Not Too Shabby

Boone is ranked 23rd on a list of the 100 smartest cities in the U.S. Burlington, NC, ranked 52nd, but Chapel Hill didn't even make the list!

Watauga Voting Rights: In the Hands of People "Without a Moral Compass"

From right: Aceto, Eggers, Hodges, and Campbell

The real news from yesterday's Watauga County Board of Elections meeting was the small window opened on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of the Republican Chair of the Board, Luke Eggers.

According to Democratic member Kathleen Campbell, who based her statement on information received from elections Director Jane Anne Hodges, Chair Eggers was willing to allow the staff to place a transfer voting station at Legends on the Appalachian State University campus so long as fellow Republican member of the board Bill Aceto didn't find out.

Director Hodges has long been the decider on where transfer stations go on election day, because she knows best where there are likely to be voters "out of precinct." And there has been a transfer station on the ASU campus for years, until this year, when The Brothers Grim, Eggers and Aceto, took control of that option and forbade Hodges from putting a transfer station at ASU.

Transfer voting: allows a duly registered and qualified voter to cast a regular ballot out of precinct ... because they're confused about where to go, because they're lost, because they go to a precinct polling place they're familiar with even after they've moved their residence within the city. Without transfer voting, a confused voter is required to cast what's called a "provisional" ballot, which takes much longer because of niggling paperwork and takes much longer to process and count after the election is over.

Disallowing a transfer station on the ASU campus is just another species of college student voter suppression. Just because it's more subtle and considerably below the radar screen of the public doesn't make it smell any sweeter.

Now then. It's major news that Eggers was prepared to allow the transfer station behind Aceto's back. Why? (Why indeed.) Eggers has also never said a word in response to the charges against his administration of the Board brought by former Chair of the Board Stella Anderson, charges that the State Board of Elections continues to sit on. Aceto made a public response, inadequate as that document proved to be. But Eggers has said nothing.

Andrew Cox, The Appalachian

It's also worth noting the tiresome fact that Eggers' willingness to allow Hodges to place a transfer voting station at the Legends polling place was quickly rescinded. Two possible explanations for that: (1) Bill Aceto found out; (2) Luke's big brother and the Puppet Master of the Board, "Four" Eggers found out. Either way, the putative Chair of the Watauga Board of Elections is a weak reed and not the person who should be in charge of protecting the voting rights of Watauga County citizens.

All of this provoked Board member Kathleen Campbell to say at yesterday's meeting, sitting not three feet away from Luke Eggers, "I would tell you that you should be ashamed, but I know now from working with you over the last few months that you have no shame."

What did Luke Eggers say back to her, what did Luke Eggers do after that verbal dressing-down? Did his face turn purple with rage? Did he forcibly deny Campbell's charges of facilitating voter suppression? Did he in any way demonstrate to the public that was listening that he does indeed possess "a moral compass," equipment that Campbell said he lacks?

No. Luke Eggers sat there impassively, like a coleus plant wilted by a freeze, and said nothing, except "Is there a second to Ms. Campbell's motion."

I call that tacit acknowledgement and acceptance that what Campbell said about him was true. He lacks a moral compass.

NOTE: Good coverage of the meeting by Jesse Wood in the High Country Press, including documents he obtained by public records request (especially the letter from State Board general counsel Don Wright agreeing with Hodges that there should be a transfer voting station at Legends).

Two Governors, But Only One Moral Man

John Kasich, Republican Governor of Ohio, defied his Republican legislature, and especially its Tea Party rump, and found a way to expand Medicaid coverage to 275,000 poor Ohioans.

Pat McCrory, Republican Governor of North Carolina, refused yesterday to reconsider his Republican General Assembly's decision not to expand Medicaid coverage to a half-million poor North Carolinians.

One of those decisions was the moral thing to do, to help people who can't help themselves. The other was an indefensible choice that can only be explained away if you really do believe that more money in the pockets of rich people is a greater good than medical insurance for poor people.

Kasich in Ohio defended his decision: “I’m concerned about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor. That if you’re poor, somehow you’re shiftless and lazy. You know what? The very people who complain ought to ask their grandparents if they worked at the W.P.A.”

McCrory of North Carolina changed the subject, evoking the boogieman: “I will not sacrifice quality care for the people truly in need, nor risk further budget overruns by expanding an already broken system. Calling a special session to further expand Obamacare in North Carolina is out of the question.”

Meanwhile, rural hospitals are on the verge of closing because of lower Medicaid reimbursements, and half a million uninsured people in North Carolina are finding out they're too poor to qualify for federal subsidies for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Failure to expand Medicaid will certainly lead to more suffering for many and to premature death for some.

They talk about God incessantly, those Republican in Raleigh, but given a choice of following the example of Jesus Christ, they decide that is simply "out of the question."

