There is more good than evil in this world, and when good men and women fight for what is right, evil will disappear into the darkness where it belongs.
Looks like Trump and Bibi are about to attack Uncle Remus’s Tar Baby…
Best summation below of the Trump State of the Union night!
Folks, did you notice how all of the Republican seals at the SOTU clapped in unison at Trump’s lies?
Larry Johnson sums up everything below for those of you who simply don’t understand what is going on. Watch if you truly want the light bulb to illuminate.
Explanation of the impending War Trump and Bibi Netanyahu are creating to keep them both in power and your eyes off of the Epstein class with Larry Johnson…
NPR -The DOJ has withheld 50-pages of evidence that Trump attacked and raped a 13-year-old minor…
I think many are wondering why Trump’s family stands by him.
Look at them, they are in the Epstein Files, including Melania, who lied about her college education and her connections to Epstein. She should not be called the first lady if she is first at anything; she was Epstein’s First.
Look at what they have done to the White House and the Kennedy Center; anything associated with JFK, they have degraded. Why?
Is it because JFK started the mission of removing the Zionists’ hold on America? He died soon after. The CIA and Mossad were involved in his assassination.
Melania and Bozo sure protect their Zionist friends at all costs. This family reminds me of a “Penny Dreadful” episode…
Mossad was formed in 1949, one year after Israel illegally claimed the Palestinian land of GAZA through Rothschild’s British Empire.
And you wonder why the people of the Middle East hate the US, Britain, and Israel. How would the American people respond if Israel claimed their land and government?
Guess what, they already have, and it was on display at Trump’s State of the Union. Bought and paid for by his donors, Miriam Adelson and the Zionist regime of AIPAC.
The largest terrorists in the world are not Iran, China, or Russia; they are the US government and Israel.
We have our own issues right here in Madison County with Sheriff Buddy, who is running for reelection for Madison County Sheriff. He is accussed of torturing juvenile inmates in Madison County jail-No wonder he likes Trump so well…
Remember when I wrote the story about the rape of juveniles in the Madison County jail? I was attacked by a con man, a friend of Buddy Pee Wee Nesbitt, who likes to chase Antifa down the rabbit hole. As usual, Pee Wee again has “Mud on his face.”
This is just the start. Michelle Quintero was responsible for the juveniles in the jail during the time frame reported below.
She lost her life in the Helene flood. The County commissioners named a day in her honor because of her work—or more accurately, her work under commissioner Michael Garrison’s supervision.
Would you still honor that day if Madison County faced a federal lawsuit by any of these juveniles over the conditions she oversaw? Burning the jail the day after I shared the rape story doesn’t erase the evidence.
Monitors with Disability Rights NC were so alarmed by what they found at a juvenile detention center in Madison County in December 2024 that they immediately called state officials.
Youth were being tased, pepper-sprayed — sometimes for no apparent reason — and were put on “lockdown” in cells for days or months at a time, according to the Disability Rights report.
After a separate investigation by a local child welfare agency, the youth were removed from the Madison detention center the following month.
“When we left Madison, our thought was, ‘That was horrific,” Cari Carson, supervising attorney at Disability Rights, said in an interview Monday. “I am very glad that the young people have been removed from that facility.”
Conditions that led to the closure of the Madison detention center were part of a larger Disability Rights report on juvenile detention centers statewide.
Its report said five of the state’s 13 juvenile detention centers were using solitary confinement: Cabarrus, Cumberland and Dillon, which are state-operated; and Durham County Youth Home and the Guilford Juvenile Detention Center, which are operated by those counties according to state rules. Youth at those centers said they were locked in their cells from 20 to 24 hours a day.
Youth sent to detention are waiting for their juvenile court cases to be heard, or for sentencing in adult court, or placements in group homes or psychiatric residential treatment facilities.
Deputy Secretary for Juvenile Justice William Lassiter denied that centers use solitary confinement in a December letter to Disability Rights.
