Newly elected National Congress of American Indians President Fawn Sharp wasted no time in opening a can of whup-ass on the U.S. Congress. Speaking to the House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States Oversight, Sharp poked them 
about a lack of action on the 2018 Broken Promises report. The latter chronicles failed financial commitments that stretch across the George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump administrations. In addition to heading the NCAI, Sharp is also president of the Quinault Indian Nation. Broken Promises is a 2018 follow-up to “A Quiet Crisis: Federal Funding and Unmet Needs in Indian Country,” a 2003 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. It determined that funding for Native American populations was “disproportionately lower than funding for services to other populations.”
Broken Promises reads, in part, “Federal programs designed to support the social and economic well being of Native Americans remain chronically underfunded and sometimes inefficiently structured, which leaves many basic needs in the Native American community unmet and contributes to the inequities observed in Native American communities.” Added Sharp, “Tribal nations seek only those things promised to them and their citizens 
by the solemn treaties and agreements reached between tribal nations and the United States. When tribal nations agreed to cede millions of acres of land, the federal government promised to safeguard their right to govern themselves, and to provide them adequate resources to deliver essential services effectively … Over the past several years, the United States has continued to fall short of meeting its treaty obligations as appropriations cuts, sequestration, government shut-downs, inflation and other factors impede the federal government’s ability to meet its trust responsibility.”
Sharp is motivated, to say the least. In a sit-down with Global Gaming Business News, she said, “I felt I was called at this time to advance tribal self-determination. I knew at the age of 12 what treaty abrogation was.” The Quinault have been besieged with struggles over fishing rights, among other issues. A former Washington State tax judge, Sharp 
reflects, “There are root causes for behaviors and injustices. Oftentimes attorneys don’t bring the full spectrum of the law into a courtroom, but a judge is free to look at all sources of law, to seek justice as sought by attorneys. My role as an arbitrator was to look at things that are below the surface, not only legality and principles but natural law.” She continued that “even with a report that was issued to Congress in 2003, nothing has been done. We not only have a quiet crises we have a raging crises raging across Indian Country.” Sharp, 49, won an overwhelming NCAI victory on a platform that includes climate-change issues. Could she be destined for the Oval Office? Stranger things have happened in D.C.
* Stick a fork in the development of an assemblage of mish-mashed properties north of Showcase Mall on the Las Vegas Strip. Would-be resort developer Robert F.X. Sillerman is dead at age 71. Sillerman’s brainchild for the area, a high-end, Elvis Presley-themed megaresort was a casualty of the Great Recession. Sillerman, despite his control of the Presley estate, was never able to parlay that intellectual property into a significant Las Vegas venture … or indeed any at all. Sillerman was the indirect father of Live Nation, bane of concertgoers everywhere. He was less successful in the electronic-dance-music market but backed the musical version of Mel Brooks‘ The Producers to considerably lucrative results. (A tab version played for a year at Paris-Las Vegas.) In recent years, buffeted by financial adversity, he had been living as a recluse and ends his Strip career more as a footnote than a headline.
* MGM Resorts International has been a popular stock among hedge funds, none more so than Steven Cohen‘s Point72 Asset Management, which snapped up a significant percentage of MGM shares just as the stock was enjoying a 16% runup. While Cohen likes consumer-discretionary stocks, his track record is one of only holding them for relatively brief periods of time, so expect him to have moved on to other pastures by this time next year. The Cohen portfolio is a veritable who’s-who of gaming stocks: Wynn Resorts, Las Vegas Sands, Penn National Gaming, Eldorado Resorts and Station Casinos. MGM is in good company, pardon the pun.
* Count Hokkaido out of the casino race in Japan, at least for now. Gov. Naomichi Suzuki held out the possibility that he would enter a second round of bidding, if such a thing should happen. Suzuki’s remarks may send Mohegan Sun and Hard Rock International back to the drawing board.
* Tourists who waited until Sunday afternoon to head back for California got a rude surprise: A 21-mile traffic jam heading as far back as Jean, if not farther. That gave drivers plenty of time to absorb the soon-to-be Las Vegas Raiders‘ 9-42 humiliation at the hands of the Kansas City Chiefs. Citizens of Raider Nation are seeing their playoff hopes fade even as celebrity coach Jon Gruden rakes in the big bucks.
* Do you fancy drinking your cocktail straight from the bottle? Then 
Blondies, dreamt up by Jenny McCarthy, is for you. It will be uncorked at the 35th annual Nightclub & Bar Show, lighting up the Las Vegas Convention Center next March 31. McCarthy will cut the ribbon. Diet-conscious clubbers can rest assured that Blondies is gluten-free. It’s also “made with award-winning vodka and real fruit juices and [contains] no artificial flavors, dyes or sweeteners.” Who said nightclubbing wasn’t nutritious?
Jottings: It’s that time of year: Ellis Island is busting out it its holiday eggnog at its casino, the Mount Charleston Lodge and any of its Village Pub locations. Drink deeply and enjoy … Caesars Entertainment‘s idea of holiday spirit is to ask staffers to fall on their swords, in best Roman tradition. It has initiated a “voluntary severance program,” sacking $40 million in payroll, on the way to an eventual $75 
million in cuts. Strangely, Eldorado Resorts is supposedly looking at shedding Caesars’ far-flung sports-betting operation … A series of shootings at three Billings, Montana, casinos has left one robber dead and one patron injured. Who’d have thought Billings would be vying for the crime capital of America? … VitalVegas reports that Station Casinos is shopping for a buyer. The likeliest scenario would see the real estate going to a REIT while the Fertitta Brothers continue to operate the casinos. This also might be one way to thwart Culinary Union organization, fobbing the problem off on a new owner … Derek Stevens is exploring adding a seven-story hotel tower to The D. It would go on mostly underused land but would also displace the valet-parking/registration area. Stevens is so aggressively upgrading his assets that his competitors will be hard-pressed to match him.
