Lobbyists battle it out over casino plan

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Lobbyists battle it out over casino plan

By Tanner Stening
Posted Oct 19, 2018

MASHPEE — As a new chapter begins in the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s legal fight for its land, a high stakes lobbying campaign in the nation’s capital is pitting powerful gambling interests against a foreign casino developer with the fate of the tribe’s 321-acre reservation hanging in the balance.

In a year marked mostly by setbacks for the tribe, notable attorneys and lobbyists — some working at cross-purposes —are converging on the halls of Congress in a struggle to win over lawmakers who may soon consider legislation that, if passed, would declare the tribe’s reservation lawful, reversing findings by the U.S. Department of the Interior and a federal court judge.

A bill sponsored by U.S. Rep William Keating, D-Mass., would do just that: settle the multiyear and so far successful legal challenge brought by neighbors of the tribe’s proposal to build a resort-casino in Taunton, effectively greenlighting the project and ending any question about the legality of the tribe’s trust lands.

The legislation is a pivotal piece in the tribe’s fight to protect its sovereignty. Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Chairman Cedric Cromwell has urged support for the bill, emphasizing the grave and unprecedented threat facing the tribe, which spent decades pursuing federal recognition and trust status with the government.

“I’m asking people of goodwill and those concerned with justice for the indigenous people of this — the first Americans — to stand with us in calling on Congress to protect our reservation and ensure we don’t become the first tribe since the dark days of the Termination Era to lose its land,” Cromwell said in a statement after the Sept. 7 decision from the Interior, which said the tribe wasn’t under federal jurisdiction in 1934, the year the Indian Reorganization Act became law.

But in a deeply polarized political climate, getting the bill passed would require congressional Republicans to support the wishes of the all-Democrat Massachusetts delegation, and given the potential for an Elizabeth Warren presidential bid in 2020, its chances may be significantly affected. Warren is a co-sponsor of the Senate version of the tribal bill.

In addition, the Rhode Island congressional delegation has quietly come out in opposition to the bill to protect its gambling revenues. The tribe’s proposed casino, which is slated for fertile Region C ground, is not far from Rhode Island’s eastern border.

Lobbyists and their causes

Genting Malaysia, which is financially backing the tribe’s legal fight to secure its reservation and the casino project, has spent more than $1 million on various lobbying firms in 2018, three times more than it did in 2017, according to federal lobbying disclosures. The overseas developer was the third biggest spender on tourism/lodging lobbying in the U.S. this past year, according to the website Open Secrets.

The tribe’s overall debt to Genting, which also finances parts of tribal government operations, is roughly $426.3 million, according to a recent filing by the Malaysian casino developer. Genting said it is deliberating with the tribe to “review all options” concerning the recoverability of its investment, according to the filing.

Genting paid the law firm Dentons US more than $1 million to lobby on “casino development and land related issues” this year, according to filings. Dentons is the world’s largest firm by number of lawyers, according to its website.

Dentons, on behalf of Genting, in turn has spent between $130,000 and $150,000 on “Interior Department land decisions” through Gavel Resources LLC, according to filings.

Gavel’s lobbyists include, among others, Richard Pombo, a former member of the House of Representatives from California who was among the highest-paid beneficiaries of tribal lobbying and illegal campaign contributions when the tribe was seeking federal recognition in the 2000s.

That period of the tribe’s history was tainted by the legacy of its former chairman Glenn Marshall, who in 2009 was sentenced to 3½ years in federal prison for embezzling nearly $400,000 from the tribe to pay his own bills, making illegal campaign contributions, filing false tax returns and fraudulently receiving Social Security benefits while holding a full-time job. Pombo was unseated in November 2006 amid questions about his ties to Jack Abramoff, a notorious lobbyist who spent several years behind bars in connection with a wide-reaching federal corruption probe.

Pombo did not return a message requesting comment for this story.

‘Trump’s Washington’

In addition to the tribe’s more long-term lobbyists, including Delahunt Group LLC —which helps to, among other things, secure grants — and Akerman LLP, Genting recently contracted with Ballard Partners, touted as one of Washington’s most influential lobbying firms. 

The firm is run by Brian Ballard, who was President Trump’s Florida finance chairman for his 2016 campaign. Ballard, dubbed “the most powerful lobbyist in Trump’s Washington” by Politico, has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican causes over the past two years, according to data from the Federal Election Commission’s website. Genting spent $90,000 on Ballard’s firm so far this year.

Given a perceived hostility on the part of the Trump administration toward prevailing Indian land policies — which many scholars and observers outside and within Indian Country have noted — Ballard may seem like an odd pick to represent the tribe’s interests, if Ballard’s work is, in fact, tied to the legislation.

“In some way Ballard Partners would be working at cross-purposes here,” said Ronald Shaiko, senior fellow and associate director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy at Dartmouth College. “At base, lobbyists should be pretty pragmatic (in) how they do business. Firms are getting bigger, buying other firms, so they can lobby both sides.”

