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Local News & Opinion
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06.24 Mr. Holder, You Must Hold Torturers Accountable Health & Environment
06.29 Thinking about Climate 06.26 False Health-Scare Ad on CNN 06.25 Louella Learns the Limits of Medicare 06.23 The Simple Answer to America’s Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All 06.23 Tell ABC: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate 06.23 Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex 06.22 Thinking about Recoveries 06.20 Obama's Health Care Waterloo 06.15 Obama, Like Clinton Before Him, is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform 06.11 Two Key Health-Care Numbers 06.10 Big Breakthroughs for Single Payer Health Care 06.10 Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations Media Watching
06.29 WP's Connolly Back, on Health Reform 06.17 Hypocrisy and Hope: Western Coverage, Iranian Courage 06.15 Excusing Outrages of the Right 06.11 Tying Obama to Bush's Budget Mess US Politics, Policy & Culture
06.30 Obama's Torture Hypocrisy 06.30 Court Circular: Annals of Imperial Continuity 06.29 Obama, They Want You to Fail 06.26 Who to Trust on a Truth Commission? 06.26 Tarnished Shields: The Morally Bankrupt 'Family Values' Republican Leadership 06.25 America's "Bases of Empire" 06.24 Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town 06.24 Touring Empire's Ruins 06.23 Employers are Undermining the Economic Stimulus Program 06.19 Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black 06.17 Afghanistan's Operation Phoenix 06.16 Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran? 06.13 Where's the Anger as the Wheels Come Off Obama's and the Democrats' Recovery Program? 06.10 Waiving the Rules for Old Glory 06.10 Obama's Era of Openness Is Closed High Crimes?
07.03 Reviewing Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's "Rules of Disengagement" 07.01 Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure 06.25 It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in Iraq 06.22 Obama Opposes Plame-gate Release 06.21 Dexter's Legions: The "Good" Killers of the "Good" War 06.18 Extending the Tradition: Proudly Taking American Torture Into the Future 06.15 New UN Report Denounces America's Human Rights Record 06.14 Fear Rules Economics & Business Non/Mis/Malfeasance
07.01 Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism:" The Economic Strategy of Imperial America 06.23 Obama's Financial Reform Proposal - A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control 06.10 Cyberscares About Cyberwars Equal Cybermoney International
07.01 Pirates of the Mediterranean 06.29 Color Revolutions, Old and New 06.25 Iran Divided & the 'October Suprise' 06.23 Astringent Corrective: AbuKhalil on Iran's Turmoil 06.20 Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?” 06.20 Through a Glass Darkly: Sifting Myth and Fact on Iran 06.19 Iran's Election and US - Iranian Elections 06.16 The Ir-Af-Pak War: Obama Looses the Manhunters 06.12 Israeli War Crimes Against Children During Operation Cast Lead We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
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SPEAKING OUT:Vote NO on Maryland Question 2--Unless You Love Being Fooled
Can anybody imagine the danger to our national security IF even one presently loyal employee of the National Security Agency "plays to extinction"?
Maryland voters will decide on November 4 whether to amend our State's Constitution to reward an outrageously pushy lobbying effort on behalf of the cartel-like gambling industry.
The National Security Agency is located 5 miles or so from Laurel Park, where Maryland's politicians have planned to open a casino with computerized slot machines which incorporate lots of Pavlovian conditioning to keep the players on the machines. The gambling industry speaks, among themselves, of getting players "to play to extinction." Can anybody imagine the danger to our national security IF even one presently loyal employee of the National Security Agency "plays to extinction"? Such carefully-psychologist-designed machines should not be lined up in a casino within 100 miles of our National Security Agency—even as we have no doubt that 99.99% of the employees would not be tempted excessively. We do know that most people who will sell out their nation—our country or somebody else's—do it for money, not ideology. Frequently, they have done it for a combination of financial reasons, and gambling is among those recognized over time. Every state which has introduced casinos, slot machines, etc., has been "informed" ahead of time by the highly organized gambling industry how much money the state will "earn". Besides that, we know that every state which has introduced casinos, slot machines, etc., has been "informed" ahead of time by the highly organized gambling industry how much money the state will "earn". We recognize that the figures cited by the tightly-run gambling companies are always much higher than what's earned. Maybe a state will make 40% or 50% or 60% of what the gambling corporation "informs" the state ahead of time. If a state is uncharacteristically lucky, it might, in good financial times and with less "market saturation" of gambling machines, make two-thirds of what the industry tells its polticians ahead of time. Meantime, localities discover traffic jams around new gambling centers, and heavy demands on old sewer systems (predicted in particular for the infastructure serving Laurel Park). There suddenly are discussions of expensive improvements to roads and newer, bigger water mains and other infastructure. The Maryland General Assembly did not write any new funding for education into the proposal last year. The Maryland General Assembly did not write any new funding for education into the proposal last year—since the politicans and gambling industry lobbyists were eager to pressure various groups into supporting the Referendum. "Promising" money to State-funded organizations if they supported the Referendum without any written guarantee was a way to push organizations of teachers and others to support this Amendment to the Maryland Constituton. The money which is supposed to come, in a few years, from slot machines to the State Treasury has been informally, conversationally, "ear-marked" numerous times over. Anybody who has even casually listened to advertisements and politicans knows that the money which is supposed to come, in a few years, from slot machines to the State Treasury has been informally, conversationally, "ear-marked" numerous times over. The gambling establishments could never bring in the exaggerated, many-times-over, claimed, advertised, and rumored benefits for the horse racing industry, for senior citizens, for police and fire protection, for public schools, for the Maryland Teachers Pension Fund, to underwrite health care for needy residents, and everything else. Where's the owner of the big company that Maryland plans to let run gambling establishments here? Canada. This means one-third of the proceeds will go out of the country. Meantime, we know that one-third of the money will go to the owners of the gambling corporations—those people who contend they will be performing such a public service for the State. And, where's the owner of the big company that Maryland plans to let run gambling establishments here? Canada. That's what these proponents of Question 2 call "bringing money into Maryland." That is what these endorsers of the Amendment to our State Constitution call "keeping the money in Maryland." Deborah Cunningham is president of the board of Baltimore News Network, Inc., publisher of the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel.
Copyright © 2008 The Baltimore News Network. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. Baltimore News Network, Inc., sponsor of this web site, is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed in stories posted on this web site are the authors' own. This story was published on November 3, 2008. |
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