North Carolina and Wisconsin Primary Live Blog
Update: Amendment One Passes, Dalton Wins

post from Firedoglake on 08 May 2012 07:51:52 PM. © Firedoglake

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Tonight features important contests in Indiana, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. In Indiana already tonight, Richard Mourdock has made history by beating incumbent Republican Senator[...]

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North Carolina Primary Live Blog

post from Firedoglake on 08 May 2012 07:51:52 PM. © Firedoglake

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Daily Kos Elections May 8, 2012 primary liveblog
thread #3

post from Daily Kos on 08 May 2012 07:47:08 PM. © Daily Kos

Daily Kos Elections Liveblog Banner Tonight, we're liveblogging primary election results in Indiana North Carolina, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. For our handy guide to all of the key races, click here.

Results: Indiana | North Carolina | West Virginia | Wisconsin

4:53 PM PT (Steve Singiser): With about 15 minutes expired since the polls closed in North Carolina, we can get a slight feel for the lay of the land, with about 300,000 early votes already tallied.

On the issue of Amendment One, the early numbers are a little more optimistic than polling had hinted. The measure to deny recognition of anything other than "one man-one woman" is passing, but only by a 52-48 margin.
In the Democratic primary for governor, right now Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton has a lead that meets the threshold to avoid a runoff. He leads Bob Etheridge 50-33, with the rest of the field mired in single digits. On the GOP side, Pat McCrory is mashing, as everyone expected him to do. He's cruising with 86 percent of the vote.
At the congressional level, the early numbers are mostly "as expected", though establishment pick Hayden Rogers (the chief of staff to outgoing Rep. Heath Shuler) is getting a sweat in NC-11. He only leads Cecil Bothwell by a 46-40 margin. Meanwhile, the closest race is the GOP primary in NC-13, where well-funded George Holding is holding off former Raleigh Mayor Paul Coble 42-40. Establishment pick Richard Hudson is narrowly avoiding a runoff in NC-08 (43 percent), while a runoff looks possible in the open seat in NC-09.

4:55 PM PT: Guess what? Mitt Romney won North Carolina, too.

4:58 PM PT: The AP also finally called it for Richard Mourdock. Interestingly, Howey Politics' final poll of the race had Mourdock up by ten, 48-38. That 38% figure is awfully close to the 40% Lugar's mired at now, which means that the undecideds almost entirely broke to Mourdock, who is at 60.

5:01 PM PT: Good news: The AP has called IN-02 (D) for Brendan Mullen. He'll attempt to hold this seat (which was made much redder in redistricting) against "Wacky" Jackie Walorski in November. (Rep. Joe Donnelly is running for Senate.)

5:04 PM PT: We've seen a lot of shuffling in IN-05 (R), where the leaders and runners-up have shifted spots a few times. David McIntosh is still in first, but now Susan Brooks has shot up to 2nd, down just 33-27. Wayne Seybold has dropped all the way to 18.

5:08 PM PT (Steve Singiser): In North Carolina, a lot of ink was spilled in the run-up to the primary about the fate of two longtime incumbents: Walter Jones (NC-03) and Howard Coble (NC-06). Jones' supposed fatal flaw was being too close to Democrats on a number of issues, while Coble's was more in the "been around too long" vein. Whatever the catalyst, neither man appears in any danger tonight: Jones leads former sheriff Frank Palombo 68-32, while Coble leads a three-way field with 59 percent of the vote. However, another incumbent is underperforming quite notably. Freshman Rep. Renee Ellmers (NC-02) is leading a bunch of underfunded unknowns with just under 53 percent of the vote. Quite underwhelming, to say the least.

5:09 PM PT: It looks like Shelli Yoder has IN-09 (D) well in hand, with a 42-23 lead with 41% reporting. Luke Messer looks set to clean up in IN-06 (R), with a big 41-26 lead and 80% reporting. In this dark-red district, that's tantamount to winning the election.

