We're Tired of Being Blindsided

RALEIGH, N.C. — Court records show the new head of the North Carolina Democratic Party owes nearly $286,000 in back taxes and penalties.

Pittsboro Mayor Randy Voller was elected party chair earlier this month, pledging to rebuild an organization still reeling from defeats at the ballot box in November.... [Raleigh News & Observer]

Dear Mr. Voller:

Please resign immediately. We don't need a repeat of our recent experience with another dead corpse trying to lead us.

That is all.

What HE Said!

This reaction to The Memo, from one of North Carolina's more articulate conservatives:

There are plenty of folks on the right — even some employed by non-profits — who engage in hardball political tactics.  This current media circus could easily be played out with a number of conservative-leaning groups in the spotlight.   (There but for the grace of God go we.)  Stop acting so shocked by political hardball talk.  It sounds about as sissy as expressing shock about how hard those football players slam into each other.  

Why Not Just Go Ahead Make 'em Wear a Pink Sombrero?

Last June, the so-called "Deferred Action Program" went into effect nationally for certain immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. The Deferred Action Program offers work permits and a two-year deferral from deportation until a more permanent immigration reform can be worked out in the U.S. Congress.

In North Carolina, some Republicans were mightily aggrieved by this. It reeked strongly to them of amnesty. Since the Deferred Action Program allowed for the now-grown-up baby-immigrant to work in the state, state driver's licenses were mandated. At first Tony Tata, appointed by Gov. McCrory to lead the state's Department of Transportation, sat on his hands. Then Attorney General Roy Cooper said to Tata, you've got to issue driver's licenses.

So what did Tata and his boys at DOT come up with? A pink stigmatizing strip on just those driver's licenses issued to people covered by the Deferred Action Program. This Pink Badge of Discrimination, DOT said, would be issued starting March 25th.

There are such echoes of the yellow Stars of David sewn on unwelcome residents' clothing in another era that some Republicans in the General Assembly have quailed at the bad publicity, now grown to international scope.

A bill has been introduced in the NC General Assembly to delay DOT's plan to June. One of the bill's sponsors, state Rep. Mark Brody, said transportation officials overstepped their authority by approving the licenses. He said that is the Legislature's prerogative.

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina condemned the proposed licenses, calling them "an unnecessary marker that could lead to harassment, confusion and racial profiling." The Latin American Coalition in Charlotte said the license would create a "class of 'inferior' citizens."

North Carolina is the only state to mark licenses in this prejudicial way. But then, North Carolina is possibly the only state in the union to be taken over by a radical brand of Republicanism that is so thirsty for absolute power that it would seriously consider branding and shaming people who have really done nothing wrong.

NC General Assembly Has Plans To Seize Municipal Water Supplies

Editorial by Barry Summers, in today's Greensboro News & Record:

Last summer, the General Assembly stripped the city of Asheville of its airport, placing it under an independent authority. Recently, Charlotte has learned that it, too, may lose control of its airport in much the same fashion. The fact that it’s been done in Asheville was cited as a clear precedent for the Charlotte action.

Today, the legislature is preparing to take another unprecedented step: seizing Asheville’s water system and placing it under an independent authority whose composition and policies are determined by the state.

As with the airport precedent, many of us believe that Asheville’s is only the first such forced taking of a municipal water system in North Carolina. The N.C. League of Municipalities is concerned as well: It is asking towns and cities to pass a resolution against the forced taking of municipal water systems. Dozens have done so. Others may simply keep their heads down and hope what is happening to Asheville won’t happen to them.

Hoping may not be enough. Last summer’s attempt to require the city of Durham to extend water service to a private development outside its boundaries is a further sign that the General Assembly intends to wade forcefully into municipal water issues.

The legislators behind the Asheville seizures have made statements suggesting that they believe any municipal water system can be taken by the state, issues of compensation notwithstanding.

Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, said the seizure of Asheville’s water system has “no statewide implication,” but in practically the same breath he speculated that “somebody could decide it’s what they want anywhere.” Rep. Tim Moffitt, R-Buncombe, the primary sponsor of this effort, said that municipalities “shouldn’t be concerned about owning water systems. That is because, as public utilities, systems should be thought of as independent services for ratepayers.”

“Independent services for ratepayers.” Independent of the municipalities that built them, independent of the municipalities that in many cases depend on the revenue for fiscal survival: independent.

This innocent-sounding phrase would allow the General Assembly to advance the alleged interests of “ratepayers” ahead of the interests of the municipalities that build, own and operate the public utilities. As the Asheville, Durham and Charlotte situations so far illustrate, those interests are likely to run counter to those of the municipalities themselves.

So, despite the fact that Asheville’s water system is well-run and gets high marks from state regulators, certain legislators have decided that the “ratepayers” are somehow at risk if the city continues to operate the system. The state will step in and unilaterally take control of the system and the 20,000-acre watershed and give it to an unelected regional authority. The severe impact to the city’s budget and therefore its taxpayers doesn’t appear to be a major concern.

How many other North Carolina legislators will look at the economic players in their district and decide that the state should insert itself as referee, picking winners and losers in the natural tension between neighboring or overlapping political subdivisions?

The fact that Charlotte is now apparently going to fall victim to the airport precedent established in Asheville suggests we may also see more seizures of municipal water systems, if this new precedent is allowed.

The time is now for North Carolina towns and cities to adopt the League of Municipalities resolution opposing such seizures, and for citizens to contact their legislators to oppose this radical reshaping of our shared resources.

Former Greensboro resident Barry Summers is the author of the blog, SaveOurWaterWNC.com. He lives in Asheville.

That Didn't Take Long

Republican Speaker of the NC House Thom Tillis is already out with a fundraising appeal, playing off The Memo and hyping his new role as innocent li'l victim of the intimidating Left.

The fundraising letter contains this precious gem of fake piety:

"We are not here to tear down the other side."

This from the man who bragged last year that his goal was to "divide and conquer" the poor, that is, turn one group against another as they struggle for a few crumbs from the rich men's table.

No, he doesn't want to tear down much -- only unemployment insurance and health services for the poor. And that's just this week.

Thank God There's a Memo

Every politico in the known universe is all a-Twitter this a.m. over The Memo. Haven't read it yet, but I will. In fact, I just printed out the entire thing to study, highlight, underline, and annotate.

Democrats in general and progressives especially are usually the last ones to catch on that there's a war and that they are in the crosshairs. Glad to see someone thinking strategically, which is what conservatives normally do over their Cream o' Wheat.

The fake shock of those same NC conservatives over this particular memo is not convincing. They've been reading their own memos for years. It's not as though the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Americans for Prosperity and the Civitas Whatsit haven't been producing central steering command documents for NC Republicans for a long time. And we see the results.

The results are the point, O my brethren, and if the Republican grandees in Raleigh think we're just going to sit back and mumble our Rosary as they enact their radical program, they're smokin' something with their Cream o' Wheat.

And it didn't take a memo from some consulting group for some of us to see what's going on in Raleigh.

ADDENDUM
Got home late today to discover that Gary Pearce also wrote about The Memo and made some of the same points, only better.

Profiles in Hypocrisy

This Republican member of the NC House, Jason Saine, relied on unemployment checks for more than a year before he got himself appointed to his House seat in 2011, and he just voted to deny the same unemployment benefits to others.

It's a cameo presentation of a signature Republican attitude: "If I've got mine, I don't care about yours."

Our New Backwardness Draws National Attention

Charles P. Pierce, writing in Esquire magazine, takes note of the mississippification of North Carolina currently going on in Raleigh and the brutal illogic behind Gov. Pat McCrory's signing this week of the law that dismantles unemployment insurance in the state and throws 400,000 out-of-work citizens under the proverbial bus.

The line that must swell His Irrelevance's heart with pride: "...Governor Pat McCrory has made it clear that, by cracky, he's not going to be out-peckerwood-ed by those folks one state down 95 [South By Gawd Carolina]."

"Out-peckerwood-ed." Good one, because it's true.

FOOTNOTE
One comment in particular under Mr. Pierce's essay deserves dissemination:

Brett Freeman

There must be something in the water up in Raleigh. As a reporter in the Charlotte area I interviewed McCrory a few times and sat through way too many meetings over which he presided, and I knew the NC house speaker reasonably well when he was just a humble town commissioner in Cornelius. I didn't see eye to eye with them on a lot of issues, but I also thought they were both reasonable, pragmatic people. I've watched in absolute horror as they've basically ignored what's going on in the state in favor of pursuing the national party's ideological agenda. At a time when unemployment was above 10% in NC, Tillis made an amendment banning gay marriage his top priority, even while admitting that he fully expected it to be overturned within 10 years. With unemployment still well above the national average, McCrory's solution is to lube up and tell the jobless to bend over. What dicks.

Republicans Want To Eliminate Straight-Party Voting in NC

It's Senate Bill 82. It's already passed first reading in the Senate and has been referred to committee.

It's apparently deeply ingrained in Republican DNA to begin messing with voting rights as soon as they get into power. But why would they want to eliminate straight-party voting? Perhaps because Democrats generally choose the option more than Republicans do.

In 2012, exactly 1,418,430 Democrats voted a straight-party ticket, while 1,110,390 Republicans did so. The margin was narrower in 2010: Dems 599,985 to Repubs 561,878.

It's okay. It'll be my pleasure to search out every Republican on the ballot in 2014 for the pleasure of voting against him/her. The exercise will do me good.

How the GOP in Raleigh Operates

In 2012, and under the management of the new Republican majority in the General Assembly, North Carolina passed S820, which opened the state to fracking. Gov. Perdue vetoed the bill. The Republicans in the General Assembly, with some help from a few Democrats, over-rode the veto.

S820 contained some "safeguards" to protect the air and water of the state as well as the process, safeguards that were probably necessary to get the required votes to override the governor's veto.

That was then. This is now.

The NC Senate is busily doing away with those safeguards. Yesterday the Senate Commerce Committee held discussion on S76, which simply throws out the safeguards in the original fracking bill, to wit:

1. Removes the requirement that state lawmakers must approve rules before the first well can be drilled. 

2. Gives the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (now under the direction of John Skvarla, a climate change denier and notorious science skeptic) the authority to start issuing permits on March 1, 2015, without the legislature's say-so. 

3. Removes the state geologist and water and air experts from the state Mining and Energy Commission. 

4. Allows drillers to inject production waste fluids back into the ground. 

5. Hands the Energy Policy Council to the "Energy Jobs Council," which involves firing and replacing everyone currently serving on that commission. 

6. Encourages offshore drilling exploration.

7. Repeals the law requiring "land men" to register with the state. 

8. Streamlines the permitting process to a single permit, removing checkpoints at which DENR could look for problems.

The fast-tracking of this destructive and highly risky form of gas drilling is one thing. Removing from the review process any scientific expertise for monitoring its effects is far worse. Worst of all is allowing "production waste fluids" to be injected back into the ground. That's been the source of water well pollution in Pennsylvania and other states.

Clearly, the new Republican majority in the North Carolina General Assembly, with the consent of their patsy, Gov. McCrory, can do any damn thing to the environment of the state that they damn well please. And this fracking risk pleases them very much. Sen. Buck Newton, R-Nash, told the Commerce Committee yesterday: "This bill is an effort to make sure that the industry understands that North Carolina is ready to do business – that we're moving forward, we want them here, we want their investment and we want them to create jobs."

When water wells are destroyed, they won't be saying that they wanted that, but clearly, at the moment, they don't give a good goddamn.

The Senate Commerce Committee is expected to vote on this abomination tomorrow. Then it will be on the schedule for full Senate approval anon. Senate member Dan Soucek's telephone number is (919) 733-5742.

Pity the Poor Billionaires

Politico.com has a story up this morning about the struggles of Charles and David Koch, the billionaires who laid out boatloads of $$ to defeat President Obama last year and who have nothing to show for their expenditures (except a stranglehold on North Carolina and other similarly gerrymandered states).

The Koches began firing people at Americans for Prosperity, one of their flagship front groups, and rejiggering some of their many other front groups, like Generation Opportunity, American Commitment, Americans for Responsible Leadership, Americans for Job Security, the Center to Protect Patients Rights, among many others. (They must have a whole division of their empire devoted to just coming up with bland or positive-sounding names for front groups through which they intend to take control of government in this country.)

In North Carolina, the Koches have a willing and well-heeled handmaiden in Art Pope, who runs his own Koch-lite octopus. The Koch-connected American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has focused on bulldozing billionaire-friendly legislation in many states of the Union, but as that org has lost some big-time corporate sponsors, because of adverse publicity, the Koches have something else coming on line to take care of piddling state legislatures:

[The Koch brothers have] blessed the formation of a new secret money nonprofit group, the Association for American Innovation, POLITICO has learned. It will be run by former top AFP strategist Alan Cobb and will wage a behind-the-scenes push in state capitols for reforms consistent with the brothers’ small-government, free-enterprise philosophy, including possibly curbing union power and abolishing income taxes.

Yeah, we already know about that in North Carolina.

Just last night, Tim Phillips, the chief operative at Americans for Prosperity, thoughtfully emailed us a "sneak peek" at the front group's new "Congressional Scorecard," and we were reassured of Madam Foxx's values and alignment to see that she was rated at 95% "for the prosperous."

Like we didn't already know that!

Kay Hagan Gets Her First Official Republican Challenger

Dr. Greg Brannon, an OB/GYN in Cary, NC, has announced his intention of running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate next year. It's likely to be a crowded field, after Thom Tillis and Phil Berger (and who knows who else) get into it.

Dr. Brannon receives mixed reviews from women patients. While some women seem to think that his overt Christianity is just what they need, others lean the other way:

Avoid this practice. I was referred to Dr. Brannon by a friend. My first visit was fine. Dr. Brannon thinks he's funny so he's always cracking jokes and being silly, but it was tolerable. He had his staff give me some literature to read and I scheduled a second appointment. Dr. Brannon was rude, unprofessional, insulting and condescending. I asked the nurse a question and she looked frightened to answer. He ordered some tests and left the room abruptly. I told the nurse to not bother with it as I would not be returning there. I am SO glad I was not seeing him during a pregnancy. I would feel trapped with his Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde personality. Thankfully, I learned his true colors early on and didn't get caught up in the toxicity of that place. Please, please, do yourself (and your future baby) a favor and steer clear of this man with the serious God-complex.

Horrid experience-Find somewhere else. This Dr. is very rude and full of himself. I know it may be hard to believe just reading reviews, however take peoples word ( words ) for it and stay away!! I do not understand why some people find him to be energetic and confident and others say he is arrogant and rude. That is confusing to say the least. I have personally witnessed:

1. screaming at staff

2. making condescending remarks personally at me

3. belittling me

4. off color "jokes" ( and I use that term loosely)

5. Other small items I will not mention

Do your research,he cannot keep ANY Drs with him in his practice.. that in itself speaks VOLUMES

RUN-DONT WALK-AWAY FROM THIS PRACTICE. I regret being a patient at this office. Dr Brannon is so arrogant and non professional, he thinks hes some sort of comedian and treats his office staff very rude. I overheard serveral comments screamed to the staff just in the short time I was there. He obviously has trouble keeping Drs. in practice with him. I know his website screams Christianity, but I havent witnessed any huge amount of caring or consideration for fellow woman, in this instance.....

Source.

An "Eisenhower Republican"

Gov. McCrory self-identified that way last night in his state-of-the-state address.

Several Tea Partiers in the audience must have gotten the vapors.

Unless he was referring to the Eisenhower who could never bring himself to stand up to the radicalism of Joe McCarthy.

Probably he meant the Eisenhower who believed in massive public investment in stuff like the interstate highway system, the Eisenhower who did not begin to dismantle the New Deal but rather added to it. Don't you figger he meant that Eisenhower? Which should give the Tea Party the vapors.

Gary Pearce said he seemed more like a mayor than a governor, or more like the president of a homeowner's association. That's a step up from how we see him ... as a paper tiger.

It takes a paper tiger to sign that cruel and unnecessary unemployment law out of sight of the public.

Would Eisenhower have been so craven?

What You Won't Hear Gov. McCrory Mention Tonight

The Guv delivers his "state-of-the-state" address to a joint session of the General Assembly tonight at 7 p.m. Some of the things he won't be talking about, most like, courtesy of ProgressNC:

• SB10, the infamous power grab bill, has been roundly criticized by outside observers while McCrory has been silent. Silence equals consent. But the revelation that McCrory owns at least $10,000 in Duke Energy stock is a new wrinkle. A recent report by WFAE clearly links rate hikes to stock prices. By appointing a Duke-friendly Utilities Commission, McCrory will have the power to directly impact his personal wealth.
• All of this could be alleviated if Gov. McCrory would propose a robust ethics package, but don’t count on that either. He refused to deliver on his promise to produce an ethics plan during the campaign. Why start now?
• The impact on the state economy of turning down billions in federal dollars for Medicaid and Unemployment Insurance. Gov. McCrory will surely tout his own version of a jobs agenda, but that won’t include the billions of dollars he’s turning his back on. North Carolina’s taxpayers have dutifully paid their federal taxes and will now say “goodbye” to the benefits.
• Gov. McCrory will probably extoll the virtue of cutting taxes on the wealthy and big corporations, but he won’t say how that impacts the average taxpayer. Any plan to increase sales taxes and cut personal and corporate income tax rates will translate to hardworking taxpayers paying more in taxes overall, while the wealthy and big businesses will pay less.
• Gov. McCrory won’t mention that our public schools have reached record graduation rates of 80% despite the fact that they are severely underfunded. Instead, he will say that our schools are broken. Years of cuts have left our school systems, especially those in low-income counties, starving for resources. Funding cuts jeopardize the success we have made.
• Diana Lightfoot, McCrory’s first pick to head North Carolina’s Pre-K programs won’t be mentioned because she’s an embarrassment to the Governor who wants to “fix” state government. She had to resign after the revelation that she actually opposed early childhood education and had some nutty things to say on Twitter.

North Carolina and "The Red State Model"

We see it happening. There's no mistaking it. Our new Republican overlords in Raleigh have embarked on a grand social experiment to prove that their vision of the economy is the right one.

The outlines of a Republican economy? Few taxes, especially on the rich. The tax burden repositioned (via sales taxes) onto the poor and middle class. Indigents off welfare! Strangle Medicaid! "Root, hog, or die." Regulations scuttled, especially the environmental variety, because they impede businesses. No more money for colleges and universities. They don't teach Republican values. Make sure no two workers anywhere will ever get together and demand better pay, or better working conditions. Roll the clock back a dozen decades for women. Abortion is murder, and "equal rights" was just a Communist plot to divide Americans.

Recently, at a local meeting of Alzheimer's care-givers about to be cut out of state support by the new Republican austerity, the representative of Senator Burr suggested that Alzheimer's patients thrown out of the safety net can go to homeless shelters.

That's their vision. That's their plan. That's their level of understanding.

Lynn Parramore, a North Carolina native, explains it all, and fingers the people behind it, in her essay, "The GOP Plan to Flush Your State's Economy Down the Toilet." If you don't know what's transpiring around you in North Carolina, you might want to find out.

Vengeance Is Thine

I don’t know what it’s like to be picked on for being a conservative.  The sense of being alone or apart can just wear you out.  And when you’re teased or bullied by liberals (which they’re so prone to do), it can seem like somehow you brought it on yourself – for being different,  for not fitting in with everybody else.

Or ... your resentments fester like raw meat in the sun, and you plot revenge, you plan an epic payback, you fantasize retaliation against all your enemies – and they are legion! – the ones laughing at you, belittling your philosophy and trashing your values.

Then one day the gods reward you. They put you – you – in charge, suddenly, and by your own virtue (you reckon). Your anger has become the solid fuel for an historic launch, and you explode across the sky. Your enemies tremble, and all their works, all their public edifices stand exposed to your wrath. You tear them down, everything your persecutors built up. Their weeping only fills you with moral certitude, and you think of new and novel ways to make them suffer. Because you can.

Luckily, your philosophy and your values preach the everlasting punishment of evil. You harden your heart because the gods have put the rod in your hands, and in your hands alone. Fear of evil drives you. You strike behind you as well as ahead, and on all sides. The lamentations of the suffering touch you not.

The landscape you now dominate is rich with targets: the lazy, the lax, the pampered, the pompous, the self-indulgent dependents who slavishly follow the King of your enemies, all treading the primrose path to their own destruction (and your destruction too, if you don’t stop them first, the whores of Babylon).

One small problem: scorched earth beggers the arsonist too. The purely negative curdles all the cream forever. Karma bites back. He who pulls down the temple also dies with the idolaters.

It gets worse.

Put the State Bureau of Investigation Under GOP Control?

WRAL is reporting that a signal flag has gone up the Raleigh flagpole ... to move the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) out of the Attorney General's balliwick and give it to one of Gov. Pat McCrory's political appointees in the Department of Public Safety, that is, one Kieran Shanahan (about whom, more below).

This would be another Republican power-grab of the same species as the other current bright idea of firing all the members of several important regulatory boards and replacing all of them en masse with "team players."

It's actually not a new idea. It surfaced first in 2011 when the Republicans first took control of the General Assembly. It was a bad idea then. It's even worse now. Which brings us again to Kieran Shanahan, the man who would have his mitts on the SBI, instead of Attorney General Roy Cooper.

Shanahan touts this as his personal motto: "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight." To prove how tough he is, he once roughed up two pre-teen neighbors, was found guilty on two counts of "misdemeanor assault," and got off with a "prayer for judgment continued," the dodge of many a college student with a speeding ticket. He's a former federal prosecutor and a former Raleigh city councilman. A partisan Republican to the core, he took what some might consider an unseemly, lip-licking interest in the prosecution of former Sen. John Edwards, showing up every day at the trial in Greensboro and then becoming a kind of commentator media whore, spouting off about the trial in front of any camera. Fox News used him repeatedly as an expert.

For a man who prefers a gun to a knife (see above), he sure likes to watch Democrats (in particular) bleed. And some people want him to be in charge of the SBI.

"Braking News" by V.C. Rogers, in The Independent Weekly

#itgetsworse: You're Not Improving NC's Mood, Bubbas

Hattip: DJ. Polls mainly capture a moment in time. We know that. But perhaps we were wrong in assuming that the voting public in North Carolina were not paying attention to the radical over-reach in Raleigh:

Only 11% of voters support the pay raises Pat McCrory gave to his cabinet, to 82% of voters opposed to them. Even Republicans oppose them by a 75/14 margin.

Only 39% of voters support cutting benefits for unemployed workers to $350 a week, while 50% are opposed to that change. And just 41% favor reducing the time period during which workers can receive benefits by six weeks to 48% who are opposed. Independents are opposed to the actions the legislature has taken on both counts.

32% of voters disagree with the comments McCrory recently made about higher education in the state to 26% who agree. In the Triangle, where voters were much more familiar with his statements, 44% of voters disagree with McCrory to 30% who agree.

Voters give the Republican controlled state government as a whole a 40% approval rating, with 49% of voters disapproving. It's at 35/49 with independents.

Only 33% of voters have a favorable opinion of legislative Republicans in the General Assembly, to 49% with a negative one.

#itgetsworse ... Predatory Lending Dept.

Rob Schofield, trying to keep up with the flood of awful legislation being introduced in the General Assembly under its new radical rulers:

Well, that didn’t take long. Sensing with good reason that it’s now open season on struggling families at the North Carolina General Assembly, the predatory “payday lending” industry is already banging on the door on Jones Street seeking to have its parasitic industry (which was banned in the state in 2001) made legal once more in North Carolina. Senators Jerry Tillman and Clark Jenkins filed the bill yesterday and it will be formally introduced in the Senate today. 

As we have reported repeatedly in this space over the years, “payday lending” is the pernicious practice of making short-term loans (typically of a week or two in length) to desperate people at effective annual interest rates of several hundred percent. The most common mechanism for making the loans is a practice that would feel familiar to any street corner loan shark — it’s called “deferred presentment.”  In a typical transaction, the consumer writes a check to the payday lender (often post-dated) for, say $400, and then receives $340 in cash immediately. In return, the lender agrees not to deposit the check until the borrower’s next payday. 

Of course, in many, many situations, the borrower finds him or herself short of cash again come payday and thus begins a vicious cycle of “rolled over” loans in which the borrower has quickly paid more in interest than he or she ever borrowed in the first place. Historically, payday lenders have located in and around low-income neighborhoods and military communities that are always well-stocked with poorly-paid, unsophisticated borrowers. 

That the payday predators see the current political environment in North Carolina as their big chance  was already forecast a couple of weeks ago when the industry anointed former House Speaker Harold Brubaker its hired gun at the General Assembly. 

And, of course, as its typical lobbying shtick, the industry is already trying to anticipate consumer advocate critiques by cynically inserting a provision in the bill that purports to prohibit payday predators from lending to military families. But, of course, to include such language is to admit the inherently exploitative nature of the loans. 

The bottom line: It should be an ugly fight. And given the disturbing precedents established in the opening days of the 2013 session, caring and thinking people should not get their hopes up for a positive result.

#itgetsworse

When you're engaged in massive revenge (see North Carolina General Assembly), you don't think about consequences. You think about blood.

The Charlotte Observer's editorial board gets that and editorializes about it today:

The legislature’s effort to save the state money is starting to cost the state a boatload of money. 

The N.C. Senate passed a bill Tuesday that overhauls the state’s system for paying benefits to unemployed workers. That needed tackling, but the way the legislature did it unnecessarily costs the state $780 million from the federal government. Lawmakers could have made all the changes they did and still receive the $780 million by delaying them for just six months. 

Gov. Pat McCrory, meanwhile, said Tuesday that he does not want the federal government to pay 100 percent of health insurance costs for 500,000 poor North Carolinians. The House could vote as soon as Wednesday to pass a bill that turns down $2 billion in federal money per year for three years, and billions more in the years after that. 

Um, ladies and gentlemen of the House and Senate, could you stop “saving” us so much money?

Read the whole thing.

Too Big to Pay

This will bear watching (and not in the way you may be thinking):

Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson is asking the City of Charlotte and the state of North Carolina to each pony up $62.5 million so he can renovate his 17-year-old stadium. Richardson has graciously agreed to pay $62.5 million himself toward the total renovation costs of $187.5 million.

Why shouldn't the owner of this NFL franchise pay the whole amount? Why should taxpayers pay? Richardson's answer to that question was commendably frank and revealingly blunt: Team owners don't pay for these things because they don't have to. Everyone, apparently, wants an NFL team, so taxpayers are expected to pay, and usually they do.

Apparently, the City of Charlotte has already committed to its $62.5 million share. So far state House Speaker Thom Tillis and other Republicans representing the Charlotte area have shown no willingness to go that route. Perhaps they've calculated the uproar that would follow.

Tillis's statement needs close parsing:  "I've been clear with the Panthers organization that it is not appropriate to have state taxpayer dollars go directly into the stadium."

It's that very precise directly that raises a suspicion that Tillis will find a way to feather Mr. Richardson's nest without appearing to feather Mr. Richardson's nest.

The Raleigh Wrecking Crew

Intercepted email from an old political hand in Raleigh:

Republicans keep saying everything has been done wrong for 100 years, so they have to come in with radical change to fix it. The truth is North Carolina did not become the best place in America to live and work by accident, and it certainly didn't happen by not investing in infrastructure, dismantling public education, and wreaking havoc on our environment. That is not who we are. North Carolina has issues, but the Republicans are not fixing what is broken. They are tearing down what has made us great. Their plan includes raising taxes on the middle class, cutting them on corporations and the rich, while sending billions of our tax dollars and thousands of jobs to other states all to deny 500,000 North Carolinians access to affordable health care. 

The GOP plan is to cram so much into a short time that it will be hard to be outraged or focused on it all.

No kidding!

As I predicted, Gov. McCrory just caved to the Republican radicals in the NC Senate about the expansion of Medicare and participating in the health insurance exchanges created by the federal Affordable Care Act. Everyone expects the NC House to cave too. (The bill is due for first action today in the House Health Committee.)

Donald H. Taylor Jr. is a professor of public policy at Duke and writes a blog (freeforall) that delves deeply into health care policy and politics. As soon as the Guv endorsed the NC Senate bill, Taylor was out with in-depth analysis that is provocative and may just be right. I don't know.

So I quote at length:

Word this morning that Gov. McCrory has decided that North Carolina will have a Federal ACA exchange, and that we will not undertake the Medicaid expansion now. Several quick points:

• Having the federal government run the exchange is a reasonable option. I would prefer that North Carolina do so because it would give our state more flexibility, but Republicans who control the N.C. General Assembly are still saying they are opposed to the ACA while offering no alternatives. Under these circumstances, going with the federal exchange makes sense.
• Gov. McCrory is saying the Medicaid system is too broken to expand, and he is worried about the long run federal cost share issues. Both are a dodge. The Republicans in the General Assembly are opposed for ideological reasons and both the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate want to run for U.S. Senate, so they are thinking about the upcoming primary. Other states like Arizona have explicitly said they will roll back Medicaid expansions if funding shares change over time; such concerns could easily be dealt with via legislation, and the state could likely get quite a lot of flexibility for other Medicaid changes they desire by linking them to an expansion. Here is a post with lots of links on the benefits of Medicaid expansion. IF you think that expanding health insurance coverage is an important enough goal to warrant using public policy to achieve that goal, then the expansion is a no brainer. Will the Governor or the General Assembly offer an alternative?
• I have been predicting that N.C. will do the Medicaid expansion in spite of the state being run by Republicans; I will stick with that prediction for two main reasons, noted below.
• First, the tax reform that Republicans prefer is to use a sales tax as much as possible to collect tax revenue (good report on options). Get rid of exemptions, broaden the base and all that. However, hospitals and health systems are typically exempt from sales tax, as are professional services for everyone. The desired Republican tax reform route for Republicans will be a massive tax increase on hospitals and health care systems. For them, they are surely going to balk at a large tax increase sans the Medicaid expansion. And if they balk, then other’s want out (like the Realtors) from the sales tax, and that starts to unravel the plan.I also predict that they will raise quite a fuss about expectations of providing uncompensated care when an option such as the Medicaid expansion exists (Diaz v. North Carolina).
• Second, and perhaps most importantly, North Carolinians of all stripes are quite vested in the idea that we “aren’t the deep South.” I have lived in this state for 42 of my 45 years and this sentiment is broadly shared. To the North is Virginia that looks to be going ahead with a Medicaid expansion linked to revisions of the program despite having a Republican Governor and Legislature, and to the South is South Carolina and the rest of the deep South that is not planning to do a Medicaid expansion. North Carolina is squarely in the middle, both literally and figuratively. I predict that as this image settles in, it will not be a comfortable place for this state to remain for very long.

The War on North Carolina's Municipalities

Hattip to the political reporters at WRAL for gathering some of the evidence that the new Republican majority in the NC General Assembly are targeting the state's cities and towns for revenge:

The Charlotte Observer reports on a rough start to the legislative session for the Queen City: "But barely two weeks into a new legislative session, Charlotte officials find themselves scrambling to fend off unexpected threats from Raleigh. At stake is nothing less than money for light-rail expansion, control of Charlotte Douglas International Airport and, possibly, the future of the Carolina Panthers." Meanwhile, the Citizen-Times reports on Asheville's struggles with the legislature: "City officials have hired lobbyists, enlisted the aid of N.C. League of Municipalities and gotten support from 40 local governments statewide in their fight to keep control of Asheville’s water system. But it’s anyone’s guess whether that will matter much to the Republican-controlled General Assembly, which is engaged in disputes with cities and towns on a range of issues — from control over airports to decisions on land use."

They didn't mention Boone and the assault that Sen. Dan Soucek made last year to divest the city of its Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ), and his promise at the time to keep trying.

It looks on the face of it that the constitutional amendment that the Republicans have introduced to make it virtually impossible for a city to grow through annexation (requiring a two-thirds majority vote of the citizens involved) would also simply eliminate all ETJs, with this single sentence:

No city, town, or other governmental subdivision may exercise any jurisdiction beyond the corporate limits.

A change to the state's constitution will require a vote of the people, and perhaps a majority of this state's voters now view its towns and cities as the enemy (as do the Tea Party in Watauga County).

Maybe so. But guaranteed, they haven't thought through the ramifications of this war.

Foxx to College Students: "Why Aren't You All Like Me?"

Two Appalachian State University students earned an in-depth profile in the New York Times, interviewed about their struggles to get through college while working part-time jobs. One of the two has had to borrow money.

Also considered in the equation of cost analysis is one Virginia Foxx, congresswoman from the 5th District, who notoriously bragged last year, “I spent seven years getting my undergraduate degree and didn’t borrow a dime of money.” She turned her acid tongue on college students for going into debt to get an education (when she wasn't cussing interns in her role as the Elevator Monitor Lady in the Capitol).

Also interviewed in the Times article was the director of student financial aid at ASU who "declined to comment on Representative Foxx’s nose-to-the-grindstone, debt-free exhortation. 'Probably anything I say about Virginia Foxx will get me fired,' she says." She didn’t hesitate to note "the long odds of earning enough while enrolled in college full-time to avoid student loans. 'If I could make that kind of money, believe me, I’d do it.' A spokeswoman for Representative Foxx declined an interview request."

Madam Foxx does not take questions from reporters, nor from constituents who might challenge her ungenerous view of the world.

The NC GOP's Snatching of Municipal Assets

Last year, the new Republican majority in the NC General Assembly took away Asheville's airport and bestowed it on an airport "authority," and most people know about the legislative drive to grab Asheville's water supply and give control of it over to a county authority.

Now it's Charlotte's turn in the crosshairs, as a couple of powerful Republican lawmakers and certain behind-the-scenes "business interests" have proposed divesting Charlotte of Douglas International Airport and giving it to someone else.

Those who have watched Boone's long struggle to get a new water source, and Rep. Jonathan Jordan's attempt to shut that whole thing down, have openly speculated that if a new water intake and water line to Boone get built, what's to stop the Jordan/Soucek tag-team from introducing a "local bill" to simply take Boone's water and give it to the county, whose big developers have long lusted for it, backed by a county government that will not regulate growth, no way, no how?

It's not as though we have witnessed their over-reach before.

Kevin Siers, in the Charlotte Observer

Holy Crap

Dianna Lightfoot, the woman the McCrory administration wanted to put in charge of NC childhood education, resigned the position a hour ago. But as someone on Facebook just commented, "We may have dodged that bullet, but I guarantee you there's another already in the chamber."

This is the viewpoint of the person the McCrory administration would have saddled our youngest learners with ... Lightfoot was interviewed for an article on "Childhood Depression":

Conservative family groups have grave misgivings about counseling being provided at school, just as they objected to medical clinics being established in schools a decade ago. Clinics, they complained then, were dispensing contraceptives to teenagers without parents' consent. 

School-based counseling services threaten to similarly undermine parental authority and invade family and children's privacy, say critics. They particularly object to methods and questions used by health officials to discover whether a child is being sexually abused. 

“Unless done properly, school health programs have a potential to go too far,” says Dianna Lightfoot, director of the Physicians Resource Council of the Alabama Family Alliance. She and other opponents cite a Pennsylvania Head Start program in which preschoolers and kindergartners were required to undergo genital examinations along with their routine eye and hearing exams. The nurses who conducted the exams said they were looking for signs of sexual abuse. 

“Although the parents had given their consent for a checkup, they had no idea the kids would be asked to drop their pants,” says Moloney. 

Holgate, Lightfoot and Moloney all complained that elementary school children have been sent to school psychologists -- sometimes without their parents' consent -- and have been asked intimate questions about the family. One father in St. Helena, Calif., permitted a school psychologist to test his twin daughters for educational aptitude. The psychologist asked one girl whether her parents were sexually abusing her. The child reportedly suffered nightmares and mental distress afterward, and the father is suing the school district. 

Critics also object to the phrasing of some values-based questions on psychological tests given by schools, such as: Would your parents support you or condemn you if they found out you were having sex with your boyfriend/girlfriend? 

“Such questions raise doubt in kids' minds about the validity of their parents' values,” Lightfoot says. 

Or a child may tell a therapist he is attracted to someone of the same sex. The counselor might tell the kid it's OK to feel that way. “We don't think a school counselor has any business giving that sort of approval to a child,” says Lightfoot.

That last paragraph is a doozy. With attitudes like this, no wonder the incidence of suicide among gay teens has spiked up.

NC GOP Agrees with Science Quack, But Don't Want To Be Seen With Him

The notorious John Droz, the non-scientist who talked the GOP majority into rejecting science and denying sea-level rise on the NC coast, was at the capitol yesterday, but only three lawmakers showed up for his presentation, which was evidently short on science and long on radical conservative talking points.

Duly noted.

More anti-science shit to come anon from our General Assembly.

