My pal Matt is from Niagara Falls. He lives in L.A. now but his mother and most of his family are still there in the Buffalo area. He talks of it nostalgically but the chances of him moving back there are about equal to the chance that you'll ever live there. Niagara Falls looks like a bombed out wreck. Wait, wait! Let me correct that. The U.S. city of Niagara Falls looks like a bombed out wreck. The Canadian city of Niagara Falls looks like what it is, a glittering, shiny, thriving small metropolis. Makes you wonder what went wrong.Yesterday, without even trying, Bob Harding at The Albany Project went a good ways towards explaining what went wrong and what has kept Niagara Falls-- and the whole Buffalo area-- down. Harding is demanding a serious investigation by the newly cleansed Department of Justice into political influence that tainted decisions by the former Bush Regime U.S. Attorney for Buffalo, Michael Battle.Before taking over the Executive Office for United States Attorneys-- yes, Battle was the guy who fired the 7 U.S. Attorneys that led to one of the biggest and most disgraceful in a long series of Bush scandals politicizing the Justice Department-- he was perverting justice in Western New York between January 2002 until May 2005. A particularly egregious example of Battle’s peculiar brand of lenient law enforcement came when he chose not to pursue smuggling charges against the nephew of powerful Buffalo-area Republican state Senator George Maziarz, a veritable feudal baron in northwest New York.Maziarz the younger was caught casing inspection lanes at a border crossing for his partner-in-crime who was attempting to smuggle goods into the US from Canada. In announcing his decision to drop the smuggling rap against Maziarz and his partner, Battle, rather mysteriously, said only "we decided at this time it wasn't appropriate to pursue charges."Battle's record of toadyism and compliance with Bush commissars at Justice raises credible questions about his prior record as US Attorney. And it comes as no surprise to anyone who follows New York politics that this senator would have his hand up the Buffalo U.S. Attorney's ass.NY State Senator George Maziarz runs his Western New York district on the Canadian border like the border-town boss in Touch of Evil Under Maziarz’s iron fist-- and the Republican controlled state Senate and governor’s mansion-- Niagara Falls festered with out of control unemployment, a derelict downtown, and crack and hooker-infested neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Maziarz used the enormously wealthy New York Power Authority (which produces the cheapest electricity on the planet thanks to Niagara Falls) as a dumping ground to reward his cronies, hacks and shills with lucrative jobs and contracts. In fact, no job in the county is too small to escape Maziarz’s attention.Now that Maziarz is the designated attack dog for a state GOP desperate to regain control of the Senate, he spouts phony indignation over patronage and abuse at the hands of evil New York City interests-- even though he has long been the whoremaster for every corrupt practice in a particularly corrupt corner of the country

Labels: Corruption, Maziarz, Michael Battle, New York