Kate Barr, the "Can't Win but Fuck It!" political influencer who has made a second career out of encouraging Democratic candidates to file in districts they can't possibly win -- as an act of revolutionary defiance against Republican gerrymandering -- has announced a new tactic: Can't win as a Democrat? File as a Republican and run a primary against the pasty-assed Tim Moore in Congressional District 14, a safe seat he mapped for himself when he was running the House. It was specifically and quite publicly drawn for him, a lucrative landing pad after Speaker of the NCHouse (which was also a notoriously lucrative perch for Moore -- and don't make me go look up all the investigative pieces exposing his corruption).
Barr told the WashPost, “My message is really about fairness. And it’s consistent with when I ran for state senate district 37 in ‘24,” she said. “We need fair maps. We deserve fair elections. We, as voters, should be able to hold our elected leaders accountable. And it is wrong that we can’t.”
Dave Boliek, the rubberstamp for suppression of the vote in NC
On Friday, reporter Bryan Anderson broke the news that Paul Cox, General Counsel to the State Board of Elections, resigned his job, citing the highly partisan nature of the new board under Republican control. Guys as extreme as Francis X. DeLuca, former president of the Civitas Institute, and Robert Rucho, former Republican state senator with too many axes to grind, and their new boss, State Auditor Dave Boliek, a former reactionary Democrat with much to prove to his new Republican masters, not to mention the ineffable Dallas Woodhouse, appointed by Boliek to "oversee" county boards of elections -- all of that became too much for a lawyer with professional integrity which was itself based on an understanding that the administration of elections cannot become a partisan battleground, which would violate the statutory mandate of the Board of Elections. Ever since the Berger/Moore General Assembly took the Board of Elections away from Gov. Stein and gave it to the newly minted MAGA Republican Dave Boliek, we've always known what was afoot and what was indubitably ahead of us, ahead of anyone who wants to insure the voting rights and ballot access of all citizens. Paul Cox set a flare over the ice berg's drift.
In January of 2024, an Avery County man named William J. Barthel attended a special meeting of the Avery County Commish, stood at the back of the room so he wouldn't obstruct anybody's sightline, and unfurled a banner which made crude comments about the Commish's clerk, Cindy Turbyfill. The sheriff's department immediately descended on Barthel, told him to take the banner down; he refused; the commish chair told him he had to leave. At which point Barthel, who had been totally silent up to that point, asked "Why do I have to leave?" I'm exercising my constitutional rights. He was uncooperative which led to his handcuffing outside the courtroom. He was charged with disrupting an official meeting and with resisting arrest. After being convicted in Avery District Court, he appealed to the Superior Court and got a two-day trial with a jury before Judge Gavenus. Again, he was convicted, sentenced to 30 days, suspended for 18 months of supervised probation.
Cohen v. California (1971) ruled that this banner was free speech
A panel of the NC Court of Appeals just reversed all of that: "[Barthel] argues that the First Amendment protects
his silent display of a crude banner criticizing [Cindy Turbyfill] at a board
meeting. We agree. The First Amendment shielded his right to stand silently at the
back of the boardroom with his vulgar banner during the public comment period.
Because his arrest was unlawful, Defendant had the right to resist it without using
excessive force. He used reasonable force. We therefore vacate both convictions." Republican Judge Donna Stroud wrote the opinion. Chief Judge Chris Dillon and Judge Fred Gore, two other Republicans, concurred.
I'm deliberately not reprinting here what Barthel's banner said (let alone his highly-offensive-to-many T-shirt), but if you click the link in the previous paragraph, you can read it for yourself in the Appeals Court order. I laughed out loud. And then I had to start googling. The court identified Turbyfill as a commissioner. She's not. She's clerk to the board and also assistant county manager. There's obviously a juicy story behind Barthel's grudge against her. Maybe someone in Avery who reads here will enlighten us.
Last Wednesday, I wrote about a Chapel Hill professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies getting himself placed on administrative leave for supposed Antifa-adjacent advocacy of political violence against the Trump oppression.
Prof. Dwayne Dixon has been reinstated. From NC Newsline:
The reinstatement comes after the ACLU of North Carolina, representing Dixon, threatened legal action over the university’s decision to place him on leave, writing in an Oct. 2 demand letter that it was a “textbook violation of the First Amendment.” They issued a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday before legal action would follow....
Dean Stoyer, UNC’s vice chancellor for communications and marketing, said ... “We have found no basis to conclude that Dwayne Dixon poses a threat to University students, staff, and faculty, or has engaged in conduct that violates University policy. As a result, the University is reinstating Professor Dixon to his faculty responsibilities, effective immediately.”
The people most in charge of the military -- Trump and Hegseth -- laid out their long-range plans yesterday in front of hundreds of military brass. You can connect the dots, right? "We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard," said Trump, who claimed "We're under invasion from within .... Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is gonna be a big thing for the people in this room, because it's the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control. It won't get out of control."
