Carolina Politics Online

This is definitely a face palm moment.

Actually, this merits a double face palm.

“If Osama bin Laden ran in this district as a Republican, he would get 38 to 40 percent of the vote in any election year,” says Wayne Wingate, Spratt’s communications director, as he walks alongside the congressman at the festival. “This is a very Republican district. So you’ve got that plus this tea party angst against any incumbent in the world right now.”

Columbia Free Times

So that is the opinion that Congressman Spratt and his staffers apparently have of about roughly 300,000 of their constituents.  They think so lowly of the people they are “representing” that they think we would actually cast our votes for Osama bin Laden, a man who orchestrated the deaths of over 3,000 Americans nine years ago, rather than reelect Jack Spratt.

If I were Bubba I’d be shopping for a new communications director pretty damn quick because for a race that’s down to the wire like this one, he can’t afford to have an insidious douche like Wayne Wingate out and about flapping his yap for him.

Is this the same Wayne Wingate who used to own Durango Bagel?

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

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

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

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

McClatchy

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

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

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

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

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.

Gotta give the guy some  credit for standing on principle.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina is saying that he will not be voting for his party’s nominee for U.S. Senate because the candidate has been indicted on a felony charge.

Clyburn said Wednesday that a vote for fellow Democrat Alvin Greene would be an insult to his three daughters and granddaughter. Greene is accused of showing pornographic images to a female University of South Carolina student

AP

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!

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

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

That Jack Spratt is now attacking his election opponent is a sign that he is concerned about his reelection bid.  He wouldn’t be going on the offense against Mulvaney if he didn’t fear his chances of being defeated by him.

Spratt told a Fort Mill audience this week that Mulvaney voted against funding for children’s health insurance, early childhood education and new school buses while in the Legislature, and also proposed eliminating state money for S.C. educational television.

“He basically is against the government,” Spratt told 80 supporters at a fundraiser at McHale’s pub on Gold Hill Road. The York Democrat labeled his opponent “a candidate of the tea party.”

The Herald

This is a problem?  These are the things that he is criticizing Mulvaney over?  That he opposes too much government interference?  That may play well to the far left constituency that Bubba has been pandering to for the past few years, but I doubt most people are going to have a problem with a candidate who believes in fiscal discipline and a limited role in government.  Bubba can attempt to paint Mulvaney as some type of extremist, but Bubba himself is just the opposite extreme, voting in favor of government mandated health insurance and the economy choking Cap and Trade bill as well as being the architect of budgets with trillion dollar deficits.

Mulvaney fired back, accusing Spratt of trying to take the focus off his own unpopular votes.

“While I have listened to my constituents, John Spratt has listened to Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama,” Mulvaney said of the Democratic U.S. House speaker and president. “Where I made tough choices to stay on budget, Mr. Spratt has grown the national debt.

“No matter how harsh Mr. Spratt’s attacks on me become, he will not be able to hide his record.”

Spratt has fielded criticism over his support of health care reform, the stimulus package and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), derided as a bank bailout bill.

And Mulvaney is exactly right.  Spratt’s voting record reeks of a two week old, messed in diaper.  He won’t be able to hide from his record and it will destroy him on November 2nd.

Outside, where the temperature hovered between 95 and 98 degrees, about 20 people from the Charleston area took part in the protest, including John Steinberger and Jack Jackson, advocates of the FairTax, a plan to replace federal income taxes and payroll taxes with a national retail sales tax, among other components. “We just want people to realize there is a better way,” Steinberger said.

He said he hoped that Biden took notice of the crowd, but even if he didn’t see the turnout — or it didn’t matter to him — for several hours, passers-by on the busy Columbia roadway did.

One of the event organizers, William Stallings of Rock Hill, stayed up until 3 a.m. with his wife making signs, including one with a picture of a baby and the words “Stop! Spending my money.”

“We want our freedoms back, a responsible government and less spending,” Stallings said.

