Tea and Vitriol

David Gantt was a fixture in Rochester politics for fifty years. Starting out as an angry young Black man who was tired of Black folk being patronized by White politicians, he carved out a career of influence in the New York State Assembly, getting re-elected year after year. In Rochester, he became a power broker for politicians, usually Black, who sought election to public office. He was also a mentor to most of the current crop of Black elected officials in Rochester. To do so, he had a head-on collision with the White, elitist Morelle faction of the Monroe County Democratic Committee, since they exemplified the patronizing White politicians of Gantt's youth. The kindest thing I can say about the Morelle faction is that they resembled the British Liberal Party of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, whose patronizing attitude towards the poor and the working class forced those people into the Labour Party. It is that attitude that disrupted Rochester's political life for

Now that the smoke has cleared from Rochester's Democratic primary we are being treated to the usual, nauseating spectacle of the media glorifying the winners, especially in the race for mayor. We are being treated to the perfections of Malik Evans as a person and a politician that were never evident before, either in  his lackluster, nearly invisible, four years on City Council or his rather dismal ten years on the School Board. What the media has chosen not to concentrate on, in its rush to make nice with the probable Mayor of Rochester after the November general election, is how someone like Evans could win the primary against an incumbent mayor. Because the answer is rather embarrassing and blows to smithereens the praise they are heaping on Evans. People chose to vote "Not Lovely" rather than to vote for Evans. The voters were willing to choose anyone other than the mayor after her last disastrous 18 months in office. After she fired him last year, people were pushin

Flashback to the late 16th century. Mary, Queen of Scots, is beheaded on the orders of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England. A quatrain by an anonymous author, describing the event, was circulated throughout England, frightening the Virgin Queen. It served as an explicit example of the dangers facing political leaders everywhere. "The noble, famous queen, who lost her head of late Is proof that kings as well as clowns are bound to Fortune's fate. And that no earthly prince may so secure his crown That Fortune, with her spinning wheel, hath power to pull him down." Fast forward to 2021: Rochester's Democratic Mayoral Primary. Mayor Lovely Warren was defeated in her bid for a third term in office by a "landslide," although barely 25% of Rochester's registered Democrats bothered to vote at all. It was the worst defeat an incumbent mayor ever suffered since Rochester began to elect its mayors by popular vote forty years ago. Her opponent, Malik Evans, won sole

  Tomorrow, June 22, is the Democratic primary election in Rochester, New York. Since this is a one-party city, the primary usually determines the winners for the various elected offices in Rochester, making the general election in November seem almost superfluous. I have already written at length about the race for the mayoral throne, so I can skip that here. Today's topic is the race for the five positions of city councilperson-at-large. The four district city councilpersons race is two years off, which is a shame because one of them is  quite crazy and needs to be removed from office and institutionalized, both for her good and the city's. Well, in two years... This year, there are some seventeen candidates running for the five at large seats. Almost all of them are unacceptable. They represent either woke progressivism or far-left radicalism that has created a distrust for law enforcement and the Rochester Police Department and seem more concerned with the rights of violent

They first make mad. Yesterday (June 18, 2021), Rochester experienced its fourth gang-style execution in a week. What distinguished this murder from the others was that the victim was a woman. She was killed by gunshots in her car in the presence of her two daughters, aged three and eight. The children were uninjured. But that the murderers would undertake an execution under those conditions says a great deal about the sort of monsters who are members of those gangs. The reaction to this latest homicide, the thirtieth in Rochester so far this year, was surprising. Or maybe not. Mayoral candidate Malik Evans issued a terse, probably ghost-written, statement of sorrow. Incumbent mayor Lovely Warren said nothing about it at all. Instead, she called a press conference to complain that the Monroe County Board of Elections was conspiring against her in the Democratic Primary Election. There are priorities, after all. Earlier in the week, after the second such gangland slaying took place just

Next week, Rochester will endure the farce of the local Democratic Primary. There is already early voting for people who fear they might be murdered in our fair city before they can get their vote in. Since Rochester is a one-party city dominated by the Democrats, whoever wins the primary will most likely win the general election in November. While there are a surfeit of unworthy candidates vying for the party's line in November and all of them are using the same political rhetoric to get themselves elected, this writing will only concentrate on the mayoral primary. For all intents and purposes, there are only two candidates "worth" considering: The incumbent, Lovely Warren, seeking her third term in office; and her challenger, Malik Evans. Their political rhetoric, as stated previously, is similar. Evans has agreed with much of Warren has done and proposes to do. So why even consider him? To do Warren some justice, she was adequate to the task during her first six years

By now, everyone in the Rochester area has heard that Mayor Warren's husband, Tim Granison, had been arrested on drug trafficking and illegal weapons charges. The New York State Police, after a seven month investigation, raided their home, confiscating $100 thousand in cash, 2 kilos of cocaine and 2 firearms. There were also two other illegal firearms found in the course of the investigation besides the two found in the mayor's home. Six other people were arrested that day, including the mayor's cousins, the Siplins, pere et fils. Mayor Warren has gone on record as saying that she and Tim  have been separated "for years," despite sharing the same home for their daughter's sake; that she didn't know anything about what was going on; and that she was innocent of any wrongdoing. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. She didn't know what was going on under her own roof? And in her own bedroom? There is a difference between not knowing what is going on a

Political sex scandals are nothing new, but the frequency of accusations being made against politicians lately are making them seem quite banal. The result has been that a good many people regard woman making these accusations as having axes to grind with the politician in question other than sex. And then there is the financial settlement angle. Most of the time it seems like she said, he said and the battle lines get drawn between loyal supporters of the politician in question and the radical, man-hating feminist wing of the women's movement backing the accusers and looking for blood. Rochester has generally been spared political sex scandals, which suggests that our politicians, usually, are fairly discrete in their extra-marital activities and their playmates have not been willing to expose them or themselves to public scrutiny. Unfortunately, that was not the case regarding Monroe County Legislator Ernest Flagler-Mitchell. In the Fall of 2020, Ernest was accused of sending LaK

The latest nonsense being cooked up by progressives is the "Clean Slate Bill." It would seal and expunge the criminal records of over 2 million convicted criminals in New York State. That's right, over 2 million! The idea is to give convicted criminals who've served their time a second chance, so that they could apply for jobs and housing more easily. They would also need to have kept out of trouble for five years after their release. Mayor Warren's husband, Tim Granison, kept out of visible trouble for over twenty years, prior to his recent arrest for drug trafficking and illegal weapons possession. It also allows them to lie if they have been questioned about any previous criminal offenses. They can say "no," because their records have been sealed. They can then proceed to lie about other things, commit new crimes and offenses and, when caught, plead that it is their first time. Are we getting the point here? Nor do the advocates of this bill seem to d