Madison Cawthorn, Please Shut Up
Sen. Steinburg needs a padded room + the new COVID strain is here + neighbors say Smithfield’s biogas system is more hot, smelly air + happy anniversary to the U.S.'s first robot killing
Monday, Jan. 25, 2021
Happy Monday! The Kansas City Chiefs will play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl, if you care about such things. Today’s newsletter is a seven-minute read. Today’s weather will be rainy with a high of 47. (WRAL)
Today’s Number: 55
Percentage of Americans who support the forgiveness of all student loan debt, according to a new Harris poll.
64% support the forgiveness of some student loan debt
63% support forgiving the student loan debt of those working in industries such as health care, science and technology, and public service
On This Day
1788: Weldon Edwards, who went on to become a leader of North Carolina’s secessionist movement, was born in Northampton County.
1840: An American naval expedition identified Antarctica as a continent.
1877: Congress established a commission to determine the winner of the disputed 1876 election.
1918: Russia declared itself a republic of soviets.
1924: The first Winter Olympics opened in France.
1979: A robot killed a human for the first documented time in the U.S.
1990: Johnston County native Ava Gardner died in London.
2011: The Egyptian Revolution began.
2019: The longest government shutdown in U.S. history ended after 35 days.
One Year Ago
NYT top story: “Lev Parnas Says He Has Recording of Trump Calling for Ambassador’s Firing”
Top 3 Google Search rising queries, Raleigh-Durham MSA, Jan. 25. 2020:
Lunar New Year: Jan. 25 marked the lunar new year in 2020.
Mega Millions: Nobody won the $366 million jackpot.
Texas Roadhouse: 🤷
+TODAY’S TOP 4
1. Madison Cawthorn, Please Shut Up
Last week, a watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against Madison Cawthorn, the 25-year-old who was elected in Mark Meadows’s gerrymandered Western North Carolina district in November. The complaint alleges that Cawthorn, who spoke at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally, helped incite the Capitol riot that followed.
At the rally, he called Republicans unwilling to overturn the election “cowards”: “This crowd has some fight in it. … They have no backbone.” (He was armed that day.)
In December, he told the right-wing group Turning Point USA to “lightly threaten” their members of Congress.
This weekend, Cawthorn tried damage control. It didn’t go well.
“Cawthorn was so thoroughly schooled by CNN host Pamela Brown Saturday over his fact-free claims of election fraud that he did a full capitulation on the spot.”
“At long last, Cawthorn admitted: ‘I think I would say the election was not fraudulent.”
Cawthorn would like us to move on: “So when I contested the election, that was within the constitutional guidelines that the framers had set up. But after I’ve done that and the electors and the delegates from each state elected Joe Biden as our president, I respect the office.”
He’s one of 17 Republicans who signed a letter pledging to work with Biden.
Cawthorn had a bad weekend all around. On Friday, The Nation reported that Cawthorn had lied about training for the Paralympics — to go along with other lies about his education and business background.
“By Cawthorn’s own telling, he was a successful business owner headed to the Naval Academy before his [2014] injury tragically reordered his life. As it turns out, neither claim is true. The Asheville Watchdog reported that Cawthorn had already been rejected from the Naval Academy before his accident. And Cawthorn’s real-estate investment firm, SPQR Holdings LLC, which he only formed in August 2019, reported no income on its tax documents, and Cawthorn was the sole employee.”
“Multiple outlets reported that before he ran for office, Cawthorn was training for the 2020 Paralympic Games. … In addition to not being on a team, Cawthorn does not appear to have competed in any qualifying races. … In addition to being on a team and establishing times at qualifying races, prospective Paralympians need to be internationally classified. … The list is publicly available, and contains over 4,000 athletes from around the world. Cawthorn isn’t on it.”
—> OTHER GOP NEWS
Cawthorn’s not the only Republican who showed his ass.
On Facebook, North Carolina state Sen. Bob Steinburg claimed (again) that Biden stole the election. The NCGOP declined to rebuke him. (WRAL)
Sen. Rand Paul likewise refused to admit that Donald Trump’s election fraud claims are bogus. (HuffPost)
The Arizona Republican Party censured Gov. Doug Ducey, former Sen. Jeff Flake, and Cindy McCain. The latter two committed the sin of not backing Trump; the former refused to subvert the state’s election results. If you’re wondering why John McCain and Barry Goldwater’s state has two Democratic senators, start here. (NPR)
2. The New COVID Strain Is Here
You know that new, more contagious strain of COVID that’s been tearing through the UK? It’s made its way to North Carolina.
