Jim Shultz

A Study in American Kleptocracy

A public-owned agency that controls gaming in Western New York is supposed to fund local governments. Instead, a local elite has turned it into a master class in graft.

The Renewable Energy Rebels

In rural New York State, big wind and solar energy projects are running into determined local opposition. What is to be done?

A Small Vote, a Giant Lesson

With an army of conspiracy theorists eager to call fraud in the event that President Trump loses in November, we can’t afford to make the kind of needless mistakes that plagued our little election here along the banks of the Erie Canal.

A Liberal in Trump Land

While there are certainly many here in far upstate New York who trust Fox News as they would the word of God, and who really would give Donald Trump a pass if he shot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue, it is more complex than that. And I think there are openings.

The Rise and Fall of Evo Morales

For Bolivians looking north to the disintegration of Venezuela under one of Morales’s closest allies, strongman Nicolás Maduro, Evo’s abuses of democracy stoked fears that Bolivia could be headed for the same. But Evo had no intention of stepping down.