Categories for Monday Morning Read

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 1 year 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 year 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 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year 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 1 year ago

Feb 5

2024

Monday Morning Read

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If you’re as old as me, you may remember Al Bemiller, a center and guard on the Bills offensive line during the 1964-65 championship years. He played nine seasons for the Bills and was selected to its Silver Anniversary Team in 1984. Bemiller was featured prominently last week in a Washington Post investigation about the NFL’s failure to compensate many retired players suffering from dementia resulting from concussions and other injuries they suffered while playing. When Al Bemiller filed his settlement claim in 2019, his children hoped for a quick approval and money to help with his care. He had[...]

Posted 1 year ago

Jan 29

2024

Monday Morning Read

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The bad news keeps coming for legacy media. A growing number of newspapers are shuttering their Washington bureaus. (Jerry Zremsky of The Buffalo News is only part-time.) Industry layoffs have reached “bloodbath” levels. And disgruntled newsroom staffs are staging walkouts left and right. Things aren’t so hot at Lee Enterprises either. You know, the chain overseeing the dismantling of The Buffalo News. The latest exhibit came in Sunday’s paper. The Gusto section included 13 stories and other blocks of content. The only one dealing with Buffalo was a TV column by Alan Pergament. The rest was all canned wire copy,[...]

Posted 1 year ago
Investigative Post