Category: Local Politics

There’s nothing in the world worse than an ultra right-winger who adopts the language of civil rights because he feels the system has wronged him. But Friday’s arrest of Gia Arnold, one time right-wing challenger for what was then Republican George Maziarz’s Senate seat, is emblematic of the hilarity of the dominant Palinist wing of western New York’s tea party scene.

That’s the same brain trust that pushed centrist Republican Mark Grisanti out of office in favor of Kevin Stocker, only to find themselves in a 3-way race, handing the race to current Democratic State Senator Marc Panepinto. Their tactics are bad and their strategy worse.

In 2014, the Palinists’ bête noire was State Senator George Maziarz. The reasons why they hated him were vague and poorly defined, but their feelings were so strong they even accused him of the worst thing their minds could concoct: being gay. Ever the adolescents, they eschewed establishment candidate Rob Ortt in favor of Gia Arnold, who played them like a fiddle.

Gia Arnold is very young – she’s 26 now – and attractive. She was married and co-owned a business with her husband, and they had three kids. She loved the 2nd Amendment, hated the NY SAFE Act, but was otherwise bereft of serious thought or policy. Her personal story was the centerpiece of her appeal. That, and her pandering to the SCOPE and Oathkeepers crowd. She announced in February 2014, and by March she had wrapped up this endorsement:

That’s right-wing darling Carl Paladino and his driver/perennial candidate Rus Thompson clasping hands with Mrs. Arnold.

Western New York’s ammosexual community embraced her, and she them. The image that accompanies this piece depicts how she showed up to campaign at an event in the summer of 2014. But in mid-August 2014, she abruptly dropped out of the Senate race because her marriage had failed, she had been having an affair for the preceding few months, and arglebargle. She went on WBEN, whose afternoon host begged her to reconsider.

So, she did.

Displaying the sort of level-headed judgment she would presumably bring to the Senate, on that Friday, she un-dropped out of the race. Not surprisingly, WNY’s youngest political vacillator lost the (R) primary to Ortt by an epic margin, and didn’t have enough valid signatures to access the Libertarian Party line in November. She was taken to court over the validity of petition signatures that evidently came from outside the district. She was rather un-gracious in defeat, telling her mostly middle-aged male acolytes,

If you happen to have a Rob Ortt for State Senate sign in your yard this election cycle, you are a fool to support the elite establishment that counts on your ignorance and apathy in order to continue to control our elections, state and national governments. VOTE ANTI – ESTABLISHMENT this year. Do your research.

She ended up endorsing the Democrat. The whole thing was a typically tea party Rus Thompson three-ring circus.

Fast-forward to February 2016, and Gia Arnold is now under arrest, and this microaggression has triggered the tea party fanboys. The Buffalo News reports,

She was arrested earlier this week with an 18-year-old Niagara Falls resident on felony charges of criminal possession of a loaded rifle and handgun along with a combat knife that were found in the front section of her vehicle, according to Niagara Falls Police Capt. Michael Trane.

Arnold and Halim Johnson were arrested Wednesday night and offered no explanation for why they had the weapons. A black ski mask was also found in the Pontiac Vibe, police said.

The vehicle was stopped at 10:30 p.m. by Officers Tommie Caldwell and Marsha Gee, members of the department’s Roving Anti-Crime Unit, after they noticed Johnson failed to use a turn signal at the intersection of Haeberle Avenue and 15th Street, Trane said.

As those officers were conducting a records check, a second anti-crime unit arrived and Arnold was asked to step out of the vehicle by Officer Michael Tarnowski, who spotted a loaded magazine clip on her passenger seat.

“Before she got out, she had pushed her coat over the rifle, which was wedged between her seat and the door jam, trying to hide the rifle,” Trane said. “Tarnowski immediately placed her in handcuffs. Caldwell then had Johnson step out of the vehicle and Caldwell spotted a handgun with a red bandana around its grip in the driver’s side door cup holder.”

It’s not every day you have a former tea party politician caught in a car in the Falls with an 18 year-old driving her car, an AR-15, a ski mask, a handgun, and a KA-BAR combat knife. As you’d expect, the anti-SAFE Act tea party crowd perceives this all to be a massive civil rights violation. They’ve even set up a page on a site begging for donations.

