Comments by Steven P. Rader | Eastern North Carolina Now

Not today's NC Democrats, Bob. The three running statewide I mentioned earlier are as far left as any Democrat in America. Yes, it was different when we had NC Democrats like Senator B. Everett Jordan, Senator Sam Ervin, Governor Dan Moore, Lt. Govenor Jimmy Green, Congressman L. H. Fountain, State Senator Vernon White, State Senator Julian Allsbrook, and others like them, but all of them are gone and there are no longer others like them in today's leftwing NC Democrat Party. That was then, but his is now. The old conservative Democrats and business Democrats voted with their feet years ago, the latter now often becoming Chamber of Commerce Republicans.

Commented: Monday, August 5th, 2024 @ 7:27 pm By: Steven P. Rader

A liberal political agenda of "woke" from the ultra liberal mostly Roy Cooper appointed state board of educaiton and from DPI is a big factor driving parents to take their children out of public schools and place them in private schools or home school. A poll last year by the Locke Foundation found that 71% of North Carolina parents are concerned about political indoctrination of their children in the public schools. Local school systems best approach to retain students is to take firm control of curriculum, tell the wokesters in Raleigh to get stuffed, eliminate the woke while bringing back quality. That, in addition to being firm on discipline, would create public schools that parents want to send their children to.

Commented: Sunday, August 4th, 2024 @ 12:03 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Biden and Harris are trying to castrate one of the three co-equal branches of government, the Supreme Court and court system. That is a dictatorial move, just as it was in Venezuela.

The recent decision that has really sent the big government politicians into a tantrum was the Supreme Court's reversing the Chevron doctrine. A previous court decision had given way to much power to the executive branch when it constrained the checks and balances in our Constitutional system by adopting the Chevron doctrine that gave a one-sided deference to the executive branch in rulemaking. That the court has now restored Constitutional checks and balances as they were intended by our founding fathers is widely opposed by those who want a powerful, dictatorial executive branch.

The Supreme Court did the right think for our country and for democracy, and now the anti-democratic politicians like Biden and Harris are trying to gut the Supreme Court. What they are doing is an attack on democracy and on our Constitutional Republic.

Commented: Wednesday, July 31st, 2024 @ 9:07 am By: Steven P. Rader

Policy is what is important, not personality, in the 2024 race. The Democrats and their media allies have generated a lot of personal political hate against Trump, and that atmosphere they created led to the assassination attempt.

Anyone looking at this race logically will look at the records and compare them. Trump had a great record of success while for Biden-Harris it has been failure on top of failure. Trump is also a lot more mainstream, while Harris is far out loony left.

Commented: Sunday, July 28th, 2024 @ 11:04 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Having been involved in Republican politics in North Carolina for over half a century, I have seen some nasty personality fights, but few as ugly as the current one in Beaufort County. We had one here back in the late 70s and early 80s between the Wilkinson and Ratcliff factions, but in those days, while we might have a knock down battle over party officers at the county comvention, once that was over with, both sides got back to the business of beating Democrats. Now, we have a few people on both sides of the divide who let personality conflicts obscure the need to achieve our policy goals.

In politics, policy should always trump personality. Accomplishing our policy goals, not battering those we may not personally like, is what is important. This year, when our country faces an existential threat from the far left, that is particularly crucial.

When it comes to the relationship between the policy makers put in place by the voters, and the careerists in government, I had five years of experience with that during my time as a policy-level political appointee in the Jim Martin administration. I found that each careerist I dealt with had to be evaluated individually. You could not put them all in one box. Some were straightforward, objective, and understood they were not the policymakers. They were easy to work with and their opinions carried a lot more weight with those of us who were engaged at the policy level. Others were full of their own importance and wanted to engage in policy making even if it was not their role. These were the ones that those of us at the policy level had to keep a close eye on and could not turn our backs to. Some were somewhere in between.

Unlike state government, where the governor could not be everywhere and had to rely on policy level political appointees, in local government, there is a much clearer distinction, with the elected policymakers in direct contact with the careerists hired to carry out that policy.

In the public education context, I well remember a comment at a local political meeting I attended during my first year in law school from State Senator Dick Deeb (R-Pinellas) when a local education issue was being discussed. senator Deeb observed that "there are too many school board members who seem to think that the superintendant is their boss instead of their employee." As I have heard of school controversies here in North Carolina, I have concluded that is a problem in many school systems.

