Tillis, Thom Sen 13%

made it to the show? leadership? tillis ~ BBB bailled

chickenhawk? born 1960 ibm pricewaterhouse

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former dirty dozen?

https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/thom-tillis

24* 13%

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AN 11 26

On Friday, it was revealed that a last-minute attempt to jam through a judicial confirmation has pitted President Donald Trump against several Republican senators. According to attorney Mike Davis – who served as Chief Counsel for Nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a clerk for Justice Neil Gorsuch – the senators in question have committed an “unforgivable sin” by opposing Trump and blocking their own party’s nominee.

As Davis notes, Trump has nominated Lee Rudofsky – the current U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas – to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, an appellate court that covers Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. After the midterms, however, which dealt a generational blow against the GOP, eliminating the party’s majority in both the House and Senate, the clock is ticking before Democrats assume control over Congress in January, which will make it virtually impossible for Trump to have nominees like Rudofsky confirmed.

But if the narrow window to act wasn’t obstacle enough, the president is also facing opposition from his own party. According to Davis, “Arkansas' two Republican home-state senators – [John Boozman] and [Tom Cotton] – are blocking Rudofsky, as they wanted someone else.” According to Davis, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-SC) are acting as the public face of the blocking effort, as both are leaving the Senate at the end of the term and therefore can oppose Trump without worrying about drawing his wrath. But regardless of whether the departing senators take the blame, Davis asserts that the effort is an “unforgivable sin for Boozman and Cotton.” If they don’t change their minds fast, notes Davis, “Republicans will lose this key appellate court seat.”

Trump’s judicial appointments may represent his longest-lasting legacy. As Politico explains, “Trump has already, over the course of his two terms, appointed nearly 300 judges who, collectively, will pull the federal bench to the right for a generation. His second-term judges, in particular, have often proven to be outliers even among the conservative judiciary. But the lame-duck president will be able to confirm few, if any, new judges once Democrats formally take over the Senate in January.” What’s more, “Assuming the Senate maintains its longstanding ‘blue slip’ rule giving senators veto power over judicial nominees in their state, newly elected Democrats will have the ability to block appointments in states like Texas, Kansas and South Carolina until 2033 — even if the GOP manages to regain control of the chamber and a Republican keeps the White House in 2029.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Rudofsky is a staunch constitutional originalist who played a key role in gutting the Voting Rights Act when his 2022 decision ruled that private parties can’t sue under the act’s Section 2 anti-discrimination provisions. Then, in 2026, the Supreme Court essentially ended the protections offered by Section 2 altogether.

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WITKOFF CALLS HUMANITARIAN, ACCURE WAR CRIMES

Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume put President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff on blast after he praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "humanitarian" during peace talks in St. Petersburg.

When asked about how he felt about the interaction, Hume did not hold back, calling Witkoff’s comment extravagant before adding: "The guy's a war criminal, for God's sake, and he's rained down bombs on civilians without regard to human life."

Hume, speaking with host John Roberts on Wednesday's edition of America Reports, called the Putin praise "absurd," pointing to Russia's war with Ukraine and the high civilian casualty count, with millions more displaced.

Witkoff gave the compliment after Putin announced the release of Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old American who had spent more than four years in Russian custody.

"You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again," Witkoff told Putin during their meeting.

Hubbard, a retired teacher from Michigan, was detained by Russian forces in Ukraine in 2022. Russian authorities accused the then-70-year-old of being a mercenary for Ukraine. He denied the allegations, and the United States determined that he was illegally detained.

Roberts excused Witkoff’s comments as diplomatic flattery, and Hume acknowledged that possibility, while seemingly taking a dig at Trump’s diesel deal with Russia

Hume then discussed Donald Trump’s reason for putting a pause on the Russia sanctions in Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill.

The Fox News star said the president told reporters on the South Lawn that you don’t punish people you’re trying to strike a deal with.

“When you’re trying to get a guy out of what has been locked up for four years illegally, you don’t insult the guy,” Hume said. “Maybe you flatter him.”

North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis called the praise "embarrassing and outrageous," mentioning how the comment is insulting to the families of Ukrainian children killed or made homeless by the war.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn offered a rebuke, calling Putin a "stone-cold killer."

The criticism comes as Trump faces criticism for what many believe is capitulating to Putin’s demands and turning his back on Ukraine.

During the Fox News discussion, Hume also addressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's willingness to freeze current battle lines as a potential starting point for peace talks.

Hume said the proposal now requires a response from Putin, who has rejected previous proposals to put the brakes on the fighting. He also noted that it challenges Trump, who has repeatedly blamed Zelensky for the lack of progress toward ending the war that Russia started.

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6 25

tillis ~ BBB bailled

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an 4 26

Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) has a stern message for President Donald Trump: “Take me at my word when I say anybody who equivocated on the Jan. 6 rioters, I just can’t support.”

According to Politico, he’s referring to any potential candidates the White House may put forth to fill the attorney general role vacated by Pam Bondi’s firing in early April. Knowing that Trump has a propensity for nominating election deniers to key roles, this is Tillis’s latest effort to keep J6 insurrectionists out of government. A high-profile member of the Judiciary Committee where Republicans hold only a single vote advantage, there is extra power to his yay or nay as he can essentially veto any attorney general candidate.

Tillis has a track record of successfully opposing actions by the Trump administration. His latest such victory involved putting a stop to Trump’s politically motivated criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. As a member of the Senate Banking Committee, he held up the advancement of possible Powell successor Kevin Warsh for three months, agreeing on Wednesday to approve Warsh for a floor confirmation in exchange for dropping the probe against Powell, who has been targeted by Trump for months for refusing to lower federal interest rates.

After delivering his yes vote for Warsh, Tillis spoke out against the administration’s efforts to whitewash the January 6 attack, recounting his experience as the last senator to leave the chamber amidst the violence. He has previously blocked the nomination of Ed Martin for U.S. attorney general for his ties to and support for the insurrection.

When asked how he’ll proceed with nominees to replace Bondi, he said, “I’ll scrub it when a nominee comes forward, and I’ll apply the Martin standard.”

What’s more, when asked whether his fellow Republicans should take similar actions to block the administration’s actions, he seemed to urge his colleagues to follow his lead, saying, “Every single member of the conference has the same option.”

During the fight over Warsh, Tillis looped in the recent debate over Trump’s demand that the GOP nuke the filibuster. Tillis, like most senators, wants it to remain in place. “Then a simple majority would have been enough to discharge [Warsh] from committee,” Tillis said, explaining that such actions are done by consensus due to the filibuster.

While the majority of Republicans have shown an unwillingness to oppose the president out of fear of electoral retaliation, Tillis is uniquely positioned to stand against Trump as he will soon retire from the Senate, freeing him from political consequences. What’s more, his role on several key committees lends him a powerful hand in approving or holding the administration’s actions, and he has become increasingly vocal about his disagreements with the White House.

For his part, Trump has felt Tillis’s pressure, even musing that the latter had already left the Senate, telling Fox when asked about Tillis blocking Warsh, “You know Thom Tillis is no longer a senator, right? He quit.” Tillis’s response: “I’m not dead yet.”

Tillis has also pressed the administration to “recognize reality” and end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, saying, “We own the shutdown right now because we can’t get the House to vote on something that 100 senators voted on. The American people are not dumb, and they know that the holdup now is not Democrats in the House. It’s Republicans.”

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AN 2 26

President Donald Trump has frequently had to answer for one of his top advisors, who has angered everyone from ordinary Americans, to Republican senators and even CEOs of public traded corporations. However, the president has yet to take any concrete action to limit his influence and power.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller – who has been a key member of Trump's inner circle since his first administration – is an increasingly divisive figure in the president's second term. Trump's hardline immigration enforcement tactics seen in Minneapolis and Chicago are the brainchild of Miller, who convinced the president to center his 2024 campaign on immigration rather than the economy.

However, the Trump administration's actions in Minneapolis – which include the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti — have put Miller in the spotlight. After Pretti was killed, the deputy White House chief of staff asserted that Pretti was an "assassin" wanted to do "maximum damage to law enforcement." This is despite ample video evidence showing the 37 year-old ICU nurse never reached for his gun, let alone threatened federal agents.

The Journal's Josh Dawsey and Tarini Parti wrote in their report that "cracks have appeared" in the Oval Office, as the administration faces mounting pressure over its heavy-handed tactics.

"The president, aware of polls showing that much of his immigration agenda isn’t popular, has told advisers he wasn’t comfortable with how far Miller has gone on some fronts, according to people who have spoken with Trump," the Journal reported. "The president has said that business officials are calling and complaining to him about longtime workers being thrown out of the country."

Miller has also attracted the ire of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has called on both Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be fired. The retiring Republican senator accused both Miller and Noem of taking Trump's strongest issue and turning it into a liability for Republicans ahead of the midterms.

"That is amateur hour at its worst,” Tillis said, adding, “Stephen Miller never fails to live up to my expectations of incompetence.”

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an 1 26

After the latest shooting of a Minneapolis protester, President Donald Trump's campaign to deport immigrants is quickly losing support from Republican lawmakers, loyalists and conservative publications.

