×

Opinion

Voting Rights Act before high court

Commentary

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is before the U.S. Supreme Court again, this time in Louisiana v. Callais. After extensive back and forth among the state Legislature, the governor’s office, and the federal judiciary, Louisiana—with its six congressional districts—drew a second ...

Capital handouts keep cities in crisis

Editor's corner

Somewhere in Albany, there has to be a money tree. How else can a state, with a proposed budget of more than $254 billion for the next year, keep doling out funds to fiscally strapped entities with absolutely no repercussions? That is exactly what happened less than a month ago when the ...

These birds completely puzzle me

Commentary

I’m a puzzler. I’ve tackled jigsaw puzzles, word puzzles and occasionally number puzzles since I was a kid. And oh, the happy, smug satisfaction it brings. I begin my day puzzling with my first cup of coffee. Every morning, I do three types of word puzzles on the computer. By the time I ...

Knowing the risks when hitting the ice

The OBSERVER’s View

A spring thaw deserves notice after two recent incidents in the last week, both happening over the weekend. In Portland, a man had to be rescued after falling through ice at a pond near a mobile home park last Saturday. On Sunday, a fisherman on Lake Erie had to be rescued after dusk after a ...

Socialism shift becoming more apparent

Commentary

Are we looking at a socialist future in this nation? With the election of two big city socialist mayors in Seattle and New York, you have to wonder. Today the current number of socialist officeholders is the highest it has been since 1912. As of 2025 more than 250 Democratic socialists hold ...

Leaders have ability to shift taxes for all

The OBSERVER’s View

There was an interesting debate last week over an $8,000 increase to the income limit for Chautauqua County senior citizens to qualify for a property tax break. Legislator Dan Pavlock, R-Ellington, said the legislation proposed was not a “tax break” but more of a “tax shift,” because ...