Carolina Politics Online

Rep. Joe Wilson acknowledged Tuesday that he’s under investigation by the House ethics committee for his use of travel funds while on at least one congressional trip to Afghanistan.

Wilson, a South Carolina Republican in a tough re-election fight with Democrat Rob Miller, said the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct — the official name of the ethics panel — is looking into his purchase of six goblets for $12 while in Afghanistan in August 2009.

“As a member of the House Armed Services Committee visiting troops in Afghanistan, Wilson was provided $13 a day for travel expenses,” said Pepper Pennington, his congressional spokeswoman.

“Wilson purchased six small tokens of his appreciation — under $2 each — for Afghanistan (war) veterans and their families,” Pennington said.

McClatchy

Oh, puh-leeeeze.  12 stinking dollars?  When I first saw the title of this very biased “Pravda” article “‘You lie’ Rep. Joe Wilson probed for use of travel expenses” I thought I was actually going to read about real abuses of travel expenses, like $100,000 flights for him and 60 of his friends and stays at 5 star resort hotels, because we all know that never happens…..

Do you know what this is?  This is the Ethics panel opening up an investigation over $12 as vengeance against him for shouting “You lie!” during the state of the union address earlier this year.  They want to try to damage his reputation right before the election to help Miller’s Congressional run against him.  And why else would McClatchy even take time writing an article on it unless they were going to point out the absurdity of the whole thing?  Those people really do deserve to be labeled state run media.   What a pathetic waste of time and resources.

Miller, a former Marine Corps captain who served in Iraq, has called Wilson’s trips to Afghanistan junkets

Naturally, because everyone knows that Afghanistan is on the top of everyone’s list of vacation hot spots to throw away money on luxurious junkets.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr on Saturday urged Charlotte-area Republicans to “mobilize an army” to change the direction of the country from Washington “to the courthouse.”

“We have a tremendous opportunity in 2010 not just at the federal level to have a change in direction but in the state … all the way down to the courthouse,” he told more than 200 people at a GOP rally in east Charlotte.

Charlotte Observer

It’s difficult for me to take Richard Burr seriously when he calls for change in Washington.  Granted the deficits we are now seeing dwarf any of Bush’s deficits, but in Bush’s day the deficits he ran up were historical at the time as well.  Where was the call from Richard Burr to control spending when his own party controlled the purse strings?  It’s funny how politicians suddenly have a change of heart about the issues when the opposition is in control.

North Carolina’s big win Tuesday in the federal “Race to the Top” competition will bring up to $400 million to the state and an era of new approaches to public education.

The state’s education community cheered the announcement by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan that North Carolina was among 10 winners in the latest round of coveted grants to spur classroom innovation. The others were the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Rhode Island.

In its proposal seeking the $400 million over four years, North Carolina aimed to raise student test scores, boost high school graduation rates and better prepare students for careers and college work.

The News and Observer

Congratulations to North Carolina for seeing educational improvements.  There is certainly nothing wrong with that.  What I don’t understand however, is if the state is so successful in improving education, what the heck do they need another $400 million in Federal tax dollars thrown in their direction for?  Obviously, they have demonstrated they can realize improvements in educational performance without suckling even more cash from the government tit.

The State of North Carolina spends an average of $122,478 per student from the time they enter Kindergarten until they graduate from high school.  You break that down over 13 years and it’s a cost of $9,422 per student per year.  That’s a lot of money.  Are you telling me that $9400 isn’t more than adequate to properly educate someone’s child for nine months out of the year?

The three main components are: money to recruit and retain quality teachers and administrators; a turnaround plan for low-performing schools, and handheld devices that would allow teachers to continuously track students’ progress.

The average high school teacher in Mecklenburg County earns a salary of $74,654 a year which includes the cost of benefits.  That’s pretty nice for a job that gives you most of the summer off.  How much more money is needed to retain quality teachers?

When I was a kid my teachers taught us with a textbook, a chalk board, a Xerox machine, and an occasional VHS cassette.  Hell, going all the way back to my grammar school days we didn’t even have VHS players available.  I remember watching film strips and some of my teachers running off assignment worksheets on ditto machines, the fumes of which could supposedly make them high.  Now, I am not opposed to investing in modern technology like computers and Internet, but do teachers honestly need to have a “hand-held device” to monitor performance?  Excess is fine when you can afford it, but a nation with a national debt over $13 trillion can’t afford anything.

