Mychajliw and Genocide

3 comments

There are eight stages of genocide, according to “Genocide Watch.” Among them are “us vs. them” classification of preferred and targeted groups and symbolization of the targeted group through imposition (e.g., yellow star) and the exploitation of stereotypes or unique cultural attributes.

We focus here on “dehumanization”

In this stage, the perpetrating power begins to equate the targeted group or groups to sub-human status. Members of groups are likened to animals, vermin, insects, and/or diseases. Dehumanization allows average people to overcome the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda is in print and other media are used to vilify the victim group. To combat dehumanization, incitement to genocide should not be confused with protected speech. This rhetoric is harmful and can lead to the killing of hundreds of thousands. Local and international leaders should condemn the use of hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable.

Just this week, Stefan Mychajliw thought it necessary within the context of a *checks notes* town supervisor race to play around a bit with some dehumanizing genocidal language. For a guy who once made a big deal about his family’s travails through the Holomodor and emigration westward and then northward, it would ordinarily be counterintuitive for him to take on the language of genocide perpetration. Yet, believe it or not, here we are.

It is not enough to ignore Mychajliw’s incitement. It is important to highlight it and to condemn it for what it is.

Those are two tweets sent from Mychajliw’s official, verified Twitter account (I urge you to report them to Twitter for targeted hate speech against a group) within a day of each other. Mychajliw is attacking his opponent for suggesting that it would be good to re-evaluate zoning regulations in the town to allow for more multi-family housing. Mychajliw’s reaction to this is literally to call this an “infestation”.

One does not talk about an influx of people as an “infestation” unless one intends to dehumanize those people in such a way as to direct hatred at them. After all, whom do you call for an “infestation”?

The exterminator.

This is not hyperbole. This is a local Republican who once had aspirations to serve as County Executive or in Congress suggesting that a zoning change to allow for minority or low-income people to move into a town is an “infestation”.

Mychajliw’s antics cannot be chalked up to culture warrior banter anymore. This isn’t funny. This isn’t something to take lightly or to disregard. It cannot be stressed strongly enough that we have here a local prominent Republican running for office who refers to entire classes of people – poor, minorities, immigrants, refugees – you name it – as parasites or vermin.

The next time Mychajliw sells you some story about how his grandpappy went AWOL from the Wehrmacht, ask him why he feels comfortable using Nazi terminology to describe his fellow Americans who happen to be less white or less well-off than he.

In his risibly facile Op-Ed, Mychajliw wrote,

What I have is a love for the promise of America, and a loathing for those who seek to destroy it.

Mychajliw should look in the mirror, and loathe what he sees glaring back at him.

ELECTION ’21: THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD

One comment

Byron Brown is running a scorched-Earth campaign of lies and mud against India Walton, the woman who defeated him in the Democratic primary for Mayor of Buffalo. Brown’s campaign is seemingly managed by the Buffalo News’ editorial board.

Walton is the only Democrat in that race, and hers will be the only name on any ballot for that office. She has good and novel ideas about running a poor city that has been run by the current Mayor’s vast, entrenched political machine for 16 years. Despite hyperventilation to the contrary, Walton’s experience managing a large municipal organization is essentially equal to what Byron Brown’s was in 2005. Arguably more. (Citistat, anyone?)

In June, Democratic voters in the city of Buffalo decided it was time for a change, but Byron Brown could not be bothered simply to concede. He has instead aligned himself with the rich, the connected, and the right-wing. Faced with an end to his tenure that is earlier than he anticipated, but by no means premature, every chit and every favor is being called. In his desperation, he forgets himself.

But that is not what this is about. We are not here to contemplate Byron Brown’s alignment with the Buffalo power structure with which he has always had a symbiotic, mutually beneficial existence. Consider, for a moment, if the occupant of the mayor’s office put the least fortunate and powerful first. That is the inherent appeal of India Walton and what she stands for.

Instead, we have been treated to a crash education. What we have learned in the last several days is that the Republican Party in Erie County – the party of authoritarian cult and insurrection – has completely jettisoned any pretense of conservative small government values in favor of a platform of grift, lies, and racism. We are here to talk about nominal Comptroller candidate Lynne Dixon, sheriff candidate John Garcia and – of all things – Hamburg supervisor candidate Stefan Mychajliw.

As you may be aware, early voting in Erie County started on Saturday, October 23rd and runs through Halloween. (Polling places are listed here). I cannot urge you strongly enough to please vote for Kevin Hardwick for Comptroller, Kimberly Beaty for Sheriff, and Randy Hoak for Hamburg Supervisor. Hoak and Beaty each has an inspiring story, history, and platform. They are both exceptionally good and qualified candidates in their own rights. As for the office of Comptroller, few people know more about county government than Kevin Hardwick, and even fewer care as much as he about its proper functioning.

