Comments by Steven P. Rader | Eastern NC Now

The immediate cause of Yanukovych fleeing the country was that there was a vote scheduled in Parliament on his impeachment and removal from office the following day. Yanukovych knew he would lose it, and so rather than facing it like a man, he bailed out and fled to Russia. Impeachment proceedings are an integral part of democracy, not a "coup" or "revolution". He also probably knew that his hardball crackdown on the protesters would likely lead to his indictment. Most of Ukraine's gold reserves left the country about the same time Yanukovych did and haven't been seen since.

As to the violence, that was caused by Yanukovych setting his riot police to viciously attack the protesters. What Trudeau did to the truckers was child's play in comparison. Unlike the truckers, some of the protesters fought back hard, and although most casualties were among protesters, some were among the riot police as well. The worst part was the snipers Yanukovych placed on building who fired into the protesters. The snipers were thought to be from the Russian military but whether serving soldiers or retired is unknown.

Commented: Saturday, February 26th, 2022 @ 2:32 pm By: Steven P. Rader

I am appalled. Putin's side is posted on the BO, and like all propaganda it is total BS. "Armstrong Economics" seems to be Putin trolls.

What happened in 2014? A pro-Russian president of Ukraine conducted a rigged election (you know, sorta like 2020 in the US, but worse). The result was ultimately tossed out by Ukrainian courts (as US courts SHOULD have done in 2020) and his side lost the new election. The peaceful demonstrations against the pro-Russian president were dubbed the "Orange Revolution" and the violence the pro-Russian president used against them outdid what Trudeau did against the truckers. It included putting snipers on buildings and shooting people. Those were the corpses from that situation that were referred to. The pro-Russian defeated president ultimately fled to Russia.

Donetsk and Luhansk? Portions of those regions are run by a breakaway Russian puppet regimes manned by Russian mercenaries. and yes there has been fighting from time to time between them and government forces.

If these Russian trolls want to see one sided propaganda, they should watch those government-controlled Russian TV stations. After Russia's last aggression, when they captured the Ukrainian territory of Crimea and set up their puppet regimes in Donetsk and Luhansk, it was well justified to take their propaganda off the Ukrainian airwaves.

"Armstrong Economics" are clearly in Putin's pocket and they are spewing Putin propaganda..

Commented: Saturday, February 26th, 2022 @ 9:01 am By: Steven P. Rader

Recent bye-elections (special elections for vacant seats) for state parliamentary seats in the Australian state of New South Wales are a huge warning sign to the big parties, especially the coalition. There were four vacancies, 3 previously held by the Liberals and one by the National Party. The National Party retained its seat, but so far only one of the Liberals has. One former Liberal seat that had never been held by any other party in its history, was lost. In another which has been considered one of the safest seats in Australia where Liberals usually win by over 20 points has the Liberal candidate narrowly clinging to a slim lead over an Independent with votes still to be counted. This should be a wake up call to the big parties, especially Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Commented: Wednesday, February 16th, 2022 @ 1:46 pm By: Steven P. Rader

It looks like the pushback against Covid tyranny may well roil Australia's election this year. Both major political forces are tainted with heavy handed Covid restrictions, which may open the way for Australia's smaller parties, especially given the election procedures down under. Smaller parties have historically done reasonably well in Senate races but less so in House races.

Australians do not just vote for their first choice, but also second, third, fourth, etc. At each counting, the lowest candidate is eliminated and their votes reallocated by the next preference of each voter. Smaller parties make alliances to shift their votes to other small parties and their voters usually honor those. The first small party to really thrive under this procedure several decades ago was the now mostly defunct Democratic Labour Party, a conservative working class party.

The main political forces in Australia are the Labour Party on the left and the conservative coalition on the right consisting of the National Party that runs mostly in rural areas and the Liberal Party (they use "liberal" in the traditional sense of small government and lower taxes) which runs in other parts of the country. All three of these parties are heavily tainted with Covid tyranny, as is the main small party of the left, the Green Party.

