If at First You Don't Succeed . . .

Convicted felon Donal Trump is trying yet again.  In the midst of diplomatic talks ( ), the Trump administration (in cahoots with Israel) launched an attack on cities across Iran.  The major assault threatened a broader regional conflict, with President Trump vowing to devastate the country’s military, eliminate its nuclear program and bring about a change in its government. Iran and the United States had been engaged a series of indirect talks over Tehran’s nuclear program in recent weeks but failed to reach a compromise that could have staved off American strikes. The most recent talks were held on Thursday when senior U.S. and Iranian officials gathered for a seemingly decisive round of negotiations in Switzerland.  Regarding those talks, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi said that the most recent round of negotiations ended with an agreement on a “set of guiding principles.” 

Waves of large explosions shook the Iranian capital, Tehran, starting around 9 a.m. local time (1 a.m. EST) and witnesses described chaos in the streets as people rushed to seek shelter, find loved ones or flee the city. Israel admitted that it had, in part, targeted a gathering of senior Iranian officials in the opening strikes. 

As they made their public case for another American military campaign against Iran, President Trump and his aides asserted that Iran had restarted its nuclear program, had enough available nuclear material to build a bomb within days and was developing long-range missiles that will soon be capable of hitting the United States.

All three of these claims are either false or unproven.  American and European government officials, international weapons monitoring groups and reports from American intelligence agencies give a far different picture of the urgency of the Iran threat. Iran has taken steps to dig out the nuclear facilities hit during strikes last June, and it has resumed work at some sites long known to American spy agencies. But the officials said that there isn’t evidence that Iran has made active efforts to resume enriching uranium or trying to build a mechanism to detonate a bomb.  The stockpiles of uranium that Iran has already enriched remain buried after last year’s strikes, making it nearly impossible for Iran to build a bomb “within days.”  Even though Iran has a large arsenal of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting Israel and American military bases in the Middle East, American intelligence agencies believe Iran is probably years away from having missiles that can hit the United States.   

The U.S. Agency for Global Media said it had “significantly expanded” Voice of America’s Persian-language service in recent months and was broadcasting Trump’s speech announcing today’s attack “to the brave people of Iran across every available platform, including satellite.”  The U.S. government’s overall messaging to the Iranian people was muddled. There was no additional information on how Iranian soldiers and police officers were supposed to carry out Trump’s demand that they surrender. And it was unclear how deeply Voice of America and other U.S.-funded media would be able to cover the war in the wake of last year’s extensive cuts. 

Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said there were currently no back-channel negotiations taking place in an effort to end the war with the United States and Israel. “If the Americans want to talk to us, they know how they can contact me,” Araghchi said in an interview on NBC News.  Araghchi added that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and Masoud Pezeshkian, the president, were still alive “as far as I know.” When asked about President Trump’s call for Iranians to overthrow the government, Araghchi dismissively labeled it: “Mission Impossible.” 

Analysts warned that the fighting could easily devolve into a protracted war with no clear exit. Many world leaders urged restraint, although Canada and Australia backed the American campaign against Iran.  The Pumpkin Putin suggested that the conflict might end with Iranians rising up against their own authoritarian government after the American assault. “It will be yours to take,” Trump said, speaking to the Iranian public. “This will be probably your only chance for generations.”

 

Mumford & Sons - The Banjo Song

BBC and BAFTA in Hot Water Over Their Bigotry

At the BAFTA Awards over the weekend, one of the nominated movies was a biographical film of John Davidson, who suffers from Tourette's syndrome. Tourette's is a disorder characterized by multiple movement (motor) tics and at least one vocal tic.  Approximately10-15% of people with Tourette's experience vocal tics like coprolalia, which is the involuntary, uncontrollable outburst of obscene words or socially inappropriate phrases.  There is no cure for Tourette's, there is no single most effective medication, and no one medication effectively treats all symptoms.   

Naturally enough, John Davidson himself attended the awards ceremony and could be heard shouting various expletives, due to his Tourette’s.  When "Sinners" stars Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo took the stage to present an award, Davidson shouted out the "n-word" which was picked up by nearby audience microphones and was also heard on the broadcast, which was on a 2-hour delay.  25 minutes later, Davidson left the auditorium.  