And then of course this brings me back to the old Constitutional argument I have brought up many times noting that the Federal government is not Constitutionally permitted to even be involved in education.  Nowhere in the document does it grant them that authority.  Therefore, all of these education mandates like No Child Left Behind and all of these grant dollars shouldn’t even be allowed to happen in the first place.

Hundreds of Mecklenburg workers whose paychecks depend on federal stimulus money could be out of a job next month, county officials and employers say.

Local companies have hired 415 temporary employees this year through a government program that pays workers’ wages. But the program is set to expire Sept. 30 unless the U.S. Senate votes to extend it.

While some of the new workers have been offered permanent jobs, others will rejoin the ranks of the unemployed once funding runs out.

Charlotte Observer

I thought we needed to pass the porkulus bill last year so that we could get below 8% unemployment.  I thought this was going to be the summer of recovery.  You mean the trillions in borrowed Chinese money the Federal government  spent in order to save the economy didn’t work?  Gee, nobody saw that coming.

It seems the Republicans couldn’t manage an economy right.  The Democrats have demonstrated that they too are abject failures.  What’s a voter to do in November?  Oh that’s right, keep voting for the same two parties like always.  That will fix everything, while China meanwhile becomes the new world superpower.

Yep, you read the headline correctly. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the state’s premier insurance company, is requesting a premium hike for as much as 30% for some North Carolina residents.

The state’s largest health insurer plans to hit some members with sharp rate increases again next year, blaming changes from the health overhaul and rising medical costs.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina asked state regulators Thursday for permission to increase rates an average of 6.97 percent for its 300,000 individual members in the state. That’s the lowest proposed annual increase since 2007. About 28,000 people would see their rates decrease, including women in their early 20s.

But rates for some children, men and older members will increase 30 percent or more.

The News & Observer

Confused?  Are you asking yourself how this could happen?  I mean, we passed the health care bill.  It was absolutely dire we pass the health care “reform” bill to lower the cost of health insurance in this country, right?  Sure, if you were stupid enough to buy up that crap hook, line, and sinker.

It’s partly because of increasing medical costs and more people using expensive services, but also because the new federal health law is forcing changes such as eliminating annual or lifetime limits on coverage, expanding dependent care for children until age 26 and more, McDonnell said.

“With everything that’s been added, you can’t really expect costs to go down,” he said.

Get outta town!  You mean when we force insurance companies to cover people’s pre-existing conditions and do away with caps and make them cover their 26 year old “children” it’s going to cost the rest of us more, not less?  Like, real math at play here?

The rising rates will likely force more people in North Carolina to cut back on coverage or go without, said Adam Linker, a policy analyst with the N.C. Justice Center’s Health Access Coalition. And some of the additional “safety net” measures of the federal law won’t start until 2014, he added.

Ah, but you can’t go without!  That’ll be illegal!  Remember that whole individual mandate?  If you don’t purchase health insurance coverage the IRS will come knocking at your door.

Folks, the promises made by President Obama and his minions at the Kremlin was nothing but a ruse.  They knew this was going to happen.  They know you can’t throw 30 million people into the system and spend less money.  All of this was orchestrated.  The far left in this country has wanted a single payer universal health care system just like Europe for years and that is exactly the idea.  In passing ObamaCare, the Democrats have created a bureaucratic monster that will make health care so much more painful than it has been that they’re banking on the American people just throwing up their hands and crying to the government to fix “the fix.”  That fix will be single payer.  The government created the problem and they will use a socialist government solution to fix it.

The DNC and this administration knows that ObamaCare will not lower health care costs and that is why they are telling their members who are fighting for their reelections to no longer talk about the cost aspect of the health care bill, but instead use sympathetic, tear jerker stories of Tiny Tim who now, thanks to ObamaCare, can kick away that crutch and walk again.

The presentation’s final page of “Don’ts” counsels against claiming “the law will reduce costs and deficit.”

The presentation advises, instead, sales pitches that play on personal narratives and promises to change the legislation.

“People can be moved from initial skepticism and support for repeal of the law to favorable feelings and resisting repeal,” it says. “Use personal stories — coupled with clear, simple descriptions of how the law benefits people at the individual level — to convey critical benefits of reform.”

