Buffalo, NY - The Comeback Kid

[free my dawg]

Worth noting that the judge's brother in this case is a top donor for Brown's campaign. Not surprised that the most corrupt state in the union is attempting to steal another election from the left.

[free my dawg]

Any establishment democrat that supports Brown after having chastised progressives into voting for the nominee after they lost the primary.

Being in a party means who support the nominee. Crowley, Capuano, etc. all lost and bowed out.

I’m not a Turnerite but if brown’s stunt pulls off I’ll be pissed

Don't get mad, silly! We all know "vote blue no matter who" only applies to the left and doesn't apply for leftist candidates. Just look at how they cancelled people like John Lynch and Brad Ashford for endorsing Republicans!

[free my dawg]

Worth noting that the judge's brother in this case is a top donor for Brown's campaign. Not surprised that the most corrupt state in the union is attempting to steal another election from the left.

No one is trying to steal anything. A judge ordered he placed on the ballot and that's that. Unless the second circuit says otherwise Brown will be on the ballot. Should the Board of Elections in your view defy the court and refuse to place him on the ballot?

What's the statutory basis for the ruling? There shouldn't be room for legal shenanigans here. What does the law say about losing primary candidates appearing on the ballot? If it's allowed, it's allowed. If it's not, it's not.

Brown missed the filing deadline to get on the ballot as an independent. From what I hear their argument was that the filing deadline was too early - and the reasoning is unclear from Brown or Sinatra's side.

Worth noting that the judge's brother in this case is a top donor for Brown's campaign. Not surprised that the most corrupt state in the union is attempting to steal another election from the left.

No one is trying to steal anything. A judge ordered he placed on the ballot and that's that. Unless the second circuit says otherwise Brown will be on the ballot. Should the Board of Elections in your view defy the court and refuse to place him on the ballot?

Yes. The presiding judge had a very clear conflict of interest in the case, per Code of Conduct. Couple that, the political leaning of the judge, and the ruling that transcends precedence, and it points to corruption - much more explicit than the Caban situation.

[free my dawg]

Yes. The presiding judge had a very clear conflict of interest in the case, per Code of Conduct. Couple that, the political leaning of the judge, and the ruling that transcends precedence, and it points to corruption - much more explicit than the Caban situation.

No. They would be held in contempt of court. The leaning of the judge us irrelevant. You have no evidence of anything else you allege.

In that case, allow me to retort:

* Here's the complaint. The Brown campaign alleges that the ballot deadline violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment, but never elaborates how. It cites an old executive order that expired last July and was a temporary suspension of the ballot deadline due to COVID. I think we can all agree that ballot deadlines being a Constitutional violation are absurd.

* The Sinatra family's ties to Brown are very well-documented to the point where they're being reported in the news. His brother donated over $10,000 to Brown over the course of his career, and he's touted Brown's support in ads for his real estate company.

* Sinatra's political affiliations are also very relevant, given that Brown is the de facto GOP candidate. Trump appointed Sinatra after a recommendation from none other than congressman Chris Collins. Who invested more than $10 million in his brother's company.

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck. The entire thing reeks of corruption and if you don't see it, I don't ever want to see you talking about voting rights again.

[free my dawg]

Your reminder that your new darling (from Buffalo itself!) refused to endorse in this race.

https://twitter.com/NickReisman/status/1432767094060457988

Was excited to get a Democrat in office but that's clearly not the case here! "Vote blue no matter who" only applies to leftist voters and doesn't apply to leftist candidates. If Bernie or the Squad did this they'd be crucified. What a f**king joke this sh*t is.

[free my dawg]

I'm more interested in the "another". What other elections were "stolen" from the left and by whom?

Tiffany Caban, where the NYCBOE suddenly found 4,000 votes that flipped the margin from a 1000-vote Caban win to a 20-vote Katz win. A much more tenuous accusation than the last one - it's pretty obvious that the judge here is trying to boost Brown for personal reasons - but one that illustrates it.

