The Curiousness of Selective Preservationist Outrage

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Earlier this year, Donn Esmonde applauded the fact that Howard Zemsky and Larkin Development had retained the services of preservationist Tim Tielman, and that the whole project served as a model for how development could work hand-in-hand with preservation.  My takeaway, however, was that Tielman’s involvement in that project amounted to Zemsky and Larkin paying Tielman off; essentially, paying protection money. As with Canalside’s retention of Fred Kent’s “placemaking” sideshow in order to placate an irascibly relentless Mark Goldman, what better way to silence your litigious critics than to co-opt them? 

Andrew Kulyk in the comments section of my post essentially laid out the theory in so many words, even though I didn’t get many other takers.  And without a test, a theory is just a theory, right?  

My theory may be tested this week. As it happens, a subsidiary of Larkin Development is applying to Buffalo’s preservation board for permission to demolish an entire row of houses on Seneca Street in the Larkin District on what appear, on their face, to be flimsy grounds.  More details on that below.

Buffalo without its relentless preservation and planning conflicts would be a better Buffalo; however, some developers have figured out ways to ingratiate themselves or join with the preservationist near-west side elites, and from that derive a real benefit.  For example, Buffalo Rising writers and commenters are not shy about criticizing developers for poor design; e.g.,  inveighing against Dry-Vit (modern stucco) facades.  Yet Karl Frizlen puts bland, Dry-Vit-heavy buildings on Elmwood and there’s nary a peep. Is it a coincidence that Frizlen also happens to be a favorite with that audience, having founded the Elmwood-Bidwell Farmers Market, and collaborating with Buffalo Rising founder Newell Nussbaumer?

And aren’t Buffalo’s preservationist/New-Millennium types supposed to like businesses on Elmwood to be 2 stories or more?  They do, except when the owner of the Acropolis personally offends them by not asking their permission first before trying to expand to a second floor, and even co-opts their favorite tactic of appealing to blogs and social media.  The preservationist/planning elites came down on Pauly and Acropolis with downright viciousness. 

Then there’s developer Sam Savarino, who somehow has managed to get even individuals and blogs that normally display their preservationist street cred like badges of honor on his side, even as he plans to knock down buildings, or takes on the Elmwood Village in a cat fight over a charter school.  Then again, Buffalo Rising and its leadership were charter tenants at his Cobblestone District development; could that be the reason?

It all suggests that perhaps BNMC might have actually had some success with its plan to begin demolishing the Trico building this year, if only their leadership had hired a preservationist as a “consultant”. Sort of like how Tony Soprano was a consultant to the waste management industry. 

But Howard Zemsky may be far and away the savviest of all in this regard.  No one could begrudge a businessman – especially a developer – seeking to learn everything about how business “really” gets done in his city. He goes with what works, and avoids what doesn’t.  With that said, look what Zemsky has managed to do: 

In the broadest terms, he’s used old buildings to, essence, create a suburban office park in the city, right off an expressway, set far apart from the downtown core, and surrounded it with a sea of free surface parking and some landscaping, and he’s given people there something to do other than work, making it superficially attractive and rendering trips downtown for lunch moot. His biggest cheerleaders are the very people who are the most rabid enemies of expressways, suburban office parks, surface parking, free parking, etc.  The one thing the Preservationist/Hipster/New Millennium Group axis especially hates about suburban office parks is that they drain tenants away from historic downtowns.  Although Larkin has drawn some tenants in from outside the city, some of the most prominent ones moved out there from downtown.  But no worries; if you read the recent Buffalo Building Reuse Plan, overseen by the Buffalo Niagara Partnership at Mayor Brown’s behest to look at strategies to combat an expected glut of vacant office space downtown, it simply redefines downtown to include the Larkin District, despite its separation from it by over a half mile of post-industrial wasteland. 

At least Larkin has a free London cab service for tenants to use. 

