Carolina Politics Online

This information is courtesy of The Hill.

Apparently, I was correct in my speculation that Brown’s Democratic challenger in 2008, Linda Ketner, is exploring the possibility of a second bid for the seat now that Mr. Brown is thankfully retiring.  Ketner is reported to make a decision within the next week as to whether she will pursue the seat again.  I think her entry can make it a more  competitive race, but should she choose not to run I think whoever wins the GOP nomination will cruise into Election Day rather easily.  The Democrats don’t seem to have anyone else who I would consider to be a top tier candidate.  Ketner’s hesitancy is a concern over the national political environment right now and it’s a valid concern.  As each week passes the political atmosphere is becoming more hostile to the Democrats, practically a complete reversal from what we’ve seen in the last two election cycles.  In fact it’s become so hostile that the current U.S. Senate race to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat in the reliably Democratic state of Massachusetts has actually become competitive according to polling.  If Ketner runs I think she will have to distance herself from the radical leadership of her party and paint herself as more of an independent Democrat who won’t be afraid to say no to Nancy Pelosi if it’s in the interest of her constituents, a quality we haven’t seen from Mr. Spratt up here in York County.

On the Republican side the field is much more diverse.  Three Republicans have already officially declared their candidacies.  They are Reagan conservative Katherine Jenerette, Carroll “Tumpy” Campbell III, and Isle of Palms city councilman Ryan Buckhannon.  Buckhannon and I go “way back.”  According to The Hill, the late Senator Strom Thurmond’s son Paul Thurmond is also considering entering the fray.  It’s hard to say who would be the early front runner in this crowded of a field.  Jenerette is definitely the anti-establishment candidate and I could see her ginning up the support of the tea party movement.  Campbell and Thurmond could both gain the support of the local and national GOP as they would be “insiders” due to their family ties.  I don’t think  Buckhannon will go very far in the race. I just don’t think that a small town councilman will be able to compete in a race with such high profile names in the running.

So this could shape up to be a very captivating House race when it is all said and done.  It will all depend on where the chips fall and the decisions made within the coming weeks.  We’ll keep our eyes and ears open.

Republican U.S. Rep. Henry Brown, a farm boy who rose to became one of South Carolina’s most powerful politicians, announced Monday he will not seek a sixth term in Congress so he can spend more time with his family.

“While this has been a difficult decision to make, I’m convinced that this is the right time for me to step down,” Brown said in a statement.

The LA Times

And I couldn’t be happier to see him go.  Brown is another glutinous “earmarker” wasting away our tax dollars on piggish pork to bribe his way into reelection after reelection.  A fresh new face is needed and Brown’s retirement will undoubtedly bring out multiple candidates on both sides of the aisle.  Reagan conservative Katherine Jenerette has already declared her candidacy for a second attempt at the seat.  I’m curious to wait and see if Brown’s Democratic challenger from 2008, Linda Ketner, will reconsider a bid now that Brown is out.

The National Journal cites a few other potential Republican candidates including Carroll “Tumpy” Campbell III, Isle of Palms councilman Ryan Buckhannon, and attorney Mark Fava.

Carroll Campbell III, son of former South Carolina governor Carol Campbell, is scheduled to announce tomorrow his intentions to run for Congress against Henry Brown in next year’s Republican primary.  It appears Henry “Banker Bailout” Brown will face another election year of opposition from within his own party.  Hopefully this year, voters in the First District will make a better decision than last year.

Congressman Henry Brown held a town hall in Charleston yesterday. While the main topic was, of course, health care as it has been everywhere else, some of the fringe made an appearance claiming that President Obama is trying to create a civilian Gestapo, but Brown did field a question on earmarks to which he replied:

Brown said there are good and bad earmarks, adding, “I just feel if I went up there and didn’t petition for help for my constituents, I might just as well stay home.”

The Post and Courier

Well Henry, I don’t object.  I think you should stay home too.  We can do a lot better than you.

