Syndrome Rules

 

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.

--Donald J. Trump, April 7, 2026 

 

 

He really has become a 'toon, hasn't he? A mad tyrant or boy genius who got too big for his breeches, essentially the creation of paint, lighting, and gall. If we can see through the pathetic affectation of his pose, surely the Iranians can. And are laughing.

 

Also probably wondering, "Would he really do it?" -- along with some of the rest of us! It might occur to us that this time he boxed himself in so tight, delivering such dire ultimatums that can't be retracted without the great risk of looking like ... well, a 'toon.

 

If he does tonight what he promised this morning, it will be the end of him. The people of the United States are not going to tolerate it, finally -- Trump's final solution -- and the world will rise up in horror and condemnation. Arrest warrants from the World Court. That kind of thing. Talk about being boxed in! But he was never going to follow through on the threat. The threat was as empty as he is.

 

Another possibility -- and quite an attractive one for Trump, because he's a cold-blooded liar -- would be to claim some concession from the Iranians, whether one exists or not, and forestall hell on earth through some fiction that at least sounds plausible. Even MAGA true believers might heave a sigh of relief, while the liberals will all be slapping their knees and chortling "TACO!"

 

And finally, the remote possibility that the Iranians actually cave, because they haven't seen enough Hollywood endings.

Congressman Lists Addresses Where He Hopes Protesters Won't Show Up. Oops

 

Photo 828NewsNOW

 

 

Last November, Progressive activist Leslie Boyd of Asheville called for a boycott of Congressman Chuck Edwards's McDonald's restaurants because of his voting record:

“He says he stands for us, but he voted to reduce the availability of health care and food assistance for millions of Americans, including his own constituents,” Leslie Boyd said, speaking as a leader of Asheville Fights Back Network and calling for a walking picket at an Edwards McDonald's in Hendersonville. “He also voted for the torment of immigrants we’re seeing in the streets of North Carolina right now. That looks to me like he is the enemy.”

On March 31st, Boyd published on Facebook that she'd gotten a letter banning her for life from Edwards's McDonald's restaurants:

OK, this is freaking hilarious!!!!

My "representative " in Congress, Chuck Edwards, sent me a certified letter banning me from all his McDonald's restaurants.

First of all, I haven't eaten at a McDonald's in more than 25 years, so that's really no skin off my nose.

But here's the best part: He has hidden all their [McDonald's] addresses in real estate holding companies, so I couldn't figure out which ones were his.

Well, now I know, and now, so do you.

The letter:

 

Cost/Benefit for the Better Educated

 

I always have my doubts about hot-news social science research ("Being liberal extends your life!"), but this research below seems solidly based in math (econ) and matches the impression I've had after some 64 years of inhabiting various college and university campuses and hanging at numerous coffee pots to hear the gossip. So for what it's worth: 

The Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center at American University, using research from the Yale Tobin Center for Economic Policy "found that graduate degrees in medicine, law and pharmacy generally have the highest return on investment. By contrast, degrees in popular fields such as social work, psychology, and curriculum and instruction may actually have a zero to negative return after factoring in the full cost." (WashPost)

Yikes. 

 

The Man Who Shut Down Early Voting at Western Carolina

 

Bill Thompson, presiding

 

 

Bill Thompson, the new Republican chair of the Jackson County Board of Elections, has managed to establish an early reputation as a nasty piece of work. But isn't that the way Phil Berger and Tim Moore intended election administration to go in North Carolina? They changed the law, put themselves in charge of elections, and just naturally attracted the meanest and most partisan people to make things as difficult as possible.

As chair of the Jackson BOE, it was Thompson who led the nasty move of killing an early voting site at Western Carolina University. “ By law, we could have just one site in Jackson County,” Thompson warned, ignoring evidence that the WCU early voting site was the most used in the county. “One site is required for every 30,000 voters. We've got four, that's plenty.”

Two complaints were lodged with the NC State BOE against Bill Thompson for his conduct in a Cullowee precinct polling place during the March primary. A voter, seconded by two other witnesses, and an actual poll worker both filed complaints on the second day of early voting, saying Thompson came into the polling site talking trash about Muslims and saying that both Germany and France were ruined now because of the Muslim invasion, and that he especially didn't trust Germans. The poll worker who heard all this was born in Germany and he summed up the grief  brief against Bill Thompson, that "he exposed deep and unfounded disgust against Muslims and their faith as well as any non-European culture.”

Bill Thompson's not the first bigot to chair a board of elections, but still....

The NC BOE on March 25th (last Wednesday) held an initial review to determine whether the complaints against Thompson "presented sufficient evidence of misconduct or a violation of election-related duties." The board voted 4-1 that the threshold had not been met. One Democrat voted with the Republican majority, though she lectured Thompson: "We're cautioned not to bring politics into the polling place, and discussions of politics. At least one of those instances cited in the complaints is arguably a political commentary, or brings in issues that really have no place in a polling place.” But she agreed to let him off the hook.

Republican SBOE member Stacy "Four" Eggers did give Thompson a highly decorous, because indirect dressing-down:

"Mr. Chairman, I think it is worth cautioning the chair [Thompson] as to his discussions, choice of words and what he chooses to discuss at the polling place. I know that Miss [Angela] Hawkins [another Jackson Co. board member] and I both have spent a lot of time in county precincts, and generally the discussion is limited to the weather, or perhaps your favorite sports team or something innocuous like that.

“Although the comments were not appropriate for the discussion in the area, they still, in my mind, don't show a violation of Chapter 163.” 

I suspect this may not be the last dressing-down that Bill Thompson will be needing.

