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The New American – An assortment of new restrictions on the Second Amendment in Florida also launched an attack on the Fourth Amendment, as well. As The New American noted last week, Florida’s new “red flag” law abrogates the Fourth Amendment on the way to violating the Second Amendment:

Simply put, someone who thinks someone else might be a danger to himself or others can present his arguments to a judge who then, based upon those arguments, is free to decide whether the state (police armed with guns and badges) can forcibly remove privately and legally owned firearms from that person’s possession. The “red flag” provisions do not allow the person charged to defend himself or even to know who his accuser might be. Further, he must prove his innocence in order to get his confiscated firearms returned to him. He is “guilty until he proves himself innocent.”

All in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

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The New American – In the past few years of heavy marketing and media attention in the form of favorable media coverage that amounts to a combination of free advertising and incessant pressure, one would expect that the electric car market would have taken off. It hasn’t, though. It survives on government handouts.

In fact, in areas without heavy-handed government pressure, less than one percent of new cars sold are electric, according to a report by Reuters last September. That report also said that the Norwegian island of Finnøy has the highest density of electric cars anywhere in the world — where about one in five cars is electric. The article gives a good reason for those numbers: Those driving electric cars are exempt from the $6,000-a-year toll charges for the tunnel to the mainland. So over the life of the car, those traveling back and forth to the mainland may wind up actually profiting from buying a car they would not likely have otherwise elected to purchase.

In other words, those electric cars are actually paid for not by the owner, but by those who do pay the $6,000-a-year toll charges and higher taxes that go to line the pockets of electric-car buyers. Far from being an endorsement of the joys of electric car ownership, this proves that in the absence of government handouts in the form of tax and toll breaks, the electric-car market would die of natural causes.

And while Norway is an extreme example of that principle, it is perhaps the perfect example. As the article explains, “State subsidies support sales of electric cars around the world, and Norway has the most electric cars per capita thanks to the most generous handouts. It offers nationwide tax breaks for users of electric cars that can be worth tens of thousands of dollars, plus various local incentives like exemptions from road tolls and parking fees.”

Former Norwegian central bank governor Svein Gjedrem put it this way: “Economic incentives work, especially if they are very, very, very strong as in Finnøy.” What this means is that when the free market rejects a product — in this case, an overpriced, under-performing car that has higher maintenance costs, a vastly limited range, and requires hours of charge before being able to travel that limited distance — the Big Government answer is to use taxpayer funds to artificially prop it up.

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Most every man, woman and child in North Carolina is impacted directly or indirectly by the Office of
State Treasurer so on this special edition of NC SPIN we asked State Treasurer Dale Folwell to come report
to the people of our state and discuss some of the relevant issues impacting North Carolina.
Topics: Overview, Investments, State Health Plan, State Retirement System, and Other Duties and Responsibilities.

7 Points a Virginia Lawmaker Made in a Speech on Guns That Went Viral

An Iraq combat veteran is getting attention for a fiery speech to fellow members of the Virginia House of Delegates defending the Second Amendment and its supporters.

Delegate Nick Freitas, a Republican elected in 2016 to represent Culpeper, Madison, and Orange counties, is a business consultant and former Green Beret who served two combat tours in Iraq.

After asking permission to make remarks on the House floor, Freitas spoke for seven minutes March 2. A video of his speech went viral after the lawmaker shared it on his Facebook page, and now has more than 13 million views.

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Speaker Tim Moore, Raleigh, N.C. – The chairmen of the state House Select Committee on School Safety have announced the committee’s first meeting is planned for Wednesday, March 21, 2018 at 9:00 am in Room 643 of the Legislative Office Building.

The committee plans to meet until noon, break for a two-hour lunch and resume at 2 p.m.

North Carolina House Reps. David Lewis (R-Harnett) and John Torbett (R-Gaston), co-chairs of the House Select Committee on School Safety, released a joint statement:

“This committee’s proactive process will produce a valuable resource for North Carolina citizens, educators and law enforcement,” Lewis and Torbett said in a statement. “We hope the committee record can serve as a centralized and comprehensive overview of school safety in our state.”

“Our first mission is to provide data, reports and expert input from state and local officials who are trained and experienced in school safety to the committee members. Next, we can consider new policy recommendations, hear innovative ideas and review which current procedures are effectively protecting students and educators.”

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NewsMax – As I write this column in mid-February 2018, immigration reform has taken center stage in Washington, D.C.

Two North Carolina lawmakers, each with competing visions on how to handle illegal immigration, are in the thick of the debate. Respectfully they are Rep. Mark Meadows and Sen. Thom Tillis.

