Hi,
I wrote a letter to TN Congressman Steve Cohen due to his grilling of our AG regarding poker. He let him have it a little bit.
Unfortunately after i wrote it i couldn't send it because i'm not from Tennessee. Weird since it let me use a pull down menu to select from all of the States and write my letter before rejecting it upon sending. I even tried using a real TN address but apparently they pick up my IP address. I am hoping that somebody would take about a minute and mail this for me.
Here is the link to his site:
http://http://http://cohen.house.gov...form&task=view
I am up late without much sleep but here is what i wrote. Edit at will etc.
"Mr. Cohen,
I want you to know that you have a fan for life. I recently saw your questions for our AG regarding poker. It makes me feel a little better to know that at least some of our politicians still believe in freedom!
I have been playing poker professionally for almost 5 years now. My home State is Washington but i left after the Governor there took 600k in campaign contributions from the State's casinos then outlawed online poker. It is still hard living far from family and old friends. Playing poker in Wa. will net you the same felony that child pornagraphists receive.
Several things are amazing about this to me. In the blink of an eye the DOJ put an estimated 10,000+ Americans out of work. This included players, programmers, TV crews, poker coaches, writers,etc... For the players we simultaneously temporarily (at least, one of the sites is likely to not pay) lost much of our savings/bankroll.
Most importantly though, they took away some of our freedom. An estimated 10,000,000+ Americans play online poker and some of them can't easily leave their home.
How is it that the DOJ shut down online poker using the UIGEA when they don't even have an opinion as to whether poker is a "game of skill" or not? I understand Mr. Holder's point that they only enforce the laws (police officer brother), but don't they at least need to try and interpret them? If Mr. Holder had no opinion as to whether poker is a "game of skill", then how could he shut down this industry since it's legal if such?
Besides the fact that any semi-intelligent person who has played the game for a time knows it's skill, i can offer you an easy proof that it is. There are many excellent players that go long stretches without losing. One such is Dusty Schmidt. He has gone(or possibly went) over 5 years without ever having a losing month. The odds of going 64 months consecutively without losing if chance are 1 in 18,446,744,073,709,551,616. I forgot and had to look it up, that number is 18 quintillion.
Thank you again sir for standing up for freedom. I have been spreading your name as a good man.
Best wishes,
"
Thanks if anyone contacts him or uses this! Notice that your name or an alias needs to be on the bottom. I'm tired enough that i'll regret posting this, but i guess it's the "fight for poker" forum so no one looks at it anyways.
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