The Burr/Burleson PAC: Ethics Violations and More Lies?

I can’t even decide what title to apply to this article. I considered about a dozen before just leaving the current one in place. I thought about some of the following:

• Justin Burr and PAC-Daddy commit campaign ethics violation?
• Baby Burr and Papa Burr Story Time – How to violate your ethics and hope people are too dumb to notice?
• Justin Burr spews lies because he’s got nothing else to use.
• Baby Burr wouldn’t know a fact if its reflection bounced off his shiny head?
• As the shiny head lies – season 01, finale!
• Burr attacks…. everyone that hates him!!

There’s really just SO many to work with, so I guess I’ll just have to run with the title we’ve got. It’s going to be a good read, regardless.

Good afternoon all,

My name is Tommy Jordan and I’m running for Stanly County Commissioner for District 3 against Joseph Burleson. Apparently Justin Burr isn’t content running his own race. He feels the need to wrangle up his Daddy and his little gang of hoodlums to go after ALL the candidates in his latest mailer.

Throughout this campaign season I’ve been disturbed by the mailers Justin Burr has sent out, but its up to each of us candidates to run our own race, so for the most part I’m content not to open my mouth to defend others when they’re capable of defending themselves.  To do so would give the opposition the ammunition to paint someone as a crony, or a spokesperson and that might not sit well with the candidate you’re defending because it would tie you to them in the public’s eye – which could be harmful to both of you down the road. It’s just human nature. It already sounds devious right? It really is. It’s a twisted little world these that some evil people are reveling in playing in. Anyway, for the most part I’ve shown the better part of restraint when it comes to candidates outright casting lies out to the general public.

But today – Baby Burr decided to pick a fight with me, personally. See there baby burr… now you done gone and made a mistake. I’m not the “take it on the cheek” type that’s going to roll over for you.  I’ve been on the internet literally since it was basically available to the general public. It’s where I work and live. I know how to wrest the most from Google and how to check facts before I share them. My Google-Fu is strong! I’m also man enough to apologize if I make a mistake (click here to read it), which I’ve done once this race already.

So when I read the latest mailer, I was shocked. Why does this PAC from nowhere suddenly materialize and start slinging mud in my direction? And where did they even come up with this crap they’re spewing? I REALLY hope you didn’t spent the $10K+ I think you did for a drug-addicted copy-editor with poor grammar skills. So I did a little digging into this PAC. Who are they? Where have they been all my life? How did I get through my daily routine without leaning on their sage advice before casting my vote foolishly?

I mean I know Justin Burr to be a blatant liar. I’ve seen him throw them out time after time this campaign. I’m OK with that because I’m hoping something, anything will wrest his legislative seat from him after the pure fabrications of fiction I’ve seen him vomit forth this campaign season. And to be clear – I don’t actually have an issue with some of how he does his job when he’s in office. I’m sometimes in support of his decisions and sometimes against them, but the lengths he will go to lie when I KNOW it’s a lie now makes me call into question every other word that comes out of his mouth. If mean if he’ll print lies about ME when he’s never spoken more two sentences to me in his life and he’ll go against thousands of pages of my own printed work to fabricate these stories, than how can I trust him when he says the sky is blue or he really likes my hat? Literally it seems that nothing is sacred with this kid.

Watching the crap the Burr crew and their cronies at the Stanly County Republican Convention pulled recently makes me sick to be associated with them, even if it’s only by sharing the title of Republican. I’m proud to be a Republican. I’m proud to be an American. I’m proud to be running in this election, whether I win or lose, because at least I’m making the attempt to do what’s better for my county the best way I know how. But being associated with Justin Burr, even by party affiliation, and seeing the mafioso tactics he’s willing to use makes me want to take a hot shower.

Let’s start at the top (or the bottom, or maybe the side, as it may be)

Forget the geometry lesson because that’s only funny if you actually SAW the mailer – let’s start with who published this mailer. That “paid for” line is required on all campaign mailers so the general public can know who’s sending them mail. Justin and his daddy apparently presume people are stupid and that they believe everything they read simply because the almighty chrome dome says it. It reads in big text on top “Stanly County Citizens for Conservative Leadership.” Sounds like some great civic minded independent group of people that just have our best interests at heart, right? Yeah, well… umm.. no.

I looked up exactly who this little group is and, well, wasn’t surprised at all to see just one more shining example of Justin and his Daddy committing yet another ethics violation. And to be clear, I can’t 100% guarantee it’s a violation of a specific RULE in the exact literal terms of the rule, but it’s certainly against the spirit in which the rules were intended and it was done to mask their identities.

Ethics Violation? Surely not the Burrs?! (insert sarcasm here)

I checked into the Stanly County Citizens for Conservative Leadership. You can look them up yourself by clicking right here so you can follow along with me if you’d like.  If you visit that link and scroll to the very bottom, you will see the very first report they filed. That’s the Statement of Organization.  (click here to see it.) You have to file this with the election board to tell them WHY you want to be a political committee.

