THE CASH STUFF FOR SEPT. 3RD, 2026

 SAU OUTLINES COST-CUTTING

MEASURES TO FORESTALL

CLOSING ITS DOORS

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

We now know what the beleaguered administration at St. Augustine’s University (SAU) in Raleigh plans to further do in order to forestall having the doors to its downtown Raleigh campus close after 158 years.

Recently in a shocking cost cutting measure, it was revealed by an attorney for the small, private historically Black Episcopalian university that SAU would not offer any academic or educational courses during its fall semester '26, effectively putting itself out of business for the time being, according to the federal bankruptcy Judge David Warren.

In the most recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy court hearing last week, university officials revealed to its creditors how it will furthermore reduce its monthly expenses in order to meet its fiscal obligations. Of the 300+ creditors SAU owes money to, it owes the Internal Revenue Service alone an estimated $14 million.

During the course of those revelations, the alleged previous actions by former SAU Board of Trustees Chairman James Perry and Vice Chair Brian Bouleware were called into question, with Bankruptcy Judge Warren questioning why the institution never maintained liability insurance for its trustee board officers and members.

A frustrated Judge Warren at one point told the defendants that SAU’s bankruptcy case held “too many surprises” due to a “lack of professionalism” by the trustee board leadership. 

“I’m just astonished people in fiduciary capacity for a university did not have a (directors & officers) policy,” Judge Warren said. “What else is out there that I don’t know about, or the public doesn’t know about?”

The alleged fiscal mismanagement actions of the former Board chair and vice chair are considered to be responsible for putting SAU into the dire financial straits it now finds itself in, including loss of its accreditation. As a result, new SAU board leadership has taken over while the previous chairman and vice chairman are no longer members.

On top of the millions of dollars SAU reportedly owes creditors, the judge was asked to order an automatic stay of a discrimination lawsuit filed against SAU by the estate of former President Dr. Christine McPhail. Dr. Mc Phail died several months ago. In order to prevent the cost of defending itself against the lawsuit from accruing, the judge issued a stay in the matter.

The school also informed the court that it wanted to hire a real estate advisor  to help in selling off some of the $200 million in acreage it holds in order to help payoff its debts.

Before scheduling the next bankruptcy hearing on October 1st, the judge ordered SAU’s legal counsel to prepare an update on the status of the school’s current insurance coverage and on its cash collateral budget.

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                                                WHATLEY                COOPER 

GOP WHATLEY’S SENATE 

CAMPAIGN ACCUSED OF 

USING BLACK FATHER IN 

FALSE NEGATIVE ADS 

AGAINST ROY COOPER

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

The U.S. Senate campaign for Republican candidate Michael Whatley is being accused of using the crimes of Black convicted inmates to falsely smear opponent Democratic former NC Governor Roy Cooper in their race this fall.

In one of the alleged smear allegations, Cooper is even accused of releasing from a South Carolina prison a South Carolina inmate who reportedly killed a South Carolina woman, a power Cooper as North Carolina governor certainly wouldn’t have.

The best known alleged Whatley smear allegation against Cooper comes in a hard-hitting :30 second campaign commercial that features Ronald Hayes, a grieving Black father from Charlotte whose 23-year-old son Shemar, a college football player, was murdered in March 2024. In the interest of keeping his son’s name alive, Mr. Hayes reportedly agreed to take part in what he understood was an anti-gun violence campaign, and to speak to the camera as if he were directly addressing then Gov. Cooper, who was still in office.

What Mr. Hayes was apparently unaware of was that the interview was being produced by the Republican Senate Leadership Fund, a super political action committee which turned parts of the interview around into a powerful, but false, Whatley campaign ad smearing Cooper.

The ad states that Hayes’ son was murdered by an inmate who was released by the Cooper Administration in 2021. Except that convicted murderer of  Hayes’ son was never incarcerated prior to the murder of Shemar Hayes in 2024. In fact, published analysis notes, the young man ultimately held responsible was only 14 or 15 years old in 2021.

Furthermore, the limited inmate release in 2021was part of a court-ordered settlement of a lawsuit that was filed during the COVID pandemic addressing prison overcrowding involving 3,500 nonviolent inmates with medical conditions.

None of those released inmates had anything to do with Shemar Hayes murder, and in fact, the suspect responsible was convicted of the crime in 2025.

The Republican Senate Leadership Fund is not officially part of the Whatley Senate campaign, but it legally is allowed to attack and smear Roy Cooper’s campaign, regardless of the actual facts.

For his part, Ronald Hayes said he was not paid for his interview, nor told what it was actually being used for. He told The News & Record had he realized how his taped interview was actually going to be used, he never would have participated.