We are here instead to condemn the clumsy and stupid lies of Lynne Dixon, and to denounce the blatantly racist prevarication and propaganda from Garcia and Mychajliw.

Ken Kruly has covered Dixon’s rank idiocy quite well:

It is not unusual for some people in politics to drop scurrilous attack materials or ads near the end of a campaign when such action leaves little time for a responsible response from the candidate being attacked.  Such is the case with a mailer delivered today, Friday, October 22nd, the day before early voting starts.

Republican-Conservative candidate for Erie County Comptroller Lynne Dixon did just that today, sending out a mailer to Buffalo Democrats suggesting that her Democratic opponent, Kevin Hardwick, is a “pro-Trump Conservative.”  How ironic that is sent just as the Buffalo News on their website has posted an editorial endorsing Hardwick.  The editorial says that Dixon “sets herself apart from the current comptroller in style and temperament …”   NOT.

Ken Kruly in an email blog

Suffice it to say that Donald Trump is what finally convinced Hardwick to leave that fetid cesspool of a “Republican” party, and Dixon – (whose daughter Erin can, this year, spare me her semi-coherent, overwrought direct messages) – is the Trumper di tutti Trumpists. She offers nothing but lies and the Mychajliw continuum of failure, absence, and mediocrity.

Garcia is the successor whom long-embattled incumbent Sheriff Howard has hand-picked for himself. Just this past week, Garcia began airing this ad (FB). I won’t embed it here because I think that it is, frankly, evil.

It starts out with stock imagery of Black Lives Matter protests from 2020, which happened in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020. It portrays only images of rioting and cities burning with someone holding up a “defund the police” sign. The ad states that “socialism” is what brought about those images, which is laughably idiotic.

If we’re being temporally accurate, after all, the protests we saw in 2020 occurred under the current right-wing malign incompetence of Byron Brown and Tim Howard.

Predictably, the imagery in Garcia’s ad changes to a side-by-side black-and-white picture of India Walton (against whom Garcia is not running) and Kim Beaty. There are exactly two things about Walton and Beaty that are similar, and one of them is that they’re each the endorsed Democrat for public office. Garcia accuses Beaty and Walton of an intent to “dismantle the pillars of community protection in Erie County.”

So, are we to believe that Garcia has just randomly lumped in two completely unrelated candidates for office – both of whom happen to be women of color – to accuse them of planning to get rid of police departments? His ad says that you have to vote for him to prevent Erie County from becoming “another failed socialist public safety experiment.” Garcia’s inclusion of Walton in his ad is that old Republican standby of gratuitous fearmongering, misogyny, and racism. He sets Ms. Beaty adjacent to Ms. Walton to smear them both to his audience as women of color. The intended audience is racists and misogynists. Gotta turn out the base.

Garcia is implicitly endorsing excessive force and police brutality for people who like to see that sort of thing happen to minorities. With his racist lies, Garcia in one stroke disqualifies himself for any office whatsoever. Ever.

Now let us turn to Stefan Mychajliw, whose expulsion from the public sector will be especially gratifying. Mychajliw has all but abandoned the job for which taxpayers pay him big bucks in order to troll the libs on Twitter full time. His only platform is the culture war. His abandonment of his elected post has enabled him to traipse around the east coast cosplaying as a more ethnic Jim Jordan.

Mychajliw, who has lived in Hamburg for about two minutes, has literally nothing to run on so he attacks his opponent, Randy Hoak, as some sort of socialist. (I’m detecting a weak theme). But Mychajliw, who for a couple of years has been flirting with white nationalism, finally settled on a race to run – in Hamburg. But as the Buffalo News wrings its hands over India Walton’s qualifications, it ignores the fact that Stefan Mychajliw is barely qualified to be Stefan Mychajliw.

Now, at last, Mychajliw tells on himself. Pursuing white nationalist Trump voters is easier when you are one.

Someone leaked something to Stefan, and he pulled a quote so out of context it is almost meaningless. Stefan’s point here is clear, however – it is to scare whitey, full stop. Mychajliw, perpetually out of substance or ideas, accuses Hoak of – what, exactly? Respecting America’s diversity?

The Buffalo News got a hold of the elected Comptroller and he tried unsuccessfully to backpedal.

When asked if he has any problem with people of color moving into Hamburg, Mychajliw said, “No. That question should be asked of Randy Hoak. He’s the one who brought up the issue in this race.”

No. Mychajliw outs himself as having a problem with people of color moving to Hamburg, and he is trying to pander to other townsfolk who do. Most likely, it’s both. If, as he claims, Mychajliw is for diversity, then why would he cherry-pick part of something Hoak said that is pro-diversity and then attack him over it? The supposed logic only works if you’re a moron and a fraud.

The list of reasons to relegate Mychajliw to the private sector is deep and wide. His campaign disclosures reveal unpopularity and incompetence so significant that it likely crosses the line into illegality.