Competing gambling interests arrayed against the tribe appear to stem from one commanding source, according to filings: Chicago-based casino magnate and billionaire Neil Bluhm, who is backing a proposed casino in Brockton through Mass Gaming & Entertainment, whose casino proposal was denied by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in 2016.

But Mass Gaming is asking for reconsideration of its proposal, and its principal owner, Rush Street Gaming, has thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars behind an effort to influence lawmakers and regulators at the state and federal levels, according to filings — a large portion of which appears to be directed at thwarting the tribe’s casino effort, the pending legislation and garnering local support for the revival of Mass Gaming’s proposal.

It’s unclear precisely how much money, based on lobbying disclosures alone, is working against the tribe.

“This is not just about the Keating legislation,” said Joe Baerlein, a spokesman for Mass Gaming. “There are a whole host of other gaming-related issues that we’re dealing with.”

Rush Street also has casinos in New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Baerlein said.

At the state level, Mass Gaming has spent $210,000 on lobbying so far this year with respect to “issues related to expanded gaming,” according to state filings. Baerlein said that is tied to “outreach” across nine different communities, including boards of selectmen and town administrators.

Leadership in Taunton and Brockton have come down on opposite sides of the issue, with Taunton Mayor Thomas Hoye Jr. reaffirming support for the tribal proposal over the summer. Around the same, Brockton Mayor Bill Carpenter wrote to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, decrying the department’s “prolonged delay” in issuing a decision with respect to the tribal proposal, which has stymied prospects for development on the parcel of land where Mass Gaming wants to build.

Baerlein said the spending by Genting “dwarfs” the spending against the tribe, adding that the Massachusetts congressional delegation ought to “take a hard look” at the role the foreign company has played in influencing land decisions at the federal level.

More than casinos

Tribal representatives see it quite differently. Heather Sibbison, legal counsel for the tribe and a registered lobbyist for Dentons, said a tribe’s right to hold land has “profound historical and cultural meaning.”

“But for almost everyone else on the other side who is working to disestablish the tribe’s reservation, this is just a big, huge fight over casino market share,” she said. “If it loses its reservation, it loses its school, its ability to provide basic social services; it loses its fundamental right to have land on which it can engage in true self government.”

This year, Rush Street Gaming, formerly Rivers Casino, a gambling parlor owned by Bluhm, has spent $160,000 in lobbying fees through American Continental Group, citing “general gaming issues,” according to filings.

Manus Cooney and David Urban are listed as American Continental lobbyists working on behalf of Rush Street Gaming. Cooney is former chief counsel and staff director of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and Urban is cited as a “prominent Republican lobbyist” who joined the Trump campaign in its early days as an adviser in the Pennsylvania and Indiana primaries, according to the firm’s website.

But the firms cited as lobbying directly against the legislation include Locke Lord Public Policy Group LLC and Freemyer & Associates P.C.

Twin River Management Group — which owns casinos in Rhode Island — has spent $60,000 on Locke Lord specifically on the issue of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act, according to filings, and Rush Street Gaming paid Freemyer & Associates P.C. $40,000 so far this year.

Lobbying the lawmakers

In addition, Locke Lord gave $7,500 to U.S. Rep. Robert Bishop, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which is responsible for taking up the legislation, over the past year, according to contribution filings. Bishop was among Locke Lord’s top three highest-paid recipients over the past election cycle.

The firm has also supported Democrats, giving money to U.S. Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island and Keating. Cicilline’s political committee received $1,000 from Locke Lord earlier this year, and Keating’s political committee reported two $1,000 contributions from them — one on March 16 and another on March 19 — just days after he introduced the legislation.

Tribal lobbyists, with Dentons at the helm, have also targeted members of the House committee, most notably U.S. Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., who chairs the subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs. Dentons gave LaMalfa’s political committee $9,000 just days before Keating introduced the tribe bill.

Altogether, Dentons’ political action committee has given about $40,000 to lawmakers sponsoring the legislation throughout the 2017-2018 campaign cycle, filings show.

Incumbents typically receive more than challengers, and “well over half of their money comes from organized interests” instead of individual contributions, Shaiko said.

Shaiko said it’s typically wise for lobbying firms to give money to political candidates on both sides of the aisle; that way, if a congressional chamber flips, they can stay in business.

“It’s less ideological than it used to be,” he said.

Interior Department and Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe lobbying for 2018

For the tribe:

Genting paid Dentons US $1.1 million to lobby lawmakers and the Interior Department on “casino development and land related issues”

Dentons, on behalf of Genting, paid Gavel Resources LLC $240,000 to lobby lawmakers and the Interior Department on “Interior Department land decisions”

Genting paid Ballard Partners $90,000 to lobby the Interior Department on “gaming rules and regulations”

The tribe paid $60,000 to Delahunt Group LLC

The tribe paid $10,000 to Akerman LLP

Against the tribe:

Twin River Management Group paid Locke Lord Public Policy Group LLC $60,000 to lobby congress on “Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act”

Rush Street Gaming, parent company of Mass Gaming and Entertainment, paid CSA Strategies LLC $50,000 to lobby lawmakers and the Interior Department on “issues related to casino development” and “issues related to licensing of Internet gaming/poker”

Rush Street Gaming paid American Continental Group $160,000 to lobby lawmakers and the Interior Department on “general gaming issues impacting Rivers Casino”

Rush Street Gaming paid Freemyer & Associates P.C. $40,000 to lobby lawmakers  and the Interior Department on “H.R. 5244 (the tribal bill)”

https://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20181019/lobbyists-battle-it-out-over-casino-plan

Ralph Reed’s history with casino moguls

June 22, 2016 by Fred Clark 

Perpetually baby-faced Ralph Reed was once a rockstar of the religious right. He was known as the brains behind Pat Robertson, leveraging the influence — and the mailing list — compiled in Robertson’s 1988 presidential bid to make the Christian Coalition a major player in Republican politics and white evangelical spirituality in the early 1990s. He was a master of barbarians-at-the-gate fearmongering and fundraising, and of the sleazy “voter guide” push-polling that every religious right group has since tried to imitate.

And he did it all with a smile and an Eddie-Haskell-ish look of feigned innocence, giving his ambitious power plays a sweet aftertaste, like a cup of coffee laced with antifreeze.

Reed wasn’t the first religious right figure to mobilize “pro-life” evangelical voters in an attempt to prevent universal health care, but he was better at it than most, convincing millions of Christians in the early ’90s that denying health care to their uninsured neighbors was the best way to stop the Satanic baby-killers. Preventing the (Bill) Clinton administration from reforming health care became his greatest achievement — something he remains shamefully proud of.

In the mid-1990s, the Christian Coalition got bogged down in an FEC investigation and Reed jumped the sinking ship to pursue a solo career, vanishing from the national spotlight. (For a while I thought he’d become an actor, with a recurring role as Agent Alex Krycek on The X-Files, but it turns out that wasn’t him. Actor Nicholas Lea is actually better-looking than Reed, and Krycek was merely a murderous, backstabbing double-agent, and so not quite as awful as a Christian Coalition activist. But still, the resemblance was unnerving.)

Reed kicked around for a bit as a Republican consultant and lobbyist. He served as the GOP’s state party chief in Georgia and flopped miserably in a bid to win his party’s nomination for lieutenant governor there. So for a decade or so he was occasionally in the news, but never on the front page.

That changed when multiple state and federal grand juries started handing out indictments against powerhouse Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Abramoff eventually pleaded guilty to three felonies and went to prison for a complicated stew of crimes that involved money laundering and something like extortion — and that wound up fleecing Indian tribes of more than $80 million.

Basically, Abramoff was running a scam against tribes seeking to build or expand casinos on tribal lands. He’d get hired to lobby on the tribes’ behalf, then he’d get his partners to launch a noisy counter-lobbying effort to oppose Indian casinos, then turn around and force the tribe to pay him ever-larger sums to lobby against this opposition.

Abramoff’s partner was none other than Ralph Reed, whose history as a religious right activist put him in a perfect position to rile up white evangelical church groups to oppose immoral casino gambling. He was savvy enough to make a big splash, attracting lots of headlines, while still not doing anything so politically effective that it would damage Abramoff’s ability to eventually come through for his clients/marks — for an ever-growing, very large price.

In some accounts of this operation — for which Reed never faced any criminal charges — the level of extortion was far more explicit, with tribal groups asked to pay big bucks to make Reed’s “Christian” opposition to their planned casinos go away. It wasn’t too far removed from a blunt: “Nice casino you got planned here. Be a shame if anything happened to it.” But with the twist that instead of threatening to send goons with baseball bats and gasoline-soaked rags, the threat was that Reed would destroy the tribe’s plans by channeling the manufactured outrage of thousands of easily manipulated white Christians.

Again, Reed was never charged or convicted of anything. He was an unindicted co-conspirator. But it’s hard not to be repulsed by his sleazy, duplicitous behavior, or by his transparent willingness to strike a pose of righteous indignation right up until the moment when someone paid him to stop doing so.

Even Abramoff himself was skeeved out by his dealings with Ralph Reed. In an email exchange with his buddy Mike Scanlon, Abramoff described Reed as “a bad version of us.” They suspected Reed may have been skimming from their skim, and that he wasn’t doing all the lobbying they were paying him to do as part of their scheme to not do all the lobbying they were charging their clients to do. No honor among, etc.

The clear conclusion about Reed’s role in this is that his pious pose as a defender of “traditional morality” is a fraud. Here’s Alex Gibney in 2010, writing about “The Deceptions of Ralph Reed” for The Atlantic:

Let’s say it plain: Ralph Reed is a fraud.

… To recap, Ralph Reed worked for team Abramoff by mobilizing Christians opposed to gambling to shutter casinos. The only hitch: Reed was usually paid by other casinos who had a financial interest in eliminating their competitors. Therefore, Abramoff needed to find a way to make Reed comfortable, and to protect him against critics and the likely fury of his own Christian followers–who might have been upset if they had discovered that Reed was being paid by gamblers to do their bidding. The solution: Abramoff laundered the Indian casino payoffs to Reed by routing them through other organizations, including Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform and a phony “think tank” in Rehoboth Beach, MD, run by a life guard and a yoga instructor who were friends of Abramoff’s pal, Mike Scanlon.

… [Reed] was engaged in a kind of spiritual fraud: telling his supporters that he was opposed to gambling when, in fact, gambling was making him rich.

Reed still denies that he knew that the millions of dollars paid from him came from casino profits. There are publicly available e-mails that prove that is not so.

These days, Reed seems to be itching to get back into the spotlight and to re-establish his former role as a major player in Republican politics. For several years he’s been treading water for a bush-league outfit called the “Faith & Freedom Coalition” — one of those alleged “think tanks” that releases occasional press releases but doesn’t do much else besides give its staff enough of an appearance of institutional support to justify their occasional cable news appearances.

But yesterday, Reed made a bid for a return to credibility by signing on as a member of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s “Evangelical Executive Advisory Board.” Not just a plain, old advisory board, mind you, but an executive advisory board. Ooooh — executive!

Like his fellow Trump advisors — excuse me, I mean executive advisors — James Dobson and Richard Land, Reed seems to be hoping that basking in the cantaloupe-hued reflected glow of Donald Trump’s media spotlight will restore him to the prominence of his long-ago glory days. Just look at how the words “evangelical executive” and “Ralph Reed” appear together in all those news stories about Trump’s little panel. Doesn’t that confirm that Reed must be, officially, a leader in the evangelical community?

That strange logic apparently convinced some producer at National Public Radio, where Reed was invited as a guest today on Morning Edition to serve as a spokesman for evangelical Christianity. He’s back, baby!

But that may be the wrong way to look at this. This may just be a reprise of the same impulse that drove Reed to work with Jack Abramoff in the early 2000s. It seemed then, at first, that Reed was a wanna-be power-player who sought out Abramoff because the lobbyist was just the kind of Beltway kingmaker Reed aspired to be. But it turned out that Abramoff was running a scam and Reed teamed up with him because he wanted a piece of that action. Maybe that’s what’s drawing Reed to get involved with the Donald Trump campaign as well.

Like Reed, Trump has a history of enriching himself by shutting down casinos. Now he’s running for president — sort of. The structure and finances of his campaign operation don’t look like those of any legitimate national campaign that anyone has ever seen. A big chunk of his campaign funds are going to his own businesses, his family members, and even himself. The rest, apparently, is being spent on hats — and on shadowy, no-one-can-figure-out-what-they-do operations like Draper Sterling (a fake agency named after a fictional agency). So maybe Ralph Reed, yet again, has sniffed out a lucrative new scam, figured out a role he could play in its operation, and signed up for his cut of the take.

He made millions the last time around, while avoiding prison, so why shouldn’t he try it again?

In any case, Ralph Reed’s enthusiastic support for Donald Trump proves that his former claims of moral opposition to casino gambling were a dishonest sham. But then we already knew that.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2016/06/22/ralph-reeds-history-with-casino-moguls/

AFI PART 2 - SUBSTANCE ISSUES Casino Jack & Goa

Lot of 'stuff' saved......cleaning out for the New Year! 
Maybe ya haven't seen it.

 

AFI PART 2 - SUBSTANCE ISSUES

http://www.redroom.com/blog/christopher-meeks/afi-part-2-substance-issues''

 

November 14, 2010, 11:51 am

AFI Part 2 – Substance Issues

As I tell my students, you can learn a lot from stories that don’t work well. I was reminded of that in two of three other films I saw at the AFI Fest film festival. So many elements go into a well-told narrative that it can feel impossible to get it right when writing.

Two main questions guide me when I’m at work: am I being truthful in the scene, and where’s the next turn? This doesn’t mean the magic will always happen. Taking in the many elements of narrative, including motivation, character goals, rising action, and everything else, the story still may not come together. But sometimes it does.

Casino Jack

As I moved up the escalator from the underground parking lot, heading for Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, two young men on the stairs ahead of me looked at the festival pass I wore around my neck, and one in a suit asked, “Are you a filmmaker?”

“No. I’m just seeing the movies.” I figured he asked perhaps because he was in the business, so I said, “Are you?”

He said, “My dad’s a producer. I’m Jack Abramoff’s son.” I shook his hand and his friend’s and tried to remember why the name Jack Abramoff was familiar.

I soon learned when I met up with my own son and we attended the gala premiere of Casino Jack,directed by George Hickenlooper. It’s the story of the rise and fall of Washington D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Yes, Abramoff produced some films along the way, but he’s best known for lobbying for a number of Indian casinos and charging the tribes tens of millions of dollars. He pleaded guilty in 2006 to three felony counts of defrauding American Indians and to corrupting public officials and was sentenced to six years in Federal prison. He’ll be released next month.

