Tag Archives: Moral Monday

The Right To Assemble

Right to Assemble

The Right To Assemble

One of the core arguments of the libertarian movement, and the Tea Party, is that government interference is damage meant to be minimized.  This is why such groups rightfully are frustrated when liberal government agencies refuse to issue permits to Tea Party groups or charge them for such permits while issuing them for free to like minded groups.

Tyranny

And so it is demonstrated that even as a government has the support of the “less government is good” crowd, it too is subject to power and can over reach in its quest to keep that power:

RALEIGH — The governor’s administration was unable to keep demonstrators off state Capitol grounds on Monday despite an attempt to deny the group a permit to assemble there.

Judge Allen Baddour presided over a Wake County Superior Court hearing on Monday in which he overturned an administrative decision to confine the demonstrators to Halifax Mall, a big grassy area enclosed by state office and legislative buildings.

The hearing was held hours before an evening rally organized by the NAACP state chapter president Rev. William Barber II and others opposed to new policies and laws adopted this summer by the Republican-led General Assembly.

People gather at the Capital all the time – perhaps it’s reasonable to have a permit process.  After all, there may be legal reasons to adjudicate liability in the event of damage or injury.  That aside, the people in The Moral Monday movement are free to assemble and grieve to their government.  To be certain, they are wrong minded and shortsighted, but we are, after all, a free nation.

Moral Monday – Perfect Summary

Quick and Easy summary of the Moral Monday protests here in North Carolina:

As far as I can tell, “Moral Monday” is Rocky Horror Picture Show for Progressives.  They dress up, they recite lines, they shriek at all their favorite parts of the show.

Beautiful.

On Not Reading Bill

I resonate with the frustration expressed by opponents of specific legislation when that bill is signed into law, or voted for, without having been read.

Here in the only TRUE Carolina, our Governor responded to specific question on a bill handed to him that he had yet to read that bill or that aspect of the bill.

Here, Moral Monday is taking him to task:

For the record, here I agree with the folks who are moral on Mondays.  However, I do not respect their outrage or cries of injustice.  They were no where to be heard as elected official after elected official admitted to not having read Obamacare.

Who can forget, “We have to pass this bill to see what’s in it.”

Mountain Moral Monday

And they said the Tea Party lacked color:

All KINDS of brown skinned people at the Moral Monday rally.

Thankful Tuesdays

So, North Carolina is making headlines for their Moral Monday protests.  Typical liberal complaints about wars on various things, republicans hate the poor and kids and moms and baseball.  The normal stuff.

But added to the mix is the disbelief that when republicans take control of state government for the first time in 150 years, they are going to govern different than democrats.

Anyway, the Moral Monday protests are silly in the same way that the Occupy Wall Street protests were silly.  But now the right has countered:

Raleigh, N.C. — About 200 supporters expressed their appreciation Tuesday for North Carolina Republicans’ efforts to cut taxes, require identification before voting and make getting abortions more difficult.

Republican groups organized a “Thankful Tuesday” rally at the government complex in Raleigh to praise the GOP-led legislature and Gov. Pat McCrory for their work passing conservative policies.

Sigh.  The right.  So much less skilled at message crafting than the left; Thankful Tuesday.  They can’t even get the name right.  Who holds a Thankful Tuesday when Thankful Thursday is available?

Anyway, the republicans are going to  over reach, to be sure, and they’re gonna make mistakes – again, no surprise.  But the left needs to calm down when, for the first time in a dozen or more decades, things aren’t being decided by them.

Unemployment Benefits to End In North Carolina

Unemployment

The most recent recession has seen massive amounts of folks joining the ranks of the unemployed. Compounding that problem is that it is hard to obtain a new job in this economy.  In an effort to alleviate, or help alleviate, some of the pain, benefits have been extended.

But it doesn’t come cheap:

The new law is a response to the more than $2 billion the state owes the federal government, money that was borrowed to cover state-funded unemployment benefits after unemployment soared beginning in 2008.

