In eastern N.C., 2010 is 2008

By Thomas Brock

As my first post here at IndieRegister.com, I’d like to highlight what will likely be a very public mudfight: The race for eastern North Carolina’ss 3rd Congressional seat.

2010 appears to be a semi-replay of 2008 in several ways. Congressman Walter B. Jones Jr., the Republican incumbent, will probably face primary competition from former Onslow County Commissioner Joe McLaughlin. McLaughlin faced Jones Jr in the 2008 primary election. An early follower of the Tea Party group, McLaughlin targeted Jones Jr for his lack of conservative credibility and flipping on his previous support for the ongoing occupation of Iraq.

McLaughlin lost to Jones Jr after not being able to raise the money necessary to generate much interest. McLaughlin has stayed out of the limelight until recent letters to editor of the Jacksonville Daily News began indicating his interest to run against Jones Jr again.

CCC burns First Amendment

By William R. Toler

In an earlier post, the I.R.’s Corey Friedman wrote “Sometimes…a cigar is a cigar. And sometimes, it’s the First Amendment.”

This time, it is the First Amendment.

In trying to keep in line with a tobacco-free policy, administrators at Craven Community College removed a decorated auto hood from the student center because it featured a charicature of autobody instructor Bob Hall smoking a cigar, according to the New Bern Sun Journal.

The hood was airbrushed by students of the autobody program for Hall’s drag racing car. Hall told NewsChannel 12 that the students were disappointed. “They’re hurt,” he said, “because the students that worked on it wanted to show their project.”

Decision imperils abortion rights

By Nina Kilbride

In law school, I learned that the party who succeeds in framing the question to be decided has a better chance of winning in court. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, decided last week, is the ultimate example. The Supreme Court did not have to review in this case, and certainly did not need to issue such a sweeping opinion.

The lawsuit sought injunctive and declaratory relief about whether the Citizens United, an anti-abortion rights group, could run its anti-Hillary Clinton video on pay-per-view during the 2008 election. This particular case is factually moot. The election is over. The only reason to keep going is to change the law — in short, to legislate by judicial decision.

Generally, courts only decide matters that are actually in controversy. But sometimes, when a factual situation is common but cannot be dealt with on an individual basis in a timely manner, the Supreme Court will review a case anyway because the problem is “capable of repetition, yet evading review.” It’s not surprising that the cases cited for this proposition often involve abortion rights.

Haiti hatemongers: Our mirror image

By Ryan Graczkowski

You’ve all seen the advertisements on television. Some time, right in the middle of your primetime viewing, you see a child with a desperate, staring face, surrounded by a shack. Cue the sob story — no parents, barely getting by on hope and a dream and your donations, if you choose to give them.

I hate to admit this, especially in my first piece, but I have to say that my first thought is: How in the world does that rich white guy with the beard not get robbed? It certainly isn’t for the horrors that these people are enduring on a day-by-day basis. I don’t consider them. I don’t imagine that you do, either.

Please don’t misread me. I’m not trying to pass a moral judgment here. I’m just saying that I’m more inclined to think about my bills and getting gas in my car. I think that’s normal, so I’m saying that you are probably the same.

Haiti doesn’t let us have that excuse anymore.

A congressional con artist

By Nicole Navarro

Taking advantage of other people’s misfortune and fears certainly isn’t a new concept. But it is a concept that is spreading — all the way to the U.S. House.

As was expected, the recent disaster in Haiti had scam artists ready to take action. Within 24 hours of the massive quake, the first spam scam e-mails were reported. There also reports of phone calls from people claiming to be survivors of the disaster or family members of survivors asking for money.

Mental images that come to mind when I think of Haiti right now don’t include Haitians sitting around on their cell phones dialing random numbers to ask for help. 

I would like to think if someone called me, they wouldn’t get too much further than “Hey, I am a survivor in Haiti” before either I hang up or try to collect information in an effort to report it to authorities.

New World Order: Are we there yet?

