Showing posts sorted by relevance for query north carolina. Sort by date Show all posts
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Friday, November 11, 2011

Victims speak out about North Carolina sterilization program, which targeted women, young girls and blacks

This was the precursor to the Child Abuse Prevention Treatment Act, CAPTA.  Notice how the eugenics arguments for sterilization are exactly the same to termination of parental rights.

Victims speak out about North Carolina sterilization program, which targeted women, young girls and blacks







By Michelle Kessel and Jessica Hopper
Rock Center
Elaine Riddick was 13 years old when she got pregnant after being raped by a neighbor in Winfall, N.C., in 1967.  The state ordered that immediately after giving birth, she should be sterilized.  Doctors cut and tied off her fallopian tubes.
“I have to carry these scars with me.  I have to live with this for the rest of my life,” she said. 

Riddick was never told what was happening.  “Got to the hospital and they put me in a room and that’s all I remember, that’s all I remember,” she said.  “When I woke up, I woke up with bandages on my stomach.”
Riddick’s records reveal that a five-person state eugenics board in Raleigh had approved a recommendation that she be sterilized. The records label Riddick as “feebleminded” and “promiscuous.” They said her schoolwork was poor and that she “does not get along well with others.”
“I was raped by a perpetrator [who was never charged] and then I was raped by the state of North Carolina.  They took something from me both times,” she said.  “The state of North Carolina, they took something so dearly from me, something that was God given.”
It wouldn’t be until Riddick was 19, married and wanting more children, that she’d learn she was incapable of having any more babies. A doctor in New York where she was living at the time told her that she’d been sterilized.
“Butchered.  The doctor used that word…  I didn’t understand what she meant when she said I had been butchered,” Riddick said.
North Carolina was one of 31 states to have a government run eugenics program.  By the 1960s, tens of thousands of Americans were sterilized as a result of these programs. 
Eugenics was a scientific theory that grew in popularity during the 1920s.  Eugenicists believed that poverty, promiscuity and alcoholism were traits that were inherited.  To eliminate those society ills and improve society’s gene pool, proponents of the theory argued that those that exhibited the traits should be sterilized.  Some of America’s wealthiest citizens of the time were eugenicists including Dr. Clarence Gamble of the Procter and Gamble fortune and James Hanes of the hosiery company.  Hanes helped found the Human Betterment League which promoted the cause of eugenicists. 
It began as a way to control welfare spending on poor white women and men, but over time, North Carolina shifted focus, targeting more women and more blacks than whites.  A third of the sterilizations performed in North Carolina were done on girls under the age of 18.  Some were as young as nine years old.
For the past eight years, North Carolina lawmakers have been working to find a way to compensate those involuntarily sterilized in the state between 1929 and 1974. During that time period, 7,600 people were sterilized in North Carolina.  Of those who were sterilized, 85 percent of the victims were female and 40 percent were non-white.  
“You can’t rewind a watch or rewrite history.  You just have to go forward and that’s what we’re trying to do in North Carolina,” said Governor Beverly Perdue in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
While North Carolina’s eugenics board was disbanded in 1977, the law allowing involuntary sterilization wasn’t officially repealed until 2003. In 2002, the state issued an apology to those who had been sterilized, but the victims have yet to receive any financial compensation, medical care or counseling from the state. Since 2003, three task forces have been created to determine a way to compensate the victims.  Officials estimate that as many as 2,000 victims are still alive.
Riddick was one of several victims to speak at a public hearing this summer. It was the first time that many survivors had told their stories publicly and that others heard of North Carolina’s tarnished past.
“To think about folks who went in…and their doctor told them this was birth control and they were sterilized…the folks who didn’t have the capacity to make the decisions, the uninformed consent,” said Perdue.  “Those types of stories aren’t good for America and I can’t allow for this period in history to be forgotten, that’s why this work is important.”
Only 48 victims have been matched with their records, something necessary for them to eventually be compensated.  State Representative Larry Womble has been advocating for the survivors of the state’s sterilization program for nearly 10 years. He helped fight for the repeal of the state’s law.
Womble said that if the government is “powerful enough to perpetrate this on this society, they ought to be responsible, step up to the plate and compensate.”
In August, a task force created by Gov. Perdue recommended that the victims be compensated, but they were unsure how much to award the victims. Previous numbers pondered range between $20,000 and $50,000. The task force also recommended mental health services for living victims and a traveling museum exhibit about North Carolina’s eugenics program.
Perdue said it’s a challenge to determine how much money each victim should be given.
“From my perspective, and as a woman, and as the governor of this state, this is not about the money.  There isn’t enough money in the world to pay these people for what has been done to them, but money is part of the equation,” she said. 
Riddick once sued North Carolina for a million dollars.  Her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, but the court declined to hear the case.  “I would like for the state of North Carolina to right what they wronged with me,” she said.
Some victims and their advocates have questioned whether North Carolina is procrastinating in compensating them, hoping they’ll die before a solution is reached. “It’s an ugly chapter in North Carolina’s book, we have a wonderful book, but there’s an ugly chapter,” Womble said. “We must step up to the plate and we must realize and take responsibility.”
Perdue, for her part, said that she is committed to helping the victims.
“I want this solved on my watch.  I want there to be completion.  I want the whole discussion to end and there be action for these folks.  There is nobody in North Carolina who is waiting for anybody to die,” Gov. Perdue said.
Despite the state social workers who declared Riddick was “mentally retarded” and “promiscuous”, she went to college and raised the son born moments before she was sterilized.  Her son is devoted to his mother and a successful entrepreneur.
Elaine is proud of her achievements.
“I don’t know where I would be if I listened to the state of North Carolina,” she said.

Thursday, March 5, 2020

DOJ: Former North Carolina State Political Party Chairman Previously Pleaded Guilty to Lying to the FBI in Connection with the Bribery Scheme

The frauds of the Republican National Committee are being illuminated by DOJ.

I suggest Cocktails & Popcorn.

Here is the unsealed indictment... and you wonder why why no one will discuss the massive fraud scheme called health care.

I have been following UnitedHealth, the darling of the Democratic National Committee and #perkinscoiesucks.

