Tag: congress

NFG Government

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When President Obama came to office, it became congressional Republican policy to simply oppose and block anything and everything he wanted. Whether it was the tax cut stimulus or Obamacare and everything in-between, the Republican minority in Congress made it a central theme and strategy simply to reject everything the President wanted. So soon after the McCain campaign’s “Country First”, Republicans put party and partisanship first, country be damned.

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” That was the sole policy aim, as Senator Mitch McConnell so succinctly put it, and they failed. They weakened the stimulus, but didn’t destroy it – as a result, our recovery is weaker than it needed to be, but still better than the UK, where its conservative government is now reaping the myriad failures of austerity. They weakened Obamacare by rejecting the public option, but they couldn’t kill it. They’re still trying.

Disagreement and partisanship are to be expected and accepted within the context of representative pluralist democracies. But in 2008, the Republican Party twisted that into not just political, but governmental sabotage. It’s how the now-weakened tea party was conceived and was built on a foundation of denigrating President Obama as being foreign, un-American, not one of us. As Carl Paladino emailed on Monday, Obama wasn’t just a Kenyan usurper, but an “affirmative action” President.

But Obama is now finishing up his second term of office, and will likely never run for office again. Therefore, the constraints of electoral politics no longer hold him back, and he can give “no fucks“. Similarly, outgoing Speaker of the House John Boehner – pushed out by tea party hard-liners – gives no fucks, either. Because they no longer fear political consequences,  they are free to govern. They’re free to compromise.

In point of fact, our federal congress was specifically designed to require and encourage compromise. Ours is not a parliamentary system where a majority government has, in effect, the political equivalent of carte blanche to implement the policies on which it run and won election. Here, a Senate minority can block legislation, and compromise is often required, if not encouraged.

Today, the NFG Congress and NFG President will cut a budget deal to raise the debt ceiling and prevent a government shut-down until some point after the 2016 election. This is Boehner and Obama unconstrained by political considerations acting in the best interests of the country. This is compromise. This is how our government is supposed to work, and was designed to work.

For one day, at least, the grownups are back in charge.

Our Rightist Jacobin Congress

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Earlier this week, people who believe that even the working poor deserve a raise from time to time marched throughout the US in support of a $15/hour minimum wage. #FightFor15 was the largest demonstration by low-wage workers in US history, involving about 60,000 individual demonstrators calling for the federal minimum wage to be raised from an anemic $7.25. Marchers took to the streets in Buffalo, where the minimum wage is $8.75, or about $350 per week gross.

The United States talks a lot about equal rights and freedom, but you can judge a country by how it treats its poorest or most vulnerable. These aren’t lazy dole-consumers, but people who are out there in a tough economy trying to make ends meet.

Some facts: the minimum wage only affects 3.3 million American workers, or 4.3% of the total hourly workforce. This is down from 4.7% in 2012 and 13.7% in 1979. While the minimum wage workforce used to be mostly made up of students with summer jobs, the average minumum wage worker is 35 years old; 88% of them are at least 20 years old, and half of them are older than 30. Although the minimum wage may not have been created to support a family, given how much labor has been lost to third-world hellholes since the minimum wage was first implemented in 1938, it’s no surprise that unskilled workers find themselves doing menial work for minimal money.

Congress has refused to raise the federal minimum wage since 2009.

What Congress did instead this week was vote to abolish estate taxes. These represent a transfer tax of gross estates valued at over $5 million for individuals and over $10 million for couples. There are, of course, myriad ways for the ultrawealthy to avoid estate taxes through clever accounting, trusts, and transfers, but make no mistake – the only people affected are multimillionaires and billionaires. Were President Obama to miraculously sign such a bill, it would leave a $269 billion budget deficits – how would our right-wing jacobins pay for their next several wars?

You can’t even make a “trickle down” argument by repealing the estate tax – this is simply a giveaway to the superwealthy to whom the American right wing owes its holy fealty, while completely ignoring the plight of the working poor. This doesn’t even help the 1% – it helps the 0.2%. Only about 5,400 Americans are affected by it per year. Repeal of the estate tax would shift the burden of making up the difference onto the middle class and working poor. There is no benefit that this congress will not offer those who need no government assistance, and no impairment they will not impose upon average middle-class Americans.

Get a job, you bums! they cry, and when they get a job and can’t afford rent, they demand “get a better job!”

Our depraved aristocrats in their domed volcano lair in Washington have waged war (their favorite thing) against the poor and middle class for decades. Someday, they’ll overplay their hand and there will be a dramatic swing back towards social justice and help for our most vulnerable Americans. It never astonishes me how in just 40 years, the Woodstock generation went from love & peace to Bill O’Reilly yelling about open season on white male Christians.

This country can and should do better.

Vote Brian Higgins in #NY26. Here’s Why.

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First: Don’t be a lunatic

Election day is coming up, and I generally give you some BS half-assed “endorsements” of candidates who, in my opinion, deserve your vote.  Typically, I don’t do that until a day or two before election day itself, but the race for the 26th Congressional District is not remotely typical. 

I don’t agree with Brian Higgins on every single issue because he can be sometimes more conservative than I, and because he can sometimes be overly cautious on waterfront issues.  By way of example, I am disappointed that he is opposing the construction of places to live and things to do on certain portions of Buffalo’s Outer Harbor. 

