When North Carolinians elected repugican Pat McCrory in November,
they thought they were getting a “moderate” repugican. Indeed,
McCrory’s public record looked like a moderate repugican, he sounded
like a moderate repugican and if you follow the logic about ducks, that
means that as governor, McCrory would be a moderate repugican.
North Carolinians are seeing the flaw in duck logic, because
something happened to their once moderate repugican governor. It’s
like the moment he was handed the keys to the Governor’s mansion he
turned into a tea party militant overnight.
Yes, the State of North Carolina is turning into a Kochtarian Utopia,
with McCrory as the face of a Moderate repugican and multi-millionaire
Art Pope, playing the role of Dick Cheney. Mr. Pope is the CEO of
Variety Wholesalers Inc. and has been an agitator in repugican politics
throughout his adult life. That is, after he co-founded The Libertarian
Party as a 20-year-old college student, studying political science at
UNC – Chapel Hill.
Pope, who counts the Kochs among his friends, makes the
administrations of Rick Snyder, Scott Walker, and even Florida’s Rick
Scott look like amateur hour. When repuhicans won control of the
State’s legislature in 2010, for the first time since 1870,
75% of the funding
that made it possible came from “independent” groups with ties to the
personification of all that is glorious in the eyes of the Tea Party,
the great, white Art Pope.
Once the repugicans gained control of the State’s legislature for
the first time in over a century, Pope provided his expertise in
gerrymandering which means, as is the case in the repugican controlled
House of Representatives in Washington, even when they lose, they still
retain control.
Since McCrory took over the Governor’s mansion with Pope as his
budget director, the litany of tea partyesque legislation has been spell
binding. Attacking women’s rights, access to education, savage cuts to
unemployment benefits, voting suppression on steroids and much, much
more. Also proposed under Art Pope’s watchful eye, Romneyhood, a
constitutional amendment for a right to work for less, and government
handouts for homeschooling. As Think Progress said, Pope with McCrory
as his face is rapidly turning North Carolina into a
tea party Utopia.
“With no remaining checks to repugican rule in North
Carolina, the state has now become a haven for some of the most
ideological — and ill-considered — tea party fantasies dressed up as
legislation.”
It’s a dizzying pace, especially for people who say they don’t like
government on their backs, but are more than content to make government
an albatross on the backs of average North Carolinians.
We wouldn’t see proposals to impose any religion, let alone a
specific religion, on the populace of North Carolina under a “moderate” repugican Administration and it certainly doesn’t make sense under
Libertarianism. Yet, that’s just one of the
laws
proposed by the Pope/McCrory Administration. This is particularly
ironic, since Pope is familiar with the first amendment, when it comes
to his “right” to throw as much money as possible at races where repugicans can’t sell their ideas.
Of course, he didn’t see it that way when he wrote the following in the National Review:
“I’m a wingnut repugican and I exercise my First
Amendment rights by supporting wingnut public-policy and
issue-advocacy organizations, grassroots activism, voter education, and repugican candidates. With the obvious importance of North Carolina in
next year’s national elections, the Left now wants to silence me.”
If Pope and McCrory have their way, NC’s
Racial Justice Act that sought to take racism out of North Carolina’s criminal justice system will be a thing of the past.
This is symptomatic of the tea party’s version of libertarianism, in
which free speech applies to the uber rich when they buy politicians,
but freedom of religion is reduced to “allowing” North Carolinians to
choose which cult, spouting the state religion, they will attend.
Somehow, the first Amendment that Pope pointed to when defending his
“right” to buy the State’s government no longer matters under the
Pope/McCrory Administration.
It’s the sort of “libertarianism” that frowns upon assuring civil
protections of people who are vulnerable to discrimination in favor of
preserving the racists’ ‘freedom’ to be racists.
But wait, there is so much more. North Carolina shows us why the tea party is drawn to having inexperienced “fresh faces.” It’s so much
easier for Dick Cheney types to pull their strings behind the curtain.
In 2012, Pope served as the co-chair for Pat McCrory’s transition
team before he was appointed to be the state’s chief budget writer in
McCrory’s Administration. When his appointment as Budget Director was
announced, observers of North Carolinian politics knew what lay ahead.
McCrory serves as the Public face of his Administration, with Art Pope
pulling his strings from behind the scenes.