A federal jury sitting in Charlotte, North Carolina, has convicted the founder and chairman of a multinational investment company and a company consultant of public corruption and bribery charges, for orchestrating a bribery scheme involving independent expenditure accounts and improper campaign contributions. 
Greg E. Lindberg, 49, of Durham, North Carolina, the founder and chairman of Eli Global LLC (Eli Global) and the owner of Global Bankers Insurance Group (GBIG), and Lindberg’s consultant, John D. Gray, 69, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, were convicted of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds after an approximately three-week trial before U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr.  A third co-defendant, Eli Global executive John V. Palermo, 64, of Pittsboro, North Carolina, was acquitted by the jury.  A fourth co-defendant, Robert Cannon Hayes, 74, of Concord, North Carolina, previously pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI.
“Greg Lindberg and John Gray undermined public confidence in our government by promising millions of dollars in campaign contributions in exchange for government decisions to benefit Lindberg’s business interests,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.  “The department is grateful for the assistance of the law-abiding public officials who reported the attempted bribes in this case, which allowed us to use all the tools at our disposal to investigate and root out this pernicious and greedy effort to corrupt North Carolina state government.”
“The defendants devised an elaborate plan to make a hefty campaign contribution to an elected official to secure favorable action.  This was not a lapse in judgment.  It was a deliberate bribery attempt and a clear violation of federal law,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew Murray for the Western District of North Carolina.  “Public corruption is a threat to our way of life and if left unchecked it can tear apart the very fabric of our country. My office will continue to diligently ferret out public corruption schemes to protect the public and hold bad actors like these unscrupulous defendants accountable.”
“Greg Lindberg and John Gray plowed across the line from legal political donations to felonious bribery,” said Special Agent in Charge John Strong of the FBI’s Charlotte Field Office.  “These men thought they could buy changes to North Carolina Department of Insurance personnel, policies, and procedures to benefit Lindberg's businesses.  The FBI will work tirelessly to root out any and all forms of public corruption.”
According to filed court documents, witness testimony and evidence presented at trial, in January 2018, the elected Commissioner of Insurance (Commissioner) of the North Carolina Department of Insurance (NCDOI) reported concerns to the FBI about political contributions and other requests made by Lindberg and Gray, and agreed to cooperate with the federal investigation that was initiated. 
The evidence established that from April 2017 to August 2018, Lindberg, Gray and Hayes engaged in a bribery scheme involving independent expenditure accounts and improper campaign contributions for the purpose of causing the Commissioner to take official action favorable to Lindberg’s company, GBIG.  Trial evidence further established that Lindberg and Gray gave, offered, and promised the Commissioner millions of dollars in campaign contributions and other things of value, in exchange for the removal of NCDOI’s Senior Deputy Commissioner, who was responsible for overseeing regulation and the periodic examination of GBIG. 
According to trial evidence, Lindberg, Gray and the Commissioner held numerous in-person meetings at different locations, including in Statesville, North Carolina, and had telephonic and other communications with each other, and with Hayes, to discuss Lindberg’s request for the personnel change in exchange for millions of dollars, and to devise a plan on how to funnel campaign contributions to the Commissioner anonymously.  In order to conceal the bribery scheme, at the direction of Lindberg, two corporate entities were set-up to form an independent expenditure committee with the purpose of supporting the Commissioner’s re-election campaign, and Lindberg funded the entities with $1.5 million as promised to the Commissioner.  In addition, at Lindberg and Gray’s direction, Hayes caused the transfer of $250,000 from monies Lindberg had previously contributed to a North Carolina state party of which Hayes was chairman, to the Commissioner’s re-election campaign.
According to admissions Hayes made in connection with his guilty plea, on or about Aug. 28, 2018, Hayes falsely stated to FBI agents that he had never spoken with the NCDOI Commissioner about personnel or personnel problems at NCDOI, or about Lindberg or Gray.  Hayes further admitted that, at the time he made the materially false statements, Hayes knew that it was unlawful to lie to the FBI, and knew that his statements were false because Hayes had in fact spoken with the NCDOI Commissioner about Lindberg and Gray, and about Lindberg’s request that the Commissioner move certain personnel within NCDOI.  
The FBI’s Charlotte field office investigated the case.
Trial Attorney James C. Mann of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys William Stetzer and Dana Washington of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina are in charge of the prosecution.


Financier Who Amassed Insurance Firms Diverted $2 Billion Into His Private Empire

The sheer scale of Greg Lindberg’s efforts has little precedent in recent decades, industry experts say

Soon after Greg Lindberg moved into the insurance business, the North Carolina entrepreneur went on a spending spree.

He bought nearly 100 companies around the globe, an estate in the Florida Keys, an Idaho lakeside retreat, a Gulfstream jet and the most expensive mansion ever sold in Raleigh, N.C. In September 2018 he added a 214-foot yacht with room for a dozen overnight guests. He also became the largest political donor in North Carolina and lavished money on other races around the country.

The cash came, at least in part, from huge sums Mr. Lindberg diverted from the group of life insurance firms he began assembling in 2014, a Wall Street Journal investigation found.

The Yale-educated executive lent at least $2 billion from those insurers to scores of entities he controlled, using much of it to expand his private holdings, according to interviews, regulatory filings and more than 4,500 internal documents from Mr. Lindberg’s companies reviewed by the Journal.

The sheer scale of Mr. Lindberg’s use of insurance assets to invest in his own businesses has little precedent in recent decades, industry experts say, and exposes hundreds of thousands of policyholders to an unusual and potentially risky strategy.

Greg Linberg
The insurers disguised the money flow by contending in public regulatory filings that many of the entities they invested in, with names such as Secured Loan-Backed Funding IV LLC, weren’t affiliated with his empire. In reality, documents show, that entity and more than 100 similar ones were set up by Mr. Lindberg to direct money to his own ventures, the Journal found.

Mr. Lindberg is among a wave of financiers who have snapped up life-insurance companies in recent years, contending they can do better than traditional owners in investing the vast assets on insurers’ books in a low interest-rate environment. Some in this new class of owners have deployed unusual financial structures and complex investments, challenging state regulators who have struggled to stay on top of the changing environment.

In Mr. Lindberg’s case, his empire-building has drawn scrutiny from both federal and state authorities.

A federal criminal investigation, made public in October after subpoenas were issued, is looking into Mr. Lindberg’s political donations and his relationship with North Carolina regulators, according to people familiar with the matter. North Carolina is one of 11 states in which insurance commissioners are elected. The probe also is exploring potential financial misdeeds related to the insurers, according to people familiar with the matter.

The federal investigation includes secret recordings made by North Carolina’s current insurance commissioner, who took office in January 2017 and began cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the first half of 2018, according to people with knowledge of parts of the probe.

Meanwhile, North Carolina insurance regulators are sorting through the complicated debt and equity structures set up by Mr. Lindberg to figure out where the money went and whether the insurers have losses, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. Vermont also is investigating the Lindberg-related dealings of an insurer based there, a Vermont regulator said.

Mr. Lindberg declined interview requests. A spokesman said in a series of written responses that Mr. Lindberg is cooperating with the federal investigation and with state regulators, and is “aggressively working” to reduce the level of related-party loans. He declined to answer questions about Mr. Lindberg’s political donations.

The spokesman pegged the volume of investments by Mr. Lindberg’s insurers in entities in which he has a “significant economic interest” at $2 billion. He said the investment strategy was approved in advance by North Carolina regulators and was part of a plan by Mr. Lindberg to both improve investment returns for his insurers and expand his overall enterprise.

The spokesman said the U.S. insurers have large financial cushions, hold substantial cash and other liquid assets, and “to this point, there has never been a payment default” on the loans to Lindberg entities. When loans to unrelated borrowers soured, he said, Mr. Lindberg reimbursed his insurers for tens of millions of dollars in losses.

Life insurers, the type run by Mr. Lindberg, normally are very staid enterprises. They are paid premiums up front by policyholders and typically invest the money conservatively for years so they have enough to pay claims. Most invest premium funds in high-quality bonds. Many also own real estate and other less-liquid holdings.

Insurance-company owners are permitted to invest some of the premium money in their own ventures, but regulators monitor these transactions closely to be sure the investments are safe and are fair deals for the insurers. One concern is that related-party investments often aren’t publicly traded and can be difficult to value and sell.

Some states explicitly limit such “affiliated investments” to 10% of total assets, to protect policyholders.

Mr. Lindberg’s investment of insurance funds into affiliates at one point amounted to more than 50% of the assets of one of his main insurers, according to regulatory filings and other documents.

“Insurance-company assets are not intended to be a piggy bank for your other activities,” said Therese Vaughan, a former Iowa insurance commissioner who is now a Drake University insurance and actuarial science professor, speaking generally.

