The Transparent Mr. Collins
I’ll return to Steve Pigeon’s chronic deficiencies in the realm of campaign finance disclosure filings later today or tomorrow. (Next stop: Pigeon loyalist Gary Parenti’s 2006 campaign for the 158th District Assembly seat.)
But for now I’d like to turn to another fellow who won’t always share numbers with the public, or even with his colleagues: Erie County Executive Chris Collins.
Erie County Executive Chris Collins
On Wednesday, Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz released an analysis of Collins’ first budget. (Here’s the 40-page document if you’d like to read it for yourself. I’ll digest it here later, after listening to Poloncarz present his analysis to the Erie County Legislature this morning.)
Wednesday was October 29. According to the county charter, the comptroller ought to have released an analysis of the essential architecture of the budget—that is, its revenue and major expenditure forecasts—by October 15. That is also the date by which the executive must release his budget for the upcoming financial year. The intention, clearly, is that the legislature be presented with the executive’s budget and the comptroller’s analysis at the same time, so that legislators can weigh both and consider how to proceed.
Here’s the relevant passage in the county charter:
On or before the 1st day of October the county executive shall submit to the comptroller all revenue estimates and expenditure estimates for Medicaid, public assistance, and pension contributions and health care insurance costs for county employees to be used in the proposed budget. The comptroller shall review all revenue estimates and expenditure estimates for Medicaid, public assistance and pension contributions and health care insurance costs for county employees to be used in the proposed tentative budget prepared by the county executive and submit to the Legislature in writing by the 15th of October a report indicating whether or not such estimates are suitable estimates for the upcoming fiscal year. Should the comptroller determine that any such revenue or expenditure estimate is not suitable for the upcoming fiscal year, the Legislature, upon notice from the comptroller may revise any such revenue estimate downward upon a two-thirds majority vote and may revise any such expenditure estimate upward by a majority vote. The Legislature shall not revise any such revenue estimate upward.
So why didn’t Poloncarz provide an analysis by October 15, as the charter requires? My mistake: The comptroller provided analysis of the revenue and expenditure projections they’d been provided; that analysis was released on October 10. But the analysis did not include the county executive’s estimate of next year’s property tax levy.
Tim Callan, Polocarz’s deputy comptroller, told me that the county executive’s budget director, Greg Gach, sent his revenue and expenditure projections to the comptroller’s office late in the afternoon on October 1. But he would not provide an estimate of property tax revenues. That is the second largest revenue stream in the county budget—the largest, if you leave aside that portion of the sales tax that is distributed to local governments. An analysis of the budget is difficult to complete without that hefty slice of the pie chart.
Collins’ budget director argued the charter does not require that he provide the comptroller with an estimate of property tax revenues. That may be technically so, but Joel Giambra’s budget director last year provided an estimate of property tax revenues by October 1. Why wouldn’t Collins oblige this year?
According to Callan, the county executive asserted that the property tax levy is not a revenue source until the budget has been adopted. (Because who knows? Maybe the legislature will raise taxes, lower taxes, abolish taxes forever.) Still, Giambra’s budget director managed to conjure some numbers by October 1 last year, and surely Collins’ budget director had working figures to offer. Was Collins holding off on disclosing a proposed property tax increase as long as possible? Was Collins cutting Poloncarz out of the loop because he views him as a political rival? Did he hope to go directly to the legislature with his budget before a third party could cast a critical eye on it?
Poloncarz insisted that the county executive hand over his numbers. The county executive refused. So Poloncarz was not able to review the budget until the complete document was released, at the late last minute, on October 15. Two weeks later Poloncarz released his office’s analysis—but not before revealing that Collins had neglected, among other things, to reckon a $16 million debt to ECMC in his budget.
October 29, 2008
Hype: Order Yours Today for $35.95
According to the Associated Press, Ohio’s three largest newspapers, the Columbus Dispatch, the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer—as well as the Palm Beach Post in Florida, and Nevada’s Las Vegas Review-Journal—are being delivered with a free DVD insert. Remember the days when AOL CDs were in everything from your paper to your mailbox to your breakfast cereal?
