{"id":1040,"date":"2026-06-09T15:41:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=1040"},"modified":"2026-06-09T15:41:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:41:25","slug":"a-wannabe-senator-flies-to-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=1040","title":{"rendered":"A wannabe senator flies to Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Roy Cooper masquerades as an aw-shucks country boy who understands the struggles of ordinary North Carolinians.\u00a0\u00a0Yet a midweek splurge to ritzy Las Vegas for the Carolina Hurricanes\u2019 Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final \u2014 alongside Democrat Raleigh mayor Janet Cowell \u2014 again shows that Cooper is no middle-class working guy pinching pennies like the rest of us.<\/p>

Read more The bright side of AI<\/a><\/p>\n

In pictures plastered on Instagram by Cowell, there stood Ole Roy, under the bright lights of the Vegas hockey arena, grinning like a possum from high in the stands, with the ice in the background and his arm wrapped around Cowell, who reciprocated an elitist smirk.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with a midweek jaunt to Vegas if you can afford it, so long as you\u2019re not hypocritically pretending to be like the rest of us.\u00a0\u00a0But it’s a bad look for a campaign feigning to give a damn about the cost of groceries at the Harris Teeter.\u00a0\u00a0Cooper\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m just like y\u2019all,\u201d routine is wearing thin.<\/p>\n

Time after time, Roy has proven himself to be detached from average North Carolinians.\u00a0\u00a0In the U.S. Senate race, he rails on the campaign trail about \u201ckitchen table issues\u201d \u2014 the cost of milk, bread, utilities, and everyday life for working families \u2014 as if he were one of us, some kind of working guy who really gives a flip about the cost of a jar of peanut butter.<\/p>\n

But the average North Carolinian simply cannot stop what he\u2019s doing at the drop of a hat and fly to Sin City to yuk it up in front of the cameras with the mayor of Raleigh.<\/p>\n

On June 3, Cooper\u2019s favorite newspaper, the left-wing Raleigh News & Observer, ran the numbers on such a trip.\u00a0\u00a0Airline tickets alone run $570\u2013$800.\u00a0\u00a0Adding the lowest-cost hotel and game ticket, one person could expect to spend at least $1,363.\u00a0\u00a0You can bet Roy didn\u2019t crash at the Motel 6 on the edge of town.\u00a0\u00a0On the high side?\u00a0\u00a0Two to three thousand bucks is more realistic.<\/p>\n

Most salt-of-the-earth folks cannot afford that \u2014 and not without advance planning.\u00a0\u00a0Kitchen-table North Carolinians have to work during the week.\u00a0\u00a0In Dolly Parton\u2019s immortal words, somebody\u2019s got to pay the bills \u201cworkin\u2019 nine to five.\u201d<\/p>\n

That raises the obvious question: Where does Roy get all his money?\u00a0\u00a0How can he live like a king and fly to Vegas at the drop of a hat, while average folks work every day to pay their mortgage and put their kids through school?<\/p>\n

Cooper lived off the public dole for nearly 40 years \u2014 from his first election to the N.C. House in the late 1980s through 16 years as attorney general and eight as governor.\u00a0\u00a0He never missed a government paycheck.<\/p>\n

During COVID, Roy decided which North Carolinians could keep working and which had to shut down.\u00a0\u00a0While he played God with people\u2019s livelihoods, his own government check kept coming.\u00a0\u00a0When he green-lit the release of thousands of criminals from prison to \u201cprotect\u201d inmates from COVID \u2014 policies that put repeat violent offenders like DeCarlos Brown on early-release eligibility lists tied to the roughly 3,500 releases \u2014 the paychecks kept rolling.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cPay to the Order of Roy Cooper,\u201d signed by the taxpayers of North Carolina.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just taxpayers footing the bill.\u00a0\u00a0Even more telling is Cooper\u2019s coziness with New York billionaires at lavish fundraising parties in the most liberal city in the country.\u00a0\u00a0In 2019, he held high-dollar events in Manhattan, including a re-election \u201ckickoff\u201d at the home of investment manager Nik Mittal.\u00a0\u00a0Tickets hit the max $5,400 contribution.\u00a0\u00a0Roy \u201ckicked off\u201d his campaign not in Raleigh, Charlotte, Rocky Mount, Greensboro, or anywhere in North Carolina \u2014 but in New York City.<\/p>

Read more California smells bad<\/a><\/p>\n

What does this say about his values?<\/p>\n

Cooper raised over $420,000 from New York donors, including contributions from billionaire George Soros, Alexander Soros, and fashion designer Ralph Lauren.\u00a0\u00a0A Charlotte television station, WBT, later sued for travel records related to those trips, raising questions about whether state resources were used and how costs were disclosed.<\/p>\n

Once he left office after four decades on the taxpayer dime \u2014 and after squeezing money from New York\u2019s millionaire class \u2014 Roy found another soft landing: a short-term teaching gig at Harvard.<\/p>\n

Not ECU.\u00a0\u00a0Not UNC.\u00a0\u00a0Not NC State.\u00a0\u00a0Not Appalachian State or Western Carolina \u2014 any of which would have welcomed a former North Carolina governor. Harvard.<\/p>\n

This is the conservative South, not the liberal Northeast.\u00a0\u00a0North Carolinians don\u2019t identify with Harvard, Soros, Boston, or New York City.<\/p>\n

Cooper has perfected the hypocritical art of presenting himself as a man of the people while hiding a lifetime on government paychecks, cozying up to New York billionaires, and taking lavish trips \u2014 all while imposing policies that hit working families and small businesses hardest.\u00a0\u00a0The contrast between his rhetoric and his record is glaring.<\/p>\n

Say what you want about his Republican opponent, Michael Whatley.\u00a0\u00a0One thing is certain: Whatley never sapped a 40-year salary off the government dole, and he never took money from George Soros.<\/p>\n

Tar Heel voters should take a hard look at that gap before deciding who truly understands \u2014 and will fight for \u2014 their kitchen-table realities.<\/p>\n

In reality, Roy Cooper is not from North Carolina \u2014 not in any way that matters.\u00a0\u00a0He should pursue a political career in New York or Boston, where his values better resonate.\u00a0\u00a0Soros would welcome him back with open arms.<\/p>\n

Don Brown is a former Navy Judge Advocate who served at the Pentagon.\u00a0\u00a0A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the international law program at the Naval War College, he is a nationally bestselling author and commentator on national security, military justice, and foreign policy.\u00a0\u00a0He previously served as a special assistant United States attorney and was a candidate for the United States Senate from North Carolina.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

Read more Bernie Sanders wants to wreck AI<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"<p><em>Image:<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Image: Roy Cooper.\u00a0\u00a0Credit: NCDOTcommunications via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roy Cooper masquerades as an aw-shucks country boy who understands the struggles of ordinary North Carolinians.\u00a0\u00a0Yet a midweek splurge to ritzy Las Vegas for the Carolina Hurricanes\u2019 Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final \u2014 alongside Democrat Raleigh mayor Janet Cowell \u2014 again shows that Cooper is no middle-class working guy pinching pennies like the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,2],"tags":[471],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-carolina","category-politics","tag-related-topics-north-carolina"],"yoast_head":"\nA wannabe senator flies to Vegas - Interstate Logistics Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=1040\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A wannabe senator flies to Vegas - 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