Although Abramoff isn’t the producer of this film, he may as well have been for the positive spin on the man. Kevin Spacey imbues Abramoff with a love for making things happen and making friends of influential politicians, while pushing the boundaries of what he does for clients, legislators, and himself. As a drama, however, Hickenlooper offers very little character arc or reflection by the protagonist.

At one point Abramoff’s wife, Pam, played by Kelly Preston, achingly asks why the hell did he do what he did and why doesn’t he confess? “Maybe I should,” Abramoff says. That’s the closest he gets to exploring his own motives.

Later in a holding tank when he’s first arrested, Abramoff speaks with a muscled, tattooed criminal named Snake who asks Abramoff why is he there. Abramoff says he doesn’t know, and he looks puzzled. After all, he’s the good guy. I never felt any sympathy or empathy for him.

Director Hickenlooper was fascinated by politics as shown in his documentary ‘Hick’ Town about his cousin John Hickenlooper, the mayor of Denver during the 2008 Democratic national convention. InCasino Jack, he’s mainly interested in showing our political system as highly flawed, and Abramoff’s curious contradictions suffer. I wanted to know what drove the guy. How did Abramoff’s supposedly deep religious beliefs and love of his family allow him to get involved not only in politics but also in a sleazy casino boat operation that betrayed his deeper values, his business connections, and his family?

This is rich territory, the kind Shakespeare mined in King Lear, yet Hickenlooper shows Abramoff was simply misled by his associate into overcharging. Later Abramoff, from the movie’s point of view, was a sacrificial pawn squashed ruthlessly by politicians who he had helped—and by John McCain whom he’d earlier outmaneuvered. The boat thing? Just a bad idea.

One can’t help wonder what screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) or Peter Morgan (The Queen) might have done with the story, parsing the morality and thinking behind Abramoff’s moves. Then again, maybe screenwriter Norman Snider was stuck. Most likely Abramoff had no soul searching.

There is a satiric tone to many of the scenes, especially when Jon Lovitz as Adam Kidan appears. What people do under pressure can indeed be funny. Still, it would have been interesting to see Abramoff in his darker private moments. In fact, this is what puzzles me most about the film. If Abramoff’s motivations and character arc weren’t of primary concern, then who is the film for? It’s not a young person’s film.

As we came out of the theatre, headed for the reception at the Roosevelt Hotel, a Jewish character actor I’d recognized was chatting with his wife on the corner. I asked if he liked the movie, and his response was, “In no way did Kevin Spacey make a convincing Orthodox Jew.

No way.” Jon Lovitz at the "Casino Jack" reception in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel

 The Princess of Montpensier

To see foreign films in a film festival is part of the fun because such movies are not likely to be distributed in America. Then again, The Princess of Montpensier has the qualities that a distributor might want. It’s a huge period piece with lush production values, taking place in France’s 16th-century War of Religion. It is directed by the venerated Bernard Tavernier, and it’s a grand love story involving multiple suitors of a beautiful young woman with heart and passion.

All in all, it’s pleasant. However, it unspools at more than two hours and should probably be cut to 100 minutes. Take out all the horse galloping, overly extended yearning looks, the battle scenes that go on too long, and the princess forever waiting, and this might become a great film.

In other words, pacing is critical. It’s what I’m working on the most in the novel I’m writing. In this case, the audience is most often ahead of the story, so what happens is no surprise. Pacing can improve that.

---

There’s more! It’ll be in the upcoming Part 3.

Goa casino deal lands Indians in Nepal jails

Read more: Goa casino deal lands Indians in Nepal jails - The Times of Indiahttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Goa-casino-deal-lands-Indians-in-Nepal-jails/articleshow/6924515.cms#ixzz15JRkAEYR

KATHMANDU: "This was my first trip to Nepal," says the thin bespectacled man from Mumbai with a grimace, sitting in the fenced-in enclosure of Kathmandu's Bhadra Jail where visitors are allowed to meet undertrials. "And it is definitely going to be my last." 

The 39-year-old, who says he is the marketing manager for a new casino that was scheduled to open in Goa during Dussehra, has been slapped with trafficking charges by Nepal Police and now faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years or a fine of NRS 1 million or both. 

"I came to Nepal on Sept 14 via Gorakhpur to recruit trained staff for Casino Lucky, which was to have been inaugurated in Goa in October," says the Sikh, who does not want to be named, saying the news of his arrest would come as a shock for his wife, who is a heart patient. 

He stayed in a hotel in Thamel, the tourist hub in Kathmandu, he says, interviewing both men and women for the new casino. "A Nepali girl, who worked in a Nepali casino in Pokhara, got in touch, saying she and her friends wanted to apply for jobs at Casino Lucky since theirs, the Fulbari Casino in Pokhara, was floundering due to the launch of a second casino in Pokhara, the Casino Grande," he explains. "I interviewed 16 of them, including a male cook and finally, 14 were hired." 

