Good riddance.
With Tim Moore and Jason Saine leaving the NC House for $$$greener$$ pastures, the stink in-and-around the Jones Street legislative complex should be lessened by about — oh — 11 percent. Those two took the lessons they learned from their mentor Thom Tillis — about turning public service into self-service — to whole new lows.
In 2009, then speaker Joe Hackney (D) took one of his members, Ty Harrell (D-Raleigh) to task for using his campaign fund as a slush fund to pay clearly personal expenses.
Jason Saine got caught using his campaign funds — supplied mostly by lobbyists and others with business before the House — to pay for airplane tickets, hotel rooms, Las Vegas stays, two to three meals per day, dry cleaning and more than $19,000 in clothing.
We even found a payment his campaign made to a corporation that had been administratively dissolved the previous year.
The excuse used to run Harrell out of the House was that it was “illegal”” to use campaign funds for personal use. In the case of Saine, we got some nonsense about how campaign funds can be used for any activity that is part of being a legislator. The “logic” goes on to suggest that the honorables in the House are acting as legislators 24-7-365. So, EVERYTHING is part of being a legislator. (*Got it?*)
Saine is House leadership’s point man on finance and the budget. Yet, he had monstrous difficulties with properly filling out his campaign expense reports. After several clumsy, embarrassing attempts, a NCGOPe politico took over the task of filling out the campaign finance reports for the House’s “finance guru.”
To top it all off, Saine has reportedly involved himself in some PACs that promote governing-class GOPe candidates at the expense of actual conservatives.
Well, Saine appears to have found himself a high-paying job in a field — mental health — he apparently has no experience in. (*Of course, being a chairman in the NC House can be a “high-paying” job, if you play your cards right and check your ethics at the door.*)
That is starting to be a thing in the North Carolina House. Majority Leader John Bell was named president of a CBD, hemp company. I know he’s been in insurance sales, and was in “marketing” for a credit union. But I’m not aware of Bell ever running a company or working with CBD or hemp. (*Ah, the magic of being in the NC House majority’s leadership. You TOO can be a CEO or president!*)
For what it’s worth, Bell is in line to be the next House Rules Committee chairman — IF the GOP keeps its majority and Destin Hall moves up to the speaker’s podium. That would put him in charge of determining whether the legislation you want ever gets to see the light of day.
I am hearing that the people of Cleveland County have nominated a conservative, grassroots replacement for Tim Moore. Lincoln County will get to appoint a replacement for Saine to run in November. You folks in Lincoln — as your penance for making the rest of us endure Saine, you owe us a respectable, ethical candidate.
Another complete scoundrel and prostitute for the special interests who it is good to see gone is liberal Senator Jim Perry (RINO-Kinston). Even though he is personally wealthy and does not need the money, there are rumors he has a new gig lined up, too. Of course after his wife caught on to some extracurricular activities in Raleigh, it is doubtful she would tolerate his doing anything new in that part of the state.
Correct. It is such a shame that Berger and his fellow crooks in the Senate worked so hard against Michael Speciale in his primary trying to replace Perry, so that Perry will be replaced by a light weight puppet for Berger, or by a registered democrat. Speciale is a real straight arrow and was my best buddy and closest ally in the House. He should have won this one.
Are there NO principled conservative republicans in this state???????
The past 4-5Y tells me NO.
Yes, his name is Larry Pittman.
Thank you for the kind remark, Carol. I certainly try. The difference is that I never forget that God is watching.
Yes. But they are few and far between. I imagine they are all in the “crosshairs” so to speak or otherwise, too.
Mike Causey could tell you all about being in the cross hairs of Dems and GOP alike. As for Saine, he’s one of the handful of racists from the Legislature who showed up at the Kimmon Center that fateful 2016 day to help oust Chairman Hasan Harnett. Good riddance indeed.
Pittman, Speciale, Folwell and Causey are all people I would put on the principled list at the state level. We’re down to two of the four and we will soon be down to one or worse.
There are a few conservatives locally in my county dominated by the Republican Party. Every one of them are being attacked by the organized Repub Party. At the same time, my county Repub Party rallies around our RINOs that ally with the Dems on our boards and commissions – several of these RINOs were recently Democrats that still contribute ca$h to Democrats. The organized party goes out of their way to give these phonies credibility.
Such is my experience with the present day Repub Party.
Thank you, J. P. Jones, for including me in that group.
Yes, Dale Folwell, a true public servant.
Just AMEN! to this one. It seems these guys have learned a lot, not only from Tillis, but also from the Biden crime family. I could add a lot to what you have said here, but it would take up too much space, and you have covered it pretty well. While I like Destin Hall personally, I fear he may have learned to much from Timmy to stay honest. If I were still there, I would vote for Keith Kidwell for Speaker and keep a close watch on him to try to make sure he doesn’t fall into the same corruption. I watched it happen to others I never thought it would. So it pays to watch everybody closely.
What really needs to be watched is who is in bed with the special interest lobbyists and who, on the other hand, remembers the voters back home. Our RINO “leadership” in both House and Senate have prostituted themselves so brazenly to the special interestes that they might as well mount red lights above their office doors. They routinely ignore political principles and the voters back home to turn tricks for the special interest sleazebags.
You are right about Destin Hall. He is in bed with the special intersts, big time. He was one who took a lot of that dirty casino and marijuana money.. His recent wedding was a lobbyist love fest. Heck, he even married a lobbyist.
It is bad enough that we have a lobbyist whore, Phil sleaze-Berger running the Senate. It is time that House Republicans freed themselves from the lobbyist shackles by rejecting Destin Hall.