Tornado Alley (PROG)

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This Week In The Laboratories Of Democracy

The New Mexico legislature has grown tired of all those pesky rape victims who have been inconveniencing local prosecutors because the rape victims don't appreciate the fact that once a woman is raped, she becomes not a person, but "evidence," like a roll of fingerprints or a bloodstained lug wrench.

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Welcome back to our weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we all know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where Ma Rainey and Beethover once unwrapped a bedroll.

We begin this week with some freshly-squeezed bogosity from the Land Of Enchantment. It seems that elements of the New Mexico legislature has grown tired of all those pesky rape victims who have been inconveniencing local prosecutors because the rape victims don't appreciate the fact that once a woman is raped, she becomes not a person, but "evidence," like a roll of fingerprints or a bloodstained lug wrench. Probably, the women should simply be stored on a shelf in the property room where, nine months later, shortly before trial, they can "produce the evidence," if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

And, it turns out that Cathrynn Brown, the author behind this piece of retrograde offal, is such a terrible person that both Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson went out of their way to help honor Brown's record of "bipartisanship," which, if it's not a legitimate curse word by now, pretty plainly ought to be.

Off we now go to Mississippi, where all the best people can be found either in City Grocery or in Square Books, or in juke joints in the delta, and all the worst people can be found inside Governor Phil Bryant's head. Having spent most of his term ensuring that the Evidence Women in his state are preserved as well, Bryant delivered himself of his opinions on the general state of health care and, well, wowser.

Because it puts 300,000 [additional] Mississippians on the Medicaid rolls. We have got 640,000 people on Medicaid. That is 940,000 Mississippians on Medicaid. We cannot financially sustain that.

That, of course, is because Mississippi's health-care system was designed with the express purpose of making Arkansas and Louisiana look good. And it's because there is a substantial part of the population — all of it poor and most of it black — that Phil Bryant cares less about than Jesus fetuses yet unborn.

We can't fund the Medicaid population we currently have without two things — raising taxes or making tremendous cuts, draconian cuts, in education, transportation, public safety and job creation.

Currently, prior to the application of the Obamacare jackboot to the neck of fair Mississippi and the tremendous, draconian cuts that Bryant says would result, the state is ranked 48th in education, 36th in transportation, and 48th in job creation. Perhaps Bryant is fearful of Mississippi's being ranked 63rd out of 50 states.

There is no one who doesn't have health care in America. No one. Now, they may end up going to the emergency room. There are better ways to deal with people that need health care than this massive new program.

Yes, move the hell out of Mississippi comes immediately to mind.

Let us leave the Magnolia State before Phil Bryant decides to go for the gold and use Mississippi to make Somalia look good and move along to Texas, which is where the most recent of our weekly school shootings took place, and where the solution (unsurprisingly) is more boom-boom us, pleez? This was also the solution before the shooting happened.

Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, along with 13 additional Republican authors filed Senate Bill 182 on Thursday that would allow licensed individuals to carry concealed handguns on campuses and other locations associated with higher education. The bill, which Birdwell dubbed the Campus Personal Protection act, doesn't allow a person to bring a concealed handgun onto the premises of a hospital, or preschool, elementary school or secondary school operated by a college or university. It would also allow the prohibition of a concealed gun at college sporting events.

God bless Texas. According to Senator Birdwell's notion, you could go around the University Of Texas campus all week strapped. You can go to the library, or the chem lab, or the student union, and you can be carrying, as Joe Ely puts it, guns no one can see. But dammit, you can't be packing at the Longhorns games. I suggest they rename the bill the Mack Brown Preservation Act of 2013.

The general gun nutty set off by the president's executive suggestions continues to percolate in the minds of people unused to having much percolate there. Wyoming, for example, has decided to pass a law that would guarantee the untrammelled right of Dick Cheney's great-grandchildren to shoot people in the face. This is, of course, completely unconstitutional but the law's primary sponsor appears to be of the belief that you sometimes you have to do the unconstitutional in order to preserve the Constitution.

His colleague, Rep. Kendell Kroeker adds that, no matter the constitutionality, "I think that its necessary when the federal government violates our rights in the Constitution we have to act."

Ah, but Kendell is a full-service wingnut.

This probably fits under the banner of reducing federal control over our state and citizens, but I want to make my goals abundantly clear. I support the adoption of legislation that would nullify the authority of the federal government in the areas the Constitution of the United States gives it no authority. Such legislative actions would nullify the authority of the federal government in many areas, from welfare mandates, to education, to land use to management of wildlife. One specific area the federal government is now trying to take control of is health care. The Constitution has nothing in it giving the federal government the authority to control health care or to force citizens to be required to purchase health insurance. If national health care is passed I support legislation to directly challenge the federal government's authority and to exempt Wyoming from any provisions in the new law. I support adoption of legislation that mandates the executive branch of Wyoming state government to ignore, defy and nullify unconstitutional federal authority, and specifically rejects non-binding legislation such as that which was proposed by Gov. Freudenthal in 2009.

Well said, John C. But the real good stuff is down at the bottom of Kendall's platform, listed under Other Beliefs, in the teeny-tiny type.

I support the repeal of federal wetlands legislation and the federal Endangered Species Act. Moreover, I oppose any attempt to designate private or public property as United Nations World Heritage sites or Biosphere reserves. I oppose environmental treaties and conventions such as the Biodiversity Treaty, the Convention on Climate Control, and Agenda 21, which destroy our sovereignty and right to private property.

Agenda 21! We have a winner, folks.

Thus inspired by patriots like Kendall, and dozens of others who learn to do their governmentin' over the crystal set or off the public-access teevee, in South Dakota, they're getting ready to prevent the federal government from doing what it has no intention of doing.

He said the state already has a similar law in South Dakota that was passed by former state Rep. Kristi Noem. He said the new bill will add penalty provisions for violations. "Our Second Amendment rights are under the most serious and sustained attack in years,"?Russell said.?"This is a very scary time and I?believe the state has an obligation to defend the rights of our citizens."Whether or not such a piece of legislation would hold up in court is another story. Verchio said it is important to pass the legislation before the federal government takes too much action on gun control. "Once that is in our law and a federal law is made after that, we stand a chance at beating them (in court),"?he said.?"If you do it after that, you stand about zero chance at beating them."

Turning slightly south because we have been beckoned there by blog flying-topsoil correspondent, Friedman Of The Plains, we discover that the place for fast times and high living in Oklahoma was the Emergency Medical Services Authority, at least according to spoilsport auditors, who don't see why spa visits don't count as official emergency medical services. Why not, says I, when you have to rest up from the rest of your duties.

EMSA also paid more than $40,000 to rent an apartment in Oklahoma City's "Deep Deuce" neighborhood, instead of renting hotel rooms for a board member and employee who frequently traveled to Oklahoma City for business, the audit states. EMSA reimbursed Williamson for expenses connected to the apartment including $1,028 for a computer and $433 for a remote control.

Four-hundred bucks for a remote control? Can it reposition weather satellites?

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/laboratories-of-democracy-new-mexico-rape-victims-012413