Tag Archives: North Carolina

May 1, 2013 · 5:22 PM

Ohio Republicans Want To Punish Colleges That Enable Students To Vote

Another outrageous GOP policy…

Think Progress

In 1979, the Supreme Court affirmed a decision holding that state cannot place unique burdens on college student votes that do not apply to other members of the electorate. Nevertheless, Ohio Republicans now want to punish state universities that encourage students to cast a ballot. Under a budget amendment filed by Republicans in the Ohio House, state universities that provide documents enabling students to register to vote in their college town, rather than in the state where their parents reside, will be forbidden from charging those students out-of-state tuition. Thus, the amendment would effectively reduce the funding of state schools that assist their students in registering to vote.

This is the second GOP attempt to restrict college students from voting in just the past month. About a month ago, a North Carolina Republican lawmaker filed a bill that would raise taxes on families with college students if the student registers to vote at school rather than in their parents’ hometown.

It’s not difficult to guess why Republicans support these — and other — efforts to make it harder for college students to cast a ballot. As former New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien (R) said when explaining his support for measures to make it harder to vote, “the kids coming out of the schools and basically doing what I did when I was a kid, which is voting as a liberal. That’s what kids do.”

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April 3, 2013 · 12:38 PM

Eleven North Carolina Republicans Sponsor Resolution Saying Their State Can Ignore The Constitution

Apparently they’re taking issue with the First and Fourteenth Amendments…

Think Progress

The Constitution “does not grant the federal government and does not grant the federal courts the power to determine what is or is not constitutional” according to a resolution sponsored by North Carolina House Majority Leader Edgar Starnes (R) and ten of his fellow Republicans — a statement that puts them at odds with over 200 years of constitutional law. In light of this novel reading of the Constitution, Starnes and his allies also claim that North Carolina is free to ignore the Constitution’s ban on government endorsement of religion:

SECTION 1. The North Carolina General Assembly asserts that the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

SECTION 2. The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools, or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

This resolution is nothing less than an effort to repudiate the result of the Civil War. As the resolution correctly notes, the First Amendment merely provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” and, indeed, the Bill of Rights was originally understood to only place limits on the federal government. For the earliest years of the Republic, the Bill of Rights were not really “rights” at all, but were instead guidelines on which powers belonged to central authorities and which ones remained exclusively in the hands of state lawmakers.

In 1868, however the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified for the express purpose of changing this balance of power. While the early Constitution envisioned “rights” as little more than a battle between central and local government, the Fourteenth Amendment ushered in a more modern understanding. Under this amendment, “[n]o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States,” nor may any state “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Fourteenth Amendment completely transformed the nature of the American Republic, from one where liberties were generally protected — if at all — by tensions between competing governments to one which recognized that there are certain liberties that cannot be abridged by any government.

There is some academic debate about whether the architects of the Fourteenth Amendment intended the freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights to be applied to the states because these liberties are part of the “privileges or immunities” of U.S. citizens, or because they are liberties that cannot be denied under the Constitution’s “due process” guarantees. Regardless of the correct answer to this academic question, however, one of the most important judicial projects of the Twentieth Century was a series of Supreme Court decisions applying most of the Bill of Rights’ limits to state governments. This project completed the work the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment began nearly 150 year ago — reconstructing America as a nation that recognizes certain civil rights which no lawmaker is allowed to trample. The right to be free from government endorsements of religious is one of these civil rights.

So when Starnes and his colleagues lash out against this one freedom, they are not simply lashing out against some court decisions that they disagree with. They are rejecting the most transformative moment in American constitutional history and denying that their side lost the Civil War.

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March 13, 2013 · 9:40 AM

Wednesday Blog Roundup – 3-12-2013

Guess Who?
It seems we’re going to find out the identity of the person who took the 47% …

The Day In 100 Seconds
“Ryan Budget 3.0″ Full-size version…

Ryan’s unfortunate slip
Jed Lewison catches House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) delivering…

A voter ID battle in North Carolina
Elections have consequences. In North Carolina, which elected Republican….

Senator’s ‘aggressive’ airport pat-down
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, talks to CNN about the “aggressive” pat-down…

Town Rejects Mandatory Gun Ownership
Should every homeowner in America be required to own a firearm?  A few towns across…

Racist Right converges on first lady on Twitter
So yesterday, first lady Michelle Obama had a question and answer thing on Twitter…

The Morning Plum: Don’t let Paul Ryan skate this time
In the movie Groundhog Day, the character played by Bill Murray leaves his hotel…

CPAC dress code: Leave your whore clothes at home, ladies
Click to see the full infographic Are you busily packing for your big exciting trip ..

Sources: NRA won’t oppose background check deal – if Democrats cede to..
Senators negotiating a bill mandating background checks for all gun buyers are priva..

