Triad Conservative

Sale of News and Record Property is Likely Going to Cost Taxpayers Lots of Money

The sale of the News and Record building on East Market St. in Greensboro likely has elicited considerable interest locally. The building, which is undoubtedly akin to a ghost town at this point, will ultimately not survive. The suspicion is that some type of mixed commercial/residential development will replace it.

The parking garage/hotel proposal on Elm St. which will cost taxpayers $30 million likely added value to the nearby News and Record property. It only makes sense that our corrupt local machine politics would have delivered for its corporate media enablers.

During recent years, large scale developments have tended not to occur downtown without major taxpayer subsidies. This will almost surely be the case when the former News and Record site is developed. One can almost visualize Matheny, various development interests, city council members, city staff and others salivating at the prospect of turning over tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to develop the site. After all, why should this property be any different? Crony socialism is our guiding light in Greensboro.

It is regarded as exceedingly important to push development-- by throwing tens of millions of taxpayer dollars at various proposals-- in a vicinity where it would never occur spontaneously, in an organic fashion.

If you live in Greensboro, get ready for the next installment in a series. The taxpayer doesn't even have a chance.

Raleigh GOP: Ruthless Efficiency When it Serves Their Interests

It was interesting to see that a North Carolina House committee passed a "sore loser" bill that would prevent candidates who had been defeated in primaries from running on another party line during the general election. This bill was quickly developed in response to the prospect that the Constitution Party would gain ballot access; and that conservatives defeated during primary season would switch parties and run in the general election.

It is very interesting to see the ruthless efficiency with which this bill has been advanced.

For some reason, I can't recall the Raleigh GOP during recent years demonstrating the same level of efficiency passing bills that would consistently:

• Cut spending at the state level in a decisive fashion
• Eliminate the state income tax
• Fight for the state's sovereignty against an out-of-control federal judiciary
• Assert the 10th Amendment on behalf of North Carolina citizens
• Dismantle the enormous welfare state administered in Raleigh
• Strengthen legally the traditional two-parent family unit within the state
• Protect the religious liberty of North Carolina citizens (in fact, they repealed HB 2!)
• Fight statism and incremental socialism
• Enhance and extend gun rights
• Unleash truly free markets in health care within the state

In fact, we have seen none of these things happen consistently during recent years. Our ever-careful, oh-so-politically-correct GOP in Raleigh has produced virtually nothing of value since the leadership in the House changed hands three years ago.

But they can very quickly-- indeed, almost instantaneously-- pass "sore loser" legislation when it suits their political interests.

The contrast is quite telling when we consider all the things they haven't done.

Constitution Party Press Conference

The Best Way to Honor Veterans, War Dead and Active Military

Last Chance: A Call for Candidates

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is a momentous day. It is expected that the Constitution Party of NC will deliver its petitions to the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE). Given the fact that the county boards have already certified many more than we actually need under the law, we expect that the NCSBE will designate us as a recognized political party eligible to place candidates on the ballot.

Accordingly, we hope to run candidates for the fall election this year. This will potentially include candidates for congressional seats, the North Carolina General Assembly and local races.

If you are a constitutional conservative who agrees with the core values of the Constitution Party, and are interested in running, we would like to hear from you.

The party has a required vetting process. We plan to hold a nominating convention in Charlotte on Saturday, June 16-- depending, of course, on the NCSBE properly doing its job once it receives the petitions from us. Interested constitutional conservatives are welcome to attend the convention-- but please RSVP.

All the required information for the vetting process is found here. Explicit instructions inform prospective candidates of all the requirements. The deadline is Tuesday, June 12. I also recommend that interested prospective candidates contact our Chairman or Vice-Chairman to discuss the matter. Information on how to reach them is found on the website.

This is an exciting time for North Carolina constitutional conservatives who believe in limited government, the sanctity of life, the traditional family, religious liberty, the Second Amendment and national sovereignty. We now have the opportunity to support candidates who truly share our values.

Who Are the Good Guys, Continued

We are in the midst of a time when all of our preconceptions regarding the relative virtue of nations on the world stage must be called into question.

Pat Buchanan:

After being sworn in for a fourth term, Vladimir Putin departed the Kremlin for Annunciation Cathedral to receive the televised blessing of Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The patriarch and his priests in sacred vestments surrounded Putin, who, standing alone, made the sign of the cross.

Meanwhile, sacred vestments from the Sistine Chapel were being transported by the Vatican to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to adorn half-clad models in a sexy show billed as "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination." One model sported a papal tiara.

The show proved a sensation in secular media.

In Minsk, Belarus, on May 17, to celebrate International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, Britain's embassy raised the rainbow flag. Belarus's Ministry of Internal Affairs was not amused:

"Same-sex relationships are a fake. And the essence of fake is always the same—the devaluation of truth. The LGBT community and all this struggle for 'their rights,' and the day of the community itself, are just a fake!"

Belarus is declaring moral truth—to Great Britain.

What is going on? A scholarly study sums it up: "The statistical trends in religion show two separate Europes: the West is undergoing a process of secularization while the post-socialist East, de-secularization."

One Europe is turning back to God; the other is turning its back on God.

And when Vladimir Putin and Belarus' Alexander Lukashenko are standing up for traditional values against Western cultural elites, the East-West struggle has lost its moral clarity.

What the Republican NCGA Should Do in Response to the Constitution Party

The Daily Haymaker reports that North Carolina General Assembly Republicans in Raleigh are considering legislation that would prohibit a primary election's "sore loser" from running on a different party line in the fall election. The blog post highlights the movement to "draft" Rep. Beverly Boswell-- a conservative NCGA Republican incumbent who recently lost her primary to an establishment challenger-- to run for the same office as the Constitution Party nominee.