No wonder his own family members won’t vote for him. The people closest to him know what he is.

Between Dixon’s defamation, Garcia’s racism and misogyny, and Mychajliw’s no-show, no-ethics race-baiting, WNY can do much better with Hardwick, Beaty, and Hoak. It seems like this year is a unique opportunity to leave a lot of really bad prejudices and malign politicians behind.

India Walton Story Ideas For the Buffalo News

One comment

P1012065

A neighbor heard from someone that India Walton once drank a beer.

According to the neighborhood grapevine, Walton once spoke with a person who, years later, committed a crime.

A cop phoned in an anonymous tip because he heard from a colleague that Walton once drove 35 in a 30 zone.

A political opponent illegally gained access to Walton’s credit report and phoned in that Walton had missed a credit card payment one time years ago.

A woman in Tonawanda heard from her cousin that Walton once defended herself against false and scurrilous accusations at work and clearly did not know her place.

The friend of an acquaintance of a Lancaster man says he once heard a rumor that Walton had the nerve one time to question a white man’s judgment.

Steve Pigeon, awaiting sentencing, never heard of India Walton.

The ghost of Joe Illuzzi complained that Walton wouldn’t buy an ad on his site and didn’t pay off the head of the Independence Party for an endorsement.

One guy overheard someone at Ralph Lorigo’s weekly breakfast say that India Walton is a dirty commie.

A Conservative Party apparatchik / city worker with a secret home in Cheektowaga was on his fifteenth coffee break one day when he overheard someone say that India Walton ripped the tags off her mattresses.

A former boss who wishes to remain anonymous reported that India Walton did not, in fact, avoid the Noid.

The head of a city department heard from his neighbor that the neighbor’s girlfriend’s husband once saw India Walton cross Delaware Avenue against the light.

Byron Brown, Grassroots, and the Conservative Party have a lot of informants and had put together a comprehensive and dirty opposition playbook against India Walton but never thought they’d have to use it.

The hedge-funder landlord of India Walton overheard from neighborhood chatter that India Walton let someone with a lot of friends stay in her home.

I hope I’m doing this right.

The Ballad of Byron Brown

2 comments

For fifteen long years he’d been cream of the crop.
The king of the hill. The man at the top.
He’d cut all the ribbons for fifteen long years.
For a renaissance fueled by hotels and craft beers.
For fifteen long years, he had gone with the flow,
Mild-mannered and monotone, rostrum in tow.

Byron Brown has been mayor since two-thousand-six.
Plenty of time – with more problems to fix.
While things have improved for the white upper classes,
Not all see his tenure through rose-colored glasses.
Crime getting worse, cops are out of control,
Even punitive speed traps had taken their toll.

So India Walton said she would oppose,
This longtime incumbent, whom everyone knows.
For her community – for change and for hope.
And for her it seemed unlike some boring old trope.
The people, she says, had deserved so much more,
than from Byron Brown’s terms – of which there’d been four.

Progressives knocked doors, they made calls and held signs,
Throughout winter and spring to earn Walton two lines.
She envisaged – promoted a rust belt New Deal,
And spoke of her ambitious plans with a zeal.
But Brown kept pretending she didn’t exist,
His “rose garden strategy”? Easy to miss.

No campaign, no debate, never uttered her name.
He figured that this year was more of the same.
His machine was well-oiled – his lackeys would show,
It wouldn’t be close, if they all would just go.
He thought he was safe and he’d get his fifth term,
But India Walton became a concern.

On primary day, Walton’s backers turned out,
And this suddenly gave Brown a reason to doubt
His own re-election and chance number five.
His campaign ran on fumes and seemed barely alive.
He lost, and his chances were over, he reckoned.
The dread private sector, beginning to beckon.

But lo, who is this? Doug Jemal from the South?
Rocco’s out of his pool and Carl opened his mouth?
The Partnership, Jacobs, our own one percent,
Would not abide changes without their consent.
My fainting couch! Fan me! Arrange my affairs!
(To them welfare’s fine, just so long as it’s theirs.)

A meeting was hastily called to review,
What this millionaire posse should, could, and would do.
Carl called it and made sure that Pigeon was there,
and he told Bob McCarthy; their plans were laid bare.
They canceled it once and then tried it again,
But Carl was like poison to some of these men.

India, meanwhile, was doing the rounds.
Explaining that city hall wasn’t just Brown’s.
The national media gave her much attention,
This winner, whom Brown couldn’t bother to mention.
As mayor, she’d help out the poor and forgotten,
Before Tesla and plans grandiose, misbegotten.

He waited a week, let it all settle down,
Our caretaker mayor, the one Byron Brown.
His people held “protests”, sent loads of group texts,
All his patronage hires were suddenly vexed.
A grassroots campaign! A moment propitious!
But the grass isn’t real. That turf is fictitious.