Tillis is an advocate of The Secure and Succeed Act, which is backed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and endorsed by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

In a nutshell, the Secure and Succeed Act calls for merit based immigration legislation designed to resolve the legal uncertainty facing illegal, undocumented minors. It would include provisions to help deter illegal immigration, prevent chain migration, end the diversity lottery and bar benefits for parents/of children. It also calls for twenty five billion dollars to bolster defenses along the border with Mexico and it provides an eventual path to citizenship for approximately 2 million Dreamers. See Senator Tillis’ Senate office Webpage.

Over in the U.S. House — Rep. Mark Meadows, R- N.C., who is chairman of the Freedom Caucus, supports the legislation of House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. Essentially that legislation would lead with security and enforcement first and does not offer amnesty.

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The Washington Free Beacon – Knick v. Scott Township raises questions of which courts protect property.

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it would hear arguments in the case of a Pennsylvania farm owner whose case could potentially overturn part of a previous ruling that critics have attacked as making it much harder for property owners to protect their rights in federal court.

The case, Knick v. Scott Township, Pennsylvania, concerns Rose Mary Knick, who owns a 90-acre property in rural eastern Pennsylvania, where she and her family have lived since 1970. Knick found herself subjected to a township ordinance which allowed anyone—including township employees—to freely pass on her private property. Knick v. Scott Township concerns Knick’s attempt to secure her property rights in both state and federal court, and the unexpected procedural stoppages that have kept her normally private farm free and open to the public.

“Property owners are treated differently, and more poorly, than other classes of citizens when it comes to having a day in court. Mrs. Knick’s catch-22 case, where she’s yanked around from state to federal to state court without a hearing is an example of that,” said J. David Breemer, a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is representing Knick.

Knick’s story begins in 2008, when someone made a public inquiry suggesting that there was an “ancient burial ground” on her land. Knick denied any such burial ground’s existence, which further was not documented either on her title or in any official state registry or documentation.

In 2012, the township created a first-of-its-kind ordinance mandating that owners of cemeteries allow right-of-way and access to the sites during daylight hours, even if said cemeteries are on private property. That regulation was called “extraordinary and constitutionally suspect” by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard Knick’s case before it went to the Supreme Court.

What the ordinance meant was that members of the public could enter Knick’s otherwise-private property with abandon, based on the alleged but seemingly non-existent cemetery. The ordinance also meant that a township code enforcement officer entered Knick’s property without permission, in what may constitute a violation of Knick’s Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search.

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by Reps. Michael McCaul and Mark Meadows | Mar 7, 2018, 12:01 AM
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/michael-mccaul-and-mark-meadows-resist-russian-manipulation-and-stay-united/article/2650862
The Russians are employing a Soviet-derived disinformation strategy against us. Their latest target? The tragic Valentine’s Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

During the decadeslong Cold War, the Soviet Union spread false information throughout the U.S. to deceive the public about our government. This deceiving tactic was known as “dezinformatsiya.”

Almost 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and many attempts by the U.S. to become international partners with Russia, Moscow is once again embracing its role as an American adversary.

Through the exploitation of social media, the Russian government is recycling yesterday’s tactics with today’s technology. Its goal is to sow discord within our country and undermine trust in our public institutions. By pursuing a strategy of chaos, they are attempting to create division among our people and allies.

This is the same objective outlined in the Department of Justice’s indictment of the Internet Research Agency, based in St. Petersburg, Russia, which sought to create internal conflict through information warfare that targeted anyone with a political or social agenda.

Ironically, their conduits were the very platforms we created — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Our efforts to promote an open, secure, and reliable information and communications infrastructure to foster free expression is being abused by a country that espouses the opposite.

In June 2017, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued their Russia Military Power report, a revival of their Soviet Military Power report that was distributed annually in the 1980s. It identified Russia’s updated Soviet disinformation strategy as “information confrontation,” which includes diplomatic, economic, military, political, cultural, social, and religious information arenas to shape perceptions and manipulate the behavior of target audiences.

Russia targets these audiences in cyberspace through the use of bots, trolls, hacktivists, and other malicious cyber actors. This state-backed cyber apparatus also targeted our friends in Ukraine, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, and others across Europe. More personally, this apparatus targeted our election, our voting systems, and created counter-protests between our people. According to the German Marshall Fund, this strategy was deployed during the impassioned national debate about the NFL anthem protests with the intent to stir national divisions.

The Alliance for Democracy tracks a network of 600 Russian-linked Twitter accounts that have been connected to influence operations in the United States. At the end of January, these accounts were promoting narratives and attacks against the FBI, the DOJ, and the release of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act memo.

