Civil liberties thread

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Vrede too
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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ACLU-NC 2015 Legislative Report Card
ACLU-NC Releases 2015 Legislative Report Card

RALEIGH – The North Carolina General Assembly’s 2015 session witnessed major setbacks for civil liberties for the state, according to a legislative report card released today by the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina (ACLU-NC).

The statewide civil liberties group graded North Carolina House and Senate members’ votes on five key bills, respectively, all of which the ACLU-NC opposed for their negative impact on civil liberties. Three of the bills graded were signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory, and a fourth is awaiting his signature or veto. The group also issued grades for votes on two bills that did not become law and were voted on by only one of the two chambers.

The votes graded were on the following bills and issues:

LGBT Equality: The House and Senate approved and overrode Gov. McCrory’s veto of Senate Bill 2, which allows magistrates and other government officials to opt-out of conducting marriages for legally eligible couples. Sponsors said the bill was a response to same-sex couples winning the freedom to marry in North Carolina.
Capital Punishment: The House and Senate approved and Gov. McCrory signed HB 774, which allows the state to hide the source of drugs used in executions and removes the requirement that a doctor be present at all executions.
Reproductive Justice: The House and Senate approved and Gov. McCrory signed HB 465, which tripled the mandatory waiting period for a woman seeking an abortion to 72 hours.
Immigrants’ Rights: The House and Senate approved HB 318, which prohibits local governments from adopting so-called “sanctuary” ordinances limiting enforcement of federal immigration law, prohibits some government officials from accepting various forms of ID cards, and expands the use of E-verify. The bill is awaiting Gov. McCrory’s signature or veto.
Nondiscrimination: The House voted to send SB 279 back to committee, effectively killing the bill that would have stripped local governments of their ability to pass anti-discrimination ordinances related to employment, housing, and public accommodations.
Juvenile Justice: The Senate voted on SB 343, which would have created a new felony penalty for students aged 16 and older who are found guilty of assaulting school personnel. Such acts are already criminal and the bill would have exacerbated the school-to-prison pipeline.

In the House, 22 members voted 100% in line with the ACLU-NC’s position on these issues, while 33 members voted in favor of the ACLU-NC’s position 0% of the time. In the Senate, 11 members voted in line with the ACLU-NC’s position 100% of the time and 20 members voted in favor of the ACLU-NC’s position 0% of the time.
Sigh.

Let your representatives know what you think of their scores by contacting them here.
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Vrede too
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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North Carolina Legislative Report Card 2015-2016

Mine: McGrady, Chuck, 6 wrong, 1 absent. :roll: :cussing:
Dear Rep. McGrady,

6 wrong, 1 absent. That's sad. Fortunately, your team is losing most of these fights in court . . . after costing us taxpayers a truckload of money.
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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Vrede too wrote:
Mine: McGrady, Chuck, 6 wrong, 1 absent. :roll: :cussing:
Dear Rep. McGrady,

6 wrong, 1 absent. That's sad. Fortunately, your team is losing most of these fights in court . . . after costing us taxpayers a truckload of money.
How much did you lose, Vrede? Gotta sell your house yet? Your car? File for bankruptcy?
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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Mr.B wrote:Civil Liberties violations!


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Vrede too
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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ACLU is seeing a Trump-era surge in members and donations

The nearly century-old American Civil Liberties Union says it is suddenly awash in donations and new members as it does battle with President Donald Trump over the extent of his constitutional authority, with nearly $80 million in online contributions alone pouring in since the election.

That includes a record $24 million surge over two days after Trump banned people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. The organization said its membership has more than doubled since the election to a record of nearly 1.2 million, and its Twitter following has tripled.

After Trump's election, the ACLU greeted the age of Trump on its website and magazine with a fresh slogan: "See you in court." That was the same expression Trump used in his tweeted response to a federal appeals court's decision refusing to reinstate the travel ban.