And what else?  To do historic research for him, Zemsky hired a prominent preservationist who also happens to be one of City Hall’s top green code planners.  To design Larkin Square – the centerpiece of the district – he turned to Tim Tielman, who, as far as I can determine, hasn’t actually planned or designed a single other thing, anywhere, ever.  Despite that the Larkin District is home to several firms that do a combination of planning, preservation, and architecture.

To create a plan for the overall district, Zemsky several years ago turned to UB’s Urban Design Project, headed by Robert Shibley, an insider central to many planning and development issues in the city.  It turned out to be a good bet: Shibley is now dean of UB’s architecture and planning school, and played a major role in the development of the regional economic development plan that so far seems to be working to our benefit with the Cuomo administration.  Hey, if Howard Zemsky’s savvy insider knowledge about how to get things done in Buffalo, and his strategic creation of networks of allies can create positive results for the community, it’s no problem if  they also create positive results for him at the same time.

The icing on the cake: Zemsky and Larkin Development hosted a bash for preservationists last year.  Held in a reused church (the Montante Cultural Center at Canisius College), and promoted by Buffalo Rising, several major figures in the preservation community were invited to speak, and Tim Tielman’s plan for Larkin Square was unveiled.

But back to Seneca Street, and that overall plan for the Larkin District, and the threatened row of houses.

Not surprisingly, the plan talks a great deal about historic preservation, and even shows improvements to enhance Seneca Street where the houses are located.  Even a quick peek at the Google maps satellite imagery shows that the row of houses along both sides of Seneca in the Larkin District just west of Smith Street are the only set even remotely still intact from downtown all the way to the Seneca/Babcock neighborhood.  Isn’t “intact streetscape” something the planning and preservation community is supposed to value?  And what about real economic value, considering that just two years ago Larkin Development and their new anchor tenant First Niagara Bank invested millions of their own funds creating the very enhancements along Seneca Street that their master plan called for?

Doesn’t this place matter? 

Why would Larkin Development be looking to “de-enhance” this part of Seneca Street, which they recently invested in enhancing based on their own master plan, by creating a largely vacant block?  Even more pertinent to this theory, why are they proposing these demolitions in what seems to be a ham-handed way such that it looks sketchy to even a non-preservationist?  Could that be because they are expecting essentially no opposition from a preservation board they see as “friendly”? It’s the Buffalo version of wink, a nod, and some thick manila envelopes. 

As you can see for yourself from the November 1st (today’s) preservation board agenda, the demolition justification for the row of houses is copy/paste identical: “The foundation has shifted, and after years of water infiltration the floor has heaved. It has now been deemed unsafe.”  What, every single one?  Was there a localized earthquake there, or a flood?  According to City of Buffalo property records, these buildings are all owned by Mill Race Commons, LLC, a subsidiary of Larkin Development.  (COBIS).  Dan Reilly is Project Manager with CityView Construction Management (the construction arm affiliated with Larkin Development Group).

23. 866 Seneca St. ____________

DEMOLITION: The foundation has shifted, and after years of water infiltration the floor has heaved. It has now been deemed unsafe. Application received 10/25/2012. (Dan Reilly to appear @ 11/1/2012 03:00 PM 901 City Hall)

24. 860 Seneca St. ____________

DEMOLITION: The foundation has shifted, and after years of water infiltration the floor has heaved. It has now been deemed unsafe. Application received 10/25/2012. (Dan Reilly to appear @ 11/1/2012 03:00 PM 901 City Hall)

25. 870 Seneca St. ____________

DEMOLITION: The foundation has shifted, and after years of water infiltration the floor has heaved. It has now been deemed unsafe. Application received 10/25/2012. (Dan Reilly to appear @ 11/1/2012 03:00 PM 901 City Hall)

26. 872 Seneca St. ____________ 

DEMOLITION: The foundation has shifted, and after years of water infiltration the floor has heaved. It has now been deemed unsafe. Application received 10/25/2012. (Dan Reilly to appear @ 11/1/2012 03:00 PM 901 City Hall)

