Send This Child to Camp

 

Dan Forest, running for governor of North Carolina against incumbent Roy Cooper, just earned a place in our list of The Dumbest Candidates in the History of the Universe. WRAL sent him and Gov. Cooper a list of six questions to answer for an on-line voters guide due to go live this Thursday. The Forest campaign curtly refused to answer the questions, alleging that the questions themselves "don't reflect reality." The questions themselves. Which leads in its own way to new questions about Forest's mental architecture.

Here are the six: 

If elected, what are your top 3 priorities?

Should all pandemic-related restrictions in North Carolina be lifted before a coronavirus vaccine is widely available? What would be the tipping point to scale them back or rescind them?

How would you handle the economic issues caused by the pandemic?

The pandemic has resulted in added expenses for public schools. Do you support a significant increase in K-12 spending to help districts, and if so, how would you pay for it?

Do you support expanding Medicaid to provide more North Carolinians with health coverage during the pandemic? If not, how do you propose caring for these people?

Do you believe there’s systemic racism in North Carolina? If so, what reforms are needed?

Three questions on COVID, and since Forest apparently thinks it's all a hoax, those questions don't reflect his reality, you bet, and one question on expanding Medicaid, and Forest wouldn't want to reflect his own reality on that issue, and that last question ... whooo boy!

I've worked on a Federal campaign and on many state of NC campaigns, and I can honestly tell you that candidates are constantly peppered with these types of questionnaires, from media outlets and pressure groups, and everyone on a campaign groans at the thought of answering another one. It takes lots of staff time to research, draft, edit, and approve, and it takes a focused candidate to make sure the answers really reflect his/her policy positions and don't give the opposition a huge coat-rack to hang attack ads on. Every campaign I've ever been associated with made value judgments about which questionnaires to spend a lot of time on and which questionnaires to blow off. 

I believe Forest picked the wrong questionnaire to blow off.

Dan Forest, Our Village Idiot

His lawsuit against Governor Cooper just flamed out too.

 

ReOpenNC Wants Governor Cooper Impeached

The notoriously reckless Reopen NC co-founder Ashley Smith, who does not live in Boone (as far as we know), is circulating a petition calling on state lawmakers to impeach Gov. Roy Cooper because he issued shutdown orders restricting commercial activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The petition cites a lack of concurrence from the Council of State -- Republican members Dan Forest, Dale Folwell, Cherie Berry, Steve Troxler, and Mark Johnson, who apparently liked better the cavalier refusal to take the coronavirus seriously, like the governors of Florida, Texas, and Arizona. Ashley Smith's petition for impeachment accuses the governor of infringing on North Carolinians' rights of free speech and the enjoyment of the fruits of their labor.

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest is already suing Governor Cooper over the same issue.

Impeachment would have to begin in the NC House. Republican House Speaker Tim Moore "did not return requests for comment on the petition. Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger's office said it would be out of turn for Berger to comment, given that any impeachment proceedings would have to start in the House."

In other words, don't hold your breath, Ashley Smith.

Dan Forest Doesn't Know What He's Talking About

So Dan Forest, running for governor of North Carolina like he had a clue, showed up Saturday among 500 mainly unmasked supporters in Henderson County and said words, some of which were these:

"There have been multiple comprehensive studies at the deepest level held to scientific standards in controlled environments that have all said for decades, masks do not work with viruses. That's why we've never used a mask for a coronavirus before, ever."

In the great Trump tradition, that's just ignorant. Also dangerous. Rob McMillan reports that many cities in the 1918 flu pandemic mandated masks and fined people who didn't wear them. There's plenty of visual archival evidence too (see below).

Dan Forest is a idiot. Also a ass.

Continue To Reopen NC? Can Gov. Cooper Stand Up to the Pressure?

