PPA Update.

[Tuff_Fish]

[ QUOTE ]
Bluff, a liar is someone who purposely hides the truth. Noting that the PPA has made some changes and hoping those changes are a sign of a new direction for the PPA hardly qualifies as a lie.

And your pointing out that the PPA has a biased board and has been far less effective than we would like is very appropriate.

Your apparent belief that because of the membership of the board they are scheming to be ineffective in a manner that would only benefit certain online sites and US gambling interests sounds a lot like a conspiracy story. Like all conspiracy stories you may be right. Then again you may be wrong. They may well be people who (like me) want online poker to be clearly legal and are just not very good at getting it done. In my life experience ineptitude has explained far more things than conspiracies.

Only time can tell whether it is the optimist or the pessimist who truly is a fool.

But I too must add that the anger in your anti-D$D posts seems way out of line. Even if he is (which I doubt) a shill for the PPA, there is no harm whatsoever in hearing what he has to say through a post in this forum.

Skallagrim

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What he said...

Tuff

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
DMD,

The reason I used the word "liar" is because I believe that is an entirely appropriate label for someone who is just pushing PR and ignoring glaring problems. Note however the second option is that you're just a fool. In that case I apologize.

[/ QUOTE ]

Having given this whole thread some thought, I'm pretty sure there is not much to be gained until there is more news. I do see how you can rack up an impressive post count by beating a dead horse to mush. That is not my intention.

I'm not quite sure I fully understand Bluffthis' intentions.

If this is the reception an individual gets after being invited to participate in this forum on this issue, I feel for the poor bastard given the job as the PPA's on-line communication representitive. He or she is looking at a wondeful reception.

Full disclosure:
Living in the Washington D.C. area, having some experience in grassroots political efforts, some experience in the Federal Government, being a poker lover, and having the ability to donate some time I called John's office about a month ago to see if he wanted any volunteer help. Not knowing the changes the PPA was going under I was a little shocked it took a few weeks of trying to get through. My past work organizing volunteers my #1 rules is you always respond to offers of help as quick as possible.

John and I spent some time on the phone, discussed a few of my concerns and he shared some of his visions for the PPA. In some detail he explained how he plans on implementing these changes. I renewed my offer to help, as my enthuasium had wained a little in the delay, but it was re-newed by our conversation.

I have no job offer from the PPA, John hasn't even accepted my offer to volunteer, all I have is a vague offer of "doing lunch" when he returns to D.C.. Other than his willingness to talk to a n00b like me, take a little time to address past issues that I brought up and explain how he plans on addressing them in the future, I don't know him from Adam.

However having been in sales and having spent some time with politicians my own BS detector is not only well tuned but under damn near constant use. Is it infaliable? Of course not! Did I do a little checking up on John, Washington is afterall a small town, yes of course.

As I've said before only time will tell,

D$D

[whangarei]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


Good to hear D$D. Please ignore Bluff and Mason. I've enjoyed reading your posts so far, and Bluff's and Mason's reaction is an extreme form of the anti-new poster bias that is common here regarding new gimmick accounts whose statements and person aren't vouched for. Looking forward to hearing more happy spin from the PPA board that is run by CP magazine.

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FYP

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You forget that Mason et. al. yawned as we were being Fristed? I don't know the whole dynamics about CP and the PPA board, but I do know that CP has always been a vocal supporter of our right to play online poker.

[Legislurker]

Your first rule Dad is what leaves our mouths hanging down to the floor when we think of the PPA. MASSIVE INEPTITUDE. They squandered cadres of willing activists and skilled, intelligent, educated help. If they had cared, we could have had thousands upon thousands of people in DC within a month of UIGEA. We could have impacted 06 elections in a documentable, scary way. We could shut down Congressional switchboards every week. Make the DC Post Office hire more employees. But the PPA has chosen to be a nonetity. Sorta the way Card Player was/is a useless rag with one useful article every two years. Its there, it has money. We are here. We don't have millions. We could be millions(or hundreds of thousands). Thats why so many of us are angry, discontented, and downright distrustful of the PPA. Youre not the only skilled, experienced political hand at 2p2(and other forums). The PPA has ignored and turned down dozens of great people who would love to help fight the good fight.
Saying give them time borders on insulting the patience of the long-suffering here.

[1p0kerboy]

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I'm not quite sure I fully understand Bluffthis' intentions.

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BluffTHIS! is nothing but a troll. Just ignore him.

[1p0kerboy]

And then he wonders why people don't want to come on this message board.

[oldbookguy]

UNDERSTANDING OUR OPPOSITION –
What The PPA and US are up Against

Part One – The Action of Plan of Gods Warriors

Let me say, I am not trolling for the PPA, this is being sent to them as well.

