UPDATED: Gov. Bev Perdue is expected to announce today that she will not seek a second term as governor,  two sources close to the Democrat’s campaign tell The News & Observer. Perdue is expected to make an announcement this afternoon. Her campaign began telling top N.C. Democrats in the past 24 hours, setting up a scramble at the top of the state ticket. Perdue campaign spokesman Marc Farinella could not be reached for comment. A likely candidate for governor is state Rep. Bill Faison, an Orange County Democrat, who has been making.

The state primary should be held May 8 as scheduled, a three-judge panel ruled Friday after a hearing in a lawsuit challenging new legislative and congressional voting districts. The unanimous ruling denying the request to push the primary to July 10 was a blow to registered Democrats and advocacy groups who proposed the change so the courts could consider their challenge to Republican-drawn districts. The judges’ decision increases the likelihood that the new districts approved by the legislature will be used in this year’s electio.

Gov. Bev Perdue’s job performance rating continues to tumble, with less than one in three North Carolina voters approving of her performance and more than half disapproving, according to a new poll. Public Policy Polling, a Democratic survey firm based in Raleigh, found that Republican challenger Pat McCrory maintained a double-digit lead among likely voters in a hypothetical matchup with Perdue, winning 52 percent to 41 percent, a slight improvement from last month.  Read more:  http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/perdues_a

Governor Bev Perdue is proposing to re-instate the “TEMPORARY” sales tax that the Republican led legislature eliminated last year.  Gov Bev claims she was the one that fixed the historic $2.5 Billion state deficit (4th worst in the nation) by saying that “I have cut spending to eliminate waste and make government more efficient.” It was the Republican led legislature that cut spending to eliminate waste and make government more efficient. Gov Bev was too busy vetoing everything. She will say ANYTHING TO GET RE-ELECTED. .

Newby said he bought the Creedmoor farm for reasons based largely on the principles he wished to instill in his children. “I wanted to show them a life away from computers, away from gadgets and electronics,” he said. Read more:  http://www.salisburypost.com/farm/010412-judge-and-gentleman-farmer-qcd

Without comment, state officials have made minor changes to amend an order that suspends the law license of former Gov. Mike Easley for a total of two years. Easley, a Democrat and two-term governor who has been a lawyer since 1976, will still be eligible to receive his law license back in December, under the revised order. The changes do not address criticisms and questions made public in the week since the N.C. State Bar first agreed to the punishment with Easley’s lawyers, a suspension that was accepted by the bar’s disciplinary .

U.S. tax-and-spend scores are appalling: Among 179 countries surveyed, America is No. 127 in government spending and No. 133 in fiscal freedom, far below average on both counts. The U.S. suffers an “overall tax burden amounting to 24 percent of total domestic income,” the Index states. “Government expenditures have grown to 42.2 percent of GDP, and the budget deficit is close to 10 percent of GDP. Total public debt is now larger than the size of the economy.” Such boulders bow American shoulders. Read More:  http://www.nationalreview.c

CLICK ON ARTICLE TITLE ABOVE TO VIEW VIDEO

Perdue said “We’re able to achieve these results with no impact on the state budget because all extended benefits resulting from this order will be paid with 100 percent federal money.” As of Monday, North Carolina had borrowed $2.7 billion from the federal government – the fourth-highest amount among 27 participating states – to pay extended state benefits. Read more: http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2012/jan/11/perdue-signs-executive-order-to-extend-state-unemp-ar-1805007/

The finance firms in question include Ally Financial Inc., itself property of the U.S. government (Treasury owns 74% of Ally’s common equity). So the government has decided not to concern itself with whether the people to whom it is lending money to buy the cars manufactured by a company that is itself still largely a ward of the U.S. are good credit risks. This is salvation? It sounds like the problem, not the solution.  READ MORE

Holder summed up his presentation before the board with, “The county is in real good shape—maintained tax collection and tightened its budget.”   Read more:  http://www.highcountrypress.com/weekly/2011/12-22-11/watauga-countys-debt-falls.htm

In December of 2009, North Carolina had borrowed $1.4 Billion from the Federal government to pay unemployment benefits to North Carolinians.  Two years later, Noth Carolina’s tab is $2.67 Billion.

Even worse than its obvious inefficiencies, rigid centralization squelched human creativity. Good ideas were worth nothing unless one had the political connections to make them happen. Going off to start a business, write a play or solve a social problem was forbidden. Read more: http://news.investors.com/Article.aspx?id=595799&p=2

staffers in North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue’s office have been getting advance word on monthly unemployment statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is highly illegal under federal law and violates what I have understood to be a strong tradition in the BLS and other government statistics that no one—no one at all, not even in the White House—gets advanced word ahead of the public announcement of government statistics.  read more: http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-conf

In a blistering letter late last week, Richard Shaffer, the Democratic prosecutor for Cleveland and Lincoln counties, slammed the governor for her veto. “You no longer have any moral authority to suggest that you strongly support the death penalty,” Shaffer wrote. “Your action has shown that particular statement is untrue.” Read more here: http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/da_resigns_from_crime_commission_over_rja_veto#storylink||misearch#storylink=cpy

The probe became clouded by questions after the lead investigator, Kim Westbrook Strach, said her supervisors edited her report and initially told her not to interview key members of Perdue’s campaign, including Zach Ambrose, the governor’s longtime chief of staff and campaign manager. Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/12/19/1719680/perdue-flights-still-an-issue.html#storylink=cpy

Financial Crisis: The SEC is suing top officers at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for not disclosing their true exposure to subprime loans. Maybe now the left’s tired canard that Fannie and Freddie were blameless can be laid to rest.

“In a state we only won by 14,000 votes (in 2008), every single vote matters,” says Lindsay Siler, Raleigh-based director of Obama’s N.C. organization. “There’s no county that’s going to be ignored.” Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/12/11/1703757/obama-team-stakes-out-nc.html#ixzz1gFabSf00

But more than the others named, Reichard’s indictment raises questions about pay-to-play politics and shakes a fragile Democratic establishment still recovering from Easley’s felony conviction last year and the legal saga involving former U.S. Sen. John Edwards. Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/12/11/1702987/indicted-financier-raised-millions.html#ixzz1gFUf1N7u

The N.C. State Bar, which regulates lawyers in the state, moved on Wednesday to begin disciplinary action against former Gov. Mike Easley, filing a formal complaint against the Democrat and lawyer who served two terms each as governor and attorney general in North Carolina. The complaint says that Easley showed “professional unfitness” in his conviction on a felony campaign finance violation. Easley entered a plea on the charge one year ago. Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/12/07/1695869/nc-bar-files-formal-complaint.htm

Homeowners’ rights Gun-rights advocates praised a new law that gives citizens more legal standing to fire their lawful weapons to protect themselves from people illegally entering their homes, cars or businesses. Shooters will be presumed exempt from criminal or civil liability because they feared they would be seriously harmed or killed by intruders. The previous law said shooters inside homes had to justify firing. Prosecutors still could attempt to persuade judges that shootings crossed the line. Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com

What does matter is that the divisive, polarizing tone of your rhetoric is cleaving a widening gulf, at this point as much visceral as philosophical, between the downtrodden and those best positioned to help them. It is a gulf that is at once counterproductive and freighted with dangerous historical precedents. And it is an approach to governing that owes more to desperate demagoguery than your Administration should feel comfortable with. http://www.thestreet.com/tsc/common/images/pdf/Omega%20Advisor1.pdf

The new charges, all felonies, are part of a long-running investigation into Perdue campaign activities that have focused on expenditures that would have triggered election law violations for exceeding the limit on personal donations if they had been reported. Earlier this year a retired state magistrate was charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly trying to hide an illegal campaign flight. Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/11/28/1676707/3-perdue-associates-indicted.html#ixzz1f2kJsw00

Rep. Barney Frank’s Monday decision to retire will remove one of the staunchest defenders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — and may replace the Massachusetts Democrat with an even stauncher defender, California Rep. Maxine Waters. http://news.investors.com/Article.aspx?id=592982&p=2

Washington, DC—Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (NC-05) voted today for legislation (H.R. 674) to repeal a federal mandate to require state, local and federal governments to withhold three percent of payments made to companies that do business with the government.  President Obama recently said this mandate “keeps capital out of the hands of jobs creators” and has endorsed the House bill.     “This federal mandate would have fallen particularly hard on small and family-owned businesses that don’t have massive cash holdings,” Foxx said.

Washington, DC—Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (NC-05) today called on the U.S. Senate to take up the “Forgotten 15” jobs bills that have passed the House of Representatives this year, many with the votes of dozens Democrats.  The bills address a number of topics including, economic growth, tax reform, regulatory reform and energypolicy. “These 15 bills represent the efforts of House legislators on a number of fronts to spur private sector job creation and economic growth,” Foxx said. “The Senate is standing squarely in the way of the.

“Justice’s responsibility is to make sure minority voters are protected under the Voting Rights Act,” said Sen. Bob Rucho, a Matthews Republican and chairman of the Senate Redistricting Committee. “… They validated the fact that minority voters are protected under our fair and legal maps.” Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/11/02/1612912/feds-approve-nc-voting-maps.html#ixzz1cetJIfIB

“If this was a former Republican senator and governor, the press would be all over it,” argues a GOP-affiliated investment professional. “They’d be talking about how it is emblematic of corruption on Wall Street. But because it’s a Democrat, everyone keeps focusing on bad investments rather than the possibility of fraud.” Read more: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/02/jon-corzine-mfglobal-to-jail/

Occupy Wall Street protesters might say they represent 99% of the nation, but there’s a growing number of Americans who are making it clear they are not part of the dissident crowd. Read More: http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/news/economy/occupy_wall_street_backlash/index.htm?iid=Popular

Infuriated lower Manhattan residents went ballistic on Zuccotti Park protesters at a chaotic Community Board 1 meeting tonight while blasting politicians for allowing the siege to continue without any end in sight. Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/angry_manhattan_residents_lambast_RjpTU0jG2z9yrgf5o4bRcO#ixzz1bNq9Hx00