Wednesday, July 10, 2013

The North Carolina Sharia Fetus Motorcycle Helmet Law


Or something.

Without notice, NC House rushes forward new abortion bill

Submitted by John_Frank on 2013-07-10 09:34

UPDATED: Hours after Gov. Pat McCrory issued a veto threat for a controversial abortion bill, House Republicans -- acting without public notice -- took a bill about motorcycle safety and inserted abortion language.

The new bill -- S353 -- represents tweaks to the version that passed the Senate last week but still includes some of that version's contentious language. It calls for a physician to be present when the first drug in a chemical abortion is administered, as opposed to all drugs, as the version that passed the Senate last week would mandate.

Another major change from the Senate version: Abortion clinics would not be required to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers. But the state Department of Health and Human Services would be authorized to apply those standards as it sees "applicable." The bill also includes a state study to determine what resources are necessary for the state health agency to adequately enforce the new regulations, and would pay for more inspectors.
...

The Sharia law language from the Senate bill is not included in this latest House measure, but the motorcycle safety provisions are still in the bill.
...
...we should not underestimate the forces out there. In the US, after being trounced in the last election, the GOP is actually veering even further right in their nihilism and sabotage. There is no figure in that party able to control the forces daily goosed by Ailes et al. It looks as if the fever hasn’t broken but intensified: they are waging war now on every front – from new anti-abortion laws across the country to sabotaging the president’s universal healthcare law, to preventing any functioning executive branch, and to go down screaming on immigration reform. Their bet now is the same bet as 2010: total opposition by all nonviolent means on all fronts, using the midterm elections, where their base turns out more reliably, to ratchet up the effect. It is not getting better.
The lesson here is obvious to anyone with a lick of sense.

Democrats are smug shit-boxes who are in every measurable way just as awful as Republicans. And the only way to stop the tireless, lockstep American Taliban horde from seizing complete control over every lever of power in United States is for people who need health care or have vaginae or retain quaint, uppity notions about voting rights to finally, bravely step out of the way and let the American Taliban sweep into power.

Although this may seem to the untutored idiot like the stupidest possible thing anyone who needs health care or has a vaginae or retains quaint, uppity notions about voting rights could do, it is, in fact, the height of subtle genius! Because what the untutored idiot does not take into account is the fact that, according to the Great Big Theory of Magical Political Realignment, American Taliban overreach will obviously trigger the rise of a spunky Pineapple Ice Cream Third Party which will not only be wholly in favor of everything you like and adamantly oppose everything you hate, but will rise so fast and so overwhelmingly that its electoral majorities (presuming the American Taliban has not whittled the electoral process down to nothing) and moral authority will overcome and smash the America Taliban's iron grip on power (which, you will recall, you handed over to them by stepping out of their way) forever.

As a bonus, will also be able to follow the entire, unfolding democratic miracle from the comfort of your own home as it is covered soberly and fairly by CNN.

Because that's just science!

13 comments:

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

total opposition by all nonviolent means on all fronts,

It's kind of cute that Sully seems to think they are not including VIOLENT means also. Witness the doofus who videotaped himself illegally loading a gun on the streets of DC.

Also, the armed hooligans protecting a mine in northern Wisconsin. Not to mention the assaulting of protestors and jailing of demonstrators.

casimir said...

Mr Driftglass, will you please stop? It is simple: (1) the Republican party is the sump for the pathologically ignorant and scared, manipulated by the few and their factotums to liquidate humanity's possibility into their own pockets; (2) many Democratic leaders are well-meaning, but 80% of them have internalized the corporatist worldview & are there to serve it; (3) because of this, even if the Democratic party controlled all levers of power, we still would be moving in the direction of the abyss; (4) we ALWAYS should vote for Democrats as the lesser of evils; (5) when we're not voting, we should do everything possible within & outside of the Democratic party to push both parties out in favor of something that serves the common interest. Every leftist I know follows these. None says there is "not a dime's worth of difference" between Republicans and Democrats. But none would spare the establishment Democratic party a scathing, comprehensive denunciation. You get more emails than I do, so maybe you actually get "not a dime of difference" folks writing in. But to the rest of us this is an irritating & tiresome strawman and not conceptually different from the same sort of thing that you take umbrage with Greenwald for doing (i.e., directing internecine fire for absolutism that isn't there).

Mole said...

I think democratic representatives are better than Republicans. But I blame dems for allowing a third party to be an appealing route.

Sure, dems will tell republicans how naughty they are, but it's always going to full short of saying those people are evil and shouldn't be in office.

