civitas

Conservatives, especially the true believers that now populate the NC General Assembly, are fond of quoting Adam Smith, the 18th century Scottish moral philosopher and political economist. They love the quotes, but the content escapes them.

Smith wrote in "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations",
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." Smith went on to observe, "But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less render them necessary."

Every time one of our Republican legislators goes to an ALEC seminar or meets behind closed doors with ALEC representatives to write laws, they are conspiring against the public ... and corporations are always the direct beneficiaries.

Fran and the kids at Civitas have been on a witch hunt lately, trying to find evidence of voter fraud. As Progressive Pulse points out today, the one example Civitas has found (1) is not an example of voter fraud and (2) is not the result of any action taken by the citizen in question. The "fraud" was nothing more than a clerical error.

But don't hold your breath waiting for Colonel Fran to correct the error in the blog post, just like you shouldn't hold your breath waiting for an apology for his infamous seat-belt screw up.

When I was trained as an officer in the Navy, lying was not part of the syllabus. Looks like they did things differently in the Marine Corps.

Semper fi, Francis.

A swarm of securities class action law firms have been bad mouthing each other and their clients as they jostle for position of lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit related to the lackluster Facebook IPO. Civitas has taken the spurious claims of pugilistic legal underdogs, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, as evidence of "a sordid affair" that "underscores the need for North Carolina to convert to a 401(k) style retirement plan". Hardly.

Just received this via e-mail:

The Civitas Institute and the Franklin Center are teaming up to hold a conference July 27 and 28 in Raleigh featuring keynote speaker James O'Keefe, whose Project Veritas has produced eye-opening video footage about ACORN, voting procedures, and Medicaid.

Not only is this guy a law-breaking fraud, it appears he may also be a sexual harasser, as well. You're scraping the bottom of the barrel, guys.

In perhaps the most audacious attempt yet to turn a pile of happy horseshit into gold, Americans For Prosperity and the Civitas Institute are sponsoring a "Real Solutions" tour next week in an attempt to convince people that their deep budget cuts to education are *good* for North Carolina. Help us nip this insanity in the bud: please take a look at the tour stops in the article below and if you would like to get more involved in setting the record straight when they come near you, drop me a line: katymunger @ progressnc.org. We need to talk ... thank you!

(more after the jump)

N.C. Real Solutions Coming To a Town Near You

You're welcome, internets.

The good folks at NC Policy Watch are calling on the people at Civitas to take down their wildly deceptive ad about the impacts of their budgets cuts on public education. That'll never happen. If Civitas were to take down everything they write that is wildly deceptive, they'd have nothing left to say.

Art Pope must be proud.

I might just have to do an SC-TV thing and toss my Magnavox out the window:

NCCivitas 7:39pm via web
@NCCivitas & @AFPNC Statewide “NC Real Solutions” Educational Project on #ncga Budget Reforms tomorrow #ncgop Statewide TV buy #consnc

Unless I've missed something, the debut of this ad has been kept very close to the vest. Which of course has my spidey sense tingling. ;)

After parading a list of hot-button troublemakers to prejudice readers:

In fact, the opponents of voter ID are a small, but loud, alliance of Democratic leaders, ultra-liberal activists and the mainstream media. Across the country, groups like the ACLU, League of Women Voters, NAACP and AARP work together to form a powerful and well-funded coalition to stop voter ID legislation.

The puppet on duty proceeds to reference a "converted" Democrat who now "sees the light":