Fully Prepared To Break Law as Jehoshaphat Orders

 

I've been doing my best to forget who Dan Bishop is ("peach of a guy"), but Donald J. Trump has thrust him upon us again as his nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget as its deputy director. Bishop's willingness to break the law for Donald J. came out in his testimony before two Senate committees  and provoked this recitation of detail out of Paige Masten:

Former Rep. Dan Bishop has had plenty of opportunities to say that he will follow the law if confirmed as a member of Donald Trump’s administration. You’d think that would be an easy question. But it’s one that Bishop has struggled to answer. 

The first opportunity came last week, when Bishop testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.... 

During that hearing, he was asked what he would do if Trump told him to do something that violated the law. He wouldn’t give a direct answer. 

The second opportunity came Tuesday, when Bishop again testified regarding his nomination, this time before the Senate Budget Committee. At one point, Bishop said he would commit to following the law. But that answer seemed to change when Sen. Patty Murray mentioned that appropriations passed by Congress are also law, and the Trump administration has seemingly violated that law by not using federal funds as directed. 

Murray asked a simple question: Will you follow the law and use the funds as directed? 

Bishop responded by saying that he shares Trump’s view on impoundment, which is a process in which the president refuses to spend funds appropriated by Congress. Trump believes he has the power to do that, despite the fact that the Constitution is quite clear about the fact that spending authority lies with Congress. 

Murray pointed out that there is a law known as the Impoundment Control Act, passed by Congress in 1974, that says impoundment is illegal. Does that mean Bishop won’t follow that law? 

Bishop acknowledged the law’s existence, but said he believes it is unconstitutional. But, as another senator pointed out, it remains the law of the land until a court overturns it, regardless of how Bishop personally feels about its constitutionality. And that means that Bishop, and everyone else in Trump’s administration, must follow it in the meantime. Bishop, however, said it’s not up to him to decide that. 

“I’m not a lawyer,” Bishop responded, before correcting himself to say, “I’m not a lawyer in this administration.” ...

*     *     *

Dan Bishop has never been coy. "He was also asked whether he still believes the 2020 election was rigged. Bishop said that he does." If he believes that, he's an idiot. If he says he believes that as a strategic alignment, then he's already a lying sack of shit before he gets to defy the law for Donald Jehoshaphat Trump. Any lying sack of shit will break the law to suck up to a mob boss.

Who Dan Bishop Looks Up To

 

On multiple occasions, Bishop has invoked the name of Ken Paxton, the Trump-allied Republican attorney general from Texas, as someone he might ally himself with if elected.

--Paige Masten, NandO

“I’m going to be in the attorney general’s office in North Carolina and join the fight with Ken Paxton and other great state attorneys general around the country to protect people’s rights and get the job done.”

--Dan Bishop, on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast

Who is Ken Paxton, and why would Dan Bishop want to emulate him? Indebted to Paige Masten for these particulars on Paxton:

Since taking office in 2015, Paxton has sued the federal government dozens of times, spending millions of dollars in lawsuits that have only occasionally yielded results for the people of Texas. Some of those lawsuits include suing the Biden administration over noncitizen voting allegations, a rule protecting privacy for women who get abortions in other states, guidance requiring doctors to provide abortions in emergency situations and for declaring a Texas lizard an endangered species.

Paxton used the full strength of his office to prevent a Texas woman named Kate Cox from receiving an emergency abortion when it was medically necessary, which launched Cox into the national spotlight. Perhaps most notably, Paxton filed a lawsuit in 2020 that attempted to overturn election results in four key battleground states, baselessly claiming that the results were tainted by fraud. Bishop was one of many congressional Republicans to sign onto that lawsuit [which went nowhere].

Paxton was impeached (and acquitted) by the Texas legislature last year, and he remains under federal investigation for corruption amid allegations of bribery and misuse of office."

A culture warrior with slippery morals. That's the man Dan Bishop aspires to be.

Bishop appeared on a panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference alongside Paxton and former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller, where the trio discussed how to combat liberal “lawfare.” “We have to fight back,” Bishop said during the panel. “That’s what Ken Paxton’s example has been in Texas … we need more soldiers on the field who can make a difference like Ken has done in Texas.”

A disaster itching to happen to North Carolina.

 

Foxx Voted Recently for FEMA Funding; People Need More

 

[Avery countian Paul] Laws said he can’t understand why North Carolina’s members of Congress aren’t rushing to increase funding for FEMA, which has provided $129 million in assistance to North Carolinians as of Monday. He reached out to Rep. Virginia Foxx, who grew up in Avery County and lives in Banner Elk, more than a week ago, he said, but never heard back. “I don’t understand it, and why our representatives and legislators haven’t said a word about more FEMA funding is beyond me,” he said.

--Lexi Solomon, NandO, 21 Oct. 2024

Foxx did recently vote for the FEMA stopgap funding bill after spending years playing miser with most strands of the social safety net. In her heart, she is not charitable. Rather, she is judgmental about others, sharply acquisitive for herself. 

So it's no particular surprise that she declared in 2005 that all the proposed Katrina money that was wanted for mainly Black New Orleans was a colossal waste and she wouldn't vote for it. But on the recent FEMA funding bill, which passed before Helene arrived, all North Carolina Republicans voted yea except for that carbuncle on the ass Dan Bishop. And Sen. Ted Budd. He also voted nay.

Jeff Jackson For the Win

 

...against the extremist, "bathroom bill authoring," election-denying Dan Bishop! One of the most important races on your ballot ... for Attorney General of North Carolina.

Even Virginia Foxx Voted for FEMA Funding

 

But who didn't from North Carolina? Dan Bishop, who now wants to be our state's top law enforcement official, and Sen. Ted Budd. Looking for people to blame if there's not enough FEMA money to help all of Western North Carolina? I suggest you start with Bishop and Budd. 

(Foxx is famous for being only one of 11 U.S. House members who refused to vote for Katrina aid in 2005. She was criticized roundly for that vote.)

A Debate I'm Sorry I Missed

 

Jeff Jackson vs. Dan Bishop, both running to be Attorney General of NC, held at the Charlotte Convention Center on Friday, June 21, 2024 (reported on by Steve Harrison, WFAE)

 

The tenor of the debate: Bishop saying Jackson is a soft-on-crime liberal, while Jackson called Bishop an extremist who isn’t fit to be attorney general.

--Steve Harrison

 

 

Bishop warned that Jackson might use the attorney general’s office to further his own political agenda, and compared current Democratic Attorney General Stein and his predecessor, Cooper, to Letitia James, New York’s attorney general who has been after Donald Trump (successfully).

 "She vowed in her campaign to use every power at her disposal to pursue and destroy one particularly despised political enemy,” Bishop said. “That is the end of the law in this nation if that is permitted to continue.”

Jackson immediately fired back.

“Speaking of the end of law in this nation, all of that big speech was just given to you by someone who voted against certifying the last election,” Jackson said. “He was a lawyer. He knew better. He decided to pander to the people who stormed the Capitol. So let’s start there.”

Much of the debate is preserved in a Tim Boyum "Tying It Together" podcast. 

 

I can find no recent polling on this race, which is as crucial as any other race in the state, including governor, because would-be top cop Dan Bishop considers himself the whip of God, which speaks to his cruelty and his selfish view of the law. I want none of that running the attorney general's office.

What can I say about Jeff Jackson. I've watched him for years. I think he's honest, unaffected, sincere to his bones, and he's the best communicator, next to Anderson Clayton, that the North Carolina Democratic Party currently has. He's good at explaining the jungle rhythms of the U.S. Congress, and I dig his wide-eyed surprise at the weirdness of the present moment.

Studying for My Primary Ballot

 

I'll voluntarily tell you what is currently pissing me off a little, the innuendo that because Rep. Jeff Jackson (and candidate for Attorney General) has a big social media following, he must be a shallow and artificial politician. This was Jackson back in 2015, in the NC Senate, denouncing the Republican budget of that year and the underhanded process that birthed it. I don't consider this shallow:

The in-depth profile of Durham D.A. Satana Deberry that just came out at The Assembly doesn't do Jackson any favors, and why should it? Deberry takes the air out of the room. She's an impressive Princeton and Duke product who's been through several election cycles in Durham but surprised everyone when she challenged Jeff Jackson for the Atty Gen'l job, because she's so well known in Durham County and virtually nowhere else. 