Chickens, Meet Your New Fox

Newly inaugurated Republican Governor Pat McCrory chose one Aldona Wos, a major campaign cash pipeline who used to be an appointed ambassador to Estonia under George W. Bush, to head up NC’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

She’s a medical doctor, so she should know something about health and human services. Plus she’s currently working for $1 a year. So far so good.

Dianna Lightfoot

But on Tuesday this week, Wos announced that a woman named Dianna Lightfoot had been appointed the state's new director of Child Development and Early Education. The post comes with a $110,000 annual salary.

Problems with Dianna Lightfoot emerged yesterday. The biggest problem is that she’s been a very public enemy of the very programs that she’s been hired to oversee.

The DHHS press release touting Ms. Lightfoot’s appointment prominently mentioned her presidency of an outfit called the National Physicians Center for Family Resources, a group that she herself founded in 2001. Digging into what the National Physicians Center actually advocates, Laura Leslie found some interesting language on the group’s website:

"There is great potential for early learning institutions to foster more dependency on the government (i.e. taxpayer) and more of an entitlement mentality .... Will institutions focus on character building and teaching strong values? If so, whose values will children be taught?"

So the woman put in charge of early childhood education in North Carolina is a standard-issue, radical government-hater who, under the guise of fearing institutional indoctrination, is willing to make children her own little clay puppets.

Minutes after reporters and other investigators starting looking at Dianna Lightfoot’s Twitter account and her Facebook page, those sources of evidence on her beliefs disappeared (though, of course, they live on in cyberspace). She’s revealed in her Twitter account, again, as a Central Casting ideological radical, a gay-hater, an Obama-despiser, a scenery-chewing, rigid conservative.

So much for Aldona Wos and her notion of human services in North Carolina.

BREAKING NEWS, 1 p.m.
RALEIGH, N.C. — McCrory administration appointee Dianna Lightfoot now says she will not take the job leading the state's pre-kindergarten program.

Measuring the Radicalism of the NC GOP

The Charlotte Observer published an editorial today about the Republican plan to disappear whole boards and commissions so that their own people can take over the watch-dogging (?) of important environmental and consumer protections. This is the first two paragraphs:

Elections have consequences, the old saw goes, and in North Carolina those consequences are limited only by Republican leaders’ imaginations. On Tuesday, the consequences expanded to include 131 heads on a platter. 

The Senate Rules Committee passed a bill on party lines Tuesday that fires every member of eight key boards and commissions. Once that dirty work is done, the bill states, the Republicans will replace them with their hand-picked substitutes.

One of the important commissions scheduled for this Soviet-era type sudden erasure is the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission (see post immediately down-column). The North Carolina Coastal Federation had something to say about the "Republican imagination" in this particular case:

A radical bill introduced [yesterday] in the N.C. Senate completely overturns decades of work by state lawmakers and governors to promote balance and partnerships into how the state manages its environment. 

Instead, Senate Bill 10 fires all existing members of the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) and N.C. Environmental Management Commission (EMC), replaces them with a much fewer number of members, and directs that new members will represent business and industry at the expense of local governments, scientists, fishermen, foresters, and coastal residents and vacationers. 

In the case of the CRC, existing requirements that a majority of its members not earn substantial income from coastal land development activities are being eliminated, along with a requirement that most of its members actually live at the coast. Moreover, the proposed bill may violate federal conflict of interest requirements that allow the EMC members and the state to enforce federal laws. This could mean that EPA will be forced to take over the review and enforcement of air and water quality permits in N.C.

“This is a power grab by a small handful of economic interests that profit off of the use of our environment,” said Todd Miller, executive director of the N.C. Coastal Federation. “It puts the foxes completely in charge of the hen house.”

The Governor will also lose much of his power to shape these administrative commissions. Four of the eleven CRC members will now be appointed by the legislature instead of the entire 15 members being appointed by the Governor as now occurs. In the case of the EMC, six of its 13 members would be appointed by the legislature. Currently, the Governor appoints 13 of the commission’s 19 members. 

“Over the years, state leaders from both parties have tried to form partnerships to balance all our state’s interests as a way to manage our environment,” Miller said. “The philosophy was to bring everyone to the table, and to work together to resolve vexing environmental needs and issues. This bill trashes that concept in favor of concentrating power among a much less diverse set of environmental stakeholders.”

The Clown College at the NC General Assembly does not lack for imagination, and the collective imagination down there is turning decidedly toward civic evil.

The Naked Power That Should Embarrass Every Fair-Minded North Carolinian

Senate Bill 10, passed on a party-line vote yesterday in a NC Senate committee, would simply fire all existing members of several key consumer and environmental boards and allow the Republican Governor to replace those members with his own partisans (more details below). "What have [board members] done to deserve being fired?" asked Sen. Josh Stein (D--Wake County). Chief sponsor of S10, Bill Rabon (R-Brunswick) answered rather frankly that the bill will give the Republicans "a political edge." No kidding! The boards subject to mass firings were created by the General Assembly to protect consumers, injured workers, and the environment. "They're going after everything so they can put their stamp on it," Sen. Stein warned. "Commissions are supposed to be independent; they're not supposed to be ideological. And I fear they're trying to politicize state government in a way that will hurt North Carolinians." Sen. Rabon's bill (S10) would fire all the existing members of the following important boards and commissions, and you have to guess what a wholly partisan membership, appointed by a Republican governor, will do once they're installed. (That's Sen. Rabon pictured to the left, looking extraordinarily unembarrassed.) The North Carolina Utilities Commission: regulates the rates and services of all public utilities in North Carolina, including electric, telephone, natural gas, water, wastewater, water resale, household goods transportation, busses, brokers, and ferryboats. The Environmental Management Commission: responsible for adopting rules for the protection, preservation and enhancement of the state's air and water resources. The Coastal Resources Commission: establishes policies for the N.C. Coastal Management Program and adopts implementing rules for both CAMA and the N.C. Dredge and Fill Act. The commission designates areas of environmental concern, adopts rules and policies for coastal development within those areas, and certifies local land-use plans. The North Carolina Lottery Commission: supervises and administers the education lottery. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission: conserves North Carolina’s wildlife resources and their habitats and provides programs and opportunities that allow hunters, anglers, boaters, and other outdoor enthusiasts to enjoy wildlife-associated recreation.

The Irrelevance of Pat McCrory, Part II

RALEIGH – The Republican-controlled N.C. Senate gave initial approval Monday night to a bill that would keep the state government from carrying out elements of President Barack Obama’s federal health care overhaul despite the reservations of new Gov. Pat McCrory.

The party-line 31-17 vote in favor of the legislation occurred when Republican Senate leaders decided to move ahead with the bill despite receiving a letter hours earlier from McCrory’s legislative lobbyist urging more time to consider how the current bill could harm the state financially.

“We believe additional time is necessary to evaluate the serious financial ramifications of (the bill) to North Carolina taxpayers,” said former N.c. Rep. Fred Steen, officially the governor’s legislative liaison.

But legislative leaders said the content of the bill – to block expansion of Medicaid under the health care overhaul and leave it to the federal government to build the state’s online marketplace for health insurance – was important enough to move ahead. The second of two required votes was expected before the bill heads to the N.C. House....

[Source: Rocky Mount Telegram, emphasis added]

"The Irrelevance," Part I

Economic and Humanitarian Folly

Medical doctors are lining up to speak against the plan of the gerrymandered radicals in the NC General Assembly to slam the door shut on the Affordable Care Act. The NC Senate is due to take up the matter at 7 p.m. tonight:

“This decision, besides being mean-spirited, will increase the costs to all North Carolinians. The Affordable Care Act, by providing access to care for thousands more North Carolinians, will keep citizens out the hospitals and emergency rooms, thus reducing costs. When an uninsured patient is treated, those costs are passed on to North Carolinians with insurance. Hence your rates will continue to go up and up every year. The decision by the Governor and the legislature may at first appear to be penny wise, but it is decidedly pound foolish.” 

Charles Van Der Horst, MD
UNC Professor of Medicine

The Senate bill is S4. Senate member Dan Soucek's telephone number is (919) 733-5742.

The Irrelevance of Pat McCrory

It took just three days for Pat McCrory to go from promising, young, forward-thinking Republican governor of North Carolina ... to a bumbling cypher, ignored by his own Republican super-majority in the General Assembly and led into public blunders by operatives smarter than he.

Soon after his election, the new governor said (through a spokesman) that he wanted “to fully understand the long-term implications of Medicaid expansion” (i.e., signing on to Obamacare) before he decided what he wanted to do about it. (Bev Perdue had taken first steps toward setting up a state-Federal partnership). Before he could decide, the spokesman said, McCrory “will be reaching out and consulting advisers, experts and other governors about the best way forward.”

That apparently sounded like dangerous moderation to the radical Republican leaders in the General Assembly. They didn’t wait. They didn’t defer to their own governor’s wishes to be deliberative. They didn’t acknowledge that the governor’s “study of the issue” deserved any forbearance. Rather, they declared, in effect, that they had made up the governor’s mind for him. Extremist anti-Obamacare bills were filed on the first day of the session (Wednesday) in both houses of the General Assembly, to block both the expansion of Medicaid and NC's participation in the creation of any health exchanges under the Federal Affordable Care Act.

The Republican extremists are slamming this door fast, despite ample evidence that their spite will hurt the state’s economy, not to mention its hospitals. According to the consultants at Regional Economic Models Inc., North Carolina's participation in the Affordable Care Act would:

1. Create approximately 25,000 new jobs
2. Increase annual state GDP by $1.3 – $1.7 billion a year
3. Increase total state revenues by $497 million by 2021
4. Save $159 million over the next two years (and $65 million overall for the next 10 years)

Instead of manning up and objecting to the radicals’ legislative folly, McCrory was instead playing Tickle Me Elmo with a right-wing talk radio yakker and delivering himself of a perfectly ill-timed attack on higher education generally and on female academics at UNC-Chapel Hill specifically.

Then, to enhance his self-image of slick operator, McCrory chose Rocky Mount, a place with 12.5% unemployment, to announce that he would by golly yes sign another self-destructive law being fast-tracked in the legislature, a radical overhaul of the unemployment insurance system. Did we say “overhaul”? It’s more of a deconstruction. It will throw some 81,000 workers off unemployment in July and impose some other high hoops for laid-off workers to jump through. Meanwhile – and this is pure economic genius, Republican-style – the new law will remove another $100 million in Federal dollars from the state’s economy. That’s $100 million for groceries, gas, and incidentals that even unemployed folks still need.

Instead of improving the state’s economy, the Republicans are systematically making it much, much worse out of an ideological extremism that knows neither bounds nor logic.

(You should also be reminded that even before his cabinet selections could get on the job, the governor raised their salaries 8% on average, because you can scarely afford catered cocktail parties on $125,000 per annum.)

This unemployment insurance demolition was pushed, and the law was actually written behind closed doors, mainly by the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, so McCrory naturally chose a Chamber of Commerce event in Rocky Mount to make his tone-deaf declaration that unemployed workers are just going to have to start boiling more treebark to live.

Is it not clear? McCrory is never, evah going to challenge the Republican Death Eaters in the General Assembly, which makes him totally irrelevant. They don’t need him. They can override any veto.

If he had an ounce of gumption, a sliver of moderation, a scintilla of a vision for North Carolina as a progressive state in the 21st Century, rather than an uptight and religiously motivated cyst of backwardness, fear, ignorance, and bigotry, he’d make a stand.

He’s beginning to resemble an on-commission car salesman who managed to get into the Country Club – he thinks on his charm – but he can’t resist always having one too many drinks.

Either the governor has ideas different  from the radicals and is afraid to express them, which is bad, or he agrees with their handling of the economy and social issues, which is much worse.

Futile Gestures Dept.

To get the gist of what's to follow, you need to do one piece of homework on Glen Bradley.

Bradley was one of the new Tea Party crowd elected to the NC General Assembly in 2010. He's was so far out there that Republican Thom Tillis quickly pegged him as an embarrassment (mainly, to his own self-image), so none of Bradley's legislative dreams went anywhere.

Then the Party honchos redistricted him out of his own district, one of a very small handful of Republicans dissed in that way by the leadership.

Bradley promptly filed to run in his new Senate district, lost a primary against a more popular Republican, and has now thrown his hat into the ring to become a high officer of the North Carolina Republican Party.

Yeah, that's going to happen!