Kissell gets the lead out.

From LKSOC (the Larry Kissell School of Original Campaigning) comes the following event, which Under The Dome already calls "the most creative political event of the year".
The Democratic Congressional candidate will host free lead screening of toys from noon to 3 p.m. this Friday in downtown Concord.

"Not only as a candidate for Congress, but as a parent and school teacher, I'm concerned about dangerous imports and the safety of our children," says Kissell, "I don't believe you have to wait for an election to begin working on behalf of families in the 8th District."

A NC certified lead risk assessor using X-ray fluorescence, the most reliable technology available, will be on hand to examine items.

Millions of toys and children's items, many imported from China, have been recalled recently for containing lead. Lead paint is toxic and may cause brain damage, organ failure and even death in children.

While many popular toys like some lines of the Thomas the Tank Engine have already been removed from shelves, the list of toxic toys continues to grow and parents may be unaware that Holiday items purchased for gifts or already in their home may hold a deadly threat to developing children. The public is invited to join Kissell this Friday, December 21 from noon to 3 p.m. in Downtown Concord for the free toy lead screening service.

The event location is 9 Union Street, Concord, near the intersection of Union and Cabarrus Avenue. I hope to see you there!

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Robin Hayes swears he doesn't have cooties.

Our local excuse for a congressman, Robin Hayes(R), is ticked off.
No, he isn't ticked off about jobs shipping to Central America and He certainly isn't ticked off by millions of poor children without health insurance, Robin Hayes is upset because he is convinced that people in Washington think he has cooties.

You can find the full story in today's Charlotte Observer.

The House Homeland Security Committee planned a fact-finding trip about public health preparedness at mass gatherings and decided to conduct the research at two of the nation's most heavily attended sporting events, NASCAR's Bank of America 500 event this weekend and the UAW-Ford 500 last weekend.
Staff who organized the trips advised the NASCAR-bound aides to get a range of vaccines before attending -- hepatitis A, hepatitis B, tetanus, diphtheria and influenza.

Rep. Robin Hayes, a Republican from Concord, was upset when he heard about it.

"I have never heard of immunizations for domestic travel, and as the representative for Concord, N.C., I feel compelled to ask why the heck the committee feels that immunizations are needed to travel to my hometown," Hayes said in an Oct. 5 letter to Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the Homeland Security panel.

Now, I most admit that I don't believe you need to be immunized to go to Lowe's Motor Speedway. The worst thing you can catch there is redneck fever or, on rare occasions, a tire on your head.
What Mr. Hayes doesn't seem to understand is that congressional staff wasn't advised to get immunized because they went to a NASCAR race, but because they were going to visit hospitals and various medical holding areas.

"Since committee staff members are visiting hospital and other health-care facilities available at or near these venues, including areas where groups of people are detained before being transferred to other off-site facilities, I believe that the recommendation (not requirement) that our congressional staff receive these same immunizations was sound," Thompson said in a letter responding to Hayes issued Wednesday.

You also can't really blame some folks in Congress for thinking we have some strange diseases in this area, since they probably base their beliefs on observing Robin Hayes from day to day, and he has had quite a few medical issues in the past few years.
He went from contracting the flip-flopping virus (aka CAFTA syndrome), to catching Crusader fever, to getting a serious SCHIP rash. Lately he's even been known to come into contact with quite a few rabid dogs.

So come on down Congressional staff, you don't really need vaccinations to visit my town as long as you stay out of the vicinity of Mr. Hayes.

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Does Congressman Hayes actually do anything?

Nearly $3 million sought from the federal government for projects in Cabarrus County was left out of a budget approved by the U.S. House 2 weeks ago.

The omitted funding includes money for Kannapolis to improve N.C. 3 near the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. Without the money, the city could have to find public funding for the biotech center's immediate needs, City Manager Mike Legg said.

Other projects whose funding wasn't approved include improvements at Concord Regional Airport and improved radio equipment for local law enforcement officials.

Local leaders were depending on U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes, a Concord Republican who put the earmarks in budget bills that were going through the budget writing process last year.

But Republicans didn't pass all the spending bills for this year before Democrats took control of the House and Senate last month.

Robin Hayes, a Concord Republican blames Democrats of course but fails to mention that last year's "do-nothing" Republican Congress failed to pass 80 percent of the Appropriations bills and, instead, dumped them on the new Congress.

