Mud Pies

Evidence is mounting that North Carolina's Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) under this Republican regime is in the business of shielding Duke Energy from responsibility for dumping 80,000 tons -- tons! -- of coal ash into the Dan River.

Well, after all, Gov. Pat McCrory worked for Duke Energy for 28 butt-numbing years, and Duke Energy is beset with tree-hugging environmentalists who want, you know, clean drinking water. The bastards! So those who serve the governor also serve Duke Energy, to protect the corporation from accountability:

Over the last year, environmental groups have tried three times to use the federal Clean Water Act to force Duke Energy to clear out leaky coal ash dumps like the one that ruptured last week, spewing enough toxic sludge into a North Carolina river to fill 73 Olympic-sized pools. Each time, they say, their efforts have been stymied by the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The state agency has blocked the citizen lawsuits by intervening at the last minute to assert its own authority under the federal act to take enforcement action. After negotiating with Duke, the state proposed settlements where the nation's largest electricity provider pays modest fines but is under no requirement to actually clean up its coal ash ponds.

Just wait until DENR's also coddling and protecting the fracking industry!

(Hattip: BlueNC)

Republicans Will Attempt to Bribe NC Teachers

Thomas Mills, one smart dude whose analysis I tend to trust, is saying that Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly have already won the PR battle over teacher pay: they're bragging, pretty much in unison now, that they're going to raise it, though the small print underlying their promise is a good deal more problematic.

Can North Carolina's teachers be bribed into silence and submission this easily?

Teachers were in the Forward Together/Not One Step Back march in Raleigh yesterday. We detected fire in their eyes, and we're not altogether sure that they're going to now lay down because Republicans are using the term "pay raise."

We know that Republicans like a public that will saddle a gift horse without looking in its mouth, but we also know that North Carolina's hard-working teachers can tell a hawk from a handsaw and may not be so easily bought off.

Republicans Take Some Solace in Empty Language

Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the NC Values Coalition (whose "values" are all about exclusion and demonization), said the marchers in Raleigh yesterday "were anything but moral," casting her aspersions widely on the thousands of protesters who thronged downtown streets at the old Capitol building and the thousands more who took their witness to "Moral Mondays" last summer.

Seriously, Tami?

That girdle you're wearing must be pinching like a sonovabitch.

The Guv (who took his opportunity to get the hell outta Dodge, and who could blame him?), had already delivered himself of the opinion that all these thousands are "outside agitators," showing that his head is securely planted in 1969.

The Republicans can talk "outside agitators" all they want to, and what else can they say? But if they actually believe that crap, they're in deeper trouble than they realize.

HKonJ Today

They're saying around 25,000 turned out in downtown Raleigh to protest the direction of North Carolina under the Republican regime.

Almost 200 from Watauga County were in the "mammoth" crowd.

Thom Tillis and the Indelible Stench of Karl Rove

The American Conservative Union issued its "Ignorant Camp Followers" "Defenders of Liberty" award to Republicans in the NC General Assembly, based on how their ALEC-addled drones voted on 12 bills, and House Speaker Thom Tillis, without whose iron grip on the flow of legislation none of the 12 bills would have passed, did not make the cut.

He missed voting on two of the 12 bills, and that's a serious -- and serendipitously happy -- no-no to the American Conservative Union. How cool was it to be able to deny recognition to Tillis on a technicality!

Poor Thom Tillis! Dissed once again by conservatives, who owe him everything, really, but who don't trust his sucking up to the country club elite.

When Good People Get Fed Up

Clay Aiken is announcing today that he is indeed running for Congress in the 2nd Congressional District of North Carolina. Incumbent Republican Renee Ellmers' campaign immediately began playing the only gay card they could think of: Aiken, sez Ellmers' flack, represents "San Francisco values."

Please!

I believe that the young man who rose out of a bad domestic situation, who became a teacher of special needs students in public school, who started a foundation to help kids with disabilities -- I believe he represents North Carolina values far more than does Renee Ellmers.

A young man who had an amazing talent and who got rich because of it.

He's pictured this morning in the N&O with "consultant" Betsy Conti and "advisor" Gary Pearce, so he's also smart enough to surround himself with some smart, experienced people with deep North Carolina political knowledge.

Aiken has a primary in May with a couple of other contenders, but one of his primary opponents has already announced that he's dropping out and will endorse Aiken.

Clay told the N&O that Ellmers' flailing attacks on him suggested that she was nervous. Yeah. Call it "flop sweat."

Do You Smell Toast?

Greg Brannon, the Cary OBY/GYN and Tea Party alternative to slick Thom Tillis in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, is facing a civil lawsuit alleging that Dr. Brannon suckered a friend and the husband of one of his pregnant patients into investing $250,000 into a technology company that Brannon claimed was going to be at least as big as Facebook. Didn't turn out that way.

According to "The Morning Memo," "The court file is eight inches thick and filled with political dope, such as his botched investments and how he recruited investors apparently at his OB-GYN practice."

That's just plain creepy.

Renee Ellmers Tempts Cosmic Irony

Surely you know about cosmic irony: "A type of irony in which Fate, the Universe, God, or whichever omnipotent force you choose, makes it their sole purpose to mess with your life. They like to screw you over and watch the mayhem while laughing at your misfortune." Like if Rush Limbaugh were suddenly diagnosed with sickle cell anemia.

So the obliviously arrogant Renee Ellmers tempts cosmic irony by going on the radio and sneering at possible Democratic challenger, Clay Aiken, as someone who couldn't even come in first in American Idol, not to mention Celebrity Apprentice, so how the hell would he ever ascend to the Olympic heights of occupying a seat in Congress?

How indeed?

Can't you just write those headlines: "Gay American Idol Runner-Up Beats Ellmers Decisively." You invited it, Renee!

Proof That the End Times Are Upon Us

When conservatives get all irate over hearing "America the Beautiful" sung in not-English.