Sunday News: From the Editorial pages

UNC BOARD'S IDEOLOGICAL BIAS EXPOSED IN COURTING PRINCETON'S CONSERVATIVE CENTER: It is of questionable wisdom, not to mention fairness, for the UNC Board to complain of ideological bias and close some campus-based centers while at the same time actively courting another, clearly ideological center. Does anybody on the board worry about this inconsistency? It is particularly troubling to consider that such a center might be publicly funded or carry the endorsement of the state. As it is imagined now, it is not the place to spend the taxpayers, tuition or student-fee dollars. This board is acting with the kind of fiat that we’re used to seeing from the General Assembly. Sure, the board has the power and authority. But there should be a sincere effort to demonstrate a need, and desire to build support – in this case from a campus, its students, faculty and administrators.
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Judge sides with environmentalists in Blounts Creek ruling

Score one for the good guys:

The court ruling can on December 18 when Judge Joshua Willey Jr. overturned the lower court decision and vacated or annulled the twelve million gallons per day mine discharge permit given to the Martine Marietta Materials by the Division of Water Resources.

Judge Willey also ruled that the Sound Rivers and community members had the right to bring a permit challenge to court. The foundation said they worked hard to protect the public’s right to access the courts when the regulatory agencies get it wrong. The court win will protect Blounts Creek.

This is a pretty big victory, folks. On par with successfully shutting down the Titan Cement project, both of which involved limestone mining and the ruination of hundreds (if not thousands) of acres of critical Eastern NC wetlands. Interesting side-note: This case was originally given to Junior Berger, after daddy got him an appointment as an administrative law judge. But Little Phil ran for Court of Appeals back in November 2016, and after daddy got his name pushed to the top of the voting ballot, Junior stole that seat from the highly-qualified Linda Stephens. While that election was a kick in the pants, it very well may have paved the way for the savior of Blounts Creek.

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Saturday News: So much for philanthropy

NEW TAX LAW COULD DEAL DEATH BLOW TO CHARITIES AND NON-PROFITS: Taxpayers claim charitable contributions, along with mortgage interest, property taxes and some other expenses, as deductions from their taxable income if they itemize and the total exceeds the standard deduction. For some people – particularly those with higher incomes – the deduction for charitable gifts has served as an important incentive for giving because it helps reduce taxes owed. Operators of some nonprofits are hopeful Congress may still act. If not, and if charitable giving drops $13 billion nationally as one economist has predicted, North Carolina charities could be expected to take a big hit. So could the people who depend on them. In the state, Heinen said, nonprofits collect and spend roughly $42.5 billion a year and employ about 10 percent of the workforce. In the Triangle, they include Duke University Medical Center and WakeMed hospitals.
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Notable environmental developments during 2017

Topping the list is a new Governor who actually cares about it:

Molly Diggins, executive director of the North Carolina Sierra Club, said the most noticeable change in 2017 was definitely the new governor. Cooper, she said, has been consistently showing leadership on environmental issues, like offshore drilling since taking office. “Second to that is the end of the reign of terror at the Division of Environmental Quality and the return of staff being able to do their jobs and being able to have transparency and accessibility in their work again,” Diggins said. The department had become secretive under Regan’s predecessor, Donald van der Vaart, she said, with professional staff reports subject to rewrite to satisfy policy objectives. Regan has done a better job of transparency and outreach, particularly in rural parts of the state.

Grady McCallie, senior policy analyst for the North Carolina Conservation Network, agreed that the change within DEQ’s top ranks has been important. “We have an administration that cares about good, science-based policy and isn’t trying to smother what their agency scientists are telling them with political overlay,” he said. “Every administration considers politics, but this administration seems to be listening to its civil servants and longtime staff and that’s a huge change.”

And it's a job that has been made monumentally more difficult by the NC GOP's approach to funding. Not satisfied to allow Cooper and/or Regan to manage DEQ how they see fit, Republicans have tailored their budget line items to whittle down the staff in certain areas, while blocking the shifting of resources to fix those shortfalls. It was in the midst of these budget debates that GenX contamination of the Cape Fear was initially reported:

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Friday News: Death sentence

NC PRISON GUARDS FREQUENTLY SKIP INSPECTION ROUNDS LEADING TO UNNECESSARY INJURIES AND DEATHS: Early one winter morning in 2012, officers at an eastern North Carolina prison found inmate Willis Gravley hanging from a bed sheet. He’d been dead for hours. His death raised a question: Why didn’t officers at Bertie Correctional Institution stop Gravley from killing himself – or why, at least, didn’t they find his body earlier? Prison investigators later found that officers in Gravley’s unit had been skipping a crucial part of their job for years: doing the required 30-minute security checks. Instead, officers falsified prison records to indicate they had made their rounds, according to dismissal letters issued to some officers involved. In some of North Carolina’s most dangerous prisons, officers routinely fail to make their rounds, a Charlotte Observer investigation found.
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Friday fracking video

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The NC GOP's hypocrisy on lottery funds abuse

And of course the irony is lost on them:

State Sen. Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican, led lottery opponents as minority leader in 2005. He derided the lottery as “a diversion from other educational problems that Democratic leaders have failed to address,” in the far-right Carolina Journal in August 2005. He also told the Journal he doubted the money would end up where advocates said it would go. ‘The money for education is not going to increase.”

Now they are addicted to its cash. Worse, they are the ones fulfilling their own dire prediction – using the cash to pay for basic education needs. Today much of the money goes to “non-instructional support staff” that provide for on-going school operations while Berger, House Speaker Tim Moore and others shower their political patrons, particularly the businesses that control the N.C. Chamber of Commerce, with tax breaks and credits.

This K-3 class size (unfunded) mandate is about to crush schools statewide, and the friction between school boards and county commissions is going to boil over long before Spring Break rolls around. But instead of rolling up their sleeves and preparing to fix it, BergerMoore is too busy crafting propaganda in an effort to shirk the responsibility for this crisis. The next few months are going to get ugly.

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Thursday News: Sore loser

ROY MOORE TRIES TO STOP ALABAMA FROM CERTIFYING DOUG JONES: Republican Roy Moore filed a lawsuit to try to stop Alabama from certifying Democrat Doug Jones as the winner of the U.S. Senate race.The court filing occurred about 14 hours ahead of Thursday's meeting of a state canvassing board to officially declare Jones the winner of the Dec. 12 special election. Jones defeated Moore by about 20,000 votes. Moore's attorney wrote in the complaint filed late Wednesday that he believed there were irregularities during the election and said there should be a fraud investigation and eventually a new election. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill told The Associated Press Wednesday evening that he has no intention of delaying the canvassing board meeting. "It is not going to delay certification and Doug Jones will be certified (Thursday) at 1 p.m. and he will be sworn in by Vice President Pence on the third of January," Merrill said.
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After dark

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Income inequality by race in NC stark and staggering

And it creates a formula of generational poverty that's almost impossible to reverse:

Disparities in outcomes did not come out of thin air; they arise from systems and policies, past and present, that create barriers to economic opportunity for people of color. For example, inequity in pay, rooted both in occupational segregation and in people of color being paid less for doing the same work as their white colleagues, is a major reason that communities of color struggle with higher levels of poverty.

African American workers in North Carolina were paid roughly $3.25 per hour less on average than their white colleagues in 2016, a gap that compounds rapidly over time into a monthly pay disparity of almost $600 and a deficit of more than $6,700 annually. The gap is even larger for Hispanic workers in North Carolina, who are paid $5.34 less than whites on average, which compounds into a pay gap of over $11,000 annually.

These numbers sound more like something that would have been compiled back in the 1950's than just last year. And while many folks I know prefer to write stuff like this off as merely one more example that Capitalism is inherently corrupted and needs to be replaced, in many ways, that's just a cop-out. It gives you an excuse to not even try and fix the wage disparity problem, and I have a big problem with that. Here's more:

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Wednesday News: "White" Christmas?

KKK LEFT RECRUITING FLYERS IN HILLANDALE NEIGHBORHOOD ON CHRISTMAS EVE: A Triangle community is expressing concern after discovering KKK fliers in their driveways on Christmas Eve. The notes, meant to recruit members, were placed in plastic bags, along with rocks and a few KKK business cards, and distributed throughout the Hillandale neighborhood in Wake County. "And, for whatever reason, they put peppermints in there," resident Mike Chandler said. Chandler found the bag in his driveway on the morning of Dec. 24. He said his wife drove around the neighborhood and found many other homes with the bags in their driveways. "It's a little bit disconcerting. I've been here 33, going on 34, years, never had anything like this come here before," he said. Among other things, the flier says “white pride doesn’t mean hate,” but many residents said they believe the KKK stands for hate.
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Tuesday News: Trumplethinskin

2017 LEFT WORLD LEADERS STUNNED BY TRUMP'S LACK OF DIPLOMACY: “The change in Washington puts the European Union in a difficult situation; with the new administration seeming to put into question the last 70 years of American foreign policy,” Donald Tusk, president of European Union, in a Jan. 31 letter raising concerns about Trump’s “worrying declarations.” “The times in which we could completely depend on others are, to a certain extent, over. I’ve experienced that in the last few days. We Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel to an election rally in Munich May 28, alluding to difficulties with Trump after meetings on NATO and the G7 summit. “Make our planet great again,” French President Emmanuel Macron statement June 1 on the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.
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Tuesday Twitter roundup

Making sure judges don't go too easy on those law-breaking children:

Exclusive: U.S. memo weakens guidelines for protecting immigrant children in court https://t.co/sto7PIbHVy #Immigration #Children #ncpol #ncga #nc

— ncFortyEight (@ncFortyEight) December 25, 2017

"Cold-hearted" just doesn't quite cover this:

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Monday News: Christmas edition

