Thursday, May 23, 2013 - 11:03am

Not enough conflicts of interest to go around:

Brawley also implies that Tillis is aware of unethical behavior by another lawmaker: "A Republican-led General Assembly passing a bill giving a monopoly to the family of a Republican legislator. I am sure you know what I am referring to since all conversations I have had with anyone seem to lead back to you."

Brawley was referring to House Bill 738, a law passed in 2012 that requires all bail bondsmen in the state to be certified by the NC Bail Agents Association. The non-profit NC Bail Agents Association is run by Phil Burr, the father of Rep. Justin Burr, R-Stanly, himself a bail bondsman. While Rep. Burr recused himself from voting on the measure, critics say other members of state House and Senate leadership made sure it would pass, including Sen. Tom Apodaca, R-Henderson, also a bail bondsman and one of the founders of the NCBBA.

This is just one of many problems that arise when political leaders discard ethical considerations in favor of self-serving behavior. Those who feel they haven't been able to line their pockets as deeply as others turn bitter, and start singing like a canary. Probably 90% of those serving time for white-collar crimes have found this out, and it looks like the NC GOP is on the verge of finding it out, too.

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Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 2:11pm

Controversy fueled by greed:

Of course, one of the more outspoken proponents is an astroturfer heavily funded by RWI's and one of the authors of ALEC's Parent Trigger nonsense:

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Monday, May 20, 2013 - 1:06pm

Political troubles looming in the next election cycle:

So in next spring’s primary, for example, we can expect that anti-tax, tea-party Republicans who vote for any tax-reform measure will get hit with a charge that they supported a tax increase. After the bills are debated, and maybe approved, we will have to look at the broad picture, not just small pieces, to determine if an incumbent represented us well. And as we do that, we should have a little sympathy for these veterans of the no-win battle of tax reform.

You know where sympathy falls in the dictionary, right? Those who would shift the tax burdens from the wealthy to the poor will not get a single whit of sympathy from me. When you choose to aid a small minority of the population who need no aid at the expense of a much larger portion who already do, you've surrendered your right to be treated with patience and respect, much less sympathy. Let them spin until their heads fall off.

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Sunday, May 19, 2013 - 11:14am

Putting ideology above the health and safety of the citizens:

Today, for example, about 94% of adults under 65 in Massachusetts have health coverage, the highest rate in the nation. The state guarantees coverage through Medicaid or commercial insurance under a plan developed in 2006 by then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, and Democratic state lawmakers. By contrast, only 68% of working-age Texans are insured, the lowest rate. Residents of the two states also have vastly different health outcomes. Potentially preventable deaths, a measure of the overall effectiveness of a healthcare system, are 36% higher in Texas than in Massachusetts, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The realization of just how inhumane the rejection of Medicaid expansion is, is probably what drove Aldona Wos to desperately try to deflect responsibility. She got caught and exposed by the mainstream media, but they need to take mortality rates like the ones above out of the editorial pages and put them where they should be, on the front page. There is no plane crash or natural disaster that takes anywhere near the lives that cancer does, and refusing to take steps that could prevent those deaths is borderline criminal negligence. If that isn't "newsworthy", I don't know what the hell is. Speaking of shifting responsibility:

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Saturday, May 18, 2013 - 10:23am

Robbing the poor to give to the rich:

The current proposals at the General Assembly would reduce or eliminate the personal income tax (a huge tax cut for the wealthy) and would make up some of the lost revenue by increasing the sales tax. The net result—the wealthy would pay much less in taxes while middle- and low-income families would pay more. That’s the Great Tax Shift. Lawmakers want to shift the tax load from wealthy North Carolinians onto working families.

The average people of this state have been betrayed. Betrayed by those who promised tax cuts for all, but only ever intended for those at the top to benefit. One need only take a closer look at AFP's chosen cheerleader to see the truth of that:

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Friday, May 17, 2013 - 11:59am
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Thursday, May 16, 2013 - 1:32pm

Helped along by a supermajority of assholes:

This morning, the House passed HB 730 in a vote of 72 to 39. While HB 730 was amended to eliminate extremist language about contraception, the final version of the bill included three abortion provisions that would hurt NC women and families. “We are extremely disappointed that the majority of the members of the NC House put politics above women’s health when they approved the eleventh hour additions to House Bill 730,” said Suzanne Buckley, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina. “To call this bill ‘pro-choice,’ as Rep. Schaffer did this morning, is shameful and ridiculous,” she continued.

It is shameful, and should be enough of a catalyst to get every female of voting age out to the polls in the next election. If we fail to get this message out, we don't deserve to win.

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Wednesday, May 15, 2013 - 7:18pm

Aside from the proven damage that terminal groins can cause to areas that wouldn't have a vote under this measure, the structures themselves can be incredibly expensive to both construct and maintain. Once again, Republicans are taking steps that will drive a wedge between communities. And that may be why they decided to repeat the avoid-the-vote stunt they pulled a few weeks ago:

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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 - 1:02pm

Only impaired leaders would prefer impaired waters:

As I've mentioned before (ad nauseum), this is NOT a state issue, it's a Federal one. We have a certain degree of flexibility in the construction of rules (such as Jordan Lake's), but we do not have the authority to not implement such rules. Here's a little more for the skeptics:

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