One annoying thing about the healthcare debate is Democrats tell us what it is supposed to do, rather than what it says. They act as if they have never heard of an unintended consequence. That is why their legislation has so many. I would expect legislation that provides healthcare to [...]
The members of the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee, voted Saturday to keep open Republican primaries to those registered unaffiliated in North Carolina.
The discussion was lengthy and heated with passion on both sides of the argument.
Ann Sullivan, of Wayne County and second Vice Chairman of the RD Congressional District, [...]
My wife tried to leave a voice mail for U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-NC, to urge her to vote NO on cloture and NO on the Harry Reid’s 2,000-page government takeover of health care bill, but, guess what, both voice mail accounts in Washington are full, as is the one [...]
I needn’t remind you of the necessity to kill this health care bill so that in the future true reform can be done. This bill will bankrupt the country by creating a whole new entitlement program we can’t afford, will oppress the freedom of the American people by imposing an [...]
The Pender County NAACP contends that the local school system is so biased against minorities that litigation may be warranted. In a new Pender Post piece, Pender school officials push back hard against the allegations, citing efforts to broaden their recruitment pool without hiring on the basis of race. [...]
Macon County residents are resisting another attempt to create a comprehensive land-use plan. The stated reason is they mistrust government’s outreach for buy-in because it has never listened to them in the past. Visioneers who moderate community forums have a way of knowing what the outcome will be and [...]
Claude E. Pope, Jr, Chairman of the Wake County Republican Party, Friday, filed a Notice of Challenge with the Wake County Board of Elections, challenging the right of Clayton H. "Clay" Aiken to remain registered to vote in Wake County.
“It has come to light [...]
Dr. Mumpower wants public safety officers in the City of Asheville to undergo fitness tests. The dumbest thing about it is I actually bothered to read his supporting documents. One gave a statistical analysis of fat rolls pinched on officers over 12.5 years. In Charlotte, where the study was [...]
Today’s fun fact: Federal stimulus money to K-12 public schools in the United States totals $68 billion. That’s $68 billion over and above what the feds normally spend on public education.
What are Americans getting for the extra spending? Not much. That’s the conclusion reached by Chester Finn and Frederick Hess in [...]
ABC News reporter Johnathan Karl sheds light on a provision in the Senate health care bill revealing how our rulers in DC “debate” legislation:
What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care [...]
Do you think we have seen the last of the undercover videos exposing ACORN’s true nature? Not by a long shot. Check out this interview from ReasonTV with Biggovernment.com editor Mike Flynn.
One of the revelations in the interview is that Biggovernment.com has several more videos that [...]
And the only inkling of job growth is from….government jobs. Ta-da!.
We are well on our way to permanently crushing private sector job creation in much of the country — including North Carolina.
But I’m more convinced than every that we will stay on this path unless and until 1) [...]
Every week the Cary Watchmen (www.carywatch.com) seem to find another questionable program, this time it is the “Downtown Wayfinding Project”.The Town believes that more signs throughout the Town will lead to more visitors. One thing is for sure, it will lead to a veritable forest of roadside signs and [...]
The Cary Watchmen found another $134,000 of your tax money being spent on another 16 non-profits. Despite a mountain of debt and spiraling debt service costs, the Town of Cary approved spending of another $134,000 of your tax money for 16 more non-profits. See the list here. According to [...]
The Cary Watchmen (www.carywatch.com) propose the development of a new culture of frugality and thrift to replace the current culture focused on spending and image creation. Read our latest position paper here.
New data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statisticsshows that North Carolina’s unemployment rate climbed to 11% in Oct., up from 10.8% in the previous month.
The 11% places NC with the nation’s 8th highest unemployment rate – topping the list is Michigan at 15.1%. The national rate stands [...]
Joe Coletti, fiscal policy analyst for the John Locke Foundation, doesn’t mince words about North Carolina’s staggering unemployment rate — we’re now 9th in the nation — or what to do about it.
“The governor has pledged to seek every ‘recovery’ dollar she can get for the state,” Coletti added. “But [...]
Good thing those new Wells Fargo ATMs include that language, huh?
This is the clearest sign yet that WFC is just transferring its West Coast template to points East without any type of re-jiggering. ATMs with options for Hmong, Korean, and Vietnamese might make sense in California. In Waxhaw, not [...]
My prior post on Julia Boseman’s impending retirement from the state senate reminded me to look over the Civitas Institute’s handy North Carolina Partisan Index, which uses prior votes for federal and state offices to determine the partisan lean in each of the state’s 120 House and 50 [...]
I’ve mentioned this bit of political scuttlebutt in these parts before, but now it’s official: New Hanover’s Julia Boseman will retire from the state senate at the end of her current term, creating an open seat for the 2010 election cycle in one of North Carolina’s most competitive [...]
Facepalm.
That’s the Gray Lady folks, suddenly figuring out that high unemployment rates just might — might mind you — have something to do with the “new wave of foreclosures” out there. We’ve been trying to point this connection out, especially with regard to the housing market in Charlotte, for [...]
The Swain County Commissioners declared their county a Recovery Zone. County Manager Kevin King wanted the declaration so the county could be eligible for a $1.9 million interest-free loan from the $12 trillion national debt. The loan would pay for job creation. Said King:
We don’t know right now if [...]
Furthermore, the Charlotte Observer is reporting that Democrat Party leaders in the Eighth Congressional District have had their phones ringing off the hook from angry party faithful pissed off over Kissell’s decision to vote no. There are already talks of primary challenges, which if successful would probably [...]
A recent testy editorial about bureaucratic rules related to the proposed Titan America Carolinas Cement plant acknowledges the frustration business people and other citizens’ experience with government rules and restrictions. Usually, Star-News editorialists quietly tolerate or support government functions and ignore the insidiously destructive conditions they often impose [...]
Former NC State Chancellor James Oblinger has been passed over for the job of president of New Mexico State University. Oblinger lost out to Barbara Couture, the senior vice chancellor for academic affairs and a professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[...]For those curious about where the NC’s federal stimulus money is being spent, check out stimuluswatch.org.2.0 to follow the money.
The site documents the more than 1,700 items (mostly grants) being funded by the federal stimulus bill – The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The site is interactive, allowing visitors to [...]
Forgive me if years of sitting in on Ways and Means Committee hearings and pouring over Tax Notes intrudes, but if some county DSS employee just got a X-month interest-free loan for $33K, there might well be tax implications.
Usually the gift tax obligation falls on the donor, but in [...]
© Marianne Suarez for Civitas Review Online, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
[...]The big news out today in Charlotte are the record level of students enrolled in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system living in “poverty.” Around 68,000 students in the school district, or roughly 51% of the school population, get taxpayer funded lunch aid, according to the Charlotte Observer.
First off, I want [...]
It appears that there are some within the NC GOP that want to go back to the days of excluding unaffiliated voters from the party’s primary elections. This would be a bad idea for a number of reasons.
1. The numbers of voters registering as unaffiliated is exploding. Just in [...]
The federal debt now tops $12 trillion. That’s a 12 plus 12 zeroes. You would have to earn a million dollars a year for 12 million years to accumulate that much money. $12 trillion also works out to $87,000 for every U.S. worker (as of Oct.)
North Carolina has a bit [...]
Someone has to ask it.
With the revelation that two murdered women were known to each other the obvious question to ask is, do they share the same killer? I will be very interested to hear how Heather Catterton, 17, and Randi Saldana, 30, died.
And let’s not forget [...]
Looks like everyone is on the same page on this — except our elected leaders.
Bonuses — however defined — to City Manager Curt Walton and County Manager Harry Jones this year are just not supported by their performance. But hey, just wait until next year, when the challenges [...]
Writing in the Lumina News, Brian Freskos offers a fascinating account of how defeated incumbents in both Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach are handling their election-day losses. Some of them aren’t handling it very well, it seems.
I learned several things from the article, including the fact that while my longtime friend [...]
Continuing our examination of Capitol Monitor’s data on federal bailout spending in North Carolina counties, today’s focus is Pender County. As of now, some $5.8 million in (borrowed) federal funds has gone into Pender, including a pivotal $15,643 grant to “Big Daddy (c/o Brian Todd)” for a clean [...]
Democratic watchdog Joe Sinsheimer is urging Gov. Perdue to remove Mike Easley confidant Ruffin Poole from the Golden Leaf board since Poole thwarted Board of Election efforts to get him to testift at the Easley hearing last month. From the News & Observer:
Sinsheimer said the episode demands a strong [...]
According to some accounts, the national debt is now in excess of $12 trillion. Heath Shuler’s debt clock, however, has not yet broken the $12 trillion mark. It is, of course, understandable that the federal government would not be able to track its finances with a tolerance tighter [...]
The Citizen-Times provided extended coverage of the Buncombe County zoning hearing. I disagree with the concept that fair reporting means if about thirty people speak in opposition and four speak in favor, then the pros and cons get equal coverage. I was also amused at how, after the commissioners [...]
In August, we were all told by the leadership of the General Assembly that $1.1 billion in tax increases were necessary in order to stave off massive, destructive cuts to “critical” state services.
Apparently we were lied to.
According to the Gov. Perdue’s budget director, the state has about $600 million [...]
Like I’ve been saying, they aren’t going to rest until Sanford is pushed out of the governor’s office one way or another.
COLUMBIA — A South Carolina ethics panel said Wednesday that Gov. Mark Sanford should face charges he violated state laws tied to a three-month investigation into his travel and [...]
Whoa. Weren’t we just talking about the FHA?
That is Toll Brothers CEO Robert Toll telling everyone within earshot that we are indeed re-inflating the real estate bubble. When a guy building houses says this, you might want to pay attention.
[...]We have discussed the incompatibility of political conservatives and the anti-capitalist agenda of organized environmentalists at this site. We identified some of the concepts and ideas that define a conservative such as, limited government, reduced taxes and freedom to own and use property. However, these terms are abstract. What [...]
Today’s Garner-Clayton Record published my letter to the editor (third letter down) discussing why a Garner’s centralized “downtown revitalization” efforts are anything but market-based.
John Hodges, executive director of the Garner Revitalization Association, attempts to assure readers that his organization is embracing a “market-based approach” to Garner’s “downtown revitalization” (A market-based [...]
N.C. Rep. Nick Mackey pleaded guilty Tuesday to contempt of court for his failure to show up for a December 2007 trial of a client.
The judge didn’t impose a jail sentence or fine. Instead, he entered a prayer for judgment continued and ordered Mackey to pay $262.50 in court costs. [...]
Martin Nesbitt isn’t known for toeing the party line. Over nearly three decades in the House and Senate, he has been a loyal lieutenant of some Democratic leaders and a thorn in the side of others.
But in his new job, the Asheville senator will try to keep 30 Senate Democrats [...]
It is too easy to cheat in North Carolina Elections – just ask Clay Aiken.
In North Carolina, voters are required to sign an Authorization to Vote form before they are handed a ballot – the wording goes something like this:
I hereby certify that the address listed on the label is [...]
