Follow the Wampum

Many of us border on political battle fatigue, following the major failures of the Obama administration over unemployment and the economy, Obamacare, with millions losing their coverage, or the series of foreign policy blunders that put our embassies at risk, alienated our allies and rewarded our enemies. But, while major policy meltdowns surround us and command our attention, the fact that the Federal government, a behemoth, a gargantuan juggernaut that never sleeps, with thousands of equally bad decisions and policies implemented by countless agencies of the bureaucratic state, blundered blithely on with scarcely a ripple in the national consciousness. Could there be a more eloquent argument in favor of smaller government? Submitted for your consideration...

SACRAMENTO — Obama administration policies stimulating an expansion of tribal gambling have touched off new battles over proposed tribal casinos in California and elsewhere. Since President Barack Obama took office, the Department of the Interior has recognized dozens of new tribes and approved requests from a handful of others to acquire land that could house a casino, contingent on deals between the tribes and their home states.

The department rejected nearly all such applications under President George W. Bush.

While I have written before on the Balkanization of America by our current president ("Our Divisive President"), the creation of more tiny Indian "nations" inside our borders is a literal Balkanization.

In California, there are already over one hundred "federally recognized tribes". Sixty two of them own casinos. In theory, there is some history between the tribe and the land the reconstituted (or newly founded) tribes claim for their Indian casinos. (It's hard to figure how we ever conquered the Indian nations, since so many of them were prescient enough to locate their tribal lands next to where freeway off ramps would some day spring up!)

Of course, those less prescient tribes have had to apply for "off-reservation" casinos, aided and abetted (pun intended) by Vegas gambling interests.

Since Obama took office in 2009, just five federal applications for new land from tribes that did not have reservations have been accepted. But dozens of others are pending, and opponents of the deals fear many more may soon be approved.

Seven such requests from California tribes are now before federal officials, according to gambling critic Cheryl Schmit, director of Stand Up California, which monitors state gambling issues. An additional 78 tribes are seeking federal recognition, according to U.S. Census data.

Lawmakers have begun to question the historic ties the tribes have to the land where they want to build these casinos, and say major gambling operators from Las Vegas and elsewhere are funding the tribes' efforts to win federal approval in exchange for future management contracts.

I'm an egalitarian. I believe that all Americans of all classes, races and creeds should abide by the same set of laws. This extends from our ruling class, who seek to set themselves about the laws they place upon others, to those who call themselves sovereign nations within the US, who are, coincidentally, exempt from many of the same laws.

This nation has had a shameful past regarding the indigenous peoples of the country. Indian reservations have historically been places of poverty, squalor and despair. Both government provided education and medical care in these places have been seriously wanting. Before the implementation of Obamacare, I used to argue that until the federal government could demonstrate proficiency in the healthcare they already controlled, such as the VA and BIA, they could hardly be trusted to take over health care in the entire country.

But the sins of past treatment of indigenous peoples cannot be absolved by showers of legalized gambling profits. As a boy, I was taught that 'the land' was essential to the Native American's religion and spirituality. Now that the land is mainly used to foster gambling dens, it appears that this administration is currently aiding and abetting the loss of their soul.




Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art
Cross posted at LCR, Political Clown Parade

Barbara Boxer: Family Profits From Fake Indian Tribe She Helped Create

Funny thing! I wasn't even going to write about this, I was just going to post a link to it in the Saturday Linkaround and let people read or not read it as they will. Then, getting ready to post the link, I went to The Hill and found this:

Although, if you look, the comments below the "page not found" reference this story. But, I guess it could have been a "broken link", so I took their advice and searched "Barbara Boxer Indian", was taken to this page:

And when I clicked on the link guess where it took me? (Bonus points if you guessed "page not found"). Here's from a helpful email from the Fiorina camp:

The Hill’s Pundits Blog: Barb Boxer’s Indian tribe take
By Rick Manning
October 30, 2010
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/lawmaker-news/126619-barb-boxers-indian-tribe-take


For the past 10 years Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has been playing a game that would make Jack Abramoff blush, a game that can best be described using the language of “Get Smart’s” Maxwell Smart as “the ole family-profiting-off-of-the-Indian-tribe-that-you-created trick.”


Here’s the story.


In 1998, Lynn Woolsey introduced legislation reinstating an Indian tribe in the wine country of Northern California that had been declared defunct by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1958. None of the Indians of the tribe objected at that time; they received a payment and went about their lives. The Woolsey bill would reinstate the tribe but specifically prohibited them from starting a casino. The legislation ran into trouble when the Bureau of Indian Affairs opposed the legislation because it had not seen any evidence that the tribe was significantly tied to the terminated tribe.


In 2000, Boxer helpfully picked up the Woolsey bill, but changed the prohibition against gaming, and designated any land that the group owned to be considered as a reservation.


In the same year, Boxer got her language into the Omnibus Indian Advancement Act of 2000, and with the changes unbeknownst to either fellow Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) or House sponsor Woolsey (D), the bill was signed into law by then-President Clinton.

With us so far? A defunct tribe of Indians gets reinstated and Boxer inserts language that states in essence, any land they purchase becomes a "reservation". Neat, huh? Get around all those federal and local laws and taxes with the stroke of a pen. But as they say on the infomercials, Wait! There's more!

Shortly after passage, the newly minted Indian tribe declared that after much soul-searching, the only thing it could do was open a casino on the outskirts of San Francisco in the town of Rohnert Park.


The tribe turned its fortunes over to two firms to make its dreams of wealth come true — Platinum Advisers, a political consulting/lobbying firm, and Kenwood Investments 2. Amazingly, and I’m certain quite coincidentally, Barbara Boxer’s son, Doug, was a partner in each firm.


To avoid immediate citizen concern about a casino popping up in their posh neighborhood, Doug Boxer’s Kenwood Investments 2 kindly fronted for the casino interests in purchasing a tract of land in Rohnert Park, as well as helpfully taking options on adjoining parcels of land for themselves to sweeten the pot. (Can I say pot and Sonoma County, Calif., in the same breath?)


Then Platinum Advisers sprang into action to try to gain community support for the casino. They apparently didn’t do a very good job, because the casino still is not built 10 years later.


According to Reference.com, Doug Boxer’s take from the project was a very Abramoff-like $8 million.


What makes the story timely is that the federal government just a couple of weeks ago was compelled to declare the land that Boxer’s son had purchased on behalf of the Indian casino a reservation, effectively killing the local zoning and lawsuits that had tied the project up in knots for most of the past decade.


The Santa Rosa Press Democrat rightly pinned the federal decision right on the Senate Ethics* Committee chairwoman’s doorstep by pointing out that since she used the word shall, rather than may, in the legislation that birthed this tribe, the federal government had no choice but to declare the property that the tribe subsequently purchased to be tribal lands.

The rest of the post goes on to examine the, shall we say, less than stellar (or convincing) bona fides of this "tribe." Read the whole thing if it ever goes back up.

Both Boxer and Harry Reid have done very well by their children, by steering millions of dollars their way. Now if someone could only remind them to do right by the people who elected them and the taxpayers of this country.

Could you remind them for me next Tuesday?

*"Senate Ethics" - under Boxer, an oxymoron. (See: "Obama Justice Department")

Cross posted at LCR, Say Anything.

Update: Moe Lane has written on this as well here.