NC Stop Torture Now will hold two vigils in Raleigh Monday, Feb. 15 calling on the likely Democratic and Republican candidates for governor to investigate North Carolina's torture taxi program, demand accountability, and provide restitution to those harmed.

The group will start with a press conference at 9 a.m. at the state Department of Justice, 14 W. Edenton St. Following a half-hour vigil, they will march to the Governor's Mansion at 200 N. Blount St. for a second vigil at 10 a.m.

Several speakers will address the group at 10:30 a.m., including Allyson Caison, NC Stop Torture Now; Manzoor Cheema, Movement to End Racism & Islamophobia; Jennifer Copeland, NC Council of Churches, and; Deborah Weissman, UNC School of Law. NC Stop Torture Now will hold two vigils in Raleigh Monday, Feb. 15 calling on the likely Democratic and Republican candidates for governor to investigate North Carolina's torture taxi program, demand accountability, and provide restitution to those harmed.

The group will start with a press conference at 9 a.m. at the state Department of Justice, 14 W. Edenton St. Following a half-hour vigil, they will march to the Governor's Mansion at 200 N. Blount St. for a second vigil at 10 a.m. 

Several speakers will address the group at 10:30 a.m., including Allyson Caison, NC Stop Torture Now; Manzoor Cheema, Movement to End Racism & Islamophobia; Jennifer Copeland, NC Council of Churches, and; Deborah Weissman, UNC School of Law.

Nic Haag, Libertarian candidate for state Senate 44, had this op-ed printed in the Lincoln Times-News:

The Old North State, one of the 13 original colonies, and home to the 82nd Airborne, is one of the most proud and patriotic states in the nation. Yet the North Carolina government promotes an economic practice more likely found in Stalin’s Russia than a pro-business right-to-work state, the Alcoholic Beverage Control commission.

The ABC commission is not just a government run monopoly, but an overly complicated web of embedded government employees making decisions for the public based on their own personal preferences, economic loyalties and occasionally even bribery. The concept of ABC commissions is a relic of the post-prohibition era, in which the North Carolina government controls every drop of spirit sold in the state. This is to ensure all due taxes are collected and exercise control over a product the government only begrudgingly lets people consume.

Read more here. 

There will be a $2 billion bond issue on the March 15 ballot called Connect NC. This is another bipartisan boondoggle with a deceptive name. The loan request is not for transportation funding or K-12 education projects.

The $2 billion will go into the “Connect NC” fund, a committee chaired by a whole host of politicians, who will divvy up 66 percent of the money to the NC college systems, and hundreds of millions of dollars to parks, zoos, agricultural “research,” and other political pet projects across the state. 

The only thing this bond will connect is your wallet to the special interest groups that support it. As with most programs touted as bipartisan, the more bipartisan support a bill has, the worse it is for your liberty and your well-being. 

Bonds are just deferred taxes. They are taxes on our children and grandchildren. It is simply a lie that this bond issue will not result in a raise in taxes. Someone will have to pay for the the interest when the bonds are repaid, and you can bet it won't be the Democrats and Republican legislators, or the lobbyists and special interest groups who support this bill. 

Since tyranny is usually better organized – and funded – than liberty, the effort to promote this bipartisan boondoggle program to increase the debt is well funded by special interest groups. 

But a grassroots referendum committee, NC Against the Bond, is organizing a petition drive to oppose this debt increase. Go to AgainstTheBond.com and sign the petition to oppose this debt increase. Follow them on Facebook. 

Vote no on the bond issue in March. 

by Brian Irving

North Carolina will continue its tradition of unopposed elections in 2016. Seventy-two General Assembly candidates were either "elected" at the close of filing Dec. 21 or will be elected in the March primary. So in November nearly half of North Carolina voters will have no choice about who represents them in Raleigh. 

This is one of the reason I and six other Wake county Libertarians have decided to run for the General Assembly. 

The typical reaction from political groups is to blame gerrymandering for this perversion of representative government. The News & Observer had several stories with that theme. While it's true gerrymandering is a cause, there's another more significant reason – highly restrictive ballot access laws. It's very difficult for a party – other than the Democrats or Republicans – to get on the ballot. It's nearly impossible for independent candidates to do so. 

Political commentators and the mainstream media generally ignore this cause. Perhaps it's because they are invested in perpetuating the “two-party” system. North Carolina's highly restrictive ballot access laws effectively disenfranchise nearly a third of North Carolina voters, the unaffiliated, the fastest growing voter block. These barriers are more effective at voter suppression than any other method. 

Most voters don't realize how the establishment parties manipulate the system through gerrymandering and restrictive ballot access. To qualify for the ballot a “new” party must collect in excess of 90,000 signatures. To run for statewide office without a party label you must hurdle the same barrier. Anyone who wants to challenge an unopposed incumbent in a legislative district or local office, needs to collect anywhere from 2,000 to 20,000 signatures from registered voters. 

It's not gerrymandering, voter IDs, or early voting limitations that disenfranchises NC voters. It's our ballot access lockout.