scharrison's blog

NC GOP in hot water with FEC over Mark Meadows spending

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Being a money launderer can be complicated:

This letter is prompted by the Commission's preliminary review of the report referenced above. This notice requests information essential to full public disclosure of your federal election campaign finances. Failure to adequately respond by the response date noted above could result in enforcement action. Additional information is needed for the following 1 item(s):-

The limitation on making coordinated party expenditures on behalf of a House candidate in the State of North Carolina for the 2018 general election is $49,700. Your reports, however, disclose apparent coordinated party expenditures made on behalf of "Meadows, Mark" totaling $85,512.30, which appear to exceed the limitations under 52 U.S.C. §30116 (d) ( formerly 2 U.S.C. §441a(d))

Those expenditures were made in several lumps over a two day period, and it looks like they were for television ads. Which of course he didn't need, because his District (11) had been gerrymandered into an R+14 nightmare. Meaning, this money was likely given to the NC GOP specifically for Meadows, by somebody trying to dodge campaign contribution limitations, giving us one more good reason to totally revamp that system.

GOP bill seeks to undo Obama racial equality in schools effort

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Increasing flow in the school-to-prison pipeline:

A bill to repeal local school policies put in place during the Obama administration to address racial disparities in school discipline passed the state Senate Thursday.

In 2014, the federal government sent guidance to school systems around the country, noting wide disparities in suspension and expulsion rates for black students versus white students. Disparities in North Carolina are among the country's highest. Nearly 150 out of every 1,000 black students were suspended from North Carolina schools in 2015-16 compared with 44 white students out of 1,000.

It's no coincidence these stats look eerily similar to incarceration rates for African-Americans, not to mention police shootings. It stems from an unwarranted fear of the dangers posed by young black males, and society's willingness to just throw them away. And frankly, when the damn sponsor of a bill can only provide nonsense like this to justify such a policy shift, it should have never made it out of Committee:

Richard Burr warned Trump lawyer about Mueller targets

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CMPD's "De-escalation" training criticized in public meeting

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Officer who killed Danquirs Franklin had not received that training yet:

Some who spoke at the church, about a mile from the Burger King where Franklin was shot, said that compliance with police officers is the foremost way to avoid situations like his death. But Sevone Rhynes told Putney that there was no room for Franklin to do so.

“We do not get the opportunity to comply,” he said. “When black people in this country have our humanity recognized, acknowledged and respected, it is only then that de-escalation is going to work.” Deirdre Moss, meanwhile, said there would have been no way for Franklin to have complied without causing Kerl to shoot him. “When can a person in that situation make the right movement that won’t get them killed?” she said.

And again we are faced with a situation that would have been vastly different had this man been white. Police would have talked to him for hours if necessary to avoid taking that shot, even if said white man actually pointed a gun at them. But for a black man, even the possibility he has a gun is a death sentence. I've watched the video several times, and I don't believe he was about to shoot anybody. I will post it below the fold so you can make your own decision. But as I mentioned above, picture a white man doing this and ask yourself what would have happened:

Two bills dealing with Rape are no-brainers

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And if they are buried in committee we won't just acquiesce:

North Carolina is the only state in the country where continuing a sex act after being told to stop is not a crime due to a decades-old legal precedent. And while the law says sex with an incapacitated person is rape, a court precedent more than a decade old says the law doesn’t apply if the victim caused his or her own incapacitation through drinking or drug use.

The two bills that would change the pair of legal precedents have so far not had a formal committee hearing, but that could change after the legislature’s spring break.

Probably not the time or place to have this particular discussion, but we're going to have it anyway: Sexual intercourse is (of course) the most intimate stage of a relationship, but it's also extremely hormonal in nature. People react differently under that physiological change, and not always for the better. This provides new information to each of the individuals taking part, and what seemed like a great idea fifteen minutes ago can become repulsive fairly quickly. A good analogy might be: You want to cross the road, and the only car you see is a half-mile away. But as you step out, you realize that car is going faster than you thought, so you decide to wait. Should you be forced to cross anyway, because you initially thought it was safe? Of course not, because you have the freedom to change your mind. And so should women who have previously given consent for sex. And as for the drug and/or alcohol situation:

Tuesday Twitter roundup

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The never-ending battle continues:

In case you haven't been paying attention, women are slowly (but surely) losing this war. If you're a state (or Federal) candidate and women's reproductive freedom is not in your top five platform issues, you need to do some re-arranging. Pronto.

Suburban (white) sheriffs welcome ICE with open arms

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Protecting the upper-middle-class snowflakes:

Van Shaw, a Republican and career investigator elected last fall, keeps receiving thousands of dollars from Immigration and Customs Enforcement for his office to hold immigrant detainees in the Cabarrus County jail. And last year, he sent 83 inmates to ICE through 287(g), a long-held partnership that enables sheriff’s deputies to carry out immigration enforcement.

It’s a stark contrast from most of North Carolina’s biggest counties, where newly elected African-American sheriffs have loudly cut their ties with the federal agency. But Shaw is bucking the trend.

Of course he's "bucking the trend." It's Cabarrus County, which has (repeatedly) sent that embarrassingly bigoted moron Larry Pittman to the General Assembly. I was going to say I've only met a few people actually from Cabarrus County, but it might be more, because the ones I know for sure told me they lived "near Charlotte" a few times before the truth came out. I probably don't have any moral high-ground to continue Cabarrus-bashing (as fun as it might be), because I live in Alamance County. Anybody who follows immigrant issues knows why that is equally embarrassing, but being the total disclosure kind of guy that I am, here's just a taste:

Civitas deploys "Red Scare" tactics (again) over teacher rally

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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 resemble those Communist Party leaders in Moscow and Gdańsk who saw the danger of losing their absolute power under such a movement. But Mark Jewell gets it:

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