What was their reason?

Its simple. They created the organization to raise funds for a PAC.

Why do the Burr’s need their own personal PAC fund?

Well, when Justin spends his campaign money or Joseph spends his campaign money, all that money is easily traceable back to them. In fact you can do it using the same website I’m using for my research here today – the North Carolina Board of Elections has all this information available as public record if anyone cares enough to want to search for it. Anyway, if they send this kind of stuff themselves they’re required to say things like “Paid for by the committee to elect insert_name_here.” But when you use a PAC to do your dirty work, you don’t have the same restrictions. If the PAC pays for it, Justin, Joseph and anyone else they endorse can say they didn’t do it – because they didn’t… the PAC did it for them. (Do you feel the dirt seeping off them yet? Wait for it – you will.)

Joseph doesn’t have the money to put together a mailer like this to attack me and the other candidates and he’d never be brave or confrontational enough to insult ALL of us at once, which means the ONLY person with the cojones to actually send this mailer is lil’ baldy himself – Justin “Baby” Burr.  I can pretty much guarantee you that Papa Burr was certainly supportive. ( I KNOW he was financially supportive, but we’ll get to that in a minute).

Who runs this PAC fund?

Well that’s a very good question. I’m glad you asked!  Let’s check into that.

The PAC Treasurer is Greg Underwood. Ok. Fine. Nothing to see here. Let’s move on.

The Custodian of Books is James Flynn. Ok. That’s good to know. Moving on…

Blake Underwood is the.. wait… Blake Underwood is the Assistant Treasurer of the PAC?

Surely that’s not the same Blake Underwood that was appointed to the Stanly County Republican Party as an officer back last year when Justin’s Daddy rigged the party officer’s selection process? No way. Couldn’t be. That would be really unethical. They’d never do that. I mean, to have an sitting officer on the republican party for the county actively involved with a PAC attacking other republican candidates?? That’s a serious breach of ethics!

Oops.. yup. Guess its the same guy. It only took a search of local newspaper records to verify. Here’s the SNAP article. If you read farther down that article, you see where it mentions the new officers they snuck in. I’ll quote it for you here, but you can read it yourself above.

The Stanly County Republican Party elected the following officers: Phil Burr, chairman; Zack Almond, vice chairman; Blake Underwood, secretary; Fran Albritton, treasurer; Don Abernathy, finance chairman; and Jimmy Flynn, precinct organizer.

Recap: Ethics Violation #1

So far we know the PAC that’s sending out this material is comprised of an officer in the Stanly County Republican Party. The party is supposed to remain neutral with regards to republican candidates. So that’s ethics violation number 1.

Where is the Money Coming From?

If you want to know who’s committing libel and lying about the candidates, you need to follow the money. Let’s start with their first campaign finance report.

• Joseph Burleson – $500 (So now we know that a sitting commissioner, is also supporting the PAC, but would rather let the PAC take the heat than himself. Ok, that’s not really above-board in my opinion, but it’s not truly evil either. I’ll chalk that one up to “playing politics”)
• Michael Huneycutt – $50
• Phil “Papa” Burr – $500 (That’s the Chairman of the Stanly County Republican Party by the way – a man who is also ethically required to remain neutral, but chooses to conceal his endorsement in a PAC so no one would know it.)

Don’t believe me? Click here and scroll to page 3 to see for yourself.

In the first quarter of the next year, they received some more funding from some locals. (Click here for details)

• Joel Thomas – $1,000
• John Tyson – $4,500
• Sue McIntyre – $500

Second Quarter of 2016 they raised the following funds: (click here for details)

• Mark T Lowder – $200
• James Phillips – $250
• Joseph Burleson – $1,000 (again, wow.)
• Cheryl Morgan – $250
• Phil “Papa” Burr – $500  (there we go again with the Chairman contributing to the PAC which is fine in and of itself. It’s when the PAC attacks the local candidates that ALL his ethical credibility goes out the window.)
• Janice Poole – $250
• Ronnie Watson – $500

Third Quarter 2016: click here for details)

WAY too many to list here, but you can read the link above if you want to see the entire report, but here are the highlights:

• Phil Burr (again) – $250
• Cabarrus County Republican Party – $1,430
• Anson County Republican Party – $136
• Montgomery County Republican Party – $412
• Randolph County Republican Party – $680
• Stanly County Republican Party – $2,000 (Whoa, what? So the party I contribute money to (and a bunch of other local republicans have contributed to) has paid money to a PAC that later turned around and campaigned against both me and a bunch of other local republican incumbents? Wow.. that’s good to know. Unethical much?)

Recap: Ethics Violations

What we basically know now is that Joseph Burleson, Justin Burr’s daddy, and a select few others recruited a bunch of money, including from our own county republican party and has since used that money to blatantly lie in writing (that’s a crime by the way – it’s called libel) and printed mailers so full of bulls*%t that I don’t even know where to begin refuting it.