Small parties have done best in senate races, where all senators from a state run together in a multi-seat race, as opposed to the single member constituencies in the House.

Currently, the two most viable small parties of the right are the anti-immigration One Nation Party, which won four Senate seats in the last election, and the social conservative Family First Party, which has been consistent over the long haul of winning one to two Senate seats every election. There are a number of other small conservative and libertarian parties which offer candidates.

Then there are the small parties organized around the personality of someone who has initially won office as an independent, all of whom are relatively conservative. One that showed the potential here was independent Senator Nick Xenophon of South Australia, who was originally elected on a platform of ending video gambling, but after accomplishing that changed his focus to fighting against wind and solar energy. With his new platform, Xenophon's newly formed party won four of South Australia's federal Senate seats. When Xenophon changed his focus from federal elections to state elections, however, his renamed South Australia - Best Party imploded, largely because they backed off of their signature issue of fighting wind and solar. There are now three incumbent independent House or Senate members who have personality based parties that run around the country. All of them are relatively conservative and could see a breakout this election.

The small parties include a number that are harder to categorize like the Motoring Enthusiasts Party, which won a senate seat a couple of elections back and the Sex Party that almost won a senate seat last election.

The major parties are seeing significant parts of their base discontented with the country's hard line in favor of Covid restrictions, and those voters could easily move to smaller parties. For example, the Labour Party has heavily depended on Labour unions for election support, but many rank and file union members are strongly opposed to the Covid restrictions. In one incident, when the union leadership backed a Labour-run state government's vaccine requirements, thousands of disgruntled union members stormed their own union headquarters, and after police prevented them from sacking it, the next day they blocked major roads to protest the police protecting the union bosses. It is hard to imagine these union workers being very enthused about voting Labour this time or listening to the union bosses about who to vote for. By the same token, many base voters of the coalition are unhappy with the heavy handed Covid measures of Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Given this pushback, it is likely that House as well as Senate seats will be in play with the smaller parties this election.

Commented: Monday, February 14th, 2022 @ 10:28 am By: Steven P. Rader

That McCrory letter also tries to position himself as a fighter against illegal immigration, but his record as governor shows exactly the opposite. One of McCrory's early acts as governor was to collude with AG Roy Cooper to circumvent state law and give NC drivers licenses to DACA illegal aliens. Pat McCrory is the big amigo of the illegals, just like his buddy Thom Tillis.

Commented: Friday, February 4th, 2022 @ 5:05 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The deputy leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Candice Bergen, has a masterful takedown in parliament of blackface Prime Minister in hiding Justin Trudeau on calling the Truckers for Freedom "racist". It can be warched here: www.thegatewaypundit.com

Commented: Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022 @ 10:28 am By: Steven P. Rader

Trudeau sounds a lot like former Romanian dictator Ceaceascu in fleeing his capital, but that did not work out so well for Ceuceascu.

Commented: Sunday, January 30th, 2022 @ 10:33 am By: Steven P. Rader

The new Rasmussen poll that just came out gives the GOP a 9 point lead on the generic ballot for Congress, a generic Republican versus a generic Democrat.
www.rasmussenreports.com

Commented: Tuesday, January 18th, 2022 @ 5:24 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The threat of gun control is a huge reason we need to keep local law enforcement in the hands of elected sheriffs, responsible to the voters, instead of appointed police chiefs. We saw that in Virginia, where numerous sheriffs went public with their vows not to enforce any gun control laws passed by the Democrat majority in Richmond, and some went farther vowing to make all local gun owners special deputies to get around state enforcement of any gun control laws. NO appointed police chiefs did that. That has also been the case around the country with elected sheriffs standing up for the 2nd Amendment, with at least one, in Missouri saying he would arrest federal officials if they tried to enforce any unconstitutional federal gun control laws.

The same is true with elected sheriffs around the country standing up for the Constitutional rights of citizens and refusing to enforce authoritarian Covid executive orders by power drunk governors. Many sheriffs here in eastern North Carolina stood up to Roy Cooper that way.

