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Tuesday News: Vote like your life depends on it, because it does

Submitted by BlueNC on Tue, 11/06/2018 - 09:46

2018 MID-TERMS THE EPITOME OF GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM: Once pegged as a low-thrill election cycle without major statewide races, North Carolina's campaign season became a high-intensity fight over Republican governance in Raleigh and Washington, and whether Democrats deserve more power.  Record numbers voted early before Tuesday's midterms, reflecting the energy and money injected into legislative, judicial and congressional races and ballot questions.  State Democrats raised mammoth sums of cash, buoyed by Gov. Roy Cooper's call to "Break the Majority" of the GOP in both the House and Senate this decade.  Appraisals of state Republican control stretched to a state Supreme Court race and six referendums that if approved would imprint GOP policies in the state constitution.  Three GOP congressional seats were also threatened with close races.  Cooper raised at least $7 million for the state Democratic Party, which passed money along to the party's legislative candidates.https://www.wral.com/n-carolina-elections-got-amped-up-despite-lacking-major-race/17973565/

IF YOU SEE IT, SAY IT.  REPORT ANY INCIDENTS OR IRREGULARITIES AT THE POLLING PLACE: There have been accusations of voter intimidation by a state representative and a poll worker, of a volunteer being confronted with a gun and racial slurs, and of alleged assault by a candidate.  Some people said touchscreen voting machines changed their votes.  So what do you do if you see problems at polling places on Tuesday?  First of all, contact state authorities.  The North Carolina State Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement is the bipartisan state agency which oversees elections.  To contact the board, call (919) 814-0700 or (866) 522-4723.  You can also email the board at elections.sboe@ncsbe.gov.  The agency has a Google form so voters can report any incident at polling places immediately.  The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, a nonpartisan group in D.C., has a hotline that voter incidents can be reported to.  Trained legal professionals operate their hotline, which you can call at 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683).https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article221147840.html

GAY NC REPUBLICAN LEGISLATIVE CANDIDATE HAS TOTALLY LOST HIS MIND: In an August Facebook video that tallied nearly a thousand views, Boykin voiced support for InfoWars and Jones, who Sandy Hook Elementary School parents are suing after he pushed spurious claims that a 2012 mass shooting at the school was staged by the U.S. government, as the New York Times reported.  Jones has insisted it was part of a plan to repossess Americans’ guns.  During a recent interview, Boykin noted that he finds it unreasonable and impossible that the Las Vegas shooter, an “old man,” as he calls him, was “able to basically just wipe out all these people with this gun” without help.  Instead, Boykin said he suspects the shooter was a “runner of weapons…probably left over from the Obama days,” who was once recruited to run guns to Mexico during Barack Obama’s presidency.  Boykin said he considers his work in online pornography years ago is “irrelevant” to his campaign. “ I didn’t do any movies.  I didn’t do any hardcore anything.  I took basically pictures of myself behind a protected wall to make sure that people who were underaged would not see it and it was supposed to be private,” he added. ( Yeesh)

NCCU STUDENTS DEMAND ACTION BE TAKEN AGAINST OVERTLY RACIST WHITE STUDENT: Law students at North Carolina Central University are protesting the university’s response to a fellow student who posted offensive comments on Facebook last week.  Students on Monday marched to demand punishment for Morgan Kendall, who students said used a racial slur on social media and said she wished she could take credit for pipe bomb packages sent to the Obamas and Clintons last month.  The law students and other student body members who gathered at NCCU’s School of Law Monday called for the immediate expulsion of Kendall.  They said the march from the law school to the university’s administrative building was in protest of what they are calling a slow process in addressing Kendall’s Facebook post.  Students last week told WRAL News that they feared for their safety with Kendall on campus. “ I don't feel safe.  I don't know what she's capable of, and I would like to see her expelled immediately," said Kayla Britt.https://www.wral.com/nccu-students-protest-demand-student-who-posted-racial-slur-on-facebook-be-expe...

TRUMP'S IMMIGRANT-BASHING IN RUN-UP TO ELECTION FILLED WITH LIES AND HYPERBOLE: "At this very moment, large well-organized caravans of migrants are marching towards our southern border.  Some people call it an invasion. ... These are tough people in many cases; a lot of young men, strong men and a lot of men that maybe we don't want in our country. ... This isn't an innocent group of people.  It's a large number of people that are tough.  They have injured, they have attacked." —  immigration speech Thursday.  THE FACTS: He's given no evidence that people in the caravans are, by and large, dangerous, hardened criminals — after acknowledging at one point that there is no such proof.  The migrants in the caravans are mostly from Honduras, where it started, as well as El Salvador and Guatemala.  Overall, they are poor, carrying the belongings that fit into a knapsack and fleeing gang violence or poverty.https://www.wral.com/ap-fact-check-trump-s-distortions-on-immigration/17967208/

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