Damning Faint Praise

Julia Hejazi is the Guilford County prosecutor who was fired with a quickness because she planned to run for DA. The News & Record article on Jan. 4 quoted former prosecutor John Nieman saying that Hejazi's boss did what he had to do, that "it would be untenable for him to perform his duties" otherwise. Now Nieman has sent a letter to the editor ("Hejazi had a choice") in which he continues to pump up the current DA while offering Hejazi backhanded compliments.

Let's Try Telling the Truth About NC's Illegal Immigrant Population.

We all know that NC Republicans like scary stories about our Driver's License laws, particularly about how easy access means that terrorists are carrying ID cards. Never mind that there's no evidence that that's true. Never mind that the state legislature is already working on tightening license laws. Who needs facts when you've got ... Nate? Over at NC Rumors, Republican state senate candidate Nathan Tabor tries to increase the fear factor by relying on numbers that are just plain wrong. Some people might call that "lying," but the GOP's the party of honor, right?

More on Blunt

Here's some information (PDF) about the ties between Jack Abramoff and the guy Sue Myrick wants to be the new Republican House Majority Leader. [Via]

Myrick: Corruption? What Corruption?

So far, Sue Myrick is the only member of NC's Republican House contingent to publicly declare allegiance with one of the candidates for Tom DeLay's old job. Her pick: Roy Blunt. (Follow that last link to Blunt's bio at BeyondDeLay.org; you'll find a nice Charles Taylor bio as well.) That's the Roy Blunt who is now the House Majority Whip, who is acting as the interim Majority Leader during DeLay's troubles. This guy was elevated to power by Tom DeLay and has been his right hand for years. Blunt is as business-as-usual as business-as-usual can be.

Fired For Participating In The Political Process

Guilford County has a new district attorney, Doug Henderson. Among his first official acts: firing staff attorney Julia Wolf Hejazi. Hejazi plans to run for DA when the job comes up for election in November, and Henderson offered her the choice of resigning or being fired. She didn't want to resign, so there you go. Here's the Greensboro News & Record's story, which quotes a Guilford public defender saying "it would be untenable for him to perform his duties when one of his assistants is out there campaigning against him."

Tabor Takes Another Swing

A guy named Nathan Tabor is running for NC State Senate. As Ed Cone says, "his reputation precedes him." I'll just add that I went to college with this guy, and a friend recalls that he "ran for student body president, launched this huge (by St. A[ndrews]'s standards) media campaign, and then was totally spanked by a girl who decided to run kind of on a whim." The Democrats, I guess, should be looking for that girl.

What Moore Really Said

Yesterday I wondered whether State Treasurer Richard Moore was brave or crazy to suggest an increase in NC's minimum wage before a meeting of business leaders. Carter Wrenn at Talking About Politics (citing an article in the W-S Journal) suggests another word for Moore's speech: pandering. I think it's kind of a cheap shot. Here's part of what Wrenn had to say:

There are a lot of good arguments that can be made for increasing the minimum wage. Here’s what Mr. Moore told the NCCBI according to the Journal: “ ‘Businesses actually start to do better when consumers have more money in their pockets,’ he said, adding that Lee Scott, the chief executive of Wal-Mart, supports an increase.”

More on Moore

It looks like (looks like, mind you) Richard Moore signed up for a free Google blog to tout his plan for a dollar increase in the minimum wage. (Thanks to sharont for the link!) I've got just a couple of thoughts about that.

First, it seems strange to me that a professional politician would use a free blog platform when he could pay consultants thousands to build the same thing from scratch. Don't get me wrong: if Moore isn't above getting down with Blogger I'll consider that a plus. Just seems kinda unusual.

Moore Launches One Dollar More Coalition

Check out the coalition website:

www.onedollarmore.blogspot.com

Taylor, Jones Should Give Up the Dirty Money

The Hotline Blog today published a list of members of Congress who have given up dirty money from Abramoff and DeLay. Guess who ain't on it?

Charles Taylor, Walter Jones, and the NCGOP need to cough it up and do it quick (details at the NCDP website). As much as I hate giving these guys good advice, I'd hate letting them retain wages of sin even more.

BlueNC

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