RGA Pours Big Money Into North Carolina For Pat McCrory; Bob McDonnell Endorses

Republican governors convene, stake claims early on NC

A group of Republican governors and party donors is currently meeting privately in Charlotte.

They are holding a policy summit on the same turf Democrats will use to nominate President Barack Obama for a second term.

The Republican governors did not allow any media access to their meetings Thursday.

When Democratic governors met in Charlotte recently, they locked out the media, too.
But the Republican presence in Charlotte is a clear signal that the city will be ground zero in a tooth-and-nail battle for voters in North Carolina.

The governors were hidden away inside the luxury resort at Ballantyne, but rising star Bob McDonnell, the governor of Virginia and a potential vice-presidential choice, surfaced Thursday afternoon.

When he toured a Coca-Cola plant, it was with Pat McCrory, who was campaigning for governor.

“I’m here today to strongly endorse Pat McCrory for governor because I believe he’ll be a marvelous partner over these next couple of years,” McDonnell said.

Political experts said the endorsement for McCrory is part of a much larger strategy by Republicans to stamp their presence in Charlotte ahead of the Democratic National Convention.

Analyst Michael Bitzer said after losing the presidential race in North Carolina in 2008, it’s “game on” for Republicans.

“They read the tea leaves and they saw what happened when Obama came in with his grassroots and they’re making the claim early on, ‘This is going to be a competitive fight. Get ready for it,’” he said.

McCrory, who even lost his home town during the 2008 swell of support behind Obama, made it clear Thursday that he will not be caught off guard again.
“The fact of the matter is, the Obama machine is going to be very, very powerful in North Carolina and I’m not going to underestimate them,” he said.

Bitzer said voters should get used to the attention from both parties.

“It’s going to be money; it’s going to be resources; it’s going to be appearances. Everything’s going to be coming into this state,” Bitzer said.

Virginia’s governor, who heads the Republican Governor’s Association, promised the party will raise and spend what it takes to help McCrory in a battleground state that will continue to have a high profile through November.


Va. governor: "McCrory's a good bet to take state's top job"

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell became the latest high-profile GOP governor Thursday to boost Pat McCrory’s gubernatorial bid, saying North Carolina is “at the very top of the list” of states where Republicans stand a good chance of taking the governor’s mansion away from Democrats.

McDonnell, who appeared alongside McCrory at a Coca-Cola plant in Charlotte, follows New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. All of them have come to North Carolina to campaign or raise money for the former Charlotte mayor.

Like the others, McDonnell is likely to be considered when presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney picks his running mate.

But unlike the others, McDonnell heads the Republican Governors’ Association, which has already spent more than $800,000 on TV ads linking McCrory’s Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, to unpopular Gov. Bev Perdue.

Surrounded by cases of Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite, McDonnell said the RGA will continue to pour dollars into the state to help McCrory. He leads Dalton in two polls released this week – by 6 percentage points in one (by Public Policy Polling) and by 9 in another (by Rasmussen).

“Whatever we need to do to help Pat win, we will do,” McDonnell told local reporters after he and McCrory got a tour of the soft drink plant. “We rank this as one of the absolute top races in the country.”

Asked how much the RGA was willing to spend in North Carolina, McDonnell answered: “I have an idea, but I can’t tell you. We believe in Pat. We will be in it for the long haul. The climate is right for us to win.”

McCrory, who lost a close race to Perdue in 2008, contrasted Virginia’s 5.6 percent unemployment – the lowest in the Southeast – with North Carolina’s jobless rate of 9.7 percent, one of the highest in the country.

“We need to change the culture of North Carolina government and make it more job-friendly,” McCrory said. “I’m convinced it’s going to take an outsider – someone from outside the (Raleigh) beltline – to fix the state government.”

He pledged to follow the example of next-door neighbor McDonnell by “unleashing the private sector” through tax cuts, a reduction in regulations and a pact with Virginia and South Carolina to develop energy resources off their coasts.

Meanwhile, an advocacy group funded by the Democratic Governors Association, whose vice chair is Perdue, is expected to start helping Dalton some with a $217,000 TV ad buy that will go after McCrory.

In other remarks Thursday, both McCrory and McDonnell acknowledged that their respective states are likely to be among the 10 or so Electoral College battlegrounds in this year’s presidential election.

As to why Thursday’s event was held at a Coke plant, here’s one possible explanation: Republican McCrory will be the honorary starter at this year’s Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The grand marshal will be West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, a Democrat.

“We usually try to have one (Democrat) and one (Republican) – to balance it out,” said Allison Patient, Coca-Cola Consolidated senior director of corporate affairs.


VIRGINIA GOVERNOR AND RGA CHAIRMAN BOB MCDONNELL ENDORSES PAT MCCRORY FOR NORTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR

Today, Virginia Governor and RGA Chairman Bob McDonnell endorsed Pat McCrory and his bid to be North Carolina’s next Governor.

“I am proud to have Governor McDonnell’s endorsement,” said Pat McCrory. “There’s no better model for economic success and leadership at the state level than our neighbors to the North in Virginia. Under the Governor’s leadership, Virginia has added more than 110,000 net jobs and the unemployment rate has gone down more than 20 percent. That’s the kind of leadership I think we desperately need in North Carolina.“

“There is no gubernatorial race more important to the RGA this cycle than North Carolina,” said Governor McDonnell. “I know that with Pat McCrory’s leadership, North Carolina’s economy can get back on track. As Mayor of Charlotte, Pat saw the city add tens of thousands of jobs and as Governor, I know he will bring that same results-oriented leadership to Raleigh.”

The two leaders toured Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated’s Snyder Production Center in Charlotte before speaking with the press.

When Governor Bob McDonnell was sworn in as the 71st Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia in January 2010, he inherited $6 billion in budget shortfalls. He brought Democrats and Republicans together to close the shortfall without a single tax increase, producing a $400 million surplus in the first fiscal year of his administration.

“Governor McDonnell has proven that government can work,” added Pat McCrory. “Both parties can work together to achieve real reform, promote economic growth while still making investments in key priorities like education.”

“The choice in this election is clear,” said McDonnell. ”North Carolina can elect someone who has been a part of North Carolina’s broken government for 16 years, or they can elect Pat McCrory – a leader who will bring an outsider’s perspective to Raleigh and fix North Carolina’s broken economy.”


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Sources: Facebook, McClatchy Newspapers, Pat McCrory.com, WSOC, Google Maps

Northeast Better Prepared For Hurricane Irene Than South: Focused On People NOT Race!

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New York Wakes to Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene made its second landfall, this one early Sunday in southern New Jersey, as the storm continued its relentless push toward New York City.

Though the storm weakened as it moved up the Eastern Seaboard, it continued to funnel storm surge and floodwater to the Jersey Shore overnight, where the National Hurricane Center said the center of the storm crossed over land near Little Egg Inlet, north of Atlantic City, around 5:35 a.m. The storm’s maximum sustained winds are estimated to be 75 miles per hour, making it a weak category one hurricane.

The hurricane first came ashore Saturday morning near Cape Lookout, N.C., then slipped back over water farther north near Virginia and Maryland before hitting land again in New Jersey.

New York was the next major city in the hurricane’s path, and for much of the night, the metropolitian area was pounded with heavy rain and wind, causing power failures and flooding.

While New York had all but closed down in anticipation of what forecasters warned could be violent winds with the force to drive a wall of water over the beaches in the Rockaways and between the skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan, as of early Sunday morning, all bridges and tunnels remained open, with the exception of the lower level of the George Washington Bridge because of high winds, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Forecasters said the relentless rain from the slow-moving storm made it very dangerous.

“Even though they are saying that the storm is quote-unquote weakening, hurricane winds are hurricane winds,” John Searing, the deputy commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services, said before daybreak Sunday as he prepared to deal with the damage. “Whether they say it’s 80 miles or 75 miles an hour, what’s the physical difference in that?”

City officials warned that a big problem could be flooding at high tide, at about 8 a.m. Sunday — before the storm has moved on and the wind has slacked off. The storm is expected to pass through by Sunday afternoon, moving into southern New England.

“That is when you’ll see the water come over the side,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg cautioned Saturday afternoon.

The National Hurricane Center warned that “water levels have been rising rapidly in advance of the center of Irene.” At 5 a.m., the center reported a storm surge of 3.1 feet at Cape May, N.J., 3.8 feet in Sandy Hook, N.J., and 3.9 feet in New York Harbor.

On the Jackie Robinson Parkway, three feet of water blocked all lanes, state and city officials reported. Floodwaters diverted traffic on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and shut the southbound F.D.R. drive at 116th Street. The Union Turnpike ramp on the Grand Central Parkway was shut, and on the Cross Bronx Expressway, the rising waters blocked the exit at White Plains Road.

Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the New York area had lost electricity by early Sunday morning — 150,338 on Long Island, according to the Long Island Power Authority, which shut power to Fire Island, Captree Island, Robert Moses, and Oak Island; 166,000 in New Jersey, according to Public Service Electric and Gas; and about 57,992 in the city and in Westchester County, according to Consolidated Edison. Of those, more than 8,400 were on Staten Island, according to utility’s Web site, and about 5,000 in Queens and Brooklyn.

Utilities in Connecticut reported about 70,000 customers are without power, according to The Associated Press. The Connecticut Light and Power Company reported nearly 60,000 customers were without power early Sunday, and United Illuminating, which serves the Bridgeport and New Haven area, reported 10,000 customers.

“The number of outages continues to climb as Hurricane Irene moves north,” the New Jersey utility said in a statement on its Web site.

Since Friday, the city had done more than issue warnings. The subway system, one of the city’s trademarks, had shut down in the middle of the day on Saturday, and firefighters and social service workers had spent much of Saturday trying to complete the evacuation of about 370,000 residents in low-lying areas where officials expected flooding to follow the storm. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie said that more than a million people had been evacuated, mainly from four counties in the southern part of the state.

The storm, a wide and relentless mass that had had lurched onto the Outer Banks of North Carolina in the early daylight hours of Saturday, heaved clumsily but implacably north, leaving in its wake at least nine deaths. After crawling slowly from North Carolina into Virginia, the storm weaved out to sea and onto a path that forecasters said would take it to Long Island and New York City.

The storm was a spinning kaleidoscope of weather, sometimes pounding windows with rain, sometimes flashing the sky with lightning, sometimes blacking out the horizon with ominous, low-riding clouds. As the hurricane moved up the East Coast, tornado watches had moved right along with it, and that lockstep continued as the storm closed in on the New York area: early Sunday, the National Weather Service announced a tornado watch for the city, along with Westchester, Suffolk, Nassau and Rockland Counties. “It’s actually common when we have these tropical systems,” said Brian Ceimnecki, a meteorologist with the Weather Service.

The Nassau County executive, Edward P. Mangano, said that “thousands” of people were spending the night in county facilities, including Nassau County Community College. He asked people in areas that were in danger to stay with friends or relatives, if possible.

The city opened 78 emergency shelters that could take in 70,000 people. But officials said that only 8,700 had arrived by 11 p.m. on Saturday. The only other statistics available pointed to the difficulty of getting people to abide by the mayor’s mandatory evacuation order in what the city calls Zone A low-lying areas: The mayor had said several hours earlier that 80 percent of the residents in some city-run buildings — but only 50 percent in others — had left.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered 2,000 National Guard troops called up. Mr. Cuomo saw the first of them off from the 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue at 26th Street, after saying they would assist the police, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He also said that some would be sent to Long Island, which could face heavy damage in the storm.

Mr. Christie said 1,500 National Guard troops had been deployed in New Jersey.

The mayor attributed one casualty to the storm, a 66-year-old man who fell from a ladder while trying to board up windows at his house in Jamaica, Queens, early in the day. A Fire Department spokesman said the man, who was not immediately identified, was in serious condition at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.

The mayor said police rescuers had pulled two kayakers from the water off Staten Island after their boats capsized. “When they were out there in spite of all the warnings, I don’t know,” the mayor said at his late-evening briefing, adding that they had been “kept afloat by lifejackets” they were wearing. He said they had been given summonses.

He also said that going out in the water as the storm approached was a “reckless” move that had “diverted badly-needed N.Y.P.D. resources.”

Mr. Bloomberg said the transit system was “unlikely to be back” in service on Monday. He said crews would have to pump water from tunnels if they flooded and restore the signal system before they could move the parked trains out. That would mean “the equipment’s not where you would want it” for the morning rush, he said. “Plan on a commute without mass transit on Monday morning.”

Mr. Bloomberg also said electricity could be knocked out in Lower Manhattan if Consolidated Edison shut off the power to pre-empt the problems that flooding could cause for its cables. (A Con Ed spokesman said later that the company, while prepared, had no immediate plans for that kind of shutdown.)


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Sources: AP, Meet The Press, MSNBC, NY Times, Youtube, Google Maps

North Carolina, Southeast Mysteriously Ravaged By Tornadoes (Racist Karma)

What Do I Think About Those "Epic" Tornadoes That Recently Ripped Through 8 Southern, Redneck States Including NORTH CAROLINA, Unfortunately Killing 44 People?

GOD Isn't Mocked & Karma Does Exist For Acts Of RACISM Demonstrated Against Pres. Obama & Other BLACK People!!

It Time For America To STOP Practicing Discrimination Against People Of Color.

"A Nation That Continues Year After Year To Spend More Money On Military Defense Than On Programs Of Social Uplift, Is Approaching Spiritual Doom."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.





At least 40 killed in U.S. storms, as many as 14 in one NC county

Powerful storms that have ripped across the Southeast killed as many as 44 people over the past three days, according to the National Weather Service and reports from several states.

A CNN meteorologist called the storms' impact on North Carolina "epic."

There were 14 deaths in Bertie County, North Carolina, a rural area in the northeast part of the state, the weather service said Sunday.

Zee Lamb, Bertie County manager, told CNN that he could confirm 11 fatalities.

"Reports are still incoming," said Mike Sprayberry, deputy director of the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management.

The death toll across seven states includes 23 total in North Carolina; four in Virginia; seven in Alabama, two in Oklahoma, seven in Arkansas and one in Mississippi.

"When the storm count is finalized, this will likely be an historic tornado outbreak for North Carolina," said CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras. "It is quite unusual to have this many supercell tornadoes of this intensity strike the area."

North Carolina normally gets about 19 tornadoes a year, according to the National Climatic Data Center. There are 90 preliminary reports of tornadoes in the state in the latest storm system. A single tornado often gets multiple reports, so it is not immediately clear how many there were, Jeras explained. "But regardless, this is an epic event."



The deaths in North Carolina included three people in Raleigh who were killed in mobile homes, the weather service said. In eastern North Carolina, two people died near Ammon, one was killed in the Bladenboro area and another died in the Benson and Black Creek area, the weather service said.

North Carolina state Rep. Mike Stone reported two additional deaths in Lee County.

At Camp Lejeune, according to a news release, an unknown number of base residents suffered injuries and nearly 30 homes were damaged following a series of tornadoes that touched down near a housing area Saturday evening.

One seriously injured child was taken to a nearby hospital, according to the statement.

The storm rendered five homes uninhabitable and prompted officials to set up a temporary shelter at a nearby elementary school, the statement read.

CNN affiliate WTVD broadcast images of damaged homes and vehicles in Smithfield, North Carolina, as local residents and emergency workers surveyed the damage.

Gov. Bev Perdue declared a state of emergency for the entire state, according to the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management.

"We've been assured we'll have whatever federal support we'll need," Perdue told reporters late Saturday.

The governor said that as of late Saturday, the number of storm-related power outages had dropped from 250,000 to 143,000.

The service said more than 100 twisters have been spotted across the region during the recent storms.

In South Carolina, a tornado cut through Berkeley County, destroying a church and injuring six people, the weather service said.

Meanwhile, emergency crews in Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama worked to assess the damage after the storm system moved north through the Carolinas and up into southern Virginia.

In Virginia, three Gloucester County residents died and 64 suffered injuries from the fast-moving storms Saturday, according to Bob Spieldenner, director of public affairs for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

A tornado also ripped the roof off a school in the county, felled trees that blocked multiple roads and severed power lines, leaving 9,300 people without electricity, according to Spieldenner.

In the Shenandoah Valley, in the western part of the state, a child died after being swept away in a flash flood, according to the National Weather Service. Spieldenner said authorities rescued another flood victim, but a third is missing.