It was too much to bear, all this talk about “people”.
So Brown hatched a plan both pathetic and feeble.
If democracy‘s something that should not be flouted,
Then where was the mayor’s campaign when it counted?
“There is only one mayor at a time!” Brown proclaimed.
She’s a radical! Socialist! Shame! Shame! Shame! SHAME!!

He could have conceded, acknowledged her win.
Been gracious in loss, let these changes begin.
But power corrupts, so instead he’ll contrive
A plan born of weakness and lame “strive for five.”
Byron Brown, the caretaker of all he surveys,
Will write himself in, if it means that he stays.

Brown’s shelf life, politically, may have expired.
Dems voted last Tuesday and told him he’s fired.
Despite all his noise, our democracy worked.
He didn’t campaign, and instead he just lurked.
Now angry and bitter, too late to the stump,
‘Stop the steal’ he’ll demand, like that other guy, Trump.

Bob McCarthy Doing Mychajliw PR

One comment

The Republicans are fighting about which of their Sheriff candidates is MAGAier. Here comes Stefan Mychajliw to offer his ethical and fiscal clarity, such as it is.

Oh, and here comes Bob McCarthy to simply transcribe and publish whatever Mychajliw tells him, without checking it first.

On one side we have Somethingorother Garcia, who switched parties a few times and voted in the Democratic primary in 2016. So not MAGA!

On the other side we have Somethingorother Healy-Case who also switched parties even more times, but did not vote in the Democratic primary in 2016. OMG MAGA!

Who cares.

Anyhow, Mychajliw, gearing up to lose a town supervisor’s race in a landslide, sweatily called Bob McCarthy to tell him:

In a routine review of county expenses, Comptroller Stefan I. Mychajliw Jr. said he is scrutinizing payments of $282,037 since 2015 to 716 Security and Investigations, partly owned by Garcia.

Bob McCarthy

Mychajliw has spent much of his recent tenure as “Comptroller” no-showing and launching little culture war catfights. There exists no place on earth and no person with a brain who suddenly believes that Mychajliw – who doesn’t know how to do the job from which he has absented himself – undertook a “routine” review of county contracts with a current candidate for office. It insults everyone’s intelligence and quite obviously so. But what McCarthy wrote next is simply amazing:

Mychajliw, also a Republican, emphasized that he has taken no position in the hotly contested primary race featuring Garcia and Karen L. Healy-Case, the endorsed party candidate.

Bob McCarthy

Now, this is a lie. To clarify: I have no doubt that Mychajliw opened his gob and told Bob McCarthy this lie. What is doubly egregious, however, is that McCarthy and the Buffalo News did not see fit to double-check Mychajliw’s assertion that he had “taken no position” in the Sheriff’s primary race between Garcia and Healy-Case.

Had McCarthy or his editor undertaken a simple check of the state election website, he would have discovered the $100 donation Mychajliw made to Healy-Case in late March 2021.

Mychajliw can support whomever he wants, but it is an abuse of his power to use his state-sanctioned office to target political opponents for special scrutiny or persecution. It is just as much an abuse of power as Trump pulling reporters’ phone logs or Mychajliw using the Comptroller’s office to issue what amounts to a campaign press release. I guarantee you that the Erie County Comptroller has no say or authority over what the state does with its state and federal funding for the Skyway.

Mychajliw also noted that the payments pose “numerous issues and concerns” for Garcia, especially should he win election as sheriff and profit through the county.

“There could be a serious conflict if he is potentially sheriff and privately benefits from a job his office can handle to begin with,” he said.

Bob McCarthy

So, Mychajliw is not accusing anyone of malfeasance, but merely suggesting that there is a potential conflict of interest. “Could be” and “potentially” are the weasel-word clues. Garcia responded he would sever his relationship with that company if he should win, so what is the problem?

The problem is that Stefan Mychajliw used his public office to do the Healy-Case campaign’s bidding and generate some mailer copy for it.

It is time for this shamefully opportunistic serial candidate to be retired to the dreaded private sector.

The Jacobs Coup

Leave a comment

Dear Congressman Jacobs:

You are a disgrace to your district, your constituents, and everything for which you purport to stand. You dishonor your office and its oath. You waited until the last possible moment to issue this statement on January 6, 2021 :

Image

Was this you paying Trump back for his support of your candidacy? Do you really believe a word of that statement? Was this you pretending to be a tough MAGA guy for all your supporters out in the country, around whom you look so awkward? We’ll never know. I called your Washington office and expressed my outrage over your anti-American, anti-democratic abrogation of your oath of office. Your participation in this idiotic and manufactured soft coup came quietly and late.

