This Week's Top Five Hot State Legislative Actions

Federalism is among America' s most fundamental practices. Unfortunately, when someone says "leave it to the states," it means we have to leave it to these states…

1. A New Hampshire bill that would have required all new legislation addressing individual rights to quote its authority from the Magna Carta was killed in committee by an 11-1 vote, leaving residents bereft of regulatory reforms based on dictates such as, "If a man dies owing money to Jews, his wife may have her dower and pay nothing towards the debt from it." Should have gone with the Code of Hammurabi or just mandate that all legislation be drafted using only the letters R-O-N-A-L-D R-E-A-G-A-N.

2. Creeping Sharia, which also happens to be the name of my favorite garden vine, is crawling into South Dakota where the state Senate Judiciary Committee voted 5-2 against a bill to regulate the use of foreign law in South Dakota courts.

3. The Virginia legislature is set to repeal a 19-year-old state law that forced residents into dangerous, illicit, back-alley gun purchases by preventing residents from purchasing more than one handgun a month. They also defended the 2nd Amendment right to carelessly leave guns in any damn place…

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Tags: Education, Florida, Guns, LGBT, Marriage, Marriage Equality, New Hampshire, Religion, South Dakota, State Legislature, States' Rights, Virginia, Washington

The United States of Unflattering Stereotypes

How long does it take to travel to every state in the nation and mock it right to its face? About two minutes…

I think it's really cool that Paul Jury traveled 19,000 miles in the service of writing his book States of Confusion, but you've got to wonder if it was really necessary. If he was really interested in seeing how everybody in the country really lives, couldn't he have just gone to a Wal-Mart in a Hoveround?

Tags: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Books, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming

Waiting for Godot or the Abortionist, Whichever Comes First

by Brian Kraker…

Gawker made an interesting revelation after South Dakota passed a law requiring women to wait 72 hours before having an abortion. It is now quicker to purchase a gun to legally kill an abortion doctor than it is to end a pregnancy in the Mount Rushmore state. It's a real shame, I really thought this country was making headway on a drive-thru abortion clinic.

CNN has more on all the hullabaloo…

The law, which also requires the woman to receive counseling at a "pregnancy help center," is currently scheduled to take effect July 1…

"The law also purports to ensure that women are 'informed' before consenting to an abortion, but actually imposes requirements that are both impossible to meet and require physicians to flood their patients with false and misleading information," [Planned Parenthood] said in a statement.

While people are up in arms over this law, I don’t see the problem. What is more American than spreading misinformation? Probably only Beanie Babies or Oprah.

However, I personally don’t think South Dakota is going far enough. Unless you have a Colt 45 with every Happy Meal, I won't be satisfied.

Tags: Abortion, Men and Women, Planned Parenthood, South Dakota

More Pro-Life Laws Seeking to Legalize Murder

What started as a disturbing/idiotic proposed bill that would make it legal in South Dakota to murder doctors who perform abortions, has now spread like a disturbing/idiotic fungus southward into Nebraska…

Last week, South Dakota's legislature shelved a bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. Phil Jensen, which would have allowed the use of the "justifiable homicide" defense for killings intended to prevent harm to a fetus. Now a nearly identical bill is being considered in neighboring Nebraska, where on Wednesday the state legislature held a hearing on the measure.

The legislation, LB 232, was introduced by state Sen. Mark Christensen, a devout Christian and die-hard abortion foe who is opposed to the prodedure even in the case of rape. Unlike its South Dakota counterpart, which would have allowed only a pregnant woman, her husband, her parents, or her children to commit "justifiable homicide" in defense of her fetus, the Nebraska bill would apply to any third party.

And eastward into Iowa…

When the two pieces of legislation are combined they create a situation where a fertilized egg would be considered a person, and allow for the public execution of those who would threaten such a person.

If passed into law, the two bills — House File 7 and House File 153 — would offer an unprecedented defense opportunity to individuals who stand accused of killing such providers, according to a former prosecutor and law professor at the University of Kansas, and are something that might have very well led to a different outcome in the Kansas trial of the man who shot Dr. George Tiller in a church foyer.

Jeeze. For a bunch of supposed conservatives, pro-life people sure seem to be taking a liberal attitude toward the definition of "pro-life" lately.

Tags: Abortion, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota

John Thune Announces He Will Not Be Losing the GOP Nomination Next Year

Aw, man! Who left the clown car door open? All the clowns are getting out!

U.S. Sen. John Thune says he decided not to run for president next year after concluding he'd have a difficult time fundraising and that President Barack Obama would be tough to beat.

The South Dakota Republican told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he's not as well-known and wouldn't be able to raise as much money as other potential GOP candidates. But he's not backing any one person because he doesn't know who will end up in the race.

Between this morning disheartening bleak story on Mike Huckabee's can't-do attitude toward running and now this, I'm starting to get a little worried about the entertainment value of the coming GOP battle royale. Right now, though, I'm just trying to keep everything in perspective.

I'll tell you what, though. If I wake up tomorrow and find out that Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are having second thoughts, I might just lose the will to go on.

Tags: John Thune, Primaries, Republicans, Senate, South Dakota