Making sausage with rotten meat
The political blogs were burning up with the news of a possible defection from one party to another. It was a sham. Nobody bothered to connect the dots between a Democrat anti-tobacco zealot, and the ‘historic compromise’ of a Republican legislature passing anti-smoking law.
Here’s what the fuss was over:
“Riding in a car for an hour with a person who smokes is the equivalent of smoking 10 cigarettes” Sen. Ralph S. Northam, D-Norfolk (WTOP).
Really? No, but Northam has an agenda.
Riding in a car with someone who smokes one or two cigarettes is not “equal to smoking ten” Even a chain smoker doesn’t burn ten an hour, one or two is the usual range and three is a heavy smoker . . . and the non-smoker never gets more smoke than the smoker.
It’s not new math, it’s not a mistake, it’s not even an exaggeration; it’s simply a lie. A dirty rotten lie or a simple transparent lie. Yet that’s what got the law passed. Not a single person in the legislature had the spine to call him on it either.
The only bipartisanship in all this is “disgusting”; both sides are disgusting. Northam’s hints to “defect” and the Republicans willingness to throw the public over for one senate seat with an ‘R’ label on it. The Democrats were happy to fake a defection to get their way. It’s sad.
The General Assembly is supposed to be about what’s best for Virginians, not who can get one over on the other side. Virginia needs another choice besides two packs of juveniles more interested in scoring trivial points than handling the state’s business.