Asking the Tough Questions of the Powerless and Mentally Ill
I like the Buffalo News’ new editorial direction. The mainstream media of yore would have exposed – oh, I dunno – maybe the fact that the country’s political, taxation, and entire socioeconomic structure has been systematically co-opted by the richest 1% of Americans for their own benefit, thanks to a compliant governmental structure that is able and willing to be lobbied and bought. In the past, the city’s paper of record would have proudly gone after the powerful. Pentagon Papers! Watergate! Obscure Guy at Occupy Buffalo!
Now? The Buffalo News bravely questions the claims of military service made by Christopher Simmance, an Occupy Buffalo protester who suffers from PTSD, and has been fighting the federal bureaucracy for years trying to get incorrect records corrected.
Simmance is not a leader – putative or otherwise – of Occupy Buffalo, nor is he in any position of power or influence over anybody. As far as I can tell, he’s a troubled Army veteran who is upset about the direction of the country, and sports a backwards Kangol cap.
Did Simmance serve in the Korangal Valley of Afghanistan? I mean, IT WAS IN A MOVIE! I know that the Buffalo News didn’t have the answer, but insinuates that he didn’t.
Setting aside this article’s questionable prioritization – questioning the powerless rather than the powerful – the article doesn’t conclusively rebut any of Simmance’s claims. Instead, it employs the Glenn Beck-trademarked trick of question-asking to discredit by innuendo. I don’t get it. Here’s a Twitter back and forth that Steve Watson, the article’s author, and I had:
View the story “Steve Watson on Simmance” on Storify]
If the News had unearthed actual facts to dispute Simmance’s claims, then it’d be a story. Without them, it’s just a smear.
A shameful one at that.
Up next: an Orchard Park working mother of two claims to go to a gym three times a week to work out. But does she? She claims to do Zumba, but Zumba is mentioned on TV ads!
Innuendo. Definitely.
Innuendo–and out the other (ouch!). Even interviewed his *mother*. Geez.
The intrepid reporters at the Buffalo News eagerly reproduce as journalism every press release from powerful fat-ass corporate and political fraudster in town, leaving it to ARTVOICE and THE SPECTRUM to do the actual investigative work. For instance, it delivers a huge, illustrated valentine to Jerry Jacobs in the form of a peasant’s-eye-view tour of his East Aurora estate, but includes not a word on the sordid way in which the Jacobs family has acquired the money to buy it.
But when the BN encounters a disturbed and impoverished man at Occupy Buffalo, they suddenly remember how to do the whole journalism thing. Hey, Steve! Look for my scathing, in-depth report on YOU soon, which will focus on why you were assigned away from the UB beat at WNY’s newspaper of record. I’ve already interviewed your momma, who says you were always a bad speller.
I agree with the esteemed reporters of the Buffalo News. This man is obviously a menace to polite society and the sooner we can banish him from the public square, the better. If he has been in Afghanistan as he claims, how do we know he isn’t a terrorist? This seeming endless “occupation” has really become tedious and exposing its radical conspiratorial leaders is a matter of the highest journalistic priority. I only hope that Mayor Brown will come to his senses and mobilize the vast array of military might which WE have provided to the Buffalo Police to strike a blow against the unruly rabble polluting OUR scenic Niagara Square.
Occupy Buffalo Leader Caught in Numerous Lies – The Blaze http://www.theblaze.com / stories / busted-occupy-buffalo-le /Christopher M. Simmance, a leader of Occupy Buffalo, told several media … Any combat vet thats bragging about his service is most likely not a combat vet.
Great job Buffalo News in catching this guy and being honest in this liberal infested city.
One more thing, the guy who MSNBC bragged about making a crank phone call to governor Scott Walker is a guy named “Ian Murphy” who writes for the ‘Buffalobeast’ and he also wrote an article titled “FUCK THE TROOPS!” Yes, you heard me.
Your 24/7 hatefest against the Republicans are so bad that your ratings have gone way down. better tell Chris M, Rachel, Rev Al, Ed and Chris O.
You never mentioned anything from Obama’s book Letters from my father, in which Obama said he ate a dog, snakes and grasshoppers. Obama also admitted to smoking pot and snorting cocaine. Believed his grandmother who brought him up was a racist because she was afarid of some black people on the streets. Obama’s hippie mother name STANLEY, and Obama’s father Obama Sr. who dumped Stanley and Obama Jr at the age of two and went off to marry other women and have other children, thus being a liar, bigamist, adulterer and drunk when he killed someone in Africa drunk driving and also died in another DWI accident when he drove himself into a tree. (book the other Obama)
Just wondering where all that stuff is and Obama’s trip around 1980 to Karachi Pakistan with two Muslims. Hmm? training for Jihad? Who knows.
Solyndra 50 billion $$ gone
Fast and Furious USA assault weapons used to kill a US border agent.
The huge Goldman Sachs and Merck campaign contributions to Obama and lies about Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, Rev Wright, etc
9% unemployment and a 15 trillion dollar debt.
This real ten year navy vet has had it with all the lies. More US and NATO soldiers have died on Obama’s watch in Afghanistan than in Bush’s 7 1/2 years, but you see no NBC CBS ABC 6:30 PM news about the two wars.
I’m tired of all the lies. No one reported day after day low ratings the liberal Democrats in Congress were getting during their two year reign or terror. So why now? We all know why.
Obama’s Flip-Flops Adding Up
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4631214/obamas-flip-flops-adding-up/ Obama’s Flip-Flops Adding Up
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/02/04/egypt-protests-obamas-flip-flop-naive-media-on-extremists-and-more-fears.html
7 Lies In Under 2 Minutes – YouTube In this 1:46 video, we point out 7 promises that then candidate Obama has already broken. We hope that all the people of the ObamaNation are watching.
