Emerald Robinson, John Kane lower the boom on Whatley
National talk-show host (and conservative warrior-princess) Emerald Robinson recently hosted North Carolina’s own John Kane to discuss Michael Whatley‘s imminent rise to the top of the Republican National Committee. (You may remember that Kane challenged Whatley’s reelection that resulted in quite a bit of controversy at last year’s state GOP convention. That was the second NCGOP election involving Whatley that was clouded in controversy.)
Whatley is being heralded by The Trump organization as the next RNC national chairman for his alleged devotion to election integrity and his alleged fundraising prowess. (Recent media reports indicate the NCGOP finished 2023 in debt.)
On the show, and in a recent Substack post, Kane unloaded some cold, hard numeric facts:
[…] At a high level, one could argue that the RNC believed that sending 11 times more money than ever before to state GOPs was the best use of funds to elect more Republicans. However, a closer look at just one state, North Carolina, reveals signs of corruption.
According to a December 2022 Trafalgar poll, only 5.6% of likely Republicans supported the re-election of Ronna. Despite this, all three votes allocated to North Carolina were cast for Ronna McDaniel. NCGOP Chairman, Michael Whatley, went so far as to sign a letter of support for McDaniel, as NBC reported:
“This has really been kind of member-driven,” said Michael Whatley, the chair of the North Carolina GOP, who said he signed the letter without hesitation because McDaniel has been responsive to state party leaders’ needs. “For me, it was not a close call. Every single time I called her, the answer was yes.”
Why would a state party chairman subvert the will of 94.4% of their constituents? In the case of Michael Whatley, the answer is money and self-advancement.
Money Matters:
Michael’s North Carolina operation is dependent on Ronna’s charity In the 2021-22 fundraising cycle, the RNC contributed $2,490,385 to the NCGOP, surpassing the $2,483,412 contributed by 5,357 North Carolinians over the same period. […]
And then there was the whole election integrity issue:
[…] On February 28, 2023, Ronna tapped Michael Whatley as the RNC General Counsel. In the press release, Ronna described Michael as “An accomplished lawyer with a wide breadth of experience at every level of the political process, Chairman Whatley will bring election integrity expertise, strong grassroots ties, and a winning record to the General Counsel’s office.”
Virtually every word in this quote is a lie.
Outside of working as a law clerk to a judge, Michael Whatley has never practiced law. He has never argued a case or filed a brief. In fact, his law license was inactive from January 27, 2017, to May 23, 2023. That means for 84 days, the General Counsel of the RNC was practicing law without a license.
Michael Whatley has election integrity expertise in the same way that Katie Hobbs, Brad Raffensperger, and Ruby Freeman have election integrity expertise. In my run against him for NCGOP Chairman, I got an up close look at Michael’s effort to protect the ballot.
As the incumbent NCGOP Chairman, Michael was responsible for the 2023 NCGOP Chairman election. Instead of having the roughly 1,650 delegates vote using paper ballots, the election for NCGOP Chairman was conducted on a mobile app developed by a former employee of the Charles Koch Foundation with no app development experience. There was no paper trail, no ability to audit the purported results. The voting app was used exclusively for the Chairman election, while voting on all other business was conducted by voice or standing. The NCGOP admitted in court filings that votes were illegally cast: votes were cast off the floor in violation of convention rules (as far away as Wisconsin), non-delegates downloaded the voting app and cast votes, and multiple counties recorded over-votes.
The left has an evil genius named Marc Elias with an unlimited war chest attacking our election systems at every turn. Against this and political machines in places like Philadelphia and Fulton County, Ronna turned the RNC General Counsel position over to a non-attorney who was incapable of conducting a single election between two candidates with fewer than 2,000 voters all in the same room. Michael Whatley does not have what it takes to take on these challenges, much less clear the way for President Trump to compete in a free and fair election in 2024.
The RNC is a captured organization. Cutting off the head of the snake of a captured organization never works; it merely serves as the bridge of false hope over which its next corrupt leader walks into power. Ronna McDaniel’s scalp will not fix the RNC any more than the firing of FBI Director James Comey fixed the FBI. […]
Harmeet Dhillon would have known how to fight back against the stolen elections and the lawfare. McDaniel didn’t have a clue, and neither does Whatley.
I can’t stand Michael Whatley.
My good friend is an active participant in the Wake County Republican Party, the largest Republican Party in North Carolina. He has not laid eyes on John Kane. Ever. Kane has never even been to a precinct meeting, yet he wants to lead the party. No, thanks.
The NCGOP needs new leadership. It’s not John Kane.
And I don’t buy the “Trump is exposing the swamp, setting them up to fail” bullcrap either.
Sorry. Sometimes Trump is just misled and has no ability to discern who the backstabbers are. Criminy.
Trump hasn’t a clue. He says any and everything anyone wants to hear. He did absolutely nothing in 4Y to drain any swamp, supported Ryan and McConnell. He supports candidates in NC that are as anti-conservative as Tillis, Ryan, McConnell. Sometimes you have to shut up and listen rather than talk, talk, talk….