 

Cornyn Shoots the Moon in Texas

 

Holy mackerel! I just saw this commercial attacking Ken Paxton, paid for by a proud Senator John Cornyn. Talk about a frontal assault! That's how mean and personal the Republican Senate primary run-off has gotten in Texas between the bland Senator Cornyn and the poisonous Attorney General Ken Paxton. Cornyn, not so bland after all. He's had to go very negative after Trump failed to endorse him, which according to the entire world of political punditry, Trump promised he would do -- to save Texas from born-again James Talarico, because most Texas Republican operatives think Paxton's baggage is as deadly as a suppressed sulfur fart. The very heavy ethical baggage that Cornyn has just aired in this minute commercial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let Us Sit Upon the Ground and Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Kings

 

Politicians abhor a vacuum as much as nature does, and the sudden concession of NC Senate President Phil Berger late yesterday afternoon has created one of the biggest vacuums in North Carolina history. Berger had ultimate power over every bill that made it through to a vote, every appointment to every important post that the General Assembly controls, every ambition of every fellow Republican senator who wanted to rise. Berger was the undisputed king, and perhaps no one will celebrate his absence more than some of his own allies.

The resentment of putative allies got a surprise airing yesterday in the New York Times, when reporter Eduardo Medina outed Sen. Thom Tillis for secretly lobbying wealthy Republican donors against Berger. On a Zoom call last month, well before the primary, Thom Tillis was clear that Berger had to go because he's too power-hungry, too authoritarian, too dismissive of any idea not his own, and too already fat with campaign cash.

So I can only imagine the ambitions right now surging through the Berger troops still in the Senate, the ones who could not rise because Berger stood in the way. The rivalries will now show themselves in the Raleigh Thunderdome. And all the while the in-fighting goes on and consumes the Republican ecology, the date of the mid-term reckoning with voters advances apace. Who knows? Voters appear quite irritated with abusers of power, and perhaps all the GOP's corrupt gerrymandering may not be shield enough against the wrath to come.

Meanwhile, Sam Page can take his seat in January as a new back-bencher -- he may need two seats to accommodate that ridiculous chapeau. He'll soon learn that his vote has been pre-programmed by higher ups (and probably doesn't matter anyway, if the Republican super-majority holds. Ha!). What High Sheriff Sam Page doesn't know about being low-man in a new pecking order might possibly be a harsh and disappointing education.

 

Kings of Gambling Mean To Own North Carolina

 

 

The gambling industry has a two-prong strategy for taking North Carolina: First, the push stage-managed by the Phil Berger clan to put a physical gambling casino in Rockingham County (and ultimately in three other rural counties). The money trail in that mis-fire went back to The Cordish Company, a developer of "gaming destinations."

The second hustle is all about online gambling. The leading player looking for favors is the corporate entity known as DraftKings, a huge online gambling industry leader with a very eerie website that put me in mind of actually being inside a windowless but gleaming casino, slowly losing my wits. DraftKings' parent is DK Crown Holdings Inc., "a leading digital sports entertainment provider." They recently turned up in an investigative piece into a key race for the NC Senate, sticking their thumb on the scale to oust incumbent Republican Sen. Chris Measmer in NCS 34 and put in Republican Kevin Crutchfield (who was recently a one-term member of the NC House). Crutchfield won the primary even after news came out that DK Crown Holdings Inc. was behind big donations to super-PACS that opened a ridiculous frontal assault on the character of Chris Measmer (ridiculous because they attacked him as a RINO when he's in actuality pretty MAGAfied). (Measmer was already trailing heavy personal baggage, which I described back in February.)

Crutchfield

 

The anti-Measmer attack ads were funded by an entity called the American Conservative Fund. According to the excellent investigative reporting of Nora O'Neill, "the Federal Election Commission filings show American Conservative Fund is funded entirely by another political group called Win for America, which is entirely funded by DK Crown Holdings, Inc."

They wanted Chris Measmer to lose his seat bad, which means they wanted Kevin Crutchfield bad and are counting on him for ... what? That question alone ought to set Kevin Crutchfield up for knocking down in November by Democrat April Cook. I wrote about her back in February and was taken with her prospects. She's now been endorsed by Carolina Forward. She can beat Crutchfield, who's now dragging his own weary baggage.

Anyway, why such financial interest in little ole North Carolina by various fronts in the gambling biz? (And I do wonder what other General Assembly races featured big gambling money.) In the case of DraftKings, its very popular and I suspect amazingly lucrative SportsBook only very recently became legal (March of '24) after the passage of H 347, which legalized sports betting specifically but not "casino" action -- slots, roulette, and other live-dealer games, which according to DraftKings' website they're very into. Online casino betting -- still banned in North Carolina, but the General Assembly already opened that door a crack and invited DraftKings in.

 

Splitsville in the Democratic Party?

 

Wesley Knott

 

 

The dyspepsia in the Democratic Party is generational. I see the rising tide of younger, sharper, more confrontational candidates as the yeast producing the gas that makes the dough rise, and my sympathies are almost entirely with them. I was pretty yeasty myself in my youth and had Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy to inspire me (not that McCarthy was any spring chicken by then, but he didn't think like an old man).

So I'm fairly philosophical about the kerfuffle that's erupted in the Wake County Democratic Party over the party chair's open and public endorsement of the insurgent Nida Allam, the 32-year-old Durham County Commissioner, over the "safer" incumbent Congresswoman Valerie Foushee. Endorsements in party primaries are supposed to be off-limits for party officers, and some county parties adhere rigidly to that hands-off principle (like the Watauga County Democratic Party, sometimes to its actual detriment). What party officers are not supposed to indulge in, individual rank-and-file Democrats can. Any Democrat can advocate for whomever they favor, loudly and obnoxiously if necessary.

But here's the thing: that principle of non-interference by our party leaders is already in tatters. The Governor himself made very public endorsements in more than one primary for General Assembly seats (and his candidates all won), while the state party chair cut off campaign resources for several NC House members who had voted with Republicans on veto overrides (and all those candidates lost). So I'm almost amused to see a petition arise in Wake County to eject Wesley Knott from his position as party chair, because he endorsed Nida Allam over Valerie Foushee in the 4th Congressional District primary. When asked about his coloring outside the lines, Knott, a 29-year-old who just became party chair last year, articulated the generational judgment of Foushee, the 70-year-old political veteran with municipal, county, and General Assembly elected positions behind her and a history of taking AIPAC money (the Israeli lobby). Knott called Foushee “risk-averse,” a “carefully-calculated” friend of the status quo who has failed to inspire voters. 