Anyway, pretty obvious that "blue no matter who" applies only when there's any danger of a Republican getting elected. If AOC lost a primary in her district and ran as a WF nominee most Democrats wouldn't care. In this case, there's no danger of a Republican getting elected, so everyone should support whoever is closer to them ideologically. Very easy. I personally support Brown because I believe a far-left movement is a danger to several of my policy priorities. If this was, say, a race for a relatively swingy House seat I'd be with you in attacking Brown for trying to derail the Democratic nominee.

It's not the fact that you're not voting blue no matter who - it's the hypocrisy that gets me. I find it funny that now that the Democratic nominee isn't ideologically aligned with them, the centrists here are suddenly making excuses on how they just can't support the nominee that voters chose.

If it's a leftist that wins the nomination through sheer gumption, suddenly a do-over of the primary is okay and when the Democrat's in danger of losing, they can't support them because they're Too Far Left. Sore loser campaigns and corrupt activist rulings are fine, because they boost their candidate. But of course, when the left does the same thing you're doing here, they get blamed for why Democrats lose.

I don't want "vote blue no matter who" to be a thing. That's why I have my views. I just want things to be applied evenly, which as we know from the Bernie Bro debacle, the Democratic Party doesn't do.

Was excited to get a Democrat in office but that's clearly not the case here! "Vote blue no matter who" only applies to leftist voters and doesn't apply to leftist candidates. If Bernie or the Squad did this they'd be crucified. What a f**king joke this sh*t is.

Byron Brown is a Democrat.  Funny to see you melting down over this though.

I'm also curious what VBNMWEB did to become your new target.  It's sad but funny that you always use your screen name to attack your enemy of the month.

Bill Gardner is a Democrat too.

(FTR, I have nothing against VBNMWEB. I like the dude. The status is how, given everthing that's transpired here, VBNMW is a BS slogan used to browbeat the left in line.

[free my dawg]

Glad to see the unilateral disarmament is over!

Oh please. You couldn't even commit to voting for Biden in 2024. You of all people in this thread don't get to talk - at least MacArthur has been loyal to the party for years!

[free my dawg]

Glad to see the unilateral disarmament is over!

Oh please. You couldn't even commit to voting for Biden in 2024. You of all people in this thread don't get to talk - at least MacArthur has been loyal to the party for years!

It's Q's party now. I can't see myself voting for Republicans any time soon. Besides, Biden's probably not running.

Anyway, after Nina Turner responded to her loss by spending days inciting against American Jews getting involved in politics, her entire wing can go to hell. Walton too.

Very fair point, especially after what happened on January 6th.

But you have to see the absurdity of trying to gatekeep membership of a party that you just committed to less than a year ago, right?

(As an aside, you'd have to argue that whatever "disarmament" ended with Clyburn's endorsement of Shontel Brown. I think we can all agree with that.)

[free my dawg]

The Republican Party being unacceptable to you doesn't automatically mean the Democratic Party is for you.

I mean, it seems pretty acceptable to me. I'm in line with the President of the United States on the majority of issues. I'm in line with the Senate Majority Leader on the majority of issues. The Speaker of the House may be a little to my left, but she's proved herself a reasonable figure. Virtually all the Dem Governors seem to be doing an acceptable job. I would vote to re-elect about eighty percent of House and Senate Democrats if I had the chance.

My problem with the party is only a small group of radicals who snuck in via stealth primaries and attempted to transform the party into a clone of the racist scum vultures who lost two elections but managed to massively increase their country's antisemitism stats. Those people sound like they should be minimized for a healthy party.

Again - these "entryist radicals" have been committed to the Democratic Party longer than you have. Why is it okay for you to pull the party towards your ideology but not okay for them?

[free my dawg]

https://twitter.com/AaronBesecker/status/1434901575944835076?s=19

If you were wondering why Hochul "didn't endorse", this is why. The best endorsement is the one you don't make.

