Last week, the North Carolina GOP attached a bunch of abortion restrictions to an anti-sharia law. The outrage was such that Governor Pat McCrory vowed to veto it unless significant changes were made to the bill. Hooray!
Except, no — not really.
Even though it appears that Governor McCrory will keep his word and veto the sharia law/abortion hybrid bill (HB 695), he will likely sign a new motorcycle safety/abortion hybrid bill should it pass the House and Senate and reach his desk. Yes, you read correctly. Stop rubbing your eyes.
Early this morning, the North Carolina GOP (the House Judiciary Committee, to be precise) added sweeping abortion restrictions to a bill — SB353 — that was approved by the Senate in April and which was supposed to increase fines and penalties for drivers who endanger motorcyclists on the road. So sneaky were the Republicans in this maneuver that some Democrats in the House didn’t know what the hell was happening until a few minutes before the committee meeting began.
Sneaking bills through the legislature without public notice! That’s the North Carolina way, apparently.
So now in addition to protecting motorcyclists, SB 353 bans telemedicine abortion, places burdensome regulations on abortion clinics, and will force many clinics to close.
How does McCrory feel about the new abortion/motorcycle hybrid bill?
He’s fine with it, of course. After all, it’s a different bill — sort of — than the one he promised to veto. No fuss, no muss!
Robin Marty at RH Reality Check has more:
Republican North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory announced Wednesday morning that unless significant changes were made to HB 695, a bill ostensibly created to bar Sharia law in the state but which would greatly reduce access to safe, legal abortion in North Carolina, he would veto it. However, within a few hours of that announcement a new bill, SB 353, was reviewed by a house subcommittee, and it was rewritten to add nearly identical anti-choice amendments as those found in HB 695. Unlike the previous bill, SB 353 has the approval of the governor.
As originally written, SB 353 is a motorcycle safety act that would increase fines and penalties for drivers who endanger motorcyclists on the road. The bill had remained dormant for much of the legislative session until Judiciary Subcommittee B was informed it would be on the calendar Wednesday morning. Not all of the committee members were informed prior to the meeting that the bill had been amended to add modified versions of abortion restrictions that were inserted earlier this month into HB 695.
The war on women is getting downright absurd, wouldn’t you say?
Oy.
[via RH Reality Check; Think Progress]
different-church-lady
Women should be obligated to bring their motorcycles to term.
[nods]
ruemara
Gives a whole new meaning to popping your clutch.
Baud
Finally, fetuses can feel safe when they’re riding their Harleys.
dmsilev
When do we require abortion-seeking women to wear helmets? Or should it be the fetuses that need the helmets?
The Other Chuck
It’ll be interesting to see what happens to the economy of the Raleigh-Durham area over the next couple decades. While backwards repressive politics usually isn’t enough to chase existing knowledge workers out of the state in droves, there’s already a big unemployment problem, and it makes one wonder how likely they are to attract the high tech sector back.
NC’s unofficial slogan used to be “It’s Not South Carolina”. Then they had to prefix it with “At Least”. Now they’ll have to replace that prefix with “I Can’t Believe”.
c u n d gulag
Never mind the abortion part of this motorcycle bill.
Look out for the one that will spit in the eye, like a one-eyed trouser snake, of the SC’s Casey decision, and will make putting on a “helmet” for safety, a punishable offense – if you know what I mean.
And I suspect you do.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Other Chuck:
This.
The stupid of the NC legislature. It fucking burns!
aimai
In my fantasy alternate universe the US is divided into 50 states and in each one of them activist liberals attach riders to legislation just like this but bizzaro world good so we get the
Rich Man’s Stadium Enrichment Act where money appropriated for sports stadiums gets redirected by a last minute clause to fully fund preschool for all, fresh-in-house organic meals for school children and free abortions for everyone who wants one even if they aren’t pregnant.
Seanly
Sigh… so this is the thing now? Place anti-choice amendments with every bill?
We know this will never end. Let’s say that they get Roe v Wade overturned. They won’t stop there – numerous conservatives are on the record wanting to overturn Griswold v. Connecticut as well as stop direct voting for Senators.
I look forward to all the Paultards and my glibertarian friends on FB protesting when Griswold is on the chopping block.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@The Other Chuck: I have a relative there with a year-old child. They’re now taking a look around at the local school systems and saying “oh shit”.
