NORTH CAROLINA - Ballot Fraud?

"Months after Election Day, N.C. officials grapple with possible ballot fraud" PBS NewsHour 2/19/2019

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SUMMARY:  Election Day occurred more than three months ago, but North Carolina's 9th Congressional District has still not certified a winner, as state officials try to determine whether an operative of Republican candidate Mark Harris' campaign handled ballots illegally.  Harris received only 905 more votes than Democrat Dan McCready in unofficial results.  Judy Woodruff talks to NPR's Miles Parks for more.

"Do-over election in N.C. congressional district requires new primaries" PBS NewsHour 2/21/2019

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  A new election has been ordered in a North Carolina congressional race still contested after more than three months.  The decision follows four days of hearings on alleged voting fraud by an operative working for Republican candidate Mark Harris.  Numerous witnesses testified that McCrae Dowless illegally collected absentee ballots.  Judy Woodruff talks to NPR's Miles Parks about what happens next.

NORTH CAROLINA - Hog Farm Hazard

"A Hog Waste Agreement Lacked Teeth, and Some North Carolinians Say They’re Left to Suffer" by Talia Buford, ProPublica 11/23/2018

Today, many farmers continue to store the waste in open pits despite the millions of dollars in private investment spent and years of research and political promises.  The practice grows more hazardous with each hurricane that pounds the state.

This story was co-published with The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The lagoons were supposed to be gone by now.

Nearly 20 years ago, North Carolina faced a reckoning.  Hurricane Floyd inundated the state, flooding the open pits where farmers store hog waste.  The nation looked on in horror as pink sludge from the lagoons mingled with rising floodwaters to force stranded animals atop hog houses and drowned thousands of pigs.

State officials vowed change and in 2000 delivered a plan.  The centerpiece was an agreement with Smithfield Foods, the world’s leading pork producer and one of North Carolina’s biggest businesses.  Smithfield agreed to finance research into alternatives to the lagoons and to install within three years whatever system emerged as environmentally effective and economically viable.  In place of open-air lagoons would be a newer, safer system that put North Carolina on the cutting edge of commercial agriculture.

Today, many North Carolina hog farmers continue to store hog waste in open pits despite the millions of dollars in private investment spent and years of research and political promises.  Little has changed, storms are intensifying and the clock is ticking on the Smithfield agreement, which expires in 2025.

The state has yet to come up a viable replacement system, and the momentum — and money — behind the research ran out years ago, leaving in place a crude practice that grows more hazardous with each hurricane that pounds North Carolina.

In September, it was Florence, which dumped record-breaking rains on the state — 8 trillion gallons over four days — and swelled the Cape Fear River, which winds through this region.  Thirty-three lagoons overflowed, the pink slurry again mixing with floodwaters.

Now, nearly 20 years on, it’s not hard to see how the agreement was doomed.

It sought transformative change, but lacked teeth.  The all-or-nothing strategy meant that unless a perfect system was developed, nothing would change.  The deal required the “substantial” elimination of odors, ammonia emissions, bacteria, soil and groundwater contamination, and waste discharges, yet it did not state what that threshold was or what costs the industry was obliged to absorb.  The deal also was mum on the odors, pests and other nuisances that people who live near the lagoons continue to endure.

In the end, the agreement let legislators avoid the messy work of defining restrictions for a politically influential industry, and instead it shifted that responsibility to academics.  When no silver bullet emerged from the early research, the push for change waned as the country faced a staggering recession and North Carolina’s politics shifted rightward.

“There’s not a whole lot of clean hands,” said former Gov. Michael F. Easley.  “Everyone figures the status quo should be sufficient.”

This time, residents aren’t waiting for officials to deliver change.  More than 500 residents have joined 26 nuisance lawsuits filed in federal court against a Smithfield subsidiary since 2014, arguing that living next to industrial hog operations forces them to live with noxious odors, flies and heavy truck traffic.

Juries have awarded multimillion-dollar damages to plaintiffs in three of the lawsuits so far, targeting farms in Bladen, Pender and Duplin counties.  A fourth trial, focused on a farm in Sampson County, began this month.  Smithfield has said in investor reports that it “believes that the claims are unfounded and intends to defend the suits vigorously.”

The division between farmer and neighbor is palpable here — and falls along racial lines in a state where agriculture has its roots in the plantation system, and where Confederate monuments still stand on the Capitol’s grounds.

Smithfield — now owned by WH Group Ltd., a Chinese pork company — has tried to position itself as a responsible corporate citizen.  Company officials declined multiple requests for an interview with ProPublica but said in a statement that the 2000 agreement on hog waste was a “demonstration of our company’s long-standing commitment to responsible and sustainable hog production ...  a commitment that continues to this day.”

On Oct. 25, the company announced plans to cover existing waste lagoons to capture the gases they release and install “manure-to-energy” projects at 90 percent of the company’s hog finishing spaces around the country.  Smithfield did not respond to specific questions about whether the technology meets the standards set out by the 2000 agreement, but a fact sheet said covering the lagoons will “mitigate potential issues associated with severe rain events such as hurricanes.”

Company CEO Kenneth M. Sullivan called the project “audacious” in a press release.

“When we set an objective,” he said, “we go big at Smithfield to achieve it.”

Growth of Hogs, and Negotiating the Agreement

Before it was hog country, eastern North Carolina was the home of Big Tobacco.  But as the industry buckled under the weight of lawsuit settlements in the 1990s, pork supplanted cigarettes as the region’s economic engine.  According to the USDA Census of Agriculture, in 1987, there were 6,921 hog farms and just about 2.5 million pigs in North Carolina.  By 1997, there were fewer farms but more than 9.6 million pigs.

That year, the state put a moratorium on new or expanded hog farms, and farmers rushed to complete their facilities before the deadline.  The increase in supply flooded the market in 1998, bringing prices crashing down and forcing some smaller farms out of business.  The destruction left behind by Hurricane Floyd forced others out of the market, while the state began its initial buyout of hog farms in the 100-year flood plain after the storm.  There have been four more rounds of buyouts since then.

Today, there are about 10 million people in North Carolina and still about 9 million hogs, each producing, on average, 11 pounds of waste a day.  Operations became more concentrated as farms began standardizing diets and creating what are called “concentrated animal feeding operations.”

