TWO MONTHS TO GO,
BEASLEY/BUDD
IN A DEAD HEAT
By Cash Michaels
An analysis
Call it a horse race if you’d like, but the high profile contest between Democrat Cheri Beasley and Republican Ted Budd to replace outgoing GOP Sen. Richard Burr is at a virtual tie, according to most polling and professional experts. The winner could help decide which party takes control of the U.S. Senate in the 118th Congress, starting Jan. 3rd.
Currently, the Senate is evenly split 50-50, with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding vote on some issues. Thirty-five seats are up for grabs.
Thus, the question of a Beasley/Budd debate. Beasley has reportedly agreed to a Spectrum News debate on Friday, October 7th.
What’s key here is that Thursday, October 20th begins North Carolina’s One Stop Early Voting balloting, so exactly when that debate is scheduled would be essential for both campaigns.
Beasley, a former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, has spent the summer running television ads to build her image as a moderate; campaigning across the state, especially in those rural areas that traditionally vote conservative, and of course fundraising for that down-the-stretch-to-the-finish-line run she will make to November 8th in hopes of being elected the first African - American ever to serve in the U.S. Senate from North Carolina, and the only Black woman to serve there currently.
Beasley has reportedly raised twice as much campaign funding as Budd.
For his part, Ted Budd, the Trump-endorsed “conservative warrior,” three-term Republican congressman from the 13th District, and a gun shop owner from Davie County, has run a comparatively low-key campaign, to the consternation of many observers in his party. He started late running commercials against Beasley, and has done little to negatively define her.
The commercials you have seen negatively define Beasley are sponsored by 501(c)4 conservative groups like the Club for Growth and the Republican Leadership Fund, which technically and legally, have no connection to the Budd campaign.
He has also been fundraising, and is expected to furiously go after Beasley as the clock ticks closer to Election Day. Budd has said he will spend more time campaigning in the coming weeks, and has already, in television ads, indirectly gone after Beasley by blaming Pres. Biden for rising inflationary prices.
Budd claims if she is elected, she will support the Democratic president's inflationary policies.
Some Republican analysts fear that he’s waiting too long though, and allowing Beasley to deliver her message unfettered to voters before he can forcefully weigh-in.
The goal for both is to attract a lion’s share of unaffiliated voters, a group which outnumbers both Democrats and Republicans across the state. In North Carolina, thought to be a “purple state,” unaffiliated voters are believed to lean conservative, and if so, Budd may seemingly have an advantage.
Except for one issue which is giving Republicans across the country headaches - abortion. Most Democratic candidates since the recent unpopular U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade have made championing a woman’s right to choose their leading campaign issue, and Beasley is no different, though she’s been careful not to sound too radical about it. It has given her a boost in the polls, observers note, thus tying the race.
In her campaign, Beasley has done everything she can to maintain a moderate image. She has not allowed herself to be photographed with either Pres. Biden or Vice Pres. Kamala Harris when they individually visited North Carolina in recent months. Both are polling well below 40 percent in the state, and Beasley doesn’t want to give the Budd campaign any images it can exploit to smear her with Biden or Harris’ unpopularity.
It’s reportedly paying off. Cheri Beasley is running unexpectedly stronger than most campaign watchers expected, and it’s showing in her improved favorability ratings..
Now that summer is over, prepare for maximum mudslinging to begin shortly in the Beasley-Budd U.S. Senate race.
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ENFIELD MAYOR DEFIANT
IN FACE OF WHITE
SUPREMACY
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writer
"'The Confederate states are still active today with members who will stand for their heritage. You will be watched closely. People will address you while you are working, when you are in public and doing your everyday outings. We are one, we are many. Sincerely, the Invisible Empire.'"
As far as Enfield Mayor Mondale Robinson is concerned, threatening emails like that one he received from what he believes to be the Invisible Empire of the Ku Klux Klan are the reason why he has asked Gov. Roy Cooper to declare a state of emergency for his majority-Black Halifax County town of 2,300.
Indeed, the racist emails and printed flyers inundated Mayor Robinson and other Black residents of Enfield ever since the town council voted twice to remove a 10-foot marble Confederate monument near a playground which had been erected in 1928, and Robinson, with a hammer and bulldozer, personally knocked it down on livestream a few weeks ago, to ensure its removal.
However, the State Bureau of Investigation is investigating the incident (which may have violated state law).
What the SBI, Gov. Cooper and Attorney Gen. Josh Stein should be looking into are the “domestic terror threats” that have blanketed the town since the Confederate monument was taken down, Mayor Robinson insists.
“As we stand firm on our constitutional rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we need our governor to lock arms with this community, ensuring that our solemn way of life isn’t interrupted by white supremacists,” Robinson, 43, said at a Sept. 6th press conference.
