We Have Our Own Roy Moore in North Carolina

Judge Paul Newby,
a partisan Republican

Some Supreme Court justices in some Southern states swing high and swing wide. Roy Moore as chief justice of the Alabama Supremes decided he was God's gift, defied a federal court's order to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments in the state's judiciary building that he placed there because God told him to and then defied the US Supreme Court over same-sex marriage. Because when you have the One True Truth, you don't have to follow the law.

He was legally removed from the Supreme Court of Alabama. He's been in a political snit ever since, running (unsuccessfully) in a US Senate special election last year. He says he'll run again in 2020. He'll run until God Almighty puts him where he knows he deserves to be, in the marble halls of the US Senate.

North Carolina Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Paul Newby is also in a snit ever since Governor Roy Cooper did not appoint him Chief Justice, appointing a black woman in Cheri Beasley instead. Now, through the hilariously inept machinations of Phil Berger and the Republican majority in the General Assembly, Newby is the last remaining Republican on the seven-member state Supreme Court, and boy, is he ever pissed.

He made a campaign speech last Saturday in which he dissed all six of his fellow justices, comparing them to the current Democratic demon-du-jour, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), especially Anita Earls who was elected to the court in last fall's campaign. "Imagine seven 'AOCs' on the state Supreme Court," Newby told the Republican crowd. "Well, folks, we got six," he said to laughs. "It's six to one."

So Newby is running against Chief Justice Cheri Beasley in next year's election. He has the One True Truth behind him, and all those brown women are not going to stop him from bringing Republican partisanship to the high court.