BREAKING -- The Street Theater of Kate Barr

 

One of my favorite, disruptive Democrats of 2024, Kate Barr, is right now, on Tuesday, January 14, reading aloud the over 60,000 names of legitimate voters Jefferson Griffin intends to disenfranchise to grab a seat on the NC Supreme Court. Kate is standing in front of the Supreme Court bldg in Raleigh, with a podium and a microphone. She began reading all 60,000 names this morning at 6 a.m. and expects to finish by 11 p.m. tonight.

It's a new public way to protest the outrageousness of Griffin's determination to win at all costs, including throwing out thousands of legitimate votes. Griffin is currently begging the Paul Newby Supreme Court to ignore the actual vote count -- Allison Riggs won by over 700 votes, after two different recounts -- and simply give Supreme Court Seat 6 to him.

Griffin is a special kind of sinister. Why is he a judge at all? (He currently sits on the 15-member Court of Appeals).

More about Kate Barr under this photo.

Kate Barr should be familiar to WatWatch readers. In 2024 she ran a funny, satiric, self-deprecating NC Senate campaign for District 37 (mainly deep-red Iredell). Her self-mocking motto: "Clear Eyes, Full Heart, Can't Win!" Indeed, she couldn't. But she generated something of a movement anyway, raising both money and some justified hell, and her rallying of progressive voters in such a district also helped a statewide candidate like Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs to win.

You go, Kate!

"Unprecedented Criminal Effort"

Special prosecutor Jack Smith's REPORT ON EFFORTS TO INTERFERE WITH THE LAWFUL TRANSFER OF POWER FOLLOWING THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OR THE CERTIFICATION OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE HELD ON JANUARY 6, 2021 has finally been released to the public. You can read it for yourself. It's full of solid evidence and coruscating truth. We are about to be governed again by a man who respects no laws, who doesn't understand the Constitution or our Republic of checks and balances, who runs his mouth and his petty desires like any downtown mob boss.

Part of Smith's summary of Trump's (alleged, yeah, right!) criminal activity leading up to the January 6th insurrection:

In 2020, then-President Donald J. Trump ran for reelection against Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Mr. Trump lost. As alleged in the original and superseding indictments, substantial evidence demonstrates that Mr. Trump then engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power. Although he did so primarily in his private capacity as a candidate, and with the assistance of multiple private co-conspirators, Mr. Trump also attempted to use the power and authority of the United States Government in furtherance of his scheme.

As set forth in the original and superseding indictments, when it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power. This included attempts to induce state officials to ignore true vote counts; to manufacture fraudulent slates of presidential electors in seven states that he had lost; to force Justice Department officials and his own Vice President, Michael R. Pence, to act in contravention of their oaths and to instead advance Mr. Trump's personal interests; and, on January 6, 2021, to direct an angry mob to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election and then leverage rioters' violence to further delay it. 

 

Jeff Jackson vs. Predatory Landlords

 

Attorney General Jeff Jackson filed on January 7th a pretty damn impressive civil suit against six mega-landlords and the software company RealPage, which illegally uses data to help the mega-landlords fix predatory rental rates. Jackson joined nine other attorneys as well as the antitrust division of the U.S. DOJ. Jackson and his fellows "allege that six corporate landlords are trading private information and manipulating vacancies to boost rents." As Ned Barnett, lead opinion writer at the NandO, put it today, "Jeff Jackson is off to an encouraging start" (Barnett). 

No kidding. Predatory renters and their unfair tactics have long invited a comeuppance, and perhaps this will be a start. The six landlords being sued collectively manage hundreds of thousands of apartment rentals (no, really), which undoubtedly makes them big, bigger targets for prosecution. What about the ugly landlords in, say, university towns who don't rent hundreds of thousands of apartments, but who rent out certainly scores of them and hundreds and maybe thousands? There seems to be a universal principle of greed that can't resist exploiting the young.

To be clear, Jackson is amending with this new suit an action first researched and taken by former A.G. Josh Stein last March, when there were seven other attorneys general joining the suit against RealPage. No mention back then of the six landlords Jackson's amended suit adds, though Stein certainly knew where they were. At a news conference last August, Stein said three of the top 10 markets that RealPage has been exploiting are in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham/Chapel Hill, and Jackson's suit notes that none of the big landlords operating in NC are actually headquartered in NC. They're from all over, from Dallas to Chicago to Atlanta to Charleston, etc. Out-of-state corps exploiting the natives with the help of a clever software company.

Jackson’s office alleges that the singled-out landlords have allegedly used RealPage’s algorithm "to set rents for almost one-third of one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments in each of the three metro areas" (Avi Bajpai). 

Anderson Clayton Makes an Endorsement, Anita Earls Launches Reelection Bid, and Wiley Nickel Acts the Gentleman

 

A. NC Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton has endorsed Ben Wikler to head the DNC:

B. NC Supreme Court Associate Justice Anita Earls has begun raising money for what is expected to be a fierce reelection fight in 2026. Her new website went live on January 9th.

