iTrump, scandal, Sachs and tax

Cyber-Trump. Faux ex-presidential candidate and NBC-TV comedy star Donald Trump has made his views known on Internet gambling … like anybody cares. Prepare for a shocker, folks. The Donald is — Gasp! — in favor of it. There was, of course, the usual bluster: “We think we have the hottest brand there is, the Trump brand.” Yeah, right. Tell that to Caesars Entertainment or Wynn Resorts and maybe even MGM Resorts International while you’re at it. What this actually means is that Trump Entertainment Resorts CEO Robert Griffin and, more importantly, majority owner Marc Lasry have filed a joint-venture agreement with the SEC. This includes amending the spokesmodel contracts of Donald and Ivanka Trump to cover Avenue Capital‘s new Internet partnership (with a yet-to-be-chosen ‘Net casino operator). Since TER would only own 10% of the Internet casino, The Donald will hold all of a princely 1% of BeTrump.com or whatever it’ll be called. But it garners more headlines if Trump runs his yap about it, which is why Lasry pays him him do the talking.

Disgusting. It’s difficult to think of another word for revelations in the never-ending Alabama bingo scandal. Two lawmakers who helped ‘sting’ confessed felon Ronnie Gilley and several others in a bribery caper portrayed themselves as anti-corruption crusaders. However, one of them stupidly tape-recorded a meeting in which they disclosed what federal Judge Myron Thompson has described as “their purposeful, racist intent”: Electronic bingo was popular in the African-American community. Keep its legalization off the ballot and you theoretically depress turnout by black voters — or the people that state Sen. Scott Beason refers to as “aborigines.”

The trial of VictoryLand casino owner Milton McGregor and eight other defendants ended inconclusively last August. The testimony of Beason and Benjamin Lewis retains probative value, ruled Thompson, because the Justice Department‘s case requires merely “a preponderance of evidence,” not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. As witnesses, Beason and Lewis may be damaged goods, but the charges against McGregor and most of his co-defendants still stand. In other words, two wrongs didn’t make a right.

To read intelligent coverage of the Occupy Las Vegas sub-movement, you’d best skip the local media (who seem frankly baffled by the whole thing) and go to Slate. Down on the Strip, reporter David Weigel finds that the foreclosure crisis has provided a rallying point for this hitherto inchoate form of civil disobedience and newest Vegas tourist attraction. Interestingly, one of the villains of choice, Goldman Sachs, has been both a creator and victim of the Las Vegas bubble, paying hand over fist to purchase American Casino & Entertainment Properties (including the iconic Stratosphere) from Carl Icahn, yet also hitching a ride aboard the Titanic when Colony Capital suckered it into purchasing 40% of the Las Vegas Hilton. Goldman may actually turn out to be the property’s savior, provided it can persuade the courts to kick Tom Barrack‘s (mis)management team off the premises. Colony’s objections to Goldman’s “conflict of interest” are — to put it politely — disingenuous, seeing as Colony had no compunction about bankrolling the disastrous Station Casinos LBO and didn’t utter a peep when Goldman bought ACEP. Hypocrisy much?

9/9/9 in the details. While the much-bandied about ‘9/9/9’ proposal may help us in “thwarting giant lizard attacks” (a real problem here in Vegas, lemme tell ya), casino workers won’t like some of what it proposes to dole out to management. Corporations would receive relief from their tax rate if they de-unionize their workplaces and if the minimum wage is abolished. (Let’s not even get into what a federal sales tax would do to the cost of a Strip vacation. Think of it as an all-encompassing, big-ass “resort fee.”) Not only is that a two-pronged prescription for depressed living conditions, whether here, Atlantic City or Detroit, it would deprive the casino industry of one of its most potent arguments in the public square: the ability to create more and better-paying jobs, or what used to be known as “the Las Vegas dream.” As that noted economist Chris Rock once put it, “‘Minimum wage’ is another way of saying, ‘I would pay you even less if I could get away with it.'”