From Carolina Journal:

RALEIGH — Since as early as January 2011, and perhaps before then, Gov. Bev Perdue’s press office has received access to confidential employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics hours if not days before its scheduled release, quite likely in violation of federal law. The governor’s staff used its early access to massage the monthly employment press release that reported jobs data to the public.

Documents and correspondence obtained by Carolina Journal show that the Division of Employment Security, formerly known as the Employment Security Commission, sent a draft of the press release each month to Perdue’s press office. The governor’s spokesmen typically rewrote the text and added a positive spin, even if the data did not support Perdue’s talking points.

(more…)

In February, when the Democratic National Committee chose Charlotte, North Carolina as the host city for its September 2012 convention, it left the door wide open for the Charlotte-area’s union-free workforce to be discriminated against in favor union workers. Although Charlotte’s Democrat Mayor, Anthony Foxx  (who is facing GOP challenger Scott Stone in Tuesday’s election), has denied the allegation, it appears Foxx has been misleading Charlotte residents on both his (alleged) job creation record as well as the outsourcing of DNC convention jobs to union labor.

On Friday, RedState’s Ben Howe broke the story of the Democratic National Committee discriminating against a Charlotte-area business for the 2012 convention because its workers were not unionized.

When John told him he was not, the Committee member told him, “We were just told that we cannot accept bids unless they are from companies that are unionized.”

Politico also had another Charlotte business owner who was told the DNC was looking to use union labor for its Convention:

He was told the Convention was looking to use local contractors to run the project, but union labor to staff it — and then, he said, he was told he would have to sign an agreement stating he would use union labor for the project.

“We asked the question, how do you want to use local when no one local is unionized?” Webb told POLITICO.

(more…)

NewsObserver.com:

Gov. Bev Perdue’s off-the-cuff remark about suspending Congressional elections to focus on the economy went viral. Her aides tried to walk it back, calling it “hyperbole” and suggesting she was joking.

Was she? You decide.

(more…)

From The News & Observer:

Speaking to a Cary rotary club today, N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue suggested suspending Congressional elections for two years so that Congress can focus on economic recovery and not the next election.

“I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that,” Perdue said. “You want people who don’t worry about the next election.”

The comment — which came during a discussion of the economy — perked more than a few ears. It’s unclear whether Perdue, a Democrat, is serious — but her tone was level and she asked others to support her on the idea.

Read her full remarks below.

(more…)

In North Carolina, collective bargaining in the public sector has been banned by the state for over 50 years.  A statute implemented in 1959 declared collective bargaining by state and local government employees “to be against the public policy of the State, illegal, unlawful, void and of no effect.”

To unionists, it seemed like a drastic and unfair law, but for years it has protected the individual’s right to choose whether or not to join a union and the right to work without being forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment.  In addition, it has protected the interests of the taxpayers of the state of North Carolina.

But a 2007 decision issued by a United Nations agency against the North Carolina law is back in the spotlight today, as labor unions are gearing up to use the argument in a mass campaign to repeal all currently existing Right to Work laws in response to Wisconsin’s collective bargaining outcome.

In an Emergency Labor Meeting that occurred last week in Cleveland, Ohio, nearly 100 labor leaders and activists met to construct an emergency action plan and strategy for the future to deal with what they say is an “assault on the unions.”  The meeting produced plans to hold a National Day of Action on March 12^th and again on April 4^th, as well as a “Perspectives” document that will serve as a framework for 15 key objectives.

Within the framework document are two specific objectives that are of special concern to supporters of the worker freedom movement and Right to Work laws. Labor unions and solidarity federations in the US and across the globe intend to use the UN-based International Labor Organization (ILO) decision to put pressure on US government officials and the public to repeal the Right to Work laws that exist in 22 states.

(more…)

In the fight to retain his Congressional House seat, North Carolina U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge (NC-2) emailed and mailed letters and newsletters from his House account last week. Observant voters noted that Etheridge used taxpayers dollars to underwrite the mailings, sending the pieces just ahead of the franking 90-day deadline before the election. Etheridge is the politician who pushed a student journalist when he was queried by the young man on a D.C. street.

