The NY Times highlights John McCain’s gambling problem. And it’s a problem on two levels.
As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing America’s casinos, helping to transform the once-sleepy Indian gambling business into a $26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country….
“One of the founding fathers of Indian gaming” is what Steven Light, a University of North Dakota professor and a leading Indian gambling expert, called Mr. McCain.
The Times describes McCain as a “lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table.” No shit, Sherlock.
But I’m curious if our local press, who has silently sat back (when not actively collaborating) and allowed Dino Rossi to slander Gov. Gregoire as “Casino Chris” for rejecting a tribal gaming compact that would have led to a tenfold increase in WA’s gambling industry… I wonder if they’ll ask the Republicans that ironic question about how they feel about the man at the top of their ticket, the “founding father of Indian gaming”…?
Probably not.
Wingnuts who buy that Rossi ad about Gregoire costing the State 140 million in gambling revenues have to be the stupidest freaking idiots on the planet.
Stack that stupid ad next to one about the Sonics that runs on sports talk radio.
I can’t believe that gambling ad is still running. Nothing but extreme right wing lies.
McCain + Earmarks = Hot Air
Sen. McHotair admitted today he would have voted for an appropriations bill containing over 2,300 earmarks worth more than $6.6 billion, according to the Associated Press.
McCain decried “a system” under which pork barrel spending is grafted onto essential legislation so congressmen can’t vote against it — but offered no suggestions about how, as president, he could change it.
Executive Summary: McHotair’s crusade against earmarks is nothing but empty campaign rhetoric. As president, he will sign bills containing earmarks the same as every other president does. He just admitted it.
About That Bracelet …
Blogger Tommy Christopher of “The Political Machine” calls out McCain on his shameless exploitation of the troops:
“It has long roiled me when Republican politicians presume to tell the world what our troops are thinking …. In my view, it is the basest form of exploitation, and John McCain is a leading practitioner.
“When he offers the soldiers’ entreaty to ‘Let us win,’ he does so without qualification, without saying, ‘Some of the soldiers’ feel this way. In doing so, he ignores and disrespects the voices of the soldiers, especially those silenced forever, who feel differently.
“He also disrespects the soldier he is quoting … [by exploiting him] for political gain.
“Every soldier has sworn to carry out his mission, regardless of his personal feelings, and John McCain owes them better than to exploit their sacrifices to score points in a debate.”
(Quoted under fair use.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I’ve always considered GOP claims to speak for all our solders as presumptuous and arrogant. Federal law bans political pollsters from military bases and battlefields, and soldiers cast secret ballots like the rest of us, so no one really knows what they think or how they vote.
It’s pretty clear what the Republican position on this issue is: Wide open gambling.
That was the thrust of Tim Eyman’s slot machine initiative rejected by Washington voters.
Conservatives are friends and promoters of the gambling industry. Why? Because they see it as a source of big profits — and big political donations. They don’t give a damn what wide-open gambling does to society.
Breaking news! Sarah Palin claims that John McCain rode dinosaurs in his youth!
http://www.latimes.com/news/po.....?track=rss
The fishwrapper’s editorial board today, predictably, came out against Prop. 1, the half-cent sales tax increase for light rail expansion.
The editorial hits on some points I’ve raised, but misses my main objection to light rail: It makes bad sense financially, because the costs here are many times what light rail costs in other cities. In fact, what Sound Transit proposes to build is really a subway system in terms of the engineering and costs involved.
The Times agrees with me that increasing the sales tax is the wrong way to pay for transit improvements.
The newspaper also, as I have, points out that while the tax would be imposed immediately an operating light rail system is years or decades away: “Proposition 1 is being marketed as the solution to an immediate need. Salesmen have made up phrases like ‘immediately increase buses,’ ‘immediate solutions to relieve gridlock’ and their favorite, ‘Transit Now.’ But … what you get is a Tax Now …. A few buses and commuter trains come soon, but most of your money would go to light rail not fully open to you until the 2020s. It is not ‘Transit Now.’ This bias against helping people now is why King County Executive Ron Sims argued to keep Proposition 1 off the ballot. As head of the government that owns Metro, the transit agency struggling to meet existing need, he didn’t want to wait until the 2020s.”
The Times editorial also endorses my theme that light rail won’t get people out of their cars: “This is an improbable view of the future. Most people don’t want to get out of their cars … because they have their own places to go.”
