The Evolution of Deborah Greene

Back in 2001-2002, Deborah Greene led the county forces who were against land-use planning to protect the citizens/homeowners from polluting industries, specifically (and most especially) asphalt plants. We were fighting on the other side.

Deborah Greene won that battle and in the process managed the defeat of county commissioners Sue Sweeting and Pat Wilkie in the fall of 2002, lambasting those two women as "pro-zoning."

Deborah Greene was a formidable opponent, the best organizer and strategist that the local Republicans had -- smart, capable, and effective.

Last night at yet another public hearing before the Watauga County Commission on yet another proposed Maymead asphalt plant, I heard Deborah Greene repent. She said, "I'm ashamed to say today that I opposed the group [Citizens Against Pollution] that fought an asphalt plant at Roby Greene Road because I was afraid that my farm would be zoned. I'm older and wiser today."

"If it takes zoning to stop it [the newest Maymead asphalt plant]," Greene said in closing, "then zone it!"

Goes to show that there really are "second acts" in America. And that Maymead now has another potent force lined up against their power and their greed.

FOOTNOTE
Several speakers at last night's public hearing mentioned ruefully that there had been no public notice nor public hearing when Maymead first decided it would put an asphalt plant on the Doc & Merle Watson Scenic Byway in close proximity to residential development.

It might interest current County Commissioners that, as originally proposed, the High Impact Land Use Ordinance did include public notice and a public hearing for those negatively affected by the location of a polluting industry. That provision was removed by the Republican-dominated County Commission of that day (as Jimmy Hodges might well remember, since he was sitting on the Commission at that time, as a Democrat).

That public notice/public hearing provision should be reinstated now.

Inside the Watauga GOP

The local Republican Party held an event last night at the Fairway Cafe on the Boone golf course, and Jimmy Hodges stood up and said he was changing his party affiliation and will run for County Commissioner in 2014 from Nathan Miller's Meat Camp district.

Jimmy Hodges was a registered Democrat when he sat on the County Commission from 1996-2004. He retired from the real estate business in 2009.

Our snitch said that all three Republican Boone Town Council candidates -- Mark Templeton, Matt Long, and James Milner -- were there, and they spoke. Candidate for Boone Mayor John Mena was not there, even though he's been publicly endorsed by the party chair Anne Marie Yates. County Commissioner David Blust announced that he will be running for reelection in 2014. Current County Commission Chair Nathan Miller spoke about his candidacy for District Attorney. According to my source, "He trashed the local DA's office." Britt Springer, a Republican member of that office and also a candidate for DA, was there, and at first party chair Anne Marie Yates was not going to allow her to speak, but Springer insisted. Snitch sez, "Springer knocked it out of the park."

No word on how many ASU College Republicans made it out to the golf course, but the local party was offering free tickets to any member of that club who wrote an email to the State Board of Elections supporting the selection of Legends nightclub for the Boone 2 polling place. Caroline Hartman is the president of the ASU College Republicans, and she's a good soldier:

Meanwhile, Republican insurgents are calling for the removal of Anne Marie Yates from her position as chair of the local party and spilling certain beans about a now notorious August 29 meeting (about which we had already heard from party insurgent and perennial pariah, Deborah Greene).

The Latest Revelation from the Watauga Republican Convention

In her most recent comment (beginning, "Another interesting fact"), on the thread under her own letter to the editor which spilled some beans about the Watauga County Republican Convention (and the behavior of one, Virginia Anne Foxx, 5th Dist. Rep.), Deborah Greene says the Convention buried a call for a Code of Ethics for Watauga County Commissioners. We agree a Code of Ethics is long overdue, much needed, and might have hampered some earlier behavior.

There's some implication that Commission Chair Nathan Miller does not want a county Code of Ethics.

Hmmm.

Dirty Laundry

The Watauga Tea Party uprising against Virginia Foxx grows, if not by leaps and bounds, at least by leaps.

Add the local GOP establishment to what is being rose up against.

And don't fail to read the comments at the end.

Watauga GOP Fumbles on the 1-Yard Line

The local Republican convention apparently came off not with a bang but a whimper.

