How Not to Write About Evander Kane

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So far, we know very little about allegations brought against the Sabres’ Evander Kane. All we know is that they were made, that there is an investigation underway, that he denies them, and that he’s still playing for the Sabres, for now.

As with the Patrick Kane case, it would be bad to jump to conclusions in either direction, and everyone involved in the case needs to keep quiet and let the process play out.

So far, there hasn’t been any Sunday Buffalo News story where a bar owner comments on the matter, so at least we’re ahead on that score. But there is one especially irresponsible local website that took everything several steps too far.

Here’s a primer on how not to write about a criminal investigation involving rape or sexual assault.

So, there’s that.

In 2015, it should go without saying that reducing a criminal investigation into a discussion of how “hot” Kane’s girlfriend is about as irrelevant and misogynistic as it gets. Men don’t commit sexual assault because they’re horny; it’s about control and domination rather than sexual desire. So, Kane’s attractiveness – and the attractiveness of his model girlfriend – neither proves nor disproves whether the accuser in this case is telling the truth.

*Sabres. Also, I didn’t see anywhere that he was accused specifically of rape, but of a “sex offense”. (A rape is a “sex offense”, but if that was the accusation, then that word would have been used in the reporting). Whose ears are “unbelieving”? Because law enforcements’ are the only ears that matter right now.

She is “jaw dropping”? (also, *it’s). I suppose that it’s easy to assume that law enforcement has questions about the credibility of the accuser and her allegations – I’d be willing to bet, however, that a woman would be disinclined to make a false accusation in the wake of the fiasco that was the Patrick Kane case. The Buffalo News reports that the witness is having, “memory issues”, which I suppose is everyone’s way of telegraphing that there are issues here. I’ll bet the folks over at rape crisis services are pleased as punch to see that the News’ reporting on this is already so one-sided and, at the sports desk, tsk-tsk concerned because we’re so “ultra-sensitive” to this sort of thing here, thanks to Patrick Kane.

We should be ultra-sensitive to any accusation of rape or sexual assault by anyone, anywhere.

You can’t “rape the willing” is false. Setting aside for a moment that we don’t even know whether the underlying allegations even involve “rape”, 74% of rapes involve force or the threat of force.

We know you can tell everything about a person and their character from what they post at Instagram. Basically here the author is explaining that Evander Kane is a very attractive man, and clearly women are such shallow creatures that it’s unthinkable that any one of them would reject the advances of a man as handsome as he. I’m not sure whom this author interviewed to learn that Kane is “straight laced” and has “strong personal character”, but media reports of his time in Winnipeg don’t exactly back up that thesis.

Truth is, though, Kane was never a good fit in Winnipeg, even in his first season there where he scored 30 goals… Every unpaid traffic ticket, every rumour about him skipping out on restaurant bills and having his girlfriend with him on the road, every time he posed for pictures with a wad of money attached to his ear, every time he shaved YMCMB into his scalp became a major cause célèbre in the league’s smallest market.

So, disciplined and straight-laced.

That’s some opening sentence. I suppose it’s almost de rigeur for someone irresponsible to bemoan the unfair treatment of such good-looking millionaire sports heroes with “hot” girlfriends. Suffice it to say that I have a hard time feeling sympathy for someone who can afford to pay Superlawyer Paul Cambria to defend him against allegations of sexual misconduct.

No one knows the first detail about what Evander Kane is accused of having done. No one knows who the accuser is or what happened. We don’t even know the extent of any alleged crime. But suffice it to say that there’s a right way and a wrong way to write about these types of cases. Focusing on the relative attractiveness of the accused and his significant other is the wrong way.

Rape is an act of violence. Treating it like tabloid fodder and posting a bunch of cheesecake Instagram pictures does a disservice to society in general.

Preetsmas: Pigeon’s New Liens

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Are your stockings still hung by the chimney with care? Preetsmas isn’t over. Here’s a recap of what we did so far:

Today comes news that two new liens have been filed with the Erie County Clerk’s office against G. Stephen Pigeon, the political dirty trickster and former chairman of the Erie County Democratic Committee.

On December 8th, the IRS filed a federal tax lien of over $65,800.

Pigeon 12/2015 Federal Tax Lien

On December 22nd, the Admiral’s Walk condominium association filed a lien against Pigeon for $4,500 in unpaid condominium fees.

Pigeon Condo Lien 12/2015

One of the biggest Preetsmas mysteries has involved Pigeon’s ability to finance the massive cash outlays he supposedly made to and for candidates and committees. On the 5th day of Preetsmas (late June 2015), we revealed that Pigeon had over $200,000 in liens asserted against him at that time, (March 2012 federal tax lien for $26,500; March 2014 federal tax lien for $118,600; June 2, 2015 federal tax lien for $126,200), so we can add about $70,000 to that figure. You may also recall that Pigeon has previously been caught in apparent arrears on his condominium fees and/or assessments, as he and tanning mogul Dan Humiston seemed to swap ownership and/or possession of two separate units at Admiral’s Walk.

Dedicated readers will recall that in February 2015, Pigeon used the Buffalo News’ Bob McCarthy for propaganda purposes, asserting that he had more than enough liquid funds to play his typical games. He showed up with what he said were tax forms that purported to show that he had enough income to shell out six figures to obscure small-potatoes political committees.

Pigeon opened his tax returns from the past several years to inspection at The News’ request in an effort to quell speculation that his contributions to the Progressive Caucus stemmed from anywhere but his own bank account. His records over the past three years indicate a mid-six-figure income, which he says proves his ability to spare $100,000 even for a fund supporting relatively low-level candidates.

He can afford big donations to a political cause the same way others could contribute to a church, he said, especially because he has no wife or children to support, takes few vacations, has no real hobbies and lives a non-extravagant lifestyle.

“It sounds odd, but when you look at how I live and how much I make, it really isn’t,” he said.

He didn’t reveal his existing tax liens at the time, however.

These new liens are post-raid – the condo fees go back as far as June 2015 – and underscore the difficulty in which Mr. Pigeon finds himself. One may also extrapolate from the IRS lien that Mr. Pigeon’s 2014 gross income was high enough to result in a $65,000 tax liability.

Camps and Saboteurs

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Sometime Tuesday, Chairwoman of the City of Tonawanda Democratic Committee and of the EC Town Chairs Association Gayle Syposs wrote this on her Facebook wall,

How the hell do I get dragged into a blog again. No one talked to me

Good question, I thought! So, at the risk of dragging her into yet another blog, let’s examine why she became the target of one especially irresponsible local website: no names, no links.

So, is she also the former City of Tonawanda Chairwoman, or is that just clumsily written? Chairwoman of what, the city? Is there even a “Hillary Clinton camp” from which she has defected?

So, there you have it. That comment has, incidentally, since been deleted.

A simple email or phone call likely would have sussed out the truth. I’m friends with Syposs on Facebook, and I did a quick scan of her posts going back several days, and the most recent mention of Sanders was critical of him and supportive of Clinton, so God knows where the author of that site got his information. As for Zellner’s reliance on Syposs, I have to imagine that he relies on the support of anyone who’ll give it, since it’s the committeepeople who vote for the chairman.

Oh, also:

So, there’s that, as well. That, too, has been deleted.

The post goes on to describe how a local lawyer and Democratic activist who usually sides with Clinton loyalist Steve Pigeon is instead feeling the Bern.

“Saboteur” is quite the accusation. Whom is Reese meant to have sabotaged, and how? “Compatriot” is a word that has a specific definition, and I don’t think the author used it the way he intended. Sure, Reese and Pigeon are “compatriots” because they’re both American. I think “ally” would have worked better, don’t you?

Who refers to Reese as “Pigeon’s brain”? That’s just someone taking the old trope about Karl Rove and repurposing it locally. While I don’t especially like Pigeon, his tactics, or his politics, his intelligence is undeniable.

Also, Camille Brandon isn’t a lobbyist with “Bolton St. James”, but with Bolton-St. Johns. What kind of thing is that to say – that someone is “thought to control” something? They either do or they don’t. One could conceivably look back to the last reorganization meeting of Erie County Democrats to see the results of the vote: 69 – 31. That’s a shellacking.

I distinctly recall the races in 2004 and 2008 when good Democrats were torn between Kerry, Edwards, Dean, and Clark and later between Obama and Clinton. Presidential primary politics are generally cordial affairs; no one challenges anyone else’s petitions, everyone gets along, and as long as the bigshots get their tickets to the convention, everyone’s happy. To suggest that the Clinton vs. Sanders effort now is any different, that it’s breaking a “circle” of “operatives”, or evidence of a party rift is to either ignore history or to be fundamentally stupid. My only question is whether the “former state legislator” we’re talking about is Al Coppola or Antoine Thompson, since those are the only two I can imagine bothering to talk to that author (if the quote isn’t completely made up).

Look at that caption. First, the author doesn’t properly credit the image as being from Facebook. Secondly, he assigns the monicker, “genius saboteur” – I’ve heard Reese called a lot of stuff, but that one’s news to me. Why is it in scarequotes? Is that a nickname? If so, why isn’t it capitalized?

As for the Eddie Egriu mention, that’s puzzling to me. I distinctly recall the Congressional race in 2014 when Reese supported and worked with Egriu, who was challenging Brian Higgins on the (D) line. If I remember correctly, Reese helped handle the ballot access effort. How did Reese supposedly “sabotage” that effort?

Whom else has he “sabotaged”? Again: I don’t agree with Reese, but accusing him of “duping” aspiring candidates with an “unwieldly” style (whatever that means) in order deliberately to “sabotage” a congressional race is a serious accusation that is in no way supported here; there is a complete lack of evidence or foundation for that charge.

In fact, Reese’s animus towards Higgins is so great that he conducted a gentle and touching puff-interview with the execrable Kathy “from Williamsville” Weppner, who was running as a Republican against Higgins after Egriu failed to earn a slot on the primary ballot.

Lots of allegations, few facts, and wild jumps to conclusion: this isn’t how any of this works.

Buffalo. It’s the People℠.

2015: The Year in Verse

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December in Buffalo: snowless and mild.

Politically, this year was especially wild.

We rang in the New Year somewhat aghast,

as we learned that Mario Cuomo had passed.

One loss that cut deeply is one you all know;

Entertainer Lance Diamond was the next one to go.

Our icon of funk had no imitation,

And Buffalo gave him a worthy ovation.

 

Dave DiPietro, needing something to do,

learned of a library book—maybe two,

which told kids to read and to learn—that’s all right,

but these books involved Muslims, so he picked a fight,

and, pretending to be so concerned that he asked,

whether both of these books should be banished at last!

But these volumes explained that in Afghanistan,

kids can’t do what ours do, thanks to the Taliban.

 

In Albany, meanwhile, something awesome occurred.

An indictment! Shelly Silver was charged, so we heard.

The Skeloses, too, were found on the hot seat,

courtesy of an attorney named Preet.

They all were convicted, Shelly, Dean, and his kid.