The slats in a hog house floor allow manure and urine to fall through to pits beneath the houses.  The wastewater is then sent to a large, earthen basin, or lagoon, nearby.  Anaerobic bacteria in the lagoon break down the manure — similar to the process used for composting.  The liquid can then be sprayed onto crops as fertilizer.  There are roughly 3,300 permitted hog lagoons in North Carolina, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, which regulates the structures.

Today, portions of Duplin County look like a patchwork of light green fields — likely soybeans and corn — dappled with thick patches of forest.  Long silver-topped buildings, hog houses, are lined up in rows, with black or pink shiny pools, hog lagoons, sitting to one side.

“This is the concentration we talk about here in Duplin,” Larry Baldwin of Waterkeeper Alliance said as the single-engine plane we’re in coasts about 1,000 feet above ground on a warm October day.  “There’s three.  There’s four.  There’s five.  Six.  Seven.  There’s eight.  They’re all over the place.”

State environmental standards require that lagoons be built to withstand 24 hours of rain, but new research shows that climate change is causing wetter hurricanes with more extreme rainfall to be more common.  If the system fails, and lagoons breach or overtop, nutrients such as ammonia and nitrates may seep into rivers, stoking the growth of algae blooms that can choke out other aquatic life.

But even when the system works exactly as it is supposed to, there are still issues for those who live near the lagoons or the crops where the waste is sprayed — people like Elsie Herring, a Wallace resident who is an environmental organizer and a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Smithfield.

“We’re being held prisoners in our own homes because you can’t cook out, can’t open your windows, can’t open your doors, you can’t hang your clothes on the line,” she said.  “We didn’t need to have that to have to deal with on top of having to smell this animal waste and it blowing on our houses and cars and our persons if we’re outside.”

The North Carolina Pork Council defends the practice on its blog, saying reports of the smell and nuisance claims in the ongoing litigation are exaggerated.  And farmers, like Justin Edwards of Beulaville, say lagoons are effective and safe.

Edwards’ two hog houses are about a mile from his home, and they hold about 1,700 hogs.  He uses the lagoon and sprayfield system to manage hog waste on his farm, spraying it on the 1,000 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat and cotton he also grows.

“We just don’t deserve the vilification,” Edwards said.  “We’re human beings, and we are doing our contribution to society with the technology we’ve been given.  We’re using the technology that our state has told us that we’ve got to use.”

The state’s efforts to change hog waste disposal had a dramatic starting point.

Twenty-five million gallons of hog waste spilled from a lagoon at Oceanview Farms in Onslow County into the New River in June 1995.  The spill prompted the state legislature to fast track new regulations and, in 1997, to enact a temporary moratorium on new hog operations and expansions to existing ones.  Gov.  Jim Hunt proposed a plan in April 1999 to phase out lagoons within 10 years — a plan that one local newspaper called, in hindsight, “empty from the start.”

That September, Hurricane Floyd hit.  Public health fears about overflowing hog lagoons were a campaign issue, and a public relations nightmare for the hog industry.

With public opinion turning, Easley, who was then the attorney general, told Smithfield it had a choice: negotiate a voluntary agreement or take a chance on a new administration.  Easley was a candidate for governor.  He promised that if he won, he would push for legislation to force the industry to change its waste management practices.

“The problems with the hog lagoons had been pretty front and center in the public discourse at the time,” said Alan Hirsch, former deputy attorney general and Easley’s policy director, who now runs a health care nonprofit.  “Smithfield well understood that they were under a lot of pressure to do something.”

On July 25, 2000, in the thick of the gubernatorial campaign, Smithfield entered into an agreement with Easley to find better technologies to manage waste from the company’s hog farms in the state.  Smithfield committed to providing a total of $17 million for research at North Carolina State University into other waste management methods and agreed to install the chosen technology on its farms.  The company also committed to donating $50 million over the next 25 years to programs that protect the state’s environment.

Even as Smithfield signed the agreement, the company’s vice president at the time, Richard J. M. Poulson, said during a press conference that the lagoon and sprayfield system was the “best available technology for swine waste management.”

“Nevertheless, all of us support the development of superior economically viable disposal technologies so that the swine industry, which is so vitally important to North Carolina's economy, can continue to prosper,” he said.

Easley was elected governor that November.

Smithfield’s Profile

By then, Smithfield had grown from a small Virginia-based company to the producer of nearly one out of every seven hogs in the United States.

Smithfield grew by buying up competitors, and in 2013, Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd. — now WH Group Ltd. — bought Smithfield for $4.7 billion.  Today, the company exports ham, pork chops, sausages and other foods to more than 40 countries under labels such as Eckrich, Nathan’s Famous and Healthy Ones.  It has some 54,000 employees in North America and Europe, and it recorded $15 billion in sales last year.

For all its international reach, Smithfield still feels like a hometown company in North Carolina.

Driving through Duplin County, the black-and-white signs marking a hog farm as a Smithfield affiliate are common, and a corporate office sits on the county’s western edge in Warsaw.  Smithfield has 225 company-owned farms in North Carolina, in addition to contract farms and feed mills.  Seven plants around the state produce everything from Italian stuffed breads and heat-to-eat products to bacon, fresh pork and cracklins.

For years, the pork industry has exerted considerable influence over North Carolina politics, in part because in many areas, it’s the economic driver.  Eastern North Carolina’s agricultural areas, which grew out of plantations and slavery, lack the amenities that would draw economic investment or a new technology revolution, said Peter A. Coclanis, an economic historian at the University of North Carolina.

“Without the hog industry, there wouldn’t be much else,” Coclanis said.  “You’re not going to get an IBM or Amazon to move to Duplin.”

All told, agriculture and agribusiness — from food and tobacco products to lumber and furniture and textiles — account for 17 percent of North Carolina’s economic output.  Hog farms constituted about 20 percent of the state’s agriculture revenue in 2016, bringing in $2.1 billion of the state’s $10.6 billion farm cash receipts, according to the state Agriculture Department.  There are roughly 2,300 hog farms in North Carolina, according to the 2012 Agricultural census, the most data recent available.