Elected sheriffs, responsible and responsive to voters, are a bulwark of our Constitutional liberties. When the elected county sheriffs stand tall for our liberties, the municipal police in their counties usually go along with them, but without the sheriffs standing up, the appointed municipal police chiefs tend to go along with big government.

If problems arise with a particular sheriff, the place to deal with that is at the ballot box in the next election.

Commented: Friday, January 7th, 2022 @ 9:40 am By: Steven P. Rader

This bill was a party line vote. Every Democrat voted to pander to Islam, while every Republican voted against it. Every Republican was on the floor and voting but three Democrats failed to show up.

Commented: Wednesday, December 29th, 2021 @ 1:02 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Ted Budd is the conservative choice in the primary. Look at endorsements. Budd is endorsed by President Trump. McCrory is endorsed by moderate liberal Senator Richard Burr, the only GOP US Senator ever censured by the NCGOP Central Committee and who has voted way too often to advance Biden's agenda. Walker is endorsed by Paul Ryan who was a major thorn in the side of conservatives. As to old saying goes, "birds of a feather flock togetner".

Commented: Saturday, December 25th, 2021 @ 10:12 am By: Steven P. Rader

This travesty defines "extremist activities" as "extremist activities", or in other words anything they want it to be. This means our military personnel will have no clear guidance as to what they can or cannot do. Since the "woke" far left is now in charge of our military and doing its best to destroy it, there is little doubt that activities to the right of center will be what they want to stomp out, but those of the left of center, even far left of center, will not be touched. This politization of our military has not happened before in our history and is a huge threat to our democracy. With the warped mentality of those in charge of our military, even supporting President Trump in 2024 will probably be labeled an "extremist activity".

Commented: Wednesday, December 22nd, 2021 @ 9:23 am By: Steven P. Rader

What the new Austrian chancellor does with the draconian vaccine policies of the resigned interim chancellor Shallenburg remain to be seen. For conservatives, what happened to Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is infuriating, as the left used the same bogus charges method used against Trump and Netanyahu but in a context they could force a handover to an interim chancellor until they could complete their "investigation" which they were dragging out. With Shallenburg damaging the Austrian Peoples Party with his Covid tyranny, Kurz decided to retire from politics at age 35 to get a permanent chancellor back in who could hopefully stop the bleeding. Kurz backed his Interior Minister who he had hand picked to run immigration issues, and who, like Kurz is a hard liner on immigration and also stands up for national sovereignty over EU overreach. The party has backed Kurz' choice and he has now been sworn in. It is uncertain how he will handle the mess Shallenburg has left him on the Covid policies.

Kurz was a real hero for conservatives. He took his traditional conservative Austrian Peoples Party the farther right it had ever been, taking hard lines on immigration and national sovereignty, and led them to victory with a significant gain in seats, becoming the world's youngest prime minister. He formed a coalition with the populist / nationalist right Freedom Party, and his first act as chancellor was to defiantly inform the EU that Austria would refuse to accept the quotas of illegal aliens that Merkel and her allies were then trying to force on all EU countries, killing Merkel's scheme. Unfortunately, the leader of his coalition partner, the Freedom Party was ensnared in a sting by a leftwing group which made the Freedom Party leader look corrupt. Kurz called a new election, and his Peoples Party made even further gains in seats. The Freedom Party was still miffed about Kurz calling a new election instead of just changing faces in the old coalition and so reforming the old coalition did not work. Kurz had to go with a new coalition with the Green Party, with the Green Party having to accept being in government for the first time as their only prize from the arrangement. The Greens, however, were given the Justice Ministry and when a frivolous complaint against Kurz came to them, they blew it out of all proportion as a lever to take Kurz down with.