(I couldn't help wincing all through Lena Geller and Michael Hewlett's profile, how Dan Bishop would absolutely love Satana Deberry on the ballot opposite him. He could so make hay off her record as D.A. -- "Soft on crime!" And her queerness.)

Jeff Jackson's a Boy Scout, and I see him standing on the principles of the Scouting Code, and all the better that he can actually communicate with clarity. He will give Dan Bishop fits.

We See the Kind of Campaign Bishop Will Run Against Jackson. Goody!

 

Thursday, October 26, early morning: Jeff Jackson announces he's running for Attorney General.

Thursday, October 26, mid-afternoon: Republican rival-for-Attorney-General Dan Bishop issues on Twitter a mock "welcome" to Jackson for entering the race and alleging that Jackson's use of TikTok makes him a Chinese stooge. Bishop included a statement made to look like it was from Jackson’s campaign. It was written in Chinese, and included a translation that said Jackson was a “Tiktok star who wants to make North Carolina soft on crime” and was “helping China spy on North Carolina.” At the top, it included the logo for Jackson’s campaign. 

Posting the mock statement on X, formerly Twitter, Bishop wrote that it was “for our unamerican friends.” (Avi Bajpai)

Dan Bishop's Fake Teeth

 

He snarls. He growls. He froths at the mouth. Especially when Kevin McCarthy was Speaker and Bishop was a member in good standing of the Freedom Caucus. Back in May, Bishop was the very first House Republican to publicly float ousting McCarthy after McCarthy snubbed the hardliners in his caucus to negotiate a debt ceiling deal with President Biden. “It is inescapable to me. It has to be done,” Bishop told reporters then. "It" meaning vacate the Chair.

But not so much last Tuesday. McCarthy voted to keep McCarthy, saying that Matt Gaetz's motion to vacate was just creating chaos when chaos is the last thing that the sanctified Dan Bishop wants to see ... having cheered lustily just days before for a government shutdown if he didn't get his way on spending. “Among Republicans, there are those who don’t think we should make a change to anything that happens up here,” Bishop said. “And I am going to cast every single vote to see to it that the direction changes. We’re going to change the way this institution functions, so far as I have any control of it.”

Mission accomplished!

But Bishop is running away from that congressional job anyway, leaving the US House to run in 2024 for attorney general of North Carolina, which is evidently in need of its own new dose of chaos and dysfunction. Dan Bishop can do the job. Or at least snarl, growl, and froth at the mouth, while others do the actual dirty deeds.

via GIPHY

Arch Conservative Suggests Dan Bishop as A.G. Might Enable Phil Berger's Ambitions

 

Saw it first on DailyHaymaker.com that the only rival Republican remaining in the Attorney General primary race, Tom Murry, was dropping out of the race and leaving a clear path for Rep. Dan Bishop to run unopposed. Murry was a member of the NCHouse from 2010 until he was ousted on Democrat Gale Adcock in 2014. He's an attorney (and, odd factoid, also a pharmacist). DailyHaymaker sez Tom Murry is now thinking of a State Appeals Court race. 

Never mind that Dan Bishop has the power to clear the field for himself -- Tom Murry is just another victim of his ambition -- it's the subsidiary things DailyHaymaker sez about Bishop (and just incidentally about Phil Berger) that got my attention. (DailyHaymaker is on the far right and prints lots of unverifiable rumors about its long list of enemies, particularly establishment "RINOs.")

DailyHaymaker's profile of Bishop: "In DC, he has fought as part of the House Freedom Caucus. In the wake of the GOP takeover of the US House, Bishop made some noise about getting to the bottom of the J6 mess and the overall weaponization of the federal bureaucracy against Biden political opponents. Bishop was a leader in the 15-round speaker vote back in January that led to some concessions by RINOs to appease conservatives and clear the way for Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Bishop had been making a name for himself as a national conservative leader and a potential 2026 opponent for horrid Thom Tillis." (All  accurate, including the "horrid Thom Tillis" part!) 