Both the secretary of the Republican Party and the Chairman of the republican party in Stanly county are actively campaigning against their own party candidates? Nice work there boys.  Let me clarify that – Big Daddy Burr (who is supposed to remain neutral) and the Secretary of the Republican Party (who is also supposed to remain neutral) are actively lying about candidates, which is bad enough, but they’re doing it with Stanly County Republican Party Money!

The fact that Phil Burr has the gall to even show his face at a Republican Party convention, especially considering his Democrat voting history, is appalling.

Then we have the fact that the PAC they’re behind is borderline illegal itself and in the process of being shutdown by the state of North Carolina. They even refuse the certified mail the states sends to them.

The office isn’t hard to find. It’s right there – Greg Underwood’s accounting practice. I can see the mail slot right there on the wall.

Yet this is the notice the election board receives when they send certified mail to the PAC:

Notice the mail is REFUSED, not sent to the wrong address, but outright refused by the treasurer of the PAC. I find that a little bit questionable myself. You? You can raise and spend over twenty thousand dollars smearing people, but you can’t be bothered to answer to your own governing body? Good work there boys!

 

Let’s move on to more interesting stuff, shall we?

So this PAC sent out a mailer this week to probably every unaffiliated or republican voter in Stanly County, right? How did they do that exactly? I checked the board of elections website and their status as a PAC has been under fire from the state since earlier this year.

In February of 2017 they were charged for failing to file their reports on time. Then they failed to file their reports for the ENTIRE REST OF THE YEAR!

Then again in January of this year, they were served with a letter stating the state was terminating their status as a PAC entirely – meaning they’re not ALLOWED to send mailers, even an honest one – as if they knew how to do that. Somehow they can find the time to print blatant lies just fine, but can’t be bothered to submit quarterly paperwork? For Christ’s sake – the treasurer is an ACCOUNTANT! You’d think he’d know how to do a quarterly report, right?

They sent a similar letter on April 9th of this year:

So we have a political funding organization specifically designed to shroud the identities of supporters, who is in the process of having their status revoked by the state, yet still seems capable of spending $10-15K (I’m assuming) to put together a mailer full of BS?

The PAC is apparently operating illegally. (Ethical Violation #4,724,312?)

While we’re investigating stuff, pay attention to the letters sent by the Board of Elections to the PAC on February 21, 2018. I’ve highlighted the entry below so you know I’m not making this up.

Let’s see what that letter says, shall we?

Oh! Snap! According to this, the PAC was officially terminated by the State of North Carolina effective February of 2018. Now I KNOW someone on the Burr party might try to make you fall for some stupid shenanigans here, so let me clarify a few things. By the time this letter was received, this PAC was effectively illegal and no longer allowed to collect or spend money. So maybe the Burr’s and Burleson paid for the mailer before that date? I mean, that’s possible. Maybe they weren’t doing it illegally on purpose…

Bullshit. None of us candidates had even filed for office yet, so there was no way anyone could know who to write a mailer about back when this PAC was still legally operating. The ONLY conclusion is that Greg Underwood, Joseph Burleson, Justin Burr, and Phil Burr, and Blake Underwood illegally used PAC money to generate an ILLEGAL mailer, but figured by the time it was caught the damage would already be done. That’s how low-life and underhanded these people are.

Let’s go on further and examine how I know that.

Notice the part of that letter that stated they are covered under NC General Statute 163-278.24? What does that general statute say exactly? Let me spell it out. This gets tricky because NC General Statute 163.278.34 was made law in 2013, But effective on May 1, 2017, this law along with a bunch of others were recodified up into Subchapter III of Chapter 163A. Admittedly, your average person is going to give up at that point and just stop digging. I, however, find myself with free time at the moment… so I kept digging. Subchapter III has been recodified again as 163A-700 and now covers a lot more materials that’s confusing for some. Bear with me while I demystify it for the reader.

The specific penalties found for the blatant disregard for the State Board of Election’s rules that govern their behavior are as follows (according to 163A-1451). The statute itself is quoted in italics. My notes are in bold black non-italics. I’m also leaving out the sections that simply don’t apply to this for the sake of brevity.
 BEGINNING OF PENALTIES SECTION

Timely filing shall be complete if postmarked on the day the reports, statements or other documents are to be delivered to the Board. If a report, statement or other document is not filed within the time required by this Article, then the individual, person, media, candidate, political committee, referendum committee or treasurer responsible for filing shall pay to the State Board election enforcement costs and a civil late penalty as follows:
Keep in mind the Burrs and Greg Underwood haven’t filed a proper report since the last one received almost a year and a half ago – January 19th, 2017.

(2)        Fifty dollars ($50.00) per day for each day the filing is late for a report that affects only nonstatewide elections, not to exceed a total of five hundred dollars ($500.00).

