Mac Butner, chairman of the Rowan County Housing Authority, deserves a dart for depicting criticism of his racist, homophobic comments on Facebook as “a political battle between Obama liberal Democrats and myself, a lifelong Ronald Reagan conservative Republican.”
Butner has been listening to way too much talk radio and confusing bigotry for true conservatism.
President Reagan would have created a firestorm — and rightly so — had he ever said or written what Butner has posted on social media. As reported by Post staff writer Jim Holt, here’s an example of Butner referring to a photograph of a Moral Monday protest:
“Gee,” Butner wrote on Facebook, “they are all black. I guess the white folk could not get off because they were too busy working (and) being productive, good citizens.”
On commenting how he thinks the national GOP must be the party of conservative principles, Butner ended another post by saying liberals and Democrats “don’t have a principled bone in their body and they don’t care even if our constitutional republic is destroyed.”
“To hell,” Butner added, “with the lesbos, queers, liberals and baby killers.”
Butner has First Amendment rights to speak his mind, but the NAACP and others are correct in asking him to resign his post on the housing authority. He’s supposed to be representing all people, and he clearly can’t do that, nor explain his inability away as just being conservative.
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Laurels to the Southern Environmental Law Center’s intentions to sue Duke Energy for violations at the company’s Buck, Cape Fear and Lee power plants.
This has, of course, implications locally, where residents living near three coal ash ponds connected to the Buck Steam Station are worried about contamination of one of the most basic things — their drinking water.
On top of that are concerns all North Carolinians should have about leakage from coal ash ponds into rivers such as the Yadkin.
The environmental suit on top of hopeful state legislative action requiring Duke to move some or all of its toxic sludge from 33 unlined pits in North Carolina, including those at Buck, should force Duke to clean up its mess.
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Laurels to the USA soccer team’s run in the FIFA World Cup. The USA lost 2-1 to Belgium Tuesday and was ousted from soccer’s most coveted championship, but it generated again the age-old discussion of whether soccer will ever become a major sport in this country.
The truth is, soccer might be there already, considering what has happened over the past quarter century. Major League Soccer has gained a strong foothold, and look at how familiar Americans became with Olympic and World Cup men’s and women’s teams in recent years.
Young people might be the most telling demographic. In leagues governed by the U.S. Soccer Federation, youth participation has doubled to about four million kids since 1990.
The World Cup will only give soccer in the United States more of a boot.