Buffalopundit

Let’s Fisk again, like we did last summer. (Actually, winter).

OPEN LETTER FROM NATE:

Making the Impossible Possible – 5,000 Signatures in Two Weeks

You’ve likely been following the recent developments. The party has predetermined their choice for Congressman Higgins’ successor, bypassing the democratic process. This isn’t a secret conspiracy; it’s all happening openly. To challenge them, I will need to get 5,000 notarized signature in two weeks, in freezing cold February—ouch.

We could have a conversation in good faith about whether ECDC should endorse in a primary at all, but to whine that you didn’t get the nod, after you had spent over a year bad-mouthing and spewing hatred at the committee is a bit much.

They’ve labeled me as a problematic outsider for even considering challenging their crony system, but I see it as standing up for true Democratic values. I hope you do too. If you don’t, I’m guessing you benefit from the crony system with some job or appointment? If not, how can you justify so many politicians in office for decades with so much poverty and grief?

There’s no “crony system” when the county committee holds a process whereby its executive committee interviews multiple candidates and selects the best-qualified one who is loyal to the apparatus and has experience raising money and winning campaigns. There’s no “crony system” when the committee then holds a vote to back a particular candidate over one who does nothing but bad-mouth the committee over and over again. Tim Kennedy has been a State Senator – a legislator – for about 15 years. Nate McMurray has been a Tweeter and professional perennial campaigner. The result should not come as a surprise.

When I say crony system, I mean it. Your average person doesn’t realize how many lawyers, consultants, even bloggers live off the local Democratic machine. I might be fine with that if the machine was successful in helping the people of WNY. But the leadership’s reluctance to oppose even MAGA Republicans—they nominate them!— and their aversion to progressive policies reveals their priorities.

I’d like Nate to please name the “progressive policy” that the Erie County Democratic Committee is “averse” to, and I’d like a full roster of the “MAGA Republicans” whom the committee has nominated. Because the answers, respectively, are “very few” and “none”. Judicial nominations don’t count.

Consider this: the former chief of staff of Congressman Higgins (who just resigned), with no apparent water management expertise, lands a lucrative job at the water authority by appointment. What does he know about water? Especially when our water system is so plagued by failures, with lead in the pipes, and no fluoride for months. Is this how a party truly committed to Democratic principles should operate?

Chuck Eaton, whom Nate is referencing here, has forgotten more about politics than Nate could ever know. He knows more about getting people and entities with competing interests to cooperate, and pulling together consensus than Nate could ever imagine. Chuck has an innate (un-Nate?) ability to listen and persuade people – both Republicans and Democrats – to advance policies that help WNY. To hire someone with deep and longstanding knowledge and experience in dealing with federal and state government to help run a water authority is a brilliant move, if ever that authority wants to get state or federal assistance or funding.

What does Chuck Eaton know about water? As much as he needs to. What he knows about is how governments function, and how they function together, and how they function within the context of public authorities. He knows the people and he knows the institutions. Also, it was only City of Buffalo water that has not been flouridated – not Erie County Water. They are two separate and distinct systems. You would think that someone wanting to run for Congress to represent Buffalo would be aware of this detail and not try – falsely – to weaponize it to make a dumb point or to demonize someone who has only ever helped him. If he wants to remove and replace lead pipes, great! Maybe ensure that the ECWA is eligible for federal grants to do it.

My refusal to conform to this system—to take a cut and stay quiet—has drawn ire from both Republicans and Democrats who fear change. But change is precisely what I promise. No more cronyism, no more kickbacks, no more lifelong politicians. In Washington, I’ll advocate for term limits – it’s time for leaders who make an impact and then step aside.

The reason why you “draw ire” from Democrats, Nate, is because you are a backstabbing malcontent. You squandered innumerable support and money – you treated people with such contempt exactly the moment they became of little use to you; you are everything you purport to hate about politics. While the people in ECDC were busy in 2023 getting Democrats elected, where were you? You were making a fool of yourself in court and pontificating on Twitter about your various grievances. Meanwhile, Tim Kennedy was doing his job, and sending almost $300,000 to the state Democratic Committee.

They try to discredit me—and anyone else who resists—even comparing me to the worst offenders, including Trump himself. But their accusations are fluff if you even crack into them. I am clean. No underhanded political donations. No dirty money. No plush appointments for my buddies. I am an outsider by choice. It is not me who has to be ashamed. It’s them.

You’re an unrestrained narcissist clumsily airing your myriad grievances and marshalling an ever-shrinking cult of personality. The comparison is apt. You’re an outsider by default – because you stabbed everyone in the back, out of spite. And us? We are ashamed. Ashamed ever to have supported you or to give you money. Or time.

I’m doing this solo

No shit.

– no lobbyists, no big money. Just me, my truck, and a belief in the untapped potential of Western New York. I’m not here to perpetuate backroom politics but to benefit all our communities. And that’s why I remain popular, despite millions spent to shut me out.

Yes, the untapped potential of WNY to what – to deliver you a Nike store and an Ikea.

My message—democracy, independence, free thought—is probably your message. It resonates across the political spectrum. I’m just grateful I help share it. Despite the odds and the opposition, this a joy for me. A blessing and an opportunity.

Your message is arrogance, hatred, jealousy, and grievance.

As a kid, my mom had this quote crocheted and hanging on the wall: “In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.” — Czesław Miłosz

The sheer arrogance! A blonde, blue-eyed corporate lawyer from the suburbs with an Irish surname equating his naked ambition with the plight of artists in exile struggling against the malign forces of totalitarianism is so lacking in self-awareness that it has to be a joke. Milosz did not deliver that speech in a vacuum, but as a particular person from a particular place at a particular time in history – 1980, mere months after Solidarity openly began challenging the Communist Party’s political, social, and economic hegemony over the Polish state.

Nate McMurray is no Lech Walesa.

That’s why I still get the attention I do. I speak the truth, and many of you speak that same truth with me: The status quo has failed WNY, and we believe in Buffalo and Niagara region that is based on fairness, hope, and progress.

It’s all about Nate. And the people who follow Nate.

So, how can you help echo this truth? Oppose entrenched corruption. Push for change. Push for fairness. Help me get on the ballot. It’s not about donations; it’s about your signature. They think it’s impossible to do in two weeks in February. They think they can steamroll not only you but all of us. Let’s prove them wrong.

I wish someone would employ this person so he would finally free us from his various narcissistic manic episodes.

One highly-placed Democratic Party insider told me that “McMurray is a fabulist – a ginger George Santos.”

Except Santos was actually elected to Congress on his first try.

I have been very critical of Tim Kennedy in the past. In the Erie County Legislature, Kennedy simultaneously disgraced and promoted himself with his self-serving and short-sighted alliance with Chris Collins back in 2010. The 2009 election cycle had resulted in a narrow Democratic majority in the legislature. Incumbent County Executive Chris Collins was unhappy with this, (the legislature was habitually overriding Collins’ vetoes, so he went so far as to unconstitutionally declare these overrides “null and void“.) Collins hatched a plot that would de facto undo that majority. The legislature’s re-organization in January 2010, typically a quiet affair, became instead a coup.

The Republican legislators in office at the time were now-Supreme-Court-Judge Ray Walter, weirdly aggressive pugilistic dummy Dino Fudoli, current minority leader John Mills, current NOCO Executive Ed Rath, and current Democratic County Comptroller Kevin Hardwick. Democrats elected to the Legislature at that time included activist Betty Jean Grant, Maria Whyte, now with the Community Foundation of WNY, Empire State Development Director of Intergovernmental Relations Lynn Marinelli, former Restaurateur Tom Loughran, Tom Mazur, Tina Bove, now-State Senator Tim Kennedy, and city Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams. The year before, Collins had given Democratic legislator Kathy Konst (now better known as the mother of DSA activist Nomiki), a job in his administration, thus leaving a vacancy in the legislature that was ultimately filled by the likes of alleged-former-drug-dealer Dino Fudoli.

By flipping Bove, Miller-Williams, and Kennedy into a risibly named “reform coalition” of minority Republicans and turncoat Democrats, Collins had maintained a majority caucus for power’s own sake. What did the others get? Some donations for pet causes, I suppose, but Kennedy was in for self-promotion. As I wrote some 14 years ago,

As best we can put together, Tim Kennedy approached Democratic HQ to ask to run against [Michael] Stachowski. [Len] Lenihan reportedly told Kennedy that he was going to stick with Stachowski and let [Stachowski] decide when he wanted to stop going to Albany. Kennedy then turned to Steve Pigeon and asked for his help to run against Stachowski. [Tom] Golisano’s money was pledged, but Pigeon wanted something in exchange.

Pigeon wanted Kennedy to deliver the legislature to him. Three Democrats to flip so Collins would have his majority. Rumor has it that Pigeon is working on Collins’ gubernatorial campaign behind the scenes.

Kennedy delivered Miller-Williams, who is affiliated with Grassroots, which is currently aligned with Pigeon and City Hall, as well as Christina Bove. It is also rumored that Brian Higgins is one of the people behind the scenes brokering this on Kennedy’s behalf.

Collins never ran for Governor, but he did eventually run for Congress, and became the first member to endorse Donald Trump. Collins’ rise, fall, and pardon all stem from the work of guys like Steve Pigeon, Roger Stone, and Michael Caputo.

(By the way, this Washington Post article about Chris Collins is simply an astonishing read. It takes an unlikeable petty bureaucrat and amazingly makes him seem exponentially worse than you could ever imagine. He lives a life giving zero f*cks about anything or anyone except himself. This is a guy who pleaded guilty to committing a federal crime, got a Trump pardon, cashed out his business, and is so much wealthier now that it seems that crime really does pay. Collins is running for Congress in Florida.)

Fifteen years ago, the “Landon Associates” political team of convicted child sexual assailant Steve Pigeon and convicted-then-pardoned felon Roger Stone (who now stands credibly accused of calling for the assassination of two Decocratic congressmen), had a great little scam going.

In the bad old days, it was becoming quite tough for Democrats to win without securing the Conservative fusion Party line. A special pathway for Democrats to get that line ran through Steve Pigeon and Ralph Lorigo. (Some of us are old enough to remember the Joe Illuzzi / Tony Orsini Independence Party endorsement pipeline and shakedown grift). Thankfully, with the demise of Pigeonism, Democrats locally now go out of their way to shun the regressive, anti-choice, homophobic Conservative fusion Party.

But in 2009, Kennedy needed Pigeon and Pigeon needed Kennedy. They conspired to throw the legislature to the Republicans, and in return Kennedy bought his Conservative Party endorsement for State Senate. Kennedy primaried Stachowski and beat him. At the time, Stachowski had opposed the same-sex marriage law, while Kennedy supported it. (When the Conservative fusion Party talks about its principles, remember that it set them aside for a supporter of same-sex marriage.)

It was these relationships and procedures that led me relentlessly to call for the abolition of the corrupt and pointless electoral fusion system in New York, which served only to facilitate the enrichment of minor party bosses and the patronage jobs they doled out.

As time went on, Betty Jean Grant launched quixotic but principled efforts to challenge Kennedy for State Senate. In 2012, Ms. Grant lost by only 139 votes. It was so bad that ECDC endorsed Betty Jean Grant over Tim Kennedy for the State Senate in 2014, issuing a stinging public rebuke of Kennedy in words and action. Alas, in 2014, Ms. Grant’s margin of loss was even wider as memories had begun to fade and Kennedy consolidated his base of support. Kennedy has not run against a credible challenger since 2014.

In the mid-teens, Kennedy was still playing footsie with Steve Pigeon and the “WNY Progressive Caucus” or #AwfulPAC, which endeavored to do harm to the Democratic Committee at the time. I covered the #AwfulPAC and its eventual downfall and prosecutions as “Preetsmas“, named for the then-Assistant US Attorney Preet Bharara, who was investigating political fraud and graft cases.

The Pigeon faction’s modus operandi was rote – set up a PAC, get it funded, (Pigeon enjoyed the support of a roster of reliably deep-pocketed donors, like Golisano and Mansouri), spend wildly on a primary race for some candidate running against Democratic HQ’s pick, do so in a way that it flies under the radar until election disclosures kick in, and do your best to ratf*ck the party favorite. Rinse, repeat. It happened to Sam Hoyt in the late aughts. It happened to Betty Jean Grant and Tim Hogues in 2013. But the ruse was discovered prematurely and the #AwfulPAC, its people, and its tactics were quickly outed before they could do a lot of harm.

I eventually called that sort of thing the “Pigeoning”. To explain:

Pigeoning: pi·geon·ing \ˈpi-jən-iŋ\: (n) the action of using money and influence, oftentimes pushing the election law envelope, to actively sabotage and undermine the Erie County Democratic Committee.

The Pigeon crew would often secure the assistance—tacit and overt—of Republicans, but more frequently the execrable and obsequious fusion parties — “Independence” and “Conservative” alike — to conspire with Pigeon to advance not just candidates, but their committees’ access to patronage jobs.

Blindside the party’s endorsed candidate with a sudden and unexpected influx of expensive mailers, robocalls, and ads that defame them, or worse. Fund it through various and sundry LLCs set up for no other reason than to legally flaunt campaign finance rules. Set up PACs or independent committees whose funding and organization is sketchy, at best, or criminal, at worst. Conspire fusion party bosses, for whom influence over patronage hires regularly trumps any manufactured, elastic ideological tenets. 

Nothing that the Pigeon crew ever did brought about real reform or good government. Nothing they touched had anything to do with policy, or helping the community — it was all about enriching Pigeon and the pilot fish who clung to him. Western New Yorkers of every party, of every race, of every nationality, of every class deserve so much better than what Pigeon and his cult offered. 

AwfulPAC was only active for a very short period of time—most of what it did took place between July and September of 2013. In May 2015, state and federal agents executed three nearly simultaneous raids on the homes of Pigeon, former Chris Collins chief of staff Chris Grant, and former Buffalo deputy mayor Steve Casey. I dubbed this law enforcement action and investigation ”Preetsmas,” after the former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara. Bharara had famously taken over the investigation of political corruption cases abandoned by the Moreland Commission when Governor Cuomo abruptly shut it down. 

AwfulPAC wasn’t even properly constituted; it filed its CF-02 in February 2014 to transform it — retroactively — into a multi-candidate committee participating and spending on candidates’ behalf in the 2013 primaries. AwfulPAC declared — nunc pro tunc — that it was an unauthorized committee for Dick Dobson in the primary and general elections, and in the primary for Joyce Wilson Nixon, Barbara Miller-Williams, Rick Zydel, and Wes Moore. They also claimed to be an unauthorized committee for Mark Manna for Amherst Town Board in 2013’s general election. Had AwfulPAC done that at its founding, it could have spent money on behalf of those candidates without coordination; however, as it was originally constituted, it was legally only allowed to raise and donate money to campaigns, and not to promote or oppose specific candidates. We’re meant to believe that it broke the law at the time, but a retroactive “oops” filing of a piece of paper retroactively rendered all its activities legal. 

The “bad old ways” are more-or-less dead. The investigations into AwfulPAC led to criminal investigations and prosecutions, which ultimately led to the downfall of a Supreme Court Judge and Pigeon himself. (Don’t forget Justin Sondel’s epic article on Pigeon’s rise and fall).

Tim Kennedy was, for a time, aligned with the Pigeoning and the bad old ways. His Senate campaign committee gave $85,000 to the #AwfulPAC and $10,000 to “Democratic Action” – another Pigeon-controlled PAC. This money was then donated to #AwfulPAC favored candidates including current City of Buffalo Comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams.

Now, we are tasked again with dealing yet another disordered Nate McMurray campaign. All of this background, which is tedious to review, is to underscore the fact that Nate McMurray’s descent from credible Democratic congressional candidate to professional Twitter narcissist has become quite tough to swallow. As someone who promoted and supported McMurray’s previous congressional races, I find it infuriating and difficult to witness his disingenous heel-turns against Zellner and Poloncarz last year, and his embryonic, ill-informed hatred of Tim Kennedy now.

McMurray pretends as if Tim Kennedy hadn’t been there all along. Now, he discovers who Kennedy is because Kennedy stands between McMurray and congressional seat to which McMurray feels entitled.

While Kennedy has been working hard for the people of WNY generally, and his constituents in particular, McMurray has been embroiled in myriad lawsuits – as litigant and lawyer – and doing a pretty bad job of it.

Kennedy may have done bad things politically in the past, but as far as his tenure in the Senate is concerned, I’m not aware of any bad acts or omissions. By all accounts, he has been a reliable Democratic Senator and has won plaudits for his constituent services.

Can we maintain political consistency by overlooking Kennedy’s past misdeeds while simultaneously focusing on McMurray’s current behavior? I think so.

McMurraying is like Pigeoning in that both are informed by an irrational, visceral hatred of the local Democratic grassroots and party apparatus. The difference between Pigeoning and McMurraying is that the former found power, money, and electoral success; the latter is just social media noise.

McMurray’s efforts to divide Erie County Democrats have been tone-deaf failures. There is no grassroots clamor to overthrow the Zellner regime. Leftist malcontents and the DSA are small in number and without any real influence. The roster of former McMurray supporters who cannot now stand him is deep and wide. Some of ECDC’s best campaign minds and hardest campaign workers have undeservedly become the targets of his wild rantings and ravings. He had the nerve in 2023 to seek the nomination for County Executive, bad-mouthing everyone along the way, including Erie County itself. Now, he decided he is entitled to a do-over for Congress, but in Higgins’ seat, and somehow legitimately thought that people would give him the time of day? How deluded can you get?

For now, the stragglers on that dying platform formerly known as Twitter can filter through the bots and Nazis to go read the twaddle emanating from the disheveled mind of that guy we thought could be a Congressman. Now, he’s not so much the next member of the squad as he is a better-coiffed and sartorially unchallenged version of perennial candidate and convicted vote fraudster Rus Thompson. The fact that he trots out my 10-year-old posts to inform his disdain for Tim Kennedy – a guy who has been a State Senator for almost 15 years – underscores that he has nothing but grievance upon which to run.

