Kay Hagan is borrowing Barack Obama's line on trade.

On Friday, the Democratic Senate candidate attacked U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole for backing free trade agreements that she said hurt North Carolina workers.

But she stopped short of calling for the North American Free Trade Agreement or the Central American Free Trade Agreement to be thrown out. Instead, she proposed a "mend it, don't end it" approach reminiscent of remarks by Obama during the state primary here.

Her trade policy calls for adding enforceable labor and environmental standards to prevent companies from moving overseas and giving the U.S. Department of Justice enforcement powers over trade agreements.

Dole spokesman Don McLagan told the Associated Press that CAFTA removed tariffs in other countries that were keeping North Carolina-made pharmaceutical and agricultural products out of those marketplaces.

"I believe the only jobs Hagan has created are those for tax collectors," he said.

The State Board of Elections says to register as a Libertarian now.

Deputy elections director Johnnie Mclean says that registered voters can change their party affiliation to the Libertarian Party even though the widely available state forms do not include it as an option, simply by writing its name in.

"Anybody can do that now," she said.

State Libertarians have complained that the form does not include them, since it was created before the party was re-recognized, arguing it is slowing down re-affiliations. But Mclean said it could be months before new forms are available.

She told Dome that the state software's form-creating software has to be reset and new forms printed and sent to the U.S. Department of Justice, which preclears any North Carolina forms for potential civil rights violations.

The state board plans to print the new forms in the next two to three weeks, and it can take another 60 days after that for the federal government to OK them.

Currently, only 29 Libertarians are registered in North Carolina.

Michael Mukasey said he will look into the James Johnson case.

The U.S. attorney general said he would respond to U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield's letter that asked for a federal investigation of whether Johnson's constitutional rights have been violated, Titan Barksdale reports.

Mukasey made the comment Thursday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, a spokesman for Butterfield said.

In December, Butterfield sent the letter to Mukasey saying Johnson's right to a speedy trial has been denied, and he needs to intervene to "restore public confidence in the criminal justice system."

Johnson was jailed for three years for the murder of Brittany Willis. Johnson, 21, was freed in December pending a review of his case, and the murder, rape and kidnapping charges against him were dropped because of a lack of evidence. Johnson is now charged with accessory after the fact to murder.

The accessory charge against Johnson is based on his statement that he cleaned his own fingerprints from Willis' SUV. After killing Willis, his friend Kenneth Meeks drove her SUV to Johnson's house to pick him up.

An international human rights organization said today that a lack of political will – not a fuzzy legal framework – should be primarily blamed for the dearth of prosecutions against private security contractors accused of abuses in Iraq.

Human Rights First said the U.S. Department of Justice has failed to hold such contractors, including Blackwater USA of Moyock, accountable for accused abuses, amounting to what the organization calls a “culture of impunity,” reports Barb Barrett.

“The biggest obstacle is not the law, but political will,” said Maureen Byrnes, executive director of the group.

Still, the group said that clarifying the law – along the lines of a bill authored by U.S. Rep. David Price of Chapel Hill – would ensure that prosecutors have a path for investigating alleged criminal activities by guards.

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North Carolina's process of removing ineligible voters from the rolls works just fine.

That was the message Tuesday from Larry Leake, chairman of the State Board of Elections, in Congressional testimony.

Leake said that inquiries from the U.S. Justice Department and state Auditor Les Merritt were off base.

Under the current procedure, if an individual hasn't show any signs of activity in two years, a notification is mailed to their address. If it is returned, that triggers a process that begins the removal of their name from voter rolls. (Char-O) 

After agitating for more than a year to see the U.S. Department of Justice fully implement his benefits plan for survivors of deceased emergency workers, U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge was emboldened yesterday by two new memos from the agency.

Etheridge, a Lillington Democrat, was the prime mover behind the Hometown Heroes Act. The law's intent was to provide survival benefits for law enforcement officers and firefighters who die in the line of duty because of stroke, heart attack or other stress-induced ailments.

The Justice agency has taken years to implement the act and make decisions on individual cases. The agency said the law’s wording was vague, and case workers sometimes requested years of medical data to prove that, for instance, a firefighter had truly died from fighting an especially stressful blaze and not because of an underlying heart disease.

Etheridge denied that the law, passed overwhelmingly by Congress four years ago, was vague.

But this week, a Justice official sent memos defining two terms: "competent medical evidence to the contrary" and "nonroutine stressful or strenuous physical activity," reports Barb Barrett.

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The N.C. Supreme Court ordered House District 18 be redrawn.

In Pender County vs. Bartlett, the majority ruled that the legislature was wrong to break up that county in order to give minorities in the area a larger voice in choosing state lawmakers.

The state can do so, however, in counties that were designated under the Voting Rights Act.

Under that 1965 law, 40 of North Carolina's 100 counties were designated as having discriminated against minority voters, based on their use of literacy tests and their rates of registered voters at the time the act was passed.

Pender County, in blue, is not covered by the law, but two neighboring counties are.

The feds have signed off on a new state law to allow people who cast ballots during the early voting period to register and vote on the same day

Gerry Cohen reports at his blog that the U.S. Department of Justice gave the necessary pre-clearance last week, clearing the way for the bill to be implemented beginning with the Oct. 9 municipal elections.