State Houses Thread

[Audrey2]

20 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This state rep from Alaska is absolutely disgusting. 

 

But I bet he had also call himself pro-life and I'm guessing he's on the no abortion for women for any reason train.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Audrey2]

57 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

Sorry, Joey, Bob Keeshan did it better. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh, for fuck’s sake:

[GreyhoundFan]

What the actual fuck?

More

Spoiler

 

 

[CTRLZero]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

What the actual fuck?

Totally frightening.  

[fraurosena]

4 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

Totally frightening.  

And totally in line with 1930s fascist policies.

[GreyhoundFan]

What a disgusting individual:

 

[47of74]

How GQP legislators really feel. 

Quote

Since I became of voting age in 2015, I’ve been involved in politics and have contacted my legislators when I feel bills are against the good of the people in Iowa.

In the last few years, I have encountered a shocking lack of decorum by many of these legislators and I’m finally done with it and think that the people of Iowa should know.

I’m in southeast Iowa, and previously my legislator was David Kerr. We had an exchange at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 when he was incredibly rude. I had started gathering signatures to run for his seat but due to family circumstances and the pandemic, it was unsafe for me to continue. When I contacted Kerr later about the lack of protections for Iowans during the COVID pandemic and the destruction of reproductive rights, he decided to attack me rather than address my concerns. He attacked the fact that I dropped out of running for his seat, saying “if you want change, you should have continued running – he’s not there to address his left-leaning constituents.”

Whether or not we agree on issues, as my representative, he is there to hear out his constituents before making his votes.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

They must protect their dear leader:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

Great initiative!

The rest of the text for non-twitterati:

”Under the new bill, Illinois libraries would be required to either issue a statement that they will prohibit banning controversial materials and books or show that they follow the ALA Library Bill of Rights which says “materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval”.

The best part? If they don’t comply, libraries will NOT be eligible for state grants.

[GreyhoundFan]

Typical Reethuglikan thinking -- if I don't see hungry people, they don't exist.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Missouri is angling to be the worst state:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

How typical. Ban gender specific meds, but exempt boner and hair growth pills:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Arkansas continues to compete for worst state:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"I’m a progressive in Kentucky. I think Republicans want me to leave."

Quote

LOUISVILLE — I really like Louisville and its people, culture, restaurants, schools. But I think often about whether my family and I will end up moving somewhere else in a few years.

The Republican state legislators who dominate Kentucky’s government hate Democrats, Democratic-led cities and liberal values — and are constantly trying to undermine all three. Millions of left-leaning Americans like me live in red states like this one, where the Republican officials are imposing Trump-style policies and looking to “own the libs” whenever possible.

“I’ve talked to so many people lately where the conversation is some version of, ‘Okay, so where are we moving? Where can we go?’” said Teri Carter, a Democratic-leaning writer who lives in nearby Anderson County, referring to her friends who live in red states.

I used to think the Republican legislators in Kentucky just had different policy priorities than people like me. After all, most of them represent smaller, more White and less densely populated areas than Louisville. But as I have watched them more closely, I have come to realize these Republicans revel in attacking Democrats and liberals and probably would prefer if we just left the state.

The just-completed session of the state’s legislature was full of new laws that won’t fix any of Kentucky’s problems but instead seem aimed at annoying Democratic voters. For example, Republican lawmakers eliminated dental, hearing and vision benefits under Medicaid and halted the automatic withdrawal of union dues from teachers’ paychecks, while keeping in place such withdrawals for police and firefighters’ unions. That provision’s only purpose is to weaken the state’s teacher unions, who back Democrats, while bolstering the more conservative law enforcement ones.

Perhaps the worst bill of all was one that the pro-LGBTQ rights Trevor Project called “among the most extreme anti-trans pieces of legislation in the nation.” It would bar people under age 18 from getting gender-affirming health care of any kind, prohibit discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in public schools, and require transgender students to use bathrooms that do not align with their gender identity. Teachers could refuse to refer to students by their preferred name and gender.

This session wasn’t an unusual one. Every year, Kentucky Republicans pass provisions attacking Louisville, as well as Lexington, our other major left-leaning city, and Democratic-leaning constituencies across the state. Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, was elected in 2019 in this very red state, largely because then-Republican Gov. Matt Bevin was considered even by conservative voters here to be mean and petty. But the Republicans in the statehouse still have huge majorities in both houses of the legislature, in part because of very aggressive gerrymandering. So they override most of Beshear’s vetoes, including pushing through the anti-transgender, Medicaid and teacher unions laws this week.

Nor is Kentucky’s situation unique. Red states across the country are blocking policies adopted in Democratic-controlled cities and imposing policies on those cities that large majorities of their residents oppose.

In most of these instances, including in Kentucky, the dynamics are both racial and partisan: Republican officials, who are nearly all White and elected by an overwhelmingly White group of voters, are dominating Democratic mayors, as well as city council and school board members, who are generally elected by a coalition of voters of color and White liberals and moderates.

I moved from D.C. to Louisville in 2018. Part of that was because I grew up in the city, had fond memories of childhood, and my siblings and my mother live here.

But another reason was the political climate. Like a lot of left-leaning people, I wondered how Donald Trump got elected and what I should do about it. One consensus was that Trump’s rise was helped by the fact that so many people in prominent jobs, including in the news media, were concentrated in heavily Democratic places, particularly Washington and New York City. So we didn’t really know what was happening in the rest of the country.

I’m from a red state, I thought. I can be part of the solution — or at least understand the problems better.

Mission accomplished on the second part.

This op-ed really hit home as I'm moving to a red state soon. Sigh.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This man is sick:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Mississippi passed the disgusting racist separate court system:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[47of74]

Well this is surprising;

Quote

In Iowa, the legislature has passed a resolution to change wording in the Iowa Constitution regarding the voting age.

The amendment would codify the voting age in the state at 18.

The U-S Constitution sets the voting at 18 nationally, and Iowans have been able to vote at 18 for decades.

However, the state constitution still states only those 21 and older have the right to vote.

I thought the Branch Trumpvidians only wanted racist white men over the age of 50 to be able to vote.