McCrory's media blitz week
Published August 9, 2014
by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, August 8, 2014.
Governor Pat McCrory has been on a media blitz lately, with four news conferences in the last few days, one to fear-monger about refugee children, one to announce State Budget Director Art Pope was stepping down, one to sign the budget and one to announce the new director of the State Bureau of Investigation.
The budget transferred the SBI from the Department of Justice overseen by Attorney General Roy Cooper to the Department of Public Safety that is part of the McCrory Administration. It’s probably just a coincidence that Cooper has announced he is likely to run against McCrory in two years and that there are reportedly investigations underway into several public officials.
It has been vintage McCrory during every event, taking potshots at his political opponents at inappropriate times, rambling and stumbling over talking points, bristling at challenging questions from reporters, and in the case of the refugee children coming to North Carolina, making completely uninformed and inflammatory statements.
McCrory said that the children relocated to North Carolina after fleeing dangerous and abuse situations in Central American countries did not receive health screenings and may be a threat to North Carolina children. He sounded ominous warnings about the lack of background checks of the sponsors providing the children their new home.
But the children do undergo health screenings and the sponsors do undergo background checks. McCrory could have found that out by simply visiting the website of the office of Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.
When confronted with the information that background checks are done on the sponsors of the children, McCrory said they were not the kind of background checks that need to be done. He didn’t provide any clarification and seemed caught off guard by pointed questions about the remarks he made about the immigrant children the day before.
It’s worth noting that he didn’t have his talking points about the refugee children in front of him the second time he talked about it, when he was challenged on his remarks. That came at the press event to announce the departure of Pope as head of the budget office.
McCrory’s demagoguery about the refugee children promoted widespread criticism including frustration from charities reaching out to help the kids. That shouldn’t have surprised him and he may not even care.
His aim was not to make any meaningful policy statement, it was to inflame the emotions of the Republican base and distract the public from the confusing teacher pay raise and overall chaos of the legislative session that drones on with skeletal meetings because House and Senate leaders can’t even agree on how to leave town.
A Charlotte Observer editorial summed up McCrory’s performance at one of the media events with a sentence that fits all of his appearances during the week.
When Gov. Pat McCrory speaks, it’s frequently hard to discern whether he’s being disingenuous for political reasons or truly believes what he says but is surprisingly uninformed of reality.
That was especially true of McCrory’s comments about education funding at an event Thursday in Charlotte to announce the new SBI chief.
McCrory was asked about comments by Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Superintendent Heath Morrison that his school district will have to slash 90 teacher assistant jobs because of a $2.6 million cut in the state budget.
McCrory replied “that has nothing to do with our budget. We are supplying the exact amount of money – regarding if they use the money that we sent them.”
Tortured syntax aside, it’s simply not true. That’s why the superintendents of Wake County and Winston-Salem/Forysth schools made similar remarks this week. They lost funding in the state budget for TAs too.
The top financial officer for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, Philip Price, told N.C. Policy Watch that the budget actually spends $105 million less on teacher assistants than originally budgeted for 2014.
And that comes on top of last year’s budget that slashed more than 3,000 teaching assistants and more than 5,000 teacher jobs.
McCrory either doesn’t understand what the budget actually means for schools or is trying to mislead the public about the cuts it makes.
It’s back to the choices the Observer presented to describe McCrory’s comments. They are either disingenuous or surprisingly uninformed of reality.
Either way, the people of North Carolina deserve more from their governor.
http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2014/08/08/the-follies-of-mccrorys-media-blitz-week/
August 9, 2014 at 6:17 pm
Norm Kelly says:
So, Chris where did you come up with the notion that these are refugee children? And how many of the thousands of people illegally entering our country actually are kids? How many people are simply taking advantage of the invitation from the occupier?
There is nothing to indicate that the illegals crossing our southern border are refugees. If so, how many of them have asked for asylum?
The gov was right to complain about these illegals being dropped into our communities by the feds. First, what social services are going to be required of the state/county for these illegals? And how are we to afford it, unplanned for expenses forced on us by the central planners? Second, what is the school situation for these kids? How is the county supposed to handle schooling for these kids? When a real American citizen, someone who was born here and is therefore a legal resident, applies for school, the school requires a 'legal' copy of a birth certificate, along with medical immunization records. The kids that the central planners are dropping on us have none of this. They have no valid birth certificate. They have NO medical records, so no record of childhood disease immunization. Yet these kids are going to be in the same schools as our American legal citizen kids, exposing OUR legal kids to unknown diseases. Without knowing that these kids are in our communities until they register for school, how does the school system know to plan for them? It's not like just any kid shows up to the school needing an education. These are kids who have NO IDEA what American society is like; they have probably NEVER spoken the English language and may not ever have heard the English language. So they need extra assistance from the school system, which they may not be prepared to provide. Plus the cost of the extra services for these illegals. Some of these kids will be placed in higher grades, where basic skills/knowledge are expected. Except too many of these illegals have not spent a single day in school, ever. So they have no basis for being in middle school, for instance. How does the county handle this? And how much is it going to cost the county?
You can tug at our heart strings if you wish, which is a favorite ploy of libs when facts don't support yous, but it's dishonest and disingenuous.
Every legal American who wants to travel by airplane MUST present a valid picture ID and go through various other screenings. These illegal border crossers are being allowed on airplanes with virtually NO information available on them. They have no picture ID, certainly not one recognized by the US Gov't. They have no record of medical history or anything else that should allow them to travel our airways. Yet, with simply a letter requesting them to show up at a later date for a deportation/status hearing, they are traveling around our country. And they are being resettled in states with no knowledge of the community or state leaders. Simply check a website. Absurd!
When libs constantly rant/whine about funding for big education, the one thing they neglect to comment on is how much money our schools are spending on illegal aliens. Now we have to add these illegal 'refugee' aliens to the rolls and somehow this won't affect our school budgets. We can't spend enough money on American citizens to satisfy a single lib, yet we are supposed to take in illegal aliens and educate them as well. Even when those illegal aliens require more services than the American kids!
When a US Citizen crosses into Mexico without a valid passport, or other documentation, does the Mexican government set them up with housing, education, health care, transportation? Or does the Mexican government throw them in jail? Oh, perhaps libs would refer to this as housing. My bad!
Regardless of your thoughts on Gov Pat, your stance on the illegals crossing the border is 180 degrees off the mark. The occupier & this administration made plans months ago for a southern border invasion. They knew this was coming. Yet they did nothing to stop it. They continue to do nothing to stop it. The occupier proposed making dictatorial-style changes to our immigration laws in order to 'legalize' these illegal aliens. I guess because the intent is that most if not all of these illegals will become demon voters once the occupier makes them 'legal'. That will teach those darn Republicans to mess with Demons! Keep them out of office for generations.
