Carolina Politics Online

Kyle Boyd of Fort Mill filed Friday to enter the District 48 race, saying he wants to be a “true conservative light” for northern York County. Boyd lives in Regent Park and serves as headmaster of Walnut Grove Christian School in south Charlotte.

Boyd has lived in Fort Mill for a decade, but this is his first run for political office.

“I’m not going to be into any Carl Gullick bashing, by any means,” Boyd, 33, said Wednesday. “I just feel I can add a true conservative light and a true conservative vote to this area, which may not have been happening in the past.”

The Herald

Carl Gullick is my State Representative.  To his credit, he has always been responsive to me when I have contacted him.  However, I have not been pleased with his fiscal record.  He was given an abysmal rating by the South Carolina Club for Growth over spending.

Another one from the bizarro files:

In February 2005, Lang worked at Alegis Group in Greenville and was pursuing a career in modeling, according to the lawsuit. On Jan. 30, 2005, Lang bought a bra from the Victoria’s Secret located at Haywood Mall, and 13 days later, at about 5 a.m., she was in her apartment and began to feel “discomfort in her breast caused by the brassiere” and tried to remove the bra, according to the complaint.

“When attempting to remove the brassiere in order to alleviate the discomfort, the brassiere malfunctioned, lacerating the plaintiff’s chest and left breast, nearly six inches wide and six inches deep,” the complaint alleges. The lawsuit does not specify how the injury occurred. Hughey told GreenvilleOnline.com today that the bra “broke and the wire came through and lacerated her breast.”

Lang immediately went to the Doctor’s Care on Congaree Road and received treatment, according to the complaint. After missing work for several days, Lang was terminated, the complaint alleges.

The complaint alleges that Victoria’s Secret “so negligently and carelessly designed, manufactured, constructed, assembled, inspected, and sold the brassiere that it was dangerous and unsafe for its intended uses” and caused Lang “lost wages, pain and suffering, future disability, loss of prospective business relations and medical expenses.” The complaint asks for unspecified actual and punitive damages.

The lingerie company’s answer to the suit alleges that any of Lang’s injuries would have been caused by her own negligence and asks for a determination of Lang’s “percentage of” negligence related to her complaint.

The answer alleges that Victoria’s Secret “had no duty to warn about possible dangers or hazards … which were not known or which were not capable of being known or discoverable by reasonable inspection.”

The Greenville News

I’m really glad I’m a man.

How did a scratch on her boob cause her to miss several days of work?

Though there was some dissent, Bennett said he accepted the special early voting status for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Under rules to be finalized at the party convention this summer, Iowa and New Hampshire could hold the earliest contests, starting Feb. 1. South Carolina and Nevada could go next, followed by a group of 20 small states and finally, groups of larger states.

The GOP penalized some states that held early primaries this year, but it did not affect the outcome of the Republican race, as Sen. John McCain clinched the nomination March 4.

The State

CHARLOTTE — Residents fed up with two recent robberies came together in the Dilworth neighborhood, agreeing to pay for extra police patrols on their own.

Neighbors agreed to give a $1,000 donation to Dilworth’s Crime Coalition Committee. It is hoped that the money will help add an additional off-duty CMPD officer, and comes shortly after a couple was assaulted and robbed on Worthington Avenue, and a woman was assaulted and had her purse snatched in Dilworth.

News 14 Carolina

Whoa there, stop the presses!

Why are the people living in Dilworth paying out of their own pockets to obtain extra policemen for their neighborhood?  Is this not one of the most basic functions of local government?  We are talking about the City of Charlotte, a city with a budget of $1.61 billion.  The city government is not capable of providing an appropriate police force on a billion and a half dollar budget?  Perhaps if the city hadn’t spent $260 million on the Bobcats Arena for an NBA basketball team that nobody goes to see?  Just a thought….

“In South Carolina, they are not making large investments in a wide range of children’s services,” Petit said. “They could significantly increase their child-welfare spending, and they would see real results if they did.”Numerous studies, Petit said, show that for every dollar governments spend on prenatal and early-childhood care, they recoup far more in reduced spending for prisons, anti-crime measures, drug treatment, mental health, family intervention and other costs down the road.

