Ken and Meredith Williams of Georgia finally got a home loan, but it took a Youtube video and some creative social-media maneuvering to nudge Bank of America out of its sloth.

The couple had to draw attention to BofA’s nonchalant attitude and notorious all-around pokiness to get the bank to close on the loan, according to ThinkProgress. After waiting more than two months past the closing date a senior mortgage officer had given them, the Williamses created a music video that pokes fun at BofA, and launched a social-media campaign to give it some juice.

The bank’s own social-media team took note and finally gigged the loan people into action. The loan was closed on Dec. 16, but not before a boatload of folks had watched the video, which includes the charming lyrics, “Don’t let anybody tell you you’re too big to fail/Cause you belong in jail.”

Watch the video here:

After Gov. Perdue vetoed the Voter ID bill, Republicans in the General Assembly pulled a procedural maneuver that will allow them to reintroduce the bill in 2012. Whether they will do so remains to be seen. Although half of the GOP’s base (the “bigots” part of the Billionaires & Bigots Republican grand coalition) still fervently supports a Voter ID law, recent U.S. Department of Justice actions and horror stories of eligible citizens being denied voter ID’s in states that have passed Voter ID laws, should make the N.C. Legislature think twice before reintroducing the bill.

The Justice Department told South Carolina it will block that state’s recently passed Voter ID law because the state’s own statistics showed that the photo identification requirement would have a much greater impact on non-white residents. The federal government is required by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to review and rule on any attempts to change election rules in states with a strong history of racial discrimination at the polls. The feds also have asked for more information about Texas’ recently passed Voter ID law, which indicates that the Justice Department is aggressively placing itself in opposition to the kinds of photo ID requirements passed by a number of GOP-controlled state legislatures.

Forty counties in North Carolina are covered by the Voting Rights Act, so the feds will also review and rule on any new voter regulations passed in Raleigh. Frankly, that’s good news for voting rights advocates and, you know, fans of democracy and such. It’s also good to have a Department of Justice that actually gives a rip about actual justice for a change.

On top of the whole national Voter ID campaign being a transparent attempt to suppress votes among some traditionally Democratic voting blocs (senior citizens, blacks, students and the poor), implementation of Voter ID laws are causing problems in some states. The latest examples are from Tennessee, where Thelma Mitchell, a 93-year-old woman who cleaned the state Capitol there for 30 years, was denied a Voter ID last week after being told that her old state ID didn’t meet the new voter ID regs. When Mitchell couldn’t produce a birth certificate (she has never had one), the state employee she spoke with suggested that Mitchell might be an illegal immigrant.

As Think Progress reports, Tennessee has also denied a voter ID for a 96-year-old Tennessee woman because she didn’t have her marriage license; a 91-year-old woman couldn’t get an ID because she was unable to stand in a long line at the DMV; and an 86-year-old World War II vet was told that he had to pay an unconstitutional poll tax if he wanted to obtain an ID. These kinds of problems can be worked through, but, in the first place, voters in America shouldn’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to exercise one of their fundamental rights. Especially when the so-called voter fraud the Voter ID laws are ostensibly meant to fight is a non-existent, or at worst extremely rare, occurrence. N.C. lawmakers, take note.

Photo: http://www.crmvet.org/info/votehist.htm

The Rev. Mark Harris, senior minister at Charlotte's First Baptist Church, is also president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. The state Baptist convention supports the anti-gay marriage discrimination amendment (officially called the Marriage Protection Amendment). Harris is leading the group’s push to pass the amendment, which N.C. citizens will vote in May. In a Charlotte Observer profile today, Harris says he hopes the statewide debate over the amendment can be carried on “in a civil way.”

To which I say, “Huh?!”

