Sheriff Howard is lashing out at WNY Media.net for a negative story they published about him.
The story was about Sheriff Howard of Erie County, and where he is getting his campaign money. He didn’t like these facts being exposed to the public so in response Howard has decided to get revenge on the website and the writer.
The article on WNY Media focuses on a recent fundraiser for the Sheriff that was cosponsored by Delacy Ford. Coincidentally Delacy Ford has been doing business with the Sheriff’s department since at least 1999, with contracts totaling at least $733,917 of taxpayer money.
This is all public information, but I guess the good Sheriff didn’t like this being exposed on WNY Media, which is a popular alternative news website like SpeakupWNY. The Sheriff feels threatened by the story, which is good, it means that WNY Media is doing their Job. The media is supposed to ask tough questions that those in power do not want to answer, they are supposed to bring facts into the light that those in power don’t want people to know. But Sheriff Howard doesn’t like people rocking his boat (or yacht), so he is lashing out against the website and it’s owner. How? He targeted their place of employment. Someone called the website owner’s place of work and said enough mean things to get that person Suspended from their job. Suspended until further notice. We speak truth to power and power reacts by threatening our source of income
We can’t let media be intimidated for doing their job, WNY Media is simply asking tough questions that the public deserves answers to. It’s $733,917 of our tax money that is being played with, we deserve to know what is going on behind the scenes. Attacking the media like this is beyond improper, any lawyers in the house?
I want everyone to be aware of the dirty tricks that are going on with the politicians in this county. Please Read the article.
“The fundraiser was hosted by the wives of Sheriff Howard's political appointees, as well as Smith Boy Marine Sales and Delacy Ford. To say the least, it’s unusual for a company with county contracts to sponsor a fundraiser. Usually they just give money. But when you want to give more money than legally allowed, what do you do in New York State? That's right, hold a fundraiser:”
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09/30/2005 21:26 #21678
Dirty TricksCategory: politics
09/26/2005 12:54 #21677
250,000 invisible peopleThere was a protest this weekend in DC. there were between 100,000 and 300,000 people there. it was the largest anti-war protest in DC since the war in Iraq began 3 years ago. but if you sneezed you might have missed the news coverage.
our news media is beyond disappointing. I don't even have the energy to go into it now. but I'll give you one example from this latest protest.There was an anti-war protest of up to 300,000 people, and there was a counter "pro-war" protest of around 100 people on the side of that protest. In almost every major American news outlet that I checked, the protest with 100 people was given more prominent coverage then the protest with 300,000 people. I checked Yahoo News at about 9:00 last night, and this was the first news story about the protest I saw, it was talking about the pro-war rally, and only made some abstract refferance to the real protest in about the 8th paragraph. about six lines below that was a story about the real protest.
go to democracy now if you want to hear what the protest was about. the entire monday show is replaying excerpts from speaches at the protest. the show can be downloaded at their website.
our news media is beyond disappointing. I don't even have the energy to go into it now. but I'll give you one example from this latest protest.There was an anti-war protest of up to 300,000 people, and there was a counter "pro-war" protest of around 100 people on the side of that protest. In almost every major American news outlet that I checked, the protest with 100 people was given more prominent coverage then the protest with 300,000 people. I checked Yahoo News at about 9:00 last night, and this was the first news story about the protest I saw, it was talking about the pro-war rally, and only made some abstract refferance to the real protest in about the 8th paragraph. about six lines below that was a story about the real protest.
go to democracy now if you want to hear what the protest was about. the entire monday show is replaying excerpts from speaches at the protest. the show can be downloaded at their website.
09/16/2005 23:46 #21675
Laffyette Square and IraqIn response to (e:Paul)'s request [inlink]paul,3842[/inlink] for pictures from the protest in the square. here they are.
Also I'd like to give a quick update on how terrible things are in Iraq. Not only are more people dying and more terrorist attacks occurring per day, but the whole constitutional process is ripping the country apart. And the sad thing is that America doesn't care. We are simply buddying up with the two oil rich tribes in the country, and getting ready to help them start a war against the Sunni minority. We abandoned the Sunnis and they abandoned the political process. they tried to be involved, I heard many reports throughout the past 2 years of Sunni leaders wanting to sit down with the Americans and talk about how they can be involved and fairly represented politically, but most of the time the Americans didn't even acknowledge their request. Currently the Iraqi congress is going ahead with a theocratic constitution that will legally marginalize the Sunnis and leave them isolated on a territory that has no oil. hmm... is this the way to get to world peace? Remove people from power and thrust them into poverty! because that really is what's happening in Iraq right now.
if you want to know how and why we should get out of Iraq here's some further reading.
