Welcome. This is a weekly feature of North Carolina Blue. The platform gives readers interested in North Carolina politics a place to share their knowledge, insight and inspiration as we take back our state from some of the most extreme Republicans in the nation. Please stop by each week. You can also join the discussion in four other weekly State Open Threads. If you are interested in starting your own state blog, weekly to occasionally, I will list your work below.
Colorado: Mondays, 7:00 PM Mountain Michigan: Wednesdays, 6:00 PM Eastern North Carolina: Sundays, 1:00 PM Eastern Missouri: Wednesday Evenings Kansas: Monday Evenings
Please jump the fold for links to a few North Carolina stories I found useful and interesting this week. Raleigh waterfalls, Old church artifacts discovery, Governor Cooper’s vetos, and saving Hellbenders are included below. Hope you enjoy reading.
First lady Jill Biden is expected to speak at a political event in Wilmington at 12:15 p.m. on Monday, July 8.
Jill Biden's arrival comes as many in the Democratic party are uneasy over President Joe Biden and his prospects for winning a second term.
Some North Carolina Democrats raised concerns over President Biden's candidacy after a subpar showing in the first presidential debate on June 27 in Atlanta. The next day in Raleigh, Joe Biden and Jill Biden spoke at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds as some in the party and media wondered if the president should step down.
On Wednesday, July 3, Democratic governors from across the country discussed their concerns with Biden during a meeting. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper was there and issued a statement in support of the sitting president.
"We had a good meeting with the president talking about what's needed to win," Cooper said. "Donald Trump is an existential threat to our democracy, and everyone in the room agreed that defeating him is imperative. President Biden told us he is definitely running for reelection. He is our nominee, and we'll continue doing everything we can to deliver North Carolina for him."
As
first reported by The New Republic, North Carolina Lt. Gov. and Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson told a North Carolina church audience on Sunday, June 30 that “some folks need killing.”
The statement came immediately after Robinson had characterized the United States’ response to Nazi and Japanese aggression during World War II and immediately prior to a reference to modern day “wicked people.”
Robinson said the following:
“We now find ourselves struggling with people who have evil intent. You know, there was a time in which we used to meet evil on the battlefield. Guess what we did to it: we killed it! We didn’t quibble about it. We didn’t argue about it. We didn’t fight about it. We killed it!
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, what’d we do? We flew to Japan and we killed the Japanese army and navy. We didn’t even quibble about it. I didn’t start this fight. You did.
You wanted to be left alone. you should have left me alone. We didn’t argue and capitulate and talk about well, maybe we shouldn’t fight the Nazis that hard. No, they’re bad. Kill them!
Some liberal somewhere is gonna say that sounds awful. Too bad. Get mad at me if you want to.
Some folks need killing! It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity!”
It was not completely obvious from Robinson’s remarks precisely whom he believes it is (or was) that deserves (or deserved) to be killed. Soon after the “killing” remarks, he made the following statement:
“When you have wicked people doing wicked things, torturing and murdering and raping. It’s time to call out, uh, those guys in green and go have them handled. Or those boys in blue and have them go handle it.”
Gov. Roy Cooper on Wednesday vetoed a pair of bills that would have allowed certain off-road vehicles on North Carolina highways and curbed local governments’ involvement in rental disputes.
Cooper signed four other bills into law, including an agriculture bill that contains tax credits for conservation efforts and new regulations on vaping products.
House Bill 155, one of those vetoed by Cooper, would have allowed modified utility vehicles to drive on more roads, including four-lane highways. It received wide support in both the House (92-12) and Senate (46-3).
“These vehicles lack many of the safety features found in traditional vehicles which creates an increased risk of serious injury or death for people on our highways,” Cooper said in a statement explaining the veto.
The other piece of legislation vetoed, House Bill 556, sought to define the role of local governments in policing disputes between tenants and landlords.
Mental health has been worsening for young. But partnerships with mental health agencies are helping to bring care to students.
