The Mark Harris Ballot Controversy Just Went Full Borgia

“I love my dad and I love my mom, OK? I certainly have no vendetta against them, no family scores to settle. I think that they made mistakes in this process,” said John Harris after his testimony. Mark Harris began silently crying as his son spoke, and John Harris’ voice trembled with emotion. In an interview with Spectrum News after a state investigation began into the November 2018 election results, Harris said no one had raised red flags. “You never heard one red flag?” anchor Tim Boyum asked. Harris said, “No, not in that meeting. In that meeting it was very clear...”

Boyum interjected: “But at all ever?” Harris replied: “No, except I would later learn that obviously there had been things in the past that had been looked into, but everything that had been looked into, everything had come out just perfectly fine.” On Wednesday, John Harris said he warned his father explicitly that he had come to believe Dowless was illegally collecting ballots. John Harris came to that conclusion after realizing how many absentee ballots were delivered in Bladen County in big batches. He spoke to his father on April 7, 2017, the day after Mark Harris first met with McCrae Dowless in person.

“I told him (Mark Harris) in the phone call I thought they were illegally collecting ballots,” John Harris said. He also emailed his parents to say the same thing, and send them the part of North Carolina law that makes collecting absentee ballots a felony.

"...a little judgmental and has a little taste of arrogance and some other things. And I'm very proud of him and and love him with all my heart."

Hagedorn, who is running for the state Supreme Court, wrote a blog beginning in 2005 in which he addressed readers as "fellow soldiers in the culture wars" while posting sometimes provocative comments on homosexuality and abortion. For example, Hagedorn twice wrote that a landmark gay rights ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law could lead to the legalization of bestiality, sex with animals, in America. "The idea that homosexual behavior is different than bestiality as a constitutional matter is unjustifiable," he wrote in October 2005.

Lawmakers could draw a distinction between same-sex relationships and bestiality as a matter of public policy, Hagedorn wrote. But he called the Supreme Court's decision overturning anti-sodomy laws a travesty that "should render laws prohibiting bestiality unconstitutional...There is no right in our Constitution to have sex with whoever or whatever you want in the privacy of your own home (or barn)," he wrote.

The Journal Sentinel's review of all of Hagedorn's blog posts from April 2005 to August 2006 turned up equally passionate posts about abortion rights. In one titled "Another reason why I hate Planned Parenthood," Hagedorn called it a "wicked organization" that was more devoted "to killing babies than to helping women." He said his litmus test for voting in an election was a candidate's position on abortion. Hagedorn said he had committed himself to praying and lobbying to stop abortion. He went on to say his convictions on this issue and others were given to him by God.

"The Lord has laid three fundamental passions on my heart: 1) Protecting the dignity and sanctity of human life, 2) Defending and preserving the institution of marriage, and 3) Promoting racial reconciliation in the church and culture," he wrote in November 2005. Hagedorn, an evangelical Christian, wrote that he favored having someone who believes like him on the Supreme Court. "All things being equal, someone who acknowledges the true God, seeks wisdom from Him, and cares about all people because they have been made in His image is better than someone who is not a Christian," he wrote in October 2005.

State Appeals Court Judge Brian Hagedorn in 2016 founded and now oversees Augustine Academy in Merton, which partners with Ambleside Schools International, a Christian, college-preparatory school that blends private and home-based education. The school's statement of faith says the school community believes that "Adam and Eve were made to complement each other in a one-flesh union that establishes the only normative pattern of sexual relations for men and women, such that marriage ultimately serves as a type of the union between Christ and his church."

In its code of personal conduct listed on the school teacher application, school officials say teachers may be fired and students may be disciplined or forced to withdraw from the school if they or their parents violate the code's policies. The rules include no "immoral sexual activity," defined as any activity that occurs outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

State Supreme Court candidate Brian Hagedorn lost his endorsement from the Wisconsin Realtors Association this week amid reports that he had founded a school that allows the expulsion of gay students. The group also wants Hagedorn to return an $18,000 donation it made to him less than a month ago. The Realtors association is a behind-the-scenes player in Wisconsin Supreme Court races that often backs conservatives like Hagedorn, an appeals judge. "As a result of recent disclosures regarding past statements and actions by Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brian Hagedorn, the Wisconsin Realtors Association has withdrawn its endorsement of his candidacy," said a statement this week from Michael Theo, the president and chief executive officers of the association.

The pro-ERA protester who was being held in the Richmond jail without bond after exposing herself in a protest is being released, according to her attorney. A magistrate set bond at $700 for Michelle Renay Sutherland, 45, of Brooklyn, N.Y., after she exposed her breast during a bit of performance art on Monday in which she and another activist mimicked the Virginia seal. But Judge Lawrence B. Cann III on Tuesday, during a video arraignment, ordered her held without bond.

The judge apologized in a court hearing on Thursday, Baugh said, saying he didn't have the back story and only had paperwork showing the charge of indecent exposure when he ordered Sutherland to be held without bond.

Following a four-month investigation, agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrested Dale Glen Massad, 68, at about 4:40 a.m. at 8221 Hayward Lane in Port Richey, according to a news release from FDLE. The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office said the sheriff’s SWAT team was helping FDLE serve a search warrant at the address when two shots were fired as the sheriff’s entry team tried to breach the door. Authorities did not return fire, the Sheriff’s Office said, and no one was hurt.

House Bill 1182, by Rep. Jim Olsen, R-Roland, would suspend the medical licenses of abortion providers and would likely be challenged in court. It advanced from committee on a vote of 6-4 with two Republicans joining the committee's two Democrats in opposition. Less controversial was HB 1396 by Rep. Tammy Townley, R-Ardmore. It tightens up existing law prohibiting abortion because of the sex of the fetus. Under the new language, the patient involved must attest to either knowing or not knowing the sex of the fetus.

If she does know, "the physician or other person who is performing the abortion shall not perform nor attempt to perform an abortion and shall inform the pregnant woman of the prohibition of abortion as a method of sex selection for children." Townley's bill apparently does not preclude the abortion altogether, however, because it leaves intact the next passage, which says that abortions for sex-linked genetic disorders are not forbidden.