The casino boat ‘industry’ can be traced back to a few seemingly inconsequential sentences buried in a 1992 federal law called ''An Act to provide for the designation of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.''
(The “Flower Garden Banks” are the northernmost coral reefs in the United States, located off Texas and Louisiana.)
The obscure bill offered the perfect place to slip in a few sentences, which, deciphered, added ships of U.S. registry to vessels already covered under the Johnson Act of 1951, which regulated the transportation of gambling devices, and allowed ships of foreign registry, which often offered gambling, to dock at U.S. ports as long as no one used or repaired gambling equipment while in U.S. territorial waters.
The amendment was a Trojan horse which extended this privilege to U.S. ships…
And the result was a burgeoning new industry in Florida, and the state was soon encircled by almost thirty casino boats swarming the peninsula’s ports like the bloodthirsty pirates of yore. The booty these pirates were plundering was the mad money of bored retirees.
They were called “cruises to nowhere.” And in short order the boats were generating hundreds of millions of dollars a year in revenues. Hundreds of million of dollars of unregulated revenue…
While not getting ahead of ourselves, we still note that this was more than enough money to help tip the balance in the last two Presidential elections. At a minimum, for the casino operators it provided instant access to anything and anybody worth being accessed.
...
Almost every article we'd read cites Abramoff & Delay's interest in the Marianas being sweat-shop related. Meaning they're in favor of them. Their primary focus wasn't sweatshops. It was gambling.
http://www.madcowprod.com/06202005.html 
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