If they had actually done some work all the spending bills would have been passed before Democrats took over.

Democrats have a good reason not to approve the spending. They say they are dedicated to restoring fiscal discipline and eliminating the Republican deficits. That means making some tough, yet responsible, choices. By creating a record deficit of 9 trillion dollars republicans have taken out a monstrous loan from our grandchildren. Someone has to clean up that mess and clearly the new Congress understands that.

So the question is: What has Robin Hayes been doing in Congress to earn the $165,000 we pay him each year?

Turns out he gives post offices new names.
During his whole career Hayes has introduced a total of 42 bills or resolutions in the House and only four have gone on to become public law. Of the four bills he's introduced or sponsored in the past 8 years that have been signed into law, three of them have been to rename buildings after people. Keep in mind that in this whole time period Republicans controlled Congress.

Isn't it time for a Congressman that cares about his constituents?
Apparently 49.86% of the voters in the last election thought so. Now if we can only get 0.3% more in 2008 everything will be alright.

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Fall out from the Hayes BlueNC blogpost

The day after I posted the Hayes story on the bluenc blog, things took off like a rocket.
BlueNC's website hits went from a daily average of 1300 to 38,000.
The story was picked up by numerous other blogs, HuffingtonPost and DailyKos probably being the biggest ones.
It was only a matter of time after that until the "regular" media caught wind of the story.
It made the Charlotte Observer twice and MSNBC reportedly interviewed Dale Cline, the publisher of the Concord Standard (if anyone can find video of this online, please let me know).
And finally my crowning achievement: Tom Delay's blog.

Meanwhile in the Hayes camp his spokeswoman (she's actually a girl in her early 20's), Carolyn Hern, said she did not attend the speech but that she has "no reason to doubt the accuracy of Hayes' initial quotes".

It's interesting how these bloggers can distort the news," Hern said.

If you can explain to me how publishing the exact quotes of someone (and they themselves saying those quotes are correct) is in any way distorting news, i'll buy you a beer.

When I first read the original story I immediately thought "this needs to be on CNN". I didn't quite make it, but hey, MSNBC ain't bad.
So next time you want to break a national news story, keep your eye on those newspaper vending machines when you're out for a walk!

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The one that started it all (aka Hayes goes nuts).

This is the one that started my "career" as a blogger. As I was walking around in downtown Concord my eye caught the front page of our local newspaper "the Concord Standard" in a vending machine. I couldn't believe what i was reading. Since I knew our local paper did not publish their stories online and only the few 1000 readers of this paper had access to this story, I decided I needed to bring this story to the world. I posted the story on bluenc. I couldn't foresee what would follow.

Robin Hayes has the solution to the Iraq war: have our soldiers convert all Muslims to Christianity.

Having won the election by only a hair’s width and almost getting himself kicked out of Congress seems to have had some profound psychological effects on poor Mr. Hayes. A speech that flip-floppin’ Robin gave last week at the Concord Rotary Club seems to prove he has finally gone off the deep end.

Our local weekly newspaper the “Concord Standard and Mount Pleasant Times” reported on Mr. Hayes speech in his hometown:

First there’s the usual talk of how we’re “winning” over there: “The war in Iraq has got to be won; it’s being won” (A couple of months ago Hayes said that the rise in violence in Iraq was an indication that we’re winning.)

Then comes the real kicker: “Stability in Iraq ultimately depends on spreading the message of Jesus Christ, the message of peace on earth, good will towards men. Everything depends on everyone learning about the birth of the Savior.”

So if we just turn our soldiers into missionaries everything will be okay, Mr. Hayes?

First we sent our men over there to take out the WMD’s, then it was to “spread democracy”, now you want them there to “spread the message of Jesus Christ”? It so happens that people in Iraq already have a savior but unfortunately for Mr. Hayes it’s Muhammed, not Jesus.

If we can’t keep Muslims from killing each other over there, I don’t think that trying to make them all Christian is going to be any easier.

With this kind of talk Hayes just plays into the hands of Al-Qaeda by confirming what their leaders have always been saying: those American soldiers are just modern Crusaders. He is thereby strengthening the beliefs of terrorists that want to kill every American soldier they come across.

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