They Eat Their Own

 

The Republicans at their state convention yesterday in Greensboro voted to censure senior Senator Thom Tillis because he had not been sufficiently mean to the queers. No, seriously. Delegates -- we don't know how many of the 1,800, because the press was barred -- said "you're not welcome in the Republican Party because you supported gay marriage." (Tillis pushed a bill to codify same-sex and interracial marriage, which President Joe Biden signed into law last year.) Plus some other stuff about not being mean enough to immigrants. 

On a thread started by DemsParty Chair Anderson Clayton, someone tweeted, "When Thom Tillis fails their test for a 'real Republican,' you know their party has gone off a cliff."

Because reporters were barred, the only eye-witness source I have is extreme-MAGA blogger Brant Clifton (unreliable and prone to exaggeration, as he is). Clifton sez that the meeting was raucous and contentious because Party Chair Michael Whatley's lieutenants ran it with an iron fist. Motions of "no confidence" and "vacate the chair" were shouted out from the floor, "but were quickly dispensed with via parliamentary means by Whatley’s convention managers."

Whatley won reelection as party chair, incidently, against a determined faction of extreme-MAGA bullies who considered Whatley as big a weak loser as Thom Tillis. Anger at the convention boiled over mainly among the supporters of the insurgent MAGA candidate John Kane, who also ran and whose bitch against Whatley was that he wasn't a big enough election-denier. Kane boiled everything down to "election integrity," which was his shorthand for "every election that goes against us must be fradulent; therefore, we must crack down on people who are balloting ... to prevent fraud." It's simple logic, invented to cover crimes against democracy.

Michael Whatley

Whatley seemed to play into challenger Kane's hands by devising an electronic method of voting, with no paper trail, which the Kane adherants immediately condemned as potentially fraudulent, and when the electronic system went suddenly dark in the middle of voting, the Kane delegates erupted and chaos ensued. 

In his speech to the convention prior to the voting, Kane said (according to Brant Clifton),

“Everyone in this room knows the cardinal rule of election integrity is there's a PAPER TRAIL. Machines have issues, sometimes unintentional, sometimes intentional [there it is! the suggestion of fraud]. As we get ready to vote for our Party leadership today it will all be done electronically. No paper trail.

This simple election was 100% under the control of Chairman Michael Whatley and he broke the cardinal rule of election integrity. Here today, just like the elections in our State, Michael Whatley doesn’t think we have a voter integrity problem. I do."

Here's what I can't figure out: Why a convention of true-believers would censure the senator and still elect establishmentarian Michael Whatley with 60%-plus of the vote. It must come down to Whatley's term coinciding with Republican dominance at the ballot box: Two successful Senate races, a sweep of the judiciary, total dominance of both houses of the General Assembly, and a trophy party-switcher to put on display. 

Whatever else you say about Whatley, he's totally lacking the trumpist edge of aggressive nastiness. Plus Donald J. Trump re-endorsed him for the chair at the start of the convention, and Mike Pence praised him as the best state party chair in the nation.

DEMOCRATIC REACTION

State Party Chair Anderson Clayton tweeted a thread:

It’s ironic that the NCGOP can get away with criticizing my party on bullying ["bullying" had been Tricia Cotham's big excuse for leaving the Democrats], meanwhile, they just silenced their *senior* United States Senator over his support of a person’s freedom to love who they love. Which party is the party of freedom again? Not the NCGOP —

It’s ridiculous to still have the fight over basic human rights. And yet the NCGOP continues to fight against the LGBTQIA+ community and their existence. Guess what? Queer folks ain’t going anywhere! But we can make sure y’all do come next November. Folks who support attacking and persecuting our own citizens for being gay, trans, bisexual, gender-nonconforming, or don’t fit into the boxes defined by the right wing extremists in our state, do NOT belong in positions of power. We’re here to make sure everyone in North Carolina can call this state home.

We deserve a North Carolina that is diverse, welcoming, & accepting of all who live here, grow up here, or grow old here. But under the extreme NCGOP agenda, our folks continue to be attacked. I refuse to stand for it, & Democrats will always fight for rights for ALL NC’ians.

