How to kill a deal

I have  good friend from southern West Virginia who used to say that when politicians wanted to kill a bill they didn't like they wouldn't come right out against it. Instead they'd love it to death. I think that's just what we've witnessed in the senate finance committee, where Republican leaders pretended to care so much about public employees that they derailed a bill that would easily have reopened schools across the state.

These guys could have done the right thing and made all this go away the easy way. Anything can happen (obviously!) but it looks like we're going to do it the hard way. The level of cynicism is pretty hard to fathom. I'm guessing it would take some deep drilling to get to the bottom of it, but that shouldn't be a problem since they're in the pocket of the gas industry.

I'm almost kinda sorta starting to get mad.

My last word for now is a positive one-major shout out to WV's school superintendents, who have been real heroes in all this.