Insurgent candidate for Vice Chair of the local Party, Casey Miller, lost, having been nominated by the inflammable Nate DiCola and despite the support of our other favorite bomb-thrower Deborah Greene. You can read the comments posted on Watauga Conservative for color-commentary.

The Watauga Democrat coverage contains this interesting bit of detail:

A final draft resolution regarding extraterritorial jurisdiction in Watauga County was defeated by a voice vote. The resolution called upon the legislature to require towns such as Boone either to annex property in its ETJ or to abolish ETJs altogether. 

The resolution read in part, "The Town of Boone has misused its Extraterritorial Jurisdiction authority to unduly infringe on the rights of property owners in the ETJ in an arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable manner solely for the aesthetical preferences of some Boone residents." 

Jeff Templeton, a member of the Boone Planning Board, urged Republicans present not to vote for the resolution despite having drafted parts of it himself. He said he agreed completely with the statements in the resolution but said it would only provide fodder for the opposition if passed. 

"I know how it's going to be used against us if we pass it," Templeton said. 

Jean Di Cola also proposed an additional resolution calling for relocation of one-stop voting sites to "equalize voting opportunities," but it died for lack of second.

The hesitation to drive in the wooden stake on Boone's ETJ (perhaps because the GOP in the NC General Assembly is doing it for them?) suggests several things: (a) that Jeff Templeton is having second thoughts; (b) that the politics of removing developmental protections from residents of the ETJ has not panned out the way they thought it would; (c) someone laced the morning coffee with Xanax, and the DiColas are strictly tea-drinkers.

The Attack on Early Voting in North Carolina

Conservatives don't like Early Voting, and their hand-maidens in the North Carolina Republican Party are doing what they can to curtail it. The Republican-controlled NC General Assembly refused to "match" a $4 million grant from the Federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) -- a "match" of $660,000 -- because Sen. Andrew Brock of Mocksville decided, against all evidence to the contrary, that the state's election machinery just didn't need it.

Every local Board of Elections in the state is now facing decisions about cutting off Early Voting sites, or limiting their hours, or both. In Wake County, where some 57% of registered voters voted early in 2008 (and you know whom the majority voted for, right? which explains the conservative hostility), the County Commission gave the Board of Elections about half of what it needs to fund and maintain just the early voting sites that were open four years ago. We're watching their struggle to maintain ballot access rather than cave to the Republican grand scheme of making the act of voting as difficult as possible.

"Grand scheme"? You betcha! It's national in scope, and it's organized, right down to our local stop-ASU-students-from-voting campaign organized by Deborah Greene. Ari Berman has done outstanding reporting on the whole sorry chapter in our recent history.

Deborah Greene, Candidate

Deborah Greene, candidate for Watauga County School Board, came in fifth of seven candidates in the May 8th primary. She led the effort in Watauga County to pass the anti-gay amendment, and she lost that fight. Since then she’s been expanding her base thusly:

1. Attacking Appalachian State University students as “useful idiots” and “the little sheep” bleating “baah baah baah” as they vote. Greene has demanded that the state Board of Elections and the local Board of Elections shut down all future Early Voting sites on the ASU campus.

2. Attacking the Watauga County Republican Party: “What Republican Party? There isn’t one,” she wrote on the Watauga Conservative on Monday.

3. Attacking specific Republican Party candidates as non-conservatives, specifically Tommy Adams, who is running for County Commission and who evidently opposed Ms. Greene’s beloved “marriage amendment.”

4. Attacking the Town of Boone and its “goons,” by which she appears to mean the citizens who serve without pay on the Planning Board and the Board of Adjustment. She has been the primary cheerleader for Sen. Dan Soucek’s disgraceful Senate Bill 949, The Big Developer Enablement Act of 2012.

5. Insulting the residents of Roby Greene Road as selfish “urbanites” for fighting the location of an asphalt plant in their neighborhood

Ms. Greene’s most recent postings on Watauga Conservative reveal that she sees the 2012 elections as a holy war by “the rural people” against ... well ... pretty much everyone else. It’s a somewhat strange electoral strategy on her part to seek an elected office by self-consciously narrowing her voter base. (Note on Deborah Greene's blog activity: She regularly posts under a variety of screen names and may well be the majority poster on Watauga Conservative.)

