Timmy grovels to Democrats on casino deal
It’s funny. Not ha-ha funny. Just, um, FUNNY.
We were told that a veto-proof majority would allow for all kinds of Republican policy matters to roll through the legislature without any hindrance from Democrats or their succubus Roy Cooper.
The on-going secretive casino shenanigans have caused all that to blow up spectacularly. Timmy and his crew can’t get a majority of their own caucus to support casinos across the Tar Heel countryside. Timmy and the boys have taken a boatload of cash from gambling interests — so they are really under pressure to make something happen. (“Fat Boy” 
Saine, one of Timmy’s most treasured punks is, in fact, the gambling industry’s policymaker of the year – and proud of it. As should all of you be in Lincoln County. Saine is really under pressure to deliver for his new owners.)
Here’s the latest my moles on Jones Street are passing along. In an attempt to lure away some Democrat votes, Timmy & co. are offering to dramatically reduce funds currently in the budget for charter schools AND various pro-life initiatives.
We’re also hearing that Medicaid expansion AND casinos could be separated from the budget and put into a separate bill. If you want Medicaid expansion, you have to vote for casinos. And vice-versa.
If you didn’t already know, WE THE PEOPLE no longer matter. This is about delivering to big-time donors.
(From what I hear, there are some folks in the gambling industry who really don’t take kindly to folks who don’t honor commitments. Remember the infamous “Cheater’s Justice” scene from the Scorsese movie “Casino”?)
Changing party control is not going to fix this. Democrat corruption and Jim Black gave us the big 
flip in 2010. Has the NCGOP stunk Raleigh up enough, at this point, to create another flip in 2024?
They may be wrongheaded on policy over there on the left, but I wholeheartedly believe there are folks in those ranks who still think integrity and respect for voters are important. Left and right need to seriously examine what we have “representing” us in Raleigh and make some changes.
Filing for primaries is in December. Here’s a good political target list to start with:
- Lincoln County
- Cleveland County
- Rockingham County
- Pitt County
- Lenoir County
- Caldwell County
- Wayne County
Folks in these counties: Identify some quality candidates who honestly have public service at heart — no criminal records, no tin-foil hats. We know the incumbents will have a money edge. Factor in the level of anger out here in the heartland and you might truly stun yourself at the amount of money that comes in from out of the county. You might be stunned at what you pull off on Election Day. The political class needs to understand that the people will only tolerate SO MUCH bullshit.
The deal moving is a stand alone bill on Medicaid and casinos
I am not sure the reductions in charter schools, etc would be needed because with those items out of the budget and would thank all the GOP members would support the budget
So, they roll two shameful leftwing sellouts into one awful bill. ANY “Republican” who votes for that garbage should have a primary challenge and should be dogmeat in the primary. THROW THE RASCALS OUT. We don’t need or want leftwing special interest whores in the GOP caucus.
Any Republican in the NCGA that votes for Medicaid expansion and/or casinos MUST be primaried!!
We did not vote a veto-proof super majority to have this garbage!
Michele, we did not vote in a veto-proof majority. We only voted in 71 Republicans. Tim Moore made a deal with the Democrat leader to redraw my former district so that a Democrat would win, and Destin Hall assured me that my chosen candidate to replace me would be okay in the newly redrawn district. I would have argued against the redraw if I had been given a chance to see the proposed map, but I didn’t get to see it, and I took Destin’s word for it that my chosen candidate would be just fine. I only got to see the map after we voted on it, My chosen candidate had been doing very well in Midland and Mount Pleasant; but the new map took both of those communities out of the district, and he withdrew from the race. As a result, I was replaced by a radical race baiting BLM supporter Democrat. We did not have a veto-proof majority until Tricia Cotham switched her registration to Republican.
Truth.
Only problem is you need people willing to run for that virtually volunteer job, then you need them to run viable campaigns and not waste money on crap like signs and mailings, and low dollar “fundraisers” that hardly raise any money.
Signs and mailings and fundraisers are not crap. I had to have them. I would not have had the money I needed without sending out letters and having fundraisers. But that is not all I did. I did a lot of door to door campaigning myself, and had others going out for me, as well. One lady knocked on over 800 doors for me in one election alone. Those things made a big difference. The first election I won was a primary in 2012 with no general election opponent. I won that one by 2% against a lawyer and county commission chairman whose main effort was to ridicule me. I don’t remember how many thousands he spent against me, but I beat him with only $8,300. I beat him again in 2020 with 63% of the vote in the primary. Money isn’t everything.
