Thom Goolsby Plays the Hit Man on the UNC Board of Governors

Watch for it: Thom Goolsby will force a bloody awful showdown on the Chapel Hill campus over the Silent Sam Confederate monument. He's already said he intends to force the statue's return to its original location on campus, even if it takes a moat, a few guard towers, and tank traps to keep it unmolested. Goolsby leads the conservative faction on the UNC Board of Governors, which is clearly in the ascendant.

Goolsby has a history of nastiness and bullying. When he was a NC senator from Wilmington, he pushed for "vaginal wanding" of pregnant women before an abortion. He sponsored the bill to repeal the Racial Justice Act, which prohibited the imposition of the death penalty on the basis of race. He called protestors "Monday Morons" who were organized for Rev. William Barber's "Moral Mondays," which had rattled the Republican overlords. He pushed a vote on the UNC BOG to prohibit the UNC School of Law's Center for Civil Rights from pursuing legal remedies for low-income and minority groups.

Notice the good solid strain of racial politics in Goolsby's policy positions?

Goolsby graduated from The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. (venue for a good deal of *pop culture male displays), then went for an MBA at Golden Gate University. He came back to Chapel Hill for his law degree. Goolsby and a partner started Empowered Investor, handling big-buck investments and securities and doing quite well at it, and so he naturally ran for the NC Senate (Dist. 9) in that watershed year, 2010. He was reelected in 2012 and would have been a cinch for reelection in 2014, but a fiduciary scandal interceded. In a consent agreement with the Securities Division of the Secretary of State's office, Goolsby lost his licenses for doing investment and securities deals (because of, yes, fraud), and he won't get those licenses back before 2024. So, understandably, Goolsby decided against running for reelection in 2014. He actually put out a statement that said he wanted to spend more time with his family. No really. (His former seat in the Senate is now -- since November -- held by Democrat Harper Peterson.)

On the UNC Board of Governors, and in keeping with the self-image The Citadel bestowed on him, Goolsby has been a champion prick. Goolsby was appointed to the all-Republican board in August 2015 by the NC Senate (Phil Berger's joint), as a conservative counter-weight to BOG Chair John Fennebresque, a country club Republican who unilaterally fired Democrat Tom Ross from the university presidency and installed his favorite and fellow country club Republican Margaret Spellings in the chair. So Goolsby came onto the board primed for a big fight with Chair Fennebresque. Goolsby quickly demanded Fennebresque's resignation, and eventually got it, but not before Fennebresque got Spellings. (See "A Margaret Spellings Timeline") Of course, ultimately, Thom Goolsby got Spellings too, in a mortal sense.

Soon after Spellings took office -- almost immediately, in fact -- Goolsby was in the vanguard of her conservative harassment. Goolsby and his fellow travelers immediately threatened to move her comfy office out of Chapel Hill to some far-flung precinct where'd she be less comfortable (and comfitted by the Chapel Hill elite). They leaned hard on Spellings to be a no-exceptions enforcer of the notorious bathroom bill against transgender citizens. And when Spellings was caught redhanded talking to Governor Cooper about "the Silent Sam problem," Goolsby signed a letter condemning her and further threatening her future.

Spellings ended her five-year contract three years early, and in July 2018, the moderate BOG chair who had replaced John Fennebresque was himself replaced by one of the conservative hardliners. The conservatives are in full control now, and in full roar, and they're not likely to hold Goolsby back. The Citadel evidently taught dying on the ramparts, even if those barricades were built on Southern racism.

Goolsby clearly intends to force the return of Silent Sam. And because he's nasty by nature, he couldn't refrain from digging a knife into the Democratic rib-cage when he made his public proposal about bringing back Sam: "I'm even willing to add some 'two-sides-to-everything' balancing statues," he said, "the kind that inform students that Democrats are the real racists" (Jeffrey C. Billman). For example, add a statue commemorating the Wilmington insurrection of 1898, Goolsby suggested, when white supremacists, all members of the Democratic Party of that day, burned a black newspaper to the ground and overthrew the town’s newly elected black Republican government. Yes, and put up another statue dedicated to the minority women “forcibly sterilized by the Democrat Party who controlled our state for decades,” wrote Goolsby.

What Goolsby thinks we won't notice is that he would have participated in that 1898 insurrection -- probably with a fixed bayonet -- and would have voted for forced sterilizations of black people. You think he wouldn't?

Only question that's relevant right now: Will Goolsby's aggression be another Pickett's Charge? Will history finally overtake him?


*The Citadel in pop culture: I'm thinking "The Great Santini" and Frank Underwood in "House of Cards." There's more in that vein.

Thom Goolsby Takes a Stand for Silent Sam

While administrators at UNC fear violence if they force Silent Sam back up on his plinth in the middle of campus (see last item, down-column), some hard-ass Republicans on the Board of Governors relish the idea of actually provoking a little violence, figuring it'll help their conservative brand with the Trumpists. And it would, too.

UNC BOG member Thom Goolsby of Wilmington issued a three-minute video denouncing the cowardice of the Board of Trustees -- to put Sam away in a separate building ... what the Holy Land o' Lakes Christ is that? It takes Goolsby over three minutes, because a two-minute video just wouldn't accommodate the full boil of his outrage.

Put that Civil War-glorifying statue back up on its pedestal at the entrance to campus and dare the hippies and anarchists and eggheads to come tear it down. Beat some pointy heads into a flatter pancake, if you have to, and force those Generation Z children to honor the sacred heritage of the rebellious South. "Clearly the law does not contemplate allowing criminal actors to dictate the placement of historic objects," Goolsby intones, a Cicero with a hard-on for Carthage.

"Goolsby implored people to call each member of the UNC Board of Governors and Board of Trustees demanding Silent Sam’s return to its original place" (WECT). But don't call Thom Goolsby. He's already a lead-pipe cinch for the hard-line. He contributed his bit to getting rid of UNC President Margaret Spellings, and when he was a state senator, he wanted to see executions restarted to thin out the housing on Death Row. Nice guy.

Preemptive Strafing of the Right to Protest in Raleigh

In the United States, as the Supreme Court has instructed us, money is speech, and that's certainly been true in North Carolina, especially since Art Pope seized control of the government.

In North Carolina, however, speech is not necessarily free, especially if you're trying to speak through the Moral Monday protests, which will crank up again this coming Monday at the Legislative Building in Raleigh.

Nothing has riled our betters in the General Assembly like thousands of citizens demanding justice, fairness, and logic in the way our government is operated. So yesterday and essentially in secret, an obscure "commission" voted to change the rules on how you can get your ass arrested for protesting at the Legislative Building in Raleigh.

Of greatest concern is the vagueness of undefined terms used in the new rules, and the discretion given to Capitol police (who dangle on Speaker Thom Tillis's strings anyway -- let's be honest) to decide on their own definitions. The new rules prohibit acting in a manner that would “imminently disturb” the General Assembly.

"Disturb"? Some of the Honorables are deeply disturbed at the very thought that there are people who actually disagree with their agenda. So the sight of them alone might excite a good case of the vapors. Republican Senator Thom Goolsby was so disturbed that he generously labeled them "Monday Morons."

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/05/15/4912967/legislature-adopts-new-rules-on.html#storylink=cpy

Starting next Monday, we'll see how Mr. Tillis and his drones define the new language.

Significant

Republican State Senator Thom Goolsby, a champion of transvaginal wanding and other right wing social engineering, has announced he won't be running for reelection for his seat in Wilmington.

Can hardly believe it, but he actually said he wanted to spend more time with his family.

The Way-Back Machine

So the GOP in our state has been preaching that Democrats ruined North Carolina during 140 years of one-party rule. "Hell," shouted those same Republicans, "we can accomplish that job in two!"

Looking at the faces of those 80+ citizens arrested yesterday at the General Assembly building in Raleigh, we can certainly sympathize with Gov. Squishy McCrory, who's been squeaking about "outside agitators." Elderly white men and women in clerical vestments and in need of knee replacement surgery are downright frightening when they come to petition this particular government to stop being such complete dicks.

"Dirty hippies!" a Republican operative was actually overheard calling them. Seriously? Talk about being caught in a self-defeating time-warp, seeing the world around you with those Nixon lenses that proved so effective back then.

"Morons," yelled Republican Senator Thom Goolsby of Wilmington, channeling himself as an 8-year-old on the playground.

Yep. We've got the Right government in Raleigh for a truly glorious 1850.

NC GOP-Style "Statesmanship"

If a high school sophomore ("wise fool") wrote the editorial that was published under the name of NC Senator Thom Goolsby, we might be able to excuse it as immature excess committed under the influence of hormonal imbalance.

But this was written by a sitting member of the NC Senate, a man who introduced the repeal of the racial justice act so perhaps we should have expected the continuing display of racial contempt, disrespect, and stupid partisanship.

"Moron Mondays." Seriously?

North Carolina, Red in Tooth and Claw?

NC Sen. Thom Goolsby Ghoulsby from New Hanover County looks at the 152 people on the state's Death Row and sees fresh meat. "Damnit," sez he, "we haven't executed one of those sonz-a-bitches since 2006, and I need diversion. I need it now!"

So Mr. Ghoulsby's bill to restart executions in North Carolina is moving in the General Assembly today, aided by the same bloody-minded world view that wants to see the unemployed grovel, the uninsured poor die of their infections, the state's well water risk toxic infection, ignorance bloom, and education shrivel on the vine.

How the Outside Money Rolled in NC

From the bottom of this chart, going up:
The NC House 93 race was the Tarleton/Jordan contest.

The NC Senate 9 race was the Deb Butler/Thom Goolsby race down in Wilmington.

The NC Senate 18 race was the Doug Berger/Chad Barefoot race.

The NC House 2 race was for Jim Crawford's old seat, which was open once Crawford lost his primary.

The NC Senate 50 race was the John Snow/Jim Davis race south of Asheville; Snow was trying to take his old seat back from Davis.

The NC House 41 race was the Jim Messina/Tom Murry race down in Raleigh.

The NC House 98 race was the ... well, it really wasn't a race at all, because Republican Speaker Thom Tillis was unopposed. He's exactly the kind of character the Deep Pockets like to shovel money at. Because they're grateful for the special favors.

Deb Butler for NC Senate

Other NC General Assembly campaigns could take a page from Deb Butler's challenge to incumbent Republican Senator Thom Goolsby in NC Senate Dist. 9, who voted for the new, intrusive anti-abortion law in the state. This isn't Butler's first use of the transvaginal wand. Previously.

Here's the new TV ad: