In Anti-Gambling Craze, First Amendment is Collateral Damage

We (okay, I) usually think of the uneducated red states as the anti-freedom bloc. But, the Blue states are doing their part to make sure that Dixie and Utah aren’t the only places where personal liberty is no longer a right. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick is working on a nanny state anti-gambling law. That one particularly galls me as a native Masshole.

But Washington (the state, not the slum) has taken the lead in stomping on the First Amendment in its zeal to prohibit online gambling.

According to this editorial, a man in Bellingham, WA launched a website about gambling. Mind you, there was no gambling on the website, but state officials still said that the site was illegal.

It’s what the feds would call ‘aiding and abetting,’ ” says the director of the state’s gambling commission, Rick Day. “Telling people how to gamble online, where to do it, giving a link to it — that’s all obviously enabling something that is illegal.” (source)

Looks like Deborah Taylor Tate is going to have to share her ass-hat of the week award with Rick Day.