Carolina Politics Online

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.

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.

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.

The issue of school diversity in North Carolina has gotten increased attention in the past few months.

Civil rights activists have alleged that resegregation is occurring in schools in Wayne and New Hanover counties. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board, which abandoned busing for diversity in 2002, is now reconsidering what role diversity should have in student assignments.

Last month, Perdue told the state’s legislative black caucus that North Carolina is in a “war” over resegregation. A spokesman said Perdue will sign into law the bill creating the study commission.

“Gov. Perdue firmly believes that children are better prepared when the community inside their school resembles the one outside,” said Mark Johnson, a spokesman for Perdue. “When they meet and make friends with people from different economic backgrounds, they learn that everybody doesn’t have the same experiences in life.”

But it’s the fight in Wake County that has drawn the most attention, both locally and nationally.

The News and Observer

Ah yes, Governor Bev Perdue, never missing an opportunity to latch onto deceptive identity politics.  As is typical of the aristocracy in Raleigh, the governor, like her imperial guard in the state assembly, thinks she knows what’s better for your children than you do.  Remember the rule of thumb of the ruling class in Raleigh:

You = Fumbling Neanderthal

State Lawmakers = Wise, Enigmatic Sages

They need to help you raise your children because if you do it all by yourself without the intervention of government your children may grow up to be polluted with your personal morals and values.

One of the last acts of the Democrat-controlled General Assembly was to create a legislative study commission charged with seeing whether diversity helps public schools and whether the state should help it along by changing the way schools are funded.

But supporters of the Republican school board majority in Wake County see the new drive as an attempt to bash the elimination of longstanding diversity efforts in the state’s largest school district.

State Democrats have used the Wake school controversy to mobilize their supporters. They insist the commission will conduct an honest study of the issue.

Claude Pope, chairman of the Wake County Republican Party, questioned how fair the commission will be considering that the 15 members will be appointed by Gov. Bev Perdue, state House Speaker Joe Hackney of Orange County and state Senate Leader Marc Basnight of Dare County. All three are Democrats.

Well that sure sounds like an “honest” study to me.  A 15 member committee appointed by three members of the same political party with the same agenda in mind.  No, there is no potential for bias there.  How silly for Mr. Pope to be concerned.

I am glad to see the Wake County School Board majority hold firm to their campaign promises and dismantle this antiquated, ill-functioning system.  All too often when the radical left erupts over something they don’t like, the moderates and the conservatives cave to them and run away with their tail between their legs.  The radical left has used the same playbook for decades:  kick, scream, and cry racism until they get what they want.  This time they may have come up against an impenetrable wall.

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.

I think most people would agree that there should be some common sense regulation on Wall Street to prevent another crash like we saw in 2008, but this financial bill produced by the Congress is nothing but another special interest ass kissing.  This bill is chock-full of provisions that have absolutely nothing to do with the financial crisis whatsoever.

Principal among them is a measure to make it easier for unions, environmental groups and other activist organizations that hold shares to put their representatives on the boards of directors of every corporation in the United States.

The so-called “proxy access” provision, which activist groups say they will use to try to improve oversight of corporate financial practices, has provoked a backlash from the Business Roundtable, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other major non-Wall Street business groups.

“This legislation includes provisions totally unrelated to the financial crisis which may disrupt Americas fragile economic recovery” and lead to increasing political battles in the boardrooms, said John J. Castellani, president of the roundtable.

So let me get this straight, we’re supposed to combat financial corruption by infiltrating it with union corruption? How are union and environmental activists sitting on boards of directors going to prevent another financial crash?  They don’t.  The Democrats are just throwing a bone to their base.

Other provisions of the financial legislation, which goes before the full Senate on Thursday for a vote and likely passage, favor Democratic constituencies directly by requiring banks and federal agencies to hire and do more business with them.

The bill would create more than 20 “offices of minority and women inclusion” at the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other government agencies, to ensure they employ more women and minorities and grant more federal contracts to more women- and minority-owned businesses.

The agencies also would apply “fair employment tests” to the banks and other financial institutions they regulate, though their hiring and contracting practices had little or nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis.

Another load of crap.  Again, what does this have to do with the financial crisis?  Not a damn thing.  This is nothing more than institutionalized racism.  Why do we need 20 more affirmative action offices?  Are there not enough already?  Why is it so hard for these buffoons to understand that they are never going to eliminate discrimination in our society if the government openly partakes in it?