“Hype: The Obama Effect” is a 95-minute piece of propaganda produced by Citizens United, a Washington-based advocacy group. Their Web site claims they are “Dedicated to restoring our government to citizen control,” and they appear to be prolific documentary filmmakers. Some titles include “We Have the Power,” hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich; “Blocking: The Path to 9/11” (which won an award at the San Fernando Valley Film Festival); and “Hillary: The Movie,” which was the subject of a Supreme Court decision earlier this year when Citizens United wanted to promote the film without disclosing that it was a hatchet job funded by enemies of the Senator. They lost, meaning that if they wanted to promote the movie they would have to indicate their sponsorship of it and list their political donors. The judges disagreed with Citizens United lawyers who likened the film to the PBS series “Nova,” or “60 Minutes.” It wound up playing at nine theaters.
But there’s good news for all you whackos who see this as a violation of your rights as an American to view paranoid rants by right-wing pundits. For only $35.95, you can rush-order a copy of “Hype: The Obama Effect” for your own viewing pleasure. Consider it the price you must pay to Citizens United, who only offer the trailer for free—unless you happen to live in hotly contested areas of Ohio, Florida, or Nevada—where you can get a copy of the entire movie at no additional cost, with your daily paper. Your contribution will help offset the $1 million the group is spending to give away 1.25 million copies of the DVD in those targeted areas.
But even if you act now, there’s no way you’ll receive your copy before Obama airs a half-hour message on NBC, CBS, and Fox tonight at 8pm. Fox asked for, and was granted permission from Major League Baseball to delay game six of the World Series tonight by eighteen minutes so they could sell the time to Obama.
That’s the kind of clout a candidate has when he shatters all previous records for private campaign contributions.
October 28, 2008
Chasing Pigeon: The Bad Reporter
The Buffalo edition of the September 9 Niagara Falls Reporter, with Sam Hoyt on the cover. These copies, according to the guy whose car trunk this is, sleep with dead presidents now.
In this week’s Niagara Falls Reporter, editor Mike Hudson writes:
Speaking of the Buffalo News, you may have noticed that Bob McCarthy — who seems to be assigned to the Tom Golisano beat — didn’t write a word about the Buffalo Sabres owner’s $10 million gift to Niagara University a couple of weeks ago.
It was the largest financial endowment in the august 152-year history of the venerable institution, after all.
But I think I have it figured out. McCarthy is paid by Warren Buffett and who knows who else not to report on Golisano in any generally accepted use of the term. In reality, he makes his money by smearing Golisano at every opportunity.
Anyway, we’ll see whether he writes about it next week when grand larceny charges against the sole source he used in attempting to harm the reputation of the Niagara Falls Reporter in a fraudulent Sept. 28 News story are filed by the Niagara Falls Police Department.
We’re guessing he won’t, since the charges will serve to completely discredit his earlier attempt at journalism.
As a rule, I won’t rush to the defense of the Buffalo News generally or Bob McCarthy specifically. And, though I don’t much care for the politics of Steve Pigeon, who so far has spent $3,283,730.06 of his patron’s money this election season, I do like Tom Golisano. (What’s not to like? The Sabres are winning. His company prints my paycheck twice a month. He’s pro-windpower, anti-casino, and the Buffalo Niagara Partnership leadership hates him.) But I wonder why Hudson thinks a political reporter like McCarthy should write about a donation to a university? What was wrong with Jay Rey’s front-page, above-the-fold Buffalo News story on October 8? Was that insufficient coverage of the gift?
No, it’s that “fraudulent Sept. 28 News story” that draws Hudson’s bile. Former Reporter publisher Bruce Battaglia accused Hudson of taking money from Pigeon in exchange for editorial services rendered—two attack pieces on Sam Hoyt, for example, and a piece promoting Joe Mesi—and McCarthy wrote a piece about the resulting squabble. Hudson, meantime, convinced the Reporter’s board and shareholders that Battaglia was stealing money from the paper. Hudson and the paper’s soon-to-be-new publisher voted to kick Battaglia off the three-member board; then, using proxy votes obtained from the majority of the paper’s shareholders, the two fired Battaglia as publisher. Whether or not this sad family drama will actually end in criminal charges remains to be seen. I hope not, for the karmic health of all parties.
At the shareholders meeting in which Battaglia was fired, Hudson acknowledged that Pigeon had in fact paid for an extra press run and expanded distribution of an edition sporting a cover story about Hoyt’s affairs with interns. (At least, that was the cover in Buffalo—the papers distributed in Niagara Falls that week had Mayor Paul Dyster on the cover. Hudson claimed Pigeon had not paid for the extra expense for printing separate covers.) Responsible New York, the committee funded by Golisano and directed by Pigeon, supports Mesi and opposed Hoyt in his primary against Barbra Kavanaugh. So Pigeon’s motive in picking up the tab is clear.
The extra papers and distribution could not have cost too much, in any case; the bill certainly did not approach the $5,000 mark, at which point Responsible New York would be required by state election law to itemize the expense.
Here’s the germane paragraph:
Whenever a person or entity, such as a consultant acting on behalf of a committee which supports or opposes candidates for any pubic office or party position or which supports or opposes any proposition, subcontracts for finished goods or services, the treasurer of the committee shall, in addition to reporting the expenditure made to such consultant or agent, report the name, address and amount expended to each person or entity providing such goods or services the cost of which exceeds, in the case of a committee supporting candidates for statewide office, $ 10,000 and all other committees, $ 5,000.
Leave aside whatever petty cash Pigeon has thrown Hudson’s way for advertisements, extra papers, and extended distribution. There’s no crime there except against journalistic sensibilities.
But that provision of the election law suggests that Responsible New York should itemize and report payouts over $5,000 by limited liability corporations like Landen Associates (a consulting firm controlled by Pigeon), which spent $93,103 of Golisano’s money on print ads in the last month alone. And what about New York Media Strategies (controlled by Pigeon associate Jack O’Donnell), which has spent $1,286,000 of Golisano’s money in the last month on TV advertising? Certainly some of those expenditures exceeded $5,000.
The law allows Responsible New York to file itemized breakdowns of its consultants’ spending on behalf of candidates after the election, but don’t count on that happening: This section of New York election law is routinely ignored. (A source at the local board of elections said Eliot Spitzer was the only candidate to have complied in recent years.) And Responsible New York did not file such reports after the September’s primary election, as the law requires.
More on Pigeon’s bad reporting on Thursday.
Who Let the —- Out?
From high in the silver-lined clouds whereon he lives, Dave Staba reports on Sunday’s loss by the Buffalo Bills to the Miami Dolphins:
The fourth quarter of Buffalo’s annual visit to South Florida on Sunday could, in theory, have gone worse for the Bills.
The cart used to wheel the injured off the field could have slipped into gear and careened, driver-less, down Buffalo’s sideline, dissembling the knees of Trent Edwards, Marshawn Lynch, Lee Evans, Brian Moorman, Donte Whitner, and Kawika Mitchell.
The National Football League could have lifted its Michael Vick-induced ban on the playing of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” on stadium public-address systems every time the home team registers the mildest of achievements, which, given Buffalo’s self-immolation over the final 15 minutes of a 25-16 deflation, would have led to near-constant loop and countless royalties for the Baha Men.
(If you don’t think this would be so catastrophic, that’s because you weren’t at a football stadium in the fall of 2000, particularly Dolphins Stadium for Miami’s 22-13 win over Buffalo that October. Whoever was running the audio portion of the game presentation hit the button after each of Miami’s five scores, all six sacks of Rob Johnson, and whenever else the mood struck. I was keeping count in the press box and the tally reached 17 before I had to give up and start writing early in the fourth quarter. Go ahead. Try to get it out of your head now. You’re welcome.)
Or they could have been playing a better opponent, in which case the final score could easily have been 40-16.
It started off well enough, with the Bills trailing by but a single point and the ball at Miami’s 47-yard line. If anything, Buffalo seemed poised for the sort of triumphant rally that produced three of their first five wins.
Then Edwards, who had been nearly perfect in the first five fourth quarters in which he had appeared previously this year, dropped back to pass.
And everything fell apart.
Dolphins defensive end Randy Starks hit Edwards’ arm, sending a throw aimed at Evans fluttering instead to Miami’s Will Allen.
Buffalo’s defense held, but a Dan Carpenter field goal made it 20-16.
A long pass to Evans again fostered visions of a Buffalo comeback, but Edwards allowed the ball to be stolen by Miami linebacker Joey Porter.
The next time the Bills got the ball, still facing a deficit of just four points, Porter smoked a surprised-looking Jason Peters and again separated Edwards from the ball. On the bright side, Buffalo center Duke Preston recovered. Since it was in his own end zone, though, Preston’s accomplishment still swelled Miami’s lead by two points.
The Dolphins capitalized on the field position afforded them by the ensuing free kick with another Carpenter field goal that put them ahead by two scores with 3:53 left, effectively ending the competitive portion of the afternoon.
For good measure, the Bills obliged their hosts by fumbling the ball away twice more, providing a fitting end to an aggravating day.
In all, Buffalo supplied four turnovers in the final quarter. Only once in the first six games did the Bills blunder so frequently over an entire afternoon, during their 41-17 shaming by the Arizona Cardinals.
You could be optimistic about all this, especially since the Bills are still 5-2 and still tied for first place in the AFC East as they approach the midway point of their 2008 schedule.
Or you could see some serious fissures beginning to show in the foundation of a young team just as Brett Favre and those guys he plays with roll into town, with a road test against Buffalo’s divisional co-leaders and longtime masters, the New England Patriots, looming a week later.
Dave Staba has covered the Bills since 1990. He welcomes e-mail at dstaba13@aol.com. A full report on Sunday’s game will appear in the October 23 issue of Artvoice.
Clothes Make the Manspeaker
AV photographer Rose Mattrey recalls her time in LA working with the legendary art and music collective Green Jello (or Green Jelly, if you’re not from Buffalo). The band plays the Town Ballroom tonight.
Take four guys from Kenmore West with nothing to do, add instruments, and stir. What you get is Green Jello. When Bill Manspeaker formed Green Jello in 1980, he probably did not think he would make a career of it, but 28 years later he’s on the road again, on his second major US tour of this year.
What started as a four-piece band has morphed over the years into a traveling circus, with somewhere around 15 members at any given time. More than 245 people have been members of Green Jello. Some more than once. The current lineup is the first incarnation of the band where Manspeaker is the only member from Buffalo.
Early on, Green Jello realized they were going to need a lot more than their music to entertain the masses. (When Joe Cannizzaro was asked to be the band’s bassist, it was because he had a bass. They had to color code the frets so he knew where to put his finger for each song.) What the band lacked in musical ability, they made up for in creativity. Props such as the wheel of torture and girls with whips were incorporated into the show to distract from the fact that the band, by their own admission, sucked. Eventually their costumes evolved into a full-blown production, featuring foam/latex characters such as the Cow God, Shitman. and punk rock incarnations of the Flintstones.
Manspeaker owes his inclination to be outrageous to many influences. His uncle Chuck is Big Wheelie, of Big Wheelie and the Hubcaps, an Elvis impersonator. He also credits Mark Freeland as the biggest influence of his life. He saw Freeland, a friend and fellow Kenmore West student, as wildly creative, never afraid to try anything. Manspeaker has said that there would have never been a Green Jello without Mark Freeland.
Later on, there was Kiss. In fact, my friendship with Bill Manspeaker began when we bonded over our mutual admiration of the band at Villa Maria College, where we were photography students. We both had skipped the first day of the semester to go see Kiss in Rochester. We met the next day and were friends ever after.
The late Bud Burke, the owner of the Continental, played a big role in the early days of Green Jello, because no other venue would book the band. They were banned from so many places early on because of the mess: Fans would sneak in bags of jello and whip it at the band. At a legendary show in a Masonic temple in Kenmore, the crowd broke into the kitchen and used all the ice cream in the freezer as ammunition. The band tried changing their name to American Jello Party to sneak back into clubs like McVans, but the owners soon caught on. So the Continental was home.
By the late 1980s, the Jellos started moving west. One by one they went to Los Angeles, encouraging their friends back home to follow. The band re-formed out there, with some new members too. After catching the attention of Zoo Records, they worked out a deal to be the first video-only band. It was at that point that I left New York to join the band. For the next year we worked on producing Green Jello’s first “video album,” Cereal Killer. Everyone had day jobs, so most of the work happened late at night and on weekends. We did everything ourselves. At any given time you could be cameraman, set-builder, or costume-maker. It was a nonstop creative environment…and kind of like fifth-grade art class at the same time.
When the video was finally released, we all sat back and wondered what would happen next. Much to everyone’s surprise, a radio station in Seattle started playing “The Three Little Pigs” and it was quickly becoming a local hit. More stations caught on and things began to snowball. MTV began playing the video in regular rotation, and it was also a hit on a now defunct video request TV station. Then one day, a call came from the heavy metal band, Testament. They wanted Green Jello to go on a tour of the US. So the rock-and-roll puppet show was packed up and hit the road, playing to thousands of people all over the country. Then came two tours of Europe, following the “The Three Little Pigs” debuting at number five on the UK charts and quickly shooting to number one.
