Thom Tillis Gets His First Republican Primary Challenger

 

Andy Nilsson is a bit of a head-scratcher. The Tillis campaign immediately labeled him a "never Trumper," and Nilsson does have a somewhat puzzling history of bucking the trumpist majority. "In 2019, he joined former N.C. Supreme Court justice Bob Orr [who left the Republican Party because of Trump] in trying to organize an alternative GOP convention to the Republican National Convention scheduled in Charlotte in 2020" (WRAL). Nilsson told the Charlotte Observer in 2019, “I’m doing all I can do to preserve the Reagan-Bush legacy of the Republican Party against the Trump takeover.” 

Going apparently for full-on cognitive dissonance, Nilsson told WRAL that he supports Trump, "but he was disturbed to see Republicans in some states cancel their GOP presidential primaries in an effort to protect the president." Nilsson is challenging Tillis "because he doesn’t believe the incumbent can be relied upon to fully support Trump’s America-first agenda," Nilsson’s campaign said.

This guy is confusing the hell outta me. In some ways -- the gingerly waffling all over the place about Trump -- he seems like another Thom Tillis.

He has a decades-ago history of running furniture companies in NC, moved to Australia in 2002 and didn't return to North Carolina until 2023. "Nilsson is a Cincinnati native whose family moved to Catawba County when he was a child. He graduated from Winston-Salem’s Reynolds High School in 1985 and Davidson College in 1989. Nilsson now works in special education at Reynolds High Schools, where he’s a teacher assistant and assistant football coach." He once upon a time -- 2000 -- ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for lieutenant governor.

Jefferson Griffin Blinks in the Most Pathetic Way Imaginable

Judge Jefferson "Crazy Eyes" Griffin

Trying to keep up with all the moving parts of Jefferson Griffin's scheme to steal the Supreme Court election from Allison Riggs.

Recall the posting here on January 8th: "Conservative Majority on NC Supreme Court Fractures Over Griffin Attempt To Steal the Election." The Republican who disagreed most vociferously with Griffin's proposal to throw out over 60,000 legitimate votes, Associate Justice Richard Dietz, wrote

“Permitting post-election litigation that seeks to rewrite our state’s election rules—and, as a result, remove the right to vote in an election from people who already lawfully voted under the existing rules—invites incredible mischief."

Anderson Reports has out this morning news of an updated court filing from Griffin in which he blinks in the most pathetic way imaginable:

Seeming to recognize Dietz’s criticism, Griffin on Tuesday asked the state Supreme Court to consider a phased ruling, where it would first direct the 5,509 ballots from overseas voters without photo ID be tossed out first. If a retabulation showed Griffin overtaking Riggs’ 734-vote lead, Griffin would want the election to be certified in his favor. If a retabulation showed Riggs still ahead, however, Griffin would want the Supreme Court to proceed to the issue of 267 overseas voters who don’t reside in North Carolina and the 60,273 voters with incomplete registration, if necessary.

In other hilarious words, just toss out ballots until I say quit, and maybe it won't take disenfranchising the full 60,000 to give me Seat 6.

If I were a standup comic, I'd be exploiting this lame slug of a politician for big laughs. 

BREAKING -- The Street Theater of Kate Barr

 

One of my favorite, disruptive Democrats of 2024, Kate Barr, is right now, on Tuesday, January 14, reading aloud the over 60,000 names of legitimate voters Jefferson Griffin intends to disenfranchise to grab a seat on the NC Supreme Court. Kate is standing in front of the Supreme Court bldg in Raleigh, with a podium and a microphone. She began reading all 60,000 names this morning at 6 a.m. and expects to finish by 11 p.m. tonight.

It's a new public way to protest the outrageousness of Griffin's determination to win at all costs, including throwing out thousands of legitimate votes. Griffin is currently begging the Paul Newby Supreme Court to ignore the actual vote count -- Allison Riggs won by over 700 votes, after two different recounts -- and simply give Supreme Court Seat 6 to him.

Griffin is a special kind of sinister. Why is he a judge at all? (He currently sits on the 15-member Court of Appeals).

More about Kate Barr under this photo.

Kate Barr should be familiar to WatWatch readers. In 2024 she ran a funny, satiric, self-deprecating NC Senate campaign for District 37 (mainly deep-red Iredell). Her self-mocking motto: "Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can't Win!" Indeed, she couldn't. But she generated something of a movement anyway, raising both money and some justified hell, and her rallying of progressive voters in such a district also helped a statewide candidate like Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs to win.