They’re going to jail thanks to quos pro that quid.

Nevertheless, these wins seem awfully pyrrhic,

and the Albany culture seems downright satiric.

 

Quickly thereafter, we heard—more than a smidgen,

That agents were sniffing ’round G. Stephen Pigeon.

In late May, you’ll recall, a series of raids,

caught Pigeon and Casey and one or two aides,

but the Preetsmas Day massacre tale is still pending;

nothing new to report, and no news of its ending.

 

While here, we found that we’ve really been blessed.

For hipsters, a kingdom became manifest.

The listicle writers in Brooklyn and Queens,

know that five-borough living isn’t all that it seems.

For Wegmans and cheap housing rates, we get envied,

and economists say our job market’s quite frenzied.

 

In Lancaster, the school board humbly proposed,

to change the team’s name, but were harshly opposed,

by some who thought “Redskins” a suitable name,

for kids to play sports in, without any shame.

But Native Americans quickly caught on,

and argued that “Redskin” needs to be gone.

They turned to the kids, after much agitation,

who came up with “Legends,” after due contemplation.

But to this very day, you can go to a game,

and find people still angry over a racist team name.

 

Carl Paladino characteristically fought,

against logic and reason, and thickened the plot,

as he bullied a guy here to track civil rights,

Carl turned the board into a joke on most nights.

One thing’s for sure, as the district descends,

into receivership, Carl and his friends,

must work better with others, just as we’d expect,

a young student to do, and to have self-respect.

 

In the BMHA, a commissioner said,

some unspeakable words, and when caught, quickly pled

that he never would say the “n” word—not at night or in morning,

but the problem for him was the cell phone recording.

Joe Mascia was running for Franczyk’s position,

in an effort that honestly needed magicians.

You won’t win in Fillmore—it’d be quite absurd,

if you casually pepper your speech with that word.

 

Now Donald Trump’s surging, unemployment is down,

Musk’s Solar City’s the new game in town.

The Green Code is here, and the billion gets spent,

Investigative Post tells us what it all meant.

 

When election time came, it was really a snooze,

Poloncarz re-elected, but there was some news,

Fudoli was gone, but legislature incumbents,

all won, and it all seemed a bit too redundant,

turnout was low and the races were boring,

hell, Democrats didn’t even deign to be warring.

 

In August, our town went a little insane,

after a woman alleged Patrick Kane,

had raped her—she went to the cops right away,

and some blamed the victim within a few days.

In the end, Tom Eoannou had showed off a bag,

that purported to be the rape kit—a red flag.

But it wasn’t, and the case simply ended in days,

and Kane skated—his problems have melted away.

 

Joseph Lorigo, as the year drew to a close,

Tweeted some questions he wanted to pose.

Expressing concerns about the criteria,

used to bring refugees over from Syria.

A big demonstration was held here downtown,

and refugee services wouldn’t back down.

The community welcomes the tired, the poor,

who help to make Buffalo better than before.

It wasn’t too long ago Brahmins and such,

hated Irish, Italians, and Poles just as much.

 

It’s 2016, let’s all hoist a craft beer,

wishing all of you peace and a Happy New Year.

Beware the Nitwit

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What better way to celebrate the Christmas season than to assail an idiotic thing that soon-to-be Trump ’16 NYS chair Carl Paladino sent around to his flock, and a ridiculous letter to the editor of the Buffalo News?

Carl and Marx

I tried to hunt down the opening quote, but the only place it shows up is on conservative blogs and sites re-printing this very post.

That quote I underlined in red for Marx: there’s no evidence that Marx ever wrote or said any such thing. At best, it appears to be a juvenile paraphrasing of Ronald Reagan’s, “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”. Karl Marx said a lot of things, but not too many on the subject of “freedom”. Indeed, when he did touch on “freedom”, it was within the context of class struggle and the relative freedoms of the proletariat vs. the bourgeoisie. If one looks back to the crises of capitalism that bookeneded the 1920s and, which exists in our post-2008 crash world today, we see that Marx warned of growing concentration of wealth at the very top of the social classes, and that this would lead to proletarian anger and revolt. To a certain degree, that explains the appeal of Trump and Sanders in a country that doesn’t go in for coups d’etat.

So, Carl Paladino kicks off his regurgitation of an email forward with a quote that Marx never said or wrote, but why bother checking?

The story goes on to explain how you can attract wild pigs by throwing free food at them, and then gradually pen them in while they’re busy feeding. This is a handy way to set up your anti-Obama analogy, and also to denigrate the poor and blame them for their own misery by likening them to wild animals. The email ends,

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare entitlements, medicine, drugs, etc., while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.

One should always remember two truths:

There is no such thing as a free lunch, and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

If you see that all of this wonderful government “help” is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to share this with your friends.

If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably not share this.

BUT, God help us all when the gate slams shut!

Quote for today: “The problems we face today are there because the people who work for a living are now outnumbered.”

So, let’s say you’re dying and in hospice, and it’s covered by Medicare. That’s you being a wild pig losing your freedom.

Perhaps you’re a cancer patient on a subsidized health insurance plan under Obamacare. You receiving chemotherapy covered by your health insurance, as opposed to million-dollar bills and medical bankruptcy: that’s you getting penned in with your free lunch.

If you’re a poor black kid who has the misfortune of being a student in the shoddily run school system over which Mr. Paladino presides, your education, your subsidized lunch, your Medicaid – that’s you losing your freedom. Freedom, I assume, to be uneducated and hungry.

