Lügenpresse – lying press – “fake news” – is a distinctly German slur that the Nazis used to slam the Jewish, foreign, and opposition press. It’s a handy way to demonize any media that don’t follow the party line. It’s no surprise, then, that one of the mantras of the Trump Cult is “fake news”. Representative Chris Collins (NY-27), the Ti to Trump’s Do; the Krupskaya to Trump’s Lenin – started out an “interview” on WBEN Monday morning by referring to the “Buffalo ‘Fake News'”, most likely because of this article which helps cement the fact that Collins is a shit.
CNN is not fake news. Neither are the Buffalo News or the New York Times or the Washington Post. Anyone suggesting that they are is a propagandist; lying, wrong, and advancing some right-wing agenda. When Trump especially calls media outlets “fake news”, he is all but signing someone’s death sentence. It is unprecedented and un-American for a President to promote one media outlet – Fox News – and accuse others of being “fake”. Someone’s going to die.
In an arrest affidavit released Monday, FBI agent Sean Callaghan wrote that Griesemer “made approximately 22 total calls to CNN” between Jan. 9 and Jan. 10. Four of the calls resulted in threats. In the last message, the caller made disparaging remarks about Jewish individuals, before stating: “You are going down. I have a gun and I am coming to Georgia right now to go to the CNN headquarters to f — king gun every single last one of you. I have a team of people. It’s going to be great, man . . . You gotta get prepared for this one, buddy.”
I have no doubt that Trump’s appeal to the very worst in Americans – greed, hatred, selfishness, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, bigotry, the dismantling of democratic norms – will be a temporary aberration that will someday serve as a warning and reminder that it can happen here.
This is the same crowd that read some emails and decided that John Podesta and Hillary Clinton were running a pedophilic sex ring out of the non-existent basement of a DC-area pizza parlor. Naturally, a guy showed up there with a gun to shoot the place up. The idiots who instigated that attack and promoted those lies have only grown in stature within the “alt-right” axis.
No matter what, 30% of the electorate will support this petty would-be dictator no matter what he does. As he famously quipped, he could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue – or pay six figures in hush money to a porn star to dummy up about their liaison in the days before an election – and not lose their support. Some people don’t want a functioning government, they just want to be ruled.
Since everyone has a short memory nowadays, what with your iPhones and e-devices, here’s a little trip down memory lane.
It’s 2011, and Joe Lorigo is running for County Legislature against Christina Bove. Bove was an acolyte of federal indictee Steve Pigeon’s who flipped her allegiance during the Erie County Legislature mini-coup of ’09 to enable the minority Republicans to have a de facto legislative majority in order to help propel Tim Kennedy to the State Senate, and to sell out to then-County Executive Chris Collins.
(WEST SENECA, NY) – Republican, Conservative and Independence candidate for Erie County Legislature Joseph Lorigo has had enough. After running a campaign based entirely on issues important to the voters in the 10th District, he called out his opponent today after she placed newspaper ads, mailed letters and organized anonymous voter calls – all mocking his family.
“Christina Bove has crossed the line in this campaign by insulting my family over and over again,” Lorigo said. “I have not and never will bring her family into this race because I know voters want to hear about the issues, not the malicious carping we’ve all grown so tired of in Erie County politics.”
Bove holds no job except her part-time employment as a County Legislator. In stark contrast, Lorigo is a respected attorney with an MBA and law degree from the State University at Buffalo. He is a family man devoted to working for the taxpayers as a public service.
“Bove is a career politician who does nothing but connive behind the scenes to advance her career at the expense of Erie County taxpayers,” Lorigo said. “The voters of the new 10th District are far more interested in Bove’s 154 votes to raise our taxes – and my commitment to hold the line on taxes – than in my family or hers.”
“I am proud of my mother, my father and all the members of my family. Christina Bove may not respect family values, but I wouldn’t be where I am today without their love, guidance and devotion,” Lorigo said. “Bove waited until the final days of this campaign to attack my family because as a career politician she will do or say anything to get re-elected.”
“I will not stoop to the low-level tactics of Bove’s low-class campaign, now or ever,” Lorigo said. “The voters of the 10th District can rest assured that after they vote for me on Tuesday and elect me to the County Legislature her mean-spirited political games will end and the work of the people will begin.”
A lot of that 2011 press release hasn’t aged well.
So, Schoeneman accused Lorigo of lying and defaming her, and filed a “summons with notice” commencing a lawsuit against him for defamation. A summons with notice is missing a key component of a lawsuit – a formal complaint. In New York practice, a defendant served with a summons with notice demands that the plaintiff serve a complaint, which they have 20 days to do. In Schoeneman’s case, she particularized the alleged defamation within the summons with notice.
“This is nothing more than a stunt,” said Lorigo, the Legislature majority leader, adding that Schoeneman has made personal attacks against him and his family and false accusations about him. “If anyone is defaming anyone it’s Michelle Schoeneman.”
Is it a campaign stunt? Most assuredly. That doesn’t, however, mean it is without merit. Libel is a written defamation – a false statement of fact. In this case, alleging that Schoeneman said in a public forum that she wants to put publicly funded heroin shooting galleries near schools or the “cider mill”. She didn’t.
No one would know whether this is a “stunt” better than Lorigo himself.
In 2011, when then-candidate Lorigo accused incumbent Christina Bove of being mean about his mom and dad, he didn’t just issue the press release shown above. He had his dad file and serve a summons with notice agianst Bove for defamation. From my 2011 Endorsement column:
District 10: No Endorsement: I will not endorse Christina Bove, as she helped create the de facto Collins majority in the legislature as a consummate follower and “what’s in it for me” type politician. On the other hand, the Lorigo name should be drummed out of our collective body politic, firstly by abolishing the family nest egg that’s built upon the hyper-corrupt electoral fusion system. Lorigo’s efforts to bully Bove by having daddy file a $3MM defamation suit over an ad in – of all things – the f’king PENNYSAVER, takes pettiness to a whole new level – the fact that this prominent law firm can’t even be bothered to actually file and serve a Summons and Complaint, with the alleged libel plead with the requisite particularity, instead relying on the lazy lawyer’s “Summons with Notice”, which gives them indignant headlines and nothing else.
So, their whining today about Schoeneman’s “stunt” is delightfully hypocritical. Now Lorigo’s campaign is sending out a mailer – part of which is visible above – that purports to be from Schoeneman’s campaign and solicits recipients to harass her over a wholly manufactured, made-up lie.