Now 48 years old, Mr. Lindberg began a health-insurance newsletter from his Yale dorm room. He eventually built a conglomerate based in Durham, N.C., that consisted of separate entities tied together with the brand name Eli Global. Before the insurance binge, Eli Global had annual revenue of about $150 million, according to internal corporate documents, and included a medical-coding company, collection agencies and a sports-memorabilia firm.

Mr. Lindberg owns 100% of Eli Global and his insurance empire.

Former employees recall Mr. Lindberg as a financially brilliant, hands-on owner. Mr. Lindberg gave considerable rein to his top executives, but would often personally approve even the smallest expenses at new acquisitions.

“It was a fun place to work” because it was informal and entrepreneurial, said Ian Lipman, a former Eli Global mergers specialist.

Mr. Lindberg also could be socially awkward and quirky, according to some former employees and people who have dealt with him on business matters. For years he wore only black pants and black T-shirts to work, and typically ate from bags of fruit and nuts. He gobbled vitamins and supplements and for exercise ran at high speed on a treadmill set at maximum incline for more than an hour, former employees say.

“Mr. Lindberg is health conscious and focuses on other variables in his life beyond what he wears,” his spokesman said.

He could be frugal. He wrote last year in a personal blog post of buying folding tables and chairs in the early days of his company, which he later replaced with “hideous” but more comfortable secondhand furniture. Eli Global shifted thousands of jobs to India to save money, then provided a bicycle—rather than a car—when Indian IT staffers visited Durham, former employees recall.

Mr. Lindberg began scouring insurers for possible acquisitions in about 2012. What most seemed to attract him, former employees say, was the large cache of assets on insurers’ balance sheets.

Initially, he looked for small insurers that wouldn’t cost much, according to a deposition in later litigation over banking fees. His purchases eventually included a Louisiana insurer bought out of receivership and a struggling Dutch insurer acquired for €1.

Mr. Lindberg told regulators that investing in his own businesses was a safe strategy for the insurers because his company had achieved 35% annual investment returns. “Eli Global has a long history in establishing private placements and managing the risks successfully,” the company said in one presentation to regulators.

His first acquisition, in 2014, was a small Alabama burial-policy insurer, Southland National Insurance Corp. It had about $170 million of assets to cover future claims as policyholders died. Mr. Lindberg paid about $22 million for it.

He was candid about wanting a bigger role for affiliated investments in seeking deal approval from Alabama regulators. At a hearing, he said he thought Southland could do better by swapping some low-yielding corporate bonds into floating-rate debt of his Eli Global operating companies.

Alabama had a law that explicitly limited such investments to the lesser of 10% of total assets or an amount less than half the insurer’s net worth. Mr. Lindberg assured Alabama regulators he would keep affiliated investments within the limits, which would have restricted such deals to just a few million dollars because of the insurer’s low net worth.

Unlike other areas of finance, insurers are regulated primarily by states, not a single federal agency. Although a national standards-setting body accredits insurance departments, states retain flexibility. As a result, companies can shop around for an accommodating venue.

Within four months of the deal’s approval in August 2014, Alabama regulators were out of the picture. Mr. Lindberg shifted Southland to North Carolina and began replacing tens of millions of dollars of its bonds with loans to Lindberg companies.

By the end of 2015, $177 million of Southland’s expanded portfolio was invested in affiliated entities, filings show—more than half its assets at that point.

Although North Carolina statutes are less direct than Alabama’s about affiliated investments, regulators there customarily enforce similar limits. They made a rare exception for Mr. Lindberg, allowing Southland to invest as much as 40% of its assets in Lindberg affiliates rather than the normal 10%, according to regulatory correspondence reviewed by the Journal.

The Lindberg spokesman confirmed that. He declined to say who gave the approval, but said it followed multiple discussions with the state’s insurance department.

A spokeswoman for the North Carolina insurance department declined to comment on regulation of the Lindberg insurers under the prior commissioner, citing the federal investigation.

At the time, the commissioner was Democrat Wayne Goodwin, who won the office in 2008 and was up for re-election in 2016.

Mr. Lindberg held a February 2016 fundraiser for Mr. Goodwin at his Durham estate. Between that gathering and later donations, Mr. Lindberg, his employees, business associates and some of their spouses and family members contributed about $125,000 to the commissioner’s campaign, or more than 10% of Mr. Goodwin’s total, election records show. Mr. Lindberg also created a PAC that purchased ads in support of Mr. Goodwin and gave $425,000 to it, records show.

Mr. Lindberg supported Mr. Goodwin because “he was a business-minded insurance commissioner,” his spokesman said, adding that the insurance department’s approval of Mr. Lindberg’s investment strategy preceded the donations by about two years.

In a statement, Mr. Goodwin said that “any suggestion that I have ever taken any action in return for contributions is categorically false.” He said he didn’t recall “being asked to take or direct any action” to benefit Mr. Lindberg and had deferred to staff experts on complex regulatory matters.

Mr. Goodwin, now chairman of the state’s Democratic Party, said he has cooperated with the federal investigation and has been told by federal officials he isn’t a subject of it.

Mr. Lindberg bought several other insurers in 2015 and 2016, in part using money from Southland. He moved them to North Carolina and began operating the collection as Global Bankers Insurance Group.

At first, Southland in its regulatory filings openly listed the flow of money to its owner’s ventures as “affiliated” loans, naming Eli Global companies as the borrowers.

The filings raised concerns in Florida, known for tough insurance regulation. Officials in 2016 took steps to suspend Southland from doing business in the state, finding it was “financially impaired” due to the high level of affiliated investments. Southland voluntarily withdrew from the state.

By putting half of its assets in affiliates, Southland had breached even the lenient agreement with North Carolina. A department examiner took note. She directed Mr. Lindberg in an early 2016 letter to “refrain from investing further in affiliates and to provide a plan outlining how [the insurer] will return to compliance with the 40% agreed upon limit,” according to a copy of the letter in the internal Lindberg documents.

Mr. Lindberg found a strategy that would allow him to contend on regulatory filings that his affiliated investments were, in fact, unaffiliated.

As part of the plan, an intermediate entity, a “special purpose vehicle,” would borrow from one of the insurers and in turn lend the money to a Lindberg company.

Mr. Lindberg put a small amount of capital into each SPV and was the financial owner, while the voting rights were held by an entity controlled by William Wofford, a partner at an outside law firm, Hutchison PLLC, the internal corporate documents show. Hutchison was paid $400,000 up front for this service.

Because it lacked voting rights, “Eli Global has absolutely no control” over the SPVs, and therefore they weren’t affiliates, the company said in a 2016 presentation to North Carolina regulators reviewed by the Journal. One slide in the presentation was headed: “Replacing Affiliate Loans with SPV.”

The law firm provided regulators with legal opinions that the SPVs weren’t affiliates. Some of the firm’s lawyers including Mr. Wofford donated to Mr. Goodwin’s campaign at the time of the February 2016 fundraiser at Mr. Lindberg’s home, held as regulators were considering the SPV plan.

Hutchison’s Mr. Wofford said he supported other Democratic candidates and causes that year, and “I feel that my firm and I have acted appropriately in these matters.”

The Lindberg spokesman said the SPV structure was “developed in consultation with, and ultimately with the approval of” the North Carolina insurance department, and was intended to achieve higher bond ratings for the investments, not avoid affiliate-reporting rules.

