“We won’t get fooled again,” said Pat McCrory as he kicked off his 2012 North Carolina gubernatorial campaign.

No, we won’t, Governor.

“McCrory’s administration is displaying all of the signs of a common crook,” said concerned citizen Sharon Barusic to The Guilfordian.

Let’s see why.

Gov. McCrory, along with 18 state water-quality officials, was recently ordered to appear in court with documents related to the recent Duke Energy coal ash spill in the Dan River. It is suspected that Gov. McCrory and his administration overlooked violations in all of Duke’s coal ash sites, not just the one that leaked into Dan River, and received payments or items of value from Duke.

Felony accusations? Check.

“Duke Energy is an irresponsible monolith that takes advantage of its relationship with Pat McCrory to try and cut corners,” said Early College senior Anjali Kapil. “It’s obvious that Governor McCrory is making clandestine deals with his campaign financier and former employer.”

McCrory also owns over $10,000 in Duke stock. He’s not even trying to be secretive about his ties with Duke.

Barusic sees this as a conflict of interest.

“Of course McCrory wants to be lenient on Duke,” Barusic said. “The more money Duke makes, the more money he makes.”

Ulterior motive? Check.

McCrory went so far as saying he saw no problem in his roles as North Carolina governor and Duke shareholder.

It is shenanigans like this that drop your approval ratings down to 40 percent, Governor.

McCrory also seems to be encouraging scandalous behavior in his government.

North Carolina environmental officials of the McCrory administration, who were also issued subpoenas, intervened in lawsuits against Duke Energy, instead negotiating a settlement that fined the corporation only $99,111 over groundwater contamination violations.

“The fine won’t make Duke care about what they did,” said fishing enthusiast Roger Pressley in an interview with The Guilfordian. “They’ll just rub it off their shoulders and continue with no big changes to their business philosophy.”

Duke has no obligation to clean up the spill as well.

This is a common technique of regulators who are friendly with the law-breaking regulated entities,” said attorney Frank Holleman in an interview with MSNBC.

“They will come in and file at the very last minute and then quickly propose a favorable settlement to the lawbreaker to prevent the citizens group from leading the litigation.”

Underhand arrangements? Check.

In a press conference on Wednesday, the McCrory administration seemed to be dodging questions more than they were answering them, eventually leaving the room.

Suspicious behavior? Check.

Maybe some of you now want to go protest this twisted administration. Don’t waste your time.

“McCrory ignores any form of remonstration, evident in the whole Moral Mondays fiasco,” said Pressley. “And it’s not like we can boycott Duke Energy either. It is our only source of power around these parts.”

Should the court hearings in Raleigh on March 18–20 go unfavorably for McCrory and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources officials, we could be looking at an impeachment hearing.

I will surely be watching very closely.

Fool me once, shame on you. I certainly won’t be giving McCrory a chance to fool me twice.