Comments by Steven P. Rader | Eastern NC Now

Thank you for pointing out a recent example of demonization of conservatives, Bob. Plans for new administrations to hit the ground running to implement their policies are something that is done for every new administration, state or federal, Republican or Democrat. For Team Biden to present the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 as anything unusual or sinister is just complete malarky. This planning is always done by the official campaign and usually by one or more sympathetic think tanks or policy groups as well. The Heritage Foundation is a well respected and long established conservative policy organization staffed by Reagan-style Republicans. They are not always on the exact same wavelength as Trump, who is more of a populist, but they are usually close.

I am personally aware of how these things work in a transition between administrations of different parties, having been through one at the state level between Republican Governor Jim Martin who I worked for as a political appointee and that of Democrat Jim Hunt. I saw both sides of it because, while the Hunt people originally told us that the top 6 political appointees (out of about 100 political appointees in an 18,000 employee department), of which I was one as the deparment's General Counsel had our last day on Governor Martin's last day in office, that changed because 1) Hunt did not have a replacement selected for my position, and 2) there were four very serious issues hanging where the two administrations were in agreement, but could not be left unattended. So for two months, until my replacement was selected and came on board, they kept me on as a consultant to ride herd on those issues.

Prior to the end of the Martin administration, we saw a lot of the official Hunt transition people asking questions and taking stock of things to make their plans to implement their policies. After Hunt took over, however, even in my limited capacity in the department, I became aware that there were also at least two plans from outside liberal groups that the Hunt people were also weighing and sometimes they disagreed with the original internal planning, so some changes got made. Both of the outside plans addressed one of the issues I was riding herd on differently than their internal plan and there was some uncertainly for a couple of weeks as to which way they would end up going. Ultimately they stuck with their own internal plan on that item.

In short, plans for new administrations like Project 2025 are not at all unusual in government. What is unusual is somebody trying to demonize them for political purposes. But that seems par for the course with the Biden Democrats.

Commented: Sunday, July 14th, 2024 @ 8:57 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The National Rally (which the far left falsely calls "far right") made the biggest gain of seats by any party or grouping, both in absolute terms, and even more so in percentage terms. The also had a massive increase in vote share, while both the far left NPF and the Macron coaltion lost vote share in the second round compared to their vote in the second round of the last parliamentary election. The National Rally received millions more votes than either of their major rivals.

By all standards, the National Rally made major gains in this election, while Macron's Ensemble had major losses in both seats and vote share from the last election for parliament. Ensemble lost over a third of the seats it had held in the outgoing parliament. The NPF saw little change in vote share, although it was actually down in the second round, but they benefited from their deal with the devil with Macron as to seats won.

In short, Macron's Ensemble had major losses of seats, while the National Rally and New Popular Front had major gains. The National Rally got their gains from the voters. The NPF got there's from a backroom deal with Macron. It was Macron's party that was the big loser in this election.

Commented: Tuesday, July 9th, 2024 @ 7:45 am By: Steven P. Rader

Wrong, Bob. America has never seen the level of institutionalized election corruption that we saw from the Democrats in 2020, much of it orchestrated by weakening election intergrity standards in the series of Marc Elias lawsuits.

In North Carolina, the one incident you can point to for a Reputlican is the ballot harvesting by Monroe Dallas in Bladen County in 2018. Dallas was a longtime operative for Democrat ballot harvesting who in one election went to work for a Republican congressional candidate. The Democrats then used that to force a rerun of that election. Most of the liberal media kept their blinders on and only reported on his activities in 2018. One media outlet, however, WBTV in Charlotte assigned an objective investigative journalist to the issue, and his reports that they broadcast covered the whole scope of what was going on in southeastern NC, including that Democrats were also running a ballot harvesting operation in Bladen County in 2018, and Democrats alone were running ballot harvesting operations in Robeson and Columbus counties. In fact, there was more ballot harvesting going on in Robeson County, all for the Democrats than total ballot harvesting in the other two counties combined. The Democrat controlled state Board of Elections swept everything the Democrats were doing in that election under the rug, but WBTV got the word out in public at least in their viewing area. Only 10-15% of the 2018 ballot harvesting in that Congressional race was for the Republican. The rest of it was for the Democrat, but most statewide media ignored that. Cudos to WBTV, one of the few honest media outlets in the state.