Bonus points for Joe’s mom defending him in the Buffalo News’ putrid comments section in this now-deleted post:
LOL at the wife of the chairman of a local fusion party calling anyone a “puppet” of anyone. At least Schoeneman brought her own lawsuit, and didn’t have a family member do her dirty work for her.
I will not stoop to the low-level tactics of Bove’s low-class campaign, now or ever…[t]he voters of the 10th District can rest assured that after they vote for me on Tuesday and elect me to the County Legislature her mean-spirited political games will end and the work of the people will begin.”
It is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. – Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The reckoning is almost upon us, and local Republicans seem to be having trouble running on their records, or any coherent agenda. They are, instead, relying on the old standbys of culture war and resentment.
It was, in turn, Russian aggression and its Anschluss of Ukranian territory that led the US and the EU to impose sanctions on Russia’s oligarchs to make it more difficult for them to spend their stolen fortunes in London, San Tropez, and New York. When combined with the Magnitsky Act, which specifically punishes a handful of corrupt Russian officials for the death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, you have the broad-brush outline of why it is that Putin’s Russia is busy trying to sow division and havoc in the US and EU. It begins to explain why Russia, and her agents and tools promoted Brexit, spent money on social media ads and useful idiots to deepen social and political divisions in the US, backed the Trump campaign and sought to destroy Hillary Clinton’s, recruited a naive Tonawandan to push a “Calexit” campaign, and other separatist movements elsewhere.
While there may not yet be definitive proof that the Trump campaign colluded with Putin’s Russia to meddle in the 2016 campaign, the motive is crystal clear. The fact that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has a cooperating witness regarding the Trump campaign’s Russia outreach is also quite significant. Putin’s nobility can’t remain under economic stress forever. What’s the point of plundering Russia’s wealth if you can’t spend it?
As we look, then, at the efforts that Republicans locally are mounting in various regional and countywide races of note, we find that nonsense has overtaken substance. Take these, for example. Here’s incumbent Erie County Legislator Ted Morton going after welfare recipients.
Sure, there’s nothing easier than heaping scorn and derision against the poorest people in your community, but this recyclable claims that Morton is doing something to prevent welfare recipients from spending benefits on cigarettes, alcohol, and gambling. What, exactly, is he doing? Several quick Google searches of various terms including Morton’s name and welfare fraud turn up nothing. Not one news story or article exists highlighting the important work Mr. Morton has accomplished to stamp out welfare fraud. The most recent story I found involving welfare fraud in Erie County has to do with a criminal case. Morton hasn’t even press released anything having to do with this issue neither recently, nor in 2014, or 2015. This is Morton using class warfare and race hate to spur his suburban constituency, which probably pays scant attention to his legislative tenure, to turn out. Don’t believe me? Morton also thinks you’re innumerate or stupid. Here’s another piece of literature he’s sending out, slamming his opponent:
So, the Grassroots political club endorsed Bruso. How was Bruso “bought off”? If we’re rejecting “politicians who are proud to be supported by organizations raided by the FBI”, someone should sit Mr. Morton down and tell him about Donald Trump’s campaign manager and, frankly, Chris Grant. This side of the mailer reads, “East Side” no fewer than three times – what do you think Morton is trying to convey here to his constituents? I think I know. Let’s flip it over.
So, Grassroots endorsed Bruso on June 9th. The FBI raided Grassroots as part of the expanding Pigeon / Mazurek investigation on June 15th. I mean, I guess it’s true that Bruso was pleased with the support “within days”, but it was within a few days before the raid.
Likewise, this piece of literature, generated by the New York State Republican Committee, has substituted dog-whistles for pretty blatant racism.
Does it get much more obvious than this? Here you have the state Republicans touting two incumbents and one opportunistic Paladino “Democrat” running as a Republican, and instead of running on their respective records, accomplishments, or achievements, it opens with what can be generously described as an effort to manufacture outrage against black football players protesting police brutality, and setting these three white men up as the thing standing between you and Colin Kaepernick’s afro. What, precisely, does the controversy over kneeling have to do with issuing driver’s licenses, law enforcement, or being a fiscal watchdog?
My favorite part of this pathetic effort to kick up a little good old-fashioned race hate is this line, from the back side of the mailer: “Are you tired of being convinced that you are narrow-minded because you are patriotic and believe in our traditional American values?” Yes, it really says, “being convinced“. Setting aside whether “Democratic Candidates think ‘taking a knee’ is acceptable”, this, too, is nothing more than an effort by Republicans to stoke white resentment and anti-black hatred in a very segregated area. It is incredible and unconscionable that this is the best the Republicans have to offer. Nothing about Trump or the Trump agenda, nothing about these candidates’ individual accomplishments or positions – just little more than, paraphrasing, ‘we share your hatred for uppity negroes’.
Not to be outdone, Representative Chris Collins seems to be all but ready to announce his campaign to unseat Governor Cuomo by deliberately (?) mangling American history.
By way of background, Collins was one of only two New York Congressmen to vote in favor of Trump’s proposed tax reform plan, which would eliminate the deductions for mortgage interest, and what you pay in state or local property taxes. These are, simply put, key deductions upon which New Yorkers rely. Elimination of these deductions – even with a supposed hike in the standard deduction – would burden New York’s middle class homeowners, and utterly ruin housing values and everything these state and local taxes pay for, including public schools. This is nothing more than a massive tax cut for multimillionaires like Chris Collins, paid for by middle class folks already under stress from stagnant wages, Trump’s sabotage of the health insurance industry and Obamacare, and his corrupt, spendthrift administration. Of Collins’ betrayal of New York’s middle class, Cuomo said, “I think it’s modern treason against the state. I think they are the Benedict Arnolds of today. They voted against the interests of the people in their districts. Period.”
In an article Collins published in the right-wing New York Post, he compares Governor Cuomo to King George III, the tyrant against whom the American colonies rebelled in the 18th Century. Collins calls Cuomo an “imperial governor” who imposes “unjust” taxes on New Yorkers.
The problem is twofold:
1. Americans rebelled against George III not just over taxes, but against “taxation without representation”. Given Mr. Collins’ repeated and reported attitudes towards constituents who do not share his views, it is he who shares George III’s imperial attitude; and
2. Cuomo doesn’t tax or spend; that’s the legislature’s job, and Mr. Collins’ own party controls one-half of it.
It speaks volumes that Collins is waging this schoolyard battle in the pages of a downstate tabloid, and not here where his constituents live. He has no use for them, after all. He doesn’t hold town halls to seek out ideas or concerns. “I represent the 72% of people who voted for me. You didn’t vote for me.” Let’s expand that sentiment:
I represent the white people who are angry at black athletes protesting police brutality.
I represent the suburban folks who share my hatred and disgust for welfare recipients.
I represent the people whom the new economy has left behind and need someone – or something – convenient to blame.
New York Republicans have no platform or accomplishments on which to run, so it all boils down to class war, race war, and culture war.
As Vice President Michael Pence parachutes into Buffalo to raise money for Congressman Chris Collins—then makes his hasty escape—consider where the money is going.
By my count, that’s almost $163,000 in attorneys fees for Collins to address very serious ethical allegations, including apparent insider trading:
…in late 2015 and early 2016, he may have engaged in “tipping” — using inside information that he knew about Innate to persuade investors to put more money down on the company.
In a December 2015 email, he provided Innate investors with information about clinical trials of Innate’s multiple sclerosis drug that the company had not made public, the ethics office said.
Collins provided more previously undisclosed information about those clinical trials in an email to investors in January 2016, the ethics office said. In addition, that email included previously unknown details about Innate’s plans to work with a large pharmaceutical company to produce its multiple sclerosis drug.
And in a June 1, 2016 email, Collins discussed Innate’s upcoming private stock offering before the company announced it.
Adding up the information in those three emails, the ethics office said: “Some information Representative Collins shared with Innate investors was likely nonpublic and may have been important to investors making a decision on whether to purchase Innate stock.”
Collins’s lawyers defend this communication of private, inside company information to induce people to invest, as well as other intervention from Congressman as, “nothing improper…constructed from whole cloth and are without validity…the result of a tortured interpretation of reality and also bespeaks a misunderstanding of the facts, the law, or both, and should be rejected.” Collins’s lawyer’s letter to the House Committee on Ethics cost $12,300 per page.
tl;dr: $163,000 buys you a lawyer who uses “bespeak” in a filing.
Collins calls it a “witch hunt.” The problem there is that the term “witch hunt” implies that the accusations lack merit or substance. Nevertheless, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there is a there there.
It also bears mentioning that President Trump “joked” about how Pence wants to “hang” all gay people. So, that’s who’s coming to pump local Republicans for money. Have a nice lunch, assholes!
The reason why most homicidal jihadist maniacs in Europe use homemade bombs or mow pedestrians down with cars is that it is exceedingly difficult to obtain a gun in those countries. It’s not impossible – nothing’s impossible – but it is very difficult. In fact, in some cases, the European attackers couldn’t even rent the bigger truck they really wanted to use to mow people down, and had to settle for renting a Ford Transit van. It’s like all the trite, jejune pro-gun retorts about banning cars come to life.
Yes, I know Switzerland has a lot of guns. The Swiss also take responsibility, order, and discipline seriously. If you want to make us more like Switzerland, that’s a conversation with which I am totally cool.
I have resigned myself to the reality that America lacks the foresight or political will to do a thing about mass shootings. The 2nd Amendment, as recently interpreted by the Supreme Court, guarantees an individual’s right to possess and own a firearm for hunting, sport, and protection. States can, however, impose restrictions on the ownership of certain types of firearms, and New York’s own SAFE Act passes Constitutional muster, despite what somebody’s lawn sign might say.
Some random guy set up an arsenal of weapons in a casino hotel and then rained bullets and death at people below who just wanted to hear some music. Just under 60 people killed and over 500 injured, and for what? How is that “freedom”?
How do you reconcile “liberty” with an inability to peacefully enjoy an outdoor concert? Why does the freedom to own an arsenal of weapons and ammunition trump a citizen’s freedom to listen to Jason Aldean without having to duck for cover or “get small“? Why does the freedom to outfit oneself with the ability to shoot thousands of bullets at innocent people over the course of 10 minutes outweigh the right of those concertgoers to not have bullets shot at them in such volume, at such rapid succession? Why did Adam Lanza’s right to bear those arms outweigh the rights of 20 first graders to see their next Christmas? Where was liberty and freedom for those kids and teachers? The kids’ parents? Are they more free? Would they be more free if they lived in a country where guns like that aren’t available, like the UK or Canada, but their kids were alive?
At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, there was talk about what happened Sunday in Las Vegas, but, according to several members, little was said about a legislative response.
“We all discussed the tragedy and certainly all of our thoughts and prayers go out to them, and that was pretty much the total extent of it,” said Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.).
Collins added that Congress ought to focus on mental health rather than gun restrictions: “We are not going to knee-jerk react to every situation. The Democrats continue to want to say, when a mentally deranged person does what they do, it’s the gun’s fault, not the shooter’s fault. . . . People focused on mayhem and the kind of evil this person was — in their heart, you can’t stop them. They will do it one way or the other. You can’t stop a mentally deranged person.”
“You can’t stop a mentally deranged person”, except perhaps with universal access to mental health care and appropriate treatment and medication. They’ll do it one way or another, so let’s not restrict the number of available “ways”? Choosing to commit murder may not be something you can legislatively prevent, but limiting the extent of that murderous intent is. No one can perch 32 floors above a concert and in 11 minutes kill 60 people, wounding 500 with a knife, or even with a pistol. Pretending there’s nothing that can be done is stupid; restricting one’s response only to thoughts and/or prayers is depraved.
The Democrats want universal health care, no if ands, or buts. Hillary Clinton wanted that. Barack Obama wanted that. They never could get there and that’s when we ended up with the abomination that I call Obamacare…The life I live is here now, and Republicans will never support universal health.
So, Congress should “focus on mental health” but will “never support universal health”. In other words, get yourself the psychiatric care you need, if you can afford it, and voila! No more mass shootings!
Just as every civilized, 1st world country has seemingly figured out how to guarantee universal health coverage, every 1st world country has devised a way to prevent most mass shootings; after Dunblane, the UK acted. After Port Arthur, Australia did more than just offer up a round of thoughts and prayers. There are horrific exceptions, obviously, but how many mass shootings has, e.g., Norway suffered since Anders Breivik?
There is a way to reconcile the 2nd Amendment with the people’s right to attend concerts, clubs, or school without being massacred.
One argument goes that restricting access to military arsenals won’t prevent bad people from shooting other people. While true, that is literally an argument against every law, ever. I mean, anti-homicide statutes don’t prevent people from murdering other people. Anti-drug laws don’t prevent pushers from selling or users from buying. Anti-DWI laws don’t prevent people from getting behind the wheel after one too many. This is among the sillier arguments.
