The Thom Tillis reelection campaign is hosting a big, splashy fundraiser in Raleigh on March 21st, but the invitations went out listing newly elected Rep. Pat Harrigan (10th CD) as a "special guest" at the fundraiser. That was news to Rep. Harrigan, who was quick to embarrass Tillis:
“Congressman Harrigan did not authorize or approve the use of his name in any materials for an event supporting Senator Tillis,” Lexi Kranich, Harrigan’s communications director, said in a statement. “While we recognize the importance of holding this critical Senate seat for Republicans, Congressman Harrigan’s focus remains on advancing President Trump’s America First agenda.” (Punchbowl News)
Rumors surfaced later that new Reps. Addison McDowell (6th CD) and Brad Knott (13th CD) also denied that they had committed to Tillis's fundraiser.
I'm inclined to take Senator Thom Tillis's repeated knee-bending to Trump as just the inevitable byproduct of political parties, even one as generally inept as the Democratic Party. We all of us get furious with "traitors." We discipline the wavering, the doubtful, the fearful. We cuss 'em, we primary them and use rhetoric as hurtful and threatening as anything MAGA uses on its trump-lite. Lite like Senator Thom Tillis. The hard right in North Carolina hates his guts (to coin a novel phrase). So I don't blame him for playing bluff-and-hide. I'm just doubtful his squishiness is gonna work on unaffiliated voters (which he admitted in a recent interview was his only path to reelection).
Sen. Tillis has been a Russia hawk and very recently called Vlad Putin "a cancer." So the Tillis two-step since the Zelenskyy meeting in the White House looks like another failure of character, and in my estimation the worst of the lot. Rob Schofield this morning:
It’s one thing to disagree with your party’s leader about taxes, or the size of government, or even interpretations of the Constitution, and still remain allied. It’s quite another when that leader abandons two-and-a-half centuries of history as a global champion of democratic government and freedom and affirmatively aligns the United States with a committed opponent of both — the murderous Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) constitute 27 different research centers, "each with a specific research agenda, often focusing on particular diseases or body systems" (NIH website) -- in toto, a biomedical research enterprise staffed by about 6,200 scientists, steering an enormous grant-making machine that distributes most of its budget across the country to support researchers at 2,500 institutions. For example, National Cancer Institute, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, etc. -- they all funnel money to research scientists, including doctors who work at university hospital complexes in this state.
“The biomedical research enterprise in the United States depends largely on NIH dollars," said senior investigator and chief of the laboratory of molecular immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "You take the dollars away, the labs go away, and you lose the next generation of scientists.”
So first, Trump bypasses the most qualified senior scientist Lawrence Tabak for the directorship, a highly regarded administrator who had actually been acting director previously, and puts in a lower level scientist whose main qualification appears to be that he once disagreed with Anthony Fauci about who should be included in covid vaccination mandates. Playing to his stupid base, who've been brainwashed to think that Fauci is the cause of all evils. So the new director, Matthew Memoli, a longtime NIH influenza researcher and physician who was not part of the senior leadership ranks, is trying his best to keep up with all of Trump's whims and wild hairs.
But then came a hiring freeze, a travel ban, a communications pause and cancellations of routine grant-review meetings. Scientists were even told they could not purchase the basic lab supplies needed to keep experiments going. [And] Lawrence Tabak found himself shut out of meetings with leadership....
Trump’s executive orders to terminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives .... was a shock to the nation’s scientists, who work in laboratories that have been largely insulated from election cycles and the shifting political agendas of Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
[Then came] a jaw-dropping memo from Trump’s Office of Management and Budget that called for a pause on federal grant activity — one of NIH’s main reasons to exist. This order seemed to encompass most activities that spread NIH grants across the country, including making research awards, evaluating the most meritorious scientific proposals and even just continuing the funding of existing projects that needed renewal.
[By the end of week 2 of Trump 2.0] a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge in Rhode Island said funding should be unfrozen....
Then came the biggest blow yet: ... Health and Human Services (HHS) declared that henceforth NIH would cap at 15 percent the indirect cost rates, or “overhead,” in funding it sends to research institutions....