HOSPITAL-BOUND PATIENTS GIVEN TEDDY BEARS AS LITTLE FURRY COMPANIONS: Had she her druthers, Wynell Richardson would be spending Christmas at home with her husband of 63 years. But the eighth floor of Rex Hospital grew two shades brighter Sunday morning when a pair of children laid a teddy bear on her lap. A heart patient from Nashville, Richardson will pass her holiday in a telemetry bed, watching Raleigh’s holiday lights twinkle out her window. But when Chase and John Pittman brought her gift, she found new comfort to recuperate by. “I’m a whole lot better now,” said Richardson, 83. “They can keep me here until they get me right.” As the hours until Christmas ticked nearer, the volunteer Rex Guild brought presents to nearly every patient in the hospital, a tradition that dates to 1936. Before bears, the gift of choice for 20-plus years, they brought poinsettias.
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Sunday News: From the Editorial pages

WHY CAN'T LEGISLATIVE LEADERS STOP LYING ABOUT THEIR UNFUNDED CLASS-SIZE MANDATE? A group of parents rallied at the North Carolina Legislative Building to demand the General Assembly’s leadership repeal, or responsibly fund, the unfunded class-size mandate due to go into effect in the upcoming 2018-19 school year. The rally drew a troubling response from Phil Berger, President Pro Tem of the state Senate: “Even though some local school leaders decided to use the extra state funding to benefit their own spending priorities instead of to reduce class sizes, those reductions have already been fully funded,” he said. About three weeks later, Speaker of the House Tim Moore was asked to weigh in on the class-size issue. He, too, gave a worrisome response: “We have funded the positions.” Why are these responses so troubling? They are wholly untrue, indicating that the two most powerful men in state government either fail to understand the biggest issue facing North Carolina’s public schools, or are purposefully lying about the issue.
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Republican attacks on NC's judiciary most extreme in the nation

Not just pruning back the branch, they're trying to break it off:

Republicans haven’t hidden their displeasure with what they call judicial activism. Last February, Senate Leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore lashed out at three state judges who sided with Democratic Governor Roy Cooper in a dispute over his appointment powers. “If these three men want to make laws, they should hang up their robes and run for a legislative seat,” the duo said in a statement.

“They have firebombed the courthouses across the state, creating chaos, and I think it’s all to gain partisan advantage,” says State Representative Marcia Morey, a Democrat who spent almost two decades as a judge. “They have not liked case decisions, and they need to get friendly judges in there.”

And once again, I can't help but see parallels between what the NC GOP is doing, and what authoritarian regimes in other countries do. They purge hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of experienced judges and replace them with unqualified political hacks, so there's nobody left to question their undemocratic behavior. Republicans have been whittling away at NC's judiciary since they took over in 2011, but it looks like 2018 may be when they try to deliver their merciless version of a coup de grâce:

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Saturday News: Can you say "Death Tax"?

DALE FOLWELL NOW WANTS TO COLLECT OVERPAYMENTS FROM ESTATES OF DEAD STATE EMPLOYEES: Families of some dead state employees may be getting a letter from the state Treasurer. The message: Pay up. Treasurer Dale Folwell’s office has already been recovering disability overpayments from former employees who are still alive. Now, according to agency emails, it has broadened the effort to the estates of former workers who have died. Last summer, the agency began notifying people who receive payments from a state program called the transitional disability income plan that since 2006 they had been getting too much money and the office was going to start taking it back. In winter and spring of this year, managers in Folwell’s office developed plans to get money back from 61 people who owed $871,892. Three others had died after January 2017 and owed $64,220.
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Roy Cooper has not given up fighting NC GOP tax cuts

There are simply too many important things to do to just let this go:

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said Wednesday that he’d keep trying to block pending state tax cuts for corporations and top wage-earners that Republicans approved last summer, a long-shot effort that could become a key 2018 election-year issue.

The GOP-controlled General Assembly voted to lower both corporate and individual income tax rates again in January 2019, halfway through the next fiscal year’s two-year budget that lawmakers will adjust when they return for their regular work session in May. Cooper has blasted other tax cuts approved by Republicans since 2013 because he said they benefited the rich and out-of-state corporations the most. The latest round of cuts was approved over Cooper’s veto of the two-year budget containing the rate reductions.

I realize it's a little early in his tenure to start fashioning a "Legacy" name for Roy. You know, like "Education Governor" or what have you. But after watching the numerous battles he's been dragged into by an immature and spiteful Legislature, I'ma go ahead and put this forward, so y'all can chew on it for a little while: "Resistance Governor." Would that we could give him an easier job after November 2018, but that's going to take a phenomenal effort.

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Friday News: YOYO

IN ABSENCE OF FEDERAL AID, TEXAS HURRICANE VICTIMS FORCED TO RELY HEAVILY ON CHARITIES: The groups helping to rebuild on the Texas Gulf Coast after Hurricane Harvey have collected close to $1 billion in donations, according to an Associated Press tally of major national and local organizations. Much of that money is already being put to work after Harvey, which ravaged cities in Southeast Texas in August with high winds before dumping record amounts of rain on the rest of the coast, including Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city. Of the $928 million raised by major groups involved in the recovery, the most money has been collected by the Red Cross, which said this month that it's raised $493 million for Harvey relief. The Greater Houston Community Foundation, which is operating the relief fund endorsed by Houston's top elected leaders, has raised more than $108 million. The Rebuild Texas Fund, administered by the family foundation of computer magnate Michael Dell, has raised more than $89 million. The evangelical group Samaritan's Purse has also raised $86 million. United Way has raised more than $54 million.
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Friday fracking video

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Thursday News: Deplorables

DC follows in North Carolina's corrupted footsteps

Thomas Mills drops several truth bombs on our current political climate:

As I’ve said before, North Carolina Republicans were Trumpists before Trump. They were willing to trash the state’s reputation as a forward thinking, welcoming state in order to pass tax cuts that disproportionally benefited the wealthy while dramatically cutting the services that helped people climb out of poverty and stay in the middle class. And they were willing to pander to the ugliest strains of reactionary populism to do it.

