Despite the rolling up of the illegal alien welcome mat by North Carolina’s Sheriffs with the 287 (g) program, criminal activity associated with illegal immigration continues to rise in the Old North State. Officials with the NC Department of Motor Vehicles report a 20% increase in arrests for driver’s license fraud over last year and 2009 is not over yet.
While fake ID’s used to be found mostly on college campuses, today’s ID counterfeiters have more to worry about than getting underage kids drunk. As employers begin to use the E-Verify program in greater numbers, illegal aliens have turned increasingly to identity theft get jobs in North Carolina.
The North Carolina General Assembly has made efforts to tighten ID’s issued by the state. Last year they removed the manufacture of driver’s licenses and identifications from satellite DMV offices around the state and centralized the operation at one secure location. Additionally, the DMV stopped accepting ID ’s issued by the Mexican government back in 2004 that resulted in long lines at the DMV before the change went into effect.
ID theft is real in North Carolina and is yet another result of becoming a magnet state for illegals.
Tomorrow, HB 9, No Texting While Driving, takes effect. That’s right; get your texting done today because starting tomorrow if you are caught texting behind the wheel you can be fined up to $100. Gov. Purdue signed the Act in June making it unlawful to use a cell phone for email or text messaging while driving but the law is not applied when the car is in park.
Washington was the first state to ban “driving while texting” in 2007 and since then, more than one dozen states have followed their example. Supporters of the new law argue that banning texting will keep more drivers safe behind the wheel, especially distracted teenagers. However, could the same result—safer drivers—be produced by educating drivers about the dangers of texting instead of dictating personal decisions?
An educated driver knows that texting while driving poses a danger to him, passengers and nearby drivers. The educated driver, who chooses to text, recognizes the danger and is ignoring the consequences. But the driver who is forced to abide by a law that he/she may not agree with, does not actually learn that driving while texting is dangerous. In effect, does banning something actually solve the problem or just make matters worse by overburdening police and “daring” drivers to break the law? Either way, don’t get caught texting behind the wheel after December 1st.
Want to know how many earmarks your U.S. Senator or Representative has requested?
Go to the “earmarks” tab of the website WashingtonWatch.com and check it out. You can sort by individual politician or by earmark request status.
The site makes for a handy tool for all you budget watchdogs out there.
We’re slowly putting together the funeral for the Climate Change movement. As President Obama eagerly picks up a Nobel prize for endeavors he has yet to achieve and pushes for trillions of dollars to be taken away from our economy in the name of Climate Change, the world is reeling from revelations that top climate scientists have been spinning global temperature data and are engaged in data dumping. This isn’t opinion or spin, but pure factual scandal that will undermine any and all future attempts to legitimize climate change/global warming authenticity. It’s so pervasive that “Climategate” is posting more hits than “Climate Change” on Google. Here’s a great piece on the scandal. An excerpt:
What is tragically evident from the Harry Read Me file is the picture it gives of the CRU scientists hopelessly at sea with the complex computer programmes they had devised to contort their data in the approved direction, more than once expressing their own desperation at how difficult it was to get the desired results.
Stories are breaking globally (here, here and here) about the new ClimateGate Scandal that shows what happens when genuine scientific inquiry takes a back seat to political gain. National political figures would do well to pay close attention to this story. NC Senate and House members should also take note as the need for the recently passed Climate Change bill known as Senate Bill 3 that raised ALL of our utility prices is based on faulty science.
Back from the land of Kiwis, CA.
In an article by Josh Shaffer in Saturday’s newsobserver.com, local “Democratic strategist” Perry Woods said that he thought that as long as Clay Aiken didn’t vote in Chatham county (the county where Aiken resides) he would likely be “in the clear.” Woods sends the wrong message to North Carolina voters when he says, “he can name his mother’s house as a permanent residence and be in the clear.” In this N&O Blog, reporter Keung Hui wrote “The Wake Board of Elections will first decide whether Aiken should still be registered to vote in the county. They’ll ask Aiken questions such as where his pets spend the night and where he goes to sleep at night.”
All the Wake County Board of Elections needs to do is watch this WRAL video in November 2006 – Clay Aiken actually gives a tour of his new house and his dog makes an appearance too.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyC3Q_GdKHo
I know it would be easy to make light of this case, but I hope the Board of Elections takes it seriously.
The Independent Institute reminds us with this article of the real story behind the very first Thanksgiving. We should all take a moment to think about these lessons between servings of stuffing.
Many people believe that after suffering through a severe winter, the Pilgrims’ food shortages were resolved the following spring when the Native Americans taught them to plant corn and a Thanksgiving celebration resulted. In fact, the pilgrims continued to face chronic food shortages for three years until the harvest of 1623. Bad weather or lack of farming knowledge did not cause the pilgrims’ shortages. Bad economic incentives did.