"Risk aversion" cuts succinctly to the point. In the current situation of both the NC General Assembly and the US Congress, where Trump Republicans rule and in NC's case rule almost absolutely, some Democrats become hesitant to advance ideas or initiatives that they know can't win approval (because, math) and they become simultaneously resigned if not outright comfortable sitting on their small seats of advancement and doing nothing to raise hell for policies that make sense and that need public drum-beating. Wesley Knott is a drum-beater.

I wrote about the younger version of Wesley Knott in 2022 when he himself ran a primary against Democratic House incumbent Sarah Crawford in NC House Dist. 66 and came within 140 votes of actually beating her. I was impressed then by the way he put things:

"I’m a mixed-race progressive who grew up in the Deep South. Politics isn’t abstract to me. I didn’t need critical race theory to learn about racism, and I didn’t need a policy analysis to know the importance of Medicaid. So when I talk about policy, it’s from a place of shared experience. I know what’s on the line. That’s why I’m running."

 

To get rid of Wesley Knott, who by other accounts has been an effective ball of fire for the Wake County party, strikes me as a foolish cutting off of one's nose to spit one's face.

 

Keeping Up With the Slow Death of Titan

 

I always learn stuff from Bryan Anderson's reporting, like the basic statutory process for recounting votes in the Berger/Page upset election in NC Senate Dist. 26:

State law and historical precedent calls for a machine recount first. After that, the trailing candidate has 24 hours to request a partial hand recount for a random sample of about 3% of primary day precincts, early voting sites, or both. If the partial hand recount produces results that indicate a different outcome in the race, a full hand recount would be triggered.

 

Yesterday (Wednesday), Berger asked the State Board of Elections (SBOE -- majority Republican) to alter that schedule slightly, to also do a hand recount on any ballots that the machine recount identified as "undervotes" (where voters picked no candidate in the race) or "overvotes" (where voters picked both candidates). Those numbers are already known: 217 undervotes and 3 overvotes out of the 26,000 votes cast in Rockingham and Guilford counties. 

 

Berger wanted yesterday those 220 ballots examined during the machine recount. The SBOE declined Berger's request, perhaps because those three Republican SBOE members are quite aware that the whole state is watching them very closely in this particular instance, on high alert for any finagling. So SBOE Chair Francis DeLuca (as dependably and consistently partisan a conservative as any GOP wet-dream could conjure and put in control of North Carolina elections) sounded like a slightly shocked Aunt Polly about Berger's request: “We follow the law! If it’s in the statute, we follow it. But there was nothing in that request that went by statute.” 

Berger intends ultimately (and mysteriously) to "determine the voter's intent" behind those 220 undervotes and overvotes, and I reckon those assumed intentions end up being at least one of the arguments in the eventual law suit. Berger only needs to find 24 of those under-voters and get them to swear in an affidavit that their votes would have/should have gone to Berger. If I were one of those people, I would play it safe and claim that I was on prescription drugs that day and didn't mean to skip that race and would have voted enthusiastically for Mr. Berger had I not been in a not-unpleasing drug haze). 

 

The machine recount in Rockingham is happening right now at this hour. The machine recount in those precincts of Guilford that are in S 26 happened yesterday, resulted in minus-1 vote from both Berger and Page, so no change in the outcome. All eyes on Rockingham today.

Ain't No Simple Thing To Steal an Election

 

BREAKING NEWS from Laura Leslie: 

North Carolina Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) has called for a recount in his District 26 primary contest against Rockingham Sheriff Sam Page, who holds a narrow lead in official county totals.

According to the final canvasses in Rockingham and Guilford counties last week, with 26,249 votes cast in the race, Page has 23 more votes than Berger, a margin of 0.08%. That’s well within the 1% margin in state law for a losing candidate in a non-statewide race to request a recount....

Because the district covers more than one county, the State Board of Elections has jurisdiction over the recount process, but the actual recounts are still conducted at the county level. The state board sent detailed instructions to Guilford and Rockingham counties on March 14. 

 

I'm not normally (yip!) conspiracy-minded, but in an age when massive theft is on plain view and actually unashamed to be seen in its native garb, if there was a moment for election theft, it would be now rather than later. And don't you wonder what those "detailed instrux" said? 

It's a machine recount, but in both Rockingham and Guilford, there's a paper-trail. Voters fill in a paper ballot that they then feed into a tabulator (Rockingham County uses the DS200 Vote Tabulator). Could the innards of the DS200 be jiggered to flip the election? Dunno, but I bet it would be hard, but totally within the skill set of the people who run elections now and who owe their jobs to Phil Berger. Just sayin'.

But even then, any substantial change in vote totals from the machine recount would trigger a second hand-eye recount, and that's when those paper ballots would presumably furnish the truth. 

What Would Mark Twain Say about Donald Jethro Trump?

 

I've been reading and savoring Ron Chernow's new and massive biography of Mark Twain. The book's so fat and heavy it's made reading in bed, which I favor, almost impossible. Dropping the book on my face could be fatal, or at least disfiguring.

Mark Twain was a complex, sometimes infuriating, easily duped genius. He made many disastrous business alliances based on misplaced trust in men who were essentially conning him for his money, so it's tempting to think he might have been taken in by the orange bunco artist, but ... naw ... Mark Twain was too genetically alert to pompous windbaggery and loved deflating it. After all, it was Mark Twain who coined the defining term for the times -- "the Gilded Age" -- and attacked the robber barons savagely.

I found this passage in Chernow's book most enlightening for understanding Mark Twain's politics and for guessing how he would have viewed Jethro in the White House:

After campaigning for Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1876 and James Garfield in the 1880 presidential races, Mark Twain seemed, at least outwardly, to have become a stalwart of the Republican Party .... But, an iconoclast to the core, he was not cut out for strict party allegiance, telling a reporter between those two elections: "I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat -- for any length of time. Vacillation is my particular forte." He identified with the Liberal Republican wing of the party, which detested political bosses, favored civil service reform and free trade, and endorsed clean government. These Republicans stressed morality rather than ideology in political matters and clung to the belief that character was the foremost criterion for public office, not a candidate's partisan agenda. 

