Editor’s note: the following is the transcript of Saturday’s Columbus Connection, broadcast on WTXY KOOL 1039 and Spotify. The Connection is on air every Saturday at 10 a.m.
Good Saturday, friends and neighbors. This is Jefferson Weaver with Columbus County News Dot Com, and this is the Columbus Connection.
There was a familiar face sounding some familiar alarms last week, but the venue was different. Mandy Cohen, the former director of Health and Human Services for North Carolina, is now the head of the national Centers for Disease Control. Cohen left her post under Governor Roy Cooper to take the new role under Joe Biden.
Some critics and commentators called Cohen the Covid Queen during the pandemic, when she became famous for her weekly advisories to avoid crowds, wash your hands, celebrate holidays outdoors and socially distanced, and of course, to wear the face masks that even some of the experts now admit weren’t really that effective at preventing COVID-19.
It’s hard to believe that it has been four years since Coronavirus 2019 – better known as COVID-19 – made its way to America. We likely will never truly know how many people died from COVID, since the symptoms are similar to other ailments, and bureaucrats with a taste of power and a tool for control aren’t exactly prone to telling the entire truth. It’s even less likely that anyone will ever manage to find out for sure how the virus escaped a lab in China, whether it was an accident, a biological weapons test as the conspiracy theorists like to claim, or just China and other governments refusing to let a good crisis go to waste.
I am not doubting the existence or virulence of COVID-19. My wife and I had it at least twice, possibly three times. The third time left me with a malfunctioning kidney. I knew people who died from COVID, and others who nearly died. There is absolutely no doubt it was and is a real thing. It can and will make you very sick, and it can and will kill some folks.
Now while we’re on the subject – I never got vaccinated. I don’t trust any vaccine that has been rushed through anywhere on a government blank check, especially when it spends more time being lawyer-proofed than it does in the research lab. I am NOT a conspiracy theorist, but I do find it of significant interest how so many people, especially young healthy people who don’t use illegal drugs, have died mysteriously since the vaccinations began.
But neither COVID, nor RSV, nor the new flu, are worthy of sacrificing any more personal liberties than we already have. Nor are they worth the continued destruction of the American economy. And most importantly, none of those big three are worth the continued gaslighting of half a generation of young people and children who missed out on years of building critical social skills. Plus we have thousands of people who became used to staying at home and being paid not to work, and the entire economy is now paying that bill.
The same day Cohen took the national stage calling on all Americans, not just North Carolinians, to wear masks, socially distance and avoid Christmas gatherings, members of Congress were awaiting a reply to a stern letter demanding answers on China’s connection to the pandemic. It’s going to be interesting to see how the CDC spins their way out of an honest answer.
I firmly support your right to wear a mask, refuse to shake hands, or stay at home and hide as we enter into what Cohen and others have called the new Trifecta pandemic.
Just don’t expect me to buy into any bureaucrat saying that if we give up our freedoms, they’ll take care of us. Those who sacrifice liberty for safety gain neither.
If we are indeed heading into a potential new pandemic, brought about by people being indoors at ballgames, worship services and Christmas celebrations, I sincerely hope the majority of Americans see the damage that was wrought by our last experiment with trusting the science as defined by bureaucrats hungry for control over the last of a free American people.
We’ll be right back with more on the Columbus Connection.
Hello again, folks, this is Jefferson Weaver and you’re listening to the Columbus Connection from Columbus County News Dot Com.
Filing for the 2024 primaries ended Friday, and it should be an interesting campaign season at both the state and local levels.
Here at home, Edwin Russ signed up to run against Lavern Coleman for the district Four commission seat, this time as a Democrat. Russ was originally elected as a Democrat when he first served on the board, but like many in our county changed parties as part of the continuing Republican trend in Columbus. Coleman has always been a Republican, and hales from the red-dominated eastern end of the county. Russ lives at Lake Waccamaw.
Russ was defeated by Coleman, who has been a Republican during his entire political career. Russ has hinted several times over about his desire to retake a seat on the commission, where he served for more than a decade. The two will face off in the primary election in March, and with no Democrat candidate for the post, that winner will be the defacto victor in the fall, barring a write-in candidate.
