Pete Kaliner is the host of a daily radio talk show on Asheville’s WWNC (570-AM) that airs from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. This column features posts from his daily blog.

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The following was posted April 8:

Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell took to Facebook the other day and, as he is fond of doing, chummed the waters of the leftwing fever swamp....

The link is to a blog called the Daily Kos, which tests the outer boundaries of moonbattery thanks to contributions from commenters with names like “Deadicated Marxist” and “Happy Misanthropy.”

A total of 111 people were killed by police in the United States in March of 2015. Since 1900, in the entire United Kingdom, 52 people have been killed by police.

The comparison to the United Kingdom is vital here, because the UK doesn’t arm it’s police forces.

Well, MOST of it’s forces.

Regardless, Bothwell’s suggestion to disarm cops in America is a pretty radical idea, and so columnist John Boyle at the Asheville Citizen-Times asked Bothwell to elaborate on the idea.

As a lead-in, Bothwell wrote, “We’ve got to disarm the cops, methinks.”

That does indeed sound like a call for disarming the police, but Bothwell said he was employing some satire and not making a literal call for disarming.

“The response to my Facebook post has been hilarious,” Bothwell said. “Apparently, many people don’t know that British police only carried a nightstick until relatively recently. The story I was commenting on noted that American cops killed more people in March 2015 than Brit police have killed since 1900. Hence my observation that perhaps our police should disarm.”

A member of the Public Safety Committee that acts as a liaison to the Police Department, Bothwell sent a follow-up email to make another point.

“The folks who got their panties in a twist over my offhand remark are avoiding the deeper question raised by the article I commented on,” Bothwell said. “Why is it that British police have killed fewer people since 1900 than American police killed in March 2015?”

Ah. Satire.

Is this the same satire Bothwell employed when he said criticism of then-Chief William Anderson was due to racism?

It was satirical when he told the police union to back off on its criticism of the APD until after the election.

Or maybe Bothwell was channeling his inner Twain when he repeatedly told constituents to “Stay tuned” as a City-hired consultant surveyed APD officers about problems inside the organization.

‘Twas mere satire when he promised more footwear would be falling once the consultant report was completed.

It was satire when the report did not prove what he promised it would (that there was racism and misogyny infecting the entire APD).

Cecil Bothwell, satirist

The shoes dropping are backpedaling

Bothwell’s backtracking on his suggestion to disarm the police is the normal escape hatch employed when you’ve broken through the Lunacy Limits. His “Just kidding” defense rings a bit hollow, given he’s been an advocate for gun control for a long time.

He also attempts to minimize the blowback by chastising the people who responded to his idea — as if THAT was the point of posting such satirical dumbassery. “Y’all, I was just trying to stir the pot and get people hacked off. Calm down!”

And he follows these two feeble attempts with the classic “You’re ignoring the deeper issue” argument. Of course, he made no such attempt to argue this “deeper question” in his post. Nor did the linked blog post.

The “deeper question” he mocked people for ignoring was ignored by him, too.

No, make no mistake, this wasn’t a failed attempt at satire (although his damage control has provided quite a few laughs).

This was a glimpse of what he actually believes but knows it’s too controversial to outright and honestly endorse.

Disarming APD will never be debated

I have little doubt that Councilman Bothwell would prefer to see American police disarmed.

Indeed, as an elected official that governs an actual police force, he has the ability to make Asheville an example of how to do it. He could offer a proposal to the City Council to disarm APD.

But he won’t.

Of course, he won’t.

Doing so would put his liberal council colleagues in quite a political pickle.

There is no doubt that the Democratic activist base would celebrate such a proposal and lobby for its passage. This is the activist base that propels demagogic bloggers into office and feeds off the constant need to be outraged over something.

But there is a business class in Asheville that would decidedly NOT be cool with the idea of law enforcement patrolling downtown without any firepower.

Council would be forced to choose whether to anger the activist base (and risk electoral defeat), or ride the Bothwell Bus to progressive utopia.

Now, THAT would be funny to watch.

The following was posted April 24:

Another candidate for Asheville City Council

 The Citizen-Times has a profile piece today of Keith Young —  the latest Democrat to declare for the all-Democrat non-partisan City Council.

Young’s announcement Thursday makes him the first black council candidate in six years. If elected in November, Young, who works as a deputy clerk of Buncombe County Superior Court, would be the first African-American man to serve on the council since 1993.

What’s more, he’d be one of the only — if not THE only — Asheville native on the Council, too (depending on whether Jan Davis decides not to run for re-election).

As Matthew wrote in to the show yesterday:

There are five qualifications to be on Asheville City Council: 

1) be not from Asheville

2) be a registered Democrat

3) want to change nothing about current city policy

4) receive the blessing of Drew Reisinger’s grassroots crew

5) live in north of I-240

This is why Julie Mayfield will win with about 7,000 votes.

The following was posted April 24:

Subsidizing the sun

Republicans running the North Carolina legislature are showing they are just as adept at crony capitalism as their Democratic predecessors were. From Jon Sanders at the John Locke Foundation, who notes the contradiction GOP leaders are engaging in:

Renewable energy lobbyists wailed that the mere appearance of a bill to repeal North Carolina’s renewable energy portfolio standards mandate “dramatically disrupts” investment and jobs in renewable energy and “sends shock waves” through the industry.

Those were actual terms used by the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association’s “governmental affairs director,” a title given presumably because “director of rent-seeking histrionics” or “coordinator of public conniptions for public dollars” was too lengthy for business cards.

The hysterics were inordinately premature, as a version of the measure was voted down in committee by Republicans whose official party platform, not even a year old, explicitly calls for “the repeal of the state renewable energy mandate.”

You read that correctly: the official stance of the NC Republican Party is to repeal the renewable energy mandate. So, obviously, when the GOP holds a veto-proof majority they’ll vote to extend the renewable energy mandate.

And the GOP wonders why they get challenged from Tea Party groups during primaries.