Carolina Politics Online

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, already struggling to salvage his family and his political career after admission of a scandalous affair, added explosive details Tuesday, including more visits with the mistress he calls his “soul mate” and additional women in his past.

The once-promising presidential prospect said he is committed to reconciling with his wife, but professed to The Associated Press his continued love for the Argentine woman at the center of the firestorm that gutted his political future.

In emotional interviews with the AP over two days, he said he would die “knowing that I had met my soul mate.”

The State

Yes, well, telling the whole world that his wife is not his soul mate will most certainly send her running back to him with open arms as he tries to reconcile their marriage.  Good grief.  He also states that he has crossed the line with some other women during their 20 years of marriage.  This just gets better each day.  I’m telling you, I am waiting for the love child.  This just screams John Edwards all over again.

It will be at the Halifax Mall (same place as the June 3rd Tea Party) from 1pm-5pm.

More info at www.ncteapartyrevolution.com.

If you’re like me -and let’s face it, who doesn’t want to be?- one important question has been at the forefront of your mind for a few months.

What’s Les Merritt been up to?

Well, N.C.’s government watchdog, who was shown the door last November by a bunch of clueless, straight-ticket voting dopes, is back doing what he does best-

The Foundation for Ethics in Public Service, Inc. seeks to bring a new level of transparency, accountability and integrity to all levels of American government. The Foundation will accomplish its mission by receiving and independently investigating allegations of corruption in government, providing reports of corruption to investigative journalists, and pro-actively educating government leaders and the general public on the true nature of ethics in government as well as the causes and remedies of public corruption.

The Foundation for Ethics in Public Service

Good luck, Les! You’ll need it.

COLUMBIA — Gov. Mark Sanford said legislators and friends encouraged him to stay on the job, in part, to not set the state back and to not interfere with the 2010 governor’s race.

Sanford, who is limited to two terms, would be replaced by Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer if he resigned. Both men are Republicans.

Bauer told CNN that he would be willing to assume the position on the agreement that he wouldn’t run for a full term after serving Sanford’s remaining 18 months. Bauer said that would help to take political angling out of the picture.

But Sanford said he is no longer considering resigning. Leaving office would be the easy thing to do, he said. Resigning was his initial reaction.

“If the good Lord’s going to make changes in your life, you’ve gotta stick around for the process,” he said.

The Post and Courier

Whatever, but the taxpayer money he used to pay for the trip might result in him being forced out of office by the legislature.  Even if he does pay it back like he said he would, would he have done that had he not been caught?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Aaron Groen

June 26, 2009
202-225-2071

Foxx votes against national energy tax

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (NC-05) today voted against H.R. 2454, a bill that would essentially create a national energy tax through a “cap and trade” scheme. Some estimates found that the total tax impact of this legislation will amount to $2,979 per year for a family of four.

“As we struggle to make our way out of a recession, I could not vote for the creation of a new national energy tax,” Foxx said. “North Carolina families and businesses can’t afford the financial strain of high energy costs in this bill. We should be working to ensure taxpayers are less burdened by taxes and red tape-not more.”

Under H.R. 2454, electricity costs are estimated to rise by 90 percent. According to the Heritage Foundation, employment will be lower by 1,105,000 jobs per year as a result of this national energy tax. The bill will have an especially negative effect on energy-intensive sectors like manufacturing-which employs one out of six people in North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District. H.R. 2454 will also reduce the United States’ economic output by $9.6 trillion.

“Tens of thousands of people in North Carolina who work in manufacturing are at risk of losing their jobs due to the burdens placed on employers by this bill,” Foxx said. “Many employers will be forced out of business or out of the country because of high energy prices and the new regulations in this legislation.”

The legislation will be particularly damaging to rural areas and farming communities. Because rural households spend 58 percent more on fuel than urban residents as a percentage of their income, high energy prices cause disproportionate harm to rural families. The Heritage Foundation also estimates that farm income will drop by $50 billion by 2035 if H.R. 2454 becomes law.

###

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 26, 2009
Contact: Brock McCleary
(202) 225-2576

McHenry Statement on Vote Against Cap and Trade

WASHINGTON – Congressman Patrick McHenry (NC-10) released the following statement regarding his vote against H.R. 2454, the cap-and-trade bill.