The presentation also counsels against the kind of grand claims of change that accompanied the legislation’s passage.

“Keep claims small and credible; don’t overpromise or ‘spin’ what the law delivers,” it says, suggesting supporters say, “The law is not perfect, but it does good things and helps many people. Now we’ll work [to] improve it.”

Politico

A majority of the country still opposes this bill so we have only two roads left to which we can turn.  One, we can rely on the Republicans to take over Congress and then the presidency by 2013 and repeal this disaster, but will they have the testicular fortitude to actually go through with it?  It’s hard to say.  Typically, they’re nothing but a bunch of gutless wonders.  The only other hope is that the Supreme Court strikes it down.  It should be struck down on Constitutional grounds, but their idea of what is and isn’t Constitutional these days is always a craps shoot.  Even if they find the mandate to be unconstitutional, which I think is the most likely result of these lawsuits, it doesn’t mean that the whole legislation will be voided.

Senator Kay Hagan, the lone Democratic Senator of the Carolinas voted for this train wreck, so be sure to call her office and let her know how you feel about it.  You can find the information here.

Kay Hagan is forced to go off-script and form her own thoughts and opinions. The results are not pretty.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is a taxpayer watchdog group that for years has been tracking and monitoring the wasteful spending being undertaken by our members of Congress. When I say waste I mean real waste, things that most all of us regardless of political ideology and views could likely agree on. Wasted spending like $1,454,000 for mosquito trapping research or $2,573,000 for potato research. Better yet, right here in our own backyard, UNC Charlotte received $762,000 for interactive dance software.

CAGW has a searchable database containing the 9,129 pork-barrel projects in the 2010 Congressional Pig Book. They also do a ranking of every member of Congress with a score of 100 indicating a taxpayer superhero and a score of 0 being a wasteful taxpayer abuser. Unfortunately, here in the Carolinas we have several big fat zeros. That list is below:

By a vote of 63 – 37 the U.S. Senate has confirmed Elena Kagan as the next Supreme Court Justice.  Kay Hagan and Lindsey Graham voted in favor of the nomination.  Richard Burr and Jim DeMint voted against confirmation.

The last thing American businesses need in this economy is to get smacked with a tax increase so that the Federal government can dole out more welfare money, but that is exactly what the U.S. Senate did today and Kay Hagan voted for it.

WASHINGTON—The Senate voted Thursday to approve a package of $26 billion in aid for state and local governments, funded partly by an $11 billion tax increase on U.S. multinational corporations.

In what was one of the final moves by the Senate before lawmakers depart Washington for the summer recess, Democrats were able to score a significant victory for a core constituency of their party: labor unions and public-sector workers.

But at the same time, they handed a hefty tax bill to U.S. companies with units overseas that have been able to pay a lower corporate income tax rate on profits derived from their foreign businesses.

The Wall Street Journal

You would think that in a state with double digit unemployment numbers the last thing Hagan would want to do is hinder further job growth, but she isn’t too bright on the economic side, is she.  The House still needs to pass this before it becomes law, but I don’t see any reason why they won’t.

That’s called sarcasm.  Of course the TSA lied.  The government always lies.  Remember how they said they weren’t going to be keeping the images of the naked body scans at the airport?  Evidently, someone has a fetish.

For the last few years, federal agencies have defended body scanning by insisting that all images will be discarded as soon as they’re viewed. The Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, for instance, that “scanned images cannot be stored or recorded.”

Now it turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images after all. The U.S. Marshals Service admitted this week that it had surreptitiously saved tens of thousands of images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.

This follows an earlier disclosure (PDF) by the TSA that it requires all airport body scanners it purchases to be able to store and transmit images for “testing, training, and evaluation purposes.” The agency says, however, that those capabilities are not normally activated when the devices are installed at airports.

CNET

See, no big deal.  That feature is normally not activated.  Wait a minute, what’s that you say?  They have over 35,000 saved nude images?

William Bordley, an associate general counsel with the Marshals Service, acknowledged in the letter that “approximately 35,314 images…have been stored on the Brijot Gen2 machine” used in the Orlando, Fla. federal courthouse.

Naughty, naughty.