“The variant was found in a sample from an adult in Mecklenburg County, according to a North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services press release. No other information about the case was released.”
“Nearly 200 cases have been reported in 21 states as of Jan. 22, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” (N&O)
Not only is the new strain more contagious, but it’s deadlier, too. (WaPo)
—> OTHER PANDEMIC NEWS
Triangle counties are all showing significant COVID spread.
In North Carolina, undocumented immigrants are eligible for the COVID vaccine, which is free if you can get it. (N&O)
However, North Carolina’s vaccine rollout is going slower than planned. Through yesterday, 552,000 residents — 5.3% of the population — have received the first dose, and less than 1% have received both doses. (WaPo)
A new paper in the Journal of Public Economics finds that pandemic-related lockdowns didn’t have as much of an effect on the economy as individual choices. In other words, regardless of whether or states or cities issued stay-at-home orders, people stayed home. The pandemic did alter the kinds of businesses they utilized, however. (Journal of Public Economics)
3. Residents Say Smithfield’s Biogas Project Is More Hot, Smelly Air
In 2000, after getting hit with bad press about its polluting hog farms, Smithfield Foods entered into an agreement with the state to fund tech that would eliminate the lagoon-to-sprayfield method of disposing of pig waste. Then it did nothing — until it lost a bunch of nuisance lawsuits a few years ago.
Then, Smithfield and Dominion Energy announced Align RNG, a project in which — to oversimplify — pig crap is converted into natural gas and injected into a 30-mile-long pipeline that will almost certainly run through poor, Black communities from Turkey to Warsaw in Eastern NC.
On Jan. 6, the DEQ approved the project’s air quality permit despite a long of missing info, including the names of most of the 19 farms that will be participating and exactly where the pipeline will go.
As the Southern Environmental Law Center pointed out in comments to DEQ, the pipeline doesn’t get rid of the problematic lagoon system: “The Project will lock-in a harmful, primitive waste management system at industrial hog operations in eastern North Carolina that has wreaked havoc on rivers, streams and air quality in eastern North Carolina, prevented people living nearby from using and enjoying their property, and harmed the health and wellbeing of neighbors and people downstream from industrial hog operations. Communities of color bear a disproportionate share of these impacts.”
SELC, cont.: “[Smithfield] is poised to double-down on this harmful lagoon and sprayfield system, prioritizing its profits over the health and well-being of people and the environment. Simply capping a hog waste pit does not fix water pollution, rid the air of noxious odors, make these facilities any more resilient to the effects of climate change, or protect neighbors from the health harms that result from the lagoon and sprayfield system. To the contrary, capping hog waste pits will worsen pollution.”
The pipeline still needs to secure local and state permits.
—> OTHER LOCAL NEWS
A Raleigh couple found a grenade while doing lawn work. The cops said it didn’t pose a danger. (ABC 11)
Roy Cooper signed a revenue agreement with the Catawba Indian Nation, clearing the way for a casino at a planned resort in Kings Mountain. (CBS 17)
4. What I’m Reading: “For Black Homeowners, a Common Conundrum with Appraisals”
When Gwen and Lorenzo Mitchell decided last spring to remodel their Denver home they thought a home-equity loan would be the smartest way to finance it.
The couple’s Park Hill neighborhood has seen home values rise sharply over the past few years as property prices across the city have soared. Median Denver home prices reached $478,500 in December, up 21 percent since 2017, according to Redfin data, ranking the city among the strongest housing markets in the country.
After securing a lender, the couple scheduled an appraiser and began researching home values in their neighborhood …. Their three-bedroom property sits in a racially diverse area where homes typically sell for $450,000 to $550,000. The couple estimated that their home would appraise for about $500,000.
But the appraiser, who visited the home when Lorenzo was there with the couple’s three young children, assigned a value of $405,000. Surprised by the lower figure, they took a closer look at the results and discovered that all the comparable sales data used by the appraiser was taken from north of Martin Luther King Boulevard — a predominantly Black neighborhood — even though their home is south of the boulevard. …
Dismayed, the couple scheduled a second appraisal. But this time they decided to experiment: Gwen, who is white, remained alone at the home to greet the appraiser.
The second appraiser gave the home a value of $550,000.
Source: The Washington Post