North Carolina Open Thread: Republicans' CRT Apocalypse, NC "Audit"? and Cawthorn's swastica Tweet

Are North Carolina’s teachers indoctrinating students with tenets of Critical Race Theory? The state’s Republican leaders say they are, but struggled to provide solid evidence Wednesday when asked to do so by Democratic colleagues. 

“All you have to do is to go to almost any local school board meeting around the state and talk to the parents that are showing up with very real stories of what they are hearing from their children,” offered Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican from Rockingham.   

Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican from Greensboro, promised hard evidence next week. 

After the State Board of Education adopted new social studies standards that Robinson opposed, he launched a new initiative dubbed “Fairness and Accountability in the Classroom for Teachers and Students” (F.A.C.T.S.) to give students, teachers and parents a tool to report perceived cases of bias or indoctrination in public schools. During debates about the social studies standards, Robinson caused an uproar when he said that “systemic racism” no longer exists and demanded the phrase be removed.

Accusations of McCarthyism, biased teachers among complaints sent to Lt. Gov.'s 'indoctrination' task force

WRAL, Emily Walkenhorst, 7/17/2021

RALEIGH, N.C. — The submissions to Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s task force investigating political indoctrination in schools are a mixed bag of positive and negative responses to the task force’s existence and an assortment of complaints about different books and topics of conversation in schools.

WRAL News reviewed the 506 submissions made to the task force through Wednesday and found most are merely messages of support for the task force, messages against it, joke submissions, messages in support of teachers, complaints about pandemic health protocols or accusations that the task force is a 2021 version of McCarthyism.

Many submissions named specific teachers and the schools at which they teach. One submitter complained about a university education student, by name, who had refused to engage in a debate with them on social media about critical race theory and noted they had also complained to the student’s university about them. The documents the Lt. Governor’s Office provided to WRAL redacted the names of those who complained but not the names of educators mentioned in the submissions.

“It's McCarthyism. It's the Red Scare all over again,” said Lauren Piner, a high school history teacher at South Central High School in Pitt County. “Instead of looking for, you know, Soviets and Marxists in Hollywood and in the government, we're looking for them in our classrooms.”

In latest Critical Race Theory backlash, NC Senate may vote on affirmative action ban

News&Observer, T Keung Hui, 7/15/2021

One of North Carolina’s most powerful Republican officials is calling for a state constitutional amendment to ban affirmative action and for legislation to prevent public schools from “indoctrinating” students with Critical Race Theory concepts.

Senate leader Phil Berger announced Wednesday that the Senate will take up legislation that forbids public schools from “promoting certain discriminatory concepts” such as that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex.

The bill also bans promoting concepts such as that particular privileges should be ascribed to a race or sex or that people solely due to their race or sex should feel guilt, anguish or discomfort. The language comes amid complaints from conservatives about schools teaching about white privilege.

N. Carolina GOP would ban K-12 promotion of views about race

WRAL, Associated Press/Report for America, Bryan Anderson, 7/14/2021

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Republicans advanced legislation Wednesday defining how teachers can discuss certain concepts about race and racism inside the classroom.

GOP Senate leader Phil Berger said his chamber is taking action as Republicans across the country seek to combat what they view as "critical race theory,” a framework legal scholars developed in the 1970s and 1980s that centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions, maintaining the dominance of whites in society.

The latest version of the North Carolina bill would prevent teachers from compelling students to personally adopt any ideas from a list of 13 beliefs, even though they cannot identify a single case of this happening inside the state’s classrooms, which serve about 1.5 million K-12 public school students.

The Big Lie continues

BlueNC, 7/17/2021

KEITH KIDWELL WANTS TO TEAR OPEN VOTING MACHINES FOR NO GOOD REASON: Caucus members want to look for illegal, internet-connected modems that may have been inserted into the machines to let someone remotely change vote counts. But they also admit they have no evidence that any such modems exist. “I’m very hopeful and very confident that there’ll be nothing,” Kidwell said. But now that the elections board won’t let them open the machines, Kidwell and the Freedom Caucus have begun questioning whether state elections director Karen Brinson Bell or others are trying to hide something. So on Thursday morning, they called a press conference. “Mrs. Brinson Bell has decided to put up a wall,” Kidwell said. “And we plan to go through that wall.” Says the idiot who got re-elected.

NC Republicans avoid ‘Kraken’ tactics but seek new inspection of 2020 voting machines

News&Observer, Will Doran, 7/15/2021

North Carolina Republican politicians hoping to conduct their own audit of the 2020 elections don’t want to resort to legal action to try to force the State Board of Elections to let them have their way, they said Thursday.

The lawmakers could try to force their will on elections officials by issuing subpoenas, for instance. But Rep. Keith Kidwell, a Beaufort County Republican who leads the far-right Freedom Caucus in the N.C. House of Representatives, said he’d rather not. “We honestly don’t want to have to go that route,” he said. “I think a spirit of cooperation is all we seek.”

The News & Observer reported Wednesday that state elections officials, behind the scenes, have been blocking the Freedom Caucus in its efforts to take apart voting machines that were used last year.

Caucus members want to look for illegal, internet-connected modems that may have been inserted into the machines to let someone remotely change vote counts. But they also admit they have no evidence that any such modems exist.

Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn deletes swastika tweet after criticism, media questions

Joel Burgess, Asheville Citizen Times, 7/13/2021

A tweet featuring a picture of Nazis by Western North Carolina's Republican member of Congress Madison Cawthorn has been deleted following criticism by people on Twitter.

Cawthorn posted the tweet just before 9 p.m. July 9, promoting flying the flag and criticizing Black Lives Matter members quoted as linking racists with the practice of flag flying.

"The American flag symbolizes unity, patriotism, independence, pride, and love for our country. BLM continues to expose their radical hatred of this country," tweeted Cawthorn, who represents North Carolina's far-western 11th District, including Asheville.

He linked to a July 8 New York Post story "BLM chapter calls American flag ‘symbol of hatred’ only used by racists." The main image for the article — and the main one for his tweet — showed members of the National Socialist Movement in 2008 marching from the Washington Monument to the grounds of the United States Capitol Building. One man wears a shirt that says "skinhead" while he holds the hand of a boy with a shirt with a large swastika, the symbol of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany during the World War II.

U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn joins Freedom from Big Tech Caucus as vice chair

WLOS staff,  July 16th 2021

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — Mountain Congressman Madison Cawthorn is taking on a leadership role with the Freedom from Big Tech Caucus.

He'll serve as vice chair on the caucus that was formed to hold big tech companies accountable and protect free speech.

Cawthorn released a statement which reads in part, "For too long, big-tech has abused its powers and targeted the constitutional rights of American citizens. I am looking forward to working with my colleagues to free the free market and bring an effective end to political censorship."

Take the Kids: 7 places to see sunflowers this summer around Raleigh

Sarah Lindenfeld Hall, Go Ask Mom editor, WRAL, 7/14/2021

The city of Raleigh's sunflower field, which you'll find blooming in Dix Park very soon, popularized sunflower fields across the Triangle. And, during COVID, many more fields have popped up and will continue to bloom this summer. Here's where to find those bright yellow blooms now or very soon!