Your "Small Government" GOP at Work.

Small compared with what, they never say, but here's the GOP busily at work sticking its nose into your life, because they know what best for YOU!




[T]he South Carolina House Judiciary Committee has given its preliminary approval to a bill that would allow alcohol sales on Election Day. “They were worried that people’s votes could be bought by alcohol on Election Day, which is about the silliest thing ever,” said South Carolina state Rep. Todd Rutherford (D), the bill’s lead sponsor.

“But I’ve tried for about three years not to change it, and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to do so, the first time the bill has made it out of subcommittee.”

 Oh, but there's a catch. A big, big, big catch. But the state House Judiciary Committee has added a new wrinkle: In exchange for allowing alcohol sales on Election Day, the committee added an amendment that would require liquor not be sold on Christmas Day.

That has the booze industry up in arms.


Hunter of Daily Kos:

I have to ask, South Carolina, and I mean this sincerely: Has the premise really been that if you allowed the South Carolina populous to purchase alcohol on Election Day, it would result in worse election outcomes and worse elected officials than those that already lead the state? Really?



And this (shudder) from my home state of Massachusetts, where Gee-Oh-Pee legislators are as rare as a hot day in January:



The Massachusetts state legislature conducted hearings this week on a bill that would make it illegal for divorcing parents to date or have sex in their own home before their divorce is final. Essentially, if this bill were to pass, divorcing adults who happen to have children would have to get a judge’s approval to have sex in their home. Or, you know, just go to a hotel. Or their significant other’s house. Or just do it anyway. State Sen. Richard Ross sponsored the bill on behalf constituent Wrentham Selectman Robert Leclair, the former president of a father’s rights organization who also reportedly, unsurprisingly, went through a nasty divorce of his own.


(Nah, those GOPers aren't anti-women.  Is it just a coincidence that in 83% of divorces, mothers get custody of the children?) 


GOP state-funded pregnancy tests in bars!


"Fetal alcohol syndrome is a devastating problem in Alaska, so state Senate Finance Committee co-chairman Pete Kelly, a Fairbanks Republican, has made it his personal mission to stamp it out. 

This week, in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, he described the ways he plans to clamp down on the problem, including spending "a lot of money" on media campaigns and providing publicly funded pregnancy tests in Alaska's bars and restaurants, so that women will be discouraged from shooting whiskey if they find out they're pregnant. 

But make no mistake: Kelly is not interested in providing state-funded birth control in public places. He says that "birth control is for people who don't necessarily want to act responsibly" and that would amount to "social engineering."



So why do the media report more often on right wing crackpots and weirdos? 

 Kevin Drum answers that question.  

And that question has a lot to do with what commenter, Dave Miller, brings up with conservative bloggers all the time:  Responsible people in the GOP rarely, if ever, disown or condemn the crackpots and their anti-women, anti-gay, anti-union, anti-science, anti-poor statements.  

The GOP, in not doing so, tacitly approves of their fringe weirdos.