Needless to remind readers that both the Democratic and the Republican parties of the 1880s were very different animals than they are now. The Democratic Party was harbor for white supremacists who either excused slavery or actively defended it. The Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and on the whole the liberals of their day. 

Mark Twain was born essentially a Southerner in Missouri, in a family -- let alone a region -- where slavery was the practice, never seriously questioned after the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The future writer's own father owned at least one slave, but Mark Twain was bright enough to see the humanity in people of all stations and conditions. After all, he created the character Jim, the runaway slave that Huck Finn teams up with and who is the noblest character in that book. Huckleberry Finn was banned all over the South because of its dangerous liberalism (and then -- different story -- it got banned all over again in the North in recent years because of its dangerous use of the n-word, and thereby hangs the alluring and sweetly stuffed pinata of opinion about how most white men, even one as smart as Mark Twain, will never be completely shed of their racism). 

Mark Twain's transformation into a Yankee Republican did not kick into high gear until he married a rich Connecticut girl from an abolitionist family. He always wanted to please Olivia, and she ruled him (at least while he was at home). He even gave up his whiskey and 15-cigars-a-day habits when he and Olivia first set up housekeeping, but that abstemiousness didn't last. He once admitted to a friend that he couldn't write without a cigar in his hand to steady his concentration. So seems pretty obvious that his "liberal" attitude toward Blacks after the Civil War was maybe also strategically cosmetic, to please the wife he loved and doted on, and that he was always essentially just a rough country boy who used the n-word without thought or -- in fact -- ill will. 

I like complicated people.

 

The Interesting Political Climate of 2026

 

The closeness of the Phil Berger/Sam Page race is a reminder that, even in an era of nationalized politics, state legislative primaries can still turn on local dynamics. Relationships and local turnout patterns—what political scientist V.O. Key once called “friends and neighbors voting”—still matter, and occasionally they decide who holds power.

--Christopher Cooper, Old North State Politics

 

 

Sam Page, currently 23 votes ahead

 

 

The fact that Phil Berger couldn't win even with the Trump endorsement -- that he couldn't nationalize his importance to the voters of NC Senate Dist. 26 by tying himself to the Trump -- suggests to me that the MAGA base -- at least, portions of it, particularly in rural areas -- are actively trying to look away from Trump like you might drop your eyes or turn away your head when you see your friend embarrassing himself. Country people are always embarrassed for the swaggering braggarts in their own families. So a local candidate tied to what is in so many countless ways a walking ineptitude was of no particular help to Phil Berger on March 3rd. His obvious corruption in trying to force a gambling casino on the good Christians of Rockingham County brought him down. Trump couldn't save him because Trump is now a spectacle of badly staged policy swerves. War? Poorly calculated distractions featuring bad and un-capable people, even though the Noem woman is gone.

 

The lesson for Democrats might be: Find the local, fly the local flag, defend the local. Don't forget that the biggest local issue might, in fact, be the Republican incumbent's own character, his/her votes, his/her trumpian odor, his/her public corruption for the sake of power.

 

The Cowboy Calf-Ropes the Leader of the Pack

 

Sam Page, March 3, 2026. Photo Bryan Anderson

 

 

That sharp tack Jeffrey Billman, the best investigative reporter in the state IMO, has just published a deep primer on Phil Berger* and how the President Pro Tem of the NC Senate got himself into such career-ending trouble with the voters of Rockingham County, who have voted Berger out and replaced him with the county's high sheriff and drugstore cowboy Sam Page.

Billman recounts the entire career, the scandals we've read about and partially misremembered, the iron grip on policy-making in the NC Senate, that paint a portrait of a stunning level of political corruption. And some new factoids I had previously missed:

The Assembly reported in August that, months after Illinois-based RedSpeed deposited $220,000 into House and Senate Republican coffers, lawmakers passed a bill that could make the company millions. The News & Observer reported in October that lawmakers spent $15 million to help a Mooresville developer after his politically connected project manager donated $132,000 to key lawmakers, including more than $17,000 to Berger. 

When you control as much as the Berger family controls, you're never satisfied. And it's like Phil Berger foresaw a time when he'd need to control the vote-counting process itself:

After the 2024 election, Republicans tucked a provision into a disaster recovery bill that transferred control of the state elections board from the Democratic governor to the newly elected Republican state auditor. 

The auditor, Dave Boliek, appointed the local and state officials who would oversee a recount. Boliek also endorsed and campaigned for Berger, and his chief of staff and spokesperson previously worked for Berger in the General Assembly. 

Boliek, a turn-coat Democrat, has already refused Sam Page's demand that he recuse himself from any recount process.

 

* If you're not a subscriber to The Assembly, what in the world is the matter with you?

 

The Perils of Phileen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dennis Draughon is on Bluesky. 

 

Primarily (Dragging My Ass)

 

Keith Kidwell

 

 

My excuse for not being johnny-on-the-spot about what just happened in North Carolina and then Texas yesterday -- I couldn't research nor write anything about that amazing primary primarily because my laptop was in the hospital getting updates and add-ons.

The first thing of note locally came to my attention a couple of days ahead of E-Day, and this local trend turns out to have been true and steady throughout the state. This info goes under the heading, "Enthusiasm Gap":

Some more quick numbers: Watauga County compared to statewide in early voting through yesterday (Friday):

 

-- Statewide 42% cast a Republican ballot during early voting. In Watauga only 25% cast a Republican ballot.

-- Statewide 29% of voters were Republicans. In Watauga 17% were Republicans.

 

Youth vote (18-30) represents 19% of the early vote in this Primary election. That is a significant increase from 11% in 2022 Primary.  