Challenger Renee Ellmers, clinical director of a wound care center in Dunn, NC, is calling him on it. In an August 10th letter sent to Etheridge, Ellmers wrote:

“In every way these mailings resembled typical campaign ads, except they were paid for by taxpayers and not by your campaign.

In the text of one pamphlet you mailed you told voters you are “reducing the deficit and restoring budget discipline” in Washington. How much did this mailing (and your emailings) cost taxpayers? How many people received the mailings and emails? How can you explain writing taxpayers that you are “reducing the deficit” when you are wasting thousands of dollars of their money on political mailings to help you get reelected?”

Rep. Etheridge has more than a million dollars in his campaign account.

According to a poll of Second District voters done in June by Survey USA , 55% to 38% voting in Etheridge’s district disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as president. Yet Etheridge voted with Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama 97% of the time, voting for every major item of the Obama agenda, including ObamaCare.

A majority of voters – 53% — in his district disapprove of the Healthcare reform legislation. Etheridge also voted for the Wall Street bailout, despite voter disapproval of 61%.

Etheridge supported Obama’s so called “stimulus” bill and trillion dollar deficit. The result: North Carolina’s employment figures are some of the bleakest in the country. Last February North Carolina’s unemployment hit a record high 11.2%, ranking 10th among States in unemployment.

(more…)

Maybe it is my Catholic upbringing, but I’ve always been cursed with a bit too much empathy. It is often difficult to witness people bearing the full weight of the consequences of their decisions, even when it is richly deserved. (And, in the case of House Democrats few have ever been more deserving of reaping everything they’ve sown.) We’re human, after all, and witnessing people on the cusp of realizing that they’ve lost everything can be difficult.

Last week, Democrat Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC2) attended a fundraiser headlined by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He was asked by some students on the street whether he supported the “Obama Agenda.” He didn’t take it well.

Expect more of this. The hard, progressive left captured the Democrat majority in Congress and forced them to enact a fantasy grab-bag of legislation that is increasingly unpopular with the American public. We’re on the cusp of a deeper recession, millions of unemployed Americans have no prospect for work, taxes are about to spike higher and we’ve maxed out the national credit card. The Democrats were given a chance to run government and they’ve only succeeded in running it into the ground.

So, yeah, Democrats who are up for reelection this November are a bit testy.

(more…)

Yesterday we brought you “As Tea Party Activists Protest Dodd’s Big Brother Bill, Bank of America Deploys Security Forces,” the story of a group of  Tea Party and 912 Project protesters in Charlotte, North Carolina who showed up at the Bank of America headquarters to protest the bank’s sweetheart deal with Senator Kay Hagan on the financial reform bill currently moving through the Senate.  As protesters arrived with the intention of standing peacefully while holding signs that read things like  “No More Bailouts” and “CFPA = Big Brother”, they were met by several local police officers, a number of Bank of America paid security guards, and a few hired security extras from Wackenhut.

No one knows how the police or Bank of America were informed of the protest, as the event coordinators had not sent such a notification, nor had they filed for a permit with such a small number of attendees.  Further, the event was only scheduled the prior day.  Nonetheless, the bank was obviously prepared enough to have beefed up their security staff and hired the extra guards.

All that, for this peaceful bunch of patriotic citizens, there only to exercise their 1st amendment rights and express their discontent with the out of control bailouts and Big Brother environment created by the marriage of Big Government and Big Banks.  The financial reform bill only makes that environment even worse.  So they had something to say about it.

Sure, officers and security guards have every right to direct citizens away from private property and onto the public property boundaries.  Standing there in a line however, and hovering in the corner  in numbers that outweigh that of the protesters themselves only creates a chilling effect on 1st amendment rights like free speech and the right of the people to peaceably assemble.

(more…)

In Charlotte, North Carolina, there’s apparently a growing deadly threat to worry about.  It seems that protesters there are getting unruly these days – so unruly that local businesses have brought on extra security detail to help out the local police.

That’s what happened when one such group of protesters descended upon the Bank of America headquarters on Saturday, May 8th.  The group showed up around lunchtime, eager to protest the financial reform bill currently making its way through the Senate.  Upon their arrival, not only were they met by three Charlotte police cars and a couple of local officers, but evidently Bank of America had somehow caught wind of the event and sent out another six or so Bank of America paid security staff. As an extra precaution, the bank had also hired at least two Wackenhut security officers to augment their usual staff.  Apparently, Bank of America felt it necessary to prepare for some sort of pending siege – these are Tea Party protesters we’re talking about here.  According to our own members of Congress and their allies, they’ve deemed Tea Partiers, the very constituents they are supposed to represent, a violent, racist bunch of potentially unstable people.

