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Gov. McCrory’s HB2 Will Cost North Carolina $5 Billion a Year, New Study Finds

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Lost Federal Funding Is Just the Beginning

Governor Pat McCrory‘s anti-LGBT law HB2 will end up costing taxpayers and businesses about $5 billion a year – every year – if it is not repealed. That figure comes from a new study by the Williams Institute, a UCLA School of Law think tank focused on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.

“The repeal of HB2 would not only reverse the threat to over $5 billion in economic activity for the state, but would also begin to bring North Carolina some of the economic advantages that come when a state embraces diversity and its LGBT citizens,” according to a co-author of the new report, Christy Mallory, Senior Counsel at the Williams Institute.

A summary of the study lists “ten actual or potential harmful economic impacts”:

Discrimination.  HB2 conflicts with federal laws, the laws of other states, and the policies of most large companies.  As a result, North Carolina risks losing:
          1. Loss of Federal Funding
          2. Loss of Business Investment
          3. Reduced Travel and Tourism
          4. Litigation and Enforcement Costs 

Development.  HB2 adds to a challenging environment that LGBT people already face in North Carolina.  By moving toward exclusion and away from inclusion, HB2 exacerbates:
          5. Bullying in School
          6. Workplace Discrimination
          7. Health Disparities 

Diversity.  HB2, by adding to an already challenging legal landscape and social climate for the over 168,900 LGBT workers in North Carolina, has the following harmful economic impacts:
          8. Productivity
          9. Retention
          10. Recruitment 

Loss of federal funding is put at $4.8 billion, “primarily from the loss of $4.7 billion in funding for public schools, colleges, and universities.”

Since announcing his lawsuit against the federal government, Gov.McCrory has falsely and repeatedly suggested only one company, Paypal, has pulled jobs out of the state.

The study reports that, actually, North Carolina has already suffered a loss of more than “$40 million in business investment that has been withdrawn from the state, resulting in a loss of over 1,250 jobs, and the risk of losing over $20 million more in business investment and 550 more jobs.”

“Over 60% of North Carolina voters already feel that HB2 has hurt the state’s image with the rest of the U.S., making it harder to attract the best and brightest,” the study notes.

“By moving toward exclusion and away from inclusion, HB2 contributes to the discriminatory environment that LGBT people face at school, in the workplace, in housing, and in public life— creating health and economic disparities for LGBT people in the state and taking a significant toll on LGBT youth in particular,” Mallory adds.

The Williams Institute says HB2 directly affects “North Carolina’s over 336,000 LGBT residents” including “37,800 transgender people in the state.”

 

EARLIER:

Watch: Pat McCrory Says He’s ‘Extremely Sensitive’ to Gender Identity

Turns Out, Pat McCrory Has Been Using His Office to Battle LGBT Civil Rights Since 1991

Watch: McCrory Admits Transgender Protections Have Never Been Used to Commit Crimes in Bathrooms

 

Image by Ervins Strauhmanis via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: Dominic Holden

 

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News

No Indictment in the Trump Hush Money Payoff Case for at Least Another Month

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2 hours ago

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March 29, 2023

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Despite his false claim he would be indicted last week, Donald Trump isn’t going to see any indictment any time soon – at least not by New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s grand jury investigating his role in the hush money payoff to Stormy Daniels.

The grand jury will be on hiatus from the Trump case for the next month, according to Politico, which says the break was previously planned.

Jurors are not expected to hear any evidence in the case this week or next week, and will break for the Passover holiday next Thursday. They will be off for the following two weeks, Politico’s source says, citing a schedule drawn up in January.

“There is no official deadline for bringing an indictment against Trump, although there were indications in recent weeks that the grand jury’s activity was nearing a vote, particularly when prosecutors offered Trump the chance to testify before the panel. That is typically one of the final steps of a criminal investigation,” Politico notes.

READ MORE: Here’s How Five Republicans in Congress Are Responding to the Mass Shooting of 3 Children and 3 Adults in Nashville (Video)

There is one caveat to the “no official deadline” claim. Journalist Marcy Wheeler notes, if the grand jury “were to charge witness tampering in conjunction with the Costello [communications] to [Michael] Cohen, they would create a hard deadline before the end of April.”

Costello is Robert Costello, who Trump asked the grand jury to interview, hoping he would refute his longtime former attorney’s testimony.

Of course, anything is possible and DA Bragg could call the grand jury into session at any time.

There is also the unlikely possibility that he will not ask them to vote on an indictment in the case. They could also vote against indicting Trump.

 

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COMMENTARY

Here’s How Five Republicans in Congress Are Responding to the Mass Shooting of 3 Children and 3 Adults in Nashville (Video)

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2 hours ago

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March 29, 2023

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There are 535 seats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and another six non-voting seats for delegates. After Monday’s horrific mass shooting at a private Christian elementary school, where three nine-year olds and three adults were shot to death, very few Members appeared on-camera to talk with reporters about the tragedy.

The Democrats who did advocated for various gun control measures, including reinstating the federal assault weapons ban signed into law in 1994 by President Bill Clinton that Republican lawmakers and President George W. Bush refused to renew in 2004, after which mass shootings and gun violence skyrocketed.

President Joe Biden this week repeatedly called on Congress to pass an assault weapons ban, a call he has made over and over again.

70 times.

