If history is just, August 2, 2016 will go down in infamy. On that day Pat McCrory cemented his place as the heir to George Wallace. Except if anything McCrory’s pro-bigotry stance is broader.
State politics watchers awoke Tuesday to see McCrory taking a more truculent tack than ever, in support of discrimination. The press was reporting McCrory’s pocket veto of an HB2-litigation funding bill, aligning himself with the haters in a legal battle against bigotry. His embrace of global notoriety for hatred indicates real contempt for the LGBTQ community.
In a news conference later that morning, he trashed Roy Cooper’s stand for Civil Rights. Defining a public servant’s job as discrimination, he blustered that Cooper “should not even receive a paycheck.” That African-Americans also fund Cooper’s paycheck did not trouble our Trump-minded governor. He then announced plans to crusade for racism at the polls. Apparently he took stock of the 4th Circuit Court’s judgment—that HB 583 was “smoking gun evidence of racial discrimination”—and decided he liked the sound of that.
With these decisions, McCrory has made the campaign a referendum on decency. Given the opportunity to remove them, he chose to keep controversies over minority and LGBTQ rights on the front burner. It is the debate he wants to have: Will we wallow in a swamp of oppression and hatred, or will we rise to a higher plane of respect?
That phrasing is stark. So is the reality. This not a time for euphemism, but a time for choosing.
Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.
D,g., do yourself a favor and cease and desist. You’re in over you head here and your juvenile musings reveal a lack of the intellectual capacity to effectively communicate a coherent opinion.
Just trying to help you avoid further embarrassment,D.g. I doubt even your liberal comrades are very impressed with your juvenile histrionics.
There is no “pocket veto” in North Carolina: without an actual veto, the original majority vote stands. A more accurate terminology would be “McCrony’s inaction allows bill to go into effect”–taking a half-million dollars from disaster relief to support bigotry. I hope other coastal voters like myself (currently dealing with the effect on my home from a tropical cyclone) will remember Republican priorities in November.
There is no reply button on your latest post, A,D, but I am glad you took the opportunity to reveal your true character. All I can say is— suspicions confirmed. Crude, nasty personal invective in an effort to intimidate whoever challenges your extremely partisan opinions. But keep ’em coming. It’s edifying to expose the intolerance of doctrinaire liberals.
Gee, Ebrun, I did reveal my “true character” by calling you out on your lack of character. I repeat it now: your arrogance in referring to Gavin Grimm as “she” despite his identification as a transgendered male shows how petty and small-minded and bigoted you are. You never demonstrate respect for any of the posters here who disagree with us, and that’s fine; we’re grown-ups and know what to expect from partisan GOP trolls whose lives are a case study in transferrence. But refusing to demonstrate respect for a young person who has gone through the trauma, difficult decision, notoriety, and legal wrangles that Gavin Grimm has endured — and still only 17 years old — shows exactly what kind of person you are.
The rest of us see it clearly; if you had a mirror, and were willing to look into it, you could, too.
Your personal insults reveal much more about your character than they do mine, A.D. Intolerance of others’ opinions is a classic character trait of left wing ideologues.
I’m not intolerant of your opinions on issues, Ebrun, though you are of all of ours. What I’m intolerant of is your deliberate bigotry against a transgendered teen, which is expressed by your refusal to use the pronoun designating his chosen gender — male, ergo “he,” “him” “his” — in favor of a personal pronoun he has rejected for himself.
That is bigotry. It’s not a political opinion. It’s a revolting personal characteristic on your part. It’s not a political opinion. I am intolerant of bigotry against the LGBTQ community, against women, against racial and ethnic minorities, against the aged and the young, and, in fact against anyone whose personal attributes — race, age, sex, sexual orientation, ethnic background — are inherent characteristics determined by nature. Prejudging people (“prejudice”) based on such characteristics, and assuming things about them based not on their actions or behavior or choices but on those characteristics is nothing more than bigotry. Ascribing characteristics to the individual based on the race is bigrotry; ascribing characteristics to an entire race (or other group) because of the actions of one individual is equally bigoted.
Bigotry is saying that all white men with phony comb-over dyed hair and small penises are loudmouth racist boors, simply because one white man with phoney comb-over dyed hair and a small penis is a loudmouth racist boor.
Calling a transgendered young man “she” or “her” because he was born with a condition of gender dysphoria is arrogant, and it’s bigoted. And it has nothing to do with my response to your political opinions, only to your personal character. Which is that of a bigot.
Sorry if all this is beyond your education or comprehension level, but that’s the way it is.
Share your opinions, and every poster on this site will challenge them. Express your prejudice and intolerant bigotry, and I’ll call you out on it.
More personal attacks, A.D.? Play the bigotry or the race card to defend your lack of civility. But six more paragraphs of redundant personal attacks suggest you lack the intellectual means to engage in a civil conversation. Crude euphemisms and vitriol seem to be your style when your views are challenged.
Seems NC liberals aren’t just playing the race card, their wallowing in racial politics. This suggests a mood of desperation as the state’s economy is surging and the U.S. Supreme Court just issued a stay that suggests that HB2 may well pass legal muster. And McCrory stands to receive an increased share of the minority vote due to his stand on transgender bathroom access.
Today McCrory announced that he would NOT use the $500,000 for HB2 legal expenses. BTW D.g., its not a pocket “veto” when a bill becomes law without the executive’s signature. The bill was not vetoed, it became law.
The Governor’s move was politically shrewd. A veto would have been subject to legislative override. While McCrory let the transfer of funds become law, he is under no obligation the spend the funds for legal expenses and the $500,000 can still be used, if necessary, for disaster relief.
“Playing the race card,” to a right-winger, means standing up for equal rights for minorities whenever they’re being trampled by right-wingers. “Wallowing in racial politics,” to a right-winger, means calling out right-wing elected officials who use racial gerrymandering and unconstitutional voter-suppression laws to keep racial minorities from voting.
The District Court has already been overruled by the Court of Appeals, establishing that in its view the state’s entire voter ID law is unconstitutional, and that it was deliberately, admittedly, and clearly based on a desire to suppress the vote based on race. That’s racism, Ebrun, no matter what you like to call it. The Court of Appeals has also refused to delay its ruling, which indicates that it will not abet the state in suppressing black votes in this fall’s election. And it’s also very, very likely that SCOTUS will uphold the 4th Circuit’s ruling, along with those from other circuits this summer. Because the Court, now that Scalia’s gone, knows racism when it sees it, just as we know the pornographic self-justification of right-wingers.
As for HB2, the court issued a stay “so as to maintain the status quo” while the issue is adjudicated this fall. The vote by swing member Anthony Kennedy was described — by HIM — as “a courtesy,” not an indication of how he will vote when the case reaches the full court next year. There’s not a whit of evidence that the law “may well pass legal muster”; the likelihood is that the Court will follow precedent that gives deference to federal agencies in interpreting laws (as the Court has done for 50 years or more), rather than overturn a long-standing precedent with only a rump membership.
Wahoo, McCrory won’t use the rainy day fund to defend his unconstitutional law. Wow. What a statesman! Of course, the Lege has already transferred the funds (without his signature), so it will be interesting to see if he actually “doesn’t use” that money for his legal defence, or if he waits until people aren’t watching for a bait and switch, as he has done so many times before.
Ebrun: Is your real name Ricky Diaz? Or Barron Trump? Or Robert Barron? Just curious, since you are so dedicated to the party line coming out of the horse’s mouth (actually its other end).
Sorry you feel you have to be personalty nasty to respond to someone who doesn’t subscribe to your political views, A.D. The “racism” charge is a partisan canard that only the far left continues to promote.
And you’re wrong regarding the SCOTUS stay of the 4th Circuit’s outlandish 2-1 ruling in the Virginia transgender case. It was liberal Stephen Breyer, not Kennedy, who provided the fifth vote, saying he wanted to maintain the status quo until the full court can address the issue. Why did Breyer not join the other three liberals in their vote to deny the stay if he thought the appellate court’s ruling would be upheld? I wouldn’t be so sure that the SC will uphold the Obama administration on this one.
And it’s silly to think people aren’t watching Governor McCrory. He is in the middle of a heated reelection campaign and the liberal press is doing everything they can to defeat him. As he stated, the state is being run so efficiently now that there is enough slack in agency budgets to cover the state’s legal costs even without participation of the state Attorney-General.
And voter ID has been upheld in a number of states by other circuits and by SCOTUS. The best scenario the Democrats can now hope for is a 4-4 split on the 4th Circuit’s ruling that would not be precedent setting.
.
NC’s and other states’ voter ID laws aren’t aimed at suppressing the votes of blacks and other minority American citizens. The vast majority of low income minorities have sufficient identification to access government benefits like food stamps, housing assistance, welfare payments and Medicaid, etc. Other middle class minority citizens obviously need and have IDs to live, work, bank .and travel.
The real target of voter ID laws are non citizens who are sometimes encouraged to vote illegally by political operatives (e.g., community organizers). In a 2012 essay that was published in the Washington Post, researchers Jesse Richman and David Earnest estimated that 6.4 percent of non citizens residing in the U.S. voted in the 2008 national election.
And a 2012 Pew Research Center study found that 2.8 million voters were registered in two states and that 1.8 million registered voters were deceased. These studies indicate that there is significant opportunity for voter fraud throughout the U.S. and that very little effort is undertaken by law enforcement or other government authorities to expose much less prosecute illegal voting.
What’s nasty, Ebrun? Suspecting that you’re one of the well-paid, famous Republican operatives? You find it nasty to be compared to Barron Trump? Or Ricky Diaz? Well, okay, if it bothers you, I guess that is an indication of your opinion of those leading lights of intellectual integrity.
You’re right about my mixing up the names of Breyer and Kennedy. My bad, and no excuse but that I was in a hurry and didn’t double-fact-check as I usually do. But you’re the only commenter I’ve seen in any media that believes the court will overrule the 4th Circuit. Not that any of us knows for sure, so that dead horse will not be beaten any longer. We have to wait and see. One of us will be very disappointed when they do rule.
I never said people and the media aren’t watching McCrory. I said he will wait until they’re not — until we take our eye off the ball some weekend — and then, while we’re paying attention to other things, he’ll likely decide to use the money after all. That is his method: to state something publicly that absolutely set in stone — I will not sign any legislation restricting abortion rights — and then wait for the legislature to hand him legislation restricting abortion rights and, on a Saturday afternoon, sign it. Hoping we won’t notice what a pathetic, hypocritical liar he is.
“…. since you are so dedicated to the party line coming out of the horse’s mouth (actually its other end).”
Ok, maybe not so nasty, but still pretty crude. Why can’t you recognize there are those of us who have no political connections and no ax to grind that have political opinions substantially different from yours? Why not just debate issues rather than casting aspersations on others’ motives and personas?
Neither you nor any pundits can explain why Breyer didn’t join the other three liberals in refusing to support a stay if he was going to uphold the 4th Circuit in the Virginia transgender bathroom case. It’s obvious there are four SCOTUS votes to take up the appeal. Maybe Breyer is thinking there will be another liberal appointed by Hillary and a 4-4 deadlock can be avoided. In the meantime, the transgender plaintiff will have to spent her senior year in high school being denied access to the boys locker room. Surely Justice Breyer would’t be so heartless just to win a politically controversial case, would he?
\
My point was that there’s no way McCrory could not possibly do something surreptitiously between now and November even if he wanted to. But he would have no reason to use the $500,000 transferred for legal costs as there are enough cost savings in state agency budgets to handle any emergency legal expenses.
The issue, Ebrun, — in the opinion of this person who disagrees with you about most everything — is that what the GOP puts out is horseshit. Period. That’s not an aspersion on you, and it’s not a nasty personal comment. It’s my opinion of the value of the NC Republican Party’s goals, platform, and the legislation they have passed. It’s crap. It’s fertilizer. It has no benefit for the people of North Carolina. It serves only its proponents and those who fund them. It hurts the state that I was born in and will someday die in.
If you take that as a personal insult, it reinforces my belief that you are a devout partisan, though you frequently deny it. It also makes it clear that it is you, not I, who can’t differentiate between a political statement and a personal one. And if you simply don’t like my opinion, too damn bad. I suspect that a huge number of my fellow North Carolinians agree with it.
As for your babbling about Breyer’s motives, you know nothing about them. You — and I — can only guess. I put my interpretation on it, you put yours. It’s not obvious to me that there are four votes to take up an appeal; there might be, and there might not. We shall see. Whatever anyone says — even the pundits “can’t explain” it as you note — is speculation, nothing else.
