Category Archives: Politics: North Carolina

Where Does the End Come

I just posted when I saw this on my feed:

DURHAM, North Carolina (WTVD) —
Protesters in Durham rushed and toppled a Confederate statue outside the courthouse on Monday evening.

The monument of a Confederate soldier holding a rifle was erected in 1924 and inscribed on it are the words “in memory of the boys who wore the gray.”

Nobody wants this to end.

Pino’s Response to the NCAA Ban on North Carolina

If I were in position to craft state law here in Raleigh, my response to the NCAA and their ban on NC* would be this:

Simply restrict restroom and locker room access in the exact same manner as the NCAA restricts access to sporting teams in their leagues:

The following policies clarify participation of transgender student-athletes undergoing hormonal treatment for gender transition:

1. A trans male (FTM) student-athlete who has received a medical exception for treatment with testosterone for diagnosed Gender Identity Disorder or gender dysphoria and/or Transsexualism, for purposes of NCAA competition may compete on a men’s team, but is no longer eligible to compete on a women’s team without changing that team status to a mixed team.

2. A trans female (MTF) student-athlete being treated with testosterone suppression medication for Gender Identity Disorder or gender dysphoria and/or Transsexualism, for the purposes of NCAA competition may continue to compete on a men’s team but may not compete on a women’s team without changing it to a mixed team status until completing one calendar year of testosterone suppression treatment.

Any transgender student-athlete who is not taking hormone treatment related to gender transition may participate in sex-separated sports activities in accordance with his or her assigned birth gender.

  • A trans male (FTM) student-athlete who is not taking testosterone related to gender transition may participate on a men’s or women’s team.

  • A trans female (MTF) transgender student-athlete who is not taking hormone treatments related to gender transition may not compete on a women’s team.

The NCAA itself discriminates based on gender.  FURTHER, the organization differentiates between MTF and FTM.

Opposition to HB2 indeed.

Tolerance For Me – Tyranny For You

classy-neighbor

I’m still #NeverTrump, but I have some neighbors that I like who are voting for The Donald.  They placed a Trump sign on community property; the corner of our two streets.

A neighbor down the way drove over the sign rendering it bent and mangled.  Now, while I’m not voting for Trump I found this behavior horrible.  So I stopped and tried to re-purpose the sign and put it back, but this time next to an electric facility box – to prevent driving over it again.

When I drove by the corner 25 minutes later the sign was pulled out and thrown into the grove.  My neighbor pulled it out and again placed it next to the facility box.

This morning the sign above was placed in front of the Trump sign.

Stay Classy San Diego.

Nothing more intolerant than a tolerant Leftist.

Restroom Solution

No Stalls

With all of the hullabalu created by the liberal democrats in Charlotte regarding potty policy, I humbly suggest an easy and economical solution.

One room, no stalls and no sexual discriminating facilities.

Simple.

This doesn’t discriminate on sex, biological or identify, and allows for maximum usage based on events that might skew based on gender – home craft show vs. fishing expo.

In real life,  I ran track in high school and when we traveled to Fairmont, MN the field house for the men was configured in this manner.  One large room with 4 toilets in the center – no walls creating stalls at all.  Two sinks in the corner.

Similarly, in the 7th and 8th grades I was introduced to ‘public showering’ in PE and then in after school sports.  12-13-14 year old boys showered in this:

Gang shower.2

One giant room with 8-10 shower heads where we all showered together.  My freshman year at the University of Minnesota – same thing.

In high school, the showers transitioned to this:

Gang shower.1
Post showers with 4-5 heads per pedestal.  Two pedestals per shower room.

If you think that North Carolina’s HB2 is discriminatory or offensive or distasteful, then step forward and support complete and total gender agnostic bathroom and shower facilities in our Jr. and Sr. High Schools.

Anyone?

Boycott: Target

Target 2

I’ve seen that there is a nationwide boycott of Target:

On its web site, Target announced, “[W]e welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity. …Everyone deserves to feel like they belong.”

This isn’t silly – it’s stupid.

Carolina passed HB2 not as a rule to keep private restrooms in compliance but rather as a response to the city of Charlotte’s over reach in mandating restroom policy.  The WHOLE point of HB2 is that each private business Ought be free to craft their own policy.

And Target has.

More power to them.

And since almost every facility in Target is individual stall/facility, I don’t have an issue with their decision.

Please, shop at Target and celebrate individual liberty!

HB2

Big group of isolated small people in a line

It would seem that North Carolina is the talk of the ball.  Of course, it all centers on HB2.

So, last I left you I was writing that North Carolina passed a law that said restrooms were to be used by people based on their sex.  And by sex, NC means the sex listed on their birth certificate.  I was wrong – kinda.

North Carolina has said that in schools and state building restroom policy is based on sex, yes.  However, the bill now law, also says that individual business owners may craft their OWN restroom policy as they see fit.  Cities may not – North Carolina has stated that such powers are not granted to cities.

Also in the bill, now law, are the following:

  • Cities may not raise minimum wage
  • Employees may not use state law to sue employers for wrongful termination
  • There is no ‘protected class’ extensions for folks based on sexual orientation or identity

In order, my take on each.

The United States is built on the concept of state sovereignty – states have the power, not the federal government or the cities within it.  It is fully within the state of North Carolina’s authority to grant cities THEIR authority.  And having common wage levels across the state can make sense.

The decision not to allow folks to sue using state law is a bit of a head scratcher for me.  I fully admit to the possibility that this is bad policy.

The most controversial aspect of the law is the protected class portion.  I can absolutely understand the very strong and the very real desire to include such protections for the LGBT community – and, as a practical matter, such protections should be included.  However.

