Categories for Monday Morning Read

Apr 15

2024

Taxes are for us, not them

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Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, took in more than $27 billion in revenue last year. It didn’t pay a dime in federal taxes.  It’s not alone. As reported by Jacobin: “More than one hundred of the country’s most profitable corporations paid zero federal income taxes in at least one year since the Trump tax cuts were enacted.” The story was based on a report generated by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. You’ve got to read the tables that names names. Many a president and Congress have passed tax laws that have enabled corporations to pay a much lower effective[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Apr 8

2024

Everything OK with Buffalo Bills sale of PSLs. Yeah, right.

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The uproar over the cost of personal seat licenses the Buffalo Bills are charging season ticket holders continues to generate a lot of press.  The Buffalo News published a full-throated defense of what many fans consider indefensible. The story quotes unnamed sources – presumably employees of the Bills and/or Legends Entertainment – who contended the PSL rollout has been flawless and that the public outcry is much ado about nothing. Yeah, right. The story prompted a sharp rebuke from Neil deMause, author of the Field of Schemes website that reports on stadium projects. He termed the story “a flagrant violation[...]

Posted 3 weeks ago

Apr 1

2024

Pegula aided and abetted by Poloncarz & Hochul

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Erie County Executive Mark Poloncrz says he’s hopping mad at the Buffalo Bills for the way they’re treating season ticket holders. Says the team should be more transparent in its roll-out of personal seat licenses and that Gov. Kathy Hochul shares his concerns. Sorry, but Poloncarz and Hochul are enablers. They capitulated to Terry Pegula’s demands that the new stadium be located in Orchard Park and that taxpayers foot most of the bill.  Along the way, Poloncarz took the ridiculous position that the stadium didn’t require an environmental impact statement and bargained a weak community benefits agreement with the team.[...]

Posted 4 weeks ago

Mar 25

2024

Terry Pegula’s assault on Bills fan base

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Terry Pegula wasn’t satisfied just picking the pockets of state and county taxpayers in demanding they pick up most of the cost of building the Bills a new stadium. He’s now playing “stick ‘em up” with his season ticket holders. We knew the Bills intended to charge fans for personal seat licenses, which gave them the “right” to buy season tickets (for an additional charge, of course). The team was hush-hush about what it intended to charge, but last week it began to inform fans holding the most expensive seats what it would cost to keep them: Up to $50,000.[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Mar 4

2024

Julian Assange’s prosecution is an assault on journalism

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Julian Assange of WikiLeaks fame is locked up in a British prison and fighting an effort by Joe Biden’s Justice Department to extradite him to stand charges here of violating the Espionage Act. Hearings related to his deportation were held last week in London.  Assange was a hero to many for exposing leaks from Chelsea Manning and others involving U.S. military conduct in Iran and Afghanistan and U.S. diplomatic cables.  Others have villainized him for releasing the emails of Hillary Clinton and files and emails of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election. Suffice to say, Assange has[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Feb 26

2024

WBEN is no longer Buffalo’s powerhouse radio station

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You could have read this yesterday in our WeeklyPost newsletter. Subscribe here. George Soros, the left-leaning billionaire and favorite bogeyman of the radical right, has bought a big chunk of debt of the bankrupt Audacy radio chain, whose local holdings include WBEN, 930 AM, and WGR, 550 AM. That positions his management fund to be Audacy’s largest shareholder when the chain emerges from bankruptcy and presumably gives him a voice in the content of its 220 stations.  That prompted Alan Pergament of The Buffalo News to speculate what it portends for WBEN and its lineup of right-of-center talk show hosts.[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Feb 19

2024

MMR: It pays to be a suburban cop

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We’ve reported on the outrageous salaries being paid to the likes of Henry Wojtaszek of Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. and Steven Hyde of Genesee County Economic Development Center. They make about as much or more than the governor. (What is it about highly paid bureaucrats in Genesee County, population 57,853?)  Well, it turns out Wojtaszek and Hyde have plenty of company across the state. The Empire Center for Public Policy reported last week that 1,187 employees of local governments in New York were paid more than Gov. Kathy Hochul’s salary of $250,000 in 2022-23. More than 200 took home[...]

Posted 2 months ago

Feb 12

2024

Monday Morning Read

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Imagine what it’s like to be imprisoned for years on end. Or, read this compelling essay written by an inmate and published by The Marshall Project. The inmate in question, Jy’aire Smith-Pennick, is serving a 27-year sentence for murder in Pennsylvania. The biggest challenge, he writes, is boredom. In an attempt to disrupt the monotony of prison, we try to create our own personal routines filled with exercise, enrichment programs and constant work. Some of us play cards, watch sports or participate in hobbies such as sewing. But sooner or later, these routines also become monotonous. This is the part[...]

Posted 2 months ago
Investigative Post

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