She’s announced, for example, that “Allen Trivette's 194 Tire is the Meat Camp headquarters for conservative candidates only (others not welcome)”  (Watauga Conservative, June 11). OTHERS NOT WELCOME could be Deborah Greene’s candidate slogan. We expect to see it on yard signs any day now.

Deborah Greene Launches a New Crusade

Notorious tea-partier and candidate for the Watauga County School Board Deborah Greene, fresh off her victory lap after finishing 5th among seven candidates in the May 8th primary, has launched a new front: shutting down Early Voting on the campus of Appalachian State University.

To make the case, she is claiming that Early Voting sites in the Town of Boone actually victimize “the rural people.” Greene understands very well the utility of victimhood in mounting any campaign. After all, she repeatedly claimed to be the victim of gay people because they unaccountably and rudely thought they deserved the same right she enjoys to get married. Such a desire on their part supposedly victimized her value system, and she wrapped herself tight in religious cloth as she led that other crusade locally to pass Amendment 1.

Amendment 1 failed in Watauga County, even though “the rural people” turned out in very strong numbers on May 8th to vote for it. “The rural people” did not, however, vote with equal, religious fervor to put Deborah Greene on the School Board. Go figure. Perhaps there’s some understanding out there that putting a professional wreckingball on the school board might not be the most salutary step the voters could take for education. Personally, I don’t want someone running our schools who publicly and loudly believes that officially discriminating against a despised minority is blessed by God and sanctioned by our U.S. Constitution.

Rather than putting forward a positive platform for improving our schools, Ms. Greene has evidently decided that the path to personal power in her case is the demolition of the rights of others. If Pat McCrory wins the governorship, and if he has both a Republican NC House and NC Senate to help him turn back the clocks, he will sign bills to severely limit or shut down all Early Voting everywhere, end same-day-registration, and impose a voter ID law to disenfranchise most college students (not to mention many of the elderly, minorities, and poor people). Will that satisfy Deborah Greene? Probably not, but if McCrory becomes governor, you can bet there will be no polling place at all anywhere near campus, either during Early Voting nor on Election Day.

Greene’s history of opposing the student vote predates this current crusade. Not many years ago, when she was still a registered Republican, she got herself appointed a Republican precinct judge in one of the ASU precincts with the clear agenda of obstructing as much of the student vote as she could manage. That did not go well for her, and she soon gave up the office, though she hasn’t given up the quest.

ASU students voted for neither Amendment 1 nor for Deborah Greene, which might draw the attention of State Board of Elections officials, if Ms. Greene’s “petition” to shut down Early Voting on campus makes it all the way to that official governing body. Naked self-interest has rarely stood so clearly in the spotlight. The State Board of Elections might justifiably conclude that Ms. Greene is not nearly as interested in increasing the rural vote as she is in decreasing the student vote.

Duke Energy CEO Compares Amendment 1 to Jim Crow Laws

Not exactly a Democratic crowd that Duke CEO Jim Rogers was talking to yesterday at the Carmel Country Club in Charlotte, where 300 business executives had gathered for lunch.

“If this amendment passes, we’re going to look back 20 years from now, or 10 years from now, and we’re going to think about that amendment the same way we think about the Jim Crow laws that were passed in this state many, many years ago,” Rogers said to applause.

For those of you who didn't know Jim Crow, the Charlotte Observer provides a helpful summary: "Jim Crow laws were those passed in the South between 1876 and 1965 that mandated racial segregation in all public facilities, which had the effect of turning African Americans into second-class citizens."

Deborah Greene, Dan Soucek, Jonathan Jordan, and the rest of that cohort don't want to admit that simple fact, that what they're calling the "Save Marriage Amendment" would in fact enshrine second-class citizenship in our state's Constitution and would do absolutely nothing to save their marriages or anybody else's.

