Some more rope, please

Submitted by James on

Seriously, folks. You need to stop trying to rein in the GOP from acting on their worst instincts. Because every time you do ... every time you manage to get a tiny little concession from them ... people start to think they're being reasonable. They are not being reasonable. They are systematically gutting decades of slow progress to protect our environment and create a more sustainable future. And when the laws finally hit the books, all the tiny little concessions in the world won't add up to anything worth having.

North Carolinians need to see the full ugliness of GOP policies, and truly feel the destructive impacts of those policies on children, the environment, public safety, and the common good. Until that happens, they'll run the table.

So stop with all the hand-wringing and attempts at reasonable dialogue. They don't give a damn what you want, and they're playing you like chumps. And stop with the efforts to carve incremental improvements out of otherwise insane legislation. You're just creating the illusion that the bread crumbs you're getting will make a difference. They won't make a difference.

Let them run wild. Let them expose their most degenerate and hideous selves without the varnish of modest concessions. Because until that happens, we won't reach the point where people can see what's really going on.

I was so happy that Cantor got defeated in Virginia last night, even though his opponent is a Tea Party extremist. Because now, the Republican House of Representatives will become even more of an insane asylum than it already is.

And it's not going to get better until it gets a whole lot worse.

Comments

Unfortunately, you are right.

Submitted by usna77 on

And an entire generation of North Carolinians, and Americans, will be paying the price for decades to come.

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The measure of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. - FDR

I wish I weren't right, but I think I am

Submitted by James on

Which is why I've come to the realization that we need to speed up the damage. It's sort of like the old band-aid problem. Pull it off slowly or rip it off in a single swoop?

The sooner NC sees the truly destructive impacts of the GOP agenda, the sooner we can vote them out and "unwind" the worst of what they're doing.

I knew you were right...

Submitted by Thurman on

I knew you were right the first time I saw you say this almost two years ago. We need to give them all the rope they want, because the further and faster they run with it, the more damaging it will be to them when they hit the end.

No, it won't be easy, and it damn sure won't be pretty, but when the feces hits the fan there will be no denying who threw the poo.

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"...the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be."

Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

More on Brat

Submitted by James on

Interesting stuff from The Nation.

If Brat does go to Congress as a conservative critic of big business, and of the GOP's alliance with corporate interests, he could open up a lot of new debates within the party, and beyond its boundaries. On Election Night, he was telling Fox News that, "The issue is the Republican Party has been paying way too much attention to Wall Street and not enough to Main Street." He spoke of "a fissure between Main Street and Wall Street," arguing that Republican leaders had forgotten that, "Dollars don't vote, people do."

That language suggests Brat could align with others, such as North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones Jr., an old-right conservative, and Michigan’s Justin Amash, a younger libertarian-leaning member, who have run afoul of Republican leaders—including Cantor.

Both Jones and Amash have reached across party lines and worked with progressive Democrats on a host of issues, including efforts to restrict NSA surveillance, to block free-trade deals and even (in Jones’s case) to amend the US Constitution to get corporate cash out of politics.

Brat, bought and paid for

Submitted by teddyrooseveltp... on

News outlets seeing Brat as a "populist" is really funny. His critique of the Republican Party paying too much attention to Wall Street is even funnier.

As an academic, Brat's been paid for by BB&T, which has spent millions on faculty to spread the gospel of Ayn Rand.

In order to spread Randian nuttery, BB&T has sponsored 68 programs “at most of the major universities in our operating area.” The reading list usually features Atlas Shrugged. The size of the money pile depends on how vigorously universities agree to promote the quackery, ranging from $500,000 to $2 million.

Allison boasts that “many [students] indicate the program is the first time they have heard capitalism defended from an ethical perspective.”

BB&T found a willing partner in Dave Brat, who has a position as the “BB&T Ethics Program Director,” serving 2010–2020.

James is 200% percent right!

Submitted by slevit on

The assholes running our state are just that. Assholes, pure and simple! These self-serving variety of assholes are just way too high on each other's ass-gasses to be reasoned with. So, give 'em all the rope they need to hang themselves.

Forget about staking out the high ground. The only way to end their tyrannical flatulence is (1) an all out, merciless attack on their sphincter-in-chief, Art Pope, and, (2) getting all of our progressive and independent friends and acquaintances off of their complacent asses in November!

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"Let's not be too rough on our own ignorance; it's what makes America great!" - Frank Zappa (6/29/1988)

We've often wondered

Submitted by Posmo on

about the people who clearly vote against their own personal interests (they reflexively say things like "guns don't kill people", "stop that wasteful spending", "get the government out of my life" and "let's spend whatever it takes to stop abortions").

We wonder how personal, how obvious and how painful it has to become before they realize what their duly elected representatives have done to them. We really believe that they'll shout about the extra $2 in their paychecks but be blissfully unaware that they had to send a check instead of get a refund next April 15. We doubt they'll notice that they're never getting another pay raise and their kids can't go to college and instead are expected to work for minimum wage making burgers or guns. We assume that they will continue to believe that the oppression applies to the gays and minorities and women and atheists, and not to them, even though their rights are being squeezed every day.

But surely there's SOMETHING that will push them too far and get them to notice. Right?

We've often wondered.

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"I will have a priority on building relationships with the minority caucus. I want to put substance behind those campaign speeches." -- Thom Tillis, Nov. 5, 2014

New legislative building rules knocked down in court

Submitted by teddyrooseveltp... on

Breaking news at WRAL: A Superior Court judge agrees with the NAACP - some of the new rules to limit protestors are too broad to be enforced and a restraining order has been issues.

"There was no measurable evidence there was any actual disruption," Holmes said of the protests.

Holmes also questioned the authority of the Legislative Services Commission, a panel of lawmakers that drafted the new rules. The rules aren't created by statute or under the Administrative Procedures Act, he said, and they exist only when legislative leaders choose to enforce them.

"It's a constitutional mess," he said, noting that top lawmakers were invoking powers of the executive branch to create the rules and use their own police force to enforce them. "These are unconstitutional rules promulgated by an unconstitutional entity."