Sue Their Sorry Asses!

 

The new Republican majority on the Jackson Co. Board of Elections voted 3-2 to eliminate an early-voting site on the campus of Western Carolina University that has been used for a decade. According to Chris Cooper, a political scientist at WCU, the university’s voting site has served "an outsize proportion of young and diverse voters compared to the rest of the county’s polling places."

Meanwhile, the new Republican majority on the Guilford Co. Board of Elections also voted 3-2 to reject a proposal to include early voting sites at UNC Greensboro and North Carolina A&T State University, which had been the case in 2024.

It's very clear why this is going on. The youth vote is a problem for Republicans, and they intend to make it as difficult as possible for that age group. The final decision on Jackson and Guilford will be made by the State Board of Elections, and we're pretty sure how that will go with its particular Republican majority. The only remedy will be for the injured parties in Jackson and Guilford to sue.

Watauga County faced the same thing in 2013, when the election of Pat McCrory changed the local Board of Elections to Republican control (under the guiding arm of Stacy "Four" Eggers), which promptly eliminated the polling site at the AppState Student Union. The local Watauga Voting Rights Taskforce sued in Wake Superior Court, and the judge concluded that the decision was arbitrary and capricious. He ordered a polling place on the AppState campus. Far as I know that order is still good, which perhaps explains why the current Watauga BOE hasn't attempted to eliminate campus voting this year.

If anyone's interested, we know a good Raleigh law firm that might help you guys.

Phil Berger Plucks the Tasty Fruits of Corruption

 

Phil Berger did Donald Trump's bidding, re-gerrymandered US House District 1 to give a Republican a boost over Democrat Don Davis, thus delivering the bribe that compelled Trump to endorse Berger in his reelection run for Senate District 26. That endorsement came yesterday, and Berger celebrated it on his Twitter account.

But there was more to the deal. Trump also offered Berger's primary challenger, Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page, a Washington job in his administration, if he'll just drop out and let a very nervous Berger keep his seat.

Page was defiant (and can you even imagine that sheriff working a desk in DeeCee?). “I’m going to win this election,” Page said. Page posted a statement on social media that while he appreciated Trump’s “kind words and his offer to have me join him in Washington, [I am] committed to upholding conservative values here in North Carolina and ending the corruption and liberal policies Phil Berger has pushed for years. I will defeat Phil Berger on March 3.”

March 3rd will be Thunder Dome for hobgoblins, but Berger will win.

Intimations of Drowning in Blue

 

A few things of note happened yesterday, December 9th:

Miami Mayor run-off election: Democrat Eileen Higgins was elected mayor with 60% of the vote, the first woman in the city’s history to hold the job and the first Democrat in 28 years. Higgins, a former county commissioner, defeated Republican Emilio González, an ex-city manager who had the endorsement of Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Georgia House District 121 special election: Democrat Eric Gisler defeated Republican Mack Guest IV in this lean-Republican district. Gisler’s victory is a major upset, as Trump won the district last year by 12 points.

Georgia House District 23 special election: In an all-party election featuring five Republicans and one Democrat in this very red district, none reached the 50% required to win, so there will be a run-off Jan. 6th between the Democrat, Scott Sanders, who polled yesterday at 26.74%, and Republican Bill Fincher (27.4%).

Florida House District 90 special election: Delray Beach Vice Mayor and City Commissioner Rob Long defeated Republican candidate Maria Zack with 63% of the vote. This was not a red-to-blue flip, but the winning margin was impressive.

ADDENDUM: Night of the Dummymander

More on Georgia House 121 from The Status Kuo:

The heavily gerrymandered House District 121 was part of a four-pronged Republican gerrymander that had split Athens, Georgia, into four districts and attached three of them to rural red counties to dilute their votes. Here you can see how HD-121 took a “cracked” Athens population from the southeast part of the city and mixed it in with a bunch of red votes—but it wasn’t enough! This Trump +12 district moved 13.8 points bluer, and Gisler won in a close race.

Looking at these results from last night, GOP map drawers have cause to worry. Did they unintentionally create a “dummymander” that wrongly assumed there wouldn’t ever be a double-digit shift against the GOP? That assumption just lost them HD-121, and it could lose the neighboring districts as well.

 

There Is No Comedy Funnier Than Trump Right Now

 

He shows his actual contempt for the suckups in his cabinet by dozing off while they're buttering his bun. And they don't get it. Either that, or they've mortgaged their souls past paying back.