On Feb 10th Gia Arnold and her boyfriend became victims of the NYS (UN)Safe Act and racial profiling. We are asking all patriots to Rally behind her and help her get out of this horrid mess. Think about this, you get pulled over for not using a turn signal and it turns into a felony charge because you invoked your constitutional right to remain silent.

Halim Johnson is Gia Arnold’s boyfriend, according to this post. A 26 year-old mother of three is dating an 18 year old from the Falls?

When Gia said they would no longer answer questions (a right protected by the Constitution) she was arrested for “Obstructing the duty of a Government Official” (sound like Oregon anyone?). Following her arrest her vehicle was searched for these drugs they were so sure they had. No drugs were found. But a Non-Compliant rifle under the NY (UN)Safe Act was found….

…On the way to the jail the officers told her that they were pulled over for “not using the turn signal in time.” This is obviously a load of crap they racially profiled her boyfriend and made up the charge after the fact. “He’s black he must have drugs.”

We are asking all patriots to Rally behind her and help her get out of this horrid mess. Think about this, you get pulled over for not using a turn signal and it turns into a felony charge because you invoked your constitutional right to remain silent.

Racial profiling! Like I said, the worst lefty is a wronged tea partier. All of a sudden the cops are monsters and racial profiling is a thing, because their darling is under arrest. What I recall is this same crowd of so-called “patriots” sharing pictures of Trayvon Martin blowing smoke out of his mouth and posing provocatively on his Facebook page, to prove he was a thug and deserved to die.

Well, the gentleman dating Gia Arnold also has a Facebook page. Here’s the happy couple:

But why would the cops “racially profile” him, and assume he’s a drug dealer?

Drugs? Perish the thought.

I don’t think this is Kale:

Interesting pose and use of emojis:

To be clear, recreational marijuana should be legal in New York State, but dealing drugs, and pretending to aim a handgun when posing for the camera under emojis spelling out the word, “gang” isn’t a good luck for the barely legal boyfriend of a tea party darling. The fundraiser must be working, because while Ms. Arnold has bonded out, Mr. Johnson remains incarcerated. This raises the question of how his Facebook profile picture and relationship status were changed while he remains behind bars. Indeed, Mr. Johnson’s high school-age friends seem upset and ready to fight Ms. Arnold. The spectacle, however, of the tea party coming to the aid and defense of Ms. Arnold and her paramour is interesting, but not as interesting as this:

But some of Arnold’s supporters during her failed senate campaign were not as quick to back her up on Friday. Tea Party activist Rus Thompson said he was concerned for Arnold but didn’t want to make any comment about the situation until he had all the details about what happened.

Meanwhile, former gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who attended Arnold’s announcement when she entered the senate race in 2014, had even less to say. When called for comment, he asked who Arnold was.

Rus Thompson taking what might be his first “wait and see” position in history, and Carl Paladino denying knowledge of the candidate with whom he clasped hands and posed just two short years ago. This is a perfect coda to the Gia Arnold for Senate clown car.

A fundamental, structural pointlessness. The County Legislature isn’t a necessity. County government as an entity generally exists to carry out state laws and policies. Of its $1.1 billion budget, the legislature has discretion over how about 1/10th of it gets spent. We are lucky enough to have a reasonably competent county government that carries out the policies, programs, and standard of living that Albany and residents demand. We’re not cutting funding for things like libraries, culturals, and rat control anymore. We never should have, in the first place.

This week, the County Legislature spent many hours and taxpayer money to debate when bars should close. This is not something for which the community is clamoring; a 2:00 AM call time isn’t an issue. This was a manufactured nontroversy pulled out of the clear, blue sky by big-time developers of downtown housing. The people pushing this want to sanitize gritty city living for prospective buyers and tenants. All that talk about safety and families and domestic violence are just fronts; smokescreens. More troubling is that county government wasted time holding a lengthy public hearing about this pointless nonsense, and then took it up at its Thursday session, only to see it fail 7 – 3, with one abstention.

Powerful developer-donors hijacked the legislative agenda to push a pet project at the expense of Buffalo’s vibrant, growing hospitality industry.

It’s hard enough out here for business, the last thing we need is developers making it worse for others.

