Category Archives: elections

The Majority Rules, Chapter Two

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A rare race for Speaker of the Missouri House has shaped up after 51.6% of the voters of Missouri approved Amendment 3, the abortion amendment.

For several years, Missouri House Republicans have picked a Speaker-designate during the September veto session who would succeed the outgoing Speaker in January. They have a two-thirds majority, so the decision in September is tantamount to the actual election.

But the November election has injected some uncertainty into the proceedings.

Republicans chose Dr. Jon Patterson of Lee’s Summit as the presumptive successor to Dean Plocher, a St. Louis County Representative who is term limited.

But the election, particularly the approval of Amendment 3, has produced a challenger—Justin Sparks of Wildwood.

Patterson has said the legislature should “respect the law.”  But Sparks says that Patterson’s comment “is not what the leader of the Republican Caucus should be saying.”

Sparks is a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus.  His background is in law enforcement as a 15-year veteran of the St. Louis County Police Department and a Deputy U.S. Marshall. He has told St. Louis television station KMOV, “It is clear that many people that voted for Amendment 3 did so under information that was false.” And he asked, “Should three cities determine what everybody lives under for the entire state? I say no.”

Sparks also criticizes Patterson on other issues, especially as a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial put it, “Patterson’s vote against legislation to prohibit transgender treatments for minors. Patterson, a surgeon, has said he believes there should be exceptions to that prohibition based on case-by-case details — a medically reasonable standard that most in Patterson’s party today reject. As House majority leader, Patterson nonetheless allowed debate on the legislation, which passed.”

The November election tally from the Secretary of State’s office shows Amendment 3 passed 1,527,096-1,432,084., a 95,000 vote margin.  But it passed in only seven of Missouri’s 116 voting areas (114 counties plus the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City).  Voters in the two cities, Jackson and St. Louis Counties were joined by Boone, Clay, and Buchanan Counties with 72.6% of the votes in those areas.  In the rest of the state, Amendment 3 was outvoted 728,042-1,050,088. Boone County was the only county outside the metro areas to vote “yes.”

Patterson and Sparks, both Republicans, won in areas that went heavily in favor of Amendment 3. St. Louis County, where Sparks lives, went for it 335,082-162,311 with St. Louis City going 95,039-19,673. Jackson County was in favor 112,822-78,712 with Kansas City adding a tally of 99,120-23,985.

Two Republicans will face off for one of the most important jobs in state government in January, both from metro areas that provided the margin in the statewide victory for Amendment 3.  One says the will of the whole people of Missouri as well as the will of voters in his home area, should be honored. The other says both should be ignored because that’s not what Republicans are about, in effect saying that they should be a party that does not accept the will of all of the public.

One says all of the voters should make the decision. The other says only one party’s voters count.

Let’s see what kind of Republican Party we have in the Missouri House, come January.

The Majority Rules

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Whatever else we discard during our electoral processes, we maintain the concept of majority rule, whether through the electoral college or, in all other elections, the popular vote.

The system guarantees disappointment for some, gratification for others, and exultation for some, depending on the margin of victory or defeat.

Some have pronounced the Democratic Party dead after the election. That is a mistake. It has not been that long ago that the Republican party was considered to be on life support. We have seen through history many times when one party suffers a disastrous loss only to come back a few years later and regain its prominence. The winning party of 2024 will be the defensive party in 2026 and 2028. The fickleness of American politics gives voters a chance to correct the nation’s course every two and four years.

The majority thinks it has done that this year. But the first chance that those who cast minority votes to turn the tables comes in just two years.

There is no time for self-pity. Likewise, there is no time for superior attitudes.  Now, it is nothing more than a matter of doing. And measuring whether that doing is correct—

—-because voters always have the right to change their minds, to change their parties, and to change their leaders or representatives.

Historian Jon Meacham, one our favorite writers on contemporary events viewed against the background of the past, told Morning Joe the morning after election day, in part:

We’ve had 59 presidential elections in American history and only fifteen of them have unfolded in the electorate that voted yesterday.  So more than two-third of our elections unfolded at a time when women couldn’t vote or black folks couldn’t vote; immigration was even more restrictive.

…The question now is all our Republican friends who said, and I wish I had a quarter for every time someone said this over the last twelve months or so is, “Yeah, I don’t like the way Trump acts, but I liked his policies;” the second point, that I also want a quarter for, is “You guys exaggerate this whole ‘guard rails’ thing.” 

Well, now we’ll find out. And if they were right, and I pray they were—and I don’t say that lightly; I genuinely want to have been wrong, that the constitutional order, that his election result put it too much at risk, that now it’s on those whom the country has entrusted power to prove that we were wrong.

And, look, the success of an incumbent Congress, the incumbent White House, is also the country’s success.  And so I think we take a deep breath. I think citizenship itself is about the hard work, as St. Paul said and President Kennedy used in the coda to his inaugural address, is “being patient in tribulation.” And there are a lot of people this morning who are waking up and feel that the world is ending. There are a lot of people who are waking up who think, “Okay, we’re on the right track.”  The point of America is that we all should be able to have those different views but to move forward together.

I’m not trying to preach here, but that’s what democracy is. It’s disagreeing and dissenting within a common vernacular. And the country’s made a very clear decision and now we’ll find out if, in fact, the folks who have been entrusted with power are worthy of that power.

…The old phrase from Revolutionary times, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” and everybody who found this election to be existential, you don’t set those concerns aside. But what you DO do is, you have to watch carefully; you participate in the arena, and the people, the remarkable number of our neighbors and friends who made a different decision now face a test, themselves.

The New York Times ran a lengthy editorial the day after the election emphasizing the responsibilities that this election places on new Trump appointees who will be asked to place loyalty to him over loyalty to country and the responsibility the Senate will assume to act as an independent check and balance on his actions on appointments. But, it says, the ultimate responsibility rests with those who fought at the ballot box for the future course of our country:

…The final responsibility for ensuring the continuity of America’s enduring values lies with its voters. Those who supported Mr. Trump in this election should closely observe his conduct in office to see if it matches their hopes and expectations, and if it does not, they should make their disappointment known and cast votes in the 2026 midterms and in 2028 to put the country back on course. Those who opposed him should not hesitate to raise alarms when he abuses his power, and if he attempts to use government power to retaliate against critics, the world will be watching.

Benjamin Franklin famously admonished the American people that the nation was “a republic, if you can keep it.” Mr. Trump’s election poses a grave threat to that republic, but he will not determine the long-term fate of American democracy. That outcome remains in the hands of the American people. It is the work of the next four years.

We, you and I, have our marching orders regardless of which side we were on a few days ago.  Benjamin Franklin gave them to us a long time ago.

(If you want to read the entire editorial: Opinion | America Makes a Perilous Choice – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

The Choice

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We will decide the future of our state and nation tomorrow.

Some argue we will decide the FATE of our nation tomorrow.

We harken back to the story of an English stable owner in the 16th and 17th Centuries who had forty horses, leading customers to think they could choose one from among the forty.  But the stable owner allowed only the horse in the first stall to be rented, believing that he was keeping the best horses from always being chosen.

Customers believing they had many choices actually had only one. Take it or leave it, even if neither was desirable.

The stable owner was named Thomas Hobson, whose name is preserved in the phrase “Hobson’s Choice,” meaning only one thing is really offered while it appears there are other choices and it isn’t particularly desirable.

Many believe that is what we are facing tomorrow, a Hobson’s Choice.

We’ve all survived the weeks of rhetoric, weeks of misstatements and lies, or misinformation from insiders and outsiders on our social media, weeks of efforts to denigrate competing candidates and competing issues.

We have listened to the two sides paint the picture of the other side. And after listening to all of that noise we have concluded that we have these choices at the top of the ticket:

—A candidate who claims to be middle-class child of immigrants whose party has been branded as Marxist and Socialist and a threat to our democracy by the other party.

—A felon, a congenital liar and narcissist whose party is backing him despite complaints that he wants to emulate Hitler and other dictators and is a threat to our democracy.

Thomas Hobson would be greatly entertained.  Take it or leave it when neither choice seems to be desirable.

The political process seems to have given us horses in the first of two stalls in a stable full of better mounts that we can’t have.

This might not be any help to you at all, but let’s skim the surface of the two possibilities.

Both Karl Marx and Adolph Hitler wrote books: Marx’s Das Kapital, and Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Marx is described as “a German-born philosopher, political theorist, economist, historian, sociologist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.”  The description is from Wikipedia, which serious researchers caution should not be considered original research. It is an amalgam of the evaluations done by others presumably well-acquainted with a subject.  So, We are going to rely on one of Wikipedia’s sources, English historian Gareth Stedman Jones, whose work focuses on working class history and Marxist theory and who wrote in 2017 in the journal Nature:

“What is extraordinary about Das Kapital is that it offers a still-unrivalled picture of the dynamism of capitalism and its transformation of societies on a global scale. It firmly embedded concepts such as commodity and capital in the lexicon. And it highlights some of the vulnerabilities of capitalism, including its unsettling disruption of states and political systems… it [connects] critical analysis of the economy of his time with its historical roots. In doing so, he inaugurated a debate about how best to reform or transform politics and social relations, which has gone on ever since.”

The same resource describes Hitler as “an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator” of Germany under the Nazi Party that “controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship.”  He wrote his book in prison while serving four years for treason after a failed coup in 1923. The book outlined his plans for Germany’s future, the main thesis being that Germany was in danger from “the Jewish peril,” a conspiracy of Jews to gain world control. It is considered a book on political theory. “For example, Hitler announces his hatred of what he believed to be the world’s two evils: communism and Judaism…Hitler blamed Germany’s chief woes on the parliament…Jews, and Social Democrats, as well as Marxists, though he believed that Marxists, Social Democrats, and the parliament were all working for Jewish interests. He announced that he wanted to destroy the parliamentary system, believing it to be corrupt in principle…”

So there you have it. A choice between an economic theorist whose theories challenge our capitalistic society and a political theorist who used every means necessary to be an all-powerful manipulator of a political system, including mass incarceration and murder of undesirables.

You might have a different evaluation for these two whose partisans have stereotyped each other throughout this campaign.

We had a coworker who once observed, “Stereotypes are so useful because they save a lot of time.”

In American politics, stereotyping saves the voters a lot of thinking.

And that’s too bad.

From our lofty position, we offer this thought;

Economic theories are abstract offerings that do not imprison or murder those who differ from them.  Political theories can create tangible results that, taken to extremes, can produce (in order) division, disrespect, control through, if necessary, mass incarceration and—-at the very worst—murder.

We have two politicians to think about tomorrow.  It’s too bad none of the others in the stable are available.  It’s take it or leave it time.

Which Hobson’s Choice are you going to make?

-0-.

