Charlotte Newspaper Busted On Hagan Cover-Up
Media bias surfaces again in North Carolina Senate contest.
American Commitment president Phil Kerpen recently caught The Charlotte Observer dumping an article laying out North Carolina Democrat Kay Hagan’s connection to potentially serious mishandling of stimulus funds.
From the cached version of the article:
State officials say a stimulus grant given to a company run by Kay Hagan’s husband needs “further legal review.”
WBTV obtained a memo written by the Department of Energy and Natural Resources which includes a letter to the state’s auditor from last month. The memo states that NCDENR is looking into potential conflict of interest claims involving Senator Kay Hagan.
NCDENR says they have reviewed grant records and found conflict of issue claims warranted further legal review. Kay Hagan’s husband manages one of the companies in question, who received an energy efficiency grant money in 2010.
According to the NC Department of Energy and Natural Resources, the grant agreement included provisions prohibiting family members from receiving incentive payments, “these rules require, among other things, that no one with direct lineal relations may receive incentive payment. For example, the mother, father, brother, sister, son or daughter or a contractor working in this Program cannot receive Awards, contracts and subcontracts.”
The federal Department of Energy Assistance grant agreement had similar regulations that included members of the immediate family, partners, or people who has a financial interest in the firm selected for the grant.
The current version of the same page offers a 404 error, and the Observer has not offered an explanation for the article’s removal.
Real Clear Politics currently has Senate incumbent Hagan up by a razor thin margin over challenger Thom Tillis, which may or may not explain why the Observer chose to jettison the damaging article—and why the paper had previously failed to give the story any real attention.
Via Newsbusters:
A search for “Hagan” at the Observer website shows they haven’t really dug into this story. There’s a brief citation of Politico’s reporting on September 26. There’s a (perhaps unavoidable) reference to it in a debate story on October 7, with the scandal-blurring headline “Conflict-of-interest charges fly in North Carolina Senate contest.” It quickly matched up the Hagan charges with charges against Republican Thom Tillis from “the state Democratic group Forward North Carolina.”
On September 20, the Observer displayed how badly it was beat on this story by merely reporting “Hagan: A life in politics, helped by family success.” Now, it’s the other way around.
The moral of the story? This:
It's a fabulous indicator that the media is obviously sad headed into Election Day.
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) November 2, 2014
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Comments
http://www.carolinaplotthound.com/ has been all over this.
Sister Toldjah is an NC-based blogger who has been on this for some time. http://sistertoldjah.com/
Check her “Recent Posts” for several stories, including this, and even the Observer’s cover-up of her missing committee meetings.
The Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh-based News & Observer are the same company and absolutely in the tank for Dem/Lib/Progressive agenda, have been for decades. My point being this is not news to NC residents. Like most print dailies, they are dying. Their online versions are pay-walled and subscriptions are dwindling. Good riddance. The local TV ‘news’ in Charlotte and Raleigh are just about as bad.
They all ran interference for UNC-Chapel Hill (liberal density 99.6%) after the revelation of phony classes and entire programs for chosen students, 3,100 of them identified, more than half of which were athletes, and which went on for 18 freaking years. That’s not a rogue coach or AD, that’s institutionalized corruption at the state’s supposedly leading university. Why were the non-athlete students given the free ride (no papers, no tests, class attendance not required, etc.) too? They are alleged to be the less than academically brilliant sons and daughters of people well connected to the university by virtue of donations to the school and likely to certain political campaigns, and needed a little speical help to get that UNC degree necessary in their business and social circles.
With the GOP controlling everything in NC now, state Democrats and liberals are running around like smurfs on acid, pulling their blue hair out, and throwing tantrums all over the place, so forgive the editorial staff at the Charlotte Observer for not doing its normally efficient job of covertly massaging the news towards the lib agenda.
Well said, Henry. If there wasn’t so much at stake with Sen. Hagan retaining her seat, it would be comical watching all the yellow dog Democrats contorting themselves to legitimize the Hanan family’s corruption.
My fave rant is “Thom Tillis cut half a billion from education in North Carolina!” I would like to shake his hand if he did that, but alas, he did no such thing.
Why Tillis hasn’t done more to beat up Hagan over her ObamaCare vote is beyond me.
Thank you. As for Tillis laying off Obamacare with Hagan, maybe that directive came from the Rove crew who swept in to help Tillis in the primaries, as in ‘don’t demonize something we may not want to repeal’ or as in ‘there are upwards of a quarter million people in NC on Obamcare subsidies and they may vote’.
I have to steal “smurfs on acid”. It’s a perfect description of some of these critters.
This is a hard race to get a bead on. While the Democrats and the media are desperate to save Hagan, they don’t seem to have any great personal affection for her. One gets the impression my may be working to reelect her because they are getting paid to do so. Tillis hasn’t been a warm little fuzz ball, either, and his job as Speaker interfered with his fence mending after a nasty primary. The wild card is so called Libertarian Sean Haugh. He’s far less small government than he is pro pot head so it’s hard to judge which candidate he may take the most votes from. On top of that most of the news comes heavily filtered by a very biased media.
A significant number of Republican primary voters said they’d never support Tillis. Never is a very long time and I am not sure most of them would be willing to see Hagan reelected out of spite. I found it interesting that two conservative candidates on the ballot in South Carolina will be across the state line and stumping for Tillis today- Congressman Trey Gowdy and US Senator Tim Scott. That’s leaving the fence mending to the last minute, but I am not sure it could be helped.
I’ll take your theft as a compliment.
You’re right, this is a hard one to call. I’m going to fall back on standard stuff and lay it on turnout. I expect a good GOP turnout and I think only a monumental Democrat turnout effort saves Hagan. Having done nothing, Hagan is a tough sell though, and those younger voters they must have likely struggle to even identify who she is. Hard to engender enthusiasm. It’s like having to explain your joke.
I’ll go with Tillis by 2 pts on high GOP turnout on a nice sunny, dry election day. Hagan edges Tillis in Charlotte and Raleigh, and obvious high-lib areas (Chapel Hill, Asheville, etc.) but Tillis takes everything else and it’s enough. I think. Maybe.
The media used lightning speed to pull this story about a ‘rat, yet another outlet couldn’t wait to drop a scandal story on a ‘pub three days before election day.
That story was recently posted on LI; probably still on the front page.