It’s pandering to populism in exchange for a huge kickback for the wealthiest Americans. The country club Republicans who want to enrich themselves and their friends and the movement conservatives who believe that tax cuts are a panacea for every ill don’t have the numbers to get much done. So, they’ve cut deals with social conservatives, many of whom harbor nasty resentments, to get elected and to get their tax cuts.

It truly is a sad state of affairs. The GOP has learned to give the worst elements of our society what they want, the racists, the sexists, the Islamophobes, the holier-than-thou gay-haters, etc., all in an effort to line the pockets of the wealthy even more. Here's more:

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Wednesday News: Every vote is important

BALANCE OF POWER IN VIRGINIA HOUSE FLIPPED BY A ONE VOTE MARGIN: A single vote may spell the end of Republican control in Virginia's House of Delegates. A Democratic challenger seems to have won a recount Tuesday by one vote, putting the partisan balance in the House at a tie. It would mean a rare power-sharing agreement may have to be brokered. Shelly Simonds beat three-term incumbent Republican Del. David Yancey in the 94th District in Newport News, 11,608 to 11,607, in a dramatic hourslong recount that ended only after the precinct ballots were exhausted and provisional ballots were examined. The recounted votes still must be certified by a court Wednesday, although officials said they expected that no ballots would be challenged.
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Tuesday News: The biggest heist in history

Tuesday Twitter roundup

Today's hot story: A desperate attempt by Republicans to bury damning evidence of voter suppression:

Reached out to @ThomTillis and @SenatorBurr on this, both stand by Farr. Tillis spox said Farr the victim of "baseless claim posted on a left-wing blog," provided letter from @carterwrenn saying Farr didn't see postcards before they went out. #ncga #ncpol https://t.co/zcIuVvAA8L

— Travis Fain (@TravisFain) December 18, 2017

Make no mistake, Burr and Tillis aren't just trying to protect Trump nominee Thomas Farr, they're trying to shield their entire party from the exposure of their often disgusting campaign tactics. Hat-tip to Indyweek for some blockbuster reporting:

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This is how good state government deals with a sold-out FCC

Reason #54 why we need to take back the NC General Assembly:

Inslee’s proposal, which makes Washington state the first in the nation to act on net neutrality, includes pursuing the following actions:

Direct the state’s Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) to establish a process for ISPs to certify that they will not engage in practices inconsistent with net neutrality principles. Limit state-conferred benefits to ISPs that have made such certifications. Limit applicability of UTC pole attachment rules to ISPs that are net neutral. Use the state government’s role as a big customer, and our ability to establish state master contracts used by local governments, to incentivize Washington companies to adhere to net neutrality principles. Pursue regulatory and legislative action to award contracts to vendors that meet net neutral business requirements. Lead the exploration of a multi-state purchasing cooperative to procure internet service from providers that adhere to net neutrality principles. Collaborate with legislators to strengthen our consumer protection laws to include the principles of net neutrality. Pursue legislation authorizing public utility districts and rural and urban port districts to provide retail ISP and telecommunications services.

As you can see, several of those actions would be impossible to implement with GOP control of our Legislature, and some (most?) of the other actions could/would be quickly undermined by the same. Which brings up another (broader) issue that Progressive activists need to keep in mind: I'm starting to see more of these, "Why doesn't Roy Cooper do this or that thing I want? He's just as bad as the Republicans!" Understand, we put him in the Governor's mansion, but we also crippled him in the process. Governor Cooper is held hostage by a supermajority that is hell-bent on stripping his powers and defunding his administration, but he's still made more progress for our state than McCrory did his entire tenure. Context is important, so put that energy to work where it's needed.

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Monday News: Hypocrites R' Us

TRUMP DENIES RUMORS HE PLANS TO FIRE MUELLER, BUT STILL ANGRY OVER E-MAIL ACQUISITION: President Donald Trump says he is not considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller, but that didn't stop him from adding to the growing conservative criticism of Mueller's acquisition of thousands of emails sent and received by Trump officials before the start of his administration. While conservatives have been critical of Mueller's probe of Russian activities during the 2016 campaign, Trump said Sunday afternoon that he has no plans to fire Mueller. The president did criticize the fact that Mueller had gained access the emails, however. Trump said it was "not looking good" and again stressed that there was "no collusion" with Russia — an important question the probe is examining. The documents were provided to Mueller's team by the GSA in September in response to requests from the FBI, but the transition team didn't learn about it until last week, Langhofer said.
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Sunday News: From the Editorial pages

