Stella Anderson Appointed to SBOE, But Not Four Eggers

Just saw news tweeted by Emily Featherstone of WECT:

The following Democrats and Republicans have been appointed to the State BOE by Governor Roy Cooper:

Democrat Stella Anderson of Boone
Republican David C. Black of Concord
Democrat Jeff Carmon III of Durham
Democrat Bob Cordle of Charlotte
Republican Ken Raymond of Winston-Salem

This panel will make news presently.

Inman v. Berger Jr. for the "Newby Seat" on the NC Supreme Court?

We previously discussed Phil Berger Junior's intention of running for the Justice Paul Newby seat on the Supreme Court, if (as promised) Paul Newby gives up that seat to run for Chief Justice (which seems likely at the moment).

Democratic Judge Lucy Inman, who also sits with Berger Junior on the NC Court of Appeals, just announced that she'll also be running for Newby's seat.

Judge Lucy Inman was elected to the Court of Appeals in 2014. She is the daughter of author Lucy Daniels, the granddaughter of former White House Press Secretary Jonathan W. Daniels, and the great-granddaughter of Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels. Her family famously owned the Raleigh News and Observer from 1894 to 1995.

She worked for a short time as a reporter on the family paper, then entered law school at UNC-Chapel Hill and was in private practice, 1992 to 2010, when she was appointed a special Superior Court judge by Governor Bev Perdue. Four years later she ran for a vacant seat on the Court of Appeals and won.

She's recently suffered a serious storm of mental issues in her immediate family. Last November her son was caught "burning a cross in a Cary park and later making violent threats to a synagogue in Cary, Sha’arei Shalom, which belongs to a branch of Messianic Judaism" (Will Doran). Inman issued a statement at the time: “Our family is inclusive and respectful of all people. Sadly, we, like many families, are dealing in this case with a mental illness, which we recognize and for which we have sought and continue to seek treatment. ... As deeply concerned parents, we apologize profusely to the Jewish community and to all who have been impacted. And we are treating this situation with utmost seriousness.”

Inman's son made a brief appearance with his mother in a 2014 campaign video:

If Mark Meadows Isn't the Biggest Congressional Fool, He'll Have to Do Until Another One Comes Along

New details keep emerging that it wasn't just talk radio hoo-haws that pushed Twitterman into closing down government. North Carolina Congressman Mark Meadows had Trump's ear too and piled on. "Shut it down! Make 'em beg. The Democrats will break, and you'll inspire your base."

A couple of weeks before Christmas, the Republican Party establishment in Congress thought it had agreement from Trump to pass a "clean" continuing resolution. Mitch McConnell acted on that agreement, passing the CR in the Senate. Paul Ryan was trying to follow suit in the House, when Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and (bless his heart!) Mark Meadows threatened Trump's masculinity.

Mark Meadows leads the Freedom Caucus, three dozen of the most conservative Republicans, and he's had plenty of experience sticking his thumb in Leadership's eye. He precipitated the 2013 government shutdown. He regularly blocked reasonable deals engineered by John Boehner and forced Boehner to resign. He was then a thorn for Paul Ryan too. He and the Freedom Caucus could get away with it, because the Republicans didn't quite have the numbers to not depend on those 36 votes.

"The Freedom Caucus’s mission often looked as if weakening its own leadership team served as big a goal as safeguarding its conservative purity" (Paul Kane). You notice that extreme instinct for self-immolation in the hardest conservatives: "Hurts so good to pull down the temple on our own heads!"

But this land developer from North Carolina, Mark Meadows, who has no ear for politics, nor head for it either, cannot be embarrassed when his loose-cannon partisanship knocks a hole in the boat. Meadows apparently spoke to DJT more than once during the December showdown over shutdown. He gave his last pep talk via phone on December 20th: "Now's the time for good men to stick to their guns -- before the Democrats take control of the House. Conservatives got your back, here and across the country! Shut it down!"

So Meadows and Trump got what they thought they wanted, a display of overwhelming strength. Only this was display with no real strategic planning behind it, other than the vaguest hope that Democrats would cave. They didn't. But Trump did. Genius!

Is Trump still calling Meadows for advice?

Back before Christmas, if the Freedom Caucus did a little biggus-dickus strut over defeating the Party Establishment once again, they ain't strutting now. When asked to confirm his part in pep-talking Trump into the shutdown, Meadows stumbled into a howling non-denial denial: “I don’t know about that. I did — I’m not confirming nor denying that,” he said. “I mean, I think it’s been reported, but I’ve never been on the record as saying that.”

Meadows is cooked. Even some of the Freedom Caucus finds him embarrassing. He staged a showy speech on the House floor day before yesterday, "angry about the wording of a resolution condemning federal government shutdowns," and he forced a vote on adjourning the House in protest. It received just 14 votes.

