Duck and Cover

Four of the Six candidates for Ted Kennedy's senate seat continue to demonstrate "bold leadership" by pretending to be neutral on the topic of expanded gambling in the Bay State.

Martha Coakley and Steve Pagliuca, both democrats, as well as republicans Scott Brown and Jack E. Robinson, continue in that courageous, age-old tradition of letting the other guys make the first move. And frankly, I cannot think of a better quality to ask for in our next senator than deliberate avoidance of an issue.

Two democratic candidates, Alan Khazei and Mike Capuano, on the other hand, have foolishly offered their opinions, both of which include support for an independent cost-benefit analysis before legalizing slots/casinos.

Jeesh! Don't they know they're ruining it for the rest of them?

On October 11th United to Stop Slots in Masachusetts submitted a questionnaire to all candidates comprised of the the following four questions:

• 1. What is your opinion of the SCOTUS decision (Carcieri- February 2009) relative to lands into trust?.
• 2. How would you vote on the proposals for a "Carcieri fix"? Please explain.
• 3. What is your opinion of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission Report (1999) and what recommendations should be enacted at this time?
• 4. Do you support an independent cost-benefit analysis before legalizing any expansion of predatory gambling/slots in the Commonwealth?

While Khazei and Capuano both expressed empathy for Indian Tribes effected by the recent SCOTUS decision, Khazei stated he would vote for a Carcieri fix only if it would "limit the use of lands taken into trust and prohibit their use for gaming."

(But Alan - the Mashpee only want land in trust for "gaming"!)

Capuano stated that "the larger community is affected by decisions governing recourse to the Indian Reorganization Act," and that he was open to "considering legislation addressing the issues around taking land into trust raised in Carcieri v. Salazar."

(Whoa Mike! Don't you understand that the "larger community" revolves around Mashpee - as evidenced by their ability to turn the world upside for over two years for people who'd never heard of them in towns over 40 miles away? )

Oh well, Martha probably doesn't have time to fill out a questionnaire, what with having her hands full avoiding an investigation of slot machines as part of her role as our State's number one consumer advocate - despite MIT professor Natasha Schull's testimony, given three times at the statehouse revealing the advanced, deceptive technology used to addict players. I mean, heck, Martha owes that much to her BFF and big time supporter Therese "Ka-ching" Murray, if not to the rest of us.

And, I'm not really sure what happened to Pagliuca's response. When I first heard him say he didn't know enough about the issue, but stood up for kids and consumer protection etc, I wrote him a nice long letter with links to all sorts of great information about how slots would effect those things and others. His reply back to me must have gotten lost in the mail, along with his response to the questionnaire.

So, while we continue to wait for swift and decisive leadership from the those four candidates for one of the Commonwealth's most powerful offices, you can read Khazei's and Capuano's responses to the USS-Mass questionnaire here:

Alan Khazei
Congressman Capuano

Carcieri Speaks

Ever since learning of Carcieir's challenge to the concept of "now", I've been wanting to blog about the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, how it came to be, and why it doesn't apply to the Mashpee Wampanoag or any Massachusetts Tribe.

It all starts with a tragedy of incompetence known as the Allotment Act of 1887, or the Dawes Act, which applied only to Native Americans in Oklahoma - though it was later extended to include the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole) which had previously been relocated from their territories in the Southeastern part of the country - including some to Oklahoma.

Essentially, the Dawes Act messed with Indian tribal culture and tradition, cheated the tribes out of their land, caused an inordinate amount of misery, and was naturally all done in the name of helping these Native American tribes. (Where have we heard that before?)

The IRA of 1934 came about as a means to remedy the abuses of Dawes Act - not to provide a mechanism by which other Native Americans and their financial backers might populate the eastern seaboard with casinos seventy-five years later.

Anyway, I've been pretty busy with other things this year (like trying to save the State from it's own tragedy of incompetence) and never got to it, so I'll let Don Carcieri, Governor of Rhode Island, who has a staff, blog it for me. Below is his statement about why there's no need for a fix for the Supreme Court case forever to bear his name.

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Donald L. Carcieri
Governor

November 2, 2009

The Honorable Nick J. Rahall, II Cahriman
House Committee on Natural Resources
1324 Longworth Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Doc Hastings
House Committee on Natural Resources
1324 Longworth Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Re: November 4, 2009 Hearings on H.R. 3742 (Kildee) and H.R. 3697 (Cole)

Dear Representatives Rahall and Hastings:

In Carcieri v. Salazar, the Supreme Court held that Congress authorized the Secretary of the Interior to use his discretion to acquire land in trust only for those Indian tribes under federal jurisdiction in 1934. There has been much public discussion about whether Congress should amend the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (the "IRA") to permit the Secretary to acquire land in trust for all tribes, regardless of their status in 1934. The above bills and their Senate companion (S 1703) represent one side of that debate.

As the Governor of Rhode Island, a small state that would be disproportionately affected by the proposed expansion of the Secretary's trust power, I write to express a state's perspective - a perspective that has gotten little attention to date. I do not believe that any expansion of the Secretary's administrative power to acquire land in trust for tribes under the IRA is warranted.

When the Secretary takes land into trust for an Indian tribe, he divests the state of its sovereignty and transfers those sovereign interests to the tribe. As a result, state laws, including state criminal, environmental, tax and gaming laws, generally do not apply on trust land. Such an extraordinary surrender of state sovereignty should be subject to the direct and careful scrutiny of Congress, rather than delegated to executive branch administrators, particularly in a department that the current Secretary and his predecessors have characterized as "a mess" or worse.

The current limitation on the Secretary's power to exercise his trust authority only for those tribes under federal jurisdiction in 1934 is entirely consistent with the language, the purpose and the history of the IRA and with more than 70 years of administrative practice by the Department of the Interior. Adhering to the IRA's temporal limitation also strikes an appropriate balance between regaining Indian lands lost as a result of prior federal policies and preserving states' current territorial sovereignty.

The IRA was Never Intended as, nor has it Been, a Blanket Authorization for Trust

In 1887, Congress passed the General Allotment Act which was intended to assimilate Indians into the broader American society by "substitut[ing] individual private ownership of Indian land for the tribal ownership."¹ By all accounts, the Allotment Act was a disaster which, over time, reduced tribal landholdings from 137 million acres to 47 million acres. In 1934, Congress attempted to remedy the loss of Indian lands and the resulting weakening of tribal governments through enactment of the IRA. Of particular relevance here, the IRA permitted the Secretary to acquire land in trust for Indian tribes "now" under federal jurisdiction.

Consistent with the plain language of the IRA, Carieri held that the word, "now" meant "in 1934" and prohibited the Secretary from taking land into trust for tribes that came under federal jurisdiction after 1934. That construction of the IRA makes sense. Tribes that were not under federal jurisdiction in 1934 were not subject to a loss of land through the Allotment Act and were, accordingly, not entitled to the IRA's remedial land requisition measures.

Contrary to its recent assertions, the Department of the Interior has consistently adhered to the IRA's temporal limitations since its enactment more than 70 years ago. Between 1934 and 1975, the Department's own records indicate that all of its trust acquisitions were for tribes that were under federal jurisdiction in 1934.² Between 1975 and 2005 - with but a handful of exceptions - the Secretary took land into trust only for tribes that were under federal jurisdiction in 1934, or for tribes that had an independent congressional authorization for trust. In short, the Carcieri decision is consistent not only with the language and intent of Congress but with the Department's own interpretation of the IRA at the time of its enactment and for decades thereafter. The IRA was not designed to be, nor has it been, a blanket authorization for trust.

Amending the IRA to Permit the Secretary to Take Land into Trust for all Federally Recognized Tribes Could Undermine Numerous Indian Claims Settlement Acts

Regardless of the original intent of the IRA and 70 years of departmental practice consistent therewith, some advocates assert that Congress should now amend the IRA to permit the Secretary to acquire land in trust for all Indian tribes regardless of when they came under federal jurisdiction or whether they lost land through allotment or by other means. Such an amendment to the IRA, however, would be inconsistent with the numerous individual settlement acts through which Congress and the states have already endeavored to compensate later-recognized tribes for lands lost outside the allotment process.

Many New England tribes whose lands were never subject to allotment, for example, have negotiated congressional settlement acts which compensate for the loss of their lands through violations of the Non-Intercourse Act of 1790.³ These settlement acts contain specific provisions which variously require, permit or prohibit land to be taken into trust and thereby specially allocate territorial sovereignty between the state, tribe and federal governments. Of particular concern to me is that Rhode Island's Settlement Act applies state and local laws to settlement lands and effectively precludes Indian country, through trust or otherwise, throughout the state. Amending the IRA to permit the Secretary to take land into trust for every federally-recognized Indian tribe could undo these hard-fought and carefully negotiated settlements and their individual trust arrangements.

A One-Size-Fits-All Amendment to the IRA Ignores States' Unique Political and Geographic Circumstances

Every state has individual concerns about trust acquisitions that should make Congress hesitant to pass a blanket expansion of the Secretary's authority. Rhode Island, for example - perhaps unique among states - operates its own gaming facilities and uses the proceeds of that operation to fund critical programs and infrastructure. Trust acquisitions for Indian tribes in Rhode Island open the door to a federal Indian casino - one that would directly compete with the state-operated facilities at Lincoln and Newport, Rhode Island currently receives 60% of the VLT revenue - one of our largest sources of income - from these facilities. By contrast, the State is prohibited from taxing the gaming revenues of a federal Indian casino. Any state-tribal compact negotiated under the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act would be on terms much less favorable to the State.

If Congress deems it desirable for later recognized tribes to have land in trust, it should do precisely what it has done for the last thirty years - pass an individually tailored act authorizing trust for a particular tribe with input from the affected state and consensus on jurisdiction among the tribal, local, state, and federal stakeholders. Indian tribes and states both have legitimate interests in the exercise of territorial sovereignty. But any reallocation of territorial sovereignty from a state to a tribe through trust should be carefully overseen by Congress and not left to the unfettered discretion of the Department of the Interior.

Sincerely,
Donald L. Carcieri
Governor

cc: Members of the House Natural Resources Committee
The Honorable Jack Reed
The Honorable Sheldon Whitehouse
The Honorable Patrick Kennedy
The Honorable James Langevin

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¹Congressional Debate on the Wheeler-Howard Bill 1961 (1934) in 3 The American Indian and the United States (Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed. 1973).

²Department of the Interior, Report on the Purchase of Indian Land and Acres of Indian Land in Trust 1934-1975 at Appendix A3.

³See, e.g., Rhode Island Indian Claims Settlement Act, 25 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq., Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act, 25 U.S.C. §1721 et seq., Connecticut Indian Land Claims Settlement Act, 25 U.S.C. §1751 et seq., Massachusetts Indian Land Claims Settlement Act, 25 U.S.C. § 1741 et seq. Mohegan Nation (Connecticut) Land Claims Settlement Act, 25 U.S.C. § 1775 et seq.

Meditations in an Emergency

Some of you may have been aware of efforts in Congress to overturn the Carcieri Decision in order to allow tribes recognized after 1934 to take land into trust. I've been following this and will be addressing it this week. For now, however, I wanted to share with you the testimony of Congressman Doc Hastings of West Virginia at a hearing this week to address the decision, which you may find interesting:

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Ranking Member Hastings’ Opening Statement at
Legislative Hearing to Address Carcieri v. Salazar Supreme
Court Decision

WASHINGTON, D.C. – House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings (WA-04) delivered the following opening statement at today’s full committee legislative hearing on two bills (H.R. 3742 and H.R. 3697) to address the Carcieri v. Salazar Supreme Court decision, which found that the Secretary of the Interior does not have the authority to acquire land in trust for tribes not under federal jurisdiction in 1934:

“Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing.