The legislature’s only mandate is to approve, reject, or make changes to the executive’s proposed budget.  Everything else is surplusage. During the dark Collins years, the legislature admirably added back Collins’ cuts to funding for programs and culturals that contribute to everyone’s quality of life. It’s a necessary check on reckless executive leadership. But is there another way to accomplish this? A cheaper, less political way? How about an appointed part-time budget commission? What about the control board, which still exists, and will exist for a longer period of time than it needed to, due to borrowing that it carried out at Collins’ insistence?

The spectacle of 11 elected, paid officials (plus staff and counsel) spending hours considering something as idiotic as restricting bar times is an insult to Erie County residents. There’s got to be a better way.

New York is overweight with governments and taxing districts. We’ve known this for a while, yet we don’t do anything about it. Efforts to abolish village governments routinely fail, underscoring that people enjoy the rhetoric of less government, but don’t really want it in practice. Right now, there is an effort underway to merge Onondaga County and city of Syracuse operations. We’ve had this debate, too. It always fails for a variety of reasons, not the least of which include prejudice and the self-interest of elected officials and their personnel.

If we want business and industry to thrive in this region, we need to make it easier for them to open and operate. Taxes, fees, red tape, and regulations are all too high and too much. We should become a national model for 21st century streamlining of government, and providing a predictable, easy-to-follow process for businesses to start up and stay open. No one’s doing that. No one’s even talking about it. Can’t we recruit some of these new hospitality companies and start-ups to head up a commission to recommend changes and modernization of our laws and regulations?

Instead, our elected county legislature is busy spending time on killing hospitality and jobs on behalf of short-sighted developers of high-end apartments.

Get with it, people. It’s not 1960 anymore.

Tuesday night the Erie County Legislature held a public hearing on the pressing issue of rolling back bar closing times from 4 AM to 2 AM.  It was a packed meeting, and people passionate about the issue spoke both for and against the proposal, which appears to have little support in the legislature. Majority leader Joseph Lorigo (C – W. Seneca) live-tweeted the whole thing, (I consolidated the whole timeline here), and added in some commentary that underscored his opposition to the move.

The popular themes among the speakers included, “quality of life”, “nothing good ever happens after 2am”, “layoffs”, and “interference with private business”. I tried to boil it down to emojis, as a “shorter” post, as I’m wont to do.

Developer and restaurateur Mark Croce’s energetic appearance on WBEN’s morning news the following day sounded belligerent and odd, but his nemesis  – elected public official and member of the Buffalo Board of Education Carl Paladino – made some absolutely ludicrous arguments. Paladino is also on the board of downtown’s Buffalo Place improvement district and was, until 2014, a director on the board of the developer-run Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps. I love to hear these old, rich men hate each other.

Paladino’s remarks echoed what he wrote a few weeks ago, arguing in favor of a 2AM closing time, stating,

In Toronto bars close at 1:00  AM. We know it as a clean and wonderful place to visit with a vibrant and thriving bar and restaurant scene.  People spend the same number of hours recreating but just go out and come home earlier and get up earlier the next day.  They have learned how to make everyday count in their lives. Do we think of New York City, New Orleans and Las Vegas the same way?

No. Toronto bars close at 2 AM. Toronto also has a thriving after-hours club scene. Toronto’s tourism agency promotes this fact on its website. In fact, there is a movement to extend Toronto’s closing time to 4 AM. The argument goes, “To be a world-class city, Toronto needs world-class nightlife.“

I don’t understand the juxtaposition of Toronto versus New York, New Orleans, and Las Vegas. Toronto is, I guess, “cleaner” than its American counterparts? All three of the American cities Paladino cites enjoy “vibrant and thriving bar and restaurant” scenes, and are among the most popular tourist destinations in the country, meaning someone finds them “wonderful” if not “clean”. Is he saying that New Yorkers and New Orleanians don’t “make everyday count in their lives”? Paladino’s argument here is invalid and false.

However, if a tea party guy perceives our social democratic neighbor’s largest city as better than America’s own party cities, then perhaps Paladino is “feeling the Bern”. 

Does the greed driven parasite preying on our community, Mark Croce, want the hours moved back?  No.

Do the mayor, the Common Council or County Executive want the hours moved back?  We don’t know.

How does the community feel?  One professional poll shows 69% of the community wants the rollback.

Note the Croce name-check. How is Croce a “greed driven parasite preying on our community” any more or less than any other downtown developer? The argument in Toronto to extend closing time to 4AM goes like this, “The petition leans on the idea of Toronto’s (and Ontario’s and Canada’s) perceived nanny state tactics. “Adults should be treated like adults,” reads the website. “Torontonians of or above legal drinking age should be free to enjoy their libation later into the night.”

