Gov. McCrory Looks Back at 2015 [VIDEO] – #ncpol #ncgov

Posted on December 31, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Governor McCrory has a video out with a look back at 2015.

In a press release announcing the video, a list of accomplishments was included.

Missing among them was his support for Common Core, which was embodied by his Academic Standards Review Commission pick (Andre Peek) voting in the final meeting on 12/18/15 to make sure Common Core was protected.  The moms will not forget this come election day, Governor Rebrand.

Here’s the Governor’s list via the press release:

Economy:

  • Added over 230,000 private sector jobs.
  • Paid off $2.8 billion federal debt.
  • Led the drive for the $2 billion Connect NC bond referendum to invest in universities, community colleges, parks, National Guard facilities, and water and sewer infrastructure.
  • Modernized the tax code to put more dollars in the paychecks of North Carolinians, spur job creation and to save families and business owners $4.4 billion over the first five years of tax reform.

Education:

  • Signed 2015-17 state budget with $700 million in new funding for K-12 education.
  • Committed over $1 billion more for teacher pay through his first term.
  • Fought for nearly 2,800 teacher assistant positions.
  • Achieved one of the highest high school graduation rates in state history at 85.4%.

Efficiency:

  • Improved customer service at the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (NCDMV) by extending office hours, adding self-serve kiosks, implementing online driver license renewals, and eliminating written tests.
  • Created a new Department of Military and Veterans Affairs to streamline services, protect the state’s military bases, promote the health and safety of veterans and military families, help veterans get jobs, and work with the unique needs of base communities.
  • Ended annual shortfalls in the Medicaid program and passed Medicaid reform to improve patient care and hold down costs to taxpayers.
  • Announced $445 million dollar surplus spurred by the governor’s job creation policies and built up the state’s rainy day fund to more than $1 billion.
Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Pat McCrory, POLITICS NC, Video | Tagged | 1 Comment

Professional Agitators to Descend on Durham on January 1st – #ncpol

Posted on December 30, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

A Black Lives Matter protest will happen in Durham this Friday, January 1st at 6 pm at CCB plaza according to an event posting on Facebook.

The main host/creator of the event is Desmera Gatewood, whose Facebook profile lists her as being a “Former Moral Freedom Summer Community Organizer at North Carolina NAACP“.  In other words, paid Moral Monday activist.

Gatewood allegedly organized a May Day protest in Durham this past Spring and is also a former Teach For America corps member.

Remember, the last Black Lives Matter Protests in Durham had a Teach for America (TFA) employee bailing out those arrested. Michelle Malkin pointed out the TFA protest connection and cited this blog for my coverage of the Durham protests.

Gatewood’s twitter handle is @frocratinator and is apparently chummy with Bree Newsome, the young woman who pulled a media stunt by scaling a flagpole in South Carolina to pull down the Confederate flag:

 

Other ‘hosts’ of the event include:

Jillian Johnson
Facebook profile says she is the Director of Southern Vision Alliance and she is also the registering agent for the group at the NC Secretary of State.  Johnson was arrested at Moral Monday in 2013.  Southern Vision Alliance is tied to the Youth Organizing Institute, which has been conducting ‘school to prison pipeline‘ protests in the Triangle area.

D’Atra Jackson
Facebook profile says Jackson is the “Organizing Director at NC Student Power Union“.
I’ve written about this Occupy-style group before; view their Mapping The Left profile.
Her twitter handle is @MerQueenGangsta.  Ms. Jackson supports the Youth Organizing Institute and their theme of  ‘kicking cops out of schools‘.

Destiny Hemphill
Destiny went to Duke and moderated a panel voter ID that included far left Democracy NC.

Zaina Alsous
Head/former head of Occupy Chapel Hill.
Arrested at Moral Monday in May 2103 and June, 2014. Ties to the NC Vote Defenders and NC Student Power Union. Her twitter handle is @diasporadical_z.