WHAT? Are you serious? The MOST they can be fined for illegally continuing to operate is $500. Well the mailer probably cost ten times that much, so paying a $500 penalty isn’t even a slap on the wrist.

(b)        Civil Penalties for Illegal Contributions and Expenditures. – If an individual, person, political committee, referendum committee, candidate, or other entity intentionally makes or accepts a contribution or makes an unlawful expenditure in violation of this Article, then that entity shall pay to the State Board, in an amount to be determined by that Board, a civil penalty and the costs of investigation, assessment, and collection. The civil penalty shall not exceed three times the amount of the unlawful contribution or expenditure involved in the violation. The State Board may, in addition to the civil penalty, order that the amount unlawfully received be paid to the State Board by check, and any money so received by the State Board shall be deposited in the Civil Penalty and Forfeiture Fund of North Carolina.

There is absolutely ZERO way this wasn’t a willful attempt to conceal expenditures, so they COULD be fined for that as well. If we assume the expenditure (cost of the mailer) might be somewhere around $10,000 then they can be fined TRIPLE that amount. I’d LOVE to see these dirtbags get slapped with a fine like that! However, it will still be too late. The damage will already have been done.

(c)        Civil Remedies Other Than Penalties. – The State Board, in lieu of or in addition to imposing a civil penalty under subsection (a) or (b) of this section, may take one or more of the following actions with respect to a violation for which a civil penalty could be imposed:

(1)        Issue an order requiring the violator to cease and desist from the violation found.

This wouldn’t matter because the damage is already done.

(2)        Issue an order to cease receiving contributions and making expenditures until a delinquent report has been filed and any civil penalty satisfied.
This wouldn’t matter because the damage is already done.

(3)        Issue an order requiring the violator to take any remedial action deemed appropriate by the Board.

This wouldn’t matter because the damage is already done.

(4)        Issue an order requiring the violator to file any report, statement, or other information as required by this Article or the rules adopted by the Board.
This wouldn’t matter because the damage is already done.

(5)        Publicly reprimand the violator for the violation.
This wouldn’t matter because the damage is already done.

END OF PENALTIES SECTION

So what do we know?

We know they’re operating a PAC illegally because the State of North Carolina told them so and warned them for almost an entire year about it. They just simply don’t care. We know they’ve made expenditures that are illegal that they KNEW were illegal at the time and that they did it knowing the penalty for the crime wouldn’t matter because they would have already achieved their purpose.

And some of you out there voted for these people…

I hope some of you are picking up your phone to call Phil, Justin, Joseph, and Greg Underwood and ask exactly WHY they’re illegally using county Republican’s money to facilitate an unethical smear campaign against an ENTIRE PANEL of candidates. And then each of you needs to call the NC State Board of Elections and tell them about it. You don’t need evidence. I’ve got 100% of it right here. You could literally make the entire civil case from the information I gathered in a couple hours and put into one article.
 

Now, Let’s talk about blatant lying.

I said before that I’d remained mostly silent with regards to Justin’s shiny little head spouting BS on Facebook because it wasn’t my race. Well, now he’s sticking his pudgy little fingers in MY race, so it’s time to set the record straight. Let’s start with the actual mailer itself.

I mean this is downright comical. It basically reads as something you’d see on National Opposite Day!  Justin, his daddy, and Joseph basically laid out all the candidates you SHOULD NOT vote for as the the ones you should!

What business Phil Burr and Justin Burr have injecting themselves in a local race I have no idea, but since they’ve made such a bold move, I think it’s worth examining the truth behind some of this.

Does Justin/Joseph Have Political Tourette’s?

I literally don’t know if Justin, Joseph and Phil just have a limited vocabulary or if they simply can’t find anything bad to say about people they don’t like, so they just throw out the words “liberal” and “democrat” like someone suffering with tourette’s syndrome.

I see it going something like this:

Justin: “I don’t know how to argue this..umm.. umm.. DEMOCRAT! DEMOCRAT! LIBERAL! BHWAAAAAA CHEEZ WHIZ!!”

Papa Burr: (preps a sippy-cup of warm milk and points baby burr towards a safe space to cry it out.)

Justin literally lies so easily that it impresses me. I can’t believe how well he can spout things with a straight face. I’m both awed and disgusted at the same time. I don’t know if I want to take a shower after hearing him talk or give him a slow clap. It truly amazes me how he can do it!

I’ll give you some examples from a race I do know: Wayne Sasser’s race. I’ve watched the back and forth on that one like many of you now and it kills me how much people fall for Justin’s line of political crap.

Wayne Is a Democrat – Wayne literally has an almost identical voting record to Justin’s Daddy! Literally identical!

Wayne changed to Republican to enter this race – Really? He was a democrat (Just like Justin’s ENTIRE FAMILY back in the early 1970s’) He changed his voter registration TWELVE years ago, like back when Justin still had hair.  I mean it’s an irrefutable FACT and he still would rather continue to lie to your face over and over again and yet some people out there are still going to vote for him… it’s a sad world.

Wayne got an F Rating from the NRA: Bullshit, Chrome Dome. Prove it. The little troll lies so easily to the public and they believe it because most people are too lazy to do the research themselves? Maybe that’s what works for him. I literally think his entire campaign is based on the fact that people will believe whatever he says without bothering to see if he’s telling the truth.

Since he can’t prove it, I’ll save him the hassle. Here is the screenshot from the NRA PVF page.

Wayne has a question mark beside his name because he missed a piece of mail and didn’t get it returned until a day late. It was supposed to be mailed on the 23rd, but he accidentally sent it in on the 24th. I’ve seen it. I’ve even got a copy of it, but that’s not my race to fight. Wayne is a grown man and can fight his battles how he chooses.

However, anyone that spends three minutes reading the NRA PVF website would know that the NRA just about always endorses ONE candidate per race. They’re NEVER going to endorse BOTH candidates. Justin got their endorsement. Fine. He got an A+ because he is a current legislator that has voted in favor to the NRA. That’s fine too. There’s nothing wrong with that. He could stop there.

However, what he won’t tell you is that there is NO WAY POSSIBLE ANY OTHER CANDIDATE could possibly get the endorsement simply because Justin already has a good NRA voting record. No one is disputing that. No one out there is claiming Justin is anti-2nd amendment. Just be glad of your endorsement and move on.

But Noooooooo… he’s got to go the extra mile and tarnish himself, the NRA, and his credibility by making up lies and then publishing them as fact. 

I’ll use a Justin line here…. “someone prove me wrong… ANYONE….” *crickets*

And now he wants to tackle Tommy Jordan vs Joseph Burleson?

This is the little section he did on me in the mailer. Yeah, I know it’s me and Joseph in the race, but we know damned well Joseph didn’t publish this. It’s WAY too brazen for his taste.

I don’t even know where to start. I can’t imagine for the life of me what the hell he was smoking when he wrote this stuff. I mean dang Justin, drugs are bad mmm’kay?

A little about me – I’ve been writing on the Internet in one form or another since the mid 1990s, most of which is all still online. I’ve literally published more pages than Justin has likely ever even read. There are over 10,000 pages on the blog, tens of thousands of Facebook posts over 12 years, thousands of posts across the variety of websites I’ve written on topics near and dear to me. I mention all that to say this – knowing how I stand on an issue is simple. If you Google “Justin Burr”  there are approximately 500-thousand entries across the world that mention him online. If you Google my name there are over 5 MILLION. I’m definitely NOT hard to find out information about – yet this moron seems to literally get EVERYTHING absolutely wrong. Not just some of it… literally EVERY SINGLE THING he said is blatantly incorrect! I’m used to reading him lie on Facebook, hearing him lie in his videos, but I’m not used to someone just making up crap about me on the fly.

So let’s start at the top of his list:

NOT a Fiscal Conservative

Dude! I’m the only one in the mailer that got screamed at in all CAPS. Nice!        *I’m going to take a moment to celebrate that status… ok.. I’m over it*

Since not all of us out there in Stanly are fans of reading the political dictionary, let’s examine fiscal conservative, shall we? Here is a definition of fiscal conservatism:

Fiscal conservatism is the economic philosophy of prudence in government spending and debt. Fiscal conservatives advocate the avoidance of deficit spending, the reduction of overall government spending and national debt, and ensuring balanced budgets. In other words, fiscal conservatives are against the government expanding beyond its means through debt, but will usually choose debt over tax increases.

Let’s break that down Barney-style.

• Fiscal conservatives want a reduction in government spending overall. Check mark for Tommy Jordan.
• Fiscal conservatives are for a balanced budget and not living beyond our means. Check mark for Tommy Jordan. I’ve literally been screaming that for a decade or more!

Michael Bloomberg was recently asked for a modern definition of fiscal conservatism. His response was…

“To me, fiscal conservatism means balancing budgets – not running deficits that the next generation can’t afford. It means improving the efficiency of delivering services by finding innovative ways to do more with less. It means cutting taxes when possible and prudent to do so, raising them overall only when necessary to balance the budget, and only in combination with spending cuts. It means when you run a surplus, you save it; you don’t squander it. And most importantly, being a fiscal conservative means preparing for the inevitable economic downturns – and by all indications, we’ve got one coming.”

Once again, if you spend the time to go through my Facebook, my blogs, my writings or simply just ASK ME A QUESTION (Something neither Justin nor Joseph have ever done once) you’d know I’ve espoused every single one of those philosophies multiple times.

So from what mysterious ether did Justin/Joseph make this one up?

Publicly states he OPPOSES efforts to make our county government more conservative and efficient.

