Comments | Eastern NC Now

JS, I personally know LOCAL people who were burned by Kidwell, and for that reason alone, he needs to go! He claims he cant interfere in
local city action but then goes ahead and INTERFERS in city/county
action. I think he should be reported to the ethics committee in Raleigh.
Speaking of "machines," Kidwell is part of a machine as well, and some of his "machine" are petty little people, not part of the Legislature.

Commented: Friday, November 21st, 2025 @ 9:37 am By: Befuddled

Van Zant,
I heard that Kidwell was being primaried by someone from Hyde County. Do you know anything about that? I dont care who it is, I'm voting for he/her. I'll even send money!

Commented: Thursday, November 20th, 2025 @ 11:12 pm By: Befuddled

Steven, thank you for what you are doing on the school board. I suspect it is a battle since so many on the board are controlled/owned by Cheeseman.
"Students need to be taught how to think, not what to think." Amen to that. Many adults also need to relearn how to think for themselves instead of being told what to think.

Commented: Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 @ 4:45 pm By: Countrygirl1411

Every City Council member that goes to the City Manager & perhaps THE STAFF, to ask that they explain "issues" to the councilman, has voluntarily turned themselves into a walking, talking puppet for the City Manager.

Here's an idea, if you have an issue with the DOT, write your own email to that Dept and ask for explanations. Get a direct reply from the DOT that is not manipulated or tarnished by THE STAFF.

Be your own person, not a lazy clueless yes man.
You know...sometimes people in high levels of govt LIE.

Commented: Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 @ 3:16 pm By: Befuddled

How evil Phil Berger is can be shown by what he did to Beaufort County to pass his Green New Deal (HB951). The Green New Deal was opposite the NC Republican platform on energy but it was the top legislative goal at the time of liberal Democrat Governor Roy Cooper, and Berger was the key figure in passing it. The NC Green New Deal will jack up power bills for us all. No Beaufort County conservative should EVER consider voting for anyone connected to ultra-RINO Phil Berger.

The first thing Berger had to do to grease the skids for his Green New Deal was to get rid of its most vocal opponent in the Senate. That was Senator Bill Cook (R-Beaufort), a former utility executive who thoroughly understood all the downsides of "green energy". Berger accomplished that by gerrymandering Cook out of his senate seat. At his direction, Beaufort County was placed in a heavily Democrat and majority black state senate district that Cook or any Republican could not have won, forcing Cook to retire, getting him out of the way for Berger to ram through the Green New Deal.

Berger did not just screw over Cook in that gerrymander. He screwed over all Beaufort County Republicans by putting us in a senate district where we had no meaningful representation. Worst of all, he did it to do a favor for a Democrat governor and a leftwing monopoly special interest that simultaneously screwed consumers.

Berger had a bill from the House (HB951) rewritten at the last minute by a Senate Committee to track the European Union's "Green Deal" but with even more radical provisions. That bill was then slammed onto the Senate floor for a vote with no chance for consumers to organize against it. It was extreme power politics at its worst and showed a total distain for NC citizens.

Commented: Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 @ 11:49 am By: Concerned Taxpayer

Countrygirl, there are many parents who feel the way you do about indoctrination in our schools. Here in North Carolina, a poll by the Locke Foundation found that 71% of NC parents are concerned about political indoctrination in the public schools. A poll taken by the respected French polling firm IPSOS in 30 countries on all five continents on parents concerns about the education system found that the United States was the only country among those 30 where the top education concern of parents was political and ideological bias in the classroom.

In the Beaufort County schools, we have a new science curriculum that will be coming up soon. One extremely high profile issue that is under debate in both science and in government / politics is whether and to what extent CO2 may cause global warming / climate change. As a school board member, I am already speaking out that we need a curriculum that fairly and objectively covers all sides of this issue. Students need to be taught how to think, not what to think.

Commented: Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 @ 9:07 am By: Steven P. Rader

Phil Berger is the worst of the worst among RINOs in NC, little more than a shill for the special interests and the Democrats. Berger was the main driver in passing Roy Cooper's top agenda items through our "Republican" legislature. Real Republicans don't need ANYTHING or anybody that Phil Berger is selling. Jimmy Dixon is just Berger's pathetic little flunky in the NC House and a sworn enemy of gun rights.

Commented: Wednesday, November 19th, 2025 @ 8:01 am By: Rino Hunter

In recent years the local Republican Party has lost a lot of good people for good reason. They have been treated (like c#@!) very disrespectfully. Unfortunately, there seems to be no willingness by many to bind those wounds and attempt to form a coherent mission outside of attacking conservatives. Let's see if I've got the gist of this stuff lately. Recent party rules violations by the Beaufort County Republican Party Chairman follow:
1. Calling for the resignation of a Republican elected official claiming she (the Chairperson) is the local GOP. There was no involvement of the Beaufort County Republican Party Executive Committee. That committee has the power to do what she did with the press, not her alone.
2. Publicly endorsing municipal candidates in non-partisan elections using the authority of the Republican Party with no input from the Republican Party Executive Committee. She does not have the absolute power of the Executive Committee.
3. Spending money on ads and materials without authorization from the Executive Committee. (The Treasurer is on shaky ground here too.)
4. Using media to attack private citizens - Not clear about the source of this funding.
Additional ethical issues:
1. Failing to call for executive committee meetings for several months in order to avoid any consequences for her actions. (The actual committee should call for a meeting to address this. They need to take some responsibility too.)
2. When finally calling for a meeting, attaching it to a Christmas Party event. Is this really going to be a meeting?
3. Changing the date of the meeting again in order to cause conflicts with the schedules of conservative members of the Executive Committee with the dual purpose of keeping them out and also encumbering them with an unexcused absence that will hopefully get them off the Executive Committee altogether.

This is a lot of mischief, but I wouldn't be surprised if I still missed something.

The Republican Executive Committee needs to call its own meeting and bring charges against their rogue chairperson. She is acting independently of the committee as a whole. She is unilaterally attacking individual Republicans, collective Republicans, and some citizens in general. Her war against conservative Republicans and others is well out of control, and she is speaking and acting with illegitimate powers of the entire committee. She should be removed. At the very least, she should be severely reprimanded and given a very, very short leash from here on out. Anything short of these measures will ensure that the Republican Party in Beaufort County is a catastrophic failure with no credibility left at all. What we have here is not leadership. It is sabotage. I don't know whether to recommend what's left of the people of good will to abandon this sinking ship or to urge the good people that have already left to come back and try to save it.

Commented: Tuesday, November 18th, 2025 @ 10:09 pm By: Van Zant

I saw some footage of anti-ICE protests and there were Mexican flags all through the crowd. If these interlopers want to be in Mexico, lets send them ALL back there.

Commented: Tuesday, November 18th, 2025 @ 12:58 pm By: Rino Hunter

If I was a party to the other side of this argument, and had just read this well written article, word for word within every very well constructed and informative sentence, I would be considering a similarly well crafted retort either in comment or posted article.

Everyone gets space here on Eastern NC Now. Conditions: Just write as best you can to lend spirit to the debate; no foul language, and speak only your well considered truth.

Sign-up; login; write your truth, and I will approve as per expressed conditions.

Commented: Monday, November 17th, 2025 @ 7:18 pm By: Stan Deatherage

CV: Think about it. The School Board is doing what the County Commission will not do. The power balance on the Commission needs to change.

Commented: Monday, November 17th, 2025 @ 11:44 am By: Van Zant