Felicia Arriaga
Facebook profiles says she is a “Former Intern at Student Action with Farmworkers” and attends Duke as a graduate student.  Arriaga is also supportive of the Youth Organizing Institute and their movement to get police out of schools.  Arriaga also co-organized a rally to ‘stand with Mizzou’ at Duke. Her twitter handle is @FeliciaArriaga.

Qasima Wideman
Known in some circles as “Q”, “Sister Q” or ‘Mini- Bully Barber’.  Currently a student at NCSU and her Facebook profile says she is a “Writer at Nubian Message and Staff at Youth Organizing Institute” and “Past: NC HEAT“.

Wideman’s Youth Organizing Institute profile is not to be missed and begins with her ‘preferred pronouns’ and this statement:

“Qasima “Q” Wideman is the mixed-up, Muslim genderqueer poet child of two biracial parents, struggling through the confusion of the multiple diasporas, migrations, and class realities that have shaped their family and experience.”

Wideman is involved in the ‘school to prison pipeline’ protests and the lawsuit against Wake County Schools.  Wideman is also a member of “Muslims for Social Justice“.  Visit the Muslims for Social Justice blog and read the about page; to say they are Left leaning is an understatement.  MSJ is big on Moral Monday,  ‘Justice for Palestine’ and the “racist occupation“.

Chanelle Croxton (C.C.)
According to her LinkedIn resume, she is curatorial assistant at the Nasher Museum of Art.

 

If you haven’t figured it out by reading these host profiles and the groups they are associated with, let me help clarify.

The ‘school to prison pipeline’ that Youth Organizing Institute and their partner groups protest about is the K-12 funnel and recruitment tool for the Black Lives Matter movement.  We are witnessing them link the two up with this January 1st event.

Related Reading:

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), BlueprintNC, Moral Monday, Protests, Racial Justice, Social Justice | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

NC Common Core Commission Fails Its Task

Posted on December 29, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

The Friday before the Christmas holiday, the NC Academic Standards Review Commission
(ASRC) met for the last time.

This final meeting was their fifteenth in as many months. And they blew it.

https://twitter.com/LadyLiberty1885/status/677986235172986880

Continue reading →

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Academic Standards Review Commission, Common Core, EDUCATION, June Atkinson | Tagged , | Comments Off on NC Common Core Commission Fails Its Task

Have You Heard About The Center for Law and Freedom? – #NCpol

Posted on December 26, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

CivitasHave you heard about the Center for Law and Freedom (CLF)?

No?

Well, take the time to get familiar with them. They’re part of the Civitas Institute, where I’ve been free-lance writing as of late.

From the CLF website:

The Center for Law and Freedom (CLF), a nonprofit public interest law firm housed within the Civitas Institute, provides free legal representation to North Carolinians facing violations of their constitutional or other legal rights. CLF represents North Carolinians in cases such as administrative agency actions, constitutional litigation, and transparency lawsuits. The Center is part of the Civitas Institute’s overall mission to implement conservative policy solutions for the benefit of all North Carolinians.

Below are some links to more information about CLF:

Litigation Library

Media

Press Releases

Staff

Clerkship/Externship Program

CLF is doing important work right here in North Carolina.

CLF has entered into a few cases, one of which deals with the NC Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and two citizens who have filed suit regarding Iberdrola Renewables’ Amazon Wind farm.  CLF is representing the citizens, Stephen Owens and Jillanne Gigi Badawi, in the case.   Read the most recent press release and the case filing.

I myself am working with CLF’s attorney, Elliot Engstrom, on education related matters, in particular data privacy and data collection here in North Carolina. Stay tuned — I’ll have more on this as it unfolds.

In the meantime, make it a habit to check out what CLF is up to — bookmark their page and sign up for Civitas emails!

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), LEGAL | Tagged | Comments Off on Have You Heard About The Center for Law and Freedom? – #NCpol

A Look Back At 2015 At LL1885 Blog

Posted on December 25, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

2015 is coming to a close. Man, that went fast.

Meltdown

ERRMMAGERRRD!!! OMG I LOVE YOU GUYS… Snarf, sniffle, snort

I’d like to thank everyone who commented on and supported this blog over the last year. Without readers, this blog wouldn’t exist.  Clearly, folks out there like my brand of snark as this blog cranked out 524 articles and the site garnered hundreds of thousands of hits in 2015.

I’d like to thank those who donated to the site as well. Your generosity helps keep both me and this site up and running. Reader generosity will hopefully allow me to add more functionality to it in the coming year.

I’d also like to thank my research guru, co-blogger and friend, Liberty Speaks, for her tireless efforts and congratulate her on making the top ten articles list this year!

Disaster girl coreAs I have done  for the last four years, I continued to cover Common Core in 2015 like white on rice.  We had a set back or two in the last week, so the fight continues.

I’ll be ready heading into and fair warning to Common Core Apologists –  the long knives are out.

This year, I also made good use out of Storify and turned social media posts and Twitter into quite a number of article. Be sure to check out my archive.

Speaking of Twitter, over the course of 2015, my tweets garnered over 1.3 million impressions and my top tweet was one of my more recent ones regarding the reauthorization of ESEA, gaining over 24,000 impressions.  I also gained nearly 1,000 new followers. THANK YOU!

On Facebook, the page for this blog also grew and rolled over 5,000 members earlier this year. The page had a daily average post view reach of over 7,500%.  I give thanks to my page admins, Liberty Speaks and Devil Dog — without them, maintaining that page would be very difficult.

This year I took on challenges outside of LadyLiberty1885 and joined IJ Review, Heartland Institute and the Civitas Institute as a contributor. I also said goodbye to Da Tech Guy blog after two great years of writing on his Magnificent Seven team.

HEHWho knows what 2016 will bring, but I am sure that I can continue to be a hilarious inspiration to conservatives and a royal pain in the ass to our friends on the Left.

I hope everyone has a great holiday season and charges those batteries for 2016!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and  Happy New Year,

— A.P. Dillon
Lady Liberty 1885

Here are the top ten stories with the most hits (5k hits and up):

  1. NC Enters Year 4 of Common Core and Reading Retention for 3rd Graders Increases Statewide
  2. For $40,658 a Year, Your Child Can Learn to Play Dead on a Quad
  3. A Letter to @Instapundit on Higher Ed Lobbying and For Profit Colleges
  4. Common Core: How Many Teachers And Parents Have To Leave?
  5. CCSSO President Questions Testing For Homeschoolers
  6. FACEBOOK: PAPERS PLEASE!
  7. CASE 21 Tests In NC
  8. Corruption In The 8th District of NC Dem Party?
  9. #NotAHomeSchool: Leesville High Art Teacher Arrested For Harassing Phone Calls
  10. Bev Perdue Amazed By 2nd Grade Common Core Math

Top ten referrers to the blog for 2015 in order from most to least:

  1. Carolina Plotthound
  2. Instapundit
  3. StopCommonCoreNC
  4. Director Blue
  5. Daily Haymaker
  6. Pirate’s Cove
  7. NC Renegade
  8. Missouri Education Watchdog
  9. Da Tech Guy Blog
  10. IJ Review

Check out the Top 2015 Tweets on my Pinterest profile and see what videos were added to the Top Videos of 2015 list on YouTube.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on A Look Back At 2015 At LL1885 Blog

Lt. Gov Forest And Burt’s Law [VIDEO] – #ncga

Posted on December 24, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Take a moment out of your day to watch Lt. Governor Dan Forest talk about Burt’s Law, which was signed by Governor McCrory this year.

Senate Bill 445, Burt’s law, protects citizens suffering from mental illness from sexual abuse in group homes where they are being cared for. This is an important piece of legislation and it’s good to see the Lt. Governor highlighting it.

Watch

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Lt. Gov Dan Forest, NCGA, Video | Tagged | Comments Off on Lt. Gov Forest And Burt’s Law [VIDEO] – #ncga