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.

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.

Rock Hill solicitors plan to rewrite a city law that allows police to arrest someone for not obeying commands such as “stop” and “cross the street” without a reason – an ordinance that recently was challenged as a violation of residents’ constitutional rights.

Assistant Solicitor Paula Knox Brown said she and fellow city prosecutors agree with some of the weaknesses in the “resisting police” law, pointed out by B.J. Barrowclough, deputy public defender for York County, as violating a citizen’s First and Fourth Amendment rights.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits laws that infringe on the freedom of speech and assembly; the Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Herald

Why did those numb skulls on the City Council pass a law like that in the first place?  Are we living in the Soviet Union?  Policemen are human and with power comes largely inflated egos.  They don’t have the right to simply order you around, although some seem to think so.  The Constitutional ramifications of such a broad and vague ordinance should have been more than obvious when it was written in the first place.

The commander of the N.C. Highway Patrol, Col. Randy Glover, has resigned.

A statement released by the office of Gov. Bev Perdue says she accepted Glover’s resignation Friday about noon.

Glover, who Perdue named as the new commander in August, has been under fire over repeated cases of misconduct involving state troopers.

The News and Observer

Corruption?  Malfeasance?  Miscreants in the State Highway Patrol?  Surely not in North Carolina.

The Highway Patrol’s reputation as the state’s most elite law enforcement agency has been tarnished in recent years by embarrassing reports of trooper misconduct, with many of the incidents involving male troopers and women. Recent problems include a major who resigned after sending sexually explicit text messages; a captain fired for drunken driving; a sergeant fired for abusing his canine partner; a master trooper who resigned after a charges of drunken driving and felony hit and run; and others dismissed or forced to resign for shooting a cat, lying in court and being investigated in the sexual assault of a motorist.

In the news conference last week, however, Glover blamed intense media scrutiny for public perception that the patrol is troubled.

Oh see, that’s no big deal.  It’s just the media having the gosh darn nerve to report about it.  The highway patrol is in no way troubled.  This is perfectly normal, every day behavior in the state police departments across the country.  Nothing to see here, folks.  Move along.

Morgan Bruce Reeves, Green Party and United Citizens Party nominee for governor, faced nine charges in the 1990s, ranging from passing fraudulent checks to driving under suspension and with no insurance.

Reeves also was charged with assault and battery in May 1998, though that charge was dismissed.

Reeves said Monday that he never has claimed to be perfect, and that his past misdemeanors should not affect how voters see him.

“I have nothing in my past to be ashamed of,” he said. “I’m not lily white. I want people to know me as a man who has been through something.”

Reeves first was arrested and convicted on two fraudulent check charges in 1993, according to State Law Enforcement Division records. A day after his assault and battery arrest in 1998, he also was charged with several driving offenses, including driving under suspension, failing to register a vehicle, failing to return a suspended driver’s license and operating an uninsured vehicle. He also was arrested on another fraudulent check charge in 1998.

The Post and Courier

I’m not exactly sure how we can trust someone who can’t follow the law himself to hold the highest government position in the state and be the top lawmaker.  Then again, Tim Geithner cheated on his taxes and the president made him head of the IRS, so maybe it’s not such a crazy idea after all.

CHARLESTON, S.C. South Carolina spends $7.4 million keeping 119 of the state’s most dangerous sex offenders locked up after their prison sentences have finished.

Lawmakers told The Post and Courier of Charleston the money is well spent even in tough budget times and the program isn’t in danger because it has broad public support.

Charlotte Observer

If we did things my way we wouldn’t need to worry about this.  I have stated before that I think rapists and child molesters should be executed.  These people have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to live among the rest of us in society because they are a danger.  We’re spending millions of dollars a year on incarcerating these people when that money could be better spent.

Former sheriff candidate David Morrow was indicted for felony assault on a legislator and misdemeanor assault on a female, according to the Cleveland County Clerk’s Office.

Witnesses say Morrow, who recently lost the Republican nomination for Cleveland County Sheriff, threw a dozen or more ink pens at N.C. Sen. Debbie Clary on May 10 as a guest from Raleigh spoke from the commissioners’ chambers.

Two of the pens “struck her in the face,” according to a Shelby Police report obtained by The Star.