5:25 PM PT: I'm wondering if David McIntosh might be in trouble in IN-05 (R). He's up 33-28 with 43% reporting, but Susan Brooks lives in Carmel, in Hamilton County?and Hamilton hasn't counted a single election-day vote yet. In the early vote, she's up 35-27 in the county.

5:27 PM PT: The AP has now called IN-06 (R) for Luke Messer. Sorry, Travis Hankins. Better luck next time.

5:27 PM PT (Steve Singiser): In North Carolina, as the votes continue to pile up, one race is tightening while another, unfortunately, is not. The Democratic primary for Governor keeps looking like the race of the night, as it has been tightening over the past half hour. Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton now leads former Rep. Bob Etheridge by just six points (45-39). Unfortunately, for marriage equality advocates, the anti-equality marriage amendment looks more and more likely to pass. The lead now stands at 57-43.

5:34 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): New thread here.

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ay-8-2012-primary-liveblog-thread-3

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Twitters Continued Defense of Users Rights

post from Firedoglake on 08 May 2012 07:30:51 PM. © Firedoglake

Twitter has moved to quash a court order requiring the company to hand over data on one of its users. The user, Malcolm Harris, an Occupy Wall Street protester who is being prosecuted in New York for disorderly conduct, has been battling a government[...]

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Terror Gang Nabbed in Florida

post from Talking Points Memo on 08 May 2012 07:00:51 PM. © Talking Points Memo

White Supremacist leader & crew nabbed in Florida terror probe. "The race war, he believed, was coming. So Florida white supremacist leader Marcus Faella instructed his followers over the past two years to prepare for it."[...]

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Anderson Cooper Questions North Carolina
Republican Birther Candidate on Forgery Claims

post from Crooks and Liars on 08 May 2012 07:00:51 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Anderson Cooper Questions North Carolina Republican Birther Candidate on Forgery Claims

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Here we go again with more birthers coming out of the woodwork making embarrassments of themselves. CNN's Anderson Cooper spoke to one of them this Monday evening, but here's some background first from Think Progress.

North Carolina Republicans Go Birther: Certificate Is A ?Poorly Reproduced Forgery?:

North Carolina is apparently ground zero of the latest resurgence of the birther movement, as a number of Republican candidates in the state are expressing doubts about President Obama?s birthplace.
ThinkProgress has previously noted that Richard Hudson, running for a congressional seat in the state?s 8th district, said Obama is ?hiding something on his citizenship,? while the Charlotte Observer rescinded its endorsement of Jim Pendergraph, running in the 9th district, after he expressed his own doubts about Obama?s birth certificate.
Now, the Observer reports that Dr. John Whitley, one of Hudson?s opponents in tomorrow?s GOP primary, has also gone birther. He declared Obama?s birth certificate a ?poorly reproduced forgery? after comparing it to the Hawaiian birth certificate of one of his campaign workers. ?There is a tremendous amount of smoke here,? Whitley said. ?In fact, it?s called a smoke screen.?

In the interview above, Anderson Cooper just simply asked Whitley for what proof he had that the birth certificate was a forgery and allowed Whitley to spin himself into looking completely ridiculous. Whitley's proof that the birth certificate was a forgery? Wingnut Sheriff Joe Arpaio's "investigation" that we wrote about here: Arpaio Probe Offers Boilerplate Birtherism in Dramatic Presser.

When asked who any of Arpaio's so-called experts were that he was relying on, Whitley couldn't name them. When asked how he knew his friend's birth certificate was legitimate, his answer was basically that he'd looked at it himself, even though he concurred that he was not an expert on evaluating documents and records.

I really wish these yahoos would get called out for exactly what they're doing in one of these interviews, which is race baiting. Sadly I guess this still goes over well in Republican primaries in North Carolina, since we've got so many of them playing this ugly game. Shameful.

(Note on the video clip above. The CNN broadcast had problems with their video hanging up during a portion of the interview, but the audio continued to work, so it's not a problem with our servers or your computer.)