The Times says what people need is “a spider web of service” over a wide area at “a price they can afford” and that means more buses: “The map of light rail … will not be a spider web, but a simple ‘T.’ It will have a few stops at hugely expensive stations. … Buses are cheaper than rail and more flexible. Proposition 1 slights them: The two center lanes on the Interstate 90 bridge, which now serve buses and Mercer Islanders, become rail-only. Buses are kicked out. Buses will also be kicked out of Seattle’s downtown transit tunnel.” And, while the Times doesn’t mention it, Prop. 1 pays only lip service to adding more buses even though our existing commuter buses don’t even have standing room only: Only 2% of Prop. 1’s capital funding goes to buses.
I often disagree with the Seattle Times editorial philosophy. In this case, I disagree with those of my liberal friends who are ardent supporters of light rail. They mean well, but I sincerely believe that investing enormous sums of irreplaceable mass transit dollars in light rail, at the expense of neglecting buses, will be an irreversible mistake for our community that we will profoundly regret in years to come. Not only will it increase tax burdens on those least able to pay, but far worse (I could live with a bad tax if that was its only fault) is the fact light rail will soak up nearly all the available money for public transportation for decades to come and not only leave us saddled with a white elephant light rail system that carries few passengers, does little to relieve traffic congestion, but also — worst of all — foreclose the possibility of expanding the one mass transit option that is genuinely utilitarian.
(Editorial material quoted from Seattle Times under fair use.)
@5 Palin is so gross an embarrassement that the conservative intelligentsia (yes, there is one, albeit tiny) is demanding that she disappear herself from the GOP ticket lest she take down McCain and their entire party.
The immediate cause of this revolt by the small but influential clique of conservatives actually capable of sentient reasoning is Palin’s demonstration in her handful of public appearances to date that she is only capable of reading ghostwritten scripts and stringing together fragments of memorized talking points into incoherent gibberish — i.e., there is no actual mental functioning occurring inside her skull.
For the sake of her country, her party, and John McCain’s chances, the best thing she can do now is suddenly remember that she has young children at home who need a full-time mom.
But the best thing she can do for Barack Obama and Democrats is stay on the McSenile/Nobody ticket. And I sure hope she does!
Of course, if Palin does leave the ticket, McCain will look like a guy who made a hasty, impetuous, poorly considered decision to put her on the ticket in the first place — which is exactly what he did.
The GOPers don’t have a good exit strategy for their imploding veep candidate. In fact, there’s no exit strategy at all. McCain leaped off the fantail with the intention of swimming to shore clutching an anchor. Now he’s got to swim with the anchor, or drown.
@6 I fully agree with you on light rail, Roger. Full disclosure: I get a couple hundred grand in engineering consulting fees from Sound Transit every year.
9, No wonder it’s so,s,so,ss,so fucked up.
@10 Care to explain how the existing train stations are “so fucked up”?
No, you can’t. Why? It’s because you’re too stupid for words.
John McCain LOST the debate.
Why? Not because he did badly; he didn’t. Not because polls show that the public believes he LOST; I expect that to be close (with him behind a little) when real surveys begin tomorrow.
No, he LOST most of all just because right now he’s BEHIND in the race, and has been for a long time minus his brief post-convention bounce.
Of all of the things under the McCain campaign’s control that might help him make up for his deficit in the polls–the national security debate (advantage McCain), the townhall debate (advantage even–they’ve both done a ton of these), the domestic issues debate (advantage Obama), the ground game (advantage Obama), and final week television advertising (advantage even)–the national security debate seemed like by far the most likely spot for McCain to make up ground. Instead, he lost ground. Which basically leaves him either needing a dominating performance in the remaining debates, or else for al-Qaeda to bail him out.
Which also basically means he’s toast.
I like Palin in the race. When Republicans say that Obama’s “not ready” or whatever today’s horseshit is, I’m glad she’s still there to give us all a good look at what REALLY being “not ready” looks like.
DaddyLove @ 12: I think you are right. This debate (national security) was supposed to be McCain’s best chance to regain the lead, which he would then have to defend for the next five weeks. Barring an unexpected gaffe by Obama in the forthcoming debates (a’la’ Gerald Ford’s insistence that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe”), the next two debates are on subjects which are not McCain’s strong suits. At best, he can hope for a draw, which leaves him behind at the end.
Of course, there are the vice-presidential debates, if the McCain campaign doesn’t cancel it. Maybe a quick wedding would be just the excuse? But Bidden has one problem with the vice-Presidential debates: Palin is going in with such low expectations, that she could hardly help but perform a bit better. That could lead to the after-debate news commentary expressing surprise that she did as well as she did, leaving the impression upon those who didn’t actually see the debate that she won it.
Well, McCain got the Indians off the dole but unlike Gregoire, he didn’t engineer any kickbacks.
BTW: Republicans put the “trainee” at the bottom of the ticket, not at the top like you turds did.