The Good Guys Win One

Well, partly anyway. Republican Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown has backed off his proposed legislation to override local ordinances and allow digital billboards every 1,500 feet on major state highways. He's dropped that entirely, but is keeping language in the bill which will allow the billboard industry greater latitude in cutting trees to allow a passing motorist, or a visitor from outer space, more time to read the small print.

The NC Senate Transportation Committee endorsed the new language yesterday, but not without some spectacular whining from Republican Sen. Don East, whose district used to include Watauga:

...East, R-Surry, complained that vegetation had obscured advertising he'd purchased some years ago on a billboard near Boone, within three or four weeks of its having gone up.

East said he responded by asking the billboard's owner for a partial refund. "I wasn't getting what I paid for there," he said.

The only remedy for such injustice, evidently, is a new state-wide law on clear-cutting the roadside.

The Republican Vision for NC: Dead Last in Public Education

The proposed budget put out by the new Republican majority in the NC House will reduce spending on public education. North Carolina already ranks 46th out of 50 states in per-pupil spending. The new proposed budget in the House would put us dead last -- 50th of 50.

Way to go, GOP!

Their own Republican U.S. Senator Dick Burr sent the House leadership a quiet warning last week to lay off the mischief of defunding education: "When we talk about the things that work," Burr said, "let's not overlook what most employers in the 21st century are looking for -- that's an educated workforce."

Laura Leslie of WRAL in Raleigh reports that it's mighty difficult to discern just how many jobs are at stake because of budget legerdemain -- job cuts are hidden. But the Department of Public Instruction has calculated that the House budget will cut over 18,532 jobs in its K-12 spending plan. And this is what the NCAE projects in job losses:

4,056 classroom teachers
11,086 teacher assistants
640 principals and assistant principals
870 instructional support jobs
1,190 bus drivers and custodians
690 administrative and clerical jobs

These are just the jobs we stand to lose in K-12 schools. The House budget also proposes cutting the university system by a whopping 15.5 percent, which will mean thousands more jobs lost.

That's apparently what the Republicans meant when they said they would focus on "jobs, jobs, jobs" ... that is, eliminating them.

The Raleigh Bunch is taking us into a new Depression.

AND, OH, BY THE WAY
While they're proposing to dis-employ thousands of good and honest laborers in the vineyards of the Lord, they're simultanously proposing to cut corporate taxes even further. Rob Schofield:

The central, overriding, inexcusable sin of the new Republican leaders thus far in 2011 has been their pig-headed commitment to cutting taxes at a moment in which state revenues are severely depressed. Under the Republican plan, state taxes in FY 2012 will be more than a $1.6 billion lower than they were in FY 2011. Not only will they permit so-called “temporary” taxes to expire, Republicans will cut taxes on corporate profits even further.

The NC Budget from Hell

Laura Leslie is the only General Assembly reporter that we've seen (so far) who is doing detailed reporting on what's in the new proposed Republican state budget released by the NC House.

Leslie says that of the 333 pages in the total budget, 63 of those deal with the dismantling of environmental protections through the dissolution of the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR).

And here is Part 2 of her analysis, with more to come.

It's quite clear that the new Republican majority intends to use the budgeting process to rewrite the long-range vision of what North Carolina can and should be as an enlightened state in the Union. We used to be the most enlightened state in the Old South. Those days are over, at least for the next year and a half, unless Bev Perdue keeps that VETO stamp handy.

Birthers Pounce on Obama Birth Certificate

Now that it's official, the Right Wing is humming over the news that President Barack Obama is the documented son of an (alleged) white woman and a velociraptor which once ate a Muslim in Kenya.

Let the exegesis begin!

The Latest Assault on Voting in NC

A proposed new law (Senate Bill 657) would limit early voting in North Carolina to a week, eliminate "same day registration," and generally knee-cap the kind of ballot access that North Carolinians have come to enjoy.

And that's the problem, folks! All this delight in early voting has GOT TO END!

And this "same day registration" ... clearly a Communist plot!

Some 60% of the total vote cast in 2008 was cast during early voting. In the 2010 mid-terms, the early voting was again enthusiastic, but dominated by Republican voters. It can work for both parties, depending on who's best-organized and who has public opinion behind them. The Republican honorables in Raleigh might want to consider that. But they won't.

When Is a New Tax NOT a Tax?

In Raleigh, in the Clown College ... when it's a FEE:

"The House Finance committee has signed off on a package of about $100 million in fee increases for the upcoming budget year."

Many of those new and higher fees will land on people trying to get justice in the courts, but as we know, in the New America of the Republican Majority, justice belongs to people with plenty of money.

Deeper Into the Rabbit Hole

Franklin Graham, interviewed by Christianity Today, denying that he ever said what we watched him say and doubling down in a few other political areas.

He intends to talk, because he's a very important and pious man, and people need to understand that.

Foxx Morphs Into Joe Isuzu

You remember Joe Isuzu, don't you? The pathological liar who made outrageous and overinflated claims about Isuzu’s cars?

In support of her hero Paul Ryan, Virginia Foxx has now decided to go all in for the privatization of Medicare.

It's gonna be the best thing since sliced bread!

The insurance companies are gonna love this, even if you don't!

One hundred percent of my constitutents think my feces don't stink!

April Is the Pharisee's Month

When asked by Christianity Today back in January if there was anything he regretted, Billy Graham said he should have studied more and preached less, and then this:

"I also would have steered clear of politics. I'm grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to. But looking back I know I sometimes crossed the line, and I wouldn't do that now."

Meanwhile, his son Franklin got the Graham ego but not the message. He said on Sunday, on This Week with Christiane Amanpour, that Donald Trump might be The One, the Great White Hope, and he dropped a couple of two-ton tablets of The Law on Obama's "Muslim-seed" head, ruling him out of the Kingdom where Franklin Graham is B.M.O.C., because hey! Franklin Graham knows how to assess everyone's level of Christianity down to the finest points.

Watauga County's most famous citizen at the moment. Has no regrets. For the moment.