Comments by Steven P. Rader | Eastern NC Now

Election interference by entities that should stay out of campaigns is something I have seen way too much of. My seven years as Republican district chairman of the old 21-county First Congressional District were at a time when the GOP was first getting real legs in eastern NC, and that resulted too often in election interference. When that happened, as district chairman I went to the mat with the strongest pushback possible. While election interference for a time largely stopped, we have been seeing it at the national level recently.

A school district and its superintendant are among those who should stay out of political campaigns, and when they take sides, that is a case of election interference.

The political sign where a mountain has been made out of a mole hill, was not well designed. It is clear that whoever put it together had considerable skill as a graphic artist but no knowledge of political signage. It was cluttered with things like the star and BCS logo that interfered with the main things a candidate needs to get across on a political sign. Political signs are meant to get attension from people driving by, where they only get a quick glance at a sign. A passing motorist is extremely unlikely to even take in the tiny BCS logo, much less comprehend its meaning.

The timing of the complaint is very telling as to its nature as election interference. The sign had been out for weeks, but the complaint was not registered until crunch time in the campaign, when candidate time was at a premium and taking yard signs out of play would be particularly damaging. The timeing alone makes this reek of election interference.

Then there is the manner in which this was handled, which was completely aimed at a political candidate. If those driving this train really cared about "protecting" a logo, wouldn't they have taken legal steps to do so, such as moving forward to actually register it as a trademark? The fact that they did not speaks volumes on their real motives. The goal seems to be cranking down on a political candidate, not taking steps to legally register this "trademark".

The third thing to look at is the nature of their beef. The claim that this logo is a "trademark" is on very shaky ground. No one has ever even tried to follow the staturoy process to register it. The claim of being a "common law trademark" is in a grey area. It might stand up and it might not. That is not something one goes on the warpath over unless they are playing politics.

Looking at all aspects of this dispute, it clearly appears based in election interference by a person or group that has no business engaging in politics. While the presence of a tiny representation of this logo on a campaign sign has no impact either way on an election, there seem to be those who think that complaining about it might.

Commented: Friday, October 11th, 2024 @ 11:31 am By: Steven P. Rader

If America needs more immigrants, we should take them from the waiting lists of those who apply legally and are turned down because there are not enough slots for them, not from those who arrogantly thumb their noses at our immigration laws and sneak across the border. Legal immigrants are vetted where we know they are not criminals and do have skills that will benefit our economy. We also know from extensive medical tests that they are not disease-ridden. Those that Biden and Harris are letting in include criminals, potential terrorists, and carriers of disease. Many will subsist on public handouts. Legal immigrants are not even eligible for public handouts for five years after arrival and they have to have a citizen provide an affidavit of support agreeing to support them if they cannot do so themselves.

An example of those who want to come legally but when they cannot, they do not slip in illegally is a former employee of mine when I ran an office in Europe. He was our full time accountant, with a college degree, and excellent spoken and written English. His wife was in law school, also with excellent English language skills. Applying legally to immigrate resulting in his being told that there were not enough slots so competition for those that existed was very fierce. At their suggestion, he tried the visa lottery for two years, hoping he would be drawn for one of the slots availible that way, but was not. Finally, he applied to immigrate to Canada, and they took a look at his accounting skills, which were needed in their economy and quickly accepted him provided he pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), the medical exam, and other background checks. He passed those easily and took an accounting job on Prince Edward Island, Canada. He is now a Canadian citizen working for an oil company in Alberta.

We miss out on the quality immigrants when we make it almost impossible for them to immigrate legally, but then look the other way for whatever turns up unvetted at the border.

Commented: Friday, October 4th, 2024 @ 1:54 pm By: Steven P. Rader

One caution in using this sample ballot is that you can only vote for one county commission candidate. If you vote for more than one, your ballot will not be counted for that race. This is a result of the lousy "limited voting" system imposed on our county by the Democrats. It stinks but we still have to follow it if we want our votes to count. So for county commission, you have to choose your top candidate and vote only for him.