Governor Roy Cooper has promised a decision by mid-week -- tomorrow? -- on whether he'll move to Phase 2 of his planned reopening, which according to the governor's own website would involve the following:

Lift Stay At Home order with strong encouragement for vulnerable populations to continue staying at home

Allow limited opening of restaurants, bars and other businesses that can follow strict safety protocols (reduced capacity)

Allow gathering at houses of worship and entertainment venues at reduced capacity Increase in number of people allowed at gatherings
Open public playgrounds

Continue rigorous restrictions on nursing homes and congregate living settingsLift Stay At Home order with strong encouragement for vulnerable populations to continue staying at home

Allow limited opening of restaurants, bars and other businesses that can follow strict safety protocols (reduced capacity)

Allow gathering at houses of worship and entertainment venues at reduced capacity Increase in number of people allowed at gatherings

Open public playgrounds

Continue rigorous restrictions on nursing homes and congregate living settings

Phase 2 was originally projected to run only a couple of weeks, starting this Friday, May 22, and extending (maybe) into the middle of June -- when, barring really bad news, we'll have the launching of Phase 3. Because surely by then every Trumpist will be thoroughly immunized by hydroychoroquine. Phase 3 will be a PAR-TAY for some, while the rest of us can eat our masks.

Last Saturday -- three days ago -- North Carolina experienced its biggest one-day jump in COVID-19 cases -- 853 new cases. Trumpists hurry to assert that the spike exists only because there's more testing. The state has ramped up testing with 275 new testing sites, managing about 7,500 screenings a day. But -- d'oh! -- more testing means more discovered infection. The logic for denial follows: no testing, no virus. Thus saith the Twitterman, in between chugalugs of hydroxychloroqine.

Such is the state of our national pandemic management.

Meanwhile, North Carolina is reopening. The pressure on the governor has been staggering. Chambers of Commerce, always genteel, nevertheless grumble audibly. Ashley Smith's ReOpenNC militance threatens the governor with implicit violence, while young men with something to prove go theatrically armed about our capitol city. NC Republican Boss Phil Berger bitches from the sidelines, the man who can singlehandedly stop any bill for pandemic relief. While preachermen successfully find a federal judge to reopen the churches. Naw, no pressure at all.

But Governor Cooper can also play from strength, and should. According to a Meredith College poll, more than 75% of respondents supported Gov. Cooper's stay-at-home order, including "people from different political parties, all age groups, rural and urban communities and those with low and high incomes."  (While a more recent poll by Duke’s social science researchers found rising dissatisfaction with shutdown, that number -- 8% rise -- was offset by a 9% rise among respondents who believe that North Carolinians are underestimating COVID-19.) Strength? Cooper easily out-polls Dan Forest, the Republican choice to replace him, whose every attempt to make political hay out of Cooper's coronavirus management has turned to chickenshit. Jeffrey Billman at IndyWeek bills Forest as "an idiot," which seems a fairly generous assessment.

Are we flattening the curve? Yes, in some respects -- the select numbers that Cooper's being urged to pay attention to by re-openers rather than the steadily mounting number of new cases. As of Sunday, the number of days it took to double the number of infections had stretched to 20 days, as opposed to the 2-3 days for doubling in the first three weeks after the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in March. The rate of new cases, down. Total new cases, up.

I don't see a lot of talk from Raleigh about the efflorescence of infection at meat-processing plants in Wilkes and Surry counties. It's a trend that's everywhere. By the last week in April (already!) there were at least seven other meat plants with at least 190 infected workers, but the state's Department of Health and Human Services was refusing to divulge the names and locations of those plants -- which really does nothing to dispel an impression of cover-up. On April 21, local health officials in Bladen County confirmed an outbreak at a Smithfield Foods pork plant, and the Bladen Journal reported outbreaks at food processing facilities in Robeson, Duplin, Lee, and Chatham counties. Some of those plants -- definitely the Tyson chicken plant in Wilkes -- employ prisoners on the line, and those slave laborers (is that too strong a characterization?) carry the infection back to their pods at night. Their guards and keepers carry the infection home to their families at night.

And such in the logic of highly infectious viruses, which would be jumping up and down at the thought of their coming new opportunities, if viruses thought at all.

