THE CASH STUFF FOR THURSDAY, OCT. 31, 2024

 CONCERN THAT BLACK 

VOTER TURNOUT IS WEAK

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

With almost three million early votes already cast in North Carolina, are  African Americans, and particularly Black men, being setup as the “fall guy” if Vice President Kamala Harris loses the presidency against Donald Trump Nov. 5th?

Martin Luther King III, oldest son of the late civil rights leader, thinks so.

"This election is not going to be won or lost by the number of Black men that support or do not support (Harris), even though it's going to be probably razor-thin," King told USA Today recently. "You can't go and say, well, it's Black men's fault."

"That's where it seems like it's trying to go," he added.

Former Pres. Barack Obama seemed to think so too, which is why he addressed a group of Black men during a recent stop at a Harris Pittsburgh campaign office.

"You’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses,” Obama said to the group. “Part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

Just days before the Nov. 5th general election, there is concern that VP Harris is not attracting the same level of Black voter support as Pres. Joe Biden did in 2020. Four years ago, Biden got 87 percent of the Black vote cast. It has been projected that for the 2024 election, Harris may only pull 70%.

Some projections have Republican Trump garnering a possible 20% of Black male voters nationally.

With the presidential race against Trump so tight in literally every battleground state, including North Carolina, the Black vote, once again, becomes a crucial piece of the puzzle for a Democratic victory.

And thus far, political analysts like Thomas Mills, publisher of the weekly newsletter Politics NC, doesn’t like what he sees.

“So far, there are more than 67,000 fewer African American voters than there were in 2020 at this point in the in-person voting period,” Mills wrote after the first four days of the early voting period began Oct. 17th. “That’s a huge deficit that Democrats should be scrambling to address. They need to be shifting money and people to connect with Black voters and get them to the polls.”

“The problem is widespread,” Mills continued. “In Durham County, there are 4,500 fewer Black voters this year than four years ago. In Mecklenburg, the number is 5,000. In Wake, it’s a little more than 3,000. In Cumberland, the Black vote is down by 5,000. In Guilford, the number is more than 8,500.”

“The problem is apparent in rural counties, too. In Wilson County, there are more than 1,000 fewer Black voters so far than the same period in 2020. In Halifax County, Black vote is also down more than 1,000. Same in Nash County.”

Mills continued that there has been an “internal argument” within the Democratic Party about the apparent poor allocation of resources to stimulate the Black vote. There are those who “believe there’s been too little investment in Black GOTV (get out the vote) efforts,” Mills continued, adding, “North Carolina might exemplify the validity of that criticism.”

        There has been reporting that the Harris campaign has been concentrating on suburban women, given the strength of the abortion issue for Democrats. 

“If these shrinking numbers hold through the election, they will almost certainly put North Carolina out of reach for Kamala Harris and will likely jeopardize several council of state seats,” Mills added.

That might explain why on Wednesday, VP Harris came back to North Carolina for the 20th time (Trump spoke in Rocky Mount as well). It might also explain why the DNC has launched a last minute “historic’ seven figure ad campaign titled “I Will Vote” to attract Black voters on 48 Black radio stations and 55 Black publications across the nation, including in at least one newspaper here in North Carolina.

According to recent polling, VP Harris is leading with those who have already cast early ballots in at least three swing states. Trump is leading with likely voters who have yet to go to the polls. 

Here in North Carolina, according to The News and Observer, a Marist College poll found Harris “…edged out Trump 55% to 43% among those who said they’ve already voted. But the former president led Harris 53% to 45% with likely voters who haven’t yet cast their ballots. Trump also led Harris by two points among likely voters who are undecided, including voters who are leaning toward one candidate. Similarly, Trump outpaced the vice president 53% to 42% with independents in the state who are likely to vote. When the results are broken down by race, the former president held an 18-point lead among white voters — 58% to 40%. In 2020, Trump won white voters by 33 points. Harris had an even larger lead among Black voters — 80% to 19%.”