Ballot harvesting in southeastern NC also came up in the recount of the 2016 gubenatorial race. There was a write in candidate in one of those counties, and during the hand recount, it was noted that the write in candidate's name was written in the same distinctive handwriting and in a unique color of ink on a large number of ballots. Those ballots were also voted for all Democrats, including for governor, in the other races. This was a clear indication of ballot harvesting by Democrats in 2016 in the same part of the state.

In the later half of the last century, Republicans in North Carolina never had the sort of county level ruthless political machines like the Ponder machine in Madison County, the Sonny Boy Joyner machine in Northhampton County, the DCNA machine in Durham County, the Griffin machine in Martin County or other similar county level political machines. The DCNA machine stole a congressional race in the old 4th district in 1972 which I helped investigate, and it still does its dirty work today under a similar but different name.

I don't think you can ever cite a case of Republicans voting illegal aliens, but it seems a common practice of Democrats.

Commented: Saturday, July 6th, 2024 @ 4:36 pm By: Steven P. Rader

A former British colleague I had worked with in Europe who had held roles in the UK Conservative Party much of his life told me before the election that he expected this result. Rishi Sunak had lost the confidence of the party base and they had Reform nipping at their heels from the right. I see in the British newspapers that at the latest count, Reform had picked up a fifth seat.

This election was more a referendum on Rishi Sunak than anything else, and he was not very well liked even within his own party. I see Boris Johnson now has a plan to revive the Conservative Party, but its way forward is still uncertain until new leadership is selected.

This election has many similarities to John Major's race after he ousted Margaret Thatcher in a palace coup in the middle of her term, and then went down to resounding defeat in the next election. Rishi Sunak stabbed Boris Johnson in the back to take his job, and had the same result at the next general election. Both Major and Sunak were Tory "wets" (less conservative and more opportunistic) but their main reason to oust the sitting prime minister in both cases was personal ambition. Thatcher and Johnson were both small"c" Conservatives who had led their party to major victories, only to see themselves ousted, replaced by weak leaders, and the party go down to defeat the next election.

In Sunak's case, he particularly alienated the party base by the way he went about his power play. After stabbing Boris Johnson in the back and causing his ouster, the party had a two step process to choose a new prime minister. First parliament reduced the choices to two in a series of votes and then all party members cast a ballot between those two. Sunak was the top choice of the parliament caucus, but lost by a wide margin to Liz Truss among party members. Sunak then set about undermining Truss and bringing her down. Truss was another snall "c" Conservative. Sunak then managed to change the procedure to elimintate the party members voting on the replacement, so he won with only the parliament caucus. That created a lot of bitterness among party activists which has lingered since and made Reform more attractive.

Boris Johnson may be the Conservative Party's only hope of getting back on its feet. Johnson has also had an ability to work things out with Farage in the past. If the new leadership is another "wet" then look for the party to be replaced by the Reform Party.

Commented: Friday, July 5th, 2024 @ 4:03 pm By: Steven P. Rader

"Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine" wrote Democrat Congressman Jared Golden (D-Maine) in an op-ed column for a Maine newspaper after the debate. I agree with him.

Commented: Wednesday, July 3rd, 2024 @ 9:17 am By: Steven P. Rader

This election cycle, it has been the Biden wing of the Democrat Party that has manipulated the process to try to exercise control, which is contrary to actual democracy. They changed the primary schedule to benefit Biden, bumping aside New Hampshire and Iowa because Robert Kennedy may have too much of a chance there and replaced them with a state they knew Biden would carry, South Carolina. Then they made it hard for any candidate other than Biden to qualify for the primary ballot. North Carolina was one of those states where the Democrats offered a Soviet style ballot with only one choice, Biden, even though other Democrats were actively campaigning. They rigged their own nomination process so blatantly that lifelong Democrat Robert Kennedy, from a major Democrat dynasty, had to bail out and run as an independent. What Democrats have done to their own nomination process is the antithesis of democracy.

Now some of the elite want to force Biden out and have a new nominee picked in a smoke filled room, where the pubic has no say in primaries. They even want to kick aside the number two on their team, Kamala Harris. One Democrat was reported as calling this a "soft coup" and an unprecedented very early debate may have been calculated for that very purpose. If they do this, they will have fully Sovietized their nomination process and Americans should run, not walk, away from the Democrat Party.

Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 3:52 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The GOP county commissioner who wrote a campaign check to the Democrat nominee for sheriff in 2022 and resigned when he was asked to from the county GOP executive committee is not running in the 2024 election. His seat comes up again in 2026.

Van Zant may be confusing him with Tandy Dunn who is running this year for commissioner and never gave any campaign contributions to that Democrat sheriff candidate. Dunn was involuntarily removed from the executive committee after he picked up his wife, who is a close relative of that Democrat sheriff candidate from a fundraiser. Dunn argued that he was supporting the Republican sheriff candidates and had campaign signs up for Republican Scott Hammonds on his property, and only went inside the building where the fundraiser was held to find his wife to give her a ride home. Dunn appealed his removal to the NCGOP Aribration Committee, which held a hearing and unanimously ruled that Dunn should not have been removed.

I think he is confusing two different county commission candidates. Supporting a Democrat is grounds for removal from Republican Party offices, but it was determined that Dunn going in that function toward its end to pick up his wife did not amount to supporting a Democrat. Writing a check to a Democrat, however, clearly does.

Commented: Saturday, June 29th, 2024 @ 9:58 am By: Steven P. Rader

That Supreme Court decision against free speech is not quite as bad as it seems in some of the media coverge, although it was a major betrayal by some Trump appointees that was shocking. The court did not rule on the merits of the case just on what is called "stanading" meaning the right of plaintiffs to file a lawsuit. What it means is that the case is being sent back to the federal district court for a hearing on standing and then has to go back through the process again, which will take well over a year to reach the Supreme Court again.

This was a cop out. The SCOTUS should have just affirmed the excellent opinion from the Circuit Court of Appeals. Now there are no constraints on the Biden regime monkeying around with censorship during this presidential election.

Amy Barrett was a particular disappointment. She wrote the cop out decision of the court, and even used the lefty weasel words "content moderation" to describe what is clearly censorship in violation of the First Amendment. Trump could have done a lot better than Barrett to fill that vacancy.

Commented: Thursday, June 27th, 2024 @ 10:06 am By: Steven P. Rader

Nobody is "nervous, Bob. Trump has more brain power than all three of those aligned against him put together. He can handle being triple teamed. I would like to see an objective and neutral venue for a presidential debate for a change. I have spent too many election cycles watching biased leftwing "moderators" trying to skew the debate to their side. The set up on this one is worse than most. Why should we have one of the moderators who has compared one of the candidates to Hitler? Why should we have the second one being the wife of someone who lied in a disgusting dirty trick that threw the last presidential election? There are plenty of qualified and objective people who could moderate a presidential debate. Why should the American voters be stuck with a pair like that controlling the debate by controlling the questions asked?

Commented: Wednesday, June 26th, 2024 @ 10:48 am By: Steven P. Rader

Oh? You mean like Stacey Abrams, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, and a host of other Democrats who claimed they really won?

Commented: Tuesday, June 25th, 2024 @ 9:04 am By: Steven P. Rader

Cutting off that microphone mid-interview of the Trump spokeswoman shows how completely biased politically CNN is and how totally unfit to conduct an honest debate they are.

The LIncoln-Douglas debate format would be great for modern presidential debates, getting those preening media peacocks out of the loop.

Commented: Monday, June 24th, 2024 @ 2:16 pm By: Steven P. Rader

There is a long overdue piece of legislation that has been introduced in the US Senate by six Republican senators including NC's Ted Budd that would allow a former or current president or vice president to do what a congressman or federal judge can already do under federal law. That is to, on their request, have a civil or criminal case against them in state court transfered to federal court. That would put a stop to the monkey business of the Alvin Braggs and Fani Willises of the world as well as the Judge Merchans and the Judge Engorons.

Commented: Friday, June 21st, 2024 @ 6:35 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Oh, Durham County, that brings back memories of the 1972 campaign when I was a student at Duke and helped with some of the investigation of the election fraud there when the Democrats stole the congressional seat for Ike Andrews against Jack Hawke in the black precincts where there were more people who voted without being registered to vote than the margin of victory, some of whom voted in every black precinct in the city of Durham but were not registered anywhere. Unfortunately, the lawsuit was thrown out on a technicality because Hawke's legal team went directly to federal court without raising the issue first at the state board of elections. They did raise it with the Durham County Board of Elections, but went directly from there to federal court.

