Monday was a wonderful day for Sheldon Adelson. One might say that Mother's Day was followed by Godfather's Day.
And who, you ask, is Sheldon Adelson? He is the casino owner the President of the United States can only wish he had been able to be: Chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp., which makes him owner also of successful gambling emporia in Macau, Singapore and Bethlehem, PA. He has been a huge backer of Republican political candidates. Just the other day, he took $30 million out of petty cash and tossed it into the GOP pot to hold the House of Representatives in the fall. Paul Ryan had dropped in on him a couple of days earlier. Wisconsin House members always did hang out in Las Vegas.
And Adelson is a huge supporter of Israel. As a matter of fact, Republicans who want his money have to do honor not only to Adelson but to Bibi Netanyahu.
As Monday dawned, all of former casino owner Trump's brightest and best were in Jerusalem to open the United States Embassy there. And Sheldon Adelson's wife was among the brightest. According to The Jerusalem Post, she was dressed as Jerusalem itself: "a white flowing dress decorated with Jerusalem stone, adorned with the
capital’s skyline, with edges flanked by two Jerusalem lions. Down the back of the dress was printed in Hebrew Im eshkachech
Yerushalayim, tishkach yemini,” -- the biblical phrase meaning: 'If I
forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill.'"
It isn't the sort of thing she could wear to the Seven-11. But her husband had given millions to bring the day about. For people like Adelson and the Trump b&b, though, it is better to receive than to give, and guess what the Supreme Court gave Mr. Adelson while Israel celebrated:
The incisive Justice Samuel Alito held that the federal government cannot prevent New Jersey -- in the person of the now almost totally disappeared Chris Christie -- from legalizing sports betting any damn way it wants. And what applies to New Jersey applies to all 50. Because Tenth Amendment and all that. (We had a national lottery once. Guess what killed it. Yep, corruption.) Thus did the Supreme Court, 6-3, give Adelson and other casino moguls what the justices gave the National Rifle Association in 2008, i.e, even more than they asked for.
I'd only add that if a casino magnate can influence where the United States puts its embassies with sports betting illegal in 49 states, it's hard to think of what the magnates will not be able to do with their new license to print money.
Trump folded in Atlantic City too soon to be a Player.
Huh - thought I posted a comment, but appears it didn't take. Let me try again.
ReplyDeleteThe bloodshed along the Gaza wall today was jaw-dropping: 2,500 wounded, 50+ killed, all Palestinians. All the killings and a big whacking chunk of the wounded were courtesy of Israeli sharpshooters, among whom not a single casualty was reported. If I had to choose a noun to describe what occurred, it would be "war". Is that what Bibi and Adelson wanted? Is that what the Palestinians and their backers (because they have their funders, too) wanted? Inasmuch as it is what happened, I don't think we can rule it out.
And for what? What practical thing, what great thing or even small thing, is accomplished by relocating our embassy? Do the benefits to us, or anyone else, justify even a cut on a pinky, much less the blood spilled today? What did our America-first president do today for America?
Well, I had to find Miriam Adelson's dress. Scroll down to the second picture for a better view. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Scroll down to the third picture for a wilder gown that the Israeli culture minister wore to Cannes last year.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Haaretz (sorry, lost link), the Palestinian protests were preplanned and organized by Hamas and were known by the Israeli government. The article also said that the Israeli government didn't even try to do anything to avoid the violence. Here we have state actors doing what state actors do best, eschewing humanitarian interests. There were the Israelis and Jewish Americans looking like "winnahs" and the Palestinian protesters looking like "loozahs". What a shame.
ReplyDeleteLet us not overlook the sad effects of Justice Alito's contribution to the decline and fall of American civilization. State-approved sports betting will be good for the Adelsons who run the betting books. It will provide a mysteriously disappearing windfall for the state legislatures and governors who know the public has given up on democracy and resents paying for it; it gives them a chance to provide needed payoffs without "raising taxes." And it won't hurt professional sports, where the players are making too much money to be bought. But it should just about finish wrecking college sports (where most of the betting scandals have been since 1919) because those athletes are generating millions for their schools and will be generating millions more for the state, and they have to watch all the money they earn go to other people and institutions. Which will keep them eminently buyable.
ReplyDeleteWhich is what happens when a government tells people they are suckers to pay for what they need.
If it's true that illegal sports gambling runs to the tens of billions of dollars per year, it's probably better that it come out into the open, be regulated, and taxed. Same argument as those against Prohibition and in favor of marijuana legalization.
DeleteMaybe Adelson will clean up on it, but there are a lot of other interests who also make money already on legal gambling in the US, so maybe the opportunity will be spread around some. My understanding of Adelson's fortune is that, while the casinos in the US didn't make him a pauper, it's the Asian operations that really put him into the .001 percent or whatever place value to the right of the decimal point he lives in these days.
Hmm, Steve Malanga of City Journal pours some rain on my sunny outlook on legalized sports gambling. He points out that virtually every dollar spent on another form of legal gambling, state lotteries, reduces the amount of household income by a nearly identical amount; that tax revenues from other forms of legalized gambling haven't improved state budget deficits; that projections of tax revenue increases from other forms of legalized gambling haven't come close to panning out; and that there is a substantial social cost to enabling inveterate, problem gamblers.
Deletehttps://www.city-journal.org/html/dont-bet-it-15906.html
Gambling never really does what it is touted to do because politicians never do what they promise to do with it. The Florida Lottery was sold, years ago, as a way to "enhance" education.
DeleteOh, yeah, brother. What it did was this: The money from the Lottery was "earmarked" for education. And the education spending in the general budget was reduced accordingly. Money is fungible.
After more years than should have been necessary, the Legislature took notice. It created a scholarship program for college tuition, which mainly benefited the middle class or better, with the lottery money. And left spending for K-12 essentially where it was after the education budget lost the funds that matched the "earmarked" Lottery money.
It was that shell game that undermined Gov. Jeb Bush's plan to make Florida a world leader in education. But we got some pretty good universities out of it. Too bad our high school graduates aren't well enough educated to take full advantage of them.
And that, children, is how one state used gambling to "enhance" education. Watch for a lot more of that.
The state sponsored gambling amounts to a tax on the peasants. This peasant doesn't gamble except when the Powerball exceeds a gazillion dollars. I hope repubs and Trump voters like to gamble so I can get a free ride off them.
ReplyDelete