Politics

Politics

There are 1,056 posts filed in Politics (this is page 73 of 106).

Storm crews did great job

I should also say that the state and local officials did a great job managing today’s storm. Salt brine was on the roads days earlier, making the snow that fell very easy to plow. Streets in my neighborhood were wet but clear by mid-day, which is no mean feat for a storm this size.

I give the government crews an A for their efforts. The state missed getting an A+ from me only because the governor neglected to publicize on the state websites the state of emergency she declared. Fortunately most people already knew there was snow on the way so it wasn’t a big deal.

Overall, I’m impressed. A huge swath of the state received snow and I think it was managed effectively.

Immigration equals congressional seats

2010 Census apportionment

The official Census apportionment took place this week. While North Carolina grew at an 18.5% clip this past decade, it was not enough to gain us an additional seat in the House of Representatives. We missed that landmark by fewer than 16,000 people.

One thing I noticed is that the states which gained the most in population are also the ones known for attracting immigrants (documented or otherwise). Since the Census doesn’t care whether someone is a citizen or not the states that made big gains in population benefited from at least some so-called “illegal” immigration. Do you think that these states might now change their tune about immigration?

Black segregation in US drops to lowest in century

This makes me happy.

America’s neighborhoods became more integrated last year than during any time in at least a century as a rising black middle class moved into fast-growing white areas in the South and West.

Still, ethnic segregation in many parts of the U.S. persisted, particularly for Hispanics.

Segregation among blacks and whites fell in roughly three-quarters of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas as the two racial groups spread more evenly between inner cities and suburbs, according to recent census data.

Black segregation in US drops to lowest in century :: WRAL.com.

Elizabeth Edwards

The Edwards family reunites at RDU Airport

Elizabeth Edwards lost her battle with cancer Tuesday. She was 61. As one of her friends remarked, it was fitting she died on Pearl Harbor Day, having grown up a Navy brat.

I got a chance to meet her during the 2004 Kerry/Edwards presidential campaign and she made quite an impression on me. Here’s what I wrote in my blog post from that day:

Last, but certainly not least was Elizabeth Edwards. This woman radiated warmth like you wouldn’t believe! She seemed genuinely pleased to meet me and bragged about her father’s 30 years of Navy service. Her sincere, upbeat personality just blew me away. I thought Edwards was electric, but he doesn’t hold a candle to his wife.

After they had made their way down the line of veterans, the campaign photographer had us all bunch up and get a picture. John and Elizabeth Edwards ran up to the group for the picture. Elizabeth stood just in front of me, so I thoughtfully put my hand on her shoulder. Hopefully, that shot will serve as proof I was actually there.

I tried tracking down that picture but have yet to find it. Maybe someday it will turn up.

Elizabeth was one of a kind. I’m glad I got a chance to meet her.

Chaired my first Parks board meeting

Tonight I chaired my first Parks board meeting, one meeting after I was elected Vice Chair. The Chair, Jimmy Thiem, is on vacation this week.

And it was a doozy of a meeting, too, with a controversial action item: a proposal to ban smoking in Raleigh Parks. After some debate and discussion (and lots of work by our Smoking in Parks committee), tonight the Parks board voted unanimously to recommend banning all smoking in city parks.

I received several emails on the topic, all in favor of the ban. I’m sure there are other folks with differing opinions but they were nowhere to be found.
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Mordecai board splits Interpretive Center vote

I’ve served on the board of Historic Mordecai Park for over two years now as part of my Parks board service. At most meetings we have few things of importance to discuss. Tonight, however, we were presented with location options for the new Interpretive Center. This was the biggest decision I’ve yet had to make as a boardmember.

The problem was, however, that a boardmember quickly put forward a motion to recommend approval of the location, which staff recommends to be adjacent to Wake Forest Road. In the discussion phase of the motion I made it known that I was not comfortable supporting this recommendation and needed more time to think it over. A vote was taken anyway and passed on a 3-2 majority.
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Election Night

Well, that was interesting. Election Day was yesterday and, nationwide, Democrats took a drubbing. The U.S. House is in Republican hands again. The Senate remains in Democratic hands. Can’t say results on the national level surprise me.

I found the local races more interesting. GOP took control of the General Assembly for the first time in over 125 years. The Republicans face tough decisions with a looming $5 billion state budget deficit. Cutting taxes won’t solve that problem, so now Republicans will have to govern rather than whine.

For all the “throw the bums out” talk, nearly all North Carolina Congressional incumbents were reelected. At this time Bob Etheridge is calling for a recount against political newcomer Renee Ellmers. At this point it looks like Etheridge is done. If so, he’ll become the only congressional incumbent to lose this election.
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Cheap Thoughts: democracy and the Constitution

On my morning walk today my groggy mind became fascinated by the curious tension between “majority rules” and “minority rights.” It’s not like I’ve never considered this contrast before, but it never seemed as absurd to me before as it did to me this morning.

We have democracy, where if a majority of Americans agree on something it can become law. Then we have the Constitution, which protects the rights of the minorities. If a majority of voters decided that only beer drinkers could be citizens, the Constitution would protect non-beer-drinkers. At least, they’d be protected until said majority changed the Constitution to explicitly deny citizenship to non-beer-drinkers.

l suppose this is what captured my attention this morning: how one’s rights last only as long as the Constitution does before the majority strips it away. That huge gap between the two must be how some once conveniently considered black people and women to be non-citizens, and how other minorities are still in danger of the same treatment.

Winston Churchill said “democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried.” I can see the man’s point.

Randall for Congress breaks the law?

A neighbor got a political robocall on behalf of Randall for Congress yesterday. While that’s not unusual, what IS unusual is that the company calling on behalf of Randall spoofed the CallerID on the call, pointing it to a disconnected number in the 919 area code. This is in apparent violation of NCGS § 75-100, North Carolina’s Telephone Solicitation Law:

(i) No telephone solicitor shall knowingly use any method to block or otherwise circumvent a telephone subscriber’s use of a caller identification service. No provider of telephone caller identification services shall be held liable for violations of this subsection committed by other individuals or entities.

Here’s what my neighbor said about the call:

I got a robocall last night in which a person claiming to be Maria Schrader (sp?) representing African American conservatives encouraged me to vote for Bill Randall for congress. My caller id showed her number as 919-521-8593. I called back to ask to be taken off the list and got an automated message indicating the the number had been disconnected or was no longer in service.

I’m not too impressed with the use of forged callerid, so I left a message on the “Randall for Congress” line and got a call back this morning from Tom Price who informed me that the robocall came from Washington Political Group. I called them at 678-794-9988 and Don Burrell said he would take my number off their calling list.

Longtime MT.Net readers know I don’t take kindly to callers using forged CallerID. I’m sad to see it has come to North Carolina politics. I hope the attorney general steps in and smacks any campaign that tries to do it, as they so clearly deserve it.