Good morning, everyone. It is Wednesday.
1. Sanders, Cruz take Wisconsin. There was a primary yesterday in Wisconsin. The Badger State, they call it. Anyway, Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton, 56 to 43. Sanders picked up 45 delegates to Clinton’s 31. Sanders has now won seven of the last eight contests on the Democratic side. But he remains a long shot, due to Clinton’s support among superdelegates.
On the Republican ticket, Cruz bested Trump, increasing the odds that Trump will not be able to coast into the convention with a majority of delegates. The delegate count currently is: Trump, 740; Cruz, 514; Kasich, 143. There’s still 888 delegates up in the air, with 1,237 the magic number to clinch.
The Trump camp responded sourly to the loss: “Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet—he is a Trojan Horse, being used by the party bosses to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump,” a statement from the campaign read.
2. They’re still protesting at Duke. The nine students that have been occupying the second floor of the Allen Building on Duke’s campus since last Friday are still there, and still refusing to leave until their demands are met. Among other things, they want the resignation of executive vice president Tallman Trask, who has been accused of leveling a racial slur at a black parking attendant after hitting her while driving his white Porsche on campus.
Late Tuesday night, Duke officials announced that the building will again be closed for business on Wednesday—the third straight day the protesters have interrupted operations at the building, which is where Duke president Richard Brodhead’s office is located. Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, was also on campus Tuesday. He was denied access to the building but spoke to the protesters outside. The Duke Chronicle is posting regular updates on the ongoing situation on campus here.
3. The Paypal aftermath. Tuesday afternoon, Paypal announced that, due to the discriminatory nature of HB 2, it was shelving its recently announced plans to expand operations in Charlotte, a move that would have brought 400 jobs to the city.
“The new law perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal’s mission and culture,” president and CEO Dan Schulman said. “As a result, PayPal will not move forward with our planned expansion into Charlotte.”
The announcement, of course, was the latest humiliating blow to Tim Moore, Phil Berger, and all the other supposedly pro-business Republicans who voted for HB 2. How did those redneck buffoons react to the news? By blaming Charlotte mayor Jennifer Roberts for passing the original LGBT-friendly ordinance; accusing Roy Cooper of trying to score political points; and issuing a press release about how evil Paypal is.
A Charlotte Observerop-ed does an excellent job of unpacking the Hitler-in-the-bunker logic going on here:
Just weeks ago, Gov. Pat McCrory was at the Charlotte Chamber touting the PayPal news and boasting that it was the kind of company North Carolina needed to recruit. By Tuesday, the N.C. Republican Party was slamming PayPal executives as hypocrites guilty of “extortion” who do business in countries with human rights abuses.
…Will legislators respond by maligning Red Ventures? Will they bad-mouth the NBA if the league moves the 2017 All Star game? And how many companies have crossed North Carolina off the list without anyone knowing?
At a public event in Charlotte where Gov. Pat McCrory was making a pitch for higher teacher salaries (not gonna save you, Pat), McCrory gave a few vague replies to the Paypal news, then went and hid in the school’s administrative office until all the reporters left.
4. Greensboro, Marion city councils adopt resolutions opposing HB 2. Not that it makes much of a difference at this point, but Greensboro’s passed 8-1, and the wildly liberal outpost of Marion, N.C., passed its unanimously.
5. Booker will give NCCU address. Cory Booker, U.S. Senator from New Jersey, will give the commencement address at North Carolina Central University this May, the school announced Tuesday. Booker’s father, Cary Booker, graduated from NCCU in 1962.
Enjoy your Wednesday.