There is always a however.  As a libertarian, my natural inclination is to say that there should be no law restricting the right of association.  That is, people may freely choose to associate, or not, for any reason under the canopy of heaven.

Don’t like me because I have long hair?  Don’t hire me.

Don’t like me because I am fiscally conservative?  Fine – don’t associate with me.

Don’t like me because I’m a Viking fan?  Good – don’t invite me into your Cheese Head bar.

Now, before you bash me for hating, hear this.  Discrimination based on race, orientation, identify or religion indicates that you are ignorant.  And an ass.

I just don’t think that being a dumb ass should be illegal.

Now, for the record, here are the OTHER states that don’t extend protected class status to the LGBT community:

Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indian, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Alaska.

Where is the righteous rage in these jurisdictions?

North Carolina And Rest Rooms

Rest Rooms

North Carolina just passed a law that is generating a TON of attention in the state; perhaps the country.  In short, the new law prevents cities from passing ordinances that allow people to use restrooms based on the gender they identify as.  Rather, North Carolina now requires that people use the restroom of the sex they are.

I did some research and found this:

Sex is assigned at birth, refers to one’s biological status as either male or female, and is associated primarily with physical attributes such as chromosomes, hormone prevalence, and external and internal anatomy. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women. These influence the ways that people act, interact, and feel about themselves. While aspects of biological sex are similar across different cultures, aspects of gender may differ.

What North Carolina has done is define access to restrooms based on sex – not on gender.

As such, I feel that the distinction is one that honest and earnest people can disagree on, where a disagreement can exist without casting the opposing side as ‘extreme’, or ‘discriminating’ or even ‘hateful’.

Now, with that said, I firmly believe the law is less a response to a transgendered individual using a restroom as it is a response to a desire to prevent potential sexual predators from entering a restroom having nothing to do with transgender issues.

The protests and response to this law you are seeing in North Carolina  is much ado about nothing.  There is no discrimination.  There is no hate.

Is Voter Fraud An Issue

Election Fraud

As a follow up to my last post, I have thought it would be important to point out that the Republicans might have a point when it comes to the illegal immigrant and their desire to vote.

Namely, do they?  Do immigrants, not yet citizens, vote?

Yes:

How many non-citizens participate in U.S. elections? More than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples indicated that they were registered to vote. Furthermore, some of these non-citizens voted. Our best guess, based upon extrapolations from the portion of the sample with a verified vote, is that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent of non-citizens voted in 2010.

So, 14% of non-citizens REGISTERED to vote and 6.4% voted in 2008 and 2.2% voted in 2010.  That sounds like a lot, but is it?

Because non-citizens tended to favor Democrats (Obama won more than 80 percent of the votes of non-citizens in the 2008 CCES sample), we find that this participation was large enough to plausibly account for Democratic victories in a few close elections. Non-citizen votes could have given Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health-care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) won election in 2008 with a victory margin of 312 votes. Votes cast by just 0.65 percent of Minnesota non-citizens could account for this margin. It is also possible that non-citizen votes were responsible for Obama’s 2008 victory in North Carolina. Obama won the state by 14,177 votes, so a turnout by 5.1 percent of North Carolina’s adult non-citizens would have provided this victory margin.

Yup – again, it is a lot.  And further, may have given Franken his seat as well as Obama North Carolina.

Affordable Housing – Durham, NC

Affordable Housing

I’ve said time and time again that I don’t begrudge the Liberal her intentions – noble to be sure.  Rather, I begrudge her policies:

Residents said 85 to 100 affordable apartments should be put on the site, and many held up signs expressing frustration with the high cost of living downtown, where rents often top $1,000 a month.

The reason rents are so high is that supply hasn’t been able too keep up with demand.  And the reason for THAT is almost always restrictive zoning laws.

If we allow builders  more flexibility is how and what they build, the more building that will take place allowing housing costs to come down.

See Houston vs San Francisco.

According to Stan Humphries, chief economist of Zillow, local regulations are at the root of the supply problem. “Zoning, parking minimums — these inadvertently drive up the fixed cost,” Humphries said at the Atlantic’s summit on the economy.

And when fixed costs go up, builders have an incentive to create more expensive housing, he said.

“That’s why places like Houston don’t have the same housing crisis that San Francisco does,” he said. San Francisco is known for its strict building rules, while Houston doesn’t have a zoning code at all.

Econ 101 – though you may not find that offered in a “Comparative Arts” major.

North Carolina Unemployment Debt

Unemployment

When the crisis hit in 2008 a ton of people lost their jobs and went on unemployment benefits.  During that time, the Feds loaned money to states to extend unemployment eligibility and to increase the amount of benefit.

Well, until that money is paid off, North Carolina businesses have been forced to pay higher unemployment taxes in order to service that debt.  Of course, this makes it tougher on folks providing jobs.  In response to this, North Carolina refused to continue extended benefits and instead work to pay off that debt.

And now we have:

— North Carolina no longer owes $2.75 billion it borrowed from the federal government pay first-time unemployment claims during the recent recession, action that will translate into lower taxes for employers.

“This is not just about repaying debt we owe to the federal government. This is about creating jobs,” Gov. Pat McCrory told a gathering of lawmakers, business leaders and cabinet officials Tuesday in the old House chambers at the historic State Capitol.

Businesses pay two basic types of unemployment taxes – federal and state. The federal, or FUTA, taxes state employers will pay on Jan. 1, 2016, will be about $280 million less than they were this year. State unemployment taxes, or SUTA, are going to remain steady for roughly another year until the state’s unemployment reserve fund tops $1 billion, then they will drop as well.

All told, North Carolina employers can figure to pay $700 million less a year in unemployment taxes starting in 2017 than they paid in 2014.