July 30

July 30, 2013

Dear Pat,

I know that I hinted the other day that I was finished writing you, but I saw a couple of news stories that I wanted to ask you about. First off, someone posted a "top ten" things the republicans have done... I was hoping it would enlighten me to the top ten accomplishments you all have gotten done in this last legislative session. Turns out that one of them was very positive, at least for me. That was the start of Moral Mondays. I'm sure you saw a bunch of us coming to your office yesterday. My pastor was even one of them who knocked on your door after the rest of us had dispersed. By then they said you weren't there, or they didn't have an appointment, or something like that, but I hope you got their message. They enlarged the voter restriction bill for you so that you could read it more easily. The woman who brought it to you was 92 years old, so I'm sure she knows how helpful large print can be! You seem to be around my age, and I know I always know where my reading glasses are! Anyway, hopefully you read the bill before you signed it.

The other things on the top ten weren't that positive, though. You can read them yourself - too embarrassing to post here. The website they were on was called "addicting info". If you can't find it yourself maybe one of your aides or your secretary can help you.

I was going to let that all slide, I mean as the old saying goes "it's water under the bridge", but a couple of things happened last night and then this morning that made me want to write again. Let's start with last night:

I watch TV most evenings, and when my husband lets me choose, I choose to watch the Rachel Maddow show. She had a guest host last night, Melissa Harris-Perry, who I think has come to a Moral Monday at least once, by the way. Anyway, North Carolina was the lead story! She wasn't very complimentary of what has been going on here. She had someone from Duke come to try to explain it. I know that the folks at Duke are largely outsiders, but this woman seemed to have a good idea of what was going on here. I hope if you saw this you thought about what you could do to help them change their story.

Later, though, I tuned in to the Colbert Report. I like to get both sides of the story, after all. Well, North Carolina was featured there as well! This time, Mr. Colbert gave you a "tip of the hat" for the very liberal gun bills that were just passed. He even had some animation showing how this could help kids on playgrounds. So, a hearty congratulations to you on that accomplishment! You and the legislature can't say you didn't do anything liberal!

Finally, I noticed this morning that there were several folks standing outside of your house. They were wearing pink, and wanted to talk to you about your campaign promise. It seems like you want to break that promise, but you must have learned some manners, because you brought out a plate of cookies to the men and women who were out there. They didn't take to that very kindly, of course. I think they would rather have you invite them in to the house so they could ask you about your promise that you made in that gubernatorial debate where you said you wouldn't add any restrictions to abortion laws. I think you could have just explained to them that you made that promise before you actually got the job. I know how that is - you don't really know what a job requires before you really start it! Turns out that you have people who have control over what you do! I think they're the same ones who helped you get into office, but now you can see why they wanted you to get into office. You see, they needed someone like you who looked earnest and nice, but would do whatever they said. I think you can find out more about them by looking up "Pope", "ALEC", or "Koch" on the Internet.

That's all I had to talk about with you today. I hope you can get caught up on all your letter-writing, and I am still sincere in my invitations to you to come visit my church and/or come speak in any of my classes.

Thanks,

Nancy

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