Quote of the Week

From a couple of folks who are not at all friendly to the idea of same-sex marriage (read their credentials here) but who nevertheless see the threats to freedom in Amendment 1 that Deborah Greene is blind to:

...If you disdain gay and lesbian persons, and don’t care whether they and their families remain permanently outside of the protection of our laws, such a policy might be your cup of tea. But it’s not our view, and we doubt that it’s the view of most North Carolinians....

Answering Deborah Greene

Deborah Greene is the well known Tea Party activist in Watauga County who opposed “high-impact industry” zoning in 2002, who opposed construction of the new Watauga High School a few years ago, who opposed the quarter-cent sales tax increase proposed by the Republican county commissioners last year (after it appeared the money might go to the school system), and who is now the leader for getting Amendment 1 passed here in the May 8th primary election. Oh, yeah, and she wants a seat on our county Board of Education and is running in the May 8th primary.

She had a great deal to say down-column on Amendment 1, in three different posts (under the piece titled “Where the Pro-Discrimination Folks Are Getting Their Talking Points.”

1. Greene clears one thing up pretty quickly and definitively: Amendment 1 is all about writing the dictates of her religion into the state’s Constitution (her protestations to the contrary notwithstanding). “We know what God says,” writes Greene. That “we” contracts and expands rather freely, I’ve noticed, and is mighty susceptible to politics, especially the politics of the moment (not to mention the charisma of certain religious preachers). On that basis alone, and in the shadow of a long history in our Republic of separating Church from State, I would have to oppose her Amendment and her religious, busy-body stewing over the private lives of fellow citizens.

2. Greene writes, “Why did government think it was necessary to define marriage at all? Government saw the need, for the common good, to establish a law that would protect children and promote/encourage the family. Yes, we have divorce; but, we have divorce laws.”

Government is involved in marriage because marriage is a legal contract, with remedies for breach (adultery) and rules for dissolution (divorce and child custody when children are involved). Contract law is a good deal less “sacred” and a good deal more practical than Greene seems to understand or acknowledge.

Understanding that marriage is a contract should help Greene understand why her Amendment 1 would violate the rights of people legally prevented from entering into that contract and thereby having remedies for damages due to breach and no access to orderly dissolution (not to mention the several benefits given to married couples via tax law, etc.). She either doesn’t get that or is being deliberately obtuse.

3. Greene ties herself into syntactical knots, double negatives, and impenetrable meaning when she addresses discrimination: “Not discriminating is treating same-sex couples equally without going against God’s law.”

I’ve read that sentence repeatedly and have decided that it’s the result of not wanting to admit that she’s perfectly happy and prepared to practice discrimination against a minority via our state’s Constitution, but she doesn’t want to admit it, so she once again hauls in God to cover herself.

Amendment 1 & the Law of Unintended Consequences

The people who justify legal discrimination against a minority of our state's citizens (via Amendment 1) scream hysterically about "activist judges" (who supposedly are poised just off-shore waiting for the perfect surprise moment to force everyone into gay unions). But the unleashing of activist judges is exactly what the passage of Amendment 1 promises to achieve.

So says a prominent Charlotte attorney, Russell M. Robinson II, the founding partner of Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, P.A. He wrote in the Charlotte Observer yesterday, "The proposed amendment is so poorly worded and so unnecessary that its adoption would actually increase the probability of a federal court invalidating its ban on same-sex marriage."

Mr. Robinson also emphasizes what many others have warned about, the broad, vague, undefined language of the amendment which will invite many lawsuits and hence the arrival of all those activist judges, wading ashore with their opinions locked and loaded:

...the proposed constitutional amendment widely prohibits any “domestic union” that is not a marriage between a man and a woman, with an exception added later saying that it “does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party” (apparently even including same-sex parties). All of that language is so absurdly broad and unclear that it threatens to disrupt a wide range of domestic and family relationships, together with benefits dependent on those relationships. It will undoubtedly provoke multiple lawsuits to determine what it means, and it can also deter businesses from moving to North Carolina because of the uncertainty of our law in this important area....