Literally just moments after I made my call (at 1:34 pm, for the record), your people – your MAGA Trump people invaded the Capitol. They defiled it. It was as violent and lawless a mob as anything anyone saw last summer, but last summer people were enraged by the mistreatment of Americans at the hands of lawless police officers – what exactly are you and your cohorts enraged by? Losing an election?

We cannot have a democracy if your side refuses to accept loss and the peaceful transfer of power. Your abrogation of your oath of office and your participation in this vile charade will not be forgotten.

By 4:30 – just three hours later – you sent this to the Buffalo News’ Jerry Zremski:

Image

Too little, too late.

No, this current behavior has no place in a democracy. Trying to manufacture a procedural coup to steal the election from Joe Biden has no place in a democracy. The President inciting a riot has no place in a democracy. Trump throwing gasoline on the fire he set has no place in a democracy. Your army of MAGA snowflakes storming the Capitol has no place in a democracy.

Eternal shame on you and your family name for this. Not only did you eagerly participate, but you tried to have it both ways and delay your announcement of the participation. You and the entire western New York Republican committee heirarchy – all of you supported Trump and Trumpism with breathless and instantaneous enthusiasm – you all own this coup attempt, this riot.

You are a disgrace to western New York and your family name. You have no honor. You have no courage. You have no moral authority. You are a shell and a puppet, moistening a seat you haven’t really earned.

I urge your interns and employees to abandon your office immediately. None of this is worth the stain on your resumes. Get out while you can. There’s more to life than doing the bidding of coup plotters.

I fully support Congressman Cori Bush’s proposed resolution:

I fully support it. You defile your office like your supporters defiled the People’s house.

Covid And Your Rights

Leave a comment

(I posted this to Facebook but for various reasons will not make it public there. Instead, I share it here).

I start by saying that I utterly detest Facebook and think it is, overall, a force for ill in our society. I maintain this account, nevertheless, because I am apparently a masochist. I used to enjoy the occasional debate on here over things but my patience is exhausted; and while debates over trivialities may remain fun, debates over fundamental truths vs. utter disinformation and lies, are not; they are not fun.

When the Hunter Biden laptop disinformation hit the NY Post a couple of weeks ago, I watched to see who would share it uncritically. At first, I considered arguing about it; but I instead opted to mute a few people and simply unfriend others. You’re not my friend if you’re busy amplifying Russian disinformation. Honestly, I don’t wish to have an association with people who would uncritically share politically irrelevant, false information based on things hacked from the iCloud account belonging to an un-political person. Consider if you were related to a political figure and someone hacked your personal accounts and released them to the world. Fuck that.

Likewise, I am now on the lookout for people damning the tightening of Covid restrictions in New York State.

Simply put: if you have a big problem with Cuomo banning in-person, maskless, un-distanced get-togethers of more than 10 people inside private homes during cold weather then you are simply too irresponsible for me to bother with you. If you would put an unknown number of people exponentially at risk because you had to have a big Thanksgiving or football party, I don’t think you are a good or responsible person. Honestly. Don’t bitch to me about what his powers are or whether he will send cops to your house – I don’t care. He does have the authority because there is a global pandemic and a state of emergency, and if you’re worried about him sending cops to check on your house that means you *want* to host a gathering such as this and you can click on that good ol’ unfriend button right now because really whom are we kidding?You are not special and your experience is not unique. Every person I know has sacrificed in some way because of this virus. Some of you are business owners, restaurateurs, etc. Some of you have loved ones in nursing homes. You have been harmed immensely. I get it. We all have put our lives on pause for over half a year in some way, and it will be next Spring before we have some hope of a slow return to normalcy, when a vaccine is made available and true herd immunity can proceed safely and responsibly, without the concomitant threat of illness.

During WW2, we fought the Nazis and Japan and this country made shared sacrifices for 4 years. We don’t have ration books right now, but I’m sure if there was a nighttime air raid alarm in the early 40s, people didn’t say they wouldn’t turn their lights off because really who were these people to tell me what to do in my own house. We are in a war right now against an invisible enemy, and it’s been like 7 months and so many of you are ready to give up, and rationalizing your premature capitulation.

So we look at the recent spike in cases and all signs point to unmasked, undistanced in-person gatherings among groups of people who have not quarantined together. At work, school, and out in the shops you have to be masked. At your house, you don’t, but if you invite outsiders in, being close and unmasked is dumb and irresponsible. So every time I see the people down the street have 10 – 15 cars parked outside for the Bills game, I am appalled. Now multiply that by how many times you’ve seen that in your experience. These parties and gatherings are why this third wave is spiking, and it is far worse in terms of case numbers than back in March when everything shut down. The easiest thing to do is keep the case number down – if you can do that, you don’t need to worry so much about hospitalizations and deaths. Plus, it’s easy.

