NORTH CAROLINA OPEN THREAD Sunday, October 24, 2021
336th Weekly Edition
This is a weekly feature of North Carolina Blue. We hope this weekly platform gives readers interested in North Carolina politics a place to share their knowledge, insight and inspiration as we work on taking back our state from some of the most extreme Republicans in the nation. Please join us every week. You can also join the discussion in four other weekly State Open Threads.
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Covid data 10/24/2021 1:00pm EDT
Click here for Covid-19 data from Worldometer Real Time World Statistics.
USA NC Total Cases New Cases Total Deaths New Deaths Total Recovered Active Cases 1,463,410 17,765 1,399,393 46,252
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Please jump the fold for links to stories I hope you find interesting, useful and timely. The floor is yours.
Incoming NC lawmaker was at Jan. 6 US Capitol protests, riot
WRAL, Travis Fain, 10/22/2021
RALEIGH, N.C. — The Republican Party's new appointee to the North Carolina House was at the U.S. Capitol for the Jan. 6 protest-turned-riot and said he was close enough to the Capitol breach to get hit repeatedly with tear gas.
Incoming Rep. Donnie Loftis was the Gaston County Republican Party's choice this week to replace late Rep.
Loftis posted a picture of himself to Facebook ahead of the Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal Rally," saying he was on a bus headed to Washington, D.C. He followed up with comment, seen in a screenshot provided to WRAL News overnight by a source who said the posts have been deleted.
“I got gassed three times and was at the entrance when they breached the door,” Loftis, an Army veteran, posted at the time. “I spoke to many service members, and we all agreed that we didn’t want to be there, but we had no other choice. They don’t get it that they work for us. And I mean that in a respectful way.
Handpicked incoming GOP NC lawmaker claims he was at Jan. 6 riot
Today UK News, 10/22/2021
An incoming North Carolina state lawmaker told a Raleigh-based television news station on Friday that he was outside the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, the day a protest against the certification of the 2020 election results in Washington, D.C. turned violent.
Donnie Loftis, who is to become a General Assembly member for North Carolina’s 109th District in the wake of former state Representative Dana Bumgardner’s death earlier this month, told WRAL he “peacefully exercised my first amendment rights in front of the U.S. Capitol” and was “surprised and disappointed to watch others storm the entrance as violence ensued.”
“I had absolutely zero involvement in the rioting and categorically condemn the storming of our Capitol building that day,” the station reported Loftis told them in a text message exchange.
SPEAKING OF COVIDIOTS:
BlueNC, 10/21/2021
The Republican Party's pick to fill the term of a late Gaston County lawmaker resigned the chairmanship last year of a local hospital board after a series of early pandemic social media posts. Donnie Loftis is a former Gaston County commissioner, an Army veteran and recipient of the Bronze Star, a medal given for heroism or merit. He was on the CaroMont Health board of directors for eight years but resigned in May 2020 after The Charlotte Observer asked about some of his COVID-19 Facebook posts, the newspaper reported at the time. Loftis made that Facebook page private after The Observer reached out, leaving the messages inaccessible to the general public. The newspaper said he called stay-at-home orders tyranny and posted messages about coronavirus conspiracies.
At the time, CaroMont was urging people to stay home, and one of the system's nurses was in critical condition with COVID-19, the newspaper reported. The system told the newspaper that board members' opinions were "not statements made on the behalf of CaroMont Health nor an indication of the health system’s position on any topic," and Loftis resigned a few days later. Yep, he's a perfect fit for the NC GOP. https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/new-nc-lawmaker-resigned-hospital-position-last-year-over-covid-19-...
Two North Carolina lawmakers linked to Oath Keepers -- is this who Republicans want to be?
The Charlotte Observer, 10/22/2021
North Carolina Republicans tried to distance themselves from the type of radical extremism that led to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But a leaked membership roster reveals that at least two state lawmakers are affiliated with the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militant group whose members are among those charged in connection to the Capitol insurrection.
North Carolina Reps. Mike Clampitt, a Republican from Bryson City, and Keith Kidwell, a Republican from coastal Beaufort County, are both listed as members of the group, according to ProPublica. Clampitt was elected to the state legislature for one term in 2016 and then again in 2020. Kidwell has served since 2019, and is the House deputy majority whip. Clampitt and Kidwell joined the Oath Keepers in 2014 and 2012, respectively, ProPublica’s analysis showed.
That information should concern every North Carolinian. The Oath Keepers are one of the country’s largest anti-government extremist groups, whose self-described mission is to defend the Constitution. In practice, that looks like armed standoffs with authorities and, of course, participating in storming the U.S. Capitol. The organization is a threat, and that’s not just our opinion; it’s the FBI’s, which has described the Oath Keepers as a “large but loosely organized collection of militia who believe that the federal government has been co-opted by a shadowy conspiracy that is trying to strip American citizens of their rights.”
Ban vaccine mandates for travelers, NC Rep. Madison Cawthorn says in new bill
News&Observer, LUCILLE SHERMAN, 10/21/2021
North Carolina Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn introduced legislation that would ban vaccine mandates for travel, he announced in a press release Wednesday. The bill, called the ‘‘Let Me Travel America Act,’’ would ban the government from mandating vaccines for travel within the United States. The legislation is unlikely to advance in either the U.S. House or the Senate, where Utah Sen. Mike Lee filed identical legislation, with Democrats in the majority in both chambers.
Still, the move is Cawthorn’s latest to publicly oppose COVID-19 related safety measures, like vaccine and mask mandates.
“Vaccine requirements for interstate travel are in direct opposition to the United States Constitution,” Cawthorn said in the release. “The Biden Administration continues to flaunt their blatant disregard for the law in pursuit of their left-wing radical agenda.”
No vaccine mandates for travel are currently in effect. President Joe Biden has proposed mandating vaccines in other settings but not for air travel, the Washington Post reported, although Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has said he would support such a mandate.
“There is no current mandate on vaccine requirements to travel by the government, but the Biden administration has not ruled it out,” said Cawthorn spokesperson Luke Ball. “As the mandates become increasingly overbearing, Congressman Cawthorn wants to ensure a vaccine requirement to travel never becomes a reality.”
WATCH: Madison Cawthorn urges mothers of young boys to 'raise them to be a monster'
David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement, 10/19/2021
U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn is urging parents to turn their young children into monsters.
The North Carolina Republican Congressman lamented that American "culture is trying to completely demasculate all the young men," presumably meaning "emasculate."
"You can look at testosterone levels in young men today, and they are lower than throughout all of history," he added.
"But my friends they're trying to demasculate the young men in this country 'cause they don't want people who are going to stand up."
"If you are raising a young man, raise them to be a monster," he urged mothers, to applause.
Thank you for reading and contributing, I hope you have a safe week.
