Sudden Storms Kill Three; Damage Homes in North Carolina

Verne Strickland Blogmaster / USA DOT COM



 07/01/12 09:33 PM ET

North Carolina, Natural Disasters, Nature, Noel Lee, Pitt County Sheriff's Office, Violent Weather, Weather, Green News

 

GREENVILLE, N.C. -- Authorities say three people have been killed when a sudden storm struck in eastern North Carolina, damaging homes and uprooting trees.

Pitt County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Christy Wallace said one person was killed in the county and two in neighboring Beaufort County by the storms on Sunday.

She said A 77-year-old man was killed in Pitt County when high winds collapsed a barn as he was moving an ATV into it. In the neighboring county, a husband and wife died when a tree fell on their golf cart.

Pitt County Emergency Management Director Noel Lee said the damage appears to have been mostly from straight-line winds. He wasn't aware of any other serious injuries.

Wallace said she's aware of outages and trees falling into houses. Lee said a damage assessment was under way.

Atheist clubs springing up in high schools with help from the 'Secular Student Alliance'.

VERNE STRICKLAND BLOGMASTER: I'M PROBABLY LIKE MOST KIDS WHO ENTER COLLEGE AS SOMETHING OF A BLANK SLATE. I WANTED TO LEARN AND EXPERIENCE. BUT I DIDN'T EXPECT TO GET MY HEAD AND HEART ASSAULTED BY ANTI-GOD INFLUENCES DISHED OUT BY SICK, CYNICAL ATHEISTS. AND I DIDN'T LIKE IT. BUT IT DID AFFECT ME ADVERSELY FOR MUCH OF MY ADULT LIFE. NEW GENERATIONS OF YOUNG AMERICANS NEED TO BE SPARED THIS, AND KNOW WHERE TO TURN FOR HELP,

Atheism, Video, Atheism In Schools, Atheist Club, Atheists Clubs, High School Clubs, High School Students, Religion In Schools, School Religion, Secular Student Alliance, Education News

 

 

Posted: 06/30/2012 3:29 pm Updated: 06/30/2012 3:31 pm

 

With help from the Secular Student Alliance -- a national organization of more than 300 college-based clubs for freethinking students -- high school atheists clubs are springing up across the country, the Religion News Service reports.
JT Eberhard, director of SSA’s high school program, says he hopes that both atheist and religious students having clubs will help foster a dialogue.
“I also hope it will let the atheist students know that you can be an atheist and its okay," Eberhard told Religion News Service. "You are still a good person. We want to say: Here is a place where you can feel that."
There were about a dozen clubs of this ilk at the beginning of the 2011-12 academic year -- a number that increased to 39 in 17 states by the start of summer break. The clubs are student-led, and SSA only provides information and guidance upon a student’s request.
Some clubs exist in states that have large numbers of people who claim no religious affiliation, such as New York, Washington and California. Others are located in more religion-centered states, with North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas all claiming at least one high school with a club for atheists. Since January of this year, students representing 73 different high schools have requested “starter kits,” according to SSA.
Some students have no issue launching an atheist club assuming they meet their school’s criteria, which usually entails obtaining a faculty sponsor and demonstrating student interest.
Others are met with administrative resistance, like at Melbourne High School in Melbourne, Fla., where administrators rejected an atheist club on the basis that it was “too controversial.” Students at another Florida high school were told that no religious clubs were permitted, even though there was a school Christian club in existence. The principal of Houston’s La Porte High School denied students the use of the word “atheist” due to the fact “it could disrupt the educational process.”
In such instances, Eberhard usually intervenes, reminding administrators that the Equal Access Act grants students the right to form a club.
Earlier this month, Chelsea Stanton, a senior and atheist at Collingswood High School in New Jersey, also used the law to her advantage in defending her refusal to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
“That’s the beauty of America -- that you don’t have to follow the same religion the majority does,” she said.
In Rhode Island, Cranston High School West student Jessica Ahlquist objected to a prayer banner the school had on display. The 16-year-old brought the case to court, receiving a January mandate for the school prayer banner to be brought down because it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Ahlquist has also received a $40,000 scholarship fund from the American Humanist Association.
Ahlquist was also honored with the Humanist Pioneer Award at this year's annual American Humanist Association in New Orleans, the Christian Post reported.