I believe it is important for Congress to address the post-Carcieri situation on both lands previously taken into trust, and for pending and future land in to trust applications. Congress must work deliberatively and it is our responsibility to consider the views of the many different interests that are affected. Without question, this Committee has a special responsibility to the tribes of the United States, yet elected Representatives also have a responsibility to the communities and states that they are elected to represent.

It would be neither responsible, nor constructive, for this Committee or the Congress to attempt to rush through legislation, like the bills before us today, without considering the views of the states, counties and cities that we represent, and, more importantly, who advanced this case all the way to the United States Supreme Court, where their legal arguments prevailed.

The Attorneys General from 27 states are on record, as either friends of the court in the Carcieri case or through a letter sent to this Committee, as having concerns with the land into trust process and wanting to be engaged in deliberations on Carcieri-related legislation. If they were committed enough to pursue this to the Supreme Court, then such interests are committed enough to come to this Congress and ask the Representatives and Senators from these 27 states to listen to their concerns. It ought to be in the interest of all those committed to addressing the post-Carcieri situation to be involving them in the conversation. That’s why it was important that Attorney General Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Mr. Woodside representing Sonoma County, California appear as witnesses at today’s hearing.

I do recognize many in this country and in this hearing room disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision and the prevailing legal position of the states and local governments, but it is unreasonable to expect Congress to simply ignore such concerns and fast-track this legislation without considering the effects of these bills.

Let’s be clear about what this legislation will do. According to their long titles, the bills are meant to “reaffirm the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to take land into trust for Indian tribes.”

In fact, the effect of these bills goes much farther. This legislation would very bluntly overturn the Supreme Court from February, yet it would also delegate to the Secretary of the Interior authorities expressly granted to Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The effect of the legislation would be to give the Secretary nearly unconditional authority not to just take lands into trust, but also unlimited authority to recognize new Indian tribes.

With such a complete transfer of power and authority from Congress to the Secretary, just one individual in the federal government would have the ability to recognize new tribes, take land into trust, and approve gaming compacts to allow new casinos on these lands.

This may strike many, on both sides of the aisle, as going too far and greatly overstepping a direct answer to the Carcieri decision. In addition, I will note that this bill, for the first time ever, would endow the Secretary with new authority to acquire lands in Alaska in trust for Native villages. This, too, exceeds the bounds of a Carcieri fix and I certainly hope the views of the State of Alaska will be considered by this Committee as it further considers the legislation.

As I stated at the outset of my remarks, I do fully support the need for action to address the post-Carcieri situation confronting tribes and the taking of lands into trust. The question that confronts Congress is how best to do so? In an effort to gather more information about the ramifications of the Carcieri decision, the views of Secretary Salazar and the Administration, and the possible options that this Congress might have in addressing this issue, I sent a letter to the Secretary last Friday with a number of questions. It was my hope that by giving advance notice of questions that the Department’s witness would come prepared with answers, so that we may have a more productive hearing. I request that a copy of my letter be made part of the hearing record. And I look forward to the testimony of today’s witnesses.

Showstoppers

Last Thursday, at the Statehouse hearings on expanded gambling, everyone did a pretty amazing job. But the testimony of three people really stood out to me. I hope you'll take the time to view these inspirational moments by United to Stop Slots President Kathleen Norbut, Les Bernal, Executive Director of Stop Predatory Gambling, and Palmer resident Charlotte Burns.

Once More Into the Breach, My Friends

(Note: This was a live blogging experience and reads from the bottom up. Time is noted on the left.)

7:00 pm. Sorry I stopped the live blog so abruptly. My connected blew out and that was that. The rest of day included some really moving stories from former addicts. I don't know why former addicts usually go at the end of these things. They're the one's who'll be funding the State if it approves gambling.

Then there was some really weird testimony from poker players - one of whom actually disputed the experience of one of the previous former gambling addicts. There also was more talk of jobs, and one guy from the track who kept calling gambling addicts "degenerate gamblers".

Awkward...

It went on 'till about 4:30 I think. One of the last speakers was CFO founder Jacquie Tolosko, who'd moved heaven and earth to be there and who made us all proud by speaking about how casinos rip communities apart. Then she read the letter she shared with USS-Mass.org on the web site. Beautiful.

I think the big point to be made here is that Jacquie and Jessie and Frank and Judy and Carl and me - we're still in this fight 2 and a half years later. And it's not about us anymore. There's not going to be a casino in Middleboro, but what we've learned about expanded gambling since then is what keeps us in the fight. It absolutely made my day to see them there.

Kelly from the League of Women Voters came up and did her usual magic, and Rep Thomas Conroy ended the day by offering his assistance to the committee on a cost benefit analysis of the issue, citing the analysis he did on his own of Deval's 3 casino plan. Gotta love that Conroy.

All in all, the day was better than expected, with many of my colleagues speaking up and squashing flying casino crapola wherever it landed.

I don't know where our testimony will end up. I hope not in the circular file. I hope more people will visit the web site www.uss-mass.org (which I entered into official testimony!) and learn for themselves what most people don't know about the complex issue of expanded gambling. It isn't just a site filled with statistics - there are real people there. Lots of them. You can learn the truth about slot machines, find out what a gambling arms race is all about, and how predatory gambling effects everyone from children to seniors.

After it was over some of us went out and celebrated not having to catch a train at 11:00 pm, reflected on the crazy day, the latest from Statehouse news, strangers who became friends and friends who became strangers. And what a long strange trip it's been.

No one ruminated much on whether we'd won or lost the day. Or what our chances were of winning the vote next year. Or even what the next step would be. The important thing was that a bunch of us came together today and did the impossible - we tried to save the world - in three minutes or less.

THANK YOU TO ALL WHO CAME OUT TO TESTIFY TODAY IN OPPOSITION TO EXPANDED GAMBLING, OR TO SUPPORT THOSE WHO DID!! GREAT JOB!! GREAT TEAM EFFORT!!

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2:45 Evelyn Reilly of Mass. Family Institute makes the point that why isn't this a consumer protection issue? Slot machines have been demonstrated to cause addiction - it should be studied.

Patricia Endicott is up, she says her father is addicted to gambling. Has for over 50 years. He's bright and has good interpersonal skills. Yet he ruined his life and the life of his family. She wants the committee to know that addiction effects the family of the addict and ruins lives.

2:40 Clyde came back. Talks about his recent survey that says everyone wants a casino in their backyard. It is telling that half the committee gets up and leaves. Since anything I say about Clyde today will obviously be taken, by him, as character assassination - I will let him assassinate himself.

Time expired Clyde. Now go away. He is cheered by the blue shirt guy who yawned audibly at our side earlier.

2:35 Clyde Barrows is called but he's out some where, obviously dodging the slings and arrows of anti-casino activists. He is called and strolls in but has been replaced with 2 guys in Palmer + Casinos = Jobs T-shirts. One says he's a scientist. He is all, obviously, about jobs. Committee member Frost is finally asleep.

One of these guys worked in a Riverboat casino in Ohio and revitalized the town. Addicts? No - they knew everyone by name and would help them out.

2:34 a guy with a long frizzy blond beard appears speaking up for gambling addicts.

2:30 Rep Bowles. Very pro casino. Good cure for insomnia. Rep Frost is looking bleary.

2:27 Horseman's society is up. Yes the horse industry is doing poorly, but so did Delaware. Now look at Delaware.

2:20 Kathleen Norbut is up!! She has a graphic. It's GREAT! I'll post it if I can later. It's a blow up of that mailing that the unions did one year, except Kathleen has placed little red arrows on it, correcting the fairytales with facts. She relates her union-family background, her husband is a capenter, she comes from a smaller than average town, she has no money she only has a Massachusetts public education. 30,000 jobs - WRONG! Good paying jobs WRONG. Median range $20,000. We are volunteers. Please stop this fiscally poor policy. I do not believe as a tax payer that I should subsidize the gambling industry. She rattles off costs and asks for questions. She gives the report that Jen Lendler couldn't, in her 20 years in the industry, couldn't place. Final statement:

Please our communities can't take another hit.

2:15 A job recruiter for Mohegan Sun spreads some sunshine. Some committee members are skeptical. (Some??)

2:05 Charles Baker and Jennifer Lendler (pointy horns and bifurcated tail) Lendler (20+ years in the industry) are there with the guy who owns Suffolk Downs are there - at least being honest, sort of, as to who they represent. Lendler's not familiar with the 9 - 10 ratio we keep talking about (so it must not be real). Committee seems a bit concerned about traffic. But they recognize this and are working with the authorities. They could be up in running in 5 to 6 months.

2:00 I had a whole really intersting segment about Mohegan Sun in Plamer but my connection crapped out and I lost it. Sen. Tucker made a funny and they supported a local ballot referendum. (If necessary...)

BTW Clyde Barrow is here! Jihad! Or is it Fatwah? I can never remember.

1:20 Another USS-Mass.org panel. The press all leaves to talk to Ced. Tom Larkin talks about the social costs and how casino profits won't be as high as they think after these costs. He uses a lot of statistics. The !@#$% next to me in a blue shirt makes a big point of audible yawning. Ironically Tom mentions 'ignorance' unrelated from this in his testimony at the same time.

Fred Berman, who I have finally met, talks about the casino industry being just like the tobacco industry. The blue shirt yawns again and Les gives him a look. Fred talks dispels discretionary spending myths.

Jessie Powell of Middleboro is up!! She gets in a dig to the Middleboro selectman. It's not inevitable. The June Spilka hearing as a Lovefest. The casino handbook. Go Jessie! Don't think you'll be different. She talks about the gambling arms race - it always expands. Munch munch munch. It's no longer entertainment. We need jobs we can be proud of. Insists on them doing a cost ben analysis! Yeah Jessie! She did GREAT!

Les is up now. Differentiates predatory gambling from other types of gambling. We've heard about 10% of the patrons accounting for 90% of the revenue all day, he has yet to dispute it. He agrees the lottery is predatory which elicits a whistle from a blue shirt behind me. He compares the gambling industry to wall street - they call it Casino Capitalism, not Biotech Capitalism. Les talks so fast - I can't keep up. Rep Frost on the committee, who has asked, a lot of pro-type questions. starts choking, possibly on his own words.

Frost said the State does tax people with addictions - like cigarettes. Tom says it's different, the State doesn't promote it. Frost isn't buying it. It's the same.

1:03 Cedric Cromwell is up. Groan. I am trying not to roll my eyes, but it's been a long 2 years. Ok... wait for it...... His Tribe "met the PILGRIMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Of course they did! They always meet the Pilgrims when they are trying to score points for a casino. Except the Mashpee Wampanoag didn't meet the Pilgrims!

Ced continues to play the sympathy card. He has plans for a casino in Middleboro. ( I wish someone would ask him why he opposes Cape Wind.) He still thinks land is going into trust. He actually uses the word 'relationship' and Middleboro in one sentence. He says Obama is working on a fix. Huh?? In fact, he's meeting with Obama next week.

Now he is being grilled by a rep who has absolutely no understanding of the situation. It is like the blind leading the blind. The rep asks Ced if he'd let the State have more revenue and concessions in terms of a tribal court. Ced admits that it's premature, but hey, they're open.

I find it difficult to keep sitting here listening to this after 2 and a half years. I may have to get up and leave soon.

According to Ced, Dorgan's bill is getting a "lot of traction."

Ced answers a question - No - Tribal Members won't be taxed if they work at a casino.

