If you’re like me, your inbox if just about flooded with Issue 3 (Casinos) nonsense. I was surprised to see my old employer ProgressOhio take a stand on this one. It doesn’t really seem like a core Progressive value, this gambling is evil and must be stopped mantra.
Dude’s analysis is faulty on face and it’s apparent he’s a wee bit of a whack job. His most famous assertion, now parroted by both ProgressOhio and the Dispatch’s Joe Hallett, is some nonsense about slot machines taking in an average of $100,000 which will then not be used to buy cars. Hallett jumping on a Rothenberg cause? NO WAY! I know. I know. The routine is getting old.
Dave Harding (ProgressOhio Online Director extraordinaire), leads right out with the faulty 100k logic in his latest post on the issue. The logic goes like this. Each slot machine takes in an average of $100,000 a year. That money can’t be used to buy stuff. You know, like cars. Or maybe a flat screen TV. Food maybe? Clothes. People will have to walk naked and go hungry!
For shame!
The problem of course, with the logic, is that the machine takes in that $100,000 from many different people. Not one of them dropped enough in the machine to have bought a car or TV if they had not played it. Maybe a dinner or a new pair of jeans, but this $100,000 scare number makes you think someone just dumped an annual salary in an evil slot machine.
You’d have to be inherently ignorant to buy into such argument. I give the machine $100 maybe and that lady over there gave it $40 and that other dude gave it $50 and at the end of the year $100,000 went through it. All of us, most likely, still have our card and tv sets and food and clothing.
Let me be clear here. I’ve asked a great many people about the ballot language and I think it’s pretty much a bad deal. I’m for allowing casinos to operate in Ohio and very much would love to play some 2-4 limit hold’em in a downtown Cbus casino or even better yet some big multi-player tournies. I’m not sold on this being the best way to go about it.
You need look no further than this post to realize the abject lack of self awareness at an organization that will hammer away at evil gambling and give John W. Kindt the floor only to also point out that a reason to vote against a gambling issue is that another gambling concern will lose jobs! The Ohio Harness Horseman’s Association is against a competitor!? NO WAY!!
OMGLOL. Seriously. Please don’t vote to have casinos in Ohio because gambling is bad, but let’s help save the horse racing industry which provides Ohio with much needed jobs. You can’t even make this shit up.
So. Question is. When will ProgressOhio and other opposed to Issue 3 begin to focus on the nature of the ballot language and give up this disingenuous argument about gambling being evil? I mean, you either come out AGAINST gambling on which little horsey makes it to the finish line first or that all my numbers will match the ones on TV or you stop the dishonest attacks on casinos and focus on the real issue.
When will ProgressOhio start a petition to end the state lottery and gambling on horses in Ohio? Afterall, they hurt the poor right?
Kindt also argues that we should get rid of lotteries as well (Claims they target the poor and are racist:
You’ll note no argument, zealot, or research cited by ProgressOhio or other Issue 3 opponenet about how current legalized gambling (the lottery) impacts the poor. It’s not like it’s hard to find.
I’m interested if anyone knows more about John W. Kindt. He sounds like a wingnut and given Focus on the Family also cites him and he’s been on Curtis Sliwa’s show, it’s likely he is. Forward what you find or know to me at eric@plunderbund.com
I got invited via Facebook to a candlelight vigil for healthcare this weekend in Columbus. ProgressOhio is spreading the message and it’s a good one:
This event will be an opportunity to reflect on the spiritual roots of our work to support health care reform – highlighting the moral aspects of the issue, and remembering the real-life consequences of our broken health care system. We will demonstrate the depth and breadth of public support for a health care future that includes everyone and works well for all of us.
I think as we’ve watched this healthcare debate go from heated to batshit crazy, it’s a good idea to stop and remember why we are doing it in the first place. It’s a moral imperative to ensure all of our citizens have good healthcare. We forget all too easily that we should be taking care of one another. This event will be a good way to help us remember the old adage “you are your brother’s keeper”.