I certainly don’t look to Trump as to whom to support….
True statement. President Trump does not always make good personnel choices. He’s susceptible to flattery. He chose Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Mike Pence, and Jeff Sessions. Michael Whatley certainly has his detractors and some of them are rank-and-file Republicans. He’s quite friendly with NC Senator Tillis who is known for voting with Democrats and supports funding the war in Ukraine.
It is a lot more than Whatley being “friendly” with Tillis. Whatley was handpicked by Tillis to run for state party chairman. He was an obscure nobody at the time. Truno’s stupid endorsement of Whatley is just another example like his stupid endorsement of Tillis himself, or his recent endorsement of slimy liberal swamp rat Speaker Timmy for Congress.
Meet Michael. Guess folks could share this link.
https://meetmichaelwhatley.com
Here is the latest Whatley blunder. The Beaufort County GOP had its Reagan Day Dinner last evening, and Whatley had promised a good speaker, arranging a former Trump cabinet member. Whatley, however, gave the speaker the wrong date for the event so he did not show up.
Interesting. I do know that many of my Beaufort County pals chose not to attend the dinner.
When I think about those BC Exec. Committee groupies gyrating under those Whatley signs at the state convention, it is kind of funny. They got what they deserved.
Never you never mind. Now those RINO parachuters dropping from yonder sky can commence all energies to banning and backstabbing all legit conserves at convention. Onward to things they have real passion bout like filing out hateful yellow sheet and dreaming up evil rules to block out patriots and give reward to corrupt far-left associate blood brothers.
The old hound kinda wanted to go. Scared to take him. I know he likely to bite one of em. Then he surely get sick from some foreign deadly zombie infection.
And Rep Kidwell stood in & gave a good ole ‘conservative’ speech!!!
And Rep Kidwell stood in & gave the ‘conservative’ spiel
Beauf Co is like many other NC counties. Many retire here and ‘consider’ themselves ‘republicans’. They are nothing more than liberal dems. And they have taken control of these counties.
And they take control of the city councils and immediately beginning spending and raising taxes, cause that’s what these quaint old southern towns need, a New York City appeal. It’s the ‘how we did it up north’ mentality and they are very glad to tell you what these towns have done incorrect for the last 200Y. And lastly, many also bring these same mentalities to the churches.
Kidwell is supporting Truitt; held a fundraiser for her in Beauf Co. Again, that’s the Beauf Co ‘republican party’.
Most of Kidwell’s effotts in primaries are for conservatives. He is an outspoken supporter of Dale Folwell for governor. Two of the three Council of State candidates Kidwell is openly backing, including Luke Farley, the more conservative of the two major candidates for Commissioner of Labor, are conservative. Yes, the Truitt support is not philosophically consistent with his other picks but I will get to the situation behind that.
Most important locally, is that he is strongly backing the grassroots conservative choice for state senate, Mike Speciale, against the candidate that Phil Berger is trying to impose on the district, Brinson. Kidwell has made radio ads and done fundraising calls for Speciale. Former State Senator Bill Cook, who was gerrymandered out of the Senate by Berger because of his opposition to “green energy” has also done a fundraiser for Speciale at his home. The Beaufort County Conservative Club led by Hood Richardson is also backing Speciale. Berger has spent heavily on Brinson, so I hope all the grassroots support for Speciale will prevail.
On most statewide and legislative races, Kidwell and the local Beaufort County Conservative Club led by conservative county commissioner Hood Richardson are on the same side. The Superintendant of Public Instruction seems to be the sole exception.
The Kidwell support for Truitt, which is based more on opposition to Morrow, goes back to the Covid issue rather than anything to do with education. Kidwell worked hard against government overreach on Covid, recruiting the lawyers and plaintiffs and raising the money for multiple lawsuits against Cooper’s shutdowns. most of which were successful. Where Kidwell and some of the other anti-lockdown stalwarts parted company was over what government could and should tell private businesses to do. While in his own business, Kidwell did not put any mandates on his employees, he did not beleive government should be in the business of telling private businesses what to do from either direction. That is where he and some of the other anti-lockdown activists, including Michelle Morrow parted company. Apparently, Morrow was personally involved in some nasty skirmishes with Kidwell over that issue, and he has had no use for her since then.
Let me add that, for myself, I regard Truitt’s tenure at DPI as an absolute disaster, beginning with her appointment of a liberal Democrat as her chief deputy right after taking office. For sound education policy, we desperately need a change. Personally, I have voted for and am backing Morrow as the vehicle that is available for that badly needed change in direction at DPI.
I may get where Kidwell is coming from on this one, but this is one where I will, as always, take my stand on the side of conservative policy over personality issues.
Again. He lets his hurt feelings come before what’s best further state.
Kidwell turned on Kane in 2023 because he was ticked off about a pro-Kane email that mocked Kidwell for his fight against the medical freedom.
Retribution/retaliation comes first, to the detriment of public education. To hell with the kids, Keith has a score to settle.
