McCain's got a gambling problem. Also an ethics/corruption/IRS problem. We need to bust him on it.

[mloutre]

I posted about it over on GD-P a little earlier:

McCain's Secret Gambling Promotion Trips Called "Lobbyist Corruption"

Time magazine ran a piece this week talking about McCain's longtime love of playing craps for thousands of dollars a pop and what that habit implies about his personality and the kind of president he'd be. (The Time article contrasted that against Obama's close-to-the-vest, low-dollar poker-playing style.)

I read that this morning, and then lo and behold, I click over to Daily Kos and there's a diary talking about McCain's gambling habits and the very curious fact that he has never declared and gambling income or outgo on his tax returns (hmm, hmm...):

{excerpt}

Okay, fine. So the Kossacks picked up on the ethics & corruption & financial-dishonesty questions inherent in McCain's non-reporting of his gambling activities to the IRS, which is something that high-stakes players are legally required to do. (And that the casinos are also required to report to the IRS from their end, which sort of begs the question as to why McCain has gotten away without reporting them on his end for so long. Hmm, hmm redux.)

But in today's dKos diary, blogger 8ackgr0und N015e goes on to connect the dots between McCain's extensive casino gambling, his longtime gambling buddies, and the illegal Congressional lobbying activities on behalf of certain Indian casinos that brought Jack Abramoff and his cronies down:

{excerpt}

Hey, now, this is seriously hinky stuff. McCain's gambling habits say a lot about his judgment and personality, his non-reporting of those activities say a lot about his character and ethics, and the lobbyist corruption and Ambramoff tie-ins give us tons of ammo to attack him with. We progressives need to jump all over this stuff and trumpet far & wide to that the voters learn just who the *real* John McCain is, stat.

We progressives really need to mailbomb the media and demand they dig into this story, people, because it could totally knock McCain out of the running if they do it right.

SO LET'S GO OUT THERE AND GET 'EM, TEAM BLUE!!

[background n015e]

1. Here's the meme...

<img src="">

[Justitia]

2. Is he Wm "Loser" Bennett's gambling buddy?? -eom

[hughee99]

3. If he's a loser, why would he have to tell the IRS anything?

Or are you suggesting that, unlike with everything else, McCain is a good craps player?

[shimmergal]

4. Casinos only have to report the big wins.

If he consistently loses, it's not required. Or if he played craps in informal settings--like street games--it's unlikely wins or losses would come to light.

[mloutre]

5. He plays in big, professional casinos, along with his good buddy Wes

The Jed Report referred to their 14-hour casino sessions in a post about Wes Gullet back in May:

John McCain and his lobbyist gambling buddy

{snip}

As a Las Vegan, McCain's affinity for gambling doesn't bother me in the slightest, though it might irritate his family values base. What really interests me though is the relationship between McCain and his gambling buddy Wes Gullet. Gullet is a lobbyist, and he once worked for McCain, both on the campaign trail and in the Senate.

It would be a great story for an intrepid reporter willing to dig a little deeper into their relationship. Even better, it involves the biggest land swap in Arizona history -- and one of McCain's top contributors was the primary benficiary. Here are the key elements of the story:

-- Wes Gullet is an old friend and gambling buddy of John McCain. They rolled dice together in 14-hour-long sessions in Las Vegas.

-- Gullet was McCain's campaign manger and top senate staffer and is now a lobbyist.

-- Gullet was hired to lobby McCain on the largest land swap in Arizona history, exchanging private land in the wilderness for valuable federally-owned land rady for development.

-- McCain, who initially opposed the swap, changed his position and supported it after Gullett was hired.

-- The land swap benefited one of John McCain's top fundraisers who has hauled in more than $100,000 for his Presidential campaign.

All the elements all the elements for a great story -- Vegas, gambling, corruption, visually compelling Arizona landscapes, etc. And it's a true story. But with scattered exceptions, the media has ignored it.