Beyond these four houses, according to preservation board meeting minutes, the same entity also received permission to demolish a non-residential building adjacent to these properties last spring, without even coming before the preservation board.  Instead, according to the preservation board minutes, Dan Reilly, Project Manager with CityView Construction Management (construction arm affiliated with Larkin Development Group) visited their offices, and (either on the spot, or subsequently – the minutes aren’t clear) the chair of the preservation board cleared the demolition.  Note that the chair of preservation board is also the board president of the Campaign for Greater Buffalo, of which Tim Tielman is executive director (Tim is also a preservation board member).  If this had actually come before the preservation board for discussion and decision, it would have been interesting to see if Tielman had recused himself, due to his consulting work with Larkin Development and the blatant conflict of interest.  That’s not to be overly suspicious of Tielman; as the preservation board members are mostly professionals who serve voluntarily, and Buffalo is a small town, it’s not unusual for volunteer members of all kinds of boards to be alert for potential conflicts of interested related to the work they or their firms are doing.

23. 840 Seneca St.

Mr. Dan Reilly appeared in our office on 4/12/12. Mr. Paul McDonnell – after reviewing this application deemed this building is non significant therefore the demolition was APPROVED. (Not an Historic Site / NO BLUE) (Dan Reilly to appeared @ 4/12/2012 09:30 AM 901 City Hall)

At the end of last year, the same entity apparently got no opposition (just “received & filed”) from the preservation board for the demolition of another building that, according to Google, until recently housed a sub shop on its ground floor.  Wait, I thought we were supposed to like street-level retail?

15. 763 Seneca St. RECEIVED & FILED

Demolish 2 1/2 story frame structure. (Dan Reilly to appear @ 12/15/2011 901 City Hall)

According to City property tax records (see below), Mill Race Commons, LLC, the entity that owns most of these now-vacant properties and perhaps-soon-to-be-vacant properties actually owns about 20 properties in and around the Larkin District.  Yet Mill Race Commons was announced as one of those projects that the preservationist elites gushed over, from the time it was first announced 6 years ago.  It had everything they would want: it borrowed styles from the industrial district nearby, and most of all didn’t (at least as it appeared at the time) involve demolishing any existing buildings.  In fact, its development would eliminate a bete noir: a massive surface parking lot.

Although it was thought the project would involve no demolitions, around the same time – using the Mill Race Commons LLC – Larkin Development went on a property-buying spree in the neighborhood, apparently buying properties for future development sites. In fact, in the half-dozen years since Mill Race Commons was announced (with construction to start when the building was 25% pre-leased, according to Larkin’s web site), the only activity Mill Race Commons, LLC, has engaged in seems to be purchasing other sites in and around the Larkin District.  And demolishing buildings.

SBL                             House Number       Street          Primary Owner

1222600001003000 696 EXCHANGE MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700005020000 840 EXCHANGE MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222600004008000 44 ROSEVILLE MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222600003006000 106 ROSEVILLE MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1118200008004000 696 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222600002005000 763 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700005003000 837 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700002006100 856 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700002011000 866 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700005011000 867 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700002010000 870 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700005012000 871 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700002009000 872 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700002008000 874 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700005014000 877 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700005015000 889 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700005016000 891 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700005017000 893 SENECA MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222700005018300 470 SMITH MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1118200006005000 716 SWAN MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222600003016100 159 VAN RENSSELAER MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

1222600003017000 161 VAN RENSSELAER MILL RACE COMMONS, LLC View Information

And all their subsequent interaction with the preservation board, none of it to discuss landmarking or reusing any of the buildings, suggests their intent to be demolishing all or most of them.  In fact, taken together with other activity on Seneca Street in the Larkin District, it appears there is something of a demolition spree underway there, going back at least a year and with little fanfare and no apparent outcry.

Last year, for example, Larkin Development demolished a connected set of old industrial buildings at 111 Hydraulic Street (at Seneca Street) on the grounds that they were too environmentally contaminated to reuse, to construct a new building custom-designed for a single tenant – a collections firm.  That may sound not unlike the situation with the Trico Building that has led to great outcry in the preservation community, yet engendered not a peep when carried out in the Larkin District.  That’s despite the fact that the replacement building includes a large amount of surface parking, and isn’t even built to the curb.  

This year, on a block across Seneca, a large former industrial plant that closed just last year, was demolished.  According to their Brownfield Cleanup Program application at page 24: 

At this time, future development plans have not been defined for the Site, and future land use cannot be determined. The site is currently zoned for light manufacturing.

In other words, a former industrial plant with some environmental contamination issues was razed (with State aid) to create a shovel-ready parcel for, essentially, real estate speculation in a suddenly hot location.  Yet did preservationists rush to its defense as they did the Trico building this spring?  Nary a peep, except for photos of the demolition and a historic photo in activist David Torke’s Flickr photostream.

This despite that the preservation board denied permission to demolish the building at the December 15, 2011 meeting.

So attempting to tie all this together: in the recent case of the Bernstone Cigar Store downtown, a relatively non-descript building drew a howl of outrage from the preservation community when it was demolished by its Canadian owner.  The outcry over the planned Savarino demolition of the decrepit and nondescript, unused Erie Freight House to build an apartment block has also been quite vocal. The cry to save the Trico Building has been deafening, and led to, as always, stasis. Not to mention, preservationists are forever birddogging their arch-nemesis, Carl Paladino. The three things the city desperately needs are uniformity, predictability, and smart parking. Not a soul is pushing for proactivity, relying instead on reaction and litigation.

Yet a recent demolition tear in the beloved Larkin District has drawn nary a peep from the preservationists.  Is that because of some perhaps inherent east-side/west-side bias in preservation?  Or are the preservationists just too cozy with the folks doing the demolitions there?  How the preservation board handles these requests on Thursday afternoon may shed some light on that question.

 

Swanick’s Money

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Who is funding Chuck Swanick’s Conservative Party run in the 60th State Senate District? We’re told that he’ll do nothing to affect marriage equality, but…

It’s somewhat heartening to know that – at least financially – Swanick finds very little support locally, except from the likes of erstwhile Democrat Joe Mesi. 

Curious Funding of the Chris Collins for Congress Campaign

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Here’s a document that congressional candidate for NY-27 Chris Collins (R-Clarence) filed with the FEC. It is his final pre-general election filing, and shows who gave him money, and how much. (Carl Paladino maxed out back in June. So did Robert Stevenson, and in October a whole bunch of PACs, local business figures, companies, and committees paid up. 

The federal limit for donations in a general election congressional campaign is $2,500. You’ll notice, however, that there are a lot of donations that exceed that amount, and are checked off with “primary” next to them, and are made well after the primary election ended. Collins can only use those donations over $2,500 marked “primary” to pay off his own loans to his campaign, (the primary election took place in June).  Is Collins informing his donors – some of them signing off on $5,000 checks – that their money is just going right back into his pocket?

It’s a tricky way for Collins to, essentially, double-fund his campaign – he loans the campaign money in the primary, raises primary funds to pay himself back, and then re-loan the money he raised in primary funds and paid himself back with the campaign to use in the general.  
 
Over the course of this election cycle, Collins has loaned his campaign $250,000 in the pre-primary filing, $400,000 in the October quarterly filing.  (Why is something called the “Western New York Victory Fund” located in a medical complex in Athens, GA? Also: 
 
 
 
All the while, Bob McCarthy can ooh and ah over Collins’ substantial war-chest. 
 

Collins

http://www.scribd.com/embeds/111444894/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-10rvpsh8rub5wn1edb6x

Romney’s American Value: Lying

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One of the reasons a local birther cited for choosing Mitt Romney over Barack Obama is that Romney is an American who holds American values with other Americans in America and has America’s best American interests at American heart. 