Previous post on the 'Iraqi Peace Process'[inlink]dcoffee,5[/inlink]
Recent Article 'Anti-Terror Strategy in Doubt on 911'
Now for the Pictures, I couldn't go but luckilly Molly took some pictures.
Also I'd like to give a quick update on how terrible things are in Iraq. Not only are more people dying and more terrorist attacks occurring per day, but the whole constitutional process is ripping the country apart. And the sad thing is that America doesn't care. We are simply buddying up with the two oil rich tribes in the country, and getting ready to help them start a war against the Sunni minority. We abandoned the Sunnis and they abandoned the political process. they tried to be involved, I heard many reports throughout the past 2 years of Sunni leaders wanting to sit down with the Americans and talk about how they can be involved and fairly represented politically, but most of the time the Americans didn't even acknowledge their request. Currently the Iraqi congress is going ahead with a theocratic constitution that will legally marginalize the Sunnis and leave them isolated on a territory that has no oil. hmm... is this the way to get to world peace? Remove people from power and thrust them into poverty! because that really is what's happening in Iraq right now.
if you want to know how and why we should get out of Iraq here's some further reading.
Previous post on the 'Iraqi Peace Process'[inlink]dcoffee,5[/inlink]
Recent Article 'Anti-Terror Strategy in Doubt on 911'
Now for the Pictures, I couldn't go but luckilly Molly took some pictures.
jason - 09/20/05 10:58
I only have one basic issue with this journal entry - when the process started Sunnis STAYED AWAY from the political process, either because they were boycotting it (reason supplied below), or the jihadists scared them away from the voting booths. Is that everyone else's fault, including ours, or did we abandon them? In my opinion no. However, I feel like we should have been more encouraging to the Sunnis in terms of political engagement.
In my view it isn't that the two oil-rich tribes are getting all of our attention - it doesn't make sense to me because without Sunnis participating politically the civil unrest and violence would only escalate, keeping our oil interests in a volatile situation.
The Sunnis are a minority. They ruled Iraq for decades and slaughtered the other factions in horrible ways. They are not used to sharing power. They are scared that there will be retaliation under a new government. There are also other points of contention. Given all of this it comes as no surprise to me that it has been a difficult venture. It's not impossible, but it takes time, forgiveness and patience for the different groups to "get it right", so to speak. Everyone has something at stake.
I only have one basic issue with this journal entry - when the process started Sunnis STAYED AWAY from the political process, either because they were boycotting it (reason supplied below), or the jihadists scared them away from the voting booths. Is that everyone else's fault, including ours, or did we abandon them? In my opinion no. However, I feel like we should have been more encouraging to the Sunnis in terms of political engagement.
In my view it isn't that the two oil-rich tribes are getting all of our attention - it doesn't make sense to me because without Sunnis participating politically the civil unrest and violence would only escalate, keeping our oil interests in a volatile situation.
The Sunnis are a minority. They ruled Iraq for decades and slaughtered the other factions in horrible ways. They are not used to sharing power. They are scared that there will be retaliation under a new government. There are also other points of contention. Given all of this it comes as no surprise to me that it has been a difficult venture. It's not impossible, but it takes time, forgiveness and patience for the different groups to "get it right", so to speak. Everyone has something at stake.
09/19/2005 17:02 #21676
A Critical Look at the Race for MayorCategory: politics
[size=l]A Critical Look at the Race for Mayor[/size]
By: David Coffee
September 19, 2005
After hearing the results of last week’s Mayoral Primary, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. In the beginning of the race we had over eight candidates, many of whom were political outsiders who were simply interested in helping improve their beloved community. They entered the race simply because they felt an obligation to do their part to help all of Buffalo. After the primary we lost our inspiring candidates, and we found ourselves immersed in the same old political nonsense, complete with name-calling and devoid of issues. We need to free ourselves from ‘politics as usual’ and the way to do it is to change our voting system so that it more accurately reflects the will of the people.
