Sen. Fletcher Hartsell

My NC GOP sociopath of the week is none other than Cabarrus County's own Fletcher Hartsell. Mr. K-12 Inc. himself.

If acting as a paid lobbyist for K-12 Inc. while actively serving in the NC Senate wasn't enough of a conflict of interest, apparently Fletcher and his equally slimy brother Thomas enjoy tag teaming and fleecing the elderly in their spare time.

A recent News and Observer article outlined a bit of a sticky wicket Fletcher has found himself in. It's one thing to use $100,000 in campaign contributions to pay off your personal credit cards, but it's absolutely reprehensible to use the multi-million dollar estate of elderly Alzheimer victims as your personal feeding trough.
www.newsobserver.com/2013/01/19/2618898/sen-fletcher-hartsell-raleigh.html

This is why Hartsell gets my nod for NC GOP sociopath of the week.

And this time it's personal:

State Sen. Fletcher Hartsell Jr. spent nearly $100,000 of his campaign’s money in 2011 and 2012 paying off debts on at least 10 personal credit cards, according to new campaign finance reports. Hartsell, a lawyer and influential Republican from Concord, was unopposed in both the primary and general election campaigns.

First of all: should we even call it a campaign if you have no opposition? I think it should be formally termed a waltz, and it wouldn't hurt to have some Strauss playing in the background when one of these folks enters a room. Opposed or not, when the money just keeps coming in, you gotta spend it on something.

And the Board of Education needs to hold off on its approval:

A shareholder in Virginia-based K12 Inc. has filed a lawsuit against the virtual-schools operator in federal court, alleging that the firm violated securities law by making false statements to investors about students’ poor performance on standardized tests. The class-action complaint, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, also accuses K12 of boosting its enrollment and revenues through “deceptive recruiting” practices.

NC Policywatch has already been covering this issue:

This entry was partially inspired by a rather lengthy discussion I had with my eldest son the other day, whose main mission in life (apparently) is to poke holes in my logic. When I held him as a baby and said, "You're going to be smart!", this wasn't what I had in mind, but...such is life.

He made a valiant effort in this recent set-to, but I emerged from this patricidal exercise still conflicted about the subject at hand. So I decided to bring more logic pokers into the fray by airing some of my opinions here. Feel free to poke away.