WHAT ALABAMA TELLS US: VOTING MATTERS, GERRYMANDERING DISTORTS: Exit polling Tuesday indicated that about 30 percent of the electorate was African-American – a greater share than during the 2008 and 2012 elections with Obama on the ballot. The exit polls indicated that 96 percent of the African-American vote went to Jones. Doug Jones managed to win the election, but carry only one of Alabama’s seven congressional districts. How could that be? Well, here in North Carolina, we know the answer to that all too well: pack as many African-American voters into a single district as possible. In Alabama, two-thirds of the voters in the state’s 7th District are African-American. Nearly a third of all the state’s African-American voters live in that district – meaning that the rest of the state’s African-American voters are scattered among the remaining six districts. As a result, these gerrymandered African-Americans, most of whom happen to be Democrats, see their voting strength is significantly diluted.
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NC county government sues Big Pharma over opioid crisis

New Hanover County takes their battle against addiction to court:

Drug makers “aggressively pushed highly addictive, dangerous opioids, falsely representing to doctors that patients would only rarely succumb to drug addiction,” the lawsuit reads. “These pharmaceutical companies aggressively advertised to and persuaded doctors to prescribe highly addictive, dangerous opioids and turned patients into drug addicts for their own corporate profit.”

“The residents of New Hanover County are bearing the burden of the cost of the epidemic, as the costs of treatment for addiction, education and law enforcement continue to rise,” Woody White said in a Friday news release. He’s the chairman of the county commissioners. “New Hanover County aims to have this suit accomplish two things: require the responsible parties to pay our taxpayers for the monetary damages caused, and to force them to follow federal law so we can stem the tide of this horrible epidemic, and help save lives.”

Good for them, but this is likely going to be tougher than winning a lawsuit against gun manufacturers, since some of the most respected professionals in our society (doctors) have to approve each prescription. But if the county can get a hefty settlement out of this, it might just jerk a knot in the machine that's destroying so many lives.

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Saturday News: We've heard this before...

NC REPUBLICAN LEADERS SAY THEY MAY NOT TAKE UP JUDICIAL REFORMS IN JANUARY: Lawmakers may not find enough consensus on judiciary reforms to pass anything when they gather again for a special legislative session next month, House Rules Chairman David Lewis said Friday. Lewis, R-Harnett, a key leader in the House, said legislators haven't coalesced behind proposals to redraw election districts for judges or to move instead to an appointments system. There has been a divide between the House and the Senate on this, but there also are indications House Republicans aren't all on board with proposed new districts for judges, which could prove important given the possibility of veto from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. "If we can't get agreement, and that was one of the main things we were going to do, it may be a very short session," Lewis said. He also said there's no plan, at the moment, to approve potential constitutional amendments during the coming session. That would include a voter ID proposal.
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What Republicans did not want to hear when they blocked Judge Stephens from speaking during Committee hearing

Here are some excerpts from his prepared statement:

It is my opinion that the quality and integrity of the trial bench [in North Carolina] is above reproach. I have found no evidence to the contrary. None. I have heard no sworn testimony or information presented to this body or any other legislative committee that challenges or impugns the quality or the integrity of the [North Carolina] trial judiciary.

I understand that the fire trucks are here, but where is the fire? Who saw the fire? Who declared that the judicial house was on fire? You are drawing up plans to rebuild our judicial house that is not on fire and has no structural damage. Where is any evidence that the quality and integrity of this state’s judiciary is so poor that the constitution of [North Carolina] must be immediately drastically changed? Who has declared the emergency? On what basis?

Oh, there's an emergency all right. But it's one of Republicans' making. They're engaged in an all-out war on the judiciary, from the NC Supreme Court all the way down to the District and Superior Courts. And as for Republican judges who are already sitting, when one of their own (Doug McCullough) resigned from his CoA seat early so Governor Cooper could name his replacement instead of the Legislature, well. That just pissed them off to the point they decided to burn the whole damn thing down. Judge Stephens continues, and hat-tip to NC Policy Watch for (once again) providing truth to power:

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Friday News: Remember Heather

Friday fracking video

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New York AG files lawsuit against FCC over Net Neutrality vote

And rumor has it Josh Stein just added NC to the effort:

Citing his investigation into the FCC’s public comments process preceding the vote, Schneiderman declared his office’s intention to sue to “stop the FCC’s illegal rollback of net neutrality” — a forthcoming legal challenge that’s sure to be in good company. In response to questions from TechCrunch, Schneiderman’s office noted that he will spearhead a multi-state lawsuit and that we can expect it “in the coming days.”

“We will be filing a claim to preserve protections for New Yorkers and all Americans. And we’ll be working aggressively to stop the FCC’s leadership from doing any further damage to the internet and to our economy,” Schneiderman said in a press release.

Hopefully they'll be able to get an injunction put in place with the quickness, before we start seeing shenanigans with our Internet access.

