Two new statewide studies on Iowa's gaming market and areas that are under-served by the state's 20 casinos were released this week and will be presented June 4 to the Iowa Racing & Gaming Commission, possibly paving the way for more casinos to be licensed in the state.

"It's a huge amount of information. We'll have to see where that takes us," said Commissioner Kate Cutler, a Council Bluffs Democrat who's the legal counsel for West Asset Management in Omaha. "I don't have a position already. When we voted for the four [Worth County, Waterloo, Riverside, and Emmetsburg in 2005], we wanted to really give the licensees an opportunity to get up and running. As a whole, they've been very successful."

Release of the studies by GVA Marquette Advisors and The Innovation Group is the first step toward commissioners deciding whether they'll grant new casino licenses for the first time since May 2005. Voters in five counties -- Wapello, Webster, Franklin, Tama, and Lyon -- have approved referendums and hope to be granted a license to open a casino.

The GVA Marquette Advisors study doesn't provide much hope for new casino licenses. It points out that most of Iowa's significant population centers have access to one or more casinos within a driving distance of one or two hours.

Now that the concept of a "New World Order," introduced by George H.W. Bush, has gone mainstream, dismissing the dangers of intrusive laws and loss of liberty as the claims of alarmists, conspiracy theorists, and right-/left-wing extremists no longer flies. Legislation has been passed and new legislation continues to be proposed that impacts the rights of Americans to the degree that they forever change our governance from one of a constitutional republic to one of collectivist democracy.

Editorial writers, crusading columnists, and reformers say it all the time: Illinois is one of only a small handful of states that does not regulate campaign contributions.

That's technically true, but you might be surprised at how little some other states actually regulate those contributions.

Governor Pat Quinn's independent reform commission has recommended that Illinois adopt the same basic contribution limits for individuals and political action committees as the federal government. But if contribution limits are supposed to get the influence of money out of politics, they've failed miserably in Washington, DC, where money has become an obsession and that obsession rules all.

According to a March analysis by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), some states have few campaign-contribution restrictions. Still others have much more stringent caps than proposed by the governor's reform commission.

For instance, neighboring Iowa has no limit on individual contributions to candidates and doesn't cap state-party contributions, political-action-committee (PAC) contributions, or labor-union contributions to candidates. However, Iowa does prohibit direct contributions by corporations. Here is a rundown of some other states:

• Texas, Pennsylvania, and North Dakota prohibit direct corporate and union contributions to candidates, but have no limits on any other contributions.
• Indiana restricts contributions by corporations and unions to $5,000 per year for statewide candidates and $2,000 per year for all other candidates. Individual, PAC, and state-party contributions are not limited, however. Mississippi and Alabama have similar restrictions.
• Ohio limits individual and PAC contributions to a somewhat odd $11,395.56 per candidate, per election, while capping state-party contributions to $642,709.58 for statewide candidates, $128,200.05 for state-Senate candidates, and $63,815.14 for state-House candidates. Corporate and labor-union contributions are prohibited.
• According to the NCSL report, 13 states have no caps whatsoever on individual contributions. Even more have no limits on state-party contributions, although some states, such as Kentucky, require that candidates other than gubernatorial candidates accept no more than half of their money from the state parties. Kansas is one of a small number of states that severely restricts state-party contributions during primaries, but imposes no limit on general-election spending.
• California's contribution limits are much higher than the proposed federal-style limits here in Illinois, perhaps reflecting its large number of big media markets and the fact that limits are indexed to inflation. California caps individual, union, and corporate contributions at $25,900 for gubernatorial candidates, $6,500 for other statewide candidates, and $3,900 for legislative candidates. PAC contributions are roughly double those limits. But last month, California's Fair Political Practices Commission reported that candidates have still managed to raise almost $1.1 billion since the caps took effect in January of 2001. That total did not include independent expenditures, which would be a lot more money.
• Florida, another large state with multiple TV markets, has a $500 across-the-board limit on campaign contributions from all sources. But recent local reporting has shown how easy it is for special interests to get around those caps via "electioneering communications organizations." One example was an alleged scheme by Anheuser-Busch to bankroll favored candidates via a police union fund.
• The state of New York uses a mathematical formula to limit individual, PAC, and union gubernatorial-campaign contributions. New York also has a $100,000 limit on family-member contributions to legislative candidates. State-party contributions to candidates are prohibited in primaries, and unlimited in general elections. Corporations are limited to $5,000 per year in aggregate.
• Michigan prohibits all corporate and union campaign contributions and has very low caps for all other contributions. Statewide-candidate contributions are limited to $3,400 for individuals and many PACs per election cycle. Senate-candidate contributions are capped at $1,000, and House contributions are limited to just $500. "Independent" campaign committees have much higher caps.