As the need for mental health services has risen, schools in North Carolina are increasingly a place to find them. Schools are adding or expanding in-house mental health services contracts with community providers.
Triangle Family Services, with the help of a fundraiser and a grant from insurer Aetna, last year started providing a mostly free, full-time therapist who rotates among four schools within the Johnston County Public Schools system. The therapist counsels 22 students once per week, billing insurance if it’s available or providing services for free if it’s not.
Lisa Lowe-Hall, chief executive of Triangle Family Services, said the service was spurred by worsening suicide rates in the Triangle area and beyond.
“We’ll have a kid that maybe has mental health concerns, maybe they’ve self-harmed before or had suicidal thoughts or something's going on and they need mental health services, but there’s a lot of barriers that families face outside of school to get their kid into therapy,” said Ashlyn Smith, social worker at West Lake Middle School in Apex. “Like parents that are working crazy hours, they don't have transportation, there's a wait list for programs everywhere. So the school-based therapists are able to see our kids in the school building during the day.”
Snorkeling scientists search for eastern hellbenders so they might live another day elsewhere on the Watauga River before an old dam is removed.
WATAUGA COUNTY—Ben Dalton broke the glassy surface of the Watauga River, spit out his mouthpiece and gasped for breath. All morning, Dalton, a state wildlife biologist, and two other snorkelers had been scouring the river bed, trying to rescue as many eastern hellbenders as they could.
So far, they had not saved a one.
“They just hunker down and press themselves against the sides of the rock,” Dalton said, in a nasal voice through his snorkeling mask. He wielded a “tickler,” which resembled a long, yellow pipe cleaner. “I’m going to try to goose the hellbender and see if it will shoot out the front.”
Glistening in a sleek wetsuit, Dalton is thin, lean and agile, much like the hellbenders he was trying to rescue. In early July, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with support from American Rivers and MountainTrue, would begin staging heavy equipment nearby, the first step in dismantling the Shull’s Mill Dam, southwest of Boone in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The dam, which once powered a timber mill, has fragmented and degraded the giant salamander’s sensitive habitat.
CNN —
When not leading sermons, the Rev. Daniel Cenci is quite the history buff.
Cenci’s two passions coincided when a plethora of centuries-old items were found June 20 in the yard of Christ Episcopal Church in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, where Cenci has served as rector since 2019.
He said the church’s construction crew was digging up a century-old magnolia tree when the mundane quickly turned into something extraordinary around lunchtime. The crew had hit something while digging up a pit for drainage underneath the stump.
When Cenci saw the almost dome-like shape of the structure the crew had hit, he thought it was a crypt or an unmarked soldier’s grave given the many battles fought in eastern North Carolina during the Civil War.
Cenci enlisted the help of a nearby parishioner to poke around. Soon, the two had pulled out a bone that was eight inches long. “I thought, ‘Oh gosh, maybe that’s a crypt after all,’” Cenci told CNN.
You don't have to drive all the way to the North Carolina mountains to see beautiful waterfalls this season - there are several beautiful and historic waterfalls right here in the Triangle. One is even hidden in the middle of a Raleigh neighborhood.
Instead of rippling down craggy mountainsides, most of the Triangle-area waterfalls are built into antique mills. However, a couple are tucked away in botanical gardens or off country roadsides.
Here's your guide to chasing waterfalls right here in Raleigh – or very close by!
1. Lassiter Mill - Waterfall hidden in a Raleigh neighborhood
2. Juniper Level Botanic Garden - Hidden waterfall in a 'secret garden'
3. Ole Gilliam Mill Park - Waterfall runs beneath NC's longest covered bridge
4. Yates Mill - Restored, functioning mill from 1750s
5. Little River Park - A waterfall right next to a beach
6. Perry's Pond - Tall falls hidden along rural NC roadways
7. West Point on the Eno - Historic waterfall near Raleigh
Thanks for stopping by, wishing all a fine week.