On Sunday, the conservative Wall Street Journal posted an analysis calling the Trump administration out on its lies that VA ICU nurse Alex Jeffrey Pretti walked up to ICE officers with a gun, intending to “massacre law enforcement.”

"See how immigration officers escalated a fatal confrontation Saturday," the subheading of the Journal reads.

It notes at the close of the story that reporters continue to ask the administration at what point, exactly, Pretti's gun came out.

“This situation is evolving,” Customs and Border Protection official Gregory Bovino said at a press conference on Saturday. “This is under investigation. Those facts will come to light.”

He refused to answer the same questions on CNN when host Dana Bash asked them.

They've also lost far-right disgraced former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. In his Sunday column, O'Reilly, who now occasionally appears on NewsNation, tells Trump it's time he make "adjustments."

While O'Reilly spends most of the column trashing Democrats in Minnesota, he also says, "some restraint is necessary." While he pointed the criticism to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), he adds, "That point of view would help him and everybody else."

While many Democrats posted condemnations of ICE and Homeland Security as a whole, Republican lawmakers are also starting to call for accountability.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) posted on X Sunday morning, "There must be a thorough and impartial investigation into yesterday’s Minneapolis shooting, which is the basic standard that law enforcement and the American people expect following any officer-involved shooting. For this specific incident, that requires cooperation and transparency between federal, state, and local law enforcement. Any administration official who rushes to judgment and tries to shut down an investigation before it begins are doing an incredible disservice to the nation and to President Trump’s legacy."

Republican Rep. Michael Baumgartner (R-Wash.)commented late Saturday, "I’m disturbed by what I’ve seen from today’s video from Minnesota. It’s critically important that the American people and Congress be given a better understanding of how immigration enforcement is being handled, including the methods federal law enforcement officers are using to prioritize, identify and arrest suspected targets, the training they are receiving, the implementation of body cameras, the threats they face in conducting operations and the challenges posed by sanctuary cities and states."

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R‑N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has already called for a full hearing in which ICE and DHS answer questions.

Even former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) is angry over ICE's attack on a man who was lawfully carrying a gun.

"Legally carrying a firearm is not the same as brandishing a firearm," she wrote on X Sunday morning.

She closed her lengthy post by adding, "You are all being incited into civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying."

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AN 1 26

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has been tasked with a new probe into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, but one CNN commentator suggested she resign instead.

Pirro doesn't have a good track record of winning controversial cases in Washington, D.C., losing several grand jury cases against protesters who opposed federal agents.

Trump has been attacking Powell for years after Powell refused to cut interest rates.

Speaking to the morning show, S.E. Cupp said she hopes the opposition to Trump from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) doesn't stop with him.

"Listen, the credibility of the DOJ under Trump was already hanging by a thread," Cupp said. "When you look at its activism, its political activism to Letitia James and James Comey, and then its failure to do its job on [Jeffrey] Epstein. It was already, already really hanging by a thread. If you want to destroy what shred of credibility the DOJ has left, go ahead and indict a Fed chair for failing to raise interest rates. I can't think of anything more preposterous."

"And if I worked at the DOJ in particular for Pirro, I would resign. I'd walk out to preserve what integrity I had left," Cupp suggested.

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AN 1 26

THE FED IS HOLY TO FREE MKT?TRUMP NEEDS TO GOOSE THE ECON BEFORE MIDTERMS?

The bombshell revelations from Sunday that Donald Trump's Department of Justice is criminally probing the Federal Reserve have prompted heated pushbackfrom the president's allies in the GOP-controlled Congress, according to Politico, with one House member warning that the move "will haunt us all for a generation."

Trump spent much of his first year back in the White House pressing Jerome Powell, the man he appointed as chair of the Federal Reserve back in 2018, to lower interest rates. As Powell resisted, Trump escalated to threats, looking for grounds on which to fire the Fed chair. Trump's campaign against Powell alarmed many observers concerned about the independence of the Fed and its ability to keep the US economy stable.

On Sunday, news emerged that Trump's DOJ was moving forward with a criminal investigation into Powell over allegations that he misled Congress over the scope of a renovation to the Fed's D.C. office. The president is barred by law from removing the Fed chair for any reason, and can only do so in response to misconduct. In a rare public statement, Powell himself called the probe an effort by Trump to reshape the nature of the Fed and create a dynamic whereby the country's monetary policy is "directed by political pressure or intimidation."

Speaking to Politico, one anonymous senior House GOP member expressed considerable frustration over the probe, lashing out at the Trump administration's insistence on having everything "their way" and warning of the lasting repercussions it could cause.

“Will they stop at nothing to force their way on everything?” the anonymous lawmaker told Politico's Meredith Lee Hill. “The administration is setting a standard they cannot achieve themselves and will haunt us all for a generation.”

This comment added to the flames of conservative revolt against Trump's feud with Powell, coming on the heels of Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican and member of the Senate Banking Committee, threatening to withhold his support for Trump's pick to replace Powell over this probe. As Politico explained, if every Democrat on the committee voted against the nominee, Tillis' opposition would be enough to stall the process of appointing a new Fed chair.

“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none,” Tillis said. “It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a moderate Alaska Republican, took to social media on Monday to decry the probe as "an attempt at coercion."

"After speaking with Chair Powell this morning, it’s clear the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion," Murkowski said in a post to X. "If the Department of Justice believes an investigation into Chair Powell is warranted based on project cost overruns,— which are not."

Notably, Powell's term as Fed chair is up in the spring, meaning Trump only needs to wait a few months to be able to replace him lawfully.

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KIRK ENFORCER MMA

TILLIS NO --> THUGSWARM 525

'Crush him': Massive MAGA takedown of dissenting Republican predicted

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AN 9 25

With tensions running high over the shocking assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Congress erupting in "partisan shouting" yesterday on the House floor, and conservative pundits calling for war and retribution, one Republican is telling people to cool it.

National Journalcongressional policy reporter Nancy Vu reported Thursday that Sen.Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has issued a sharp rebuke to his colleagues calling for violence.

"What I was really disgusted by yesterday is a couple of talking heads that sees this as an opportunity to say we're at war so that they could get some of our conservative followers lathered up over this," he said, "It seems like a cheap, disgusting, awful way to pretend like you're a leader of a conservative movement. And there were two in particular that I found particularly disgusting."

One talking head Tillis may have been referencing is Fox News host Jesse Watters,who told his viewers, "They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. And what are we going to do about it?"

IFrame Content

Watters' comment was starkly different in tone compared to Tillis' initial reaction upon hearing of Kirk's assassination, in which he posted on X, "Political violence has no place in our society."

Another who may be the focus of Tillis's ire is Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), who was quick to blame the media for Kirk's murder.

When a reporter questioned Van Orden's claim, the far-right MAGA Republican responded, "You know what, knock it off ... You are responsible for that assassination yesterday. You should be ashamed of yourself."

While MAGA recoiled online at Tillis's condemnation of his colleagues, others agreed, with one noting, "This exact message should have come from Trump himself rather than a GOP representative."

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AN 4 25

Trump's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller reportedly disrupted a lunch gathering Thursday for GOP Senate chiefs of staff to defend Trump's controversial tariff policy with a confusing and "arrogant" presentation.

Politico reported that the arguments made by Miller, who is also Trump's homeland security adviser, alluded to the British Empire and left the aides asking one another, “What on Earth was that?".

However, members of the GOP have warned the decision to impose tariffs would be bad not just for the economy but for their chances in future elections.

Senator Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who benefited from the backlash against former President Barack Obama during the 2010 and 2014 midterms, cautioned that Republicans could face a similar outcome in 2026, the year he is due for re-election.

In aninterview with Politico published Thursday, Tillis said the GOP may be up against a "storm" next year due to President Donald Trump's decision to impose sweeping tariffs on United States imports.

“What we don’t want to do is overreach,” he said.

“We’ve got to be careful not to do the same thing. And I think that these elections are going to be proxies, or almost like weather devices for figuring out what kind of storm we’re going to be up against next year," Tillis added.

Some of Tillis' fellow Republicans are drawing comparisons to even earlier historical events, expressing concern that voters, who are already unsettled by Trump's reductions in essential government services, may hold the GOP accountable for the consequences of the tariffs.

Miller was sent to encourage Republican aides to have faith in the president and maintain their position, per Axios.

He recognized that their superiors were facing criticism over tariffs but claimed that these taxes would generate $6 trillion in revenue over the next decade.

Trump has strongly reacted to this criticism from Tillis and three other Republican senators, saying that they are suffering from "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

Still, the four senators held firm in their resistance to the tariffs, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-K.Y) aligned with the Democrats to support a bill aimed at overturning Trump's emergency declaration that authorized the imposition of tariffs on Canada.

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spine so attack:

an 2 25

When far-right MAGA Republicans accused other members of their party of being RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't conservative. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) are often attacked as RINOs for disagreeing with President Donald Trump at times, but their voting records are generally conservative.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), who is up for reelection in 2026, is frequently called a RINO by MAGA Republicans. But his voting record is far from liberal or progressive.

NOTUS reporters Calen Razor and Ursula Perano detail the challenges that Tillis faces in his quest for reelection in 2026. His first hurdle is getting through North Carolina's GOP U.S. Senate primary, and his second is winning the general election.

In January, far-right businessman Andy Nilsson, who describes himself as "unapologetically MAGA," filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and announced a primary challenge against Tillis.

"With his Senate seat up for grabs next year," Razor and Perano report, "Tillis insists his conservative credentials are in just as good of a standing as his bipartisan ones."

The NOTUS reporters add, however, that Tillis "isn’t the sort of MAGA boogeyman Democrats love to campaign against."

"He doesn't shy away from criticizing GOP tactics he disagrees with, even when they're coming from President Donald Trump, and his national name recognition is far lower than recently targeted Senate Republicans like Ted Cruz, Rick Scott or Josh Hawley," Razor and Perano observe. "But Tillis, who's in his second term in the Senate, is a devout member of the Senate GOP. He's stood beside Trump in each of the president's impeachment trials. And, this term, he's voted to advance every one of Trump's Cabinet nominees. He hardly ever defects from the GOP position, even if he occasionally attempts to legislate on a bipartisan basis."

READ MORE:['Going to own it': GOP strategist says this issue may be Trump’s 'canary in the coal mine'

Tillis stresses that his willingness to work on "bipartisan" legislative doesn't mean his voting record isn't conservative.

The North Carolina senator told NOTUS, "If people want to talk about they've got more conservative bona fides than me, name the place and the venue. Now, the fact that I may be respectful to people and not a name-caller and bombastic, I know that counts against me. I'm OK with that.”

scotus stay order to release $

an 2 25

During his years in the U.S. Senate, now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio was a strong supporter of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — which he viewed as a valuable asset from a foreign policy standpoint. Rubio and Senate Democrats had plenty of disagreements, but they agreed that foreign aid via USAID did a lot to advance the United States' interests abroad.

But now, USAID is a major target of the Trump Administration and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Experiencing mass layoffs, USAID is being gutted by MAGA Republicans. Axios reported that 92 percent of foreign assistance grants were being "axed."

According to NOTUS reporter Haley Byrd Wilt, spending Rubio approved as secretary of state was blocked by DOGE staffers. And some GOP lawmakers are crying foul.

Wilt, in an article published on February 27, reports, "Republicans love Elon Musk's plans to slash government spending, but they're not quite as thrilled at how a set of unelected bureaucrats is carrying it out — or how those new staffers are defying Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretaries in the process.

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio approved foreign aid programs he deemed critical to American interests, two Department of Government Efficiency employees canceled the spending instead. The Washington Post reported that those DOGE employees have access to the payment system and manually blocked the funding, including money for Ukraine and HIV treatment programs — prompting pushback from Republicans on Capitol Hill."

One of the GOP lawmakers who is speaking out is Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee).

Burchett told NOTUS, "I have problems with that. I have problems that they have access to that. If it was a mistake, I get it. But if it wasn't, they need to be fired."

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) isn't happy either.

The conservative senator told NOTUS that when it comes to the U.S. State Department, "I consider Marco Rubio to be the head chef." And Tillis described the DOGE block on funding Rubio approved as "a natural consequence of a lot of cooks in the kitchen."

Tillis argued, "Now that Marco is confirmed and in place, there should be nobody in the (Trump) Administration — outside of the president of the United States or at the direction of the president — that should pause, delay or cancel anything Marco thinks is in our best national interest."

AN 2 25

Last month, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who has on rare occasions stood up to Donald Trump, cast the deciding—and, to some, unexpected—vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Now, a report reveals that Tillis says the FBI had informed him of “credible” death threats before his vote. This revelation has led some to question whether he voted under duress, while others accuse him, and other Republicans, of caving to pressure.

“In private,” Vanity Fair‘s Gabriel Sherman reports, “Republicans talk about their fear that Trump might incite his MAGA followers to commit political violence against them if they don’t rubber-stamp his actions.”

“They’re scared shitless about death threats and Gestapo-like stuff,” a former Trump official told Sherman.

“Tillis told people that the FBI warned him about ‘credible death threats’ when he was considering voting against Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary,” Sherman reported. “According to the source, Tillis has said that if people want to understand Trump, they should read the 2006 book Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. (When asked for comment for this story, a spokesperson for Tillis said it was false that the senator had recommended the book in that capacity. The FBI said it had no comment.)”

In his article at Vanity Fair, Sherman serves up numerous other examples detailing the threats of violence Republican lawmakers have allegedly been facing. On social media, he writes, “GOP Senators and House members are scared of being murdered by Trump supporters if they don’t support Trump. This is fascism in America.”

It’s not the first death threat Tillis received, and some critics say that if Senators can’t do the job they were elected to do, and swore an oath to perform, they should quit.

Some responded to this post from Sherman:

IFrame Content

“I was also scared for my life when I came forward with harassment allegations against Fox News’ Roger Ailes —- but I still did the right thing. Courage isn’t easy. Most Republicans still need to figure that out,” wrote former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, who became one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.

John Jackson is a veteran and former Republican who says he fought in Ukraine for nine months, thanks in part from motivation he got from Ronald Reagan.

“There are millions of children in Ukraine who go to school under missile attacks, daily,” Jackson wrote, in response to Sherman’s social media post. “They are far braver than our politicians. If U.S. Senators aren’t willing to risk life and limb to perform their Constitutional duties, they should resign.”

“This is exactly what Trump was counting on when he pardoned everyone for the 6 January insurrection,” noted Jonathan Z. Ludwig, an Associate Professor of Russian at Oklahoma State University.

Others responded to the article in general.

Tim Marksman, an editor for Wired, writes that “there are a lot of legislators, academics, activists, journalists, medical workers etc. who follow their conscience in their work despite death threats and despite not having the protections afforded members of Congress.”

“I have long believed that not enough has been written about how GOP members have felt physically intimidated by Trump supporters,” noted attorney George Conway. “It doesn’t excuse their cowardice, but it still deserves more attention.”

Senator Tillis’s vote to confirm came after an event that had given Hegseth’s critics hope he would not be confirmed.

“Before Senator Thom Tillis voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, he worked with accusers to make the case against him in a bid to get G.O.P. leaders to scrap the vote altogether,” The New York Times reported last week, noting how Hegseth’s nomination had been “teetering on the brink of defeat on the Senate floor.”

“Turning to a group of North Carolina lawmakers who were flying with him to survey storm damage in their state, Mr. Trump noted Mr. Tillis’s impending defection and posed a question: Which of them wanted his endorsement for a primary challenge to the senator next year?” the Times added.

“Tillis personally assured Danielle Hegseth in a call on Jan. 19, witnessed by two other people, that if she signed the statement testifying that she believed her former brother-in-law Pete Hegseth has an alcohol abuse problem and was abusive to his second wife, it would carry weight, and potentially move three votes-his own, along with the votes of Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska),” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Tillis voted to confirm. Two weeks later, in a rare social media post, the Republican Senator from North Carolina proudly posted photos of his impending trip with the President aboard Air Force One:

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AN 2 25

Trump's month-old second presidency has been a major departure from the Biden Administration on foreign policy. While former President Joe Biden aggressively supported Ukraine in the Ukraine-Russia War, Trump is now attacking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a "dictator." And unlike Trump, Biden was a blistering critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin during his four years in the White House.

Many Democrats are forcefully attacking Trump's Ukraine/Russia policy. And some GOP lawmakers are speaking out as well, although they are generally more reserved and less biting in their criticism.

Nonetheless, their frustration, as the Daily Beast's Matt Young notes in an article published on February 19, is coming through.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) told CNN, "Make no mistake about it: That invasion was the responsibility of one human being on the face of this planet. It was Vladimir Putin in a calculation to go through Ukraine and not stop there, to go through Moldova, to go through the Balkans, to ultimately go to the Baltic states and send the signal to China that now is the time that they can take action in the South China Sea."

CNN's Lauren Fox quoted Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) as saying, "I do not agree that President Zelensky is to blame in any way. This was a rogue invasion by Russia."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) disagreed with Trump as well, telling reporters, "I would certainly never (refer to) President Zelensky as a dictator."

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Nebraska) didn't mention Trump by name in a February 19 post on X, formerly Twitter, but he clearly disagrees with Trump's position on the Ukraine-Russia War.

Bacon tweeted, "Putin started this war. Putin committed war crimes. Putin is the dictator who murdered his opponents. The EU nations have contributed more to Ukraine. Zelensky polls over 50%. Ukraine wants to be part of the West, Putin hates the West. I don't accept George Orwell’s doublethink."

Although Tillis, Murkowski, Bacon and Collins aren't MAGA Republicans, the conservative lawmakers aren't full-fledged Never Trumpers either. But former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) is so anti-Trump that he passionately endorsed Kamala Harris at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. And Kinzinger is as forceful as Democrats when condemning Trump on foreign policy.

