COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -
A Colorado Springs apartment manager threatens to raise the rent of anyone who voted to re-elect President Barack Obama.
Link
Yes I live in Colorado Springs, a community that Kos here has described it as the center of right-wing nuts and other periphery, but this one appears to take the proverbial cake, in that the guy put it in writing on official letterhead. The entire story below.
John Obringer sent out a letter to his tenants at the Casa Adobe Apartments on Wednesday. The letter was addressing cutbacks on staff and maintenance issues.
"Due to the stupidity of the U.S. electorate, the Obama-administration's continued assault on small business is resulting in increased taxes, regulations and mandates that are forcing the management company (B&J Enterprises, Inc.) for Casa Adobe Apartments to modify its operation to survive. This has resulted in layoffs, work-time reductions and decreased pay for workers. Consequently, the business hours are now Monday and Tuesday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Please plan accordingly ... We are working hard to maintain the field, cleaning and maintenance personnel in place without raising rents, but that too is inevitable due to the upcoming inflation and market forces," writes Obringer.
"If you have any questions, comments or criticisms, please call me. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and Happy Holidays to you and yours," continues Obringer.
Then he added, "BTW: If you voted "Democrat" on Nov. 6, please notify me ASAP so I can raise your rent first to help pay for what you asked for." bold and italics added for emphasis.
Now KRDO interviewed a few tenants where one felt threatened
"I think it's wrong. That's your constitutional right to vote for who you want," said a tenant who wished to hide her identity.
She went on to tell KRDO News Channel 13 that Obringer had already threatened to kick her out for voting for President Obama.
White another came to the landlord manager's defense:
"It's just John. He's kind of a quirky landlord," she said.
So far, the tenants said nothing has changed. But the future is up in the air. Obringer refused our requests for an on-camera interview.
[
UPDATE Gatecrasher, (thanks!) found the actual letter on
Scribd link here.] Much weirdness
UPDATE II: Just called him personally. He is having a laugh over it and said that if anyone knows me it was "sarcasm". He volunteered that he was on Rush Limbaugh's Show in Friday and but was surprised that the Internet has found out that he was a biologist for the Fed Govt.
Yet when you read this, whether it is Colorado Springs that voted 58.91% for Romney (they voted 58.69% in 2008, hmmm +/- depending which way you view it of 1.22%, in that the state's difference was 2.38% 2012-2008 returns, so how deeply red is Colo Springs), or somewhere else like
Red Lobster or Papa John's, the attitude remains the same, open defiance towards the legitimacy of democracy and its decision.
This past week a letter to the editor to Colorado Springs Independent brought up more insights to the right-wing's reaction to the election. This letter by the way is response to my earlier letter which is not important, what is important is what is said and characterized in this short letter.
The re-election
Mr. Nemanich's statistical epiphany and Charles Murray's book The Bell Curve, are both wrong. They have intelligence racially trapped. Intelligence is enlightenment, awareness. It is not what color house it's lived in. The economically illiterate re-elected the road runner as commander and chief.
Joan Christensen
Fountain
bold used for emphasis
The situation is that seemingly regular people, a landlord manager or a regular responder to a local newspaper view the election of Obama as a direct threat to the economic system. Obringer says it "
was the stupidity of U.S. electorate", and "the economically illiterate re-elected" from Ms. Christensen both succinctly point to the lack of collective intellect by the majority. It appears to be that economic retribution by those in power or common wave off from the surrogates. But then I went through emails from right-wing friends and found similar references.
Unidentified friend #1
Romney lost the election because he said that he wanted to put Americans back to work. And 51% of Americans, said, "F" that!
When pushed forward exit polls as to what were the reasons why groups voted for or against candidates he scoffed it off as saying it was this simple, holding that the majority of the nation is unemployed.
Unidentified friend #2
It mystifies me how little the average person knows about who they will end up voting for in this critically important election. Quality information is hard to come by and many people don’t search for it, the level of misinformation has been stunning. For example, educated people I’ve talked with show little understanding of basic economics.
Of course when I replied that both publications "The Economist" and "The Financial Times"
endorsed Obama over Romneyand "The Economist" ran a survey of its economic professionals who said,
"By a large margin they rate Obama's overall economic plan more highly than Mr. Romney’s.” I get disbelief and a reaction of stunning rejection, when faced with substantiation he goes off to another subject.
Myth making is all they got, but it something we have to deal with.