Cops Invade Neighborhood Party…Fun Ensues

Courtesy and a bit of humanity go a lot further in policing the community than “tough guy” approaches. Now that isn’t always possible – but when it happens, it does a lot to build trust and respect.

I know I paste a fair amount about bad cops – but there are a lot of good guys out there too.

North Carolina Cops Respond To Party Complaint, Ride A Giant Waterslide Instead

These officers didn’t break up the party. They joined it.

It’s never any fun when police officers show up to your Fourth of July party. That is, unless giant waterslides are involved.

Officers Carrie Lee and Joe Jones of Asheville, North Carolina, took a ride down a homemade slip-and-slide on Sunday after responding to complaints that the slide was blocking the road, according to the Charlotte Observer.

The officers reported to the block party to assess the danger, but once they determined there was no problem, they decided to join in on the fun.

“The first thing I said [was], ‘I’m not here to come break up your fun,’” Lee said she told partygoers, according to a video tweeted by the Asheville Police Department.

That’s when Lee made the call to ride down the slide, which was built on a hill in the neighborhood. According to the officers, Lee put on a trash bag and scooted herself down the water slide.

“When the female officer asked for a garbage bag, we almost didn’t believe it. But she took off her radio and went for it!” Katlen Joyce Smith, a resident who was at the party, told ABC News. “They told us to have a great day, posed for some pictures and thanked us for the fun!”

Knowing he couldn’t fit in a trash bag as easily as Lee could, Jones thought their mission was complete. Then the neighborhood kids brought out a large inflatable raft.

“I’m too big to fit in a trash bag so I was like, ‘I’m getting out of it,’” Jones explained. “But then the kids pulled out this big raft, and so I had no choice.”

Jones took his place in the raft along with a neighborhood kid and, with more weight, the two slid easily down the hill and landed in a small pool.

 

Why the Evil Cabal of Rethugs Have to Go – NC Senate Cuts Funding to Democrat District Schools

Rethughy Majority in North Carolina goes after the children in Democrat Districts…

 

Supreme Court Rejects North Carolina Discriminatory Voting Law

0 for 4, it looks that NC Racist Republican led Legislature is out of luck… again.

Up Next is the North Carolina Racist Republican Gerrymandering of districts.

Likely up by this fall is the legality of stripping Education Funding from Democrat and minority districts.

Supreme Court won’t review decision that found N.C. voting law discriminates against African Americans

The Supreme Court will not consider reinstating North Carolina’s 2013 voting law that a lower court ruled discriminated against African American voters, the justices said Monday.

A unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit had found in 2016 that North Carolina legislators had acted “with almost surgical precision” to blunt the influence of African American voters.

Although Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took pains to note that the court’s decision did not reach the merits of the case, Democrats, civil rights groups and minority groups celebrated the demise of the law. It was one of numerous voting-rights changes passed by Republican-led legislatures in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision striking down a key section of the Voting Rights Act that effectively removed federal oversight of states with a history of discrimination.

“This is a huge victory for voters and a massive blow to Republicans trying to restrict access to the ballot, especially in communities of color,” said Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez.

The appeals court did not allow the law to be used in the 2016 election, and voters replaced Republican governor Pat McCrory with Democrat Roy Cooper.

Cooper and the state’s new Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein told the Supreme Court they did not want to appeal the lower court’s decision that the law violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.

“We need to be making it easier to vote, not harder — and the court found this law sought to discriminate against African-American voters with ‘surgical precision,’ ” Cooper said in a statement after the Supreme Court acted. “I will continue to work to protect the right of every legal, registered North Carolinian to participate in our democratic process.

As is its custom, the justices did not give a reason for declining to review the lower court’s decision. But in an accompanying statement, Roberts noted the particular circumstances of the appeal, in which the Republican legislative leadership attempted to continue the appeal and the Democratic governor and attorney general sought to abandon it.

“Given the blizzard of filings over who is and who is not authorized to seek review in this court under North Carolina law, it is important to recall our frequent admonition that ‘the denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case,’” Roberts wrote.

Last summer Roberts and the court’s other conservatives — Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. — said they would have allowed the law to be used in the 2016 elections while the appeals continued.

But they were unable to find a necessary fifth vote from one of the court’s four liberals.

The battle against the law, considered one of the nation’s most far-reaching, consumed years of litigation by the Obama administration and a wide coalition of civil rights organizations.

