VOLUME 6 ISSUE 37 | WWW.NSJONLINE.COM | WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021
Honoring all veterans who served Franklin Graham undergoes heart surgery at Mayo Clinic Boone Evangelist Franklin Graham successfully underwent a specialized heart surgery on Monday to treat a condition which had developed in recent months, a spokesman said. Mark Barber, a spokesman for North Carolina-based Samaritan’s Purse, said in a news release that Graham underwent the procedure at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Graham’s doctors expect a full recovery and assured him that he should be able to return to his normal activity and ministry schedule. ALEX BRANDON | AP PHOTO THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dobson: Emergency motion blocking mandate a positive step
Biden sinks to 34% approval in NC poll A High Point University poll released Tuesday shows President Joe Biden’s approval rating in the state falling to 34%, down from 38% a month earlier.
Raleigh N.C. Labor Commissioner Josh Dobson (R) said Saturday’s action by the 5th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals temporarily blocking President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for large employers was a positive step to ending overreach from the federal government. “According to the court, it granted the stay because the plaintiffs ‘give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues’ with the mandate. I commend the court for issuing the stay and believe that this ruling is a positive first step in ending this government overreach once and for all,” said Dobson. NSJ STAFF
Lawsuit: NRA illegally funded Trump, other GOP candidates O’Fallon, Mo. A federal lawsuit accuses the National Rifle Association of violating campaign finance laws by using shell companies to illegally funnel up to $35 million to Republican candidates, including former President Donald Trump. The Campaign Legal Center filed the lawsuit on behalf of Giffords, a gun-control nonprofit founded by former Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords. It accuses the NRA of practices dating to 2014 “to evade campaign finance regulations by using a series of shell corporations to illegally but surreptitiously coordinate advertising with at least seven candidates for federal office.” The NRA called the lawsuit “another premeditated abuse of the public by our adversaries — who will stop at nothing in their pursuit of their anti-freedom agenda.” THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Vaccine refusals in intelligence agencies raise GOP concerns Washington, D.C. Thousands of intelligence officers could soon face dismissal for failing to comply with the U.S. government’s vaccine mandate, leading Republican lawmakers to raise concerns about removing employees from agencies critical to national security. Information provided to the House Intelligence Committee but not released publicly indicate several intelligence agencies had at least 20% of their workforce unvaccinated and in some agencies, as many as 40% are unvaccinated. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines declined at a hearing last week to disclose what percentage of the workforce had been vaccinated, but said, “we are not anticipating that it is going to be an issue for mission.” THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Republicans hopeful about NC midterms after VA results By David Larson North State Journal
New Soros-backed activist group to combat ‘disinformation’ By A.P. Dillon North State Journal
campaign manager David Plouffe serves on the board of directors of ACRONYM. Soros’ involvement is unsurprising, as he is well-known for sinking billions into Democratic and progressive campaigns, as well as being a long-time funder of left-wing non-profits on a global scale. He dropped over $28.3 million into Democratic campaigns in 2020 and has given tens of millions over the years to Hillary Clinton’s main PAC, Priorities USA. Through his various organizations and network of Open Societies philanthropy groups, Soros has bankrolled campaigns in the past that include electing Democrats into state attorney general roles as well as movements like Black Lives Matter and “defund the police” groups. A common denominator between Soros and McGowan’s ACRONYM is the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC). According to a May 2021 report by election spending watchdog OpenSecrets.org, “Billionaire Democratic donor George Soros was the single largest contributor to the committee in 2018, giving $2.6 million in 2018.” ACRONYM has also been a supplier of digital campaign services for the National Democratic Redistricting Committee run by Eric Holder, former U.S. attorney general under Obama. Hoffman has provided funding to ACRONYM as well as other progressive non-profits and dark money groups. He’s also been a major donor Democratic campaigns and PACs. His involvement with tackling “disinformation” is raising eyebrows, considering he funded a group that ran a disinformation campaign against Alabama Republican Roy Moore during the 2017 special U.S. Senate election. American Engagement Technologies (AET), run by a former Obama appointee named Mikey Dickerson, received $750,000 from Hoffman. AET used around $100,000 to run a program that falsely claimed Moore had been backed by the Russian govern-
