North Carolina’s new $30 billion state budget contains a provision that gives extraordinary investigative powers to a partisan oversight committee co-chaired by Senate Leader Phil Berger (R) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R).
Judd, I really appreciate your efforts in exposing all this horrific corruption and injustice. I live in NC and have been fighting back as best I can with other dedicated Dems but it is completely overwhelming. Thank you for helping us.
I'm with you, Lynn, in the Raleigh area. The legislature here keeps grabbing more power, and their new control of the state Supreme Court is letting them redraw the maps for permanent control. I love NC, but they are making the place intolerant and intolerable.
Thanks for your reply Jenny K-L. We are not far from each other! On the positive side, I have met many inspiring, brilliant and persistent volunteers and amazing Democratic legislators that give me such hope. Their energy and enthusiasm is contagious. There are huge numbers of us who have our eyes on the ball and intend to vote them out! Neighbors On Call is a very well organized great group if you are interested. I like what Joyce Vance closes with in her Substack: “ We are in this together”. Very grateful for these communities.
Annette, I hope you will stay informed of the politics here in NC as best you can if that is factoring into your decision to move. There have been massive changes since we moved here from CA in 2019. I was told this was purple turning blue. 😳Go on the NC Democrats site and I also highly recommend Neighbors On Call. If you subscribe they should give you updates.
Sounds like North Carolina beat Tennessee to this 'Gov Ops' secret police... wonder what states will follow suit? Very Nazi-like SS, starts small and grows big. Fun times. :(
"The Schutzstaffel (SS; also stylized as ᛋᛋ with Armanen runes; German pronunciation: [ˈʃʊtsˌʃtafl̩] ⓘ; lit. 'Protection Squadron') was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II.
It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, mass surveillance, and state terrorism within Germany and German-occupied Europe."
My sibling was stationed in West Berlin before and after the wall came down and worked with the DIA. Your point is taken--exactly--it can happen here, and it's the slow pot warming up to a boil.
My wife studied in Stuttgart in 1984-85 and in Berlin in 1988-89, leaving just weeks before the Wall fell. We also visited Berlin in 2017, and I spent a LOT of time at the museum at the site of the former SS building as well as at the house at Wannsee (now a museum) where the terms of the "Final Solution" were agreed upon. I have been drawing parallels between the Nazis and the Trumpites since Trump announced in 2015 that he was running. I felt a little weird about that at first, but then some Holocaust survivors started publicly drawing the same parallel and I felt better.
Thank you for the interesting historical perspective and early Nazi actions. This knowledge is SO important--just THINK about what it took for that "regime's collapse in 1945"!
I don't believe the Trump loyalists, in any state, will be satisfied until we have become The People's Republic of America and the Dear Leader can order the execution of shoplifters, protesters and democrats.
Well, you left out the SA which was much more impotrtant during the early days, but that's almost beside the point. Also, and more important to our current situation was the subversion of the judiciary, and of the civil service. One would profit from a comparative reading of the Constitution and the Grundgesetz to see what the Germans learned and what we haven't.
As someone who spends about 10% of my time there, I find certain things striking: No memorials to Nazis or even to non-Nazi soldiers from WW2 vs many to slave owners
and traitors like Bobby Lee for instance. The general level of civility for another.
Our State is literally under attack from these Republicans. Where are all these “govt overreach” conservatives who claim Dems want too much control?! I’ll tell you where - listening to talk radio or sitting in front of Fox News on TV. They have no idea this is going on because Right wing news sources would never share this!
We’ve got to this word out! Moore is not running for re-election which should be a relief but now only means someone even worse will have a shot & he’s moving into some other nefarious strategic position.
I hope to goodness Marc Elias & crew will be suing, Several conservative states are working on similar initiatives around “secret” or specialized police & it’s part of their bigger plans to create a new SS.
Judd, you have done it again. Pointed out where we the people have gotten slack, allowing yet another state to go total Authoritarian. Now, we have Florida, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
I hope people look at this list and see the pattern here. All of these states are in total control of the GQP-Trumpublicans. All of these states have gerrymandered their voting to benefit the Republican Party. Most all of them now have gone total Authoritarian.
We THE PEOPLE need to wake up before they take total control of this nation!