I received an email from someone with a tip about an alleged Democrat challenger to Henry Brown in next year’s election.  The information I received was regarding a Robert A Dobbs, a resident of Wisconsin who I am told has purchased a business in South Carolina’s First Congressional District and will be residing there with his family.  I am told he is of the “Blue Dog” persuasion of the Democrat Party, a name for a coalition of Democrats in the House that are more conservative and centrist.  I looked him up in the FEC and sure enough he does appear as a registered candidate.  I also received his resume which notes that he once served as a City Councilman for the town of Two Rivers, Wisconsin.

Now interestingly enough, I did a little more digging myself and came across some archived election information on a Robert A Dobbs in Two Rivers, WI, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000 as a Republican, not a Democrat, and also made a donation of $215 to the Republican Party of Wisconsin back in 1999.  This would appear to be the same guy, unless he has a politically active father with the same name who is a Republican.

Not a big deal I guess, but I just found that somewhat interesting.  We’ll see if this gentleman eventually surfaces and officially kicks off a House campaign against Brown.  Assuming he ends up being the nominee for his party, being a Blue Dog Dem will probably help him peel some voters away from Brown who may not care for him.  On the other hand, I am skeptical as to how well he will appeal to voters in the district being that he is an outsider just recently moving here.

By a vote of 219 to 212, the House narrowly passed the Cap and Trade bill that will cost us millions of jobs and devastate the American economy even more as it starts going into affect. Just ask Spain how well it went for them?

This still has to pass the U.S. Senate of course and that is nowhere near certain. They need 60 ayes just to be able to vote for it and I imagine there will be Democrat defectors there just as there were in the House.

Those who voted to raise your energy bills by about $1500 a year to “save the planet” are as follows:

• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01)
• Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
• David Price (D-NC-04)
• Heath Shuler (D-NC-11)
• Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
• Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
• Jack Spratt (D-SC-05)
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)

Those who voted to protect your liberty, labor, and livelihood were:

• Walter Jones (R-NC-03)
• Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05)
• Howard Coble (R-NC-06)
• Mike McIntyre (D-NC-07)
• Larry Kissell (D-NC-08)
• Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
• Henry Brown (R-SC-01)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
• Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)
• Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)

Linda Ketner has ruled out a second challenge to Congressman Henry Brown next year, but left open the possibility of some kind of future run.  This means that Brown will probably not get any real competition next year, unfortunately.  None of the names being floated by the Post and Courier as possible challengers in the general or primary intrigue me much.  Tumpy Campbell III is considering a primary challenge, but I don’t know much about him.  I haven’t heard any news of Katherine Jenerette taking another shot either as of yet.

A lot of hay has been made about the $160 million AIG handed out in bonus money to its employees after they were given near $100 billion in taxpayer dollars to keep them afloat.  If that is what makes your blood boil, so be it.  Of course, the real outrage should be over the $75 billion of taxpayer money that AIG used the vast majority of to pay debt it held with several foreign banks.  If you didn’t already know that, which isn’t surprising because the media has only been harping over “Bonusgate,” yes, the Federal government gave AIG tens of billions of dollars to send right out of our economy while it is in the crapper.  Brilliant, huh?

Anyway, this is just a reminder to you to not forget which of our Carolina representatives voted to make all of this possible:

Voting for the bill:

• Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
• David Price (D-NC-04)
• Howard Coble (R-NC-06)
• Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
• Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
• Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
• Henry Brown (R-SC-01)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
• Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)
• Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)
• John Spratt (D-SC-05)
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has also launched a misleading and deceptive ad against Congressman Henry Brown (R-SC-1).  I am no fan of Congressman Brown.  In fact, I was pulling for his opponent, Linda Ketner, in the last election.  However, what I am a fan of even less are lying politicians and/or their supportive committees.

“These are serious times, hard-working families are worried about keeping their jobs, health care and homes. They want action, not House Republicans cheering about doing nothing,” committee executive director Brian Wolff said in a statement.

At a recent retreat, Republicans cheered their unified opposition to what they considered a bad bill.

“Republicans’ champagne wishes and caviar dreams simply don’t connect with middle-class families struggling to make ends meet and furious that their tax dollars are going to bail out banks, build schools in Iraq or send American jobs overseas.”