Pope Center Wants To Sandblast the Color Out of NC Higher Education

A North Carolina right-wing "think tank" (if "thinking" means "maintaining ideological purity"), connected to You Know Who, has issued a report on the University of North Carolina that strongly suggests that a retreat from all this confusing multiculturalism will save the country, or at least save rich white privilege.

Evidently, "western civilization" is the only civilization, and the only literature/history/political thought that should count is Anglo-Saxon in origin.

Just more racial politics. Maybe they should get Don Yelton as Dean of General Education. I hear he might be available.

Too Much Honesty Can Get Your Ass Fired

Soon after Don Yelton's hair-raising appearance on The Daily Show (see video down-column), Doug Clark in the Greensboro News & Record praised him (in a back-handed sort of way) as "the most honest Republican in North Carolina."

Why? Because Mr. Yelton, until yesterday a member of the Buncombe County Republican Executive Committee, told the truth about the real motives behind the new voter suppression law passed this summer by the new Republican majority in the NC General Assembly. Said Mr. Yelton, North Carolina's new voter ID law "is going to kick the Democrats in the butt."

Both the Buncombe County Republican Party and the NC Republican Party fell all over themselves calling for Mr. Yelton's prompt resignation as a Buncombe precinct chair. He had pulled the white sheet a little too far back to reveal the contemporary Republican Party in the modern South, and though a majority of Republicans agree with Mr. Yelton's opinions, his blabber-mouthing their strategy all over Comedy Central was a definite no-no.

Sort of like Watauga Republican Party Chair Anne Marie Yates blabbing to the Watauga Democrat newspaper about how the local Board of Elections was planning to play hardball over the college student vote. So far, Yates still has her job. That's the big difference.

POSTSCRIPT
The refreshingly honest Mr. Yelton doubled-down in an interview with Jake Frankel in the Mountain XPress:

"The comments that were made, that I said, I stand behind them. I believe them." 

The short interview clips were edited together from a much longer two-hour sit-down, says Yelton. But he says he was pleased overall with the parts that were included. In fact, he notes that some of the comments he made that weren't included might've even been more controversial. "To tell you the truth, there were a lot of things I said that they could've made sound worse than what they put up." He adds, "I would've loved to been able to do it live. … But that wasn't offered."

Emphasis added. The man's proud of himself.

Don Yelton live. Boggles the mind.

A Miracle

Pope Francis has called right-wing Christianity a "sickness."

Guess this means that Congresswoman Virginia Foxx won't be breaking the line to kiss his ring when he shows up state-side.

Rebranding Update

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Resistance Is Futile

Anna Oakes gets on the money trail of Team Templeton in the Watauga Democrat, and Jeff Templeton is forthcoming on why his family has felt it necessary to bludgeon and then buy Boone's town government: They're doing it all to save Watauga County!

"We warned the town council that the over-reaching regulations could have the unintended consequence of encouraging large-scale apartment development outside the town's planning jurisdiction, and now we see that prediction coming true with The Cottages [of Boone]," sez Jeff.

Got that logic? Because Boone now regulates high-density development on steep slopes within its limits, all the obnoxious, destructive, and dangerous development moves out into the county (and Watauga County allows virtually anything). Therefore, O my Brethren, the Town of Boone is totally responsible for that hair-raising development on the ridge known as The Cottages of Boone. And for everything else you see in Watauga County that you don't like.

High Country Press photo

With logic like that, Team Templeton is going to make marvelous overlords! And with the money they've got they're clearly intent on doing whatever it takes to win. Just this week, we've heard of three different violations of the law committed by Team Templeton:

1. Stuffing their flyers into people's mailboxes -- a Federal offense

2. Putting out a flyer with a "Paid for" line listing a local business, which is also illegal under North Carolina law.

3. We are told that Mark Templeton was doing a robocall to cell phone numbers, which is another Federal offense.

McCrory Does Standup Comedy in DeeCee

"I'm an Eisenhower Republican," McCrory told a crowd at open-mike night in a Washington comedy club, and the line killed. Several people spilled their top-shelf drinks guffawing.

Well, okay, it wasn't a comedy club, but it might as well have been. It was the Jim DeMint(ed) Heritage Foundation, still all puffed up with self-importance for having pushed Congressional Republicans into shutting down the government over the threat that somewhere a poor person was about to get health insurance.

The Heritage Foundation would string up Eisenhower these days, but apparently they let Governor Squishy get away with that bland fabrication. For some reason, the demented Heritagers want to embrace McCrory as much as he wants to embrace them, since he allowed the most right-wing state legislature in the country to romp all over the progressive history of the state, with his blessing, while he baked cookies and grinned like an idiot.

McCrory's Washington comedy gig does clarify just exactly where he wants to stand, waaay over to the Right, and for that (as Tosh would say), we thank him.