2026 Midterm Elections

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UNCMSinLS said:
What's particularly eye-rolling and galling about these clowns is that they've likely NEVER attended a single girl's/women's sporting event IN THEIR LIVES. Not one with their daughter. Not one with their wife. Not one at their high school or college. None. Zero. Zilch.
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When I was in elementary school, I loved going to the high school basketball games. There was a warped place on our basketball court where if you weren't careful, (often times visiting teams weren't) dribbling over that spot would cause the ball to bounce out of bounds. That was so funny when it happened. Every home game was a double-header. The girls' game was the opening act. The boys' game was the second act. Somewhere along the way, girls' sports in high school almost disappeared. By the time I started high school, there was only one girls' sports team left, tennis. In basketball, the boys' JV game had taken the place of the girl's game. By the time I graduated high school, girls' sports teams were making a very slow comeback, but the girls' basketball game had not yet reclaimed its place as the lead-in to the varsity boys' game. Girls' sporting events didn't fade in popularity; they were shoved to the back of the bus because high school administrators were more interested in high school sports being farm leagues for colleges than they were in producing well-rounded students regardless of gender.

Side note: Some folks will think the de-emphasis of girls' athletics I observed was due to a lack of interest by the public in viewing girls' sports in high school. I think that is wrong. In high school, the vast majority of the people in the stands aren't there to enjoy a sporting event. The audience for high school sporting events is largely composed of the participants' families and friends. Girls have just as many families and friends as boys do.
 
05C40 said:
When I was in elementary school, I loved going to the high school basketball games. There was a warped place on our basketball court where if you weren't careful, (often times visiting teams weren't) dribbling over that spot would cause the ball to bounce out of bounds. That was so funny when it happened. Every home game was a double-header. The girls' game was the opening act. The boys' game was the second act. Somewhere along the way, girls' sports in high school almost disappeared. By the time I started high school, there was only one girls' sports team left, tennis. In basketball, the boys' JV game had taken the place of the girl's game. By the time I graduated high school, girls' sports teams were making a very slow comeback, but the girls' basketball game had not yet reclaimed its place as the lead-in to the varsity boys' game. Girls' sporting events didn't fade in popularity; they were shoved to the back of the bus because high school administrators were more interested in high school sports being farm leagues for colleges than they were in producing well-rounded students regardless of gender.

Side note: Some folks will think the de-emphasis of girls' athletics I observed was due to a lack of interest by the public in viewing girls' sports in high school. I think that is wrong. In high school, the vast majority of the people in the stands aren't there to enjoy a sporting event. The audience for high school sporting events is largely composed of the participants' families and friends. Girls have just as many families and friends as boys do.
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It sounds similar to basketball games when I was in high school. The girls played the first game. Back then two players had to stay in the backcourt and three players could play offense in the front court.

The boys played next. Our court had a dead spot in the floor and our team tried to force the other team into that dead space when they were in the front court:cool:
 
heelinhell said:
. . .. The girls played the first game. Back then two players had to stay in the backcourt and three players could play offense in the front court. . . ..
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Your comment sparked a memory. IIRC, the girls BB team had six players per side. Two centers that stayed on the offensive end. Two forwards that stayed on the defensive end. And two rovers that played both ends. By the time girls basketball resumed my senior year in high school, the rules were the same as the boys' rules.

Link: Six-on-six basketball - Wikipedia The New Jersey variant is the one I remember.
 
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[BUT a Democrat held this seat prior to the special election — Landry appointed him to a state alcohol board and the GOP thought they would flip this seat]

www.the-downballot.com

Democrats resoundingly defend red district in Louisiana, denying GOP its first pickup

Republicans have yet to flip a single legislative seat since Trump's return
www.the-downballot.com www.the-downballot.com

“…
Republicans had hoped to score their first legislative pickup of any kind during Donald Trump’s second term, and they had good reason to think they might succeed in the 60th House District.

Voters in the district, which includes part of Assumption and Iberville parishes (Louisiana’s equivalent of counties), had long backed state and local Democrats but had moved decidedly toward Republicans on the federal level in recent years.

… Louisiana Republicans will retain their wide advantage in the state House, but Martinez’s victory means that the GOP will still be empty-handed when it comes to flipping legislative seats.…”
 
05C40 said:
Your comment sparked a memory. IIRC, the girls BB team had six players per side. Two centers that stayed on the offensive end. Two forwards that stayed on the defensive end. And two rovers that played both ends. By the time girls basketball resumed my senior year in high school, the rules were the same as the boys' rules.