That aside, there is absolutely no doubt that he has been a wildly effective proponent of all things Buffalo and western New York. Sure, as the Buffalo News pointed out earlier this year, he’s not lighting Washington on fire with pointless legislation that is likely to go nowhere in a tea party-dominated body. But when it comes to using his power and clout as a federal representative to help rebuild Buffalo and her waterfront, to restore NYPA funding to do it, to help improve our border and to push for needed changes in air traffic regulation, Higgins is the guy for us. When it comes to using the power of the federal purse to help fund projects and programs that help feed, clothe, house, and employ the weakest in our society, Higgins is the guy for us. Even Republicans recognize Higgins’ value and leadership. Higgins says, 

My service in Congress is everything about Buffalo and Western New York. I’ve learned that when you do good for your community, you’re doing good for your country, because the most important part of my country is my community.

While Brian Higgins represents the best that western New York has to offer, his opponent is the polar opposite. Kathy Weppner is nothing more than a craven cartoon character.  Her deep paranoia and hatred, willingness to promote and advocate for utter and complete nonsense, ease with which she lies and makes things up, and mindless regurgitation of whatever gibberish she reads on the right-wing internet renders her palpably unfit for public office. 

But it’s not just that. 

Below is a compendium of every post I’ve written about Kathy Weppner since she began her campaign. As a political meme for this season, she has been a bottomless pit of unfortunate material. What Kathy Weppner represents is the absolute worst of what western New York has to offer; reactionary thought, paranoia, a tendency to lie and to promote others’ lies, a provincial and narrow mindset, and above all – ignorance and misinformation. 

When Weppner first announced, this is what I wrote: 

In the 26th, incumbent Democrat Brian Higgins is likely to coast to re-election, as well. This is especially true thanks to the fact that his opponent is not only going to be a tea partier, but is – quite literally – a low-information WBEN caller. “Kathy from Williamsville” is going to take her fact-free jingoism on the campaign trail. She is a walking, talking anti-Obama chain email, and anyone reporting on her should be sure to have Snopes queued up on their mobile browsers. Seriously – there will be no point covering her campaign if you’re not able immediately to vet her pronouncements and cross-examine her on the inevitable fabrications and fantasies she’ll discuss. After all, she has a list of known communists, doesn’t seem to be ready or willing to represent Muslim residents of the 26th (hint: it’s the primitive blood lust), has declared “white guilt” to be “dead”, warned against a hyperinflation that never came, and – like Ronald Reagan – opposes Medicare. 

That one will be fun. 

I love it when I’m right. 

Take this for example. This was posted (publicly) to Weppner’s own Facebook page just this week. For some reason it wasn’t good enough for her campaign, but this is a pretty representative insight into the mind of a person who wants to go to Washington and represent the people of a diverse NY-26. 

To start out with, I absolutely detest these sorts of ignorant, uninformed violations of Godwin’s Law. Simply put, the United States is not at any risk of becoming a Nazi state, and anyone who thinks it is, is a moron.

But let’s examine the specifics; most basic is the lie – oft-repeated by demagogues and charlatans – that the Nazis killed capitalism in Germany. Nothing could be further from the truth, as National Socialism was, at least in part, a corporatist movement where the party, the military, and big industry were united in goal and deed. It wasn’t Marxist socialism that drove Nazi ideology – quite the opposite, as the Weimar-era street battles with the Spartacists can attest. Instead, it was a nationalist reaction to Marxism’s internationalism. The goal wasn’t a proletarian utopia, but a pure and strong Germany where the individual was subjugated to the state. Any notion that Naziism is remotely similar – much less identical – to the kind of western pluralist liberalism that people like Weppner so oppose – is as laughable as it is wrong. 

Prayer was taken out of schools? Hitler didn’t just stop there – he was openly hostile to all organized religion, because it represented a singular challenge to Nazi hegemony and the totalitarian deification of Hitler himself. In the United States, we have no such action taking place, and prayer is not allowed in school because of the prohibition against a government establishment of religion; it’s in the Constitution. Students, however, are perfectly within their rights to initiate spontaneous prayer in school at any time. It just can’t be something the school organizes. 

Like all things, under Hitler’s totalitarian state, all school curricula and administrations were subjected to the will of the party. Private and Catholic schools did exist, but were under constant scrutiny. No such thing happens in the US today. 

“Socialized medicine” didn’t lead to the extermination of the disabled – that was the Nazi sterilization and eugenics program – one that was quite popular in the United States in the early 20th century, as well. Every single western industrialized nation has some form of universal health insurance – some of it socialized – yet extermination of the old, sick, and disabled is not part of any of those programs. This is a lie and a scare tactic, used by depraved people to misinform voters. 

I have visited and lived in totalitarian dictatorships in my life. While some may find fault with our government using signals intelligence and other surveillance methods to try and keep tabs on real and suspected terrorists, it is not the same as a government using secret police, informants, and SIGINT to maintain a totalitarian purity of thought. We don’t have political police out there manning checkpoints to make sure where you’re supposed to be, and limiting what you think, say, or with whom you associate. Having experienced true totalitarianism, I can tell you that my possession of a passport, my ability to write this blog, my right to say and think what I please, and my right to express my political opinion all run counter to any half-brained notion that this country has devolved into some sort of fascist totalitarian nightmare. Anyone who suggests otherwise has automatically disproven their own point: if we truly were that totalitarian dystopia, you’d have no ability to express that fact, and you’d be arrested, subjected to a show-trial, and then exiled or killed. 

Government spending in Germany skyrocketed because they were planning to take over the world through endless war. Germans have always been very ecologically conscious – this pre-dates and post-dates Hitler, and is part of the German psyche. While Nazis and Communists alike purported to love and protect the natural environment, that doesn’t mean protecting the environment is a totalitarian aim. 

Finally, Hitler actually eased gun restrictions, but only for non-Jews. The US has a hodgepodge of state and federal gun laws, none of which have disarmed anyone based on religion. 

