I AM NC 116.COM

In some ways I’m like the date rapist who sends flowers the next day with a happy little note saying, “Let’s get together again real soon”.

Now that I’ve got my rocks off terrorizing the city of Asheville and doing everything I could think of to destroy the capability of cities all across North Carolina to function, hopefully ensuring a long decline in the livability and charm of those places, thereby pushing out the liberal majorities in the cities, I can now be Mr. Nice Guy again.

So you will probably notice a lot of candy and flowers coming out of my media empire; the web sites my company hosts for my fellow legislators in violation of about sixty-five different RICO statutes. Because most of my fellow legislators have shot their wads over their own pet projects as well.

Why else would we waste time making promises about fixing the broken I240 interchange? We don’t really want to help the city handle its traffic problems, even if the infrastructure in question is ultimately our responsibility. We’re just sending pretty flowers. They will die soon and be tossed in the trash like all the rest.

The same kind of thing is happening all over the state. Enjoy this little make nicey-nice period, because we have some more law-making to do before we’re done this year.

“Here, let me get you a drink…”

“Is that James Taylor in the background? I love him. Live here often? Bourbon? I’ll be right back”…

“Feelin’ lucky! Dum de dum dum, How sweet it is to be drug-gin you”…

I missed this little gem last week, because I was off celebrating my ascension in the ranks of the Death Cult of Satan. (Yes, that’s a joke. Ayn Rand is not Satan) But I was wandering about the internet, hoping to score a look at Angelina’s tits, before and after, if not during, which let’s face it has to be out there somewhere, and I found this article. In Scientific American no less.

I wasn’t impressed by all the crap about what we are supposedly doing and how backwards it all is. That’s not news. We don’t need to be told our policies make no sense and set dangerous precedents. We designed them that way on purpose. In a world that makes sense we lose, it’s a simple as that.

The voice vote is what caught my eye. Let me tell you, this is not anything like the tactical nonsense that the Democrats used to use. If they were in danger of losing the voice vote, they might yell louder or ignore a point of order, or like always deny the premise of whatever question came at them. But this. This is beauty. This doesn’t pussy around with procedural maneuvers and points of order. This is when the power of the majority rises above the din of Democracy to it’s rightful place.

You see, elections are about Democracy. Governing is about getting your shit done over the objections of losers. You want fairness? You want actual vote counting? See you on election day. Other than that, as one of my esteemed colleagues so eloquently put it, “You need to be quiet”.

The Republican rule over North Carolina will be defined by a lot of things; and the preventative double mastectomy we are performing on Democracy is a big part of it. I believe this reliance on the “voice vote” to ride rough-shod over the democratic process will be a hallmark of our reign. So much is getting done. It’s just beautiful to be a part of it.

I’d like to personally send a heart-felt “thanks” to the Buncombe County Commission for their consideration of my new pet project, referred to locally as “Project X”.

I know its a lot of money for just a few jobs, and I know the Republican theory of government says that “the market” is supposed to be free and all, but seriously, does anybody really know what freedom is any more? (Oh Hell, That old Chicago song will be stuck in my head all damned day now.)

Just remember kids, when the company’s identity would in and of itself create a storm of criticism -enough that it should be hidden from the public- you can bet that somewhere in the plan there is a nasty politician or two and some money changing hands.

I love to see the gears turning in my fellow Republicans shiny little heads, and Nathan Ramsey is no exception.

He just signed on to sponsor a commission to investigate the non-profits out there in the hinterlands that are paying themselves huge salaries with money doled out by the state.

You have to admire the twisted logic that would allow someone to seriously create that committee in the legislature. To then be willing to go on record in favor of a cap on non-profit salaries is just amazingly special.

I’m not talking about anything to do with the ratio of money taken in that is used for running the operation, there are already mechanisms to control that. I’m talking about an outright cap on salaries.

It doesn’t matter that some of these people operate at a high level of executive function and hold responsibility for massive programs, large budgets, extensive work forces and a lot of the very necessary work that would ordinarily be done by the government in any of those ugly socialist European countries everybody loves so much.

Imagine if anyone tried to do that to a private, for-profit business. All Hell would break loose because we have elevated the pursuit of profit to be the highest possible virtue.

But non-profits? Why would anyone even do that, except to dodge taxes in the first place? It smacks of abuse. That’s why your North Carolina State Legislature is after it. We’ll fix what ain’t broken. You can count on that.

We sent the Cherokee there back in the day, because it was the one place on the continent that then President Andrew Jackson figured would never be worth fighting over.

But now they have a basketball team, and they have a compelling story of national tragedy with which to make old ladies cry on national holidays, and they have some good hotels and an economy that is improving all the time, thanks to an unrelentingly conservative government that seeks to let companies do whatever it takes to suck a profit out of this otherwise God-forsaken land.

It’s really quite pleasant here. It’s “drill  baby drill” and “God, guns and Country”. There are no hipsters, no smug liberals pushing collectivism and “the common good”. There are no arguments over water. In fact, there’s not a lot of water to argue about most of the summer months, or so I’m told, and the corporate interests here are already in charge of it all. It’s refreshing to get away to the heartland and meet other people who are on the same mission as you.

I was reminded of the story of the Cherokee because plainly most people of the time were complicit in the way the Native peoples were treated. There should have been an outcry. There should have been a massive movement against something so patently, obviously evil as what they did to the civilized nations of the southern country.

But enough people had interests that were served by that evil, and enough people were blind to that evil, and enough people were secretly just glad it was not them and happy to see someone else get trampled underfoot, that nothing much was done.

I had a brief moment this morning, getting ready for my first of many meetings, when it occurred to me that I might be part of a new trail of tears. This one temporal rather than geolocational. The experience will be the same, though. People will sit still in their homes across North Carolina and have my trail of tears pulled over them like a dry hot blanket of ill-will, changing the very land into a vast pale poisonous pit of bitter sin; scorched by the sun and tormented by the wind.

But you know, one should not dwell on such things. The moment passed. It was time to go negotiate with the wolves.

Your NC House took a break from the important work of tearing North Carolina to shreds this week to pass HB 484, which creates a permitting policy structure for those dangerous wind farms, so that our brave men and women serving America’s corporate interests can be protected from the hazards posed by those liberal icons of death, wind turbines.

My own amendment intended to strengthen this important legislation was not adopted, but that’s okay. My amendment would have added contingencies for mountains, trees, tall buildings and the threat of leaping whales along the coast to the list of things the military needs to be protected from. I figured if you are in a plane or a helicopter and can’t dodge a huge freaking whirling oscillating fan standing off in a field, you are also unlikely to be able to miss the rest of the stuff out there with a higher than average profile.

My colleagues gently reminded me that none of those other things, with the possible exception of the leaping whales were likely to be used against the established southern industrial oligarchy that really hates those big fucking fans, and so would be considered mostly harmless. And the leaping whales are really more symbolic than actually threatening. Killing them all off (again) to save airplanes is admittedly a little silly.

The important thing is that, when you want to kill an industry or idea that you find offensive but can’t really justify doing away with to your constituents, like renewable energy, you just have to start regulating it to death. Simple. So, with the wind to our backs, so to speak, that is what we are doing. You’re welcome, Duke.