Mid Week, Mid Winter

Ann Colter on Hannity's teevee show this past week. I paraphrase but only slightly.

"First universal background checks, then universal registration, then universal confiscation, then universal extermination."

Yep, she said that. She deserves the Goebbels award of the new century.
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Meanwhile, in NC we're experiencing something on the order of the Scott Walker Wisconsin Four Wheel Drift. Of course here in NC we already did the Right to Work thing back in the '50s, so there's almost no union resistance to anything, and we've been in front of the ever-bending backwards curve since ole Jesse was elected in 1972. Once the Post Office is destroyed, people will just get to grouch about how they never had to drive 40 miles to get their tax notices back in the good old days. Bill Friday held back the tide, and out-lived Mr. Helms, but now he's gone too. But the all Republican Legislature and the All Republican Governor are doing what they can in service of the process. Today they're considering the following bill:

http://www.wral.com/today-nccapitol-feb-6-committees-commence/12070280/

Here's the salient quote from WRAL's coverage:

As rewritten and passed along party lines in the Senate Rules Committee Tuesday, the bill eliminates some boards and commissions while firing those who sit on several key regulatory bodies. It would sack sitting members of the Utilities Commission, Environmental Management Commission, Coastal Resources Commission, Lottery Commission and Wildlife Resources Commission.

The bill would also fire members of the Turnpike Authority, Industrial Commission, 12 sitting special superior court judges, and the chairman of the State Board of Elections.

Gov. Pat McCrory and legislative Republicans would then be free to appoint new members to those boards, replacing those appointed by Democratic Govs. Mike Easley and Bev Perdue with new members more friendly to the GOP.

See, used to be they made these various regulatory boards with overlapping terms of service, so that election politics would not seep into such matters as electric rate increases, toll road fees, and so forth. There was bipartisan agreement that this idea was a good one. Used to be no Governor could just pack a commission with his cronies, or with folks who agreed entirely with his ideas on, say, education and the place of "gender studies".

And nobody ran, this past election, on the explicit idea of "reforming" the system in this particular way. My guess is, such a "reform" would not be particularly appreciated even by rank and file Republicans. I kinda expect that most regular people appreciate it when the Insurance Commission tells the insurance companies that they can't raise our auto liability rates again, or when the Utility Commission tells Duke Power they can't double their rate, only raise it 8%.

So it goes.

I'm thinking McCrory and our lead legislators went to some big meeting with our national conservative legal scholars last year, and plans were drawn up. We need some intrepid reporter to get into one of these meetings. Where's Hunter Thompson?

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Thursday Update:

Another day, another deutschmark I guess.

http://www.wral.com/state-s-new-pre-k-chief-opposes-pre-k/12073587/

The money shot:

The National Physicians Center for Family Resources, which Lightfoot founded in 2001, advocates against "institutional" preschool programs.

"In the case of early childhood education programs, available research suggests they may actually be inferior to early learning opportunities at home. In addition, it appears the demand for out of home childcare is not as prevalent as many advocates claim," says an open letter signed by Lightfoot on the group's website.

The letter also warns that "There is great potential for early learning institutions to foster more dependency on the government (i.e. taxpayer) and more of an entitlement mentality."

(Dr. Lightfoot is of course the new pre-K "czar." Sheesh!) Here's the website for the National Physicians Center for Family Resources: http://www.physicianscenter.org/v1/index.php Right now it's trumpeting a study which "proves" that abstinence "works," at least in South Carolina. Seems like the word "family" has become a "tell." That's pretty sad.
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Saturday, a brief final update:

Good news! Ms Lightfoot has withdrawn from her appointment to this pre-K position, due to unfavorable publicity, i.e., more and more dubious political comments by her have surfaced even after her efforts to scrub the record. Here's the news links:

http://www.wral.com/new-nc-pre-k-director-quits-amid-questions-over-background/12078169/
http://www.wral.com/mccrory-administration-mum-on-lightfoot/12085091/

As with the McCain choice of Sarah Palin for Vice President, Lightfoot's appointment now directs a harsh light back at the new McCrory Administration. It's one thing to have a different point of view, and something else to disrespect an obviously accredited administrator by giving her mere hours to vacate her office: "Deb Cassidy had been at DCDEE since 2009. She holds a Ph.D. in child development and has been on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro since 1990." Seems like such a person as Ms Cassidy would deserve at least the respect of a personal conversation with her superior. These are professional educators after all.