Coming to a national stage near you!
Imagine if you could transport yourself back in time to the moment when Perry, Boehner, Bachmann, Romney, Walker, Thune, Palin, et al. were just venturing forth in their quests for those first elected offices. Imagine if you were given the opportunity to stop any of those wing nuts right at the very beginning before they reached the national level. Wouldn't you take it?
Right-wing freaks like these do not just magically materialize out of thin air. Poof! Like some sort of twisted nightmare come to life from the tortured imagination of a sleep-deprived Liberal activist.
No, wingnuts like these are grown. They're grown at the local level from putrid festering Petri dishes of conservatism, ugliness, greed and hate. They start out small, running for town or county-wide races. Sometimes they gain popularity because they have a lot of friends & family who promote them. But most times, they simply have enough money to "buy" an elected office locally using an endless barrage of inflammatory campaign commercials, catering to the fears and insecurities of everyday folks struggling to make ends meet. They begin their assent to national stardom with a foothold at the local level.
If you want to prevent the next right-wing nut-job from bursting onto the national scene, look to the local levels for them. And do I have an up-and-comer for you to check out! Allow me to introduce a man we un-lovingly refer to as King Collins.
Chris Collins is the current Erie County Executive in Western New York. For those of you who don't have County Executives, it's an elected position which oversees countywide governmental operations. Four years ago, when Republican Collins trotted out his bullshit "run government like a business" mantra (all Romney-like) and used millions of his personal fortune to do so, it was no surprise a wave of working class moderates in the county swept him into office. His landslide victory caught the eye of the national party, and in 2008 Collins became the first County Executive in US history to be given the opportunity to speak at the Republican National Convention! When Collins spoke, he electrified the crowd with his praise of Sarah Palin, saying she would
“...bring a body of knowledge and experience that too few in federal government have.”
Gee, I seem to recall someone else who made a splash speaking at a national convention and then went on to take up current occupancy in the White House, don’t you? And this man, Chris Collins, has every intention of following Obama's example. He has already indicated he would like to run against Governor Cuomo in 2014, as his stepping stone to national office. But, before he can make that run for governor, and beyond, he
must win re-election this November. If he loses, he's
finished. So, this is the moment, this is the time when we need to stop this man in his tracks.
Collins made his fortune in the private sector as a “turn-around expert”. Just like Romney, he bought up companies, busted the unions, scavenged the assets and then shipped the jobs overseas. And what did he do after he made his multi-millions? He did what so many power hungry egomaniac GOP twits do when they’re bored…he bought himself a political office. Oh, Chris was a real trail-blazer with that "run government like a business" garbage back in 2007, and the people in Erie County fell for it…hook, line & sinker. And then….they were sunk!
After being sworn into office, Collins showed the people of Erie County what "running government like a business" actually means. What follows is just a sampling of the King Collins hit parade, and what you can look forward to should he continue his climb up the freak food chain.
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Why does Chris Collins hate infants?
While Collins' trophy wife Mary enjoys her pampered simpering useless life, filled with extravagant shopping trips to NYC and
ballroom dance lessons in the private gym of their $1.05 million 6,000 SF home, wearing her 10-carat diamond engagement ring…
...her elitist heartless husband pulled Erie County out of the Federal WIC program. You know…that scary government program that’s been in existence since 1972 and is one of the most cost-effective ever. National studies show benefit-to-cost ratios ranging from $1.77 to $3.13 saved for each $1 spent on WIC. But Collins doesn’t care about whether a government program is effective or not, because in the Koch Brothers worldview he subscribes to, everything must be privatized, and government should play no role. Government is an obstacle to be removed, in order to facilitate the continued massive funneling of money and resources from the working class and poor to the top 2% wealthiest individuals. And even though Buffalo, which is in Erie County, is the 2nd largest city in the state and the 3rd poorest in the entire nation, Collins has also eliminated child care subsidies for working parents. Destroying these programs has only served to push more people onto the welfare rolls. Nice work, Chris.
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Why does Chris Collins hate children & old people?
Having his very own George Bush Sr. grocery store scanner moment of cluelessness of what it’s really like to live in the
REAL world, Collins
favors eliminating Medicaid subsidies for eyeglasses for children, claiming,
“Families need to prioritize. There isn’t a single family that can’t provide eyeglasses.”
Getting rid of these subsidies would also include elimination of glasses, dentures and hearing aids for seniors. The man literally wants to take away the ability of our elderly to see, eat and hear!