 

Then They Came For Me…..

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Our almost final pre-election meditation today focuses on a former president, a comedian/social commentator/political satirist, a German leader, a Christian movement that might sound familiar, and a Lutheran minister.

We are focusing on Donald Trump’s promotion of “the enemy within” and the failure of people today to recognize the dangers of that philosophy in the past as a warning for us now.

There are several versions of a famous quotation although scholars have found no indication that he was the one who distilled his words into the poetic version in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. The one we will use here comes from the British Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and is slightly longer.

The Lutheran minister is Martin Niemoëller, an anti-Communist supporter of Adolph Hitler during his rise to power. But he became a leader of German religious leaders opposing Hitler when Hitler announced he supported the German Christians movement that sought to remove the “Jewish element” from Christianity, including portraying Jesus as Aryan, rejecting the Old Testament and trying to rewrite the New Testament. Niemoëller was a leader in the opposition to Hitler and the German Christians.

He was arrested in 1937 and imprisoned at Dachau and Sachsenhausen until American troops liberated the camps in 1945.  The next year, he began a series of speeches apologizing for those who remained silent about Hitler’s crackdowns. Among his comments we find, “The people who were put in camps then were Communists. Who cared about them?…They got rid of the sick, the so-called incurables [who] just cost the state money; they are a burden to themselves and others….”

His apologies came to mind as I watched a recent edition of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show.  Stewart is a liberal comedian and social commentator who has a large following, especially among young people, and is an intellectual critic of American politics and the contradictions within the practice of them.  In this case, we refer to his comments after Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden event.

We have omitted the audience applause and Stewart’s pauses and facial expressions that are part of his schtick.  He inserted several video excerpts of events as part of his program:

Trump at his Madison Square Garden rally; On day one I will launch the largest deportation program in American history to get the criminals out.

Stewart: Day one? Have a snack. Meet the staff.  Day one is typically—we just read the syllabus. There’s no—there’s generally no homework. OK, day one, mass deportation.  How is that going to happen?

Trump: I will invoke the Alien enemies act of 1798.

Stewart: …From the man himself, that is his priority.  From day one, I’m going to round up all the so-called illegal immigrants. It’s a tough policy but I guess it’s gotta be done. And it’s not like anyone else, i.e. legal immigrants or who are American citizens going to be caught up in that dragnet. I’m sure that Trump has a very detailed and precise plan.  How many people are we talking about?

Niemoëller: First they came for the Communists but I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.  

Trump (montage of previous statements at rallies and in interviews); Millions of illegal immigrants.  They think it’s two million; it’s probably five times that amount. You hear 15, 16 million, sometimes you hear 17. We have 21 million, at least 21 million; I think it’s much more than 21.

Stewart: So we are going to be rounding up and deporting between two and 21, or more, million people. But listen, they’re all bad. And they’ve all committed terrible crimes. And we have cataloged—without due process—the terrible things they have done, yes?

Trump (from debate with Kamala Harris): In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.

Stewart: So, between 2 and 21 million people—and while they weren’t actually doing that, still, chase them with guns. Because at the very least they are here illegally. Yes, they are illegal.

John Berman, CNN, during broadcast: Donald Trump threatening to deport thousands of migrants in the country legally…

Stewart: So that one’s tricky. But I’m confident that on day one, Trump does his mass deportation of anywhere from two to 100 million people, it won’t be you. It’ll be them because of how precise Trump is, especially when it comes to people of color.

Niemoëller: They came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist.

Trump: I know Willie Brown very well. In fact I went down in a helicopter with him.

(Part of News Nation’s The Hill Sunday excerpt, with Chris Stirewalt): The African-American politician in question was not Willie Brown but rather this man, Nate Holden.

Reporter: Holden says, quote, “Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco. I’m a tall black guy living in Los Angeles. I guess we all look alike.”

Stewart: I guess there’s some confusion there. But he’s not deporting California politicians day one. And that story makes him racist. It’s not the point. He really can’t tell white people apart either.

Trump (video from grand jury deposition in the E. Jean Carroll case): Roberta Kaplan asks, “You say Marla’s in this photo?”  Trump: “That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife.”  Kaplan: “Which woman are you pointing to?” Trump: (points) “Here.” Kaplan: “That’s Tara. The person you just pointed to is E. Jean Carroll.”  Trump: “Oh, I see. Who is that? (points to another woman in the picture). Kaplan: “And the person, the woman on  your right is your then wife, Ivana?” Trump: “I don’t know.  This was the picture.”

Stewart: You know what I just realized? Donald Trump doesn’t have affairs—just thinks everyone is his wife. So clearly an attempt to deport between thirty and 500 million people is gonna be complicated. So it’s gonna be important to know how carefully the former president would execute this plan.

(Portion of interview on Full Measure, the weekly television news show hosted by Sharryl Attkisson):

Niemoëller: Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Attkisson: “A lot of the millions of people have had children here who are American citizens. So, yes to mass deportation of women and children—”  Trump: So we’re going to look at it very closely. They way that you phrase it is exactly right. You put one wrong person on a bus or on an airplane and your radical-left lunatics will try and make it sound like the worst thing that’s ever happened.”

Stewart;  Because it’s the worst thing that ever happened to THEM, the American citizens, the American citizens you mistakenly deport. Yet Trump is like (imitating Trump), “That makes me look like the bad guy.” And why is my wife interviewing me? (a takeoff on his inability to identify people in the photo, shown earlier and a reference to Attkisson) You are my wife, right? Marla? Ivana? Ivanka? I don’t know. This sounds awful. But as everyone knows, you can never listen to what Trump’s saying and hear it.

(Montage of Republicans responding: Unidentified member of Congress: “I think you’re taking everything a little bit too literally.”  New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sunnunu: “Look, Trump speaks in hyperbole. This is nothing new.” KellyeAnn Conway, at the time of the interview the incoming White House counselor: “He’s telling you what was in his heart. You always want to go with what comes out of his mouth rather than what’s in his heart.”

Stewart: You’re right Why hold former presidents to what they say they’re going to do from their mouth holes?… Look. You know what? Sure, maybe Trump’s just talk. But on day one when the deportation of between two and eleventy billion people begins, what will be the guiding principle? Perhaps we should ask the dead-eyed architect of these plans, Stephen Miller.

Miller (at Madison Square Garden rally): America is for Americans and Americans only.

Niemoëller: Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Stewart:  Oh, that makes sense. We’re only deporting people who’ve come here illegally, or people who have come here legally but sneaky legally. Or people who have children who actually are citizens, or some people who look like they may have come here illegally, or people who have protested the war in Gaza, or a special prosecutor that Trump doesn’t like, like Jack Smith, which, by the way, name a more American name than Jack (bleeped) Smith. Where are you going to report him to, Faneuil Hall in Boston? Or maybe we just going to be deporting the people that always bring wretchedness and want.

Oh, I’m sorry. That’s how we describe the Irish in 1832 (with image of portrait of New York Mayor Phillip Hone who said, “They will always bring wretchedness and want.”)

Or maybe we’re just going to deport people whose race inherently has a certain kind of criminality.  Oh, I’m sorry, That was the Italians in 1911.

The point is, every one of these groups was at a place and a time on the wrong side of not being American enough. And right now you think you’re safe. Because the group Trump’s people are talking about—It’s not you, as if…Donald Trump can tell the (bleep) difference or even cares that day one implementation of the 1798 law that was last used to intern Japanese and German citizens in World War II, will be a fine-toothed comb.

It just makes me very sad, it—the whole thing—it

(Interrupted by the show’s former senior correspondent, Jessica Williams) Jon, Jon, Jon…Don’t be sad.  Jon, everything’s going to be okay—for you, a white guy, a rich old white guy.

Stewart: You think my rich old white guy privilege will save me?

V: Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Williams; Maybe…It doesn’t matter. Because for non old white people, for people of color, and women, and queer people it’s gonna be a completely different story, all right?

Let me give you some advice.  I know you’re exhausted. Hell, I’m exhausted. Everybody’s exhausted. Anger and disappointment in our political discourse is exhausting. But it’s easy to throw up our hands and be like fine…I’m tired.  Go ahead and take people’s rights…

—–

In one of his 1946 speeches, Niemoëller  wondered what would have happened if thousands of clergy in Germany would have spoken out against Hitler and his German Christians and the disaster and the tragedy they brought to the world.

Niemoëller: … I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out.

We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt/fault, and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934—there must have been a possibility—14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, it is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 Communists in the concentration camps, in order to let them die. I can imagine that perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine that we would have rescued 30–40,000 million [sic] people, because that is what it is costing us now.

Williams: Focus, okay? I just want to be clear, all right? Do not let them exhaust you. Don’t let the constant draining bull— wear you out. Do not turn away. Look it right down that barrel and say, not today, apathy… And no matter what happens, we have to throw our arms around the people who need us the most, and hang…on. All right?

If you want to watch the entire routine, it’s at (15) Jon Stewart on Trump’s Xenophobic MSG Rally & Mass Deportation Plan | The Daily Show – YouTube.

(Photo Credits: Amazon, The Daily Show, Holocaust Museum)

Winning for Missouri: More Like the Mugging of Missouri 

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One last shot at Amendment 2 before next Tuesday’s vote on it. And a warning that this amendment might have far-reaching results that have gone unnoticed.

Unfortunately, these considerations are being offered to late to be circulated enough to make a difference. But let’s put the issues on the record. Or at least, this person’s perspective.  Disagreements are welcome in the box at the end of this entry. We’ll talk about the casino industry’s efforts and we’ll discuss some sports teams questionable claims late in this post.

A key part of the proposed amendment is the sports wagering tax rate—10% —a back door tax cut of about 25% for all forms of gambling.

And here we must note that later we will discuss a clause in the proposed amendment that can lead to later mischief that will further disadvantage the state and its people.

The industry-supported legislation has never defined sports wagering as a special category.is listed as just another kind of game of skill.  In the lengthy list of those allowable games, it has been inserted after “Double down stud” or “any video representation of such games.”

It is that last clause that nobody has talked about.  But it’s important for future developments in the casino industry.  Here’s why.

People are not going to casinos as they once did.  The generation that has spent hours at the slot machines and the tables is dying off. Admissions are almost half what they were a dozen years ago or so.  As this trend continues, the casino industry must find ways to get customers to play these games. If they won’t go to the casinos, the casinos must—in effect—take the games to the consumers. This amendment is a template for later proposals to expand remote wagering to other forms of gambling.

This amendment legalizes remote betting in our casinos for the first time. Some of our casinos already have tested a version of remote gaming within the casinos, calling it “hybrid gaming.” In those casinos, customers who can’t find room at their favorite gaming table have gone to a nearby computer terminal, have set up their account, and have placed bets at the table as if they were there.

