Both political parties in Rochester have dirt on their faces.

It is no surprise that the Republican dominated Monroe County Legislature shot down a Demagogic demand that COMIDA be investigated. This was a result of the I-Square scandal, which is merely the latest example of the Republicans playing footsie with COMIDA, not to mention ROBUTRAD.
The relationship between the Republicans and COMIDA is perverted and incestuous. The Republicans did not want any further investigation into their baby, since COMIDA usually provides open-air, white collar relief for the cronies of high ranking members of the local GOP.
Of course, this flies in the face of County Executive Cheryl DiNolfo's oft repeated intention of creating an Office of Public Integrity. The lady does not want anything approaching real transparency involving county government. Too much would come out that, in Third World countries, would earn she and her cronies places in front of a firing squad.
On the other hand, the MCDC also has been caught with questionable practices involving their finances and juggling campaign contributions. Some of these actions are illegal.
That rogues' gallery consists of:
Ex state senator Ted O'Brien. The committee's campaign contribution's were shifted to O'Brien's losing campaign against now-senator Rich Funke. O'Brien now works for the local office of the State Attorney General and refuses to answer any questions about it.
Ex MCDC chairman Dave Garretson. It was during his ever so brief tenure as chairman that the illegal shifting of funds took place, which couldn't have occurred without his approval.
Stupid little girl Jamie Romeo, current MCDC chairwoman. She was Senator O'Brien's office manager ( for two years ) during his failed bid for re-election and sort of ran his first campaign two years previously, and of course knows nothing.
She never did.
The Republicans are also guilty of this practice. But then, nobody expects any better of the Monroe County GOP.
The best description of this dirt on the Demagogues can be found in the D&C's article by David Andreatta: "Something Fishy in Monroe Democrats' Coffers."
The iconoclastic Andreatta is probably the only well-balanced reporter on the staff of that liberal newsrag, which never used to write anything that would expose Demagogues to too much censure and ridicule.
It is even more ironic when one considers that the Demagogues are always yammering on about campaign reform. They really don't want it any more than the Republicans do.
Both parties suck.

City Court Judge Leticia Astacio pleads not guilty to DWI.

That was to be expected.
She claims that the state troopers who arrested her never saw her driving the vehicle. That is probably true. The vehicle had four flat tires and extensive front end damage. It wasn't going anywhere at that point.
I doubt that she was walking along the road and just happened to get into the disabled vehicle.
Since Astacio refused to take the breathalyzer test, the preliminary breath screen test registered at more than double the legal limit, .19 %.
The preliminary breath screen test is not admissible in court.
Astacio also claimed to have suffered some sort of brain injury during a pregnancy, which is why she couldn't take the roadside sobriety test. Which is bullshit. It doesn't prevent her from undergoing grueling hour long full body workouts. Not that anyone could notice.
Women who demand equality with men usually fall back on feminine complaints in order to get special treatment when they're in trouble. Pregnancy and complications arising therefrom are always sure fire winners in that respect.
And shouldn't we all be worried about a judge whose brain injury has produced both serious flaws in judgment and the appearance of intoxication?
The arresting officers recounted that Astacio told them to mind their own fucking business, that they were fucking ruining her life, that she would never do this to them, that this was not part of their fucking job and other choice tidbits. Statements made by a pampered, spoiled woman who was not getting her way and was certainly unconcerned with justice.
Those statements, too, are recounted in the D&C.
It is clear that Astacio didn't trust the police.
She'll be heading back to court on April 25.
Her attorney claimed that Astacio's arrest didn't occur "like normal arrests occur."
That's true enough. Astacio is a public official, and should have expected to be held to a higher standard. That is what has provoked interest in her case. It is also why the arresting officers were so careful to report everything she said and did during her arrest. They knew they were dealing with a city court judge.
Ed Fiandach, her attorney, is rather a hypocrite. He didn't really want Astacio to be treated "normally."
Neither did Astacio. She wanted to be treated as special and the officers to let her go because she is an elected Hispanic official with tits.
But where could she go with four flat tires?
You can read the entire story in Rochester's liberal newsrag, the D&C. It is hilarious.
If convicted, Astacio faces up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. But don't hold your breath for that eventuality.
According to David Andreatta's article in the D&C ( "Judge Astacio isn't going anywhere" ), it is unlikely that she will receive anything more serious than a knuckle rapping.
Dismal but true.
Ain't justice for all grand?
Nobody seems to know how the front end of her vehicle got extensively damaged, or how all four tires got flat.
Maybe Fiandach knows?

All politicians and their hangers on gorge at the public trough.