Fortunately, a watchdog organization is not going to be caught with their clothes off.  The Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC (awesome name), is suing to stop the body scanner program.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction pulling the plug on TSA’s body scanning program. In a separate lawsuit, EPIC obtained a letter (PDF) from the Marshals Service, part of the Justice Department, and released it on Tuesday afternoon.

These “devices are designed and deployed in a way that allows the images to be routinely stored and recorded, which is exactly what the Marshals Service is doing,” EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg told CNET. “We think it’s significant.”

Mr. Orwell was ahead of his time, but not so much as to not be able to see what was coming.

With Congress gridlocked on an immigration bill, the Obama administration is considering using a back door to stop deporting many illegal immigrants – what a draft government memo said could be “a non-legislative version of amnesty.”

The memo, addressed to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas and written by four agency staffers, lists tools it says the administration has to “reduce the threat of removal” for many illegal immigrants who have run afoul of immigration authorities.

“In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, USCIS can extend benefits and/or protections to many individuals and groups by issuing new guidance and regulations, exercising discretion with regard to parole-in-place, deferred action and the issuance of Notices to Appear,” the staffers wrote in the memo, which was obtained by Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican.

The memo suggests that in-depth discussions have occurred on how to keep many illegal immigrants in the country, which would be at least a temporary alternative to the proposals Democrats in Congress have made to legalize illegal immigrants.

The Washington Times

I don’t take the idea of impeachment lightly, but if the Obama administration actually gives the nod on something like this then I consider that grounds for it.  As president he swore an oath to uphold the nation’s laws and he has a duty to the security of the nation.  Something like this clearly violates Federal laws in place to deal with illegal aliens and it puts American citizens at risk.

Oh and here is a shot of the protests in Phoenix two days ago with the Mexican flag waving around.

Griffith also cut an ad for Bev Perdue in the 2008 election and well, look how that’s turned out.

In fiscal crises in a number of countries around the world, investors have lost confidence in governments’ abilities to manage their budgets, and those governments have lost their ability to borrow at affordable rates. With U.S. government debt already at a level that is high by historical standards, and the prospect that, under current policies, federal debt would continue to grow, it is possible that interest rates might rise gradually as investors’ confidence in the U.S. government’s finances declined, giving legislators sufficient time to make policy choices that could avert a crisis. It is also possible, however, that investors would lose confidence abruptly and interest rates on government debt would rise sharply, as evidenced by the experiences of other countries.

Unfortunately, there is no way to predict with any confidence whether and when such a crisis might occur in the United States. In a brief (“Federal Debt and the Risk of a Fiscal Crisis“) released today, CBO notes that there is no identifiable “tipping point” of debt relative to the nation’s output (gross domestic product, or GDP) that would indicate that such a crisis is likely or imminent. However, in the United States, the ratio of federal debt to GDP is climbing into unfamiliar territory—and all else being equal, the higher the debt, the greater the risk of such a crisis.

Over the past few years, U.S. government debt held by the public has grown rapidly. According to CBO’s projections, federal debt held by the public will stand at 62 percent of GDP at the end of fiscal year 2010, having risen from 36 percent at the end of fiscal year 2007, just before the recession began. In only one other period in U.S. history—during and shortly after World War II—has that figure exceeded 50 percent.

Further increases in federal debt relative to the nation’s output almost certainly lie ahead if current policies remain in place. The aging of the population and rising costs for health care will push federal spending, measured as a percentage of GDP, well above the levels experienced in recent decades. Unless policymakers restrain the growth of spending, increase revenues significantly as a share of GDP, or adopt some combination of those two approaches, growing budget deficits will cause debt to rise to unsupportable levels

CBO Director’s Blog

The CBO paints a very grim picture for the future of our nation if the government doesn’t restrain itself from continuing to flush our money down the toilet like we have an endless supply of it.  We are headed into Greece territory in which we will collapse under our debt, but who will come to the aid of the U.S. to  bail us out??

Remember, this was a bipartisan ass raping in the making.  George W Bush took 200 years worth of Federal debt and doubled it in eight.  Now Obama has taken over and kicked debt spending up into hyperdrive.  The men and women in Congress have shamefully written these budgets without the slightest regard for what they are bringing upon us in the future and this year they didn’t even write a budget for the next fiscal year because they don’t want the American people to know right before the elections that next year’s budget will have over a trillion dollars in debt spending like this year’s.  Remember all of this when you go to vote in November.

Mount Pleasant — A group of 10 rallied Monday morning on Johnnie Dodds Boulevard to denounce Sen. Lindsey Graham for his support of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

Staff members from Operation Rescue-Insurrecta Nex, an organization that wants to make abortion illegal, stood outside in the heat for the “Beating, Burning and Hanging Lindsey ‘Benedict Arnold’ Graham in Effigy” protest.

“Lindsey Graham claims he’s a Christian, but he’s a traitor,” said Randall Terry, the group’s director. The protesters said Graham is using babies as part of his political game.

Graham’s office would not comment on the protests but said in a prepared statement that although he does not agree with Kagan’s legal or judiciary philosophies, Graham does think she is qualified, has good character and understands the difference between being a judge and politician.

The Post and Courier

An entire ten people?  Oh yeah, that must have really rattled ole Lindsey.  They sound like a bunch of kooks to me.  Graham is using babies as a political game?  Uh, how about looking at yourself in the mirror Mr Terry.  You sound like an idiot.

As I said before, there are certain battles you fight and others you don’t.  The Kagan nomination isn’t one of them.  The Democrats have 59 seats in the Senate, plus a few of the moderate Yankees who have already given Kagan their blessing, so the numbers are more than there for confirmation and they have enough to break a filibuster.  Attempting to filibuster Kagan would be absurd and it would only backfire on the Republican Party and the Democrats would undoubtedly return the favor the next time a Republican president nominates a Supreme Court justice.  If they want to vote against her in an up and down vote, that’s fine.

Kagan’s appointment to the court does not shift the balance.  She won’t be any more or less radical than her predecessor.  Those ten people have a right to have their protest, but they are just wasting their time.  They have zero chance of stopping the Kagan confirmation and Lindsey Graham doesn’t give a crap about their complaints.

A few days ago opponents of the climate change legislation affectionately known as Cap and Trade were rejoicing at the announcement from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) that the job killing, economy destroying proposal had been shelved.  Good news, yes?  Overall, sure.  Stagnation is certainly better than inching forward, however, for those who think it won’t be resurrected, think again.

U.S. Senator John Kerry said Democrats may take up his comprehensive climate-change bill in a lame-duck session after the November elections, while calling on President Barack Obama to escalate his advocacy for the measure.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday introduced a more limited energy bill that doesn’t include a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, citing the lack of support for a broader bill.

The bigger measure “is not dead,” Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing this weekend. “If it is after the election, it may well be that some members are free and liberated and feeling that they can take a risk or do something.”

Bloomberg

Ta-dah!  This year’s lame duck session has long been a fear of mine and I’m afraid that Senator Kerry (D-MA) is correct.  They could very well pass the bill after the November elections if they manage to peel away one Republican in the Senate to join them and give them the 60 votes they need to break a filibuster.  Our own Lindsey Graham right here in South Carolina has had his nose planted firmly up the behinds of Senators Kerry and Lieberman (I-CT) over this proposal.  Multiple polling of the issue has shown that the American people are pretty firmly against Cap and Trade, but the majority also opposed ObamaCare and that didn’t stop them from ramming it down our throats.

A poll recently commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute shows that 67% of North Carolinians oppose new taxes on the oil and natural gas industry. Of that 67%, 46% strongly opposed the idea.  That’s a solid rejection of what is trying to be pushed on us by those in the Federal government all in the name of a theory compromised by lies and distortions.

“Voters know raising taxes on an industry that provides most of their energy and supports more than 9.2 million jobs would hurt them and damage the economy,” said API President and CEO Jack Gerard. “Raising taxes doesn’t address their major concern, which is putting people back to work.”

Energy Tomorrow

It’s a boneheaded time to be pushing this kind of proposal onto the American people when unemployment is in the teens around the country.  Even if unemployment were at historic lows, Cap and Trade is a bad idea because it would have negative economical effects on our nation in order to satiate the appetites of those who believe in man made global warming, which I firmly believe is nothing but junk science.

Americans want a robust economy and replenished jobs and this is part of the reason why this current Congress is taking such a beating right now.  Instead of addressing the needs of their constituents, they are too busy quenching their own ideological thirsts.

