November 14th: House Judiciary Committee Hearing Thread

[DeadMoneyDad]

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Could you please define "must-pass" legislation?

Could you please address my hypothetical about whether the ports bill still would have been "must-pass" if, instead of the UIGEA, something even bigger had been attached to it?

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Attaching crap to must pass is one thing about our system the pisses off much of our citizens. Think in terms of all the "pork-barrel" attached to even non-spending bills. With an annual budget of over a 1/4 of a trillion dollars and about 28% of GDP, reality for these folks is subjective.

Must pass legislation is generall considered a spending bill that is not passed would both adversley affect the country and ususally written such a way and passed at such a time as to be political poision.

I do not know off hand the "political fate" of the two who voted against nor their "political" justification, perhaps they simply pressed the wrong button. Sorry to say out of 435 members it happens more often than people think.



D$D

[Tuff_Fish]

Hey TE,

Next time try something like this.

I see your point Rakewell the one on top of your head but Shelly Barkley is one of our good allies. I hope you can come to realize that. And if you don't, you are either a troll or one of the biggest dufus' of all time.

Cheers,

TE

[rakewell]

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Look, the no one wanted to vote against the Ports Safe Bill because any such politician would have been branded as very soft on terrorism and national security. It was passed on literally the last hour of the previous COngress, so no one had time to amend it.

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So you are agreeing with my point that "even those who might have thought the bill to be bad public policy put their fingers to the wind and decided that they could be more hurt by political opponents saying "He/she voted against making our ports secure" than "He/she voted to make it really difficult to put money into one's online poker account."" Right?

If so, do you find it admirable for a politician to decide what to do based on fear of what might inaccurately be said of him or her, versus basing such decisions on what he or she believes is actually right or wrong?

[Tuff_Fish]

Unreal

FoF I am thinking.

Or a shill for some offshore site that has no chance if the US passes Wexler's bill.

Tuff

Or possibly he really is politically as stupid as the proverbial stone..

[DeadMoneyDad]

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Look, the no one wanted to vote against the Ports Safe Bill because any such politician would have been branded as very soft on terrorism and national security. It was passed on literally the last hour of the previous COngress, so no one had time to amend it.

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So you are agreeing with my point that "even those who might have thought the bill to be bad public policy put their fingers to the wind and decided that they could be more hurt by political opponents saying "He/she voted against making our ports secure" than "He/she voted to make it really difficult to put money into one's online poker account."" Right?

If so, do you find it admirable for a politician to decide what to do based on fear of what might inaccurately be said of him or her, versus basing such decisions on what he or she believes is actually right or wrong?

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The problem IMO is our society today. Too many TV babbies, with way too short of an attention span. Do you realize that for some demographics, people get more political information from Leno, Dave, and John, than all the News shows, mags, and blogs combined?

Everyone is more concerned with me right now than us some years from now that this type of politics is what this society deserves as "we" demand it.

I've worked for some very good politicans, and some crappy pols. Those with true conviction and a personal perspective are grist for the political party mill. If you are really good and can convince the people at best you get three terms in the House and Senate shot or two, IMO.

You can demand the ideal or work within the "system" as it is. But politics is exactly like the lottery in that you have to be in it to win it.


D$D

[Skallagrim]

Rakewell. please drop it - you have made your point, yes any pollitician who really thought saving online poker was more important than personal politicai survival and was willing to express this commitment despite knowledge of certain failure in ultimately changing things, would have voted against the port security bill. SB was not one of those. However, everything TE has otherwise said about her is true. So you still have no answer to the statement that there is no pont in calling her on it, yes? Otherwise you would have posted one I think.

And D$D, recently, in another thread (OBWan....) you pretty much accused me of the same thing. I see your point here, but I am not so sure you see the other side. Quite frankly, I have, and will probably continue to, make sarcastic responses to posters who come on here, have no more than a quick look around, and post their personal opinion on something like its the word from on high, obviously having ignored all of the discussion us regulars have previously devoted to the subject. Making fun of someone who does that is pretty much a 2+2 tradition, though at least I (we) try not to cross the line into useless name-calling. But sarcasm is a time honored debating technique and often appropriate. But you are also right it is not always appropriate, and once in awhile counter productive. Making the call when to use sarcasm and when not to is a judgement call. And while I appreciate that you can call that judgment into question and suggest it was the wrong decision - it is really INAPPROPRIATE to include in that suggestion personal issues and to imply improper personal motivations to them. This is the first time in your now lengthy back and forth with TE that I have had reason to call you on this, but I do now.