The ACLU has won court orders in New York, Massachusetts and Maryland against the president's travel ban. It has also filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents on the billionaire's potential conflicts of interest. And it intends to bring a legal challenge accusing him of violating the Constitution's Emoluments Clause by accepting payments from foreign governments at his hotels and other properties....
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k9nanny
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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I used to like Chuck McGrady. He listened. We had discussions that included mutual respect.
My last conversation with him really burned my biscuit. He dismissed my logical reasoning that we didn't need the so called "puppy mill" bill, because we already had laws in place. He dismissed my reminder that the State would put the financial burden on the Counties. He didn't even pretend to listen.

Does anyone else remember when he changed parties in order to run for County Commissioner? His detractors besmirched him for being past president of the national Sierra Club. They called him a RINO, which he was.

He hasn't requested our services in a while, but if he does, I'll invoke my freedom to refuse service on religious grounds. Wouldn't be the first bigot we've ushered out the door.

He's a RINO no more. The man got sucked to the bottom of the tar pit.
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k9nanny
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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Seth Milner wrote:
Vrede too wrote:
Mine: McGrady, Chuck, 6 wrong, 1 absent. :roll: :cussing:
Dear Rep. McGrady,

6 wrong, 1 absent. That's sad. Fortunately, your team is losing most of these fights in court . . . after costing us taxpayers a truckload of money.
How much did you lose, Vrede? Gotta sell your house yet? Your car? File for bankruptcy?
Dumbass. Any funds wasted by the State could have been used elsewhere. The citizens of North Carolina deserve better.
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Vrede too
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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I thought that McGrady was always GOP, even while president of the national Sierra Club. But, maybe he changed parties before I moved here. Is the Village of Flat Rock council partisan? I do remember him benefiting in GOP primaries from Dem crossover voting.

When he got to the Leg. he was still half decent, openly discussing both sides of issues and sometimes voting against the GOP or at least abstaining. No more, it's been disappointing watching him steadily become more sleazily partisan each session as he accrues more power. We've argued over the Ag Gag bill and more recently over the GOP's numerous court defeats. One of them was the stupid statewide re-vote for the Leg. we're gonna have this year. He threw a tantrum when I condemned the racist gerrymandering, which is merely the court's words, and now doesn't respond to me and may have even removed me from his newsletter list. Not that I expected it to do any good, but I pointed out that I've always supported democracy and openness and that he's the one that's changed into a GOP hack.

No biggie, I still write (including gloating over every court defeat for the GOP), just as I did with Apodaca who never responded except once to whine about how busy and important he was. It looks like our new Sen. Edwards is maintaining that constituent-disdaining tradition.
Last edited by Vrede too on Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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k9nanny
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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Oops- you're correct. Seems he's always been in a Republican. Maybe I'm remembering the RINO accusations, but I swear I thought he changed parties, because no way could a Democrat get elected to the County Board of Commissioners.

He was a wuss for missing the HB2 vote. In my book, that's as good as a yes.

Flat Rock is nonpartisan.
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Vrede too
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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k9nanny wrote:... Seems he's always been in a Republican....
:o ;)

I started to realize that something smelled when he voted against compensation for the forcibly sterilized and could only say that the state had better things to spend money on.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Vrede too
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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k9nanny wrote:... He (McGrady) was a wuss for missing the HB2 vote. In my book, that's as good as a yes....
Now, he's pushing a "compromise" that doesn't ensure rights, doesn't protect local government and won't resolve the boycott.

Bill filed to loosen knot over NC bathroom bill

Cooper knows this and Progress NC Action says:
Lawrence –We’re days away from losing 6 years of NCAA tournaments and the $250 million in economic activity they’ll bring to our cities, counties and state. It's as if the state legislature, led by House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Phil Berger could not care less.

And now conservative politicians in Raleigh have rolled out a so-called “compromise” bill that would repeal HB2, and replace it with HB 2.0.

