Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Off-reservation Indian gambling raises concerns

An Indian tribe wants to build a grand, $1.5 billion Las Vegas-style casino resort on a swath of land overlooking San Francisco Bay - a spot more than 100 miles from its tribal lands. Across the country, some Indian tribes are seeking to construct casinos well away from their reservations or other tribal lands. The trend may be about to accelerate: The Obama administration is expected to decide soon whether to loosen the rules on some of these projects. The Guidiville tribe hopes to get the government to declare a 413-acre tract near the San Francisco Bay sovereign tribal land so the Indians can build a casino resort with more than 1,000 hotel rooms, shops, tribal housing and a shoreline park. Also, the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians is proposing a more modest casino nearby, 113 miles from their land near Clear Lake, Calif. Both tribes say their ancestral lands were in the Bay Area and that they were forced to retreat when white settlers arrived...read more

Ain't it amazing. For freedom to spread the tribes must acquire property, have uncle sam declare it part of their tribal lands and then they are free to do all sorts of things that many state governments and that same uncle sam won't allow us to do on non-tribal lands. How long will the feds allow this creeping of freedom last?

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