The Art Pope Era of Mismanagement

Also "The Era of Unnecessary Cruelty"

By Dan Burley, in the Charlotte Observer:

Federal extended unemployment benefits end for more than 70,000 jobless North Carolinians on Sunday as the state becomes the first in the nation to opt out of the federal long-term compensation program.

A state unemployment overhaul that takes effect this weekend disqualifies North Carolina from receiving the federal benefits intended for those unemployed longer than 26 weeks. Federal law cuts off aid to states that don’t maintain their current benefit system.

Supporters of the reform say the move will help the state pay back $2.5 billion in federal debt more quickly. The state borrowed the money to pay unemployment benefits during the economic downturn.

Advocates for the unemployed say the measure will hurt the state’s economy, where the unemployment rate is the fifth-highest in the nation at 8.8 percent in May.

In addition to those losing benefits when the law kicks in, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that by the end of the year an additional 100,000 jobless workers in North Carolina won’t receive the long-term unemployment benefits for which they’d otherwise have been eligible....

What’s Going On With the Watauga County Board of Elections?

Jim Hastings

As you should know, the administration of local boards of elections (BOE) changes with any partisan turn-over in the governor’s mansion. With the election of McCrory, the personnel of every county BOE becomes two Republicans to one Democrat. The governor’s office makes the appointments from lists of preferred candidates forwarded to Raleigh from county parties.

When the new county BOE lists were posted on the State Board of Elections website, we were somewhat surprised by the two Republican appointees:

Jim Hastings, host of “The Right Side” on WATA-AM
Bill Aceto, a realtor with Blue Ridge Realty

Wait! Jim Hastings? Not Stacy Eggers IV (“Four”), who has been the Republican member of the local board for several years and who was the top pick of the local Republican Party to take over the board under Republican rule. Something happened to upset that apple cart.

We’ve had a problem with the dual roles Mr. Eggers was already filling, as both a member of the Board of Elections and as the county attorney serving the Republican majority. We were going to have an even bigger problem with Mr. Eggers as chair of the BOE, had that happened, since he would appear to have a glaring conflict of interest in managing an election process without also tilting the playing field to advantage his Republican bosses on the Board of Commissioners. Perhaps someone in Mr. McCrory’s administration noticed the conflict too.

Instead, the governor has given us Jim Hastings, a flesh-eating partisan who has made his weekly radio show a virtual acid bath of nastiness sprayed on Democrats in general and on the Town of Boone in particular. Yeah, he’ll be fair!

But he’ll also be pinched by North Carolina statutes governing the political activities of members of local boards of election. G.S. § 163-39, “Limitation on political activities,” will put the kibosh on Mr. Hastings’ radio career, though we suppose he might convert it to a cooking show.

A dead give-away of something unusual going on behind the scenes: no one in the Watauga GOP wants to talk about it. Aceto told the Watauga Democrat that he’s leaving the country any minute and didn’t have time to talk. Jim Hastings couldn’t be reached. And Anne Marie Yates, chairwoman of the party, said “she was not yet ready to give an interview about the appointments.”

That’s not a particularly good look for a party chair.

Now Starring in the Remake of 'Idiocracy' ... Gov. Pat McCrory

Bob Geary of The Independent has done his own list of the boneheaded decisions already made -- or statements uttered -- by our state's Second-in-Command, Gov. Pat McCrory. (You know who's actually in charge, or else you have no detectable pulse.)

Anyway, we love "aggregators" who remember shit and put it together in handy lists like this one:

• Rejecting "unlawful demonstrations." The Greensboro sit-ins, which involved black students sitting at lunch counters reserved for whites, were unlawful too at the time. But McCrory, disdainful of those who study history instead of something useful, dismissed Moral Monday protesters because praying, singing and congregating in the General Assembly building violates a trespass law enacted by—the General Assembly. McCrory welcomes "lawful protest," he huffed. "What I don't want is just gimmicks for the media."

• No "outsiders," except my outsiders. McCrory slammed Moral Monday again at the state Republican convention in Charlotte in early June, warning that "outsiders are coming in." Shades of the Red Scare! Except that surveys of who's protesting confirm that 95 percent are North Carolinians. On the other hand, millions of dollars spent to elect McCrory and the Republican legislative majorities in 2012 did come from out of state, along with a slew of bad bills from the corporation-funded American Legislative Exchange Council.

• What could they want? McCrory told WRAL, "I actually, many times, don't know what [the protesters'] agenda is." Perhaps that's because he refuses to meet with them. For example, when public school supporters came to protest funding cuts, his office said he was busy in meetings and had no time to talk—and at that very moment, a passer-by snapped a picture of McCrory tossing a baseball on the Capitol grounds.

• "I Won't Back Down." McCrory claims the Tom Petty song as his theme. Does he realize that the song is about standing up to bullies? "I got just one life/ In a world that keeps on pushin' me around/ But I'll stand my ground/ And I won't back down." It's not suitable for a long-pampered governor whose party has veto-proof majorities in the General Assembly and is pushin' the neediest down.

• It's too complicated, #1. Last week, McCrory signed legislation repealing the Racial Justice Act, repeating Republican complaints that the law was "seriously flawed." The RJA allowed judges to determine whether racial bias drove a jury's decision to sentence a murderer to death rather than life in prison. Saying it was flawed suggests you could do better. So where's your RJA, Governor?

• It's too complicated, #2. Earlier, McCrory allowed a bill to become law without his signature that would seize the Asheville water system from the city government, controlled by Democrats, and hand it to a new regional authority controlled by Republicans. His reason for neither signing nor vetoing the bill, according to a statement, was that it "raises complicated inter-governmental issues," which he'll leave to the courts.

• It's too complicated, #3. McCrory and other candidates, mostly Republicans, took campaign contributions totaling more than $700,000 from the sweepstakes gambling industry. McCrory says he's against sweepstakes gambling. But although a prior General Assembly passed a law against it and the state Supreme Court upheld the law in December, McCrory's Department of Public Safety hasn't cracked down yet. "I'd like the laws to be enforced," McCrory told The Charlotte Observer recently. "The problem is, the industry keeps finding loopholes."

• It's too complicated, #4. McCrory last week issued five goals ("pathways") for education, including one telling school leaders to find "more innovative methods to increase teacher pay." Republicans in Raleigh, including McCrory, are cutting state aid to schools. How is that innovative?

• Privatize to save money? After rejecting Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, a decision that will cost the state an estimated 26,000 health care jobs, McCrory wants to turn Medicaid administration over to private companies that will take their profits off the top. Privatization is how Mike Easley's administration wrecked mental health care in North Carolina. But why learn from history?

• Will talk for cash. McCrory will powwow with contributors tomorrow and Friday at an event in Greensboro hosted by the Renew North Carolina Foundation. Get two tickets for $10,000, or join for $25,000 and the tickets are free! It's for a good cause: social welfare for Republicans. Give them enough money, and they won't back down.

Rep. Stam Pokes His Big Nose Right on Up Into Those Lady Parts

Stam the Ram

Most health organizations, from the Centers for Disease Control to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, do not consider prior abortion to be a risk factor for preterm birth, let alone a "cause." Yet the NC House (that is to say, all but two of the Republican majority) has voted to teach -- teach -- 7th grade girls that abortion is a "cause" of premature births and miscarriages later in life.

This large piece of crap (S 132) was aggressively pushed by the nastily anti-choice representative from Apex, Paul Stam, who's never seen an anti-woman piece of legislation that he didn't love.

The even more hateful and regressive NC Senate has already passed a slightly different version of this bilge.

Not only anti-woman but anti-science, all rolled up together in one tidy package. We don't get more 19th century than that, North Carolina.

Resistance to the Republican Agenda in Texas

The voice of outraged citizens is being heard in Texas, too, and if you've got a shaky grip on what went down there last night, here's a highly detailed, insider's view:

Last night something very important happened down in Texas, something that if you weren't following as it happened, you're probably not going to hear the whole truth about. I was one of the people who was in the right place to watch, and so I'm now going to try to pass on the word as best I can. I'm tagging some of you at the bottom, people who I think should read this. Apologies for anyone who finds this disruptive.

The Texas senate voted yesterday on an bill that essentially would have closed nearly every abortion clinic in the state. To try to counter the bill (which was heavily supported by the Republican majority, senator Wendy Davis attempted a one-woman day-long filibuster, during which time she spoke on the subject while going without food, water, bathroom breaks or being allowed to sit down or even lean on her table for support. She lasted nearly eleven hours before being ruled off topic on a technicality. A second female senator then stepped up and tried to continue the filibuster by asking for salient points to be repeated to her, as she missed part of the session that day to attend her father's funeral.

But here's where things get interesting. With fifteen minutes before the midnight deadline, the lieutenant governor ordered the senate to proceed, and actually had the democrats' microphones cut off. The spectators in the assembly responded by cheering, chanting and generally causing a ruckus, in order to drown out attempts at a vote. The midnight deadline passed without a vote being taken, but the chair held a vote after midnight, as the spectators were forced out of the assembly. During all of this, there was no coverage on MSNBC, CNN or any other major news network, with the only coverage coming from a livestream set up by the Texas Tribune.