"Crown Him with many crowns, the King upon His throne." You gotta do it for yourself if it's gonna get done. Right, Jethro? Trump being our own Rowan Atkinson.

Why is he always seated as supplicants -- forced to stand -- verbally fawn for his attention. Which emperor is this? Dunno, but I bet he was played by Charles Laughton.

Trump administration announces $12 billion in one-time payments to farmers

UPDATED DECEMBER 8, 20254:24 PM ET

Has anyone -- let alone an American politician -- even fallen as flat on his kisser as Trump just did over the real impact his tariffs have had on commercial agriculture? It's the old banana peel slip. Spectacular pratfall. Red Skelton couldn't do it better.

Fox's Brit Hume told newsreader Bret Baier: “No doubt the tariffs are a factor in this, Bret. There’s no getting around that. It’s not a bridge loan. This is a subsidy. A $12 billion government program to bail out farmers hurt by his other program, the tariffs.”

Har-har-hardy-HAR-HAR

The One, The Only, The Essential Governor of California

 

Davy Crockett Also Surrendered at the Alamo

 

Kate Rogers, The Alamo Trust

What happened to the Republican woman appointed to oversee the historic renovation of the Alamo in San Antonio:

Kate Rogers didn’t know it at the time, but Oct. 13 would mark the beginning of the end of her four-year tenure leading the $550 million renovation of the Alamo.

On that day, two posts appeared on the X account of the famous San Antonio historic site. One celebrated Columbus Day. The other, which has since been deleted, celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a holiday ​recognized by President Joe Biden in 2021 that honors Indigenous populations in the United States.

Yep. You saw it coming, right? Prominent Republicans immediately yelled "Woke!" -- parroting Donald Jethro Trump and his war on the Smithsonian for telling historical truth -- and started calling for Kate Rogers' head on a pike. The Texas Land Commissioner, a fellow Republican with jurisdiction over the Alamo, announced an investigation of her. Facing an emergency board meeting, Rogers admitted she didn't write nor post those tweets, but she offered to resign anyway. She was baffled and non-plussed by the uproar because those tweets were wholly innocent pro forma recognitions of national holidays -- probably posted by an intern. But to prove their trumpist brainwashing, the majority on her board needed to roll somebody's head out the door, so they chose to fire the Communications Director rather than accept Rogers' resignation.

According to the WashPost, eight days later Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a known bully, had gotten hold of Rogers' 2023 Ed.D. dissertation, which unpacked the ways that museums can influence how history is taught in schools. Lt. Gov. Patrick called Rogers directly, read aloud to her a short passage from page 80 of her dissertation, and demanded her immediate resignation. The passage Patrick read to her:

“Personally, I would love to see the Alamo become a beacon for historical reconciliation and a place that brings people together versus tearing them apart, but politically that may not be possible at this time.”

You see the blistering idiocy of Patrick for demanding that someone resign for speaking the actual stark truth: "politically may not be possible at this time." 

At first Rogers refused Patrick. The lieutenant governor, who loves to bully people he perceives as vulnerable, immediately went public on how crypto-liberal the woman boss at the Alamo really was, calling out the dogs to hound this woman out of office. And Rogers quickly caved. Now she's suing. Earlier this week she sued Patrick, the land commissioner, and the board of The Alamo Trust in federal court in the Western Dist. of Texas for wrongful termination.

I'd probably tag her as a country-club Republican, moderate and sensible and imminently practical, which makes her highly effective and also unwelcome in MAGAland. Her long history of executive management of corporate organizing and image-building gave her access to the highest circles of the Texas Republican establishment, and her treatment at the hands of Dan Patrick may become a rallying point for moderate conservatives. Her Linked In profile:

Motivated executive with experience in campaign development, change management, public relations, advertising and communications. Winner of multiple Addy and other industry awards. Established reputation as a change agent with consistent results, with a knack for building a high performance team focused on strong innovation.

There's That Familiar Smell, the Odor of Rank Opportunism

 

Apparently there's a discharge petition being pushed by Republican loose cannon Anna Paulina Luna of Florida to get a bill banning stock trading by members of Congress to the floor of the House for a vote, and it would surely pass. Freshman hustler Tim Moore is on a stock-manipulating spree (see details below for how his wealth has suddenly ballooned to almost $7 million). Moore's stock greediness is trailed not far behind by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (also see below), whose own stock trades were formerly said to outpace your average Congressperson. But Moore has far exceeded her. (Moore, who an eye blink ago was the self-serving Speaker of the NC House, carved out for himself a congressional District 14 added by the last Census, a safe seat to launch him on DeeCee where he could become even richer, ever shadier.)