David Andreatta has provided us with yet another well-written, reasonably well-balanced commentary about the incestuous nature of political appointments in the Rochester area.
While he is employed by the local liberal newsrag, the D&C, Andreatta pulls no punches, letting both the Republicans and the Demagogues get it right between the eyes.
It is doubtful that his commentary earned him any brownie points with the editorial staff of the D&C, whose bleeding heart liberal agenda generally makes them look ridiculous and has lost the respect of any thinking individuals who follow their exploits.
Andreatta's article, "Maggie Brooks' long quaff at the public trough," should be read in full.
A brief summation will suffice here.
Outgoing County Executive Maggie Brooks was recently hired by RTS ( the Regional Transit Service ) as their vice-president of strategic initiatives. The job was created out of thin air for her a few weeks ago.
At RTS, she will be joining several of her nearest and dearest who were also associated with her in the county legislature: Scott Adair, Daniel DeLaus Jr. and Justin Feasel. Feasel, Brooks' spokesman, was hired in the last few days, too.
RTS has been under Republican control for years.
Let us not forget that Mr. Maggie Brooks ( Bob Wiesner ) was also appointed to the Monroe County Water Authority some time back, another agency under Republican control. That was before he got his ass busted in a bidding and price fixing scam, which is still in the courts.
Before Demagogues get their knickers in a twist about this, Andreatta also pointed out that they are not without sin, either.
Mayor Lovely Warren appointed her Uncle Reggie to a position at City Hall that never existed before. He left when public outcry over his speeding got to be too much for her to handle. Uncle Reggie currently works for RTS.
Hmmm,
Mayor Warren also appointed plenty of her political cronies to newly created or resurrected jobs at City Hall. If no worse, she is certainly no better than Maggie Brooks in that respect.
Former MCDC chairman, Joe Morelle pere appointed Joe Morelle fils to fill a vacancy in the county legislature. The family that preys together stays together.
However, Andreatta failed to mention how ex police chief, ex mayor and ex lieutenant governor Bob Doofus got himself appointed to head the RBA ( Rochester Business Alliance ) through his shady connections, while double or triple dipping on his six figure pensions.
And let us not forget that expensive Demagogic kept woman, the notorious Molly Clifford. The Doofus and Richards administrations kept on creating jobs for her that she was unqualified for.
I am certain that a lack of space prevented Andreatta  from mentioning those and other instances of Demagogic malfeasance.
What is clear that most politicians of both parties see elected office as a way of feathering their own nests. When out of office they hope to use their connections to continue to feed off of the public like ghouls or vampires.
Or swine.

David Gantt is at it again, according to David Andreatta.

Black racist State Assemblyman David Gantt has been up to yet another shady real estate deal with the City of Rochester. It is becoming a bad habit. Nobody dares to stand up to him or stop him, for the sake of political correctness.
Last summer, the D&C's rogue news reporter David Andreatta reported about Gantt's zombie property on Central Park. That bit of scamming cost the city $26,000 to demolish it.
Nobody can call Gantt a cheap politician when you figure out how much he costs the city for his real estate investments.
Today, Andreatta blew the whistle on Gantt's latest bit of con artistry in his well written and witty expose: "A slow clap for Assemblyman Gantt."
See the full story in the D&C for an in depth description of what transpired.
The following is a brief synopsis of that article, which will suffice for this blog.
Gantt has acquired yet another property on Lyndhurst Street ( he already owns six other properties there, most of which are under a limited liability company called LMG Management ) for nothing, thanks to a little known state law that allows people to acquire property belonging to someone else for nothing under something called the doctrine of "adverse possession."
The property is just across the street from his long time residence.
Furthermore, the city approved Gantt's application for money to fix up the property before he completed the "adverse possession" transaction, having begun to process it two years beforehand. The money Gantt is getting from the city is more than the property is worth.
Rochester mayor Lovely Warren is one of Gantt's numerous "children," so that should be no surprise.
Nobody in City Hall raised any eyebrows, despite the fact that Gantt has a history of property tax delinquencies, either paying them late or not at all. Nobody in City Hall dared to.
Mind you, it is all perfectly legal, if unethical.
But when white slumlords pull this kind of shit, there's all Hell to pay when the media gets their claws into it.
That's what political correctness is all about.
At least Gantt is providing inspiration to con artists everywhere, regardless of race, color, creed or national origin.

Two shootings in Maplewood in 24 hours.

