The Circus Isn't Coming To Town

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(Jack Ohman, The Sacramento Bee)

The latest to cancel performances in North Carolina due to its anti- LGBT law is Cirque de Soleil.  Media Matters has a round- up of the toll the bigoted law is taking on the state's economy.  From a leader in the "New South" to just another yahoo backwater in a few short years.  Thanks, North Carolina Republicans!

Today's Cartoon And Read - The Ted Cruz Connection To North Carolina Bigotry

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(Tom Toles, once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle)

As the backlash continues from the signing of the anti- LGBT "bathroom law" by North Carolina Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, it's being pointed out that some of the prominent bigots behind the law form the nucleus of support for a certain anti- dildo, anti- masturbation presidential candidate:

As he worked to rally evangelical voters a week before North Carolina's March 15 primary, Ted Cruz gave a speech at a church in the Charlotte suburb of Kannapolis, where he was joined by a trio of prominent local social conservative supporters: Charlotte pastor and congressional candidate Mark Harris and the Benham brothers, the telegenic real estate entrepreneurs whose house-flipping show on HGTV was canceled in 2014 when their history of anti-gay activism came to light. At the event, Cruz thanked Harris for "calling the nation to revival," and called David and Jason Benham "an extraordinary voice for the Christian faith."  [snip]

... The advocacy of these top Cruz supporters against the Charlotte ordinance eventually led the North Carolina legislature to push through one of the most sweeping anti-LGBT measures in the country, a law that has caused a national outcry and caused many companies, including PayPal, to scrap plans to invest in the state. The law, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, strikes down all existing and future LGBT nondiscrimination statutes in North Carolina and requires that transgender people use bathrooms based on their sex at birth.  [snip]

Harris' and the Benhams' state activism is significant because, if Cruz wins the presidential race, the considerable influence of these three religious activists could extend far beyond North Carolina. In February, Cruz appointed them to his campaign's advisory council for religious liberty, along with 16 other conservative Christian leaders. The GOP candidate has promised that this group will "guide his policies to protect religious liberty"—policies that could look very much like the anti-LGBT bill in North Carolina. (our emphasis)

That's exactly what we'll get with a [shudder gag] "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz presidency:  a reign of bigotry cloaked in faux "religious liberty" prattle, and a descent into the dark past for our nation.

UPDATE:  The media's hard at work "humanizing" this monster.  Beware.

UPDATE II:  "Tailgunner Ted" confirms the already known - he's a bigot.

Smack-Down of the Day

Colin Powell today at a CEO Forum in Raleigh, North Carolina:

"I want to see policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote.  It immediately turns off a voting block the Republican Party needs.  These kinds of actions do not build on the base. It just turns people away."

Weasel North Carolina Rethug Gov. Pat McCrory, who recently signed a voter suppression law that's being challenged in court, was in the audience for Powell's remarks. 

Today's Dispatches From The Stupid Party

Drawing from an inexhaustible well, we bring up a few buckets of Rethuglican/ New Confederate Party un-distilled stupid:

Even though many Rethugs are calling the latest budget hostage-taking ploy by tea baggers in Congress a "bad idea," there's always Sen. "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz (Anchor Baby-TX) willing to make a last stand at the Alamo Senate well in order to tell the American people that it wasn't Rethugs who shut down the government over Obamacare:

We've got to stand up and make the argument and win the argument that, 'No, that's not true. We have voted to fund the federal government. We want to fund the federal government. Why is President Obama threatening to shut down the federal government? Because he wants force Obamacare down people's throats.'

Please run fly with that, Tailgunner Ted!!  We're certain the general public is with you and won't parse the clever political ju-jitsu you're practicing here.  They'll come to the conclusion that, yes, even though Rethugs have been publicly strategerizing about using Obamacare de-funding as a poison pill in the budget negotiations, it will all be Obama's fault if the gummint shuts down 'cause he dint agree to kill his signature legislative accomplishment!  Brilliant!

Perhaps Tailgunner Ted is relying on the "incurious" intellects of Rethugs, represented by the likes of  North Carolina Gov. Pat "Duh" McCrory, in which case, he may be onto something:

Pat McCrory, the Republican presiding over the dismantling of the state's relatively reasoned approach to race and the law, declared Friday that he was eager to sign the state's restrictive new voting law, the most suppressive of its era, even though he had not read a key part of it. "I don't know enough, I'm sorry," the governor told a reporter who asked about a provision in the pending measure that will preclude pre-registration for those under 18 (because, after all, if there is anything this nation needs to do when it comes to encouraging civic participation it is to make it harder for eager young people to vote).

In his confessed ignorance of the details of a discriminatory voting law in a Southern state, McCrory is no outlier. His incurious approach to such vital legislation is yet another form of the willful ignorance that has animated much of the national debate over voting rights over the past half decade or so.

 "I don't know enough, I'm sorry."  A rare instance of self-awareness by a Rethuglican, but "willful ignorance" is useful if you're advancing the anti-democratic goals of your Stupid Party, no?