The BAFTA organization was aware that Davidson was going to attend the ceremony and later admitted that they met to discuss what might happen were he to swear during the broadcast. Despite these efforts (if we are to believe they took place) they took no precautions to seat Davidson away from live microphones that could pick up his outbursts.  The ceremony was on a 2-hour broadcast delay, and the BBC had ample opportunity to "bleep" out the racial slur.  After the ceremony was broadcast, it was made available for streaming for 15 hours before public outrage forced the BBC to take it down.  To make matters worse for the BBC, they did take advantage of the 2-hour delay to edit out award winner Akinola Davies Jr.'s  mention of "free Palestine" in his acceptance speech.

The fallout has been major.  The BBC has been widely criticized for leaving up a version of the ceremony on its streaming platform (in which the racial slur was audible) for over 15 hours before it was taken down. The broadcaster has also been criticized for failing to edit out the racial slur, while it did edit Davies Jr.’s speech, including a part where he says “free Palestine.”

British actor Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù shared a lengthy statement on social media, criticizing what he described as the “institutional racism” behind the BBC’s decision to edit Davies Jr.’s BAFTA speech but not Davidson’s involuntary slur.  

“On a night of incredible joy and celebration, not only of our film but many other wonderful artists, especially black artists, this is the biggest talking point walking away from the evening,” Dìrísù wrote in the statement. “I didn’t want to fuel the discourse about it, but like Vinícius Júnior, racism, bigotry, and injustice have to be exposed and shouted from the rooftops.”  (last week, Real Madrid star Vinícius Júnior reported racist abuse during a game against Portuguese team Benfica). 

Dìrísù continued: “That the BBC found wonderfully creative ways to censor Akinola’s beautiful speech about inclusivity and justice and freedom, but were comfortable and actively made the decision to broadcast a message of hate and intolerance shows where its priorities lie.” 

Dìrísù added he is not “ignorant” to how “institutionally racist the UK, the industry, or the BBC are and continues to prove themselves to be.” But he said the actions still hurt when “it’s thrown in your face in front of the world.” 

The Gangs of London actor ended his statement by commending Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo, whom he described as “gracious, dignified, and defiant.”  Dìrísù said he is looking forward to a [BBC] apology and repercussion, but he wasn't holding his breath.  Neither am I, frankly.

 

A Real Disaster

 

Meanwhile, Back at the Office . . .

Taxpayers Pay for Keystone Kash Boondoggle in Milan

FBI Spokesman Ben Williamson spent days trying to discredit reports by MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian and others who reported Patel would be attending the Winter Olympics in Milan.  “Your rag outlet wrote that [Patel] went to hang out at the Olympics on the taxpayer dime – even when provided information that your theory was false. When you’re ready to correct that let me know. Won’t hold my breath,” Williamson posted on social media in response to a reporter.

But social media junkie Keystone Kash himself made a liar out of the FBI spokesman, when he posted pictures of himself in Milan, pathetically celebrating with the USA men's hockey team.  Even Steve Baker, reporter for the pro-Trump outlet The Blaze called out Patel’s spokesman, writing, “Ummm…what was that you said, @_WilliamsonBen?”

Reporters and social media users immediately began calling out Patel's "meetings with law enforcement" as the lamest of cover stories, and immediately began asking how much taxpayer money was spent on the boondoggle. Patel is not related to anyone on the team, and is not a donor or supporter of USA Hockey organization.  It is believed that he used his political position to force his way into the locker room.

Plenty of critics piled on to accuse the FBI director of wasting taxpayer money when they felt Patel should have been solving crimes in the U.S. The FBI’s highest profile case currently is weeks-old disappearance of Today Show host Savannah Guthrie's mother Nancy.  During Patel's shenanigans, a would-be assailant was shot dead on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.  At the same time, global tensions are increasing because Trump has been threatening military action against Iran. Such an attack could lead to violence against U.S. citizens via retaliation in the form of terrorism or other means.  On top of all that, Americans living in Mexico were being warned by the federal government to shelter in place in response to increased drug gang violence after the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel was killed by the Mexican army. 