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Daily Kos Elections May 8, 2012 primary liveblog
thread #2

post from Daily Kos on 08 May 2012 07:00:06 PM. © Daily Kos

Results: Indiana | North Carolina | West Virginia | Wisconsin

4:08 PM PT (James L): With 9% in statewide (and all polls in Indiana now closed), Mourdock holds a 61-39 lead on Lugar.

4:10 PM PT (James L): A quick note about IN-02 (D): The AP currently has frontrunner Brendan Mullen losing to Dan "Some Dude" Morrison, but please note that this is just a handful of precincts. More importantly, the results from St. Joseph County, which the AP has not yet reported, are a lot better for Mullen.

4:16 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): We interrupt this regularly scheduled liveblog to announce the AP has called Indiana for Mitt Romney. You may now go back to not caring?along with the rest of the country.

4:19 PM PT (James L): Ex-Rep. Dave McIntosh now leads the IN-05 (R) primary by 39-29 over Marion Mayor Wayne Seybold with 3% reporting. And, heh, attorney John Lugar (no relation) is clocking in at a distant fifth with 3% of the vote. Bad night to have that name, dude!

4:22 PM PT (James L): In case you were worried, the AP now has Brendan Mullen ahead by 58-42 in IN-02 (D), and Scott Reske up by 74-26 in IN-05 (D).

4:25 PM PT (James L): Well, I guess that's all she wrote for Dick Lugar. Media outlets are busy calling his time of death:

BREAKING: Richard Mourdock wins Indiana Senate primary, defeating veteran incumbent Richard Lugar -@NBCNews #INsen
— @ethanklapper via TweetDeck

4:26 PM PT: NBC is calling the IN-Sen GOP primary for Richard Mourdock. Try to act surprised.

4:28 PM PT: In the IN-05 GOP primary, Marion mayor Wayne Seybold has legged out to a 41-29 lead over ex-Rep. David McIntosh, but note that the majority of precincts reporting so far are from Grant County, where the town of Marion is based. (Don't get mixed up with Marion County, which is where the city of Indianapolis is based.) Most of Grant has reported, though, and there are a lot of precincts left to come.

4:33 PM PT: I just got an email in my inbox from the DSCC comparing Richard Mourdock to Ken Buck, who upset the kinda-establishment-favored Jane Norton in the 2010 Colorado GOP primary and may have helped Dem Sen. Michael Bennet hold on to his seat. But both Buck and Norton were very flawed and it was hard to choose between the two of them. More to the point, why not compare Mourdock to someone better known, like Sharron Angle or Christine O'Donnell?

4:33 PM PT: Polls have now closed in North Carolina.

4:37 PM PT: In IN-09 (D), Shelli Yoder leader Robert Winningham 41-30 with 16% reporting. IN IN-08 (R), Larry Buchson seems to have fended off Kristi Risk, 60-40 with 39% reporting. In IN-08 (D), Dave Crooks (the establishment choice) seems to have a safe lead with 63% of the vote and 37% reporting.

4:40 PM PT: In IN-06 (R), Luke Messer has a sizable 42-25 lead over Travis Hankins with 44% reporting.

4:38 PM PT: In IN-05 (R), David McIntosh has retaken the lead over Wayne Seybold, 35-31 with 17% reporting. Susan Brooks is back at 22%. As I suspected, Seybold's brief early lead was due to votes coming in from his home county, and most of those have now been counted.

4:41 PM PT: In IN-05 (D), establishment pick Scott Reske is up 69-31 over Tony Long with 17% reporting. And the establishment choice in IN-02 (D), Brendan Mullen, is up 56-44 over Dan Morrison with 26% reporting.

