Article first published as Perdue Resignation is Bittersweet on Blogcritics.

North Carolina’s Governor Perdue recently announced she would not seek the reelection voters would have likely denied her anyway.  Her resignation is a fitting capstone for a failed term, but is hardly a just cause for celebration among conservatives.

It’s easy to cheer Perdue’s resignation as a victory—and it is a victory—but her absence from the race takes her disastrous record out of the campaign.  The North Carolina gubernatorial race is now open for an Obama-style candidate; i.e. a liberal contender without a clear record who speaks only in vague platitudes and lets voter’s fill his empty suit with rosy projections.

Unlike Slick Willie, Bev. Perdue left herself no room to shift to the right and moderate her positions, instead becoming increasingly combative with the Republican legislature.  With her out of the way, the path is clear for a Democrat to run from the center, or even center-right.  If you don’t think that’s plausible, just rewind to the 2008 Obama campaign when the most liberal senator of 2007 suddenly began “emphasizing centrist — even conservative — positions on hot-button issues.”

By pulling out of the race, Perdue has destroyed, or at least severely diluted, her would-be opponents’ most powerful ammunition—her abysmal record.  The replacement Democrat in the race will be able to plausibly deny support for the most unpopular portions of the Perdue legacy.  Perdue claims she’s dropping out of the race so the fight over school funding won’t be politicized.  Given that she’s responsible for politicizing the issue, I think it’s more likely her 10-point polling deficit in the host state for DNC’s re-coronation of Obama was bringing plenty of pressure from state and national Democrats to step aside.

Read more in Democrats, Elections, North Carolina.

James O’Keefe is at it again; his Project Veritas has just released a new video showing just how easy it is to cast a fraudulent ballot in New Hampshire.

Dead men tell no tales, but as Project Veritas found in New Hampshire, they can still vote.

On New Hampshire Primary Day, Project Veritas sent a team of investigators into polling places with a list of deceased voters to see if they would be permitted to vote.

We tested more than a dozen polling places, simply walking up and stating the name of the deceased, and in all but one instance — where an alert poll worker actually knew the recently deceased – we were handed ballots.

While our investigators cast no votes and returned the ballots, there was nothing stopping our team, or anyone else, from illegally influencing the outcome of a presidential primary.

Sadly, with our current Democrat Governor Perdue’s veto of the North Carolina Voter ID bill, it’s possible our elections could be just as easily corrupted.

Read more in Democrats, Elections, North Carolina.

Democrat Commissioner Vilma Leake started the last County Commission meeting by addressing the truly important issue affecting Mecklenburg County residents.  If you thought she brought up the above-average unemployment, or opposed the decision by the DNC to ship in union workers and deny much needed convention business to local companies, or addressed the current tax system that is driving productive workers and businesses out of the county, you’d be wrong.  No, the truly pressing matter for the commission is getting to the bottom of why “her seat” at the commissioner’s table was moved.

Here’s the video:

I have a hard time believing Vilma doesn’t know why she’s no longer seated next to the Chairman. After all, she’s the one who nominated Roberts for reappointment as chairman; whereas, Codgell “initiated the five-person back-stabbing of a fellow Democrat” in order to oust Roberts from the chairmanship she’d held since 2006 and secure it for himself.

Regardless of whether or not Codgell is “a traitor and opportunist,” I must applaud the Mecklenburg County Republicans.  Whether or not they did it on purpose, they’ve succeeded in dividing the Democrats on the commission and potentially secured at least some minor input in future Commission meetings.

Hat tip to Keith Larson on WBT for finding this audio. Many thanks to Vilma Leake for brining this up at the start of the meeting so I didn’t have to go searching for the clip.

Read more in Democrats, Liberalism, North Carolina.

Via Hot Air, and The Heritage Foundation, Senator Chuck Schumer has proposed new legislation at the end of March which would remove around 200 high ranking positions from Senate oversight.  The bill, innocuously entitled the “Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011″ would remove a host of positions from those requiring the “advice and consent” of the Senate.  The rational being that “it just takes too long” to appoint someone under the current system.

The Senators are right to note that it can take a very long time for some appointments to be processed.  As with most things in government, the process is labor-intensive and riddled with bureaucracy.  As long as the confirmation hearings may proceed, even more time is spent just getting to the point where the Senate can offer its opinion.  Candidates are checked and rechecked.  Paperwork is duplicated across agencies.  It’s clear that the system needs reform, but slashing the Senate’s role is the wrong decision.