In a February 19 tweet, Kinzinger wrote, "Trump is surrendering America. Trump is the opposite of strong. He is a tiny, weak, small, scared, trembling, sissy, husk of a man. There is nothing manly about his fat, sweaty, smelly, gross, makeup'ed self."

Zelensky, meanwhile, is saying that Trump is badly misinformed.

Bloomberg News quoted the Ukrainian president as saying, "We are seeing a lot of disinformation and it's coming from Russia. With all due respect to President Donald Trump as a leader.... he is living in this disinformation space."

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2021420Voting Rights and Democracy ReformsJustice and Democracy

2021401Stone-Manning Confirmation (BLM Director)Other, Public Lands/Forests

2021357Build Back Better Budget ResolutionClimate Change, Clean Energy, Environmental Justice, Public Lands/Forests

2021346Promoting Polluting Energy SourcesDirty Energy, Climate Change, Air

2021320Eliminating Safeguards on Fossil Fuel ProductionDrilling, Dirty Energy, Climate Change, Oceans, Public Lands/Forests

2021303Defunding the Civilian Conservation Corps and Wildland FirefightingClimate Change, Public Lands/Forests, Other

2021298Restarting Construction of the Harmful Border WallWildlife, Public Lands/Forests, Environmental Justice

2021279Kim Confirmation (DOJ-ENRD Assistant Attorney General)Other, Environmental Justice

2021246Voting Rights and Democracy ReformsJustice and Democracy

2021236Fox Confirmation (EPA Assistant Administrator)Water

2021231Jackson Confirmation (D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary, Climate Change, Justice and Democracy

2021203Clarke Confirmation (DOJ-CRD Assistant Attorney General)Justice and Democracy, Other

2021178Investing in Water InfrastructureWater

2021175Repealing Assault on Methane Pollution SafeguardsClimate Change, Dirty Energy

2021150Mallory Confirmation (Council on Environmental Quality Chair)Other, Environmental Justice

2021125Becerra Confirmation (Health and Human Services Secretary)Other, Environmental Justice

2021123Tai Confirmation (United States Trade Representative)Other

2021119Haaland Confirmation (Interior Secretary)Other, Public Lands/Forests

2021116Regan Confirmation (EPA Administrator)Other, Climate Change, Water, Air, Environmental Justice

2021114Garland Confirmation (Attorney General)Other, Justice and Democracy

2021113Fudge Confirmation (Housing and Urban Development Secretary)Other, Environmental Justice

202186Striking Provisions to Help Farmers of ColorEnvironmental Justice, Agriculture

202170Raimondo Confirmation (Commerce Secretary)Other, Oceans

202166Granholm Confirmation (Energy Secretary)Other, Clean Energy

202159Impeachment for Incitement of InsurrectionJustice and Democracy

202143Bolstering the Dirty Water RuleClean Water

202132Supporting the Destructive Keystone XL PipelineDirty Energy, Environmental Justice----:{

decent on parks?

02128Promoting Drilling for Fossil FuelsDirty Energy, Drilling

202111Buttigieg Confirmation (Transportation Secretary)Other, Transportation

20212Certifying Pennsylvania’s Electoral VotesJustice and Democracy

20211Certifying Arizona’s Electoral VotesJustice and Democracy

2020224Barrett Confirmation (Supreme Court)Judiciary

2020222Barrett Cloture Vote (Supreme Court)Judiciary

2020168Inadequate COVID Relief PackageOther

2020126Inadequate Policing ReformJudiciary, Other

2020125Wilson Confirmation (Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary

2020123Walker Confirmation (D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary

2020121Great American Outdoors ActLands/Forests

2020118Defeating Effort to Derail the Great American Outdoors ActLands/Forests

202072Danly Confirmation (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)Dirty Energy, Clean Energy, Climate Change

202060MacGregor Confirmation (Interior Deputy Secretary)Dirty Energy, Climate Change, Lands/Forests, Oceans, Drilling, Wildlife

202041Kindred Confirmation (U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska)Judiciary

202036Brasher Confirmation (Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals)Judiciary

202014USMCA Trade DealClimate Change; Other

2019339Undermining the Land and Water Conservation FundLands/Forests

2019324Stopping Rollbacks of Carbon Pollution Limits for Power PlantsClimate Change

2019313Scalia Confirmation (Labor Secretary)Other

2019300Jorjani Confirmation (Interior Solicitor)Other, Lands/Forests

201977Bernhardt Confirmation (Interior Secretary)Climate Change, Drilling, Lands/Forests, Wildlife, Other

201968Wyrick Confirmation (District Court for Western District of Oklahoma)Other, Justice and Democracy

201944Rao Confirmation (D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals)Other, Justice and Democracy

201933Wheeler Confirmation (EPA Administrator)Climate Change, Clean Air, Clean Water

201929Miller Confirmation (Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)Other, Justice and Democracy

201922Public Lands Package Lands/Forests

201920Undermining the Antiquities Act Lands/Forests

201919Blocking Permanent Reauthorization of the Land & Water Conservation Fund Lands/Forests

2018259Farm Bill Conference Report Climate Change, Clean Water

---

an 2 25

Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has been making unprecedented moves to slash federal spending with the blessing of President Donald Trump. As the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (which is not yet an official federal agency authorized by Congress), Musk is exploring major cuts to the Department of Education and plans to shut down USAID — the agency responsible for foreign aid. His team has also been granted access to the Treasury Department’s payments system. But unlike much of the country, some Senate Republicans couldn’t be bothered, NOTUS reported on Tuesday.

One major source of distress among experts is that Musk is rejecting appropriations laws passed by Congress -- in other words, taking authority over funding. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said these actions are indeed unconstitutional, but he is not concerned, saying: “Nobody should bellyache about that."

“That runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense,” Tillis said. But “it’s not uncommon for presidents to flex a little bit on where they can spend and where they can stop spending.”

Other Republicans are glad that Musk is looking at cutting costs.

“He’s doing exactly what he should be doing,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said Monday. “He’s going through every agency and looking at how to make sure the money’s spent right.” And while Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives that job to Congress, Scott argued: “It doesn’t look like Congress is doing their job."

“The actions that have been taken with USAID are long overdue,” Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said. “The agency is out of control.”

Unlike Tillis, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said Musk has not violated the Constitution.

“Mr. Musk is acting under the authority of the president of the United States,” he said. “It’s perfectly legal, perfectly constitutional. And the issue, anyway, is not process. The issue is substance. Did they find wasteful spending, or not?”

Still, some Republicans are concerned. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said she was “very concerned about Mr. Musk or any of his assistants going into federal agencies and demanding personal information on employees.” She said that his actions have not met “the requirements of the law.” BUT THEN VOTED FOR PAM BONDI?

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) joined Republicans in defending Musk. “He’s working with the president, and they’re making recommendations in some cases on agencies,” he told NOTUS. “But the whole program here is that we’re spending way more money than what we’re bringing in.”

He added: “The president has the authority to operate the executive branch of government. So.”

Click here to read NOTUS' report in full.

---

MAGA rages at GOP senator after he warns about 'crazy' Trump adviser

Brad Reed Raw Story

an 9 24

Former President Donald Trump is now attempting to distance himself from far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, after attending a 9/11 event with her earlier this week — and after receiving backlash even from his most loyal allies.

“Laura Loomer doesn’t work for the Campaign. She’s a private citizen and longtime supporter,” Trump wrote in a Friday social media post. "I disagree with the statements she made but, like the many millions of people who support me, she is tired of watching the Radical Left Marxists and Fascists violently attack and smear me, even to the point of doing anything to stop their Political Opponent, ME"

Even far-right US Rep. Marjorie Greene Taylor (GA) slammed Loomer for an overtly racist social media post this week, and the Georgia lawmaker, and US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — both staunch MAGA allies — have both encouraged Trump "to distance himself from her — fearing that Loomer's extremism could harm Trump's presidential campaign."

Another Republican lawmaker, Rep. Thom Tillis (NC), blasted Loomer as a "crazy conspiracy theorist who regularly utters disgusting garbage intended to divide Republicans." He added, "A [Democratic National Committee] plant couldn't do a better job than she is doing to hurt President Trump's chances of winning re-election. Enough."

Ex-RNC Chair Michael Steele took a dig at the North Carolina congressman, saying, “Where was Tillis when Trump told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by? Where was he when Donald Trump said there are fine people on both sides — and yes he did say it. And where were any of these folks as this cavalcade of crazy moved closer and closer around Trump?"

In a Saturday, September 14 report, MSNBC's Clariss-Jan Lim noted that Trump's "affinity for Loomer is not new. He endorsed her in 2020during the first of two failed runs for Congress. He has called her a 'terrific' personand talked glowingly of her support for him. And The New York Times reported last year that Trump wanted to hire Loomer for a role in his campaign."

Lim also noted that Loomer has called herself a 'proud Islamophobe,' cheered thedeath of thousands of migrants, said 9/11 was an 'inside job,' spread conspiracy theories about mass shootings and, more recently, posted aracist attackagainst Vice President Kamala Harris."

*Lim's full report is available here.

