Thank You, Republicans, For Saving Us From Online Poker

They haven't caught Osama yet after five years (but roughly 47 "number two" men in Al Qaeda have been taken out, along with habeas corpus). The Gulf Coast is still a mess. Freedom is not so much "on the march" as it is "crawling from the wreckage". North Korea has the bomb, Iran is on its way. Congressman are turning over a new page (literally).

Have no fear, however, because the party of less government interference in our lives has rescued us from our greatest threat: online poker.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 was rammed through Congress by the Republican leadership in the final minutes before the election period recess. According to Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), no one on the Senate-House Conference Committee had even seen the final language of the bill. The Act is title VIII of a completely unrelated bill, the Safe Port Act, HR 4954, dealing with port security. It can be found on pages 213-244 of the Conference Report.

Since the government's main concern, of course, is preventing underage and problem gambling, they naturally exempted horseracing and state lotteries, once again displaying the sort of cynical hypocrisy that has been the hallmark of this Administration. I was particularly impressed with how they stuck this law onto a port security measure! It's almost as if they are involved in an ongoing game of one-upmanship to see how much they can get away with before we revolt.