By Richard C. Evey
Libertarian/Patriot

I made the mistake of reading George Orwell’s book 1984. It made me very upset and made me think about what is happening to this once-great country of ours. I did read it a long time ago (1980s) and thought then that it would never happen in this country. Well, I was WRONG.

Everything that is in the book is happening today and not only in other countries, but here in the good old US of A, or should I say the USSA – United Socialist States of America? As a side note, we were headed for socialism long before AKA got into the White House.

But I digress: In the book there are three phrases:

WAR IS PEACE 
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

School board could use history lesson

By Nina Kilbride

I just completed the Wake County Public Schools’ survey for parents regarding their school scheduling and assignment preferences. If the founding fathers were completing the survey, I think they would be in a tizzy.

There’s a book I’d like to recommend to the Wake County school board. It’s called The Federalist Papers. It was written a long time ago by some famous guys, so maybe they read it in school? Maybe not. Here’s a link to Wake County’s Public Schools’ video instruction on the topic.

The video details the anti-Federalist ideas for why individual rights (ultimately culminating in the Bill of Rights) were important in a federal system of government. Wake County’s instruction fails to note Federalists’ position that the federal system protects individuals by protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Our Constitution as enacted reflects a delicate balance of both positions.

From 9/11 to Iraq, is God on our side?

By Nina Kilbride

From the eerie Christ-like Abu Ghraib silhouette on the cover to the last paragraph, Faith Based War: From 9/11 to Catastrophic Success in Iraq is provocative. The category listing of “Religion and Violence” sounds sexy to me. And it is.

Faith-Based War’s thesis is that citizen ignorance of American geopolitical actions plus an irrational faith in U.S. as the chosen nation equals a “blind spot” that sends us reeling when things like 9/11 happen to us, the good guys. This blind spot allows citizen complicity in unreasonable and sometimes atrocious acts.

"Faith-Based War: From 9/11 to Catastrophic Success in Iraq," by T. Walter Herbert; 176 pages, 2009 Equinox Publishing, London

Americans are shocked at international aggression against U.S. interests because we believe our national religion as expressed by president George W. Bush on Sept. 20, 2001: “Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.”

We all know which side God is on, right? Continued triumph of white Christians reinforced Americans’ delusion that we are God’s chosen.

Author T. Walter Herbert shows us where President Bush’s words echo through American history, justifying bloodthirsty expansion from 1630 until the present, from Massachusetts Bay settlers slaughtering Pequots for arable land to modern bumper stickers reading “What’s Our Oil Doing Underneath Their Sand?”

Time and again, American Christian warriors almost lovingly refer to their slaughter of nonbelieving men, women and children as a “Sacrifice to God.” Certainly God would not let people suffer if it were undeserved. This sacrifice must have been necessary and proper, else why would God keep bringing American Christians triumph?

These continued triumphs, along with “[r]eligious authoritarians (offering comfort) by pretending to certainties they do not possess” keep an America ignorant of its own history in thrall. Our history is full of these examples, as Herbert details, from genocide in the name of Manifest Destiny to Dirty Harry as avenging angel.

Health care: Can N.C. do better?

By Nina Kilbride

I’m disappointed that the tone of the political world is:  “The health insurance reform bill is the best we are going to get, even if it sucks.  Let’s move on.”  I guess they are right – uncertainty about the future of the health insurance industry is paralyzing to the political and economic process.

I hoped for better and still do.

I hope once “health insurance reform” is a done deal, we can move on to what Americans really need:  health care.  Maybe the answer is at the state level, not federal.  I ask for ideas:  how can North Carolina lead by example in improving the health of its citizens regardless of their insurance status?

8-year-old grounded

By William R. Toler

An eight-year-old cub scout can’t get on a plane without a rigorous security check.

His crime: sharing a name with someone on the Transportation Security Administration’s watch list.

According to the New York Times, Michael Hicks — referred to as Mikey in all the media coverage — has been hassled at airports since he was two. Not even a congressman’s efforts to have a TSA agent meet the family at the airport kept the lad from being patted down before heading to the Bahamas.