When the N.C. General Assembly’s top staffer announced plans last week to roll out sexual harassment training for state lawmakers and legislative employees, some state lawmakers hailed the move as a good first step.
But women’s rights advocates and experts in workplace sexual harassment tell Policy Watch that the training, which is voluntary for lawmakers, might not go far enough. “This strikes me as not a real effort to effect meaningful change,” said Laura Noble, a North Carolina attorney who specializes in workplace litigation and sexual harassment.
At least one of the drawbacks for keeping this "voluntary" for lawmakers has to do with perception. While those who are prone to unethical behavior usually don't realize it, and would likely skip the training, those who aren't prone to that consider themselves enlightened enough to not need it. But a big part of this training is designed to teach that second (and hopefully much larger) group how to spot red flags, and take steps to intervene when necessary. And it's almost always necessary, if you really want to stop the behavior. Which brings up a third group of people, who are not abusers but also want to maintain plausible deniability that anything wrong is happening right in front of their noses. In many ways, that last group is worse than the first. Here's more:
Jane and I have been having ongoing discussions about Facebook and what it means to be participating there. I wrote down some of my ideas this morning. Would love to hear what others are thinking.
WOODHOUSE THREATENS CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AFTER COOPER APPOINTS CIRCOSTA: Gov. Roy Cooper announced Wednesday evening he had appointed Circosta to the ninth seat on the Board of Elections and Ethics Enforcement. The wrangling on the way to agreement on two nominees reflected the long power struggle between Cooper, a Democrat, and the Republican-run legislature, which moved to change the board after Cooper won office in 2016. Cooper has sued over the changes three times, most recently this month. But Dallas Woodhouse, the NC Republican Party executive director, said Republicans will talk about asking the legislature to consider a constitutional amendment to allow "a fully bipartisan board," with an even number of Democrats and Republicans. http://www.newsobserver.com/article206082999.html
A North Carolina legislator misidentified herself as a registered nurse until recently, when the state Board of Nursing contacted her and asked her to stop. State Rep. Beverly Boswell, a Republican from Dare County, is a medical assistant and phlebotomist — someone who's trained to draw blood — who was first elected in 2016 to represent NC House District 6. A member of the NC House health committee, Boswell has filed bills to allow chiropractors to conduct physical examinations, establish life at conception and exempt some eye surgeries from the state's permitting laws, among other health-related bills.
Boswell identified herself as a registered nurse on her campaign website and Facebook page until mid-March, when the N.C. Board of Nursing, responding to a complaint, asked her to stop doing so, board spokesman David Kalbacker said on Tuesday.
I'm sure she could still get a job at one of those Crisis Pregnancy Centers, since being adept at bullshit is pretty much the only qualification...
Will there be a short-term DACA fix included in this upcoming government spending bill? Whether there is or not, it is past time to give Dreamers certainty beyond short-term fixes! Take a look at this News & Observer article below.
An NC Dreamer longs for a release from immigration limbo
BY MICHELLE VALLADAREZ
Tom Fetzer, a former state GOP chairman and former Raleigh mayor, said that he has formed an independent expenditure campaign finance group along with two former Supreme Court chief justices, Burley Mitchell and I. Beverly Lake Jr., designed to assist in the re-election of Newby. It is called the North Carolina Judicial Coalition.
This one is bad enough to warrant two strikes against Mitchell. First, for supporting the worst Justice who has ever donned one of those robes, and second for being a conduit for hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence such an important election, with a lot of that money coming from out of state. And strike number three is the fact Burley Mitchell has snuggled into Art Pope's network of bent think-tanks, joining such notables as Virginia Foxx (ugh) and Robert Shibley of FIRE, notable for pushing the worst campus speakers and whining when administrations don't want White Supremacists marching around. Do we want this man casting the tie-breaking vote on NC's election issues? That was a rhetorical question...
TILLIS CAMPAIGN PAID CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA $100,000 POST-ELECTION: Tillis’ campaign committee paid the firm $10,000 on Oct. 21, 2014, and $20,000 on Nov. 6, 2014. It made four payments of $25,000 throughout 2015 to Cambridge Analytica, according to Federal Election Commission filings. A Tillis spokesman called the $100,000 in post-election payments a "win bonus." Cambridge Analytica boasts of its work for Tillis and the NC Republican Party on its website, saying that it used its "unique data-rich voter file" to predict partisanship, turnout, and build "psychographic profiles of all voters in North Carolina." The company said it identified national security as the major issue among the majority of targeted voters. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article206085334.html
DUKE ENERGY ATTORNEY SAYS PEOPLE CAN SKIP MCDONALD'S TO COVER RATE HIKE: Duke Energy customers facing a rate hike regardless of how much electricity they use shouldn't be too worried, because it's just the price of a McDonald's value meal each month, a company attorney said Monday. "One extra Big Mac, fries and a drink," Duke Deputy General Counsel Bo Somers said during the company's ongoing rate increase hearing before the North Carolina Utilities Commission. Somers was pushing back against claims that the company's rate hikes, meant to raise billions of dollars in new revenue over the next 10 years, would be a hardship for some. Attorneys seeking to block state regulatory approval of the company's full request have keyed at times on Duke's basic facilities charge – the fee customers pay each month just to be hooked into the company's electric grid. http://www.wral.com/duke-energy-attorney-just-eat-fewer-big-macs/17428127/
I seem to recall several folks telling me we shouldn't engage in opposition research during that campaign, that we should just present positives of our candidate because voters were tired of negative ads. Apparently they weren't tired enough...
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