Guest Blogger: Karl Campbell
That's Ramin Bahrani, the native of Winston-Salem (born in 1975) who's becoming a talked-about creative force in the world of movies and whose most recent film, "Goodbye Solo," was shot entirely in Winston-Salem, except for the climax scene which was shot at the Blowing Rock with [...] 
For all the dissension in the Democratic Party, the Republicans have their own internal rotting fish heads.
Scott Huler lives in Raleigh (though he had the misfortune of being born in Ohio). He's worked and written for the Raleigh News & Observer and done on-air commentaries for "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio. "All Things Considered" is kind of the perfect venue' [...] 
Rep. Larry Kissell is North Carolina's newest representative in Congress, elected in 2008 from the NC-8 (which includes all the counties on the South Carolina border, from the eastern suburbs of Charlotte to Cumberland County and Fayetteville). Most analysts agree that Kissell won his seat against' [...] 
...for N.C. Senate, Dist. 45 ... against incumbent Steve Goss.
To get the Democratic votes for the narrow victory on Saturday for the House's "Affordable Health Care for America Act," Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced into a corner by the Blue Dogs, led by Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan. She allowed a vote on the' [...] 
Let's review, shall we?
Madam Virginia Foxx stood on the west front of the Capitol yesterday, shucking and grinning as one of Michelle Bachmann's backup singers, basking in the glow of some 5,000 anti-abortionists and tea partiers bused in by Americans for the Prosperous to shut down the government and' [...] 
The Charlotte Observer today features a blistering editorial about Madam Foxx, who is "more than just mildly embarrassing for North Carolina." She's positively "find-an-island-to-ship-her-to embarrassing." And then this small shiv directed at you and me: "how-can-voters-keep-electing-her embarrassing .... Her words and actions should scare voters'" [...] 
Tony Rand, Democratic Majority Leader in the NC Senate and arguably the second most powerful member of that body, is resigning from the Senate to take an appointment as chairman of the state parole board.
Where was the celebrated Republican/conservative resurgence in North Carolina yesterday? Nowhere much.
Meet Doug Hoffman, losing candidate for the U.S. Congress in the NY-23. Hoffman did NOT run and lose as a Republican. He ran and lost as a tea-bagging conservative. The GOP did NOT initially pick Hoffman as its candidate. No, it was worse than that. It [...] 
As un-self-aware as Foxx & Friends are in the hallowed halls of Congress, they occasionally actually hit on the truth. Madam Foxx's terror about Democratic health reform does indeed have something to do with her own survival.
Keeping in mind that Madam Virginia Foxx is actively scared to death of actual voters in her district and that she does not appear anywhere that doesn't offer "safe," pre-screened, ass-kissing fans of hers, her truly violent statement today on the floor of the House has' [...] 
Less than 48 hours before the election for governor in Virginia, at least some of the state's voters began getting robo-calls from Sarah Palin.
A few days ago a large manila envelop arrived in the mail. In it, an 8 x 10 glossy photograph of the 44th President of the United States, a little keepsake just for us (and a few million other of his supporters, we guess), a small [...] 
It had to be a cringe-inducing moment for members of the State Board of Elections yesterday, meeting this week to hear testimony and decide whether former Gov. Mike Easley flagrantly (or only innocently) violated campaign finance laws.
Virginia Anne Foxx ... Medicare recipient.
That's Republican Senate Leader Phil Berger with a wheelbarrow load full of "voter surveys" which he later delivered to Gov. Perdue's office to show just how displeased North Carolinians are with Democratic rule in the state.
The Watauga County Commission banned any more billboards in Watauga County last night and put an end to speculation that existing, grandfathered signs could be converted to digital displays.
The Senate Guru lists "Eight Ways Richard Burr Displayed Poor Judgment, a Lack of Integrity, and Utter Contempt for Others." Let us recite some of the ways:
Little Patty McHenry of the NC-10 draws two Republican challengers in next year's primary. Which means he walks right in again.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), quoted in this a.m.'s NYTimes: "There are 52 solid Democrats for the public option. Only about five Democrats oppose it. Should the 52 give in to the five? Or should the five go along with the vast majority of the Democratic" [...] 
In 2002 the state of North Carolina was experiencing a major drought, "the worst in a century." Gov. Easley first solemnly requested that citizens "turn off the faucet when brushing their teeth," then issued a directive that local water systems and businesses "take quick steps to" [...] 
Mike Stark is a royal pain in the ass.
The self-indulgence continues. Anything to avert our gaze from Democratic Congressional "muddling through" and the further Republican descent into nasty irrelevance.
Here’s a modest list of movies to get hold of for the reasons outlined below. If you’re not a movie buff, you’ll want to stop now. If you consider yourself a movie buff, but don’t know squat about the pleasures of black-and-white cinematography, then it’s time [...] 
Since Sam Stein's report on Huffington Post yesterday about an opt-out compromise to a strong public option in health care reform ... the InnerTubes have been absolutely ablaze with consternation and denunciation and ... dawning delight. We're daintily sipping from that last chalice, at least' [...] 
The corporate gift that just keeps on giving! Some 13 coal ash ponds on the Yadkin, the French Broad, and five other North Carolina rivers are leaking arsenic, cadmium, chromium, and lead -- metals known to cause cancer, neurological problems and other serious illnesses -- [...] 
Just what the world's been waiting for ... "a fully conservative translation of the Bible"! The "Conservative Bible Project" intends to flush all that sissy "Do unto others" and "Blessed are the peace-makers" crap for something a little more in line with a militarized, Republicanated, [...] 
The boorish chortling of conservatives over Chicago's loss of the Olympics in 2016 may end up hurting the Republican Party more than ... say, the last eight years hurt them.
Ex-Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist, safely out of office so that he can prevaricate at will about what he would have done, told Karen Tumulty of Time magazine that he would vote for the Democratic health-care reform bill (whatever that ultimately turns out to [...] 
We just heard about this nonsensical piece of September news. The city of Concord, NC, petitioned by a group of residents who are advocates for "eating locally," refused to amend city ordinances to allow a homeowner to keep up to six laying hens in her [...] 
Noted frail reed Sen. Harry Reid, our least favorite Democratic Senate Majority Leader since the last Democratic Senate Majority Leader, put it on the record yesterday that there will be a public option in the final health insurance reform bill that goes to the president's' [...] 
To recap: the five Democrats who voted against the Jay Rock public option amendment to the Baucus health reform bill in the Senate Finance Committee: Max Baucus of Montana, Tom Carper of Delaware, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and Bill Nelson of [...] 
Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in an 1819 Supreme Court decision, “A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible. It possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it.”
Some have asked about Madam Virginia Foxx's prominent spot on Stephen Colbert's show Thursday night, in "The Word" section. It's brutal. And so richly deserved.
Ryan Grim is reporting that "whip counts" of the Blue Dog Dems in the U.S. House is showing that the overwhelming voter support for a public option in health insurance may be having some impact. Grim writes that there is now a "lack of" [...] 
"Nothing But the Truth," 2008, written and directed by Rod Lurie, suggested by (though not based on the details of) the Valerie Plame Affair and the subsequent jailing of NYTimes reporter Judith Miller for refusing to divulge her source to a special prosecutor.
The House voted yesterday to extend jobless benefits to laid-off workers in 27 states where unemployment is 8.5% or higher. North Carolina is one of those states. The unemployment benefits bill passed on a vote of 331-83, a whopping majority including every single member of [...] 
Congressman Miller, from the NC-13, disciplined Rep. Virginia Foxx (NC-5) on the floor of the House last week (Mark Binker's account here) after Foxx proposed an amendment which would have zeroed out additional funding for Community Colleges under President Obama's American Graduation Initiative, "an effort" [...] 
Associate Justice of the NC Supreme Court Edward Thomas Brady, the man who wrote the recent opinion allowing a convicted felon the right to own firearms, is himself a firearms dealer.
Safely away from those pesky constituents of hers in the 5th District, those people who scare the be-Jeebus out of her, Virginia "Loose Cannon" Foxx managed to get all racial yesterday on the House floor. Steve Benen at Political Animal has the fullest account.
After months of stupid delay, while even stupider "negotiations" with Republican Senate obstructionists produced precisely zero, Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus expelled a giant legislative fart all over Capitol Hill today, otherwise known as "The Insurance Industry Profit Protection and Enhancement Act of" [...] 
Heath Shuler of the NC-11 reportedly held a meeting with Democratic Party leaders in Haywood County that reportedly turned rather ugly. Seems that those Democratic loyalists were pressing Shuler on why he was such a g.d. Blue Dog and wouldn't support a public option for' [...] 
For all Glenn Beck and Fox News could gin up, they got a fraction of the 2 million they had hoped for Saturday in D.C. (60,000 - 70,000 actually showed up, according to official estimates by the Washington Fire Dept.). But they were rabid. And [...] 
Hat-tip: C.D. Our thanks for this piece of memory about the founder of Wal-Mart, via BoingBoing:
That's yeller-out Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) in the middle of the picture, leaning forward. Rep. Patrick McHenry (NC-10), busily tweeting, is sitting three slots to Wilson's right.
We'd rather see a backyard line full of laundry flapping in the breeze than a row of laundromat driers turning like cement-mixers in the flat glare of florescent lighting.
Sez Dad:
Sarah Palin is having 
Former Guv Easley has been 
The 
Raleigh, N.C., makes 
At last, 
By the 
