fuelgrannie

Just a simple question, Michael Lambert: what exactly have I lied about?

I have been specific and detailed in my allegations against you, both with the incident from last summer which is detailed in my pinned tweet and with the recent unearthing of the #livejournalgate plot with which you were involved.

But you have not proven any dishonesty on my end. In fact, you haven’t even been that clear about what it is which, according to you, I have actually lied about.

I watched your video diary about me: the 20-some-odd clips make only vague and non-specific accusations with no examples or details on my deceit. It would be useful to learn exactly what your viewers should be looking for in determining my dishonesty: it would serve your stance if you could define, in particular, what I’ve said which is false.

You only state *that* I am a liar but you never get around to depicting *how* I am a liar.

By contrast, you do prove how insulting I am towards you, with which I certainly do concur. I take full responsibility for referring to you as a “pompous asshat,” a “donuthead,” a “whackadoodle,” and a “narcissist on wheels.”

In fact, I wholeheartedly stand by these assertions about you. I do think you are a pompous narcissist: you refer to yourself as Da Guvnah, Mr. Lambert. You fancy yourself some kind of leader or teacher of your devoted and rapt followers when you are, in fact, simply just another user yourself, no more different or special or commanding than anyone else on a social media forum. I believe you kid yourself on who really buys your act.

I also agree with your accusation that I am “tantamount to a pest,” which is both cogent and documented: I have indeed trolled your account because I wanted your followers as well as folks who browse your account to see my calling you out on your silence regarding #livejournalgate. I am indeed guilty of going after your tweets as I wanted to share that story via your own tweet threads.

I had already been trolling all the players behind #livejournalgate, including you, Kyle Christopher, Joe Lentol himself, Emily Mijatovic and Jessica Carrano by posting the same material on their tweets, too. I had already been drawing attention to how silent all of you, the candidate, his own team, his paid consultants and strategists, were regarding the failed attempt to smear Emily Gallagher. You were all pretending like it never happened, so I wanted to continue to amplify that it did indeed happen and you all comprised the team behind it.

I had been trolling each one of you since that Daily News story (which Joe’s team planted, hello) hit on June 13, 2020. I had been trolling all of you, not just you alone as I sought to amplify that Joe was behind that story and I wanted residents and voters to know the truth about how that whole operation went down, who was involved, my history with those parties and their repeated pattern of behavior.

That is the reason why I went after all of you: to amplify the truth.

I do not have to unblock a blocked account so to leave a reply. I left replies so users could read my take on you, not because I am obsessed with you or because I need to get some help: it was to show the truth about you, about the antics of the Lentol campaign and your role in it. And to amplify the subsequent silence from all of you about the attempted smear after it backfired.

I seek to point out that lack of accountability: I seek to shine a light on it.

The democratic primary for New York State Assembly District 50 in Brooklyn is a public political campaign. The actions of the teams supporting the candidates for Brooklyn AD 50 are subject to public scrutiny. I believe #livejournalgate was a dirty trick by Joe Lentol’s group in a political campaign and the general public should be aware: the public deserves to have every piece of available information about any political race in front of them so they can make an informed decision.

Despite the robust length of your video diary, you still don’t make any specific case against me in terms of my own dishonesty. It’s like you’re asking people to just take your word on how dishonest I am instead of showing them how exactly I lie. With the tweets of mine you have chosen to highlight in your diary, you in fact amplify my experiences with you and end up supporting and strengthening my stance more than your own.

And your claim that I am a racist holds little water as well.

I believe you are calling me a racist so to diminish my argument against you. I take accusations of racism directed at me very seriously, most especially when they come from people of color; I remain accountable for my words and actions and I also remain open to feedback.

I do not believe my tweet about you being “openly for sale” was in any way racially inappropriate given that you are a person who has been compensated to work on political campaigns: my words were in no way making reference to your skin color but were rather illuminating a pattern of your displayed behavior, the pattern of working on campaigns and working for politicians.

Because you work for politicians: you are paid by politicians to do work for them.

Your insinuation that my “openly for sale” statement is an expression of my white privilege to sell your black body to the highest bidder as a transaction of bought human flesh is thus off base and appears like an attempt to smear me.

Because my tweet that you are “openly for sale” is my declaration that you work for politicians, nothing more. Because you are openly for sale for politicians.

Because you work for politicians.

The tweet you show in your video (but, oddly, do not link) states you “[would] do it again,” declaring your future aid of an “underserved” pol as a “no-brainer.”

You work for politicians. That is what I mean by “openly for sale.”

My tweet was in direct reference to you yourself sharing you would welcome such work (“do it again”) from politicians: because you work for politicians. I tweeted you were “openly for sale” for that. Because you are: you work for politicians.

Not because I am white and you are black.

But because you work for politicians.

That’s what this all comes down to.

And Mr. Lambert, I appreciate what it looks like for me as a white woman to come at you, a Black Caribbean immigrant, with accusations flying out of my white mouth. I make no accusations lightly. I certainly didn’t last summer when I caught you in that lie in my pinned tweet.

I never accused you of videotaping anyone. I accused you of having knowledge that these tapes exist and that videotape surveillance is a regular practice of the Queens Machine and the minions who support it.

I accuse you of having that knowledge. And you having that knowledge does seem evident in that pinned thread, despite your cries against it. I essentially live-tweeted my reaction to you as it happened, as I observed you, as I saw this situation play out right in front of my eyes: that is the real meat of my pinned tweet. It is me witnessing you in real time as you lie and my physical reaction to you lying.

That is why I never changed my pinned tweet.