Robinson also tucks in a neat little lesson in Biblical truth that the Deborah Greenes of this world might want to read and heed:

Writing religious beliefs into law to enforce them against everybody has created terrible problems down through history, and is still doing so in some parts of the world. It is also condemned by the Bible in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans (4:14-15), which says that such beliefs are matters of faith, not law, “because law brings wrath.” This attempt to put a religious belief into our state constitution is thus contrary to a clear New Testament command and is already bringing wrath to us all.

Modern Politics Is All About Wedges

That's not a quote from Deborah Greene, but she certainly knows the truth of it.

Revealed today by reporter Laura Leslie is an internal document from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) which speaks frankly of at least one of the political strategies being used in North Carolina to put civil rights discrimination into the North Carolina Constitution by way of Amendment 1:

"The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks – two Key Democratic constituencies,” says the report. 

“Find, equip, energize, and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots," the report instructs. “No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party.”

In these mountains, the forces of blue-nosed repression don't need this particular wedge. All they need are the regular church-goers who'll believe what their preachers say and fall obediently into line to "save marriage," completely ignoring the philandering and divorce in their own ranks which have done a sight more to destroy marriage than the love and commitment between two people of the same sex.

Who’s Pushing Amendment 1 in Watauga County?

Watauga County political activist Deborah Greene annouced Thursday on the Watauga Conservative blog that she is heading up the get-out-the-vote effort to pass Amendment 1 on the May 8th primary election ballot. Since she is herself also on that primary ballot, running as a Tea Party independent for the Watauga County School Board, she will also, as a happy coincidence, be promoting herself to the same voters who are terrified of gay people and who think extending civil rights to them would mean the end of Christian civilization, such as it is. She ended her announcement on Watauga Conservative with these words: “In His Service.”

Deborah Greene emerged on the political scene in Watauga County in a big way back in 2001-2002. She was a registered Republican then, and she organized effectively against the big issue of that day, land-use planning (“zoning”) to control the location of polluting industries such as asphalt plants. She quickly established herself as the best political strategist and operative that the local Republicans had, and she managed to destroy the careers of two incumbent women on the Watauga County Commission.

Her battle cry at the time was individual liberty, the freedom of the “little guy” against big government, and her alleged libertarian instincts subsequently fueled her split with the local Republican Party. She has made it known that after she wins a seat on the school board this November, she intends to use it as a stepping stone to running against incumbent Watauga County Commission Chair (Republican) Nathan Miller in 2012. As a one-woman wrecking crew, her talents are manifest. She is a genius of destruction.

All of which makes her embrace of Amendment 1 -- “In His Service” -- an opportunistic, fundamentally dishonest, and manipulative political move, done under cover of piety. It’s lower than we’ve personally seen Deborah Greene stoop before. Amendment 1 will take away rights from heterosexual people who choose not to get married but who nevertheless have children, property, and emotional bonds in common. It will also, of course, deny human and civil rights to gay couples who want to enter into legal unions under the law. Above everything else, it’s an occasion for the majority to vote on the rights of a minority, a vote that violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

It’s the “gay part” of Amendment 1, naturally, that Ms. Greene counts on to fuel her ascension into public office on the school board. She is a master of exploiting fear, of conjuring dark conspiracies, of demonizing one group of citizens to stroke the egos of another group of citizens who know considerably less than she does. She did it with the anti-zoning hysteria in 2002, promoting every wild-ass rumor about farmers being prevented from working on their tractors in their yards. She ginned up those rumors and poured them into the ears of “low-information  voters” who believed it all because it scratched their personal itch to hate, fear, and resent uppity “outsiders.”

In other words, Amendment 1 is absolutely ripe for Deborah Greene’s picking. Which does not make her a hero of individual rights, a consistent libertarian, nor an admirable human being. I, who have at times acknowledged her political skills (if not her ability to write clear expository prose), am ashamed of her. Her craven exploitation of “queer fear” does not qualify her for any elective office.

“In His Service”? No, in service of her own political ambitions and the feathering of her own nest.

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.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Republicans

At his press conference yesterday afternoon, Watauga County Commission Chair Jim Deal named some prominent local Republicans who agree with him about the wisdom of passing the referendum to raise local sales taxes by 1/4th of a penny: Joe Miller, Dale Greene, Rob Holton, Kenneth Wilcox.

In this current context of Tea Party extremism, that mention by Jim Deal suddenly redefined those gentlemen as "moderate" Republicans. Believing that one of the noble activities of government is to increase the public's ownership of infrastructure which enhances the lives of the people through education and recreation has become official heresy to the Watauga GOP. So we guess that as of approximately 4:45 p.m. yesterday afternoon, Miller, Greene, Holton, and Wilcox are now officially heretics.

Men like Miller, Greene, Holton, and Wilcox don't run the local Republican Party. The people currently running it owe their allegiance to the kind-hearted philosophy of Virginia Foxx, though they appear to be taking their actual local marching orders from tea partiers and from one government-hater in particular. All the energy roused up against the 1/4th of a penny hike in sales taxes is due to the organizing and agitating talents of Deborah Greene, who for whatever reasons changed her party affiliation on March 22nd of this year from "Republican" to "Unaffiliated." It is somewhat paradoxical that the longest running Energizer bunny behind the local GOP is actually not now a registered Republican. (Oh right: the Tea Party "is not a partisan movement." Got it!)

The anti-tax forces also owe David Blust as a prime organizer, and he's very much a face of the local Republican Party (as well as the face of the local Tea Party -- so much for that non-partisan claim). Commission Chair Deal mentioned Blust's name twice yesterday during his press conference. It was Blust who essentially got tagged with the "misinformation, legitimate questions, wild rumors, and outright lies" that Mr. Deal said were being deliberately bandied about in an effort to sink any possibility of a county recreation center and an eastern community center in the Deep Gap area. Blust (for the record) also opposed and voted against the new high school when he had an opportunity to do something constructive for the citizens (and actual power as a County Commissioner in 2005 and 2006), and he was, incidentally, also deeply involved in the attempted Templeton takeover of the Boone Town Council in 2007.

In other words, Blust has quite the reactionary record to run on this year, as he tries to rewarm that seat on the County Commission. He thinks loud opposition to building the infrastructure of Watauga is his ticket back into office.

Mr. Deal spent a good deal of time yesterday correcting the misinformation, unfounded rumors, and outright lies of the David Blust/Deborah Greene anti-tax insurgency, and he did a clear and concise job of it. Not that half the audience was even listening. They were mentally preparing their own verbal rejoinders, accusations, and slogans to hurl back, and when Mr. Deal did not give them that formal opportunity, they shouted and stomped their feet anyway and cried that it wasn't fair that a press conference called by Mr. Deal did not include opportunities for them to proclaim their own reality.

Watauga Democrat account of the press conference is here. A much more detailed account is on GoBlueRidge.

Party Like It's 2002!

Deborah Greene was last heard from in this county in a major way as a leader of the R.I.D. group (as in RID Ourselves of a New High School), who tried every body block they could think of to prevent the building of the new high school (officially opened by The Guv in a ribbon-cutting ceremony last Friday, despite Ms. Greene's best efforts). Before that, in her "No Zoning" crusade of 2001-2002, she rocked another hobby horse that lent itself to creative scare tactics.

She's baaack!

And going ballistic like it was 2002. What's got her all het up is the proposed quarter-cent hike in the sales tax. Un-shy in her opportunism, she's grabbed the "Tea Party" label to promote herself as our savior from unfair taxation. She's started her own Political Action Committee (PAC) and is soliciting money for print ads, bumperstickers -- the whole hyped-up, morally outraged, politically indignant schmeer.

All over 1/4 of a single cent more in sales tax.

It's the principle of the thing, though. Clearly.

If you give her PAC $50 or more to help memorialize her anti-tax crusade, you'll also have to divulge your name, address, employer, etc. for Ms. Greene's PAC filing reports. Just for comparison's sake, if the quarter-cent hike in sales taxes passes, you'll have to spend some $20,000 in retail purchases to add up $50 more in local sales tax.

Me? It'll take me many moons of frenzied retail buying to pay out that extra $50 in increased sales taxes, and I think I'd prefer it go to infrastructure improvements in Watauga County than to Ms. Greene's PAC.