The copying and publication of that passage above – alone – disqualifies Kathy Weppner from public office. But there’s so much more. Here’s a list of just some of the abhorrent things that this candidate has done and said since announcing her campaign.  She – and the people who endorse her – are an insult to the intelligence of western New Yorkers. 

March 2014: Weppner Deletes It All

Back in the early Spring, the Buffalo News’ Jerry Zremski picked over some of the more malodorous parts of the Weppner mindswamp, and asked her for an interview. She declined, and agreed instead to answer via email. The result was a glorious, factual recitation of some of the things she’s promoted and said, and her weak explanations for them. (Weppner Vetted 3/24/14) Much of it surrounded her very outspoken involvement in the “birther” nonsense, questioning whether Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, or part of some half-century-long conspiracy to overthrow America. 

The candidate’s response to Zremski’s article was jaw-droppingly horrible. (Kathy Weppner Tries to Explain; Fails 3/25/14) I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. The passive-aggressive whining about being on vacation, and the declaration of war on the librul meediya set the tone for the next several months’ worth of self-pitying nonsense. 

Much of Zremski’s piece focused on Weppner’s enthusiastic dalliance with Obama birtherism. Among Weppner’s defenses was that she was just asking questions, like everyone else, about Obama’s birthplace, along with other unpersuasive,  halfhearted denials about being part of some wider birther movement. A quick listen to an online radio show on which Weppner appeared reveals not only that she was more than just “asking questions”, she was an active believer in the lunatic rantings of the fringe dead-ender birther movement. (How Not To Be A Birther, By Kathy Weppner 3/26/14). 

Much of the information that the Buffalo News and I had been using to vet Weppner came from recordings of her own WBEN radio show, as well as materials that she published on her blog “str8talk.wordpress.com”. Up until late March, that site was still intact. After Zremski’s piece, she began selectively deleting certain passages, such as a racist “White Guilt” article she reprinted, verbatim, without comment. Soon, she took the entire site down altogether, and redirected the url to her campaign website. It was, for a time, still visible via the waybackmachine. Finally, by 3/31, her campaign had successfully petitioned Archive.org to remove her entire internet archive from its site, and we are now left with not a single piece of evidence that she ever published a blog or had a radio show. Despite the fact that she proudly touts her WBEN radio show on her campaign bio, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any lasting evidence of its existence. (Kathy Weppner: So Proud of Her Radio Program She Deleted All Evidence of It 3/31/14). 

All we’re left with now is transcripts of her several calls to the Rush Limbaugh radio program.  Everyone knows who Rush Limbaugh is – he’s the fascist, racist, drug-addled, misogynist radio troll who spits hatred on a daily basis over the publicly owned airwaves. It was her unbelievable deletion of her entire pre-campaign radio and web history that led me to track down what was left, before she got rid of that, too. 

In 2008, Weppner called in with a particularly dumb theory about how Hillary Clinton was going to get the Democratic nomination because Obama was such a racist who “bathed his children” in hatred of white people.  She also bleated on about a conspiratorial “October Surprise” and other such half-baked nonsense. (Kathy From Williamsville Calls Rush Limbaugh in 2008 3/31/14). That same day, I found a campaign image on her Facebook page that used the House seal, in direct violation of federal law. (Kathy Weppner Violates Federal Law 3/31/14)

April 2014: Kathy From Williamsville’s Calls to Rush Limbaugh

In 2011, Weppner called Limbaugh to vent about how people need to start attending tea party rallies, or else we’d have “nothing left”. Also, her kids are serving in the military to protect things like Chris Lee and sovereign debt. It was a quick and mindless recitation of a couple of dopey talking points generating no discussion whatsoever. (Kathy Weppner: Why Are American Troops Fighting for Shirtless Chris Lee? 4/2/14). 

This one is one of my favorites – Kathy Weppner complaining about how no one from Congress held any town hall meetings in WNY so she and her cohorts could go and disrupt them. Yet she is so deathly afraid of the opinions and pronouncements that she spat when no one was looking, she deleted all evidence of them. Where have Weppner’s town halls been? (Kathy Weppner on Town Halls 4/3/14) 

Weppner called Limbaugh in July 2008 to ramble off a litany of groups whom she resents.

You know, we have ended up with a society where all the people that work in government, all the politicians, the teachers, the firemen, the policemen, all of our state governments, municipalities, and we are in a very heavily governed area here in western New York, all of them are living inside the castle walls, and all of us, everybody else is living outside of the castle walls. And all of the rules they make protect them, where our people, the public employee, they can retire at 55 here and they live to 85.

Yeah! To hell with our first responders and educators! Good talk, Kathy! (Kathy Weppner on Whom She Resents 4/4/14). 

There was another call to Limbaugh in 2009 – just a month after Obummer overthrew ‘Murrka, and Weppner threatened to go Galt because Barry and his cadres were going to just take everything anyway and give it to the lazy takers, (ostensibly the aforementioned teachers, firemen, policemen, and lazy blacks). Meanwhile, I learned that even physicians who receive Mexican medical degrees can earn a tremendous amount of money here in the United States. Weppner. What a card! (Kathy Weppner on Going Galt 4/4/14). (I posted the actual audio here on April 30th). 

We discovered that Weppner’s rag-tag campaign team includes a treasurer who has . . . interesting taste in caricatures, and “developed” a blatant ripoff of mobile app “Angry Birds”. In this version, we had angry “patriots” killing famous leftists like Al Sharpton and Karl Marx. (Weppner’s Carnival Sideshow 4/9/14)

If you’re looking for a nice yacht, cheap, try Kathy’s! (Weppner Selling Yacht 4/10/14).  We’re also still waiting for Kathy’s Obamacare report with bated breath! (Guns, Mental Health & Fascism 4/11/14)

May 2014: Issues!