It was then that the trouble started. The Goa casino, he says, wanted to take the girls to India by land since it could not afford the plane fares. One of the girls first kicked up a fuss about and later, when she was persuaded by her other friends, her mother lodged a complaint with police. On Sept 30, when the group was readying to go to Sunauli on the Indo-Nepal border, police arrived at the hotel, arrested the marketing manager and charged him with human trafficking. 

A week later, when a second man from the same organisation came to reportedly bail him out with documents, he too was arrested and slapped with the same charge. The second Indian is currently being held in the Central Jail. Police said there were contradictions in the Indian job offer and that none of the girls had been given an appointment letter. 

Eerily, the plight of the two men comes even as a third Indian is facing police suspicions in Nepal. Rakesh Wadhwa, a former chartered accountant from New Delhi who gradually became known as Nepal's casino king, running an empire of seven casinos in the city, is facing a police crackdown. The police move came amidst allegations that the five casinos currently under the control of Wadhwa's Nepal Recreation Centre are flouting a ban and allowing Nepalis to have an illegal flutter. As per Nepal's laws, its 10 casinos can only admit non-Nepalis. Nepalis face a fine of NRS 300 and short-term detention if found gambling.

Read more: Goa casino deal lands Indians in Nepal jails - The Times of Indiahttp://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Goa-casino-deal-lands-Indians-in-Nepal-jails/articleshow/6924515.cms#ixzz15JRpxmZJ

Alabama: State derives no revenue from gambling despite presence of [Indian] casinos in Alabama

Just another perspective: 

INSIDE THE STATEHOUSE: State derives no revenue from gambling despite presence of casinos in Alabama

Posted by: admin(banhammer) Posted date: June 12, 2015

By Steve Flowers

As I was walking out of the Statehouse recently, someone asked me, “Do you think we will have gambling in Alabama?”

My response was simple: “We already have gambling, the state just does not derive any revenue from it.”

Indeed, gambling proliferates in our state just as it does in all of the other 49 states and the District of Columbia. People gamble online prolifically every day. There are no state line boundaries to internet gambling. All of the revenue from that activity goes out of state. Our people play the lottery, they just buy their tickets in Florida, Georgia and Tennessee. Our surrounding sister states fund their government and educate their children with our recreational dollars.

Steve Flowers

I hardly go anywhere in the state that I do not hear someone cackle that they are going to Biloxi to the shows at the casinos. Therefore, it did not surprise me when I read that 12 percent of the patrons at the Mississippi casinos were Alabamians. So our recreational gaming dollars are funding Mississippi state government. In fact, Mississippi derives 11 percent of their entire state revenue from gaming dollars.

Alabamians do not even have to go to Mississippi casinos; we have them here. They operate as Indian gambling casinos. These casinos are federally sanctioned. Therefore, the state gets no revenue from these facilities. Only the problems and costs associated with gambling addiction.

The so called Indian gambling establishments in Alabama and around the country were created under a cloud of corruption that ranks as one of the most corrupt scandals in American history. “Casino Jack” Abramoff and his partner Bob Scanlan came to Washington armed with $40 million. They essentially bought and bribed enough congressmen and senators to give these casinos a monopoly. After the legislation was passed, Abramoff and Scanlan pled guilty to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud. They went to jail with 21 other Washington insiders and congressmen. However, the Indian gambling deal is still federal law.

Bob Scanlan worked for Bob Riley when Riley was a congressman. Soon thereafter Riley ran for governor. He received a good amount of his campaign money from these same Indian gambling syndicates. The Indian gambling money that flowed into the Riley campaign is probably the reason he narrowly won the 2002 Governor’s Race.

As payback for them electing him, Riley spend the last two years of his term working to close down Macon County’s VictoryLand. The Indian gambling interests like a monopoly, which is what they have in Alabama.

Gambling dollars are big. The money spent politically is big. That is why it has become the centerpiece of conversation late in this legislative session. Legislators have come to the realization that the beleaguered General Fund is in dire straits. They believe that the good doctor, Gov. Robert Bentley, is right on that point. However, they have not and it appears they will not adopt his $540 million tax package.

The House of Representatives for the first time in four and a half years appears to have become disorganized. They have followed Speaker Mike Hubbard like a flock of sheep. They have been herded like goats. They may have come to the realization that they may be being led like pigs to slaughter.

The leader that has emerged in the first year of the quadrennium is Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh (R-Anniston). He has offered to the senate a constitutional amendment to let the people of Alabama vote on a lottery. Polling shows that it would pass overwhelmingly in a referendum.

However, it has serious political opposition inside the Statehouse and Capitol getting to the people. Gov. Bentley is opposed inexplicably because it raises about the same amount of money for the General Fund as his tax plan. Speaker Hubbard will oppose it in the House if it gets out of the Senate. He is tied inextricably to the Poach Creek gambling money. Therefore, it looks like there are three different trains going down the tracks and folks, that is a recipe for a train wreck.

