chris kromm

Chris Kromm of Facing South ventured into the belly of the beast today, debating in person with Art Pope at a radio station in Raleigh. It was awesome.

North Carolina mega-donor and rightwing cash machine Art Pope will be facing off against Chris Kromm of The Institute for Southern Studies (and publisher of www.artpopeexposed.com) this Sunday, January 15, at 3:00 PM for a 2-hour radio special on 106.1 FM, Raleigh. The show is hosted by Phyllis Coley and Gary Jones of Spectacular Magazine. You can call in questions to the show at 919-860-1061!

Surprise, surprise.

Perhaps more than any other North Carolina politician, Sen. Jim Davis owes his place in the state legislature to Republican millionaire donor Art Pope. And now, Davis is the lead sponsor of a bill that Pope and his network of conservative groups have made a top priority this year: to dismantle the state's system of publicly-financed, "clean" elections -- a reform aimed at lessening the influence of outside money in politics.

In a year of record-shattering spending for state-level elections, about 75 percent of the outside, non-party money in North Carolina's 2010 races was funneled through three groups backed by Art Pope: Americans for Prosperity, Civitas Action and Real Jobs NC.

Welcome to the Show, Mr. Davis.

For many, the scandal surrounding Shirley Sherrod's dubious ouster from the U.S. Agriculture Department was the first they'd heard of civil rights battles over farm policy, particularly the landmark Pigford case focused on redressing decades of discriminatory policies against African-American farmers.

Filed in 1997 by North Carolina farmer Timothy Pigford, the class-action lawsuit against the USDA led to two momentous victories for the plaintiffs: In 1999, the black farmers reached a settlement with the government for over $1 billion.

However, many black farmers never had their cases heard because they filed late - over 73,000 petitions that became Pigford II. (The reasons for the late filings have been blamed on inadequate notice being provided, extenuating circumstances like hurricanes, and, according to one of the judges, bad lawyers for the farmers, "bordering on legal malpractice" [pdf].)

Cross-posted from Facing South

What a trip! Last week, you -- the readers of Facing South -- sent us on a week-long mission to the Gulf Coast to investigate the BP spill and Gulf recovery.

It was a whirlwind trip, covering hundreds of miles of coastal bayous and byways, and dozens of conversations with local residents, community leaders, government officials and BP representatives about what is clearly more than a short-term disaster for the Gulf Coast.

To give you a taste of our fact-finding mission, here are some notes from our jam-packed itinerary:

Last week, Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake reported that Democratic plans to push for a "public option" for health care reform -- a publicly-financed plan to compete with private insurance -- were hitting an unexpectedly difficult wall: newly-elected Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina.