Sen. Kay Hagan (D-odge, NC)

Posted on May 20, 2013 by A.P. Dillon

Sometimes a few tweets can bring serious matters into focus. Like Kay Hagan getting Blueprint NC help on Twitter.

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:

WRAL_promisetracker

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 were 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:

Note: The tweets reference #Memogate, that’s what the BluePrint NC/America Votes memo scandal is being called. Removing the name of the group responsible for the memo make it harder to track down online and confuses people with the ongoing scandal in Pakistan.

Senator Hagan did go on Morning Joe, but talked about sexual assault in the Military. I think she’s a bit smarter than to use the BluePrint/America Votes talking points on national television. Senator stayed out of the conversations having to do with the multiple scandals in Washington right now while on the segment – in fact, she’s stayed out of most of it all together in the last month. Hagan’s concentration for the last four or more months has been on the military in North Carolina and now is speaking about the sexual assaults in the military.

Good for her in bringing attention to that issue, however Hagan has remained nearly silent on the recent IRS scandal where conservative groups were targeted and harassed.  Senator Hagan has called it unacceptable and according to Politico, Hagan had this to say:

“First of all, when you look at this, it’s like when it rains it pours,” said Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), who’s up for reelection next year, about the IRS and Department of Justice stories. “It’s very, very troubling.”

It’s more than troubling, Senator, it’s criminal.

Senator Hagan has seemingly shrugged her shoulders and steered clear of the topic likely because the abuse is seen in the IRS case also has implications on Obamacare; the IRS has thousands of new agents hired expressly for the implementation of it.

The Hagan Dodge

Hagan has been a vocal and steadfast proponent of Obamacare and this IRS scandal would put a spotlight on that support heading into her re-election campaign in 2014.

Duck and Dodge? Is that the slogan for 2014? Hagan is good at dodging the big hits:

Perhaps Hagan has been mostly silent because she is too busy pointing fingers at the Koch brothers and “extremist politics” to fundraise. This is from a recent email drive:

Koch Brothers

 

We’ve seen what extremist politics looks like lately in North Carolina and it doesn’t bear the name Koch.

Given that the IRS just intimidated and abused over 300 conservative and religious-based groups, who is the extremist exactly Senator Hagan?

UPDATE: Whoops.

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About A.P. Dillon

A.P. Dillon is a reporter currently writing at The North State Journal. She resides in the Triangle area of North Carolina. Find her on Twitter: @APDillon_ Tips: APDillon@Protonmail.com
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