Can the Massachusetts Gaming Commission walk and chew gum at the same time?
How pathetic that these overpaid, underworked payroll patriots didn’t have a clue – not one scintilla of evidence – that Steve Wynn was a world-class bad actor.
And the MGC isn’t the only bloated governmental hackerama that has proven itself utterly incapable of the simplest investigations. How about the FBI, unable to follow up on multiple tips about the Florida school shooter, including a 13-minute call by a family member from Massachusetts to the FBI tip line in January?
Were the G-men too busy sexting their girlfriends to pass on the information?
And don’t get me started on the “background checks” of the Mass. State Police, because there apparently aren’t any. Right, Leigha Genduso?
Let’s begin with the Gaming Commission, which seems to have as its only mission gaming the taxpayers of the Commonwealth. For the record, the MGC has 27 trough-feeders making more than $116,000 a year – 27! The median pay for an MGC coat holder is $63,150 a year.
And yet apparently not one of these tax-fattened hyenas was available to investigate the suitability of Steve Wynn to receive a casino license. So the indolent hacks hired a New Jersey law firm for $4.1 million to do the sleuthing for them.
And the out-of-state law firm also turned up… zip, zero, nada.
The original news about Wynn’s sordid past was broken, as almost all scandal stories are, by a newspaper – in this case the Wall Street Journal. I guarantee you the WSJ did not spend $4.1 million on its investigation. I doubt they put out $41,000 to nail it down.
When the story broke, Wynn complained that all the dirt had been fed to the Journal by his bitter ex-wife. Well, duhh! Doesn’t any p.i. digging for dirt know that the first stop you make is at the courthouse, to check out any divorce records of your target.
They may well be sealed. But at the bottom of some filing, you will find the signature –and the phone number – of the ex-wife’s lawyer. Do I have to draw you a diagram, Mass. Gaming Commission?
But the reality is, the MGC didn’t want to bust Steve Wynn. The hacks were salivating at all the money they were going to make “regulating” his new $2.4-billion casino in Everett. And behind that comes a big fat state pension.
So the MGC left no stone unturned, except the one Steve Wynn was hiding under.
Gross incompetence is par for the course for almost all government agencies. The only thing that perplexes me about the MGC’s dereliction of duty is that Steve Wynn is, or was, a big Trump guy. What better way for the MGC hacks to suck up to Gov. Charlie “Tall Deval” Baker and AG Maura Healey than by bringing down a Trump fat cat?
I mean, attacking Trump is the raison d’etre for both those statesmen. Every time Tall Deval expresses his “disappointment” about Trump, Maura one-ups him by filing a frivolous lawsuit against the president.
And yet their own Gaming Commission hacks proved incapable of bringing Trump’s pal down. That’s how utterly worthless they are.
I’m likewise puzzled by the FBI’s disinterest in the tips about Nikolas Cruz. According to the transcript of the Jan. 5 hot line call, the relative of Cruz twice mentioned his obsession with ISIS. Naturally the “Intake Specialist” had no interest in a potential terrorist . As we all know, tips to the FBI about Muslim terrorists go straight into the circular file. Think Omar Mateen and the Tsarnaev brothers.
But then the Cruz relative hit what should have been pay dirt.
“Tell you how confused he is,” she tells the FBI. “He’s got the Make American Great Again hat on.”
What the hell! I’m amazed the FBI didn’t immediately run to the FISA court with a perjured warrant application demanding to surveil the punk, a la Carter Page. The G-men yawn at the thought of going after a terrorist, but a Trump supporter… book ‘em Dan-o, we’ll think up some fake charges later!
But this time the FBI totally dropped the ball. They did absolutely nothing. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
The Latin satirist Juvenal once asked, “Who will guard the guards themselves?
The question now is, “Who will investigate the investigators themselves?”