The Other Race Virginians Need to Watch This Year

The following is a cross posting of an op-ed I wrote at LGBTQ Nation that looks at GOP attorney general Mark Obenshain's dishonest effort to paint himself as a moderate.  The man is just as extreme as Ken Cuccinelli and the utterly insane "Bishop" E. W. Jackson.  Here's the piece in its entirety:

Given its off year elections, Virginia is attracting a good deal of attention among political observers.  LGBT Virginians, women and minorities likewise ought to be paying close attention. Why?  Because the Republican statewide ticket — which was nominated at a convention dominated by far right religious extremists and Tea Party fanatics (who usually also identify as “conservative Christians”) — is the most extreme in Virginia’s history.

There has been a great deal of media coverage of the GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli who has a bizarre fixation on reinstating Virginia’s “crimes against nature statute,” is a climate change denier, and who has shown himself to be ethically challenged at best as he has taken gifts and campaign contributions for those who have sought a quid pro quo from the Attorney General’s office, which Cuccinelli currently occupies.

Likewise, there has been plentiful media coverage on Lt. Governor candidate E.W. “Bishop” Jackson who has made off the fall anti-gay statements, insulted civil rights leaders and generally shown himself to inhabit some strange alternate universe from sentient persons.
In fact, Jackson makes AFA’s Bryan Fischer and FRC’s Tony Perkins appear to be fairly rational in comparison.

Lacking in similar coverage has been the GOP nominee for Attorney General, Mark Obenshain, who, if one knows his background and voting record in the Virginia General Assembly is every bit as extreme and – I would argue insane – as Cuccinelli and “Bishop” Jackson.

Despite his extremism as evidenced by his past record, Obenshain has been trying to reinvent himself as a “moderate” and even claimed that he doesn’t support discrimination against anyone (more on this later).
As a recent article in the Virginian Pilot noted, the attorney general race deserves much closer attention than it is currently receiving for several reasons.
First, the next attorney general will help frame the national perception of Virginia, and his name is likely to appear at the top of the 2017 ballot because historically Virginia’s attorney general has run, or resigned to run, for governor in every election, including this one, dating to 1993.
Second, under Virginia law, the Attorney General interprets Virginia’s statutory law and determines which laws meet constitutional muster under both the Virginia Constitution and the United States Constitution.

For example, Obenshain has pledged to continue fighting President Barack Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”), either by filing briefs in a pending legal challenge or by filing a new lawsuit.

Also, his Democrat opponent, Mark Herring, has said he wouldn’t defend Virginia’s anti-sodomy statute because it’s clearly unconstitutional while Obenshain will likely seek to defend it despite trying to pretend to be noncommittal.

Like Cuccinelli, Obenshain refuses to recognize the full scope of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas and is so thoroughly under the thumb of the Christofascists at The Family Foundation (an affiliate of Focus on the Family and registered hate group, Family Research Council) that he will no doubt refuse to accept the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuits’s decision striking down Virginia’s sodomy statute for a second time.

Why do I come to this conclusions? Obenshain’s record in the Virginia General Assembly confirms that he is every bit as extreme as Ken Cuccinelli and “Bishop” Jackson.

Here’s an overview of Obenshain’s record:

1.   Obenshain has previously introduced a bill that would have required any woman in Virginia who has a miscarriage without a doctor present, to file a report it within 24 hours to the police or otherwise risk going to jail for a full year.  Obenshain’s bill read in part as follows:

When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf shall, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred. No one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of law-enforcement officials or the medical examiner. Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

For those unfamiliar with Virginia law, a Class 1 misdemeanor cares a 1 year jail sentence and a fine of $2,500.00.

2.  Obenshain has supported a “personhood” bill that would outlaw all abortions and grant full constitutional rights to a fetus from the moment of conception.

3. In 2013 Obenshain sponsored a bill requiring limited types of photo identification as part of the Virginia GOP’s active effort to disenfranchise minority voters. Acceptable forms of ID include a government-issued photo ID that includes their address, a photo ID from a Virginia college or university, or a workplace ID featuring a photo.  Regular Voter ID cards would not be sufficient.

