On Saturday, February 6, 206, the Macon County Republican Party hosted a forum for candidates. Headlining the forum was Buck Newton, a Republican candidate for North Carolina Attorney General. Other candidates included NC Senator Jim Davis (running for re-election to the 50th District NC Senate seat), Commissioner Kevin Corbin and Elliott Southworth (both running for the NC House 120th District seat of the retiring Roger West), Karl Gillespie and Ron Haven (both seeking the County Commissioner District II seat that is being vacated by Kevin Corbin), and Commissioner Paul Higdon, Greg Boyer and Manny Carrion (all seeking the County Commissioner District III seat currently held by Paul Higdon). All candidates will face Democratic opposition in the General election this fall. Due to technical problems and illness, this material was delayed in being published. I apologize for that delay.
MEDIA ROLL CALL
(media outlets with representatives present at the event)
Macon Media (me)
The Franklin Press (a photographer, but no reporter was present)
Macon County News and Shopping Guide
This past weekend, a once in a generation political event occurred in western North Carolina...a political party held it's annual state-wide convention here. Over 600 delegates gathered at the Convention Center at Harrah's Cherokee Casino to conduct their annual business, to take workshops to assist them learn how to win elections, and to hear from candidates for public office.
I was credentialed as a member of the press and covered the activities that took place on Saturday. I would have recorded the entire thing, but could only afford the fuel to attend one day, so I chose the day with the most happening.
I recorded several speeches and most of the general session that took place that day, minus part of the morning session.
Here are the speeches that I recorded from lunch onward. Tomorrow and Wednesday, I will post speeches from the District/County Chairman's Annual Breakfast and the activities on the convention floor as viewed from my position in a suite reserved for the press.
I hope this gives you an insight on the political process that I believe it is our civic duty to participate in if we wish to remain a free society.
It is also my belief that this is the most complete and neutral coverage of the convention you'll find anywhere in North Carolina.
LUNCHEON WITH BILL BENNETT
A luncheon was held in the Council Fire Ballroom that featured speeches by Dr William Bennett, former Secretary of Education, and Bobby Jindal, Governor of Louisiana and presumed to be a candidate for President in 2016. The event was sponsored by Congresswoman Renee Ellmers and here are the videos from that event:
SPEECHES DURING THE AFTERNOON SESSION
After delegates had returned from lunch in the convention center, they were welcomed by Principal Chief of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians Michell Hicks, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory. Jim Snyder, Heather Grant, Ted Alexander and Mark Harris, who ran in the US Senate primary, all gathered on stage and endorsed Thom Tillis, won won the Republican primary. Thom Tillis then spoke. Here are those videos:
DINNER WITH FORMER US SPEAKER DENNIS HASTERT & GOVERNOR MIKE HUCKABEE
At 7pm, delegates and guests gathered in the Council Fire Ballroom in Harrah's Cherokee Hotel to eat and hear Former Governor or Arkansas Mike Huckabee speak. He was a candidate for President in 2008 and there is speculation he could be positioning himself for another run in 2016. Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, spoke last on the program. The videos from this event are below:
Maybe next year, the Democratic Party of North Carolina will hold their convention in Cherokee and I'll get to cover that event, too. They were holding their annual convention this weekend in Raleigh.
Now comes word that he is stepping aside. I wish him success on the next stage of his life.
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 8-26-2013 CONTACT: Levi Russell (703) 224-3200 or LRussell@afphq.org
AFTER EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL LEGISLATIVE SESSION, AFP-NC STATE DIRECTOR STEPS ASIDE Seven year reign saw enormous gains in economic freedom & school choice
RALEIGH, NC – After one of the most successful legislative sessions in AFP history, complete with major tax relief & reform and major advances in school choice legislation, Americans for Prosperity-North Carolina, State Director Dallas Woodhouse is stepping down to pursue business opportunities in the political arena .
Woodhouse came to AFP in 2006 after a decade in broadcasting and experience with both the U.S. and N.C. Departments of Agriculture. He became state director in 2007.