Hegseth called for troops to ignore “stupid rules of engagement ....We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”
I believe any fair interpretation of Hegseth's words, following Trump's lead, means they're okay with war crimes, and the people worthy of demoralizing violence are Trump's political opponents. They're pretty explicit that we'll soon (?) be seeing beat-downs of peaceful American citizen protesters. And who knows what other trumpian bullying will come for the accredited reporters and social media influencers who continue to document Trump's lawless, corrupt presidency.
Mr. President, I'm your enemy, shure nuff. And I'm within. What are you gonna do about it?
I'm not forgetting the cowed institutions which preemptively punish free speech. They seem to fear the wrath of Trump and intend to please him. An example just this week at UNC-Chapel Hill, which acted unilaterally based on pure speculation, rumor, and unverified accusations and placed on "administrative leave" (often the first step toward firing) a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern studies, Dwayne Dixon:
The move to place Dixon on leave came after Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet posted a photo on X of a flyer at Georgetown that read: “Hey, fascist! Catch!” The same phrase was printed on a bullet recovered by police after the fatal shooting of Turning Point founder and conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University last month.
The flyer, according to Kolvet’s post, included a QR code linked to “the John Brown Club” and also read: “The only political group that celebrates when Nazis die.” ... It’s unclear whether Dixon had ever been a member of a John Brown Gun Club.
On Saturday, Fox News reported that Dixon is a member of Redneck Revolt, a group founded in 2016 that describes itself as “an aboveground militant formation” that “stands for organized defense of our communities.” The group is against white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy, according to its principles.
Dixon ... told The Daily Tar Heel that he has not been a member of Redneck Revolt since 2018. The organization itself disbanded in 2019, according to a pop-up message displayed on its website Wednesday. And there does not appear to be any evidence Dixon was involved with an incident at Georgetown University — hundreds of miles from Chapel Hill — that spurred concerns over the group among conservative activists and media.
The North Carolina chapter of the American Association of University Professors on Wednesday criticized UNC’s actions against Dixon, writing in a statement: “Right-wing activists are attacking Dixon for prior membership in a group that has been inactive since 2019, and are baselessly connecting him to flyers allegedly posted by a different group on a different campus outside of North Carolina.”
Remember a Western North Carolina vet named Jay Carey who recently burned a flag across the street from the White House immediately after Jethro signed an exec order requiring the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute people for burning the American flag? I wrote about Jay Carey at that time. He has an interesting backstory as a Democrat activist and general gadfly, so it wasn't any surprise he'd stick his thumb right in Jethro's eye.
Last Wednesday he pleaded not guilty to Federal criminal charges of "igniting a fire in an undesignated area" and "lighting a fire causing damage to property or park resources" -- not for specifically burning a flag. See, Trump's handlers know very well that the Supreme Court ruled long ago that burning the American flag is protected speech, so they've made up some shit to punish Jay Carey anyway for saying eff you to the would-be tyrant in the White House. Carey is being prosecuted by newly installed US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, another of those Fox News personalities that Jethro admires.
But who is Jeanine Pirro really? She was hilariously caricatured by SNL cast member Cicely Strong, who made an indelible impression:
If I read the Cardinal & Pine report on Carey's court appearance correctly, the Federal judge in charge of his case as much as invited Carey to make it a Constitutional issue: "Chief Judge James Boasberg set an Oct. 17 deadline for Carey’s lawyers to file a motion to dismiss the case on constitutional grounds." Judge Boasberg is famous for ordering the planes carrying brown people to a gulag in Venezuela to turn around, because their very existence exceeded the Constitutional power of the president. Trump hates Boasberg viciously, and MAGA troops in Congress want to impeach his ass.
But by Gawd, he knows an unconstitutional act when he sees one.
#BREAKING: It has been revealed that the man who set fire to an American flag outside of the White House, is a Western North Carolina resident, army combat veteran, and Bronze Star recipient Jay Carey.
He said he burned the flag to "protest President Donald Trump..."
Jay Carey has an interesting career in politics. In September 2021, while he was an active candidate in the Democratic primary for the congressional seat of Rep. Madison Cawthorn, Carey took the photograph that revealed a sheath knife hidden on Cawthorn's wheelchair during his appearance before the Henderson County School Board. Going armed in public became a reoccurring theme of young Cawthorn's brief stint in public office.
In March 2025, Carey got escorted out of a Chuck Edwards town hall for yelling at the congressman:
"You have nothing to say but lies .... I'm a veteran. You don't give a f--k about me!" Carey is a 20+ year Army veteran who served in the tank corps in Desert Storm and also in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. He won a bronze star for his service. He and his wife lost their home in Hurricane Helene.
Now he's in DeeCee actually burning the flag on the sidewalk in front of the White House. The video is on Twitter (https://x.com/matt_vanswol/status/1960353460412358877). He said he set the fire because “it was my right as a citizen … under the First Amendment to protest in whatever way I see fit without hurting anybody.” Carey was fired up (so to speak) by the executive order signed by Jethro that directs federal agencies to “vigorously prosecute” anyone who desecrates the flag. Carey said, “Just to let them know that I was a retired disabled combat veteran who did not believe that it was the president’s right to restrict our First Amendment rights.”