I have written more about this topic than I care to admit. The right to bear arms is not absolute; it is not unrestricted or unrestrictable. The 2nd Amendment doesn’t grant you to the right to arm yourself for civil war or insurrection, nor to water the tree of liberty with people’s blood.
“No…it’s actually quite shameful. Our president politicizes every tragedy with a suggestion to Americans that some sort of gun legislation to take away Americans’ second Amendment rights would stop this from happening, and that’s just not truthful. In fact, it’s an outright lie. When you think about it, this was a security guard who obviously had weapons, and it…anything that the President would have suggested, this person still would have had his weapons, and unfortunately the tragedy still would have occurred. We should be focused on the root cause, which in this case is ISIS — it’s Islamic terrorism, it’s those who don’t respect America’s way of life, who hate women, who hate gays, and hate America. And that’s the difference you saw yesterday — we need to identify the enemy — it is ISIS, we need to take the fight to them and we shouldn’t try to divide America, and especially suggesting that there’s some sort of law we could pass that would stop ISIS, whether this was a lone wolf or not, from attacking Americans. So, I was very … not pleased at all with the response of the President, Hillary Clinton, or Chuck Schumer, who yet again are politicizing tragedy.
I will say this — I think there’s a lot of Americans waking up this morning saying, who’s going to keep me safe? Who’s putting America first? And in fact that is Donald Trump, I think this could be a bit of a turning point as people are focused not only on jobs and the economy, but they’re focused on their own safety, and I think Americans know who the enemy is, and it’s not the Republican Party. So I was yet again disappointed, and that’s just a mild adjective, in the President, and certainly Hillary Clinton, but I wasn’t surprised…they politicize every tragedy, and it’s shameful.
When a particular problem has a political, governmental set of solutions and nothing is done, that is already politicized. When you motherfuck the President and an opposition political figure to make a political point, you don’t get to whine about politicization. Who’s keeping us safe, Collins? Who’s putting “America” first?
Way back in early 2013 – soon after Sandy Hook, and around the time the New York legislature passed the SAFE Act, I wrote, “Fuck Your Gun,” and I incorporate its text here by reference.
Why do the rights of the Orlando murderer or the Las Vegas shooter outweigh the rights of their victims to dance in peace? Just. Answer. That.
Our nation endured decades’ worth of armed airline hijackings, but it took 9/11 to install armored cockpit doors. What will be the gun equivalent to 9/11? Clearly, 59 killed and 500+ injured isn’t enough. Clearly, 20 1st graders wasn’t enough. What will be the gun law equivalent to armored cockpit doors?
I don’t have any or all of the answers. But I know that the thoughtless repetition of sentiment and hypocritical, temporary attempts to demand that something be done about mental health aren’t enough.
The victims of these ceaseless American mass shooting – and the victims of mass shootings yet to be – deserve more.
In a Buffalo News column Thursday, Conservative fusion Party boss Ralph Lorigo laments that “Erie County Democrats have abandoned the working class”. For the uninitiated, New York’s system of electoral fusion enables petty party bosses like Lorigo to wield political and – more critically – patronage power that is wildly disproportionate to the actual size of their party committees.
Lorigo’s column, which is little more than a poorly concealed piece of campaign literature for right wing county clerk candidate Mickey Kearns, is one big concern troll. That’s defined as, “a person who disingenuously expresses concern about an issue with the intention of undermining or derailing genuine discussion.” The Urban Dictionary’s entry is even more explicit:
In an argument (usually a political debate), a concern troll is someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with “concerns”. The idea behind this is that your opponents will take your arguments more seriously if they think you’re an ally. Concern trolls who use fake identities are sometimes known as sockpuppets.
In his column, Lorigo purports to lament how the Erie County Democratic Committee, as led locally by Jeremy Zellner and Mark Poloncarz, has somehow “abandoned” the working class. Ralph Lorigo is no Democrat; he doesn’t speak for Democrats. He and his little reactionary club do not hold, espouse, or promote Democratic ideas or values. More to the point, his fusion party – a product of a pointless, fundamentally corrupt party system in New York – is no friend of the working class, Democrat or otherwise.
There are 287,000 registered Democrats in Erie County. Lorigo’s little club boasts 13,169 registered members. So, where does Lorigo get off lecturing the Democratic Party committee, its chairman, and its most prominent local elected official about Democratic values? The only reason he has any clout at all is thanks to a structural legal aberration.
The only reason a political club with 13,000 members has any pull at all is electoral fusion; it seldom puts up its own party members for election. Instead Lorigo’s group endorses a major party candidate – e.g., Mickey Kearns – who receives a “Wilson Pakula“, allowing him to run on the Conservative line, and those votes are added to the candidate’s total. In some cases, the vote is close enough that these cross-endorsements actually affect the outcome. The catch? LOL, when it comes to the so-called “Independence Party” and the Conservative fusion Party, that endorsement doesn’t come for free, or without strings. The connected get jobs.
I have been involved in Erie County Conservative politics for over 35 years, and have served as the chairman of the party for 23. I have never taken a salary, stipend or even a reimbursement from party funds for political activities. In addition, no government funds flow into my law office from any governmental source.
The power isn’t in receiving government funds, but in controlling jobs – the molten, glowing core of western New York politics. How many jobs does Lorigo’s club control? How many people in local, state, or county positions owe their livelihoods to Conservative fusion Party patronage? That is the proper metric, here, and it is conspicuously absent.
As chairman, I have worked with both Democrats and Republicans to endorse and elect people who care about Erie County taxpayers. My executive committee and I look at a candidate’s platform, record and the office sought. We never assume that someone’s party registration fully defines one; and we know that not every elected office legislates or creates policy.
What emetic pablum to suppose that someone running for office doesn’t “care about Erie County taxpayers”. Especially in any election since 2005’s red/green budget fiasco, which happened under Conservative fusion Party endorsee Joel Giambra‘s watch.
We work to apply our principles of smaller, smarter government to the candidates seeking our support. We then choose who will best carry that torch for the residents of Erie County. For the Erie County Conservative Party, this is not about party labels, but about principles. As long as I am chairman, that approach will continue.
More often than not, the Conservative fusion Party would conspire with Democrat Steve “the Splitter” Pigeon to endorse Democrats who didn’t have the support of Democratic Headquarters. Even if that person lost a Democratic primary, he still might appear on the ballot in November on Lorigo’s line, causing further worries for the endorsed Democrat. Pigeon is now gone, and his stragglers are beclowning themselves in the 2nd Erie County Legislature district race – a story for another time.