{snip}

[background n015e]

6. If he NEVER reports any winnings....and he is an habitual player

that means he is a compulsive loser. You can't play for years at thousands of dollars a pop and not win sometimes....

<img src="">

[mloutre]

7. As 8ackgr0und N015e pointed out in his previous day's dKos diary on this topic:

If he is winning and not declaring -- that's a crime. If he is losing and not taking the deductions, that is peculiar for a lot of obvious reasons. It means he never wins. If he is losing his own money and not taking the deduction, it looks like he is trying to hide a problem. If he is losing other people's money that certainly raises questions about influence peddling if they have business in front of his committee. Whether he is winning or losing, it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see how a lobbyist bankrolling the senator's marathon craps session might be using this as a way of funneling money into the senator's coffers without drawing attention to the transactions.

Finally, all this talk about unreported transactions raises raises more questions no one in the media will likely bother to ask: Has anyone seen Cindy McCain's tax returns? Does anyone know if she ever filed a 5754? Is he hiding his winnings on her tax forms? Is he burying his losses on her forms? With all the interest paid to Obama's mortgage payments, you would think something this glaring would get more media attention. Of course, then the press would have to get off the Lapdog Express and that wouldn't be any fun, would it?

[hughee99]

10. If you lose, you can only take a deduction against winnings

if you have no winnings, you have no deductions to take.

[pscot]

8. Last time I looked

Gambling was legal, and McCain has never set himself up as some kind of moral preceptor the way Bennett did. Obama plays poker for recreation. By all means, let's pound McCain on the issues. This is a non-issue.

[mloutre]

9. It's McCain's ethically-dubious relationship with Wes Gullett that is the real issue here.

As The Jed Report noted in regards to McCain & Gullet in a post about their marathon 14-hour casino sessions back in May:

John McCain and his lobbyist gambling buddy

{snip}

As a Las Vegan, McCain's affinity for gambling doesn't bother me in the slightest, though it might irritate his family values base. What really interests me though is the relationship between McCain and his gambling buddy Wes Gullet. Gullet is a lobbyist, and he once worked for McCain, both on the campaign trail and in the Senate.

It would be a great story for an intrepid reporter willing to dig a little deeper into their relationship. Even better, it involves the biggest land swap in Arizona history -- and one of McCain's top contributors was the primary benficiary. Here are the key elements of the story:

-- Wes Gullet is an old friend and gambling buddy of John McCain. They rolled dice together in 14-hour-long sessions in Las Vegas.

-- Gullet was McCain's campaign manger and top senate staffer and is now a lobbyist.

-- Gullet was hired to lobby McCain on the largest land swap in Arizona history, exchanging private land in the wilderness for valuable federally-owned land rady for development.

-- McCain, who initially opposed the swap, changed his position and supported it after Gullett was hired.

-- The land swap benefited one of John McCain's top fundraisers who has hauled in more than $100,000 for his Presidential campaign.

All the elements all the elements for a great story -- Vegas, gambling, corruption, visually compelling Arizona landscapes, etc. And it's a true story. But with scattered exceptions, the media has ignored it.

{snip}

[mloutre]

11. Professional casino craps dealer ruminates on implications of McCain's gambling habits

As posted in a Daily Kos diary on the topic...

I was surprised that Steven R's diary on McCain and craps was the first I'd heard of this, and the only reason I'm writing a new diary is because, as a former craps dealer, I may be able to offer fresh insight. (I wrote a piece about my career as a casino dealer for GQ in January, 2001.)

{snip}

McCain's habit is hardly new, nor is the belief that it might make useful political hay. In 2000 (NY Times, Feb. 27), Maureen Dowd noted that Bush's "Pioneers" had invested "$800,000 for private detectives to hunt for McCain bimbo eruptions and to stake out casinos to catch him shooting craps."

No word as to what they uncovered...

More recently, The New Yorker offered a profile of McCain gambling with someone he was in bed with politically, though it's not that part of the story I can offer insight on:

"The moment the car stopped at McCain’s hotel in downtown New Orleans, he set out at his usual fast clip for Harrah’s, across the street. McCain is an avid gambler. Wes Gullett, a close friend who worked for McCain for years, told me that they used to play craps in Las Vegas in fourteen-hour stints, standing at the tables from 10 a.m. to midnight. "Craps is addictive," McCain remarked, and he headed for the fifteen-dollar-minimum-bet tables. At the most obvious level, the game is incredibly simple -- players rotate turns throwing the dice, and you either win or lose depending on what number comes up. But McCain’s betting formula makes it much more complicated. "Uh-oh!" he cried, as a player accidentally threw the dice off the table. "This is a very, very superstitious game," he said. When his turn came to throw the dice, he picked them up and blew on them first. He had placed chips on the number 5, so (envisioning a combination of 2 and 3) he called, 'Michael Jordan! Michael Jordan!'"

Now, as a former dealer, this is annoying in all kinds of ways.

{snip}

The first thing that strikes me here is the 14-hour stints that Gullett describes. That's hardcore. That's not craps for fun -- that's craps thinking you might actually win, even though you know (or should know) that the house shaves the odds or forces you to take bad bets to get to good bets. It's beyond social. In fact, one of the questions on questionnaires for those who worry they might be addicted to gambling asks whether you've indulged in long binges like this. It's a red flag. To call McCain an "avid" gambler, if Gullett is correct, is to engage in a bit of euphemistic generosity.

But let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Gullett was drunk, doesn't remember right, whatever. Still, McCain hurries directly to the casino, and says "Craps is addictive."

Duh. Gambling is addictive, senator. For a guy who has opposed Native American casinos, this is curious. You'd think at some point he might have entertained the possibility that blackjack, or pai gow, or poker, for that matter, might also be addictive. Plus, I don't get the sense that this is his don't-do-this-at-home-kids warning. The tone the writer is conveying here suggests that for McCain, this vice is fun. And if his aides are still tearing him away from the table, then you have to wonder.

The next bit of important information we find is that McCain plays $15 tables. Don't be fooled by this: that's not cheap. Everyone admits that McCain will play with a few thousand dollars (Cindy's money, I dare say), and the $15 game isn't inconsistent. If you intend to last any length of time on a $15 game, you better have a solid bankroll. (The short explanation for this is that craps players generally make not just one bet at a time, but several or many, and each of them must be at a minimum of $15. It's much more if you want to try to get to the "true odds" that are supposed to make craps a good game for the player.)

{snip}

McCain's system of betting is a little troubling. There are many systems of betting in craps (and if anyone knows anything more about McCain's, please let me know), and they're all bad. That is, they all lose, in one way or another. Here's what concerns me about this: you don't bother devising a system unless you're going through the process of really trying to beat the bank. This was Dostoevsky's problem with roulette -- and it's just as dumb. One shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that McCain's having a complicated system means he has a complicated mind, either. Most craps players have a system they've played for many years, and they know that one small aspect of the game backward and forward. Indeed, some of the social element of the game is showing off in this regard. But the truth is that once you know your system, playing it becomes as brainless as playing a slot machine. (To Barack's credit, poker, by contrast, exposes you to an endless set of strategic decision-making situations.)

When McCain becomes worried when the dice leave the table -- well, that's ridiculous, too. "Craps is a very superstitious game" is actually a nonsensical non sequitur. It implies that you have to be superstitious in order to play -- that it's a valid part of the game. Again, the contrast to poker is stark. Poker players strive to take the luck out of the game, McCain wants to revel in it.

Hmm, hmm, hmm. I don't know about y'all, but I for damn sure don't want a President McCain playing high-stakes craps with *my* country's future...

[BlueManDude]

12. I was surprised at the time how little comment the NYer piece got

then again - nothing about the media's treatment of McCain should suprise me. To them it's a cool "manly" little habit he has.