Only the Pure May Vote in Virginia

The fact that Virginia voters will salute and do as they're ordered -- and that voters will be ordered to take a loyalty oath when they vote in the Republican Party's primary on March 6 -- is all the evidence we need that Virginia conservatives are lacking both self-awareness and the least spark of resistance to illegitimate power.

Make that "conservatives everywhere."

Who Said Republicans Are Good With Money?

An audit of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, run by Republican Commissioner Steve Troxler (he's the one on the left, holding his cousin), found that for the fiscal year 2009-2010, the department's Consumer Services & Standards Division failed to collect over $2 million in fines assessed in civil penalties against liquefied petroleum (LP) gas operations.

Violations ranged from a lack of on-site “no smoking “ signs to tanks and piping not protected from vehicular traffic, faulty valves, inadequate employee training and plants operating without required licenses.

The nearly 7,500 violations occurred at 1,189 facilities, including LP gas bulk storage plants, farms, schools, businesses, industrial plants, correctional institutions and campgrounds.

Source: Triangle Business Journal.

It figgers, since Republicans are consistently doctrinaire on non-regulation, except that, O my brethren, the non-regulation of LP gas operations can blow you up into tiny bits and incinerate your world. Or, as State Auditor Beth Woods wrote in her investigative report, "... certain violations present threats to public health and safety or could cause significant property loss."

Mr. Troxler's yadda-yadda in response to the audit (along the lines of "We're taking steps in order to take certain steps to be able to step up to doing something about this") appears to be nothing more than stone-walling.  

'Course, arguably the worst non-regulator in the state is Madam Cherie Berry in the Department of Labor, who is a poster child of malfeasance.

Camel, Meet Needle's Eye

Christianity Today, reporting on a recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press: "Most people of all faiths feel taxes are unfair and that the wealthy need to pay more."

Someone remind me: where's the GOP on this issue?

A Breathtaking Display of Mendacity

First, to recap the action:

1. GOP-led NC General Assembly cut $400 million from the state's education budget. Chief arranger of the deck chairs: Republican Speaker of the NC House, Thom Tillis.

2. Speaker Tillis warns that any layoffs will be scored as superintendents' fault, not the General Assembly's.

3. School systems everywhere began laying off teachers and teacher assistants.

4. Speaker Tillis began blaming superintendents for job losses as he conducted his town-hall tour around the state, except when superintendents were sitting in the audience, and he vowed that he would haul those superintendents' sorry asses to Raleigh and grill them on why they fired people. "We will get to the bottom of this," he promised.

Looks like Mr. Tillis is going to be held to his promise, though he's hemming and hawing a bit about when those "hearings" will take place. "Probably in February," a spokesman for Tillis said recently. Okay, we'll promise not to hold our breath if you promise to stop treating the public like dunces.

What will superintendents say, if indeed they're summoned to Raleigh to explain why a $400 million state-wide cut to education spending led to the laying off of teachers? Maybe ... "Duh"?

Photo: Huntersville Herald

Wasting Public Money, The Forsyth County Way

Displays by the Pharisees evidently take precedence.

Renee Ellmers Tries To Spin the Republican Mess

Now with subtitles, so you'll know what she's REALLY saying. Hattip: ProgressNC

$40 DOES Matter!

Snagged from an e-mail from Cliff Moone, Democratic Party Chair of the NC 10th Congressional District:

POINT: This week, some Republicans like Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, have stated that the proposed extension of the Payroll Tax Cut will not have any real effect on the economy. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have gone from not supporting the tax cut extension AT ALL to arguing that it MUST be for 1 year NOW or NOTHING!

COUNTERPOINT: Tea Party Republicans have at last found a TAX INCREASE they CAN SUPPORT! They WILL NOT support ANY tax increase on the top 1%, not even a 3% surtax on 388,000 millionaires and billionaires (and that ONLY on their income ABOVE 1 million dollars) BUT they seem more than willing to let 160 million Americans take it on the chin with a tax hike of about $1,000 per year. To Republicans, Tax Cuts ARE good, but evidently ONLY for the RICH!

ADDENDUM: Is Governor Christie correct about the Payroll Tax Cut's effect on the economy? Only in Republican world. To the typical family earning around $50,000 per year, the failure to extend this middle class tax cut will mean that they will have about $40 per pay check LESS than they do now. What would that mean? In John Boehner's district it is 1 less tank of gas. For another person, it would be the cost of her husband's insulin & inhaler. For a person in California, it means 1 less dinner out and economically "it ripples negatively from there!" Indeed, in Jackson Mississippi, the NEGATIVE effect on the local economy is estimated at 10 million dollars per year! $40 REALLY does matter!

Foxx Drains Poole

It was clear from the outset of the Todd Poole drunk-driving-and-resisting-an-officer arrest in Watauga County that Congresswoman Virginia Foxx intended to see him successfully through the judicial process. In a Roll Call interview published on August 12th, three days after her Chief of Staff was taken before a Watauga County magistrate and charged with three different offenses, the Congresswoman said that her employee had her support and would keep his job.

“He’ll remain on the staff. It’s a judicial matter and it will work its way through the process,” she said.

The current odor of special treatment for Poole (from both a DA and a judge with long political ties to the Congresswoman ... Judge Horne was not too long ago Chair of the Watauga County Republican Party during Foxx's rise to greatness) has centered on the sealing of Poole's blood alcohol test.

According to Scott Sexton in the Winston-Salem Journal, in his column on Dec 18, "[Poole] refused a breath test, but troopers got a sample of his blood and sent it off to the State Bureau of Investigation."

That's very different from what the Roll Call reporter was told for the article linked above:

A Watauga County, N.C., deputy clerk confirmed the authenticity of the record and that Poole was “taken to the magistrate’s office,” that is, arrested. A court date is set for Sept. 13, the deputy clerk said.

“He blew a .08,” the clerk said, indicating that Poole was at the legal limit of intoxication under state law....

Passing strange. Would .08 alcohol content in one's blood make one act like Todd Poole acted that night? Maybe. Or perhaps the deputy clerk was wrong, but by what stretch does a deputy clerk of court make that up and tell it to a reporter for a Washington newspaper?

Clearly, someone talked before the Foxx Cone of Silence fell over this whole episode.

Foxx and Friends Completely Lose Control

The "optics" ain't so good for congressional Republicans. And perhaps the American working class are actually paying attention.