Kathy introduced herself to the “girls” of western New York with this amazing video. You see, if women fight for equality, they’re embracing victimhood, or something. (Girls, Can We Talk?(!) 5/11/14)

Mrs. Weppner wrote an amazing piece blasting the Common Core, and calling for the immediate abolition of the Department of Education. Unfortuately, it needed some corrections. (Kathy Weppner’s Common Core Piece 5/23/14).

Here, our plucky tea partyist campaigns quite literally on the graves of our fallen heroes. (Kathy Weppner, Solving All the Problems 5/28/14).

Just hours after a madman went on a shooting rampage in California, Kathy graciously and with utmost sensitivity posted a YouTube video explaining how America was founded on the principle that armed lunatics should have the capability to commit treason at any time. (2nd Amendment and Kathy Weppner 5/29/14)

She then promptly took the video down, without explanation or apology.  She also knows all the things about Ohio fertilizer runoff. (Kathy Weppner’s Clownshoes: Now with Guns and Corn! 5/30/14)

Summer 2014: Infected Poors!

The month of June was pretty quiet.

In July, a campaign volunteer who was also managing some of Weppner’s social media, Laura Yingling, sent an email to the campaign’s list, seeking “not so nice” photos of “vacant homes, urban blight, anything I can use against Brian Higgins on Twitter and Facebook”. (Weppner Campaign Seeking “Not So Nice” Incidental Blight Photos 7/17/14). This led to a hilarious Twitter meme “#HigginsBlight”, showing off all the wonderful things that have happened in Buffalo and WNY since Higgins came to office. 

A few days later, Weppner reprimanded Yingling for this idiotic idea. (Weppner Disavows 912 Blight Exploitation Strategy 7/22/14). 

At the end of July, Weppner inexplicably chose the Peace Bridge as a backdrop to spout a bunch of hate-filled rubbish about a crisis of migrant children crossing the border. She went so far as to Tweet that Guatemala was sending us their “infected poors”. (Kathy Weppner and the “Infected Poors” 7/30/14). 

When the “infected poors” thing made national news and became embarrassing, Weppner blamed the help, (Laura Yingling again), and posted pictures of “Mariachi Kathy” in a sombrero to prove that some of her best friends are infected poors. (Shorter Weppner: #BlametheHelp 7/31/14). 

September 2014: ISIS Fundraising

August was also quiet, but campaign season sort of starts in earnest in September.  The civilized world watched in horror as radical Islamist murderers from the ISIS death cult slaughtered American and British hostages. Not one to let a beheading go by without a fundraising plea, Kathy Weppner displayed her shocking lack of propriety and morality, and did just that. (Kathy Weppner’s Moral Depravity 9/4/14). This insensitive exploitation of tragedy was becoming a pattern for the endorsed Republican candidate. 

Later that month, Weppner touted the fact that she had received a participation award – a prize for just showing up – from some obscure New Jersey-based school choice lobby that no one’s ever heard of. (Kathy Weppner gets Participation Award 9/24/14). The irony, of course, is that right-wing nutjobs like Weppner detest what they perceive to be participation awards and social promotion in our public schools. It makes the kids soft, don’t you know?  

The League of Women Voters put out the results of candidate questionnaires, and Weppner’s was just wonderful.  Any WBEN caller could have written it, right down to the throwaway, casual parenthetical Hitler reference. (Weppner and the Parenthetical Hitler 9/30/14). At least we know she’s a patriot. 

October 2014: Desperation Sets In 

The more desperate Weppner became, the more hateful and odd her pronouncements.

October 1st, Weppner declared that Ebola needed to be dealt with medically, not politically.  In the very next breath, she politicized Ebola. (Cognitive Weppner Dissonance 10/1/14). 

She decided to hammer Brian Higgins for not doing enough to stop the growth or territorial expansion of ISIS. She claimed that you should “change your congressman” because, presumably, she’d be appointed to the very same committees as Higgins, and by gosh, she’d get the anti-jihadist job done! The problem for Weppner goes back to her careful-then-comprehensive scrubbing of everything she ever wrote or said before March 2014. It’s disingenuous, at best, to attack Brian Higgins for past acts or omissions of word and deed, when you’ve deprived everyone of the ability to do the same with you. Certainly if ISIS was such a clear and present danger, Weppner’s own radio show or blog must be replete with warnings and pronouncements about this threat? (How Did Kathy Weppner Warn Us About ISIS in 2013? 10/9/14). 

I highlighted the insanity of some of what Weppner was pimping in this post (Kathy “Purple Penguin” Weppner 10/10/14). She is – and will always be – the Snopes candidate; whenever she mouth some weird nonsense, you have to check Snopes first and determine just how wrong or misguided she is.  Is that who should be sent to Washington as a legislative representative – someone so casually loose with reality and facts that you have to check what she says against an urban legends debunking site? 

Weppner’s so-bad-they-must-be-joking media allies defamed the League of Women Voters for supposedly succumbing to Brian Higgins’ scary pressure, deciding to not hold a NY-26 debate. The problem is, the local LWV isn’t holding any congressional debates in WNY this season. (The League of Women Voters Would Like Everyone to Stop Lying, please 10/17/14). It’s come to right-wing lunatics denigrating one of the most venerable voting organizations as a bunch of “libtards” and “demoncrats”, because that’s a normal way to talk. 

In a follow-up to the abysmally written “Stop Common Core” piece that Weppner released in May (above), I red-lined an equally bizarre Ebola/ISIS thing she posted on her website. (Kathy Weppner on ISIS and Ebola 10/23/14). 

