If drag queens can tell stories, I guess it’s OK for Speaker Timmy.

 

 

There are indications that Raleigh Republicans are getting a little nervous about the possibility of holding the state House seat vacated by now-congressman Greg Murphy and currently held by appointee Perrin Jones.  (A significant chunk of the district is Greenville and Pitt County.).

 

 

 

Greenville is a college town, so you’d expect liberal tendencies to reign there.  But, in recent years, there has been a dramatic swing to the right.  Local Democrats are running Brian Farkas, their 2016 nominee who lost by 14 points to Murphy.  I am hearing from local folks about some serious political missteps by Jones that are potentially costing him support Murphy had easily in 2016.  Outside left-leaning groups are showing interest in Farkas as well.  Locals are telling me 2020’s race for this state House seat could turn into quite the shocker.

 

 

What has me thinking Raleigh is worried?  Well, they put out THIS website attacking Farkas with terms like “Baby Brian.”   (It looks like someone within the GOP campaign apparatus recognized it as the 3rd-grade playground tactic that it was and had it scrubbed,)

 

That move fell on its face.  So,  the next step was to send the House’s diminutive leader, Speaker Timmy, out to Greenville to throw a little shade Farkas’s way.   Speaker Timmy, upon his arrival in Pitt,  bedazzled the local media with allegations that Farkas and a number of other Democrat candidates for House had sworn to “defund the police,”

 

His “proof”?  Moore & co. point to a pledge drawn up by liberal advocacy group Future Now.  

 

Moore proceeded to inform his Pitt audience that Farkas and other Democrat candidates had signed on  to the group’s alleged desire to “defund the police.”   I took a look at the page listing the items Future Now was seeking endorsements for.  “Defunding the police” was nowhere to be found.

 

According to one of the propaganda organs of the Art Pope Conspiracy,  Democrats were not happy with this rhetorical stretch from the House’s little leader:

 

Speaker of the House Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, says nearly 50 N.C. Democratic House lawmakers and candidates have backed a dangerous pledge to defund the police, but House Minority Leader Darren Jackson, D-Wake, says that’s a lie.[…]

 

“Right now, law enforcement officers across our nation are being targeted and attacked,” Moore said. “I consider signing this pledge a direct attack on North Carolina law enforcement too.”

 

Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, told Carolina Journal that when she signed the Future Now pledge in 2018, defunding the police was not part of the stated goals. She told CJ the police proposals must have been added this year and she doesn’t support defunding law enforcement.

 

Carolina Journal sent an email to Jackson asking him if he would pledge his support today now that a proposal to defund the police is listed on the America’s Goals website. Jackson didn’t respond.

 

Instead, Jackson sent out a news release challenging Moore’s statements.

 

“Speaker Moore has given us another set of blatant lies. No, we didn’t pledge to defund the police but we did pledge to invest in quality Health Care and Education for all North Carolinians,” Jackson said. […]

 

The America’s Goals pledge is not an endorsement of any specific bill, Future Now Executive Director Daniel Squadron said in a news release following Moore’s news conference.

 

Future Now funds America’s Goals, which on its website says it is a policy library with model legislation, 50 state report cards, and everything needed to turn a bill into a law.[…]

 

We took time to dig into the Future Now website and found the “source” Timmy was using.  STILL no mention of “defunding the police.”   (There is something on a secondary / tertiary page about “reinvesting policing savings.”).

 

What’s important here?  “Defund the police” was nowhere to be found on the page candidates were asked to sign. Or, for that matter, anywhere on the site.

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I am all for a (conservative) Republican majority in the General Assembly.  One  was achieved by telling the voters the truth about conservatism and limited government and how much better THAT IS than what the left side of the chamber offers.

 

How does it truly help Republican candidates when you dispatch messengers (like Timmy) to fly-over country (you know, outside the beltline) and exaggerate /lie to the voting public?

 

WHERE is the leadership we were promised in 2010 and 2012?