Yahoo! News: “Controversial freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) was so thoroughly schooled by CNN host Pamela Brown Saturday over his fact-free claims of election fraud that he did a full capitulation on the spot. This is the same lawmaker who urged Trump supporters in a speech late last year to “threaten” politicians and warn them: “I’m coming after you”…
A Look at Deaths in ICE Custody in Texas
TX Observer: “Across the United States, deaths in immigration detention centers skyrocketed in 2020 to the highest rate of fatalities reported by ICE officials in more than a dozen years, according to a new report on in-custody deaths of immigrants by researchers at the University of Southern California’s medical school. Most of the 21 deaths…
“Doug Jones talks inauguration, a Biden presidency and his future plans”
AL Political Reporter: “Asked about future plans, Jones said that for now, he’s “letting the dust settle” and explained that possibilities are on the horizon. “The cabinet selection took a little bit more time than I think people expected, and I’m just incredibly honored and humbled to have even been in that discussion, much less…
Local Action Protects LGBT Rights in NC
NC Policy Watch: “The city councils in two of North Carolina’s largest cities unanimously passed LGBTQ-inclusive non-discrimination policies Tuesday, the latest in a series of municipalities to do so since a statewide ban on such local protections expired last month. Greensboro and Durham, the state’s third and fourth largest cities respectively, followed the moves made by…
Southern Kooks Have Leading Role in GOP Decline
The Bulwark: “Even without Trump, the GOP remains a deeply unserious party. A serious party, for example, does not number in its ranks someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is, not to put too fine a point on it: a nut, a fabulist, and a conspiracy theorist of the most wretched water. But today’s GOP…
“Mobile native Gen. Lloyd Austin confirmed as defense secretary”
AL Political Reporter: “Austin, a Mobile native, is a 1975 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and retired after serving as the commander of U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations and coordination in the Middle East. After retirement, Austin served on the boards of Raytheon, Nucor and Tenet Healthcare, and was…
“We Need a Second Great Migration”
NY Times: “Simply put, my proposition was this: that Black people reverse the Great Migration — the mass migration of millions of African-Americans largely from the rural South to cities primarily in the North and West that spanned from 1916 to 1970. That they return to the states where they had been at or near…
“Civil Rights Leader Rev. William Barber to Deliver Homily at Official Inaugural Prayer Service”
WaPo: The Rev. William J. Barber II, a fiery North Carolina preacher and anti-poverty crusader, will deliver the homily at the official inaugural prayer service at Washington National Cathedral, the inaugural committee announced Tuesday. “I’m just so deeply humbled to be asked to do this sermon in a place of deep prayer,” Barber said in…
“Maybe this is the year we get rid of Confederate Heroes Day”
Off the Kuff: I mean, it was just two years ago that we were finally able to get a Confederate plaque removed at the Capitol, though later in that same session the Senate approved a bill that would make it virtually impossible to remove any other Confederate monuments around the state. (That bill did not come to a vote in…
“Your Right to Know: How to find Toxics Release Inventory Data for your Community”
NC Policy Watch: “The Toxics Release Inventory, administered by the EPA, collects data from industrial facilities for 770 chemicals, and reports the findings by state, city, county, Zip code, industry and chemical. There are some data shortcomings: Not all toxic chemicals are included in the TRI and the data is self-reported. Nonetheless, the TRI is a valuable…