News-Record.com

Does that mean voters are ready to elect another judge to a political office? The jury is out until 2008.*Doug

You got that right Doug about " Sponge Bob" running for political office. I can assure you of one thing, "Sponge Bob" is not a Sam Ervin nor would he be a puppet of Art Pope if he was alive today. Besides, "Sponge Bob" is 0 for 3 in wasting Art's lawyer fees with his stupid unconstitutional lawsuits before the State courts.

Connie, here's what a News & Observer editorial said yesterday about one of those lawsuits that you call "stupid unconstitutional":

"A consortium of advocacy groups and individuals, including state House Minority Leader Paul Stam of Apex, makes a common-sense case that when the legislature passes a money-raising bill, authorizes the state to set up a collection bureaucracy, and uses the proceeds to help finance a basic public service -- education -- then it's a tax."

http://www.newsobserver.com/579/story/569405.html

We'll see what the appellate courts have to say about the way Jim Black and Marc Basnight pushed the lottery bill through.

I say good for Bob Orr for representing the plaintiffs. Public policy in this state ought to be passed in an above-board manner. There's been too much sleaze in Raleigh in the last few years.

"A consortium of advocacy groups and individuals, including state House Minority Leader Paul Stam of Apex, makes a common-sense case that when the legislature passes a money-raising bill, authorizes the state to set up a collection bureaucracy, and uses the proceeds to help finance a basic public service -- education -- then it's a tax."* Doug

Good Grief Doug! Using Paul Stram as your final authority on legal opinions in this state is like the Captain of the Titanic assuring the passagers they will get a refund for the problem with the ice machine that went out of control in the dinning area of the Ship.

In fact and besides Mr Stam and the legal estabishment in this state they were so scare of my wife being elected, that he even said it would end the judical process of voting for judges in this state. That my friend is the last thing we need in democracy is having our constitutional right to vote for our elected officals without having self appointed unelected rulers who are not accountable to the people to make that decision. Does the name of DA Nifong ring a bell in the process of judical selection by Easley?

Let start it with a simple example of taxation that even our founding fathers and the masses understood very well.

A tax is when the State forces you to pay it!!!!!!!! and if you don't pay it they will seize your property and most likely your first born and even put you in jail.

Now how many people are force to buy a lottery ticket as a tax by the State?

And don't give me that John Hood or " Sponge Bob" stuff that if you go to the grocery store, you have a right to reject that sales tax, if you don't purchase the goods or service. How long do you expect to live without food and gasoline without being force to purchase the goods or service in order to pay the tax? In some political systems of government, that would be call blackmail or extortion.

We'll see what the appellate courts have to say about the way Jim Black and Marc Basnight pushed the lottery bill through.* Doug

The reason that the lottery bill was shove though because Easley made a campaign promise to the people that it would fund education, and the voters believe it and elect him. Having his slezebags bag men hustle it, was simply a way of maintaining power by a corruption democrat legal system and delieving on a promise no matter how phony it was. If the Republican religious right leadership had not oppose a voter ballot postion for approval to make that decision in the terms of democracy at the ballot box instead of a religious conviction, chances are thay you would have dodge some to the funny and rookie bagman of corruption efforts in State government.

Most likely Black and the weakest links in the corrupt republican leadership would have found another way to steal from the citizens. You don't become a criminal overnight in government. It takes practice.

I will say this! The first time I met Black my impression was that he was a man who could be control by anybody as a push over for anything including evil.

Connie, the cigarette tax is a tax but you aren't forced to pay it unless you choose to buy cigarettes.

The fact that Paul Stam was afraid of your wife being elected to the Supreme Court only means that he cares about having qualified justices on the bench.

Connie, the cigarette tax is a tax but you aren't forced to pay it unless you choose to buy cigarettes.* Doug

Doug where is the harm if nobody smokes the deadly cigarette tax? The last time I check cigarettes was not a neccessy to conduct life in this civilzation or to get work and eat. Do you realize that Sponge Bob and the boys over at the Locke foundation would have been the first to go over the side of the ship at the Boston Tea Party by the fake Indians with the Tea, if they had said the Tea tax was a lottery tax!

The fact that Paul Stam was afraid of your wife being elected to the Supreme Court only means that he cares about having qualified justices on the bench.* Doug

Not really! It means that he thought his chosen candiate was the only qualified candiate with his corrupt and unconstitutional political party. Surely a sign of a tyrant or a dictator in not letting people vote. In short! Mr Stam thinks the voters are stupid and dumb like most State Liberals do when their candiate does not win. By the way Mr Stam is well on the record with that quote.

