40s that, “just as it is often hard to tell a toadstool from an edible mushroom, so too it is often very hard to recognize the Jew as a swindler and criminal”. Streicher was tried and hanged at Nuremburg. 

But aside from the clear regurgitation of some of the most insidious Nazi racial propaganda, how are Skittles like people; from what war or conflagration are these Skittles seeking refuge? What “politically correct” agenda was being served? If the bombings were the thing that prompted Trump to Tweet this, what does Syria have to do with Rahami? What the hell logic is going on here in this heir-head’s mind? 

By all accounts, Rahami was a grade-A scumbag before he tried to maim and kill people with shrapnel propelled by homemade bombs. He allegedly beat and stabbed his own sister. He traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent years, and may have been radicalized while on one of those trips – he spent a year in Pakistan. But he lived with his mom and dad and had a job at the family business. What he attempted to do in New York and New Jersey is abhorrent, and he deserves fully to be prosecuted. 

But how does this sick act by one perverse asshole lead to the conclusion that accepting Syrian refugees is our misfortune? The immigrant story – indeed, the refugee story – is not tragedy for the United States, but a triumph. It’s not for nothing Rahami’s father could open up a fast food business in New Jersey and make some sort of living in a new world. It’s not for nothing the manhunt for Rahami ended when the Sikh owner of a bar called “Merdie’s Tavern” called the cops. It’s not for nothing that it was an American Cypriot refugee who took the picture of Skittles that Trump, Jr. Tweeted. 

I’ve already written that Trumpism is not dissimilar from fascism. From its very creation, the Trump campaign has been founded on the notion of white resentment – against Mexicans, against Muslims, against any minority group who can reasonably be scapegoated. The world is changing in many ways – socially and economically. Not only aren’t the coal mines coming back, but neither are steel mills. By the way, gay people can get married to a same-sex partner, to boot. For many people, this is all too much. America is gone. Obama and Hillary have taken it away. The liberals and Nancy Pelosi must be stopped. 

On top of that, the immigrants. The refugees. They’re coming for your jobs; your children; your lives; your women. 

They’re here. And I’ve been saying. This is going to be like the Trojan horse. We’re letting tens of thousands of people flow into this country and they are bringing in, in many cases, this is cancer from within. This is something that’s going to be so tough and you know they stay together, so nobody really knows who it is, what’s happening. They are plotting. They keep plotting, and this has been going on for so long and everybody knows it and the good law enforcement, we have such great people. That’s the best thing we have going is that we have great law enforcement. They know about it.

Trump says, “Cancer from within”. Like this Nazi Russian-language propaganda from 1943 branding Jews as “people of contagion”. 

‘They are plotting; they keep plotting”, says Trump. Like this 1942 cartoon accusing Jews of a “conspiracy against Europe”? 

But racial animus isn’t enough – Trump also has to attack our fundamental principles. The bomber was shot; we have a duty to provide him with medical care, and even if you think he doesn’t deserve it, it keeps him alive to face justice.

But the bad part: Now we will give him amazing hospitalization,” Trump continued. “He will be taken care of by some of the best doctors in the world. He will be given a fully modern and updated hospital room. And he’ll probably even have room service knowing the way our country is.”

We have a constitutional duty to provide him with legal defense if he can’t afford his own lawyer. Again: it’s not our race hate, but our Constitution that makes America great. 

“On top of all of that, he will be represented by an outstanding lawyer,” Trump added. “And his punishment will not be what it once would have been. What a sad situation. We must have speedy but fair trials and we must deliver a just and very harsh punishment to these people.”

The Constitutional guarantee of a right to counsel doesn’t just protect people whom you think are guilty, but all people who stand accused of a crime. “His punishment will not be what it once would have been” – what, exactly, does that mean? Guillotine? Hanging? Is that what will make “America Great Again?” 

Stoking the fires of racial and class resentment isn’t going to turn back the clock to a happier time, when it was “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”; when women and minorities knew their place, and, ironically, trade unions succeeded in the working class into the middle class. Railing against “political correctness” so that white millionaires can feel more comfortable using racial epithets, isn’t going to lead to any great regression, either. 

Within the Trump campaign, all of the hallmarks of a fascist movement are there; authoritarianism; scapegoating of immigrants and minorities for real and perceived social and economic ills; disregard for the Constitution and rule of law; spouting lies and falsehoods with impunity; “stab in the back” mythology; “take our country back” jingoism; appeals to class warfare, here inciting the working class to blame the pointy-headed liberal elites for their own economic misfortunes in a changing economy, etc. Mussolini blamed the socialists. Hitler blamed the Jews. Fascism was a perverse reaction to Marxist collectivism; while Marx emphasized class over the individual, fascism holds that national and/or racial identity take precedence over the individual. Toil for the good of the proletariat; toil for the victory of the Volk. 

Trump (so far) has blamed the Mexicans and Muslims – especially the Syrian refugees. But they haven’t done anything. Their only crimes are that they’re not like Trump. From Vox, 

A report released last week by the Cato Institute measured the risk to Americans posed by refugees. The report found that an American’s chances of being killed by a refugee in a terrorist attack in any given year are 1 in 3.64 billion. America’s murder rate — at 4.5 per 100,000 capita — is about 163,800 times higher.

Therefore, math being a thing, if three Skittles are deadly terrorists, you’d need a bowl of 11 billion Skittles to match the statistical likelihood of harm. Aren’t Republicans better than this? Shouldn’t they be? 

At this point, the only difference between Naziism and Trumpism is that Hitler believed that all the Skittles were poison.