Ballance Explains it All -- Finally (Claims exposure of political slush fund a right-wing plot)

When I inaugurated the Carolina Journal Online "Tinfoil Hat Award" last week, I really expected to put some distance between announcements of its conspiracy-minded recipients. After all, each of the lucky honorees deserves plenty of time to bask in his or her own place in the sun -- or at least somewhere kind of hot -- before being supplanted by the next one.

That was my intention, anyway, but U.S. Rep. Frank Ballance has made it simply impossible for me to follow through on it. In defending himself and his state-funded nonprofit organization Wednesday against swirling charges of mismanagement, conflict of interest, and violations of law -- and specifically against a demand by state GOP chairman Ferrell Blount that the congressman resign -- Ballance finally ended months of clumsy defenses and zeroed in on what he said was the underlying truth about his predicament: it's a dastardly plot against him by conservative North Carolina Republicans.

One might be tempted to forgive the former state senator for coming to this conclusion. I mean, there are a lot of odd coincidences here. The individuals and institutions who have had a role in uncovering the various aspects of the John Hyman Foundation affair obviously share a common partisan and ideological agenda. There's Littleton Observer publisher Hal Sharpe, a former Republican candidate for Congress himself. He started the ball rolling in his weekly newspaper by checking into reports that Ballance's Hyman Foundation wasn't doing much to justify its annual state appropriation.

There's Carolina Journal and the John Locke Foundation, obvious Republican tools (just ask Richard Morgan and Harold Brubaker), who have stoked the scandal fires around Ballance with little more than shaky claims and slimy innuendoes.

There's The News & Observer of Raleigh, another partisan outfit (didn't it begin its life as a Republican newsletter?), that uncovered the conflicts of interest inherent in Hyman Foundation director Eddie Lawrence's simultaneous work as a state employee and pastor of the church that deserved as Hyman's landlord. Let's face it, the N&O's been in the tank for the GOP ever since former employee Jesse Helms was elected to the U.S. Senate.

There's State Auditor Ralph Campbell, the well-known conservative Republican. His partisan, Ashcroft/Starr-like witchhunt and recently released audit have given Ballance's critics a great deal of conveniently useful ammunition.

There's conservative Republican Attorney Gen. Roy Cooper, who has abused his authority by threatening legal action if Ballance takes any action with the Hyman Foundation that might preclude the state from eventually getting back the state tax dollars that Cooper's fellow GOP hatchetman Campbell says have been inappropriately shifted to a foundation savings account.

There's the right-wing newspapers in Wilson, Wilmington, Rocky Mount, Durham, Roanoke Rapids, Elizabeth City, Warrenton, and elsewhere that have chased portions of the Ballance/Hyman story or excoriated Ballance for ethical transgressions in editorials. One paper tagged him as "chiseling" the taxpayers. Another called for his resignation. Each and every one is owned and operated by partisan Republican hacks taking their orders from media magnate Ferrell Blount.

Given that so many conservative Republicans were evidently in on the effort to investigate the Hyman Foundation and hold officials accountable for its transgressions, it wasn't too much of a stretch for Ballance to jump to the conclusion that he did, that the North Carolina GOP was behind it all along.

So does he really deserves our second Tinfoil Hat Award? Yes, though I admit it's a close call. But Ballance's alleged conspiracy still qualifies for the honor since he either failed to admit or does not understand the real truth behind the affair. He still claims to be under the delusion that North Carolina Republicans were out to get him. But any sane person would immediately recognize that this state's GOP establishment is simply too divided and feckless to have been able to carry out such an elaborate plan.

The truth is that the 1st Congressional District is famous outside North Carolina as the most fertile ground in the country for Republicans to pick up another seat in the U.S. House. The powers-that-be orchestrated the entire Hyman affair just to clear the way for a Republican nominee to win the district, as surely he or she will at the next available opportunity (never mind the overwhelmingly Democratic registration and voting behavior). For anyone truly paying attention, the fingerprints of one man are unmistakably evident here. I'm talking about the arch-conservative who controls the FBI and plants false stories and really calls the shots in Washington, D.C.

Frank Ballance wins the Tinfoil Hat Award for inventing a grandiose lie about a North Carolina Republican plot against him -- when all he had to do was recognize the obvious truth that he was the victim of a national Republican plot against him. How pathetic.

Frank Ballance has been caught red-handed funnelling tax-payer's hard earned monies into a political slush fund that has spread corruption throughout eastern North Carolina for an entire generation. Now that the forces of freedom have exposed his criminal behavior he claims that conservative elements are plotting gainst him.

The fall of Frank Ballance will be a spiral of hubristic indignation unlike the great state of North Carolina has ever witnessed. In refusing to do the right thing and resign, this Democratic thug is going to collapse the entire Democrat ticket in 2004. Congressman Richard Burr -- one of the finest and most honorable men in North Carolina -- is going to carry eastern North Carolina and be elected to the US Senate partly because of the backlash from the Ballance affaire.

Decent people are just stunned by this ever evolving pattern of reckless disregard for decency in their leadership. They will go to the polls for the GOP and President Bush in record numbers in 2004.

Governor Easley and Basnight already distancing themselves from their old "friend"...

For too long eastern North Carolina has suffered under the yoke of this despotic tyranny that treats all individuals -- black and white -- has objects instead of human beings. Bravo to those that have led this fight against evil.

A new day is coming to North Carolina in 52 weeks...

When the MLT and Embassy crowd get together on Friday nights in their well guarded villas above Tirana on the Elbasan Road -- they like to unwind after a hard week with a few beers and some loud music. Last week during the Halloween party, talk turned to the lands east in the hills high above Tetovo and a certain wandering scribe, when a classic from the Charlie Daniels Band blared out over the stereo...

Albania will send a full battalion of troops to Iraq next year and many of the young soldiers are prepping now for that assignment. The best of the best join the veteran fighters for the wandering journey into the camps high in the Albanian mountains. From there they make their way to the Tetovo Republic...

A couple weeks back some returned and mentioned at the Irish Bar "Murphy's" that a certain American consultant known to most of the crowd was in the habit of late of belting out an American song in his off-key southern warble after taking several after-dinner rakis...

They say he seemed to be quite amused by something -- in stark contrast to his serious demeanor in organizing the security of the Tetovo Republic...

As the song played last Friday the assortment of costumed Americans joined in the chorus -- simply because it seemed the right thing to do...

"So come on back down (east) you old devil,

if you ever want to try it again;

Because I done told you once you son of a b****,

I'm the best that's ever been..."

And a good time was had by all...

Frank Ballance beaucoup dinky dao

Yep, this is the sort of scandal that can sink a long-term incumbent. But, BUT, ya can't beat somebody with nobody. Do the Repubs have a REAL candidate with some horsepower available to bounce Ballance? That assumes that Ballance will survive the primary, and incumbents usually do that.

Congressman Billybob

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