---

an 6 24

Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) is not only losing his post as the leader of the Senate Republican Conference when the next Congress gavels in — he might also completely lose control of his prized fundraising operation.

According to the Hill, a growing number of Senate Republicans are going public in their opposition to McConnell's Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), which he has deployed for more than a decade to inject millions of dollars into Senate races across the country. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), who is running for reelection this November, was particularly outspoken in his opposition to McConnell threatening to spend money against current members of the conference who supported Hawley's bill to rein in corporate campaign contributions to super PACs.

"I think the idea that a leader would use outside money, much of it dark money, to try and intimidate or threaten members of the caucus is frankly corrupt," Hawley told the Hill. "And I think it’s a corrupt practice that has gone on for far too long, and it needs to end."

Data from campaign finance database Opensecrets shows that the SLF is one of the heaviest hitters in Washington, with more than $724 million in outside spending on record since the 2000 election cycle. Much of that spending has come in recent cycles, with the SLF spending more than $246 million in the 2022 campaign cycle alone.

The Kentucky Republican recently reminded fellow GOP senators that the SLF — which is currently run by McConnell's former chief of staff Steven Law — has been instrumental in helping members win elections. In a recent meeting, McConnell reportedly read aloud the names of senators whose campaigns have directly benefited from the SLF's spending, like Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Missouri), who has also backed Hawley's bill.

As Senate Republicans debate who will be their next leader, one major departure from McConnell's time as the caucus chair is the insistence of term limits. That has been a key component of Sen. Rick Scott's (R-Florida) campaign for GOP leader, who has pushed for members of the Senate Republican Conference's rank-and-file to have more say in legislative negotiations. McConnell pushed back strongly against that idea, warning Republicans that weakening the power of leadership could result in the same brand of chaos currently plaguing House Republicans.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), who is considered one of McConnell's key allies in the Senate GOP conference, argued in a recent letter to his colleagues that it's "important that we consider proposals to strengthen not weaken the Republican Conference leader position when we fully engage in this discussion this fall," adding that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has been able to wield a significant amount of power and influence due to both the powers of leadership and the unity of his caucus.

One unnamed Senate GOP aide speaking anonymously to the Hill said Tillis' letter was "clearly was a McConnell-driven response."

"Tillis is seen as like, McConnell’s axe man in some ways," they said.

Aside from Scott, other candidates for Senate GOP leader include Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — who served as Senate Majority Whip between 2015 and 2019, and current Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-South Dakota). Republicans will decide on their next leader this November.

Click here to read the Hill's report in full.

---

Thom Tillis is a US Senator from North Carolina who has served in the Senate since 2015. He is currently a member of the Armed Services Committee and Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. He is running for reelection in November against Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham.

On Climate Change:

On climate change, Tillis has said, “I think we have to come up with several strategies to recognize reality. That climate changes. Sometimes it changes just because it has over millennia, and other times it changes because of human factors.”

In 2014, when asked in a debate about whether climate change is a fact, he simply responded by saying, “No.”

On his website, he states, “Thom believes a key to this effort will be addressing climate change through market-based solutions that foster innovationand drive economic growth.”

Tillis has a lifetime League of Conservation Voters score of9% and voted for a bill that would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Thom Tillis and Friends:

Tillis has received$504,479in contributions from the oil and gas industry. He also votes in line with President Trump 93.4% of the time.

an 8 22

On Sunday, August 7, the U.S. Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a $750 billion package addressing energy, climate change, health care and taxes. The bill passed 51-50 via the process known as budget reconciliation, allowing the Senate’s narrow Democratic majority to bypass the 60-vote rule of the filibuster. Now, the bill will go to the U.S. House of Representatives for consideration, and Democrats are optimistic that it will pass in the House and make it to President Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.

Both of North Carolina’s Republican U.S. senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, voted against the bill. Journalist Danielle Battaglia, in an article published by the Raleigh News and Observer on August 8, stresses that they are facing a “vehement backlash” in their state for, during debates on the bill, opposing a proposal to limit how much private insurance companies can charge for the insulin used by diabetics.

“Debate on the bill began Saturday morning and stretched into Sunday,” Battaglia explains. “Senators went back and forth on numerous amendments, but one subjected Burr and Tillis to vehement backlash from their constituents: a $35 cap on insulin from private insurance companies…. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough — who serves as the chamber’s official adviser and rule keeper — deemed an insulin price cap for private insurers a violation of the Senate’s rules for the reconciliation process to pass the bill on a bare majority. Senate Democrats sought to overrule MacDonough’s decision in a vote that needed 60 supporting members.”

Battaglia adds, “The New York Times reported that, despite the rule violation, Democrats ‘dared’ Republicans to vote against the cap by keeping the provision in the bill. Tillis and Burr rarely cave to such political pressure. Both voted against capping insulin costs along with 43 other Republicans, forcing the provision to fail.”

Senate Democrats forced Burr, Tilllis and other Republicans to go on the record about whether or not they believed a $35 insulin cap should be part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — and both of them are being lambasted for, critics say, throwing diabetics under the bus.

“Several people took to social media Sunday and Monday ridiculing the North Carolina Senators for their ostensible apathy toward insulin users,” Battaglia reports. “The posts and tweets were laced with profanity. North Carolina’s Democratic Party spokeswoman Ellie Dougherty capitalized on the social media climate.”

Battaglia quotes Dougherty as saying, “While President Biden and Democrats are working day in and day out to lower the cost of prescription drugs, reduce the deficit and fight rising costs without raising taxes a single penny on middle class families, Burr and Tillis’ vote underscores the GOP’s commitment to protecting Big Pharma and special interests over easing costs for North Carolina families.”

Cheri Beasley, the Democratic nominee in North Carolina’s 2022 U.S. Senate race, was quick to lambast Burr and Tillis on Twitter. On August 7, Beasley tweeted, “Both NC senators just voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, which would lower costs at a time when millions of families are struggling. North Carolinians deserve more. As Senator, I will always fight for the people — not cower to corporate special interests…. Senator Burr and Tillis’ votes today were inexcusable.

https://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2017/05/31:{/tillis-abandons-moderate-pretenses-:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:joins-science-deniers-endorse-trumps-climate-policies/

no lnx

there have been a tiny handful of incidents since he went to Washington in 2015 in which North Carolina’s junior senator, Thom Tillis, seemed to at least hint that he might have some semblance of an inclination to stand up to the extremists on radical right.

Early on in the outrageous blockade of Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, Tillis bucked conservative powers-that-be for about five minutes by briefly suggesting that Garland should get an actual hearing. He quickly backtracked on the statement, but it was at least somewhat encouraging to know that Tillis had to be told to abandon all decency and honor on the matter rather than doing so naturally and as a matter of instinct.

More recently, the senator uttered at least a few semi-moderate words of concern about Trump’s heinous Muslim ban effort. Again, Tillis’ “objections” amounted to little more than momentary peep, but hey, under the standards in force in Washington now (in which even supposed mavericks like John McCain and Lindsey Graham stick with the Trumpists almost 100% of the time), it was better than nothing.

Unfortunately, for those who may have gotten their hopes up that he might be birthing a new version of himself, the senator returned to the far right-wing fold with vengeance in recent days by urging President Trump to take the horrific action he seems to have taken today: abandoning the Paris Climate Accord. As Yahoo News reported last week:

A group of 22 Republican senators signed a letter urging President Trump to make a “clean break” from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The letter, dated May 25, commends Trump for signing 14 executive orders to roll back regulations established under the Obama administration. It singles out the “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth” order for beginning the process of dismantling former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan regulations.

But the many high-profile Republican leaders — including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso and Oklahoma Sen. James M. Inhofe — argue that remaining in the Paris Agreement would interfere with rolling back the country’s “regulatory burdens.”

“Because of existing provisions within the Clean Air Act and others embedded in the Paris Agreement, remaining in it would subject the United States to significant litigation risk that could upend your Administration’s ability to fulfill its goal of rescinding the Clean Power Plan. Accordingly, we strongly encourage you to make a clean break from the Paris Agreement,” the letter reads.

To which all a caring and thinking person can say is: Good grief! Even Richard Burr avoided signing this disaster. By lending his name, Tillis has truly aligned himself with what is likely the most dangerous cause of the most dangerous presidential administration in American history. It’s yet another sad day for North Carolina.

an 3 22

The list of far-right MAGA Republicans who have praised Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022 — even in the days leading up to Russian troops’ horrific invasion of Ukraine — is a long one, ranging from former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to former President Donald Trump himself. And Lauren Witzke, the QAnon supporter and self-described “Christian nationalist” who lost to Sen. Chris Coons by 22% in Delaware’s 2020 U.S. Senate race, recently praised Putin as a symbol of Christian piety, saying, “I identify more with Putin's Christian values than I do with Joe Biden.”

Trump and opinion hosts at Fox News have had so much praise for Putin that “Saturday Night Live” opened its March 5 broadcast with a skit that brutally mocked their admiration for the Russian strongman. And other Republicans who haven’t outright praised Putin have been reluctant to openly criticize him because they are afraid to say or do anything that might offend Dear Leader Trump.

But one conservative Republican who hasn’t been shy about condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and the Raleigh News & Observer’s editorial board applauds him for taking a stand in an editorial published on March 3.

At a press conference on March 2, Tillis told reporters, “Anybody who compliments Vladimir Putin is complimenting a mass murderer. There are no compliments coming from me or my office.”

In response to Tillis’ comments, the News & Observer’s editorial board writes, “Tillis showed that it’s not hard for Republicans to criticize Russia and Putin the right way. He didn’t dodge or deflect, nor did he taper his criticism by following it up with praise. He was clear: Putin is evil, and his invasion of Ukraine is wrong.”

The publication’s editorial board continues, “It’s not common these days to see Republicans contradict fellow party members, unless their name is Liz Cheney. Too often, they eschew their principles in favor of party loyalty. Even now, as Putin’s war kills innocent civilians and displaces hundreds of thousands more, many GOPers have chosen to focus the bulk of their criticism on President Joe Biden instead…. Tillis called for stiffer sanctions and for Biden to ‘take all steps necessary’ to expel Russia as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.”

Although the News & Observer’s editorial board isn’t without criticism of Tillis, it is clearly glad to see him speaking out against Putin forcefully now.

“We wish Tillis had been as outspoken earlier than this, specifically when Trump, as president, buddied up to Putin and attempted to strong-arm Ukraine,” the editorial board writes. “But Tillis was clear and right this week. North Carolinians can be thankful for that.”

an 920

Thom Tillis, R-N.C., on Thursday that he believed the 200,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the U.S. had been inflated in order to “encourage people to use social distancing.”

“When the final accounting is done,” the actual COVID-19 death count will be lower, Tillis claimed.

The response echoes a false conspiracy theory pushed by adherents of the baseless QAnon movement: that public health officials are allegedly lying to the public about the true death count because of ulterior or possibly sinister motives. Only 6% of the reported deaths are attributable solely to COVID-19, conspiracy theorists claim.

Tillis also embraced an extreme anti-vaccine position and appeared to welcome herd immunity as part of a strategy to get 60% of the country immune. (Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said last month that a herd immunity strategy would lead to an “enormous” death rate that would be “totally unacceptable.”) The Republican incumbent told the caller that she was “absolutely right” in saying “the CDC has made clear” that deaths related to COVID-19 cover “things like heart attacks, and slip-and-falls and things like that” when people “have COVID in their system.” The caller told Tillis she wanted “a more definitive, clear number.”

“How many people has COVID actually killed?” the caller asked. “Because I think the numbers are skewed, and as citizens, we’re having a hard time of getting a real grasp of what that number actually is.”

“You are absolutely right,” Tillis replied. “I want to make sure I get a chance to answer your question, but you’re making a very, very important point.”

He continued:

In fact, we understand that 95% of the deaths were comorbidities. Sounds like you’re studied in this, so you know what that means. But for the other people in the telephone town hall: Comorbidity means that that person had some other underlying health condition.

So you’re absolutely right. We’re not at a granular level yet. They’re using conservative numbers to encourage people to use social distancing and try and end the spread of the virus. But I think when the final accounting is done you are going to see, sadly, that the number of people who died may have died from an underlying condition at the same time that they had COVID.

Now the question is — and what will be difficult to prove out is — but for COVID, would they have had that heart attack? The complication with diabetes? Would their COPD have been enough to have caused the death except for the additional strain on their body from having COVID?

And so there’s no question that when all this is done — and we’re not managing a crisis — the same people right now that are just trying to figure out how to end the spread of the virus are going to have to go back into that data so that we can tease through it and learn from it. Now, I know you have a question. But I thought you made a great point, and I wanted to expound on it.

The caller went on to ask her intended question, which was about her concerns over the government implementing a vaccine mandate.

“I don’t want the government telling me that I have to vaccinate my child — for anything, honestly — for whatever effect. Because, as a parent, it is my job before God, honestly, to make sure my children are healthy,” she said. “I’m not a fan of this vaccine — or any vaccine being mandated.”

“You ought to save your phone call for somebody who thinks a mandate would be good,” Tillis responded. “I don’t think you’ll see a mandate, number one. And number two, you’re absolutely right.”

Tillis repeated that vaccine decisions should be left to parents before appearing to embrace herd immunity.

“I for one hope that 60% of the country either develops an immune response after having gotten COVID or having the vaccine, because once we’ve gotten up to 60% this will be a manageable illness in the United States,” he said. (Scientists estimate that a little more than 2% of the U.S. population has acquired the virus, at the cost of more than 200,000 lives.)

The caller sounded like a “great mom,” Tillis concluded.

The comorbidity theory reflects a viral QAnon meme, which misrepresents a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicating that COVID-19 was the sole factor in only 6% of reported U.S. deaths from the coronavirus.

The theory concludes incorrectly that only 6% of those reported deaths should count, a claim which has been repeatedly debunked by medical professionals. If anything, the true number of deaths related to COVID-19 is likely undercounted, according to experts. Victims with at least one other contributing factor, such as pneumonia — itself often brought about by the virus — are still part of the total number of deaths.

Tillis’ Republican colleague Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa also drew fire for making similar remarks during a campaign Q&A earlier this month, which fell on the same week in which the White House coronavirus task force notified her state it had become the nation’s leading hotspot.

“I heard the same thing on the news, you know, traveling across the state today — that they’re thinking there may be 10,000 or less deaths that were actually singularly COVID-19,” Ernst said.

“Now, no doubt that there are deaths, and it complicates with those that have other illnesses, certainly, but those are just attributable to COVID-19,” she said. “I’m just really curious. It would be interesting to know that.”

Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, called Ernst’s remarks “JAW DROPPING” in a series of tweets.

“Senator Ernst is from Iowa, where currently is having one of the WORST #COVID19 OUTBREAKS hotspot in the entire nation as a region, and some say maybe the world,” Feigl-Ding said. “To deny that is to deny the suffering of Iowans.”

President Donald Trump retweeted a tweet pushing the false theory from a QAnon follower named “Mel Q” earlier this week. Twitter removed the tweet for violating its rules against spreading misinformation about the pandemic.

Salon first reported that in another virtual town hall in July, Tillis, long a proponent of responsible masking, had blamed a surge of the virus in North Carolina on the Latinx community for not wearing face coverings.

“And I will tell you, I’m not a scientist, and I’m not a statistician, but one of the concerns that we’ve had more recently is that the Hispanic population now constitutes about 44% of the cases — the positive cases,” the Republican senator said. “And we do have concerns that, in the Hispanic population, we’ve seen less consistent adherence to social distancing and wearing a mask.”

Last month, Tillis apologized for not wearing a mask at the Republican National Convention after he had posted a picture of himself with one on at the beginning of the night.

“I fell short of my own standard,” he said.

Salon has reached out to Tillis’ re-election campaign for comment.

an 920

gOP senator received more than $20,000 in campaign contributions from Big Pharma after co-sponsoring a bill on drug prices: report

Alex HendersonSeptember 17, 2020

In late 2019, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina co-sponsored a bill on prescription drug prices — and WBTV, the CBS affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina, is reporting that Tillis…

wow bad news cycle day, but not in echo bubble?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/this-vulnerable-gop-senator-was-a-top-recipient-of-postmaster-generals-alleged-illegal-donation-scheme/

republican Sen. Thom Tillis was a top beneficiary of a straw donor scheme orchestrated by Donald Trump’s postmaster general, Louis DeJoy,according to a lengthy and detailed article published over the holiday weekend by The Washington Post.

The Post reports that DeJoy pressured employees at his logistics firm to make large contributions to Republican candidates for over a decade and then reimbursed them with company bonuses—a ploy that would violate both federal and state laws prohibiting “straw donations” designed to get around campaign finance limits. DeJoy pressed for these donations in a bid to win influence as a political power broker, a strategy that culminated in his heavily criticized appointment as head of the United States Postal Service earlier this year.

But before Trump boosted him onto the national political scene, according to the Post, DeJoy directed his efforts chiefly toward politicians in North Carolina, the home state of New Breed Logistics, which he ran for more than 30 years until it was bought out in 2014. Tillis, who faces a difficult reelection this fall, received almost $300,000 from New Breed employees when he first ran for the Senate in 2014—a race in which he defeated incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan by just a 48.8-47.3 margin.

In a statement, a Tillis spokesperson told the Post, “Neither Senator Tillis nor our campaign had knowledge of these findings.” However, Tillis’ November opponent, Democrat Cal Cunningham, has called on the senator to return the donations. House Democrats, meanwhile, say they are investigating DeJoy, and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said that allegations like those made in the Post‘s report would “merit investigation,” though he declined to comment further.

north Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis — viewed as one of the most vulnerable GOP senators in 2020 — has found himself in an uncomfortable situation after a staffer’s excessively honest comments to a constituent were caught on tape.

As first reported by WRAL, Bev Veals of Carolina Beach, a three-time cancer survivor, called her senator out of fear that her health insurance was at risk. She has previously faced medical bankruptcy and difficulty accessing care, WRAL said, andher husband was furloughed because of the pandemic. She wanted assurance that she’d have coverage if she lost her health insurance.

