Carolina Politics Online

Republican congressional candidate Harold Johnson today dismissed a poll done for his rival, Democratic Rep. Larry Kissell, calling it “a desperate move.”

The internal campaign poll, by the Democratic firm Anzalone Liszt Research, showed Kissell with a 17-point lead over Johnson and a wider spread over Libertarian Thomas Hill in the 8th District.

Kissell highlighted the poll in a fundraising letter last week.

“I’m putting no stock in it,” Johnson said today at a GOP rally in east Charlotte. “You can’t convince me that with the sentiment in this country … he’s got a 17-point lead.

Charlotte Observer

I don’t discount that Kissell may be leading Johnson, but Johnson is right.  There’s not a chance in hell it’s by 17 points, not in a Republican leaning district in a Republican leaning year.  This was an internal Democratic poll, so it’s not to be taken with more than a grain of salt anyway.

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.

As reported at WTVD-TV News 11 here in Raleigh, Pat McCrory is considering a run for governor in 2012. He is quoted that he will make a decision sometime next year.

McCrory says he’ll be making a decision on a possible run for governor sometime next year.

Pat McCrory was in Raleigh today trying to raise money to help Renee Ellmers defeat “I have you by the neck” Bob Etheridge- Democrat NC-2.

I have to say that early voting here in NC is critical and that every voter of any political leaning who wants some real change here in NC and nationally had better get to the polls.  Two more years of Obama and or Perdue will be a disaster PERIOD!

H/T to High Minded Commentary

RALEIGH, N.C. – A prestigious North Carolina private college cannot have police officers with the power to arrest suspects and enforce state law because the school is a religious institution, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel agreed that the state Attorney General’s Office shouldn’t have commissioned Davidson College officers as law enforcement with powers similar to city police or county sheriffs. An attorney familiar with the case said it may apply to other private colleges with religious affiliations.

Allowing the school’s security officers to carry out laws on behalf of the state violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against laws establishing religion by creating “an excessive government entanglement with religion,” Judge Jim Wynn wrote in the unanimous opinion.

The police power “is an unconstitutional delegation of ‘an important discretionary governmental power’ to a religious institution in the context of the First Amendment,” Wynn wrote before he left the state bench to join the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week.

Fox News

This has got to be one of the dumbest rulings I’ve seen in a long time and to make matters worse, one of these judges was just appointed and confirmed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.  Please explain to me how “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” translates into campus security cannot have the same police powers as other schools simply because it is a religious school.  This is the kind of bastardization of the Separation Clause that we’ve been seeing, mainly from far left judges, for almost a century now.  If this is the kind of Constitutional ignorance we can expect from the Dishonorable Judge Wynn on the Circuit Court then, no pun intended, God help us.

Both Senators Kay Hagan (D) and Richard Burr (R) were supportive of Wynn’s nomination to the 4th Circuit Court.

Six of nine members – board Chair Eric Davis and members Kaye McGarry, Tim Morgan, Joe White, Trent Merchant and Rhonda Lennon – said Tuesday their top priority is keeping kids close to home, with neighborhoods and school-feeder patterns united when possible.

The other three – Vice Chair Tom Tate, Richard McElrath and Joyce Waddell – said their top priority is balancing school poverty. But that came in third in overall rankings, behind neighborhood schools and keeping assignments stable and predictable. Effective use of buildings and buses was last on the list of four.

McElrath argued that students consigned to mostly black schools in impoverished neighborhoods face bleak academic prospects.

“The people who have always been at the bottom are still going to be at the bottom,” said McElrath. The vote signals that “the standard for CMS is segregation, and if you value diversity you can go to a magnet…if you’re lucky.”

Charlotte Observer

I am really sick and tired of poverty pimps like Richard McElrath claiming segregation and racism every time they don’t get their way.  Is anybody forced to move into the neighborhood they live in?  Were they told they had to live there?  No, so there is no segregation and people like McElrath have stripped the word of any meaning it once had because they throw it around like candy.

Neighborhood schools make sense.  A kid should be able to go to the school closest to his home, with his friends, with people he knows from his community and where it will be easier for his parents to be involved.  It’s plain, simple logic.

McElrath’s argument is that the schools in poor areas suck.  Well clean them up then!!  Isn’t that his job as a member of the Mecklenburg County school board?  What the hell is he sitting in that position for if he is going to ignore the disease causing the symptoms?  Get the trouble makers out of the school, the kids who keep causing trouble, dealing the drugs, doing the fighting, kick them out forever!  Expel them permanently!  What is so hard about this?  No amount of busing and reassigning kids to schools all over the county are going to become a substitute for poor parenting, Mr. McElrath, and that is what it comes down to.