Nanny state. Treating adults like adults. I thought conservatives and Republicans hated nanny state New York?

In the County Legislature, 4 of the 11, namely Lorigo, Rath, Dixon and Burke say absolutely not.  Morton and Mills said they are a firm yes and the others are willing to listen to the citizens and professionals at a public hearing before committing.  Do our legislators have the political courage to implement a rollback?

In what way is this a political issue? Morton and Mills are just as Republican as Rath. Dixon is a registered Independent, and Lorigo is a registered Conservative, and both caucus with the Republicans. South Buffalo’s Pat Burke is the only Democrat whose name Paladino deigns to check. He must like Burke, and apart from giving a number, can’t even be bothered to acknowledge the existence of the remaining Democrats – people who conservatives might otherwise expect to support expansion of New York’s own “nanny state”. They include women who represent Erie County’s poorest and most vulnerable communities. This includes the people who represent the area’s largest concentrations of minority residents; African-Americans, Latinos, immigrants, and refugees.

What does Paladino’s omission of Barbara Miller-Williams, Betty Jean Grant, Peter Savage – not to mention Kevin Hardwick – tell us? What conclusions do you draw?

Carl “temperance” Paladino is a “repeal the SAFE Act” guy. He believes, among other things, that restrictions on gun ownership won’t address the problem of gun violence. Sort of like how drinking restrictions won’t address the problem of alcohol consumption and related societal ills?

The representative business leadership group, Buffalo Place, Inc., passed a resolution favoring the rollback as a necessary intrusion on the few bar business owners who disagree because it so obviously a major part of the cultural problem that has ripped at the family fabric, caused unimaginable societal pain and virtually destroyed the normal maturing process of so many young people.

Whoa, there. Is it a “political” issue, or is it a societal/morality issue? Is this about party politics or the “maturing process” of 21 year-olds? Remember: the nanny state dictates that you’re not even allowed to drink legally until you’re 21 years of age.  No other western Democracy in the world has such a high drinking age, and we still treat alcohol and sex like we did when people walked around dirt roads with buckles on their hats.

The other countries that limit alcohol to people 21 and over include, Kazakhstan, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, United Arab Emirates, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Solomon Islands, and India.

In fact, binge drinking has become a much larger problem domestically since the mid-1980s change from 18 to 21. Prohibiting something doesn’t make it go away. It only criminalizes otherwise normal behavior:  “When it is legal for an 18-year-old to drive, marry or serve in the military but illegal for him or her to drink a beer, the illogic of the situation is patent. As a result, the overwhelming response of young people has been, not compliance, but contempt for the law. By outlawing moderate use of alcohol in appropriate social contexts and with adult oversight, we have driven more drinking underground, where it has taken the very dangerous form of ‘pre-gaming.’ The ‘under-age’ drinker, no longer permitted the occasional beer during a dance party, is now more likely to chug high-octane alcohol in dangerous quantities before heading off to that party. As a result, alcohol use has become more, not less, dangerous.”

Law enforcement says that nothing good happens after 2:00AM. Parents, educators and anyone with common sense recognize this as truth or learned it from experience.  Except for Mark Croce and a few other quick buck, in and out of business, bar owners, responsible bar and restaurant owners will say that after 2:00AM they deal with loser drunks and drug addicts preying on good young people who have told their parents that all of their friends are out so they must be out.  Is it good for a young person to be conditioned to getting out of bed at 3:00 in the afternoon on weekends?  Does it help the maturing process, the desire to achieve.

Is it a cause of domestic distress or violence.  Is it a breeding ground for the incessant drug culture?

What an intellectually lazy slippery slope argument. Going out drinking with your friends as a gateway to “drug culture” is so facile. You’re more likely to drunkenly stumble into Jim’s Steakout for a fix of fried meat and carbohydrates than to stick a needle in your arm. Rolling back closing times isn’t going to address any of this. It’s not going to end “domestic distress or violence”, nor will it affect the “drug culture”.

Again – you can’t drink legally until you’re 21 years old. You become an adult at the age of 18 for almost everything else, including signing contracts and going into the military  – dying for your country. If you’re 21 and you go out drinking until 3AM, under what circumstances are you discussing that fact with your parents, exactly? Who are these 21 year-olds in Buffalo still living at home with mom and dad, discussing their comings and goings and worrying about the “maturing process”?