D$D maybe you are right to say TE could have had more patience with a poster who had a point but was obviously either unaware of so many counter points or purposely ignored them. I dont think so; I dont think its wrong to tell new posters that its important to either do your homework or not present yourself as an authority on a subject. When exactly one approach is better than the other is hard to define and good to debate But stop the armchair psychology, its a bad road to go down.

How about we get back to talking about the best way to follow up on the obvious success that was this recent hearing?

Skallagrim

[rakewell]

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Translation: I disagree with you, but can't substantively refute what you're saying, so I really just wish you'd shut up.

If you disagree with my assessment, please explain exactly how and why you think I'm wrong.

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Done. Still waiting for you to share with us how you'd go about fighting this issue.

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The first and most important thing is not to make the situation any worse. As it is, practically anyody who want to play poker online can do so, even if it is inconvenient. The situation is stupid and awkward, but it's not fatal. Any proposal that invites federal licensing, taxation, and or regulation of online gambling would, in my view, be ultimately destructive. (I'm reminded of Mulder's line in "X-Files": "Did you think you could summon the devil and then ask him to behave?")

A clean poker carve-out would be a nice start. A simple, one-sentence repeal of the UIGEA portions of the final bill would be great. No, I don't expect this to happen, but then again, I don't expect any of the other "cures" to go anywhere, either.

Far from being "naive," as you and others have surmised, I'm deeply cynical. I simply don't believe that the congress and president who enacted this monstrosity nearly unanimously is going to be in any hurry to substantially fix the mess it created. There simply isn't enough political benefit to these people.

I'd like to see the online poker sites band together and institute a declarative judgment action, asking a federal court to find that their operations are not threatened by the UIGEA, using arguments as outlined in this article: http://www.firstamendment.com/breaki...the_UIGEA.html (i.e., that because poker players bet against each other rather than the house, the sites are not "in the business" as required for prosecution; that nothing in the law prohibits use of an intermediary e-wallet type service; that the web-blocking provisions are unconstitutional, etc).

I'd like to see Congress pre-empt state bans or regulations of online gaming (except purely intrastate transactions) under the interstate commerce clause.

But like I said, I don't think anything is going to change anytime soon. Sure, there will be token gestures like this week's hearing, but it's all sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[Skallagrim]

"... not to make the situation worse."

How about a bill passed by congress and signed by Bush that made all online gambling, specfiically including poker, covered by the wire act? Its support of people like Berkley, and our own growing political presence, that has stopped, maybe only temporarily, our enemies from getting this.

Your court case idea, though something I to believe in as PART of the plan, is far from a guaranteed success, but is guaranteed to take YEARS of liigation and appeals, which ever way it goes. In the mean time the banks are successful in stopping all the fish from depositing - kinda hurts your ROI doesnt it, if you can ony play other dedicated pros?

We have to keep up the pressure on EVERY front - none are individually quaranteed but the odds are, IMHO, that one has to hit [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img].

Skallagrim

[Legislurker]

Don't dis must-pass phrasing. If youre over 18 you should remember Newt and Bill shutting the government down. They are SO last minute on funding at times its mindblowing. Remember when Corzine and NJ couldnt agree and all of NJ shut down? Newt lost more political goodwill/capital than Bill in the shutdown process, how and why I dont think anyone knows except Bill is better with the press. Stalling or vetoing one of those bills, I think 8/year are required,
and all kinds of [censored] stops. Imagine no Social Security check or hospitals who couldnt process Medicare. No port inspectors or border agents. Now, a signing statement against our part of a bill would be interesting. But must-pass legislation is out there and its no sexy or discretionary. But it can take riders and it often does.

[oldbookguy]

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Any proposal that invites federal licensing, taxation, and or regulation of online gambling would, in my view, be ultimately destructive.

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Offshore companies would prefer licensing, based on hearing in congress before and since the UIGEA, you hear it all the time.
Why, simple, taxes.

Take for example the federal gambling excise tax, for LEGAL wagers it is .25% of the wager, for ILLEGAL wagers, 2%.

The latter is one thing the offshore guys are charged with, tax evasion for not paying the 2%.

See, there already is regulation and taxation. Would you prefer a 200.00 license and .25% or possible jail and 2% of ALL wagers?

BTW, the form is IRS Form 730 for gambling excise taxes.

obg

btw, do your homework, then post, or ask a question if you do not know, not make a factual statement. Try; I think, I believe, what about, how about ect.