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News
Commonwealth Update - 6.23.10
Wednesday June 23, 2010 - 10:19 AM
Inside this issue: Gambling vote in the Senate imminent; Call on Senator Brown to vote NO on Kagan; "Choose Life" license plates now available in MA; High School play canceled due to "homosexual themes"; Provincetown schools to give condoms to first grade children; New GAO report reveals disturbing financial discrepancies regarding Planned Parenthood. Be sure to subscribe to receive Kris Mineau's Commonwealth Update in your Inbox every Wednesday.
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Gambling vote in the Senate imminent
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The Massachusetts State Senate began debate today on its plan to bring three resort casinos to Massachusetts. Even as senators debate the merits of casino gambling, the Boston Globe reported today that “lawmakers have generated little data to estimate the downside of casinos, the toll that crime and addiction would take on individuals and the expense of additional government services to combat those problems.”
Legislators have instead concentrated on trying to predict the new jobs and tax revenue, and those estimates come tainted as there has yet to be a truly independent study of those benefits. In New Hampshire, state officials have gone to great lengths to calculate the tradeoffs of expanding predatory gambling. The NH study found that a large casino near the border would result in up to $228 million in social costs. Contrast that with the Massachusetts Senate bill that would set aside about $28 million a year to deal with those problems.
“This is a major policy shift for Massachusetts…and we don’t even know what the costs are. We haven’t even bothered to find out,” said Sen. Susan Fargo (D-Lincoln) in the Boston Globe. The NH study has prompted Governor John Lynch to threaten to veto any expanded gambling bill that the legislature was to approve.
According to the Globe, the New Hampshire study examined the potential costs of crime, emotional damage to gamblers (such as depression and anxiety), and lost business productivity, as well as expenses for government services and regulation. It concluded a casino near the border with Massachusetts could generate up to $219 million in revenue for New Hampshire, while costing the state government up to $60 million to deal with crime, addiction, and other problems.
But it found Massachusetts would incur much greater social costs, up to $228 million, because it estimated that three-quarters of the casino’s patrons would be from here. The combined social costs for both states would exceed the revenue generated by the casino by about $69 million, the study found.
Another strike against the Senate bill is the fact that it gives casinos special treatment in regards to the state’s tobacco ban. The Senate’s bill allows smokers to light up within casinos (up to 25 percent of the gaming area), giving them a benefit that other local businesses are not afforded and allow casinos to market specifically to smokers.
Please take a moment in the next day or two to CALL your state senator and express your opposition to expanded predatory gambling. This is not the rosy solution to our state’s economic problems that proponents make it out to be, and it will forever change the cultural fabric of the state. If senators turn a blind eye to the social costs of the casinos, they are doing a significant disservice to the people of the state and irreparable harm to thousands.
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Call on Senator Brown to vote NO on Kagan
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U.S. Senate hearings on President Obama’s choice of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court are scheduled to begin next Monday. It is clear that Kagan is hostile towards traditional family values, the military and the original intent of the Constitution. As such, she is not qualified to sit on the nation’s highest court.
Sen. Scott Brown stood with us and our values by opposing the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” when it came up in his committee, and also voting against an amendment to allow abortions on both domestic and overseas military bases. These were two principled votes, but the vote on Kagan is critical.
[More on Kagan from FRC HERE.]
Please call Senator Brown today at 202.224.4543 or 617.565.3170 and urge him to oppose her confirmation. The Democrats in Congress want to force her nomination through to give President Obama another victory, but this is against the values of the majority of Americans.
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"Choose Life" license plates now available in MA
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After a seven-year campaign by Merry Nordeen, Massachusetts residents can now support crisis pregnancy centers and express their pro-life views on their license plates. The “Choose Life” plates are now available at the Registry of Motor Vehicles. The plates feature an illustration of a woman cradling an infant and cost drivers $90 every two years. The proceeds from the plates will go to organizations that encourage women with unwanted pregnancies to consider options other than abortion, such as adoption.
Massachusetts joins with about two-dozen other states in offering “Choose Life” plates, which were first available in Florida a decade ago. Any registered charitable organization can submit a special design to the RMV, but must also post a $100,000 bond to protect the state from financial loss, and obtain applications and fees from at least 1,500 drivers who want the new plates. The state will return the bond if more than 3,000 of the specialty plates are sold within two years.
MFI recognized Merry Nordeen with a Citizenship Award at last year’s Annual Banquet for her tireless campaign to bring these plates to the Bay State. We applaud her for her dedication, and encourage people to consider purchasing on the plates.
The plates can be ordered by visiting the RMV’s website at THIS LINK. If you pre-ordered the plates, the RMV is in the process of sending them to you.
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High School play canceled due to "homosexual themes"
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Students at Attleboro High School were set to perform a play titled “The Wedding Story” that parents describe as containing “violence, explicit sexual references, and racial, religious, and homosexual biases.” Parents of a 15-year-old student complained to the administration, which refused to meet with the parents until after the scheduled performance.
The parents then took their case before the school committee. The Sun Chronicle reported that School Committee Chairman Ray DiCiaccio said more than half of the school committee’s membership expressed concern over the couple’s complaint. He then met with the parents and contacted the school administration over the issue. DiCiaccio said he thought the content of the play “runs counter to what we’re teaching our kids” relative to respectfulness and taking into account the feelings of others.
In the end, it was the drama students themselves who voted to cancel the play. The parents believe that the school’s decision to allow the students to produce the play shows “poor judgment all around” and that parents should have been consulted about the material in advance. “We feel strongly that the decision to cancel the play was the right one but are troubled that the decision was left to students,” said Julie Roche in a letter to the editor. “We remain concerned that the administration failed to recognize the inappropriateness of the content of the play for high school students and feel the community should expect a higher standard and better judgment going forward.”
Source: Attleboro Sun Chronicle
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Provincetown schools to give condoms to first grade children
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According to the Provincetown Banner, condoms will be available to first grade students in Provincetown. The school committee there has unanimously adopted a condom distribution policy beginning as early as first grade.
Students must speak to a school nurse or trained counselor before being given condoms. The committee also directed school officials not to honor demands from parents objecting to their kids receiving condoms.
It is absolutely absurd to have a policy that gives condoms to first graders who do not even know the meaning of sex. This is another radical agenda to force sexual promiscuity on unsuspecting and innocent children, and a gross violation of parents’ rights in the sexual education of their children. We hope that Provincetown parents challenge their School Committee and take legal action if necessary.
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New GAO report reveals disturbing financial discrepancies regarding Planned Parenthood
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A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on federal tax money funneled into Planned Parenthood and similar organizations raises more questions than it answers. Planned Parenthood Federation of America audits show the organization spent just $657.1 million between 2002 and 2008 from federal government grants and programs, but the annual reports show that it took in $2.3 billion from government grants and programs during the same time period.
The report was released in response to a request from thirty-one U.S. senators and representatives, and has prompted calls for the government and Planned Parenthood to explain why $2.3 billion in tax dollars have been doled out to an organization that admits to “systematically having killed more than 1.8 million pre-born babies between 2002 and 2008 and then reports it only spend $657.1 million in federal dollars,” writes Rita Diller in Washington Times.
Diller asks: “Has Planned Parenthood managed to tuck away megamillions of our tax dollars, seemingly unnoticed? Or is that much of its government funding coming from sources other than the federal government? Or is there a problem with the way Planned Parenthood is reporting its expenditure of our federal monies?”
Source: Washington Times
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