scharrison's blog

Tuesday Twitter roundup

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The folly of sending a pastor to Congress:

Mark Walker is quite possibly the emptiest suit we've ever sent to Congress, and we've sent a few doozies.

Constitution Party fields small group of right-wing extremists for 2018

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And leading the pack is a GOP Sore Loser of course:

The far-right party, which promotes limited government and the Second Amendment while opposing abortion, selected Allen Poindexter, a freelance writer, to challenge Sarah Stevens, the Republican speaker pro tem, in state House District 90, which covers Surry County and part of Wilkes. The 41-year-old Poindexter ran against Stevens in the Republican primary. Stevens easily defeated Poindexter with two thirds of the vote.

“I got disgusted with the [Republican] party because the leadership lost their way,” said Poindexter during an open question-and-answer period at the convention, which was held at Calvary Church of the Nazarene in suburban Charlotte. Poindexter said he would support legislation to allow small communities to form independent school districts, and supports allowing teachers with proper training and screening to carry firearms in schools.

Dude, you were just a Republican like five minutes ago, got beat in the Primary, and now you're concocting a story about leaving the party because the leadership "lost their way"? They lost their way back in 2011 when they took over the NCGA, have been stumbling around since then grabbing whatever power they can, but somehow between May and June of this year they *really* lost their way, and you decided to change parties? Here's the rest of their "slate" of candidates:

All you need to know on GOP Early Voting shenanigans

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NC Republicans pushing junk health insurance as alternative to ACA

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The free market might just kill you if you're not careful:

The legislation would allow nonprofit organizations that have existed for at least 10 years, and which offer membership in all 100 counties, to offer their members health benefit plans. Unlike other health insurance plans and coverage offered by employers, these benefit plans wouldn’t be required to cover a minimum set of health care services. And plans could be priced at different levels so that people with pre-existing health conditions would be charged more or else not have their pre-existing conditions covered.

“It creates a false sense of security,” said Peg O’Connell, a lobbyist for a number of public health organizations, including the American Cancer Society. “If you think you’ve got insurance and you don’t, or you think you’re insured for something like cancer or heart disease. And then you file a claim and they suddenly say, ‘That was a pre-existing condition, we’re not going to cover it’ or ‘We might not cover it for a year, like we did before the Affordable Care Act was passed.’”

Honestly, I'm surprised it took them this long to come up with such an "initiative." This is not radically different than the GOP's support of payday lenders and other borderline fraudulent activities, since the responsibility for making the "proper choice" falls directly on the shoulders of those who will be suffering. That's the Republican way: Sink or swim. Of course, they're not going to be standing by to help when you start drowning, because teaching you to swim is not their true goal. Walking away from responsibility is really all they're after. But this isn't just a belief in the non-existent invisible hand, it's part of a concerted effort to destroy Obamacare once and for all:

$3 Billion for roads but only $1.3 Million for contaminated water

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On the plus side, when you drive to the store for bottled water, the ride will be smooth:

A method to accelerate local and regional road-building projects in North Carolina by authorizing up to $3 billion in debt has made it through the General Assembly.

The legislation that permits the borrowing is heading to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's desk following Tuesday's House vote of 94-21. Cooper is expected to sign the bill, which passed the Senate unanimously last week and would represent a rare moment of bipartisanship between the executive and legislative branches.

There's little doubt we need to spend more money on our roads, but we should also dedicate a healthy chunk of that to alternative forms of transportation, like buses and trains, and even bicycle-friendly roadways. But when you have billion-dollar private industries contaminating our fresh water resources, and developing new chemical compounds faster than we can try to pronounce their titles, regaining control of that situation is a government imperative. We need to see some bi-partisan movement on that a hell of a lot more than we need cooperation on road building and maintenance. And low-balling DEQ on their desperately needed equipment is a recipe for disaster:

Tuesday Twitter roundup

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Going down the same crooked road again:

Not to mention, putting something "vague" in the NC Constitution is a recipe for a legal nightmare. But of course Republicans don't care about things like that, they thrive in an environment of uncertainty.

US Supreme Court rules in favor of Ohio voter purge

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When Fascism creeps in using specious and thin arguments:

Respondents point out that Ohio’s Supplemental Process uses a person’s failure to vote twice: once as the trigger for sending return cards and again as one of the requirements for removal. Respondents conclude that this use of nonvoting is illegal.

We reject this argument because the Failure-to-Vote Clause, both as originally enacted in the NVRA and as amended by HAVA, simply forbids the use of nonvoting as the sole criterion for removing a registrant, and Ohio does not use it that way. Instead, as permitted by subsection (d), Ohio removes registrants only if they have failed to vote and have failed to respond to a notice.

The very idea that not (continually) exercising a Constitutional right is grounds for an erosion of that right is such an affront to democracy I don't even know where to start. Aside from the fact we get so much junk mail we end up accidentally throwing away important correspondence on a regular basis, just the process of them "chasing down" non-voters ticks me off. And when it's based on a totally manufactured and proven fake crisis (voter fraud), it's even more infuriating. But I'll let Stephen Breyer do the rest of the talking:

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