Paladino and Thompson Either Lied or Hacked

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In Sunday’s Buffalo News, Bob McCarthy lazily transcribed tea party guy and Paladino henchman Rus Thompson thusly: 

[Rus] Thompson said the Paladino campaign engaged investigators to track the email trail.

“So we know where it came from,” he said.

I wrote about that here, yesterday. Paladino and Thompson both cite the release of the emails as being the last straw in the Higgins – Paladino relationship, because Paladino accuses Higgins of leaking them. Thompson tells McCarthy that they had proof via some “investigation”. 

But others who were involved in that campaign say there was no such “investigation”. 

Anyone with even minimal knowledge knows that you can’t “investigate” and “track” an outgoing email trail unless you have access to the recipient’s email. One can’t go into Paladino’s outbox and determine what the recipients of a particular email did with it. You can’t determine what any of the recipient’s recipients did with a particular email, etc. If Paladino felt it was embarrassing and caused “anguish” for his racist, pornographic emails to reach the general public, it was his responsibility to not share them. 

On the other hand, if Paladino and Thompson are alleging that an investigator really did learn who sent the email to me, the only way that could have happened is if they hacked into or otherwise illegally accessed my personal Gmail account – i.e., committed a crime. It’s lose:lose. Had Bob McCarthy verified the information his dopey source mouthshat at him, he could have factored that into the semi-informed, drool-moistened nonsense he wrote regarding a turning point in the relationship he was profiling.  

Here’s what McCarthy’s source had to say for himself when challenged yesterday: 

That’s pretty definitive and not open to interpretation. Rus KNOWS. 

Watch Rus take the “investigation” bike and start pedaling backwards: 

 

The timestamp is about 3 – 4 hours later than EST, and as of this morning there’s no reply to that. Why? Because there is no “investigation”. There was no fantastical “tracking” of what one of the people on Carl’s email list did with the emails once they received it. They can’t produce the name of the person who disclosed the emails to me, and they have absolutely no proof that Higgins or his staff provided me with the emails. 

When you let sources lie to you on the record, and you don’t reach out to other people involved to verify the information, you’re committing some pretty shoddy “journalism” there.

Paladino, Higgins, and McCarthy

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In an article that appeared in Sunday’s Buffalo News, Congressman Brian Higgins and his cousin-by-marriage Carl Paladino exchanged metaphorical f*ck yous. Frankly, it’s hardly news that a Democratic politician is at odds with opportunistic tea party figurehead Carl Paladino. 

But in Bob McCarthy’s article, it was revealed that the rift became irreparable after Chris Smith, Marc Odien, and I reported on Paladino’s happy forwarding of ugly racist and pornographic text and images to political figures and developers around the region. 

Release of the emails

Paladino’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign seemed doomed after a Buffalo website revealed his practice of emailing racist and pornographic jokes to friends.

At the time, Caputo (who has since broken with Paladino) told reporters he had been approached by a Higgins “emissary” who promised “everything would come out” if Paladino ran for governor.

Though he sent jokes to many friends on his email list, Paladino then and now blames Higgins’ staff for the leak.

“That was the end,” Paladino says now. “I knew he did it. And it only caused more anguish in the family than we already had.”

Typical narcissistic tween stuff, that. Paladino doesn’t blame himself for sending out images using the word “nigger” or showing the President of the United States and his wife as a pimp and whore – it’s someone else’s fault that he got found out, causing “anguish” to his family.  Had he kept his racism and pornography to himself, Mr. Paladino could have saved his own family all that “anguish”. 

[Rus] Thompson said the Paladino campaign engaged investigators to track the email trail.

“So we know where it came from,” he said.

I publicly challenge Rus Thompson – Paladino’s driver and errand-boy – to release the “investigation” that “tracked” the email trail. I would like to see proof in some form to back up what he’s talking about. Does Rus really think, for instance, that if he forwards one particular chain e-mail that Microsoft and Bill Gates will pay him money? 

Higgins denies that he or his staff leaked the emails, pointing out that Paladino’s email list included dozens of people who could have released the jokes.

Here’s a question – at any point do you think that the Buffalo News’ Bob McCarthy contacted Chris Smith, Marc Odien, or me to ask us to confirm or deny whether we received the Paladino emails from Brian Higgins or his people? Do you think that the author of this article made the effort to take to Facebook, Twitter, this blog, Artvoice, WNYMedia.net, or asked one of his colleagues for our numbers to see what we had to say about this particular matter? 

At no time did McCarthy ask the people who published the emails where they came from, or whether they came from a Higgins source. Think about it – the emails were sent to a long string of people. They were not secret – many, many people knew about them and former campaign manager Michael Caputo has stated that he knew about the emails, that he knew they were an issue, and that they focus-grouped them, finding that the racist ones were particularly problematic. 

When your campaign knows that the emails are an issue, and that any one of the recipients – or the recipients’ recipients – could have leaked them to the press, pointing the finger at the local Congressman who disagrees with your conclusion that Obamacare is worse than 9/11, to maintain a feud over them is idiotic. 

In the end, Carl Paladino is unable and unwilling to acknowledge that his own behavior is his own fault. These are things that normal people learn before they enter middle school. And journalists learn to check their sources – if Paladino and Rus Thompson say they know how the emails got to Chris, Marc, and me, you should probably check with one of us. 

Bias in the Newsroom

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Next time you listen to a newscast – a purportedly straight newscast reported-on by Steve Cichon or Dave Debo, or anchored by John Zach and Susan Rose – remember that this banner is now hanging in that station’s newsroom: 

That’s after the station spent all day last Thursday “covering” this anti-gun rally in Albany, joining with Carl Paladino to sponsor a bus caravan of WBEN listeners to the rally. 

The funny thing is that protests in Albany are a dime a dozen, and the only novelty about this one is that it was populated by underemployed conservatives who are not used to activism that goes beyond stating their name and location for a call screener. 

WBEN’s blatant anti-SAFE Act propaganda and agitation are all well and good, I suppose, but the station should no longer masquerade as a straight news outlet. It has crossed the line into issue-based PAC and should register with the Board of Elections. Thursday’s newscast and subsequent talk shows were nothing more than an infomercial for people who think that limiting magazine capacity from 10 to 7 rounds is “tyranny”. 

Andrew Cuomo and Reductio ad Hitlerum

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At yesterday’s WBEN-sponsored gun rally in Albany, where we were meant to understand that a reduction of legal maximum magazine size from 10 to 7 is a Constitutional infringement, there were the predictable ad hominem attacks against Governor Cuomo. Some of the protesters likened the Governor of New York State to Adolf Hitler, the genocidal totalitarian dictator of Germany from 1933 – 1945, who waged total war against free peoples throughout the world. So, here’s a handy chart to help set that record straight. 

A Question

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Which is Buffalo and WNY’s bigger problem?

The poor quality of substantive policy decisions, or the process and its utter lack of meaningful merit or transparency? Or is it simply that the process is the direct and intended result of poor policy, thus making the whole thing an interconnected, overcomplicated mess that help keeps government acts and omissions from adequate public review and scrutiny? 

 

Leaving and Coming Home Again

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I was out of town for a week visiting London, and neither know nor care what may or may not be happening in WNY politics, much less general American politics. So, instead, just a few logistical observations: 

1. The HAILO app that works in New York, Boston, and Toronto, is fantastic.  It tells you how long you’ll have to wait to hail a cab to your location, tells you when the cab is coming and sends you a receipt. You can pay by credit card with an automatic tip precalculated. Check out the screenshot, which identifies the driver who’s coming, and see how the license plate given matches up with the car that pulled up. I was impressed. You can tell the driver via the app where you’re headed, and when it’s particularly busy, the app gives you the option of letting prospective drivers know that the fare will exceed a certain threshold, bringing a quicker response time. The driver was great. 

 

2. One of the secrets of traveling with little kids is to just let stuff go. Didn’t make it in time for a parade? Go somewhere else. Also – put limits on museums. Two hours max is plenty, and be choosy about what you see. Get a map, select what you like (say, 15th – 17th century Flanders art) and go see it, then leave. Take the kids for ice cream or something. We found that the kids actually enjoyed and didn’t complain about the museums, ice cream notwithstanding. We went to one museum 1 1/2 hours before it closed, so we were forced to keep it short, but learned it was one of the best of the bunch. Another museum was a bit disappointing, so we just left after about an hour. Be flexible, and check your coats; museums suck when you’re too warm. Also, if you go to foodie paradise like Borough Market and it’s 34 degrees out and windy, you don’t eat street food outside while standing up, after 2 hours at the Tate Modern. You find a little Italian place, warm up, sit down, and have pizza and pasta. 

3. Bus vs. Subway – subway bypasses traffic, so it gets you places quickly. However, you see nothing. Bus may be slower, but you see things. Also, kids love the upstairs of double-deckers.  We used buses maybe 85% of the time we were commuting. 

4. From London, we did a day trip to Canterbury to see the historic cathedral of Thomas Becket and Chaucer. It was something of a counterpoint to seeing Chartres two years ago. The cathedral has guides wearing sashes who are all too happy to tell you stories about the history there, and the town itself is a charming reprieve from London bustle. To reach it, we took the high speed rail from St. Pancras, which reached speeds of 140 MPH. 

5. Rent an apartment as a home base. We used www.ivylettings.com and rented a one-bedroom apartment that had a washer/dryer. It had plenty of room for 4 – it was difficult to find affordable hotel rooms for 4 – as well as a full kitchen. We bought groceries like locals and became regulars at local restaurants and cafes.  It was cheaper than most hotels, and although you sacrifice things like daily maid service, the washer/dryer meant we could pack a lot less clothes. 

6. The signage at Toronto Pearson Airport for the Viscount Discount Parking Garage is atrocious. Upon arrival after going through immigration and customs, the first sign we saw for it was a small plaque by an elevator up on the departures level. There was all kids of signage for the daily lot across the street, but nothing for the airport’s own discount lot. This is also true of the signage as you approach the airport – I had to circle both terminals before I finally got a sign directing me to that lot. 

7. I thought this was the coolest food truck: 

 

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