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ay-8-2012-primary-liveblog-thread-2

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The Unemployment Rate Would Be A Full Point Lower
Without Public Sector Job Losses

2011 was a bad year for public sector employees, with an average of 22,000 public sector jobs disappearing every month. And the two years before it weren’t much better. In fact, “the last three years of job losses at the state and local government level has been the most dramatic since Labor Department records began in 1955.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, the unemployment rate would be a full point lower — at 7.1 percent — if these job losses hadn’t happened:

The Labor Department?s establishment survey of employers ? the jobs count that it bases its payroll figures on ? shows that the government has been steadily shedding workers since the crisis struck, with 586,000 fewer jobs than in December 2008. Friday?s employment report showed the cuts continued in April, with 15,000 government jobs lost. [...]
The unemployment rate would be far lower if it hadn?t been for those cuts: If there were as many people working in government as there were in December 2008, the unemployment rate in April would have been 7.1%, not 8.1%.

These cuts have occurred because of state budget cuts as well as budget cuts at the federal level. President Obama addressed this issue today, saying, “the only time government employment has gone down during a recession has been under me. So I make that point just so you don?t buy into this whole bloated government argument that you?re hearing.”

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http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/08/480438/unemployment-without-governmen
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Far-Right Representative Comes Out In Support Of
Protecting Undocumented Victims Of Domestic Violence

In a move that bucks the trend of many of his conservative colleagues, far-right Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) came out today in support of protecting undocumented immigrants from domestic violence. During the House Judiciary Committee mark up of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), Poe offered an amendment to ensure that undocumented people would be protected under the bill — much like the amendments added by the Senate Democrats in their reauthorization of VAWA.

Though his provisions do not go far enough, or match Democratic efforts to protect the undocumented, they may build support among Republicans, who are hoping to pass a version of VAWA that violates the confidentiality of undocumented people.

Poe, generally not a fan of the undocumented community in his home state, argued that protections for undocumented victims are necessary and humane:

POE: The concept and the law of VAWA is good public policy. It is also good public policy that we understand that in immigrant communities there is a lawless element that preys on immigrants, sometimes that lawless element is also immigrants– immigrant gangs in some instances. And they use intimidation and fear tactics and one they use many times is the concept that they can commit crimes against other immigrants–spouses, children– and if the victim dare report the crime to law enforcement, the immigrant criminal will make sure that there is a deportation proceeding that takes place.
Whether that is true or not, that they are able to succeed in that, victims fear that. They fear the deportation because of being a victim. Public policy should be, in this country, that if you are a victim of crime, that should be paramount to us as a nation, as opposed to allowing intimidation and fear from those who wish to prey on immigrants to keep them from reporting crime. When crime is committed it effects our entire community and it effects our social stability. So I’m a supporter of VAWA.

Watch it:

Poe has been an outspoken advocate for victims of domestic violence, and has previously sponsored an international Violence Against Women Act.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/08/480516/poe-vawa-undocumented/

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That gender gap isn't going away

Conservatives think they've moved on past the war on women, but have women been so quick to move on?

I dug up sex numbers for the most recent polls that include such data. The results:

No, women haven't moved on. Nor will they. And given that they turn out in far bigger numbers than men, that's a real problem for the GOP. In fact, in 2008, nearly 10 million more women voted than men (PDF).

And just watch. The closer we get to election day, and the more women look like they'll provide the winning margins, the nastier the anti-women rhetoric will become. By September, we'll be hearing about how women are too stupid to make proper voting decisions. By October, they'll be bemoaning the day women got the right to vote. By November, they'll be calling for women to be burned at the stake.

Wait, a second, what am I talking about? They're already saying those things.

?I think that one of the greatest mistakes America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote,? Peterson says. ?We should?ve never turned this over to women. And these women are voting in the wrong people. They?re voting in people who are evil who agrees with them who?re gonna take us down this pathway of destruction.?
?And this probably was the reason they didn?t allow women to vote when men were men. Because men in the good old days understood the nature of the woman,? he adds. ?They were not afraid to deal with it. And they understood that, you let them take over, this is what would happen.?

Also.