frenchmills's Blog

Casinos already make plenty of money. They don't need to make more.

When Missouri made Riverboat Gambling legal, several items were included to ensure that people would accept it -- casinos being riverboats, for one thing, floating in rivers -- that's what it is -- RIVERBOAT gambling. But casinos won the placing of casinos away from the rivers - "boats in moats" they are called -- near, but not on a river, surrounded by a water filled moat so as to be "legal" per the law. This has been stretched so much that we have the Lumiere Place Casino on Laclede's Landing sitting about a hundred feet above the level of the Mississippi -- not at all RIVER BOAT gambling.

Then there was the loss limit -- $300 per excursion, which lasts about an hour. This helped grease the wheels so that the bill would be accepted. I mentioned that I know an attorney who deals with bankruptcies and who said that when Riverboat Gambling was allowed, bankruptcies skyrocketed. Now think what will happen with that loss limit lifted. Through the roof!!!

There is only so much money go go around. What goes to one sector of society is taken away from others. This great influx of money that would go to casinos were Prop A passed would not go to, say, paying a mortgage on a house, or purchasing furniture or other needed things. Bankruptcy itself would limit the spending of individuals. The rest of the economy can suffer as a result.

Proposition A has another feature that law enforcement objects to -- and that is ceasing to check ID's. Law enforcement uses ID checking to check against criminals, etc. What casinos want to do is take away an inconvenience to their further profit. These are money-losing people we are talking about.

Now, on to the education feature of the bill. Do you remember when Riverboat Gambling was first proposed? Do you remember that revenue from this was supposed to go to education? What happened to it?

Basically, this education clause was added to make the proposition more palatable. They want the loss limit lifted. The way to do this is add the education clause.

There are two things of note here: first, a proposition that guarantees that casino revenue goes to education can stand alone and be put to the voters. And secondly, there is absolutely no guarantee of that 100 or so million dollars revenue mentioned. In tough economic times like we have right now, gambling becomes more of a luxury -- it certainly is not a necessity except to certain people with an addiction to it. Revenues can vary and right now, I seriously doubt that 100 mil figure will be a reality.

So I am voting against Proposition A and I think that anyone who has the true health of Missouri's economy in mind will also.

according to those who put Obama's lack of experience as a negative.

The man who should not have been president was elected in the 19th Century. He served in the U.S. House, I believe for just one term -- not more than two, then went back to his law practice, helping the ordinary folks in his neighborhood.

He was nominated by his party to run as senator from his state, but lost.

Then two years later, he won his party's nomination for President, with some stiff opposition within his own party from those who thought he was not liberal enough -- too moderate.

Then he won the election against a popular opponent who had support mainly from Southern states.

Then he became one of the greatest presidents this county has ever had, steered us through one of the most traumatic periods we have ever seen, and his likeness is set in stone on Mount Rushmore.

His name? Abraham Lincoln.

I would then put forth that Mr. Obama's so-called "lack of experience" is really a non-issue.

From an email making the rounds:

 

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

* If you grow up in Hawaii , raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'

* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're a quintessential American story.

* If your name is Barack, you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

 * Name your kids Willow , Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
 
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
 
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
 

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with a population of 750,000, become chairman of your state senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
 
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.

 

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

 

* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible. 

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America 's.
 
* If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
 
OK, much clearer now.

 

(and whoever thinks that race isn't involved is a moron)

This from a recent news release from Gov. Blunt's Office, which many Republicans are using to depict Barack Obama as a dictatorial oppressor:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Contact: Jessica Robinson, 573-751-0290

---

Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement

JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.

“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.

“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.

“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.

“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society.”

Here's the link to the press release: http://governor.mo.gov/cgi-bin/coranto/viewnews.cgi?id
=EkkkVFulkpOzXqGMaj&style=Default+News+Style&tmpl=newsi
tem

This was in response to another TV station's news report regarding local Prosecutors (St. Louis City and County, Jefferson County) declaring that they will work to stop basically ads or other material disseminated that contains lies or defamation of character and other such.  There is no suppression of free speech as Gov. Blunt seems to make it seem.

CLICK FOR THE STORY

That Ms. Palin violated the law in using govt email acct (sarah@ci.wasilla.ak.us) for personal political business.

She pressured for the firing of one person for the same thing. Pressuring various groups to support her political aspirations, using the email account of her State office.

per the story here:  CLICK FOR STORY

Crocodile tears here.

Poor thing, so persecuted. Seems she should know persecution.

Takes one to know one, right?

I wish I could like her more, but the problem is she has an outward appearance of such a pure and righteous thing -- and yet, as the emails show, she is quite a piece of work. Her true personality is hidden behind a facade of niceness.

READ ABOUT IT HERE

Response to Missouri State Board of Education¹s Decision To Disenfranchise
St. Louis Citizens for Three More Years ­ From St. Louis Board of Education
President


The state board of education¹s decision to disenfranchise St. Louis citizens
for another three years shows how corrupted and antidemocratic the political
system in Missouri has become.

