De Blasio slams Biden with N-word tweet after he fondly recalls racist senator & biden responds that bill cannot read ny const art 1 sec 3 & even nyc bettors get screwed by. nassau otb. bill is not even a scholar of dead nyc otb
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
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Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday bashed Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden for citing a notoriously racist Southern senator while touting his ability to work with lawmakers he disagrees with.
OPEN ON 1ST PALM SUNDAY, OTB RAKES IN $2M
New York City Off-Track Betting made history yesterday, taking bets on Palm Sunday. Since 1973, when Sunday racing was made legal in New York State, race tracks have been allowed to operate every Sunday except for Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. While Aqueduct kept its doors shut, NYCOTB had its betting parlors open despite a letter from the New York State Racing and Wagering Board stating that it couldn't do so. "We're not a race track," NYCOTB president Ray Casey said. "OTB's business is a simulcasting business.
" Bettors responded by wagering an estimated $2 million yesterday on tracks from around the country, including Keeneland in Kentucky and Gulfstream Park in Florida. While in the past NYCOTB has respected the law and shut down on Palm Sunday, it took a chance this time because its business is down. "With the weather being the way it's been our handle has been off significantly," Casey said. "Our lawyers felt from their point of view that we could open (yesterday).
" The law says race tracks can't open. It doesn't mention OTBs. "I respect the Racing and Wagering Board and I have the utmost respect for chairman Michael Hoblock but I felt we're right on this one," Casey said. The NYSRWB didn't return phone calls yesterday but said on Saturday it would meet this week to discuss fines and penalties it can impose on NYCOTB. "This isn't personal," Casey said. "I just didn't agree with the board's interpretation.
" Casey also said NYCOTB may open on Easter Sunday.
“It’s 2019 & @JoeBiden is longing for the good old days of ‘civility’ typified by James Eastland. Eastland thought my multiracial family should be illegal & that whites were entitled to ‘the pursuit of dead n—-rs,’” de Blasio wrote on Twitter, along with a photo of his African-American wife and their mixed-race son and daughter.
“It’s past time for apologies or evolution from @JoeBiden. He repeatedly demonstrates that he is out of step with the values of the modern Democratic Party,” Hizzoner added in a second tweet.
Biden, 76, was defending himself Tuesday against the charge that he is too “old-fashioned” for today’s Democratic Party and its ascendant progressive wing.
During a fundraiser at the Carlyle Hotel, Biden said he had served with the late Sens. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, staunch segregationist Democrats, and was able to work with them despite their differences.
“Well guess what? At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn’t agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you’re the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don’t talk to each other anymore,” Biden said, the New York Times reported.
Biden even faked a Southern accent as he talked about Eastland.
“He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son,’” the former veep said.
Eastland was a plantation owner and a vocal critic of integration and the civil rights movement.
He repeatedly referred to African Americans as an “inferior race” and also used the racist term “mongrelization” about the mingling of blacks and whites.
A spokesman for Biden declined to respond to de Blasio’s tweets.
Racial issues have vexed the longtime Delaware lawmaker in the early days of his campaign, as it was revealed that in the 1970s, he opposed forced busing to desegregate schools.
He also took heat for his role in crafting the tough anti-crime bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
While the law had bipartisan support in Congress and from many in the black community, it has since come under fire for the disproportionately negative impact it had on African Americans.
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