Bizarre Bill #4

Or maybe not so much "bizarre" as just "spectacularly assholish."


Wisconsin Republicans propose 7-day work week at behest of business lobby

A pair of Republican legislators in Wisconsin are circulating a draft of a bill that would allow a 7-day work week for the state’s workers. According to the Stephen Points Journal newspaper, the two lawmakers are floating the bill on behalf of the state’s largest anti-union business lobby, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce.

 It was proposed by state Sens. Glenn Grothman (R) of West Bend and Mark Born (R) of Beaver Dam

.

Well, I'm sure they all have the people's best interests at heart!

Oh, wait. . . Wisconsin Republicans. . . Oh, right. They're huge assholes!

 

And I am their King!





Republicans say that the bill will expand workers’ opportunities to make money by working unconventional hours.

Did you know that in Wisconsin, their word for "opportunity" is the same as the word for "getting fucked over?"

Opportunity? The opportunity to work seven days a week? Who the fuck do you think wants that opportunity? Although. . . I do seem to remember hearing something about some people. . . hmmm. . .

Wisconsin state Sen. Glenn Grothman (R) is attempting to roll back one of the state's progressive labor laws, arguing that workers should be allowed to work without a day off if they so choose.
"Right now in Wisconsin, you're not supposed to work seven days in a row, which is a little ridiculous because all sorts of people want to work seven days a week," he told The Huffington Post in an interview.


Oh, right! That's who wants to work seven days a week, all sorts of people! Like, for instance, people who hate their spouses and want to avoid them. Or, um, people with really serious neuroses. Or people who hate themselves. All sorts of people want to work seven days a week!

Especially this guy:

Lawmakers Grothman and Born told reporters from the Journal that they had heard from a diverse array of businesses that support the 7-day work week

Quelle  Surprise!

 A bunch of businesses support a law that helps businesses screw their employees? Well, why didn't you say so? Oh, hey, this just in: chubby children support the "seconds on ice cream" bill!

“Here’s an opportunity for folks to work together to get things done in a positive way for the employer and the employee,” Born said. “It just seems like a win all the way around.”

Sure, just like being cellmates turned out to be a win-win for Schillinger and Beecher!

Folks working together! (OZ)

 Working together in a positive way, you know, the way where one side gets whatever they want and the other side takes it and likes it.



Oh, and here's something I didn't know:

Wisconsin is one of the few states in the nation where businesses "must provide employees with at least one period consisting of 24 consecutive hours of rest in each calendar week." This doesn't mean that workers get to take off once every seven days; an employee could work for up to 12 consecutive days "if the days of rest fall on the first and last days of the 2 week period."

Really?!?! In most states your employer does not have to give you a single day off? In most states they can work you seven days a week? God, this is a hell of a country!

Bizarre Bill #3

Because Republicans hate the idea of the government telling private businesses what they cna and cannot do, it's Missouri State Senator John Lamping, and his anti-Obamacare bill!


According to the St Louis Post-Dispatch:

The bill would suspend insurance companies’ state licenses if they accepted subsidies offered by the federal government to help pay health insurance premiums for low- and middle-income Missourians.

Yes, you will lose your ability to do business in the great state of Missouri if you commit the grave offense of cooperating with the government of the USA. How does that make sense? Hell if I know. But I'm sure Lamping has a perfectly reasonable rationale for his bill.

Lamping contends the subsidies are illegal and eventually will be thrown out by a federal court. 

And which court is this that will overrule the goddamn Supreme Court of the United Fucking States of America?

 

Lamping contends the subsidies are illegal and eventually will be thrown out by a federal court. By rejecting them, he said, Missouri could remove the trigger in the federal law that, beginning in 2015, will assess penalties against large employers that don’t provide health insurance.

And if that doesn't work, he plans to hold his breath until he turns blue!

 

I mean, seriously, how the hell is that even supposed to work? You forbid insurance companies from accepting federal funds, then that somehow prevents the federal government from enforcing other parts of its law? Is that it? Because I really don't understand how that's supposed to work.

“This is a legislative way by which the state actually could push back” against the law, Lamping said.

No. It isn't.

 Where in the hell would Lamping get such a cockamamie idea?

Lamping said he got the idea for his bill suspending the insurers’ licenses from Michael Cannon, a health policy scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington.

Ohhhhh, the Cato Institute. I'm sure this Cato Institute guy isn't a total nut or anything.

 Cannon traveled the country, encouraging states not to set up insurance exchanges. He argued that employers would have a solid legal foundation to contest any penalties in states with federally run exchanges.

Yes, even though the Supreme Court has found the Affordable Care Act Constitutional in its entirety, I'm sure that you will have a solid legal foundation from which to challenge it. Yeah, this is totally the guy you want to take advice from.

 Lamping said the Tenth Amendment group “has sorta latched onto this. They think it’s a vehicle for the issues that are important to them, the idea of nullification. It’s far more simple than that. It’s mandating that the insurance companies follow state statutes and follow federal statutes.”

Wait, what? Forbidding your insurers from following Federal Law is "mandating that they follow federaal statutes?" Do you even listen to yourself when you talk?

Guess what Lefty-Liberal rag had this headline?

West Virginia Chemical-Spill Site Avoided Broad Regulatory Scrutiny

Contamination Highlights Gaps in Regulations, Prompts Questions on Potential Threats

Give up?








Yep.
The Wall Street Freakin Rupert-Murcoch-Owned Journal.

