When last heard from, N.C. House member Cary Allred was suggesting that the chairwoman of the N.C. Republican Party pound sand up her ass for demanding he resign from the General Assembly.

But the headline this a.m., when we fired up the boilers on the old computer, was that Allred had decided he would resign after this current legislative session was over, in, say, September.

By this afternoon, the resignation time-table had accelerated, and Allred now says he'll be out of his friggin office by Monday.

And since he is a demonstrated master of loose-cannonism, he ain't going quietly. He's sick, he says, of being a Republican in a body dominated by Democrats, and he's perhaps even sicker of fellow Republicans:

"I am disgusted with my Republican colleagues who have looked at me through dark-colored glasses with evil thoughts," Allred said.

Sic transit gloria mundi. Which means, roughly translated, "I never liked any of youse anyway."

BREMCO Loves Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corp. draws its power from the Duke Power grid. Eight power plants in that Duke grid burn coal that comes directly from the worst environmental degradation in modern American history, "mountaintop removal" strip mining in West Virginia:

G G Allen power plant, located in Gaston County, NC
Buck power plant, located in Rowan County, NC
Cliffside power plant, located in Cleveland County, NC
Dan River power plant, located in Rockingham County, NC
Marshall power plant, located in Catawba County, NC
Riverbend power plant, located in Gaston County, NC
W S Lee power plant, located in Anderson County, SC
Belews Creek power plant, located in Stokes County, NC

We have learned that BREMCO and other power cooperatives around the state recently bussed employees to Raleigh to lobby in our name against the Appalachian Mountain Preservation Act, which would have stopped state utilities like Duke Energy from burning coal extracted by means of mountaintop removal (which incidentally involves the burying of adjacent creeks with the waste rock and dirt, compounding the destruction).

When the bill's sponsor, Pricey Harrison, withdrew the bill because of the successful lobbying against it, BREMCO employee Renee Whitener sent out an e-mail crowing about the victory and congratulating BREMCO supporters for the success in making power generation in North Carolina safe for strip-miners in Appalachia.

As long-time members and rate-payers with BREMCO, we strenuously object to having the N.C. General Assembly lobbied in our names for the continued wholesale rape of West Virginia and other coal regions. Piously, BREMCO claims that using deep-mined coal would cost its customers more money, which is true ... some 47 cents more per month, according to Appalachian Voices.

We not only object strenuously to the lobbying muscle BREMCO used in our names. We object to the bogus "economics" of tacitly saying a few cents more per month in our power bills out-weighs the wholesale destruction of the mountains north of here because they were unlucky enough to have coal seams buried deep in their bowels. We're also not impressed by the tsk-tsking of various members of the N.C. General Assembly, saying they're totally distressed on the one hand by the reality of mountaintop removal coal mining and totally bulldozed on the other hand by N.C. power utilities to NOT do the right thing.

The "values" of mega-corporations are too often not human values. BREMCO does not represent us.

Malaise

Jeff A. Taylor over at The Meck Deck, another of the 4 million websites sponsored by the right-wing John Locke Foundation, sums up his reaction to the Tom Fetzer "I'm NOT Gay" side-show in the N.C. Republican Party: "...this dust-up tells me that there is a sickness deep within the Republican Party in North Carolina that will not soon be healed. What was once a party of ideas is now a collection of special interests, boiling resentments, and stunning mediocrity."

We're going to remember that particular oxymoron ... "stunning mediocrity." Nice touch, that.

The Lord of Misrule

That's Cary Allred, Republican member of the NC General Assembly from Burlington. He's an accomplished comedian.

First, he was stopped on his way to Raleigh for going approximately a zillion miles per hour. Later that day, and apparently under the influence of lighter fluid, he put the (heterosexual) moves on a female House page, which behavior his (heterosexual) Republican colleagues later jealously called gross, icky, and mildly arousing.

Linda Daves, chair of the state party (until June 13th, when she's OUT), roused herself from baking apple dumplings long enough to demand that Allred resign from the General Assembly, and as late as Thursday Allred was saying, "All right, suckas, I'm outta your friggin uptight little political conclave." Allred said he'd change his registration to Unaffiliated.

But now, the about face and the punchline: Hell no, I won't leave the Republican Party, sez Allred, and who the hell is Linda Daves anyway?

"She never did anything to help me get elected. She doesn't know me. I don't know her," Allred said. "She does not know my constituents and my constituents don't know her."

Ooo, ouch.

Future Chair of the NC GOP ... Heterosexuality "A Matter of Public Record"

It's not just the Watauga County Republican Party that's obsessed with homosexuality. The state party is too. Where else would an e-mailed gay accusation about front-runner to become the new state Republican Party Chair, Tom Fetzer, elicit this hilariously defensive denial from Fetzer:

"I am not gay -- never have been -- never will be. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support any of the scurrilous allegations made in the anonymous attack on me .... The fact that I'm 54 and single does not mean that I have to put up with vicious rumors that I'm gay. The fact that I am heterosexual is a matter of public record."

Excuse me? How did Mr. Fetzer establish his heterosexuality as "a matter of public record"? Is there a central office for doing that? A board of examination? Is there videotape evidence of his rampant heterosexuality in action?

What is even funnier is that Fetzer is also a political consultant (he was big in this state for Elizabeth Dole's reelection), and he's done what I should think a political consultant might have advised him against ... giving credence to the accusation in the way he denies it ("The fact that I'm 54 and single...") -- not to mention letting the whole world in on what was probably just an e-mail kerfluffle among a few Republican wing-nuts.

Such is the paranoia (queer fear) in the modern North Carolina Republican Party.

The Watauga GOP Under Foxx Ownership

In today's Watauga Democrat, the column published under the name of the Watauga County Republican Party does not respond in any way to Hugh Sturgill's stinging critique on May 6 in the same newspaper that the local Republicans have been taken over by an intolerant far-right group led by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, her husband Tom, and her employee Aaron Whitener. Sturgill charged that these people have forced out anyone not as self-righteous as they.

(NOTE: Neither Sturgill's column nor this present one are included in the on-line content at WataugaDemocrat.com, under the apparent logic that if the paper publishes anything remotely interesting to read, you'll have to pay 50 cents to read it. Which is actually pretty good logic.)

As if to prove Sturgill's point, the column in Friday's paper doubles down on self-righteousness.

The column is signed by one "G. Oliver Parsons," who is supposedly a member of the Watauga County Republican Party. I put that name in quotation marks because no "G. Oliver Parsons" exists on the voter file of Watauga County, nor in the phone book, and his/her identity may be the pure figment of a Foxxian imagination. But it doesn't really matter. What he/she has to say matters.

"G. Oliver" pretty much confirms Sturgill's accusation that the local Republicans have no intention of broadening their base. Rather, the Watauga County Republican Party has decided to prove their relevance by attacking gays and gay-defenders.

In the editorial "G. Oliver Parsons" rails: HOW DARE the Boone Town Council, HOW DARE THEY – DEMOCRATS ALL! – fail to support a proposed bill in the N.C. Senate that would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage!? (Apparently, people struggling for the right to get married are a huge threat to the institution of marriage.)

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

G. Oliver Parsons' reasoning, as far as we can follow it, is this: North Carolina, according to slanted polling by the Pope Civitas Institute, is knee-jerk bigoted against gays, and the mountain people of Watauga County are even more bigoted against gays, so HOW DARE THE BOONE TOWN COUNCIL not live up to the expectations of all those bigots!?

Subtext: The Boone Town Council will RUE the day, come November 3, when the voters of Boone will vote out the gay-loving Democrats and vote in the gay-hating Republicans.

We believe this particular editorial is the opening gun in the Republican campaign to convince Boone voters to turn over this little town to Republican control. Which, when you get right down to it, is every bit as brilliant as the rest of Madam Foxx's recent public utterances.

Liberty!

Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., has revoked its recognition of the College Democrats because the club endorses Democratic candidates, who are (obviously) baby-killers and devil-worshippers.

The club's president received the news via e-mail from Liberty University's vice president of student affairs. The club, which was officially sanctioned just last October, was ordered to stop using the university's name, to hold no meetings on campus, and to stop advertising events.

That same VP for student affairs then told the local Lynchburg newspaper, "We are in no way attempting to stifle free speech."

BWAA-HA-HA-HA.

Ripping the Sheet

Rob Christensen's column in today's N&O, about the mounting problems besetting our ex-governor and his wife, is a must-read. Christensen is efficient in summing up the gist:

The saga includes many story lines. Did the Easleys use their position to get free cars, insider real estate deals, and cushy jobs? Were there built-in conflicts because Mary Easley was the first governor's wife with a professional career in a small state capital dominated by government and a university? Why does a former prosecutor, lawyer and law professor need another lawyer to do her talking?

One of the narrative threads is that the Democratic establishment is washing its hands of a leader for whom they never really cared.

Mary Easley, Hanging Tough

Mary Easley let her attorney do the talking today at a press conference, though she was standing right there. Attorney Marvin Schiller said that the ex-governor's wife would not be resigning from her $800,000 contract with NCSU, which cost any number of us citizens bet-money, including moi.

Mary Easley smiled.

Attorney Schiller proceeded to read a letter of praise for Easley written by the man who hired her and who therefore resigned his position as Provost of NCSU last Friday. Angels on high were asphyxiated by the irony.

The N&O account hints broadly (because lawyer Schiller would not answer direct questions about it) that Mary Easley might be open to having her contract bought out by NCSU. Which is something short of resigning but nothing short of the family's well documented ability to get fair return on the dollar.