Justin, Justin, Justin… tsk tsk tsk. The ONLY thing I can assume you’re basing that on is the argument I made against the Board of Health Consolidation. Now you and I both know the ACTUAL reasons you guys wanted that pushed through, but you can’t talk about that one in public without violating some rules that would get you in serious trouble. Since only ONE of us has any scruples, I’ll do you the favor of not airing that dirty laundry here either, and we’ll go on to the actual facts against that proposed legislation.

I wrote an entire article on that particular piece of legislation. You can find it here. I also wrote a follow-up article AFTER the fact and you can find that here. I encourage you readers out there to take five minutes to read it. It will be self explanatory if you do, however I’ll hit the highlights here.

Yes, I opposed the consolidation of the Board of Health and the Departement of Social Services wholeheartedly because the only reason for doing so (at least the only reason we can talk about without violating rules) is the one that gives the board of commissioners additional power they weren’t intended to have in our state’s constitution. You don’t seem to like facts, but I do. I really really really like facts.

So let’s jump ahead to the place where I stood in the council chambers and laid out the reasons it was a bad idea. Here’s the VIDEO to show you exactly what I said and why I said it. The video below starts right where I started my 3 minute speaking session so you can hear it from me the way it was said WHEN I said it the first time.

You want FACTS about that particular piece of legislation? Here are a few facts for you. As simply a voter in this county, I (me, personally) was the ONLY one that contacted the NC School of Government about these proposed changes. I was the only one (and I’m not even on the board) that did any research amongst the counties to see if it actually improved anything for anyone, anywhere. The answers were a resounding “NO.” In fact eighty six percent of the counties surveyed said it was a bad idea.

So again… I’m the one that is against making our government more efficient? No you twit. I’m the only one that DID make any effort to see if the actions you championed were actually good for MY county- because I have to live here, raise my kids here, and actually CARE about the county I live in and its future!

Supported by Local Democrat Party Leaders trying to interfere in the Republican Primary

So now we’re back to Justin and his tourette syndrome again. He just likes to hurl democrat at anyone he can to see if it will stick I guess.  I’m going to start carrying around a pocket full of pacifiers and boinking them off his dome every time he yells democrat at someone. Here’s a few facts for the shiny-headed little guy to consider:

• I couldn’t tell you the names of the democratic leaders in Stanly County if you paid me a million dollars to do it. I literally can’t do it. I have met a few people that I’ve later been told were democrats or were introduced to me as democrats by people at public functions I’ve attended. I remember some of their names. I met Mrs Beverly Johnson at the hearing about your residency, but didn’t know her before that. I’ve met the mayor and later learned he was a democrat. (God what a cardinal sin is must be in your tiny little world to be anything but 100% pure republican from the day you were conceived – even though your dad was a democrat for half his life…)
• If I’m such a democrat, and have such strong democratic supporters, how come your little camera cronies don’t have photos of me wheeling and dealing with democrats in a united front to destroy the great republic from within? I mean we ALL know you had your little spies at public events you weren’t invited to attend. Do you think no one notices Phil Burr being seen in public places with his camera phone out taking picture of anyone you dislike on the off chance you can later draw a blue circle around their head, post it on Facebook, and claim collusion with democrats? I mean the sheer amount of time you spend going through camera phone footage to look for possible ammunition that you can spin on your opponents is sickening. You and your dad both.. it’s SAD! Get a grip dude!
  What? You didn’t think I knew about your little camera spies you send to other people’s events to take pictures and videos? Here… you’re not the only one with a camera! Here’s the guy taking the video that you tried to use in an earlier Facebook post trying to discredit your opponent.
  I know I’m not a seasoned professional at going through footage and drawing little blue circles around people’s heads with arrows on them, mainly because I’ve got an actual job and have to work for a living, but did I do the Justin Burr School of Photography credit in the 15 seconds this took or what? Right?Yeah, that’s the guy you and Joseph and Phil (or whomever makes up your Avenger’s posse) asked to come to the event and record everything. I know it was him because I saw your video and he was sitting right behind ME when he filmed it. At least have the smarts to put your mole in the back of the room, you idiot.I bet you think I didn’t know about the other spy you sent either did you? I did. He was sitting ten feet from me that night too. We all did, but no one is going to be stupid enough to bring it up online because of the potential for spin. But yeah, I saw them both. The other day I got a call from someone who saw your dad outside of a restaurant shooting pictures through the window of your opponent, just trying to see if it was something you could use later. You really truly are a slimy little weasel with delusions of paparazzi!I mean I know you have your fundraisers, your meet-and-greets. I’m sure Joseph does too, but you don’t see ANYONE ELSE IN THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN running around to other people’s events snapping photos and sneaking in, do you? Literally, NO ONE but the Burr clan to my knowledge does this. I mean, I’d never even THINK to do this. I heard Burr was having a meet and greet at 73 and Main last month. Know what my first thought was? It was “Guess we’re eating at Off the Square tonight, honey.” It certainly never crossed my mind that “maybe I can find someone he doesn’t know, sneak them in as a spy, and then get footage I can try to use on Facebook later to discredit him!” What the hell, man? Get a grip! It’s freakishly bizarre that you’d even think to do that!