Add Franklin County to that list. Winslow stands with the developers against a lot of people in Youngsville who have become alarmed over the cancerous growth sapping local water and other resources. That and his Medicare expansion and Blue Cross shenanigans warrant a new representative for Franklin county conservatives.
Latest I hear in the Senate, and perhaps the House as well, is that anyone who votes against the casinos / medicaid expansion will have all their district’s funding stripped from the budget. We don’t have “legislative leaders” in Raleigh, we have mafia dons. We have A LOT of work to do in the primaries. Not only does Berger need to be primaried but so do ALL Bergerites. They are a stain on our party. Heck, Tammany Hall was probalby more honest than the Berger / Moore mafiosos.. Lets clean House (and Senate) Berger and Moore are just Nancy Pelosi without the skirt. I wonder if we have a DA who would prosecute Berger and Moore for extortion. I would love to see both in orange jump suits.
At some point, one must do what is right regardless of the personal consequences. This vote will be a litmus test of character.
The best advice I can give any legislator is “vote against everything, get nothing for your district, always win.”
The people who vote on government handouts aren’t our voters anyways.
John Blust is absolutely right, but the lack of character of many in Raleigh is already painfully apparent. The main reason that I did not run again in 2022 was that I had to keep the promise I made when I was appointed to finish out my predecessor’s term when he quit, that after finishing out his term I would not run for more than five full terms. As a man of my word, I had to keep that promise; but I have come to regret it. It is painful to see bad legislation that I helped stop while I was there getting so close to possible passage since I left. It makes me wish I could get back up there to fight again. During my last term, Jason Saine ran his bill for sports betting. I was one of those, along with even some Democrats, who stood up and vigorously opposed it. When the bill was defeated by one vote, Saine couldn’t handle it. The rest of that day, he refused to vote yes on anything, even for bills he would have normally supported. He tried to have the bill sent back to the Rules committee to try again, but that motion was defeated by a strong margin. Later, he made some snide remark about “tin foil hats.” That struck me as a slam against anyone who had opposed his bill. So I went to him, on the floor, and told him he needed to apologize for that remark. He started into his tough guy act and sneered at me that it was just a private joke between himself and Rep. Brenden Jones. I repeated that he needed to apologize, and went back to my seat. Presently, he came back to my desk with his bully look on his face and tried to intimidate me (which doesn’t work). I stood up to him, and we were about to get loud enough to cause a disturbance on the House floor, so he went back to his seat. We haven’t spoken since. I have suspected ever since that he and Tim Moore and others are pushing the gambling bills, the medicaid expansion bill and bills to legalize marijuana because they are under pressure from campaign donors who stand to benefit from these evil mistakes. Dare I say “the mafia?” Such people are not fit to “serve” in Raleigh, and definitely need to be primaried out. It is very tempting to me to run again, myself, to get back in the fight against the corruption being pushed by Tim Moore, Jason Saine, etc. My wife and I are trying very hard to move back to Craven County, where I was raised, but we have had no luck finding a home to buy down there. So, as it does not seem likely that we will get there in time for me to qualify to run from there in the upcoming election, I guess that will not happen this time around. So, I have even thought about running from here in Cabarrus County next year, but I think that would not be fair to people who know I am trying to go home. In addition, I will be 70 next year; so by the time we could move, I may be too worn out to run. But I hate not being in the fight against these crooks and bullies who are running North Carolina into the same kind of moral decay and ruin that have taken over so much of the rest of the country. Tim Moore, in particular, has a standard response to any opposition to his agenda, of punishing members by removing them from committee chairmanships and not allowing their bills to be heard. He certainly did all he could to punish me. It is ridiculous that the Speaker, no matter who it is, should have that kind of power. No one person should be able to decide not to let a bill be heard, especially in a manner of personal vindictiveness. I tried to change that rule along the way, but of course, Tim ruled my proposed amendment to the rules out of order. Having that kind of power is how he is able to mete out unjust punishment of members who stand up to him and keep most of them in line. That power needs to be taken away from the Speaker. The Speaker, whoever it is, should work for the people and the members, not for his own agenda and ambitions, and be the moderator, not the dictator, of the House. That would cut down on a lot of the corruption in Raleigh. I pray there will be enough other standup citizens to primary these people out of office. We need real representatives of the people throughout our State government who are public servants, who do not prostitute themselves to the despicable ungodly interests that draw them away from what is right and true and good by offering them so much dirty money. I urge good people across the State to get out there and challenge these people in primaries, and don’t think you can’t do it because you can’t raise enough money. I was out-funded 8-1 in the first four elections that I won, and over 10-1 in my fifth one. I am sure there are capable, honest people out there who can do it if I could. God help us retake our State from the devil’s crowd!