We have sent our child back to in-person school despite having very very strong concerns and reservations about it. Teenagers are not responsible people. Nevertheless, everything went swimmingly until 3 weeks ago. We got the call from NYSDOH that she had been exposed through close contact and was quarantined and prohibited from returning to school until 11/2. Literally the next day the high school determined that so many kids were under quarantine that the whole school went remote through 11/9. The apparent culprit? An off-campus high school hockey team party that evidently took place while in Massachusetts for a game. So all of our care and caution was for naught because our lives and schedules fell at the mercy of the least responsible people associated with that school. The kicker? Despite throwing the lives of some 400 families into sudden chaos, I have zero confidence that any discipline resulted from this shameful breach of protocol. I feel like I am owed something for having to quickly re-arrange my family’s life thanks to other people’s irresponsibility – even if it is just the satisfaction of knowing the culprits were punished.

So *we* can follow all the rules and guidelines yet still get motherfucked by people too selfish and short-sighted to follow those same rules. When that happens enough – as evidenced by the current spike – someone has to impose restrictions that people refuse voluntarily to undertake. So, because some irresponsible and lazy people think it’s perfectly fine to return back to normal life – so long as it’s at home – we all now suffer, either through increased government restrictions, or through a higher likelihood of exposure to a deadly and unpredictable virus that is now killing 1,500 Americans per day. Hope that party was worth it!(And don’t get me started on the federal government’s scandalous abdication of its duties and responsibility to get this under control in all 50 states until a vaccine is available. Also, please do not lecture me about death rates or hospitalizations or hydrochloroquine or Famotidine or Vitamin D or anything of the sort. Do not condescend to explain to me that “oh well a lot of those people had other causes of death listed on their death certificates and it’s all overblown and a scam.” This just proves to me that you don’t know how a death certificate works and that you believe nonsense peddled by malignant charlatans who want you to think that everything is – and should be – back to normal. If a person with cancer catches Covid and dies from resulting pneumonia or a PE, they died from Covid, not cancer. OK? Also, please spare me the “there is no evidence of community spread among schoolkids” because I am not advocating for schools to all go remote – on the contrary, I want them to have the ability to stay in-person. I am advocating against partying and other risky maskless get-togethers outside of school hours and property.)With all of that said, here is the hard reality: you don’t have to like Cuomo and you don’t have to like what he says and you don’t have to like what he did or what he’s doing. Also? I will for the purposes of this rant concede that he fucked up with nursing homes back in March, ok? But we are so so past nursing homes and March. We had just about everything re-opened. We consistently had a positivity rate under 5%, signaling minimal community spread. People are generally good about wearing masks. So, the culprit is in-person, private, undistanced and unmasked get-togethers. I am highly confident that the current spike in WNY has its genesis in Bills parties and Halloween parties. The timing is right.

And the upshot of this is that you can spit fire at Cuomo all you want until you’re red in the face, but if this shit doesn’t get under control soon and continues to worsen, you will be fucking *wishing* for the halcyon days of Cuomo leaving just about everything open but restricting opening times and him literally begging you not to hold big parties at your house (especially indoors now that it’s cold out).Instead, if this keeps up, we’ll be back to square one – back to how it was in late March, working from home, suiting up to go to Wegmans and nowhere else. Takeout only. Schools will be remote. (I am almost positive that schools will be remote-only shortly after Thanksgiving because people will continue brazenly to flout simple requests and to irresponsibly interact in close proximity indoors without masks with people with whom they do not live.)There is nothing here to dispute or debate. I am not interested in or persuaded by your “but muh Cuomo is a dictator” shit. I am trying to keep my family safe and free from this virus, and we are following the rules which honestly are not that complicated or onerous.

Finally, here: “The White House coronavirus task force has been urging states that are virus hot spots to curtail maskless get-togethers of family and friends, saying in reports that asymptomatic attendees “cause ongoing transmission, frequently infecting multiple people in a single gathering.”

The Fatigue Election of 2020

Leave a comment

Joe Biden is the perfect general election candidate for our time. He is known. He is kind. He is experienced. He is empathetic. He is smart. He is moderate. He is the hard reset that this country so desperately needs.

It goes without saying that the Democratic Party could have nominated a quarter-pound of ham for President, and that thinly sliced cold cut would offer a more positive vision and plan for America over the next four years than the current occupant of the White House.

We have endured a relentless, constant, chronic geyser of bullshit spewing from Donald Trump over the past 5 years, but that’s not the only thing shaping and defining our zeitgeist. The potent, toxic mixture of grievance and cruelty that fuels the American right is as exhausting as it is ugly. We are all of us Joseph Welch, expressing publicly how fatigued we are by the endless stimulant-fueled shower of hatred, lies, and cruelty that falls from Trumpworld like volcanic ash. Whining about things hasn’t helped. Neither has blaming Black people, Jewish people, immigrants, feminists, LGBTQ+ people, Latinos, Hispanics, Asians, Mexicans, China – good God, it’s enough.