Here's the passage about Berger that depends on unverifiable rumor:

We spoke with a source very close to Bishop’s political operation. This source was excited about an alleged promise by senator Phil Berger to “take care of and look after” Bishop once he’s elected AG. In light of recent reports around the sleazy casino deal currently being batted around Raleigh, that does not come across as comforting or “exciting” news. I, like many others, would love to see an independent-minded conservative running the show at NC DOJ. Not one controlled from a corner office on Jones Street.

Couldn't agree more. And it certainly wouldn't be beneath Berger's dignity to do special pleading for his special friends in the gambling industry with the man who might become the chief law enforcer of the state.

Democratic Primary in 2024 for A.G. Might Get Interesting

 

Alexander H. Jones has written a strong endorsement for the just retired NC Supreme Court Justice Michael Morgan to run for the office of Attorney General, not Governor as has been speculated Morgan was considering. Jones makes the point that the first announced Democratic candidate for the job is a little known ex-Marine lawyer from Fayetteville, Col. Tim Dunn. There's now a second Democrat in the race, Duplin County attorney Charles Ingram. Morgan's getting into the primary will make him the instant frontrunner.

Jones writes, "Mike Morgan would be one of the most highly-qualified candidates ever to run for Attorney General in North Carolina. He has served as a jurist at every level of the state courts, culminating in a tenure on the High Court during one of the most significant progressive terms in recent state history."

Whoever wins a Democratic primary will likely be running against current Congressman Dan Bishop, whom Jones also characterizes: "Bishop represents the most pernicious strand of politics that exists in America. While it would be very strong to employ the descriptor 'fascist,' Dan Bishop has allied himself with genuine forces of neo-fascism in national politics. He started his AG’s campaign by stoking lurid fears about crime in 'Asheville' (decoded: gay) and 'especially Charlotte' (decoded: multiracial). At a minimum he would create a climate of hysteria among many whites that seemed to justify an extreme response by law enforcement to an imagined epidemic of urban disorder."

Dan Bishop Wants To Be A.G. -- Good Lord!

 

The man who wrote, championed, and defended the notorious Bathroom Bill when he was an NC senator now wants to run our state's law enforcement. H.B. 2 was fairly quickly repealed, though not until major economic damage had been done to the state.

Now Bishop says he's giving up his 8th CD seat in Congress for the opportunity to frustrate even more progressive ideals. He made the announcement on live radio yesterday morning, on WBT's morning show, and immediately signaled that he intended to harass "liberals" in the cities, especially a certain mountain town with a hippy image:

“I think it’s a particular time to reinforce support for prosecutors and front line law enforcement officers,” Bishop said. “I think there’s an opportunity to use the influence of that office to restore law and order to our cities like Asheville, in particular, Charlotte, and some others.”

"Asheville, in particular."

You want a man of such titanic prejudices yoked to the power to persecute, right?

Dan Bishop, who's prominent in the Freedom Caucus, who has parroted Trump's lies and applauded Trump's abuse of power, who tortures House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for being too soft on Democrats .... that guy? That's the guy the Republicans want in charge of our laws?

At the moment, a novice Democrat, Fayetteville lawyer and ex-Marine Tim Dunn, is the only announced Democrat for A.G., the post that Josh Stein has held for two election cycles. Nobody's ever heard of Tim Dunn. That's no match for Dan Bishop's name recognition.

"Just Talk"?! Say It Ain't So, Dan!

 

"...now that the dust has settled, those threats seem to largely have just been talk."

--Nicole Lafond, writing in Talking Points Memo about the fizzling of far-right threats against Kevin McCarthy

The Freedom Caucus met for the first time Monday night (June 5) since the debt ceiling deal passed the House. Guess who wasn't there. Dan Bishop, who had become the most visible, the most pugnacious, the most threatening member of the Freedom Caucus, who on camera raised his hand at a Freedom Caucus press conference (May 30th) that he was willing to "vacate the Speakership" over the deal that Speaker Kevin McCarthy made with President Biden. 

What? Dan didn't show up at the meeting of the group that has propelled him to headliner Fox News status? Did he not want to face his colleagues and have them know just how big a paper tiger he actually is? For as soon as that debt ceiling deal passed the House, Bishop went as silent (one might even say passive) about the future of Kevin McCarthy and the direction of the Republican caucus. Turned out, Dan Bishop's threat didn't cut it; the Freedom Caucus didn't matter, for the debt ceiling deal passed easily without them. 

But on Tuesday this week, the Freedom Caucus struck back. They banded together and refused to approve the rules governing a clutch of non-controversial bills, essentially shutting down the House. McCarthy adjourned the body until next Monday. First time since 2002 that the House failed to approve rules for debate, and it's all about the debt ceiling deal with Biden. The Freedom Caucus rejects any legislation that will require Democratic votes to pass.

But Dan Bishop is not front-and-center for once.

Is Dan Bishop the Biggest Dick in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac?

 

Dan Bishop beat Democrat Dan McCready in a special election for the NC9 congressional seat in September 2019. In Congress, Bishop promptly joined the Freedom Caucus, a collection of soreheads that Bishop clearly determined to out-shine. (Bishop now represents NC8.) The acid in his veins sloshes like mango juice in a rolling barrel, and since 2019 he's never failed to grab the microphone and scorch the neighboring landscape.

He plays The Scourge of God. While he was running against McCready in 2019, he forced the ex-Marine to return a donation from fellow Congresswoman Ilhan Omar by smearing her (and McCready by association) with Muslim extremism and even anti-Semitism, a nasty move worthy of a too-clever-by-half white supremacist who enjoys the game.

Before September of 2019, Bishop had served terms in both the NC House and the NC Senate. In Raleigh, he was known as abrasive and obnoxiously conservative. The infamous Bathroom Bill, HB2, was his baby and led to a national boycott of North Carolina by major employers, conventions, sporting events, and entertainment figures. (He's terrible at economics.) About all that collateral damage, Bishop was defiantly unrepentant.

Another result of Bishop's nastiness: During the protests against Trump and trumpism at the 2017 Inauguration, former Gov. Pat McCrory, who had signed Bishop's bathroom bill into law, got recognized by a group of LGBTQ demonstrators on a Washington street, and when he began to run away from them, they gave chase, and there was film of McCrory's embarrassment. Bishop proposed criminalizing peaceful protests with a five-year minimum sentence. In 2020 Bishop became the first member of Congress to divulge the name of the whistleblower whose memo (about a phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky) sparked the first House impeachment inquiry. The federal Whistleblower Protection Act makes it illegal to divulge the name of a whistleblower, but so far as I know, Bishop experienced no repercussions.

Peach of a guy.

The Freedom Caucus held a fomenting press conference yesterday to denounce Speaker Kevin McCarthy's deal for ending the debt limit crisis, and Bishop was front and center. (Plenty on the left hate that deal too. As one activist said, "I'm sorry, but 'it could have been worse' just doesn't do it for me any more!") “This is a career-defining vote for every Republican,” Bishop said. “Many more need to emerge [in opposition] if there is any path to salvaging what we began as a unified conference .… We’re prepared to stand up and take the slings and the arrows.”

Unified conference? I'm no fan of Kevin McCarthy, but Dan Bishop clearly seems to hate the guy. Bishop was one of the 20 hardcore holdouts on McCarthy's elevation to the speakership. He was quoted at one point saying he'd rather resign from Congress than see McCarthy as Speaker of the House, but he denied he ever said that. He finally voted for McCarthy on the 12th roll-call (of 15), because he was reportedly promised his own subcommittee to investigate federal law enforcement agencies, which Bishop claims have been "weaponized against Republicans."

Yesterday, at the press conference, when a reporter asked the Freedom Caucus lawmakers if any of them now supported "vacating" the speakership (Motion to Vacate, which any single congressperson can now make, with humiliation awaiting for someone), Bishop was the only Republican to raise his hand.

The temperature of Bishop's malice is what fixes my attention. Whether it's queer people or Black people or a weak fellow traveler that feels Bishop's lash -- or reporters trying to gather facts -- he consistently confuses cruelty with ideological purity. "I am vindictive; therefore, I am right." 

What should scare the plaid pants and golf shoes off the citizens: Reportedly, Bishop is aiming to run for NC Attorney General. Same report also says that Bishop has already scared off the candidacy of the Republican who was considered a frontrunner candidate -- former US Attorney Andrew Murray, who now serves as district attorney for Henderson, Polk, and Transylvania counties.

