Carolina Politics Online

Charleston County School Board Vice Chairwoman Nancy Cook suggested taking babies away from unfit parents and sterilization as potential solutions to society’s ills on a Thursday morning radio show.

Her comments came during the 9 a.m. hour on WTMA-AM’s “Morning Buzz with Richard Todd.” The topic of conversation was a new report on the dismal graduation rates in the nation’s 50 biggest cities.

Cook told Todd she’s worked on the issue of poverty for more than a decade and that the community still tolerated problems such as teenage pregnancies and babies born in poverty and out of wedlock.

“We’re not standing up as people and saying that we’ve had enough of that. We’re not paying for another baby, maybe one baby, but after that, we’re taking the baby. And maybe you get sterilized. I know that sounds kind of extreme and radical, but we’re in times to where — think about America. When is it OK for America not to be No. 1? When did we get out of that?” Cook said.

The Post and Courier

I understand the point Cook is trying to make.  Responsible taxpayers should not be paying for other’s irresponsibility.  However, this isn’t China.  We don’t sterilize people after they have their first child.  The problem isn’t that these people are able to conceive.  The problem is that the government has removed parental responsibility with more and more government nanny programs.

Cook says, “We’re not paying for another baby, maybe one baby,” but I can trump that.  We shouldn’t be paying for any of these babies at all.  Therein lies the problem.  As long as the government continues to throw out a lifeline to these people abdicating them of their responsibility of parenting their child and not practicing responsible birth control the burden on society of out of wedlock births and children born into “poverty” will not decline.

Furthermore, who determines what qualifies someone as an unfit parent anyway?  I am 31 years old.  When I was a kid if we acted up in public my parents spanked us right there in front of everyone and nobody batted an eye.  Today, someone would probably call Social Services.  Would we sterilize people for disciplining their children?

I imagine Ms Cook was speaking tongue and cheek ( I hope), but this was not the best of blunders to commit when running for political office.  She just handed a pot of gold to her opponent.

The Post and Courier has the audio clip available.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads rival Hillary Rodham Clinton among North Carolina voters, in part because voters say they value trustworthiness over experience.And state voters gave Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, higher marks than either Democrat on both counts, as well as on his credentials to keep the country safe, according to a poll conducted for The News & Observer, The Charlotte Observer, WNCN-TV in Raleigh and WCNC-TV in Charlotte.

The News & Observer

It is not the least bit Earth shaking to me that people view Obama more favorably than Hillary.  Hillary Clinton, like her husband, is a liar.  For the past couple of decades these two have done and said whatever they have needed to in order to rise higher and higher in their positions of power.  I voted for Bill in ‘96 when I was younger and more naive, but I wouldn’t now and his wife isn’t even a consideration and it for exactly that reason.  They cannot be trusted.  Obama without a doubt is a far more trustworthy figure, but he’s not without his faults either in that area.  Of course, he wouldn’t be human if he was.

What I am finding so entertaining is that the Democrats are now finally admitting what the Republicans have been telling them about the Clintons for the past 16 years.

Perdue, who is a Democratic candidate for governor this year, said she is concerned about water levels in North Carolina.

“We have had the worst drought in North Carolina’s history this past year, and some of our municipalities are still struggling on what to do next,” she said. “I believe that it is going to take the whole state, the whole country and actually the whole world (to save water).”

Conservation standards and tax incentives for the preservation of water are just some of the ideas Perdue said she wants to implement in the state.

“We have got to do something, and we have got to do it quickly,” she said.

Jacksonville Daily News

Tax incentives are dandy and all, but really the free market can take care of this issue in much the same way as it has with gasoline.  As water consumption rises closer to an unsustainable level the price of water should increase.  As water bills begin to get more costly people will choose to be conservative in their water usage in order to save money.

Now, one thing the government could do that wouldn’t be a bad idea is build some additional reservoirs for extreme drought situations like we have dealt with this past year.

A North Carolina congressman has apologized for calling a contract employee in Baghdad a “two-bit security guard.”

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., used that term when talking about a visit to Iraq where he was denied access to a gymnasium. “It was a poor choice of words to describe a foreign contractor,” McHenry said in a statement.

McHenry was recorded at a local Republican fundraising dinner talking about his visit and being annoyed when he was denied gym privileges while staying in VIP quarters in the pool house of a palace once used by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. A copy of the video is available on YouTube.

While some reports have said McHenry was referring to a U.S. service member, McHenry and his staff said the person was a contractor providing security at the embassy.

Army Times

McHenry’s “Two Bit Security Guard” Comment Not Directed Towards American Soldier

ASHEVILLE – Kimberly Kubicke paid $150 for a cup of coffee.At least that’s how it felt when the 31-year-old nanny from Montford came out of a downtown coffee house and found her car gone one day in March.

“It was 6:30 at night, and the only space that hadn’t been taken was one right in front of the recycling dumpster,” she said. “It was dark and rainy, so I didn’t notice there was a very faded ‘x’ in the spot.”

Her misadventure didn’t end there. After realizing her car had been towed, she got a ride out to the tow company. There she learned they wouldn’t take her credit card. She got cash and paid the $125 tow fee and $25 storage fee — half her week’s pay.

Asheville Citizen-Times

This reminds me of something that happened to me about 10 years ago. I was a manager at a grocery store in a small shopping plaza. Our space was leased from the owners of the plaza and the property manager had contracted a towing company to remove cars out of the lot that didn’t belong there after hours. We already had past incidents of this towing company towing away employees’ cars in the middle of the night when they would be working special overnight shifts. They would have all of their cars parked right up in front of the building with the store lights on and people visibly working inside and the towing company would still tow them even though they knew who they belonged to. They were instructed to remove any cars in the lot between 1am and 6:00am since nobody was generally there between those hours.

One morning I was scheduled to open the store, which we always arrived at 6:00 to get some work done before the store opened to the public at 8:00. I arrived about 15 minutes earlier than normal, at 5:45, just 15 minutes and those bastards took my car. I was furious. I had one of my employees drive me down to the towing company and I had it out big time with that fat piece of lard behind the desk. They pulled the same garbage with me that the company in the above article pulled with Kubicke. They wouldn’t accept a credit card and I had to go hunt down an ATM to get some money out. I got back to the store and then called and chewed out the property manager as well. My company reimbursed me for the money and said they would look into the matter with the property owners to keep it from happening in the future and as long as I was at that location I never heard of any further issues.

These towing companies know full well what they are doing. They don’t exercise common sense and as I was having it out on the phone with the property manager of my old employer he basically admitted that he knew that they knew they were taking employees’ cars. These placed do it on purpose to line their pockets.