And Republicans' defunding of environmental protection is coming back to haunt them:

Democrats also are making a push for House and Senate seats held by Republicans in and around coastal Wilmington. Favored by beachgoers and transplanted out-of-state retirees, the region became fixated last year on the presence of a little-studied chemical compound, GenX, in the Cape Fear River, which provides drinking water to many.

In campaign ads, Democrats and environmental groups are blaming GOP incumbents for passing budgets that reduced staff in the state environmental department responsible for water quality, and for failing to do enough for the river cleanup.

But it's not just the coastal & Cape Fear watershed areas where this is a big campaign issue; right here in Alamance County, GOP Legislators are being raked over the coal (ash) in numerous ads that began on Facebook but have jumped to radio and other Internet venues, like the intro to Youtube videos. And it's not just one group funding these environmental spots, there are several running ads similar to this one:

These are actually RICO violations:

Prosecutors say Covington and McKinny decided to lay off employees at one of Covington's businesses so they could collect unemployment benefits in 2008 when the company was struggling financially. But the employees continued to work at the company, Diverse Corporate Technologies. They later put the scheme into place at Covington's other business, Integrity Marble & Granite. Covington then implemented a variation of the scheme at Sky Catcher Communications Inc., a company he managed, prosecutors say.

After starting the scheme at Diverse Corporate Technologies, Covington, McKinny, Whaley and others "promoted variations of the scheme to other businesses," the court filing said. "These conspirators promoted the scheme as a way for (the church) community businesses to weather the financial downturn," the document said.

Seriously, this is straight out of a Soprano's episode. The only thing missing are the dead bodies of those who either betrayed the family, or were so crazy they jeopardized the smooth operations of the scam. But I have no doubt that once this religious house of cards collapses, bodies will be found somewhere on the premises. This is actually election-related, too, because Ralph Hise has been providing cover at the state level for this criminal cult, and David Wheeler has been dogging his and the cult's footsteps for months now:

Talk about falling off the fringe:

"The current threatened invasion of our Southern border is not spontaneous. It is funded by internationalists like Soros and Never Trump special interests and engineered by liberals who have high-jacked the Democrat Party. Have you not noticed these are well fed, well clad people? Do you think they are walking 2,300 miles? Walking at 60 miles a day (5 mph for 12 hrs) it would take about 38 days. Do not be recieved (sic). This is an organized event designed to influence voting during mid-term elections. A Nation without borders is not a sovereign nation. Get the military to the border, now."

Filed under: "That boy ain't right." Unfortunately, he's not the exception to the rule amongst General Assembly Republicans, a supermajority of the supermajority are delusional. I don't care if they "get help" or not, as long as they're no longer traveling to Raleigh to pass their unconstitutional laws...

Fewer voting locations = more difficulty casting a vote:

North Carolina voters are once again dealing with changes to how the state runs its elections. At a time when early voting is becoming increasingly popular nationwide, a new law passed by the Republican-controlled legislature will result in nearly 20 percent fewer places to cast votes before Election Day.

Democrats say the changes could disproportionately affect African-American voters but some local Republican officials also complain about the changes, arguing they impose too much top-down control on election administration and amount to an unfunded mandate from the state.

Make no mistake, their intent with this law was to place more burdens on county-level elections officials, forcing them to make hard choices. And true to form, the architects of this crisis had their talking points lined up so they could avoid taking responsibility for their deceitful tactics: