Oh, Watauga GOP! You're So Predictable

 

Anne-Marie Yates, who is once again the chair of the Watauga GOP, has filed election law complaints against two local groups who put up billboards, an absolute right they have to express a political opinion. It's the same right Anne-Marie Yates has. (The same right the guy up on the billboard has, though he may have violated some private property rights to express it.)

Yates was maybe reacting to the rumor that West End Women were actually a bunch of Antifa-adjacent, possibly Soros-financed, pro-abortionists out in the vast Western stretches of the country, like maybe in Nevada: “These shadow groups are funneling dark money into our local elections, and the voters deserve to know who is funding these advertisements,” said Yates.

Who is funding those billboards are two separate groups of Watauga County concerned citizens who raised the money among themselves. For the West End Women, no one contributed more than $200, which would be the threshold for itemizing their names on the FEC report, which isn't due until after the election. The expense of renting the billboards is considered an Independent Expenditure and is perfectly legal. And commendable, as a matter of fact, since the Trumpists in Watauga can't abide the sight of a Biden/Harris yard sign.

Despite the heavy breathing of professional hall monitors in the Watauga GOP, political activism and free speech are still viable options for ordinary citizens.

Watauga Judge Halts Boone's New COVID Restrictions

Watauga County Superior Court Judge R. Gregory Horne issued a temporary restraining order late yesterday that forbids the town of Boone from enforcing a 14-day quarantine on visitors from out-of-county which was passed by the council on Thursday evening. 

The request for a temporary restraining order was filed at 4:07 p.m. by Anne-Marie Yates, Mountain Resort Management LLC (dba Holiday Inn Express), Hospitality Group of Hickory, and Smokey Mountain Hospitality LLC. The parties are represented by Boone attorney Nathan Miller.

Both Anne-Marie Yates and Judge Horne are former chairs of the Watauga Republican Party (Horne prior to becoming a district court judge in 2004), and Nathan Miller was a former vice chair of the Watauga GOP and past chair of the Watauga County Commission. Anne-Marie Yates has been a perennial plaintiff in lawsuits brought by Miller.

A hearing before Judge Horne is scheduled for 10 a.m. on June 1.

Meanwhile, the Boone Town Council is meeting in closed session this morning at 11 a.m.

This Is Something

The writer of what is copied here (Watauga Conservative) wears the collar of an Anglican priest, taught some sort of psychology at ASU for years, and runs a website that the local Republican Party under Anne Marie Yates cut off from communion.

Those of you who have followed the blog over the years, know that when Trump announced his candidacy and was coming down the escalator, God spoke to me. He informed me Trump was to be president.

I was not surprised that God would take a personal interest in America. After all we are the pivotal country in His work to establish His Kingdom.

As I always do, I asked God what part I was to play. And even though I have had many miracles in my life, I was totally unprepared for what followed. Although he had no idea of who I am, one of the most famous prophets in the world , not only called me out by name on TV, but so I would know he was speaking to me, he told me exactly what I was doing at the moment I heard his broadcast. The prophet then told me specifically what God wanted of me.

I was to be an intercessory prayer warrior for Trump.

And as St Paul said before " King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." I immediately joined one of the many intercessory prayer groups–Potus Shield. We all pray for hours daily. We have prayer conference calls with thousands around the world and we hold large meetings national and international meetings..

I need to cut this article short. So, back to the disheartenment. Every personal attack on my president is painful. In my long life I have never seen such over-the-top virulence. Trump has sacrificed so much to bring his enormous talents to save our country and also the church. I understand Trump and his family are taking these hits precisely because God called him and anointed him to be president. The hatred is directed more toward God than to him. This is a spiritual battle which can only be won spiritually

Trump also understands this as well as the blowback he receives from the corrupt swamp creatures he is driving out.

But with so many in my own party working to destroy him, it is dispiriting.

Lame-Duck Boone Town Council Poised To Do the Wrong Thing

During its last hour in office on December 21st, the current Boone Town Council (including all the members who were just kicked out of office on November 7th) is set to vote on a major give-away to Appalachian State University.

The proposed text amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance will allow ASU to rent any and all space (offices, storage, etc.) in the M1 (Manufacturing), B3 (General Business), and O/I (Office/Institutional) districts of the town. B3 is of particular concern because it includes so many existing buildings on all the main corridors.

This text amendment would allow the university to move in for long-term use (up to seven years with the possibility of further open-ended extensions -- see below), putting university functions including possibly classes all over the business districts without requiring the university to go through the normal procedures required for such consequential changes in use.

ASU is reportedly going to need a lot of space, like in a whole lot and more, because the Old Lowe's Building must be vacated and other demolitions and renovations are going to throw many faculty, staff, and whole programs with their required classes out into the town of Boone. The only use excluded for ASU in the B3, M1, and O/I districts will be residential.

This major adjustment to the town's already capacious accommodation to ASU has been moving quietly along the path to passage, with a Public Hearing last week that not many citizens knew about, though renters of empty property did know about it. During that public hearing one property owner stood up and said it's a fact that ASU already owns Boone, so why don't we just go ahead and make it official with this text amendment?

What Is Especially Pernicious About This Planned Vote

Under normal procedures, this text amendment would be voted up or down by the newly elected Boone Town Council, which will be sworn in at 5:30 on December 21 (barring Nathan Miller and Anne Marie Yates's ridiculous attempt to overthrow the election). But the current council -- Lynne Mason, Jeannine Underdown Collins, Charlotte Mizelle, Quint David -- with Loretta Clawson vigorously opposing the text amendment -- scheduled a "Special" session at 4:30 on December 21st, an hour before they're officially off the job. They clearly intend to vote this text amendment through while they still can.

Their rush to pass this before the new Council takes office speaks loudly, and the message is not flattering to the old Council.

What the University Wants, the University Gets

The very generous "planners" on the Boone Planning Staff wrote it into the text amendment that the university could have the rentals for three years with a one-time renewal for three more years, for a total of six years.

But the university wants more and has requested "through counsel" that the initial term be for five years with a two-year extension, and wanted this language added to prepare for going beyond those seven years: "An additional extension may be granted upon a showing of unanticipated and extraordinary circumstances" -- and there's no end to that "additional extension."

How does a university take over a town? With the willing collusion of a town council.

Blind Justice the North Carolina Way

North Carolina judges -- District Court judges, Superior Court judges, Judges on the North Carolina Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court -- all of them are currently political targets. General Assembly Republicans are fucking with them big time.

Why are Republican bosses mad at judges? Because North Carolina judges have found so many of their laws (mainly power-grabs) unconstitutional. Simple as that. When judges find your ambitions out of line, what do you do? Change your ambitions? Or change the fucking judges. Make them work for partisan approval. Put them in your pocket.

Phil Berger, your office is calling.

Berger and his colleagues want to redistrict judicial seats -- ah, the magic of creative gerrymandering! -- thus double-bunking an impressive kill list (Susan Ladd):

district court judges  25% of them double-bunked, including 43% of all black or African-American district court judges and 31% of female district court judges.

superior court judges 27% of current judges double-bunked, including 18% of black or African-American superior court judges and 32% of females.

You know what double-bunking is, right? Political Thunder Dome for People We Can Do Without: two judges enter, one judge leaves. Guaranteed to deliver, at one stroke, 12.5% fewer district court judges and 13.5% fewer superior court judges, with no political effort whatsoever. Just draw them into oblivion with lines on a map. (100% of Hispanic female judges are double-bunked, by the way, all one of her.)

Plus the Republicans also want to make judges run for reelection every two years under partisan banners. Can you imagine? Every two years, all judges in a free-for-all election, with no primaries, meaning possibly dozens of competing names on a General Election partisan ballot -- my God are they kidding?

Kidding no. Bulldozing yes.

Berger's real goal is getting to appoint the judiciary himself. (Brief but important footnote: he already got his boy Phil Berger Junior on the NC Court of Appeals, so you can recognize the itch.) Berger wants to change the state's Constitution to eliminate elections for judges altogether, make them all appointed by a "merit" system, run, just incidentally, by Berger et al. in the General Assembly. Not making this up.