But Keystone Kash has to get in his party time!  Patel has previously come under fire for using the FBI’s private jet to attend a wrestling event, and to see his country singer girlfriend perform at State College, PA. Patel also provided her with government security.  To make things worse for "KK" Patel, critics dug up a 2023 quote from the pint-sized showboat, who (at the time) criticized the FBI Director's use of jets: “I’m just saying [FBI Director] Chris Wray doesn’t need a government funded G5 jet to go to vacations. Maybe we ground that plane. $15,000 every time it takes off. Just a thought.”

Observers point out that the office of the FBI Director carries symbolic weight and that perception shapes how power is received. The FBI director does not operate as a personality. And yet Patel seems more committed to acting like a wannabe Instagram influencer than the nation’s top cop. 

 

Trump Shows Off His Grade-School United Nations

President Donald Trump held his first meeting of his “Board of Peace” this week, and the event was most notable for the absence of major world powers and highlighted Trump’s inability to lead on the global stage.

The group of world leaders included figures who have been close to Trump, including Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán and Argentina’s Javier Milei—who Trump has spent billions bailing out.  More importantly, major world powers like the United Kingdom, France, and Norway were absent. Additionally, the Vatican did not attend Trump’s event. Cardinal Pietro Parolin of the Vatican said in remarks on Tuesday that the main issue the “Board of Peace” had ostensibly assembled to discuss, the future of Gaza, was an issue for the United Nations.  “One concern is that at the international level it should above all be the UN that manages these crisis situations. This is one of the points on which we have insisted,” Parolin said.  The world leaders that did choose to attend were forced to stand around with Trump for a photo op accompanied by music from Guns N’ Roses.

Contrary to the event's objective for world peace, Trump threatened military action against Iran in his remarks, noting, “You’re going to be finding out probably over the next 10 days.”  Trump also forgot the names of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in his remarks, flogged his wife’s poorly reviewed movie, and once again complained about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump named himself chairman for life of the “Board of Peace” but failed to outline who would lead the organization after his term as president is over. Also member states are given a three-year membership (for free), but are encouraged to contribute $1 billion within the first year for permanent membership. Details are of course unclear on where that money would go and Trump has a long history of corruption and financial impropriety.

Currently the “Board of Peace” is housed in the former location of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a building which Trump illegally had renamed after himself (as he did with the Kennedy Center.) And despite the fate of Gaza purportedly being central to the board, it has no Palestinian representation. 

In reality, the “Board of Peace” is widely regarded as a vehicle for Trump to avoid the United Nations, where he has consistently given poorly received speeches that failed to rally international support to his positions. Trump’s most notable U.N.-related moments have had more to do with ranting about malfunctioning escalators than achieving international cooperation.  Trump cannot even work productively alongside regional partners like Canada and Mexico—but he thinks his pathetic “Board of Peace” can supplant the U.N. Fat chance!

 

Shock! GOP Supreme Court Strikes Down Trump Tariffs

The Supreme Court has struck down President Donald Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs, handing him a significant loss on an issue crucial to his economic agenda.  The decision centers on tariffs imposed under an emergency powers law, including the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs he levied on nearly every other country.  It’s the first major piece of Trump’s broad agenda to come squarely before the nation’s highest court, which he helped shape with the appointments of three conservative jurists in his first term.

The negative economic impact of Trump’s tariffs has been estimated at some $3 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Treasury has collected more than $133 billion from the import taxes the president has imposed under the emergency powers law, federal data from December shows. Many companies, including the big-box warehouse chain Costco, have already lined up in court to demand refunds. 

 

U2 - American Obituary

Olympic Ice

 

There's No Longer a Debate About Whether Trump is a Racist

I'm not going to re-hash the racist video (depicting the Obamas as gorillas) recently posted by convicted felon Donald Trump on social media.  I doesn't matter if it was one of a long string of late-night posts by the Orangeman-- we already know that he is a racist, and the evidence goes back years.

He was sued for racial discrimination in the 70's and lost twice. He said the five black teenagers wrongfully accused of raping a woman in Central Park should be executed (even though they were minors and the victim survived).  He repeated his accusation and vitriol even after another guy confessed and his DNA matched the victim (while there was no physical evidence connecting the black teenagers to the crime). Also, the death penalty is generally reserved for adults who commit really heinous murders or treason, not children who happen to be black.