The Post and Courier

The White House has adjusted its deficit prediction for the year and now estimates a jaw dropping $1.47 trillion deficit for 2010.  You can thank John Spratt for this.  As chairman of the House Budget Committee he carries the most influence over the budget and bears a bulk of the responsibility for the deficit built into it.  Furthermore, this year he failed to pass a budget for the first time ever and it was done on purpose! The projected deficit next year is another trillion and a half and the Democrats don’t want that to be added to the fodder they are going to be nailed with in November. They are already heading for a brutal onslaught by voters all across the country.

Never in American history have we seen such recklessness from a Congress.  I think Spratt is gravely underestimating the furor of the voters in this coming election.

North Carolina congressional candidate Renee Ellmers has failed to capitalize on last month’s furor over incumbent Democratic Rep. Bobby Etheridge’s physical altercation with a questioner who stopped him on the sidewalk.

Video of Etheridge grabbing the man who stopped him — and demanding to know the man’s identity — spread quickly online and drew attention to the congressman’s long-shot challenger. But a month later, Ellmers, a nurse who heads the Dunn Area Chamber of Commerce, has just $42,000 in the bank and little support from national Republicans.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has yet to add Ellmers to its “Young Guns” program, which supports top recruits. Etheridge, meanwhile, has a war chest of $1.2 million.

Politico

The people that run the NRCC are nitwits.  Same goes with the Democrats’ campaign committee.  These groups are run by career political lackeys who think they are so in tune to what is going on out in the real world, but the fact is these stooges would climb over a glass door to see what’s on the other side.  Time after time the party apparatuses ignore candidates, who either end up pulling off an upset win or come close, simply because they are out of touch with the grassroots.  The DCCC completely ignored Larry Kissell in 2006 when he ran against Robin Hayes and Kissell only lost to him that year by a few hundred votes.  If the DCCC had gotten behind Kissell in ‘06 he could have won instead of having to do a rematch with Hayes in ‘08.

Renee Ellmers can defeat Bob Etheridge.  Yes, the race is in Etheridge’s favor at this point in time, but in years where there are electoral sweeps races in the most unexpected places can have unpredicted outcomes.  Besides, Etheridge’s seat was held by a Republican before him and the district leans slightly to the right of center.  Plus, throw in the fact that they have plenty of ammunition to throw at him this year.  For the NRCC to write this race off is pretty foolish, but again, if these people were intelligent they’d have real jobs where they actually produce something.

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)

Congressman Joe Wilson (R) and his Democratic challenger Rob Miller are trading barbs as the race for South Carolina’s Second Congressional District is heating up.  Miller sent out a press release yesterday accusing Wilson of accepting $5,000 in campaign donations from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  Likewise, the Republicans have attacked Rob Miller for accepting thousands in donations from the radical leftist group Moveon.org.  South Carolina Adjutant General Stan Spears condemned Miller yesterday morning for accepting donations from the very same group that ran the “General Betray Us” ads in 2007.  Miller is retired from the U.S. Marine Corps.

The Republicans are claiming that Miller’s accusations of Wilson accepting Abramoff money are false and I searched around the FEC Web site and was not successful at finding any myself, however I did find several donations from Moveon made to Miller.

Vice President Joe Biden will headline a fundraiser for U.S. Rep. John Spratt next week during a visit to Columbia.

Biden will be in town July 23 to help dedicate the new Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library at the University of South Carolina. Completed in June, the $18 million library is named in honor of the retired Democratic U.S. senator from South Carolina, a close friend of Biden’s.

An afternoon fundraiser for Spratt will take place at the South Carolina State Museum, the York Democrat’s office confirmed late Tuesday. Ticket availability and prices were not available.

“The vice president is coming for the dedication of the Hollings library and graciously offered to appear at my fundraiser as an aside,” Spratt said through a spokesman. “I’m grateful for his gesture and look forward to the event.”