Coclanis said instead of investing in education and infrastructure, the state has competed on incentives and lower taxes to encourage the industry to economically buoy the area.  For the areas that rely on them, Coclanis said, “the only thing worse than hog farms is if there weren’t any of them.”

Legislators have been key in ensuring the industry stays firm in North Carolina.

In 1995, the Raleigh News & Observer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Boss Hog series laid bare the environmental and health risks of hog lagoons and the political connections that kept them in place.  Among the focuses of the reporting was Wendell Murphy, head of Murphy Family Farms (which was ultimately bought by Smithfield).  Murphy spent nearly a decade in the General Assembly, sponsoring bills that shielded the industry from environmental regulations, allowed farms to sidestep county zoning rules and delivered tax breaks on farming equipment.  At the time, he defended his agricultural votes, telling the newspaper, “I did what I thought was right for the industry of Duplin County.”

The agricultural industry as a whole has contributed $16.6 million to political candidates and campaigns since 2000, according to data from the National Institute on Money in Politics.  The livestock and meat processing sectors have contributed more than $2 million within that same time period.  Among all donors since 1996, the North Carolina Farm Bureau ($1,684,880), North Carolina Pork Council ($957,175) and Smithfield Foods ($406,600) are the leading contributors.

Testing the Technologies

From the beginning, the 2000 agreement allowed those in power to sidestep tighter regulation of the hog industry.  Instead, the onus was on academia, and in particular C. Mike Williams.

He’d grown up on a tobacco farm in Zebulon, studied poultry science and eventually earned his doctorate in nutrition at NC State.  After a stint at an animal waste remediation company, Williams returned to NC State to lead the Animal and Poultry Waste Management Center in 1993.

There, he was tapped to oversee the testing of technologies developed as potential alternatives to the lagoon system.  The task was herculean: find environmentally sound technology that was also cheap to implement.

“It was always going to be true that a lagoon is cheaper than anything that’s not a lagoon,” said Ryke Longest, a state lawyer who served as a liaison for the Smithfield agreement and is now a law professor at Duke University.  “If you’re doing something other than digging a hole in the ground and lining it … every time you add a capital expenditure, cost comes along with that.”

The legislature had already laid out parameters for what constituted environmentally superior technologies.  Mostly, to meet that criteria, the technology had to eliminate something — surface or groundwater discharges, ammonia emissions, bacteria and pathogens, or detectable odors.  But so much remained undefined.  Williams had to convene a nine-member engineering committee to set the threshold for “substantial” elimination, and a 27-member economic committee that included industry representatives, environmental advocates and economists to figure out what costs were acceptable.

As the committee worked, Williams narrowed 100 proposals down to 15 to test on full-scale farms.  The team looked at projects that covered the lagoons and used the wastewater to water a greenhouse, those that used a conveyor belt system and others that separated solid from liquid waste or treated the waste with chemicals.  Williams produced two interim reports, in 2004 and 2005, providing detailed analysis on the odors, pathogens and nitrogens that the technologies sought to reduce.

Meanwhile, the engineering committee determined that substantial elimination of odors and nutrients would be set at 60 percent.  The economic committee attempted to hash out how much of an impact was too much.  Environmental advocates pushed for social benefits to factor into the calculation.  Industry representatives pushed against anything they said would put North Carolina hog companies at a competitive disadvantage unless there were byproducts, like energy, that could be sold to offset the costs.

“It was a position I thought was unreasonable at the time and wrong, that I still think is unreasonable today,” said Richard B. Whisnant, a University of North Carolina professor who chaired the economic committee.  “That’s my first memory: realizing they were going to take a hard line and what I thought was an unreasonable line.”

The committee settled on a threshold: No more than 12 percent of the state’s hog farms could be forced out of business in exchange for more advanced technologies.  The majority of the committee signed onto the report, but the industry representatives — Smithfield, two of its subsidiaries and an agricultural bank — prepared a dissenting report.

Williams looked at the promising technology again, this time, through an economic lens to prepare his final report.  The findings Williams presented to the state Environmental Review Commission in March 2006 landed with a thud.

One technology met all of the environmental criteria for newly constructed hog farms, but it was too expensive to retrofit existing hog farms.  At the time, it cost around $400 per 1,000 pounds of pigs to install — the lagoon system cost $87.

The next year, the legislature permanently banned using open lagoons to store hog waste and required new or expanded farms to meet strict environmental standards.  But any farm whose permit had been issued before 2007 was grandfathered in, allowing it to continue operating without installing any new technology.

Though the research dollars were exhausted, Williams was still hopeful.  He cobbled together grant money to test new generations of the technology, issuing additional reports as recently as 2013.  At last check, the third-generation of the system was around $200 per 1,000 pounds of pigs — still too high to qualify as economically feasible.

Williams, who retired from NC State in 2017, said the change envisioned by the Smithfield agreement must happen.  The current system “has served its purpose,” he said, “and we need to move to a new technology.”

“There has to be a better system,” Williams said.  “There has to be.”

Lawsuits and Moving Forward

The state is doing what it can to mend the destruction Hurricane Florence brought.  Cleanup comes first.

During an October visit, front doors sat open, the contents of homes — refrigerators, chairs, trash cans and clothes — piled in the ditch that runs along the side of Route 41 into Beulaville in Duplin County.  Blue tarps served as temporary roof patches, and cottony pink insulation seemed to be everywhere.  Weeks after the storm, hotels from Wallace to Goldsboro remained sold out, their rooms housing residents still displaced from Florence.

The North Carolina General Assembly approved $850 million in relief aid for those affected by Hurricane Florence.  The state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services is offering its fifth buyout of farms in the 100-year flood plain — the same program it started after Hurricane Floyd.

For their part, the current top elected officials in North Carolina aren’t open to addressing questions about the Smithfield agreement.

Roy Cooper, who served as attorney general from 2001 until he became governor in 2017, referred questions about hog lagoons to the state Department of Environmental Quality and to former state lawyers for information about the Smithfield agreement’s progress during his tenure as attorney general.

Attorney General Josh Stein declined to be interviewed but through a spokeswoman said that he “believes there are technologies that can help address problems related to hog waste,” and that he “intends to work with hog farmers and producers like Smithfield to help move North Carolina to embrace technological advancements in this area.”

