Art Pope

When you're running for governor in the Party of Greed and you're not a multimillionaire like Bill Graham and Fred Smith, it's gotta be rough. Which might explain why Judge Bob Orr is having such a hard time cutting the strings that connect him to Art Pope. After years of toiling in the Pope's employ, Orr appears reluctant to bid the Puppetmaster farewell and strike out on his own.

A vocal critic of incentives used to attract businesses is preparing to sue because of tax breaks worth millions that the state recently promised Google. Bob Orr, executive director of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law in Raleigh, said Monday that the group's directors have authorized the institute to "move forward in its research and preparation of a legal challenge."

After years of listening to the anti-tax zealots at the Art Pope Puppetshow, the North Carolina General Assembly has lost its sense of decency and perspective.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get much worse for families in North Carolina relying on the state’s mental health system for support, state officials gave them an unwelcome Easter surprise Thursday afternoon.

It came in the form of a memo announcing that the state was slashing by a third the amount it will pay for community support services provided to children and adults with mental illness. That is likely to mean some of the most vulnerable people in the state will no longer get the help they need.

We the People were out ahead of Dole and Burr on opposition to the OLF. And we are out ahead of our scaredy-cat representatives in Raleigh when it comes to social services.

The few real journalists remaining at the N&O must cringe with embarrassment every time Rick Martinez, Art Pope's planted Puppet at the paper, comes out with a new column. His most recent is truly laughable.

First off, in his infinite wisdom ignorance, Martinez questions the viability of conservation, preferring instead to build more coal-fired power plants that would hasten the demise of the planet. True to his Puppet roots, Martinez has never met a thoughtful approach to planning he didn't like.

The latest chapter in North Carolina's growing record of civic selfishness occurred early Tuesday morning in the Buncombe County town of Woodfin, a few miles north of Asheville. In a room packed with 150 or so people, the town's Board of Adjustment rejected Progress Energy's request for a conditional use permit to build a small, 130-megawatt peak power plant.

The Rocky Mount Telegram has been doing a great job lately shilling for the North Carolina Party of Greed. This weekend's story about Bill Daughtridge lays the news propaganda out for all to see:

NASHVILLE – When N.C. Rep. Bill Daughtridge took the podium to address the Nash County Republican Party at its convention Thursday night, he had plenty to say about his party's goals, prospects and ideals.

But before he got into any of that, Daughtridge – who is trying to become the first Republican state treasurer since 1876 – wanted to draw attention to a certain Democrat.

Holding up a newspaper plastered with the face of former N.C. House Speaker Jim Black, who recently pleaded guilty to bribery charges, Daughtridge spoke about the N.C. General Assembly's several new ethics laws, and the concern he's seen from some of his Democratic colleagues.

Earlier this week, I wrote about the fact that Judge Bob Orr has worked himself into a pickle when it comes to running for governor. And as is often the case in politics, this pickle is about money. Here's my take on the whole sad situation.

1. Art Pope has to give away a lot of money. His daddy's foundation has a ton of cash, and law requires that a significant percentage of that cash be distributed each year. That's one reason Pope starts so many not-for-profit organizations like the John Locke Foundation, Civitas, and the Institute for Constitutional Law. I've studied the financial filings for many of these organizations, and while they are not lavishly funded, they are certainly not scraping by. By some accounts, Pope is spending upwards of $300,000 a month on JLF alone.

Rumors or reality? NC State is all a-twitter either way.

Toby Parcel, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at NC State, has apparently been pressuring department heads to come up with proposals to submit to the Pope Foundation. One department discussed this possibility at its February 14, 2007, faculty meeting.

Several faculty members noted that the values and agenda of the Pope Foundation are incompatible with the values and mission of a public university. In view of this conflict, department faculty decided that they did not want to seek Pope Foundation funding or have anything to do with the Foundation.

In the latest edition of Onslow County Commissioner Joe McLaughlin's "Onslow Board of Commissioners Update" (McLaughlin's self-written newsletter on BOC activities), he plays up his relationships with the John Locke Foundation, John Hood (the Locke Foundation's director) and Arthur Pope, benefactor of the John Locke Foundation and president of Variety Wholesalers, Inc.

Says McLaughlin about John Hood and the John Locke Foundation staff:

John and his talented staff have done a magnificent job illuminating corruption in Raleigh and advancing conservative themes. We are fortunate to have them.

Stagemanager Hood must have had an easy time writing today's column over at the JLF Puppetshow. He's calling for all sorts of legislative and electoral reforms. The problem is, he's been scooped by Speaker Joe Hackney who has already declared that the issues Hood's writing about will become the House Rules.

So instead of actually adding value to the discussion, Hood trolls in the dirty waters still swirling around Jim Black, who has been fully discredited and will likely end up in jail for his transgressions. But that doesn't stop the Stagemanger from stomping his feet and pounding his fists as though he has something meaningful to say.

To regain the public trust, and to set right at least some of what has gone so horribly wrong, state policymakers must be forthright, resolute, and bold. They should recognize that corruption has tainted past legislative action, and that in the future their work will be judged not simply by the intended ends but by whether the means used to enact the legislation were just.

Some stories, like the decline and fall of Jim Black, refuse to die. Which is exactly the case in the blood feud between Art Pope and Richard Morgan, two luminaries in the North Carolina Party of Greed.

As you may remember, Art Pope (fondly known around these parts as the Puppetmaster) dumped half a million dollars of his family's corporate money into the 2006 Republican primaries. He focused particularly on stomping out Richard Morgan, who had the audacity to work with Democrats over the years in the General Assembly. In hopes of purifying the party and remaking it in his own arrogant image, the Puppetmaster bankrolled a campaign to support Joe "the Hairdresser" Boylan against Morgan in Moore County. Morgan challenged his spending as electioneering, but was rebuffed by the idiots at the State Board of Elections.

Democracy took a sucker punch this week when the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted to allow the sale of legislative seats to fat-cat corporations. In an embarrassing display of incompetence, board chairman Larry Leake and his hapless colleagues went through the motions of hearing Richard Morgan's complaint with barely a nod in the direction of decorum or seriousness. Loony Larry even had this to say to a reporter from the Southern Pines Pilot:

Asked if the board could not really have ruled just the same way in about 20 minutes - without all the testimony and argument - Leake just smiled.

The feeding frenzy in the NCGOP gubernatorial race has taken a new twist lately as more observers define Bob Orr as a water boy for Art Pope. Consider this piece from the obscure Up and Coming Magazine.

Is Orr the kind of principled moderate that Jim Holshouser proved to be? His close association with Art Pope will lead many to wonder. But in the campaigns to follow, we will learn more.

Principled moderate? Who's this guy trying to kid? If Orr was a moderate, Art Pope wouldn't have given him the keys to the free-market washroom at the John Locke Foundation.