Posted on 12/08/2010 1:08:20 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Harry Reid must be a political opportunist — excuse me, optimist. Where others see defeat, Reid sees a chance to win a hand or two for his casino backers in Nevada. Politico reports that Reid will attempt to attach a rider onto the Senate version of the tax deal reached by Barack Obama and Republicans on Capitol Hill to legalize online poker in the US, with provisions that give gaming corporations a big head start:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying to use the tax cut package President Barack Obama brokered with Republicans to legalize online poker, POLITICO has learned — a move that could further complicate the deal Obama announced Monday.
Already, the online poker proposal has exposed the Nevada Democrat to charges of flip-flopping on a controversial issue, as well as using his Senate leadership position to repay big casino interests that helped him win reelection in a hard-fought campaign against Republican Sharron Angle last month.
No! I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked to find gambling in the Harry Reid Casino. After all, Caesar’s Entertainment Group (formerly Harrah’s) and MGM Resorts pushed over a quarter-million dollars directly into Reid’s campaign. They put another $375,000 into Patriot Majority, which attacked Sharron Angle with over $3.3 million in outside ads.
The proposal itself is nothing more than old-fashioned corporate welfare for casinos in Nevada and New Jersey, too:
The National Indian Gaming Association is opposing Reid’s effort to insert the online poker language in any tax cut bill, said an official with the group, Jason Giles. He asserted it gives an advantage to Las Vegas-based gambling operators while discriminating against tribal operators.
“It is drafted to create an initial regulatory monopoly for Nevada and New Jersey for the first several years of the bill, which gives Las Vegas operators time to capture the market,” he said.
In previous proposals, the legalization would only apply to select companies in a years-long trial run, ostensibly to test whether legalization creates problems in the US. The real purpose of conducting the “trial run” is to give a big head start to established companies, eliminating the chance that others could compete for the business. Those restrictions in previous versions heavily favored the Nevada-New Jersey gaming industry, while locking out smaller players (such as the Indian casinos).
It’s no secret that Reid has a big tab with the casinos that rescued him from the Republican tidal wave. However, he’s going to have a tough time selling the notion that the biggest priority in the lame duck session is to legalize online poker rather than deal with the budget, which is still far from complete, or that poker legalization belongs in the same bill as the tax deal. Regardless of the merits of the concept of legalization (which I wouldn’t oppose), both the corporate welfare and the timing of this proposal should sink it in the remaining session of Congress.
Practices like these are DIS-HONEST and CORRUPT and ought to be made ILLEGAL and BANNED.
If a bill has merit, it ought to be publicly presented AS IT IS without some sneaky legislator hiding it inside another bill.
Online gambling should be legal anyway.
RE: Online gambling should be legal anyway.
Then why does Reid have to sneak in the bill into the Tax Deal? Why not present it as a separate bill and let it be voted on OPENLY and SEPARATELY?
No wonder Pelosi and Reid waltzed into the congressional leadership in 2006.
Because Reid is such a human fungus.
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See response in #5. More articulate than I could be about it.
Note that this would be constructed to benefit certain Las Vegas casino owners. They would be given a year’s head start setting up on-line gambling operations, which would make it difficult for others to compete with websites that were already familiar to gambling addicts.
Note, too, that this would benefit the Casino owners, who would also own and operate the websites. But it would NOT benefit Las Vegas or Nevada. If anything, it would probably reduce visitors to the hotels and casinos, as people stayed home and gambled instead. And therefore it would further hurt the already hurting economy of Las Vegas. Because predictably the people hired to run the website would probably be techies living in India. They are cheaper than hiring American talent.
Never mind, Harry doesn’t care, as long as his big donors and supporters benefit.
But also the names of all these casino political managers need to be published...and let's give them a taste of the medicine their democRAT friends often threaten....BOYCOTTs!
Show them just how big a BLUNDER they really committed here.
If the GOP has the guts to empahsize every single point you identified...and then openly targets this "Earmark" (even if it's not really). Going full tilt to label REID as horrifically corrupt amd bribed, and willing pushing against American jobs...in his own state, I think we can turn around Nevada permanently for the 2012 election.
The people of Nevada may then wish to initiate a "Recall Election" to undo the election mistake they just made.
The citizens of Nevada are granted the authority to perform a recall election by the Nevada Constitution, Article 2, Section 9 to all elective officers after the first six months of the term to which the incumbent was elected. It worked with a similar option in the California Governor's race about 8 years or so ago...
The country will only continue sliding into oblivion as long as people keep sending POS like this turd to Washington and scum like this hold powerful positions.
If the new group we sent to Washington in January don't start to really make serious changes, the country is finished and we will end up like any of the socialist European countries - broke and dependent on bureaucrats for just about everything in your life.
I agree 100%
IIRC the ban was the result of a WTO decision against the US of A. We blocked offshore access to US customers and some of the Caribbean islands cried foul. The remedy under consideration was to void US intellectual property rights allowing those island nations to start cranking out CDs and DVDs to beat the band. Rather than open the US market, Congress shut it down. Sounds like it will be Harry’s Casinos versus the music and video industry. This will not end well.
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