They won’t stay if this continues.
mrsbeamin
Long time BJ lurker finally moved to comment. NC has a strong progressive/liberal backbone that is only just getting started with the Moral Monday protests. I will be at the next one and any more I can make it to after that. I am seeing even my more conservative friends expressing dismay over what the current legislature is cramming through under cover of night. The trick is to get out the Democrats that tend to sit out local elections. I am thinking it won’t be so hard next time….
Yatsuno
@aimai: I would love something like that up this way, especially for the hockey/basketball boondoggle that’s about to occur. At least abortion rights are protected in this state.
BGinCHI
There must be a tar heel joke here somewhere but I can’t find it.
catclub
@Forum Transmitted Disease: People who can look around
and say ‘oh shit’ and actually move based on that are usually a very small minority. There was a migration
from Mississippi to Chicago for ‘oh shit’ reasons, but I think I can claim different circumstances, there.
Violet
No. It’s not absurd. It’s terrifying. What’s to stop them from deciding that women shouldn’t have the right to vote?
On a slightly positive note, I do think it’s a sign of the Republicans getting desperate. They know their ideas aren’t popular, so they’ll pass them through however they can–attached to unrelated bills, in secret, at night, whatever.
Davis X. Machina
@Forum Transmitted Disease: They may not stay, but they’ll be replaced by hordes of Christians, seeking only a place where they can live a godly and righteous life in a godly and righteous state, freed from the specter of persecution for their godly and righteous beliefs — and finally free, free to employ the power of the state to ensure everyone else is godly and righteous too, and in the same way. Which totally isn’t persecution.
They’ll also be free from the specter of unions, living wages, occupational health and safety, quality public education, affordable health care and all the other pomps of Satan.
burnspbesq
Shit. Another day, another TRO.
Roger Moore
Isn’t there some kind of rule requiring laws to touch on a single topic?
burnspbesq
These assholes will do anything to get P.J. Hairston off the front page.
Violet
@Roger Moore: States rights! States rights! Are you meddling in the rights of NC to do what they say is best for their state?
burnspbesq
Hopefully enough people turn out next Monday to demonstrate and get arrested that the cops will have to borrow the N.C. State football stadium to house them all.
IowaOldLady
The damage being done here and in other places with Republican rule will take a long time to undo, even after voters throw the bums out. It’s so much easier to break things than build them.
beltane
I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around that this religiously motivated anti-abortion bill was originally part of anti-Sharia legislation of all things. It would take most people a lot of effort to cram this much sub-human level stupid into one bill, but apparently Republicans have got the sub-humanly stupid thing down to an art form.
Yatsuno
@Violet: Fortunately the Nineteenth Amendment still exists, and there is still a Democratic Senate that won’t even bother to bring it up for repeal. Not to mention getting three-fourths of the states to agree on it. So until those conditions are met your vote is safe. At least on that basis.
catclub
@Roger Moore: “… The pirate code is more a guide…”
JWL
@The Other Chuck: That’s the only silver lining I can see about those states that elect republican governments, although it’s hardly silver to the smart citizens who know the score and are trapped in those nuthouses. I certainly wouldn’t want to move a business or raise a family in any of them, and would want to split if I had the misfortune to be stuck in one. That in turn bodes well for the states who haven’t lost their collective minds.
Shakezula
Get your motor runnin’,
Head out on the highway.
Lookin’ for a place to live,
That isn’t run by troglodytes…
Davis X. Machina
@beltane: The state is in the hands of the modern successors of the Fifth Monarchy men of the English interregnum. Cf. Albion’s Seed….
JGabriel
So let me get this straight: McCrory wouldn’t sign an anti-sharia/anti-women bill, but he will sign an an an anti-automobile-FREEDOM!/anti-women bill?
Some NC Democrats should start a 501c3 with a name like NC Conservative Patriots for America!, then put out an ad under that name with the message like:
I mean, c’mon people. As The Editors at The Poor Man Institute once famously wrote: These rats ain’t gonna fuck themselves.
.
johnny aquitard
@Seanly:
Wasn’t Roe based on a right to privacy? Oops, forgot, that was a *woman’s* right to privacy.
They have to undermine that right to attack the basis of the decision. And when the right to privacy is destroyed, why wouldn’t Griswold fall? That’s part and parcel of their goal, and that decision was also based a woman’s right to privacy.
