COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST NC GOP SPURS DALLAS TO WAIL ABOUT "POLICE POWERS": The North Carolina Democratic Party asked Attorney General Josh Stein’s office to investigate a recorded call state Republican Party Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse made to registered Republicans seeking candidates for office. The attorney general’s consumer division sent the state GOP a letter Wednesday asking for a response to the complaint and proposed resolution. Stein and the Democratic Party are trying to intimidate Republicans, Woodhouse said. They “attempted to use the full weight and police powers of the North Carolina Department of Justice to intimidate its rival political party, the Republicans, from making calls to voters and asking them to run for office,” Woodhouse said. Laura Brewer, Stein’s spokeswoman, said Woodhouse is overreacting. “There is no merit to any of these hysterical claims,” she said in an email.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article201895974.html

GOP FACES ANOTHER LAWSUIT OVER FOUR WAKE COUNTY DISTRICTS: Attorneys for the state NAACP, League of Women Voters, Democracy North Carolina, the A. Philip Randolph Institute and four named voters want the courts to change four Wake County districts back to what they looked like in 2011. That was before the GOP majority was forced to redraw the state's House and Senate election maps in a federal case brought by much the same legal team and which found racial gerrymanders in a number of districts statewide. The plaintiffs' lawyers in that case argued repeatedly that Republican legislators violated the North Carolina Constitution in that redraw because they changed district lines they didn't have to. Absent a court order, the state constitution forbids redrawing districts more than once a decade, a process undertaken after the U.S. census produces new population numbers. Attorneys argued Republican leaders didn't have to redraw the four Wake County House districts targeted in this latest case to address the previous racial gerrymander. Those four districts are 36, 37, 40 and 41.
http://www.wral.com/injunction-sought-could-delay-legislative-primaries-in-wake/17360781/

CONSERVATIVE DOTARD DEVELOPS USELESS SOLUTION FOR SCHOOL SHOOTINGS: In the wake of a shooting in Florida that left 17 high school students dead, a North Carolina legislator is encouraging people to report suspicious behavior – even if it means defying what he called the “PC police.” State Sen. Ronald Rabin, a Republican from Harnett County, is worried some people won’t report suspicious behavior because they’re afraid of being seen as insensitive, he said in a Facebook post and interview Monday. "All Must call! The problem is that the politically correct police make it a “no-no” to say anything that may hurt feelings or offend anyone in any way,” Rabin posted. He continued: “Folks be alert, watch and report. Law enforcement react. This is the best deterrent to these acts of violence. Do not let the unidentified, ubiquitous PC Police interfere with stopping these heinous acts.”
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/under-the-dome/article20...

NO FREE RIDES IN 2018 ELECTION: There is one very important reason. Every candidate, particularly incumbents, should be forced to account for their actions and views. There is no better way than through election campaigns with persistent candidates who make their views known, contrast them with their opponents’ and force the opposing candidates to explain for themselves. While some may want to keep interest in elections low to keep voters away from the polls, contested campaigns generate participation and increase turnout. That is a good thing. It is one of the great strengths of American democracy and a virtue of regular and frequent elections. When nearly half the state legislature arrives in office without any accountability to the voters, it inevitably leads to excesses and abuses of power – the kinds that have been clogging our courts for the last seven years. In the United States, the most power is in the hands of each citizen through their vote. Don’t be relinquished to the sidelines. Don’t let others take your say away from you.
http://www.wral.com/editorial-no-free-rides-in-2018-elections/17334348/

FOX NEWS' CONSERVATIVE PARROT TUCKER CARLSON TO LECTURE UNC JOURNALISM STUDENTS: Fox News TV commentator Tucker Carlson will be the featured speaker in a distinguished lecture series at the UNC School of Media and Journalism in April – a choice that has drawn scorn on social media. “This makes me want to turn my diploma around to face the wall,” Leslie Cohig Gura chimed in. The criticism comes at a time when ideological balance and free speech are hotly debated topics on U.S. campuses, including the passage of a campus free speech law by the state legislature and a new policy by the UNC Board of Governors. The policy calls for public universities to punish those who substantially disrupt campus speakers.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article200375894.html