Professional poker player Annie Duke testifies before a House Judiciary panel on Internet gaming:
She’s exactly right, this is a matter of personal freedom, personal responsibility, fairness, good government, and civil liberties.
Didn’t Republicans used to be for all of those things? Didn’t they used to be against a nanny government? I guess that was before the GOP sold out its principles to gain the votes of the religious right.
But they passed this ridiculous law – thanks in large part to former Sen. Bill Frist – that prohibits gambling on poker on the Internet, but doesn’t prohibit many other kinds of gambling on the Internet. Now it’s up to the new Democratic-controlled Congress to fix it.
Passing bad laws is, unfortunately, much easier than fixing them.
Here’s Rep. Robert Wexler on the intellectual dishonesty of the law:
And here’s Rep. Steve Cohen asking Tom McCluskey of the Family Research Council (I disagree with almost everything in this group’s mission statement and core principles, by the way) a classic question: “Is there any fun that you’re for?”
(It’s about 2 1/2 minutes in.)
Of course, it’s not about banning fun for the FRC or any other right-wing group. It’s about turning America into a theocracy.
The hearing was formally titled “Hearing on Establishing Consistent Enforcement Policies in the Context of Online Wagers.”
