Carolina Politics Online

So Bubba Gump finally paid a visit to us here in York County and left quite an impression with the locals.

“I wasn’t impressed at all,” said Campbell, 29, of Sharon, shaking his head from side to side. “Nice fella, sure, but I sure don’t want him representing me. He didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Since his upset win in June’s Democratic primary over a heavily favored political insider, Greene’s candidacy has stunned and shocked York County, South Carolina and the nation.

The Democratic Party big shots have tried to get him to drop out of the race. But Greene is nothing if not persistent. He does not quit.

He showed courage Monday night.

“He sure seems like a decent young man, but what happened here tonight is just not right,” said Dick Bankhead, a thoughtful 66-year-old political independent from Sharon. “He didn’t know what he was doing up there. The Democrats better save him – from himself. Somebody needs to spend time with him.

“Nobody should have to be a laughingstock.”

Greene answered questions, in fits and starts. But he didn’t say specifically how he would do anything, pay for anything – or, really, why he would do anything – except to put America back to work.

Greene “put on a tutorial on how not to present yourself as a candidate,” said Frank Duncan, 63, from York, by not answering a single question with “coherence” – except by saying that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Other than that, Duncan said, “he didn’t answer a single thing. He doesn’t have a clue. We got a bunch of dingbats up there in Washington, but at least they can speak a complete sentence.

“This was embarrassing. A farce.”

Jeremy Johnson of York, 45, asked Greene why he chose his first foray into politics as a Senate candidate rather than trying something on a local level in his hometown of Manning. Greene’s answer: “I can have the largest impact in a recession. I can do more.”

Still, Greene didn’t say a single specific thing he would “do more” of, or what he would do for “impact.”

But Johnson said Greene tried, and that was good enough for him.

“Even though he doesn’t have the polish, he did pretty good,” Johnson said.

Most in this curious crowd found Greene to be just what they expected – a candidate left hanging out to dry by his political party, trudging through answers like a mailman through heavy snow.

Greene delivered the mail all right; but it was mostly bills and junk mail.

A listener named Don Davidson said Greene won’t be good for the state, but everybody deserves a right to speak.

And speak Greene did, in mostly quiet monotone, for about 45 minutes, saying almost nothing specific at all.

“It’s a change, I will give him that,” said Don Johnson of Hickory Grove. “He tried up there, that’s for sure. I gotta give him that.

“But to elect this guy would be to go from bad to worse.”

Jenny Duncan, daughter of Frank Duncan from Sharon, listened to the whole forum. She was patient and gave Greene the benefit of the doubt.

But afterward she wondered, “How did this guy ever get this far?”

I have never before said I was embarrassed to be from South Carolina, but I might just say that now.”

Charlotte Observer

Yeah, that’s what you want to aim for when running to be a national representative for your state.  Leave everyone with a feeling of embarrassment and shame to be sharing the state with you.  I guess that’s why Bubba Gump can’t break 20% in the polls.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr on Saturday urged Charlotte-area Republicans to “mobilize an army” to change the direction of the country from Washington “to the courthouse.”

“We have a tremendous opportunity in 2010 not just at the federal level to have a change in direction but in the state … all the way down to the courthouse,” he told more than 200 people at a GOP rally in east Charlotte.

Charlotte Observer

It’s difficult for me to take Richard Burr seriously when he calls for change in Washington.  Granted the deficits we are now seeing dwarf any of Bush’s deficits, but in Bush’s day the deficits he ran up were historical at the time as well.  Where was the call from Richard Burr to control spending when his own party controlled the purse strings?  It’s funny how politicians suddenly have a change of heart about the issues when the opposition is in control.

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

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.

Elaine Marshall is out there telling quite a whopper about Senator Richard Burr’s positions on the issues.  You might have noticed that about two weeks ago President Obama suddenly started chiming in about how Democrats need to retain control of Congress to keep Republicans from privatizing Social Security.  You may have also asked yourself, where in the hell did that come from?  Nobody in the GOP has been talking about taking up this issue.  Obama completely invented it and members of his party are now following him in kind.  Enter Elaine Marshall.

Marshall “tweeted” this comment a few days ago:

I will always protect Social Security, and fight against @BurrforSenate’s risky scheme to privatize it: http://cot.ag/a1Hcnv #ncSEN #p2

What risky scheme is Senator Burr conjuring up?  Well, that’s just it.  He isn’t.  Tootsie is quoting a comment recently made to a newspaper by Burr where he said he does not plan on doing anything different if he is reelected.  Because Burr supported President Bush’s partial privatization plan of Social Security in 2005, she makes quite a stretch to connect his comments in the newspaper to some imaginary conspiracy to privatize Social Security.  It’s a flat out lie.  That aside, Bush never tried to privatize Social Security.  He wanted to offer workers under 55 the option of investing 4% of their FICA taxes in a private account.