On Feb. 10, a federal judge ... said the federal government must comply with a 10-day-old restraining order. “The defendants must resume the funding of institutes and other agencies of the defendants (for example the National Institute for Health),” wrote U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island. The cap of 15 percent on indirect costs was temporarily halted by a court as well.
At midday on Feb. 11, Tabak was summoned to the downtown offices of HHS. The meeting turned out to be an ambush, according to multiple people familiar with what transpired. As it wrapped up, Tabak was handed a memo that said he was no longer the top deputy at NIH. Instead, he would be a senior adviser to the acting HHS secretary, Dorothy Fink — working in downtown Washington, far from NIH, far from his own laboratory. That evening, Tabak sent an email to colleagues saying he was retiring immediately, after 25 years of government service. (WashPost)
So it goes in Trump 2.0, a regime that hates science.
self-pity, noun -- excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one's own troubles
Trump last night: “The people sitting right here will not clap [he meant the united Democratic Party], will not stand and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements ["astronomical achievements" including higher prices, a plunging market, and the stupidity of mass-firings]. They won’t do it no matter what.”Later, Trump compared the treatment he received on the internet to the victims of revenge porn, saying “nobody gets treated worse than I do online.” That was random. But to his point, he provoked it, fanned the flame, gave as good as he got and usually preemptively.
It takes a self-pitier to lie like Trump does:
Trump claimed falsely that he had inherited an “economic catastrophe” from Mr. Biden. In fact, the United States had the strongest economy in the world when Mr. Trump took over, but it has been showing signs of strain in recent weeks amid federal funding cuts and tariffs.
He addressed his opponents in the audience with contempt, gloating about his election victory, mocked them for his ability to evade prosecutions and called Mr. Biden the worst president in American history. (NYTimes)
Remember the message to Zelenskyy. "You haven't praised or thanked me enough."
Nido R. Qubein, the president (since 2005) of High Point University (which he also attended as a student soon after his immigration to North Carolina from Lebanon in 1966), is something of a go-getter in the world of higher education. Since taking over High Point, he's made the place famous. Freshman applications skyrocketed from 1,000 to 22,000 annually. Enrollment surged by 5,000 from the barely thousand students at the sleepy little United Methodist private school when Qubein took over. Qubein increased the endowment from $42 million to $240 million, enabling HPU to invest in several new divisions (including a law school, a school of pharmacy, a school of entrepreneurship, a school of dentistry, etc.). According to his LinkedIn, Qubein does a regular 2-minute "Monday Motivation" talk which is distributed to all students at HPU. Many of those "Monday Motivations" are viewable, and I was totally arrested by the one he did on "tolerance" and "respecting others," such wholly objectionable language now to trumpists.
Qubein is a good talker, a slick salesman of his up-by-my-own-bootstraps biography. He's in demand for inspirational/entrepreneurial/business-oriented talks and speeches, and you can see why:
Another of Nido Qubein's accomplishments as president of HPU -- he expanded the campus from 91 to 520 acres, "expertly landscaped into a Disney-esque mini city with fountains and heated swimming pools, a high-end steak house, and a concierge service—'literally a resort,' one enthusiastic student quipped in a recent YouTube video, 'an all-inclusive vacation with a side of homework' ” (The Assembly).
HPU is the school where rich people send their dumb kids who can’t cut it at elite schools. They’ve spent millions of dollars transforming themselves into a Walt Disney version of a university where the one-percenters can install their kids, apparently safe in the knowledge that some of them won’t let crazy notions about democracy and doubting the growing American oligarchy get into their pretty, little heads.
Next year, incoming freshmen will be charged $49,146 in annual tuition and fees, the university reported.
FREE SPEECH NOW THE ISSUE AT HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY
Remember Trump's ExecOrder back in January that all educational institutions receiving federal dollars must cease diversity, equality, and inclusion efforts? Trump's vassals in the Department of Education followed up the ExecOrder with a letter to all institutions receiving federal grants, a "Dear Colleague" warning. HPU's provost later explained what happened then:
“As you know, universities were given just 14 days to comply with the Dear Colleague letter mandates in order to maintain federal funding, and my initial communication with you came after the termination of several national Department of Education grants for local educators, of which our School of Education was a recipient,” he said. “None of us want to see our students or university lose funding.”