Trump used to require that all his black employees at his casino be removed from visibility when he visited because he didn’t like seeing them.

Trump spent years saying Barack Obama wasn’t an American.  

Trump used to say that he didn’t like having a black accountant because …

• "Black guys counting my money! I hate it."
• "The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day."
• "I think that guy's lazy. And it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks."

Trump's own staffers and his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, have confirmed he’s a racist. He reportedly used the N-word multiple times behind the scenes on The Apprentice.  Trump also grew up with a racist father who was arrested at a KKK riot.  Trump also recently stated that the Civil Rights movement was “bad for white people.”  Huh? 

But yet here we are still debating whether the Pumpkin Pinochet is or isn’t a racist?  Stop already-- the case in closed.

Didn’t Trump have Nick Fuentes for dinner at Mar-A-Lago next to raging anti-semite Kanye West?

Didn’t Trump claim that he didn’t know who David Duke was, although a decade before, he knew exactly who David Duke was?

• Initial Disavowal (Feb 26, 2016): When asked about David Duke's support, Trump told reporters, "I disavow, okay?".
• CNN Interview (Feb 28, 2016): Two days later on CNN's "State of the Union," Trump told host Jake Tapper, "I don't know anything about David Duke" and "I don't know what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists".
• Backlash and Re-disavowal: Following widespread criticism from opponents and fellow Republicans, Trump claimed he had a "bad earpiece" during the CNN interview and asserted he had already disavowed Duke on Twitter and in previous,, statements. He later formally disavowed Duke again.

The bigger problem is that much of the Republican party are Racists or at least they don't find Racism to be a deal breaker-- they're fine with it.  That’s why Trump is popular with them in the first place; he frequently says the racist shit they’ve been afraid to say until now. And Trump does the racist shit (like Ethnic Cleansing) they want done. This is the real difference between MAGAs (those with the privilege to not have to care about people being fucked over) and the rest of us with basic human decency and empathy.  They’re willing to sell out their values on the cheap.

 

Happy Chinese New Year!

 

Blondie Bondi is Going Off the Rails

Post-Valentine's Day Relationship Advice

 

Happy Valentines Day!

 

Bruce Springsteen - Streets of Minneapolis

ICE Barbie and Her Boyfriend In a Mess Over at DHS

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem capriciously fired a pilot for an exceedingly petty reason but was forced to immediately reinstate him so she could fly home.

The Wall Street Journal took a deep dive into the chaos and dysfunction inside the Department of Homeland Security, where multiple sources complained on and off the record about Noem and her top adviser and purported romantic partner Corey Lewandowski.  "Lewandowski and Noem, who are both married, have publicly denied the reports of the affair, but people said they do little to hide their relationship inside the department," the newspaper reported.  "The pair have lately been using a luxury 737 MAX jet, with a private cabin in back, for their travel around the country, according to people familiar with the matter," the report added. "DHS is leasing the plane but is in the process of acquiring it for approximately $70 million"

Noem and Lewandowski frequently berate senior staffers, demand polygraph tests for employees they don't trust and routinely fire employees for dubious reasons – such as one incident where Lewandowski fired a U.S. Coast Guard pilot after Noem’s blanket was left behind on a plane, according to sources familiar with that incident.  "In the blanket incident, Noem had to switch planes after a maintenance issue was discovered, but her blanket wasn’t moved to the second plane, according to the people familiar with the incident," the Journal reported. "The Coast Guard pilot was initially fired and told to take a commercial flight home when they reached their destination. They eventually reinstated the pilot because no one else was available to fly them home."

Lewandowski, who was Trump’s first campaign manager in the 2016 election, has also been illegally working as a special government employee well beyond the statutory 130-day limit and has an outsize presence in the department. "In an incident last year that rankled some senior staff at the agency, Lewandowski made it known to top ICE officials that he wanted to be issued a law-enforcement badge and a federally issued gun, according to people familiar with his push," the Journal reported. "Officials are typically only issued a badge and a gun after undergoing law-enforcement training."