“Legislators tell me all the time, ‘We’re too poor to invest,’” Petit said. “My retort is, ‘No, you’re poor because you don’t invest.’”

Among all states, South Carolina ranks 45th in providing for its children, according to an Every Child Matters report released Wednesday.

The Beaufort Gazette

I realize that Mr. Petit’s heart is in the right place, but I have to disagree with what he advocates. The government should have little to no role in the raising of anyone’s children. Yes, there are children who are born with rotten parents and we can’t choose who are parents will be, but that’s life. This is an issue of parental responsibility. The more the nanny state continues to step in and bail out parents of their responsibility to actually parent their child, the more that responsibility will ultimately be put on the state. People will come to expect it. If you have a child before you’re ready to take of that child that’s tough. Suck it up and deal with it. It is fundamentally immoral for anyone to pass that financial responsibility on to the other parents of the state who have properly prepared themselves for parenthood.

I didn’t bust my ass putting myself through college and working for a good career so that I can pay for the children of drug addicts, high school dropouts, and the babies’ mamas of South Carolina.

I am concerned with my own observations and the observations of others concerning the Republican Party in North Carolina. Currently the GOP in North Carolina is a afterthought to most people. It is not like we are not trying to succeed, we just aren’t convincing the voters of our message. And it is something we need to learn to do one voter at a time. I am meeting a lot of frustrated Democrats and Unaffiliated voters who are fed up with our government and do not believe that they can change it. I would hope that Republicans would be a little more forceful on the issues of closed government and corruption.

The GOP on all levels has to get back to what brought us to power on a national level in the 90’s and use that here in North Carolina. Playing along with the democrats and being happy with the status quo has failed us in North Carolina and it is a attitude that we need to cast aside. We need to get the message to the people about what we will do here in North
Carolina. The leadership has to lead the fight to show that Republican ideas are about families or step aside.

I am running as a politician for the first time to show that I do care about what happens here in North Carolina and to demonstrate that every Democrat in the state legislature has to be interviewed by the people again and again. The democrats here in the state have failed us and it is up to the Republicans to demonstrate that we will do a better job. I intend to do what I can for all of the citizens here in district 33 and across all of North Carolina.

Paul F. Terrell III
Republican nominee for 33rd district-North Carolina State House
4549 Tollington Drive
Raleigh, NC 27604
919-523-0304 Cell

http://www.wakegop.org/paul-terrell.htm

Paul Terrell III is a conservative blue collar worker who will do things in Raleigh for House district 33’s citizens.

It was a poor choice of words to describe the foreign contractor, but anyone who was there knows that I delivered a speech praising the heroism and sacrifice of those who are serving our country in harm’s way.

It’s still certainly debatable as to whether or not his comments towards the man were any less inappropriate, but the issue at hand seems resolved and the story of McHenry’s alleged disrespect to our armed forces is not true.

The comment is about 40 seconds into the video. Lance Sigmon, McHenry’s primary challenger, had released the following press release:

LINCOLNTON- In a moment eerily akin to a Hillary Clinton “misspeak,” 10th District Rep. Patrick McHenry called a sentry protecting U.S. personnel in Iraq a “two-bit security guard” in a brief appearance Saturday night at a Lincoln County Republican Party event.

McHenry’s gaffe occurred in his telling of a story about his recent two-day visit to Iraq. He said he was stopped by a military guard in the area known as the Green Zone, when he was going “to the gym” in the early morning hours on Easter after being unable to sleep.

The congressman belittled the sentry- referring to him as a “two-bit security guard”- for following his orders by not allowing him to enter the gym without “proper credentials,” according to McHenry’s own telling of the story to an audience of some 160 Republicans.Even after demanding to see the guard’s superiors, by McHenry’s own account, he still was refused entry into the gym and was told he had to return to his room, in a pool house at one of Saddam Hussein’s former palaces in the Baghdad area.

