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. 

[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”. 

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, 

 

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

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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. 

The Buffalo Waterfront Stadium: In Defense of Skepticism

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We will operate here under the assumption that everyone wants the Bills to stay in the area. You don’t have to be a football fan or have a #billsmafia on your Twitter avatar to understand that the Bills are an economic engine, a source of civic pride, and a symbol of good days passed, and hope for the future.  Even if I am dismissive of throwing a billion dollars at a game of catch, that doesn’t mean I want Ralph’s post-concussion-syndrome follies to move to Los Angeles. 

Yesterday, Chris Smith and Brad Riter led the cheer for the $1.4 billion “conversation starter” stadium proposal. If you missed it over at Trending Buffalo, listen here right now. 

TBOneThing10-24-12.mp3

OK. 

Would that replication of Singapore – a gleaming new Asian Tiger of a Buffalo downtown be great to build on Lake Erie? Sure. Would a new stadium complex that involves the construction of about six bridges, the redevelopment of tainted land, nestled alongside the flour and cereal processors be nice? Sure; that would be great. Would it be fantastic if the Buffalo Bills stayed here in perpetuity, playing in a state-of-the-art stadium? Of course it would.  

We are, however, in “would be nice” territory, and decidedly removed from “must happen”. 

And we’re talking about a city that – over 20 years – can’t get it together to expand the Peace Bridge or its plaza, for considerably less money. 

Even if you argue – as both Brad and Chris do – that a new stadium is the sine qua non – the “must happen” of the Bills’ continued existence in western New York, why does it have to involve everything contained within the Greater Buffalo Sports and Entertainment Center (hereinafter “GBSEC”) proposal?  Why are we building a new home for the Jetsons when what we really need is a less crappy stadium with a dome to keep out the weather, and nicer toilets? As much as it makes sense to appeal to fans, you have to also appeal to people who don’t care. 

We’re a small town with small money. Propose away, but the scale of GBSEC’s proposal is way outside the “reasonable” scale.

Click to enlarge

 Brad’s opening premise is that it makes more sense to spend $1.4 billion on a new stadium than $200 million on the Ralph. That’s great, except we’re talking about fantasy-dollars; dollars no one has. 

First, GBSEC spends several pages’ worth of its presentation creating a whole new downtown, connected to the existing one. We already have a downtown. No one much likes it, and no one much goes there, except for court, the Sabres, and the theater. Would building a sur-downtown have a stimulative effect on the existing one? It would, if the proponents of Mos Eisley-on-the-Lake didn’t factor in the current state of downtown’s ridiculous parking supply into its plan. It doesn’t assume – it doesn’t much allow – our current downtown to change. Much simpler and cheaper would be to let our existing downtown grow organically by giving it a competitive advantage; say, a sales-tax free zone. 

Secondly, the Bills already have a stadium. I’ve never been in it, so I’ll take Brad’s word for it that it’s really awful. We’re also having a hard time filling it, partly because the team tends to be horrible, but also because of demographics and economics. The region is shrinking. Things like high gas prices take a bite out of people’s discretionary budgets, and it’s harder to add “game” to “food” and “utilities”. We’re having quite the civic discussion over spending $200 million – a teeny drop in the GBSEC bucket – to fix the Ralph up and make it less horrible.  Notwithstanding the assumption I propose above, a lot of people would rather see the Bills leave than assign public money to this idea. The Buffalo Bills NFL franchise is worth almost a billion dollars. Its owner is in his 90s, and recently becomes unwell with greater frequency. It’s a hard sell to tell a blue-collar, hardworking, shrinking region that a billion-dollar business needs welfare to help build it a new home. 

If $200 million is a tough sell, who swoops in and says, “$1.4 billion’ll do the trick!”?  Of course, we’re assuming there will be some outlay of public money for this because that’s how these things go. If the state and county don’t play ball, some other city will offer up a much sweeter pot; backyard deers or no.

