A final implication of today’s ruling is that the filibuster has to go. If the Supreme Court is going to require that Congress be more active and specific in protecting the environment or anything else, such a goal is implausible when 60 senators are necessary to enact it. Senate Democrats now have it in their power to abolish the filibuster. Today’s case should convince them they must.
Source: The Beginning of the End of Regulation | The Smirking Chimp
Our Harvard-trained Treasurer has been caught out acting as someone’s puppet and jumped into a stoush blindfolded. He’s tried to install a regulation while nobody was looking and thought he’d get away with it. All hell has broken loose and you know it has when even Murdoch’s Terry McCrann among other major conservatives have yelled Frydenberg’s gone a Fascist mile too far. Josh is all style and less polished looks with little attention to what it means when doing it. He’s managed to make Kooyong Victoria’s Warringah.
The biggest question is why spend so much political capital on such a small issue when it has such bigger issues – the global pandemic, the aged care crisis and a failure to create a federal corruption watchdog – and so little time given the impending election.
Source: A proxy on the house: Frydenberg’s attack on advisers raises alarm
A man in Texas has been arrested while trying to pay his tax in $1 bills for “disrupting the operation and efficiency” of the local tax office.
Timothy Norris, 27, was trying to pay his $600 property tax at a tax office in Wichita Falls, Texas, last Wednesday when he was told to leave the office by Tax Assessor Collector Tommy Smyth. Smyth accused Norris of creating a disturbance and disrupting the efficiency of the authority as the latter wanted to pay the whole sum with $1 bills.
However, the banknotes were folded very tightly so it “required tax office personnel approximately six minutes to unfold each bill,” Smyth said, the Times Record News reported.
Unfolding the bills paralyzed work in the office, so Smyth asked Norris to leave. However, the latter refused. The Wichita County Sheriff’s Office deputy who was present as the situation unfolded tried to arrest Norris but he pulled away and the deputy had to use force to detain him.
READ MORE: Rap mogul ‘Suge’ Knight arrested for murder after fatal LA hit-and-run
Norris was charged with criminal trespass and additionally charged with resisting arrest. Norris’ bail was announced as standing at $500 for both charges.
I am starting to think that when Mr Abbott promised us a “grown up” government, instead of “responsible adult” government he actually meant he would treat us citizens like children, responding to unwanted scrutiny with that most hated parent refrain, “because I said so…” that will drive a kid to their bedroom in fury and frustration, normally with bonus door slamming.
That is just not good enough. It is not “ridiculous” to want proof and be assured that our Prime Minister – be it this one or any MP in future who aspires to the top job in our nation while Article 44(i) of the Constitution is on the books – is a “law-abiding” citizen who legally deserves to be in the position of Prime Minister of this nation.
I might be only a punter but I try to teach my kids that Rulz is Rulz! — whether you are Joe Blow, Jill Dill or Prime Minister of Australia.
olddogthoughts 