As the
Charlotte Observed noted:
“Many people find it difficult to think dispassionately
about Pope because he has become such a polarizing figure – knight of
the right to his admirers or a somewhat sinister
Daddy-Warbucks-Dick-Cheney-string-puller to his critics.”
But for McCrory, a rookie governor with little Raleigh
experience, having Pope at his side during the early months of his
administration has been an asset. (my emphasis)
The litany of
legislation that Pope and McCrory’s repugicans passed and are currently
in the process of passing coincide with the Kochtarian version of
freedom, in which corporations are free to do what they want, the rich
are free to live as they want, and small government means regulating as
many aspects of everyone else’s life as possible.
Bill Cook, one of those repugicans who benefitted from an influx of
Pope money, introduced North Carolina’s version of voter suppression laws.
Most of the proposed voter suppression legislation is the same
boilerplate laws we saw passed by repugicans before the 2012 election.
However, the Pope/McCrory
voter suppression package
has a couple of additional laws that only a Kochtarian can see as an
enhancement of liberty. First up is a law to remove the child deduction
from parents whose children vote where they go to college instead of in
their home town. It has the same effect as a
poll tax, even if Pope and McCrory would deny that it is a poll tax.
Of course, Voter Integrity Project of NC which has
ties to Art Pope, are salivating over this law. Like good soldiers of the Koch controlled tea party, they’re armed with talking points, so they don’t have to worry their little heads by thinking about what they are advocating.
North Carolinians will be hearing about how this law, proposed by one
of Art Pope’s puppets, is really just about “equalizing” the vote
because college students are such a privileged lot. This message
provided courtesy of one of Art Pope’s “grassroots” organizations will
appear to be a “grassroots” concern, with Art Pope, once again, pulling
the strings. Granted, recognizing why this policy is constitutionally
problematic would mean taking a look at the 24
th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in
federal elections on payment of a
poll tax or
other types of tax. But Pope’s puppets need not worry about it. He
does all the thinking, and all they have to do is propose his law and
parrot his message. It’s so much more efficient when one person does the
thinking and makes all the decisions, you know.
The Voter Integrity Project operates much like those other wonderful “grass roots” organizations,
Americans For Prosperity and
the tea party where Pope (and his bff’s the Koch Brothers” also have
ties, in which “grassroots” really means “top down.” Their sugar daddies
run the show, while the “grass roots” members act as broadcasters of
their sugar daddy’s message. after legislators bought by their sugar
daddies propose the policies envisioned by Art Pope and the Koch
Brothers.
Pope isn’t stopping at voter suppression though. As the person responsible for writing NC’s budgets, Pope is using the
budget to eliminate NC’s
Judicial Public Finance Program.
In short, the program provides public financing for judicial
elections, rather than the sort of “grass roots” financing that comes
from people like Art Pope. Considering that Pope believes that money is
speech, his opposition to this program is predictable. After all,
money is only speech when the money in question belongs to the uberrich
and besides, public financing of elections sort of puts a damper on the
uberrich’s financial megaphone silencing the voices of everyone else.
Then there’s practical reality. To assure the laws proposed by the
legislators that Pope invested in remain in tact, Pope needs the ability
to buy judges to rubber stamp his laws should they, somehow be subject
to constitutional challenges.
Just think of it, the same guy who writes the law, buys a lawmaker to
propose it and has his “grassroots’ organization broadcast his talking
points. Just in case you people get uppity and decide to challenge the
will of Pope, if he gets his way, he’ll have bought judges to rule in
his favor. It’s so efficient and so consistent with the liberty that
Kochtarianism stands for.
As Paul Blumenthal of the Huffington Post
reported:
“Most of the attacks [against judicial public financing]
were really coming from one source, and that’s the political network
that’s largely funded by Art Pope in North Carolina,” Chris Kromm,
Director at the Institute for Southern Studies, a liberal non-profit in
North Carolina, alleged.”
The lesson of North Carolina is a reminder of the sort of repuhican cabal we’re dealing with today. It’s a repugican cabal controlled by
people who believe they are entitled to buy legislators and judges to
silence the voices of Americans who don’t belong to the billionaire boys
club. It’s a party of plutocrats that not only can’t relate to most
Americans, and all American values, but hold contempt for both. The real
leaders aren’t those moderate faces on the campaign trail, they are
those men hiding behind the curtain.