“An ugly chapter in voter suppression is finally closing,” said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.

“Today we experience a victory for justice that is unimaginably important for African Americans, Latinos, all North Carolinians, and the nation” said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, president of the North Carolina NAACP, the lead organizational plaintiff in the case.

North Carolina legislative leaders did not immediately respond to a request for comment about what the next step may be.

The Supreme Court will soon rule on a case about whether the state’s congressional districts were racially gerrymandered, as a lower court found. And federal judges have also said the state must redraw state legislative districts for the same reason. That decision is being appealed.

In the voting rights case, a unanimous panel of the 4th Circuit on July 29 agreed with allegations from the Justice Department and civil rights groups that North Carolina’s bill selectively chose voter-ID requirements, reduced the number of early-voting days and changed registration procedures in ways meant to harm African Americans, who overwhelmingly vote for the Democratic Party.

“The new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision” and “impose cures for problems that did not exist,” Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote for the panel. “Thus the asserted justifications cannot and do not conceal the state’s true motivation.”

 

Even Republicans Are Tired of North Carolina Legislature Fascism

There come a time in everyone’s life when you see something, and recognize “This ain’t right”…

And respond to it.

It may be something as small as standing up for someone, or some idea being unfairly treated.

Sometimes its a big thing, putting your person in physical or legal danger.

The difference between American Patriots and the white-wing scum who have taken over the Republican Party is simply this…

Patriots believe in putting the values andd laws of our country over their Party.

Republican North Carolina judge resigns — and slams the GOP on the way out

In a dramatic response to a power-grab by Republicans in the North Carolina legislature, a Republican judge resigned today to circumvent efforts to strip power from the Democratic governor.

The Charlotte Observer reports that following today’s surprise resignation by Republican Judge J. Douglas McCullough, Democrat John Arrowood was sworn in. Judge McCullough worked as a staffer for Senator Harrison Schmitt (R-NM) before being appointed by President Ronald Reagan as United States Attorney in the eastern district of North Carolina.

Since Democrat Roy Cooper was elected Governor of North Carolina last fall, the Republican Legislature has gone to great lengths to strip his office of power. Yet with a three-sentence resignation letter this morning, Judge McCullough has proven that not all Republicans are willing to go along with shenanigans by legislative Republicans.

North Carolina has a mandatory retirement age for judges. To prevent the Democratic Party governor from appointing replacements for Court of Appeals judges nearing forced retirement, the Republican Legislature passed a bill to shrink the size of the court from 15 to 12 judges — thereby denying the Democrat of three scheduled appointments.

The legislation was vetoed on Friday, but a successful veto override was expected later tonight.

However, before the legislature could vote to override Governor Cooper’s veto of House Bill 239, Judge McCullough resigned 36 days prior to his forced retirement. This allowed the appointment of Judge Arrowood at 9:45 a.m. this morning.

“I did not want my legacy to be the elimination of a seat and the impairment of a court that I have served on,” Judge McCullough explained.

Newly sworn-in Judge John Arrowood is the first openly gay member of the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

 

Who’ll Take the Governor With The Skinny Legs?

Ex- North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory of HB2 infamy is having a hard time finding a new job…

Pat McCrory, who signed North Carolina’s HB2 bill, can’t find work because people think he’s a “bigot”

“It’s almost as if I broke a law,” former N.C. Governor Pat McCrory says

Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican best known for his controversial bill banning transgender people from using the bathrooms that match their gender identity, is now complaining that the association with anti-transgender prejudice is hurting his post-gubernatorial career.

“People are reluctant to hire me, because, ‘oh my gosh, he’s a bigot’ – which is the last thing I am,” McCrory complained on a podcast for an Asheville-based evangelical Christian website known as WORLD on Friday, according to the Raleigh News and Observer.

During a previous interview he told WORLD that “if you disagree with the politically correct thought police on this new definition of gender, you’re a bigot, you’re the worst of evil. It’s almost as if I broke a law.”

McCrory also told the Raleigh News and Observer on Monday that “I’ve currently accepted several opportunities in business to do work that I’d done prior to becoming governor in consulting and advisory board positions, and I’ve also been exploring other opportunities in academia, nonprofits and government. And I’ll hopefully be making some of those decisions in the near future.”

He added that academics were reluctant to hire him for teaching positions because of his association with the anti-transgender bill, arguing that “that’s not the way our American system should operate – having people purged due to political thought.”