Durham County had two absolutely ruthless Democrat political machines, one in the black precincts and the other among white progressives. Either would steal a vote in a heartbeat, but it was the former that was specifically involved in stealing the 1972 congressional election.

Commented: Thursday, June 20th, 2024 @ 12:52 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Our system did not meet international best practices of election integrity on a number of issues prior to 2020, but in that election cycle, the Democrats systematically trashed many of the safeguards we did have. There have been some improvements since, but a lot more needs to be done to get back to the standards we had before 2020. One such improvement made in many states but not all is to ban ideological organizations like Zuckerbergs from inserted their people into boards of elections that are supposed to be impartial.

It is not about who wins. It is about processes that are fair, honest, and transparent to secure election integrity. Jimmy Carter understood that and worked in his election processes commission toward such a syste,, but today's Democrats care only about power and how to rig the system to get and keep it.

Commented: Wednesday, June 19th, 2024 @ 5:13 pm By: Steven P. Rader

THe facts are that Trump and Republicans strenuously objected to these distortions of the election statutes and in some cases Constitutional provisions by the Marc Elias sue and settle cases at the time they were being done, BEFORE the election. Republicans are still active trying to force Democrats to follow the election law. Just last week a state court in Michigan, for example ruled for Republicans and ordered Michigan's Democrat Secretary of State to direct local officials to verify the signatures on mail-in ballots and applications after she had, in clear violation of state election law, told them to just presume the signatures were valid.

The rat hole is the one the Democrats have sent our election process down, and we need to get it back out of that rat hole. According to the polling, a majority of voters realize we have some serious provlems with our election system and are concerned about the upcoming election.

Commented: Tuesday, June 18th, 2024 @ 6:50 pm By: Steven P. Rader

According to a retired Education professor I was talking to today, this would be one of the largest K-3 elementary schools in the state of North Carolina. No other K3 elementary school in the area comes close to housing 1,000 students. I can just imagine the traffic jams of parents picking up and dropping off that many kids at one school together with all the buses. Does that make good sense? Is that what is in the best interest of education in Beaufort County?

The planning process has been behind closed doors, but it is apparent that the school system has failed to get a school population study, which DPI will do for free if asked. Our system has a declining enrollment, and this mega school may be a white elephant in a few years. There are also studies that can be done, coordinated by DPI but actually done by NC State University, that calculate where in a county the school population will be in the future. That would seem to be critical in figuring out where to put a new school. Apparently this was not done either. I recall in the past hearing projections of population growth to the west of Washington instead of on the east side of it, but I am not sure how that plays into school age population.

All of us as taxpayers want to see our public funds used in the most effective manner possible, and from what is apparent so far, this project does not meet those standards.

Commented: Monday, June 17th, 2024 @ 9:00 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Merrick Garland and his minions put Peter Navarro, a Trump White House advisor in prison for something that Garland himself is more guilty of. He is close to putting Trump White House advisor, Steve Bannon, in prison for a weaker case of what Garland did himself. The issue is contempt of Congress, and under Merrick Garland, the DOJ is run by the Rule of Politics instead of the Rule of Law.

Even worse, Garland demanded that Navarro and Bannon be sent to prison before their appeals were exhausted. It may take the Supreme Court hearing it, but their appeals are sound. By making them serve their sentence before the cases ever get there, the Garland DOJ hopes to render the appeals moot where they will not be heard. This is very dirty politics and another example of the Biden administration abusing the courts for political prosecutions of Republicans, while they can do the exact same things with impunity. This is a poltical double standard that is a threat to our justice system and to the Rule of Law.

Navarro and Bannon both asserted executive privelege when subpoenaed by Congress because they were directly on the president's staff in the White House. No White House staff member had ever previously been held in contempt of Congress when they asserted executive privelge. In the new politicized justice system of Merrick Garland, he went after them anyway.

Now Merrick Garland asserts executive privelege so he does nog have to prosecute himself. Not being on the president's direct staff in the White House, Garland's claim on executive privelege is much much weaker. While he is a member of the executive branch, his connection to the president is much more distant than a member of the White House staff.

And doesn't Garland comprehend that it is a huge conflict of interest for he, himself, or one of his underlings to be making the decision of whether he should be prosecuted?

Biden, Garland, and their ilk are totally lawless, and America will be so much better off when they are voted out of office.

Commented: Saturday, June 15th, 2024 @ 9:21 am By: Steven P. Rader