See also the Big Man Challenge to the Fed, Chris Christie tells 'em screw you and sue if you must because the US Supreme Court will tell you you are a big loser.
Gambling, what is needed is a bifurcated system. One run by the public for the benefit of the public and the other run by traditional family providers on different terms. there is enough money bet to keep everyone happy.
Family Ties to Gambling Re-emerge in House Race
Erik Jacobs for The New York Times
Representative John F. Tierney on Tuesday discussed a brother-in-law’s accusations against him.
By JESS BIDGOOD
Published: July 3, 2012
SALEM, Mass. — It was awkward for Representative John F. Tierney when, in October 2010, his wife, Patrice, pleaded guilty to tax fraud.
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She admitted that she had managed a bank account for her brother Robert Eremian, and said she had been “willfully blind” to what prosecutors said was the fact that the million of dollars it contained were profits from an illegal gambling ring in Antigua that he ran with their brother Daniel.
But Mr. Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat, was not himself implicated, and he glided easily to victory in his seventh re-election campaign one month later, beating a far-right candidate who was said to have once had a lawn sign comparing President Obama to Osama bin Laden.
Two years later, things might be more difficult for Mr. Tierney. He is fending off new accusations about his knowledge of his family’s enterprise as he faces the most credible Republican challenge a House Democrat has had in this state in recent memory.
Mr. Tierney’s opponent is Richard R. Tisei, a former State Senate minority leader who as a gay supporter of abortion rights embodies the “Massachusetts moderate” label that helped Scott P. Brown to his Senate victory in 2010. Mr. Tisei has generated enthusiasm — and cash — from Republicans who think he has a good chance of becoming the state’s first Republican House member since 1997.
The trouble for Mr. Tierney, 60, re-emerged last week when Daniel Eremian was sentenced to three years in prison and, outside the courtroom, declared that Mr. Tierney “knew everything” about what Mr. Eremian and his brother Robert were up to.
“Tierney is the biggest liar in the world,” Mr. Eremian said, according to The Boston Herald. “He knew everything that was going on in my family for years. He sat with bookies at Fenway Park.”
The Eremian brothers were charged last year with illegal gambling, racketeering and money laundering for their role in running a gambling operation, Sports Off Shore. Daniel was convicted in December; Robert lives as a fugitive on Antigua. Mrs. Tierney is on probation.
Mr. Tierney on Tuesday calmly denied his brother-in-law’s accusations, facing reporters for 45 minutes in the same Salem hotel where he held his 2010 victory party. “I believed at the time that my brother-in-law was working in a legitimate, legal online gambling business in Antigua,” Mr. Tierney said in a prepared statement, of the period of time when his wife was managing the bank account. He spent time with the Eremians on a few occasions, he said, but they were not close.
“The fact is that Robert and Daniel Eremian are simply continuing their pattern of putting their family through turmoil, and trying to blame anyone but themselves,” Mr. Tierney said.
While Mr. Tierney has not been implicated in his family’s criminal dealings, the simmering case has cast a pall over his campaign, which the National Republican Congressional Committee has worked to exploit with a Web site, How Could Tierney Not Know?, to which it has pointed more than 200,000 voters.
Peter Ubertaccio, a political science professor at Stonehill College, said Mr. Tierney’s race could be ripe for a Republican upset. “Any time the lead story is about corruption in general in your family, it makes it that much more difficult to get your own message out there,” Professor Ubertaccio said. “In another year, it may not have significantly shifted the race to his opponent’s favor, but this year he’s facing a credible challenger with a long history in the district who is able to unite his party base and independent voters.”
Mr. Tisei spent Tuesday evening walking in the Independence Day parade in Gloucester.
“I consider myself a live-and-let-live Republican,” Mr. Tisei, 49, said in an interview.
The plausibility of Mr. Tisei’s candidacy has mobilized a powerful group of national Republicans who sense an opportunity to add one of their ranks to a House delegation that has been solidly blue for 15 years. The National Republican Congressional Committee has identified Mr. Tisei as one of its up-and-coming “Young Guns” and reserved $2.2 million worth of airtime in the Boston market (although the committee cannot say how much of that will go toward other races).
House Speaker John A. Boehner appeared in June at a fund-raiser for Mr. Tisei; Republican PACs like Representative Paul D. Ryan’s Prosperity Action PAC have contributed to him.
Mr. Tisei edged out Mr. Tierney’s fund-raising total for the first quarter of this year, $354,467 compared with Mr. Tierney’s $325,125, although the incumbent has more cash on hand over all. At the end of the year’s first quarter, Mr. Tierney reported $795,184 on hand, while Mr. Tisei reported $454,526. Second-quarter filings are not yet available.
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