My relationship with Democrats is not in trouble. In fact, the top of our ticket this year is Democrat Mickey Kearns for county clerk. In the past, we were proud to support Democrats such as Jimmy Griffin, Paul Tokasz, Dennis Gorski and countless others. They were conservative, pro-life, taxpayer-focused Democrats.
Jimmy Griffin died in 2008. Paul Tokasz hasn’t been an elected official since 2006. Until he became a town justice in Cheektowaga a couple of years ago, Dennis Gorksi had been out of public life since 1999. Mickey Kearns may be a lot of things, but he’s no Democrat. You don’t run in 2017 with the endorsements only of the Republicans and Conservative fusion Parties and get to call yourself that. Apparently, Republican party chair Nick Langworthy’s bench was too shallow to support a genuine Republican candidate for county clerk to succeed Senator Chris Jacobs. So? Recruit an opportunistic “Democrat” with the dearth of accomplishments or ideas. There are some glaring omissions from Lorigo’s recitation of “Democrats I heart”: G. Steven Pigeon. I wonder why? Joe Mascia? Chuck Swanick?
Today’s Democratic Party leadership of Chairman Jeremy Zellner and Mark Poloncarz would reject those officials outright. It is clear that conservative values of any kind are no longer welcome at Erie County Democratic Party headquarters.
Lorigo’s closest Democratic friend Steve is in big federal and state criminal trouble, and Poloncarz won re-election in 2015 after having explicitly refused to seek or accept the Conservative fusion Party line. Which “conservative values” is Lorigo talking about, exactly? Is it Swanick’s homophobia? Mascia’s colorful racial outbursts?
In spite of the ever-increasing sprint to the extremes, the Erie County Conservative Party will remain true to our platform, right here in the middle with the majority of Erie County voters; people who believe in common-sense ideas like: taxes are too high; criminals belong in jail; police should be respected; law-abiding gun owners are not the root of our crime problem; plastic bags should be legal; and 5-year-olds don’t need to be taught about sex reassignment surgery in kindergarten.
“Taxes are too high” and this patronage club is part of the problem. “Criminals belong in jail” reads like a Dick and Jane book. “Police should be respected”, except when they violate the laws and constitution. Gun ownership isn’t at risk. Plastic bags should be “legal” and cost a nickel, because they don’t degrade and there are better alternatives available. Can you imagine you use “plastic grocery bags” as a rallying cry for a political movement? How pathetic.
Hey, Ralph Lorigo: please identify which Erie County school – public or private – teaches “5-year-olds” about “sex reassignment surgery” in “kindergarten”. I’d like to know the school, the textbook, and the teacher. Because it’s just gutter, hateful lies meant to get a rise out of the homophobes; literally, that’s all that is. And why haven’t you added why and how you pick and choose which pro-choice candidates you endorse, or candidates who support same-sex marriage? The idea that the Conservative fusion Party operates based on “principles” is laughable. The only principle is maximizing the quids for an endorsement pro quo.
Sadly, if you agree with just one of those principles today, you don’t have a place in the Democratic Party of Zellner and Poloncarz.
They aren’t really “principles” as much as they are bumper sticker slogans. Lorigo’s club’s real principles might involve homophobia, criminalization of all abortion, and ensuring that everyone from children to the mentally ill have the unfettered right to possess a loaded gun; that is, unless, a candidate who opposes all or some of those makes a great offer or is an acolyte of Steve Pigeon’s.
I can’t help but think about the Democratic Party when I started 36 years ago. Back then, the majority of Democrats I encountered crossed party lines to support Ronald Reagan. Now, the party of the working class has been replaced by ivory tower elitists who hate anyone with a different opinion.
Ronald Reagan, whose policies helped to hasten the destruction of America’s middle class? For the record, Mark Poloncarz grew up in Lackawanna; his dad worked in a steel mill, and his mom was a nurse. Jeremy Zellner lives modestly in Tonawanda with his family; his dad worked in a car factory. Meanwhile, the Lorigo family practically runs West Seneca from its law office, hobnobs with Donald gold toilet 757 Trump and endorses Spaulding Lake’s own Chris Collins, and he’s sitting there talking about “ivory tower elitists”. This is utter madness, and the “different opinion” quip is nothing but projection.
Erie County residents vote for lower taxes, smarter spending and a government built to assist them with jobs, better roads and affordable services; all principles the Erie County Conservative Party champions.
LOL “assist them with jobs”. How true.
The leaders of the Erie County Democratic Party may have taken a hard left, but Erie County Democrats have not.
Being opposed to the Republican clone party that has close ties to Steve Pigeon and Carl Paladino isn’t a “hard left”. It’s common sense and decency.
The Conservative fusion Party purports to have principles, but it’s just an arm of the Republicans; a party so unpopular in New York State that it needs to control a bunch of extra fusion lines to win the occasional election. Its platform is made up of all the WBEN bogeymen – anti-choice, anti-LGBT, anti-gun control. It is the party that thinks “black lives matter” is a terrorist group and fully supports the Trump Administration.
So, is Lorigo’s relationship with Democrats in trouble? Quite simply, no such relationship should exist; it is right that he has to omit the indictees, the racists, and has to resort to Mickey Kearns and the deceased to underscore his purported bipartisanship. Democrats need to stop going to breakfasts with Lorigo, and they need to reject the Conservative Party fusion line. It is the antithesis of what is actually “conservative”. Meritocracy is anathema to it. Good government is beside the point – it’s about jobs.
The highest and best use of electoral fusion for Democrats right now would be to start a “Freedom Liberty Gun-Eagle” fusion party line to out-conservative Lorigo’s and further use the system to confuse voters.
Anyway, thanks, Ralph. Democrats are all set. You may speak for the reactionary hatred of some who can’t deal with gay people having rights, but we Democrats will fight for the working class by promoting univeral health coverage, protecting union membership, implementing a higher minimum wage, paid family and medical leave, and other policies and programs that actually help people, rather than facile talk radio slogans.
Later today, Representative Chris Collins (NY-27) is expected to introduce something called the “Second Amendment Guarantee Act”, or “SAGA”. He intends for this legislation – if passed – to repeal key parts of the New York SAFE Act. According to a press release, SAGA would, “limit the authority of states to regulate conduct, or impose penalties or taxes in relation to rifles or shotguns.”