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WUNC uncovers disgusting behavior by lawmakers in NC Legislature

Thursday News: Walkout

DEMOCRATS LEAVE COMMITTEE MEETING AFTER REPUBLICANS REFUSE TO ALLOW JUDGE TO SPEAK: Bishop said that since Stephens isn’t employed by Cooper’s office, he wouldn’t let him speak. Democratic Sen. Jay Chaudhuri of Raleigh told Bishop that was “a missed opportunity.” A fellow Democrat, Sen. Floyd McKissick of Durham, then asked permission to speak. Bishop denied him several times but eventually let McKissick ask a question. McKissick asked for Stephens to be able to give his presentation. Bishop disagreed, saying he’s the committee chairman and gets to make that decision. Then McKissick, Chaudhuri and the third Democrat on the committee, Joel Ford of Charlotte, stood up and walked out without another word. The meeting proceeded without them. At the end of the meeting the remaining Republicans introduced a new set of proposed election maps for judges and district attorneys – an issue that was not on the public agenda for the meeting.
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Charlotte Council member Lawana Mayfield boycotts restaurant

Reclaiming her time in the face of bigotry:

While she has not patronized any of Noble’s restaurants since 2015, she said she spoke out now because of Noble’s plans to open a business in the district she represents. “Any business that is within my district where I know that they signed on to the letter to support discrimination through legislation, I will not patronize knowingly,” she said. She said she knows of no other business in her district whose owner signed it.

Noble, who is also an ordained minister, was one of 94 signers of the letter, including prominent Christian conservatives such as Dr. Mark Creech of the Christian Action League of North Carolina. Others included business owners, realtors, educators, medical professionals and two captains for USAirways/American Airlines. The only restaurant owners were Noble and Joseph Acovski of Joey’s Fine Food and Pizza in Denver, N.C.

I know many of my friends in political circles are exhausted after the bitter fighting over HB2, but the truth is, bigots like Noble pretty much won that war. HB142 wasn't even really a compromise, it was a victory of form over substance. Lawana was right to vocalize her opposition to patronizing this establishment, because there are over 90,000 LGBTQ folks living in the Charlotte Metropolitan area, and they deserve to know which businesses hold them in contempt, and actively work to deny them rights. And there's something else this story exposes, the dangers of government relying on religious institutions to provide services to the poor:

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Wednesday News: Good job, Alabama

Tuesday News: ALEC's new poster boy

Tuesday Twitter roundup

Today's the big day in Alabama:

Here at #DougJonesForSenate rally here in Birmingham!!!! Let’s go #DougJones Let’s get out and #Vote tomorrow! http://pic.twitter.com/0PRxmF1oHu

— Piper Perabo (@PiperPerabo) December 12, 2017

Do what Piper says, she has sources who know Everything...

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Blue Monday kicks off 120 seat strategy for retaking the General Assembly

Monday News: Narcissist-In-Chief

Sunday News: From the Editorial pages

UNHAPPY LEGISLATORS SLING MUD AT COURT: The legislature’s redistricting plans have invariably been concocted in secret, keeping motives and methods far from the view of the public they serve. GOP leaders have also relied on their own taxpayer-financed “outside expert” for help drawing the gerrymandered maps, which is conveniently forgotten amid their outrage over Persily’s alternative plan. There’s no mystery about what Persily’s done or how he’s done it. He has been open, transparent and explicit about his methods and criteria. Legislators and others have had broad opportunities for input. Rather than seeking ways to minimize some voters’ voices, Persily worked to give all voters a full voice in picking their representatives. The only transparency coming out of the General Assembly these days is the hyper-partisan, inappropriate and insulting braying to impugn the work of a bipartisan panel of judges -- working simply to bring fairness to North Carolina’s elections.
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Wake County still battling with Legislature over electoral districts

At stake are Commissioner and School Board seats:

Election officials are asking a judge for permission to use old district lines for next year’s election of Wake County school board members and commissioners as a lawsuit continues to make its way through the court system.

In 2011, the school board and commissioners adopted new election districts that they expected would be used through 2020. But the General Assembly redrew the maps in 2013 to turn two Wake school board seats into regional districts, with each covering about half the county. In 2015, state lawmakers changed the Wake commissioner lines to match the school board districts.

This should really be a no-brainer; nothing of substance has changed since they were allowed to use the old maps in the 2016 Election. And something doesn't become "Constitutional" just because it's aged a couple years:

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Saturday News: Carolina Red?

UNC BOG CONTEMPLATING FORMING A RIGHT-WING "CENTER" ON CHAPEL HILL CAMPUS: Members of the UNC Board of Governors are exploring the idea of establishing a conservative-leaning center at UNC-Chapel Hill that they say would foster debate and achieve more intellectual diversity. The board will hear a presentation Friday from Robert “Robby” George, founder and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. A delegation of UNC board members and administrators made a university-funded trip to Princeton this fall to learn more about the program, which was founded in 2000, according to its website, to explore “enduring questions of American constitutional law and Western political thought.”
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The Republican two-step: Same dance, different music

Today's Two-Step Series Topic: HOMELESSNESS & HARDSHIP
Two steps to watch in Congress: Step 1) Proposed Tax Plan cuts taxes now; and Step 2) Increases homelessness and hardship by cutting vital programs next year #ncpol #ncga #taxfairness #taxbill #homeless http://pic.twitter.com/9TTf3VzHdq

— Budget & Tax Center (@ncbudgetandtax) December 8, 2017

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Friday News: California burning

Friday fracking video

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Billionaire trying to take over NC schools gave $50,000 to Dan Forest

And since Dan Forest will have a vote on who wins the contract, the conflict of interest glaringly obvious:

John Bryan has contributed about $600,000 to legislative candidates in North Carolina, most of them Republicans, and GOP political committees from 2011 to 2016. Included is a $100,000 contribution to a group supporting GOP candidates for the state Supreme Court. He contributed $50,000 to a political action committee called Truth & Prosperity, set up to support Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest. Forest is a member of the State Board of Education, which will help select which companies are chosen.