Destroy a woman’s right to privacy and they will be denied reproductive self-determination. Accomplish that, and woman is chattel again.
Typical conservative behavior. All pious and shit about individual rights and the holy constuhtooshun blah blah blah, unless it keeps them from doing whatever the fuck they want to other people. Then they’ll toss that cant right out the window.
burnspbesq
@Shakezula:
Born to be frustrated
Mike in NC
Pat McCrory is a spineless weasel and an asshole who’ll sign any bills the radical Tea Partiers in Raleigh decide to put on his desk. In no way, shape, or form is that guy a “moderate”. McCrory takes his marching orders from billionaire Art Pope, who was one of the prime movers behind the anti-gay marriage amendment.
After the abortion stuff gets passed the NC GOP has plenty of ideas about destroying public schools and making sure as few people get to vote as possible in 2014.
Davis X. Machina
@Mike in NC: A smaller, but perfected, Commonwealth is the goal… has been for 350 years.
beltane
@Davis X. Machina: Funny how when “respectable” conservatives go on about the Anglo-Saxon values we share with Great Britain, dangerous religious nuts such as this are never mentioned, and yet our American wingnuts are their direct heirs. All nations have their right-wing authoritarians, but it seems that it is only in English speaking countries that this type of Protestant fascism is a type of perennial occurrence.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Coming soon:,
“There’s no constitutional right to own shoes,” Governor McCrory told the press. “,.”This bill enshrines the Christian principles on which our nation was founded.”
Yatsuno
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Next step: women cannot.leave the house without a male relativeto accompany her. It’s for her own protection dontchaknow.
Suzanne
On a related note, I just made the mistake of reading comments on one of those stories about how younger adults feel too financially insecure to have children. Why do I do this to myself? Of course, half of the commenters screech at the profiled couples for being too entitled and refusing to give up their daily Starbucks and dinners out, and invariably make some comment like “If you REALLY wanted TRUE HAPPINESS, you would have kids and stop living lives of luxury! I lived in a shoebox and had kids and now my kids are awesome and will take care of me in my old age!” The other half yell at them not to even THINK about having kids until they’re financially secure because “YOU SHOLDN’T HAVE KIDS YOU CAN’T AFFORD! I don’t want to support any more brats on welfare! The planet is overpopulated anyway!” Then there’s a few smug child-free douchebags bragging about how they have all kinds of spare money and time to go on European vacations and buy sports cars.
And then I remember all these people are all just different flavors of the same shit sandwich, and how I hate them all.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@Roger Moore:
As long as the topic is “what’s between your legs,” apparently.
gene108
@Mike in NC:
From what I vaguely recall from my 6.5 years of indoctrination in the Wake County School system, it’s the poorer counties that get more aid from the state.
Wake County and a few other school districts, like Chapel Hill, will probably still be able to survive the wreckage wrought by this state government.
In other words, the poor are going to get screwed.
Yatsuno
@gene108: Naturally. How else are the Elect supposed to know their blessing unless the poor are truly made to suffer under their feet? Gotta keep their focuses on the promise of Heaven under Wingnut Jeebus dontchaknow. Plus making sure they blame the blahs and commie libs for their suffering.
D.N. Nation
I grew up in Raleigh in the 80s and 90s. It was obvious then that the state prided itself on being different and better than its southern neighbors- the focus on education, the aviation sector, the tech sector, the bio-research sector, smart government, and good environmental stewardship were a testament to this. The middle of NC was a little boring, especially for a teenager, but it was not a place to be ashamed of living in. Yes, Jesse Helms existed, but so did Jim Hunt and Terry Sanford. (And- sigh- John Edwards.)
All that, completely swept away in an avalanche of Teaper Tantrum butthurt. With new voting restrictions and ridiculous gerrymandering, it’ll take many an election cycle to get NC back on the right track. And the damage could be permanent- do you think that the Research Triangle’s companies will stand idly by when this joke of a legislature eventually makes creationism standard in NC schools? Slashes funding and regulations to the point that the area around RTP is a toxic wasteland? Cuts funding for schools but increases it for private prisons? I doubt it.