Collins’ proposed legislation only applies to long guns, not to handguns. It would also expressly reserve for Washington the sole ability to regulate and tax long guns. This might work now for Mr. Collins and his gun-toting base in his largely rural district, but query what happens if Congress were to flip from Republican control and pass restrictions on long guns even stricter than the SAFE Act. Under this proposal, Collins’ top-down, big government, Washington one-size-fits-all solution for gun regulation might not go over so well.
Just as the 1st Amendment is not absolute – restrictions on libel, obscenity, and inciting a riot are examples of restrictions on speech – neither is the 2nd. There are as many sets of laws and restrictions on gun ownership in the United States as there are states. In some cases, individual municipalities have their own restrictions, such as New York City’s stringent handgun laws. Furthermore, individual states have long maintained their own firearms regulations. After all, what works in Wyoming might not work in Rhode Island.
It is odd here that a Republican Congressman is introducing legislation that usurps from the states their power to regulate, and hands it to the federal government. After all, conservatives have long agitated for government power to be exercised, whenever possible, not by Washington, but by state and local governments. Their stated intent is to preserve the intent of our federal system and to comply with the 10th Amendment. Collins’ proposal effects that very usurpation, ripping power from the states and handing it to Washington lawmakers and bureaucrats. After all,
…as Judge Frank Easterbrook of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit explained in the Highland Park case, the Constitution not only guarantees rights, but also “establishes a federal republic where local differences are cherished as elements of liberty, rather than eliminated in a search for national uniformity.”
Maybe the polling reveals that Trump isn’t so popular and Collins’ relentless cable TV appearances to defend whatever the President does may not play so well. Given the way in which a Collins aide shared the news of this proposal on Twitter, it would appear that this will go nowhere, and is merely an appeal to his base, as Mr. Collins evidently can’t wait to run for governor.
Gabrielle Giffords was a congresswoman from Arizona from 2007 to 2012. On January 8, 2011, Giffords held a “Congress on your Corner” at a supermarket in Tucson, where she was meeting with constituents. Suddenly, an well-armed lunatic shot 19 people, killing six, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl.
See what a rent the envious Casca made.
Giffords was severely injured as one of the bullets entered the front of her head and exited the rear. She has undergone rehabilitation since then to regain her ability to move, speak, and write, and has become a proponent of common-sense gun control legislation so that others don’t have to endure what she did—others like Congressman Steve Scalise, who now recuperates in hospital after being gravely injured by another well-armed lunatic just last week.
Through this the well-belovèd Brutus stabbed.
Locally, right-wing commentators and politicians have attempted to blame Democrats for the Alexandria shooting that injured Scalise and others. The gunman was revealed to be a progressive supporter of Bernie Sanders and a vehement opponent of President Trump. The problem with the “violent Democrat” meme is that no Democrats, mainstream or fringe, have called for any sort of violence against anyone. Clumsy attempts to equate the “Antifa” black bloc movement with, say, Hillary Clinton are downright laughable. No violent anarchists were big supporters of the woman that even Bernie supporters derided as a “neoliberal shill.” If it were up to Democrats, Scalise’s shooter never should have been able to obtain a concealed carry permit, and even his ability to buy any firearm would have been restricted. After all, Scalise’s assailant has a well-documented history of domestic violence, one of the markers for mass shootings.
And as he plucked his cursèd steel away,
It is utterly contemptible and disgusting for anyone to shoot and kill any innocent victim without provocation. There ought to be no safe space in our society for mass shootings in general or attempted political assassinations in particular. No political party is immune from homicidal lunatics, and people who wish or effect physical harm on political opponents should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Yet just last week, Representative Chris Collins blamed Democrats for the Alexandria attack, before anyone knew anything about the shooter’s affinity for Bernie Sanders. He later recanted that accusation and apologized, and now pairs his calls for civility with a concealed handgun. Yet just a week earlier, he referred to Governor Andrew Cuomo thusly, “He’s a thug. He’s a bully. He’s an extortionist. He’s a blackmailer. He wants all the authority.” I’m sure it’s not the first time our Italian-American governor was condemned with language reserved for the mob or Mussolini, but it’s notable that a Congressman thought it ok.
Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it,
And when performing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, throwing in a contemporary spin and showing the betrayal and assassination of a Donald Trump character today—or, in 2012, a Barack Obama lookalike—isn’t the outrage you’re being told it is. Julius Caesar is not a play that extols the virtues of political assassination. That fact becomes evident literally minutes after the conspirators murder Caesar.
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
For the sake of civility, I will take the American right’s concern about tone at face value, and not more cynically as a way to exploit a tragedy for political gain. But in order to take this seriously, the right wing have to take a good, long look in the mirror and actually confront what they’ve done and condoned over the last nine years. President Obama was not, as the current President claimed, a secret Kenyan Muslim who literally founded ISIS. Tea partiers routinely referred to President Obama as an African witch-doctor, or an ape, or a traitor to be hanged, or a dictator not dissimilar from Stalin or Hitler. Google it. While this newfound concern about tone and how propaganda can lead to violence is welcome, it’s come dramatically too late. It’s as if John Salvi never shot up a Brookline Planned Parenthood clinic, or James Kopp never shot Dr. Barnett Slepian in Amherst, or Eric Rudolph never set off a bomb at the 1996 Olympics. Tell it to the family of Richard Collins, III, or the brave passengers on a train who were stabbed to death after confronting a white supremacist harassing a Muslim girl. The ascent of Donald Trump has emboldened the violent right fringe.
It’s almost as if a member of the Buffalo school board never wrote in a New Year’s Eve article that President Obama and Valerie Jarrett should be murdered, and that Michelle Obama was a male Zimbabwean ape.
Before you accuse me of whataboutism or tu quoque, understand that I don’t think dehumanizing your political opponents is ever appropriate. By portraying the other side as something not human, or as an illegal usurper – whether it’s George W. Bush or Barack Obama – you give well-armed homicidal cretins an excuse to commit mass murder. If you believe that Obama isn’t a human or founded a nihilist terrorist group, then that’s one less thing stopping some ignorant loner with a rifle from shooting not just the politician, but any of his supporters whom he might encounter. Democrats made this point continually during the tea party protests, and Republicans guffawed at the suggestion that hateful speech could lead to violent action. Now, suddenly, they’ve dramatically changed their tune about tone – even Michigan’s favorite no-hit wonder, Ted Nugent now says he regrets calling President Obama a “subhuman mongrel” who should “suck on [his] machine gun” before being “tried for treason and hung.” Newly minted Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte has also found the word “civility” in his dictionary, just a few short weeks after he beat the shit out of a reporter fro the Guardian who had the nerve to ask him a question about health care.