Reform should come from the current bureaucracy, not shirking the Senate’s responsibility to the American people.  Although slashing the number of positions will speed up nominations for those individuals who no longer need confirmation, it will have little effect on the appointment times of those few individuals who still require the Senate’s “advice and consent.”  Appointees not exempted from the confirmation process will still have to suffer through the same arduos process as before; there will just be fewer of them.

Whatever its intentions, Senate Bill 679 represents only a major increase in the power of the Presidency.  It adds 200 names to the list of high-level bureaucrats that are essentially unaccountable to voters.  I can understand why liberals support this bill.  In their view, the President has been constrained by the Constitution.  But given an administration that has been repeatedly forced to withdraw nominees once their political past became widely known, it’s appalling that a bill which will only ease the growth of government was able to garner the support of seven Republicans including the majority leader.  Their names:

Alexander (TN)

Brown (MA)

Collins (ME)

Johanns (NE)

Kyl (AZ)

Lugar (IN)

McConnell (KY)

Read More in Democrats, GOP, Senate.

On March 17, Bob Hall, director of Democracy North Carolina wrote an article for the Charlotte Observer entitled, “Voter photo ID bill is a sham, as phony as a three dollar bill.” He couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, it seems the only thing as “phony as a three dollar bill” is Hall’s analysis.

Hall first attacks the bill’s apparent failure to address absentee fraud. He claims the voter fraud rate is ten times higher for absentee ballots as opposed to election day, in-person fraud. While the rate may be higher, the incidence of voter fraud among absentee ballots is significantly lower. Assuming Hall’s numbers are correct, if the proposed bill eliminates just half of election-day fraud, it will have twice the effect of eliminating all absentee fraud.

Hall claims the law won’t stop people who’ve moved out of state from coming back and voting, and it won’t stop non-citizens or felons from voting since they may still have photo IDs. This is an impossible rubric. No voter ID measure could accomplish this goal alone. Securing the vote is a two-step process. To ensure fair elections, we must maintain the voter roles and ensure that all those voting correspond to legitimate, registered voters. If we clean and maintain the rolls, and require identification, then these problems can be solved. But if we don’t require identification, we don’t have a chance.

Hall claims the allocated $600,000 for ID cards isn’t nearly enough. The current cost of a NC DMV ID card is $10. For $600,000, we could provide a photo ID card to 2.2% of those who voted in the 2010 general election. The only relevant question is, “do more than 1 in 50 voters lack a government-issued photo ID?” I have no data to assess this claim, but given that just about everyone who votes at my polling place drives himself, it seems unlikely.

Hall claims “the use of federal money from the Help America Vote Act for buying photographic equipment is highly suspect and subject to challenge. An honest piece of legislation would honestly assess true costs and admit that, in this budget environment, school teachers will be laid off to pay for this bill’s implementation.” This claim is absurd by any standard. HAVA funds were designated for states to make improvements in their voting system. The photographic equipment is part of that upgrade. Additionally, the Supreme Court has already upheld Indiana’s photo ID requirement, making a legal challenge unlikely—or at least, unlikely to be successful.

Finally, Hall claims, “the result is a very partisan piece of legislation. It’s very sad. The people of North Carolina deserve better.” Does it surprise anyone that this is a partisan issue? Let’s leave it at this: there’s a reason Democrats overwhelmingly oppose any kind of voter-accountability wherever it’s proposed, and this opposition has nothing to do with defending “the elderly.”

Read more in Democrats, Elections, GOP.

I’m not going to pretend to wait for condemnation from the professional left anymore.  That said, the following is an unedited email sent to Republican lawmakers that is part of a string of death threats currently being investigated by the Wisconsin Dept. of Justice:

Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your familes will also be killed due to your actions in the last 8 weeks. Please explain to them that this is because if we get rid of you and your families then it will save the rights of 300,000 people and also be able to close the deficit that you have created. I hope you have a good time in hell. Read below for more information on possible scenarios in which you will die.

