Category: Nc Politics

Eddie Settle vs. Darren Staley, NCS 36

2/24/2024

The following is reprinted from the WataugaWatch Blog by J.W. Williamson on Feb 20th, 2024. You can read the original HERE. Visit the wataugawatch blog and follow for regular commentary on the politics of our area.

I knew naught of Sen. Eddie Settle, who represents Wilkes, Alexander, Surry, and Yadkin counties (Dist. 36) in Raleigh, except that the energizing Democratic candidate for that seat, Darren Staley, mocks the R+26 nightmare that district has become and is not averse to pointing out Settle's tiresome conservative smugness. Staley lives in a trailer, is as hardscrabble tested as Settle is privileged, and he knows which end is up (as they say in my part of the country). Staley's Twitter feed keeps me plugged in to what a Democratic campaign for democratic values ought to look like and rarely does, an uprising of working-class common sense, determination, and vision.

Democrat Staley tweeted a link to a piece of remarkable Eddie Settle prose (liberally stolen from the Wall Street Journal, as it turns out), headlining it this way: "I've spent a lot of time talking about why you should support my campaign. THIS is who I am running against. Let that sink in..." Settle's little essay, "A Biblical Look at Capitalism," was published in the Valentine's Day edition of The Wilkes Record. I took the bait, wondering what make of man that my man Darren Staley is running against.

Settle's profit-motive Christianity left a bad taste in my mouth, an offensive brandishing of the Bible to promote the gospel of plutocracy: "The Bible is clear on many things. It teaches about the morality of personal responsibility. It’s through this avenue that man learns to develop good citizenship that leads to happiness. The welfare state undermines this goal of personal responsibility. Proverbs teaches that man is to be productive and that he is not entitled to well-being." Let them eat wallpaper?

"The morality of personal responsibility." Really, Dude? Has Trump, past master of evading consequences, taught us nothing? "Not entitled to well-being?" Has the history of wolfish, buck-passing corporations taught you absolutely nothing, Sir? Yours is a "Bible philosophy" made to order for the already comfortable who intend to entertain no doubt nor guilt, so it's little surprise that Eddie Settle's big consuming issue is taxes on people like him.

By all appearances, Eddie Settle is a well respected Southern Baptist glad-hander in Wilkes, a former 3-term county commissioner now serving in his first term in the NC Senate. He essentially went straight out of high school (and one year studying business at Wilkes Community College) into working at and learning his father's business, Nu-Line Printing Inc. (good for t-shirt screen printing & embroidery, banners, signs & picture framing services) -- the company that Settle now owns outright and still runs today. In 1990, he got into a sideline of raising cattle and is often photographed wearing a big cowboy hat at social gatherings to prove it. He told Colin Campbell that his personal hero was Ronald Reagan, specifically "his Christian conservative leadership."

He's big on pro-life politics, organizing a vote on the Wilkes Commission to pass a resolution to designate the county "a haven for the unborn" (Whoa! Wilkes filled with very pregnant women? looking to escape the pro-abortionists?). What would a haven for the unborn entail? He also mentions Critical Race Theory on his website, calling it "pure poison."

He's always going to vote the party line, but I wonder if he stood up to Berger over the casino gambling push. He certainly doesn't mention that Berger's failure to get more casinos into poor counties held up the budget for months. Settle sez not one word about Berger's determination to get legalized commercial gambling well situated in NC on his otherwise braggadocious wrap-up of his first year in the Senate. He can certainly brag about the $70 million in pork he got to hand out in his four counties. Pork is always a thoughtful gift.

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Two Years Later: American Rescue Plan Still Delivering – No Thanks to GOP

3/11/2023

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Kate Frauenfelder
NCDP Communications Director

On the two-year anniversary of President Biden signing the American Rescue Plan into law, North Carolinians are still benefiting from the relief President Biden and Democrats delivered – with no help from a single Republican.