The Herald

If I were an endangered incumbent Democrat like Jack Spratt that last thing I would want is a member of the current administration holding a fund raising event with me and making a public appearance related to my reelection campaign.  Spratt should be running as far away from the White House as possible, but it’s not surprising he doesn’t recognize that.  He’s not mentally aware enough to see that he is a major part of the problem in D.C.

I wonder what asinine remarks will come out of our gaffe prone Vice-President at this shindig.

In lieu of an official budget, John Spratt last week introduced a budget enforcement resolution, eluding any details as to how exactly record deficits will be reduced. The reason for this is obvious. The Democratic Congress is attempting to pull one over on the American people. They caught hell for their $1.5 trillion deficit last year and in an election year they don’t want to be forced to vote on another budget with a similar deficit.

The enforcement resolution is being used because rank-and-file Democrats did not want to vote for a budget resolution that would show large deficits, particularly in an election year marked by worries about the nation’s fiscal solvency.

The measure, written by House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-S.C.), calls for a budget by 2015 that would be balanced except for debt interest payments. This mirrors a goal already set out by Obama.

Spratt’s measure doesn’t say what policies Congress should enact to reach that out-year goal, something past budget resolutions have done. Instead, it relies on the White House fiscal commission, a bipartisan panel looking at tax, spending and entitlement policies, to come up with a plan to halve the projected $1.5 trillion 2010 deficit by 2015.

The Hill

Spratt has failed in his duty as our elected representative here in the Fifth District and as the Congress’s Budget chairman. The NRCC has called Spratt out on his dishonesty and deception.

More Bubba hypocrisy…

Speaking to a friendly crowd, Spratt, who is chairman of the House Budget Committee, explained the status of the U.S. House’s budget, something he said is in place despite not having a resolution.

“We need something to keep spending in line,” he said. “We need something that causes people to stop and say, ‘Can we afford it?’ We’ve got that in place…. Don’t worry about the fact we don’t have a budget.”

In late June, the budget vote stalled and was replaced by other measures, including an alternative budget resolution calling for a cap on discretionary spending at levels lower than those in President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget.

Spratt detailed the country’s deficit and unemployment numbers when Obama took office, talking about its positive turnaround and indicators for the future.

The Herald

Spratt tells you one thing, but does another.  He is the budget chairman.  He ushered through a budget last year with a deficit of a trillion and a half dollars and he’s going to usher another one with similar financial deficiencies.  Spratt helped pass the health care bill, creating yet another entitlement program that this country cannot afford.  Now he stands up before an audience of his sheep and lectures about responsible spending?  But here is the real kicker.  In 2006, it was John Spratt who said “If you can’t budget, you can’t govern.”

And what positive turnaround is Bubba referring to?  The real unemployment rate has remained in the mid teens and is worse than it was when Obama took office.  This Congress and administration have had more than enough time to start producing results.  It’s clear to me the only way to get the country back on track is to throw bums like Bubba out and stop the disastrous agenda coming from the White House.

So it would appear that Alvin Greene really did pay his own filing fee for the Senate race.

You may recall Greene says he paid the $10,440 filing fee to run for Senate out of money he saved from his time in the Army.

But just months before paying that he was assigned a public defender at taxpayer expense on an obscenity charge he’s facing.

SLED director Reggie Lloyd says there’s no evidence that anyone other than Greene paid his filing fee and that he didn’t lie to get a public defender.

WSPA

I wonder when Jim Clyburn will apologize to Greene for accusing him of being a plant.

WASHINGTON — Too many Republican leaders are acquiescing to a poisonous “demagoguery” that threatens the party’s long-term credibility, says a veteran GOP House member who was defeated in South Carolina’s primary last month.

While not naming names, 12-year incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis suggested in interviews with The Associated Press that tea party favorites such as former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and right-wing talk show hosts like Glenn Beck are the culprits.

