Frank Antenori has an anger management problem

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Frank(enstein) Antenori is an angry man. Lately he has been terrorizing the villagers. (He bears a remarkable resemblance to Peter Boyle in Young Frankenstein.) Previously we have reported that Frank had threatened the Pima County Board of Supervisors to extort an appointment from them to Jonathan Paton's senate seat. And he had an agry exchange with the editor and publisher of the Arizona Daily Star threatening a GOP boycott of the newspaper (largely successful) until a conservative as angry as Frank is hired to write for the editorial page.

This week, Frank is angry about those "welfare queens" of Ronald Reagan myth and legend. He wants to deny them foodstamps to feed their children if someone from the GOP Taliban morality police reports them to a 1-800 number for sneaking a puff of a cigarrette, or a sip of beer, or sneaking a peak at HBO or Showtime. (Those of you on corporate welfare are of course free to continue with your three-martini lunch followed by a Cuban cigar. Frank will join you later.)

A "hostile" Frank Antenori threw a wrench into the compromise budget deal yesterday with an amendment that links passage of the budget to the House corporate bailout package. Hostile amendment slows House passage of budget bill Frank wants the proposed temporary sales tax increase used to fund corporate welfare. (Actually his goal is to delay long enough to block any special election and, failing that, to defeat the temporary sales tax measure. He is just using this for leverage to get what he really wants, the corporate bailout package.) See Craig's post for more on the budget.

And Frank is itching for a fight with the federal government over national regulations on, of all things, light bulbs. Tucson lawmaker carries torch for light bulb battle with feds:

Rep. Frank Antenori, a freshman Republican from Tucson, said he is hoping one of his bills provokes lawsuits with the federal government that will challenge its use of the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause.

That bill was approved Feb. 10 by the House Commerce Committee. It would allow light bulb manufacturers to make and sell incandescent light bulbs in Arizona, provided they don’t sell them in other states.

Antenori said that would allow Arizonans to continue using the bulbs past 2014, when the federal
government has said all light bulbs sold in this country need to meet new efficiency standards.
If his bill, H2337, is signed into law, Antenori said he expects the federal government would determine that federal regulation pre-empts the state law because the feds are entitled to regulate interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause. But because the bulbs wouldn’t be sold in any other states, Antenori said Arizona could challenge that ruling in federal court.

“That will trigger a lawsuit, which is really the intent of this bill,” he told the committee. “This is a mechanism to let us go to court.”

In other words, Frank is a "Tenther," who still believes in the antiquated and entirely discredited theory of "nullification" of federal law by states advanced by John C. Calhoun during the time of Andrew Jackson. The nullification theory eventually led to secession and Civil War. Is that what you really want Frank? It is also based on a misreading of long-ago discarded "commerce clause" cases overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court decades ago. You're wasting your time, Frank.

Wouldn't it just be easier to buy yourself some of Uncle Fester's Mystery Light Bulbs? Get over yourself Frank, before you actually hurt someone.