North Carolina (Finally) Stops Selling Racist License Plates
Also: Stimulus Jr. + why Trump lost + local insurrection 'Ignoramous' gets arrested + NC hits 1 million vaccinations
Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021
Your Groundhog Day newsletter is a five-minute read. Our weather will be partly cloudy with a high around 44. (WRAL)
Today’s Numbers:
94
U.S. ranking for coronavirus response of the 98 countries for which data is available, according to the Lowy Institute.
The only countries that did worse: Iran, Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil.
China was excluded from the list due to unreliable data.
183
The number of North Carolina precincts that voted for John McCain in 2008 and Joe Biden in 2020.
147 precincts voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and Donald Trump in 2020.
+TODAY’S TOP 4
1. Republicans Press Biden on Stimulus Jr.
President Biden has proposed a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package. In unity mode, the White House wants to pass the bill through the regular legislative order. But that requires 60 votes in the Senate, and Republicans — having suddenly remembered the deficit — have balked at the price tag.
Over the weekend, 10 “moderate” Republicans proposed a slimmed-down stimulus that would come in at about $600 billion. Their bill omits funding for state and local governments and significantly pares down money for unemployment benefits.
Last night, Biden met with them at the White House: “Republican lawmakers reported an ‘excellent’ discussion, while the White House said the president ‘will not settle’ for a package that would ‘leave the nation short of its pressing needs.’” (NPR)
If Senate Dems stick together, they can pass Biden’s bill through reconciliation. They’re already fast-tracking legislation. The lesson Democrats seem to have learned from the Obama years is that negotiations with Republicans will probably go nowhere and will only grind things to a halt.
Despite the CBO’s forecast of 4.6% economic growth this year, the White House has said Biden’s more worried about his proposal being too small rather than too large. With unemployment expected to lag, many economists agree.
2. Local ‘Ignoramous’ Arrested for Insurrection
The FBI arrested Garner resident Stephen Baker and charged him in connection with storming the Capitol and live-streaming it on his YouTube channel, called — I could not make this up — “Stephen Ignoramous.”
“Last week, a story by The Daily Beast about Baker said he has been living in Washington, D.C., not North Carolina, and working as a ‘beloved’ music teacher.”
“Several years ago he attended a survivalist camp in the Virginia mountains, then started his YouTube channel and began promoting racist, anti-Semitic, and conspiratorial theories online, a co-worker said, according to the Daily Beast.”
“It also reported that one of his now-deleted YouTube videos from before the Capitol attack features Baker telling the audience: ‘Even if you were a Martian coming down you can see that there is anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-straight [expletive] going on, regardless of who you are.’” (N&O)
Baker is the second North Carolina resident charged in connection with the insurrection.
—> OTHER COUP NEWS
After Trump’s impeachment lawyers quit over his insistence that they push his election fraud claims, his new lawyers say they won’t raise that defense. Instead, they’ll claim the First Amendment as a defense against incitement and argue that it’s unconstitutional to impeach a former president. (WaPo)
Myanmar’s military deposed its democratically elected leader in a coup. The military’s excuse? Imaginary claims of fraud in an election the military’s proxy party lost badly. (NYT)
—> OTHER TRUMP NEWS
Trump’s pollster says he lost because voters found him untrustworthy and disapproved of his handling of the pandemic. (Politico / Polling memo)
3. North Carolina Finally Stops Issuing Racist License Plates
In 2015, after Dylann Roof shot up a Black church in South Carolina, liberal groups petitioned Governor McCrory to get rid of the Sons of Confederate Veterans license plate. McCrory said it was up to the legislature. The legislature said it was up to McCrory. And nothing happened.
On Jan. 1, the NCDMV stopped issuing the Confederate-flag plates.
“The DMV says it has determined that plates bearing the Confederate flag ‘have the potential to offend those who view them,’ the agency said in a statement. ‘We have therefore concluded that display of the Confederate battle flag is inappropriate for display on specialty license plates, which remain property of the state.’” (N&O)
The SCV applied for the specialty plates in 1997. The DMV refused, arguing that the SCV wasn’t a civic organization because it didn’t admit women. The SCV sued and won.
“The DMV says it will continue to abide by that ruling and recognize the Sons as a civic organization entitled to a specialty plate. But in its statement, the agency said efforts to work with the group to develop artwork for the plates that does not contain the Confederate flag have so far failed.”
—> OTHER RACISM NEWS
A woman who took an American Airlines flight out of Charlotte found a fee on her bank statement that read: “African American African Service Charge.” American Airlines says it’s not to blame. (Charlotte Observer)
4. North Carolina Passes 1M Vaccinations
Through Sunday, the state has administered nearly 800,000 first doses and 160,000 second doses of the COVID vaccine. In other words, almost 8% of the state’s population have received the first dose, and about 1.5% have been fully inoculated.
“All of the first doses that have arrived from the federal government in North Carolina have been administered. Overall, including second doses, 81% of doses have been administered.”
“Of all the doses that have arrived in North Carolina for long-term care facilities [and are administered in partnership with the feds, Walgreens, and CVS], 56% of first doses have been administered. When second doses are included, 36% have been administered.” (N&O)
The state reported 2,781 COVID hospitalizations, 3,776 new COVID cases, and seven deaths. All of those numbers show marked improvements over recent peaks.