Meetings & Information




*****************************
****************************************************
MUST READ:
GET THE FACTS!






Showing posts with label Sovereignty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sovereignty. Show all posts

Saturday, July 25, 2020

Spending bill includes protections for Mashpee tribe




Middleboro Remembers: Regulators want briefing on Mashpee ...



DID YOU EVER NOTICE THAT REP. BILL KEATING NEVER SEEMS TO FIGURE OUT WHERE HIS DISTRICT IS AND NEVER VISITS? 

DID YOU EVER NOTICE THAT IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM, REP. BILL KEATING'S OFFICE NEVER CALLS YOU BACK?

DID YOU EVER NOTICE THAT IF YOU SEND AN EMAIL SEEKING A RESPONSE, YOU NEVER HEAR FROM REP. BILL KEATING? 


DURING THE LAST FEW ELECTIONS, REP. BILL KEATING WAS THE ANNOINTED DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR NO GOOD REASON...IT CERTAINLY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS PERFORMANCE?  

YET HERE HE IS..... 

ALONG WITH CONGRESSMAN JOE KENNEDY EVEN THOUGH IS THIS EVEN WITHIN HIS DISTRICT OR SIMPLY BECAUSE HE RUNNING FOR SENATOR EVEN THOUGH KENNEDY HASN'T REPRESENTED ANY OTHER DISTRICT IN THE COMMONWEALTH WHEN SIGNIFICANT ISSUES EXIST? 

WHAT'S WITH THE CURRENT FEDERAL GRAND JURY? WHO'S ASKING? 

GENUFLECTING FOR VOTES!

Why Do Catholics Do That? – Page 3 – St. Matthias Catholic Parish


AND NO ONE ASKS ABOUT GENTING AND IF THESE MATTERS WERE EVER ADDRESSED: 


Genting was the Gambling Investor supporting the Mashpee Wampanoag lifestyle.

Genting Connected to Islamic Extremists? [THIS ARTICLE APPEARED FOR A SINGLE DAY, THE SITE WAS HACKED & WHEN IT WAS RESTORED, THIS ARTICLE HAD BEEN REMOVED. NOT TO WORRY, HACKERS! COPIES HAVE BEEN PRESERVED ON OTHER COMPUTERS.]

The money rush is on. A shady, but well-heeled Asian casino gambling giant swoops into town, buys an outdated office facility and valuable underlying real estate from the Miami Herald and launches a multi-million dollar campaign to approve non-Indian casino gambling in Florida and put a license on the former Miami Herald tract.

Kuala Lumpur-based Genting has multinational operations in tourism, resorts, gambling, plantations, power generation, and oil and gas. Genting’s market capitalization value, or net worth, reached $46 billion at the end of last year — making it one of Malaysia’s largest companies.

The Miami Herald suspends their normally skeptical eye, conducts no due-diligence on their new Chinese friends from Malaysia and their newspaper becomes a public relations machine for a client they don’t even really know.

Every glad-handing semi-corrupt politician in Miami-Dade and the City of Miami with their hand out will be jumping on the Genting gravy train. Genting is a target for every con-man lobbyist/political consultant/PR man which Miami-Dade County abounds with.

Recently a group of “Community Leaders” were flown to South East Asia including visits to Genting casinos in Malaysia and Singapore. Genting refuses to disclose the names of “Community Leaders” – including elected officials – who were flown to South East Asia in a private luxury jet and wined and dined at 5-Star resorts reserved for high-rollers in the Asian gaming world.

World Resorts Genting, also known as Genting Highlands, opened in 1965 and is the company’s flagship resort in Malaysia. The resort features Malaysia’s only land-based casino, six hotels, three theme parks, a convention center, and numerous restaurants and nightclubs, among other attractions.

Resorts World Sentosa, which opened last year in Singapore, features one of the world’s most expensive casinos, six hotels, a Universal Studios theme park and a Marine Life Park, among other features. The Florida Delegation visited both, reportedly racking up more than $790,000 worth of hotel, restaurant, spa and entertainment costs in both 5-Star resorts.

Genting has retained a team of slick lobbyists including Jonathan Kilman, with the law firm of Foley & Lardner. Kilman’s partner, Chris Kise, is under investigation for erasing email records generated during Governor Rick Scott’s Inauguration. The missing emails are thought to contain correspondence exposing the business dealings of Kise and Scott’s political adviser Enu Mainigi. Scott has ordered the FDLE review. Kise insists the emails were erased accidently. Foley and Lardner’s influence in the Governor’s office is not likely to be strong in 2012.