I was stunned by your dishonesty when I first beheld it. You had always been pompous and condescending but especially because you made Christian references, I did not think you were a liar; I just had you pegged as a guy who thinks he’s better than everyone else.

But witnessing you blatantly lie took my breath away.

I took a week off Twitter: I pinned our conversation to my profile, allowing it to flap in the wind.

It remains there to this day, almost a year later, for a reason. I will change my pinned tweet when there is finally some progress in the breaking up all the mechanisms which allow the Queens Machine to run. I will change it when some transparency directly shines on the activities which I witnessed with my own eyes and described in that discourse.

And I find even more dishonesty in your video diary: you attempt to dismiss what has already been defined as a solid connection with both Tyquana Rivers and Kyle Christopher. Mr. Christopher himself has publicly described you as his “biz partner and mentor” and Mrs. Rivers as his boss. You have socialized with Mr. Christopher, posting photos of you having drinks at one of your homes: why are you downplaying what has already been a clearly defined personal and professional rapport? You don’t even mention Mr. Christopher by name in your video, as if he’s some rando I just pulled into the fray. But Mr. Christopher is no rando: in fact, he’s one of the only people to respond to that very thread. You can deny it all you want but the two of you are firmly connected: it looks strange that you now claim there is no significant connection between you two.

In fact, both you and Mr. Christopher held the exact same role and fee for Joe Lentol’s campaign: social media consultant for $2500 a month. It weakens your credibility when you try to suggest such a robust bond does not exist between you and Mr. Christopher when it clearly does.

And, Mr. Lambert, you are right, I bet no one reads what I blog about. But in case they do, and even if you do, I stand by my actions, I stand by my work and I stand by my witnessing of you.

When we met briefly in November 2019 at the Forest Hills Queens Borough President debate forum, I told you that you were acting exactly as how I suspected you would have acted with me: I knew how you would be with me and I told you as much to your face.

During our discourse, you had such trouble making eye contact that I had to ask you to please look me in the eye because you spoke off to the side, as if to an nonexistent audience, perhaps so to soothe yourself. You monologued about Coro training: you wouldn’t look at me yet you reprimanded me, via your imaginary audience, for not having taken a course you took.

You treated me as you always had, like I was a cartoon character, a person not worthy of any respect.

You said in a tweet later that day that you wanted to still meet with me but then your video diary you outright claim I turned “caustic and nasty” immediately after I introduced myself to you and that there were witnesses.

Sir, I had friends there, too and I never became caustic and nasty with you.

In fact we spoke for about four minutes or so; you confronted me, fairly, about my having blocked you and I explained that I had to protect my account. You also brought up my pinned tweet. I didn’t bring it up: you did. Whereupon I looked you in the eye and told you that I suspected you had knowledge of videotaped surveillance.

Because you do.

You, sir, then stuck out your hand for mine and wished me a brisk goodbye. Even as you shook my hand, you never met my eye. You then turned and ran away from me.

Curiously though, you approached me for a second goodbye after I had walked out from the middle of the row where you and I had been talking and into the aisle so I could exit: there you were again. And it was a pleasant second goodbye; although I had been bracing myself for a famous Michael Lambert “last word,” you merely said it was nice to meet me, a sentiment I easily returned.

Mr. Lambert, our interaction was perfectly pleasant: I was never caustic or nasty and neither were you.

You struggled to make eye contact. I think meeting me threw you a little but neither of us ever got caustic or nasty. Your witnesses saw that and my witnesses saw that too.

There is no reason for you to lie about this. Why on earth would you then want to have a meal with someone who was “caustic and nasty?” Give me a break, Mr. Lambert: don’t lie about the one meeting we had, the one which I made happen because I went to introduce myself to you. Please do not misrepresent how that conversation happened: I remember it so well.

You have always treated me like that, from over a year ago, when you and I first started interacting over Amazon: you are pro-Amazon and I am anti-Amazon and had stood up to HQ2. We stood on opposite sides of the 2019 Queens District Attorney race: you volunteered for Melinda Katz’s campaign while I canvassed for Tiffany Cabán.

You always laughed at me, mocked me, dismissed me, even blew me off when I suggested we meet. You preferred instead to fight all day long on Twitter, much to my chagrin and disappointment. Although I presently call you a whackadoodle with a personality disorder, back then I was very respectful to you, no matter how mocking and condescending you were. Even in my pinned tweet, as I accuse you of not being honest, I repeatedly call you “sir,” because I appreciate how audacious it is for me to make such an allegation, as a white female against a Black man.

That is why I called you “sir.” That is why I always took what you dished out to me, Mr. Lambert, whether it was a six-hour bad faith conversation of you defending Amazon as an equal opportunity employer or you snickering at me for daring to argue with you.

I took it.

Back then, during the summer of 2019, I gave you way more respect than you ever gave me.

Being respectful to you at that point wasn’t hard for me to do: it was time-consuming for sure, but it was easy. It was the right thing for me to do and it was the appropriate response for me to take with you. It also showed my character with you: it showed my patience and respect for you even when I argued with you.

As trying as you could be, I still always thought of the bigger picture and how our arguments were an opportunity for me to continue to share research and data; they were also an opportunity to show my attempts at diplomacy and my displays of deference.

I believe my words and actions speak for themselves.

I believe your words and actions speak for themselves, too. And I do not find you credible with your latest accusation. I do not believe you have proven me to be either a racist or a liar.

I believe you are in fact lessening your credibility with your indictments against me and I remain here to defend myself as we all move forward.

But, sir, #livejournalgate is going nowhere, nor is my pinned tweet, nor is the scrutiny which follows you, which you both deserve and have earned.

And I ask you again, Michael Lambert: what specifically have I lied about?