4.  Obenshain has consistently voted against Democratic measures that would assure employment non-discrimination protections for homosexual state employees under Virginia’s anti-discrimination law.

5.  In January, 2013, Obenshain walked off the Senate floor rather than support former Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland, who is openly gay, for a Richmond General District Court judgeship.  In 2012, other GOP extremists in the House of Delagate blocked Thorne-Begland’s appointment but were out maneuvered by the Richmond Circuit Court judges who appointed him on an interim bases after Thorne-Begland received unanimous backing from the five largest mega-law firms based in Virginia.

In short, despite his recent pretenses, Obenshain is anti-gay, anti-minority and anti-women’s rights. 

If Virginians want a quasi-theocracy in Virginia, they can vote for Obenshain and his fellow extremists on the GOP ticket.  If, instead, they believe in the principles of Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers from Virginia, their choice is clear: vote for Mark Herring for Attorney Genaral, Terry McAuliffe for Governor, and Ralph Northam for Lt. Governor.
 

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The Republican Armageddon Caucus

Obstruction and outright sabotage are now the main hallmarks of the Republican Party at the national level.  Particularly among some of the worse far right ideologues who naturally are the darlings of the drooling, spittle flecked GOP base.  This group offers nothing in terms of proposed solutions to many pressing problems and needs and instead seek only to destroy government and needed programs  And equally disturbing is the reality that thanks to shameless district gerrymandering, it will be difficult to get rid of these horrid individuals.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this cabal of  lunacy and what it may hold for the nation.  Here are excerpts:

[A]fter three years of congressional dysfunction brought on by the rise of a radicalized brand of conservatism, it’s time to call the core questions:

Will our ability to govern ourselves be held perpetually hostage to an ideology that casts government as little more than dead weight in American life? And will a small minority in Congress be allowed to grind decision-making to a halt?

Congress is supposed to be the venue in which we Americans work our way past divisions that are inevitable in a large and diverse democracy. Yet for some time, Republican congressional leaders have given the most right-wing members of the House and Senate a veto power that impedes compromise, and thus governing itself.

On the few occasions when the far-right veto was lifted, Congress got things done . . . . All these actions had something in common: They were premised on the belief that government can take practical steps to make American life better.

This idea is dismissed by those ready to shut down the government or to use the debt ceiling as a way of forcing the repeal or delay of the Affordable Care Act and passing more draconian spending reductions. It needs to be made very clear that these radical Republicans are operating well outside their party’s own constructive traditions.

Before their 2010 election victory, Republicans had never been willing to use the threat of default to achieve their goals.
The very fact that everyone now accepts the term “Obamacare” to refer to a measure designed to get health insurance to many more Americans is a sign of how stupidly partisan we have become.

The health-care exchanges to facilitate the purchase of private insurance were based on a Heritage Foundation proposal, first brought to fruition in Massachusetts by a Republican governor named Mitt Romney. Subsidizing private premiums was always a Republican alternative to extending Medicare to cover everyone, the remedy preferred by many liberals.

But that was then. The right wing’s recent rejection of a significant government role in ending the scandal of “a health-care system that does not even come close to being comprehensive and fails to reach far too many” — the words were spoken 24 years ago by the late Sen. John Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican — tells us why Congress no longer works.

The GOP has gone from endorsing market-based government solutions to problems the private sector can’t solve — i.e, Obamacare — to believing that no solution involving expanded government can possibly be good for the country.

Behind all of the GOP posturing is something else: Greed.  The base of the GOP which constantly blathers about its religiosity and Christian ideals in truth doesn't give a damn about other citizens.  They don't want to pay anything toward the common good and basically hate everyone other than themselves.  They are a scourge on America and the world.

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North Carolina: GOP Extremism Unrestrained

If one wants to see what the GOP agenda for America, North Carolina offers a pretty good glimpse as a GOP controlled legislature and GOP governor run rampantly out of control and enact far right dream legislation that does everything from further restricting abortion to disenfranchising a significant percentage of voters.  Voters in Virginia would be wise to look southward to see what a GOP victory in Virginia in November would usher in.  A piece in the New York Times looks at what is happening in North Carolina - things that should have been foreseen by the cretins who either stayed home on election day or who stupidly believed GOP lies.  Anyone familiar with today's GOP base should have seen all of this coming.  Here are article excerpts:

When Pat McCrory, a Republican former mayor of Charlotte, was elected governor last year, he pledged to “bring this state together,” and to focus on bread-and-butter issues amid an ailing economy.

