Another GOP Goodie
Posted by Michelle Moquin on March 20th, 2013
Ha! No such thing.
Good morning!
I never run out of fodder when it comes to the GOP and their ridiculous right-wing remedies.
State Legislatures Gone Wild
Mar 15, 2013 | By ThinkProgress War Room
9 Terrible Proposed State Laws
If you think that irresponsible and outright ridiculous bills only come out of Washington, D.C., think again. Ever since the big GOP wave election in 2010, state legislatures across the country have been racing to pass offensive, unconstitutional, and just outright bizarre laws. Other states long controlled by Republicans are also rushing to pass unconstitutional and ridiculous laws just for good measure, it appears.
Here are 9 terrible proposed state laws:
NORTH DAKOTA: The state is getting in on the latest anti-abortion fad sweeping the nation: so-called “heartbeat bills” that ban abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected. North Dakota is set to pass a law that bans abortions (at its single remaining abortion clinic) after just six weeks. The law, the most stringent in the nation, is clearly unconstitutional.
TEXAS: An “avid proponent of tort reform” in the state legislature has proposed a law that will allow people to be served notice of a lawsuit through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
OKLAHOMA: The Sooner State is still fighting Obamacare and just this week the Oklahoma House passed an unconstitutional Obamacare “nullification” law.
INDIANA: Newly elected Gov. Mike Pence (R) is pushing for a 10 percent cut in the state’s income tax, something which could gut investments in education and infrastructure. Even Republican legislators are wary, but the Koch Brothers front group, Americans for Prosperity is pushing the proposal.
MISSISSIPPI: The Magnolia state, which has the highest obesity rate in the nation, passed a so-called “anti-Bloomberg” bill to prevent localities from “enacting rules that require calorie counts to be posted, that cap portion sizes, or that keep toys out of kids’ meals.”
SOUTH CAROLINA: The Palmetto State said no to expanding Medicaid under Obamacare, which sadly is hardly a novel feat. The South Carolina GOP’s innovation was to explain its motivation for doing so was because the president is black.
OHIO: Ohio’s radical anti-union law was overturned by a statewide referendum and its anti-voting law was headed for the same fate until the legislature preemptively repealed it on their own. Now Ohio legislators are trying to make it harder for voters to initiate referenda to overturn the radical laws passed by the GOP-controlled legislature.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: You might think that the 13th amendment to the Constitution is the one that banned slavery, but some Republican legislators in New Hampshire would like to tell you otherwise. They claim the “original 13th amendment” is one that banned people with titles of nobility from holding office and that it was deleted by some sort of conspiracy. They aren’t taking this lying down and have introduced a bill to restore the “original” version, in order “to end the infiltration of the Bar Association and the judicial branch into the executive and legislative branches of government and the unlawful usurpation of the people’s right.”
IOWA: An Iowa Republican wanted to ban no-fault divorces for couples with children, out of fears that easier divorces may make teenage girls “more promiscuous.” Fortunately, legislative leaders shut that whole thing down.
While some of these bills are laughable, it’s not very funny when they actually become law. In Arkansas, for instance, the legislature just overrode the governor’s veto (which, bizarrely, only requires a simple majority in Arkansas) of a measure banning abortion after 12 weeks. This was briefly the nation’s strictest abortion ban until it was outdone by the North Dakota law mentioned above.
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March 20th, 2013 at 9:17 pm
It seems to me they are doing what the fuck they want to do with health care and other bills. Ran them through without one bit if concern for the other party.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:19 pm
Thought you might be interested in my recent coverage of these topics.
Massachusetts bill would give patients the right to film surgery:
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/06/27/prsb0627.htm
New York bill seeks physician dress code to cut infections:
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/05/23/prsa0523.htm
March 20th, 2013 at 9:20 pm
If Obama allows this to go unchallenged, we’re all doomed.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:21 pm
The question is if nullification efforts will result in a Second Civil War. Perhaps a better solution would be to take these states that are promoting secessionist causes and send their representatives and Senators home from Washington. Discontinue all Federal payments to their citizens, remove all military bases from the states, discontinue postal service, set up checkpoints to treat their citizens as foreign nationals and require passports, etc.
And let them sweat. In a couple of months, a year at most, the public would have revolted from the Tea Potty leaders. We could accept them back as US Territories instead of States, with limited voting rights.
After all, they want their independence. Why not give it to them and let them see if they like it?
March 20th, 2013 at 9:22 pm
“While the Canadian immigrant Tom Horne has been obsessed with banning Tucson Unified School District’s academically successful Mexican American Studies program for allegedly promoting “the overthrow of the United States government” and “resentment toward a race or class of people…”
Reading many posts on HP, you can see how well this Mex Amer Studies brainwashing has been so successful. So many people want to see America taken down.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:22 pm
A lot of Right Wingers like to use their veneration of the Constitution as a way to further an agenda that generally shows a complete lack of understanding of and contempt for the Constitution.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:23 pm
Anon -#4, I like your thinking but would add that if these territories become nation states, they would need to be reconquered. All nations seek to expand their territory and the
United States would be more than happy to absorb a little nation called Arizona on the American continent. Once reconquered, the rebellious states can exist as subservient colonies to the U.S.
It’s not like it would ever get to the point where Mississippi has an embassy in France, yeah? :-)
March 20th, 2013 at 9:26 pm
I think it would be a really good idea to close Arizona’s border with the USA and have the Commander in Chief send a clear message to Mexico that we won’t interfere if they want to reclaim Arizona. Arizona doesn’t want to be part of thje USA anyway
March 20th, 2013 at 9:27 pm
A better choice there would be for Obama to say, in recognition of the misdeeds of the early US, Arizona will now be given back to the 21(?) tribes who’s land Arizona belongs to.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:35 pm
Zuhov, Hasn’t he already done that in effect? AZ is under siege from the south and he refuses to help them.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:36 pm
What, Imala, and let the tribes go back to waring with each other again over who owns the waterhole?
March 20th, 2013 at 9:37 pm
Really Harper? Under siege? Really? Oh! That’s right, there were all those headless bodies turning up in the desert that Arizona’s Governor pointed out. This turned out to be false. Fear mongering.
Not to mention all the military buildup along the border strangling Arizona’s economy, leadership, food supply… oh wait… You meant the ‘other’ under siege. The one where… oh forget it.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:37 pm
Is it 1860? Did I sleep all of those years or is this just a bad dream.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:39 pm
‘the right to nullify “existing federal statutes, mandates and executive orders.”‘
Wasn’t this question settled by the Civil War and various court rulings during the Civil Rights era? Oh, wait, they don’t believe in any history other than their own make-believe history.
Quite ironic that the party that fought the Civil War against states’ rights is now at the forefront of the states’ rights movement.
Go ahead and waste your time, Arizona. That law will be declared unconstitutional the minute it is challenged.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:41 pm
Is Arizona actually a real State? I’ve thought it was a movie set for westerns.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:42 pm
Jim#14, ” Wasn’t this question settled by the Civil War …”
The problem is that you have to be both intelligent and educated to know that.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:44 pm
Obama keeps turning his back on everything that he campaigned to please these fellas and yet they still ask for more.
And why shouldn’t they? Obama’s has a legendary track record of giving the opposing side everything they want just so they’ll have a beer with him.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:50 pm
The President needs to deal firmly with Arizona. What Arizona is doing is treason. Jackson was firm with S.Carolina in the 1830′s when they attempted nullification and Obama needs to do the same.
March 20th, 2013 at 9:57 pm
“SOME” Arizonans are wondering, and worrying, how far those in power will go. The majority of Arizonans voted for these people and are hoping they succeed AND secede.
I am NOT one of the minority, here only for now to be near my very elderly parents who, unfortunately, retired here long ago.
March 20th, 2013 at 10:00 pm
They are just trying to keep the people distracted from the fact that they have no idea what to do about their deficit or the other real problems that their State is facing.
March 20th, 2013 at 10:01 pm
why don’t all these ridiculous states (e.g. S.C., Fla., Texas, etc.) just secede & get it over with. i say, good riddance!
March 20th, 2013 at 10:03 pm
“I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”
-Andrew Jackson: “Proclamation to the People of South Carolina”
March 20th, 2013 at 10:21 pm
Gold, guns and anti-gay: State legislatures have become havens for the battiest Tea Party ideas ever
March 20th, 2013 at 10:29 pm
I’m a white male BOOMER. I can read and comprehend. I don’t know what happened to the rest of us. Especially the Fox fanatics.
March 20th, 2013 at 10:29 pm
Ten years after the first bombs fell on Baghdad, that gloomy assessment is a widely shared one. It pays, though, to remember just how wrong much of the mainstream media was about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — and how hard it was to find voices of dissent in many major newspapers, magazines and television shows.
March 21st, 2013 at 5:52 am
How to Stay Together Forever: Advice from Couples Who Split Up
If you want your marriage to succeed, it pays to know why other marriages fail. I have tracked 373 married couples for the past 26 years as part of a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The goal was to investigate how marriages really work over the long term—but many marriages don’t work, at least not forever. Of those 373 couples, 46% have divorced, roughly in line with national averages.
What went wrong in those failed marriages? And what would those divorced people do differently if they could start over again? When I put those questions to my study participants, key trends emerged.
Surprising: Sex was not a major issue when it came to what divorced people said they would “change” if they could start over again. And it wasn’t a key predictor of divorce over time in my study.
EXPAND CONVERSATIONS
Divorced people typically report that a lack of communication wasn’t the problem in their relationships—they spoke with their spouses often during their marriages.
But when these divorced people considered the content of their conversations, many admitted that the vast majority were about the business of the household—what chores needed to get done, what time they would be returning home from work, whether they were running low on peanut butter. Such conversations are necessary in a marriage, but they do little to make couples feel close.
What to do:
Discuss your goals and dreams regularly with your partner, and encourage your partner to do the same with you. Do this even if you’ve been married for years and already know quite well what your spouse wants out of life.
Even if very little new information is supplied, having these conversations increases the odds that you and your spouse will continue to see each other as partners in your pursuit of your goals and dreams.
On days when you don’t chat about big things such as goals and dreams, at least have conversations about topics you both enjoy talking about. These might include books, movies or current events—anything you both appreciate that’s unrelated to your responsibilities and your marriage.
EXPRESS YOUR LOVE DAILY
Many of the divorced people in my study admitted that their partners often got pushed to the back burner when life became busy. Their spouses wound up feeling taken for granted—a feeling that can lead to divorce when it is allowed to persist.
What to do:
Make a gesture that shows your love and makes your spouse feel special every day. These gestures can be quite simple. Take your spouse’s hand and say, “I love you,” or “Thank you for being a great husband/wife.” Provide a kiss or hug at an unexpected moment.
Or do a little thing that makes your spouse’s life easier without being asked, such as bringing in the newspaper or starting the coffee in the morning. It isn’t the size of the gestures that prevents spouses from feeling taken for granted. It’s the consistency with which these gestures are made—once a day at a minimum.
Warning:
Some people believe that wives care more about receiving gestures of love than husbands.
In fact, divorce is particularly likely when husbands fail to receive these gestures. This probably is because married women tend to receive gestures of love from their friends and relations in addition to their husbands.
Husbands typically receive them only from their wives, so they miss them even more when their wives don’t provide them.
TALK MORE ABOUT MONEY
Many married couples don’t talk about money any more than necessary. Finances are the number-one source of conflict in marriage, so avoiding this topic can seem like a good way to avoid stirring up trouble.
But my research shows that talking less about money actually increases the odds of divorce. True, talks about money can trigger spats—but couples who avoid money talks increase the risk that their money issues will remain unresolved and escalate until they endanger the marriage.
Example:
If a relationship’s lines of communication about finances are closed, one partner might spend freely, not realizing that the other is becoming angrier and angrier about the couple’s inability to save for retirement.