Lawsuits and gold records followed, along with an MTV Music Award nomination for the “The Three Little Pigs” in the Best Breakthrough Video category. It was one of the first music videos to use claymation; bands like Tool and Primus soon followed Green Jello’s. Lawsuits forced the band to change their name from Jello to Jelly, and to remove all of the cereal characters, like Toucan Sam and the Trix Rabbit, from the video. Even Metallica sued the band for “borrowing” the riff from “Enter Sandman.”
Green Jelly didn’t care. Any publicity was good publicity.
Instead of blowing their money on cars and houses, the Green Jelly team invested in a full-scale production studio on Sunset Boulevard. It had a bigger soundstage than the previous studio, and a state-of-the-art editing suite and animation studio. We all set out to make the second full-length video, 333, which would not have the commercial success of the first project but was nominated for a 1995 Grammy Award.
By this time, trouble with the record company and some issues within the band were signaled that the party was almost over. But that was the genius of having become a production company. Soon outside clients such as Kiss, Tim Burton, Elite Models, and more were hiring the team to produce and edit their projects.
Eventually members of Green Jello started going in different directions, and the studio was closed.
Manspeaker created an artist community and a popular rave club in Hollywood. But in the past couple years, he started missing the thing he did best. He realized that putting on the big foam costumes and playing live shows was what really made him most happy. So he reformed the band, and in early 2008 they hit the road on a tour of the US. He was amazed at how many old fans came out to the shows, and how a whole new generation of Jello fans came out, too. Some kids are fans because their parents were, he discovered, and they all came to shows together.
Tonight, Green Jelly rolls into town for the second time this year for a show at the Town Ballroom. Two other costume bands from Hollywood are in tow, Rosemary’s Billygoat and the Radioactive Chickenheads. Also opening will be Buffalo’s the Rabies. An appropriate line-up for Halloween week. There will be a costume contest at the show, so everyone is encouraged to dress in their wildest Halloween attire.
Doors open at 7pm and the show starts at 8pm. Tickets are on sale at tickets.com or at the Town Ballroom box office. It will be a visual spectacular not to be missed!
October 27, 2008
Get on the Bus
Julie Blust, press secretary for the Bush Legacy Tour, showed me around the bio-diesel bus that’s been traveling the country since June 24, highlighting some of the lows of George W. Bush’s presidency. The tour stopped briefly from 11am to 1pm at Elmwood and Bidwell today, en route from Ohio to eastern Pennsylvania.
Blust points out that the bus is not out campaigning for a specific candidate. “The Bush Legacy Tour,” she says, “is not just about President Bush’s failures. It’s about the failed conservative ideology he and his allies in Congress represent.”
The million-dollar bus tour is brought to us by Americans United for Change, a group founded in 2005 for the purpose of fighting Bush’s plan to privatize Social Security. The group was successful. In light of the current financial “credit tsunami” (to use Alan Greenspan’s term), it’s interesting to speculate on the condition of Social Security now had the plan gone through back then.
The Center for American Progress Action Fund, VoteVets.org, MoveOn.org, Healthcare for America Now, American Rights at Work—along with big unions like AFSCME, SEIU, and the AFL-CIO—have sponsored or partnered to send the bus on its five-month, 20,000 mile tour of over forty states.
Here’s a little tidbit for you: In 2001, when Bush took office, gas was $1.37/gallon on national average. Today, that average is $2.91—and much higher in our area. Also, although the Bush Legacy Bus can run on biodiesel, it hasn’t always been able to because the fuel isn’t available everywhere.
Meanwhile, national emissions of greenhouse gases have increased by 316 million tons.
Katrina, education, worker’s rights, healthcare, and Iraq figure prominently in the traveling museum. Learn more about why John McCain is trying to distance himself from Bush by visiting the Legacy Tour Web site.
October 24, 2008
State, Feds: Peace Bridge Plaza Will Have “Adverse Effect”
The Prospect Hill-Columbus Park Association and the Campaign for Greater Buffalo today released a statement about a determination by state and federal agencies that the proposed plaza expansion at the Peace Bridge would have an adverse impact on the surrounding area:
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) and the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) have declared that the controversial Peace Bridge Expansion Project would have a negative effect on the surrounding area if it goes through as currently proposed. Specifically, the FHWA has found that the project would harm the historic and cultural resources of the Prospect Hill Historic District, previously identified in the environmental review process as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. The boundaries of the Prospect Hill Historic District encompass 73 contributing properties. In addition, 29 properties outside the boundaries of the District, ranging from the Peace Bridge itself to the Hutchinson Memorial Chapel and Niagara Hall, a commercial building on Niagara Street, are eligible for listing and fall under federal and state protections. Lastly, The Connecticut Street Armory, Porter Avenue, and Front, Columbus, and Prospect parks are already listed on the National Register. Eligible properties and districts have the same protections under state and federal law as those already listed.
