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Hundreds Vote Illegally in North Carolina after Court Bans Election Integrity Law FBI Court Filing Reveals Grand Jury Targeted Hillary Clinton JW Goes To Federal Court Monday on Another Obama Administration Email Scandal Hundreds Vote Illegally in North Carolina after Court Bans Election Integrity Law Obama Justice Department holdovers must be pleased with their work. In July 2016, they were successful in undoing North Carolina’s voter integrity laws in order to allow all manner of illegal voters the ability to cast ballots. Our Corruption Chronicles blog tells the story . Less than a year after a federal appellate court...

Less than a year after a federal appellate court sided with the Obama administration to strike down North Carolina’s election integrity reforms, a state audit reveals that hundreds of votes were illegally cast by felons and non-citizens in just one election. Voter impersonation, double voting and irregularities in absentee ballots sent via mail also tainted the election, according to the investigation conducted by the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE). The probe analyzed records from the 2016 general election. State auditors found that about 500 ineligible people voted in 2016, more than 440 of them felons. Dozens of non-citizens...

The North Carolina House of Representatives approved legislation in a lopsided 67-48 vote Thursday that would shield drivers from civil liability if they collide with protesters. Opponents say the legislation is unnecessary and may give drivers the false impression they can maliciously run over activists. One Democrat warned it would make the state the butt of jokes about being full of “dumb rednecks.” But Republican proponents, who sent the measure to the state Senate by a veto-proof margin, say recent encounters between activists and drivers makes the reform both sensible and necessary.

DURHAM, North Carolina -- A Durham woman was arrested after throwing lighter fluid on her son's Eno Valley Elementary School kindergarten teacher and threatening to burn the building down, according to an arrest warrant. Durham police said that teacher Megan Jones had arranged a parent-teacher conference with Shequella Sheala Leonard, who became irate at accusations of her son's behavior. About five minutes into the meeting, the school principal told Leonard that she needed to leave the building, and the group, which included Leonard's son, exited into a hallway, police said. Once in the hallway, Jones told police that Leonard pulled...

LEXINGTON, SC Sheriff’s detectives are asking for the public’s help in finding a Red Bank Elementary School teacher who is charged with having sex many times at school with a student. Hianlucas Isturiz Rodriguez, 40, is charged with two counts of first-degree sexual conduct with a child at the Lexington County school, the Sheriff’s Department said Thursday in a news release. Rodriguez, whom students called “Señor Isturiz,” had sexual contact with the student multiple times while on duty at the school during this school year, according to arrest warrants and Sheriff Jay Koon. “These acts happened during the current school...

CHARLOTTE, NC Inside the Mecklenburg County Jail, Zerrell Fuentes came up with a plan to have his wife, mother and three underage girls help him make bail, prosecutors say. Now all three members of the Charlotte family face an even longer stay behind bars. An eight-count indictment issued Friday accuses Fuentes, 22, wife Brianna Wright Fuentes, 24, and his mother Tanya Fuentes, 53, with conspiring to traffic the girls for commercial sex acts in Myrtle Beach. All three face multiple sex-trafficking offenses. The two-week operation involved three Charlotte girls, all under 18, whom Ferrell recruited while he was in jail,...

Automotive supplier Continental plans to invest more than $40 million and create 160 new jobs over the next five years at its brake systems manufacturing facility in the western North Carolina town of Morganton. Continental, a German company whose North American headquarters is in Auburn Hills, Mich., is eligible to receive up to $1.6 million in state Job Development Investment Grant incentives if it meets its job and investment targets, according to the office of Gov. Roy Cooper. “Thanks to the generous support of the state and local officials, we are pleased to make an investment that plans to expand...

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — The Buncombe County commissioners unanimously approved an $881,960 economic incentive for Avadim Technologies, which promises to create more than 550 full-time jobs and invest $20 million. Avadim is a medical company that works to make people immune from infection. "Today's health care system is sick care. We wait until you get to sick versus what we really envision, and what's really coming is health care, preventing things before you ever get to that place," Avadim Technologies CEO Stephen Woody said. Of the new jobs, 100 would pay $89,440, 162 would pay $64,480 and 290 would pay...

Tucked away in Apex, a robotics company is about to nearly double its headcount. Robert Little, CEO of ATI Industrial Automation, says the company breaks ground next week on an expansion that will create 275 new jobs and grow its Apex footprint to 185,000 square feet. The company currently has 300 employees. Little says it has reached the limits of its Apex facility, and that the new robotics lab will be bigger with state of the art features. With the new facility, ATI intends to focus on new and better robots with force-control. Little describes it as equipping robots with...

CHARLOTTE—Duke Energy has launched its Power/Forward Carolinas project -- a $13 billion, 10-year program to modernize the state's electric system. It says the initiative will result in nearly 14,000 new jobs a year and more than $1 billion in tax benefits to communities. Duke says project upgrades will harden the system against storms and outages; make it safer and more resilient against cyber-attacks and physical threats; help expand renewable energy; generate jobs and stimulate economic growth. It will also give 7 million people in North Carolina more information to manage their energy use. David Fountain, Duke Energy's North Carolina president...