Predictably, two amendments of Senator DeMint’s voted on in the U.S. Senate yesterday were rejected.  One would have barred the Obama administration’s ability to sue the State of Arizona over their illegal immigration crackdown law and the other would have permanently repealed the Estate Tax.

The illegal immigration amendment was defeated 55 to 43.  It would have barred funding for the Federal government to prosecute the law.  Democrat Kay Hagan voted against the amendment, while Republicans Lindsey Graham and Richard Burr, along with DeMint, voted for it.  A few Democrats from other states crossed over to support DeMint’s efforts, but not nearly enough and that was expected.  The left has been particularly outspoken against Arizona’s efforts to protect their state from the harm caused by mass illegal immigration.

Permanent repeal of the Estate Tax was nothing but a pipe dream and only 39 Senators voted in favor of it, about what I would expect.

The repeal movement has lost some steam in recent years as former enthusiasts in the business community have sought compromise with the Democratic majority on a plan that would lower the tax, not eliminate it.

But a core of groups representing small businesses and conservatives continue to push repeal, arguing that the tax is an unfair government intrusion and that it serves as a disincentive for individuals to build family businesses.

“What right does a government have to take someone’s property because they die?” DeMint said on the Senate floor.

NASDAQ

Great question, huh?  That is the one that has always rankled me.  Why is the government entitled to anybody’s property simply because they die?  It’s absurd.  The property should stay in the family where it rightfully belongs.  Family business owners and family farms get clobbered by this.  Just because one’s estate is valued at a few million dollars does not mean they are millionaires bathing in golden bathtub of 100 dollar bills.  Pieces of farm equipment can cost a few hundred grand alone and that is all added into the value of the estate.  It’s not uncommon for the children of a family farmer to have to sell off the farm in order to pay the inheritance taxes on the estate.

The Estate Tax is nothing more than another weapon used in the Marxist tactic of class warfare.  It was established by politicians seething with envy, jealousy, and greed.

The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday gave their approval to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. The vote in favor was 12-7 with every Democrat giving her the nod along with Lindsey Graham, the only Republican on the committee to do so. Graham is already getting massacred by the conservatives for his decision. He explains himself in the video below and I agree with him. Barack Obama is the president and he has the authority to pick whoever he wants. Personally, I don’t think Kagan should be on the court. She will not uphold the principles of limited government which were the foundation of the Constitution, but when people elected Obama that isn’t what they chose.

Furthermore, it makes no sense for Republicans to vote against Kagan or filibuster her. Even if they were to be successful in blocking her nomination, which they wouldn’t, Obama’s next nominee would be someone just as radical and we’d be playing through this whole political football all over again. Conservatives who also support a filibuster of Kagan should bear this in mind. If the GOP filibusters her, the Democrats will most certainly return the favor for the next Republican president.

Gee, nobody saw this coming.

The plans, being tested in places like San Diego, New York and Chicago, are likely to appeal especially to small businesses that already provide insurance to their employees, but are concerned about the ever-spiraling cost of coverage.

But large employers, as well, are starting to show some interest, and insurers and consultants expect that, over time, businesses of all sizes will gravitate toward these plans in an effort to cut costs.

The tradeoff, they say, is that more Americans will be asked to pay higher prices for the privilege of choosing or keeping their own doctors if they are outside the new networks. That could come as a surprise to many who remember the repeated assurances from President Obama and other officials that consumers would retain a variety of health-care choices.

The New York Times

Shocking, eh?  No, not that this is happening.  It’s shocking that there were people in this country stupid enough to actually believe the President’s lies about being able to keep their current health coverage and doctor.  As ObamaCare slowly unfolds more people are figuring out just how badly we got bent over by our “representatives” in D.C.  Oh, and let us not forget who it was that brought this on us by voting in favor of ObamaCare.

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

Naturally, the financial “reform” bill passed the Senate this afternoon.  There was no expectation for it not to once they had enough votes for cloture.  As I wrote earlier today, it’s a bad bill overall and contained many provisions that have absolutely nothing to do with protecting the financial markets, but promoting a leftist social agenda.

Kay Hagan (D) of North Carolina voted for the bill.  The three Republican Senators in the Carolinas:  Richard Burr, Lindsey Graham, and Jim DeMint voted against it.