McCrory also discussed a recent incident in Washington in which he was filmed fleeing from protesters chanting “Shame!” at him.

“I’m sitting there without security and thinking, ‘Is this really happening?’ I was in fear for my safety,” McCrory said.

 

Need To Try Something a Bit More Forceful in North Carolina

The North Carolina Republicans have hijacked the state during the recess, calling a special session to pass laws disenfranchising voters and basically putting the state under fascist rule.

The good folks of the state have been trying the same old stand and sing songs from the Civil Rights era. It ain’t working.

You can’t make peace with a rabid dog…Al you can do is use a 2 x 4.

North Carolinians Revolt Over Republicans’ Brazen Post-Election Coup

“The avalanche of anti-voter surprise bills introduced yesterday by the extremist leadership of the North Carolina General Assembly in a constitutionally suspect ‘extra session’ is an insult to the democratic values held by all people of goodwill in this state.”

Refusing to accept Republican lawmakers’ brazen power grab, hundreds of North Carolinians flooded the halls of the General Assembly building in Raleigh Thursday evening to shame the officials as they passed a series of measures aimed at stripping power from Governor-elect Roy Cooper.

Twenty people, including one journalist, were reportedly arrested for disrupting the special session, during which the GOP-led legislature passed a number of bills that would limit the ability of the incoming Democratic administration to make appointments and control elections.

According to the Charlotte Observer:

On Thursday evening, some protesters began to laugh when senators characterized one of the proposed bills as designed to end partisanship, said Lori Bennear, 44, of Raleigh.

“Then people booed,” she said, “and they got a second warning. So people started making hand gestures instead. Some people hissed, and the (Senate) said the hissing and the hand gestures were disrupting the business of the Senate.”

A similar move followed in the House. Protesters then filled the upper floor of the rotunda, chanting “Whose House? Our House!”

Afterwards, a crowd of roughly 300 gathered outside the chamber, cheering as police officers led away those who had refused to vacate the gallery. “A chant of ‘All political power belongs to the people’ rang out uninterrupted for about 15 minutes,” the Observer noted.

Rev. William Barber II, president of the state chapter of the NAACP and leader of the Moral Monday movement, issued a statement Friday condemning the legislative action.

“The avalanche of anti-voter surprise bills introduced yesterday by the extremist leadership of the North Carolina General Assembly in a constitutionally suspect ‘extra session’ is an insult to the democratic values held by all people of goodwill in this state,” Barber said. The session had been convened under the auspices of passing relief funding for victims of recent flooding and wildfires.

“It is immoral, it is unconstitutional, and this illegal session is a direct attack on the people of North Carolina,” he added.

There are more protests planned for Friday as the General Assembly will hold final votes on the most controversial bills before they land on the desk of outgoing Republican Governor Pat McCrory.

One bill that passed the House on Thursday “calls for making Cooper’s Cabinet appointments subject to approval by the state Senate and drastically cutting the number of state employees the governor can hire and fire,” the News & Observer reported. Meanwhile, “[t]he Senate approved a bill that would evenly split election boards between the political parties rather than keep them under control of the governor’s party.”

“These changes represent deep violations of the Democratic process,” Barber continued, “and the faith that voters place in the elected process. To these legislators, who were elected under racially discriminatory redistricting plans, we say that this madness must end now and the people’s vote must be respected.”

He continued:

These bills corrode fundamental principles of separation of powers. The bills introduced for consideration attack public education and the environment, rig democratic institutions, and attempt to control future elections with no public comment, no notice, and no attempt for bipartisan considerations that would include the voice of African Americans and other people of color and our chosen representatives.

For his part Cooper, currently the state attorney general, has said, “They will see me in court.”

Videos of Thursday’s stirring demonstrations were posted online. As for Friday, the General Assembly is reportedly attempting to wrap up by 1pm “to miss the largest crowd,” according to the NC NAACP, which is asking demonstrators to come early. Updates are being shared with the hashtags #RespectOurVote, #NCGA, #NCpol, and #StoptheCarolinaCoup.

 

Federal Court Orders New Elections in North Carolina Due to Racial Gerrymandering

Looks like there was more than just vote tampering going on in North Carolina…

 

Federal court orders North Carolina to hold special 2017 elections after ruling “racial gerrymander” of districts unconstitutional

NC lawmakers must redraw legislative map that won the GOP veto-proof majorities despite losing 2012’s popular vote

North Carolina lawmakers have been ordered by a U.S. federal court to redraw 28 state House and Senate districts and to hold a special legislative election next year after the court struck down the state’s legislative map as an unconstitutional “racial gerrymander.”

A three-judge panel of the Middle District Court ruled Tuesday that the Republican-drawn legislative map had illegally packed African-American and Hispanic voters into a few districts, ruling that 28 of them were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. The judges found North Carolina’s legislative districts to be so racially biased that they are forcing the state to redo its elections next year.

In an 83-page ruling last summer, the same three-judge panel found that Republican lawmakers’ “new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision.” While the court ruled at the time that 28 of the General Assembly’s 170 districts were illegal racial gerrymanders, it decided it was too late in the election cycle to redraw new maps and hold elections in November. On Tuesday, the judges ordered lawmakers to redraw its own districts by March 15, meaning those elected to the state House and Senate a few weeks ago in districts ordered to be redrawn would serve just one year, not two as expected.

“This gives the state a total of seven months from the time the districts were held to be unconstitutional, which is longer than it took the 2011 legislature to redistrict the entire state,” read the order by Judges James Wynn, Thomas Schroeder and Catherine Eagles. The ruling also requires lawmakers to submit new maps to the court within seven days of passage.

This is a major blow to Republican control of the state legislature in North Carolina.

Democrats in North Carolina carried the popular vote for Congress and won a 7-6 majority in the state’s House delegation in the 2010 election, under the redistricting plan drafted by Democrats in 2001. As Executive Editor of the non-partisan, non-profit ReclaimTheAmericanDream.org, Hedrick Smith, explained, in 2012, Democratic House candidates again won a statewide popular vote majority for the House, but a new gerrymandered map drawn by the Republican-dominated legislature allowed the GOP to emerge with 9 seats to 4 for the Democrats. Republican state lawmakers  managed to win veto-proof majorities in North Carolina despite losing the popular vote in 2012, by drawing up such racially gerrymandered districts to dilute the power of voters of color.

 

NAACP Sues North Carolina

Hmmmmmmm….At Last! North Carolina has been arbitrarily cancelling voter registrations. You can guess in one of whose registrations are being cancelled.

North Carolina NAACP Sues State Over Voter Suppression

Thousands of voter registrations have been canceled with barely a week to go to Election Day.

The North Carolina NAACP has filed a federal lawsuit to stop county election boards in the state from canceling voter registrations ― in what the group argues is an effort by the state Republican Party to suppress the black vote.

Thousands of voter registrations have already been canceled by election boards in Beaufort, Moore and Cumberland counties because a mailing to the voters’ addresses was returned as undeliverable.

“The Tar Heel state is ground zero in the intentional surgical efforts by Republicans — or extremists who have hijacked the Republican Party — to suppress the vote of voters,” said Rev. William Barber, the North Carolina NAACP president, on Monday. “The NAACP is defending the rights of all North Carolinians to participate in this election.”

The NAACP is also seeking to have the canceled registrations restored.

Many of the voters still live at the addresses listed on their voter registrations or have moved to other residences within the same county, meaning they can still vote in that county, according to the NAACP lawsuit. The complaint argues that canceling those registrations was a violation of the National Voting Registration Act.

Under the NVRA, states may cancel registrations only if a voter provides written notice of a change in address or if a voter does not respond to a notice for two election cycles and fails to vote for two federal election cycles. The act also bars states from removing voters from the rolls 90 days or less before a federal election.

“Voter fraud is not the issue. But voter suppression is real, it’s planned, it’s intentional, and it’s ongoing against the African-American community,” Barber said Monday.

African-Americans have been disproportionately affected by the cancellations. Black voters account for 91 of the 138 canceled registrations (or over 65 percent) in Beaufort County, according to the North Carolina NAACP, even though black people are only 25.9 percent of that county’s population.

At least 3,951 registrations were canceled in Cumberland County, and around 400 were canceled in Moore County.  …Read the Rest Here…

 

Democrat Party Office Also Attacked In North Carolina

It seems the Democrat Party Office in Orange County North Carolina was also attacked the same night as the Republican Office was firebombed.. This one is looking more and more like Trumpazoids.

NC Democratic headquarters attacked on same night nearby GOP office was firebombed

Democratic officials in North Carolina have asked law enforcement to step up protection of campaign workers after Orange County offices for both the Republican and Democratic parties were targeted on the same day.