David Andreatta recently wrote an article in the D&C that Rochester averages one shooting every 32 hours.
The historic Maplewood neighborhood beat that average this week.
We had two shootings here, less than half a mile apart, in 24 hours.
The first was Thursday night on Ramona Park, which is a residential section of the neighborhood.
The second was last night on Dewey Avenue and Flower City Park.
That shooting took place near the neighborhood nuisance business called Phat Boy.
Phat Boy has long allowed drug dealers to ply their products in front of the store, and permitted their customers to use them in the parking lot behind their store.
The well tended neighborhood garden on the corner merely adds to the ambience of the experience, if the buyers aren't too high to notice.
The location has all the ingredients for a disaster to occur. It is surprising that worse hasn't happened there.
Yet.
The mayor's office and the police department are unable or unwilling to clear out the thugs loitering in front of the store. Phat Boy refuses to do anything about their presence. The neighborhood is helpless to do anything about it.
It is even more ironic that "Clergy on Patrol" roamed through that area less than a month ago.
Nobody really knows what "Clergy on Patrol" is supposed to do, other than provide the mayor's politicized preachers the opportunity to mug with her in front of the news cameras. That is their reward for preaching politics from the pulpit during her campaign. It certainly hasn't helped lessen violence and crime anywhere they have roamed.
Nor is the media willing to give these incidents anything more than perfunctory coverage. They are only too common in Rochester, as Andreatta's article pointed out.
Nobody was killed, either. No corpses littered the sidewalk. That might have produced a few tepid responses from the police, the mayor's office, elected officials and the neighborhood.
"Might have."
The police are fond of saying that these shootings are merely rival gangs shooting at each other.
That is to reassure us, since most residents aren't gang members and therefore we are safe.
Unless a stray bullet catches an innocent passerby, like on Parsells Avenue a few months ago.
The point of this rant?
The police like to say crime is down, but shootings are up. Clergy on Patrol is supposed to somehow deter violence, but it hasn't. We all say we abhor the violence that occurs in our city, but we have become accustomed to it. Unless we are one of the victims.
Our politicians are too unconcerned to care enough to enact legislation that will imprison these bastards for a good long time. They are afraid of either being branded racist or of selling out to whitey.
And the thugs merrily roam our streets, protected by political correctness.

The MCDC: And a stupid little girl shall lead them.

On Wednesday night, Jamie Romeo was elected as the MCDC's new chairman.
It was poorly attended; the ghetto oriented Gantt-Warren faction of the Democrats didn't even bother to show up.
That faction already proved that they and their candidates can be successful without the party chairperson's blessing. They don't have any use for the party chairperson, at least not within the ghetto.
That is an ominous sign.
She is being touted as the youngest chairman in recent years, and only the second female since the notorious Molly Clifford held that office for a few minutes in 2003-2005.
Her opening statements should also qualify her as being one of the stupidest.
Rochester's liberal newsrag, the Democrat and Chronicle, quoted her as saying “The road ahead may be difficult, but we’re Democrats. We don’t shy away from tough fights. We organize, we unite and we win.”
The D&C's own staff writer, David Andreatta, did a very nice job describing how incorrect that statement was.
You might want to check out Andreatta's summary in the D&C: "Chaos is the Democrats' fatal flaw."
In very polite terms, he was saying that Romeo doesn't know what in Hell she is talking about.
At thirty, Romeo is too old to be an innocent. Or a novice.
On the other hand, liars and fools come in all ages and sexes.
Judging by her statement, she chose to ignore the bitter truth about her badly splintered party.
Romeo is not the person to raise massive funds for her party. She will be incapable of bridging the chasm between the Morelle-Clifford clique and the Gantt-Warren faction.
Nobody can.
And she won't last long either, unless nobody else wants her position.
Nobody else wanted it this time.

Thumbs up, David Andreatta.