Good for him. The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that burning the flag is symbolic speech protected under the First Amendment. 'Course the current crop of Republican Supremes have a different source of light now, and who knows how far they're willing to let Jethro forage.
Nido R. Qubein, the president (since 2005) of High Point University (which he also attended as a student soon after his immigration to North Carolina from Lebanon in 1966), is something of a go-getter in the world of higher education. Since taking over High Point, he's made the place famous. Freshman applications skyrocketed from 1,000 to 22,000 annually. Enrollment surged by 5,000 from the barely thousand students at the sleepy little United Methodist private school when Qubein took over. Qubein increased the endowment from $42 million to $240 million, enabling HPU to invest in several new divisions (including a law school, a school of pharmacy, a school of entrepreneurship, a school of dentistry, etc.). According to his LinkedIn, Qubein does a regular 2-minute "Monday Motivation" talk which is distributed to all students at HPU. Many of those "Monday Motivations" are viewable, and I was totally arrested by the one he did on "tolerance" and "respecting others," such wholly objectionable language now to trumpists.
Qubein is a good talker, a slick salesman of his up-by-my-own-bootstraps biography. He's in demand for inspirational/entrepreneurial/business-oriented talks and speeches, and you can see why:
Another of Nido Qubein's accomplishments as president of HPU -- he expanded the campus from 91 to 520 acres, "expertly landscaped into a Disney-esque mini city with fountains and heated swimming pools, a high-end steak house, and a concierge service—'literally a resort,' one enthusiastic student quipped in a recent YouTube video, 'an all-inclusive vacation with a side of homework' ” (The Assembly).
HPU is the school where rich people send their dumb kids who can’t cut it at elite schools. They’ve spent millions of dollars transforming themselves into a Walt Disney version of a university where the one-percenters can install their kids, apparently safe in the knowledge that some of them won’t let crazy notions about democracy and doubting the growing American oligarchy get into their pretty, little heads.
Next year, incoming freshmen will be charged $49,146 in annual tuition and fees, the university reported.
FREE SPEECH NOW THE ISSUE AT HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY
Remember Trump's ExecOrder back in January that all educational institutions receiving federal dollars must cease diversity, equality, and inclusion efforts? Trump's vassals in the Department of Education followed up the ExecOrder with a letter to all institutions receiving federal grants, a "Dear Colleague" warning. HPU's provost later explained what happened then:
“As you know, universities were given just 14 days to comply with the Dear Colleague letter mandates in order to maintain federal funding, and my initial communication with you came after the termination of several national Department of Education grants for local educators, of which our School of Education was a recipient,” he said. “None of us want to see our students or university lose funding.”
Totally understandable. What's not totally understandable is how far the HPU admin was willing to go. A scant week after Trump demanded no more diversity, equality, or inclusion, the university provost issued a list of 49 banned words or terms (count 'em!), including “equality,” “gender,” “black and latinx,” “white,” and “white supremacy” -- to be removed from all “documents, events and presentations.” "Course descriptions, student handbooks, class syllabi, and webpages were among the university publications listed for censoring." The provost also announced a prohibition on faculty providing pronoun preferences in their email correspondence.
News of the crackdown on speech at HPU leaked. When reporter Kane made email contact with the provost, to request an interview about the censorship, the provost first got the lawyers on the phone, and miraculously, he then sent an email to all HPU faculty rescinding his initial word ban and then copied the reporter with that email. He refused the interview:
“Our legal counsel has helped clarify that our priority should be on ensuring all our program qualifications and requirements do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religious beliefs, etc.," the provost wrote the faculty. "Therefore, the concern about the language that is used is no longer a focus. You no longer need to conduct audits regarding the list of words that were originally identified as words that might lead to an audit by the federal government. There are no terms or words that you are required to change."
Reporter Kane found one faculty member willing to comment anonymously, "fearing retaliation." “It gave me a sense of anxiety, ... this is like ‘1984,” the professor said, referring to George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel about a “big brother” government that resorts to censorship, fabrication, and surveillance to keep its citizens under control.
The lesson in the reversal at High Point University: It was the prospect of light shined on censorship that ended the censorship.
J.W. Williamson was the founding editor in 1972 of the Appalachian Journal: A Regional Studies Review, which he edited until July of 2000. He has taught college classes in Appalachian history, cultural politics, and literature, and he has lectured widely on the pop-culture history of "Appalachia" in the American consciousness. His books include Interviewing Appalachia, Southern Mountaineers in Silent Films, and Hillbillyland: What the Mountains Did to the Movies and What the Movies Did to the Mountains. He has won the Thomas Wolfe Award given by the Western North Carolina Historical Society, the Laurel Leaves Award given by the Appalachian Consortium, a special Weatherford Award given by Berea College, and the Cratis Williams-James Brown Award given by the Appalachian Studies Association.
The views expressed on WataugaWatch are solely those of J.W. Williamson or individual contributors and are not necessarily shared nor endorsed by the Watauga County Democratic Party nor by any other adults of sound mind in this or any other universe.