Before it’s over, expect that Genting, their lobbyists, and other retainers, will lavish the Republican Party of Florida and other selected party redistricting vehicles with millions of dollars. They’ll even buy Governor Rick Scott a golden toilet seat for the Governors mansion is he wants!

Genting, the Asian casino giant, does not hold a casino gaming license in any U.S. jurisdiction that has serious regulation. New York State requires relatively little scrutiny in the contract Genting has with the State of New York to operate slot machines at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Genting made millions of dollars as the money-men behind two controversial Indian Casino gaming developments in the Eastern United States. In both cases, Genting operations were directed by G. Michael Brown, a former New Jersey Attorney General who was later charged with embezzlement and cocaine use in the Seneca Tribal Court.

Brown was charged with putting various mistresses on the casino payroll and using casino funds to pay for luxury condominiums, imported sports cars and expensive jewelry for them. Brown famously drove a 4-door sedan owned by the Seneca Tribe through the picture window of a Niagara Falls resident while driving drunk.

Genting was the financier of the Seneca Niagara Casino Hotel in Niagara Falls, New York. Genting charged the tribe an exorbitant 28 percent interest rate, potentially in violation of the Indian Gaming Regulations under the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Genting also stayed in the deal for almost 15 years when they were legally limited to five. Seneca Tribal Council members have testified that armed Chinese thugs showed up to collect Genting’s money when tribal lawyers pointed out that Genting was violating the law.
All of this became known to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, which held hearings and launched an investigation into corruption in the Indian gaming industry in the United States. But what the Senate Committee found out about Genting was even more disturbing: an apparent pattern of multi-million dollar payments to Islamic extremist organizations in Malaysia who most definitely are not friends of the United States of America.

U.S. Senate Special Committee records regarding Genting and their financing of multiple Islamic-based organizations in Malaysia are classified. Some U.S. Senator needs to launch an investigation to determine whether Genting has relationships that would make their holding a casino license in Miami (a money machine) inappropriate. U.S. Senate staff investigators should get a firm understanding of Genting’s questionable relationships in Malaysia and China.

Genting executives told Senate investigators at the time that the millions of dollars funneled to various Islamic extremist organizations known to finance jihad were made under direst and viewed as a cost of doing business for a Chinese businessman in heavily Islam-run Malaysia. Investigators had reason to be skeptical when photos of K.T. Lim and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il surfaced. The Senate investigators also obtained photos of Lim socializing with at least two Islamic figures wanted by the United States for terrorist activities.
Senate investigators were also interested in K.T. Lim’s relationship with Stanley Ho, the Asian casino magnate who has been identified as a member of the Chinese Triad, the Chinese crime organization, by the U.S. Justice Department and by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Ho has been denied a casino license in every jurisdiction except in Macau and North Korea. Genting has refused to address their business dealings with Ho and his company Shun Tak Holdings Ltd.

While the Miami Herald is telling us that Genting boss K.T. Lim is a brilliant businessman, he could be one of the largest funders of Islamic terrorist activity in Asia. Instead of giving press conferences to the Miami Herald, perhaps K.T. should be interrogated under subpoena by U.S. Senate lawyers.

The Miami-Dade politicians who suck up Genting’s food, drink and accommodations and support Genting’s development will jump off of them like rats when they learn where a substantial portion of Genting’s profits in Florida may be going. Just because Genting has a lot of money doesn’t mean that they are suitable to operate casinos in the United States based on their associations and business practices.

Neither Governor Rick Scott, nor Senate President Mike Haridopolos will agree to casino gaming without a local county referendum. Perhaps Miami’s Cuban voters should decide whether they want to approve a casino for a foreign company who could be financing Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Nothing short of full disclosure of all the finances and holdings of Genting should be required under Florida casino regulation. If they deny ties to radical Islam only full disclosure will verify this claim, a protection the public requires.

New Jersey Casino Control law is considered the toughest in the country and is the model for casino regulation in the rest of the country. Nevada’s regulations are similar, but the process in that small state is “more political.” Florida’s casino regulation must not and cannot be lax. We need to know far, far more about Genting and their friends before they get a casino license in Florida.





