The Republican nominee for North Carolina Superintendent for Public Instruction says “Islam is evil” and Muslims should be banned from holding elected office in the United States. Michele Morrow pulled off a surprise upset in the March primary, defeating incumbent superintendent Catherine Truitt for the right to represent the Republican Party on November’s general election ballot. She’s a homeschool mother who calls public schools “socialism centers” and “indoctrination centers.” Her presence at the January 6 insurrection and calls for prominent Democrats to be executed have been well docume ..read more

If you haven’t yet gotten acquainted with North Carolina’s Republican candidate to lead all K-12 schools as our next superintendent, you are in for a rude awakening. Michele Morrow pulled off the upset victory in this month’s Republican primary, defeating incumbent Catherine Truitt for the right to appear on November’s general election ballot. The unexpected news found a lot of people in North Carolina and across the nation scratching their heads and asking “Who is Michele Morrow?” Morrow is a staunch critic of North Carolina’s public schools, which she calls “indoctrination centers,” and s ..read more

Shortly after he took over as North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor in 2021, current Republican candidate for governor Mark Robinson launched a task force to root out indoctrination in our public schools. Robinson claimed indoctrination was a widespread problem and set up an online portal to solicit complaints about educators from the public.  The majority of the submissions Robinson received were from people who took issue with his politically-motivated witch hunt and saw an opportunity to roast him over it. As for the actual complaints about educators, Robinson published those online ..read more

If you hear her tell it, North Carolina’s extreme right wing Republican candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction didn’t really go to the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to participate in an insurrection. Rather, Morrow, who home schools her kids, said in a candidate forum during her 2022 failed run for Wake County school board that she wanted to teach her children “a lesson about citizens’ role in a democracy.” You know, kind of like a homeschool field trip. But the video Morrow shot that day paints a very different picture. In it, Morrow says she’s doing this “because our president as ..read more

A North Carolina Republican voter told NBC news today that a woman should not be president of the United States because “she got no balls to scratch.” Interviewed in the Alamance County town of Graham, Trump primary voter Emmett Martin added “All women’s good for in my book is having babies and taking care of the house.” It’s a measure of how low our public discourse has sunk when a guy like Emmett Martin has no qualms voicing his abhorrent sexist views on national television. And there are plenty of MAGA Republican voters in NC who would applaud him for it. In the 2020 presidential elect ..read more

A Union County pastor is under fire for saying from the pulpit that he would not convict a rapist if his victim were wearing shorts. And if you’re a taxpayer in North Carolina, you are funding his organization. Bobby Leonard started Bible Tabernacle Church in Monroe, NC in 1970. This week a clip of an August 2023 sermon by Leonard was shared on Twitter by @BadSermons: “If you dress like that and you get raped, and I’m on the jury, he’s gonna go free…I can’t help if you don’t like it, I’m right. Cause, y’know, a man’s a man. A man’s a man.” Under the leadership of Bobby Leonard, Bible Tabe ..read more

This week was School Choice Week, a nationwide event dreamed up by a nonprofit whose stated mission is to “advance positive school choice messaging across the nation.” Joining in North Carolina’s celebration was a jubilant Senator Phil Berger, still grinning about how his stolen supermajority this past session ensured Governor Cooper couldn’t veto terrible Republican policies. Another featured speaker at the event was State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt. The party on Halifax Mall revolved around recent changes in school voucher law in North Carolina. Those changes inc ..read more

North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson is no stranger to financial struggles.   Since he was elected in 2020, news has emerged about Robinson being evicted for not paying rent (his elderly landlord decided against pursuing the case, partly because he was busy caring for his wife who was ill with cancer).   We’ve also learned that Robinson stiffed Guilford County on vehicle taxes for multiple years, only making good after WRAL called him out on it in 2022.  (Robinson’s lame response was “I’m not very good at math,” as if complex calculations are required to ..read more

North Carolina’s most notorious antisemite is willing to do whatever it takes to become our next governor. So in the wake of last month’s Hamas attack, Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson pulled out all the stops to show everyone just how much he loves Israel. Robinson waited until actual NC Governor Roy Cooper left for a trip to Japan to hold an “acting governor” dress-up event where he declared North Carolina’s solidarity with Israel. Proclamation This week Robinson took his charade on the road, traveling to Israel with the North Carolina chapter of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group t ..read more

At the November 2 meeting of the North Carolina State Board of Education, State Superintendent Catherine Truitt was pressed on her decision to not appeal the controversial approval of American Leadership Academy Monroe. ALA Monroe will be managed by out-of-state for-profit charter operator Charter One, and Truitt received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in June from representatives of this corporation–shortly after changes in state law gave her authority to appeal approval or denial of charters. The State Board of Education had previously denied ALA Monroe’s charter on two oc ..read more