Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be ALE Agents

Why in the world did they have to pick Willie Nelson?



North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement (ALE) officers protected the ticket-buying citizens of North Carolina from dangerous country outlaws on Friday, arresting Willie Nelson's band for possession of moonshine and marijuana. As a result, Willie's Friday night concert in Kenansville was cancelled.

This might make sense except:

- ALE is supposed to be investigating the growing scandal that is North Carolina's state-run alcohol monopoly, not ruining everybody's weekend.

- It is practically entrapment for the state to promote its moonshine heritage for tourism purposes and then arrest visitors for partaking while they are here.

- There are tons of worthless stoned musicians constantly playing in this state, whose arrest would actually improve North Carolina.

North Carolina law enforcement is looking more and more like Roscoe P. Coltrane, serving no purpose except to protect Boss Hogg's monopoly on the liquor business. Maybe it's time we disband not only ABC but ALE as well.

Bipartisan Mismanagement

Chris Kromm of the Institute for Southern Studies frets that the North Carolina legislature is the most likely Southern state legislature to come under Republican control in the 2010 elections due to public disapproval of the Democratic party. If only 10 percent of existing Democratic seats change hands, the Republican party will enjoy an 8-vote advantage in the House and reach a "deadlock" in the Senate.




Kromm's concern seems to be that Republicans would use their newfound ability to control the redistricting process to disenfranchise "urban voters, African-Americans, Latinos and other key demographic groups." He needn't worry. The last time the Republicans held such a strategic position, they managed to squander it by scandalously selling control back to the Democrats. Just because former House Speaker Jim Black is now in prison doesn't mean that the corrupt North Carolina Democratic party is somehow above using any and all means to retain its majority.

NC Attorney General Asks for Federal Control

Who does Roy Cooper work for?

The Attorney General for North Carolina filed an amicus brief in a Supreme Court case encouraging the federal government to continue to have control over North Carolina state elections.

The case challenges the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which gives the US Justice Department total control over elections in states that have "historically suppressed minority votes." So why would Cooper, a state elected official, beg the US Supreme Court to put the federal government in charge of him?

These days, it seems North Carolina voters have more to fear from state elected officials like Cooper than the federal government. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court said the state could no longer rely on the Voting Rights Act to force the election of minority candidates. Hopefully, the Court will continue this trend and put North Carolina elections back in the hands of North Carolina voters.

Lottery Corruption Spreads to Supreme Court

Despite being passed in violation of the General Assembly's own rules and all standards of professional ethics, the North Carolina "education" lottery is here to stay.

The NC Supreme Court deadlocked in a 3-3 tie, which means that the lottery survives. Unfortunately for people who support good government and accountability, we will never know which Justices voted which way. Like everything else related to the lottery's creation, this becomes just another backroom deal that the public can know nothing about.

State Sen. Tony Rand says he's "delighted" that this "goes into the win column" in favor of the corrupt General Assembly. "To think that the taxpayers of North Carolina might be deprived that significant amount of money at a time when the state is facing unprecedented fiscal problems was a frightening thought to me." Tony, where is the money coming from if not from the taxpayers of North Carolina?

Bring Back Jesse Helms

Lots of people are missing former US Senator Jesse Helms these days. In a letter to the editor of the American Spectator, former Republican White House aide Joseph P. Duggan says conservatives need to ask themselves, "What Would Jesse Do?" While the mainstream media are sure to criticize Republicans if they fail to jump on the Obama bandwagon, Duggan reminds us that the former Senator from North Carolina was politically rewarded for acting as a roadblock:

For his success using the "hold" to delay or kill legislation and objectionable nominations for ambassadorships and policy positions, Helms was known by both friend and foe as "Senator No." ... The Senate needs a new conservative champion of foreign policy realism who will, to paraphrase Bill Buckley, stand athwart extremist nominees and noxious legislation, yelling "Stop!"

Meanwhile, in the Civitas Review, Helms Center President John Dodd attempts to answer the question, "What Would Jesse Say?" Dodd makes the case that Republicans did not lose power because they failed to work with Democrats -- but rather because they were too willing to compromise conservative principles:

[Senator Helms] would point out that we have far too often strayed from our principles on key issues in order to seek more political power. This has allowed the opposition to coopt conservatives on important issues, like the need for fiscal restraint. Senator Helms would remind us that, although we should be willing to compromise our preferences, we should never be willing to compromise our principles.

Here's hoping the next generation Jesse Helms is out there right now, about to make a big splash in North Carolina politics.

Welfare State

This can't be good: According to the Treasury Department,
North Carolina is receiving more funds from the TARP bailout than any other state except New York: $28.5 billion!

Of course, to say that North Carolina is receiving it is a huge misstatement. Almost all of that money is going to Bank of America. The mega-bank is essentially being rewarded for unfair competition - using unsustainable business practices to put all our homegrown local banks out of business. Now it's up to the taxpayer to sustain the Charlotte empire. They're taking us over with our own money.

Meanwhile, Gov. Perdue just appointed career bureaucrat Dempsey Benton to oversee the new federal "stimulus" money coming into the state. [This after Benton's dismal failure as Director of Health and Human Services during which, among other things, the state's mental health system was revealed to be a giant scandal.]

The State of North Carolina gets $6 billion (not the $25 billion that Bank of America gets, showing us exactly where we fit in the pecking order) to "rebuild the state’s infrastructure, including highways and schools." Again, North Carolinians are coughing up tax dollars to the federal government, which it uses in return to take ownership of our critical infrastructure. Evidence of this is that one of Benton's assignments will be to "establish lines of communication with federal and state agencies." In other words, he will be working to make our state agencies part of the federal government.

Monumental Ignorance

Columnist Peder Zane of the News & Observer is calling on Gov. Perdue to tear down the Confederate monument in front of the State Capitol. Zane refers to the Confederate monument as "Raleigh's most prominent piece of public art, a signature symbol with an ugly past representing values and ambitions that no longer reflect who we are."

What values and ambitions might those be? State sovereignty? Self determination? If those values no longer reflect North Carolina, then the solution is not to tear down Confederate monuments, but to build more of them. As Stephen Parsons writes, "that is a cause worth remembering with honor."