OMG, NCGOP, WTF? Don't Look Now, But One of Your Own Candidates Gets It

There are probably plenty of registered Republicans who might agree in private with Jason Thigpen (see what follows), but so far few are willing to say it out loud. This from "The People's Business" blog on the Fayetteville Observer site:

Jason Thigpen of Wilmington, the underdog Republican seeking to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Walter Jones in North Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District, bucked his party and issued a scathing broadside today against the state’s new Voter ID law. 

“You can paint a turd and sell it as art, but it's still a turd,” Thigpen said in article on his campaign’s Facebook page. “This is 2013 and any legislator that puts forth such a discriminatory bill should be laughed out of office. This is America, not Russia.”

My sainted mother, who thought words like damn, durn, darn, and especially shit were obscene, pure and simple, and we were never ever to use them, well, she didn't feel the same way about a good country term like turd, which was a pure noun of substantive reality to her. Our high school basketball coach felt the same way: "Run, you little turds!"

Proud to see that Jason Thigpen thrives in that vein, and that he can still recognize a turd for what it is.

A Movement, No Doubt!

At the Harvest House last night in Boone. Woot!

I Too Have a Dream

By Matthew Robinson, delivered on Wednesday, August 28, 2013, at the "Taking the Dream Home to Boone" rally at Harvest House:

On August 28, 1963—50 years ago today!—the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream” speech.

He called the magnificent words of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution a promissory note to every American, a guarantee to all the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But he said that America has defaulted on this promissory note for people of color and claimed that America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.” Yet he proclaimed that the bank of justice is not bankrupt, so we have come to cash this check.

And cash it they did. Cash it we did. Through hard work. Through determination. Through our sweat. Our tears. Our blood. To cash that check, many paid for it with their lives. We remember you today.

Through marches, letters, sit-ins, protests, and other acts of civil disobedience—often at the barrels of guns, confronted by the nozzles of water hoses, at the ends of batons, or facing the sharp teeth of police dogs, even facing down racist mayors, governors, lawmakers and White Citizens Councils, but also through the courts and through the ballot box—the people earned their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They earned their rights to equal justice and equal protection under the law. And they earned their right to vote. Even to vote for a black President.

We, the people, eliminated so-called separate but equal water fountains, theaters, buses, schools, hotels and motels, and “Whites only” signs. We killed Jim Crow. And we have made enormous progress.

But the nature of this progress has been gradual and has been incomplete because it tends to occur like this: 2 steps forward, 1 step back ... 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

The 2 steps forward are because of people like you—progressives—people who believe in progress, justice, and equality, and who dare to dream.

The 1 step backward is because of those who don’t believe in the dream, those afraid of progress, those vested in the status quo, and structural barriers reaching all the way to the US Supreme Court!

Of course, the Court recently struck down a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote for the majority said:

Our country has changed … 40-year-old facts have no logical relationship to the present day … Legislation must speak to current conditions … Congress cannot simply rely on the past.

Rely on the past? As if there is no evidence that discrimination in voting still exists in the present day, in the current conditions? How about in Shelby County, Alabama—the very place that challenged the Voting Rights Act to the Court—where 77% of the voters in the last election voted for the white guy?

Within a month of this decision, North Carolina passed what observers have called one of the worst voter suppression laws in the country’s recent history. You know what it does:

· requires you to have a state-issued ID to vote (but a college issued ID is not acceptable).
· cuts early voting.
· shortens hours for voting.
· eliminates same-day voting registration.
· eliminates pre-registration of 16- and 17-year-olds in high school.
· allows people from anywhere in the state to challenge voters in any county.
· will not count votes of people who accidentally vote in the wrong place.

Who will this hurt? Young people. Old people. Poor people. Women. People of color.

So now, here in this time and this place, it’s 2 steps forward, 3 steps back ... 2 steps forward, 3 steps back.

And then, just days ago, the local election board in this county did this:

· Combined three precincts into a massive new one (one with more than 9,000 voters, yet with only 28 parking spaces—one that is a 17 minute walk from campus, yet with no sidewalks and no bus service).
· Moved another district to a less convenient location.
· Limited early voting
· Closed three total precincts on the campus of Appalachian State University, if you count the early voting site in the Student Union.