Also on HuffPost:

NAPOLITANO: John Roberts unleashes vast federal power -- on us.

Verne Strickland / Blogmaster / USA DOT COM / June 30, 2012

Basis for high court ruling not found in Constitution

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If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat.
If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.
-The Beatles in “The Taxman”

By Andrew P. Napolitano

Friday, June 29, 2012

 Among the 17 lawyers who have served as chief jus- tice of the United States, John Marshall - the fourth chief justice - has come to be known as the “great” chief justice. The folks who have given him that title are the progressives who largely have written the history we have all been taught in government schools. They revere him because he is the intellectual progenitor of federal power. His opinions over a 34-year period during the nation’s infancy - expanding federal power at the expense of personal freedom and the sovereignty of the states - set a pattern for federal control of our lives and actually invited Congress to regulate areas of human behavior nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. He was Thomas Jefferson’s cousin, but they rarely spoke. No chief justice in history has so pronouncedly and creatively offered the feds power on a platter as much as he.
Now he has a rival.
No one can know the true motivations for the idiosyncratic rationale in the health care decision written by John Marshall’s current successor, Chief Justice G. John Roberts Jr. Often, five-member majorities on the court are fragile, and bizarre compromises are necessary to keep a five-member majority from becoming a four-member minority. Perhaps Justice Roberts really means what he wrote - that congressional power to tax is without constitutional limit - and his opinion is a faithful reflection of that view, without a political, legal or intracourt agenda. But that view finds no support in the Constitution or our history. It even contradicts the most famous of John Marshall’s big-government aphorisms: The power to tax is the power to destroy.
The reasoning underlying the 5-4 majority opinion is the court’s unprecedented pronouncement that Congress‘ power to tax is unlimited. The majority held that the extraction of thousands of dollars per year by the Internal Revenue Service from individuals who do not have health insurance is not a fine, not a punishment, not a payment for government-provided health insurance, not a shared responsibility - all of which the statute says it is - but rather is an inducement in the form of a tax. The majority likened this tax to the federal taxes on tobacco or gasoline, which, it held, are imposed not only to generate revenue but also to discourage smoking and driving. The statute is more than 2,700 pages in length; it establishes the federal micromanagement of about 16 percent of the national economy, and the court justified it constitutionally by calling it a tax.
A 7-2 majority (which excluded two of the progressive justices who joined the chief justice in rewriting tax law and included the four dissenting justices who would have invalidated the entire statute as beyond the constitutional power of Congress) held that while Congress can regulate commerce, it cannot compel one to engage in commerce. The same majority ruled that Congress cannot force the states to expand Medicaid by establishing state insurance exchanges. It held that the congressional command to establish the exchanges combined with the congressional threat to withhold all Medicaid funds - not just those involved with the exchanges - for failure to establish them would be so harmful to the financial stability of state governments as to be tantamount to an assault on state sovereignty. This leaves the exchanges in limbo, and it is the first judicial recognition that state sovereignty apparently is at the tender mercies of the financial largesse of Congress.
The logic in the majority opinion is the jurisprudential equivalent of passing a camel through the eye of a needle. The logic is so tortured, unexpected and unprecedented that even the law’s most fervent supporters did not make or anticipate the court’s argument in its support. Under the Constitution, a tax must originate in the House, which this law did not, and it must be applied for doing something, like earning income or purchasing tobacco or fuel, not for doing nothing. In all the history of the court, it has never held that a penalty imposed for violating a federal law was really a tax. And it has never linguistically converted the congressional finding of penalty into the judicial declaration of tax, absent finding subterfuge on the part of congressional draftsmanship.
I wonder if the chief justice realized what he and the progressive wing of the court were doing to our freedom. If the feds can tax us for not doing as they have commanded, and if that which is commanded need not be grounded in the Constitution, then there is no constitutional limit to their power, and their ruling that the power to regulate commerce does not encompass the power to compel commerce is mere sophistry.
Even the Beatles understood this.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. He is the author of “It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom” (Thomas Nelson, 2011).

Justice Department won't prosecute Holder for contempt? Yes, it's true.