The enthusiasm gap means different things to the two major parties. For the Democrats, enthusiasm seems particularly generational in its vision of the future -- young people are showing up as serious candidates and some of them outstandingly have prospered, and because the future looks both younger and more progressive, candidates out-of-step with the majority are no longer tolerated. Carla Cunningham, Nasif Majeed, Shelly Willingham -- those three Democrats had voted with the GOP to override Gov. Stein vetoes, and all went down to defeat in their primaries. Michael Wray, a former Dem House Member who made a habit of defying both Gov. Cooper and his caucus, lost his bid to take back the seat he lost in 2024 from the man who beat him.

What does the apparent lack of enthusiasm mean for Republicans? You tell me. The main connective thread I see is possibly just a sudden surge of hatred for encumbents of whatever stripe, for both mean-eyed old Keith Kidwell, head of the NC House Freedom Caucus; and a Phil Berger, a corporate establishmentarian if I've ever seen one, who's in it for himself and his brazen family. Somehow 2026 has turned into a dismal year for Republican honchos. Someone soon will have calculated just how much each vote cost Phil Berger and his web of big money. I see totals calculated above $10 million. Berger got just a third of the votes in his home county of Rockingham -- that's worse than what Virginia Foxx's home county thinks of her -- while it was the portion of gerrymandered Guilford in his newly drawn district that got him within two votes of actually tying Sam Page. Oh the humiliation.

Colin Campbell lists at least four more Republican incumbents, some with longish records, who didn't survive their primaries. Why? I would love to hear informed opinions.

And meanwhile, Texas was almost feverish with heat.

More later (but I have to tell you, Brethren, I'm outside in the garden most of the time).

 

Trump and Facebook, Sitting in a Tree

 

I've been reading an insider's book about the peculiar brand of selfishness and narcissism at Facebook -- Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg and on down the ranks of upper management -- written by Sarah Wynn-Williams: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism (published just last November). According to John Walters, Facebook management tried to suppress it, "which in fact only increased its sales."

No wonder Facebook felt a fit of censorship. Wynn-Williams's title for this takedown of a media monster -- Careless People -- comes from The Great Gatesby, a passage the author quotes as an epigraph: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

There's no doubt that Facebook had a huge hand in unleashing Donald Jethro Trump in the election of 2016. In fact, according to Wynn-Williams, Facebook staff worked collaboratively with Trump's campaign to mastermind the "single best digital ad campaign" that several experts in mass communications had ever seen. Wynn-Williams gets into some graphic detail:

A Trump operative named Brad Parscale ran the operation together with the embedded Facebook staff, and he basically invented a new way for a political campaign to shitpost its way to the White House, targeting voters with misinformation, inflammatory posts, and fundraising messages....

...Facebook and Parscale's combined team microtargeted users and tweaked ads for maximum engagement, using data tools we designed for commercial advertisers. The way I understand it, Trump's campaign had amassed a database, named Project Alamo, with profiles of over 220 million people in America. It charted all sorts of online and offline behavior, including gun registration, voter registration, credit card and shopping histories, what websites they visit, what car they drive, where they live, and the last time they voted. The campaign used Facebook's "Custom Audiences from Custom Lists" to match people in that database with their Facebook profiles. Then Facebook's "Lookalike Audiences" algorithm found people on Facebook with "common qualities" that "look like" those of known Trump supports. So if Trump supporters like, for example, a certain kind of pickup truck, the tool would find other people who liked pickup trucks but were not yet committed voters to show the ads to.

Then they'd pair their targeting strategy with data from their message testing. People likely to respond to "build a wall" got that sort of message. Moms worried about childcare got ads explaining that Trump wanted "100% Tax Deductible Childcare." Then there was a whole operation to constantly tweak the copy and the images and the color of the buttons that say "donate," since slightly different messages resonate with different audiences. At any given moment, the campaign had tens of thousands of ads in play, millions of different ad variations by the time they were done. These ads were tested using Facebook's Brand Lift surveys, which measure whether users have absorbed the messages in the ads, and tweaked accordingly. Many of these ads contained inflammatory misinformation that drove up engagement and drove down the price of advertising. The more people engage with an ad, the less it costs. Facebook's tools and in-house white glove service created incredibly accurate targeting of both message and audience, which is the holy grail of advertising.

Trump heavily outspent [Hillary] Clinton on Facebook ads. In the weeks before the election, the Trump campaign was regularly one of the top advertisers on Facebook globally. His campaign could afford to do this because the data targeting enables it to raise millions each month in campaign contributions through Facebook. In fact, Facebook was the Trump campaign's largest source of cash.

 

DCCC Involves Itself in a North Carolina Primary

Jamie Ager
Photo Katie Linsky Shaw

On February 23rd (yesterday!) the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) added Jamie Ager and the NC 11th Dist. to its “Red to Blue” program, "a merit-based designation for Democratic challengers or open-seat candidates the DCCC believes have a real chance to flip a Republican-held district." In other words, an arm of the National Democratic Party is doing what has previously been frowned on -- endorsing a primary candidate, one of five in Ager's case, thus putting the Party's thumb on the scale in hopes of controlling the outcome. That is supposedly verboten for county Democratic parties and for state party officials, though you may have noticed that both Roy Cooper and Josh Stein have made primary endorsements.

The Jamie Ager case is interesting for several reasons. Five people are running. I read through the transcript of a very revealing candidate forum published by Asheville Watchdog. All five candidates were there and spoke. But the questioning was designed to disarm and reveal. Retired investigative reporter and questioner Tom Fiedler pulled some stunning honesty out of them, and several are frankly more interesting than front-runner Ager. A working-class woman named Zelda Briarwood, who admitted to a prior drug addiction and talked about her path to recovery. Paul Maddox, with a strong country accent, called himself a "hillbilly scientist" -- born in the hills but educated to the hilt, with advanced degrees in science that make him tough on bullshit: "I’m a cancer researcher and I solve problems, that’s what I do. And you take the hillbilly and the scientist and put them together, ain’t no problem we can’t solve." Richard Hudspeth, a medical doctor and a family physician who ran Blue Ridge Health Care, a very large community health center. Hudspeth is probably Ager's chief rival.

