5 Killed, 18 Injured, In Shooting At LBGTQ Club In Colorado Springs. It flat-out has to be a hate crime. I’ll post more as developments warrant.
How Sports Gambling Bought Its Way Into Ubiquity. BTW, didja know that the guy who sponsored Delaware’s bills was Charles Potter? Now you do. Also John Viola. Markell and Carney had no problem with this. Just marijuana. Which one do you think leads to more tragedy?:
Less than five years ago, betting on sports in the United States was prohibited under federal law except in Nevada casinos and a smattering of venues in other states. Sports leagues argued that the ban safeguarded the integrity of American sports, while consumer watchdogs warned that legal gambling could turn fans into addicts. In countries like Britain, sports gambling free-for-alls had left trails of addiction.
But in 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal prohibition was unconstitutional.
DraftKings and FanDuel, giants in the fast-growing field of fantasy sports, had already mobilized an army of former regulators and politicians to press for sports betting in state capitals. Soon, in a crucial reversal, sports leagues overcame their antipathy toward gambling, which they came to see as a way to keep increasingly distracted audiences tuned in. Casino companies also hopped on board.
Gambling companies and their allies deployed a bare-knuckled lobbying campaign, showering state lawmakers with money, gifts and visits from sports luminaries and at times using deceptive arguments to extract generous tax breaks and other concessions, according to a New York Times investigation. It was based on thousands of pages of documents and communications obtained in part through open-records requests and interviews with dozens of industry and state officials.
The industry’s ultimate goal?:
But the gambling industry views sports betting as a steppingstone to an even loftier ambition: the legalization of online casino gambling, in which Americans would be able to wager on poker and other games anywhere with an internet connection. Six states already permit some so-called iGaming, and lobbyists are pressing more states to follow suit.
Hey, I tried to warn ya’. From 2016:
‘Unseemly’ defines HB 444(Potter), which is a last-minute attempt to do the bidding of Fan Duel and Draft Kings under the phony guise of ‘regulating’ fantasy sports in Delaware. While AG’s are prosecuting these miscreants for illegal gambling, and while these companies are being forced to pay out tens of millions of dollars in reparations, Potter’s bill would create a ‘legislative finding’ that what they engage in are games of skill, not games of chance, and, as such, do not constitute illegal gambling. One of the most cynical ploys of the year. The bill has now cleared his ethically-dubious committee. Campaign contributions all around! Can someone please primary Potter? Oh, and Viola, while you’re at it?
The Good News? Some ‘someones’ ultimately primaried both Potter and Viola. And beat them.
Trump Back On Twitter. Because of ‘democracy’. Musk ran a poll, and Trump won, 52-48. Something tells me he didn’t poll the advertisers.
The President’s Bizarre Rantings–The President Of FIFA, Not The Former Guy. This piece has it all, including my kind of snark:
The opening remarks will take the headlines. Striding to his podium with an air of grandiose faux humility, Infantino paused, let the silence gather, then shared his feelings. “Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel [like] a migrant worker.”
It is tempting to marvel at the virtuosity here. Accused of betraying the rights of assorted minority groups, of promoting only the interests of the powerful, in the space of three short seconds Infantino wore gay face, he wore African face, he wore disabled face.
Most cynically, Fifa’s president dressed himself up in the clothes of a deceased migrant worker killed building that £4bn cash machine. Later on, explaining his struggle against prejudice as a white man in Switzerland, he brandished his own red hair and freckles like a magician triumphantly producing a rabbit from a bowler hat.
You’ll want to read the whole thing, so I won’t spoil it. But, please, read it.
What do you want to talk about?