ReOpenNC Organizer Urges Fellow Idiots To "Double-Down!"

I believe this video features the voice of not-from-Boone ReOpenNC organizer Ashley Smith, along with video footage of her recent arrest in Raleigh by the Capitol police. All of this by way of characterizing Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Forest as the head idiot.

You Have To Work Overtime To Be As Dumb as Dan Forest

Yesterday Governor Roy Cooper stepped up efforts to control the spread of the Coronavirus in North Carolina by issuing an order to shut down in-house seating in bars and restaurants, and the Republican who wants to oust Cooper from his job, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, immediately attacked the governor for going too far.

Forest wants to let everyone know that he would keep bars and restaurants wide open in a national pandemic.

Cool!

Or we'll opt to go with Jeffrey Billman's comment on Twitter: "holy shit Dan Forest is bad at politics."

This Is Not the Texas I Grew Up In

As a son of the Texas Panhandle, I take more than passing interest in what looks increasingly like a resurgence of Democratic prospects back there for 2020 -- not in the actual Panhandle of Texas, which is redder than a baboon's ass, but in the urban centers and their suburbs where most of the voters live.

Take the 22nd Congressional District of Texas, the district that Tom Delay used to represent and is now a bizarre gerrymander to the south and west of the beltline expressway around Houston known as Texas 8.

District 22 contains most of Pearland and Sugarland and all of Rosenberg. I-69 cuts through the heart of it, linking Houston to its southwest burgeoning suburbs. District 22 used to be solid Republican country. (Tom DeLay was its maester for many years before he succumbed to the White Walkers.) But with the sudden retirement of its incumbent Republican five-term Rep Pete Olson back near the end of July, the Cook Political Report moved the district to tossup. (Rep. Olson is one of several Texas Republican congressmen who has chosen early retirement over the headwinds his political heavy-weather radar sees building in the atmosphere.)

Multiculturalism: The Texas Threat to Everything Dan Forest* Holds Sacred
The Democrat already in the Texas-22 race -- he also ran in 2018, and snuck up on Pete Olson in a heartstopping insurgency, losing by a comfortable-enough 14,500 vote margin to Olson (47% to 51%), but considering his heritage and brown pigmentation, the 138,153 votes that Sri Preston Kulkarni earned in 2018 were pretty damn impressive. He promises to do better in 2020, and the Cook Political Report obviously agrees.

Sri Preston Kulkarni

Who is Sri Preston Kulkarni? He's the son of an Indian immigrant father -- "Sri" being a Hindu honorific -- and a mother -- Margaret Preston -- who's a direct descendant of Sam Houston hisownself. No kidding! A son of a brown immigrant wearing a Hindu headlight for a name gets 47% of the vote in red Texas, not only because Sri Preston Kulkarni also carries a direct bloodline to the Texas Revolution but because Sri Kulkarni was a gawd-damn accomplished foreign service officer with 14 years of experience and a speaker of English, Spanish, Hebrew, Hindi, Russian, and Mandarin Chinese.

Incidentally, Texas-22 has evolved into a kind of multicultural haven, and is still evolving. "The district is 26 percent Hispanic, 19 percent Asian and 12 percent black, and 43 percent of adults hold college degrees, among the highest in the state" (David Wasserman, Cook Political Report). Not good soil any more for Trumpist seeds. More fertile for a candidate like Sri Preston Kulkarni. Take a look at his website -- Kulkarni for Congress.

The Texas-22 goes on my list of most avidly watched flippable districts in the #2020BlueWave.


*Dan Forest is the Christian Right Republican frontrunner candidate for Governor in 2020. He has a Republican primary first (in March 2020) against moderate Republican NC House Rep. Holly Grange. He has made an issue of "multiculturalism," claiming it means the death of the country he wants to run. He's not wrong about that.