The Washington Post

I’m neither a big fan of Beck nor Palin myself, but Bob, you need to stop pointing the finger at others for your own failures.  You lost because you stopped representing the people that elected you and pushed policies they didn’t want nor support:  a carbon tax, the Wall Street bailout.  Your arrogance and holier than thou attitude were your own undoing.  Oh, and you have diarrhea of the mouth.

Inglis, 50, who calls himself a Jack Kemp disciple because he has emphasized outreach to minorities as the late Republican congressman did, thinks racism is a part of the vitriol directed at President Barack Obama.

“I love the South. I’m a Southerner. But I can feel it,” he said.

That feeling is your head being smothered by your ass because you have it stuck up there.  Maybe if John Kerry and Al Gore and Bill Clinton and Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale had won South Carolina when they ran for president you might have a point, but being that none of those Democrats were able to win here either, you don’t.

COLUMBIA — Conservatives in U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s district are facing facts: They’re angry that he voted for the 2008 Wall Street bailout, but they know opposing him could send his Democratic opponent to Congress.

Exhibit A is GOP gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley, who declared in April that Wilson should “absolutely not” get another term but said Thursday that she now supports his re-election.

“This is about electing the most conservative candidate,” Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said. “In November, Congressmen Wilson is clearly the most conservative of those two candidates.”

Wilson, best known for shouting “you lie” last year while President Barack Obama was addressing Congress, is in a rematch against Democrat Rob Miller.

Wilson beat him two years ago with 54 percent of the vote, and this year’s contest is one of the nation’s most expensive U.S. House races, mostly because of the money that poured in to him and Miller after Wilson taunted Obama. Wilson’s most recent campaign finance report, filed May 19, shows he’s raised nearly $4 million while Miller has raised nearly $2.4 million. Their next reports are due next week.

Jane Kenny, organizer of the Tea Party Patriots of Bluffton at the foot of Wilson’s district near Beaufort and Hilton Head Island, said there’s no question that tea party activists are unhappy about Wilson’s bailout vote.

But, she said, “at this point in time we have a choice between Mr. Miller and Mr. Wilson. Mr. Miller is telling us he supports the Obama agenda, so by default, Wilson is our man.”

The Post and Courier

I don’t think Joe Wilson has a whole lot to worry about.  Unlike Barrett, who in my opinion ended his political career when he voted for the bailout, I agree that Wilson will escape the fury.  The first point is what Ms Kenny already stated.  If you are a conservative or even a moderate in Wilson’s district and your alternative to Wilson is a candidate who supports the incredibly unpopular Obama agenda, who are you going to vote for?  You’re going to vote for Wilson.

Second, as much as his behavior at the State of the Union address helped fuel Rob Miller’s candidacy, ironically it may have actually saved Wilson.  While he took a lot of flack over the “You lie!” outburst, people are realizing he was right.  Obama is a liar.  He marketed himself as this enlightened politically centrist figure who could bridge the gap between an increasingly divided America.  In actuality he’s become more polarizing than George Bush and he turned out to be the radical leftist that smart people like me knew he would be.

Right now, Democrat is a dirty word.  We’re in a total 180 from where we were politically the last two election cycles.  The momentum has been and I think will continue to be behind the GOP all the way up to Election Day and that will put Wilson over the finish line regardless of the mistakes he’s made.

Congressional candidate Jim Pratt won the Republication nomination in a recount in which he was certified as the winner over Nancy Harrelson by 111 votes.  Pratt will now face Congressman Jim Clyburn in the November election.  Harrelson ran against Clyburn in 2008  Clyburn handily defeated her, receiving 67.5% of the vote.  The district is a gerrymander special, carved out to specifically elect a black Democrat.  It encompasses the cities of Columbia, Florence, Sumter, and North Charleston.  The Cook Partisan Voting Index scores this seat as D+12 which puts it pretty handily in the Democrats’ column.  Although it’s not impossible for there to be an upset, especially with all the anti-incumbent angst this year, I don’t expect to see Mr. Clyburn leaving Washington.

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.