From Staff Reports

Western North Carolina Congressman-elect Madison Cawthorn, R-Hendersonville, announced Dec. 21 that he plans to contest the presidential election results when Congress meets on Jan. 6 to count the electoral votes.

What’s more, Cawthorn warned other Republicans that he personally will fund their primary challengers if they do not call for “fair” elections.

The Raleigh News & Observer stated in its news story on the plan, “The challenge stands no chance of overturning President-elect Joe Biden’s victory against President Donald Trump.” 

In addition, the N&O reported that N.C. Rep. Ted Budd, R-Davie County, vowed Dec. 22 also to contest the election result.

In a Dec. 22 letter sent to his Republican House colleagues in North Carolina, Budd wrote, “The people of North Carolina chose Donald Trump to be re-elected. We should not allow the lack of election integrity in other states (to) deprive us of the president that we voted for.”

The N&O also noted,“‘Yes, I plan to object on January 6th,’ Budd wrote in a tweet that outlined what he felt are issues with the November vote, including ballots accepted after Election Day, the removal of voter safeguards and outdated voter rolls.”

The new Congress will be sworn in Jan. 3. Cawthorn, 25, will be the youngest member of Congress. Budd won a third term in the House in November, representing the 13th district, which stretches from Davie to Person County. “He (Budd) is considering a run for U.S. Senate in 2022, his spokesman confirmed Monday (Dec. 21),” the N&O reported.

Meanwhile, Cawthorn said, “I will be contesting the election,” during remarks Dec. 21 at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit , a conservative youth conference, held in West Palm Beach, Fla.

“And not only that, I have a message for all other Republicans across the country. If you are not on the record calling for fair, free and just elections now and in the future, I will come to your district, and I will fund a primary opponent against you.”

Cawthorn wrote later Dec. 21 on Twitter, “The right to vote in a free and fair election is the cornerstone of our Republic. Attempts to subvert the constitutional authority of state legislatures to conduct elections strikes at the very heart of representative government. I choose to stand in the breach, to fight for us.”

From Staff Reports 

Rondell Lance on Dec. 3 was re-elected by local law enforcement offcers as president of the Asheville Fraternal Order of Police, a post he reportedly has held for 24 years.

Lance on Nov. 24 was found guilty of two counts of disorderly conduct and one count of assault on a female, “though he will likely face no punishment under the sentence imposed,” the Asheville Citizen Times recently noted. “Lance, who is 61 and a former Democratic candidate for sheriff, declined to comment after the ruling.”

The FOP is one of two police advocacy groups in Buncombe County. The other is the Mountain Chapter of the N.C. Police Benevolent Association. The state does not allow police unions.

First in a series

As for the question of whether to demolish the Vance Monument in downtown Asheville, or repurpose it, H.K. Edgerton — a black Asheville native who was born and grew up the city during the Jim Crow era and now bills himself as a Southern heritage civil rights activist — thinks the answer is simple.

Edgerton says the 75-foot granite obelisk honoring Weaverville native Zebulon B. Vance needs to be allowed to remain the centerpoint in the heart of Asheville — forever, and the only change he would like to see is the removal of  scaffolding encircling it.

In a lengthy telephone interview with the Daily Planet on Dec. 22, Edgerton said that Vance, contrary to the “uninformed” view of the city-appointed Vance Monument Task Force, was “one of the greatest men that’s ever lived” — and that the monument is “a memorialization” of his greatness..

After a pause, Edgerton asserted the irony, in his view, that Vance “was certainly greater than anyone on City Council or the County Commissioners... These people are bent on Southern social and cultural genocide... BLM ... The Democratic Party is guilty, too. I don’t even want to get into that part.”