Latest news with #NorthCarolinaRepublicanParty
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill allowing teachers to bring guns to schools in NC is a dangerous proposal
As a retired teacher and a great-aunt of two children in schools, I am concerned about the passing of House Bill 193. This bill allows some teachers and volunteers to carry concealed weapons in private school classrooms. Concealed weapon permit holders are only required to have 8 hours of safety training. School resource officers are required to complete more than 800 hours of basic training, plus at least 40 hours of specialized training. In 2016, a private Christian school teacher in Pennsylvania left a loaded gun in a unisex bathroom. Four children used the restroom and saw the gun. One reported it to his parent who reported it to the school. A similar incident occurred at Faith Christian Academy in Goldsboro in 2024. Fortunately, these situations did not end in the tragedies that they could have. Please allow teachers to do what they are trained to do — teach — and allow law enforcement to handle the rest. Cheryl Block, Cary As a 14-year precinct official, I am appalled at the North Carolina Republican Party and the six judges who supported Jefferson Griffin's attempts to change the outcome of his race against Allison Riggs. Appellate judges Fred Gore and John Tyson as well as State Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby and associate justices Trey Allen, Tamara Barringer, and Phil Berger Jr need a constitutional law refresher class. They've apparently forgotten the U.S. Constitutional guarantees equal protection. Federal District Judge Richard Myers II, appointed by President Donald Trump, reminded his North Carolina counterparts about it in his decision. I assure our state's Republican judges, lawmakers and election officials who believe Trump's fraud claims our state's precinct election workers are required to take thorough training and an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and the North Carolina Constitution provisions 'not inconsistent' with the federal one. As a chief precinct judge I gave that oath to my staff during four elections in 2021 and 2022. Judge Griffin does not deserve 'the appreciation of every North Carolinian' for pointing out 'appalling mismanagement' by N.C. Board of Elections staff as the N.C. GOP claims. Mark Rodin, Morrisville Regarding Duke Energy's proposal to increase rates to cover construction of new power plants, I think the wrong customers are being asked to do this. The article states that the increased demand is coming from data centers, mainly to support new AI-driven capacity. I suggest that Duke Energy add a surcharge to their corporate data center customers to cover these costs. Homeowners tend to do what they can to reduce their power consumption. We should not bear the burden of supporting corporations jumping on the latest computing fad. John Price, Cary Medicaid covers over 40% of births in the U.S. Medicaid covers 15 million Americans with disabilities. Medicaid helps so many school children in need of health services. Do not cut Medicaid. Invest in family health and those with disabilities for a better nation. Deb Levin, Chapel Hill This administration aims to eliminate fraud, abuse and waste within Medicaid. Medicaid is in need of reform. Originally intended to support the poor and those who couldn't obtain insurance, it has gradually evolved into a de facto universal healthcare program. Back in 2000, Medicaid covered around 30 million people. Today, that number has grown to 80 million — about 25% of the U.S. population. This expansion goes far beyond Medicaid's original mission! Mike Howard, Waxhaw Millions of our tax dollars are being spent by the federal government to deport non-criminals to prisons outside the U.S. Their right to due process is being ignored and flagrantly abused. To base these deportations on the tattoos someone has would be laughable, but it's no joke to tear people, including U.S. citizens, away from their families and jobs. These illegal removals must be stopped. Susannah Smith, Chapel Hill
American Military News
10-05-2025
- Politics
- American Military News
Federal judge orders North Carolina to certify Riggs as winner in Supreme Court election
In a ruling that could put an end to nearly six months of legal battles over North Carolina's contested Supreme Court election, a federal judge on Monday ruled against the Republican candidate's effort to overturn his narrow loss. Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that Jefferson Griffin, a judge on the state Court of Appeals, cannot 'change the rules of the game after it had been played.' Myers ordered the state not to throw out any votes and to certify the results of the election as they were at the close of the canvas period, with Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs winning by 734 votes. However, Myers put his own order on hold for seven days to give Griffin a chance to appeal. Riggs' win has been blocked ever since Griffin and the North Carolina Republican Party embarked on an unprecedented campaign to challenge his 734-vote loss by contesting over 65,000 ballots. Although the state Supreme Court threw out Griffin's largest challenge, potentially thousands of military and overseas ballots would have been in jeopardy under a 30-day ballot review process, known as a 'cure period' devised by the high court. Several hundred other voters challenged over their residency status would've had their votes canceled without the chance to cure them. Myers' decision, if it stands, means that the cure period will not begin and no votes will be discarded. Griffin and the NC GOP are likely to appeal Myers' ruling to the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, though that court has already ruled against their efforts once. How did we get here? In an chaotic months-long campaign, Griffin has attempted to discard tens of thousands of votes cast in the race in the hopes that it could flip the result in his favor. The litigation has ping-ponged between state and federal courts and drawn national attention from critics who warn that his effort, if successful, could form the playbook for challenging legitimate election results across the country. While Griffin initially challenged over 65,000 ballots, the number of votes in contention was significantly reduced by the Republican-dominated North Carolina Supreme Court last month when it rejected his largest challenge, which dealt with voters who didn't have certain identifying numbers in the state's registration database. The court ruled that this omission, which affected over 60,000 of the challenged voters, was likely not the voters' fault and therefore could not be used to cancel their ballots. However, in a 4-2 decision, the Supreme Court ordered that potentially thousands of military and overseas voters would have to show their IDs during a 30-day 'cure period' or risk having their votes thrown out. A smaller group of voters who were challenged for their residency status would have their ballots discarded without a chance to cure them. Reporting from Anderson Alerts and Popular Information found reason to believe that dozens of these voters, who Griffin argues have never resided in the state, are actually longtime North Carolina residents. Riggs immediately brought the matter to Myers, who said he would review the case before a winner was certified but would not stop the cure period from beginning. Riggs appealed to the 4th Circuit, which agreed to issue a stay halting the cure period, at least until Myers could rule on the merits of the case. While briefing commenced in the federal court, Griffin began arguing in state court about the scope of the court-ordered cure period, contending that election officials' plans to implement it were not expansive enough. The State Board of Elections' plan for carrying out the cure period would have affected 1,675 voters at most. Griffin, however, argued that more ballots — potentially over 5,000 — should be brought into question, and that the challenged voters should have fewer opportunities to cure their ballots. ___ © 2025 The Charlotte Observer. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Federal judge orders NC to certify Riggs as winner in Supreme Court election
In a ruling that could put an end to nearly six months of legal battles over North Carolina's contested Supreme Court election, a federal judge on Monday ruled against the Republican candidate's effort to overturn his narrow loss. Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that Jefferson Griffin, a judge on the state Court of Appeals, cannot 'change the rules of the game after it had been played.' Myers ordered the state not to throw out any votes and to certify the results of the election as they were at the close of the canvass period, with Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs winning by 734 votes. 'Today, we won,' Riggs said in a statement. 'I'm proud to continue upholding the Constitution and the rule of law as North Carolina's Supreme Court Justice.' However, Myers has put his own order on hold for seven days to give Griffin a chance to appeal. Griffin and the North Carolina Republican Party, which joined him in litigating the case, did not provide a statement Monday evening, but said they were reviewing the ruling and determining next steps. In his 68-page ruling, Myers said Griffin and the NC GOP's unprecedented effort to challenge over 65,000 ballots presented an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote. 'This case concerns whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals,' he wrote. 'This case is also about whether a state may redefine its class of eligible voters but offer no process to those who may have been misclassified as ineligible. 'To this court, the answer to each of those questions is 'no.'' Riggs' win has been blocked for months as Griffin's case has wound its way through state and federal courts. In April, the state Supreme Court threw out Griffin's largest challenge, but ruled that potentially thousands of military and overseas voters would have to prove their eligibility during a 30-day ballot review process, known as a 'cure period.' Several hundred other voters challenged over their residency status would've had their votes canceled without the chance to cure them. Myers' decision, if it stands, means that the cure period will not begin and no votes will be discarded. Griffin and the NC GOP are likely to appeal Myers' ruling to the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, though that court has already ruled against their efforts once. The case could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court. In a chaotic months-long campaign, Griffin has attempted to discard tens of thousands of votes cast in the race in the hopes that it could flip the result in his favor. The litigation has ping ponged between state and federal courts and drawn national attention from critics who warn that his effort, if successful, could form the playbook for challenging legitimate election results across the country. While Griffin initially challenged over 65,000 ballots, the number of votes in contention was significantly reduced by the Republican-dominated North Carolina Supreme Court last month when it rejected his largest challenge, which dealt with voters who didn't have certain identifying numbers in the state's registration database. The court ruled that this omission, which affected over 60,000 of the challenged voters, was likely not the voters' fault and therefore could not be used to cancel their ballots. However, in a 4-2 decision, the Supreme Court ordered that potentially thousands of military and overseas voters would have to show their IDs during a 30-day 'cure period' or risk having their votes thrown out. In his ruling, Myers noted that the state had approved an exemption to the ID requirement for military and overseas voters that was in place for months before the election, but was never challenged until after. He also noted that Griffin only challenged these votes in six of North Carolina's 100 counties, all of which lean Democratic. 