Carolina Politics Online

I make a criticism of the Democratic Party and I get attacked personally. Hmm sounds like Liberalism 101.

Limbaugh is right, liberals do not want to bring up the poor classes up to middle class or higher. They only want to tear down the successful people who actually provide jobs. Liberals are indeed cruel and can only succeed through control. The liberals have had well over 50 years to improve the lot of the poor and minorities. They have FAILED. The same groups are complaining today as they were 30, 40, and 50 years ago.

The liberals are seriously going to raise taxes on people AND small businesses grossing over $250,000 a year. That is the group that is creating 90% of all new jobs. Not after this tax cut.

And while I am at it, you guys wanted us to fail in IRAQ yet scream bloody murder when someone wants Obama’s socialist policies to fail. HYPOCRITES.

I want ALL Americans to succeed. Yes I said all Americans. I do not want to control other people’s lives yet you liberals and secular-progressives want to control mine. And that includes the unborn who I see as a human being but you see as a THING.

I am a conservative who will not go away and will always be in your face. As you guys like to say “NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE”!

Here’s a good editorial about the gradual erosion of our freedoms in the name of “health”, “safety”, or my favorite, “the children”. This author “gets it”: Most of this bills’ supporters don’t give a damn about public health. They just want to control your life.

Yesterday, the North Carolina House Committee on Health considered an extreme bill that would prohibit smoking in public places and in workplaces. This legislation isn’t a “nanny-state bill.” That would presume that proponents care about the “victims” of secondhand smoke and want to protect them from themselves.

This is a false presumption. This is about some people deciding that they don’t want to deal with smoke — ever — and using the power of government to enforce their own personal preferences. It makes no difference whether the government infringes on personal freedoms or property rights so long as they get what they want.

I have lost family members to smoking. I also don’t like being in restaurants and dealing with secondhand smoke. That being said, I also don’t like others imposing their preferences on others and ignoring critical freedoms.

Carolina Journal

As President Barack Obama sent Congress his first budget, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn introduced a $26 billion bill to quadruple the number of community health centers that now treat 16 million uninsured and low-income Americans, including 300,000 in South Carolina.

Money for Clyburn’s Access for All Americans Act, which Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced in the Senate, could come eventually from the $634 billion health care fund Obama set up in his budget.

Clyburn said he felt compelled to write his new measure because the community health centers have a three-decade track record of providing primary medical, dental and mental health treatment to Americans who often don’t have access to other care.

“This is the next step to comprehensive and universal health care for all of our citizens,” said Clyburn, D-S.C.

The State

Clyburn certainly doesn’t hide the ultimate result he hopes to get from this bill, nationalization of health care.  What Congressman Clyburn and his fellow Socialists want is to create a two-tiered health care system in this country, one for him and one for the rest of us.  Socialized health care is a boondoggle in Europe, Canada, and other nations that have it.  Proponents argue that their health care costs per capita are far lower than ours and they’re right.  It’s because the quality of their health care sucks.  Notice when you hear politicians debating this issue they always talk about better access to health care for everyone, but never the quality of it.  Why is that exactly?

Once the government passes universal health care most employers will drop employer subsidized insurance, thrusting almost all of us into the government system.  The drug rationing and surgical waiting lists and the five hour emergency room waiting times will inevitably hit us just like in Europe.  The thing is the rich folks like Clyburn won’t have to deal with that because they’ll be able to afford to continue paying for their own private health insurance, guaranteeing the best health care possible, while the rest of us are stuck with the government sub par garbage.

What Clyburn and his ilk intend to do is create an aristocracy with them at the top and you as a serf on the manor.  This is not the America I learned about as a child, but ignorance, complacency, and laziness have taken us where we are today.

Courtesy of Civitas:

Senator Fletcher Hartsell (R- Cabarrus) is this week’s bad bill award winner with his introduction of SB 100. This legislation would create a commission to study the feasibility of offering financial incentives to students as a reward for quality academic performance. Among other things the commission will:

Study the feasibility of giving to every public school student in North Carolina an incentive of one thousand ($1,000) dollars per year beginning at grade one and extending to grade 12 in the student meets successfully specific academic, disciplinary, attendance, character, and parental involvement goals and benchmarks.

There are plenty of reasons why SB 100 is a bad idea without even talking about the $100,000 that he wants to spend on the “study”. First, it may be true that not all students are equally motivated to achieve academically. Some may respond positively to financial incentives. But why undermine the integrity of the entire system and the sacrifice of thousands of other students by conflating academic achievement to a dollar value? Tying financial incentives to academic achievement sends the wrong message to all students. It reflects a society obsessed with the outcomes of education, but increasingly unaware of the real value of learning.

A quick look at the math also reveals some major financial problems. North Carolina has roughly 85,000 high school seniors. A seventy percent graduation rate means approximately 59,500 seniors graduate in a given year. If we assume 75 percent of those who graduate (44,625) meet the benchmark goals and receive the $12,000 maximum bonus, the cost to the state for the financial incentives program is approximately $535.5 million (44,625 x 12,000). Aside from the philosophical issues, such costs render the program unworkable; more than half-a-billion dollars to reward kids to do what they should be doing?

Rep. Jeff Barnhart, R-Cabarrus, said his nonsmoking father-in-law spent two decades working in an office with five smoking co-workers. When surgeons removed one of his lungs, it was so black the doctors were convinced the older man was a heavy smoker, Barnhart said. Although businesses may protest against the Legislature dictating how they operate, he said public health should trump all.

“Property rights are important, but your health rights are more important,” Barnhart said.

The Star News Online

Rep. Barnhart is about to go on CPO’s Dead Republican Walking list.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Aaron Groen

February 25, 2009
202-225-2071

Huge spending bill passes House, national debt increases

Foxx votes against $410 billion bill, votes for increased earmark transparency

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (NC-05) today voted in opposition to a massive spending bill (H.R. 1105) that once again increases federal government spending at a time of record budget deficits. H.R. 1105, which completes the funding process for the federal government for fiscal year 2009, spends $410 billion, 8.3 percent more than 2008.

“The federal budget is growing by 8.3 percent, while family budgets are shrinking,” Foxx said. “At a time when Americans are tightening their belts, Washington is on a reckless spending spree. This is
irresponsible.”

When the spending legislation passed before the end of 2008 is factoring in, federal discretionary spending will reach $1.01 trillion for 2009. This is the first time in U.S. history that the federal discretionary budget has passed the $1 trillion mark. Additionally, federal agencies lucky enough to get money from both this spending legislation and the recently-enacted stimulus bill are about to see their funding jump by 80 percent-nearly doubling some agencies’ budgets in a single year.

“Congress has jacked up the federal debt limit four times in the past 17 months in order to accommodate Washington’s profligate spending,” Foxx said. “Thanks to this new massive bill it is just a matter of time until we take out yet another mortgage on our children’s future earnings.”

H.R. 1105 also undermines the United States’ long-standing opposition to China’s one child policy and coercive abortion practices by increasing funding to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) by 25 percent. The UNFPA supports China’s destructive one child policy. The bill also gives organizations that promote and provide abortions around the world access to $545 million in federal funding.

In a related vote today Foxx voted in favor of legislation that would help to clean up the Congressional earmark system. The legislation would be a first step towards requiring members of Congress to list campaign contributions that serve as a financial interest in lawmakers’ earmark requests.

###

Jim DeMint is one of the best representatives in the country.  Few others can measure up to his committment to Constitutional governance.  It makes one wonder why Spartanburg County Republican Chairman Rick Beltram would want to refuse to give him support for his reelection.

Thank you Gary Coats, the Conservativist, for this enlightening piece of audio. God knows we love a good foot in mouth here at CPO.

I received this in email today from a reader.  It’s an email he received from Kevin Lecount, the leading Socialist sleaze bag at the State Employees Association of North Carolina. They are the state employees union.  His letter is instructing his drones to contact Senator Hagan’s office and thank her for supporting the Employee “Free Choice” Act, which is deceptively named, purposely no doubt.  Here is the email and then I shall explain what the man behind the curtain does not want you to know about this very dangerous legislation.

February 26, 2009

Thank Senator Hagan for Supporting Workers!

Dear SEANC Members,

One of the most important pieces of legislation facing Congress this year is the Employee Free Choice Act, which would level the playing field for workers who wish to unionize by increasing the penalties for employers who illegally fire or punish workers for being involved in unions. It would give workers back the choice to join a union or not, by allowing employees-instead of employers-to choose whether a union would be formed through an election or through majority sign up.

We are asking that each and every one of you take just a few quick minutes to write a letter of thanks to Senator Kay Hagan for her strong support of workers. She has stated, both publicly and privately, her support of leveling the playing field and for better protections for workers in North Carolina.

Please write a handwritten note and follow these guidelines:

- Address the letter to Senator Kay Hagan and include your name and address.
- Thank her for her support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
- Include a short description of where you work and why you are a member of SEANC, SEIU Local 2008.
- Include a fact about the Employee Free Choice Act, like one of the following:

- The Employee Free Choice Act would preserve the option of a secret ballot; it would simply let employees make the choice instead of employers.
- Every 23 minutes in America an employer fires or retaliates against a worker for union activity.
- The anti-Employee Free Choice Act forces are the same people who opposed an increase in the minimum wage, fought children’s health insurance and
attacked the stimulus plan. Those same groups attacked Senator Hagan during her campaign over her support of the Lily Ledbetter Act.
- Keep the letter short, and make sure that it is legible. If it is too long or tough to read, the senator’s staff is less likely to read it.

We are going to hand deliver the entire collection of notes from SEANC members to make sure they have the maximum impact with the senator and her staff. Please write your note and send it to the SEANC office by fax, e-mail or mail by March 6. Direct your faxes to Will Cubbison, Member Action Department Intern.

Thank you,
Kevin LeCount
Director ofMember Action & Politics

The letters are due to SEANC by Friday, March 6!

View a sample letter:

http://www.seanc.org/docs/iContact%20links/2009-2-26%20letter%20to%20Kay%20Hagan.pdf.

Fax or e-mail your letter to Will Cubbison: 800-296-4999 or wcubbison@seanc.org.

This bill is vital to the interests of SEANC, SEIU Local 2008, because more union members in our state will mean even more support for our goals.

SEANC Calendar of Events: [http://www.seanc.org/calendar/]

Kevin LeCount
SEANC Central Office
PO Drawer 27727
Raleigh, NC 27611
800-222-2758

For those of you unfamiliar with the Employee Free Choice Act, it basically allows union organizers to unionize a shop without a vote.  Essentially, they can just walk around and collect signature cards from people who “support” unionizing the shop and if they get cards from a 50% + 1 majority they can unionize without an election, thus eliminating the need for a secret ballot.

Now let’s think about this just for a second.  If your place of employment has workers who are trying to unionize your workplace and they start going around convincing and pressuring others to support them are you likely to express your true intentions in a secret ballot or face to face with someone pushing you to sign a card and knowing if you refuse?

The ramifications of this are obvious.  Naming this the Employee Free Choice Act was a bald faced lie.  It does exactly the opposite.  It reopens the doors to the good ole Jimmy Hoffa days of union intimidation where you’d have Rocky standing outside a door whistling and flipping a coin in his hand while a couple of his buddies are on the other side working a guy over to get his support for the union.  I’m not making this up; this stuff really happened.

How virtually eliminating the process of a secret ballot and voter privacy amounts to a free choice sure stumps me.  This bill is payback by the Democrats to reward the unions for their support over the years.  There is no free choice here.  LeCount knows it and so does Kay Hagan.

Brent Nelsen, a political science professor at Furman University who has never held elective office, said Thursday he’s thinking about running for governor and plans to make an issue out of South Carolina’s rising unemployment rate.

The Greenville News

Considering the field of potential candidates on the GOP side next year, to say Nelsen has his work cut out for him is putting it lightly.  Being that he has never ran for office before, I don’t think he has much of a chance.  He doesn’t have the network set up to run for something this big that others like Gresham Barrett and Andre Bauer will.  I also think people really don’t understand exactly what’s involved in running for office.  I have done it.  It’s stressful, exhausting, extremely time consuming, it just flat out sucks.  And that was just a city council seat I ran for.  This guy wants to run statewide.

He made an interesting statement, though.

“The New Republican Party must find a way to move beyond its shrinking base to attract more non-white, non-married, non-Christian voters — and to reconnect with young people,” the professor wrote. “No return to hard-line principles will do the job.”

Nelsen said in the article that the Republican Party “must define itself by what it is for — not what it is against. It cannot be a party of curmudgeons known only for its stand against abortion, gay marriage, gun control, illegal immigration and taxes. Such a party alienates; it strikes many as mean.

“I suggest the New Republican Party offer a vision based on the traditionally conservative notion of responsibility. Conservatives understand that people are capable of great good if given great freedom — but also great evil if not disciplined by customs, markets, laws and institutions. Citizens must be free to excel, but required to act responsibly; they must be trusted to make decisions for themselves, but encouraged to consider others when choosing.

“New Republicans will rely on free markets to distribute resources, but recognize that markets remain free and politically acceptable only if government checks greed and smoothes the sharp edges of economic change.”

I think the guy is spot on.  The GOP really has to clean up its image if it wants to be relevant again and they have isolated a lot of people that used to support them.  The Reagan Democrats are gone.  The libertarians have turned away.  They have lost enormous support with Hispanic Americans.  Hopefully Michael Steele has the know how to get that party back together and he has a world of work to do.

President Barack Obama wants to give states $5 billion over the next five years to boost high-speed rail service.

tates would have to compete for the grants. There’s only one place in the country – the Washington to Boston Northeast Corridor – that has “Acela” trains capable of reaching 150 miles per hour.

The Federal Railroad Administration has 10 other high-speed rail corridors, aimed at connecting cities within a few hundred miles of each other.

One corridor would connect Washington and Charlotte, N.C.

The Greenville News

Why do we need to spend $5 billion on a Maglev train from Charlotte to D.C. when you can fly from here to D.C. in just over an hour?  This doesn’t seem like the best use of our tax dollars.

I can only conclude from their actions that the Legislative Black Caucus, which sounds a bit racist to me, is not interested in the integrity of our election process.

A bill filed recently in the state legislature would allow concealed weapons in restaurants in North Carolina.

State Sen. Andrew Brock, a Mocksville Republican, filed a bill last week that would allow North Carolinians with concealed weapons permits to take their guns into restaurants.

Under state law, it is a Class I misdemeanor to take “any gun, rifle or pistol” into any establishment that serves alcohol, unless you are the proprietor, a police officer or on-duty military.

Brock said criminals are more likely to target restaurants for robberies knowing that fewer patrons may be carrying a gun. He cited shootings in malls and at Virginia Tech.

“The reasons they have gunmen go into these areas is because they know the people there are defenseless,” he said. “If they knew that people were armed or had a possibility of being armed, they wouldn’t go in there.”

A separate House bill would allow concealed weapons in state parks.

Roxane Kolar, executive director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, said the advocacy group opposes the bills.

“Right now, most people visit state parks because it’s a safe environment,” she said. “While others may feel safer having their weapons in a state park, there’s a lot of others who won’t.”

The N&O

Yeah, well I’m sure those students at Virginia Tech were feeling real safe too. Too bad they weren’t. Sen. Brock is absolutely right with his assessment of the situation. When you have a “gun free zone”, you might as well have a big ol’ neon sign flashing overhead that says: “Defenseless Potential Victims- Straight Ahead”.

Now, there is one caveat I have to all this. I support getting rid of the outright ban on guns in restaurants, but I also support the private property rights of those restaurant owners who choose not to allow guns into their private establishments. I think they’d be foolish not too, but hey, I don’t own the place; they do.

Former State Treasurer Richard Moore said Tuesday that he has no plans, for now, to run in 2010 for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Richard Burr.

Moore left office less than two months ago after eight years as treasurer. The Democrat unsuccessfully ran for governor last year, losing to eventual winner Beverly Perdue in May’s primary.

The N&O

For politicos, 2010 is still a long ways away.

The controversy over involuntary annexation — in which a city or town can expand its borders even if an affected property owner does not consent — has raised blood pressure and sparked fights for a half century. The issue is a perennial problem at the legislature. But this year, the pressure to do something has reached a bursting point and lawmakers say they want to give property owners more rights when cities start stretching their borders.

“You’re talking about doing something to someone’s home, which is probably the second most near and dear thing to them beside their family,” said Rep. Nelson Dollar, a Cary Republican. “Some planner is coming to them and saying the city has grown out to where you are. You’re coming into the city, and now you have no say in the process.”

The N&O

I simply cannot understand why there hasn’t already been an armed rebellion over this. Imagine moving to nice little house in the country -on unincorporated land- to get away from high taxes and city politics. Then a few years later, some bureaucrat is knocking on your door with a notice congratulating you on being the newest resident of the city you just moved away from. Oh- and a tax bill. Seems they just annexed your land without even giving you a vote.

How something as blatantly un-democratic and tyrannical as forced annexation is allowed to exist anywhere in America is beyond me.

Today’s $410 billion omnibus bill easily passed the House today and was riddled with 8,570 earmarks. Assuming this passes the Senate and gets signed by President Obama, which it surely will, this will bring this year’s budget deficit to a whopping $1.5 trillion, over three times as high as the record 2008 budget set by the Bush Administration and Democrat Congress.

Among the goodies in the bill were

* $200,000 for a “tattoo removal violence outreach program,” in Los Angeles
* $190,000 for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, WY
* $238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Honolulu, HI
* $143,000 for the American Ballet Theater in New York City
* $190,000 to the Chicago Public Schools for “educational enrichment” activities.
* $870,000 for the Red Wolf Breeding Facility relocation – Sponsored by Heath Shuler (NC-11)

The list goes on. You can read the whole thing at Taxpayers for Common Sense. They have the full earmarks disclosure on their Web site and you could spend hours wading through it.

The bill the passed the House with a near party line vote.  Every Carolina Democrat voted in favor or bankrupting our nation.  Every Carolina Republican voted for fiscal sanity.

Congressman Jim Clyburn (D-SC-6) is the worst kind of hypocrite.  Just days after he had the nerve to accuse several governors of cheating blacks out of stimulus money he goes and votes in the affirmative on today’s omnibus bill that does the following:

Democrats also inserted a provision into the bill to end a program that allows students in the District of Columbia to use federal funds to attend private schools of their choice. Boehner, who helped establish the program as part of a political bargain several years ago, called the move “hideous.”

The AP

This program has allowed close to 2,000 poor D.C. children, mostly black, escape the failing schools in the Washington D.C. public school system.  Why would the Democratic Party that claims to be the champions of the poor and down trodden want to eliminate a program that gives exactly those people a better opportunity for success?  The answer is obvious to me.  The NEA hates vouchers and any other attempt to improve the failure we call education in this country and the Democrats in Washington, like all politicians, are bought and paid for, in this case by the teachers’ unions.  Political donations are more important to our Congressional leaders than the interests of the people.