Powerful Democrat district Two candidate Giles Buddy Byrd has no primary challenger for March, but in November he will face fellow Hallsboro native Salhudin Majeed, who filed as a Republican. Majeed is a retired U.S. Army soldier who has been critical of the impact of livestock operations on the environment.
Incumbent Republican Chris Smith is unopposed for the District one commission position, while fellow incumbent Republican Brent Watts will face Democrat Joseph Lee Small next fall for the District Three seat.
The filings are an interesting snapshot of the changes we are seeing in Columbus County. Thirty years ago, most Republicans stood no chance of winning an election for dog catcher. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but it isn’t far from the truth. The county was staunchly blue, and the Democrat powerbrokers like R.C. Soles and Dewey Hill both kept it that way. Hill, of course, changed his registration as times and attitudes changed. He made no bones about his opinion that while he still had friends across the aisle, like others who swapped their D for an R, the modern democrat party had abandoned the principles he found important as a businessman and a man of faith.
And that leads us to the state races, which are being watched closely by folks from far outside our borders, and with good reason.
The often tempestuous relationship between Governor Roy Cooper and the now-Republican dominated legislature has produced some benefits. The checks and balances designed by the founding fathers sometimes give cooler heads time to reconsider, regardless of which side of a veto or a budget they are on. The current general assembly has been a classic example of electeds being responsive to their constituents, and with the roosters sometimes having to give up a little more scratch grain so everyone can crow louder.
Our state has become a destination for new businesses, for differing reasons. Republicans and conservatives want to cut taxes, and create a tax friendly environment for both business and individuals. Democrats and progressive liberals are all too happy to hand out the taxpayer’s dollars to companies that may provide jobs and say they support the Democrat social and environmental platforms. That makes for quote unquote free money from both sides of the aisle, although when it comes to business and investment, reduced taxes of all kinds are the greater benefit for everyone.
That’s about the only place, however, where the two sides have worked solidly hand in hand.
Cooper vetoed a record number of bills in the last sessions of the General Assembly, and solons overrode every single one. Between Cooper’s executive orders during the pandemic, as well as his love of the LGBTQX community and abortion, and his desire to shut down private and charter schools, there was no love lost by the Republicans who moved in down the street during the last two elections. True, some of them rode the original mad-as-a-wet-setting-hen Trump wave, but the held those seats because voters in general are tired of liberal policies that tear down our values and shove new values down our throats.
The Democrat National Party is especially focusing on Mark Robinson, the state’s first black lieutenant governor. Robinson is not afraid to speak in public, and not ashamed to call the Democrat party a plantation, evoking images of slavery that some Democrats claim Republicans support. Robinson is staunchly pro-gun, pro family and anti-abortion. He took some hits when it was revealed that as a young man, he paid for the woman he eventually married to have an abortion, but Robinson has never hidden that fact. Indeed he has repeatedly said that the guilt over paying for an abortion is one reason he is so pro-life.
Robinson is not and has never been an old school politician, which is one reason he faces so many challenges in the primary, most notably from Dale Folwell. Now Folwell, as state treasurer, isn’t as well known, but he has helped make a big difference in the state’s fiscal posture.
However, Folwell will need to shed himself of the stodgy old fashioned politician image to beat Robinson for the gubernatorial nomination. He endeared himself to many through his own tests of the supposedly transparent hospital billing system, and deserves accolades for forcing the changes in “surprise billing” that make medical care a bankruptcy choice for many North Carolinians, even if they have insurance. At the same time, however, it’s disingenuous that he never criticized Robinson until the lieutenant governor’s race to the top really took off.
If Folwell’s statements are true, it is concerning that the second highest executive in the state government is a frequent no-show at important meetings, but in an election cycle, the absolute entire truth is relative and hard to find. There are other equally vociferous Republicans running for the Excellency’s position, including the darkhorse who promises to execute drug traffickers and virtually declare war on China, but Robinson and Folwell will be the races to watch for the Republican nomination. Although it has not been the case in the past, as the General Assembly goes, the governorship likely will go this time around, which is something of a rarity in a state best known not for being blue or red, but purple on election night.
On the other side of the coin, there’s Josh Stein.