Concern about the "woke" agenda in our schools has been massive all over the country, with a huge wave of voters defeating school board members aligned with the liberal education establishment and replacing them with conservative education reformers. This wave has reached into higher office and is largely responsible for carrying Virginia Governor Youngkin into office.

Here in North Carolina, our Lt. Governr Mark Robinson, now our nominee for governor, has been heavily and publicly engaged in fighting the liberal education establishment, and he will undoubtedly continue that battle as governor. Our runner up in the primary, State Treasurer Dale Folwell, has also been engaged on that issue, standing with Robinson. It is up to all Republicans to understand where the battlelines are drawn and on which side our party stands.

Personality conflicts do not mean doodly squat. It is the policy issues that are vital. In a poll last year, 71% of North Carolinians expressed concern about the political indoctrination of their children in the public schools. We must stand with those parents against the "woke" agenda.

Commented: Thursday, July 25th, 2024 @ 11:52 am By: Steven P. Rader

Our system has been based on two parties that respect democratic values. When one refuses to operate by democratic norms within its own organization, it is a danger to the country because it is likely to run the country the very same way.

I an a conservative Reagan Republican who supported Ted Cruz as long as he was running in 2016, and leaned to deSantis in the beginning in 2024, although also comfortable with Trump and Scott.

Commented: Monday, July 22nd, 2024 @ 5:55 pm By: Steven P. Rader

I was hoping for a more traditional Reagan style conservative, and Dr. Ben Carson was my first choice from the shortlist. Trump avoided the pick from that list that would have caused heartburn in the base, Coug Bergum.

I understand the political logic of J. D. Vance. He appeals to the swing states of the rust belt like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota, where the election will be won or lost. His connections in the world of finance offer great fundraising opportunities. Finally, after last Saturday, of all the shortlist, Vance probably best offers assassination insurance, list Kamala Harris has for Biden.

Thinking logically from a political perspective, he is probably who trump should have picked.

Commented: Thursday, July 18th, 2024 @ 11:31 am By: Steven P. Rader

One of the elected Democrats who made a comment about killing Trump was a Congresswoman. I would look up the article, Bob, and give you the link to it. but I note you don't like links to articles that refute your narrative.

Commented: Tuesday, July 16th, 2024 @ 8:35 pm By: Steven P. Rader

That analysis by Blackwater's founder of the Secret Service mishandling of the security for the Trump rally in Pennsylvania is just devastating. I suspect they will be having to answer a lot of questions from Congress.

Commented: Sunday, July 14th, 2024 @ 9:07 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Get out the popcorn, France's government is going to be a train wreck. France is the new Greece. Macron's spending has already had France called on the carpet by EU authorities for violating its agreements when the euro was created by building up debt far beyond its GNP. Now the far left NPF thinks it rules the roost and wants much, much higher spending. The country's well to do are widely discussing fleeing the country and its taxman (in Europe, you are taxed where you live, not by your citizenship). Macron's Ensemble took a major beating in the elections and is a spent force. He, himself, is a lame duck who is termed out. His prime minister has resigned, but Macron has not accepted his resignation.

If I were Marine LePen, I would be thinking about throwing Macron a lifeline, with conditions attached. She has a real opportunity here to make the far left the major political monster and give her own party an image of putting the country ahead of politics. I would exchange backing Macron's prime minister in a confidence vote for some concessions from Macron on toughening immigration. What that does for the next parliamentary election is create an image for Macron voters that National Rally is their friend and NPF is their enemy. With the French system, positioning for the runoffs is critical.

Even with help from a few snall leftwing parties, the NPF can only muster about 200 votes in parliament out of 577. The National Rally represents the only force that could come to Macron's assistance to block the NPF.

Even if Macron will not do a deal, LePen could get a lot of milage by announcing that her party was putting France first ahead of its own interests, and would cast its votes in parliament in a way to keep Macron's prime minister in power, whether by abstaining or voting for him, as long as he did not adopt the radical policies of the far left NPF. She could do that unilaterally and it would offer almost the same benefit to her party and to France as an actual deal with Macron.