Jamie Ager comes from Democratic Party nobility in Buncombe County. He is the grandson of Jamie Clarke (James McClure Clarke), famous for trading the 11th CD seat back and forth with Republican Bill Hendon in the 1980s. Both Ager's father John and brother Eric either served in the past (John) or is now serving (Eric) in the NC House. Jamie runs Hickory Nut Gap Farm, the very large operation started by his grandfather. In other words, Jamie Ager comes from a family steeped in politics who seem to know how to do it, and he's got access to beaucoup money through his business and family associations.

He's a good old boy. He seems almost apolitical. But when you introduce yourself to a political audience as "fourth generation in these mountains," I wince. Pulling rank. What I hear, Mr. Fourth Generation, is "I'm entitled." So I find myself wondering what sort of congressman Jamie Ager will be, whether he's got actual philosophical principles about social justice and the power of great wealth, whether he's got a spine or is too accustomed to going-along-with, which can metastasize into damnable passivity. In one of Ager's responses to Fiedler's questions, he signals "moderate Democrat" ("just a country boy"), but the image of the straddle unnerves me a little:

...the political divide gets wider and wider and wider. I feel like I’ve been straddling this divide my entire life, since I’ve been involved in agriculture and I’ve been involved in the meat business, which turns out most of the people are not generally Democrat....

Ager will win the primary. But will he win the general? There's a good chance, according to the DCCC. And I wish him the best for becoming a well-informed and effective legislator. Not another Heath Schuler, please.

 

We Need To Think of Impeachments as Room Fresheners

 

"The first Attorney General to go to prison [John N. Mitchell] did so because he convinced himself that the ends justified the means and that the law was pliable in his hands. Pam Bondi should take that to heart, if she has a heart."

--Rick Wilson

And the way you consolidate and perpetuate power is by so thoroughly demonizing opponents — by blasting so much contempt at them — that your own failures, corruption and cruelty become irrelevant. You needn’t answer for your fatal thuggery in Minneapolis if you can render its casualties sufficiently contemptible. You needn’t answer questions from a “washed-up, loser lawyer” or a “failed politician” at all....

Pam Bondi opted for contempt. It’s the Trumpian way. But is it the American one? Has the country sunk quite this far? I don’t think so. She and her fellow insult mongers aren’t owning the libs; they’re beclowning themselves. And it’s a repellent circus.

--Frank Bruni 

“I don’t think Pam Bondi has confidence in Pam Bondi. She wasn’t confident enough to engage in anything but name-calling in a hearing. And so no, I don’t have confidence in her.”

--Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky 

From where I was sitting, it looked like the attorney general pretty much invited the United States Congress to impeach her.

--John Stoehr, Raw Story

 

Joey Osborne Goes Foxx-Hunting

I've paid little attention to Congresswoman Virginia Foxx's primary opponents. She always has 'em. She always beats 'em. They're like the mayflies of politics, so I don't invest much time in them. But I may have missed the boat with Joey Osborne, a millionaire entrepreneur running in the 5th District Republican primary with two others, Roman H. Chad Williams II and Steve Girard, all three diluting each other's potential solo strength against Foxx if, say, Joey Osborne had the Foxx opposition to himself. 

Joseph "Joey" Osborne got his start as an entrepreneur growing a family business in mosquito control into the largest mosquito control company in the US, headquartered in Hickory, with some 500 locations across the nation. He says on his Linked-In page, "I've created more than 50 business models for myself and others. Businesses that I've founded have generated more than half a billion dollars in revenue, creating more than 100 millionaires in the process." Some of those businesses: BizLab, 10X Innovations, Mainline Brands.

He's a very rich entrepreneur conservative who tells us he's conservative in the Calvin Coolidge mold, and I believe him. Old Cal was an honest man. There was not one ounce of greed in him, none of the me-first ethos of later times. Osborne talks intelligently about Coolidge in a 5-minute video titled "What My Conservatism Actually Looks Like," in which he makes the implicit comparison to trumpist politicians who grab and grow rich in office rather than actually practicing conservative values. "I don’t believe leadership should enrich the officeholder. I believe it should serve the public." Who has enriched herself the most in office if not Virginia Anne Foxx? She's known as one of the most high-volume stock traders in Congress, and it makes you wonder. (I can't copy Osborne's 5-min video here but you might want to watch it here.)

I looked deeper into Mosquito Authority and was pleased to read this about the ingredients in his spray: "We utilize all-natural, plant-based mosquito solutions with alternative botanical ingredients. The ingredients in our essential oil blend have been used for centuries to keep mosquitoes away." "Alternative botanical ingredients" sound delicious, but I'd like to know more. I'm naive about what else may be in his spray that I wouldn't brag about, but I take note that Osborne developed it to protect his three little girls who liked to be in the yard past dark on summer nights, and it doesn't seem likely to me that he would expose his daughters to toxins. He's not a greed-ass.

He seems more than merely intelligent -- actually downright bright (you can see it in his eyes) -- and calm and reasonable (even if I'm going to disagree with him on everything else, from abortion to well fare), with the inherent good sense of a practical man looking to make things work. He hinted in a most cryptic way that he was a solution-seeking moderate back in 2020 when he and 10 others ran in the Republican primary for the NC-11 seat. Osborne came in seventh. Lynda Bennett and Madison Cawthorn went to a run-off, which Cawthorn-of-Blessed-Memory won. Anyway, in 2020 Osborne said this to a reporter from the Asheville Citizen-Times: "I would never say that I would compromise my principles, but I think there always is a space between the divides.” I like the way he thinks, if I understand what "space between the divides" means.

The Berger/Page Meet-Up

 

I found the time to watch the Phil Berger vs. Sam Page "town hall." The event was hosted by the Rockingham Co. Republican Party on Feb. 5th and featured an odd format: the two candidates had been given four questions -- some of them pretty sharp and specific about negative advertising -- and both Berger and Page got to read aloud what they had written -- essentially, canned talking points (and Berger's much better at that than Page) -- so there was nothing alive or spontaneous about their "joint appearance" -- except my getting to witness Phil Berger, seated not two feet from his nemesis and looking like death, hear without wincing Sam Page blame him for the repeal of the Bathroom Bill. The repeal. So Sam Page wants to bring back the Bathroom Bill.

