This doesn't happen by accident, it's a systemic problem:

13 – North Carolina has the 13th largest prison population in the country

37,104 – The number of people in prison in North Carolina as of May 2018

1 in 40 – The number of Black men in North Carolina who were imprisoned as of 2016

52.9 percent – While Black people made up only 21.5 percent of the state’s adult population in 2016, they accounted for more than half (52.9%) of the state’s prison population

That's roughly 18,550 black North Carolinians behind bars, and the vast majority of them are there for non-violent crimes. And with the penny-pinching associated with public defender funding, many of those currently incarcerated have legitimate Constitutional concerns about their treatment. But I'll let the public defenders themselves explain why that's wrong:

No more yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater:

Twitter has permanently banned the accounts of right-wing conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones and InfoWars for violating the company's abusive behavior policies, the company said Thursday. The ban appears to be related to a heated exchange between Jones and a CNN reporter Wednesday, which Jones live-streamed on the Twitter-owned video service Periscope.

"We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts' past violations," the company said in a series of tweets. "We wanted to be open about this action given the broad interest in this case."

You can place me firmly in the "good job" column on this. Usually not a big fan of censorship, but Jones has proven himself a danger to the public, especially after the crazy "Pizzagate" incident where an (of course) NC citizen grabbed his guns and assaulted a DC restaurant looking for an imaginary child sex operation. Unfortunately, Jones is not a "Lone" nut-job. A lot of the more dangerous elements in the White Supremacy crowd are incubated on virtually unregulated platforms like 4Chan, and I was pleased my local newspaper reprinted this deep dive on the subject originally published by WaPo:

And that is exactly what Republicans are hoping for:

A new poll from Elon University asked registered voters around the state about the six proposed constitutional amendments that will be on the ballot this year. The result: Most people don’t know much about the amendments, and in some cases people think the amendments would have the opposite effect of what they would really do.

“It seems to me that a lot of voters are going to be making a permanent decision that could impact North Carolina for decades to come, based on pretty limited information,” said Jason Husser, the director of the Elon Poll.

It's that "opposite effect" thing that really gets under my skin. Republicans have mastered the art of rhetorical misdirection, as was clearly demonstrated by the campus "free speech" act that punished students for speaking in opposition to right-wingers. Here are the numbers:

Putting the workers first:

Happy #LaborDay! I’m proud to be endorsed by two great groups @SEANC2008 and @NCStateAFLCIO who advocate for the concerns of working North Carolinians.

We must continue prioritizing fair wages, good jobs, consumer protections and workers’ rights #ncpol pic.twitter.com/yJ9zs93zrk

— Natasha Marcus (@NatashaMarcusNC) September 4, 2018

We need to carry these themes all the way to the November election.

He can't understand it of course, but it seems wrong for some reason:

President Trump suggested Friday that there is “something wrong” with a recent decision by a three-judge federal panel in North Carolina that ruled the state’s congressional map was an illegal partisan gerrymander.

“I think it’s unfair with this whole redistricting thing they’re doing in North Carolina,” Mr. Trump told supporters in a Charlotte ballroom. “It’s very unfair you have an election in a little more than 60 days, and they change the district on you? And you’ve gone through primaries.” North Carolina’s population is closely divided between the parties, but the map drawn by the GOP-controlled Legislature produced a 10-to-3 Republican advantage among its U.S. House seats. The court raised the possibility that the state’s 13 districts could be redrawn for the midterm elections. “There has to be something wrong on this,” he added. “I know you guys are working on it.”

Okay, first of all, only one of those "guys" is actually in Congress, the other is a bible-thumping wannabe. But even the guy in Congress really has no standing, because redistricting is done by the state, not the federal government. You know what, I'm just going to stop right there, because arguing with Trump is about as pointless as predicting which way the squirrel will dash when he senses a car approaching. Even when he's almost all the way across the road, that doesn't mean he won't change his mind and run right under your wheel.