1:00 Charlotte Burns from Palmer union member, gets up and says it's a big swindle. All she hears is jobs. She works with special needs children and she hears it from them too. Where were the unions when the jobs were going over seas. She give's 'em hell. She's pretty terrific. I was on her panel last year too. Speaks right from the heart.

12:55 Building Trades guy... you'll never where he stands. He says that construction workers can't get work - which is opposite from what I've been hearing. Not that I'm an expert. And I'm not from Western Mass. where he's from.

12:53 A soft spoken little old lady who says she is a retired teacher and union member says no to casinos.

12:50 A Mashpee Wampoanoag guy I don't recognize says the word 'gaming' alot and wants the committee to give consideration to giving the Tribe special benefits. What's new?

12:45 A guy who represents communities around Milford got up and said he supports casinos - just not a lot of them. He also likes mitigation. Next!

Denise Provost from Sommerville tells a story about a family destroyed by Seminole casinos - then she shows pictures of them - gak. Like a low-rent Big Lots with pawning and check cashing.

12:20 When I came back from outside, AFL-CIO titan Bobby Haynes was saying "30,000 to 40,000" jobs! When questioned if he would still support slot parlors which didn't provide a lot of jobs he choked it down a little and said yes. Dammit he just wants casinos. Life will end without casinos.

Joan Menard thinks we can throw money at addicts. Yeah for addicts!

Paul Guzzi of the Boston Chamber, as expected, comes out for casinos. A lot of what he says doesn't make sense so I tune out, but... he gets a lot of questions from the committee so that makes me feel better.

Next up is Kathleen Reinstein from Revere. This girl's got horse manure under her fingernails. She worked at a track and it put her through college. Yee Ha! She practically picks up pom poms and does a cheer. She also simultaneously kind of denogrates her constituency by saying they are not exactly rocket scientists. Nor, do they look like George Clooney. (Her words, folks, not me.) Reinstein's motto: Casinos for dumb ugly people!

Kathleen Reinstein should be riding a mechanical bull with horsetail pom poms.

Sue Tucker gets up and leaves and a blue shirt next to me says, "ha ha, can't take it huh??" and laughs.

I death stare him into silence.

Carl Scortino - Rep from Sommerville is up speaking from the heart about personal stories of gambling addiction and families destroyed by gambling addiction. He can be seen on the video that I'll get on the site if I ever get out of here.

12:03 I took a break. Sort of. I testified on a panel with (are you sitting down?) Bob Massie, Natasha Schull, and Hans Brieter. I had something written, but right before we went on, Bob suggested that I just tell a personal story.

So I did. I told them how, as a web designer, I'm used to aggregating, categorizing and presenting information. And that there is more information out there than the committee of the public realizes. In fact, I'd gone to the printer to have just a few of the pages of the web site reproduced, so I could include 19 copies of them as part of my testimony. Later that day, the printer had called to tell me that this would cost almost $500. So obviously I did not include them. Instead, I submitted the entire USS- Mass.org web site as part of my written testimony. And they'd better go check it out. Because I'll know. Because I'm the web designer.

Then I told them a story about how, at a Mass Democratic committee meeting this spring I was handing out informational pahmplets, and one woman didn't want to take one. "I like playing slots. We need the money." But I told her that modern slot machines are designed differently, and they cause a serious addiction. She thought about that for a second then said, "I don't care." "You don't care about addicting people?" I asked. "No. We need the money." And then, I said to the committee, if that's what the party's come down to, why am I a democrat. But a month later, my faith in the party was renewed by the resolution taken in Springfield by the Mass. Democratic Party to oppose predatory slot machines.

And then, after Bob spoke eloquently - I used wanted to get the hell out of there. I needed air. It wasn't the circus it was last year, but it was hot and crowded and filled with inaccuracies and inconsistencies and more fairytales than in the whole children's section of Barnes and Noble.

I'm depressed. I have no paper and pencil handy for Hans Brieter and Natsha Schull to autograph. Dr. Brieter and others say, "good job" to me, but I didn't do a good job. How do you put 2 and a half years of reality into 3 minutes?? I can't even afford to print out a portion of it to be read later.

Frank and I gave an interview. It might be in the Enterprise.

10:40 Sen. Marc Pacheco. I'm taking a rest. Oh wait he mentions Middleboro. Wants a local host community vote. Nope, no good, still boring. He is getting cut off before he can do the Butt-For dance. But he insists on talking up simulcasts. Committee tries to stop him, it's no good, it's the Pacheco wind machine. He side steps.

A guy on committee (will find a name) asks if Pacheco means a local ballot vote or a town meeting vote.

Another committee member (I wish I had a cheat sheet) asks Marc if the State up the licenses up for auciton and the race tracks didn't get even one of them, would he still be for gambling?

10:37 Sen. O'Leary - Cape and Islands - opposing! He says he's at odds with the Tribes (who are here today) though he has a lot of respect for them. He speaks about how what people hope for in the beginning - never pans out - and ends up worse. They own YOU as much as you own THEM. We will be foreced to renogotiate and compromise.

10:32 Brian Walace. (Double Groan). Basically, it's Sal DiMassie's fault. Now we have a real man in the speaker's office. Someone who'll give us a fair shot.

10:30 Sue Tucker up after much blue applause for Flynn. She says it's the worst possible time for this.

Hey look - it's Cedric Crowmwell, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe famous for the ex-Middleboro casino.

Tucker mentions taxes higher in states with casinos/slots. We need cost benefit numbers.

I hope no one expects me to be clever or spell properly today. Everyone only has 3 minute and they'are all talking really fast... which isn't a bad thing.

93,000 million dollars net, she says.That doesn't include regulatory bureaucracy. Addiction. $80,000 hit to lottery.

She brings up the new type of addiction caused by slot machines and objects (0jbects!) to the state partnering with gambling interests to addict citizens.

New point, the lottery won't put a lein on your house. (won't break your fingers either.) She brings up gambling arms race that always happens. See the uss-mass.org web site. I can't type fast enough for links. As she leaves we clap - blue shirts boo.

10:25 Back in Gardner. The first guy up is all about entertainment. The second guy (GROAN) is none other than my very own rep and neighbor, David Flynn. He is all about inevitability. It's about time dagnabbit. He's been waiting since the freaking cretaceous period waiting for this legislation passed and now that we finally have three more dinosaurs in office it's a done deal. He mentions B'water a lot.

9:30 USS-Mass.org Press Conference at the Grand Staircase. Lots of points raised. Speakers were Sue Tucker, Bob Massie, Les Bernal, Steve Sears and a rep from Cape Cod whose name I didn't hear because Frank D. showed up!! Hooray! I've got video but give me time to get it uploaded. Ryan will have it too.

9:15 It's blue shirts, not red today.

One of them comes down to tell President of USS-Mass.org Kathleen Norbut, that there are no costs associated with slots.

I am glad he did not approach me.

Live blogging from Boston today.

Stay tuned...

Portraits in Courage

Two kind of extraordinary things happened yesterday.

First, former candidate for Lt. Governor Bob Massie posted a very strong, very public letter on Blue Mass Group chastising friends, political allies, candidates, unions and churches for their endorsement or lack of an outcry on expanded gambling in Massachusetts.

In 2008, at the Statehouse hearing for Deval Patrick's three casino plan, the other anti-casino folks and I suffocated through hours upon hours of pro-casino testimony on the part of legislators and the AFL-CIO from early morning to the afternoon. And so much ignorance and indifference all in one place was very depressing.

And then came Bob. I'd heard about him several times from a colleague who'd gotten my hopes up with glowing characterizations. But when I laid eyes on him, wearing a clerical collar, my first and very cynical thought was, 'oh here comes a priest - he'll probably say a prayer for the committee or something while they roll their eyes and text their BFF's.' (My experience with religious organizations on this issue has not been positive.) I also figured he was in a weakened state due to his liver cancer and hemophilia.

But instead, within two seconds of reaching the microphone, Bob Massie was knocking Patrick's and the union's argument right out of the park. This was no soft spoken cleric. He was hellfire. The gloves were off. And, up in the nosebleeds among the hired red shirts, it was nothing less than inspiring. We rose to our feet.

Think about it, how long had those of us from the Middleboro fight waited to hear a public figure stand up and do the right thing? The closest we'd ever come was the vote the Regional Task Force took to oppose Middleboro. But this guy - this guy was standing up and raising his voice for us and for everyone else who'd be hurt if Deval's ill-thought out plan was enacted.

In the months since that day I'm delighted to say that Bob has become a friend. And, after a liver transplant this summer, he's finally starting to feel better. But he's still calling out legislators and others who hide from their responsibility to do the right thing. I hope you'll read what he has to say - it might make you feel as good as it made me feel that day in '08.

The other extraordinary thing that happened yesterday was that a candidate for Senator, Alan Khazei came out publicly against expanded gambling. In a big way. He urged the Boston Chamber of Commerce to reverse their position on casinos, then spoke up and out at last night's televised debate.

As part of an movement saddled with a recent history of political and religious ducking and covering, yesterday was almost an embarrassment of riches.

Here is a short video of where the candidates, including Khazei stand on expanded gambling.



Notice how Khazei seems to have done his homework on the issue? And how he seems to care about the people and values our State's unique culture?

Capuano and Pagliuca, on the other hand obviously haven't bothered to do their homework on the issue - with Capuano going so far as to say that senatorial candidates needn't be concerned with the issue - which is a not only lazy but also a cop out.

Senators have been required to study Indian gaming legislation in the past and will potentially be called upon to vote on the Dorgan bill in an effort to undo the Supreme Court's Carcieri decision. And furthermore, senators have been known to take a lot of contributions from gambling interests. (I know you are shocked.)

And Coakley. Ugh. She's the worst. I want to hear the logic behind her strong opposition to the legalization of marijuana while maintaining a limp posture on expanded gambling. She hides behind her attorney general hat and says 'all I am required to do is to tell the legislature how much it would cost to regulate the industry to fight gambling-related crime'...

...instead of saying 'as an attorney general I know how much crime this industry create - so much so that it's going to cost a bundle to regulate - and as a person in a running for a leadership position I take a stance against crime. Crime is bad. No casino!'

I mean, jeez Martha! Stop tying yourself to Therese Murray's apron strings and grow a spine. Neither Massachusetts nor Washington needs another politician without a spine or who clams up on important issues when there's an election looming.

I don't know if Khazei has a chance of winning, but I do know that he's done two things that, since becoming a citizen activist, I've found utterly lacking in our elected officials - he does his homework, and he has the courage stands up for the people of his state. And that's what I want to see in a senator.

“I am strongly opposed to gambling in Massachusetts. I understand that people are hurting and need work, but we can create good, high-paying jobs in green industries and clean energy, supporting small business and emphasizing health care, education, bio-tech, tourism, and other industries where Massachusetts has a competitive advantage,” Khazei said in his closing statement at the U.S. Senate debate. “New gambling machines prey especially on primarily low-income families and people suffering from addiction—the very people who are struggling the most in this terrible economy.”

“I am deeply concerned about the lobbyists and special interests behind this idea and their pursuit of personal gain,” said Khazei. “Bringing casinos to Massachusetts would irrevocably change the nature of our Commonwealth, the very birthplace of American democracy. Once we bring casinos to Massachusetts we will never be able to reverse that monumental decision. I'm the father of two young children, and I don't want them to grow up in a state with casinos. Lobbyists and big corporate PACs are pushing this. Citizens can stop this. We have to fight the special interests. I urge Attorney General Martha Coakley and Congressman Michael Capuano to take a stand against casinos in Massachusetts.”