According to NBC News, of the seven key battleground states, there are reports of North Carolina “slipping” away from the Harris campaign. Destruction by Hurricane Helene, along with the rampant misinformation associated with it, is seen as one reason.

And strangely enough, the fact that the governor’s race between Josh stein and Republican Mark Robinson turned out not to be as competitive as expected is seen as another reason why as many voters  as expected aren’t driven to the polls.

        At presstime, The Hill reported, "New polling from the Alliance for Black Equality, a super PAC mobilizing Black voters in swing states, found that Harris has increased her support by 10 points with Black Generation Z men since early October."

       "Overall, Harris’s support among young Black men increased from 59 percent to 69 percent between Oct. 4 and Oct. 19."

Over 27 percent of North Carolina’s 7.8 million registered voters have gone to the polls thus far. Early voting ends Saturday, Nov. 2nd at 3 p.m. across the state.    

        Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 5th., polls open at 6:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m. statewide.

Photo identification is required.

All mail -in absentee ballots are required to be delivered to your local county board of Elections office by 5 p.m. Tuesday, Election Day.

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JUDICIAL PANEL TO RULE

ON NC NAACP VOTER ID

LAWSUIT

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

Even though voter photo identification has been a legal and electoral fact for North Carolina voters for at least two elections so far, a three-judge Wake County Superior Court judicial panel heard arguments last week in a 2018 NC NAACP lawsuit seeking to do away with North Carolina’s voter ID law.

The civil rights organization argues that when the 2018 Republican-led state legislature enacted the voter ID law, based on referendum passage of a constitutional amendment mandating voter ID, it did not have the legal right to do so because the NC General Assembly was unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered, contrary to federal law.

During the years prior, federal courts had already ruled that the NC legislature had illegally targeted Black voters through racial gerrymandering and legislatively to diminish their influence during prior elections.

The NC NAACP maintained that because republican state lawmakers, in particular, were responsible for the racial gerrymandering, any laws their majority passed during that period were unconstitutional, ad should be ruled legally null and void.

The state NAACP hopes to have thrown out the state constitutional amendment mandating voter ID, on which the subsequent law is based on, as well as a state constitutional amendment mandating a seven percent cap on the NC income tax rate.

Given the long history of this case, the NC NAACP actually won its argument in Wake Superior Court, lost in the state Court of Appeals, and partial won in 2022 in the then Democratic - controlled State Supreme Court.

While agreeing with the NC NAACP in principle, the state High Court sent the case back to Superior Court after questioning some of the evidence presented, ordering a new analysis and new order after a new trial.

Republican legislative leaders, meanwhile, are seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed, saying that it would be impractical to rule that legislation passed by the NC General Assembly during the period in question was unconstitutional.

"When challenging an act of the General Assembly, you have to prove that act’s unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt," argued Martin Warf, attorney for GOP legislative leaders.

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THE CASH COMMENTARY FOR MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2024

                                                                    CASH MICHAELS

                                          IF KAMALA HARRIS WINS…

                                            By Cash Michaels

As the clock runs out on this crazy presidential election, and we all hope to regain our collective sanity and peace of mind not having to see any more ridiculous campaign commercials, the thought dawned on me - if Donald Trump wins, what can we expect?

Obviously more chaos, more mindless chest-thumping, more devious moves to undermine our democracy and permanently install the Fascist Lying King and his followers as future dictators, per Project 2025.

You see it’s not Trump so much that I’m worried about, but the much younger Trump-wannabes that have been lining up for years near the foot of the throne, hoping to grab some of that power Trump will have to let go of as his 78-year-old mind and body fails him for good in the not-to-distant future. Those people - J.D. Vance, Stephen Bannon, Stephen Miller, Don Jr. and some of the racist clowns from Trump's recent disgusting Madison Square Garden fascist-fest - have already considered what lies ahead after Big Daddy has met his maker, and they represent an existential threat to the future of this nation that we unfortunately rarely talk about.

        What's even scarier here is that the crude, racist, sexist, undignified, dishonest tropes about Trump that most decent people find revolting, literally half of our fractured country finds "real," and they love it. Theirs is a sewer-laden world of dishonesty and no rules, so anyone like Trump who either behaves that way, or talks that way, or even thinks that way, is the leader they've all been waiting for. It's like 70 million people have that just-come-from-a-bar-on-a Saturday-night mentality.

But that’s another column, preferably one that’s necessary ONLY if Kamala Harris loses.

However, if Kamala wins…!

First, unless it’s an apparent and absolute blowout landslide of an election victory for Vice President Harris and her running mate, Minn. Gov. Tim Walz, we may not immediately know who truly won the presidency for several days after November 5th.

Lord, I can’t tell you just how dangerous a scenario that would be for this nation. We’ve already gotten a taste of Trump’s January 6th, 2021 so-called “Day of Love,” where our country’s democracy hung by a slender thread amid anarchy and chaos at our nation’s Capitol.

But let’s just say if our prayers are answered, and Kamala Harris wins by an unquestionable majority in the Electoral College. And then, on January 20th, 2025, Harris is sworn into office, and begins her term as our commander-in-chief. 

What should we expect from a Harris-Walz Administration?

Well that depends on what kind of Congress we end up with.

There is a school of thought that after this general election, we could end up with another split Congress, except this time it could be a Democrat-majority House of Representatives, and a Republican-majority U.S. Senate.

How well would a Pres. Harris work with a possible Democratic Speaker Hakeem Jeffries and likely Republican Senate Majority Leader John Cornyn?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Cornyn would do everything he could to make life difficult for a ‘President” Harris. In fact, he would feel constitutionally compelled to, instead of being willing to work to find compromise for the good of the American people.

And that’s where I have a big problem with our presidential elections. The average voter doesn’t understand that no president can leap tall buildings in a single bound all by themselves. They have to cajole Congress to partner with them on policymaking. In fact, that’s what a candidate for president is actually running on - their ability to convince Congress to codify their vision for the country into law.

That’s why it’s kind of dumb when folks blame a president solely for high prices or a bad economy. All a president can really do is state a certain policy preference, advocate for it, and hope that Congress feels somewhat the same way and does something about it.

Where presidents get into trouble is when they promote a certain policy, Congress follows through in codifying it, and then all hell breaks loose because of it. In that situation, the chain of custody is damning. 

Or when presidents promise a certain policy, but can’t get it off the ground to save their life because Congress isn’t going for it. That leaves the president standing there, holding onto an empty campaign promise and nothing to show for it.

That’s why I’ve always held that electing your choice for president is not enough. You also have to give that president a Congress they can work with, so that the policy vision expressed during the campaign has a ghost of a chance of being reality.

If elected, I think Kamala Harris would be a good president, but in this current politically toxic atmosphere, would not be allowed to be as successful as she could be. But I do believe that she would make us proud in how she at least conducts herself in office, and wield the power that goes with it in a respectable and responsible fashion.

But remember, when you elect a president, you’re really electing a policy advocate. Give that president a Congress they can work with, and that’s when stuff really gets cooked in the kitchen.

I think Kamala will make a fine cook-in-chief!

The NY Times endorsed her as “The Only Patriotic Choice for President!”

Neither The Washington Post nor The Los Angeles Times, however, had the guts during the most important election of our lifetime to actually publish their endorsements of VP Harris, which shows you just how dangerous the Trump influence actually is.

Kamala Harris can win, and should win.

I just have to believe that there are more people in this country who aren’t so dazzled by a fascist convicted criminal and his sick, myopic power trip, so that she will win!

I pray!

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THE CASH STUFF FOR OCT. 24, 2024

 OVER 1 MILLION CAST

BALLOTS SINCE EARLY

VOTING BEGAN

By Cash Michaels

Looking for evidence that this is one of the hottest presidential elections in history here in North Carolina? Look no further than how many voters thus far have voted in the 2024 general election.

According to the NC State Board of Elections, over one million - 1, 008,123 - early voting ballots have been cast in the first four days since early voting in North Carolina officially got underway on Thursday, Oct. 17th.

