Fred Eshelman

WORMs. White, old rich men.

Click the picture for some required reading from NC Policy Watch.

And as usual, poor kids will suffer from their influence:

That’s David Powers. He works as a state lobbyist for Reynolds American Tobacco Company. He’s also on the corporate board of ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. New Chair Peter Hans was a senior advisor to three Republican senators. Fred Eshelman funds Right Change.com, a hyper-partisan website.

If there is one drawback to having all (or most) of our large public universities fall under the umbrella of the UNC System, it's what could happen if that system got contaminated with free-market fundamentalism:

A new NC super PAC is planning a $320,000 advertising blitz next week for ten General Assembly candidates, all incumbents, nine Republicans and one Democrat. The Carolina Business Coalition Education Fund reports receiving $350,000 from the related Carolina Business Coalition, Inc., in May and reports spending $321,660 on electioneering communications for five House candidates and five Senate candidates planned for June 11th. The super PAC will spend $61,128 on Senator Neal Hunt’s re-election alone.

This statement is even more ambiguous than his usual blather:

Though the company says it usually doesn’t comment on speculation, Executive Chairman Fred Eshelman said, “We are not engaged in any discussions around a combination with other clinical research providers.”

Of course PPD's stock is up, since those Wall Street idiots love it when somebody says something they can't comprehend. If we're lucky, Eshelman will declare "mission accomplished" here and move to another state so he can fuck up its government. I usually don't condone pushing my problems on somebody else, but...

Below is the text of a complaint filed yesterday with the State Board of Elections regarding the campaign committee of Tom Murry. You can't buy Sudafed from a pharmacy without showing ID and having the purchase recorded. Pharmacist Tom Murry has been taking money from some pharmacists without properly disclosing the origin. Some contributions are from pharmacists whose pharmacies are accredited by an organization headed by Murry.

Murry has a strange sense of ethics. He has not condemned the misleading corporate attacks on Chris Heagarty by "Real Jobs NC", led by Art Pope of Variety Wholesalers and Fred Eshelman of PPD. The fact that Murry's wife works for PPD and owns PPD stock (according to public records) may or may not have something to do with his reluctance to criticize Eshelman and Pope. You be the judge.

In defense of our business climate:

The website for Real Jobs NC, which is seeking to toss out alleged Democratic spendthrifts and replace them with virtuous Republicans, declares that “North Carolina is currently rated as having one of the worst tax environments for business in the Southeast.”

If that's so, why has Site Selection magazine – whose subscribers are corporate executives who make decisions about where to locate plants – ranked North Carolina at or near the top of the list of states with the best business climate for nine years running? We must be doing something right.

Attempts to undermine freedom in America have always been part of the political landscape. Today, however, with the concurrence of the US Supreme Court's outrageous Citizens United ruling, anti-democracy forces are rising to a pitched frenzy.

At the center of the storm in North Carolina is a cabal headed by Art Pope and Fred Eshelman, who seeming willing stop at nothing to gain political power. From what I can see, they flirt with the edges of both the law and of common decency, asserting the arrogance of their financial strength into every dimension of public discourse. NC Policy Watch covers their latest joint venture, a 527 called Real Jobs NC.

Is it just me, or is this:

"Real Jobs North Carolina is not partisan. We hope this message reaches all voters," said Art Pope, a Real Jobs NC leader and longtime Republican activist whose family company has given $100,000 to the effort. Personally, Pope said he believes "the Democratic parties at the national level and at the state level have in effect destroyed jobs."

The Republican State Leadership Committee, which works to elect GOP candidates at the state level, gave $300,000 to the group in June and July, according to a State Board of Elections report filed last week.

not one of the most blatantly contradictory statements ever made? If that's not partisan, God help us if they decide to go all partisan on us. ;/

It buys propaganda:

RightChange.com communicates with a zingy edge and a sense of humor, without being afraid to pose difficult questions to those in power. RightChange.com believes that Americans can address our national challenges by working together across party lines and not simply accepting political “sound bites” that are contradictory to the facts and insulting to our intelligence.

I've got your "zingy edge" right here, pal.

Our friend Greg Flynn is up to his usual high standards with a piece today posted at Progressive Pulse on a creature named Fred Eshelman. Mr. Eshelman, whose clinical trials company has pulled in $600 million in federal money over the past ten years, is spending some of his hard-earned profits to rail against the machine that helped make him rich.

Now Eshelman has teamed up with Durham attorney John W. Marin and Lumberton businessman Murchison “Bo” Biggs to create a North Carolina focused conservative attack machine called “Real Jobs NC, Inc”. Biggs is a veteran of the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association and a director of the NC FreeEnterprise Foundation.

What an a$$hole.