MGM Mirage Posts $212.6 Million Loss

Bloomberg reported --

MGM Mirage, the biggest casino owner on the Las Vegas Strip, reported a $212.6 million second-quarter loss after a writedown and drop in gambling revenue.

The company sold $2.65 billion of stock and debt in May to remove the risk of bankruptcy.

Being played for fools?

Sometimes, when you think you don't have the money to pay for an attorney, that's exactly the time to pay for an attorney well-versed in the applicable laws.

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1. Two Supreme Court decisions now appear to render Land Into Trust and Casino Shopping a non-issue. Would a discussion with an attorney well-versed in Constitutional Law, IGRA, IRA, Supreme Court decisions or comparable expertise be a wise investment?

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29 states signed on to the Hawaii decision. Somehow, 30 states supporting the case might negate any quick fix. Much the same as a Carcieri Fix.

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2. The land proposed for a Mega Casino Bingo Parlor in Middleboro is NOT owned by the "Tribe" that proposed to impose this Monster on the region. It's owned by casino investors.

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3. The Agreement the Tribe has or had with investors has an unknown expiration date at which time the Tribe must repay the investors' money. Their only asset? It seems to be land in Mashpee.

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4. The waters are rather murky about who planned to pay for the Middleboro Fiasco, but deep pocket investors Kerzner and Wolman, now divesting themselves in bankruptcy court of their Twin River money pit, seem none too credit worthy.

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Keep in mind that ANY development that includes 50,000 cars per day, mandates upgrades of "infrastructure" -- ROADS!

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SRPEDD offered information that hurt Middleboro's itty biddies.

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The Middleboro Agreement includes a provision that the "Tribe" (meaning casino investors) would pay for Route 44 upgrades. Although that's inadequate, what commercial venture would accept such terms in an economic downturn in which each of the pro-casino experts who testified at Senator Spilka's "educational forum" indicated that gambling is not as profitable as it once was? And some have said that Middleboro successfully shot itself in the foot and sacrificed a potential "shovel ready" project for some "pie in the sky" that evaporated with the SCOTUS decisions.

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Some have questioned if the "investors" pursued this location to prevent competition for the Twin River Money Pit. After all, those investors were generous in their campaign advertising to defeat a Rhode Island referendum and keep Harrah's out. And much the same was done in England.

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Some have even questioned why Middleboro never did an impact study.

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Someone say the "investors" were only paying the "planning fees" to keep competition out and pending a commercial venture.

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5. Apparently, no one has reviewed the BIA submission because rumor has it that it was grossly deficient and flawed.

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6. Someone questioned if spending $22 MILLION for water improvements to benefit the "Tribe" should be paid for by the "Tribe"

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And, yet the Middleboro Board of Selectmen, instead of gathering factual information, investing in legal expertise, continue to follow the Fool's Gold.

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True to form, Middleboro's very own Gavel Queen knows the facts:

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Selectwoman Marsha L. Brunelle said the selectmen gave the Resort Advisory Committee an extensive list of areas that needed to be addressed and a timeline.

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Marsha, could you point out where we could easily find the LIST on the PTWS (for the uninitiated, Pathetic Town Web Site that the Town Manager is supposedly working on)?

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All I've heard has convinced me It T'Ain't Comin'

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Plan all you want with other people's money, but do you think you could resolve the mess of the Zoning Regulations and Planning Regulations so that a readable copy is available for purchase and available online, just like other towns?

Random Thoughts From A Shikseh

A shikseh, a Yiddish word, is defined as a non-Jewish girl or woman.
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Having grown up in a predominately Jewish community that was filled with first- or second-generation Holocaust survivors, their histories and experiences were widely shared, as well as taught in schools.

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Into the course of adulthood, I have read many accounts of the period of time to gain further understanding of the economic conditions that led to the rise of Nazism and the wartime reparations.

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The manipulation of the populace was masterful in creating a fearful people after the Burning of the Reichstag by an arsonist who later confessed that Hitler had paid him.

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Might one label it a terrorist act?

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And the successful propaganda campaign convincing of the evil of THOSE OTHERS.

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And the successful blaming of others to distract from failed internal policies.

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One must divorce oneself from humanity to read accounts of the medical experiments conducted by Dr. Josef Mengele and others.
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Reading accounts about the machinations of extermination with ever increasing efficiency, one must not allow recognition of humanity to intrude.

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During the rampage through Europe, extermination included Catholic Priests, Gays, Mentally Retarded, Physically Handicapped, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Romani, and many other groups targeted.

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wikipedia offers:

Medical experiments
A cold water immersion experiment at Dachau concentration camp presided over by Professor Holzlohner (left) and Dr. Rascher (right).
Romani children in Auschwitz, victims of medical experiments.
Further information: Nazi human experimentation
Another distinctive feature was the extensive use of human subjects in medical experiments. German physicians carried out such experiments at Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen and Natzweiler concentration camps.[19]
The most notorious of these physicians was Dr. Josef Mengele, who worked in Auschwitz. His experiments included placing subjects in pressure chambers, testing drugs on them, freezing them, attempting to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, and various amputations and other brutal surgeries.[20] The full extent of his work will never be known because the truckload of records he sent to Dr. Otmar von Verschuer at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute were destroyed by von Verschuer.[21] Subjects who survived Mengele's experiments were almost always killed and dissected after the experiments.

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Victims
Killed
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Soviet POWs
2–3 million
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Politicals
1–1.5 million

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Serbs
600,000
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Poles
200,000+

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Roma
220,000–500,000
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Freemasons
80,000–200,000
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Disabled
200,000–250,000
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Spanish POWs
7,000–16,000
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Jehovah'sWitnesses
2,500–5,000
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South of Poland, between 500,000 and 1.2 million

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Wikipedia offers the following list of Jews exterminated by country:

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Country or territory
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Poland
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3,000,000
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Baltic countries
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228,000
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Germany & Austria
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210,000
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Bohemia & Moravia
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80,000

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Slovakia
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75,000
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Greece

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54,000
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The Netherlands
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105,000
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Hungary
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450,000
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Byelorussian SSR
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245,000
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Ukrainian SSR
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900,000
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Belgium
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40,000
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Yugoslavia
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26,000
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Romania
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300,000
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Norway
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900
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France
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90,000
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Bulgaria
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14,000
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Italy
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8,000
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Luxembourg
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1,000
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Russian SFSR
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107,000
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Denmark
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Finland
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Total
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5,933,900

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In my life, I have spoken with Holocaust Survivors, as well as survivors of Japanese Concentration Camps, the Japanese Death March, those who fled Pol Pot, Kosovo, and South American dictators.

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For some insight into Japanese conduct, check Wikipedia .
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That being said, I was speechless, a truly rare event, when I discovered Mr. Bond's comments, as follows (emphasis mine, misspellings his):

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What concerns me, and makes me comment in the way I do, is that the theory that is being presented--unwittingly by most--is the nation within a nation theory. This is a theory that was used by Hitler to irradicate [sic] millions of jews in Europe, including many of my ancestors. So when you start talking about how dangerous it is to have a sovereign nation in the midst of the Town, because they will be self serving and mistreat anyone who is not a part of their group, you begin to highlight for me a theory which has little merit--since they have already received sovereign status and that is not the fight in front of us.
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In response to the issue of Sovereign Immunity, Mr. Bond chose to suggest RACISM, yet again.

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Failing that, Mr. Bond instead raised the Holocaust as a sympathy issue.

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History is replete with despicable acts. In context, they are man being savage, but fail to mandate reparations.

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Europeans settlers may have committed offenses against long gone native peoples, but I fail to find medical experiments, labor camps, planned extermination or gas chambers that rise to the level of the Holocaust.

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Mr. Bond:

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This is about wealthy casino investors and not about the Holocaust.

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You have lowered the tone of the discussion to the gutter and you need

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to do better.

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The following are previous posts about racism: Middleboro Recall

Camelot gone? Kennedys, Wind Energy, Casinos

Speculation swirls about the heir apparent to the Camelot Fantasy few now recall with the active inclusion of Carolyn Kennedy, who has little connection to the Commonwealth.

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In days of yore, that strategy proved successful before the Kennedys tarnished the name and image.

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In his most recent re-election bid, Senator Kennedy sacrificed 35% of the vote to an invisible opponent. That vote was strictly an anti-Kennedy vote for an unknown.

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It would seem that the Senator is single-handedly destroying the Democratic Party in the Commonwealth by his inaction or action and active opposition to Cape Wind.

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But Peter Kenney's comment seem revelatory of the Senator's convictions or lack thereof.
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Influence and Agendas
RICO here, RICO there, pretty soon we're talking jail time
By Peter Kenney
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Is Hyannisport next?

Ted sees "conflict of interest" with casinos but not with windmills. Could there be unseen hands at work in this situation? Kennedy recently told one tribe member, in response to a letter asking for help, that he could not become involved, that his ownership of property on Cape Cod poses a conflict of interest for him in view of the possibility that some of the Wampanoag descendants might attempt to reopen an earlier land suit. To date, the senator's neighborhood of Hyannisport has not been mentioned as a potential target for tribal interests, but one can never be too careful.

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For all his family glory and his Harvard education and his five decades in the senate, Ted Kennedy is still just another Boston Irish political hack. I guess helping the Wampanoags receive fair treatment does not fit into the good senator's Democrat agenda. CCT
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And this from Pirate's Cove :

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Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy could count on his daily dose of veneration. The right wing hated the Massachusetts Democrat, but progressives honored him as a defender of old-school liberalism.
In a remarkable turnaround, liberals are now heaping scorn on the 73-year-old senator. Young audiences boo at his name, and the leftish "Daily Show" on Comedy Central makes fun of him.

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The source of unhappiness is Kennedy’s efforts to kill an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was to be the first such project in the United States and a source of pride to environmentally minded New Englanders. Polls show 84 percent of Massachusetts residents in favor. But now it appears that America’s first offshore wind farm will be near Galveston, Texas.