I watched the last in a series last night titled GODS WARRIORS, The Christians on CNN.

Scary and very informative as well with interviews by many who run these groups and how they actually operate and with a member of congress and WHY they listen.

The PPA leadership needs to tune in over the weekend and really pay attention during the replay.

So, here is how they do things.
1. There is a full time person who does nothing but watch legislation and trolls the news reports. As SOON as anything hits anywhere, they are on it drafting a letter and placing it on the site and a copy sent to members of congress.
2. Twice a week, yes, twice, an action alert is sent to ALL members with a link to the latest alert(s) posted.
3. Congress then will receive literally TENS of Thousands of letters EACH week from the group and they have a great cross communication with other groups and this is coordinated.

Following this segment, there was an interview with a congressman. In this he acknowledge they, the religious right as well as the liberal left each only account for 10 percent of the actual population eligible to vote, the other 80, moderates from both parties.

So, why listen. He explained it in simple terms; they make noise and LOTS of it, having spokes people sending OFFICAL press releases to major newspapers.

Now, though each is only 10 percent, they vote, nearly 100 percent of them.

The 80 percent, less than 30 percent of them vote.

The Christian alliance profiled has a mailing list of 1.4 MILLION people. So, they are sending 2.8 MILLION e-mails per week. Do the math. If only 10% respond that is 280,000 e-mails to congress and the newspapers they target each week.

This is what we are up against.

Part Two later – The Organization Set-Up

obg

[DeadMoneyDad]

[ QUOTE ]
Your first rule Dad is what leaves our mouths hanging down to the floor when we think of the PPA. MASSIVE INEPTITUDE... ...The PPA has ignored and turned down dozens of great people who would love to help fight the good fight.

Saying give them time borders on insulting the patience of the long-suffering here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I fully agree with you critism of the PAST actions of the PPA. I do not know but feel they thought they could simply lobby the Hill for a good piece of legislation. All of their past actions suport this assumption.

We know and now it seems they know this apporach just isn't going to work. Any half decent political hack who wasn't a for hire lobbist could have told them it wasn't going to work.

Give them time? What do you have to loose? Like most any cause if you think their actions are worth taking part in you do so, if not you don't.

Just to be clear I think that it was quite possible to have easily have brought positive change for on-line players long before now. Any half decent political hand knows how to build an organization from scratch with almost no momentum and shakier causes/issues with little or no money.

The PPA initally suffered from an embarasment of momentum, riches, and it's board perhaps was filled with a "rightious cause." All dangerious things in politics to start with. In politics you build the best organizations, IMO, lean and mean used to fighting with and making the most out of every dollar and opportunity.

Please don't get me wrong I was one of the truly disaffected, disapointed, dispirited. That is why I started making calls to the PPA and John, if nothing else to offer my free advice and free help.

When I heard of the upcomming changes and John's plans, that had been aparently approved by the board since they were being acted upon, my outlook for the PPA changed.

No we are not at the promised land, I'm not even sure we can see it from here, but I do feel at least they are currently using the map I would choose.

There are some good things going on that IMO are worth suporting, and I plan on doing what I can to help the effort. That is a personal decision I guess we each have to make. I will not presume to tell anyone else what they should do with their time and efforts. Given that the PPA has make mistakes in the past, and I'm sure make more in the future, all I can hope is that like in poker it makes fewer of them in the future and less than it's opponents.

D$D

[TheEngineer]

The PokerNews Interview: John Pappas
by Steve Horton, PokerNews

The Poker Players Alliance is the first really serious effort at a political membership group for poker players. Launched in 2005, it's designed to take the fight for poker freedom directly to Washington and politicians. The PPA has had positive support from around the poker world and is endorsed by major players. Though the organization was not able to prevent the UIGEA from happening, the PPA is doing everything it can to undo the damage. To this end, it has recently packed up and moved to Washington DC; promoted John Pappas, formerly vice president of government affairs, to executive director, and, earlier this year, signed on former senator Alfonse D'Amato as its chairman. Here's a conversation with the aforementioned executive director, Pappas, and his leadership vision for this important group in poker politics.

PokerNews: Tell us a little about the Poker Players Alliance and its purpose.

John Pappas: Well, the Poker Players Alliance is a non-profit membership organization comprised of online and offline poker players. Essentially our membership has joined together to speak with one voice, promote the game, to insure its integrity and protect the right of people to play poker.

We have near 700,000 members nationwide, all spread out throughout the country. Our ultimate goal is to clarify federal laws, and state laws when necessary, to insure that poker players have a secure, safe, regulated place to play poker.

