Trump will absolutely decimate the budgets of poor red states with his health care plans and destroy lives. But fuck them they brought it on their own damn selves. Do you disagree?
Well check this out. A NC lawmaker is all upset because protesters yelled at former Gov. Pat McCrory and wants to make that a crime to yell at a govt. official.
Republican state Sen. Dan Bishop, who proposed the bill, told the News and Observer that the legislation would “make it a crime to threaten, intimidate, or retaliate against a present or former North Carolina official in the course of, or on account of, the performance of his or her duties.” Bishop said that offenders of his proposed statute should serve a prison sentence up to five years.
I’m sure the intertubes has allowed copies of the Constitution of the United States to get that far south. But typical of the new breed of GOP lawmakers the fee fees of their fellow tribe members is more important than any sort of responsible governance. I’m almost amazed that they didn’t word it so it’s only a crime if it’s targeted at Republicans. How bipartisan to include Democrats. I wonder if he knows that this would prohibit calling “libtard” at a NC Democratic lawmaker. Or maybe that’s to be left up to the interpretation of the courts.
But even worse is Louisiana – a very common phrase. They passed a “Blue Lives Matter” law which extended hate crime protection to police officers, firefighters and EMS personnel. Oy! But the consequences of such are that, in the mind of one Police Chief it may be possible to charge someone with a hate crime when they’ve resisted arrest. Now you’ve got a fucking nightmare.
Hebert’s interpretation of the law is quite dangerous, as resisting arrest can be a fickle charge. What it is, and isn’t, depends on the individual officer. For instance, if a police officer grabs a protester’s arm during a demonstration and that person makes a movement the officer considers aggressive, a minor trespassing or disturbing the peace charge could be bumped up to assault and possibly considered a hate crime.
Lovely. The people with the guns and kevlar vests need more protection.
Just to show that absolutely crazy fuckthought can cross the Mason Dixon we go way up north to South Dakota where the good and frozen people there passed an expansive ethics and campaign finance law by referendum last November. But the GOP legislature there can’t live with that kind of anti-democratic interference in their lives.
The measure, known as IM-22, passed with 52 percent of the vote. It is supposed to create an independent commission to oversee investigations into ethical misconduct by elected officials, impose tougher limits on campaign contributions and lobbyists’ gifts to lawmakers, place restrictions on lawmakers becoming lobbyists, increase disclosure by independent political groups, and set up a system to publicly finance elections.
The legislature is in emergency session to overturn the new laws and the will of the people of South Dakota.
On Monday afternoon, a joint committee of the South Dakota legislature approved emergency rules to immediately repeal the entire law. The next step is a vote on the floor of the state House of Representatives on Tuesday.
State Sen. Billie Sutton (D) told HuffPost, “This is a way that the repeal can’t be referred to the ballot.”
Normally in South Dakota, if the legislature repeals a citizen-backed initiative, the voters can propose a referendum to reverse the repeal. But if it’s eliminated under emergency rules, the citizens can’t reverse that repeal. To adopt those emergency rules, the legislature needs a two-thirds majority, which Republicans provided.
The opposition to the ethics initiative was funded by Americans for Prosperity – a Koch brothers backed PAC. The Kochs bought and paid for those SD legislators fair and square and the gall of the people of SD to interfere in that contractual relationship is outrageous.
Maybe they can make it a hate crime to hold politicians accountable – think big SD!
The Polislice 