McHenry’s tale at the Lincoln County GOP’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner also included a death that supposedly occurred during insurgent rocket attacks, which did occur in the Green Zone shortly after he returned to his quarters.

However, official U.S. Embassy spokesman Philip T. Reeker said the facts were somewhat different, emphasizing that there were no fatalities from that rocket attack.

Similarly, Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is under fire from the media and political opponents for her gaffe regarding her now-famous 1996 visit to Bosnia as First Lady. Contrary to her account, TV video showed Mrs. Clinton was never in any danger.

“The more McHenry talks, the more I like it,” said Sigmon, McHenry’s opponent in the May 6 Republican primary for Congress. “When he belittles others publicly and attempts to bolster his image through these kinds of exaggerations, voters can see his true character.”

“Besides his obvious contempt for a guard’s assigned duties, his belief that being a congressman makes him immune to the rules and his exaggerated claim of exposure to hostile fire, what really bothers me is the Iraq trip itself,” Sigmon added.

“According to McHenry’s own quotes in the media,” the challenger observed, “he only spent a few hours with the soldiers and, suddenly, he now understands their deep commitment to their mission.”

“I don’t have to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars traveling to Iraq to understand our troops’ sacrifice and commitment. I spent 21 years on active-duty; I know from personal experience the sacrifices my comrades-in-arms and their families make both at home and abroad.”

“This level of understanding cannot be acquired while staying in Saddam’s former palace within a fortified 10-square mile area during a two day ‘photo-op’ tour,” he said.

Sigmon missed the Lincoln County GOP event, instead speaking at both the Catawba County Reagan Day Dinner in Hickory and the Caldwell County Republican Party’s Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner in Lenoir.

At both events, the candidate’s remarks focused on the problem of illegal aliens committing serious crimes in America, as well as illegal immigration itself. Sigmon’s wife, Melissa, spoke on his behalf at the Lincoln County dinner, receiving applause several times.

Montgomery, a sophomore at Winston-Salem State University, said he was so impressed with Jackson’s energy and eloquence that he was one of a group of students who invited Jackson to speak on campus.

Jackson accepted their invitation and will speak at a student forum on “The Role and Relevance of Historically Black Colleges Yesterday and Today.”

The lecture will take place at 3:30 p.m. next Thursday at Williams Auditorium.

Winston-Salem Journal

The “Reverend” Jesse Jackson is nothing but a charlatan and a fraud. Why anyone would invite this man to speak and influence an audience is outrageous. Jackson is nothing more than a swindling poverty pimp who has used race baiting to extort money from people and businesses and line his own pockets with it.

Derwin Montgomery, I realize you are young and naive, but that is no reason to be a complete and utter idiot and subject others to this man’s charades.

Former Rep. Thomas Wright denied Thursday he committed fraud by persuading a state official to write a letter about a nonexistent state grant and insisted he didn’t use the letter to take out a $150,000 loan.

Taking the stand in his own defense, Wright also said he had little to do with setting up the financing that led to the 2002 purchase of a building that he hoped would be used to house health care offices and a museum commemorating the 1898 Wilmington race riots.

The financing “had already been arranged by someone else working on this thing,” said Wright, making his first extended comments on the events that have caused him legal problems for more than a year.

The Wilmington Star

Chapman is the seventh innocent death row prisoner in North Carolina to be released, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.

He was sentenced to death in 1994 in the slayings of Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Yvette Conley in Hickory. Their bodies were found in abandoned houses in August 1992. Chapman has always denied killing them.

Ervin’s 186-page order said a lead investigator, Dennis Rhoney, withheld information that a key witness in the Ramseur case identified someone other than Chapman in a photo lineup. Rhoney, who worked for the Hickory Police Department, also lied during his trial testimony against Chapman, Ervin wrote.

The News & Observer

The officer who perjured himself has been suspended, but it needs to go further than that.  In my opinion, the appropriate punishment for Officer Rhoney is a 14 year sentence in jail, the same amount of time Chapman spent based on Rhoney’s lies.