That’s nearly 13% of North Carolina’s 7.7 million registered voters.

A record was established on the first day of early voting, with over 350,000 ballots being cast then. That surpasses the previous record in 2020 of 348,599.

There were reports not only of long lines, but long waiting times to vote from across the state. In the triangle, for instance, voters waited up to three hours to cast a ballot. Some actually left, and came back the next day, hoping for a shorter line.

Still, there have been no reports of any significant problems with early voting from anywhere across the state. Even in Western North Carolina, recently hard-hit by Hurricane Helene, no significant problems were reported.

"These are critical elections in our state," Karen Brinson Bell, director of the State Board of Elections, says. "We are a battleground state, and there's a lot of attention to us because of the presidential contest, but we will have a new governor, a new lieutenant governor, a new attorney general. We'll have many members newly elected to our legislature."

For the record, North Carolina officially has more than 7.7 million registered voters. Breaking that down, over 3 million are unaffiliated, 2.4 are Democrats and 2.3 are Republicans. 

Reportedly, Democratic voter turnout was down by 28% on the first day of voting, contrasted with a 22% upswing in Republican voter turnout, as well as a 9% unaffiliated voter jump.

The 22% increase in Republican early voting is significant because in prior elections, GOP voters were encouraged to with until Election Day to go out to the polls. But now, like Democrats had been doing for years prior, Republicans seem to have gotten the message, and are now banking their votes prior to Election Day.

Early voting last 17 days, from Oct. 17 to Saturday, Nov. 2nd. For those who missed the deadline to register to vote, they may same -day register when they early vote. They cannot same-day register on Nov. 5, Election Day.

Voters are urged to contact their local county Board of Elections to find the nearest early voting site near them.

Voter photo identification is required.

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FEDERAL JUDGE, APPOINTED BY 

TRUMP, RULES AGAINST PURGING

225,000 NC VOTERS FROM ROLLS

By Cash Michaels

Contributing writer

A federal judge in Wilmington last week ruled against a North Carolina GOP and Republican National Committee lawsuit seeking to purge 225,000 North Carolina registered voters from state voter rolls. The judge ruled that there is no reason to believe that either judges, private citizens, or political parties, had any right to throw people off of voter rolls, because state law explicitly gives that power and duty  to state election officials.

Ruling otherwise would “harm” American democracy, the judge added, noting that the claims had already been investigated by the stat board of Elections, which found  no instance of fraud.

However, the ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Myers II - originally appointed by former President Donald Trump - was only a partial victory for the North Carolina State Board of Elections. While Judge Myers agreed that Republicans did not have the right to sue the state Election Board under the governing federal voter registration law, he also agreed to send that portion of the NCGOP suit which made arguments under the North Carolina Constitution back to state court for a ruling there.

The lawsuit, filed in August, by both the RNC and the NC GOP,  originally argued that the state Elections Board violated the Help America Vote Act, a federal law that mandated that prior to December 2023, voters who registered were not required to give either their state driver’s license of social Security number on the forms.

Republicans argued that the NC State Board of Elections allows non-citizens to register and vote, a charge officials with the NCSBE vigorously deny. The GOP sought to either remove 225,000 registered voters from North Carolina’s voting rolls, or at least require that those voters cast provisional ballots.

The State Board of Elections had hoped that the entire matter would be dismissed in federal court, but now will have to indeed make arguments in state court when the time comes.

Attorneys for the Harris campaign celebrated the ruling, saying Republicans were “… concocting stories of voter fraud and casting doubt on the election, with no evidence whatsoever,"

It is not known whether state court will hear the case before the November 5th general election. Early voting has already commenced as of October 17th.

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CASH COMMENTARY FOR MONDAY OCT. 21, 2024

                                                                  CASH MICHAELS

JUST A FEW THOUGHTS

by Cash Michaels

A lot has been happening lately, so I figured instead of just picking one subject to wear out my welcome with, I’d pick a couple for this column. Hope you don’t mind.