Internal Lindberg documents show how this structure worked. Mr. Lindberg’s Colorado Bankers Life Insurance Co. lent $8.8 million in November 2016 to a new SPV, Macon LLC, which promised to pay 9.5% annual interest over a decade. Mr. Lindberg used that money to acquire a Massachusetts public-relations firm for his conglomerate, the documents show.

By routing the loan through the SPV, Colorado Bankers could claim the loan wasn’t to an affiliated borrower, even though Mr. Lindberg was using the money to expand his empire and one of his companies was the ultimate borrower. (The loan was secured by the assets of the public-relations firm.)

Further muddying the waters, the insurers frequently bought and sold such investments, sometimes holding them for only a few months.

By the end of 2017, the U.S. insurers in total had about $710 million invested in entities in which Mr. Lindberg had a significant economic interest, his spokesman said.

Such related investments accounted for about one-third of the combined assets of his three North Carolina-registered insurers at that point, the spokesman said, not counting their investments in each other or related insurers.

U.S. life insurers in total reported investing about 1% of their bond holdings in affiliates in 2017, the latest available data, the Journal analysis showed. Only a handful reported more than 10%.

As his empire grew, so did Mr. Lindberg’s stated net worth. It reached $1.7 billion at the end of 2017, his spokesman said. That was up fivefold from the $340 million he claimed four years earlier, according to internal documents.

The entrepreneur began leasing a used Gulfstream V in 2014. Soon after, he purchased the Idaho property and filed plans to build a 20,000-square-foot compound. In 2016 he added a $6.2 million, seven-bedroom oceanfront home in the Florida Keys and later bought a second jet.

At his Durham home, on a rural road about 10 miles from the city’s center, Mr. Lindberg had a staff of more than 20 and built an indoor tennis facility for his wife Tisha, from whom he has since become estranged, according to interviews and court filings in legal disputes with his wife. The family took a $1 million yacht vacation, his wife said in one filing.

He also became extremely security conscious. He hired a half dozen guards, installed bulletproof glass at both his home and office, and built a separate security facility at his home along with an underground tunnel leading to a windowless “safe room,” according to interviews, court documents, and online photos of the house.

Tisha Lindberg said in a legal affidavit last year that she considered her husband “paranoid. Not only is the home completely enclosed by a 15-foot high wall and a 12-foot high fence, we also had a security system with more than 20 security cameras, trained guard dogs and security cameras within our home which were monitored by a 24-hour, seven-day a week armed security team.”

Corporate security is normal for any wealthy executive, the Lindberg spokesman said.

Although the maze of entities makes it difficult to trace insurance money directly to Mr. Lindberg’s home purchases, at least one can be linked. Last July, after splitting from his wife, Mr. Lindberg through a shell company paid $5.5 million for a 12,000 square-foot mansion in Raleigh.

The house was bought with the help of a $3.3 million loan from Kite Asset Management Inc., listing an address at Eli Global headquarters. A Lindberg insurer invested $40 million in Kite a few weeks before the home purchase. Delaware filings show Mr. Lindberg was Kite’s president.


Through a shell company, Mr. Lindberg paid $5.5 million for this 12,000 square-foot mansion in Raleigh, N.C., last July.

The Lindberg spokesman said the houses in Raleigh, Idaho and Florida were investments; the yacht has charter possibilities; his two aircraft were used primarily for business; and “insurance companies have not been used to fund Mr. Lindberg’s lifestyle.”

Mr. Lindberg used much of the insurance money to acquire scores of businesses for Eli Global, including a New Mexico wine wholesaler, an Australian software firm, a Canadian debt collector and chains of eye-doctor practices.

Eli Global now has more than 130 companies with 10,000 employees and annual revenue of $3 billion—20 times the revenue five years earlier—Mr. Lindberg says on his personal webpage.

Mr. Lindberg’s spokesman said some of the growth was funded with third-party loans.

A new North Carolina commissioner, Mike Causey, a Republican, took office in early 2017, after beating Mr. Goodwin. Mr. Causey is a farmer and former insurance-agency owner. The tone of communications to Mr. Lindberg’s insurers grew tougher.

“Concerns have been identified regarding the affiliated debt securities and the special purpose vehicles (“SPVs”) that are held by the Companies,” a senior state examiner wrote to the finance chief of Mr. Lindberg’s insurance group in March 2017.

Some affiliated entities borrowing money appeared insolvent, the official wrote. The examiner also said loans to affiliates “were used to provide subsequent dividends to Mr. Greg Lindberg”—suggesting that insurance money was flowing into his pockets. The letter questioned whether some actions complied with state laws.

The Lindberg spokesman said the insurers provided additional information “to substantiate the financial solvency of these entities.”

A few weeks after the combative letter, Mr. Lindberg and his wife each donated $5,000 to Mr. Causey, who returned the money. He said he did so “out of an abundance of caution.”

Amid the regulatory matters, Mr. Lindberg retained the former commissioner, Mr. Goodwin, as a consultant and hired two of his former deputies, including the aide who had overseen the Lindberg insurers. Mr. Lindberg’s spokesman declined to comment on those moves.


North Carolina’s current insurance commissioner, Mike Causey, secretly cooperated with an FBI investigation of Mr. Lindberg.

Mr. Goodwin said his work for Global Bankers was limited and no different than with his other consulting clients.

Mr. Lindberg continued to expand his empire, buying insurers in Michigan, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and establishing a reinsurer in Bermuda. He also helped finance a reinsurer in Vermont. The Bermuda and Vermont reinsurers proceeded to loan a total of more than $600 million to Mr. Lindberg’s companies.

Mr. Lindberg extracted money from the insurers via a Malta entity he set up to provide investment services to his companies. It received $34 million in fees in 2017, Malta filings show; the Lindberg spokesman said fees have since been sharply reduced.

Beginning in late 2017, Mr. Lindberg’s Colorado Bankers began hauling in large sums of new money to be invested: $1.3 billion in sales of annuities, a type of saving product, to retirees and other conservative investors. Much of that was lent to Lindberg-related entities, filings show.

Meanwhile, a multistate group of financial examiners was working with North Carolina regulators as they sought to understand the complex structures. Mr. Lindberg fielded questions at a March 2018 closed-door session at a gathering of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in Milwaukee. He showed up at the conference with a bodyguard, an attendee said.

Mr. Lindberg ramped up political donations in late 2017, giving to insurance commissioners in other states and $670,000 to national Republican organizations. In North Carolina, he donated $5.4 million in 2017 and 2018, mostly to Republicans.

After contributing $500,000 to the North Carolina GOP in May 2018, Mr. Lindberg suggested the party donate a portion to Mr. Causey’s campaign, said Dallas Woodhouse, the party’s executive director. Records show the party donated $250,000 to Mr. Causey in June and July. By this time, Mr. Causey was cooperating with the FBI on its secret probe, according to people familiar with the matter. Republican party officials weren’t aware of the investigation.

The party maintains it acted lawfully, because officials didn’t accept the $500,000 with the intent of helping Mr. Lindberg evade the state’s then-$5,200 individual-contribution limit.

Instead, “based on our discretion,” the party decided weeks after receiving the money that it made sense to both accommodate a big donor and help Mr. Causey, Mr. Woodhouse said. No authorities have told the party that its conduct “is under question in this matter,” he said.

In an interview, Mr. Causey said he turned over the $250,000 donation to federal officials, at their instruction. “It’s part of their investigation,” he said.

“The department of insurance is not a target,” he said, “and none of the employees including myself are targets.” He declined to discuss his role in the federal probe.

The North Carolina insurance department is still trying to answer a key question: Are Mr. Lindberg’s businesses good for the money they owe to the insurers? Mr. Lindberg’s spokesman said third-party valuations last year showed the borrowers had plenty of assets to cover the loans.

Mr. Lindberg’s team has shopped the U.S. insurance units to financial firms eager to expand or get into life insurance, and one is interested—if the affiliated investments can be eliminated, according to Wall Street bankers and other knowledgeable people.

Besides trying to sell parts of his empire, Mr. Lindberg has put the Florida Keys property, the Raleigh mansion, his former Durham home and the nearly finished Idaho property on the market, asking a total of $35.5 million.

The executive recently was spending time in Palm Beach, Fla., on board his yacht, according to people familiar with the matter. The boat had been for sale for $44.5 million when he purchased it in September through a newly formed LLC.

The yacht’s name: “Double Down.”

—Tom McGinty in New York contributed to this article.

Write to Mark Maremont at mark.maremont@wsj.com and Leslie Scism at leslie.scism@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
Greg Lindberg leased one Gulfstream jet and bought a second. An earlier version of this article said he purchased both. (Feb. 28, 2019)

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Friday, August 21, 2020

Light Up The Network: Gary Lindberg Sentenced For The 2020 RNC Convention

Such a shame Gary Lindberg will be unavailable as a speaker for the Republican National Convention 2020.

Perhaps, Cardinal Dolan can include him in his opening prayer.

https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.eli_global_llc.9f3f3b24e4a3c70ff83e2fb57725e0e8.html

DOJ: Former North Carolina State Political Party Chairman Previously Pleaded Guilty to Lying to the FBI in Connection with the Bribery Scheme


#maytheheavensfall

Founder and Chairman of a Multinational Investment Company and a Company Consultant Convicted of Bribery and Public Corruption are Sentenced to Prison

The founder and chairman of a multinational investment company and a company consultant were sentenced to prison today for orchestrating a bribery scheme involving independent expenditure accounts and improper campaign contributions. 
Greg E. Lindberg, 50, of Durham, North Carolina, the founder and chairman of Eli Global LLC (Eli Global) and the owner of Global Bankers Insurance Group (GBIG), was sentenced to 87 months in prison and three years of supervised release.  Lindberg’s consultant, John D. Gray, 70, of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was ordered to serve 30 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release.  Lindberg and Gray were also ordered to pay forfeiture in the amount approximately $1.45 million held in accounts established by the defendants for the purpose of funneling the bribe payments.
On March 5, 2020, a federal jury convicted Lindberg and Gray of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud and bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds following an approximately three-week trial.  U.S. District Judge Max O. Cogburn Jr. presided over the trial and today’s sentencing hearings.
Co-defendant, Robert Cannon Hayes, 74, of Concord, North Carolina, was also sentenced today to a one-year probationary term.  Hayes previously pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI and agreed to cooperate with the government’s investigation.
“When Greg Lindberg and John Gray offered millions of dollars in bribes to the North Carolina Insurance Commissioner, they referred to their elaborately corrupt scheme as a ‘win-win’ – unaware that the FBI was watching and listening,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.  “Today, both men have been held accountable for their crimes, and their sentences underscore the Department of Justice's unyielding commitment to rooting out corruption wherever we find it.”
“Lindberg and his accomplices, driven by greed, devised an extensive political bribery scheme to illegally funnel millions of dollars to an elected official for the benefit of Lindberg’s business interests.  To this day, Lindberg and Gray remain unremorseful and refuse to accept responsibility for their criminal actions.  The severity of their brazen conduct is reflected in the Court’s sentence,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew Murray for the Western District of North Carolina.  “Bribery of a public official is far from a victimless crime.  It is our duty to the American people to stop bad actors with deep pockets and unscrupulous intentions from wrecking the foundation on which this country proudly stands.  To those that greedily seek to line their own pockets through deceit and fraud, I offer the following advice: Keep a travel toothbrush handy.”
“When the prison bars close behind Mr. Lindberg and Mr. Gray, they will hear the sound of justice, loud and clear,” said Special Agent in Charge John Strong of the FBI’s Charlotte Field Office.  “The FBI will root out any and all forms of public corruption.  We remain committed to ensuring those who attempt to interfere with the integrity of our democratic process pay the price.”
According to filed court documents, evidence presented at trial, and today’s sentencing hearings, in January 2018, the elected Commissioner (Commissioner) of the North Carolina Department of Insurance (NCDOI) reported concerns to the FBI about political contributions and other requests made by Lindberg and Gray, and agreed to cooperate with the federal investigation that was initiated. 
According to evidence presented at trial, from April 2017 to August 2018, Lindberg and Gray engaged in a bribery scheme involving independent expenditure accounts and improper campaign contributions for the purpose of causing the Commissioner to take official action favorable to Lindberg’s company, GBIG.  Trial evidence established that Lindberg and Gray gave, offered, and promised the Commissioner millions of dollars in campaign contributions and other things of value, in exchange for the removal of NCDOI’s Senior Deputy Commissioner, who was responsible for overseeing regulation and the periodic examination of GBIG. 
According to trial evidence, Lindberg, Gray and the Commissioner held numerous in-person meetings at different locations, including in Statesville, North Carolina, and had telephonic and other communications with each other, and others, to discuss Lindberg’s request for the personnel change in exchange for millions of dollars, and to devise a plan on how to funnel campaign contributions to the Commissioner anonymously.  In order to conceal the bribery scheme, at the direction of Lindberg, two corporate entities were set-up to form an independent expenditure committee with the purpose of supporting the Commissioner’s re-election campaign, and Lindberg funded the entities with $1.5 million as promised to the Commissioner.  In addition, at Lindberg and Gray’s direction, Hayes caused the transfer of $250,000 from monies Lindberg had previously contributed to a North Carolina state party of which Hayes was chairman, to the Commissioner’s re-election campaign.
According to admissions Hayes made in connection with his guilty plea, on or about Aug. 28, 2018, Hayes falsely stated to FBI agents that he had never spoken with the NCDOI Commissioner about personnel or personnel problems at NCDOI, or about Lindberg or Gray.  Hayes further admitted that, at the time he made the materially false statements, Hayes knew that it was unlawful to lie to the FBI, and knew that his statements were false because Hayes had in fact spoken with the NCDOI Commissioner about Lindberg and Gray, and about Lindberg’s request that the Commissioner move certain personnel within NCDOI.  
The FBI’s Charlotte field office investigated the case.
Trial Attorney James C. Mann of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys William T. Stetzer and Dana O. Washington of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina prosecuted the case.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Friday, December 7, 2018

Concession Wtihdraw, Resignation Recission, Or Election Nullification - North Carolina & Michigan Voting Integrity Issues

North Carolina declined to certify the vote due to irregularities with absentee ballots?

Pshaw!

Michigan Secretary of State Board of Canvassers will certify anything, well, at least I think they did.

I asked for copy of the signed letter that was transmitted to the U.S. House Clerk to be entered into the record once the Speaker received it.

I never got copy.

I will ask again because the Michigan vote far exceeded what could even be considered as irregularities with absentee ballots as Wayne County had terminated the contract three days before the election with ElectionSource, the ones who were keeping track of the vote, well, at least they tried.

Anyway, what caught my eye was the action of a concession withdraw because one can also withdraw a resignation, under proper legal circumstances, like fraud, but, hey, what do I know?