Bear in mind that what this officer did may also ricochet throughout the court system.  Any other cases he has testified in may now be called into question.  What if a truly guilty criminal walks free and victimizes someone else down the road because of Rhoney’s actions?

Sen. Hillary Clinton agreed today to a nationally televised debate in North Carolina on April 27.

“CBS has offered to host a debate, and I’ve accepted the debate for April 27th,” Clinton said in a telephone conference with North Carolina reporters.

The News & Observer

Location to be decided….

No one has been fired despite numerous mistakes involving Atwater and Lovette.After Atwater pleaded guilty to three felony theft charges in Wake in 2005, he never received intensive probation supervision, despite a judge’s order. Intensive supervision entails weekly visits, nighttime and weekend contacts and searches for contraband.Other problems included: Atwater’s supervision was never transferred to Durham, where he lived; Wake probation officer Christopher Gladney went more than a year without contacting Atwater, during which time Atwater was charged with a felony in Granville County and a misdemeanor in Durham; and Gladney did not immediately prepare a violation report after learning of Atwater’s felony conviction in Granville.

Read on ………

Why has nobody been fired? Robert Guy should be fired as he has not properly overseen the state’s community corrections department. Doug Pardue should also be let go for the same reason. Probation officers Christopher Gladney and Chalita Thomas should be fired for shear incompetence. Where is the accountability? Last but not least, neither State Senator Ellie Kinnaird nor State Representative Alice Bordsen should see another term in office (see below).

The entire article is full of examples of mistakes and incompetence by North Carolina’s probation agency and this is only in the cases of Atwater and Lovette. How many other dangerous criminals are out on the streets unattended to because of a similar lax in attention. Calls for reforms in the North Carolina’s probation agency and criminal sentencing have been around for years; this is nothing recent. The Democrat legislature that has controlled the state government for decades has not responded to these concerns and even had plans recently to eliminate jail time for offenders under 18. A bill sponsored last summer by State Rep Alice Bordsen (D-Mebane) and Senator Ellie Kinnaird (D-Carrboro) would do just that:

State Rep. Alice Bordsen and state Sen. Ellie Kinnaird have introduced legislation in the General Assembly to study whether North Carolina should give juvenile courts jurisdiction over anyone under 18. Suspects as young as 13 charged with particularly violent offenses still could be tried as adults — as is the case now.

Supporters say the age change would give troubled teens a legal tether to psychologists, alcohol and drug counselors, family, guardians and others invested in helping them turn their lives around. Judges could decide to close their trials to the public. Their punishments would not include prison time, and records of their misdeeds largely would remain confidential.

So there you have it. Now of course, the State Assembly is scrambling to crack down harder on gang related crime problems. Unfortunately, it took national media attention of the murders of a graduate student and a university student body president to get them to act.

Barnett, a retired Greenville County, S.C., sheriff’s deputy, said though he does not advocate using drugs, U.S. criminal policies must be re-examined. Barnett compared the war on drugs to alcohol prohibition, which created more problems than it aimed to fix, he said.“You have a huge discrepancy between a young man who’s caught with marijuana who has a drug arrest with him for the rest of his life and a young man who smokes pot and doesn’t get caught,” Barnett said. “That kind of thing concerns me and it makes me question whether or not criminalization is the right approach.

“When you criminalize a substance without that person having done any harm to anyone, I think that’s wrong.”

Asheville Citizen-Times

I have made these same points before. It is foolish to be locking up someone for smoking marijuana. In my opinion, it is far less harmful than alcohol is. I smoked weed when I was in my teens and early twenties and I never got anywhere near messed up as I have been having too many drinks at a bar.

Duncan said some drugs are illegal because they are harmful. There also is a correlation between crime and drugs, which go hand in hand, the sheriff said.

Yes, with harder drugs that is true, but not with marijuana. The drug crimes are primarily related to highly addictive drugs like heroine and crack. Marijuana use is a victimless crime.