“For this Congress to cut jobs and raise energy costs on working families at a time like this truly boggles the mind. The economy is shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs every month and families are struggling to pay their bills. So I fail to see the wisdom in eliminating 88,000 jobs in North Carolina alone, raising energy prices by $1,400 annually on every household, and hiking gasoline prices by 77 cents per gallon. For what? So we can possibly lower the earth’s temperature by two-tenths of a degree by the end of the century. Any serious climate change initiative must include binding commitments from China and India to reduce carbon emissions. In the absence of that, we are asking the American people to bear enormous sacrifices at a time when they can least afford it – for two-tenths of a degree by 2100.”

(sources: Heritage Foundation, Congressional Budget Office, American Petroleum Institute)

NOTES:
Groups opposing the legislation include the National Association of Manufacturers, National Textile Association, and American Farm Bureau Federation.

“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” – President Barack Obama

“Nobody in this country realizes that cap-and-trade is a tax, and it’s a great big one.” – Congressman John Dingell (D-MI)

###

At 4 a.m. this morning, Amazon shut off its Associates Program in North Carolina. In an email to its partners, Amazon said it closed the program due to a “tax collection scheme” passed by the state’s legislature.

Through the the affiliates program, Web publishers can earn money from Amazon linking to it’s products and taking a slice of any resulting sales. North Carolina passed a bill to tax this transaction yesterday.

The Business Insider

There you go, the affects of over taxation front and center.  If this new budget with these massive tax hikes goes into affect the legislature and the governor will be taking the prosperity of this state and doing a complete 180.  This is just the very beginning of the closing of business for North Carolina compliments of Bev Perdue and the Democrats who control the state legislature.  They are now the least competitive state in the southeast, but I live in South Carolina, so I guess that’s good news for me.  That just means more growth for us.

The Business Insider also published the email received from Amazon announcing their pullout from North Carolina.  You can read it at their site.

Uh-oh.  This is going to put the Bible thumpers in a tizzy.

South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis made a name for himself in the late 1990s as one of Bill Clinton’s most zealous pursuers, an impeachment “manager” who attacked the moral failings of the president with a gusto that earned him a devoted following in the staunchly conservative “Upstate” of conservative South Carolina.

But with his governor now felled by similar temptations, Inglis sees an opening for the Republican Party, a chance to “lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness” and “to understand we are all in need of some grace.”

The Wall Street Journal

I don’t disagree with Inglis’s comment.  The Republican Party throughout the Bush years allowed social conservatism to define them.  They threw fiscal responsibility right out the window, which makes it all the more amusing to watch them preach about it as Obamination spends us into oblivion.   Instead they railed and hollared about morality and that is why they get slammed so hard by the media when one of them don’t live up to the moral pedestal they have put themselves on.  Sure, there is a leftward bias in the mainstream media.  I don’t deny that, but Republicans have branded their party as the party of traditional family values so when they screw up, like Mark Sanford and Diaper Dave Vitter and Mark Foley, etc they get thrown into the frying pan.

The GOP should put the social cons on the backburner for now and get back to their fiscally conservative roots if they are to win over the trust of the American people to put them back in control of Congress.  That’s not to say that social conservatives can’t have a home within the Republican Party, but they can’t have 90% of the seats at the table anymore.  That shift is what drove away people like me who used to support Republican candidates that truly believed in the idea of personal freedom, responsibility, and limited government, not the ones who falsely preach morality and then try to use their power in government to force it down our throats.  I think that is what Inglis is getting at.

UPDATE-

I need to check my mailbox more often. It turns out Bill Randall emailed me on Wednesday about his congressional run. Here’s what he has to say:

Good day to you.  This is Bill Randall.

I intend to run for the U.S. Congressional seat in the 13th District
(…currently held by Democrat Brad Miller).  I have discussed the matter with my County Chairman (Claude Pope, Wake), and this has also been communicated up-the-chain to my NCGOP 13th District Chairman (David Robinson) and the NCGOP State Chairman (Tom Fetzer).  For the record, my campaign will be launched “officially” on July 1, 2009.

The race for this pivotal U.S. Congressional seat will be challenging, and will
require that we are all pulling in the same direction.  The vital importance of your support, along with the other counties in the 13th District, CANNOT BE OVERSTATED.

For your information, I have been invited as one of the speakers at the
Independence Day (Family) “Tea Party” at Halifax Mall in downtown Raleigh (1:00 -5:00 PM).  Website:  www.ncteapartyrevolution.com

Feel free to call or e-mail me anytime. Your thoughts and input are key to a
Conservative Republican “comeback” in 2010, as well as in our winning key
municipality races in 2009. 

Thank you for your stalwart work behind-the-scenes in your counties.  I look forward to seeing (and hearing from) you once again in the near future.

Sincerely,

William (“Bill”) Randall
bill@pray4ncgop.com

/UPDATE

Wasn’t it just two weeks ago that I hoped aloud that Bill Randall would continue to be active in politics?

Bill Randall, an unsuccessful candidate for state GOP chairman, plans to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Brad Miller of Raleigh next year.

Randall, 42, a retired Navy meteorologist from Wake Forest, plans to announce his candidacy July 1, reports Rob Christensen.

“I believe the current representative is out of touch,” Randall said. “With his voting record he does not represent the average constituent in the district along with the so-called stimulus plan.”

The N&O

Brad Miller is one of the 219 assholes who today voted for the biggest tax hike in American history. Godspeed, Mr. Randall.

Caution: Shameless self-adulation ahead.

Today I’m patting myself on the back in hopes that the warm fuzzy feeling it gives me will replace the gaping hole in my wallet.

I’ve said for some time now that we have a responsibility to stand up to the socialists-with-values and the RINO’s that feign conservative principles to get elected only to vote like Democrats. I understand about all that “Big Tent” stuff, but the greatest theoretical physicist in the word cannot hypothesize the dimensional applications of a tent large enough to house both myself and the three Republican U.S. Senators who voted for the Scamulus Package, or the 8 Republican House members who voted for Cap-and-Fraud. Impossible. Neither in this universe nor a in theoretical nega-universe fused with anti-matter could myself and one of these clowns share a philosophical plank. I believe in smaller government and more freedom; they do not.

Enter Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida. Chuck and his perpetual tan were elected as “Republicans” in 2006. These days, however,  they get higher approval ratings from Democrats than from Republicans in Florida. That’s because he’s spent the last three years taking a leak on the conservatives who elected him. His crowning moment came when he stood next to Barack Obama and supported the Scamulus Bill. I’m not sure what he thinks about the Federal Cap & Fraud Bill, but I’m betting he supports it; he enacted something similar in Florida.

Now Charlie and his tan are running for the U.S. Senate, and standing in his way is Marco Rubio, a true conservative and one of the rising stars of the party. When Rubio was speaker of the state house, he’d send small government reforms up to Crist only to see Crist water them down or reject them outright. Marco Rubio needs to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Florida, not just for the sake of the Republican Party, but for the country.

So that’s why I told Charlie to “kiss off”. No, not to his face- although I wish I had the chance. Longtime readers of this blog have heard me mention a few times that I’m a campaign consultant. Well, I was offered a chance to work for Mr. Tan Man. It would have been good money, too. Turned them down flat without even flinching.

Yeah, I know that I’m just one loser consultant who will be easily replaced by another loser consultant. But people like you and I, people who see the inevitable consequences of electing and re-electing the Crists, the Specters, the Richard Stevens, the Fletcher Hartsells and the like- we need to take a stand and retake our party from these clowns. When they and their enablers come calling, we need to tell them “no”. Even at the cost of temporary sacrifice, we must stand on principle. As long as they can call themselves Republican, that word is meaningless.

We finally rid ourselves of that parasite Arlen Specter. I’ll have no part in replacing him with a younger, spray-on tan version. Charlie Crist can keep his 30 pieces of silver while I try to hook up with the Rubio campaign.

Civitas finds another, ahem… crappy bill-

While it does not appear that this bill will go anywhere, (I will try and resist any and all jokes about this one) House Bill 1122, NC Colon Hydrotherapy Licensure, by Rep. Verla Insko (D-Orange) illustrates the problem with licensure bills. While this may be a therapeutic procedure some people desire, is it necessary to put the North Carolina official seal of approval on it by licensing colon hydrotherapists?

So called “professional licensing” serves several political interests; it restricts competition and raises prices, increases revenue to government through fees, fines and other new costs, expands government by increasing bureaucracy and extends the regulatory arm of government.

Personally, I just serve myself a good heapin’ of Colon Blow every morning.

North Carolina lawmakers are pushing through a hefty increase in the tax credit for movie makers even though a study commissioned by the state film office says the state would lose money on the deal for at least two years.

The N&O

There’s more, but that one sentence really just says it all, doesn’t it?

Dead Republican Walking

I really am curious how our favorite RINOs Richard Stevens and Fletcher Hartsell would have voted had they been present.

By a vote of 219 to 212, the House narrowly passed the Cap and Trade bill that will cost us millions of jobs and devastate the American economy even more as it starts going into affect. Just ask Spain how well it went for them?