Former Republican Governor Pat McCrory condemned the convention:

“It’s time also for all NC state and federal elected republicans to stand with Thom and publicly voice their opposition to the action taken at our convention.”

One Republican state senator, Bobby Hanig from the coast, took up McCrory's challenge and emphasized Uncle Thom's practical advantages:

“I believe that a mob mentality doesn’t do us any good. Senator Tillis does a lot for North Carolina, he does a lot for the coastal communities, so why would I want to make him mad?”

The Hill also quoted State Sen. Jim Burgin of Harnett County, who said the vote to censure Tillis "sets a dangerous precedent and does not allow enough flexibility for individual interpretation of party values."

Burgin questioned whether his own vote last month for North Carolina’s 12-week abortion ban would similarly put him at risk of being censured because it’s out of line with the Republican platform, which states that life begins at conception.

“I don’t think we need to be attacking our own,” he said. “You don’t shoot your own elephants.”

"Just Talk"?! Say It Ain't So, Dan!

 

"...now that the dust has settled, those threats seem to largely have just been talk."

--Nicole Lafond, writing in Talking Points Memo about the fizzling of far-right threats against Kevin McCarthy

The Freedom Caucus met for the first time Monday night (June 5) since the debt ceiling deal passed the House. Guess who wasn't there. Dan Bishop, who had become the most visible, the most pugnacious, the most threatening member of the Freedom Caucus, who on camera raised his hand at a Freedom Caucus press conference (May 30th) that he was willing to "vacate the Speakership" over the deal that Speaker Kevin McCarthy made with President Biden. 

What? Dan didn't show up at the meeting of the group that has propelled him to headliner Fox News status? Did he not want to face his colleagues and have them know just how big a paper tiger he actually is? For as soon as that debt ceiling deal passed the House, Bishop went as silent (one might even say passive) about the future of Kevin McCarthy and the direction of the Republican caucus. Turned out, Dan Bishop's threat didn't cut it; the Freedom Caucus didn't matter, for the debt ceiling deal passed easily without them. 

But on Tuesday this week, the Freedom Caucus struck back. They banded together and refused to approve the rules governing a clutch of non-controversial bills, essentially shutting down the House. McCarthy adjourned the body until next Monday. First time since 2002 that the House failed to approve rules for debate, and it's all about the debt ceiling deal with Biden. The Freedom Caucus rejects any legislation that will require Democratic votes to pass.

But Dan Bishop is not front-and-center for once.

Backstabber Tricia Cotham Rewrites History

 

"I'm still the same person," said Tricia Cotham on the floor of the NC House Tuesday, in an apparent impromptu interview with a few reporters including Kyle Ingram of the News and Observer.

Make that "the same person" so long as that person is clinically schizophrenic. Last year she told Planned Parenthood in a questionnaire that she would “oppose any legislation that seeks to restrict abortion access” and then, a few months later, proudly voted for new abortion restrictions as a newly minted Republican.

Her previous strong support for abortion rights has been documented extensively, but on Tuesday in her rare moment of speaking to the press, she claimed that she's not changed her mind at all, that the new abortion law is really a generous favor for women, and that the criticisms of her actions are just the manipulations of Democrats needing to raise campaign money.

Meanwhile, Democrats in the NC Senate filed a symbolic bill ("symbolic" because it has no chance of passing) that would mandate a special election in a district where the incumbent suddenly switched parties. They titled the proposed law “The Voter Fraud Protection Act.” Because if there was ever a political fraud perpetrated on voters, it was Cotham's abandonment of all her stated values, surpassed only by the prevarication she's capable of when talking to the press.

Mark Robinson: "Poor, Poor Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby!"

 

Media Matters unearthed two different 2018 recordings of Mark Robinson (before he became our lieutenant governor) proposing elaborate conspiracy theories that the two most notorious sexual predators of the last century -- Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby -- were actually innocent victims of a plot to destroy them for their “so-called sexual crimes.” Robinson called on his followers to “stand up against” the supposed “plot to build up a climate of fear, to shut people's mouths.”

That's where I lose the thread of Robinson's logic. Silence them from saying what? Didn't realize that Weinstein ever had political opinions that ran counter to progressive ideals. I know that Bill Cosby had become a bitter critic of Black liberation, and I rather suspect that Robinson's outburst depended heavily on his identifying with Cosby's condemnation of "immorality" among contemporary young Blacks. Pot, kettle ... you know, but Robinson doesn't see the irony.