You go, Kate!

"Unprecedented Criminal Effort"

Special prosecutor Jack Smith's REPORT ON EFFORTS TO INTERFERE WITH THE LAWFUL TRANSFER OF POWER FOLLOWING THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OR THE CERTIFICATION OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE HELD ON JANUARY 6, 2021 has finally been released to the public. You can read it for yourself. It's full of solid evidence and coruscating truth. We are about to be governed again by a man who respects no laws, who doesn't understand the Constitution or our Republic of checks and balances, who runs his mouth and his petty desires like any downtown mob boss.

Part of Smith's summary of Trump's (alleged, yeah, right!) criminal activity leading up to the January 6th insurrection:

In 2020, then-President Donald J. Trump ran for reelection against Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Mr. Trump lost. As alleged in the original and superseding indictments, substantial evidence demonstrates that Mr. Trump then engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power. Although he did so primarily in his private capacity as a candidate, and with the assistance of multiple private co-conspirators, Mr. Trump also attempted to use the power and authority of the United States Government in furtherance of his scheme.

As set forth in the original and superseding indictments, when it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power. This included attempts to induce state officials to ignore true vote counts; to manufacture fraudulent slates of presidential electors in seven states that he had lost; to force Justice Department officials and his own Vice President, Michael R. Pence, to act in contravention of their oaths and to instead advance Mr. Trump's personal interests; and, on January 6, 2021, to direct an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then leverage rioters' violence to further delay it. 

 

Jeff Jackson vs. Predatory Landlords

 

Attorney General Jeff Jackson filed on January 7th a pretty damn impressive civil suit against six mega-landlords and the software company RealPage, which illegally uses data to help the mega-landlords fix predatory rental rates. Jackson joined nine other attorneys as well as the antitrust division of the U.S. DOJ. Jackson and his fellows "allege that six corporate landlords are trading private information and manipulating vacancies to boost rents." As Ned Barnett, lead opinion writer at the NandO, put it today, "Jeff Jackson is off to an encouraging start" (Barnett). 

No kidding. Predatory renters and their unfair tactics have long invited a comeuppance, and perhaps this will be a start. The six landlords being sued collectively manage hundreds of thousands of apartment rentals (no, really), which undoubtedly makes them big, bigger targets for prosecution. What about the ugly landlords in, say, university towns who don't rent hundreds of thousands of apartments, but who rent out certainly scores of them and hundreds and maybe thousands? There seems to be a universal principle of greed that can't resist exploiting the young.

To be clear, Jackson is amending with this new suit an action first researched and taken by former A.G. Josh Stein last March, when there were seven other attorneys general joining the suit against RealPage. No mention back then of the six landlords Jackson's amended suit adds, though Stein certainly knew where they were. At a news conference last August, Stein said three of the top 10 markets that RealPage has been exploiting are in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham/Chapel Hill, and Jackson's suit notes that none of the big landlords operating in NC are actually headquartered in NC. They're from all over, from Dallas to Chicago to Atlanta to Charleston, etc. Out-of-state corps exploiting the natives with the help of a clever software company.

Jackson’s office alleges that the singled-out landlords have allegedly used RealPage’s algorithm "to set rents for almost one-third of one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments in each of the three metro areas" (Avi Bajpai). 

Anderson Clayton Makes an Endorsement, Anita Earls Launches Reelection Bid, and Wiley Nickel Acts the Gentleman

 

A. NC Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton has endorsed Ben Wikler to head the DNC:

B. NC Supreme Court Associate Justice Anita Earls has begun raising money for what is expected to be a fierce reelection fight in 2026. Her new website went live on January 9th.

C. Former NC Congressman Wiley Nickel, whose district was gerrymandered to guarantee a Republican would win, decided against running for his 13th CD seat (now occupied by Republican Brad Knott). Instead, he announced that he would run for Thom Tillis's U.S. Senate seat in 2026. On December 15, he filed a statement of candidacy with the FEC.

Ex-Governor Roy Cooper has pointedly told reporters that his own candidacy for Tillis's seat is definitely "on the table," though he hasn't announced anything concrete yet. But Wiley Nickel, knowing that the much better known Cooper would beat him in a primary, has told Bryan Anderson that he's "waiting in the wings and developing something of a contingency plan should Cooper decide not to run."

Wise move.

