Category Archives: Senate

Sometimes a few tweets can bring serious matters into focus:

Paging @americavotes & #BlueprintNC partners. “Operation Destroy @myncsenate Budget” meeting @ 9 am. goo.gl/1Tb93 #ncga #ncpol

— RealLiberalHack(@LiberalHack) May 20, 2013

Hey, remember BluePrint NC and America Votes? Hey, look at all the crazy demonstrations going on downtown with all these groups that are buddies with BluePrint and America Votes. It’s all coincidence, I’m sure. It seems Twitter user @LiberalHack hasn’t forgotten and sent out this tweet this morning.

By the way, the link in the tweet goes here: AJ Fletcher Foundation. It’s the little details like that which matter. To explain a bit, the AJ Fletcher Foundation is founded and run by Jim Goodmon, the owner of Capital Broadcasting group who in turn runs local news outlet WRAL. The AJ Fletcher foundation gave a wad of cash to BluePrint NC (more below). This is the same WRAL who decided to start a ‘Promise Tracker’ on McCrory, but didn’t have the ‘technology’ do set one up for Bev Perdue:

Note: WRAL responded to my public tweet with a private Direct Message.

The AJ Fletcher Foundation is the same outfit who claimed they had nothing do to with BluePrint NC’s attack memo citing the ‘evisceration’ and ‘crippling’ of the opposition. Even BluePrint NC tried to dodge ownership. Also recall that the AJ Fletcher Foundation gave over $35,000 to BluePrint NC. Via Civitas:

The WRAL reporter left out the very deep connections WRAL has with BlueprintNC through its owner Jim Goodmon, donations and former employees. The AJ Fletcher Foundation has given $35,000 to BlueprintNC and $380,000 to the NC Justice Center which initially housed BlueprintNC when it was formed (the foundations 990 IRS reports are not current so there may be more) . The Goodmon family which owns WRAL has 4 family members on the board of the Fletcher Foundation including Barbara the President and Jim the chairman of the board. The Executive Director was formerly the head of the NC center for Voter Education, one of the original members of BlueprintNC. In addition Chris Fitzsimon, former WRAL reporter, is head of the liberal NC Policy Watch, the original lead attack group in the Blueprint coalition. Fitzsimon is also provided free airtime on Goodmon owned WRAL-FM from which he launches daily attacks on political opponents. The Fletcher Foundation has been a long time funder of Policy Watch is now housed in the Justice Center.

Well, America Votes finally owned up to the memo to take the heat off of BluePrint NC, but the damage was already done and there was zero apologies made:

The leader of a political nonprofit group came forward Wednesday as the author of a leaked strategy memo on how to attack Gov. Pat McCrory and Republican leaders.

Jessica Laurenz, the North Carolina director for America Votes, said she wrote and distributed the draft memo – not Blueprint North Carolina, a Raleigh group being blamed for crafting the plan to “eviscerate the (Republican) leadership and weaken their ability to govern.”

In an interview, Laurenz defended the memo saying “America Votes has not done anything wrong or out of the ordinary” and didn’t regret “strongly urging my colleagues to fight for what we believe in.”

The memo, leaked to reporters last week as a document originating from Blueprint, was first reported by The Charlotte Observer – an article which ran in this newspaper. The story was quickly pounced upon by Republicans. McCrory called the memo shameful.” House Speaker Thom Tillis used it as a fundraising appeal. The N.C. Republican Party registered complaints with the Internal Revenue Service and the state elections board, asking both to investigate Blueprint for political activity outside its charitable status.

Who authored the memo is central to any potential inquiry. America Votes is allowed to participate in political efforts as a 501(c)4 nonprofit under federal tax law. But Blueprint North Carolina is limited to issue-advocacy and barred from political campaign activities as a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Both are tax exempt organizations but only donations to 501(c)3 groups are tax deductible.

Back to Twitter

It looks like BluePrint NC’s talking points memo pal, America Votes, is taking fire and whoops, Senator Kay Hagan is in the mix:

BREAKING: @senatorhagan starts using @americavotes talking points on @morning_joe. #winning #ncpol #ncga.I hope Rep. Luebke is proud. — RealLiberalHack(@LiberalHack) May 20, 2013

H/T to @bringastar showing that @senatorhagan “hit all the points” in her first interview using @americavotes#memogate approach #ncpol

— RealLiberalHack(@LiberalHack) May 20, 2013 Continue reading →