Shame on you, NC. I’m from you, but it will forever be just that- from you.
scav
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: Exactly, The Things Exclusively Designed for Men to Ride Upon Bill, Instead of the Our Sharia Not Their Sharia Bill. Magnificent Outreach they’ve got going.
gene108
@Yatsuno:
Part of me is not entirely sympathetic. It is the folks in poor rural counties who voted overwhelmingly for the anti-gay marriage amendment and put the Republicans in charge.
IowaOldLady
Mr IOL is making noises about retiring someplace warm. I’ve told him I will not live anywhere in the old confederacy. They have lost their minds.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Yatsuno:
“Hundreds of North Carolina women are killed in traffic accidents every year. It is with pride that I sign this life saving bill forbidding women to drive.”
? Martin
@gene108:
We’ve seen the plan at work here in CA for ages. Prop 13 was just part of that process.
Basically the strategy is to cut public funding to schools to the bare minimum, and then create private foundations for your city. The wealthy schools have no problem keeping services run and they can sleep better at night knowing that no poor/brown people were educated with their tax money.
Jebediah
@Yatsuno:
And what kind of troglodyte could possibly oppose protecting the wimminfolk?
Yatsuno
@Jebediah: We should make sure they can’t be ogled while walking with the male relative as well. We should pass a dress code where women must be out in public covered from head to toe with no visible curves and only a screen to cover the face. Cuz gotta protect them poor defenseless wimminz!
BGinCHI
Via TPM, here is the House leadership statement on immigration reform:
So the House, with an approval rating of around the alcohol content in white wine wants everyone to believe that Obama and the other Dems, with an approval rating north of vodka, are responsible for everything that is wrong.
Good luck, fucktards.
Davis X. Machina
@BGinCHI: You’re not the intended audience for that statement. You’re still outside the congressional GOP event horizon, across which no information can pass.
Brendan in NC
@catclub: Not to mention – where will we go? I’m in Charlotte, and my immediate neighbors are…South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. It’s looking like a better bet to stay and fight.
johnny aquitard
@Yatsuno: So one would think.
But consider this: Say a fetus is legally defined as a person. And a fetus is anything from the moment of conception to birth. And the moment of conception is defined as 2 weeks prior to a missed period. A woman who hasn’t had her period yet? Well, she could be pregnant. So fetus rights trump. She just had her period? Well, OK so she wasn’t pregnant then but now it’s possible she could be. Fetus rights trump again.
If the State assumes a woman may be pregnant at any time, she therefore cannot act on her own will because the rights of the fetus must be taken into account, always.
So sure, the 19th means women can vote. But it is moot if their political will can be thwarted by the State claiming to represent the rights of the jeebus-beloved fetus person. Which every woman of the age to vote will be assumed to carrying at any time, until they can prove to the State they have hit menopause.
The young do tend to vote democrat. Young women moreso, IIRC.
Funny how tidy that all works out. For conservative white men.
D.N. Nation
@Brendan in NC:
Atlanta. I-285 at least serves as a guarded moat against the wingnutty rest of the state.
Yatsuno
@Davis X. Machina: Now I want Nancy to file the discharge position and dare the AOS to oppose it. That should twist the weak Speaker knife even deeper. Plus he basically told the teatards they don’t have to do jack here. This should get fun.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Davis X. Machina: Exactly, considering that Obama administration has deported more Latinos than Bush did. The “they cannot secure the border” was not directed at people who keep up with facts.
scav
@Yatsuno: Easier if one just forbids them to leave the house. They could call that a Bible-Using Residence Quarantine Act and Jobs Bill and surprise everyone by their concern for both wimminz health and promised laser focus on jobsjobsjobs.
BGinCHI
@Davis X. Machina: That’s a relief, I think.
Seriously, how fucking stupid and crazy can they get? I’m really amazed.
Zifnab
@BGinCHI:
Republicans will campaign on “Government is the problem! We’re going to reduce the size of government! Whether you hate Congress or Obama or both, just vote for us because we’ll shrink the size of government!” And when they get into office they’ll do whatever they damn well please. But for a little while – say, 4-6 years, as that’s been the operating standard – they’ll win because conservatives are suckers and liberals are too disappointed in the Democrats to put up a fight.
gene108
@? Martin:
CA sounds like NJ.
Great public schools in some of the wealthier townships, with the drop off being pretty steep in less well to do areas.
Wake Co schools being a county wide system means you still get places where poor kids exist (black, brown and white) and still get access to the same schools the rich kids go to.
