Midterms

NC House

Did N.C. Republican Candidate Russell Walker Say ‘God Is a Racist and a White Supremacist’?
Snopes // Snopes Staff // July 5, 2018
Summary: It’s true that Walker won a 8 May 2018 primary and will therefore be the Republican candidate in the 6 November 2018 general election, during which he’ll face Democratic incumbent Garland Pierce in a race to represent District 48 in the North Carolina state House of Representatives. The North Carolina Republican Party, however, has not only pulled their financial support from Walker, but they have also barred him from the party’s events and property. Dallas Woodhouse, the state’s Republican party executive director, told us that District 48 is solidly Democrat, and the likelihood of Walker’s winning it is therefore low. “We will be likely passing a formal resolution that asks Republicans not to vote, or vote for someone else, which is extraordinary for our party to do,” Woodhouse told us. The state Republican party also put out an official statement declaring that they “will be spending our time and resources supporting Republican candidates that better reflect the values of our party.” Although it’s true Walker won the Republican primary with 65 percent of the vote, Woodhouse pointed out that voter turn-out in the primary was very low. District 48 has a total of 52,828 registered voters, according to state data, but Walker received only 824 votes. Walker himself does not contest that he made racist comments on a web site he runs called ChristDescendedFromJoseph.com, including an undated screed entitled “WHITE SUPREMACY” in which he wrote:

Judicial

NC Supreme Court may be the last defense for threatened rights
N&O // Gene Nichol // July 5, 2018
Summary: It is brutal to contemplate the battles the retirement of Anthony Kennedy will trigger. A U.S. Supreme Court comprised of John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and the second Donald Trump nominee will work dramatic changes in American constitutional law. Roe v. Wade will almost certainly be overturned. If not, it’ll be completely gutted. Obergefell, the gay marriage case, will either be overruled outright, or a gaping exemption will be run through it making lesbians and gay men overt and pervasive second class citizens. Race-based affirmative action will be ruled impermissible. Federal housing discrimination laws will be invalidated. Purported national security detainees will be ruled strangers to the rule of law. Political gerrymandering will be rendered permanently incontestable. We’ll return to equality concepts rejected a half century ago.

Late candidacy could help Democrats win Supreme Court race
WSOC // AP // July 5, 2018
Summary: A last-minute candidacy has the potential to dilute Republican votes this fall for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat and boost chances for the Democrats to expand their majority on the court. Raleigh attorney Chris Anglin filed on the last available day last week as a registered Republican to run for the seat held by another Republican, Associate Justice Barbara Jackson, who is seeking re-election. Civil rights lawyer Anita Earls is running as a Democrat. The News & Observer of Raleigh reports Anglin actually was a registered Democrat until he changed his voter affiliation in early June, a couple weeks before the judicial candidate filing period began. Paul Shumaker, a GOP consultant, said Anglin could split the GOP vote in the three-way race. Democrats currently hold a 4-3 majority on the Supreme Court, so an Earls victory would expand the party's margin to 5-2. "At the end of the day, in the absence of real information, the impact is that will dilute the vote among Republicans," Shumaker said. Anglin said he's not a Democratic "plant" who is running just to help Earls win. Rather, he said he's running as a "constitutional Republican" unhappy with "the constant assault on the independent judiciary at the state and federal level."

NC-9

NC congressional candidate once questioned whether careers were 'healthiest pursuit' for women
ABC News // Adam Kelsey, John Verhovek // July 5, 2018
Summary: The insurgent Republican congressional candidate in a newly competitive North Carolina district once delivered a religious sermon questioning whether it was the "healthiest pursuit" for women to prioritize their careers and independence in lieu of their biblical "core calling," comments recently uncovered by a Democratic group. In the 2013 sermon unveiled by American Bridge, a Democratic PAC that conducts opposition research, Mark Harris, who won the North Carolina 9th Congressional District's GOP primary in May discusses "God's plan for biblical womanhood" and argues that society "created a culture and created an environment that have made it extremely difficult for any woman… to live out and fulfill God's design."

NC Economic Development

Apple came to NC almost a decade ago. Here's how it changed one community.
N&O // Craig Jarvis // July 5, 2018
Summary: For the past decade, Apple has been quietly digging into North Carolina's foothills. The internet giant has helped create a data center corridor that has attracted other companies and bolstered the economy in Maiden, the Catawba County town where it set up operations in 2009, as well as in nearby Rutherford, Cleveland and Caldwell counties. Now, the company is once again looking at the state — this time the Research Triangle area — for a possible fourth campus with thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in investments, and state lawmakers in their recent session passed incentives legislation designed to seal the deal.

Military/Defense News 

Army quietly discharging immigrant recruits
Fayetteville Observer // AP // July 5, 2018
Summary: Some immigrant U.S. Army reservists and recruits who enlisted in the military with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly discharged, the Associated Press has learned. The AP was unable to quantify how many men and women who enlisted through the special recruitment program have been booted from the Army, but immigration attorneys say they know of more than 40 who have been discharged or whose status has become questionable, jeopardizing their futures. “It was my dream to serve in the military,” said reservist Lucas Calixto, a Brazilian immigrant who filed a lawsuit against the Army last week. “Since this country has been so good to me, I thought it was the least I could do to give back to my adopted country and serve in the United States military.”

Opinion 

NICHOLAS KRISTOF: To hackers, we're Bambi in the woods
WRAL // CBC Opinion // July 6, 2018
Summary: Security experts have nightmares like that. Countries like Russia and China have implanted malicious software in the American electrical grid, nuclear power plants and water systems to have the capacity to mount such attacks — and we have done the same to them. Indeed, the U.S. prepared an extensive plan, Nitro Zeus, to unplug Iran through cyberattacks, but in the end we never implemented it. These are some of the issues explored in an important — and deeply sobering — new book about cyberwarfare, “The Perfect Weapon,” by my Times colleague David Sanger. I’ve known Sanger since we joined our college newspaper together at the beginning of freshman year, and he has spent the decades since exploring the intersections of technology and international security — and trying to alert us to our vulnerabilities.

Border policy reveals sociopath behind the mask
Reflector // Gene Lyons // July 5, 2018
Summary: Sociopaths live as permanent imposters. They function largely by imitating the behavior of others. Amoral and utterly lacking in normal emotional bonds, such individuals know right from wrong; they just don't give a damn. Their world divides into user and used; morality consists of fear of getting caught. And whatever happens, somebody else is always to blame. The formal term is "narcissistic personality disorder," defined by the Mayo Clinic as "a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism."

Time to end moratorium on wind energy development in NC
Herald Sun // Natasha Lamb // July 5, 2018
Summary: North Carolina’s innovative, forward-thinking clean energy policies are essential for growing the economy. Policies created in anticipation of a boom in renewable energy incentivized local businesses to help pave the way for a thriving solar industry, which has created jobs and provided a competitive edge over neighboring states. Now, North Carolina must stay the course to realize the full economic potential of clean energy. Allowing the state’s nascent wind energy industry to grow and flourish is a prime example.

The Administration didn't step up for blood-cancer patients -- so Congress must
Herald Sun // Joanne Kurtzberg // July 3, 2018
Summary:Each year, approximately 350 people diagnosed with a blood cancer or other blood disorder receive a life-saving bone marrow or cord blood transplant at Duke University Medical Center. Some are fortunate to receive the gift of donation from a family member or anonymous donor. Many others must simply wait and endure the fear and frustration when a cure is possible but remains out of reach. Although I won’t begin to compare my frustration level with that of my patients, the transplant community has also been enduring something of an agonizing waiting game.