Verne Strickland USA DOT COM Blogmaster

 

Published June 29, 2012

Associated Press

WASHINGTON –  The Justice Department declared Friday that Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to withhold information about a bungled gun-tracking operation from Congress does not constitute a crime and he won't be prosecuted for contempt of Congress.
The House voted Thursday afternoon to find Holder in criminal and civil contempt for refusing to turn over the documents. President Barack Obama invoked his executive privilege authority and ordered Holder not to turn over materials about executive branch deliberations and internal recommendations.
In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, the department said that it will not bring the congressional contempt citation against Holder to a federal grand jury and that it will take no other action to prosecute the attorney general. Dated Thursday, the letter was released Friday.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the decision is in line with long-standing Justice Department practice across administrations of both political parties.
"We will not prosecute an executive branch official under the contempt of Congress statute for withholding subpoenaed documents pursuant to a presidential assertion of executive privilege," Cole wrote.
In its letter, the department relied in large part on a Justice Department legal opinion crafted during Republican Ronald Reagan's presidency.
Frederick Hill, the spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, said it is regrettable that "the political leadership of the Justice Department" is taking that position. Issa, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman, is leading the effort to get the material related to Operation Fast and Furious.
Although the House voted Thursday to find Holder in criminal and civil contempt, Republicans probably are still a long way from obtaining documents they want for their inquiry into Operation Fast and Furious, a flawed gun-tracking investigation focused on Phoenix-area gun shops by Justice's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The criminal path is now closed and the civil route through the courts would not be resolved anytime soon.
"This is pure politics," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
"Remarkably the chairman of the committee involved here has asserted that he has no evidence that the attorney general knew of Operation Fast and Furious or did anything but take the right action when he learned of it.
"No evidence, so if you have no evidence as he has stated now about the White House and the attorney general, what else could this be but politics?"
More than 100 Democrats walked out of the House chamber to boycott the first of two contempt votes, saying Republicans were more interested in shameful election-year politics than documents.
Republicans demanded the documents for an ongoing investigation, but their arguments focused more on the need for closure for the family of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Two guns identified by the Fast and Furious tracking operation were found near his body after a shootout in Arizona.
Democrats promised closure as well, but said a less-partisan Republican investigation was the only way to get it.
Adding to the emotion of the day, the family of the slain agent issued a statement backing the Republicans.
"The Terry family takes no pleasure in the contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder. Such a vote should not have been necessary. The Justice Department should have released the documents related to Fast and Furious months ago," the statement said.
The contempt votes happened on the day that Obama's health care law survived in the Supreme Court, prompting some Democrats to speculate that the votes were scheduled to be overwhelmed by news stories about the ruling.
About five hours after the court ruled, with news sites flooded with information about the health care ruling, the House voted 255-67 to declare Holder in criminal contempt.
A second vote of 258-95 held Holder in civil contempt and authorized the House to file a lawsuit.
In past cases, courts have been reluctant to settle disputes between the executive and legislative branches of government.
The issue became more complicated when Obama invoked a broad form of executive privilege, a legal doctrine designed to keep private certain communications of executive branch agencies.
Issa's committee will consult with the House counsel's office about a court challenge to the administration's decision not to cooperate, spokesman Frederick Hill said.
The documents were written after Fast and Furious was shut down. The subpoena covered a 10-month period from February 2011, as the Justice Department expressed growing concern that the Fast and Furious operation had employed a risky investigative tactic known as "gun-walking." In early December 2011, the department finally acknowledged that the initial denial of gun-walking was in error.
Republicans said the contempt citations were necessary because Holder refused to hand over documents that could explain why the Obama administration took 10 months to acknowledge the gun-walking.
In Fast and Furious, ATF agents abandoned the agency's usual practice of intercepting all weapons they believed to be illicitly purchased, often as soon as they were taken out of gun shops. Instead, the goal of the tactic known as "gun-walking" was to track such weapons to high-level arms traffickers, who had long eluded prosecution, and to dismantle their networks.
Gun-walking long has been barred by Justice Department policy, but federal agents in Arizona experimented with it in at least two investigations during the George W. Bush administration before Operation Fast and Furious. These experiments came as the department was under widespread criticism that the old policy of arresting every suspected low-level "straw purchaser" was failing to stop tens of thousands of guns from reaching Mexico, more than 68,000 in the last five years. A straw purchaser conceals that he is buying guns for others.
Fast and Furious identified more than 2,000 weapons suspected of being illicitly purchased. But agents lost track of many of the guns. Some 1,400 of them have yet to be recovered.

Leaders respond to health care decision. Want partisan? You got it.