This still has to pass the U.S. Senate of course and that is nowhere near certain. They need 60 ayes just to be able to vote for it and I imagine there will be Democrat defectors there just as there were in the House.

Those who voted to raise your energy bills by about $1500 a year to “save the planet” are as follows:

• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01)
• Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
• David Price (D-NC-04)
• Heath Shuler (D-NC-11)
• Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
• Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
• Jack Spratt (D-SC-05)
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)

Those who voted to protect your liberty, labor, and livelihood were:

• Walter Jones (R-NC-03)
• Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05)
• Howard Coble (R-NC-06)
• Mike McIntyre (D-NC-07)
• Larry Kissell (D-NC-08)
• Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
• Henry Brown (R-SC-01)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
• Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)
• Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)

The House may be voting on the Waxman/Markey Cap and Tax bill today.  Congressman Mike McIntyre (D-NC-07) is leaning towards voting no on this bill and Congressman Heath Shuler (D-NC-11) is undecided.  Both are Blue Dog Democrats.  If you live in their district call their office immediately and tell them to vote no on Cap and Trade!

Mike McIntyre
Phone: (202) 225-2731
Fax: (202) 225-5773

Heath Shuler
Phone:(202) 225-6401
Fax: (202) 226-6422

Republican National Committeeman for South Carolina, Glenn McCall, has called on Governor Sanford to resign from office on the heels of the revelation of his scandal.

A top South Carolina Republican leader says philandering Gov. Mark Sanford should resign and practice the philosophy he’s preached of holding GOP leaders accountable. Glenn McCall is one of the state’s two national representatives to the Republican National Committee. He’s also a county party chairman and said Thursday that party members want Sanford out.

McCall says Sanford repeatedly has said party leaders should be held accountable for not upholding the GOP’s principles. And McCall says the married father of four should be held to the same standard.

The AP

Let us not forget that Sanford, while in the House of Representatives, voted for the impeachment of then President Bill Clinton, citing Clinton’s lack of moral fiber.

A vote on the Waxman/Markey Cap and Trade bill is expected to come up as early as tomorrow.  This bill will have devastating affects on all Americans, particularly hitting the poor and middle class the worst.  Here are a few ways the energy tax will hurt us:

1.    Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $9.6 trillion
2.    Destroy an average of 1-3 million jobs, every year
3.    Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation
4.    Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent
5.    Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent
6.    Raise an average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500 annually
7.    Increase the federal debt by 26 percent, which is $29,150 per person

If you don’t know whose Congressional district you’re in, you can find out here:

Americans Solutions for Winning the Future

Call them today!

Some of my Republican friends tell me I need to get my panties in a wad about this. But I really can’t…

The bill requires that teachers, students and volunteers report any incidents of bullying, but it leaves the details of reporting procedures and punishments up to the school districts.

Because of the inclusion of sexual orientation, the bill was bitterly fought and took supporters years to get through the legislature.

Opponents, particularly Republicans, have said the bill should not name special categories of victims and have said the bill should simply ban all bullying. Supporters, mostly Democrats, have said the bill focuses attention on children who are the most likely targets in schools across the state.

The N&O

The bill was passed by 1 vote: 58-57.

Like I said in a previous post about this bill- the real problem is that this issue had to be settled in the General Assembly, when it ought to be handled in a Principal’s office. If our state schools need the General Assembly to instruct them on how to protect kids from bullying, then our state schools are messed the hell up.

I don’t even have kids, but I’m already saving up to send them to private school.

The State Bureau of Investigation is also investigating former Gov. Mike Easley.

Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office confirmed in a letter Monday to Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger that the SBI is working alongside the FBI in examining Easley’s activities. Federal officials have sought testimony or evidence related to a Carteret County land development where Easley bought a lot, car dealers who provided free vehicles to Easley and the N.C. State University officials who hired Easley’s wife and gave her an $88,000 raise.

“Attorney General Cooper earlier this year (emphasis mine)directed the State Bureau of Investigation to investigate matters related to the former Governor and other issues,” wrote Kristi Hyman, Cooper’s chief of staff. “Our agents have been working with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

The N&O

Well hey! Welcome to the party Roy! I’m glad you could finally show up.

Vultures have been circling around Easley’s rotten scent for years.  But only now, when he’s no longer in office and after everyone else has gotten in line to carve up his carcass does ol’ Roy finally decide to make an appearance.

No wonder this state is swirling down the drain.