YOUR GOVERNMENT HEARD YOU MIGHT BE DANGEROUS

Apparently, there are 143,074 suspected terrorists or terrorist-symphs in the United States.

Or, rather, the FBI felt they needed to gather private information on 143,074 American citizens from "telephone companies, Internet service providers and financial institutions." Why? Someone had it in for them for a variety of reasons not necessarily nor strictly limited to "terrorist" activity.

So there's FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III apologizing today for his agency's going waaay too far under the authority of the U.S.A Patriot Act.

He ought to do more than apologize. He ought to RESIGN and take A.G. Alberto Gonzales with him.

HYPOCRISY UPDATE

Whilst Newt Gingrich was persecuting Bill Clinton for sex, he was having extramarital sex. We knew THAT even before it got into the newspapers this a.m.

And whilst Ann Coulter was calling John Edwards a "faggot" at the CPAC meeting last weekend, she was being photographed with a former gay porn star (we hesitate to touch this with a ten-foot pole, so to speak, and not to brag, but we wouldn't open this trail to the source of the evidence while children are present ... if you get our drift).

On the queer-fear front in North Carolina, this posting at "The Progressive Pulse" nicely sums up the hypocrisy of Called2Action's claiming it's for "One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

JACKSON COUNTY PASSES DEVELOPMENT MORATORIUM; OR, WHEN BULLIES FAIL

If you've been keeping up, you may recall that the Jackson County Commission held a public hearing in Sylva back at the end of February to consider a moratorium on subdivisions while new steep-slope building regs are considered. Over a thousand people showed up, many of them the burly employees of cement producers who lined the roads with their big rigs and crowded the hearing room with their big shoulders in a show of force to intimidate the commissioners into dropping their moratorium.

The commissioners did not cave. Last night, in fact, they passed the moratorium 4-1.

Standing up to rich-man bullying is never easy. For example, local developer Phil Templeton has declared jihad against the Town of Boone. He did not like Boone's own steep-slope regs and helped stage a big show of force against them at a public hearing (not unlike the Jackson County event in tone and scope), yet Boone Town officials held firm and passed compromise regs.

Templeton then tried to put a 10,000-square-foot "medical facility" in a single-family neighborhood, but the neighborhood, including Mayor Loretta Clawson, who lives there and who testified as an interested citizen, presented convincing evidence to the Board of Adjustment that the development would negatively impact their safety and their property values. The Board of Adjustment turned Templeton down, unanimously, we believe.

The threat to the neighborhood of an out-sized medical facility led to a draft rewriting of the town's ordinances to prohibit such developments in single-family districts. Last night a public hearing was held on that rewritten ordinance. Phil Templeton did not show up to testify against it, but he had done his durnedest to scare the town off-scent.

Mere days prior to the public hearing, he accused the Mayor of unethical behavior and induced the local press to publish his allegations. He was also given a radio platform by Jim Hastings, the local owner of every Hardee's between here and eternity. Hastings, on "The Right Side" on WATA, has been blasting Boone generally and the Mayor specifically as "socialist" and as a threat to free rich men everywhere. (If you're still dropping coin on Hardee's, shame on you.)

Mr. Templeton's main complaint, best we can tell, is that he HASN'T been able to buy the world and specifically Mayor Clawson's small homestead, and he's not going to put up with it any more.

These guys have been flailing wildly on the radio. They've impugned the intelligence, not to mention the motives, of Mayor Clawson and all the Town Council, save Dempsey Wilcox (about whom they feel understandably warm & fuzzy). Mr. Hastings, particularly, has been positively Coulter-esque. Which, evidently, makes him well qualified to chair the local Republican County Convention this Saturday. He knows a lot about raw meat.

Pray God the Age of Bullies is passing in small-town politics.

Mr. Hastings, who was present at the hearing last night, actually got up and stormed out of the room while a speaker was warning the Council against "bad men with bad motives." We can't wait to read his remarks to the Republican Convention this weekend!