From some sources close to Austrian politics, Kurz planned to prove the complaint false and return as Chancellor and wanted to go back to a coalition with the Freedom Party instead of the treacherous Greens. However, the Freedom Party was still miffed about the previous election and was cool toward that idea, and the Greens kept dragging out their "investigation". The final straw was the political blowback from Shallenburg's Covid policies which has done damage to the Peoples Party. Kurz used the birth of his first child as an opportunity to withdraw from politics, allowing the naming of a new chancellor who is a close ally who can hopefully straighten things out. They still need to find a way to replace the backstabbing Green Party with the Freedom Party, which is a much better ideological fit, and maybe with Kurz himself out of the picture that can be accomplished.

Commented: Monday, December 13th, 2021 @ 3:14 pm By: Steven P. Rader

I heard from a reliable source today, that there may be efforts afoot in Raleigh to strip counties of their ability to pass meaningful ordinances governing wind and solar operations. I am trying to run this down. If this happens it would be another sellout of NC citizens and our local officials to the wind and solar grifters. Hopefully, this will not happen.
UPDATE: The source sent me the bill number that raised his concern, and from the wording, I can see how it might raise a concern, but it does NOT do what he feared, and it is now ratified which means there cannot be any "committee substitute" dirty tricks with it.

Commented: Wednesday, December 1st, 2021 @ 3:46 pm By: Steven P. Rader

There is a resolution on the School Board agenda for tonight from Superintendent Cheeseman that seems to be a response to the concerns over CRT, but considering the source it remains to be seen if this will thoroughly cover the subject and be enforcible or just window dressing, a bandaid on a cancer. As far as I know, he has not communicated what his resolution contains except maybe to school board members. Someone whose career path lies in getting hired by bigger school districts is unlikely to want to do anything that might upset the public education establishment too much.

Commented: Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 @ 1:15 pm By: Steven P. Rader

That ABC News / Washington Post poll also shows a 23 point Republican lead in "battleground" states for Senate races.
redstate.com

Commented: Monday, November 15th, 2021 @ 7:15 am By: Steven P. Rader

One point that is important to this sandbagging of the GOP base is that several Solyndra Republicans, those who are go-fers to the solar grifters were heavily involved with that backroom stakeholders group, led by Rep. John Szoka (RINO-Cumberland). These Solyndra Republicans were the bridge between the special interests and the GOP leadership and are particular bad actors in this debacle.

Before blaming all committee members, one should look to see if they attended the committee meetings where the committee substitutes were adopted. Those records should exist. With many scheduling conflicts, it is common for some to not be in attendance. Unfortunately, records are rarely kept of who votes how in these committee meetings.

When the leadership moved these substitutes, they moved them fast and with the least notice possible. They suckered many who would not normally be expected to vote for such leftwing garbage. I talked to one usually solidly conservative Senator who was crowing about how they had stopped the solar / wind stuff that came over from the House. He apparently did not comprehend that the CO2 reduction mandate run through Cooper's appointees actually made it much worse. The fast track - 3 days from when the Senate committee adopted their last minute substitute to final passage - left no time for legislators to research what was going on or for constituents to let them know we did not want this Green New Deal garbage. That was all planned, to be sure.

House Speaker Tim Moore got temporary support from some conservatives by misrepresenting what the Senate would do with the bill and by promising to put conservative on the House - Senate conference committee. Since it appears that there was never any intent to ever appoint such a committee, and one was never appointed, this was another scam to temporarily get some key conservatives on board at least to get the bill over to the Senate where the worst of the dirty work was done.

The Freedom Caucus was indeed Missing in Action on this, the most left wing bill ever adopted by the NC General Assembly. Its chairman and his wife had bouts with Covid where both were hospitalized and both had complications, and were thus out of action during much of the key time period, and whatever mechanism the Freedom Caucus had for secondary leadership to take over apparently did not work out.

I wish I could see some way to undo this terrible legislation, but as long as Cooper is governor and we still have Solyndra Republicans in the legislature, I don't see a path to do so. Our state's electric consumers are just screwed and it was RINOs who did it to us.

Commented: Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 @ 9:28 pm By: Steven P. Rader