"Meadows now runs the weakest type of coalition in the House: a small minority in the minority. Their leverage against Boehner and Ryan is long gone, as Pelosi has 235 votes on her side before she has to ask for support from any of the several dozen GOP moderates remaining in office." (Paul Kane)

Hilariously, Meadows is bragging to reporters that he's "on top of it." He claims now that he foresaw the Democrats taking the House at least six months ago, and that he began preparing for it by reading classic literature "about how coalition governments work in countries with parliamentary systems," etc. (like you're believing this scholarly tale, right?), and he claims he has a master plan for defeating the Democrats which may involve fake beards: "He promised that the Freedom Caucus is coming up with ideas to rebel against Pelosi’s majority, to upend the place in a similar style, if not the same outcomes, as its rebellious days in the majority."

In his favor, Meadows sports the pleasant demeanor of a Ken doll buzzing on caffeine. But a brilliant political tactician he ain't.

NCGA Democrats Push the Issue of Closing the Medicaid Gap

The "long session" of the North Carolina General Assembly gets underway this morning, and the newly energized Democrats (still in the minority but feeling feisty) came through the door loaded up and truckin'. Senate Bill 3, "An Act to Close the Medicaid Coverage Gap," was introduced by senators Ben Clark, Dan Blue, and Glady Robinson in the Senate. The identical language was filed in the NC House as HB5.

Gary D. Robertson offers this forecast: "...Cooper and legislative allies seem ready to negotiate hard for expansion to cover hundreds of thousands of uninsured people .... Some House Republicans support a bill that would place a work requirement on enrollees, but Senate leader Phil Berger remains unconvinced that expansion is fiscally sound."

Phil Berger is wrong. Every state's experience of expanded coverage under the Affordable Care Act has been economically positive. Improved payments to small and rural hospitals, especially, with upticks in employment and economic development, have brightened the prospects of every state that's gone there (Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation).

Phil Berger could, and probably will, tank these Democratic initiatives, but he's going to have members of his own caucus squinting in his direction.

Phil Berger

Or ... maybe he's capable of evolving. That hint of "a work requirement" opens the door a crack for even a hardliner like Berger. To the Republican grassroots, a work requirement might signify adequate Republican punishment of shiftlessness while covering an actual Republican surrender to Obamacare. Requiring work of able-bodied adults — who are just a fraction of all Medicaid recipients — in exchange for access to healthcare has become the route for other red-state legislators to cave into Obamacare. That's what happened in Virginia. Kentucky too:

The politics worked: Many Democratic lawmakers went along as assurance that more people could reap benefits from the Affordable Care Act, while Republicans were able to show their base that they were holding people accountable for receiving aid. As a result, Republican-led states have increasingly expanded coverage with such restrictions, and some red states that had already expanded Medicaid are opting to add them. (NC Health News)

The Democratic bills introduced today don't contain a work requirement for able-bodied recipients. Will Democrats fight a work requirement at the risk of losing any Medicaid gap coverage? How will Republicans want to define "able-bodied"? Will Phil Berger remain a killing frost over every attempt to better the lives of his fellow citizens?

DCCC Announces First Tier of 33 US House Seats Targeted for 2020

Via Twitter yesterday, the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) announced a first list of congressional House districts that will be targeted in 2020:

AZ-06 -- Dave Schweikert
CA-22 -- Devin Nunes
CA-50 -- Duncan Hunter
CO-03 -- Scott Tipton
FL-15 -- Ross Spano
FL-18 -- Brian Mast
GA-07 -- Rob Woodall
IA-04 -- Steve King
IL-13 -- Rodney Davis
IN-05 - Susan Brooks
KY-06 -- Andy Barr
MI-06 -- Fred Upton
MN-01 -- Jim Hagedorn
MO-02 -- Ann Wagner
NC-02 -- George Holding
NC-09 -- OPEN
NC-13 - Ted Budd
NE-02 -- Don Bacon
NY-01 -- Lee Zeldin
NY-02 -- Peter King
NY-24 -- John Katko
NY-27 -- Chris Collins
OH-01 -- Steve Chabot
PA-01 -- Brian Fitzpatrick
PA-10 -- Scott Perry
PA-16 - Mike Kelly
TX-10 -- Mike McCaul
TX-21 -- Chip Roy
TX-22 -- Pete Olson
TX-23 -- Will Hurd
TX-24 -- Kenny Marchant
TX-31 -- John Carter
WA-03 -- Jaime Herrera Beutler

You'll note the three seats in North Carolina, including NC-9 which still remains undecided these months after the election. Kathy Manning might be favored to try again against incumbent Ted Budd in the NC-13 (given her proven ability to raise money and forgetting for the moment that she was four and a half points behind Budd in the final tally). In the NC-2, we'll hope that Linda Coleman backs off from another try. There are other potential challengers in that district who aren't as shop-worn.

Will the amazing Amy McGrath seek a do-over against Andy Barr in the Ky-6? Will Duncan Hunter (Calif-50) and Chris Collins (NY-27) hold on again, despite their active criminal indictments? And there's white supremacist Steve King in Iowa-4. His 2018 opponent, J.D. Scholten, profiled on this site last year, has already announced that he probably won't try again, but maybe he should.

