The way we hear democrats scream about outside money in politics, you would be sure that all the money was going to republicans. But that wouldn’t be true.
I went to Open Secrets and found the data from the 2014 cycle. Interesting.
In the top 10, only 1 – the 10th place listing, goes to republicans. In 9th, the break is nearly 50-50.
The top 8 are all democrat donors.
And the demonized Koch brothers? 14th.
Prior to 2010 North Carolina was a strange state – reliably democrat in state politics and mostly republican in Presidential elections.
But then 2010:
WASHINGTON — The 2012 election should have been a good one for Democrats running for Congress in North Carolina.
They received a total of 2.2 million votes — about 81,000 more than their Republican opponents. But when those votes were divvied up among the state’s 13 House districts, Democrats came up short. Way short.
Republicans won nine seats and Democrats only four.
How did Republicans pull off this unlikely feat? State lawmakers set the stage when they redrew the boundaries of congressional districts following the 2010 Census.
Before redistricting, North Carolina’s congressional delegation was closely divided. Democrats held seven seats and Republicans held six. In any given election, three or four races could be competitive.
Amazing.
But is there a reason?
But the 2010 election was historic for Republicans in North Carolina, and the ramifications are still being felt. In 2010, Republicans won control of North Carolina’s entire state legislature for the first time since 1870, giving them control of the redistricting process.
North Carolina still had a Democratic governor, Beverly Perdue. But in North Carolina, the governor has no say over the congressional map. The entire process is controlled by the legislature.
To be sure the maps would e different after more than 140 years in the dark – but did the republicans go too far?
They like to say that elections have consequences – and here in North Carolina, Obama in 2008 delivered the republicans in 2010. And THAT meant the republicans redrew districts that the democrats had gerrymandered for better than 100 years.
The result? Republican majorities in the senate and the house with a republican governor.
But, if elections have consequences then winning elections have reasons. Or, in this case, losing elections:
Raleigh, N.C. — After less than a year as executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Robert Dempsey was fired Sunday, an attorney for the state party said Sunday night.
“Mr. Dempsey is no longer executive director,” David Harris said, declining to say why other than that the dismissal was a personnel matter.
Dempsey had no comment Sunday night, and state Democratic Party Chairman Randy Voller did not respond to messages seeking comment.
According to multiple sources, some of whom talked to Dempsey, Dempsey said he was informed Sunday that he was being let go.
Local democrats are going nuts:
Dempsey might not be perfect, but he’s the best thing that’s happened to the party since Voller became chair. (I know, I know. That’s not saying much.) Voller’s first months were marked by incompetence and embarrassing revelations. Dempsey began putting the house in order and people began taking North Carolina Democrats seriously again.
…
It was apparently too much for Voller. He needed to reestablish him self as buffoon-in-chief, since, you know, bad news is better than no news. At a time when Democrats should be rallying around their impressive candidates as the filing period opens, they’re focusing on more drama at the Goodwin House. The timing couldn’t be much worse.
…
Voller may just be stupid, politically tone deaf and narcissistic. But what if he’s a Republican plant? It’s hard to imagine someone doing more to harm the credibility of the Democratic Party than Voller.
I’m just being facetious, but given the damage he’s done, what’s the difference?
It’s like having Matt Millen be the GM of the Green Bay Packers!
Posted in Politics: State
Tagged Democrats, North Carolina, Randy Voller, Robert Dempsey
If you wanna listen to a debate on policy that is all about form but is specific policy agnostic, listen to republicans and democrats debate abortion and guns.
Guns or abortion, the debate is the same.
And the true wacko’s are the loons on the extreme of both issues.
Another example of how whacky this debate has gotten. We actually have a democrat lecturing a republican on the tender mercies of government largess:
“Now we’re saying to federal employees: We’re going to pay you when this is all over with,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said minutes after the 407-to-0 House vote. “But right now, you just stay home … watch TV, play chess, whatever you’re going to do, because we won’t let you work.”
Truly remarkable.