It’s enough.

The pandemic is the icing on the cake. It is Trumpworld’s downfall. It lays bare the fundamental lie.

We all know that the Obama Administration, which had its own experiences with infectious diseases, left behind a literal pandemic playbook and an office staffed to take charge when necessary – the Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the National Security Council. The Trump Administration got rid of it in 2018. Now, the United States ranks among the worst countries in terms of its response to the novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. We have almost unlimited community spread in many places, the federal government has failed, and plans only to continue its policies of failure for the foreseeable future. Over 220,000 Americans are dead and this is a massive public health catastrophe, not to mention the economic destruction that has taken place as a result of our feeble, third-world quality response.

This all started in mid-March. It is now the end of October, and you still can’t get a Coronavirus test on demand for any reason and have reliable results within the day. We’re instead still relying on travel bans and quarantines when testing and tracing is key.

The most glaring failure? The federal government’s response was so deliberately inept and poor that mask wearing is now a political statement in some places, and we are left with a situation where the lives of people in North Dakota are effectively less valuable than the lives of people in New York. That shouldn’t be. Everyone in America deserves the same protection from uncontrolled community spread of this virus, and history will forever condemn us for allowing some places needlessly to suffer while others benefited from competent government following science.

In late October 2020, our Trump fatigue intersects neatly with our Covid fatigue. Most Americans have simply had it with the bullshit geyser and the manufactured drama. We’re not interested in this season of the Apprentice anymore.

Everyone’s life is upended in some way, you can’t just not “let it dominate your life” because that is literally impossible. It dominates our lives. You can’t really go out and do stuff like you used to, you can’t travel literally anywhere, and everyone is still hunkered down, waiting for a truly effective treatment protocol or a vaccine. (On the bright side, flu cases will be hopefully down this season as more people are masked and distanced than ever before. Also get a flu shot).

The outcome of the Presidential race won’t fix everything, but if Biden wins (and I think he will), it will reset the federal government to being at least minimally competent again. We will implement a Covid strategy that values every American life equally. We will restore good relations with our allies and keep a closer eye on our enemies. We will reintroduce the rule of law and eliminate nepotism in the White House. Our government will listen more closely to experts and science, and the deniers will be relegated to their fringe websites and YouTube channels where they can freak out about – and consume themselves with – lizard people and Pizzagate 2.0. Hunter Biden won’t matter because Hunter Biden won’t be paid a public salary to be a Presidential aide.

In New York State, early voting starts today – October 24th and runs through November 1st. The polling hours and locations for Erie County are here, and you can vote at any of them. If you applied for and received an absentee ballot, send it in. If you changed your mind and want to vote in person, discard the absentee ballot you received.

I am hopeful that this will be a big year for America to turn a positive corner. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3rd. If you didn’t vote absentee or early, that’s your chance – in Erie County polls will be open from 6am – 9pm. Every vote counts, even in New York. Lots of downballot folks are relying on you. People like Monica Wallace, Karen McMahon, Jacqui Berger, Pat Burke, Sean Ryan, Bill Conrad, Brian Higgins, and Nate McMurray are depending on you to turn out and turn up.

the EXEGESIS of McCarthy on Collins

Leave a comment
collinstrump

Chris Collins pleaded guilty in Federal Court to committing crimes. He was sentenced to prison.

Like starting up an old, garaged jalopy, Bob McCarthy took one more opportunity to just talk to Collins and then transcribe whatever he says. It was the stuff you’d expect to see in the lifestyles section of the paper. The Buffalo Spree is publishing more interesting political pieces than this nowadays, and it seems to me to be the yang to the yin that has been Jerry Zremski’s excellent reporting on the Innate Immunotherapeutics scandal that brought down the Collins crime syndicate.

For over a year – from the date of Collins’ August 2018 indictment, until he ultimately pleaded guilty in late 2019 – the people of the 27th Congressional district had no de facto representation – we had a liar purporting to represent us in Washington. We had a man in office who was distracted by his own illegalities and criminal defense strategies. When he resigned in disgrace, we then had no de jure representation until the special election in June and subsequent swearing-in of Chris Jacobs.

Chris Collins does not deserve anyone’s respect or sympathy. At least, not until he has satisfied his debt to society. Not until he has apologized to the constituents he conned and disrespected.

But when Chris Collins holds a pity party over the phone with Bob McCarthy, we get all of that in spades. Collins is still rich. He still lives in his Florida mansion. His wife and kids will be looked after. He will be serving his time at a Club Fed facility in Florida – 17 months if he’s a good boy, despite a sentence of 26. But he’s still got gripes.

And he is fearful. He does not want his 17-month incarceration – the time he expects to serve based on his imposed sentence of 26 months – to turn into a “death sentence.”