Thanks to President Biden and Democrats, the American Rescue Plan has created the strongest jobs recovery on record, provided tax relief for working families, brought child poverty to a record low, led a small business boom, bolstered public safety and crime prevention in our communities, and more – with no help from a single Republican.

“Despite Republicans’ attempts to stop them, President Biden and Democrats came into office and worked immediately to provide relief for working Americans. Two years later, North Carolinians are seeing the results in their communities: record low unemployment, tax relief for working families, small businesses are on the rise, and that’s just the beginning.

While MAGA Republicans continue to prioritize their extreme agenda over the needs of working families, President Biden and Democrats remain focused on finishing the job,” said North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton.

Here’s a reminder about just some of the critical relief Republicans opposed:

A strong economic recovery, with North Carolina unemployment falling to 3.8 percent, as compared to 5.6 percent when President Biden took office, and 353,000 new jobs.
Helping foster 336,000 new small business applications in North Carolina.
Direct pandemic relief to all 647 North Carolina towns, cities, and counties.
Vital education funding for over 110 school districts in North Carolina to support academic recovery post-pandemic.
Help for 4,200 child care programs in North Carolina to keep their doors open, impacting up to 371,000 children.
Working family tax relief for 1.3 million families in North Carolina and an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit for 601,000 works in North Carolina.
Affordable, high-speed internet for 78,000 homes and businesses in North Carolina.
Vital relief for 2,576 North Carolina restaurants through the American Rescue Plan’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund.

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Change begins with personal relationships

6/3/2020

This letter was originally published in the June 3rd Wilkes Journal Patriot
Michael Cooper Jr. is a journalist and attorney living in Raleigh. He was born and raised in North Wilkesboro. (and worked for many years here) He is a 2020 Presidential Leadership Scholar, a fellowship hosted by the George W. Bush Center, the Clinton Center, the George & Barbara Bush Foundation, and the LBJ Foundation.

I told a friend Saturday that despite everything in the news, “I’m still optimistic about the future of our country.” Look how far we’ve come. Look how close we are to living in a just and righteous world.

And my friend, Darren, who’s black, asked, “How much longer are we going to have to wait?” He was tired and he was frustrated and I couldn’t blame him for feeling that way.

Not after the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. All in the last few weeks.

“Who cares if we get to the promised land if none of my people are with me,” he asked. I said these were growing pains, that we’ll get through this. But Darren quoted a line from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that hit me in the gut.

He said, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” And all week I’d been silent.

That evening I joined the protesters on the grounds of our State Capitol to stand in solidarity with those who demanded justice for the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

I saw homemade signs that were all too familiar (“Black Lives Matter” and “Stop Killing Us”) and I heard the chants of “No Justice, No Peace” as a man on the edge of the crowd played “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” on his saxophone.

Later that night, my neighbor and I walked the streets of Downtown Raleigh. We smelled the tear gas. I saw images I’d only seen in the movies: cops in riot gear and dozens of smashed windows with glass shattered all over the sidewalks. And the same thing was happening in cities across the country.

I was furious. I abhor vandalism. I hated seeing the building of a local newspaper wrecked. I saw it as counterproductive to the overall cause of getting justice for those killings.

But walking around, I understood those other words of Dr. King that, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” And for too long, too many of us hadn’t been listening.

This moment and the deaths of Floyd, Taylor and Arbery are because of something bigger than police brutality and a few bad cops.

This is about America’s original sin of racism and how that’s tied to disparities in health, income, housing, education, and how different groups of people are treated by the criminal justice system.

That’s why people are in the streets. Not just because of the killings. But because a pandemic and an economic crisis are disproportionately impacting communities of color (including in Minnesota, where African-Americans make up 6 percent of the population but a third of their deaths from COVID-19). We have work to do as a society. The way to end the riots is not to suppress these feelings until they explode again the next year or the year after that.

