Anti-terror grant to probe bingo halls criticized

Anti-terror grant to probe bingo halls criticized
By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 12, 2006


A Washington watchdog group is complaining about a homeland security grant to investigate whether money is being embezzled from Kentucky bingo games by terrorists or other criminals, and the group took its complaint directly to Frankfort yesterday and held a protest at the state Capitol.
"The problem we have is $36,000 going to keep bingo halls safe from terrorists. We don't see that as a wise use of money," says Ed Frank, spokesman for the Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
"Anti-terrorist funding need to go to places where there are more likely victims of a terrorist attack, and I don't think Kentucky bingo halls are at the top of anyone's list," Mr. Frank says.
Officials in the sleepy Southern state, however, say the $36,000 grant to the Kentucky Office of Charitable Gaming is not that far-fetched.
The funding, they say, is not to unleash an army of guards to protect bingo fanatics who gather nightly in old storefronts, school cafeterias, and church basements, but to train law-enforcement officials how to catch "charitable fronts" that embezzle money through some of the 1,300 charities licensed in the state to operate the games.
"There is a great deal of money that comes through charitable gaming, and we certainly have concerns about that," said Jason Keller, spokesman for the Kentucky Department of Homeland Security.
"It's a $600 million all-cash industry. We take it very seriously," Mr. Keller says.

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Excuse my French, but I cry 'BULLSHIT'! Illegals are pouring across the Mex Border in record numbers (And could be carrying a suitcase nuke for all the twits in D.C. know) and we're worried about 'bingo' and before that it was 'meth cookers'. Give me a break! More Federal money pissed down a crayfish hole because it makes it appear the Fed's are doing something significant, when in reality they're doing nothing.