Another Democratic Candidate Enters the 2022 NC Senate Primary

 

Beaufort Mayor Rett Newton says he's going to run for the US Senate in the 2022 Democratic primary. Interesting, considering the major talents already in the game and Newton's relative obscurity for a statewide electorate.

According to the AP, which broke the news, "Newton is a retired Air Force colonel and current doctoral student at Duke University studying marine science and conservation. He says the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol motivated him to get in the race because he wants to defend democracy against violent actors."

Them's some noble sentiments, but still.

Newton said he hopes he can attract Republicans in a general election “who share my interest in protecting our democracy, protecting our environment and helping those that are stuck in the socioeconomic divide.”

There's that forlorn hope again -- let's call it the Manchin Phantasm -- that Republicans will be attracted to support a Democratic mission.

Super Lawyer Marc Elias Sues the New Georgia Voter Suppression Law

 

Marc Elias, of the Perkins Coie
lawfirm

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp had barely finished signing the new Georgia law clamping down on giving ballot access to suspicious people when Washington power lawyer Marc Elias filed a lawsuit to overturn it on behalf of the New Georgia Project, Black Voters Matter Fund, and Rise, Inc. (which focuses on student enfranchisement). “The Voter Suppression Bill inflicts severe burdens on Georgia’s voters through each individual restriction and the cumulative effect of all the suppressive measures which impose barriers to voting absentee and in-person,” the lawsuit alleges, citing the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Marc Elias ... hmmm ... where have we heard that name before?

He's the devil, according to various spokespersons for the North Carolina Republican Party, the NC Senate Pro Tem's office, Congressman Dan Bishop, and many other pooh-bahs on the vote-suppressing Right. In as remarkable a case of projection we've ever seen, The Carolina Journal (Art Pope) claims that lawyer Elias makes a total mockery of our election system, which is really (right?) a begrudging admission that Elias is actually very good in both court and in private. 

Elias, a partner at the Washington firm of Perkins Coie, represented Governor Roy Cooper during the drawn-out fight over the outcome of the 2016 election. He represented Dan McCready in getting the 2018 Congressional race in the NC-9 redone because of voter fraud, "the first and only time a state has set aside a federal election as a result of fraudulent activity." Last year Elias talked two Republican members on the NC State Board of Elections into signing a consent agreement that allowed, because of the COVID pandemic, absentee ballots in the 2020 General Elections to be accepted up to nine days after the election and without a witness signature. Those two Republicans on the NCSBE immediately said they were "duped" (advantage, Elias) and got their asses fired anyway from the board by the NCGOP. A lawsuit naturally ensued and a federal judge ruled that at least part of the consent agreement violated constitutional separation of powers. U.S. District Court Judge William Osteen ruled that the State Board of Elections could not accept mail-in ballots without a witness signature on the envelope.

The NCSBE had overstepped under Elias's guidance, and Republican members in the General Assembly have been theatrically indignant ever since about both Elias as an operator and the administrative staff at the NCSBE. It's all grist for the "fraud" myth, the Big Lie. 

Marc Elias is someone I'll take in my corner, even if he oversteps (and sometimes gets sanctioned for it). Why should the other side have all the slick and highly effective legal operators? It's about time we have our own bulldogs with a taste for blood. Elias makes no bones about his proclivities. The unit of lawyers he runs at Perkins Coie is called, quite frankly, "The Political Law Group":

"Marc represents dozens of U.S. senators, governors, representatives and their campaigns as well as the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, National Democratic Redistricting Committee, Priorities USA, Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC. Marc served as general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016 and John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004." (Perkins Coie)

Elias is also lead counsel in an attempt right now this minute to overturn the certified election of a Republican congresswoman in Iowa by arguing before the US House's Committee on Administration that Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks should be kicked out of Congress in favor of Democrat Rita Hart, who lost in November to Miller-Meeks by only six votes. Elias says he's found almost two dozen uncounted ballots that should be counted. “22 ballots remain uncounted,” Elias declares at his Democracy Docket website. Elias concedes that a few of those votes would go to Miller-Meeks, but most would add to Hart’s count --“the results of which would put her ahead by 9 votes.” He argues that Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution empowers the House and Senate to overrule vote tallies as each body is the "Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members."

It looks like another bridge too far for the talented and sometimes over-stimulated Marc Elias. We doubt that even the Democratic majority in the US House will overturn that election.

FOOTNOTE

As of March 31, "Democrat Rita Hart has dropped her challenge in the Iowa 2nd Congressional District race, asking the House to no longer consider an investigation into the outcome of her race against Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks following intense Republican pushback."