The Post and Courier

Yes, Brown voted for the bailout and for that he should never see another term in office after this one, but “champagne wishes and caviar dream?”  Give me a break.  What the DCCC doesn’t tell you is that more members of their party voted for that bailout than did Republicans.  75% of Wall Street campaign donors in the Presidential race donated to Obama rather than McCain and President Obama was a huge supporter of the bank bailout.

Republicans should be cheering about doing nothing on the stimulus bill because nothing is exactly what the Feds should be doing as there is no stimulus involved.  Many of the provisions in Obama’s stimulus bill don’t even take effect until 2010 or 2011 so they are no good to us now.  Furthermore, only a very small part of that bill involves rebuilding infrastructure, which was supposed to be the main focus of the bill.  There will be little job creation from this monstrosity.  It’s not going to save anyone’s health care or their homes.  All it will do is add to our debt, devalue our currency and increase the rate of inflation.  The Republicans’ oppositions to this bill was the first responsible thing they’ve done in over a decade.

It should come to no surprise that the House of Representatives have furthered the nationalization of American industry by wasting another $15 billion of tax money that doesn’t exist to bailout the gross mismanagement of the Big Three automakers and their blood sucking unions. Here is a list of how our Carolina representatives voted:

In Favor of Socialism:

• Bob Etheridge – D-NC-02
• David Price – D-NC-04
• Mel Watt – D-NC-12
• Brad Miller – D-NC-13
• Jack Spratt – D-SC-05
• Jim Clyburn – D-SC-06

Against Socialism:

• 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
• Robin Hayes – R-NC-08
• Sue Myrick – R-NC-09
• Patrick McHenry – R-NC-10
• Heath Shuler – D-NC-11
• Henry Brown – R-SC-01
• Joe Wilson – R-SC-02
• Gresham Barrett – R-SC-03
• Bob Inglis – R-SC-04

U.S. Rep. Henry Brown introduced legislation today prohibiting the use of government funds to transport any terror detainees to the Navy Brig in Hanahan from their current holding site at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President-elect Barack Obama is looking at ways to shut down the operation at Guantanamo Bay and bring prosecutions to the U.S. If that happens, one potential holding site is the brig at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station. About 255 detainees are held at Guantanamo.

The Post and Courier

I agree with Brown.  There is no reason to take these people out of Guantanamo and it is foolish to bring them on to American soil.  These are enemy combatants picked up off the battle field.  We don’t need to bring them within the borders of our nation and increase the threat and we definitely don’t need them in South Carolina.

Congressman Henry Brown (R) and his challenger Linda Ketner (D) appeared before over 100 people at the Rotary Club of Charleston to take time to discuss where they are on the issues and what they would explore in the next session of Congress is elected.

Ketner, who has never sought office before, said she agreed with Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain when he said “government is broken.” She said President Clinton’s 1999 decision to get rid of Depression-era regulations that separated banks, insurance companies and investment houses is at the root of the problem.

“I’m not going to blame the Republicans because there’s a lot of blame to go around. A lot,” she said. “I believe it was preventable. I believe it was predictable, and I don’t believe we have the right solution to it yet.”

It’s nice to hear her give an honest take on this instead of just finger pointing at the GOP like a lot of Democrats have wrongly done in the past month.  Indeed there is a lot of blame to go around and some of the major players who shaped this disaster aren’t being held accountable.  In fact, a couple of them were put in charge of writing the bailout.

Brown, who is seeking a fifth term, said the nation’s toughest issue is coming up with a new energy policy that will help wean the nation from its $700 billion dependence on foreign oil, and he promised to pursue domestic sources even if environmental groups don’t like it.

It has to be done.  We absolutely must continue to expand domestic drilling and build more refineries while we continue to explore other alternatives.  There is no argument here.

On balancing the federal budget, Brown said he wants to see Congress be required to balance the budget, like the South Carolina General Assembly must do.

Another excellent suggestion by Brown, but quite frankly, I find it a very unlikely goal considering the way this Congress has behaved and in the face of an Obama presidency with a Congress with expanded Democrat majorities it will be impossible to balance the budget without raising taxes through the roof in order to cover the additional socialism they have been proposing.

On immigration, Ketner said she would like to see the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, or SPAWAR, get a contract to build a “virtual wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Brown said the nation needs to identify its 12 million to 20 million illegal immigrants “and return them to their destination.”