But with Republicans controlling all branches of the state government for the first time in more than a century, the legislature pushed through a wide range of conservative change. The Republicans not only cut taxes and business regulations, as many had expected, but also allowed stricter regulations on abortion clinics, ended teacher tenure, blocked the expansion of Medicaid, cut unemployment benefits, removed obstacles to the death penalty, allowed concealed guns in bars and restaurants, and mandated the teaching of cursive writing. 

Just this week, Mr. McCrory signed into law strict voter identification requirements, prohibiting same-day registration and cutting early voting.
Lawsuits have been filed — including one on Monday by the N.A.A.C.P. — and protests are taking place almost weekly in Raleigh, the capital, and other cities, leaving North Carolinians across the political spectrum worried that the state’s often-hailed political pragmatism may have given way to the ideological warfare of Washington. 

[I]n the 2010 elections, a cycle deeply unfavorable for Democrats nationwide, North Carolina Republicans won both houses of the legislature for the first time in a century. More critically, they also won control of redistricting. One year later, they drew districts guaranteeing safe seats for a Republican majority for years to come. 

In 2012, with Ms. Perdue’s late decision not to run again, Mr. McCrory won the governor’s office easily. Naming Mr. Pope as his budget director, he promised an agenda focused on economic growth, even pledging not to sign into law new restrictions on abortion. But Republicans in the legislature were not interested in half-measures. 

Doug Clark, a columnist for The News and Record of Greensboro, welcomed the partisan change, but he now sees the state’s Republican leadership as fostering “extreme partisanship and abuse of power.” He questioned why the legislature, after passing laws governing abortion, guns and voter identification, and frequently trying to exert control over issues traditionally left to local governments, never got around to passing the governor’s plan to overhaul job recruiting. 

While the number of North Carolina voters over all has risen since 2008, the number who are registered as either Republicans or Democrats has shrunk.  Unaffiliated voters now make up more than a quarter of the voting population. 

“Honest, I’m not much into North Carolina,” said Cyril Seacat, 78, who moved here decades ago to work in a Glen Raven-owned mill and was sitting in his truck outside a Walmart. “I don’t think they’re doing much of anything right.”

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Government Shut Down - The GOP Obsession with Obamacare

So far many of the dire warnings of the GOP demagogues about Obamacare have failed to come to fruition and in a number of states it appears that premiums will be less expensive that the doomsday Cassandras predicted.  It seems that other than the Tea Party/Christofascist crowd, the only folks screaming are greedy business owners who view employees as modern day serfs and similarly greedy doctors who claim poverty while living far better than most of the populace (I have yet to meet a poor doctor in my legal practice - I tend to avoid them as clients because most are obnoxious and don't want to pay for services rendered).  So why is the GOP willing to shut down the federal government that will harm vast numbers of individuals and businesses?  A column in the Washington Post looks at the GOP obsession with destroying Obamacare and throwing millions of Americans back into an uninsured status. Here are highlights:

With the right wing in full-throttle defund-Obamacare mode, everyone seems to be wondering whether the August recess will bring a rerun of the now-mythical Summer of ’09, when the Tea Party came into its own and changed the national conversation on health care. One question seems to be whether the continuing Obamacare obsession will eclipse immigration reform.

But the Asheville Citizen Times of North Carolina offers an account of something else entirely: A GOP Congressman, Patrick McHenry, getting confronted by a constituent — one Skip Edwards — who is upset with his votes to repeal Obamacare, because of his own medical and financial situation. What’s particularly interesting is Rep. McHenry’s claim that he supports parts of the Affordable Care Act, chiefly the bit prohibiting discrimination against people with preexisting conditions:

Edwards and his wife, both 63, had health insurance until he lost his job during the recessio

n and the East Asheville couple found themselves in financial trouble despite staying relatively healthy.