New Ad Targets Madison Cawthorn

 

The work of the Republican Accountability Project:

Pity, Joe Mancin

 

Joe Manchin doesn't care that progressives hate him. He recently taunted "liberals" mad at him for being out of step on many issues including the elimination  of the filibuster:

“What are they going to do, they going to go into West Virginia and campaign against me? Please, that would help me more than anything.”

He says he believes in the Cookie Fairy and a "bipartisan Senate." He doesn't believe that. He is not dumb enough to believe that 10 Republicans will voluntarily vote someday for something Biden wants, if everyone will just compromise. He doesn't believe that. It's a convenient excuse for being really terrified of your constituents. Do we need to be reminded? West Virginia voted for Trump last fall by 40 points. Manchin holds his seat because he's so "regional."

Found this summation of Manchin by Jonathan Martin in the NewYork Times very helpful:

A former high school quarterback who friends say still relishes being at the center of the action, Mr. Manchin is something of a unicorn in today’s Congress. As a pro-coal and anti-abortion Democrat, he reflects a less-homogenized era when regionalism was as significant as partisanship and senators were more individual actors than predictable votes for their caucus.

Twice elected governor before claiming [Robert] Byrd’s [Senate] seat, he’s the only lawmaker standing in the way of an all-Republican congressional delegation in West Virginia .... he is an unlikely majority-maker of the Democratic Senate.

"Still relishes being at the center of the action." Got it! Wants to be loved and thought of as civic savior by his voters. Who happen to hate Biden and hate most Democrats. I almost feel sympathy for Manchin's balancing act. But not his character.

So this news reached us last week: Joe Manchin's wife Gayle has been named by President Biden to head the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). 

(I say "head" when the title is actually Federal Co-Chair, because the structure of the ARC also includes a figurehead co-chair, mandated to be the governor of one of the constituent states. Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia is currently Federal Co-Chair. But the civilian Co-Chair is the real showrunner. Has always been that way.)

What are Gayle Manchin's qualifications? The White House on Friday cited her career as an educator and her service as the first lady of West Virginia, when Manchin was the state’s governor from 2005 to 2010. In other words, she's the "missus" of somebody Biden needs to make happy. First thing I thought: The ARC appointment for Manchin's wife is reward for Manchin's vote for the American Rescue Plan (ARP).

What is the ARC? It's an economic development partnership agency established in 1965 through which the federal government works with 13 states and 420 counties across the Appalachian region to theoretically help invest in communities and spur job creation. The criticism of the ARC by actual Appalachian activists tended to highlight the ARC's aggressive four-laning of highways, to get the coal, gas, timber, you name it -- out of state faster.

I'm hoping that Biden can get more out of this clear case of social bribery than just the vote for the ARP. The vote on ending the filibuster as we know it? The vote on an infrastructure bill that will put a tax on every coal baron in the state of West Virginia? The vote on voter rights?

Kernersville 'Proud Boy' Called 'Pivotal' in Capitol Attack

 

Kevin Donohoe, who was arrested by the FBI on March 18 in Kernersville as a Proud Boy leader involved in the insurrection, is now being called a "pivotal" figure in a conspiracy to take over the US government. This is the reporting by Michael Hewlett:

In new court papers filed Friday, federal prosecutors say Charles Joseph Donohoe, a Kernersville resident and Proud Boys leader, played a pivotal role in leading his fellow Proud Boys in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.
 

Federal prosecutors say this is a photo of Charles Donohoe, the Kernersville Proud Boys leader, at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

He also assisted another Proud Boys member in carrying a riot shield stolen from a police officer on Jan. 6 and sought to destroy electronic messages afterward, prosecutors said.

Documents also allege that, celebrating afterward, Donohoe said he felt like a “complete warrior.”

 

In 2019, Louis DeJoy Loved Him Some Dan Bishop. Oops!

 

Grinning Trumpist Dan Bishop, who won his seat in Congress in a special election in 2019 after preacherman Mark Harris crashed and burned, has become a true(er) prick in Congress, blossoming pungently like a weed on compost. Dan Bishop was the proud parent of the "North Carolina bathroom bill," which means he's also awful at economics. That bathroom bill cost the state billions in economic investment, including harm to the cash cow of sports promotion and tourism. But how has he behaved in Congress? On Sept. 2019, Bishop became the first member to divulge the name of the whistleblower whose memo sparked the House impeachment inquiry. On Twitter.

He was reelected to the 9th District seat in 2020 (don't remind me!) because of the rural Trump surge. He easily beat by more than 10 points a dynamic Black woman candidate in Cynthia Wallace. His district stretches along the South Carolina border from the suburbs of Mecklenburg to Robeson County and isn't quite ready for change.

In keeping with creepiness, Bishop just got fined by the Federal Elections Commission for failing to report contributions of $1K or more within 48 hours of their receipt during the last 12 days of the 2019 special election campaign. Bishop kept those contributions secret -- reporting them only after the election -- and now has to pay a fine of $11,634 for flagrant abuse of the law. One of those unreported contributions -- the max allowed by law -- came from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. You remember him. Just another worm in last fall's cabbage.

You can read Brian Murphy's reporting here.

Catawba County Man Becomes 10th (At Least) North Carolinian Arrested for Capitol Riot

James "Les" Little was arrested by the FBI on Wednesday in Catawba County, charged with unlawful entry onto government grounds, two counts of disorderly conduct in a restricted building or on Capitol grounds, and parading or demonstrating in the Capitol. On Thursday, he appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge David Cayer of Charlotte.

“We just took over the Capitol,” Little bragged in a text to a relative on January 6th. “And you are bragging?” the relative fired back in a fusillade of exclamation points and capital letters. "THIS IS TREASON!!! IF YOU DON’T CONDEMN THIS, NEVER BOTHER SPEAKING TO ME AGAIN! HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE PEOPLE. IT’S A COUP! YOU OBVIOUSLY HATE AMERICA!!!”

Then the relative turned in James "Les" Little to the FBI. He's the 10th (at least) North Carolinian charged for participation in the insurrection.

According to Michael Gordon, "Court filings by the U.S. Justice Department have alleged that North Carolina served as a recruiting ground and training site for right-wing groups that are now the focus of government conspiracy investigations linked to the Capitol assault."

Former High Point Police Officer Charged With Conspiracy as Oath Keeper

 

Laura Steele (left) with her
brother, captured by video
surveillance in the Washington Metro

Laura Steele, a former High Point police officer facing charges in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot, will be released from federal custody but won’t be able to leave her house, and she cannot have any contact with her co-defendants which includes her brother (Graydon Young, 54, of Englewood, Fla.,) and cannot have access to any electronic device, including cellphones and computers.

Prosecutors have emails that Steele sent just a few days before the Capitol riots, asking to become a member of the Oath Keepers. She touted her 13-year experience as a law-enforcement officer, including being a member of SWAT, court documents said.

Laura Steele was a police officer with the High Point Police Department from 1992 to 2004, when she was fired for conduct toward superior personnel, absence from duty, and violation of communications policy. While at the police department, she worked as a school resource officer. Steele was investigated — and later cleared — in two separate incidents where she pepper-sprayed students, an 11-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy.

She is married to Kenneth Steele, a former assistant chief of the High Point Police Department. They have two children, Jacob and Seth. Jacob is a police officer with the High Point Police Department, and Seth plans to join the department soon.

The U.S. Attorney in charge of her case alleges that after she and her brother came back to North Carolina, she deleted Facebook posts, call logs, and text messages from her phone. It also appears that she got rid of the clothing she wore, including clothing with Oath Keepers insignia, in the days after she returned from Washington. Federal agents executing a search warrant on her home could not find the clothing. The prosecutor said that’s where her experience as a law-enforcement officer came in; she knew how to cover her tracks. “She knew how to do that and why it was important to do that because of her law-enforcement background,” the prosecutor said.

[Details taken from Michael Hewlett's reporting in the Winston-Salem Journal.]

Watauga County: First in Landslides

In 2004 Hurricane Ivan dumped tons of water on Watauga County, causing the soil under the White Laurel subdivision to give way with catastrophic results.

 

As a result of that event and other devastating landslides in western North Carolina -- four people died in a slide on Peeks Creek in Macon County -- the General Assembly appropriated money to map landslide hazards in the western counties. The mapping of Watauga County was completed in 2008. Hardly anyone knows those maps exist, and even fewer prospective homeowners and home builders know how to access and read them before investing in a piece of property.

Watauga is responsible for some 2,257 documented landslides in the Department of Environmental Quality database, far outstripping our nearest competitor for number of earth movements, 919 in Polk County.

We watch the continuing development on steep slopes in Watauga and wait for the next hurricane to follow a period of drought, which is often the one-two punch that produces disaster.

 

Red dots represent the 5,237 recorded “landslide points” where these disasters have occurred since the early 1900s. (Source: DEQ)