Ketner said she also didn’t support amnesty.

I’m actually not that big on the wall, although I’m not opposed to it.  I just think if we went after the employers with the approrpriate force and fierce aggression to stop the willful practice of hiring illegals for cheap slave labor we wouldn’t need to build a wall on the border because there would be no further reason for people to illegally come here.

I haven’t decided yet who I am supporting in this race, but Ketner scored a big plus with me when she said the following:

“I think I’m going to be the bane of Nancy Pelosi’s existence. I really do,” she said, adding that more members of Congress should take their cues from the people, not their party’s leaders.

The Senate as you are well aware by now passed a sweetened version of the bailout Tuesday evening.  The House voted again today and complied, as I suspected they would.  So the dirty deed is now done.  Bear in mind that this bill was rife with waist added by the Senate on Tuesday night that had nothing to do with the economical turmoil.

• $2 million tax benefit for makers of wooden arrows for children
• $100 million tax break to benefit auto racetrack owners
• $192 million in rebates on excise taxes for the Puerto Rican and Virgin Islands rum industry
• $148 million in tax relief for U.S. wool fabric producers
• $49 million tax benefit for fishermen and other plaintiffs who sued over the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill.

People, are you not outraged?  If so, ask yourself why you might be going to the voting booth in November to return the same people to office who just voted for one of the largest Federal power grabs in American history and threw almost a trillion dollars of money we don’t have down the toilet.  Are those of you in South Carolina prepared to give Lindsey Graham another six years?  Think twice.  He’s one of the culprits.  Richard Burr also voted for it on behalf of North Carolina.  Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) opposed the measure.  Additionally, both Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama voted for the bailout as did VP candidate Joe Biden.

I can’t get the vote information from the House yet.  The Web site must be getting swamped with traffic because it’s timing out on me, but I’ll post it as soon as I have it available.

Update: I now have the House roll. Sue Myrick and Gresham Barrett flipped on this, voting for the bailout today, whereas they voted against it before.

Voting for the bill:

• Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
• David Price (D-NC-04)
• Howard Coble (R-NC-06)
• Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
• Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
• Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
• Henry Brown (R-SC-01)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
• Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)
• Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)
• John Spratt (D-SC-05)
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)

Voting against the bill:

• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01)
• Walter Jones (R-NC-03)
• Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05)
• Mike McIntyre (D-NC-07)
• Robin Hayes (R-NC-08)
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
• Heath Shuler (D-NC-11)

As I’m sure you have heard by now, the $700 billion bailout failed to pass the House of Representatives today by a mere 13 votes.  I was opposed to this bailout, so I am rather pleased, for now.  They’ll try something again.  I just have a huge issue with this theory that corporations can privatize all of their gains but socialize their losses.  That just doesn’t seem quite right to me.

This video pretty much sums up my thoughts.

So how did your representative vote?  Did they vote to use your tax dollars to bail out Wall Street fat cats or did they vote to save your tax dollars?

Voting for the bailout were:

• Bob Etheridge (D-NC-02)
• David Price (D-NC-04)
• Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
• Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
• Henry Brown (R-SC-01)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
• Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)
• John Spratt (D-SC-05)
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)

Voting against the heinous bailout were:

• 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)
• Robin Hayes (R-NC-08)
• Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
• Heath Shuler (D-NC-11)
• Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)

Boy, the South Carolina delegation sure sucks a nut. David Price is no surprise.  He loves using your money to give special favors to all of his corporate friends.  Same with Henry Brown.  I expected Watt to be on the yea list as well because he is a Socialist.  Overall it looks to be just about split down the middle.  Now you know who is on your side and who is pining for the Rockefellers.

The U.S. Senate today overwhelmingly sent President Bush a spending bill of $634 billion to keep the government “operating beyond the current budget year.”  If only that were the case.  This budget passage, as every other, consisted of a hogfest of a Congressional pen of pigs in starched white shirts feeding from the trough that you and I provided.  This thing is stuffed with thousands of earmarks in addition to $25 billion of taxpayer funded loans to help bailout the automakers.  The bill was presented in its final form from the House to the Senate as H.R. 2638, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2008, sponsored by none other than our very own Representative David Price (D-NC-04).