[free my dawg]

I think there's a bit of ambiguity about the phrasing here, "India Walton just asked not to stand among pols and others setting up behind where Gov Kathy Hochul will speak before Buffalo Labor Day Parade," to me sounds like Walton, herself asked not to stand there. If she was asked by someone they'd probably used the words "was just" or something similar. In any case, this really isn't worth primarying Hochul over, and I say this as someone who can't care less for the Buffalo mayor race. Brown shouldn't have been on the ballot and should've conceded, and Hochul may privately prefer Brown, but the outrage over this specific incident is a bit ridiculous, especially since, at the moment, Walton is still only a candidate for political office and Brown as the incumbent is still in office for several months, if Walton wins and a similar thing happens next year, then we can reconsider. Until then, everyone should calm down a bit.

https://twitter.com/AaronBesecker/status/1434924428454924291

[free my dawg]

So Walton being asked to leave was bad how?

Not necessarily Walton being asked to leave, but Brown being there. Byron Brown had nothing to do with any of those bills. Even featuring him with Hochul suggests partiality, and that "partiality" is against the Democratic nominee.

[free my dawg]

So Walton being asked to leave was bad how?

Brown is currently being a massive sore loser and piss baby after losing the democratic primary to Walton, a progressive candidate. Brown being present in this context is equates to a tacit endorsement approval. Brown, or any one who looses a democratic primary and then runs third party) should be made persona non grata to any democrat official. Brown should not have been there.

New York ought to pass a sore loser law like South Carolina has

Couldn't have said it better myself.
 
Then again, when you're Duke of York and Make America Neoliberal Again and you think Trump's activist judges ruling on their feelings is a good thing because it stops the left, posts like yours probably means nothing to you.

[free my dawg]

So Walton being asked to leave was bad how?

Not necessarily Walton being asked to leave, but Brown being there. Byron Brown had nothing to do with any of those bills. Even featuring him with Hochul suggests partiality, and that "partiality" is against the Democratic nominee.

You don't seem to be a fan of Hochul's. Do you think she should be primaried?

Absolutely. If the party can go allout against Turner for not supporting the Democratic nominee they should 100% do the same for Hochul.

[free my dawg]

I think we all knew that the party would never abandon Hochul. Unity is a one-way street in the Democratic party - leftists are only called on to get in line and support whatever slop the establishment throws to them.

[free my dawg]

https://twitter.com/ChrisHorvatits4/status/1435702759056101389

Great news!

Glad to see the neoliberal-MAGA alliance thwarted and democracy preserved.

[free my dawg]

Glad to see the neoliberal-MAGA alliance thwarted and democracy preserved.

Lol, there's no "neoliberal-MAGA alliance"; Byron Brown is just an egomaniacal sore loser. I agree with you this is a great outcome.

I'm more referring to the judge who made this ruling being a nakedly corrupt Trump hack. I find it funny that some of the centrists on here are suddenly okay with a blatantly activist ruling because it boosts their candidate. The ruling in the Walton case is, like many Supreme Court cases, totally devoid of legal precedence and chock full of partiality.

Contrary to your username, VBNMW isn't BS, it's a great principle. But the NMW part is critical. Support India Walton. Support the Democratic nominee for President, whether it's Rashida Tlaib or Joe Manchin. I agree with you that some establishment Dems are hypocrites on this front. "VBNMW except BS" (which I believe is someone else's username) is laughably ironic.

Sure, in practice it's a good principle. How it's carried out, it's absolutely BS and more proof of the one-way unity expectation.

The Democratic Party has an incredibly schizophrenic view of the left. They see them as responsible for everything bad that happened since 2016. They hate Bernie Sanders because he dared to challenge the party's main goal in the 21st century, and even go as far as to call him a foreign agent.

