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Re: “Steve Womack's heart of stone”
here's a FEC report on who owns the guy, if his opponent can't rally and build a small donor base to offset the corporate donors, it will be an almost vertical hill to climb, stories like this have to be kept alive, records have to be crammed down peoples throats, for any opponent to position himself as a viable candidate against any incumbent requires a long term substantial paid media investment, people need to put some cash into this race, even if it's not won in 2012 it's a great investment for 2014 with a good candidate that plans to not back down or go away any time soon http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/can_give/…
Re: “U.S. Rep. Womack goes ballistic on constituent”
KENNETH WADE ADEN 4 CONGRESS
PO BOX 942
RUSSELLVILLE, AR 72811
https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page…
www.aden4arkansas.com
Re: “Million-dollar raffle winner”
2 winners and 499,998 losers, if the media were required to post the names of lottery losers perhaps all the free advertising would die out, just like the revenue from the games will in 5 years or so, we loves our lottery winners
Re: “Million-dollar raffle winner”
could you devote an issue to list the names of the 499,998 losers? if the media had to post every one that lost the lottery maybe all the free media would die out, just like the revenue will after 5 years or so
Re: “Thursday night line”
Cato I don't think 65,000 people in Arkansas own a stock, suppose they buy a lot of shares in Pine Bluff, all the numbers are state based, your point is taken and respected yet the stock market is a private for profit free enterprise, state controlled gambling doe's not operate anything like the markets and creates no economic benefits to local economies, are you at all concerned with the amount of dollars lost in Arkansas related to substance abuse? it's currently over a billion dollars each year according to a 5 year study by the state, I have no problem with either activity, one is a monopoly controlled by the government which is not so good for people who don't own stock or even have a bank account, maybe next session the poor folks will have some lobbyist
Re: “Thursday night line”
that actually was just a total ramble of thoughts brought on by sleep deprivation and dealing with the legislators, no cut and paste, no sentence structure either I suppose
Re: “Thursday night line”
Arkansas Senate bill 757 originally would have provided 3M and was whittled down to 300K annually from the state lotteries administrative cost each year to integrate problem gambling education and prevention programs effectively in use by several states including Connecticut, Oregon, Missouri, Oklahoma, Florida, Illinois, Iowas and Washington State that specifically targets problem gambling among adolescents and adults. The most common operational blueprint for government operated gambling provides a minimal amount of funding directed at only pathological gambling addiction. The lottery provides 200K to treat gambling addiction, no prevention, no education. Currently problem gambling impacts 44,000 adults 18 years and older with an annual cost to society of 36M, this is a totally different animal than pathological gambling addiction which impacts an average 24,000 adults at a modest loss of 28M annually. The fastest growing segment of society not included in the cost factors are the 6-8 percent of adolescents 12-17 who account for an additional cost estimated at 32M, combined annual losses of 96M. Of course with the state passing legislation in the session for the lottery to increase its advertising budget to a whopping 10.2M a year and the fact we gambled away almost 2.4 billion dollars here in 2009 those numbers are most likely low. Any gambling enterprise targets the heaviest players as the industry describes them including Arkansas largest purveyor of fun and games for painless profit our state run scholarship lottery. State lotteries effectively deceive the public using marketing techniques developed by billions of dollars invested in research to ingrain playing the lottery into the everyday lives of people, the end game is to maximize profits with your heaviest players, no one gambles for the kids, they gamble for money. In every state lottery gambling and to an extent here in this state privately owned tracks exert a ton of money control in both the legislative and constitutional branches. The tracks were not included in the legislation for the specific reason they agreed to participate on an in kind basis with charitable contributions to programs rather than be put under a government mandate, since they already pay 95M to the state every year any ways it made sense. They did not work against the legislation though they were coerced by the state gambling agency to do so. The opportunity still exist for Southland and Oaklawn to step forward and take the lead in funding problem gambling education and prevention. SB757 was defeated for two specific reasons, it was sponsored by Senator Sue Madison who carried other lottery legislation which was heavily opposed and seen as unfriendly by some state legislators and the state lottery who of course must at any cost continue expanding to hit there very aggressive sales projections. I still like to think people didn’t vote for an enterprise that knowingly creates problem and pathological gamblers that everyone pays for in the public and private sectors, then again are any legislators or politicians really people at all. The bill passed in the full Senate 35-0, the Senate committee passed the bill and it was seconded by two members of the Legislative Lottery Oversight Committee; it also had the full support of DHS addiction services who testified to the fact problem gambling is directly connected with many other substance abuse problems and that they had no money for education or prevention and no money left to treat gambling addiction. DHS also saw the ability to combine current efforts that are cost effective and capable of having a short launch time to be in public operation, sort of like the lottery did. The bill was assigned to the House Rules Committee or the House kills it committee. Dead silence in the room followed by no motion. Before it got to them the bill was seen as one that would easily pass and be enacted. After the no motion there was a final attempt to transfer it from Rules into Public Health to be heard as a stand alone issue which failed. Arkansas had an opportunity to actually do something that would have been world class, as the lottery describes its operations. There is no sane reason to not aggressively address the reality that gambling in all forms is created and marketing by design to increase the numbers of problem and pathological gamblers. Arkansas should approach gambling the same way we do any other substance known to cause addiction, at least attempt to educate people to the issue just as we do with alcohol, drugs and tobacco; fact is problem and pathological gambling social and economic losses over the next decade will surpass the combined cost of all other forms of substance abuse. Problem gambling legislation will be introduced every session until it is passed. It might take a few kids or adults dying to get it done which is government way of taking any action; there is no doubt each year we choose to do absolutely nothing people and local economies will continue to suffer. No amount of scholarships awarded will ever justify the generational social and economic cost of problem gambling to every person in this state.
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