A high point for me was when Berger read his accusation that the Democratic Party was actively meddling in the primary. "They want Sam Page to win because I'm so effective in the Senate." That's a paraphrase. And it's the absolute truth. I don't know a Democratic operative who wouldn't applaud a Berger loss. If Berger collapses ... is grist for fantasy.

But Sheriff Sam Page? He presents as kind of a clown to be honest. With Berger beside him in "business casual" (no tie), Page shows up like he's playing an 1890s Utah sheriff, in red plaid shirt overlaid by a grey outdoorsman vest, the ensemble topped by a big black Western hat. Page takes himself very seriously. His white handlebar mustache added just the right splash of light under the dark brim of that cowboy hat.

They both touted their devotion to Trump and their closeness to trumpism, though Sam Page actually implicated the president for offering a bribe. The President called me, Page said, and I was very appreciative of the call. He actually offered me a high level job in his administration. 

Give the sheriff credit for not taking the bribe.

Josh Stein Still Fighting for Control of SBOE. Bless Him!

 

Dallas Woodhouse

Gov. Josh Stein is suing the GOP-controlled General Assembly over its last-minute seizure of the State Board of Elections, which they gave lock-stock-and-barrel to their new bestie, Dave Boliek, the brand new State Auditor and conservative fan boy. ("There's no fanatic like a new convert.") The General Assembly pulled off the blatant power grab between Josh Stein's landslide victory over Mark Robinson on November 5th, 2024, and the swearing in of Josh Stein as our 76th governor on January 1st, 2025. Now that's hustling for any deliberative body (maybe not so much for one in lockstep like the Berger/Moore congregation was).

Very shortly after Stein whupped Robinson, GOP lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 382, cleverly attaching Hurricane Helene relief to their plan to sneak in provisions stripping the governor's control of the State Board of Elections, among other things. (They also took powers from Attorney General Jeff Jackson and other members of the Council of State.) Gov. Cooper, still in office, vetoed S 382. Republicans overrode. Immediately, the new czar of elections, Dave Boliek, hires extreme partisan Republican hit-man Dallas Woodhouse to "teach" local county boards of election how best to suppress the vote. The very recent elimination of three university polling sites testifies to Woodhouse's malign presence. 

Of course Stein took it to court, and he won at the trial court level. A panel of three superior court judges agreed that the section of S 382 taking powers from the executive was unconstitutional. The Court of Appeals -- dominated 12-3 by Republicans -- quickly stepped in and blocked that ruling, allowing the law to take effect on May 1st.

Stein is right now back in court asking a new panel of Appeals Court judges to overturn previous court orders that allowed Boliek to take over elections board appointments last spring.

Kyle Ingram was there in court February 10th -- yesterday -- to hear the arguments, and he captured the essential gist:

Attorneys for Stein argued that the power shift — which transferred appointments to Republican State Auditor Dave Boliek — sets a dangerous precedent for separation of powers, wherein the legislature can consistently reassign responsibilities to whichever executive office holder agrees with their policy preferences.

“The legislative position is that there are no limits on their power to assign executive duties on the Council of State,” Eric Fletcher, a lawyer for Stein, said. “They say that they can assign, tomorrow, election administration to the Commissioner of Agriculture. That they can send agricultural policy to the Commissioner of Insurance. And they can assign road-building to the Superintendent of Public Instruction.” 

Attorneys for legislative leaders argued that it was within the General Assembly’s duty to reassign executive powers as they please, so long as the powers in question are not explicitly assigned in the constitution.

The three judges hearing the arguments: John Arrowood (D), Valerie Zachary (R), and April Wood (R). Wanna guess how invested in partisanship those two Republican judges are?

Fire Sale

 

“In a country that amended the Constitution to ban beer… then fixed it when we realized it was dumb… surely we can amend it again to say corporations aren’t people and money isn’t speech.” 

--Pete Buttigieg, 16 January 2025, LaCross, Wisconsin town hall

Analyst Brian Allen said Amen! 

"We corrected Prohibition. We can correct Citizens United. Democracy shouldn’t be for sale."

Hubbard and Creekmore Face Off in an Appstate Town Hall

 

Jack Yordy, guest-posting:

On Thursday, I attended an event hosted by the College Democrats of Appalachian State University with special guests Chuck Hubbard and Kyah Creekmore: the Democratic candidates for the 5th congressional district of North Carolina.

I’ve known of Mr. Hubbard since his run for Virginia Foxx’s seat in 2024. While somewhat awkward initially and slow to talk about himself, he struck me as a well-meaning man interested in serving the people of this district. The first time I met him, he told me about his daughter and her wife, and about how worried he was for them in the post-Roe vs. Wade America. Chuck didn’t strike me as a progressive but certainly not as a centrist ideologue or ‘do-nothing-democrat’ either. Over the last two years I’ve watched him evolve as a candidate, building out his operation and beginning to grow into what might be a unique campaign brand. Though there’s a lot he could do to improve, I would be happy to see him win our blood-red district. He’s never failed to show up for us in Watauga and at App State when asked, and it’s clear to me that he cares about the people of this district.

Kyah I had not known until very recently, when he showed up uninvited to a town hall for Chuck Hubbard late last semester after apparently ignoring prior outreach by the App College Democrats. My first impression of Kyah was, therefore, not great, but I am not one to rule out ambitious young people who make mistakes. After checking out his social media and website, I reached out to him to express my disappointment and let him know that I felt his actions reflected poorly on other young people attempting to run for office. He apologized and explained that he had not ignored the College Democrats outreach, rather that he had unfortunately missed their correspondence and had made the assumption, upon seeing the College Dems’ post about a town hall with Chuck, that they were deliberately leaving him out. He expressed regret for making this assumption and resolved to do better.