I detect that there is a personal angle to all this for Mr. Paladino – an issue he won’t confront head-on.

We have all witnessed or suffered the horrible pain inflicted on so many families in our community by the current opiate drug epidemic not only in Buffalo, but throughout America.  In 2015 in Erie County, over 200 people died as a result of heroin overdose. Over 600 more were saved by police with Narcan. Others, unable to kick the habit or to deal with the guilt created by the pain they brought their families, committed suicide.  Others have stolen all the family valuables to support their habit or cost their parents their savings spent on rehab.  The scourge has ruined the lives and potential of so many people.

Are you aware of a single piece of evidence to link a 4AM bar closing time (versus a 2AM bar closing time) to the current heroin epidemic? I’m not.

Connect the dots.  Isn’t it better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.  Rolling back the bar closing time will not solve the drug problem but it will bring awareness and jump start an effort to address the culture that is so destructive to our community.

Non-sequiturs everywhere. Here you have a tea party conservative advocating for stricter nanny state regulations on the hospitality industry in Buffalo. I don’t care either way what they do because it doesn’t affect me, but to see this creep spread lies and silly, hypocritical moral arguments about heroin and family values is simply ridiculous.

Carl Paladino has no standing whatsoever to lecture the community on morality. Something about glass houses and rocks comes to mind.

If you really want to discuss people’s behavior, the quality of life, community standards, and how late-night drinking is a gateway to drugs and immorality, then consider Paladino’s own behavior:

Presumably, an earlier call time might also protect Buffalo females from elderly male bar patrons demanding to see their “pussy”, or calling them a “fucking dyke”.

You might be thinking, “RINO?!” Carl Paladino, a Republican in name only? Sure, and that’s not me saying that, it’s the Investigative Post, which backed up that allegation with proof of Paladino’s continued campaign contributions to Democrats, when convenient for him; not unlike his vocal support of Democrat Sheila Meegan in the West Seneca Supervisor’s race this past November. (Notice he never mentions her political affiliation?)

So it comes as a hilarious end-of-year punctuation mark that Paladino – the new chairman of Trump for NY – this week emailed this to his adoring followers:

You see, there are few things that Paladino hates more than Democrats.

Well, some Democrats; the Democrats who aren’t in a position to help him personally or professionally, that is.

So, let’s make fun of this list of Paladino’s.

#10.  I vote Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my German Shepherd.

Carl Paladino believes in traditional marriage of a man, a woman, and some chick on the side. A guy with a kid from an extramarital affair opining on the sanctity of marriage…sorry, the guy who thought it funny to send around a pornographic video featuring a horse having anal sex with a woman to compeletion is opining on the sanctity of marriage and joking about marrying an animal. This is self-parody.

#9.  I vote Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene, but the government taxing the same gallon at 15% isn’t.

Gas taxes go to pay for the roads and infrastructure on which this person’s personal and business interests rely. It’s also relevant to point out here that the federal government subsidizes oil and gas exploration and exploitation through tax breaks that cost us $21 billion over ten years. The Democrats tried to repeal that giveaway, only to be stymied by Republicans like Paladino. Through the past decade of sky-high crude oil and gas prices, oil companies have been making out like bandits. The big loser was the American consumer, who for some time paid well over $4.00/gallon. Gas prices now are closer to $2.00/gallon, but it takes a special mindset to defend the poor, beleagured oil companies. A sick mindset.

#8.  I vote Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

Oh, boo hoo. Local multimillionaire whining about paying taxes on his income so that he can, e.g., fund all those wars he wants. I wish I had the problem of paying taxes on my millions of dollars of income. #RichLivesMatter.

#7.  I vote Democrat because Freedom of Speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

“Freedom of speech”, says the guy who threatened to “take out” a reporter.

#6.  I vote Democrat because I’m way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.  I am also thankful that we have a 911 service that gets police to your home in order to identify your body after a home invasion.

I’m sure the Buffalo Police are super-pleased with that ringing endorsement. Suffice it to say that if that’s your mindset, being in a perpetual state of fear and siege is a lousy way to live.

#5.  I vote Democrat because I’m not concerned about millions of babies being aborted so long as we keep all death row inmates alive and comfy.

