Carolina Politics Online

The first member of the North Carolina Congressional Delegation is pledging to vote “yes” on the latest version of health care reform. U.S. Rep. David Price said the bill will keep insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, ban lifetime limits on care and strengthen oversight for insurance companies seeking to raise premiums.

Price also said the reforms will benefit the American people while reducing the federal deficit.

North Carolina News Network

Let it be known that Congressman David Price is now on record supporting a socialist take over of the American health care system and a culture of corruption that is ripping apart our Federal government.  He is also for raising the cost of health insurance for 85% of the country and he is a cowardly liar.

The inability to deny those with preexisting conditions and to implement lifetime limits will result in premium increases across the board for all of us.  Correct if me if I’m wrong, but this is the exact opposite result of why we were told they were engaging in health care “reform.”  Price is also a liar of the worst kind.  This bill will not reduce the Federal deficit one penny.  They make this claim because they will begin taxing for the program next year even though it won’t kick in until 2014.  That is how they achieve a deficit “reduction.” The bottom line is that the Federal government intends to spend another trillion dollars that we don’t have while we are already running annual deficits of a trillion and a half.

Today the Pelosi Congress is now considering passing this legislation with what has become known as the “Slaughter Rule.”  In essence, they will attempt to pass the Senate bill without actually voting on it.  Is this the representation that the American people voted for?  No, this isn’t representation at all.  It’s decree.  What this is is government tyranny and David Price is going right along with it.  It’s time for the American people to revolt against the oppression of the Federal government.

Your ReTHUGlican/DemoCRAP two-party duopoly at work:

Unaffiliated legislative candidate Mark Brody is suing the state over what he calls unfair and unconstitutional ballot access laws.

After collecting the 3,000 signatures it took to appear on the 2008 ballot, Mark Brody ran as an unaffiliated candidate for North Carolina House District 103.

He earned 30 percent of the vote.

Brody assumed his high numbers at the polls would secure him an automatic place on the ballot in 2010.

He was wrong. When he went to his County Board of Elections last month to file for office, he was turned away. The board said if he wanted to get back on the ballot he had to petition all over again. He has until June to turn in the signatures.

Brody refuses to petition again. He says doing so would lend legitimacy to what he calls an unjust and incomplete election law.

The Carolina Journal

Good luck with that. The Democrats control the legislature, and they’d probably outlaw the Republicans if they could get away with it. And if the Republicans take over this year, how sympathetic will they be to Mr. Brody and those like him?

This is really one of those things where voters need to hold their elected representatives accountable. Ask your state house or state senate candidate if they will ease up on these restrictive laws. If they won’t, ask them why they have a problem with freedom and free elections?

The North Carolina we all fell in love with on The Andy Griffith Show lives on in Person and Caswell Counties.

The former district attorney for Person and Caswell counties stopped drivers by flashing a gold badge and tried to use dismissed cases to win re-election, according to a search warrant filed Tuesday.

The State Bureau of Investigation has been investigating Joel Brewer since last fall, officials said, but the reason for the probe hadn’t previously been disclosed. Brewer, who retired last month, has said he is cooperating fully with the investigation.

SBI agents searched Brewer’s office at the Person County Courthouse two weeks ago, seizing two folders containing pink copies of citations, notes, phone messages and letters, according to the search warrant. One file was for male defendants, and the other was for female defendants, the warrant states.

Two people told investigators that Brewer would keep the pink copies in his office after dismissing charges and would call the defendants up during a campaign to remind them of the cases. He wanted the defendants to vote for him and to work at the polls for him on Election Day, the people told investigators.

WRAL.com

The National Enquirer, the publication that broke the John Edwards / Rielle Hunter affair, is claiming today that a grand jury may indict the disgraced presidential candidate and former North Carolina Senator.  According to the source, Edwards has been under investigation for the misuse of campaign funds related to paying his mistress.

Edwards may get to live in two Americas after all.  The one he is in today and the one that exists behind bars.

Chris Mintz, an investment advisor and former candidate for a Wake County seat in the legislature, was sentenced to four years in federal prison last week after he pleaded guilty to embezzling from clients.

Mintz was also ordered to pay restitution of $1.2 million, according to court records. 

He was once the chairman of the Wake County Republican Men’s Club. Mintz switched to the Democratic Party in 2005 and ran unsuccessfully in that party’s primary for the state House against Ty Harrell, who later resigned. Mintz considered a run for state treasurer in 2007.

He was accused in July by federal prosecutors of taking more than $1 million from two elderly clients.

The N&O

Loser.

Remember that infamous pier $25 million pier that EVERY SINGLE REPUBLICAN but one voted for, only to turn around and point to it as an example of government waste?

Well, it looks like the other shoe is dropping. And is anyone surprised?

A document obtained by the Civitas Institute from the N.C. Division of Aquariums under a public records request shows Basnight Construction on a list of plan-holders of the pier and as an interested subcontractor in November 2008 nine months before Sen. Basnight said he was aware of his company’s interest in the project.

“The timeline of events from the awarding of the contract, to the approval of the funding by the General Assembly seem to contradict Sen. Basnight’s statement to the media that he wasn’t aware of Basnight Construction’s participation until this past August,” said Civitas Institute Executive Director Francis De Luca.  “Additionally, even if Sen. Basnight claims that he didn’t personally benefit from the project, it is clear that a close member of his family did stand to benefit.”

Civitas

Marc Basnight should be in jail. JAIL! Where the hell are you, Attorney General Roy Cooper?

So by now everyone knows about the John Edwards sex tape with Rielle Hunter that is in the possession of Andrew Young, author of “The Politician.”  At this point Young has refused to return the tape despite the fact that everyone now knows about it and his book is set to come out this month.  I am trying to figure out what this guy’s motivation is to want to keep the sex tape.  What purpose does it serve at this point to actually hire lawyers to defend him from having to return it?  What could he possibly even need it for and are we sure we even want to know?

Former Gov. Mike Easley kept a private e-mail account that he used for state business.

Easley’s former communications director Sherri Johnson testified in a deposition that Easley kept the secret account and used it for state business. Johnson was being deposed as part of a public records lawsuit filed by The N&O, The John Locke Foundation and several other news media outlets over access to e-mail messages.

The news organizations sued after some public information officers in state government said Easley’s administration routinely deleted e-mail communication and advised other state public information officers to do the same. The state’s public records law says that e-mail messages are public records no different than other state documents.

The N&O

Is anyone even surprised by this anymore?

Oh wait, this next part is kinda surprising-

The address: “Nick Danger” spelled backwards. The name was likely a reference to the fictional, satirical private eye.

::holding back snickers::

Oh wait, there’s more…

Delete all those references to former Gov. Mike Easley being weird, says former Democratic strategist Gary Pearce.

We now know that his nocturnal work habits, secrecy and hermit-like lack of public profile stem from his true vocation: espionage, as indicated by his email nom de plume, Nick Danger.

“One mystery remains. It’s the Firesign Theater connection. Back in the day on campus, listening to Firesign Theater was a favorite pastime of those who, as they used to say, “experimented” with drugs. And not the kind of experiments that went on in chem lab.  I’m just saying.”

Ha ha. Ahhh, that Mike Easley. If he wasn’t such a God-awful governor he’d be a most hilarious fellow. Ditto for Mrs. Danger:

Every private eye needs a dame and Gov. Nick Danger had “sewgood.”

Johnson testified in a deposition taken in a public records lawsuit against Easley’s administration that First lady Mary Easley also had a private e-mail account. Johnson, who said she didn’t know Mary Easley well, did not recall using the address — which was something like “sewgood” — for state business.

The N&O

Mike Easley

York County Councilman Paul Lindemann (R) just can’t stay out of the news.  He’s now a party of yet a third lawsuit that is brewing by a former employee of his now defunct investment company.  After all this time, the York County Republican Party is finally unofficially officially asking Lindemann to resign.  Took long enough.  Between this new lawsuit, this other lawsuit, and the recently finished lawsuit, among his rap list of other improprieties, he shouldn’t even need to be asked to step down, but I suppose expecting Lindemann to take responsibility and do the right thing would require a bit of integrity.  I doubt there is an ounce of that drifting anywhere within the depths of his ego.

Lindemann is not alone in the current suit.  His cohort Greg Rogers has also been named.  We wrote about Rogers last year, opposing his run for the State House when he entered the race to replace Carl Gullick in House District 48.  He eventually withdrew his candidacy once current State Rep Ralph Norman decided to enter the race, however Rogers has not completely exited the political realm.  He is an appointed member of the York County Economic Development Board.

The county GOP’s request for Lindemann to step down were unsurprisingly rebuffed.

Lindemann blames the economy for being unable to pay back investors on the Tega Cay property. He also said that he is now considering either running for reelection to the York County Council or for the S.C. House District 45 seat in November.

He will not resign from his current office, he added.

“You can tell the Republican party that the press I’ve gotten in the last few weeks have more than bolstered my decision to run again,” Lindemann said. “I’ve had more e-mails, more phone calls, and more pledges for money towards my next election, and I’m not going to listen to any party anywhere that is going to call for my resignation on the basis of the economy.”

The Herald

In usual form, Paul blames everyone but himself.

Whether or not he eventually succumbs to the pressure remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure.  There is already one Richard Daly in this country and Chicago can keep him.  Perhaps his York County protege should relocate.

If you haven’t heard, the Biggest Jackass of 2008 crawled out of his hole the other day to tell us the sun was hot, trees are green, and that, oh yeah… I really am the father of that baby girl I’ve repeatedly denied over the past two years.

Here are some of my favorite responses to this earth-shattering shocker:

-Jon Stewart from The Daily Show said it was part of Edwards’ plan to announce his new line of perfume: “‘Forgiveness’, by John Edwards. For the day she grows out of hating you for denying you were her father.”

-In a post entitled “Anyone Who Ever Voted for John Edwards Ought to Take the Next Election Cycle Off“, Jim Geraghty said that he’d “like to take this moment to remind my Democratic friends that a little more than a year ago, about a third of them or so tried to elect this man to the presidency. A man who is astonishingly reckless, a bald-faced liar, a colossal jerk of a husband, tirelessly duplicitous, utterly convinced that he’s wily enough and smooth enough to convince a gullible American public of supremely implausible falsehoods, and who, sadly, probably needs some work as a father.

-Jay Leno: “This is pretty sleazy. John Edwards’ former aide says in an upcoming interview that Edwards asked him to steal a diaper from the baby to do a DNA test. Apparently the test showed that both the diaper and John Edwards are full of crap.”

Wow, I think the title says it all. This is being reported in the News and Observer today. Nothing I can say changed anything. I wonder if he will cut a deal or how many charges he could get convicted on?

The 64-page indictment alleges that Poole, 37, of Raleigh, extorted money from key Easley supporters and took corresponding action on environmental permits. It charges him with bribery, use of the mail in aid of racketeering, and says his actions deprived North Carolina citizens of his “honest services.”

I wonder if he would rather clean out the bunkers or just cut the greens?

Lanny Wilson, a very influential fundraiser for Easley and Perdue has resigned from his Department of Transportation position as reported in the News and Observer today.

He testified to the State Board of Elections that he gave large amounts of money to the Democratic Party with the intention of it being given to the campaigns of Easley andPerdue. This is a felony according to state and federal law. One has to wonder why our Democratic State Attorney General has not pursued this? No we don’t.

Such funneling would violate limits on donations to individual candidates. Wilson was the main financial backer of several coastal developments, including the Cannonsgate development where Easley bought a lot at a six-figure discount.

Perdue had him on her short list for her cabinet and Senator Basnight has just emotion filled words of support for Lanny Wilson.

“Lanny has so much to give this state. He’s smart and he understands the department very well. I believe he could reorganize the department in a fashion that we would get much more out for our money,” Basnight said.

I hope people now see why North Carolina is considered to have one of the most corrupt state governments in our union.

I agree with the following press release from Congressman McHenry’s office, however, I think there is more than just dissatisfaction with the health care bill that drove what we saw last night.  This Congress, which Nancy Pelosi said would be the most open and ethical in history, has been the most sneaky and underhanded I think we’ve ever had in my lifetime.  They are supposed to be representatives of the people, not aristocrats, and they have shown nothing but a snobbish contempt for the American people.  I would like to think what happened in Massachusetts last night will serve as a warning shot over the bough of the Democrats’ sinking ship, but I’m not holding my breath.

“If you’d told me a month ago that a Republican running against President Obama’s health care plan would win Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat, I’d have said you were crazy.

“If the Obama health care bill has sparked such a massive backlash in Massachusetts, I can’t imagine what Democrats in red and purple districts are hearing back home. Democrats should take the hint and stop pushing their unpopular plan on the American people.”

A local Rock Hill woman is the next person in a long line of disgruntled associates of Mr. Lindemann to file a lawsuit against him.  According to Ms Diane O’Brien, York County Councilman and State House 45 candidate Paul Lindemann (R-Fort Mill) has swindled her out of $10,000 she gave him towards an investment for a home in Tega Cay.  The home has ended up on the Sheriff’s sales docket for unpaid property taxes in excess of $17,000.

The pages of Councilman Lindemann’s life are almost like a Cracker Jacks box.  Every time you open a new one you find a cheap surprise inside.  Of course, when you really think about it, Lindermann would fit right in with the culture of Columbia.  He’s already gotten the crooked and corrupt part of politics down pat.

Not literally a toga party, but it may as well have been.  There was enough liquor at this party to embalm every single attendee.   Parks Helms (D) is a former Mecklenburg County Commissioner who was appointed to the local ABC board last year.  In November Diageo Liquor company spent in excess of $12,000 for 28 ABC Board employees, almost half of which was on the liquor alone.  This a big no-no you see.  It’s illegal for members of the ABC Board to accept gifts from liquor companies and as a member of the Mecklenburg County ABC Board and former County Commissioner, Helms surely knew that.  I imagine like so many other politicians he didn’t feel compelled to have to follow the laws that politicians like him create.  They apparently only apply to the serfs on the manor, not to the lord or the vassal.  After enduring weeks of being publicly shamed, Helms offered his resignation today.  He, of course, in classic good ole boy southern politico style, blamed everyone but himself.  The devil made him do it.

Now, this whole saga got my wheels turning and I’ve heard similar sentiment from members of the local media as well.  Why is North Carolina in the business of owning liquor stores in the first place?  Why aren’t the ABC stores privatized like in most of the rest of the nation?  It seems pretty clear from the local toga party that having the state own and run these stores while also being responsible for policing them for corruption is a bit akin to the fox guarding the hen house, no?

A six panel jury ruled today in favor of a one Mr. John Long who had the unfortunate chance of becoming another in a long line of victims burned by York County Councilman Paul Lindemann (R-Fort Mill) .  Long performed more than $2600 worth of work on Lindemann’s Tega Cay home two years ago and never received payment for his services.  Unfortunately, the decision doesn’t force Lindemann to pay.  According to The Herald, it’s a judgment against him and will go on his credit report for the next ten years should he not pay Mr. Long what he is due.  Don’t you love how the justice system protects the frauds and the criminals?

So the big question is will Councilman Lindemann have the testicular fortitude to man up and pay Mr. Long for his labor?  I’m sure swindling the little guy will make a great addition to Lindemann’s “accomplishments” throughout his political career as he is campaigning for the State House.

Former Gov. Mike Easley failed to list income from the rental of his Raleigh home on at least three consecutive annual economic interest statements — a violation of state ethics laws.

The home on East Lake Drive was rented for $1,500 a month for three years while Easley served as governor. Concealing income or failing to fully disclose it on a Statement of Economic Interest is a misdemeanor. Providing false information is a felony.

Top state officials must complete the statements and submit them to the State Ethics Commission, which was created in 2007. Before that, officials submitted economic interest statements to the N.C. Board of Ethics.

The Carolina Journal

Mike Easley

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 8, 2010
Contact: Josh Kahn
(202) 225-2576

McHenry: Geithner Must Come Clean on AIG Actions

WASHINGTON – Congressman Patrick McHenry (NC-10) released the following statement on House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns’ (D-NY) decision to hold hearings on the growing American International Group (AIG) disclosure controversy.

McHenry earlier joined Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) in calling on Chairman Towns to hold a hearing and bring Secretary Geithner before the committee to testify.

“We owe it to taxpayers and investors to find out why Secretary Geithner pressured AIG to withhold important disclosures from the public, and what precisely he was trying to hide. When billions of dollars are funneled to foreign banks right out of taxpayers’ pockets, both Republicans and Democrats have a fiduciary duty to get to the bottom of it. I hope Secretary Geithner will choose to testify at the hearing voluntarily, but if he declines he must be subpoenaed and compelled to tell the American people the full story.”

###

Because I live in York County the notorious shenanigans of York County Councilman Paul Lindemann (R) have always been a favorite topic of disgust here at CPO.  Like many small men inflicted with delusions of grandeur, he never disappoints the media’s craving for that next raw, juicy story.  Yes, he’s about to do it again.  Paul Lindemann is diving head first into……


are you ready for this……


wait for it……


The man is going to run for the South Carolina State House.  Yes, it’s true.  His arrogance knows no boundaries.  It’s so thick it’s become a veil over his eyes cloaking reality. 

Who does he think is going to fund his campaign?  No donor with an ounce of integrity in just their pinky finger is going to allow themselves to come within a visible radius of this guy.  Who is going to put their money and reputation behind a candidate who will be annihilated with the resurgence of news stories covering his multiple DUIs, infractions of the law, thousand of dollars in bad checks, and lawsuits for not paying his employees?  Only someone lost in a Quixotic fog of pure fantasy would think they stand even the smallest morsel of a chance.  Why am I not surprised that Mr. Lindemann fits that bill?

Oh, what a year this will be.