NC Spin(ning) away from reality on ethics, refugees

For those of you who don’t know — NC Spin is a little show broadcast each week, aired in the wee hours of the morning on obscure stations, and hosted by Tom “Grandpa” Campbell (once #2 to state treasurer Harlan Boyles (D).)   I occasionally catch the show on YouTube when things are really, really, really slow. 

The show is billed as a great way to get the inside scoop on what’s happening in Raleigh. But usually, you get little more than some super-sonic blinking by Chris Fitzsimon, some griping about roadside litter from Joe Mavretic, and a dramatic reading of the works of English philosopher Lord Fancypants (1546-1578) by John Hood.  The greatest benefit I see in the show is that it so clearly illustrates how out of touch the crowd that makes their living inside the Raleigh beltline is from regular folks outside said beltline. 

The gang proceeded to beat up on Gov. Pat McCrory for asking Obama to halt the flow of Syrian refugees to North Carolina.  The majority of the panel bashed the decision — citing this old saw that “most” of the refugees are women, children, and old people. The problem with that?

Let’s check in with that *right-wing conservative bastion* known as The United Nations. According to the UN, about two-thirds of what has been pouring into Europe has been MEN.    Also, it’s quite sketchy to define these refugees as “Syrian.”  UN data shows, for instance, that the refugee flow into Greece has included — in addition to Syrians —  substantial representation from Afghanistan, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq and “others.”

Instead of citing women from the region as non-threatening, you should consider the facts. Talk to anyone who has actually been in the middle of the conflict in the Middle East.  They will tell you the jihadis are not shy about strapping bombs to women, children, the elderly, and even the mentally retarded.  Hell, one of the Paris attackers was a female suicide bomber!

It’s not a racial thing.  It’s not a bigotry thing.  You have a group of people who think of nothing more than a 1000 year Muslim caliphate ruling the world, and killing off all of the non-believers. (Hmmm. Seems like we’ve already had quite a conflict ONCE with a group that dreamed of dominating the world for 1000 years and killing off large groups of people who differed from them.)  

These are people in the 21st century living their lives in the 10th century.  At that time, disputes got settled with violence.  He who had the most toys WON.   These are thousand years old beliefs that are not going to be changed with some social workers and a few government programs.

The gang on NC Spin also got it terribly wrong on ethics.  Grandpa Tom repeated the falsehood generated by Dallas Woodhouse that this TV reporter in Charlotte was getting revenge on Tim Moore for not hiring him.    Never mind that there was one hell of an email paper trail indicating that Moore’s people sought out this reporter FIRST as a potential employee and the reporter turned Moore down. 

The whole panel — Grandpa Tom, Blinkin’ Chris, Dennis Wicker, and, of course, Professor Hood — stood with Binky and saw the allegations against Moore as little more than a PR failure.  The Charlotte reporter popped Moore for not itemizing his campaign credit card charges.  So did the state board of elections.  The reporter also pointed out that Moore neglected to follow a law that he, himself, sponsored and pushed through the House in 2006.  THIS was dismissed as “sensationalism” by the NCSpin panel.

Our site took things a few steps further.  We found that Moore reimbursed himself for “in-kind constributions,” paid rent to himself for property he owns, and paid himself for working on his own campaign.  Some may look at it and say: “Hey, it’s his own campaign money.  So what?”

Well, Moore’s campaign gets a lot of money from people with business in front of the House.  If Moore (or any legislator, for that matter) runs up a huge credit card bill buying dinners and gifts for himself and his family, and then uses campaign contributions from special interests to pay said credit card bills, it looks like we’ve found a great way to circumvent ethics rules and launder bribes.

It was interesting to see Democrat AND Republican pundits on the show shrugging off this whole development.  The wagons simply get circled around one of their fellow cocktail party clique members.  There but for the grace of God go I. 

Just like in DC, the Raleigh ruling class is scared to death of being found out and run out of town by the peasants who pay the bills.