republican party

By Stephen Wissink

Quick, someone call the hotline at Stop Torture Now.

The human rights group needs to protest the intentions of two state Senators in North Carolina who want to inflict cruel and unusual punishment upon every unhappily married couple across the state that wants to divorce and move on with life.

These two high-and-mighty-moralists from the ‘burbs of Bubbabville have proposed legislation that would force divorcing couples to wait a full two years – more than 1.05 million minutes for you clock watchers – before they could even file the papers in court.

And you thought waiting for 5 o’clock to come on a sunny Friday afternoon is a dreadfully long ordeal.

The following e-mail is an except of what I sent to the Democratic House members who sponsored or co-sponsored House Bill 84 which would repeal discriminatory and degrading scarlet letter drivers that the McCrory ordered issued to all immigrants with limited duration permits of legal residency in North Carolina:

I want to strongly commend you for standing up to and challenging this scarlet letter policy that others across the country are calling new series of New Jim Crow laws – facially neutral but have discriminate against or have a clearly negative and damaging impact on minorities, women, the disabled, the poor and workers. See the excellent Raleigh News and Observer in today paper. See link below. I would be great if every Democratic House member signed onto this important bill, regardless of its slim chance of passage in this legislature.

From an opinion piece published by Asheville Citizen-Times on Sunday:
see more at http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013301200020

Art Pope is not famous.

He is wealthy, though. And powerful. In fact, he probably has more political influence over your life than anyone else in the state of North Carolina. This includes the governor, the legislators or even the Rev. Billy Graham.

He’s like Billy Graham, though, in that he preaches a gospel. It’s a Horatio Alger story of pulling one’s self up by the bootstraps. That’s peculiar, since he inherited his money from his family, which started the Pope’s five-and-ten cent chain in Fuquay-Varina and later bought up the Roses variety stores. And he’s like the governor in that he successfully steers policy in our state. Patrick McCrory named Pope his chief budget writer on Dec. 20, so there’s no question of Pope’s influence...

It has come to my attention that Buncombe County’s range war has gone largely unnoticed outside the region. Well, better saddle up, partners. Your town is next. For those who don’t have time for deep reading, here’s the story in a nutshell. It's a complicated story I don't fully grasp myself, so excuse the editorializing and lack of complete detail, but you need to know:

Raleigh is acting like rich, cattle barons.
They want our water rights.
They offer pennies on the dollar.
If we refuse, their henchmen take it by force.

Koch Industries, the Kansas-based oil and chemical conglomerate whose owners Charles and David Koch have played a leading role in financing the fight against government regulation, is stepping up its investment in North Carolina politics at a critical moment for the state's energy future.

The zombies are back. It seems like only yesterday (okay, it was January) they were walking the sand hills of South Carolina.

The Nation reports from Michigan:

“Some 1,500 people voted under dead people’s and prisoners’ names from 2008-11, according to Michigan’s auditor general. Many might be clerical errors, but this illustrates the need to ensure accurate voter rolls.”

Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson wrote this in a July 2 Times-Herald column, and she lied.

Brentin Mock continues:

North Carolinians understand the role of providing a quality higher education to stay competitive in a global economy. But, state Republicans have continuously cut higher education budgets from the moment that they took over the state legislature after the 2010 election. And, its not just state Republicans. In fact, it seems to be an entire Republican Party platform to cut education from K to 12.

This week’s looming July 1st deadline to stop federal subsidized student loan interest rates from doubling has once again demonstrated just how big of a difference in priorities that Democrats and Republicans have. If Congress does not act this week, the interest rate on federal Stafford loans will double for more than 160,000 North Carolinians, and more than 7.9 million students nationwide. That means an additional $1,000 every year, on average, in interest costs – about $127 million per year in total for North Carolina students.

Liberal policies have failed this nation and its people.

— Vermonter (@ConservativeVT) June 1, 2012

President Obama Pursues The Failed Economic Policies Of The Past forbes.com/sites/charlesk…

Cross-post by Irmaly on DKOS: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/30/1079150/-ASU-College-Republican...

It's pretty tough up here in the North Carolina mountains these days. We've made some damn fine progressive progress over the years, but like many other places in the United States, the Tea Party opened up shop here back in 2010 and slammed us in the local and state elections. They've hung around and finally opened up a Facebook page this February.

The local Republican Party is pretty much in shambles. The George Bush/Dick Cheney Administration killed the Party off as rural people finally decided they'd been had on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and their dead and buried kids had died for nothing but lies.

So the Tea Party came riding into town to save the day and rebrand the conservative image. Most of the local Tea Party members don't look anything like the rest of us here. The leaders are high-heeled women who wear pearls when they "garden" and impressive diamond jewelry to local public hearings. It's clear they've never put in a day's work in their lives. But, by god, they're determined to whip the rest of us into submission.

Which brings me to the debate forum between the Appalachian State University College Democrats and College Republicans this past Tuesday night.

About a month ago I saw a tweet from my favorite polling firm that really caught my eye, 

Head to heads- Santorum leads Mitt by 18 in NC, Newt leads by 1. Perry trails by 17, Paul by 46: tinyurl.com/748397u

— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) January 11, 2012

It was one in a series of polls that would be released in the coming weeks that predicted what we are seeing now, that Santorum, in large part because of his personal favorability, can mount a serious challenge to the inevitable nominee, Mitt Romney.