In one of the recordings posted on the Media Matters site, Robinson plays history professor, accusing “the left” of creating “a climate of fear” and employing Stalinist tactics, comparing the accusations against Weinstein and Cosby to when Stalin “arrested some of his top generals and top leaders” and “threw them in gulags .… So that the common man would be really afraid.”

Follow that logic. Prosecuting Weinstein and Cosby is meant to create a climate of fear in "the common man" about speaking up against ... tyrannical government? When were Weinstein and Cosby ever anti-tyrant? And who's the current Stalin in Robinson's analogy?

Or does he mean that prosecuting sex crimes among the rich and powerful spreads panic among "common" garden-variety sexual scoundrels, and does Mark Robinson have a guilty conscience? His attitude toward women is very much documented. Just last year, Robinson also made headlines when he declared in a speech, “We are called to be led by men,” not women.

The Cleta Mitchell Nexus

 

Last Friday, WRAL's investigative reporter Will Doran broke the story that election-denying Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who was heavily involved with Trump in trying to overturn the 2020 election result and who is on record saying that Republicans have to do something to make it harder for college students to vote ("Top GOP lawyer decries ease of campus voting in private pitch to RNC") -- that Cleta Mitchell met privately with GOP lawmakers in Raleigh before they released the text of their new voter suppression law. Doran made the case effectively that Mitchell got pretty much what she wanted in the new law for making absentee voting harder, while GOP leaders hotly denied that Mitchell had any hand in writing the new law. In fact, Senate boss Phil Berger admitted that the mere association of Mitchell could hurt the public perception of the new law -- if it were true, which it is not, proclaimed Berger, and why wouldn't we believe him?

We assume the Republican lawmakers didn't have Mitchell in for tea and grooming tips. We also know, from Berger's reaction to the leaked documents that revealed the Mitchell meeting, that the Republicans are nervous about a further riled-up electorate which is already riled up about women's rights.

When reporter Doran asked Berger if he was concerned about public perception that a trumpist as notorious as Cleta Mitchell had a hand in drafting new voter legislation, Berger answered, “If it were true, yeah. I understand that she and other people have said some things that folks are concerned about. I can assure that she has not had any role in the drafting of the legislation.”

Why Is Cleta Mitchell Notorious?

Take a gander at her Wikipedia listing. She trails a long history of hyper-conservative activism, but the following is probably the source of Berger's angst in seeing her name associated with his new voting law:

On January 2, 2021, she participated in the hour-long telephone conversation between Trump and Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which Trump pressured Raffensperger to investigate unsupported claims disputing the results of the 2020 presidential election based on doctored videos and unsubstantiated rumors from right-wing media. Following that telephone call, Mitchell accused Raffensperger of saying things "that are simply not correct" about the presidential results in Georgia. Two days later, after Mitchell's participation in the call was reported, the law firm of Foley & Lardner (where Mitchell was a partner) released a statement saying that the law firm's policy was not to represent parties seeking to contest the results of the 2020 election; that the firm was "aware of, and concerned by" Mitchell's participation in the telephone call; and that the firm was "working to understand her involvement more thoroughly." Mitchell resigned from Foley & Lardner the next day. The firm said that Mitchell "concluded that her departure was in the firm's best interests, as well as in her own personal best interests." Mitchell blamed her resignation on a purported "massive pressure campaign" allegedly launched by leftist groups on social media.

 

Not Just Women But Non-College Women

 

Out this morning, news of a new poll of non-college women in North Carolina about abortion rights. Carolina Forward polled non-college women exclusively, and the results suggest that the rural wall against Democrats might crack a little for women facing life decisions that the Republican Party wants to take completely away from them:

When asked the following general questions about abortion and Senate Bill 20, non-college female voters responded:

• How important are candidate positions on abortion when deciding who to vote for: Very important = 61%
• Abortion should be: Legal in all cases/Legal in most case = 65%
• When, if ever, do you think access to abortion should be limited: No restrictions/< 20 weeks = 61%
• Lowering the current abortion week guideline from 20 weeks to 12 weeks: Strongly oppose = 51%
• Would you vote for a state legislative candidate that supported SB 20: Much more likely to oppose = 53%

What's it going to take for statewide Democratic candidates -- let alone the local candidates for NC House and Senate seats -- to make abortion rights the number one issue in North Carolina?