PN: One of your goals is at least a million members; is that correct?

JP: It is. Our goal by the end of the year is to reach a million members. We are optimistic that we can still reach that goal. We are engaging in some new and creative ways to partner with a bunch of different affiliated poker organizations, et cetera, in order to raise awareness and recruit members.

PN: How did you come to be associated with the PPA originally?

JP: I was a consultant when the PPA was first formed in the summer of 2005. They brought out a PR firm in Washington DC to help them, and it happened to be the first I was working at. I was the lead on the account, and have basically been with the organization since its inception.

PN: How are your duties different as executive director from when you were vice president of government affairs?

JP: Well, I'll be overseeing and managing the overall operations of the organization rather than strictly looking at the lobbying activities, lobbying and grassroots – so that's the real difference. This goes everywhere from member communications to board member relations to recruitment of new members – kind of being a more public face for the organization when appropriate, when Sen. D'Amato's not available, et cetera.

PN: Will you be doing things differently than Michael Bolcerek did as president?

JP: I wouldn't say I'm approaching things differently, but I'm putting the focus on things where I think there needs to be a focus. I think we need to beef up our grassroots efforts, and I think there needs to be a better line of communication with our membership. And then also, I really see the value of aligning the PPA with so many in the community that are already established. The poker community can help build awareness to our organization. So those are the areas that I'm going to really focus on for the next several months. And of course, we have a really serious fight here in Washington that we're working on as well. We'll working on a couple fronts.

The reason for relocating the organization to DC was so that we could concentrate these efforts in one place rather than being bifurcated.

PN: There are four separate pieces of federal legislation involving poker. How can the PPA divide its resources enough to support all four, and do any of them seem to have a greater chance of success at this point?

JP: Well, to be clear, there's really only one piece of legislation that's specific to poker and games of skill. That is the Wexler bill, and that is the bill that the PPA promised to deliver to its members. As soon as the UIGEA passed in the dark of night last year, we were going to get an exemption. And that's exactly what the Skill Game Protection Act, HR 2610, introduced by Robert Wexler, seeks to do. So that is the only bill that's specific to poker.

The other – probably the best vehicle for movement at this point in time is the Barney Frank bill, and that is HR 2406. It look at not just poker, but all forms of Internet gaming. It creates a license and regulatory regime for Internet gaming to become a legal, U.S. regulated industry. I think that's a very positive development, and it also opens the door for potential taxation of the industry, which can reap in the billions of dollars annually to the federal government.

The other two bills – one is a tax bill, which could be, essentially – if the Barney Frank bill, or the Wexler bill, amended, ever became law, the tax bill would eventually become part of that, as kind of the revenue component to it. And then the fourth bill is Shelley Berkley's bill, which looks at a study for Internet gaming. We support Shelley's bill, but we believe it's the most conservative of the approaches, because it does not seek to legalize or clarify the laws, it only says to Congress that we should study the issue.

PN: Are there any presidential candidates that would create a more positive environment for poker, and are there any that would definitely make it more hostile?

JP: Well, one would only have to look at Ron Paul, who's a cosponsor of the Barney Frank bill and is running for President. Now, I think his presidency is a long shot. The PPA is not in a position, nor will it be endorsing any presidential candidates. I think the real goal here is to continue to educate all sitting members of Congress and those running for public office that there is a true and growing poker constituency out there and that they vote, and that their rights and opinions must be taken with the same weight as someone who is pro-Second Amendment, or pro-environment, or any other issue.

PN: Other than joining the PPA, what can poker players do as citizens to help fully legalize poker, especially online poker?

JP: Of course, them joining the PPA, contributing to the PPA and getting their friends to join and contribute is the first step, but it's not just about that. It's about talking about this issue with members of Congress given the opportunity, either by using the tools that we provide on our website, letter writing – it gives you all the information about your members of Congress. You can get the phone numbers and addresses and set up meetings, and try to seek out who your members of Congress are, when they're back home in their districts, and meet with them.

It's also about talking with other friends and neighbors and letting them know that this is an issue out there, and that it's not just about poker; it's about freedom. I think we've fallen into a trap of making people believe that this is just about poker players. This is really a freedom issue; it's about freedom of the Internet, and it's been the greatest assault, I believe, on the Internet that we've seen thus far. I think once we start broadening this issue, we're going to get more support for it. Members of Congress and elected officials will realize that this isn't just about poker – this is about freedom.


Author Contact Info: Steve Horton, PokerNews
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2007/8...ohn-pappas.htm

[Legislurker]

When will we know if its just fluff or serious?