Well NC House Representative Pat McElraft is definitely not standing up for your rights in Raleigh. She’s apparently letting the Republican party, misinformation, and possibly special interest decide what’s best for you.

As you may or may not know, Representative Earl Jones of Guilford County has introduced legislation (HB 1380) that would make medical marijuana a reality in North Carolina. There’s thousands of people suffering at this very moment in our state who feel they would benefit from medicinal marijuana. Not only do they feel that way, but so do many of their physicians.

So Representative McElraft, I ask you this: Who should make medical decisions for me, you and the other legislators, or MY DOCTOR? Do you know more about the workings of the human body than someone who spent 8 years in medical school?

I emailed her asking her position on this matter and this is what I received:

Thanks for your message, Jason.  I have studied this bill and what has happened in California since they have legalized medical marijuana.  I am against such legalization.  It is my understanding that the majority of people using the so called medical marijuana in California are not those who are ill.

Thanks,

Pat

What exactly has happened in California? People that are sick can legally and safely grow a plant that makes them feel better? So let’s say 80%, and I’d say that’s a gross overestimation, of the medical marijuana users are not ill. That still leaves a LARGE number of people reaping the benefits of being able to use medicine their doctors deem effective. And those 80% who may not be terminally ill, are they bothering anyone? Has the crime rate doubled? I think not. Let’s be real. You’ll have to give me a better argument than that.

Pat, I also find it disturbing that you have more compassion for dogs and cats than for human beings. I believe you’re a sponsor of HB 6, or Davie’s Law. Seems like you’re more concerned with humane euthanasia of animals than the compassionate treatment of Cancer, AIDS, or Hepatitis C patients.  Are you more concerned with animals or people in the upcoming legislative session?

I’d also like to point out the fact that this bill provides a conservative estimate of an additional $60 million in revenue for the state. Do you think the state is in good enough fiscal shape to just leave these funds sitting on the table when you can’t even get my income tax refund to me? I think not.

400,000 people die from cigarettes each year. Yet they’re still legal, and if I feel like smoking a plant grown with radioactive fertilizer I have the right to make that choice. Do you know of ANYONE that’s died from smoking marijuana? Yet even if my doctor tells me that it may help me battle cancer by stimulating my appetite, you’re going to tell me I can’t? And the only reason you can give me is you’re afraid people who aren’t sick might be able to get it? Uhhh what planet are you living on, exactly?

I’ve voted for you in past elections, but not the upcoming election. And I can only hope enough of your constituents feel and vote the same way.

However, land in the Cannonsgate development seemed to escalate so high so quickly it really should have  caught the attention of the authorities before it got so out of control. I mean some of these lots changed hands several times in a matter of weeks. Each time going for more and more. Then these lots were sold to out of state investors at radically inflated prices.

The governor was allowed to purchase his lot at an extremely low price. Investigations reveal he received around a 25% discount on his lot as compared to what similar lots were being sold for in the development. But that’s not what irritates me the most.

What really irritates me is the notion that his cronies were able to “push along”  CAMA permits. This is wrong on so many levels.

First other developers in Carteret County aren’t able to push CAMA permits along. In fact some of the smaller folks I know have been denied permits for such things as paving their parking lots, re-building walkways down to the beach, and other nonsense. Yet these corrupt individuals were able to lean on the departments, and officials entrusted with protecting our wetlands and beautiful coast to benefit them.

This whole thing stinks. I truly hope some heads roll. It is not fair for government officials to have ANY kind of involvement in this sort of business. As you can see the rules get bent and in some cases broken. This makes for an uneven field of competition between private builders. It’s almost like government sponsored enterprise, and we all know how that turns out.

The biggest issue to me is that apparently if you know the right people, or have a deep enough pocket you can buy your CAMA permit and the folks in charge of enforcing the laws that protect our fragile coastline will turn a blind eye. I think the investigation should start with the ex-governor Easley and start working downward. Hopefully all these crooked, corrupt officials pay the price for their actions.

I’m pretty sure the land that is Cannonsgate was in the past regarded as wetlands and couldn’t really be built on. But I guess if you can build your own sewage station then you can just bulldoze a wetland and start selling lots. It will be interesting to see who else is going to get wrapped up in this mess.

After a century of trying to keep big business from getting a stranglehold on elections by contributing UNLIMITED amounts of campaign funds to candidates, the Supreme Court reversed the trend. Sounds to me like they basically said, “The little guy, plumber Joe, and the average citizen have nothing to contribute to our government.”