The storms were the latest in a round of severe weather that has hit parts of the Midwest and South since Thursday. They left a trail of downed trees and power lines, scattered cars and crushed homes as it moved east.

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Southeastern Storms leave 43 dead in destruction's wake


A devastating storm system spawned dozens of tornadoes as it barreled from Oklahoma to North Carolina, decimating communities in six states and leaving at least 43 people dead in its wake.

North Carolina officials reported that 22 people died as a result of Saturday afternoon's severe storms that swept across the state over a six-hour stretch.

North Carolina Emergency Management said the deaths occurred in Bertie, Bladen, Cumberland, Harnett, Johnston, Lee and Wake counties.

Half of the deaths occurred in Bertie, a rural county in the northeast corner of the state with more than 700 square miles of land and just 21,000 residents.

The storm cut a wide swath across the county, flattening houses and tossing around farm equipment and vehicles, said Zee Lamb, Bertie's county manager.

"We had several fatalities at the same location but they weren't all at the same location. They were spread out over several miles," he said. "A lot of them were in their homes ... there are homes that are just totally leveled. Anybody who was in those homes could not have survived."

The fatalities included several elderly residents of an assisted living facility that was in the path of the storm, Lamb said.

Across the state, more than 80 people have been transported to local hospitals, some with severe injuries. Gov. Bev Perdue declared a state of emergency for all of North Carolina on Saturday evening.

The declaration is a prerequisite for asking for federal disaster assistance. More than a dozen North Carolina counties have also declared local states of emergency, including Wake, Cumberland and Bertie counties. Initial damage estimates say 60 homes have been completely destroyed and more than 400 others sustained damage across the state.

Emergency crews searched for victims Sunday in hard-hit swaths of North Carolina, where 62 tornadoes were reported the night before from the worst spring storm in two decades to hit the state.

In the capital city of Raleigh, three family members died in a mobile home park, said Wake County spokeswoman Sarah Willamson-Baker. At that trailer park, residents lined up outside Sunday and asked police guarding the area when they might get back in.

Peggy Mosley, 54, who has lived in the park for 25 years, said she was prepared when the storm bore down on the trailer park. She gathered small pillows and other material and hunkered down in her small bathroom.

"I went and got into my small bathroom and just sat in there and cried and prayed until it was over," Mosley said.

Farther up the street, Angelina McCaizie was also among those hoping to get back to their homes. She said she had been cooking when she saw the winds and rain pick up. She grabbed her children, nephew and brother and brought them into the kitchen, where everyone ducked until the storm passed.

When the storm was over, McCaizie, her husband and her brother went outside to check on neighbors. She said she saw several people bleeding and others with broken bones. McCaizie also said one resident ran up to her shouting, "Please help me! Please help me! I need 911."

"It was horrible," McCaizie said.



Gov. Beverly Perdue said Sunday that state emergency management officials told her more than 20 were killed by the storms in North Carolina. However, the far-flung damage made it difficult to confirm the total number of deaths. The emergency management agency said it had reports of 22 fatalities, and media outlets and government agency tallies did not all match. The National Weather Service said 23 died in the state, including one in Johnston County, but an emergency management chief there told The Associated Press nobody died in that area.

The storm claimed its first lives Thursday night in Oklahoma, then roared through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Authorities have said seven died in Arkansas; seven in Alabama; two in Oklahoma; and one in Mississippi. At least five died in Virginia.

In North Carolina, the governor declared a state of emergency and said the 62 tornadoes reported were the most since March 1984, when a storm system spawned 22 twisters in the Carolinas that killed 57 people — 42 in North Carolina — and injured hundreds.

Daybreak brought news of a horrific death toll in Bertie County, a place of about 21,000 people about 130 miles east of Raleigh. The tornado moved through about 7 p.m. Saturday, sweeping homes from their foundations, demolishing others, and flipping cars on tiny rural roads between Askewville and Colerian, Lamb said. At least three of those who died were from the same family, he said.

One of the volunteers who scoured the rubble was an Iraq war veteran who told Lamb he was stunned by what he saw.

"He did two tours of duty in Iraq and the scene was worse than he ever saw in Iraq — that's pretty devastating," Lamb said.

As dawn broke, dozens of firefighters, volunteers and other officials were meeting in a makeshift command center to form search teams to fan out to the hardest-hit areas.

"There were several cases of houses being totally demolished except for one room, and that's where the people were," he said. "They survived. Pretty devastating."

The aftermath of the storm left the county commission chairman unable to recognize areas from the county where he grew up, graduated high school and lived most of his life.

L.C. Hoggard said the storms were another terrible blow to the county of just 21,000 people that was devastated by flooding last October. The water submerged the county seat of Windsor, damaging 200 homes and businesses. No one lost their lives in the flooding. But Hoggard said the tornado was going to have a staggering emotional impact.

"You might not recognize a name. But you recognize faces and families," Hoggard said. "That's how it is in rural communities."

In Virginia, Department of Emergency Management spokesman Bob Spieldenner said one apparent tornado ripped across more than 12 miles through Gloucester County, uprooting trees and pounding homes to rubble while claiming three lives. Spieldenner said two others were killed when a vehicle ran into flash flooding near Waynesboro.

He reported homes and mobile homes damaged and destroyed in a series of other Virginia counties and flash flooding west of Charlottesville that prompted water rescues — including four people rescued unhurt from a car that had plunged into deep water flowing over a street.

Scenes of destruction across the South looked eerily similar in many areas.

At one point, more than 250,000 people went without power in North Carolina before emergency utility crews began repairing downed lines. But scattered outages were expected to linger at least until Monday.

Among areas hit by power outages was Raleigh, a bustling city of more than 400,000 people where some of the bigger downtown thoroughfares were blocked by fallen trees early Sunday.

Police and rescue crews began conducting house-to-house searches later Saturday at a mobile home park in north Raleigh, where the storm snapped some trees in half, ripped others out of the ground and tossed some trailers from one side of a street to the other.

At the Cedar Creek Mobile Home Park in Dunn, one woman died while another man was critically hurt when a car was blown atop him outside his home, said Police Chief B.P. Jones.

More than half the 40 homes in the park were unrecognizable piles of debris Sunday morning. A bulldozer was scooping up wood beams and piling them up in a different part of the park. In one home, all that was left was the seat of a recliner — the back gone — and a bathtub.

In Bladen County, the dead included a 92-year-old father and his 50-year-old son. They were killed when they were thrown from their adjacent mobile homes in the town of Ammon. A 52-year-old woman also died in Ammon, and a 50-year-old man died in Bladenboro — both also thrown from their homes, County Medical Examiner Kenneth Clark said.

Bladen County emergency management chief Bradley Kinlaw said 82 homes were damaged and 25 destroyed in Saturday's storms. The path of destruction was narrow — but at least six miles long, he said.

In Sanford, about 40 miles southwest of Raleigh, a busy shopping district was pummeled by the storms, with some businesses losing rooftops in what observers described as a ferocious tornado. The Lowe's Home Improvement Center in Sanford looked flattened, with jagged beams and wobbly siding sticking up from the pancaked entrance. Cars in the parking lot were flipped by the winds.

Remarkably, no one was seriously injured at the Lowe's, thanks to a quick-thinking manager who herded more than 100 people into a back area with no windows to shatter.

"It was really just a bad scene," said Jeff Blocker, Lowe's regional vice president for eastern North Carolina. "You're just amazed that no one was injured."



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Sources: Brainy Quotes, CNN, McClatchy Newspapers, MSNBC, WALA, WRAL, Youtube, Google Maps

"Restore America Plan" Extremist Group Demands 30 Governors Quit

Extremist Group Demands 30 U.S. Governors Resign, FBI Says


A domestic extremist group has sent letters to more than 30 U.S. governors demanding they resign, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI said in an intelligence note.

The note, dated Monday, said the letters told the governors to vacate their posts within three days.

The FBI and DHS said there do not appear to be credible or immediate threats of violence attached to the letters.

The group behind the letters has a "Restore America Plan" that calls for the removal of any governor who fails to comply, the intelligence note said.

While DHS has no information that the removal refers to a specific plan for violence, "law enforcement should be aware that this could be interpreted as a justification for violence or other criminal actions," the note said.

Other steps in the group's plan include "establishing bogus courts, calling of 'de jure' grand juries, and issuing so-called 'legal orders' to gain control of the state," the note said.

States that have acknowledged receiving the letters include Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Utah, Arkansas, Maine, Colorado, Rhode Island, Michigan, Georgia, Virginia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio and Nevada.

Officials in Pennsylvania and Illinois did not say whether they had received a letter. Officials in Maryland and Idaho said the governors' offices there did not receive such a letter.

Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons received one letter Monday and three more Wednesday, including one by fax, said his chief of staff, Robin Reedy. The group behind the letters does not believe there should be a federal government, Reedy said.

The letters were not handwritten but did have some handwritten signatures, Reedy said Thursday.

The office had been warned in advance to be on the lookout for the letter, she said.

Gibbons' office stepped up security at the Nevada Capitol in Carson City after receiving the letters.

Everyone had to enter through one entrance, and an X-ray machine and metal detector were brought in.

Boulders were placed in front of the Capitol so vehicles could not drive close to the building.

The governor hadn't seen the letters because he had been in Las Vegas for a few days, Reedy said.


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Sources: CNN, Guardians Of The Free Republics, McClatchy Newspapers, Google Maps

Virginia 1st State To Pass Anti-Health Care Mandate Law

Virginia Legislature Passes Ban on Health Care Insurance Mandate

The Virginia House of Delegates on Friday passed legislation intended to shield citizens from any federal requirement that they purchase health insurance. The bill goes to the governor for signing.





Virginia Advances Legislation Against Health Care Insurance Requirement


Virginia took another step on Tuesday toward becoming the first state to enact legislation to exempt its residents from a central feature of President Obama’s health care plan: a requirement that everyone buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

The state House of Delegates, controlled by Republicans, gave preliminary approval to the legislation on Tuesday, after approval last week by the state Senate, controlled by Democrats. The measure is expected to be signed into law shortly by Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican.

About two thirds of the states have some form of this legislation in the works, many of them constitutional amendments. All seek to foil any attempt by the federal government — and the insurance industry — to make everyone buy insurance, a measure known as the individual mandate.

Supporters say the individual mandate is essential to making insurance affordable because it would expand the risk pool to include healthy people who don’t have insurance now. Both the House and the Senate have passed their own versions of health care bills containing an individual mandate, but their attempts at merging them into one bill have stalled.

But even as various states advance these moves against the individual mandate, opponents decry their efforts as mere political theater with no force of law behind them.

Such is the argument made by Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., in an essay published on Tuesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

He writes that the goals of these state measures are “constitutionally impossible” because the United States Constitution establishes the supremacy of national law over state law.

Nonetheless, Mr. Jost suggests that the individual mandate may be vulnerable in part because there is no precedent for such a requirement. He also suggests that such a mandate may be impossible to enforce and that these state measures may only encourage citizens in their efforts to resist compliance.

“The state laws can thus be seen as invitations to civil disobedience that counsel state citizens to ‘violate the federal law, wave this statute in their face and dare them to come after you,’ ” he writes.

Opponents argue that the individual mandate is an overreach of federal authority and unconstitutional.

Robert Marshall, the Republican delegate in Virginia who introduced the measure in the House of Delegates, quoted Tuesday from the Federalist Papers and denounced the mandate as tyrannical.

“In 220 years, Congress has never tried to compel people to purchase any good or service,” he told his colleagues, according to a report in The Virginian-Pilot. “You are the sentinels of the lives, liberty and property of your constituents. I urge you to protect them against the usurpers in Washington, D.C.”
















Fact or Fiction? State Laws Thwart Must-Buy Rule



Claim: State laws can thwart a federal mandate that would require people to buy health insurance.

The Democrats' insurance overhaul requires that individuals buy coverage if their employer doesn't provide it for them, or if they are not in a government-paid program such as Medicare. The Senate bill would, after a phase-in period, require those without coverage pay a tax penalty of $750 per year, up to a maximum of $2,250 per family, or a penalty of 2 percent of household income. The non-partisan American Academy of Actuaries says this penalty is too weak, which will limit its effectiveness in deterring "adverse selection," the tendency of sick people to buy insurance and of healthier people to go without coverage. Adverse selection creates insurance risk pools with too many sick people and too few healthy ones. But for critics of the insurance overhaul, the penalty is too high or is an unacceptable use of federal power.

Fact or Fiction?

Fiction. This week, the Virginia Senate passed by a vote of 23 to 17 a bill saying that no resident shall be required to obtain or maintain insurance coverage. Five Democratic senators voted for the bill, including one who represents a northern Virginia district that President Obama won in 2008. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, lawmakers in 28 other states are considering similar legislation.

On November's ballot in Arizona will be a proposed amendment to the state constitution saying that no person or employer can be forced to participate in any health care system. "This is mainly political posturing," said Mark Hall, professor of law and public health at Wake Forest University. "Under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause, state law obviously cannot trump or override federal law." But the Virginia vote indicates political sentiment in a battleground state.


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Obama To Confront GOP In 2010 State Of The Union

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Obama To Address GOP Critics Directly In State Of The Union Speech


President Obama will address his Republican opponents directly in his State of the Union address Wednesday night, a senior administration official said, as he seeks to generate new momentum and rebuild his credibility as a leader able to change the way Washington works.

Obama will ask Republicans to "change course" and "work together to face the big challenges," the official said, adding that the president's tone will not be markedly different than it has been in the past.

Obama will also acknowledge "mistakes" he made during his first year in office, aides said.

But with voter frustration mounting and the midterm elections on the horizon, Obama will also cast himself as a fighter on behalf of the middle class. He will unveil a series of new initiatives but also weave his policies into the larger themes of creating new jobs, fortifying the economy and making the federal government more effective.

The prime-time speech, in front of hundreds of lawmakers in the Capitol and millions of viewers nationwide, comes at a pivotal moment. With his health-care proposal stalled, his filibuster-proof majority in the Senate gone and his approval ratings sagging, the president is anxious to reshape his agenda around an issue that matters to most Americans: employment. About two-thirds of the speech will be devoted to the economy and jobs, his advisers said.

Sitting in the first lady's box will be nearly two dozen guests invited to illustrate pieces of the president's agenda, recent events and examples of inspiration. Missing from the audience: one member of his Cabinet, in the event of a national emergency, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is attending meetings abroad.

Speaking on a series of morning news shows, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama would acknowledge "mistakes" he made in his first year. But all indications are that the White House believes the mistakes were mostly in its messaging and political tactics, not its policies. Obama is also expected to outline the economic progress the nation has made in the past year.

Following the State of the Union speech, Obama will take his message on the road with trips to Florida and New Hampshire. He flies to Tampa on Thursday to announce $8 billion in awards for high-speed rail construction in multiple states. The money is a "down payment" on the rail system, officials said, and will go to local governments for distribution. A total of 13 major areas will benefit from the project, whose reach will be felt in 31 states, the administration said. Obama plans to make the announcement with Vice President Biden, a longtime railway advocate.

The White House sees the project as going beyond transportation, billing it as an economic initiative that will produce thousands of jobs. The rail program is part of the previously announced stimulus package, not a new initiative.

Even as he emphasizes job creation, which requires new spending, Obama will call for a three-year budget freeze in the fraction of the budget that is aimed at non-entitlement domestic programs. The seemingly incongruous initiatives reflect the conflicting pressures Obama faces: Americans are concerned about the nation's soaring long-term debt, even as they want the federal government to do more to fix the struggling economy.

The proposed three-year spending freeze is aimed at controlling the deficit while protecting key programs, notably education, as part of an effort to show that he has not given up on his key priorities. Obama will call for a 6.2 percent increase in education spending over last year, making education one of the few areas to grow in an otherwise austere budget. Administration officials said the proposal would amount to the largest single-year request for federal funding for elementary and secondary schools.

In the short run, Obama will call for tax cuts for small businesses hiring new workers and some modest initiatives aimed at easing the squeeze on the middle class, aides said. He will seek to expand tax credits for child and dependent care, while limiting annual student loan repayments.

Obama also wants to extend the temporary bonus depreciation, which allows companies to accelerate the write-offs they get for depreciable supplies.

In addition, he is expected to announce his intention to appoint a bipartisan presidential commission to come up with recommendations to reduce the nation's long-term debt, likely through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. The panel, however, would not have the power to force congressional action on its recommendations. The Senate on Tuesday rejected a plan that Obama reluctantly embraced to form a deficit commission that would have had the power to force a congressional vote on its recommendations.

