Tag: Politics

Aug 21

2022

If Henry Wojtaszek was Pinocchio

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Here’s the latest recommended reading – and this week, viewing – from Jim Heaney. Subscribe to his Sunday email newsletter and you’ll get the news a day earlier, along with a recap of Investigative Post’s reporting from the previous week. Updated: 12:22 p.m. Henry Wojtaszek, the embattled CEO of the embattled Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp., took the unusual step of answering questions from a reporter last week. He appeared Wednesday on WGRZ’s 5:30 p.m. newscast. Michael Wooten asked the right questions and Wojtaszek, well, let’s just say if he was Pinocchio, his nose would have been very long by the[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Aug 14

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Consider this food for thought to start your week. Available, by the way, Sunday mornings, along with a summary of what Investigative Post published the previous week, in an email newsletter. It’s free, so, hey. Subscribe here. The New York Times sizes up the race between Carl Paladino and Nick Langworthy.  The Times also writes about how the attack on Salman Rushdie has shaken the Chautauqua Institution.   Ken Kruly, in his Politics and Other Stuff, details all the money spent by local companies and nonprofits to lobby officials in state government. It’s a lot. Ken’s list of individual spending by organizations[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 24

2022

A most unreasonable demand

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I’ve never heard of such a thing: elected officials being asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement to preclude them from discussing public policy. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz is making the demand of three county legislators who would serve on a committee to consider, at long last, a community benefits agreement tied to the construction of the new Buffalo Bills stadium. The county executive wants those negotiations, much like talks involving the stadium, to be held in secret. Public policy should not be negotiated behind closed doors. This is yet another example of Poloncarz kowtowing to the Pegulas and thumbing[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 28

2022

Council catches hell on redistricting plan

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The first public hearing on a redistricting plan for Buffalo’s Common Council attracted just two members of the public. Only one spoke. Tuesday night’s public hearing was another story.  More than 100 people attended the 5 p.m. session — 60 or more in person, another 40 or so online, according to Delaware District Council Member Joel Feroleto, who chaired the hearing.  At least half the attendees spoke. All used the three minutes allotted to them to disparage the plan drafted by the Council’s appointed Citizens Commission on Reapportionment, first unveiled at a May 18 public hearing.  That May 18 hearing[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 26

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Here’s what caught Jim Heaney’s eye last week. You can get the earl scoop by subscribing to his free Sunday newsletter. Tom Dinki of WBFO had a terrific series of stories last week on the rise of the radical right in WNY. An audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli finds IDAs are delivering less bang for the buck. In other words, bigger subsidies, fewer jobs. Ken Kruly summarizes the latest campaign finance disclosure reports ahead of next week’s primary. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas thinks Roe v Wade ought to be just the beginning. Many corporations professing to support LGBT rights are nevertheless underwriting the likes[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 21

2022

Buffalo’s gerrymandered Council districts

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A coalition of activists and good government groups is urging Buffalo’s Common Council to reject a redistricting plan that has been moving quickly and quietly toward approval. And they’ve got a plan of their own to put in its place — one they say does a better job keeping neighborhoods together and promoting racial equity, while undoing the gerrymandering of a decade ago. The proposal moving through the Council was submitted last month by a citizens commission charged with recommending new district lines based on 2020 Census numbers. That commission worked largely behind closed doors, with little public notice or[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 8

2022

Paladino does it again

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Carl Paladino is running for Congress, and his opponents, Democrat and Republican alike, are rushing to remind voters of the real estate developer’s history of making racist remarks and sharing pornographic emails with friends. They need not delve so deeply into the past. Just last Wednesday, Paladino shared a Facebook post suggesting mass shootings such as those in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, might be “false flag” operations, orchestrated by government agencies like the FBI and CIA, using “hypnosis training,” as justification “to revoke the 2nd amendment and take away our guns.” Paladino initially told Buffalo News political reporter Bob McCarthy[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jun 6

2022

Monday Morning Read

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Jim Heaney shares his recommended reading from the previous week, which is also delivered Sunday mornings via his WeeklyPost newsletter. You can subscribe for free here. That didn’t take long. Just days after Congressman Chris Jacobs announced he would support gun control measures in the wake of mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas, he withdrew as a candidate for re-election. The GOP just wouldn’t have it. Analysis here from The Buffalo News and The New York Times. The Washington Post reported a few days ago there have been 232 mass shootings in the United State so far this year. And[...]

Posted 4 years ago
Investigative Post