Easley, who as attorney general negotiated the Smithfield agreement, said no one in the state’s leadership wants to take this on.  “The will is not there,” he said.  “It’s still don’t trouble until trouble troubles you.  As long as nobody was complaining, they were not going to respond much to it.  They have to be nudged along, pushed along.”

Around this region, everywhere there are signs of staunch loyalty to the industry.  They stand like political endorsements on yards, on billboards and on church marquees around Duplin County.  They are in response to the nuisance lawsuits filed by other residents who live near hog farms around the state.  The suits do not name any individual farmers but instead target the parent company for the waste management practices on its contract farms.  However, hogs have been reportedly pulled off of at least two of the farms that have been subject to lawsuits so far.  So, the farming community takes the lawsuits personally.

Outside the Dobson Chapel Baptist Church, a white sign with a black silhouette of a farmer on a tractor, a barn and silo sit amid the words “Pray for our Farmers and their Farms.”  In most signs, though, a hog silhouette sits on or near an outline of the state of North Carolina.  The messages blare out in bright, bold capital letters: “Stand for NC Farm Families,” “Stand for Farmers No Farms No Food,” “Stop Complaining or Put Down the Bacon.”

The state legislature has taken sides since 2013 when the lawsuits were filed.  In 2017, the General Assembly overrode a veto to pass a law that caps damages in nuisance lawsuits to the value of the plaintiff’s property.  And in June 2018, the legislature passed a bill that put additional strict restrictions on when those suits can be filed and when punitive damages can be awarded.

“[Smithfield has] been politically powerful enough in the state to be able to stand pat with the status quo and fight off efforts to change,” said Whisnant, the University of North Carolina professor.  “It’s just easier for a group to play defense on legislation than it is to enforce change.”

This year, Smithfield contributed $72,800 to candidates in state races, according to campaign finance data from the state Board of Elections.  Rep. Jimmy Dixon, who sponsored the 2017 law, got the biggest slice of Smithfield’s contributions: $10,400.  The leadership of the House and Senate — Tim Moore and Phil Berger, respectively — each got $7,700, while coastal Sen. Bill Rabon, who chairs the Senate Rules Committee, got \$6,500.

Dixon said in an interview that he is a “promoter of agriculture,” but that his political actions are not tied to campaign contributions.  As a retired turkey and hog farmer, Dixon said that he understands livestock operations, that he believes the legal claims against Smithfield are “enormously exaggerated” and that some of the plaintiffs have “outright been dishonest.”

Herring, the Wallace resident who is a plaintiff in one of the nuisance lawsuits, brushes off those critical of her case.

“We are the avenue of least resistance,” Herring said.  “We don’t have any money.  We don’t have a voice.  We don’t have any representation.  So they have all the power and as we say this is happening to us, they’re saying that it’s not.”

For her, the case isn’t about money.  If she wins, she said she plans to stay in her home — a pink house with a screened in porch, on a gravel street named after her mother.

“They just want us to become complacent, shut up and just live under the stench and all the other outgrowths that come from this,” she said.  “They make all the profits and keep the farmers believing that we’re out to hurt them and that’s not the truth.  It’s not true at all.  No one is out to hurt the hog farmers.  But why should the hog farmers have more rights than the people?”

NORTH CAROLINA - After Florence

"After Florence, half of this town was underwater for days.  Now residents wonder if they should rebuild." PBS NewsHour 11/13/2018

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SUMMARY:  It’s been nearly two months since Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina and then drenched the state for days, leading to devastating flooding in many inland areas and causing an estimated $17 billion dollars worth of damage.  Special correspondent Cat Wise traveled to Jones County recently, where one hard-hit town is still struggling with the storm’s messy aftermath.

DOCUMENTARY - "Raising Bertie"

"'Raising Bertie' paints portrait of hope and hardship for three young men" PBS NewsHour 8/28/2017

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SUMMARY:  Documentary filmmakers Margaret Byrne and Ian Kibbe spent six years following the lives of three young African-American men in rural North Carolina.  The resulting documentary, “Raising Bertie” offers an intimate look at how they navigate school and generational poverty.  Jeffrey Brown speaks with the filmmakers about this coming-of-age story.

BEERS - What the Buzz is All About

"From the wing of a wasp, scientists discover a new beer-making yeast" PBS NewsHour 7/4/2017

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SUMMARY:  If you enjoy a beer on a summer day, you can thank yeast, the microbes that ferment sugar into alcohol and give beer its character.  After innumerable generations of using just two types of yeast, a lab in North Carolina has discovered a new yeast that produces a variety of flavors, and it comes from the weirdest source, bees.  Science producer Nsikan Akpan reveals what the buzz is all about.

RELATED:

"New studies shed light on insecticide’s effect on bees, economic consequences of climate change" PBS NewsHour 7/5/2017

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SUMMARY:  Neonicotinoids, the popular insecticide used in agriculture, can be harmful to bees, according to new papers.  Science correspondent Miles O’Brien joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss some important findings and analyses on that story, as well as a recent study that looked at the economic consequences of climate change.

NORTH CAROLINA - GOP Coup d'état Attempt

They can't win honestly, so rig the game, how typical.

"All hell breaks loose: North Carolina GOP's coup d'état starts tomorrow" By DocDawg, Daily KOS 12/14/2016

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Friends of representative democracy have been waiting with bated breath through the past two days of the North Carolina General Assembly’s special session, called by outgoing Gov. Pat McPotty ostensibly to fund hurricane and forest fire recovery efforts.  But the session, which ended today, produced more or less only that.

And then, late this afternoon, the other shoe dropped.

According to the state constitution, the state House Speaker and Senate President can themselves call a super-extra-special session of the legislature, upon the petition of two thirds of legislators.  Which petition (dated last Monday!) the GOP super-majority produced immediately after gaveling the Governor’s session to a close.

Tomorrow’s extra-special-super-dooper session of the General Assembly begins at 9 AM.  Preceding it at 8:30 AM will be several committee meetings (all controlled by Republicans), including the committees on Election Law, Appointments, and Redistricting.  During those half-hour sessions the committees will ‘consider’ bills submitted by members, and refer them to the House and Senate for votes.

