(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
North Carolina Open Thread: Biden/NC, Cop whistleblowers, Voting restrictions, 1,4-Dioxane pollution [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-07-23
Without the Tar Heel state, Democrats say, Republicans don’t have a path to the White House.
POLITICO, Myah Ward, 7/22/2023
President Joe Biden is eyeing redemption in North Carolina next year.
Biden lost the Tar Heel state to Donald Trump by just 1.4 percentage points in 2020, and a Democrat at the top of the ticket hasn’t managed to turn North Carolina blue since Barack Obama did in 2008. Now Biden’s team sees opportunity in 2024 amid a fresh abortion ban, a contentious, expensive gubernatorial race and steady population growth that has ballooned urban and suburban areas.
State and local party leaders are pointing to North Carolina as the next Arizona or Georgia for Democrats. They’re calling on the Biden campaign and DNC to invest heavily in the state because without it, they say, Republicans don’t have a path to the White House.
“I think the road to reelection will run through North Carolina this time. And we’re encouraged by the [Biden] campaign’s early commitment to our state,” said Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, a member of the president’s national advisory board. “It’s pretty clear that they have decided that North Carolina is going to be one of their targeted states … I told the president that this investment is going to be critical to his reelection, and that I believe we can win this state for him.”
This early in a presidential contest, it’s typical to hear campaigns talk about new prospects and plans to expand the electoral map, and it’s no surprise that the president’s team is looking to North Carolina, a battleground state Democrats have long set their sights on. But beyond campaign chatter and a string of early appearances by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in recent months, it won’t be clear just how seriously national Democrats are taking North Carolina until next year, when the campaign, DNC and top super PACs decide how much money and resources to pour into the state.
News&Observer, Ryan Oehrli, 7/18/2023
Republicans and Democrats in the North Carolina House of Representatives sponsored a bill in April that would, they said, protect good cops who report bad cops. House Bill 589 would have shielded officers from being disciplined, fired or retaliated against for reporting a co-worker’s misconduct — including breaking the law, misappropriating government resources or abusing authority. “No one should have to walk on eggshells when they report a crime,” Forsyth County Rep. Kanika Brown, a Democrat who co-sponsored the bill, told The Charlotte Observer. But like previous bills to protect police whistleblowers, HB 589 stalled out.
Eleven days after it was filed, three law enforcement groups detailed their opposition in a memorandum. They compared the bill’s language to a union contract and said that it would create unnecessary legal troubles. Its last stop was the Rules Committee, with no sign of life for months now.
Brown said that her support for the bill arose, in part, after a conversation with former FBI scientist Frederic Whitehurst, who blew the whistle on misconduct in the FBI’s crime lab in the 1980s and 1990s. Whitehurst alleged that laboratory examiners improperly testified outside their expertise, presented insupportable conclusions, perjured themselves, fabricated evidence and failed to follow procedure, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General in the US Department of Justice. His complaints led to reforms within the lab.
NBC NEWS, Jane C. Timm, 7/17/2023
North Carolina lawmakers are considering not only a spate of new election restrictions but also a major overhaul of state and county-level election boards, alarming advocates who say some of the proposals could grind the state’s democratic apparatus to a halt.
The changes would restrict same-day registration and mail-in voting. They would also give new powers to the state Legislature, where Republican lawmakers have been emboldened by a new veto-proof majority, along with a new Republican majority on the state Supreme Court.
The three bills, which could be considered in House committee hearings as early as this week, come as North Carolina begins to institute new voter ID rules. The state Supreme Court had previously declared the photo ID requirements unconstitutional, but the new Republican majority reversed that decision earlier this year, allowing the law to be enacted.
NC Newsline, Lisa Sorg, 7/21/2023
Until 1989, when the company declared bankruptcy, Seaboard Chemical Corporation in Jamestown, in Guilford County, dealt in the dirty business of solvents and fuels. Now the fallow property on Riverdale Drive lies behind a locked gate and a thicket of pine trees, what some local residents called the “1,4-Dioxane forest.”
The groundwater beneath the former Seaboard site is highly contaminated with 1,4-Dioxane, a known carcinogen. Though not as well known as PFAS, 1,4-Dioxane is likewise what federal regulators call an “emerging compound” — relatively unknown chemicals that are being detected more often and more widely, in the air, dirt and drinking water supplies. While in a different chemical family than PFAS, 1,4-Dioxane shares another characteristic besides toxicity: It’s a forever chemical that lingers in the environment for decades, if not hundreds of years.
Neither the EPA nor the NC Department of Environmental Quality have established legally enforceable limits on 1,4-Dioxane, even though it’s a known carcinogen. State regulators have established an unenforceable health advisory goal of 0.35 parts per billion in drinking water supplies.
As part of a settlement agreement with the Haw River Assembly, DEQ provides updates on 1,4-Dioxane — discharges, spikes, monitoring and other data — twice a year to the Environmental Management Commission. Hovering over the agency’s latest presentation last week was House Bill 600. If it becomes law as written, DEQ couldn’t limit the amount of 1,4-Dioxane and other toxic chemical discharges unless they can be measured by a number. That would require rulemaking by the EMC.
Thank you for reading and contributing to this weekly project.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/23/2182895/-North-Carolina-Open-Thread-Biden-NC-Cop-whistleblowers-Voting-restrictions-1-4-Dioxane-pollution
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
