6/7/2018 9:45:12 AM

I mean technically there's some truth there if you go by the actual FDA definition of milk (lacteal secretion from cows). But if that were the only argument milk producers should be complaining about products such as peanut butter, or even goat milk cheese. In this case its just an attempt to stave off the decline of milk consumption to alternatives.

6/7/2018 11:10:12 AM

Thought this bump would be about putting "in god we trust" on all schools.. Seems like there's probably more important things to worry about

6/7/2018 1:56:26 PM

what a waste of money on a lawsuit they will absolutely end up losing

6/7/2018 3:22:26 PM

I was going to post that but didn't get around to it.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article212593479.html

Quote :

"Democratic Rep. Cecil Brockman of Greensboro said the ACLU had a good point, that "we have a right to believe whatever religion we want, but we also have a right to not believe anything at all.” But Jones [R- Rockingham County, main sponsor of the bill] said even if people see the word God in school, it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to think about the Christian God. “To some people that could be a cow," he said. "To some people that might be a tree.""

I support the math and cursive part of the bill though

6/7/2018 3:26:08 PM

cursive is a giant waste of time

we survived a new generation not knowing how to read or write shorthand, we'll also survive a new generation not knowing how to write cursive (which unlike shorthand you can still partially read without needing to have formal education)

[Edited on June 7, 2018 at 3:41 PM. Reason : .]

6/7/2018 3:39:20 PM

^^At the end of the day, it is ultimately about the money, but a stupid bill like that is not something you want to showcase in front of several progressive companies looking to bring thousands of jobs to your state.

6/7/2018 4:05:54 PM

the progressive companies aren't paying the NCGOP though

6/7/2018 4:38:06 PM

Consider the possibility that the rural legislators want to sink those deals to spite "the elites in Raleigh".

6/7/2018 4:45:22 PM

anything that causes liberal tears is good and worth doing

6/7/2018 5:01:48 PM

Quote :

"And Republican Rep. Kevin Corbin of Macon County said it's more about patriotism than religion. “At the end of the day it’s our national motto," he said."

Which is why it shouldn't even be our national motto. To be a patriot I also have to trust in a god I don't believe in? The same country that tells me I have freedom to practice whatever religion I want. Somebody teach me those mental gymnastics.

6/7/2018 5:13:55 PM

E pluribus unum

6/8/2018 9:42:10 AM

https://www.indyweek.com/news/archives/2018/06/19/dallas-woodhouse-believes-undocumented-immigrants-are-infesting-the-country

6/19/2018 1:05:46 PM

So if I’m reading these WRAL tweets correctly:

It looks like the NCGA will adjourn until a Nov 27th lame duck session (after midterms, but before the new winners are seated) and are gonna try to ram through more voting restrictions and fucking with how we elect judges.

Fucked up yo

6/29/2018 9:11:30 AM

http://amp.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article213937944.html

Quote :

"A website tied to a candidate for the North Carolina General Assembly says God is a racist white supremacist and that Jews are descended from Satan. Russell Walker is a Republican candidate running for state House District 48 which includes Scotland and Hoke counties. On Tuesday, the North Carolina Republican Party withdrew its support for Walker."

6/29/2018 9:17:27 AM

Well that’s a new one.

6/29/2018 11:35:41 AM

Jim Hunt, Jim Martin, and PAT! all come out against the NCGOP’s ballot measure that removes the governor’s ability to appoint people to state boards.

Quote :

"the legislature should be making laws, not running the government. You have to defeat it. You have to kill a snake at every opportunity"

Jim Martin with the heated words!!!

7/1/2018 10:28:22 AM

https://www.wwaytv3.com/2018/07/17/burr-tillis-trump-putin/

7/17/2018 12:33:08 PM

https://www.wral.com/it-s-official-nc-general-assembly-back-into-session-tuesday/17715739/

24hrs notice for a special session of the legislature, to tamper with.......well, something. I’m guessing the intent will be to consolidate power to the legislature by some shitty means, just a guess though.

7/23/2018 7:20:27 PM

Supposedly to dictate the description to be printed with each of the constitutional amendments they're putting on the ballots.

7/24/2018 8:23:22 AM

I like when law makers here try to design a government for 1 party rule . This is why Republicans like putin

7/24/2018 9:20:08 AM

^^yup, even though there is a bipartisan commission whose job it is to do just that. They just don’t have a majority of Republicans on that commission.

7/24/2018 9:23:00 AM

At least we wont be blindly voting on constitutional amendments

7/24/2018 10:57:24 AM

^but that was never going to be the case. There was a commission that is specifically tasked with writing non biased descriptions in layman’s terms. Now we are going to have most likely biased descriptions in favor of all of these.

7/24/2018 11:01:16 AM

i thought that happens if they were voted in, i thought usually legislation is paired with the amendment for language

7/24/2018 11:23:45 AM

^I think the legislation includes the actual language that goes on the ballot, but the "amendment board" (or whatever its called) develops the Titles for the amendments (which appears on the ballot) and they develop a couple sentence paragraph explainer for each amendment that you can apparently ask for when you go to vote?

but in typical NC GOP fashion, they had to, totally unannounced, tamper with some other aspect of elections:
https://www.wral.com/bill-would-strip-gop-designation-from-supreme-court-candidate/17718505/

So basically the GOP changed the rules for judicial political affiliation so that 1 republican and 2 democrats would show up on the ballot (increasing chances of republican winning due to the split vote). One of the democrats decides he would rather run as republican and changed affiliation, now legal given the GOPs new legislation. Berger and Moore decide instead they should retroactively bring back the rules and now democrat turned republican has to run as unaffiliated.

(Or something like that)


They just keep changing the rules in an effort to consolidate more power to themselves. I don't know how anyone can vote for these disgusting human beings.

7/24/2018 5:20:38 PM

They are such fucking scumbags

7/24/2018 5:46:25 PM

Which makes them brutally effective politicians.

7/24/2018 7:45:01 PM

Quote :

"At least we wont be blindly voting on constitutional amendments"

Well, so much for that idea. Apparently they passed a bill last night to remove explaintions from the ballot. Such fucking scumbags.

7/25/2018 7:25:41 AM

8/6/2018 10:02:42 AM

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article216304855.html

Quote :

"Under the proposed amendment, judicial nominees wouldn't be subject to the governor's vetoes. But Democrats worry the bill is written in a way that, if passed, it would allow the legislature to attach an unrelated bill to a judicial nominee to circumvent the governor's veto."

8/9/2018 10:22:15 AM

8/9/2018 12:19:01 PM

https://www.wral.com/five-former-governors-campaigning-against-nc-constitutional-amendments/17760300/

Quote :

"All five of North Carolina's living former governors will gather Monday to campaign against a pair of proposed constitutional amendments that would shift power from the governor to the legislature. Former Gov. Jim Martin, the only North Carolina Republican to serve two terms in the office, is organizing the event. The group will gather for a press conference in the old House chambers at the State Capitol Building, then huddle for a private strategy session, Martin said Friday. Former governors Pat McCrory, Bev Perdue, Mike Easley and Jim Hunt will join Martin at the event. Current Gov. Roy Cooper's administration has sued to keep the two targeted amendments off the ballot this November, uniting the current and former governors on the matter. Martin and McCrory are Republicans, the rest are Democrats. Martin said this may be the first time all five former governors have appeared together. All five were already on record, though, against the two amendments."

8/10/2018 1:39:04 PM

https://www.wral.com/amendments-shifting-power-to-legislature-devious-and-mischievous-former-governors-say/17766636/

8/15/2018 10:02:01 AM

Wanting to impeach Justices if they side with the Governor...fucking wow.

8/17/2018 5:50:19 PM

Part of me wants to think that was just tuff guy talk from Woodhouse, but then part of me is like “yea, but what about the motorcycle vagina bill?”

8/17/2018 7:12:35 PM

if they start impeaching judges there needs to be a protest at the legislative building, and not one of the bullshit peaceful line up and get handcuffed peacefully moral monday waste of time bullshits

8/17/2018 8:02:13 PM

8/20/2018 11:16:50 AM

The 2 amendments ordered off the ballot

8/21/2018 9:16:38 PM

So there was a commission whose job it was to write ammendment ballot descriptions, but the GA took that job from them because they thought the descriptions would be biased, only to have the amendments ordered removed from the ballot because the descriptions they wrote themselves were too biased. So now they are calling yet another special session to rewrite the descriptions. Fucking cock suckers

8/23/2018 2:31:21 PM

Districts struck down AGAIN....