Immediately following the recent massacre in Parkland, their Twitter posts included contradictory hashtags on both sides of the gun control debate. They even falsely claimed the shooter searched Arabic phrases on Google before the shooting.

This follows the same pattern of other Russian online activities to stoke public doubt about American institutions like the police, the FBI, our intelligence community, and our media. These are pillars upon which our republic stands, upon which our democracy relies — pillars the Russians are attempting to destroy.

We cannot allow this assault to continue.

Fortunately, we have begun to take action. Last year our election systems were designated as critical infrastructure. This year, the Department of Homeland Security has provided important briefings to state election officials. NATO modernized its command structure to emphasize a greater focus on cyber, and the State Department created the Global Engagement Center to counter state and nonstate propaganda.

These are very important steps, but we must do more to counter Russian and other nations’ disinformation efforts that are attacking our way of life, and exploiting the technology our nation’s ingenuity created.

That is why we as a nation, as a society, must work together to resist this Russian manipulation.

It is quite clear Russia is trying to reclaim its superpower status from the last half of the 20th century by weakening the U.S.

If America is to remain that “shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere,” as former President Ronald Reagan said, we must do more to promote our values and way of life against the autocratic repression spreading across our globe.

Turning against one another and losing faith in the institutions established to protect us not only weakens our resolve as a nation, but moves us dangerously close to becoming the victims of a poisonous Russian agenda.

Consider the prescient farewell address of President George Washington, in which he warned that “[the agitation] of the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption.”

We must be alert to Russian disinformation. We must be alert to the division and discord it is intended to sow. And we must join together with our European friends to be the vanguard of freedom and prevent Russian aggression from rising out of the “ash heap of history.”

Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican, is chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. He represents the 10th Congressional District of Texas. Rep. Mark Meadows, a Republican, represents North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District.

Washington, D.C. – On Tuesday, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) introduced two bills to provide resources for enhancing school security and keeping students safe.

The first, the Protect America’s Schools Act, would provide $1.5 billion in supplemental appropriations to the Community Oriented Policing Services’ School Resource Officer program. The second, the Veterans Securing Schools Act, would allow Veterans hired by a state or local agency to serve as School Resource Officers. This bill gives state and local law enforcement agencies greater flexibility in hiring Veterans to protect school campuses.

These two bills are the direct results of input from sheriffs and law enforcement officers across Western North Carolina.

Rep. Meadows released the following statement:

“Our country is in the midst of a defining moment where we have an opportunity to come together and develop common sense solutions to safeguard our children in school. While gun control is not the answer, the best and most effective path forward, I believe, is one that safeguards our schools from becoming “soft targets,” or areas with little to stand in the way of someone with bad intentions. The two bills I’m introducing today—one to commit $1.5 billion to the school resource officer program, and one to allow state and local employed veterans to serve as school security officers—will go a long way in helping provide schools both adequate resources and trained personnel to protect our kids.

In particular, I want to thank our local law enforcement officials in my district—their input and expertise have been invaluable as we look to find solutions on how to keep our children safe in school. No matter where you stand on the issue of gun safety, one principle remains true: when the people closest to the issues at home are directly involved in the conversation, it produces good results. I thank them for their willingness to engage.”

Henderson County Sheriff Charles McDonald, who recently attended a school safety roundtable at the White House hosted by President Trump, gave the following statement regarding the process in developing this legislation:

“As the discussion about our need to properly secure our schools continues, once again we see the benefit an advocate for our district like Congressman Mark Meadows brings to the table. I supported Congressman Meadows’ original Protect America’s Schools Act in 2013, as he tried to assist local law enforcement in delivering a safer school environment for our children, and I have seen his unwavering support for securing our communities ever since. As counties like ours look at the myriad of options to improve school safety, this initial funding for School Resource Officers is a great step to ensure that our local governments have access to the funding they need should they determine that increased officer presence is one facet of the strategy they want to adopt. I appreciate Congressman Meadows for once again taking the lead in this area and join him in supporting this critical effort.”

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Washington Examiner – U.S. environmental activists who are working to halt the production and use of fossil fuels could be required to register as foreign agents if Congress gets serious about enforcing an existing law.

There was some potential movement in that direction last October when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced legislation that would put some teeth into the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The law, which was first passed in 1938, calls for individuals and organizations to provide full disclosure when they are working to advance the public policy interests of a foreign government.

As the Washington Examiner has reported, Grassley’s proposed legislation would close off an exemption that has allowed lobbyists for foreign interests to avoid registration while providing the U.S. attorney general with additional authority to conduct investigations.

While the media remains largely focused on ongoing investigations into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, the connection between Vladimir Putin’s government and U.S. environmental groups deserves more scrutiny.

