Comments by John Steed | Eastern NC Now

Washingtonian's "hope and change" pitch for Armstrong tries to present him as "new" to politics, but Armstrong is NOT. Not too long ago, Armstrong was a registered Democrat in Hyde County, and he did engage in politics there, DEMOCERAT politics. Armstrong was a Marc Basnight Democrat, and wrote big 4 figure checks to Basnight.

It tells you a lot about Armstrong's political ideology that he has never given a nickel to a Republican legislator or legislative candidate but he had no problem writing a big check to Marc Bashight, a notorious liberal power bully. Armstrong may be new to Republican politics but he is not new to politics generally. He is a warmed over Basnight Democrat trying to reinvent himself as a Republican.

No wonder Armstrong does not want to talk about issues. No wonder Washingtonian cannot identify one single issue on which she can try to claim Armstrong has a better, more conservative position than Kidwell.

We have too many useful idiots for the left and the RINOs who ignore real issues and vote on silly personality matters instead.

WE have a conservative Republican with a proven and very solid conservative voting record representing us in Raleigh. Why in the world would we want to replace him with a warmed over Bashight Democrat who was recruited by the RINOs? Serious voters vote on policy and issues, not get their panties in a twist over personalities.

Commented: Monday, January 19th, 2026 @ 7:38 am By: John Steed

WE get it, JV. You vote on personality, not issues. Could you name one actual ISSUE where you think Armstrong'a position is better than Kidwell's???? One actual ISSUE???? Not personality, ISSUE.

You sound like those who refused to vote for Trump due to his personality, even though they agreed with him on the issues. People thinking that way gave us Biden. Were you one of them?

Commented: Saturday, January 17th, 2026 @ 5:42 pm By: John Steed

What is going on in Raleigh with the RINOs is not Kabuki theatrics. The corruption of the RINO leadership, especially in the state senate, is quite real, and it impacts real people. Phil Berger's corrupt deal with the CCA to shut down our shrimpers in return for some campaign cash, known as Shrimpgate, is a good example, as is Jimmy Dixon's attempt to put the raw milk independent dairies out of business for payola from a special interest, both this past year, were very real. Kidwell and the House Freedom Caucus played the key role in stopping both of those travesties. So is Berger's NC Green New Deal that is already raising our electric rates and his Obamacare Medicaid expansion that is raising health costs for everyone else. Unfortunately the Freedom Caucus was not able to marshall enough votes on those. The thin red line that sometimes is able to stop this corrupt nonsense is the House Freedom Caucus, and that is why the special interest boys are trying to take them out. How much of this Dixon explained to Armstrong when he came down here to recruit him is questionable as all they really needed was a warm body.

Would Kidwell have been a lot smarter not to get involved so much in the workings of the local party? Definitely. But for people outside the bubble of the party organization, what happens in the legislature has a whole lot more impact on their lives than what happens within the local party organization.

One could say, well if Kidwell goes, then Freedom Caucus vice chairman Rep. Ben Moss, could just carry on. The fact is that the same RINO cabal that is after Kidwell is after Moss, too, as well as four other leaders of the Freedom Caucus. They want to put the Freedom Caucus out of business so that no effective group will be there to stop the leadership's corruption. Darren Armstrong is just a convenient placeholder in that process.

Commented: Sunday, January 11th, 2026 @ 1:23 pm By: John Steed

AO - The NC state legislature is not a place one finds "career politicians" because it does not pay enough, unless they are in leadership, to live off of. It is a part time position, and not terribly well paid for that.

In public office, we need people who represent principles, and previous political experience gives voters the information on where they really stand on issues, not what they say because they think it will get them elected. Asking voters to elect someone who has no prior record for them to look at is asking voters to buy a pig in a poke. The previous experience may not necessarily be in elected office. They may have served in their respective political party or a policy-driven organization like a taxpayers movement. The TEA Party is an example. It may have been in some appointed capacity.

Stan is right about the guidance thing. A new politician recruited by a person or group will usually turn heavily to that person or group for advice, especially if they are a member of the same public body. There is an old political saying that "ya dance with who brung ya." In this case, it was a liberal anti-gun RINO, Jimmy Dixon who brought Armstrong into this race and that is more than enough for concern. Even worse, he did that recruiting on behalf of Phil Berger. Inexperienced elected officials are, all too often, easily led by more powerful politicians.

The word in Raleigh was that Berger's PACs were going to spend $4 million to try to defeat the 6 conservative leaders of the House Freedom Caucus, including Kidwell. So far I have seen no sign yet of that money but it is still early. However, the word is also out that after spending $14 million of that special interest money in his own district before filing even started to trash his primary opponent, Berger may be running short of money. That may cut what he has available to attack House conservatives like Kidwell. Berger's PACs tend to operate primarily by mass mailings of postcards.

Commented: Thursday, January 8th, 2026 @ 2:07 pm By: John Steed

Armstrong "doesn't know Berger"??? While he may have plausible deniability on that, it is only because Berger went through liberal House RINO Jimmy Dixon to do most of his House recruiting, as well as at least one Senate recruitment. Dixon has openly boasted of identifying Armstrong as a potential candidate and talking him into running. Armstrong cannot deny knowing Dixon because Dixon was present at his fundraiser, along with uber-RINOs Frankie Waters and Steve Troxler. That threesome, Dixon, Waters, and Troxler were his guests of honor. When conservative Republican US Senator Lauch Faircloth, whose background was in farming, ran for reelection to the senate, liberal Troxler was chairman of Farmers for John Edwards, supporting the ultra-liberal slick Raleigh lawyer against Faircloth. Since he supported liberal John Edwards against an incumbent conservative, I guess it is no surprise that Troxler is supporting Armstrong against one of the top conservative incumbents in the NC House.

