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Elizabeth Warren’s Billion-Dollar Indian Casino Plan Defeated by Democrats

Posted on | January 22, 2019 | Comments Off on Elizabeth Warren’s Billion-Dollar Indian Casino Plan Defeated by Democrats

 

Elizabeth Warren’s effort to gain credibility as the 1/1024th Native American candidate in the Democrat 2020 presidential primary field wasn’t limited to her creepy experiments in DNA “racial science.” Emily Zannotti at the Daily Wire recaps Senator Warren’s failed efforts to promote a Massachusetts tribe’s casino bid:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been working with a local Native American tribe in Massachusetts to push through authorization for a new casino on federal land — a casino that local Massachusetts residents, and the federal government, have repeatedly said they don’t want.
But the bill to build the casino died in the senate late last year, and now, it seems, some of Warren’s fellow Democrats may be to blame.
The Washington Times reports that the bill, which would have allowed the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe to build a “$1 billion resort in Taunton, Massachusetts,” never made it to the senate floor, thanks to the efforts of the two Democratic senators from Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed, who pleaded with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to let the bill die in committee.
The bill reappeared in the House last week, this time sponsored by Reps. William Keating and Joe Kennedy III, both Massachusetts Democrats.
The bill overrides a federal court’s decision not to award the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe around 300 acres to build the billion-dollar tribal casino, based on rules granting tribal land only to those tribes recognized in an early-20th century federal agreement. The Mashpee Wampanoag received federal recognition, the Times reports, in 2007.
“As a result, federally recognized tribes in Rhode Island would argue that they hold the same standing as the Massachusetts tribe and request that similar legislation be introduced on their behalf,” the two Rhode Island senators wrote. “As you know, we have long opposed doing so due to potential conflicts with the 1978 Rhode Island Indian Claims Settlement Act, which ensures that settlement lands remain subject to Rhode Island state law.”

There are so many things wrong with the Mashpee Wampanoag casino bid that it’s difficult to say what’s the worst thing about it. The Massachusetts gaming commission will approve only three casinos in the state, each in a different region, so if the plan backed by Warren to put a casino in Taunton goes through, that would sabotage efforts by nearby Brockton to bring a casino to their struggling town:

Brockton Mayor William Carpenter said the Warren legislation on behalf of the Masphee Wampanoag tribe would destroy his community’s plans for a casino, a project designed to bring badly needed jobs and economic development to the blue-collar burg. . . .
Lobbying on behalf of the Warren-Keating legislation is the Genting Group, a Malaysia-based entity that has sunk a reported $400 million into the tribe’s First Light Resort and Casino project and could lose it all if the federal government fails to take the land into trust.
“We are up against a foreign company that’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” said [Taunton resident Michelle] Littlefield. “It’s a bottomless well on the other side. From day one, we’ve been the underdog, and the only thing we’ve ever had on our side was the law.”
She criticized lawmakers for attempting to overrule the judge’s orders [denying the Mashpee Wampanoag’s federal land claim]. “If we could just get the government to follow the law, not only the federal agencies involved, but every congressman and senator who’s taken the oath of office,” she said.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign money are involved:

The biggest push behind the effort has come from the Genting Group, a Kuala Lumpur-based company with a global portfolio of casino businesses that has $249.5 million invested in the troubled project and is slated to manage the First Light Resort & Casino if it’s completed, according to Malaysian reports.
Genting disclosed in its 2015 annual report its $249.5 million investment in promissory notes from the Mashbee Wampanoag Tribal Gaming Authority. It gained no equity from the investment, which was intended to “establish” its “growing presence in the U.S.”
There will be no return on investment until the casino is in operation and Genting is paid for management, an increasingly unlikely outcome that would result in Genting losing $274 million. In the case that no casino is ever built, the tribe says it won’t even have to pay back the investments made by Genting.
Genting hired lobbying firm Gavel Resources in February 2018 to make its case on the land use decision in Washington, D.C., according to official lobbying disclosure forms.

Heap big wampum, as you might say, has been invested in lobbying for this Indian casino that federal courts have declared illegal, but it’s being promoted by the 99.8% white Massachusetts Senator because . . . ?

I don’t know, “social justice,” or something.

Despite being the first Democrat to declare her presidential intentions for 2020, Senator Fauxcahontas isn’t actually popular with primary voters. Polls show her with less than 5% support, according to the Real Clear Politics average, far behind Joe Biden (27%) and Bernie Sanders (17%).

Perhaps the surest omen that Warren’s campaign is doomed, however, is the way Saturday Night Live spoofed her during the “Weekend Update” segment, with Kate McKinnon as the candidate mocking her DNA test (“The test came back 100% bad idea. Who knew race science wasn’t a good PR strategy?”) and comparing herself to a prostate exam. “Politico was accused of sexism for an article saying you aren’t likable,” host Colin Jost asked. “What do you think about that?”

“Look, yeah, I’m sorry I’m not young and pretty like Donald jackass Trump,” she said. “Look, Colin, was the article sexist, of course it was. Am I likable? Probably not. But neither is a prostate exam. But you need one or you’ll die.”
“This country is long overdue for a finger up its caboose. You might even like it,” she continued. “So bend over, America, and let Mama Warren get to work.”

No, thank you, ma’am.




 

 

 

Category: Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts

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