It looks like a Special Session is in the works. In a Special Session the legislature must focus on the budgets and how to provide the revenue needed for state government to function. A special session is limited to 12 meeting days in 30 calendar days and only items in the governor’s call for the session may be addressed without a two-thirds vote by both chambers. We will see.

See you next week.

Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column on Alabama politics appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He may be reached at www.steveflowers.us.

http://www.trussvilletribune.com/2015/06/12/inside-the-statehouse-state-derives-no-revenue-from-gambling-despite-presence-of-casinos-in-alabama/

Neon lights welcome gamblers to the Gila River Casino in Casa Blanca, Ariz. | AP Photo

Tribal casino fight tests lobbying clout

By Tarini Parti

5/15/15

Two Indian tribes locked in a six-year battle over the opening of a casino near Phoenix have spent millions on high-powered Washington lobbyists over the years to push Congress to side with them.
Now, one of the tribes, the Gila River Indian Community, which has a competing casino in the area, might finally win after intensive lobbying and support from Arizona Republicans. Committees in both the House and Senate recently passed the “Keep The Promise Act,” which would block the Tohono O’odham Nation from opening a casino in Glendale, Ariz. that is now under construction and supposed to open at year’s end. The measure could come to the floor for a vote in both chambers in coming weeks.

Gila River paid Akin Gump, a top Washington lobbying firm, nearly $1 million in the first quarter of this year alone. The firm, which has 22 lobbyists working on behalf of the tribe, has received at least $2.5 million each year from the tribe since 2012.

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By comparison, Tohono O’odham Nation, which has also ramped up its federal lobbying, spent more than $400,000 in the first quarter of the year and slightly more than $1 million on lobbying each year since 2012. It has retained lobbying firms Dentons, Gavel Resources and QGA Public Affairs.

More broadly, tribes have spent millions on lobbying the federal government each year on Indian gaming issues. Last year saw record spending on gaming-related lobbying with tribes shelling out $24.8 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Sponsors of the legislation, Arizona Republicans Rep. Trent Franks — whose district the casino falls in — and Sen. John McCain, have argued that the casino would mean “dangerous changes to the complexion of tribal gaming in other states across the country” and that casinos should not be “airdropped” into communities.


Gila River and other proponents of blocking the casino have also accused the Tohono O’odham Nation of misrepresenting their intentions while negotiating the state gaming compact in 2002, alleging that the voter-approved agreement does not allow for new casinos in the area. A federal judge rejected the argument saying new casinos may be built.

“The hardest thing has been to fight Akin Gump’s message,” said Arizona Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, an opponent of the bill who represents a neighboring district and sits on the House committee that has jurisdiction on the issue. “It’s hard to counter that because they are very effective.

The prevention of this casino has been a windfall economically for Akin Gump.”

In an interview, McCain blasted critics of the bill who have pointed out Gila River’s lobbying spending as a reason for the bill’s passage in committee. “I wrote the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, so therefore, I know the intent of Congress,” he said. “Anybody who alleges that somebody influences me – some lobbyists — that is an outrageous and disgraceful lie.”


And Gila River’s main lobbyist insists that the firm’s role in pushing the bill has been exaggerated. It’s first-quarter lobbying report for the tribe also lists other issues including appropriations for an irrigation project and health care facilities construction.

“This is a popular bill that has enjoyed broad support, and so it wouldn’t be accurate to imply that we are the reason it is moving forward,” said Don Pongrace, who heads the firm’s American Indian law and policy practice.

“We are working on many different projects for the community, so there tends to be a lot of overestimation of our efforts around this particular issue.”

The Congressional Budget Office recently projected that blocking the casino could cost taxpayers as little as nothing and as much as $1 billion, if Tohono O’odham Nation takes the government to court and a settlement is reached.

“There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that (Tohono O’odham Nation) is within the framework of the gaming act to do it, and it is a difficult issue,” said Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, the ranking member on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, who voted against the measure in committee.

“Trust me – it’s not one where anyone is going to win…We’ve got to get some legal minds to look at this. It maybe a fool’s errand on passing this bill.”

The casino fight, now in its sixth year, began when the federal government purchased a track of land and put it into trust for the tribe. The purchase was intended to compensate the tribe after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flooded part of its reservation.


Heather Sibbison, a lobbyist for the Tohono O’odham Nation, said Congress passing the measure to keep the tribe from opening the casino would be unprecedented.

“We have been pointing out for a very long time that if Congress enacts this bill, it would be the first time that Congress reneges on an Indian land and water settlement in the modern era — it would mark a very unfortunate return to the treaty-breaking era.”

In and outside Capitol Hill, the feud has drawn interesting bedfellows. Local tea party chapters and unions have supported the casino, as state officials continue to oppose it. And Arizona Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick has also joined the Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation to co-sponsor the legislation blocking the casino.

The city of Glendale itself, which previously opposed the casino, has now changed its mind after negotiating a deal with the tribe that would give the city $1.4 million every year for 10 years.


The Obama administration opposes legislation blocking the casino, meaning the path forward for measure will likely be being tucked in legislation President Barack Obama wouldn’t want to veto, making the issue even more politically-charged.

“The more the courts have ruled in favor of the Nation, the harder certain members of Congress have pushed to change the law on which the courts have relied,” Sibbison said. “It makes it pretty clear that this is about politics and not about substance.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/tribal-casino-fight-lobbying-117992.html#ixzz3aFvK2nDF

Why is Sen. McCain carrying the Gila River Indian Community's water?

Senator John McCain's Gambling Addiction?

Why is Sen. McCain carrying the Gila River Indian Community's water?

Posted: Friday, May 15, 2015
 

Why is Sen. McCain carrying the Gila River Indian Community's water?

 

BY MELANIE SLOAN, Guest Commentarythe Peoria Times

 

 

From 2004 to 2006, Washington was transfixed by the revelations that several Indian tribes had paid exorbitant fees to then-uber lobbyist Jack Abramoff to stop other tribes from opening casinos that might siphon gamblers away from their own operations.
 Ten years and little has changed. Since 2009, the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) in Arizona has spent nearly $11 million on lobbying Congress to pass legislation that would prevent the Tohono O’odham Nation from opening a competing casino. A sister tribe, the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community, also with casinos in the Phoenix area, has dropped a couple million dollars more on the fight.

That’s a lot of money spent in service of an issue that most Americans care nothing about. Two Arizona members of Congress, Rep. Paul Gosar and Sen. John McCain, keep the issue bubbling. The question is why.

For Gosar, the issue makes little political sense. The Tea Party Republican has spoken often of the sanctity of land rights, writing on his own website that the freedom to exploit and enjoy one’s own property is an issue “upon which America was founded.’’

But sometimes cash trumps politics: the Center for Responsive Politics reports he relies heavily on political donations from casino interests - $50,750 in the past four years.

McCain’s support of anti-Tohono legislation is more puzzling. According to local officials in Phoenix, he vowed several years ago not to take sides in the squabble.

Sen. McCain has decried the “grinding poverty” that suffuses many reservations and, partnering with his mentor, Rep. Mo Udall, wrote the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 after the Supreme Court held states can’t control gambling on reservations. Although he claimed to have qualms about the development of Indian casinos, he acknowledged that when tribes “are faced with only one option for economic development, and that is to set up gambling on their reservations, then I cannot disapprove.”
 
Once sympathetic to the Tohono’s plight, McCain’s tune has changed. After long refraining from taking a position on the matter, last August he introduced legislation to kill the Tohono casino. This year, he’s back with another bill.

Between 2004 and 2006, McCain held hearings in which he railed against Jack Abramoff and others who had exploited Indian tribes. He was viewed as a hero to the Indian community and hailed for taking on powerful lobbying interests. The truth, however, is that the senator’s actual record on Indian gaming is more complicated. A 2008 New York Times article revealed that McCain has weighed in both for and against Indian gaming, seemingly based more on his personal relationships than on policy.

According to the Times, in 2005, when a small tribe sought to build what would have been the third tribal casino in Connecticut, McCain stepped in as a favor to his friend Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), helping persuade the Bureau of Indian Affairs to rescind the tribe’s recognition. In addition, although McCain had gone on record opposing “off-reservation” casinos and pushed the Bush administration to rewrite the rules governing them, a California tribe planning such a casino – in which McCain friend, former Sen. William Cohen (R-ME) had invested – hired a long-time friend of the senator and the tribe’s application was approved.

Even the Abramoff investigation was piqued by people with strong connections to McCain. At a Democratic lobbyist’s suggestion, the Saginaw Chippewa hired Republican lobbyist Scott Reed, who frequently boasted of his access to McCain.

More recently, the Salt River tribe hired an obscure Washington lobby shop called First Strategic to push the anti-Tohono legislation. With less than $1 million in annual lobbying revenue and a staff of six lobbyists, First Strategic derives about one-third of its revenue from the Salt River contract. The tiny influence shop has one asset the big K Street firms can’t match - a man named Wes Gullett.

Gullett lives in Phoenix, not Washington. But he has one good friend in Congress: John McCain.

According to the Times, Gullett has known McCain for more than 40 years. He was a senior adviser on McCain’s 1992 senatorial and 2000 presidential campaign and his wife, Deb, is McCain’s former chief of staff, state director, and served on the national finance committee for his 2008 presidential bid.

The McCains and Gulletts are close socially: the wives are said to be best friends, while The New York Times reports that the husbands often go on gambling junkets together. In 2006, the Times said, when Gullett needed to find a gambling loophole for a client, a California Indian tribe that wanted to build an off-reservation gambling hall outside of San Francisco, McCain happily obliged.

Perhaps the lesson in this instance is one that Abramoff knew all too well: If the Tohono hopes to build a casino, it should hire a friend of Sen, McCain.

Melanie Sloan, a partner with Triumph Strategy, previously served as the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which helped expose Jack Abramoff’s web of corruption.

http://www.peoriatimes.com/opinion/article_f8198bb8-fa69-11e4-ad4a-c7a944278114.html