As you can plainly see, the range of limits is far broader than we are ever told. This issue is not as black and white as it's usually portrayed. I actually favor contribution caps, but they should either be extremely low with lots of safeguards (unlike Florida) to really stamp out the money, or high enough that every check doesn't become an obsession. Illinois Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno has proposed a $10,000 cap on individuals and PACs. That seems reasonable to me.

Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax (a daily political newsletter) and TheCapitolFaxBlog.com.

The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence & Analysis issued a "Domestic Extremism Lexicon" reference aid this week. On the heels of its most recent such reference aid, which named American military veterans returning from Iraq as possible extremists domestic terrorists, the DHS's attempt at inclusiveness seems to know no bounds. It is worth emphasizing that the document specifically identifies "non-Islamic extremism" as a threat to the United States. So now if you are pro-environment, pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-black, pro-Jew, pro-white, anti-16th Amendment, anti-tax and, even pro-animal rights you might very well be a domestic terrorist. The document even names "alternative media" in its lexicon of domestic terrorism.

While the DHS has since rescinded the product and claimed it was not authorized, the proverbial horse is out of the barn, to borrow a recently used phrase from the president. Can there be any more evidence that the Department of Homeland Security, authorized by the unconstitutional USA PATRIOT Act (which was not read by the very legislators who voted for its passing), should be dismantled and moved to the dustbin of history? The "reference aid" provides an eerie insight into the agenda of a continually overreaching and apparently overconfident federal bureaucracy that continues to perpetuate the myth that we the people serve the government. The DHS document is the origin of a "thought police" handbook for the feds and illustrates the intent of the department to label Americans as terrorists if they have thoughts, publish opinions, and pursue actions that are contrary to the Nanny State and promote non-subservience to the government.

The document attempts to paint any of the various special-interest or special-issue factions as violent and criminal. For instance if you are vehemently opposed to illegal immigration, you may be plotting violent or criminal acts ... and thus you might be a domestic terrorist.

Below are some excerpts from the "lexicon," a copy of which can be found here.

(Note: "U//FOUO" means "Unclassified, For Official Use Only.")

"This product provides definitions for key terms and phrases that often appear in DHS analysis that addresses the nature and scope of the threat that domestic, non-Islamic extremism poses to the United States.

"• alternative media (U//FOUO): a term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets.

"• decentralized terrorist movement (U//FOUO): a movement of groups or individuals who pursue shared ideological goals through tactics of leaderless resistance independent of any larger terrorist organization.

"• direct action (U//FOUO): lawful or unlawful acts of civil disobedience ranging from protests to property destruction or acts of violence."

Apparently, lawful acts of civil disobedience including protesting are going to make one a domestic terrorist in the eyes of the DHS. And if you are "leaderless" in your "resistance," you might be a terrorist. This only begs the question: "Resistance to what?" And of course, there are those damned alternative media outlets that provide a forum (gasp) for interpretations that differ from mass-media products.

The most chilling aspect of this affair is that the person responsible for issuing this document, Roger Mackin, has been shifted from the DHS to the cybersecurity section at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.