Susan Ladd suggests that we'll know something more definite in January, after the General Assembly reconvenes and Phil Berger tells them what they're gonna do. Put a constitutional amendment on the ballot this coming May to change the way judges get onto the bench? It'll be May, because turnout is guaranteed to be way down for a May primary, and maybe you can sneak something highly questionable through. That's how they did Amendment One, their infamous constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage -- put it on a May primary ballot, and it passed.

Meanwhile, On the Judicial Front in Watauga County...

The Watauga County Republican Party continues to distinguish itself as a black frost over the very concept of a free election. Without entering any Republican candidates in Boone town elections on November 7, they nevertheless fought through several levels of court to try to keep an Early Voting polling place out of the ASU student union. That failed, utterly, and they're now using that failure -- the length of time it took to adjudicate the issue -- as

the basis for a brand new escalation: Early Voting at ASU was illegal, says the "Election Protest" signed by Anne Marie Yates, and therefore the elections must be done over, because there wasn't sufficient notice to the public (minimum of 20 days by statute) following the judge's rejection of the Republican argument that there should be no Early Voting in the ASU Student Union. Here's the logic, if I'm following it: First, Republicans blockade Early Voting at the student union to the full extent of their legal rights, and when that blockade finally crumbles, they argue that the judge had no right to the order he made because the calendar had run out on proper public notice. Run out the calendar on justice and you can tie the hands of judges in adjudicating the rights of the people. That's the argument Yates's lawyer Nathan Miller is making. No kidding.

The judge had no right. That's the common thread of this post.

Anne Marie Yates's suit would nullify all municipal elections in Watauga County -- not just in Boone but Blowing Rock too, and Seven Devils and Beech Mountain.

Why are they doing this? What do they hope to gain? Just the pleasure of pulling down the temple?

BREAKING NEWS: Nathan Miller/Anne Marie Yates Intend to Appeal Watauga BOE's Vote Yesterday

File this one under "Lengths To Which They're Willing To Go."

Anne Marie Yates's lawyer Nathan Miller has informed the Watauga Board of Elections that he will be appealing the BOE's unanimous rejection of Yates's election protest and her demand for new municipal elections in Watauga.

The appeal must go to the State Board of Elections, which currently does not exist. If the Yates-Miller team are willing to appeal to a non-existent board after losing the vote of Bill Aceto locally, then they're no doubt quite willing to sue in the Wake County Superior Court.

BREAKING: Watauga BOE Rejects the Republican Election Protest

This morning and on the motion made by Chair Bill Aceto, the Watauga Board of Elections voted unanimously to reject the elections protest filed by Anne Marie Yates and Nathan Miller.

Once the decision is signed (later today?), the Yates-Miller team will have 24 hours to give notice to the BOE if they intend to appeal.

With the unanimous vote this morning, a successful appeal becomes more remote, but motivated by a cabbage worm's desire to ruin the whole cabbage, Yates-Miller may appeal anyway.

Watauga GOP Attempts To Nullify Municipal Elections

At 10 a.m. tomorrow morning (November 20), the Watauga Board of Elections (BOE) will conduct a preliminary finding of fact in response to Nathan Miller and Anne Marie Yates's election protest. The Miller-Yates team is asking for new elections because The Watauga Board of Elections did not sufficiently advertise the places for Early Voting.

Miller is vice chair of the Watauga Republican Party. Yates has been nominated to take a Republican seat on the Watauga BOE. They're leading the Watauga GOP in this action (and have a track record of harassment behind them: this and this).

My Own Findings of Fact

1. Voting was up in Boone in 2017 above 2015 -- 2,910 total votes in Boone Town Council races in 2015 versus 4,212 in 2017. Looks like people knew there was an election. And where to go.

