Welcome to Wednesday, May 12th folks...

The Senate’s Democratic and Republican leaders squared off at a committee hearing on Tuesday as lawmakers debated Democrats’ legislation to overhaul elections.

It’s rare for either Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to attend a committee hearing, let alone for both of them to testify. But the partisan tensions surrounding the For the People Act and recently enacted changes to state voting laws in places like Florida and Georgia prompted their appearance.

Schumer spent most of his remarks at the hearing attacking Republicans as pursuing “the greatest contraction of voting rights since the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow.” The Democratic leader briefly discussed the legislation before the committee at the markup hearing, which he praised as an effort to “nullify many of these voter suppression laws and protect the rights of American voters.”

McConnell criticized Democrats’ bill as a partisan power grab that would federalize elections and said they’re trying “to hot-wire our democracy itself without a single vote from the other side.” He said, “Democrats have a narrow majority in the House and a 50-50 Senate, but they want to make themselves the Board of Elections for every county and state in America.”

Do you support or oppose Democrats’ “For the People Act”?

Earmarks Return to Congress

Democratic majorities in Congress have ended the ban on the inclusion of “earmarks” in spending bills that was instituted in 2011, and lawmakers have already proposed more than $6 billion in earmarks for fiscal year 2022.

Under the new rules, earmarks have been rebranded as “congressionally directed spending.” Lawmakers proposing them have to provide a public explanation of how the funds would be used, and they can’t have personal or familial financial interests that benefit from them. The total amount of spending on earmarked items will be capped at 1% of discretionary spending.

Three of the five largest earmark proposals were by Rep. Beth Van Duyne (D-TX), who requested just under $136 million to replace a flyover bridge at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, $98 million for a utility plant to reduce emissions at DFW Airport, plus another $84 million to consolidate aircraft rescue and fire fighting stations at the airport. Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) also requested $98 million for the utility plant.

Do you support or oppose the return of earmarks to Congress?

All The Memes Fit To Post
 

And, In The End...

Take out your “runcible spoons” it’s National Limerick Day!

British poet Edward Lear (1812-1888) is widely recognized as the father of the limerick form of poetry and is well known for his nonsense poems (this one being mine, and likewise everyone else’s favorite):

Celebrate today by writing your own limerick! Here is the structure:

• A limerick consists of five lines arranged in one stanza. 
• The first line, second line, and fifth lines end in rhyming words. 
• The third and fourth lines must rhyme. 
• The rhythm of a limerick is anapestic, which means two unstressed syllables are followed by a third stressed syllable.

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