Edwards and others wondered why McHenry would vote against a plan they feel is better than nothing at all. He said he would not vote for something he feels is bad policy.

McHenry floated a few familiar GOP solutions — allowing the buying of insurance across state lines and increasing competition — but Edwards said he wasn’t satisfied.

It’s easy to rail about Obamacare’s evils inside the safe confines of the conservative media echo chamber. But it may not be so easly for GOP lawmakers to explain to their constituents that they support repealing specific provisions in Obamacare, i.e., the ban on discrimination against preexisting conditions. 

[A]s unpopular as Obamacare admittedly remains, the battle over health care in 2014 may also be partly decided by the prosaic question of which side is perceived as genuinely wanting to fix our health care system. It remains to be seen whether suggestions such as those McHenry offered will be enough.

On top of this, conservative are putting heavy pressure on GOP lawmakers not just to keep trying to repeal Obamacare, but to shut down the government to force an Apocalyptic stand against the law. If it’s hard to explain repealing certain parts of the law, how will GOP lawmakers explain shutting down the government to defund it?

It also remains to be seen whether such episodes will get anywhere near the play that will likely be lavished on tales of Obamacare implementation going awry. Sure, constituents who don’t want the law’s provisions taken away may not be wearing funny three cornered hats or holding up signs proclaiming that tyranny has arrived on American shores, so they may not get much media attention. But surely they are an important part of the story, too.

Truth be told, the GOP simply doesn't care about a vast portion of the American population.  We're disposable garbage,  especially if we are black, Hispanic, or gay.

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Weekly Protests Against Republican Extremism in North Carolina - Deja Vu for Virginia?

If Virginians want a glimpse of what a Cuccinelli/Jackson/Obenshain administration would look like - especially with the GOP controlling the House of Delegates - they need only look across the border to North Carolina where the North Carolina GOP is busy implementing a Christofascist/Tea Party agenda which is a wet dream for the extremists in today's Virginia GOP.  Programs for the poor and unemployed are being slashed, voter disenfranchisement and extreme restrictions on all abortions are the rule of the day.  The Daily Beast looks at how some North Carolinians are waking up to the nightmare that has swept North Carolina and taking to the streets in weekly protests.  I hope Virginians are watching and will not make the mistake of trusting the Virginia GOP with Virginia's future.  Here are story highlights:

The protests are called Moral Mondays, and are staged by a coalition led by the NAACP and other progressive groups to speak out against the Republican legislature that they say is working behind closed doors to push an extreme agenda.

But Moral Mondays have also attracted a grassroots collection of teachers and students, retirees, stay-at-home moms, and blue collar workers from across the political spectrum who told me Monday the same thing I heard from Tea Party protesters in 2009-- that they did not recognize the government representing them and that they were tired of doing nothing about it.

In a state that had come to be known as a swing state in the Deep South, which Barack Obama won in 2008 but lost narrowly in 2012, the first Republican legislature in more than 100 years has moved to cut funding for public education, unemployment and Medicaid; added new requirements and funding for voter-ID laws; eliminated the earned income tax credit and worked to loosen laws limiting fracking in the state.  Earlier this year, the legislature added major new restrictions to abortion services, first as a rider on a bill outlawing Sharia, and then as a clause on a motorcycle safety bill.

"We may not all agree on the issues, but the fact remains (the legislators) did not ask us.  It's like we don't matter," she said. "I guess they think we're all stupid and we're not seeing them and we're just going to sit back and not do anything, but I'm not sitting back."

Before the protests, the women went to Christian Faith Baptist Church, where the Rev. William Barber, the president of the North Carolina NAACP, led a training session on civil disobedience and instructed protestors on the finer points of getting arrested. But he also put the agenda of the North Carolina legislature, especially the new voter-ID laws, in what he saw as the context of history for his audience, which was mostly white.

"We know we are in a war for the ballot," he said."Raleigh is our Selma.The general assembly is our Edmond Pettus Bridge."

