Art Pope Puppetshow

In the never-ending job of debunking lies and deceptions that emanate from various acts in the Art Pope Puppetshow, it's always gratifying to find that regular people get it. That's what I found in this letter to the editor in the News and Observer today.

In his recent Point of View column criticizing the certification and licensure requirements for North Carolina teachers, Robert Luebke of the John W. Pope Civitas Institute proved once again that conversations about public education are tinged with deceiving statistics slung by organizations with an agenda. Consider his comparison of two Raleigh high schools:

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.

John Hood, Stagemanager at the Art Pope Puppetshow, has been bragging in his columns lately about the considerable influence he's been able to buy with the $4 million a year Papa Pope gives him in spending money. We know, for example, that the Puppetshow has deeply infiltrated WPTF-AM 680 (Little Ricky, news director), the (News and Observer ) and NC State.

So why is it that no one ever reads their blogs? It's tempting to think the attention deficit is simply a result of reactionary content, but if you'll allow me a moment of armchair psychology, I think their problem runs deeper. You see, the Puppetshow operates under a command and control model. You either agree with them and suck up to the Stagemanager or you find another job. You cavort in the boys club on their terms, and you do not challenge the wisdom of the Magic Invisible Hand that eventually cures all ills. Is it any wonder that no one bothers to comment on their "suite" of irrelevant blogs?

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.

In the race to the bottom of the anti-science barrel, the Climate-Change Deniers at the John Locke Foundation have opened a huge lead. If things go according to plan, they will soon be invoking god herself as the source of their free-market extremism, fiddling all the while as the earth goes to hell in a hand basket.

If you haven't read about Thomas Stith, you should. He has long been the token black guy a star in Jack Hawke's Civitas Circus, which itself is an appendage to the Art Pope Puppetshow. He's running for mayor of Durham. Since I live only a mile from the Bull City, I was inspired to read more about Mr. Stith by this post from Barry Ragan. When I got to Stith's website, I found this welcoming letter:

I also realize that we can do better. Durham is a city that continues to struggle with the horror of violent crime and gang activity. We are literally losing our children.

. . . 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!