Supports the continued taking hundreds of thousands of your county sales tax revenue away from to school system in order to subsidize the town of Badin’s municipal government.

What the hell was your copy-editor doing when that statement was written? Didn’t I tell you already that drugs are bad? Holy Grammar Grenade, Batman! I’m pretty sure you were trying (and failing miserably) to say that I somehow support the continued taking of hundreds of thousands of the county’s sales tax revenue away from schools just so we can give it to Badin?

Again, let’s break that one down Barney style.

1. I haven’t been elected yet. So what’s with the “continued” taking? Does that mean you’ve been taking all along and just decided to have a come-to-Jesus moment and just give it all back but I stopped you? I mean… Joseph is the one in the chair now, and well Justin – so if people HAVE been taking money, its got to be you guys, right?
2. I assume you’re trying to somehow spin my words I said at my event where I talked about the failed sales-tax coup you morons tried to sneak through at the last second while hoping people were too preoccupied with your poor grammar to notice what was really going on? Is that the debacle you’re talking about? You mean when YOU decided that YOU knew better how to manage ten different town’s finances than they did? You mean when YOU and JOSEPH thought it was OK to strip these townships to the point of financial collapse, putting their leadership in the awkward position of having to raise property taxes to get back the money YOU and JOSEPH were going to steal from them?

Oh.. yeah.. I was totally against that.

In fact I’ve given speeches on it. I’ve talked at length about it. Hell, I wrote an entire article about it which I didn’t need to share, but since YOU so kindly brought it up, let’s do that!

Take yourselves a clickety-click on over to the Sales Tax article I wrote (click here) to see just how evil I am in my support of Stanly County.

But why in Dante’s nine levels did you pick Badin as the example to use? I mean you were only going to rob Badin of 77% of their finances. You were going to strip Misenheimer’s budget by 91%!!!! Their entire sales tax revenue would go from $148,137.69 to a whopping $13,000! And somehow I”m the A#^*ole??

Opposes Community Schools

What you talkin’ ’bout Willis?
I can’t think of a single time I’ve ever said anything about community schools. Does he mean STEM schools? Charter Schools? Hell, I did an 18 minute video on my thoughts on schools the other week, prefaced with the fact that I’m running for commissioner, not school board, and not even the School Board members have expressed disagreement with me. Neither has ANY SINGLE VOTER IN THIS ENTIRE COUNTY. NOT ONE! Fifteen hundred views and zero people argued with my comments. Just can’t say the sun is up without people assuming he’s lying about it and having to double-check for themselves and my opposition, Joseph, well, he doesn’t say much of anything, ever. So when the hell have I come out against community schools? The ONLY person I’ve spoken at length about schools with is Melvin Poole via a Facebook comments thread and even he and I agreed that I could reach out to him at any time to discuss it further, and we don’t even like each other! (Yet, somehow neither of us are spewing lies about the other. See how that works?)

Final Thoughts for Future Reference

I’ve got two core issues with that mailer that came out today that I want to be crystal clear about.

1) Don’t be a Coward!

If you dislike my politics, or think I’m not a good candidate, please have the testicular fortitude to put your own name on it and stand behind it! Don’t try to hide the Burr/Burleson dynamic duo behind a shady fly-by-night PAC fund that can’t keep it’s head above water and is apparently already being shut down by the state of North Carolina. Don’t depend on people being fooled into thinking this is some kind of civic-minded organization out there to protect the integrity of the ballot box. It’s not. It’s the Burr Family and friends breaking out the whipping post and making the mistake of trying to tie me to it because they’ve probably run polls and are running scared with the numbers they’re getting back, so they’re throwing everything they’ve got into lying to people, no matter who they lie about. It’s despicable and both of you should resign from public office, permanently!

I meant what I said in my previous comments about Burleson. For the most part, he’s run a clean campaign. I think part of that is because he’s naturally non-confrontational. Regardless of his reasons I at least owe him the respect to acknowledge that. I don’t like him politically, but I don’t hate him as a person either. That’s also why I know damned well this mailer wasn’t his idea. It was Papa Burr and Baby Burr through and through. I can’t believe some sort of ethics committee hasn’t already opened an investigation into some of the crap that comes out of that particular group of the republican party in Stanly County.

2) If opening your mouth is only going to hurt you, keep it closed!