They trot out figures from outside the party to attack leftist darlings, and they stereotype the left as a group of rabble-rousing entryists instead of fellow members of the coalition. They cancel leftists for not getting in line while giving those who didn't keep that same energy when the left won a free pass, and choose not to support candidates for being "too far left" and "unelectable". Biden has made progress, but significant parts of the party establishment continue to demonize and marginalize the left at every turn.

At the same time, they recognize that there's no path to victory without the left's votes and browbeat them. You have the same people who promised never to back Bernie - even if he won the nomination - suddenly preaching unity when it was their candidate that prevailed. You have the same people who called Bernie a Russian agent suddenly telling his supporters to "listen to Bernie" and unite behind the nominee.

Instead of changing their approach to a more conciliatory one, or taking a stand against people who don't vote against the platform, they offer threats, bread and circuses, and empty platitudes. Instead of making sure the candidates, they hold an axe over our heads and browbeat us into voting. They spew BS platitudes about how we need to "raise the wage" and "expand access to healthcare" but choose to hide behind the parliamentarian and Manchin and Sinema when it comes time to do those things. You have them demonizing leftist candidates and voters while simultaneously demanding their votes.

I say VBNMW is BS because "voting blue no matter who" is only expected of one side. The Democratic Party doesn't want unity - they want left-wing submission.

[free my dawg]

Letting Republicans take power is the absolute worst way imaginable to "hold people on your side of the aisle accountable."

It's like people who rooted for al-Qaeda after seeing the Abu Ghraib images.

There are manifold other ways to achieve accountability.  You don't have to start rooting for the villains.


With all that said I can't believe the last few pages of whinging in this thread.  I haven't checked in in a while but it looks like people are still bitching about Byron Brown running in the general.  For the umpteenth time, "vote blue no matter who" is completely irrelevant to this situation because both candidates are Democrats.

You can try and say "oh Byron Brown isn't a real Democrat because he's supported by Republicans" but that just makes you sound like an idiot.  Joe Biden was supported by Republicans in his general.

I'm still waiting for you to address my counterpoint. Both candidates in the NH-SOS race in 2018 were Democrats as well. One of those Democrats, Bill Gardner, was objectively the de facto Republican candidate. The state party had largely abandoned him because he was acting like a Republican. He continued to campaign after losing his caucus's straw poll. By your logic it wouldn't be disloyal to support a man who backed Trump's sham commission because "both candidates are Democrats".

I'll acknowledge it's a bit of a stretch to compare Gardner to Brown. Brown is a machine Democrat who's looking to run a write-in campaign. Gardner was actively giving Trump cover to poison the well. At worst, he's a naive bothsidesist, and at best he's a full blown Trump supporter. But to compare the #NeverTrump wing backing Biden to local GOP groups, donors, and even members of the far-right boosting Brown is absurd. Especially when they're using the same logic you yourself have already decried while doing it.

[free my dawg]

Let's go over it again for the people who have trouble understanding:

What's okay:

* Supporting India Walton
* Supporting Byron Brown
* Voting straight Democratic down the line
* Picking and choosing whichever Democrats fit your ideology
* Advocating others take any of the positions I've mentioned are okay
* India Walton winning the mayoral race
* Byron Brown winning a write-in campaign on his own fair and square

What's not okay:

* Shaming others for not "voting blue no matter who" while not doing so yourself
* Judges not recusing themselves due to a conflict of interest
* Applauding corrupt right-wing judges making activist rulings for personal reasons
* The state party not supporting the Democrat that their voters picked

But then again the MacArthurs of the world know what they're doing. They know the corruption, they know the ties to Trump, and they know the hands-off approach to police brutality. They're completely aware that everything about this stinks to high heaven. They just don't care because it stops the Democrats they don't like from winning.

This is what I'm talking about when I talk about the "blue-brown alliance" and "blue MAGA". They'll do anything to stop the left - even if it means selling our democracy out to Trump.

[free my dawg]

Let's please not push this line of reasoning.

To be fair to MANA, the other two candidates in this race are pro-Q and pro-COVID.

[free my dawg]

I'm still waiting for you to address my counterpoint. Both candidates in the NH-SOS race in 2018 were Democrats as well. One of those Democrats, Bill Gardner, was objectively the de facto Republican candidate. The state party had largely abandoned him because he was acting like a Republican. He continued to campaign after losing his caucus's straw poll. By your logic it wouldn't be disloyal to support a man who backed Trump's sham commission because "both candidates are Democrats".

I'll acknowledge it's a bit of a stretch to compare Gardner to Brown. Brown is a machine Democrat who's looking to run a write-in campaign. Gardner was actively giving Trump cover to poison the well. At worst, he's a naive bothsidesist, and at best he's a full blown Trump supporter. But to compare the #NeverTrump wing backing Biden to local GOP groups, donors, and even members of the far-right boosting Brown is absurd. Especially when they're using the same logic you yourself have already decried while doing it.

So your counterpoint to "vote blue no matter who" is a case where someone with Republican policies and Republican behavior ran as a Democrat just cause?

No, if Donald Trump switched parties so that both he and Biden were both Democrats, I wouldn't say "vote blue no matter who" -- which doesn't even make sense in a blue-vs-blue election -- I would say "vote for the actual Democrat."  Just like I did in the OH-11 primary where Shontel Brown was running against a former proponent of two different third parties.  but situations like this are vanishingly uncommon.

You're really twisting yourself in knots to try and use this situation to undermine the phrase "vote blue no matter who" and it's not working at all.  Like your whole point makes no sense.  But you keep digging that hole deeper and deeper and deeper.

Simply having Republicans on your side doesn't make one a Republican.  You keep trying to play guilt by association and nobody is buying it.  I'm in the Recall Sawant movement here in Seattle.
 Our movement is supported by everyone to the right of Lenin, which is about half of the district.
 And the Sawant people keep trying to do the exact same thing.  Go through our donor rolls of tens of thousands of donors, find the most objectionable right-wing donor, slap his face on all the posters and say "that's the face of the right-wing racist republican recall."  Nobody's really buying it this time around, which is surprising because Seattle D3 voters are really, really, really dumb.

You're the only one here saying that people think Byron Brown is a Republican. At least read my posts before you try and put words in my mouth.

(On a note, Gardner has identified as a Democrat his entire life but was largely seen as nonpartisan until his embrace of GOP voter suppression. I bring up VBNMW because of the difference between, say, Nina Turner, and the Democrats for Gardner. Or Byron Brown. We'll see how they treat Ashford but hopefully they keep that same energy)

[free my dawg]

Mayor Brown removed from the ballot after fight from Walton campaign:

https://buffalonews.com/news/local/government-and-politics/byron-brown-off-buffalo-mayoral-ballot-after-state-federal-rulings/article_3789a114-1662-11ec-823e-ffce2f3f9692.html#tracking-source=home-breaking

Good

Great

I don't have a horse in this fight, but this was the lawful decision and the alternative reeked of parochial favoritism.

I agree - shame on anyone who supported this hack ruling. I can't speak much for Wojtaszek's ruling or how much it was based on the previous one, but Sinatra's ruling. The conflict of interest was crystal clear to outside observers, yet Sinatra refused to recuse himself because he didn't feel there was a need.

Anyone who supported this ruling supported Republican corruption of our courts and has no right to complain about the situation in Texas.

[free my dawg]

https://twitter.com/ZachReports/status/1440333255228620805?s=19

New poll dropped from co/efficient, which appears to be a R-slanted firm. There are a myriad of problems with the poll - mainly that it assumes Brown will be physically on the ballot - but I still think it'd be worth posting anyway.

Overall I still think Brown will win, since he seems to be taking this race more seriously.

[free my dawg]

Not a surprise that the Vice Chair of the Anti-Biden Caucus is attempting to sabotage the Democratic nominee's campaign.

[free my dawg]

At least the Gravel Teens stand with Biden's agenda