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Repugs pandering, grovelling to the extreme right wing, Puritanical Christian supremacists.
Oh, oh, Manny's head is gonna explode...
US Moves To Implement Rules Banning Most Internet Gambling
By Corey Boles, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NasdaqWASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The Treasury Department has finalized regulations that would effectively ban online gambling in the U.S. and is trying to have them implemented in the waning days of the Bush administration.
The controversial rules would make it illegal for banks to process credit card transactions from most Internet gambling sites.
Their implementation has been opposed by groups advocating individuals' right to gamble, the banking industry, Democratic lawmakers in Congress and even officials at the Federal Reserve.
The rules stem from a last-minute addition to a law passed in the final hours of the Republican controlled Congress in 2006. The provisions related to online gambling were included in an unrelated port security bill.
The Treausury Department forwarded the final regulations to the Office of Management and Budget on Oct. 21, a necessary step towards their implementation.
It's standard practice for outgoing administrations to finalize controversial regulations before leaving office, a practice known as a midnight drop.
The law as drafted by Congress includes some exemptionsfor horse race betting, interstate online lotteries and betting on fantasy sports.
But draft rules published by the Treasury in October 2007 don't define what would be considered an illegal transaction, and there has been much confusion as to what types of online gambling would be rendered illegal.
Banks have warned they may block all online gambling transactions rather than try to determine which ones are illegal. An official from the Federal Reserve testified before Congress in April that the draft regulations created considerable uncertainty.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, attempted to drum up support from fellow lawmakers for legislation that would amend the law to allow online gambling transactions to continue.
He was unsuccessful but pledged to return to the issue next year.
The Poker Players Alliance, a group formed to combat the law, has fought against its implementation. It argues that Internet poker should be exempted from the law.
"It's really remarkable that this administration would try to push this out given the burden it would place on financial ins utions at this time of financial crisis," said John Pappas, the executive director of the group.
Pappas is meeting Friday with officials from the OMB, whose job it is to formally implement the regulations, in a last ditch effort to prevent them from being put on the books.
He wants officials to wait until President-elect Barack Obama's administration takes office in January to allow for a thorough review of the potential impact of the rules.
A Treasury spokeswoman did not return phone calls seeking comment for this report.
Repugs pandering, grovelling to the extreme right wing, Puritanical Christian supremacists.
Why can't this administration just go the away already?
Yes, we will allow gambling in Indian Reservations, in Vegas, in Atlantic City, at every roadside stop in many states. We will subsidize their construction in some cases, tax the out of them, and leave them alone. We will advertise lotteries in the vast majority of states despite the fact that doing so is encouraging financial ignorance.
However, TEH INTORWEBS IS BAD. NO TO NET NEUTRALITY, NO TO INTERWEB GAMBLING. Seriously, how does it make sense to them to ban internet poker and sportsbooks when they are also legal in some physical locations all over the country!?
Boutons, you are awfully caustic, but it does seem to be some sort of weird, compartmentalized morality that can justify this.
Its not so much as pandering to the religious right in this case so much as the administration actually wanting to accomplish the same agenda as the religious right regardless of how much it contradicts with true conservative. These guys love to legislate morality. That is, THEIR morality.
I don't know a ton about the online gambling community. How many of these sites have their HQ's set up overseas or in some way that they don't get taxed by the U.S. government?
They're all overseas and it has nothing to do with tax law but rather the overzealousness of the Justice Dept in pursuing them on the basis of gambling laws meant to target bookies taking bets over the phone although the passage of UIGEA a couple of years ago at least legitimately makes those sites actions illegal now.
I promise you these companies would love nothing more than to have a legit entry into the United States market and would pay taxes on their earnings.
Oh anyone who wants to take away online gambling. You gotta be ing kidding me.
And a REPUBLICAN administration is trying to get this done? Honestly? What the will it take to get libertarians to leave the Republicans? lol
One of the reasons I liked the Biden pick was because he was one of the only senators who voted against the first incarnation of UIGEA and although I'm sure that had to do with added burden on CC companies I'm glad I had his vote in that matter.
