Charges against seven campus protesters will be heard in September after one had her case continued and the others rejected plea agreements this morning.

Haley Koch, a Morehead-Cain scholar, faces a charge of disturbing the peace for protesting former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo's speech April 14, Jesse DeConto reports.

Koch and another student held a banner in front of Riley Matheson, president of the campus chapter of Youth for Western Civilization, as he introduced Tancredo, a staunch opponent of mass immigration.

Her case and those of six other protesters in a second campus incident were scheduled for Orange County District Court this morning but will now be heard Sept. 14.

The other defendants protested at a speech by former U. S. Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia, who also favors stricter immigration policies, April 22.

More after the jump.

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In the wake of the disruption of former Congressman Tom Tancredo’s speech, conservative groups plan to bring to Chapel Hill next week another major critic of illegal immigration.

Former Rep. Virgil Goode if Virginia is scheduled to speak at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Wednesday April 22nd at 6:30 p.m. at Gardner Hall, Rob Christensen reports.

Goode has been invited by the same campus group, Youth for Western Civilization, who brought in Tancredo, who was prevented from speaking on Monday night by protesters. His speech is being arranged by Team America, Tancredo's political action committee.

The subject of his talk is "Hate Speech, Free Speech and the Multiculturalism."

UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp apologized to Tancredo for the disruption.

BURR BURNED: U.S. Sen. Richard Burr doesn't have a Democratic opponent yet — unless you count left-leaning commentators. After the Winston-Salem Republican said he told his wife to take money out of the ATM during last fall's banking crisis, he was criticized by liberal talk show hosts Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann and took heat from the Huffington Post.

BUDGET SIMMERS: The U.S. Senate was once described as the saucer used to cool hot bills from the House. It's apparently the other way in the state legislature, where chief budget writer Rep. Mickey Michaux said he'll take his time going over the budget bill rushed over from the Senate last week. Check back next week.

TAX DAY: Thousands of protesters gathered across North Carolina on Wednesday to protest the bank bailouts and the size of the federal budget. The so-called Tea Party protests were tied to the date federal income taxes are due. Meantime, the state Department of Revenue said it was running a few weeks behind in sending out tax refunds.

IN OTHER NEWS: A group of Republicans started Carolina Strategy Group to poll voters on state issues and work with business clients. ... Former Congressman and illegal immigration opponent Tom Tancredo was driven out of UNC-Chapel Hill by angry protesters. ... The state House narrowly approved a bill adding a comprehensive sex education option to public schools and passed a major fix to the State Health Plan that will reduce benefits for state workers.

U.S. Rep. Walter Jones wants the UNC students who disrupted the talk of former Congressman Tom Tancredo punished.

"I hope that disciplinary measures will be taken as warranted against any students or professors who participated in disrupting Congressman Tancredo's talk," Jones, a Pitt County Republican said in a statement.

He also urged that Tancredo be invited back to speak to speak "in a more secure setting," Rob Christensen reports.

"It is also my understanding that former Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode will soon be visiting the university," Jones said. "I recommend that the university take all actions necessary to ensure that future student-sponsored public policy discussions on the Chapel Hill campus do not get shut down by those with dissenting viewpoints."

Jones, like Tancredo and Goode, has been a critic of illegal immigration. Tancredo was forced to end his talk Monday night at UNC-Chapel Hill, when protesters disrupted him and broke a glass pane.

It took just a few hours for U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo to turn his unpleasant ouster from a UNC-Chapel Hill classroom into a fund-raising opportunity.

Tancredo, a Colorado Republican and strong opponent of illegal immigration, was forced to end his visit Tuesday night after protests by a few dozen students. One student broke a window, and police unleashed pepper spray on others, Barb Barrett reports.

Tancredo didn't get to deliver his speech.

But today, he sent out a fund-raising email to supporters, saying "hundreds of protesters" interrupted his speech. He called it a "riot."

"There is no freedom of speech on hundreds of university campuses today for people who dare to dissent from the radical political agenda of the socialist left and the open borders agitators," he wrote in his email.

Tancredo said he'll be back on campus sometime in the future and noted that former Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode will come to campus next week to speak.

He also urged supporters to give money to his Political Action Committee, Team America.

After the jump, the letter.

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A speech by Tom Tancredo at UNC-Chapel Hill ended prematurely Tuesday.

Hundreds of protesters converged on Bingham Hall, shutting down a speech by the former Colorado congressman opposing in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants.

Campus police released pepper spray and threatened to Taser a student, while a protester pounded a window of the classroom until the glass shattered.

Tancredo had been brought to campus by the local chapter of Youth for Western Civilization., a national organization whose members oppose mass immigration, multiculturalism and affirmative action.

Campus police removed two women who stretched a banner across the classroom that read "No dialogue with hate." Other students screamed curses at Tancredo and the campus president of Youth for Western Civilization.

Chancellor Holden Thorp said he was "disappointed" that Tancredo was not able to speak. (N&O)

Former Congressman Tom Tancredo, a leading critic of U.S. immigration policy, will be in Chapel Hill Tuesday to speak against the admission of illegal immigrants to colleges and universities.

Tancredo, who unsuccessfully ran for president last year, will talk at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Bingham Hall at 6:30 p.m., reports Rob Christensen.

His talk is being sponsored by a student group called Youth for Western Civilization. It is a new group that opposes mass immigration, “radical multiculturalism,” and affirmative action. Several campuses have chapters of the group.

Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado, is the sponsor of the Mass Immigration Reduction Act which would have imposed an indefinite moratorium on immigration to the United States.

Team America isn't sure who is running against U.S. Rep. Walter Jones.

In an endorsement on its Web site, the political action committee run by U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo argues that the Farmville Republican's opponents have the wrong stance on immigration (bold ours):

Now pro-amnesty lobbyists and Washington insiders like Grover Norquist are campaigning against Jones and supporting his primary challenger Andy Harris. During the 2006 amnesty debate, Norquist warned if “the face of the Republican Party is [Tom] Tancredo,” the GOP would be weaker than “If the face of the Republican Party is George Bush.”

Jones is facing a primary challenge from former Onslow County Commissioner Joe McLaughlin. The PAC did not make the same mistake in its e-mail to reporters.

Andy Harris is the Republican nominee in Maryland's First Congressional District. With Norquist's backing, he recently defeated U.S. Rep. Wayne Gilchrest in the GOP primary.

Like Jones, Gilchrest had voted to bring combat troops home from Iraq and hold two Bush staffers in contempt of Congress. 

Hat Tip: NewBernBear 

Bill Richardson clearly does not have enough support to win big in Iowa.

The New Mexico governor has consistently polled in the single digits—not enough to move him past the 15 percent threshold required of Democratic candidates.

If that's the case, which candidate will Richardson's backers pick as their second choice?

Because of his close ties to the Clintons (he served as ambassador to the United Nations in the '90s), some have speculated in the past year that Richardson is auditioning for a vice presidential pick.

That would mean staying in the good graces of Hillary Clinton, and throwing his supporters her way.

On the other hand, a veep pick is a longshot—and even longer because of his poor performance in the race so far. If that's what he wanted, why not dropout and endorse an opponent, like Tom Tancredo did for Mitt Romney on the GOP side?

And then there's this: An Iowa reporter who claims Richardson will push his backers to second-choice Barack Obama in order to get John Edwards out of the way.

Regardless of the truth (or not) of that item, its logic is pretty good.