Bastions Of Free Speech In NC

So while Republicans want you to fear President Obama and the Democrats, and scream about how liberals are un-American and stifle free speech, please remember it's the Republicans who are trying to fire a North Carolina public TV host for daring to criticize them.

The North Carolina Republican Party is calling on UNC-TV to break its ties with host and columnist D.G. Martin.

Martin is the longtime host of the popular "NC Bookwatch" program on the statewide public television station. He's also a longtime political columnist whose left-leaning columns appear weekly in publications around the state. The two are separate ventures.

In his most recent column, Martin seems to compare supporters of Republican legislative leaders to apologists for the recently ousted Egyptian government and for the Nazi regime in Germany.

The column in question is titled "Egypt, Nazi Germany, and North Carolina," datelined July 29. 

Needless to say, the NC GOP has gone completely insane as a result.  Party chairman Claude Pope wants Martin's head, now.

"We call on UNC-TV to suspend this program while they evaluate their relationship with their host who made such an outrageous and damaging comparison. Such divisive hyperbole only serves to confuse and trivialize issues that are important to North Carolinians, who all deserve a formal apology,” Pope said. 

Martin, for his part, has apologized.

Reached by phone, Martin said he understands the GOP's point.

"I'm very sorry that I offended some people, and I apologize. Period," Martin said.

UNC-TV Communications Director Steve Volstad released a statement late Friday, noting that Martin "has volunteered his time to host Bookwatch for more than 10 years."

But I bet it won't matter:  Martin has awakened the raging, fascist Tea Party beast, and they'll be out to end not only Martin and his book review program, but I would suspect the entire UNC-TV system will have to be obliterated as well.

It's what Goebbels would do.

Hoosier School Grades Again

Looks like Tony Bennett, the one-time Indiana school head embroiled in a controversial school evaluation scandal where a fat cat GOP donor's charter school got a top grade despite not meeting Indiana's criteria, and now current Florida schools chief, may lose the "current" part of his job title for the terms "disgraced and fired".

A Florida education official says the state’s education commissioner will resign because of allegations he changed a charter school’s grade during his previous job as Indiana’s school chief.

The official told The Associated Press of Tony Bennett’s resignation on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to disclose the information before a formal announcement. The official says Bennett will resign because of the scandal surrounding Christel House Academy, an Indiana charter school run by a major Republican donor.

Emails published by the AP this week show Bennett and his Indiana staff scrambled last fall to ensure Christel DeHaan’s school received an “A,” despite poor 10th grade algebra scores that initially earned it a “C.”

I don't see how Bennett can survive given the completely toxic stupidity of literally changing the entire grading scale for the state of Indiana just to accommodate a big GOP donor's charter school.  Certainly Gov. Skeletor's office isn't going to want Bennett's idiocy around their necks.

The danger is of course that Bennett risks letting millions of Florida voters know the state GOP plan to privatize, loot, and destroy public schools in the state, changing public education to for-profit nonsense that will leave millions stuck in pay-for-play schools designed to produce unskilled losers.  Can't have the plan out in the headlines like that, so away goes Bennett, and of course a new round of "education reforms" will be put in his place.

But at least people know what the game looks like now.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

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