Totally understandable. What's not totally understandable is how far the HPU admin was willing to go. A scant week after Trump demanded no more diversity, equality, or inclusion, the university provost issued a list of 49 banned words or terms (count 'em!), including “equality,” “gender,” “black and latinx,” “white,” and “white supremacy” -- to be removed from all “documents, events and presentations.” "Course descriptions, student handbooks, class syllabi, and webpages were among the university publications listed for censoring." The provost also announced a prohibition on faculty providing pronoun preferences in their email correspondence.
News of the crackdown on speech at HPU leaked. When reporter Kane made email contact with the provost, to request an interview about the censorship, the provost first got the lawyers on the phone, and miraculously, he then sent an email to all HPU faculty rescinding his initial word ban and then copied the reporter with that email. He refused the interview:
“Our legal counsel has helped clarify that our priority should be on ensuring all our program qualifications and requirements do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, etc.," the provost wrote the faculty. "Therefore, the concern about the language that is used is no longer a focus. You no longer need to conduct audits regarding the list of words that were originally identified as words that might lead to an audit by the federal government. There are no terms or words that you are required to change."
Reporter Kane found one faculty member willing to comment anonymously, "fearing retaliation." “It gave me a sense of anxiety, ... this is like ‘1984,” the professor said, referring to George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel about a “big brother” government that resorts to censorship, fabrication, and surveillance to keep its citizens under control.
The lesson in the reversal at High Point University: It was the prospect of light shined on censorship that ended the censorship.
Did you know that Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California) told CNN: “What the American public wants is for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is an actual fight for democracy.” Edward Martin, Trump’s interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, the chief federal prosecutor in Washington, fired off a letter to Garcia demanding that he “clarify” his remarks. “This sounds to some like a threat to Mr. Musk,” Martin wrote. “We take threats against public officials very seriously.”
An attempt to intimidate and squelch free speech. Based on a willful misinterpretation of the "weapons" used in the metaphorical "bar fight" of political discourse. This is but one example among many current and ongoing attempts to clamp down on what you can say about this current world in which we live in (as my freshmen used to say). Trump intends to teach us new-speak and rewire our brains.
The biggest, most comprehensive crackdown on speech is the current crusade against anything labeled "woke," the infamous alphabet of D.E.I. One of Trump’s ExecOrders banned D.E.I. efforts and threatened organizations receiving federal money not to even say words like "diversity" and "inclusion," let alone practice fair hiring.
Brendan Carr, Trump's vassal chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, warned Comcast Corp. that a statement on its website saying “diversity, equity and inclusion are a core value of our business” might violate federal regulations. No, really. Universities, private companies, and nonprofits around the country "are rapidly removing statements that support DEI for fear of provoking the administration’s wrath" (WashPost). Threats that provoke self-censorship -- also unconstitutional.
One of Trump's departments ordered the censoring from public documents of a whole bunch of words Trump (or Stephen Miller) doesn't like, including “gender” and “inclusion.” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat and a medical doctor, pushed back: "I think that’s [just] the red meat that the president is throwing to the base.”
In Raleigh, House Bill 171 ("Stamp Out Woke"), mimics Trump's dictates about words that have grown offensive to those in power -- you know, diversity, equity, inclusion. Under H 171, no state agency could “promote, support, fund, implement or maintain workplace DEI programs, policies, or initiatives.” The bill instructs the state auditor — Republican Dave Boliek — to conduct periodic audits of state agencies to ensure compliance. A state employee who violates the law could lose their job and face a misdemeanor criminal charge. (WRAL)
So far, U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson has already ruled that Trump's ExecOrder banning D.E.I. violates the First Amendment, because it targets “viewpoints the government wishes to punish and, apparently, attempt to extinguish.” The judge said a requirement that anyone receiving federal grants or contracts must certify that they do not promote D.E.I. “on its face” violates freedom of speech. And threatening action against companies that promote D.E.I., is also “facially unconstitutional,” the judge said. Noting that the administration had not issued similar warnings to those who oppose D.E.I., he added, “That is textbook viewpoint-based discrimination.”
Tell me it wasn't an egregious attack on free speech when Trump banned the Associated Press from the White House press pool for continuing to call the Gulf of Mexico by its long-standing name rather than switching to “Gulf of America,” as Trump has dictated. Go on, tell me. I'll wait.
Americans share a trait, which amounts to a moral value: We don't like a gang of bullies jumping a smaller person and beating the shit out of him. We demand a fair fight, not a two-on-one, not a planned assault on a friend and hero. That's what we saw yesterday on live TV -- as un-American a display of bad faith and bullying as we're likely to witness, at least until the next time Donald Jackoff Trump needs to act tough (with the emphasis on acting).
It was abhorent. It revealed character more efficiently than all his years of ubiquity on TV -- an ugly character, a deceptive character, a vassal of the Russian, a betrayer of democracy.
J.D. Vance, playing Grover Dill to Trump's Scut Farkus, got to throw the first punch -- why haven't you thanked Trump enough? -- and played like a schoolyard brat for the approval of his muscle-man.
Apparently, those two felt powerful in the moment. POW-er-FUL. Playing for the bleachers. Strong men doing decisive things, and doing it as loudly and as publicly as possible, to send a message: "Russia, Be Pleased."
The darkest day so far in the 2nd month of the 2nd term of Donald Trump.
Interesting interview Sen. Thom Tillis gave Calen Razor and Ursula Perano for NOTUS.org:
“We’re a decidedly purple state,” Tillis said. “I’ve got Republicans saying it’s trending red, and I got Democrats saying it’s trending blue, and no — when you’ve got the unaffiliated base now at over 40%, it’s an independent state, and I love that. The way you win in North Carolina is you’re gonna win somewhere around 49%, maybe 50%.”
“And it’s all about a million people who you know are in the middle,” he added.
True dat.
Being "middling" (in his passion for trumpism). incidentally, is precisely what got Tillis censured by the North Carolina Republican Party in 2023. He had associated himself with a push to codify same-sex and interracial marriage, and he'd also been caught in the act of cooperating with Democrats on a big border bill that would have helped if not fixed many of the problems. Something had shifted in Tillis -- he had tried to ban gay marriage in NC when he was House Speaker -- and it might have been nothing more mysterious than a sharp political instinct. "Senator" was a different game altogether.
Razor and Perano detail Tillis's conservative orthodoxy during his speakership of the NCHouse -- two terms, starting in 2011. "He worked to increase restrictions on abortion, led efforts to block the expansion of Medicaid, fought for tighter voting ID requirements...."
Tillis may be no trumpist. He's also no moderate. He hews to classic conservatism about who gets to control women's bodies, on just how we shouldn't oughta be "coddling the poor," on limiting who can vote -- the hallmarks of Tillis's tenure in the NCHouse -- and he's distinguished himself now by voting for every freak that Trump wanted on his Cabinet and staying silent when he should be pounding tabletops. Just days ago Tillis was warning that Putin "is a cancer." What has he said since yesterday?
According to The Hill, which cornered Tillis for a comment on the Zelenskyy betrayal and the White House ambush, Tillis wimped out with "concern" that ultimately degraded to "let Trump be Trump":
“I’m concerned with anything that would ultimately allow there to be a moral equivalency between Zelensky and Putin..." [Tillis said]
"The president has used some fairly successful, aggressive negotiating tactics in the past, so I’ll give him latitude for now,” Tillis continued. “But at the end of the day, Putin needs to be a loser and the Ukrainian people need to be the winners. Let’s get past the leadership personalities and talk about what’s most important: a free Ukraine, not for its own sake, but for the sake of national security, the United States, European security.”
J.W. Williamson was the founding editor in 1972 of the Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review, which he edited until July of 2000. He has taught college classes in Appalachian history, cultural politics, and literature, and he has lectured widely on the pop-culture history of "Appalachia" in the American consciousness. His books include Interviewing Appalachia, Southern Mountaineers in Silent Films, and Hillbillyland: What the Mountains Did to the Movies and What the Movies Did to the Mountains. He has won the Thomas Wolfe Award given by the Western North Carolina Historical Society, the Laurel Leaves Award given by the Appalachian Consortium, a special Weatherford Award given by Berea College, and the Cratis Williams-James Brown Award given by the Appalachian Studies Association.
The views expressed on WataugaWatch are solely those of J.W. Williamson or individual contributors and are not necessarily shared nor endorsed by the Watauga County Democratic Party nor by any other adults of sound mind in this or any other universe.