But instead to address the underlying causes: the racial wealth gap, policies of mass-incarceration that serve as a “New Jim Crow” and the relationship between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve. But this isn’t just about public policy. It’s about the way our society still sees black Americans as different and inferior.

Equality is about putting ourselves in other people’s shoes and seeing each other as equals. It means opening doors of opportunity (on non-profit boards, with grants and scholarships and through elected office).

North Carolina has never elected a black governor or U.S. senator and Wilkes County has never had a state senator, state representative, school board member, or town commissioner who was black, and we should honestly ask ourselves why? And fix that. But if we truly want to correct racial inequalities in our society that work begins at home. We can’t change America’s statistics until we change the relationships in our lives and in our neighborhoods.

Those of us who are white should ask ourselves: When was the last time we had a black friend over for dinner? When was the last time we visited their house? When was the last time we went to a predominately black wedding?

Even better, when was the last time we went to church with someone from another race? The most segregated place in America is the inside of a church on Sunday morning. And we can pretty easily do something about that.

I’m still optimistic for the future. We’re closer than ever before to making good on our founding ideals and building a country with liberty and justice for all.

But that’s going to require some conversations that are long overdue and uncomfortable. That’s going to require listening. And for people like me that requires speaking out – to say these injustices are wrong and I think we can do better – because black Americans are tired of waiting.

SEc of State Visits Wilkes Senior Democrats

2/5/2020

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NC Secretary of State Elaine Marshall [ https://www.elainemarshall.com/ ] came to the monthly meeting of Wilkes County Democrats on Wednesday at Olive Garden in Wilkesoboro. She is the first woman to be elected to that office and the first woman elected to statewide executive office in North Carolina. In 2016, Marshall was re-elected to a sixth term as North Carolina Secretary of State with 52.26 percent of the vote, earning more votes (and a higher share of the vote) than any other Democrat running statewide. She is running for re-election in 2020.

Marshall has been active in Democratic politics in North Carolina for over 30 years. From the early 1970s, she was active in the Young Democrats organization and eventually became National Secretary of the Young Democrats of America. In Harnett County, where she practiced law, Marshall served as President of Democratic Women and, in 1991, served as chair of the Harnett County Democratic Party. Marshall was first elected to public office in 1992 as a member of the North Carolina Senate representing the 15th Senate District.

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2020 Century club kicks off the year right!

1/18/2020

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On the night of January 18th, Wilkes County Democratic Party kicked off their single biggest fundraiser of the year, The Century Club Dinner. It was a great night of fellowship and great conversation as we all listened to the ideas of the candidates running for office. In the lobby bar area of the Holiday Inn Wilkesboro, we gathered to get our minds right about the challenges we are facing and running towards in the coming year - which may without a doubt be the most important election of our lifetime. We had a wonderful meal served by Chef Blake Sebastian, and hosted by Wilkes County Democratic Party Chair, Kathryn Charles.

Jeanne Supin:  http://jeannesupinforcongress.com/
She is running for NC Senate District 45. She has spent her entire adult life working with mental health and addiction agencies across the 5th district of North Carolina and our entire nation. She emphasized how important it is that we get Medicaid Expansion for NC. Other states that have done it have money and are serving THOUSANDS more of their citizens with funding that we do not have. NC is declining $3.9 BILLION dollars a year that are rightfully ours because they are OUR TAXES, TOO. 600,000 North Carolinians that are your family, your neighbors, your friends, could be helped. This is an immediate and crucial need for NC that Jeanne is committed to achieving in the General Assembly.

Chalma Hunt:  https://www.chalma4wilkes.org/
She is running for Wilkes County Commissioner in the county which she was born and raised. She grew up in Roaring River and graduated from East High. She went to UNC-Greensboro and got a degree in sociology with a concentration in juvenile delinquency. After living and working in the DC area in HR and raising two children to adulthood, largely as a single mother, she has gladly moved back to Wilkes to take care of her older parents. You may currently know her as the "Chick-Fil-A Lady" who is like the den mother at the restaurant, guiding the young workforce there. She is passionate about getting the youth involved in the community and in voting for their future. She is fully aware, that no one else on the County Commissioners looks like her at this point, and it is time to embrace that change.

