Political Wire: “A federal appeals court said Monday it will hear oral arguments Jan. 7 in a high-profile case centered on the country’s most restrictive abortion law,” NBC News reports. “The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Louisiana, scheduled the hearing after the Supreme Court this month declined to block enforcement of the Texas law…
Month: December 2021
“Federal judge extends deadline for Alabama to address mental health in prisons”
AL Political Reporter: “A federal judge in a 600-page opinion Monday gave the Alabama Department of Corrections until 2025 to boost correctional officer hiring, calling the state’s prisons so understaffed that security checks are lax, prisoners receive little or no time outside of cells and those with mental illnesses continue to U.S. District Judge Myron…
“90 years on: Remembering the Scottsboro Boys”
AL Political Reporter: “In 1931, a train ride in search of work during the height of the Depression nearly ended the lives of nine Black teenage boys — Clarence Norris, Jr., Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Andrew Wright, Leroy Wright, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson and Eugene Williams — who were falsely accused of rape…
History Suggests Long Odds for Dems in NC Senate Race
North State Journal: “N.C. Democrats are confronting a trend working against them in the last 30 years of elections: they’ve won just two U.S. Senate races in that time frame. In the 10 U.S. Senate races in that time (1992, 1996, 1998, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2020) they’ve managed to win just twice,…
“POLITICAL RETIREMENTS WILL PAINT TEXAS A FRESH COAT OF RED IN 2022”
TX Observer: “Like a political etch-a-sketch, Texas’ new maps shook away the geographic, demographic, and partisan sorting that successfully secured GOP majorities through the 2010s and drew a new political landscape that Republicans expect will get them through the 2020s. Red seats were drawn redder, blue seats bluer. Competitive districts were all but eliminated. Soon…
Florida Whisper Campaign Seeks to Tarnish VP Harris
Politico: “Florida Democrats are sounding alarms over what they believe is a sustained and coordinated campaign rapidly unfolding across Spanish-language media to tarnish the image of Vice President Kamala Harris. Democratic veterans in the state are unnerved by the ferocity and speed of the attacks, which have come from callers and guests on local radio…
A Look at One TX Man’s Role in Spreading Election Disinformation
NY Times: “A few days after President Biden’s inauguration put to rest one of the most chaotic transitions in U.S. history, a former Army colonel with a background in information warfare appeared on a Christian conservative podcast and offered a detailed account of his monthslong effort to challenge the validity of the 2020 vote count….
NC Sheriff Refusing to Remove Huge Bible Quote Saying “I can do all things through Christ…” from Public Building
News and Observer: “A Bible quote painted in the hall of one North Carolina law enforcement agency has ignited a very public spat between a Christian county sheriff and the national Freedom from Religion Foundation. The foundation is demanding the New Testament quote be removed and hints legal action could follow. The sheriff of Columbus…
“‘Negro Durham [NC] Marches On’: Library to Preserve 1940s Film Documenting Hatyi’s Prime”
News and Observer: “Former state Rep. Henry “Mickey” Michaux was a student at North Carolina College (now N.C. Central University) in 1948 when the talk of the town was that Don Parrisher would be making a film about Hayti, Durham’s historic Black neighborhood. Parrisher was a white filmmaker known for his reels documenting towns and…
“Texas Board Pulls George Floyd Pardon Recommendation”
Political Wire: “George Floyd will not be posthumously pardoned for a 2004 Houston drug charge because the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles withdrew its recommendation, the Dallas Morning News reports.”