... Here’s what HB 2.0 does:

Prohibits cities from protecting transgender people in public facilities.
Local governments that enact nondiscrimination ordinances could have those policies overturned by a referendum.
State law would explicitly exclude LGBT people from nondiscrimination protections in housing and employment.

Sound familiar? HB 2.0 keeps the most discriminatory parts of HB2 in place and calls it a fix. Who do politicians in Raleigh think they are fooling? Governor Cooper, EqualityNC and progressives across the state have condemned the proposal, with EqualityNC calling it an unprecedented failure of leadership.

The NC Chamber of Commerce has come out in favor of it, but then again the Chamber was a big backer of the original HB2! So no surprise that they support HB 2.0.

... Time is running out and the ball is in Berger’s court. Will we get leadership, or more discrimination?

Sincerely,

Evan Degnan
Digital Director, Progress NC Action
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k9nanny
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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Are people really so stupid, so easily mislead?
The rewrite still legalizes discrimination, but if we instill fear in you, that any man can walk into the women's restroom and molest your daughter, you'll miss that inequality under the law part.

As George Takai said, "It's not about bathrooms ... as it was never about water fountains."
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O Really
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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k9nanny wrote:Are people really so stupid, so easily mislead?
Obviously so. Starting with how everybody followed the "shiny object" of bathroom predators and didn't even notice the rest of the law. The act also prohibits cities from enacting their own anti-discrimination policies, setting a local minimum wage, regulating child labor, and reduces control on city regulations for city workers. The legislation originally removed the statutory and common-law private right of action to enforce state anti-discrimination statutes in state courts, but that part has already gone away. Misleadingly named "Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act", those extraneous parts were simply piggy-backed onto a tabloid-worthy bill.

And faced with no known cases of transgenders causing bathroom issues anywhere, they were still happy to go along with it "just in case" even though everything they feared had already long been illegal.

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Vrede too
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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O Really wrote:... And faced with no known cases of transgenders causing bathroom issues anywhere ...
Someone has to clean up the blood when they're assaulted by bigots. Bad transgenders.
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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O Really wrote:And faced with no known cases of transgenders causing bathroom issues anywhere,
That would never stop the Nazi/KKK/Mr.B types.

Go back just a few decades and they believed that blacks were all rapists and pedophiles. So when someone made a specific claim - no matter how dubious - blacks would get lynched.

Go back just a couple years and the Nazi/KKK/Mr.B types were commonly equating gays with rapists and pedophiles. But now only the most pig-ignorant still do. So the Republican alt-right has focused on transgenders, now equating THEM with rapists and pedophiles.

When a dog licks its balls, it's just being a dog. When a neo-Nazi writes...
Mr.B wrote:he doesn't believe pedophiles in dresses should be allowed in ladies restrooms
...he's just being a neo-Nazi. He'll have made the claim about other groups before, and he'll find another group to make it about in the future.

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Re: Civil liberties thread

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I debated whether this was LEO or Civil Liberties.
He made a half-ass apology about his "un-American comment, but this nut has got to go.

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/HCSO ... hccjPv4oeY
"Rule of Law? We don't need no stinking law!" This seems to be the message of those "protestors" destroying businesses and property while restricting free speech and interfering with the rights of fellow citizens to peacefully drive or walk on public streets or byways. What entitles them to scream vulgarities and to physically attack and ridicule those who dare question their myth-based, passion-inflamed, anarchist ideology? Well, they don't like what they don't like, regardless of how or why it happened.
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Vrede too
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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k9nanny wrote:... this nut has got to go....
It's Henderson County, where 287(g) has enthusiastic support, churches get shot up by the PD, and harmless crazy women with lighters get executed, unlikely. It's not that LEO's are worse here than elsewhere, it's that the people are more complacent and supportive of authoritarianism.
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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Yep, it's also a county where slapping "In God We Trust" on buildings and patrol cards is peachy keen.
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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k9nanny wrote:"Yep, it's also a county where slapping "In God We Trust" on buildings and patrol cards is peachy keen."
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Re: Civil liberties thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.

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