Rochester's local liberal newsrag, the Democrat and Chronicle, has a weekly "Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down" column.
Anything that even hints of liberal bullshit or insincere "mea culpas" to the black community will get a "Thumbs Up."
Correspondingly, anything that attempts to haul a crooked black politician onto the carpet will get a "Thumbs Down." If the D&C would mention it at all. It would be too inflammatory. It would not be in keeping with the pseudo liberal agenda they wish to promote.
Until now.
D&C columnist David Andreatta wittily exposed the tax dodging antics of State Assemblyman David Gantt in his column yesterday.
It is indeed worth reading.
Gantt owned a dilapidated house on Central Avenue. In the ghetto, a place filled with abandoned houses that are both eyesores and dangerous.
Rather than fix it up, he allowed it to deteriorate. Then he refused to pay the taxes on it, so the city had to take it. And now the city has to demolish it. Courtesy of the taxpayers.
Gantt whined that he paid the taxes on his other property. Since Gantt can shed crocodile tears at the drop of a hat, I am curious to know if he turned on the waterworks when confronted by his latest scam.
Most of us who live in Rochester are disgusted with slumlords. Especially the black community.
Yet the black community has not complained about David Gantt's slum property because he is one of their own and he is a celebrity. Gantt is the surrogate father figure, mentor and political boss of Mayor Warren: the power behind the drone.
He is also one of Rochester's most divisive political personalities, Molly Clifford being another.
It is fortunate that the two of them never mated.
Had Gantt been white, the black community would have complained about him a long time ago.
That's the ugly truth of the matter.
It's not politically correct to say so.
Mr. Andreatta suggested that when Gantt's property is demolished, it should be turned into a neighborhood "parkette" and named after Gantt.
A trash strewn empty lot in the middle of the ghetto would be a fitting tribute to David Gantt.
And "Thumbs Up" to David Andreatta for having the balls to write this story and film the video.
It takes balls of steel to tackle both Gantt and the D&C's editorial staff.

A new wind blows through the Democrat and Chronicle: Thank you, David Andreatta.

For decades Rochester's only daily newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle, has acquired the reputation of being a biased, liberal rag. Its primary purpose was to promote the social and political agenda of the editor, James Lawrence. First on the agenda was political correctness for white folks, which is to say that white folks shouldn't say anything truthful or honest that might offend other people. Lawrence's programme also featured social engineering and white folks accepting the guilt for three hundred years of black slavery and discrimination.
It was with this in mind that Mr. Lawrence and company created the "Unite Rochester" scam. It was supposed to encourage open dialogue about "the elephant in the room" ( white racism against blacks ).
It did no such thing.
"Unite Rochester" does provide a forum for the black community to air their grievances against the white community. As for the white folk who were invited to participate in "Unite Rochester," they are mostly liberal economic, social and political elites. They seek to maintain their elite status and liberal credentials by shouting "mea culpa," beating their chests with one hand while the other hand is squarely behind their backs with fingers crossed.
There are other elephants in the room, which Mr. Lawrence chose to ignore for obvious reasons.
Those elephants consist of accepting personal responsibility for actions committed and of black youths assaulting Burmese and Nepalese refugees, most of whom reside in the 28th legislative district.
Mr. Lawrence retired as editor of the Democrat and Chronicle a few weeks ago. Nobody, especially me, expected any change in the nature of that newspaper's bias.
Until yesterday.
David Andreatta, a staff writer for the D&C, wrote a scathing article about a recent incident concerning Mayor Lovely Warren's Facebook page. Andreatta wittily likened the mayor's claim that her page was hacked to the existence of unicorns. This was the first time ever that the D&C permitted the publication of a report that was highly critical of Lovely Warren.
A brief recounting is necessary here.
In a testy exchange with a suburbanite busybody on the mayor's Facebook page, someone purporting to be her told him to mind his own business in a less than politically correct way.
Owing to the uproar of this statement, the mayor promptly claimed that she didn't write it.
I firmly believe that she didn't write it. The mayor is a busy woman, and it highly unlikely that she has the time to waste on Facebook.
On the other hand, the mayor also stated that three of her staff has access to her page. This was an oblique way of stating that she doesn't personally respond to everything on Facebook. She has her paid staff do it, hence their ability to access her page.
I am guessing that "the three" are old, dear friends of hers. Which is why she exonerated them. She claimed that they didn't write it, either, and that her page was hacked.
Oh, come now, mayor. That I don't believe.
I do have a few friends whose Facebook pages have been hacked, but that was because they had left their pages open and unattended, or never logged off of a public computer.
How many of "the three" have done that? Don't they each have their own computers at taxpayer expense? Don't some of them have more than one computer? Are her nearest and dearest, who have been entrusted with appointments close to the mayor's office, that stupid and careless?
Or is it simply a case of her loyal supporters, exasperated by criticism of their dear friend, boss and mayor simply exploding and telling off one of her critics?
That I do believe.
What is important here is that someone on the D&C's staff didn't buy the mayor's story, either, and was allowed to print his opinion.
This is a radical departure from the D&C's previous policy of molly-coddling the mayor throughout her and her administration's frequent and almost regular screw-ups since she took office.
Thank you, Mr. Andreatta, for breathing a bit of new life into the D&C. Time will only tell if you and others on staff will be allowed to print more comments critical of the mayor and her crew when their actions so deserve.
One thing is for certain: had Mr. Lawrence remained as editor, you would not have been permitted to run your post.