EARLY VOTING IN NC - If what I’ve been reading is true, North Carolinians, even in the hard-hit Hurricane Helene-struck west, have been lining up strong and deep to cast their ballots ever since early voting started Oct. 17th.. So far, we’re seeing impressive numbers, and that’s a good thing. Apparently North Carolina voters have something to say back to the candidates, after having to listen to them endlessly bable for months on end. It’s time that we be heard.

My wife and I braved the lines on Oct. 18th, the second day of early voting. We had to vote curbside because of my health condition.

Two things that struck me beyond the long line of devoted citizenry lined up to cast they ballots. One, the tireless dedication and devotion of the selfless poll workers. These tremendous people put in long hours doing the important work of caretaking our election process, and they just don’t get the thanks they so richly deserve from all of us for their hard work. Plus, they are some of the nicest people you’ll ever want to meet.

So hats off, and GOD Bless to our election poll workers. We truly couldn’t run a democracy without you!

Secondly, I knew long before anyone handed me a ballot that I was voting straight ticket. Simply put, one of this nation’s major political parties has absolutely NOTHING to offer me, and I suspect, the way it’s going, never will. And yet, I, and I’m certain plenty of other folks were forced to go through each name and each race on the ballot, one-by-one, to choose a candidate for whom to vote for. Talk about tedious.

What bothers me immensely about this is that years ago, North Carolina’s ballot allowed you to indeed vote straight party ticket. One box to check at the top allowed you to vote for all of the candidates running for office from your political party in that election, and that was it. You didn’t have to waste time going down the ballot reading each contest, making sure you didn’t accidentally make a mistake where you shouldn’t.

But the Republican majority in our state legislature, in an effort to slow the process down in order to frustrate folks who wouldn’t vote for them if their mothers were tied to the train tracks, did away with straight ticket voting, saying that each race deserved individual consideration.

The frustration part comes when you don’t know every candidate on the ballot, and can only go by which political party you lean towards, assuming you go past the top of the ticket choices. For some voters, that means not voting at all for down ballot candidates they have no idea about, and that’s not good for democracy.

But ultimately, the prolonged time it takes now to fill out a ballot here in North Carolina is unnecessary and just plain dumb. Voting should be made easier, not harder, and as long as folks do it legally, they should have the option, again in a democracy, to make their choices any way they choose - straight ticket, or split ticket.

Can’t wait for the people to vote out the bad actors in our legislature so we can get some common sense back in there and fix stuff like this.

ROBINSON’S LAWSUIT - The smoke hasn’t all cleared from Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s headline-grabbing $50 million lawsuit against CNN, and another defendant, filed last week in Wake Superior Court. The suit charges that the Cable News Network is “a politically left-wing media outlet” that engaged in “disgusting lies” in a “coordinated attack” aimed at “derailing his campaign for governor” by reporting on his alleged social media presence years ago on a porn site called “Nude Africa.com,” where he called himself “Black Nazi,” expressed adoration of Adolf Hitler, and advocated for the return of chattel slavery.

The CNN Report, Robinson’s suit contends “…has already inflicted immeasurable harm to his family, his reputation and his good name.”

Robinson, of course, vigorously denies CNN’s reporting, and thus, his lawsuit to make the news organization pay.

Or is that really the lawsuit’s purpose?

At press time came word that Robinson’s attorneys amended the stated lawsuit damages from a headline-grabbing $50 million to a piddling "in excess of  $25,000," with a November 18th opening court date. Gee, sounds like Sir Mouth-a-Lot and his attorneys finally figured out that North Carolina law demands that his actual damages be determined by a jury, NOT a PR firm.

        Why didn't his Virginia-based attorneys figure that out to start with? Because Robinson wanted the headline!

