Thursday, February 23, 2012
Legislature This Week in 'You Don't Think This Legislation Through, Do You?' News
Posted by Betsy Phillips on Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 5:04 AM
2. As Roger Abramson points out on Twitter, state Rep. Bill Sanderson wants to make it illegal to buy beer through the self-checkout lane after "He got the idea from 1) a movie that 2) he didn't even see." Yes, he doesn't think we should be able to buy beer through the self-checkout lane because someone told him a story about a make-believe situation already covered by our laws regarding theft. I'd rather not have any legislation based on made-up situations, but my god, is it too much to ask that, if we have to, that they be made-up situations a legislator has personally witnessed?
3. According to The Tennessean, state Rep. Mike Sparks has a bill, HB2923, that "will punish store owners caught selling the newer synthetic or more traditional drugs in their stores by suspending their ability to sell beer and cigarettes" by requiring "the commissioner of revenue to revoke the tobacco license for 60 days."
The problem? Store owners in Tennessee don't have to get a tobacco license. Nope. According to state law (67-4-1015), tobacco manufacturers and wholesalers are licensed, not retailers. No one thought to find out who has to get a tobacco license before trying to legislate who's going to get it taken away?
Really, is it too much to ask that our state legislators not waste the state's time and money with legislation that doesn't address actual reality?
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Comments (13)
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I believe I read this bill correctly, and it states you can have free speech so long as you pay to use it. Why am I paying taxes if I also have to pay to exercise my constitutional rights? Did the constitution get amended to say "We The People, after filing the proper paperwork and paying for a permit, of The United States of America...."
http://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/BillSummary.aspx?BillNumber=HB3815
Seriously, after reading this bill 1,000's of my brain cells simultaneously committed sepuku for having done so. I am now dumber for having read it.
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We've got to keep goverment out of our lives....by making it illegal to buy beer at self-checkouts!
Beer at checkout is SB 3433. The HB 3568 had already PASSED the House on a voice vote, meaning they were too cowardly to go on record for this.
I guess Nanny State Intrusive Government is good when Republicans do it.
It's easy to say that the legislature is "stupid" as a general pejorative, but what you'll discover, if you read legislation or, even worse, attend a floor vote, is the appalling reality that some of the legislators elected by the good people of Tennessee really are stupid.
I do believe "don't say gay" would eliminate any possibility of teaching creationism or a virgin birth. I am pretty sure miraculous means not natural.
"Current state law does not allow any sex education until high school."
Whoa. My public school sex ed started in 5th grade.
Teen pregnancy rate rank.
Tennessee: #9
Gnomeland: #44
If you want fewer teen pregnancies, start sex-ed earlier.
Also, I buy beer at the self checkouts at Kroger with some regularity. I still get carded as if it were a standard checkout. So what's the problem?
Min, please prove to me that any of these buffoons were elected by any of the good people of Tennessee. (That's a rhetorical request, 'cause you can't.)
The facts that 40 states now have laws requiring voter-verified paper ballots in all elections and that only one state (Tennessee) has repealed its VVPB law after the Republicans were (s)elected by unverifiable voting machines to take control of our legislature in 2008 speaks volumes about why our rabid flying monkeys now entertain the nation nightly on Comedy Central and embarrass TN voters who no longer have the means to throw these bums out.
Don't blame TN voters for this buffoonery. Blame "Too Tall" Tre Hargett, Mark "Human Error" Goins and their favorite political muse, Joseph Stalin, who famously once said:
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
I know, I know -- I perhaps say this too often here. But if you believe TN voters have anything whatsoever to do with our current mess, prove it. Or stop spewing the red-tinged Kool-aid. Thanks kindly.
Asks Betsy: "Really, is it too much to ask that our state legislators not waste the state's time and money with legislation that doesn't address actual reality?"
Apparently so. But you knew that already, didn't you?
The nitwittery of these nimrods in the General Assembly knows no bounds. While they are a constant source of amusement, they are also troubling because they are not only stupid, incompetent and often just plain mean, they are dangerous because they can in fact pass laws. But you know who is to blame more than these half-asses? The bible-thumping, gay-hating, wilfully ignorant, limbaugh-listening, dumbass voters who elected them.
And once again, on cue, another willfully clueless poster blames the TN voters. So, once again, I will request that Perry prove it. Perhaps if you and Min put your heads together, you can accomplish that. No one else has been able to (which is just how the TN/RICO wants it), but hope (and misplaced blame) apparently springs eternal.
**shrug** The two people I voted for in the senate and house races for my district won. Now you prove my vote didn't count.
Min, this is the first time you've ever responded to me, so I guess I can be thankful for that. (I guess.)
Your response has nothing to do with my post about not blaming TN voters for the current zoo in our General Assembly. I have no way of proving whether your vote counted or didn't count (which is my continuous point), since your vote only "exists" within the bowels of an easily-hacked voting machine. Machines that most of the sentient world has rejected, machines that Tennessee's rabid flying monkeys live (and control us) by.
But in the spirit of your unprovable question, Min, I'll give you a similar challenge. The sun came up in the East this morning. Now prove I didn't make that happen.
While you're busy disproving that I didn't allow the sun to rise again this morning, you might want to visit where I live on this issue. Or not. Have a productive Saturday. http://youtu.be/_X-e0F96bTA
My last comment was too flippant, perhaps a knee-jerk reaction. Min, if you had voted in the recent Henry/Yarbro primary and the machines had been rigged to flip every sixth vote from Y to H (without anyone, including election officials, being able to discover that) and your vote had been one of the unfortunate sixth, then your vote would have counted ... for a candidate you did not choose. In the recount, your vote (and those of everyone who voted on the touch-screen machines) would not have counted, because only absentee (paper) ballots were available to be recounted. Hope this less snarky response makes my point. Now I must go. It is time for me to get the sun to set in the west (and to finally prove a negative, in the case of your request). Happy Saturday evening.