At 12:15, the Associated Press ran a story saying the bill had passed, which CBS picked up. This was based on a sole source, which the AP later admitted was a republican senator. Meanwhile in the chambers, the senators stood around, both sides confused if the vote had even happened, if they had even voted on the correct issue. The chair had left with the lieutenant governor without ending the session. The Tribune's feed was cut at 12:20 with 70,000 people watching. CNN at this point was talking about the deliciousness of muffins.

Outside in the halls of the senate building, thousands of people were packed wall to wall, chanting "shame, shame", while thousands more were outside. State police had formed a barricade around the entrance hall, and were making sporadic arrests (50 or so by night's end) and confiscating cameras. In the thick of it was a guy named Christopher Dido, who used his cell phone and a live stream to report on what was happening. He was the only journalist in America who was filming at the senate, with as many as 30,000 people watching the stream at one time, and over 200,000 viewers by night's end. He did this while the state police surrounded the protesters in the building, some of them with nightsticks drawn. The police at this time refused to let through food or water that people tried to send in, instead eating and drinking it themselves. They also barricaded access to vending machines and water fountains within the building, and were said to have blocked off access to the washrooms for at least a period of time. Meanwhile, journalists still inside the chambers tweeted out news updates, which were disseminated and retweeted by people like Matt Fraction, Felicia Day and Will Wheaton, reaching an audience that would otherwise have probably not seen or heard what happened next.

The senate was recalled 90 minutes after its midnight end point, to determine whether or not the vote was valid- behind closed doors with no microphones, and only the Senate's own muted camera. Then something disturbing happened. The senate website carries the official record of the caucus. It listed the vote as happening past midnight, on June 26th. Until suddenly it didn't. The date was quietly manually changed to 6/25, the minutes altered to say the vote happened at 11:59, despite almost 200,000 people watching live who saw differently. Suddenly twitter and other social media sites blew up with before-and-after screen shots. Inside the closed sessions, the democrats were made aware of the alterations and brought them up- without social media, almost no one would have known, and never in time. Ultimately, based on the fraudulent alterations, the GOP conceded defeat, admitting the vote had taken place at 12:03, and declaring the bill to be dead. When this happened, the AP and CBS said the vote was overturned, never admitting to shoddy journalism. CNN ignored the story until this morning, because muffins take priority.

Yesterday, I witnessed women's rights under fire, a crippled legal system that didn't represent its people, a corrupt government body attempting to commit a crime in front of hundreds of thousands of witnesses, and the complete failure of the main stream media. I also witnessed a woman performing a nearly superhuman act to do what was right, the power of the people making themselves heard both in person and online, and the extraordinary value of one young man with a cellphone making sure people saw and heard the truth about what was going on.

Anyone reading the papers or watching network news today won't get the full story. Hopefully enough people saw it unfold live, that the lessons from last night won't be forgotten.

Proving Once Again That They're Actually Whores

The Republican majority on the North Carolina Senate Committee on Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources voted to allow fracking gas companies operating in North Carolina to keep the list of chemicals they'll be injecting into wells a deep, dark secret. How can any neighbor of a fracking well know what's going into the water table under this rule?

Does that make any sense other than the sweaty need to please the corporate powers who've bought our state government? Down on your knees, bitches!

Judicial Activism

Congress reauthorized the Voting Rights Act by a vote of 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate in 2006, and the reauthorization was signed into law by a Republican president ... George W. Bush. Every congressional reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, in 1970, 1975, 1982 and 2006, made the law stronger, and each was signed into law by a Republican president (according to Ari Berman, who knows this stuff).

Even the conservatives on SCOTUS admit that the law has been singularly effective in broadening and protecting the voting rights of minorities, which, in Chief Justice Roberts' twisted reasoning, is the prime reason for now gutting it: everything's hunky-dory, so why have a Voting Rights Act at all?

Don't look now but the conservatives on SCOTUS just substituted their opinion for the opinion of the Congress, which is precisely what conservatives mean when they chant "judicial activism."

And now, given license by the conservatives on SCOTUS to discriminate again, the states of Texas, Alabama, and now of course North Carolina are poised to enact and enforce harsh and discriminatory new voter suppression laws.

Way to keep the brown people in their place, SCOTUS! But this should give new energy to Moral Mondays in Raleigh.

The grin-'n'-grip ... all he's good for.

Boone's Water and Republican Power-Madness

If the Republican-controlled General Assembly in Raleigh can force the city of Durham to extend water service to a mega-development outside its city limits -- which is exactly what the Republican-controlled General Assembly is threatening to do (the bill has already passed the NC Senate) -- then why on earth should Boone spend millions to develop a new source of water from the New River, when the Republican-controlled General Assembly (and our local reps Jonathan Jordan and Dan Soucek) will be only too happy to grab it and give it without compensation to Watauga County, which has no development regs to deal with it and a history of vindictive hatred for the town of Boone?

Another nail in the Republican-built coffin of "smaller government."