[damaniac]

Re: international agreements. One thing that might work, as was mentioned before, is if they litigate in front of the WTO or whatever organizations have jurisdiction on international trade disputes of this variety, and the remedy is self-help. I think there was a case where the Bush steel tariffs violated an agreement. The US courts weren't about to do anything, but the WTO/whoever ruled that the aggrieved country could then put its own tariffs/restrictions on citrus goods (the reason being: steel, from Pennsylvania, near an election, so citrus, from Florida, another big swing state, counterbalances this, or so I was told anyway). So depending on where the poker sites are based, if an agreement is violated, the country may have the ability to enact countermeasures.

The issue then becomes, is that country willing to impose those sanctions on the US, and is the country in a position such that those sanctions will be able to effectively harm the US so that they drop the ban. And even then, hard-headed conservatives are probably likely to say something like "we aren't changing our laws because the Republic of Nowhere doesn't like it, we'll tough it out/do something else unproductive".

So, not too good either. Gotta win this in the legislature. One point to make is if the Dems take either branch (not likely, but I can dream), the bill is less likely to come up again. Not only are more Dems against it (although as we see not nearly enough), but we can hope that Dems who do oppose it get key positions, in which case they can do a lot to nix it. The other point is that if the Dems get one house or, even less likely, both, they will be very concerned with repealing Republican measures and implementing their own, given they've been out of power so long. Gambling isn't going to be worth considering for a long time.