Cal Cunningham Is In

Cal Cunningham is announcing this a.m. that he'll be formally entering the Democratic primary race to challenge Sen. Dick Burr on the ballot next year.

He's got an announcement video up here.

McCrory Slams Door on Future with the NCGOP

Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, making his exit today from 14 years of incumbency, shreds the Eleventh Commandment for Republicans, which is to say, he speaks ill of some fellow GOPers.

As in ... Sarah Palin is an obvious bobblehead and the national Republican Party has begun to feel like acid reflux. Not in those exact words, but still.

When and if he decides to reenter politics, the right-wing of his party (which is to say, his party) is going to make him eat those words.

Burr: Senator or Sock Puppet?

Sen. Dick Burr has taken $274,586 in campaign contributions from the health insurance industry throughout his career, which certainly helps explain his dependable shilling for the health insurance industry in trying to defeat health insurance reforms in the U.S. Senate:

* In an interview with Fox News in September, Sen. Burr claimed that "no plan, currently considered or passed, in either the House or the Senate," extends coverage to all Americans. However, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that House bill would cover 97 percent of Americans. [North Carolina Policy Watch, September 30, 2009]

* In a November radio interview with radio host Bill LuMaye, Sen. Burr said about the House bill, "It doesn't have reforms in it. The only reform that's really there is that we do away with preexisting conditions." In truth, however, the bill contains numerous other insurance reforms, including caps on out of pocket expenses and lifetime limits, as well as market accountability through health insurance exchanges. [North Carolina Policy Watch, November 17, 2009]

Thanks to Public Campaign Action Fund for blowing this particular whistle.

Republicans Have Them a Celeb To Run Against Kissell

Well known and now retired Charlotte sportscaster Harold Johnson sez he's just the empty suit to take on Larry Kissell in the NC-8.

Johnson's got the time. Johnson's got the hair. Johnson's got the smile. He's THE PERFECT Republican, all hat and no cattle.

Now, Kissell's got his own problems these days with his base, but he's also got time to make some repairs to those bridges.

And Johnson, a teleprompter-reading celebrity in the rah-rah sports arena, might be our choice for an opponent, if we were running the Kissell reelection campaign. Anyone remember famous race-car driver Richard Petty's run against Elaine Marshall in 1996? It actually takes a little more than (totally unqualified) TV notoriety to get into office.

Oops
Inadvertently lost the link to the Jim Morrill story in today's Charlotte Observer.

Piles of Toxic Coal Ash Near You

Bruce Henderson digs into Duke Energy's dirty legacy of coal ash deposits across North Carolina in today's Charlotte Observer ... which evokes certain memories of the Christmas TVA coal ash spill on the Tennessee River last year.

Coal ash is known to be full of arsenic, mercury, and a dozen other ingredients fit for a witch's brew, and Duke Energy's coal-fired power plants produce tons and tons of it every year. In the NC-5, "Duke had to shut down an old ash landfill at its Belews Creek plant in Stokes County last year after groundwater samples repeatedly broke state safety standards."

Some 2.7 million tons (million tons) of Duke's ash was piled out on the ground between 1992 and 2003 without protective liners that are now required at landfills.

We ain't begun to calculate the true costs vs. benefits of corporatocracy.

And don't even get us started on the fact that much of that coal comes from mountaintop removal mines north of here.

Buncombe County Commission "Knocking on the Doors of Hell"

Citing the Forsyth County case, the Buncombe County Commission will no longer precede its meetings with an official prayer, opting for a moment of silence instead.

The board's attorney said in a statement, "On November 9, 2009 a magistrate judge with the US District Court for the Middle District of NC issued a recommendation of judgment against Forsyth County as the practice violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution .... The Forsyth case is based on facts establishing that out of 33 invocations prior to meetings only 7 did not contain some reference to Jesus, Jesus Christ, Christ, Savior, or the Trinity, and none of those 33 invocations invoked another deity associated with any faith other than Christianity. Such statistics are no doubt common here in the Bible Belt and I believe are also fairly representative of such a sampling before our Board."

To be legal prayers before the opening of a government body must be non-sectarian in nature and not endorse one faith or denomination over another.

Naturally, such a decision, even in Asheville, could be guaranteed to invite the raining down of hellfire, starting with the recently defeated right-wing former town councilman Carl Mumpower and local conservative "activist" Don Yelton, who said, modestly and with hardly any hyperbole, "I am reminded of what some [Jewish] friends told me, they did not know how fast it could happen. Hitler. We are knocking on the doors of hell right now. Please get your pastors to get awake and take a stand."

Wake County School Board ... The Sound, The Fury, and The Dyspepsia

The new conservative majority on the Wake County School Board took control yesterday, and they seized the moment to install themselves in power, to spring new agenda items on the board's minority without prior warning, and to end the hated "diversity" policies of the previous majority. It was a tumultuous meeting. Citizens yelled at them. Teachers walked out. And ... oh, yeah ... one of the new board members regaled the crowd with a Bible reading.

We don't pretend to know all the background on the issues (Keung Hui of the N&O has a barebones recap of the major actions taken yesterday), but the crowing of the John Locke Foundation crowd tells us a great deal about this particular regression in educational policy.

FOOTNOTE
Andrea Verykoukis at The Progressive Pulse points out that the new majority arrived for their swearing in with an agenda they'd obviously worked out and agreed on beforehand and asks if that could possibly be legal. They did, and it was legal, and if I were in their position I would have done the same thing, though perhaps with less jackbooting. If the new right-wing majority is going to operate in this arrogant manner, however, I would expect them to remain in the majority no longer than the next election.

Might Be Worth Holding Our Breath For

Charlotte angling to get the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

Boy howdee!

Foxx Is the Richest

Member of Congress from North Carolina. She has a minimum net worth of $2.4 million. Minimum.

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich [woman] shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich [woman] to enter into the kingdom of God." (Matt. 19:23-24)