Word on the street is that the bills to be brought up for a vote will strip incoming governor Roy Cooper (D) of many of his executive powers, importantly including the power to appoint members of the Board of Elections and directors of executive branch departments.

A source in the Democratic caucus tells me “we are debating several strategies” for tomorrow.  Personally, I’m rooting for them to lock arms and stage loud sit-ins on the House and Senate floors, to be dragged away by the State Capitol Police in front of news cameras.  The Republican super-majority really isn’t allowing them any other avenues to fulfill their duty to the state’s citizens.  Longer-term, Republicans’ actions tomorrow are likely to raise some interesting state constitutional questions...which may ultimately be decided by the state Supreme Court’s new 4D-to-3R majority (unless #HurricaneSupremes is also on the agenda).

Never a dull moment here in North Carolina, the Heart of the Beast.  Stay tuned.  Pray for us, please; democracy is now under full siege and aerial bombardment in the Tar Heel State.

ELECTION 2016 - From People in Poverty

"What people living in poverty want the presidential candidates to know" PBS NewsHour 10/20/2016

IMHO:  Of course these people are not being listened to.  They are not rich enough to buy politicians.

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In rural Wilkesboro, North Carolina, nearly a quarter of residents live in poverty, well above the national rate.  Residents there say their needs and concerns are not being discussed in the national political dialogue, which means for some, they won't vote at all. Lisa Desjardins reports.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  All right, this was your assignment for today, but since the election is so close, we have got you working on lots of different things.

And, as part of our Chasing the Dream series, you just recently went out to rural North Carolina.

LISA DESJARDINS (NewsHour):  That's right.

And out there, we found a large group of people and a very large issue that the truth is the campaigns have nearly ignored.

It is a place rich in landscapes and in spirit, fiercely proud of its Appalachian heritage. But amid that beauty and strength, the towns of Western North Carolina are struggling, and many feel no one is listening.

MARK TRUDELL, North Carolina:  I don't have a savings.  It is pretty much paycheck to paycheck.

DARLA DIETZ, North Carolina:  And I don't think politicians realize how many of us.  This is the face of poverty.

LESLIE DIETZ:  They don't understand that there are people that actually try to get by and honestly make a living, and they automatically assume the worst.

LISA DESJARDINS:  It's a conversation happening far outside of Washington.

As the economy slowly improves in many places, here in Wilkes County, at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, by many accounts, times are getting tougher.  Wilkes saw median income plunge 30 percent since the year 2000 down to $33,000 per household.  That's the second steepest drop in wealth in the nation.

LAW ENFORCEMENT IN AMERICA - Charlotte Police Shooting

"In Charlotte, protests and call for a boycott after a police shooting" PBS NewsHour 9/21/2016

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SUMMARY:  Protests boiled over in Charlotte, North Carolina, within hours of the fatal shooting of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott.  His sister said he was unarmed, but the officers say he did have a gun.  William Brangham reports on the ensuing turmoil.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  It's an all-too- familiar story, in a new setting.  This time, the city of Charlotte is on edge, awaiting a second night of protests over the police killing of a black man.

The drama began with a Tuesday confrontation that sparked a night of trouble.

William Brangham begins our coverage.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  Within hours of the fatal shooting, protests boiled over in North Carolina's largest city.  The victim was 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott.

And his sister, who didn't give her name, said he was unarmed.

WOMAN:  They said, hands up, he got a gun, he got a gun.  Pow, pow, pow, pow.  That's it.  He had no gun.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  Another woman, claiming to be Scott's daughter, went on Facebook, saying he'd had a book, not a gun, and also had an unspecified disability.

In short order, a crowd blocked traffic on Interstate 85, throwing rocks, and destroying police cars.  Some looted a tractor-trailer and set it on fire.  Others broke into a nearby Wal-Mart.  Police eventually used tear gas to quell the violence, but 16 officers were injured.

This morning, police chief Kerr Putney urged people to step back and be calm.

KERR PUTNEY, Charlotte Police Chief:  It's time to change the narrative, because I can tell you from the facts that the story is a little bit different as to how it's been portrayed so far, especially through social media.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  As Putney told it, officers had been at an apartment complex, searching for a suspect, when they saw Scott get out of a car.  They say he did have a gun, and refused to put it down.

KERR PUTNEY:  In spite of the verbal commands, Mr. Scott, as I said, exited his vehicle armed with a handgun, as the officers continued to yell at him to drop it.  He stepped out, posing a threat to the officers, and officer Brentley Vinson subsequently fired his weapon, striking the subject.

"Charlotte mayor promises police shooting investigation of ‘highest integrity’" PBS NewsHour 9/21/2016

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SUMMARY:  The city of Charlotte, North Carolina, is on edge in the wake of a police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott and the violent protests that followed overnight.  Judy Woodruff speaks with Mayor Jennifer Roberts about unrest in the community and getting facts about the deadly confrontation.

"Soldiers stand in Charlotte’s streets amid police shooting protests" PBS NewsHour 9/22/2016

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SUMMARY:  Charlotte, North Carolina, has been reeling from the shooting death of Keith Scott by police.  The governor called a state of emergency after a peaceful protest turned violent.  A black protester was critically wounded, for which many are blaming the police.  Judy Woodruff talks to Trevor Fuller of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners.

"Footage of Keith Scott shooting raises more questions" PBS NewsHour 9/23/2016

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SUMMARY:  Cellphone footage of police officers fatally shooting Keith Scott, taken by the victim’s wife, was released Friday.  The video comes as Charlotte city officials face mounting pressure to release the police body cam and dash cam videos.  Judy Woodruff talks to The New York Times' Yamiche Alcindor for more.

ELECTIONS - Impact of Ruling on Voter ID Laws

"Impact of appeals court ruling against No. Carolina voter I.D.  laws" PBS NewsHour 7/29/2016

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SUMMARY:  A federal appeals court has struck North Carolina's stringent voting rules that, among other things, required voters to show I.D. before voting.  “The new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision," the judges said.  The Justice Department and the NAACP had sued the state's legislature.  William Brangham talks with Kareem Crayton, Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now, another major ruling about voting laws that could impact the upcoming election.

A federal appeals court today struck down several of North Carolina's voting rules, ruling that they were intentionally designed to discriminate against black voters.

