Republican deception

Trying to change "stand by your ad" to "stand behind the curtain":

At the time, Democrats asked the courts to find that Hise and the senate caucus has violated state disclosure laws that require those who buy political advertising to disclose to television stations and the public who paid for the ads. While paperwork filed with television stations and the commercials themselves said that Hise's campaign paid for the ad, the money trail showed that some payments went straight from the party to media buyers.

This may seem like a mere "technicality" to some, but there are two important points: 1) Due to the volume of purchases by the main party, Hise's ads cost considerably less than if he'd bought them himself, and 2) The ads themselves constitute false advertising, in direct violation of both the intent and wording of the law. Unfair and illegal, but it appears the NC GOP doesn't care about either of those issues.

It's kind of hard to regulate something if you don't know what it is:

This weekend, as part of a story on ALEC's political activity, The New York Times noted that the group recently adopted "model legislation" on fracking chemical disclosure, based on a bill passed in Texas last year. According to The Times, the model bill was "sponsored within ALEC" by ExxonMobil, which runs a major oil and gas operation through its subsidiary, XTO Energy.

We generally dedicate front-page acreage to North Carolina-specific articles. But since Republicans in the General Assembly are so hot-to-trot on fracking, and they also appear to be more than happy to embrace ALEC's pre-fab "legislation For Dummies" (TM), I'm afraid this story does comply.

If the voters don't like what you're trying to do, just call it something else:

The N.C. Association of Educators posted a video of House Majority Leader Paul Stam warning supporters not to refer to private school tax credits as vouchers. "The term voucher polls way below tax credit," he said. "So get it out of your vocabulary."

That's because the term "tax credits" is associated with a wide range of issues, not just the dismantling of the public school system.