“I do not know where to start with this man. He called the civil rights movement crap. Called LGBTQ people filth. Self-identified as a Nazi. Suggested bringing back slavery. Now, I shouldn’t have to really get into all this. I think it’s fair to say you do not need a governor who makes Donald Trump look almost normal.”
— Barack Obama, talking about North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson (R).
Seems North Carolina gov wannabe Mark Robinson
Has pastimes we wouldn’t expect from a Christian son.
On top of Trump iconography,
He’s got a yen for pornography,
And going to video stores where staff say Robinson likes rubbin’ some.
“We have perverted the word love. We don’t understand the word love. We don’t understand what love really is. We think love is sunshine and rainbows, and put your arms around somebody saying ‘I love you, brother’ — certainly that’s a form of love. … But how many of y’all know when you hold your young’un by one arm and beat them in a circle, because they were bad — how many of you know that’s love too?”
— North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) described his loving approach to disciplining misbehaving children, WUNC reports.
Rep. Jeff Jackson, D-NC, on Reddit: “This morning there was a political earthquake in North Carolina. A legislator in the state House announced she was switching parties from Democrat to Republican. I want to make sure you understand how dramatic the impact of this one switch will be.
Rep. Jeff Jackson D-NC
“Until today, Democrats had enough votes to sustain [Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s] veto – but only by a margin of one vote in the NC House. With this switch, Republicans now have a supermajority in both chambers, which means they have the votes to override any veto – which effectively just gave them full control of state government for the first time since 2017.
“I can’t overstate the policy consequences of this single switch. While we don’t know how she will vote on any given bill, dozens of bills that were essentially dead – from elections law changes to reproductive freedom to LGBTQ rights to education policy – may have just sprung back to life. And the state budget – which controls education funding – can now be passed entirely on the basis of Republican votes.
“In short, the decision by this legislator to suddenly switch parties will have consequences for millions of people.”
Riding the tea-party wave, Republicans took control of North Carolina for the first time since the 1860s, back when the GOP was the liberal party. Anticipating a Blue Wave in 2016, billionaire Tom Steyer is signaling his intent to help Democrats regain control of the Tar Heel state.
“Despite Republican assurances that North Carolina’s ‘bathroom bill’ isn’t hurting the economy, the law limiting LGBT protections will cost the state more than $3.76 billion in lost business over a dozen years,” according to an Associated Press analysis.
This isn’t just hardball politics. This is a fundamentally anti-democratic approach to government, one that says that when we win, we get to implement our agenda, and when you win, you don’t. … To put this in context, perhaps nowhere in the country have Republicans moved more aggressively to solidify power by disenfranchising their opponents as they have in North Carolina.
It’s time to celebrate our democratic process and respect what I see to be the ultimate outcome of the closest North Carolina governor’s race in modern history.
— North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), announcing he has conceded the gubernatorial election to Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) and will support transition efforts, the Raleigh News & Observer reports.
Number of votes that “might not be counted in this year’s Nov. 8 presidential election if a federal appeals court upholds the 2013 law,” a Reuters review of Republican-backed changes to North Carolina’s voting rules finds. “Besides banning voters from voting outside their assigned precinct on Election Day, the law also prevents them from registering the same day they vote during the early voting period.”
Why does Elon Musk get to decide fed workers’ fates?
We didn’t elect him to be the United States’ Potentate!
Let men of good will firmly resolve
That Musk is the problem he aims to solve,
Because the fact is, DOGE is indeed the Deep State.
“We are witnessing an extraordinarily broad chilling effect in American society. It is not just what you want to say, but what you are allowed to ask. It is about both formal government actions and informal threats, with threats of professional ruin or even violence from the President’s supporters. It is about both censorship and self-censorship. It is about a sense of collective fear.”
“Musk’s behavior is emblematic of tech’s most heinous figures, who now feel emboldened to enter the analog world with the same lack of care and arrogance with which they built their sloppy platforms.”
“If they want to try to annihilate Ontario, I will do everything — including cut off their energy with a smile on my face. …They rely on our energy, they need to feel the pain. They want to come at us hard, we’re going to come back twice as hard.”
— “Speaking Monday at a mining convention in downtown Toronto, Ontario Premier Doug Ford doubled down on threats to cut electricity exports to U.S. border states if the tariffs go through,” the Toronto Sun reports.
“The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin. Every single day you hear from the National Security Advisor, from the President of the United States, from his entire national security team, Kremlin talking points.”
“America’s abrupt turn from moral beacon and defender of the free world is unsurprising, given the fundamental immorality of the Trump administration. If you have the morality of a gangster, you will behave like a gangster.”
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Wednesday announced nearly three dozen deregulatory moves that he said would spur the U.S. economy by rolling back rules that have unfairly burdened industry, reported the Associated Press. Many of the moves would affect landmark regulations aimed at protecting clean air and water.
“The U.S. debt and deficit problem worsened during President Donald Trump’s first month in office, as the budget shortfall for February passed the $1 trillion mark even though the fiscal year is not yet at the halfway point,” CNBC reports.
The U.S. had ~172,000 layoffs in February, up 245% from January and the most in a single month since the Covid pandemic in 2020, according to a report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That’s also the most job cuts in the month of February since 2009, during the financial crisis. More than a third of those layoffs (~62,000) came from the Department of Government Efficiency’s federal headcount reduction. But it wasn’t just federal workers who were laid off: Retail was also hit hard, losing nearly 40,000 roles. Per CNBC, the sector has lost six times more jobs so far this year than it did in the same period last year.
“President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to revoke temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia, potentially putting them on a fast-track to deportation,” Reuters reports. “The move, expected as soon as April, would be a stunning reversal of the welcome Ukrainians received under President Joe Biden’s administration.”
Riding the tea-party wave, Republicans took control of North Carolina for the first time since the 1860s, back when the GOP was the liberal party. Anticipating a Blue Wave in 2016, billionaire Tom Steyer is signaling his intent to help Democrats regain control of the Tar Heel state.
