Once Bitten, Twice Shy?

 

The mean eyes of
Keith Kitwell

Republican NCHouse member Keith Kidwell filed H 804 which would outlaw abortion in North Carolina at every stage of pregnancy, but new House Speaker Destin Hall quickly announced that the bill had been assigned to the Rules Committee where it will die a quick death, because Destin Hall is no fool and he knows that another extreme anti-abortion bill could be a killer of Republican careers.

“I don’t think there’s any real desire in our caucus to hear that particular bill, and so, it’s not going to be heard in committee,” Hall told reporters. End of story.

Granted that last year the expected backlash against the NCGOP for reducing the legal window for abortion from 20 weeks to 12 didn't quite materialize, at least not to the point of decisively ending the super-majority of Republicans in the General Assembly.

The meanness of old white guys about women's bodily autonomy gets put in the corner by the good sense of young white Republican men who understand better the political winds, not that he necessarily respects women more.

Keith Kidwell Wants To Lead the NC House (Backwards)

 

To "slick" and "aw, shucks!" who will be running next year for Republican Speaker of the NC House -- previously discussed -- add "paranoid," the new flavor that says it's running also and has history. From Lynn Bonner on NC Newsline:

Rep. Keith Kidwell announced on Facebook that he is running for NC House Speaker.

The eyes of Keith Kidwell

Kidwell, a Beaufort County Republican, is serving his third term in the House. He is a leader of the House Freedom Caucus, a group that often takes positions more conservative than other Republican legislators.

The position of House Speaker is one of the most powerful in the state. House members vote for the office holder.

House Speaker Tim Moore, who has held the job since 2015, has said that this is final term in the position.

Kidwell was the primary sponsor this year of a bill that would have banned nearly all abortions from conception. Under the bill, a person who performed, induced, or attempted an abortion would be guilty of a felony and face a civil penalty of at least $100,000.

The legislature went on to pass a law banning most abortions after 12 weeks gestation. During the House debate on that law, Kidwell was overheard referring to a Black female legislator who talked about her decision to have an abortion as belonging to the “Church of Satan.”

Kidwell lost his position as deputy whip in the House GOP caucus over the remark. He remains senior chairman of the House Finance Committee.

Kidwell joins at least two House Republican colleagues who have announced they are running for Speaker, Rules Committee Chairman Destin Hall and Republican majority leader John Bell.

So far in his House career, Kidwell has promoted suspicion over election results and pushed to inspect voting machines for modems. The Freedom Caucus announced in 2021 that it wanted to open Durham County’s voting machines, despite no evidence of problems. Their plan did not move forward because the law did not allow it.

Kidwell vehemently opposed COVID-19 safety measures, telling colleagues that Gov. Roy Cooper could not make him wear a mask. He was hospitalized and treated for COVID-19 in August 2021.

He was one of 24 House Republicans who voted against Medicaid expansion in March, after Republican leaders in both chambers endorsed it.

Speaking about “government overreach” last year, Kidwell said, “That’s one of the main reasons I’m here. I don’t trust my government.”

Lightning Strikes Kidwell and McNeely

 

Wow. Apparently, the GOP leadership in the NC House actually worries just a tab about its image.

Last week, Republican Rep. Keith Kidwell remarked that Democrat Diamond Staton-Williams, who spoke about getting an abortion, had perhaps been raised in the Church of Satan. And Rep. Jeffrey McNeely questioned whether Democrat Abe Jones only got into Harvard because of his race.

This morning Kidwell and McNeely were stripped of their leadership roles in the Republican House Caucus.

What's In Their Hearts?

 

Two prominent members of the far-right Freedom Caucus in the NC House showed their asses in the last few hours, as though they needed even more product branding after their attacks on the rights of women in the state.

Rep. Jeff McNeeley (Iredell Co.) interrupted -- interrupted -- Rep. Abe Jones, who is Black, and asked him if he could have gotten into Harvard if he wasn't Black or an athlete. Okay, McNeeley, said "if you weren't a minority or an athlete," but I think everyone knew exactly what he was implying. Abe Jones does indeed have a law degree from Harvard. (McNeeley apologized, but as we know the harm was already done.)