If you’ve engaged in “estate planning” to sell off your elderly parent’s belongings to qualify her for Medicaid, in order that the state will cover a $50,000/month nursing home bill – you’re just a wild hog, too.

Did you notice the line about “tax exemptions”? I guess that makes Carl a wild pig, too, for every project he builds that gets an IDA grant, or pays a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT)  instead of straight-up property and school taxes.

Paladino, however, modified that “quote for today” at the end in order to mimic a common right-wing radio trope:

You can pick at that all day – from the clumsy use of pronouns to the idea that some people vote in order to maintain their free ride through life. In a way, that might explain Mr. Paladino’s own political theater. This is a guy who wages childish verbal wars with alleged “RINOs”, but he’s all too happy to donate money to Democrats when there’s a freebie or benefit in it for him.

The KISS Dentist on Transgenders

Cheektowaga’s Eric Schroeder is better-known as the “KISS” Dentist on Harlem Road. He has strong opinions about what a school board a few towns away is up to:

The parents of the Hamburg School District should be outraged. For the School Board to take one minute to determine a “transgender” policy shows the lack of consideration to the rest of the students, parents and staff.

No, they shouldn’t be outraged at all. As a matter of fact, the parents in Hamburg should be relieved that their school board has the reading comprehension and critical thinking skills to see that the state Education Department’s gender identity policy protects not only the transgender and gender non-conforming students, but all students. You can read more about it at this post.

Children today are already horribly oversexualized, and allowing mixed sexes in bathrooms and locker rooms is just plain wrong. In any grade, there is no reason to let girls into boys locker rooms or boys into girls locker rooms. If this were done in any other public institutions, it wouldn’t stand. How does this stand in our public schools?

This gets back to one of the points I made in my earlier post: the people equating transgender and gender non-conforming kids to simple cross-dressers have it all wrong. Kids don’t just get to decide one day that they’re going to use a different bathroom or locker room. Hell, for all Dr. Schroeder knows, there might be a transgender male using the locker room at his gym as we speak.

Whether kids today are any more or less “horribly oversexualized” than any prior generation is, I suppose, up for debate. But if you equate bathrooms or locker rooms with sex, maybe you’re the one who needs to get right in the head.

This kind of sexual exposure is in line with endangering the welfare of a child and violates parents’ rights and responsibilities to their children. If I were a parent in Hamburg or any other district that put forth such nonsense, there would be the start of a class action lawsuit for endangering the welfare of my child.

“Endangering the welfare of a child” is a crime, not grounds for a civil action, much less a class action. If our dentist friend had bothered to read the text of the policy as it relates to locker rooms, he’d have found this: “[t]he district will allow a transgender or GNC (gender non-conforming) student to use the restroom and locker room that corresponds to the student’s consistently expressed gender identity at school. Any student requesting increased privacy or other accommodations when using bathrooms or locker rooms will be provided with a safe and adequate alternative, but they will not be required to use that alternative.” Did you see that text I highlighted there? ANY student. So, if a Hamburg student or parent has a problem with this, they can request an alternative.

Catering to one or a small group of people is bad enough. Now School Board members are listening to young children, full of confusion and raging hormones, rather than their own reason and the parents who pay school taxes.

You know, the fact that you pay school taxes doesn’t give you some license to override or decide every policy you don’t like. In this case, the Cheektowaga dentist does not pay Hamburg school taxes, as far as I can tell. Also, this isn’t up to the school board to implement; the board makes the policy, the administration carries it out. It’s up to the principals and teachers to figure out how best to implement the policy and make whatever accommodations are necessary in order to guarantee the comfort of “any student”. What the dentist would like to say, but doesn’t have the stones to, is that he thinks transgender is all bullshit. I don’t really understand why more people don’t just come right out and say that, rather than dancing around a lot of weasel-words worse than any lawyer could muster. After all, these are the same characters who think political correctness is leading to the destruction of western civilization.

I’d like so see my tax dollars go to educating the kids of today about our rich and exceptional history, the great things we have sacrificed and done for other countries and the world. Shifting the thought process to something as ridiculous as “transgenderism” in such young children is a disservice to all and needs to come to an end.

This guy made it through dental school? This is a policy to deal with an issue that already exists. It has nothing to do with the school curriculum; a curriculum that is replete with courses and credits dedicated to American exceptionalism.

In doing annual battle against anti-school crusaders in my own town, I see these sorts of semi-informed arguments all the time.  I see the elevation of tax payment to a level surpassing that of student, teacher, parent, or average citizen. I see the appeals based on misinformation. I see the vacant wishes that the school curricula would teach something already being taught whilst anti-tax sentiment cuts things like music and extracurricular activities.

No other government is required to submit its budget to annual scrutiny and plebiscite like this. Only schools. And here, where schools are being asked to carry out the law and ensure fair and equitable treatment for all students while balancing that against the needs and rights of a microscopically small minority, complete strangers take to the pages of the Buffalo News and excrete words that promote division, hatred, and discrimination.

It’s the Christmas season – the holiday season, really, if you think that Jews, Muslims, and people who celebrate Kwanzaa count. I would hope that cour community could do a better job of celebrating peace on Earth and goodwill to all people than by transmitting nonsense such as that reproduced above.

Wozniak: Transgenders are Yucky and Such As

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This week, State Assemblywoman Angela Wozniak took time out from her busy schedule as a do-nothing Republican Assembly backbencher and target of an ethics probe to attend a meeting of the Lancaster Board of Education. Among the topics on the agenda is one that is popping up not uncoincidentally throughout the state – the treatment of transgender and gender nonconforming students in the schools.

