KY Missed Chance to Jump On Big Anti-Choice Bandwagon

Not a single anti-choice or sex-panic or guns in kindergarten bill got so much as a vote in the Kentucky General Assembly this year.  I don't understand.  All the repug freakazoid anit-sex women-hating states are doing it!

Steve M.:

I keep hearing that the Republican Party will never be the same after the rise of Donald Trump. I'm told that litmus-test conservatism is dead and that the party is in utter disarray.

I hear that, and then I read something like this:

Voters would get a say on whether fetuses should be given constitutional rights under a measure that won first-round approval in the Missouri House on Tuesday.

The House voted 112-36 to advance the legislation....

Opponents said the resolution was the most extreme abortion-related proposal the Legislature has taken up this year, potentially outlawing abortion in cases of rape or when the life of a mother is in jeopardy. They also said it could make contraception illegal in the state.

“This bill doesn’t just take the issue over the edge of the cliff,” said Rep. Lauren Arthur, D-Kansas City. “It rockets the issue into outer space.”

This is happening shortly after the Oklahoma House voted to effectively ban abortion:

Oklahoma is dangerously close to making abortion illegal. The state passed a bill in the State Senate this March and in the House of Representatives just last week that makes it a felony for doctors to perform abortions, the only exception being if a woman’s life is in danger or she’s already had a miscarriage that they’re removing. The bill is an amendment to the state’s description of what’s considered “unprofessional conduct” by a physician. Now, “performance of abortion” is included in that description, unless it’s necessary to “preserve the life of the mother.” There’s no other exception -- not even rape.

Elsewhere, Republican-dominated states are enacting gun laws so extreme that even Southern police chiefs oppose them:

In more than a dozen states with traditions of robust support for gun ownership rights, and where legislatures have moved to relax gun laws during the past year, the local police have become increasingly vocal in denouncing the measures. They say the new laws expose officers to greater danger and prevent them from doing their jobs effectively.

“We are a gun society and we recognize that, but we should be writing gun laws that make us safer,” said Leonard Papania, the police chief in Gulfport, who opposes part of a new state law that creates exceptions to the rules for concealed-carry permits. “Do you want every incident on your street to escalate to acts of gun violence?”

And, of course, Republicans such as North Carolina governor Pat McCrory still defiantly defend transphobic laws regarding public bathrooms.

All this is striking for two reasons. First, we're being told that the Republican Party is falling apart, riven by internal conflict. We certainly see that in the presidential campaign -- but where's the evidence of it in the states?

But but but Kentucky!  Our repug freakazoid asshole "governor" Matt Bevin would have signed all the anti-women, anti-sex, pro-guns-for-toddlers bills they brought him!

 

Maybe they'e just waiting until after November, when repugs will sweep the state House elections and kill all the Democrats forever.  Then they can turn the Commonwealth into Kansas/Haiti without having to listen to whining from the House dems.