Editorial Board, in the Raleigh News & Observer:

It should be obvious why members of Congress shouldn’t be allowed to trade stocks, but if more evidence is needed, consider the investing gusto of U.S. Rep. Tim Moore, a Republican representing North Carolina’s 14th District.

Moore, the former North Carolina House speaker from 2015 to 2025, is a U.S. House freshman, but he’s already surpassed all other members of the state’s congressional delegation in buying and selling stocks. 

A recent report by The News & Observer’s Washington correspondent Danielle Battaglia detailed Moore’s frequent trades. Between his taking office in January and mid-September, Moore made more than 150 trades. That was five times the trading activity of the next closest member in the delegation, Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Banner Elk, who made just over 30 trades in the same period. 

Good-government advocates have long called for a ban on members of Congress from owning or trading stocks. The members have security clearances, receive confidential briefings and have contacts in financial circles that create a situation ripe for insider trading. 

There was nothing about Moore’s trades that showed he acted on information unavailable to the public. However, his trades included investments in companies that could be affected by government actions on health care and tariffs. Even if a member’s trades are above board, the ownership of stock itself can affect how or whether the member votes.

Fortune magazine reported in June that Moore made hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of personal stock purchases shortly before and after President Donald Trump’s announcement of worldwide tariffs rattled the stock market in April. Moore failed to disclose the trades by a deadline required under the federal Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, but he did submit a report within a 30-day grace period....

It stinks, doesn't it? That odor of opportunism running amok under the guise of public service.

'Principled' Crankiness About Universal Health Care

 

Republican Senate Majority Leader
John Thune

Alexander H. Jones, at New Branchhead gives us a good read on the state of North Carolina politics one day after the opening of candidate-filing. Among other things, he predicts that the sitting Republican US Senate will not extend the expiring Obamacare subsidies, which will be an act of auto-asphyxiation for Republican prospects next year. Why would they set themselves up like that? Because "Republicans deeply, fervently, and genuinely despise the Affordable Care Act and the concept of universal healthcare."

Republicans have a principled, bedrock opposition to universal healthcare. They viscerally resent the idea of providing care to people who can’t access it because they think that would mean rewarding slothful and gluttonous people who refuse to take care of themselves. If you have, say, severe OCD and did nothing to deserve it…sorry. They believe that healthcare is a consumer commodity that must be earned by remunerative work and good lifestyle decisions. It just viscerally rankles them to provide coverage to the uninsured.

And it goes beyond their angry and cranky fixation on personal responsibility. (“If you want something, work for it!”) Most American conservatives take deep pride in the fact that the United States does not have a universal healthcare system like the programs that people in every other advanced industrialized country, especially Western Europe, take for granted. They see it as American Exceptionalism, a tribute to the country’s pioneer legacy of individual freedom. “Barack Obama wants to make us more like the rest of the world,” complained Marco Rubio. Cutting your medications and giving blood to make the money you need for a doctor’s appointment are the American way.

That seems fair. How Jones characterizes the GOP matches what I consistently hear from trolling conservatives on WataugaWatch -- the ones who express a cold-blooded meanness about class and race. That's become standard rhetoric under the pall of Trump. It's possibly quite lethal for their future prospects. If Jones's conclusion is right, then there really may be such a thing as a suicide impulse, powerful and irresistible. Failing to extend Obamacare subsidies will have immeasurable impact on the prospects of Republican rule going forward:

...I do not think Republicans are likely to, after 15 years of bitter and often histrionic opposition, give a man -- some of their constituents accused of being the Anti-Christ -- the satisfaction of seeing the core of his greatest accomplishment survive another Republican majority.

If he's right, well then, they're cooked.

Virginia Foxx Always Draws a Primary

 

Don't know what it is about Congresswoman Virginia Foxx that so displeases other Republicans, but there are always obscure members of her own party looking to oust her. None of them ever come close. This year (so far) it's a guy named Steve Girard, who lives in Jefferson in Ashe County. He has a website placeholder, https://stevegirardforcongress.com/, but there's no information on it (also uses a photo of an anonymous city which I don't think is anywhere in the 5th Congressional District). He has a bit more, including photos of himself, on a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61579207871401. Foxx has actually not filed for reelection yet, but she will.

Democrats in Watauga County will have a primary for County Commission in District 2 between Ray Russell and newcomer David Luther. No Republican has filed yet in that district.