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'Fed' Up With Neo-Con Power Plays in North Carolina?

"Fuzzy Neo-Con Thinking - Cozying Up to Feds for Power"

Dear Friends & Voters:

I had my eye surgery at Duke. I have mostly recovered from my surgery. It was a success in that the weight helps my eye now close and I do not have to use eye drops with the frequency that I used them before my surgery. And more good news - for the first time, I have detected movement on the right side of my face, so I am hopeful that the paralysis will resolve. I am going back to the doctor for a checkup next month.

I also went to a meeting of my ANA support group this month. It is amazing. This condition is relatively rare, yet each time I attend, there is yet another person that is newly diagnosed. There are many more that are never diagnosed. Again, for those who have been diagnosed or who may suspect that they have this condition, visit the ANA website at http://anausa.org. They have a wealth of information and they can direct you to your appropriate local chapter for answers to your questions.

We heard that Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination. Max the Dog (who is a real person and who is someone other than myself) and I had a discussion about this. Max thinks that this nomination and withdrawal was planned to distract the conservative base from the war and to get them back on board. The president will now choose someone that the conservative base can accept and that they will think they somehow wield influence with this administration. Regardless of the reason, I do not think that Ms. Miers was the only person who was qualified to be a judge on the US Supreme Court and that a better choice could have been made. The next person will not be asked the right questions either, so it is doubtful that we will end up with a true Constitutionalist or a real judicial scholar on the Court.

Ms. Miers' nomination made me think of my own quest to be a judge. My father was a lawyer. As a child, I worked in his law office, talked to his clients and attended his trials. I can recall some of his closing arguments to this day. I wanted to be a lawyer too.

As I grew older, I flirted with the idea of medical school. But that didn't work out and by then my parents had divorced. My mother, myself and my siblings struggled financially. We even had to go on welfare for awhile. However, we worked our way off of it. I decided to go law school and I became a Catholic. Things improved for our family and all of us. We all earned college degrees, including my mother. Myself and one of my siblings became lawyers.

After law school, I got my first job working for the trial court, where I was exposed to a real judge. My boss, a younger judge, was fantastic, but it was the senior judge that really left an impression on me. Whether he realized it or not, he became my role model of what a judge should be. I then moved to the intermediate appellate court, which is like the Court of Appeals in North Carolina. There I stayed for ten years, writing opinions for the judges. Although the judges reviewed my work, they recognized my ability and trusted my judgment. All told, I wrote close to 500 opinions for them. I saw what they did and I realized that I could do that too; all that is required is to be able to research and write, skills which I have. But more than that, I realized that working at the appellate level was something that I enjoyed. So much so that I practice appellate law now.

I was not active in politics. However, a seat on our Supreme Court became available last year. I realized that I could do the job and decided to enter the race. Little did I expect that things would turn out the way they did. As I did so well last year, I decided to try once more when a seat again becomes vacant.

The war in Iraq goes on and we reached the 2,000 mark this week in the number of Americans who have died. How much longer can this go on? How many more Americans must die? It seems that Democrats have finally joined Congressman Walter Jones. Congressman Jones, who was vilified this past summer for calling for a plan to withdraw our troops is now joined by Congressman Brad Miller and Congressman David Price. They have sponsored a resolution that calls upon the president to come up with an exit plan. I applaud their efforts. Even a majority of the military does not support these efforts. In a recent poll conducted by Elon University, nearly 56% of that same group said they strongly disapproved or disapproved of his handling of the Iraq war. His presidency did not fare much better, with 53% of military members said they strongly disapproved or disapproved of Bush's handling of his job. As the economy gets worse, as you pull up to the gas station, remember that it is the Republicans who are in charge and who brought us to this.

In a recent e-mail, a writer accused me of being a neo-con. He would not have made that accusation if he knew what a real neo-con was. Another recent article by John Hood of the Carolina Journal/John Locke Foundation also suggested that "neo-cons" do not really exist, except in the minds of the anti-war protesters. He said that Americans who support the administration "don't have an inordinate fear of casualties or believe that their government is a cabal of oil-hungry conspirators or bloodthirsty "neo-cons" (surely a term that has lost all rational meaning at this point)."