The 5 justices that voted in favor of giving corporations free reign to rig elections ought to be tried for treason. They’ve basically sold our country to international companies that seek to finish ruining the great country that was the United States of America. Unfortunately we’re being turned into the “Pimped out by Corruption and Big Business States of America.”

What I find even more disturbing is that most Americans seem oblivious to the recent developments. Instead it seems we’re too worried about Haiti to give a rat’s ass what happens in our own country. I watched the news last night for thirty minutes. 25 minutes of it were spent covering the crisis in Haiti, the rest seemed to be commercials, so I turned it off in disgust and went to bed.

Look at the Carteret News Times and you’ll see what I mean. As of today, one of the “Top Commented Stories” was a letter to the editor regarding deer hunting in Emerald Isle. Meanwhile there’s an editorial from a Carteret Publishing Company editor that amazingly made some sense, yet had not one comment. It covered the Supreme Courts decision to invite big companies to purchase the Senators, Governors, and Representatives they’d like to see in office. You thought you had campaign commercials shoved down your throats this past election? HAHA! Just wait until the big guns get to start spending, not millions, probably not billions, but likely TRILLIONS on funding their chosen candidates’ campaign.

So Carteret County, and America for that matter, forget Haiti, forget Survivor and American Idol, and definitely forget the freaking deer in Emerald Isle! Pay attention to what’s going on and who’s going to be running your life for you. Surely George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and the rest of our founding fathers are rolling in their graves. Personally I wish they could come back to life for just a day and educate us, inspire us, and remind us what this country was supposed to be. However, I doubt their message would even be heard. Too many of our citizens are worried about saving 10 deer, Haitians, and who’s lying to who on Survivor. Yep, it just hit me….WE’RE SCREWED!

The annual upkeep on the boat is estimated at around $20,000. But you know what BOAT stands for right? “Bring on another thousand” is what I always hear from my friends that are boat owners. So once the grant is up, town commissioners will likely be asking to raise taxes to pay for the boat and officer, both of which are only used half of the year.

Wasn’t it the Town of Beaufort that was having such a hard time paying for badly needed sewer upgrades not that long ago? Now they’re going to spend more money on an item that is going to cost money, and sits unused half the year. Hmm, makes good fiscal sense, doesn’t it?

Aren’t there Marine Fisheries officers that patrol the waters in and around the town? I think I remember them stopping me while fishing in Beaufort, so I know they’re actively patrolling the area. If the board of commissioners and Police Department feel they’re not doing enough, perhaps they should ask Gov. Perdue why they aren’t. It appears to me that the majority of the funds raised from saltwater fishing licenses has went to buying boats and hiring Marine Fisheries officers, so there should be plenty of them around to keep Beaufort safe.

The editorials they publish are downright disgusting, low class garbage. Its hard to believe someone gets paid to write them and even harder to believe people read them and take them as the gospel. Well in my opinion they really crossed the line with the last one I read. It was published Sunday,  November 8th and entitled Free ObamaPhones.

I would think anyone with the brain power of an ant could see right through it and recognize they were actually publishing one of those cheesy chain emails that float around from time to time spreading rumors about certain politicians. You’ve seen them I’m sure. They take many forms and target just about every politician.

The Carteret News-Times would have you believe the Obama administration is “redistributing” taxpayer money and giving it to welfare recipients so they can receive free cell phones. It’s outrageous the editors of the News-Times use their paper to spread such chain letters. I’m by no means a fan of President Obama, his administration, or the joke that has become the U.S. Government in the last century for that matter.

Here’s a link to the editorial should you want to subject yourself to this garbage: News-Times ridiculous editorial

In the editorial they slam the President on this from an angle that we are wasting taxpayer money. What’s funny to me is the fact the link THEY PROVIDE (I guess they didn’t read it at all) explains very clearly that the cell phone is NOT subsidized by the government.

If you want to check it out for yourselves here are some links that help to discredit the chain letter the News-Times recklessly re-published.

Politifact

Snopes

Emailchecker

Thankfully there are some folks in Carteret County that could see through the baseless accusations and pointed out in the comments that back in the 80’s a similar program was initiated for land line phones. So this is not something concocted by Obama to bankrupt our country (which I think it already is anyway).

So come on News-Times, we get it, you’re all a bunch of die-hard right wingers who don’t think anyone should get any kind of help from anyone. Although I bet you all have had some help from someone at some point in your miserable lives.