But Tillis’s office wasn’t helpful. While speaking to a dismissive staffer, Veals began to record their conversation, which was provided to WRAL and can be viewed above.

“You’re saying that, if you can’t afford it, you don’t get to have it?” she asked. “That includes health care?'

"Yeah, just like if I want to go to the store and buy a new dress shirt. If I can’t afford that dress shirt, I don’t get to get it,” the staffer explained.

“But health care is something that people need!” Veals said, clearly alarmed. “Especially if they have cancer.”

“Well, you got to find a way to get it,” the staffer said.

“So what do I do in the meantime, sir?” she asked, not hiding the irritation in her voice.

The response was snide: “Sounds like something you’re going to have to figure it out.”

Tillis’s office has apologized after Veals came forward about the exchange: “The way Mrs. Veals was talked to by a staff assistant in our Washington office was completely inappropriate and violates the code of conduct Senator Tillis has for his staff, which is why immediate disciplinary action has been taken.”

But the truth is that, insensitive and rude as the staffer’s comments to Veals were, they were simply a much more honest reflection of the Republican Party’s policies on health care than officials typically admit. But the truth isn’t hard to see. The Trump administration is currently arguing that the Supreme Court should overturn all of Obamacare, throwing millions of people off their insurance and invalidating protections for pre-existing conditions, along with other provisions that protect patients.

The unofficial Republican Party policy, though, is to lie about this fact. Trump is constantly telling voters that he protected pre-existing conditions — even though he has done nothing to ensure they’re covered — and that he’ll continue to keep these protections in place, even though he’s trying to destroy them.

The Tillis staffer, apparently, didn’t get the message. He has imbibed the attitude at the heart of the GOP’s policy preferences. His mistake was being honest with a member of the public about the policy.

Veals, for one, doesn’t seem deceived by the office’s apology. And that’s because she still hasn’t gotten the original answer to the question she called about.

“We need our legislators to listen to us and help us solve this problem because it’s not just my problem – not being able to afford health care,” she told WRAL. “It’s the problem of hundreds and thousands of North Carolinians.”

North Carolina is one of 12 states in the U.S. that has not adopted Medicaid expansion, a policy that would help cover people like Veals if they lost their insurance. Tillis opposes Medicaid expansion.

In a statement to WRAL, Tillis dishonestly defended his position:

“When he was Speaker of the House [in North Carolina],” the statement continues, “Senator Tillis inherited a Medicaid program that was mismanaged and plagued with overspending and inefficiency. Expanding Medicaid at the time would have been a promise that the state wouldn’t have been able to keep, requiring cuts to the program that would have harmed patients that states like New York and California have already been forced to make. Instead, Senator Tillis worked to strengthen the state’s Medicaid program to deliver quality health care to patients, and the reason the North Carolina is in a position to discuss expansion is because of Senator Tillis’ leadership.”

These claims are in spectacularly bad faith. Medicaid expansion has been wildly successful across the United States — it can even save states money. And claiming to be concerned about “cuts to the program” that harm patients is absurd when patients like Veals can be left with no coverage at all. It’s even more pernicious, though, because the recent stressed on state budgets in the wake of the pandemic come from the Senate Republicans’ refusal to provide recovery funds to state and local governments, as Democrats have sought to do.

It’s these comments — far more than a staffer’s rudeness — that should be the real scandal.

Open Secrets has a list of House and Senate candidates Purdue’s PAC funded in the 2016, election: Democrat G.K. Butterfield and Republicans Gus Bilirakis, Michael Burgess, Tom Cole, Kevin Cramer, Darrell Issa, Robert Latta, Dan Coats, and Tim Scott at an amount of $1,000 each, andRepublican Thom Tillis in the amount of $10k.

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BRITTANY KAISER: Absolutely. So, the files on Ambassador John Bolton show the work that Cambridge Analytica was paid to undertake for the John Bolton super PAC. That was work that started in 2013. It was actually one of the biggest first projects that Cambridge Analytica undertook in the United States. And that was to find five different psychographic groupings of voters and target them with psychographic messaging meant to resonate with your psyche and engage you, depending on whether you’re open, conscientious, extroverted, agreeable or neurotic.

And those videos were targeted over television and YouTube pre-roll in order to convince people, one, that national security was the most important political issue; two, that Ambassador John Bolton was the biggest authority on these topics; and, three, that whoever John Bolton was endorsing — for example, Thom Tillis — would be a better candidate — than Kay Hagan, for example, in that specific race. So, these ads were paid in order to manipulate people into being more interested in his hawkish foreign policies than in their own best interest.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk about the ad, that is not radio-friendly because it’s mainly music with script over it? But this is an ad for Thom Tillis, right?

BRITTANY KAISER: Yes. And it was an ad targeted at a group of people identified as being highly neurotic, and, therefore, it is black and white. It’s eerie. You get very emotional music, that shows surrender flags on all of America’s most prominent landmarks.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me play it, and I’ll read what it says on the screen. So we’ll listen to that music and play the ad, and you can then comment further.

There’s white flags going up, white flag on the Brooklyn Bridge, over the White House — over Congress. And it says, “America’s never surrendered before. What happens if we start now? On November 4, vote Thom Tillis.”

An ad paid for, 2014, by the John Bolton super PAC. The ad was titled “White Flags.” Tillis went on to win his Senate race.

BRITTANY KAISER: Yes, he did, indeed. And they used these tactics in a very successful manner. In fact, the John Bolton super PAC paid for a third party to rate how successful Cambridge Analytica had been. And they saw, on this ad specifically, that there was over a 36% uplift in engagement on these ads versus the communications that they had already been running.

And so, what scares me so much is that I know that these tactics are being used right now.We are being manipulated in order to support going to war with Iran. We are being manipulated in order to believe that this type of violence is acceptable and that we should support candidates that support this violence.

AMY GOODMAN: There are some who have suggested that President Trump did this, possibly in part because he’s so deeply concerned about his impeachment trial, and this specifically could be targeted for John Bolton, the former national security adviser, who almost immediately tweeted, “We have been working on this for a long time,” talking about the assassination,and that Trump is afraid of what he might say, and so this would appease him.

BRITTANY KAISER: Another important tranche of documents that I released are in the Iran folder, which actually shows that Cambridge Analytica and other right-wing organizations, like America Rising, that does all of the opposition research for the GOP, were polling to see how many people in the United States were interested in the Iran deal, to drop sanctions, or if they were against the Iran nuclear deal and more interested in war.So you can see the types of questions that were asked, and that they were using that to model and identify people who could be persuaded to go against Iran, and whether or not that would be favorable for electoral fodder, I should say. And right now that same polling is happening. So, if you are identified as being a persuadable, you are going to see more of this propaganda in order to convince you that war is in our best interest, when it obviously is not.

AMY GOODMAN: Emma Briant, what makes this different from regular polling? Why do you see this as evil?

EMMA BRIANT: It’s not polling I think is evil; it’s what it’s being used for. I’d like to put this in a little bit of a wider context, if I may, and talk a little bit about what I know about SCL and —

AMY GOODMAN: You have 30 seconds, and then we will do Part 2.

EMMA BRIANT: — Iran. Oh, OK, sure. So, basically, they were working also in the Gulf from 2013. And it’s really important to note that the Saudis and the UAE were also very keen to oppose the Iran deal, and Trump’s election was followed by a huge spike in arms sales to the Saudis. And I think that this being a military contractor is extremely important to remember in the light of these recent developments on Iran.

https://investigaterussia.org/media/2018-03-23/boltons-cambridge-analytica-connection

Former United States Ambassador to the United NationsJohn Bolton, President Trump's incoming national security advisor, hired Cambridge Analytica in August 2014 to work for his political committee called the The John Bolton Super PAC.

*The New York Times*:

In the two years that followed, Mr. Bolton’s super PAC spent nearly $1.2 million primarily for “survey research,” which is a term that campaigns use for polling, according to campaign finance records.

But the contract between the political action committee and Cambridge, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, offers more detail on just what Mr. Bolton was buying. The contract broadly describes the services to be delivered by Cambridge as “behavioral microtargeting with psychographic messaging.”

To do that work, Cambridge used Facebook data, according to the documents and two former employees familiar with the work.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/11/pro-tillis-dark-money-group-funded-entirely-by-crossroads-gps/

One of the largest and most prolific politically active nonprofits in the country was virtually the sole backer of Carolina Rising, the group that spent $4.7 million on ads supporting now-Sen. Thom Tillis’ successful run to unseat incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan in 2014. That was nearly 100 percent of Carolina Rising’s spending, as*OpenSecrets Blog* wrote last month.

Crossroads GPS not only provided 98.7 percent of Carolina Rising’s funds, but it also spent tens of millions of its own money in North Carolina and elsewhere in the midterms, according to tax documents obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

GPS, started by veteran Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, received 86 percent of its funding from a dozen anonymous donors giving more $1 million or more — 65 percent came just four donors that gave at least $5 million each, according to its tax form 990. One of those anonymous donors shelled out more than $20 million. At least one of those donors was casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, according to Politico.