I was skeptical, especially when I saw “Democratic Socialist” in his bio on Instagram. Though I lean toward that side of the party, after his assumption that there was some kind of establishment plot by the App State College Democrats to leave him out of their event, I worried that he might take a hostile (and unnecessary) posture toward local parties and auxiliaries. I was very glad to see him return to App State in a different context Thursday evening. Some candidates might have decided their efforts would be better spent elsewhere after a bad first impression, but not Kyah.

Leading up to the discussion between the two candidates, I was open-minded. I think Chuck Hubbard is a good man, and that he would be a good congressman who would contribute to the progressive agenda. I think Kyah is a highly passionate, unique, and intelligent communicator, and though he’s a bit of a wildcard, I believe we need more young progressives running for office. I was wondering if tonight, he would show me he’s the kind of young person we need winning those races.

The event was a success. The College Democrats achieved the highest turnout I’ve seen at a meeting at least since 2024. The participants were very engaged and asked questions for nearly an hour. The discussion by the candidates was in-depth, respectful, and interesting. I was very surprised by Chuck Hubbard’s performance. My frank expectation was that Kyah would outflank him by speaking to the progressive moment, and while Kyah is no doubt the most progressive candidate in the race, Chuck looks like a pragmatic but passionate progressive. The only issue I took with Chuck was his support of Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker of the House, though he lambasted Chuck Schumer and stated emphatically, “He’s got to go.” Kyah brought the typical young left-wing energy and analysis. His communication style and some of his novel policy proposals, while perhaps over-ambitious or even extreme, impressed me and, I think, the room. I walked out of the event feeling grateful that we have two strong, progressive candidates running in this race. I will keep my voting intentions private, and while I have thoughts on who the stronger candidate to beat Virginia Foxx is, I would be happy with either of these gentlemen representing the 5th district in Congress.

Below are my unedited notes from the town hall:

Did Virginia Foxx kill her neighbor?

Kyah: She’s a Karen, annoying, riled up, snitch, bad neighbor - not someone you want to be in community with. Policymaking: she sides with predators and billionaires in Epstein files

Chuck: Virginia didn’t let neighbor cross her property. Road had not been fixed and neighbor had a 4-wheeler accident. We’re supposed to look after our neighbors and be good neighbors, she isn’t. She was fired from App State. Helene- Virginia damaged FEMA

Criticism of Democratic Party: low integrity, not aggressive enough pushing back against GOP. Do you guys have the confidence to maintain a strong integrity while playing aggressively against GOP?

Chuck: If you don’t have integrity you don’t have much. You have to be able to believe what I say, that’s important to me. Also, we are too passive and we need to fight GOP. I spent my whole career in journalism promoting the truth.

Kyah: Integrity is absolutely pivotal. We have two parties full of people who could care less about integrity. Grandstanding on LGBTQ+ and abortion but no ideas on how to fix it or make stronger legislation to safeguard our rights. They didn’t do roe v wade protection or Medicare for all--Obama got nothing done. Centrist Democrats block legislation. Israel-- we send our money to bomb children and centrist Dems vote for that but never for healthcare or helping Americans. We can do so much more as a minority. Force impeachments. Stand for something! Fascist collaborators.

Labor Unions and Workers Rights

Chuck: Pro labor, endorsed by AFL - CIO - largest labor union in the US. NC is tough for labor, 2nd least organized labor state in America. We must improve that. Union wages are living wages. Protect labor

Kyah: Largest reforms we’ve ever seen have come through a strong labor movement. Our country has gutted labor unions. “immigrants taking our jobs,” no -- corporations cutting jobs. Replacing with AI. Creating a workers constitution: Guaranteed worker rights. Breaking up monopolies.

Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker?

Chuck: Yes. He’s served his time, done his time. He’s going to be speaker, I don’t necessarily like everything he does, but I respect him and the time he’s put into congress.

Kyah: He’s a joke. He’s the reason Trump is doing what he’s doing right now. We need people that actually want to fight. Where is his presence? Ro Khanna would be a better leader as an example. Chuck Schumer also has to go. We need new leadership.

Chuck: Chuck Schumer is a different matter. He needs to step down. Cory Booker is fantastic and becoming a central voice for the party.

Abolish ICE?

Kyah: We should abolish and prosecute every lawless, murderous ICE agent. Make sure they never get roles in government again.

Chuck: First we need to take away their money - $50 billion is larger than the FBI. Dismantle ICE. Fund a new agency under proper rules or rebuild it constitutionally. They’re Trump’s private police - Nazi Germany parallel. It’s a priority for me to deal with ICE and create a pathway to citizenship that is not cruel.

Kyah: ICE budget larger than most countries entire militaries. We need to also redirect those funds. Criticism of high military spending-- redirect toward social programs. For-profit prisons.

Reproductive rights

Chuck: Completely pro-choice. Absolutely determined to codify roe vs. wade.

Kyah: The demographics in congress is 53+ older, senate is 63+ older - menopause. Women and Men in congress do not know what’s going on there and it does not affect them. Health proposal: People’s health and rescue act. 3 free abortions a year.

3rd trimester abortions

Kyah: I’ve had to experience an abortion. It was hard but I understand people have abortions out of necessity- just like crime. They’re doing this because it’s in their best interest and in the best interest of the baby. The woman should get to choose.

Chuck: Third trimester abortions are extraordinarily rare.

Question for Kyah: As a minority, what does it take to be the next representative of this district?

Putting yourself out there and realizing the importance of the message. Friend passed away and told him not to be afraid. Trying to represent the right ideas, values, and principles.

What does a pathway to citizenship look like?

Chuck: make sure that people who are here undocumented already have a humane way to apply for asylum first and citizenship later (instead of having to leave the country first). We need secure borders but also a pathway to citizenship

Kyah: We need some kind of reform. At one point we didn’t have borders and we were very safe, we didn’t used to have a wall. We need a very fast immigration process-- less than one year. We have a lack of judges and lack of funding. That funding could come from ICE’s budget. My grandma was on a green card and it took her so long, maybe decades, to get citizenship -- it has to be faster.