Forest said in an interview earlier this year that he did not know why Bryan contributed to the PAC.

Whether you know or don't know why is beside the point; at minimum, you should recuse yourself from any actions dealing with the Innovative School District. But the best way to handle this would be to resign your seat on the State Board of Education entirely. Because make no mistake, this story is not going to "fade away" like you're hoping it will.

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Thursday News: Dirty tricks by GOP pricks

Judge cracks the whip on pork producer Murphy Brown

That simply won't do, pig:

A federal judge is telling a major pork producer to live up to an agreement it signed 11 years ago and work on cleaning up water pollution tied to almost a dozen industry-scale hog operations.

U.S. District Court Judge Malcolm Howard this week ordered Murphy-Brown LLC to end a three-year delay and have a mutually agreed consultant develop plans to fix problems at 11 sites in in Bladen, Columbus, Duplin, Pitt, Sampson and Scotland counties. Environmentalists say the independent expert found groundwater contamination or waste lagoon problems at the operations.

It's as good a time as any to report on NC's current hog population (9.2 million), which of course produce a hell of a lot more waste than the 10.2 million humans residing here. It's bad, and Murphy Brown is the worst of the worst:

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Wednesday News: Provocateur-In-Chief

TRUMP ENRAGES MUSLIM NATIONS WITH RECOGNITION OF JERUSALEM AS CAPITOL: The Arab League said it will hold an emergency meeting for foreign ministers on Saturday and Turkey announced it would host a meeting of Islamic nations next week to give Muslim countries' leaders an opportunity to act together and coordinate following Trump's move. Palestinian officials declared the Mideast peace process "finished." Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, slammed Trump's imminent recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel while in Syria, a Foreign Ministry statement said the anticipated announcement is a "dangerous step" that will fuel global conflict. It described Trump's imminent move as the "culmination of the crime of the seizing of Palestine and the displacement of the Palestinian people" and urged Arab states to stop normalizing relations with Israel. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the "whole world is against" President Donald Trump's move and argued that moving the embassy to Jerusalem would be a "grave mistake."
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Tuesday News: NC exports justice

REVEREND BARBER TAKES MORAL MONDAY MOVEMENT NATIONWIDE: A national “Moral Revival” effort that has echoes of North Carolina’s “Moral Monday” protests will be launched next spring by the Rev. William Barber II and his co-chair at the Poor People’s Campaign. “We must transform the moral narrative in this country,” Barber, who led N.C.’s Moral Monday efforts, said in a statement announcing the plan ahead of a Monday news conference. “We went through the most expensive presidential campaign in U.S. history in 2016 without a single serious discussion of poverty and systemic racism. Now we are witnessing an emboldened attack on the poor and an exacerbation of systemic racism that demands a response." Barber served as leader of the N.C. conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from 2005 until he stepped down in October.
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Tuesday Twitter roundup

The front lines in the war against democracy:

Should judges remain nonpartisan? Because #ncga wants (D) & (R) next to the names of judges & making it a partisan issue. We need to separate politicians & judges.They have eliminated 2018 primaries for judges this year creating confusion at the voting booth. @democracync #ncpol

— Bryson Jones (@JonesNCHouse) December 5, 2017

Here's a prediction, and one which I hope I get wrong: The November 2018 ballot will have painfully long lists of candidates for judicial districts, and after voters have been forced to slog through all those names with which they're not familiar, they will be given the choice to continue electing judges, or allow them to be appointed. Thus creating a new phenomenon, the "push ballot."

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Durham moving forward with "Bike Boulevards" program for safety

Monday News: Juvenile injustice

"RAISE THE AGE" PANEL BEGINS WORK TO STOP PROSECUTING MINORS AS ADULTS: North Carolina legislators have agreed to stop being the only state that automatically prosecutes 16- and 17-year-olds as adults for crimes in two years. Now a committee charged with ensuring the "raise the age" legislation approved last summer is carried out well is beginning its work. The Juvenile Jurisdiction Advisory Committee scheduled its first meeting for Monday in Raleigh. The panel comprised of law enforcement, prosecutors, advocates for victims and juveniles and others are supposed to develop the plan that increases the age of juvenile jurisdiction for young people charged with misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. The "raise the age" law directs the change in December 2019.
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Sunday News: From the Editorial pages