Let’s not forget Clyburn’s quote from the other day:

“Now the (South Carolina) governor says, ‘I don’t want to accept the money,’” Clyburn told CNN. “That’s why I called this an insult. That’s why I said this is a slap in the face — because a majority of these counties are, in fact, inhabited by African-Americans.”

But of the stimulus money Sanford can influence, aides said Monday, he will reject about $105 million in unemployment compensation South Carolina is slated to receive under expanded eligibility regulations that would provide benefits to part-time workers.

Sanford joined Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal in announcing plans to turn aside the money for unemployed workers, saying tax increases might be required to fund the expanded eligibility for part-time workers after the special stimulus funding ends.

The State

Bingo.  That is exactly the concern I expressed a couple of days ago.  There are strings attached to the porkulus bill.  In order for a state to take the money they have to allow the Federal government to dictate how much you spend on certain welfare programs.  It’s not worth it and it will cost every resident of this state in the form of higher taxes down the road when the money runs out.

The N.C. Department of Transportation’s Charlotte office will spend $38.6 million on the first round of stimulus projects, compared with $64 million by an Eastern N.C. office for Greenville and New Bern.

The disparity has prompted Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory to question whether Charlotte was getting its fair share of road money – a common complaint of the Queen City.

Charlotte Observer

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are roughly 820,000 people living in Mecklenburg County.  There are 90,000 people in Craven County.  Charlotte gets $38.6 million for roads; New Bern gets $64 million.  Oh yeah, New Bern also happens to be the hometown of Governor Perdue.  Nope, there are no politics here, no favoritism, no patronage, none.  It’s all fair and square in Raleigh up there.

The highest-ranking African-American member of Congress on Friday accused Southern governors opposed to economic stimulus spending of indifference to the plight of poor blacks who might benefit from the federal funds.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, amplified earlier statements that the governors’ hesitation in accepting stimulus money had insulted him because “these four states are in the heart of the black belt.”

Clyburn singled out Republican Govs. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Haley Barbour of Mississippi for criticism.

The State

Give me a friggin break.  Yeah, I’m sure that Bobby Jindal, a man of 100% Asian-Indian ancestry, first generation American and only the second minority governor in Louisiana’s history just spits on black people, right?  I’m so sick of this kind of irresponsible dialogue coming from people like Clyburn who constantly want to use their race as a crutch to give them victim status 24-7.  These governors are opposing this money for good reason.  The porkulus bill is reprehensible.  It’s adding almost a trillion dollars to our already dangerous level of national debt which is selling more and more of our country’s financial viability to China and the Saudis and the bulk of the bill is nothing but Monopoly money being wasted on paying back the special interests who have given financial backing to the Democratic Party.

Clyburn said the measure reserves some funding for census tracts in which more than one-fifth of the residents have lived at or below the federal poverty level for the last 30 years.

Yeah, so apparently the trillions we’ve been pissing down the drain the last 40 years for all of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs haven’t worked, yet somehow throwing billions more at them will suddenly change it all, right?

“Now the (South Carolina) governor says, ‘I don’t want to accept the money,’” Clyburn told CNN. “That’s why I called this an insult. That’s why I said this is a slap in the face — because a majority of these counties are, in fact, inhabited by African-Americans.”

Oh boo-hoo-hoo……

If Clyburn was so interested in helping these people he’d be out there telling them to get off their asses and start taking some responsibility for their lives.

“I think our governor would make an interesting college professor,” Ford said. “I think he’s psyched himself out that he’s Mr. Intellectual. . . . He don’t understand that he represents one of the poorest states, and neediest states, in the union.”

The LA Times

Doesn’t, Senator.  He doesn’t understand.  Although, perhaps that was his way of driving his point home that our state is just one big inbred pool of stupid hicks, barefoot and pregnant.