Reverend, you may not have noticed, but campaigning in support of an amendment that seeks to enshrine your prejudice against LGBT folks in the state constitution is already an inherently uncivil act. Imagine that somebody walked up to you and smacked you in the face; imagine that the slapper then expressed hope that the ensuing “discussion” of his hitting you would be conducted “in a civil way.” If your attacker then explained that he slapped you because he believes you plan to act in a way that doesn’t meet his “Biblical principles,” how civil would you feel toward your new slap-happy friend?

Here’s another question for you, Rev. Harris: Have you read the messages, talking points and “studies” that your allies in the amendment debate have produced? The leading groups pushing for the amendment are the North Carolina Family Policy Council (NCFPC), which is affiliated with the national Focus On the Family group, the Christian Action League, and Return America, all of which routinely demonize homosexuals, and make it clear that their primary goal is to make their religious beliefs the supreme law of the state.

Here’s a key quote from the NCFPC’s Countering the Deception policy paper, which you can access here — and which lays out the amendment supporters’ “vision” for all to see:

It is really about one thing: preserving the historic understanding of sexuality, gender, and the family in North Carolina, and protecting the right of parents and the Church to transmit traditional values about these core issues to the next generation.

Yeah, that’s what I’ve always heard government was about, all right: protecting the rights of “the Church” to transmit its values to the young. First of all, what church? Some churches support LGBT equality, you know. Second, who is stopping any churches from transmitting any of their beliefs to young church-goers, and how in the world could same-sex marriages keep those churches from keeping up those practices? Frankly, the more you look at the arguments for the amendment, the more backward — I mean scary, country-hick backward — they get.

• Debate this photo civilly: Happy lesbian couple with child, or nasty threat to all that's decent?

• Photo by Jeff Cravotta
• New Schoolboard chairperson Ericka Ellis-Stewart

Shout Hallelujah, y’all. Last night, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board elected new members Ericka Ellis-Stewart as chairperson and Mary McCray as vice chairperson. I say “Hallelujah” because the pair’s election signals the probability of a much-needed, 180-degree turnaround from the data-driven, “corporate model” of former superintendent Pete Gorman and his Mini-Me, former board chair Eric Davis. Their top-down policies were essentially teacher-antagonistic and morale-destroying.

Gorman left Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools to work for Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corp.'s Education Division, which largely amounts to peddling for-profit education technology. Gorman left a firestorm of discontent in his wake, the results of which were seen at yesterday’s school board meeting. His policies were largely derived from the folks who trained him, the Broad Foundation.

Under Broad’s influence and Gorman’s leadership, CMS increased the number of low-income students scoring above grade level in middle and high school math and reading, while providing extra staff and money for struggling schools — achievements that, granted, are a feather in CMS’ cap, as school systems nationwide are struggling with those same problems with limited success.

The problems showed up, however, in how those results were achieved: the above-mentioned testing-obsessed policies that treated teachers and students alike as so much cattle to be poked and prodded, with a near total disregard for the subtleties of teaching or learning. When Gorman tried to institute a Broad-derived controversial teacher performance-pay system requiring 52 additional tests (something he seemed genuinely excited about), strong opposition arose among teachers and parents, who essentially said “enough is enough.”

Opposition grew even more when it was revealed that Vanderbilt University in Nashville produced the only scientific study of public schools that had adopted Broad's methods; it found that after three years, there was no significant difference in that city's pubic school student performance. The final kicker for Gorman and Mini-Me’s reign came, however, when Gorman went behind CMS teachers' backs to the N.C. legislature, to get state leaders to change the law, so that teachers would not need to approve the performance pay plan before it could be implemented.

One possible upcoming bone of contention will be the hiring of a new superintendent. Former chair Davis and vice chair Tom Tate have led the superintendent search, which is expected to conclude with a hiring in March. Here’s hoping that Ms. Ellis-Stewart and Ms. McCray will aggressively seek a superintendent who will emphasize the importance of teachers and parents, and delegate more authority to those two groups rather than accumulating yet more power in a bloated CMS administration that has routinely stifled teacher initiatives and sapped their morale.