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October 6, 2012 · 2:37 AM

West Wing Week: 10/05/12 or “Operation Educate the Educators”

The White House

Welcome to the West Wing Week, your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

This week, the White House and The Treasury hosted events highlighting innovative apps, we travel with Dr. Biden to events in Washington and Virginia and the White House Blue Room Christmas tree is selected in North Carolina.

That’s September 28th to October 5th or “Operation Educate the Educators”.

 

Friday, September 28th:

  • We headed down the block to 1500 Pennsylvania Ave., and the Department of the Treasury for our latest installment of Tech Nation. There, the winners of MyMoneyAppUp, a contest for mobile app ideas and designs that help Americans make smart financial choices, were announced.
Monday, October 1st:
Tuesday, October 2nd:
  • The White House Grounds Superintendent and Supervisor Horticulturalist traveled to Jefferson, NC, to select the official White House Christmas tree that will stand in the blue room during this year’s holiday season.
  • That evening, English professor Dr. Jill Biden attended “Do the Write Thing,” an event in Washington, hosted by 826 National – a network of nonprofit writing and tutoring centers co-founded by author Dave Eggers.
Wednesday, October 3rd:
  • Dr. Biden celebrated a milestone in “Operation Educate the Educators,” at George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia.  More than 100 colleges and universities have now signed on to the Joining Forces commitment that will help prepare educators to lead classrooms and develop school cultures that are more responsive to the social emotional and academic needs of children in military families

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September 14, 2012 · 11:13 AM

15% of Ohio Republicans Believe Romney Deserves More Credit For Killing Bin Laden

Are Americans that dumbed-down?

(This article was supposed to be published a few days ago.  However, I just found it in the recent drafts area.  It’s still worth publishing.  It says a lot about our populous…)

Voice4America

According to a recent poll done by Public Policy Polling, 15% of Ohio Republicans Believe Mitt Romney Deserves More Credit For Killing Osama Bin Laden than President Obama. The poll also shows that 47% of Ohio Republicans are not sure of who deserves more credit, either President Obama or Mitt Romney. This shows that an alarming 62% of Ohio Republicans either believe Romney deserves credit for killing Bin Laden or are not sure.

Ohio Republicans

The disparity continues when the results from North Carolina are reviewed. Among North Carolina Republicans, 15% say Romney deserves more credit while 56% are unsure. This means that 71% of North Carolina Republicans either believe Romney deserves credit for killing Bin Laden or are not sure.

NC Republicans

If you believe that this is too ridiculous to be true, the poll results can be found here on Public Policy Polling

The results were also featured on MSNBC
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June 1, 2012 · 12:15 AM

James O’Keefe Scams Voter Fraud and Voter ID Laws Into Existence

The Nation

I told myself I wasn’t going to write about James O’Keefe, mostly because his sophomoric pranks are mostly for the net effect of making his pockets fat. He has his hands out, and I’m not trying to help him get paid. I no more want to discuss voting by reference of O’Keefe than I want to write about Middle East affairs by reference of Sacha Baron Cohen in The Dictator.

But his influence on voting rights opponents and legislators alike is particularly jarring. When you hear activists and state senators say we need voter ID laws because of voter fraud, instead of citing data, or even anecdotes, lately they’ve been citing O’Keefe. When I was in Houston at the True the Vote conference I was hardly surprised when the audience erupted in applause as O’Keefe took the podium. You would’ve thought Tim Tebow entered the room. And sure enough, he presented one of his “Project Veritas” videos of himself telling unsuspecting poll workers in Minnesota that he wanted to register “Timothy Tebow” to vote before given a stack of voter registration applications.

See? There is how fraud happens, O’Keefe told the crowd. What was surprising was that no one dared to speak up that no fraud had actually happened. What was O’Keefe’s point in showing this? Yes, it’s true. Someone can fill out a registration card with a fictitious name and address. It’s also true that election officials will verify that the person on the registration card exists, and toss those that don’t. Before that happens, if the person or party handling the registration cards finds something fishy—a dubious name or sketchy address—they’ll often report it to election officials themselves if they don’t discard it, as what ACORN did, contrary to popular opinion. But no crime has been committed, and photo voter ID laws wouldn’t prevent such registration problems anyway.

But O’Keefe isn’t looking for veritas or accuracy—he just needs the perception that something fishy is going on so that he can direct you to his page and have you contribute to his fairy tale fund. That’s how hustles work. Right now, on his website he invites people to fork over the dollars because “Our work in North Carolina as draining on our staff and funds—but we produced jaw-droppiong [sic] results once again!”

Continue reading here…

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April 28, 2012 · 8:19 AM

West Wing Week: 4/27/12 or “Don’t Double My Rate!”

The White House

Welcome to the West Wing Week, your guide to everything that’s happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. This week, the President hosted the Wounded Warrior Project’s Soldier Ride, visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and traveled to North Carolina, Colorado and Iowa to launch a sustained effort to get Congress to prevent interest rates on student loans from doubling on July 1st. That’s April 20th to April 26th or “Don’t Double My Rate!”

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March 11, 2012 · 12:18 AM

West Wing Week 3-9-2012 or “Speak Softly; Carry a Big Stick”

The White House Blog

This week, President Obama addressed both the Conservation and AIPAC conferences and sat down with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, Prime Minister Al-Keeb of Libya, and President Mills of Ghana. He also hosted a White House news conference, announced steps the administration is taking to support homeowners, and traveled to the Daimler Mount Holly Truck Plant in North Carolina.

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January 30, 2012 · 3:24 AM

All In Favor Of Public Hangings, Say “Aye”

As usual Mario Piperni sees things more clearly and logically than the Republicans he draws in his illustrations.   He writes about their weird and sometimes crazy antics and depicts it perfectly with his drawings.

There’s no secret that I am a die-hard Piperni fan.  Here’s yet another example…

Mario Piperni

From the compassionate conservative wing of the Republican party, Rep. Larry Pittman of North Carolina  speaks out .

“We need to make the death penalty a real deterrent again by actually carrying it out. Every appeal that can be made should have to be made at one time, not in a serial manner,” Pittman wrote in the email. “If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well.”

How long before execution by guillotine for liberals and atheists is proposed by Republicans?

The surprise or concern is not that wingnut politicians say stuff like this. Republicans have been running on CRAZY for a while now. No, the real worry should be that enough Americans voted for this guy to get him elected.

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October 21, 2011 · 12:56 AM

The Untold Story Of The Actual Obama Record

I like this…

 Andrew Sullivan – The Dish

I can’t put it better than this longtime Dish reader:

Personally, I am praying that Obama’s messaging improves drastically. (It has failed on multiple occasions – not the least of which was during August/September of 2008.)

The truth is that this President has done a good job in what has been one of the most difficult periods of modern history.

  • He saved the economy from ruin (until the Tea Party took over Congress) with a stimulus that was as large as possible given the political realities,
  • presided over a stock market that fairly quickly recouped many of its losses,
  • presided over almost consecutive monthly increases in private sector job growth (unfortunately balanced by monthly decreases in public sector jobs which I attribute to the GOP further starving government),
  • enacted the only meaningful healthcare reform ever in our history,
  • passed financial reform (no matter what the Left says, he did this),
  • saved the auto industry (which Romney is on record opposing),
  • fired the first salvo of the Arab Spring with his address in Cairo no less,
  •  drawn down our footprint in Iraq in a responsible way (and headed toward almost total withdrawal),
  • stopped numerous terrorist attacks in this country,
  • stopped torture as policy,
  • repealed DADT,
  • joined the international community in a measured and responsible way to bring down an odious tyrant in Qaddafi,
  • and killed a whole generation of al Qaeda leaders.
  • And taking out Osama bin Laden the way he did will go down as one of the bravest military actions in American history.

I know this President is not popular, and it is very unpopular to defend him in such a way. I don’t care. For this country to dump him for anyone on the other side would be a terrible thing. Progress is slow and painful, but we are doing it. Is that fashionable to say? No. Again, I don’t care.

Amen. And the way in which the ADD media simply jumps to the next cycle of spinmanship only furthers the amnesia. But the Obama administration also shares some of the blame.

Many of them have been too focused on governing to explain what the fuck they’re doing. There’s a technocratic arrogance to them at times that is too blind to winning and sustaining arguments and narratives. And this is kinda mind-blowing because the record is so remarkable in retrospect.

If you’d told me in January 2009 that the banks would pay us back the entire bailout and then some, that the auto companies would actually turn around with government help and be a major engine of recovery, that there would be continuous job growth since 2009, however insufficient, after the worst demand collapse since the 1930s, that bin Laden would be dead, Egypt transitioning to democracy, al Qaeda all but decimated as a global threat, and civil rights for gays expanding more rapidly than at any time in history … well I would be expecting a triumphant re-election campaign.

But we are where we are – and the economic pain is real and the president must take his lumps. The good news for those of us who still back Obama and hope for his re-election is that even with all this positive record essentially dismissed and little of it capitalized on politically, Obama is still neck and neck with any likely opponent. And he is his own best messenger.

At some point, he needs to shuck off the restraint, and tell the actual story of the last three years – against the fantastic and self-serving lies and delusions we keep hearing in Republican debates and Beltway chatter. If he does it with panache, he won’t need a jumpsuit onto an aircraft carrier. And many of his missions may even be accomplished.

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