The Democrat attorney general has been Cooper’s hatchet man from the start, often espousing harder left policies than Cooper had the guts to express. It’s a trend that goes back several years: Mike Easley was a moderate-ish Democrat who most North Carolinians could at least tolerate, who went from AG to the governor’s mansion. Cooper was a left leaning attorney general, but likeable, and that helped propel him into the governor’s mansion, after repeatedly fighting Republican Gov. Pat McCrory from inside the capital where they both worked. Stein quietly rode along with Cooper until he could come out of the closet, so to speak, and make no bones about trying to make a North Carolina that will cater to the folks who flee other states with the intent of making North Carolina a version of that which they just left, but without making all the same mistakes, of course.
The runup to March will be interesting, assuming the Democrats don’t get the primaries blocked in court , which has become their favorite place to win elections. Our state is famous, or infamous, for the bitter nature of campaign in election years that really matter. With the insanity pouring out of Washington in recent years – open borders, apologizing to and equipping our enemies, expanding access to abortion, yoking working people with the debts of college students, and Biden’s bizarre obsession with alternate lifestyles – this is indeed an election cycle that matters more than many. It will be interesting to see if North Carolina shifts back toward its conservative roots, or embraces the principles of the left that have ruined so many lives in so many states.
A lot of money will be pouring into our gubernatorial, congressional and senate campaigns next year. It’s going to be interesting to see who gets the best bargain – the left, the right, or North Carolina.
We’ll be right back with more of the Columbus Connection.
Welcome back, folks. This Is Jefferson Weaver from Columbus County News Dot com, and you’re listening to the COLUMBUS CONNECTION.
The Wildlife Commission released some startling numbers the other week, numbers for which there is no excuse nor explanation.
There have been five hunting fatalities involving firearms this year, during turkey and deer seasons, as opposed to a single fatality in the previous three years combined. A total of 14 accidents have occurred this year overall, and 11 involved firearms.
That’s a massive jump for our state. in contrast, from 2013 through 2022, 114 total accidents were reported, with a total of SEVEN fatalities in nine years. Officials have no explanation for the rise in shootings. The demographics and experience levels were scattered across the board. The only reason for any hunting accident to occur is carelessness on someone’s part, and there’s no room for that in a sport that is constantly viewed with a jaundiced eye by government and Hollywood.
Our state is seventh in the nation for hunting licenses. We were one of the first in the nation to mandate hunter safety training, back in the late 1970s. I as in the second such class for youth, in 1980. My parents didn’t hunt, but they made sure I had good mentors. When word got out about the planned class, it was a foregone conclusion, and I loved every minute of it.
To this day, I instinctively check the chamber whenever I pick up a firearm, even in a store. I even check my own, despite the cast that I’m the only one that handles most of my guns. I’ve been known to yell at total strangers whose muzzle drifted in someone else’s direction, and I’ve swatted a gun or two skyward in the same circumstances.
Does that mean I’ve never had an accident? Of course not. But learning, grasping and internalizing the basics of hunting safety has likely kept those accidents from being worse.
It should be muscle memory for a hunter to ensure the safety is on until you’re ready to fire, the finger stays off the trigger until it’s ready to squeeze, and you always know what is behind your target, and that your target is indeed what you think it is. Ain’t a deer out there worth the life of another human being.
After a brief surge during the pandemic, when people were stuck at home, bored and started hunting again, the number of licensed hunters has dipped slightly in recent years. Why is a matter of conjecture, but the good news is that there is a growing number of younger hunters who love and will carry on the traditions. For that they need mentors, experienced hunters who will take the time to reinforce the safety habits taught in hunter safety classes.
I repeat – ain’t no deer, duck, quail, bear, rabbit, squirrel or dove worth injuring another human being. Take the time during these last two weeks of big game season to take a young hunter under your wing, and do your part to ensure you leave behind a legacy of enjoying time in God’s creation, doing what god designed man to do – respect, protect, conserve and manage our natural resources.
The Columbus connection is a public affairs program from CCN and WTXY. Dissenting opinions are always welcome, as long as you’re willing to disagree agreeably. Consider this kind of a digital front porch. If you’d like to come join me, or if you know someone who should, give me a call at 910.632.4965. If we get enough folks on different sides together, we can solve a whole lot of the world’s problems, but everybody needs to have some manners.