I think with the looming deficit you absolutely need to look to sources such as this in order to generate more tax revenue. I would not be surprised one bit if we see a move towards open legalization of online gambling during this administration.
this one is a punch to the gut and reminds me of what I dislike about the republican party.
That's about what I figured. Thanks Manny.
What sucks is the underhanded way in which they pass these things. This is being rushed by an admin on the way out. UIGEA was passed as a rider on of SAFE Port act. Yeah, I'm sure some ing congressman who is up for reelection is going to vote against that because of an internet gambling provision within the act. Yeah ing right and I don't blame them for not voting against it.
Man, so many things that the GOP has done in the past 8 years that I disagree with but none of them make my blood boil like this for obvious reasons.
Oh, and who introduces legislation to strike down UIGEA? Barney ing Frank!!!!!
Well, Treasury passed this today so now the banks have 1 year comply. Its not clear whether it just covers credit cards or what the deal is. I haven't used a credit card in a long time so I'm not sure how big this is.
Assuming Obama doesn't strike it down, that is. (No idea what his stance would be on this.)
Government of the people? Yeah right. How many people are actually morally against gambling these days? I can't imagine it is a majority.
There is going to be a lot of striking down of last minute regulations by Obama but most of the focus is on environmental stuff and thats fine with me. I'm hoping these regs get lumped in but really I'm hoping that Barney Frank's bill gets reintroduced in the next congressional session and gets passed even if it just gets passed along party lines.
Its time to come through for me Dems. I worked my ass off for your election, now you could throw a bone my way.
Its absolutely not a majority. This is simply foolish moral legislation from a minority.
He must be banging someone from one of the offshore casinos these days
At least the spam emails about FREE ONLINE GAMBLING!!!! will stop.
No, its because these regs are bad for the banking industry. Take a look at the committee he chairs.He must be banging someone from one of the offshore casinos these days
But if you look at the voting history Democrats have been against this type of while the GOP keeps pushing it. One look at the PPA's rating of my reps explains it. Cornyn gets an F from them which requires active campaigning or co sponsorship of legislation against online gaming. Charlie Gonazales and Ciro Rodriguez both get an A which requires prety much the opposite.
I really ing hate John Cornyn right now. I voted against that er and even though he won at least I have that.
Is poker considered gambling? I thought it was considered a game of skill and immune from gambling restrictions. Or is that a state-level issue and not a federal distinction?
State level issue but the reason they don't point that out is because they want to use as broad a stroke as possible. Poker most definitely is a game of skill and there has been testimony from the DoJ on the congressional level that there is no law making online poker illegal but this administration doesn't let those details get in their way.
The PPA (Poker Players Alliance) had been actively lobbying for a poker specific carveout from these regulations but they were not successful. I'm not sure if the final regulations spell out exactly what unlawful gambling is, but it woudln't suprise me if they didn't. I'm trying to find out as as I type this but I don't have a copy of the final regs yet.
So there is basis for poker players to challenge the Cons utionality of the law.
I don't know a lot about internet gambling. But isn't there at least some legitimate concern that most of the sites are fronts for organized crime? Or is that an urban legend I picked up somewhere?
Total urban legend. And making them illegal isn't exactly going to improve anything on that front. The biggest site when this went down was a publicly traded company on the (I believe) London Stock Exchange. Since then most of the companies have simply packed up and left the US market with the exception of a couple of big ones and some smaller ones. Online poker around the world is currently flourishing and while UIGEA did see a sharp reduction in the amount of players from the US and a long period where there was extreme difficulty in withdrawing funds (I had thousands tied up for quite some time) they've started to grow once again.
There are WTO cases pending against the US because of this legislation. This is a completely legit industry across the world but the religious right would rather I not make money with my math skills because I might join Hagey in if I do.
I don't know if there is an actual legit consitutional challenge and in fact I'm almost sure there is not because of the way things are worded. The online poker community reaches into quite a few places and we have lawyers and people who work on the hill who have commented on this at the legislation forum at twoplustwo.com who have shot that down in the past if I remember correctly.
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