Klein Ltd., a Bermuda-based shell corporation run by executives with strong ties to longtime Putin friend Leonid Reiman and Russian energy investment groups including Firebird New Russia Fund and Vimpelcom Ltd., reportedly funneled $23 million to the Sea Change Foundation, according to a detailed 2014 U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee report.

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More on the Russia Connection:  Natalie Grant was an expert in Soviet propaganda (see here). Way back in 1998, she wrote “Gorbachev and Global Enviro-Communism”— which is about the Marxist roots of the Global Warming issue, which in-turn spawned the renewable energy craze. – John Droz, Jr., physicist and citizen advocate

Remember: the word “sustainability” is code for extracting the rights from unwitting citizens.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Family Research Council (FRC) Action recently released its annual scorecard for the First Session of the 115th Congress. U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) is among a new record of 245 Members of Congress who scored a perfect 100 percent for votes cast last year. He was recently presented with FRC Action’s “True Blue” award for displaying unwavering commitment and consistent support of faith, family, and freedom.

Votes in the U.S. House and Senate included:

• No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion
• Disapproval of Obama’s HHS Title X Rule
• Obamacare Repeal and Replace
• Confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court
• DOD Transgender Funding (Blocking Funding for Sex-Reassignment Surgeries)
• D.C. Budget Autonomy
• D.C. Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Amendment
• Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act
• Independent Payment Advisory Board Repeal
• Confirmation of Amy Barrett to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
• Tax Cuts & Jobs Act

Family Research Council Action President Tony Perkins made the following comment:

“We thank Rep. Meadows for consistently voting to defend and advance faith, family and freedom. As a ‘True Blue Member’ he voted 100 percent on FRC Action’s Scorecard including votes to repeal and replace Obamacare, deliver long-needed tax cuts that are already providing much needed relief to working families, stand for religious liberty, overturn President Obama’s transgender military policy, end the forced partnership between taxpayers and Planned Parenthood, and protect pain capable babies.

“Rep. Meadows deserves praise for his unwavering commitment to stand for life, family, marriage, and religious liberty. North Carolinians should be encouraged to know that they have a Member of Congress such as Rep. Meadows who has come alongside other members and our president to begin the work of rebuilding our nation, and protecting the very values that made America great,” concluded Perkins.

Click here to download a copy of the Vote Scorecard.

Click here to read about: Honoring Billy Graham, Our Work on Gun Safety, End the Obamacare Individual Mandate, NOW, Canton Community Kitchen – A Team Dedicated to Service, Conservative Political Action Conference – 2018, Investigate the Investigators, Visit to Tri-Histill, NC-11 School Visits, Workforce Pipeline Meeting and Auria Solutions.

Check out this very interesting website Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions @ http://wiseenergy.org/

An informal all-volunteer coalition of some 10,000 individuals, and about 700 of them are PhDs or experts.

A key element of their efforts is to get the public up-to-speed on energy matters, and their website is an unparalleled educational resource.

FEE – At a 1974 dinner meeting that included Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, Arthur Laffer presented his case against President Ford’s tax increase by famously sketching a graph on a napkin to prove his point. This graph came to be known as the “Laffer Curve.”

FEE – In any academic discipline, one can find two types of experts: those who are incapable of explaining complex ideas in a simple manner; and those capable of making the difficult look easy. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the death Henry Hazlitt, one of the few economists who belongs to the second group.

Born in Philadelphia in 1894, Hazlitt developed his career as a journalist in the most influential newspapers and magazines of the country, starting at The Wall Street Journal as a typographer in 1914. During the 1920s, he wrote for several printed media outlets, including The New York Evening Post and The Nation, of which he was appointed literary director.

Hazlitt pointed out that short-sighted economic policies aimed at satisfying the claims of particular groups end up reducing the welfare of the majority.

In 1934, Hazlitt became the chief editorial writer of The New York Times, where he gained a reputation for writing about economics and finance from a free-market perspective. His outspoken opposition to the Bretton Woods Agreement had him fired after 12 successful years at the most important newspaper of the Big Apple. Yet he continued to be dedicated to his passion for writing until his death in 1993.

Despite his lack of formal academic training, Hazlitt showed a deep interest in the field of economics, which led him to write several books on the topic. In 1946, he published one of the best introductory texts on economics ever written: Economics in One Lesson.