Keith Kidwell

Before that display of uncooked racism, Rep. Keith Kidwell (of the mean eyes) heckled Rep. Diamond Staton-Williams during the debate on the abortion law veto override. While Staton-Williams was tearfully telling her own personal experience with abortion, even though she had grown up "in the church," Rep. Kidwell quipped, "she means the Church of Satan" loud enough for nearby staffers and House pages to hear him. Will Doran, the reporter for the News and Observer, also heard him.

If Kidwell has ever apologized to Staton-Williams, he's kept the apology well out of sight.

The NCGOP's "Death Dive" on Abortion

Kidwell

In the first week of April, NC House Rep. Keith Kidwell (he of the mean eyes) filed House Bill 533, "An Act to Prohibit Abortion After Conception." No one much took that total ban bill seriously, as House Speaker Tim Moore has been promising and forecasting a less apocalyptic abortion law but certainly one that will shorten the time period allowed for legal abortion.

Republican legislators have been meeting about this and arguing in private for weeks and weeks, and so far nothing concrete has emerged. Tim Moore himself has said he would prefer a six-week cutoff, otherwise known as the time when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, but President Pro Tem Phil Berger of the Senate, the biggest cock on the block, has said he's in favor of the first trimester as the marker, about 12 weeks into a pregnancy. Whatever. It seems pretty clear that the Keith Kidwell total ban is not the one the Republicans are going to move in this General Assembly, though they are duty-bound to move something, to persecute women's bodily decisions a little or probably a lot further. Currently, the law in the state allows abortions during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Cotham

The very recent defection of Rep. Tricia Cotham might have changed the calculus of just how far they're willing to go -- or maybe not. Cotham has already said that she's willing to consider stricter rules on abortion, but so far no bills have appeared to compete with the Kidwell total ban. Why, it's almost as though the Republicans are frozen. Make that frozen with fear. I'm indebted to Sen. Graig Meyer for turning me onto The Editorial Board (John A. Stoehr), who published a really insightful thread on Twitter about the new politics of abortion (since the overturning of Roe) and the "Republican death dive." Sen. Meyer suggested that Stoehr's opinion "helps explain why #NCGA Republicans haven’t run an abortion restrictions bill yet …. They’re screwed."

Here's part of Stoehr's argument, contained in a long string of tweets that I've collapsed for easier reading:

The thing about antiabortion politics is there’s no going back. You can’t spend decades equating it to murder, then go soft on murder. The other thing about antiabortion politics is there’s no going forward.  Some Republicans are now seeing that the whole “abortion is murder” thing is a loser. This would appear to be a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But that suggests an exit. There is no exit. Republican legislators can’t help themselves. They’re caught in their own death drive....

These Republicans can’t get more in line with where voters are, because most voters believe abortion should be legal with limits here and there. At the same time, they can’t soften their position for fear of being accused on being soft on murder. The problem isn’t doing a poor job of selling antiabortion politics. The problem is antiabortion politics. To see the problem clearly, consider a secondary theme of antiabortion politics undergirding the principal (abortion = murder). That theme is rooted in nostalgia – for the days when a man was a man, a woman was a woman, and an embryo was not sacrificed on the altar of modernity. These days never existed. Humans have experienced the full range of human sexuality and gender expression since the history of humans began. The antiabortionists believe they do exist, however, for a reason: in order to maximize the emotional trauma that comes with liberal democracy moving on from the old days. Because liberal democracy never stops moving on, neither does the antiabortionist’s trauma. The trauma is woven into their personalities. It must, given the bedrock belief in the existence of the old days. But, again, those days never existed. So the antiabortionists ensnare themselves in a vicious cycle. The more they long for the old days, the more trauma they feel. The more trauma they feel, the more they long for the old days. Victimhood is the base on which they build their group identity. They can’t help it. It’s their death drive....

The death drive is compulsive, though. The more they see themselves as victims of trauma that never happened, the more grotesque they are going to be, even in the face of growing resistance by a majority of Americans that hasn’t changed its mind about abortion in decades.The Republicans have entered a new phase. The death drive is killing off their power. They can’t help it, though. The problem of antiabortion politics isn’t messaging. It’s antiabortion politics. A majority doesn’t like it. The antiabortionists, however, will never admit it. They’re victims, after all.

Phil Berger realizes the danger of a deep dive on abortion in North Carolina. Tim Moore perhaps realizes it too, but he doesn't care, so giddy is he about his new main squeeze in the House. But whatever they do to punish women is going to energize opposition. It's going to galvanize those suburban districts where Democrats have a fighting chance, even under the extreme new gerrymandering that is also coming down the track from Berger/Moore.

Fear of the "death dive" might also influence what the US Supreme Court ultimately does with the appeal of that Amarillo judge's decision on mifepristone. Kavanaugh -- particularly that party-boy -- might think twice about the jurisprudence of denying scientific authorities for the sake of religious ideology.

The Eyes of Keith Kidwell

 

In his short time in the NC General Assembly, Keith Kidwell, representing Beaufort and Craven counties, has cut quite a groove. First elected in 2018, he did some stuff:

At his swearing in (January 4, 2019), he told an interviewer from The Washington Daily News that in Raleigh he was going to be all about taxes and infrastructure, especially taxes. All the time.

February 2019 -- His first four bills, all of them, take aim at legal abortion. Then he signs on as co-sponsor with Rep. Larry Pitman (et al.) to a bill to nullify Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized gay marriage. (That's crazy but don't let that slow down our momentum.)

2020, height of COVID -- During a floor debate Kidwell said he would not wear a mask, no matter what the governor said. He opposed the governor's emergency powers and was against mandatory vaccinations. Always against.

July 2021 -- As now head of the House Freedom Caucus, Kidwell demands that the NC State Board of Elections turn over voting machinery for inspection. Kidwell said he was sure there was voting fraud if he could just find it, and he needed the innards of computers to find it. State elections supervisor responded "stuff it."

August 2021 -- Both Kidwell and his wife, hospitalized for COVID.

Jeff McNeely in spring freshness 

 

Oct. 8, 2021 -- Minus Kidwell (he spent a week in the hospital and apparently the recovery from COVID was a steep climb), the new House Freedom Caucus spokesman Rep. Jeff McNeely drew Durham County out of a hat and announced that the Caucus would be coming for Durham County's voting machines and that they would be bringing their own Capitol police force for compliance. No kidding.

So what's it now, Keith?

Today he's outed for being on the membership rolls of the Oath Keepers. You remember them. But let's review anyway (my thanks to Jordan Green):

The Oath Keepers was founded by Stewart Rhodes in 2009, shortly after the election of President Obama. The organization targets retired law enforcement and military veterans for recruitment based on a premise that they will uphold their oaths and resist a vaguely defined "tyranny." Long hostile towards the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization and its leader Rhodes took an increasingly radical stance during the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020 and in the runup to the 2020 presidential election.

To date, 22 members or associates of the Oath Keepers have received federal charges in connection with the assault on the US Capitol, with a majority accused of participating in a conspiracy to obstruct the electoral certification on Jan. 6. Five have already pleaded guilty.

This is the same guy -- Keith Kidwell -- who told the local newspaper he was going to be all about taxes and infrastructure. But those eyes don't lie.

Nothing But Embarrassment in the Arizona Audit, But It Won't Matter

 

How anti-climactic could you get?

Rep. Keith Kidwell knows there
was pro-Democrat fraud in North
Carolina elections last year. He just
hasn't found it yet.

It's been obvious for months that the Great Arizona Election Audit of Maricopa County did not turn up what its promoters hoped for, which is why Cyber Ninjas kept putting off the issuance of a report. It was just gonna be too embarrassing. So they delayed and delayed and hoped -- what? -- that some evidence of nefarious goings-on in Biden's favor would suddenly drop out of the ceiling tiles, covered head to toe with bamboo fibers?

