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 [...]
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.
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 [...]
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.
[...]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 [...]
North Carolina has not been left out in the phantom districts stimulus sweepstakes. It has six of the 440 phantom districts in which the Obama administration has claimed stimulus jobs were “saved or created”:
North Carolina has distributed more than $5.7 million in federal stimulus money to six congressional [...]
Two Reidsville, NC, middle-school students were suspended because their parents gave them fast-food hamburgers to take to school for lunch. Charles Finney, one of the parents, was rightly indignant:
Finney said the principal told him the school policy does not allow outside food because it competes with child nutrition standards.
“They [...]
Al Gore, who was called by a Washington reporter friend of mine in 1988 “the smartest man in the Senate,” shows monumental ignorance on a subject about which he’s supposed to be the world’s foremost expert. He asserts that the core of the Earth is “several million degrees, as [...]
NC Central University officials say many of their students aren’t ready for college. Shouldn’t citizens expect the K-12 education system to be rigorous enough to prepare students for college, if college is the student’s chosen path? What’s happening here helps no one– least of all the student. The results [...]
Don Surber finds something interesting in blog log files: Users on the left are whiter, older and more male than on the right. So much for that “angry white men” meme regarding the right. Here’s what he found out about the DailyKos’s users:
But old white men make up [...]
We’ve now received two reports that provide a good snapshot of how Chathma County’s state legislators fare when evaluated on issues of fiscal conservatism and social conservatism, and on issues related to business.
First, let’s look at Civitas Action’s Conservative Effectiveness Ratings. The first number is a percentage from zero [...]
We’ve now received two reports that provide a good snapshot of how Johnston County’s state legislators fare when evaluated on issues of fiscal conservatism and social conservatism, and on issues related to business.
First, let’s look at Civitas Action’s Conservative Effectiveness Ratings. The first number is a percentage from zero [...]
It’s good to read a column by a college student who not only understands market economics, but endorses it. From Benton Sawrey comes this in The Technician:
North Carolina needs to privatize alcohol sales, albeit with regulation to ensure that there is no abuse. The state allows private business to [...]
The Herald-Sun is reporting today on changes to the Citizen-Soldier Support Program at UNC Chapel Hill.
Carolina Journal readers know that reporter David Bass has been on this story since August, when an internal review showed huge problems with the program. His latest story ran Friday. As [...]
President Obama’s policies are working for Raleigh. Eighty-seven jobs have been created at the Employment Security Commsion to deal with rampant unemployment:
So far this year, more than 54,000 benefits appeals have been filed. At that rate, David Clegg, the commission’s deputy chairman and chief operating officer, expects appeals will [...]
Just 9 minutes into today’s student forum at New Mexico State University, NMSU presidential candidate James Oblinger — former chancellor of NC State — got the Big Question. To watch/hear his 7-minute summation of the Mary Easley debacle and his eventual resignation, go to 9:00 on the clock in [...]
We’ve now received two reports that provide a good snapshot of how Orange County’s state legislators fare when evaluated on issues of fiscal conservatism and social conservatism, and on issues related to business.
First, let’s look at Civitas Action’s Conservative Effectiveness Ratings. The first number is a percentage from zero [...]
We’ve now received two reports that provide a good snapshot of how Durham County’s state legislators fare when evaluated on issues of fiscal conservatism and social conservatism, and on issues related to business.
First, let’s look at Civitas Action’s Conservative Effectiveness Ratings. The first number is a percentage from zero [...]
We’ve now received two reports that provide a good snapshot of how Wake County’s state legislators fare when evaluated on issues of fiscal conservatism and social conservatism, and on issues related to business.
First, let’s look at Civitas Action’s Conservative Effectiveness Ratings. The first number is a percentage from zero [...]
To follow up on Donna’s post:
Imagine it being public knowledge that there are four candidates vying for a top post in the UNC system, that the names of those candidates are public knowledge, and that forums on those candidates are open to the viewing public.
The last time James Oblinger [...]
It’s down to four candidates – including former NC State Chancellor James Oblinger — for the job as president of New Mexico State University. Oblinger is interviewing at NMSU today. Three forums are scheduled, according to the NMSU Web site. You can watch them here. It starts at [...]