Spending bill includes protections for Mashpee tribe



By Jessica Hill
Posted Jul 24, 2020

Amendment passed by House would bar federal interference over reservation.
WASHINGTON — The House passed a spending bill Friday that includes an amendment to protect the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and its reservation land.
The amendment approved as part of the measure, a package of four fiscal 2021 appropriations bills, will protect the tribe from “endless litigation” and will fully recognize its tribal lands without interference from the federal government, according to a statement from U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III, D-Mass.
The Senate will consider its own version of the appropriations bill and then work with the House to resolve any differences.
The Interior Department announced in March that it would revoke the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s land-in-trust status, saying the department had no authority in the first place to put the land into trust in 2015. The tribe fought that, and in June a federal judge ordered that the department take a second look at the case and apply certain criteria that could help the tribe qualify for trust status.
“In recent months, the Trump administration has used the COVID-19 pandemic as cover to try to steal the Tribe’s land and define their people out of existence,” Kennedy said in the statement. “This amendment will put an immediate stop to those dangerous efforts.”
Kennedy and U.S. Rep. William Keating, whose congressional district includes the Cape and Islands, introduced the amendment with Reps. Deb Haaland and Lori Trahan. It will prohibit the Interior Department from using money to rescind the original September 2015 Record of Decision that took the tribe’s land into trust, revoke the proclamation recognizing the reservation lands of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe or to annul the determination that the lands are eligible for gaming pursuant to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.

[Rep. Deb Haaland represents New Mexico's 1st Congressional District.]
“I want to thank Congressman Kennedy and Congressman Bill Keating along with the Mass. delegation for their unwavering support for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe,” Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell said. 
Cromwell said the lawmakers understand the tribe’s historical footprint, as it helped establish the country and helped the Pilgrims through their first harsh winters 400 years ago.
“We’re looking for justice around our tribe to ensure our homelands are stabilized so we can continue to prosper and move forward,” Cromwell said. “This amendment is one step closer to helping us keep the integrity and ensure that we have our homelands in Massachusetts. It’s pretty important.”
Kennedy and Keating had introduced the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act, which passed the House in 2019 and could help the tribe if the Interior Department decides to appeal Judge Paul Friedman’s June decision. That legislation, however, has been stalled in the Senate. Last month, Haaland and Kennedy introduced the Tribal Reservation Pandemic Protection Act to protect reservation lands, but that bill was referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources.
“The fact that the Tribe of the First Thanksgiving is fighting for federal, tribal recognition should astound everyone,” Keating said in a statement Friday. “This amendment will limit the Trump Administration’s constant efforts to undermine the Tribe’s rights. We all know that for the President, this is about his casino lobbyist friends, but for us and the Tribe, this is about people, their rights, their health, their education, and their livelihoods.”
“This measure ensures that no more nefarious activity from the administration around taking our tribe’s land away could happen,” Cromwell said. “This has to go to the Senate; the House passed this and that’s important.”







Thursday, July 16, 2020

Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe served with subpoena for financial records






Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe served with subpoena for financial records