Leslie Cohen Is Running Again in NC House District 20

NC House District 20 is a jigsaw gerrymander in New Hanover County, taking in some of Wilmington, Ogden, Porters Neck, Bayshore, Murraysville, and Castle Hayne -- many I-40 neighborhoods going into Wilmington. It's listed as "strong Republican" by the NC Free Enterprise Foundation.

Holly Grange

Republican incumbent: Holly Grange was first elected to the seat in 2016 after winning a fairly nasty Republican primary in March with another Republican woman who accused her of having a cozy relationship with Sidney Blumenthal (of Hillary Clinton fame). In August, when the Republican occupying the seat went ahead and resigned from it, Grange was appointed to fill out his term. Grange faced no Democratic opposition that fall and had her first real reelection contest in 2018 against Democratic insurgent Leslie Cohen.

Holly Grange was an engineer officer in the Army Corp of Engineers, serving in the 20th Engineer Brigade at Fort Bragg and on the 18th Airborne Corps staff. She married a general (who was the one who had some brief connection to Sidney Blumenthal). In an interview, Grange admitted that climate change is happening and that it is impacting sea-level rise, an issue of considerable concern for her district. Her viewpoint on that gets little credit within her Republican caucus, which has decreed that sea-level rise must not be talked about. She also voted to repeal the notorious HB2, which might put her on a collision course with Lt. Gov. Dan Forest (see below).

Democrat Leslie Cohen moved to Wilmington from Atlanta in 2013 after their two children left the nest. She became involved in local issues when the passage of HB2 threatened the rights of their adult children. Her activism quickly spread into other issues as she became aware of the struggles of others in her community. She had earned a degree from Georgia State University, and fresh out of college, she started a printing business with her future husband Jeff. The printing business morphed into a successful commercial graphics company. The couple designed collateral advertising for Fortune 500 companies for twelve years before transitioning their business to fine art in 2002. Leslie’s paintings are in collections across the globe. The pollution of the Cape Fear River is a big issue for her as is restoring the incentives that built the film industry in North Carolina (the destruction of which by the Republican General Assembly drove the industry to other states like Georgia). She opposes off-shore drilling, and she is especially disturbed at how public education has suffered under Republican rule.

Leslie Cohen came within 5.32% of beating Holly Grange last fall, or 1,918 votes short of winning -- not too shabby for a Democratic artist in a "strong Republican" district. On that strong showing, she's decided on giving it another go in 2020.

News Flash: Holly Grange Considering a Run for Governor

See this article in the National Journal and other on-the-ground reporting in North Carolina, particularly by Colin Campbell.

If Holly Grange does indeed challenge Lt. Gov. Dan Forest in a primary for governor, won't that open the House District 20 seat a little wider -- perhaps a lot wider -- for Leslie Cohen?

We hope Holly Grange takes the plunge, not only because it will help Leslie Cohen but also because it will offer a credible alternative to a medieval Republican who thinks God wants him to be governor.

Oh Dan Forest, You're So Predictable

A week ago yesterday, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who wants Roy Cooper's job, preached a sermon in Salisbury that's been the talk of the town. The gist: A Christian nation can't be multi-cultural, and diversity is the enemy of the people.

The man is as up-tight as the clasp on Miss Murdstone's coin purse. To listen to him preach -- and when is he not preaching? -- you can't help recalling H.L. Mencken's definition of puritanism: “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

Forest spouts absolutist, theocratic fantasies all the time. In January of this year, he was telling students at Wilson Christian Academy:

“America was founded on basic founding principles that all focus back to God and the foundation of our country is established on God’s truths and absolute truths being what it is about,” Forest said. “So we live in a culture today that is about relative truth. People say ‘Well, that ain’t true for you, but it’s not true for me.’ Or ‘That absolutely can’t be true for everybody all the time, so it must not be true at all.’ Reality is that there is such a thing as absolute truth and it is important to know.”

Tell that to Donald Trump, will you? and report back.

Forest was behind the formation of a non-profit, which registered as "The Faith-Driver Consumer" with the state's Secretary of State in 2011, that rated the apparent "Christianity" of many public businesses, especially for Christmas shoppers. Sear's got downgraded because it features women wearing lingerie. No, really.

This theocrat wants to be the next governor of North Carolina. We should be so unlucky!

Dan Forest Now Admits He Accepted Help From Wheeler-Dealer Charged in Bribery Scheme

Dan Forest

Stop the presses! Lt. Gov. Dan Forest has amended his campaign finance reports. He now admits that he took "in-kind" help from Greg Lindberg in the amount of $3,761. Small potatoes, you say?

Yes, but previously Forest was putting distance between his campaign and Lindberg. Forest neglected to even mention on his reporting forms that a fundraiser had been mounted for him at a Lindberg home, with Lindberg picking up the cost of catering and "refreshments."

Lindberg also donated $1 million to building a Forest juggernaut in 2017, money that was laundered through a super-PAC, and that ain't small potatoes.

Rule of Thumb: In North Carolina, the More Pious the Politician, the More Prone to Corruption

On the website for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association you'll find a proclamation that Lt. Gov. Dan Forest is "Representing Christ on the Front Line." "His career and life are rooted in faith in Jesus Christ," we are told:

“My faith instructs everything I do every single day,” he said. “God has given us a very clear plan of how to order our lives, how to order our families, how to order our government and how to order the church. Those things are directed by His Word, and that’s what we try to uphold.”

Forest believes the Lord has him in the political arena “for such a time as this” and that, similarly, the church must embrace its divinely destined role in a culture that has, in many ways, turned its back on God.

Forest knows exactly how everyone should be leading their lives, but he's become personally pretty dodgy on his connections to Greg Lindberg -- trying to distance himself from the high-rolling political donor now indicted for attempted bribery of a public official. Forest's spokesman told the News and Observer that Lindberg has never contributed to Forest’s official campaign account, yet Lindberg gave $1.4 million to the North Carolina Republican Council of State Committee, which Forest chairs, and Lindberg was listed on a Forest fundraising email as a maxed out contributor.

Plus Forest and Lindberg were obviously tight during the fall of 2017. The News and Observer found at least three events where they were hip-to-hip and the money was flowing:

An August fundraiser at what appears to be Lindberg’s house.
A September ribbon-cutting for one of Lindberg’s insurance companies.
An October 50th-birthday party fundraiser for Forest, the invitation of which listed Lindberg as "co-chair."

What does the Bible say about the love of money?

Dan Forest, You Coy Minx!

Yesterday, Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest released a professionally produced video message. It doesn't say "I'm running for governor of North Carolina," which is what every mother's son has known as a lead-pipe cinch for the last two years. What Forest says is "I'm forming an exploratory committee" to see if I want to run for governor of North Carolina in 2020.

Too coy by half!

Plus his video is all about lamenting "divisiveness" in the state, as though Dan thinks we all fell on our heads when we fell off the turnip truck.

Divisiveness? Why, that could be Dan Forest's middle name, if not his safe word.

Item: At a Civitas Conservative Leadership Conference, Forest implied that people on the left don't believe in God. No, their religion is "political activism," he said (while his political activism is merely the living breath of God, we assume). Democrats "are hopeless," he said. "They truly do believe that, but for the government, but for the work they do, there’s no hope for America." Never mind Forest's own efforts to make government regulate women's reproductive choices.

Item: The City of Charlotte's anti-discrimination ordinance protecting transgender citizens sent Forest on a noisy crusade backing the General Assembly's "bathroom bill," HB2. He stoked fears of predatory men disguised as women preying on young girls in ladies toilets.

Item: Forest pushed hard in the General Assembly for the passage of HB527, a bill targeting student hecklers of right-wing speakers on college campuses. It was passed under the guise of protecting free speech but was motivated by the increasing and vocal opposition to conservative speakers on UNC member campuses.

Item: For a theocrat who wants his religion dominating government, Forest likes being awfully close to The Moral Stain who currently occupies the White House:





Item: He gladly accepted money from The Word of Faith church in Spindale, which practices beating the devil out of its members.

Item: He called it "judicial tyranny" when a federal judge struck down North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriages and backed a bill in the General Assembly which would allow magistrates to opt out of performing same-sex marriages because of gay cooties.

Too Soon To Talk About 2020 NC Elections? Oh, Why the Hell Not?

Cal Cunningham with his family

Jonathan Kappler sez that Raleigh reporter Colin Campbell has spilled the beans that Democrat Cal Cunningham is getting ready to announce his bid for Lieutenant Governor in 2018. So, with that particular cat out of the bag, we feel licensed to wade in.

Current Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, as every politico with a pulse already knows, plans to run for governor against Roy Cooper in 2020, so his office will be open for scrambling politicians everywhere.

Democrat Cal Cunningham first came to our attention in 2010, when he ran in the Democratic primary for US Senate against Sec. of State Elaine Marshall. Marshall won that primary and went on to lose to Dick Burr that November. Even though Cunningham lost the primary, he impressed many Democrats as a rising star who had a bright future.

Cunningham had been elected to the NC Senate (23rd District) in 2000, representing parts of Davidson, Rowan and Iredell counties. Redistricting that followed the 2000 Census broke up the 23rd  into three new Republican-leaning districts, and Cunningham opted not to run again in 2002 (Wikipedia).

Cunningham is a lawyer (UNC-Chapel Hill) who was commissioned in the Army Reserve, Judge Advocate General's Corps, in 2002 and has been mobilized for two active duty tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the Reserve, he serves with an airborne unit at Fort Bragg. He has his own law firm in Lexington, NC, and is also vice president and general counsel for WasteZero, a recycling management business that has teamed up "with more than 800 towns and cities to reduce waste, increase recycling, and generate savings for municipalities."

I discover that Cunningham already has an ActBlue donation page up and active.


Mount Airy Republican (and former mayor) Deborah Cochran is the only announced Republican so far for the Lt. Gov. seat. She announced, in fact, way back in May of this year. She's well known in Surry County because of a decades-long career as a local radio personality (WSYD-AM). She's also a  business teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Forsyth County. And she's bound to be challenged in the Republican primary in 2020 by better-known personalities.

Footnote: Filing for the 2020 General Elections will actually open on December 2, 2019, barely a year away. And you thought I was seriously jumping the gun to talk about the 2020 campaign?

Dan Forest, Alarmed (And Annotated)

Thanks to Paul A. Specht, "Under the Dome"

N.C. Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, "a likely candidate for governor in 2020," was among the headline speakers this weekend during the Civitas think tank’s Conservative Leadership Conference at the Crabtree Valley Marriott.

In a short speech Friday night, Forest argued that government can’t — and shouldn’t be expected to — fix all of society’s ills. But, he said, small-government conservatives are in a dangerous place in history because “the left” marches and lobbies for bigger government with “religious fervor.”

“It’s the thing that wars used to be fought over,” Forest said.

Wars? Onward, Christian soldiers?

“You see it on issues like climate change or the Me Too movement or Black Lives Matter or gun control,” he continued. “Name the issue today, the fervor has reached a religious pitch in America. Why? Because it really is the religion of the left.”

Penis envy. Dan Forest is furious that the Republicans aren't showing the same fervour as Democrats. Personally, I pray to the earth and the sky, in that order, and I don't tend to think the exercise of the rights in a Republic to protest and to be heard is in itself a threat to the Republic.

Real societal and cultural change comes with changes in character, Forest argued. Referencing a push for more gun restrictions, Forest at one point noted that God punished Cain — and not the rock — when Cain used a rock to kill his brother Abel in the biblical book of Genesis.

At the root of everything wrong is character. True dat!

The left, however, “they don’t have a hope in God," Forest said. "They have no hope in a higher power. They are hopeless."

No, not hopeless, Your Holiness.

"They truly do believe that, but for the government, but for the work they do, there’s no hope for America. So, it’s a dangerous place to be.”

Don't get run over by the Welcome Wagon!

Republicans are guilty of relying too much on government too, Forest added. He noted that the recent omnibus spending bill in Congress raised America's debt, didn’t block funding to Planned Parenthood and didn’t repeal Obamacare.

Virginia Foxx, call your office.

Government isn’t the answer, he said.

So what is? “Before we can change government, we must change men’s hearts,” Forest said.

He suggested that people don’t help each other enough because they expect government to step in. “Why would we help our neighbors if government is going to do it for us?” he said. “Why would we help the poor if government’s going to do it for us? Why would we feed the hungry, help the sick, take care of mom and grandma in their old age if government’s going to do it for us?”

Send this child to camp! Does he know anything about what goes on every day in this state?

The U.S. Constitution and founding documents were crafted through a “God-ordained framework,” Forest said.

But, he argued, America‘s culture is no longer God-centric. “We need to teach character education in North Carolina,” he said. 

Again with "character." Totally agree! Teach kids not to lie, not to grab each other by the pussy simply because they can get away with it, not to boast and then insult lesser human beings as stupid, ugly, fat, lying slobs, etc.

“If you want to make a huge dent in the breakdown of society, then make a dent in fatherlessness.”

Hmmm. Father figures we can respect. There's a plan!

Forest laid out these numbers: 43 percent of children live without their father, fatherless children are four times more likely to live in poverty, 70 percent of children in state-operated facilities come from fatherless homes and fatherless kids are twice as likely to die by suicide.

“If you want to make a dent in all these issues, don’t make a policy, don’t get government involved,” Forest said. “Start to do something about fathers in homes.”

He didn’t elaborate on what that might look like.

Repeal of HB2 Happening Today

Apparently, there's no greater motivator for doing something in the NC General Assembly than a threat from the National Collegiate Athletic Association: repeal HB2 (or at least change it considerably) or lose the state's ability to host any sports championships through 2022. The NCAA's deadline for repeal is later today. So what else: The NCGA will be voting on a compromise deal to repeal HB2 this morning in Raleigh. Boom!

Governor Roy Cooper was reluctant to accept the deal (see below for why). The Republican House caucus, where the crazies go to fledge, was very reluctant (so reluctant, according to Colin Campbell and Jim Morrill, that the Republican leader in the House will have to have Democratic votes). Democrats bailing out Republicans from their leaking boat? How novel!

The deal itself does not make everyone happy, particularly the LGBT community. The bill will...

▪ Repeal HB2.

▪ Leave bathroom regulation to the state, essentially returning to the status quo before Charlotte passed a 2016 ordinance allowing transgender people to use the restroom of their gender identity.

▪ Enact a moratorium on similar ordinances until Dec. 1, 2020.

Let the far-right recriminations begin! Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, we're looking at you. 

Fact-Checking Claims on Both Sides RE HB2

We should thank God for PolitiFact for keeping politicians honest. Or for sweeping up after the elephant parade has gone by. You can read full discussions of these fact-checks here.

1. "There are 31 other states and 10,000 other cities that have the same type of policies that we just passed."

-- Rep. Paul "Skip" Stam, N.C. House Speaker pro tem

Rated Half True.

2. "We have not taken away any rights that have currently existed in any city in North Carolina."

-- N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory

Rated False. 

3. "Towns, cities and counties in North Carolina are still allowed to set stricter non-discrimination policies for their own employees if they choose."

-- N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory

Rated Half True.

4. "Will [HB2] threaten federal funding for public schools under Title IX? No, according to a federal court which has looked at a similar issue."

-- N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory

Rated Half True.

5. Charlotte’s anti-discrimination ordinance would have "opened all bathrooms to all sexes at all times" if it hadn’t been overturned by HB2.

-- N.C. Lt. Gov. Dan Forest

Rated False.

6. "The city of Charlotte passed a bathroom ordinance mandate on every private-sector employer in Charlotte."

-- N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory

Rated Mostly False.

