We Need to Talk About Alamance County
Everything you need to know for Thursday, Dec. 3: The Triangle’s biggest (and smallest) PPP recipients + voter ID is back + Obama vs. BLM
Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020
7 days until Hanukkah
11 days until the Electoral College votes
22 days until Christmas
28 days until this cursed year ends
48 days until this cursed presidency is over
49 days until National Hugging Day (not kidding)
Note: Yesterday, I mentioned the expiring prohibition on nondiscrimination ordinances (which I wrongly attributed to HB 147 instead of HB 142). If you’d like to get involved, EQNC and the Campaign for Southern Equality have made it easy.
Today’s Numbers:
10,135
Paycheck Protection Program loans received by companies in Raleigh, according to a database released by the SBA and published by American City Business Journals (sub. req).
5 largest recipients
Spectraforce Technologies: $10 million
LMR LLC (restaurant group): $8.692 million
Headway HR Solutions: $7 million
Carolina Sunrock: $6.56 million
DP Preiss Co. (student housing builder): $5.644 million
5 smallest recipients
Mondazia Rice and Associates LLC: $127
Turning Pages LLC: $148
Still Frame Storyteller: $183
Chasseloup Enterprises LLC: $300
4,032
PPP loans received by companies in Durham.
5 largest recipients
EmergeOrtho PA: $10 million
Measurement Inc.: $8.023 million
RHO, Inc.: $8.006 million
SportsMEDIA Technology Corp.: $6.421 million
The John R. McAdams Company: $5.046 million
5 smallest recipients
Christi Ellison-Bradsher: $100
Healthy Vending Options LLC: $414
Ask Amy K LLC: $494
Jeffrey R. Carmon, dba Carmon Car Cleaning Services: $500
Tara McCoy: $537
Is there anyone you want me to look up? Let me know.
+ ABOVE THE FOLD
—> Alamance Says Black Pastor Is “Danger to the Community”
We shouldn’t expect a county that tried to ban protesters from getting within shouting distance of a Confederate monument to have the most evolved views on race. But really, this is a bit much.
A recap:
The Rev. Greg Drumwright led a march to the polls through Graham on Oct. 31. Sheriff Terry Johnson’s deputies pepper-sprayed them.
The Sheriff’s Office later explained that “the assembly reached a level of conduct that led to the rally being deemed unsafe and unlawful by unified command,” whatever that means.
The Sheriff’s Office accused Drumwright of bringing a generator and gas can to the event, in violation of his permit. The cops went to grab the illicit items, a fracas ensued, and a female deputy ended up on the ground.
Drumwright was charged with two felonies for “shoving” the deputy.
Johnson later had deputies arrest five people after county commissioners abruptly adjourned a meeting to avoid public comments about the Oct. 31 event.
His office then distributed an audio clip “from a community meeting held by social justice groups that, taken out of context, seemed to suggest that Drumwright was planning a riot,” the N&O reports.
Now that we’re up to speed: On Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Patrick Harrison asked a judge to ban Drumwright from county property because he is a “danger to the community,” citing—you guessed it—the deceptively clipped audio.
—> WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT: “Drumwright and his attorneys have likened Sheriff Terry Johnson to Bull Connor, the infamous Birmingham, Ala. police commissioner who violently opposed Civil Rights activities in the 1960s. The repeated use of pepper spray on Oct. 31 garnered international headlines. And with the announcement of felony charges against Drumwright and the threat of further criminal accusations, the scrutiny hasn’t let up.”
—> WHAT HAPPENED: At a hearing on Wednesday, a judge denied Harrison’s motion. And Drumwright brought in civil rights attorney Ben Crump, so Alamance County will get more of the mockery it seems to enjoy.
+ LOCAL & STATE
—> Voter ID Is NC Law Again
Just in time for, um, next year’s municipal elections, the state’s voter ID law—passed in late 2018—is back. Yesterday, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a district court decision blocking the law, ruling that we have to give the NCGA the benefit of the doubt.
The outcome hinges on the answer to a simple question: How much does the past matter? To the district court, the North Carolina General Assembly’s recent discriminatory past was effectively dispositive of the Challengers’ claims here. But the Supreme Court directs differently. A legislature’s past acts do not condemn the acts of a later legislature, which we must presume acts in good faith.
This isn’t the end of the road for opponents, as WRAL explains:
“This decision dealt with an injunction blocking implementation of the requirement, but a full trial on the constitutionality of that requirement is still to come in federal court. A separate lawsuit was also filed targeting this law at the state court level, and there’s a third lawsuit targeting multiple amendments to the state constitution, including voter ID. All three cases remain active.”
—> Triad Mayors Ask DC to Save Restaurants
Either I’m beating this drum too much, or everyone else isn’t beating it enough. But if (or when) the pandemic leads to more stay-at-home orders or tighter capacity limits this winter, a whole lot of the state’s restaurants will be screwed. And that’s to say nothing of the state’s bars.
To wit, from the chef behind Raleigh’s Garland:
So on Tuesday, Triad restaurateurs and mayors held a press conference to highlight the hospitality industry’s need for federal assistance. Most of this Winston-Salem Journal story is spent on the horrors of inaction. But it also mentions:
[Winston-Salem Mayor Allen] Joines and the other mayors called on Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., to support a bill that would make available $120 billion in stimulus money to help restaurants, bars and food trucks survive the impact of COVID-19 has had on their businesses.
They’re talking about SB 4012, the RESTAURANTS Act of 2020. Its companion legislation in the House, HR 7197, was folded into the HEROES Act, which the House passed and the Senate immediately shat on.
Both versions would create a $120 billion fund to prop up bars and restaurants, awarding grants based on the difference in one quarter of 2020 income and the same quarter of 2019 income.
In other words: Give them money.
With only a month left in the lame-duck and Republicans rediscovering their inner deficit scold just in time for a Democrat to take over, there’s little chance it will become law.
—> The North Carolina Roundup
Ted Budd has tested positive for COVID. (N&O)
The Raleigh City Council will hold a two-hour public hearing on Downtown South on Dec. 15, then another special meeting, presumably to vote on the project, two days later—but only if the planning commission makes a recommendation next week. (Anna Johnson, Twitter)
RDU saw far fewer-than-expected passengers over Thanksgiving weekend, which probably isn’t a bad thing. (TBJ)
UNC-Chapel Hill faculty want the campus to go remote this spring. (N&O)
—> Weather
Mostly clear, high of 60 (WRAL)
+ NATION & WORLD
—> Did “Defund the Police” Really Hurt Dems?
Like every Progressive of a Certain Age, I’m slogging through Barack Obama’s memoir, which is very long, occasionally revealing, and in its most interesting moments, walks up to the line of self-interrogation before hauling ass back toward Obama’s comfort zone.
For our purposes, the important thing is that the ex-pres is doing the promotional rounds, which means he’s saying newsy things. From a Snapchat interview with Vanity Fair contributor Peter Hamby:
We take for granted that if you want people to buy your sneakers, that you’re going to market it to your audience, right? We take for granted that if a musician drops a record, that they’re going to try to reach certain audiences by speaking to folks where they are. It’s no different in terms of ideas, right? So if you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform the criminal justice system so that it’s not biased and treats everybody fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan, like Defund the Police, but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done.
To translate: “Defund” messaging complicated life for Democrats. This did not go over well on the left.
“The remarks drew immediate backlash from notable, Black progressive Democrats—including the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who stressed ‘defund the police’ was not about mere words but a ‘demand for equitable investments and budgets for communities across the country.’”
I suspect Obama is right if you accept his argument on its own terms. However:
Obama assumes that BLM activists and Democratic operatives share the same goals—that what’s good for the latter is good for the former.
BLM activists don’t see it that way.
As Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles, recently told The Root:
We’re not going to water down our message in order to make people who don’t understand feel more comfortable. As a Black mother of Black children, I’m working for a world where they can live and walk freely. I’m not going to soften that to make some white suburban mothers feel more comfortable.
—> Briefs: 3 Stories to Read Today
“My discussion with Senator Ron Johnson [of Wisconsin] was one that I have hesitated openly discussing for three weeks. … The TL;DR of the call was this: Senator Johnson knows that Joe Biden won a free and fair election. He is refusing to admit it publicly and stoking conspiracies that undermine our democracy solely because it would be ‘political suicide’ to oppose Trump.” (The Bulwark)s
“The White House coronavirus task force issued extremely dire warnings to states in weekly reports this week, urging public health officials to circumvent state and local policies amid record-high cases, hospitalizations and deaths, as well as fears of a surge upon a surge following Thanksgiving.’” (CNN)
“At the U.S.-Mexico border, tens of thousands of migrants with pending asylum claims are waiting to enter the United States, some in squalid tent cities that resemble refugee camps. U.S. border agents have been making arrests at a soaring rate—more than 2,000 per day in recent weeks—as the economic fallout from the pandemic and devastating hurricanes in Central America threaten to trigger a new wave of illegal migration to the United States.” (WaPo)
—> The Rundown
The UK became the first Western country to approve the Pfizer COVID vaccine. (NYT)
The CDC has cut the standard 14-day COVID quarantine to 10 or even seven days. (WaPo)
With Justice Barrett as the deciding vote, the Supreme Court seems likely to rule that convicted felons have a constitutional right to buy firearms (but not to vote). (NYT)
Donald Trump failed to reach 47% in both of his presidential runs. (Dave Wasserman)
America will soon have another president who enjoys long BS sessions with Tom Friedman. (NYT)
Trump told Christmas Party guests he plans to run again in four years. (Kaitlin Collins)
Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to crack down on French activists and the media has not gone over well. (WaPo)
Iran says it will increase its uranium enrichment. (NYT)
+ OUR SO-CALLED LIVES
—> Cultured: The Multitudes of Dolly Parton
Five thousand (or so) words on Dolly in The New York Times Magazine? Yes, please.
In 1967, she joined Porter Wagoner as the “girl singer” on his show, one of the biggest TV programs in country music—but she outgrew him much sooner than she left him, in 1974, by which time she had recorded 13 albums with him and 16 on her own. She wrote some of her best-known songs around that time, including “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You.” Elvis Presley asked to record the latter, on the condition that he would get half the publishing rights, and Parton turned him down—a choice she took to the bank in 1992, when Whitney Houston recorded her ubiquitous, anthemic version of the song for the “Bodyguard” soundtrack.
—> Et Cetera
Dr. Anthony Fauci thinks it’s “possible” the NFL could play to full stadiums next season. (SI)
Sasha Obama did a TikTok. (TMZ)
You guys have all watched Netflix’s La Revolution, right? (Netflix)
That’s all for today. See you tomorrow.