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If it wasn’t so pathetically true, rational people would probably assume the recent political news coming out of North Carolina was just a fanciful work of fiction.  Here are two stories suggesting that the state GOP is trying really hard to leap off the cliff of sanity.

From:  Fear of the youth vote, now in North Carolina

In November, Republicans won complete control of government in North Carolina. They have the governorship, veto-proof majorities in both legislative chambers and control of the elected Supreme Court. Now North Carolina Republicans have set about the business of using their new majority to maintain their majority.

Using means now familiar in other states, North Carolina Republicans are proposing several ways of making it harder to vote. But one of the tactics is new to me. Republican State Senator Bill Cook wants to make voting harder for college students in particular, and to do that, he’s pushing a bill that ties students’ voter registration to their parents’ taxes. If the student registers to vote at their college address, the parents would get a tax hike. They could no longer claim the student as a dependent, so the family would pay more in taxes.

From:  North Carolina House Speaker Kills Bill To Create State Religion

The Republican speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives killed legislation on Thursday that aimed to establish an official state religion.

House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-Charlotte) announced Thursday afternoon that the bill would not be receiving a vote in the full House, effectively dropping the measure. Loretta Boniti, a reporter for News 14 Carolina, broke the news on Twitter, and it was confirmed in a breaking news alert posted on the home page of wral.com, a Raleigh-based television station. Tillis’ decision followed several days of national media attention on the bill, which also said that the state government did not have to listen to federal court rulings and was exempt from the requirements of the First Amendment.

The bill, which was drafted by state Reps. Carl Ford (R-China Grove) and Harry Warren (R-Salisbury), was intended to address an issue in Rowan County, where the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the county commission in an attempt to block commissioners from having a Christian prayer at the beginning of meetings.