Lewandowski passed over a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement official for the top job in that agency after he declined to issue him a badge and gun, and an ICE lawyer was demoted and moved to the Federal Emergency Management Agency after he also declined to sign off.  "Lewandowski eventually persuaded other lawyers to sign off," the Journal reported. "The ICE director’s autopen was used to sign the paperwork, the people said."

 

Our Lady of Perpetual Pop

Meanwhile Back at the Office

A Very Powerful Super Bowl Halftime Show

The Olympics Are in Italy-- and of Course, There is Drama

The 2026 Winter Olympics are underway in Italy, after an opening ceremony that featured a strange performance from Mariah Carey.  Of course, there were many controversies overshadowing the run-up to the event.

To start with, it must be said that the 2026 Olympics are the most geographically widespread Games in history-- the first to span multiple regions and two host cities: Milan and Cortina, which are about 250 miles apart from each other by road.  The action is divided among four main clusters across northern Italy: Milan, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme. Athletes will live in one of six Olympic Villages throughout the region: Milan, Cortina, Anterselva, Bormio, Livigno and Predazzo.  The competition venues span an area covering some 8,495 square miles. Getting between towns could take more than a few hours by car — especially on remote, wintery roads.  Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, says spectators hoping to attend events in person should be realistic about the time and distance required to get between venues and should plan accordingly.

In the lead-up to the games, Italian prosecutors investigated corruption, forgery, and abuse of public office in construction tenders, including the Olympic Village and other key infrastructure, leading to raids, arrests, and 74 individuals under scrutiny.

There are a couple of major venues whose completion are going down to the wire.  The Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics sliding center and the ice hockey stadium are almost complete, but work is going down to the wire, so they can be ready in time for those events.

Musk is Trying to Buy Elections Again

Right-wing billionaire Elon Musk continues to exert his influence over the Republican Party, this time with a $10 million donation to a political action committee backing Senate candidate Nate Morris in Kentucky.  Axios reported  that Musk made the donation after meeting with Vice President JD Vance and other senior White House officials in November. The contribution is Musk’s largest ever to a Senate candidate. So far, nine other Republican candidates have declared their candidacy for the seat, which is being vacated by retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell. 

The donation comes at an awkward time for Musk and Morris. Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, has recently been blocked in several countries after it generated unauthorized sexual images of people—including children. The bot is also under investigation in California.

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont slammed the donation, highlighting the transaction as a symptom of the corrupting influence of money over politics.  “Are we really living in a democracy when the richest man on earth can spend as much as he wants to elect his candidates?” Sanders wrote on X. “The most important thing our nation can do is end Citizens United and move to public funding of elections. Billionaires can’t be allowed to buy elections.”

Morris is a friend of Vance’s from when they worked together in the venture capital industry. A self-labeled MAGA extremist, Morris once said that he supports a ban on legal immigration until undocumented people residing in the United States are removed.

While Musk’s contribution to President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign certainly helped him win, Musk’s donations haven’t always translated into success. In 2025, he poured millions into the conservative candidate in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, but liberal Susan Crawford won.

Musk has announced plans to support other Republican candidates this year—a reversal from his very public fight with Trump in 2025. Musk’s support for the GOP also undermines his own political party, the “America Party,” that he rolled out last year.

But like so many other of Musk’s promises, that has gone absolutely nowhere.

 

Aaron Rowe - Please Don't Hate Me

Feed the Beast and He Will Come Back for More

Whether one is for or against billion-dollar giveaways to wealthy sports team owners, one thing is for sure-- the lopsided deals in Washington, DC and Kansas will likely boost efforts by other team owners looking to update their facilities, according to Neil deMause, a journalist who has written extensively about stadium subsidies.

“For whatever reason, we’re in a moment where team owners feel entitled to demand a lot more billions of dollars than anybody else has,” he said. “And the more they get away with that, the more their fellow owners are going to be emboldened to ask for the same thing.”

In Illinois, lawmakers have discussed for years an effort to relocate the NFL’s Chicago Bears from Soldier Field to a new site along Lake Michigan in Chicago or in the suburb of Arlington Heights. For decades, the team has been primarily owned by the McCaskey family. Recently, Bears President and CEO Kevin Warren cited a lack of “legislative partnership” in announcing the team would explore a potential stadium in neighboring Indiana.  That news received an icy reception from Illinois lawmakers, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

“I don’t believe it’s a real threat,” said Illinois state Rep. Kam Buckner, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Chicago’s South Side. Buckner said lawmakers have been pushing the team to provide a more detailed proposal before approving a package of taxpayer-funded site and infrastructure improvements.

