Two of the high-powered assault rifles belonging to the North Carolina Division of Alcohol Law Enforcement are missing, according to a story in The (Raleigh) News & Observer today. The ALE is the only state agency, including the State Highway Patrol, that provides every officer with an high-powered assault riffle, despite the relatively few situations ALE officers encounter where deadly force is needed.
“Wow, I didn’t know they had those,” State Sen. Ed Jones, a Democrat from Enfield who is a retired state trooper, told The News & Observer in an interview. “I’m sitting here trying to think of a good reason to justify why ALE would need that much firepower, but I’m having some trouble.”
Read the article in today’s News & Observer here.
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The News & Observer
Add two politicians to the list of the disgruntled after last night’s 101-87 loss to UNC.
Durham mayor Bill Bell has to sport a Carolina blue sweatshirt at Monday’s City Council meeting and make the trip down Tobacco road for dinner at the Lantern Restaurant hosted by Chapel Hill mayor Kevin Foy, as per the agreed upon terms of a friendly wager. Foy would have had to don Duke blue and attended a show at the Durham Performing Arts Center had the Blue Devils come out on top. But alas, it was not meant to be.
More surprisingly, President Barack Obama had the Blue Devils on his mind Wednesday in a meeting with 16 North Carolina reporters about issues that will impact the state in the coming year. The N&O reported:
“Duke-North Carolina. Duke-North Carolina. Duke-North Carolina,” Obama interjected [in a question about what was on North Carolinian's minds that day].
ON BASKETBALL: “Let me start with the most interesting question. Look, obviously Duke is coming off of one of the worst losses it’s had in several years, and just squeaking by Miami, is looking a little vulnerable. But North Carolina has shown to have a few flaws as well, so it depends on how hard Coach K was running the players this week and how they respond.”
Unfortunately for Duke, Obama didn’t offer any clear plan on how to contain Ty Lawson. Maybe next year if the economic crisis is solved.
Updated 6:35 p.m., January 27
Former President Bill Clinton returned to North Carolina this morning for the first time since the now-mythic primary battle between his wife/current Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and President Barack Obama.
- Shawn Rocco/The N&O
The (Raleigh) News and Observer reported this morning:
The last time Raleigh saw Bill Clinton, he was standing in the bed of an antique Ford pickup, wrapping up a furious 11-city barnstorm.
Gesturing with his fist, he insisted that North Carolina voters would start an earthquake that would send Hillary Rodham Clinton to the White House — a trick he suggested President Barack Obama couldn’t pull off.
Luckily, however, the former president, who got himself into hot water in the midst of the campaign for overstepping his bounds, seems to have let go of his past beef with the former Illinois Senator and changed his tone. Speaking in front a packed audience at North Carolina State University as part of the NCSU’s Millennium Lecture Series, organized by N.C.’s former first lady, Mary Easley, Clinton lauded the ascendency of the nation’s first black president.
The N&O reported:
“The number one fact of life in the modern world and the most important thing about the election of President Obama,” he said, is a sense of “communitarianism” that requires people to get along because their futures are bound together.
“It is possible to escape the burden of our history, because this is not a biracial country anymore, and we don’t see ourselves that way anymore,” he said. “We are we multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious. … We haven’t exactly moved to the left so much as we’ve moved forward together.”
For those who didn’t make it to the 10:30 event, the speech is being broadcast on UNC-TV tonight at 9 p.m.
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper would be a strong candidate to face Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) in the 2010 U.S. Senate election, according to a poll conducted by Research 2000. Cooper, a Democrat who was recently reelected to his third term, is best known on campus for dismissing the charges against the three indicted members of the 2005-2006 men’s lacrosse team. He declared the players innocent at an April 2007 press conference. Cooper touted his dismissal of the lacrosse charges in a television advertisement during his most recent campaign.
The Research 2000 poll, which was published on the liberal blog Daily Kos, predicts that Burr could be in for a close race. He leads against Cooper 45% to 43%. The poll also predicts a tight contest if former state treasurer Richard Moore is nominated by the Democrats.
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