Already on Twitter, a Trumpist said "Ridiculous! Audit the audit!" A "fringe" GOP Arizona state senator by the name of Wendy Rogers "was one of many audit believers trying to change the conversation: She announced her support for an audit of Maricopa’s neighbor, Pima County" (Matt Shuham). (Point of order: How would anybody pick out one Arizona state senator as "fringe"?) But of course the Trump people will refute the truth by assertion alone. That's the Trump M.O. Assert anything you think of, and the stupid will believe it: "Satanists also wear masks and stand six feet apart. Just sayin'."

Or they'll ignore the truth and continue to peddle the fiction of voter fraud because it pleases the ignorant. Even Texas now is auditing last year's election in four urban counties -- "urban" meaning Black or non-white, of course -- because winning isn't the only goal for authoritarian regimes. Some Republicans in Raleigh want an audit here, because it wasn't enough they won seats in the NC House and Senate and seats on the highest courts and a slew of Council of State offices. They didn't get the Governor. Must have been fraud. 

Rep. Keith Kidwell (R) from Beaufort/Craven has demanded access to the state's voting machines, alleging fraud in NC that attempted to benefit Democrats. "Kidwell ... said in an interview ... that he is confident there was at least some fraud in the 2020 elections. He just wants to find out how much, he said, and who is behind it." That's what they thought about witches in Massachusetts. The lack of evidence proves the conspiracy is working, no?

On Facebook, Kidwell's group has suggested that it may actually be state or local elections officials who are committing fraud: “The House Freedom Caucus is now focused on BOE officials and the specific precincts themselves. We absolutely think tampering happens in North Carolina.”

Where Republicans run things, delusion is king and no honest public servant is safe.

UPDATE

See: it doesn't matter what the facts are.

"Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed during a rally in Georgia on Saturday night that the results of the Arizona election "audit" concluded that President Joe Biden lost in Maricopa County, despite the report clearly stating that Biden won with 1,040,873 votes—99 more votes than shown in the certified ballots." (Newsweek)

 

Democracy Just Isn't Working for the SOBs

 

The evidence is everywhere. If they're beaten at the polls, they immediately yell voter fraud, because, Gawd knows, they could not have lost otherwise. Sometimes they yell fraud even when they win (see photo). Sometimes when they actually lose at the polls, they stage a violent takeover.

Rep. Keith Kidwell, right, member of
the NC House from Beaufort/Craven.
He has demanded access to the state's
voting machines, alleging there was fraud
in NC that attempted to benefit Democrats

Or they ensure they'll never lose at the polls, carefully sectioning district maps to their advantage. Right now the Republican witch-hunters in the NC General Assembly are figgering how best to dilute the urban vote by slicing and dicing hunks of it to pair with deep-red rural pockets that are frankly less and less enamored of democracy anyway, They feel put-upon by a contemptuous majority that no longer promotes their religious values, and they want a theocracy.

Or they enshrine rule by the minority in the US Senate, so that the majority rarely wins and voter rights can't be defended. Effing filibuster.

The majority of us oppose them, in aggregate nationally at least and in some city pockets of North Carolina and in some counties where there's a university. But we're going to suffer at their hands for another ten years before the next Census, and we're going to see new mechanisms of torture, and we have to save democracy. They're going to gerrymander us to death. They're going to make it harder and harder to vote, and where they can, they are taking over the actual power to count the vote, tabulate it, and announce the results. Trump taught them how to get on the phone and say, find me 11,780 more votes, and when the elections official said no, the Georgia legislature passed a law so that only they -- the Republican majority in the state lege -- will get to say who won.

We have to save democracy. The only way I see to do it is to register more people and get them participating in their right to express an opinion. And give them candidates they want to vote for.