Probably too close to 2018 election to get new districts? We'll know in the next few weeks. Personally, I'm getting sick of voting in unconstitutional districts. How can anyone make the case that their vote matters when the districts have been confirmed to be unfair and illegal? Why should we respect any vote that occurred in an illegal district?

8/28/2018 8:42:44 AM

they're just gonna keep stalling so they can stay in control after the elections and then go even harder than before

8/28/2018 9:40:08 AM

Welp, we have to spend the next two years pretending we live in a constitutional republic as we vote in districts that apparently don’t meet the requirements of our constitution. Why should we accept any laws passed by an entity with representatives from illegal districts?

Literally for the past 6 years my vote in these districts has essentially been meaningless (atleast from a legal perspective). Thats close to half my voting life.

9/5/2018 9:18:41 AM

there will be a problem with the next maps too, don't you worry

9/5/2018 9:49:00 AM

^^Same for me in Orange County as a moderate.

Northern Orange county residents would like districts for county commissioners because otherwise the seats are all based solely on the southern Orange County vote in Chapel Hill/Carrboro with zero chance of representation from . At a county level their votes are completely overridden by the town and what some see as a very transient population of students and others at UNC who may only be in town/county for a couple of years but definitely vote as a block.

Curious what everybody's thoughts are on the best format for voting? Districts? Direct? Etc? Obviously you will never please everybody.

9/5/2018 10:40:32 AM

That's a bit apples - oranges compared to what I'm whining about, as its completely legal in our state to have non-districted local elections.


to answer your question though, I tend to think districts are better as it makes an election even more local than a county-wide election. Anything that moves democracy closer and closer to the exact local population that democratic entity affects is a good thing IMO (ie. the cure for what ails democracy is more democracy).

The giant, hairy caveat is that the districts have to be fairly drawn (similar size, similar population, and not gamed to produce certain results). If the districts are overly gamed, then very quickly you find that districts are actually less democratic than direct voting.

Its gonna be a huge issue going forward in this country. I think it is possible to produce fair districts and a better representative democracy, Its where I'd like to see us go. However, I do think there is some substance to the arguments that a system to create fair districts can always be gamed and manipulated. I think its gonna take people MUCH more savvy than I to produce a system that is relatively fair.

9/5/2018 12:46:20 PM

^Yea that was what I was trying to compare the two even if it is somewhat apples to oranges.

I agree I think that districts can and should be utilized because it does help make elections more local. The question/problem is what are you trying to solve with them or what group are you trying to help? Do we need more minority voters so we create a district for them? At what point are you packing that district and then removing those voters from other districts at too high a number to ? In my example, is it fair/worthy of consideration that Chapel Hill/Carrboro/Hillsborough are 80% of the population of Orange County so the rural voters never see any representation on the County Commissioners? Should we even care if they are going to vote more conservative? A big complaint they have is that the countywide mass transit sales tax that was voted on will almost exclusively benefit Chapel Hill and Carrboro, especially since that money goes to support the light rail project (which only has like four miles in Orange County anyways and I personally think is a giant boondoggle waiting to happen). Most folks supported the tax around the county because it was originally sold as a way to expand the bus coverage of Chapel Hill Transit and Orange Public Transit as well as building an Amtrak station in Hillsborough. Unfortunately almost all of it is now promised for the light rail project so people are rightly a bit perturbed that they have basically no voice but are being taxed for something to benefit UNC and a scant couple of miles in Chapel Hill going through some of the nicest neighborhoods. I would have been more in favor of it if it at least went into downtown Carrboro, but sadly it does not.

9/5/2018 3:05:32 PM

Your comments on who are we trying to help with districts, etc, is exactly where I’m at. The criteria on what is or isnt a “fair” district is really complicated, and really important to get correct in our new age of computer drawn districts.

Its gonna take some good faith, bipartisan discussions to get even temoyely close to a criteria that kinda works for everyone and isnt easily gamed. So its probably not possible in our current political environment.

9/5/2018 4:18:33 PM

I would say a nonpartisan commission should do it, but as mentioned in this day and age that cannot be agreed upon at all.

I wish the Dem's would have done this when they ran the Legislature, but they didn't. Now they look like hypocrites for calling for it now.

9/5/2018 6:45:58 PM

lol, Mark Meadows thinks there should be a congressional investigation into the op-ed. i can't think of anything that would blow up in their faces more than this and wish them well.

9/7/2018 4:07:28 PM