Richard Burr has been adequate Senator at best, not bad, but certainly not what I would consider to be all that stellar either.  That Elaine Marshall and the President have to resort to the same old Social Security fearmongering to try and scare old people into voting for them again is a sign of their desperation.  The American people are rolling out the guillotine for them on November 2nd and they know it.

It’s been known for a long time now that Social Security is on a crash course with insolvency.  In fact, it’s in the red for the first time this year. The Baby Boomers are starting to retire and there are far more of them and the prior generation who will be collecting from the program than there have been in the past.  There aren’t enough younger workers contributing to this Ponzi Scheme to keep it afloat.  So what does Elaine Marshal propose to do then to protect it?  The answer is absolutely nothing.

In this campaign, I’ve outlined my plan to protect Social Security:

• Fight against cuts – ensure seniors get the full benefits they deserve
• Protect hard working folks by fighting against raising the retirement age
• Tell Washington to stop raiding the Social Security Trust Fund

She doesn’t want any cuts and she doesn’t want to raise the retirement age even though people are living far longer than they were 75 years ago when the program began.  As far as the alleged trust fund, that was raided years ago.  It’s gone.  So what’s left?  Raising the FICA tax?  It’s already 15%.  Why shouldn’t the Baby Boomers get their coming benefits cut?  It was they, after all, who voted for all of these politicians year after year who raided all of their Social Security dollars so it would seem to me they are just realizing the fruits of their very poor voting decisions.

The bottom line is Marshall supports the status quo, which will end in a fiscal boondoggle, and to deflect from that she is dispatching the typical Social Security Bogeyman that her party drums up every election year.  Nothing new to see here.

Kay Hagan is forced to go off-script and form her own thoughts and opinions. The results are not pretty.

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.

A poll of 600 likely voters commissioned by the Civitas Institute shows that Governor Bev Perdue’s favorability level in North Carolina is still insidiously low.  Only 33% of North Carolina voters hold a favorable view of Madame Governor, while 37% hold an unfavorable view.  Her numbers have improved very little over the past year indicating that voters in the state are in continuous regret or their decision to give her the reins.

Senator Richard Burr didn’t fare much better, with his approval rating at 34%, although still better than this challenger, Elaine Marshall, who stands at only 24%.  President Barack Obama holds a 46% approval rating while 43% disapprove.  Another interesting return was that when asked whether each voter would vote Democratic or Republicans in their state legislative races the answer was tied at 39% for each party.

The sample of voters was comprised of 44% Democrats, 33% Republican, and 23% unaffiliated.

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:

Well, this ought to reel in the votes for him.  It’s bad enough that Washington turns most of them into criminals, but this guy hasn’t even arrived yet.

U.S. Senate nominee Alvin Greene, a political unknown who became the surprise winner of the South Carolina Democratic primary, was indicted Friday by a grand jury on obscenity charges.

Greene was indicted on one felony count of “disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity,” according to the Richland County clerk of courts.

He was also indicted on a misdemeanor count of “communicating an obscene message to another person without consent.”

CNN

No, I am not back from vacation. I’m still in Boston, but I’m breaking my pledge to myself not to post while I’m away because, well, this was just too good to pass up.

By a vote of 63 – 37 the U.S. Senate has confirmed Elena Kagan as the next Supreme Court Justice.  Kay Hagan and Lindsey Graham voted in favor of the nomination.  Richard Burr and Jim DeMint voted against confirmation.

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.

The latest poll of South Carolina’s U.S Senate race shows Senator Jim DeMint receiving 62% of the vote compared to a paltry 20% for Alvin Greene.  My first thought was, who in the hell are these 20%?  It is a shame, however, that we can’t have a real race here.  I’m supporting DeMint for reelection so I’m glad he’s going to win, but no representative should ever just walk back into office.  Competitive races are good for government and that’s good for the American people.

Alvin Greene has been South Carolina’s Democratic Senate nominee for less than two months but already a Washington watchdog group is nailing him as one of the most “crooked” politicians in the nation.

Greene, the political neophyte who came out of nowhere to win the Democratic nomination to face GOP Sen. Jim DeMint, made the good government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s recently-issued list of the “most corrupt and unethical candidates vying for federal office in 2010.”

The “crooked candidates” list focuses on office-seekers “who have engaged in unethical and, in one case, even criminal conduct,” according to CREW.

Politico

He hasn’t even been elected yet and Alvin Greene has already been labeled as one of the most crooked politicians in the country.

“When Mr. Greene won the primary he had engaged in no fundraising, had no website and had no organized campaign,” CREW wrote. “Given Mr. Greene’s apparent lack of funds, CREW and others raised questions about whether someone had paid the $10,440 fee to file as a candidate with his own money.”

Greene has already been cleared of any wrongdoing on his filing fee, although he did take a taxpayer funded lawyer for his pending felony charge when he clearly had the money to pay for him.

