Jerimee's blog

Today over 700 people took to the streets in downtown Raleigh to protest the specter of segregation raised by Republican members of the Wake County School Board.

This public mass non-violent demonstration led by the NC NAACP formed against the dismantling of the nationally acclaimed socio-economic student assignment plan by the new anti-diversity caucus of the Wake County Board of Education. Marchers demanded that Wake County Schools and all school districts in North Carolina provide a constitutional, high quality, well-funded, diverse school for every child.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable on energy or water but clearly something ain't right here.

The NRA leadership, far removed and unaccountable to their members, is one of the strongest opponents of the Democratic party up and down the ticket.

The fact that they co-opt some Democratic officials just makes them that much more dangerous to our party's success.

As an Elaine Marshall supporter, I'm jealous that corporate lawyer Cal Cunningham was able to win the endorsement of Ann Worthy, who got 4% of the vote in the open Senate primary. No doubt Worthy would have received a greater share of the vote without the inappropriate involvement of the DSCC.

However, Cunningham's campaign paired Worthy's endorsement along side the endorsement of Susan Harris, an arch-conservative from Western NC. This is a strange endorsement for Cunningham to seek out, and seek out he must have, for Susan Harris is something of a recluse.

Senator Burr could have defined himself as a Republican moderate, instead he embraced right wing extremism by paling around with the likes of Art Pope and Tim D'Annunzio and by announcing that it is impossible to "for any candidate to get to the right of me."

Ken Lewis, a progressive candidate running for the Democratic nomination to defeat Sen. Richard Burr, has called upon the members of the North Carolina Banking Commission to be accountable for their approval of bank bonuses in 2009.

As our economy collapsed, in large part due to the irresponsibility of banks and bank regulators, the NC Banking Commission approved massive cash bonuses for industry executives. Only because of leadership from the North Carolina General Assembly were those who lead our economy off a cliff not rewarded for doing so.

Cal Cunningham has sought to escape accountability for his vote to approve bonuses for bankers. Both he and his senior strategist Scott Falmlen are members of the NC Banking Commission. Not only was Cunningham present on the call, his senior strategist was the first to move for approval of the bonuses.

You know who Americans for Prosperity are right? They tried to privatize social security, tried to defeat health care, supported segregation in Wake County, helped to organize the Tea Party (mostly by paying people), etc. etc.

When Dallas Woodhouse goes around the state attacking workers, government, and everything in between, he likes to describe himself as a "Civil Rights leader." Maybe he went to school in Texas or doesn't know what people had to endure to earn that title, but that's what he calls himself and I'll let him wear his Napoleon hat if it makes him happy.

Any rate, he has made an endorsement in North Carolina's Democratic Senate Primary!

http://americansforprosperity.org/040910-americans-prosperity-praises-ca...

Americans for Prosperity Praises Cal Cunningham's Brave Stand for Worker Rights

North Carolinians have been warning out of state folks for months that Cal Cunningham isn’t the progressive savior his DC-run campaign would claim. Never has that been more obvious than today when he flip-flopped on EFCA.

AP - http://www.wlos.com/template/inews_wire/wires.regional.nc/3e9e54c7-www.wlos.com.shtml

Cal Cunningham said in an interview with The Associated Press that he supports elections as the sole way for there to be unions created, but opposed so-called "card check" organizing. He clarified in a later interview that he would be open to hearing arguments about "card check" but felt it could not pass. The labor-backed idea would allow workers to form a union by signing cards instead of by secret ballot.

If you can suffer through the puppetshow at the beginning, there is a nice short BlueNC shout out in the middle of this Stateline article.

http://cms.stateline.org/working/details/story?contentId=473783

Making room in the statehouse press tent
By Melissa Maynard, Stateline.org Staff Writer

In the mid-90s, a reporter from the Carolina Journal Online was briefly admitted and then ejected from the North Carolina statehouse press corps, which issues the passes. A legislator had complained that the news outlet’s parent organization, the John Locke Foundation, had partisan conservative leanings and its primary purpose wasn’t gathering news.

Lake Research is showing Secretary of State Elaine Marshall with a double-digit lead:

The Lake Research Partners poll shows her [Elaine Marshall] with 31 percent support, compared to 5 percent for Cal Cunningham, 4 percent for Ken Lewis, 3 percent for Marcus Williams and 1 percent for John Hendrix. However, 56 percent of the voters are undecided.

General election polls show Elaine is the best candidate to challenge Burr in November. In a head to head match-ups Elaine performs better than her DC backed rival. Those familiar with both the Secretary of State and Senate Burr prefer Elaine 5 to 4.

Young Democrats are working hard as part of Secretary of State Elaine Marshall's campaign to unseat Richard Burr.

Elaine is a previous Young Democrats of North Carolina (YDNC) National Committee Woman and is the former National Secretary of Young Democrats of America (YDA). 

She was one of the first Board of Trustee members for YDNC. She assisted YDNC in expanding our Board of Trustees and has spoken in support of the Young Democrats at fundraising events. She has been a constant presence at YDNC, College Democrats, and Teen Democratic events. In 2009 she spoke at the YDNC convention, and keynoted the Teen Democrats yearly meeting.

More importantly, her work as Secretary of State has improved the lives and increased the opportunities for young people.

cross posted with permission for the Institute for Southern Studies

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is fighting an electric substation that Duke Energy plans to build near Kituwah, the site of a sacred mound near the Tuckasegee River in western North Carolina. Kituwah (in photo below) is considered the Cherokee mother town, believed to have been inhabited for nearly 10,000 years and long used as a center for religious rituals.

A discussion of the substation project is scheduled to be on the agenda at tonight's meeting of the Swain County Commission in Bryson City, N.C. On February 4, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Tribal Council passed a resolution formally opposing the project, which will disrupt the view of the mountains surrounding the sacred site. The substation would be only about 200 yards from Kituwah.

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Our business will focus on peddling influence to foreign interests who were barred from contributing to U.S. political campaigns until the Supreme Court's recent Citizens United v. FEC decision.

Today James O'Keefe and other prominent GOP activists were arrested by the FBI for attempting to bug Sen. Mary Landrieu's federal office in New Orleans.

More than ever before, the people of Haiti desperately need your help.

The Institute for Southern Studies has launched NC Haiti Action, a campaign to mobilize the North Carolina community to raise at least $1,000 in 24 hours for critical medical and other relief. Join North Carolina and the Institute in providing much needed assistance to the people of Haiti.