One of those American values must also involve lying. 

For instance, American Mitt Romney hopped on a Bloomberg story indicating that Jeep would return to the Chinese market. Jeep doesn’t make cars in China, and not a single car made in the People’s Republic of China is sold in the United States at this time.  That didn’t stop the Romney campaign from saying – with a straight face – that Obama is an outsourcer because Jeep will start building its cars in China. The report was that Jeep would resume exporting American-made Jeeps to China. From Chrysler: 

There are times when the reading of a newswire report generates storms originated by a biased or predisposed approach.

On Oct. 22, 2012, at 11:10 a.m. ET, the Bloomberg News report “Fiat Says Jeep® Output May Return to China as Demand Rises” stated “Chrysler currently builds all Jeep SUV models at plants in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio. Manley (President and CEO of the Jeep brand) referred to adding Jeep production sites rather than shifting output from North America to China.”

Despite clear and accurate reporting, the take has given birth to a number of stories making readers believe that Chrysler plans to shift all Jeep production to China from North America, and therefore idle assembly lines and U.S. workforce. It is a leap that would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats.

Let’s set the record straight: Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China. It’s simply reviewing the opportunities to return Jeep output to China for the world’s largest auto market. U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation. A careful and unbiased reading of the Bloomberg take would have saved unnecessary fantasies and extravagant comments.

That didn’t stop the American Romney campaign from completely making something up out of whole cloth. On the American stump, Romney began saying that Jeep was going to start building cars in China. When Chrysler and the media pointed out that this was false,  American Romney doubled down on the lie and made an ad about it. It’s a lie. It’s false. Mitt Romney’s American or Mormon or whatever values allow him to just blatantly make stuff up. 

It’s so bad that it’s now actually become a thing. The Obama campaign is pouncing, Americanly 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iE5wBfM1LQ]

Paladino: Un-American Obama's Values not American, But I'm No Birther (Update)

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Carl Paladino claims he’s no birther; those birther bumper stickers he’s been telling his Thrifty and Dollar rent-a-car employees to slap on vehicle bumpers are really about…

“I’m not a birther, I’m an American,” he declared. He said he was “fed up” with Obama after the attack and murder of four Americans at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. He said the president is not telling the truth about what happened and that Obama defies basic American precepts and has weakened the country.

“For that reason, I don’t believe he is an American. I don’t think he fosters the American ideals,” Paladino said. “I could care less where Obama was born. I don’t feel he is an American with American values doing the best for America.”

Well, there you are. Carl says he’s not really a birther, so we’ll print what Carl says and accept it at face value. But is it the truth? On Saturday, I linked to Carl’s latest email compendium of Obama hatred, which contains this (everything is [sic]): 

….FINALLY the REAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE….

 It appears this might be getting legs, we can only hope!

CAN’T BELIEVE SNOPES VERIFIED THIS AS TRUE, SINCE THEY TEND TO DENY ANY OTHER FACTS ABOUT HIM.

 Obamas authentic birth certificate from Coast Memorial Hospital , in Mombasa , KENYA . Now the task is to get the courts to authenticate it and then kick Obama out of office, something they are loathe to do.

 Here it is! The document we have been waiting for! Now if only SOMEONE in Congress or the Supreme Court will act on this!

This is what Obama has spent almost $2M (so far) to hide.

Here’s a close-up of the top of the document where you can plainly read his name and his parent’s names, etc..

A British history buff was asked if he could find out who the colonial registrar was for Mombasa in 1961.

After only a few minutes of research, he called back and said “Sir Edward F. Lavender Note the same name near the bottom of the photo above.

Source(s): Kenya Dominion Record 4667 Australian library.”