Link: Six-on-six basketball - Wikipedia The New Jersey variant is the one I remember.
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We had a tiny local school that dominated girls' basketball in the 1940s with this setup. They won several state titles over much larger schools.
 
I’ve seen a Michael Whatley ad several times recently where he really emphasizes that he’s a Trump-endorsed. When I see it, I wonder to myself, “Does he really want to do that?”
 
Icky Mettle said:
I’ve seen a Michael Whatley ad several times recently where he really emphasizes that he’s a Trump-endorsed. When I see it, I wonder to myself, “Does he really want to do that?”
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I'm hoping someone in the Trump regime convinces Whatley that to get St. Donald of Mar-a-Lago's full and unfettered support he needs to come out and really viciously attack Tom Tillis. And I hope such an attack would have similar affects that all the tolls roads in Mecklenburg County that came about during Pat McCrory's administration. The shift in votes from R to D in the Charlotte metro area was larger than McCrory margin of defeat in 2016.
 
From Drew Reisinger (Register of Deeds, Buncombe County, NC):

The daunting question that I can't shake: how do we save our democracy? In North Carolina, the only time we've had something resembling fair representation at the congressional level was when the NC Supreme Court stepped in and demanded it. As we’ve learned since Republicans took control of the General Assembly in 2011, North Carolina’s 14 Congressional seats can be manipulated in countless ways. In 2022, NC voted under a 7-7 split in congressional representation (by court ordered maps). When Republicans took over the court, their first order of business was to quickly reinstate a 10-4 map favoring Republicans. That gerrymander was all President Trump needed to pass his Big Bill that gave a hand out to the wealthy and made huge cuts to medicaid and health insurance for average families. (That unpopular bill only passed the US house by 4 votes! Which all came from the NC gerrymander.)
Fast forward to this year's midterm election. President Trump, seeing that his deeply unpopular agenda would likely lead to losing the majority in the US House, asked NC lawmakers if they could gerrymander the congressional districts to give him one more representative. Giving the finger to the notion of a representative democracy this country was founded on, NC is now under a 11-3 map that highly favors Republicans. This is not what democracy looks like!
Maybe this is a pessimistic take, but Democrats will never win back the majority of seats in the General Assembly under gerrymandered maps, even though North Carolina is a purple state. So how do we save our democracy? We have to win back the courts. Every North Carolina voter needs to know the names of our judicial candidates and know that this is how we are going to stop Donald Trump and NC lawmakers from eroding our democracy.
Pictured is NC Court of Appeals candidate, James Whalen, who was in Fairview last night, with Rep. Lindsey Prather and Rep. Eric Ager. It was inspiring to hear him talk about his vision for how our court system should work. He has my full support and will be on your primary ballot. Then come November, Anita Earls’s critical seat is up on the Supreme Court. (She is running against arguably the worst person in NC politics but I'll save that for another post). Winning the handful of judicial seats up for election will put us on a path to winning back our NC Courts in 2028. I know that feels like forever away but we have to be grownups about this: it's up to us educate ourselves about our judicial races. It's the least sexy thing on your ballot but they are the path to saving our democracy.

Reisinger.jpg
 
Paxton-Talarico would be a fascinating race. It would be absolutely imbued with debates over what religion and faith mean in this iteration of our world. I know that would be offputting to a lot of people but I would be so interested to see how it plays out.
 
lawtig02 said:
Paxton-Talarico would be a fascinating race. It would be absolutely imbued with debates over what religion and faith mean in this iteration of our world. I know that would be offputting to a lot of people but I would be so interested to see how it plays out.
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Paxton is perfect for the Pubs I would love to see him be the face of the Pub side in this election. I mean he would likely win-it's Texas-but "how it plays out" would be good political theater
 
@05C40 and @heelinhell

Y'all jogged my memory a good bit. I well-remember the "girls" 6-"man" game with two guards that only played defense, two forwards that only played offense, and two "Rovers" that for some mysterious reason were superhuman and permitted to play the whole court.

At my small elementary school, 1 through 8th grade, we'd often pair up against the girls in basketball games...every other time playing the "Other" genders' rules. The boys truly hated the girls rules days, especially if you drew a short straw and had to play "guard" and thus never get to shoot (unless the rare foul was called and you went to the line). The girls, on the other hand really loved playing boys rules. That set-up changed as I entered the 8th grade and from then on, we all played the same game.