The term is not idly thrown about. Disenchanted Trotskyites became the neo-cons of today. A group of highly placed individuals infiltrated places like the state department, the defense department and other agencies. Bill Kristol, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are just a few of them. Their aim is to spread Americanism throughout the world and they are not afraid to use military force to do it. Visit the Project for the new American Century's website to read all about it. Here is the link:

When the Republicans came to power, these individuals thought they could realize their ambitions. They planned to go to war in Iraq and used September 11, 2001, as an excuse. Their plan is beginning to unravel slowly with Lewis Libby being indicted and other possible indictments looming. We don't know how it will turn out and if it will be the beginning of the end of this presidency and the neo-cons' goals.

However, we do know that the North Carolina Republican party takes its orders from the administration in Washington, D.C. They thus are a part of this administration. Those who support the goals of the neo-cons are neo-cons. As for the Carolina Journal/John Locke Foundation, part of their funding comes indirectly from none other than Exxon-Mobil, big oil. So next time they prattle about gasoline prices being high for some nonsensical reason, ask yourself who it benefits. As conspiracy theorists say, when they tell you that there is no conspiracy, don't believe it. There is one.

Speaking of the Carolina Journal/John Locke Foundation, I have noticed that they are big on corruption. It is not only Democrats that are corrupt; Republicans are corrupt too. John Carrington, a wealthy state senator in Raleigh, was recently indicted for selling law enforcement equipment to nations that have abysmal records of abuse. So if we are going to talk about Meg Scott Phipps and Frank and Gary Ballance, we should talk about John Carrington and others too.

Earlier, I had talked about the book, "The Hunt for Confederate Gold" by Thomas Moore. In the book, one of the heroes is a professor who is a member of a group that is dedicated to the non-violent restoration of what he sees as an erosion of our civil liberties and society. He commits no crime and does no harm to anyone else's life, liberty or property. He does not advocate armed resistance or revolution, but only a restoration through non-violent means. Because he is a member of this group of like minded souls, an FBI agent decides to take it upon himself to go after the professor. One thing leads to another as the professor's path crosses that of the other hero, his student, in his quest for the lost Confederate gold.

In reading the book, one can see the awesome power of the federal government and how it works in the prosecution of a case. One can see how the FBI uses the Patriot Act to do a "black-bag" search on the professor and the tactics that it uses to gather other evidence against him. When the professor decides that the only way that he can fight back against this unjust prosecution is to refrain from eating, the FBI agent decides to force-feed him. It shows how the FBI gets the federal prosecutor, who himself has further political ambitions, to go along with this scheme instead of questioning how or why charges are brought against an innocent individual. Most of all it shows how easily the federal government can trump up criminal charges against anyone, at any time and for any reason.

Recently, we have been treated to this type of conduct in the case of the North Carolina Speaker of the House, Jim Black, even though the feds now say he is not a target. Realizing that they will not legitimately win in 2006 if things continue on there present course, the Republicans have decided to take out the current speaker because of the power and control he wields. We are treated to stories in the newspaper about his alleged improprieties in his fundraising activities and involvement with the video poker and state lottery. We are treated to stories about his legislative aide and her position as a lobbyist. Perhaps Mr. Black has committed crimes; we have seen individuals who have engaged in stupidity and greed be convicted before. Or perhaps this is another example of how the federal government has run amok and has decided to exercise its might to go after those who are perceived as enemies simply because it can.

On a lighter note, we are doing some very exciting things with our campaign and we will have blog ads in the eastern part of the state.

Don't forget to vote on election day. These people will decide whether to put red light cameras in or how they will spend your tax dollars. So it is important that you get out there and vote!

Best wishes,

Rachel Lea Hunter
Candidate for NC Supreme Court Chief Justice