There were a couple of NJ transplants who got elected to the school board and tried to break up the whole county wide part of the system. They did not get reelected.
Though you have some mixing of class in Wake Co. it is generally a wealthier county in NC because of the universities (Raleigh has five four year colleges) and RTP.
The poor rural counties that have much higher unemployment than the national average are just going to get left behind, compared to the more urban counties that have some sort of commercial base.
Though it is the poor rural counties that have a higher percentage of social concervatives, who would approve of this abortion bill.
Also, too has the NC Democrstic Party gotten it’s act together to mount challenges for the state legislature? From what I’ve heard state Dems still have not recovered from the Easly era scandals, in terms of local organization.
Brendan in NC
Not to mention that McCrory and his minions are stealthily grabbing control of money-making infrastructure from the cities. If they’re going to get rid of taxes in the state, they’ll still need ways to get money. So we have the legislature moving ahead with a bill to take control of Charlotte-Douglas airport from the city, and give it to an airport authority. The authorities makeup will be 2/3 State Republican leaders, and 1/3 City of Charlotte leaders…
Litlebritdifrnt
The good news is that the majority of Republicans in the State think this legislature is nucking futs. In fact even the Republicans in my deep deep red county think they are nucking futs and they are downright ashamed at how they are now just an embarrassment to the State and have basically made the NC the laughing stock of the entire country. One of our lifetime NRA member conservative republicans judges said in the lawyers lounge the other day “Alabama is pointing at us and fucking laughing right now”. I cannot imagine what he thought when he saw this latest bullshit.
Mike E
@burnspbesq: Yep, we’re just a SCOTUS-overturn incubator state.
IowaOldLady
@Litlebritdifrnt: Will they still vote Republican? Then they have noone else to blame,
Litlebritdifrnt
@IowaOldLady:
No. I believe that the most recent PPP Poll of the State (in which I participated) said that they want the Democrats back in power.
IowaOldLady
@Litlebritdifrnt: My best wishes for you all then. One of my grad students wound up teaching at Elon and I have friends at NC State. They’re horrified, but then they didn’t vote for any of these clowns in the first place. I hope the damage can be contained until you get a chance to change governance.
Jebediah
@Yatsuno:
Yes, absolutely! But what to call such a garment? Amurka, perhaps?
Yatsuno
@IowaOldLady: There was an IRS position open in NC but I passed because the state is just too nuts right now. Plus it was in Grensboro. Somehow I passed it up.
The Other Chuck
@scav: Where would you like your internets delivered?
sparky
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker: @Jebediah: You two each win an internet.
Yatsuno
@Jebediah: You know, there really is only one way to be sure our winninz are protected always: as soon as they are born we lock them in a large house and keep them there until a man needs some comfort or just rough sex. No need to worry about them being educated or ever being seen in public. It would be the perfect system for keeping our
chattelwimminz truly free and safe. Plus keep them from distracting the menfolk from the truly important business like negative tax rates for large businesses and ending things that inconvenience jerb creators like minimum wage and overtime laws.Higgs Boson's Mate
@gene108:
Exactly why my sympathy for them is so meager. They vote for people who implicitly promise to fuck over minorities and unbelievers. I don’t know whether they don’t understand that they’re going to be fucked over too or they don’t care as long as the aforementioned get it worse.
Jebediah
@Yatsuno:
Have you considered running for office? Cuz I think you have the winning formula nailed.
Chris
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Yeah, put me down as well for “little to no sympathy for…” well, anyone who votes Republican, regardless of whether they’re in rural or other areas. I don’t care so much whether or not they understand that they’re screwing themselves over, it’s the fact that so many of them are explicitly voting to screw other people that makes it impossible for me to sympathize. If you think the government should be a tool to hit people you don’t like over the head with, then you’re an asshole and frankly the karma of you getting a taste of your own medicine doesn’t seem wholly unfair.
(Pity the rest of us have to get screwed along with you, too).
Violet
@johnny aquitard:
Has any state passed the “woman assumed pregnant two weeks before her period” law yet? I know I’ve heard about it, but am not sure if it’s law.
If it is, can someone bring suit in that state that all menstruating women are thus essentially two people, because they are determined to be pregnant until proven otherwise.
And if so, and since the fetus rights trump the women’s rights, then the fetus is a person. And so all women should be determined to be two people at all times. Maybe even get two identification cards, two tax IDs, etc.
