Archive for NC Legislature
2012 Democratic Candidates redux
Posted by: | CommentsI posted this way back on October 18th, and I’ve had enough folks asking me for a list that I thought I’d put it atop the page again. Go vote, people!
You probably know just who to vote for in the Presidential race and the Congressional race. Maybe you even have your legislators and County Commissioners figured out. How many of you have the County School Board or statewide judicial races sussed? To help you sort out who’s who, the Buncombe County Democratic Party has put together a handy list of Democratic candidates. Use it if you want it, leave it if you don’t!
Nobody Sucks More
Posted by: | CommentsA couple of days ago, someone showed me a glossy mailing from the North Carolina Democratic Party in Raleigh depicting Nathan Ramsey dressed as a vampire who sucks taxes or something. (Sorry, but I don’t have an image.) The tagline is, “Nobody Sucks More.” As Buncombe Republicans would say, Happy Halloween.
I’m surprised NCDP had the garlics for a mail piece like this. My guess is that Ramsey & friends are rolling over in their graves about it. But after Republican attacks featuring Holly Jones as an evil queen, Gordon Smith as a zombie, and worse against Susan Wilson, if you hear cries of foul over Count Nathan, treat them as as phony as plastic fangs.
Ramsey as vampire is just the sort of Coulter-esque humor conservatives have been devouring at bookstores and cheering for at CPAC for decades. When “demonic” liberals complain, Coulter shifts around in her black cocktail dress, tosses her blonde hair, rolls her eyes, releases an exasperated sigh and blurts, “It’s just a joke.”
And a pretty tame one by the Karl Rove standards that dominate Republican politics. He once boasted about the (figurative) arm twisting he’d used to get a reluctant legislator to change his vote on a trade bill. “That sombitch was cryin!” Rove laughed. What a kidder.
The thing is, conservatives can throw these kinds of punches all day, but have glass jaws when the left hits back. If they expect once more to guilt-trip liberals into backing down by crying about how mean and unfair they are, conservatives had better wake up and smell the politics. And look themselves in the mirror.
If there is any reflection.
The Moffitt/Muller Connection
Posted by: | CommentsThe image below is an email that Michael Muller sent from the gmail account of Rep. Tim Moffitt. The contents of the message have been obscured.
Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words…
As you may remember, on September 19th Rep. Tim Moffitt Twitter account sent out the following message : ”They should lock up all the gays on their own island. Except for the lesbians. Y’all can have them!” The tweet was deleted shortly thereafter, followed by the standard apology and claim of a “hacking.” (If you need a refresher, here’s Jake Frankel’s Mountain Xpress summary of the events). Two days later Rep. Moffitt filed this police report claiming “Un known person has hacked into the compl Twitter account.” Meanwhile Mr. Muller has used his own Twitter account to viciously attack Rep. Moffitt’s opponent Jane Whilden (here’s just one such instance) and not just Jane Whilden, Muller has spewed his misogynistic and homophobic bile at Susan Fisher as well (link).
The obvious question here, now that it has been established that Mr. Muller is working directly for Tim Moffitt, is how much of this is at Moffitt’s direction? Why go as far to file a phony police report? (I’m no internet lawyer, but that probably ain’t exactly legal). Lots of questions here: What do the campaigns of Nathan Ramsey and Mike Fryar (for whom Muller is also ostensibly working) think about this sort of behavior? I’m sure I’m leaving a few out, but feel free to add your own. I look forward to getting some straight answers for once, and I hope you do too.
A Note On Those Mailers
Posted by: | CommentsI thought I should point out that the constant flood of mailers crowding the mailboxes of people in the 115th district in support of Nathan Ramsey are straight from the Koch Brothers.
Americans for Prosperity is the sister group of FreedomWorks. Both originated from the original Super Pac, Citizens For A Sound Economy. When it split, Dick Armey took control of one group, and David Koch the other. They have operated in synchronous orbit around Washington DC ever since, and they represent perhaps the most powerful corporate lobbying force in the nation. Read More→
Friday Open Thread
Posted by: | CommentsBiden Time – With the Presidential race tied in NC and amazing Dem turnout in early voting, Jill and Beau Biden are coming to AVL.
Nathan Ramsey sent out a mailer touting his opposition to marriage equality, and a Ramsey advisor used an anti-gay slur against Ramsey’s opponent.
Buncombe women running for office threw a press conference:
recent communications coming out of the Buncombe County GOP have gone from heated to downright degrading, despicable, and unethical. It is one thing to oppose someone’s policy, it is quite another for an official political organization to release photo-shopped filth and false insinuations of phony scandals through their official Facebook and Twitter pages.
Donate to the Power of 5 campaign today to support these outstanding female candidates! They need one last financial push to get across the finish line.
UNC-Asheville hosted a Food Day event on Wednesday that was packed! I had the opportunity to appear as a panelist.
I voted six days ago, and I’ve been wearing an I Voted Early sticker every day.
The Pumpkin Pedaller is Saturday. Come ride the city with us.
What’s happening with y’all?
Off The Blog, On The Street
Posted by: | CommentsHi, all. With early voting in high gear, it’s vital that folks get off their computers and down to their early voting sites. Our Buncombe County Democratic Party is doing a great job staffing the polls, but there are a few sites that still need some support. Email scrutiny hooligans AT yahoo . com if you can offer some noontime or afternoon hours to help do voter education!
Defending Our Water
Posted by: | CommentsFrom ye olde email inbox:
Defending Our Water: What You Need to Know Before You Vote
Monday, October 22
6:30-8:00 p.m.
Jubilee Community Church, 46 Wall St.
Free & open to the publicPeople who live in the city limits of Asheville will be asked on the Nov. ballot: “shall the City of Asheville undertake the sale or lease of its water treatment and water distribution system?” A growing list of organizations and businesses is endorsing a VOTE of NO on this nonbinding referendum! Defeating the referendum will give our city officials proof that the residents of Asheville don’t want to lose control of their water system.
The Asheville City Council advanced the referendum after a proposal was made by the NC State legislature which would remove control of the water system from the city of Asheville and turn it over to the Metropolitan Sewerage District (MSD), which is administered by an unelected regional board.
Guest speakers include:
- City Councilwoman Esther Manheimer, who will explain the wording and purpose of the referendum and the status of ongoing studies by local governments;
- Renée Maas & Mary Grant of the consumer organization Food & Water Watch, on the pitfalls of reduced local control of water systems in other areas across the country;
- Local activist Barry Summers, who will present a brief historical overview on the issue and update us on where we go from here.Of all the utility services, water is the one we simply can’t live without – that’s why it’s urgent that decisions about water be transparent, local, and with plenty of opportunities for the public to participate. Let’s send a message loud and clear that our community’s drinking water is too important for decisions to be made behind closed doors in Raleigh while local residents’ voices are ignored!
A Q&A session will follow the presentation. The forum is free and open to the public and is co-sponsored by Mountain Voices Alliance, Clean Water for NC, Food & Water Watch, WNC Alliance and WENOCA Sierra Club.
Uhhh, what day is it?
Posted by: | CommentsOh, right, third day of early voting in North Carolina. Notes from the field:
If you live outside the city limits, you will not get to vote on the water referendum.
Pretzel logic: Word is that the GOP is now telling their people to vote no on it, too. They released this grammatical masterwork:
“In the wake of Asheville City Council’s move to privatize the Asheville Municipal Golf Course, we do not see it as wise for them to also attempt to privatize an asset they do not own and which roughly half of its customers reside outside city limits. We urge all city voters to vote “no” on this referendum.”
Think the GOP sees a solid defeat ahead and doesn’t want to be seen as supporting a state takeover?
More pretzel logic: Rumor has it that Rep. Tim Moffitt would also vote no against the referendum prompted by opposition to his own actions and that he can’t vote for anyway. Moffitt lives outside the city limits. Didn’t Moffitt run for office as an opponent of forced annexation?
A few snafus the first day or two of early voting. Buncombe BOE is working on them. In early voting in Buncombe, it’s Ds over Rs by over 2:1. Twenty percent more women than men.
All they really needed to know they never learned in kindergarten: Obama lawn signs are disappearing overnight all over the county and beyond, according to reports. (In 2006, they used orange and black spray paint on Heath Shuler signs.) Had to check in with the lawyers; several (isolated?) reports of Republican officials(?) outside One-Stop locations harassing my volunteers. Nothing major yet.
Number one voter question: Do you have any Obama bumper stickers? Answer: NO. Why do voters think our electioneers are supposed to have stickers and pins to give out? (Obama raised over a hundred million in the last quarter. Ask him what he did with it.)
No Debbie: Debbie Wasserman Schultz was in town and didn’t even make a phone call to us. Yet voters call Democratic HQ to complain about policy or the Obama campaign as if we have a direct line to the White House or the DNC. It’s like calling privates and corporals at the motor pool to complain about battle strategy.
Confusion over the Obama HQ vs. Buncombe Democratic Party HQ. People keep showing up at our headquarters thinking it’s where they are scheduled to be for their Obama phone bank. Others look online for the location and phone of Obama HQ and end up at the Merrimon Ave. office space next to Bojangles that the campaign used in 2008. Those 2008 web sites never came down. If you’re looking for Obama HQ on Merrimon Ave., that ain’t it.
The BOE has changed it’s 50-foot electioneering markers to orange cones with small flags in them. I liked the old ones better.
A Tim Moffitt Retrospective, Part 2
Posted by: | Comments
When Rep. Tim Moffitt was elected as part of the Tea Party wave of 2010, I think most of us knew that a new day had dawned in Raleigh. With the Republican Party controlling both houses of the legislature for the first time since Reconstruction, citizens had the good sense to recognize that the landscape had shifted. We expected a philosophic turn that would result in cutting revenues and reducing services. What we didn’t expect was the radical degree to which the Tea Party ideology would be executed nor the aggressive bullying and the absence of intergovernmental cooperation that would be the hallmarks of Rep. Moffitt’s term. After the jump you’ll find a brief history of Rep. Moffitt’s second dramatic overreach, unilaterally seeking to seize the public’s water system over the objections of most of the people and of every other elected official in Buncombe County, putting our most precious natural resource at the center of another Moffitt initiated controversy.
2012 Democratic Candidates
Posted by: | CommentsYou probably know just who to vote for in the Presidential race and the Congressional race. Maybe you even have your legislators and County Commissioners figured out. How many of you have the County School Board or statewide judicial races sussed? To help you sort out who’s who, the Buncombe County Democratic Party has put together a handy list of Democratic candidates. Use it if you want it, leave it if you don’t!
