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| Porsche driving, Champagne guzzling teachers protest outside Old Bob Bennett's crib -- that's Beelzebub in the tan raincoat |
Well I guess Buffalo Board of Education member Carl Paladino hates unions but he's not above resorting to a little "union thuggery" as the Buffalo News likes to call it when it comes to his own interests. Carl is mad that some of the very Brahmin I mentioned the other day are going to do some fund raising for a Democrat, not just any Democrat either but that rotten cousin in law Congressman Brian Higgins. I alluded to the billboard Carl assembled downtown, one he's used before to post his own brand of looney bile. The Brian Higgins broadside showed a puppet dancing on strings to a female figure with fangs (?) I believe and the message was that how Brian Higgins is controlled by...flourish here... Nancy Pelosi! One of the very Brahmin I mentioned, Robert Gioia is going to support Higgins because it's obvious in Neo Liberal Democratville these days, a Democrat will whore for corporate wealth's interests just as eagerly as any Republican or Conservative, so called. Look around at the profusion of anti labor, anti union Democrats starting with the one in the White House. Andrew Cuomo's hostilities to unions and workers is unmistakeable and his deals with developers, casino people, bankers and crooks of every stripe are essentially who he is. I don't see any contradiction in these moneyed folks who privately hosted McCain and Romney and have raised countless dollars for the right, turning to a Democrat this time to buy his influence. That's what rich people and politicians have always done.
Carl is an idealist apparently. He doesn't like the look of the Republicans he sees sniffing around for the nod to run against Prince Andrew next time around. Carl is so mad he's going to gather his Real Republicans as opposed to the guys he calls RINOs (Republican in Name Only) and they are going to roust Russ Thompson's tinfoil, tricorner teabag guys, strap on their snow chains and picket Robert Gioia at his private residence. Ohhhh the humanity!!! when Phil Rumore paraded around Old Bob Bennett's house in Tonawanda with a few dozen teachers, union folks and parents. The uproar from the community, the trogs in the Buffalo News comments section, the right wing radio talkers. The shame, the lack of decency, the new low, the greedy selfish thoughtless teachers. Ad nauseam. I am curious to see how Carl's gathering pans out. Curiously, the very types who'd crucify Rumore and any teacher for setting foot on the sidewalk in front of Old Bob's crib are often the same ones whose peeling Give Em Hell Carl and I'm Mad Too Carl stickers can be seen clinging in orange and black ribbons to their bumpers still. The angry teabaggers and Don't Tread on Me bedecked yahoos who'd give Carl a big Hell Yeah for pissing on Gioia's lawn are generally the same ones who'd say them fancy teachers'd get a round of buckshot over their heads if they came on my property.
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| Carl Says Fellow Republicans Are too Damned Democrat |
I will say one thing on the topic of picketing a residence though for something the resident has done at his workplace. It doesn't just pop up out of thin air. It's really not one thing on a long list of options you just circle and agree to because you are bored and it doesn't really matter. To go to a person's house and picket them it has to be personal. Deeply personal. Carl's blood by marriage feud is well documented. We all know how he and his cousin in law loathe each other and we've read the venomous bricks of invective they've hurled at each other. Some wags suggested it was a Higgins operative who publicized the racist, horse porn emails after a warning was given but ignored by Paladino's camp. I don't know or pretend to know nor do I honestly give a shite. There may also be some class hostilities afoot here too from what my own intuitions tell me. These Higgins supporters aren't the hustling self made drive to law school in Syracuse then home to work a 12 shift guys Carl tells us he is. A classic standoff between old and new money is likely bubbling right under all of the political horse trading. These guys think Carl is vulgar and a buffoon who doesn't know how to behave with his money and stay the hell out of the lights and cameras. They are part of the generation that went into hiding at the end of curved drives and high shrubbery after WW2 when the affluent didn't like to feel exposed or vulnerable. Carl is not on their list of golfing foursomes nor are they sharing bottles at the Buffalo Canoe Club. Carl thinks they are snobs who are looking down on him. They are and they are but his millions at least provide him with a chance to turn a firehose loose on them while they're looking down on him. Carl's picketing of Gioia's house is personal on many many layers, like a good homemade lasagna.
If someone's in front of your house there's a reason for it. It's a sign of desperation and of a deeply eroded respect. As Bennett and King leap frogged around the state with Meryl Tisch claiming to listen while disregarding everything anyone opposed to them says they've demonstrated contempt for the very people they were chosen to serve. Before any of them had any, I mean ANY sense of the anger, the frustration and the fury they'd created with their Inquisition influenced testing, their threats to withhold RtTT money and their Acapulco cliff dive into Common Core, they tried to send King and Tisch out to respond to live mics in the audience. And before they realized how terribly uncomposed and churlish King would behave, threatening to end the discussion if he wasn't allowed to use more of the parents' time to defend himself for sending his kids to a private school, they pretty much got their asses handed to them and King tried to cancel the tour like some Boy Band star with a bad case of mono. From the time his handlers propped him up and gave him 2 med cups of grape children's tylenol for his pain until now, King and his Regents frauds have continued to show their contempt for the citizens of New York, its students, parents, teachers and administrators. They claim to be listening then insist Common Core is going full speed ahead straight into that iceberg. I have to ask what exactly is it they are listening to anyway?
You reap what you sow I guess is one way of looking at it. Malcolm X described this kind of situation as chickens coming home to roost. When you keep messing with people, eventually, after they've lost respect for you they lose patience with you too. Next thing you know there are people on your sidewalk. The Buffalo News claimed Phil and BTF actually created some sympathy for Bennett by heckling him at his house. An old friend and avowed 12 stepper once advised me sagely on the value of sympathy. " It's in the dictionary," he said "in between shit and syphilis." If that's the case I am sure we'd all be happy to create some for Old Bob.
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