North Carolina shows conserv GOP running amok

Katrina van den Heuvel of the Washington Post had a recent opinion piece about a major infusion of money into North Carolina to elect more Tea Party candidates.  Ohhhhhh, great.

The third Koch "brother" hits North Carolina

The name of this third "Koch brother" is Art Pope.  He put a couple million into state and local races, with this result:

"... Pope’s organizations spent $2.2 million on 22 state legislature races, and won 18 of them."

So now the state legislature has a Republican majority, which goes along with a Republican governor (McCrory).  Here's what they've been doing so far:

1. "Conservative legislators want to dilute the influence of minority voters by curtailing early voting, ending Sunday registration and enacting unnecessary voter ID laws.
2. Public education is being gutted. As Jane Mayer reported in the New Yorker, despite overwhelming support, the legislature repealed the pennysalestax that went toward public education funding. Even the state’s prized University of North Carolina system is facing some $50 million in budget cuts.
3. Unsurprisingly, and unconscionably, Gov. McCrory has refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, even though it would insure half a million North Carolinians.
4. Despite a 9.2 percent jobless rate — well above the national average of 7.9 percent — North Carolina is cutting back on unemployment benefits."

 Isn't that lovely?  There is some pushback, but I think it will be more visible than effective.  Because money squawks.