One born every minute

"If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you." -- Paul Newman

How wonderful. A secret deal for the building of a taxpayer-funded football stadium, yet to be even made public, is set to be rolled out two weeks before the end of the legislative session. All the public is permitted to know about it is that their cash-strapped cities will be given the "honor" of showing how much they’re willing to bankrupt themselves to kiss Ziggy Wilf's ring participate:

A stadium bill garnering bipartisan support is expected to be introduced next week at the state Capitol. It gives cities and counties the option to vie for the team, potentially pitting municipalities against one another for the right to call themselves the home of the purple and gold.

"We're planning on rolling something out next week," co-sponsor Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, said Wednesday.

The legislative session ends on May 17. "Next week" leaves at most two weeks to examine, comprehend, and debate a large, contentious piece of legislation. One does wonder how this even comes close to meeting the deadlines that the legislature has established for itself. The deadline for favorable committee action was March 12. Of course, there are procedures in place to waive the deadlines for those special circumstances when emergencies arise.

I'm probably not alone in wondering over the next weeks why it is that the rejection of the GAMC fix - intended to help secure health care by the state's poorest, but quickly falling apart - by hospitals across the state is not an emergency, but the fleecing of taxpayers to pay for Mr. Wilf’s stadium is.