The Buffalo news on Friday described the Brown-Helfer mayoral contest as a battle between “two political heavyweights.” Now I’m not a gambler but I’m willing to bet that nobody in this city would describe their ideal mayor as a ‘political heavyweight’. That says a lot about the trap that we find ourselves in. Our system has lead us down a narrow hallway, and at the end we find two candidates that nobody truly wants. The system is not working, so the responsible thing to do is change the system. I’m not talking about getting a candidate elected, I’m talking about changing the rules that we use to elect our public officials.
There are many ways to translate democratic intent into political representation, and statistically our Winner-take-all plurality system is the worst. Elections like ours use a very simple method to select the winner, the candidate with the most votes wins. This is fine when there are only two candidates, but with three or more there is a possibility that the most favored candidate will lose. A candidate who would normally win in a two-way race might have their votes ‘stolen’ by a third candidate and therefore hand the election to a candidate who doesn’t actually have the support of the majority. This is the dilemma that led Steve Calvanesso to drop out of the primary early. He didn’t want to steal votes from Kevin Gaughan thereby helping Byron Brown win the nomination. If we had used a system of Instant Runoff Voting this problem could have been avoided entirely, voters would have three choices, and they could vote for their favorite candidate without fear of helping their least favorite candidate.
It is very possible to deal with this problem. The most efficient and democratic way is through Instant Runoff Voting. It works like this: After the votes are cast, the least favored candidates are eliminated from the ballot until someone achieves a majority of the votes. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference, if their first choice receives the smallest number of votes and is eliminated from the ballot their second choice is used. This process is repeated until one candidate has a majority. If Brown Gaughan and Calvaneso were competing and Gaughan ended up with the least number of votes he would be eliminated and his voters would use their second choice vote instead. The result would truly express the will of the voters, instead of making them frustrated.
Unlike the Runoff election used in the New York City Democratic primary, Instant Runoff Voting is much less costly or time consuming. The New York City Runoff election requires everyone to come back and vote again if nobody receives a majority in the first round of voting. Instant Runoff voting allows voters to rank their candidates so that they only need to vote once. If a voters first choice is eliminated they will use their second choice instead.
Why does it matter? What difference will it make? In this case, Calvaneso wouldn’t have dropped out. And voters would have been able to choose freely between three candidates without worrying about ‘wasting’ their vote or ‘spoiling’ the election by allowing someone to win with less than 50% of the vote.
We could easily use Instant Runoff Voting in our Democratic primary, or in any City or County election. It doesn’t take a federal or state law to change our system of voting, our community decides how we want to elect our own officials.
Think about it, does our current system elect the candidates that people want? What would happen if voters could record their true preference, rather than strategically voting for the lesser of two evils because they were scared of wasting their vote on a third candidate? And what about the candidates, would more people run? With additional candidates, would we talk about other issues and hear more diverse solutions? And what would happen to Buffalo if we had a vibrant public discourse led by the many candidates in each election? And what if our citizens could vote for any of those eight candidates without fear of their vote not counting, would thousands more people turn out to vote? I’m willing to bet that the change would be dramatic.
It’s not that we don’t have honest, qualified people running for office, the problem is that they are squeezed out of the race before the general public gets a chance to vote for them. Or they show up on the ballot as a third party that nobody acknowledges because we don’t want to waste our vote. We are all tired of the political machines, empty promises, and incompetent public officials, but we can’t seem to overcome them. We have good candidates but our system makes them so hard to elect. The most important thing we can do to get ourselves out of this mess is to change the rules of the system.
___________________
More info on Instant Runoff Voting
By: David Coffee
September 19, 2005
After hearing the results of last week’s Mayoral Primary, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. In the beginning of the race we had over eight candidates, many of whom were political outsiders who were simply interested in helping improve their beloved community. They entered the race simply because they felt an obligation to do their part to help all of Buffalo. After the primary we lost our inspiring candidates, and we found ourselves immersed in the same old political nonsense, complete with name-calling and devoid of issues. We need to free ourselves from ‘politics as usual’ and the way to do it is to change our voting system so that it more accurately reflects the will of the people.
