Rare is the moment when our senior U.S. senator is critical of any type of picture taking. A longstanding political joke notes “the most dangerous place in Washington is between Chuck Schumer and a television camera.” That phrase offers a nod to Schumer’s longtime tradition of annually ...
LAKEWOOD—Let’s pick up where we left off three weeks ago. No one needs to explain to New York gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman that he and his team need to run hard through the tape on Election Day. They’re doing that. Hence the Oct. 28 whistle-stop tour across the Southern ...
There’s been a lot of discussion over housing the homeless in hotels over the past couple of years. That discussion is needed, because there are a lot of issues to be sorted out: how to provide the services needed to keep the homeless from simply being warehoused in hotel rooms, making sure the hotel spaces are livable in the first place, making sure spaces are appropriate for women and children and ensuring that issues aren’t created in the communities where hotels have contracts to house the homeless, as we have seen in Falconer and Ellicott. Here’s what’s been missing ...
Saritha Komatireddy isn’t a household name for many New Yorkers. And that’s too bad, because she should be your next state Attorney General. We know all too well what we will get statewide by electing Letitia James as attorney general - more lawsuits that are so tinged by party politics that it’s hard to discern whether or not the case makes sense. That happens, in part, because James has been smacked down by courts often enough in her attempts to fill her prior campaign pledges to make life hard on President Donald Trump that it’s hard to tell where a case actually exists or ...
Seven candidates are on the ballot for four justice positions on the state Supreme Court Eighth Judicial District that serves the Western New York counties, including Chautauqua. State Supreme Courts hear civil matters while the County Courts hear criminal matters. In making our selections for these positions, we consider ratings by the Erie County Bar Association to assist the public in the process. The Association notes candidates are evaluated on criteria necessary to hold judicial office, including integrity, experience, professional ability, education, reputation, industry, ...
Voting is free speech and should be protected as such To The Reader’s Forum: Why aren’t voters and their votes protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment? When we vote, we speak; we express in writing whom we want to represent us and whom we do not want to represent us, based on shared political values. According to the Supreme Court, independent expenditures for political communications by corporate, organizational, and other wealthy donors, is protected Free Speech (Citizens United decision). Why not voters and their votes? Aren’t they more ...