I know we have ourselves a full blown DOJ-DHS voting integrity investigation!

North Carolina congressional candidate withdraws concession


FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2018, file photo, Democratic congressional candidate Dan McCready leans against wallboard as he pauses during a Habitat For Humanity building event in Charlotte, N.C. The nation's last unresolved fall congressional race with McCready against Republican Mark Harris is awash in doubt as North Carolina election investigators concentrate on a rural county where absentee-ballot fraud allegations are so flagrant they've put the Election Day result into question. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton, File)
Dan McCready
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Latest on the outcome of a North Carolina congressional race marked by an absentee ballot fraud investigation (all times local):
6:20 p.m.

The Democratic candidate trailing in a North Carolina congressional race marked by an absentee fraud investigation has withdrawn his concession to the Republican.

Dan McCready made his announcement late Thursday in a video posted on social media. Unofficial results showed Republican Mark Harris leading McCready by 905 votes in the south-central 9th Congressional District. But state election officials have refused to certify the results while looking at potential absentee ballot irregularities in at least two counties.

McCready called the reports of potential wrongdoing "shameful criminal activity, bankrolled by my opponent" to take away the right of North Carolina resident to vote. Harris' chief political strategist had hired a Bladen County man who has become the focus of many allegations.

The state elections board plans to hold a hearing later this month and could order a new election.
___
12:40 p.m.
A leader of the North Carolina Republican Party says the organization would be open to a new election if an investigation were to find a high likelihood that wrongdoing swayed the state's unresolved congressional race.

North Carolina GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse texted a statement to The Associated Press on Thursday saying that the GOP would "fully support a new election" if the state's election board shows that absentee ballot irregularities likely changed the outcome of the 9th district U.S. House race.

However, he said that if the outcome would not have been changed, the Republican candidate should be certified the winner.

Republican Mark Harris holds a narrow lead over Democrat Dan McCready.

The state's election board has declined to certify the results because of allegations of fraud and irregularities involving mail-in ballots.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Saturday, April 17, 2010

North Carolina Medicaid Swat Team

Governor Beverly Perdue of North Carolina has teamed up with her Attorney General to create a Medicaid Swat Team.

North Carolina began the creation of this action by including TRICARE in an investigation of child welfare fraud. This, still to this day, is the only instance where child welfare fraud was examined from the direction of military health care.

I can only speculate (until I call the Attorney General) that is this Medicaid Swat Team is a product of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit.

Since North Carolina is being such a progressive state in attacking Medicaid fraud (unlike Michigan), I am willing to put some money down that the state will develop the very first model to approach child welfare fraud from inside the structures of government. (I have the other models.)

All I can say is, thank you Governor Perdue, but I am still in love with Roy Cooper.

Gov. Perdue Kicks Off Campaign to Crack Down on Medicaid Fraud, Waste and Abuse

Posted on April 14, 2010. Filed under: North Carolina Medicaid | Tags: Medical practice insurance audit, NC Medicaid, NC Medicaid Audits, NC Medicaid MIC, North Carolina Medicaid Integrity Contractor |

Gov. Bev Perdue today announced a series of aggressive measures to set government straight by cracking down on Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse that costs taxpayers millions of dollars each year. The steps include stronger investigation and prosecution of potential abusers, including new Medicaid SWAT teams, better use of technology to detect and prevent abuse, and a campaign to encourage the public and providers to report suspected abuse.

“In these tough times, when Medicaid enrollment is growing even as we face deep budget shortfalls, we must do more to root out waste and crack down on folks who are abusing or defrauding Medicaid,” said Perdue. “Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars each year are wasted on Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse. It’s got to stop and we will not allow it to continue.”

A new software system in DHHS will bring the detection of potential Medicaid fraud into the 21st century, by quickly analyzing thousands of Medicaid claims and flagging suspicious cases. Once identified, the most egregious cases will go to newly created Medicaid SWAT teams, specially trained investigators who will quickly deploy to investigate providers or consumers identified as potential abusers of the system.

Gov. Perdue also called for toughening North Carolina’s anti-fraud laws by stopping kickbacks to providers that refer patients for Medicaid services and ending the practice of soliciting patients for services they don’t need.

Gov. Perdue announced these new initiatives at a press conference at Rex Hospital in Raleigh. She also called for doubling the staff size of the Attorney General’s Medicaid Investigations Unit and an aggressive awareness campaign to encourage individuals and providers to report Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse when they suspect it.

“Medicaid fraud hurts our state’s most vulnerable residents and robs taxpayers,” said Attorney General Roy Cooper, whose Medicaid Investigations Unit handles criminal and civil cases. “Adding more investigators and ways to detect fraud is the right direction to go to stop those who abuse the system.”

The Attorney General’s Medicaid Investigations Unit is composed of investigators, auditors, attorneys and State Bureau of Investigation agents who look into cases of fraud, abuse and neglect of residents in medical facilities that receive Medicaid funding. Proceeds from civil settlements typically reimburse Medicaid and penalties go to North Carolina public schools. Last year, the unit recovered $52 million, with a 10-year total of more than $300 million recovered.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

DOJ: Former North Carolina State Political Party Chairman Pleads Guilty to Making a False Statement to The FBI

It seems DOJ has thwarted yet another privatized, foreign human asset management forfeiture operation of stealin' the children, land and votes, for the purposes of maximizing profits off "The Poors" (always said with clinched teeth).

These privatized foreign corporate parents always insure their tiny human assets, for the best interests, of course.

North Carolina is special when it comes to the reengineering for the residuals of the peculiar institution.

Global Bankers Insurance to sell off life insurance operations



SNL Image
Greg Linberg
The former chairman of a North Carolina state political party pleaded guilty today to making a false statement to the FBI in connection with a federal investigation into the attempted bribery of a North Carolina elected official.  U.S. Magistrate Judge David S. Cayer presided over the plea hearing.

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Andrew Murray for the Western District of North Carolina and Special Agent in Charge John A. Strong of the FBI Charlotte Field Office made the announcement.

On March 18, 2019, a criminal indictment was filed in the Western District of North Carolina, charging Robert Cannon Hayes, 74, of Concord, North Carolina, who at the time was Chairman of a state political party in North Carolina; Greg E. Lindberg, founder and Chairman of Eli Global LLC (Eli Global) and the owner of Global Bankers Insurance Group (GBIG); John D. Gray, a consultant for Lindberg; and John V. Palermo, an Eli Global executive, for allegedly attempting to make improper campaign contributions to the elected Commissioner of Insurance (Commissioner) of the North Carolina Department of Insurance (NCDOI), in exchange for official personnel action favorable to Lindberg’s company, GBIG.

Eli Global
https://www.eliglobal.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Global
According to admissions Hayes made in connection with his guilty plea, on or about Aug. 28, 2018, Hayes falsely stated to FBI agents that he had never spoken with the NCDOI Commissioner about personnel or personnel problems at NCDOI or about Lindberg or Gray.  At the time that Hayes made the false statements, the FBI was investigating matters related to the attempted bribery of the Commissioner, therefore the defendant’s false statements were material to the investigation.

As Hayes admitted in court today, at the time he made the materially false statements, Hayes knew that it was unlawful to lie to the FBI, and knew that his statements were false because Hayes had in fact spoken with the NCDOI Commissioner about Lindberg and Gray, and about Lindberg’s request that the Commissioner move certain personnel within NCDOI.