However, I find it revolting and typically Republican (and don’t pretend you have no partisan affiliation “and no ax to grind” — though you might well have “no political connections,” which are in any event totally irrelevant to your political views) that you refuse to call Gavin Grimm by his name and insist on referring to him as “her.” Disgusting arrogance.
And yes, that is a nasty, personal swipe at your petty lack of character. Anyone who can claim to be a decent person will treat people — including a transgendered teen — with the respect and dignity they deserve. But you don’t. You deliberately refuse to do so. That’s why I have contempt for you ad hominem, in addition to my disagreement with your political opinions.
Yea, and there is about a billion dollars of Dark money heading for the North Carolina Republicans of china’s war chest since we have been called a critical must win battleground state.
By the way Have you hear that the GOP is now under DOJ investigation for money that went to the Jeb bust PAC from a Chinese billionaire
Why is the GOP hiding their donor list behind the dead Judges citizens united ruling?
“If you have nothing to hide, why worry?”
Wow, a BILLION dollars? Was that a typo, or does exaggeration give you a cheap high?
D.g, I realize that logic is not your strong suit, so I won’t bother to try to explain a logical assumption to you. But you can read my reply to A.D above that may help you to better understand logical thinking.
Um…George Wallace was a racist bigot, just as Pat McCrony is .
The great difference between the two men is that George Wallace had the courage of his convictions, whereas Pat McCrory has no, convictions whatsoever, and never has had. He has been guided solely by political expediency his entire career, both as a Duke schmoozer and glad-handler and as mayor of Charlotte for 14 years. In his 44 months as governor he has reversed at least half-a-dozen firm promises made as a candidate (no restrictions on abortion rights chief among them) simply because the legislature passed a bill that he found easier to sign that to object to.
In his later years Wallace recanted some of his worst racism and bigotry, also due to conviction; McCrory never will: he’ll simply remain the puppet of the strongest people around him.
The great difference between the two men is that George Wallace had the courage of his convictions, whereas Pat McCrory has no, convictions whatsoever, and never has had. He has been guided solely by political expediency his entire career, both as a Duke schmoozer and glad-handler and as mayor of Charlotte for 14 years. In his 44 months as governor he has reversed at least half-a-dozen firm promises made as a candidate (no restrictions on abortion rights chief among them) simply because the legislature passed a bill that he found easier to sign that to object to.
In his later years Wallace recanted some of his worst racism and bigotry, also due to conviction; McCrory never will: he’ll simply remain the puppet of the strongest people around him.
The difference between Gov. Wallace and Gov. McCrory is the difference between an open segregationist and a closeted segregationist who tries to hide his beliefs behind a screen of laws that he says are for people’s own good.
Thomas, my friend, you do your web site no good publishing unhinged posts like this foolishness by Alex Jones. McCrory and George Wallace? Do give us a break.
1207 Hatch Road
Decency aside, the governor has done North Carolina business no favors.
Charlotte is stinging from the $100 million loss announced by the NBA, a city where McCrory purportedly pledged to serve the citizens. With friends like him who needs enemies? The people of Charlotte must feel like the victims of a drive-by shooting with their former mayor gunning down jobs and revenues – for what?
The News and Observer estimates the monetary loss from the Republican bathroom jihad to be in the $5 billion range, with no relief in sight. North Carolina is on the “no-buy” list of every major corporation, every convention planner and everyone planning a vacation.
What is the opposite of business-savvy? Business idiocy?
McCrory and this legislature have turned the stomachs of people who previously considered the North State an agreeable, moderate place. The Republicans are trying to replace Mississippi as the least inviting place for doing business in the 50 states.
5,000 new NC jobs have been announced since last March. 650 potential jobs were lost over HB2. Lookshttp://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article94448907.html like a very positive economic trend for our state.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article94448907.html
Oh my…Duh !!!!
Andrew Heath, Gov. Pat McCrory’s appointed state budget director….paints a glowing op-ed opinion for the Pat Mcduke’s 2016 bid for continued destruction of NC
How nice. Timely and a very “save my job” act of him to make. He’s another snake oil salesman like the one he replaced. So, gullible of you to cite as if it was all full of real facts.
It’s obvious from your comments, Andy, that you’re not much of a numbers guy or a particularly articulate BS artist.
http://wraltechwire.com/report-nc-economy-surges-very-strong-3-4-/15730365/
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article51149620.html