2. It was the other Republican team of Nathan Miller-Bill Aceto that delayed announcement. Because Bill Aceto refused to approve the inevitable polling place inside the ASU Student Union -- the BOE vote was 2-1, with Aceto in the minority -- he then took his objection in a lawsuit to Wake Superior Court, and when that court thrashed Miller for the effort -- waving the Judge Donald Stephens order from 2014 in his face -- Miller-Aceto stomped off to the NC Court of Appeals and talked them into a temporary stay, which is not all that difficult and which was not lifted (inevitably) until the eve of Early Voting.

3. So do I have this right? Watauga Republicans block and delay the setting of Early Vote polling places until the courts order them at the last minute and then file to nullify the election because polling places weren't set early enough. Cool!

4. The Republican Party fielded no candidates in Boone in either 2015 or this year. Do they suddenly have some hot candidates they want to run in a re-do?

5. Or are they the termites eating the shelter?

6. Any action by the Watauga BOE tomorrow -- either finding just cause to nullify the election and call a new one or finding no just cause -- either one will take a unanimous vote. Aceto's with Miller, so you do the math.

7. What happens if there is no unanimous vote? Miller-Aceto can appeal to the State Board of Elections (SBOE), but the SBOE doesn't currently exist (thanks to monkeying with the law by Republicans in the General Assembly and the subsequent blocking court order), and the SBOE staff has limited power.

8. If also stymied at the SBOE, Miller-Aceto can always appeal to Wake County Superior Court. We'd almost pay money to attend that hearing.

Why Would the Watauga GOP Nominate Anne Marie Yates to the BOE?

High Country Press

According to reporting in the Watauga Democrat, the Watauga Republican Party nominated Anne Marie Yates to the Watauga Board of Elections. Interesting idea, since Ms. Yates's husband Perry is a County Commissioner who would presumably be running for reelection during her term of service -- creating a flagrant conflict of interest.

Or perhaps her nomination was actually a veiled announcement that Mr. Yates will not be seeking reelection in 2020?

Has Anyone Seen the Watauga Republican Party?

Curious-er and curious-er.

The Watauga Republican Party held its annual county convention last Saturday -- with Virginia Foxx as featured speaker -- but have you seen one peep about it in any news media? There's nothing on their Facebook page. Their website -- http://www.wataugarepublicans.com -- is just plain disappeared.

After speaking at the convention, Foxx fled Boone for her mountaintop aerie rather than step down the street to the tea-and-cookies reception held in her honor by High Country Forward, which actually had more people in attendance than were at the Republican convention.

Photo Ken Ketchie, High Country Press

Photo Ken Ketchie

But what happened at the Republican convention? Since there's a press blackout, we have to turn to what sources we can find, and what we find is this:

Anne Marie Yates refused to run for another term as chair. Apparently, no one wanted to be chair, so they nominated and elected someone who wasn't even present: Karen Lerch. She ran (unsuccessfully) in 2016 for County Commission against John Welch. Now she's head of the party. We assume someone's told her.

So Much To Do, So Little Time!

Watauga GOP Chair Anne Marie Yates, on why she challenged the legitimacy of ballots cast only by registered Democrats and Unaffiliated voters, quoted by the Watauga Democrat:

“ 'We would have challenged the Republican voter from Boone II if we had had enough time to do so,' Yates said, but she did not elaborate further on that point."

Anne Marie Yates and Watauga GOP Accuse Eight of Election Fraud

Anne Marie Yates attempts to block
videotaping during a Dan Soucek town hall
meeting in December 2013

The leadership of the Watauga County Republican Party has challenged the constitutional rights of eight Democratic and Unaffiliated Watauga County voters who cast ballots in the November 8 elections.

These eight voters appeared in person during the Watauga early voting period to register and vote on the same day. The election judges at the site approved their completed state voter registration forms and their state-required documentation of proof of residency before allowing them to cast their ballots.

Those who have challenged these voters’ constitutional right to vote assert that these eight voters cast fraudulent ballots because their “voter verification cards” were returned as undeliverable, since the voter had not included his/her mailing address on the registration form. State voter registration forms do not require a mailing address for a valid registration.