Who will this hurt? Young people. Old people. Poor people. Women. People of color.

2 steps forward, 3 steps back.

I am pretty sure that I went to sleep on the night of November 6, 2012, in the 21st Century. As we re-elected the nation’s first African American president, I went to bed knowing that our nation had changed. We had progressed.

That night I looked at my children, snuggled safely in their beds, and thought: “What a tremendous joy it is to know that my children live in a time where seeing a black family in the White House—a beautiful black family—is just normal.”

But sometime over the course of the next several months, I traveled back to the 20th Century. And so did you.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that by the morning of July 26, 2013 (the end of the first session of the North Carolina General Assembly) it was 1963 all over again.

In the span of only half a year, the legislature and elections boards have taken us back decades to a time when it is okay to restrict voting rights and, in many cases, deny people their right to vote entirely.

2 steps forward, 3 steps back

And it gets worse. NC lawmakers—who are only in office because of large in-flows of cash into the state’s election system by billionaires from in-state and out-of-state (and who were not voted for by a majority of citizens in the state!)—proposed a law to exempt the state and local municipalities from federal court rulings! As if they—motivated by “states’ rights” and a desire to see the south rise again—want to take us back to 1863, a period of rebellion, secession, treason, and yes, civil war!

2 steps forward, 3 steps back

Well, as Dr. King said so eloquently 50 years ago today, “I Have a Dream!”

I stand before you today to say I too have a dream. But it’s not just a dream about racial equality or living in a color-blind society. It’s a dream where I imagine that I’ll soon wake up from this dream—this nightmare!—safely back in the 21st Century.

It’s a dream that, in the words of Maya Angelou, we can “believe that the day will come that we do not have to be saddled; we do not have to be crippled with all this idiocy!”

Of course I want to see Dr. King’s dream of freedom for all realized. But what I really dream of now is that a resemblance of freedom will return to my beloved town of Boone, to Watauga County, and to the state of North Carolina so that we can get back to walking forward without having to look back.

2 steps forward, NO steps back. 2 steps forward, NO steps back
.
I have a dream that these Moral Monday protests will grow into Moral Tuesday, and Moral Wednesday, and Moral Thursday, Friday, Saturday and yes, Moral Sunday protests, so that come election day, 2014, we will end this madness, end this trip into the 20th Century, end this hopefully brief stop at 1963—and stop once and for all the desire to go back to 1863 to fight another civil war.

2 steps forward, NO steps back

I have a dream that we will finally be able to get rid of the ridiculous notions that states are free to do whatever they like regardless of federal law, and worse still, that the south will rise again.

2 steps forward, NO steps back

I have a dream that we will return safely to the 21st Century. The 21st Century where we value liberty, equality, justice, and happiness for all. Where it is easy for everyone to vote because of the struggles and sacrifices of all those who came before us. And where it is finally time to fulfill the promises of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

2 steps forward, NO steps back

To do this, let’s get on our feet. Take to the streets. And vote. Register others to vote. Get people to the polls. … Get on our feet. Take to the streets. And vote. Register others to vote. Get people to the polls.

2 steps forward, NO steps back!
2 steps forward, NO steps back!

"I Don't Get No Respect"

Our brand new governor is becoming tediously tiresome and utterly predictable in making two repeated claims about his first eight months in office:

1. "I have stepped on the toes of both Left and Right."

2. "All my bad publicity is the fault of the liberal press and outside liberal groups."

We're still waiting for any evidence that McCrory has stood up to the Tea Party wing of the General Assembly Gang, or dared to step out of line, or that his opinion even matters to them. His repeated claims that he's "stepped on their toes" begins to look more like a self-delusion that may require some medical intervention. Does McCrory look in the mirror and see "A Profile in Courage"?