WE want to make this perfectly clear. Because of your actions today and in the past couple of weeks I and the group of people that are working with me have decided that we’ve had enough. We feel that you and the people that support the dictator have to die. We have tried many other ways of dealing with your corruption but you have taken things too far and we will not stand for it any longer. So, this is how it’s going to happen: I as well as many others know where you and your family live, it’s a matter of public records. We have all planned to assult you by arriving at your house and putting a nice little bullet in your head. However, we decided that we wouldn’t leave it there. We also have decided that this may not be enough to send the message to you since you are so “high” on Koch and have decided that you are now going to single handedly make this a dictatorship instead of a demorcratic process. So we have also built several bombs that we have placed in various locations around the areas in which we know that you frequent. This includes, your house, your car, the state capitol, and well I won’t tell you all of them because that’s just no fun. Since we know that you are not smart enough to figure out why this is happening to you we have decided to make it perfectly clear to you. If you and your goonies feel that it’s necessary to strip the rights of 300,000 people and ruin their lives, making them unable to feed, clothe, and provide the necessities to their families and themselves then We Will “get rid of” (in which I mean kill) you. Please understand that this does not include the heroic Rep. Senator that risked everything to go aganist what you and your goonies wanted him to do. We feel that it’s worth our lives to do this, because we would be saving the lives of 300,000 people. Please make your peace with God as soon as possible and say goodbye to your loved ones we will not wait any longer. YOU WILL DIE!!!!

Closing notes: Once again, the new era of civility has been violated by the same leftists preaching its need.  And, I truly hope those writing theses threats never find themselves in an actual dictatorship; they wouldn’t know what hit them.

Read more in Democrats, Liberalism, Unions.

The above video was posted at The Weekly Standard.  The video was taken after protesters broke through one of the sets of doors that had been closed.  I’ve yet to find it on youtube, but the live video I was watching showed a group of protesters opening up a bathroom window (which had been screwed shut).  The shoving starts around the 0:50 mark.

On the other hand:  At least now the Tea Partiers know what is considered acceptable conduct when a vote goes the other way. (Imagine if they’d done this to the National Capitol following the Health Care vote).  Additionally, I’ll be eagerly awaiting Pelosi’s condemnation of the protesters’ behavior.

Read More in Democrats, Liberalism, Unions.

The union protesters are outraged that Wisconsin Republicans have voted to pass the collective bargaining measure without any of the spending provisions. This allowed the bill to be passed with a standard quorum of a simple majority rather than the larger, three-fifths majority wich is required for spending bills. Contrary to what you might read in the Washington Post, the method by which this was achieved has not been “suddenly discovered.” On the contrary, many have been urging the GOP senators to use this strategy since Democrat Senators fled the state and left their obligations in the dust.

There’s a very simple explanation for what happened Wednesday night.  The Republicans in Wisconsin grew tired of the Democrats thwarting representative government.  They got tired of waiting for them to do their jobs, and they finally realized the Democrats had no intention of coming back—at least not until the unions had secured cushy contract extensions.  What we witnessed tonight was the metaphorical ass-whupping of the whiny children hiding out in Rockford—all while complying with Wisconsin law and the Senate rules.  Frankly, it was about time.  One of the protesters on the live stream I’ve been watching claims the rioters who’ve stormed the capitol “are fed-up now.”  I’ve been fed-up with the Democrats’ antics for weeks.

Leftists can whine all they want about “corporatism.”  The stark reality is that this bill has nothing to do with corporations.  It doesn’t affect private sector unions.  It doesn’t eliminate public sector unions.  Liberals can make their doomsday predictions.  In fact, I’d prefer if they did.  The more hyperbolic they are now, the more material I’ll have three, six, nine months from now when I point out that the public employee unions still exist in Wisconsin.  The only way the Wisconsin unions disappear in that timeframe is if the leadership decides to close up shop and end their operations.  Frankly, they should probably do just that or else the cries of “union busting” will ring a little too hollow—even for the most ardent union supporters.

Finally, where were the handwringing Liberals when the Democrats in Congress actually ran roughshod over the democratic process.  As I said then:

Passage of the Senate Bill was the most unethical decision I have witnessed in my entire life.  With the election of Scott Brown, Democrats officially lost the debate on Health Care, and yet they proceeded anyway.  They passed a bill that they didn’t support, because the American people rejected the power-grab they desired.  There is no other way to characterize the vote.

Normally, when the House doesn’t like a bill, they amend it, and send it back to the Senate.  The Senate then either approves the legislation, or sends it back to the House.  This process is supposed to continue until both chambers agree on the proposed law.  Not so with Health Care.  The very act of passing the Senate Bill was a legislative trick in and of itself.