These school board members moan and complain about these under performing schools but they rarely take any action to remove the students that are hindering the learning of all the others there.  Would they put up with that kind of behavior in their workplace?  Of course not, so why is it acceptable for our kids to have to deal with it?

I supported McElrath in his election against his predecessor because she was a radical loon and he seemed to be more sensible, but his comments are disappointing.

Charlotte City Council accepted a $25 million federal grant to start construction of a 10-mile streetcar line in a 6-5 vote Monday night after more than two hours of debate.

With that approval, council committed $12 million in matching funds as required under Federal Transit Administration rules. The agency awarded the grant to Charlotte earlier this month.

The vote means the city will move ahead with a $4.7 million contract with the North Carolina division of URS Corp. for the design and construction administration of the grant and for the design of a stormwater system along Trade Street.

Charlotte Business Journal

Now here is the really good part.

City Manager Curt Walton says the city has four fiscal years to figure out how to fund an estimated $1.5 million in annual operating costs for the streetcar.

They have no idea how they’re going to pay for it.  It’s bad enough that the city is going to take $12 million in city tax dollars in the middle of the worst recession in 80 years and use it for a completely voluntary expenditure, but after they do that they haven’t got the slightest clue where they will get the money from to maintain it.  Guess what?  Somebody’s taxes are going up.

The whole idea has been controversial, mainly by party lines.  The Republicans are not in support of the idea while most of the Democrats are in favor, although Democratic Councilmen Michael Barnes and Warren Turner joined the Republicans in voting “no” last night.  Aside from the maintenance cost, skepticism over the amount of ridership is also a factor.  The line will only run 1.5 miles, from the Presbyterian Hospital just outside of uptown to Time Warner arena.  $37 million to build a one and a half mile streetcar line.  I could see some sense in building it if it were going to run from a more residential area into uptown, but I see no sense in this proposal, particularly in these current times.

It’s looking more and more likely that we are going to be hosting the Democratic National Convention in 2012.

MSNBC is reporting the Queen City is the frontrunner to host the Democratic National Convention in 2012.

Despite the positive report, city leaders say a lot of work remains to be done to bring the convention to Charlotte.

“It’s always flattering to be considered a strong choice, but this is a competition and we’ve got to keep working to put the best foot forward for our community,” said Mayor Anthony Foxx.

MSNBC

WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party is considering four cities to host the 2012 political convention expected to nominate President Barack Obama for a second term.

Three of the cities – Cleveland, St. Louis and Minneapolis – are in likely battleground states while a fourth – Charlotte, N.C. – is in the Republican-friendly South.

The Washington Post

Oh great.  That’s just what we need is one of those circuses coming here, although I’m sure the local businesses wouldn’t mind the economic boost.

Unknown vandals unhappy about atheists’ billboard in Charlotte, N.C., spray-painted “Under God” on the ad, the city’s atheist association discovered Monday. The defaced message will remain in place until after July 4, the group reports, which is the soonest that workers can furnish a fresh billboard image.

The billboard reads, “One Nation Indivisible,” which is the phrase preceding the 1954 insertion of the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, reports the Charlotte Observer’s Tim Funk. The billboard was erected on Billy Graham Parkway last week. (Graham is, of course, the state’s famous evangelical preacher.)

Similar North Carolina ads have gone up in Asheville, Greensboro, Wilmington, Raleigh, and Winston-Salem as a Fourth of July project by the area’s atheist association. The group has filed a police report and will replace the billboard.

Yahoo! News

I bet who ever vandalized this billboard was pretty upset when they saw anti-war protesters opposing George Bush defacing him on signs and other media.

Everybody has the right to free speech.  Just because someone doesn’t believe in God doesn’t mean they are subjected to having any less rights to their opinion than the majority who do believe.  Charlotte Atheists & Agnostics paid for the use of the billboard and they have just as much right to voice their opinion as anybody else.  These vandals have absolutely no respect for the First Amendment of our Constitution, yet I’ll bet the cowards consider themselves great American patriots.

On a related note, a lot of people don’t even know that the phrase “under God” was not part of the original Pledge of Allegiance.  It was added to it over 60 years later as a symbol to combat the growing threat of Communism in the eastern world.

In her letter to Napolitano, Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., called on Homeland Security to find out and report more on the extent of the problem. She cited several troubling developments that would point to Hezbollah creeping closer to and inside the United States, with the help of Mexican drug gangs.

“It is vital we know what is happening on our border, especially as crime and violence continue to rise there and as terrorist plots and threats are increasing inside the U.S.,” she wrote.

Myrick outlined a complex set of potential threats and evidence of their existence. She said “Iranian agents and members of Hezbollah” are thought to be learning Spanish in Hugo Chavez-run Venezuela before trying to obtain false documents to enter the United States as purported Mexicans. She said Hezbollah, known for its tunnel-digging skill, could be receiving drug money from cartel operations in exchange for help forging better tunnels across the U.S. border for trafficking.

She said gang members in prisons in the American southwest are starting to show up with tattoos in Farsi, implying a “Persian influence that can likely be traced back to Iran and its proxy army, Hezbollah.”

Fox News

This is the most important reason why our southern border needs to be secured and this is something that many people following 9-11  have speculated could happen.  With as porous as the southern border is, how hard would it be for a terrorist group to sneak across with a bomb or some other kind of weapon and smuggle it into one of the U.S.’s cities?  Hundreds if not thousands of people run across that border every single day.

This is a clear and present danger and it just flies in the face of logic that the Congress and this administration are just sitting on their hands for political reasons.  We don’t need a comprehensive immigration reform bill passed in order to secure our border.  That is part of the Constitutional duty of both the President and the Congress.  Their game of political football may cost us the lives of innocent Americans.

CONCORD – Eighth District political campaigns may be taking a breather for the moment, but they have a lot of intra-party healing to do before November.

For incumbent Larry Kissell, he is running on his record from his first term in Congress, which includes a no-vote on the health care reform law.

Meanwhile, GOP candidate Harold Johnson has his work cut out for him, trying to win Tim D’Annunzio’s supporters to back him against Kissell.

That may be easier said than done.

Independent Tribune

Boy, you can say that again.  That was one of the most brutal primaries I’ve ever seen.  Seriously, Hollywood could not have written something so absurd.  The cast of characters in this whole ordeal may as well have been straight out of a Monty Python flick.

Honestly, I don’t think Johnson will have as hard of a time getting D’Annunzio supporters to go with him in November as some may suspect.  If conservatives really want the Democrats out of the majority that badly, they’re going to vote for him even if they do so grinding their teeth.  This could be a good opening for Thomas Hill, though, the Libertarian candidate.  If he could get the resources, he might be able to gather up some of the disaffected D’Annunzio supporters to back him.

The unions really didn’t do their homework on this one.

Concord Democrat Wendell Fant announced today that he won’t run as a 3rd party challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell.

Fant said he decided to “put my family ahead of my own political ambitions.”

A group called N.C. Families First successfully petitioned election boards throughout the 8th District in support of Fant’s candidacy. Backed by the State Employees Association of North Carolina and the Service Employees International Union, the group opposes Kissell because of his votes against some major Democratic legislation, particularly health care.

Fant’s decision means the group will not appear on 8th District ballots this fall.

Charlotte Observer

Looks like Kissell caught a break.  N.C. Families First (yeah, right) is just a shadow puppet for the unions.  The far left has been up in arms over Kissell’s more moderate positions.  Apparently, they don’t understand that he represents a Republican leaning district and no Democrat could win that seat espousing the radical leftist views the unions would have them do.

On an interesting note, I think I know Wendell Fant.  I think he used to work in my office a few years ago.  At least I assume it’s the same guy.  How many Wendell Fants can there possibly be?

I have to say it. I have tried to remain neutral in this race, but I can’t hold my tongue anymore. After listening to an interview Tim D’Annunzio did with Keith Larson on WBT, I am fully convinced that he is not mentally stable enough to hold public office.

Deflated by new polling numbers and sagging support, Republican Tim D’Annunzio says it would “take a miracle” for him to beat Harold Johnson in Tuesday’s 8th District runoff.

His comments to the Observer came after a fiery radio interview Wednesday in which he told WBT’s Keith Larson that “there’s a special place in hell for people like you.”

So contentious – and bizarre – was the exchange that Larson called D’Annunzio “a delusional, deranged human being” and still the interview roared on.

Charlotte Observer

In the interview, which you can listen to here, D’Annunzio even accused Keith Larson of being the narrative voice speaking in a Harold Johnson ad.  I’ve heard the ad; it doesn’t even sound like Larson.

I interviewed Tim D’Annunzio early in this race several months ago and I thought the guy had great ideas, but as time has moved on it’s become clear that the man is incredibly paranoid and delusional.  Even if he were to defeat Johnson on Tuesday, which I highly doubt, Larry Kissell would bury this guy in the general.  And even if lightening were to strike twice in the same place and D’Annunzio were to actually win the Congressional race, the man would never be able to accomplish anything he’s set out to do in Washington because he would be incredibly combative.  Nobody would support his initiatives.

The voters should choose Harold Johnson in next week’s run off.

The Office of Congressional Ethics is investigating eight lawmakers who held fundraisers within 48 hours of a major House vote on a Wall Street reform bill or received substantial donations from business people with a financial stake in the bill, according to congressional sources and letters.

Watt held a Dec. 9 fundraiser and soon after withdrew a proposal he had introduced to subject auto dealers to tougher regulations, according to congressional records. The fundraiser generated checks largely from finance groups, including Goldman Sachs and the Investment Company Institute. In an interview, Watt said he will answer the OCE’s questions and declined to comment on the investigation.

The House ethics manual instructs members to steer away from accepting campaign donations if the timing creates an unacceptable appearance of a conflict of interest.

The Washington Post

It doesn’t sound to me like Watt has done anything wrong here.  I don’t see how a proposal for tougher auto standards is really related to financial “reform,” but maybe I’m just missing something.  Does Goldman Sachs have a significant stake in the auto companies?

Then, Timothy Peeler called 911.

Peeler, of Vanada Drive in Casar, is a self-proclaimed “South Mountain man.” He’s surrounded by woods and a ridge worthy of postcards.

It was June 5 when Peeler supposedly spotted a man-beast, upwards of 10 feet tall, that screeched like “a night bird” and grunted in the warm night air.

The creature sported dark hair, Peeler said, with a grey beard stretching to its navel.

Authorities were dispatched that morning around 3 a.m., according to a report from Cleveland County Communications.

The Star

Republican Cleveland County Sheriff candidate David Morrow has given validity to those immortal words of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, proving that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

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

Moments after being named to replace his mother, Democrat Jason Burgess literally took Susan Burgess’ chair on the Charlotte City Council.

The council voted 8-2 to appoint the 39-year-old surgeon a week after his mother made an emotional appearance to resign.

Susan Burgess, Charlotte’s mayor pro tem, has been bedridden with terminal cancer.

“Her vision and ideals will continue,” Jason Burgess told council before the vote. “No one can replace my mother. I strive to be a good husband, a good father, a good son, a good surgeon and a good citizen.”

Charlotte Observer

What Susan Burgess did regarding this really irks me.  I just wrote last week about what an outstanding woman of integrity she has been on the Charlotte City Council and then she shows up to one final meeting to say goodbye to everyone, all of them knowing that she has maybe weeks to live, and then requests of them to appoint her son to replace her as her dying wish.  Now maybe Jason Burgess will do a fine job, but 24 other people applied to fill the vacancy and they weren’t even considered.  That council seat does not belong to the Burgess family.  It belongs to the people of Charlotte.

Flanked by lawyers, Harold Johnson on Tuesday denounced a lawsuit by rival Tim D’Annunzio as “embarrassing and frivolous” as the war of words between the two Republican congressional candidates continued to escalate.

D’Annunzio sued Johnson for defamation Monday in Cumberland County Superior Court.

“This again is a desperate attack by a desperate candidate,” Johnson said at a news conference in Charlotte.

Charlotte Observer

Like sands through the hourglass, so our the days of our lives.

Republican congressional candidate Tim D’Annunzio on Monday sued GOP rival Harold Johnson for defamation over ads that he said “deliberately spread lies, innuendos, and false statements.”

Johnson was served at a campaign event in Fayetteville. The suit was filed in Cumberland County.

Charlotte Observer

If Tim D’Annunzio wants to serve in Congress he is going to have to become a lot more thick skinned than this.  If he gets elected, wait until the left starts savaging him.  He’ll be a prime target as outspoken as he is.  In all honesty, he’s starting to remind me of Orlando Congressman Alan Grayson and that’s not a good thing.

I doubt he’ll be successful in this suit.  It’s incredibly difficult to prove libel or defamation against a politician and those lawsuits rarely produce results.

Update: We apparently have got video

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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