By the way, the strategy is working:
The Senate is expected to OK it as well but adjourned Saturday without a vote. The Democrat-controlled chamber will not scheduled a vote until at least Monday afternoon, when members
return to Washington.
Posted in Global Warming, Politics: National
Tagged Democrats, Government Shutdown, Harry Reid
Here in North Carolina the republican party has a super majority as well as the governor’s mansion. In fact, even when the governor has felt that the party has gone too far, he’s vetoed a bill. Or two.
And still the senate and house override the veto.
What we here from the left is the very predictable frustration of living under a super majority rule. And, in only some cases, I can resonate with them. After all, if it wasn’t for super majority, the Obamacare fiasco wouldn’t be taking place as we speak.
However, when it comes to policy differences, it really bothers me that people here in North Carolina, and across the country to be honest, take the position that just because I might disagree with specific legislation than “the democrat” that:
– I “hate” the poor.
– I am waging “war” on the poor.
And you can substitute any group or element of society and get the same message. Think education, women, children, minorities, elderly or any other group that can tug on heart strings.
And now that I think of it, it doesn’t just bother me, it insults me. I have a firm belief that each of us has amoral responsibility to care for our fellow man. That society is strengthened on the idea that should one of us stumble, those of us capable will carry the burden.
However, the morality in that action comes from the voluntary aspect of it. The very act of sacrificing for the common good is the notion that the sacrifice is free and voluntary.
So when I say that I support programs that reach out to the most vulnerable folks in society, I am NOT speaking of programs that force one person to contribute to what I feel is my version of the best good.
That is:
I find it noble and of morality to contribute to my neighbors relief. I find no such nobility or morality in forcing you to do the same.
So enough of this “War on Puppies” or “Conservatives Hate Kittens”. Air your concerns in the public square and take what comes.
Posted in Liberty, Life, Pino's Law, Raising Men
So, North Carolina is making headlines for their Moral Monday protests. Typical liberal complaints about wars on various things, republicans hate the poor and kids and moms and baseball. The normal stuff.
But added to the mix is the disbelief that when republicans take control of state government for the first time in 150 years, they are going to govern different than democrats.
Anyway, the Moral Monday protests are silly in the same way that the Occupy Wall Street protests were silly. But now the right has countered:
Raleigh, N.C. — About 200 supporters expressed their appreciation Tuesday for North Carolina Republicans’ efforts to cut taxes, require identification before voting and make getting abortions more difficult.
Republican groups organized a “Thankful Tuesday” rally at the government complex in Raleigh to praise the GOP-led legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory for their work passing conservative policies.
Sigh. The right. So much less skilled at message crafting than the left; Thankful Tuesday. They can’t even get the name right. Who holds a Thankful Tuesday when Thankful Thursday is available?
Anyway, the republicans are going to over reach, to be sure, and they’re gonna make mistakes – again, no surprise. But the left needs to calm down when, for the first time in a dozen or more decades, things aren’t being decided by them.
Posted in Politics: North Carolina, Politics: State
Tagged Democrats, Moral Monday, Occupy Wall Street, Republicans, Thankful Tuesday
I think that Harsanyi is on to something here:
One of the most seductive parts of President Barack Obama’s political message (and the message of progressive Democrats in general) is sympathy for the poor and a willingness to talk about the disparities of capitalism — about the rich being too rich and the poor being screwed. In some ways, it’s the predominant message of the Obama era.
…
Now, if you’re heavily invested in the market, life is peachy. A confounding fact, no doubt, when one considers that nearly every economic indicator known to mankind has been pretty abysmal of late. We are experiencing high unemployment, a shrinking labor force, stagnant gross domestic product growth and rickety consumer confidence. A disconnected market, though, has been on a historic boom. So if we need any more proof that life really isn’t fair, think about this: The rich have the Federal Reserve, and you have Harry Reid.
What does it mean in substance? According to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data, thanks to a robust stock and bond market, coupled with a lousy housing market, the recovery has meant that households with a net worth in the upper 7 percent have seen their net worth rise, on average, by nearly 30 percent in the years after the recession and that everyone else’s net worth has dropped by an average of 4 percent.
The economic gap between whites and minorities is even worse. According to the Urban Institute, whites, on average, have two times the income of blacks and Hispanics and six times the wealth, and that gap is accelerating.
This is going on, if you can imagine, even after a tax hike on the wealthy.
The brutal and bitter reality of liberal policy is that the very people they claim they are helping are getting hammered. And just as those very folks who are getting screwed by the democrats go to vote, they are going to hear that it’s all because of the republicans.
In all of history, nothing has improved the lot of the ordinary man in the way that a freer and more open market has. Increased government regulation leads only to the poor remaining poor.
Posted in Economics, Politics: National
Tagged Barack Obama, Capitalism, Democrats, Free Market, Liberal
Thomas Sowell on the impact of the minimum wage as it pertains to minorities in America, specifically black Americans:
Over the years, some of the most devastating policies, in terms of their actual effects on black people, have come from liberal Democrats, from the local to the national level.
As far back as the Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression of the 1930s, liberal Democrats imposed policies that had counterproductive effects on blacks. None cost blacks more jobs than minimum-wage laws.
In countries around the world, minimum-wage laws have a track record of increasing unemployment, especially among the young, the less skilled, and minorities. They have done the same in America.
One of the first acts of the Roosevelt administration was to pass the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which included establishing minimum wages nationwide. It has been estimated that blacks lost 500,000 jobs as a result.
After that act was declared unconstitutional, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set minimum wages. In the tobacco industry alone, 2,000 black workers were replaced by machines, just as blacks had been replaced by machines in the textile industry after the previous minimum-wage law.
Fortunately, the high inflation of the 1940s raised the wages of even unskilled labor above the level prescribed by the minimum-wage law. The net result was that this law became virtually meaningless, until the minimum-wage rate was raised in 1950.
During the late 1940s, when the minimum-wage law had essentially been repealed by inflation, 16- and 17-year-old blacks in 1948 had an unemployment rate of 9.4 percent, slightly lower than that of whites the same ages and a fraction of what it would be in even the boom years after the minimum-wage rate kept getting increased by liberal Democrats.
Emphasis mine.
And who gains by the enactment of minimum wage laws?
Organized labor union.
Obama and the democrats continue to wage an economic war on a group of people in the most need of our help in order to win the union vote and its financial gravy train.
Posted in Economics, Politics: National
Tagged Barack Obama, Democrats, Minimum Wage, Thomas Sowell, Unions
Obama is confused.
Today he’s remarking that the republicans aren’t negotiating seriously:
In an interview broadcast Sunday, Obama told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Republicans are responsible for the stalemate that brought lawmakers back to Capitol Hill on a Sunday afternoon.
“They say that the biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way. But the way they’re behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected,” Obama said. “That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme,”
To be clear, there is only one party in these negotiations that have, as their entire offer, a single overriding theme. And that is the President himself. The President’s entire offer, the whole of it, consists of raising taxes on the wealthy.
And that’s it.
No spending cuts. No entitlement reforms. No talk about any effort to reduce the deficit or attack the debt.
Just tax the rich. And he knows that this isn’t going to address any of the problems we face, on the contrary – it will only make it worse.
But if that was the only aspect of Obama’s confusion, he could be forgiven. We know that he’s nothing more than a class warrior who hasn’t an inkling of a clue on anything economic. But he should know how bills make their way through Capital Hill:
Obama said the Senate should vote on legislation to make sure middle-class taxes are not raised and that 2 million people don’t lose unemployment benefits .
The Senate doesn’t initiate financial bills; the House does. And they have. Two of them. Both waiting for Reid and the democrats to take them up, amend them and vote on them. The pressure is squarely on the Senate right now. Not the republicans.
Posted in Debt - Deficit, Economy, Government, Politics: National
Tagged Barack Obama, Democrats, Fiscal Cliff, Republicans, Taxes