Far-right group backs sea-level denier guy for Congress

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The Citizens United Political Victory Fund, a longtime far-right Washington, D.C., PAC, today endorsed North Carolina's own Wizard of Unreality for Congress. That would be N.C. Sen. David Rouzer, who is running in the GOP primary for the 7th Congressional District, which covers much of the southeastern part of the state, including Wilmington. Current 7th District congressman Mike McIntyre, who narrowly beat Rouzer in 2012, is retiring.

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Rouzer earned his 15 minutes of infamy in 2012, when he had a stroke of genius that launched a growing trend among N.C. GOP lawmakers, namely the denial of reality itself. Yes, it was Rouzer's special approach to important issues that brought him national publicity from TV host Stephen Colbert and various science publications. Rouzer, you see, was the mastermind who solved the problem of rising sea levels along North Carolina's coast by - ta-da! - refusing to believe it's happening. It's easy! When scientific reports noted that the sea level between Massachusetts and North Carolina is rising faster than anywhere else in the world, did Rouzer panic? Hell no. He took action, in effect telling the Atlantic Ocean, "Oh no, not in my state you don't."

Rouzer wrote a bill that told the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission, which sets policies and rules for coastal development, to base all its predictions of future sea levels on past figures, not some silly modern science stuff. In other words, to hell with the facts, let's make some more beachfront developers rich, especially since they throw more money to politicians than any group on the coast. The bill passed but was vetoed by then-Gov. Perdue. No such problems arose when Rouzer's stroke of genius crossed Gov. McCrory's desk. Rouzer, by the way, is also the proud former winner of a special 2011 special honor, the co-winner of the Hard-Hearted Assholes of the Week Award. Obviously, it's only been onward and upward since then for David.