7. North Carolina spent "almost as much as it spends on government rape crisis programs in a year" to convene a special session for HB2.

-- LGBT Progress

Rated Mostly False.

8. "There have not been any public safety issues" in cities that allow transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender they identify as.

-- Equality NC Director Chris Sgro

Rated Mostly True.

9. "Attorney General Roy Cooper refuses to do his job" by not defending House Bill 2 in a lawsuit.

-- N.C. Senate President pro tem Phil Berger

Rated Half True.

10. The Human Rights Campaign is "more powerful than the NRA."

-- N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory

Rated False.

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest Disparages PayPal But Uses PayPal

The North Carolina Republican Party is having a nervous breakdown in public over the decision by PayPal to cancel a 400-job expansion into Charlotte. PayPal announced it had changed its mind because the NC General Assembly passed, and Governor Squishy signed, HB2.

In the last 24 hours or so, Republican leaders have used all ten fingers to point in every direction. Republican Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore decided to blame Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts for the PayPal debacle, with this astounding logic: If the mayor and Charlotte city council had not been so effing lib'rul, the General Assembly wouldn't have been obliged to be so effing dickish. It's the classic rapist excuse: She was asking for it.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest, one of the chief drivers of HB2, came up with a bizarre rationale for disparaging PayPal: “If a corporation wanting to do business in North Carolina does not see the worth of our children in the same light then I wish them well as they do business somewhere else.”

Interestingly, Dan Forest's exclusive "men only," "by invitation only," super-Christian "Black Mountain Weekend" uses the services of PayPal for your ease in paying the $250 cost (wildly appreciative hat tip to Greg Flynn for this find):

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest Comes Out Strong Against First Amendment

Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest says he will introduce the "Campus Free Expression Act" to the General Assembly when it reconvenes next month. The "Campus Free Expression Act" is another of those Republican specialities, a piece of legislation given a title that's intentionally misleading.

Because the "Campus Free Expression Act" is anything but. It would bar any students, employees, or faculty members at the 16 member institutions of the University of North Carolina from disrupting public meetings or events with protests.

"Disruption." How will that be defined? Sometimes free speech is disrupting to the smug indifference of public officials who do not want to hear any conflicting opinion.

Let's call this the "Dan Forest Refrigerator Act of 2016," since Mr. Forest intends to put a chill into the expression of opinions different from his own.

A Rising Tide Sinks All Dingbats

Board of Elections fundraising reports were due in Raleigh yesterday, and there was at least one bombshell discovery: Attorney General and presumptive Democratic gubernatorial candidate Roy Cooper is out-raising sitting governor and presumptive screw-up Pat McCrory ... by a good country mile.

When confronted with this news, the McCrory campaign put on its "What, Me Worry?" idiot grin: "...we’re just now getting started,” said Billy Constangy, director of The Pat McCrory Committee. “While Gov. McCrory is focused on doing his full-time job as governor of North Carolina, our growing network of supporters will ensure we have the resources necessary to show how North Carolina is moving forward and creating jobs under his leadership.”

"We're Just Now Getting Started!" There's a bumper-sticker for you!

"Doing his full-time job as governor of North Carolina." How's that working for you? Your own party's leaders in the General Assembly obviously regard you ... well, they scarcely regard you at all, and when they do, it's less than complimentary.

Republican strategist and former Jesse Helms political guru Carter Wrenn can read the fundraising tea leaves: “You very seldom see a challenger outraising an incumbent when it’s a governor or senator,” Wrenn said. “This is a really good sign for Roy Cooper. He’s outraising a sitting governor. I don’t know when the last time that happened.”

This will up the right-wing pressure on what's-his-name -- Dan Forest, our divinely inspired lieutenant governor -- to run a primary against McCrory, though that in itself would be a fool's errand. In other words, how can Dan Forest resist the temptation?

Governor McCrory is laughing manically at what he sees over his right shoulder, but that rising tide is gaining on him and is no laughing matter.