Dan Forest, You Coy Minx!

Yesterday, Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest released a professionally produced video message. It doesn't say "I'm running for governor of North Carolina," which is what every mother's son has known as a lead-pipe cinch for the last two years. What Forest says is "I'm forming an exploratory committee" to see if I want to run for governor of North Carolina in 2020.

Too coy by half!

Plus his video is all about lamenting "divisiveness" in the state, as though Dan thinks we all fell on our heads when we fell off the turnip truck.

Divisiveness? Why, that could be Dan Forest's middle name, if not his safe word.

Item: At a Civitas Conservative Leadership Conference, Forest implied that people on the left don't believe in God. No, their religion is "political activism," he said (while his political activism is merely the living breath of God, we assume). Democrats "are hopeless," he said. "They truly do believe that, but for the government, but for the work they do, there’s no hope for America." Never mind Forest's own efforts to make government regulate women's reproductive choices.

Item: The City of Charlotte's anti-discrimination ordinance protecting transgender citizens sent Forest on a noisy crusade backing the General Assembly's "bathroom bill," HB2. He stoked fears of predatory men disguised as women preying on young girls in ladies toilets.

Item: Forest pushed hard in the General Assembly for the passage of HB527, a bill targeting student hecklers of right-wing speakers on college campuses. It was passed under the guise of protecting free speech but was motivated by the increasing and vocal opposition to conservative speakers on UNC member campuses.

Item: For a theocrat who wants his religion dominating government, Forest likes being awfully close to The Moral Stain who currently occupies the White House:





Item: He gladly accepted money from The Word of Faith church in Spindale, which practices beating the devil out of its members.

Item: He called it "judicial tyranny" when a federal judge struck down North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriages and backed a bill in the General Assembly which would allow magistrates to opt out of performing same-sex marriages because of gay cooties.

Phil Berger Jr's Daddy Helped Get Him on the Court of Appeals. Will He Also Get Him on the NC Supreme Court?

Phil Berger Jr.

Phil Berger Jr. just posted on his Facebook page that he wants to run for Associate Justice Paul Newby's seat on the state's Supreme Court, if Paul Newby jumps into a race for Chief Justice of the Court.

"I am interested in running" means "I am running."

A Short History of Phil Berger Sr's String-Pulling for Sonny Boy

Phil Senior did everything in his power to make sure that Phil Junior won a seat on the NC Court of Appeals in 2016, defeating a good incumbent judge, Linda Stephens.

But first, in 2014 Phil Senior tried to get his son a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Phil Junior ran for the seat vacated by Congressman Howard Coble (NC-6), backed by wads of money and the full-bore influence of Daddy Phil. What happened? Phil Junior lost the Republican Primary that year, which shocked everyone, not least of whom was his father.

Following quickly that humiliating defeat, Phil Junior got himself appointed to an administrative law judgeship, and didn't stick there long before he entered the race for the NC Court of Appeals with the full endorsement of the Tea Party Express (if you were inclined to doubt his partisan proclivities).

Daddy Phil wasn't done putting his thumb on the scales. At the last minute in the short session of the General Assembly in the summer of 2016, and as President of the Senate, Phil Berger Sr. saw to it that the law got changed as regards random "ballot order," insuring that candidates that belong to the same party as the sitting governor (Pat McCrory at that time) got listed first. So Phil Berger Jr. was listed first on the ballot.

Why does it matter? Numerous studies have shown that being listed first on a ballot can give that candidate at least a slight advantage, especially on down-ballot races like the Court of Appeals race where candidates aren’t as well-known as presidential or gubernatorial candidates. Indeed, Phil Berger Jr. won that 2016 race by a very slim margin ... a quarter of a percentage point.

What will Phil Berger Sr. do this time? First thing: Change that law he passed in 2016 so that candidates not of the governor's party get listed first.

Kamala Harris Announcement Speech

I'm not jumping on any candidate's bandwagon yet, but this roll-out by Kamala Harris yesterday in Oakland is worth watching for the message and for the personality of a candidate who will have wide and deep appeal.

Congratulations, Wayne Goodwin!

After a successful first term as chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, Wayne Goodwin was reelected yesterday by the NC Democratic Executive Committee for another term.

"Over his first term, Chairman Goodwin oversaw a historic partnership with Governor Cooper that recruited quality, diverse candidates in all 170 legislative districts for the first time ever; achieved record fundraising success; and launched a groundbreaking statewide organizing program. As a result, North Carolina Democrats swept statewide judicial contests, including electing a new Supreme Court justice, and broke both legislative supermajorities.

"In addition, Chairman Goodwin spearheaded a rural listening tour to reach out and hear from rural North Carolina communities, and oversaw investments in local and municipal races that flipped 22 Republican-held seats and helped elect new African-American Democratic mayors, including the first female African-American mayor of Charlotte."