After numerous attempts, we finally got someone at Bank of America to speak to us about the controversy surrounding the TLC reality show All-American Muslim, and attempts by the Florida Family Association, a Florida right-wing “Christian” group, to peel away the show’s sponsors. Yesterday we reported that although local attention was focused on Lowe’s, which publicly admitted to caving in to the Islamaphobic group, other companies, including Bank of America, were also listed in the group’s press release as having pulled their ads from the show.

Yesterday, we traded e-mails with Bank of America spokesperson Ernie Anguilla whose first response was, “We’re not commenting on this one.” After we asked Anguilla whether the “no comment” was final, in view of BofA’s name being bandied about all over the country as having bowed to a bigoted religious nut group, Anguilla gave another response: “We purchased a single ad and our airing schedule is now complete,” implying that BofA had only planned to buy one ad on the show and the FFA’s campaign had no bearing on the bank’s ads that are no longer airing during All-American Muslim. Exactly how well the bank's implication reflects reality (the statement could also mean that BofA did respond to the FFA by stopping its advertising) is unclear — as it’s supposed to be, in the wake of such expert word-spinning. More later, when we find more.

The Florida Family Association (FFA), a far-rightwing, self-anointed Christian group, claims that its griping has led a number of large companies, including Charlotte-based Lowe’s and Bank of America, to pull their advertising from All-American Muslim, a TLC reality show about Lebanese families in Dearborn, MI.

Lowe’s has confirmed that it pulled its ads from the TLC show after hearing complaints. Bank of America’s PR folks have not responded to our repeated queries about the FFA’s claim. Bank of America could be innocent in this matter, but it doesn’t look good, as most companies usually fall all over themselves to promote their “commitment to diversity,” etc., etc. If Bank of America is indeed going along with the FFA’s anti-Muslim campaign, then that makes two of our city’s premiere “corporate citizens” that have chosen to bow to plain bigotry. You can’t cooperate with a bigoted campaign by a bigoted group and not be seen as bigoted.

One other company named by the FFA, Amway, denies that it has cut its ads on the show. Home Depot and Sweet ‘N Low both say that that they had simply only bought one commercial spot, rather than canceling ads.

All-American Muslim has been on TLC for about a month and has received very good reviews as an intelligent look at the lives of a group of Muslims living in Dearborn. Watch a trailer for the show below.

The FFA and its bigoted supporters, apparently can’t stand (or, more likely, can’t understand) the fact that there are a great many American Muslims who lead ordinary American lives — grocery shopping, coaching high school football, working regular jobs and so forth. For the ignoroids among us, however, Muslims can only be associated with one thing: terrorism. As is becoming clearer every day, huge segments of the American citizenry are, to be blunt, ill-educated as hell; that kind of massive ignorance constitutes a “market” of sorts. When, like the FFA, your business is to ramp up bigotry, a TV show that allows Americans to relate to Muslims in the U.S. is seen as a threat, and thus the hell-raising about All-American Muslim begins. The FFA states, “Clearly this program is attempting to manipulate Americans into ignoring the threat of jihad and to influence them to believe that being concerned about the jihad threat would somehow victimize these nice people in this show.”

The Islamic Circle of North America is urging concerned citizens to call Lowe’s and protest their withdrawal of advertising: “We urge the American Muslim community and our friends, family, neighbors and all people of conscience to call Lowe’s CEO Robert Niblock at (704) 758-2084 or Executive Support Mr. Andrew Kilby at (866) 900-4650 and respectfully complain about this decision.”
Here is the show's trailer:

Photo Credit: Hollywood Reporter

• Mercury

John Downy of the Charlotte Business Journal reports that Greenpeace, which now has an office in Charlotte, is pressuring Duke Energy to clarify its position on the EPA’s tentative rules for controlling mercury emissions. According to Greenpeace’s coal campaign director Gabe Wisniewski, Duke has been talking out of both sides of its mouth. First, Duke says it’s ready to meet EPA’s updated mercury standards, with plans to retire non-compliant facilities or install a variety of pollution controls. Then, it turns around and is a member of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council (ERCC), a powerful lobbying group that is aggressively fighting the proposed mercury protections for all it's worth.