The WALL STREET JOURNAL thinks there are "gaps" in regulations. Do you have any idea how lax your regulatory climate has to be for the WSJ to think there are gaps and that there are questions? Because their default position is to scream about over-regulation crippling American Industry and Freedommmmm!!!

Now one rarely says this about a Murdoch-owned paper, but the Journal does have a point.

 

The site of a West Virginia chemical spill that contaminated the water supply for 300,000 people operated largely outside government oversight, highlighting gaps in regulations and prompting questions on whether local communities have a firm grasp on potential threats to drinking water.

 The storage facility owned by Freedom Industries Inc. on the banks of the Elk River was subject to almost no state and local monitoring, interviews and records show. The industrial chemical that leaked into the river, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, isn't closely tracked by federal programs. A state regulator had said earlier that, before last week's spill, environmental inspectors hadn't visited the site since 1991. 

1991! How the hell could they go 24 years without an inspection? They're not a fertilizer plant!

 

 Too soon?

 So how could this happen?

Matthew Blackwood, chairman of a county-level group that develops local emergency-response plans, said Sunday the group didn't know that stores of the chemical were sitting upriver from the area's largest water-treatment plant.

"We definitely had not thought of water contamination on this scale," he said Sunday. "I don't want to overregulate private industry, but this does show that there are some chemicals that fall under the radar."

Ohhh. I see. This chemical company just poisoned the drinking water of thousands of people and you're concerned about OVER-regulating. Okay, now it makes sense. And that's a good a reason as any to expect that this kind of shit will continue to happen again and again.

Bizarre Bill # 2

From New Jersey's Christopher Smith, it's the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Bill," because why not pass a law against something that there's already a law against?

US HR7: No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act

No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act - Prohibits the expenditure of funds authorized or appropriated by federal law or funds in any trust fund to which funds are authorized or appropriated by federal law (federal funds) for any abortion.

Which I'm pretty sure is exactly what the Hyde Amendment is, but what the fuck, they're still trying to re-de-fund Acorn, so I guess that's pretty much par for the course!

But here's where it get weird:

TITLE II—ELIMINATION OF 

CERTAIN TAX BENEFITS

RELATING TO ABORTION

SEC. 201. DEDUCTION FOR MEDICAL EXPENSES NOT ALLOWED FOR ABORTIONS. 

 

 

So, if you have an abortion, and you are itemizing deductions on yout tax return, you can not count the cost of the abortion as a medical expense. Because that'll stop you! Because, I guess the thought process here is that a pregnant woman will think to herself, "damn, I'm in no position to raise a child, I certainly can't afford that huge expense for the next 18 years, but on the other hand, if I can't deduct the cost of the abortion, well, I guess I'd better go through with it?"

Or is it maybe just a way for Republicans to feel lik ethey've punished the sluts for their sluttiness? Nah, that couldn't be it!

Bizarre Bills just keep on Comin'!

There have been a couple bizarre bills introduced in the last few days by Republicans who seem to know that their window of opportunity is closing and want to fuck things up as much as possible on the way out. First up - Tom Garrett of Virginia:

 

A lot of different pictures come up when you Google "Tom Garrett." 

This isn't him, but I wish it was.

GOP Senator Pushing ‘Emergency’ Bill To Make Oral Sex Between High School Students A Felony

by David Badash on January 9, 2014

Yes, even though anti-sodomy laws have been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and even thought the voters of Virginia rejected Ken Cuccinelli who ran on a "no more blowjobs" platform, Virginia State Senator Tom Garrett wants a new law making it illegal for teens to do naughty things, because I guess he thinks that's a loophole and the Supreme Court's ruling only applies to adults?Or something?

Here are some highlights from Garrett's bill.

A BILL to amend and reenact § 18.2-361 of the Code of Virginia, 

relating to crimes against nature.

 

Imagine being a person who thinks that oral sex is a "crime against nature!"

 

A. If any Any person who (i) carnally knows in any manner any brute animal, or

WAIT! Stop right there! Okay, first of all, you're going to lump consensual oral sex in with bestiaility? Those two things go in the same category for you? Wow, your wife is one lucky lady!

Second, "Carnally knows?" Carnally knows?" Damn, you got to appreciate the use of the Old Testament language in an anti-sexy-time bill. Really makes you seem so much more credible!

Any person who (i) carnally knows in any manner any brute animal, or (ii) carnally knows any male or female person by the anus or by or with the mouth, or voluntarily submits to such carnal knowledge, he or she shall be is guilty of a Class 6 felony

So anything with the mouth or butt is illegal? Pretty interesting for a man who lives in the town of Bumpass, Virginia!

 

No, not kidding. I got that from his Facebook! Bumpass, Virginia!

The provisions of clause (ii) shall not apply where all persons are consenting adults who are not in a public place and who are not committing, attempting to commit, conspiring to commit, aiding, or abetting any act in furtherance of prostitution.

 

So, if high school kids are going down on each other, it's a CRIME AGAINST NATURE!!!! but it's okay if you're over 18? So, I'm over 18, why can't I fuck a horse? Come on, man, be consistent! I promise I won't charge the horse any money!

Of course, at this point you're probably thinking "hey, isn't it better that teens do oral and/or anal than traditional intercourse, because you can't get pregnant in the mouth?" But that's because you are a "normal" person, which is why the good citizens of Bumpass, Virginia did not choose you to be their representative! Because if you were not so "normal," you'd realize that there is an oral sex emergency going on right now in the state of Virginia!
Seriously:

3. That an emergency exists and this act is in force from its passage.

See? Now don't you feel foolish?

 Read the whole bill here: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?141+ful+SB14