I was browsing around and found a recording of FDR’s 1942 State Of The Union Address which then lead me to look up the entire address. The speech as a whole was of course about the current World War with Germany and Japan however certain parts of the address certainly would seem to apply to 2010 as much as they did to 1942.

We are fighting today for security, for progress, and for peace, not only for ourselves but for all men, not only for one generation but for all generations. We are fighting to cleanse the world of ancient evils, ancient ills.

Our enemies are guided by brutal cynicism, by unholy contempt for the human race. We are inspired by a faith that goes back through all the years to the first chapter of the Book of Genesis: "God created man in His own image."

We on our side are striving to be true to that divine heritage. We are fighting, as our fathers have fought, to uphold the doctrine that all men are equal in the sight of God. Those on the other side are striving to destroy this deep belief and to create a world in their own image—a world of tyranny and cruelty and serfdom.

That is the conflict that day and night now pervades our lives.

No compromise can end that conflict. There never has been, there never can be, successful compromise between good and evil. Only total victory can reward the champions of tolerance, and decency, and freedom, and faith.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, January 6, 1942

I’ll let the legal types dig into the exact ruling but in a case brought by Janet Joyner and Constance Lynn Blackmon the courts have ruled the County Board of Commissioners is violating the law in holding invocation or prayer prior to County meetings. Of course it looks like the county gets to pay the legal fees associated with this as well.

 

Relief
Plaintiffs seek relief in the form of a declaratory judgment, an injunction prohibiting Defendant from allowing sectarian prayers at its Board meetings, nominal damages, and the payment of reasonable expenses and attorney’s fees.  (Id. at 15.)  This Court should declare that the effect of Defendant’s policy is to violate the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution and allow the recovery of nominal damages and attorney’s fees as part
of the costs under 42 U.S.C. § 1988.  The Court should enjoin the continuation of the Policy as it is now implemented.

Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, IT IS RECOMMENDED that Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment (Docket No. 63) be granted.

Former Governor Easley had his day before the North Carolina State Board Of Elections and the results could lead to Easley joining the long list of NC jailbird politicians. From House Speaker Jim Black to former Whip Frank Ballance or former Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps the list of political figures in this state that have been sent to the big house is growing daily.

The State Board Of Elections found former Governor Easley  guilty of not reporting campaign use of private jets and submitted there findings and evidence to the Wake County District Attorney for further investigation. The board fined Easley $100,000 and suggested that campaign finance laws were violated. Furthermore there are ongoing state and Federal investigations into Easley for a land deal and attempts to hide campaign uses of private jets.

So Mayor Joines has told Dell he expects them to repay some 26.5 Million Dollars in direct payments and expenses linked to bring Dell to North Carolina and in theory it appears Dell has agreed in their reply letter. Of course this does not include any of the cost associated with road projects completed for Dell, wine and dines that surely took place, travel by city and county officials, etc, etc.

Probably not the attention Greensboro or this officer wants but the video is making the rounds on multiple websites that have a very large viewership. Basically it appears a small group was holding a “peaceful assembly” when Officer Miller approached the group accusing them of trespass when he saw a handgun on the videographer that submitted uploaded the video. The office then demands to see a State Issued Drivers License, demands to know the age of the person and so on including threatening to detain him. After it appears he understood he wasn’t going to bully the videographer or because of the camera he walks off and appears to radio somebody. Afterwards he returns the group, explains why he has concerns about the assembly and the gun then leaves without further mention or demand for any identification. Clearly if there was any violation of the law the officer would have acted or is he not enforcing the law because he didn’t want to be on camera?

I can’t say enough on how technology is turning the average person into a field reporter with the advent of camera phones, the Internet and sites like Posterous, or Qik which allows for live broadcasting direct from the iPhone in real or near real time.

In what was repeated over and over by every news source in the state Governor Bev Perdue was quoted as saying she expected Dell to pay back every “red cent” when in fact she never said that but rather she would “will go to bed every night hoping to get every red cent back that Dell has received.” Slight difference in the two which is neither here or there as the Governor now understands this is not the case and Dell will pay back on 1.5 Million of the 8 Million or more the state gave away. Of course this just refers to the money the state gave away and not the millions both Winston-Salem and Forsyth County handed over.

Governor Perdue may need to wake up to the real world.

More news to follow but yes folks it’s all over, that Boondoggle, multi-million dollar tax give away is closing it’s doors!

Here’s the follow-up. Dell will lay off 600 workers by next month with the remaining workers to be laid on January. The number Dell cites is 935 total however some dispute there are that many employees currently at the plant. Frank Miller, Vice President for Public Business Unit Supply Chain, was quoted as saying Dell will meet all agreements it had in place with North Carolina, Forsyth County and Winston-Salem which should be interesting to see since the bulk of the agreement was to employ some 1,700 workers which it never did. There was at least $37 million in incentives directly given to Dell to locate in North Carolina not to mention the millions of hidden cost in road construction, rezoning, and such.

“The opening of this facility means hundreds of hardworking North Carolinians now have good jobs that bring better benefits and better skills to the transitioning Piedmont Triad economy,” said Gov. Easley. “In addition, the Dell project will provide more than $700 million in net revenue over 20 years to our state. This project makes good economic sense for North Carolina and we are proud to have such a well-respected global company in our state.” October 2005

Oh well just one more giant tax giveaway to private business. Of course this will certainly result in changes to the FedEx Hub plans which have already been pushed back in terms of it’s staffing. The loss of another 900 jobs on top of the 300 from PACE Airlines really spells out the trend for North Carolina employment which at this point is already above 10.8% and one of the highest in the nation.

On a brighter note Winston-Salem has released some of the 50 pages of documents associated with the tax payer funded baseball park so Billy Prim will get his nearly $50 million dollar stadium which he said would not cost the tax payers a dime.

Reports have surfaced that a “closed door” meeting was held on Friday in which all parties were to finalize everything on the mud bowel, I mean Stadium. At a reported meeting held at Womble Carlyle the final touches were put in place for what is now a $48.7 million dollar stadium project. If all parties agree and the banks sign off the city will be ready to announce on Monday the deal is done and construction will resume.

Of course we don’t know who was at this meeting, who the investors are and what deals are being struck as the Mayor has kept all these meeting closed and private. This is very likely a violation of North Caroline Sunshine Laws which are there to protect the openness of Government. There are exceptions to when a meeting may be closed to the public however considering this is a known transaction and there are no secrets as to the design plans and property assessments it would be this layman’s call that there is no legal right to be holding these meetings behind closed doors. Even if they are refusing to admit the public or the press the law is still very clear that the minutes of such a meeting must be kept and I have personally requested the Winston-Salem Journal to step up and do what’s right for the public and make a request for those minutes. Granted any citizen could make such a request but I think we all know how far the average citizen would get compared to The Journal or one of the local stations. If anyone has a direct line to one of the local stations I urge you to make the same request to them.

What we do know is the deal involves at least four banks and dozens of private investors who have put in at least $50,000.00 each. What we don’t know is who those investors are and what terms they are getting. We know the city has taken out at least another $12.7 million loan but we don’t know what guarantees the city has on ever collecting on their investment. We also know that Prim and Filipowski were the original partners but due to a falling out and messy divorce we don’t know any of the terms or agreements in place between the former partners or Veronica Filipowski. Basically the public has been kept completely in the dark on a deal which is using public money, public tax incentives, public federal money, and so on and so on. Are you seeing a trend here?

Your “public” Government at work.