In addition to calling for an assault weapons ban, House and Senate Democrats responded to the mass shooting at Covenant Presbyterian Elementary in Nashville by calling for tighter gun control measures including implementing red flag laws.

READ MORE: ‘Troubling Questions’: Experts Slam Ginni Thomas’ Group That Waged Cultural War Against the Left via Web of Dark Money Orgs

The parents of the Nashville shooter have said their child had an emotional disorder and should not have had any firearms. Three were used in the assault and another four were found at the shooter’s home. Tennessee has no red flag law so police were not legally allowed to take the guns away.

After last year’s school mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were shot to death, some states took action. Tennessee, where the Nashville school shooting became the nation’s 130th this year, did little.

“We’re not looking at gun restriction laws in my administration right now,” Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, a Republican, said after the tragedy. “Criminals don’t follow laws, criminals break laws. Whether they are a gun law, a drug law, criminals break laws.”

“We can’t control what they do.”

But in a sense, Governor Lee did control what they do.

READ MORE: Tennessee Governor Slammed After ‘Praying’ for Nashville School Community Without Mentioning Mass Shooting

In 2021 ago he signed into law a permit-less open-carry law: no permit required, no training required, no background check required.

A Tennessee Republican U.S. Congressman, Tim Burchett this week repeatedly decreed there’s nothing that can be done.

Echoing almost word-for-word Governor Lee’s remarks from three years ago, in now-viral video, Rep. Burchett infamously on Monday declared, “We’re not gonna fix it. Criminals are going to be criminals.”

He did, however, invoke religion, calling for a Christian revival, and declaring that was the answer to fixing mass shootings and gun violence.

On Tuesday Rep. Burchett was back in front of the cameras, furthering his call to do nothing.

“I don’t know what law we could pass,” he said. “Evil people are going to do evil things.”

U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) appeared on CNN this week and responded to the Nashville slaughter by defending his threat to President Biden to try to take his AR-15 away.

In a rare example of excellent journalism, CNN’s Phil Mattingly pressed Buck after the far-right Republican tried to change the topic.

“If Joe Biden is interested in reaching a resolution on the issue let him deal with the Southern border,” Buck defiantly declared, literally blaming President Biden’s border policies for gun violence.

He also tried to link the Nashville mass shooting to a mental health problem and then tried to link that to drug laws and a lack of funding for states for mental health services.

Rep. Buck last year voted against two mental health bills, and since 2019 has voted against the vast majority of 40 or so health care bills.

“What’s the burden on you?” Matttingly asked Buck.

READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies

Unyieldingly, Buck replied, “My burden is to follow the Constitution, and the Second Amendment protects – there are more than two million AR-15s.”

Republican U.S. Congressman Andy Ogles, who represents Nashville, Tennessee and came under fire again this week for his 2021 Christmas card showing him and his family, including young children, holding assault weapons, was asked about banning AR-15s.

Rep. Ogles’ response was to answer the question with another question: “Why not talk about the real issue facing this country?” which he declared, like Rep. Buck and others, is mental health. He then walked away.

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) took a different tact on the GOP’s do-nothing policy while supporting the GOP’s walk-away response.

He equated assault weapons with politics and emotions.

“If you’re gonna talk about the AR-15 you’re talking politics now,” he told CNN’s Manu Raju. “Let’s not get into politics. let’s not get into emotion, because emotion feels good, but emotion doesn’t solve problems.”

He then just walked away.

But perhaps the greatest example of the Republican response to gun violence and mass shootings came from House Republican’s leader, Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

On Tuesday, McCarthy stood in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall to pose for photos with some tourists.

CNN’s Manu Raju asked the Speaker about the “incredibly serious situation” in Nashville, suggesting it required a response from the Speaker of the House.

McCarthy’s response?

He refused to provide one, then walked away.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

 

 

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News

‘Can You Imagine if the Left Did This?’: Morning Joe Profanely Condemns Trump’s Celebration of J6 ‘Rioters and Convicts’

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6 hours ago

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March 29, 2023

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MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough profanely bashed Donald Trump and his Republican defenders for celebrating Jan. 6 insurrectionists as heroes.

The former president showed a video of jailed rioters singing a song, “Justice for All,” and the national anthem during a campaign rally in Waco, Texas, and Trump defended them and raged against “thug” prosecutors — and the “Morning Joe” host tried to imagine if anyone else had done something similar.

“Can you imagine if the left did this?” Scarborough said. “They have the leading candidate for president, for the nomination for the presidency praising — they have put together a choir of convicts who beat the sh*t out of cops with an American flag. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, would you like me to say it in a nicer way? They beat the crap out of cops with an American flag, and four died, and their families directly blame the assault [on] the rioters. They defecated in the Capitol.”

“Can you imagine if left-wingers did all of that, and then Bernie Sanders says, ‘I have a good idea, let’s make a choir, we can celebrate the fact that they defecated on the cops, we can do that — why, that will help us?'” Scarborough continued. “I mean, think about that, what would Newsmax say, what would Fox say, what would all of these right wing — they are openly praising rioters and convicts.”

READ MORE: GOP probes ‘seem to be flopping’ as voters see them as ‘revenge’: analysis

“This is the hero of the Republican Party, these are the heroes of Donald Trump, these are the heroes of [Marjorie Taylor Greene],” he added. “This is who they love.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

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