Archived-Articles: Obama’s campaign built on lies Obama’s campaign built on lies. By Richard Baehr. There have been many lies by Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign that he has tried to …
What about Fast and Furious? 500 billion $$$ mistake
Obama’s Fast and Furious Debacle Grows : Firearms Truth To call Fast and Furious, the ATF operation that let thousands of guns walk to Mexico, a debacle is apparently an understatement. US border agent Brian Terry was murdered by one of those assault weapons.
The ATF’s latest blunder has led to at least one American death and maybe countless others in Mexico.
Why aren’t there any stories from MSNBC or CNN about this daily?
What about Solyndra?
I would arrest all these protestors under penal law codes 240.20 ,240.25 ,240.30 ,*240.35* 240.45PL
N.Y. Penal Law § 240.35(4) especially since many are wearing masks to hide their identity.
1845 law
140.05.15 criminal trespass
http://www.progressiveavenues.org/GI_Rights.html
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/theorderlyroom/a/uniformwear.htm
Federal laws concerning the wear of the United States Military uniforms by people not on active duty are published in the United States Code (USC).
Specifically, 10 USC, Subtitle A, Part II, Chapter 45, Sections 771 and 772.
Section 771 states:
Except as otherwise provided by law, no person except a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps, as the case may be, may wear –
(1) the uniform, or a distinctive part of the uniform, of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps; or
(2) a uniform any part of which is similar to a distinctive part of the uniform of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps
Section 772 lists some exceptions:
(a) A member of the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard may wear the uniform prescribed for the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard, as the case may be.
(b) A member of the Naval Militia may wear the uniform prescribed for the Naval Militia.
(c) A retired officer of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps may bear the title and wear the uniform of his retired grade.
(d) A person who is discharged honorably or under honorable conditions from the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps may wear his uniform while going from the place of discharge to his home, within three months after his discharge.
(e) A person not on active duty who served honorably in time of war in the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps may bear the title, and, when authorized by regulations prescribed by the President, wear the uniform, of the highest grade held by him during that war.
(f) While portraying a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps, an actor in a theatrical or motion-picture production may wear the uniform of that armed force if the portrayal does not tend to discredit that armed force.
(g) An officer or resident of a veterans’ home administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs may wear such uniform as the Secretary of the military department concerned may prescribe.
(h) While attending a course of military instruction conducted by the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps, a civilian may wear the uniform prescribed by that armed force if the wear of such uniform is specifically authorized under regulations prescribed by the Secretary of the military department concerned.
(i) Under such regulations as the Secretary of the Air Force may prescribe, a citizen of a foreign country who graduates from an Air Force school may wear the appropriate aviation badges of the Air Force.
(j) A person in any of the following categories may wear the uniform prescribed for that category:
(1) Members of the Boy Scouts of America.
(2) Members of any other organization designated by the Secretary of a military department
statute, 10 U.S.C 976
Article 88 and catch all article 134. Some militray liberal rats are violating these articles.
DoD Dir. 1334.1. Wearing of the Uniform. Prohibits wearing uniform at certain events, including demonstrations. The 99ers are composed mostly of unemployed people who should be out looking for a job. They are also socialists, homeless people who are high on drugs, alcoholics, mental defectives, anarchists, anti capitalists and Communists (we seen Anjelia Davis)seeking to destroy capitalism and go toward European socialism, which we’ve seen now as a total failure. Don’t you see that President Obama?
Some unions are telling their members not to go to work and are trying to shut down the Port of Oakland. That’s an attack on capitalism, our economy and our country.
Buffalo Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick got a new contract for 59 million dollars for six years, that’s almost ten million dollars a year, should the Occupy Wall Street people go and boycott Ryan at his house or Oprah and Tyler Perry?
How can a high school dropout who never finished high school because she got pregnant and now is living on welfare and foodstamps and on the government dole have her income go up? How about all the murders, rapes, theft, suicide, destruction by these people not being covered by the liberal media?
Why not go to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. where all this started? Obama started this class warfare thing and Nancy Pelosi also backed it, so now you will have to live with the shame of it all.
Why didn’t Obama stop all those big bank bonuses that went out to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that were bailed out with taxpayer money? We’ve seen that socialism doesn’t work in the Soviet Union and Europe. Someone tell that to Obama. Who was in charge of banking? Democrats Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
Sure, go after the people and companies who made billions, but paid no taxes because of tax loopholes, but you can’t tax everybody at a high rate or there will be no new businesess starting up and the old ones will go bankrupt of just leave to another country. Be fair and use common sense; otherwise, I see a dark future for our country. Occupy wall Street is not the answer. We need a new leader who won’t go around the world blaming America for the worlds problems. We need a president who will focus on our economy and jobs and not his personal pet projects like ObamaCare. A president that will keep America strong and not have two bit dictators run all over us. God Bless you and God Bless America.
It’s like Fox News just vomited all over my screen.
Look at this Jimmy guy, up in the middle of the night, posting giant blocks of randomly-generated talking points! Go, Talking Point Man, go!! My favorite is “Your ratings have gone down!” Whose ratings? Is Jimmy the Talking Point Man under the impression that Artvoice is a TV show?
I’m thinking in keeping with all those grave concerns about our society and all its ills, we should also protest the liberal psychiatric center for liberally handing out those holiday home visit passes. Oh, I forgot, it’s President Obama’s fault. Better OWH.
Wow, Fox News now has its own spambots.