The budget commission would have broad authority to recommend changes in the tax code and in entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Obama has previously pledged to set up a commission by executive order if Congress fails to act. Such a panel would lack the legal authority to force action in Congress, however, and key Republicans have said they would refuse to participate.

A legislative proposal to create a commission failed by seven votes Tuesday, hours after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released new projections showing the deficit would hit $1.35 trillion this year, a slight improvement over previous forecasts but still one of the deepest budget holes since the end of World War II.

Aides said Obama was working on final edits of his first official State of the Union address Wednesday morning and was planning to practice in the afternoon, before addressing the joint session of Congress at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Stunned by the loss of the Democrats' filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority in the Senate earlier this month, the White House and its allies in Congress are unsure of how to proceed with the president's ambitious agenda, including health-care reform, climate change legislation and an overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory structure. All of those items are pending in Congress.

Gibbs said Obama would make the case that health-care reform "remains central to the economic lives of the American people."

He also said Obama would explain why many economically pressed Americans are frustrated with incumbents of all stripes, as a way of once again calling for the political parties -- which are more polarized than ever -- to work together to solve the nation's problems.

"We need to stop pretending every day in Washington is election day,'' Gibbs said.

Obama's proposal to raise federal education spending by as much as $4 billion in the next fiscal year was described by administration officials Tuesday night as the start of an effort to revamp the No Child Left Behind law enacted under President George W. Bush.

The funding would include a $1.35 billion increase in Obama's "Race to the Top" competitive grants for school reform. It would also set aside $1 billion to finance an overhaul of No Child Left Behind, aides said.

Administration officials said they could not provide a direct comparison to current elementary and secondary education spending levels for No Child Left Behind, but they said federal education spending would rise overall by 6.2 percent under Obama's proposal.

Aides said the part of Obama's speech dealing with foreign policy would include updates on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they said there were no plans to announce new policy initiatives.

Following the speech, Virginia's newly elected Republican governor, Robert F. McDonnell, is scheduled to deliver the GOP response. Republican congressional leaders tapped McDonnell for the rebuttal after praising him as the kind of candidate who could appeal to Democrats and independents by talking about jobs, the economy and other kitchen-table issues.


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Sources: Washington Post, MSNBC, Google Maps

Virginia Is Creating Killers! How? Why? Gun Control Needed!

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Explosives Found at Christopher Speight's Home



Bomb technicians discovered a "multitude" of explosives Wednesday at the home of a man suspected in the shooting deaths of eight people, and crews were detonating the devices as more details about the gunman came to light.

Christopher Bryan Speight, a 39-year-old security guard, surrendered to police at daybreak Wednesday after leading authorities on an 18-hour manhunt following the shootings at a house in rural central Virginia where deputies found a mortally wounded man and seven bodies.

As of late Wednesday, bomb squads had found and detonated seven explosives. The blasting was expected to continue into Thursday.

Speight had no weapons when he surrendered shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday wearing a bulletproof vest over a black fleece jacket, camouflage pants and mud-caked boots.

Neither the sheriff nor a state police spokeswoman would disclose what Speight said when he gave up.

Authorities remained tightlipped on most details surrounding the slayings, including any possible motive. Nor did they immediately identify any of the victims or their relationship to the suspect. Authorities would say only that he knew his victims.

Speight was being held on one charge of first-degree murder Wednesday night, said Lt. J.D. Baker of the Lynchburg Adult Detention Center.

Speight co-owned and lived in the home where some of the bodies were found. Reporters were allowed to see the home Wednesday. The two-story house had a big patio, where there was furniture, a children's bicycle and a plastic basketball hoop. The yard was landscaped and well-manicured.

Gun enthusiast

Neighbor Monte W. Mays said Speight's mother deeded the house to Speight and his sister in 2006, shortly before she died of brain cancer.

Mays, the county's retired commissioner of accounts, said Speight was a good neighbor. They waved as they passed each other on the road and sent their dogs out to play with one another.

"All the dealings I've ever had with him have been cordial and polite," Mays said. "We got along fine."

Speight long had been a gun enthusiast and enjoyed target shooting at a range on his property, Mays said. But the shooting recently became a daily occurrence, with Speight firing what Mays said were high-powered and automatic rifles.

"Then we noticed he was doing it at nighttime," and the gunfire started going deeper into the woods, Mays said.

Mays said the entire community is devastated and wondering what triggered the slayings.

"The only one who's going to know now is Chris," he said.

David Anderson, co-owner of the Sunshine Market grocery store in Lynchburg, where Speight sometimes provided security, said Speight was worried that his sister and brother-in-law wanted to kick him out of the house.

Speight never wanted to talk about it, but he "constantly paced the floor," Anderson said. "I thought he was going to wear a trench in it."

Clarence Reynolds, who also works at the market, said he recently discussed a personal family problem with Speight, and Speight told him "don't let your emotions get the best of you."

Reynolds said Speight was not married and had no children.

Experience with Weapons

Police were alerted to the bloodbath when they found the mortally wounded man on the side of a road. Then sheriff's deputies discovered seven more bodies — three inside the house and four just outside.

When officers converged on the area, the suspected shooter fired a high-powered rifle at a state police helicopter, rupturing its gas tank and forcing it to land.

The shots revealed his location, and more than 100 police swarmed into the woods until Speight gave up the following morning.

Police said Speight appeared to have had weapons training, but there was no information suggesting he had served in the military.