So, the Southern Baptists are perturbed and puzzled about their denomination’s falling membership, and some of their leaders say the church should change its name (although the word “Baptist” would still be included in the new moniker). The name change idea came up after a Southern Baptist (SoBap) poll showed that 44 percent of Americans said if they knew a church was Southern Baptist, it would “negatively impact their decision to visit or join the church.” What a shocker! Who knew that a lot of Americans wouldn’t want to attend a church led by medieval-minded cranks?

Anyone else remember when the North Carolina Baptist State Convention expelled Myers Park Baptist from the NCBSC's holy midst in 2007? It turns out Myers Park's policy of "welcoming" homosexuals — i.e., treating gays and lesbians as if they were human beings who are as good as you or me (just imagine it!) - was awful in the eyes of the all-knowing state Baptist convention.

• Hey, has anyone here seen my integrity>

The GOP’s official story is that Cogdell’s views on cutting property taxes and reining in expenses are more in line with theirs, so naturally they were happy to help him perpetuate his little coup. Democrats are livid over Cogdell’s blatantly self-serving power move, and can be counted on to gum up the works whenever something comes up that could benefit Mr. Chairman.

If Cogdell thinks his new title will position him better to benefit from the Democratic National Convention next year — which is most observers' current favorite explanation — he is dangerously delusional. The Democrats aren’t likely to ever forget his alliance with the GOP this week, and he’ll be lucky to get much, if any, support, financial or otherwise, from them for any future political races. Of course, if he switches parties, it could get him the financial backing he would need to run, but let’s be real, after this last sleazy move, who will vote for him?

One explanation for Cogdell’s move that’s going around is that he has a problem with women and didn’t want to serve on a board run by one. Roberts intimated as much yesterday after the bloodletting had occurred, saying that she wasn’t the first woman to be pushed aside by a man and wouldn’t be the last.

Whatever the reason pinging around in Cogdell’s head, one thing is certain: it will be easier for the GOP to get its issues on the agenda; with the Dems treating him like the plague, Cogdell will be looking for any allies at all to support his own ideas. The Republicans may be wondering, however, how trustworthy an ally Cogdell will be, considering that he initiated the five-person back-stabbing of a fellow Democrat.

As we wrote here recently, one bad thing about ambition is that although it can get you where you want to go, it can also make you foolish and cheap. That’s what happened last evening.

Charlotte publication QNotes has published an expose of some of the hateful nutcases comprising the Vote for Marriage NC committee, which plans to push for voter approval of the anti-gay amendment in May 2012.

The amendment Vote for Marriage NC is pushing would ban marriages or civil unions for same-sex couples, and although still in dispute, it would most likely invalidate domestic partnership arrangements for everyone, heterosexual or homosexual. As the committee leader, Tami Fitzgerald, executive director of the so-called NC Values Coalition, has promised to run a “positive" campaign. It's unclear exactly what she means by "positive."

The Qnotes story points out that the main force pushing the amendment is the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), known for making fierce attacks against gays, mostly consisting of innuendo, insults and outright lies. Some examples: Gay men are pedophiles; the battle for gay rights is actually a “jihad” to take away anti-gay people’s rights (reminiscent of the same kind of far-fetched claims made during the civil rights movement); and legalizing same-sex marriage will lead to kindergarteners learning all about same-sex relationships.

I’ll let you enjoy the rest of the story for yourself. It’s an eye-opener and well worth your time if you’re concerned at all about justice in North Carolina, or just want to know who's working behind the scenes to deny rights to same-sex couples.

• National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown