Max Borders

With Jack Hawke, ex-ringleader of the Civitas Circus, now blowing hot air into Pat McCrory's corporate sails, the shape of the general election for governor is clear: On the Democratic side, you'll have a dedicated public servant who understands how government works and why it's important to work toward the common good. And on the other side you'll have a guy like Pat "Duke" McCrory, purveyor of free-market talking points galore: Gummint is bad, greed is good, and I'm the man to protect yo wallet from the pinko comminists in Raleigh.

Map now updated with Myers Park Pat!

I admit to spending less and less time worrying about the "reports" and political activities spewing steadily from the Art Pope Puppetshow. Funded to the tune of $3 to $4 million annually by the knight of the right, the increasingly irrelevant John Locke Foundation and Civitas appear to have attracted all the converts they're going to get.

But as our handy-dandy (and updated!) map of the Show suggests, the Puppetmaster has infiltrated major media outlets and at least one major university, so they are definitely worth keeping an eye on. Which is why I was so pleased to see this post by Rob Schofield at NC Policy Watch yesterday. It's a doozy.

cross-posted from The Progressive Pulse.

Max Borders.

Borders is a policy analyst and media coordinator at Art Pope's Civitas Institute, and contributes to their blog Red Clay Citizen. He published a hate piece recently on our own Adam Searing, titled Mandate Mania: Does Adam Searing Hate People? Max implies that, yes, Adam does hate people. In addition, Max knows this about Adam: he lies to himself, he wants you to pay for things you don't need, he wants poor people to be uninsured (an odd accusation against the Director of the North Carolina Health Access Coalition), he hates freedom, and finally, Max knows that "Adam thinks he's smarter than you."

Adam is too much of a gentleman to rebut Borders' vitriolic post.

But I'm not.

A couple of items of interest today.

First off, Chris Fitzsimon at NC Policy Watch smacks Rick Martinez (News Puppet at WPTF-AM) upside his wooden head with a great column on public education.

The market fundamentalists are relentless in their crusade to privatize public schools and don’t mind ignoring facts and social science if they have to. They are even willing to temporarily put aside their normal demonization of the poor.

It's weird. One minute you're reading an interesting column on an important public policy issue, and the next thing you know it's down the rabbit hole into Art Pope's Civitas Creepshow, filled with creatures with unimaginable views representing the so-called freedom movement.

Enough has been written by and about one of those creatures to fill a book, but lest you think Mad Max is an anomaly, consider another standard-bearer of the Creepshow, Mr. Thomas Stith, candidate for mayor in the City of Durham. Stith is apparently no longer at Civitas, having resigned from that role to spend time campaigning for the Big Job. I suppose that's how Jack Hawke freed up the cash to hire his new hit man, Max - but that's another story. In any case, the most insightful analysis of the Stith can be found in North Carolina's best newspaper: the Independent.

I was reading a new post at Progressive Pulse this morning, where I learned that one of the regular commenters there is being paid to blog by the Puppetmaster. His name is Max Borders (no, it's not a joke) and he is a self-avowed soldier in the so called freedom movement.

I've seen Max's name many times, but always assumed he was an honest broker, another run-of-the-mill free-market fundamentalist without a real job. When I discovered he's actually a shill for the Civitas Circus, I wrote this:

I appreciate the background on Max. Even though I’ve seen scores of comments from him here, I never realized he’s a paid shill for the Puppetmaster. Thanks for saving me the trouble of reading his future commentary.

Note to Civitas: If you’re going to spend a boatload of Art’s money upgrading to a fancy new website, why on earth would you plaster the incoherent ramblings of Jack Hawke on your welcoming video? Just sayin’.