Politics

Politics

There are 1,050 posts filed in Politics (this is page 73 of 105).

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.
Continue reading →

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.
Continue reading →

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.

Busy end to busy week

Wow, what a week I just had. I had a sales presentation I had to complete for work, to be done in-between conducting two days of product training for customers. After work I conducted the East CAC meeting Monday night, attended a public hearing Tuesday night, presented at the Raleigh Neighborhood Recognition Awards Wednesday night, went to my first Parks board meeting as the vice-chair Thursday night, took Travis to his piano lesson Friday night and then attended a neighborhood party afterwards.
Continue reading →

Able Archer: almost armegeddon?

I’m amazed sometimes that the world survived the year 1983. We came dangerously close to being blown up that year. Dangerously close. Able Archer was a NATO military exercise that place in November of that year. The exercise simulated an attack on Soviet forces, only the Soviets were convinced it was the real thing.

It was said that the misunderstanding so disturbed Reagan that he began to work towards defusing the standoff with the Soviets, leading to historic arms control treaties and eventually peace with the Russians. He toned down his rhetoric from then on, fortunately.

Able Archer 83 was a ten-day NATO command post exercise starting on November 2, 1983 that spanned Western Europe, centred on SHAPE’s Headquarters situated at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons. Able Archer exercises simulated a period of conflict escalation, culminating in a coordinated nuclear release. The 1983 exercise incorporated a new, unique format of coded communication, radio silences, participation by heads of state, and a simulated DEFCON 1 nuclear alert.
Continue reading →

So much to say, so little time

I’ve been busting it for the past few weeks, working to get up to speed on work issues, shepherding a room renovation at home, and doing all of my public service stuff. Yesterday my day began with a meeting with Raleigh city manager Russell Allen, phone calls and labs at work, a reception for a city councilor at which I chatted with the police chief and others, visiting with the family, and painting that room until 11:30 PM. Is it any wonder that I fell asleep when reading at bedtime with Hallie?

I also took that voiceover class I’d been looking forward to for months. I’ll fill in the details later, as there’s a lot to blog about. Look for a string of updates soon!

Class president

My daughter is running for class president. So are 16 out of 22 of her first-grade classmates! Some of these kids have “campaign managers,” too. It sounds to me like the campaign managers outnumber the voters pretty decisively!

I’m proud of her, though. I hope it proves to be a good experience for her.

No more divisions

There was a shooting last night not too far from my neighborhood. Three kids and one 18-year-old got shot, the 18-year-old fatally. Police are still working the case and haven’t released many details but they did let the neighbors know it wasn’t a random shooting and that the shooting had nothing to do with the neighborhood. The fact is, this could have happened anywhere. I followed the story as it unfolded on the local media websites, trying to assure folks that my area of town isn’t a bad one. Later this afternoon police arrested a suspect: a 24-year-old man, apparently Hispanic.

Because the shooting happened in East Raleigh, some forum commenters somehow assumed the victims and suspect were black. Out came the ridiculous comments deriding African Americans. Then when the suspect was Hispanic, even more heated comments appeared leaping to the conclusion the suspect was an illegal immigrant. Some went so far to say that if he’s illegal he should just be lynched!
Continue reading →