'When the underlying basis for a protest is a rule that applies statewide, a geographically selective protest raises equal protection concerns and the specter of post-election mischief,' Myers wrote. Under the state Supreme Court's order, a smaller group of voters who were challenged for their residency status would also have had their ballots discarded without a chance to cure them. Reporting from Anderson Alerts and Popular Information found reason to believe that dozens of these voters, who Griffin argues have never resided in the state, are actually longtime North Carolina residents. Citing this, Myers said that the court's order to cancel these votes posed a serious risk of disenfranchising eligible voters. Monday's ruling comes after Myers initially declined to stop the cure period from happening. When Riggs first appealed the Supreme Court's order to Myers, he said he would review the case before a winner was certified, but would not stop the cure period from beginning. Riggs appealed to the 4th Circuit, which agreed to issue a stay halting the cure period, at least until Myers could rule on the merits of the case. While briefing commenced in the federal court, Griffin began arguing in state court about the scope of the court-ordered cure period, contending that election officials' plans to implement it were not expansive enough. The State Board of Elections' plan for carrying out the cure period would have affected 1,675 voters at most. Griffin, however, argued that more ballots — potentially over 5,000 — should be brought into question, and that the challenged voters should have fewer opportunities to cure their ballots. When Republicans took control of the elections board last week for the first time in nearly a decade, some raised concerns that they could use their newfound majority to tilt the cure process in Griffin's favor. Myers' order, however, is clear in its instruction to scrap the cure period and certify Riggs' victory.
Fox News
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump mocks trans athletes in women's sports to roaring applause at Alabama commencement speech
President Donald Trump stirred the hearts of the University of Alabama graduates when he re-affirmed his promise to "keep men out of women's sports." During a commencement speech at the university's graduation ceremony on Thursday night, Trump gave a shutout to the school's SEC champion women's track and field team, before igniting a raucous applause by "vowing to defend women's sports." "As long as I'm president, we will always protect women's sports, men will not play in women's sports!" Trump said, before the crowd erupted in cheers, for its loudest and longest applause of the night. "No way! They say its an 80-20 issue, no, it's a 97-3 issue, I think," Trump said. "No, men will not be playing in women's sports. I said that and I classified it with a very powerful executive order as you know, it's done." Later in the speech Trump circled back to the subject later in the speech, mocking the Democrats for allowing trans athletes in women's sports and the trans athletes themselves in a lengthy rant. During this section of the speech, Trump also discussed the Paris Olympics women's boxing competitions, which included two gold medalists who were previously disqualified from international competitions for failing gender eligibility tests. However, neither boxer, Algeria's Imane Khelif and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting, identifies as transgender. "They had a great champion a female boxer, and after one punch she walked back to the corner and said 'I can't get hit like that, I've never been hit like that before." At one point, Trump did a physical impersonation of a female weight lifter and a trans weight lifter, and reenacted a scenario where the female loses a competition to a trans opponent. Then Trump took aim at transgender swimmers, telling a story of a swimmer who he joked was "windburned" by a trans opponent. "One young lady, she was going to set the record, she fought all her life to set the record," Trump said. "Then she looks to the right and she sees the same thing but there's a person next to her who's a giant… that was a person that transitioned and he had the wingspan of Wilt 'the stilt' Chamberlain." Trump made similar references to the weightlifting and swimmer scenarios in June 2023 while speaking at the North Carolina Republican Party's convention in Greensboro. On Thursday, Trump also referenced female volleyball players who have been impacted by trans inclusion. "You look at all the volleyball players who have been hurt so badly that are hit at levels that they've never seen before," Trump said. One former University of Alabama women's volleyball player, Brooke Slusser, was thrust into a situation where she had to share a locker room and bedroom with a trans athlete when she transferred from the university to San Jose State University in 2023. There, after leaving Alabama for California, Slusser was thrust into a situation where she was made to share those spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming without even being told Fleming is a biological male, Slusser alleges in a lawsuit. Slusser has since fled San Jose State University and returned home to Texas after facing alleged backlash and harassment in the aftermath of filing her lawsuit. Trump signed the "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports" executive order on Feb. 5. One day later, the NCAA revised its gender eligibility police to restrict participation in the women's category to only biological females. However, the new policy has also come under criticism by some women's sports activists for not going far enough. Alabama as a state has had a law in place to prevent trans athletes in girls' sports in effect since 2021, and in 2023 it extended to include college students. Unlike other laws addressing the issue, Alabama's law also bars athletes assigned female at birth from participating in the boys' category unless there is no comparable girls' opportunity (such as football). Trans inclusion in women and girls' sports emerged as a hot-button issue in