That conveniently underscores how “pro life” people aren’t exactly pro life. Paladino fashions himself a Catholic. I’m pretty sure the Pope has something to say about the death penalty. And adultery. And horse porn. And hypocrisy.

#4.  I vote Democrat because I think illegal aliens have a right to free health care, education, and Social Security benefits, and we should take away Social Security from those who paid into it.

That’s a laugh, considering Carl’s GOP has been at forefront of pushing schemes to privatize Social Security and voucherizing Medicare.

#3. I vote Democrat because I believe that businesses should not be allowed to make profits for themselves.  They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as the Democrat Party sees it.

That’s just clownish nonsense. Is he claiming that Democrats cause Ellicott Development’s profits to be taxed at 100%? When does Jeremy Zellner decide how to spend all of that money?

#2.  I vote Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.

Not clear on which “fringe kooks” he’s talking about, but he must mean liberal judges like John Roberts. Seriously, someone should press him on “fringe kooks”. I’ll bet the answer is delicious.

… And, the #1 reason I vote Democrat is because I think it’s better to pay $billions$ for oil to people who hate us, but not drill our own because it might upset some endangered beetle, gopher, or fish here in America. We don’t care about the beetles, gophers, or fish in those other countries.

Remember how we waged an aggressive war of choice against Iraq under false and manufactured pretenses? Remember how we would be greeted as liberators, and how the war would pay for itself through oil revenues? All of it was lies, and that’s the sort of agenda Carl Paladino thinks makes great sense for the American people – spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on unnecessary war and occupation rather than helping out people and businesses here at home. Oil, by the way, now trades at $38/barrel. Under Democratic President Obama, increased fuel efficiency measures paired with growing domestic oil production has brought us to a point where we are now poised to become a net exporter of oil products for the first time since the 1950s.

So, Paladino is satisfied with promoting discredited and outdated lies in order to inflame his base. He’s like a NSFW Fox News Channel.

Are your stockings still hung by the chimney with care? Preetsmas isn’t over. Here’s a recap of what we did so far:

Today comes news that two new liens have been filed with the Erie County Clerk’s office against G. Stephen Pigeon, the political dirty trickster and former chairman of the Erie County Democratic Committee.

On December 8th, the IRS filed a federal tax lien of over $65,800.

Pigeon 12/2015 Federal Tax Lien

On December 22nd, the Admiral’s Walk condominium association filed a lien against Pigeon for $4,500 in unpaid condominium fees.

Pigeon Condo Lien 12/2015

One of the biggest Preetsmas mysteries has involved Pigeon’s ability to finance the massive cash outlays he supposedly made to and for candidates and committees. On the 5th day of Preetsmas (late June 2015), we revealed that Pigeon had over $200,000 in liens asserted against him at that time, (March 2012 federal tax lien for $26,500; March 2014 federal tax lien for $118,600; June 2, 2015 federal tax lien for $126,200), so we can add about $70,000 to that figure. You may also recall that Pigeon has previously been caught in apparent arrears on his condominium fees and/or assessments, as he and tanning mogul Dan Humiston seemed to swap ownership and/or possession of two separate units at Admiral’s Walk.

Dedicated readers will recall that in February 2015, Pigeon used the Buffalo News’ Bob McCarthy for propaganda purposes, asserting that he had more than enough liquid funds to play his typical games. He showed up with what he said were tax forms that purported to show that he had enough income to shell out six figures to obscure small-potatoes political committees.

Pigeon opened his tax returns from the past several years to inspection at The News’ request in an effort to quell speculation that his contributions to the Progressive Caucus stemmed from anywhere but his own bank account. His records over the past three years indicate a mid-six-figure income, which he says proves his ability to spare $100,000 even for a fund supporting relatively low-level candidates.

He can afford big donations to a political cause the same way others could contribute to a church, he said, especially because he has no wife or children to support, takes few vacations, has no real hobbies and lives a non-extravagant lifestyle.

“It sounds odd, but when you look at how I live and how much I make, it really isn’t,” he said.

He didn’t reveal his existing tax liens at the time, however.

These new liens are post-raid – the condo fees go back as far as June 2015 – and underscore the difficulty in which Mr. Pigeon finds himself. One may also extrapolate from the IRS lien that Mr. Pigeon’s 2014 gross income was high enough to result in a $65,000 tax liability.