You are absolutely correct, Robert. And our weapons are the voting machines. We must be strong, and true with them to defeat this enemy. We must get to the polls and vote! It will take a least three, or 4 voting cycles, so we will have to stay vigilant with it.
Vote 🧢🧢🧢🧢 in ‘24, ‘26, ‘28, all in between and beyond!
You are absolutely right. We must vote, vote, vote to get rid of these abhorrent people. Hopefully 2024 will be a huge blue wave that will get rid lot a of them but we have to keep at it until every one of them is gone and we have laws in place that will make it impossible for them to ever take power again. They are a minority and we should never again have minority rule.
Funny how they frame "us" as the enemy. I was just reading a commentary that has the blazing headline: "We must stop Democratic insurrection!"
Apparently, Jamaal Bowman pulled a fire alarm which disturbed the House session and bwoke duh roolz!
Now the Blaze staff is busily making mountains out of molehills as in, he should be charged, disbarred, flogged, etc. The word "treason" gets tossed about. Business as usual.
Yep, Adam. And the image they showed of him pulling this fire alarm was him at the door trying to enter. Is that where this fire alarm really is? At the outside door?
Plus, this bunch of Republicans have no room to talk. They have a child molester, Pedaphile, in the name of Matt Gaetz. They have a fraud, thief, and Lord knows what else, in the name of George Santos (if that’s even his real name-questionable). They have a coup planner in the name of Marjorie Taylor Greene, another coup planner in the name of Lauren Boebert, who also likes to get felt up, and feel up her dates, in very public places while vaping her pipe.
Yep, this bunch of Republicans have a lot to generous of!
Judd, this is the ALEC in action. FL, AR, already have laws such as this. We saw the former POTUS admin do much the same. There are a growing number of states that are conservative controlled doing this carbon copy type of legislation. ALEC is the driving force of the carefully constructed legislation toward autocracy.
Agree 💯 but it strikes me still as so odd, since Koch network (who built ALEC) are more Libertarian-Get-Outta-My-Business-Minimal-Government ideologues
you need to read Kochland. They seem to come across that way, but then work to undermine regulations that affect their business using the law to do just that. That is what the ALEC and Heritage foundations are about. Think John Birch Society as the mustard seed.
I agree with you too, Rickey. I haven’t just read Kochland, I live Kochland. My point is not that they don’t undermine regulations and government to keep oversight and restrictions on their practices… it’s that they breathe the immoral Ayn Rand ideology while getting away with a very different branding in the public’s mind.
Get out of THEIR business of getting elected their lihale then controlling women, minorities, via strangling their rights via voter intimidation, suppression and if those groups and Americans fight then come up and implement such unlawful "laws". We would've seen this ever since bush was coronated president, If we weren't so trusting & comfortable, and most of all, the Democratic party wasn't so compliant with repubs.
Every accusation a threat and every initiative not be trusted. These folks claim to love freedom while working diligently at making the suupposed freedoms they espouse quietly go away.
So if this Moore guy decided that the 2024 election was fraudulent, they could seize the voting machines & conduct their own “audit”. The policies of Stalin, Lenin, Hitler & Mussolini have been resurrected in NC GOP. Someone needs to initiate a lawsuit to shut this down.
Indeed. The legislature has also redefined our state Board of Elections and starved it of funding, along with other vote suppression measures. The state Supreme Court, including the son of Senate leader Berger, just shifted Republican and will back the legislature all the way. We in NC are hosed.
Bravo, Judd! North Carolina is in real trouble. There are not so subtle shades of theAmerican Patriot Act here, especially in the provisions to maintain secrecy about investigations. One assumes the enemy in such cases is financial auditors, or those supporting the ideological opposition.
These provisions closely follow the changes in law in Germany from 1934 to 1938. This will not end well. It is up to us to determine for whom it will end badly.
I would think It is an illegal provision... for so many reasons. Those who authored and voted for it should be prosecuted for multiple Federal and State constitutional violations. It is not rocket science...basic and simple definition of fascist political activity usurping so many civil and legal rights of citizens and state employees, that it is a joke. A simple lawsuit with recovery of all legal fees being requested with punitive penalties for the authors and political supporters should be a slam dunk.
Most of what is described appears to be in direct violation of several articles of the U.S. Constitution. I hope there is litigation against it in the works.