Well, when I heard about the incident, I couldn’t wait to get a look at these dangerous rabble-rousers.

So this is the riot mob that Bank of America sent out its security force, including extras from Wackenhut, to aggressively resist.

Meanwhile, these protesters showed up simply to draw attention to Bank of America’s role in trying to influence the current financial reform legislation.  In North Carolina, Bank of America has a special place in the heart of Democratic Senator Kay Hagan, who has been pushing an amendment to the bill on behalf of the giant bank.  (Coincidentally, it also benefits another of the Senator’s AND Bank of America’s favorites, the Center for Responsible Lending…but that’s for another post).

Hagan, a former Vice President with Bank of America who oversaw subprime lending programs there, has proposed the amendment under the guise of “protecting consumers”, but when Bank of America is a staunch supporter of the legislation, it’s easy to be suspicious of anyone’s supposed good intent.

(more…)

Just prior to Barack Obama announcing self-imposed conditions on if and when America would use nuclear weapons, he made a North Carolina audience wilt under a 17-minute response to a fairly simple question.

According to a rather humorous blog by the Washington Post’s Anne E. Kornblut, Obama meandered for 17 minutes and 2,500 words in response to a woman wondering if  it was a “wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care” reform.  “We are over-taxed as it is,” she stated.

His best answer, from his perspective, would have simply been to have said, “Yes.”  But he knows that’s not a popular answer.  Instead, he kept  talking,  on and on, to the point where listeners no longer cared about what he was saying or why. They just want him to shut up.

His discursive answer – more than 2,500 words long — wandered from topic to topic, including commentary on the deficit, pay-as-you-go rules passed by Congress, Congressional Budget Office reports on Medicare waste, COBRA coverage, the Recovery Act and Federal Medical Assistance Percentages (he referred to this last item by its inside-the-Beltway name, “F-Map”). He talked about the notion of eliminating foreign aid (not worth it, he said). He invoked Warren Buffett, earmarks and the payroll tax that funds Medicare (referring to it, in fluent Washington lingo, as “FICA”).

(more…)

In what obviously was part of a concerted effort, former President Bill Clinton appeared recently on Sunday’s Meet the Press to discuss – wait for it – the “real” forces behind President Obama’s falling poll numbers and increasing opposition:

Former President Bill Clinton says the right-wing conspiracy that attacked him during his presidency now is after President Obama.

Democrats–no strangers to major scandal–do not hesitate to divert attention away from the corruption and “pay to play” tactics being exposed or simmering just under the surface. Clinton deliberately inserted himself into a critically important national debate and thereby unwisely opened the tomb of similar scandals, potentially more explosive than his unwise dalliances with Monica Lewinsky.

For most of the 1990’s, the White House, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Citizen Action and ACORN’s Project Vote were embroiled in what would become known as “Teamstergate.”

That scandal involved disgraced former union crusader and Teamster national president Ron Carey. According to New York Times Archives:

Three of Mr. Carey’s campaign aides have pleaded guilty to a web of illegal fund-raising schemes, including having the union donate $735,000 to three liberal grass-roots groups for a get-out-the-vote effort during the 1996 Congressional elections. In return, those groups and their supporters were to channel money to Mr. Carey’s re-election campaign…

Insisting that he delegated decisions on political gifts, Mr. Carey repeatedly denied knowing about the large donations to the three liberal groups: Citizen Action, Project Vote and the National Council of Senior Citizens.

(more…)

Keep on Truckin’:

Grateful Dead archive receives $615,175 federal grant; “The ultimate goal… is that everyone will have a Grateful Dead experience”

Renovation project at the Bill Clinton presidential center will receive $2.5 million of federal stimulus funds

North Carolina Department of Transportation spending $1.2 million of federal stimulus funds to renovate a lighthouse and another $3 million to paint a bridge

Congress approves $250 million increase in its own budget

(more…)