There’s a group missing in the AP’s article this morning on higher-education funding and folks afflicted by tight budgets. See if you can guess who they are. From “Lawmakers consider college aid as state, family budgets dip”:
RALEIGH, N.C. — Families across North Carolina and state government felt the same [...]
Over at UNC Chapel Hill, students say the campus medical facility for undergraduates is old and inconveniently located. They want a new one – until they’re told they need to pay for it by raising student fees, or by finding private funds. Suddenly, it may not be such a [...]
The reform candidates who take their seats on the Wake County school board next month may not be done with pushing for change, reports Carolina Journal’s David Bass. Are countywide elections next?
In the past, critics have argued that at-large races and a revision of the elections schedule could have [...]
After a seven-year effort, ridership in Cary’s C-Tran bus system remains miniscule and the cost to taxpayers is excessively high. This Position Paper from the Cary Watchmen looks at the facts and provides some recommendations for the future of public transportation in Cary. [...]
The Town of Cary joined the bandwagon of other communities across the state in requesting funding from D.C. for projects that are supposed to stimulate our ailing economy. But are they doing what they are supposed to in Cary, create more jobs? Details on [...]
The Cary Watchmen have concluded an extensive study of the Town’s recycling program and presents its findings and recommendations in a new Position Paper. The value of recycled goods has dropped to the point that the Town was told in the summer of 2009 that [...]
For the first time in a couple of years I listened to NPR on the way to work today. Not only do I feel strangely soiled, but I realized why it will be another two years before I try again listening to the Network of Annoying Voices.
I stumble onto some [...]
President Obama yesterday called for a “jobs summit” to try to figure out why his stimulus plan is such a spectacular failure. Even the funny math being used by the administration to prop up the jobs supposedly “saved or created” is not fooling even the Obama-loving mainstream media.
So yesterday [...]
From politico.com comes this laugh-out-loud headline:
After spending binge, W.H. says it will focus on deficit
I guess that means after I gorge myself on a quart of Rocky Road, I’ll focus on losing weight.
Heaven help us.
[...]Cannonsgate is back in the news, reports Andy Curliss of the News & Observer. It’s all part of the federal investigation into issues and people with ties to former governor Mike Easley. From the N&O:
Federal investigators are seeking information about possible payoffs to state officials, as well as four [...]
Actually, I don’t. I posted on Nov. 5 about the media effort to hide Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s religion, as if his name would not be a pretty good clue.
Later in the evening I showed several of the most egregious examples of flacking for Islamists.
Still, most of the [...]
U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-NC, and TVA officials earlier had told The Tennessean newspaper that there’d been no contact between the two about a water-access problem, but a new TVA report says that, though there was nothing wrong with contact as long as pressure was not exerted, Shuler did, [...]
Terry Stoops first alerted me to this screed from Jennifer Lanane, president of the Wake chapter of the N.C. Association of Educators. Lanane, like many in the education establishment, is highly vexed about the Wake school board revolution at the polls last month.
Credit her at least for [...]
There’s a disturbing trend in the land. Some of the most notoriously unethical people are being trotted out to lecture us on ethics.
First, Jayson Blair, the infamous New York Times dissembler, spoke recently at the Journalism Ethics Institute in Lexington, Va. If you don’t remember Blair, he’s the reporter [...]
The head of the Wake County arm of NCAE has played her hand before the four new school board members have even been sworn in. Jennifer Lanane clearly isn’t open to new ideas, as her e-mail illustrates.
Lanane urged her members to lobby the new board to keep the [...]
Poor Richard at the Voice of the American blog, tells a story about his recent visit with Rep. Heath Shuler, D-NC:
We were sitting around the coffee table and he leaned forward and said, “You’re a registered Republican aren’t you?” I responded, ” Yes.” ( I wish I had responded, [...]
Rep. Sue Myrick, R-NC, has no PC illusions or reticence about giving her view of the Ft. Hood killings:
The shooter was radicalized and was a jihadist. The several terror plots uncovered across the country over the past few months all have one common thing: they are all connected by [...]
I chastised the editorial writers at The News & Observer the other day for their willful ignorance regarding the motives of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. The boys on the edit page were simply befuddled:
Was this a random act? Was there something in Hasan’s recent experience that may have prompted [...]