Not only is the decision void of any reasonable basis, it runs counter to
the very idea of public education, which by its very nature demands public
involvement. In violation of all norms of democratic process and of plain
common decency, the state board of education jumped to a conclusion without
informing either the citizens of St. Louis or their elected representatives
that this decision was on their agenda, much less did they provide an
opportunity for public comment. Under state law, the elected St. Louis Board
of Education is supposed to audit the progress made under the state
appointed board (SAB). Neither DESE nor the state board of education has
asked for any report on the district, nor did they make any effort to have
the SAB comply with state law to provide information to the St. Louis Board
of Education. The fact that they would make such an important decision while
hiding in Jefferson City and without seeking comment from citizens or St.
Louis is but another example of their lack of respect for St. Louis
residents.

While seeking to divorce the public from public schools, the state board
again is rejecting parental involvement in schools ­ four of the seven
members of the St. Louis Board of Education have children in St. Louis
Public Schools; no one on the SAB does.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that such a thoroughly undemocratic
process would arrive at an irrational conclusion. Conditions in the district
have deteriorated over the last year: There is more instability at the top,
the financial progress the district was making has been slowed, and the
district¹s performance has fallen. In ratifying the decision of the SAB to
fire the superintendent so that they can administer the daily operations of
the school district themselves, DESE and the state board have again taken
the position that businessmen with no competence in education should run the
school district instead of trained educators. The state board¹s experiment
in disenfranchising St. Louis is a failure. The experiment in replacing
professional educators with businessmen 2003 was a disastrous failure. Yet
the state board insists on continuing those experiments for another three
years.

The only explanation is political. DESE and the commissioner of education
were fully behind the program of cutting services and turning chunks of the
school system over to private companies when the mayor¹s people ran the
school board. We believe the evidence shows that, when faced with the
prospect of a new board majority that put education first instead of private
profit, DESE altered and manipulated rules in order to justify taking over
the school system so that the state board could protect those private
contracts.

The elected school board just completed a planning process that, with input
from respected educational leaders in the metropolitan community, concluded
that the way to best improve the school district is through the professional
development of teachers and principals, not through private programs sold by
for-profit companies.

We believe that the state board quickly and quietly decided to extent its
control for another three years in order to continue transferring public
funds to private companies for questionable programs. Once again, they have
placed private profits ahead of educational opportunities for our children.

We hope that a new governor and new state assembly next year will clean up
the Augean mess that DESE has become.

I voted against riverboat gambling when it first was presented to the voters. I saw too many loopholes in it. Too many openings for the casinos. What was touted as an activity restricted to boats on the river, with limitations, etc., actually was a loose net that never held anything.

First, we had the "boats in moats" -- no cruises at all, just sitting there, some thousand feet from the nearest river, with water around, to be sure. The limit itself is $300/cruise -- the "cruise", though, lasts an hour, then the poor loser can lose another $300.

I know an attorney who deals with collections, and who told me that, when riverboat gambling became legal, bankruptcies skyrocketed. This means that many families were in dire financial straits, probably broke up, homes and and autos repossessed, etc. The social costs have become fantastic. Imagine, then, if the loss limits are unlimited the debts and bankruptcies will be astronomical.

Also, there have to be economic costs attached. There is so much money to go around, real or credit, and money that goes into one sector of the economy is taken from others. People receive no item of value from gambling. People do not win as often as the casinos want us to believe. The casinos are in it for the money. If people won that often, the casinos would be out of business. The old saying, "The odds are always in favor of the house." still stands.

So a person spends a lot of time and money in the casinos. He/she can't buy items like he/she did -- autos, clothing, houses, toys for the kids. Those industries then suffer, as do other establishments that depend on them -- factories, deliverers, developers, maintenance companies, etc.

I see the commercials for a certain casino and I ask, "Why are these people smiling?" A woman has bad things happen to her, loses a heel, etc. A man, with the dumbest goofy look on his face loses his job, his girlfriend, a loved one dies, etc. They are all so happy because they don't care about how miserable their life is because they go to the casino. And in reality, the casino makes people's lives miserable.

Not that I haven't gambled. I walk away from blackjack tables usually winning about $45. There are better odds there than on the slots.

Still, I feel the casinos are exploiting us. I wonder how long they will really stay around. We aren't talking so much about tourism here (every state up and down the Mississippi has casinos competing for "tourist" dollars. The people that go to the casinos are mostly local people, so this is taken out of other sectors of the local economy.

We shouldn't let the casinos exploit us further.

Let's go back to the 40's and 50's and 60's when the interstate system was built.  Gasoline taxes and road use taxes for truckers were levied.

My understanding is that these taxes never were cut.

So here's the basic question.  If that entire interstate system was built on the same taxes as we have today, how come we can't repair our highways or build short stretches of highways without levying new taxes.  That is, how come the taxes that paid for the interstate system aren't enough to pay for a whole lot less now?