In fact, according to the newspaper, Hayes is a registered Democrat, and says he has vote for Roy Cooper in the past, and will do so again.

Cooper is also smeared with being “directly” responsible for another crime committed by another Black suspect.In this case, Michael Whatley accused the Democratic former governor of being “directly”responsible for the August 22, 2025 stabbing death of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zautska on the Charlotte transit system by Decarlos Dejuan Brown, Jr.

Again, that court-ordered COVID-19 settlement to release 3500 nonviolent prisoners by the Cooper Administration is being blamed for putting Brown on the streets to kill. However, several media organization have fact-checked this allegation, and have found no truth to it.

That didn’t stop the Whatley campaign from claiming on primary night last in March, “we don’t know for sure if all the child molesters, rapists, and murderers released by Roy Cooper will be at the Cooper party, but we bet those same child molesters, rapists, and murderers are in the Cooper camp."

A spokesperson for Cooper, a former NC attorney general who has a record of being tough on criminals, pushed back on the Whatley campaign’s allegations, especially one that stated that Cooper’s appointed criminal justice reform task force was “directly responsible.”In fact, the Republican-led NC General Assembly never implemented any of that task force’s recommendations.

Finally, another Republican Senate Leadership Fund super PAC campaign ad “…features a heart-wrenching testimonial from the father of a woman who was murdered in 2025. The ad falsely implies the accused murderer was one of the prisoners released during the COVID-19 pandemic when Whatley’s Democratic opponent, Roy Cooper, was governor of North Carolina.

         The problem: Cooper had nothing to do with the accused murderer’s release. The suspect was released from a prison in South Carolina, not North Carolina,” according to the nonpartisan website FactCheck.org.

Once again, the 2021 COVID-19 court ordered release of 3500 inmates from the North Carolina prison system is being blamed for putting the Black man who was eventually convicted of murdering  22-year-old Logan Federico. The problem is the crime took place in South Carolina, the convicted murderer is a South Carolina man, and the victim was also in South Carolina. So factually, Gov. Roy Cooper legally and practically had nothing to do with any of it. Yet the campaign ad attacking Cooper on behalf of Republican Whatley clearly puts the blame at Democrat Cooper’s feet.

“These attacks are false – this heinous crime was committed in South Carolina by a South Carolina criminal, but a Republican super PAC is using this tragedy for political gain,” a spokesperson for Cooper’s Senate campaign told FactCheck.org.

Democrat Cooper currently leads Republican Michael Whatley in the race for the U.S, Senate seat being vacated by Republican Thom Tillis.

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THE CASH COMMENTARY FOR AUGUST 27, 2026

                                        

                                           CASH MICHAELS

                                                                               

                                             DORIS "DORIE"MILLER                     

                            HONOR AMERICAN COURAGE AND PRIDE,

                                     NOT COWARDICE AND THIEVERY

                                 By Cash Michaels

When I was growing up as a little Black kid in Brooklyn, NY decades ago, I watched a lot of World War II movies on TV. That’s what was on all the time. Great white American heroes like Tyrone Power, Rock Hudson (who actually did serve in the US Navy), Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, and John Wayne (who never served a day of his life in the real military, by the way) 

I left Wayne for last, because out of all of them, he actually made a World War II movie about the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese warplanes titled “In Harm’s Way.” Released in 1965 and directed by Otto Preminger, the film featured everything about that fateful day in American History, December 7th, 1941.

Well, almost everything.

Fortunately, as a kid, I didn’t count on that or any other movie to teach me about American history. Why? Because in not one of the many, many Hollywood films about World War II, did I ever see anyone who looked like me being brave, fearless and displaying love of country. And I know there were many. I have pictures of family hanging up at home, in uniform, who did.

That is until 1970, when an extraordinary joint production by 20th Century Fox Studios and the Toho Company of Japan titled “Tora, Tora, Tora” was released, retelling the story of Pearl Harbor from both the American and Japanese military perspectives.

It was in this movie that I first heard the name “Dorie Miller” and saw the portrayal of the courageous actions of a true American hero. Messman Second Class Doris “Dorie” Miller, 22, a grandson of slaves and the son of sharecroppers, whose job it was then to do the white officers’ dirty laundry, shine their shoes and serve them their meals. A mess attendant aboard the battleship USS West Virginia in America’s then segregated U.S. Navy, who during the Japanese attack, bravely tended after the seriously wounded captain of the West Virginia, fearlessly helped carry wounded sailors to safety, and then with no prior training or permission, instinctively got behind an anti-aircraft gun and according to US Navy records, shot down at least one attacking Japanese warplane (some witnesses say Miller actually downed four, maybe six).

But you know what the best thing about seaman Dorie Miller of Waco, Texas was?