Commented: Wednesday, July 10th, 2024 @ 9:57 am By: Steven P. Rader

The problem is that American courts are far more reluctant to get into correcting abuses in the election process than in some other countries, and the Democrats take advantage of that.

Commented: Tuesday, July 9th, 2024 @ 7:21 am By: Steven P. Rader

The story of why it happened is at least as interesting as the result, and after all the result was baked in the cake now for weeks. I think I even remember seeing what was certain to happen mentioned on this site days or weeks ago.

The gist of it is that while Boris Johnson was driving, Rishi Sunak pushed him out of the drivers seat and grabbed the wheel, then drove the party into the ditch. It is deja vu of when John Major pushed Margaret Thatcher out of the drivers seat, greabbed the wheel and drove the party into the ditch a few decades ago. That should have been a learning experience but clearly wasn't.

As to the future leadership of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, a dynamic well spoken small "c" Conservative black female MP, appears to be the frontrunner, and the party grassroots is loudly demanding a say in the process this time.
www.dailymail.co.uk

Commented: Friday, July 5th, 2024 @ 7:04 pm By: Steven P. Rader

There is very good reason to be concerned that the left is working to illegally register illegal aliens to vote in North Carolina and elsewhere. A woman from southeastern NC who is active in a voter integrity group I participate in, for example, reported suspicions when a Catholic Church in her area announced a voter registration program after church and the group holding it was a "non-partisan" but very leftwing group. It seemed unlikely that they would be trying to register more pro-life voters, but many Catholic churches have outreach programs to migrants from Catholic countries in Latin America. It turns out that was exactly who they were after. With knowledge ahead of time, monitors could be sent in to oversee what was going on and make it difficult for them to register non-citizens. This is the sort of thing that needs to be watched for, and monitors sent in when it is discovered.

One thing that is really needed is to go back to the system of voter registration being conducted in person before appropriate officials. Improper voter registration is just too easy with mail in forms or even worse, online voter registration.

Commented: Friday, July 5th, 2024 @ 7:43 am By: Steven P. Rader

This is a huge blow for freedom against the bureaucratic administrative state, or as some say, the deep state. It offers a great opportunity for the next Trump administration to easily wipe out many of the liberal initiatives of Biden and Obama which were done by exeucutive fiat.

Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 4:00 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Polling in an election like France's is tricky but these pollsters know the system and must have some confidence in their results. The two round system is what makes it complicated. A candidate must win over 50% to be elected in the first round, and there are a limited number of "safe seats" where that is possible. For the majority of seats, the two top finishers will face each other in a runoff a week later. Those pairings will be important. Where it is National Rally against the far left coalition, the National Rally will be heavily favored, but if it is National Rally against Les Republicains, the trend would be much more to Les Republicains. In the second round, voters whose own parties have been eliminated will mostly be voting what they see as the lesser of the evils or sometimes just staying home. The pollsters will certainly have polled second preferences of voters, something we used to do in our polls when I was advising pro-western parties in Moldova, even though Moldova did not have runoffs for its parliament.

Commented: Saturday, June 29th, 2024 @ 9:18 pm By: Steven P. Rader

This creates a real easy way to get rid of Biden and even Obama federal rules that push the liberal agenda. It might be tempting to just issue executive orders declaring them void because the were passed without real statutory authority. A better way would be to use the "sue and settle" approach often used by the liberals. A conservative group files a lawsuit someshere challenging a set of rules on the basis of this new Supreme Court ruling. The new Trump Justice Department then settles the case agreeing that the rules had no legitimate statutory basis. Both parties agree on a consent judgment finding the rules illegally adopted and void nationally. Once the judge signs it, those rules are history.

Commented: Saturday, June 29th, 2024 @ 9:09 am By: Steven P. Rader

Republicans must remember the bungling on this set of debates that let the Democrats set the rules, and bad ones at that. Republicans need to come out early with their expected standards. One needs to deal with moderators, and probably the fairest thing is to have two and let each side name one of them. The other has to do with questions, and the Lincoln-Douglas standard of having the campaigns come up with them or at least some of them is a good one. It is too late for this election cycle, but we simply have to get this right in 2028.

Commented: Wednesday, June 26th, 2024 @ 2:06 pm By: Steven P. Rader