That’s Keith Kidwell. An emotionally immature man child.
While I agrre that Kidwell overreacted to that email, it was incredibly stupid by its authors to start fighting other battles in that email that ended up hurting Kane, who I strongly supported. While I was upset at Kidwell at the time, I was more upset at those who tried to use the Kane campaign to fight unrelated personal battles, causing the problem at the convention with Kidwell in the first place. It was a very stupid move that hurt Kane.
While I tend to be an absolutist myself on medical freedom, especailly having a number of medical professionals in the family, I can also see the conservative angle on Kidwell’s position on employers, as well as the conservative angle on the position of the other group. I do recognize, that on government lockdown mandates, Kidwell accomplished more against Cooper on that front than anyone.
Keefs all over the place on endorsements. For him ego and iron fist control of politic machine way more important then issues. BC Exec. Committee way more of PAC than real party operation. Call it hate conserve PAC. Call it hate south of Mason-Dixon PAC. They fit nice in sleazy Whatley state party pecking order.
At the 2023 NCGOP State Convention, the NCGOP staff, presumably with Chairman Whatley’s approval, submitted a Ranked Choice Voting Resolution that they expected everyone to support. Unfortunately, the very second statement in support of the resolution sounded more like a Democrat talking point than anything a Republican should support. That statement read:
“WHEREAS, North Carolina has a long history of conducting elections in a fair and transparent manner that upholds the integrity of our fragile democracy;”
In my opinion, only someone very ignorant of North Carolina history or a Democrat (or Uniparty) operative could come up with something that ridiculous. As I hoped and expected, the overwhelming majority of delegates to the 2023 NCGOP Convention shared my opinion.
Donald Trump may be happy with NC because he didn’t lose in 2020, but it is my belief he didn’t lose because the Uniparty didn’t need him to lose since the fraud in the other states with unexplained pauses in vote counting was adequate to secure his defeat. Letting Trump win protected the Uniparty in NC.
On Friday, NCGOP staff and their allies worked very hard to limit convention delegates’ ability to make changes to the resolutions they had approved and to require the use of software to vote for Chair and Vice Chair that didn’t even provide an audit trail (and which failed spectacularly). Clearly some very powerful people tried to protect their personal interests rather than election integrity.
Saturday, when those who couldn’t be there Friday showed up, the vast majority of delegates attending the convention clearly expressed their disapproval of the insiders’ schemes. Tillis was censured, despite the best efforts of his allies at the local and state level. When we got to the NCGOP staff resolution that denied over a century of Democrat Party election fraud, which included an actual coup (with mass murder) in 1898 followed by years of Jim Crow, even more delegates refused to follow their “leaders.” When I moved to suspend the rules so that I could move to remove that lie from the proposed resolution, I received even more support than I expected.
I didn’t have prepared remarks. I simply pointed out that from the time of the dishonestly named 1898 Wilmington “Riot,” when Democrats stirred up by the fake news media of the day went into Wilmington with automatic weapons to kill, terrorize, or run off any Republicans or Republican supporters, through the years of Jim Crow when they changed the law to try to prevent most black citizens from voting, to the present day, North Carolina has had a long history of unfair or even fraudulent elections. I may have made the statement that I couldn’t remember an election in my lifetime that was not marred by fraud. (If anyone has film or a recording of what I said and the response, I’d love to have a copy.)
The vast majority of delegates voted to suspend the rules and they then voted to delete the dishonest Whereas statement. My motions both passed with overwhelming support. Yet hardly anyone knows what happened at the convention because the fake news, as Trump calls it, has been running cover for their allies. That really tells you all you need to know about the current leadership of the NCGOP.
Prior to making my motion, I had made no attempt to enlist support for it. I simply counted on the fact that the overwhelming majority of North Carolina Republicans are fed up with election fraud and the Uniparty approach of so many Republican party “leaders.” Robin Hayes and Dallas Woodhouse helped Marc Elias and the Democrat dominated State Board of Elections overturn an election in the 9th district that the Republican candidate clearly won. Why? The answer is obvious.
I’m not surprised that when I do a computer search, I cannot find a set of the resolutions as amended showing the change. Why is no record of the votes taken at the 2023 NCGOP Convention available on the NCGOP website? Better yet, how about some video of the obvious attempt to commit election fraud?
Why, given recent history, would NCGOP staff try to rewrite history to hide the truth? Why would NCGOP staff try to sneak through an endorsement of the Democrat claim that NC “has a long history” of fair elections? I guess because they thought they could get away with it.
Any voter who doesn’t know what actually happened at the 2023 NCGOP convention needs to make it a point to find out. Anyone who actually believes in election integrity, as opposed to using it as a talking point to influence gullible voters, is going to be seriously offended.
I firmly agree with Fern Shubert as to why Trump did not lose in the NC 2020 election.
I firmly believe there is no way to insure fair elections, UNTIL there are hand counted paper ballots and mail ins are limited to the .military and those physically or job wise unable to attend the voting booth.