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The New American – Hungarian Leader: Only Christianity Can Save Europe

As Europe struggles with the engineered arrival of millions of Middle Eastern and African Muslims, and with many millions more preparing to join the influx, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (shown) said a return to Christianity was Europe’s “last hope” if it is going to avoid destruction at the hands of globalists. The fiery leader, who has warned of a “treasonous conspiracy” of “internationalist fanatics” running the European Union super-state, said the greatest danger to Western civilization was now the radical politicians in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin orchestrating the mass migration and the de-Christianization of the West. Soon, the forces of Islam will be swamping Hungary not just from the South, but from West, too, as Western Europe becomes increasingly Islamic and less Christian. In response, Orbán is working to forge an alliance of nations devoted to liberty, Christianity, and the nation-state that can resist the globalist onslaught. He also vowed to take on the United Nations.

Speaking during his annual “State of the Nation” address February 18, Orbán did not mince words. The prime minister gave a rousing defense of marriage, national sovereignty, self-government, political independence, and freedom. He also slammed the globalist establishment and its leading frontmen such as George Soros. On national unity, Orbán said that Hungarians all across the political spectrum were united on “the most important issues — such as independence, defense of the borders and migration.” Blasting the globalist extremists who mock patriotism and national identity, Orbán said Hungarian patriots deserve recognition for defending their homeland and their people. “Or, in an updated form, borrowed from the Americans: Hungary First,” he said, an obvious reference to U.S. President Donald Trump and his publicly articulated “America First” agenda to take on globalism.

After alluding to a national party that believes Islam and mass Islamic immigration into Europe are the future, Orbán fired back and suggested it did not have to end up that way. “All I can say, politely but firmly, is that Hungary deserves better than this,” warned Orbán, who has increasingly become a target of the globalist establishment and its dishonest smear campaigns. “But for a moment let’s take them seriously and make it clear that we are people who think that the last hope for Europe is Christianity. Today when European people talk about Christianity — and this distinction is important — they are primarily thinking of its culture and their way of life. This is why, according to opinion polls and analyses, 78 percent of people in Hungary want us to preserve our Christian culture and our Christian traditions.” Poland recently recognized Jesus Christ as its only King.

However, outside Hungary and a few other nations, Orbán acknowledged that the picture may not be so rosy. Noting that commentators are talking about “dark clouds gathering over Europe” due to mass immigration, Orbán said the danger was clear just from looking at the numbers. “According to estimates, in European countries to the west of us the percentage of immigrants will grow at an ever faster pace,” he said, mentioning France and the Netherlands in particular. In Germany, Orbán continued, the percentage of German-born citizens is in rapid decline, as Islamic immigrants occupy the cities first. “For instance, in Bavaria now more money is being spent on asylum, immigration and integration than on the combined state budget for the economy, the environment and health care,” the Hungarian leader said, adding that the number of Muslim children in European schools was soaring as the population of native Europeans declines precipitously.

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The New American – Although they are a small minority in the Republic of South Africa, white farmers own most of the land. Under an openly racist redistributionist policy announced by South Africa’s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa (shown), land will be taken away from whites and given to black South Africans — all without any compensation.

In an address to the parliament meeting in Cape Town a few days ago, Ramaphosa said, “The expropriation of land without compensation is envisaged as one of the measures that we will use to accelerate redistribution of land to black South Africans.”

He claimed that this will heal divisions and injustices of the past, arguing that the original European colonists took land away from indigenous black tribes 400 years ago.

Confiscation is another word for theft, all done under the cover of law — what 19th-century French philosopher Frédéric Bastiat aptly called “legal plunder.” Besides its dubious morality, this policy has predictable economic consequences.

All South Africans have to do is look next door to neighboring Zimbabwe, formerly known as Rhodesia. Rhodesia was another black-majority nation with a white minority that ran the government and owned most of the land, until pushed into opening the polls to the black majority. That is when Robert Mugabe, a self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist, took over the country after winning the 1980 general election. Almost immediately, Mugabe began a land-redistribution program.

Land was taken from white farmers by the Mugabe regime, forcing the farmers off the land. At the time, Zimbabwe was a net exporter of food, especially to neighboring African nations. But as the professional farmers were driven off the land, and many chose to leave the country, food production plummeted. Now, the country relies on food assistance from the United Nations.

Under Mugabe’s socialist economy, Zimbabwe became a laughingstock, with a hyperinflation that destroyed the monetary system and led to a deep economic depression, now decades old. Finally, Mugabe was ousted in a coup d’etat in 2017.

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House District 114 – Kris Lindstam

House District 115 – Nathan West

House District 115 – Amy Evans

House District 116 – Marilyn A. Brown

Senate District 49 – Mark Crawford

Click here and then click on Big Blue Box on the left side under “See who’s filed today!” to see ALL candidates running for office in Buncombe County.

Click here to read: Protecting Consumers’ Access to Credit Act, Connect to Congress, and Black History Month.