more radioactive imported shrimp found; Berger tried to shut down NC shrimpers

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more radioactive imported shrimp found; Berger tried to shut down NC shrimpers

Published: Wednesday, December 24th, 2025 @ 10:50 am
By: John Steed ( More Entries )

For the second time in recent months, imported shrimp have been recalled as being potentially radioactive. Like the last time, they were imported from Indonesia. A total of 80,000 bags of shrimp sent to the US market are involved.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15410625/radioactive-shrimp-indonesia-recalled.html

This comes after conservatives barely saved North Carolina's own shrimping industry from closure at the hands of corrupt legislators led by RINO Senate boss Phil Berger. At the behest of deep pocketed radical environmentalist groups, Berger this year rammed a last minute amendment through the state Senate that would have put our own shrimping industry here in North Carolina out of business.

Fortunately, conservative State Senator Bobby Hanig (now a Congressional candidate) took up the cry, alerting the NC fishing industry of Berger's move to kill their industry and seeking allies in the House to stop it. The House Freedom Caucus, led by its chairman Keith Kidwell, organized to block Berger's move in the House, which they were succesfully in doing.

Thanks to conservative legislators like Hanig and Kidwell, North Carolinians can still buy fresh, safe, local shrimp and not be confined to questionable imported shrimp like the radioactive shrimp from Indonesia.

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Van Zant said:

( December 30th, 2025 @ 9:11 am )

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.

Steven P. Rader said:

( December 29th, 2025 @ 5:33 pm )

I want to commend our own State Senator Bob Brinson who represents Beaufort County as one of the only three senate Republicans who stood alongside Senator Bobby Hanig to oppose the Shrimpgate bill. No Democrats did at all. The others were staunch conservative Senator Norm Sanderson of Pamlico County and Senator Michael Lazzara of Onslow County. I thank them for their courage in standing up to the "leadership" on this awful bill.

Rino Hunter said:

( December 29th, 2025 @ 1:32 pm )

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.

Bubba said:

( December 29th, 2025 @ 12:21 pm )

The NC Press Association? That is the stinking MSM. Who cares what they whine about? They slant and distort the news anyway.

John Steed said:

( December 29th, 2025 @ 11:17 am )

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.

Washingtonian said:

( December 29th, 2025 @ 10:10 am )

By voting Yea, Rep. Kidwell SUPPORTED:
• The 2023 Appropriations Act (HB 259)
• The embedded provision (Section 27.9) exempts legislators from the NC Public Records Act
• It allows legislators to decide what is or isn’t a public record
• The ability to destroy records they choose not to classify as public

This change is huge because:
• It eliminates the public’s ability to monitor NCGA decision‑making
• It weakens investigative journalism
• It creates a 1‑way transparency imbalance
• It allows lawmakers to hide communications w lobbyists, donors,& contractors
• It undermines the principle of open govt
The NC Press Assoc, called it a “significant threat” to transparency.
• Gives legislators sole discretion to decide what is or isn’t a public record.
• Allows them to destroy records w/out oversight
• Removes any obligation to respond to public‑records requests
It is a “major expansion” of legislator power paired with a “cutoff” of public access.
RETIRE THE OLD Govt,to bring in the NEW!

Steven P. Rader said:

( December 29th, 2025 @ 8:50 am )

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.

Conservative Voter said:

( December 28th, 2025 @ 8:19 am )

There seems to be a real difference between those who look at this race based on a personality beef with Kidwell on one hand, and those who view it based on conservative policy and principle on the other. Those whose viewpoint is based on personality are willing to throw the most conservative member of the NC House under the bus and support someone recruited by the worst RINOs in Raleigh who have been at the forefront of selling out North Carolina to the liberal special interests.

At the end of the day, it is policy that matters, not pesonality BS.

I do disagree with Kidwell on the Stacey Davis thing. He failed to recognize the political hitjob on her by Cheeseman, but my focus is on what is best for conservative policy in the General Assembly. Letting Berger take out Freedom Caucus leaders is going to mean we are not going to be able to stop things like Shrimpgate and Berger's crooked special interest casino bill, or his tax increase budget.

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