The tests haven’t generated much revenue. But the system has been tested.  No matter what the industry calls it, whether it’s fifty feet from the table or fifty miles from the sportsbook, it’s remote wagering. Don’t be surprised if casinos become more involved with it.  And that phrase is going into the constitution if voters approve Amendment Two.

We are not sure if that phrase in the amendment will mean casinos can offer remote betting on table games and slot machines without more legislative action. But it would not be in the proposal if the industry did not have a reason for it being there.

The Casino industry cleverly set the parameters for the discussion of sports wagering early:

—We can’t do sports wagering at 21% (the rate the state established more than three decades ago for table games and slot machines (incidentally, about 85% of casino revenues come from the slots).

—Sports wagering is different from other forms of gambling and needs special treatment.

Neither statement is true.

The industry has consistently claimed sports wagering is unique and requires its own special betting area and its own special tax rate, the latter reason justified differently year-to-year in bills introduced in the legislature.  The first bills proposed a tax rate of 6.25% (the lowest in the nation), 6.75% (the present low), 8%, and 10%.  The industry has seemed to have trouble sticking to its story when advocating a tax rate of less than 21%.

A couple of years ago the Senate tried to make the rate 12% and there was talk that the casinos would compromise on 15% because it was the average of the states around us.  We’ll get to that in a little bit.

The truth is that sports wagering is just another item on the gambling menu and its presence on that list supports that point. But the casinos have tried to get the legislature to believe it is special. And they want voters in a few days to believe it, too, so they can get a cut in overall tax rates (by our calculation) of about 25%.

The industry has never produced any independent studies in any legislative hearing we have attended, to justify the claim that sports wagering is a fragile flower needing lots of TLC, including the low tax. None of the pro-amendment advertising has offered any justification for it either.  And the voters, who understandably don’t closely follow the policy-making, or lack of it, by the legislature are left to make decisions based on thirty-second television commercials of questionable verity.

One industry argument has been that casinos will spend a lot of money establishing a unique area where the sports wagering can take place, an argument that falls apart because all forms of gambling have THEIR unique betting areas.  It’s why you can’t roll dice at a blackjack table. You can’t play poker at the roulette wheel table. You can’t play craps at the poker table and you can’t bet on where the ball will land on the big wheel at the Texas Hold ‘Em table.

There is nothing inherently unique in sports betting, regardless of industry claims. It operates the same way as other forms of wagering.  The consumer has money; the casinos have a system that will take all of it through time. The player at the poker table places a bet. So does a bettor in the sports betting area. The casino processes the bets, paying the winners and keeping the losers’ money. At the end of the day, the casino proceeds go into the same bank account with the proceeds from table games and slot machines.

Every year, the industry seems to have changed its justification for a sweetheart tax rate, raising a simple question that should been asked but never was: “How can the industry’s claims be trusted if it cannot stick to its own story?

In 2019, the industry demanded a 6.75% rate because “that’s what they charge in Las Vegas.”  A quick review of the Nevada gaming laws showed something the industry avoided telling our lawmakers: that 6.75% ALL forms of gambling in Nevada.  The industry also neglected to tell the legislators that the Nevada gaming law allows no deductions and no carryovers of casino losses from one month to the next, as is proposed in Amendment 2.  It was pointed out that the Nevada template would mean that Missouri would have two choices: either lower its present tax rate to 6.75 so all forms of gambling would be treated uniformly or to charge sports wagering a 21% tax.

Here are other reasons offered for a low tax rate:

—The casinos need to keep the extra money to properly promote and advertise this unique form of gambling. A representative of Penn National Gaming told a House committee in 2022 that a higher tax would hinder Missouri’s ability to compete with illegal gaming sites. He said, “When you are able to spend more in marketing, you are able to drive more in volume and revenues.”

The position of the industry that money should be taken away from the education fund and from home dock cities to subsidize promotions and advertising was questionable when the industry was generating revenues of about $1.7 billion at the time. Wouldn’t you think the industry should pay for its own promotions and advertising?

A critic argued that there is no reason the state should subsidize advertising for an industry of that size by reducing funding for the school systems and home dock cities (ten percent of the gaming tax goes to the thirteen host cities of Missouri’s casinos).  Additionally, major betting companies already were advertising on professional sports broadcasts and have stepped up their advertising since.

The proposal for using money traditionally earmarked for the education fund to publicize and promote sports wagering included no accountability language that would have required casinos to show the money actually had been used as proposed instead of just pocketed.

They also claimed the money not given the state in taxes was needed to convince Missourians to quit using illegal betting sites.  We’ll touch on that a little bit later.

—The casinos originally claimed the house advantage in sports wagering is “only” four percent (in 2023 the industry testified it was five percent).  But a study done for the UNLV Center for Gaming Research indicates that four percent is higher than most popular table games, sometimes double or more, and the industry has never asked for a favorable tax rate for table games.

In truth, the house advantage for sports wagering is more than four or even five percent, as the casino industry has claimed in some later legislative committee hearings. The website legalsportsreport.com charts statistics month-by-month in every state from the first month sports wagers were made in that state. As of last Sunday night, the webpage calculated $408-Billion dollars had been wagered in states allowing casino gambling on sports. The casino advantage worked out to 8.6%, more than double what the industry told legislators, and adding up to $35.1 Billion dollars.

Delaware, which has the highest tax on casino revenues, had the highest house advantage—25.1 to 46.5.  Delaware taxes casinos at a 50% and we’ve not heard any organized opposition to it.

Another excuse has been that Missouri needs a low tax rate to compete with surrounding states. Kansas is at 10. Iowa’s rate on casino earnings is 6.75, and according to an industry spokesperson. Missouri needs to have a low tax to keep Missourians from going to another state to place their sports bets.

The industry has presented no independent studies indicating casino customers care about the amount of taxes the casinos pay. In reality, the so-called competition rests on a simple question: Does Missouri have legal sports wagering? If Missouri legalizes it, Missourians presumably will place bets here because they don’t have go to some other state.

The industry also claimed it needs to have a much lower tax so it can pay for building sportsbook facilities within the casinos. If ninety percent or more of sports wagering will be done remotely, there’s not much reason for an elaborate sportsbook.  And, besides, building a sports betting facility in a casino should be considered a normal business expense with its own tax implications at the end of the business year.

This amendment has been called a “compromise between the stakeholders”—the six professional sports teams, the casino industry, and the remote betting industry” by St. Louis Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III.

But there are far more stakeholders than that. None of their representatives were invited to work on this “compromise.” Where were representatives of public education, host cities, veterans, the Access Missouri Scholarship Program, the National Guard program that provides veterans’ funeral escorts, people who develop gambling problems (we have seen several studies indicating those problems will triple with sports wagering), or even the Missouri Gaming Commission?

Here’s an answer: They were not invited because they were not considered participants in drafting gambling policy. Instead, they are industry targets whose only usefulness is based on how much money the industry can take from them or keep from programs benefitting them.

There’s one more stakeholder. The legislature, hired by the citizens to protect their interests. But the legislature has been MIA in protecting its constituents. The “compromise” is not a compromise at all.  It was, instead, an agreement to have the legislature give each of the stakeholders what they want. When the legislature fumbled several chances to satisfy the teams and the casinos, Amendment 2 was created.

It’s important as we reach the conclusion of these discussions to ask, “How did we reach this point?”

One reason this issue is on the ballot is that the legislature refused to resolve a competing issue—the legality of the gambling machines in many of our convenience stores, Video Lottery Terminals.

Supporters of video lottery terminals, while professing that they are legal, want the legislature to make them legal. The casinos see them as competing for their slot machine revenues and have not allowed an up-or-down vote on the VLT bills.  Supporters of the VLTs have filibustered the sports wagering legislation, demanding VLT legalization legislation be part of any sports wagering measure. The stalemate, especially in the Senate, has been a key factor in the pretty disgraceful deadlocks there that have resulted in historically-low levels of bill passage during the last three sessions.

The legislature lacked the courage in the face of extensive and aggressive lobbying by the casino industry to establish policies protecting the state’s interests and year after year considered the industry proposals without question. Only once that I recall did I hear a legislative committee member seriously press the chief industry lobbyist on some of these issues—Senator Denny Hoskins who was the leader in the unsuccessful efforts to legalize VLTs—was told he was out of time before he had finished his questioning. The replies he had received were vague at best.

A couple of years ago, I talked to the sponsor of a bill raising the tax rate to ten percent. A year earlier he had sponsored the industry’s bill that set the rate at eight percent. “What’s magical about ten percent?” I asked. “Last year it was only eight.”

He responded, “I figured that if ten was good enough for Jesus it was good enough for me.”

I was stunned for a second or two, and when I recovered my composure, I asked, “Jesus had twelve disciples not ten.  Can I get you up to 12?”

All I got in response was a smirk.

I found his responses to my questions arrogant, disrespectful, and dismissive. While I would not use the same phrases to characterize those who have advocated for this legislation, I think it is accurate to say there has been a certain confidence on their part that no outside opinions would be tolerated in the annual legalization efforts.

The legislature’s refusal to challenge industry-backed bills year after year is an indication of who has been in charge of things in the Capitol on this issue. Its inability to deliver what the industry—and in the last few years, the pro sports teams—wanted means the issue is likely to be put into the Missouri Constitution next week and the legislature will not be able to change things to protect the interests of the people of Missouri very easily.

I expect the mugging of Missouri and its people to succeed next Tuesday.  And we can thank a few generations of the people we think represent us at the Capitol for aiding and abetting it through their inaction.

 

 

Beyond Hope

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He’s not deranged.

He’s not unhinged.

Both words have been used frequently to describe him.

He is just plain sick.

Try to imagine that you are one of the children of Arnold Palmer.  Try to imagine being a resident of Springfield, Ohio.

Would you tolerate unmitigated sewage of this kind about your family or your town at your dinner table?

He thinks he’s being funny when he talks about genitalia, whether it’s describing it in admiring (or is it envious?) terms or whether it’s in claiming he can have his way with some people if he grabs theirs.

He thinks it’s a good thing to libel an entire town and the people who live and work there, to make citizens whose culture is not native to the community afraid?

—to tell a lie because it gets you publicity and the bigger the lie the more you can overwhelm those who won’t wade through the treatment plant with you.

How furious would you be—perhaps after you’ve gotten over the embarrassment of hearing your father described as Trump described Arnold Palmer?

Pam Palmer Wears, a daughter of the great golfer, called Trump’s commentary about her father “inappropriate,” one of the biggest understatements of our recent political history. And she said it was a waste of voter’s time. Palmer described himself as a political conservative but Wears told ABC news that her father would “cringe” at the thought of Trump. In fact, she recalls, he did..

She called Trump’s commentary “a waste of the voters’ time.”

“”The people coming to these rallies deserve substance about plans Trump has as a candidate, if he could elucidate on some of the threats he’s made to people. I mean, these are important issues that should be discussed for people when they’re getting ready to vote, and using my dad to cover the important things just seems unacceptable to me.”

She said her father “was very modest,” continuing, “We’ve lost our sense of outrage in this country over just about everything, and I’m not sure that’s okay.  There are other things about my dad that would be better to focus on.”

And she recalled her father, talking shortly before his death, about his strong dislike of Trump:

“My dad didn’t like people who act like they’re better than other people. He didn’t like it when people were nasty and rude. He didn’t like it when someone was disrespectful to someone else. My dad had no patience for people who demean other people in public. He had no patience for people who are dishonest and cheat. My dad was disciplined. He wanted to be a good role model. He was appalled by Trump’s lack of civility and what he began to see as Trump’s lack of character.”

I’m not sure I would be that restrained if someone were to stand in front of a large audience and make that kind of personal comments, regardless of their truth, about someone in my family.

When I take my ballot for the November election in a few days, I’m likely to vote against this sick bully and I will be hard-pressed to vote for anyone who has become aligned with him.

John Dean, who became famous fifty years ago with his damaging testimony against President Nixon in a Watergate hearing, told Nixon one day in the oval office, “I think that there’s no doubt about the seriousness of the problem we’ve got. We have a cancer within—close to the presidency, that’s growing. It’s growing daily. It’s compounding. It grows geometrically now, “

We know who would fit that description today.

—a man with no morals. No regard for anyone else.

Donald Trump is the RINO he accuses others of being.  It would not be disloyal to the party—in fact, it might be a great sign of loyalty—to vote for every other Republican but not for hm.

The nation’s history is dotted with times that people have chosen the better of two evils.

It should not be that hard in 2024—unless you believe that the face of our country should be someone who think that a person’s genitalia is a proper topic of conversation.

It’s not.  It’s sick.

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“Winning for Education” Turns Casino Host Cities Into Bigger Losers

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So this is what they get for three decades of being the hosts of Missouri’s casinos—a financial knife in the ribs.

For three decades, ten percent of the casino gambling taxes have gone to the home dock cities and half of the admission fees, too, to pay for the police and fire protection, the infrastructure the cities provide so people can go to and from their casinos, use their bathrooms, and drink city water instead of some of the river water under the ‘excursion boat” where they gamble.

The cities have used some of that money for other improvements—parks, for example.

But not with Amendment 2, the sports wagering proposal on the November ballot.

They’re cut out of it. Completely.

None of the sports gambling taxes will go to the home dock cities.

There will still be an admission fee charged for those who go into the casinos to place their sports bets. But Winning for Missouri, the committee that is, shall we say, gloriously overstating the public benefits of sports wagering, has an economic study saying that, eventually, more than 98% of the bets will be placed online.  There will be no admission fee paid by the casinos for almost all of the sports bets.  And there is no fee in lieu of the admission fee.  They’re going to keep it all.

None of the sports gaming revenue will go to the cities, as it does for present casino table games and slot machines. Admission fees going to host cities will be minimal.

Once again, everybody loses except the casinos and the sports teams—including the host cities (the formal name is Home Dock Cities, harkening back to the days when the industry convinced voters there would be real boats traveling on our big rivers, before they became boats in moats—which is a good thing; we might tell that story in a later entry).

The host cities have been getting the short end of the stick for all of these three decades. For more than a decade, fewer and fewer people have been going to the casinos. At their peak, casinos counted about 54-million admissions.  In the last fiscal year, the admissions continued their decline toward 27 million.

Adding insult to injury is the industry’s refusal to let the legislature increase the admission fees so those home communities admission payments could keep up with inflation. The equivalent of two-dollar admission fee established in 1993 was $4.31 when we checked the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculator Saturday night.

Yes, we mean “let the legislature increase the admission fees.”  Your faithful correspondent has suggested increases to legislators for six years. One of the more frequent responses is, “The casino industry would never buy that.”

The suspicion in the hallways for some time that the industry is, in one way or another, buying something.  It has several political action committees with bottomless checking accounts.  And legislators have to run for re-election for an unfortunately limited number of times.

The influence of the casinos is so ingrained in the legislative process that their representatives don’t even try to justify their statutory or constitutional demands. They just make brief statements about how great sports wagering will be and then sit down.

Not making any accusations, mind you.  We’re just sayin,’ as the colloquial phrase goes.

Anyway—the $4.31 equivalency means the state is getting two 1993 dollars while the casinos keep $2.31 of 2024 money.

The casinos are making more off the admission fee than the state and the home dock cities are making. But the situation is even worse than what we’ve just shown.

Inflation has reduced the purchasing power of those two dollars to about 95 cents.  So, while the home dock cities and the gaming commission are starving for funding with two dollars that are worth 95 cents in contemporary money, the casinos are making $2.31, and the gap between what the casinos keep and what the state and the home dock cities receive widens each year.

Our extensive research and hours with the calculator indicate the home dock cities and the State of Missouri, since the first casinos opened in 1994, have lost almost $1.9 billion ($1,880,392,926) in outright cash payments and in purchasing power combined because the casinos have pressured the legislature into making no change.

Extensive research has calculated how much each of our thirteen cities has lost in the last eight years or so. The individual tables are available but we don’t want to spend the space here to print them. Perhaps that can be done at another time.

Has anyone told our thirteen cities they’re being taken for a ride by their “excursion gambling boats?” The cities are part of the Home Dock Cities Association that one might think would be working to keep the losses from continuing and increasing.  But we have seen representatives for the association spouting the casino line every time they’ve testified before legislative committees.  It’s okay with the association, apparently, that the people they represent keep losing funding and will see no improvement from sports wagering.

The association says it favors the casino position because casinos are economic drivers for the region.  Really?   Can they show any studies that prove it? They haven’t, and the industry’s own statistics reported to the Missouri Gaming Commission show a different story.

We started compiling comprehensive statistics three years ago with a five-year lookback and we have updated figures from the Gaming Commission’s annual and monthly reports. In the now-eight years of statistics, these are the combined losses in cash admissions payments and lost value of those payments for each of our casinos:

  1. Ameristar St. Charles  $46,399,739
  2. River City, Lemay $43,956,210
  3. Hollywood, Maryland Heights $42,069,051
  4. Horseshoe (form Lumiere Place), St. Louis $31,287,455
  5. Ameristar Kansas City $36,290,466
  6. Harrah’s NKC $29,250,328
  7. Argosy Riverside $27,274,214
  8. Bally’s KC $21,852,498
  9. IOC Boonville $13,568,851
  10. Century Cape Girardeau $12,712,770
  11. Century Caruthersville $7,200,880
  12. Jo Frontier $8,357,439
  13. Mark Twain, LaGrange $5,718,114

Amendment 2 will only increase those numbers.

Sports wagering backers say sports wagering will generate hundreds of millions of dollars that will make a big difference for the pay of our classroom teacher.

That isn’t true.  As mentioned earlier, if voters approved Amendment 2, only a few million will be added to the $10-Billion dollar annual budgets of the elementary and secondary schools and the additional multi-million dollar budgets of our colleges and universities.

The industry has testified that increasing the admission fee to benefit our veterans would be a hardship on the industry, especially the smaller casinos. Bunk. It wasn’t but a few years ago when they paid $100 million a year, or more, for a decade and were not whining about the payments being an economic threat.

The industry has offered no statistical evidence to support its contentions.  It has shown no independent studies proving any of the claims made in their advertising leading up to the vote in a few days on Amendment 2.

The industry can’t or won’t supply that information to support its promises and claims.  But everything written in his series of posts is backed up by lengthy research.

Not only have the casinos fought efforts to maintain the value of the admission fee for their host cities, they have laid off about 5,500 of their employees since the number peaked at 11,658 in 2008.  In the most recent fiscal year, the total was down to 6,079.

Will sports wagering bring back those jobs? Not with 98% of wagers made remotely.  We can see a few more people serving drinks in the modest, at best, sportsbooks that will be created in our casinos to handle the few walk-ins. There might be a few runners taking bets to the I-T people—who might represent the biggest employee boost. But the jobs needle won’t move very much.

Let’s look at how much of an economic driver the casinos have caused in our five non-metropolitan areas, where one might suspect significant economic impact would produce community growth. Here are the population numbers for those communities, the census of 1990 first and the 2020 census next:

LaGrange  1,990-825

Caruthersville  7,389-5,562

Cape Girardeau  34,435-39,540

Boonville  7,095-7,969

St. Joseph  71,852-72,473

Five thousand jobs are gone. Limited population growth in some places or losses in others do not indicate casinos are causing their host cities to flourish. Admission Fees are dropping by the thousands, cutting funding for their host cities in half.

We mentioned in an earlier the industry’s claim that casinos “give back generously. Here’s the truth:

Casino “donations” or “contributions” to local causes are pennies on the dollar. Charitable giving during the last six fiscal years has averaged 0.000391% of their adjusted gross revenues. Their adjusted gross receipts have totaled almost $10.5 Billion in those years and their total charitable giving has been just $4.1 million. That’s less than pocket change.  And most of those who read these entries give far more than four-ten thousandth of our personal revenues to charities each year.

Again, we have charted the “giving generously” figures for each casino for the last six fiscal years. But we don’t have room for the charts in this post.  They are available, though.

A few years ago, casinos started reporting how much their customers left behind for charitable donations.  We have spotted six times when the customers provided more than the casinos did.

And that’s just fine with the industry, which fights every effort to restore funding to the towns that welcomed the casinos as great economic boosts for the area. Maybe for a while they were— thirty years ago.  But now?

The casinos also do not mention fees in Amendment 2, and for millions of reasons. The host cities have been getting the short end of the stick every year and it’s been getting worse for a long time. It is going to get even worse for host cities if sports wagering is approved next month.

I often wonder if the thirteen host cities ever get reports from their association or consider Missouri Gaming Commission annual reports that track how their fee income has fallen off a cliff and sports wagering will not save it.

Do not look for sports wagering to lead to reopened closed restaurants in our casinos. Not if only two percent of the sports bettors walk through the turnstiles. At one time, local restaurants feared the casinos would take away their business.  Today there’s far less competition from the casinos for the restaurant business in many of our towns.

One final thing before we go today:

The sports wagering proposal the casinos want to adopt in this election could be the prototype for expanded remote wagering in all other forms of gambling.  As walk-in traffic continues to dwindle, the casinos will be looking for more remote attachments to existing games.  Some casinos already have stuck their toes in those waters in recent years with hybrid table games—blackjack and other games in which people who can’t find room at the gaming table go to a computer nearby to place their bets.  The tests have not generated many dollars, relatively, but tests have been run.  Don’t be surprised if the casinos come back to our lawmakers and ask for remote slot machines and table games—again paying much less tax than those games pay now. It’s a characteristic of business that stacks the cards only for itself.

(We stayed at a casino hotel a few weeks ago and went to the breakfast bar where we placed an order and were given a tag for our table.  A few minutes later, a robot playing a catchy tune, came around the corner, and came down the aisle to my table, my order on its tray.  I took off the plate and the robot went back to the kitchen, trailing its little melody behind it. One nice thing, I suppose, is that I wasn’t given a choice of 15, 18, or 25 percent for a tip. I found myself wondering how soon there would be robots, not people, dealing the cards or spinning the wheel.)

There go more jobs.

Add the casino host cities  to the list of those whose situations will get worse if Amendment 2 is approved with its sweetheart tax rate, its deductions and carryovers, and its reliance on customers who carry casinos in their pockets.

This kind of thing should be handled by our elected representatives and senators, not written by two industries who place profit over any services to the people of the state.  But we have this proposal because our elected senators and representatives didn’t do their job.  Voters are well-advised to give them another chance by defeating a proposal that enriches the casinos and the pro sports teams and impoverishes our educators, our veterans, and the casinos’ own host cities.

Vote for Amendment 2 if you want.  But don’t do it if you think it will benefit anybody but the casinos and the sports teams, no matter what they tell you on the television or with misinformation you will find in your mailbox.

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“Winning For Education Makes Veterans Bigger Losers

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It’s about the time of year for the casino industry to put out its annual news release that the industry will “honor” veterans on Veterans Day, November 11, in “special ways.”  Veterans can get free or discounted meals (some specify the meals are from a limited menu) that day. They also can get a card for some free play, or spin a wheel for a chance at a free play card, or get complimentary tickets to a casino entertainment venue—stuff like that.

Of course, the casinos hope the veterans will drop a few dollars at the tables or the slot machines while they are there.

The truth is the casinos care about our veterans only in terms of how much they can take from their pockets and with sports wagering, their regard for veterans sinks to a new low.

“We give back generously,” says the industry’s Missouri web page.  Rubbish.

If you are a veteran, know a veteran, and/or are part of a veterans group, you need to read what we are going to tell you today about the sports betting proposal on the November ballot, Amendment 2, and circulate it. It makes our veterans even bigger losers than they have been. The casino industry behind this proposition could have written it to solve a major financial problem affecting our veterans. It did not do it.

Should veterans vote for it?  It’s up to them. But they should understand that the proposal does more TO veterans than it will do for veterans.

Basic fact: Missouri has seven veterans nursing homes that provide 1238 long-term skilled nursing beds. They are in Cameron, Mexico, St. James, Warrensburg, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, and St. James.

Their major source of funding is from the casino $2 admission fee.  Funds raised from that fee go to the Missouri Gaming Commission, which uses some of that money to pay for regulation of the casino industry.  Nine million dollars a year are earmarked for the Access Missouri College Scholarship program and the National Guard Trust Fund that provides money for military rites at veterans’ funerals. A tiny amount goes to deal with problem gambling, if the Mental Health Department asks for it from the commissoion. After those deductions are taken, the remainder goes to the Veterans Commission Capital Improvements Trust Fund—which provides money for the seen nursing homes.

Admissions fees at our casinos that go to the veterans homes have been declining from $30.5 million in fiscal year 2012-2013 to just $11.2 million ten years later, a decline of 63%.

A report given to the Veterans Commission in July showed one-third of the nursing home beds were empty. It also showed the average daily cost of providing care had risen from $265 in 2018 to $469 in 2024, a 77% increase—and the purchasing power of each dollar was about 48 cents. .

Veterans Commission representative Aimee Packard told me last week, “Thankfully, the Governor and General Assembly have provided additional state funding to help ensure we are able to continue to care for Missouri’s Veteran heroes.”

Understand something else. These figures represent raw dollars.  Because the 1993 law that established the two-dollar admission fee had no escalator clause in it, the admission fee has never been increased to account for inflation.  The purchasing power of a 1993 dollar was only 47.5 cents in the most recent fiscal year, meaning the veterans homes are getting far less cash than they did a decade ago while the purchasing power of the buys a lot less at a time when the costs of care are substantially higher.

In other words, the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated, as of Monday, the contemporary equivalent of two 1993 dollars is $4.42.  The casinos are paying the state two 1993 dollars with purchasing power of only 92 cents while they keep $2.42 in contemporary money. They are making more money on the admission fees than the state is making.

How’s that for supporting our veterans—which the industry has many times patted itself on the back for doing?

What does this mean for sports wagering and veterans?

Simply this:  Amendment 2 does nothing to stop this admission fee shortfall. Why?

Industry forecasts dating to 2019 were that 90% of all sports wagers would be done remotely within ten  years after the wagering is legalized, meaning there will be no admissions for 90% of all sports wagers.

Will the 10% of bettors who walk through the turnstiles to bet on sports be enough to offset the ongoing 2-3% in overall annual admissions?  If it does, the amount of money generated for veterans will be minimal.

And the casinos will pocket all of the revenue from remote sports betting without “contributing” (as they like to phrase it) a dime to the veterans nursing home fund.

Here’s the truth.  The casinos like to brag that they have “contributed” or “donated” (by now) $400 million to veterans nursing homes.

You know what donations and contributions are, don’t you?  That’s the money  you voluntarily drop into the red kettle at Christmas, the pledge you make to Alzheimer’s Walks and Cancer runs, the envelope you drop in the tray at worship services, the check you write to the United Way.

In 2012, when Governor Nixon asked the legislature to increase the admission fees by one dollar, the casino industry sent letters to Missouri newspapers saying (in excerpts): “As good corporate citizens, casinos do more than their fair share for military veterans…. No single industry in Missouri provides that kind of financial support to veterans programs…. We honor and support our military veterans and will continue to do so, and we ask legislators to find an equitable source of funding for veterans homes.”

No single industry provides that kind of support to veterans?  If the veterans homes had to rely on “that kind of support,” there would be a lot of boarded-up windows and “no trespassing” signs in a neglected yard.

“As good corporate citizens, casinos do more than their fair share for military veterans?”  Doing their “fair share” for veterans. Their fair share has withered in the last decade. The casinos have an interesting definition of “fair share,” don’t they.

With friends such as this, who needs enemies?

Let us be abundantly clear: The casino industry has provided money to the gaming commission and its worthy causes that include veterans only because state law FORCES the industry to make those payments. If this industry was such a great supporter of veterans and their nursing homes, wouldn’t you think it would have voluntarily maintained funding for those it might give a free or reduced-cost meal to on Veterans Day?

The casinos and their sports teams enablers could have written their proposed amendment to establish some kind of remote wagering fee that would stop the financial bleeding for the gaming commission and the veterans nursing homes.

But, no. They didn’t. The casino industry wants to pocket every dime it can, veterans be damned.

So much for giving back generously.

The Veterans Commission Nursing Home program is able to operate only because the legislature for several years has taken money away from other programs to keep the nursing homes open, even at a reduced level.

Before you vote to legalize sports wagering in Missouri, think what you are doing TO  our veterans, not for them.

Ask yourself: to whom do we owe a greater allegiance: casinos and millionaires playing sports—or our veterans.  And our schools.

If a ten percent tax on sports wagering proposed in the sweetheart deal that is called Amendment 2 will generate $100 million dollars for schools in the next five years, that means the casinos are going to have revenues of more than One BILLION dollars.

A few table scraps will fall to the floor for veterans.

Who needs money more—casinos or veterans and schools? Amendment 2 might produce a drop in education’s bucket.  But the veterans bucket will be increasingly dry.

Maybe it would be better for the people you elect to have the courage to represent their constituents on gambling issues.  But it’s going to take more political courage than I have seen for several years to do it.

Think about it. Feel free to circulate these postings to your teachers, teacher groups, and veterans and their groups.

Vote how you want. But understand who will be paying for you to have a chance to lose money betting on a sporting event. Our schools and our veterans, that’s who.

There’s a third group that will get the shaft if Amendment 2 passes: the casinos’ own host cities.  The casinos don’t give a damn about them, either.   That’s next.

One last thing today: We have a comment box at the bottom of each of these entries.  Several months ago, a person with the industry was heard in a crowded restaurant where were having dinner with friends say to them—in a voice loud enough to be heard by many of the other diners, “Don’t listen to him; he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

We invite the casino industry to use that box below to prove it.

“Winning for Education” Makes Losers of Teachers, Veterans

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If you are a teacher, know a teacher, and/or are part of a teacher’s organization, you need to read what we are going to tell you about the sports betting proposal on the November ballot, Amendment 2, which is deceptive and hardly moves the financial needle for teacher’s salaries.

If you are a veteran, know a veteran, and/or are part of a veterans group, you need to read what we are going to tell you on Wednesday about the sports betting proposal on the November ballot, Amendment 2. It makes veterans even bigger losers than they have been.

Today we’re going to talk about the casino industry’s manipulation of voters with its campaign that will not deliver, by far, the great benefits to public education system the casino industry wants voters to think it will.

We are going to throw a lot of numbers your way today. The numbers are based on the casino industry’s own statistics as reported annually to the Missouri Gaming Commission and a couple of other sources.

They again suggest the casino industry is not shooting straight with us. But that’s not unusual.

We do not mind if you favor sports wagering.  But if you vote for it on the basis of the advertising by “Winning for Education,” the front organization for the casinos and their sports team bedmates, you need to know what you are doing TO our teachers, not for our teachers.

First: some basic information.  Missouri’s thirteen casinos generate revenue for state programs and services from two sources: a 21% tax on casino adjusted gross revenues (what’s left after all successful bettors are paid off) and admission fees ($2 per admission; we won’t distract you with the process of determining admissions; that’s for our next post about making veterans bigger losers than they have been for more than a decade).

Missouri had 521 school districts in fiscal year 2023. We will use that number in our calculations. It had 88,669 classroom teachers and 18,097 administrators and supervisors (including people such as guidance counselors, school nurses, and librarians), in 2,355 buildings.  The enrollment for the 2022-23 school year was 861,494.

The legislature approved a budget for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education of $10,394,092,704 for the 2022-23 fiscal year.

Gaming consultant Chris Krafcik estimates total state revenue from the 10% tax on sports wagering will produce $4.7 million in the first year and $38.7 million in the fifth year of sports betting.

If we divide those figures by 521, the number of school districts, we find that sports wagering will produce an average of only $9,021 per district in the first year.  In year five, the number rises to $74,280 per district.

If we divide those numbers by 88,669 (the number of classroom teachers listed above) we find the average teacher could get a raise of $53.00 in the first year and a raise of $436 in the fifth year. Not even close to keep up with the cost of living.

