scrutiny hooligans

Next Thursday, March 27th, I'll be one of the panelists asking questions of the three Republican candidates for NC-11's Congressional seat. The debate will take place at Asheville's URTV studios. There will be two other panelists, both, I assume of the Republican persuasion. The 90 minute debate duration means I'll get to ask three, maybe four, questions. I've got a couple cooked up already, and I'm looking for more good ideas.

That's where you come in.

An Asheville conservative contacted me last week to ask if I'd be interested in a unique opportunity. City Councilman and Congressional candidate Carl Mumpower had the idea that he'd like to have this Hooligan on the moderators' panel at the next Republican Congressional Candidate debate. People talked to people, and candidates John Armor and Spence Campbell agreed to take the plunge. After I spoke with the newly elected Buncombe County Republican Party Chair to ensure there weren't any hidden rules or restrictions, I said I'd do it.

The debate will take place in the URTV (public access) studio in Asheville on March 27th from 2pm to 3:30pm. There will be three or four panelists asking questions of the candidates. I'll be one of them. It will be recorded then played on URTV and available at Google Video.

It's a good political move for Mumpower to invite me. He's running as the straight-answers to tough questions candidate, so inviting a liberal blogger bolsters his tough guy cred. Armor isn't afraid to answer any questions either, so we'll see if he can swipe some of Carl's patina. Spence, I imagine, had no choice but to say yes (after saying, "Gordon who?") once the other two were on board.

In addition to being good for Carl, inviting someone from the opposite end of the political spectrum is good for democracy. I hope this move will encourage broader debates in all future contests. I realize that, to some extent, I'm serving as a useful fool for the Republicans, but their aims don't bother me and can be part of strengthening and adding integrity to this Congressional race.

Everyone's invited over to Scrutiny Hooligans today to help us celebrate the end of our third year in the blogosphere!

Come on over!

“They embrace a culture of defeat…death, and we have to fight them there, so we don’t have to fight them here.” - Karl Rove, in Hendersonville on Saturday, April 28, talking about Democrats or terrorists. I'm not sure which.

179 old white delegates gathered at West Henderson High School to hold their annual 11th district Republican Convention. Every county in the district had a section, and the empty half of the auditorium held the press, the non-delegates, and the Hooligans. Clay County didn't bother sending anyone at all, though an imaginary source told me that they stayed away because Rove's pheromones cause Clay county women to swoon and Clay County men to feel desperate and insecure.

After a few years of using Blogger (and dealing with all of the technical issues therein, such as the dreaded eaten posts, outages and downtimes, etc., all of which seemed to be exacerbated by Blogger's takeover by Google), the Hooligans sat down a few months ago over homemade chili & cornbread to discuss our options regarding the future of this blog. We decided to take matters into our own hands and jumped platforms from Blogger to WordPress, from Blogspot to our very own domain.

Charles Taylor is feeling chatty and sounding like a man running for Congress:

“We are in trying times right now,” Taylor told the crowd of about 100 people at Opportunity House. “Look at the last two months and it’s been nothing but a show from Democrats about ‘How can we win the presidency two years from now,’ not on what we can do for people today.”

Scrutiny Hooligans hosts The Tarheel Tavern, a weekly blog carnival open to sumissions from all North Carolina bloggers, on the Sunday before Valentines Day. In a declaration of vitality and ecstasy, the theme of the Tavern is Utter Transformative Joy. While all submissions will be received like family, take the opportunity to gush your gushiest goodness for our readers all over North Carolina.

This week's Tavern will be a week to get your friends and neighbors involved. Invite new voices and feel free to submit the work of other NC bloggers. I'm ready for a deluge.

This week's Tavern will appear at Scrutiny Hooligans, with a front page link at BlueNC, BlogAsheville, and American Samizdat. Please use this opportunity to spread the word about our amazing NC blogging community.

Western North Carolina celebrates today. The 109th "do-nothing" Congress is over and with it the Congressional career of Charles H. Taylor. Our 16-year nightmare of Taylor's scandals and failures has come to a close. We won't have Charles Taylor to kick around anymore, and it's only just and fitting that Scrutiny Hooligans pay our last respects to the man who inspired more political action than we'd ever undertaken before.

Goodbye Charles Taylor, and in the words of the immortal Lyle C. Rashorta, "without you none of this would have been possible... or necessary."