C. Former NC Congressman Wiley Nickel, whose district was gerrymandered to guarantee a Republican would win, decided against running for his 13th CD seat (now occupied by Republican Brad Knott). Instead, he announced that he would run for Thom Tillis's U.S. Senate seat in 2026. On December 15, he filed a statement of candidacy with the FEC.

Ex-Governor Roy Cooper has pointedly told reporters that his own candidacy for Tillis's seat is definitely "on the table," though he hasn't announced anything concrete yet. But Wiley Nickel, knowing that the much better known Cooper would beat him in a primary, has told Bryan Anderson that he's "waiting in the wings and developing something of a contingency plan should Cooper decide not to run."

Wise move.

Ray Pickett and Hurricane Relief

 

Rep. Ray Pickett

Newly installed Speaker of the NC House, Destin Hall, notable lawyer of Caldwell County and olympic gerrymanderer (who moved Watauga's Blue Ridge Precinct out of Ray Pickett's Dist. 93 and gave it to himself in Dist. 87, where those Blue Ridge progressives wouldn't be much of an annoyance in that otherwise blood-red district) -- but I digress. That squirt Destin Hall appears to be moving fast to funnel actual dollar bills toward the victims of Hurricane Helene -- to make up in some sense for the passage of S 382 back last November, which masqueraded as a hurricane relief bill but was actually a naked power-grab. Just announced yesterday, Hall has appointed a "Select Committee on Hurricane Helene Recovery" to make recommendations, write legislation, lay the groundwork -- quickly -- for specific appropriations.

To the Select Committee, Hall appointed the three mountain guys who initially raised hell over S 382 for the fakeout in its title -- "Hurricane Relief" -- because it offered zero relief. Those guys quickly folded and voted for the bill in the veto override, but not before (probably) getting some promises for their own districts. There must have been strategy in their caving, or else they're just bully-bait. I prefer my politicians cynical rather than craven.

Hall also appointed Ray Pickett to the Select Committee, who without any visible protest -- no indignant speaking up for constituents wiped out by flood, no symbolic no vote -- rather voted for S 382 at first sight. Voted for the same bill the three other guys had rightly called a notorious fraud. Those guys likely made a bargain or got a promise or leveraged their yes votes on the veto-override for specific economic relief to their constituents. What did Watauga and Ashe counties get for Ray Pickett's complicity? 

Virginia Foxx Causes Indigestion at UNC

 

Since 1984, the UNC Board of Trustees (UNCBOT) has annually awarded its highest honor, the Davie Award, to "individuals who have shown extraordinary service to UNC or to society." Former recipients include Dean Smith, William Friday, the first president of the UNC System, and former UNC chancellor William Aycock. But this year, the mainly all-Republican UNCBOT awarded the Davie thingie to Rep. Virginia Foxx (and three other alumni). Granted, Foxx is a UNC graduate and also a full time black frost on spring flowers, so it's not surprising that students who know a little political history would object because of Foxx's character and her public deeds. The Davie Awards were handed out at a UNCBOT banquet back on November 6th, the day after the Election (Foxx must have been in a good mood, as her moods go), but the existence of student pushback didn't make the Daily Tar Heel until this week.

The DTH profiled Foxx quite accurately and with commendable restraint:

Foxx ... is a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for North Carolina’s 5th Congressional District and was elected in November to her 11th term in office. Last spring as the chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, Foxx led the charge to investigate antisemitism at college campuses during Pro-Palestine protests .... Foxx ... has publicly expressed anti-LGBTQ+ stances, including opposing the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and speaking against the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision which legalized same-sex marriage. Additionally, Foxx voted against the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, which aimed to federally formalize interracial and same-sex marriage rights.

That bio is guaranteed to bring on a gag reflex in the brighter students. The DTH reporter interviewed a couple of undergraduates who knew exactly who Virginia Foxx is, what she represents, and that she's led the current assault on free speech at universities. These students were unified in their opposition to giving the Davie Award to people who embody anything but the "values" that UNC has and should reflect -- inclusiveness, diversity, equity.

UNCBOT Chair John Preyer was evidently holding an unmelted pat of creamery butter on the back of his tongue when he lied to the DTH reporter that "the political leanings of the recipients do not factor in being given a Davie Award."

Common Cause Attacks the Injustice of Jefferson Griffin

 

Common Cause of NC has been driving a mobile billboard around North Carolina towns and cities, blasting Jefferson Griffin's determination to have the NC Supreme Court overturn the election and give Seat 6 on the Court to him. 

It's one of those electronic message boards, with revolving illuminated pages:

The better panel is the one specific to whichever county the billboard is touring, like the photo from Carteret Co. below, that enumerates the number of local people singled out in Griffin's petition to have their votes disallowed -- since the names of the 60,000 voters on Griffin's list is part of the public record. (I didn't count all the names from Watauga. There appear to be hundreds. At a glance, it looks like Griffin's people grabbed every foreign-sounding name, especially the Hispanic ones.)