I mean, put yourself in Mark Robinson’s place right now. Your Democratic opponent, Josh Stein is leading in the polls. You’re already in trouble because of past ill-advised comments you allegedly made on social media about women, Muslims, Jews, LGTBQ+, and Black people. You’re too close to Donald Trump, who has called you “Martin Luther King on steroids” - an idiot statement that should also tick off a fair about folks. And your polls were headed toward the basement, no matter what you did, because folks were lining up to throw rocks at you over your stance on abortion.

Then the CNN “Black Nazi” report drops, seemingly burying you under a mountain of bad news no political candidate should survive. Half your campaign and executive office staffs desert you. Fellow Republicans turn their backs on you. Even Donald Trump won’t take your calls anymore. And the money faucet from the Republican Governors Association has been turned off, effectively taking your message off TV.

So what do you do if you feel cornered and refuse to go out like that? You at least try to look like you’re fighting back, and one way to do that is through a lawsuit, taking on the big, bad, evil, “left-wing’ media machine, CNN. You accuse them of defamation (which in legalese means their reporting was false and malicious, intended to hurt you and your campaign).

Whether you win or not isn’t the issue. The fact that you’re seen fighting back in fine classical MAGA tradition is the whole point now. The folks who hate CNN more than any concerns they may have about allegations about your moral character will definitely vote for you.

And in the end, if Mark Robinson loses, as he’s expected to, at least he will go down looking like a fighter, a warrior, someone who will be remembered admirably among the MAGA faithful for holding true to the cause. He’ll have a place in leadership, long after Trump steps off the stage.

And just how do I know all of this? Simple, his lawsuit. Full of allegations, but not a stitch of proof. Now I know that Robinson’s MAGA attorney has promised more proof in discovery, but my thinking tells me CNN, being the news organization that it is, isn’t that sloppy.

And Robinson doesn’t have the time, nor money to prove that they are.

Plus no one has started  a ‘Robinson Legal Offense Fund” yet.

This isn’t the first time CNN has nailed Mark Robinson to the wall with revelations about his alleged past shameful social media posts. It’s at least the second time. But Robinson never complained about the first reports where he allegedly said “So many [right-wing] freedoms were lost during the Civil Rights Movement,” and “Re: Parkland shooting survivors: “spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN,” “spoiled little bastards” Those tropes hang well with the conservative crowd, so as far as he was concerned, CNN did him a favor that first time. He wasn’t ashamed of anything.

But this second report, involving pornography, loving Hitler, and all kinds of salacious stuff…those dogs don’t hunt. Robinson has to answer the bell for those, if for no reason but to salvage what movement he has left for a  future after the election.

Don’t you know that CNN had their libel attorneys climbing all over that report before it was released, including the methodology of backtracking the consistency of Robinson’s social media footprint? And he knows that. But again, the fight - win or lose - is the goal here.

How is all of this going to ultimately end, I don’t know. But I do know that Mark Robinson, at this point, feels that he has nothing to lose by aiming high and wide. It would be real funny if a jury only awards him $1.00 in damages. Let’s all get some popcorn and see if he wins anything, shall we?

WHAT WILL THE ELECTION DECIDE? I left this one for last, because it scares me the most. As much as I want this presidential election to be over and done with, I truly shudder to think about the aftermath, especially if Trump wins.

If he loses, at least that would reaffirm my faith in my fellow countrymen and women that there are enough of us left to strive for decency, and want the best for America.

But if  Trump wins, he promises that the gates of Hell will open for those he considers his enemies. And the problem is, he’s have the entire power structure of the United States government to back him up, a la Project 2025.

If he loses, Trump could still cause problems, but at least that same US governmental power structure will be ready, willing and able to take him on.

After all, I have the funny feeling that the new president of the United States, won’t soon forget Trump repeatedly calling her “dumb” and “retarded.”

A Black woman scorned! He wants no part of that, trust me.

Most of all, if Trump wins, I will feel deeply for all of those folks - a cross section of diverse Americans - who poured their hearts into supporting Kamala Harris, truly believing that she was the fresh way forward to a hopeful future.

My heaviest fear is that if Trump wins, those good people will never allow themselves to care about another decent presidential candidate again.

If that happens, then we all truly lose!

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