What's At Stake
Why Obama Now. Prepared by an animator for the Simpsons, and if it does nothing more, it should help popularize the term “Horse and Sparrow” as a euphemism for trickle down / supply side.
Swanick’s Money
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.
Frankenstorm
Curious Funding of the Chris Collins for Congress Campaign
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.
Romney’s American Value: Lying
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)
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)
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
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
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”.
Click to enlarge
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,
Just dropped rental off @thriftycars which I will never rent from again. All their cars have #birther racist bumper stickers buyer beware.
— Stephanie Di Biase (@fierybelly) October 14, 2012
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.
[BN]dorsed
The post-Sullivan Buffalo News is releasing its endorsements for the upcoming election. Its endorsement of Stefan Mychajliw over incumbent David Shenk is almost begrudging (registration may be required), reading like an elementary school essay.
Mychajliw recognizes his strengths and shortcomings, and would continue the Poloncarz-era oversight of county government.
The editorial board believes Shenk has failed to exert any real independence during his short tenure, and Mychajliw’s education and background is totally inconsistent with accounting, auditing, or any other financial control whatsoever. Mychajliw comes across as the least-bad choice because he’s of the other party. But hasn’t he been campaigning on his independence, rather than his partisanship?
In the race for the 60th Senate District, it gives incumbent Republican Mark Grisanti the nod, thanks to his votes for marriage equality, a new tier for the state pension system, and his push for UB 2020. The paper’s editorial board gives Democrat Amodeo a one-line “whatever, dude”, and notes that the Conservative Party’s Swanick is a carrer opportunist who embodies homophobic anachronism. At least they got one of those right.
In the 62nd, incumbent Republican George Maziarz is preferred over Democrat Amy Hope Witryol, mostly because he has clout in Albany, or something.
There is no mention made, yet, of the 61st District where Newstead’s Justin Rooney is taking on 20-year career politician Mike Ranzenhofer.
In the congressional races, the Buffalo News wanted to see even a smidge of willingness by the candidates to cross the aisle and act bipartisanly for the good of the country and their districts. In the 23rd District, it picks Republican Tom Reed over Nate Shinagawa, because he said he’d work with Democrats to fix the deficit. The News prefers Democratic incumbent Brian Higgins because he’s a doer who doesn’t take no for an answer, over tea party activist Mike Madigan who had to eschew all of his tea-party ideas in favor of something that might actually sell in a Democratic district – school reform. The News noted that this is a local issue, so he should run for local office.
But the most striking language came in the News’ endorsement of incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul over Republican Chris Collins. Noting that Hochul has shown significant independent streaks during her short tenure, Collins is quite the opposite. In fact, the News writes that the choice of Hochul over Collins is “clear and obvious”.
More than that, her Republican opponent, former Erie County Executive Chris Collins, flat-out has no business in Congress, unless voters want to see more of the division and rancor that has already made this Congress the lowest-rated ever in an election year.
Collins has a chief executive mindset and lacks both the willingness to compromise and the people skills that effective lawmakers need. Many voters seem to recognize that, given that polling shows a dead-even race in the overwhelmingly Republican district.
What Congress desperately needs are representatives who are passionate about their districts and their country, but who recognize that their political adversaries may also have legitimate viewpoints that their constituents endorse. Hochul has already demonstrated her commitment to that kind of leadership. She is devoted to representing a largely conservative district well.
I can only imagine how that editorial board interview went. Other papers live-Tweet, videotape, or otherwise release those interviews. The Buffalo News should do the same. It continues,
Collins, meanwhile, lacks the ability to perceive shades of difference in issues. He says he would be willing to compromise with Democrats as long as they first agree to his vision. That, in fact, is a barely disguised pledge not to compromise. That destructive tactic, routinely practiced by House Republicans, nearly led the country to default on its debt last year and consequently led to this January’s looming – and economically disastrous – fiscal cliff.
Collins is a single-minded, intensely focused individual, a quality that has no doubt helped produce his notable success as a businessman. But it didn’t work well for him as county executive and it will work even worse in what should be the collaborative process of lawmaking.
The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a staunch Massachusetts liberal, was widely regarded by his peers – Democratic and Republican – as a top-notch legislator. Why? Because he was willing to form relationships across the aisle to achieve important national goals. He worked with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who is at least as far to the right as Kennedy was to the left.
Hochul has the necessary combination of vision, pragmatism and friendliness to adopt that model. Collins does not.
Collins clearly has an interest in public affairs and we encourage him to continue that interest. But he is not cut out for legislative office. Sometimes leaders have to play different roles than the ones they imagine. Collins should find that role and Hochul should go back to Congress.
I can’t remember ever reading a more strongly worded editorial against a particular candidate’s bona fides from any paper, ever.