Kentucky

What is it about politicians? They seem great when running for office and once they get there they either do dumb stuff or reach for powers not given to them. In Kentucky’s case, it’s both, unfortunately, and when Governor Beshear talks about the threat of online gambling, every sensible thing he ever said flies out the window.

This was the same guy that wanted but failed to get the General Assembly on board to allow casino gambling so the state wouldn’t lose millions upon millions of tax revenues as citizens drove across a bridge to Indiana. That made sense, more sense than predecessor Ernie Fletcher’s ridiculousness about how casinos turned the areas around them into third world countries as the light of the casinos prove just too powerful for the gambling moths. Fletcher’s arguments sounded similar to the collect sales tax on out-of-state sales? The situation in Kentucky is similar in overreaching authority.

Probably no one would have made much of a stink if Beshear had announced a plan to block illegal websites. Constitutionally or not, online gambling is illegal in the Untied States thanks to Bush’s DOJ and their grand imaginings of granted power. But Beshear wants to take the domains from companies based overseas. It’s not just an intestate commerce issue. It’s an international commerce issue.

Beshear is right to believe lots of these sites are shady—easily technologically fixed in favor of the site—but that’s why we have fraud laws on the books. Opposition to Beshear gathered in Frankfort on Tuesday for a hearing. The Governor likewise characterized the organization as shady because they wouldn’t reveal exactly whom they were representing.

That’s because the YouTube video that’s been voted up on Digg and is now officially embarrassing our whole state across the Internet. “The only person I would suggest who has acted in a shady and unethical manner thus far is the governor and his council. . . . If I’m gonna be called shady and my trade association is gonna be called shady by the governor of Kentucky, that is like the pot trying to call the kettle black.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8VPQxbD7Xk Ordinarily, them’s fightin’ words. But I cain’t gather up the gumption to defend my governor on this one.