If we had followed the usual course, then a package of “fixes” would not be necessary until long after the legislation was passed.  Can anyone name a time in history when Congress has purposely forced through a bill they believed disastrous?  It has never happened before.  From a Congressional viewpoint, bad legislation has always been an accident, but not anymore.

I guess it’s okay for Democrats to side-step the legitimate political process, but when Wisconsin Republicans follow the law to pass a bill, all hell breaks loose.

Read More in Democrats, Liberalism, Unions.

It didn’t take long after the Wisconsin Republicans passed a unanimous resolution demanding that the Fleebagger Democrats return to the legislature for the Washington Post to find James Palmer. Palmer is the head of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association. He claims, “It’s unclear to me on what constitutional authority Senate Republicans think law enforcement officers can take state lawmakers who have not committed a crime into custody.”

Perhaps Palmer should find a copy of his own state’s constitution. Article IV § 7 reads:

Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members; and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may compel the attendance of absent members in such manner and under such penalties as each house may provide

In case the above text was too complex … the Wisconsin state constitution explicitly allows the state Senate, without a majority (although in this case they have one), to force the Senators to return to Madison and do their jobs.  In case Mr. Palmer still doesn’t get it, Article IV § 7 of the Wisconsin state constitution explicitly grants a minority of legislators in either house the power to compel the attendance of the absent members by any means they deem necessary.

The Republicans have already begun fining the fleebaggers $100 per day they’re absent.  They ought to increase this value to match their equivalent daily pay, and drag one of the Senators back to the legislature as soon as possible.  It’s time to stop these Democrats from holding the democratic process hostage any longer.

You can download a copy of the Wisconsin state constitution at erik.gs/wiconst. (Full URL)

Read more in Democrats, Liberalism, GOP.

Among the ravings of the delusional left is the assertion that the Wisconsin protesters are standing up to “the plutocracy.” These are “working people” fighting for the interests of “working families” against special interests and “the rich,” we’re told. In reality, the average salary of a Wisconsin teacher alone—weighing in at $52,644 per year—is enough to place these union protesters in the top 22% of personal income earners, and the top 43% by household income. Based on their annualized salary, these teachers fall in the top 7% and top 16% respectively. Note that these numbers are for salary only, and exclude the teachers’ other compensation. If annual benefits are included, then these teachers fall in the top 14% and top 30%. Annualized, this places them in the top 6-7% in both categories.

As for special interests, that the unions have convinced 14 senators—apparently, one of them has finally returned, today—to abdicate their responsibilities and shut down the democratic process in Wisconsin should be sufficient evidence of their influence. Among the 14, union dollars account for at least 20% of campaign donations; for some Senators, the number is much higher. But apparently special interest meddling is perfectly acceptable—even encouraged—when it’s conducted by those who live at the taxpayers’ expense.

But what about the Democrat party in general? After all, democrats and liberals claim to oppose the influence of the wealthy. Surely their representatives reflect this position. Based on RollCall’s 2009 analysis, of the top 10 richest members of Congress, 8 were Democrats. Democrat Senator Kerry has topped this list for more than a decade. Among the top 20 in 2009, 65% were Democrats. Despite heavy losses in the midterm elections, Democrats retained 7 of the top ten spots in 2010, and hold 60% of the top 20 spaces. Of the “50 richest” in Congress, 56% are Democrats.

Maybe the protesters are only upset about the “super-rich.” Perhaps it’s just the billionaires they’re upset about. Although they’ve railed against private wealth in general, the protesters have taken a particular focus on contributions to Conservatives and Conservative causes made by the Koch brothers and their foundation. The far-left even went so far as to subject the Americans for Prosperity website to a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. But if billionaires are the perceived problem, why does George Soros get a pass? Without Soros, a number of leftist organizations would likely not exist, and many more would be smaller in scope with less influence. Soros has distributed billions to his pet causes without a peep, but if a Republican even thinks about speaking with Koch, liberals will be pounding at the gate.

The only ones obstructing “democracy” in Wisconsin are the teachers’ unions and their Democrat allies. At the heart of the matter, they’re upset because union dues could become optional. People who don’t support the union would no longer be compelled to pay dues (currently $800 per year). None of their rhetoric about “the plutocracy” or the fabricated “right” to garnish other workers’ wages can change that fact.

Read more in Democrats, Liberalism, Unions.