Coniglio: I’m Holding Back!

Not to be outdone by “don’t get between me and a camera Jim” Ostrowski, Allen “Obama is a seekrit muslin Manchooriyun Kandidayt” Coniglio weighs in on the tea party split.  Why only a tiny handful of people would want anything to do with him and any group with which he’s associated is a question for the ages.

The following was posted yesterday by Jim Ostrowski on his blog, Political Class Dismissed. This is essential reading for anyone who has been asking why the tea party movement has been split, who caused it, and why can’t they all just get along? I am going to post Jim’s entire statement because it is all essential to understanding the story, it is efficiently stated, and there are no wasted words. I will tell you that there is much more to this story and much that we have been holding back for the past several months. We will release those details when we are able to do so.

I would like to further add that the Tea Party Coalition and two of its members, Jim Ostrowski and me, have been under an unrelenting assault from forces allied to the political machines in Buffalo and Erie County. Not only has Rus Thompson, who for all intents and purposes is a representative and willing player for that machine, been actively involved in spreading lies and hatred toward and about us, but several of his allies from the far left wing of the democrat machine have done his bidding as well. For some reason, they seem to have become obsessed with me and waste no opportunity to take shots in my direction. I would like to thank them for that as they are proving what I have been saying all along, that the Tea Party Coalition is the last honest element in the Buffalo tea party movement. Remember, these people are friends with Rus Thompson, who has never, as far as I know, ever been attacked in any serious way by these writer/journalist wannabes who have no problem in repeating things that are fed to them by someone who has openly stated to the current Erie County Republican chairman, Nicholas Langworthy, that he is going to take Jim and me, “out at the knees”. He has been working on doing just that for the past several months.

There is a movement underway right now, engineered by Rus Thompson in collusion with the Republican Party and their chairman, Nick Langworthy, to take over the Buffalo tea party and turn it into a political machine with Thompson at the controls. Then, we would have a phony tea party which would be little more than an extension of the Republican machine, much like the Conservative party is to the Republicans and like the Working Families party is to the Democrats. The deal making has already taken place on a number of levels and on a number of occasions. If challenged by Rus Thompson or anyone else associated with his corrupt interests on any of what I have said here, I will then be forced to REVEAL EVERY SINGLE DETAIL OF ALL THE REST OF THIS SICKENING STORY. I will affirm that everything that I have said thus far and that I will say is absolutely true and I can prove it all, AND MUCH, MUCH MORE. I should hope that these people would be smart enough to understand that I am not kidding and I have had enough of their nonsense.

Because we refused to play along with them, they have set out to destroy us and they have worked at it as though it were a full time job. This is machine politics at its ugliest and after hearing this, if anyone should be so foolish as to believe another word that comes out of Rus Thompson’s mouth, or that of his little friend, Nick Langworthy, then shame on you. I can speak only for myself but I can assure you that I will NEVER play along with any of these corrupt people or any of their corrupt tactics and I would never betray the trust of the people who have been good enough to allow me into their lives and who have participated with me in making the tea party the greatest force for reform in our nation’s history. I have never been involved in politics in any serious way before this past year and I can now understand why decent people tend to stay away from it. It is a cutthroat and ruthless, rotten game where grown people who should know better, do things for which they should be ashamed. Most of them, however, are not ashamed, until they get exposed. I think, however, that some of the people involved in these things are truly shameless.

Shorter Allen Coniglio:

Jim and I wanted to create a different type of political machine.  We didn’t want to align ourselves with the existing machine, because it wouldn’t be pure enough, Jim tells me.

I think Coniglio should just stick to repeating fringe birther conspiracy theories.  This one is my favorite:

I have written several times of this exact thing, that obama and his boys would trump up some kind of event in order to declare martial law and suspend the constittution. Some have called me paranoid. One notorious liberal has called me crazy Most people think I just need to calm down. Glenn Beck recently did an interview with Newsmax and he referred to this possibility as the “Reichstag effect”, named for the burning of the German parliament building, the Reichstag, in 1933. Here it is from the Newsmax interview:

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/beck_obama_reichstag_fox/2009/09/2…
. . . his real worry is that many Washington elitists really don’t like our form of government and want to see it abolished.

“I fear a Reichstag moment,” he said, referring to the 1933 burning of Germany’s parliament building in Berlin that the Nazis blamed on communists and Hitler used as an excuse to suspend constitutional liberties and consolidate power.

“God forbid, another 9/11. Something that will turn this machine on, and power will be seized and voices will be silenced.”

It is my concern that something like this will happen in the US. I do not doubt for one minute that obama and his thugs are capable of such an action and I am more than certain that should he find it impossible to to rig the elctions in 2010 or 2012 to allow him to continue his policies or, if he finds himself on the verge of being exposed as a noncitizen, having been born in Kenya, that would be his cue. This man is a terrorist, a thug, an unscrupulous, classless human being. He will do whatever he believes he can get away with. He is not bound by any ethical or moral concerns as most people would be. Like Hitler, he will do anything to impose his will on the people of this country and ultimately, the world. Prepare yourselves. Do not abandon your efforts. Be eternally vigilant, as that is the price of freedom.

Allen

Like I said, Coniglio is the most unintentionally hilarious, deliberately ignorant local Obama-hating teabagger in town.  Good luck with that “coalition”, Jim.  Oh, and here’s a an actors’ recreation of Coniglio and Ostrowski at a donut shop:

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Revisiting the Tea Party Schism

There was once a listserv called “ReformNYS” that, for some time, was a collection of outrages and calls to action shared among the Ron Paul libertarian wing of the local tea party. It never really had many ideas about reforming New York State, and it’s managed to reform exactly nothing.

By contrast, the Palinist wing of the tea party has found multiple causes celebre about which to agitate, thanks in large part to the NY SAFE Act, which places restrictions on people’s ability to massacre, e.g., almost 2 dozen schoolchildren in a matter of seconds. 

Now? The Ron Paul wing’s listserv has devolved into this:

The author of that garbage (he posts something almost every day along these lines, always ending with a demand that the reader “wake up”, was a leader of the tea party movement back in 2009 – 2010. Chris Smith and I wrote extensively about Allen Coniglio’s weird obsessions and his sudden political activism that began around January 2009. With stuff like this:

Buffalo Tea Party organizer Allen Coniglio told me that Paladino is a “decent person” and that this story is a smear.

Coniglio made it clear that he and the Buffalo Tea Party denounced the content of the e-mails and “do not support any racist positions of any kind. ” This story, he said, was the kind of thing he’d come to expect from the media and liberal activists.”…

…People are different (ed. from the 18th and 19th century) because there are many more unproductive slackers due to big government, new slaveholder interventions and slave breeding programs. People of the type created by these programs would not have existed in any measurable quantity as there would have been little possibility of survival prior to the advent of the modern welfare state.

Slacking is now in the genes of the people who have been on welfare for 3 or 4 generations or more and these people are now, for all intents and purposes, societally worthless, ineducable and probably beyond redemption.

Yes, they are different because they have been bred to do nothing but slack and vote for Democrats by their slavemasters Jackson, Sharpton, Farrakhan, Reid, Kerry, Kennedy, the Clintons, etc..

Sounds eerily like what got cowboy hat welfare queen Cliven Bundy in trouble this past week.

Suffice it to say that one of the guys who was instrumental in bringing the Tea Party Express travel write-off to Buffalo is now circulating the crap reproduced above.

The Committee to Save Matt Ricchiazzi

Matt Ricchiazzi. Will he ever learn that the path to electoral success and/or a hack job is paved with hard work, loyalty, and not behaving like a lunatic? 

He started out so promising – fresh face, self-identified bisexual Republican running for Mayor, offering up big ideas. Then he aligned himself with tea party people like conspiratorial truther Allen Coniglio. He alternately endorsed, then didn’t endorse, then endorsed again, Carl Paladino. He ran his sister for city council. He ran for school board but didn’t make the ballot. He ran for state senate, but was ineligible. 

I obtained a series of emails he sent in 2010, where he lectured western New York’s gay activists about what they were doing wrong, with little positive feedback. For example: 

On a serious note, as long as the gay community is bound to the hip of the Democrat Party WE WILL NEVER, EVER ACHIEVE MARRIAGE EQUALITY. Never. If you think any different, then you’re delusional and stupid. We have ABSOLUTELY NO POLITICAL LEVERAGE AS LONG AS DEMOCRATS THINK THAT GAYS DON’T VOTE REPUBLICAN. They have nothing to fear if they offend, betray, or insult us.

Further, the Democrats are making too much money off of the gay marriage issue, and they have no monetary interest in giving that up. They recieve donations, volunteers, etc because of this ban, and if we had marriage equality there would be no carrot left to keep the gay community on the Democrat band wagon.

As long as gays demonize ALL REPUBLICANS as being homophobic and racist, why are they going to go out of their way to be nice to people that propagate hate against them, because that’s what you’re doing. Especially considering that those pro-gay Republicans would incur political vulnerabilities within that their party that the other half of the Democrat Party is sure to exploit, it would make no sense for them to do that.

That must be why he’s developing and distributing homophobic political lit. 

Date: Sunday, August 29, 2010, 1:22 PM

Camile,

I’m hardly self-loathing. What do I care if I can’t get married to my partner, if he has to move out of state to find work?

I’m voting for Carl because he’s an awesome guy and he understands how the real economy works. Now, I realize that many of you work for the government or off of government contracts, so you’re not concerned with the real (private sector) economy. But for those of us who don’t want to content ourselves sucking on the government tit, we can’t afford to care about frivolous BS, like the word “marriage.”

Now, if you want to get all hysterical about nothing more than a word, then feel free to go waste all your time and energy being hysterical. But I’m far more worried about the economy and my generation’s economic opportunity and the debt burden with which the current generation of leadership is crushing us, than I am with semantics.

For that reason, Carl is far more in touch with the issues and needs that concern my generation

And, Carl has already said that he would not veto a marriage bill that passes the State Legislature. He would sign it into law, even though he personally does not support it, because that’s how he feels a democracy should work.

Paladino for the people!

-Matt

Over the last week or so, he has invented out of whole cloth a non-existent Republican “committee” (consisting of one member), which was ostensibly holding a lit design contest. Five pieces of fake lit were sent out to an undisclosed roster of politicos and press, all of which viciously attacked either Mark Grisanti or members of his staff.  It culminated on September 10th with this: 

It’s not persuasive, it’s not pithy, it’s not funny, it’s not anything except an opportunity for Ricchiazzi to inflame homophobia.  Now recall that all of this stems from the Grisanti camp’s refusal to give Ricchiazzi a job. 