As far as the bad press goes, McCrory is taking the advice of political operatives who apparently cut their teeth on the Spiro Agnew formula of demonization: blame big-city reporters for goddamn DARING to notice what you're actually doing, and finger shadowy "liberal groups" who in fact have far less in the way of resources to spread their views than your own Art Pope Machine has for papering the world with exactly the opposite.

But occasionally -- like every time he opens his mouth to whine -- McCrory will veer "off-message" just enough to keep people like me entertained.

In an interview with The Charlotte Business Journal, which did not apparently go quite as McCrory expected, he blurted out this:

Republicans [in the General Assembly] fell prey to “that 10 or 20 percent overreach that you didn’t need to do.”

"That 10 or 20 percent overreach"? Say whaaa?

We question the Guv's math even while we marvel at the word choice: "overreach." Part of that math problem is that the 10-20% estimate of foolhardiness has not been matched by any 10-20% corrective action that a governor has at his disposal. McCrory vetoed only two of some 334 bills. He signed all the rest, except for the "No Sharia Law in North Carolina courts" bill, which he said was "unnecessary" but declined to veto. He let that ridiculously unnecessary piece of excess become law without his signature. (Way to go, Guv, stepping on those right-wing toes!)

Two bills vetoed out of 332 signed. As far as we can tell by the Guv's exercise of power, two vetoed bills signal an actual functional "overreach" by the General Assembly of something more like .006%, rather than 10-20%.

But, then, we're probably just part of "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals," as Spiro would say.

The Paper Tiger Folds Himself Into Asheville

Governor Pat McCrory is now sneaking into North Carolina cities in order to avoid coming face-to-face with citizens who have a problem with his administration.

With only two hours notice, McCrory suddenly swooped into Asheville yesterday to take the microphone before a safe audience, the Council of Independent Business, and to pretend that he's actually running the economic policy show instead of Art Pope and a bunch of other Republican leaders who've been busy engineering rewards for the rich people.

Protesters against McCrory showed up anyway across the street from Magnolia's in what is becoming a regular feature of The Guv's unhappy life in state government -- people holding up signs and calling him out on decisions he's made gone along with.

The best part: our dumb-as-a-stump governor, who graduated from Catawba College in education and poly sci, had the gall to say this about legislation he's signed to give more to the rich while taxing the poor and the middle class more:

“This is too complex for the journalists. They don't have economics degrees, they've not been in business. I respect them greatly, but you get it. This is what we have to do to rebuild our economy. It's not easy. I empathize with the people being impacted, but my goal is to get these people back into jobs.”

By the "people" he says he's trying to get "back into jobs," we assume he's referring to his 24-year-old campaign operatives that got $80,000+ jobs in the McCrory administration, because we haven't noticed any other jobs coming to North Carolina and certainly not via McCrory's policies.

This Has Been a Lip-Smacking, Gob-Smacking August. It May Get Worse for Some

The lip-smacking of Watauga County Republican/Tea Party activists this past spring over the thought of taking over the Watauga Board of Elections was loud and obnoxious. They were publicly celebrating the idea that they would soon...

1. Fire elections director Jane Anne Hodges, the 27-year veteran in the Board of Elections.

2. Put an end to the voting of those pesky college students at Appalachian State University.

And then the local universe would belong to them forever and ever amen!

But there's many a slip between the fork and the mouth. First (and for reasons never publicly explained), the Republican choice for the chairmanship of the Watauga County Board of Elections, Stacy Eggers IV ("Four") was rejected at the state level, and the man that the State Board appointed, Mr. Jim Hastings, declined the appointment. A lot of serious time was eaten up by that SNAFU, and a deadline loomed: The Implementation Plan for Early Voting in the Boone Municipals needed to be submitted to the state by August 16.

The Republicans needed a chair of the Board that they could control, someone who would take orders, and it may yet turn out to be one of their biggest blunders in decades that they decided to appoint Four Eggers' little brother Luke. He was seriously not ready for prime time.

Then the Watauga County Republican Party Chair Anne Marie Yates appeared in the Watauga Democrat, giving evidence that a conspiracy existed to massively alter the ability of college students to vote, which would (we're sure it was a coincidence) help her brother Mark Templeton and Matt Long and James Milner and John Mena sweep the Boone Town Council elections in November.

With the August 16th deadline pushing him, Luke Eggers rushed to get himself sworn into office and to hold a meeting as the new Chair of the Board that would do all the stuff that is now the subject of state-wide and national attention.

The pushback was perhaps unexpected. The negative publicity was perhaps not really thought through. The legal recourse for Boone voters was perhaps not fully anticipated. (Hell, Anne Marie Yates may already be in the witness relocation program or is otherwise not speaking to the press in an undisclosed location.)

Now comes the state Board of Elections, which clearly does not like the press coverage of Watauga County. The new Republican Chair of the State Board, Josh Howard, gave an interview to the Raleigh News & Observer last week, and he said this:

“It may disappoint a lot of folks that there’s still a steady hand on the rudder.”

That was a somewhat cryptic utterance that can be read in a couple of ways. Mr. Howard also told the 500 new board members and staff people from across the state at their training day in Cary:

Board members are supposed to assure voting takes place in compliance with the law. Decision-making should not be rooted in party politics....

It's an open question what Mr. Howard meant by that and what he's prepared to do to prove to the world that the NC State Board of Elections is not now rooted in (revenge) politics.

NC Republicans Are Good At Erasing Stuff

McCrory's Facebook posts ... poof!

As you were! Smoke 'em if you've got'em.

Civitas Plays Aunt Pittypat

Luke Eggers (WRAL)

The Art Pope Civitas Institute has jumped into the Watauga voting rights battle on the side of Luke Eggers and Bill Aceto, the two Republican members of the Watauga County Board of Elections, taking this tact:

"The Watauga County Board of Elections meeting took place on August 12, with a newly appointed Republican member. The lone Democratic member, Kathleen Campbell, cursed throughout the meeting and condescendingly called the Republican board members, Bill Aceto and Luke Eggers, “boys”. And just like Mondays at the legislature, the attendees at this meeting screamed and booed and chanted throughout the meeting."

"...cursed throughout the meeting..."? According to the videotape, Kathleen Campbell said "damn" twice. We realize that Clark Gable's "damn" at the end of "Gone With the Wind" caused a big stir across the nation, but that was 1939, and this is 2013, and it seemed to dozens in that audience that day -- who were, indeed, kicking up a voluble fuss, no doubt about it -- that the suppression of voting ease being rammed through the Watauga County Board of Elections deserved a good deal saltier language than a mere couple of damns.

As far as the horrifying act of calling the Republican members "boys" ... on reflection that moniker seems pointedly appropriate for capturing the total lack of preparation exhibited by the two ... men. They came into that meeting with very complex printed resolutions in their hands that would change the voting landscape of Watauga County in very substantive ways, yet they didn't want to share the content of those resolutions and didn't in fact seem to know what those resolutions said and implied, because, well, they were written by Big Brother.

"Boys"? Would "puppets" sound any better?

The author of that Civitas face-fanning article linked above is one Susan Myrick. That name might ring a bell. She was prominently mentioned last night on Rachel Maddow's live show from Elizabeth City as the Civitas staffer who sat next to the Pasquotank County Republican Party Chair as he successfully challenged the right of a black Elizabeth City State University student to run for city council.

It's certainly the policy of Art Pope's Civitas Institute to applaud the suppression of young and black voters across the state, though they hide their true agenda behind the lace hankies of a supposedly shocked sense of propriety. Civitas certainly expresses no shock at the transparent attempt to discriminate against a class of young and black voters.

They damn well better get ready for a lot more damn cursing.

"The Memory Hole in Action"

Below, a very thorough video dissection of how Four Luke Eggers and Bill Aceto, the two new Republican members of the Watauga County Board of Elections, scrubbed the minutes of the board meeting on August 12 (a Day That Will Live in Infamy) in order to rewrite history. Luckily, because the Winston-Salem Journal has a reporter like Bert Gutierrez on its staff, history is a little more resilient than Four Luke Eggers and Bill Aceto might have thought possible.

This is one of those national news segments that will become a permanent part of our cultural history:

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