But the state has faced persistent questions about keeping youth locked in cells nearly all day.
A year before the state removed youth from the Madison County center, three teenagers held at Cabarrus filed a federal lawsuit claiming that they were allowed out of their cells only for a few minutes each day. They said they were told they had to stay locked in because of understaffing. That lawsuit is pending resolution.
The state said in its response to the lawsuit that it does not use solitary confinement.
But in a written court filing, Lassiter expanded on times when youth are confined to their rooms. With approval from the center director, youth can be placed in administrative room confinement for up to 24 hours if the center is understaffed, he wrote.
“Unfortunately, there are still instances when some facilities have to use Administrative Room Confinement to maintain appropriate ratios and otherwise safely and securely operate the facilities,” Lassiter said in the statement. “Staff aim to minimize these instances to the greatest extent possible.”
The Division of Juvenile Justice said in an email Monday that it is reviewing the Disability Rights reports. It said it could not respond to questions about administrative room confinement because of the pending lawsuit.
Carson said youth at some centers consistently reported that it was routine for them to be locked in their cells most of the day. She said she wasn’t sure how the state can claim it’s not using solitary confinement “when we heard the opposite time and time again.”
For example, youth in Cumberland County reported being locked in their cells 22 ½ hours or more, she said.
“It’s not called administrative room confinement,” she said. “That was just how the facility was operating.”
The level of abuse at Madison set it apart, but youth at other centers are living in dire conditions, Carson said. “Hearing from multiple kids, we know that there is solitary confinement happening.”
Where is Coy Phillips? What happened to him?
Let me tell you a story that has not been written about but needs to be told. It will give you perspective on the story above. Years ago, a young girl who attended Madison County Schools killed herself because of online bullying at school. Her family was devastated and had no idea the bullying was happening. The Madison County sheriff’s department came out immediately, which was good, but what was odd was that they impounded the young girl’s computer at once.
I know this because I spoke to the family afterwards; they were in shock and agreed to this. Even more interesting is that the bully was immediately protected and removed from the school system. Nothing happened to this individual.
The bully’s father worked for Buddy Harwood at the time. This is the kind of employees who work for Harwood and his bandits. This sounds like a cover-up. Should other schools be warned about this kid? I think so, but hey, Buddy has never been an advocate for children in this county.
Harwood is a pathetic example of law enforcement in this county and state.
But you keep voting for him. Every time I see a Harwood sign in someone’s yard, I think to myself, what kind of free ride did they get from Harwood? What family member didn’t get charged for a crime?
This man, unless he is removed, will continue to cost the county money and possibly lives because of his immorality and malfeasance.
Heck, their compensation for the Ingle’s Swells is on the French Broad EMC line.
Read below, I personally believe Ingles is the most overpriced and low-quality grocery store in our area. But if you want to eat their freezer-burnt meat and poor produce, then it is up to you- CH
Ingles’ sales increased 40 percent from 2019 to 2023 while net income – profit after taxes and expenses – rose 158 percent
Soaring food prices since the COVID-19 pandemic have fueled the affordability debate, but they’ve also led to a surge in sales and profits for grocery stores, including Black Mountain-based Ingles Markets.
Nationwide, grocery prices increased 29 percent from 2020 through 2025, prompting some politicians, including former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, to accuse grocery chains of price gouging. The industry contends it is merely passing on higher costs of food and food production.
Grocery chains saw enormous financial growth beginning in 2020 with the onset of the pandemic.
Ingles’ sales increased 40 percent from 2019 to 2023 while net income – profit after taxes and expenses – rose 158 percent, according to an Asheville Watchdog analysis of the company’s annual reports. The number of stores during that time remained the same at 198.
Ingles’ bottom line, the net income margin, more than doubled, from an average of 1.9 percent in the three years before the pandemic to 4.6 percent from 2020 to 2022. Put another way, the company kept about 5 cents of every dollar sold compared to 2 cents before the pandemic.