These elected officials make the decisions as to what types of new businesses can enter our communities and where they can be located. They are the ones that will introduce new ordinances that you may like or dislike. So next election please get out and vote. Out of 19,465 registered voters in Carteret County only 3,884 ballots were cast. I’m sorry, but that’s downright pitiful. So when ordinances and other legislation gets passed, changed or repealed that makes you unhappy, I hope you’re not one of the 15,581 NON-VOTERS that didn’t make it out this round.

Okay onto some of the results. As I reviewed the unofficial results I couldn’t help but shake my head, and then start laughing. I thought I was reading some kind of April Fool’s joke or something. Take Cape Carteret for instance. Well congratulations Mayor Harkless. Mr. Harkless slaughtered the write-in candidates with 92.2% of the vote. And a big congratulations to the Commissioners of Cape Carteret as well. There were 3 seats at stake and only THREE people running for them. 11 people wrote-in candidates. I can’t help but wonder why whoever they wrote in didn’t just get on the ballot. They likely would have had a shot.

Emerald Isle was in the same situation. Mayor Art Schools ran unopposed. Of the 153 votes in town, he had all but 1 of them. Congratulations Mayor Schools. For Emerald Isle Commissioners there were 3 seats up and 3 people ran. There were 11 write-in votes. What a race huh?

Indian Beach had 3 commissioner seats up and 3 people ran. Zero write-in votes here though.

Morehead City’s race for Mayor was no more interesting. Mayor Jerry Jones received 238 of the 245 votes. 7 votes went to write-in candidate(s). There were 2 Commissioner seats up and once again 2 people were on the ballot. Some real nail biters here folks.

To me it feels and looks like there’s no real choice as to who gets elected to these positions. Which is fine if everyone is completely happy and satisfied with the way things are being run in their municipality. But that is certainly not the case. Because I’ve heard folks in each one of the municipalities complain about things their elected officials could fix. But do they vote? Do they try and replace some of these folks that are pretty much given a free seat in our local governments by getting on the ballot themselves?

Personally I would like to see some younger blood getting on these ballots and maybe making Carteret County and the communities within it a little more progressive. What would you like to see?

I voted for Kay Hagan, only because I couldn’t support Dole after her childish smear campaign. I’m usually independent but its so hard for us to win anything for some reason. So I usually just take the lesser of two evil parties. I however will not be voting for Kay Hagan EVER again. I have came to this conclusion for several reasons. First she is wishy washy in supporting the public health care option, second she voted against an amendment to increase transparency in defense spending by the National Guard and Reserve components of the Armed Forces, and thirdly she does not support the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act.

If you visit her website, and go read the novel for yourself to see Kay Hagan’s plan for healthcare reform it will become obvious after 10 minutes of reading that she has NO REAL PLAN for healthcare reform. She does have a lot of things on there that seem like common sense to me. For instance,

The technology has arrived, and we should make sure that every person’s complete, private health record is available wherever and whenever they seek care.

I’m pretty sure the technology to allow us to do this has been around for well over ten years. So lets make it happen Kay. But what I really don’t get is, where is the plan? I mean something that explains in a page or two how we’re going to get this accomplished. Or at least say I’m supporting so and so’s plan.

This is a quote from Kay Hagan’s site explaining how she feels about transparency in government :

Anytime we use [taxpayer dollars] for any program, there must be accountability and the agencies must know how that money was spent.

Kay, if you really feel this way, why did you vote against Senator Coburn’s amendment S.AMDT.2565??? Which clearly states its purpose here:

AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
To ensure transparency and accountability by providing that each member of Congress and the Secretary of Defense has the ability to review $1,500,000,000 in taxpayer funds allocated to the National Guard and Reserve components of the Armed Forces.

1.5 billion is a lot of money to let go unaccounted for, don’t you think? I’d like to know where its going…now when I knock on Senator Hagan’s office asking where it went, she’s not going to be able to tell me.

Lastly Senator Hagan does not support the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act. If you’re unfamiliar with it, its a measure sponsored by 307 members of the house and 30 members of the senate. Basically its a full audit of the Federal Reserve. Kay Hagan tells me that there is already an audit done on the fed and its sufficient. However, she was unable to tell me who we’re dealing with, what they’re buying, how much is being spent, and who is profiting or losing from these transactions. Something tells me that we the people are on the losing end of many of the transactions.

I voted for Kay Hagan mainly because she was supposed to be fighting for transparency in government for me…..THE LITTLE GUY!!! I must say I’m sorely disappointed. And I will not be voting for her again, and will be shocked if she makes it to a second term.