There are hundreds of arguments against republicans, but dems won't make it. There are people outside the club who does that and we just assume dems are on that side.

OBS said...

so maybe you actually get "not a dime of difference" folks writing in

Seriously? Have you not seen the commenters lately? Lots and lots of (privileged, white, male) "liberals" spout the "not a dimes difference" bullshit constantly.

marindenver said...

@casimir - you clearly have not spent much time in the comments sections of Firedoglake and similar "progressive" blogs. Not only do you learn that there's not a "dime's worth of difference", you're also told that Dems are even WORSE than Rethugs. Because actually repealing DADT is totally worse than trying to repeal the ACA.

Destroying the Republican party is the only, only way to go.

Anonymous said...

For those who do not spare a dime, I will once again start off by saying that my perception is shaped by being neither heterosexual nor Christian.

While I've been frustrated with Democrats, I've never had a Democrat stand on stage with someone who says people like me are a threat to children, a threat to society, and that herding us up to, at best, put us on reservations, or at worse extinguish us, would be an act blessed by God for His Christian nation.

I have also never had a Democrat tell me that I shouldn't vote, or be allowed to vote, because I'm not Christian.

And for those who would say I'm building straw men on a fringe issue, the two people who told me they were proud gun owners, and that killing me on the spot would make Baby Jesus up in Heaven smile, were from the KKK and Focus on the Family. Talk to any gay man over 40 from the Deep South how many friend of theirs have been murdered.

(I would also point out that in my accidental outing near someone from Aryan Nation, he did not threaten to kill me. So... kudos to Aryan Nation?)

I would much rather have wealth-and-property class Democrats in power and work for change, than have the party of the American Taliban and raving lunatics in power and hope it might just possibly jolt enough people into giving a shit to think about voting.

Mike.K.

marindenver said...

@Mike K. - your story just reinforces why the only sane path forward is to work to totally obliterate or at least drastically minimize the Republican Party. Their only agenda, as I said earlier on Charlie Pierce's blog, is to disenfranchise women, poor people, old people and non-white people. And bring the effective tax rate on corporations and the wealthy to as close to 0% as possible. Then cash in when they "retire". And to the above list I would add LGBT people who just want to advance their *gay agenda* of just wanting the same civil rights and privileges of anyone else.

And, frankly, fuck the emoprogs who think there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. There is a world of difference. We do not need to sell this country to the Talivangelical Rethugs to find that out. The 2014 elections are going to be vitally important and everyone has a stake in it.

Anonymous said...

Thinking about minting a commemorative coin...or maybe a billboard, but it needs to be said loudly and as often as possible:

Remember children, when Republicans win, everybody loses!

Anonymous said...

I agree - I say let these Tea Party fools go as far as they dare. That is the only way that people are going to see that this bullshit is going to affect THEM personally, not just the "other" people whom they think deserve it.

bluicebank said...

I believe that you, Driftglass, make a logical mistake in your thinking regarding the two parties. Not all actions are equal.

For a Republican to do a thing is not the same as if a Democrat did the same thing. By analogy in war, the difference is between an officer being killed by an enemy sniper, and being fragged. The later has a different effect on morale.

So even though the Republican Party is obviously more terrible than the Democratic Party, if the relative effect of both party's action is to demean society, then Goldwater's dime is split into pennies and, all I know, is that we're still being fucked. If you wish to pontificate against those who gainsay lousy Democrats, fine. But I would counter that lousy Democrats are also part of the problem.

Long game. Look into it.

Anonymous said...

Good morning, Mr. Glass.

I'm not sure what's the better analogy for these surprise anti-abortion attacks...

Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition

Kool Aid Man (especially the Robot Chicken version who breaks through walls ANYWHERE)

Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day.

---Kevin Holsinger

kfreed said...

Being among the untutored, the Mensa candidates will pardon my ignorant, not worthy of consideration, question:

Wouldn't it save us all a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears if we prevented the American Taliban from taking over in the first place? You know, like before they shut that whole voting thing down?

kfreed said...

Here's a handy little video, courtesy of the New York Open Center and CUNY Graduate Center, featuring Joan Bokaer of Theocracy Watch, who happens to have some handy charts on how not "the same" Democrats and Republicans in Congress are:

"Are we Becoming a Theocracy/" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVDbFyDm-Ig

Mind you, this is circa 2005. It's gotten exponentially worse (thanks "progressive" geniuses for the "don't vote" advice in 2010).