No wonder Frank has been absent...

in whole or in part.... reads like a genocide convention, and is just as vague... sheeesh.

yeah, where IS frank, anyway?

Don't you use that abusive tone with me, young lady. (Where's that weblink for the FBI when you need it?)

Frank is still in New Jersey annoying the good folks in his misbegotten mis-named (or is that piss-named) town. He just threw a party I was not able to attend. (Big surprise) but Lola was there. Ask her.

Now who was it I found harrassinglike a couple of threads over, hmmmmm,

Joe(What agency do I call?)Nation

The whole process/possibility of slipping in largely unrelated items into another, larger, bill baffles me. I understand it's meant to sneak things past that otherwise might be rejected, but how's it possible in the first place? Like how Roy Blunt - one of the forerunners to replace DeLay - tried to attach a measure benefiting Philip Morris, for which his son is a lobbyist, into the 475-page Homeland Security Bill ... thats just the last one I read about ... Call me thick and obtuse, but I dont understand.

what do you not understand, nimh? roy blunt loves his son. would you not do the same for your child? what are you, some kind of a monster?

How annoying is that?

what now? there are about 4 different 'thats' that can be found annoying above. you're so vague. so annoying.

In the parliamentary process of the House or the Senate, one can attach riders--this is often done in the committee in which a bill is framed before being presented to the full House or Senate. A member of the committee can propose an "amendment" (these types of amendments which are not germane to the topic of the bill are referred to as "riders"), and this is usually done when there is a quorum, which in both houses consists of two thirds of the committee. This can be for the member proposing, or the "pay-back" of a political favor for another member of the House or Senate. Most committees have fifteen member, so a quorum is ten, and it would only be necessary to get six members to vote for the rider. A good time for something of this nature is when the opposing party is having a caucus--just rope in enough members of that party who owe you a political favor to attain a quorum, and away you go. Typical riders run a very wide gamut from getting the cousin of a substantial contributor declared a citizen without all those messy exams and background checks to approving some local "pork." An example of the latter might be funding Bubba's new motor home and bass boat by the expedient of building a road from Nowhere to Bumf*ck for which Bubba's newly established construction company is the only qualified bidder.

Once the bill is ready for presentation to the full body (House or Senate) the propaganda mills start winding up, and objections to riders are dealt with by loud and strident accusations of obstructionism or a lack of patriotism. Most riders have the intent of preening the image of the person proposing the amendment in the eyes of the constituents (Bubba knows a lot of people who can easily be boug . . . er . . . convinced to vote for the member), and often, the tactic would be to embarrass those who object in the eyes of their constituents. More innocuous measures (for which description i am sure this particular provision qualifies) in the eyes of the Congressmins and -wimmins are likely to be tolerated because all the boys and girls like to play nice when the cameras aren't on them, and they know that they will likely some day have a rider they want to see pass--the political favors mill churns endlessly. (I voted for your stupid internet rider, Arlen, now cough up your vote or we're gonna filibuster every rider you ever propose for the rest of your pathetic career, Amen!)

Simple, no?

I like my 5th grade filmxtrip that was entitled "How a Bill becomes a LAw", it never dealt with those extraneous things like reality . Life was simpler then.


I wonder what passed as a rider when we were given the Civil Rights Law?

In Pennsylvania recently we had an example of "Our Government in Action" at the state level.
With the coming of slot machines and Russian Roulette in Pa, the legislature has decided (with Govs urging) to rediddle the tax code , by dropping the real estate school taxes and raising the sales taxes (like 6% aint high enough)

So, in a Bill Called SB 854, the Pa Senate introduced a 50 page piece of legislation to adaopt certain tax free medical plans for Non profits. While this bill was voted and passed, It became "Infected" with an additional 200 pages of barbeque that covered everything from licensing of fingernail painters to (the important part) , a piece of scummy law that requires all professionals (except l;awyers) to collect a ^% sales tax from their clients for services rendered. The engineers , surveyors, geologists, and financial advisors went nuts. We canvassed our state senators to find out why they did this to us and (those of us that klive near state lines) threatened to move our businesse to adjoining states that have no such laws.
We had a hearing last week and all of the professions were there including the VAnguard Group, who, having assets of about 2 trillion dollars, was indeed the 900 pound gorilla. We testified, and so did Vanguard. Vanguard stated that because they have a really low fee structure, such a tax would kill their business and they would take their trillions and move to Delaware , where MBNA just moved out. We, the geologists and engineeers , said the same thing (ok so we didnt mention 2 trillion dollars)
All the Senators dropped their support with reccomendations that this was a rider that was added to a bill that was already voted on
SO, we learned that
1 Senators dont even know whats in the legislation they sponsor
2They passed the Bill then recalled it after (mostly Vanguard and other financial giants) called the Senators on it
3Intelligence has nothing to do with public service

Simple, and yet so fuccked up ... thank you for the clear explanation. It also makes pretty clear that noone will ever abolish the whole practice, tho its obviously a disgrace...

Things aren't looking good for me.

I rather think that political dealing of a similar type and order occurs in all parliamentary governments, Habibi. I consider politicians a necessary evil, and one essential to the maintentance of the social contract. The extent to which they can practice venality is always delimited by the apathy of their constituents.

I know. Let's have a "most annoying members" contest. We can pick the top 10, report them to the Feds, and then the rest of us can hone up on our annoyance skills, without being threatened by those who do it so much better than us!

BM

Walter(who already earlier tried to pull attraction to this)Hinteler

Dont worry Gus we'll all come look you up when you're inside ... mebbe smuggle in a pitchfork in a home-baked loaf of bread ...

No man's life or property are safe while the legislature is in session.

-- Sam Clemens

Naw, i'd take that in a cake walk . . .

Things can get very curious with rider legislation. One thing people forget is that a Congress or a legislature passes the law but it is the bureaucracy which writes the particulars of the regulations descending from the law and sets up (most of the time) an agency to implement the law.

Several years ago a bunch of us in a bicycling club were trying to understand the circuitous language in the Rails to Trails rules of appropriation, you know, how the heck do we get the county to hold a former rail line's land aside in order to get our proposal on a bike trail financed? The regulations didn't seem to cover our particular situation and we couldn't figure out who was to make the first move, the railroad, the county or us, so we decided to look at the original legislation and any amendments made since passage.

For ten thousand A2K points and a chance to be named one of the ten most annoying people on the forum : Was the particular amendment in A) the Highway Bill, B)the Railroad and AMTRAK Budgetary reaffirmation Bill or C) the Dept of Education Creation of Charter Schools Act.

Joe(Thaaaaaasss right.)Nation

so I can be as annoying as I want cuz I use my name?

scorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre !!!!

I knew it would pay off.

someday

somehow





mmmmmmmmmm what's the payoff again?

so you think it matters if you are a theist or atheist?