"Abject Failure" in Buffalo: Blizzard Death Toll Rises as Activists Slam City's Failed Response

[Uncle Joe]

[lapucelle]

1. Isn't that the Youtube channel that shills Jill Stein's talking points?

Exploiting an unprecedented natural disaster in the interest of scoring political points and/or bad-mouthing a Democratic governor is frankly disgusting.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-provides-update-states-response-efforts-winter-storm-impacting-holiday-travel

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-submits-request-federal-emergency-declaration-historic-winter-storm-continues

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-reopenings-major-western-new-york-highways-wake-historic-snowstorm

[Uncle Joe]

2. Thanks for the kick

(snip)

But there’s a reason why New Orleans residents might be primed to expect the worst from law enforcement in such a situation. In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating the city in 2005, there were widespread reports of looting, shootings, violence and murder. However, these reports have since been discredited as exaggerated and inaccurate. In reality, thousands of mostly Black residents had stayed when the hurricane hit. They were without food, water and supplies. Many of them lost their homes.

(snip)

https://time.com/6094022/new-orleans-hurricane-ida-looting/

[lapucelle]

3. It's important that people be wary of the spin that dicey Youtubers promulgate.

Looting and price gouging are both crimes in NYS.

Mayor Brown is addressing any looting with an anti-looting detail that has been making arrests and helping businesses board up. Governor Hochul has warned that any and all reports of price gouging will be investigated and that price gougers will be prosecuted.

The only folks who seem miffed about the arrest of looters by small detail of plainclothes detectives are non-Buffalo residents and/or defund the police proponents on social media and Youtube "news" channels.

And just a few days ago they were griping about the police "doing nothing" when the looting videos started showing up on tik-tok.

https://www.wivb.com/news/local-news/buffalo/buffalo-mayor-looters-during-blizzard-are-lowest-of-the-low/

[Uncle Joe]

4. "Youtubers"

Virtually everything on this forum is a YouTube even videos of the corporate media's coverage or lack thereof.

[lapucelle]

5. No it isn't. Most folks post reliable national and local media and print sources for news. N/T

[Uncle Joe]

6. National media; you mean like CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS and even FOX; is national,

for that matter they used lead in the ratings, other than FOX is that whom you are speaking of when you say reliable?

[lapucelle]

9. Wait..what? CNN, local CBS, NBC, & ABC affiliates are not reliable, but a Youtube "news" channel is?

Sorry, but agenda-driven Youtubers are not a reliable source of information and their perspective is often skewed to amplify narratives and story lines.

For local stories, it is useful to go to local sources. When a weather event is so profound that it becomes nationalized, both CNN and The Weather Channel are excellent sources of reliable information.



https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/28/weather/buffalo-winter-storm-new-york-blizzard-wednesday/index.html
https://weather.com/storms/winter/video/police-use-heavy-machinery-to-move-cars-in-buffalo-new-york
https://www.wgrz.com/
https://www.wivb.com/
https://www.wkbw.com/
https://buffalonews.com/news/local/
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/

[Uncle Joe]

11. Check it out, this story on your CNN link is covered in the OP video,

(snip)

In Erie County, 26 who died were found in Buffalo, while seven were located in the suburbs, Poloncarz said Wednesday, adding he did not know where one person was found. The identities of two men and one woman who died are unknown, he said, asking anyone with a missing family member to call local police to help with the ID process.

Among the storm’s victims is Anndel Taylor 22, whose family said she was found dead in Buffalo over the holiday weekend after getting trapped in her car by the blizzard.

After losing contact with her, the family posted her location to a private Facebook page related to the storm to ask for help, and a man called to say he had found her without a pulse, her sister said

(snip)

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/28/weather/buffalo-winter-storm-new-york-blizzard-wednesday/index.html

however I don't see any reference as to why the police vehicles and perhaps other emergency vehicle didn't have chains on their tires with all the advance notice of the approaching blizzard?

On the other hand they do cover a story about 8 looters out of how many millions.

[lapucelle]

12. Yes, I know. The 16+ minute Youtube "story" devoted almost a full minute to that poor young lady.

Perhaps there was no mention on CNN of the speculation that "police vehicles and perhaps other emergency vehicle [sic] didn't have chains on their tires" because the primary source of that speculation was a grieving family in North Carolina.

[Uncle Joe]

13. There was also the story in OP about the former black police officer that was arrested

for asking Buffalo police not to have people sitting in the snow while they were being arrested worrying about hypothermia.