The Republican Who Ran Away From Dan Bishop (Who Wants Devoutly To Be Our Next Attorney General)

 

Andrew Murray

It's the saddest political story. Former US Attorney Andrew Murray, who now serves as district attorney for Henderson, Polk, and Transylvania counties and who -- like, 30 minutes ago -- was considered the frontrunner Republican for Josh Stein's current job and who said he was recruited to run in 2024 by the Republican Attorneys General Association, suddenly found out that US Congressman Dan Bishop, professional jerk and insurrection-adjacent right-wing ideologue, wants to be Attorney General instead, so golden boy Andrew Murray has dropped out, saying he decided against getting involved “in a bruising primary.”

Because Dan Bishop has the character of a wharf rat and will play dirty?

What's Bishop currently famous for?

Bishop says that federal law enforcement agencies have been weaponized against Republicans and wanted to form a committee to investigate those organizations. Bishop traded his vote for Kevin McCarthy [to be Speaker] for the creation of that committee. 

He also authored House Bill 2, an infamous piece of legislation that banned transgender individuals from using public bathrooms of the gender they identify with. Instead, it forced them to use the the bathroom of the gender on their birth certificate. It came in response to a Charlotte anti-discrimination ordinance. The bill cost North Carolina more than $400 million as both companies and entertainers refused to come to the state following the bill’s passage. [Danielle Battaglia]

Dan Bishop gets aroused thinking of the vengeance he can visit on his philosophical enemies as the chief prosecuting official in North Carolina, and Andrew Murray -- bless his heart -- won't lift a bruise-prone hand to save us.

Dan Bishop, One of the Anti-McCarthy 20

Alexander Jones recently described Dan Bishop as the most reprehensible figure North Carolina has elected to Washington since Jesse Helms. He recently appeared on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show, Jones reports, and dazzled the host with his cheerful nastiness and victim-blaming. Bishop was, after all, the chief author of HB2, the "bathroom bill," that sought to punish transgender kids, because there's never enough humiliation to go around. Now he's part of the 20 Freedom Caucus types who are humiliating Kevin McCarthy.

Bishop won his seat in Congress (NC-9) in the special election of  2019, beating the hapless Dan McCready with a whopping 50.69% of the vote, but like all the Trumpists he acted like he had the mandate to be the biggest jerk on Capitol Hill. Now after redistricting he represents the 8th CD.

About McCarthy's sweaty ambition to be Speaker, Bishop tweeted (a tweet that has subsequently disappeared), “Kevin McCarthy is not the right candidate to be Speaker. He has perpetuated the Washington status quo that makes this body one of the most unsuccessful and unpopular institutions in the country.”

No arguing with that last point, though Bishop has no inkling of his own participation.

No Hope that NC Republicans Become Human Beings

The U.S. House just passed a bill, 267 to 157, that would formally repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law against same-sex marriage that was overturned in the Supreme Court landmark Obergefell decision. It would require states to reciprocally recognize marriages that are legal in other states as valid, and would prohibit discrimination under state law in public acts against married couples based on their race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.

All of the Republicans representing North Carolina voted against it. Specifically...

Dan Bishop (N.C.)

Ted Budd (N.C.)

Madison Cawthorn (N.C.)

Virginia Foxx (N.C.)

Richard Hudson (N.C.)

Patrick McHenry (N.C.)

Greg Murphy (N.C.)

David Rouzer (N.C.)

Astounding, that these "freedom-lovers" and "-defenders" are willing to sacrifice the rights of fellow citizens to satisfy -- what? -- religious fundamentalism and the dictates of an ideology that intends to punish difference. I would say these guys are going to hell, except they're already there. 

Update on Candidate Filings -- Two Days To Go

 

Kyle Parrish

We were wondering about Adina Safta yesterday, who was listed as a Republican primary opponent for Virginia Foxx in CD5. She had filed during those brief moments that the 5th stretched from the Tennessee stateline to Chapel Hill. She's now changed her filing to run in the new CD2, where Democrat Deborah Ross is the incumbent (and who is favored to keep the seat this November).

