In 2013 three men from Florida, California, and Virginia with ties to the taxicab and parking industries made $24,000 in donations to Charlotte City Council Mayor Pro Tem Michael Barnes and $24,000 to former Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon. One of the men, William H. Bodenhamer, Jr. is an executive with Standard Parking (SP+), which had bid on a large airport-related contract that was voted on by the Charlotte City Council in early 2014. All three men are part owners of NBRS USA Holdings, which owns Yellow Cab in Charlotte. Yellow Cab was one of three taxicab companies selected to work out of the Charlotte Airport in 2011 in a controversial decision.

On the day Patrick Cannon was arrested Feds seized a gun, cash, cell phones, computers, bank records, campaign finance records, and his passport. The gun, a Glock 10mm semi-automatic handgun may be one that Cannon had reported stolen in 1994.

From the Charlotte Observer:

In 1994, Cannon, then a city council member, reported that his car had been stolen along with a Glock 10mm semi-automatic handgun that was inside the car. The car was returned, but it was unclear what happened to the gun.

I bet I know what you're thinking.

Today the Supreme Court ruled that you should be able give the base contribution to as many candidates as you like with no aggregate limit applied.

In the 2011–2012 election cycle, appellant McCutcheon contributed to 16 different federal candidates, complying with the base limits ap- plicable to each. He alleges that the aggregate limits prevented him from contributing to 12 additional candidates and to a number of noncandidate political committees. He also alleges that he wishes to make similar contributions in the future, all within the base limits. McCutcheon and appellant Republican National Committee filed a complaint before a three-judge District Court, asserting that the ag- gregate limits were unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The District Court denied their motion for a preliminary injunction and granted the Government’s motion to dismiss. Assuming that thebase limits appropriately served the Government’s anticorruption in- terest, the District Court concluded that the aggregate limits sur- vived First Amendment scrutiny because they prevented evasion of the base limits.

Held: The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded.

893 F. Supp. 2d 133, reversed and remanded. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, joined by JUSTICE SCALIA, JUSTICE KENNE-
DY, and JUSTICE ALITO, concluded that the aggregate limits are inva- lid under the First Amendment.

Today, the Charlotte Observer completely erased Patsy Kinsey's work to keep the airport under Charlotte's control. In the article published this morning about the fate of the airport they jump from Anthony Foxx directly to Patrick Cannon as if Kinsey's time in office never happened.

Anthony Foxx was mayor when the airport fight began but stepped down in July to become U.S. transportation secretary. Cannon became mayor pro tem in December 2011 and was later elected mayor in November 2013.

Kinsey was widely credited for helping the city maintain control of the airport that Charlotte citizens paid to build. The writers could have easily covered this in one or two sentences. The following are links to and quotes from articles referencing Kinsey's work on the airport issue, as well as some of her public comments. Do you think her accomplishments are worthy of being ignored?

The Time Warner Cable arena is rocking. With the dismal record of the Charlotte Bobcats, this arena has never heard so much cheering. Many of the speakers have brought the crowd to its feet and they weren't just being polite.

The speakers have kept their messages short and the stage managers are moving them on and off the podium at a pace that is keeping delegates on their toes. The pace and messages may be scripted, but this convention feels more spontaneous than the convention held in Denver in 2008.

So far tonight I've not seen posters passed around at all. Some may come out for the First Lady, but so far I haven't seen any. ...Aaand, as soon as I wrote that the signs come out. Still, I think there were more signs on the first night in Denver.