"Purely Coincidental"

Mark Binker in the Greensboro News & Record digs a little deeper into the 527 group, Real Jobs NC, that is targeting Cullie Tarleton. Binker's article focuses on another target of those Art Pope/Fred Eshelman big bucks, Hugh Holliman of Lexington, but the attack on Tarleton is pretty much identical, far as we can tell.

They claim they're "non-partisan," of course, which is just a plain lie on the face of it. They are tools of the North Carolina Republican Party, or to put it a little more accurately, the North Carolina Republican Party is a tool of these fat cats, who intend to return this state to their back pockets.

Who Is Funding Jonathan Jordan?

Jonathan Jordan is the Ashe County lawyer running against Cullie Tarleton in the 93rd NC House District. He's a former staffer at the John Locke Foundation, the extreme right-wing umbrella org. funded by the Pope family to promote bad ideas like using state tax dollars to provide tax credits for home schooling, while calling for the complete abolishing of corporate taxes. They beat the drum for off-shore oil drilling. The John Locke Foundation is consistently hostile to alternative energy research like wind and solar and are part of the brigade that denies global climate change.

Anonymous manipulators have been push-polling for Mr. Jordan, smearing Cullie Tarleton with all sorts of baseless accusations. And now they've started with TV ads, paid for by a group calling itself "Real Jobs NC," which is, in fact, a group of right-wing high-rollers led by one Fred Eshelman, a Wilmington pharmaceutical executive, and including ... Art Pope. Natch!

Art Pope has been at work for some time trying to remake North Carolina in his own image. Now he's joined by Eshelman.

Greg Flynn has been following the money.

Jonathan Jordan is a made man who apparently thinks that Fred Eshelman and Art Pope can buy him a seat in the NC House by smearing the man who's already in that seat and who has served Ashe and Watauga counties well. That's offensive, on the face of it. As is the fact that Jordan's campaign is "stealth" all the way. There's no "Jonathan Jordan for NC House" website with issue positions, and if you go looking for where he stands, you'll be looking in vain.

There's just those anonymous phone calls smearing Cullie Tarleton and that TV spot paid for by Messrs. Eshelman and Pope to give us any insight into Mr. Jordan's character.

Holding Their Noses?

Asheville progressives debate the future of Congressman Heath Shuler.

It's a really dangerous thing to lose your base.

"Think Crazy"

Gotta see this! BlueAmericaPAC, an independent group, has taken a keen interest in the 5th District race between Billy Kennedy and Madame Foxx. They chose only three "crazy, cruel, and ignorant" things she's done, out of hundreds they could have picked.

Former Head of Republican Nat'l Comm. Says He's Gay

Duh.

And "is working to advance the cause of same-sex marriage." (NYTimes, this a.m.)

Rut-roh.

ADDENDUM
Mike Rogers, who outed Mehlman several years ago for being a flaming hypocrite for the reelection of El Presidente (remember his sorry ass?), said today that Mehlman can't be let off his past sins that benefitted right-wing Republicans so easily (all by way of Wonkette, who had a lengthy post today on all this sorry history:

So, how can Ken Mehlman redeem himself? I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for being the architect of the 2004 Bush reelection campaign. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for his role in developing strategy that resulted in George W. Bush threatening to veto ENDA or any bill containing hate crimes laws. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for the pressing of two Federal Marriage Amendments as political tools. I want to hear from Ken that he is sorry for developing the 72-hour strategy, using homophobic churches to become political arms of the GOP before Election Day.

And those state marriage amendments. I want to hear him apologize for every one of those, too.

Same Old Tune, New Chorus

A little religiosity, a little Boone-bashing, a little boilerplate rhetoric ("government run by out-of-touch liberals," check!), a little outside agitation (a hired gun brought in from the ultra-right John Locke Foundation to 'splain it all), a spoonful of denial ("this is NOT a partisan issue," said the Republican MC), and a fair amount of unintentional irony -- that was the rally (a.k.a., "press conference") yesterday put on by the Tea Party Republicans in opposition to a county recreation center.

All the Republican candidates were there: Clerk of Court Wanda Howell, running for reelection: Nathan Miller, Vince Gable, and the ineffable David Blust, running for the County Commission: Dan Soucek, running for the NC House and picked to deliver The Prayer. Yep. Non-partisan all the way!

Unintentional irony? A Watauga High student who is now a senior at the new high school did a good job echoing national conservative talking points, but he ended up complaining that the new school, which all of this bunch hates, needs to be even bigger. The student also urged Watauga young people to get their recreation at "free" places like Brookshire Park, which was hardly free, as it was also built by taxpayer funds (and very much in spite of the strong opposition of Deborah Greene).

Unintentional irony: David Blust, who knows a thing or three about bankruptcy, asked rhetorically, "Shouldn't government act the same as you do in your own business?"

The "press conference" part of this political rally featured only one question from the press: "If the county were not in debt and if these were not, as you say, hard economic times, would you then be in favor of building a county recreation center?" meaning, as I took it, "Would you EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, be in favor?" and to the best of my ability, I heard a pretty fumbling but nevertheless clear enough "NO!"

The president of the College Republicans, evidently trying to do his part to help the cause, stood up and complained that the college students only just arrived back in town and have only a few days to try to educate themselves before VOTING on the issue. But another student then asked David Blust if he still opposed the right of ASU students to vote in local elections. (Every ASU student has seen by now the famous video of Blust saying in an open forum on the ASU campus that students shouldn't have that right.) Blust was flabbergasted by the question, stumbled around incoherently with MC Hastings trying to rescue him from self-immolation ("This is a topic for another time"), and then attacked the student who asked the question: "Who put you up to that?" Deborah Greene also tried to rescue Blust but only nailed that coffin shut. She said, and in no uncertain terms, that ASU college students should be allowed to vote IF they planned to make Watauga their homes, presumably for eternity.

Well, okay then.

Stingy and Proud Of It

Some other Anon below posted that it's always rich Republicans who give the most to charity. Not at all true, according to studies compiled by the NYTimes:

For decades, surveys have shown that upper-income Americans [individuals earning over $200,000 and couples with revenues over $250,000] don't give away as much of their money as they might and are particularly undistinguished as givers when compared with the poor, who are strikingly generous. A number of other studies have shown that lower-income Americans give proportionally more of their incomes to charity than do upper-income Americans. In 2001, Independent Sector, a nonprofit organization focused on charitable giving, found that households earning less than $25,000 a year gave away an average of 4.2 percent of their incomes; those with earnings of more than $75,000 gave away 2.7 percent.

Because this was published in the NYTimes and not by, say, Fox News, we realize Anon and Brethren will once again chose the reality that most flatters their own view of the world.

What Kind of Christian Is Franklin Graham?

Watauga County denizen and spokesperson for God Franklin Graham said on CNN Thursday night, "I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother."

It's a pure mystification what he was actually saying, but in this particular instance the word "seed" would appear to be a synonym for "taint," as in "Taint no doubt that Obama ain't one of us."

There are echoes here of the "mark of Cain," the clear suggestion being that somewhere on Obama's carcass is a little crescent moon, embroidered in blood, and probably a scimitar too.

This is pure 19th century American racism, resurrecting itself by the intervention of the Hand of the Lord, which hath given unto the Reverend Graham the ability to trace the invisible "seed" and the curse of Cain (which any Old South preacher in approximately 1850 could confidently tell you was the black skin color of African slaves, which both explained their station in life and also conveniently justified that enslavement).

If The Very Righteous, Quite Extraordinary Reverend Graham can recognize "seeds" at 20 paces, he might catch a glimpse of the noxious ragweed in his own soul.

This Is Your Congresswoman on Steroids

Roger Clemens, indicted for lying to Congress about using steroids.

He did that lying to Congress in 2008, to a committee on which Virginia Foxx took a prominent (and howlingly embarrassing) public role, in effect suborning that perjury. You can refresh your memory of that whole clown-show here.

How ya like Roger Clemens now, Congresswoman?