Breaking News

Commentary

Minnesota quite culpable for current mess

Minnesota — a state that has given America outstanding personages like movie legend Judy Garland, authors F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis, 2024 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Joe Mauer, Charles Schulz the creator of Peanuts and influential vice presidents and senators Hubert Humphry and Walter Mondale — has descended into a clown show marked by corruption and continuous demonstrations, headed by Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey that must have Hubert and Walter spinning in their graves. Leaders of The Democratic, Farm, Labor Party had apparently both ignored ...

Heritage closing needs some compassion

I hope that if you are reading this, you or your loved ones never need to live in a nursing home. I hope you are never forced to make that agonizing decision for your mom or dad, or find yourself in a hospital bed waiting for a skilled nursing bed to open up while the world feels like it is closing in. But for many, that day comes. As someone who has dedicated 26 years of my life to working at Heritage, I feel compelled to address the disheartening negativity and public criticism directed at our staff and management following the news of the Heritage Village closure in Gerry. It is ...

Speaking truth to power

This year, our President, Donald Trump, decided to go to Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. While there he gave his usual, off-the-cuff grievance speech about how Europe and most of the rest of the world was falling behind, and how, under his leadership, America was the best of all nations and was charging ahead. There were some lines in his speech that people laughed at, but, in general, President Trump gave his usual meandering political stump speech, the kind that he typically performs at the rallies he has for his base in this ...

Reason for fear from Minnesota

You cannot consider yourself an informed citizen and condone what this administration is allowing ICE to do in our communities. You cannot rationalize targeting states with immigrant numbers in the low 500,000’s such as Minnesota while ignoring states such as Texas with numbers over 6 million. This is the result of a president whose only “vision” is vengeance, cruelty, and greed. He is the only president in our history that has put the United States on the Human Rights Watch List. The Homeland Security funding bill is attempting to maintain ICE’s annual budget of roughly ...

‘Affordability’ needs to make sense

During the Jan. 28 meeting of the Chautauqua County Legislature, two resolutions; Resolution 18‑26 (the “Affordability Act of 2026”) and Resolution 19‑26 (Amend Senior Real Property Tax Exemption) were brought directly to the floor without having gone through the Legislature’s required committee process. Because neither item was submitted through the proper channels and neither qualified as an emergency resolution, the Legislature appropriately voted to refer both resolutions to committee. This action was not a rejection of affordability measures nor senior tax relief; it ...

Nation becoming more volatile by the day

In this month of February, when we celebrate Valentine’s Day, we think of love, and hearts. We need something to warm our hearts, especially with the winter we’ve been having. A little 5-year-old boy named Liam Ramos in his now iconic blue bunny hat captured the hearts of Americans across the country. He was taken by ICE from his home in Minneapolis along with his father to a detention center in Texas. According to the district school superintendent, “This family is following US legal parameters and has an active asylum case with no order of deportation.” When news of this ...