“We found ourselves in this office, in this space asking the governor of the great state of North Carolina to move beyond political quietism, and act boldly and swiftly to ensure that every resource at his disposal is made available to Enfield to ensure that the sentiments of white nationalism that is on the rise … in this country understands clearly that it is not welcomed in our state, and definitely not in our town,” Robinson said.
Black residents reportedly received racist letters in a plastic bag with a racial slur, saying that the “white people of Enfield” should do something after someone “stomped down a piece of their white heritage.”
If that wasn’t enough, Enfield’s Police Chief James Ayers, who is Black, has resigned effective Saturday, Sept. 17th, apparently because of the removal of the Confederate monument.
Despite the collateral damage, Mayor Robinson wants the governor to visit Enfield, and see for himself the condition of the Black people there, and how they have had to live under the yolk of racist pain for the better part of their lives.
"It should be said that if one believed that Black lives truly matter, and said person has no opposition to our town, simple requests for freedom, peace and tranquility, [should counter] a racialized terror. And with that, I invite Governor Cooper to come stand on the side of inferior residents and those of us who are fighting against racialized terror," Robinson said at his press conference.
Mayor Robinson does not apologize for his pro-Black opinion, telling National Public Radio, “…white supremacy made me this person.”
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[EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE: This story is primarily for the Urban News. However, I plan to update it every week, even though the Urban News is a monthly. So if you would like to run the story and updates weekly, there is no restriction. Our concern is that Texas Gov. Abbott will start sending hundreds of illegal immigrants to North Carolina, so we better get ready for them, and what that will do to Black unemployment here.]
AS TEXAS IMMIGRANTS KEEP
COMING, BLACK-RUN CITIES
STRUGGLE TO COPE
By Cash Michaels
Contributing writers
Apparently Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Democrat, isn’t allowing Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s illegal immigrant problem to become her problem alone in the state of Illinois.
Last week, 147 immigrants were bused in from Texas to Chicago. But according to Fox News, 64 of them were then immediately taken to a hotel in the Illinois suburb of Burr Ridge outside of Chicago.
And who is the mayor of Burr Ridge? A white Republican named Gary Grasso, and he didn’t like it. Especially when no one gave him a heads-up.
“…[The migrants are] being used as political pawns by the governor and mayor," Grasso told Fox News, later adding, “Why are they sending [the migrants] out to the Republican suburbs. You have to wonder.”
Reportedly the hotel in question had been used to house refugees from Afghanistan last year, and the Illinois Dept. of Human Services is responsible for sending the 64 to Burr Ridge.
Thus far, an estimated 300 immigrants have been sent to Chicago.
It’s all part of the continuing drama after Gov. Abbott decided to solve his illegal immigrant problem at the U.S.- Mexico border by busing immigrants filling up Texas border towns, to Black-run Democrat “sanctuary cities” across the country.
These are Democrat cities that have assured illegal immigrants that they can find sanctuary if they can just make it there. Abbott is exploiting the policy to embarrass the Biden administration. Thus far, approximately 10,000 have been bused to Black-run Democrat cites like Chicago, Washington,D.C, and New York.
Philadelphia, another Democrat-run city, is expecting Abbott to begin busing immigrants there soon, too.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has declared a public emergency ever since 8,000 immigrants were sent there, saying that Gov. Abbott has turned the nation’s capital into a ‘border town.” The declaration will allow the city to get the resources needed to deal with its swelling homeless shelters of immigrants.
Arizona has sent busloads of immigrants to D.C. as well.
That spurred some local Texas border town sheriffs to scoff at Bowser’s complaint, saying that the number of illegal immigrants Washington, D.C. has received so far is nowhere near the estimated two million they say crossed the border last year. They add that what Gov. Abbott is doing is forcing northern cities and the Biden Administration to deal with some of what they have to deal with every day.
The White House has joined the mayors in calling Abbott's action “cruel and a political stunt.”
New York City has received about 2,000 immigrants from Texas. Mayor Eric Adams has sent a delegation to the U.S. - Mexico border to meet with Border Patrol officials there.
"Here in New York, we will continue to welcome asylum seekers with open arms, as we learn more about the process, meet with real partners and see, firsthand, the reportedly inhumane conditions in which asylum seekers are being subjected to by the state of Texas,’ a spokesperson for Mayor Adams said.
All three mayors have made clear that though they detest the politics of what Gov. Abbott has done, they welcome the immigrants he has sent, and want to make sure that their respective cities can provide the adequate resources needed for the immigrants to properly be absorbed into their respective communities.
The mayors also want the federal government to do more in helping them deal with what they are calling “a humanitarian crisis.”
Recently, a group of North Carolina activists reportedly went to the U.S - Mexico border to see for themselves what conditions are there, and came back saying immigrants are desperately climbing over tall walls to get into the United States. Many are dying from drowning, walking through the desert or being smuggled inside of vehicles.
House Democrats from New York and Illinois have called for a $50 million appropriation from Congress to help the cities house and feed the immigrants.
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