Carolina Politics Online

The two leading Democratic candidates for governor are balking over new commercials.

Richard Moore’s campaign wrote the State Board of Elections on Thursday asking it to investigate a radio commercial sponsored by the National Education Association. The ad doesn’t tell listeners to vote for rival Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue but praises her support for education.

The Moore campaign said the ad crosses the line and asks the board to call it illegal. An NEA spokesman said the ad is lawful.

Perdue’s campaign calls a Moore TV ad a “smear” because it mentions a campaign finance investigation related to contributions she and other candidates received during the 1990s. Perdue had to return the money, and a prosecutor said she didn’t knowingly receive illegal contributions.

The Fayetteville Observer

These two remind me more of Clinton and Obama as each day goes forward.  While Clinton and Obama waste their time nitpicking each other, John McCain is creeping past them in the polls.  While Moore and Perdue squabble back and forth, here comes Pat McCrory on the outside as they round the bend.

Duskin Lassiter often sees the world through a windshield. A few months ago that view was distressing enough that it motivated him to run for the U.S. Senate.

Lassiter is a self-employed trucker in Lexington who hauls everything from rolls of paper to Philadelphia or table salt to upstate New York. The effects of international trade agreements hit him head on.

“I service the manufacturing sector of this economy,” said Lassiter, 37, “and every time (U.S. Sen.) Elizabeth Dole or the Democrats sign a free trade agreement, my customers go out of business.”

Last fall, no Democrat had filed to run against Dole, a Republican, so Lassiter said he would. He began an uphill challenge to raise the money and earn the public recognition necessary to challenge Dole’s celebrity status. At the end of December, he had raised $635, of which $600 was his.

Charlotte Observer

Putting aside the fact that the rest of Lassiter’s ideas are kooky and he doesn’t have a chance in Hell of winning this primary (though I do give him props for standing up and trying) he is absolutely right on the issue of free trade.  It is unquestionable that NAFTA has cost this country hundreds of thousands of mostly blue collar, manufacturing jobs and that is taking a huge toll on the middle class.  All of our trade agreements need to be revised and other countries who are cheating at these agreements, like China, need to be brought into compliance.  This trend simply cannot continue.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Exotic dancers would have to stay six feet from strip club customers and those businesses would have to close at midnight under a bill being considered by House lawmakers. Scott Bergthold is a Tennessee-based lawyer who told a House subcommittee on Thursday that late operating hours for strip clubs creates more crime and problems for police.

Bergthold says stripper dances may be protected by courts, but not when they touch customers, which is commonly known as a lap dance.

He says there’s no constitutional right to lap dances.

The House Judiciary Committee will next take up the proposal.

Charlotte Observer

I’ll bet a hundred bucks there is a religious connection to this and furthermore, what is a Tennessee lawyer doing over here in South Carolina telling us what to do with our laws? I would like to know which legislator is sponsoring this bill. I guess it’s a good thing I live right on the state line.

The John Locke Foundation, a Raleigh think tank skeptical of the idea that global warming is a crisis that calls for major new laws and regulations, will bring experts on the issue to Asheville.

John Christy and David Tuerck will speak on “The Science and Economics of State Global Warming Policy” 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Grove Park Inn.

The John Locke Foundation Headliner Luncheon costs $25.

Asheville Citizen-Times

Man made global warming will go down as the biggest crock of the 21st century.  It will be our Y2K.  There isn’t a single shred of proof that mankind is responsible for any changes  in the planet’s climate and there are plenty of scientists that dispute this “consensus.”  The Earth’s climate has changed throughout its 6 billion year history.  The whole global warming nonsense is nothing but a rouse for global wealth redistribution, a Marxist plot.  As a matter of fact, the record cold winters we’ve been having all over the world has forced these global warming shysters to now rephrase their cause as “climate change” since reality isn’t holding up with their claims.

ASHEVILLE – Former President Bill Clinton will campaign for his wife in an event at Asheville High School Friday evening.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign announced this afternoon that the former president will attend a “Solutions for America” event at 8:15 p.m. at the school at 419 McDowell St.

Asheville Citizen-Times