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to work with America’s premier grassroots organization and especially our supporters. Together we have accomplished much to expand economic freedom in North Carolina including ending forced annexation, lowering taxes, expanding school choice and decreasing government regulation,” said Woodhouse.
“North Carolina is a better place to live, work and do business because of the work of our activists; and I am proud to have played a part in it. From major tax cuts in 2011 and 2013, removing the cap on charter schools, creation of two broad based school voucher programs and major deregulatory efforts, we have proven the ability to advance a free market agenda with a strong grassroots presence.”
“Dallas and his North Carolina team, along with our activists have been key in helping advance economic freedom in the state," said AFP President Tim Phillips.
“We wish Dallas well, and our work in North Carolina continues with a strong team in place and a strong chapter. We look forward to working with Dallas closely in his new capacity."
Deputy State Director Chris Farr will lead the chapter as a search for a new state director begins.
For further information or an interview, please contact Levi Russell at LRussell@afphq.org.
Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a nationwide organization of citizen-leaders committed to advancing every individual’s right to economic freedom and opportunity. AFP believes reducing the size and intrusiveness of government is the best way to promote individual productivity and prosperity for all Americans. For more information, visit www.americansforprosperity.org
The worst thing about election season is the phone calls that come from parties/organizations and/or candidates that reveal these organizations don't have a clue when it comes to political organizing for getting out the vote (aka GOTV). They seem to think that having a list of phone numbers and volunteers is the answer, much like the morons who paint the roads with yard signs.
If these people had done the tiniest amount of research in order to target their calls, they'd know that I am someone who votes at every opportunity and am someone who is active online (and offline) promoting conservative candidates. My name would be stricken from all but lists involved with reminding me to vote, and once I had indicated I had voted (or my name showed that I had voted this cycle), remove it from their call lists as well.
I am especially looking at the Republican National Committee and NC Victory 2012, who are the most egregious offenders of these shotgun calls that are a total waste of resources.
I'll save my rant about yard signs for another day.
I will be posting a higher resolution video of this meeting here later. Until then, here is a low resolution version that was processed with speed in mind.
I may also have some commentary on what happened at this meeting once I calm down enough to put words on the public record here. I am interested to see if the local papers will convey what happened at this meeting or if they'll white wash what happened.
I will be processing an HD Version of this video later this week, but felt it was important enough to get this out as soon as I could so people could watch it and make their own judgments about what happened.
<center>AGENDA</center> Town of Franklin Tourism Development Authority MOnday, September 10, 2012 5:30 pm @ Twon Hall I. Call to Order by Candy Presley II. Approval of minutes III. Financial Report IV. Financial Report a) Finance/Budget -Summer Woodard, Chair b) Policy & Procedures - Summer Woodard, Chair c) Funding Evaluationb Committee - Deb Heatherly, Chair V. Unfinished Business a) Grant Request for Advertising in Dashboard & Saddlebags b) Grant Request for SMCFTPA - Nikki Pons c) Grant Request for Downtown Businesses - Martha Holbrooks VI. New Business a) Billboard Request for Gun Show - Ron Haven b) Billboard Request for Shop Franklin First - Linda Schlott c) Update from Angel Media on website and Comcast d) Update from Sylvia Cochran on Smoky Mountain Rumble e) Update from Ron Smith on Ruby Bash VII. Items from the floor VIII. Announcements IX. Next meeting October 8th, 2012 Board Retreat X. Adjournment
I found an interesting table this morning that shows the estimated number of people who watched each of the Republican Primary debates and decided to post it here...embedding links into it that lead to full videos of each of them.
Click on the date in order to watch the full debate.
I was very disappointed in the low numbers that watched each debate. Such is the nature of our society, every one complains about politics, but no one really pays any attention to it in any detail.
The John Batchelor Show is my favorite radio show. John Batchelor does what I like to call the reverse call-in show...he calls people who are all over the world, from many walks of life, with many areas of expertise to discuss what is happening in the world today. I can't really classify the show, You just have to experience it.
Here is the audio from last nights four hour show...
Hour One; 9pm
Hour Two; 10pm
Hour Three; 11pm
Hour Four; midnight
For more information, please check out these links:
I have listened to the show since September 8, 2001, when I found the show while digging around the AM dial after work and heard these two guys(Paul Alexander and John Batchelor) discussing the bombing of the USS Cole and pointing the finger at Osama bin Laden. I was hooked, and made plans to listen the next saturday night on 770-AM WABC from my location in Terre Haute, Indiana.
September 11th intervened. A couple of nights later, I found these same two guys on WABC (I had a habit at that time of sweeping the AM and shortwave bands late at night for interesting stuff) discussing the events of 9/11 and stopped digging around the radio bands late at night. I had found something interesting. I moved to western Virginia in the spring of 2002, and found the WABC signal harder to receive, but managed to construct a serviceable antenna tuned to 770 kHz on the AM Band that served me well until I became dissatisfied with my work and returned to western North Carolina in the fall of 2003. Here, I could not pick up WABC so easily, and I quickly purchased an XM Satellite Radio just so that I could continue listening to the show, which, by this time, had dwindled to just one guy, John Batchelor. [Note: The show is no longer on XM Radio because ABC Radio withdrew its channel from the XM lineup and I have since cancelled my subscription to the service]
I suffered through the cancellation in September 2006 and, out of protest, did not listen to anything from WABC (save Matt Drudge...which I listened to on 1510 WLAC) for two solid years. To my great joy, John filled in a couple of times for Matt Drudge on his radio show in the summer of 2007 and then, his show returned to the air (and was livestreamed by WABC) later that year five nights a week, eventually expanding to 7 nights a week...which has continued to this day.
I download the podcast as soon as it becomes available and listen to it, and lately, they've been real good about having it posted online within a few hours of the broadcast.
**update** The photo I posted earlier was NOT of the stomper. He was the one who shoved her to the ground.
This to me seems typical of the extremist types who support both Rand Paul and his father. This is not the first act of political street fighting or Brownshirt fascist tactics used by these people. Violence without cause like this should not be tolerated.
In this video, Ron Paul Supporters chase Sean Hannity through the streets in New Hampshire. I can't help but wonder how badly he would have been beaten if he had been caught.
The following is a screen shot of the comments left by Ron Paul Supporters on the above video:
“Violence of any kind has no place in our civil discourse and we urge supporters on all sides to be civil to one another as tensions rise heading toward this very important election.”
**10/27/2010 7.01am**
A volunteer with Rand Paul's Senate campaign has admitted to placing his shoe firmly on the face of a MoveOn.org volunteer outside a Senate debate on Monday night, but insisted that the camera angle of the footage that captured the altercation made the scuffle look worse than it was.
Tim Profitt apologized for the incident in a statement sent to a local AP reporter. But he also criticized the police for not stepping in to calm down the crowd and argued that other supporters had previously warned authorities about the MoveOn activist, Lauren Valle.
Let's go to the video...is this a light placement of the foot or a stomp?
**7.12am** The guy who dragged Lauren Valle to the ground and pinned her there has also been identified. His name is Mike Pezzano. He was identified by a fellow Tea Party member, who wished to remain anonymous.
As Congressional elections approach, some media organisations are taking steps to limit the political activities of their reporters, personally and professionally.
This week, National Public Radio announced that its employees would not be allowed to attend the rallies planned for October 30 by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the hosts of two satirical television news shows. The gatherings are a response to the “Restoring honour” rally in August, hosted by Fox News’ Glenn Beck.
In a blog post by the NPR communications department, the radio network explained that the company’s ethics policy states that employees “may not participate in marches and rallies involving causes or issues that NPR covers . . . This restriction applies to the upcoming Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert rallies.” NPR reporters covering the events are permitted to attend in a professional capacity.
Other media organisations have not explicitly banned employees from attending, but if many of their policies are strictly followed, they would not be allowed to attend the rallies, which imply political support.
Here is a thoughtful piece I've excerpted about Christine O'Donnell's victory in the GOP primary in Delaware I found in Real Clear Politics...
An awful lot of ink has been spilled on Christine O'Donnell's monumental upset of moderate Republican Mike Castle in the Delaware primary on Tuesday. Far too much, in fact. So let's cut to the chase. There are really only four things you need to know:
1. Yes, that is almost certainly the end of GOP prospects for this Senate seat.
2. This doesn't hurt the GOP's chances of the taking the Senate all that much.
3. Still, the GOP will regret not having Castle's vote someday.
4. No, this doesn't mark the end of the GOP.
There are two problems here. The first, and perhaps most obvious, is that the Republicans are currently positioned to win the most House seats that they've won in an election since 1946. Republican candidates for the House are running away with races in evenly-matched swing districts.
They are competitive in House districts in Maine that are typically 3-8 points more Democratic than the country, and in a Central Valley district that is five points more Democratic than the country. And if Republicans are competitive in CA-20, what does the polling look like in the 116 districts Democrats occupy that are as or more conservative than that district?
In other words, pundits aren't seeing the forest for the trees here. The same forces that ended Mike Castle's career are the same forces that are propelling the GOP toward an historic midterm election win, and the results will be especially strong in the chamber where actual control matters the most.
Second, there's nothing new here. The GOP base has been at war with its establishment since the 1960s. Charles Sandman's primary of New Jersey Governor William Cahill in 1973, Jeffrey Bell's primary of New Jersey Senator Clifford Case in 1978, Kenneth McMillan's primary of Thomas Railsback in 1982, Oliver North's primary of Jim Miller in 1994, the trifecta of Allard, Brownback, and Salvi in 1996 . . . all of these were precursors of Tuesday's upset.
The Democrats do it too, by the way. The anger that drove Democratic successes in 2006 also endangered their chances when establishment candidates lost primaries in California 11 and New Hampshire 1, and might have cost them their chance at California 4 and a few other seats.
Yet both parties endured, and even prospered. And that's the important thing to remember about Tuesday. When historians look back on the 2010 elections, O'Donnell's win over Castle will just be a footnote.
Democrat Chris Coons holds a double-digit lead over Republican hopeful Christine O’Donnell in the first Rasmussen Reports post-primary survey of the U.S. Senate race in Delaware.
Coons earns 53% of the vote to O’Donnell’s 42%, with leaners included. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided.
This marks a remarkable turnaround in a race that at the beginning of the month was rated Solid Republican and was on track to be a GOP pickup. At that time, Congressman Mike Castle led Coons as he had been leading all year. O’Donnell trailed Coons at that time 47% to 36%.
It's been awhile since I've posted on my favorite radio show, which used to run weekly on Sunday Nights (it originated as a seven nights a week show after 9/11). Then, it was expanded to run Saturday and Sunday...then, it became a Monday through Sunday Night Show. Four hours of John Batchelor every night!!!
I'm going to correct that now. Here is the podcast of last night's show, hour by hour:
The show starts at 9pm Eastern, and continues for four hours of the best radio you will find anywhere, as only John Batchelor can deliver it with his stable of experts. He covers everything from politics to the war in the Middle East to space to interviewing book authors.
And here is where you can listen to the show live online: New York, WABC-AM 770 7-10PM ET;
And here is where you can find the podcasts of the show: WABC Radio.
President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
The stunning choice made President Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. President Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."
The committee said it attached special importance to President Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.
"Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play," the committee said.
Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson won in 1919. Former President Jimmy Carter won the award in 2002, while former Vice President Al Gore shared the 2007 prize with the U.N. panel on climate change.
I note that all the previous Presidential (or Presidential wannabees) who won can be described as "Progressive". That should be the end of the story right there. Right-thinking peoples should recognize that the Nobel Prize for Peace, or anything else, is driven by politics, and not by science. I am utterly disgusted by this decision.
Obama, like Jimmy Carter, got this prize for sticking it to Israel.
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