That was the second time that she was arrested, the first time was as an active duty police officer when she tried to stop a white police officer from putting someone in a choke hold.

Apparently since those days, they have reformed that policy.

That poor young lady sat in her car for 18 hours and they knew where she was.

But yeah, let's talk about "looting."

[lapucelle]

14. Exploiting personal tragedy for political points is frankly disgusting. N/T

[Uncle Joe]

15. This wasn't just personal, this is most likely policy tragedy, it's too bad you can't/won't

make the distinction.

[lapucelle]

16. What policy strategy would that be? N/T

[Uncle Joe]

17. How about making sure tires chains are installed on their police and emergency vehicles

when a major catastrophic type blizzard is in the forecast, that's just for starters.

[lapucelle]

19. Where did you read that emergency vehicles were ill-equipped?

Last edited Wed Dec 28, 2022, 10:24 PM - Edit history (1)

This is a perfect illustration of the problem with Youtube "news": speculation morphs into fact.

[progressoid]

7. Democracy Now has been around for over 25 years.

They, like many media outlets have made some missteps, but they are generally on the good side.

Democracy Now Productions, the independent media nonprofit organization which produces Democracy Now!, is funded entirely through contributions from listeners, viewers,[6] and foundations such as the Park Foundation, Ford Foundation,Lannan Foundation, and the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Democracy Now! does not accept advertisers, corporate underwriting or government funding. The show has become popular on the internet, and from the late 2010s onward, has been involved in pioneering extensive media cooperation in the public sphere across the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Now!

[Uncle Joe]

8. ....

[lapucelle]

10. They gave Jill Stein a megaphone in 2016 & continue to shill Kremlin talking points

concerning Ukraine. The fact that they see a deadly snowstorm as an opportunity to score points is hardly surprising and frankly disgusting.

Why America’s Far Right and Far Left Have Aligned Against Helping Ukraine

Since Russia attacked Ukraine, unprovoked, on Feb. 24, the discourse surrounding the war that has emerged in the United States has created strange bedfellows. Although the majority of the American public, led by U.S. President Joe Biden, have thrown their support behind Ukraine, many on the left and right alike have rushed to defend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime or, at the very least, have urged the United States not to intervene in Ukraine’s defense.

Tucker Carlson, the face of Fox News and host of the most popular show on cable news in the United States, has been spouting pro-Kremlin talking points for months (and is frequently rebroadcasted on Russian state television). Other right-wing figures regularly spew out anti-Ukrainian disinformation and rail against sending heavy weapons to the country.

Meanwhile, the luminary of the American intellectual left, Noam Chomsky, has invoked former U.S. President Donald Trump as a model of level-headed geopolitical statesmanship for his opposition to arming Ukraine. Left-wing sources—such as Jacobin, New Left Review, and Democracy Now!—have hewed to a party line that blames NATO expansion for Russia’s invasion and opposes military aid to Ukraine.

snip=============================================================

Meanwhile, many on the progressive left—including members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the politicians they support, left-wing academics and essayists, and swaths of self-proclaimed online “anti-imperialists”—have tended to side with the aggressor, Russia (or at least not side with the victim, Ukraine) in one of the clearest examples of colonial aggression in recent memory. Their primary arguments mirror those of the right—NATO expansion and Russia’s legitimate security concerns as a trigger for the war as well as the misuse of funds that could be used to solve domestic problems—but they also express opposition to war full stop and, sometimes, espouse outright support for Russia, all wrapped in language of opposition to U.S. intervention abroad, often construed as “U.S. imperialism.”

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/04/us-politics-ukraine-russia-far-right-left-progressive-horseshoe-theory/

[Rebl2]

18. I am curious

Did the governor of New York call out the National Guard before the storm hit? That storm came through our state and our governor activated the guard before the storm just in case the situation got really bad. Luckily, while it snowed a little bit, was icy and extremely cold, it was nothing like what other states experienced.

[lapucelle]

20. Governor Hochul started deploying state assets on December 15,

declared a state of emergency on December 22, and deployed the National Guard on December 23.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-deploys-state-assets-respond-winter-storm-expected-impact-most-new-york-state

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/statement-governor-kathy-hochul-deploying-national-guard-erie-county-amid-winter-storm

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-declares-statewide-state-emergency-ahead-storm-expected-impact-holiday-travel