There was video on Twitter yesterday of the billboard cruising Raleigh past the NC Supreme Court building. The message for Wake County: over 6,000 voters targeted by Griffin's petition. https://x.com/CommonCauseNC/status/1877010468457349347

Conservative Majority on NC Supreme Court Fractures Over Griffin Attempt To Steal the Election

 

Trey Allen and Richard Dietz

Jefferson Griffin's petition to simply throw out 60,000 valid votes in his attempt to unseat Associate Justice Allison Riggs has produced what we rarely see in North Carolina, two conservative justices -- Richard Dietz and Trey Allen, both Republicans -- who either dissent strongly and on paper (Dietz) or otherwise suggest that he was not in favor of the idea of overturning the election (Allen). (Indebted to Bryan Anderson, the best political reporter currently working in NC, for this news.)

After Federal U.S. District Court Judge Richard Myers II remanded the Griffin petition back to the NC Supreme Court on Monday, immediately the NC Supremes issued an order blocking the state Board of Elections (SBOE) from certifying Allison Riggs the winner of the election while it conducts its own mini-trial of the matter (as though there were a legitimate reason to delay certification).

Republican Justice Dietz wrote "a scathing six-page dissent" (Anderson's characterization), saying in part that a petition to overturn an election shouldn't even be considered by the Court:

“Permitting post-election litigation that seeks to rewrite our state’s election rules — and, as a result, remove the right to vote in an election from people who already lawfully voted under the existing rules — invites incredible mischief,” Dietz wrote. “It will lead to doubts about the finality of vote counts following an election, encourage novel legal challenges that greatly delay certification of the results, and fuel an already troubling decline in public faith in our elections.”

For his part, and although he agreed with the Republican majority to hear Griffin's suit, Trey Allen was perhaps signaling his skepticism: “The Court’s order granting Judge Griffin’s motion for temporary stay should not be taken to mean that Judge Griffin will ultimately prevail on the merits,” Allen wrote.

Democratic Justice Anita Earls also dissented. That leaves three Republican justices to carry Griffin's dirty water -- Chief Justice Paul Newby and Associate Justices Tamara Barringer and Baby Berger.

Meanwhile, the SBOE has appealed to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals for permission to certify the election. The criss-crossing of state and Federal action is only one confounding element of this truly astounding attempt to steal an election via judicial action.

Chickens Home To Roost: NC Supremes Must Now Decide in Jefferson Griffin vs. 60,000 Voters

 

Copying the reporting of Lynn Bonner for the NC Newsline:

Jefferson Griffin and Allison Riggs

Federal U.S. District Judge Richard Myers II on Monday sent Republican Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin’s elections case back to state court, leaving the outcome of his race in the hands of the GOP majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court.

A few hours after Myers issued the order, the state Board of Elections and incumbent Democratic Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs filed notice of appeal to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Riggs leads Griffin by 734 votes, but Griffin has filed a series of voter protests. Griffin wants the state Supreme Court, where Republicans hold a 5-2 majority, to throw out more than 60,000 votes on the belief that erasing them will allow him to defeat Riggs.

Democrats want to win back the Supreme Court majority by the next round of redistricting in 2031, and holding Riggs’ seat is an important first step in achieving that goal.

After the state Board of Elections rejected his protests last month, Griffin asked the state Supreme Court to step in to stop the board from certifying the election results and toss out the votes he’s contesting.

The Board of Elections had Griffin’s petition transferred to federal court, but Myers wrote in an order Monday that none of Griffin’s challenges “necessarily raise an issue of federal law.”

Most of the votes Griffin wants thrown out are those his campaign claims were cast by people who did not include a driver’s license or partial Social Security number on their voter registration applications. People who did not include those numbers on their applications are not legally registered, Republican lawyers have argued. Many of those voters have been voting regularly for years.

The Republican Party used the same argument last year in a lawsuit seeking to have more than 225,000 voters purged from the registration rolls or to be forced to cast provisional ballots. Myers partially dismissed that suit.

The state Board of Elections’ written order filed after it rejected Griffin’s protests says that just because driver’s license or partial Social Security numbers didn’t show up in the voter registration file doesn’t mean voters didn’t supply them.

A brief filed on behalf of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and individual voters emphasizes that point. Griffin’s target list is inaccurate, the brief says, because it fails to account for voters who did not have to supply the information or for data entry errors or database mismatches that resulted when women married and changed their last names.

Anne Tindall, one of the lawyers with the Protect Democracy Project representing the League and individual voters, said in an interview last week that the women and non-white voters were overrepresented on the list of 225,000 people Republicans originally wanted purged from the rolls. Those are voters who are more likely to have hyphenated names or names people misspell, she said.

“No one has come forward with information about any single person on these lists not providing all the information that’s requested of them,” Tindall said.“Data errors, typos, name changes” overlay all of it, she said.

Myers said in his order he considered the League of Women Voters’ brief.