There's more that deserves a read.  What is happening is ugly, but then ugliness and greed and heartlessness are the norm in the GOP today.  Virginia soccer moms need to stop worrying about PTA meetings and childrens' sports teams and get out an vote against the GOP ticket here in Virginia if they want their children's schools to have future funding.

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GOP Anarchists of the House of Representatives

The 45 House Republicans most willing to grind government to a halt, based on an analysis of six votes this year by the Washington Post blog The Fix.   (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom (Collins, Rothfus, Amash, Gohmert, Massie, Mulvaney, Schweikert); Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom (Sensenbrenner, Wenstrup, Desantis, Franks); Pete Marovich/ZumaPress/Newscom (Goodlatte); Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call/Newscom (Salmon, Desjarlais, Labrador); Action Press/ZumaPress/Newscom (Bachmann); Newscom (Chabot); Richard Ellis/ZumaPress/Newscom (Sanford); The Augusta Chronicle/ZumaPress/Newscom (Broun); Michael Allen Jones/Sacramento Bee/ZumaPress/Newscom (McClintock); William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC NewsWire/Getty Images (Cotton); The Washington Times/ZumaPress/Newscom (Price); Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images (Lamborn); Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images (Posey, Huelskamp))

I often lament what has become of the Republican Party which now is best defined by the open embrace of ignorance, extremism in general and religious based fanaticism.  And in the House of Representatives, the swamp fever is still intensifying as many GOP House members are saboteurs that can little about governing the nation and instead focus on destroying government completely.  I personally tie this development to the rise of the Christofascists in the GOP since objective reality - not to mention the rights of others - simply doesn't matter.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at the sabotage now taking place in the GOP controlled House.  It's not a pretty picture.  Here are some excerpts:

The party leadership draws up a bill that’s far too right-wing to ever become law, but it fails in the House because it isn’t right-wing enough. Sometimes, as with the attempts to repeal Obamacare, the failures don’t matter much, but in other instances the inability to pass legislation poses horrifying dangers. The chaos and dysfunction have set in so deeply that Washington now lurches from crisis to crisis, and once-dull, keep-the-lights-on rituals of government procedure are transformed into white-knuckle dramas that threaten national or even global catastrophe.

The Republican Party has spent 30 years careering ever more deeply into ideological extremism, but one of the novel developments of the Obama years is its embrace of procedural extremism. The Republican fringe has evolved from being politically shrewd proponents of radical policy changes to a gang of saboteurs who would rather stop government from functioning at all. In this sense, their historical precedents are not so much the Gingrich revolutionaries, or even their tea-party selves of a few years ago; the movement is more like the radical left of the sixties, had it occupied a position of power in Congress. And so the terms we traditionally use to scold bad Congresses—partisanship, obstruction, gridlock—don’t come close to describing this situation. The hard right’s extremism has bent back upon itself, leaving an inscrutable void of paranoia and formless rage and twisting the Republican Party into a band of anarchists.

And the worst is not behind us.

The rational way to view these events is that Republicans have marginalized themselves. But the hard-liners see it differently. In their minds, every bill that passes is a betrayal by their leaders. They know that letting Democrats carry bills through the House has been the leadership’s desperate recourse to avoid total chaos, and since chaos is their leverage, they are now working feverishly to seal off that escape route. This year, an increasing proportion of conservative media is given over to conservative activists’ extracting pledges from Republican leaders not to negotiate with Democrats.  . . . . this means no negotiation at all.

It’s not clear whether Republicans actually expect the president to succumb to their Bond-villain hostage scheme. But it is significant that Republicans are demanding even more from Obama than they demanded during previous debt-ceiling ransoms and will decry the inevitable failure to achieve it as yet another betrayal. 

In the actual world, the economy is recovering and the deficit, currently projected at half the level Obama inherited, is falling like a rock. Yet messianic Republican suicide threats in the face of an imagined debt crisis have not subsided at all. The swelling grievance within the party base may actually be giving the threats more fervor. The reign of the Republican House has not yet inflicted any deep or permanent disaster on the country, but it looks like it is just a matter of time. 

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Time to Emigrate? Nate Silver Predicts GOP Holding 50-51 Senate Seats After 2014 Election

It is stunning at times to see progressive causes and equality advancing in South America and in Europe - even in South Africa - yet America seems at times to be lurching backwards with racists, bigots and foul religious extremists either in ascendancy or not plummeting in a death spiral as they deserve.  In America a main representative of this regressive process is today's Republican Party with a party base that stinks of racism, worships ignorance, and holds anyone deemed as  "other"  - which is virtually anyone who isn't a conservative white conservative Christian - with open contempt.  And despite this, gay statistics nerd Nate Silver predicts that the GOP may make major gains in the U. S. Senate in 2014.  Currently, the Senate is the only obstacle to passage of extremist legislation passed by the gerrymandered GOP controlled House of Representatives.  If the GOP were to take control of the Senate, other than a presidential veto, there would be no stopping GOP insanity and bigotry.    Hence my question, is it time to bail and emigrate?  Talking Points Memo looks at Silver's current predictions:

Following former Gov. Brian Schweitzer's decision not to run for Montana’s open U.S. Senate seat this weekend, New York Times polling guru Nate Silver predicted Monday that Republicans will hold 50 to 51 seats in the upper chamber after all ballots are counted in the 2014 Congressional mid-term elections.

Silver hedges in his prediction by reminding his readers that the outcome will be affected by several factors, namely local variables, the quality of candidates yet chosen by both Democrats and Republicans, economic indicators and President Barack Obama's approval rating.

It is equally important to look for early indications of whether G.O.P. primary voters will be more tolerant of moderate and “main street” Republicans than they were in 2010 and 2012. A strong set of Republican nominees could give the party as many as a dozen credible opportunities to pick up the seats they need – whereas a weaker series of candidates could require them to win almost all of the races that remained competitive after the primaries.

Read Silver's full state-by-state analysis here.

Silver hedges in his prediction by reminding his readers that the outcome will be affected by several factors, namely local variables, the quality of candidates yet chosen by both Democrats and Republicans, economic indicators and President Barack Obama's approval rating.

Read Silver's full state-by-state analysis here.

 Silver does have these caveats:

It is therefore important to watch macro-level indicators – especially Mr. Obama’s approval ratings, the generic Congressional ballot and major economic measures – in addition to following the recruitment and polling in individual states.

It is equally important to look for early indications of whether G.O.P. primary voters will be more tolerant of moderate and “main street” Republicans than they were in 2010 and 2012. A strong set of Republican nominees could give the party as many as a dozen credible opportunities to pick up the seats they need – whereas a weaker series of candidates could require them to win almost all of the races that remained competitive after the primaries.

Click image to enlarge

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The GOP’s "Principled" Suicide

Conservative columnist Kathleen Parker floats back and forth between la la land apologies for the Republican Party to clear eyed recognition that the GOP is drifting further and further into extremism and likely long term political death.  In a column in the Washington Post she is back in reality based mode and lambasts the GOP controlled House of Representatives for passing a farm bill devoid of any provisions for food stamps.  Here are highlights:

Republicans seem to be adopting the self-immolation tactics of principled martyrs.  Of course, principled or not, you’re still dead in the end.

At this stage in the second term of the president they couldn’t defeat, Republicans seem more like stubborn children refusing to come out of their rooms for supper, even though the alternative is going to bed hungry.

This simile is unavoidable in light of the House’s passage of a farm bill without any provision for food stamps — the first in 40 years. The move prompted fantastic outrage from Democrats, notably Rep. Corrine Brown (Fla.), who shrieked: “Mitt Romney was right: You all do not care about the 47 percent. Shame on you!”

Republicans argued that they’d prefer to deal with agricultural issues in one bill without the leverage of a welfare program.

These two programs historically were tied together in the spirit of — watch out now — compromise. And, though food stamps certainly will be funded, probably at current levels, through some other vehicle, Republicans managed to create yet another partisan problem where none existed and opened themselves up for gratuitous criticism.   Was this really the right fight at the right time?

The wrong time would be in the midst of the politically life-altering debate on immigration reform. Again, congressional Republicans want to parse reform in pieces, excluding the 11 million or so immigrants here illegally, instead of dealing with reform comprehensively, as the Senate has done — and as most Americans think necessary.