Buckner said lawmakers in Springfield watched the Kansas stadium deal closely, but are determined not to follow a similar route.  “What happened in Kansas is exactly what Illinois should not do,” he said. “Kansas is preparing to hand billions of public dollars to one of the wealthiest ownership families in professional sports history — not for schools, not for transit, not for housing, but to subsidize a stadium for a team that’s already printing money.”

Buckner said his constituents have a long list of legislative priorities — ranging from health care to affordability issues — ahead of professional sports.  A devout Bears fan, Buckner said he won’t be drawn into a “hostage negotiation” with the team.  “It’s about panic. It’s about fear,” he said. “It’s about this system that we’ve created, where, if you don’t overpay, a billionaire might just take his toys and leave town, and folks are scared of that.”

 

Commanders' Josh Harris is Also the Recipient of a Billionaire Giveaway

Geoffrey Propheter, who studies stadium deals as an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver, thought that last year's deal between Washington DC and the Commanders would stand out for years to come “for how ludicrous it was.”  The team is primarily owned by Josh Harris, an investor with a net worth above $11 billion who also owns majority stakes in the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils.

The D.C. Council  finalized a plan to dedicate more than $1 billion in public funds to move the Commanders some 7 miles from a suburb in Maryland to a new facility planned for the old RFK Stadium site.  The city will retain ownership of the stadium, with the Commanders leasing it for $1 per year-- shifting a significant amount of risk from the team to the city.

While D.C. would pay for a large chunk of the costs, it would get 0% of stadium revenues: The team would receive all “stadium operating revenues, including from naming rights, sponsorship, advertising (both interior and exterior), premium seating, ticket proceeds, merchandise, food and beverage, and parking for both NFL and non-NFL events.” 

The deal exempts the Commanders from all property taxes on the stadium and the surrounding development. The deals also exempts the Commanders from sales taxes on personal seat licenses and parking. The city gave the Commanders the exclusive right to develop housing and retail around the stadium (at the low price of $1 per year) and it gave the Commanders rent-free use of 24 acres of city-controlled land for a period of 26 years. 

The Commanders would be responsible for keeping both the stadium and the garages in state-of-the-art shape, so at least D.C. wouldn’t be on the hook for those upgrades.  But team owner Josh Harris has his ass covered on that one-- sales taxes on anything  sold at the stadium would get poured into an “RFK Campus Reinvestment Fund” which would be available to pay for “maintenance and repairs and capital expenses.”

In addition to the $2-3 billion in public subsidies, the deal requires the city to give the team free riverfront land and exclusive development rights-- which means the district could forgo between $6 billion and $25 billion in revenue over time, Propheter said.  Josh Harris gets to pay only $1 a year in rent for a huge tax-free swath of public land, while keeping all revenues from the stadium and other development he builds there, even as the district pays to build everything from parking garages to the stadium’s foundation.

By Propheter's calculations, that makes the planned Commanders stadium project the most valuable package ever awarded to a sports team. 

 

NFL's Hunt Family Takes Kansas to the Cleaners

The Kansas City Chiefs deal announced in December (which would move the Chiefs from Missouri to the state of Kansas) is poised to surpass the $1.48 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars awarded to Montreal’s Olympic Stadium (opened in 1976) marking it as the costliest outlay ever in the U.S. and Canada, said J.C. Bradbury, a Kennesaw State University economics professor who researches stadium subsidies.

Kansas officials pushed aggressively to lure the Chiefs some 20 miles from their longtime home at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. Officials maintained the new stadium would spur billions of dollars in economic activity despite serious questions from experts and local officials about taxpayers’ ability to cover the massive new debt. “Quite frankly, I believe [it is] the biggest economic win we’ll ever have in the state of Kansas,” Republican state House Speaker Dan Hawkins said last month.