What to do:
First, consider what money means to you. Does it represent security? Status? Love? Success as a provider? Think about how your parents handled finances, too, and whether that might be affecting your financial beliefs and behavior. Also, reflect upon your financial goals and priorities.
Next, have a few chats with your spouse about noninflammatory money-related topics, such as money you’ve managed to save or upcoming expenses that you both agree upon. Mixing in some low-stress money talks can prevent anxiety levels from skyrocketing every time money is mentioned.
After you’ve had a few painless money conversations, share your financial goals and priorities with your spouse, as well as any thoughts you have about what money means to you. Ask your partner to do the same, then try to find common ground with your spouse about family spending rules and limits.
Example:
Agree to consult with each other on all purchases over a certain dollar amount.
BLAME “US” FOR PROBLEMS
When one or both spouses chronically blame the other for the marriage’s problems, the result tends to be escalating anger. When one or both spouses chronically blame himself or herself for the marriage’s problems, the result tends to be feelings of guilt or depression.
In either case, the odds of divorce increase.
What to do: When you have a fight, try to blame the relationship or circumstances, not your spouse or yourself. Say things such as, “We were both tired when we said those things”…or “We just weren’t communicating well.”
Also, people who already have divorced should take care to not blame their former spouses or themselves for the failure of that marriage. Use phrases that absolve you both such as, “We married too young”…or “We just weren’t compatible.” Divorced people who persist in blaming their exes or themselves are more likely to struggle in future relationships as well.
DON’T LET BOREDOM LINGER
All long-term relationships go through ruts when nothing new happens. If those ruts are allowed to persist for years, the result can be boredom—and boredom increases the odds of divorce.
What to do:
Inject passion and excitement into your marriage. Three potential ways to do that…
Add a new shared activity.
Take a new class together or travel together to an unfamiliar location. Doing new things together mimics the feelings of adventure and passion that you experienced back in the exciting early days of the relationship.
Add mystery and surprise.
Leave a love note for your spouse in an unexpected place or plan a weekend getaway for the two of you without telling your partner where you’re going.
Add adrenaline.
Ride a roller coaster together…see a scary movie together…or exercise together. Anything that gets your heart racing and adrenaline pumping will release chemicals into your brain similar to those experienced by people who are passionately in love.
Do such things together with your spouse a few times, and these chemicals could help rekindle your passion, excitement and sexual arousal for each other.
Source: Terri L. Orbuch, PhD, a psychologist and research professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor.
She is author of Finding Love Again: 6 Simple Steps to a New and Happy Relationship (Sourcebooks Casablanca). http://www.DrTerriTheLoveDoctor.com
March 21st, 2013 at 5:56 am
Hafa adai, I live on Guam. Does anyone know more about this?
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21 MARCH 2013 – 03H28
N. Korea threatens US bases in Japan, Guam
The North Korean army on Thursday threatened a possible strike against US military bases in Japan, in response to the use of nuclear-armed US B-52 bombers in joint military drills with South Korea
AFP – The North Korean army on Thursday threatened a possible strike against US military bases in Japan, in response to the use of nuclear-armed US B-52 bombers in joint military drills with South Korea.
“The US should not forget that the Anderson Airbase in Guam where the B-52s take off, as well as naval bases at Japan’s main island and Okinawa, are all within the range of our precision target assets,” a spokesman for the North’s supreme army command said in a statement carried by state media.
March 21st, 2013 at 6:28 am
The real agenda of the GOP is to transfer as much wealth to the already wealthy, by any means possible. Borrowing money to fund tax cuts for the rich is just fine with them. driving down labor costs bydestroying the middle class is just fine with them. Destabilizing the middleclass housing market, raiding pensions and privatizing socialsecurity is just fine with them.
All that religious, pro life, immigration stuff is just a way to distract the public so they can accomplish it.
March 21st, 2013 at 6:39 am
Howie, I’m in the audience listening to your President Obama. He is great. I hope you will come here for the summer.
Ruth