There were some great ones that played girls high school basketball under the 6-man rules. I grew up hearing tales about the Great Katie Mae Oldham of Goldston High. It seems that Chatham County has been the home of a great many female hoopsters of great skill and reknown. As a Chatham Central Bear Alumni I knew well the names of Cheryl Brewer, Sandra Williamson, Roxanne Moody, and Pandora Cotton -- I could name more the girls game greats.

53 pts. Katie Mae Oldham, Goldston High (W 75-74) Coopers HS, 3/10/1952 State Tournament 1st round at Aberdeen

Check out some of these scoring records:

 
And here's a bit more of something I wrote a while back about this topic...

My Momma & Deddy loved basketball. I can’t explain it really. Neither of them ever played. I never saw either one dribble or shoot. But we followed the Chatham Central Bears & the Bonlee Green Dragons nigh religiously. There were two or three Bears games a week through the winter. We drove through the Piedmont North Carolina darkness to places like Troy, Biscoe, & Deep River for those contests & I learned a lot of geography. In retrospect it is pretty amazing to think about how my parents navigated those narrow roads but we did indeed always arrive.

Once there the brightness inside those loud echoey gyms mingled with the human heat & the strong aroma of fresh popcorn to create an atmosphere truly like no other. It is a recollection firmly wedged in the memories of my childhood & teen years. Those evenings in either the friendly confines of the Chatham Central gym or the decidedly more hostile interiors in places like Union Pines High in Cameron or the worst of them all, the cracker box of old school enmity, the home of the North Moore Mustangs in Robbins, are etched in my psyche.

I remember some great players from my youngest years — Carl Thompson & Craig Lambert come to mind as Bear stand-outs while Ronnie Collins & Lonnie Bowden starred at Jordan Matthews in Siler City. I played with, & against, some very good ones too. But the names I most remember, & this may seem odd, are Girls.

The girls of the Central Tar Heel Conference in the 1970s, hailing from small 2-A schools across the mainly rural Piedmont, took basketball very seriously - and I note here - as had their mothers. There was a quite intense love for the game among those girls that was frankly more virulent than that felt by most boys who, after all also had football & baseball as major community sports. The locals took note of the female hardcourt heroines in particular. They appreciated the intensity with which those girls battled. I’d wager that had you asked the generation before mine the question, “Who was Chatham County’s greatest sports star?” as many would have answered Katie Mae Wilson of Goldston High, as all other names combined. Wilson was a high-scoring forward from the days of the 6-player game in the 1950s & drew statewide attention, often putting up individual totals in the 50s. She made headlines & her teams won. Goldston would become part of the larger school, Chatham Central with consolidation in the 1960s, & the Bear Girls would continue that winning tradition. They won state championships in 1978, 1986, 1999, & 2000. Many of my friends, including my high school girlfriend, played.

High school games in those days consisted of a varsity girls game followed by the boys. I know that there were people that left after the girls played. I know this most acutely because I played boys basketball at CCHS & knew quite well that we were not the main attraction most seasons. I also don’t mind admitting that the girls played a much more disciplined & skill-based game than we did. They executed their plays & pressed on defense & the sheer passion with which they took the court was ferocious.

Reflecting back I realize that to a 10-year-old just coming to understand the game that would become his sports love of a lifetime, those high school girls were my first real sports heroes (after Brooks Robinson of course). They lured me into the game that for decades rivaled Baptistism & Methodism as the true religion of North Carolina. Sadly, I have my doubts these days about the place of that most beautiful game as #1 in our hearts & minds as the brutality & power of football seems to have at least pulled that sport even to the grace & athleticism of basketball. But THAT topic is for another essay.

I still follow women’s sports - I attended a UNCA woman’s game last week. I’ve had plenty of female students that played either at Guilford or UNCA over the years & I’ve followed their teams & careers. The UNC women have rivaled the men at times with their prowess on the court. They won a very exciting National Championship in 1994, led by Shelby NC’s Charlotte Smith. The women’s game is not really played above the rim, & for some fans that damns the entire enterprise. But what I see is skill, discipline, & dedication unparalleled. Besides, the above the rim action among women is increasing steadily. A woman dunking now is less & less rare. And the shot-making, team-play, & fury is still at the highest level.
 
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