“I’m 70 years old with asthma and hypertension, and it’s senior citizens that we’re supposed to worry about,” he said while driving to Pensacola on Monday. “That’s me. 

“I’ve got to do it. But I do know I do not want to get this virus.”

There are thousands of convicted criminals in federal prisons who are trying not to catch Covid-19, and there is nothing in the eyes of the law that makes Chris Collins more special than them, or entitled to special treatment. And this is not going to be hard time.

Beginning at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Collins – a multimillionaire – reports to the prison camp in the Florida panhandle. He notes it has no hardened prisoners, no barbed wire and few guards.

“I’ll have some buddies to talk to in the morning, have a cup of coffee and read the paper – almost what you do in retirement,” he said. “You actually make good friends. Everyone there has made a mistake. They have regrets related to that mistake. But most everyone everyone has done good things in their lives, and I know I’ve done a lot of good things. 

“My family is with me. It’s not like I did something that made them destitute. My family is stronger now than it’s ever been.”

He should be counting his blessings. Any sympathy should be reserved for the victims who lost everything in the Innate Immunotherapeutics collapse and who did not have the benefit of inside information to try and minimize their losses. Any sympathy should be reserved for the people living in the 27th Congressional District, who were owed Collins’ bona fide representation and hard work but instead were lied to and cheated; cheated most importantly during that critical period from January through June of this year as the federal government learned about then lied about Covid-19 and then completely bungled the federal response.

This article was disgusting and tone-deaf, to put it mildly. Bob McCarthy always treats rich politicians with kid gloves. Maybe that’s bad.

This morning, I woke up in my house. I enjoyed a nice cup of coffee, free from direct government supervision. Then I went exactly where I damn well pleased. Chris Collins, who always had to be the smartest wiseass in any room, did not.

Jacobs Jettisons Trump

One comment

When Congressman Chris Jacobs first announced his candidacy for the House of Representatives, he posted a pretty racist video to his Twitter page that was just vicious towards Spanish-speaking economic migrants from Mexico and Central America. When Jacobs ran for the State Senate in 2016, he was publicly silent, never answering questions about whether he supported Donald Trump. Behind the scenes, he told union audiences that he did not support Trump. In 2019, however, the Erie County Republican Committee, which has various close ties to Trump, coordinated a Trump endorsement of Jacobs. That led to a congressional campaign where it almost seemed as if Jacobs was Trump’s running mate, or vice-versa.

Jacobs narrowly won a special election in June, and he is now running for his first full term in Congress. June, you’ll notice, was only four short months ago. Yet in that short span of time, Jacobs has gone from full MAGA TRUMP TRAIN to Trump who?

His latest TV ad makes no mention whatsoever about Donald Trump. Trump‘s name and image do not appear – not audibly or visibly. What a difference four months makes.

Look at him. He’s a “job creator” through his real estate investments. He gallivants about the district, maskless, pretending to “fight” to protect people from insurers discriminating against them due to pre-existing conditions. Donald Trump is nowhere. He is appealing to the people in the middle who are disgusted by Trump. It is amazing what the epic mishandling of a hundred-year pandemic can do.

Here’s an example of what Jacobs’ ads looked like before Trump caught the ‘vid and went crazy on Dexamethasone.

Big difference.

Chris Jacobs repeated the Trump Administration’s fraudulent lie that the New York Green Light Law justified the termination of Trusted Traveler status for New Yorkers. He deliberately backed Trump propaganda that was not only false, but represented an unprecedented punishment of a state’s residents by the federal government to which they pay taxes over a manufactured political issue.

Chris Jacobs is just another flaccid opportunist who has taken another step up the ladder of political power. He has no plan to better your life or the lives of the people hurting the most in this post-Covid reality.

Donald Trump has ruined this country. He has deepened class, racial, political, religious, and economic divisions that were already well-carved. Especially since his impeachment acquittal, which showed him he could engage in unprecedented conspiracies for political gain with impunity, he has carved out the closest thing this country has had to a strongman dictatorship in its history. Donald Trump is a disaster, and Chris Jacobs is part of that disaster.

He went so far as to vote “no” on a bill to strengthen the U.S. Postal Service, and I don’t think it was a mistake. When you surround yourself with brazen liars, why should we take you at your word?

What we can glean from Jacobs’ current propaganda is that Donald Trump is polling poorly enough in NY-27 that it’s best to not mention him, and that people like Obamacare insofar as it rendered illegal insurance company discrimination against people with pre-existing medical conditions. But Chris Jacobs would probably tell you he opposes Obamacare. The problem is he has no alternative plan available for review.

And that’s what really matters about the Republican Party – its only ideology now is belligerent lying and nihilism. It is only against things and people and groups. It has no plan except “whatever Trump says.”

The 27th has had enough of millionaires named Chris who are too timid to answer to – and serve – the people whom they purport to represent.

1 … 9 10 11 12 13 … 139