On Sunday, the Republican Party said that its Orange County headquarters was set ablaze by vandals. Graffiti found on a nearby building said, “Nazi Republicans leave town or else.”

In a message posted to Twitter, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump blamed the attack on “[a]nimals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems in North Carolina.”

But Orange County Democratic Party Chair Matt Hughes told Raw Story on Monday that vandals had also targeted his offices in Carrboro. Both attacks were said to have occurred early Sunday morning.

According to Hughes, staffers found the words “Death to Capitalism” scrawled on the OCDP headquarters when they came into work.

“There’s a chilling effect,” he explained. “We have staff and we have volunteers who work in that office… I’m one of those folks who sometimes works late into the night in a party office and you wonder about your safety when you look at things like what happened [to the GOP office] in Hillsborough or something like ‘Death to Capitalism.’ A lot of folks see that as a threat, not even a veiled threat.”

Hughes called the two incidents “a heck of a coincidence.”

“If they are connected, it is someone who adheres to a very-far-out-there political ideology,” he remarked.

 

North Carolina Man Beaten and Arrested… For Sitting on His Mother’s Porch

Greensboro North Carolina. Body  cam video of a man sitting peacefully on his Mother’s front porch waiting for her to arrive being harassed and beaten by white cops.

 

‘Brutal’ video shows white officer violently arresting black man sitting on his mother’s porch

Dejuan Yourse was outside his mother’s house, sitting on the front porch in Greensboro, N.C., when two police officers arrived.

They’d received a report about a possible burglary and a man with a shovel trying to open a house’s garage. When they saw Yourse on the porch, they asked what he was doing and why he was there.

Yourse explained that he didn’t have a key to his mother’s house and he was waiting for her to get home. When one of them seemed suspicious, Yourse tried to get the officer on the phone with his mother, but the call rolled to voicemail. He also told him to talk to neighbors to verify his identity.

The confrontation between Yourse, who is black, and the white officer, Travis Cole — captured in body cameras — started out as a cordial conversation, but it escalated after only a few minutes. The June incident resulted in an internal affairs investigation by the Greensboro Police Department, which found that Cole used excessive force on Yourse and violated other agency rules when he punched and violently arrested the 36-year-old man, who had not committed a crime.

Last August, two months after the incident, Cole resigned. The other officer involved in the incident, Officer C.N. Jackson, left her post last week, according to media reports.

The body-camera footage, which has since been made public, showed Cole asking Yourse questions about where he lives, why he was sitting outside, whether he has any warrants against him and why he has prison tattoos. Yourse, who started to become agitated, admitted that he’d been in prison before. As the two talked, Jackson went to her patrol car to verify Yourse’s identity.

At one point, Cole took Yourse’s phone from his hand as he was talking to someone. Moments later, Cole punched Yourse in the face.

“You can’t do that! What are you doing?!” Yourse said “You didn’t have to punch me in my eye!”

“Yes I did!” Cole responded.

Cole then forced Yourse to the ground, as the latter kept screaming: “I’m not resisting! I’m not resisting! I am not resisting!”

“You are resisting the whole time!” Cole said.

At that point, Yourse appeared to be either sitting down or on his knees as Cole held his arms behind his back.

“Why are you doing this to me? I’m trying to cooperate, man! You can’t do that when I’m not resisting you!” Yourse said, as he sat on the ground…. More Here…

 

The “Money” Moves on North Carolina

When the big money pulls the plug on a state or country…You are well and truly screwed.

The “bathroom Bill” in North Carolina has already cost the state $400 million in revenue. The NCAA has pulled out, The NBA has pulled out. Even the flagship ACC Tournament has pulled out…Not to mention major companies like Paypal who have cut expansion plans and are looking for another place to locate.

When the big money moves …That means there isn’t going to be any shiny new Volkswagen or Toyota plant in your state. Your Bond rating takes a hit, and it becomes increasingly difficult to borrow money. It becomes increasingly difficult for the companies in your state to borrow money because of insurance bonds (meaning they leave…quickly). If you really piss these guys off, your state economy is F87545ed.

The problem in North Carolina has gone from a really stupid set of laws put in place by right wing Tea Party whack jobs – to the loss of confidence in the State legislators and Governor to manage the state’s affairs in the best interest in the state. So even if the Governor sees the light tomorrow, he has screwed his state out of at least $2 billion in business revenue, and he and the wing nuts have tarnished the state’s reputation long term.

The folks in the state who aren’t rock stupid right wingdizzies need to have one of those marches on the Capital with some tar, feathers, and a rail to save things at this point.

Gay people can get isht done in this country…Too bad so many bad black leaders don’t understand how.

Investors Worth $2.1 Trillion Want NC To Flush ‘Bathroom Bill’

The group warns that the bill’s damages could soon be “irreversible.”

The fallout from North Carolina’s House Bill 2 continues six months after Gov. Pat McCrory signed it into law.

In the latest blow to the controversial “bathroom bill,” 60 investment managers from across the country representing more than $2.1 trillion in managed assets have called for the state to repeal the law, which effectively bars transgender people from using the restroom that best corresponds with their gender identity.

The chief executive officer of Trillium Asset Management, which has an office in Durham, North Carolina, warned that the Tar Heel State could be headed for “a state-government-inflicted recession” because of the bill, which McCrory hasaggressively defended since signing March 23, the Associated Press reports.

Blasting North Carolina for having “written discrimination into state law,” Matt Patsky told The Charlotte Observer that the “unintended consequence has been a backlash that is having material, negative impact on the economy of the state. HB2 must be repealed immediately before this damage becomes irreversible.”

Patsky spoke at a Monday news conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he presented the initiative on behalf of Trillium along with other organizers, including Croatan Institute, an environmental research group, and New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer.

Unfortunately, McCrory didn’t seem fazed by the latest opposition. Officials from the Republican governor’s re-election campaign released a statement from McCrory Monday that read, “For New York hedge fund billionaires to lecture North Carolina about how to conduct its affairs is the height of hypocrisy.” The statement, whichcan be read in full on local ABC affiliate WTVD’s site, also blasted Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton for having raised “ungodly amounts of money” from Wall Street for her own campaign.

Still, McCrory’s statement overlooks the fact that his state has been experiencingnear-constant pushback from various industries over the controversial bill. Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and Cirque du Soleil have all opted out of North Carolina performances in the wake of the legislation, and the law was also cited by Deutsche Bank and PayPal as incentive to scrap expansion plans in the state.

The governor’s decision to back the bill in spite of the backlash hasn’t gone over too well with residents, either. A Monmouth University poll published in August found that 55 percent of North Carolina voters opposed House Bill 2, while seven out of 10 voters believe it had hurt North Carolina’s national reputation.

 

 

On Charlotte – And the Latest Shooting By Police of a Black Man

By now, I am sure many of my readers have heard about the shooting of Keith Lamont Scott – who the Police claimed had a gun.

The reason I don’t believe the Police story is this – Keith Lamont Scott had a child in Day Care in the building adjacent to where he was parked. He regularly picked the child up there on his way home. He had been seen there by numerous witnesses previously, sitting in his car waiting for the the children to be released, often reading a book. At least one witness claims that was just what he was doing on the afternoon when Police mistook him for another man they were looking for for a crime…And shot him.

I just don’t see a Dad, waiting for his kid either 1) wanting to start gunfire around his child, or  2) Carrying a gun to the daycare center. And if the guy isn’t guilty of any crime…

Like previous instances where the Police story doesn’t match reality, suddenly the Police Car Dash cameras, and body cameras weren’t working.

Another bad Cop…Another murder in my view.

 

ACC Dumps North Carolina

Including the ACC Basketball Tournament…Ouch!

Atlantic Coast Conference Moves College Championships From North Carolina

The Atlantic Coast Conference on Wednesday said it would move 10 college sports championships from North Carolina because of a state law that restricts rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Two days ago, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced it would relocate seven championship sporting events from North Carolina for the 2016-17 season in protest of the law known as House Bill 2 or H.B. 2.

The measure, enacted in March, requires transgender people to use bathrooms in publicly owned buildings that correspond with the gender listed on their birth certificate, not the gender they identify as. The law also bars local government measures aimed at protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination.

The ACC’s announcement will affect championships in soccer, football, swimming and diving, basketball, tennis, golf and baseball that were set to be held at neutral sites across North Carolina.

“The decision to move the neutral site championships out of North Carolina while H.B. 2 remains the law was not an easy one but it is consistent with the shared values of inclusion and non-discrimination at all of our institutions,” Clemson University President James Clements, chairman of the ACC Council of Presidents, said in a statement.

