RNC Chairman Michael Steele dropped by Greensboro today to introduce a new GOP fundraising ad campaign. Here’s the ad:

Greensboro’s Mark Binker covered the event here.  My initial reaction to the ad is that it’s pretty and well-produced, but not particularly compelling.   It’s also interesting to me that he came to Greensboro to roll out the six-figure test-market campaign.  Parts of the Triad lean Republican, but Guilford County, not so much.   

The NC Dems had their own ad roll-out today – a web ad lambasting Senator Richard Burr for his no vote on unemployment benefits and his lobbyist connections.  That ad’s here:

Initial reaction:  no more compelling than Steele’s ad, and not as well-produced, either.  Plus, the party appropriated audio from Mark Binker’s blog, but credited the Winston-Salem Journal - which, one notes, did not have audio to “borrow.”

GN&R editor John Robinson called the Dems out on the potential copyright infringement.  The official party response: “Richard Burr's vote against North Carolina jobs and his ideologically extreme statements to reporters are a matter of public record.”

(Maybe so, but the audio is not available from multiple media sources. )

On background, I was told, “The audio is publicly available for streaming on the NR website. It was from an interview with several reporters that Burr did a couple of weeks ago. I believe the Winston-Salem Journal, Richard Craver, was the first to print Burr’s comments, so that's why we credited them in the ad.”

The fact that audio is available to listen to does not make it the property of the listener -- especially when it’s copyrighted.  And the fact that more than one reporter attended an event does not make it okay to credit coverage of that event to the wrong reporter.  After all, audio is work -- it’s much more time-intensive than a print quote.

I don’t mean to come across as doctrinaire.  Sooner or later, every political reporter sees his or her work cited in someone’s ad campaign.  That’s not pleasant, but it’s part of the job.  But when someone is using your work to raise money for their own cause, it seems to me the least they can do is get the attribution right.

You know where you got it, guys.  Credit where it’s due.    

Comments? Drop me a line.

Big news of the day:  NC Attorney General Roy Cooper announced this afternoon he’s named two former FBI experts to conduct an external review of the SBI’s State Crime Lab methods and disclosure practices from the 1990s till now.   From the release: 

...Cooper asked Chris Swecker and Mike Wolf, both former Assistant Directors with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to head up the review. They will examine the state lab’s historic practice and policy on disclosure of lab analyses as well as its internal methods and reporting of scientific analysis.

Swecker is a practicing attorney and North Carolina native. He is the former FBI Special Agent in Charge for North Carolina and later served as executive assistant director in charge of nine FBI divisions, including the science and forensic lab division.

Wolf has a Masters degree in forensic science and previously served as FBI Special Agent in Charge for Connecticut and as assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group. Wolf led an inspection team brought in to fix problems at the FBI crime lab in 1998-1999.

The review will run concurrently with the State Bureau of Investigation’s internal review of current practices and policies at the crime lab. Today, analysts’ lab reports and bench notes are electronically available to prosecutors to be shared with defense attorneys through the discovery process. Bureau officials are in discussions with state prosecutors to ensure that they are accessing the information needed in criminal cases.

Reached by phone today, Cooper said it’ll be up to Swecker and Wolf to determine the scope of the review, but he’s asking that it be comprehensive – not just a records audit, which would be a pretty big job on its own (records from that time are still on paper), but also talking to lab workers and agents then and now, plus defense attorneys and DAs.

"It's important because of the integrity it will bring to the process, and we need public confidence in the working of the SBI crime lab... I want them to do a very extensive and comprehensive review of all of the policies, and if there are AN Y deficiencies, I want to make sure they are fixed. "

Cooper doesn’t know how long the investigation will take. But he promises the results of the investigation will be made public:

“We will have a report to the public on the findings and conclusions and recommendations.” 

The Right Guys? 

Both Swecker and Wolf have impressive resumes.  Swecker worked on the Jack Abramoff case before he retired from the FBI in 2006,  going on to serve as global security chief for Bank of America.  Wolf was Special Agent in Charge of the Connecticut FBI, overhauling the FBI’s crime lab in 1998 and investigating the anthrax mailings case from 2001.