What we have in legislative “leadership” is indeed a mafia, and an arrogant one that is out of control. In the House, John Bell, Destin Hall, and Jason Saine are all part and parcel of it. North Carolina Republicans cannot afford any of these thugs as our next Speaker. All of them are tied up in the corruption with the special interests. They are up to their eyeballs in it.
The Senate and its “leadership” is even worse. We had a successful campaign to censure Tillis and that scumbag Berger deserves that treatment at least as much as Tillis.
Mr. Pittman – YOU SHOULD RUN AGAIN! You obviously have the passion and are one of the few true conservatives that votes conservative values over big donors, so if you think you could win then I encourage you to run! It really doesn’t matter that you are thinking of moving later on, people only care that you are going to vote conservative. Our state is in a big battle and its very important that we have people like you in there that will fight for the people first, instead of the big donors.
It’s not too late to run if there’s not already a good candidate running! Go for it! 🙂
Melissa Owens, I appreciate your kind words and your opinion. However, people in Cabarrus County pretty much know I have been trying to find a place down home in or near Craven County for about three years now. So I think that would make a difference to a lot of folks around here. There are some people in Craven County who would like me to primary their current Representative, and even another member of the House has mentioned this to me. However, it does not appear that we will get moved in time for me to be reestablished in Craven County in time to qualify to run in 2024. While some in Craven County would like me to run, I suspect a lot of people there who don’t know me would consider me a carpetbagger candidate, just as Catherine Whiteford was here in Cabarrus County in 2022. So there is not much likelihood that I would have enough support in either place this time around, and I will be 72 in 2026. I may just have to be satisfied with going home and working with Michael Speciale and the God and Country Christian Alliance to see what difference we can make that way. God bless.
The real solution to this problem is CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM. We need a bill that ONLY allows individuals who live in our state to give to candidates. And doesn’t allow Unions, Businesses, PACs, etc to give. Only then will the politicians (on both sides) do what they promise the people when they are campaigning.
This does nothing. I have 1000 ways to get around any law you do-gooder “reformers” think up.
The solution is to make the pay commensurate with the job, which means making the salary 5x what it is now.
Pay shit and you get shit. You get what you pay for in life.
No one who opposes this idea ever runs themselves. They just pontificate and act superior to those who stick their necks on the line to run for these thankless time-consuming jobs.
There are other legislative districts where incumbents are retiring or running for other offices. Those are also key counties for conservatives to recruit new legislators. The Plan of Organization sets out that legislative candidate recruitment is the responsibility of local county and district party organizations, NOT the leadership in Raleigh. Local party organizations need to assert their primacy on this recruitment, because that is the only way we are going to get legislators who represent local voters to Raleigh, instead of representing Raleigh to local voters. Unfortunately, Michael Whatley in his report to the December state ExCom meeting mentioned deferring legislative recruitment to legislative leadership. That is NOT the PoO. Local parties should follow the PoO and assert their primacy in legislative candidate recruitment for these open seats.
During the three terms I worked on legislative recruitment as a congressional district party chairman, we congressional district chairmen were the point people on legislative recruitment between the state party and the county parties. We worked with our county chairmen to find good candidates, and kept the state chairman advised of progress. When I reported a solid prospect to the state chairman, he would call the prospect if we requested. Also, if we requested, he would ask the House or Senate leadership to call and encourage the prospective candidate, and if it was a strong candidate in a winnable seat, we could also request a call from Governor Martin. That was the only way legislative leadership got involved in legislative candidate recruitment, when the party asked them to. They did not butt in otherwise.