It looks like our State Legislators are back on the job after the holiday. It’s a little unclear what the agenda is, but the consensus seems to be Republican shenanigans. It looks like the Legislature wants to pass through several controversial bills and overrides in this rare mini-session, hoping to catch opponents off guard.

Up for the docket in this session? Well, there’s the repeal of the Racial Justice Act which I’ve mentioned before. This would repeal a law which allows death row inmates to appeal their case based on possible racial bias. Then there’s the Energy Jobs Act, which was vetoed earlier and would allow offshore drilling and an investigation into fracking; both of which would devastate North Carolina’s delicate environment. Oh, and then there’s the voter ID bill, a vetoed bill which would require voters to have a photo ID on hand before they can participate in their basic civil right of voting. This is a bill which smells an awful lot like anti-immigrant xenophobia and would only serve to make it more difficult for low income voters to vote.

Finally there’s the gas tax cap. Lawmakers are hoping to cap the gas tax which is set to go up by four cents next year. At first this sounds like a pretty good idea. It would probably save motorists on average $30 a year. Unfortunately, it would do that by costing the NCDOT $200 million. Money which could be spent maintaining our crumbling roads and keeping road workers employed. This seems a little ridiculous when we’re already slashing our education budget by millions in an effort to save money.

Let’s hope our lawmakers continue to see reason and stop these ridiculous proposals in their tracks.

This time, Duke Energy has agreed to lower its rate increase to 7.2%, more than half its original offer of 17%. It’s still a little higher than the Public Staff’s recommendation of around 5%, but much more reasonable. Duke Energy will also be paying $11 million out of profits to help low-income customers pay their bills.

This recent agreement seems to highlight the ridiculousness of the original offer, which would have been the highest increase in 20 years. It still seems like Duke is trying to get away with price gouging because Duke is still trying to get a 15% increase from South Carolina customers. Luckily, North Carolina has the Utility Commission’s Public Staff looking out for them.

The hearing is still happening on the 29^th, so none of this is set in stone. But it does get our hopes up that the Utilities Commission will listen to the customers of North Carolina rather than big business.

Willoughby says that because the inmate, Joshua Martin Wrenn, attacked Officer Hayes (according to Hayes and “another officer”) that use of hands on force was necessary. He also said that the circumstances for Wrenn’s hospitalization were special because of the pre-existing condition of a brain aneurysm.

Now let’s ignore the fishiness of these facts and the fact that Hayes had more than a few pounds on Wrenn (not to mention a fellow officer who witnessed the event who also could have helped), and focus on some other aspects of the case which are being ignored.

Official police policy in a situation like this calls for a very specific escalation of methods an officer can use to defend himself or herself called the “use of force continuum.” First is verbal command, second is “soft hands” or using empty handed techniques to physically restrain the attacker, next is non-lethal weaponry like pepper spray, and after that is “hard hands” which are empty-handed techniques to subdue the attacker (punches and kicks and the like), after that is batons, threat of deadly force, then deadly force. Hayes obviously used hard hands, skipping a couple of steps. On top of that, police are trained where they can hit attackers using zones: red zones are no-hit, yellow is less preferred, and green is preferred. The head is in the red zone, and it is red for the very reason Hayes was in trouble; it can cause very serious, possibly permanent, damage.

It’s a travesty that this incident is being swept under the rug. I recognize that police are commonly put in dangerous situations and should be able to protect themselves, but sometimes it can be excessive. And in those situations, the police should be held accountable. Otherwise, who watches the watchmen?

I wrote earlier about how Duke Energy planned on increasing their residential rates by 17% to cover the costs of upgrades in their system. This is after two other rate increases in the last year, and after a recent merger with Progress Energy which makes Duke the largest utility in the country.

Duke later made another offer which trimmed that increase to 15%.Unfortunately that is way more than the 5% that NC Public Staff, a utility consumer advocate group, says is all they really need. And now, Duke has made yet another offer trimming that down to 12% and a plan to donate $15 million to low income customers.

That’s still not good enough. Again, I should mention that this comes after their recent merger, which is said to save them tons of money, including nearly 2,000 layoffs in the next three years.

The utilities commission will still hold hearings from experts on Nov. 28. Hopefully they see the light and continue to protect NC’s energy customers.

If you haven’t been reading the internet, you might not know that Nov. 16^th was American Censorship Day, a movement in protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (or SOPA) which uses the excuse of protecting intellectual property to ban material, and even whole websites, on the internet. A move many call straight censorship.

Both Nancy Pelosi, Democratic House Leader, and Republican Representative Darrell Issa have come out against the act which gives us hope that the act won’t come into fruition. But the bill isn’t dead yet, and this hasn’t been the first attempt at internet censorship in the name of protecting intellectual property.

Here’s hoping these bills never come out. The internet is the last completely free domain for free speech, and these bills would open up the Pandora’s box of internet censorship.

So there’s this law, called the Racial Justice Act, which could be up for repeal pretty soon. The Racial Justice Act has to do with the death penalty and it allows people up for capital punishment to appeal on the grounds of racial bias. Which is a very legit point since there’s been a study which states that a defendant will be 2.6 times more likely to be put to death if the victim in the case is white, and that out of 159 people on death row at the time of the study, 31 had all-white juries and 38 had only one person of color on the jury.

However, according to the N&O, the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys wants the act repealed. The president, Susan Doyle, Johnston County DA, says "If you do not address this issue quickly, the criminal justice system.” And she has a point, too, because death row inmates are known to appeal their case many times, which makes sense because the other choice is to, you know, die.

I, however, have a brilliant solution to this problem: how about we (the state, that is) simply stop killing people! The death penalty hasn’t conclusively been found to deter violent crime (not by a long shot), and, with all the appeals, it turns out it’s simply cheaper to not do it.

So there you go, instead of repealing the Racial Justice Act (a repeal Republican lawmakers attached to a law regarding synthetic marijuana of all things) we should repeal the entire death penalty. It really would solve a lot of these legal problems.

So there’s this law, called the Racial Justice Act, which could be up for repeal pretty soon. The Racial Justice Act has to do with the death penalty and it allows people up for capital punishment to appeal on the grounds of racial bias. Which is a very legit point since there’s been a study which states that a defendant will be 2.6 times more likely to be put to death if the victim in the case is white, and that out of 159 people on death row at the time of the study, 31 had all-white juries and 38 had only one person of color on the jury.

However, according to the N&O, the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys wants the act repealed. The president, Susan Doyle, Johnston County DA, says "If you do not address this issue quickly, the criminal justice system.” And she has a point, too, because death row inmates are known to appeal their case many times, which makes sense because the other choice is to, you know, die.

I, however, have a brilliant solution to this problem: how about we (the state, that is) simply stop killing people! The death penalty hasn’t conclusively been found to deter violent crime (not by a long shot), and, with all the appeals, it turns out have it’s simply cheaper to not do it.

So there you go, instead of repealing the Racial Justice Act (a repeal Republican lawmakers attached to a law regarding synthetic marijuana of all things) we should repeal the entire death penalty. It really would solve a lot of these legal problems.

Jamie Oliver, TV’s the naked chef, famously campaigned for healthier school meals in the UK after discovering the unhealthy nature of the meals and being disgusted by the severe lack of healthy alternatives. He created a successful British TV show which documented his efforts as he took over the cooking for a school in Greenwich. Surprisingly, the campaign was successful and changed the types of food British schools offered.

He later tried to do the same thing in here in America, but received roadblock after roadblock and eventually his TV show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, was canned.  

Recently a bill was put forth to congress trying to increase the healthiness of school lunches. Among other things, it wanted to limit the amount of potatoes and sodium offered, encourage the use of whole grains, and disallow pizza from being classified as a vegetable. But Congress “reformed” the bill unraveling all of those efforts.

“Why?” do you ask? Special interests of course:  specifically, the potato growers and frozen food makers who have heavy influence in congress via lobbying. Kraig Naasz, president of the American Frozen Food Institute, was quoted as saying, "This agreement ensures that nutrient-rich vegetables such as potatoes, corn and peas will remain part of a balanced, healthy diet in federally funded school meals and recognizes the significant amounts of potassium, fiber and vitamins A and C provided by tomato paste, ensuring that students may continue to enjoy healthy meals such as pizza and pasta." Which, frankly, is out right weird. French fries and pizza do not a healthy meal make. Even grade-schoolers know this, who, unfortunately, will continue to get fat off of them while congress continues to get fat off of corporate money.

Occupy protestors all over the country are being pushed out of where they’re occupying and denied their natural right to protest. That includes Wall Street where the NYPD came in the middle of the night in riot gear to forcibly remove the occupiers. It also includes here: In Raleigh, I’ve already talked about how the occupiers were denied access to camping beside the capitol (luckily, though, the mayor seems to be on their side, if peripherally).  And in Chapel Hill, the police raided a vacant car lot full of protestors, making several arrests including two members of the media. Granted, the protestors were squatting, but was it really necessary to use S.W.A.T. tactics to arrest an unarmed group of kids?  

Protesting is about disrupting the norm. It’s understandably frustrating when you can’t use a park because it’s currently being occupied by the angry 99%, but that’s the point. It’s a lot easier to ignore what people are trying to say when you safely cordon them off away from the public. Cities all over are explaining away their behavior by using the excuse of “health concerns,” but if you are concerned about people’s health then why are you donning riot gear and beating people with batons?

A recent report revealed horrifying conditions for the mentally ill at North Carolina’s Central Prison. Prisoners were left isolated for staggeringly long amounts of times, some were left to wallow in their own filth with nothing but a safety blanket and others were neglected or over prescribed medication which may have led to the death of one inmate.

Jenny Lancaster, chief operating officer for the NC DOC, excused these conditions by citing how the prison system is severely understaffed and underequipped. Luckily, the prison will receive a new mental health facility to address these issues, but some doubt this will actually fix the problem. These conditions are simply inexcusable.

Nobody is being held accountable. No prison staff has been fired and nobody is up for disciplinary review. This injustice is beyond outrageous.