Today’s Veterans Day, so here’s a light-hearted salute from the legendary songsmith Johnny Mercer. That’s Johnny singing, too, by the way. He didn’t just write the words well. He was also a great singer.
Though written during WWII, the sentiments and the observations about the military are as valid now [...]
CQ Politics is running a story today about Will Breazeale’s term limits pledge. Breazeale is a Republican who wants to unseat Rep. Mike McIntyre, the incumbent Democrat in N.C.’s 7th District.
But if you read Carolina Journal, you already know about Breazeale’s effort because CJ’s David Bass [...]
So much for the rhetoric of rising above it all and setting a new tone.
Multiple media sources are reporting that Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe admits in his new book that Obama campaign opposition researchers dug up the information about $400 haircuts John Edwards was indulging in, [...]
They’ve given us co-housing and other creepy collective innovations, but, finally, something that makes sense:
Denmark is boosting cash incentives to entice immigrants to return to their homelands if they ‘can’t or won’t’ assimilate into society.
The offer now on the table is close to £12,000 for every person who [...]
Todd Batchelor, a former finance director for the N.C. Republican Party, plans to run for state House District 41 which until recently was held by Democrat Ty Harrell.
Batchelor will challenge Democrat Chris Heagerty, who was recently named to the House seat, after Harrell’s resignation, Rob [...]
Well, that’s what the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index says, anyway:
The index includes questions about six types of well-being, including overall evaluation of their lives, emotional health, physical health, healthy behaviors (such as whether a person smokes or exercises), and job satisfaction.
North Carolina is 34th, Georgia 23rd, South Carolina 26th, [...]
Rep. Patrick McHenry is calling out Rep. Lynn Woolsey over her suggestion that the IRS look at the nonprofit tax status of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The USCCB dared to speak out firmly against publicly funded abortion during the debate over HR 3962. In response, Rep. [...]
First Van Jones, now Anita Dunn:
White House communications director Anita Dunn will step down from her post at the end of the month and Dan Pfeiffer, her deputy, will take over, according to sources familiar with the move.
Dunn, you might remember, is the Mao-loving Obama appointee who told [...]
Day 3 following the House vote on HR 3962 and still not a whimper from the Blue Dog Democrats on their Web site. Saturday night, the majority of the group (28 of 52 by my count) voted FOR the trillion-dollar, freedom-killing takeover of the U.S. health care system. This [...]
We’re still waiting to find out if the counting of provisional ballots in the Chapel Hill mayoral race will lead to a recount request from Matt Czajkowski who, at this point, is just 141 votes behind unofficial winner Mark Kleinschmidt, according to WCHL.
But there’s another interesting situation brewing [...]
Former NC State Chancellor James Oblinger is heading to Las Cruces for his job interview. He’s vying with four others to be the new president of the university. This document from the NMSU Web site indicates things get going Sunday with a tour of Las Cruces. On Monday, his [...]
While the President and most of the media wonder just what possibly could have prompted Maj. Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to do what he did last week, evidence keeps surfacing inconveniently and pointing to jihad:
The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful [...]
Kudos to Wake County Commissioner Tony Gurley for not letting the SAS report on Wake schools fade into the background. It matters not that Gurley is a Republican, as the N&O blog seems to imply. The SAS report is about getting to accurate data about the performance of low-income [...]
And what does the city of New London, Conn., tell Suzette Kelo? “Uh, our bad”?:
The private homes New London, Conn., took through eminent domain from Suzette Kelo and others, are torn down now, but Pfizer has just announced that it closing up shop at the research facility that led [...]
FBI: Hasan tried to contact Al Qaeda.
Law enforcement official: We’re not sure what his motive was.
This kind of politically correct denial has gotten a lot of people killed.
[...]As far as I can tell, the Web site of the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition hasn’t been updated since Saturday night’s vote on HR 3962. As I blogged previously, if my math is correct, 28 of these 52 “fiscal conservatives” voted FOR the astronomically expensive, freedom-killing, nearly 2000-page [...]
From Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, writing for The Hill, comes this key question:
And where is the constitutional basis for requiring everyone to buy insurance? It is OK for a state to make drivers pay for automobile insurance? Driving is not a right, it is a privilege, and the [...]
