"Renee Knows How To Do It"

Donald Trump made his first-ever endorsement in a Congressional Republican primary, and he chose Renee Ellmers in the NC-2.

Trump recorded a robocall for Ellmers: “I need her help in Washington so we can work together to defeat ISIS, secure our border, and bring back jobs and frankly, so many other things. And Renee knows how to do it. She gets it. And together, we will make America great again.”

Well, okay then.

Meanwhile, Ellmers is in the primary race of her short-ish political career, matched through redistricting with fellow incumbent Republican Congressman George Holding, who's being supported  by the Koch octopus and the Club for Growth. (Perennial candidate and creepy gynecologist Greg Brannon is also running in this primary.)

Since the Koch Bros. have pointedly refused to endorse Trump, perhaps Trump's endorsement of Ellmers is payback. Trump is into payback.

The North Carolina Tea Partiers, who have long despised Ellmers, are not taking the Trump endorsement well.

Dick Burr's Rationalization

Article II, Section II, of the U.S. Constitution: "The President .... shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court...."

Okay, I deliberately left out the next clause of that sentence, which says in Olde English (hard to accurately transcribe, except for Republicans), "except when the President is a black man or a Democrat, or both."

Amazing how those Republicans, who just love the Constitution to pieces, find rationalizations for ignoring its clear mandates.

Sen. Dick Burr said, “In this election year, the American people will have an opportunity to have their say in the future direction of our country. For this reason, I believe the vacancy left open by Justice Antonin Scalia should not be filled until there is a new president.”

Let's annotate that excuse: "The American people, who had their say in 2008 by electing Barack Obama, and again in 2012, by reelecting Barack Obama, will probably and overwhelmingly agree with Republican obstructionists that the last 11 months of said Obama's term in office should be spent ruing the day he was ever elected in the first place and thanking the Lily White God Above that a white conservative could be elected next November, who'll do the Right Thing!"

Of course, Burr said that because his Republican brethren in the U.S. Senate had formed a chorus already, and of course he said it because he's got Greg Brannon challenging him on the right in the primary, and Burr thought he'd better join the chorus. To his detriment.

The Republican Party, and especially Republican senators up for reelection, are adding more packed baggage to their already weighted-down War Wagon, none of which particularly appeals to independent and swing voters.

BREAKING: Greg Brannon Challenges Sen. Dick Burr in Republican Senate Primary

Greg Brannon, the gynecologist who tried to take down Thom Tillis in the Republican Senatorial primary of 2014, has reportedly filed this morning to challenge Richard Burr.

Let's call this "the Donald Trump effect." Though Brannon has a way to go before he can play Trump on TV.

Rand Paul: "I want more people to vote, not less”

Rand Paul, who's clearly running for president in 2016, was in Raleigh yesterday to campaign for Thom Tillis for U.S. Senate. He endorsed Tillis's main Tea Party rival Greg Brannon in last May's primary.

Paul is seriously out of step with Tillis on the issue of voter suppression. Tillis engineered the passage of the new voter suppression laws in North Carolina (parts of which were overturned by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday). A major portion of that new law shortened Early Voting by a full week.

This is what Rand Paul told the Associated Press earlier this week:

“I think it’s a dumb idea to spend a lot of time on Republicans trying to change early voting. My position is I want more people to vote, not less.” ...

He is critical of the GOP’s push to require voters to present photo identification at the polls and reduce early voting in some states, moves criticized as efforts to suppress participation by minority voters who typically support Democrats....

“I’ve cautioned Republicans, ‘You need to be aware of peoples’ perceptions,'” he said. “If the perception [of voter suppression] is out there, why don’t you start talking about something good, like restoring peoples’ right to vote?”

It's not just a "perception," Mr. Paul, especially in Watauga County but also across North Carolina, that Republicans in power are doing everything they can to discourage the votes of people that they perceive as opposing their policies. One of those groups singled out for suppression are young people, the demographic that Rand Paul will be seriously courting in 2016.

How out of step is Rand Paul with the mainstream of the contemporary GOP? How many North Carolina Republicans would actually say the words, "I want more people to vote, not less," and if by accident or by design that line should actually fall from Republican lips, do you actually believe they would mean it?

Thom Tillis and Rand Paul, together? Naw. We ain't buying it. It's pure self-interested politics, a shadow cast on the wall, a game, and a fraud.

Ole Dragon Breath

I'm loving me some Rand Paul, from yesterday in Charlotte, talking about Republican senatorial contender Greg Brannon:

North Carolina needs “a dragon slayer, and that dragon slayer is Dr. Greg Brannon,” Paul told 250 people downtown near the NASCAR Hall of Fame, suggesting Brannon’s strong conservative beliefs would shake up the status quo in Washington. “I’m here today because Greg Brannon is a true believer and we need true believers in Congress,” Paul added.

