So what would you think of a Congressman who rails on and on about the evils of internet gambling, even authors a law banning it that was declared illegal by the WTO, subjecting the US to compensation claims from other nations, yet is accepting donations from the horse racing industry?
His name is Bob Goodlatte, Republican representative from Virginia's Sixth District.
He has been described as a "little, dweeby, hypocritical moralist." (Perspectives Weekly)
He is also, quite possibly, a suitable target for an Ethics Committee investigation.
Below the fold........
Before I get into the nuts and bolts of HorseGate, I want to show you a few things that show you what kind of guy Bob Goodlatte is.
From the blog Blue Country Magic comes an unsurprisingly infuriating account of a telephone town hall meeting with SurgeBob....
I shall paraphrase some of what was said. (And before I am berated and accused of being a leftist liberal or whatever, I will come clean and say I have voted for this congressman in the past. That was when he said he would only serve two terms. Once he broke his word, he lost my vote forever.)
From Lexington: a state employee wondered how to keep the cost of health care from eating up her retirement benefits.
Goodlatte's answer? Not my problem, call your state representative.
From Fincastle: How about the federal government mandating a Living Wage (as opposed to a minimum wage) so people can actually afford to live?
Goodlatte's answer: Oh, it's a Free Enterprise System (he mentioned "Free Enterprise System" several times) and we don't want to interfere with that. It's bad enough we have a minimum wage. It's "damaging to our economy"
Goodlatte segued here into a one-way conversation about the Child Health Insurance program and how terrible the Democrats are for wanting to essentially raise the poverty line from barely able to eat to possibly making the house payment.
From Troutville: This poor man is a Veteran who has found that increased surcharges on his medicines and the payments he must make to the specialists he needs for heart and lung conditions are too much for him. He cannot afford his medicine anymore. I had no idea that the VA system was so broken, but apparently it's been as mismanaged as the rest of the government in the last seven years.
Goodlatte's answer: Check out the new low prices for drugs at Walmart.
What a sad hour it was. My heart broke for all of those poor people with health problems. I wanted to reach out and hug them all.
Goodlatte just sends them to Walmart.
The reasons to send SurgeBob back to the private sector just keep piling up........
Check it out, but don't say I didn't warn you if your head explodes.
Anyway, I could go on about my general distaste for this individual for quite some time. I even made a special trip so that he would have no doubt about what I thought of him.
But that is not the purpose of this excursion.
Bob Goodlatte is the co-author of HR4411, the Internet Gambling Prohibition and Enforcement Act. This bill passed the house, and a fair amount of its language was included in the Safe Port Act:
The Act was passed at midnight on the day Congress adjourned for the 2006 elections. Though a bill with the gambling wording was previously debated and passed by the House of Representatives, the SAFE Port Act (H.R. 4954) as passed by the House on May 4th (by a vote of 421-2) and the United States Senate on September 14th (98-0), bore no traces of the Unlawful Internet Gambling and Enforcement Act that was included in the SAFE Port Act signed into law by George W. Bush on October 13th, 2006.[7] The UIGEA was added in Conference Report 109-711 (submitted at 9:29pm on September 29, 2006), which was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 409-2 and by the Senate by unanimous consent on September 30, 2006.
From the SAFE Port Act:
(iii) Sense of congress.--It is the sense of
Congress that this subchapter shall not change which activities related to horse racing may or may not be allowed under Federal law.
Well. Isn't that convenient.
You see, Bob took close to $40,000 in campaign contributions from the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, starting in 2003:
Racing industry generous to anti-online gambling politician
One of online gambling's most passionate detractors apparently enjoys almost $40 000 in encouragement and support from an industry that benefits increasingly from his attacks on Internet gambling.
According to an article on Gambling Web this week the wannabe nemesis of online gambling, Congressman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, has accepted almost $40 000 in campaign funds from the horse racing industry...Goodlatte has been frequently quoted as supporting the view that online gambling is immoral, somewhat out of balance with his support for the carve outs, which have contributed to the invidious (and potentially expensive) situation that the United Stated currently finds itself in vis-à-vis the World Trade Organisation; facing billions in claims from other nations...
And when the integrity of these contributions was questioned, he returned the checks, which were reissued to his PAC, the "Good Fund."
Online gambling industry advocate J. Todd of the Association of Players, Casinos and Webmasters lays it out in these two videos.
(These clips are entertaining as well as informative. J.Todd is something of a character.)
The relevant portion of this clip begins at 1:40:
And this one at 7:35:
So while the US is facing WTO sanctions behind Goodlatte's protecting the moral fiber of the nation with the UIGEA, he snuck in some exemptions for his buddies with the bucks in the horse racing industry.
Remember this?
Goodlatte's answer: Oh, it's a Free Enterprise System (he mentioned "Free Enterprise System" several times) and we don't want to interfere with that.
Uh, huh.
Responses from online gambling sites
All online gambling sites listed on the London Stock Exchange or similar markets have stopped taking United States players due to the passage of the Act, while most non-public companies have announced an intention to continue taking US customers.
PartyGaming Plc, which runs PartyPoker.com, had its publicly-traded stock drop almost 60% in 24 hours as a result of this bill being passed. The company was moved from the FTSE 100 to the FTSE 250 Index on October 11
J. Todd about nailed it.
"Little, dweeby, hypocritical moralist."
That's not grounds for an investigation.
But being on the take is.
From the Pokerati.com comment thread comes this....uh...very candid observation by "DanM":
And the Goodlatte investigation — perfect. But what will it take for his voters to see what a skillful, unprincipled political scumbag he is? Makes me want to hire a male hooker to accost him in a bathroom. Good times.
Well! How do you really feel? :) :)
Speaking for myself, I always knew that we'd find some corruption, somewhere, in the Goodlatte operation. Go figure, when you have a guy that sides with Big Tobacco over little children, tells a constituent there shouldn't be a minimum wage, tells another constituent, "I don't have better health insurance than you", and broke his own term-limits promise.....I promise you, there will be some money to follow.
Or perhaps, "track" would be a better word.
Anyway, here's something that I found out while researching this diary that kinda energizes me:
Challenge to UIGEA part of Act
In April 2007, U.S. Congressman Barney Frank introduced a bill to overturn the gambling aspects of the Act, saying "The existing legislation is an inappropriate interference on the personal freedom of Americans and this interference should be undone." Additionally the bill sets up the framework for taxing and regulating online gambling by individuals within the United States.
I am no longer one of SurgeBob's constituents, and, in fact, now live in Congressman Frank's district. And I do talk radio.
Wonder what he thinks of all this. Probably oughta ask.
What do YOU think?
(I do know that there is a challenger for his seat in Congress. You might wanna check him out and show him some love...)