CREW also explained that it named the South Carolina Democrat to its list because of a 2009 obscenity charge.

“Alvin Greene is on there mainly because he’s facing a felony charge,” Deputy Research Director Robin Powers said. “Why would you want someone representing you who’s facing criminal charges right now? Americans deserve a better candidate than Alvin Greene.”

“If you can’t even file your statement of candidacy, why should you be running the country?” Powers added.

Being charged with a crime doesn’t mean you’re guilty of it.  If Greene is convicted then so be it, but we are still innocent until proven guilty in this country.  If he is found guilty it will be interesting to see if he steps out of the race or if the Democratic Party uses legal means to force him to.  I think we are going to see a lot of fireworks in this race before the election.  Just a hunch.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced Wednesday night that he is considering introducing a constitutional amendment that would change existing law to no longer grant citizenship to the children of immigrants born in the United States.

Currently, the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to any child born in the United States.

But with 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S., Graham said it may be time to restrict the ability of immigrants to have children who become citizens just because they are born in the country.

“I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here,” Graham said during an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake … We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child’s automatically not a citizen.”

Asked how intent Graham is on introducing the amendment, the South Carolina Republican responded: “I got to.”

“People come here to have babies,” he said. “They come here to drop a child. It’s called “drop and leave.” To have a child in America, they cross the border, they go to the emergency room, have a child, and that child’s automatically an American citizen. That shouldn’t be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons.”

Read more: Politico

I am very open to this idea.  Illegal immigration has simply become too much of a problem and it’s getting out of hand.  Illegals are coming here and abusing our laws by taking advantage of loopholes such as anchor babies.  They come here and have their child, their child becomes a citizen, and then they collect social services for the child, get them free public education, etc. all paid for by everyone but them.

Citizenship should be determined upon having at least one of your parents being an American citizen.  That would resolve the anchor baby issue.

Mount Pleasant — A group of 10 rallied Monday morning on Johnnie Dodds Boulevard to denounce Sen. Lindsey Graham for his support of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

Staff members from Operation Rescue-Insurrecta Nex, an organization that wants to make abortion illegal, stood outside in the heat for the “Beating, Burning and Hanging Lindsey ‘Benedict Arnold’ Graham in Effigy” protest.

“Lindsey Graham claims he’s a Christian, but he’s a traitor,” said Randall Terry, the group’s director. The protesters said Graham is using babies as part of his political game.

Graham’s office would not comment on the protests but said in a prepared statement that although he does not agree with Kagan’s legal or judiciary philosophies, Graham does think she is qualified, has good character and understands the difference between being a judge and politician.

The Post and Courier

An entire ten people?  Oh yeah, that must have really rattled ole Lindsey.  They sound like a bunch of kooks to me.  Graham is using babies as a political game?  Uh, how about looking at yourself in the mirror Mr Terry.  You sound like an idiot.

As I said before, there are certain battles you fight and others you don’t.  The Kagan nomination isn’t one of them.  The Democrats have 59 seats in the Senate, plus a few of the moderate Yankees who have already given Kagan their blessing, so the numbers are more than there for confirmation and they have enough to break a filibuster.  Attempting to filibuster Kagan would be absurd and it would only backfire on the Republican Party and the Democrats would undoubtedly return the favor the next time a Republican president nominates a Supreme Court justice.  If they want to vote against her in an up and down vote, that’s fine.

Kagan’s appointment to the court does not shift the balance.  She won’t be any more or less radical than her predecessor.  Those ten people have a right to have their protest, but they are just wasting their time.  They have zero chance of stopping the Kagan confirmation and Lindsey Graham doesn’t give a crap about their complaints.

Tree.com, an online lending and real estate company, is the parent company of LendingTree, which matches consumers to lenders of various types of loans. A nonprofit arm launched in April, The LendingTree Foundation, provides low-income families and individuals with a mentor to help them resolve financial difficulties.

“It’s for people who…just need the coaching to overcome the financial problems they’ve faced,” said Nicole Hall, a LendingTree spokeswoman.

LendingTree also created a website this spring, AboutFinancialLiteracy.com. It offers tools, such as loan calculators and loan coaches, to help consumers with their finances.

Hagan was onsite to learn about the programs. She spoke of starting financial literacy education early in her home, teaching her children the importance of budgeting and borrowing at a young age.

Charlotte Observer

The State of North Carolina should require that every student have a course in financial literacy as a graduation requirement.  Instead of wasting students’ academic time with worthless literature requirements that have no practical value in the working world, they should learn how to manage money and responsibly manage debt when it is necessary to take it on.  It’s good that Hagan supports financial literacy initiatives, but it would also be nice if she practiced it as well.  She did, after all, cast a vote in favor of the current Congressional budget which will have a deficit of $1.5 trillion by the end of the year.

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.