Playing by the rules? What a concept

“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” All right, maybe people who said this or taught the saying to their kids as a sign of noble character never truly meant it. But they at least pretended to.

Are those times long gone? Well, a lot of folks who know better have been charged with trying to rig, not a game, but democracy. And, in some cases, their defiance of norms and laws is being rewarded and celebrated.

That certainly seems to have happened in Arizona.

Being indicted for involvement in a “fake electors” scheme to keep Donald Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden did not hurt state Sen. Jake Hoffman at the Arizona GOP Convention over the weekend. Indeed, he was chosen as a Republican National Committee member.

“I’m humbled and honored to have been elected as the next RNC National Committeeman for Arizona!” Hoffman wrote on social media. “For the next 4 years I will work tirelessly to ensure that the RNC makes Arizona its #1 priority not only in 2024, but every year.”

When you consider what he is charged with doing in the 2020 election, Hoffman’s pledge, along with the fact that the term “fake electors” doesn’t need an explanation, presents a scary vision of the future. Being unhappy with the results of an election is understandable; subverting the will of your state’s voters to change the final score is not.

Hoffman will have his day in court, but he doesn’t seem one bit admonished by the charge as he carries that partisan energy into November. He was in good — or bad — company with others indicted not only in Arizona but also in Georgia for similar shenanigans, including former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Another defendant in the Arizona case, lawyer Christina Bobb, has found strong support in her party in her role as senior counsel to the Republican National Committee’s election integrity team.

That is not a joke.

Sacrificing democracy to belong to a shrinking ‘club’

It was a scene both disturbing and expected: former President Donald Trump embracing one of the insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with the intention of overthrowing the results of the 2020 election.

Micki Larson-Olson was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of resisting police as they tried to clear the grounds that day. Yet, apparently, there are no hard feelings against Trump. In fact, quite the opposite. After driving from Texas to the New Hampshire campaign stop of the current candidate and former president, Larson-Olson got emotional over the recognition, the photographic record of her meeting with him, and his autograph on her backpack.

“And he gave me the pen,” she said, according to a Washington Post report. That she belongs to a QAnon offshoot is also no surprise.

I understand.

She was thrilled to be a member of the club, one that is losing the culture and has been rejected at the ballot box, but needs to feel special, as special as the insecure little boys who once locked their ramshackle clubhouse before scrawling “no girls allowed” on the door.

All those Washington invaders who throw around the word “patriot” as they trash America’s ideals — all those “true believers” in election fraud myths, the Kari Lakes and Mike “My Pillow Guy” Lindells of the world, the veterans and police officers who found themselves on the wrong side of the law that January day — I suspect they realize in their heart of hearts that Joe Biden tallied the most votes in the last presidential election.

Their beef is where many of those votes came from.

Democratic candidates Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Biden may have won the presidency fair and square, but each failed to gain a majority of the white vote. That means a coalition of, in Trump loyalists’ eyes, “other” voters put them over the top — and that breaks the brains of a lot of folks.

A fantasy world of election-rigging schemes attempts to cover up their resentments, but instead it shines a spotlight on them.

Georgia voters spoke. Is the GOP listening?

One of South Carolina’s senators must have an incredibly low opinion of Black Americans, their intelligence and judgment. The evidence? His sad, almost laughable closing argument as he barnstormed for Herschel Walker, who lost his runoff race challenging Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock and won’t be joining Lindsey Graham as a Republican colleague in Washington, D.C.

Graham did not talk about Walker’s proposals or plans for the people he would represent in the state of Georgia. He never mentioned Walker’s experience, which consisted of long-past football glory and running some businesses with a debated degree of success. In fact, Walker’s buddy barely let the candidate speak in TV appearances where Graham tried for “sidekick” but instead came off as “handler.”

No, Graham’s final arguments for the Donald Trump-endorsed Walker went something like this absurd statement he yelled more than stated on Fox News: “They’re trying to destroy Herschel to deter young men and women of color from being Republicans.”

Graham said, “If Herschel wins, he’s going to inspire people all over Georgia of color to become Republicans and, I say, all over the United States.”

No, senator. In fact, the reality turned out to be quite the opposite.

Local News Roundup: A local graduate among those killed at UVA, Tepper and Rock Hill come to an agreement, Juneteenth officially a holiday in Charlotte

The shooting at the University of Virginia hits the Charlotte area as one of the victims, Devin Chandler, was a graduate of Hough High School in Cornelius. Chandler was a member of the UVA football team, and his former high school team plans to wear decals on their helmets for the rest of the season.

The Carolina Panthers and Rock Hill have settled a legal dispute over a proposed headquarters and practice facility. Rock Hill will receive $20 million in the bankruptcy settlement. GT Real Estate Holdings, David Tepper’s real estate company, was set to build an $800 million facility. York County also filed a lawsuit but is not named in the settlement deal.

The city of Charlotte has adopted Juneteenth as a holiday. It commemorates the dates in 1865 when the last enslaved people in Texas were informed that they were free. Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.

And after being benched earlier this season, Baker Mayfield is back as the starting quarterback for the Carolina Panthers with P.J. Walker injured. The team is 3-7, two games out of the lead in the NFC South, and travels to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters dive into those and other topics this week on the local news roundup.

GUESTS:

Claire Donnelly, WFAE health reporter

Joe Bruno, WSOC-TV reporter

Nick Ochsner, WBTV’s executive producer for investigations & chief investigative reporter

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”

Local News Roundup: Early voting, local public safety conversations, CATS driver shortage and more

Early voting started Thursday in the election for Charlotte mayor and city council. The election was pushed to July from last year because of delayed census data needed to draw new districts. We’ll talk about who is running and how it’s going.