It bears mentioning that, since time immemorial, gay kids have gone to public schools and shared locker rooms with kids of the same gender, to whom they may have been attracted. Yet no one bats an eye. Transgender kids have a right to go to school and be free from bullying and discrimination, just like all kids. The measure of a government or society is how it treats its most vulnerable minorities. This is especially true when the issue of gender identity and sexual orientation comes to the fore during a child’s pubescence. Being naked in front of your peers isn’t going to be a comfortable thing for many kids, and certainly introducing transgender students into a locker room setting is going to raise issues that schools simply haven’t previously been equipped for.

By way of caveat, I am by no means an expert on any of this. All of this is new to me, and if my terminology is off, or my examples too simplistic, I apologize. I’m trying to convey an overall sense of, “read the thing before you accuse it of not doing something it does.”

The notion that has many parents and students concerned is that a person who is born a boy might end up using the girl’s locker room (or vice-versa). That’s true. However, in order to get to that point, a lot of things have to happen. The State Education Department has asked every school district in the state to bring up and discuss a policy to deal uniformly with these issues. It reads as follows:

It’s all pretty straightforward. A transgender kid will be allowed to use the bathroom or locker room that conforms to his or her, “consistently expressed gender identity”.  The problem we have here is one of understanding. This isn’t just some kid who wakes up one morning and decides to be a cross-dresser. “Consistently expressed” means the child regularly holds him or herself out as the gender with which he or she identifies. All of this is done in close consultation with the school’s administration, the child, and the child’s parents.

Bathrooms aren’t even an issue. If a child born male but identifying as female wants to use a girls’ room, it’s going to be stalls and no one will see anything. If it’s a child born female but identifying as male, he’s going to use the stall, as well, because parts.

Locker rooms: this one is more awkward, because it’s all awkward already. The policy, however, is clear – ANY student who wants more privacy will be accommodated. That means the transgender student or any of his cisgender peers. No student will be forced to be exposed to anything to which they don’t wish to be exposed. This could be done any one of a number of ways – a curtain in a specific area, staggering the times, etc. As for overnights, the policy gives the district flexibility and discretion to deal with this on a case-by-case basis.

All of this merely re-states current federal and state law. All of this is how a school district would be expected to handle such a situation. It makes sense to codify it as a school policy so there’s no issues or ambiguity.

The policy as drafted merely protects the rights of the transgender student while also protecting the rights of the cisgender student. Most of it has to do with respecting the child’s identity and referring to him using the pronouns he prefers. Frankly, if you read it and understand it, it’s completely non-controversial. Again – the bathroom issue doesn’t exist, and the locker room issue is easily dealt with to protect everyone and anyone who’s uncomfortable.

What this policy does is ensure that, e.g., a child who was born a boy but whose “consistently expressed gender identity” is female, she isn’t forced to use the boy’s locker room or bathroom. Wouldn’t that be more awkward for everyone, anyway? It also ensures that teachers can’t be wiseasses and continue to use the pronoun “he” for someone who attends school consistently as a girl.

The policy passed this week in Hamburg with nary a peep. In Clarence, it’s still up for debate. But in Lancaster, it seems as if you can’t say the sky is blue without inciting a riot. This brings us back to Assemblywoman Angela Wozniak, who appeared in order to get her face in the paper for something unrelated to the ongoing ethics probe, and to grandstand a little. When confronted with a few questions about state and federal law, she was caught wholly unprepared.

 

That video is astounding. Not just because of the pandering. Not just because of the deer-in-the-headlights look when asked a simple question. Not just because she got the hell out of Dodge when she realized she was being made to look like a clown.

It’s amazing because she fundamentally misrepresents and doesn’t know the substance of the proposed policy. It does protect modesty. No, transgender kids in the locker rooms aren’t necessarily going to be attracted to the cisgender kids in the room with them. This is pandering at its ugliest and most idiotic. This is ignorance.

How is a child s’posed to feel safe and have dignity when they’re having to be forced into a situation where they’re having to be watched when they’re potentially naked in front of someone of the opposite sex who sexually prefers them. This is wrong, and this I think that’s why we have such a strong turnout of parents speaking out against it tonight.

It’s “wrong” because it’s made up.

In the next breath, Channel 2’s Danny Spewak asks Wozniak about the policy and its relationship to the law. She is dumbstruck, and cannot answer a simple question about the thing she came down to speak out against because she didn’t do her homework and has no idea what she’s doing. Coming out in public and facing the cameras is hard work for the unprepared – it’s not like the Assembly, where a Republican can just show up and warm up a seat to collect $80k, plus per diems.

If your school district is evaluating whether to adopt a policy on transgender and gender non-conforming kids, it’s natural for parents (and students) to be wary. All of this may seem like some sort of fad, but before you get around to Caitlyn Jenner, tell that to Renee Richards, nee Richard Raskind, who faced discrimination in 1977.

Title IX specifically deals with transgender and gender non-conforming students. So does New York’s Dignity for All Students Act (DASA).

The reality is that this policy is going to affect only a very small number of people, and we need to protect not just the interests of the majority, but also vulnerable minorities who are subject to discrimination and harassment.

At the Clarence meeting last month, a woman got up to basically allege that transgender isn’t really a thing; that it’s all made up. That’s the mindset underlying Wozniak’s ignorant scaremongering. Transgender may be what people are talking about now, but it’s not new. It’s just that, in the past, kids who were born this way had to suffer in pain and silence; in fear and perpetual discomfort. We’re working to change that, and to make sure all kids are treated with dignity and respect.

I don’t think that’s so controversial, and I hope the video above marks the end of Ms. Wozniak’s political career.

Donald Trump: One Step Away from Fascism

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OK, maybe two steps.

The two things missing are these: 1. a principled ideological or political belief or dogma of any sort; and 2. a paramilitary organization that pledges fealty to him personally.

Other than that, he’s already there. Yesterday’s downright idiotic, fascist, and impossible “proposal” to ban all entry to the United States to people who are Muslim is the latest example of Trump’s careful dismantling of his personal brand, and his descent into madness.

The Trump campaign is now a hate group.

It started with Mexican immigrants (incidentally, net migration of people from Mexico is now in deficit), moved on to calling for an end to birthright citizenship, and now Trump indicts all Muslims everywhere as unworthy of entry into this country, until, as he so eloquently puts it, “our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on“. What a well-reasoned and thoughtful plan! It’s literally the sort of thing you say when you’re trying to incite violence.

Forget for a second how fundamentally impossible and, likely, illegal any such scheme might be. Forget for a moment that you can’t test for “Muslimness”. Set aside, if you will,  that 1.6 billion people in the world are Muslim, and jihadist terrorists make up an infinitesimal percentage of that population.

Rolls-Royce Wraith - 602034 - Qatar

How does Mr. Trump expect his neighbor, Saudi Prince Mutaib bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to get back to his luxurious apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower if he travels abroad? 

Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe - 444 VVV - Saudi Arabia

What will happen to Trump Tower tenant Qatar Airlines?

Rolls-Royce Wraith - 222202 - Qatar

Keep a close eye out on who supports Donald Trump in the wake of this latest racist outburst. They’ll be worthy of your contempt.

No, Virginia. Preet isn’t Indicting Cuomo on Jan 2

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The 1st Amendment is a shield against governmental interference with speech, but it can also be wielded like a clumsy, blunt sword by people looking to make a quick buck or attain some level of notoriety without doing the work needed to earn it.

Among the menagerie of western New York media outlets is one so irresponsibly full of shit, so palpably and unironically packed with lies and falsehoods, that it doesn’t deserve even the ignominy of this piece. Aside from being mostly fictitious, poorly spelled, clumsily written (e.g., “profuse” and “profound” aren’t synonyms) gibberish, it has a title that lends itself a sheen of credibility such that the unwary can think they’re reading something legitimate or trustworthy.

This week, hundreds got suckered. Even famed education activist Diane Ravitch:

Doubtlessly, loads of people are salivating over the possibility that Andrew Cuomo might be next on U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s hit list; however, there are glaring errors that should have immediately rung the bullshit bell for someone of Ravitch’s stature.

Feelings. 

Federal prosecutors don’t make decisions about bringing corruption charges against a public official – much less a sitting Governor – because they “feel” anything. Bharara isn’t going to prosecute Andrew Cuomo because he “feels emboldened” after winning a conviction against Silver “on all of seven” [sic] corruption charges. The jury didn’t convict Silver because of a public “appetite” to see corrupt officials go to jail; they convicted him because the prosecution presented evidence and testimony that proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Silver had committed these crimes. The jury, as the finder of fact, then applied the law per the judge’s instructions, and found Silver guilty. Federal criminal prosecutions don’t hinge on a jury’s attitude, or on a jury’s measurement of public sentiment – they are determined by evidence and the law. To suggest otherwise is ignorant.

Phantom Anonymous Sources

Three sources “confirmed” this? Who are they? Why did they choose to be anonymous? Why did the author choose to grant them this anonymity? Where do these people work, and how did they attain the necessary information needed to “confirm” anything? Do they work with prosecutors? In the administration? Are they staffers? Legislators? Law enforcement?

Have a Cursory Knowledge of Law and Procedure

Prosecutors like Mr. Bharara, by the way, don’t “indict” anyone. Grand juries indict. The prosecution presents evidence and testimony to a grand jury, which then determines whether probable cause exists to charge the target with a crime; if yes, it returns an indictment and the defendant is arrested and charged. Here’s a link to the grand jury indictment of Sheldon Silver. The U.S. Attorney controls the process, but he doesn’t have the foresight to determine the date on which an indictment may come down, nor is he guaranteed of an indictment at all.

Also, January 1st is a holiday and January 2nd is a Saturday. Grand juries aren’t going to be in court to indict anyone on either day. It’s all fantasy.

If you’re unable to confirm “widespread rumors” that other people may also be indicted, then it’s wholly irresponsible to name them. That’s defamation.

Details Matter

“Thought to be guilty”. Is this real life? Maybe say someone accuses him of obstruction of justice, or something along those lines, but guilt is determined by a jury after a trial, not by a blogger. What actions did Schwartz take “in the hours immediately following Bharara’s confiscation of Moreland Commission documents?” Bharara had to subpoena the Moreland documents – he couldn’t just “confiscate” them, and Schwartz is accused of meddling in the issuance of a subpoena to “Buying Time”, a media firm that Cuomo’s campaign had used, as well as generally interfering on and monitoring the Moreland Commission’s actions.

If Schwartz is accused of somehow not complying with a federal subpoena, or destroying evidence, that’s something that likely would have been raised by prosecutors by now.

One of the three sources is an Albany insider? Then I’m going to guess the three: Al Coppola, a guy who once parked Carl’s car, and Joe Mascia.

This is all speculative BS, completely devoid of facts or journalistic integrity, that merely hurls accusations of crimes around at people. “Longtime Albany insider” could mean anything and nothing. Ultimately, the article is fantasy pushed as fact, yet its falsity is evident from its lack of a basic understanding of how the criminal justice system works. It’s like spreading a rumor that Brian Higgins is leaving Congress – completely false with no basis in reality; someone’s wishful thinking. Yet what’s Higgins to do? Dignify that with a denial and response? Hire a lawyer and spend thousands to sue?

Remember the old quip: a lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Silver Convicted: Now What?

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The conviction of former Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver on seven federal corruption charges is as symbolic as it is substantive. Prosecutors working under U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara established that Silver had set up two elaborate schemes to use his public office and influence to enrich himself.

In one, he steered state money to a cancer researcher who referred mesothelioma patients to Silver’s law firm, which specializes in asbestos litigation. Silver collected millions in referral fees. In another, Silver convinced two real estate development firms to use a law firm that secretly shared referral fees with Silver for real estate tax challenges. Silver, in turn, was accessible to these firms and pushed legislation that they championed.

Although there was no explicit evidence of any bribery or quid pro quo, the prosecution established – and the jury found – that there was circumstantial evidence of at least an implied quid pro quo.

Mr. Silver’s lawyers argued that in charging him, Mr. Bharara’s office had sought to criminalize the kinds of activity in which state legislators routinely engaged.

That’s the problem.

Dean Skelos and his son are on trial right now. There are many more corrupt malefactors in Albany who engage in this sort of behavior, and many more indictments and convictions to be had.

Convicting Silver on this corrupt behavior is a great first step, but merely the tip of an iceberg. The question is whether his mandatory departure from the Assembly will embolden the Albany establishment to reform itself. I don’t think that’s at all bloody likely – it’s far more probable that they will try to placate a weary and disinterested electorate by enacting window-dressing pseudo-reforms but maintaining the status quo. They’ll try to get away with the bare minimum, and they will, because Albany politics is so remote and byzantine, and for most people they consider it only in the abstract. It’s a thing and a place that’s corrupt and we hate it, but most of us have no clue what, if anything, we can do about it.

Everyone can agree that reform is needed, but there’s little agreement on what needs to be done. As speaker, Silver wielded ridiculous power. He controlled the Assembly agenda. He demanded – and got – loyalty by threatening backbenchers. He was one of the three men in the room who ultimately control how the state budget is agreed-upon. When you get down to it, our entire state legislature is a farce – a show. It’s not a democratically elected deliberative representative body as much as it is a CGI projection of a crowd on a green screen behind the people who wield actual power.

It’s heartening that U.S. Attorney Bharara is taking public corruption seriously, and that Attorney General Schneiderman has, as well. But prosecutions can only catch illegalities after they happen. What we need to do is set up an Albany that acts like a legislature and a government is supposed to act in a civilized democracy. We need to make it much harder for this sort of graft and corruption to happen in the first place. Maybe we can downsize the legislature and ban outside income, making legislators full-time. Do we really need a state senate? Are there other structural reforms that we should be discussing and implementing in order to make Albany work for us, rather than vice-versa?

These are the challenges confronting this state, and symbolically, the conviction of Sheldon Silver shows us that change is possible.

However, the example of Joe Bruno shows us that change comes slowly and haltingly.

We can – and should – demand better from our state government, both elected officials and bureaucrats alike. Albany, however, is a morass of non-responsive automatons who mask their shrug-and-do-little reality behind ribbon cuttings and press releases. We pay a lot for the privilege of living in New York State. We deserve better.

Valenti’s: An End

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Longtime readers may recall in that in late 2011 / early 2012, I had a habit of mocking Janice Okun’s Buffalo News restaurant reviews. One of them – her review of nondescript red sauce joint, “Valenti’s” took on a life of its own.

Valenti’s was located in the Budwey plaza in North Tonawanda – there’s a Mighty Taco there now. Owned by Terry Valenti and his then-wife Lori Brocuglio Valenti, the couple’s marketing strategy was an odd one. They hired the late Brian Kahle to do their initial promotions, and the Valentis made up a story about Terry having defeated legendary celebrity chef Bobby Flay in an episode of “Iron Chef America”.  According to this fake tale, the secret ingredients was parsnips, and Terry won the competition with his parsnips-based ice cream. In the press release, it said that the ice cream wowed the judges, and Lori added, “it was the parsnips that did it.” For the many people who followed the twists and turns that story took, that quip became the punch line to the whole sordid tale.

Here is the first post I did, mocking Okun’s review and pointing out that the Iron Chef story was a lie. Valenti had also claimed to be a graduate of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, and a former chef at Mamma Leone’s –  both of these were easily determined to be lies. By the following day, the Buffalo News had quickly edited its review. The comment threads in those posts became a community for people who had axes to grind against the Valentis. By mid-January, they had stopped paying the rent on the restaurant and landlord Frank Budwey was suing to evict. By the end of the month, the restaurant’s purveyor had cut off their credit, and the utilities were shut off. By February 1st, a North Tonawanda judge effectively put an end to the restaurant.

But there was more. The restaurant had set up its phone service in the name of a dead woman, and during the court hearing for the eviction, Terry Valenti was arrested on an outstanding Texas warrant for forgery, and ultimately extradited. Freedom of Information requests found myriad police calls to the Valentis’ Eden home, and to the restaurant itself. In order to get credit, the Valentis made West Seneca native Melissa Janiszewski a “partner”, but in reality they committed a clumsy form of identity theft, using Janiszewski’s good credit to run up debt and then not pay it back. They went so far as to put their home cable account in Janiszewski’s name.

This past weekend, I received a note from one of the dedicated commenters from the Valenti’s threads. Outside Dallas, a man bludgeoned his girlfriend to death and called 911 as he committed the murder. When police arrived, he charged them with weapons and the police shot and killed him. The girlfriend was Lori Brocuglio Valenti, and she was murdered by her boyfriend, Kevin Close. Apparently, the Valentis had split up earlier this year.

Terry Valenti told the Dallas Morning News that Close may have killed Lori because they were in the process of reconciling. That doesn’t seem to be true, according to follow-ups to the story. Lori had posted this to her Facebook page just last week:

Valenti and his wife didn’t leave western New York cleanly. By late February 2012, former commercial Frank Budwey had regained possession of the property, and had contracted with Cash Auctions to sell off the contents of Valenti’s Restaurant. In April 2012, a Midland County Texas grand jury indicted Valenti on a forgery charge. Interestingly, around that same time, there was a rumor that Valenti was back in western New York, looking to start up a new restaurant on Delaware Avenue, and was supposedly trying to recruit people who had worked for him in North Tonawanda.  This turned out never to have materialized, thankfully.

By late June 2012, the Texas charges against Valenti were still pending, and he was appearing there in person with counsel. Meanwhile, in Florida, Valenti’s ex-wife initiated a court action seeking physical custody of their son. Lori Brocuglio’s ex-husband in Florida had custody of their son, and an action was brought to allow his new wife to adopt. Brocuglio contested the adoption, but the court instructed her that she needed physically to appear in court to testify – the problem is that there were a couple of minor warrants out for Ms. Brocuglio in that state, rendering her appearance a tricky proposition, at best. In June 2013, Broculgio was acquitted on a charge of grand larceny based on a complaint  brought by Frank Budwey. Terry Valenti wasn’t so lucky. He was convicted in Texas on the forgery charge, and the victim advises that the matter is up on appeal. robation, court costs, and restitution.

As for the adoption case involving Ms. Brocuglio, when process servers in New York attempted to serve papers on her, Valenti told them that she had moved back to Connecticut. This was quickly resolved – during the time that Mr. Valenti had to appear in Texas, they re-served papers in Eden knowing that the only person who would be home would be Ms. Brocuglio.  On July 29th, she was home, and she was served. Valenti and Brocuglio attempted to fight back.  Valenti sought a temporary restraining order against Valenti’s ex-girlfriend, but failed to serve it in a way that could be enforced against a non-resident of New York. At best, it was a nullity; at worst, it was an attempt to intimidate the star witness in the Texas forgery trial. Nothing ever came of the TRO. Lori Brocuglio lost her parental rights as to the son in Florida in November on the grounds of abandonment. At last check, Terry Valenti’s ex had physical custody of their son in New York, and he was deeply in arrears on child support.

The entire time they lived in western New York, Valenti and Brocuglio rented a living space in Eden. As you might expect, Valenti and Brocuglio ended up mistreating their landlords there, as well. They were forced to bring two eviction actions against them; the first time, they obtained an emergency rent assistance loan from Erie County, and the back rent was paid. By July 2012, the landlords were dealing primarily with Brocuglio, who indicated she was going to Texas. After the second eviction for non-payment, the judge gave Valenti and Brocuglio a week to show receipts that $3,000 was paid.  It hadn’t been. Not only did Valenti and Brocuglio skip out on back rent, but they are alleged to have stolen or sold items belonging to the landlords that were stored on the property, such as an upright air compressor, a drill press, welders, and a John Deere tractor and trailer.  The house was left in a horrible state, filled with garbage and junk. They left moldy, rotten food in the refrigerator, moldy clothes in the washer, food and garbage in the dishwasher, 36 bags of garbage, six truckloads of garbage furniture, six very large televisions, and tons of clothes and belongings left behind. Among the treats Valenti and Brocuglio left behind was shut-off of all utilities for non-payment, including $800 for electric fees. Because the electric system ultimately needed to be changed, it took three months and thousands of dollars to do so and also to clean up the property.

Throughout all of this – right up to the present day – a very cohesive group of former strangers has formed, all with one thing in common – each one has been cheated or mistreated by Mr. Valenti, Ms. Brocuglio, or both. Through a bizarre set of internet comments and fora – all relating to a strange restaurant review in the Buffalo News – these people have developed a virtual support group to help each other find out where these two are, what they’re up to, whom they might be taking advantage of, and to generally vent about the wrongs done to them at the hands of Iron Chef Parsnips and his henchwoman. There have been bankruptcies, lawsuits, criminal actions, threats, harassment, child custody actions, evictions – federal, state, and interstate civil and criminal litigation has arisen as a result of two apparent sociopaths riding roughshod through the country, leaving behind a trail of debt, lies, broken lives, and broken property. The Valenti / Brocuglio fact pattern could very easily be an essay question on a bar exam.

All of that being said, Lori Brocuglio didn’t deserve to be murdered by a psychopath boyfriend. Terry Valenti, looking perhaps for some attention after a few years out of the limelight, told the Dallas papers he and Brocuglio had reconciled, but that appears to have been a lie.

Valenti posted this to Facebook just a few days before Brocuglio’s murder:

Red & White and “LH&R” (love, honor & respect) are commonly used to identify members of the Hells Angels. Valenti has claimed both to be a member – and to not be a member – depending on how it might best be convenient for him. I cannot fathom why he would try and pretend like he and Brocuglio were in the process of some reconciliation when that clearly appears to have not been true. I guess liars lie.

In the end, be nice to people. I don’t know if either of these two characters ever learned that lesson, but one especially odd tale is now partly complete. I hope Ms. Brocuglio is in a better place, and that her family finds peace.

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