William Brangham has the latest.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM (NewsHour):  Before we get to the ruling, a bit of background.

Three years ago, the GOP-controlled legislature in North Carolina changed the voting rules in their state.  They passed stricter voter I.D. requirements, and cut back on things like early voting and same-day voter registration.  Those were reforms Democrats had put in place years before.

But today's ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said that those changes discriminated against black voters.  The court said — quote — “The new provisions target African-Americans with almost surgical precision,” and that these voting rules impose cures for problems that didn't exist.

Joining me now to wade through all the implications of all this is Kareem Crayton.  He is a visiting professor of law at Vanderbilt University.

Professor Crayton, thank you.

This is a very sweeping ruling by the court today.  The court basically argued that the state of North Carolina intentionally discriminated against voters.  I mean, that's a pretty rare finding, isn't it?

KAREEM CRAYTON, Vanderbilt University:  That's true.

In the modern era, most of these cases get litigated under a concern about the effects of the law, whether they were disproportionately affecting one group or the other.

This is one where the court went so far as to say that the purposes for which this law was adopted were those that prohibited — were prohibited by law, that they were racially discriminatory and targeting African-Americans in a way that the law doesn't permit.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM:  What was it specifically that the court found so troubling?

KAREEM CRAYTON:  Well, there were a number of circumstances under which this law was adopted that raised some serious suspicions.

First, there was the adoption of the law on the heels of a United States Supreme Court ruling, Shelby County vs. Holder, which had a number of protections against any discrimination or to allow for any discrimination protections for African-Americans, and North Carolina quickly rushed through this statute.

In addition to that, the legislature had information in front of it identifying those avenues for participation that African-Americans disproportionately tended to take advantage of.  And when you look at the kinds of things that the new law prescribed or restricted, they really cleverly matched up with those areas, those avenues that African-Americans used more often than not.

And I think the selectivity, of these restrictions ultimately raised the specter of discriminatory intent.  So, taking all of that into account, in addition to the fact, of course, that North Carolina has a pretty long history of discrimination with respect to race, and the court found more recent evidence of discrimination in the redistricting cases, this court was willing to say that there was a pretty strong claim that the purposes for this statute were some of the same considerations that were behind the 14th Amendment's prohibition of assuring that states shouldn't take race into account in creating new laws.

RIGHTS AT STAKE - Most Anti-LGBT Law in U.S.

"How North Carolina signed a bill dubbed the most anti-LGBT law in the U.S." PBS NewsHour 3/24/2016

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SUMMARY:  A new North Carolina law restricts protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people by repealing a city ordinance that would allow inclusive bathrooms.  In addition, the law bars any city from passing anti-discrimination legislation.  John Yang explores the implications with Dominic Holden of Buzzfeed News and Loretta Boniti of Time Warner Cable News.

JOHN YANG (NewsHour):  Senate Democrats walked out in protest, leaving their empty chairs.

MAN:  Thirty-two having voted in the affirmative and zero in the negative, House Bill 2 passes.

JOHN YANG:  The vote repealed a new ordinance in Charlotte, North Carolina, that expanded protections for LGBTQ people, including letting transgender people choose which bathroom to use.  The new state law goes even further, barring any city from passing anti-discrimination laws in the future.

Lawmakers heard testimony on both sides.

SARAH PRESTON, ACLU of North Carolina:  Half of the transgender individuals surveyed in North Carolina recently reported being harassed in public accommodations.

CHLOE JEFFERSON, Student:  What about my rights to privacy and wishes not to be exposed to young males changing and showering beside me?

JOHN YANG:  Late Wednesday night, Republican Governor Pat McCrory signed it into law, saying in a statement that Charlotte violated “the basic expectation of privacy in the most personal of settings, a restroom or locker room.”

He accused the leaders of the state’s largest city of government overreach and intrusion.

Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, a Democrat, fired back.

MAYOR JENNIFER ROBERTS (D), Charlotte, NC:  This legislation is literally the most anti-LGBT legislation in the country.  And it does this not just in Charlotte, but all across our state.

NORTH CAROLINA - Voter (supersession) ID Law

"Inside the battle over North Carolina’s voter ID laws" PBS NewsHour 10/3/2015

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SUMMARY:  After the Supreme Court's decision to overturn a key part of the Voting Rights Act, North Carolina's Republican-led state legislature passed a new voter ID law and reversed many of the voting procedures civil rights leaders spent years trying to win. Now, the law is being challenged in federal court.  NewsHour's Jeff Greenfield reports.

REV. WILLIAM BARBER:  It’s a crime that we stand here 27 days after the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act and we have less voting rights today.

JEFF GREENFIELD (NewsHour):  That fiery denunciation by Reverend William Barber, head of North Carolina’s N-double A-C-P, may seem out of a different time and place…

REV. WILLIAM BARBER:  Glory! Glory! Glory!

JEFF GREENFIELD:  But Barber believes new laws that alter how, where, and when citizens can vote are designed to disenfranchise as many Black voters as possible.

REV. WILLIAM BARBER:  All of these attacks on voting rights started right after President Obama won in states, and it changed the dynamic.  People came together who hadn’t been coming together in the south.  We know that this is an attempt to roll us backwards.”

JEFF GREENFIELD:  Barber and the NAACP believe photo voter ID laws in North Carolina and more than a dozen other states suppress minority voter turnout, because black and Latino voters are the most likely to lack an acceptable photo ID or the documents to get one.

Decreases in voter turnout have been found in states that require photo IDs to vote.  For example, in the 2008 and 2012 elections, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office attributed a two percent decrease in turnout in Kansas and a two-to-three percent decrease in Tennessee to their photo ID laws.

And many voters in North Carolina are struggling with their new voter ID law that goes into effect in 2016.  94 year old Rosanell Eaton is one of them.

Her daughter drove her 250 miles back and forth from the Department of Motor Vehicles and Social Security offices to get a photo ID, because the name on her driver’s license—her married name – did not match her maiden name on her voter registration from over 70 years ago.

THE SLEAZE FILES - Non-Transparency of Charter School Management

"Charter School Chain Finally Discloses Salaries — With One Missing" by Marian Wang, ProPublica 11/20/2014

It’s the latest round in a fight between North Carolina regulators and a charter-school power broker who has tried to keep the financial details of his companies secret.

