Last Call For Some Perspective

The indispensable Joe Sonka reminds us that the distance between today and November 7th is a political eternity:

Democrats cheer GOP nominating militaristic paranoid celebrity for president who polls show will be defeated easily pic.twitter.com/w1u4eF77gs

— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) March 23, 2016

Jimmy Carter was cruising to a landslide re-election this time 36 years ago.  Nixon and Ford had driven the GOP brand into the ground with a massive political scandal and a failed war, and the Republicans were on their way to nominate the star of "Bedtime for Bonzo" as their champion.

Then Carter's failed attempt to rescue the Iran hostages happened in April and things went to hell pretty quickly from there, with John Anderson finishing off the deal with his third party run that gave Reagan 44 states.

So much could happen between now and Election Day that puts Trump in the Oval Office with a GOP Congress and puts America straight into a flaming toilet for decades.

Take nothing for granted.

A Load Of Crap In The NC Bathroom Bill

So North Carolina state Republican lawmakers called a special session of the General Assembly to stop Charlotte's LGBTQ anti-discrimination law from going into effect on April 1, and it turns out it's not just Charlotte's ordinance they want to outlaw, but any real progressive change sought by cities and counties in the Tarheel State.

WBTV obtained a copy of the proposed bill, entitled “An Act to Provide for Single Sex Multiple Occupancy Bathroom and Changing Facilities in Schools and Public Agencies and to Create Statewide Consistency in Regulation of Employment and Public Accommodations,” Tuesday night. 

The legislation requires that multi-occupancy bathrooms be limited to just one gender, using anatomy and birth certificates as a guide and applies to executive branch agencies controlled by the Governor as well as Council of State members and the UNC System. 

A provision in the five-page bill allows school districts to use single occupancy bathrooms to make accommodations for students in special circumstances. 

DOCUMENT: Click here to read the full bill 

In addition to the provisions of the bill seeking to repeal the bathroom-related portions of Charlotte’s non discrimination ordinance, the bill also addresses several workplace issues. 

The second part of the bill is referred to as the Wage and Hour Act. Under the act, local governments would be prohibited from setting their own local minimum wage. 

The next section of the bill seeks to declare that the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is an issue of statewide concern and, as such, must be left to the General Assembly. 

Finally, the last section of the bill is referred to as the Equal Access to Public Accommodations Act, which places issues of public accommodation in the jurisdiction of the General Assembly.

So in addition to killing Charlotte's anti-discrimination law, with this stupid bigoted bathroom bill, the NC GOP is looking to undo all local anti-discrimination, minimum wage, and equal physical access laws. because smaller, more responsive government, right?

Which just proves again that Republicans don't care about government that works, they care about government that punishes those people whenever possible so that they become somebody else's problem.

The best part?  It's a combination of "bathroom bill", home rule elimination, and "religious freedom" bill all rolled into one steaming pile of toxic GOP diarrhea.

By the way, the bill passed the NC General Assembly overwhelmingly, 83-24.  And my home state is well on its way to being the most bigoted state in the nation.

Cruz's Brussels Hustle

oday in the "general reminder that Ted Cruz is actually more dangerous than Donald Trump" category, we have the Texas senator's official response to Tuesday's Islamic State-claimed attacks in Brussels, via MoJo's Pena Levy:

"Today radical Islamic terrorists targeted the men and women of Brussels as they went to work on a spring morning. In a series of coordinated attacks they murdered and maimed dozens of innocent commuters at subway stations and travelers at the airport. For the terrorists, the identities of the victims were irrelevant. They –we—are all part of an intolerable culture that they have vowed to destroy. 

"For years, the west has tried to deny this enemy exists out of a combination of political correctness and fear. We can no longer afford either. Our European allies are now seeing what comes of a toxic mix of migrants who have been infiltrated by terrorists and isolated, radical Muslim neighborhoods. 

"We will do what we can to help them fight this scourge, and redouble our efforts to make sure it does not happen here. We need to immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al Qaida or ISIS presence. We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized. 

"We need to secure the southern border to prevent terrorist infiltration. And we need to execute a coherent campaign to utterly destroy ISIS. The days of the United States voluntarily surrendering to the enemy to show how progressive and enlightened we are are at an end. Our country is at stake."

The part about turning Muslim neighborhoods into de facto internment camps is the new, scary part of Cruz's rhetoric, but it remains that the rest of this awful little polyp's policies will have us in a ground war in Syria by Valentine's Day if he's elected president.

Of course, the part where Cruz assumes all Muslims here are potential criminals who need to be "secured" by "empowered law enforcement" rather than, you know, Americans, is also something of an issue.  That's a dark road we've been down before on more than one occasion.

So yeah, might want to consider voting against these guys in November if you're darker than a paper bag.  Just sayin'.

StupidiNews!

• Police have arrested a third suspect in Tuesday's Brussels airport bombing, Belgian officials believe two brothers killed in the attack were the primary suicide bombers.
• California labor activists have gathered enough signatures to get a voter proposition on November's ballot that will raise the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour.
• Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton won their respective Arizona primaries, but challengers Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders won Utah's caucuses with Sanders taking Idaho.
• Canadian PM Justin Trudeau's first budget restores cuts made by his predecessor and spends billions on infrastructure and services to foster growth.
• Chevy is on track to roll out the first Bolt electric cars this year as the race with Tesla to get an affordable mass-market electric vehicle to market picks up steam.