We talk about the megaregion as being the key to the Bills’ continued viability here, and locating in WNY is geographically the least-inconvenient place. But how much is Rogers going to put up? How much is the Government of Ontario or Canada’s Federal Government going to put up to keep this megaregional asset in WNY? How much is Monroe County going to contribute? What about Niagara County? Why do Erie County taxpayers shoulder such a large fiscal burden for what’s being billed as a multinational attraction? Also, has Toronto really bought into being Bills country? How are tickets selling at the Rogers Centre, another Great Lakes retractable-roof location that had the good fortune to locate itself in an existing urban downtown? 

Brad and Chris say this all is starting a conversation. But you start conversations by saying, “what if we built them a new, domed stadium in Orchard Park”. Then the conversation may – or may not – progress to, “hey, how about a stadium with a retractable roof on the Outer Harbor. It would cost [insert reasonable, sub-billion-dollar figure here].” Then you expand, and move on to alternate ideas – siting it in Niagara County to be closer to Rochester and Toronto, for example. Perhaps then you suggest coupling the project – wherever it is – with a new, less horrible convention center and maybe a hotel. 

Even if the project GBSEC proposed had contained only a stadium, hotel, and convention center, it would be something within the world of reason. But you have to convince people of the underlying premise before you throw this whole new city at them. 

In the podcast, Brad argues that we oughtn’t compare the Bills proposal to what happened in New York and Dallas. Why not? Maybe because the markets are so different, but the dollar figures are quite similar.

The new Yankee Stadium, which houses the wealthiest, most successful sports franchise in America, cost $1.5 billion. The new Citi Field in Queens, which hosts the New York Mets, cost $850 million, paid through the sale of New York City bonds, to be repaid by the Mets with interest in lieu of property taxes. The home of two teams – the Jets and Giants – cost $1.6 billion and was the most expensive domestic stadium, ever. So, lets understand that what GBSEC is proposing is on a par with what happened in New York. Dallas?  Dallas’ Cowboy Stadium cost $1.4 billion in 2012 dollars. 

By contrast, Green Bay’s municipally owned Lambeau Field is ancient and was renovated a couple of years ago for less than $300 million. It’s still going strong in a small-town market, mostly because the team is owned by the community. 

The difference, of course, is that Dallas-Fort Worth and the New York tristate area are already large, interconnected economic regions. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex boasts 6.5 million people across 13 counties. The New York tristate area has about 20 million people within its immediate, contiguous metropolitan area. All of these metros have the added benefit of being located within the same nation-state. 

Even if one were to make the argument that a billion-plus dollar megaplex on Lake Erie could be a centerpiece to finally recognize the interdependency of a Tor-Buff-Chester metropolitan area, it would be superficial, at best.  The fact is that these are neither politically nor geographically contiguous areas, spanning two countries and three major media markets. Even Tor-Buff-Chester itself is a different concept altogether. It’s a megaregion like Boston-New York-Washington, not its own metro. Back in 2007, Richard Florida estimated that the megaregion he defines had about 22 million people in it, strewn across a geography from Quebec City to Syracuse to London, ON. That’s quite a spread. 

How credible is this plan? Brad and Chris argue that George Hasiotis is a respected businessguy who is well-connected politically. He is. Some point to the fact that GBSEC honcho Nicholas Stracick won a $240 million judgment against Disney, and must be flush with cash. That’s until you realize that he split the money with someone else. After taxes. And after they settled for a much smaller amount from Disney to avoid the verdict going up on appeal.  

Indeed, Stracick has already recommended that Andrew Cuomo’s billion dollars for Buffalo be spent towards this plan. A $1 billion fund that’s supposed to set the region up for a 21st century economy – should it be spent on an entertainment zone? 

Why can’t it happen? Anything can happen. Someone could swoop in tomorrow with no backing and a set of nice pictures and propose a building taller than the Burj Khalifa be built on the Outer Harbor. Or maybe a charismatic Iraqi-British con artist could swoop into town to promise to renovate a beloved grande dame of a building, despite having never really developed anything to completion, anywhere. People are skeptical about this because its outlandishness, and Buffalo’s experience, gives people a fundamental right to be suspicious and skeptical. It involves a couple of unknowns who had the cash to commission expensive plans and diagrams. It involves politics and politicians, which means you have to question everyone’s motives ab initio. A $250,000 investment in HKS diagrams isn’t a lot when control over this waterfront property is at stake and being argued about; the NFTA is playing a massive game of keepaway between the city and the state/Canalside. 

If you like the idea of a waterfront retractable-roof stadium, I’m with you. If you like it being paired with a hotel and a new convention center, I’ll go along with that. But when you basically propose taking the area around General Mills and suggest building a new Shinjuku district, we have a problem. 

If Citi Field can be built on some of the most expensive real estate in the country for $850 million, I have a hard time believing that it costs almost twice that to build three things on a barren piece of wasteland on Buffalo’s Outer Harbor. 

Why We Shouldn’t Privatize All the Things

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Here’s why it’s horrible to let private entities privately own necessary infrastructure. The Canadian government is offering to build – at its sole cost – a new bridge crossing between Ontario and Michigan, just South from Detroit. The Maroun family, which owns the private Ambassador Bridge – the only truck crossing in Detroit – has mounted an ad  blitz to oppose the new, free bridge. And it’s working.

 

And An Elevator To the Moon

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Not real, authentic (This Stadium Matters; Stadium, For Real)

Way back in late 2004/early 2005, one of the first Buffalocentric topics about which I decided to write was an NFTA debate that was then brewing over three competing plans for Buffalo’s beleaguered, forgotten Outer Harbor. Eight or so years later, it remains almost equally beleaguered, with some aesthetic and functional improvements in access, but still amounting to grass and weeds. Eight or so years later, the NFTA still controls it, while the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation and the City of Buffalo bicker over who should control its development, and the contracts and jobs that go with it. 

What else have we seen? We’ve seen that while civic debate focuses on extremes, we are capable of reaching compromise when necessary. For instance, attracting a Bass Pro to the waterfront – it wasn’t at all a bad idea. Putting it in the Aud, on the Aud site, or even right up against the water at the foot of Main Street – none of those were per se bad ideas. But Bass Pro isn’t coming, and that, too, is OK. We don’t need it, but it wouldn’t have hurt. On the other side of the argument, we had the armies of preservation demanding green space, no buildings against the water, “authenticity” as defined by them, and now a fetish for defunct grain elevators and warehouses that haven’t been demolished because there is no one to pay to demolish them – haven’t been used because they are economically difficult to justify re-using. In spite of the Fred Kent placemaking sideshow scam, Buffalonians seem pretty happy with the compromise Canalside being built, the Pegula hockeytorium, and the other incremental – but, finally, visible and palpable – improvements being done to the Inner Harbor. 

So, we look again to the Outer Harbor and we have a new proposal being trial-ballooned whereby we build a billion-and-a-half-dollar stadium for the Buffalo Bills with a retractable roof, a new convention center, a hotel complex, and 5,000 parking spots. Of the silver bullet proposals to come down the road, this is the silveriest, bulletiest of them all.  This has a former county comptroller candidate involved in commissioning an epic set of images showing off our newest Elevator to the Moon, complete with a sports museum to be built and run by the people behind Rochester’s Strong Museum of Play. 

Neighborhoods crumble under the weight of economic decay and desperation, and we have $1.5 billion to spend on playing catch? We struggle to make ends meet with Medicaid funding, heating assistance, and day care for the working poor, and we’ll throw a billion dollars at a hotel and Buffalo Skydome? Is there even a local corporate sponsor who will buy naming rights, or will we just name it after Ralph Wilson, too? Renovating the Ralph is estimated to cost $200 million, which is also a tremendous sum of money for this area, and even that is a deal not yet done. For decades this region has been trampled underfoot by opportunistic politicians with toxic policies, and we have yet to devise an attainable vision for the future and a concomitant plan to get there.  But, hey – domed. Stadium. 

Functionally, the Outer Harbor is a geographical bottleneck – accessible by Skyway or on Route 5 from the South or in from Tifft Blvd from South Buffalo.  Three points of entry to get to 5,000 parking spots to service a stadium for 72,000 people. Arithmetically, the people behind this proposal think that the state will pony up $400 million, and that the NFL will provide between $200 to $400 million. That leaves a gap of $700 to $900 million that needs to be filled by private investment and, presumably, county money. That kind of money approaches the county’s entire annual budget. As a practical matter, the soil on the Outer Harbor is toxic and in need of multimillion dollar remediation. 

But we’re still debating the likelihood that the Bills stay in this region after their owner inevitably passes away in the near future. The team is more than just a sports franchise – it’s a powerful symbol reminding Buffalo that it was once in the major leagues; a legacy we cling to by a thread.  Does this area have enough idle money lying around to (a) enable local investors to buy the Bills and keep them here when Wilson dies; and (b) fund a massive stadium project for the Outer Harbor, which would effectively prohibit any other kind of development from happening there? 

So here we are, with a massive silver bullet pipe dream to try and keep our disappointing football team in town. A shiny object to raise the hopes of the few not yet beaten down by inevitable cynicism; something to occupy hours’ worth of inane AM talk radio chatter, with angry people talking angrily about their anger over money and the crappy team. This has the appearance of being aspirational, but is really evidence of desperation. If we give the Bills this nice new home, maybe they’ll stay. Maybe they’ll stop sucking. On the other hand, we’ll have the self-appointed masters of authenticity decry any proposal involving sports, parking, roadways. We’ll have arguments about how we should spend a billion dollars to improve storefronts on Grant Street, or maybe to spend on more ancillary projects at the Darwin Martin House. We’ll hear how Buffalo is “real” and “authentic” and that this monstrosity does nothing to further enhance our standing as a tertiary stopover on the cultural tourism checklist. We’ll ultimately argue over how many trees and painted Adirondack chairs are available on the grass, whether the water taxi will be able to accommodate gameday crowds, and hey, how about a solar-powered carousel? 

But let’s cut through all the hype. The people proposing this have two things – a corporate entity and some diagrams. They haven’t talked to the Bills. They haven’t talked to the NFL. They haven’t talked to the State. They haven’t talked to ECHDC. They haven’t talked to the NFTA. They haven’t even taken a survey of the local population to vet the idea of a billion-dollar domed stadium on the Outer Harbor. So far, they’re scheduled only to speak with the City of Buffalo – an entity that has, and would have, no say in the matter whatsoever. We haven’t yet figured out how we’re going to fix up Ralph Wilson Stadium, and we’re already talking about out-Torontoing Toronto’s downtown Rogers Centre. 

This ought to be fun. 

 

 

Horses and Bayonets on the Morrow

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In debate the first, Alpha Romney showed up and stylistically, if not factually, defeated a sleepy Obama. In debate two, electric boogaloo, Romney and Obama both came to the knife fight with guns a-blazing. 

Last night, in debate number three, Alpha Obama went on offense against a stammering, sweaty Romney who, at times, seemed as if Sarah Palin had helped with debate prep. When Obama criticized Romney’s incoherence on various foreign policy matters, Romney whined, “attacking me is not a plan”. It was repeated at least twice, and sounded weak, sorrowful, and pathetic. Obama’s cross-examination of Romney on his prior inconsistent statements was effective and decidedly well-hinged.

For instance, at the first debate, Romney had complained that the 2014 deadline to leave Afghanistan was something he agreed with, except insofar as it telegraphs to our enemy that all bets are off after that. It’s a disingenuous weasel answer, and one that Romney completely abandoned last night, instead claiming to back the 2014 date. From TPM, Obama: 

You said that first we should not have a timeline in Afghanistan, then you said we should. Now you say maybe or it depends. Which means not only were you wrong, but you were confused and sending mixed messages to our troops and allies.

In 2008, Romney said we shouldn’t move “heaven and earth” to get Osama bin Laden, and that we should first ask Pakistan for permission.  Obama recounted meeting the daughter of a 9/11 victim, which reaffirmed to him that moving heaven and earth was exactly the right thing to do; “worth it”, 

“[Y]ou said we shouldn’t move heaven and earth to get one man,” Obama said. “If we would have asked Pakistan for permission, we wouldn’t have got him.”

On Russia: 

“I’m glad that you recognize al Qaeda is a threat. Because a few months ago when you were asked the biggest threat facing America, you said Russia,” Obama said. “The Cold War has been over for 20 years. But governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.”

Later Obama said directly to Romney, “You indicated that we shouldn’t be passing nuclear treaties with Russia, despite the fact that 71 senators, Democrats and Republicans, voted for it.”

Romney repeatedly claimed to be the candidate of peace – he rebutted the elimination of Osama bin Laden with “we can’t kill our way out of this mess“. Romney tried to attack Obama from the left on this, and everything about it reeked of phoniness. The guy who has John Bolton on his foreign policy team isn’t the McGovernesque peace candidate.  On Iran, Romney actually suggested that some unnamed “world court” indict Ahmadinejad for genocide. That’s nice, but the United States has nothing whatsoever to do with the International Criminal Tribunal. And how does that jibe with the Republican anti-world-government, anti-UN, US must do everything mantras? It’s a desperate ploy by a desperate candidate. 

If, at the foreign policy debate, Romney can get no traction on his Libya attacks, he’s lost. 

Throughout the night, Alpha Obama was the calm, rational, factual counterpoint to Romney’s rushed stream of consciousness. He also gave Romney nary an inch to repeat falsehoods or reinvent history. Obama pre-empted Romney’s predictable attacks about Israel with yet another “Libya moment”. One of Romney’s clumsiest attacks was to accuse Obama of weakening our military by pointing out that the Navy has fewer “ships” now than it did in 1916(!). Obama snarkily obliterated that argument, and it was a highlight of the night – a “you’re no Jack Kennedy” moment. 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN283AUxSIA]

Funny aside – someone on Facebook mentioned that Fox News “fact-checked” the assertion that the military doesn’t use bayonets anymore by pointing out that Marines have them. Except for the fact that the President said “fewer”, not “none”. Now we’re fact-checking deliberately false fact-checking. 

But except when they veered to domestic policy issues that are swing-state friendly, it was astonishing just how much Romney agreed with every foreign policy thing Obama’s doing, or has done. He liked everything! Romney was reduced to using long strings of words to say he’d do exactly the same thing, only perhaps louder or faster. 

In their closing arguments, Obama pivoted back to hope and staying on a path to move forward, rather than back. Romney did his best Reagan impression, but ended up sounding and looking more like a more WASPy Billy Fucillo, who really wants to see you in this purple Hyundai with low miles and EZ-terms. 

Some highlights: 

In response to Romney’s accusation about an “apology tour” where Obama purportedly ignored Israel. This was quite the Libya moment. Please proceed, Governor:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV4XPKJ-v5c]

Closing with hope :

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2pnjuUT5jg]

Registration Fraud + Poll Tax

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The Sprouls with Mr. Romney

This isn’t as big a story in the mainstream media because it hasn’t hit Drudge and Fox – most likely because it involves a pricey, private, Caucasian consultancy rather than “new Black Panthers” or ACORN or just regular folks. 

You won’t see this story on Drudge and Fox because it can’t be spun to show Black people to be lawless savages who have the nerve to participate in our electoral process. 

But while the Republicans press for a poll tax to dissuade poor folks from voting (using “voter fraud” as a pretext), and although that sort of voter identity fraud has almost never happened, ever, we now have a brewing swing-state scandal where that consultancy hired first by the RNC – then fired when fraudulent registrations popped up in Florida, Colorado, and Virginia.  The Virginia Republican Committee quickly hired the firm that had been hiring workers for the fired consultancy, and somehow, some of those registrations have been found in a Pennsylvania dumpster. 

Strategic Allied is owned by Nathan Sproul, an Arizona political consultant for Republicans whose companies have faced charges in past elections of submitting forged forms and of dumping Democratic registrations. None of the charges were proved, and Sproul continues to do get-out-the-vote work for conservative causes this election.

In fact, the RNC has paid Sproul’s Strategic Allied $1.3 million over the course of the 2012 election to “register” voters. The RNC fired them after a bunch of fraudulent registrations popped up in Florida. Over the last nine years, that number has been $21.2 million.  

It also appears that the arrested former Strategic Allied worker, Colin Small, was re-hired by PinPoint Staffing, which Strategic Allied had used to hire people. The Virginia GOP in spite of – or because of – the allegations against Strategic Allied, retained PinPoint to provide staffers to “register” voters. Imagine you stop at your college’s student union to re-register to vote at your current address, and when the deadline passes you check to make sure everything went through, and nothing had changed. 

It’s a two-front war to help disenfranchise the poor and minorities, and therefore help Republican candidates. Long gone are the days of the GOP’s big tent – now, the tent door is shut, and it has reverted to agitation for a poll tax on the one hand, and ignoring or encouraging registration fraud on the other.  The Brad Blog goes into excruciating detail. 

Gas and the Dow

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During the second Presidential debate, this exchange happened: 

MR. ROMNEY:…If you’re paying less than you paid a year or two ago, why, then the strategy is working. But you’re paying more. When the president took office, the price of gasoline here in Nassau County was about a buck eighty-six a gallon. Now it’s four bucks a gallon. Price of electricity is up.

If the president’s energy policies are working, you’re going to see the cost of energy come down. I will fight to create more energy in this country to get America energy-secure. And part of that is bringing in a pipeline of oil from Canada, taking advantage of the oil and coal we have here, drilling offshore in Alaska, drilling offshore in Virginia where the people want it.

MS. CROWLEY: Let me —

MR. ROMNEY: Those things will get us the energy we need.

MS. CROWLEY: Mr. President, could you address — because we did finally get to gas prices here — could you address what the governor said, which is: If your energy policy was working, the price of gasoline would not be $4 a gallon here. Is that true?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, think about what the governor — think about what the governor just said. He said when I took office, the price of gasoline was 1.80 (dollars), 1.86 (dollars). Why is that? Because the economy was on the verge of collapse; because we were about to go through the worst recession since the Great Depression as a consequence of some of the same policies that Governor Romney is now promoting. So it’s conceivable that Governor Romney could bring down gas prices, because with his policies we might be back in that same mess. (Audience murmurs.)

I’ve seen a bunch of Republicans make this charge – that it’s Obama’s fault that gas prices have skyrocketed from a reasonable $1.80/gallon to the current $4.00/gallon. But that is so fundamentally misleading – such a basic symptom of Romnesia. 

If it’s Obama’s fault that gas prices have gone from $1.80/gal in February 2009 to $4.00/gal in October 2013, then it’s also his fault that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has skyrocketed from 8,000 to 13,300 in that same time. 

 

What else? Well, let’s take a look at some more trends. 

Retail Sales: 

 Unemployment: 

Car sales: 

Highest since 2007: 

So, don’t listen to the doom and gloom, and don’t succumb to Romnesia, whereby you completely forget what happened in 2008. 

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