Think about how pathetic this is: a kid who’s gay or bisexual is so  upset over not getting a job that he’s spent the better part of the last year spreading lies about Grisanti’s behavior during that bar fight in the Falls, he’s developing idiotic political literature attacking Grisanti and his aides, and he develops the homoerotic piece of literature shown above for the sole purpose of getting conservative-minded opponents of same-sex marriage angry. He is so self-loathing, so opportunistic that he chooses to inflame anti-homosexual passions. 

The guy Ricchiazzi is supposedly trying to help – Kevin Stocker – told Channel 4 that he finds the ad offensive. Ricchiazzi emailed Channel 4’s Lou Raguse to say that he “saw” the lit and that his “committee” thought it was brilliant. 

And that’s not all. Ricchiazzi’s efforts in this instance are so clumsy that it’s gotten tons of attention as the “most anti-gay” piece of literature never sent. HuffPo, BuzzFeed, Politico have all covered this piece of lit. But the best information comes from BuzzFeed’s Chris Geidner, via Twitter: 

RT @theswordcom: @corbinfisher responds to illegal use of their images in NY anti-gay political ad: thesword.com/corbin-fisher-…

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) September 11, 2012

The pornographers who produced the images from which Ricchiazzi obtained the images for the mailer shown above posted this: 

While everyone at CorbinFisher is flattered the self-described “Committee to Save the Erie County Republican Party” would select two of our company’s images to represent all-things-gay, the persons/person considering the unauthorized use of our images, in violation of registered copyrights, should be aware we take the protection of our intellectual property seriously.

Whichever group or individual took a break from furiously manipulating themselves to the collection of CorbinFisher gay erotic images they apparently maintain on their computer should be aware use of the images without our prior written consent is a violation of our copyrights.

Certainly, having all heard of occasions in which self-professed family values advocates have vehemently opposed same-sex marriage rights while at the same time adopting “wide stances” in airport restrooms, employing male prostitutes as European vacation luggage carriers or mile-high methamphetamine-smoking partners, and shamelessly pursuing sexual favors from pages in the halls of Congress, it doesn’t quite surprise us those behind the “Committee to Save the Erie County Republican Party” would readily have access to a number of our sexually explicit, gay-oriented images.  Nonetheless, we’d politely ask they discontinue attempts to insert our copyrighted images in to their distributed political material, and instead stick to secretly pleasuring themselves and battling their internal struggles with guilt and shame over the sexual orientation they are unable to come to terms with, like so many other outspoken opponents of gay rights are so good at doing.

So, Ricchiazzi can’t get hired, he can’t properly get a YouTube hit piece up, he can’t get traction for his fairy tales about the Falls bar fight, the Senecas want nothing to do with him, Stocker has disavowed any involvement with him, he’s alienated and angered the gay community, and he’s burned just about every bridge he’s ever tenuously built. What a waste. 

 

Last-Minute #NY26 Snippets

Murphy Calls for Corwin

Last week, I asked Green Party candidate Ian Murphy what his plans were for the weekend, and he sort of shrugged. Evidently, he had this up his sleeve. He posed as an eager young Republican volunteer, waltzed into Corwin HQ and started making calls.

I actually spoke with roughly 100 people, and the majority of them were extremely upset with the harassment by phone. Unless they immediately relented and said they were voting for Jane, their name went back into the system, and we’d call them until their spirits were thoroughly crushed. It’s an odd campaigning strategy — one that is no doubt backfiring.

People are sick of the media saturation–the constant lies spewing from camp Corwin. These calls seemed to represent the last straw for a lot of folks.

“Um, Bob?” I beckon the supervisor.

“Yeah, Steve, what is it?”

“Some of these people are saying that Jane is going to end Medicare–just because that’s what the Wall Street Journal wrote. What should I tell them–should I lie?”

“Hmm…” Bob thinks about this for a few seconds. “They’ve been asking about Medicare?”

“Yeah.” And they were.

“Shit,” he mumbles under his breath. “Don’t lie. Tell them that, if they’re 55 or over, Jane’s plan won’t change their Medicare. And if they’re 54 or under tell them that Jane’s plan will…um…make things…better.” He walks away.

“But, Bob?” I call after him. “Some of these people are younger and they think Medicare is a problem…should I tell them that Jane’s plan will end Medicare?”

“Yeah, if it helps,” he says, running back to his desk. The ruminant Chairman of the Erie County Republican Committee Nick Langworthy is lingering in a back corner. They conspire about something terrible, no doubt.

and

“Hi, sir, my name’s Steve and I’m a volunteer for the Jane Corwin campaign–”

“Jesus!” a guy screams at me. “You know, I was thinking about voting for Corwin, but this is too much! You people have called me a dozen times in the last two days! I am sick of it!”

“But Jane Corwin wants to rule over you with an iron fist,” I calmly relay. “Don’t you crave strong leadership?”

“What?!” he balks. “An ‘iron fist’?”

“Yes,” I assure him. “These phone calls are just the beginning. When Jane’s in Congress she will do everything in her power to crush you mentally and physically.”

“Don’t call me again!” he says and slams down the receiver.

Through the pranksterism, you catch a glimpse of a very poorly run campaign that has absolutely no clue about how to get the vote out. Pro tip: don’t call prime (R)s so damn much that you actually piss them off into not voting for your candidate.

Coniglio Challenges Man Who Owns Own Law Firm

I received this in my inbox yesterday:

Last week, Carl Paladino appeared on the Tom Bauerle show and made a variety of comments regarding the 26th district congressional race. During his commentary, he stated that Jack Davis, the tea party candidate, bought the tea party line by “paying off three tea party guys” who are all on his payroll. He then proceeded to name the three in the following order: “Coniglio, Bellavia, and Ostrowski”. He referred several times during the remainder of the show to the idea that the Davis endorsement had been bought. The fact of the matter is that I have never received payment of any kind from anyone at any time for any work I have done for the tea party movement, nor have I ever sought payment in any way, nor would I accept payment from anyone if offered. Further, it should be noted that there is a putative tea party group in Buffalo which is controlled and operated by a man with long time ties to the Republican party, Rus Thompson, who always supports the Republican party and their candidates. Thompson and Paladino effectively ended the campaign of tea party candidate, David DiPietro, by supporting GOP boss Jim Domagalski in the 59th district senate race last year. It should be understood that we in the true tea party movement have been fighting the efforts of the Republicans to infiltrate and control the tea party movement since the very beginning and it can be further stated that that infiltration and control has effectively been accomplished in much of the United States as many so called tea party groups are now run by the Republican party and/or their operatives. The tea party was established because we the people were not satisfied with the actions of any political party, including the Republicans, and a Republican takeover of the tea party is not in the interests of the people of this nation. Locally, we the people have been fighting the Thompson group which we refer to as TeaGOP but as Thompson knows very well how to manipulate and control the press, it has been a difficult struggle. Thompson appeared on the Bauerle show with Paladino and made numerous comments agreeing with and/or supporting Paladino’s assertions that the Davis endorsement had been purchased. Thompson was himself paid a sum, believed to be at least $35,000 to promote Paladino as the putative tea party candidate for governor which to many of us in the tea party movement was laughable and dishonest. Paladino is in a position to know that I have never received any payment from anyone and despite that, he recklessly and maliciously sought to destroy my reputation for the purpose of destroying the Davis campaign and to offer support for the hand picked candidate of the GOP party bosses, Jane Corwin, who has shown herself to be unfit for office as a woman who will stoop to any dirty trick to be elected. Paladino has a history of making reckless and untrue statements designed to destroy, such as his comment last year that Andrew Cuomo’s “prowess is legendary” in reference to Cuopmo’s alleged affairs outside of his marriage. His propensity for acting as a violent thug is well known as well as can be seen by his remarks that “I am going to take you out, buddy” to Fred Dicker and that he is going to clean out Albany with a baseball bat. I will not be bullied by Paladino and I will not sit idly by as he acts in his usual manner to destroy the reputation of anyone who gets in his way.

I am hereby advising Carl Paladino that if he does not issue a retraction of his statement to all press outlets in the area served by WBEN radio claiming that I am on the Jack Davis payroll and that I received money to endorse Jack Davis by Friday at 5 PM, I will pursue further action against him in a court of law.

Never thought I’d say this, but good for Coniglio. Taking on the biggest asshole with the biggest mouth in town takes balls.

Betsy McCaughey Throws Corwin an Anchor

That’s the headline here, which details the fact that anti-universal-health-care advocate and inveterate liar Betsy McCaughey was in town to campaign for Jane Corwin. She was quoted telling people that the Ryan plan to privatize and voucherize Medicare coverage for people now under 55 is a fantastic idea, and she only wishes it was bolder and was implemented immediately. The DCCC responded:

Jane Corwin (NY-26) was joined on the campaign trail today by former Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey.  As the Siena College poll released this weekend shows, NY-26 voters are rejecting Jane Corwin’s plan to end Medicare, and her latest move reconfirms her commitment to ending Medicare.

“Jane Corwin has chosen to campaign with Betsy McCaughey, who not only wholeheartedly supports the Republican plan to end Medicare, but actually thinks it’s a ‘shame’ that the plan doesn’t end Medicare immediately for current seniors,” said Josh Schwerin, Northeast Regional Press Secretary at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  “Even as voters are rejecting her positions, Jane Corwin is doubling down on her support for the radical Republican plan to end Medicare while protecting taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil.

Corwin was also joined by Jim Martin of the 60 Plus Association, a group well known for their vocal support of privatizing Medicare and Social Security.

 

Local Proofers Believe Osama, not Obama

Ladies and Gentlemen, WNY’s most pre-eminent birther has now morphed into a bin Laden proofer:

It is my opinion that the Navy Seals did invade a compound in Pakistan a few nights ago and did, in fact, kill someone. That someone was most likely a person recruited by the CIA 10 years or more ago, around the time of the 9-11 attacks or prior to it when they knew they were going to be needing an enemy to vilify and a living one at that. It is my belief that this double was offered a large salary, possibly to be deposited in foreign banks of his choosing, a number of women to be his “wives”, and a compound to live in in Pakistan with his only duties being that he would stay within that compound for an undetermined period of time and pretend to be Bin Laden to all those he met and when asked to do so, including the women who would become his wives and the children he would produce with them. It is also my belief that the CIA and the US political establishment knew that they might someday need a moment like this but Bin Laden #2 really had no idea what ultimate purpose he would serve.

You should read the whole thing, because there are people who (a) believe this crap; and (b) aren’t institutionalized. (Past Coniglio posts available here). Osama bin Laden wasn’t important because the FBI poster doesn’t reference 9/11, because the Bush Administration de-prioritized his capture, and because, naturally, Obama is lying.  But Osama? He was telling the truth when he said he had nothing to do with 9/11 even though he’s repeatedly admitted his involvement over the past 10 years.

W-Tea-E-N

Some tea party.

Aren’t tea parties supposed to be dress-up make-believe events staged by toddler girls with their little friends and maybe some stuffed animals?  Instead, we have Rus Thompson and birther Allen Coniglio yelling past each other on the idiot concern-trolling local tea party radio station.

But this struck me from Jim Ostrowski’s insertion into the debate on his site:

I also believe that this discussion will convince many skeptics of the absolutely crucial importance of electing Jack Davis to Congress on the Tea Party line.

The only “crucial importance” of Ostrowski and DiPietro getting Jack Davis elected (they’re both on his campaign payroll right now) is that this is the first-ever political race where name recognition and money are not issues. They have a blank check to buy their way out of any and all problems and impediments that have beset tea partyish candidates in the past, and Davis is a known quantity, not some professional rabble-rouser. If Davis loses, they’re out of excuses. The only importance for these guys in getting foreigner-hating Davis elected is to establish themselves as serious political consultants.  If Davis had his way, DiPietro’s and Ostrowski’s ancestors would have stayed in fricking Italy and Poland, respectively.

2010: This Year in Fail

Every media outlet does a “this year in” retrospective. However, no one else will kick theirs off by pointing out that 2010 was a year of chaps-free Cejkas.  2010’s prowess is legendary.

County government started out 2010 having settled a longstanding dispute with ECMC over yearly contributions. Over at City Hall, the Karla Thomas / HR problem was just getting going, and I asked why it was, precisely, that it all happened in spite of CitiStat. As new Senator Kirsten Gillibrand got used to her new Washington digs, the New York City elites were scrambling to find someone – anyone – to primary her. (Tennessee’s most famous Wall Street ex-pol sent up a Pigeon-assisted trial balloon, to no avail). You see, she’s one of those upstate, northern women. They had written her off before they even gave her a chance. Now, she’s well-regarded for her leadership on DADT repeal, 9/11 health workers, and health care reform. What a difference 12 months make.

In the meantime, a so-called “reform coalition” was formulated in the county legislature, giving County Executive Chris Collins a de facto majority. Democrats Tim Kennedy, Christina Bove, and Barbara Miller-Williams broke away from the remainder of the Democratic caucus to form a coalition with the minority Republicans and help progress the Collins – Pigeon – Brown agenda. It was the embodiment of the alliance of the Collins and Brown political machines, and died hard just 12 months later. Some of our writing got a bit inside basebally, so Chris and I wrote  “Profiles in Fail” to help fill in some blanks. The legislature became what we termed an “orgy of transactional politics”, and we explained the legislature coup in some more detail here:

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The first WNY-based Republican to start sniffing around the governor’s race was Chris Collins. He was also the first WNY-based Republican gubernatorial-race-sniffer to say something really, really stupid. In Collins’ case, he said in 2009 that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (a despicable little toad, for sure) was the third anti-Christ, and then quickly followed it up in January by jokingly asking Laura Montante-Zaepfel – a politically super-connected Uniland bigshot – for a lapdance during Governor Paterson’s State of the State address. Collins, true to form, is too proud and perfect to admit he made a mistake, much less apologize.  Collins and Paladino were similar in their patent, unrepentant misogyny.

Speaking of Carl Paladino, February was the first time we caught wind of Carl Paladino possibly running for governor.

If nothing else, Paladino’s alleged candidacy would be entertaining, because he is unafraid to speak his mind. As wealthy as he is opinionated, he can self-fund any campaign for office. Likewise, he could easily commit daily Collinsesque gaffes and get away with it, thanks to his reputation for not having a filter between brain and mouth.

I like that Paladino has a “fire” in his belly. But it would be better channeled at treating the causes, rather than just the symptoms, of our malaise.

But let’s say he became Governor. Now what?

Our state government is not some kind of dictatorship where the governor can just parachute in, make fundamental structural and political changes, and then parachute out. Like it or not, there is a legislative process and the rules there give other people power, as well. If you run in like you own the place, you’re going to be met with massive pushback, and existing crises can be made more acute.

Not to say that’s what would happen, but if you multiply the dubious accomplishments of “steamroller” Spitzer by 100, you probably get close to the effectiveness a Governor Paladino might enjoy.

But the whole Paladino candidacy is part of our collective Western New York dysfunction – our penchant for top-down, silver bullet solutions to really big, really complicated fundamental, structural problems. Instead of the people taking charge from the roots and initiating complicated governmental change from the bottom-up, we expect and rely upon saviors to do it for us. Instead of building up a new entrepreneurial class – a bourgeois revolution redux, if you will – we expect our existing powerbrokers and loudmouth millionaires to do it for us.

After all, as I wrote almost two years ago, there’s not much difference between the problems ailing Cuba and the problems ailing WNY. And I’m not talking about socialism, per se. I’m talking about cynicism, stasis, and reliance on change from above.
Whether it’s Bass Pro, the Adelphia Tower, Chris Collins, or Carl Paladino.

We need to stop relying on gimmicks, one-shots, and silver bullets, and start attacking problems at their source. All the Paladinos in the world aren’t going to change Albany if you still have people in office like the dynastic Dale Volker or the hackish Bill Stachowski in office.

The execrable Antoine Thompson hemmed and hawed about how he’d vote re: expelling his slash-happy colleague, Hiram Monserrate. Later in the year, he got belligerent with Ron Plants, of all people.

Chris Collins decided he had had enough of poor working mothers having subsidized day care so they could go to work and earn a living. Eric Massa turned out to be something of a weirdo. Shame, that.

Collins and Sheriff Tim Howard found themselves targets of a federal inquiry into the extraordinarily high number of suicide incidents in the county jail system – an issue that still hasn’t been fully resolved. In response, Collins bitched and moaned that anyone who had a thought in his head that wasn’t in complete synchronicity with his own has an “agenda” and is in favor of the “status quo”. Shorter Collins: suicides, schmuicides.

But I never did end up writing that “Chris Collins should drop dead” post.

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Meanwhile, development in Buffalo was as inactive a laughingstock as ever. The Statler has stood empty all year – worthless, empty, crumbling, anachronistic. It is symbolic in many ways of Buffalo itself, a shadow of its former glory, struggling to find relevance in a world that’s largely passed it by. Rocco Termini’s Lafayette Hotel project moved forward in fits and starts, but that 10 year-old Artvoice billboard on the side of AM&A still serves to underscore that building’s emptiness.

Canal Side started making news in 2010 with talk of a living wage mandate for workers hired by businesses located within the project. It’s a requirement being pushed by the Canal Side Community Alliance and Coalition for Economic Justice, and backed by a handful of city councilpeople. Naturally, we can leave it to Carl Paladino to discuss it reasonably. Later in the year, Mark Goldman and the Fishers decided to sue the state because it was using public money on the Canal Side project, ignoring some patent irony.

Paladino’s campaign donned some makeup and sent up another trial balloon in the form of a nasty open letter to Brian Higgins on the issue of health care reform. He made his run official just a week later, coinciding nicely with the start of the 2010 WNYMedia.net Tournament of Political Failure. The complete rundown is shown here, and congratulations – you won!

At least Volker opted to bow out.

Carl held a big party in early April with all his employees and friends, appropriating the cry of madman Howard Beale as his campaign slogan.

A glowing, lengthy bio piece in the News revealed the existence of an extramarital child – a revelation that would sink mere mortals within minutes. Yet Paladino was unmoved, instead lecturing people about welfare queens and teh gayz, claiming, “I bring values, resiliency, a thick skin and I’m not afraid to be confrontational.”

Yet his values were non-existent, his skin was thinner than parchment, and we outed him as being a bit crazy when it came to forwarding emails. At least once a year, we break a big story – this year, it was Carl’s emails, and that story had some legs, still being talked about right up through election day. But contrary to popular belief, we never said Carl was racist.

But we had a great deal of fun with him, and the growing cleave within the local tea party groups. Rus Thompson, partly due to his close working relationship with Paladino, who was now accepted by the Republican establishment, drew criticism from former friends. But the “tea party coalition” did mighty battle against the “TeaGOP”. In the three-ringed circus of WNY politics, Allen Coniglio proved himself time and again to be its clown shoes. Again. And Again.

Although I later changed my mind twice, I originally predicted Paladino would never win.

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His campaign turned out to be quite touchy indeed; perhaps the touchiest ever. Andrew Cuomo officially announced in late May. Paladino ended up choosing a renegade Queens Republican as his running mate.

I went down to Westchester for the Democratic Convention, which was largely uneventful, save for a marathon session to permit all the AG candidates to remain on the September ballot, and an entertaining visit from “King Cuomo II”, i.e., Curtis Sliwa.

Somewhere, there is a place where competent government and taxation intersect. It behooves us to find that crossing whenever possible to at least avoid irreversable catastrophe.

There were other races, as well. Republicans fought to replace Volker. Marc Coppola announced he was running against Mike Ranzenhofer AND electoral fusion. Rory Allen tried to ride roughshod over Antoine Thompson. In a golf cart. The Democrats fought to replace Stachowski, with Tim Kennedy ultimately winning. In the summer, NYPA ponied up some more money to Canal Side, which was starting to talk Bass Pro again, and outer harbor connector.

The Buffalo News all but banned commenters, and then inexplicably forbade Jim Heaney from blogging about the goings-on in city and county government.

As the Republican gubernatorial primary “heated” up, it came down to: who hates Muslims and the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” more? Paladino won that argument. Handily. The execrable, ambiguous, mulleted freak heard daily on WBEN from 9 – 12 went along for the Mooslim-hatin’ ride, because he’s a conspiratorial bandwagon-riding cretin, and an intellectual coward, to boot.

Paladino then decided it’d be swell to throw welfare recipients into decommissioned prisons.

We found out this summer that finally, Bass Pro wasn’t coming to Buffalo, ever. All done. Enough. But now, HSBC was throwing a monkey wrench into the works.