That same day, as Canada was reeling from a terrorist attack against its Cenotaph and Parliament, resulting in the slaughter of a serviceman guarding the War Memorial, Weppner took that as an opportunity to idiotically discuss Canada’s gun laws. (Weppner Disrespects Canada’s Fallen 10/23/14). It was, for her, typically and shamelessly disrespectful. 

Finally – at long last – we come full circle.  A birther to the last, on  October 26th, Kathy Weppner told the Buffalo News’ Jerry Zremski: 

But there’s one thing Weppner doesn’t regret: her repeated questioning of whether President Obama was born in the United States.

Nonpartisan fact-checking sources such as PolitiFact dismissed that question out of hand years ago, but Weppner said last week: “I think that was a very legitimate conversation to have.”

There’s only about one week left of this shambolic campaign, and I’m sure we haven’t seen the last dumb pronouncement. But given all of the above, it’s clear that you simply don’t let a low-information WBEN caller run for elected office. What vision has she offered, other than poorly articulated, paranoid hatred? The removal of the “str8t talk” archive tells you all you need to know about a tea party candidate who refuses to answer for the things she’s said or done before she was involved in a campaign.  If the stuff she’s said and written during the campaign, as chronicled above, is as bad as that, you can image what sort of insanity lurked in those archives. 

Brian Higgins deserves re-election because he’s a strong champion for Buffalo and WNY. That, and his opponent is not deserving of consideration, much less support.

Caveat: Artvoice does not do political endorsements. Nothing written in this post should be interpreted, construed, or cited as an endorsement by the owners or editors of Artvoice itself.  This endorsement is mine alone.  In addition, because of how prolific Weppner’s campaign has been in putting out horrible things, some have accused me of being a paid blogger for the Higgins campaign.  This is categorically false and defamatory.  It presupposes, of course, that no one could possibly support a Brian Higgins or a Democrat unless they were on the take – an accusation so despicably sleazy that it requires no response. In any event, I do not know whether Higgins has ever paid for an advertisement in Artvoice, nor would I be in a position to know. I am an independent contractor and have no involvement or employment with Artvoice or its advertising or editorial staff. I can also state unequivocally and unreservedly that Higgins, his staff, and his campaign have never paid me in money or favor, ever. 

The League of Women Voters of Buffalo Niagara Would Like Everyone To Stop Lying, Please

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Serious Congress Candidate

Former Higgins challenger and tea party activist Mike Madigan wrote an article for some website, claiming that the “League of Women Voters’ Mission [was] Subjugated to [Congressman Brian] Higgins’ Desires“.  The idea is that incumbent congressman Brian Higgins is so fearful of “debating” Kathy “infected poors” Weppner, that he somehow strong-armed the League into not scheduling a “debate” between the two candidates. 

Firstly, the League of Women Voters of Buffalo Niagara doesn’t do “debates”.  What it does is host candidate forums, which it calls “meetings”.  They’re not meant to be a way for candidates to debate each other, rather an opportunity for candidates to answer questions about relevant issues posed to them by people in the audience.  In years past, the organizers circulate index cards so audience members can write questions down for the moderator to ask.  

Recently, the League has stopped doing congressional forums altogether. There was never a forum scheduled for the NY-27 race between Chris Collins and Jim O’Donnell, nor was one ever set up for the NY-26 race between Higgins and Weppner. 

Weppner partisans have accused Higgins of not wanting to debate Weppner – some went so far on the radio to call Higgins a “sissy”.  Higgins, for his part, has debated his challenger in every available race, and this year is no exception.  There will be a debate at St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute later this month, so the Higgins-sissy meme is ridiculous. 

Madigan made wild, flailing claims about Higgins being unwilling to “stand up to a strong female opponent”, and that unnamed “political observers” (read: Madigan) think that this informs Higgins’ “fear of a debate”.  With Weppner’s campaign teetering between non-entity and joke, suggestions of Higgins being a-feared of Weppner is absurd. The notion that he would somehow force the League to not only cancel the candidate meeting for NY-26, but also the one for NY-27 is likewise a complete fiction. 

Madigan suggested that the League was “playing defense” for Brian Higgins, suggesting that it’s trying to placate him as part of some fantastical quid-pro-quo, which would be hilarious if it wasn’t defamatory. So, I called the League and on Friday got a call back from Mary Ann. She was audibly upset over the phone about the Madigan article, and gave this prepared statement: 

The writer of the article in the Buffalo Chronicle didn’t check facts with the League.  The article contains inaccuracies.  We will respond to the article soon.  Thank you for your interest.

Incidentally, I asked the woman at the League with whom I spoke whether it was true that the reason why there is no forum for NY-27 is the same reason why one was never scheduled for NY-26.  She replied that the reason was the same. 

UPDATE: Late Friday, the League of Women Voters of Buffalo Niagara posted this as a comment to Madigan’s written leavings: 

Congressional candidates were not invited to the forum that was scheduled in Amherst and noted on the League of Women Voters of Buffalo/Niagara website. Amherst is located in the 26th congressional district. We have limited volunteers and resources. However, both Congressional candidates have responded to the League’s Online Voters Guide powered by Vote411. We encourage people to go to http://www.lwvbn.org. and read the responses of both candidates to the questions we posed.

The League’s printed 2014 Voters’ Guide will be available in public libraries and throughout Erie and Niagara County early next week. It will have the responses to the first question for each county and state office as well as pro and con arguments for the three New York State ballot proposals on this year’s ballot.

Kathy “Purple Penguin” Weppner

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Step 1: See what appears to be regurgitated, unvetted nonsense likely spreading rampant through the fascist blogosphere in order to assail the imminent destruction of ‘Murrka by n0bummer and the Alinskyite cadres. 