I realize this is utterly ridiculous, but it seems like the law’s logic needs to be challenged and this might be a way to go after it.
PeakVT
@Seanly: Let’s say that they get Roe v Wade overturned.
I still think that would be deadly for Repuke candidates, as a lot of women who are currently in denial about how radical the Repukes are would be faced with overwhelming proof, but I’m not quite as confident as I once was.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
What the fuck is it with these assholes and shariah? I don’t understand it at all. And I wonder what the bill would do; would it forbid shariah law in American courts? (If so, then that’s already built into this thing we call “the Constitution”.) Or are they trying to outlaw Muslims using shariah on their own (this wouldn’t shock me)? (And if that’s what they’re doing, then the Constituion would seem to forbid that–but what do I know? I’m a godless liberal shariah apologist.)
Chris
@Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.):
I don’t know, what was it with their grandparents and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
ETA: yes, Sharia Law IS forbidden by the constitution under the separation of church and state thing, but since they don’t believe that exists, maybe it’s occurred to some of them that making special laws banning *Muslim* intrusions into federal law specifically would leave them free to pursue their own theocratic inclinations. Only some of them, though. Most of them don’t think any further than “evil scheming semites, must fight them on every front!”
RSA
@Yatsuno:
Greensboro is actually quite a charming town, of some historical significance in the civil rights movement (the Woolworth sit-in). It would be an okay place for me to live, I think. (ETA: Assuming I want to live in NC.)
I live in Raleigh, maybe 90 minutes away. I’m not really well-connected, but most of my friends at the university are horrified by what’s going on. (ETA: I am, too.)
SiubhanDuinne
@scav:
You magnificent acronymic bastard you.
PurpleGirl
So, if the outlaw the use of Shariah laws in state/city courts and agencies (divorce rules, child protection services, domestic violence cases, etc.) when do they ban the use of Roman Catholic Canon law and Jewish Bet Din in the same way.
Ecks
Contrary to this concise and coherent bill seeks only one purpose: the correct an proper regulation of crotch rockets. For safety, don’t you know.
johnny aquitard
@Violet: mobile.rawstory.com/therawstory/#!/entry/arizona-bill-would-declare-pregnancy-2-weeks-before-concept…
They’ve been trying to whittle away women’s reproductive rights by redefining ‘person’, ‘conception’, and ‘pregnant’ for a while now.
There is no logic to it. Logic never matters to fundies. It’s the way god intended and that’s that.
A dozen years ago I recall saying to Ms. A what these guys were after was not just getting rid of abortion but everything related to a woman determining her own reproductive behavior, including contraception. That all of those attacks were a means to an end, which is the subjugation of women. And that if she wanted a hint of how these bible-thumpers would arrange the world if they could and a woman’s place in it, she should refer to A Handmaid’s Tale.
She thought I was talking out my ass, getting all worked up over nothing. They would never try that, she thought. She believes it now.
MomSense
NC Women–Lysistrata time!
fuckwit
If there actually were such a thing as a MotorcycleVagina, my eyes are not what I’d be rubbing.
patroclus
That testimony by Sarah Slaymon (sp?) before the Texas Senate that was just on Laurence O’Donnell’s show was riveting – she’s my new hero on this issue!
karen
@Yatsuno:
As soon as Republicans control the Senate…gutting the 19th Amendment will be the next goal. Then forbidding women to work.
@johnny aquitard:
I’m not sure how a woman always being possibly pregnant makes the 19th Amendment moot.
jack nelson
@IowaOldLady: Dems have ruled the NC House and Senate for more than 40 years until the current session. The state is out of money and out of credit. The state is in a bad shape as the economy is still in the tank with not enough working to pay the taxes. That is why the republicans were elected…..To correct some of the past sins. Protect the kids and protect the women too but only after 20 weeks.
Jebediah
@jack nelson:
And that’s the problem right there. “Sin” has no fucking place in law and public policy. Superstitious fucking bible thumpers need to fuck off and thump their bibles in private, like Jesus very clearly told you to do.
Ken Glick (EEI)
It should be noted here that sneaking bills through a legislative body – especially if they are attached to a totally unrelated law – is not unique to the Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature but rather is a standard operating procedure for passing laws which the majority party knows are unpopular.