He looked just like me, and back then, sailors who looked just like me were officially not allowed to handle weapons to defend their country like their white counterparts. Shoe polish, pots and pans and the captain’s dirty underwear, but no guns, grenades or rifles. And certainly no heavy artillery. The Black sailor who was segregated to the battleship galley (kitchen) or laundry room below showed up with a big, fat red  “S” under his US Navy uniform during that “date which will live in infamy,” and started saving the lives of his crew members and defending his country, and it took a 1970 Amer-Japanese made movie to allow me to see this, and brag about it to my high school buddies (I’d have to wait until after college in 2001 to see it dramatized once more when Academy Award winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. portrayed Dorie Miller in director Michael Bay’s big-bang production of  “Pearl Harbor.”)

It has now taken 56 years for me to learn that all Dorie Miller got as gratitude from a "grateful" nation for his outstanding bravery and heroism was the distinguished Navy Cross, when he damn well deserved the much more prestigious Medal of Honor, and was nominated for it by members of Congress. President Franklin D. Roosevelt made sure Miller was the first Black man in history to have the Navy Cross pinned to his chest. But Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox was against Miller getting the Medal of Honor, let alone anything denoting his bravery because he was opposed to Black people serving in the US military in the first place. So it was quite ironic when a promoted Cook Petty Officer Doris “Dorie” Miller went on to serve aboard the escort carrier Liscome Bay, and lost his life when that ship was attacked by the Japanese in November 1943- two years after Pearl Harbor. Miller was among over 600 brave sailors who went to their watery graves during that attack, and without the due honor he deserved because some white supremacist with a government title wouldn’t let it happen.

Funny thing, right after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Navy wasn’t brave enough to publicize Miller’s name for four months, choosing instead to simply refer to him as “an unknown Negro sailor.” It took a Black newspaper to dig up the truth and reveal Dorie Miller’s name to the world for him to finally receive his due respect.

Now if the Dorie Miller story stopped right there, it would indeed be a sad, ironic tragedy. 

But what’s happening now to the memory and brave sacrifice of this young Black serviceman is even sadder.

Acting Secretary of the US Navy Thomas Modly proudly announced on MLK Day 2020 that the next Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear aircraft carrier to be built  - one of the mightiest symbols of American military power on the high seas - will not be dedicated for a deceased president or a state as they traditionally are, but after the beloved Pearl Harbor hero, the USS Doris Miller. This would be a tremendous honor, making seaman Miller the first African-American for which a naval vessel has been named for.

    And there was also talk of Miller finally getting his well-deserved, long overdue Medal of Honor posthumously, too. This all would be justice for Dorie's family.

  But now it’s being reported by CNN and other news organizations that very well may not happen. Reportedly the Navy has decided to rename the USS Doris Miller aircraft carrier after...Donald Trump instead.

To be clear, no naval vessel has ever been named for a president while he was still in office, let alone one convicted of 34 felonies, and charged with other alleged state and federal crimes.

    So instead of doing the right thing in honoring the legacy of a brave American of color who had the courage to stand up for his country when needed the most in time of war, we’re about to see an American president who is a convicted felon, convicted sexual abuser, and all-around thief be honored instead for something he never did - serve his country in an honorable capacity, including during a war he started, and has now arguably and shamefully, lost.

In fact, we dare say we could call Trump President “Draft Deferment” for skipping the Vietnam War; President “Bone Spurs” noting the flaky health reason he gave for not allowing himself to be drafted for military service; and President “Final Disqualification” for pulling every trick in the book to not serve his country until, as a privileged rich white kid, he could get elected and rob it blind. As far as Donald Trump is concerned, not allowing a nuclear aircraft carrier to be named for a true Black American hero is just one more fitting way to further stab DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in the heart. And he’s doing it with a gold-encrusted knife with his name on it, too.

The same with Trump’s stooge at the Pentagon, the fearless “Dept. of War” Secretary Pete “Mr. Testosterone” Hegeseth, who has made it very clear he wants no generals who are Black or females in the ranks because he doesn’t believe they’re good enough.

It’s the disgrace I just can’t get over. The proud legacy of Dorie Miller is something we should all celebrate and be proud of. When that poor Black man from Waco, Texas stood up from imposed government segregation to risk his young life for his country, he stood up for ALL of us, regardless of the social implications. Something ALL of us should teach our children. Heroes like Miller, the Tuskegee Airmen and the Buffalo Soldiers, to name a few in American history, ALL loved a country that didn’t always love them back.