The Buffalo News published Mark Goldman’s prissy “Obstructionist Manifesto”, and we responded with the “Regular Buffalo Person’s Manifesto”. The Coalition of Enough Already was reborn, and Chris and I punctured the myth of the singular Buffalo elite. I later wrote “New Buffalo’s” obituary.

The summer also saw the City Grill get shot up, and all hell broke loose. Will you also surrender to Rich Newberg?

Right before primary day, Rachel Maddow hosted our own Marc Odien, (more here and here), and there were rumors afloat about Antoine Thompson being vulnerable. Nothing came of that, but Paladino obliterated Rick Lazio. David DiPietro fought in court to stay on the ballot despite losing the GOP primary to Pat Gallivan. On the Democratic side, Cynthia Appleton ran a valiant race against the former Sheriff, Gallivan, and the bellicose tea partier, DiPietro. On the county side, we continued to question Chris Collins’ ideas and motivations.

Suddenly, Paladino was thrust into the national and state media spotlight. Despite a few missteps, the response from a Democratic side that was unprepared for his victory was so anemic that I went ahead and predicted Carl’s victory. It was all a big temper tantrum, though, and Paladino’s media handling was quite adept.

All that was needed was another opportunity for Carl to be caught unawares.

We got that opportunity when Carl decided he’d threaten to kill the New York Post’s Fred Dicker. On camera. Suddenly, Paladino was on the defensive again, and got ever-touchier.

In October, the Board of Elections claimed that the legislature downsizing ballot question could not be put before the voters on a technicality. That was defeated.

Carl Paladino tried to get back on-message after the Dicker fiasco, and bought some TV time to set the record straight and get back to “issues”. Instead, the 5:13 to Nowhere was just a whine-fest and little more. Featuring Nancy Naples, of all people, pointing her bejeweled finger at you, shaming you into giving money to Carl.

The final nail in the coffin of the Paladino campaign was his bumbling, fumbling handling of the Yehuda Levin anti-gay controversy. Having read remarks someone else handed him, Paladino said horrible things about gays, only to retract them days later. We decided that his invocation of “pornographers and perverts” in discussing gay marriage was particularly egregious. Paladino also insisted that all the gubernatorial candidates – even the fringe ones – join in any debate. He got his wish, resulting in Jimmy McMillan’s 15 minutes of fame coming and going.

Even Carl’s friend David DiPietro got into the Carl email fun.

By the end of October, Carl’s race was all but over. He became less and less credible and relevant with each passing day. As it turns out, Carl’s gay nephew, who allegedly prompted Carl to flip flop on the Hasidic/gay thing, is something of  an asshole, but an asshole who should have the right to marry any other asshole.

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Not to be outdone by an imploding Carl Paladino, Antoine Thompson did everything he could in his re-election bid to become an even less relevant laughingstock. The last straw was his anti-lawyer vitriol directed at all-around-nice-guy Mark Grisanti. In the “race” in NY-27, Higgins’ opponent Lenny Roberto turned out to be a rank homophobe with questionable campaign funding.

A New York Observer piece named WNYMedia.net, “the site that saved Andrew Cuomo.” In November, the WNYMedia.net writers collaborated on our endorsements, as Carl Paladino threw his buddy DiPietro deep under the bus.

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Cuomo made his final argument, Kerplunk went the turd, and the vote was over. We WNYMedia.net types finally made the FCC-regulated airwaves to cover election night with Brad Riter on WECK 1230.

With the election season behind us, it was time to start bikeshedding development issues again. It started, more or less, with a call for the ECHDC to “pause” a decade-long process. We thought everyone should just relax. Seriously. We WNYMedia.net types came up with our own recommendations, and we attended the open houses. We saw the videos, and commented on them. “Lighter, Faster, Cheaper” was the mantra being thrown around, and became moot when the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation called Goldman’s bluff.

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I started reading the My View column out loud, most recently, one penned by Stefan Mychajliw.

Finally, the year was topped off by the Erie County Legislature doing battle with Chris Collins over 0.1% of the county budget. The regular fights and protests from the culturals came to fruition, and if there’s one bright spot, it’s what appears to be the demise of the detestable “reform coalition”. There’s got to be a better way. Some sort of solution should be discussed in earnest.

Thanks, everybody, for a great 2010 & have a great 2011!

All About Being Deficit Hawks

Communist adored by dependent African American subculture

I just adore this thread at the local teabaggers’ Google Group.  It starts out with Tea Party group “leader” Allen Coniglio noting how communard Obama is, and wonders why black people still support him.

E-mail TemplateThis is so insane. Blacks are backing obama for no other reason than that he is black. Isn’t that racism? How could anyone with any consciousness look at what that guy is doing to this country and still support him? It is shameful and virtually treasonous to give your vote and support to a guy whose only desire is to turn the US into a communist nation, ironically, just at the time that China and Cuba are abandoning communism because they have realized that it doesn’t work.

Allen

They may be abandoning communism, but they’re still deep into the whole “totalitarian dictatorship” thing.  I wonder if capitalism is more important to them than democracy.