If we spread those amounts among teachers AND administrators, all 106,756 of them, the average wage increase in the first year is $44 and in year five, it is $369.

That’s less than a tank of gas in the first year and not many groceries in the fifth one.

If, after looking at these numbers, that you still believe the industry commercials saying sports wagering will make any significant difference in the Missouri teacher salaries, I will sell you the Gateway Arch. The attractive teachers in the commercials who talk of sports wagering generating more than $100 million dollars in five years are blowing smoke.  While the statement might be true in terms of raising that amount of money, the suggestion that it will produce anything meaningful for teachers is cattle byproduct.

Let’s assume the elementary and secondary education budget does not increase in the next five years.  Simple division indicates $38.7 million for education in the fifth year of sports wagering would add .00037% to that budget.  Four ten-thousandths of one percent, to round things up.

It’s even worse. These numbers only involve elementary and secondary education.  The proposed amendment says funds will go to higher education, too.

Missouri has SIXTY-SEVEN institutions that are accredited as degree-granting post-secondary education institutions. There are thirteen public universities.  There are 39 private universities (which are not excluded. The language of the amendment says only “higher education.”), and thirteen community colleges.  There also are some schools from other states that offer programs or degrees in Missouri.  The amendment contains no language limiting the funding to public post-secondary schools, not does it address in any way those out-of=state institutions with degree programs here.

We haven’t come up with how many faculty, staff, and administrative employees those higher education institutions would add to the pie.

But the school won’t get all of that money to begin with, assuming there is money from casino taxes.

Money for education will not be used for education until amounts are taken out for:

—Regulation.   The Missouri Gaming Commission can have some of that money if the various licensing fees casinos will pay do not fully pay the costs of regulation, and

—“the greater of 10% of such annual tax revenues or $5,000,000 to the Compulsive Gamblers Fund.”

Those paltry raises we’ve calculated for our elementary and secondary school folks might wind up being measured in pennies, or pocket change.

If, after looking at these numbers, that you still believe the industry commercials saying sports wagering will make any significant difference in the Missouri teacher salaries, I will sell you the Gateway Arch. The attractive teachers in the commercials who talk of sports wagering generating more than $100 million dollars in five years are blowing smoke.  While the statement might be true in terms of raising that amount of money, the suggestion that it will produce anything meaningful for teachers is cattle byproduct.

Let’s assume the elementary and secondary education budget does not increase in the next five years.  Simple division indicates $38.7 million for education in the fifth year of sports wagering would add .00037% to that budget.  Four ten-thousandths of one percent, to round things up.

And that doesn’t even calculate how much MORE education would get if sports wagering would be taxed at the same rate as other forms of Missouri gambling, 21%.  But Amendment 2 sets a rate at less than half of that and then has provisions that can significantly lower taxable revenue or even make it a deficit, meaning there will be some months when the casinos put NO money into the education fund.

The amendment also allows casinos to carry over the loss to the next month’s calculations, lowering tax revenue for that month too—or increasing the possibility that a casino can calculate another zero-revenue/zero tax month.

In the 2023 legislative session, a Senate bill proposed boosting the minimum teacher’s salary from $25,000 to $38,000 and increasing the salary for a teacher with a master’s degree and at least ten years of experience from $33,000 to $46,000.  The bill never came to a vote because of internal dissension within the Senate, thanks to the Freedom Caucus.

The National Education Association  April 24, 2023 released a report showing Missouri ranks 50th in starting teacher pay with an average of $34,502 with only 43 districts paying started new teachers $40,000 or more. The report calculated a minimum living wage was $46,944.

A World Population Review study of 2024 salaries lists Missouri as one of seven states starting teachers at less than  $50,000 with only Montana paying less.  The overall Missouri average teacher salary in this study is $53,999, ranking Missouri 46th ahead of Mississippi, South Dakota, Florida, and West Virginia.

Yeah, sports wagering will solve a lot of problems with our teacher salaries and other education system problems.. Suuuure it will.

Don’t bet on sports wagering because it will do wonderful things for our schools. It won’t.  Amendment 2 just makes the drop in the bucket even smaller, thanks to the sweetheart tax rate and the deductions that now will allow a reduction of taxable revenue.

We aren’t sure why any dubious proposition that appears on our ballots thinks it can succeed by telling you it will do great things for education. They don’t. And this one surely won’t.

Governor Joe Teasdale once told me, “I’ll never lie to you but there will be times when I won’t tell you the truth.”   I interpreted the second half of that sentence to contradict the first.  But that’s the kind of disinformation campaign being waged by the casino industry and its bedmates, our major league sports teams.

But what do you expect from an industry that is built on the concept that you will be a loser more often than you will be a winner?

Give your local education leaders these numbers and see how many of your teachers would make commercials endorsing this proposal.

Amendment 2 will be a loser for our schools.  You can bet on it.

Fact-Checking the VP Debate

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We turn again to Daniel Dale and his staff of fact-checkers at CNN to straighten out the information that gushed at us during Tuesday’s debate among the candidates for Vice-President.  We use the CNN analysis because it does not just offer true-false responses but because it places remarks in contest.

As has been the case with previous presidential debates (Trump vs. Biden and Trump Vs. Harris), the predominant questions about truth and shades of truth are from the Republican side. While President Trump, after the debate with VP Harris complained he had been fact-checked far more frequently than Harris had been, the observation is merited that his arguments merited checking more than hers.

In political debates, candidates limited by time sometimes speak in headlines that do not allow more complete explanations.  That is when the checkers step in with context that helps consumers make their own evaluations of the accuracy or the (sometimes intentional) inaccuracy of remarks.

As we have reviewed these findings, we find Dale and his staff found fifteen statements from Vance that were questionable but only two from Walz.

One Walz statement was branded as “false;” the other statement “needs context.”

In Vance’s case, five needed context, four were misleading, five were false and one overstated a statistic.

Here’s how the CNN staff appraised the debate points:

Vance mischaracterizes Harris’ role on border policy

Sen. JD Vance claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris was appointed the “border czar” during the Biden administration. “The only thing that she did when she became the vice president, when she became the appointed border czar, was to undo 94 Donald Trump executive actions that opened the border,” Vance said.

Facts First: Vance’s claim about Harris’ border role is false. Harris was never made Biden’s “border czar,” a label the White House has always emphasized is inaccurate. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is the official in charge of border security. In reality, Biden gave Harris a more limited immigration-related assignment in 2021, asking her to lead diplomacy with El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in an attempt to address the conditions that prompted their citizens to try to migrate to the United States.

Some Republicans have scoffed at assertions that Harris was never the “border czar,” noting on social media that news articles sometimes described Harris as such. But those articles were wrong. Various news outlets, including CNN, reported as early as the first half of 2021 that the White House emphasized that Harris had not been put in charge of border security as a whole, as “border czar” strongly suggests, and had instead been handed a diplomatic task related to Central American countries.

A White House “fact sheet” in July 2021 said: “On February 2, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order that called for the development of a Root Causes Strategy. Since March, Vice President Kamala Harris has been leading the Administration’s diplomatic efforts to address the root causes of migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.”

Biden’s own comments at a March 2021 event announcing the assignment were slightly more muddled, but he said he had asked Harris to lead “our diplomatic effort” to address factors causing migration in the three “Northern Triangle” countries. (Biden also mentioned Mexico that day.) Biden listed factors in these countries he thought had led to migration and said that “if you deal with the problems in-country, it benefits everyone.” And Harris’ comments that day were focused squarely on “root causes.”

Republicans can fairly say that even “root causes” work is a border-related task. But calling her “border czar” goes too far.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale

Walz on jobs from Biden’s climate law

Touting the Biden-Harris administration’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a major climate law for which Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, her running mate, Tim Walz, spoke of how the law created “200,000 jobs in the country,” including building electric vehicles and solar panels.

Facts First: This claim needs context. While it’s clear that a significant number of new clean energy jobs were created as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, the “200,000” figure includes jobs that companies have promised to create but aren’t finalized. And other counts of new clean energy jobs have come up with smaller figures. 

There are several data sets that track climate law investments, all of which differ slightly. Walz’s number of jobs created by President Joe Biden’s climate law is slightly smaller than a June tally by communications group Climate Power that found a total of 312,900 jobs publicly announced by companies following the IRA passage through May 2024.

E2, another clean energy group that tracks Inflation Reduction Act-related investments and jobs, has counted over 109,000 new clean energy jobs created or announced from August 2022 to May 2024 – significantly lower than the Climate Power number. A recent report from the US Department of Energy found 142,000 new clean energy jobs were created in 2023.

Not all of these jobs have already been created. Climate Power’s topline number also didn’t distinguish between construction jobs building new factories and the long-term jobs at those factories – jobs building batteries, solar panels and electric vehicles, among other things. Enter your email to sign up for CNN’s “What Matters” Newsletter.

 

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Different entities use different methodologies when analyzing data, so it is difficult to determine an exact figure. Regardless, there’s no question there’s a huge amount of clean energy investment, and a significant number of new jobs building EVs and renewables like wind and solar are being created by the Inflation Reduction Act tax credits. The 2024 Energy Department report showed clean energy jobs made up more than half of the total for new energy sector jobs and grew at a rate twice as large as the overall US economy.

The report also acknowledged how the sudden growth in the clean energy sector from the Inflation Reduction Act has made it difficult to track all the jobs that are being created.

From CNN’s Ella Nilsen 

Vance on migrants in Springfield, Ohio

Sen. JD Vance said that schools and hospitals in Springfield, Ohio, are “overwhelmed” because of “illegal immigrants.”

“Look, in Springfield, Ohio, and in communities all across this country, you’ve got schools that are overwhelmed, you’ve got hospitals that are overwhelmed … because we brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes,” Vance said.

Facts First: Vance’s statement, referencing the Ohio town subject to a firestorm of misinformation about Haitian migrants this summer, is misleading.

We don’t know the immigration status of each and every immigrant in Springfield, but hundreds of thousands of Haitians have official permission to live and work legally in the US. The Springfield city website says, “YES, Haitian immigrants are here legally, under the Immigration Parole Program. Once here, immigrants are then eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).” Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine wrote in a New York Times op-ed about Springfield in September that the Haitian immigrants “are there legally” and that, as a Trump-Vance supporter, he is “saddened” by the candidates’ disparagement of “the legal migrants living in Springfield.”

Many Haitians came into the country under a Biden-Harris administration parole program that gives permission to enter the US to vetted participants with US sponsors. And many have “temporary protected status,” which shields Haitians in the US from deportation and allows them to live and work here for a limited period of time. Some received that protection after the Biden-Harris administration expanded the number of Haitians eligible in June. Others have been living in the US with temporary protected status since before the Biden-Harris administration.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Danya Gainor

Vance’s claims about Biden-Harris immigration executive orders

Sen. JD Vance said that the United States has a “historic immigration crisis” because Vice President Kamala Harris “wanted to undo all of Donald Trump’s border policies” with “94 executive orders” that did things like “suspending deportations” and “decriminalizing illegal aliens.”

Facts First: While the Biden-Harris administration has signed dozens of executive orders about immigration, Vance’s comments about the administration decriminalizing illegal immigration through executive order aren’t true. Harris did, however, say she supported decriminalizing illegal immigration – a position she’s since reversed.

When she was a candidate for president and a sitting US senator, Harris filled out an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire in which she expressed support for sweeping reductions to Immigration and Custom Enforcement operations, including drastic cuts in ICE funding and an open-ended pledge to “end” immigration detention.

Harris has since acknowledged that some of her stances have evolved over time but that she holds core beliefs that remain unshakable: “My values have not changed,” she said in an August interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.

From CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz

Walz falsely claims Project 2025 calls for a pregnancy registry

Gov. Tim Walz claimed that Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation think tank’s detailed right-wing blueprint for the next Republican administration, says people will have to register their pregnancies.

“Their Project 2025 is going to have a registry of pregnancies,” Walz said.

Facts First: Walz’s claim is false. Project 2025 does not propose to make people register with any federal agency when they get pregnant. And there is no indication that a Trump-Vance administration is trying to create a new government entity to monitor pregnancies.

Project 2025 is firmly anti-abortion; it proposes, among other things, to criminalize the mailing of abortion medication and devices. But it does not propose to require people to register their pregnancies.

The Project 2025 policy document, released in 2023, proposes that the federal government take steps to make sure it is receiving detailed after-the-fact, anonymous data from every state on abortions and miscarriages. The vast majority of states already submit anonymous abortion data to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on a voluntary basis – the CDC has collected “abortion surveillance” data for decades – and all states already submit some anonymous miscarriage data under federal law.

Minnesota, the state run by Walz, is one of the states that voluntarily submits abortion data to the CDC. And Minnesota posts anonymous abortion and miscarriage data on the state health department’s website every year.

The Project 2025 policy document says the existing federal Department of Health and Human Services should “use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”

The document also says the department “should also ensure that statistics are separated by category: spontaneous miscarriage; treatments that incidentally result in the death of a child (such as chemotherapy); stillbirths; and induced abortion.” And it says, “In addition, CDC should require monitoring and reporting for complications due to abortion and every instance of children being born alive after an abortion.”

In the context of the CDC, the word “monitoring” is used to mean statistical tracking. For example, the existing CDC webpage that displays anonymous state-by-state abortion data says, “Since 1987, CDC has monitored abortion-related deaths” through its Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System. Neither “monitored” nor “surveillance” means the CDC is spying on individuals during their pregnancies.

Trump dodged the question when asked in a Time magazine interview earlier this year whether states should monitor women’s pregnancies to ensure compliance with an abortion ban, saying, “I think they might do that” but that “you’ll have to speak to the individual states.” Walz is free to criticize Trump for this answer, but nowhere in the interview did Trump make an actual proposal to create a new pregnancy-monitoring government body.

Heritage Foundation Vice President Roger Severino wrote on social media last month that Project 2025 “merely recommends CDC restore the decades-long practice of compiling *anonymous* abortion statistics for all states” – and noted that Minnesota already compiles such data.

Vance denied that a Trump-Vance administration would create a federal pregnancy monitoring agency when asked by CBS moderator Norah O’Donnell.

“Certainly, we won’t,” Vance said.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Katie Lobosco

Vance falsely says he never supported a national abortion ban

Sen. JD Vance said at Tuesday’s debate that he never supported a national abortion ban. “I never supported a national ban. I did, during when I was running for Senate in 2022, talk about setting some minimum national standard. For example, we have a partial-birth abortion ban … in place in this country at the federal level. I don’t think anybody is trying to get rid of that, or at least, I hope not, though I know the Democrats have taken a very radical pro-abortion stance,” Vance said.

Facts First: This is false. Vance previously said he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally” in 2022 while running for his Senate seat in Ohio. He did say that he supported a “minimum national standard” to ban abortion in 2023. During the current campaign, however, Vance has deferred to former President Donald Trump’s stated view that each state should set its own abortion policy.

In 2022, while running for his Senate seat in Ohio, Vance said, “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally” and that he was “sympathetic” to the view that a national ban was necessary to stop women from traveling across states to obtain an abortion. He also said on his website during that Senate campaign that he was “100 percent pro-life” and that he favored “eliminating abortion”; these words remained on his website until Trump selected him as his running mate in July. And Vance said in an interview during the 2022 campaign that he wanted abortion to be “primarily a state issue,” but also said, “I think it’s fine to sort of set some minimum national standard.”

In November 2023, Vance told CNN’s Manu Raju and Ted Barrett in the Capitol: “It seems to suggest there needs to be some more interest in this building among Republicans in setting some sort of minimum national standard, whether that it’s 15 weeks or 20 weeks or the different ranges that are thrown out there.” He said, “We keep giving in to the idea that the federal Congress has no role in this matter. Because if it doesn’t … then the pro-life movement is basically not gonna exist, I think, for the next couple of years.”

Vance, emphasizing his support for certain exceptions to abortion bans, said on CNN in December 2023, “We have to accept that people do not want blanket abortion bans. They just don’t. And I say that as a person who wants to protect as many unborn babies as possible. We have to provide exceptions for life of the mother, for rape, and so forth.”

During his vice presidential campaign this year, Vance has aligned himself with Trump’s professed desire for a state-by-state approach to abortion policy rather than federal legislation. Vance said on Fox News in July, “Alabama’s going to make a different decision from California. That is a reasonable thing. And that’s how I think we build some bridges and have some respect for one another.”

From CNN’s Daniel Dale, Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck

Vance falsely claims Biden administration unfroze $100 billion in Iranian assets

Sen. JD Vance claimed the Biden-Harris administration had unfrozen more than $100 billion in Iranian assets, which he said were then used to buy weapons.

“Iran, which launched this attack, has received over $100 billion in unfrozen assets thanks to the Kamala Harris administration. What do they use that money for? They use it to buy weapons that they’re now launching against our allies and, God forbid, potentially, launching against the United States as well,” Vance said, referring to Iran’s Tuesday attack on Israel.

Facts first: Vance’s statement is false. There is no evidence that the Biden-Harris administration unfroze more than $100 billion in Iranian assets. As part of a prisoner exchange last year, $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets were moved from restricted accounts in South Korea to restricted accounts in Qatar to be used for humanitarian purchases. The process for Iran to be able to spend those funds was expected to take months, if not years.

In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told House lawmakers that the US and Qatar had reached a “quiet understanding” not to allow Iran to access any of the $6 billion in Iranian funds for the time being, according to a source familiar.

Under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, sanctions waivers would allow Iran to access frozen assets abroad. Estimates varied, but some said those assets could be worth more than $100 billion. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was California attorney general at the time, had no involvement with the nuclear deal, from which the US withdrew under former President Donald Trump.

From CNN’s Jennifer Hansler

Vance on Harris’ energy policies and China

Speaking about combatting climate change and bringing down planet-warming emissions, Sen. JD Vance suggested the fix was to “produce as much energy as possible in the United States of America, because we’re the cleanest economy in the entire world.”

Vance accused Vice President Kamala Harris of making climate change worse by supporting clean energy, saying her policies “actually led to more energy production in China, more manufacturing overseas.”

Facts First: A few parts of Vance’s claim are misleading and need context. First, while Vance is correct that China is currently the biggest global supplier of clean energy technologies and components, the Biden administration is trying to stop that by bringing more clean energy manufacturing to the US and moving the global supply chain away from China.

The Inflation Reduction Act, which contained the largest climate investment in US history, was designed to bring more manufacturing of electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, large batteries and other components to the United States. The law’s EV tax credits were crafted with the intention of moving the EV supply chain away from China, which has long dominated the industry. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who authored much of the IRA, changed its federal EV tax credits to move the supply chain for the critical minerals needed for things like EV batteries, solar panels and smaller rechargeable batteries away from China.

China will likely continue to dominate the global clean energy supply chain in the coming years. But the US is catching up; companies have announced over $346 billion worth of investments building new clean energy projects and factories in the US since the law was passed. According to the nonpartisan Rhodium Group and MIT, in the last two years, companies have invested $89 billion in clean energy manufacturing alone – a 305% increase from the prior two years.

From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

Vance on a Minnesota ‘born alive’ law

Sen. JD Vance claimed during Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate that Gov. Tim Walz signed a law that says doctors aren’t required to provide lifesaving care to babies that survive a botched abortion.

“The statute that you signed into law, it says that a doctor who presides over an abortion where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion,” Vance said, adding that the law is “fundamentally barbaric.”

Facts First: This needs context. The law Walz signed in 2023 says that an infant born alive must be “fully recognized as a human person, and accorded immediate protection under the law,” and must be provided “all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice.” While previous Minnesota law said that medical personnel needed to take steps to “preserve the life and health” of that infant using all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice, the new law says that medical personnel must take steps to “care” for the infant using all reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice.

The key difference between the “preserve the life and health” language and the “care” language, experts say, is that the new law gives families the option to choose comfort care if their infant does not have a legitimate chance of survival.

Dave Renner, director of advocacy for the Minnesota Medical Association, which supported Walz’s change to the law, said in a September email: “The difference is the old law only focused on preserving the life and health of the infant, even if there was no chance of the infant living. The result was that infants who have no chance of survival were taken away from the parent at birth for extraordinary efforts to ‘preserve the life’ even though they would not succeed. It did not allow the grieving parent to hold their infant.”

Dr. Erin Stevens, legislative chair of the Minnesota section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a September email that under the new law, “any infant that is born alive in any circumstances who has a legitimate chance of survival will be provided sound medical care to encourage survival. No one is sitting by depriving healthy infants of nutrition and care.”

Stevens said that people who decide to terminate pregnancies at a very advanced gestational age generally do so because of a “particularly dangerous or life-threatening” new diagnosis and are offered either a surgical abortion procedure known as dilation and evacuation (D&E) or a delivery after a C-section or the induction of labor.

“In the latter scenario of a delivery,” she said, “often that is pursued knowing the baby could be alive for a very short time after the birth but that that life would not be sustainable. Generally, these are the cases on mandated statistical reports of terminations that indicate live births after abortion. It’s not a ‘botched abortion,’ which many people envision as a D&E gone wrong resulting in a mangled, living baby. Many times, the reason a patient chooses the option of delivery is to have the opportunity to hold their baby and experience that precious time with them.”

She continued: “When there are mandates to resuscitate in such circumstances no matter how futile the attempts, the parents lose out on that opportunity and will never get that time back. It’s not only a waste of costly medical resources, but it’s cruel. Comfort care is provided as clinically appropriate.”

Former President Donald Trump has previously claimed that the new law allows the execution of Minnesota babies after birth. That is still murder in the state.

“This change does not allow ‘the execution of babies’ and to suggest so does not understand the change,” Renner said.

From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Jack Forrest

Vance claims DHS ‘effectively lost’ 320,000 children

Sen. JD Vance claimed the Department of Homeland Security has “effectively lost” 320,000 children.

“You ask about family separation. Right now, in this country, we have 320,000 children that the department of Homeland Security has effectively lost,” Vance said, referring to separating migrant families.

“Some of them have been sex trafficked. Some of them hopefully are at home with their families. Some of them have been used as drug trafficking mules. The real family separation policy in this country is, unfortunately, Kamala Harris’ wide-open southern border,” the Republican vice presidential candidate said.

Facts First: This claim needs context. An August 2024 report from the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Inspector General said Immigrations and Customs Enforcement reported more than 32,000 unaccompanied migrant children failed to appear as scheduled for immigration court hearings after being released or transferred out of custody between fiscal years 2019 and 2023 (which includes two years and four months under the Trump administration). The report added that the number could be larger, given that 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children were not given notices to appear in court. The report said that without the ability to monitor those children, ICE has “no assurances” those children “are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.” The report does not say for certain that those children are being used in drug trafficking or are victims of sex trafficking.

The report, released August 17, said that of 448,000 unaccompanied migrant children (UCs) transferred or released from Homeland Security or Health and Human Services custody between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, more than 32,000 “failed to appear for their immigration court hearings.”

The report also said that ICE failed to issue a “Notice to Appear” for 291,000 unaccompanied migrant children in that timeline and that those children “therefore do not yet have an immigration court date.”

By not issuing the notices, the report says, “ICE limits its chances of having contact with UCs when they are released from HHS’ custody, which reduces opportunities to verify their safety. Without an ability to monitor the location and status of UCs, ICE has no assurance UCs are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.”

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told CNN last month: “Long story short, no, there are not 320,000 kids missing. 32,000 kids missed court. That doesn’t mean they’re missing, it means they missed court (either because their sponsor didn’t bring them or they are teenagers who didn’t want to show up). The remaining 291,000 cases mentioned by the OIG are cases where ICE hasn’t filed the paperwork to start their immigration court cases.”

Some right-leaning outlets, such as the New York Post and the Washington Times, took the report from the Office of Inspector General and combined those numbers, reaching the 320,000 figure of migrant children who are unaccounted for.

From CNN’s Jack Forrest 

Vance’s claim about Trump’s comments to protesters on January 6

Sen. JD Vance claimed that then-President Donald Trump said protesters should protest peacefully on January 6, 2021, when the Capitol was attacked and overrun by Trump supporters.

“He said that on January the 6th, the protesters ought to protest peacefully,” Vance said.

Facts First: This claim leaves out some key context. During his speech, Trump did tell protestors to “peacefully” make their voices heard and, in the same speech, told protesters they should “fight like hell” and used other combative language. 

During his speech that day, Trump told those attending: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

Trump, however, also made numerous other remarks in the speech in which he struck a far more combative tone.

Trump, for example, urged Republicans to stop fighting like a boxer “with his hands tied behind his back,” saying, “We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we’re going to have to fight much harder.” Trump told marchers, “You’ll never take back our country with weakness.” After urging congressional Republicans and Vice President Mike Pence to reject the Electoral College results, Trump said, “And fraud breaks up everything, doesn’t it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules.”

Trump alleged there would be dire consequences if his supporters did not take immediate action – saying that, if Joe Biden took office, “You will have an illegitimate president. That’s what you’ll have. And we can’t let that happen.” And he said, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Trump also spent much of the speech laying out a false case that the election was marred by massive fraud. And he falsely claimed, “We won this election, and we won it by a landslide.”

From CNN’s Holmes Lybrand

Vance on the number of undocumented immigrants in the country under Biden administration

Sen. JD Vance claimed during the debate that there are “20, 25 million illegal aliens who are here in the country.”

Facts First: That number is significantly higher than most estimates. 

While the exact number of undocumented immigrants in the country difficult to track, multiple estimates show it is probably smaller than the number Vance floated during the debate. For instance, a 2024 report from Pew Research Center estimated that the undocumented immigrant population in the US grew to 11 million in 2022. The report used data from the US Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey.

In 2024, the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimated there were about 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the US in 2021.

The Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports curbing immigration and criticized the Biden administration’s border policies, estimated there were approximately 12 million in May 2023.

From CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn

Vance on CBP One app

Sen. JD Vance claimed Tuesday that migrants who apply for legal status through a Customs and Border Protection app can have it granted “at the wave of a … wand.”

“There’s an application called the CBP One app where you can go on as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole, and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand,” he said.

Facts First: This claim is false. CBP One allows users to schedule appointments to claim asylum with border authorities, but that does not mean that their request will be granted. The app is not a means to make an asylum application. It allows applicants to enter their information through the app rather than going directly to a port of entry.

The app was launched in October 2020, during the Trump administration, so people could access Customs and Border Protection services on their mobile devices. It was expanded during the Biden administration and is now “the only way that migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum at a port of entry can preschedule appointments for processing and maintain guaranteed asylum eligibility,” according to the American Immigration Council.

From CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn 

Vance on inflation under Trump

Sen. JD Vance claimed at Tuesday’s debate that former President Donald Trump’s economic policies delivered 1.5% inflation for Americans.

“Because Donald Trump’s economic policies delivered the highest take-home pay in a generation in this country, 1.5% inflation, and to boot, peace and security all over the world,” Vance said.

Facts First: Vance’s claim needs context. The annual inflation rate, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, was indeed 1.5% in May 2019; however, the average inflation rate was north of 2.1% from January 2017 through February 2020, prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and its quick and deep economic recession in the US, inflation slowed drastically as Americans sheltered at home and reduced spending on in-person services.

Including the pandemic-distorted pricing environment, the CPI averaged 1.9% from 2017 through 2020, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

For comparison purposes, during the Biden-Harris administration, the CPI averaged an annual rate of 5.2%

Inflation’s rapid ascent – which began in early 2021 and peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 before moderating to 2.5% in August 2024 – was the result of a confluence of factors, including effects from the Covid-19 pandemic, such as snarled supply chains, and geopolitical fallout (specifically Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) that triggered food and energy price shocks. Heightened consumer demand boosted in part by fiscal stimulus from both the Trump and Biden administrations also led to higher prices, as did the post-pandemic imbalance in the labor market.

From CNN’s Alicia Wallace 

Vance’s misleading claim that Trump ‘saved’ Obamacare

Sen. JD Vance said in Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate that former President Donald Trump could have “destroyed” the Affordable Care Act during his first term, but instead he “saved” it.

“He saved the very program from a Democratic administration that was collapsing and would have collapsed absent his leadership,” Vance said.

Facts First: Vance’s claim is misleading. During Trump’s administration, he and his officials took many steps to weaken the Affordable Care Act after failing to repeal it, though they did continue to operate the Obamacare exchanges. Also, during his term, the Department of Health and Human Services approved several state waiver requests that resulted in lower premiums for Affordable Care Act plans.

As president, Trump initially tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act but failed because congressional Republicans could not amass enough votes to kill the law in 2017.

Then, Trump put in place many measures aimed at undermining the law, which led to a decline in enrollment. He cut the open enrollment period in half, to only six weeks. He also slashed funding for advertising and for navigators, who are critical to helping people sign up. At the same time, he increased the visibility of insurance agents who can also sell non-Obamacare plans.

Trump signed an executive order in October 2017 making it easier for Americans to access alternative policies that have lower premiums than Affordable Care Act plans – but in exchange for fewer protections and benefits. And he ended subsidy payments to health insurers to reduce eligible enrollees’ out-of-pocket costs.

Plus, his administration refused to defend several central provisions of the Affordable Care Act in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of Republican-led states, arguing that key parts of Obamacare should be invalidated. The Supreme Court ultimately dismissed the challenge and left the law in place.

Enrollment declined until the final year of his term, which was in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, the Trump administration did approve several states’ waiver applications to implement reinsurance programs in their Affordable Care Act exchanges. This generally lowered Obamacare premiums by providing funding for insurers that enrolled many high-cost patients.

From CNN’s Tami Luhby

Vance on the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

Sen. JD Vance argued that former President Donald Trump’s economic policies have helped American workers, specifically citing the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

“If you look at what was so different about Donald Trump’s tax cuts, even from previous Republican tax cut plans, is that a lot of those resources went to giving more take-home pay to middle class and working-class Americans,” Vance said.

Facts first: Vance’s comments need context. While the 2017 law reduced taxes for most people, the rich benefited far more than others, according to a 2018 analysis by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research group. 

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act contained an array of individual income tax reductions – including lowering many individual income tax rates, notably the top rate, from 39.6% to 37% for the highest earners.

More than 60% of the benefits were expected to go to those whose incomes are in the top 20%, and they were projected to get the largest bump in after-tax income, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Only a little more than a quarter of those in the lowest-income households would see their taxes reduced, and they were projected to have a very small bump in after-tax income.

Most middle-income taxpayers were expected to see a tax cut, but their boost in after-tax income was projected to be smaller than those at the top of the income ladder.

From CNN’s Tami Luhby 

Vance says illegal guns are flowing into the US from Mexico

Sen. JD Vance on Tuesday claimed that part of the United States’ issue with gun violence stems from Mexican drug cartels smuggling guns into the country from across the border.

“Thanks to Kamala Harris’ open border, we’ve seen a massive influx in the number of illegal guns run by the Mexican drug cartel … then the amount of illegal guns in our country is higher today than it was three and a half years ago,” Vance said.

Facts first: Vance’s claim is misleading. There is a proliferation of illegal guns crossing the US-Mexico border – but they are going from the US into Mexico, not the other way around.

Mexico has been plagued by gun violence for years – and the Mexican government has pinned bloodshed on the free flow of guns over the border from the United States.

An estimated 200,000 guns are trafficked from the US into Mexico each year, the Mexican Foreign Ministry has said – an average of nearly 550 per day. In 2021, Mexico sued several US-based gun manufacturers claiming they “design, market, distribute and sell guns in ways” that arm cartels in Mexico.

Mexico strictly controls the sale of firearms. There is only one gun store in Mexico, and it’s controlled by the army. That makes the large-scale smuggling of guns from Mexico into the US, where laws are laxer and gun stores plentiful, unfeasible.

From CNN’s Michael Williams