While the state does get help from the federal government, they have to pay that money back.  And if that money isn’t paid back in time, there are penalties.

So what is North Carolina doing?

About 70,000 people will stop receiving federal extended unemployment benefits June 30 – the result of a state law that goes into effect July 1. (See the state and Triangle jobless rates, and the rates for all 100 counties, in the interactive graphics at the bottom of this story.)

The law, one of the first passed by the legislature this year, reduces the maximum state benefits a laid-off worker can receive by roughly one-third. It also reduces the maximum weeks of benefits funded by the state.

Those changes triggered the end of the federal extended benefits because federal law requires states to maintain current benefit levels. Extended benefits, which kicked in after the unemployed had exhausted their 26 weeks of state-funded benefits, have provided as many as 47 additional weeks of benefits for those unable to find a job.

We’re reducing the unemployment benefits.

This, of course, is one of the reasons for Moral Monday protests here in Raleigh.  It’s an example of an extremist legislature dominated by republicans to wage a war on the poor and middle class of North Carolina.

Never mind the fact that this money is going to have to be paid back.  Never mind the fact that, at some point, the benefits are going to end.  Never mind the fact that data suggests that people begin to look in earnest for their next job 2 weeks before their benefits end.

It’s time.  It’s long past time to return to a state of things where benefits are a simple and short bridge to the next job.  No one envisioned nearly two full years of unemployment benefits when the program was instituted.

North Carolina: Moral Monday

NC-GOP1

North Carolina is firmly red, much to the joy of NC State fans the world over!

But seriously, some folks are not overly happy that the republicans are in power:

We don’t take civil disobedience lightly. But the avalanche of extreme policies from Gov. Pat McCrory and the North Carolina General Assembly — attacking the poor and unemployed, cutting crucial funding from public education and dismantling voting rights — left us no choice. From teenage college students to elderly grandmothers, we are assembling in the State Capitol, week after week, to sing, pray and force politicians to hear our voices.

After our first nonviolent protest, 17 of us were arrested and jailed. The next Monday, 30 moral witnesses were carted off in handcuffs, and the next week the number was 49. Last week, 57 protesters were arrested and jailed. Still more of us are prepared to put our bodies on the line to oppose the backward, far-right ideological vision taking hold in our state.

Here’s why.

In the first 50 days of this session alone, the General Assembly and McCrory cut the earned income tax credit for more than 900,000 poor and working people. They rejected federal funding to expand Medicaid to cover 500,000 North Carolinians without health insurance. They slashed state unemployment benefits and rejected federally funded Emergency Unemployment Compensation to 170,000 laid-off workers. This vicious war on the poor will devastate hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who are already suffering. And with no checks on the Republican hold on the legislature and governorship, these laws are only the beginning.

Piling further indignities on the poor, they also want to require people applying for temporary assistance or benefits to submit to criminal background checks, and force applicants to a job training program for low-income workers to take a drug test, for which they have to pay.

Now the legislature wants to increase and expand taxes on groceries, haircuts and prescription drugs. They’re even taking aim at poor children with a bill to lower the income requirement for North Carolina’s prekindergarten program, making it off limits to nearly 30,000 children who would have previously qualified.

Perhaps most terrifying is that the politicians who have seized control are trying to rig the state’s election rules, seeking to remain in power far after this legislative session. In their kitchen sink approach to voter suppression, they have pushed bills to require strict forms of photo ID for voting, repeal same-day registration, cut early voting from 17 days to six and ban early voting on Sundays.

Mr. Barber is the President of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP.  And he’s been instrumental in the Moral Monday protests at the capital.

Personally, the protests smack of laziness and juvenile tendencies. These people are getting arrested to see their names in the paper.  To back slap each other at the Occupy Nowhere bonfires.  They fuel themselves.

The Tea Party rallied, to be sure.  But they were legal.  They weren’t arrested.  They left the grounds better than they found them

These people?  Occupy Wall Street retreds.