Comments for more radioactive imported shrimp found; Berger tried to shut down NC shrimpers | Eastern NC Now

There is some serious sleaze all over the place. Some folks have no tolerance for some of it but have a high tolerance for the other of it. As for me, sleaze is sleaze.

I'll not be sacrificing any of my local representatives for any of these high and mighty state reps.

Commented: Tuesday, December 30th, 2025 @ 9:11 am By: Van Zant

There is some serious sleaze among the RINOs in the General Assembly, mostly on the Senate side with Berger, but some on the House side, especially with a few committee chairmen like Dixon. Pay for Play is what led to Berger pushing Shrimpgate, which was totally corrupt and an outrage. Pay to Play is also what led Dixon to try to shut down NC's raw milk farmers. Total corruption. It is Tammany Hall on a state level. Republicans need to oust this vermin in our primaries.

These people, both the corrupt RINOs and the special interests, are smart enough to do their crooked business verbally, either face to face, or on the phone, where there will be no paper trail. FOIA does no good in tracking down verbal deals. They would probably have to plant bugs in Berger's office to get a handle on this sleaze, and that is not going to happen.

Commented: Monday, December 29th, 2025 @ 1:32 pm By: Rino Hunter

Appropriations Act provisions are frequent grist for attacks on legislators because most citizens don't know how that process works. This bill is the state budget, and you have to vote down the entire budget to take provisions out. That is why the Appropriations Committee puts in "special provisions" that they could never pass on their own merits, like that one Washingtonian referred to below.

(This is a response to Washingtonian's comment below and does not involve Shrimpgate, as the amendment to kill the shrimping industry was made to a bill that was under the normal legislative process, not part of an appropriations bill)

The Appropriation Committees in House and Senate meet in secret, and nobody outside of the top leadership knows what they are doing as they prepare the budget. Legislators with items they could never pass on their own merits try to get them added as "special provisions".

When the Appropriations bill is made public it is fast tracked to a vote. Legislative rules do not allow for amendments to it from the floor. It is an up or down vote. Occasionally, things are so egregious that enough people in either House or Senate just refuse to move the budget. That has happened this year with some of the stuff that Berger had his senate appropriations committee put in the appropriations bill in the Senate like tax increases and the House said no. The Freedom Caucus is a significant part of the House resistance this year to Berger's budget.

There are always some bad things in Appropriations bills. It is just the nature of the beast. The real question is whether they are the hill to die on, because if the appropriations bill is defeated, then all the things like pay raises for teachers and other state employees, and useful new programs go down the drain, too. Not all special provisions are bad, but because they are a way around the usual legislative process, they all too often are. The one you mention certainly is one of those bad special provisions. Every time a budget is voted on, every year, there will be bad things in it. The budget process does not allow them to be surgically removed, so to stop them, legislators have to bring down the entire budget.

Anybody familiar with the process, which most are not, know it is a really cheap shot to go after an opponent based on special provisions in the budget, because there are always bad ones. To stop these things, we would never have a budget.

The 2023 Appropriations Act also went through when a different House Speaker was in office, and he played hard ball much more than the present Speaker. To vote against the budget then, if successfully blocking it, would have likely meant all the local money for legislators who blocked it being taken out of the new budget.

Washingtonian must have had Armstrong share his opposition research. One wonders what other cheap shots might be in there.

Citizens should wish for changes in legislative rules to allow a mechanism to amend the budget on the floor, such as with a super majority vote or something to stop endless amendments, or to strictly limit special provisions in budgets. Unfortunately, legislative leaders, even the benign ones, have never been amenable to such changes and would fight tooth and nail against any proposal to do so. Again, it is just the nature of the beast.

Commented: Monday, December 29th, 2025 @ 11:17 am By: John Steed

ONe of my brothers is a retired marine biologist. He has had the opportunity to observe first hand how these shrimp "farms" overseas work during his travels around the world in that profession. As a result, he says he would not even think about eating imported shrimp.

What is really curious is that about the same time as the Shrimpgate bill was being put forward in the state Senate, there was a seafood importing company that mainly buys from Red China undergoing a big expansion in the Norfolk area. One wonders if that had any connection to Berger's bill. They would have been in the right place to serve coastal NC restaurants cut off from our own local shrimp.

Unfortunately, we now have "pay to play" operating heavily in our legislature, especially in the state Senate. The interface with the special interests is from the leadership, not individual members. They make the deals, get the money, and then tell other senators what to do, using their control of campaign money to enforce their edicts. That is how so much liberal legislation has been passing through a "Republican" legislature.

The situation is better in the House because the present Speaker is not so wound up in pay to play like the Senate leadership is, and because the House Freedom Caucus is there to fight this stuff if they don't. How Berger's jihad against the Freedom Caucus leadership in this primary plays out will have a lot to do with how much the House resists pay to play going forward. If Berger's move against House conservatives fails, it will do a lot to stiffen the spines of House members on standing up to Berger, but if Berger succeeds, it will lead to his getting his way in the House more often, as members will be afraid to stand up against him. What happens in six House primaries around the state will make a huge difference on what sort of legislation gets passed in the General Assembly, and I would add Berger's own senate primary will have a major impact, too.

Commented: Monday, December 29th, 2025 @ 8:50 am By: Steven P. Rader

I am going to be watching which special interest fills my mailbox with postcards for their candidate or against the other one through their PACs. That will tell who the special interest candidate is.

Commented: Saturday, December 27th, 2025 @ 9:23 pm By: Bubba

Amen Van Zant!
And I say that every elected person who habitually doesn't respond to our emails should be voted OUT, at next election!!
Maybe then, some of them will learn that "the little guys," who aren't part of a LOBBY still matter!!