On or about November 5, Kelsey Wright (past Chair of the ASU College Republicans) submitted a public records request for copies of verification cards that had been returned to the elections board as undeliverable from voters who cast one-stop ballots.

The next day, Wright called the Watauga Board of Elections and asked that the list she requested be sent to Anne Marie Yates (Chairwoman of the Watauga Republican Party) instead of to her.

Nine names were provided to Yates as having verification cards returned. All were Democrats except for one Unaffiliated voter and one Republican.

On November 8, seven Republicans appeared before a notary with the Miller & Johnson, PLLC, law firm (a law firm in which Nathan A. Miller, the Vice Chair of the local Republican Party, is a partner). The notary signed and witnessed their "Notices of Challenge.” The Republican voter whose verification card had been returned was not challenged.

The names of the challengers who disputed the constitutional voting rights of these eight voters are a matter of public record: Kelsey Lauren Crum Wright, Linda D. Byrd, Kim Brackett, Richard Lee Woods, Mark Templeton, James Marshall Lawrence, and Elizabeth M. Rupp.

State law requires that the eight voters who were challenged be notified that their right to vote has been officially called into question and that they have a right to be heard at the local Board of Elections meeting on November 18.  The state requirement for notification to these voters is “achieved” by mailing them a notice of that challenge to the same address that has already been determined as “undeliverable.”

The challengers of these voters, we assume, will attend the November 18 hearing to explain under oath:

(1) Why they decided to challenge the constitutional rights of the particular voter they singled out to contest;

(2) Why and how they acted in a coordinated fashion to challenge these voters; and

(3) Why, considering their significant concerns with voter integrity, they decided not to challenge the Republican whose verification card was also returned as undeliverable.

Under state law, any person who knowingly makes a false allegation against someone else's right to vote can be found guilty of a Class I felony.

Did the NCGOP Shoot Themselves in the Foot?

Come on, Dear! Time for the
down-ballot

Among the other noxious things the Republican overlords in the NC General Assembly did to voting and ballot access in 2013, they eliminated straight-ticket voting. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned most of that election law rewrite, but the judges didn't touch the provision eliminating straight-ticket voting, mainly because that particular part of the law was never challenged in the initial lawsuits.

Did Democratic plaintiffs have magical foresight?

The ballot this year is long and perhaps exhausting for a voter unfamiliar with the down-ballot races. (I relished every little bubble I filled in and took my sweet time doing it!) As we've seen, Trump is mainly interested in his ego, and the adulation of thousands at his rallies. He's relatively uninterested in anything outside that egotistic sphere, like educating the voters on races down-ballot. He's left all that field work to local Republican parties.

How have they done, those local Republican parties, at educating their base about the down-ballot races? Dunno, really, except what I could witness at the early voting site on the Appalachian State University campus. Watauga GOP Chair Anne Marie Yates and her small team of volunteers sporadically showed up among the students, didn't stay long usually, and handed out a long paper slip, printed both sides, headlined "CONSERVATIVE CHOICES."

Yeah, there's a winning pitch for the under-25 crowd!

The first four names on that Republican handout: Donald J. Trump, Richard Burr, Virginia Foxx, and Pat McCrory. From talking to students intensively over several days, I can tell you that even members of the Young Republicans on the ASU campus can't stand Donald J. Trump. Everybody else hates Virginia Foxx, and there is zero respect for Pat McCrory. (Nobody has an opinion about Richard Burr, which might work in his favor, another irony in a year full of them.)

That's not a list nor an electioneering ploy likely to persuade young people this year. "Conservative" means, first, anti-gay to young voters, and with good reason, and they're not trying to board that particular boat. "Conservative" also means hateful and stingy and uncharitable to young people, again for abundant reasons offered up daily by "conservative" talking heads and elected officials like Virginia Anne Foxx, who sneers at students with big loans to pay off. Charity? It ain't the first synonym that leaps to mind for conservative.

So I doubt that the Watauga GOP won many down-ballot votes on campus with that piece of educational material, even if they got a few Trump voters. The problem may be even greater if indeed there are a lot of non-traditional voters who show up next Tuesday to vote for Trump. They'll be showing up because they want to stuff a Molotov cocktail up the tailpipe of American politics. Will they also know much about the down-ballot races? Perhaps Anne Marie will greet all of them at the local polls and hand them each a "CONSERVATIVE CHOICES."

Straight-ticket voting would have helped the Republicans this year, but they maybe shot themselves in the foot getting rid of it.

Complaint Against Watauga GOP Filed With State Board of Elections

Date: Wednesday, November 2, 2016 3:26 PM
To: "Lawson, Joshua", Kim Strach,  "Matthew.Snyder"
Cc: Stella Anderson
Subject: Formal Complaint About Poll Observers in Watauga

Dear SBOE,

Please consider this email a formal, filed complaint with the State Board of Elections that our local Watauga BOE and Director have willfully refused to follow the directives of Director Strach's Numbered Memorandum 2016-21 as it related to Poll Observers. This in spite of the fact that it has repeatedly been brought to the Director's attention by several people that the directives are not being followed and in spite of the fact that the Board itself agreed at last night's Board meeting that the memo directives were not being followed.

The memo, which clearly addresses both early and election day voting, states that, "All observers, whether precinct-specific or at-large, may be relived after serving no less than four hours. GS 163-45(a). This means that at least four hours must have passed since the observer began serving before a replacement observer can take over from the prior observer."

Instead, at the ASU Student Union early voting site, while the at-large Democratic observers remain inside the polling location for the 4-hour requisite, the at-large Republican observers come and go at will. They are sometimes there for as little as 10 minutes before leaving. Another then takes that observer's place for perhaps another 15-30 minutes, and then the tag team continues. They are intimidating and, even Director Snyder admits, disruptive.

Yet neither our Director nor the Board will take any action to stop this clear violation without further direction from your offices that Director Strach meant what she wrote in the memo, something you have thus far apparently refused to confirm.

Now our Board is seeking a legal opinion from the County Attorney, Four Eggers, that Director Strach's memo means what it says, and I think we all know how that will go.

I know it is ridiculous that you should have to call or write our local Board and Director to explain to them that Numbered Memo 2016-21 means what it says and says what it means, and that the at-large poll observers must either remain in the polling location for a 4-hour minimum or forfeit the right of another at-large observer(s) taking their place until 4 hours is up, but clearly this is what you are going to need to do in order to ensure that our County Board follows the dictates outlined in the memo.

Again, please consider this a formal filed complaint and a request that you take action on this matter immediately.

*********

NOTE: The people Anne-Marie Yates appointed as "at-large poll observers" who are currently flouting the rules in the ASU Student Union:

Anne-Marie Yates

Nathan Miller

Margaret Eggers

Braxton Eggers

Watauga GOP Received and Paid Out Large Amounts in Cash

Below is the last page of penalty assessments for "Prohibited Transactions" charged against the Watauga County Republican Party by the North Carolina Board of Elections. The total fine tops $14,000.

This last page follows three pages of listings of donors to the party who gave cash in excess of $50, which is prohibited by law.  Nathan Miller gave $500 in cash. Four Eggers gave $300. The Party collected over $1,100 in cash at their Christmas Party in 2013 (and immediately paid most of it out in expenses for the party, according to the page below).

This last page shows cash disbursements, including a large one to the North Carolina Republican Party in 2014 (was that cash contribution listed by the NCGOP on its 2014 party filings?) and another large cash expense ($1,160.32) to an "Unknown Receipt Source."

Anne Marie Yates, who is still Watauga GOP Chair, presided over many of these transactions. The man who is now running Watauga elections -- BOE elections director Matt Snyder -- presided as GOP Chair over some earlier "prohibited transactions."

"Don't-Believe-Your-Lying-Eyes" Quote of the Week

Anne Marie Yates, Chair of the Watauga County Board of Elections, on the sorts of people she looks for to appoint to the local Board of Elections (quoted by the Watauga Democrat):

“I look first for people who can do the job, and have the time to do it,” Yates said. “Then I look for discerning people, and people who have proven themselves to be fair and equitable and not overly partisan.”

Anne Marie Yates Presented a Falsified "Petition" to the Watauga BOE

Anne Marie's reach exceeds her grasp

Anne Marie Yates, the ineffable chairwoman of the Watauga County Republican Party, stood up during public comment at Tuesday's Watauga Board of Elections meeting and stated that she had "walked the Boone 2" neighborhood -- where the Legends nightclub is located -- and was turning in a petition signed by 30-something people who wanted to keep Early Voting at Legends. Her exact words (from the tape of the meeting: her testimony begins at the 57:18 mark on the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qcyj3pYKdeM): "I recently walked through that neighborhood, and I have obtained 30 signatures on a petition asking you [Watauga BOE] to keep that location at Legends."

Huh?

Since Legends has never been used for Early Voting, we decided that we needed to see this so-called "petition."

A call to Matt Snyder, administrator of the Board of Elections, produced a spreadsheet of people and their signatures on a sheet with no headers and hence no indication of what these folks were signing onto.

A call to one of the names on the so-called "petition" produced this information: the signer thought she was signing a petition to keep Legends as the polling place on Election Day, not for Early Voting. A totally different thing. A horse of a different color.

And therefore, Anne Marie's "petition" was a bogus little piece of fluff...

... apparently done -- we have to assume -- so that Watauga BOE Chair Bill Aceto could claim at least some semblance of public support for the action he took Tuesday night, moving Early Voting on the AppState campus to Legends.

Oh, Republicans! You're so transparently corrupt!

Sour Grapes

Anne Marie Yates, Chair of the Watauga Republican Party, posted this picture of the Watauga Democratic Party Independence Day float, with members of the AppState football team posing down front -- posted it twice! -- and many thanks for that! -- on the Republican Party's FB page, and is mightily pissed off that the Democrats got the photo and the Republicans did not.

Bwahahaha.

Fighting Back: The Harassment of WCU (and ASU) Faculty

The Koch Bros. get their hooks
into Western Carolina University

We know about local Republican operatives slapping university types they don't like with demands for their emails. Republican Party Chair Anne Marie Yates and her chief legal advisor Nathan Miller went after the current Democratic Board of Elections member because she had the gall to sue over the unconstitutional behavior of the Republicans in suppressing the vote of ASU students. Not only did she sue, she won in court. So Nathan Miller demanded all her emails from ASU and made clear to a judge that it was purely a political witch-hunt. That judge listened and dismissed Miller's claim.

It's a pattern of harassment being duplicated at other state universities.

Last November, we wrote here about the scheme by the Koch Bros. to bring indoctrination in predatory capitalism to the curriculum at Western Carolina University and give it an academic coating. The faculty -- some of them, at least -- pushed back against making their institution the handmaiden to conservative propaganda. And the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a flying wedge of the Art Pope Empire for Stamping Out Progressive Thought, promptly filed public records requests for all the emails of those faculty members.

Chilling effect? You bet! Harassment that produces silent acquiescence in the face of ruthless power? You can take that to the bank (and please make sure it's a predatory institution)!

One of those harassed faculty members resisted, apparently without much support from the higher-ups at her university who wanted to get their mitts on that Koch money. Now that faculty member has scooped the snoopers at the Art Pope Empire by publishing all her emails herself on her own blog. Ha!

What terrible misdeeds do those emails reveal? Mainly, that the faculty member was sharing news articles about the Koch takeover of higher education. Off with her head!

Take a look at the faculty member's blog post. Good stuff.

Luke Eggers Resigns from Watauga BOE

Chair Luke Eggers has tendered his resignation from the Watauga County Board of Elections, effective today.

Everyone knew this would have to happen after his aunt, Becca Eggers, was appointed to a local judgeship. It's finally happened, one day in advance of the filing period for the 2016 elections.

Now taking bets on which hardliner Anne Marie Yates & Team will appoint in his place.