May 6

2024

An update on the sad condition of Kim Pegula

Today's Monday Morning Read also includes links to an IRS probe of tax cheating team owners and a state governor who has said no to a big taxpayer subsidy to build a football stadium. (Not Kathy Hochul, of course.)

Tim Graham, late of The Buffalo News, now reporting for The Athletic, broke a story last week on the latest involving Kim Pegula. She’s been declared incapacitated and husband Terry Pegula is now her guardian. Terry has transferred a small portion of the couple’s ownership of the Bills to his daughter from his first marriage, who is starting to play a role in team affairs. (Here’s a version that’s not behind a paywall.) 

ProPublica reports on the IRS investigating billionaires using the sports teams they own to cheat on their taxes.

The governor of Illinois is no Kathy Hochul when it comes to subsidizing football stadiums. 

Here are two athletes putting a portion of their wealth into bettering their community. Building affordable housing, no less. 

And finally on the sports front, this from Larry Brooks, hockey columnist for the New York Post:

You’ve got to hand it to the Sabres, right, 13 straight years out of the playoffs and they go back to the guy who was behind the bench when this all started in the first place, romanticizing a 16-year era in which they did not win the Stanley Cup with Lindy Ruff. Five of Ruff’s last seven teams did not make the playoffs. 

Makes perfect sense.

To no one.


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Tim Kennedy, in winning the Congressional seat vacated by Brian Higgins, declared: “We’re going to change Washington.” Yeah, right. A freshman lawmaker is going to change Washington. 

There’s another move afoot to extend Metro Rail. Three lines, no less. I know it sounds good, but the reality is that fixed rail only works in high-density places  like New York City and Chicago where traffic congestion is bad enough to get people in large numbers to trade in their cars for a subway. That’s not Buffalo. Any extension of Metro Rail is going to compete with revenue targeted for bus service, used by the people who rely on public transit. 

A new poll from Pew Research finds more than three-quarters of Americans don’t think most elected officials care about what they think. I’d put it a little differently: Most politicians are more concerned with their self-interest than the public interest. (Kind of the same difference.) Public attitudes explain why trust in government had fallen from over 70 percent during the Eisenhower and Kennedy years to below 20 percent today. The young are disillusioned with institutions in general.


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Sea levels are rising at a rapid rate along southern coastlines. Up to a half foot, even more in some places, since 2010. 

Russia has lost 500,000 soldiers during its war on Ukraine. Compare that with the 58,220 American soldiers who died in the Vietnam war.

In defense of the First Amendment. Now, more than ever, in light of what’s happening at college campuses across America.


 

Investigative Post