1/ Will the enforcers who trampled our rights in 2020 ever face consequences?
Today, the NC legislature nearly unanimously voted to promote one of the police chiefs behind the shutdown of the 1st Reopen NC event and arrest of a citizen for "non-essential" protesting
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2/ Bodycam video and court documents show then-Chief of the State Capitol Police R. E. "Chip" Hawley played a major role in the repression of the protest
Two weeks after Gov. Cooper unilaterally issued a stay-at-home order telling us not to leave our homes except for "essential activities", demonstrators (including myself) gathered in a parking lot near his mansion to protest
4/ Many if not most of the protesters were social distancing by household, but we were nonetheless ordered to disperse under the very order we were out to demonstrate against, with the Raleigh Police infamously declaring to the public that "Protesting is a non-essential activity"
5/ In leaked body camera footage from the Raleigh Police staging area, Captain Dedric Bond references a call with Hawley, the Legislative Police Chief, and Wake County DA Lorrin Freeman approving the dispersal: "We got the blessing from everybody"
6/ Hawley's involvement was not merely limited to the planning stage
The video also shows him in a white shirt and tie accompanying the RPD officers as they scour the parking lot and decide to "make an example" of the last protester to leave, Monica Ussery
7/ Although it was RPD who surrounded and cuffed Ussery, she was officially arrested by Hawley's subordinates in the State Capitol Police and loaded into their vehicle with Hawley presiding
8/ Hawley is also as a witness in the incident report filed by his agency, stating "that he heard the defendant state that she was not leaving and it was her constitutional right to be in the parking lot with everyone else." thisweekinthetriangle.com/p/coopers-pick…
9/ Hawley has been named as a defendant in the civil rights lawsuits in both state and federal courts by Ussery, alleging that her arrest was "retaliatory prosecution"
10/ Although Hawley was nominated in as SBI Director in 2023, the legislature declined to take a vote on confirmation at the time and allowed the current director to remain in office past the end of his term while they investigated his allegations of improper influence by the governor's office newsobserver.com/news/politics-…
11/ Despite Ussery and her supporters attempting to make legislators aware of these facts, the only NO vote in either chamber on Hawley's confirmation vote held yesterday and today was from @RepKidwell ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/202…
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13/ If you are a local in the Greater Triangle area and appreciate stories like this, make sure to sign up over on S_bstack where I publish original articles and weekly editorial roundups of the local news I find important: thisweekinthetriangle.com/subscribe
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Are dementia-ridden seniors a possible explanation for the ActBlue zombie donor phenomenon?
Let's break this down before it becomes a narrative based on the evidence available and my experience finding and interviewing victims here in North Carolina
2/
2023: Analysis of FEC data by citizen journalists revealed a pattern of high-quantity small-dollar contributions made by often unemployed & senior donors, sometimes totaling $100k+
When visited in person, many denied having made the reported donations
3/ Independent journalists like myself have documented interviews with fixed-income retirees who say they simply couldn't afford to make the contributions attributed to them, like a retired Democrat fundraiser reported to have given $26,204.07 in two years
1/ The City of Durham will be paying $1 million+ in reparations to black applicants who failed an entry exam for firefighters
The DOJ says the 4th grade level questions on reading, writing, math, etc. "disparately impacted" black applicants, who were 3x more likely to fail🧵🧵🧵
2/ The complaint filed Monday by the DOJ in the federal court alleges that the city "unintentionally engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against African-American applicants" by "making hiring decisions based on a written examination"
1/10 Patriot Front is a white nationalist group known for their performative vandalism and costume-coordinated marches
But are they all feds? The case of a North Carolina member who was just arrested and charged may be illuminative
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2/10 Kai Liam Nix was charged with four federal felonies and removed from the Army after left-wing journalists reached out to the Army based on information provided by the antifa researchers at Appalachia Research Collective headlineusa.com/is-patriot-fro…
3/10 Nix is being charged under 18 U.S. Code § 1001(a)(2) for allegedly lying on a background check form for being a "member of a group dedicated to the use of violence or force to overthrow the United States Government"
(This would presumably be PF, but it's not confirmed)
1/ Let's break down how the ActBlue zombie-donors/smurphing/political contribution laundering appears to work, based on my boots-on-the-ground experience investigating it here in NC
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2/ In our investigation (based on 2021-2022 FEC records), we found
- 2 citizens who denied giving the $20k+ each attributed to them
- 2 donors who did not live at their reported address actbluefraudnc.com
3/ ActBlue is a widely used Democratic fundraising platform, which is required to report the individual contributions it processes to the FEC
1/ You may know Roy Cooper as the mild-mannered NC governor who's a top VP pick for Kamala Harris
I know him as the tyrant who trampled our rights and had demonstrators arrested for opposing his executive orders while he himself did a photo op at BLM protest
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2/ On March 14, 2020, Gov. Cooper issued Executive Order No. 117 banning gatherings of more than 100 in a "confined indoor or outdoor space"
The order was written to prohibit church services, but not office spaces, malls, or retail establishments governor.nc.gov/documents/file…
3/ However, Cooper hit a snag three days later when attempting to issue another executive order to prohibit dine-in customers from bars and restaurants
Under NC law, the governor can only exercise certain emergency powers with the concurrence of the Council of State
"The importance of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) is encompassed throughout these standards as a foundational aspect of all library services including the elimination of barriers to access."
3/8 - Staffing outcome: "The library is sufficiently staffed with personnel who reflect the diversity of the community and participate in professional development to provide quality service to the community."