Rachel Maddow: Gov. McDonnell Is Turning Virginia Into A Jesse Helmsistan Theocracy.

That’s right, Virginians, you’re living in a theocracy.

An evil theocracy unlike anything seen before. Worse than living in Cuba or China.

It makes North Korea look like a great Asian vacation spot.

Transcript below the video, emphasis is mine:

MADDOW: As of today, the people of Virginia can rest assured that once health reform passes Congress and is signed into law by the president, they will have a tireless advocate fighting against their ability to benefit from it. A spokesman for Virginia`s attorney general confirmed to “The Washington Post” today that the attorney general of the great state of Virginia will definitely sue the federal government to try to stop health reform. Once we have health reform, that is.

You may be asking yourself on what legal grounds will Virginia`s attorney general mount this heroic challenge against health reform. That is a good question — particularly because the attorney general doesn`t seem to know. His spokesman, quote, “would provide no details to `The Washington Post` about this today, saying only that the plan is, quote, `still being worked out.`”

Sure, launching a vague preemptive assault on the legality of insurance reforms might seem like a strange or even politically ill-advised move for a state attorney general to make, but I got to tell you, this is not really about health reform. This is really about Virginia. This is not even the second, not even the third most bizarre thing to happen in the politics of the state of Virginia since their new slate of Republican state officials took office this year.

There is a complete disconnect between what Governor Bob McDonnell and his Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli have actually done in the state of Virginia since they took office and the way that the national media talks about Governor Bob McDonnell as if he has some sort of mainstream political future.

Under Bob McDonnell and Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia is being remade into a Jesse Helmmisstan and they`re doing it fast.

About a week after Governor McDonnell debuted as the fresh face of the Republican Party by giving the televised response to President Obama`s State of the Union address, the governor — that same governor, McDonnell, rescinded the state`s executive order banning discrimination against state workers. He rescinded it. He actually rescinded the state`s old anti- discrimination order and replaced with a new one that explicitly did not protect gay people from discrimination.

So, in other words, in his first month in office, Governor Bob McDonnell took overt steps to make it legal for state government offices to fire people in Virginia just because those people are gay.

Then, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, “Robin” to Mr. McDonnell`s “Batman,” followed up with a directive to Virginia`s public universities. Attorney General Cuccinelli sent a letter to each school telling them they could not legally prohibit discrimination against gay people, and he said they should change their existing nondiscrimination policies if the ones they had did protect gay people.

How is that small government thing working out for you, Virginia?

The dynamic duo of Jesse Helms` stand (ph) also moved bravely to stop a plan that had been in the works to allow state employees` same-sex partners to get health insurance. Of course, since it`s now legal to fire anyone who works for the state of Virginia simply because they are gay, maybe that whole health insurance thing was vestigial anyway.

Then, of course, came the birther tape, a piece of audio reportedly recorded between election day and inauguration day of Virginia`s attorney general siding with the “President Obama is secretly foreign show us the birth certificate” Orly Taitz folks.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What can we do about Obama and the birth certificate thing?

KEN CUCCINELLI, VIRGINIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, it will get tested in my view when someone — when he signs a law, and someone is convicted of violating it and one of their defenses will be it`s not a law because someone qualified to be president didn`t sign it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that something you can do as attorney general? Can you, like, make — can you do that, or something?

CUCCINELLI: Well, only if there is a conflict where we`re suing the federal government for a law they have passed. So it`s possible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because we`re talking about a possibility that he was not born in America.

CUCCINELLI: Right. But at the same time, under rule 11, federal rule 11, we got to have proof of it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How can we get proof?

CUCCINELLI: Well –

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean -

CUCINNELLI: That`s a good question. Not one I`ve thought a lot about because it hasn`t been part of my campaign. But — I mean, someone`s going to have to come forward with nailed down testimony that he was born in place B, wherever that is. You know, the speculation is Kenya. And that doesn`t seem beyond the realm of possibility.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MADDOW: That doesn`t seem beyond the — the single most incredible thing about this story is not the fact that the attorney general of Virginia said all that on tape. It`s what he said this week after this tape was released. Mr. Cuccinelli put out a statement that said, quote, “I absolutely believe that president Obama was born in the United States. I don`t buy into the claims that he wasn`t. On the recording, I was asked a hypothetical legal question, and I gave a hypothetical legal answer in response.”

I was just hypothetically wholeheartedly agreeing with a conspiracy theory in explaining exactly how I might bring the cause of exposing the president`s secret foreign birthplace into the public policy agenda of the state of Virginia. Just hypothetically, like you do.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

CUCCINELLI: The speculation is Kenya. And that doesn`t seem beyond the realm of possibility.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MADDOW: Incredibly, when the Virginia attorney general put out his statement after this came out saying he didn`t really mean that “birther” thing he was totally caught on tape saying — incredibly, his denial is how it was reported nationally. Nationally, the reporting was like oh, he says he didn`t really mean it. OK, case closed.

It`s the same thing with McDonnell and Cuccinelli`s move to make it legal to fire state workers in Virginia just because they`re gay. They rescinded the old executive order that prohibited that kind of discrimination by law. They put in effect a new executive order which says, “By law, it is legal to fire people for being gay in the state of Virginia.”

Then when students in Virginia protested, Governor McDonnell did not change the law back. He just put out an executive directive saying, “oh, no, no, no, don`t get me wrong. I hate discrimination” — which is neat, but which doesn`t change the law back to what it was before Virginia voters maybe accidentally elected Jesse Helms and son to make their state a little 21st century pilot project in theocracy.