Posted: Jun 28, 2012 1:51 PM EDT Updated: Jun 28, 2012 8:44 PM EDT

WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - We've been gathering reaction from our representatives on the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act.

Here's what many of our leaders have to say:

United States Senator Richard Burr (R-NC)
"The Court has now fulfilled its obligation as final arbiter of the constitutionality of the President's health care law, and I thank them for their service.  While the Court has been reviewing this law for months, American families and businesses have been reviewing it for years, and they have rendered their verdict as well.  People on both sides of the health care debate will spend the days and weeks to come discussing the impact of today's ruling, but a few things remain clear: our health care system is broken, costs remain unchecked, and outcomes are not improving.  I remain committed to addressing these concerns and fulfilling our obligation to the American people to lower health care costs, expand coverage and choice, and build on the innovation that sets America apart from the rest of the world."

NC Governor Bev Perdue (D)
 "This morning's Supreme Court ruling will be welcome news for the approximately 95,000 young people ages 19 to 25 who will be able to stay on their family's health insurance plan because of this law. It's welcome news for the approximately 539,000 North Carolina children with preexisting medical conditions, because this law prevents insurance companies from denying these children coverage. And it's welcome news for women in North Carolina, who will get preventative health services, like cervical cancer screenings, mammograms, well-woman visits and domestic violence screenings; for seniors, who will benefit from a stronger Medicare and from more affordable prescription drugs; and for families, who will no longer have to worry constantly about having their coverage canceled or about being harmed by lifetime caps on patient care. I am committed to continuing to move forward, and to keep fighting to ensure that all North Carolinians have affordable, reliable health coverage that they can count on."

7th District Congressman Mike McIntyre (D)
"He (Chief Justice John Roberts, who cast a swing vote to uphold the law) said this amounts to a tax. As many people know I have always been against raising taxes and I did not favor this bill from the beginning, because I do not favor putting mandates and additional tax burdens on our businesses that are, as we all know, are trying to create jobs and save jobs or putting individual mandates on families when they have enough tax burdens on themselves already."
McIntyre said over the phone that Congress will be going through the bill to get rid of onerous positions in July, but also look at the positive aspects.  He includes the coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and coverage for people up to the age of 26 on their parent's insurance among the positive aspects.
McIntyre says he will vote for repeal again when Congress takes that up for consideration in July.

7th District Congressional Candidate David Rouzer (R)
"The Supreme Court's decision today strikes at the soul of America -- our freedom.  The door is now open for the federal government to control every aspect of our lives as long as any proposed legislation is a "tax".  Just because the law has been ruled constitutional doesn't mean it is good.  Obamacare is increasing the cost of healthcare and making it more difficult for many to receive quality care.  Many doctors are privately seeking their exit from the profession.  Businesses are not hiring because of the increased cost of health coverage under Obamacare. We need less government control in healthcare so that individuals and families can afford to receive quality care.  Only the free market produces the very best product for the lowest possible price."
NC Gubernatorial Candidate Pat McCrory (R)

"Today's decision by the Supreme Court is disappointing and upholds a law that I believe is the wrong approach for the people of North Carolina. This decision reaffirms what we already knew: the national healthcare law supported by Governor Perdue and Lt. Governor Dalton is a tax on North Carolinians. It greatly concerns me that I hear from small business owners in North Carolina that they will not hire more workers because of the costs of this healthcare plan. Our state has one of the worst economies in the country and the last thing our small businesses need is another major impediment to growing their businesses. I hope Congress and our next President can successfully overturn the law and replace it with healthcare reform that is less partisan, divisive, and doesn't put the federal government between doctors and patients."
3rd District Congressman Walter B. Jones (R)

"This is a sad day for liberty in America. Today a slim majority of the Supreme Court decreed that the federal government can use the power of taxation to force Americans to do whatever it wants.  That is outrageous. In fact, in his majority opinion Chief Justice John Roberts went so far as to state that the federal government also had the power to tax ‘every taxpayer who owns a house without energy efficient windows.' This should be a wake-up call for Americans.  Their freedoms are rapidly being stripped away by an increasingly socialist government.  We are headed down a dangerous path, and the only hope for reversing this course is through the ballot box in November." 
Copyright 2012 WECT. All rights reserved.

Soldier Shot Dead at Fort Bragg Army Base, Two Wounded

Thursday, 28 Jun 2012 09:37 PM

 

 

A U.S. soldier killed a member of his unit during a safety briefing at Fort Bragg in North Carolina on Thursday, then shot and injured himself, the Army base said in a statement.

The injured gunman is in custody, and Fort Bragg military police secured the scene within minutes, a spokesman for the base said. A third soldier was slightly injured by the gunfire. None of the soldiers was immediately identified.

NBC reports the dead soldier was a battalion commander. The victim is from the 525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade a unit that conducts reconnaissance and intelligence.

“This is a tragedy for our community,” Col. Kevin Arata, spokesman for Fort Bragg, said during a press conference. “We don’t yet know the reasons for the shooting, but are working with the unit and the affected families to help them through this difficult period.”

http://www.newsmax.com/US/fort-bragg-shooting/2012/06/28/id/443933

© 2012 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

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House votes to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress. Obama "furious".

Verne Strickland Blogmaster

Published June 28, 2012

FoxNews.com

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    Inside historic contempt vote against Holder

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    Holder: Reckless charges are unsupported by fact

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    The GOP-led House voted Thursday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to provide key information pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious, making Holder the first sitting Cabinet member to be held in contempt.

The vote was 255-67, with 17 Democrats breaking ranks to side with Republicans in favor of contempt.
The vote follows a roughly 16-month investigation by the chamber’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into the failed gun-running sting known as Fast and Furious -- run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a division of the Justice Department led by Holder.
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., filed two subpoenas over that period requesting additional information. But he has more recently focused on information related to a February 2011 letter to Congress that falsely claimed the ATF was unaware the operation involved the underground sale of the assault weapons.
“Today, a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his continued refusal to produce relevant documents,” Issa said after the vote. “This was not the outcome I had sought and it could have been avoided had Attorney General Holder actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said he could provide.”
Congressional sources tell Fox News that House GOP leaders will now meet to decide the next steps, but the investigation is expected to go forward with more subpoenas being issued.
“Today’s vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided and politically motivated investigation during an election year,” Holder said afterward. “By advancing it over the past year and a half, Congressman Issa and others have focused on politics over public safety.”
The vote, which holds the attorney general in criminal contempt, was followed by a second vote that held Holder in civil contempt of Congress. The civil contempt vote allows Congress to go to court to seek additional documents.
The criminal-contempt vote is supposed to direct a U.S. attorney to convene a grand jury to review the case and decide whether to indict Holder.
However, considering Holder would be investigated by his own employees, some analysts have said it's unlikely that would happen. If the case proceeds, though, Holder could face a maximum one year in jail if convicted.
The votes came on one of the busiest days in Washington in recent history, with the Supreme Court ruling 5-4 in the morning to uphold the president’s health care reform law.
Details about Fast and Furious emerged after U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in a December 2010 shootout  in which two of the assault weapons connected to operation were found at the scene.
“The Terry family takes no pleasure in the contempt vote,” according to a statement from the Brian Terry Foundation. “Such a vote should not have been necessary. The Department of Justice should have released the documents related to Fast and Furious months ago.”
Federal officials launched the operation in Arizona in an effort to get the weapons into the hands of arms dealers with the hope they would lead to organizers of Mexican drug cartels.
Others guns surfaced in crimes in Mexico, and roughly 2,000 remain missing.
Several meetings involving Obama administration officials and House Republicans, which involved negotiations about releasing additional documents, failed to stop the contempt votes.
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer on Thursday called the vote a “political stunt."
“Despite the major economic challenges facing the country, they talked openly about devoting taxpayer-funded, congressional oversight resources to political purposes,” Pfeiffer said.
Among Democrats most opposed to the votes were members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who led more than 100 House party members in boycotting the vote and walking out of the chamber.
"Today, we are witnessing the great lengths to which Republican leadership will go in an attempt to discredit the Attorney General and embarrass the president,” said caucus Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. “Leadership’s actions are destructive, election-year politics.”
Prior to the vote, House John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, “It’s important to remember how we got here. The Justice Department has not provided the facts and information we requested. … It’s our constitutional duty to find out.”
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi argued House Republicans were more politically motivated in attacking Holder than getting to the bottom of the failed operation.
“What is happening here is shameful," said Pelosi, D-Calif.
Lawmakers earlier voted against a proposal by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., to return the matter to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.