NORTH CAROLINA OPEN THREAD for Sunday, April 14, 2019
204th Weekly Edition
This is a weekly feature of North Carolina Blue. We hope this regular platform gives readers interested in North Carolina politics a place to share their knowledge, insight and inspiration as we work on taking back our state from some of the most extreme Republicans in the nation. Please join us every week as we try to Connect, Unite, Act with our North Carolina Daily Kos community. You can also join the discussion in four other weekly State Open Threads.
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CONCORD — Cabarrus County Sheriff Van Shaw was elected last year on a platform that promised his constituents he would continue to work closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport unlawful immigrants accused of crimes.
He is one of four sheriffs in the state who participates in 287(g), a partnership with ICE in which it delegates authority to the local agencies to perform federal immigration enforcement in their jurisdictions.
Today, at an annual public meeting that’s held in all 287(g) jurisdictions, Shaw said his county has some of the lowest violent and property crime rates in the state, according to the FBI – a fact he ascribed to 287(g) and other enforcement programs.
The nation is more than two years into its destructive dalliance with Trumpism, but new and toxic waves of regressive policy continue to ooze across the national landscape. For a recent and disturbing example in North Carolina, check out proposed legislation advanced by Republicans in the state House last week that would require all of the state’s 100 sheriff’s departments to act as an extension of Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).
As Policy Watch reporter Melissa Boughton explained a couple of weeks back, the legislation in question would remove the discretion that local sheriffs have traditionally exercised when it comes to honoring ICE “detainer” requests. As the story explained, an ICE detainer:
…is a request for local law enforcement to hold individuals they believe are not lawful citizens in jail or prison for up to 48 hours until the federal agency can take custody and begin deportation proceedings.
Detainers are not judicial orders signed by any court official, and they are not arrest warrants that require any kind of finding of probable cause. The individuals targeted by detainer requests are typically otherwise eligible for release from jail or prison.”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) --2/11/19 Federal officials in North Carolina say they have arrested hundreds of immigrants in the U.S. illegally this week after some local law agencies stopped cooperating with immigration enforcement.
The Charlotte Observer reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement regional director Sean Gallagher said Friday the arrests resulted from what he termed "the dangerous policies of not cooperating with ICE." Gallagher said actions by local law enforcement forced his officers to conduct more enforcement.
ICE officers have detained 200 people in North Carolina this week. Another 25 were detained at an arms manufacturer in Sanford.
Since December, new sheriffs in Mecklenburg and Wake counties have reversed a policy that notifies ICE about the legal status of inmates in county jails. The Durham County Sheriff's Office also ended the practice of honoring ICE detainers.
Propagandists do what propagandists do:
“This is not a march for Democrats. This is not a march for Republicans. This is a march for our future.” But almost as soon as the new protest was announced, critics attacked the decision.
The conservative Civitas Institute has questioned holding the event on May Day, a day associated with labor union events, and for using “Marxist symbolism” by having a red fist in logos promoting the event. “They want to be disruptive,” said Civitas president Donald Bryson. “It’s not about parents or students. It’s about bringing a socialist labor union movement to North Carolina. That’s why it’s on May 1.”
What Donald Bryson fails to mention, either because he knows it will undermine his argument or (more likely) because he just isn't smart enough to understand: It was a labor movement (Solidarity) that broke the Marxist choke hold on Poland back in the early 1980's, and ushered in democratic reforms that (for the most part) still hold today. If anything, it's people like Berger and Bryson who most resemblethose Communist Party leaders in Moscow and Gdańsk who saw the danger of losing their absolute power under such a movement.
The indications of long-term exposure should be very concerning:
Belcher’s team compared alligators from Lake Waccamaw in Columbus County and Greenfield Lake in Wilmington with the latter showing levels of total PFAS more than 10 times higher. They also compared striped bass from the Pamlico Aquaculture Field Laboratory and Lock and Dam No. 1 on the Cape Fear River, with the latter showing levels more than 33 times higher.
Researchers are now, Belcher said, looking at whether the PFAS are affecting the immune systems or liver functions of the animals sampled -- endpoints that have also been identified in humans. Partners in the team’s research include Cape Fear River Watch, N.C. Sea Grant and the N.C. PFAST Network.
Studies like this are extremely important, because right now there haven't been enough to meet the "statistically relevant" watermark for Federal agencies like the CDC to come to any conclusions. No doubt industry has played a role in that dearth of information, something leaders in our state need to get through their thick skulls. Self-regulating doesn't work, no matter how much money it saves from your budgeting. Back to the gators and fish(es):
Samples taken from a pair of alligators sampled in Greenfield Lake showed 419 parts per billion (ppb) and 167 ppb of PFAS, compared to numbers in the mid teens in 14 gators sampled from Lake Waccamaw. Researchers targeted 6-foot alligators, figuring those creatures would be 15 to 20 years old and have largely been in the similar area.
Researchers plan to take additional samples at Greenfield Lake as soon as the average daily temperature reaches 60 degrees -- likely around the end of April. Belcher said they are aiming for 20 to 40 more samples there, as well as some additional samples at Lake Waccamaw and from alligators on Bald Head Island.
For striped bass, samples from 63 bass at Lock and Dam No. 1 averaged more than 500 ppb of PFAS, while the Pamilico bass were -- like the Waccamaw gators -- in the mid teens.
“We were actually very surprised at seeing levels this consistently high,” Belcher said.
In the Cape Fear, GenX was detected in about 53 percent of striped bass, while Nafion byproduct 2 was found in 78 percent. The chemicals were not detected in the Pamlico population.
“They were unique to the Cape Fear River,” Belcher said. Both GenX and Nafion byproduct 2 are linked with Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility near the Bladen-Cumberland county line.
High Wind Warning in Western North Carolina 4/14/19
Alert area: Avery; Buncombe; Graham; Haywood; Macon; Madison; McDowell Mountains; Mitchell; Northern Jackson; Southern Jackson; Swain; Transylvania; Yancey
...HIGH WINDS POSSIBLE TODAY IN THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF THE
NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAINS...
.Gusty southerly to southwesterly winds around a strong surface
low associated with large upper storm system will likely affect
higher elevations today.
...HIGH WIND WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 PM EDT THIS
EVENING ABOVE 3500 FEET...
* LOCATIONS...Higher elevations of the North Carolina
mountains.
* HAZARDS...Very windy conditions.
* TIMING...Through this evening.
* WINDS...South 15 to 25 mph sustained. Gusts will primarily range
from 35 to 45 mph. However, gusts of 60 mph or more will be
possible on exposed peaks and high ridge tops. In addition,
heavy rain showers and thunderstorms this afternoon may bring
brief gusts of up to 60 mph to lower elevations.
* IMPACTS...Gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects.
Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may
result.
Recommended actions
A High Wind Warning means a hazardous high wind event is expected
or occurring. Sustained wind speeds of at least 40 mph or gusts
of 58 mph or more can lead to property damage.
Please report damaging winds by calling the National Weather
Service toll free at...1...800...2 6 7...8 1 0 1. Leave a message
with your observation and the specific location where it
occurred. You can also post your report to National Weather
Service Greenville Spartanburg Facebook or tweet your report
using hashtag nwsgsp.
Be safe out there!