Lindberg, Gray, and Palermo are each charged with conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, and bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds and aiding and abetting. Their charges are still pending.  The details contained in the indictment are allegations.  The defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

The FBI’s Charlotte Field Office is leading the investigation.

Trial Attorney James C. Mann of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys William Stetzer and Dana Washington of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte are prosecuting the case.

Hayes’s resume: Congress, legislature, state GOP chair. Now he’s a defendant.

Here's what happened and the key players involved in the NCGOP chairman bribery and corruption charges

Chairman Robin Hayes and major campaign donor Greg Lindberg are at the center for this case. it all started when Mike Causey reported to officials issues with campaign contributions.

As an heir to the Cannon Mills textile fortune, Robin Hayes continued his family’s philanthropic work in Cabarrus County while serving as a Republican member of Congress, candidate for governor and state GOP chairman as the party swept to statewide victories.

This week, the genial, 73-year-old Hayes played a most unfamiliar role: a defendant under indictment for allegedly trying to funnel bribe money to the reelection campaign of North Carolina’s insurance commissioner.

That news came a day after Hayes announced Monday that he wouldn’t seek reelection as state chair, saying he would focus instead on recovery from recent hip surgery.

Party leaders at the time heaped praise on Hayes, crediting him with leading a Republican resurgence while serving as chair from 2011 to 2013 and again since 2016. The role confirmed his long-held gravitas among the party’s leadership, Christian conservatives and the business community.

“I could always count on Chairman Robin Hayes,” former Gov. Pat McCrory said in a statement accompanying Monday’s announcement. “His dedication to public service, the Republican Party and his fellow man are unquestioned.”

“It’s because of his leadership that the national convention is coming to North Carolina in 2020!” added Susan Mills, vice chair of the Ninth District GOP.

On Wednesday, the party said Hayes would turn over his duties to district chair Aubrey Woodard, who will serve as the state GOP’s acting chair. Hayes looks forward to clearing his name from this week’s allegations, his attorney, Kearns Davis, said in a statement.

Hayes is the grandson of textile magnate Charles Cannon, the founder of Cannon Mills, once the world’s largest producer of towels and sheets. The company was sold in 1982 and, following the bankruptcy of its buyer, the landmark main mill in Kannapolis was demolished in 2005.

The family’s fingerprints on the state continue through its philanthropies. Hayes still serves on the boards of the Cannon Foundation, which makes grants for healthcare, higher education, human services and community projects, and the Charles A. Cannon Charitable Trusts, according to their websites.

Hayes was born in Concord on the August day in 1945 when Japan surrendered to end World War II. He’s the only child of Shell oil distributor Robert Hayes and Mariam Cannon Hayes, the daughter of Cannon Mills magnate Charles Cannon. He graduated from Duke University and worked as a hosiery mill owner and highway contractor.

His public service began in 1978, when he was elected to Concord’s town board. Years later he said former President Ronald Reagan had sparked his interest in politics.

Hayes was elected to the N.C. House in 1992, serving two terms and rising to majority whip. He ran for governor in 1996, losing to four-term Democratic Gov. Jim Hunt, but was elected to the U.S. House representing the 8th Congressional District in 1998.

“He was devoted to the Republican Party and to conservative principles of government — that’s why this is so stunning to me. It’s so out of character for him,” said former Charlotte mayor Richard Vinroot, who lost to Hayes in the 1996 Republican primary for governor.

Vinroot said he had been surprised that, following his decade in Congress, Hayes had invested so much of his time in building up the state GOP. “He may have gotten carried away with building the party,” he said, “but I know for sure he didn’t do it for Robin Hayes.”

In 2008, near the end of his five terms, Hayes was the eighth-wealthiest member of Congress with a net worth estimated at $82 million. Following the death of his mother, an auction that year of family treasures included a 19th-century Conestoga wagon and documents signed by presidents George Washington and Andrew Jackson.

As a House member, Hayes came under heavy political fire in 2005 for flipping his vote to support the Central American Free Trade Agreement, breaking a tie that passed the measure. Democrats argued the deal would send textile jobs to Central America. Hayes insisted his vote would help save the ailing industry.

In 2007, he defended NASCAR fans after some congressional aides were told to get hepatitis shots before visiting Charlotte Motor Speedway on a fact-finding trip about public health preparedness at mass gatherings.

“I feel compelled to ask why the heck the (Homeland Security) committee feels that immunizations are needed to travel to my hometown,” Hayes thundered in a letter to the committee’s Democratic chairman. “I have been to numerous NASCAR races, and the folks who attend these events certainly do not pose any health hazard to congressional staffers or anyone else.”

A ‘MOST SUCCESSFUL’ NC GOP CHAIR
Hayes’s 2008 campaign spent $3.8 million on his reelection, compared to his opponent’s $1.5 million, but Hayes lost to former textile worker and teacher Larry Kissell after narrowly defeating Kissell in 2006.

A slip-up two weeks before the election didn’t improve Hayes’s chances. “Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God,” he told a crowd in Concord before an appearance by then-presidential candidate John McCain.

Hayes initially denied making the remark but later said he “wasn’t thinking” when he did so. The comment dogged him for the rest of the campaign, and Kissell easily won the seat. Four years later, Hayes’ former district director, Richard Hudson, beat Kissell to reclaim the 8th Congressional District seat for Republicans.

In the 2012 elections, during Hayes’ first stint as state GOP chair, Republicans gained a veto-proof supermajority in the state House and expanded one in the Senate, gained three congressional seats and made McCrory the state’s first Republican governor in nearly two decades.

Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the “pro-family” N.C. Values Coalition, said it’s hard for her to square this week’s indictment with the kind, likeable Hayes she’s known since he served in the legislature in the early 1990s. “He’s a steady man of prayer, and I greatly respect him,” she said.

Fitzgerald credits Hayes as a leader in opposing abortion and advocating abstinence-based sex education. As state party chair, she said, he was skilled at bringing factions together.


“He has led the conservative movement in this state to a great degree,” she said. “He’s been a man of integrity and I greatly appreciate how he conducts himself.”


When Hayes returned as state chair in 2016, replacing the ousted Hasan Harnett after a series of controversies, the GOP delivered 15 electoral votes for President Donald Trump and took six of nine Council of State seats.

In a Charlotte Observer op-ed following allegations of election fraud in the 9th Congressional District last December, Hayes railed against “paid political mercenaries” and called for their prosecution as “a scourge on our democracy.” He wrote that the state GOP had no knowledge of the absentee ballot harvesting under investigation.

“This is a national embarrassment that can never be allowed to repeat itself,” he wrote.
Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Thursday, August 30, 2018

North Carolina Ordered To ReDo Gerrymandering, Michigan Primary Election Still Not Recorded

If North Carolina has to redraw its gerrymandered congressional maps, then there is a strong likelihood that Michigan will have to do the same.

You should really look at the 13th and 14 Congressional Districts, which are the focus of the video.


Allow me to sum up how the Congressional Districts were drawn favorably for data manipulation, not for the people.

They were stealin'.


See, it goes like this.

You pick candidates to run for office who will do whatever you tell them to do, and fund their campaigns.

Then, you give them pretty shiny reports on what they should do, because you know they cannot understand anything beyond running for a second term.

Then, you compromise them, in the most productive fashion, whether through bribery or blackmail.

Then the people become poor so you can steal the kids.

Then you allow fake corporations to swoop in and steal the homes using fake mortgage fraud schemes, even international ones.

Then the homes go into foreclosure and more fake corporations swoop in and snatch the homes to sit and rot, for the purposes of qualifying for more money, Hardest Hit Funds and insurance jobs.