Meanwhile, turnout in this primary suggests that people who truly believe in dragons (and fairies and the Lollipop Guild) are perhaps not as numerous as one might hope.

Gov. McCrory: "I Was Told To Stand Here"

You can't fix the "dumb" that Pat McCrory suffers from.

He waits until all the polls say that Thom Tillis has the Republican senatorial nomination locked up, and then he wades into that spitting match and endorses Thom Tillis.

Is anyone advising Pat McCrory about politics? Why would anyone tell him it's a really good idea to impose himself into an inter-party pissing match? The 15% of the Republican base voting for Doc Brannon are going to hate him for it, and they're the types never to forget nor to forgive.

McCrory has been doing what Tillis and Senate President Pro-Tem Phil Berger have been telling him to do all along. It's to Tillis and Berger's benefit, not to McCrory's. Does he look small in that photograph above, or what?

NC GOP: First in Ignorance

Watch the four leading contenders in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate all deny that climate change is real.

Yup. Head-butting science is the way to get ahead in today's Republican Party.

Once a Swindler, Always a Swindler?

Now appears that Tea Party Senate candidate Greg Brannon is a serial plagiarizer. He copies other people's work.

Not the first time, either.

Are You Ready for Greg Brannon's Wave, North Carolina?

Republican/Tea Party Senate candidate Greg Brannon, the wild-eyed Cary groinycologist, is predicting that he will win his primary with Thom Tillis "outright."

“We are going to win this without a runoff. There’s no doubt in my mind. The wave is coming,” Brannon told Glenn Beck.

Hmmm. Maybe it's one of those political tsunamis that is imperceptible in the deep waters of mid-April, but will grow into a skyscraper as it reaches the shallows of May 1st.

Or maybe it's the rhetoric of a delusional fanatic who breathed in too much of that Glenn Beck incense.

We're pulling for ya, Dr. Brannon, but so far we haven't spotted "the wave." We've got our personal coast guard on 24/7 alert to spot any white water coming our way. All we've seen so far are some ripples from someone peeing in the pool.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/04/10/3773525/greg-brannon-says-he-will-win.html?sp=/99/102/105/135/1554/#storylink=cpy

This Show's Gonna Get Even Better

Convicted swindler and U.S. Senate candidate Greg Brannon sez rival U.S. Senate candidate and slick-as-a-greased-eel Speaker of the NC House Thom Tillis is an exemplar of "a culture of corruption."

It's popcorn time!

This Man Simply MUST Win the Republican Primary for US Senate!

OB/GYN Doc Greg Brannon, who's also now a convicted swindler and a notable plagiarist, knows why women abort. It's because they believe in evolution! No kidding! Believing in evolution will totally screw up your mothering. And you know what else? Planned Parenthood wants you to be able to murderize your children up through three months of age.

All of which is the Gospel Truth and the reason why I believe this man simply must be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from North Carolina!

Thom Tillis who?

Dan-Boy and Preacher, Sittin' in a Tree...

Sen. Dan Soucek has endorsed preacher Mark Harris in the Republican senatorial primary, in which NC House Speaker Thom Tillis is considered the front-runner and Tea Party swindler Greg Brannon is considered the runner-up.

Why Reverend Harris isn't doing better in polling in this race is something of a puzzlement, but it didn't stop Sen. Soucek from embracing his candidacy.

Both Soucek and Harris were major pushers of the anti-gay marriage Amendment One in 2012.

Out of Brannon's Ashes, The Baptist Preacher Will Rise

Greg Brannon, the Tea Party gynecologist running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate against Thom Tillis (and a host of panic-stricken extras), got a death blow today when a jury found him guilty of misleading two investors in a tech start-up company. Brannon's been ordered to repay $250,000, plus interest. The jury thought that Brannon had essentially lied to the two investors (one of them the husband of one of his patients), bilking them ... not a good line on a bio for a candidate at any level.

Chief beneficiary of this collapse is probably Baptist preacher and moral scold Rev. Mark Harris, who has been trying his best to save North Carolina from The Gays.

O let the conservatives rally round Rev. Harris and smite that Pharisee Tillis!

Do You Smell Toast?

Greg Brannon, the Cary OBY/GYN and Tea Party alternative to slick Thom Tillis in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, is facing a civil lawsuit alleging that Dr. Brannon suckered a friend and the husband of one of his pregnant patients into investing $250,000 into a technology company that Brannon claimed was going to be at least as big as Facebook. Didn't turn out that way.

According to "The Morning Memo," "The court file is eight inches thick and filled with political dope, such as his botched investments and how he recruited investors apparently at his OB-GYN practice."

That's just plain creepy.