How did our representatives vote?  As usual, in the Senate Jim DeMint stood up and vocally opposed the legislation.  Lindsey Graham joined him in voting against it.  Richard Burr made a rare and unusual move, voting Present, Giving Live Pair.  What this means is that somebody else who not present at the vote and knew they wouldn’t be who planned on voting the opposite way Burr was made a deal with him to vote present so that the outcome wouldn’t be altered by their absence.  In other words, for the sake of argument, let’s say Burr was hypothetically going to vote No, but John McCain was absent and was planning to vote Yes which would cancel out Burr’s vote anyway.  McCain would ask Burr to vote Present then so that the same result is produced.  As I said, this is just a hypothetical.  Burr may have intended to vote Yes and made a deal with an absent Senator who wanted to vote against it.  And we can’t forget Liddy Dole who as usual voted for her pork.

In the House we had the following voting for the waste:

• G.K. Butterfield (D-NC-01)
• Bob Etheridge (D-NC-01)
• David Price (D-NC-04)
• Howard Coble (R-NC-06)
• Mike McIntyre (D-NC-07)
• Robin Hayes (R-NC-08)
• Sue Myrick (R-NC-09)
• Patrick McHenry (R-NC-10)
• Mel Watt (D-NC-12)
• Brad Miller (D-NC-13)
• Henry Brown (R-SC-01)
• Joe Wilson (R-SC-02)
• John Spratt (D-SC-05)
• Jim Clyburn (D-SC-06)

Voting against the waste were:

• Walter Jones (R-NC-03)
• Virginia Foxx (R-NC-05)
• Gresham Barrett (R-SC-03)
• Bob Inglis (R-SC-04)

Heath Shuler did not vote.

In a nut shell, Congressman Henry Brown started a fire on his property in 2004 that spread to a nearby national forest, negligent behavior that comes with criminal liability, or at least it used to until Brown had the law changed.  He was charged and fined almost $6,000 for the incident after a top Forest Service law enforcement agent was given the go ahead by the U.S. Attorney to do.  Brown eventually paid a reduced fine of under $5,000 after he huffed and puffed around Capitol Hill and entangled several Federal officials in the mess eventually costing taxpayers $100,000 to save himself $1,000.

Brown claims he was treated unfairly and made an example of because he was an elected official and he was just shocked at this treatment he received.

“I was so taken aback that I’d be treated so impersonal — like I was some kind of crook,” Brown said Wednesday. “Those were criminal charges that were filed against me. I felt like I was the victim.”

The State

Well duh, McFly!  You mean after all of these years in Washington you haven’t figured out that the government which is supposed to be of and by the people shits on us regular schmoes every day of the week?  How many mistakes does the government make that it never has to pay up for?  Do you think a regular guy off the street could have fought back against the Federal bureaucracy that you have easy access to?

So what happened here?  Was the Federal law too harsh and unfairly criminalizing people over an accident?  Was this an instance of Congress not giving a crap about the effects their laws have on people until one of them experiences it personally?  Or did Brown take advantage of his position as an elected official and use it as a bully pulpit to achieve, as Mr. Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said “ticket-fixing at the highest levels?”

Citizens Against Government Waste is a taxpayer watchdog group that ranks our Congressmen on their effectiveness of responsibly managing our tax dollars and not spending it on frivolous pork barrell spending.  Overall, the current Congress sucks the toejam off a homeless man’s foot in this regard, but our representatives from both North and South Carolina were a little better than most.  A rating of 100% is a taxpayer hero and a rating of 0% is a government elected thief stealing your money in order to pander to his constituents at reelection time.  Our two states received no 100s or zeros, but came close on both ends.

Our four Senators did a pretty good job.  Both Burr and DeMint received an honorable mention by the CAGW, each scoring a 97%.  Graham came in with an 87% and Dole with 73%.  Overall, these scores are acceptable.  The House?  Not so much….

The Republicans did decently for the most part, which surprised me because southern Republicans typically are some of the worst abusers for earmarking in Congress.  The Democrats all performed abysmally and Henry Brown, Robin Hayes, and Walter Jones could use some work themselves.