MLS Hater Jeff Kessler Finds New Dupes

My union local regulations allowed no food, no smoking, and no drinking other than water in meetings.

The regulation predated my joining, but I can only imagine how long some of the meetings would've been without those limiting factors.

 

We're a few days away from the centenary of the first appearance of a tank on the Western Front.

 

For the eleventieth time, Rand != libertarian. You know this by now.

 

http://www.espn.com/college-sports/...aa-pulls-7-championship-events-north-carolina

I feel bad for the NC based photographers.

 

Monday nights are for @WoodfordReserve, work, and reading about our first liberty @ericmetaxas. pic.twitter.com/V0MiJ2VeFo

— Kami M. Bonner (@kamimueller) September 12, 2016

 

Some of the comments on that tweet are gold.

 

It doesn't matter

 

FREEDOM!

... as long as you don't have to pee.

 

Rush's record label is named after Rand's first novel! And all libertarians love Rush! Therefore, Rand! Children!

Also, disregard for minorities because assertion!

 

ENRICO PALLAZZO!
ENRICO PALLAZZO!

 

I feel worse for the real targets of HB2. I'm just losing a few paychecks. Nobody is going to beat me up or fire me.

 

I could me all PC about this and make a well thought out and reasoned post. But we all know that is not me.


North Carolinas politicians can go ******** themselves. They are getting exactly what they deserved from passing this abomination of a "law".

 

Damn, hard to say it better than that.

 

Since I'm too lazy to look it up, what else is in HB2 other than the bathroom thing?

 

The biggest part of the bill was that it stripped the ability to sue in state courts over being fired for discriminatory reasons. If you're fired for being black or old or whatever, your only redress is now either the federal courts (which is a much higher bar and does not allow for punitive action) or a state board that the very same legislature unsuccessfully tried to eliminate two years ago, but did cut its budget.

The other main thing is barring any public subset of the state from enacting their own protections against discrimination. No local ordinances. They're all about local control, until you get down to the state level, then no lower.

An emergency session was called by the governor and the legislation was (ahem) drafted, introduced in both chambers, opened for public discussion, passed, reconciled, and signed into law by the governor in less than a day.

All in supposed response to the trans bathroom protections that Charlotte had put in place.

The fact that the most onerous parts of the bill weren't particularly related (local control, stripping of workers' rights) but somehow got slipped into the bill have been lost in all the righteous brouhaha.

And of course there's a bunch of right wing virtue signalling going on about protecting women and girls. Because they always need our manly protection. And of course, despite the lack of said ordinances in the past, men have always pretended to be women in order to enter bathrooms to prey on women. Oh, wait. That virtually never happens, and there are plenty of laws to address that sort of thing already in place.

No it's another way to decry trans people as "the other" and ostracize them for their differences.

 

^ I was unaware of much of that. Thanks.

 

And let's be honest. The legislators who passed this know that it eventually will be thrown out by the courts. It's a completely cynical ploy to protect their base.

With the heavily gerrymandered state districts in North Carolina (also subject to court challenges), few representatives on either side of the aisle, are in districts that are competitive in the general election. There are a lot of 70/30 and 30/70 districts with a group of 55/45 districts.

The 70/30 districts aren't going to change parties, but what that does is it exposes legislators on their own right flank. Vote for one "Dem" issue and suddenly you've got a Tea Party challenger in the primary.

It has led to increasing brazenness on the right. To the point where governance takes a back seat to electioneering (and before Bill erupts - I freely admit that both parties fall prey to this). The real problem here is that they're passing legislation that the federal courts have increasingly shown (and that's justices nominated by presidents of both parties and passed all but unanimously by the Senate) that they'll strike down.

The legislators win merely by passing the bill. They get to win again when it's eventually overturned because they then get to rail against "activist judges who are legislating from the bench." It's a win-win.

Unless you're transsexual. Or old. Or non-white. Or a woman. Or suffering from a chronic illness or disability.

 

The basic part that confused me is how they used protecting women and girls as the basis for the law.

The likelihood of abuse occurring in a restroom depends on witnesses being available. So higher likelihood if no one is present as a witness. At which point, does it matter if the person is a male or a transgender female or lesbian or frankly anything.

I could understand using the logic to create harsher penalties for abuse in restrooms/public places while one is purporting oneself to be a transgender. But the law, makes no sense because it doesn't change anything ... except deny transgenders the use of a bathroom they associate with their sex. Unless they are really concerned about the tiny chance of witnessed abuse in a restroom, at which point ... basic economics / logic coursework should be mandatory in college / high school.

 

There are 55/45 districts in North Carolina? Sure beats California, where it's unusual for any district to change hands. It's the one thing both parties always agree on here: that an openly contested process should be avoided.

 

The 55/45s come about when you gerrymander in a 9 to 4 congressional majority while losing the popular vote 2.218 million to 2.137 million. You've got to plan to win win some squeakers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite...esentatives_elections_in_North_Carolina,_2012

 

While the bathroom thing is abhorrent, the minimum wage laws and restrictions that HB2 contains are the relatively unspoken poison pill to the whole thing.

 

I'm unaware of any wage laws attached to HB2, but yeah the less publicized parts affect a hell of a lot of people in a very negative way. A lot of protections are flat out taken away and the ability to redress actionable issues has been effectively neutered. This is a huge ALEC pro-business win.

 

It's a different sort of gerrymandering than we have here, but that makes sense.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...7946ec-186b-11e6-924d-838753295f9a_story.html

 

And the ACC just followed suit. That's really gonna hurt. Of the eight championships hit, last year I worked Women's Soccer, Women's Basketball, Swimming and Diving, Men's and Women's Tennis, and Women's Golf. Men's Golf and Baseball (at the DBAP) were both in play, but I ended up not working them.

Gonna be a rough Spring. I guess I can plan a trip for next April and May.

And again. I fully support the ACC. This is entirely on Pat McCrory and the North Carolina State Legislature.