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Wow. Just... wow.
The gambling addicts are out in full throat tonight, howling for the scalps (so to speak) of the Clark County Commissioners who have made the RIGHT decision to challenge this obvious violation of law known as the Cowlitz Casino Decison by Interior.
Earlier, I had asked Boldt, who I have serious differences with politically and personally, to buck up and ignore the addicts who've signed on to the unsupportable "done deal" platform the Cowlitz, Mohegans, Paskenta and Barnett want people to believe.
I had totally written Steve Stuart off. For years, his history of tribal support, direct and indirect, caused me to believe that he was totally in the bag for David Barnett, since Barnett spent $100,000 getting Stuart elected 5 years ago.
I was wrong. Steve Stuart voted with the rest of the commission board to oppose this cancer.
When it mattered on this issue, Steve Stuart stood with the people of this community to oppose the outside interests who would mangle us... our local economy, our transportation, social service and educational infrastructure; and he, along with Boldt, did so knowing they were walking into a wind-turbine-sized fan; from the ignorant, the bigoted who would sell out this community in a second for easier access to their addiction and the buffets which go along with it; and the unions who would sell out their own mothers if the price was right.
I have hammered Stuart like a nail on this issue. I have to be adult enough to admit I was wrong when his actions merit such an admission, and this is one of those times.
As I have said, this blight on our community is years away from construction... if it is ever to be constructed at all.
We are a nation of laws... not suggestions.
The Supreme Court clearly meant that the government cannot take land into trust for a tribe unless that tribe was federally recognized in 1934. Any other interpretation of their decision is, of course, delusional; the tribes badly wanted the "Carcieri Fix," which would have been completely irrelevant if the Carcieri Decision, in fact, made what amounts to exceptions for tribes like the Cowlitz.
Interior knows this. Anyone familiar with the legal precedent knows this is a re-election political gesture on the part of Obama... who is going to want tribal financial support for his abortive effort to grind his heel in our necks for another 4 years.
The commissioner's decision was the right one. The legality supports it. And those clowns whining about the costs simply don't care that compared to the costs of this economic black hole to our community if it's ever built, legal fees would be chump change.
If this crap pile, scheduled to be the 5th largest casino on earth, is ever built; the taxpayers of this county will be on the hook for massive amounts of money to improve off-reservation transportation, infrastructure, schooling and social services that the tribe and their out of area owners (California, Connecticut and Seattle) will not have to live with... since practically none of the tribe and none of the backers of this horrific project live in this area.
The addicts whining about the expenditure of county funds are disingenuously ignorant of the law... or anything else but their own enlightened self-interests.
They can get their fix... but they need to ride a bus for a while to be able to lose their money and eat at a trough. They could care less about the economic devastation this project will cause... as long as they can get to their fix in a shorter amount of time.
Well, I care. And I have cared for years that out of area interests were going to bring a vacuum cleaner in here and suck out hundreds of billions of dollars from an economy that doesn't have it to spare.
The commissioners are going to take huge amounts of heat over this decision from those who stood to get paid off (You listening, Ed Barnes?) like the unions and the vendors who would serve this palatial whorehouse, and those we're unfortunate enough to have living here who would put their own interests ahead of this community... many of whom are commenter's on the Columbian in this article.
On this issue, the commissioners have earned our respect and admiration. They are walking into a buzz saw from the ignorant, the uncaring and the selfish.
I've criticized them often enough. But on this issue, they've risen to the challenge in a way I simply believed they were incapable of achieving.
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