Tag Archives: Claudia Tenney

Political Rants

Lock X Up.

It’s full fledged campaign season again, folks – my very favorite time of every four year cycle … not. Elections are necessary but painful, essential but insufficient, and so on. I acknowledge all of that and will participate, as well as encourage others to do so, but god don’t they make it a pain in the ass? I don’t watch that much television, but I’m nevertheless being bombarded by ads for one candidate or the other. This week there was a Biden ad with a voiceover by Sam Elliott. (I was waiting for him to recommend a visit to Kinney Drugs. ) Then there’s the Trump ad that has Biden saying he’s going to raise taxes, cutting him off before he gets to the “on people making more than $400,000 a year” part. I guess when all else fails, Trump – like every other Republican – goes for pappy tax cut. Low hanging fruit.

Most of the GOP ads in my local Congressional district race (NY 22) are being pushed out either by the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee or third party, dark-money groups hoping for a return of my old high school classmate, Claudia Tenney, to the House of Representatives. Some of these ads are hilarious, calling out Rep. Anthony Brindisi, the incumbent, for not being a “centrist” as he claimed he would be. What’s particularly funny about that is the fact that Claudia is the farthest thing from a centrist that has ever represented this district, at least in living memory. She so closely clings to the fading shadow of Donald Trump that she (or, perhaps more likely, someone on her behalf) has distributed lawn signs that read “TRUMP / TENNEY”, as if she were running for Vice President. (Pro tip: she’s not.) A few of her own ads have shown up now that we’re in the closing weeks of the campaign, but they’re not all that memorable.

Of course, home-stretch Trump is worth ten Claudia Tenneys in terms of bombast and crazy-ass proclamations. As has been reported practically everywhere (on the basis of simple observation), the president is desperately trying to recreate the conditions of his 2016 electoral upset. The FBI probe into Hillary Clinton was a help, so he’s trying to get them to investigate Joe Biden. Actually, he’s calling on Bill Barr to arrest Joe Biden for crimes against the internet, I imagine, and has been leading his unprotected, non-socially distanced rally crowds in chants of “Lock Him Up” or “Lock Her Up”, which I assume is referencing VP candidate Kamala Harris, but which could also be Hillary, given the president’s and his followers’ obsession with the former Secretary of State. I’m not sure if what I hear rattling in Trump’s voice is COVID or extreme frustration at his attorney general for not following his autocratic directions. Either way, he’s riding the crazy train to election day, and we’re all in the passenger cars, chugging along right behind him all the way.

This can’t be over soon enough. Just don’t try to reach me on November 4 – I think one way or the other i’m going to be out for the count.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Rematch.

Not all politics is local, but a lot of what people actually experience about politics is. I say this as someone who has spent much of my life being represented in city hall, Albany, and Washington by people who do not even remotely reflect my views. Such is the lot of a leftist in upstate New York, right? Still, when it came to some major issues, like acid rain or aid to the Nicaraguan “Contra” terror army, there was some alignment between myself and our longtime Congressmember, Sherwood Boehlert, an old-style Republican who represented our district for about 24 years. Boehlert was perhaps the most liberal member of the GOP caucus in the House towards the end of his tenure, and he was replaced by a Democrat who was almost indistinguishable from him ideologically.

I had come by that point to think of my hometown as Centerville – the town in the middle. And that held true for a short while thereafter – Democrat Michael Arcuri was replaced by Republican Richard Hanna in 2010, and Hanna proved to be a centrist as well, by the standard of his day. A deficit hawk, yes, and a little more circumspect than Boehlert; still, far from the worst in his tea party-driven GOP House caucus, and really about as far to the center as they got. He was primaried from the right by Claudia Tenney back in 2014, I believe, and survived that. I think at the time we all thought that the district was too centrist for someone like Tenney. Of course, two years later, that turned out to be wrong, as Tenney took the Congressional seat in a three-way race between her, a Binghamton-area Democrat, and a tech millionaire Independent who disappeared as soon as he lost.

Claudia got washed out by the Democratic blue wave in 2018, replaced by our current Congressmember Anthony Brindisi, who has restored the seat to being a bastion of centrism. I think he won mainly because Tenney was such a massive embarrassment to the region, earning national media fame as a crackpot Trump worshipper. Trump took a shine to her, campaigned for her in Utica, and boosted her in a number of different ways, as she dutifully supported Trump’s massive tax cut, bogus health care repeal plan, and so on. Well, now Claudia is back, running for her old seat against Brindisi, the GOP footing the bill for ads depicting the current Congressman as a puppet of Pelosi, to the left of AOC, best friend of the radical Joe Biden, etc., etc. Like her mentor Trump, she’s kind of playing the crazy card – not sure it works when you yourself are a crazy-ass mofo. We shall see. Upstate New York, as I’ve said many times, is a bit like Alabama, Confederate battle flags and all.

I’m encouraging people to vote for Brindisi, as lackluster as his stint in Congress has been, just because Claudia is truly a right-wing nut job, spawned in a toxic, stagnant backwater that is very, very familiar to me. Trust me … you don’t want that one back in Congress.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Usual Rubbish

Seasonal disorder.

Pipe bombs dropped at the homes of prominent opposition political figures. Scare talk about hordes of dark people working their way north towards our southern border. Dog whistles turned up to bullhorn volume in competitive races across the country, including a racist Amos and Andy-style robo call in Florida. This is what election season in the United States looks like in 2018. This is the reality show election that proceeds from the reality show presidency of Donald Trump, who is basically spending all of his time flying to every corner of the country, holding his signature Klan rallies and greasy fundraisers to prop up sagging congressional republicans desperate to hold on to their majority for another cycle.

Another Klan rallyOur local House member, Claudia Tenney in NY-22, is one such republican. Trump came for a fundraiser over the summer; Paul Ryan came by a few weeks ago, and just this week we were treated to the sight of Eric Trump, who gave a pep talk to Tenney’s campaign volunteers and staff. For her own part, she has been channeling Trump a bit more than usual, referring to Colgate university as a crazy, left-wing school, whining about “socialists” coming up from downstate to help her opponent, and so on. I suppose she is calculating that, between her own erratic behavior and the spectacle of being carried around on the flabby shoulders of GOP celebrities, she will have enough lift to get over the finish line in November. We shall see.

The net effect of all of this is to further erode the nation’s grasp on reality. This is a tried and true method of authoritarian governments – trust nothing but what comes out of Dear Leader’s mouth. As Trump said the other day in response to the press’s mild skepticism about his claims of “middle eastern” people traveling with the Honduran refugee caravan , “You can’t prove anything.” Nothing can be proven; therefore, every claim of fact is equal to every other, and those who put their claims forward the most forcefully win the day. This is a recipe for disaster and a roadmap to true authoritarian rule. Perhaps all that’s needed now is a Reichstag fire.

My advice to all is pretty simple: vote, vote, vote. Whatever else you do (and by all means, do all you can), you must cast a vote or risk losing that basic right in the months and years to come.

luv u,

jp