I live in NY-26 now, and I will vote for a thousand Tim Kennedys before I would ever waste another vote or dollar on Nate McMurray, a conniving, untrustworthy, and backstabbing self-promoter who is no better than the people whom he claims to hate.

Thanks for relying on my blogging to inform your hatred of Tim Kennedy.

I’m texting with a political boss about my opponent. Although I can’t disclose their name, I thought you should know their dismissive attitude towards facts and how straightforward I am in our conversations.

For years, they’ve insisted that their way is the only way. They’ve… pic.twitter.com/1EJFHCeHOG

— Nate McMurray (@Nate_McMurray) January 17, 2024

I guess I’ll throw some money Kennedy’s way.

Mark Poloncarz coasted to re-election by a wider margin than in his last outing. This despite all of the hatred and scorn hurled at him for daring to carry out Covid restrictions to keep people well and alive. This despite a desperate, viscerally negative campaign from a woefully unprepared and unqualified opponent. This despite accusations thrown his way about county handling of the December 2022 blizzard. In and through all of it, he offered Erie County calm and steadt competence in contrast to wild and extreme unpreparedness.

As usual, Ken Kruly has a great run-down of election 2023. Also worth a gander is this analysis from the team at the Buffalo News, which shows how Mark Poloncarz grew his base of support as compared with 2019, especially in the suburbs.

The history of Poloncarz’s opponents for County Executive is colorful indeed. One went on to become a congressman, a shill for Trump, and a convicted felon – later pardoned. Another became a Supreme Court Judge. Chrissy Casilio can go back to Clarence, where her father is Supervisor, landlord, benefactor, and rainmaker. She will be just fine, and maybe even see some political reward for taking one for the team.

In private life, Ms. Casilio-Bluhm has mostly resumed her Twitter/X musings about various and sundry right-wing tropes of the day. She is free again to pine for the day when Donald Trump can finally end the American experiment in self-governance and implement the “conservative” dream of authoritarian dictatorship where immigrants are thrown into camps and political rivals are shot, or dropped from helicopters.

Brian Nowak squeaked out a win in Cheektowaga, despite being subjected to a malign barrage of literal libel. Accused of bribery, support for Hamas, and supposedly “defaming” a person who flew a Confederate flag outside her home by pointing out that she flew a Confederate flag outside her home, he nevertheless stayed above the fray and wore out his soles by speaking directly to voters. Brian is a great guy who truly has his community’s best interests at heart, and he will undoubtedly do a great job.

The biggest news, however, came after the election itself. Congressman Brian Higgins announced that he intends to retire, which will trigger a special election. So far, Senator Tim Kennedy has announced that he will run for that seat. Others have dipped their toes in the water, with varying degrees of credibility. Byron Brown is going to stay put as Mayor until some better exit plan emerges. Poloncarz just handily won re-election, so he’s not going anywhere.

So, we’re left with Plan D for dumb: Nate McMurray is running. For Congress. Again. I’ve seen a lot in the last 20-odd years, but never have I seen a once-credible political figure so quickly and dramatically devolve into self-parody. He tells the Buffalo News’ Charlie Specht that he has “to be in the race. I couldn’t sit still with nobody talking about Trump. This isn’t rhetoric or this isn’t Democratic talking points. This is a danger to the country.”

As McMurray lurches between his claimed saintly outsider status, his animus for anyone and everyone who has not reflexively followed his orders or done his bidding, and his professional Tweeting, the thing that really crystallizes is that Nate McMurray has to be in the race for Nate McMurray. His ever-waning relevance runs counter to his supreme sense of self-importance as the multilingual better-than-you savior of western New York.

McMurray is just a small-town, leftist mini-Trump. Everything all about him and his greatness and how all of his opponents are evil or dumb. While Trump wishes for an economic crash in the next twelve months, McMurray has already told us that “Erie County sucks“. And it’s not just that he felt comfortable enough to express that in public, where people could hear him – it was that he said it within the context of him having the audacity to stand before a group of people whom he had spent the previous months demeaning, insulting, and denigrating all while asking them for an endorsement that he knew would never come. He said “Erie County sucks” because these people did not fall in line behind him. Because they saw through his bullshit. Because they questioned him. They were critical of him. Because after lending monetary, logistical, and boots-on-the-ground support to him in three previous races, he was little more than a loudmouth ingrate. As the chairman of the party committee said,

“McMurray’s behavior at last night’s Executive Committee meeting was appalling,” Zellner said. “Despite past support for Congressional runs from this committee and its rank and file, McMurray was inexplicably hostile to committee members throughout his presentation, insulting leaders and committee members alike with outbursts previously unseen at our meetings. McMurray claims to love Buffalo and WNY, but his uncalled-for outbursts demonstrate that he is temperamentally unfit to govern a county of nearly 1 million people. You cannot successfully lead this community if you take shots at it when things don’t go your way,” Zellner added. “By declaring that ‘Erie County sucks’ simply because he faced questions he did not like and could not answer, Nate McMurray has shown that he is simply wrong for the office of Erie County Executive.”

WIVB

McMurray is going to have to seek money and support from his Twitter stans. How any of that translates into actual people collecting petition signatures or contributions is anyone’s guess. I suspect he’ll have to pay people to do it.

Tim Kennedy has been around a very long time. He dabbled in the dark arts, aligning himself with Pigeon and Collins in a brazen coup some 15 years ago, but that catapulted him eventually into the Senate, where he is respected if not for his legislative, then his fundraising prowess.

Because again, for people taking notes at home, there is governing and there is politicking. Mark Poloncarz has proven himself adept at both. He is a competent and skilled executive, and also a shrewd and effective politician. McMurray aligned himself with Rus Thompson, got elected to a town supervisorship and hasn’t been elected to anything else since. As I said almost a year ago, right here:

It’s interesting how when one decides to wage war and insult an entire institution, that the rank and file who do the actual work that keeps the institution running are the ones who decide you’re not worthy of their help, time, work, and money. It’s easy to selectively edit secretly recorded audio to make your enemies look bad, but why wouldn’t you just release the whole thing? It’s easy to feign victimhood at the hands of the big bad old party which is, in your estimation, so well-organized in its malign corruption that it will prevent you even from running for office, but simultaneously so incompetent and inept that it cannot win elections or improve our region.

