Opinion

Gunshots, sirens, and more police than March in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. In the wee hours, folks in a village I knew woke years ago to several shotgun blasts. Next, 20 police cars wailed down their streets. Villagers stumbled onto their lawns in bathrobes and confusion. They learned that a guy from a neighboring […]

The elections process is not usually grist for inflammatory rhetoric. But this year has been different. Republican Donald Trump labeled the GOP primary process “crooked.” Democrat Bernie Sanders suggested his party’s use of super delegates made its nominating process a “rigged system.” For many voters, the intricacies of voting rules quickly became a topic of

Can we discuss contempt today? Contempt for you. Many of us complain that our Congress people are elitist. That they often vote in legislation that a majority of Americans don’t want. Obamacare is a prime example. The accusations go beyond Obamacare. Many feel the way Congress taxes and regulates us shows our lawmakers are out

Do you feel you are well-informed about what is going on in the country? If you answered yes, you probably read a newspaper. And you probably watch network news. Or maybe you check out the news on a network’s website. Suppose you do no more than that. If so, my guess is that you miss

It has been 35 years since Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural speech as president — he one in which he said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Over that time, hostility toward government seems only to have grown, led by politicians and embraced by millions of

‘Tis that time of year. Commencement speakers are in full bloom. They exhort the grads to march out and conquer the world. If you can dream it, you can do it, they tell the kids. Do you remember anything your commencement speakers said? Do you remember who spoke? I’m with you. Worse, I don’t even

Ethics probes continue in the State capitol, this time with federal prosecutor Preet Bharara investigating the Buffalo Billion, the governor’s pet economic-development project, and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman investigating the SUNY Polytechnic Institute development project. Two of the governor’s close aides, Joe Percocco and Todd Howe, are involved in the scandals. Bharara is targeting what

A solution stares us in the face. It’s no secret that corruption in politics is on the minds of millions. This state is rife with it, and many others are as well. Big cities ooze corruption. Washington is the Vatican of pay-for-play. Ah, but what to do about it? A lot of people offer answers

I had the good fortune [recently] to spend some time in Washington, D.C. with about a dozen former members of Congress. As you’d expect, we got to talking about the current Congress. Very quickly it turned out that the same question was troubling all of us: Why is it held in such low public esteem?