In Order To Protect Our Troops, We Must Ban Online Gambling
from the see-the-logic? dept
It's well known that there are a group of politicians pushing to ban all kinds of online gambling (other than the kinds they like, such as lotteries and horse racing). Senator Bill Frist has been among those leading the charge for such legislation. However, it's become pretty clear that there's not nearly enough political support to get the bill through. So what does a good politician do? He tries to tack it on to a military appropriations bill, because no one wants to vote against "funding the troops." Sure, it's a politics-as-usual type of move, but why is it that no one ever asks these politicians what online gambling has to do with protecting our troops?
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Odds
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Why bother. You wouldn't get an honest answer.
A long time ago, when I was very young, Republicans actually opposed "big government." They still make the same claims, but now they actually like big government. Well, not for corporations, just for real people.
Judge politicians by their deeds, not their words.
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Re: #2
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silly idea
And some of the first issues that I would propose if I were elected (hee hee) are the following:
1) Tie Congressional pay raises to minimum wage.
2) All bills must be single issue bills. (meaning you couldn't attach gambling provisions to a military appropriations bills or blueberry festival funding in South Carolina to transportation bills or dam repair work to Homeland Security bills. Then you would be able to see exactly what your congressperson actually voted for.
3) To fix Social Security eliminate the Congressional Pension plan and switch all of Congress onto Social Security. Watch how fast it would get fixed.
I might throw eliminating the Electoral College and simplifying personal taxation (not flat tax, still graduated taxation but simpler maybe eliminate taxation below $20K a year for the poorest citizens). I still have to think about these though.
Maybe I'm just crazy and should go back to playing poker (not for money) with Ross Perot and Jesse Ventura
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Re: silly idea
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Re: silly idea
As for meme and your rant about where the money goes? Same place it always goes, around the world and back again no matter what you buy. Heck, even if it goes to the big companies exec salaries they then buy all those foreign sports cars......
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Re: Re: silly idea
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Re: Re: silly idea
And if they want to be paid, let them earn it. Work 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year like the rest of us. No more 4-6 week vacations multiple times a year. If they don't have a farm to tend, they don't need to go home for the planting and the harvest anyways.
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Works for me
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Re: Works for me
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Re: Re: Re: Works for me
If Osama Bin Laden himself wanted to, he could easily facilatate the opening of an online gambling venture, take hard earned money from silly Americans with no clue, then take that same money and finance an attact to kill the very same person who gave him the money.
I am not saying this is happening, but it is possible. That is enough for me.
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Re: Re: Works for me
Now my point: Without any legal regulation, how do you know this is not actually happening in online poker rooms? You don't, and the possibility of that alone should be enough to convince the smart gambler that sending ANY funds to these wimps in hiding, is completely insane.
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Re: Works for me
When you spend american money at Walmart to buy cheap, made-in-china junk, where does the money go? I don't think anyone can prove that some of these funds do not find their way into the hands of people who would like to do harm to the US or our allies. The answer is simple: We must ban Walmart to protect our troops.
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Re: Works for me
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Re: Works for me
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Re: Works for me
I have a better proposition to protect the homeland:
Get rid of Bush and his henchmen.
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Re: Works for me
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Re: Re: Works for me
Outside of the US these clowns have no-one watching, which makes this behaviour to lucrative to pass. They are able to pick and choose who wins. People who deposit are greeted to hours of winning followed by the instant crash. Gambling addicts are quick to add more and more funds to keep the high. Some never receive there winnings. Nearly all of these sites delay payment of winnings for days which causes the gambling addict to eventually withdrawl his request for a cashout to continue play, this is followed by more manipulation of outcome which is tailored to extract more and more money from the players.
I have posted quite a few replies to these gambling threads, and I am always greeted by some AH who claims I cannot play poker, and thats how I came to this opinion. Well I can and am good at it, but playing these sites with "players" who are completely anonymous, and possibly computer generated, and if not, possibly in collusion with friends at the table via phone, could and probably do increase the take for the house. These Costa Rican Billionaires are all eventually going to find their way in to a prison cell.
I live in Texas and gamble in Louisianna, and when I play in a brick and mortar, regulated casino, I am protected by fraud by a pit boss and my ability to read the players. Also when I win I can go to a cage, collect my winnings and go home.
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Re: Re: Re: Works for me
The online sites have no need to cheat. Think about it: they make money from the rake. The table I'm playing right now, the site makes $1 from the rake no matter what happens (I'm on a 50c buy-in table). Doesn't matter who wins, they make their money.
Collusion is a different matter, but that means that the colluding players win money from the others - again, the house doesn't benefit.
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Re: Works for me
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GET RID OF THEM. Let's face it...the US developed a representational form of government because it was so difficult for everyone to effectively communicate and make decisions because of the size of the country and limitations in the technology. That's no loner the case.
I say we take just one political bribe and re-allocate it to buying everyone in the country that doesn't have a computer a device. Then make a website that can list all of the current issues and put a deadline on it for voting. Then you get a TRUE democracy.
But alas...this idea will NEVER work. The groups that are in the minority won't be able to bribe politicians to force the majority to bend to their will...so the politicians will never allow it.
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Re:
Besides, True Democracy is the equivilent of 2 wolves and a sheep arguing over what to have for dinner.
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Not really 'banning online gambling, is it?
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Re: why is it that no one ever asks
No politician also wants to vote AGAINST healthy forests; or vote FOR leaving children behind. Even a vote AGAINST a controversial bill like the USA-PATRIOT Act sounds unpatriotic, 'he voted 4 times against funding counterterrorism!'
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Just plain unfair...
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Frist has really lost his marbles now. What a buncha twisted, idiotic logic...
He really has a brain? Is he sure the ol' Wizard didn't rip him off when he asked for his brain?
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The holier than though..
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Re: The holier than though..
Gambling is bad enough for some as it is in a regulated state, let alone from an entity in a land far away. I call on ANY online casino representative to defend anything I have charged against them in this thread. That won't happen. They are perfectly happy sitting back and watching there fortunes increase by thousands of dollars a second until the cash cows die. Scumbags of the Earth.
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Frist may be a weenie, but he's just playing the game by the "usual" rules. The common man can't dictate policy to the policy makers, but we can take action by protesting and voting out those who condone dirty politics.
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Speaking of Frist
----------------------
FRIST LAUDS GITMO'S STATE
September 13, 2006
WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Tuesday his recent trip to the Guantanamo Bay detainee camp showed excellent prison conditions, including "24/7 medical care - better than many Americans" get.
-----------------------
He's probably right!!
Thnk about that for a minute - from different directions. Any way I look at it it's pretty sad.
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taxes
I bet if you took the ol' wayback machine back a few years, you could find a time where brick and mortar gambling places.. you know. casinos.. lacked all these wonderful state and federal security features. house always wins, honest joe goes home broke.
now.. its a legalized, highly regulated and highly Taxed business. now, if gub'ment had simply said "no gambling, ever, for anyone, because its not safe" there would still be gambling, only now we could continue to be certain that lady luck had nothing to do with it.
skip forward to today. US Could have Embraced online gambling. a few laws, some nice regulations about having servers open for inspection from the appropriate body and based in the US, and honest joe can play a few rounds of poker or whatever from his home. end result is protected citizens (as much as possible) being able to play Legally, and nice shiny taxes.
would that close down all the overseas shady places? of course not. but having the Option of a regulated environment will draw the custumers. its like being able to choose between playing poker in the back room of Bobs Bar (and getting knifed if your winning too much) and visiting a nice casino (sans the free drinks)
a blanket "its illegal" is exactly that. a blanket pulled over gub'ments eyes, so they can announce that they dont see any problems, and everything is working A-Ok!
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uk v us
and as for governemtns and priorites.. our bunch of meppets spent ages arguing over hunting foxes.. nice to know nothing more important needed attention at that time.
but then you only have to look at our deputy PM to see why our system is a joke.
(though i reckon our deputy PM v your VP in a fist fight would be a good way to settle stuff, well entertaining at least)
how many of your politico's actually read the bills they pass, let alone understand them? if its like people here not many i'd bet.
while ever they are governed by the tabloid headlines the day after you can forget common sense.
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meme you are an IDIOT!
Have you been to Ultimatebet.com, pokerstars.com, etc....????
Im sure Phil Helmuth and other POKER PROFESSIONALS would endorse a corrupt poker site?
Beside you F'N moron go read the fine print most of these site are regulated, just not by the American Government
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And as a general comment...
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Works for me
Where does the " house " money go?? I dont know.
Where does any of your money go???
When you buy gas at Citgo, a Brazillian Co. where does that money go? When Walmart hires a forienger, where does he/she's paycheck go? When you go on vacation outside the country and pay for dinner, where does that money go?
If you're going to sit and worry about where every cent you spend is going to you should lock yourself in your house, and do nothing. No TV, who knows where every cent from all the money tied up in TV is going. Dont read that book... where was printed, where did the paper come from. Dont eat those carrots... where were they grown, who packaged them.
Money goes round and round no matter where you spend it. Passing a bill making illegal to play in a $5.00 poker tourney is just silly another way for government to wiggle more and more into our private lives.
Government is not a business
Downsize Goverment and give the power back to the people. Vote Libertarian!
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