Attorney General Xavier Becerra won’t lift a ban on publicly funded travel to North Carolina even though the Southern state repealed the law that California Democrats condemned as discriminatory against gay and transgender people. North Carolina’s repeal of its House Bill 2, the so-called “bathroom bill,” late last month persuaded the NCAA to lift its own ban on sponsoring championship collegiate sporting events there. Becerra found the repeal inadequate, noting that North Carolina’s new law bans local governments and universities from passing their own anti-discrimination laws. A number of civil rights organizations, such as Equality California, denounced North Carolina’s repeal...

An Israeli foam manufacturer is expected to add 40 jobs at its North American headquarters in Louisburg, in exchange for state and local incentives amounting to $2,000 per job created. Palziv North America is expected to eliminate 40 jobs in Canada and create the same number of jobs in Louisburg, about 30 miles northeast of Raleigh. Palziv is expected to create the jobs by 2020 and would receive $1,000 per job from the One North Carolina Fund and a matching grant from Franklin County. The company will also invest $5.2 million at its facility, largely to purchase new equipment. Franklin...

North Carolina lawmakers filed a bill on Monday that would pull North Carolina and NC State from the Atlantic Coast Conference if the conference boycotted the state again amid the fallout of House Bill 2. House Bill 728 says that if a college conference boycotts North Carolina, then state schools that are a part of that conference would be prohibited from extending the grant of media rights to that conference. The ACC and NCAA had pulled championship events out of North Carolina until HB2 — known as the “bathroom bill” — was repealed. The bill, which was widely decried as...

MEBANE – Lidl, a German grocery chain building stores in Eden and Danville, Va., will hold a public hiring event for its state-of-the-art, Alamance County regional headquarters and distribution center next week. The event will be held from 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Thursday, April 20 at Lid’ls newly constructed, $125 million facility, which will become operational later this year. The Lidl Distribution Center is located at 3815 Senator Ralph Scott Parkway, Mebane. Up to 150 logistics positions will become available at the site this year. Salaries for logistics associates will be up to $20 per hour, plus benefits, which can include...

North Carolina church leaders have told a Boy Scout troop and Cub Scout pack they’re no longer welcome to use their facilities as a home base after the Boy Scouts of America decided in January to allow transgender boys. The Charlotte Observer reports Coddle Creek Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Mooresville booted both Troop 169 and Pack 169. Mooresville is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Charlotte. …

MAS Holdings, a global apparel technology and manufacturing company, will locate its first U.S. manufacturing and development center in Randolph County, creating 133 new jobs, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office announced in a news release. The company plans to invest nearly $20 million in a facility in Asheboro, providing additional payroll impact exceeding $4 million annually. MAS is a textile company headquartered in Sri Lanka, employing more than 85,000 people worldwide, operating 48 facilities in 15 countries including design offices, apparel and component manufacturing plants and private industrial parks. MAS also provides technology to the apparel and footwear industry. Recently, the...

This seems to be a perennial argument in the food service industry but it never fails to attract my interest. The Washington Post picked up the story of an an upscale Italian restaurant in North Carolina called Caruso’s. They had run into a number of issues with parents bringing young and too often horribly behaved children into the eatery for dinner who then wound up annoying the rest of the clientele. As they tell the story, the straw which broke the camel’s back was a young girl with an i-Pad who was playing videos at full volume despite being asked...

JW Testifies to House Oversight Committee, Visits WH New Clinton Emails Reveal More Mishandling of Classified Information, Favors for Donors Protecting Election Integrity in North Carolina Supreme Court Battle JW Testifies to House Oversight Committee, Visits WH It was my privilege to testify last week on behalf of Judicial Watch before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which was meeting to hear testimony on several bills that would improve government transparency. The complete hearing is available here . You can read all of my prepared remarks here . But let me share with you a few key...

A North Carolina state representative is calling for the resignation of North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall after he found hundreds of cases of illegal immigrants improperly becoming notaries public. State law requires a notary public to “reside legally in the United States.” Marshall, a Democrat, has commissioned 320 individuals as notaries who are not either legal permanent residents or citizens, according to records provided to North Carolina state Rep. Chris Millis. The legislator received records from the North Carolina secretary of state’s office which showed 250 illegal immigrants who received amnesty have become notaries public. Another 72 other...

A state representative is demanding the resignation of North Carolina's secretary of state after reviewing documents that show 320 people with no legal residency status were given notary positions for nearly a decade. Rep. Christopher Millis voiced his concerns in an interview with Fox News over details found within documents provided by North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall’s office. Marshall told Fox News the Dept. of Homeland Security approved the notary authorizations. “We found over 320 nonpermanent residents that her office commissioned as notaries. Including one that was slated for final deportation,” Millis said. “It’s very concerning not just...