Wrong Number

The Buffalo Beast doesn’t make its totally dignified opinions available in print anymore. But we can still get them on record online. For example, the internet daycare center made sort-of news after one of their staffers made a prank call that might have been too mature for junior high brats.

Pretending to be one of the Koch brothers on the phone doesn’t quite seem like an interesting hobby. But someone thinks it’s worthwhile. As a result, we know that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s biggest shortcoming is being courteous enough to accept a call from someone sympathetic to his cause and take a person at his word.

The unwitting Borat-style victim patiently nodded along while smiling. It’s Walker’s fault for trusting that someone was who he said he was, even if it’s someone he doesn’t know.

The bombshell from the conversation is that Walker says the same things in private that he does in public. All we needed to glean that information was a prank from a member of the Koch-obsessed left. They coincidentally overlap with Palin Derangement Syndrome sufferers and frothing W. haters. I bet they know lots of “Teabagger” jokes!

Attention should be focused on the dialer, not the recipient. The fraudulent call was perpetrated by someone responsible for churning out nuanced, reasonable, and compelling pieces such as the one named “(Bleep) the Troops,” only without using “Bleep.” It’s always fascinating to see what sort of class acts the left admires for allegedly speaking truth to power.

The only truth is that the perception of Walker hasn’t changed. Undercover conservatives reveal Planned Parenthood helps pimps get underage abortions. Undercover liberals reveal Walker is polite. We’ve discovered that Wisconsin’s governor has ideals to which he’s adhering.

The prank call was embarrassing, but not for Walker. Other than his slacker staffers who need to screen calls better, the real mortification should be felt by those who go to the trouble of misrepresenting themselves to learn nothing.

But they’ll feel nothing. The poor man’s Crank Yankers moment was a non-story, unless proper phone screening tops one’s issues list. That won’t stop easily-impressed knee-jerk Republican loathers from thinking that the call really stuck it to The Man.

Unfortunately for them, The Man in question refused to be goaded into saying anything exciting after oh so maliciously accepting a call from someone he believed to be a supporter.

He notably didn’t say anything obnoxiously insulting. Certainly, there was nothing that would belong in the pages of an online tabloid that was previously most famous for despising both the war and the warriors.

Fit, Fun, Classless

Chris Lee and Eric Massa could get an apartment together. I smell a sitcom! We may as well get some canned laughs out of the area’s latest politician-generated shame, as Western New York must cope with being known as the home of immoderately randy congressmen. It takes three examples to make a trend, and we’re two too close.

Lee misplaced his career along with his shirt. That said, Lee has quite a core! Um, moving on, it’s sad that a representative couldn’t even figure out how to cheat properly.

Aside from the fact that fooling around being a spouse’s back is so obviously, utterly, repulsively wrong, Lee was stupid enough to put his face in a Craigslist ad photo. Even unelected regular scumbags know to crop photos at the neck.

In his defense, he can use his incompetence as evidence that he’s a novice at disregarding his vows.  That’s unless he has actually been this repulsive, dumb, and sloppy for awhile. Either way, he can now head back to his favorite site and look for his career in Missed Connections.

On the other hand, voters shouldn’t place ads looking for him. We should bid good riddance to bad husbands. There’s no use for a politician who holds the right political positions while looking for to get himself into illicit personal ones.

He has shown that he’s not trustworthy.  Lee can’t justify his worthwhile votes without simultaneously behaving faithfully. He can figure out where he went wrong by spending time with Mark Sanford so they can compare notes and strategies.

Now, what should he do? The first thing is nothing. Lee should disappear for awhile, both for his own good and on account of how nobody wants to deal with him right now.

Ideally, he should pull a John Profumo, with the bright side being that cleaning bathrooms can’t be much worse than being a congressman. What’s important is that he gets modest and acts contritely, if for no other reason than he shouldn’t be heard from him for awhile. He shouldn’t make another public appearance until he can display a genuinely sheepish expression.

By comparison, the attempted cheater doesn’t want to turn into someone even scuzzier, namely a publicity whore. A certain New York ex-governor comes to mind, although sinking to Spitzeresque levels is impossible for most humans. That said, if CNN wants to retool its moribund 8 p.m. hour, Christopher Spitzer could become the most appealingly unctuous program since Jersey Shore.

But give Lee credit for acting in the best possible way after acting like the worst husband. Lee at least had the decency to resign when his scandalous behavior came to light. His acceptance of responsibility is far better than dragging the area through a local Clinton-style ordeal where he kept his job at the expense of losing what’s left of his dignity.

Of course, it would have been infinitely better not to have done something appalling in the shadows where he had to fear being caught in the first place. But it’s better to have standards and fall short than to shamelessly wallow in filth.

Lee is gross, but he at least realizes it. Now, we’d be in much better shape if only some Democrats would resign for carelessly exposing our checkbooks.

In the meantime, Lee has plenty of time to think about whether looking for tail online was worth it. He may conclude that giving up Congress for the pursuit of the most lecherous of matrimonial-belittling indulgences might not be as appealing of a trade-off as it first sounds. Even accepting one of Massa’s invitations to tickle fight won’t help Lee clear his head, although it will make for a wacky episode.

Pointless Sabre Rattling

Someone actually wants to buy a Western New York business, and The Buffalo News won’t stand for it. Terry Pegula has a lot of nerve for purchasing the Buffalo Sabres. As a result, those who write the words on the pages that wrap the coupon circulars did what they could to make him feel unwelcome in the City of Good Neighbors:

In the course of making his fortune, the Florida billionaire negotiating to buy the Buffalo Sabres contributed heavily to politicians in a position to advance his business interests and established a less-than-stellar track record in the environmentally dicey business of drilling for natural gas, The Buffalo News has found.

A News review of compliance records found East Resources, the company Terrence M. Pegula sold last summer for $4.7 billion, had a middling record of complying with environmental regulations in Pennsylvania, his base of operations. The company last year paid the largest regulatory fine in its history and was involved in a spill of toxic wastewater that resulted in the first quarantine of cattle in the history of natural gas drilling in the state.

A fine? See you in Hell, East Resources. Also, are the cattle okay? I’m worried about steak. Not only did he deal with regulations while make money running a business: he also gave some of it to those who seek to represent us:

Pegula has made more than $630,000 in campaign contributions to Republican politicians and committees who support what one observer termed his “very, very conservative” positions on global warming and taxes and regulations related to the natural gas industry.

The News thinks it’s news that everyone has the right to donate to candidates. People often do so in an attempt to curry favor, as Goldman Sachs bigwigs did with Barack Obama.  Another good example would be the owner of a certain local newspaper giving money to politicians as a hobby.

The key is to see if such gifts lead to favors from politicians. We can then hold them accountable by either voting out the recipients or not patronizing businesses belonging to the contributors.

Sadly, it’s trickier to punish lousy journalists. The article relies egregiously heavily on quotes from members of liberal advocacy group Common Cause. There is also ample space devoted to a, surprise, partisan environmental group called PennFuture. The article demonstrates the results of networking done among #p2 Twitter hashtag users.

By contrast, an article of over 2,200 words devotes three measly paragraphs to quotes from a single Pegula defender. Earle Robbins, “who acts as a liaison between energy companies and landowners as they negotiate drilling leases,” should feel honored to be selected as the closest thing to a token conservative.

The reporter seemingly missed that day of journalism school where students learn about the necessity of balance, as he included no quotes from people who appreciate having power or jobs thanks to Pegula. Once again, the rag’s staffers decided to be confrontational rather than merely critical.

And it was surely coincidental that the paper’s target was a Republican fossil fuel man. The worst thing about such discreditable journalism is that they don’t even get Robert Edgar-signed checks in exchange for their advocacy.

The process of acquiring natural gas is as difficult as it is necessary. The alternative is to sit in dark caves while being smug about one’s carbon footprint until hypothermia kicks in.

Some people want the benefits of civilization without any tradeoffs. There is risk involved as long as there are heated buildings.

Fining companies for honest errors made during their pursuit of an indispensable energy source is far superior to buying energy from international thugs or hoping solar energy can power all our light bulbs. Without domestic production, we’re at the mercy of the whims of despots and/or clouds.

Pegula’s ownership will do more for Buffalo than every Rod Watson and Jeff Simon column ever published. Maybe that’s the problem. The city’s hockey franchise is infinitely more beloved than its newspaper, which irritates workers at the latter to no end.

That’s why the hacks focused upon the occasional errors of a new Buffalo figure’s former company rather than its overwhelmingly numerous benefits. They also forgot to focus upon his unbelievable philanthropic work. On top of that, they didn’t question whether the regulatory burden his company faced was excessive. The paper speaks truth to power unless it involves challenging government regulations on business.

How hospitable! Pegula should know that very few members of the community his franchise calls home are as truculently unfriendly as its print journalists. The Buffalo News is nothing like Buffalo.

Cutting the Court

Glimpsing inside Charles Schumer’s mind is a disturbing prospect. But, as with an open wound, one is sometimes intrigued to see how gruesome the interior is. Gross things can be informative.

Take his recent CNN appearance, where he offered a moment of inadvertently revealing loquaciousness. Chuck Nasty’s verbal gaffe said more about how he thinks than the garrulous senator would like to reveal:

So I would urge my Republican colleagues no matter how strongly they feel. You know, we have three branches of government: we have a House, we have a Senate, we have a president, and all three of us are gonna have to come together…

Something’s missing.  Not to contradict someone who works for the government, but he may have double-counted something, too.  In New York’s senior senator’s defense, that’s still too many branches for Thomas Friedman’s liking. But until we outsource running our nation to China, we’re stuck with checks and balances.

