Art Pope Puppetshow

Chris Fitzsimon does a regular feature at NC Policy Watch ... a weekly column called Monday Numbers. They're sometimes hard to follow, but if you make the effort, always interesting. Yesterday's analysis looks at different performance measures in states with relatively high taxes compared to states with relatively low taxes. The results are compelling.

Another year, another top ranking for NC in the business climate department.

Don't believe me 'cause I'm some crazy blogger on BlueNC? Then trust the pros at Site Selection magazine.

They even start their article with this line about NC's consistent ranking about such supposed better business places as Texas, Virginia, or South Carolina.

How has North Carolina managed to rank No. 1 in Site Selection’s annual business climate rankings eight times in the past nine years?

First of all, let me state upfront that, yes, I have a very high opinion of myself. The fact that I have no credentials or accomplishments or anything else of any substance to back up that opinion is pretty much lost on me. I say this because I don't want anybody wasting their time explaining it to me, because that would be pointless. That said, follow me past the fold so you can get another glimpse into the Steve-centric Universe I live in. In which I live. Whatever.

At this very moment, our pal Justice Bob Orr is announcing his representation of Superintendent June Atkinson in a lawsuit against Governor Perdue to determine who will actually control North Carolina's education system:

When: April 3, 2009 at 11:00 am

Where: 333 E. Six Forks Road • Suite 180 • Raleigh, North Carolina

Purpose: Media briefing by Justice Robert F. Orr (retired) concerning litigation that will be filed Friday, April 3, 2009, by Dr. June St. Clair Atkinson to challenge the constitutionality of certain legislative and executive branch actions taken to usurp the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s constitutional authority to administer the North Carolina public school system.

Wow.

Yesterday, an Art Pope funded corporate shill group called Americans for Prosperity, that once claimed raising the minimum wage would actually hurt American workers, gave Richard Burr, a man who has made a career out of shortchanging American workers, an award “In Defense of the American Worker.”

Just typing that sentence almost made my head explode. But it gets worse.

John Hood says we shouldn’t fix broken things, because we could buy new things instead of fixing broken things which still stimulates the economy, but just in a different way. Got all that?

Of course, hasn’t Hood always encouraged restrained government spending in the name of opportunity cost budgeting? Well, no.

However, if his column doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t matter. You’re just supposed to think he’s smart because he cites Keynes and Bastiat.

Blather available here

Erik Sorenson fears a class war that the rich won’t win. Even though he does frown on a $37,000 toilet, he’s frightened that $100,000 in salary just isn’t enough. I wonder what the janitors at MSNBC made when he led the company.

Comfort poor little rich boy here

And he gets paid to teach economics to children?

I couldn't let this go by without posting.

http://www.wral.com/business/story/4280363

Locke Foundation hack-on-the-side Dr. Mike Walden "assesses" that BB&T is cutting jobs because of a "lack of lending opportunities."

Any business folk out there want to tell Dr. Walden and BB&T where to find a "lending opportunity" to use the bajillions they've taken from the government?

Apparently they can't find anywhere to lend money, so they have to cut jobs.

WTF?

cross-posted from The Progressive Pulse.

Max Borders.

Borders is a policy analyst and media coordinator at Art Pope's Civitas Institute, and contributes to their blog Red Clay Citizen. He published a hate piece recently on our own Adam Searing, titled Mandate Mania: Does Adam Searing Hate People? Max implies that, yes, Adam does hate people. In addition, Max knows this about Adam: he lies to himself, he wants you to pay for things you don't need, he wants poor people to be uninsured (an odd accusation against the Director of the North Carolina Health Access Coalition), he hates freedom, and finally, Max knows that "Adam thinks he's smarter than you."

Adam is too much of a gentleman to rebut Borders' vitriolic post.

But I'm not.

Over the past two years, the Art Pope Puppetshow has served as an exceptional lightning rod for galvanizing progressives against the toxic agenda of North Carolina's free-market extremists. With a multi-million dollar budget to oil their influence-buying machine, the Show has clearly had some measure of success in shaping the agenda with small town newspapers in general and with the Raleigh News and Observer, in particular.

The fondness of the N&O's political reporters for all things Pope has been well discussed, as have the water-carrying activities of Rick Martinez, an opinionator at the N&O whose wife Donna works backstage at the Show. And while I'm reluctant to boost his readership by linking to his columns, today's piece in the N&O shows Martinez at his worst.

. . . one thing you could do would be to spray, essentially, glitter above the poles. This is something that volcanoes already do every once in awhile, and it does cool the earth. It’s something that would probably be a lot less expensive than the vast reductions in energy that would be required to reduce carbon dioxide. emphasis added

Oh. My. God. It's the start of the Glitter Wars!