Nevermind, I'll Buy My Own

This week has proven a bumper week for members of the Western New York Millionaire's (and Billionaire's) Club.

On Monday, New York State Senate Republicans stage a coup with the help of......um........Billionaire Tom Golisano who, last I checked, did everything he could in November to help make the Dems the Senate majority party. On this side of WNY Golisano lost the Konst/Volker battle when Volker outnastied anything Golisano henchman, Steve Pigeon ever dreamed up with. So, here's the recap as I understand it.

Tom Golisano and Steve Pigeon put together a group called Responsible New York to fund candidates for Golisano’s vision of what government should be. Responsible NY bankrolls candidates and engages on some of the worst campaigning in WNY history, and that says a lot about how bad it was. Golisano backed candidates mostly get trounced. Defeated, Golisano picks up his ball, kicks at the dirt and moves to Florida. The new Senate doesn’t do Golisano’s bidding, and the new Senate Majority leader plays with his Blackberry while in a meeting with the Golisano, so he has Pigeon find the two most opportunistic senators with the least amount of character possible and gets them to stand up and vote with the Republicans to oust Malcolm Smith as Majority leader. Pigeon, of course, does this by getting the old and possibly new Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos to promise the turncoats some plum positions, like in Espada’s case…Senate President. Will either Espada or Monserrate be able to fulfill the duties of those new jobs from the clink after the ongoing investigations of either of them are completed. In unprecedented fashion the Senate is now at a complete standstill....oh yeah, that's not really unprecedented it's pretty commonplace. Did I miss anything? In the days following the coup, one of the ship jumpers, Monserrate, who is under investigation for slashing his girlfriend's face with a broken wine glass (nice guy representing us there) is said to be wavering.

I guess the thing about this to me is that the Republicans keep touting it as a coalition government, except getting two guys of unquestionably bad character to turn on their party isn't really a coalition. Getting ten Dems to buy into it might classify as a coalition. And to hear the Republicans who have been just as fiscally horrible in the past talk about all this reform is laughable. They controlled the Senate for how long, and yet New York is still a big fat hairy mess. Where was the reform when you were in charge, fellas, (with a Republican Governor for 12 years too)and why in the world should we believe you now?

Example number 2 of the Spoiled Rich Guy Syndrome is when millionaire developer Carl Paladino sent a letter to the board of directors of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership demanding Andrew Rudnick's firing. If that doesn't happen he says he will start his own Chamber of Commerce.............um.....ok.......have at it. If Paladino doesn't like things at the Partnership he certainly has the right to drop his membership. If he wants to start another group to advocate for the business community in Western New York, he absolutely should do that. But to write a letter that demands the ouster of the head of a group is ridiculous. Who does he think he is the County Executive? And doesn't he realize that he has effectively tied the director's hands? If they agree to give in to that terrorist-like demand, they may as well just shut the doors on the whole organization. So, now, even though Rudnick has been pretty impotent, he will probably stay on top of the Partnership because they cannot get rid of him without looking like they gave in to millionaire Carl's demands. Nice, Carl.......really.