So, as we consider tone and civility, consider this, from a man recently convicted of election fraud and his pals, discussing a woman who lost part of her brain in public service.
Take a look, if you can get past the misspellings – or mistaking Gabby Giffords for NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. In describing the naming of a Navy ship for the wife of a Navy pilot and instructor who took a bullet through the brain while meeting with the people she served, at least two people thought it clever to refer to Ms. Giffords as, “brain dead” and that the ship would have “no guns” and “only turn left”, and that it would likely be nicknamed the, “grey matter splatter”. Only one person had the morality to challenge this barrage of unmitigated hatred directed at the victim of a horrific crime who served her country with honor and courage.
If you want to lecture people about tone, first make sure your own hands are clean.
Local Republican Congressman Chris Collins, a reliable cheerleader for the Trump Administration, voted in favor of the bill. He has refused to meet with constituents to explain and defend his vote, or – more critically – to hear from people who will be palpably harmed by poor, unaffordable health coverage.
Paired with the massive cuts to Medicaid, Trumpcare would see 23 million Americans lose their health insurance over the course of the next 10 years. More dramatically, 14 million of them would lose their health coverage just next year. Once you get sick and actually use your health coverage, you would end up paying much more for it in the future.
Because of the “McArthur Amendment”, which was used as bait to lure hard-line ultra-right wing House votes, states have the option to permit discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions. In those cases, rates would skyrocket into the realm of hypothesis. Other states would have the ability to opt out of requiring health coverage to include things like prenatal care, mental health, and substance abuse. People would need to buy separate policies to cover these situations and ailments.
In essence, Trumpcare would result in something arguably worse than the pre-Obamacare status quo. It starkly betrays every promise the Republicans made about making health insurance better, protecting people with pre-existing conditions, and people losing coverage. The text of the bill was available for only 24 hours, and there were only about three hours’ worth of debate, and Democrats were shut out of the process. Once, House Republicans promised to read every bill, and that any bill’s text would be available to read for days in advance. They broke this pledge.
The rationale behind yanking health insurance from 23 million Americans is the cost savings, which will fund a massive tax cut to the superwealthy. While you and your family find themselves paying more for worse insurance, or you are being gouged due to your pre-existing diabetes or cancer, people making millions will have a little more cash in hand to fuel up the Gulfstream. Win-win!
It exchange, Trumpcare would roll back Medicaid expansions in certain states, offer paltry “tax credits” of a couple thousand dollars to ostensibly help people buy health coverage that would cost exponentially more per year. But Trumpcare would harm the elderly poor the most:
The new report tends to validate criticism of the House Republican bill by AARP and other advocates for older Americans. “For older people with lower income, net premiums” — after tax credits — “would be much larger than under current law, on average,” the budget office said. As an example, it said, for a typical 64-year-old with an annual income of $26,500, the net premium in 2026 would average about $16,000 a year, compared with $1,700 under the Affordable Care Act.
Imagine paying 62% of your annual income on health coverage when you need it most.
The 217 Republicans – including Clarence’s Chris Collins – who voted in favor of this Trumpcare disaster did so without first waiting for and reviewing the CBO’s analysis of its effects. This is, itself, wildly irresponsible. That irresponsibility is compounded by the fact that Collins never read the 100-page bill before voting on it, and had absolutely no idea of its effects. Mr. Collins is too busy buying up and puffing pharmaceutical penny stocks while promoting legislation that would directly help that investment. Now, he’s soliciting big-money contributions from DC’s wealthy, who will benefit most directly from the federal theft of people’s health coverage.
Collins is willing to sell his presence to the highest Beltway bidder, but refuses freely to meet with constituents whom his legislation will harm. What a coward, essentially crossing his fingers and hoping the “R” after his name will be the key to yet another easy victory in 2018. But consider this passage, the day after the House vote on Trumpcare:
Told by a Buffalo News reporter that the state’s largest loss of federal funds under the bill would be $3 billion annually that goes to the state’s Essential Health Plan, Collins said: “Explain that to me.”
The Essential Plan is an optional program under Obamacare, offered only by New York and Minnesota, that provides low-cost health insurance to low- and middle-income people who don’t qualify for Medicaid. State Health Department figures show that more than 19,000 people in Erie and Niagara counties were on the Essential Plan in January.
Asked by The Buffalo News if he was aware of the bill’s cut in funding to the Essential Plan, Collins said: “No. But it doesn’t surprise me for you to tell me that there were two states in the nation that were taking advantage of some other waiver program and New York was one of the two states.”
Chris Collins has no idea what he’s doing or whom he’s harming, and he refuses to meet with people who might tell him about it. He votes on bills he didn’t read, that weren’t posted long enough for people to review, and which had barely any debate and no minority input. He voted for a bill that will do real harm to people, weakening and fragmenting an industry representing a fifth of the economy.
Tuesday morning, the Buffalo News reported that three members of a disgraced faction of nominal Democrats would be facing felony election law charges to be announced in a Buffalo courtroom today.
G. Stephen Pigeon is already facing state charges alleging he bribed a state Supreme Court Justice—the judge pled guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Kristy Mazurek is a former journalist who hosted WGRZ’s 2Sides program with various Republicans. She has managed or otherwise participated in a string of failed races for elective office, including her brother’s race for Assembly in 2014, and her own Assembly bid last year. David Pfaff has hopped around political jobs, most recently working in the office of former State Senator Marc Panepinto. Pfaff has a reputation for being rather competent when working in government, but his ties to Pigeon have led him to be involved in more than a few controversial races.
When Pigeon and former Supreme Court Justice John Michalek were placed under arrest, I wrote, “There has to be more. I suspect that the Michalek bribery case is just the amuse bouche — the low-hanging, easy to reach fruit that can be pushed through quickly to reassure an impatient public that progress is being made. All the while, law enforcement continues to build its other cases against Pigeon and others. Pass the popcorn, because we’re just watching the trailers.”
Well, take your seats and silence your cell phones, because it looks like the feature’s just starting.
One source familiar with the charges say they will revolve around the County Legislature candidacies of Richard A. Zydel and Wes Moore, as well as the Amherst supervisor candidacy of Council Member Mark A. Manna.
That means the Pigeon troika are being charged with crimes arising out of the 2013 handling of the WNY Progressive Caucus, which I contemporaneously referred to as “AwfulPAC”. I also coined the word “Pigeoning” as shorthand to describe the sorts of shenanigans in which Steve Pigeon and his associates would engage in races that mosty served only to harass and disrupt the electoral efforts of other Democrats.
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.
Part of my antipathy for electoral fusion stems from Pigeon’s deft manipulation and marshalling of minor party lines. He has conspired with Ralph Lorigo to steer the Conservative fusion Party line to his various candidates, and enjoys a close relationship with Tom Golisano, the founder of New York’s especially corrupt Independence fusion Party.
One way to think about all of this is political racketeering.
What is often lost in the AwfulPAC narrative is what it actually did. It mostly produced direct mail and other advertisements, some of which were practically defamatory in their rank falsehoods. Here is a sampler of mailers that AwfulPAC sent out to Democrats during the 2013 county legislature primaries.
They attacked other candidates similarly, including Lynn Dearmyer. The language and imagery used and sent to predominately white households is pretty blatantly racist. Betty Jean Grant is “radical” and “extremist.” “They” are “dead set” on “raising our taxes”
Grant and Hogues were understandably outraged. Mazurek was typically flippant. At bare minimum, Mazurek cut and signed the checks that paid for those inflammatory and racist mailers.
Under New York’s weak and hitherto habitually unenforced election law, there is no requirement that the groups sending these sorts of mailers out reveal their identity or funding. “Paid for by” isn’t a requirement, and it protects the racketeers instead of informing the voting public.
Generally, a PAC like the “WNY Progressive Caucus” would need to disclose to the Board of Elections where its money—almost $300,000 came in and went out practically overnight—was coming from. But when these mailers hit in late August 2013, it hadn’t yet filed anything. The reason why anyone found out about it was a FOIL request:
[Betty Jean] Grant on Friday charged that a rival wing of the local Democratic party is behind the anonymous ads. A request made under the Freedom of Information Act to the Postal Service has identified the permit holder on the mailings as the Western New York Progressive Caucus, headquartered on Doris Avenue in Lancaster.
That was Kristy Mazurek’s home, and she was listed as the group’s treasurer. Mazurek, at the time, had been a co-host of WGRZ’s “2Sides”, had helped direct the campaign of failed Comptroller candidate David Shenk, and then turned against Jeremy Zellner’s Democratic Committee and began running Moore’s and Zydel’s campaigns. In August 2013, I called them the “emoDems”,
It should be noted that WGRZ 2Sides co-host Kristy Mazurek is [Wes] Moore’s and [Rick] Zydel’s campaign manager. Query why [her former co-host Stefan] Mychajliw would have felt the need to abandon the show when he ran for public office, yet the Democrat on the show feels no similar ethical obligation to do so, going so far as to attempt to ridicule an opponent on Facebook who wasn’t interested in going on the show.
Mazurek had taken to Facebook to ridicule Moore’s opponent Wynnie Fisher for refusing to appear on 2Sides. Yet why on Earth would a candidate appear on a show to be interrogated by her opponent’s campaign manager? It’s an insane proposition. Mazurek left 2Sides just days later. (There’s David Pfaff again, BTW):
And so, Mazurek Palinistically took to Facebook to issue a non-denial denial about the WNY Progressive Caucus’ literature:
Translation: After Shenk lost, Zellner didn’t hire/get me hired for something-or-other, and so I’m going to align myself with the people who are working to undermine and unseat him. Note that Mazurek doesn’t deny that she or her PAC sent out the anti-Hogues and anti-Grant mailings. She simply says the complaints “don’t have merit”. So, I replied:
Reply, (right under one from Erick Mullen, who did all of Jack Davis’ ads that relentlessly went after endorsed Democrat Jon Powers in ’08):
I have no idea what that means. So,
There was no reply, natch; I don’t think Ms. Mazurek knew what “meritless” means. Ditto her apparently erstwhile ally Pigeon, who said that the charges against him related to Mazurek’s PAC were “frivolous“.
These types of anonymous mailers come out all the time, and when anonymous, you can bet that the people behind it want to keep you in the dark. You should be insulted by them – they figure you’re an idiot; an ignoramus. Yet there’s no law that says they have to disclose who they are. So, if you’re outraged when your candidate gets anonymously and unfairly slammed by anonyms, you’re going to have to lobby Albany to demand that the Election Law be amended to (a) require that all campaign advertisements and literature clearly disclose who paid for them; and (b) institute a hefty penalty for any violations – penalties that are confiscatory deterrents.
Nasty people with unclean hands legally get to make electoral politics dirtier than it has to be. If Mazurek and the people behind the group for which she is treasurer think that Tim Hogues is a closet Clarence Republican and that Barbara Miller-Williams is the reincarnation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then they should disclose who they are.
The disgruntled nominal Democrats in league with Steve Pigeon might consider this, for instance: instead of working with Republicans and the fusion parties actively to undermine endorsed Democrats, why not convince the various and sundry committee members why they should vote for Frank Max or Mark Manna over Jeremy Zellner for party chair next time around? If you’re in league with the Conservative Party, why even pretend to be a Democrat?
But in 2013, the Pigeoning was discovered far earlier than Pigeon and Mazurek had expected, on August 30th. Because they were outed via FOIL request, they were forced to file disclosures just 11 days before the primary, and the disclosure was, at best, packed with fiction. Think about it—they clearly didn’t want to disclose who they were on the reams of literature they produced, and so long as people didn’t know who was behind it, they could defame opponents with impunity. This time, however, they were outed and came under a media microscope. Hogues and Grant filed complaints with the Board of Election, bolstered by former Assistant District Attorney Mark Sacha, and that complaint was referred to the state, which then referred it to state investigators, and it came before the Moreland Commission and into the hands of Preet Bharara.
AwfulPAC supported a small handful of candidates; Nixon, Zydel and Moore lost their September primaries, but Dick Dobson won his for Sheriff and Barbara Miller-Williams defeated Tim Hogues. Only Miller-Williams won in November. Dick Dobson embarrassed Bert Dunn on primary night, so Dunn decided to waste his money and run on a tailor-made third party line, unsuccessfully. AwfulPAC, meanwhile, abandoned Dobson during the general election. Wynnie Fisher had defeated AwfulPAC candidate Wes Moore, so in October, Mazurek evidently used Michael Caputo’s PoliticsWNY.com to smear Fisher. Apparently, Fisher and her neighbors don’t get along, so a story was planted accusing Fisher of being crazy.
By the way—rumor has it that Mazurek and her crew are sniffing around at least two legislative races this year specifically to exact revenge against or otherwise thwart their opponents.