RALEIGH — Courier Newsroom, the political activism group masquerading as a news outlet, has become the first acquisition of a new organization backed by liberal billionaire George Soros and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. The group, “Good Information Inc.,” will seek to combat “disinformation” and will be headed up by former Democratic strategist Tara McGowan. McGowan is the founder and head of the progressive group ACRONYM, which has a dark money campaign finance arm called PACRONYM. ACROYNM provided the funding behind Courier Newsroom and for Shadow, the company responsible for the voting-by-phone app that had disastrous technical failures during the 2022 Iowa Democratic caucus meetings. Good Information Inc.’s website states it “will invest in and partner with media companies and platforms that center the communities they serve, their interests, and their media consumption habits in their reporting and their content distribution strategies.” A target of the group would appear to be social media. “We believe there is an urgent need for regulation of social media platforms, as well as increased investment in new models that place a higher value on serving communities truth over clickbait and protecting democracy over profits,” reads the Good Information Inc. website. Axios reported that Good Information Inc. will “fund and scale businesses that cut through echo chambers with fact-based information. As part of its mission, it plans to invest in local news companies.” Additionally, it was reported that Good Information Inc. will acquire ACRONYM’s newsletter on digital political ad spending. Among advisory board members for Good Information Inc. is Dan Pfeiffer, one of Barack Obama’s former senior advisors. He’s not the only Obama alum in the picture, former Obama See DISINFORMATION, page A2
RALEIGH — Alex Nolley, the North Carolina communications director for the Republican National Committee (RNC), said in a press release that the RNC believes the results in Virginia, where Republicans dominated Democrats up and down the ticket, were “foreshadowing what the 2022 midterms will look like for Democrats in North Carolina.” The Virginia results saw Republican candidate for governor Glenn Younkin defeat former Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The vote was a major shift from the double-digit victory
Democrats had in the presidential race a year ago. Nolley also quotes RNC Chairman Ronna McDaniel in saying that the “red wave has begun.” The press release then links to multiple articles from all sides of the aisle, in and out of North Carolina, predicting major headwinds for Democrats in North Carolina and nationally based on the Virginia results. One article written before the Virginia elections, by Ned Barnett, associate editor of the left-leaning opinion pages of the Raleigh News & Observer, predicted, “The See GOP, page A2
UNC Board of Trustees votes down antidiscrimination resolution Resolution sought to eliminate discrimination in hiring and admissions By A.P. Dillon North State Journal RALEIGH — A resolution that would eliminate discrimination in hiring and admissions was voted down by UNC Board of Trustee members at its Nov. 4 meeting. The resolution is just a single line that reads, «The University shall not discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to an individual, group or company on the basis of race, sex, color or ethnicity.» UNC Board of Trustees (BOT) member Marty Kotis made the resolution. “The goal of this motion is to make sure that people are treated fairly and equally. When we start talking about quotas, or underrepresented, or overrepresented, or labeling people,” said Kotis at the meeting. “I think that’s not treating everybody fairly. It’s treating them based on a category, and that, in of itself, does not sit well with me.” Kotis was appointed to the BOT by the General Assembly this past summer. He had previously been a member of the UNC System Board of Governors. “I think this resolution is honestly disrespectful. That’s the only way I can sum it up,” UNC student body president and BOT member Lamar Richards said at the meeting. “The idea that somehow by creating a more diverse campus you have to lower our standards is just false. It’s not true. And the language of this motion is not going to fly with me.” Kotis pointed to a 2020 memo from UNC-CH journalism school dean Susan King to
UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz detailing a diversity plan to address structural racism in hirings, admissions, and campus offerings and culture. King admitted in the memo to removing the minimum GPA reSee UNC, page A2