North Carolina is the new Mississippi
What the fuck is happening to North Carolina? This has been one of the most progressive of the southern states. It’s the home of Duke University — plus a lot of other top notch schools — and some of the most prosperous cutting-edge cosmopolitan cities. Yes they still have Jesse Helms to atone for, but remember, on the day Jesse Helms died the entire country celebrated with fireworks.
Until last year, the state had a Democratic governor to veto the Klanbagger and Teatard legislation that erupts out of every Republican legislature. Now that they have a Republican governor, North Carolina’s Teahadist legislators are getting crazier than a busload of priests at a little boys’ swimming meet.
Some of the country’s worst voter suppression legislation, anti-abortion zealotry, union busting, eliminating all corporate taxes while increasing the sales tax — North Carolina has it all.
And on top of that, it turns out some of North Carolina’s teadroolers don’t even believe any of that “free market” rhetoric they’re always spewing. State senator Tom Apodaca (R—Corporate Prostitute) has introduced legislation that would ban the sale of Tesla’s electric vehicles in North Carolina.
Tesla sells all of its vehicles directly to the consumer — via phone or Internet — and hence is able to bypass all third parties, i.e. the car dealer. On direct orders from his pimp, Hooker Apodaca spread his legs for the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association. His proposed bill would prohibit all car companies from selling directly to a customer. All sales would have to be transacted through a dealer.
Problem solved.
What happened to that “limited government” that the teajobs are always drooling about? You know, “government bureaucrats meddling in the marketplace,” or something. To add even more irony, the North Carolina teawads are pretending this law is “to protect consumers.”
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!
Who the fuck voted for these dildos???
If this trend keeps up, people in Mississippi will be saying “Thank God for North Carolina.”
Labels: Tesla, Tesla sales North Carolina, Tom Apodaca
posted by Tom Harper @ 4:31 PM
17 Comments:
What a funny coincidence they happened to pick on a company that manufactures electric vehicles...
Jim is correct. What a coincidence! I guess they must somehow see a successful electric car as a victory for the president and/or progressives. And we certainly don't want THAT now, do we! ;-)
I'm still waiting for the tech heads to invent a car that runs on hot air.
I live here (NC) in the mountains and couldn't be more appalled. These sociopathic asswipes are ruining this state!! The only reason more repugs got in in the first place was due to gerrymandering the districts.
What Jim said.
Jim: Yup, I'm sure it's a coincidence.
Snave: President Hussein Obamao and electric cars are both threats to America, and the teabaggers managed to kill two birds with one stone with this law.
Randal: That'll be great, the most infinite energy source of all time.
Anna: It must be heartbreaking to see what's happening in your own state. I've only been to Asheville and the towns west of Asheville on Rt. 40. Beautiful scenery, great people. I hope you guys can vote those corporate stooges out of office in the next election.
Jess: Agreed.
Is this really any different from when the Republicans act when they take over any other state?
Erik
My parents live in NC. While there are some great cities, most of NC is rural and very poor - the kind of people that vote R against their better interest.
Teslas are $100K cars so it's not like they are falling off the wagon train. But yeah, that is stupid considering all the free market BS that they are constantly whining about. (Wait, what about those banks from 2008? Where's their "free market"?)
I loved that last line lol. Unfortunately, MS is doomed to be 50th in everything. Going down there is like being in a time warp; it's still the 60's down there. I had dinner with a black man down there once (I am white); I thought people were going to riot. The daggers in their eyes! Add that to their incessant need to open doors for women (which I appreciate, but hey, I'm from the north and you're just gonna slam me in the face with that thing!). I had to ask one of my colleagues to stop it because he almost gave me a concussion. Everytime I go down there, I have a new funny story to tell and they talk funny. :)
Lisa G: That's an interesting take on rural North Carolina and why people keep getting conned into voting against their own interests.
Sorry to hear Mississippi is still back in the 1960s. I didn't have any negative experiences when I was there (13 years ago), but I was mostly in the Jackson area, the touristy parts of the Gulf Coast and a few upscale (for Mississippi) towns in the northern part of the state.
Tom,
That's because you're not a woman. I've been to the Gulf Coast (which is beautiful), but I've also been to Greenville, MS. Greenville is where I had dinner with the black man. The GC is where I had to ask my colleague to stop opening the door for me.
In Tennessee, I once had a gas station attendant yell at me for pumping my own gas (yes, I was in self serve at the time). Then, they were completely perplexed by my credit card with my name on it; they kept looking at me and looking at my card for like 10 minutes. They kept asking me if it was my husband's. I kept telling them no, it was mine and in my name. Then they yelled at my husband for going to the bathroom instead of pumping the gas which I thought was hilarious. My husband - not so much and he yelled at me for not pumping the gas! Apparently, I was too delicate of a flower to pump my own gas so I checked the oil instead. They looked at me like I had four heads - the same look I got with the credit card.
Lisa G: Too funny. It's amazing how a person's perspective and experience are colored by gender and race.
The first time I ever visited the south, I was in 8th grade and we were visiting family friends in Mobile, AL. It was the early '60s and all the civil rights atrocities were dominating the news. I didn't know what to expect, but the extended family we visited were some of the nicest people I've ever met. And Mobile in general seemed very friendly and welcoming.
A few years later I read "Black Like Me." The author was saying that when he had visited Mobile as a white man, Mobile had been very friendly and progressive. But when he went back there as a black man, Mobile was just as racist and bigoted as everywhere else he had been.
When I was in Jackson, MS I had to sit in front of the Gaming Commission Board so they could issue me a Gaming License (I was the Director of Internal Audit - why I needed a gaming license is beyond me). I went down there with the COO of the company. He told me that the Board would probably be asking him a whole bunch of intense questions and probably wouldn't ask me anything. (Arrogant prick that he is...)
Well, it turns out the Board consisted of some ancient white guys. They asked the COO about 2 questions before they got to me. First, they wanted to know if they should call me "Lisa June or just Lisa" (it's funnier with the southern accent). Then I had to recount my entire educational and work history. After that they asked me all about my company - did I like working there, were the people nice to me, and other inane BS. The COO is staring at me in horror; I just calmly smiled at each of their questions and answered as politely as I could. The last question they asked me was: "Why does such a beautiful woman want to work in the North?" Holy shit. I just giggled and said I had family there. Then the chairman asked me to go out lunch (just me, not the COO), which I politely declined, feigning "work I had to do."
When we got home, the COO said to the CEO that "I might as well have been a tree stump - they were totally enamored with Lisa and just couldn't shut up about her." Take that - Mr. Ego the size of Montana. Apparently, the chairman called the CEO shortly after the meeting and asked when "that lovely Lisa June" would be coming down again. I begged him not to send me back down there without a full security detail.
Lisa G: Damn, you've sure had some "interesting" adventures in the south. I can't imagine why you didn't want to go back down there :)
Apodaca's bill won't get passed if the NC legislature has any sentient lawyers on board. It goes wildly against the entire body of U.S. antitrust law. Any second-year law student with any talent could write a brief in an afternoon that should be enough to get it thrown out on summary judgment -- if NC has any sentient judges.
The DoJ seems to have forgotten more than it ever knew about antitrust law, but some of us citizens are still in touch with the concept. First, NC car dealers have no inherent right to be able to sell any manufacturer's product if the manufacturer doesn't want them to. Second, by prohibiting the sale of Teslas in the state, NC would be acting in restraint of interstate commerce. In effect, Apodaca's law would give a monopoly in new car sales to the state's dealers, which is clearly illegal. Third, if this idiotic law were to pass, retailers and wholesalers of all kinds would be encouraged to demand similar laws to ban Amazon, eBay and other online sellers from selling to NC consumers. The precedent having been set, chaos would ensue.
Trust me, that law won't get passed, or if the NC legislature has enough equally crazy members to pass it, it won't survive its first court test.
SW: Good points about the constitutionality of this law. I wouldn't count on the NC legislature having any sentient lawyers, but it sounds like this law will get overturned in the first court challenge, if it even gets passed and signed by the governor.
Tom, forgive the nitpick, but constitutionality isn't the problem; statutory law and precedents are the problem. ;)
SW: OK, thanks.
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