The New Republican Mantra: All Elections Are Frauds

NC House member Keith Kidwell,
getting close to power last year

In January of this year the Trumpiest Trumpsters in the North Carolina House formed their own "Freedom Caucus" to push the wing-nuttiest theories and infect the legislative bloodstream with airborne conspiracy theories. This bunch elected freshman House member Keith Kidwell, representing Beaufort and Craven counties, as its leader, and Kidwell promptly began infecting the place with the most popular of Trumpian viruses, that voting fraud must be happening in North Carolina.

Kidwell wrote the State Board of Elections (SBOE) demanding to open up voting machines to see if he could find any modems that could connect to the internet and thus allow Nancy Pelosi to change votes. Never mind that modems in voting machines are expressly banned by North Carolina law. 

Kidwell, however, said in an interview Wednesday that he is confident there was at least some fraud in the 2020 elections. He just wants to find out how much, he said, and who is behind it.

On Facebook, his group has suggested that it may actually be state or local elections officials who are committing fraud, with posts like this one on July 2: “The House Freedom Caucus is now focused on BOE officials and the specific precincts themselves. We absolutely think tampering happens in North Carolina.” [Will Doran reporting for the News and Observer]

Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the SBOE, shut that shit down, accusing Kidwell of spreading misinformation (which he is):

“The State Board has received no credible evidence that the certified results are not accurate, and elected officials from both sides of the aisle have stated that the 2020 general election in North Carolina was conducted fairly,” Brinson Bell wrote to Kidwell last week. “We will not allow misinformation about voting systems or any other aspect of elections to dictate our priorities in administering elections.”

So now Kidwell will claim there's a coverup at the SBOE -- "They're hiding something!" -- and gullible idiots will believe him, and the Republican project of dismantling democracy will continue apace, even in a state that Trump won and where Republicans improved their majorities in the NC House and Senate and reelected Thom Tillis to the US Senate.

In Case You Were Wondering -- Yes, There Are Still Blockheads in the NC House

Larry Pittman

The chief blockhead among them ... Rep. Larry Pittman (Cabarrus and Rowan counties), who wears the label of "reverend" and thinks Abraham Lincoln was the worst possible president to represent the Republican Party, even if he was the first of that flavor and widely regarded as a great man. Rev. Pittman doesn't regard him that way.

Pittman is the chief sponsor of House Bill 65, along with co-sponsors and fellow blockheads Mark Brody (Anson and Union counties) and Keith Kidwell (Craven and Beaufort counties), a bill essentially intended to nullify gay marriage in the state. It's a ridiculous stunt that will go nowhere, and clearly Messrs. Pittman, Brody, and Kidwell have way too much time on their hands.

But they're master scholars of Constitutional law -- you bet! -- explaining why Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case which legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, was just wrong:

“Obergefell v. Hodges in effect has imposed the views of Secular Humanism on the People and the States of these United States in the matter of marriage law, which authority is not given to the federal government in the United States Constitution, and is, therefore, an unconstitutional establishment of religion and also an unconstitutional usurpation by the United States Supreme Court of powers reserved to the People or to the States.”

“In the wake of the Obergefell opinion, there have been increased efforts by the proponents of Secular Humanism to persecute nonobservers of the religion of Secular Humanism and to infiltrate public schools with the intent to indoctrinate minors to the Secular Humanist worldview, against the wishes of many of their parents, and to inculcate them with the Secular Humanist view on faith, morality, sex, and marriage. … It is an unsettled matter of opinion whether sexual orientation is immutable or genetic, and therefore, for a person to suggest that he/she was born homosexual or the wrong gender or that to disagree with their beliefs makes the dissenter a bigot, is nothing more than a series of unproven faith-based assumptions and naked assertions that are implicitly religious and may not be enforced by government upon anyone.”

Therefore: “Marriages between persons of the same gender not valid.”

Chalk this up to Trumpism ... the creeping sensation that you might be losing your grip on your fellow blockheaded peeps, so you need to redouble your efforts to play the sensational bigot and rile up the rubes, who you (bottomline) have utter contempt for.