So far, I’d left Justin alone. It’s no secret I’m not voting for him but I haven’t spoken out overtly aggressively either.  He’s not my opposition. If you hadn’t sent that mailer, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to spend this time to rebut. Did you notice I didn’t challenge him on his residency? In fact the only things I DID say were supportive of him in that issue. I didn’t challenge him on a SINGLE thing in all the mailers that attacked him for various reasons? I left him alone. And yet, the Stanly County Burr’s decide to throw out an attack mailer and commit blatant libel? Quite frankly it’s not worth the effort to sue you for libel. The entire Stanly County republican party has fallen into shambles under your leadership.  It’s got no office, no website anymore, no real Facebook page, no activity on Twitter in about seven years… it’s just not worth messing with you. There are bigger fish to fry in this world than you two. You’re tiny, evil men, desperate to remain in power, but I figured you’d get yours eventually.  But then you had to go and stick your noses into a race you’ve got no business in. You attacked me and a bunch of other really good people that I’d very much LIKE to take the time to defend, but they’d rather defend themselves than let someone else do it for them.

• I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to point out your shady PAC tactics and back them up with facts and show the readers how abjectly despicable you are.
• I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to remind people that I AM fiscally conservative until you chose to tackle me on that subject.
• I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to show how incredibly stupid your comments are with regards to community schools. You literally pulled that crap out of this air whole-cloth!
• I wouldn’t have had the chance to remind people how Burr and Burleson have meddled unfavorably in county politics long enough – and had the opportunity to remind them that you tried to blatantly rob them last April of over 1 million dollars. Do you know what a bunch of people are going to be thinking about on Tuesday? It’s NOT going to be whether Tommy Jordan is fiscally conservative. It’s whether they remember just how close you came to robbing this county and it’s people of their sales tax money.
• I wouldn’t have had the sheer delight in reminding people how underhanded your real reasons were for consolidating the Board of Health and the Department of Social Services – that it was just a play for power by a select few people who wanted the Board of Commissioners to have more power.
• And people that MIGHT not have supported me before today will have the chance to see how hard I’ll fight for them. If I’ll spend all night researching and ripping you apart for being a lying, deviant, little group of tyrants, I’ll certainly spend as much energy fighting for things for this county! Thanks for providing me an opportunity to show I can be tenacious while you’re at it.

At the end of the day…

There are three days left in the campaign. You’ll notice I’ve not sent out any mailers. It’s not because I don’t care. It’s because I personally despise them and the ones I’ve read are mostly so full of lies and expertly-spun half-truths that I don’t want to be associated with that. If I lose this election because I didn’t spend 15K on mailers, the world will continue to spin and I’ll go to work the next day just like I would if I won. I’m not slamming the polls with paid pollsters. I’m also not using robo-calls. I hate that crap when people do it to me so I’m not going to do it to the people I hope to represent. There are better ways to spend money than that.

I’m not perfect. I’m not even “great” by any standards any of you reading this would use to characterize greatness in an individual. I’m simply me. If you elect me, I’m going to make a mistake somewhere that will upset you. I guarantee it will happen. But I’m also going to explain why I did it, what drew me to do it, and work to correct it. And at the end of the day, I will have worked my hardest to serve my county as I possibly can in a way that I can live with and that I think will benefit us all. Am I a republican? Absolutely. Am I conservative? Absolutely. Am I a politician? Hell, no! I make no apologies for it!

Some of you might disagree with this approach. Too bad. I’m not pretending to be anything other than who I am every other day of the year. What you see is what you get.  I DID go out and buy a suit jacket, but that’s about the extent of my wardrobe adjustments I’m willing to make. I’m not running for President of the United States, or Senator, or Governor. I’m just trying to make a difference in my county for my family, your family, and our kids that will inherit all this when we’re older. I want to see Stanly County grow and prosper. I want to see our schools handled better and see our student’s grades improve. I want to see technological infrastructure brought to our county to improve the standard of living for everyone and to make us more attractive to outside residents and commercial interests. I want to see us work together to find a way to improve the opoid and drug abuse issues in our county. I realize that’s the Sheriff’s job, but we as a board can probably find ways to help as well.

Stanly County is already the place I want to grow old. My goal is to make it a place others want to do the same thing! I want to find ways to increase our retention of our youth, so they come here to work and start careers instead of getting the hell outta here as fast as they can when they graduate because there’s nothing here for them!

I might win this election. I might not win this election. But either way, I’ve decided I’m going to work to help Stanly County get better any way I’m able. If that means as a commissioner, that’s wonderful. If that means as a constituent that’s persistent as hell, then that’s OK too. If Stanly County chooses to elect me, it will be for their own reasons. If they choose to keep with the status quo, then that’s the will of the people too. I’m not one of those that’s going to see you next month and say “You voted for Burleson. I don’t want to have anything to do with you.” Emotions are high right now. Some people out there are fighting neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend thanks to the lies and misconceptions that have plagued this campaign. It’s despicable and the people involved should strive to do better!

I wish all the candidates luck, and to the ones I support I send my prayers as well.

Have a good day, y’all.