Notice how he doesn't say something along the lines of what a lot of us are very sick of hearing: 'Ooooo look - a revenue source! Must be good! All revenue is good, right! What else is there to know?? Who cares if people get hurt?! We'll just throw some money at them!! Wwwweeeeee!!

Here is an on-line petition to oppose casinos that Alan Khazei has posted on his web site - you don't have to be an Alan supporter to sign the petition.

Khazei for Senate!

Imagine that - a Massachusetts Senate candidate who publicly opposes expanded gambling.

This just in from Boston.com

BOSTON—Democratic Senate candidate Alan Khazei surprised his host Monday by urging the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce to abandon its planned support for casino gambling in Massachusetts.

The City Year co-founder told a chamber-sponsored candidates forum that expanded gambling will cause irreversible changes in the state's culture and character. Khazei and three other Democrats are vying to succeed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in a Jan. 19 special election.

"We cannot take this step. I urge all of you to reverse your position on casino gambling," Khazei said in a closing statement that sent a murmur through the crowd, triggered a smattering of applause and prompted a rebuke from the chamber's leadership.

President Paul Guzzi said that while he liked and respected Khazei, "I thought it was not the appropriate forum given our focus on federal issues."

Meanwhile the Boston Chamber is expected to come out in support of casinos at Thursday's hearing - which in my opinion makes today's Chamber-sponsored event the perfect forum for a courageous candidate to step up and urge them to reverse their position! Go Alan!

I'm finally excited to vote again!

Sixteen Casinos, and What Do You Get?

Apparently, another year older, and deeper in debt.

Today, Iowa Governor Chet Culver or­dered a 10 % across-the­ board spending cut in the wake of plunging tax revenue esti­mates.

The state’s revenue for the current fiscal year will be nearly $415 million less than pre­viously expected and 1,000 to 2,000 state workers could be laid off.

Iowa, incidentally, was one of the first states in the nation to legalize gambling and also one of the first and few to maintain records on gambling addiction. Before the casinos, 1.7% of the population were problem gamblers but three and a half years later, that figure had more than tripled to 5.4%.

But, speaking of deeper in debt, the city of Detroit, alone, has three gigantic casinos that were supposed to revitalize the city and provide much needed jobs and development. One of them was built by Herb Strather, the man who initiated the Middleboro Casino debacle.

From Herb's blog:

Strather is one of the originators of the casino industry in Detroit and is the former Chairman of Atwater Entertainment which developed and sold Motor City Casino at an 1100% return to investors.

Detroit, however, remains a moonscape.


But hey, Who-hoo! for casino investors!

(...Though Jim Cramer from Mad Money was on one of the talk shows this morning warning people not to touch casino stocks with a ten foot pole.)

Casinos are not economic development. They are a dirty band-aid that ends up giving you an infection.

But what if Iowa built even more casinos?

Well, actually, I lied in the title to this post.

Iowa actually has 19 casinos.

Ka-Ching!

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

There was a time, not so long ago, when it would positively set my heart aflutter to learn that the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe was a comin' to Middleboro for a talk. I would clear my schedule, stand for hours in a crowded hallway, straining to hear every word, analyze every action.

So I suppose it's worth noting that I never even considered going to Middleboro yesterday to witness representatives from the Tribe having a sit down with CRAC (Casino Resort Advisory Committee.)

Because, why bother? I've seen this movie before. The last two and a half years have been like a black comedy that never seems to end. It features a pack of clueless greedy screwballs running all over creation, and each other, at the merest hint of a priceless treasure, that we all know they're never going to get their hands on, buried under a giant "W". It should star Don Knotts and Buddy Hackett (and Ethel Merman as Adam Bond.)

And at first, it was funny. But now we just want it to be over.

It started out as the World's Biggest Casino. Then, it was 'Scaled Back'. Now, according to the Enterprise, it's Casino Lite. Two-thirds less inevitable than other, more filling, casinos.

Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell told the Casino Resort Advisory Committee the tribe has reconsidered building a $1 billion resort casino complex off Route 44 because of the failing economy. He said the tribe is considering “one-third of that in size ... no hotel, a gaming hall with food, not a full-blown mega casino, it doesn’t make sense.”

No, Ced, what 'doesn't make sense' is that you are living in a delusional dream world where casinos are your birthright and Supreme Court decisions are reversed on your say so.

You are not getting a casino. It does not need to be scaled back. It does not have to be built in stages. There is no need to submit "a draft Environmental Impact Statement by December", "hold public hearings in January", or present "a final EIS by July". So just put down the shovel, leave the Kool-Aid on the bar and back away.

Both Cromwell and Tobey are optimistic the casino will go forward, despite setbacks with the investors. Tobey said the move to legalize Class 3 gaming in Massachusetts would give the tribe the green light for a casino once it has land taken into trust, because recognized tribes are allowed gaming by right if legal in the state.

Hey guys, how about 'setbacks' with the Carcieri v. Salazar ruling? Oh, that's right, in Cromwelltobey Land there's going to be a "fix" to correct that inconvenient Supreme Court Ruling.

For those of us still living in the real world, let's take a moment to review.

A proposal to 'fix' the Carcieri ruling has been sponsored by a Senator from North Dakota. It is being co-sponsored by a senator from New Mexico, another from Colorado, and two senators from Montana - states where a good share of their constituents are, no doubt, Native American.

Two additional co-sponsors are the two senators from Hawaii - one of whom is of 'Native Hawaiian' ancestry - and both of whom sponsor the Akaka Bill which would set up "a process for the reorganization of the Native Hawaiian government for the purposes of a federally recognized government-to-government relationship with the United States."

The remaining co-sponsor, Al Franken of Minnesota, one of the newest members of Congress, is probably also too new to have ever had a constituent write to him to about having their rights trampled on by the Indian Gaming Act.

In other words, virtually all of the sponsors of the bill have to look like they support overturning a ruling unpopular with their constituents.

However, on the flipside, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah and yes, even North Dakota submitted amicus briefs in support of Carcieri.

And for that matter, so did the:

• Council of State Governments
• National League of Cities
• U.S. Conference of Mayors
• National Association of Counties, and the
• International City/County Management Association

And the Council of State Governments alone represents all 50 States as well as New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Québec, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Furthermore, shortly after the Salazar decision, in Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Supreme Court ruled that, "Congress cannot, after statehood reserve or convey submerged lands that have already been bestowed upon a State" - further reducing the likelihood of any Federal land-in-trust acquisitions in Massachusetts.

And, in her testimony before the legislative Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies in June 2009, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley stated that

"The Supreme Court's decision this past February in the Carcieri case effectively puts the Wampanoags and other tribes in Massachusetts on the same footing as any other private party because the Secretary of the Interior's ability to acquire land for Native Americans is limited to those already under Federal Jurisdiction at the time the Indian Reorganization Act was enacted in 1934. Massachusetts' Native American tribes each came under Federal Jurisdiction after 1934. As a result, they are entitled to make an application and bid for a gaming license like anyone else, but do not have special entitlement to conduct gaming under the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act or the Indian Reorganization Act."

And yet, according to Cromwell...

“Middleboro is the No. 1 choice for gaming in Massachusetts,”

Notice he didn't say "We look forward to coming home to Middleboro - our ancestral homeland, where the majority of our tribe currently resides, and where the seat of our government is located." Thankfully, Cromwell's fantasy world is limited to reservation shopping.

Michael Solimini, a casino opponent, questioned if the terms of the deal have changed. “Middleboro was promised a large-scale casino, now the scope has changed downward ... Sounds like a bait and switch. We’re not getting what we were promised two years ago.”

“Are you saying you favor a full-blown casino?” Tobey asked. He said the tribe is following the terms of the agreement and called Solimini’s term “harsh.”

Whoa! Mike! You're like totally harshing Aaron's casino buzz with all your heavy negative truth, dude.

An inconvenient truth. And "bait and switch" is a good term for the Tribe's new mantra. That's the one I was thinking of, too.

Probably because Mike and I were there in 2007, watching a lot of folks practically fall over and start speaking in tongues at the very idea of a casino Disneyland with five star restaurants, upscale retail stores, a bunch of golf courses and a waterpark all within a lougee-hucking distance of their very own barcaloungers. Their eyes would dilate into big shiny poker chips at every new mouthwatering description of the magical wonderland within their grasp.

"Vote Yes for Middleboro's Future!"

Not only did the Tribe's chairman promise the people of Middleboro the Land of Oz (before being indicted and hauled off to jail) but he also agreed to pay them 7 million dollars a year for the privilege.

But now I'm left wondering, after the state takes it's cut of whatever it would agree to in a compact, and the Tribe pays for the infrastructure, the 'mitigation' to the town and anyone else, will Casino Lite really be the castle in the sky Cedric Cromwell and Aaron Tobey seem to think it is?

Speaking of which, exactly what color is the sky their world?

Amsterdam West

Earlier this year I wrote about a New Hampshire legislator who wanted to introduce gambling legislation to that state, envisioning the Granite State transformed into a sort of "Delaware North" (his words, not mine).

But hey, we all need our dreams.

And so, I was reminded of "Delaware North" once again this week when I read about a Woman Arrested for Leaving Son in Car Outside Delaware Casino:

on Sunday at around 9 p.m. a security guard patrolling the parking lot at Delaware Park Racetrack and Slots spotted a 12-year-old boy alone in the car. Police say the boy's 33-year-old mother the boy in the car for more than two hours. According to police, the car was parked away from the main building and there was no way the boy's mother would be able to see the child from inside the facility.

Here are a few comments that followed the article.

When the casinos opened in Connecticut, this same issue happened over and over again. People who are "addicted" to gambling don't care about their children or responsibilities and will leave children in the most horrific conditions to follow that addiction.

Knowing that, and knowing the difficulties that places like Atlantic City have with the dregs of society, I can't imagine why Delaware would want to subject themselves to several more locations like that casino.

This is what is happening more and more each day, people need to understand that gambling is an addiction. Sometimes I'm not sure that building casinos in DE was ever a good idea because when they built them the people came but common sense left. I really feel sorry for the Young man because now he can see that his mother has a real problem!!!

Most likely a gambling addiction. I've worked with a lot of compulsive gamblers and it's sad, what they will do when 'under the influence'. Just as bad as drugs or alcohol. Probably not the first time the kid has sat alone for hours while mom gambles.

So I started thinking... why Delaware? Think big New Hampshire! You could be the new British Columbia South!

Why, just this year British Columbia has seen a record tally of gambling parents leaving kids in cars - 35 cases in fact.

The cases include:

A mother left her two children, aged 7 and 9, in the trunk of her burgundy Chrysler Intrepid on June 17, 2004, while she gambled at Boulevard Casino in Coquitlam.

A crying child was walking through the Boulevard Casino parking lot in Coquitlam on Jan. 19, 2009. When security located the mother in the casino, she returned to the parking lot, then scolded the child for leaving the car.

Three children, including a toddler and six-month-old, were left in a hotel hallway with a diaper bag in Lake City Casinos in Penticton on March 23, 2009, while their mother was in a casino gambling.

Two children under age 10 were left alone in a fifth-wheel trailer at Treasure Cove in Prince George on Aug. 7, 2008, while their grandfather spent nearly an hour at the blackjack table.

Here's the one comment someone left after this article:

I live right outside Atlantic City, NJ, and used to see this all the time. I would see 9 and 10 year olds sleeping at the entrance to casinos late at night. It made me sick. If parents had money to gamble, they should have $25-30 to pay a babysitter.
After a 10 year old girl got killed in Nevada, the casinos started cracking down on parents who leave their kids alone, but it still happens. One couple left their toddler in the car in the garage at Caesars, and then was on the TV news the next day saying "Can't they see I love my baby?" Yeah, right.

But folks, it's OK. Children in British Columbia can rest easy because all those neglectful parents and grandparents have been barred from casinos for a whole year.

That'll teach 'em.

And, with that kind of rock hard regulatory oversight available, why stop at British Columbia? New Hampshire could reach for the stars - and become Indiana East!

Indiana is the place where 72 children were abandoned around casinos in a 14 month period.

Wowee! They must be rolling in tax revenue in Indiana!

And heck, casinos aren't the only places to leave your kids when you go gambling...

children also are left unattended occasionally at other places such as shopping malls.

Though, of course, we never read about those other kids - the ones who get left alone at home. Unless something really bad happens...

MO - Mom lost eleven children in a deadly house fire in 1981. She had left the children home alone (10 months to 11 years old) while she was out gambling with their father in St. Louis. In the two decades since the fire, she has had six more children. Gambling lies near the center of most of the mom's problems. She loses consistently and often uses her children's public assistance money and checks for their various medical disorders to gamble, her children said. Consequently, she and her children have frequently been homeless. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch 3/26/01 By Denise Hollinshed)

But don't worry, New Hampshire. If your state does get slots, you'll soon be opening up the newspaper to find your own stories like the one about the Indiana parent

charged with child neglect after leaving her 3-month-old daughter in a locked car with the windows rolled up. The infant was revived after receiving oxygen.

Don't you just love a story with a happy ending?

Here's a few more heartwarming tales from the parking lot.

IN - Four children were left alone for at least four hours in a car parked at Buffington Harbor. The mother of the children, ages 2, 3, 9 and 16, was arrested late Tuesday after she emerged from one of the two casino boats there.Police found the youngest children clad only in diapers, crying because they were hungry and cold, police and witnesses said. (Youngsters left alone in car as mother gambles"/By Steve Patterson, Gary, Indiana)

IN - It was 9 degrees outside when the Keisha Clark, 24, left her 16-day-old infant, 2-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son in a car while she went into an East Chicago casino Feb. 19., police said. The infant was discovered unresponsive in the car about 1:30 p.m. that day, authorities said. The baby was successfully revived and two other children in the car were unharmed. (Woman must take parenting classes, Crown Point, Indiana 9/2/06)

If anyone would like a further preview of the great things we can expect if gambling expands in New England, check out the many, many stories about slot-related child abuse on the United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts web site's page on how expanded gambling will effect our State's children - and where you will also learn that child neglect is only the tip of the iceberg.

For instance,

• At least 10 percent of children of gambling addicts suffer physical abuse at the hands of the addict
• children of pathological gamblers frequently reported feelings of anger, sadness, and depression
• 23 of the spouses and 17 percent of the children of pathological gamblers were physically and verbally abused.
• 50 percent of spouses and 10 percent of children experienced physical abuse from the pathological gambler.

Source:
Pathological Gambling: A Critical Review (1999)
Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (CBASSE)

And this doesn't even touch the troubles Delaware North could face with the growing problem of youth gambling.

There is no means to confine the impact of legalized gambling to adults. A Rutgers University study found that teens are twice as likely to be heavy gamblers if their parents gamble (Table 2.14). Teens are one-third more likely become pathological level 3 gamblers if their parents gamble (Table 3.5).

A University of Delaware study found that almost one-third of 8th and 11th graders in that casino state had gambled in the past year. Those Delaware teens gambling over the past month were two to three times more likely than non-gambling peers to smoke, binge drink, steal, or use illegal drugs. Student test scores drop. High school drop out rates increase.

The case for emulating Delaware just never stops, does it?

But you know what - it's not the fact that little children are being left to swelter or freeze alone in cars, locked in trunks, crying for their parents in parking lots, abandoned in "resort- casino" corridors, needing to be revived with oxygen, becoming more depressed, getting physically and emotionally abused or gambling before they're even old enough to vote that gets to me.

No, the truly grotesque thing about all this is that some State governments are promoting this genuine source of misery.

Not some big private corporation with it's eye on the bottom line and answerable to a bunch of faceless stockholders - but the very people we elect into office to make responsible decisions and protect our children from bad things - not so they can perform their jobs like a bunch of anesthetized tax collectors who spend too much, then write checks on the backs of children from families with gambling problems - aka casinos best customers.

Equally repugnant are the 'big' three in our own home State - Deval Patrick, Bob DeLeo and Therese Murray who pretend - even with all this easily attainable evidence - that gambling is just another business - like Walmart or Best Western or Outback Steakhouse.

Well it's not.

Gambling - most especially in the form of modern slot machines causes changes in the brain similar to that of crack cocaine. This summer I attended a Statehouse hearing on expanding gambling where Hans Breiter, MD, director of the Laboratory for Neuroimaging and Genetics at Mass. General Hospital spoke about his brain scan research.

Breiter goes on to show scans of brains of “normal” people, along with scans of people addicted to various substances and activities such as cocaine and slot machines. And sure enough – the coke scans match up with the slot scans. Breiter says he can't tell the difference between them. He also refers to it “cocaine expectancy” and “monetary expectancy”. He talks about the creation of structural abnormalities in the brain. Some that can be fixed and some that can't.

He talks for a long time, about a lot of things like risk factors and free will and slippery slopes. But in the end, insists his presentation is about 'models' and that to the brain, the 'gaming' model is basically the same as the drug mode.

Which makes sense, since we see child neglect and abuse all the time in cases of parental drug addiction.

So I have a thought - since we're considering throwing responsibility to the wind anyway here in Massachusetts, why not legalize drugs and collect tax revenue from it? We could shore up the old budget with something that people are already doing anyway! Heck - it's a form of entertainment! Not everyone partakes and not everyone who does gets addicted.

As for those who do, rest assured, we'd do this the right way. First, we'd sell licenses to build big resort-destination drug parlors, (what souless enterprising capitalist blessed with explicit governmental sanctions to create addicts wouldn't jump at one of those?) where people could pop, inject or inhale "responsibly", then we'd regulate them and use the tax revenue to set up about 20 or so addiction centers which we could totally have up and running in about 6 months!

Talk about an economic shot in the arm!

And the best part? We could call ourselves... Amsterdam West!

Of Citizens and Saints

October 11, 2009

Dear Ms. Vennochi,

Thank you so much for your column in Today's Globe Keeping a Poker Face on Gambling. It is the only print article in recent memory in which a quote by an anti-predatory gambling activist hasn't been relegated to the bottom of the piece!

I feel I must correct your description, however, of fomer speaker Sal DiMasi as our "patron antigambling saint". In 2008, shortly before Deval Patrick's three-casino hearing, I created the short video The DiMasi Code which took on the media for it's portrayal of DiMasi as the only possible hope for a victory for anti-casino forces.

I felt then, as I do now, that if most members of the legislature, as well as the Economic Development and Emerging Technologies Committee understood the true costs of expanded gambling in our State, they would not vote in favor of it.

But the reality is, most simply do not have even the slightest understanding of the issue. (Although I'm certain many think they do.)

And so it is unfortunate that the media once again appears to be focusing on a theoretical political chess game rather than reporting valuable facts about slot machines and their myriad potential financial, "social" and regulatory costs to the citizens of Massachusetts.

I also felt that your column leaves readers with the impression that the average citizen has extremely limited power to influence a decision in the gambling debate.

Much like Senator Murray's assertion that casinos are "inevitable", a suggestion from an informed source such as a politician or respected columnist that activist groups and concerned citizens are powerless to effect a legislative outcome has the predictable effect of keeping a lot of people from even trying.

Which is unfortunate, since my own personal experience with the issue has epitomized Margaret Mead's famous observation that one should "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Once again, thank you for choosing to write about the issue of expanded gambling in the Bay State. I hope to read more in the coming months.

Sincerely,
Gladys Kravitz

---

October 11, 2009

I agree, there's a case, on the merits, against gambling and I have made it before. The politics of the moment intrigued me. I thought they were worth laying out.

Thanks for reading.
Sincerely, Joan Vennochi

The Playbook

Wednesday, in an interview with WBUR, Senate President Therese Murray said that casinos are inevitable.

A spokesman clarified Thursday that Murray believed both a vote on casinos and the facilities themselves are foregone conclusions. Murray did not specify a timeframe.

--Statehouse News

Sen. Murray was using step one in the old expanded gambling playbook. I blogged about this last May, which just happened to mark the beginning of my third year battling an industry which once tried to convince me that a Native American casino in my neck of the woods was inevitable (it wasn't). This is the short version.

1. Create a sense of inevitability.
2. Wave inordinately large amounts of money in front of our most vulnerable citizens - State legislators.
3. Inflate the numbers.
4. Employ union "influence".
5. Wheel out Prof. Clyde Barrow (still widely believed to be a policy analyst rather than an industry operative) at least once a month to insist our State pockets are being picked by Connecticut casinos.
6. Blow off all casino opposition as bible thumping bleeding hearts without a clue as to how the big boys balance budgets. Employ copious eye rolling here.
7. Avoid mentioning any associated costs. Deny them if necessary.
8. If step 7 is not possible, with a serious face, insist mitigation will contain any conceivable costs.
9. If discussing costs does become painfully necessary, try to make such cost sound like a benefit (e.g. the beneficial stimulation effect of slot machine noise on otherwise shut-in seniors.)
10. Capitalize on the media's apparent unwillingness to give equal time to the opposition view, and that of of decision makers to educate themselves.
    
11. Remember - it's not gambling, it's 'gaming' - but more importantly, it's always just "entertainment."
12. When studies are required, leave out those pesky "social costs" by insisting they are too difficult and cumbersome to measure - and therefore don't exist or are, at a minimum hard to prove. Better yet, imply "social costs" = nothing of great importance to the rest of us.
13. If these steps fail, return to step 1.
14. Rinse. Repeat.

Because people will tend to think she 'knows something' that can only be a mystery to those of us outside the Statehouse, step 1 is a valuable tool in Sen. Murray's hands.

So, some people will believe it's futile to put up a fight. Support of, and donations to, excellent anti-predatory gambling organizations like United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts will be reduced.

Murray doesn't want you to put up a fight because that sort of thing could lead to a definite lack of inevitability which conflicts with her desire for casinos.

The inevitability brigade knows that the opposition is making strides.

A vote has been pushed to next year in order to give the pro-gambling lobby time to re-tool it's message, to work it's expensive magic on more legislators, to keep the party together for elections. They know that even they can't agree on whether to root for casinos or slots or where to put them.

So they pull out the handbook and punt.

Another thing Sen. Murray has going for her with the inevitability device is that the majority of the public doesn't have confidence in the folks at the Statehouse not to cave to the desires of a powerful and well funded industry.

In other words, it is inevitable in both the public's and Sen. Murray's mind that she and others in our legislature lack the backbone necessary to defy a powerful lobby and call for an independent blue ribbon panel to carefully study and weigh real costs and benefits before making an irreparable decision that could effect the quality of life here in Massachusetts.

Because in my experience with this issue, the only thing inevitable about it - are the consequences.

The Voice of Experience

I learned a long time ago to avoid the comment sections that follow on-line articles about slots and casinos.

It's always the same.

The great majority of the people who write the comments are obviously uninformed about the product, bereft of empathy for their fellow man, and seemingly clueless that nothing but an endless pot of shiny gold, big fun, and good times lies at the end of an expanded gambling rainbow.

There's really no need for them to learn more about the issue, because they are always right. In fact, most have actually been to a casino, had a very nice time, and came home with no problems to show for it. So there's your proof.

And you can take it from them that anyone who lets themselves get addicted to gambling is clearly an inferior being (unlike themselves) and not worth the tax dollars it would take to treat them.