He may be interested to learn that one-third of them are represented by those nine legal geezers who can rule that the other two actual federal subdivisions are ignoring the Constitution they’re sworn to defend as well as protect or support.

Of course, Schumer just said it wrong. It’s understandable when someone misspeaks on live, unscripted television, even when the verbal error is made by a camera whore who should know what he’s saying.

On the other hand, the howls and head-shaking from liberals would never cease if George W. Bush or Sarah Palin had flubbed in such a Schumeresque manner. Palin would additionally be accused of cleverly disguising words to trigger attacks by lunatics who never pay attention to her.

But Schumer’s history of promoting meddlesome policies makes his honest error interesting. After all, he is known above all for working to seize upon sensationalist news stories and ban anything that could be marginally dangerous, such as products that, say, dopes ingest to get high. In his defense, he clearly doesn’t have anything better to do than hassle budget-minded faux crackheads.

His excessive time and wandering mind also combine to explain why he strove to encourage the obnoxiously annoying Four Loko ban without so much as scheduling a vote. Reducing our options by passing laws is such a hassle. Why else would we have an FDA?

On a related note, it would be easier to dismiss Schumer’s inaccurate statement as an innocuous accident if he wasn’t a supporter of clamping down upon that annoying filibuster. He doesn’t want irksome roadblocks like rules or procedures interfering with his progressive vision.

Schumer’s Supreme Court-excising lapse isn’t the type of government reduction Tea Partiers have in mind. Of course, he would be happy deep down with a single branch of government consisting of one senator elected only by New York State residents. That way, he could be in charge and not even have to bother with making his case on television, although that wouldn’t stop him from appearing at press conferences.

It goes without saying that Schumer merely committed a verbal slip-up, and we can credit him with just possibly actually knowing that the national judiciary exists. But he’s still rueful that it does. He’ll change his opinion if Antonin Scalia retires this year.

Slaughter Slanders

Louise Slaughter needs to cool down. One of the most embarrassingly partisan House members could start a new career as an expert on how to check a nasty political environment via making unforgivably obnoxious remarks. But she would have to repent first.

Until then, the remorseless sectarian’s response to the Arizona shooting mysteriously included a wholly irrelevant call to not be passionate about politics or use innocuous comparisons. Ignore that the diabolical lie that Sarah Palin is connected to the massacre is as credible as a September 11 truther website:

“Frankly what I’d like to see—is–if we could all get together on both sides of the aisle and really talk about what we can do to cool down this country. Part of that has to be what we hear over the air waves,”…Slaughter said.

I partially agree: all citizens ought to back Slaughter in her efforts to stop saying stupid stuff. By contrast, she’s presently setting a helpful bad example. Her Royal Slaughterness could make this nation better if she only monitored what she says and does. All Slaughter has to do to improve is be less like herself.

For one, the eternal congresswoman got her name known nationally thanks to a manipulatively disgusting sob story about a constituent using her dead sister’s dentures. A woman who makes (not earns) a congressional salary failed to explain why she didn’t help the less fortunate woman with a personal charitable contribution.

Failing that, Slaughter could have directed the alleged fake teeth swapper to a dentist who offered to help, namely her 2010 opponent. It was sad to miss an opportunity for bipartisanship.

Still, the Polident anecdote was trivial compared to her most notorious Constitution-flaunting moment. Specifically, Slaughter’s attempt to avoid a difficult House vote for a widely-despised health care bill through “deem and pass” did more to contribute to a toxic political environment than every Glenn Beck episode ever broadcast.

Despite her thoroughly dubious record, every day is a chance to start anew. On a related note, perhaps Slaughter could improve the present rhetorical tone by not shamelessly using colleague Gabrielle Giffords’s shooting to push her own leftist firearm-related agenda:

A vocal proponent of gun control, Slaughter discussed her concerns about the suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, being able to purchase a gun in Arizona. “This is such a glaring case of someone that everybody who knew (the suspect) knew he was not well, and yet he was able to simply go to the store and buy a gun,” she said.

Perhaps it would have been better if a deranged murderer with no regard for the law had driven a car into the crowd. But Slaughter isn’t just under the delusion that limiting access to guns will improve our safety: she wants to reduce your radio programming access, too.

To be precise, her call to limit free speech delivered through radio microphones by calling for the Fairness Doctrine’s revival is as irrelevantly ominous as it is inappropriate. To be fair, Slaughter doing whatever she feels it takes to extend federal control will surprise no one who’s followed her career.

Of course, we could actually cool down this country’s political atmosphere by, say, not blaming an author and television news pundit who doesn’t hold an elected office for the actions of a homicidal madman. O.J. will find the real killer before Palin’s enemies uncover evidence that she was linked in any way to the massacre.

But a dearth of facts won’t discourage the obliviously frothing hypocrites who call for more lukewarm discourse as they simultaneously hurl untrue accusations at their opponents.

Regardless, this isn’t a call for Slaughter to tone down her political language even with her deplorable history of utterances in mind. In fact, she should increase the temperature and say whatever crass and logically indefensible ideas pop in her demented mind.

Don’t moderate yourself, Louise: let us know what you really think, as such delusional bluntness makes it that much easier to shred your positions. Those horrified by the things you say will promise to remain similarly unrestrained, with the difference being that their criticisms will actually have a point.

Wrangling Rangel

Fool NY-15′s voters 20 times: shame on you. Fool them 21 times… Censured Charlie Rangel capped of a humiliatingly busy week by demonstrating his oft-unacknowledged sense of humor when he claimed there was “no evidence of corruption” after he was found to have committed massive corruption.

His amusing take on his own misdeeds apparently explains why he feels entitled to keep acting roguishly. But the taxing and spending specialist has inflicted far more harm in true New York Democratic style during his tenure’s non-crooked portion.

At least he remains obliviously entertaining. For one, his Michael Jackson Defense is so shameless that it would have made the late King of Pop blush through his pale cheeks:

“History would show that a different standard has been used in this case where I did not curse out the Speaker, I did not try to have sex with minors,” he said, referring to past censure cases.

It’s heartwarming to know a bad guy wasn’t doing something worse. But I’m a typical conservative who focuses upon how the congressional mainstay is a corrupt scumbag instead of his history of not sexing up high schoolers. Rangel’s misappropriation is merely the culmination: he promoted bad policy even when he wasn’t enriching himself.

Regardless, the myth persists that Rangel helped his constituents when he wasn’t helping himself to rent-controlled apartments. It’s irrelevant whether his constituents believe it or not: governmental funds didn’t suddenly create a relatively meager oasis in Manhattan’s most famous desert.

Still, some won’t accept who he is. As an example, his Wikipedia entry includes the remarkable claim that Rangel deserves credit for Harlem’s semi-rebirth, at least the parts of the neighborhood people don’t avoid. Such hilariously partisan blather is egregious even by the proletariat web encyclopedia’s standards:

He played a significant role in the creation of the 1995 Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation and the national Empowerment Zone Act, which helped change the economic face of Harlem and other inner-city areas.

They would have better off without his alleged help. Gentrification due to rich private citizens rediscovering brownstones along with entrepreneurs tapping into a neglected market combined to fix the area. On the other hand, federal intervention helped Harlem as much as the stimulus helped the rest of America.

In fact, the money taken from the economy and thrown in Harlem’s direction dramatically slowed the process of private cash injection. At best, some of the federal cash thrown above Central Park stuck to a few blocks; in that case, it only took a few decades to see a few signs of life.

Fellow Empire Stater Chuck Schumer subscribes to the latter theory, although he still failed in his effort to sock it to millionaires on New Year’s Day. No higher levies for rich folks? I guess they’ll have to take their money and create jobs without Joe Biden’s help.

Aside from his personal investment in the slick suit and pomade industries, Rangel is the ideal combination of personal and political corruption. If one is going to redistribute income, why not do some of it to oneself?

In his disregard for laws and decency, Rangel also serves as his party’s tattered mascot. Yes, even Sean Hannity would admit there are corrupt and/or shameless Republicans off-camera after Greta’s show began. But this state’s Democrats are better manufacturing humiliation, which makes them much worse.

Many of those in power here are semi-unique: criminal or not, they’re sleazy in their own individual ways. Notably, Western New York’s most famous representatives during the Barack Obama have been amateur wrestler Eric Massa and shameless denture anecdote spinner Louise Slaughter. Our reps reside in the damp basement apartment of the People’s House.

The executive branch’s seat-fillers are similarly sterling. Shameless Wall Street bullier and hooker buyer Eliot Spitzer set the standard for Yankee fan David Paterson, who is in turn being replaced by former HUD scoundrel Andrew Cuomo. Worst, they all advocate a command economy even when they manage to behave.

They think they can spend your earning better than you can. On a related note, the shifty lefties all share tremendous antipathy for corporations, aside from the bailed-out failures and those politically connected enough to cut out favors. Their goals are appalling whether they enact them legally or not.

Rangel is merely the worst at present. The Ways and Means meanie is a greasily arrogant embodiment of a politician who thinks he shouldn’t have to obey the same rules as us peasants. But he hurts the nation even when he’s not thieving.