Connie, the Hunter-Martin result showed that about 40 percent of the voters are stupid.

Connie, the Hunter-Martin result showed that about 40 percent of the voters are stupid.*Doug

Cheap shot Doug! Shame on you for showing your true editorial conservative Art Pope colors. Can we use your quote for our next release at our site and of course to about 650 thousand voters that you claim are stupid along with the Republican leader in the State House Mr Paul Stam. You do understand that the election was stoled from our campaign? It won't happen again and you can bank on it my friend. Oh, I will send you our newest book about the past campaign. Lot's of folks are reading it and you are in it.

No, Connie, the election was not stolen, and comments like that make you less credible than ever, if that's possible.

If Rachel wants to be a judge, she should run for a position on a lower court. You don't start out on the Supreme Court!

No, Connie, the election was not stolen, and comments like that make you less credible than ever, if that's possible.* Doug

Sure it was Doug! What makes you think that was not when folks like you and the whole damn legal establishment and both party leaderships went bananas in the nastest judical race in the history of this state. Hell Doug! You were a water boy for the boys at times. Crediblity is never a issue with me Doug, too many other folks know I am real deal when comes to dealing with phonies.

If Rachel wants to be a judge, she should run for a position on a lower court. You don't start out on the Supreme Court!*Doug

Naw Doug! I don't see any law that says a candiate must start at the bottom of corrupt politics and suck up to establishment mainstream media types. Are you above the law Doug? The below comment from RLH should get your attention again why it still bothers folks like you that the conservative game plan did not really work.

It will be a landslide the next time Doug if we chose to run. Too many folks are on to you and the establishment finally.

PLAYING POKER

HOW I BLUFFED MY WAY THROUGH TWO POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

AND ROCKED THE POLITICAL FOUNDATIONS OF NORTH CAROLINA

(C) 2006 - R. L. HUNTER, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE

Early on in my political campaign, I was a guest on a radio show and was asked by a caller named Teddy why I wanted to run for office and participate in such a corrupt system. I confess that I really did not have an answer at that time. However, I have given much thought to this question throughout my campaigns.

I do not want to be part of a corrupt and broken system and that is what we have in this country, whether it is on the local, state or national level. We have a national senate that has become a millionaires' club. We have sycophants from both sides of the aisle who care nothing for us or what is in our best interests, but only about what will keep them in power and what the special interests and lobbyists dictate. Not all individuals are of this ilk and I do not mean to taint them. Unfortunately, such individuals are rare and, if they are so fortunate as to attain public office, they are often so marginalized as to be rendered of no consequence.

So why would I or anyone else want to be a participant in such a system? The short answer is that I don't. Like so many others, I could simply abstain and not even bother to vote as my vote will not really make a difference anyway. From one perspective, that is true. Those who are in control have such immense power that there is little that ordinary people can do to fight it. But every once in awhile, one person makes it through or at the very least thwarts those in power. I wanted to be the one that made it through. I wanted to do my part to clean up my little corner of the world for which I was responsible. And others throughout my career have commented on my writing and research skills and my "fine analytical mind" as one of my professors long ago opined. I wanted to put these skills and talents to work where I felt they could best be used. And I wanted to change the justice system.

A long time ago, I came across a cartoon that depicted attorneys meeting their client for the first time. The client was in jail. The lawyers asked him, "Just how much justice can you afford?" That cartoon was telling.

We have one brand of justice for people like Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh or Patrick Kennedy. How many ordinary people like you or me would have received the kind of special treatment that each of them received? Its not only that kind of treatment. Some police officers are little more than thugs with badges. A few incidents are illustrative of the problem.

In a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, an individual named Johnny Gammage was stopped for a traffic violation. He ended up dead following an incident that was described as a “scuffle” by police. In Atlanta, an elderly woman named Kathryn Johnson was shot by officers executing a “no knock” search warrant to search for drugs which she did not have. Frightened, she tried to defend herself and shot at the officers. They fired back and killed her. Recently, a young man named Peyton Strickland was shot through the head by police officers, even before he opened the door. His crime? Allegedly stealing an Xbox360. Nyles Arrington was killed by an off-duty officer because he allegedly tried to steal her car. Another citizen, Robert Wise, was dragged from his car and beaten because he supposedly did not park his vehicle correctly. Rene Thomas, a cook at a Raleigh sports bar, also was beaten up by off-duty police officers. The list can go on.

I am not suggesting that those who commit crimes should be allowed to do so with impunity or without consequences. Those who are adjudged guilty must face the consequences of their acts. However, these individuals are human beings and are entitled to be sentenced only after they have stood trial for their crimes and been found guilty. However, most of the victims that I described received a death sentence with no trial, and often some for relatively trivial crimes. The ones who were only beaten were fortunate; at least they were allowed to live. And it is not just police officers who have this mindset; there are some prosecutors who are equally out of control.

Because of the publicity, most people are familiar with the antics of the district attorney in the Duke non-rape case, Mike Nifong. However, he is by no means the first prosecutor to conceal or fail to turn over evidence. There are prosecutors David Hoke and Debra Graves, who did not turn over a tape recording in the Alan Gell murder case. Prosecutors Ken Honeycutt and Scott Brewer knew of a deal in which a witness received favors in exchange for his testimony and failed to disclose the information. And this is just a few recent North Carolina cases. There are prosecutors in other cases and in other states who have likewise concealed or failed to turn over evidence, prosecutors who kept a favorable informant at the jail with promises of a lenient sentence in exchange for testimony regarding supposed jailhouse confessions, or prosecutors who were concerned with winning and using the prosecutor’s job for higher political office, not about seeking justice. Other prosecutorial tricks are to pile on criminal charges against a hapless defendant and abusing the plea-bargaining system. Read the novel by Thomas Moore, “The Hunt for Confederate Gold.” Although it is a work of fiction, it accurately portrays how the federal prosecutor in that case wanted to use position as a prosecutor as a stepping stone to higher office.

And the problem is not limited to just the criminal justice system. Its prevalent in the civil justice system too. I have heard far too many stories of judges and/or lawyers being in cahoots with each other. Yes, some of these people who tell such stories are disgruntled litigants. Fifty percent of the people who are in court must necessarily lose their cases. But there is more than a kernel of truth to their allegations that justice is for sale in this country. It is clear that justice for the most part has fled from our courthouses. I wanted to change that and restore the concept of justice to our legal system. I felt that I had to try.

After my campaigns concluded, I felt that others out there who were political neophytes like me and who were considering a run for office might derive some benefit from the knowledge that I developed through the course of my two campaigns. As a result, I wrote this book. For those who are current office holders, this book is probably not for you. It is for little people who are new to political campaigns, those who are little people who, like me, feel impelled to try and change the system we have for the better. It also is for those who have run for office and lost and who may not know why and this book may help them succeed in future campaigns.

The early chapters are geared towards the operation of a political campaign and will contain ideas and tips to get you started. As the book progresses, I relate some of the things which I encountered in my campaign, things which you will need to be aware of in your own quest for office. I hope that you find this book useful.

Connie, I know it's useless to argue with you about your wife's candidacy. Obviously, you are not objective on that subject.

But for the benefit of other readers who may have waded through all the nonsense above, I'll say that when one candidate for the Supreme Court is well qualified and highly respected for his many years of service at the trial and appellate court levels, and the other candidate has never been a judge and lacks even ordinary credentials for such an important position, of course the legal establishment is going to unite in support of the qualified candidate. He also is going to receive all the newspaper endorsements. That is not "stealing" an election, it is using First Amendment freedoms to inform the voters about the choices they have in the election. The decision is up to them.

Connie, I know it's useless to argue with you about your wife's candidacy. Obviously, you are not objective on that subject.* Doug

Neither are you Doug! So what do you want me to be? Objective to your obviously misinformed mainstream media establishment disinformation on Judical candiates?

But for the benefit of other readers who may have waded through all the nonsense above, I'll say that when one candidate for the Supreme Court is well qualified and highly respected for his many years of service at the trial and appellate court levels, and the other candidate has never been a judge and lacks even ordinary credentials for such an important position, of course the legal establishment is going to unite in support of the qualified candidate. He also is going to receive all the newspaper endorsements. That is not "stealing" an election, it is using First Amendment freedoms to inform the voters about the choices they have in the election. The decision is up to them. * Doug

Please tell how you can say that any voter who voted for my candiate can be stupid? You are making all of the nonsense yourself with your own words and mockery of the 1 st amendent with that defend of your chosen candiate. Respect is earned Doug! Your candiate had no respect in the end and was a coward like Nifong when he was expose as the judical republican fraud that he was.

CHAPTER XV – LOSING RESPECT FOR MY OPPONENTS

Many may take issue with what I am about to say. Others may attribute it to “sour grapes” on my part because I did not prevail in the elections. To those critics, I say that I never entertained any expectation of winning. I knew that I would never be allowed to win. So this is not about disappointment in the election results. And I am not complaining because I did not get either the NC GOP’s or NC DP’s endorsement; I already have expressed my views on endorsements. Had it been a fair contest, had I been allowed to fairly compete, I probably would not even be writing this book. But this is not how events transpired. It was not a fair contest. And the individuals who now occupy seats on this state’s highest court were involved.

During my 2004 campaign, I initially thought little about one of my opponents, Paul Newby. I knew that he was the NC GOP choice, but I bore him no animosity. I knew that he was a federal prosecutor, but other than that, he was just another candidate.

From my time working for the court, I knew that one could not be a state or federal employee of any type and run for office. To do so would have violated the Hatch Act. What is the Hatch Act? In a nutshell, it prohibits government employees from engaging in partisan political activity, including running as a candidate for office. The exception is that one who holds such office is free to run to retain that office.

When I started the 2004 campaign, I assumed that being a federal prosecutor, Mr. Newby surely was acquainted with the law and that he would step down from office if he wanted to continue his campaign. Barbara Jackson, who worked for the state, was then running for a seat on the Court of Appeals. She had taken a temporary leave of absence from her job to run. And so, I did not give Mr. Newby further thought.

One day, I received an anonymous email which indicated that Mr. Newby was still actively practicing law while involved in the campaign. I was still new to the system and though that surely, a federal prosecutor would not deliberately violate the law. I therefore decided to look further into the matter.

As I learned, there is a federal Hatch Act, but it only prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity. Non-partisan activity is permitted, including non-partisan elections, which was the case in my 2004 campaign. However, even a non-partisan race can become a partisan one. And that is what occurred in the 2004 race.

It became very partisan. The NC GOP explicitly endorsed Mr. Newby over the other candidates. It printed a flyer with Mr. Newby and the other Republican judicial candidates and touted them as the “Republican Judicial Team.” There was even a robo-call that I have on tape from Elizabeth Dole in which she supported Paul Newby. Because the race became partisan, the federal Hatch Act required federal employees to either step down from office to campaign or to cease campaigning. Mr. Newby did neither and kept his office.

We know how the election turned out and that he prevailed. After the election, I contacted the office charged with enforcement of the federal Hatch Act, the Office of Special Counsel, to learn the results. What I received was a wall of silence. The Office of Special Counsel would not release any information to me, hiding behind walls of privacy and that it might incriminate Mr. Newby. I just wanted to know, did a violation occur or did it not?

We will never know. However, I am left to surmise the following. An investigation was launched by the federal government. Employees in the past have been sanctioned for sending even a mere political cartoon! It is unlikely that the Office of Special Counsel would sweep this under the rug as the conduct alleged was infinitely more serious. Review of letters sent to other federal employees who had engaged in similar behavior provided further evidence of this fact. Had Mr. Newby been completely innocent, the NC GOP and he would have trumpeted this in the media and used this to show how loony I was. They did not do so and the fact that they did not suggests that a violation had indeed occurred. Since he won the election and would have resigned anyway, he and the Office of Special Counsel may have reached an agreement whereby he would resign, retroactive to the filing of his campaign, give back any salary that was paid during the campaign period, pay any fines and agree not to hold federal office again. As the results will not be released, we will never know, but in my eyes, we have someone sitting on our Supreme Court who violated the law when they should have known better.

My opponent in the 2006 campaign likewise earned a loss in respect. Early on, I wondered how I would ever hope to go up against someone like him. If you just looked at our naked résumés and compared them, you would think that my opponent was the more distinguished candidate and clearly the better choice. However, naked résumés do not tell you very much about a person.

I had my first inkling of what was to come when I received an email from one of the female Republican candidates who had run for the Court of Appeals and lost in the 2004 election. She pretended to be concerned about my brain tumor. What she was really after was information about my intent for the future. She had been deliberately sent by my opponent or by someone acting at his behest. The tracking service I used indicated that he had opened a statement I had sent out over twenty times. He was very concerned with my intentions for 2006 and so the female emissary was sent. I realized what was happening and I did not give out very much information to her.

Once the governor made his choice, I had to decide on the seat and I have explained why I chose the Martin seat. There really were no other alternatives. After I had announced, I received another strange email, this one from a member of the bar who had surfaced during my 2004 campaign. He was quite cordial, but the tenor of his email was that my opponent was such a distinguished jurist and that I ought to read his opinions to learn how well-reasoned they were. I likewise was cordial in my response, but this was a thinly veiled threat to drop out or else face the onslaught that was coming.

My opponents never realized something fundamental in my makeup. I do not bow to threats, intimidation or pressure. Such tactics have the reverse effect desired and only serve to make me more stubborn and determined. I dug in my heels and vowed to continue.

I took the attorney up on his challenge. I read every Supreme Court opinion dating back to 1999, when my opponent was elected to the Supreme Court. What I learned was astonishing, although it did not have the effect that the attorney desired. Far from supporting my opponent, his decisions indicated that he consistently sided against people’s constitutional rights. I selected a handful of cases which were not authored by my opponent but in which he participated. He was on the panel. If he disagreed with the reasoning or the result, he could have written separately. He did not do so, however. I am therefore left to conclude that the views expressed by the majority in those decisions are his views. I also learned that one justice up there other than my opponent stood up for people’s rights.

I wrote on this subject as I thought how my opponent decides a case was fair game for criticism. I was careful not to attack him personally. However, my decision changed as the campaign progressed. One day, I was researching something and found a new website for my opponent. I went to his site and lo and behold, there was more information there about me than there was about him. Unfortunately, what was said about me were nothing more than links to unflattering stories in the newspapers and media about me. I already have discussed the news articles and how they were flawed. Yet here was my opponent re-printing them even though he knew they were untrue. I saw what kind of campaign this man chose to run and what kind of person he really was.

Throughout the campaign, he made several untrue statements about me in which he stated that Jerry Meek, the Democratic Party Chair, had endorsed him. This was not true, but he seemed to believe in Goebbels’ “big lie” theory that if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. He even printed literature in which he detailed the false information. I was alerted to this fact when a voter emailed me. The emailer was disgusted by such negative campaigning and threw out the packet. I saw it for myself when we were both asked to speak before the same group and he sent along his “materials” to pass out. I pointed out his untruths in statements that I wrote.

During the campaign, my treasurer was looking at Justice Martin’s campaign finance reports and suggested to me that something was wrong. And so I reviewed the reports for myself. My opponent had an expert political consultant, Paul Schumaker, on staff. And here he was giving over $14,000.00 in just one month’s time to a young lawyer named Matthew Martin for political consulting services.[1] What kind of political consulting services could a young man provide for this sum of money? Or was it really to the law firm that employed young Matthew? Curiously, no one in this state ever wondered about this kind of payoff to young Mr. Martin and/or his law firm.

My opponent and I spoke up in Asheville at a forum held there. I drove my own vehicle. My opponent, however, had excess cash and rather than use his own vehicle, he rented one. It was not just any car. No, he had to travel in style and rented a Cadillac. This simple act showed just how he viewed the people. As he mentioned at a forum some months before, he was not counting on the ordinary people. He had no idea of how they live or what they face on a daily basis. He was above that.

At another forum, which was held just after my radiation, I was concerned with moving along after my speech and letting the next candidates have their turn. I also just had radiation and felt kind of wobbly. I simply turned to exit the stage after our debate was completed and tried not to fall. My opponent sought to make hay out of this by making it appear that I had somehow deliberately slighted him.

But he was not done. He teaches at law schools and he even stooped to having one of his students contact me and ask me to stop. Sending a student to do one’s own work is cowardly enough. But asking me to disarm myself while leaving my opponent free to spout his lies about me is ludicrous. It is like a gang of hoodlums armed with knives telling a victim, armed with a gun, that he needs to drop his firearm and disarm himself just to make the fight fair. I refused. I am not going to pretend feigned niceties when someone is going to act like my opponent did. I was so disgusted by his behavior that I refused to shake his hand. I do not care what position he holds or what honors society chooses to heap upon him. I will be polite, but I can never respect someone who behaves like he did towards me.

Towards the end of the campaign, people who saw a televised debate between us at UNC thought that I did very well against him. And one of the other candidates told me that if elected, I would do just fine. The other candidate also indicated that my opponent was very nervous. As well he should be. He faced the very real prospect of possibly losing his seat. It meant he might actually have to get a job and work for a living instead of collecting a paycheck from the state while he was involved in other activities, such as teaching and obtaining his doctorate. Because of this, he asked the legal community to bail him out. They responded in a big way.

RLH