NCGA

With a healthy dose of economic blackmail to back it up:

AN ACT to prohibit dependency DEDUCTIONS for QUALIFYING CHILDREN who have REGISTERED to vote at a different address...The taxpayer is allowed an exemption amount for each qualifying child, as provided by section 151(c) of the Code for the taxable year, unless the qualifying child has changed their principal place of abode from that of the taxpayer as indicated by the qualifying child's voter registration.

Republicans know full well that students living at school are still dependents in every form of the word, so this is nothing more than a strong-arm tactic to keep those students from voting. Proving, once again, that there is no shame in the NC GOP.

The Christian enclave County of Rowan wants to keep Jesus running things in Commission meetings:

A JOINT RESOLUTION TO PROCLAIM THE ROWAN COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA, DEFENSE OF RELIGION ACT OF 2013.

Whereas, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States reads:"…Congress shall make no law respecting an Establishment of Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…"; and Whereas, this prohibition does not apply to states, municipalities, or schools; and Whereas, in recent times, the federal judiciary has incorporated states, municipalities, and schools into the Establishment Clause prohibitions on Congress, blah blah blah

Only in the mind of a Republican could trying to stop people from stopping you from cramming your beliefs down their throat be considered a defense. This is really a defense against a justifiable lawsuit:

We'll start with a fresh debate about grading schools:

LindsayWagnerNC 10:25am via Web Langdon: I hear what you're saying, but I don't think it works that way. Teachers don't go to a school because of their score. #ncga #nced

Of course they do. Some of them, anyway. Nobody is going to walk into an occupation without at least trying to assess the difficulty of the job beforehand, and teachers are no different from the rest of us in that respect. A low grade for a school denotes a lot of challenges, and not all of them are in the classroom:

(Cross posted at www.PoliticsNC.com)

Often, when people talk about Big Government, we think of George Orwell’s Big Brother: controlling, manipulative and sinister. In North Carolina, though, Big Brother is more like Biff Tannen, the bully from Back to Future: dumb and mean with a chip on his shoulder.

We don't need no stinking college graduates:

There are so many troubling things about Senate Bill 337, an N.C. charter school bill unveiled last week, that it’s hard to know where to start. But this item stands out like a sore thumb: The bill would remove the requirement that at least half of a charter school’s teaching staff be certified, or be college educated.

Well, most of them teach right out of the book anyway, so...wait a minute. We don't have enough money for new books, either. Well, as long as they check these new degreeless people out first before they put them in the class...wait a minute. We're not going to do that anymore, either:

The exact opposite of responsible governing:

Agencies like DENR, whose responsibilities include developing and enforcing environmental protections relating to water pollution, are falling short. And as long as lawmakers in Raleigh continue to reduce funding for these agencies, remove experienced regulatory oversight board members, and weaken regulations aimed at protecting the public health, federal standards may be the only buffer to prevent devastating and often irreversible impacts reaching every corner of our state.

The driver of this irresponsible behavior is not ideology or confusion over scientific findings, it's nothing more than simple, garden-variety greed. Instituting best practices in the handling of fossil fuels to limit toxic contamination costs money, and any elected official who actually believes industry can be trusted to ethically self-regulate with their profit margin hanging in the balance is naive at best, and criminally negligent at worst. And when it gets to the point where elementary schoolchildren are taking up your slack:

Winner of the "worst person for the job", that is:

A. L. "Buddy" Collins is an attorney and a longtime member of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board of Education. He has clashed with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) over the years surrounding the group's efforts to stop bullying on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

And just as the top-down bigotry at the school board snowballed and had a terrible impact on LGBT students who were supposed to be "under their care", moving this bigot up to the state level could have a similar effect from the coast to the mountains:

If this is GOP compassion, I'd hate to see their contempt:

Whereas, there is an unemployment crisis in this State, with many citizens in need of work; and Whereas, it is in the best interest of the State to maintain clean and safe roads and highways as well as to help provide employment opportunities; and Whereas, the creation of "Hero Crews" employed to combat roadside litter will be a step toward both cleaner roads and more employment. The Department of Transportation shall establish the "Hero Crew" jobs program from available funds. Hero Crew members shall be temporary State employees compensated at rates to be determined by the Secretary of the Department of Transportation.

It appears the braintrust of the NC Senate is either hemmorrhaging or has a massive tumor. Senator Allran seems to think throwing in action words like "hero" and "combat" will somehow add some shine to giving people the "opportunity" to pursue a career in a field normally dominated by prisoners, but I doubt this pig will stand still long enough to allow a ribbon to be tied on it.