The Star

The General Assembly is currently considering HB1403, “Collecting DNA Sample on Arrest,” sponsored by Reps. Wil Neumann (R-Gaston), Pearl Burris-Floyd (R-Gaston), Darrell McCormick (R-Yadkin) and Thom Tillis (R-Mecklenburg). The bill would establish a database of DNA samples – the unique, identifying genetic make-up of an individual – collected at the time suspected felons are arrested. This legislation must be considered philosophically with careful examination of the struggle between liberty and security.

Inevitably, this legislation will cause debate within the conservative movement. Libertarian-leaning conservatives will note potential civil liberties violations while other conservatives will highlight the crime and punishment aspects of the legislation. The debate within the movement is mirrored within the walls of the Civitas Institute…

Civitas

Civitas may be debating it, but I’m not. If I haven’t been convicted of anything, they’ll have to taze me unconscious before anyone from the government gets an iota of my DNA. If I am indeed innocent until proven guilty, which I believe is an important part of American jurisprudence, then my DNA is too.

If you mange to convict me of something, then you can have it. Not before.

The S.C. Supreme Court today unanimously ruled Myrtle Beach’s motorcycle helmet law is invalid because it is superseded by state law.

But also, the court said it found the city impliedly repealed the law itself when it repealed its own administrative court ordinance after the court’s chief justices opined that was unconstitutional.

The Sun News

FORT MILL — A lawsuit against York County Councilman Paul Lindemann was decided with a judgment ordering Lindemann to pay $14,800 to plaintiff Diane O’Brien.

Lindemann said he has not been following the case and was not aware the judgment had been handed down in May.

O’Brien has not been repaid, and the judge ruled that Lindemann owes O’Brien an additional $4,800, to cover interest and attorney fees.

The Herald

No Paul.  Of course you aren’t aware of the judgment.  Of course you haven’t been paying attention to a lawsuit in which you could be forced to pay out thousands of dollars.  Who pays attention to stuff like that?

“I’ve never not paid someone back and I’m not going to start. I can’t help the bad economy,” Lindemann said.

That’s right.  Paul has never not paid anybody back except for John Long, who had to sue Lindemann to get the money owed to him, or former Congressman Tom Tancredo who had to call the York County Sheriff after the check Lindemann gave him for a few thousand dollars bounced.  Then there was Virginia Faircloth who Lindemann wrote a bad check to from a closed account in the amount of $4,230.  And we can’t forget the $10,000 check bounced to Winthrop University.  Nope.  He’s never not paid anybody back.  He gets around to it…. eventually.

“There’re under [a non-disclosure agreement], so I can’t talk about them, but I’ve got one deal going that could pay everyone back in one fell swoop.”

He’s got a deal going on.  I wonder if it’s anything like the deal he had with Advantage Financial.  I’m pretty sure everybody in York County has had enough of Mr. Lindemann’s “dealing.”  Hopefully, Paul will lose today’s election and then go crawl in a hole and stay there.

ASHEVILLE — Attorney Max Cogburn Jr. was nominated by President Barack Obama for a lifetime appointment as a federal judge.

If confirmed by the Senate as a U.S. District Court judge for the Western District of North Carolina, Cogburn would replace Lacy Thornburg, who retired in August after 14 years on the bench.

U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., recommended Cogburn, a former magistrate judge and assistant U.S. attorney, to the White House in October.

“I am thrilled that President Obama has nominated Judge Cogburn to serve as District Court judge for the Western District,” Hagan said.

“I recommended Judge Cogburn because of his distinguished record as a jurist and attorney in both the public and private sectors.

“He has the skills and expertise that this important position requires, and I am working with my colleagues to ensure he is quickly confirmed.”

Asheville Citizen-Times

I really haven’t been able to find much out there about Cogburn, just some of his campaign donations.  He has donated several thousand dollars to the North Carolina Democratic Party, Congressman Heath Shuler, Senator Kay Hagan, and John Edwards’ Presidential campaign.

The Mitchell Law group which represents 8th District Republican Congressional candidate Tim D’Annunzio has sent a letter to North Carolina GOP Chairman Tom Fetzer telling him to retract his statements regarding D’Annunzio or face a possible $5 million libel lawsuit.  Below is the letter which was posted on ConservativeNC.

Dear Mr. Fetzer:

As you may know, this firm serves as counsel and represents Mr. Tim D’Annunzio.

Mr. D’Annunzio is deeply saddened by and concerned about the recent defamatory statements and allegations you have made including the assertion that Mr. D’Annunzio is “unfit for public office.” He demands retraction.

Certainly, you and Mr. D’Annunzio have had differences. Mr. D’Annunzio has opined that you have, as the Chairman of the North Carolina Republican party, (1) sought to control him and to compel him to act as you direct, and (2) been angered and upset by Mr. D’Annunzio’s independence, affiliation with “Tea Party” voters, and his unwillingness to be required to submit to you and others in your “political oligarchy,” which he believes will do nothing more than maintain the status quo within the Republican party and compromise the conservative values he holds.

Now, Mr. D’Annunzio believes that you have unfairly personally attacked and assailed him and improperly and inequitably used your power and position in an effort to harm him by making deliberately, intentionally, and maliciously disparaging comments concerning him.

Mr. D’Annunzio is considering filing a civil law suit against you in which he would seek damages in excess of five million dollars ($5,000,000.00) caused by your comments, which resulted in matters from his youth and allegations from a divorce which occurred fifteen years ago being used to impugn Mr. D’Annunzio and to hold him up to ridicule, harming him in his campaign, his business and professional life, and causing great pain and anguish to his family.

As you know, Mr. D’Annunzio maintains his commitment to fundamental constitutional values. Yet, he also maintains that the utterances and publications that you have made individually and in confederation with others are not entitled to constitutional protection. As the North Carolina Courts have said:

At the time the First Amendment was adopted, as today, there were those unscrupulous enough and skillful enough to use the deliberate or reckless falsehood as an effective political tool . . . . That speech is used as a tool for political ends does not automatically bring it under the protective mantle of the Constitution. For the use of the known lie as a tool is at once at odds with the premises of democratic government and with the orderly manner in which economic, social, or political change is to be effected. Calculated falsehood falls into that class of utterances which are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.

Your statements, asserting that Mr. D’Annunzio has not overcome his mistakes, that there is no healing or redemption for those who erred more than 15 years ago in a divorce situation, and that the errors that he made as a juvenile, continue so as presently and always to “disqualify him… from serving [in any] elected office,” are false. This falsity and the structure and form of the statements are such as to cause a hearer or observer of those words to believe erroneously that Mr. D’Annunzio has not overcome, as he has, those difficulties of his past, and that he is not putting the past behind him, learning from it, and moving forward — looking to move this state, this district, and this nation forward, overcoming its own adversities.

In an effort to apply those principles of learning, healing, and overcoming and to move forward, Mr. D’Annunzio is willing to resolve this matter in much the same way as you resolved a civil matter in which you believed you were unfairly cast in a negative light. That is, Mr. D’Annunzio is willing to waive his right to sue, provided that you retract your negative declarations, you issue a letter of apology, and you agree to resolve this matter in a civilized and proper manner.

We will expect your response no later than June 7, 2010. In any event, please accept this notice and demand that retraction is sought.

Sincerely,

The Mitchell Law Group

Police conducted the checkpoint Wednesday and issued 53 citations, arrested six people and towed four vehicles, Bertang said. The following are the total number of citations and violations police found during the checkpoint:

19 driver’s license violation

The Sun News

Boy, I don’t know about you, but I sure am glad the Myrtle Beach police violated the civil rights of 728 people with their Gestapo-like checkpoint in order to take down all of those “violent” and “dangerous” criminals.  I mean 11 people without their insurance card?  Thank God the boys in blue are protecting us from them.  Tax dollars well spent.

Two weeks ago I brought up the nefarious affair of Advantage Financial, a company formerly located in Fort Mill’s Baxter Village.  The owners, Craig Richards and Thomas Brandenburg, were bilking investors out of six figures by placing money meant for escrow into their operating account and using those funds to live it up large.  I decided to discuss this sordid scam because where there is corruption in Fort Mill, there is York County Councilman Paul Lindemann.   Shocking, I know.

It has come to light that Councilman Lindemann was the beneficiary of a few wine and dine trips to Atlantic City and Miami paid for Advantage Financial. Lindemann insists he was completely unaware of the scam Advantage Financial was running or that his leisure trips were actually paid for by people like Wink Rea, one of Advantage Financial’s victims.

Some of that money was spent on trips that York County Councilman Paul Lindemann took with Brandenburg and Richards, including a trip to Miami and one to Atlantic City. But Lindemann said he didn’t know then that the money came from escrow payments.

“I feel bad that they were spending other people’s money,” said Lindemann, a Fort Mill resident. “They had been lying to everybody.”

Lindemann said he and Greg Rogers, former partners in Pinecrest Holdings, an investment company, were contracted by Advantage Financial to recruit business for the company. Rogers also lives in Fort Mill and is an appointee to the York County Economic Development Board.

Brandenburg and Richards claimed the trips were for recruiting business, Lindemann said, and that he was brought along on the trips to help with public relations and marketing Advantage to clients he was trying to recruit for the firm.

The Herald

Like I said two weeks ago, I’m not accusing Lindemann of knowing about the criminal dealings of Advantage.  I just find it interesting that where there is bad money changing hands he always seems to be an arm’s length away.

By the way, the election is in eleven days.

Republicans say that trial lawyers are abusing a law passed last year by the General Assembly aimed at reducing racial bias in death penalty cases, and they plan to introduce legislation this session to change it.

The Carolina Journal

Trial lawyers? Misusing something? Noooooooo.

The Racial Justice Act, HB 461, gives accused murderers the right to appeal their capital sentences on the basis that race “was a significant factor in decisions to seek or impose” the death penalty. The House and Senate passed the bill along partisan lines and Gov. Bev Perdue signed it into law in August.

At a press conference Thursday morning, Republicans made their case to revamp the act. Rep. Thom Tillis of Mecklenburg County said that defense attorneys are using the law to assert racial discrimination before a trial even starts.

The revision, he said, would prevent defendants from making appeals under the law until after a jury had issued a sentence.

Passed along partisan lines, huh? Since the Republicans are bitching about this, how about they start by bitching to the liberals in their own ranks who succumbed to race-baiting. They are:

State House
None

State Senate
Austin Allran
Stan Bingham
Harry Brown
Debbie Clary
Fletcher Hartsell
Jim Jacumin
Jean Preston
Richard Stevens

Senate Bill 1557, the Preserving Public Access to Cape Hatteras Beaches Act of 2009, was sponsored by Senator Richard Burr last August in order to reinstate off road vehicle use on the Hatteras seashore.  The Defenders of Wildlife and the National Audubon Society sued the state in 2007 to prevent such access until a management plan has been devised as required by an Executive Order issued by President Richard Nixon in 1972. A lot of recreational use of the beaches has been prevented since the lawsuit three years ago and it has apparently upset some of the locals.

There you go!  Did I not friggin say this was going to happen?  Did I not say it???

The trial of a man accused of killing two Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers is postponed, a judge decided Thursday.

Demeatrius Montgomery is charged with shooting officers Sean Clark and Jeff Shelton in April 2007.

The trial won’t begin until fall.

The judge said the trial won’t begin until a study about the North Carolina Racial Justice Act is completed. The study focuses on whether African-Americans are put to death more often than whites. It will be completed in August, and then there will be a hearing in September about Montgomery facing the death penalty.

North Carolina’s Racial Justice Act, which was signed into law last August, allows people facing murder charges and death-row inmates to try to show that racial bias is related to the decision to seek or impose the death penalty.

WSOC

This is exactly why there are people out there who take the law into their own hands to dispense justice, because you can’t get any in North Carolina.  This guy murdered two Charlotte police officers three years ago and he might get his life spared, why?  Because he’s black.  That’s right.  North Carolina over the past century has executed too many black people and the newly passed Racial Justice Act says that if too many black people have been executed compared to white people then you can’t stick a needle in the man’s arm and end it. Nope, he instead gets to live his life, unlike the men he killed, and all on your dime.  What kind of asinine boob would vote for something like that?  Your Democrat Governor Bev Perdue and your Democrat controlled state legislature, that’s who.

The State of North Carolina should be taken to court over that law to have it overturned because it’s racially discriminatory.  Ah, but that’s ok, because it’s not discriminatory against the right people, you see.

Demeatrius Montgomery should already be pushing up daisies.  For three years his lawyers have been using every stalling tactic they can come up with to keep pushing this man’s ultimate destiny further and further off.  The members of the state legislature who voted to pass the Racial Justice Act should be forced to stand before the families of the slain officers, Sean Clark and Jeff Shelton, and explain to them why their killer may now not be brought to the appropriate justice he deserves.

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

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