Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for October 06, 2013
Transcript:
Ned: "The power of no... The power of no..." Cameraman: Ready, Neddy? Ned: No! Kidding. Let's do this! Hey, folks who look like me! Negative Ned here for the state of North Carolina! Here in Raleigh, we're on the move-- backwards! 338 regressive bills and counting! We've said no to young people by banning pre-registration! They're just not mature enough to vote the right way! And not to their teachers by cutting public school funding and giving it to our fine private academies! No to the unemployed by slashing overly generous benefits! No loafers welcome here! And not to women by passing restrictions that will close most abortion clinics. No to minorities by imposing IDs and restricting early and Sunday voting! And no to college students by making it harder to vote at school! And no to law enforcement by permitting guns in bars, parks, and playgrounds! And no to scientists! If you use climate change data in your projections, you will be punished! It's the law! So come on down and experience the power of no! North Carolina-- where progress is a dirty word! Man: Psst! Ask about our new tax cuts for "job creators!"
halestormstopper about 11 years ago
Just to highlight the absurdity of North Carolina: Our legislature said college IDs aren’t good enough to use to vote. In other words, IDs issued by the state of North Carolina aren’t good enough for the state of North Carolina.
Buzza Wuzza about 11 years ago
There’s never going to be another Republican President.
jnik23260 about 11 years ago
College ID would probably be okay for a gun permit!
TheSkulker about 11 years ago
It’s sad that the bone heads have control of the state. However, not all of NC is like that. Asheville, NC is an very progressive town. In the few weeks that I spent there the locals were quite friendly and intelligent. I saw lots of mixed race & mixed gender couples, and the city sponsored huge number of weekly arts, crafts and community events. I almost moved there.
But it is a college town and is not representative of the state. It is a college town and 30 miles out it is redneck country. Just like Missoula, Montana and Ashville, Oregon, they are oases of enlightenment in deserts of bigotry.vwdualnomand about 11 years ago
they like minorities if they could be a ncaa basketball championship to the state. but, their police will fire all 12 rounds in their firearm into a black person trying to get help when they are in a car accident.
cdward about 11 years ago
I hope you find your happiness there (if you don’t live there now, maybe you should consider it). Personally, having lived there, it’s sad – there are a lot of good folks there who are terribly unhappy with the direction things are moving.
beachcabbie about 11 years ago
We got it right here in North Carolina. I’m really upset that so many of you find it troubling. He He He
roctor about 11 years ago
The state wants businesses, but not the workforce. If N.C. is willing to turn on its people. It will also turn on its commerce.
blitdisc about 11 years ago
Our family was thinking of moving to North Carolina……………… perhaps Tennessee would be a better option.
lisapaloma13 about 11 years ago
ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) moved in, set up shop and took over before anybody realized what was going on.
sbchamp about 11 years ago
But we can’t hear it…
sbchamp about 11 years ago
Just say ‘Nein’!
kaffekup about 11 years ago
duke, we would laugh too, if we didn’t actually deal with the stupidity trying to drag us back to the Dark Ages.
jerry200 about 11 years ago
Hey, I thought America was the Land of the Free… seems like you got more regulations than I thought
markjoseph125 about 11 years ago
Just look at what liberalism as done to North Korea.This gets my vote for most moronic comment of the year.
thesnowleopard Premium Member about 11 years ago
Not exactly. There are actually quite a few North Carolinians who don’t like it, but they are frustrated by being just slightly in the minority (maybe around 40-48%) and all the gerrymandering the new Republican legislature has been shoving through.
montessoriteacher about 11 years ago
As someone who voted for the first time as a college student in another city, having moved there from my family to go to school, I don’t remember there being any problems with duplicate voting. College students away from home have been able to vote for many years. Per usual, it is a “solution” in search of a problem.
montessoriteacher about 11 years ago
BTW, my first time voting was quite a few years ago, more than I care to think about…
Radical-Knight about 11 years ago
Be an “Armchair Political Analyst”! Talk about that which you know nothing and parrot the propaganda and rhetoric your chosen party spews about their opponents. Laugh and ridicule people you don’t know. Be a target for ridicule by others because of your bigotry. If you act now, you too could become an elected official for public humiliation and corruption.
dbearnc about 11 years ago
Based on your comments, the Tea Party wouldn’t know the truth if it hit them with a sledgehammer, and then they’d deny it anyway. Why SHOULD the President negotiate with terrorists (excellent choice of words, Omnius)?
lbatik about 11 years ago
“Just look at what liberalism as done to North Korea. ”
Whu…? Are you a Poe? If so, well done.
montessoriteacher about 11 years ago
Duplicate voting is a crime. In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty. There is very little evidence of anyone engaging in duplicate voting. However, there is a substantially large group of voters who are being disenfranchised due to the efforts of those in the GOP who wish to block eligible voters from the right of voting.
i_am_the_jam about 11 years ago
Honestly, why does anyone think that requiring an ID in order to vote is WRONG? Isn’t it the government’s job to make sure that the person voting is an actual US citizen as required by the constitution, and that if he/she isn’t, then that person is committing an electoral crime?
That would make the US more electorally backward than Mexico, because down here, we are REQUIRED to provide a voting ID card since 1990 (provided at the government’s expense, mind you). No card, no vote. And the party who imposed that law was eventually ousted in 2000, and to this no other party, as corrupt as they might be, has complained about having a voting ID.
I would talk about abortion, but then every liberal here would think I’m a misogynist, which I am not.
And I would also talk about guns, but I already said all I needed to say over at “Herb & Jamaal”.
Ray Thomas about 11 years ago
I marvel at the stupidity of this artist politically. Way to go, Trudeau! What a way to twist the truth. But then, you don’t have to tell the truth, do you? And most of your readers accept it without checking the facts.
jam_jkm about 11 years ago
Trudeau can ran the same strip next Sunday and just substitute “Texas”.
patsy62 about 11 years ago
Wow…it sounds like he’s describing Arizona. Wait – you can carry a CONCEALED weapon in AZ.
montessoriteacher about 11 years ago
I don’t recall anyone saying that presenting ID was wrong to get to vote. Photo IDs are not so obtainable for many people. Photo IDs and other barriers and restrictions are being tried to keep people from voting. That is what is objectionable.
montessoriteacher about 11 years ago
Of course, GT also addresses a myriad of other problems which are being inflicted on citizens by the radical right wing besides voter restrictions. However, if the problem with voter restriction could be resolved, maybe many of the other problems could also be taken care of so voter restriction seems like a great place to begin to stop the madness in many state legislatures as of late.
montessoriteacher about 11 years ago
Apparently, some people can make up plenty of stuff. A lot has been made of one incident in which 2 Black Panthers showed up at a polling place. I suppose I could address how many times I voted in the last election, but I realize it would serve no purpose, so I won’t. Plenty of people are trying to sign up for ACA as evidence by the high traffic on the website and phone enrollment.
John Falstaff about 11 years ago
The recent changes in North Carolina are VERY disturbing to most of us, most of us who can read and aren’t at NASCAR races today. But the new direction in NC will be a boon to the people who paint “WHITES ONLY” signs. We’ll be needing them soon, the way things are going.
montessoriteacher about 11 years ago
Maybe it is a good thing that many more are starting to refer to the new health care proposal as the Affordable Care Act, rather than Obamacare, which just seemed to confuse some people. Besides, I don’t think anyone called Medicare Johnsoncare or Social Security Rooseveltcare, so why keep the Obamacare thing? I know it started with some who wanted to denigrate Obama and then Obama supporters decided to embrace it, but maybe it is time to let it go. I am sure that many in the GOP were on the wrong side of history when Medicare and Social Security were proposed, and they are on the wrong side of history now.
Liam Astle Premium Member about 11 years ago
If North Carolina is so terrible then what is the perfect state that we should all live in.
benbrilling about 11 years ago
So that’s why it’s called “No. Carolina.”
susan.e.a.c about 11 years ago
Next Sunday: the soil, air, and water destruction by gro-ops in California. The following Sunday: California’s decision to grant citizenship status to people who don’t pay income tax. The following Sunday: Zonker gets arrested for selling bad weed that killed two children, but gets his arrest quashed by Sebelius…. oh wait, I forgot who does this strip
susan.e.a.c about 11 years ago
Next Sunday: the soil, air, and water destruction by gro-ops in California. The following Sunday: California’s decision to grant citizenship status to people who don’t pay income tax. The following Sunday: Zonker gets arrested for selling bad weed that killed two children, but gets his arrest quashed by Sebelius…. oh wait, I forgot who does this strip
pauljmsn about 11 years ago
Testify. What is ridiculous about what the list the Tea Party gave was that ultimately they were the House’s fault because THEY voted for the Shutdown. And they celebrated heartily for that. And turned around and blamed the president for it. The attempts to reopen the parks are a stunt to shift the blame from themselves. The government operates the national parks and shutting down the government shuts down the parks. Simple as that.
Elizabeth417 Premium Member about 11 years ago
What an embarrassment!
McSpook about 11 years ago
North Korea “Liberal”?Wow, and you wanted us to believe that you Tea Partiers weren’t rock stupid.Sorry, but you just doomed that argument with your own words.
i_am_the_jam about 11 years ago
And I’ll note that I specifically said “provided at the government’s expense”.Geez, you liberals really DO only see the facts that you want to see…
McSpook about 11 years ago
“You can’t make this stuff up!”.And yet you do…constantly!I have never read so many untruths and half-truths as you spiel on a daily basis.You may be preaching to the choir, but you aren’t fooling anyone else.
McSpook about 11 years ago
“Have you signed up for the UNaffordable Care Act?I won’t ever.”.Then I hope you have other insurance, because when the lightning strikes your tin foil hat, I don’t want to have to stand my percentage of your Emergency Room bill.
Astolat about 11 years ago
I hesitate to bother engaging with you, because experience says it is a waste of time, but even from several thousand miles away it is obvious that the people saying no are those who lost the vote on the Affordable Care Act but refuse to accept the result. The shut down is a comparatively local issue, but if you let partisan politics prevent the raising of the debt ceiling and trigger a further financial crisis by defaulting, the rest of the world is not going to forgive you.
Seed_drill about 11 years ago
I deliberately chose to stay in NC for the advantages in education and governance it offered over SC, even though I work in SC. Now it just looks like a waste of gas money.
The state was badly hurt by NAFTA, recovered some of it’s tax base (but not it’s job base) through tech, lost some of that in the “dot-com” bubble, became a major banking hub, and we know how that went. Add to that some Democratic political scandals and Citizen’s United letting art pope and the chamber of horrors dump as much money as they wanted into flipping the legislature during a redistricting year, and you get the perfect confluence of the worst bunch of neanderthals imaginable, with little chance of dislodging them.
Not the Smartest Man On the Planet -- Maybe Close Premium Member about 11 years ago
Trudeau hits another one out of the park.
pawpawbear about 11 years ago
I am so sorry that you have only one hospital. We have several. And each one has satellite clinics. And I wouldn’t trade my VA doctors for my old practitioner for anything. Wait, I’ve heard my same argument from people who live in Canada, Mexico and most of Europe who have universal health care. Why is that? Why do all the horror stories about VA and health care in general originate in the North? Could it be that there are so many know-it-alls that their providers are just pushing pills? Maybe, there are so many non-critical thinkers in your state that reform of any kind is rejected. Just throwing out some reasons.
BE THIS GUY about 11 years ago
Wow, 146 comments. I spent my weekend at the Jersey Shore- IN OCTOBER- instead of bickering over the going ins in the Tar Heel State.
moonchilde1975 about 11 years ago
As a resident of NC, I am appalled at most of the idiotic crap going on in Raleigh. I didn’t vote for any of the idiotic Republicants running our state. The ONLY law I don’t have a problem with is the voter ID law. You need ID to cash a check, drive a car, or buy alcohol/ cigarettes, so why not require an ID to vote. It is technically a law that you are required to have an ID any time you are out in public or you can technically be considered a vagrant (it’s an old law, but it’s still a law).
IamUnique1 about 11 years ago
“At least there’s one state in the Union that isn’t afraid to say NO.”
Even when ‘yes’ would reinforce democracy…and I thought the Swat Valley was bad.