NARAL is outraged by Saturday’s House vote on HR 3962, which included an amendment to ban federal funding of abortion in most cases.
Well, I’m saddened by NARAL’s outrage that some politicians voted to protect the most innocent human life. By the way, earlier this year, Gallup [...]
Hard to believe this is from The Associated Press:
WASHINGTON — The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate.
[...]This AP story, published in the Fayetteville Observer, reports that Sarah Palin will be at Fort Bragg’s North Post Exchange on Monday, Nov. 23 to promote her book, Going Rogue.
[...]By my count, more than half (28 out of 52) of the supposedly fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats voted FOR HR 3962 — the nearly 2,000-page bureaucratic monstrosity that, if implemented, will stifle the economic prospects of this generation, and many generations to come. I cringe when I [...]
Several sources are saying that Rep. Heath Shuler, D-NC, has finally climbed down off the fence and will vote no on the health care takeover bill. Looks like Nancy Pelosi has corralled her 218 votes and has told Shuler he’s free to vote against it.
[...]The UK Telegraph says Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan worshiped in the same mosque as two of the 9/11 terrorists. The mosque is located in Great Falls, Va., which, one would think, would be an area covered by The Washington Post. This time, not so much:
Hasan, the sole suspect [...]
The News & Observer editorial writers usually go about their work with arrogant certainty, telling us all what’s what on the complicated issues of the day, their conclusions exclusively hewing to a lefty worldview. But today the scribes in the N&O’s ivory tower are simply clueless, don’t have a thought, [...]
Rep. Larry Kissell (D-8th District) reportedly will vote NO on the job-killing, freedom-killing health care bill known as HR 3962.
[...]The Washington Post has some great information on what to watch for today/tonight as the House debates — and presumably votes — on the job-killing, freedom-killing health care bill known as HR 3962.
For example:
Beware of the blue screen: Pelosi has exuded confidence that she will have the requisite 218 [...]
Here is Rep. Mike McIntyre’s (D-7th District) statement on why he will vote “NO” on the monstrosity known as HR 3962.
[...]In the last 45 minutes or so, both Rep. Virginia Foxx and Rep. Howard Coble have joined the House debate on the freedom-killing bill that would give the federal government control over the health care decisions of every American.
[...]Congressman Barney Frank, D-MA, was present at the pot bust of his significant other, James Ready, in Maine in 2007, it has finally surfaced. Of course, Frank claims he knows nothing about the marijuana. He told police he only smokes cigars:
According to a police report, police charged Ready with [...]
Lt. Col. Ralph Peters leaves no doubt where he stands on Hasan, the media coverage of the Ft. Hood murders, and the new politically correct U.S. Army that let this sad sack loser skate:
[...]David Horowitz says what needs to be said:
A Muslim fanatic with an Internet site praising Islamic suicide bombers as defenders of their comrades is a Major in the U.S. Army with access to military intelligence and lethal weaponry. And it’s not as though the army didn’t know that he [...]
Robert Gibbs, the former NC State soccer player who is President Obama’s press secretary, made an incredible statement at his press gaggle today. He was criticizing the few questionable signs at yesterday’s “Kill the Bill” rally at the Capitol:
Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images [...]
It’s pretty certain that five of North Carolina’s congressional delegation will vote for whatever budget-busting health care “reform” package that the House leadership proposes. They are Democrats David Price, Bob Etheridge, Mel Watt, Brad Miller and G.K. Butterfield. All the Republicans surely will oppose the government takeover of health care, [...]
An unemployed 26-year-old Florida man, Jason Sadler, came up with the idea of renting his t-shirt as advertising space and made $83,000 last year:
For his human billboard service, Sadler charges the “face value” of the day so January 1 costs $1, while December 31 costs $365.
Sadler said this may [...]
Does anyone remember the memo issued by Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano in April? The one that warned of the dangers of right-wing extremism among soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq?
I’ve Googled my fingers to the bone today and can’t find any instances of this as-much-as-predicted [...]
The civilian police officer who shot Nidal Malik Hasan was a female officer. That has to be a real downer for a devout Muslim like Hasan, to whom women should be covered and not heard:
Army officials say the suspect, “the lone shooter” for this tragic incident, [...]
