Our Shallow and Insincere Governor

Pat McCrory opens his mouth (more than he should, obviously) and out come statements that launch a thousand editorials and blog posts. His brain (such as it is) appears to be disconnected from his mouth, or he simply lacks any filtering mechanism by which he might -- but doesn't -- measure his words for their ramifications.

He lies, because he wants everything to seem rosy: On Charlotte's WFAE this week, McCrory said that he and the new Republican majority in the NC General Assembly did not cut unemployment benefits. A whopper.

He mimics Orwellian "language management": "We didn’t shorten the early voting, we compacted the calendar.”

He is amazingly tone-deaf: About his famous cookie caper and the women outside his mansion protesting his abortion bill, he said, “I don’t care, I felt like doing it. Who cares?”

Meanwhile, Governor Eddie Haskell's minions are charging big bucks for public records requests, in violation of the spirit of our open government statute and as a clear attempt to make access to information more difficult.

His other minions in the Art Pope arm of his administration are meanwhile harassing a UNC-Chapel Hill law professor for daring to criticize The Guv.

Associating McCrory with Eddie Haskell may actually be giving him too much credit, since Eddie was too young to know how transparent he was. McCrory is old enough to know better.

The Pope's Bare Knuckles

Pope Francis is finding his groove. In a new "apostolic exhortation" (Evangelii Gaudium, for all you Latin geeks), specially "Chapter Two" of that exhortation, the Pope weighs libertarianism in the balance and finds it wanting.

Libertarianism ... the philosophy that puts "market-forces" over all else, the mind-set that has defined the Tea Party from the get-go, the politics of "let them eat grass."

This is what Pope Francis said (in part -- his exhorting goes on for many thousands of words):

Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape .... In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system .... While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules .... In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule....

Beware the "deified market," saith the Pope, and I do believe His Holiness just endorsed the Dodd-Frank "Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act."

So we reckon that Sarah Palin was right: the new Pope's a liberal. I'll light a candle to that! Hell, I'll light two.

Thom Tillis Doesn't Show at "The Stupid Candidates" Tea Party

Back earlier this year, discredited Republican king-maker Karl Rove said on Fox News, "Our object is to avoid having stupid candidates who can't win general elections, who are undisciplined, can't raise money, aren't putting together the support necessary to win a general election campaign."

Rove was announcing that he and the big donors behind his Crossroads Super PAC were going to be recruiting Republican candidates who looked good and knew how to keep their traps shut, hiding their extreme views until they get onto the floor of the U.S. Senate, and then let their freak flag fly!

One of the slicksters that Rove decided to anoint was Speaker of the NC House Thom Tillis, who has been struggling for traction but who is now blessed with not one but four Tea Party challengers, including one certifiable prober of women's vaginas, one God-addled crusader against gays, one talk radio screecher, and one woman who seems to have wandered in from a 1950s taping of "Queen for a Day." With that congregation against him, Tillis is guaranteed a win in next May's primary.

But never mind that. The circus pulled up in Gastonia last night -- the four Tea Partiers with Tillis absent -- and they left their Maalox at home. It was all acid reflux all the time. They stripped the wax off the floor.

Oh Tillis was invited all right, but he was otherwise engaged with none other than Karl Rove, who's been in our state raising money for his "not stupid" candidate Tillis. Did we say there was heartburn in Gastonia last night? The mere presence of Karl Rove within our state's boundaries was enough for at least two of the Tea Party candidates to belch fire. We hear the curtains burst into flame.

If They Can't Beat You, They'll Shut You Up

Rampant Anne Marie Yates-ism breaking out all over our state. Civitas goes after the emails of a UNC law professor, immediately after he writes a column critical of Governor Squishy.

Art Pope had nothing to do with it, right?

Town of Boone v. The Tea Party

Town of Boone officials and Watauga County Commissioners met last night over the process for making Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) appointments to Boone's boards and commissions, as required by law. Jesse Wood's coverage in the High Country Press is thorough and detailed.

County Commission Chair Nathan Miller's extreme Tea Party philosophy was on full display. He does not believe in any land-use planning regulations. He made that abundantly clear.

Bottomline: It doesn't matter which ETJ residents the Town of Boone recommends for its Planning Commission and its Board of Adjustment. The three Republicans on the County Commission are going to reject those recommendations and appoint people hostile to Boone's development regulations. Always.

Perry Yates, who often doesn't seem to realize what he's revealing about himself when he speaks, said it was "discrimination" that the county might have to jump through an extra hoop (a public hearing) in order to appoint men to Boone's Board of Adjustment who disagree with the town's development ordinances. Discrimination.

Think about that for one minute. Appointees to the Board of Adjustment are sworn in as quasi-judicial officials. They serve as judges, and the law they interpret and apply is Boone's Unified Development Ordinance. In effect, Perry Yates was saying he wanted to appoint judges who not only won't uphold the law but who despise the law.

Let's call this what it is: nullification, the highly popular theory and attempted practice among Tea Party types everywhere. Nullification is the philosophical viewpoint that if you don't like a law, then by Gawd you don't have to follow it.

Nathan Miller, Perry Yates, David Blust, and the entire Templeton clan lost the recent election, in which they attempted to install nullifiers into office in Boone. What is left to them in their toolkit of nullification is their ability to screw with the law by appointing judges who don't believe in the law.

This ain't new. The current crisis of "communication" between town and county was precipitated in April 2011 when the town of Boone forwarded recommendations to the County for appointment to the Planning Commission and the Board of Adjustment. One of those recommended ETJ residents had previous experience on a planning board, a zoning board, and a board of adjustment. Another had work experience in rural and urban development. A third, a nationally noted environmentalist living in the ETJ, was explicitly rejected by Commissioner Nathan Miller because "he agrees with the town's planning ordinances."

In that famous April meeting, the County Commission (with Commissioner Jim Deal voting no) rejected the town's qualified recommendations and appointed two men who had not even applied and another man who lived in the town of Boone and not in the ETJ.

Yet it is Nathan Miller who can always work himself up into a ziggurut of wounded self-righteousness in his approach to the town of Boone. And, ironically, this is the Man Who Would Be District Attorney, if he can get the people of this judicial district to vote him into office next year.

Yeah, I want this man applying the law!

Author Isabel Allende Enters School Reading Controversy

An extraordinary letter written by author Isabel Allende to the Watauga County School Board has come to light (hattip: GH). The letter, with an accompanying article detailing the Watauga County controversy over her first novel, "House of the Spirits," was published in School Library Journal.

The SLJ article mentions the dismissive rants that Watauga County commissioners David Blust, Nathan Miller, and Perry Yates heaped on the book last Friday, calling for its censorship. With cause then, Allende wrote in her letter, "Banning of books is a common practice in police states, like Cuba or North Korea, and by religious fundamentalist groups like the Taliban, but I did not expect it in our democracy."

(Jesse Wood's coverage in the High Country Press also includes the complete text of Allende's letter.)

Another Political Hack/McCrory Crony Put in Charge of Clean Water Trust Fund

How do you telegraph your total indifference to protecting the environment in North Carolina, and specifically safeguarding its remaining pristine water sources? If you're the incompetent and clueless governor, you appoint the husband of one of your other employees, a man who is demonstrably unqualified for the job. How unqualified? So unqualified that it's a literal violation of the statute to appoint him.

The Man. Bryan Gossage, 38, who served eight years on the Apex Town Council, ran unsuccessfully for the General Assembly in 2008, and is now appointed by McCrory as the director of the newly created Office of Land and Water Stewardship which includes the Clean Water Management Trust Fund. In this job, Gossage makes $78,000 per annum. Last May, he was named as a "deputy secretary in charge of innovation support" (a fancy way of saying "public relations flack"?) at the N.C. Commerce Department. That job disappeared following a reorganization of that agency. But never mind: Gossage had a close personal friend in a very high place.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/11/19/3388060/experience-of-nc-water-fund-chief.html#storylink=cpy

The Wife. Chloe Gossage, policy director for Pat McCrory. She makes $110,000 a year. And presumably knows how to drop a hint.

The New Job. Not surprisingly, Gossage's appointment to the new job was not publicly announced by the agency and with good reason. By state statute, the director of Clean Water Management must have "experience and training in conservation, protection, and management of surface water resources." Gossage has a degree in sociology and has worked mainly as a press flack

The Tell. Just how woefully unqualified Gossage is to manage clean water conservation in our state became painfully obvious when a spokesman for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources came out with a press release saying, in effect, that Gossage is qualified because he was on the Apex town council during a drought. When the laughter in the press room died down, someone pointed out that Apex, like most towns, is run by professional staff, not by elected council members, and that Gossage knows as much about water conservation as a dog knows his daddy.

Forget, for the Moment, What McCrory Has Done to Education; Look What He's Done to Science

North Carolina is bleeding teaching talent as though someone slashed our educational jugular (which in fact the General Assembly did, assisted by Gov. Squishy), but just as alarming is the full-out assault on our scientific community detailed in this WRAL report.

Did you know that the Gen'l Assembly, at McCrory's behest, moved over 1,000 NC civil service employees into "at will" situations, meaning that the governor can fire them without cause and on a whim, and one of the whims actually written into the law is "loyalty to the governor." Not making this up. One of the workers moved to "at the whim of the governor" status was the top scientist at the Nature Research Center in Raleigh.

But first, the governor's new stooge Science Museum Director Emlyn Koster demoted that top scientist, just as a hint that her scientific research was no longer needed in North Carolina. That scientist has understandably taken another job in California.

The logo of the McCrory administration ought to be a bleeding wrist.

The other sure sign of the esteem with which McCrory views science is the other decision by that stooge Science Museum Director Emlyn Koster, to cancel a film-showing about sea-level rise, because as we all should know by now, our generous Republican dictatorship has decreed that sea-level rise does not exist.

The only good thing we can say about the reclassification of hundreds of North Carolina's civil service employees to "at will" employees is that the next Democratic governor can fire the ideological idiots at the get-go.

One or Two Things About Him That We Won't Miss

Gov. McCrory's refusal to accept Medicaid expansion in North Carolina was just wrong, and so was his decision to sign one of the most oppressive laws in the country restricting women's choices.

He makes no wise decisions, only ones that are demanded of him by the teahadists.

Help is on the way, but it's going to take another three years of waiting.