By Jessica Hill
Posted Jul 15, 2020


Attorney says tribe is not the target of grand jury investigation.
MASHPEE — The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston served a federal grand jury subpoena to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe last month for a hefty number of documents and financial records.
The news was shared with tribe members during a June 23 Tribal Council meeting.
Wampanoag officials had no comment Wednesday and referred all inquiries to tribal attorney Benjamin Wish.
“The government has informed the Tribe that it is not the target of the pending grand jury investigation,” Wish said in an email. “The Tribe intends to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney’s Office concerning the subpoena requests and anticipates that the Tribe will also cooperate with any other proper request for information. The Tribe remains focused on economic development and supporting its members during the ongoing pandemic.”
Tribal officials do not know whom the investigation is targeting, according to a source with knowledge of the case.
By “Tribe,” the subpoena refers to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and its affiliates, including the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Gaming Authority, Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Council and the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council Inc., according to a copy of the June 5 letter that accompanied subpoena from the Justice Department.
The letter, signed by U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Wichers, said: “Pursuant to an official investigation being conducted by a federal Grand Jury in the District of Massachusetts of suspected violations of federal criminal law, you are directed to furnish to the Grand Jury the documents described in the attached subpoena.”
The subpoena requests all personnel records for Tribal Council Chairman Cedric Cromwell, Treasurer Gordon Harris and former Treasurer Robert T. Hendricks, as well as Mark Harding and Louis Catarina Jr.  
Harding is the founder of WampWorx, a native-owned construction firm in Mashpee, and Catarina is the principal consultant and program manager for Strategic Quality Solutions. Harding and Catarina declined to comment.
In his role for the tribe, Catarina provided “strategic direction” and “management” and coordinated development of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Gaming Authority First Light Resort and Casino project, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also developed and managed operational finances and budgets. Catarina also served as a board member of the Taunton Chamber of Commerce on behalf of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Gaming Authority.
Last year, the Times learned that Harris and Hendricks had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, although it was unclear for what reason.
Federal grand jury proceedings are secret, and comprise about two dozen citizens who serve as members for a term of 18 months. They examine documents and hear testimony to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to charge someone with a crime.
The personnel records requested in the subpoena include job titles, dates of employment, resumes, contracts and agreements, timecards, performance reviews, compensation, disciplinary records and grievances and complaints by or against the people listed. It also requested documentation regarding loans for those five people, including any loan repayment or forgiveness, fringe benefits and perks, and expense reports, according to a copy of the letter.
The subpoena asked for documentation of all payments between the tribe or its financial backer, Genting Malaysia, and those same people listed above between Jan.1, 2014, and April 30, 2020. The subpoena specified direct deposit records, copies of checks, records of cash payments and wire transfers.
The subpoena also requested documents dating back to 2011 relating to the Delahunt Group, as well as documents going back to 2014 for WampWorx and Strategic Quality Solutions. Those documents include emails, records and payments or documentation of work that those organizations performed for the tribe.
The Delahunt Group, which is led by former U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, whose district included the Cape and Islands, is a longtime lobbyist for the tribe. The organization, which the tribe hired in 2011, has helped the tribe with its ongoing effort to pass federal legislation that would protect its sovereignty status. It originally helped the tribe pursue gaming and navigate the federal bureaucracies for health care, housing and education for tribe members, Cromwell previously told the Times.
Delahunt did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Finally, the subpoena also requests all agendas and meeting minutes from tribal meetings as well as records relating to any proposed or enacted tribe resolution or policy between January 2014 and April 30, 2020.
Because the tribe is cooperating with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, there is no deadline to turn over all of the requested documents, the source said.
Elizabeth McCarthy, public affairs specialist for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts, could “neither confirm nor deny investigations,” she said in an email Wednesday.
It remains unclear the specific reasons for the recent subpoena and the connections of the individuals listed.
The tribe has been engaged in a years long legal battle for sovereignty. It had planned to build a $1 billion casino called the First Light Resort and Casino in Taunton, but plans came to a halt when neighbors of the project sued, arguing the tribe had no right to build on its reservation because it did not meet a definition of “Indian” in the Indian Reorganization Act.
With the standstill of the casino, which was projected to bring in $50 million in revenue, the tribe has been struggling with its finances.
Since he became chairman in 2009, Cromwell repeatedly has come under fire for his handling of tribe finances. Some members critical of his administration have called for more transparency. He and Harris had faced allegations from some tribe members who accused them of wrongful conduct in connection with $500 million owed to Genting Malaysia.
In June 2019, a robocall circulated within the tribal community alleging that $250 million handled by the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Gaming Authority was unaccounted for. In January 2019, the tribal council had taken a vote of no-confidence and voted to strip Cromwell of his financial responsibilities in connection with the tribe and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Gaming Authority, a five-member board Cromwell is president of that oversees the tribe’s gaming operation.
Last fall, some tribe members sought to recall Cromwell and Harris for alleged malfeasance. The tribe’s Election Committee canceled the election three days before it was to take place.








Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Mashpee tribe to hold rally on land rights


FOR A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE ALSO SEE: 

REEL WAMPS

WampaLeaks 

Gladys Kravitz


Waking Up In Vegas




Waking Up In Vegas - Part One from Mary Tufts on Vimeo.





CARVERCHICK



Mashpee tribe to hold rally on land rights


By Tanner Stening Posted Oct 1, 2018

MASHPEE — The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe will hold a rally Saturday centered on the importance of land sovereignty.
The event is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and is meant to raise awareness of sovereignty “and its critical importance to the Mashpee Wampanoag,” according to a statement from the tribe.
The uncertainty of the trust status of the reservation poses a threat to the tribe’s programs and needed services, the statement says.
A walk will begin at the Mashpee Community Park on Great Neck Road North and end at the traditional powwow grounds next to the Community and Government Center at 483 Great Neck Road South. A potluck meal will follow, and authorities on indigenous rights will speak. The statement does not name the speakers.
A tribal spokeswoman said the event was open to non-tribe members.





Friday, September 28, 2018

Mashpee tribe sues Interior Department over land decision


FOR A WALK DOWN MEMORY LANE ALSO SEE: 

REEL WAMPS

WampaLeaks 

Image result for wampaleaks


Gladys Kravitz







CARVERCHICK



Mashpee tribe sues Interior Department over land decision

By Tanner Stening 


Complaint calls agency’s recent reversal ‘arbitrary’ and ‘capricious.’
MASHPEE — In a new chapter of a long-running legal saga, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe is now suing the U.S. Department of the Interior in an effort to defend the validity of a prior decision by the agency to take its land into trust, according to court documents.
Tribal attorneys filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday challenging a Sept. 7 determination from the department that reversed an Obama-era decision to secure 321 acres of tribal land into trust. The latest ruling declared that the tribe was not under federal jurisdiction in 1934 — the year the Indian Reorganization Act was passed.
The new complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the department and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, alleges that the agency “failed to apply established law” by “contorting relevant facts and ignoring others to engineer a negative decision” with respect to the tribe’s land.
The suit alleges that the recent department decision “indefensibly reverses course” from the administrative decisions it has made for other tribes in regard to federal jurisdiction and “badly ignores” the case law interpreting what that phrase means, documents show.
“The (tribe) therefore files this complaint to challenge the department’s 2018 decision and correct (its) arbitrary, capricious and unlawful actions,” the suit states. The suit goes on to reassert evidence that the tribe submitted during its bid for federal recognition and throughout the course of the lawsuit to prove it was under federal jurisdiction.
In a statement, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell said his tribe has been “utterly abandoned by our federal trustee.”
“We are urgently petitioning the United States Congress and the federal courts to end this nightmare — to prevent what appears to be an intentional return to the dark days of the termination era, when tribal lands were taken out of trust and the federal relationship with tribal governments disavowed,” Cromwell said.
The Interior Department took 321 acres in Mashpee and Taunton into trust for the tribe in 2015, declaring it a sovereign reservation. Under such designation the federal government holds the title to the property but the tribe may decide how to develop or use the land for its own benefit.
The tribe’s plans included a $1 billion casino in Taunton, but neighbors of that proposed resort sued the Interior Department in 2016.
A federal judge ruled that the secretary of the Interior did not have the authority to take the land into trust because the tribe was not under federal jurisdiction and was therefore unqualified under a definition of “Indian” used by Interior officials. The judge sent the case back to the department for further review.
Before its revised ruling earlier this month, the department had been deliberating whether Massachusetts had exercised authority over the Mashpee tribe in a manner that could be seen as a substitute for the federal jurisdiction requirement under the 1934 law. The decades-old statute remains the primary governing tool over Indian affairs, promoting self-determination and self-government.
The lawsuit, as in similar cases, rested on the interpretation of four words: “now under federal jurisdiction,” a phrase that has vexed tribes seeking trust status for newly acquired land with the federal government through the years, most notably the Narragansett Tribe’s efforts in Rhode Island, which culminated in the Supreme Court decision known as Carcieri v. Salazar.
But the Carcieri decision never established the criteria by which a tribe could demonstrate it was under federal jurisdiction, prompting the Interior Department’s solicitor to issue an interpretation of the ambiguous phrase in 2014.
In her written interpretation, Hilary Tompkins rejected the idea that there is one “clear and unambiguous meaning” of “under federal jurisdiction,” writing that the only information available to help decipher what Congress meant by the phrase was gleaned from a Senate hearing on May 17, 1934 — that it was intended as “a means of attaching some degree of qualification to the term ‘recognized Indian tribe.’” She concluded that the Interior Department would continue to take land into trust on the basis of a two-part inquiry that would “fill in gaps where Congress has been silent.”
In a letter sent to Cromwell on Sept. 7, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney wrote that after reviewing the evidence and submissions, the state’s history of exercising authority over the tribe provided no indication of federal authority sufficient to prove it was under federal jurisdiction.


While the evidence “demonstrates a federal awareness of the Massachusetts Indians and the Commonwealth’s regulation of their affairs, it does not establish or reflect any federal actions taken on behalf of, or for the benefit of, the Mashpee Tribe or its members as such,” Sweeney wrote. Because the tribe was not “under federal jurisdiction” in 1934, it did not qualify under the Indian Reorganization Act’s first definition of ‘Indian’ nor under the second definition, as interpreted by the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, she wrote.

http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20180927/mashpee-tribe-sues-interior-department-over-land-decision



Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Miccosukees lose $1 billion bet with IRS





SEPTEMBER 5, 2016 3:30 PM

Miccosukees lose $1 billion bet with IRS

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article99907442.html#storylink=cpy




Sunday, August 21, 2016

Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe asks to join casino land dispute





REVIEW REEL WAMPS for additional perspective.

 



Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe asks to join casino land dispute