And here is a close-up of the bottom of the document where you can read “Coast Providence�of Kenya ” and the…

It goes on like that for quite some time; it’s 1,220 words long. That’s how “not a birther” Carl Paladino is. That’s the city’s singular paper merely transcribing that Carl says he’s not a birther, but on October 15th he was emailing a veritable Orly Taitz-worthy birther tome to his copious email recipient list.  Why is this, you think? Why deny what he quite clearly is? Bad for business? Here’s what Thrifty has to say about it: 

Thrifty Car Rental does not condone the placement of political materials on our corporate rental cars nor is it associated with any particular political position. The alleged incident involves a licensee of ours, acting as an independent business operation. We have been assured that the situation has been rectified.

We are meant uncritically to believe that it wasn’t until the September 11th Benghazi attack that Carl Paladino became “fed up” with President Obama. Here’s a gem from February 2012: 

See? The worst pundit ever says Obama is giving up American sovereignty willy-nilly! Carl wasn’t “fed up” then? He wasn’t fed up with Obama when, for instance, he went all-in for Newt Gingrich, and declared that Mitt Romney was “not conservative”?

Not only did Paladino circulate the above-quoted birther nonsense in mid-October, but he found and shared the information to his “friends” in August, well before the attack in Benghazi: 

Let’s not forget those heady days in 2009 – after Obama’s election, and before Paladino’s “values” became widely known. There was this (partial scan): 

 Also in 2009, early birther-movement-adopter Paladino forwarded to his large list of email followers a trope called “meet the Soetoros“, to further indicate that Obama is an Indo-Kenyan candidate. 

Carl Paladino has every right to use “America” as many times as possible in any sentence he concocts, and he’s wholly entitled to believe whatever nonsense he peddles. But when he makes a claim about not being a birther, perhaps we should examine whether that’s true or not. Again: 

For that reason, I don’t believe he is an American. I don’t think he fosters the American ideals,” Paladino said. “I could care less where Obama was born. I don’t feel he is an American with American values doing the best for America.

Also, America. How do you not care where Obama was born when, in the next sentence you aver that Obama is not “an American”? How do those two statements jibe? And who is Carl Paladino to lecture anyone about American values and American ideals?  Thank God Carl hasn’t found out about this BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO OF OBAMA BEING BORN IN KENYA. 

Obama Sr filmimg his sons birth in Kenya from Peter R on Vimeo.

 The Frankenstorm brings with it lots of rain. You may want to double-check that it isn’t really Mr. Paladino pissing on your leg. 

 

Paladino: Un-American Obama’s Values not American, But I’m No Birther (Update)

10 comments

Carl Paladino claims he’s no birther; those birther bumper stickers he’s been telling his Thrifty and Dollar rent-a-car employees to slap on vehicle bumpers are really about…

“I’m not a birther, I’m an American,” he declared. He said he was “fed up” with Obama after the attack and murder of four Americans at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. He said the president is not telling the truth about what happened and that Obama defies basic American precepts and has weakened the country.

“For that reason, I don’t believe he is an American. I don’t think he fosters the American ideals,” Paladino said. “I could care less where Obama was born. I don’t feel he is an American with American values doing the best for America.”

Well, there you are. Carl says he’s not really a birther, so we’ll print what Carl says and accept it at face value. But is it the truth? On Saturday, I linked to Carl’s latest email compendium of Obama hatred, which contains this (everything is [sic]): 

….FINALLY the REAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE….

 It appears this might be getting legs, we can only hope!

CAN’T BELIEVE SNOPES VERIFIED THIS AS TRUE, SINCE THEY TEND TO DENY ANY OTHER FACTS ABOUT HIM.

 Obamas authentic birth certificate from Coast Memorial Hospital , in Mombasa , KENYA . Now the task is to get the courts to authenticate it and then kick Obama out of office, something they are loathe to do.

 Here it is! The document we have been waiting for! Now if only SOMEONE in Congress or the Supreme Court will act on this!

This is what Obama has spent almost $2M (so far) to hide.

Here’s a close-up of the top of the document where you can plainly read his name and his parent’s names, etc..

A British history buff was asked if he could find out who the colonial registrar was for Mombasa in 1961.

After only a few minutes of research, he called back and said “Sir Edward F. Lavender Note the same name near the bottom of the photo above.

Source(s): Kenya Dominion Record 4667 Australian library.”

And here is a close-up of the bottom of the document where you can read “Coast Providence�of Kenya ” and the…

It goes on like that for quite some time; it’s 1,220 words long. That’s how “not a birther” Carl Paladino is. That’s the city’s singular paper merely transcribing that Carl says he’s not a birther, but on October 15th he was emailing a veritable Orly Taitz-worthy birther tome to his copious email recipient list.  Why is this, you think? Why deny what he quite clearly is? Bad for business? Here’s what Thrifty has to say about it: 

Thrifty Car Rental does not condone the placement of political materials on our corporate rental cars nor is it associated with any particular political position. The alleged incident involves a licensee of ours, acting as an independent business operation. We have been assured that the situation has been rectified.

We are meant uncritically to believe that it wasn’t until the September 11th Benghazi attack that Carl Paladino became “fed up” with President Obama. Here’s a gem from February 2012: 

See? The worst pundit ever says Obama is giving up American sovereignty willy-nilly! Carl wasn’t “fed up” then? He wasn’t fed up with Obama when, for instance, he went all-in for Newt Gingrich, and declared that Mitt Romney was “not conservative”?

Not only did Paladino circulate the above-quoted birther nonsense in mid-October, but he found and shared the information to his “friends” in August, well before the attack in Benghazi: 

Let’s not forget those heady days in 2009 – after Obama’s election, and before Paladino’s “values” became widely known. There was this (partial scan): 

 Also in 2009, early birther-movement-adopter Paladino forwarded to his large list of email followers a trope called “meet the Soetoros“, to further indicate that Obama is an Indo-Kenyan candidate. 

Carl Paladino has every right to use “America” as many times as possible in any sentence he concocts, and he’s wholly entitled to believe whatever nonsense he peddles. But when he makes a claim about not being a birther, perhaps we should examine whether that’s true or not. Again: 

For that reason, I don’t believe he is an American. I don’t think he fosters the American ideals,” Paladino said. “I could care less where Obama was born. I don’t feel he is an American with American values doing the best for America.

Also, America. How do you not care where Obama was born when, in the next sentence you aver that Obama is not “an American”? How do those two statements jibe? And who is Carl Paladino to lecture anyone about American values and American ideals?  Thank God Carl hasn’t found out about this BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO OF OBAMA BEING BORN IN KENYA. 

[vimeo 52049073 w=500 h=281]

Obama Sr filmimg his sons birth in Kenya from Peter R on Vimeo.

 The Frankenstorm brings with it lots of rain. You may want to double-check that it isn’t really Mr. Paladino pissing on your leg. 

 

#Sandy Reminder: Mitt Romney Would Abolish FEMA

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As the Frankenstorm batters almost the entirety of America’s east coast, many of the affected states have already declared states of emergency (including all of New York), and the federal government has made formal disaster area declarations in many of them, as well. 

As the eastern half of the country cleans up the damage, federal aid will likely be requested and granted. When that happens, remember that Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney would shut FEMA down, because 10th Amendment or something. 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqXk5XxHKx8]

“Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?”

“Including disaster relief, though?” debate moderator John King asked Romney.

“We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids,” Romney replied. “It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.”

So, there you have it. Even though FEMA routinely contracts with private industry to provide needed relief goods and services, Romney would shut FEMA down and make states and municipalities cover the cleanup on their own. It’s “immoral to pass on debt” to future generations, but it’s ok of those future generations live in a disaster zone and wade to school amid downed power lines. 

If someone asked Romney today about that FEMA answer, he’d deny ever saying it, and he’d pledge to strengthen FEMA. That’s because he’s in full Etch-a-Sketch mode and has shifted to the center, but in such a brazen way that he will quite literally say whatever he thinks his immediate audience wants him to hear. 