Sieg Heil! The SS is coming for NC. Wake up people. It will be more than books burning if these modern day Storm Troopers aren’t stopped by overwhelming voter turnout. Thanks, Judd, for going where no legacy media reporter dares to tread.
My first response is: that's Mark Meadows' state; and then, we were poised to win another 2020 Democrat Senate seat in NC...when the front runner was exposed for scandal of infidelity! [had to walk away over an hour ago and make some coffee and breakfast]
Thank you for uncovering these fascistic groundwork strategies in our Southern states. The PI readership can play an important part by alerting out team about possible illegal and corrupt behaviors. Such as... Judd might have been the first to bring the Tennessee Three issue into the news where eventually the mainstream media covered it widely. Tesnim and the team manage to ferret out important developments in North Carolina that threaten to unravel the amazing tapestry that our hardworking and brilliantly arguing Founding Fathers managed to leave us with. This article is an example of a story that Public Information comes up with to reveal what needs exposure if we are to clean up what can threaten our government's health.
This is a truly disturbing piece. Thank you Judd for bringing it to light. Can you follow up with a piece on what efforts are being made to fight this? Has this budget been passed? Is anyone bringing a court challenge? How aware is the citizenry of NC that these provisions have been inserted into the budget? What can we do to help challenge the provisions? Thanks again. Excellent reporting.
The MAGATS currently dominating NC government will stop at nothing to turn our State into a totalitarian travesty. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have contacted my Representative to see what I can do to help overturn this. Publicity is the first step.
Judd, I really appreciate your efforts in exposing all this horrific corruption and injustice. I live in NC and have been fighting back as best I can with other dedicated Dems but it is completely overwhelming. Thank you for helping us.
I'm with you, Lynn, in the Raleigh area. The legislature here keeps grabbing more power, and their new control of the state Supreme Court is letting them redraw the maps for permanent control. I love NC, but they are making the place intolerant and intolerable.
Thanks, Judd and crew, for shouting the word.
Thanks for your reply Jenny K-L. We are not far from each other! On the positive side, I have met many inspiring, brilliant and persistent volunteers and amazing Democratic legislators that give me such hope. Their energy and enthusiasm is contagious. There are huge numbers of us who have our eyes on the ball and intend to vote them out! Neighbors On Call is a very well organized great group if you are interested. I like what Joyce Vance closes with in her Substack: “ We are in this together”. Very grateful for these communities.
Didn't know about Neighbors on Call - as a fellow NC resident, thank you for spreading the word!
You are welcome! It's a fantastic group.
Oh dear God.......I am very seriously considering moving from Florida to Raleigh. Please tell me I wont be making this move for nothing.
Annette, I hope you will stay informed of the politics here in NC as best you can if that is factoring into your decision to move. There have been massive changes since we moved here from CA in 2019. I was told this was purple turning blue. 😳Go on the NC Democrats site and I also highly recommend Neighbors On Call. If you subscribe they should give you updates.
Thank you.
Strongly consider Maryland or Virginia.NC. is a theocracy.
Keep fighting!
Will do!!
We Dems in Florida are trying to stand against DeSantis and his demagogues. It is a struggle. Keep the faith!
Sounds like North Carolina beat Tennessee to this 'Gov Ops' secret police... wonder what states will follow suit? Very Nazi-like SS, starts small and grows big. Fun times. :(
"The Schutzstaffel (SS; also stylized as ᛋᛋ with Armanen runes; German pronunciation: [ˈʃʊtsˌʃtafl̩] ⓘ; lit. 'Protection Squadron') was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II.
It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, mass surveillance, and state terrorism within Germany and German-occupied Europe."
In 1983 I lived in West Berlin. I also traveled in what was then East Germany. As a Stanford student, I studied history.
Once it has happened here, how many of us will stop saying "It can't happen here"?
My sibling was stationed in West Berlin before and after the wall came down and worked with the DIA. Your point is taken--exactly--it can happen here, and it's the slow pot warming up to a boil.
It already has happened in Florida and Texas
And now North Carolina.
