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" (Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post) Welcome back to our weekly survey of what&amp;#039;s goin&amp;#039; down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin&amp;#039; gets done and where the doctor says, &amp;quot;My advice is to not let the boys in.&amp;quot; A lot of the shenanigans at the state level -- the gunmen in the Wisconsin woods, for example -- have forced themselves into the blog&amp;#039;s regular rotation, but there were still enough busy hands doing busy work out there to keep us on our toes. For example, down in the newly insane state of North Carolina, they managed to combine the legislature&amp;#039;s fetus-fetishism with heavy-metal thunder. You may recall that, earlier, they slipped their probe-the-ladyparts provisions into a bill that would ban sharia law in the state. This at least had the advantage of keeping like-minded lunacy all in the same piece of Tupperware. But the abortion provisions were so far out on the fringe that even fringe Governor Pat McCrory got nervous and threatened to veto the bill -- which would, of course, lead inevitably to the enactment of sharia law in North Carolina, and there goes a lot of the tourist trade. Undaunted, the legislature found a new place to launder its craziness. On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers did it again, this time injecting language to severely restrict abortion into a completely unrelated measure - a motorcycle safety law - without public notice.  If this keeps up, we may see a new ladyparts section in everything the legislature passes. I wouldn&amp;#039;t want to be Liddy Dole on her birthday. Who knows what the proclamation might mandate. Meanwhile, just up the highway in Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell, the Original Transvaginalist, has gotten his hindquarters in a crack over one of the most mundane of political scandals -- taking expensive gifts from people doing business with the state. (Or, as the late, sainted James Michael Curley of Boston used to call it, &amp;quot;Thursday.&amp;quot;) It turns out that many of the Old Dominion&amp;#039;s top politicians were on the arm, including Ken Cuccinelli, the radically anti-ladyparts Attorney General who wants to succeed McDonnell, or whoever it is that&amp;#039;s in the office after Governor Grabitall gets the boot. But the Cooch is not watchin&amp;#039; the paint dry. He heaved McDonnell under the trolley and &amp;quot;sought to distance&amp;quot; himself from the scandal by calling for gift limits. &amp;quot;What we&amp;#039;ve all been seeing is very painful for Virginia, and it&amp;#039;s completely inconsistent with Virginia&amp;#039;s very reserved traditions,&amp;quot; Cuccinelli said in a statement released by his campaign. &amp;quot;Right now there are two investigations running, one of which began with my referral, and we need to let those play out,&amp;quot; he continued. &amp;quot;However, all of this emphasizes the need for clearer and faster disclosures that cover the whole family, as well as a cap on the size and types of gifts.&amp;quot; You know what&amp;#039;s coming, right? Richmond Circuit Judge Margaret P. Spencer allowed Cuccinelli to withdraw from the case in May. Spencer will rule this week on a defense motion to dismiss the charges against Schneider. The trial is set for mid-October. Cuccinelli also has received about $18,000 in gifts from Williams and his company, some $5,000 of which he failed to initially disclose. He also initially did not disclose holdings of $10,000 in stock of Henrico County-based Star Scientific. Earlier this year, the attorney general amended his disclosure forms to reflect the gifts, saying it was an oversight. He also said he did not realize his position in Star stock exceeded the $10,000 threshold required for reporting. He has since divested all holdings in the company, selling his most recent holdings at a loss. I would like my life to take a turn in which I could now have $5000 &amp;quot;oversights.&amp;quot; That would be cool. Meanwhile, down in the formerly independent Republic Of Texas, a lady named Jodie Laubenberg is spearheading the anti-ladyparts brigade in that state&amp;#039;s legislature, and somebody tracking the Laubenberg oeuvre may have caught her uttering the perfect Republican quote. The government estimated that funding affordable contraception would save Texas $80 million in its next two-year budget because fewer babies would be born to low-income women enrolled in Medicaid (a health outcome that the Health Department regularly measures). &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re going to save on the non-babies that are being born? We&amp;#039;re going to prevent baby births?&amp;quot; Laubenberg responded. &amp;quot;This has got to be government math.&amp;quot;  This is immune to data -- Yes, Jodie, if there are fewer births to people on Medicaid, you will have to spend less money on Medicaid. -- and talk-show stupid (&amp;quot;government math&amp;quot;), and utterly infantile (&amp;quot;baby births&amp;quot;). That&amp;#039;s the rhetorical trifecta right there. She should have delivered this statement on a car-phone. However, the folks in Florida may not be able to share in Jodie&amp;#039;s wisdom on the Intertoobz because the braniacs in their state house may have accidentally made computers illegal. This might not have happened had Governor Bat Boy been alive. In a recent effort to ban all Internet cafes, Florida lawmakers worded the bill so poorly they have accidentally banned all computers, smartphones and other Internet-connected devices. Florida Governor Rick Scott approved the ban on slot machines and Internet cafes after Lt. Governor Jennifer Carroll resigned amid suspicion that a charity she was tied to was an Internet gambling front. Among the thousand Internet cafes that shut down following the ban was Miami&amp;#039;s Incredible Investments, LLC, a caf\u00E9 providing computer access and online services to migrant workers. Because the ban defines illegal slot machines as any &amp;quot;system or network of devices&amp;quot; that may be used in a game of chance, the Incredible Investments legal team found that it could apply to any Internet-connected device. OK, I might buy that this was a clumsy way to knuckle poor people and migrant workers, and, yes, I, too, am somewhat suspicious of any company calling itself &amp;quot;Incredible Investments, LLC.&amp;quot; But, more likely, this is yet another example of what happens when you elect a legislature full of people who campaign on the proposition that government doesn&amp;#039;t work and then, once elected, demonstrate the many ways they can make sure that it can&amp;#039;t. The complaint states that the ban was passed &amp;quot;in a frenzy fueled by distorted judgment in the wake of a scandal that included the Lieutenant Governor&amp;#039;s resignation&amp;quot; and declares it unconstitutional. A frenzy over a scandal? Among Republicans? That&amp;#039;s hard to imagine. This is your democracy, America. Cherish it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a23451/laboratories-of-democracy-071113/>