APD chief is out
Welp, we're going to need a new police chief. Asheville Police Chief Tammy Hooper is resigning. She lasted about three years.
On the way out the door, she's getting a $118,000 consulting contract with the city.
From Mountain Xpress:
The latest shakeup among high-level Asheville city government staff has been a long time coming. In a Nov. 7 press release, interim City Manager Cathy Ball announced that Asheville Police Department Chief Tammy Hooper would be resigning effective Wednesday, Jan. 2 — as well as that Hooper had previously attempted to resign in February.
That timing puts Hooper’s initial resignation notice, which city officials did not share publicly at the time, in the same month as the Feb. 28 publication by the Asheville Citizen Times of body camera footage showing former APD officer Chris Hickman beating Asheville resident Johnnie Jermaine Rush. Public anger over the incident led to harsh criticism of the department, including an online petition to fire Hooper with nearly 250 signatures.
However, the exact order of events surrounding the resignation remains unclear.
The new city manager takes over next month.
You'll never guess who funded the Supreme Court troll's campaign
Surprise, surprise!
The Democrat pretending to be a Republican in order to help Anita Earls win a seat on the NC Supreme Court was funded by.... wait for it...
DEMOCRATS!
From WRAL:
Controversial state Supreme Court candidate Chris Anglin's campaign finance report is finally public, and his top funders by far were major players in local Democratic politics.
Anglin's campaign also appears to have violated state campaign finance law by filing its report by mail, instead of electronically, which is required of statewide campaigns that raise more than $5,000.
As a result, voters went to the polls Tuesday without knowing who funded Anglin's campaign, which raised more than $17,000. Most of that money came from one couple: Dean and Sesha Debnam, significant donors to Democratic candidates.
Knock me over with a feather.
Bonus points for the slimy filing tactic, too.
Not mentioned in the story -- the Dean Debnam founded Public Policy Polling. The Debnams also maxed out their contribution to Democrat Anita Earls.
The red wave out of California
Exit polling out of Texas suggests a lot of the people fleeing California are conservatives, undermining the narrative that Sunshine State leftists are turning the Lone Star State blue. From the Texas Tribune:
First, these newcomers, on average, tend to be conservative. Pooling data from the May 2012 and February 2013 UT/Tribune surveys, we found that 57 percent of these California transplants consider themselves to be conservative, while only 27 percent consider themselves to be liberal
Interestingly, the Trib suggests that former Gov. Rick Perry's pitch to California conservatives to come to Texas might have had an impact.