But officials also acknowledged the pursuit was about more than economics: Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly said landing the NFL team would make Kansas a tourist destination, help retain young people and defy stereotypes of Kansas as a flyover state. “And what could be cooler than being home to the Kansas City Chiefs?” she said.

The Chiefs are owned by the Hunt family of Texas, one of the nation’s wealthiest families, estimated by Forbes to be worth nearly $25 billion.  

As both the Chiefs and MLB’s Kansas City Royals — also in Missouri — openly weighed new stadiums in 2024, lawmakers in Topeka passed legislation amplifying an already lucrative tax incentive program to lure a pro sports team across State Line Road.

To fund Kansas’ expected $1.8 billion share of the new Chiefs stadium, state officials will divert sales taxes from a wide swath of the metropolitan area to pay back stadium debt. Officials say that won’t cause tax increases, but those tax diversions could cut deep into other city and state spending priorities.

Neil deMause, a journalist who has written extensively about stadium subsidies, said Kansas was effectively “negotiating against itself,” since Missouri was not prepared to offer such a lucrative deal. The same situation was true in Washington, he said, as it became clear that Maryland and Virginia, which were also vying for the new stadium, would not offer billions in free land and other benefits.

The new Chiefs stadium will be owned by the state, meaning the team won’t be subject to property taxes, a lucrative perk. The Chiefs will pay rent, but those funds will go into an account that can be used for ongoing facility maintenance and security. The state will also contribute millions to that fund every year.

The Chiefs will keep all revenue from ticket sales, parking and concessions, including for nonfootball events such as concerts and Final Four basketball games.

In Missouri, the Chiefs had previously committed $126 million in funding for education, transportation, health care and other community benefits over a 40-year period. But no such arrangement has been announced in Kansas.

In a nonbinding 33-page term sheet released by the state, the team agreed to set aside $3 million per year for a community impact fund. That fund, though, is controlled by the Chiefs, who can spend it on charitable endeavors or on profit-generating, team-branded ventures like fitness clubs. Kansas will receive some access to its stadium for events including graduation ceremonies and free concerts, but those are subject to team-determined availability, and the state must cover all costs. State officials are guaranteed one stadium suite for most events. But the term sheet notes that state officials must pay for their own food, except for free soda and water.

“They could have at least held out for free jerseys or something,” deMause said.

 

NFL Stadium Deals in the News

With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, I thought it might be a good time to look at some recent mega-stadium deals within the NFL.  These kind of deals always stir up controversy over whether the public investment is actually beneficial to taxpayers.

When Washington, D.C., agreed to hand over billions in land and tax breaks for a new Commanders football stadium, experts thought it would long remain an outlier in sweetheart deals for sports teams.

But just months later, attention turned to Kansas, where officials in December announced plans to fund 60% of a new stadium for the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. The state committed to spending up to $1.8 billion — the largest-ever professional sports subsidy.

The stadium deals in Washington and Kansas — both involving relocations within the same metropolitan area — have set separate records for taxpayer subsidies to sports teams. They serve as further evidence that public officials are uninterested in curbing giveaways to billionaire team owners, despite decades of research suggesting stadiums are a wasteful use of limited tax dollars. 

Adjusted to 2024 dollars, the median stadium subsidy for projects that opened in the 2010s was about $400 million. That increased to $605 million for projects slated to open in the 2020s. Already, 2030s-era projects have reached a median of $825 million, he said.

“There are many different ways we can measure these deals,” he said, “but by any metric, the recent Chiefs and Commanders deals are historically high.”

A Letter to the GOP From the Daily Kos

The Daily Kos'  Markos Moulitsas has written a letter to the GOP, imploring them to impeach the convicted felon that is running our country into the ground: 

President Donald Trump is gone. Far gone. And yes, the evidence is vast—from illegal tariffs that his own party hates; to recalcitrance on releasing the Epstein files, which his own party ran on; to blowing up the deficit, which his own party pretends to care about; to half-assed nation-building in Venezuela, which he himself ran against.

Indeed, at a time when Republicans desperately need their president to focus on affordability and the economy ahead of the midterm elections, he is instead demolishing the White House and obsessing over armrests at the Kennedy Center. You know, the issues top of mind to struggling Americans trying to make ends meet.