chris fitzsimon

From Chris at NC Policy watch.

The candidate filing period is over and Republican Party Chair Tom Fetzer and other GOP leaders are touting the party's full slate of candidates as more evidence that all signs point to big Republican gains in Raleigh and Washington in November. But it's more than a little premature to start ordering the champagne. There are small, but growing signs that the predicted Republican wave may have already crested and that voters have just as many doubts about GOP candidates as they do about Democrats.

I'm with Chris. The mighty tempest in the Tea Party cup is already on its way out to sea, as right wing extremists show themselves to be devoid of solutions, compulsive liars, and wildly out of touch with reality. Clearly about 15% of voters are stupid enough to fall for their happy horseshit. The only risk in November will be if the other 85% of voters are too demoralized by spineless Democrats to even bother to go to the polls.

Chris Fitzsimon reminds us today that no matter how much money the Puppetmaster spends to put on his show, the serious work of governing is for adults, not three-year-olds.

• Pope and Luddy may be able to buy an election but their money can't change reality. The more the plans of their Gang of Five are scrutinized, the more absurd they seem. Hogwash doesn't begin to describe it.

It's never a pretty sight.

The Gang of Five that now runs the Wake County Board of Education can't be too happy these days, as their clumsy ideological efforts to dismantle the system's nationally recognized student assignment policy are running into trouble at every turn. Tuesday, the board majority learned that 94.5 percent of parents who responded to a recent survey about year-round schools said that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their child's school without regard to the calendar.

Chris Fitzsimon delves into the insanity of the teabaggin' state of mind. It appears to be contagious.

Denying access to life-saving drugs to someone with HIV does not require their sacrifice. It threatens their life.

Note to NC Department of Revenue: If we end the war on drugs, the contribution to North Carolina's balance sheet would be plus $2 billion annually. And that's a conservative estimate. WTF is the matter with you people?

From Chris' keyboard to your eyes

The private sector cannot maintain a safety net. For-profit companies have no interest. Non-profits have no money. It is our government that must take care of people who desperately need help, who show up at free clinics and homeless shelters. No other institution can do it.

Things would be much worse if lawmakers had listened to demands to resist any tax increases and only slashed and burned to address the state budget crisis. That’s little solace to the people now being turned away when they seek help. But at the very least, their pain ought to be enough to dismiss the ludicrous claims of those traveling around the state telling people that taxes did not have to be raised. The truth is they were not raised enough to prevent the suffering that is our shame.

The folks at NC Policy Watch have been on fire lately, with today's column by Chris Fitzsimon laying out some tough-love for the University of North Carolina System. I hope our friend Erskine Bowles will find some time to read the ideas Chris outlined, two of which seem like no-brainers to me.

Is there a business veto over key appointments?

The discussion in the mainstream media and on political blogs about who will run the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has included a long list of names from current Secretary Bill Ross to former Secretary Bill Holman to Robeson County businesswoman Freda Porter-Locklear.

It has also been a reminder of the power dynamics in Raleigh. Reportedly, one reason so many names have been mentioned for Secretary of DENR is that the business community has reservations about most of the candidates suggested by the environmental community to head the state's environmental agency.

Chris Fitzsimon at NC Policy watch has a concise preview of the upcoming legislative session and the fuzzy fuzzy budget picture.

It adds up to a challenging session for lawmakers, who will be meeting with one eye focused on their own re-election campaigns and in the shadow of a gubernatorial race that is almost certain to include misleading and simplistic rhetoric about budgets and taxes.

There's been a marked uptick in NC Realtor and Homebuilder attempts to derail the local transfer tax option as they make a final attempt to secure the low ground. Attacking Chris Fitzsimon in radio ads yesterday, a new round of melodramatic TV ads and a full page ad in today's paper attacking everybody who is not feeding at the bottom with them.

Read more below the fold....

The News and Observer’s Sunday edition featured yet another investigative story detailing the dangerous condition of the state’s mental health system. This time the problem revealed is the placement of people with mental illness in rest homes where the staff has no training to take care of them.

That puts everyone at risk, the patients with mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the other rest home residents, and the staff and visitors. And that’s not just a potential problem. There have been scores of reported incidents including rapes and other violent acts.

The N&O reports that there are now more than 6,000 people suffering from mental illness in the state’s rest homes, a 15 percent increase in the last four years. The culprit, not so indirectly, is the way the state’s mental health reform efforts have been conducted, downsizing state mental hospitals without providing enough funding for community programs to provide services.

I signed up some time ago for the Action for Children North Carolina email list, and it has been a nice addition. The group sends our semi-regular emails about the latest topics that will affect the Health and Safety of North Carolina's Children. That is where I read about this story from the Greensboro News & Record. It is interesting not only because of the content, but because of the ONE "opinion-maker" they sampled.

North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Jerry Meek today sent out an alarming email:

Dear NC Democrat:

It’s Halloween and we’re not surprised that the Republicans are up to their dirty tricks.

Yesterday, I received various complaints about deceptive Republican tactics during the early voting in Chapel Hill. Apparently, Republican canvassers are approaching people entering the polls and asking if they’re Democrats. If the answer is “yes,” they are given a flyer and told "This is a list of our judicial candidates." The problem: the list contains only the Republican candidates! Because Party affiliation isn’t listed on the ballot, voters are being misled.

You know something's fishy when two guys on opposite ends of everything come together with a common mission. But that's exactly what's happening right now with Chris Fitzsimon and John Hood both singing the praises of some recent baby steps on redistricting. Distressed by the lack of competitive races in North Carolina, the two pundits have jumped on the redistricting bandwagon with all four feet.

As we head down to the wire in races that will shape the future of our country and the world, it's important to understand that supporters of the Party of Torture and Perverts will stop at nothing to get and retain power. People like Art Pope and his alter-ego in West Virginia are putting hundreds of thousands of dollars behind their Puppets in state legislative races to tip the balance. And right-wing opinion manufacturing machines like the Cato Institute and the John Locke Foundation continue to recycle the same old bullshit, trying to scare voters into believing their free-market fantasies.

One topic the wackos revisit every other month is the minimum wage, claiming without a shred of reliable evidence that progressive policies around wages destroy value and jobs. Today at NC Policy Watch, Chris Fitzsimon takes them on - again - with compelling data that's hard to dispute.