The powerful new consumer protection agency that is the centerpiece of the reform bill also would provide substantial employment opportunities and funding for Democratic and social-activist groups such as the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), critics say.

The criminal organization ACORN was one of the players who had a hand in the crash from the very beginning.  They were one of the groups out there pressuring banks and mortgage brokers to lend to people who shouldn’t have qualified for mortgages in the first place, thus creating the crisis when they all started defaulting on their loans.

Like the corporate boardroom provisions, many of the activities within the reach of the new consumer agency had “absolutely nothing – zero – to do with the financial crisis,” Mr. Corker said. “But this has become a Christmas tree for those kinds of things, because people realize it’s something that’s going to pass.”

Need I say more?

Say that five times fast.

Beginning this fall, Outer Banks businesses in Currituck, Dare and Hyde counties will be required to bag customers’ purchases in recycled paper bags or, better yet, reusable cloth bags, under the General Assembly’s approved budget plan for the coming year.

Customers using reusable bags will be entitled to a cash refund worth the cost of the bags not used in the purchase.

The budget provision expands a plastic bag ban enacted last year, prohibiting major retailers from distributing lightweight plastic bags to their customers. The new provision will ban plastic bags of any weight — flimsy or not — from being used by any business on the barrier islands beginning on Oct. 1.

The Daily Advance

Guess who was the brainchild of this proposal?  You got it, Big Brother Marc Basnight (D-Manteo), President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina State Senate.  The man is on a roll, prohibiting everything in his path.

Now let me clarify something first.  I hate people who litter.  They get on my bad side really quick and if it were up to me I would make the fine for littering so painful that 99.9% of folks would never even consider doing it.  That doesn’t mean I support Herr Basnight in one of his many goosestepping proposals.

Do you know what this will accomplish?  It will add to the cost of business for all of those mom and pop market shops in the Outer Banks.  That’s all it will do.  It will not cut down on littering.  Why paper bags in the first place?  Why not ban plastic bottles from being sold?  Why not ban beer since people can just pitch their beer cans and bottles out the car and on to the side of the road?  I was just at the Outer Banks not that long ago and I didn’t even notice any litter problem to begin with.

Then there are the health issues.  Those recyclable shopping bags?  They’re a disco dance hall for germs.

Reusable shopping bags could be a threat to public health because they harbour potentially deadly food poisoning bugs, according to new research.

Tests on shoppers’ bags revealed half contained traces of E.coli, a lethal toxin which killed 26 people in Scotland in 1996 in one of the worlds worst food poisoning outbreaks.

Scientists also found many were contaminated with salmonella.

Researchers blame the fact that consumers do not realise reusable bags need to be washed regularly at high temperatures to kill off bugs deposited by raw meat packaging.

Telegraph

So we may have scores of people ending up in the hospital with E.coli, but at least we won’t have to worry about people littering with plastic grocery bags.  If you get sick, send your hospital to Big Brother Basnight.

Not surprisingly, the North Carolina State Senate almost unanimously decided that you can’t be trusted on how to spend your money.  They have to make that decision for you because they’re better and more intelligent than you.  The Senate passed Senate Bill 38, the companion to House Bill 80, to ban the continuation of Internet sweepstakes in North Carolina by a vote of 47 to 1.  The only member of the Senate that stood up for individual freedom was Senator Julia Boseman (D-Wilmington).

Raleigh – A vote of 63 to 45 in the House gave tentative approval Thursday to a measure that would dictate what children could have to drink in private child care facilities.

House Bill 1726

These dictates would include a prohibition against serving sugar-sweetened beverages to children of any age; a prohibition against serving whole milk to children two years of age or older; a prohibition against serving flavored milk to any child; an absolute daily limit of six ounces of juice for any child regardless of age or how long the child is cared for; and a prohibition against juice served in a bottle, regardless of age. Primary sponsors are Democratic Representatives Jennifer Weiss (D-Wake), Bob England (D-Rutherford), Marian McLawhorn (D-Pitt) and Doug Yongue (D-Scotland).

Lincoln Tribune

It’s the same mentality we saw last week with State Senator Marc Basnight regarding the Internet sweepstakes.  These self-appointed authoritarians think you are too stupid to properly take care of your family and therefore they will lay down rules on how to raise your children because they know better than you.  If this passes the Senate and gets signed by the governor somebody should sue because I think this is unconstitutional.

How long are you folks in North Carolina going to put up with this nanny state attitude from your state government?  These people are supposed to be preserving your liberty, not stepping on it.  Everyone that voted for this bill in the State House should be removed from office.

Every Democrat in the House voted for the bill with the exception of four who voted no, four who weren’t present, and the House Speaker Joe Hackney who didn’t vote.  The four no votes were State Representatives Kelly Alexander (Charlotte), Pryor Gibson (Wadesboro), Pricey Harrison (Greensboro), and Nick Mackey (Charlotte).  The four Democrats who weren’t present to vote were: Earline Parmon (Winston-Salem), Ronnie Sutton (Pembroke), Russell Tucker (Pink Hill), and Douglas Younge (Laurinburg).

Four Republicans also voted for this bill.  These authoritarians who think they can better raise your family than you can were: Larry Brown (Kernersville), Phillip Frye (Spruce Pine), Robert Grady (Jacksonville), and David Guice (Brevard)

Do you remember a month ago when I warned you about a piece of legislation called the Disclose Act?  Well, it passed the U.S.  House about an hour and a half ago.  Just to recap the dangers this bill presents:

The point of the legislation would be to force corporations sponsoring a political ad to disclose their identity, even to the extreme of the CEO having to appear at the end of the ad in a disclaimer.  However, it’s the more ominous language in the bill that has raised the eyebrows of those in the blogosphere and questioning if this legislation could unconstitutionally impact us as well.  The issue is with the language.

Under the bill, the F.E.C. would have the authority to require disclosures regarding the funding of “coordinated communications,” defined in the bill as “a publicly distributed or disseminated communication that refers to a clearly identified candidate for Federal office” and is publicly distributed or disseminated within four months prior to an election. In other words, political ads. And this bill would specifically target those paid for by someone or some entity other than the candidates.

The bill specifically exempts certain forms of media from being considered “coordinated communications” and regulated by it, but blogs aren’t specifically listed.

OpenCongress

And that is what is sounding the alarm.  Here is the language of the bill stating who exceptions apply to.

‘(4) EXCEPTION- The term ‘covered communication’ does not include—

‘(A) a communication appearing in a news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, unless such facilities are owned or controlled by any political party, political committee, or candidate;

There is no mention of blogs in the list of communication and there is no language specifically exempting the communication of a private individual like myself and others who write Web sites like this.

It’s uncertain if this bill will make it through the Senate. After all, as the saying goes the Senate is the place where legislation goes to die. If they do pass it then we have an open door to Stalinism right here in the United States.  Think it’s out of the question that the Federal government couldn’t abuse this law to shut down Web sites like this one and others that they feel are a threat to their power just like they do in countries like Iran, China, and Singapore?  Think again.

The following Congressmen from North and South Carolina voted for this bill today:

• Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
• David Price (D-NC-04)
• Larry Kissell (D-NC-08)
• Heath Shuler (D-NC-11)
• Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
• John Spratt (D-SC-05)
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)

The following members voted against the act to preserve freedom of speech:

• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01)
• Walter Jones (R-NC-03)
• Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05)
• Howard Coble (R-NC-06)
• Mike McIntyre (D-NC-07)
• Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
• Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
• Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)

Basnight said there is a role for government here.

“In society there is a point where law has to control the habits of people, Basnight said. “This is one of those times when you would certainly stop.”

The Times News

There you go.  Straight from the horse’s mouth.  That would be Marc Basnight, President Pro Tempore of the North Carolina State Senate and Senator Basnight’s words are as clear as a sunny day.  You and I and every other taxpayer in North Carolina are not smart enough to run our own lives.  We do not possess the gifted wisdom of he and his authoritarian, nanny stater compatriots.  Only they, the elected aristocracy, know what is best for us.

So what am I talking about?  Dreaded, sinful gambling…..  the Internet sweepstakes.

As the past week drew to a close, a Senate committee approved a bill carefully worded to ban the Internet sweepstakes games while leaving gaming devices at the Cherokee casino in western North Carolina and free promotional sweepstakes intact. The senators called a press conference to decry the Internet sweepstakes and make their intentions clear.

The Times News

Can’t have it!  Nope!  We can’t have grown adult men and women deciding to engage in gambling.  You think this is a free country or something?  What’s wrong with you?  This is the People’s Republic of North Carolina and the state legislature is the imperial guard.

Brad Crone, a lobbyist representing the sweepstakes industry, said that the action won’t be taken without a battle.

“The fight is on, there’s no doubt about that,” Crone said. “The sweepstakes operators are making a lot of phone calls.”

Crone said they’ll make the argument that banning Internet sweepstakes would hurt the economy.

There are 932 Internet sweepstakes operations in North Carolina, Crone said. In addition, some mom and pop convenience stores have sweepstakes machines.

“If you eliminate video sweepstakes, you’re going to eliminate 10,000 jobs,” Crone said.

Remind you of the smoking ban that shut down many of the hookah bars in the state?  Guess what, they’re about to strike again.  The elected members of the North Carolina state assembly, the very people who are supposed to be advancing and protecting the freedom and liberty of the residents of this state, are about to shut down more businesses and destroy the livelihood of their people.

Sheriffs and police chiefs spoke, as did the Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina. Creech said that church members across the state would be galvanized to call their legislators and ask them to support the ban.

Ah yes, the Christian Action League, trying to save our souls.  Hell fire, Zeke!  We can’t have these sinful temptations polluting the minds of God’s children!  You must repent!  Send us your money now!  Rev. Creech needs a new Cadillac.

Senate President Pro-tem Marc Basnight, D-Dare, questioned where the money was coming from to pay the business operators.

“It comes from that community of people that can least afford to pay,” Basnight said. Then that results in a greater demand on government social networks, Basnight said.

Suddenly Senator Basnight is concerned about the state’s finances.  How odd.  Mr. Basnight hasn’t exactly been a great steward of public tax dollars.  He also presents a false dichotomy.  He says we have only two choices, either we ban Internet sweepstakes so people use less government welfare or we allow it to continue resulting in the poor requiring more government welfare.  He never considers the idea that maybe the government shouldn’t be in the process of providing these people with freebies paid for by you and me in the first place!  That they should actually be responsible for themselves doesn’t even cross his mind.

Chase Brooks, owner of some these Internet sweepstakes businesses, is fighting this and rightly so.  His livelihood depends on it.  I sure hope he has better luck than Adam Bliss did.

HEALTH-CARE MANDATE: Voting 187 for and 230 against, the House on June 15 defeated a GOP bid to use HR 5486 (above) as a vehicle for repealing the new health law’s requirement that individuals who can afford it obtain medical insurance either at work or in a state-run exchange. The purpose of the individual mandate is to hold down everybody’s health costs by establishing the largest possible pool of insured persons. Critics say the mandate is oppressive because those without coverage will face financial penalties. At least 20 states have filed suits challenging the requirement.

The Herald-Journal

The Democrats in Congress continue to sustain the unconstitutional health insurance mandate that President Obama said during his campaign he would never support and criticized both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards for proposing such an idea.  Another one of this long list of lies.  With the exception of Congressmen Mike McIntyre (NC-07) and Heath Shuler (NC-11), every Democrat in both North and South Carolina voted to keep this oppressive and un-American mandate in place.

Every Republican voted against keeping the mandate with the exception of three who were not present to vote:  Henry Brown (SC-01), Gresham Barrett (SC-03), and Bob Inglis (SC-04).  I imagine Barrett and Inglis were too busy trying to save their political asses while Brown, well, he is retiring so maybe he just doesn’t give a damn anymore.

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.

African hair braiders in North Carolina will soon need a license to practice their craft.

As of July 1, North Carolina will become the 18th state to require women to carry a license to braid hair.

Braiders have a year — until July 1, 2011 — to take a written and practical exam administered by the North Carolina Board of Cosmetic Art Examiners. Those who fail must spend 300 hours and thousands of dollars at a cosmetology school to relearn a skill most braiders mastered as young children.

Anyone trying to enter the field after July 2011 will have to take the 300 class hours, without the opportunity to test out.

One problem: the vast majority of hair braiders emigrated from West Africa, and most can’t read or write English. Moreover, traditional African hair braiders do not use chemicals, so they say there’s no need to provide instruction on hygiene and other safety concerns that do not apply to their skills.

The Carolina Journal

Wow. Thank goodness the ever-watchful eyes of the N.C. State government will protect my delicate follicles from the scourge of unlicensed hair braiders.  To think that these people have been running around, free, to braid the hair of willing paying customers without so much as a government say-so? Terrifying.

N.C. will certainly be much safer now. They’ll be a lot fewer hair-braiding businesses and the prices will skyrocket to pay for the new regulations… but that’s the price me all have to pay for safety, right?

The council is considering two changes to the city’s existing ordinance that deals with graffiti. One change would prevent minors from possessing spray paint; another would prevent stores from selling spray paint to minors.

Minors, according to the proposal, are anyone ages 11 to 18.

The city has, since 2008, had an ordinance that defines graffiti and requires property owners to clean graffiti from their buildings. City Attorney Angela Carmon said the city has been exploring the possibility of adding to that ordinance for the last six months. The proposed changes debated last night are modeled after ordinances in Statesville, Chicago Heights, Ill., and Los Angeles County in California.

Winston-Salem Journal

Does anybody think this will actually work?  Other cities have imposed these bans, but what were the results?  One London, Ontario business owner says his city’s ban was completely ineffective.  I would tend to agree with that.  Nothing is stopping a 17 year old kid with a car to drive outside Winston-Salem and buy some spray paint if he and his friends want to graffiti some buildings that badly.  I understand the frustration of  the people having to constantly clean it up off of their businesses, but I don’t think going this route will change anything.  Is the City of Winston-Salem expecting clerks at The Home Depot to check IDs of spray paint purchasers like we do with alcohol?  It sounds a bit ridiculous.

If I were a business owner that was having this problem I’d install security cameras, even if it doesn’t actually work.  Hell, use a fake camera.  The mere presence of it alone might be a deterrent.  If not, actually set it up to record and take the tape to the police and hopefully they can find the perpetrator, fine his parents, and then make the kid clean it up and send him to juvy for a week.  Start a coordinated effort between the community and the police to stop it.  What this really comes down to is a parenting problem.

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

Every once in while, Bane Windlow and I zero in on a politician we really don’t like and take them to task. Bane’s favorite targets are Paul Lindeman and Jake “The Fat Man” Knotts, both of whom are very deserving of as much wrath as we can direct their way.

I haven’t been as selective. Richard Stevens and “Fatty” Fletcher Hartsell stuck out as pretty damn pro-government when I did “Dead Republican Walking” during the last session of the N.C. General Assembly. But I didn’t really concentrate on them so much as RINOs and government-lovers in general.

Well, that’s gonna change. I now have a new target- a new object of my affliction, if you will. And ohhhh… what a juicy, fun-to-pick-apart object this little runt is going to be.

And I will pick him apart. If I have to spend my own money to go to Stanly County and look up everything this self-important little twerp has ever done or forgotten he has done, I will. And I will post it here.

Hello St. Rep. Justin Burr (R-Albemarle)- you and I are about to become very, very close, because I have decided to take a special, personal interest in your political career.

L'il Prince Chucklehead

Burr (no relation to the senator) is just 25 years old, or old enough to think he knows everything despite knowing very little. He has been in the legislature since 2009. He defeated an appointed Republican incumbent in the 2008 primary. Funny enough, Bane Windlow actually endorsed Burr back then, but that’s OK. Burr campaigned as a strong conservative and a fresh young face, despite the fact that he was actually a scrawny statist douche who has since let his true colors shine through.

So, why the playa-hatin’? Read on.

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Adam Bliss is the former owner of Hookah Bliss, a hookah bar in Chapel Hill, N.C.

I say “former owner” because sadly, despite a valiant fight to stay open in the face of N.C.’s smoking ban, Adam’s business closed at the end of April. He lost his business, his job, and his entire life savings.

I sat down with Adam Wednesday night at Prince Hookah in Raleigh and interviewed him while puffing on a a delicious apricot flavored hookah. Oh yes… didn’t you know? There are still hookah bars in N.C. They just aren’t allowed to sell anything other than hookah. Way to crack down, smoking nazis!

Every person who even slightly loves freedom, and appreciates what it means to live in America, should be outraged by what happened to this man. Try telling Adam that your supposed “health rights” give you permission to take away his rights to live the American Dream.

CPO thanks Mr. Bliss for his time, and encourages you to get really pissed off about this.

Interview below the fold…

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