And now we have a joke of a president wiping his feet on the legacy of a true American hero, just because he can. In the words of NAACP President/CEO Derrick Johnson, "Doris Miller earned his place in American history through courage, sacrifice, and service. Donald Trump only wants to serve himself. This is a slap in the face to every war hero and every service member who has worn the uniform. It's beyond comprehension for a president to want his own name on a Navy ship while our armed forces are living in deteriorating conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

          "For generations, millions of Black women and men have proudly served in the United States military, defending freedoms that too often were not even afforded to them, their families, or their communities. Donald Trump is making a mockery of that legacy by treating military service as another opportunity for personal branding. Our brave service members signed up to defend the nation, not the fragile ego of one man. America deserves better than this."

  If this Dorie Miller controversy disgusts you like it does me, then do something about it, and VOTE this November for the change we need. Our courageous military men and women of all colors and backgrounds deserve respect. Let’s honor American courage, not sniveling cowardice and corruption. We can do much, much better than Donald Trump and his obnoxious band of incompetent criminals.

           So many people are pointing towards how the now late, but certainly great American icon, Dolly Parton, lived her life wanting to do her best for everyone, regardless of color or class. Let's try to follow her example. VOTE THIS FALL FOR AN HONORABLE AMERICA! The kind of America Dorie Miller bravely gave his life for!

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THE CASH STUFF FOR AUGUST 27, 2026

SUNDAY VOTING DITCHED IN

20 COUNTIES BY STATE GOP-LED

ELECTIONS BOARD

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

In a daylong, at times contentious August 20th meeting, the NC State Board of Elections last week voted to eliminate Sunday early voting in 20 counties for this fall’s elections. Eighty other county boards voted unanimously on their early voting policies, not needing state Election Board review. The move is seen as a direct assault on “Souls to the Polls,” critics say, the traditional Southern Black church practice of taking African-American congregations to early-voting sites by church vans so that they could vote en masse.

Republicans, who hold the majority on the state Election Board and all 100 county election boards throughout the state,  have long targeted Sunday voting for elimination because of “Souls to the Polls” and the tendency of Black voters to mostly vote Democratic. In previous litigation, Republican lawmakers have admitted to seeking to stop Sunday voting  in order to hurt Black voter turnout.

On Thursday, Matt Longworth, a current Republican member of the state Election Board said, “By having Sunday voting, we are requiring people to work on the Lord's Day, and I do believe that the downfall of this country will be contingent on what we do with God.”

Republicans on the GOP-majority state Elections Board also voted against several on-campus sites throughout the state. Those board members say that in both cases there are administrative reasons why they voted to eliminate, but critics counter that Republicans did so in a effort to limit voting against their candidates. 

The state Elections Board also voted to change Saturday early voting hours at several locations, saying that doing so, like the elimination of Sunday voting, saved counties money.

These early voting changes come as the Republican-led legislature has voted to cut the early-voting period for primaries down from 17 days to just 10. GOP lawmakers have also voted to give State Auditor Dave Boliek addition powers to review elections after they’re completed, and to make it easier to challenge election results.

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 ST. AUG WILL NOT OFFER

ANY EDUCATION CLASSES

THIS FALL

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

After 158 years in the business of teaching Black students degreed courses, St. Augustine’s University (SAU) in Raleigh is now a literal shell of itself, having lost its accreditation and filing for bankruptcy.

Now add one more log to the burning fire. The small, historically Black Episcopalian university, which did not conduct on-campus classes last semester, preferring instead to conduct non-degreed courses online, this fall won’t even do that.

SAU will not offer any educational classes at all this semester. The school had planned to offer eight online classes in artificial intelligence, public health and computer programming at between $1,100 and $4,500 each. But now, according to SAU, that won’t happen.

All of this is the result of a fiscal restructuring at the school after SAU announced last April it would enter a voluntary Chapter 11 process and end its legal fight to restore its permanent accreditation.

On August 20th, SAU Attorney Clara Rogers told US BankruptcyJudge David Warren that not going through with the online classes and educational programs would help reduce payroll and other expenses.

Judge Warren responded by saying SAU is “essentially closed.”

Published reports note that SAU is still considering ways to monetize its 105 acres in real estate, valued at $200 million.

        According to published reports from the May 12th bankruptcy hearing in federal court,  SAU Attorney Rogers reiterated that the school owes between $50 million to $100 million in debts to well over 300 creditors. “There are some initial thoughts that there will be some sale of real and personal property that the university does not need at this point,” Atty Rogers told the court about the early stages of a plan under consideration. “The hope is, of course, to be able to keep the core campus of the university and maybe sell some of the periphery.”

Currently, SAU is bringing in at least $10,000 per month from the rental of some of its apartment property in the neighborhood, and revenue from some other small properties owned elsewhere.

However, parts of the SAU campus are listed on the National Historic Registry, which would complicate any potential sale, Atty Rogers added.

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