Travel Warnings, The Aud, and Obamacare

1. The US State Department gives free advice to travelers going abroad, advising people about problems, issues, customs, and other matters. The UK’s Foreign Office does the same for Britons, including this

2. A movie is being shot in Buffalo right now, starring Matthew Broderick. The crews were right outside my office on Monday, and there was a “NY *hearts* Film” placard on each vehicle’s dashboard. So, I went to that website, which the state has set up to help convince motion pictures to shoot in New York. If you go to the Western section, you find this interesting potential location – “vacant arena, Buffalo”. 

The Buffalo Memorial Auditorium was demolished in late 2008 / early 2009 – about 4 years ago. 

3. The Republicans have spent millions of dollars, hours of time, and almost 40 votes to try and repeal Obamacare. You see, logic dictates that Obamacare is going to be such a “trainwreck” that instead of letting the law go into effect and fail on its own, they will try their darndest to repeal it because they care – they care so much that 50 million people continue to be uninsured, that families’ health insurance be capped, that our idiotic status quo – so broken that they did absolutely nothing to make meaningful changes to it at any point in recent history, but have attempted incessantly to block every Democratic effort to bring about reform – be maintained, that they will go down fighting against a national implementation of Romneycare.

Guys, you’ve done such a good job lowering people’s expectations to nil. Your scare tactics and horror stories have been somewhat effective, yet you’ve failed and refused to offer any reasonable alternative whatsoever. You pledge to keep the parts you like in Obamacare, ignoring the economics that make Obamacare work – the insurance mandate is the quid pro quo of the lower rates. When Obamacare doesn’t fail and people find that they have access to reasonably priced health insurance, you’re going to look like idiots. You used the same scare tactics when we passed Medicare and Medicaid in the 60s. Now, Medicare is one of the most popular government programs in existence. 

But to top it all off, Republicans will refuse to help their constituents – residents and businesses – navigate the law. A more petulant and childish thing I have never seen. We are run by 5th graders with behavioral issues. 

Illuzzi’s Former Site

After gossipy muckraking political payola specialist died a few months ago, his website URL went up for sale. PoliticsNY.net was on the market for $3,000, according to the Massachusetts-based URL resale company I spoke with. Someone snapped it up, and a relaunch is apparently in the works for the very near future. 

No word yet on who bought it, but the site now features this image: 

Anyone notice what’s missing in that picture? 

Follow along on Twitter @politicsny

Rus Thompson is the Author of Inside WNY Politics

In this week’s printed edition of Artvoice, editor Geoff Kelly wrote

Hurrah for schoolyard politics: Paladino’s assault on Maziarz is recapitulated over at insidewnypolitics.com, a political gossip site that most believe to be anonymously authored by Tea Party activist Rus Thompson, who was Pladino’s driver during the developer’s gubernatorial campaign. The newest addition to the assault is a link to this site: maziarzhasfailed.com. The splash page for that site features a grinning picture of Maziarz withthe caption “Do You Know GEORGE?” with his name spelled in rainbow colors. The soundtrack is “Georgy Girl” by the Seekers; there are links to Log Capin Republican sites in the middle of the page; at the bottom of the page is a timer counting down 13 days, at press time, second by second, until “The Maziarz Closet Opens”—this time, “Maziarz” is spelled in rainbow colors. Presumably, the site intends to “out” Maziarz as gay two days before the September 13 primary.

Insidewnypolitics: it’s like Illuzzi without the right-leaning gossip. It’s like Gramigna without the left-leaning gossip. It’s “rumored” to be run by Rus Thompson, but he denies it and there’s no independent way to verify the rumor, right? 

Two reasons why it’s 100% written by Rus Thompson to promote whatever the Paladino/Palinist tea party agenda is on any given day: 

1. A few months ago, a source formerly close to the Paladino camp (and no, it wasn’t Michael Caputo) informed me that the site was written by Carl and Rus. There was a dead giveaway that came up shortly thereafter. There was Rus patting himself on the back for a post at his own blog, and then spelling the President’s name with a zero in place of the “O” in “Obama”, which is a favorite of Rus’.

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2. Just this week, compare this entry at insidewnypolitics:

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To this entry at Thompson’s Facebook page: 

If you’re going to operate an “anonymous” political hit website, you’re going to have to do a better job at being anonymous. In any event, I have all the confirmation I need to confirm that Rus Thompson operates insidewnypolitics as a mouthpiece for the Palinist wing of the tea party as spearheaded by Carl Paladino.