The New GOP Voting Law: Gumming the Works, Slowing the Process

 

The main takeaways from S747, "Election Law Changes":

Gone: the 3-day "grace period" for getting your mail-in ballot to count. Under Ralph Hise's new proposed law, if your ballot isn't in the hands of your local Board of Elections office by the evening of Election Day, it'll get tossed.

The new law will make same-day-registrants vote a provisional ballot, a more time-consuming process that will slow up lines to vote.

The proposed new law will require local elections boards to acquire and use signature verification software for absentee ballots. It would require signature verifications for mail-in ballots — in addition to the current rules that also require two witnesses. We're seeking clarification if signature verification is only for mail-in absentee ballots or would also include those who are voting during early voting (which is also technically "absentee" voting). Since a voter now has to present ID at the time of voting, and they are directly signing their Authorization to Vote form upon check-in, why would signature verification be required as an added step? But it would be very much "on brand" for the Republicans to gum up the works further and sow confusion.

Signature verification for absentee balloting is probably of some concern for elderly voters, who tend disproportionately to favor absentee-by-mail and whose handwriting undergoes major changes through aging.

One major change that will surely be of use to election deniers: any registered voter in a county can now challenge any other voter. They do not have to be from the challenged voter's precinct.

Hise and the boys continue to cry "voter fraud" and "election integrity" as reasons for making voting harder. Voter fraud is rare; a 2016 audit by North Carolina officials found just two cases of voter impersonation in that year’s elections, out of 4.8 million ballots cast. When voter fraud has been a major issue in North Carolina, ironically, it's been voter fraud by Republicans: In 2018 North Carolina had to re-do a Congressional election because a campaign consultant for the Republican candidate was accused of submitting hundreds of fraudulent mail-in ballots. McCrae Dowless, the accused fixer, died last year while awaiting trial.

Sen. Ralph Hise Drops His New Voter Suppression Law

 

Sen. Ralph Hise of Spruce Pine is now our Senator for Watauga County, and he's an accomplished vote suppressor. His proposed new voting law dropped last night, and we'll all be studying it in the days ahead.

Here's the link if you want to take a look: https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2023/Bills/Senate/PDF/S747v0.pdf

New Voter Suppression Laws Coming for North Carolina

 

Will Doran, for WRAL:

Student voters will be
a major target for suppression

The 2024 elections in North Carolina could be conducted under far stricter rules under a proposal being crafted behind closed doors by Republican lawmakers — with input from a lawyer best known for assisting in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Republican operatives and state lawmakers expect a massive package of laws — affecting everything from voter ID to early voting, mail-in ballots, voter registration rules and more — to be filed in the coming days.

“From talking to leaders in the House and Senate, it appears they’re going to bundle all these meritorious changes … and put them in an omnibus bill,” Jim Womack, a longtime GOP politician and party insider familiar with Republican leaders’ thinking on the issue, said in an interview Wednesday afternoon. “This is something my group has been pushing for.”

Womack’s group is the Election Integrity Network, whose state chapter he runs with Cleta Mitchell, a former lawyer for then-President Donald Trump. She and Womack have met with high-ranking Republican lawmakers in recent weeks, pushing their goals for changes to election laws ahead of the 2024 elections. They say their changes will add security to elections and give people more faith that future results aren’t rigged.

“The biggest issue across the nation is distrust in elections,” Womack said. “And it’s not just conservatives. It is more with conservatives, but it’s both sides.”

Mitchell was one of several lawyers heavily involved in Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election results — including the famous call she, Trump and others made to Georgia election officials when Trump pressured the officials to “find” enough votes to let him win the state instead of his Democratic opponent Joe Biden, who actually won. A Georgia grand jury has been investigating the incident and whether to charge Trump criminally.

In recent months, she has made national news for her efforts in conservative circles to make it harder for younger people to vote in 2024, including by shortening the time available for voting and by restricting polling places on college campuses.