Brian asks some really important questions (and gives some rhetorical answers):
1. Was it wrong to help Noe launder money? YES
2. Should the mess in Washington teach us the dangers of loosely regulated capital? YES
3. Is greed one of the seven deadly sins? YES
4. How should we vote on Issue 5? YES
5. Are the payday lenders paying Maggie to blog in their favor? Nothing would surprise me
Maybe Maggie can answer them on her blog…when she’s not busy shilling for her payday masters. Given what we know about Noe and Thurber, should we trust Maggie when it comes to matters of money and politics? I think I’ll take a pass.
My old boss and technophobe Brian Rothenberg is unbelievably doing high tech. things out in Denver. He’s using his cell phone to interview movers and shakers and get their thoughts and posting it on the Interwebs!
I just have to commend the job Dave Harding is doing in getting Brian up to speed with these things and also commend Brian for stepping out of his comfort zone to do it. Great work guys! The most recent is a candid interview with Brian’s former boss Chris Redfern. The Qik interface will let you watch all the other videos he’s shot as well. (ht Dave@PO)
Not that it’s the first time I’ve ever disagreed with Brian Rothenberg, but it’s time to do so again. Brian and I are famous for our squaring off over a dinner with Barack Obama. We even had a few roundabouts in the office when I worked at ProgressOhio.
So here we go again.
Brian’s latest Shadows on High column reads like a defense of Marc Dann. The argument? It’s just SEX (and the media are obsessing over it).
Well, it’s not just about sex. The lurid details about pajamas or no pajamas aside, this story is about inept leadership and replacing a Culture of Corruption with a Culture of Caligula. Marc Dann and his cronies seemed to have set up shop in such a way as to create a hostile work environment for women – something no progressive in their right mind would ignore or accept. That’s the real story. We were promised professionalism and ethical behavior. We got neither. The reason the media and the public has such a hair trigger is that we just suffered through 16 years of corruption and unethical behavior at the hands of the Republicans. Pardon us if we don’t immediately begin to hand out benefits of doubt to the very person who was to be cleaning up the place!
The individual sex acts are the icing on the media cake. The substance of the matter is that Dann was elected to rid us of poor statewide office cultures. He pounded on it time and time and time again. The media was there for just about every morsel Dann fed us. Brian now thinks it’s silly that they want to cover this story now that the white knight of culture cleanse has embroiled himself in scandal? You almost have to laugh knowing he thinks nothing of the sort. Which is why his post is so surprising.
Can you argue that all of this media claptrap is distracting us from the real issues Ohioans need to be facing? You sure can. Who should one blame for this distraction?
Marc Dann.
Can you argue that there are other “zipper scandals in a post-Eliot Spitzer world”? You sure can. But who is the Attorney General of the STATE OF OHIO?
Marc Dann.
Shining the light on the misdeeds of others is not an acceptable form of argument for those who have erred. Ask my daughters. They don’t get away with. Why should Marc Dann? I’m surprised this argument is even made. It’s laughable in it’s inability to explain away the problems in Marc Dann’s AG’s Office. It’s also laughable as a form of argument against too much media coverage. Is anyone REALLY shocked that the Ohio press corps is paying more attention to Marc Dann than Kwame Kilpatrick or Jim Gibbons? Come on!
Has Marc and his office done some good things for Ohio? Sure thing. I believe many bloggers have made this point over and over again. The problem is that there is a list of political blunders, bad decisions, mismanagement, and poor leadership to go along with all the good. It’s a real shame that those successes are overshadowed and future ones are at risk due to what has transpired. Who do we blame for all of that?
Marc Dann.
Are there things that we should be hearing more about over the noise of DannGate? Uh huh. It might be good for blog traffic, readership of newspapers, and ratings of TV shows, but ask any progressive minded person and they’ll tell you they’d rather be talking about something else. Most especially with a presidential election coming up in a state we know we’ll have to deliver. Nobody likes this.
So we can wax poetic about the media’s desire for salacious news coverage and the inability to break through to talk about things that really matter to the lives of Ohioans. You can argue that these distractions are what is damaging. What you can’t argue is whose fault it is. The answer to that question is quite simple:
