Deja Vu Vu Vu.
It seems to me I’ve heard that song before.
Harry Reid, you know him, the Senate’s Democratic Leader, has threatened again to end the filibuster, albeit only for White House administrative appointees and not for legislation or judicial nominees.
I suspect Reid will get one or two consolation appointments approved just to mollify him but not much more.
The dastardly duo and masters of Senate malfeasance: The bluffer and the blocker.
The Democrats, you see, want the filibuster to continue. They love the filibuster, they adore the filibuster. The filibuster permits them to proclaim loudly in support of legislation that they want to fail in the Senate.
That legislation is mostly suck up bills to appease their base. However, that same legislation would anger the payola – Wall Street and corporations that buy up the seats in that ignominious chamber.
They can then claim to the payola that, that even though they voted for the bill, they really didn’t want the legislation to pass. They just let the GOP do their dirty work.
I really wonder if Reid can get 51 votes from his Dems to implement the so called “nuclear option” to end filibustering.
Long live the filibuster.
***
Motorcycle Mania.
The North Carolina House passed a motorcycle safety bill this week and sneakily attached to it a rider that would severely limit access to abortions in the State.
Gov. Pat McCrory, who promised during the campaign not to sign additional anti-abortion legislation, fibbed. He did a voltafaccia, a complete 180 degree turn, and said he would sign the bill into law if it passed the NC Senate.
Could he be sniffing the winds for 2016? His positions have become so radically conservative that he’s now considered a right wing darling. He’s probably maneuvering for a VP nod, a move that would take NC out of play in the next presidential election.
Just another right wing GOP governor sniffing the political winds for 2016.
On a positive note about the bill, it does not specifically prohibit a woman from obtaining an abortion while riding a motorcycle.
That’s a relief.
***
The Texas Terrorist.
Ladies who entered the Texas State Capitol building had their purses searched by State Troopers who proceeded to remove all tampons from the handbags.
The tampon-free zone – the Texas State Capitol. Troopers courageously removed the devices from the purses of ladies attempting to sneak them into the building.
UPW News Super Senior Correspondent Marcy Popindick reporting from Austin, said she overheard a trooper fingering the strange device telling a woman whose purse he was searching that “we doesn’t allow no improvised explosive devices in this here building.”
While removing the tampons, he said, “You just cain’t trust none of these here pro-abortion terarists.”
Firearms, however, were not confiscated.
Ms. Popindick reported that a member of the Texas Taliban state senate, promised to introduce free carry legislation that would allow women to bring tampons into all public buildings in the great land of the Alamo.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry sniffing the political air to ascertain support for a 2016 run for the presidency. His chances improved dramatically when legislators promised to pass a free carry tampon bill.
***
A Kidney To The Poor.
According to Dean Baker, right wing economist Greg Mankiw, compared progressive taxation to removing a kidney from rich people for transplanting into the poor.
There’s something wrong with Mankiw’s assertion here.
After all, a rich person can have his kidney removed in the private clinic on his yacht.
How much of an inconvenience could that be?
Actually, progressive taxation is a lot less painful and a patriotic duty.
Our pampered rich should skip the surgical procedure and start paying what they rightfully owe.
***
Pissy Walmart Exec.
The Washington DC city council is considering a bill that would raise the city’s hourly minimum wage for employees of big box retailers to $12.50. Working 40 hours a week, a person at that rate would earn an annual income of $26,000. In DC, apparently, that wage will get you by.
In response, a Walmart executive threatened a pull out from the city.
The Walmart shuffle: Bust into a town; demand outrageous tax concessions; pay wages so low that it forces employees to seek public assistance; kill mom and pop businesses; destroy local jobs and competition and crush whole neighborhoods; then claim to be a good neighbor and a job creator while pocketing countless billions of dollars in exploitative profits.
I have a better suggestion. Why not just kick them out instead. Walmart stands to earn hundreds of million of dollars in profit doing business in DC offering poverty level wages and no benefits often forcing employees to depend on food stamps and Medicaid. These public services, by the way, are entitlements to Walmart that it and other corporations benefit from greatly.
And getting Walmart out of the community, any community, would benefit that community in a number of ways, not the least of which is an inducement to private, small businesses to open up shop.
Remember the “mom and pop” stores. Walmart killed them off by the millions thereby throwing millions of workers into unemployment and starving wage jobs.
In fact, Walmart and other big box retailers, have been job destroyers, by some estimates killing off 3 jobs for every 1 created.
When you consider the tax inducements and other breaks the big boxers receive for barging in, it’s easy to understand how such retailers can be a detriment to the prosperity of a community – paying poverty level wages, forcing workers to depend on public services and reducing the overall tax base for the community they brag about serving.
Want to get your neighborhood back on its feet? Consider dumping Walmart and the other big boxers.
How? Raise the minimum wage. Walmart hates it and maybe, just maybe, they’ll get the hell outta town and “downtowns” will spring up all over the country once again.
***
A Day To Behold.
The day we long for all year has arrived once again. Is it Christmas? Is it Thanksgiving? Halloween? Labor Day? The Fourth of July?
No, it’s National Nude Day. And today is that day. And why shouldn’t there be a national day for nudity. After all, there are days for condoms and toilet paper and all manner of other events, articles and subjects worthy of celebration.
And just in case anyone is wondering. No. That isn’t a picture of me. It’s actually a painting by Eugene Emmanuel Amaury Daval (1808-1885) entitled The Birth of Venus).
And here is my paean to National Nude Day.
.
There once was a dude quite crude Who often pranced around nude. With assets astonishing But a wife admonishing The dude so imbued found a feud soon ensued..
Related articles
- Texas Senate Removes Tampons of Mass Destruction (crooksandliars.com)
- Texas State Capitol neutralizes tampon threat (dailydot.com)
- Tampons Confiscated, Guns Allowed as Texas Senate Debates Abortion (theatlanticwire.com)
The DC Folly Trolley 