90 percent of life is picking your battles, and congressional Republicans keep picking the wrong ones. This is not true of all. Former Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has joined Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) to push comprehensive immigration reform.

Republicans are not shooting straight when they insist that the Senate bill’s path to citizenship is de facto amnesty. As paths go, it’s a 13-year pilgrimage along a precipice lined with bramble bushes — taxes, fines and various burning hoops through which one must leap in order to stand in line. Hardly rose-petal strewn.

Republican intransigence is further compounded by the echo chamber of the Tinker Bell Coalition — the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol and National Review’s Rich Lowry, who recently co-authored an editorial urging Republicans to drive a stake through the heart of immigration reform.
These are the same two who thought Sarah Palin would be the perfect running mate for John McCain.
. . . fairy dust has a way of contaminating the Republican Way of Thinking. Before you can govern, you have to win. And before you can win, you have to offer something people want to buy.

What Republicans are selling appeals to an ever-diminishing market that doesn’t even include their erstwhile allies in business and industry. And their self-immolation may prove to have been nothing more than a bonfire of vanities.

Ouch!!!  She's right, of course.  Increasingly the House GOP cares nothing for what a majority of Americans want or think.  It's all about pleasing the spittle flecked Christofascists and the knuckle dragging Neanderthals of the Tea Party.

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The GOP Fueled Driven Decline of North Carolina

The southern boundary of the Hampton Roads area is the North Carolina/Virginia border.  Indeed, my office is less than 25 miles from North Carolina and I've spent a great deal of time in the Outer Banks surfing.  Hence, I thought I knew the state.  Yet, since the Republican Party took control of the North Carolina legislature and governor's mansion, North Carolina has veered off into insanity.  One has to wonder how long it will be before its reputation as a moderate and pro-business state is destroyed by the GOP/Christofascist extremism.  An editorial in the New York Times looks at the rapid decline of that state.  Here are excerpts:

Every Monday since April, thousands of North Carolina residents have gathered at the State Capitol to protest the grotesque damage that a new Republican majority has been doing to a tradition of caring for the least fortunate. Nearly 700 people have been arrested in the “Moral Monday” demonstrations, as they are known. But the bad news keeps on coming from the Legislature, and pretty soon a single day of the week may not be enough to contain the outrage.

In January, after the election of Pat McCrory as governor, Republicans took control of both the executive and legislative branches for the first time since Reconstruction. Since then, state government has become a demolition derby, tearing down years of progress in public education, tax policy, racial equality in the courtroom and access to the ballot. 

The cruelest decision by lawmakers went into effect last week: ending federal unemployment benefits for 70,000 residents. Another 100,000 will lose their checks in a few months. Those still receiving benefits will find that they have been cut by a third, to a maximum of $350 weekly from $535, and the length of time they can receive benefits has been slashed from 26 weeks to as few as 12 weeks.

At the same time, the state is also making it harder for future generations of workers to get jobs, cutting back sharply on spending for public schools. Though North Carolina has been growing rapidly, it is spending less on schools now than it did in 2007, ranking 46th in the nation in per-capita education dollars. Teacher pay is falling, 10,000 prekindergarten slots are scheduled to be removed, and even services to disabled children are being chopped. 

Republicans repealed the Racial Justice Act, a 2009 law that was the first in the country to give death-row inmates a chance to prove they were victims of discrimination. They have refused to expand Medicaid and want to cut income taxes for the rich while raising sales taxes on everyone else. The Senate passed a bill that would close most of the state’s abortion clinics. 

And, naturally, the Legislature is rushing to impose voter ID requirements and cut back on early voting and Sunday voting, which have been popular among Democratic voters.

North Carolina was once considered a beacon of farsightedness in the South, an exception in a region of poor education, intolerance and tightfistedness. In a few short months, Republicans have begun to dismantle a reputation that took years to build. 

Two things strike me: (1) what the GOP is doing in North Carolina is a blue print of what the Virginia GOP wants to do in Virginia, and (2) while the GOP claims to be the party of Christian values, its actions are the antithesis to the Gospel message of Christ.

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