Ray Pickett and Hurricane Relief

 

Rep. Ray Pickett

Newly installed Speaker of the NC House, Destin Hall, notable lawyer of Caldwell County and olympic gerrymanderer (who moved Watauga's Blue Ridge Precinct out of Ray Pickett's Dist. 93 and gave it to himself in Dist. 87, where those Blue Ridge progressives wouldn't be much of an annoyance in that otherwise blood-red district) -- but I digress. That squirt Destin Hall appears to be moving fast to funnel actual dollar bills toward the victims of Hurricane Helene -- to make up in some sense for the passage of S 382 back last November, which masqueraded as a hurricane relief bill but was actually a naked power-grab. Just announced yesterday, Hall has appointed a "Select Committee on Hurricane Helene Recovery" to make recommendations, write legislation, lay the groundwork -- quickly -- for specific appropriations.

To the Select Committee, Hall appointed the three mountain guys who initially raised hell over S 382 for the fakeout in its title -- "Hurricane Relief" -- because it offered zero relief. Those guys quickly folded and voted for the bill in the veto override, but not before (probably) getting some promises for their own districts. There must have been strategy in their caving, or else they're just bully-bait. I prefer my politicians cynical rather than craven.

Hall also appointed Ray Pickett to the Select Committee, who without any visible protest -- no indignant speaking up for constituents wiped out by flood, no symbolic no vote -- rather voted for S 382 at first sight. Voted for the same bill the three other guys had rightly called a notorious fraud. Those guys likely made a bargain or got a promise or leveraged their yes votes on the veto-override for specific economic relief to their constituents. What did Watauga and Ashe counties get for Ray Pickett's complicity? 

Virginia Foxx Causes Indigestion at UNC

 

Since 1984, the UNC Board of Trustees (UNCBOT) has annually awarded its highest honor, the Davie Award, to "individuals who have shown extraordinary service to UNC or to society." Former recipients include Dean Smith, William Friday, the first president of the UNC System, and former UNC chancellor William Aycock. But this year, the mainly all-Republican UNCBOT awarded the Davie thingie to Rep. Virginia Foxx (and three other alumni). Granted, Foxx is a UNC graduate and also a full time black frost on spring flowers, so it's not surprising that students who know a little political history would object because of Foxx's character and her public deeds. The Davie Awards were handed out at a UNCBOT banquet back on November 6th, the day after the Election (Foxx must have been in a good mood, as her moods go), but the existence of student pushback didn't make the Daily Tar Heel until this week.

The DTH profiled Foxx quite accurately and with commendable restraint:

Foxx ... is a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District and was elected in November to her 11th term in office. Last spring as the chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, Foxx led the charge to investigate antisemitism at college campuses during Pro-Palestine protests .... Foxx ... has publicly expressed anti-LGBTQ+ stances, including opposing the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and speaking against the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision which legalized same-sex marriage. Additionally, Foxx voted against the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, which aimed to federally formalize interracial and same-sex marriage rights.

That bio is guaranteed to bring on a gag reflex in the brighter students. The DTH reporter interviewed a couple of undergraduates who knew exactly who Virginia Foxx is, what she represents, and that she's led the current assault on free speech at universities. These students were unified in their opposition to giving the Davie Award to people who embody anything but the "values" that UNC has and should reflect -- inclusiveness, diversity, equity.

UNCBOT Chair John Preyer was evidently holding an unmelted pat of creamery butter on the back of his tongue when he lied to the DTH reporter that "the political leanings of the recipients do not factor in being given a Davie Award."

Common Cause Attacks the Injustice of Jefferson Griffin

 

Common Cause of NC has been driving a mobile billboard around North Carolina towns and cities, blasting Jefferson Griffin's determination to have the NC Supreme Court overturn the election and give Seat 6 on the Court to him. 

It's one of those electronic message boards, with revolving illuminated pages:

The better panel is the one specific to whichever county the billboard is touring, like the photo from Carteret Co. below, that enumerates the number of local people singled out in Griffin's petition to have their votes disallowed -- since the names of the 60,000 voters on Griffin's list is part of the public record. (I didn't count all the names from Watauga. There appear to be hundreds. At a glance, it looks like Griffin's people grabbed every foreign-sounding name, especially the Hispanic ones.)

There was video on Twitter yesterday of the billboard cruising Raleigh past the NC Supreme Court building. The message for Wake County: over 6,000 voters targeted by Griffin's petition. https://x.com/CommonCauseNC/status/1877010468457349347