Later down the thread, “David” responds with this gem:

At the risk of being labeled racist (anyone who comments on an article  such as this is at risk of being labeled a racist), I believe that it is NOT just his skin color that causes A/A’s to continue to back  Obama.  I believe it is because, in our frequently wrongheaded  attempts to compensate for the years when we had slavery, we have  created a subculture of government dependency within the A/A  community.  Starting with the “Great Society,”  A/A’s have been given preference in hiring, allowed to file baseless discrimination charges  against employers, making it less and less likely that they will find employment, herded into population centers in the inner city, and put on government-funding IV’s.  Now we have a crime-ridden inner cities teeming with single-parent, low educated and/or unskilled people, who  resent the fact that their personal dignity has been sacrificed on the altar of “equality.”  I say, give A/A’s their dignity back.  Cut off the government teat.  Show them the respect that they deserve as human beings. They actually are as smart as people of different skin color, and can make it on their own if the crutches are removed.

I’ll let that speak for itself.

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• Mouth Agape, I Read the Stupid (wnymedia.net)

Mouth Agape, I Read the Stupid

Today, local tea Party “leader” nitwit Allen Coniglio was interviewed by WBEN, which spent almost its entire broadcast day wondering why the Negroes from the NAACP were getting especially uppity lately.

Some quotes from his interview:

“There are always going to be people like that, no matter where you are,” Allen Coniglio, coordinator of the Tea Party’s Western New York contingent, tells WBEN. “Whether you’re in the Tea Party movement, or somebody’s bridge club. You’re always going to find people who do things like that. It has nothing to do with what we’re trying to promote, which is simply to get the government out of our lives.”

In fact, Coniglio says he’s handled the few bigots who’ve approached him in exactly the way the NAACP is asking for he national Tea Party to handle them.

“Over the past year and a half or so, since the Tea Party got started, I’ve heard from one or two. And I don’t even know if they’re real Tea Party people, or if they’re just somebody who’s just trying to get a rise out of me, or get me to say something. Really, it’s not an issue.”

“Out of 150 to 200 emails a day, over a year and a half, I’ve gotten two [with bigoted or racist viewpoints],” Coniglio explains. “That’s not a whole lot. And I doubt if those two were even legitimate. So that’s how much of an issue it is… it’s not an issue. It’s only an issue to those who want to make it an issue.”

Coniglio believes the NAACP is “making it an issue” in a attempt to besmirch the Tea Party. He thinks the NAACP’s leaders are afraid of “losing” their supporters to the Tea Party movement. But he insists, the Tea Party is just as against bigotry as the NAACP.

“I’ll disavow [bigots]. I want nothing to do with them. I’ve written back and said, we’re not interested in that, don’t expect us to respond to that in a positive way. And that’s basically the answer that I’ve given.”

“I’d like to, right now, publicly invite every single person, regardless of their color, to join with the Tea Party movement and help us to take down big government… to return government to the way it should be, a servant of the people,” Coniglio proclaims. “To allow us to live like we are supposed to be living in this country, as free Americans – this is all we want. And we want this for every citizen.”

At least on the local level, it appears both the NAACP and the Tea Party are condemning bigotry, and the extremists who detract from the Tea Party’s mission.

I wonder if WBEN’s Rachel Kingston bothered to look at Coniglio’s own newsgroup, because just a few days ago, he posted – and commented that it was the funniest damn thing he had ever seen, ever – a video that used images from the Little Rascals to depict President Obama as a pickaninny, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as a whore, and “joked” about assassinating the President.

Nope, no bigots welcome in the local tea party at all.

All About Taxes and Spending. Srsly.

When I was a kid in the 70s, I’d come home from school and one of the shows that would come on channel 5 would be the “Little Rascals”. They don’t show those classic shorts anymore. Thanks to cable TV, there is a glut of contemporary shows geared to kids of all ages. But the Little Rascals may have been progressive for the 30s by letting white kids play with black kids, but I distinctly recall one episode where Stymie was sweating into a pile of flour, and his sweat came out black. In the clip referenced below, “Obama” is depicted by Allen “Farina” Hoskins from the 1930 short “Teacher’s Pet”. (You can see that episode here in its entirety). I think most people would agree that, as far as that show was concerned, what was progressive for the 30s may be considered neanderthal some 70+ years later.

So to bring us around to my point today, Allen Coniglio, a self-appointed “leader” of the Ostrowski wing of the local tea party, sent this around to his small group:

If you do nothing else in your life, you must see this. It may be the funniest thing you ever see. Hurry. They have taken this down half a dozen times but thankfully, someone keeps putting it back up. [link removed]
Allen

I won’t embed the video, because it depicts Farina as Obama, makes jokes about Joe Lieberman and the Holocaust, and likens Nancy Pelosi to a whore (she is a powerful woman, after all).

I’ve only been alive for a little more than 40 years, and I can categorically say that I’ve seen literally thousands of funnier things. There’s clearly a reason it gets taken down constantly, and preservation of an 80 year-old copyright isn’t the reason why. This is the same crowd that supports an angry horse-porn aficionado and sender of racist emails whose entire platform consists of being angry.

I think racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism are disgusting and reprehensible. I can’t fathom why or how anyone takes these people seriously. These people are petrified of change, terrified of other people’s ideas, and especially hostile to people who aren’t white males. There’s nothing new about the tea party or its leaders, and the Obama administration has emboldened them to bring their deepest fears and prejudices to the surface.