This is a weekly feature of North Carolina Blue. We hope this regular platform will give readers interested in North Carolina politics a place to share their knowledge, insight, inspiration and connections as we work on taking back our state from the extremists. Please join us every week as we try to Connect, Unite and Act with our community of North Carolina Daily Kos members. You can also join the discussion in five other weekly State Open Threads.
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Please join us below. Today we bring you some NC stories you might have missed, but we start with a call to action.
This week we open with mail I received from Kossack DocDawg yesterday. If you were fortunate enough to attend the Asheville Connects conference last September, you were more than likely blown away by the data study that Doc presented. The study broke down disparities in early voting locations in North Carolina. The study however only used data from the past. This year he and his research group are stepping up the process before the election as well as after. The following letter shows how you can help.
I just posted a slight variation on this question at the DKos Asheville weekly diary. As many of you know, last November we at Insightus (which I lead) published a retrospective analysis of racial disparities in Early Voting polling place relocations across NC between 2012 and 2014. This year we would like to re-run that analysis, this time looking for the same kind of shocking disparities we uncovered before, but doing so prospectively this time, so that activists can benefit from our analysis when they oppose these changes.
We have just now entered the season during which County Boards here in NC are drawing up their proposed EV site relocations for November. For instance, we know that Wake Co's board will be meeting June 30 to consider theirs.
There are 100 counties in North Carolina, but Insightus has just six volunteers (all technologists, and all of them overextended). We don't have the manpower to track down all 100 counties' proposed relocations. We would welcome a hand from any folks who would be serious about helping us with that, and doing so in a timely fashion.
If anyone's interested, here's specifically how you can help:
0. Organize; if there are multiple volunteers, someone needs to be the manager, in order to keep people from working at cross-purposes.
1. Coordinate: split up NC’s 100 counties among the willing volunteers.
2. For your chosen counties, find the county board’s contact info here: enr.ncsbe.gov/...
3. Email or (maybe better yet) call each county board’s Director and ask when the Board meets to review EV location changes, and most importantly request a list of the proposed EV locations for Nov. 2016. Please note that there will frequently be two different lists: the so-called ‘majority’ proposal (i.e., put forth by the 2 Republicans on the board) and the ‘minority’ proposal (i.e., put forth by the single Dem on the board … provided that Dem isn’t asleep at the switch). We need both of these, and need to know which is which.
4. Compile all the counties’ results into a spreadsheet, and email it to me.
Just thought I’d throw this out there and see if anyone salutes. Over the past half-year of Insightus’s life I have learned one important lesson: pay no attention to ‘atta-boy’ encouragement (which is cheap, and worth every penny), but instead engage in a project only if outside parties are also willing to roll up their sleeves and get a little bit dirty, too. This rule helps us avoid the temptation to waste time on projects no one actually gives a flying fig about.
Any takers?
Click here to send Doc a kosmail.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Large portions of North Carolina would be off limits to wind-energy operations in legislation given tentative approval Thursday, backed by supporters who argue it will help preserve the state's prominent military presence by keeping flight training areas clear.
The measure also would set up additional state regulatory hurdles before a company could build a wind farm with turbines stretching at least 200 feet tall. The state military and health departments also would be asked to weigh in before the Department of Environmental Quality, tasked with permitting sites since 2013, makes a decision. Federal permitting already is required.
Proposed areas where construction would be prohibited, described on a map prepared for a state military commission, would cover wide swaths of central and eastern North Carolina where low-flying military jets and helicopters travel.
The map shows a far-western District 1, a western and central District 2 that includes part of downtown, a northern District 3, a northeastern District 4, a central and eastern District 5 that includes the rest of downtown and a southern District 6. "We are a small city, and the idea of breaking us up, making us fight one against another, seems ludicrous to me," Councilman Cecil Bothwell said.
Bothwell said he thought the map was created using a specialized GOP redistricting computer program that carved up the city in a "calculated" way meant to weight districts to favor certain types of candidates. That included splitting downtown in half and connecting Haw Creek with the Sunset neighborhood in District 4. The two areas are separated by one of the city's steepest mountain ridges and have different interests, he said.
Councilman Gordon Smith equated the proposal to the legislature punishing Asheville. "They're saying, 'You don’t get a choice. We’ll tell you what you need. But we’ll let you go pick your switch,'" Smith said.
The Republican state senator from Greensboro is, yet again, pushing more poisonous legislation that would trash critical protections for North Carolina’s groundwater and reservoirs. Call her Queen of the Landfills. High Priestess of Pollution. Grand Dame of the Dumpster. Goodness knows she’s earned it.
At this point, Wade’s latest attempt to kill and bury e-waste recycling, which was approved in the Senate Monday, seems unlikely to pass in the House. But odds are, she’ll be back. She has pressed in the past for reductions in air-quality monitoring, removal of some wetlands protections and softer penalties for companies that cause ground, air or water pollution. She is, in a way, a recycler herself — of bad ideas for special interests. And it’s a dirty shame.
But there was another consequence to the sweeping anti-LGBT law: It wiped out local anti-discrimination protections for veterans, too.
Two jurisdictions in North Carolina — Greensboro and Orange County — had ordinances in place that barred job discrimination against vets. These types of protections trace back to the Vietnam War, when vets couldn’t get work as a result of their military service. In more recent years, veterans’ advocates have raised concerns about Iraq and Afghanistan War vets being turned away from jobs because of employers’ fears, unfounded as they may be, that they suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and would be emotionally unstable on the job.
McCrory eliminated those two local ordinances for veterans when he signed HB 2. The law also ensures that cities and counties can’t pass these kinds of protections going forward.
“While rooted in hostility toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, HB 2 also preempts municipal non-discrimination protections for veterans and the men and women of our Armed Services,” reads a letter sent to McCrory this week, signed by eight House Democrats who are also veterans.
Instead, some want to write one more chapter in their ongoing effort to cut North Carolina’s income taxes – a policy that has given the wealthiest households the biggest benefits at the expense of our common good.
A constitutional amendment would lock in the tax cuts that started in 2013 – tax cuts that so far have brought less instructional support and supplies to students in the classroom, less monitoring of air and water quality, and fewer people overseeing children in the child welfare system.
Don’t confuse this latest proposal with reform. More accurately, it provides political cover to lawmakers who prefer tax cuts that largely benefit the well off over public investments that promote broad prosperity. When urged to invest in quality schools, keep college affordable or make sure every North Carolinian has medical care, these lawmakers will be able to complain, “We can’t afford it. Our hands are tied” — after they tied their own hands and those of their successors.
Perhaps you heard that, yesterday, the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention—the largest Protestant organization in the world, with about fifteen million members—voted that members should cease displaying the Confederate flag.
"We recognize that the Confederate battle flag is used by some and perceived by many as a symbol of hatred, bigotry, and racism, offending millions of people," the SBC's resolution states. "And...we recognize that, while the removal of the Confederate battle flag from public display is not going to solve the most severe racial tensions that plague our nation and churches, those professing Christ are called to extend grace and put the consciences of others ahead of their own interests and actions."
That sounds like actual progress for an organization with a rich history in racism. But that history is not rich enough for some North Carolinian’s appetite. The following is a press release that should make everyone cringe. It comes from the SBC which I am not linking.
R. Kevin Stone North Carolina Division Commander Sons of Confederate Veterans
PRESS RELEASE
It is with sadness and regret that we, the North Carolina Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans have been informed of the Southern Baptist Convention's (“SBC”) resolution condemning the Confederate Battle Flag.
In the midst of the tragedies happening in this world, we are shocked and dismayed that an organization devoted to the cause of Christ would fall prey to political correctness and private vendettas. That the leaders of this once mighty people of God would allow themselves to be distracted from the work of Jesus Christ to arbitrarily malign the good name of the Confederate soldier fighting for freedom, is a heinous and sinful deed that will divide the people more than bring them together.
In a misguided attempt to attract and appease those that the church has yet to reach, the SBC cited that it is better to take down the Confederate Flag than have one soul refuse salvation. By their very action, the SBC has put a stumbling block before the masses with their sad attempt at political correctness.
We and our members belonging to the SBC, strongly oppose this resolution and the treasonous insult it is to the soldier who fought for freedom from Federal tyranny that we still face today. We will continue to seek all remedies to raise the banner that the proud Confederate soldier carried into battle and hold his name in honor.
Thanks for reading!