GPS reported nearly $26 million in political spending to the IRS, which tracks closely with the group’s reports to the Federal Election Commission. According to its FEC reports, Crossroads GPS was most active in the most contentious Senate races of the 2014 midterms. However, those totals do not reflect the full spectrum of GPS’ efforts in those races.

As OpenSecrets Blog reported in November 2014, GPS was one of three groups to spend heavily on “educational” ads in the months running up to the elections, only a fraction of which were ever reported to the FEC...

A social welfare group called Carolina Rising spent 97 percent of the money it raised in the 2014 midterm elections — nearly $5 million — running ads that helped Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) defeat the incumbent Democrat that cycle.

The group, formed by political operative Dallas Woodhousein late March 2014, did virtually nothing else. Its first tax filing, obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics, shows that the organization raised nearly $4.9 million in its first year —$4.8 million of it from a single donor; nearly all of that went out the door to a prominent political media firm in Virginia for ads mentioning Tillis, while the rest was spent on payments to an LLC started by Woodhouse only months earlier.

The stark set of facts raises questions not only about whether the group spent the majority of its funds on political activity — verboten for nonprofits claiming 501(c)(4) status under the tax code — but about whether Carolina Rising was devoted to helping a single individual. That would violate an IRS rule barring social welfare organizations from benefiting one person — the so-called “private benefit” prohibition.

Click here t o read the full article.

sierra

THOM TILLIS (R-NC) Team: Fossil Fools Joined the League: January 3, 2015 Hometown: Cornelius, NC BIO: Things didn’t start off well for this rookie, as he entered the bigs missing the easiest pitching,50 whiffing on climate amendments when they may as well have been set up for him on a tee. That didn’t stop him from getting some huge sponsorships from the oil and gas industry — in fact, it probably only encouraged him. But as expected, he’s shown he can’t produce in the majors, failing to connect when it comes to taking action to create clean energy jobs or protect clean water for North Carolina families.

QUOTED: On whether human activity causes climate change: “You can’t answer with a yes or no” 51 SEASON LOWLIGHTS: « Senator Tillis has voted wrong across the board on all critical votes for climate action, clean air, and clean energy solutions. SPONSORSHIPS: « Oil & Gas: $220,000 « Mining: $139,900 STATS: « Climate: « Clean Air: « Clean Energy: « Energy Efficiency: W

Spending for ALEC Member Tillis Breaks All Records in NC Senate Race

The Koch brothers' new Super PAC, Freedom Partners Action Fund (FPAF) -- launched this summer -- has announced a huge new seven-figure ad buy attacking Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC). The ad buy makes the North Carolina Senate race between Hagan andRepublican state Speaker of the House Thom Tillis all-time number one in outside spending, at $55.7 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).

Voter ire over handling of Duke Energy coal ash disaster transcends party politics

Three-quarters of North Carolinians -- of all political affiliations -- don't think the state legislature has done enough to address Duke Energy's recent coal ash spill into the Dan River.

That's the finding of a poll of 519 North Carolina voters released today by the NC League of Conservation Voters (NCLCV). The environmental advocacy group has undertaken a $1 million coal ash campaign that includescriticizing state House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) for failing to take adequate action to protect the environment and Duke Energy's ratepayers. The survey was conducted July 25 and 26 by Raleigh-based Public Policy Polling (PPP).

Tillis is currently running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan (D),who was the keynote speaker for the NCLCV's recent annual Green Tie Awards dinner honoring state lawmakers and others who've taken action to protect North Carolina's environment.*

INSTITUTE INDEX - Letting Duke Energy off the hook for its coal ash mess

Date on which Duke Energy contractors finished their cleanup of coal ash left in the Dan River by a February spill from one of the company's dumps: 7/3/2014

Estimated tons of coal ash that spilled from Duke's retired Dan River plant when a pipe beneath the dump broke: 39,000

Percent of the spilled coal ash that's being left behind in the river post-cleanup:more than 90

Miles of the Dan River the spill left coated in toxic gray coal ash sludge, which contains toxins including arsenic, chromium, lead and mercury: 70

Depth in inches of coal ash deposits that reportedly remain in sections of the river just a few inches below the sandy bottom, where it could be stirred up by heavy flows: 2 to 4

Number of farms along the Dan River between the site where the spill occurred and the Virginia border, some of which use the riverfor irrigation or watering livestock: about 20

Tons of coal ash spilled into the Emory River in the 2008 disaster at TVA's Kingston plant in eastern Tennessee: 1.4 million

Percent of that coal ash that was eventually removed from the river: 65

Total number of coal ash pits Duke Energy has at its 14 plants across North Carolina: 33

Percent of those pits that are leaking toxins to groundwater and waterways:100

Under legislation now being considered by North Carolina lawmakers, number of those leaking coal ash pits that would be targeted for immediate cleanup, including the one on the Dan River: 4

Date on which the N.C. Senate rejected the House version of the bill because it extended the cleanup's timeline and placed the Coal Ash Management Commission it creates in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources rather than the Department of Public Safety: 7/14/2014

Under the legislation, dollars Duke Energy ratepayers could end up paying for cleaning up the company's coal ash dumps: billions

Amount the N.C. League of Conservation Voters is spending on TV ads calling out state House Speaker and U.S. Senate candidate Thom Tillis (R) for his role in weakening the coal ash legislation, which is being negotiated in a conference committee: $845,000

Date on which a group of North Carolina environmental activists attempted to deliver a fake check for $10 billion -- Duke Energy's estimated cost of cleaning up all its coal ash dumps -- to Tillis' U.S. Senate campaign office, saying it was compensation for his efforts to weaken the coal ash bill: 7/17/2014

(Click on figure to go to source. To comment on or to share this index, clickhere. Photo of protest at Tillis' campaign office by Brieanna Carey for Greenpeace.)

H6	NC Right to Work/Secret Ballot Amendments.	H	01/31/2013	Ref To Com On Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House
H7 (= S464)	Eugenics Compensation Program.	H	01/31/2013	Ref To Com On Appropriations
H9	Speaker/Pro Tem Term Limits.	S	05/09/2013	Ref To Com On Rules and Operations of the Senate
H53	NC Right to Work/Secret Ballot Amendments.	H	02/04/2013	Ref To Com On Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House
H66 (= S60)	Captivity License and Permit Amendments.-AB	Captivity License and Permit Amendments.-AB	Captivity License and Permit Amendments.-AB	Captivity License and Permit Amendments.-AB

Thom Tillis - Wikipedia BROCHURE? NO TALK 2 25

Thomas Roland "Thom" Tillis^[1] (born August 30, 1960, in Jacksonville, Florida) is a Republican member of the North Carolina House of Representatives from Mecklenburg County and Speaker of the House.

Contents

Political career

In 2002, Tillis served on the Town of Cornelius Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, where he also participated on several ad hoc committees focused on improving recreation and leisure options for the North Mecklenburg area. He was then elected to the Town of Cornelius Board of Commissioners, where he served from 2003 through 2005. During his tenure on the Cornelius Town Board, Tillis served on a number of advisory boards and working groups focused on the Huntersville-Cornelius area.

Tillis was elected to his first term in the legislature in 2006, defeating the incumbent and fellow Republican John W. Rhodes in the primary,^[2] and was re-elected in 2008, 2010 and 2012. In 2010, Tillis served as campaign chair for the House Republican Caucus, and in the 2010 election, the Republicans won a majority in the House for the first time in almost 20 years. Tillis was selected, over Representative Paul Stam, to become the next Speaker. He was elected Speaker when the legislative session opened on January 26, 2011.^[3] He is the third Republican Speaker of the House in North Carolina history.

Following a 2011-2012 General Assembly session that saw Republicans successfully override multiple vetoes by the Democratic Governor, the 2012 elections enabled Republicans to add nine seats to their majority, winning 77 of the 120 House seats.^[4] Tillis was re-elected to serve as Speaker during the 2013-2014 session.

Business career

Tillis was an executive with IBM Corporation, where he led a management consulting practice focused on the financial services industry. Tillis left IBM in 2009 to focus his attention on serving in the North Carolina House of Representatives, and leading the 2010 House Republican Caucus Campaign Committee. Prior to joining IBM in 2002, Tillis was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the world’s largest accounting and management consulting firms.

References

^ "Multiple Thomas R. Tilles". News & Observer.
^ "NC Primary Election Results 2006". NC State Board of Elections. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
^ "GOP-led legislature begins with budget, maps ahead". WRAL/Associated Press.
^ "2012 General Election Results, Summary". NC State Board of Elections.

Tillis, Thom Sen 13%

MAGA rages at GOP senator after he warns about 'crazy' Trump adviser

gOP senator received more than $20,000 in campaign contributions from Big Pharma after co-sponsoring a bill on drug prices: report

Spending for ALEC Member Tillis Breaks All Records in NC Senate Race

Voter ire over handling of Duke Energy coal ash disaster transcends party politics

Political career

Business career

References

External links