What's more, they are positively blue with indignation over all that money going to enrich a bunch of lucky out-of-staters who pick our pockets and give us nothing in return but a bunch of the aforementioned lousy gambling addicts who just spoil it for the rest of us.

Chug chug chug goes that economic engine with all it's gazillions of jobs and flashing lights and free drinks and five star restaurants - right across state lines.

Running through these comments is also a generally held belief that gambling (or at least a shorter drive to the nearest gambling establishment) is a constitutional right. Or a birthright, perhaps and that they are being prevented from partaking of it's nurturing mother's milk by a bunch of misguided bible-thumping social workers who wouldn't know a good thing if it hit in the face them with a croupier's stick.

You wouldn't ban alcohol and cigarettes, would you?? Well, dammit, it's the same exact thing.

Needless to say, these comment sections contain a certain amount of name calling.

And then there's the inevitability argument. Always, invariably, inevitable. Because they said so.

Another thing keeping me away from the comment sections are the commentators themselves, who tend to exude a certain, oh I don't know... enthusiasm - reminding me of those howling flesh-eating vampire zombies from "I Am Legend".

But, as much as I do dislike comment sections, I've often found it particularly productive to scan them when the on-line article is from a Connecticut news source. Because it would seem that almost two decades of experience with the worlds' largest casinos can fade even the brightest rainbow.

Case in point, a recent sun-shiny 'push-the-inevitability' article appearing in the Norwich Bulletin titled Mohegan Sun ready to pounce in Massachusetts - complete with obligatory quotes from industry evangelist Clyde Barrow - which is actually remarkable not for it's content, but for it's comments.

(My favorite: the person bemoaning Connecticut's paltry casino 25% tax - obviously unaware that this is slightly higher than the going rate.)

And so, despite a sprinkling of goofball and racist remarks, I found this comment section (reprinted here in full) of value - because it confirms a lot of what predatory gambling opponents have been saying could happen here in Massachusetts - despite what the howling flesh-eating know-it-all vampire zombies may tell you. Take a look.

vinnie

Good luck MA.. The casinos have done absolutely NOTHING for the Taxpayers of Connecticut. It is just more money for your state legislators to piss away on the foolish schemes to enrich themselves and their special interest cronies. I can guarantee Palmer Mass. residents a huge influx of low income people taxing their social service and police departments as well as their school systems. Without a DOUBT.

As a taxpayer of Connecticut I have not seen 1 CENT of tax relief from my state government. The fact is that Connecticut resident's taxes continue to rise unabated even with an income tax, and the lottery, and casino revenue. We are mired in a world of debt that our great grandchildren will NOT be able to get us out of.

I have been to the casinos and enjoyed myself with a show and a meal but they are not the economic engine that is going to drive your state economy out of the skyrocketing debt that your legislators have gotten you into due to their callous spending ways. In fact they will more than likely cost you more than theyare worth. Road upgrades, more police, money being drained from local economies leading to bussinesses shutting down are only a few of the negatives that come with casinos. Not to mention the fact that some school systems have gone from perhaps 4 languages to -- guessing -- over fifteen that tax payers have to educate. And don't count on state aid from casino revenue being there because in Connecticut the casino revenue goes to the cities and a very small portion goes to host communities.

I am sorry to burst your bubble Mass. but if you think this is going to save your gum flapping legislators from squeezing every nickle they can get out of you then you certainly have another thing coming. GOOD LUCK!

enlightened1

Casinos are a great place to go for entertainment and to spend that extra cash that has been accumulating................ Wait a minute! What extra cash? I must be thinking that it is still 2006 and jobs are good paying and plentiful. I must be thinking that the economy is still going great guns and there is abundance in America. To introduce new casinos into this economy and tout the benefits of jobs without mentioning what has to happen to make this new casino a viable entity for the Native American owners is very one sided. People have to LOSE THEIR MONEY. The patrons who gamble have to lose a lot more than is put back into the economy through the jobs created to build this new casino. A casino takes more money from the economy than it puts back. IT HAS TO.

BigMac

And then they will cry about their profits when they build a casino in Mass and lose half of their business. Definatly not a swift bunch running this show.

Brooklynite

Strange..i could have sworn I had read t the Ct. casinos had been experiencing a slump in revenues and were in debt for their construction activities... I would have thought the market had been saturated, especially in the current economy... Gamblers are naive to think that they can 'win'...no one opens a casino to lose money on the proposition.. I am also reminded of some vehicular accidents intoxicated patrons have caused ... The only winners are the casinos...the taxpayers not!!!

cjz

We all know the reason mohegan wants a casino in Mass.to replaces the one in CT>before too much longer radiation levels in uncasville will make the place unhealthy.

revman

Bet big cities like New York & Boston will be happy because more Chinese will move out of their cities,Start hiring teachers NOW!

JUP

I bet in Mass they will pay a lot more Tax than they do here! Only CT was dumb enough to sell out for 25% slot only Tax when the going rate is 55% & it includes Table Games. Weicker was a diaster.

Alarming News

Better keep it small, lest you go bust and set your town up for a fall. There can be no denying that Eastern Ct saw a decline when wholesale industries (not just individual Plants) left the area. This resulted in a 'mini-recession' and home values, along with wages, went into the tank. To stimulate employment (which puts workers and their wage demands into the drivers seat) requires the creation of Industries, even new ones. I've preached this for years regarding the need FOR OUR NATION to persue new industry, and that industry - in my opinion - should be the harvesting, refinement and transportation (even export) of our vast God-given energy recources. But enough about that...for now. Here in Eastern Ct , the two Casinos took the place of hose lost industries like Kaman, American Standard and the like. But they both overbuilt. I believe they did so not out of sheer competition, but because they correctly realized that unlike those other idustries, theirs could never 'Pack Up and Split.' They are confined to their 'Soverign Reservations', so what harm could come by maximizing their size? They also thought that rapid expansion would insulate them from any newcomers, like the Narragansetts, Nipmunks or other tribes seeking -and already at the time engaged in - the long recognition process. But what we saw was, during a good long economic expansion, a rush to cash in on housing development. Home values rose quickly, but as we're now seeing, the glut of housing is now eating away at property values and uncompleted projects are dotting the landscape in addition to the new home construction industry having basically evaporated. This is a National problem, to be sure, but locally we got stung twice by the inclusion of the excess housing capacity being coupled with the low-paying jobs the casino industry provides....during good times. The people of Palmer Mass can't be blamed for wanting to see industry...ANY INDUSTRY come to town. But they would be wise to carefully limit the scope of any such project. If The Mohegan Tribe were smart, they would also see the wisdom of those limitations. They obviously want to grab that business from Maine/Vermont/New Hampshire/Mass patrons that will stop driving south to the The Mohegan Sun. But it would be better to have that Palmer facility packed to the gills during good times (which would also persuade patrons to continue south to Ct) than to have another over-built facility 3/4's emply during bad times. I think we've already seen that movie. We already know how it ends. If the Palmer facility is built (And less 'northern customers' come here), that ending will be re-written in scarier fashion. Like a nightmare that doesn't end.

go2infowarsdotcom

WHERE DO YOU APPLY FOR A JOB?

henrythepoet

Read this study.... Be informed....

http://www.rockinst.org/pdf/government_finance/2009-09-21-No_More_Jackpot.pdf

ThompsonResident

By having the casinos in CT they just Spend and waste more so good luck and they still can't balance the budget. Good Luck MASS.

johnnybigboy84

Better there than here...

johnnyrottenm

I am so sick of working for a living...I have to get me one of those ct. state job's. Maybe drive around in a truck all day:)

checkr

I hope they don't rape the earth by cutting trees and paving over all those pastures, Oh wait it's in the name of money, so thats okay.I was under the impression they were concerned about the environment.

As the others said good luck Mass, you will find them to be great neighbors (lol).

fritolaytrukkinn

Mohegan has a casino out in Pennsylvania and it seems to be doing well. Expansion is good as long as it brings people. Building in a little town like Palmer,Mass. will help the first few years with employment during construction,but have the casinos realized the drop in revenue they have seen here in CT.It certainly wont improve the future,generally speaking about a decade from now. Our economy is based on what people spend, and nowadays it is not much.

mds880

If Palmer Mass residents due their due diligence, they will vote no in any referandom. Just come to SE CT and look around. Drunks are killing people every month leaving the casino. The taxes have only increased in area towns, the CT state budget is a mess, crime has skyrocketed with bank robberies and people ripping off their own companies. Will it create jobs? sure it will, at the expense of every local business. For real folks, take a look at the big picture.

Waking Up On the Bathroom Floor

A couple of years ago, Deval Patrick went to a Kool-Aid kegger at his friend Clyde Barrow's house and overindulged.

The next thing you know he was telling the teachers union that three casinos would bring 20,000 jobs. Tax rates would be something like 27%, and licensing fees? Well they'd start at a cool $200 mil.

That was then.

Today, the only cool in the room is the chilly caress of ceramic flooring as he and the other casino co-eds wake up to reality.

BOSTON - The state should charge casino licensing fees between $25 million and $50 million and level tax rates in the low 20-percent range on gambling revenues, according to a top executive at the Mohegan Sun casino firm, one of several business interests circling as the Legislature considers gambling legislation.

A full-scale facility could be up and running in Palmer within two years of receiving a license, said Jeffrey Hartmann, Mohegan Sun’s chief operating officer. Hartmann said the company would pay fully for associated infrastructure costs around the Palmer site and expects to create between 2,500 and 3,000 permanent jobs, including 500 white-collar positions.

Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but...

$200 mil - $50 mil = $150 difference

3,000 jobs x 3 = 9,000
20,000 jobs - 9,000 jobs = 11,000 jobs difference

And 500 white collar jobs?

Where, exactly, are these 500 white collars coming from?

Are they out in the kitchen, cooking food and loading the dishwasher, or maybe they're in the front of the house, delivering your dinner or refilling your water glass. Perhaps they're patrolling the parking lot, dealing blackjack or breaking kneecaps in the back room.

There is no magic casino, Deval. And Clyde works for the industry. He and his buddies wait for someone like you to show up then hand you a frosty mug of Kool-Aid laced with slot-hypnol.

That's what they do.

And seriously, when things like families and local businesses and crime and addiction are on the line, don't you think you should be downing some sobering facts instead of tripping the light fantastic with the boys in the pinstripe suits? And when their numbers start swimming before your eyes, shouldn't it occur to you that this might not be the kind of party to show up at with a classy gal like Massachusetts on your arm?

It's funny, but about a week ago I was watching Deval Patrick on the news, speaking to the 100 or so Hyatt employees who'd been 'let go' in favor of some cheaper out-of-staters. He listened to their heartfelt stories, heard how they were being pushed out of their jobs, visibly empathized and ultimately stood by them.

And that's when I remembered how, back in 2007, we here in Southeast Mass. asked Deval to meet with us. To listen to our heartfelt stories, to hear how we were being pushed out of our own participation in the democratic process - for an outside chance that our Governor might visibly empathize and ultimately stand by us. We asked him several times. The Regional Task Force on Casino Impacts, representing a half million citizens of Massachusetts even offered to come to him. But then he pawned them off on one of his advisers.

Meanwhile, the Governor took photogenic walks with Glenn Marshall and met with the 1,500 member Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.

As for me, I sat through 13 hours of testimony to speak at the Statehouse casino hearings in 2008 where Deval spoke first, then jetted off to NYC to pen a book deal.

These days Deval is being asked to meet with the members of United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts, but still can't seem to manage to find the time.

Ironically , up next on the news after the Hyatt segment was a piece on Deval's dismally low approval rating.

I think Deval did the right thing with the Hyatt employees, but he has never done the right thing for the people of Massachusetts when it comes to slots and casinos. He needs to stop chugging down an excess of jobs and revenue, and start appreciating the people and gifts the State he governs already has - and what they, and it, could stand to lose from one bad decision.

And he really needs to stop listening to slot lobbyists and so-called 'gaming' 'experts'. Those people are the 'Hyatt corporate management team' of the gambling industry.

The anti-predatory gambling folks, on the other hand, have no frosty mug of Kool-Aid to offer Deval - only a warm cup of reality.

So yeah, it's definitely not as much fun. But at least he won't wake up on the bathroom floor in the morning.

From the, Town of Bedrock...

While delaying a vote would give gaming opponents more time "to gain steam," Barrow said he does not expect that to shape the debate.

"Everybody's polling shows the opposition is down to bedrock and, if anything, support is growing."

-- Casino Drive Stalls, SouthCoastToday.com

There he goes again. Prof. Clyde Barrows, gambling industry shill in policy analyst drag, pulling yet another inane quote out of his backside in an on-going effort to spread inevitability and misinformation via the media.

First of all, Clyde, we're not 'gaming' opponents. I know that I, for one, do enjoy the occasional game of baseball or badminton or monopoly. What we do oppose are slots, a predatory form of gambling, disguised as a mostly harmless pastime, that just happens to generate crime, addiction and misery everywhere it goes.

So, Clyde, exactly what polling is it that leads you to believe the gambling 'opposition is down to bedrock'?

And would that be the same polling that relies on the fact that the majority of the public doesn't fully understand the issue?

And how about the poll that indicated that most people would rather live near a nuclear power plant than a casino?

Hey - here's a poll for you - it was taken at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention this summer and ended in that party's resolution to oppose predatory slot machines.

Because Clyde, the more people understand about this issue - like how slot machines work, or should I say, swindle - the more they tend to oppose it.

You know, I'll never forget the first time I witnessed Clyde in action. He prefaced his talk that evening by insisting that while the debate over gambling is passionate, he would not be focusing on anything but THE MONEY.

And that, folks, is the problem. Researchers and blowhards alike count the money coming in, but forget about the costs - mostly because coming up with ways to measure things like the after-effects of crime and addiction and ruined lives proves tricky for a mediocre (or just plain lazy) researcher.

Because there's no button on a calculator to push for a child who doesn't eat dinner when the grocery money goes down the gullet of a slot machine, or for the elderly man who lost the savings he built up over a lifetime after taking some free bus trips to Foxwoods, or for the young woman robbed at gun point, or for the spouse with the black eye and the broken arm.

So, it's easier to just leave that stuff off the balance sheet while pronouncing to the media or a Statehouse subcommittee that it's all good.

Time after time after time, I've read a report that outlines all the benefits of expanded gambling - only to notice that the messy stuff like crime and addiction - the stuff they like to call 'social ills' - hasn't even been factored into to the equation. Or that this is 'beyond the scope' of the report.

And this makes a lot of politicians assume they can just throw a figure out there for regulation and addiction treatment and all will be right with the world. But they can't. Those little ruined lives, those tiny tragedies, they start adding up while the small financial gains from gambling revenue are quickly spent.

And of course, once you let the gambling vampire in the door, he just can't get enough blood. Once the State relies on gambling income, the industry will call the shots. Not you, not me, not anyone who doesn't toe the party line. And that, in this great State, founded on freedom, would be yet another tragedy.

As far as the opposition being down to bedrock, well, you know what bedrock is don't you? It's a rock solid, steadfast foundation. What it's not is a paper sailboat drifting across a muddy puddle of promises and pipe dreams. And it's not a half-assed research report or a misleading quote.

And so Clyde, as one proud denizen of the town of Bedrock, I'll leave you with the immortal words of Pebbles Flintstone - because I think she might have been singing this one just for you:

---

Mommy told me something
A little kid should know
It's all about the devil
And I've learned to hate him so
She said he causes trouble
When you let him in the room,
He will never ever leave you
If your heart is filled with gloom

So let the sun shine in
Face it with a grin
Smilers never lose
And frowners never win
So let the sun shine in
Face it with a grin
Open up your heart and let the sun shine in

Survey Says...

Fellow blogger, friend and President of United to Stop Slots in Massachusetts, Kathleen Norbut would like us all to take this very quick survey.

Go for it! And thanks!

-Gladys

Pulling Back the Curtain

In June the Legislative Committee for Economic Development and Emerging Technologies held a pep rally for the racetrack industry, thinly disguised as an informational hearing on expanded gambling.

I detailed this in my post Six Degrees of Suffolk Downs.

Lately, my friend Ryan has been doing his own hefty share of sifting through the sand, or should I say, digging through the mud, to discover just who's behind those studies that paint a pretty picture of predatory gambling.

I hope you'll check out his enlightening post, Will Beacon Hill Make an Informed Decision? and then, send it on to your favorite legislator urging them to read it too. Because what they don't know, can hurt us.

Slotonomics 101

In a bet there is a fool, and a thief.
~Proverb

In the late 1800's a California mechanic invents the first slot machine. It comes equipped with three wheels, decorated with five symbols each and is intended to entertain the wives and girlfriends of the men at the gaming tables. But it quickly finds a larger audience. The chance of a hitting the jackpot? 1 in 1,000. The payout: 50 cents – paid out in nickels.



Over the years, the symbols on each reel increase, decreasing the odds of someone hitting the jackpot, while increasing the amount of the jackpot itself.







By 1970 the standard slot machine has a reel with 22 symbols - half of which are winning symbols and the other half blanks. The chance of hitting the jackpot is now 1 in 10,648.








But gamblers are interested in even bigger payoffs, so slot machine makers add bigger reels to hold even more symbols, then added more reels.




But these improvements prove unpopular with machine gamblers who know the odds of hitting the jackpot are better on the older machines.





Then, in 1984, Inge Telnaes invents a slot machine powered by a micro chip. The chip, not the reels themselves, now determine the outcome of every spin and it becomes possible to decrease the odds of hitting a jackpot while still having the machine appear to offer much better odds. Essentially, working on the same principle as a pair of loaded dice.


The president of Bally Gaming, among other players in the industry, objects to these new machines, writing to the Nevada State Gaming Board that "It would appear to us that if a mechanical reel on a slot machine possesses four sevens and it is electronically playing as if there were one seven, the player is being visually misled." Nevertheless, in a decision that would change the entire gambling industry, the Board approved the Telnaes machines - and 'virtual' reels become the new industry standard.


Over time, slot machines are adapted to encourage players to play faster, longer, and for larger wagers than ever. Ergonomics, visuals, sounds, buttons instead of levers, credit cards and slot club cards instead of coins, bonus rounds, rapid-fire pay outs, deceptively programmed near-wins, machines engineered to allow the player to play more intensively – and to lose faster. Addiction experts begin to refer to slots as the “crack cocaine” of the gambling industry.


The modern slot machine has now become the industry's cash cow, with 70 - 80% of all casino revenue originating from slot machines - and 60% of that revenue coming from problem and pathological gamblers – making this demographic the industry's best customer.



States without gambling decide to get in on the action – by "recapturing" gambling dollars going out of State.








But costs associated with gambling are difficult to quantify and therefore often not factored into, or are underestimated in cost/benefit studies.

Gambling legislation is passed, in no small part due to ignorance of the product, budgeting and political pressures, influence from lobbyists, improper or inadequate review of the data, artificial urgency, and overstatements of benefits.

While in-state gambling does recapture some revenue and create mostly low-paying jobs, it also creates more addicts. It brings increased crime and social problems which will require State and local intervention. Property values decrease, local businesses, lotteries and charities suffer from limited discretionary dollars. The industry must be regulated. Cost per pathological gambler per year is $11,300. The cost per U.S. household, even for those that do not gamble is $460.


New slot revenue is quickly spent, but now impacts like crime and social problems have become more apparent and costly, as does regulation, requiring a new State bureaucracy with State employees with pensions and health care.

Revenue is somehow not paying for everything it was supposed to.

Then, neighboring states decide to legalize gambling in their own effort to recapture revenue.

Gambling revenue is no longer enough, but by now the State has become dependent on it.





Competition from other States, along with normal dips in the economy assures drop in gambling revenue, but the State has now become both regulator and stakeholder in gambling industry.

So... State sells more casino/slot licenses, repeals smoking ban, lowers the gambling age, allows 24/7 drinks, relaxes previous regulations, gives concessions to investors, opens more gambling venues - all in order to create more problem gamblers – that all-important demographic - which in turn creates more impacts, resulting in less money for the State.

Now State has casinos, slots, another growing bureaucracy, multiple financial and social impacts, not to mention lives ruined, children neglected, businesses hurt, people dead – and STILL NOT ENOUGH REVENUE.

Meanwhile... billionaire casino investors (and the policy analysts who love them) continue to smirk all the way to the bank.

Road Rage

Ok, so there we were, at hour 6 1/2 of what our GPS estimated would be a 9 hour drive from Washington DC back home - making excellent time, despite rain in New Jersey, a detour around the George Washington Bridge and two pit stops for food, fuel and calls of nature - great time, in fact, amazingly only three minutes behind schedule - when it happened.

A slow down.

In Connecticut.

Arrrgggghhh........

For an hour the time ticked digitally away in front of my face. The music on the radio didn't sound so good anymore. My stomach growled. And I obsessed about all the things I anticipated would be waiting for me when I got home - unpacking the car, racing to the kennel before it closed, listening to the 400 messages on the answering machine, figuring out where that mysterious smell was coming from, cooking dinner from who knows what would be left in the pantry...

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I just wanted to be home.

After another half hour of my life slipped away on the Connecticut coast, I doubled checked that I had the kennel's phone number on my cell.

What was the hold up! It was Sunday afternoon for crying out loud!

We were creeping past the junction of I95 and 395. What's on 395 I wondered?

I got out the map. Oh. Well there you go. Mohegan Sun casino was on 395.

But that's not what did it for me.

It was the sign. As we were passing the 395 exit, there was sign about half the size of a billboard which read,

"There is hope,
Make the call."

This was the same message we saw on bridges all along our road trip up and down the Eastern seaboard. But there was no bridge here. And the sign was much bigger.

It was a 'don't commit suicide' sign. At the end of casino road.

I scrambled to find the camera, hopelessly buried beneath boxes of animal crackers and Ritz Bitz, but the traffic had started moving and so I didn't have time to capture a photo for you. But I did find this picture of a much smaller version on the internet - it's on the Golden Gate Bridge where, apparently, people jump to their deaths all the time.

But who needs a bridge when your legislators are busy snapping on their speedos and swim caps, getting set to dive into the waters of expanded gambling??

Before they take us all along on their nose dive, maybe we should put something up like this at the Statehouse where the big guys can see it every day on their way to cafeteria and the restrooms. Because like the sign says:

THE CONSEQUENCES OF JUMPING FROM THIS BRIDGE ARE FATAL AND TRAGIC.

Indian Summer

For this year's Bataan Death March Kravitz family vacation, we packed up the minivan and motored down to Washington DC, a remarkable city, brimming with culture, diversity and really scary traffic.

I've had the privilege of visiting DC several times on my own and have long wanted to share the experience with my kids, especially now that they were old enough to appreciate it - little realizing as I made hotel reservations that a preponderance of museums, the vast distances between them and temperatures in the 90's, not to mention a marked lack of roller coasters and raspberry slurpees had already doomed the trip from the start.