After the hearing, Mr. Hastings' co-host on "The Ride Side" approached Mayor Clawson and said he'd "love" to have her on the show. Suddenly "balance" appears to be a concern, at least to Mr. Hastings' partner. Mayor Clawson was heard to respond that she was not interested in being on their show but that she and her lawyer are interested in getting audio tapes of the last three months' worth of "The Right Side."

ANTI-WAR PROTESTS COMING TO A CONGRESSIONAL OFFICE NEAR YOU?

Back in the Stone(d) Age, we called this "taking it to the streets."

Now it's called walking into the Congressperson's district office and dusting the credenza with the hot breath of displeasure.

Considering how our congresswoman LOVES to hear from her constituents, we're sure she'll bake cookies and make Kool-Aid.

THE MADAM IN BOONE SATURDAY

Congresswoman Virginia Foxx will keynote the Republican County Convention this Saturday, 10:30, at the County Courthouse.

The throngs! The panic-stricken extras! The velociraptors, picking off the slow-witted in the high grass!

COULTER GETS PANNED BY A CONSERVATIVE

Ada Fisher, who ran against Mel Watt in the NC-12, and who is certifiable as not only a conservative but an African-American conservative, has nothing good to say about Ann Coulter's performance last weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

BLESSED ARE THE CHEESEMAKERS

Been waiting for someone to put together a coherent discussion of why the Christian Right mullahs, from Dobson to Scarborough, wanted Rev. Richard Cizik fired from his job with the National Association of Evangelicals. Here 'tis (and hint: it has nothing to do with closeted sexual behavior ... for a change).

SEVERAL THOUSAND CLAIM THEY AREN'T GAY

Quite a scene in Raleigh yesterday ... a rally for people who are not being forced to marry someone of the same sex saying they WILL NOT marry someone of the same sex, and are prepared to burn a few fornicators at the stake to boot, which just goes to show you how deeply into the closet some Christian right-wingers are prepared to hide themselves.

Noted: Senate leader Marc Basnight and House leader Joe Hackney were not impressed.

What was this rally, really? This posting at NCBlue, quoting Laura Leslie, makes the most logical sense. It was a campaign rally for Republican gubernatorial hopeful Fred Smith, and we certainly want to do what WE can to support his success in that party.

He's EXACTLY the kind of bigot we want running as a Republican for governor.

MADAM RUBBERSTAMP ON C-SPAN

Our in-boxes have been dinging all morning. Notes of sympathy from all over the country from people who had heard about our 5th District Congresswoman Virginia Foxx but who got a load of her themselves this a.m. on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal." (You can find a button here to watch it yourself, or use it to strip those kitchen chairs you've been meaning to refinish.)

"We are sooo sorry for your burden," they write.

Here's what we learned:

1. There's no accountability in government bureaucracies because Democrats ran the government for a long time, DECADES AGO.

2. Democrats hate the military and always have.

3. The current scandal about wounded-veteran care is being stirred up by the press. Conditions really aren't that bad, and 90% of veterans are DEE-LITED with the way the Bush administration has treated them.

4. We need more privatization.

5. "It's all about ME: I run my office like a saint ... I'm the most responsive member of Congress ... I care deeply about all my constituents ... I'm the very model of a modern major member."

Take your pick of what galls you the most. Personally, and considering the Watauga County Democratic Party has raised thousands of dollars to support the Family Readiness Group of the 1451st Transportation Company of the local National Guard, number 2 above was particularly gratuitous and insulting.

She's entitled to her own hair-raising partisanship but she's not entitled to her own facts.

ADDENDUM

Our Congresswoman Virginia Foxx followed Bob Filner (D-Calif.) on the "Washington Journal" this morning. Foxx said, verbatim:

"I was a little surprised when I heard Bob Filner in the earlier session say that what we have to do is hug and love our veterans. Uh, that's never been something that the Democrats have done. Uh, the Republicans have, I think, very much loved and hugged our veterans and been extremely grateful to them for what they've done. But they haven't received the respect I think they should have received from the Democrats. It's the Democrats who are always talking about cutting the budgets and not respecting, I think, our military like we should."

Just for the record.