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It's a safe assumption that you are pro-internet gambling if you are reading this article. After all, it's published on an internet gambling portal and is all about the internet gambling industry. It boggles my mind how some people make online gambling the source of all evil in the world. I can think of plenty of things which I think are worse than internet gambling, politics for example. Gambling is simply a form of entertainment. Like alcohol, it is something enjoyed by many adults, and unfortunately taken to an extreme by few. Yet people don't blame beer for alcoholics while they have no problem with blaming an online casino for gambling addiction. This same group will lobby to ban online gambling casinos, sports books, and poker rooms at the same time as they work to get online lotteries and pari-mutuel passed. Politics is an ugly game. Bob Riley is the Republican Governor of the state of Alabama. He has scary Republican helmet hair and is vocally against internet gambling due to his conservative Christian values. Of course those conservative values take a back burner to large campaign contributions. This is why the Alabama Democratic Party is having a field day with Riley, as apparently Riley received some money from Michael Scanlon. Scanlon was convicted with Jack Abromoff for corruption and conspiring to bribe a member of congress. Now Riley is catching the flack. The Alabama Democratic Party has launched a website, askobriley.com to raise awareness. They are billing the site as "The official Web site for questions our governor won't answer." Riley staunchly denies ever receiving campaign contributions either directly or indirectly from the Mississippi gambling interests that Scanlon represented before he was convicted on federal corruption charges. I went to the website to see what proof they had. There were a few quotes from news sites that left me unimpressed, but the quote from the US Senate hearing left me wondering. According to the Senate hearing, "Over the course of eight days in late 2001, [Michael] Scanlon withdrew $75,000 from his company’s account and gave $50,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the NRCC made a major contribution to Riley’s gubernatorial campaign. The ledger designates that the Nov. 26 withdrawal was for a “bama race,” and a separate page shows an expense of $75,000 was for “Riley” and that it would be “per check nrcc.”" That isn't exactly a direct contribution by anyone's definition. In fact, I would describe that as an indirect contribution. The Democrats are bordering on the ridiculous here. I'm certain not all of the money given to the NRCC was from Scanlon. In fact, he donated $50,000 while the NRCC gave Riley $75,000 so all of the money couldn't have been from Scanlon. Riley's campaign spokesman, Josh Blades, made a really strange statement regarding the accusations, "Not one piece of paper, not one campaign finance report and not one page on the Democrats' Web site shows that Bob Riley accepted a dime of money from Jack Abramaoff in the campaign for governor." I say the statement is strange because Riley isn't being accused of taking money from Abramoff, he's accused of taking money from Scanlon. Scanlon wasn't mentioned in his statement. The mudslinging between the opponents continued. "If Bob Riley insists on distracting Alabamians from the real issues of the campaign, I feel it is our duty to hold Riley accountable for his past actions," said state Democratic Chairman Joe Turnham. "Bob Riley's rhetoric on gambling just doesn't match his record." Blades responded, "Even though Lucy Baxley and the Democrat(ic) leadership killed every anti-gambling bill that Riley submitted to the Legislature, she blames him for gambling in the state. Lucy Baxley and the Democrat(ic) Party should be ashamed of accepting campaign contributions from political action committees tied to Milton McGregor and then waving the anti-gambling flag in Governor Riley's face." All of this over gambling, don't these people have bigger issues to argue about? Here's something, dog tracks are allowed in Jefferson and Macon counties in Alabama. That's dogs racing around a track running after a little electronic bunny. After the dogs have retired from the track they are often put down because their keepers don't want them anymore. It's cruel and inhumane in my opinion, yet both sides seem to have an issue with what adults do with a simple deck of cards? At these dog tracks people can play electronic bingo and slot machines. Which means in Alabama the politicians think it is ok to go to a seedy dog track to play slot machines but staying in your nice clean home and playing online is not ok. My favorite part of this whole controversy is that the nature of the financial transfer is something that both sides are supposedly against. It's close to impossible to trace the original source of contributions due to the regularity of money transfers among state and federal PACs. Yet while both candidates state that they support a ban on PAC-to-PAC transfers the proposal dies annually in the Legislature. The Indian gamers support Riley. One might question why considering his anti-gambling stance. Riley can't take away Indian gambling and as such all he can do is stop the spread of gambling in Alabama, which results in less competition for the Indian casinos. For a conservative state whose leader is anti-gambling it's amazing how much gambling the state allows. How can they justify Indian casinos, dog tracks, slots, and bingo machines and then get in a fuss about internet casinos? They rail on about campaign contributions while avoiding any real topics at hand. What is the level of unemployment for the state? How many of their citizens are homeless? Are their children getting a good education? Are the criminals being captured? Why is everyone focusing on gambling when there are so many things more important to discuss? Politics is a dirty game. Blackjack and poker are clean and fun, and even better when you can play in the comfort of your own home wearing your pajamas and your fuzzy bunny slippers. Posted on: September 4, 2006
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