CONSUMERS SHOULDN'T PAY FOR DUKE ENERGY'S COAL ASH BUNGLES: As a regulated monopoly, Duke Energy has an obligation to produce reliable, affordable and safe power while still being guaranteed a reasonable profit for the company and its shareholders. It is up to the state Utilities Commission to determine that balance. When the company fails to meet one of the three obligations it has to its customers, it isn’t the fault of the ratepayers, nor should it be their responsibility to pay. The Utilities Commission shouldn’t reward Duke for the failure to do its job, nor should its ratepayers, who have no other choice for electric service, be forced to subsidize that failure. No matter what the rate increase the Utilities Commission may approve, it should not include costs of dealing with Duke’s coal ash mistake.
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After dark

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In-depth analysis of Senate GOP Tax Scam

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Saturday News: When fairness hurts the unfair

NC REPUBLICANS NOT HAPPY WITH PROPERLY RE-DRAWN MAPS: The Stanford University professor hired to draw North Carolina election maps for a panel of federal judges weighing a gerrymandering case has submitted a plan that quickly drew criticism from Republican lawmakers and praise from challengers. Nathaniel Persily, a law professor tapped in November to review state House and Senate maps adopted by legislators ordered to correct unconstitutional racial gerrymanders, on Friday submitted proposed election district changes in Cumberland, Guilford, Hoke, Mecklenburg, Wake, Bladen, Sampson and Wayne counties. Persily’s maps only redrew a fraction of the state’s 170 legislative districts, mostly in urban counties that tend to favor Democrats. Most of the districts drawn in August favor Republicans, according to a News & Observer analysis.
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NC Business Court On Conversion Of Electronic Data

The Defendant in SQL Sentry, LLC v. ApexSQL, LLC, 2017 NCBC 105 was alleged to have copied the Plaintiff's software program which was designed to make "resource intensive T-SQL queries. . . in the Microsoft enterprise database platform, SQL Server."  Op. Par. 5.  (Ask your IT person).

Adding insult to injury, the Defendant marketed the program it had copied under the same trademark used by the Plaintiff  to sell its competing program ("Plan Explorer"). 

So, when representatives of this Plaintiff walk into your office, what claims do you fire off in your Complaint against that thieving Defendant?  Trademark infringement, obviously.  How about a claim for conversion?

Maybe.  Electronic data is personal property, so it falls into the category of property which is subject to a claim for conversion.  Op. ¶14.

But the Plaintiff ran into a problem with its conversion claim.  It still had full access to its software, and that killed its conversion claim.

The NC Business Court has repeatedly "held that making a copy of electronically-stored information which does not deprive the plaintiff of possession or use of information, does not support a claim for conversion.” Op. ¶15 (citing RCJJ, LLC v. RCWIL Enters., LLC, 2016 NCBC 44, ¶67; accord New Friendship Used Clothing Collection, LLC v. Katz, 2017 NCBC 71, ¶77; Strategic Mgmt. Decisions, LLC v. Sales Performance Int'l, LLC, 2017 NCBC 68, ¶18; Addison Whitney, LLC v. Cashion, 2017 NCBC 50, ¶39.

Trying to fit a 21st century development like ESI into a tort like conversion, which has been around since the 1500's, is like trying  to fit a round peg into a square hole.

If you are insistent on including a conversion claim in your lawsuit over improper copying of electronic data, you might do better suing in federal court.  The United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina has recognized such a claim.  Bridgetree, Inc. v. Red F Marketing, LLC, 3:10CV228-FDW, 2013 WL 443698 (W.D.N.C. Feb. 5, 2013).

But avoid the NC Business Court.

 

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Sessions refuses to answer on Trump interference in Russia probe

When the Attorney General of the United States can't be trusted:

"I asked the attorney general whether he was ever instructed by the president to take any action that he believed would hinder the Russia investigation and he declined to answer the question," Rep. Adam Schiff told reporters after the closed-door meeting concluded.

"If the president did not instruct him to take any action that he believed would hinder the Russia investigation, he should say so. If the president did instruct him to hinder the investigation in any way, in my view, that would be a potentially criminal act and certainly not covered by any privilege," the California lawmaker continued.

If you want to know why Jeff Sessions hasn't been fired yet, well there you go. Trump knows removing him won't make his position any safer, and it may actually make it worse, since Sessions would have nothing left to lose by coming clean. But the specter of the highest law enforcement official in the country choosing silence over honesty is about as ugly as it gets. And so is the reluctance of Congressional Republicans to report that silence to the American people:

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Friday News: Word of the day: Triggers

SENATE REPUBLICANS SCRAMBLE TO REFINE TAX CUT BILL: The scramble to alter the bill came after the Senate's parliamentarian ruled that automatic "triggers" designed to guard against big deficits would violate Senate rules. GOP leaders' main concern was winning over the hawks worried about adding more red ink to the mounting $20 trillion deficit. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had expressed confidence early in the day, but he has little margin for error with a 52-48 Republican majority. He can afford to lose only two votes while counting on Vice President Mike Pence to break the tie. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said the bill will have "alternative, frankly, tax increases we don't want to do" to address deficit concerns. Flake said the "trigger" tax increases would raise about $350 billion over 10 years, though he didn't specify which taxes would go up.
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