We are, to some extent, counting our chickens before they are hatched. The State Board of Elections has not yet certified the Constitution Party's petition effort, and guaranteed it a place on the ballot.

I have a proposal for the NCGA GOP. Instead of focusing on "sore loser" legislation, let's look at the bigger picture.

Right now in the state of North Carolina, a candidate cannot run as the endorsee of two political parties simultaneously, at least according to my understanding. That is unfortunate, because a discrete minority of Republican nominees will also qualify for the Constitution Party endorsement.

I think the General Assembly ought to amend the state's election laws to allow candidates to run as the nominee of more than one party.

This could potentially be quite important during the 2020 election season. 

Let's assume the Constitution Party attains ballot access. The law states that we can only remain on the ballot if we run a candidate for governor, and that candidate receives a certain percentage of the vote. We must run a candidate for governor if we have any hope of retaining ballot access.

I do not know with certainty whether Dan Forest would qualify for the Constitution Party endorsement, or whether he would be inclined to pursue it. He would have to undergo our vetting process, and pledge to adhere to our core principles. Having two endorsements would help him; and not having the two endorsements would potentially hurt his candidacy.

Changing the law regarding multiple party endorsements would also help other Republican nominees whose worldview and program are consistent with those of the Constitution Party.

"Sore Loser" legislation would be explicitly intended and designed to limit freedom. But my suggestion would enhance freedom by giving political parties more options, and enhancing the likelihood that conservative, liberty-loving candidates can prevail.

Interesting Take on School Shootings and the Death Penalty

Former NC Episcopal Bishop Sullies Royal Wedding

Boyd Cathey, Chronicles: 

(T)he ideals and principles of Christendom remained a real and accessible model and guide for the inheritors of (Western) civilization and culture for well over 1,000 years.

That civilization held up first and foremost the Faith as the necessary beacon and as essential for all men. It set boundaries and dictated manners and a standard of allocution and communication, it instructed our ancestors on what it was to be a true Christian gentleman, and it was the source and nourishment of the greatest and most sublime culture in all of history, producing great art, architecture, music, literature that glorified God and through that glorification and through the belief of the Faithful truly defined what it was to be elevated as “children of God” above the lower animals...

(L)ike most current ruling monarchies today, the catch phrase is “relevance,” getting “with it,” so to speak, with all the current fads, breaking with tradition, basically turning a backside to the past and its critical importance in the survival of the nation. And if that means bringing in a flamer like Elton John and inviting a whole slew of disreputable Hollywood types, not to mention pseudo-celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, into the great halls and chapels that once beheld the noble figures of a King Charles the Martyr or Victoria Regina, then so be it.

And then there was the ungracious spectacle of the “Presiding Bishop,” Michael Curry, of what is called the Episcopal Church in the United States. Curry a few years back was the Episcopal bishop in North Carolina and distinguished himself for his leftwing social and religious views—he would much rather preach the gospel of “Saint” Martin Luther King than St. Paul: too many inconveniences and prohibitions in the Pauline message!

And he did not disappoint in St. George’s Chapel: jumping around like a jack-rabbit, pretending he was sermonizing to a group of illiterate Yazoo bayou dwellers in Mississippi, he brought, as gushing Fox commentators Shepard Smith and airhead Ainsley Earhardt fawned, “a wonderful and inspiring American element” to the wedding.

For thirteen minutes he basically said just one sentence: “How great is love!” But he managed to mix in bits of MLK (yes, King, that expert on conjugal love!), civil rights, and a social gospel totally extraneous to the supposed occasion.

The Windsors, for the most part, set stony-faced and amused, enveloped by the tide of nonsense and relevance that has overwhelmed them. Oh, certainly, it was said that the ceremony “combined the best of British tradition with a new and fresh ‘American’ approach.”  But what it actually did was point out sharply the truth of my friend Ignacio de Orbe’s observation about monarchy and monarchs in the modern world: “They are increasingly a ‘sign of contradiction’; this must be their role in our world. If they fail in this—if they embrace all the tawdry excesses and excrescences of our times—they will forfeit that historic role, and rightly so”...

The awe and reverence, the understanding that the past is never really “past,” that it is always potentially within us, and that it can inform our steps and continue to inspire us and anneal us in its grace, is a precious legacy, an invaluable gift from our ancestors and Christendom. We forfeit it, and the blackness of despair and death awaits us.

When the traditional champions of our culture and civilization quit the field, as the Windsors have done, only Evil smiles.

Impeach Obama?

A fascinating article at WND raises the spectre of impeaching Barack Obama. Judicial Watch has apparently floated this idea.

Say what?

In fact, there appears to be a precedent for impeaching someone after he no longer holds public office.

What justifies impeaching Obama? According to Judicial Watch, it appears likely that Obama would have been advised of-- and approved-- the counter-intelligence/ spy operations against Donald Trump when he was running for the presidency. Tom Fitton says Obama deserves to be impeached to a much greater extent than Trump.

I overall agree with that assessment.

Of course, that would require courageous action by congressional Republicans-- a group that, in terror-stricken fashion, perpetually and collectively runs away from their own shadows.

But it seems that, every day, we learn more that justifies impeaching Obama.

Addendum: 

"William Murphy, a professor of American history at State University of New York at Oswego, confirmed that Congress could impeach a former president, noting the penalties of conviction including a ban from holding future office."

 

Obama has been discussed as a potential democratic socialist Supreme Court nominee in the future.