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Why does Chris Collins hate sick people?
He
closed the only two healthcare clinics in the county that specifically served Medicaid patients, forcing them to get their primary care from emergency rooms. This costs exponentially more than obtaining preventative care through clinics. But that works for Collins, because it means the private hospitals and doctors get paid more. Oh, by the way...both those clinics he closed? They were actually
making money for the county, not losing!
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Why does Chris Collins hate human rights?
He told the US Justice Department to go screw itself, when they wanked to inspect the Erie County Holding Center and find out why prisoners kept turning up dead. From 2005 to 2010, there were eight suicides at the Holding Center, including three suicides that occurred after the
Justice Department filed its complaint to remedy unconstitutional conditions that placed inmates at risk of serious harm at the facilities. The Feds' suicide prevention expert found the suicide rate at the Holding Center was five times the national average! But Collins continued to deny the Justice Department access for years, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to his rich lawyer buddies fighting the suit. Even after a settlement was reached this summer (after all it is an election year and no candidate likes to have a nasty federal lawsuit hanging over his head on the campaign trail), and
ANOTHER prisoner was found dead, Collins maintained his
who-gives-a-shit...they're-just-brown-criminals attitude.
"No one can see into the future. He determined that he wanted to end his life, and he did so."
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Why does Chris Collins hate knowledge?
Collins
gutted funding to public libraries by $4 million, in ONE YEAR! He openly admits he's never had a library card, and doesn't ever use the libraries. Destroying all public access to information and knowledge fits quite nicely into the game plan launched so many years ago by Ronald Reagan...keep the masses ignorant and you can get away with anything. Having created the "funding crisis" for the libraries, Collins' solution is to try to
pass it off to the local towns & villages to deal with.
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Why does Chris Collins hate the arts?
Collins completely
eliminated ALL funding to ALL arts & cultural organizations (except the 10
he deemed "regionally significant". Erie County has a wonderful arts & cultural scene, which brings people from around the country & the world. But Collins would rather funnel tax dollars away from these treasures and into the pockets of his rich campaign contributors via bogus tax breaks.
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Why does Chris Collins hate unions?
It's no surprise he
thinks what Scott Walker did in Wisconsin was great, considering he made his fortune from busting unions. More of the Koch Brothers worldview on full display.
“I support what the governor is doing. Gov. Walker recognizes you just can’t negotiate these things. These people are in denial. They want to go back to ‘Leave it to Beaver’ days. I’m sorry. Those days are gone.”
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Why does Chris Collins hate veterans?
Collins behavior on this year's parade circuit was disgraceful. At the
Memorial Day parade, after being told ahead of time there was to be NO politicking of any kind because this was to be a day for solemn remembrance for those who gave their lives for our country....he sent his mindless minions down the parade route handing out campaign literature. During the July 4th parades, he
parked his car in a handicapped spot, so he could get to the parade lineup ahead of everyone else. When parade organizers informed him he couldn't be at the front of the parade (ahead of the veterans and the emergency responders), he told them,
"You're in MY county. I do what I want!"
,and proceeded to march at the front of the parade anyway.
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Why does Chris Collins LOVE rats & disease?
He
eliminated the vector control program for the entire county, which was responsible for making sure communities not only don't get overrun by RATS, but that larvacides are used proactively to prevent the spread of West Nile Virus via mosquitoes. Since his elimination of this program, the rat population has skyrocketed and we have had multiple pockets of mosquitoes
testing positive for the virus. Apparently, sending Erie County back into the middle ages is part of the Collins world view!
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Why does Chris Collins hate Jews?
Collins said it's generally accepted that Napoleon and Adolf Hitler were the first two Antichrists, and he was pretty sure NY Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (an Orthodox Jew)
was the third.
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Why does Chris Collins hate women?
While attending the governor's NY State of the State address, when a
female fellow attendee inquired whether Collins and others in their group had
saved her a seat, he responded,
“I’m sure if you offer someone a lap dance, you can find a place to sit.”
Real classy!
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Why does Chris Collins keep HORRIBLE company?
Remember Crazy Carl Paladino, the
porn loving racist freak with the
baseball bat who ran for governor of NY last year? Well, Collins enthusiastically endorsed Paladino in his run, saying
"It was an easy endorsement for me to make, and I was happy to do it. I'm not an endorsing kind of guy, but I made an exception for Carl.”
BTW, that's Collins standing to the left of "Crazy Carl" in that video where he threatens the future governor, Andrew Cuomo.
Not only did Collins support teabagger Paladino, but the list of right-wingers who have come to Erie County to host fundraisers for Collins includes John Boehner, Mary Matalin and just yesterday, John Thune! You know, the piece of garbage who voted against Senator Al Franken's amendment that would prevent the government from rewarding contracts to employers that force rape victims into binding arbitration? Yep...he's Chris Collins' good buddy.
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Even though this doesn't begin to cover all the horrors that have been the past 4 years under Chris Collins' reign, I think it more than adequately demonstrates why this is one of those time teleportation moments I talked about way back at the beginning of this post. This is your chance to actually be in that moment in time when you can do something to actually prevent another Palin or Bachmann or Thune or Perry from slithering his way out of the local Petri dish and taking that next step towards inflicting his disease at the national level. Remember, this is the man the national party had speak at the 2008 convention! He's being groomed. John Thune, who currently holds the No. 4 GOP Senate leadership post, had this to say about Collins just yesterday:
“I’m someone who believes we can benefit a lot from having that kind of approach and mindset in Washington, D. C.”
Luckily, Collins actually has a great Progressive opponent this fall who is the complete antithesis of everything Collins stands for!
Mark Poloncarz has been the Erie County Comptroller for the past 6 years and has been standing up to Collins at every turn to fight for the people of Erie County. Mark has a great shot of winning this. The most recent polling shows Mark having gone from being the underdog to being now 4 points ahead of Collins.
Mark supports unions.
Mark supports the arts & cultural community.
Mark supports public libraries.
Mark supports GLTB rights.
Mark believes in providing healthcare clinics for the poor and protecting Medicaid.
Mark supports a strong public health role.
Mark believes in investing in our parks.
Mark believes in REAL job creation.
Mark doesn't consort with rich right-wing ass-hats.
The list goes on and on, demonstrating Mark's not just the lesser of two evils. I've known Mark for over 4 years, and he is the "real deal", a true Progressive. And get this...he actually gives a shit about people as human beings! Can you imagine?!?!
And would you LOOK at that head of hair he's got? It's legendary in our county!
If Mark's name sounds a little familiar, he considered running in the NY-26 special election earlier this year. Chris Bowers called him the “most interesting candidate” in the field at the time, which included eventual winner and Democratic darling, Kathy Hochul. Kathy was the sitting Erie County Clerk when she won NY-26 and a good friend and ally of Mark's in Erie County government. By the way, guess who hand picked Kathy's opponent, Jane Corwin, in that race? Yep, Corwin's neighbor and close personal friend, Chris Collins.
Mark has the endorsement of the entire Democratic WNY Congressional delegation, which includes not only Kathy Hochul, but Liberal Lioness extraordinaire and one of my personal heroines, Louise Slaughter.
Unlike Chris Collins, Mark didn't grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth. As the son of a union steel worker, Mark likes to say he grew up with a STEEL spoon in his mouth. Mark is not independently wealthy and is having to finance his campaign through donations he has received from individuals and the unions who believe in him and his positive message. So, this is your moment, your chance to help ensure a right-wing money grubbing tool like Chris Collins does not go any further up the freakfest food chain.
I'm calling on all my fellow Kossacks to do one of the things we do best, and that's to toss a little coinage in the direction of someone who's fighting to keep our country from turning into nothing more than a cheap labor market for the top 2% wealthiest in this nation.
Please jump over to Mark's website, and show him a little Progressive love. Mark has a strong message and can beat Collins, but Collins has millions at his disposal to flood the airwaves with lies and garbage. Any amount you can contribute to Mark will be greatly appreciated. And please be sure to REC this diary, comment and share it with all your fellow fighter's for the middle class and poor.
Let's wipe out the Chris Collins festering Petri dish now!
Mon Oct 10, 2011 at 10:01 AM PT: The campaign of Collins' opponent, Mark Poloncarz, continues to gain momentum! A new Siena College Research Institute poll commissioned by The Buffalo News and WGRZ-TV Channel 2 shows the race as a statistical tie. http://www.buffalonews.com/...
We literally have Collins on the run. When he learned of the poll results, Collins cancelled all his public appearances for the past two days, rather than having to face any question about the results.
With less than 30 days left until election day, there's still time to toss a little coin in Mark's direction. Every little bit will absolutely help to ensure victory. Please consider donating whatever you can here: http://markpoloncarz.com/...