Kenney, who says Marshall had an earlier incarnation as “a Cape Verdean activist,” wrote:
Bingham say she remembers Marshall when he was in school with her children, “He wasn’t an Indian then. He used to tease my kids and bully them because they were Wampanoags. He was a mean kid and he is a mean adult.”
Given that Marshall is no longer the issue, what’s next? In the Boston Herald, reporter Scott Van Voorhis gets at a key point that needs to be explored in the days ahead: Marshall’s role as a mere tool of the moneyed interests that are calling the shots. Van Voorhis only scratches a bit at the surface, but he’s picked the right place to scratch.
And here’s the best part: This is all tied up with Jack Abramoff, the superlobbyist now in prison, who dealt with Indian tribes on gaming matters across the country. Kenney wrote about it in January 2006, but was pretty much ignored at the time. It won’t be now. Even if the tie-in proves to be tenuous, it would behoove state officials to look very, very carefully at this.
A final observation. In reading the coverage since yesterday morning, I haven’t found one solitary reference in the mainstream media to Peter Kenney’s work. Is it really that difficult to credit a blogger? He had a good chunk of the story out there last Monday, and reporters are still working off his leads.
Yes, the media had to do their own reporting and verify everything. But it seems to me that Kenney is a crucial part of this story, and he should have gotten a mention.
I think the Abramoff link might be a little too tenuous to have traction, but it is something.
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By the way no one should claim to know anything about Washington without first reading David Margolick’s Vanity Fair piece on Abramoff: http://www.vanityfai…
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I know Vanity Fair can be pretty shallow at times, but that piece is a must-read. At one point he quotes another lobbyist complaining about rival tribes playing victim for John McCain at the Abramoff hearings. It’s a strange world.
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was in the Globe a couple years ago.
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The take I got from people in the region is this: The Wompanoag tribe died out in the 1800’s. A deed of a widow as last of the tribe is dated in 1850’s. Over years groups of people, many racially mixed, came to live and work in the area. Like other Americans, good, hardworking people. Some may have had native American heritage.
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Come the 1970’s, a time of racial turmoil, a local group claims to be the Wompanoag people and want the Mashpee town land based upon the Non-Intercourse act. They go to court and after a long time, a settlement is made.
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The “Tribe” languishes and decides to see if they can be “recognized” as a tribe. It takes about 30 years for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to determine that they are a tribe. Most of the delay is due to the “tribe’s” own tardiness. Bill Delahunt, thanks to Jack Abramoff puts pressure on BIA. BIA caves and the “tribe” is recognized. The tribe even has a “genealogist”. (I’d love to see Glenn Marshall’s family tree! Don’t do DNA testing, as that might be too accurate.)
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So the new “Indian Nation” now dances to the tune of the casino people. The whole paper trail in court documents, payments, congressional involvement is just as far away as you Google browser. I’m surprised the government hasn’t banned the Internet yet.
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Who would you get as the “leader”? Certainly not the rank and file of the people that are now a “tribe”, you’d get a convicted felon. The one got caught. Just means the next one will be more clever.
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The Rackets Rule!
But, he is only one cog in the wheel. The casino folks don’t take risks with their money. That’s for the suckers at the tables. They line up all the ducks in a row and then go for the gold.
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They got Congressman Bill to push the legislation, the administration to sign off, the Town of Middleboro leaders to prostitute themselves. Is anyone so naive to believe that the casino folks forgot the Legislature and even His Excellency?
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You can bet your bippy that the project management charts have all the necessary steps for success. This casino is a done deal.
Marshall’s misdeeds do matter because they reflect on the integrity of the whole casino enterprise. Any group who would select him as their spokesperson probably has a few other skeletons in its closets. The whole thing smells like a scam to me.
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Even if there had been no revelations about Marshall, I think allowing casino gambling into Massachusetts is a bad idea. It will attract more low lifes like Marshall. What more proof do people need? Please, Governor Patrick, do not allow it to happen.
built anywhere in the country that doesn’t stink? AC? vile. Vegas? A natural extension. Abramoff is only the recent stench of a long history of casino’s getting built with bribes, murder, organized crime, land grabs, and all sorts of other dirty tricks.
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so did this guy work for romney on the side?
JimC has a great point about the casino industry in general. But – we’ve become dependent on the morphine of the state lottery, and are itching to acquire the juice of casino heroin. The rightness or wrongness of the deal are already lost in the mists of greed. The individuals are irrelevant next to the Entities.
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The deal will go through, as it was a Municipality agreeing to contract with a Soverign Nation. And when the solons realize that if the tribe is successful in placing the land in a trust, the casino will be built without a cut for the Commonwealth, then they will accomodate the Mass. citizens who are tired of wasting gas driving down Rt. 395.
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In fact – I’ll bet you five bucks on it!
…”accommodate” has two “m’s.” The root word is “commode.” A commode was…well, we don’t need to go to go there, but it had something to do with before there was internal plumbing.
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On this casiono gambling escapade, I don’t particularly have a (ref: Vick) dog in that fight, I find gambling of any sort to be despicable, but there are a lot of other despicable things that are not only sanctioned by but also encouraged by government and religious institutions, and so forth.
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Whatcha gonna do?
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BTW, the Casino in Monte Carlo really is quite beautiful. The pawn shops in the immediate environment are, too.