Commented: Saturday, December 27th, 2025 @ 4:29 pm By: Washingtonian

The candidacy of Darren Armstrong represents Raleigh insiders trying to pick our legislators for us. Jimmy Dixon, working for Phil Berger, openly bragged about recruiting Armstrong, who had no previous political experience here. Candidates like that are easy for the insiders to control if they make it to Raleigh. Dixon, a liberal anti-gun RINO is not from Beaufort County but from Duplin County down near Fayetteville.

Dixon was a surrogate for Berger in interfering in other local legislative races, in both House and Senate. In the State Senate seat being vacated by Senator Bobby Hanig, who is running for Congress, local party leaders recruited conservative retired Superior Court Judge Jerry Tillet to run for the seat. Tillet is very savvy in politics, actually working in the State Senate before he was appointed a judge. The Berger clique decided they could not control Tillet, so they sent in Jimmy Dixon to find a primary opponent. Dixon recruited a big farmer with no political background or experience (easy to control) to primary Tillet. To rain on Dixon's parade, however, a small farmer who is in raw milk farming, saw red over a Dixon-backed candidate and jumped in, too. Dixon had tried in the last legislative session to put the raw milk farmers out of business, something Keith Kidwell and the Freedom Caucus had blocked.

We do not need RINO operatives of the Raleigh establishment interfering in our legislative races in the east.

Berger has said he will dump $4 million of special interest money into his sponsored challenges to six House Freedom Caucus leaders, and that does not include what he will spend against Tillet in our adjoining state senate district. Berger's consultants usual routine is to use various PACs they control, some of them calling themselves "conservative" (nothing connected to Berger is even slightly conservative) to bombard the district with attack mail pieces.

Berger's consultants have already spent $14 million in special interest money in his own district attacking his conservative primary challenger, Sheriff Sam Page with very nasty attack pieces. Despite that Page is still ahead of Berger in the polls by ten points.

Conservatives need to defeat the Berger RINO bullies at all levels in this election, starting with Berger himself.

Commented: Saturday, December 27th, 2025 @ 6:28 pm By: Rino Hunter

There is another hero to Shrimpgate who will be on our primary ballot in March, Bobby Hanig, who is running for Congress in the GOP primary. Senator Hanig was the first conservative to see what Berger was up to on putting the shrimpers out of business. He responded by alerting the fishing community that they were under attack and also alerted the House Freedom Caucus to be ready to join the battle in the state House. Hanig had been vice chairman of the House Freedom Caucus before moving up to the Senate. Hanig getting the opposition to this scheme warned, both among the commercial fishermen and among House conservatives, gave them the precious time to get organized and defeat it.

Bobby Hanig has been one of the handful of conservatives willing to stand up to RINO Berger in the Senate. Berger has tired to force Hanig to vote liberal a number of times, always without success. When Berger did a deal with the special interests on passing the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, Hanig was overtly threatened with severe repercussions if he refused to follow orders. Hanig's constituents opposed Obamacare Medicaid expansion and he had campaigned against it when he ran. He stuck to his guns and refused to knuckle under to Berger.

Bobby Hanig has the principle and the backbone that we need in Congress.

Commented: Saturday, December 27th, 2025 @ 12:03 pm By: Concerned Taxpayer

"Birds of a feather flock together" - Yes, we can see what is being talked about. We can also see another flock of birds that is not being talked about. That flock is systematically at odds with many of our local conservative officeholders. Are we to believe that one race should get all encompassing priority while sacrificing all other conservatives? That is insane. Why are many of us needlessly being put in this position?

Why is one conservative and his hateful flock actively at odds with all local conservatives? This makes no sense. Conservatives are being sold the notion that everyone should sacrifice themselves for this one office. Voters are being asked to abandon every conservative save one. That's madness. We are to self-sacrifice everything for this "deity." Why are we being told to do this?

Commented: Saturday, December 27th, 2025 @ 9:45 am By: Van Zant

Soooo, I was looking at a map of NC and saw the borders of Beaufort County marked. Next to it were the words: Beware, here be Monsters. I thought that must be why there is so much ugliness in govt around here. The hatefulness of the alias commenters I see at NOW is explained. Haters who are willing to lie,distort,spread gossip and use innuendo, and use perceived associations to smear a GOP candidate who dared to democratically challenge a lobby-serving Rep Kidwell. Kidwell who has soured against his own local voters to the point he thinks he doesnt need them, and thinks that he is elite enough to destroy local ppl who simple volunteered and won election to serve on our School Board. Its not exactly a high flying title, with perks, but Kidwell was willing to destroy Ms Stacey Davis. WHY???? How many other locals has he thought insignificant and thus ignored or harmed??
JUST SAY NO TO KIDWELL!

Commented: Friday, December 26th, 2025 @ 9:31 pm By: Befuddled

I don't co-operate with mafia tactics.

Commented: Friday, December 26th, 2025 @ 2:37 pm By: Van Zant

CV: I'm 100% with commercial fishermen. Still, there are things I do not understand.

Does a good voting record in Raleigh give someone license to do ANYTHING back home? The offender would do himself a political favor by concentrating on his job in Raleigh and ceasing his Beaufort County political machine activities. As long as he holds a knife to the throats of local conservatives, local conservatives have strong reasons not to support him. Why does he insist on doing it? Does he feel threatened? Is it a deep-seated hatred of native conservatives? You tell me. I'm not a psychiatrist.

Commented: Friday, December 26th, 2025 @ 1:52 pm By: Van Zant