Trump's 2024 election victory, as most Americans came to take the Republican's side on the topic. A national exit poll conducted by the Concerned Women for America (CWA) legislative action committee found that 70% of moderate voters saw the issue of "Donald Trump's opposition to transgender boys and men playing girls and women's sports and of transgender boys and men using girls and women's bathrooms," as important to them. And 6% said it was the most important issue of all, while 44% said it was "very important." The issue inspired a national counter-culture movement against Demorat policies that keep trans athletes in women's sports, heavily influenced by young college-educated women. And Biden's 35-point lead among young women over Trump in 2020 shrunk to a 24-point lead for Harris this year, per an NBC News exit poll. A New York Times/Ipsos survey found the vast majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, don't think transgender athletes should be permitted to compete in women's sports. Of the 2,128 people who participated, 79% said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in women's sports. Of the 1,025 people who identified as Democrats or leaning Democrat, 67% said transgender athletes should not be allowed to compete with women. Nearly 70% of Americans say biological men should not be permitted to compete in women's sports, according to a Gallup poll last year. In June 2024, a survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago asked respondents whether transgender athletes of both sexes should be permitted to participate in sports leagues that correspond to their preferred gender identity instead of their biological sex. In that survey, 65% answered that it should never or rarely be allowed. When those polled were asked specifically about adult transgender female athletes competing in women's sports, 69% opposed it. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Years after questioning his own loss, Pat McCrory has strong words for Jefferson Griffin
Not many prominent Republicans have been critical of Jefferson Griffin's quest to overturn the outcome of the North Carolina Supreme Court race he lost. But one of the few who have is former Gov. Pat McCrory. He hasn't shied away from his opposition to Griffin's effort, including by speaking out about it on his TV show, 'Unspun.' McCrory is no stranger to close elections — he lost reelection to Roy Cooper by a thin margin in 2016. In the immediate aftermath of the election, McCrory, his supporters and the North Carolina Republican Party raised questions about the election results and suggested they might have been tainted by fraud. Nearly a month after Election Day, McCrory conceded the race. In doing so, he admitted he still had 'continued questions' about the voting process, but believed that 'the majority of our citizens have spoken.' Raising questions is one thing, McCrory said. But he believes Griffin has taken it to another level by seeking to retroactively change the rules of an election. And even as a Republican who voted for Griffin, it's something he just can't agree with. 'If they think they need to change the rules for future elections, I have no problem with that, but you can't change the rules after the election is over,' McCrory told me. 'It's like changing the rules of the Super Bowl after the game is over and declaring a different winner. You can't do that.' McCrory's initial questioning of his loss in 2016 felt like a new political low then, and it thrust North Carolina into the national spotlight. It was wrong in almost every sense: protests filed by McCrory's supporters made flimsy claims maligning innocent voters, and his campaign suggested something nefarious had happened with some people's absentee ballots. Nearly every accusation was thrown out by local elections boards, which at the time were controlled by Republicans. In subsequent years, some would hold up McCrory as an early adopter of election denialism that eventually became rampant among Republicans. When Donald Trump began propagating lies of a 'stolen election' in 2020, media outlets pointed to McCrory as someone who tried to 'overturn an election' first, with one expert labeling him the 'amateur Trump.' But in accepting defeat, McCrory did something that Griffin and Trump have not. He readily admits that he lost the election fair and square. That feels almost gracious by today's standards, given the intransigence we see from so many Republicans today. McCrory maintains that his campaign's actions in 2016 were proper. He was following a process that was outlined by state law, he says. But after a certain point, he knew that the best thing to do was concede, despite calls from his supporters to 'keep fighting,' he told me. 'I understand statistics, and the statistics showed me that it was time to move on, regardless of how much more fight we were willing to give,' McCrory said. 'And I should note, I could not find sufficient fraud which would overcome my deficit. It was tough, but it was the right thing to do.' It was wrong of McCrory's campaign to claim there was fraud without proof. It hurt the voters who were falsely accused of wrongdoing, and it sowed seeds of distrust in what was clearly a legitimate election. But McCrory is right to say that Griffin has taken it to another level. Like McCrory, Griffin was well within his rights to request a recount, but unlike McCrory, he did not respect its outcome. State law allows Griffin to file protests with election officials, but he did not respect their decisions. McCrory, for his part, has made it a goal to boost voter confidence in elections. Last year, he helped launch the North Carolina chapter of RightCount, an organization whose goal is to educate people about the election process so that they can trust the results. RightCount has run television ads criticizing Griffin's 'attack on our elections.' 'It's tough to criticize my own party, because there are people who will be upset,' McCrory said. 'But we've got to have the courage to speak out, on both sides of the aisle, even when the outcome doesn't fall our way.'