Jerome Watkins:
Is also running for Wilkes County Commissioner. He grew up in Mississippi, just north of New Orleans and was stationed in the Marines Corps out of Jacksonville, NC. He had a career in the USMOC which took him all over, and he retired with his last station in Havelock, NC. He married a local Wilkes County girl, and settled in Wilkes. He was always a voter, but a few years ago it dawned on him, "You can't just be a voter,...you have to be more active." He believes the County Commissioners truly should work for us, their constituents, and that many have forgotten that.

Brandon Whitaker:  https://www.facebook.com/pg/brandonwhitaker4wcboe/
Is running for the 2nd time for a seat on the Board of Education. He has a wife, Kimberly, who works as a receptionist in the school system, and he has two children, one at the Community College, and one still in middle school. He works as a civil engineer private contractor and has worked for the NCDOT. He grew up in poverty, and is passionate in his believe that our public schools are the pathway for many to achieve a better life. But we need to commit to the strength of our public schools and our county's teachers.

Walter Smith:  https://www.votewaltersmith.org/
Running for Agricultural Commissioner. He has a BS in Agricultural Engineering at NCSU, is a farmer himself, and has been involved most recently with the industrial hemp lobby as a vital agricultural crop for North Carolina and developing a plastic that will biodegrade fully within one year. He explained to our group more of the broad-ranging duties of the Ag Commissioner; protecting small farms, the state's natural resources, and domesticated animals and shelters, as well as the ensuring the safety of the water supply of our communities, making cosmetics safe, monitoring propane safety, as well as regulating the system of weights and measures so you're getting what you pay for at the grocery store. It is a broad, wide-ranging list of duties that requires a well-rounded commissioner that has your best interest at heart. Walter Smith is that Commissioner.

Wayne Goodwin:  http://waynegoodwin.org/
NC Democratic Party Chair, Wayne Goodwin, is running to be Insurance Commissioner once more and unseat Mike Causey. He was well-respected as Insurance Commissioner and deserves to serve NC in this capacity once more. He spoke of being "Fired Up and Fed Up" about the year ahead. Fired up, because we have an opportunity to respond to and correct the errors of 2016. We have within our grasp the ability to make that change with the power of the vote. "This is the most important election of your lifetime," he said.

He claimed he was Fed Up, because we are not taking care of "the least among us." Those in the White House, The Senate, The State General Assembly have decided that they'd rather stand up for their personal power and private interests instead of the integrity of the offices they hold. They would rather worship power and hold on to it as long as possible. "Listen to the people and the facts to correct the danger that this country has been subjected to." It is time to choose Country over Party and choose what is right for our country, our republic, and ALL of us. But we have to give folks an opportunity and a choice and we have to ACT with our vote.

"Save our State, Vote The Slate" meaning to vote for Democrats all up and down the ballot. That is the simplest plan. And get more people to vote that way. When more people participate in the voting process, the state is better off for it. It is the only thing that will prevent more gerrymandering, stop the degradation of our public schools, protect our natural resources. We can make things go in the right direction if we make the right choices now.

"I'm probably preaching to the choir," he said to the room full of Democrats, "but choirs need to practice."

Left to right: Walter Smith, Wayne Goodwin, Jerome Watkins, 5th District Chair Charlie Wallin, Jeanne Supin, and Chalma Hunt

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Eddie Settle vs. Darren Staley, NCS 36

Two Years Later: American Rescue Plan Still Delivering – No Thanks to GOP

Change begins with personal relationships

SEc of State Visits Wilkes Senior Democrats

2020 Century club kicks off the year right!

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