The Times of the UK, which is pretty much The New York Times of England, had this to say today about the House Call-Kill the Bill rally in Washington yesterday:
Thousands of radical conservatives crowded on to the steps of the Capitol yesterday to voice their anger over Democrat spending [...]
About 100 anti-Obamacare protesters gathered at Democratic congressman Heath Shuler’s Asheville office yesterday. Most of them, according to reports, were senior citizens. A Shuler spokesman came out at one point and and read a prepared statement:
One of Rep. Shuler’s employees received our petitions and read a prepared statement saying [...]
There are two reports today of citizen journalists being treated differently from the “credentialed” media.
In one, a citizen journalist with a camera is pushed and told to put the camera away by a congressional press secretary, even though the so-called “credentialed” press were running around in the congressional [...]
The News & Observer of Raleigh joins The Los Angeles Times in the effort to downplay the Muslim background and, as some evidence suggests, the motive, of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan in yesterday’s shootings at Fort Hood. The N&O ran a New York Times wire service story that never mentions [...]
Well this is an interesting development out of Chapel Hill. The Daily Tar Heel reports that the Orange County Board of Elections has decided to count provisional ballots in the mayoral race between Mark Kleinschmidt and Matt Cjazkowski. Kleinschmidt won. According to the story, Kleinschmidt’s margin is razor thin [...]
Allapundit, who has been the best source of info on this all evening, makes this point:
So here’s where we are right now, near 11 p.m. ET. This guy raged about Muslims standing up to aggressors, praised suicide bombers, and the lead theory in the media is … PTSD? For [...]
No journalist has yet to have asked what the MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) of this shooter was. We know he was a converted Muslim, from reports, but what was his job. Was he infantry, artillery, a chaplain. What?
This is why it’s a problem when there are so few people with [...]
The Fort Hood spokesman just told him, officially, that the dead suspected shooter was a convert to Islam and he hasn’t repeated it since. He’s content rather to let it seem that this is a clear case of battle fatigue. He just said the suspected shooter was angry about being [...]
Though I’m sure The Associated Press will call it “dozens,” first reports are showing a huge turnout at the House Call “Kill the Bill” rally in Washington today. The event was prompted by a call from Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-MN. The crowd includes several busloads of North Carolinians.
Here’s a [...]
Read this horror story involving the N.C. Department of Revenue and a design firm in Greensboro and you’ll come away seething. It began with a notice they received of an audit:
The odyssey that began for Tammy Webster and her husband and partner Jim Webster with that notice would turn [...]
Two days after Mark Kleinschmidt narrowly got past Matt Czajkowski by 244 votes to become the new Chapel Hill mayor comes this story from the Daily Tar Heel, which declares taxpayer funding of campaigns a success. Kleinschmidt took public money and Czajkowski did not.
The candidates finishing atop [...]
The newly elected majority on the Wake County school board has already coalesced into a working block, even though four of the five won’t be sworn in until December 1. The first issue they’ve chosen to address is a high school construction project. The concern is location and cost [...]
The news that Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand (D-Cumberland) will leave the N.C. Senate to take an appointment to the Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission brought to my mind the quote for which I will always remember this very, very powerful man.
I can’t find a link to the [...]
Call your member of Congress. The vote is set for Saturday at 6 p.m., according to Roll Call.
[...]I was jumping around the channels last night trying to see how the traditionally liberal outlets were reacting to the big Republican wins in Virginia and New Jersey. When I switched to MSNBC late in the evening I realized I was watching a re-run of Keith Olbermann’s 8 p.m. show. [...]
Mark Kleinschmidt will take over the helm of Chapel Hill from outgoing mayor Kevin Foy, who is rumored to be considering a run for the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Richard Burr.
It is fascinating, however, to note that Kleinschmidt beat fellow councilman Matt Czajkowski by just 3 points: [...]
Despite all the pre-runoff intrigue, John Tedesco easily won the District 2 seat on the Wake County school board. He took 76 percent of the vote to Cathy Truitt’s 23 percent.
Tedesco’s win completes a clean sweep by the pro-reform school board candidates: 4 for 4.
Can you say CHANGE?
[...]Jon Ham, Donna Martinez, Jon Sanders, Kent Misegades