Step 2: Not being privy to the rampant dementia infecting the idiot fasict blogosphere, Google it and find who’s talking about it. 

Step 3: Be a curious and intelligent person, and try to get to the truth. 

Step 4: Find out that the whole fascist outrage is not only false, but damningly critical of an attempt to make kids feel comfortable in the classroom. In other words: based on evil. 

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How Did Kathy Weppner Warn Us About ISIS in 2013?

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Rus Thompson at the Tea Party

Weppner with Costumed Pal

Remember how morally depraved Kathy “Infected Poors” Weppner tried reprehensibly and crassly to fundraise over the severed heads of American journalists murdered by “ISIS”?  She’s tried to make this into an issue, but as with most things she touches, she inadvertently reveals her own fundamental ignorance about everything.

This is why you don’t give WBEN callers attention, or run them for office. 

In a radio spot airing now, which sounds like the rapid-fire disclaimer at the tail-end of a used car commercial, Weppner claims that if you want to “defeat ISIS” you have to “change your congressman”; i.e., replace Higgins with Weppner. 

which sounds like the rapid-fire disclaimer at the tail-end of a used car commercial

She argues that Higgins, as a member of the foreign relations committee, was briefed numerous times about ISIS over the past year, and nothing was done. The idiocy is HUUUGE-AH. Here’s why:  

1. Higgins is a minority member of the foreign relations committee.  It is led by – its agenda set by – Republicans (specifically, Ed Royce R-CA). If there is blame, it rests not with Higgins, but with the whole of the GOP-led committee.  

2. There is no guarantee that, if she were to win, Weppner would be appointed to the same committees as Higgins. Her entire argument about “change your congressman” is premised on that misconception. Is she ignorant about how Congress works, or is she assuming that you are? 

3. What did Weppner have to say about Syria and ISIS in 2013 on her radio show, or on her blog? Ha ha! Sorry, suckers! You’ll never know, because she deleted all of it from the internet. 

4. You could, of course, opt to “change your congressman” and hire the woman who can’t properly format a document, and who thinks there’s a country called “Cypress”, or thinks ISIS is a “caliphate move”; that “caliphate” is an adjective, not a noun. 

5. Back in the summer of 2013, the President was proposing to launch air strikes against Syria in opposition to the regime and in support of the rebels. That never came to a vote because a deal was cut whereby Assad promised to dismantle and give up his chemical weapons. However, in the run-up to that potential vote on a resolution to authorize military action in Syria, almost all Republicans in Congress opposed any such action. There is absolutely no proof that Weppner would buck the GOP, especially as a freshman backbencher. Her entire argument is ludicrous. 

Has it come time yet to demand that the Republican Committees distance themselves from this ignorant and morally profane freakshow? Is it too early to demand that Republicans not only reject – but condemn – her use of American martyrs as campaign props and fundraising totems? 

Weppner Campaign Seeking “Not So Nice”, Incidental Blight Photos

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Blight. It’s a problem throughout Buffalo, WNY, and much of upstate and the rust belt. You can literally go anywhere in North America and encounter some abandoned buildings, ugly graffiti, vacant properties, and blight. 

But now a woman running for Congress against Brian Higgins wants to turn blight into a campaign issue. 

On Wednesday, Laura Yingling, the tea party “activist” and Glenn Beck “9-12” acolyte running Kathy Weppner’s campaign sent out a mass email to her entire list, entitled “Brian Higgins the Waterfront Czar”: 

That’s literally only about half of the “to” list. 

Here is the body of the email: 

Interesting, right? It’s a great way for Weppner to stoke class and racial fear and hatred. Also, it ignores and exploits the fact that Higgins now happens to represent the cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls – places that have more than their fair share of blight. Hell, even Grand Island has that dilapidated and creepy old Dunlop office building near the north bridge. 

The current NY-27 couldn’t be more different from what it looked like before 2013, when it had a much larger suburban and rural component. Indeed, I’m willing to bet that the picture that Yingling sent around was not part of NY-27 before 2013. 

The current boundaries are also +13 Democrat, so you know, good luck. 

This is dumb politics and dumb campaigning. Showing off blight resulting from decades of regional economic failure isn’t relevant to Higgins’ time in office.  But dumb campaigns play to dumb people and know only the lowest common denominator. 

You get the idea. This parody account on Twitter captures the dumb beautifully. 

I’ll issue a challenge to all outlets in WNY: Every single time Weppner tries to get you out to an event for free media, ask her why she scrubbed her entire web and radio history from the internet, and when we can expect to see it back online. 

Good Government

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1. The Supreme Court rendered a decision Monday affirming the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate coal plant emissions under the Clean Air Act. Tightened emissions rules will reduce carbon emissions 30% by 2030. Only Democrats support the idea that our air be cleaner and that we not rely so heavily on 19th century technology to generate electricity. Republicans are threatening – again – to shut down the government over this issue, mostly I guess because of how well that went for them in 2013 and the 1990s. 

2. A Republican Congressional candidate in Georgia writes that Islam isn’t really a religion and doesn’t deserve “free exercise” protection under the Constitution. 

3. The Amber Alert everyone got yesterday about a 16 year-old girl from Greece, NY was all bullshit. What a waste of police resources, but at least now you know you have an “alert” function on your phone. 

4. Every politician grandstanding about lapses and misconduct at the VA should look in the goddamn mirror before they bleat on about veterans’ rights and patient care. “Support the Troops” involves more than a easy-peel magnetic yellow ribbon on the back of your Buick, and it means more than just agitating for war every time you see a headscarf. Funding for VA healthcare may have increased year over year, but the system is still woefully underfunded, and congressional Republicans have pledged an oath to not raise taxes, even if it has to do with veterans’ healthcare:  

Today’s lesson is quite simple: after conflicts are over, we need to fully fund the healthcare and medical needs of our veterans. Forever. Even if that means making the political and economic elite pay more in taxes. Even if that means taking politics out of the VA and focusing instead on the welfare of our veterans. That we have politicians and members of the media who need to be reminded of this is a disgrace.