Nate will get the attention he’s ordered, and that’s about it.

When it’s election season, just make stuff up, accuse a politician of some random federal crime and accuse him of bribery.

You’ll get the headlines you want when you make sure the Bee picks it up and basically uncritically acts as your stenographer.

But when the truth comes out – that you are absolutely and unequivocally full of shit and that no crime exists, none was committed, and you spent the better part of a few months just smearing someone – in this case Cheektowaga Councilman Brian Nowak – you end your lame, baseless, and idiotic witch-hunt “not with a bang, but a whimper.”

So, to backtrack for a second, this all started because current town supervisor Diane Benczkowski is aligned with Nowak’s opponent in the supervisor’s race, Michael Jasinski. At a recent town board meeting, when a resident was being considered for a seat on the town’s ethics board, Nowak objected, stating that the nominee had flown a Confederate flag on at least two occasions outside her house, and he had the photos to prove it. He did not show the photos publicly, but it was enough of a concern that he thought the members of the council should be aware. Well, Jasinski and Benczkowski swore out a fatwa against Nowak for this, almost immediately calling for his censure for “defamation”, while accusing him of a federal crime to the Bee’s reporter and also of bribery as to a highway department job.

The reaction was pure politics at its ugliest, and it was bullshit. The only person defamed here was Nowak.

The news here is that the conspiracy failed. It’s over. Not only is it over, it is over in dramatic fashion. Let’s backtrack again:

The effort to censure Nowak failed. Unsatisfied, Benczkowski decided that there ought to really be an investigation, thus implying that there had been no investigation before she and her henchcretins decided to defame Nowak and accuse him of crimes, etc. (In other words, the caselaw definition of “actual malice.”)

The resolution to launch an investigation was brought by Benczkowski and another board member, Brian Pilarski, on October 10th. The text of the resolution is here. It is breathtaking in its stupidity. Basically, Nowak was trying to ensure that this guy doesn’t get hired to another supervisory role, and otherwise told Wegner that it wasn’t a personal vendetta and he’d have Wegner’s back in the future. The meeting was to discuss possible alternative arrangements to having a formal deputy highway superintendent. None of this constitutes a “bribe.”

The DA had already looked into all of it and determined that no crime was committed.

So, Pilarski had had enough of all of this remarkably stupid nonsense and told Benczkowski to her face at a working session prior to the full board meeting. When discussing the proposed agenda, Pilarski said that he had received documents via FOIL that had been sent to the AG and DOJ, and he said that it all amounted to a “political witch hunt.” The complained-of meeting between Nowak and Wegner took place in April 2022. No one complained to any law enforcement about what happened until a year later – April 2023. The complaints were made by Mark Wegner and Diane Benczkowski, and she clearly knows all about it when confronted – “Mark asked me to send them for him,” she says. The letters to law enforcement were signed by Wegner and on highway letterhead but had Benczkowski’s personal email address on them.

On September 12, Benczkowski called for Nowak’s resignation. On September 26, she filed the resolution to censure Nowak. In early October, the Highway Association flagged Pilarski in a letter, which prompted him to try and find out if this had already been investigated, and if so, that this would obviate the need for a further investigation via resolution or otherwise. Pilarski received no response. On October 10th, Benczkowski and Pilarski filed the resolution calling for an investigation into Nowak’s “bribery.” When someone finally got a hold of the Chief of Police, he said that this whole thing had been resolved “months ago.” But just to be sure, the chief called Wegner and then re-closed the file without action.

Meanwhile, Benczkowski had run to the media to tell them she wasn’t aware that the police had brought this matter to the attention of the District Attorney. The bottom line is that Benczkowski knew when she filed her “investigate Nowak” resolution that an investigation had already been conducted and closed without action. Pilarski concludes that, “this whole thing is a witch hunt” and that Benczkowski had “duped” him into putting his name on it when she knew an investigation was already either ongoing or closed.

Benczkowski is then confronted on why she would send something if she knew the information wasn’t true. The real reason is because she was advancing the political campaign of Nowak’s opponent. As Pilarski suggests, Benczkowski wasn’t happy with the result of the DA’s investigation, so she decided to smear Nowak publicly, politically by suggesting that something remained to be investigated. All for headlines.

At the board meeting, Benczkowski took her name off the resolution and it was pulled.

But she succeeded in her main objective – headlines smearing Brian Nowak.

What a shameful farce masquerading as a town government.

If you are of a certain leftist ilk in this country, you are pro-Palestinian to a fault. I mean that in the literal sense – to a fault. In other words, your support for the Palestinian cause is of such crystal purity that it insulates you from certain truths.

One of those truths is that Gaza, which is ostensibly part of the Palestinian Authority, has been run by a group known as “Hamas” since 2007. Another one of those truths is that Hamas is not some benign and ragtag group of grassroots resistors, but a well-organized, well-funded, internationally supported paramilitary group whose primary remit is to exterminate Jews. It receives support and funding chiefly from Iran – an oppressive, authoritarian theocracy – and Qatar, which is wealthy and Westernized, but still little more than a feudal emirate whose existence is fueled by reserves of natural gas and oil.

In other words, neither Iran nor Qatar are what your, e.g., local DSA chapter would normally aspire to impose upon this country. Hamas, too, is an expressly religious movement, seeking to impose an Islamic republic on the entire territory of what had been the post-Ottoman, post-1922 Palestinian mandate, whilst driving the Jews into the sea.

Again, I’m not sure why some doctor’s kid costuming as “proletarian” with a Carhartt toque prefers an Islamic state, but that’s really for them to explain.

The history of Israel and Palestine is too complex to be well-served by self-righteous, reductive sloganeering. So, when I see local Buffalo leftists pat themselves on the back for their placement of a bedsheet bearing the term “hashtag ceasefire now” over the 33, it underscores for me the lightweight, unserious nature of their understanding of the problems and their simplistic and frankly genocidal solution to them.

Palestinians have a right to exist. Jews have a right to exist. These two things do not need to be mutually exclusive.

Hamas is not Palestine. Palestine is not Hamas. Gaza, however, is run by Hamas and has been since 2007. Israel does not occupy Gaza. Hamas, to put it simply, are not the good guys. If your reaction to bad guys doing bad things is to attack their victims, what kind of pacifism, human rights, civil dignity, or democracy do you exactly believe in? You’re just making excuses for authoritarian oppression and violence against innocent civilians.

On October 7th, an Iranian proxy Islamist military organization that seeks to eradicate not just Israel, but Jews, attacked, kidnapped, and slaughtered Jewish people in their homes, in a Kibbutz, and at a festival.

If you’re some kind of leftist pacifist who hates oppression and state violence, the events of October 7th deserve your attention, at least – if not your full-throated condemnation. But I don’t see a lot of that, at all.

It bears mentioning that Israel’s policy of annexation and settlement in its West Bank territories has been oppressive, racist, and shameful. That does not excuse a massacre of civilians any more than American policy in the Middle East justified 9/11. The West Bank Palestinian entity is not run by Hamas, but by a different, more moderate Palestinian political entity, Fatah. But let’s be honest about what Israel is. There is a reason why it exists. There are very specific ways in which it became populated by Jewish people over time. I am of the belief that there is enough room in the world for 22 Arab states to permit one Jewish state to exist.

American leftists will tell you they’re not antisemites, they’re just anti-Zionists. OK, well tell me where Jews should go, then? Jews all over the world throughout modern history have lived in places that have, at best, tolerated them. At worst, they were slaughtered or expelled. Because Jews always existed in these places as a tolerated-at-best minority of the population, when bad times came, they were instantly scapegoated and mistreated. The word is pogrom and they weren’t unique to pre-1945 Germany.

I mean, Google it.

How is it that your sympathy for the plight of Palestinians is a moral justification for a genocidal pogrom by yet another bunch of Jew-haters? Do you agree with Hamas that Jews should be driven into the sea? That the state of Israel should cease to exist? That a random post-Ottoman, post-colonial area of Asia with straight-line borders must never be sullied by International Jewry because Arabs lived there after the Jews were expelled and enslaved under Roman occupation?

So, sure, hashtag ceasefire, but if you condemn inhumanity and violence perpetrated by Israeli forces, but remain silent or make excuses when Hamas bombs a bus in Hebron or hurls missiles indiscriminately at Israeli cities, or carries out a pogrom in Southern Israel, you’re not a pacifist or an earnest supporter of freedom fighters. You’re an apologist for one particular slaughter of one particular population, and whether coincidental or not, it’s the same population that has been subjected to hatred, expulsion, and genocide for a millenium.

So, yes, free Palestine indeed, from its current and former terrorist overlords who think that maybe this time they can drive the Jews out and create a Palestine that is as functional as Syria, as uncorrupted as Lebanon, as free as Jordan, and as democratic as Egypt.

After Syria’s independence from France, Jews were slaughtered, their synagogues burned, and Jews who weren’t murdered, fled. What was left of Syria’s Jewish population has suffered from mob violence, and the Assad dictatorship has, at times, encouraged and discouraged it. But rest assured, Syria has done a great job of cleansing Jews from its territory. It is estimated that a population of 40,000 Jews in 1948 is now down to a robust population of four.

Jews have fared only slightly better in Syrian client state, Lebanon. Most Lebanese Jews fled the civil war of the mid-70s, especially as Syrian influence grew. Hezbollah – an Islamist, Iranian-backed theocratic authoritarian movement was big on taking Lebanese Jews hostage and murdering them. The handful of Jews left in Beirut exist underground, unfree to practice their religion.

In Egypt, a population of about 75,000 Jews in 1948 has shrunk to fewer than 10 today. Most Jews were expelled and dispossessed in the mid-50s, if not imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. In 1956, Egypt declared that all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state, and one can imagine how well that went for Jewish Egyptians. In a scene reminiscent of events of just twenty years earlier, Jews were rounded up by police, told to take one suitcase and some cash, forced to sign over their possessions to the Egyptian state, and told to fuck off out of Egypt. During the 1967 war, further terrorization of the Egyptian Jewish community was overseen by Leopold Gleim, the head of the Gestapo in Poland and head of the Egyptian secret police under the name Ali al-Nahar.

After the Palestinians rejected the UN’s proposed 1947 partition of Palestine, Israel was formed, and all of the countries of the Arab League – including Jordan – waged war on Israel. By the end of the war, Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Jordan immediately set about expelling Jews who lived in Jerusalem’s old city. In 1954, Jordan offered citizenship to non-Jews living in its occupied territories, and during its 19 years of occupation, Jewish homes and places of worship were destroyed. All but one of the 35 Jewish houses of worship in the Old City of Jerusalem were destroyed. Jordan’s occupation was ended following the Six-Day War in 1967. As of 2006, no Jews were known to live in Jordan.

There are 2.1 million Arabs living in Israel as Israeli citizens of Palestinian heritage, a mixture of Muslims and Christians. So, it’s possible for Jews and Arabs to live side-by-side in the same country, much less adjacent ones.

If you stand for civil rights and human dignity, I think those principles stand in stark contrast to Hamas.

Yesterday, the Republicans got rid of their own Speaker, Kevin McCarthy. Plenty of people are pointing fingers at Democrats for not backing McCarthy up, but honestly why is it Democrats’ job to backstop Republican dysfunction and malfeasance? Sounds like a them problem and not a we problem, and if they have a small handful of ne’er-do-wells consisting of the most extreme and noxious political personalities in the nation, then it’s up to less-noxious Republicans to sort that out.

It bears mentioning that Nancy Pelosi got a lot done between 2021 – 2022 because she is competent and knew how to keep her caucus united and functioning.

I’ve been writing a blog of some sort since 2003 and throughout that time, I have observed and chronicled the slow-rolling decline of the Republican Party. Whether or not you agreed with its platforms and ideas, it was a competent participant in our federal system of government at least until 1994 when Newt Gingrich really launched its current descent into bellicose extremism. Then it morphed into a parochial religiousist party, and now it is nothing more than a nihilist cult, busily scaring its voters, reinforcing and feeding its least-informed and neediest base, and trying to out-do one-another in fealty to the cult of Donald Trump, the maximum rule. The Red Caesar. The emperor-king.

The Republicans had an amoral adulterer preside over the Clinton impeachment, all the while spouting moralistic claptrap. Then they stole the election from Al Gore, they destablized the Middle East by invading Iraq, then President Obama’s election completely fried their brains as the Tea Party and Sarah Palin ushered in a whole new era of know-nothing nihilist ignorance, culminating in the cult of Donald Trump – the most un-American and anti-American President ever to serve.

As the Republican Party implodes, the Democrats should let them have at it. If the country for whatever reason needs a functioning “conservative” political party, then someone really ought to found one because the Republican Party isn’t it, and never will be again.

Defenestrate the Republican Party just as they defenestrated Kevin McCarthy, and cast it into the ashbin of history, with the Whigs.

According to this guy, it is illegal for a person to oppose another person being appointed to a volunteer ethics board position.

According to this guy, if two people oppose someone else being appointed to a town board, that’s an actionable conspiracy.

Bonus points for the gratuitous and silly use of “ANTIFA” like a good and obedient little trumpster.

Silly season came early this year, just oozing from the town of Cheektowaga. A town supervisor’s race explains the silliness. The candidates are Brian Nowak (D) and Michael Jasinski (R). Jasinski is being supported by outgoing Supervisor, Diane Benczkowski.

Things must not be looking too great for the Jasinski campaign, because he and Benczkowski have manufactured out of thin air probably the most transparently idiotic nontroversy, calling for the censure – nay resignation – of Councilman Brian Nowak because he had the audacity to point out that a woman under Council consideration to serve on a volunteer Cheektowaga town ethics board has flown a Confederate battle flag outside her home. So, they’re accusing him of “bribery”.

I mocked the whole thing in this post.

Well, Benczkowski and Jasinski (and Benczkowski’s lawyer, Gary Borek), believe that they can propel Jasinski to victory by libeling Brian Nowak, accusing him of making a $400,000 bribe (!) and of being mean to the Confederate flag lady.

The bribery allegation is as absurd in its supposed facts as it is politically manufactured. Nowak doesn’t have $400,000 with which to bribe anyone, and the whole thing is ridiculous. It goes without saying, I suppose, that if Jasinski and Benczkowski and Borek think that bribery took place, they should call the cops. Or the DA. There should be an investigation and, if warranted, a prosecution. Maybe if Nowak is indicted for bribery, then the town board can take that up. What it is doing now, instead, is defaming him. Libeling him. Notwithstanding the transparent bullshittery and absence of proof, this silly little wannabe-junta put forth a censure resolution, and it lost 3-3. WNYMedia took some great snippets from that meeting.

On this week’s episode of the @dianebencz and Michael Jasinski @CheektowagaInfo side show circus and 🤡 extravaganza we meet “behind closed doors” Christine Adamczyk pic.twitter.com/m0NkrzygoF

— WNYmedia Network (@wnymedia) September 27, 2023

In an election year, a month or so out from election day, Nowak, an astute, sincere, and honest politician, is being attacked in a nakedly political theatrical production where people pretend that it was somehow improper to point out that the lady applying for the ethics board admittedly flew a confederate flag outside her home.

I have to say, as an aside, I love the town commentariat wondering which flags Nowak approves. Good question. We should narrow that down. I’m willing to bet he’s not ok with Confederate flags or Nazi flags. I’d reckon that if you’re flying one of those outside your house on a busy road and you want to volunteer for the town ethics board, your feelings and opinions about race, religion, equality, genocide, and diversity are going to be called into question. It’s an ethics board.

At the town council meeting on the 26th, especially as to the “bribery” nonsense, Nowak correctly put the people defaming him on notice that he intends to pursue every legal avenue available to him in order to combat the defamatory accusations being made against him. Frankly, I hope he sues them all to Kingdom come.

Nowak’s supporters rallied behind him, and Benczkowski’s lawyer, Borek, takes to Facebook, (obvs), to attack Nowak and his supporters some more.

Borek is claiming that it is a First Amendment violation for a town board to reject an applicant for a volunteer post based on the fact that the applicant has literally, admittedlym, flown the flag of white supremacist secession, sedition, and slavery. He cites some legal cases to support his conclusion that “Dan Jones” is a “wannabe attorney.” Luckily, I am an actual attorney. So, I looked into it.

I should note that the applicant, whom I am not naming, blames her husband for his “act of rebellion” in flying that flag and she denies holding the views of genocide, slavery, white supremacy, and the subjugation of Black Americans for which that flag stands. I have no reason to doubt her protestations, but the fact remains that it was her house and that flag was flying there. If I flew that flag outside our house, I wouldn’t be married anymore. It’s not a joke, and she’s not a victim. If anyone should be apologizing, it’s the person who deliberately flew that flag or allowed it to be flown. The accusations, victimhood, and lack of contrition are absolutely glaring.

I also have to note the irony of this comment Borek left to his own other comment:

So, it’s ok for Gary Borek to threaten people exercising their First Amendment rights, just to be clear. A conspiracy implies criminality, and there is no criminality at issue here. If Borek thinks there is, he should immediately report this to the police or have someone swear out a complaint, because falsely accusing someone of a crime is libel per se. Also, it is protected and non-defamatory opinion to characterize as racist someone who has admittedly, knowingly, flown a Confederate flag outside their house, and I don’t care what sort of excuses or explanations you have to try and paint yourself as the victim. I mean, if you can’t maintain a basic level of intellectual consistency within the same thread, are you even Facebooking?

When we attorneys cite cases, we look to make sure the circumstances are substantially similar. The problem with Borek’s analysis is that the case he cites is factually distinguishable from the one at hand. In Gagliardi, the Plaintiffs alleged that the government officials had retaliated against their protected speech by doing something that had a direct adverse affect on a property right – something of value, which they owned. They alleged that the Village and its officials made improper decisions as to the zoning and zoning enforcement of an industrial property adjacent to the Gagliardis’ own, which resulted in harm to their property rights.

Generally, a person can bring a claim under 18 USC §1983 if they allege that their Constitutional right to something was violated in retribution for an expression of speech. It’s not an absolute right, though. Assuming that flying a Confederate flag of white supremacy, sedition, and slavery is an exercise of free speech, what did our applicant here lose? What right belonging to her was violated? She did not lose her job. She did not lose any property right. Nothing belonging to her was harmed in any way – real or imagined. She never had a property right to sit on that ethics board.

Look at the cases Mr. Borek cites in the quote above. “Wrongful discharge”; “denied permits”. Someone lost a job. Someone’s property rights were affected. In the case of this ethics board applicant, she lost nothing to which she had any pre-existing right. She did not lose employment or remuneration – the ethics board is a part-time volunteer position. Her house was not foreclosed upon nor was any sort of zoning decision implemented to the detriment of her property right.

In Christie BB v. Isaiah CC, 194 A.D.3d 1130 (3d Dept 2021), an appellate panel found that, although a Confederate flag emblem was protected speech, it is a “symbol inflaming the already strained relationship between the parties” and that the Family Court can factor in its continued presence in analyzing what may be in the best interests of a mixed-race child.

The right to free speech is not absolute or without consequence, and the government can definitely deprive someone of a right due to speech when that speech is especially repulsive. In Pappas v. Giuliani, 290 F3d 143 (2d Cir. 2002), that Court found that a police officer’s First Amendment rights were not violated when he was terminated from the NYPD after sending bigoted leaflet materials. (Note that in our case here, the ethics board applicant did not have a job that she lost – indeed, she has not been harmed at all as to any right to which she was previously entitled.)

When a government employee is terminated as a result of protected speech – of a “matter of public concern” – courts must “arrive at a balance between the interests of the citizen, in commenting on matters of public concern, and the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” (Pickering v. Board of Ed., 391 U.S.563, 568 (1968).) If the government entity believes that the speech would “potentially interfere with or disrupt the government’s activities, and can persuade the court that the potential disruptiveness was sufficient to outweigh the First Amendment value of that speech,” it has acted lawfully.

The Pappas court found that the right to speak one’s mind about matters of public concern, “is not absolute. At times, the right of free speech conflicts with other important governmental values, posing the problem which interest should prevail…For this reason, the employee’s right of free speech is sometimes subordinated to the interest of the effective functioning of the governmental employer.”

The Court in Pappas found that the proper functioning of a police department is dependent on the respect and trust of the community and the perception that it enforces the law fairly and without bias. If the police treats one segment of the population with contempt, that population will see the police as an oppressor, and the work of the police is impaired.

The police officer in Pappas distributed leaflets hostile to Jewish and Black people, and the Court found that these statements damaged the effectiveness of the police department. They cause harm and strife. “The restrictions of the First Amendment do not require the [NYPD] to continue the employment of an officer whose dissemination of such racist messages so risks to harm the Departnment’s performance of its mission. “A policeman may have a constitutional right to [speak his mind], but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.” Pappas, 290 F.3d at 147, citing McAuliffe v. Mayor of New Bedford, 155 Mass. 215, 220 (1892), cited in Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138, 143-44 (1982).

Likewise, our prospective ethics board member has a constitutional right to fly all the Confederate flags she or her husband wants; she does not have a constitutional right to be a member of the town ethics board.

If the town feels that it would harm the reputation of the ethics board, or the board’s performance of its mission by appointing someone to it who arguably espouses Confederate viewpoints, then it is incumbent upon the Council, which appoints people to that board, to vet these prospective members and prevent the appointment of people who fly flags which stand for chattel slavery of Black people.

I think that the situation involving our Confederate-flag-waving ethics board applicant more closely follows the situation in Pappas, and the town’s hand is even stronger because there wasn’t a firing – there was a declination to appoint. The town didn’t take her flag, or her property, or any right belonging to her.

What would have happened had the board failed properly to vet this person and it came out later that this now-member of the ethics board had on a couple of occasions had a pro-slavery treason flag flying in front of her house? Would that have been better? Or would that have harmed the reputation and interests of the town and its ability efficiently and without disruption to carry out its activities?

At the town board meeting on September 26th, at least one town board member objected to the fact that Nowak did what he did at an open council meeting. Yeah, he did. But he literally just passed around photographs to the other members of the board, and told them that they should take that into account. He said accurately what it showed. He did not show the pictures to the public, even to this day. He didn’t get up and accuse anyone of anything untrue.

The town of Cheektowaga has residents from myriad backgrounds, religions, and skin colors. It absolutely should not blindly or ignorantly be hiring someone to any town office – elected or not, paid or not, who has flown a flag of sedition and racial hatred outside their house. These three should be thanking Nowak for bringing this to their attention before the appointment so as to avoid a lot of bad press and embarrassment later.

Dear Mabel,

The war is not going as planned. The sweltering August heat persists into these early days of September, and our window air conditioners can scarcely keep up. Our rations of cold quinoa are more frequently replaced by hot takes as we muster from time to time to do battle with the woke Yankees who would end our very way of life. Our crippling monotony is broken only by the occasional rush of excitement when the Yankees fly their flag, which would turn me into a woman at the slightest provocation. What, dear Mabel, will become of us if we are forced against Heaven to treat every person as a person?

Our general has taken our Bud Light, leaving us parched. We are entertained periodically with “Sound of Freedom” and “Try That in a Small Town”. One day we were ordered to show reverance to the ballad of “Rich Men North of Richmond” and the next day it was lost at the battle of Target Aisle. Our lifted pickups roll coal to own the libs, yet these are but fleeting successes. Oh, Mabel, how our leaders forsake us in these trying times. We do not know for how much longer we might sip from the cold brews of pumpkin cream, which soothe us in times of despair. If you could spare it, please Venmo me some Greybacks to sate my thirst.

In South Cheektowaga, though, the battle flag flies high, reminding all who see it for what we stand – seditious rebellion against the united States, the enslavement of Africans, the divine supremacy of the white race, and secession in order to secure for ourselves and our descendants these unending ideals for which we fight. Must not these voices of truth and feudal plantation honor be included within the “diversity” about which the woke Yankees cry incessantly? Woe be unto those who would impose on us the woke mind virus to infect us with ideations of “equality” and “liberty.”

Pray for us, Mabel.

Yours, John