puppetmaster

Beetle infestation threatens North Carolina ecology - and economy

Via email from the NCDP:

It is high time for the GOP-controlled legislature to stop their destructive dancing to the “First 100 Days” tune piped by their financier Art Pope and get down to the adult business of adopting a responsible budget.”

As most of you know by now, one of our favorite North Carolina political reporters, Laura Leslie (known as Radiogirl around these parts), is leaving WUNC-FM to be the "multimedia statehouse reporter" for WRAL-TV. From the discussion on her Facebook page, it's a great opportunity for her, and potentially for North Carolina as well.

Laura is one member of the Capital Press Corps who gets what life online is all about. She is also one of the few journalists who has dared to report on the full reach of Art Pope's Puppetshow and its toxic impact on democracy in North Carolina. In fact, she covered it so well last November, that Mr. Pope himself couldn't take the heat.

The Dome is reporting that state lawmakers in the House and Senate will work together on drafting a new budget this year, rather than having separate proposals come out of each chamber.

"It won't be us vs. them," Rep. Harold Brubaker, a Republican from Randolph County, told several hundred people this morning at the Economic Forecast Forum in Durham. "The new leadership has the same fiscal mindset."

"Of course it won't be us versus them, says BlueNC blogger James Protzman. "For all intents and purposes, there is no them. Mr. Brubaker could save North Carolina a whole basket of money by dropping the charade of the General Assembly entirely and simply let Art Pope decree how the budget will take shape."

It's almost the end of the year, and Mr. Pope hasn't yet registered here at BlueNC, hasn't bothered to answer all the questions we've been asking. I guess that's the high price of having an unelected fat cat calling the shots behind the magic curtain. Still, Rob Christensen today has angled in on some answers Under the Dome. Feel free to drop by and ask your own questions.

The knight of the right
has bought himself a kingdom;
still no answers for the pesky peasants

Dear Honorables.

I've heard you fine folks are gearing up for a swell time in Raleigh next year, and from all accounts, it'll be a doozy. You'll be opening the taxpayer checkbook to fund more unproven charter schools. You'll be telling raped women to bear their bastard children no matter what. You'll be firing thirty thousand teachers or more. You'll enshrine discrimination against gays into the state constitution. You'll gerrymander the hell of out North Carolina voting districts. And you'll no doubt find a way to define dumping mercury into North Carolina rivers as an act of patriotism. A good time all around.

Written by Sue Sturgis
Cross-posted from Facing South

The North Carolina Democratic Party has called for a boycott of the business owned by leading conservative benefactor Art Pope to protest what it calls his "corporate takeover" of elections.

Variety Wholesalers -- the privately-held parent company of discount chains Roses, Maxway, Super 10, Bargain Town, Bill's Dollar Store, Value Mart, Treasure Mart and Super Dollar -- has financed political advocacy organizations that have paid for misleading ads targeting Democrats, including ads that blame them for votes they never cast.