Armstrong "a Republican"???? I guess technically so in the same sense that Frankie Waters was "a Republican" when he ran for commissioner. Prior to that they were longtime Democrats. Armstrong was a Democrat while he lived in Hyde County, and a major contributor to Democrat kingpin Marc Basnight. So a Marc Basnight Democrat is now trying to reinvent himself as a "Republican"? Shades of Frankie Waters. We have seen that movie before and we know how it ends. The "values he grew up in" were Democrat values. Is that what he wants to preserve?

"Protecting individual freedoms"???? Two of his special guests at his fundraiser have a history of opposing gun rights, Steve Troxler and Jimmy Dixon. Dixon was the leftwing scoundrel who killed the Constitutional Carry gun rights bill in the present legislative session.

They say "birds of a feather flock together" and when Armstrong chooses Frankie Waters, Jimmy Dixon, and Steve Troxler as part of his flock, it speaks volumes.

Commented: Wednesday, January 7th, 2026 @ 7:31 am By: John Steed

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

Tyre made his motion to the OLD council, which should NOT have had ANY jurisdiction over the agenda of the NEW council. Any objection he had should have been addressed to the new council. That power play stunk. And Tyre himself is a total phony, not really a resident of Washington.

The losers have been trying to stymie the winners of the last election, and this is just their latest ploy. They have slow walked the city audit documents (what are they hiding????) and left the city with no functioning city manager. There are a lot of highly questionable things that need to be looked into, and this bunch is trying to gum up the works to keep those things from being looked into as long as they can.

Commented: Thursday, December 18th, 2025 @ 12:39 pm By: John Steed

JV, I missed that WDN article, too, but the Sadler machine still seems to be engaged in power plays. There is a real bad small coming out of city hall from what they machine did to our city. I suspect Kidwell is watching the downfall of the machine with glee as he had to slap down the former city manager a time or two on misapplying state grant money. Of course, it was not as easy to deal eith their misapplication of city taxpayer money.

Commented: Monday, December 15th, 2025 @ 1:48 pm By: John Steed

Trump Derangement Syndrome is strong with this one. or is this another loony left attempt at humor, like the Babylon Bee? The economy barely survived the socialist policies of the Biden regime, and Trump is just now getting the ship righted. The runaway debt of the Democrats still plagues our economy as well as their idiotic climate crusade that has driven up our electric rates and other energy prices. Driving up energy prices, as the Democrat climate obsession does, drives up the cost of everything.

The Democrats silly shutdown to demand trillions more in spending tells us where they stand. They want to continue to wreck our economy. We need to send all the Democrats we can packing next year.

Commented: Saturday, November 29th, 2025 @ 3:49 pm By: John Steed

What we want out of the legislature is conservative policy. We get that by electing people who vote conservative principles in Raleigh. We DON'T get it by electing the placeman of the biggest establishment liberal RINO goober in Raleigh, Phil Berger and his anti-gun sidekick Jimmy Dixon. Policy matters a whole lot more than someone's hurt feelings over something.

Commented: Wednesday, November 26th, 2025 @ 7:30 pm By: John Steed

IF someone is in state government, like a state legislator, the place they are going to have the most impact is at the state level, not at the local level. Performance there is what matters most. Looking at what happens within the GOP locally matters to a point, but it is tunnel vision when considering the overall impact on the conservative cause.

Similarly, when I look at a county commission or school board race, what those candidates think and do on state matters are not a huge concern, because the main place they have real impact is locally. If someone is a solid conservative on the county commission or school board, I could easily overlook something like their working for an establishment dud like Whatley or Murphy. For them it is what they do locally that matters most.

Commented: Wednesday, November 26th, 2025 @ 4:33 pm By: John Steed

Reading the comment from Michelle Woodhouse, former Republican 11th Congressional District (mountain area) Republican Party chairman on how Michael Whatley bungled the position Trump appointed him to as hurricane relief czar for western NC after Hurricane Helene makes me concerned about whether Whatley is electable in November. The comment is posted below the following Daily Haymaker article: dailyhaymaker.com

To win statewide, we have to get a good showing in those western areas devastated by Helene. Those voters came out for us in 2024. Will they in 2026 with Whatley at the head of the ticket? That is a real question after he has been MIA on the Hurricane Helene relief he was supposed to head.

Don Brown is our best chance to win against Cooper.

Commented: Tuesday, October 28th, 2025 @ 1:48 pm By: John Steed

When I think of politicians like Sadler and his city council court jesters, the term "robber baron" comes to mind, rather than "king".

Commented: Monday, October 20th, 2025 @ 2:02 pm By: John Steed

Beginning in Obama's second term, USAID became little more than a slush fund for the far left, financing radical activities both domestically and abroad. Genuine foreign aid was largely abandoned. It is a good thing that President Trump has neutered that renegade agency, and that a Supreme Court ruling last week upheld his doing so.

Commented: Monday, September 29th, 2025 @ 1:08 pm By: John Steed

Jasmine Crockett is a real piece of work. Here is Governor Abbott fact checking some of her misstatements: dailycaller.com

Commented: Monday, August 11th, 2025 @ 2:06 pm By: John Steed

We need one good strong candidate to take on Tillis in the primary, and Lara Trump would fit that bill. Whoever runs, we need them to get out from soon. Tillis needs to go. I understand Lara and her husband own a house here. She needs to move her registration soon. Lara Trump would be great. ANYBODY BUT TILLIS.

Commented: Friday, May 9th, 2025 @ 10:55 am By: John Steed

So you want government to force companies to hire criminals, Bolshevik Bob? What, are you pushing for totalitarian of the year?

Commented: Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024 @ 2:14 pm By: John Steed