Nutballs At the Tea Party

At the Republican Senate candidate forum on the banks of Loch Loman Lake Norman last night -- the Tea Party tribal stomp that loss leader Thom Tillis turned up his nose at -- Tea Party star Greg Brannon said he wanted to phase out Social Security. Apparently, some bicycle seats are fully edible, if old people would just apply themselves!

Heather Grant, the Nurse Ratched of Wilkes County, said she hoped to be one of the six new Republican senators that it'll take to try President Obama for impeachment. She also said that she wants to do away with the Environmental Protection Agency, because she can still see her hands in front of her face when she's outside.

Rev. Mark Harris of Charlotte's First Baptist Church said he was shocked -- shocked! -- that the U.S. House of Representatives had not already impeached Obama.

Rev. Harris also said he was hoping and praying that his BFF, Jehovah, would chasten the numerous Federal judges who were overturning anti-gay marriage laws all across the land, because God has ordained divine discrimination. Otherwise, Federal judges were going to split hell wide open when they land there, which will be soon.

One Down. No Discernible Effect on Tillis

The talk-radio yakker is dropping out of the crowded Republican Senate primary field. Bill Flynn had already lost his campaign manager.

Well now. If the preacher, the nurse, the Shelby mayor, and one or two more also dropped out -- and endorsed the OB/GYN doc from Cary as they exited -- then maybe Dr. Greg Brannon would have a shot at beating Tillis in the primary.

None of which is going to happen.

Too many Lilliputians are trying to pull down the Brobdingnagian Tillis, who is shrugging them off like a horse's tail swishes flies.

And, yes, I am implying that Mr. Tillis is a horse's ass.

Thom Tillis Doesn't Show at "The Stupid Candidates" Tea Party

Back earlier this year, discredited Republican king-maker Karl Rove said on Fox News, "Our object is to avoid having stupid candidates who can't win general elections, who are undisciplined, can't raise money, aren't putting together the support necessary to win a general election campaign."

Rove was announcing that he and the big donors behind his Crossroads Super PAC were going to be recruiting Republican candidates who looked good and knew how to keep their traps shut, hiding their extreme views until they get onto the floor of the U.S. Senate, and then let their freak flag fly!

One of the slicksters that Rove decided to anoint was Speaker of the NC House Thom Tillis, who has been struggling for traction but who is now blessed with not one but four Tea Party challengers, including one certifiable prober of women's vaginas, one God-addled crusader against gays, one talk radio screecher, and one woman who seems to have wandered in from a 1950s taping of "Queen for a Day." With that congregation against him, Tillis is guaranteed a win in next May's primary.

But never mind that. The circus pulled up in Gastonia last night -- the four Tea Partiers with Tillis absent -- and they left their Maalox at home. It was all acid reflux all the time. They stripped the wax off the floor.

Oh Tillis was invited all right, but he was otherwise engaged with none other than Karl Rove, who's been in our state raising money for his "not stupid" candidate Tillis. Did we say there was heartburn in Gastonia last night? The mere presence of Karl Rove within our state's boundaries was enough for at least two of the Tea Party candidates to belch fire. We hear the curtains burst into flame.

The Screech Owl Is Heard in the State

Ann Coulter has endorsed Greg Brannon in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate next May, and she blasted leading contender Thom Tillis for being soft on immigration.

So that should settle it: Thom Tillis will win the primary by an embarrassingly wide margin.

What the Dumb Do

Greg Brannon, the OB/GYN Cary doctor who's running in the 2014 Republican primary for U.S. Senate (for the privilege of challenging Kay Hagan in next year's General Election), has been outed for plagiarizing another plagiarizer. No kidding. He copied off Rand Paul, mainly from Paul's website and particularly his views on several Tea Party issues. Rand Paul, meanwhile, has always copied off others and shows no sign of tapering off.

Who goes looking to see if there are copied parts on candidate web pages? The News&Observer item cites no source. Who tipped the press about plagiarism on candidate Greg Brannon's website?

I betcha a dollar it was someone with Thom Tillis's campaign.

Rand Paul Endorsed ... Who?

Greg Brannon

Kentucky Senator and self-certified eye doctor Rand Paul has entered North Carolina politics and endorsed Republican Senate candidate and self-described savior of lady-parts, Dr. Greg Brannon.

Brannon is an OBY-Gemnologist, or an ORYX-Gynocopterist, or ... well, he eats scrap metal for breakfast and he'll destroy government faster than the The Preacher can find Revelations 6:2 in his King James Version and certainly faster than that slickster Thom Tillis. It's the law now: all Republicans everywhere stand for destroying government at all levels. The candidate that can promise to do it faster is the candidate they want. Or at least that's what eye doctor Rand Paul wants.

So now, O my brethren, North Carolina Republicans will be dancing to Paul Rand's tootling right through next May's Senate primary. And can I get an "Amen!"?