Or Is Ben Oreskes Just An Incompetent Reporter?
Last week, you may have gotten the impression that I think Rudy Salas and Adam Gray are the two worst Democratic House candidates. The two Californians are certainly contenders and it would be hard to imagine anyone worse than either when it comes to the classic combination of corruption and conservatism. However, there are others in contention as well. One, John Avlon, is running in Suffolk County, in a NY-01, where I lived for 4 years. There is no circumstance in which I would have ever voted for him.
Avlon’s running against a conservative Republican, Nick LaLota and LaLota’s voting record is putrid… certainly more putrid than Avlon’s would be, although Avlon is so detestable than not even the Blue Dogs or New Dems endorsed him! Oh, wait… the New Dems smelled a compatriot and did endorse him. So did Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
He’s the poster child of a Republican pretending to be a Democrat and eager to further destroy the Democratic Party brand. He’s best know as a CNN lean-right-middle-of-the-road commentator but some remember him most as an admirer of Rahm Emanuel’s and Paul Ryan’s, others as the long time speech writer for Rudy Giuliani and others for the garbage he regularly wrote for the Daily Beast. And still others as an anti-union fanatic. This combines much of Avlon in one ugly heap of stinking crap.
He’ll probably lose but because of Kamala’s surging popularity, if she has coattails, he has a shot. The PVI is R+3 and the partisan lean is R+5. Trump won the district by nearly 2 points— 50.3% to 48.5%— in the current configuration. In 2022, LaLota won by 11 points against a weak Democrat. Over 95% of $2,249,861 he’s raised has come from big donations. He has around $600,000 left in his warchest to LaLota’s $2.2 million. Reid Hoffman’s and the Murdoch family’s anti-progressive Welcome PAC has spent almost $2 million bolstering Avlon so far, foolishly not something LaLota is advertising.
He doesn’t live in— or near— the district and he’s genocide-friendly enough to be beloved of AIPAC strategist/DMFI owner Mark Mehlman. Unless he’s drastically changed, he’s opposed to every single economic plan Kamala laid out a few days ago. If you’re the kind of Democrat whose heart went thump when you heard Joe Lieberman, Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema wrecking essential components of the Democratic agenda, Pavlov’s the man for you. He’s more eager to gut Social Security and Medicare than any Democrat running for Congress I can recall. He keeps that on the down-low and low-info Democrats in Suffolk County are eager to vote for Kamala and Avlon. What a bad joke!
On Monday, Ben Oreskes covered the race for the NY Times, and never mentioned a word about Avlon being a fake Democrat. After all, that isn’t how they cover politics at The Times. Most of the article is about where LaLota and Avlon live. LaLota lives in Suffolk County but was gerrymandered out of the district. He can walk from his house into the district. Avlon lives in Manhattan but turned summer getaway in tony Sag Harbor into a residence when he decided to run for Congress.
Oreskes pathetic excuse for reporting:
Avlon was optimistic that the energy over Harris’ ascension on the ballot would help his chances.
“The turnout model of the election changed,” he said over breakfast at the Dix Hills Diner in Huntington this week.
“You’re going to see younger folks more fired up,” Mr. Avlon said. “Communities of color are more fired up. Women are going to turn out in even greater numbers. All of a sudden, the contrast is new versus old. It is hope versus fear. It’s a game changer.”
Avlon said that voters in the area were more concerned with the values and policy positions of their politicians and that LaLota was more concerned with pleasing Trump, who he endorsed in January, than addressing the needs of his constituents.
Oreskes never discussed Avlon’s history of anti-union mania or his position on Gaza… or anything else after “You’re going to see younger folks more fired up. Communities of color are more fired up. Women are going to turn out in even greater numbers.” For someone as conservative as Avlon? Sure, if reporters like Ben Oreskes work with him to keep his policy positions and his past secret from the voters.
Asking whether some random nyt reporter is shit or not is like asking whether some random democrap is a neoliberal corpporate fascist... or, laughably, not.
if he "reports" for a corporate entity, he's shit. they wouldn't pay someone or allow him to "report" if he didn't "report" as they wanted.
I thought the nyt was already deemed beyond hope. It's been shit for decades.