My wife studied in Stuttgart in 1984-85 and in Berlin in 1988-89, leaving just weeks before the Wall fell. We also visited Berlin in 2017, and I spent a LOT of time at the museum at the site of the former SS building as well as at the house at Wannsee (now a museum) where the terms of the "Final Solution" were agreed upon. I have been drawing parallels between the Nazis and the Trumpites since Trump announced in 2015 that he was running. I felt a little weird about that at first, but then some Holocaust survivors started publicly drawing the same parallel and I felt better.
Thank you for the interesting historical perspective and early Nazi actions. This knowledge is SO important--just THINK about what it took for that "regime's collapse in 1945"!
I don't believe the Trump loyalists, in any state, will be satisfied until we have become The People's Republic of America and the Dear Leader can order the execution of shoplifters, protesters and democrats.
Excellent context. Thanks!
Well, you left out the SA which was much more impotrtant during the early days, but that's almost beside the point. Also, and more important to our current situation was the subversion of the judiciary, and of the civil service. One would profit from a comparative reading of the Constitution and the Grundgesetz to see what the Germans learned and what we haven't.
As someone who spends about 10% of my time there, I find certain things striking: No memorials to Nazis or even to non-Nazi soldiers from WW2 vs many to slave owners
and traitors like Bobby Lee for instance. The general level of civility for another.
Thank you.
Will staffers of this committee wear brown shirts or black shirts?
Our State is literally under attack from these Republicans. Where are all these “govt overreach” conservatives who claim Dems want too much control?! I’ll tell you where - listening to talk radio or sitting in front of Fox News on TV. They have no idea this is going on because Right wing news sources would never share this!
We’ve got to this word out! Moore is not running for re-election which should be a relief but now only means someone even worse will have a shot & he’s moving into some other nefarious strategic position.
I hope to goodness Marc Elias & crew will be suing, Several conservative states are working on similar initiatives around “secret” or specialized police & it’s part of their bigger plans to create a new SS.
Terrifying!!!
Judd, you have done it again. Pointed out where we the people have gotten slack, allowing yet another state to go total Authoritarian. Now, we have Florida, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
I hope people look at this list and see the pattern here. All of these states are in total control of the GQP-Trumpublicans. All of these states have gerrymandered their voting to benefit the Republican Party. Most all of them now have gone total Authoritarian.
We THE PEOPLE need to wake up before they take total control of this nation!
It’s a war and they are the enemy.
You are absolutely correct, Robert. And our weapons are the voting machines. We must be strong, and true with them to defeat this enemy. We must get to the polls and vote! It will take a least three, or 4 voting cycles, so we will have to stay vigilant with it.
Vote 🧢🧢🧢🧢 in ‘24, ‘26, ‘28, all in between and beyond!
You are absolutely right. We must vote, vote, vote to get rid of these abhorrent people. Hopefully 2024 will be a huge blue wave that will get rid lot a of them but we have to keep at it until every one of them is gone and we have laws in place that will make it impossible for them to ever take power again. They are a minority and we should never again have minority rule.
Very correct, Robert!
Funny how they frame "us" as the enemy. I was just reading a commentary that has the blazing headline: "We must stop Democratic insurrection!"
Apparently, Jamaal Bowman pulled a fire alarm which disturbed the House session and bwoke duh roolz!
Now the Blaze staff is busily making mountains out of molehills as in, he should be charged, disbarred, flogged, etc. The word "treason" gets tossed about. Business as usual.
Yep, Adam. And the image they showed of him pulling this fire alarm was him at the door trying to enter. Is that where this fire alarm really is? At the outside door?
Plus, this bunch of Republicans have no room to talk. They have a child molester, Pedaphile, in the name of Matt Gaetz. They have a fraud, thief, and Lord knows what else, in the name of George Santos (if that’s even his real name-questionable). They have a coup planner in the name of Marjorie Taylor Greene, another coup planner in the name of Lauren Boebert, who also likes to get felt up, and feel up her dates, in very public places while vaping her pipe.
Yep, this bunch of Republicans have a lot to generous of!
Fourth and Sixth Amendments be damned. Silly me, Repubs don’t read beyond the Second Amendment.
And the First? They would gladly flush the Bill of Rights down Tffg's gold toilet.
Judd, this is the ALEC in action. FL, AR, already have laws such as this. We saw the former POTUS admin do much the same. There are a growing number of states that are conservative controlled doing this carbon copy type of legislation. ALEC is the driving force of the carefully constructed legislation toward autocracy.
Agree 💯 but it strikes me still as so odd, since Koch network (who built ALEC) are more Libertarian-Get-Outta-My-Business-Minimal-Government ideologues
you need to read Kochland. They seem to come across that way, but then work to undermine regulations that affect their business using the law to do just that. That is what the ALEC and Heritage foundations are about. Think John Birch Society as the mustard seed.
I agree with you too, Rickey. I haven’t just read Kochland, I live Kochland. My point is not that they don’t undermine regulations and government to keep oversight and restrictions on their practices… it’s that they breathe the immoral Ayn Rand ideology while getting away with a very different branding in the public’s mind.
Was same in Texas
Get out of THEIR business of getting elected their lihale then controlling women, minorities, via strangling their rights via voter intimidation, suppression and if those groups and Americans fight then come up and implement such unlawful "laws". We would've seen this ever since bush was coronated president, If we weren't so trusting & comfortable, and most of all, the Democratic party wasn't so compliant with repubs.
Every accusation a threat and every initiative not be trusted. These folks claim to love freedom while working diligently at making the suupposed freedoms they espouse quietly go away.
Vote Them Out. We have been warned. Again.
So if this Moore guy decided that the 2024 election was fraudulent, they could seize the voting machines & conduct their own “audit”. The policies of Stalin, Lenin, Hitler & Mussolini have been resurrected in NC GOP. Someone needs to initiate a lawsuit to shut this down.
Indeed. The legislature has also redefined our state Board of Elections and starved it of funding, along with other vote suppression measures. The state Supreme Court, including the son of Senate leader Berger, just shifted Republican and will back the legislature all the way. We in NC are hosed.
...appreciate the added information from a NC native.
Bravo, Judd! North Carolina is in real trouble. There are not so subtle shades of theAmerican Patriot Act here, especially in the provisions to maintain secrecy about investigations. One assumes the enemy in such cases is financial auditors, or those supporting the ideological opposition.
These provisions closely follow the changes in law in Germany from 1934 to 1938. This will not end well. It is up to us to determine for whom it will end badly.
I would think It is an illegal provision... for so many reasons. Those who authored and voted for it should be prosecuted for multiple Federal and State constitutional violations. It is not rocket science...basic and simple definition of fascist political activity usurping so many civil and legal rights of citizens and state employees, that it is a joke. A simple lawsuit with recovery of all legal fees being requested with punitive penalties for the authors and political supporters should be a slam dunk.
Most of what is described appears to be in direct violation of several articles of the U.S. Constitution. I hope there is litigation against it in the works.
Sieg Heil! The SS is coming for NC. Wake up people. It will be more than books burning if these modern day Storm Troopers aren’t stopped by overwhelming voter turnout. Thanks, Judd, for going where no legacy media reporter dares to tread.
My first response is: that's Mark Meadows' state; and then, we were poised to win another 2020 Democrat Senate seat in NC...when the front runner was exposed for scandal of infidelity! [had to walk away over an hour ago and make some coffee and breakfast]
Thank you for uncovering these fascistic groundwork strategies in our Southern states. The PI readership can play an important part by alerting out team about possible illegal and corrupt behaviors. Such as... Judd might have been the first to bring the Tennessee Three issue into the news where eventually the mainstream media covered it widely. Tesnim and the team manage to ferret out important developments in North Carolina that threaten to unravel the amazing tapestry that our hardworking and brilliantly arguing Founding Fathers managed to leave us with. This article is an example of a story that Public Information comes up with to reveal what needs exposure if we are to clean up what can threaten our government's health.
This is a truly disturbing piece. Thank you Judd for bringing it to light. Can you follow up with a piece on what efforts are being made to fight this? Has this budget been passed? Is anyone bringing a court challenge? How aware is the citizenry of NC that these provisions have been inserted into the budget? What can we do to help challenge the provisions? Thanks again. Excellent reporting.
Surely there is a constitutional challenge to this overreaching law. I look forward to more info on this from Judd.
The MAGATS currently dominating NC government will stop at nothing to turn our State into a totalitarian travesty. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have contacted my Representative to see what I can do to help overturn this. Publicity is the first step.
Marching and protests will be next, hopefully.