When you go to fight two ground wars in Asia simultaneously, you should plan for the resulting medical care for veterans – especially when you don’t give them body or vehicle armor. 

Who’s more important? Grover Norquist or a sick or disabled vet? 

Stop grandstanding and fund the VA. Take responsibility, as lawmakers and as keepers of the public purse, to make sure that the men and women who fought our wars get all the care they need. 

5. Keep trotting out Dick Cheney, Paul Bremer, Paul Wolfowitz, and Bill Kristol to whine about Iraq. It helps to remind us how wrong they were 10 years ago, and to never listen to them again. 

National Review: Collins Has A Problem with Blacks

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I almost feel badly for Chris Collins. Almost. 

My Congressman did a good thing this week, slamming proposed FDA rules against aging cheese on wood boards. It wasn’t the regulatory overreach that Collins made it out to be, but it was a horribly stupid interpretation of existing regulations. 

The FDA opined that wood planks weren’t especially cleanable, but wood has natural antibacterial properties and has been used in cheesemaking for thousands of years without a problem. The FDA backed down from any ban on wood. 

But sheesh, talk about burying the lede. 

Collins has done a lot to become attractive to the tea party set since his time in Washington, but everything about him reeks of corporate country club elite Republican, and that’s now finding him under fire from the right, for the first time. 

No one criticizes him in western New York because of his deep pockets. Washington’s National Review Online bloggers have no such issue. What has he done? He pissed off
an ultra right-wing SuperPAC. 

Heritage Action blasted Congressman Chris Collins, who represents New York’s 27th District, for apparently engaging in textbook cronyism. Collins, a millionaire many times over, is circulating a letter in Congress in support of re-authorizing the Export-Import Bank, from which one of his businesses, Audubon Machinery Corporation, has benefited in the past. Collins is a co-founder of and serves on the board of directors for Audubon.

A Heritage Action spokesman told The Hill, “Here’s Rep. Collins leading the charge of an entity that he’s personallybenefited from. That’s the definition of Washington working for itself.”

Collins responded, “This shows how out of touch Heritage is with how jobs are created in this country. They don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re a think tank. They’re not out in the real world.”

That’s rich. Collins accusing someone else of being out of touch with the “real world”. Which “real world?” To Collins, it’s the “real world” of well-connected multimillionaires getting sweet deals through federally subsidized banks. Corporate welfare. There is nothing stopping Collins or his companies from financing international deals through private banks. 

Whatever. It’s a Washington thing that has very little impact on you or me. This, however, is a blockbuster: 

I was briefly employed by Collins in 2013 but was terminated after three months and did not leave on good terms with the congressman. My impression was that Collins had a steep congressional learning curve. His staff had to coach him to talk less about himself to constituents, and at one point he asked about “a black” being on a Congressional committee after being told that the committee included several minority leaders.

If true, this is a remarkable insight into Collins’ complete and utter lack of character. No amount of Boy Scout talk (an organization that didn’t eliminate racial discrimination until 1974) can make up for a racial animus or discriminatory character. What difference, in 2014, does it make whether there are Black people on Congressional committees? 

Remember – this isn’t some moonbat liberal making this accusation, this is an ultra-right wing former staffer. She was terminated rather quickly, so maybe there are some hard feelings/sour grapes, but it’s an explosive charge to make so casually. 

Collins also made a conscious effort not to ruffle any conservative feathers, and he does not have a seat on  the House Financial Services Committee. 

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has called the Export-Import Bank “the face of cronyism.”

Most conservative Republicans do not support re-authorizing the bank. Collins, who almost always votes straight down the Republican line, is one of the few exceptions. A spokesman for the Congressman told The Hill that Audubon has not recently received a direct loan from the bank. Collins regularly touts smaller government, which makes it hard to understand why he would choose to make theEx-Im Bank his one major battle.

I actually support reauthorization of the Ex-Im bank. Not only does it disproportionately help smaller businesses enter the international market in cases where they’re unable to get decent international credit rates, but also because the tea party is out to kill it, which must mean it serves some public good. The tea party exists for one purpose: to destroy America and all she stands for; to create some sort of bizarre hybrid libertarian Christian jihadist confederation where everyone is armed and dangerous. So, yay Ex-Im Bank. 

But Collins’ alleged problem with Black Congressmen being members of committees is something that needs to be addressed and explained. 

Kathy’s Clownshoes Congress Campaign: So Far

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Photograph by the author 2009

Here is the updated compendium of Weppner posts that have appeared here since she decided to run for Congress. 

In terms of politics, opinions, and pronouncements, there’s hardly much difference between Weppner’s lunatic ravings and Chris Collins’ constant drumbeat of anti-middle class millionaire resentment; it’s a very fine line between WBEN caller and representative from NY-27. 

A few weekends ago, the Buffalo News’ Jerry Zremski picked oversome of the more malodorous parts of the Weppner mindswamp, and asked her for an interview. She declined, and agreed instead to answer via email. The result was a glorious, factual recitation of some of the things she’s promoted and said, and her weak explanations for them. (Weppner Vetted 3/24/14) Much of it surrounded her very outspoken involvement in the “birther” nonsense, questioning whether Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, or part of some half-century-long conspiracy to overthrow America. 

The candidate’s response to Zremski’s article was jaw-droppingly horrible. (Kathy Weppner Tries to Explain; Fails 3/25/14) I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. The passive-aggressive whining about being on vacation, the declaration of war on the librul meediya. 