Thrifty Rent-a-Carl

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I recently received yet another one of Carl Paladino’s pieces of spam masquerading as a political statement. This one contained a compendium of conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s alleged socialism, Marxism, Kenyanism, Islamism, etc., ad infinitum. It’s clear that Carl Paladino and his crew are full-on birthers, and when Barack Obama wins re-election in a couple of weeks, that boom you hear won’t be a miniscule Olcott earthquake, but the sound of heads exploding throughout Paladinoist WNY. About a week ago, I wrote a post that included this:

6.  If you own any of these:

 

Then chances are you’re white, male, and over the age of 45. You think Sean Hannity is great, you hate that Bauerle tolerates gay people, and you think that Carl Paladino is God’s gift to politics. You read WND.com as either a primary or secondary news source. You stopped going to Free Republic a couple of years ago, but you think that Michelle Malkin has the right mixture of sarcasm and gravitas. Also, you completely freaked the fuck out when the country elected a black (you insist on calling him mixed-race or half-black) President in 2008. You believe that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii, but was born in Kenya to devoted communists, and set up through a wide conspiracy – that’s taken place over 50 years – by Democrats, the SDS, Kenya, world Islam, Indonesia, the KGB, and an associated roster of communist cadres to take away the United States and replace it with a Leninist dictatorship. You self-identify as a tea party activist, but in reality you’re just a racist omniphobe who has – at least once – uttered the phrase, “keep the government out of my Medicare”. 

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The lawn sign – those are available courtesy of Paladino henchman, Rus Thompson. Well, wouldn’t you know it, the “Vote for the AMERICAN” bumper sticker – which suggests, obviously, that Mexican-American anchor baby Mitt Romney is American, while African American Hawaiian-born natural born citizen Obama is not – is being affixed to cars rented from the Thrifty and Dollar rent-a-car franchises at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport. 

The Thrifty and Dollar rent-a-car franchises at Buffalo Niagara International Airport are owned by, 

Westover Car Rental, a subsidiary of Ellicott Development, a Buffalo holding company controlled by Carl Paladino, the Tea Party-affiliated businessman who lost the 2010 gubernatorial race to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).

Two visitors (no word on whether they were cultural tourists here to see our beautiful architecture, museums, and dining), told the Huffington Post,

“We noticed a bumper sticker on the car and in the dark lot we thought it was a promotion to “buy American” — but didn’t think about it until the next morning when we went to the car for additional luggage,” Wingate, who rented the car the weekend of Oct. 13-14 to attend her daughter’s wedding, told The Huffington Post in an email. “After reading it, we realized what it said/meant and were horrified.”

Wingate said she was “embarrassed” to drive the car and that she complained to an employee when she returned the car. She said the employee said the franchise owner wanted the stickers kept in place and that he had asked the staff to vote for Romney. Wingate also said she noticed other cars with the stickers at the Thrifty franchise.

And another woman Tweeted, 

 

You know, my family has rented cars in full-on Communist countries, and those Zastavas didn’t proselytize or propagandize to us. If I rented a car somewhere and it had a political sticker of any kind on it, my reaction would be to say, “WTF is this?” and ask that it be removed so I wouldn’t get charged for putting it there and its removal. What a disgusting and embarrassing way to treat customers and represent our region as idiotic, backwards, ignorant birthers. 

“We all thought it was offensive,” DiBiase said. “If it was a general Mitt Romney sticker, it would be upsetting, but it would not be offensive.”

DiBiase said she again raised her complaint when returning the Toyota Prius and said a staffer told her that the stickers were placed there by the owner and that the one she took off would likely be replaced. She said Thrifty’s corporate office replied to her various tweets saying they would look into the matter, but she has not heard back.

The Huffington Post called over to the Buffalo Thrifty franchise and got a runaround, and of course Carl doesn’t speak with liberals. But now you know to add the Buffalo Dollar and the Thrifty franchises in Buffalo and Rochester to your Paladino boycott list. 

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