Speight's uncle, Jack Giglio of Tampa, Fla., told The Associated Press that his nephew was a deer hunter, but as far as he knew Speight did not have any specialized weapons training. Giglio said he had not seen Speight since 2006, when both attended the funeral for Speight's mother, who died of brain cancer.

"We're shocked, of course," Giglio said. "I'm not aware of any problems with him. It's kind of out of the blue. We're still trying to pick up facts, too."

Appomattox County court records show a concealed weapons permit was issued to a Christopher Bryan Speight three times between 1999 and last year.





VA Tech Massacre Worst U.S. Shooting, Kills 33 On Va. Campus


Local, state and federal investigators scoured a university campus in Virginia for clues to what set off the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history after a gunman shot two people to death in a dormitory Monday morning before making his way to a classroom building where, silently and coolly, he killed 30 more people before turning his weapon on himself, authorities said.

At least 15 other people were wounded in the shootings, which took place over 2½ hours at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Some of them were injured as they leapt to safety from the windows of their classrooms.

The shootings, which came just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School bloodbath, in which two students killed 13 people and themselves near Littleton, Colo., created panic and confusion at the university, which was already on edge after two weeks of bomb threats.

After the scope of the carnage was clear, angry students and employees demanded to know why the first e-mail warning from police and administrators did not go out to them for more than two hours, even though the killer of two people was at large. By then, the gunman had struck a second time.

Nearly 50 victims

In all, 33 people died Monday at Virginia Tech, including the gunman. The 15 who were wounded were treated for gunshots or other injuries, authorities said. Their conditions were not reported.

Campus Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not officially confirm that the two incidents were related, pending the results of the investigation, but he referred to only one gunman and said no other suspect was being sought. Numerous federal and local law enforcement officials told NBC News that the events were the work of a lone gunman.

Federal investigators told NBC News’ Pete Williams that they believed the man was a Virginia Tech student in his early 20s. Their identification was delayed for several hours, they said, because the man’s face was disfigured when he shot himself, he carried no ID and an initial check on his fingerprints came up empty.

The man’s two guns, which were bought in Virginia and whose serial numbers had been obliterated, were to be examined at a laboratory of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Williams reported, citing federal law enforcement officials. That examination was also delayed because authorities had to drive the guns to the lab in the suburbs of Washington after high winds precluded them from using an airplane.

Early reports in the initial confusion said police had a suspect in custody, but Flinchum said later that the person was only being questioned for information because he knew one of the dormitory victims. Officers were interviewing him off-campus when reports of the second round of shooting came in, Flinchum said, and the man was not in custody.

Warnings came too late

Charles Steger, the university’s president, and law enforcement authorities gave this account of the day’s events in public statements and comments to NBC News:

The rampage began about 7:15 a.m. ET at West Ambler Johnston, a co-educational residence hall that houses 895 people. The gunman, armed with a 9-mm pistol and a .22-caliber handgun, killed a man and a woman there.

About 2½ hours later, police responded to a 911 call reporting that shots had been fired at Norris Hall, an engineering classroom building about a half-mile away on the opposite end of the 2,600-acre campus. They discovered that the front doors had been chained from the inside, apparently so victims could not escape and police could not enter.

Officers forced their way in and followed the sound of gunshots to the second floor, where they found the gunman, who had shot himself in the face. As they canvassed the building, they found dozens of gunshot victims. Eventually, they announced that 31, including the gunman, were dead in the classroom building.

“It’s probably one of the worst things I’ve seen in my life,” Flinchum said.

Shaken students said they believed many of the victims might have been spared if campus officials had taken more immediate steps to secure the campus after the first shootings at the dormitory.

The first e-mail warning to students and employees did not go out to students, faculty and staff until 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the shooting at the dormitory, according to the time stamps on copies obtained by NBC News. By then, the classroom shooting was under way. The message warned students to be cautious but did not warn them not to go to class.

“I really thought they should have canceled classes sooner,” Sam Leake, a junior who lives in West Ambler Johnston, told the campus newspaper, The Collegiate Times. “If they had, maybe some of these deaths could have been prevented.”

Steger said administrators and police initially believed the first shooting was an isolated incident and did not see a need to close the university. He said they believed the gunman had fled the campus.

“We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don’t have hours to reflect on it,” he said.


Silent gunman strikes without warning

As the first warning was just going out, a bloody scene was unfolding inside the engineering building. Police could not monitor what was going on because the building is not equipped with surveillance cameras, Flinchum said.

Trey Perkins, a sophomore, told MSNBC-TV’s Chris Jansing in a telephone interview that the gunman never said a word.

“He didn’t say, ‘Get down.’ He didn’t say anything. He just started shooting,” Perkins said.

The gunman left that classroom and then tried to return, but students kept him out by bracing the door closed with their feet. “He started to try to come in again and started shooting through the door,” Perkins said, but hit no one.

“I got on the ground and I was just thinking, like, there’s no way I’m going to survive this,” Perkins said. “All I could keep thinking of was my mom.”

Derek O’Dell, a sophomore biology major, told MSNBC-TV’s Alison Stewart that it was “very surreal.”

“At first, I thought it was joke,” said O’Dell, who was shot in an arm. “You don’t really think of a gunman coming on campus and shooting people.”

Until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

The deadliest previous campus shooting in U.S. history took place in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before he was gunned down by police.

All entrances to the campus were closed Monday, and Tuesday’s classes were canceled. The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children at the Inn at Virginia Tech. It also made counselors available and planned a convocation for Tuesday at the Cassell Coliseum basketball arena, which White House officials said President Bush was considering attending.

Bush said in a brief televised statement: “Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning. When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community. Today, our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech.”



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