Opinion and Commentary since 2003
Isn’t Wolf Blitzer’s from WNY? Isn’t he one of the few locals who went on to become a media giant?
If so, why is he busy penning facile book reports about how nice it is that people are willing to run for king of the free world?
From the rarely-situational Situation Room, Wolf hopes you have as much fun reading his 5th grade essay as he did writing it!
Brad Riter is a radio talk show host who most recently hosted the afternoon drive slot on WECK 1230-AM before it switched to a music format in July. He wrote one of our “Daily Five” about a week or so ago.
He’ll be filling in for Tom Bauerle today on WBEN 930-AM and 107.7-FM from 9 until 12. Brad’s a good guy who does good radio. Please check him out.
Follow @bradriter
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Something struck me today regarding Paladino’s newest insult billboard-a-torium. Take a look, if you will, at the last two:
Paladino Billboard the First
Paladino Billboard the Second
And here’s the most recent iteration:
Notice the difference?
Did you also notice Bob McCarthy’s seemingly perfectly normal Sunday opinion piece detailing how Paladino intends to become politically active again?
Several sources tell me that Carl Paladino and Buffalo News publisher Stan Lipsey broke bread recently to bury the hatchet. This explains Lipsey’s absence from the “bucket list” sign, and the friendly tete-a-tete with McCarthy. That is the perfect explanation for the abrupt end to the Paladino-Lipsey feud.
To go from two consecutive “Fuck Stan Lipsey” signs, to a glowing, uncritical profile in The Buffalo News to including “nobody-from-the-Buffalo-News” on his new ‘fuck you’ sign is quite a swing
Might be time to update this to include Carl.
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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!
Check out the comments to this Buffalo News article regarding changes that County Executive-elect Poloncarz would like to make to Collins’ 2012 county budget. It involves re-shuffling existing money to fund what Poloncarz considers to be his priorities, as opposed to Collins’. The uninformed are already accusing him of increasing taxes and spending, when neither is actually occurring.
Such is the state of information in western New York.
In a post on Facebook, Poloncarz wrote,
Although this is Mr. Collins’ budget and both he and the Legislature have final say on what is passed, I hope to have some if not all of these priorities included. Considering the Comptroller’s Office has already identified approximately $5 million in overbudgeting, I believe the roughly $2 million in restorations I suggested are modest. This is in no way additional spending, simply part of my promise to spend what we have more wisely and on the things residents/taxpayers need, want and deserve from County government.