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Thread: Smoke and Mirrors - For the Children!

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    Curmudgeon OtakuLoki's avatar
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    Default Smoke and Mirrors - For the Children!

    Won't someone think of the children? (ETA: A.K.A. Loki rants about his state government. Again.)



    The kleptocrats in Albany have managed damned little this year. The no-debate budget special that was passed (late) this April is collapsing, as I predicted it would back then. The budget may have benefited from various Federal stimulus funding, but there's still no fucking cause for spending to go up nearly 10% when revenues go down 20%. Since the passage of that budget, the projected revenue shortfall has only gotten worse. Just for an example, when President Obama capped salaries for institutions that had been recipients of bailout monies, he also chopped an additional billion dollars in revenues from the state coffers1.

    Then to provide the circuses that they seem to think is all that is required to earn their part time salaries, they had a leadership crisis that paralyzed the legislature for most of a month. The reason for it is even more infuriating than that it happened: The fuckers in the Senate couldn't be assed to take a stand about the fucking abortion of a budget that was passed, but they were panicking about the possibility of gay marriage. If I weren't already in favor of the state allowing gay marriage this would be enough to sway me to support it. It's a totally bogus issue to waste the officially limited time those part-time kleptocrats in Albany have for state business. Get it passed so we can finally put it to bed as an issue. Oh, let's not forget the comedy value in that one of the key figures in the leadership crisis, and major homophobes, spent most of the year indicted for domestic abuse and battery charges. Amazingly he was acquitted, at trial, of the felony counts involved with breaking a glass against his girl friend's orbit, and then dragging her across the floor in the public section of his building to get her to the hospital. But this piece of scum feels he has a right to say that gay marriage is a moral issue.

    Speaking of the scumbag - if he'd been convicted of the felony part of the charges (as I believe anyone being defended by a PD would have been) it would have meant he had to forfeit his Senate seat. As it is, the Senate made a big show of calling an ad hoc ethics commission to judge whether this violent, overdeveloped cum stain is moral enough to continue in his seat in the Senate. Of course, the month they've had since his sentencing hasn't been enough time for these slugs to make up their minds about something so important. (Okay - my opinion about the real reason no decision has been made? The fucking kleptocratic larvae are hoping the public will forget about Monserrate's convictions.)

    Then this fall the assholes got called back for a special session. Ostensibly to try to cut that bloated budget passed back in April. In reality they were starting up some smoke and mirrors projects. One of which was gay marriage - which failed. Eventually about 2/3 of what was needed to be cut from the budget was cut - but usually by the expedient of taking money from next year's revenues or federal aid to pay for things this year. And that estimate of making about 2/3 of the cuts necessary? That's based on the most optimistic revenue estimates - which I think are completely unreal. After all back in April the same people providing these revenue estimates gave the kleptocrats their estimate that let them claim the budget passed would be workable.

    So, what have these juvenile delinquents from all the right law schools done this session?

    They managed to pass a smoke and mirrors adjunct to the DUI codes. They decided to pass "Leandra's Law," which makes it a felony to drink and drive with a BAC greater than or equal to 0.08%, if there is a minor under the age of 16 in the vehicle. Personally, I think this is pablum of the worst kind. On a practical level the fraction of the minor population in the state that will be protected by it is so small as to be negigible: Either the minor in question would never be made to be a passenger with someone who had been drinking; Or the minor in question will still be bundled up into the car willinilli, no matter the perceived drunkenness of the driver; or the driver will decide that he/she should wait until he/she is certain to be below the new BAC limit. In my opinion the fraction of drivers who would drive after drinking with a minor in their vehicle that are going to give a flying fuck about this new lower limit who would have driven otherwise, is completely and utterly negligible.

    Which also completely ignores the risk to other minors in other cars from those drivers who are at a BAC of 0.09. They can still hit other cars and kill kids. If lowering the limit for allowable BAC to 0.08 is worthwhile in any case - it should be done across the board. This half and half nonsense is just that: nonsense. And worse it's political grandstanding of the worst sort: Smoke and mirrors to distract the electorate from the complete failure of the Legislature to meet their responsibilities this year.

    Kick the Bastards Out!



    1) Just to be clear, while the consequences for NY's balance lines are unfortunate, I have no qualms at all about that decision by the President.
    Last edited by OtakuLoki; 15 Dec 2009 at 05:48 PM.

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