 

 

 

No Longer Sky Blue – NCAA Rips North Carolina

The NCAA just lowered the hammer on the Reprobates in the Carolina legislature and Governor seats. Schools in the state, have won more than few NCAA Tournaments, and the Atlantic Coast Conference, made up primarily of North Carolina Schools has been one of the top leagues in NCAA Basketball for decades. Folks in that state are about as serious about their basketball as folks in Texas and Alabama are about football.

This isn’t just a financial hit, costing Charlotte which annually hosts some portion of the tournament tens of millions…Its a stake right though the heart.

All because of a bunch of back woods sanctimonious inbred Republican liars.

NCAA moves ‘March Madness’ basketball finals out of North Carolina over anti-trans law

The governing board overseeing U.S. college athletics said on Monday it will move seven championship sporting events out of North Carolina to protest state laws deemed discriminatory to lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individuals.

The decision by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to relocate the events, including the first two rounds of the “March Madness” men’s basketball playoffs, comes two months after the NBA announced the removal of its 2017 pro All-Star Game from North Carolina for the same reasons.

The National Basketball Association said in August that the All-Star game would be played in New Orleans instead.

The NCAA governing board in its statement cited a North Carolina law that makes it illegal for anyone to use a public restroom that does not match the gender they were assigned at birth.

The board also pointed to North Carolina statutes that it said override local laws designed to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or provide legal protections for government officials who refuse services to the LGBT community.

The North Carolina bathroom statute has sparked boycotts by a number of corporations and entertainers, as access to public restrooms, locker rooms and changing areas has become a flashpoint in the battle over transgender rights in the United States.

In addition to basketball playoff competition that had been slated to be played in Greensboro next March, the NCAA said it was also stripping North Carolina of 2016-17 season championships for Division I women’s soccer; Division II men’s and women’s soccer; Division I regional women’s golf; Division II men’s and women’s tennis; Division I women’s lacrosse and Division II baseball.

The NCAA said it would determine new locations for those competitions in the near future.

The governing board said its decision was in line with current NCAA policy that already bans championships in states that display the Confederate battle flag of the U.S. Civil War or authorize sports wagering and at schools that use “hostile or abusive” Native American imagery.

 

Black Voter Suppression Law in North Carolina Tossed By Supreme Court

Thank you Justice Scalia for dying. At least if not soon enough, at least in my lifetime.

Supreme Court Denies North Carolina’s Plea To Restore Swath Of Voting Restrictions

The state won’t be able to enforce them come Election Day.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a last-ditch request from North Carolina to reinstate a controversial set of voting restrictions that would have taken effect in the lead-up to the November election.

In a one-sentence order that did not include any reasoning, the high court declined the state’s petition, which sought to put on hold a July ruling that found the voting law discriminated against African-Americans and compared it to a relic of the Jim Crow era.

The state failed to convince at least five justices that three provisions of the contested law ― its voter ID requirement, cutbacks to early voting and elimination of pre-registration for certain under-18 voters ― were worth putting back on the books. The state had argued the measures were necessary to avoid “confusion” that might keep people away from the polls.

But three justices ― Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito ― did note that they would’ve granted the state’s request, at least with respect to voter ID and early voting. Justice Clarence Thomas, for his part, would’ve granted North Carolina’s petition in full.

In essence, this means the Supreme Court voted 4-to-4 in the dispute, with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan swinging against the state. A ninth conservative member in the mold of the late Justice Antonin Scalia might have given North Carolina a key victory.

In legal filings, Civil rights groups had countered that the state’s own prior assurances in court plus “on-the-ground activity” by election officials ― including preparations at the county level to comply with the July ruling ― flew in the face of the state’s insistence that there was not enough time to get things in order for Election Day.

“Now, almost a month after the Fourth Circuit’s ruling, State and local elections officials have taken nearly all of the steps to comply with that ruling,” the voting rights groups said in a brief opposing North Carolina’s request.

The Obama administration, which in 2013 suffered a big loss when the Supreme Court did away with a key section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, filed its own brief urging the justices to deny the state’s plea, and to not read too much into arguments in favor of a law that was properly found to be discriminatory.

The Supreme Court’s move is a significant setback for Gov. Pat McCrory (R), who had defended the law’s voter ID requirement as “common sense” and vowed to seek emergency relief from the high court soon after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit struck it down.

But McCrory didn’t follow through on his promise: It took the state 17 days to ask the Supreme Court to inspect the ruling ― a delay that may have played a role in the court’s action on Wednesday.