So, now even journalism has to be ‘organic’?

We know the left has been pushing their “organic” nonsense for years, but that’s been food-related, until now.

Embattled U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, approached by a reporter from The Daily Caller asking his response to the many members of Congress who have demanded he resign, had an odd take on what a journalistic investigation must be to be valid:

Holder stepped towards the exit, then turned around, stepped back toward the reporter, and sternly said, “You guys need to — you need to stop this. It’s not an organic thing that’s just happening. You guys are behind it.”

Holder then walked offstage without answering TheDC’s request for comment about calls for his resignation.

I Can’t Wait To Hear These

Duke Professor Mike Munger is teaching an economics class for non-majors. I can’t wait to listen to the podcasts of his class speakers; Munger says he will post the remarks. Excellent! Can we mandate that all elected officials must listen to these and/or spend an hour with Munger?

Gov. Perdue’s Dilemma

JLF President John Hood chronicles a very bad week for Gov. Beverly Perdue. 

The myths surrounding Charlotte’s disappearing middle class

Tara Servatius, the blogger at the John Locke Foundation’s Charlotte blog, The Meck Deck, points to a questionable study on Charlotte’s vanishing middle class. The study, a collaboration of The Charlotte Observer and some eggheads at Stanford University who wouldn’t know Charlotte Uptown from Charlotte’s Web, claims that the evil rich are making the middle class poorer and poorer, increasing the number of poor within Charlotte’s municipal limits. Not so, says Tara:

The number of poor here HAS exploded, but it has nothing to do with income distribution among the classes changing or the middle class becoming poor. It is because Charlotte has become a national mecca for the poor, importing more of them over the last decade than almost anywhere else in the country, in part because our social services were so generous. …

So essentially what the Observer and Stanford have actually proved here is not that some insidious income gap is growing, but that Charlotte’s affluent, shiny-shoed liberals won’t live next to the only other group of people left in Charlotte — poor minorities.

Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street: competing worldviews

Richard Epstein’s “Why Progressive Institutions are Unsustainable” served as the basis for this excellent video that compares the worldviews of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. It is narrated by Bill Whittle of Pajamas Media:

This might be a good video for Gerald Lee Wilson, senior associate dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences at Duke University, who wrote this, to watch.

You’d think in a near-depression Obama would rein in his job-killing bureaucrats

Jobs are like the weather for Democrats. They talk a lot about them but don’t do anything to create them. In fact, they do just the opposite. Already Obama has turned thumbs down to the 25,000 jobs the Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline would have created, and nixed offshore drilling that would almost single handedly rejuvenate the Gulf Coast economy. You’d almost think he hates either jobs or energy, or both.

Now comes another federal agency captive of ideological zealots, the FDA, which plans to subject cigars to the same nanny-state regulations that govern cigarettes. The result would mean the closure of hundreds of cigar shops and the loss of thousands of jobs related to cigar enjoyment:

The FDA spokesperson explained that a “proposed rule deeming cigars to be subject to FDA’s jurisdiction” could be “finalized” after a public-comment period expires, giving the agency the authority to regulate “any product that meets the definition of a ‘tobacco product’ under the TCA, including cigars, little cigars, and certain novel nicotine containing products (such as certain electronic cigarettes).”

Note that the activists at the FDA not only have tobacco in their sights, but nicotine, as well. Can caffeine be far behind?

Why Is This Occupy Raleigh Supporter Keeping His/Her Identity Secret?

The News & Observer reports that an “anonymous donor” is paying $400 per  month rent for a downtown Raleigh space to be used by the Raleigh occupy movement.

Why isn’t this donor shouting his/her support for the 99%-ers from the rooftops? Why remain anonymous?

Orange County Democrat Bill Faison Sounding Like a Gubernatorial Candidate

Will Orange County Democrat Bill Faison seek the Democratic nomination for governor? The News & Observer reports these comments from Rep. Faison on the indictments of campaign associates of Gov. Perdue:

Responding to the indictments, state Rep. Bill Faison, an Efland Democrat with eyes on a higher office, questioned whether Perdue should represent the party at the top of the 2012 ticket. “I don’t know that she does,” he said. “And at this point she hasn’t announced if she is going to run again. … She doesn’t seem to be acting like somebody who should be running for governor.”

Don’t Worry, The Chapel Hill Elitists Know What’s Best For You

Despite a legal opinion from the state Attorney General’s office that a ban on cell phone use while driving would be unenforceable, and despite comments from the town police chief that a ban would be tough to enforce, the we-know-what’s-best-for-you Chapel Hill town council voted 6 to 2 to move ahead with an ordinance that would ban cell phone use while driving on town streets. Next stop: a public hearing in early 2012.

Town Attorney Ralph Karpinos said he believes the ordinance is defensible and could be enacted, despite an opinion from the state attorney general’s office that the ban could not be enforced.

“It is my opinion that an ordinance …  regulating motorists’ use of cell phones is pre-empted by State law and, therefore, unenforceable,” wrote Jess Mekeel, assistant attorney general in an advisory letter to the town.

ABC 11: Perdue Campaign Staffers Indicted

ABC 11 is reporting:

Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby said Monday that three former staffers on Governor Beverly Perdue’s election campaign have been indicted on at total of five felony charges.

Trawick Hamilton Stubbs and Julia Lee Sitton face obstruction of justice and filing false reports charges. Peter Anthony Reichard faces a single count of filing a false report.

 

You can read background stories by Carolina Journal’s Don Carrington here.