But I didn't care. Mommy needed some culture. I needed museums and art and interesting things. I needed inspiration and time with my kids. And I really needed to get away. After two and a half years fighting casinos, I was burnt.

Not to mention lightly salted, scrambled and served over toast.

And so, there I was, fleeing an unimaginable two and a half years touched off by the attempts of an Indian tribe I'd barely heard of to erect the world's largest casino mere minutes from my front door, when I found myself bumping into Indians at every turn.

From the sunbathed peak of the capitol dome (day two) to the subdued halls of the National Gallery of Art (day seven) and everywhere in between, my family and I were reminded of the significance and contributions of the first Americans.

We even found Indians at the Spy Museum - which featured an exhibit on Navajo 'wind talkers'.
On Capitol Hill, where we learned that each State can send life-sized statues of two of it's most respected citizens to represent it under the dome, we discovered that some had chosen Indians for the honor.


At the Museum of American History we found out who was on the five dollar bill before Abe:


And back at the hotel after one long day, we all watched a family movie called “Imagine That” which featured Eddie Murphy as a corporate ladder climber whose biggest foil and fiercest rival was a guy named “Johnny Whitefeather” - a Native American colleague who sports longish hair, a fusion of business and tribal attire and impresses clients and co-workers alike with his deadpan delivery of new-age “Indian” wisdom.


In the end, it turns out that Whitefeather is as Indian as I am. He'd managed to get ahead at the office thanks to an easy willingness by those around him to accept his over-the-top portrayal of a stereotypical Native American, hand-in-hand with a reluctance to doubt his authenticity for fear of being racist.

...this movie seems oddly familiar...

Back in the city I was excited to finally visit the Museum of the American Indian. On the outside this is certainly one of the most beautiful buildings in DC, but on the inside I found it a bit austere and a tad confusing, with little to engage the interest of children – the anathema of the parental tourist.


It occurred to me that they could really use a living museum sort of exhibit like the Wampanoag village at Plimoth Plantation – where you can walk into an authentic-feeling hut, sit down on real animal hides, and still detect the scent an extinguished campfire. A place where pole beans curl around the stalks of corn, encircled by an upturned umbrella of squash leaves, as a live-actor wearing a loin cloth in November explains how the squash plants keep down weeds, the corn supports the bean vines, that local alewives were used to fertilize the seeds at planting time, and suddenly you get the urge to grow a vegetable garden in your back yard.

Of course, back in Middleboro, the actual modern-day Mashpee Wampanoag are still willing to kill off the local alewife population with road and parking lot run-off if it would give them a casino.

Speaking of which, along one wall, high up overhead, is a poetic quotation from the Mashantucket Pequot tribe – aka the Foxwoods Indians.

...Groan...

And on a floor above, there is yet another quote from the Mohegan Sun Casino Tribe.

(Forgive me for not taking a picture. I was on vacation after all.)

I didn't notice any other billboard sized quotes by other Tribes in the museum, and suspect that they had as much to do with marketing as they did with cultural pride. Heck, the money from the world's two largest tribal casinos can buy a lot of legitimacy.

We made a point to eat in the Cafe at the museum – which purportedly serves regional Native American cuisine. The museum's web site had made the food here look authentic and incredible and earthy and both Abner and Gladys Jr. couldn't wait to try bison - which they both agreed was way too salty. I chose to stay close to home with a pretty decent Northeastern grilled Salmon sandwich (they had tarter sauce in the North woods?) and a salad of something supposedly indigenous - which was actually kind of rubbery and not very tasty and didn't look anything like the food on the web site. Abner Jr., no slave to culinary adventure, played it safe with the chicken nuggets.

One part of the museum featured an exhibit of Native American weapons – the most modern of which included some big scary semi-automatic rifles like you see in the movies. Yikes. Better make sure to cash out those markers before leaving the casino.

I snapped this photo of some of the oldest rifles on display since they were those used during King Philips war. (And since I have a reader or two who enjoys hunting.)


At one point in our exploration of the museum we were delighted by an exhibit which appeared to address the reality of tribal 'gaming'. (There's that code word again.)

Gaming: Pros and Cons

Members of Native nations are deeply divided over gaming. Some feel that gaming is not our way and will bring new problems to our territories. Others believe the financial benefits outweigh the risks, especially when other attempts for economic development have failed.

Native American gaming was born of controversy. Gaming began in the 1980's, when Native communities in Florida and California started offering bingo prizes larger than state law allowed. When states threatened to close down these operations, Native people sued. States continued to tussle with Indian communities over gaming, challenging the sovereign rights of Native governments.

Jolene Rickard, guest curator
and Gabrielle Tayac, NMAI, 2004

And that reminded me that this museum wasn't just a tribute to the Federally recognized tribes we hear about all the time – but in fact, all members of all American Tribes – and that many of these tribes really do oppose casinos and gambling. Tribal members are "deeply divided" in fact - something you never read in the papers.

In both Middleboro and Palmer, various non-federally recognized tribes have stepped forward to oppose the Mashpee and the Mohegan's plans to build casinos in Massachusetts.

And I suppose that somewhere in this museum, in the basement perhaps, in a far corner, behind the furnace, covered up by some old cardboard boxes, there may actually be an exhibit expressing their views.

For what had been delight at the sight of some unexpected even-handedness on the topic of casinos here at the National Museum of the Native American, was replaced by more cynicism as I read through the rest of the exhibit - which gave credit to casino proceeds for installing or updating power lines and building housing or providing medical care - without a single acknowledgment of the costs of bringing gambling to communities or individuals, tribal or otherwise.

Also unacknowledged was that sovereign tribal governments distribute 'gaming' proceeds and federal dollars as they see fit – leaving some members to go without the basics. Or that some tribes feel that plunking a water-sucking, environment-killing, alewife-poisoning money factory in the middle of the wilderness is at odds with their native philosophy.

This exhibit also featured an aerial photograph of the Pequot museum at Foxwoods, looking noble in it's innocuous footprint in the Connecticut woods. And another of the tiny and tastefully adobe Agua Caliente Cultural Museum in Palm Springs California.

Probably because it wouldn't have played well for Native American culture to show this aerial of another part of the Foxwoods complex...

... nor this one of the star-jacking 'teepee of light' casino in Canada that my friend Carverchick and I both blogged about...



...and certainly not this glass and concrete cathedral of avarice rising out of the asphalt in Uncasville Connecticut.


But, it is Washington, after all – so why let a little honesty stand in the way.

I suppose I should just be happy there wasn't a diorama in the lobby with a wax likeness of Glenn Marshall meeting the Pilgrims.

Sometimes I wonder if the modern-day Mohegan and Pequot Tribes carved the world's largest casinos into the Connecticut landscape because they had never really lived in the way of their extinguished ancestors did - having been reborn on the sea foam whipped up by the rising tide of Indian Gaming.

And, had they somehow managed to relearn and put into practice those ways in the years since then, I have some serious doubts that the tribe would be trying to raise yet another skyscraper in the the heart of Western Massachusetts right now.

Off to the side of the casino exhibit, a video about a remote tribe and how their casino brought them much joy and happiness is looping on a small monitor. Perhaps there was equal time on this video given to the opposition - I hope there was - but heck, I stood there for a long time and didn't see it. Besides, I had two restless kids in tow - and dammit I'm on vacation.

Enough casinos! Enough!

Another part of the museum was hosting an exhibition by the one-quarter Indian artist Fritz Scholder which I liked very much. The exhibit was called Indian/not Indian.


Scholder was an enrolled member of the Luiseno Tribe, but had been 'raised white' - and apparently had some interesting conflicts about that.


Scholder didn't seem to want to conform to anyone's pre-conception, whether it was as an artist or as an Indian. Maybe that's what came through for me, and I looked him up after I got home.

"People don't really like Indians," declared Fritz Scholder (1937-2005), whose taboo-breaking, colorist images of fellow Native Americans now showing as Indian/Not Indian at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) still provoke controversy. "Oh, they like their own conceptions of the Indian - usually the Plains Indian, romantic and noble and handsome and somehow the embodiment of wisdom and patience. But Indians in America are usually poor, sometimes derelicts outside the value system...we have really been viewed as something other than human beings by the larger society. The Indian of reality is a paradox -- a monster to himself and a non-person to society"

From NPR, December 2008:

Fritz Scholder broke almost every rule there was for a American Indian artist. He combined pop art with abstract expressionism. He shunned the sentimental portrayal of traditional Indians and in so doing helped pave the way for artists who followed.

Scholder was only part American Indian, and when he created the work that put him on the art world map — his "Indian" series in the 1960s — he made a lot of people mad. The first painting had the word "Indian" stenciled on it, as if the image couldn't be identified without the label.

Well, I liked Scholder's art whether he was Indian or not. And I liked his honesty and ambivilance about who he was, and who he wasn't.

But the kids are unimpressed and want to go to the Air and Space museum where I have suggested there may be more excitement and potentially even Tang and freeze dried space ice cream.

I suppose a lot of folks take their kids to this city every year, drag them around the National Mall where they can catch a glimpse of Michelle's vegetable garden, encourage them to trudge up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King Jr. once dreamed out loud, and force them to stand in long hot sweaty lines so that they may gaze upon our Constitution. We might even take an extra day of vacation to fit in the same star spangled banner that Francis Scott Key beheld through the rocket's red glare.


And we all hope they'll appreciate it, if not now, then later in life. That it' ll fill them with a sense of national pride, and a belief in the Great Experiment. A single nation, indivisible, despite being divided by 50 states, numerous cultures, and myriad political, spiritual, physical and personal differences.

Except it's not.

Thanks to the events of the last two and a half years, I now know better.

Now I know that, through actions both righteous and contemptuous, fueled by the greed and guilt of administrations past, we have officially become many nations within a nation. A nation where we may have finally learned not to judge a man by the color of his skin, but where we continue to judge him on the amount of 'indian' in his blood.

Maybe this duality wouldn't seem so dysfunctional, merely an inconsistency of culture, had I not experienced first hand the investor-driven process of taking land into trust for gaming, or read about how a neophyte nation of Johnny Whitefeather's altered the economic face of New England, creating a casino arms race that came right to my front door.

Or, if I'd never made the acquaintance of some folks, Indian and non-Indian, whose homes, lands and rights were stripped away by Tribes, who lost children through cracks in the Indian Child Welfare Act, suffered shunning, disenfranchisement and extortion at the hands of their own tribal governments, or lost lost a friend under mysterious circumstances after she dared to speak out these very things – all with the blessing, assistance or apathy of the government of the United States.

We deride injustices inflicted on Native Americans in the past, but look the other way when they happen to other Americans in the here and now. As if it is some cosmic assuaging of our common conscience to right old wrongs by making new wrongs.

Back in the 90's, Time Magazine ran a cover featuring the computer-generated photograph of a young woman based on the facial features of several races. The Headline, The New Face of America, caused me to often wonder if there may indeed be a point in humanity's time line when, after the conquest of our distances and differences, we will all share the same DNA.

And then, how will they decide who's Indian/Not Indian?

But I have no doubt that when the time comes we, as a country, will figure something out.

Or screw it up royally.

That is our way.

And to tell the truth, while I suspect we take our families to Washington in search of national pride, what we actually find when we get there is a celebration of the individual.

The artist who inspires, the mind that invents, the hands that build, the voice that speaks out, the leader who leads. The giving heart, the tested soul. Fingertips pressed to a single name carved into a black granite wall.

And that's what I think we really hope our kids will take back with them from DC. The certainty that a single person can make a difference. And that this person could even be them.

Because, despite all the things that keep us apart, there is one thing we have in common that seems to make all things possible: We are Americans.