Then, you run fake tax foreclosure schemes to snatch more houses.

Then, because population has decreased, you get to redraw the Congressional Districts using databases and predictive modeling crap.

Then, you put in more of your lackey candidates who are really good at reading talking point memos to cover up your stealin'.

Then, you do vote packing by using absentee ballots to submit fake votes through the City Election Clerk's Office in the databases.

Then you get your flunky on the Board of Canvassers to approve anything you tell them to do.

Finally, you hand out properties as rewards to the elected officials and community leaders who went along with the scheme.

And that is why John Roberts is my new best friend.

As of this posting, the Michigan Board of Canvassers has yet to certify the 13th Congressional District and the entire Primary Election has yet to be recorded.

I will update.

Here is a bit of background on gerrymandering in Michigan.

North Carolina Is Ordered to Redraw Its Gerrymandered Congressional Map. Again.

"Hey, Boo Boo!"
A panel of three federal judges again declared North Carolina’s congressional district map to be unconstitutional, ruling on Monday that it was gerrymandered to unfairly favor Republican candidates.

The decision, which may have significant implications for control of Congress after the midterm elections, is likely to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which for the moment is evenly split on ideological lines without a ninth justice to tip the balance.

Though North Carolina’s voters tend to divide about evenly between the two parties, Republicans currently hold 10 of the state’s 13 House seats. A redrawn district map may put more of the seats within Democrats’ reach.

The three judges had ruled unanimously in January that the state’s House map violated the First and 14th Amendments by unfairly giving one group of voters — Republicans — a bigger voice than others in choosing representatives

But the Supreme Court declined in June to hear an appeal in the case, sending it back for reconsideration under guidelines it had set out in a different case about who had legal standing to challenge the map.

In a lengthy ruling on Monday, the panel reached largely the same conclusion that it had in January. And the judges agreed that the plaintiffs in the case — voting-rights advocacy groups and residents of each of North Carolina’s 13 districts — had standing to bring the suit.

The judges left open the possibility that they could order new maps to be drawn before the 2018 election, either by the North Carolina General Assembly or by a special master appointed by the court.

The ruling sets up a delicate tactical question for the Supreme Court, which has never ruled a partisan gerrymander to be unconstitutional, passing up three separate opportunities to do so in its last term. With the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy at the end of July, the court is now divided between four conservatives who have expressed skepticism about the court’s ability to tinker with political maps, and four more liberal justices who have argued that it has that ability.

A 4-to-4 vote would leave the lower court’s ruling intact.

The swing vote on the issue would probably be Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., whom many voting-rights advocates see as the only prospect on the court — and a slim one, at that — for a fifth vote to outlaw partisan gerrymanders.

Of the welter of cases on the issue that have moved through the federal courts in recent years, the North Carolina case is perhaps the starkest. The state’s Republican-dominated legislature redrew the House map in 2016 under orders from a different federal court, which had ruled that some districts drawn in 2011 were racially gerrymandered, a practice the Supreme Court has already ruled unconstitutional.

The 2011 map had turned a 7-to-6 Democratic edge in the state’s House delegation to a 9-to-4 Republican one. The redrawn map in 2016 — the one at issue now — produced a 10-to-3 ratio, but the legislature explicitly said that it had been drawn not to disadvantage minority groups, but to hurt Democrats.

“I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats, because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats,” David R. Lewis, a North Carolina state representative who helped lead the remapping, said in 2016.

The three-judge panel ruled in January, though, that the change in motive did not make the map acceptable. It found that the legislature’s intent was “to ‘subordinate’ the interests of non-Republican voters and ‘entrench’ Republican domination of the state’s congressional delegation,” a view they reaffirmed on Monday.

The chief author of the panel’s latest opinion, Judge James J. Wynn of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, said the legislature’s “invidious partisanship runs contrary to the Constitution’s vesting of the power to elect representatives in ‘the people.’”

The three judges left open, for the moment, what would happen next. They gave the parties in the case until the end of this month to file briefs on whether the court should allow the existing map to be used one more time, in the midterm election, or should order that it be redrawn by mid-September.
With the election less than three months distant, Judge Wynn noted, a court normally would allow one more use of the old map, so as not to disrupt election preparations, especially since North Carolina has already held primaries for the races.

But the state’s election plans are already frozen by another bitter court battle, this one over Republican lawmakers’ efforts to place six state constitutional amendments on the November ballot. Among other things, those measures would strip the state’s Democratic governor of some powers to appoint judges and would allow the legislature to devise a new voter ID law to replace one struck down in the courts, which ruled it an effort to depress minority voting.

It was conceivable, Judge Wynn wrote, that the state could hold a fresh primary election for House seats in November using a new map, and then conduct a special election to choose the delegation before the next Congress convenes in January 2019. He also raised the possibility of forgoing primaries, as the state does with some other offices.

The ruling promised to further roil the political scene in a state with one of the deepest partisan divides in the nation, and where both liberals and conservatives receive support from well-financed national groups.

Redistricting has been contentious in North Carolina for decades. In the years before 2010 when Democrats controlled the General Assembly, the Democratic-drawn boundaries were regularly challenged by Republicans, by critics of gerrymandering and by the Justice Department, which deemed some of their plans to be in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Since the Republicans took control in 2010, their legislative boundary maps have prompted numerous court challenges from Democrats and advocacy groups.

Registered Democrats actually outnumber Republicans in the state by a significant margin, though many of those Democrats are conservatives who have tended to vote Republican in recent years. President Trump carried the state by about 3.7 percentage points in 2016.

With this week’s ruling, North Carolina now faces the possibility that its House delegation will be more evenly split, but it also faces the possibility of electoral chaos, according to Gerry Cohen, who worked for more than three decades as the director of bill drafting for the General Assembly.

If changes are made this year, Mr. Cohen said, significant bureaucratic miracles will have to be performed to meet a deadline of Sept. 22 for mailing absentee ballots to voters in the military and overseas.

Imagine it, Mr. Cohen said: New districts will have to be drawn. The courts — and perhaps the Supreme Court — will need time to rule on them. A filing period for candidates will have to open and close. The state will have to update its rolls to assign millions of voters to their new districts. And ballots will have to be printed. All before Sept. 22.

“I’m very sympathetic to the plaintiffs here, but it would be insane,” Mr. Cohen said, to try to meet that timetable.

He said that while the ruling could eventually help Democrats, it also introduces new political questions. If the next delegation is chosen in a special election in early 2019, as the court suggested may be an option, Democrats may struggle to turn out voters, as they historically have in special elections. Alternatively, if the seats are filled in open races without a primary, numerous candidates could be on the ballot from the same party, splitting the vote.

Though the state’s existing map was drawn aggressively to protect Republican incumbents, rising liberal opposition to President Trump and the emergence of several strong Democratic candidates already have some House Republicans on the defensive.
Representatives Ted Budd and George Holding, for example, were facing closely contested races, and Democrats were even better positioned to capture a Charlotte-to-Fayetteville seat after the Republican incumbent, Robert Pittenger, lost his primary earlier this year to a lightly funded opponent.

Under a new, less Republican-friendly map, more seats could become competitive, especially in Charlotte and the Research Triangle, the state’s main population centers, where the current boundaries tend to minimize the voting impact of African-Americans and white liberals.




An earlier version of this article misstated the usual number of Supreme Court justices whose assent is required for the court to hear a case. It is four, not five.
Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©