Former Congressman Mark Walker has not yet filed for the US Senate race, though a clot of other Republicans have, including both Pat McCrory and Ted Budd. Hesitation sometimes speaks volumes.

In the new 5th CD, Kyle Parrish, who lives in Cary, filed yesterday as a Democrat. Cary? Here's his website. It's somewhat confusing -- proclaims he's a candidate in District 5 on the homepage, but under the tab "Meet Kyle Parrish," he says he's running in the 7th CD. Always nice to have a Democrat on the ballot against the ineffable Foxx, but an out-of-district Democrat who's already a public head-scratcher? Yikes.

Toxic Republican Dan Bishop, who currently represents the 9th CD, is now running in the 8th.

Rep. Patrick McHenry in the 10th always has Republican primary challengers, and this year is no exception. It's similar to the Republican challengers that Virginia Foxx always draws. None of them leave a mark. (Which reminds me that I need to re-read "The Myth of Sisyphus.")

Charles Graham Rises in CD9

Charles Graham, Lumberton's rep in the NC House since 2011, announced way back on February 15 that he was going to run against far-right jerk Dan Bishop in the NC9. That was months ago. But on Tuesday this week Charles Graham arrived, launching the Graham campaign for Congress with a video that instantly went viral (viewed more than 3.2 million times as of noon Tuesday), earning Graham a segment on CNN and national exposure. Cue the money tsunami. Graham became instantly "the new progressive darling" (Jeffrey Billman) because of the tenor of the history he presented in this video, the "Battle of Hayes Pond," January 18, 1958:

Those the KKK intended to bully instead rose up and took the initiative, preemptively struck. It was the Klan that got the bloody nose and literally run off the property. Graham wants to capture that Iron John moment and distill it into a campaign theme that can rally the beat down Democrats and disaffected independents to, well, buck up, strap on, and attack. That's the message, isn't it? Hayes Pond, an effective symbol of group fortitude and initiative. "We don't play with racists." 

That's a good message. Especially cogent in the remarkable age of the Trumpist bullies. 

But of course there'd be a worm in this cabbage. Came out almost immediately that Graham voted with the Republicans for the notorious bathroom bill (HB2). Graham quickly confessed his sin and recanted that vote. Then yesterday morning Jeffrey Billman added details of Graham's anti-abortion votes. More of his voting record in the NC House will continue to emerge.

So he's no progressive, and so what, Alexander Jones argues. Graham's conservative impulses are both inevitable among Democrats in the 9th Congressional District and actually salutary for winning the seat: 

...Graham presents as a strong candidate to win in that district. His Lumbee identity should help him win back the very culturally conservative Native voters who backed Dan Bishop against Dan McCready. In a right-of-center district, his relative conservatism places him close to the center of gravity that most local voters occupy. His strength, furthermore, is in the rural, eastern part of NC-09 that delivered a narrow victory for Bishop in 2019...

Poor Dan McCready, who just because he looked like he might be mild-mannered to the point of turning lib-rel, couldn't win the seat against Bishop in that notorious re-do of the congressional election in 2019. McCready had no liberal record and he stepped around hot-button issues dear to progressive hearts, but he couldn't surge the Democratic vote, maybe because he always wore that spooked look of someone who really wants to hide.

I hope #NotThatAlexJones proves prophetic for 2022. (Personally, I seesaw violently in my own expectations for next year. Sigh.) I can accept Charles Graham. I can live with a conservative Democrat until he turns Joe Manchin on us.

Virginia Foxx Votes To End the Confederacy

 

We did a double-take when we discovered this morning that Congresswoman Virginia Foxx actually voted with the (vast) majority of House members to "remove all Confederate statues from public display in the U.S. Capitol, along with replacing the bust of former Chief Justice of the United States Roger Taney, author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared that people of African descent were not U.S. citizens."

In taking that surprising vote, Foxx broke with most other Republicans in the North Carolina delegation. The following members voted to keep the memorials, along with their odor of white supremacy, while decrying "critical race theory" as a threat to their collective smugness:

Dan Bishop

Ted Budd

Madison Cawthorn

Patrick McHenry

David Rouzer