In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights. Food and supplies were held in common and then distributed based on “equality” and “need” as determined by Plantation officials. (sound familiar?) People received the same rations whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents were forbidden from producing their own food. Governor William Bradford, in his 1647 history, Of Plymouth Plantation, wrote that this system “was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.” The problem was that “young men, that were most able and fit for labour, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense.” Because of the poor incentives, little food was produced.
Faced with potential starvation in the spring of 1623, the colony decided to implement a new economic system. Every family was assigned a private parcel of land. They could then keep all they grew for themselves, but now they alone were responsible for feeding themselves. While not a complete private property system, the move away from communal ownership had dramatic results.
This change in the incentive structure, of course, produced a horn of plenty for the pilgrims. The lesson is almost 400 years old, but many still refuse to learn it.
Commenting on the impact of the State Court of Appeals ruling that said the Charlotte Mecklenburg School system undercounted money it owed to charter schools, Ann Majestic, the Wake County School Board attorney, said, “It’s going to have a major impact. . . It will take away money from the school system.”
An interesting comment. Majestic should remember: charter schools ARE public schools — albeit independent – but, still public nonetheless. The money funneled through Wake County Schools was allotted for charters and never meant to be spent by the school district. It’s hard to be sympathetic toward the board’s plight when you learn it was spending money that wasn’t theirs.
20 lawmakers have sent a letter to Attorney General Roy Cooper and Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin asking for an investigation into Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s (BCBS) postcard campaign to get people to contact Sen. Kay Hagan to oppose the public option.
Apparently these 20 feel BCBS’s actions are at the least “bad public policy” and could be potential violations of the law. But just how bad do they think it is? Bad enough to say, return the contributions that some of them have accepted from BCBS?
6 of the 20 lawmakers have accepted PAC checks from Blue Cross over the last two election cycles:
Sen. Stan Bingham – $750 on two occasions – $1500 total
Rep. Marian McLawhorn – $750 and $500 – $1250 total
Rep. Ray Rapp – $750
Rep. Edith Warren – $500
Rep. Rick Glazier – $500
Rep. Marvin Lucas – $500
If BCBS is so nefariously engaged in potential violations of the law, it would seem that these six legislators would return the money BCBS sent them.
Bonus Observation – BCBS has given $11,000 to Roy Cooper’s campaign committee since 2003.
Proponents of the federal government’s push to further politicize the delivery of medical care in this country have continuously touted that part of their ”reform’s” benefits will be choice and competition for health insurance, and that nobody will lose their current coverage if they like it.
This WSJ article exposes that lie. Consumer-driven health care plans, such as a low premium/high-deductible plan combined with a health savings account (HSA) are targeted by some regulations in the current overhaul proposals.
The Reid bill also assaults health savings accounts, or HSAs, which allow individuals to accumulate tax-free funds for future medical expenses when coupled with low-premium, high-deductible insurance. The Reid bill changes tax provisions to make HSAs less attractive, but the real threat comes via increased regulation.
These insurance products will likely be barred from the insurance “exchanges” that will demolish and supplant today’s individual market. Employers will also find them more difficult if not illegal to offer once the government has new powers to “define the essential health benefits” that all plans must eventually offer. Plans that focus mainly on catastrophic health expenses, instead of routine procedures, aren’t generous enough for Democrats.
Politicians hate HSA-type plans because they give more power to the consumer and actually introduce a sliver of market discipline in the medical care industry. Therefore, they must be eliminated. Purging the medical care and health insurance industries of whatever tiny morsels of a free market remain are a must in order for the government’s ultimate goal of a completely centrally-planned and controlled system.
The only “choice” involved will be bureaucrats choosing every detail for us, and the only “competition” we’ll have is between patients fighting to see a shrinking pool of doctors.
Both the House and Senate bills propose that all private health insurance plans (individual, employer, employer group, or union provided) must adhere to detailed federal regulation.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force currently provides recommendations on health services ranging – A,B,C,D – where B, and C are “recommended” and “not recommended”, respectively. The reform bill however would change these suggestions and make them law.
In 2011 the Reid bill will force insurance providers to cover services with an A or B rating. This seems like a positive, but what about the services that slip to a C or D status? For example, last week the task force changed its recommendation for breast cancer screening to a C rating.
It is likely that to cut costs insurance providers will also cut services to C and D rated services. In a perfect world where the government can accurately judge what services should be deemed less important than others that might make sense. But the reality is that these ratings will be part and parcel with lobby interests – much the same way that North Carolina’s 47 health insurance benefit mandates are now.
Here is one very real way that this government “reform” is actually a move toward nationalized health care – even without the inclusion of a public option plan.