The Buffalo news on Friday described the Brown-Helfer mayoral contest as a battle between “two political heavyweights.” Now I’m not a gambler but I’m willing to bet that nobody in this city would describe their ideal mayor as a ‘political heavyweight’. That says a lot about the trap that we find ourselves in. Our system has lead us down a narrow hallway, and at the end we find two candidates that nobody truly wants. The system is not working, so the responsible thing to do is change the system. I’m not talking about getting a candidate elected, I’m talking about changing the rules that we use to elect our public officials.
There are many ways to translate democratic intent into political representation, and statistically our Winner-take-all plurality system is the worst. Elections like ours use a very simple method to select the winner, the candidate with the most votes wins. This is fine when there are only two candidates, but with three or more there is a possibility that the most favored candidate will lose. A candidate who would normally win in a two-way race might have their votes ‘stolen’ by a third candidate and therefore hand the election to a candidate who doesn’t actually have the support of the majority. This is the dilemma that led Steve Calvanesso to drop out of the primary early. He didn’t want to steal votes from Kevin Gaughan thereby helping Byron Brown win the nomination. If we had used a system of Instant Runoff Voting this problem could have been avoided entirely, voters would have three choices, and they could vote for their favorite candidate without fear of helping their least favorite candidate.
It is very possible to deal with this problem. The most efficient and democratic way is through Instant Runoff Voting. It works like this: After the votes are cast, the least favored candidates are eliminated from the ballot until someone achieves a majority of the votes. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference, if their first choice receives the smallest number of votes and is eliminated from the ballot their second choice is used. This process is repeated until one candidate has a majority. If Brown Gaughan and Calvaneso were competing and Gaughan ended up with the least number of votes he would be eliminated and his voters would use their second choice vote instead. The result would truly express the will of the voters, instead of making them frustrated.
Unlike the Runoff election used in the New York City Democratic primary, Instant Runoff Voting is much less costly or time consuming. The New York City Runoff election requires everyone to come back and vote again if nobody receives a majority in the first round of voting. Instant Runoff voting allows voters to rank their candidates so that they only need to vote once. If a voters first choice is eliminated they will use their second choice instead.
Why does it matter? What difference will it make? In this case, Calvaneso wouldn’t have dropped out. And voters would have been able to choose freely between three candidates without worrying about ‘wasting’ their vote or ‘spoiling’ the election by allowing someone to win with less than 50% of the vote.
We could easily use Instant Runoff Voting in our Democratic primary, or in any City or County election. It doesn’t take a federal or state law to change our system of voting, our community decides how we want to elect our own officials.
Think about it, does our current system elect the candidates that people want? What would happen if voters could record their true preference, rather than strategically voting for the lesser of two evils because they were scared of wasting their vote on a third candidate? And what about the candidates, would more people run? With additional candidates, would we talk about other issues and hear more diverse solutions? And what would happen to Buffalo if we had a vibrant public discourse led by the many candidates in each election? And what if our citizens could vote for any of those eight candidates without fear of their vote not counting, would thousands more people turn out to vote? I’m willing to bet that the change would be dramatic.
It’s not that we don’t have honest, qualified people running for office, the problem is that they are squeezed out of the race before the general public gets a chance to vote for them. Or they show up on the ballot as a third party that nobody acknowledges because we don’t want to waste our vote. We are all tired of the political machines, empty promises, and incompetent public officials, but we can’t seem to overcome them. We have good candidates but our system makes them so hard to elect. The most important thing we can do to get ourselves out of this mess is to change the rules of the system.
___________________
More info on Instant Runoff Voting
jason - 09/20/05 11:08
Excellent post! I couldn't agree with you more, the system is what is failing us. I'm not a Democrat, but watching this situation unfold is so depressing.
On the radio recently I heard someone arguing that we need people who have "experience", and "know the system". Basically the guy was saying that new blood would do us more harm than good. I say BULLSHIT! I'm not arguing that we should have total idiots in office, but we need to purge Buffalo of the poison as soon as possible and get some fresh faces with new ideas into the system. Regardless of our political affiliations we all know how backwards shit is.
All of this becomes exacerbated by the absolutely AWFUL political climate in Buffalo. Unions run the city. They have the most power. Candidates run some of the ugliest ads against each other I've ever seen or heard. I see it as a situation where people are chiefly concerned with the amount of power they have. Everyone's sick of it all. Look at the Democrat primary turnout, holy shit I couldn't believe how pathetic it was. People are giving up! We need real reform in local and state government! Now!
Excellent post! I couldn't agree with you more, the system is what is failing us. I'm not a Democrat, but watching this situation unfold is so depressing.
On the radio recently I heard someone arguing that we need people who have "experience", and "know the system". Basically the guy was saying that new blood would do us more harm than good. I say BULLSHIT! I'm not arguing that we should have total idiots in office, but we need to purge Buffalo of the poison as soon as possible and get some fresh faces with new ideas into the system. Regardless of our political affiliations we all know how backwards shit is.
All of this becomes exacerbated by the absolutely AWFUL political climate in Buffalo. Unions run the city. They have the most power. Candidates run some of the ugliest ads against each other I've ever seen or heard. I see it as a situation where people are chiefly concerned with the amount of power they have. Everyone's sick of it all. Look at the Democrat primary turnout, holy shit I couldn't believe how pathetic it was. People are giving up! We need real reform in local and state government! Now!
09/09/2005 22:27 #21674
BushVilleCategory: politics
Bushville in DC!!!! Where can the victims of hurricane Katrina and the governments incompetence find shelter? on the Mall in DC Damn it!!!
Imagine 10,000 Katrina survivors camped on Bush’s doorstep.
Camped in the seat of power and media.
In the Government’s face.
With endless stories for the press.
quick history, during the great depression many people became unemployed and homeless, the clustered together and built homes out of whatever they could find. This self made homeless settlement was called a (WIKIPEDIA - Hooverville). it was named after president Herbert Hoover who was in office when the great depression began and who did very little to address the problems of the victims of the great depression. he was overwhelmingly voted out of office and replaced by FDR who swiftly ushered in the New Deal, which changed our nation from 'survival of the fittest' to 'we are only as strong as our weakest link'.
I find the idea extremely compelling, innovative, profound. it would be a firm step toward taking a serious look at our failings as a nation.
Imagine 10,000 Katrina survivors camped on Bush’s doorstep.
Camped in the seat of power and media.
In the Government’s face.
With endless stories for the press.
quick history, during the great depression many people became unemployed and homeless, the clustered together and built homes out of whatever they could find. This self made homeless settlement was called a (WIKIPEDIA - Hooverville). it was named after president Herbert Hoover who was in office when the great depression began and who did very little to address the problems of the victims of the great depression. he was overwhelmingly voted out of office and replaced by FDR who swiftly ushered in the New Deal, which changed our nation from 'survival of the fittest' to 'we are only as strong as our weakest link'.
I find the idea extremely compelling, innovative, profound. it would be a firm step toward taking a serious look at our failings as a nation.
paul - 09/09/05 21:38
I am so glad to see someone use a wikipedia tag. I think you might be the first in two years.
I am so glad to see someone use a wikipedia tag. I think you might be the first in two years.
In general I agree with you guys. Obviously a big anti-war protest is a newsworthy event. When I read/view/listen to a news report I expect it to be objective and tell the facts. The media has spotty consistency when it comes to producing equal/balanced reporting.
Take for example the Sheehan phenomenon. The media wasn't at all interested in getting an opinion from families who suffered the same kind of loss, but don't share her point of view. Other than the reliably right-leaning Fox News and the various AM radio personalities you wouldn't hear from anyone else.
Now I don't expect the news outlets to push a point of view in their reports. When it comes to opinion columns, fine of course, but the regular news reports should just give us the facts of a given situation. Is that so hard? Apparently so. I share in your disappointment.
For what its worth, the New York Times covered the rallies in yesterdays "Today's Headlines" email compiled at 2 AM ET on 25 September so that I could read it when I checked my email Sunday morning.
link to story the NYTimes story: :::link:::
That being said, ironically enough, in this day and age of the internet, I find that foreign news sources such as the BBC :::link::: and the Australian ABC :::link::: and the Guardian Unlimited :::link::: are often more reliable about presenting stories of interest about events within the U.S.
And that doesn't even begin to mention independent news sources within the U.S. that are available by the web.
Of course, this does mean that people without access to computers are limited to the traditional news sources on tv, radio, and print.
Our local news is the same way. i watched channel 4 news last night and they did a piece on the "pro-war" demonstration before they even mentioned the "anti-war" demonstration. And when they did it was a one sentence blurb at the end of the first 3 min. piece. Is that equal/fair coverage? No.