NC Center on Actual Innocence Director Christine Mumma had called for an independent investigation of the lab by a panel of stakeholders.   Via email, Mumma said bringing in the FBI was a good starting move, “but the defense bar will want access to the review approach…to be confident in the results.”

RIP, Dan Pollitt

Noted civil rights lawyer and activist Dan Pollitt passed away this morning.   He was 88.  The Carrboro Citizen had the story first, along with a nice retrospective on his groundbreaking career from last August, when he received the Order of the Longleaf Pine from Gov. Bev Perdue. 

Pollitt married State Senator Ellie Kinnaird (D-Orange) last April. They were very possibly the cutest couple in NC politics, and very much in love.  Deepest sympathies tonight to Senator Kinnaird. 

Steele in town

RNC Chairman Michael Steele will visit Greensboro Monday to roll out a new ad campaign aimed at boosting party fundraising.  I’ve already got a full schedule Monday, but this may be too tempting to resist – especially since the GOP now apparently considers Greensboro a “heavily GOP market,” which makes you wonder whether anyone bothered to check the ‘08 numbers first. Mark Binker has a lot more detail on the visit here.

Comments? Drop me a line.

In case you missed it, here’s my story from this morning on the SBI Crime Lab.

"The state attorney general's office is reviewing blood testing done by the SBI Crime Lab. That's after a recent hearing exposed reporting standards that helped put an innocent man in jail for 17 years. Defense attorneys are wondering how many other cases could be affected."

I don’t generally post my full script, but since this story is really about word choice, I feel like it’s apropos in this case.  So that’s here.  And if you’re interested in the background docs,  you can compare the Taylor prosecution SBI court report with the bench notes for yourself.

Comments? Drop me a line.

Senate Dem caucus secretary R.C. Soles pleaded guilty in Columbus County court today to a misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon for shooting a man he claimed was trying to break into his home. 

The plea deal was a less serious charge than the felony assault for which Soles was indicted, and his sentence was lighter, too: a $1000 fine, but no jail time. The 40-year legislator has already announced he won’t run for re-election this fall, but said today he has no plans to resign before his term is over, either.

Stopping by the press room this afternoon, Senate Minority leader Phil Berger said he thinks Soles received a lighter sentence for the crime than the “average Joe” would have. He quipped, “I think if folks knew that the penalty for shooting someone was $1,000, you’d have folks lining up to pay $1,000 to be able to shoot someone."

Berger’s original reason for stopping by was to offer a reaction to controversial comments made by Gaston Senator Jim Forrester in a speech to the Iredell Young Republicans.  "Slick city lawyers and homosexual lobbies and African American lobbies are running Raleigh," Forrester told the crowd Tuesday night, adding a hearty “Good riddance” to two sitting senators, according to the story by Jim McNally:

[Forrester] said state Sen. Julia Boseman — the first openly gay person ever elected to the North Carolina General Assembly — "took a bunch of money from a big lesbian group."

Forrester said a male senator is rumored to be gay and is currently fighting off charges that he shot another man.

[Not much of a subterfuge, given that RC Soles is the only Senator facing such charges.]

"And I say good riddance to them," Forrester said. He said that neither of the two legislators showed any support for bills Forrester proposed to ban same-sex marriage in the state. …Forrester noted that he "is not against homosexuals."

NC Dems were quick to call for an apology from Forrester, as well as condemnation from GOP leaders. 

This afternoon, Berger said, “I don’t agree with the remarks that have been attributed to Senator Forrester. I have not talked with Senator Forrester about that. I think you probably need to talk to him about whether he should apologize or not."

When I asked Berger whether he was surprised that Forrester had implied Soles was gay, Berger kept the issue at arm’s length: “There were a number of things in that story that I was surprised to see in print."

Later today, Forrester apologized – sort of.“I wasn’t trying to be ugly or anything like that, and if it came out that way, I apologize,” he said, adding “I didn’t mean to slur, and I don’t think it’s a slur.  I’m just telling my opinion of what’s happened.” 

More here from Corey Friedman at the Gaston Gazette.

Comments? Drop me a line.

“I don’t know anything about that,” Tim D’Annunzio’s press flack Lauren Slepian told me this afternoon.  Finding out from someone else that your candidate has a personal blog does not generally make for a good day.  Finding out from a reporter is even worse.

Machine Gun Social

Charlotte’s Jim Morrill posted yesterday about a D’Annunzio fundraiser in Fayetteville Thursday.  The GOP hopeful for the 8th Congressional seat is holding a “Machine Gun Social” at a local gun shop.  For $25, donors can shoot a semi-automatic till they run out of bullets.   

The commenters at Morrill’s blog had some harsh words on the topic. D’Annunzio was quick to shoot back (sorry), denouncing his “liberal” detractors as “racist redneck hicks” intent on “lynching” him.

“Hiding behind these web sites as "anonymous" is the same as hiding under a the white hood, COWARDS.” 

D’Annunzio, unlike most of his online critics, signed his name to his post.  The Blogspot username on his comment was “Paraclete.”  If you click on the link, it guides you to the user’s blog, called “Christ’s War.” 

"My journal"

D’Annunzio confirmed to me it IS his personal blog. He said he’s been writing it for about a year, and he hadn’t taken any special pains to hide his authorship:  “It’s kind of my journal.  No one follows it, but it’s out there for anyone to read.”  As for “Paraclete,” it’s the name of his company, and he says he uses it pretty commonly online as a username.

Of course, "paraclete" is a religious term, too.  And that’s what his blog’s about.  It’s a potent stream-of-consciousness blend of biblical verse, exegesis, and conservative politics.  End-times theology plays a big role, especially in connection with Obama.

[Obama] will deal with all these from a position of weakness. This isn’t his country, and he couldn’t care less about the consequences. He will cut and run.

We are entering a very dangerous time. Remember they are opportunists. Things are closing in on them with their socialism. They will welcome the outside focus at first until they come to the realization that they are getting people killed.

The best thing for US and the world may be the meteor option. We will see.

What time is coming? The end of the dispensation of grace, it is at the door. 

"The Call - Revelation 14"

There’s plenty more where that came from: numerology, eschatology, even an account of his own personal conversion experience The Call - Revelation 14 , which he likens to “the pill scene in the original Matrix.”

I am not going to go into any of the details of specific events but will say that they all involved outside uncontrollable physical occurrences that corresponded and coordinated with my thoughts and internal conversations.

OK, one example of what I mean. Driving in my truck and thinking that if what I was being shown were true shouldn’t I have holes in my hands, feet and side? The answer came back that with everything else I have been seeing wouldn’t that be an easy thing if it were a necessary thing. My next thought was that no one is going to believe unless they can see and touch the holes. At that moment I had arrived at my destination and stepped out of my truck. Unknown to me there was a board on the ground next to where I stopped. My first step out was onto the board and the 16 penny nail that was in it. It went deep into my foot and at the same time the thought came telling me, I told you it would be easy if it is necessary.

That’s from D’Annunzio’s first entry on the blog.  He goes on:

For the past 15 years I have been telling your religious and political leaders what time it is.

They have refused to tell you. I have warned them away from all the devastation that has come. It is going to get much worse and you should be prepared.

To be very blunt about what I am telling you, I am 100% man and the Spirit in me is 100% God, and this is the end of the age. Today I have expanded to telling the world what God to date only told your leadership.

There’s more to the post, of course. Read the whole thing here.

Campaign killer?

I try to avoid snark about anyone’s religious beliefs. That’s a personal matter. But you know, it’s not everyday you hear a candidate for Congress telling you he’s a direct conduit for God’s messages about the End Times, either. 

I’m curious about whether this will have any effect on his chances in the 8th’s GOP primary. More secular Republicans may find his heady brew of theology and politics a little troubling.  But D’Annunzio is positioning himself as the most conservative contender in the field – and for far right-wing Republicans, this sort of thing may be more of a plus than a minus.  Additionally, if you read through the blog, it’s clear D’Annunzio could pass any conservative purity test anywhere with flying colors. So it’s hard to say whether this’ll do him any damage. 

Comments?  Drop me a line.

(And thank you to @Jerimee for asking about the blog in the first place!)