Electronic Bingo Boogaloo VI: The Beat Goes On.

Just about anyone who followed the Electronic Bingo Boogaloo series or read Legal Schnauzer's numerous posts on bingo and corruption already know one thing: that the pols in Alabama have been bought, paid for and giftwrapped by the Poarch Creek Indians and out-of-state gambling interests. So it didn't surprise me to read about state attorney general Luther Strange bringing the pain to Southern Star Entertainment in White Hall two years after receiving $100,000 in campaign contributions from the Poarch Creek Indian Tribe. Just as the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians expected Bob Riley to deliver on their $13 million investment, the Poarch Creek tribe wants Strange to deliver, as well.

I thought we were done with this, especially after current Governor Robert Bentley declared the era of the Electronic Bingo Boogaloo to be over and done with and certainly after Bob Riley rode off into the sunset on his Harley Davidson for parts unknown. But in the Great State of Alabama, nothing's ever really "done." This is the place where the same "quid pro quo" can land Democrat politicians in the poke until they grow too old (Don Siegelman) or too dead (Larry Langford) to be politically effective.

So the beat goes on. And it will go on until the financial and political costs of buying and selling key politicians to maintain virtual business monopolies becomes too painful to bear. I don't see that happening any time soon, sadly.