Last week, it appeared that a North Carolina charter school chain had finally put an end to more than a month of wrangling with state regulators when it turned over salary data for administrators working at the schools.

But the salary list has a curious omission.  The son of the schools' founder, despite working as "Information Systems Admin" at one of his father's schools, is missing from the disclosures.

As ProPublica detailed last month, both the chain of charter schools and the company that manages them were founded by a politically connected local businessman, Baker Mitchell. Millions of public dollars have flowed through the nonprofit schools to Mitchell's for-profit charter-management firm and another company he owns.

A believer in the power of the free market to drive education reform, Mitchell makes no apologies about the arrangement.  He has also fought to keep the financial details of his management firm secret.

In a push for more transparency on how public dollars for charter schools are spent, North Carolina regulators this summer ordered charter schools to turn over the salaries of any management-company employees assigned to work at the schools.

Nick Mitchell, Baker Mitchell's son, is on the payroll of Roger Bacon Academy, his father's for-profit management company, according to both his LinkedIn profile and the schools' own organizational charts.  The younger Mitchell is the only management firm employee listed on the schools' organizational charts whose salary is not on the list turned over to regulators.

The North Carolina State Board of Education last week took Mitchell's charter schools off financial probation after finally receiving the salary list.  After ProPublica flagged the missing salary to the state board, an agency attorney, Katie Cornetto, said the state has "asked the school to clarify" and is awaiting a response.

We also requested comment from Baker Mitchell and John Ferrante, the chair of the nonprofit board that oversees the schools.  In an email reply ending with a smiley-face emoticon, Ferrante declined to answer ProPublica's question about the missing salary.  (Read the email exchange.)   Mitchell did not respond to the request for comment.

The salary list submitted to regulators last week is marked as containing "proprietary and confidential" trade secrets "owned by a private person, Roger Bacon Academy."  The State Board of Education released the list on Monday.

EDUCATION - University of North Carolina Bogus Classes

aka "How to Create Truly Dumb College Jocks"

"Why did no one flag UNC’s bogus classes?" PBS NewsHour 10/23/2014

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GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  For many years, the University of North Carolina has been a powerhouse in the world of college sports, enhanced by a reputation as an institution which cultivates student athletes.

But, yesterday, an independent investigator provided the most detailed look yet at academic fraud that lasted for nearly two decades and included bogus classes where students didn’t even need to show up.

Earlier this year, the HBO program Real Sports examined what was happening there.

Here’s an excerpt.

The correspondent is Bernard Goldberg.

BERNARD GOLDBERG, HBO Real Sports:  At the University of North Carolina, learning specialist Mary Willingham was baffled by what she was seeing from the athletes arriving at one of America’s most prestigious schools.

MARY WILLINGHAM:  They’re coming in with reading levels of fourth, fifth, sixth grade.  There’s even some who are reading below a fourth grade level.

BERNARD GOLDBERG:  You are saying that some kids who are admitted to the University of North Carolina, one of the best public colleges in America, with a fourth grade or even in some cases lower than a fourth grade reading level?

MARY WILLINGHAM:  That’s correct.  Makes it pretty hard to go to college, doesn’t it?

BERNARD GOLDBERG:  You would think.  And for many years, the NCAA had a rule to help ensure incoming athletes could handle college work, requiring them to score a certain level on standardized tests, like the SAT or the ACT.

But in 2003, that rule was revoked.  Colleges could now put athletes on the football field or basketball court no matter how they did on the tests.  And, soon, the term college education began to take on a whole new meaning.

Duh?  The NCAA needs to reinstate the 'level on standardized test' rule.

COAL - Ash Spill Raises Questions

Again, this begs the question of WHY states allow such facilities near rivers and lakes?

"North Carolina coal ash spill raises questions about enforcement of environmental regulations" PBS Newshour 2/17/2014

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JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  A major spill of toxic coal ash is raising questions again about the safety of water and the government regulators overseeing industry.  This time, the accident was reported in North Carolina on February 2, specifically in the Dan River in the city of Eden.

The Duke Energy company said more than 50,000 tons of coal ash had leaked from a containment pond into the river, as seen in these photos taken by the Waterkeeper Alliance.  Parts of the river look like a gray sludge.  The ash, which contains arsenic and other dangerous metals, is produced from burning coal.

Today, at a state hearing, Duke Energy officials apologized for the spill and said they would clean it up.  But big questions remain, including about coal ash containment ponds elsewhere.

Reporter Michael Biesecker has been covering this for the Associated Press.  And he joins us now from Raleigh.

POLITICS - North Carolina's Attempt to Suppress Turnout of Democratic Voters

This IS the age old attempt by Republicans to silence poor and other citizens from voting because they tend to vote Democratic.  Just look at the the ending same-day registration and shortening of early voting period, neither of which has to do with the almost nonexistent 'voter fraud.'

"Is North Carolina's Voter ID Law 'Common Sense' Policy or Discrimination?" PBS Newshour 8/13/2013

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JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  And we turn to a strict new voter I.D. law in North Carolina, which is putting a spotlight on the broader national fight over when and where people can cast ballots.

GOV. PAT MCCRORY, R-N.C.:  Protecting the integrity of every vote cast is among the most important duties I have as governor.  And it's why I signed these commonsense, commonplace protections into law.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Pat McCrory, North Carolina's first Republican governor in more than two decades, defended the new law last night in a statement posted on YouTube.

Under the statute, voters will have to present a government-issued photo I.D., such as a driver's license, at the polls.  The law also ends same-day voter registration, and it shortens the early voting period by a week.

Republican State Senator Bob Rucho argued the measure will help prevent voter fraud when it takes effect in 2016.  He said:  "It's going to have a huge dividend for the state of North Carolina as far as restoring a level of confidence in government by making the electoral process secure."

Opponents insist the real intent is to suppress turnout among Democratic constituencies, minorities, young voters and the poor.  In Raleigh today, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People announced plans to challenge the law in federal court.

NORTH CAROLINA - Tea Party Republicans to TRY Adopting a State Religion

"Establish a Religion - Nullify - Secede -- 'There They Go Again'" by Cliff Wilson, Cliff's Notes 4/5/2013

A group of radical right-wing Tea Party Republicans in the North Carolina legislature has decided to move directly to dismantle the Union known as the United States of America.  They have proposed to adopt a state religion in contravention of the constitution of the United States and the traditions of liberty of conscience so strongly defended by Patrick Henry when he successfully fought the Virginia practice of taxing citizens to pay only Anglican (Episcopal) ministers.  Many of our ancestors came to the colonies to escape persecution in England and Europe because of their religious convictions. Pilgrims, Puritans, Catholics, French Huguenots, Pennsylvania Dutch, Jews and later American Baptists and Methodists became strong advocates of freedom of conscience and the right of the individual to seek and worship God in his or her own way.

When the constitution was adopted in 1787/89 for the purpose of forming a more perfect union, than the one begun in 1781 with the Articles of Confederation, two states withheld their approval and others conditioned theirs on the subsequent introduction of amendments that would constitute a federal bill of rights.  As most of those rights were already enshrined in the post Revolution state constitutions the need was felt to restrict the federal government as the states already were.  The 1st Amendment to the Constitution and the first of the Bill of Rights proposed and adopted in 1789/91 began with the words “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.  Now these neo-politicians seize on the word Congress and say well we can establish a religion because we are a state.

These same radical right wing Tea Party Republicans will tell you that states can’t adopt gun control nor can municipalities because of the 2nd Amendment.  So you see their way of reading the Constitution is when we want it to apply to the states or to the federal government it will and when we don’t it won’t.

After the Civil War the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted between 1866 and 1868.  The Supreme Court has held consistently since the adoption of that Amendment that the first section of that amendment applies the Bill of Rights to the state and local governments (unless their constitutions expand the rights even further).  The neo-polls of North Carolina should read Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment - “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws.”

The North Carolina gang, of what Andrew Jackson would have called “Traitors”, seek to declare the right of the state to nullify any federal law they so desire to do and prevent it’s enforcement in that state.   In 1832 South Carolina tried this and when President Jackson threatened to hang them they backed down.  Nullification quickly was replaced by Secession as the only way to stop the federal government from operating within a state.   In 1814 the Federalists of New England tried advocating Secession and their party imploded and disappeared.  And, in 1861 when some states, including North Carolina (which by the way had joined the Union only when the Bill of Rights was going to be adopted) seceded, the United States led by then President Abraham Lincoln fought a great Civil War.  Over 600,000 men and boys, on both sides of the conflict, died in that war.  It was fought for two reasons; first, and primarily because this nation could not endure half slave and half free and, second because the vast majority of Americans believed in the Union and the One Nation it embodied.

When Americans died in the trenches of Europe during the First World War and when they landed and died on the beaches of Normandy they didn’t give their lives for North Carolina or Pennsylvania or Wyoming.  They died for their families, their freedoms and their country - the United States of America.  As long ago as the time of the American Revolution that great Virginia patriot Patrick Henry declaimed “We are not Massachusetts men, nor Yorkers nor Virginians we are Americans.”

We have a political system that allows those who would change laws and constitutions to do so peacefully by persuading the majority.  Those who would undermine that system as some tried in 1814 and again in 1832 and again in 1861 show no faith in the democratic system and total disdain for the principles of liberty that our Declaration of Independence so skillfully articulated.  They may not be committing treason in the legal sense against this government but they are committing treason against our democratic values our principles of freedom and liberty and equality.  Foremost among those has been the freedom to practice or not practice a religion of one’s choice.  Our country has been free from the sectarian strife that has so bloodied other parts of the world.  Except for a brief war with Mormons in Missouri in 1838 the people of the United States have respected each other's religious freedom.  No one is forced to financially support a religion unless done voluntarily.  No one is required to attend a church unless they choose to do so of their own free will.

The radical right wing Tea Party Republicans, sometime masquerading as Libertarians (which is the ultimate irony), have an agenda.  They wish to impose their own morality on all the citizenry.  They oppose marriage equality for LGBT citizens; they support restrictions on access to the franchise to discourage minorities and poor and elderly folks from voting; they enact restrictions on women’s access to reproductive health care; they would make a mockery of the words on the Statue of Liberty and if they could would restrict access to citizenship; they proclaim the 2nd amendment as a guarantee that citizens can combat a government that tries to infringe on their rights and then they attempt to infringe on all the other rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

I do not believe they will succeed.  I believe Americans will rally around the Bill of Rights and the Union as they did one hundred and fifty years ago.  I believe with Lincoln that they will take back this government from both the radical ideologue extremists and the moneyed interests and again restore a government of the people to the people.   I believe the American people will reject this radical right wing attempt to either breakdown the federal government in Washington DC, and end the many people helping programs adopted over the past two hundred years, or failing that to break down this Union.  The federal government, by the 14th Amendments’ application of the Bill of Rights to the individual states, will, as it has since the Jeffersonians defeated the Federalists, preserve and protect the liberties of the American people.  Lest these radical right wing Republicans forget it let me remind them that we are "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

ELECTION 2012 - North Carolina Tossup

"North Carolina Up for Grabs in 2012 as Voter Enthusiasm Wanes" PBS Newshour 10/2/2012

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SUMMARY: In 2008, North Carolina went blue for the first time since 1976, in large part due to a high turnout of African-American voters. But with enthusiasm ebbing over the down economy and unmet expectations among key voting blocs, turnout may be too unpredictable to know which way the state will swing in 2012. Jeffrey Brown reports.

AMERICA - North Carolina, Compensation for Sterilizations

"North Carolina Moves to Compensate People Sterilized Against Their Will" PBS Newshour 1/10/2012

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RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): North Carolina was by no means the only state to have people sterilized against their will, but it was among the most aggressive in pursuing the policy.

Roughly 7,600 people were sterilized between 1929 and 1974, many of them poor, sick, uneducated, or institutionalized, sometimes through force and coercion. The vast majority of the procedures took place in the years after World War II, when other states pulled back from such programs.

The state apologized for the offenses in 2002. Today, a task force voted to pay the remaining living victims $50,000 apiece.

We look at the history and today's decision with one of the principal activists working with the state's task force.

My hat's off to North Carolina.