Among Weppner’s defenses was that she was just asking questions, like everyone else, about the birther issue, and other halfhearted denials about being part of some wider birther movement. A quick listen to an online radio show on which Weppner appeared reveals not only that she was more than just “asking questions”, she was an active believer in the lunatic rantings of the fringe dead-ender birther movement. (How Not To Be A Birther, By Kathy Weppner 3/26/14). 

Now, much of the information that the Buffalo News and I had been using to vet Weppner came from recordings of her own WBEN radio show, as well as materials that she published on her blog “str8talk.wordpress.com”. Up until Zremski’s article, that site was still intact. After Zremski’s piece, she began selectively deleting certain passages, such as the racist “White Guilt” article she reprinted, verbatim, without comment. Soon, she took the entire site down altogether, and redirected the url to her campaign website; it remained, however, still visible via the waybackmachine. Finally, by 3/31, her campaign had successfully petitioned Archive.org to remove her entire internet archive from its site, and we are now left with not a single piece of evidence that she ever published a blog or had a radio show. Despite the fact that she proudly touts her WBEN radio show on her campaign bio, you’ll be hard-pressed to find any lasting evidence of its existence. (Kathy Weppner: So Proud of Her Radio Program She Deleted All Evidence of It 3/31/14). 

All we’re left with now is transcripts of her several calls to the Rush Limbaugh radio program.  Everyone knows who Rush Limbaugh is – he’s the fascist, racist, drug-addled, misogynist radio troll who spits hatred on a daily basis over the publicly owned airwaves. 

In 2008, Weppner called in with a particularly dumb theory about how Hillary Clinton was going to get the Democratic nomination because Obama was such a racist who “bathed his children” in hatred of white people.  Also, “October Surprise” and other such half-baked nonsense. (Kathy From Williamsville Calls Rush Limbaugh in 2008 3/31/14). That same day, I found a campaign image on her Facebook page that used the House seal, in direct violation of federal law. (Kathy Weppner Violates Federal Law 3/31/14)

In 2011, Weppner called Limbaugh to vent about how people need to start attending tea party rallies, or else we’d have “nothing left”. Also, her kids are serving in the military to protect things like Chris Lee and sovereign debt. It was a quick recitation of a couple of dopey talking points generating no discussion whatsoever. (Kathy Weppner: Why Are American Troops Fighting for Shirtless Chris Lee? 4/2/14). 

This one is one of my favorites – Kathy Weppner complaining about how no one from Congress held any town hall meetings in WNY so she and her cohorts could go and disrupt them. Yet she is so deathly afraid of the opinions and pronouncements that she spat when no one was looking, she deleted all evidence of them. I can only hope that Weppner takes her own advice and hosts some town halls.  I have some questions for her. (Kathy Weppner on Town Halls 4/3/14) 

Weppner called Limbaugh in July 2008 to ramble off a litany of groups whom she resents.

You know, we have ended up with a society where all the people that work in government, all the politicians, the teachers, the firemen, the policemen, all of our state governments, municipalities, and we are in a very heavily governed area here in western New York, all of them are living inside the castle walls, and all of us, everybody else is living outside of the castle walls. And all of the rules they make protect them, where our people, the public employee, they can retire at 55 here and they live to 85.

Yeah! To hell with our first responders and educators! Good talk, Kathy! (Kathy Weppner on Whom She Resents 4/4/14). 

There was the call to Limbaugh in 2009 – just a month after Obummer overthrew ‘Murrka, and Weppner threatened to go Galt because Barry and his cadres were going to just take everything anyway and give it to the lazy takers, (ostensibly the aforementioned teachers, firemen, policemen, and lazy blacks). Meanwhile, I learned that even physicians who receive Mexican medical degrees can earn a tremendous amount of money here in the United States. Weppner. What a card! (Kathy Weppner on Going Galt 4/4/14). (I posted the actual audio here on April 30th). 

We discovered that Weppner’s rag-tag campaign team includes a treasurer who has – interesting – taste in caricatures, and developed a blatant ripoff of mobile app “Angry Birds”, but here we had angry “patriots” killing famous leftists like Al Sharpton and Karl Marx. (Weppner’s Carnival Sideshow 4/9/14)

If you’re looking for a nice yacht, cheap, try Kathy’s! (Weppner Selling Yacht 4/10/14).  We’re waiting for Kathy’s Obamacare report with bated breath! (Guns, Mental Health & Fascism 4/11/14)

Kathy introduced herself to the “girls” of western New York with this amazing video. You see, if women fight for equality, they’re embracing victimhood, or something. (Girls, Can We Talk?(!) 5/11/14)

Mrs. Weppner wrote an amazing piece blasting the Common Core, and calling for the immediate abolition of the Department of Education. Unfortuately, it needed some corrections. (Kathy Weppner’s Common Core Piece 5/23/14).

Here, our plucky tea partyist campaigns quite literally on the graves of our fallen heroes. (Kathy Weppner, Solving All the Problems 5/28/14).

Just hours after a madman went on a shooting rampage in California, Kathy graciously and with utmost sensitivity posted a YouTube video explaining how America was founded on the principle that armed lunatics should have the capability to commit treason at any time. (2nd Amendment and Kathy Weppner 5/29/14)

She then promptly took the video down, without explanation or apology.  She also knows all the things about Ohio fertilizer runoff. (Kathy Weppner’s Clownshoes: Now with Guns and Corn! 5/30/14)

Far be it from me to decide for you whether Ms. Weppner presents a good choice for Congress. I think her words and actions (still waiting for the return of the Str8t Talk archive!) speak for themselves. 

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