Major cheating scandal rocks North Carolina’s redistricting review

Raleigh, NC – Legislative Republicans filed an emergency motion on Monday in Wake County Superior Court seeking to block two liberal professors from helping review revised congressional and legislative maps.

The professors from Princeton and Brigham Young universities were assigned to help three special masters review technical aspects of the maps for a three-judge Superior Court panel, but were directly ordered by the court not to contact parties and witnesses in the lawsuit.

However, it’s been uncovered that two of the four assistants to the professors, Sam Wang of Princeton and Tyler Jarvis of BYU, engaged in “substantive ex parte communications” with the plaintiffs’ experts in the case. “Ex parte” is a legal term meaning that only one side of a legal dispute participated in the communication. The legislative defendants were informed on Sunday, Feb. 20, that the illegal communications also occurred on Friday, Feb. 18th.

The three-judge panel named former state Supreme Court Justices Bob Orr and Bob Edmunds and former UNC System President Thomas Ross to serve as special masters. Ross is also a former judge and director of the state Administrative Office of the Courts. The special masters will help the panel review legislative maps. The special masters can also recommend their own maps for the court’s adoption.

Special masters and those working with them are forbidden from communicating with either the plaintiffs or defendants in the case. The legislative defendants say . . . (Read more)

Sources Say Shante Batts Was On WNCR TV Today Talking About The NAACP Didn’t Do Anything About Her Son Being Charged In Connection To A Murder Case

I was told that Shante Batts was on WNCR TV talking about the NAACP didn’t do anything when she filed a complaint with us.

I am the Legal Redress Chair and the committee received her information. We reviewed the complaint. We responded to Shante that she needed to hire an attorney.

I can’t discuss the case although we responded to her last year.

The Legal Redress do not practice law and we do not have an attorney on the committee nor do we have access to an attorney.

What folk need to understand is the Legal Redress has guidelines and we do what we do. If it is something that we feel need to be forwarded to the NC NAACP State Conference of Branches that is what we do.

The NAACP work with members and do not require non members to become members for us to receive, review and respond to their complaints.

None of the NAACP members are paid to do what we do.

The Mission of the NAACP is: Ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all citizens. Achieve equality of rights and eliminate race prejudice among the citizens of the United States. Remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes.

If anyone has any questions about the work of the Legal Redress please feel free to call me at (252) 314-5484 or email cdancyii@embarqmail.com. However if you want to file a complaint I will talk to you and then connect you with the NAACP Branch Secretary who is also on the Legal Redress Committee so you can file an official complaint online or send in writing.

Board lifts mask mandate for Nash County schools

The DCN News Blog Online TV response: I agree with bus driver Shondik Boone “the worst decision that Nash County schools could make.” I found Parent Shaina Anderson’s comments very interesting, ““My daughter is in first grade,” Anderson said, “and her progress report last week said she was doing well in everything but spelling and reading. I wasn’t surprised, because she can’t see the teacher’s mouth (with a mask) when she sounds out the letters. This will really benefit the children.” I am going to remember these names to see how progress is made to their satisfaction.

The Nash County Board of Education voted unanimously to make the wearing of masks in schools optional for students and staff, but masks will still be required on busses and public school-related transportation.

The board held an emergency meeting at 5 p.m. Monday in Nashville with one item on the agenda: the mask mandate. There was no public input because public comment is not part of emergency meetings, board clerk Sarita Lamm said.

Twenty-five people attended the meeting.

Before the meeting started, board Chairman William Sharpe insisted that parent Kathy Hawk “put her mask on properly” over her nose and mouth or she would be escorted from the room.

Hawk insisted that masks were no longer necessary and showed a letter to board members Franklin Lamm and Chris Bissette, but Sharpe asked that she be escorted out.

Hawk was taken out of the room by . . . (Read more)