Deputy Assistant Governor McCrory was all shits and giggles today when he announced he'd be giving a $100 million bribe to lure MetLife to North Carolina. Morals of this story:

• If you're a private citizen in need, you're out of luck. No bribes for you.
• If you're an insurance company already operating in North Carolina, your major competitor just added $100 million in unearned income to its bottom line.
• If you're a taxpayer in North Carolina, a big chunk of your tax liability is being redistributed to a multinational company whose shareholders are laughing all the way to the bank.

When talking with a CEO in a western state recently, I asked if her planned expansion into the southeast might include people on the ground in North Carolina. She laughed out loud.

Lots more bad news below the fold.

This could just easily be a Duke Energy commercial instead of an Exxon commercial. It's a sad commentary either way.

Exclusive to Blue Onion

CORNELIUS - It may look like a beautiful spring day in the North Carolina foothills, but lurking beneath the ground lies a coming plague. That is unless Speaker Thom Tillis and his pal Skip Scam get their way.

"So-called scientists tell us that we're in for a mighty swarm of cicadas this year," said Tillis in an exclusive interview with this reporter. "But as usual, scientists are wrong. Just like they are wrong about rising sea-levels, Viagra, and Twinkies. I know this for a fact from first-hand experience."

"But just in case, we've passed emergency legislation making illegal for cicadas to rise from the ground and mate," said Skip Scam, Tillis' go-to source when it comes to animal copulation. "If the North Carolina General Assembly says there will be no cicada sex, by god, there will be no cicada sex."