Andy Bloch blog

[WaimanaloSlim]

Andy Bloch writes a very good article about the UIGEA:

http://www.andybloch.com/gl/pub/article.php?story=20061031193348376

Good stuff about how Republicans sidestepped House protocol to sneak it through.

[MiltonFriedman]

This is so wrongly written, it is not even funny. The Senate screwed with the rules, see Warner's memo to Frist re Defense Authorization.

The House had passed HR4411, pretty clearly establishing where THAT august body stood on the issue.

Bloch spins his scenario while conveniently IGNORING that the House had passed HR4411, basically the same effective legislation, overwhelmingly. If the "majority" of the House would not have favored the UIGE Act, HOW does he explain the overwhelming majority which passed HR4411 ?

[Megenoita]

I don't know, but he's a Harvard Law grad.

[MiltonFriedman]

... which may make him well-spoken, but incredibly obtuse. Yes, God knows he writes better than the "CardPlayer expert", Allyn Jaffries. But, where he went to School doesn't change the fact that the House overwhemlingly PASSED Hr4411.

That makes nonsense of his whole point about the House Leadership thwarting the will of the House majority by manipulating Rules with respect to the Safe Ports Act.

It was the Senate where the foul deeds were done. The House was certainly a consenting party, having passed HR4411 earler in the Session. Why backtrack past actual history to complain about some supposed bypass of the will of the House ?

Forget "how" we lost, understand WHY we lost. Until we do so, we cannot win back a damn thing.

The point is that anti-online gambling got a hell of a lot of support when the House voted on it as a body.

For YEARS, online gaming was able to run out the clock politically. That did not mean they would have carried any straight up vote on either side of the Hill, EVER. Not this year, not the year before and certainly not next year. The sooner pro-gaming sympathizers, of which I am one, realize they are NOT a 65%, 80%, 90% or whatever majority position nationally, the sooner their political goggles may defog.

Until that realization happens, online gambling supporters will, at best, throw time and money down chasing hand after hand.

[Cooder]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know, but he's a Harvard Law grad.

[/ QUOTE ]

How many years ago was that? Did he ever practice? How much of your college education do you remember?

Animal house: "I'm pre-law."

"I thought you were pre-med."

"Same thing."

[Drac]

[ QUOTE ]
That makes nonsense of his whole point about the House Leadership thwarting the will of the House majority by manipulating Rules with respect to the Safe Ports Act.

[/ QUOTE ]

The violation of House Rules had nothing to do with the internet bill and everything to do with ignoring the vote to include funding for rail/mass transit that the House had.

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
The conference turned into "a farce" and "a joke" as the Republicans in control of the conference misled the Democrats, and prevented them from meeting and offering the amendments that the House as a whole had voted to keep.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the funniest portion of his entire article. I wonder how those nasty republicans managed to pull this off? Did they spread a memo that free donuts were being served in the cafeteria? Maybe they leaked a transcript of Sen Kerry's upcoming speech and it so frazzled the poor unsuspecting democratic congressmen that they forgot to find their seats in time to vote. No, wait, I know how it was done. They announced that Monica Lewinsky was offering free cigars in the congressional lounge. I wonder if she was wearing her pretty blue dress?

[Zetack]

[ QUOTE ]
This is so wrongly written, it is not even funny. The Senate screwed with the rules, see Warner's memo to Frist re Defense Authorization.

The House had passed HR4411, pretty clearly establishing where THAT august body stood on the issue.

Bloch spins his scenario while conveniently IGNORING that the House had passed HR4411, basically the same effective legislation, overwhelmingly. If the "majority" of the House would not have favored the UIGE Act, HOW does he explain the overwhelming majority which passed HR4411 ?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see anything in what he wrote that I know is wrong.

The house passed a version of the safe ports act that had no gambling language. They separately approved a version of the anti-gambling statute.

The senate added the anti-gambling language to the safeports act.

Therefore, when the safe ports act came to conference committee it had to be reconciled with the House version which did not have any anti-gambling language.

What Andy is saying is that, ordinarily in commmittee, the House would have stripped the anti-gambling language out as not being relevant to the safe ports act. As further evidence that this is the ordinary House proceedure the committee did indeed strip out rail and senate security measures that the senate had added to the safe ports act.

Although I think the focus should be on the Senate's underhanded practice of adding unpopular legislation to a sure-to-pass piece of legislation, rather than the House twisting of its normal proceedures given that the House quite clearly approved of the legislation (if not the procedure by which the Senate passed it), that doesn't make Andy's article so wrong its funny as you say.

--Zetack

[MiltonFriedman]

yes, I agree. So WHY would a Hahvahd educated JD try and make it into a "gambling bill issue" .... The damn House voted whelmingly on HR4411 against online gambling.

[MiltonFriedman]

The whole point of his article is that House Rules were flouted, to the detriment of online gambling.

A buried point he may have intended to make was that somehow, the same House which overwhelmingly passed HR4411, would have sunk the Safe Ports Act over the transit provisions, to the coincidental benefit of online gambling ?

That would be pretty thin, even at Hahvahd.

(Actually, I said it was so wrong, it was NOT funny.)

[sonny black]

I wonder how much of Andy's millions are going to fund campaigns against the folks who helped screw the game.
Amazing how much time and effort he took to educate himself after it was too late. Maybe a donation to the PPA six months ago might have helped!