We’ll look into this to see how it affects the neighborhood’s bid to stop the plaza expansion.
Chasing Pigeon: The GOP Joins the Chase
Steve Pigeon
Today Buffalo News politics reporter Bob McCarthy writes that GOP county election commissioner Ralph Mohr is asking DAs an three counties—Erie, Genesee, and Niagara—to investigate Steve Pigeon’s squirrelly campaign finance maneuvers. In doing so, he joins Sam Hoyt operative Jeremy Toth, who has asked the DAs in Erie, Monroe, and Albany counties to investigate Responsible New York, the $5 million committee funded by Tom Golisano and directed by Pigeon. Toth alleges that Responsible New York illegally coordinated its activities with the Barbra Kavanaugh campaign. Rivals of Joe Mesi, whom Responsible New York supports for the 61st District State Senate seat, have made the same accusation of coordination, which is a felony.
According to McCarthy’s piece, Mohr has latched onto Citizens for Fiscal Integrity, which was started in 2005 and spent a great deal of money on Erie County Legislature races that year; among its donors were the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, which gave an eye-popping $20,000, and then County Executive Joel Giambra, who gave $11,000.
Here’s the registration form for CFI. A curious fact: Angela Irvin, designated as CFI’s treasurer, was just 18 when this form was filed in 2005, and registered to vote at 119 Treehaven Road, which is Steve Pigeon’s mother’s house. The other authorized check signer for CFI, Alexandra Lawkowski, is also known as Alexandra Schmid, who also worked for Change WNY Now, a Pigeon-controlled PAC, and for People for Accountable Government, another Pigeon-controlled PAC run by Pigeon’s ally David Pfaff.
Earlier this year Schmid received $1,000 in consulting fees from CFI, which itself received $4,000 from Responsible New York. CFI also gave $1,000 to Mesi, $500 to Kavanaugh, and $500 to Frank Sedita—the front-runner for Erie County DA, who, if elected, will decide whether to investigate Pigeon’s money-handling. CFI made these donations even as it was, according to its campaign finance disclosure forms, in the hole more than $7,000. So CFI, with no money of its own to give, must have acted as a pass-through—laundering Responsible New York money, essentially, as Mohr alleges in his complaint.
This presumes, of course, a faith in the accuracy of CFI’s campaign finance filings. That faith is difficult to sustain: The committee quit reporting after a flurry of initial activity in 2005, then suddenly began filing again this year, when election officials began to scrutinize the committee’s finances. One curiosity that scrutiny uncovered, according to a source at the Erie County Board of Elections, is a habit of skipped checks in the committee’s checkbook. For example, there might be accounts of check numbers 1001-1005…and then the next check accounted for is number 1014. What happened to all the checks in between?
Unfortunately for Pigeon, it seems Tom Golisano is not so careless with his checks. According to Mohr’s complaint, Golisano signed a Responsible New York check and noted on the memo line that it paid for consulting fees in the 61st District. An unauthorized committee such as Responsible New York may purchase advertising for a candidate it supports, but it may not directly purchase services for that candidate. It may not pay a consultant to the candidate. That would constitute coordination.
Last month, Golisano told Artvoice that what Responsible New York’s discosure filings called “consulting” fees—specifically, consulting fees paid to Pigeon’s firm, Landen LLC—were in fact used to purchase radio and TV advertising. He said the disclosure forms were “wrong.” Perhaps that’s the case, too, with the check Mohr is waving around now.
October 23, 2008
Sarah Palin rap
Thought we’d share this Saturday Night Live skit with Governor Palin, you know the Washington “outsider” hockey mom who just blew through $150,000 for new clothes at Saks 5th Ave, Neiman-Marcus, etc. John Stewart decided the Palins were Alaskan grifters using a hot looking babe to take advantage of an old man, John McCain, and then go on big spending spree.
Now when you look at it that way, suddenly the republican presidential ticket makes a lot more sense.
Terrorists
Here’s a new mailer from the Republican National Committee:
Now who are the grownups? Which is the party that promotes personal responsibility?
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