Sales declined each of the past two years due to Tropical Storm Helene. Its net margins narrowed, to 1.9 percent in 2024 and 1.6 percent in 2025, reports show.
Ingles spokesperson and Chief Financial Officer Pat Jackson did not respond to email requests for comment.
Ingles stands out in one profit measure
The pandemic drastically altered Americans’ eating habits and drove record business at grocery stores throughout the country.
“The total amount of dollars that the consumer spent on food shifted from restaurants to supermarkets as people were stuck at home,” said Justin McAuliffe, an analyst at GAMCO Investors Inc. of New York.
Sales soared, and so did prices. Disruptions in supply chains evolved into a period of the steepest increases in food prices since the 1970s, a result of factors including inflation, higher labor and energy costs, an outbreak of Avian flu and more recently, tariffs on imported foods.
Sales at Ingles stores, located in six Southeast states, increased 11 percent in the four years before the pandemic, from $3.8 billion to $4.2 billion. From 2020 to 2023, sales surged by 40 percent, from $4.6 billion to $5.9 billion.
The company, founded in Asheville in 1963, attributed the boost to a greater demand for groceries from more people eating at home, sales of meals and foods with a higher profit margin, inflation, and “effective promotions and cost competitiveness,” according to its annual reports.
Ingles’ gross profit margin, the share of sales after paying suppliers, averaged 24.1 percent in the three years before the pandemic and jumped to an average of 25.6 percent from 2020 through 2022.
The 1.5 percent increase was the second highest among five other publicly traded grocery chains examined by The Watchdog. The average gross margin for the Pennsylvania-based Weis Markets Inc. actually declined slightly in that time; Kroger, Albertsons and Village Super Market Inc., with stores in the Northeast, each had increases of less than one percent, according to annual reports.
Phoenix-based Sprouts Farmers Market had the largest increase, 3 percent. The specialty grocery chain’s average gross margin went from 33.6 percent in the three years before the pandemic to 36.6 percent from 2020 to 2022.
More recently, in 2023 and 2024, four of the chains – Weis, Ingles, Albertsons and Kroger – saw a decline in average gross margins from the three previous years. Ingles’ margin “has actually gotten thinner” than the pre-pandemic level, McAuliffe noted.
“A possible interpretation of this is that they are absorbing more of the cost increases rather than passing them on to the consumer,” he said.
Helene losses slow growth
Sales at Ingles peaked in 2023 and declined each of the last two years, a result, the company said, of Helene, which shuttered four stores and damaged its distribution center in Black Mountain. Power outages prevented credit card transactions at many stores for days.
Pay for Ingles’ executives also declined during this period, according to a company filing last week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Robert P. Ingle II, chairman of the board and son of the grocery chain founder, received nearly $8 million in 2023 and $7.4 million each of the past two years. His compensation included bonuses each year of more than $6 million.
Ingles paid Chief Executive Officer and President James W. Lanning $3.3 million in 2023 and $3.1 million in 2024 and 2025. He received bonuses of about $2 million each year.
All other Ingles employees, including part-time, full-time and temporary workers, earned a median salary of $23,748 in 2025, up from $22,801 in 2024, the company reported.
The gap between Lanning’s compensation and that of other Ingles employees, known in the SEC filings as the CEO pay ratio, decreased slightly last year to 132-to-1, from 137-to-1 in 2024, and 145-to-1 in 2023.
Other bigger grocery chains reported larger gaps in the pay ratios because their CEOs are paid more. The pay ratio at Kroger in 2024 was 457-to-1, and at Albertsons, 475-to-1.
Sprouts, the organic specialty chain, reported a ratio of 385-to-1. Weis, which operated the same number of stores as Ingles, had a ratio in 2024 of 451-to-1, but its CEO was also the chairman and president.
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Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Sally Kestin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. Email skestin@avlwatchdog.org.
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