Commented: Thursday, October 3rd, 2024 @ 8:22 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The "Indivisible" organization is a real lightning rod in Pennsylvania politics right now. They push the "defund the police" and "end cash bail" movements and have endorsed the Democrat US Senate candidate. This has caused a major pushback from law enforcement organizations which are now falling all over themselves to endorse the Republican senate candidate, saying the Democrat is supported by a "soft on crime" organization.

I had heard of this local radical "Indivisible" group here in Washington a few years ago but had no idea they were still active. From that facebook account it certainly appears that they are.

Commented: Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024 @ 9:34 am By: Steven P. Rader

According to a student at the Early College High School that I talked to most of the students there cannot even sign their names with cursive. They print their names in block letters. This is the top academic group in the county and it is sad that this life skill has not been taught better in our education system.

I also talked to a school board candidate who taught her own children cursive writing at home because they were not getting it in Beaufort County Schools, and actually had a teacher get upset at her for doing so.

Personally, I think there are clearly teachers in our school system who do teach it, but also some that don't or just gloss over it. We need central direction to see that state law is complied with and that all students are fluent in reading and writing in cursive.

Commented: Friday, September 27th, 2024 @ 3:25 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The biggest hate-fest I have ever seen was this year's Democrat National Convention. Instead of talking about their own policy proposals, they prefered to launch hate diatribes against Republicans. Bob seems to see things through the prism of leftist ideology and its absurd quirks.

My choice in this year's primary for governor, who I voted for and oontributed to was State Treasurer DAle Folwell, who has stood firm on a wide spectrum of issues for conservative principles. Mark Robinson was a disappointment as Lieutenant Governor due to his constant crawfishing and refusing to take stands on issues of concern to conservatives including the Green New Deal (HB951), the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, gun rights in the Constitutional Carry bill, and Berger's casino fantasy. I wanted a candidate I could depend on in dealing with major issues, and that was Folwell, not Robinson. However, when compared against ultra-liberal Josh Stein, then Robinson, in spite of his deficiencies, is the better choice. Somebody who is wishy-washy on policy is a better choice than a hard core lefty like Stein.

For elected officials, I always put records ahead of rhetoric, and that is where Robinson did not pass muster in this year's GOP primary, but where he is nonetheless the better choice against far lefty Stein.

Commented: Tuesday, September 24th, 2024 @ 5:00 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Bob seems to think all minorities should stay on the Democrat plantation, but the polls show an increasing number of them are wising up and moving to the GOP. Comparing the Trump economy and inflation with the Biden-Harris economy and inflation should be enough to get any thinking person off of the Democrat plantation.

Commented: Tuesday, September 24th, 2024 @ 10:08 am By: Steven P. Rader

fake asylum claims are what most of the illegal aliens use as an excuse to get over the border, but if we strictly followed the treaties on asylum and refugees, they could all be rejected. The treaties do not obligate a country to allow in someone seeking asylum who is already in a safe country. Mexico and Canada are deemed safe countries, so we could just say NO to anyone trying to enter from there based on asylum claims. This is what Hungary does routinely to turn them away. We could and should do the same.

Commented: Saturday, September 21st, 2024 @ 11:14 am By: Steven P. Rader

Old school journalism, where its practitioners followed any story no matter who it helped or hurt, told both sides, and were fair and objective, is dying, and is effectively dead as a dodo in the alphabet networks, wire services and major newspapers. It has been replaced by what those who now pose as journalists call "advocacy journalism" where it is all about taking a side and promoting that side. A more accurate term for "advocacy journalism" is "propagnda". That is why the presideintial "news" coverage of ABC News was 100% positive on Kamala Harris and 93% negative on Donald Trump. They were clear partisans and should never have been allowed to control a presidential debate.

Commented: Wednesday, September 18th, 2024 @ 12:59 pm By: Steven P. Rader

"Fact check" is the Orwellian Newspeak of the extreme left for what we would call "spin".

Commented: Saturday, September 14th, 2024 @ 5:36 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The current presidential debate model in the US is badly brodken. RNC started on the path to fix it, but the current RNC leadership dropped the ball. What we ought to do is go back to the gold standard of American political debates, the Lincoln - Douglas debates, where each candidate provided half the questions, not a sketchy media moderator. They also had no moderator at all, but maybe it would be wise to modify that to at least have a timekeeper to cut microphones on and off. Biased moderators have had way too much control of our presidential debates for years.

Commented: Wednesday, September 11th, 2024 @ 12:03 pm By: Steven P. Rader

We seem to be lucky that we haven't gotten any here, but Springfield, Ohio got 20,000 Haitians and they now make up 25% of the population of that city. Listen to the video of that city council meeting in Springfield, which has gone viral. Who knows where they will send them in the future? Everybody is at risk, and also of crime gangs.

Commented: Monday, September 9th, 2024 @ 7:47 pm By: Steven P. Rader

No, Bob, I am conservative on handling mental health issues, and in doing so with proper due process to protect the rights of the mentally ill. All you seem to care about is taking peoples gund. Committing a mentally ill person puts them in a position to receive treatment, and after a proper court hearing with due process, establish limitations on the mentally ill person to protect himself and the public if he is not institutionalized.

A mentally ill person or a terrorist can kill as many people by driving a car into a crowd as they can with a gun, and the body count in the recent mass knifing by an illegal alien in Germany equaled that of the Georgia school shooting. You have a bad case of tunnel vision, based on your hatred of guns, to think that guns are the only means for mentally ill people or terrorists to commit mayhem.

Commented: Sunday, September 8th, 2024 @ 8:49 am By: Steven P. Rader

What is funny is the tantrum being pitched by national Chancellor Schultz of the Social Democrats, whose own party and their national allies got creamed in these elections, demanding that the AfD not be allowed into either state government. Kowtowing to similar demands by Macron in France has just split France's traditional conservative Les Republicains in two, and the CDU faces a similar risk.

The math in Thuringia almost requires including the AfD, which won 32 or the 45 seats needed for a majority. They could get a solid majority either as a right of center coalition with the CDU's 23 seats or a right / left populist coalition with the BSW's 15 seats.

Building a coalition led by the CDU is not mathematically possible without including the Left Party, which in Thuringia is the old East German Communist Party. If they rebuke the populist right to go with the barely reformed ex-communists, it is unlikely that CDU voters in Thuringia or elsewhere in Germany would stand for it. Such a coalition would also not be mathematically possible without having both the Left Party and the BSW both in it, and there is lots of bad blood betwwen those two parties.

Saxony also has challenging math. To get a 61 seat majority, the most logical is combining the CDU's 41 seats and the AfD's 40 seats. That is the only two party coalition that is even possible and for either to build a multi-party coalition would require a lot of strange bedfellows.

Commented: Wednesday, September 4th, 2024 @ 9:11 pm By: Steven P. Rader

I don't see how anyone with any sanity can remain in today's loony left Un-Democratic Party.

Commented: Saturday, August 31st, 2024 @ 11:35 am By: Steven P. Rader

Will, what you linked to was the second draft by conservative school board members, not the final Cheeseman draft. The final Cheeseman draft took OUT those things you mentioned.

Commented: Wednesday, August 28th, 2024 @ 8:05 am By: Steven P. Rader

Bath parent, there is an important issue being addressed all over the country that has nothing to do with any personalities in Beaufort County, either Richardson or Cheeseman, and that is whether public schools will have a woke curriculum or a more traditional curriculum. It is a battle between parents, who polls show that in NC 71% are concerned about political indoctrination of their chidlren in the classroom, and the woke education establishment in Raleigh. Governor Cooper has put some really far out leftists on the state school board.

As the legal staff of the General Assembly pointed out, correctly, to Representative Kidwell, county boards of education have absolute authority in choosing a curriculum and do not have to kowtow to the woke state board of education. The original draft of the new local curriculum policy recognized that right. The changes announced by Cheeseman waved a white flag to kowtow to the Raleigh education establishment. That was a big blow to local control of local schools.

Raleigh has been trying to assert too much control of local schools for decades. I remember a couple of meetings of the old Pitt-Beaufort Conservative Union back in the late 1970s, when one of our members, a conservative Democrat who was school board attorney for Pitt County told us a big part of his work for the schools was fighting off efforts by Raleigh to tell the local schools what to do when Raleigh had no legal basis to assert such control. The only thing that seems to have changed on this front is less backbone among local leaders to fight it.

Commented: Tuesday, August 27th, 2024 @ 5:24 pm By: Steven P. Rader