Every Accusation Is A Confession

This election season has been rife with GOP accusations of all kinds of improprieties on the part of Democratic and left-leaning organizations. As we have been shown repeatedly, however, every accusation is a confession:

Expressing concern about voter fraud and disenfranchisement, Fitton called on the audience to find a way to prevent mail-in ballots from being sent to voters. “We need to stop those ballots from going out, and I want the lawyers here to tell us what to do,” said Fitton, whose organization is a tax-exempt charity. “But this is a crisis that we’re not prepared for. I mean, our side is not prepared for.”
In an interview with The Post, Fitton elaborated on his remarks. “The left has war-gamed this out,” Fitton said. “And it could cause civil war.”

So, a tax-exempt group fighting to keep voters from being able to cast ballots? Seriously?

Brent Bozell, a CNP executive committee member and founder of the Media Research Center, another tax-exempt charity, told attendees at one of the August sessions that he believes the left plans to “steal this election.”

Stealing the election by…casting valid votes? I guess if you view any Democratic win as illegitimate…

True to form, GOPers have now embraced a course of action their leader decried not one month ago as “RAMPANT WITH FRAUD“:

“And so our organization is going to be harvesting ballots in churches,” (Reed) said. “We’re going to be specifically going in not only to White evangelical churches, but into Hispanic and Asian churches, and collecting those ballots.”

They’re going to pull out ALL the stops. We’d better be ready.

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A Time To Stand

North Carolina’s legislative session starts today, and with it comes the near-certainty of even more destruction at the hands of the NeoConfederates in Raleigh.  Moral Mondays will also return:

As in 2013, the Moral Mondays will have a uniquely Southern tone, evoking the civil-rights movement of the 1960s. While the Rev. William Barber II, president of the state NAACP, has stressed the ecumenism of the protests—embracing Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and non-believers—they will nonetheless be steeped in the language and cadences of African-American Protestantism. This reflects a deliberate calculation to wrest the religious high ground away from conservatives.

“We’re taking the Bible back from the extremists,” says the Rev. Curtis Gatewood, a state NAACP community organizer, who quotes from the Old Testament, Isaiah 1:10:

“Woe to those who make unjust laws… to deprive the poor of their rights.”

With Thom Tillis beating back a TeaPublican challenge for the right to face Sen. Kay Hagan in November, the siren song of “moderate” will be floated to see if anyone other than the Nice Polite Republican crowd is stupid enough to bite.  There’s been a lot of damage done here since McCrory’s statehouse win, but in a state that counts the likes of Virgina Foxx, Patrick McHenry, and Renee Ellmers among its footsoldiers and the thoroughly detestable Art Pope as the moneyman, the phrase “stop hitting yourself” isn’t metaphorical.  There is evidence, however, that the true nature of the GOP is reaching a wider audience:

Likewise, the NAACP has pushed into traditionally conservative regions of North Carolina—including Mitchell County in the Appalachian Mountains, where an overwhelmingly white crowd packed an Episcopal church last fall to listen to Barber’s message and interrupt with the occasional “amen.”

“It is unbelievable,” Gatewood says of these allies in places like Mitchell County. “They’re exemplifying enthusiasm that’s moving faster than some of our traditional NAACP leaders. When you’re coming against teachers, [people in conservative strongholds] have got relatives who are teachers. When you’re coming against people who are unemployed, some of them lost jobs at no fault of their own.”

In employing a scorched-earth policy against their enemies, the GOP has created even more adversaries – people who can see the harm GOP policies cause because they are being directly affected by (and better informed about) them.  If that pattern continues and expands, we stand a chance of setting the state back on its rightful path.

UPDATE: This from Bendal at Balloon Juice:

...they passed a 2 year budget last year so this year is supposed to only be about ‘tweaking’ the budget to adjust things. Not this time.

As a result of their disastrous cutting of corporate income taxes and the tax rate on the very rich last year, NC is now $450 million short of projected revenue. We have a mandated balance budget; they have to do one of two things; raise taxes or cut spending to balance the budget. They could dip into ‘unspent revenue’ or the rainy day fund to fill the hole, but since they just replenished the RDF last year I wonder if they’ll deplete it so soon. In addition, there’s a $150 million Medicaid hole that has to be filled, and the governor wants to give teachers and state employees a pittance of a pay raise (it’s an election year after all). A 1% pay raise for state employees equals $300 million more that they don’t have, so we’re now up to around $900 million if the legislature agrees to the pay raises (they won’t though).

What’s left to cut? Not a whole lot; education and social programs will be slashed further, and some legislators are talking about cutting the corporate tax rate even MORE, which won’t change anything this year but will make things much worse next year, when we’re expected to have a $200+ million deficit again. This is exactly what our conservative legislators want, though; they talked last year about “starving state government” and no doubt are sharpening their knives already.

If you want to have a state left at all, you need to vote.

Time To Get To It

Primaries are here, and Rock The Vote has provided a handy reference graf:

VOTE – while you still can!

If the NeoConfederates are to be taken down, it has to start NOW.

The Vagina Demagogues

Zandar catches Art Pope and the gang in yet another lie, this time regarding the anti-choice law they just rammed through:

So remember how critics of North Carolina’s new anti-choice law said the legislation could be used to close all but one of the state’s abortion clinics under “ambulatory surgical center standards” nonsense? Guess which clinic just got hit with a raft of safety violations that will put it out of business?

The state Department of Health and Human Services suspended the license of a city abortion clinic, citing nearly two dozen safety violations discovered in a recent inspection.

FemCare of Asheville, Western North Carolina’s only provider of surgical abortions, is the only clinic in the state that meets the standards of an ambulatory surgical center.

The clinic gained attention recently following the passage of a controversial abortion bill, which critics say could effectively close all clinics in the state except the Asheville site if DHHS imposes standards similar to those of an outpatient surgical center.

State officials said the clinic’s license suspension was not related to the new abortion legislation.

Of course, throwing women under the bus wasn’t enough – McCrory offered up some baked goods in lieu of first aid.

I wish my state would wake up.

A Letter To The NeoConfederates

Dear NeoConfederates,

2014 is coming – and SO ARE WE.  Not in the way you claim to fear.

No marauding gangs, no riots, no Birth Of A Nation-induced fantasies.

Those two New Black Panthers (the SAME two, at that!) you guys drag out every time you want to make each other wet yourselves?  Non-factor.

No, we’re coming brandishing the one thing that actually scares you – our VOTES.

You and ALEC can try all your tricks – we’re coming.

You can end early voting – we’re coming.

You can close polling places – we’re coming.

You can “accidentally” delete names from voting rolls – we’re coming.

You can gin up as much outrage as you wish – a Brooks Brothers riot won’t help you this time.

The FerengiMedia™ may be your allies, but they won’t be enough.

Are you willing to use fire hoses?  Dogs?  Guns?

Because that’s what you are going to have to do.  And even that won’t be enough.

You see, we’ve had more than enough of your crap.

You’ve been on the longest temper tantrum in recent history. Running at full speed since November 4, 2008.

We are now fully aware that there is no common cause with you.

There can be no compromise because you do not wish it.  You want us dead, gone, marginalized, or in servitude to you.

NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.

It didn’t have to be this way. YOU forced this.

Remember that when your electoral gains are dust, and you have gone the way of the Whigs.

Your hatred of us will be your undoing.

And you will only have yourselves to blame.