Conversations about safety during large-scale events are top of mind this week for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police after a deadly Fourthof July parade in Illinois. CMPD officials say they’ll be on high alert for Charlotte’s next big public event, August’s Pride Parade.

In other CMPD news, Chief Johnny Jennings defends and praises actions taken by police during a dangerous high-speed chase this week.

Driver shortages within Charlotte Area Transit System continue to impact travel for Charlotte transit commuters. The shortages have been happening for weeks.

As the heat continues in the Charlotte region, Mecklenburg County activates cooling stations to provide relief to residents.

And Salisbury becomes the backdrop for an upcoming movie.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters talk about those stories and all the week’s top local and regional news.

GUESTS:

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”

Joe Bruno, WSOC-TV reporter

Ann Doss Helms, WFAE education reporter

Shamarria Morrison, WCNC reporter

Local News Roundup: Charlotte weighs housing initiatives; COVID cases could rise again

A local expert says that cases of COVID-19 in North Carolina will increase in the next few weeks. We talk about the prediction and what doctors are saying.

The Charlotte City Council is working on plans to provide more affordable housing in the city. We take a look at several projects on the table, and what kind of dent they’d make in Charlotte’s affordable housing deficit.

The stalled construction of the Rock Hill, South Carolina, headquarters for the Carolina Panthers drew heated criticism from South Carolina state Sen. Wes Climer this week. We discuss what was said and have an update on the plans in Rock Hill.

And the Hornets’ positioning for the NBA playoffs has been on a rollercoaster the last couple of weeks. We look at how the next couple of games could define their season.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters delve into those stories and all the week’s top local and regional news on the Charlotte Talks local news roundup.

GUESTS:

Erik Spanberg, managing editor for the Charlotte Business Journal

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”

Claire Donnelly, WFAE health reporter

Joe Bruno, WSOC-TV reporter

But what will the ‘optics’ be?

After the votes are counted, probably this week, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will almost certainly be a Supreme Court justice. But members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who wanted to use her confirmation hearings for everything but the thing they were designed for are also walking away satisfied.

Republican senators like Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Ted Cruz of Texas used their time to either talk down to Jackson or talk past her to make political points.

During the hearings, questions that criticized her sentencing philosophy as well as “empathy” were tailor-made for the African American Supreme Court candidate and a slew of negative ads to accuse her and every Democrat of being soft on crime in general and pornographers in particular.

In that, they were merely following the playbook that has become routine and is unfortunate for any American who wants to get anything done, especially, in this instance, for advocates of criminal justice reform. That Jackson had the support of major law enforcement groups and could boast of relatives with more time on the front lines of fighting crime than all those senators combined were facts to be ignored by those looking to set a narrative. That her sentencing record resembled that of Republican judges favored by the disagreeing and disagreeable senators were details to be brushed aside. Cotton, in fact, has ramped up his attacks, saying, to the disgust of the Anti-Defamation League, that she would represent “Nazis.”

After listening to and watching the show along with the rest of us, three Republican senators have explained their reasoning for backing the eminently qualified jurist while decrying the partisan grandstanding that has accompanied modern Supreme Court justice hearings. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah, who actually voted against her last time around, had met with Jackson. They apparently have seen her as she truly is, not the ridiculous caricature constructed by her interrogators.

What did that get the three? The label of “pro-pedophile” from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Along with that slander, she also tweeted the proof was, “They just voted for #KBJ,” when the vote had not yet happened. But when has being wrong on fact or intention ever stopped the Georgia Republican?

It all fits in with the spectacle of Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee continuing their snarling and baseless accusations against Jackson this past Monday — the April 4 anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The symbolism speaks for itself and points to a larger problem.

Say goodbye to reality-based reasoned discussion, with give-and-take from every side, and hello to filtering every issue through fear, feelings and optics.

Get used to terms such as “woke,” “socialism,” “critical race theory” and now “pedophile” in outraged statements and already surfacing alarmist election ads.

Local News Roundup: NC, SC Senators question Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, CMS reading scores continue to fall

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee spent much of the week questioning Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had their chance to engage the nominee, and in the case of Graham, it got quite heated. We’ll hear what both had to say.

Third grade reading scores are getting worse in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, even after students have returned to in-person classes. Preliminary testing indicates that less than 15% of all third graders are expected to hit the mark for academic success in reading this year.

That and other academic challenges serve as a backdrop for Superintendent Earnest Winston’s budget proposal this week. How the school system and board plan to approach spending strategies for meeting academic goals.

In the ongoing funding dispute between the city of Rock Hill and the Carolina Panthers, leaders in York County approved a plan for providing economic incentives for the headquarters project. What they’re offering, and what happens next.

Those stories and more with our roundtable of reporters.

Guests

Joe Bruno, reporter for WSOC-TV

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”

Nick Ochsner, executive producer for investigations & chief investigative reporter for WBTV

Ann Doss Helms, education reporter for WFAE

“We can’t give in to Jan. 6”

In a fiery and no-holds-barred conversation, Mary C. Curtis speaks with former RNC chair Michael Steele on the future of the GOP, why he cannot defend the current Republican party to Black voters and why he believes the country can and should do better.

Jaime Harrison says Democrats won’t cede South to GOP

Jaime Harrison, the former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, generated excitement among Democrats and shattered fundraising records in his 2020 campaign for Republican Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat.

In the end, Graham defeated Harrison by more than 10 points, but Democrats liked what they saw and in January elected Harrison to lead the Democratic National Committee. He’s now tasked with defending Democrats’ slim House and Senate majorities in 2022.

Harrison recently joined CQ Roll Call’s Equal Time podcast. An edited transcript follows.