CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MINUTES OF 6 SEPTEMBER 2011
Meeting was held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00 pm by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by WAYNE WILLIS
Invocation by EULA PARKIN
Discussion on the vicious attack by the union’s leader, (Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.), especially after Gifford’s shooting and Obama asking for the toning down of the terminology and comments we use…and then he (Obama) gets up to speak directly after Hoffa and doesn’t say a word on Hoffa’s attack on the TEA Party. Opinion was “It was disgraceful.” HOWARD GARNER said Obama’s policy was “Do as I say, not as I do!” BOB said this is right on top of the Black Caucus, with Maxine Waters telling us to go to H–l, (the black woman in the red hat) saying ‘all our problems are caused by the TEA Party‘, the Vice President calling us Terrorists, etc. The Black Caucus members showed up on every TV talk show, radio, newspaper, magazine, etc with their virulent comments,. BOB said if we stop and think about it “the Nazi’s used the Jews as a scapegoat. It is not us – it‘s them! And he sees a real similarity. It‘s not the liberals creating the problem, it‘s the TEA Party. He thinks we should just ignore that stuff. Don‘t even try to respond to it because you will just engage them in more of the same. He thinks the American people are smart enough to see through it. That if we make it an issue, it will just backfire on us. WAYNE said one of the things good about being called a terrorist is that it is recognition by the left that the TEA Party is a viable force that they have to deal with and instead of hurting us, it causes people to pay attention. If they stop and think they know all this garbage is lies since there is no evidence of anything remotely resembling the TEA Party being a terrorist…or a racist. TOM said he heard on TV a guy say ’you know the TEA Party is racist, because you hear them say racists remarks all the time and the moderator asked “when, where,?” And the guy said ’well you know, they do it all the time’. That was all he could say, could/would not give details or events. They can’t point their finger and quote remarks made; whereas we have many quotes heard by right and left – like Hoffa’s “SOB’s” remark. PEGGY GARNER asked if everyone remembers during a demonstration by the TEA Party when the black Senator said he was called the N word and spit on as he walked through the crowd in Washington. Bretbart offered a huge sum of money to anyone who could prove this happened…if it was recorded or videoed and no one came forward to collect the money with any evidence. Well, even though it could not be proven, the left is still using it. It was brought out again the other night, after all this time, they came out and said on TV that he had been spit on and called names by the TEA Party; so they continue to use something even they know is false.
BOB recognized a new face….Johnnie Polosky? (sorry cannot spell his last name). He said he had been here before. BOB said “Welcome back”. Johnnie apologized saying he realized we had ladies in attendance tonight and he had a tendency to use words that might be inappropriate, but he was p–s-d off now. He said we were talking about things that come up every day. The news media, ever since the TEA Party was formed, has put the group down…calling them racists, terrorists, etc. But look at us… we pay taxes, we work hard all our lives, we have families, and love our country. Maxine Waters, who is a racist, tells us to ‘go to H–l’; Joe Biden, Vice President of this great country, (but he doesn’t consider him His VP}, calls us barbarians; and then you have this fool, corrupted idiot, Hoffa Jr., (who ought to be in a hole with his daddy) is saying he is out to get us SOBs. If that doesn’t p–s you off, then what are you going to do, sit back and take it? But, being teed off is not a good thing. Action is a good thing. How do you fight; how do you go against it; we can have meetings; we can talk about it; but, he personally has come across at least 20 if not 25 people within ten years of his age, who have never voted and he is 63. He feels the best thing for us to do is play “like ACORN”. Let’s go out knocking on doors, and get these people that don’t vote out to the polls. If we can do it across the country, we can get 15 to 20 million people who usually don’t vote. And guess who they are going to vote for? I hate to say I’m racist, but rednecks like me, will not vote for that black man. Then we’ll get these stupid Democrats out of office and take back our country. These Republicans, who are Rhinos, need to be gotten rid of also. We need to get back to smaller government, less spending, free markets, and the Constitution.
LOU KUKULENSKI asked ’Why do you think they are doing all the name calling?’ JOHNNIE said it was because they were scared. We need to get organized and join together. LOU said they keep saying the TEA party is going away. What they don’t realized is that the TEA Party has added another 10,000 chapters and although they say we are going down in the polls, the reality is the TEA Party is just getting stronger. The reason the TEA Party does not totally unite is because, we have small groups in almost every community, looking into, not just the national issues, but also the issues in their local communities. We are ground rooted and prefer to remain connected to our roots. People have a tendency to speak up quicker in a small group than in a large congregation. And what we need is enthusiasm with our issues. Sure we went to Washington and showed our concern with what was going on, but we came back and got involved locally. JOHNNIE said this was kinda like what he was talking about. We need to start knocking on doors and; while not a good term; get in people’s face and ask ’do you vote?’ or ’are you going to vote?’ He would never tell anyone how to vote or who to vote for or who to vote against, but he guarantees there is a bunch of people out there who do not vote in this county that once you get them involved, they will start understanding what this is all about. He got 3 people registered in 2010 and took them to the polls. Someone said they also need to get informed. They would rather go out fishing, play golf, watch a ball game, while some even are having to work two jobs and don’t have time to get involved. So they do not even hear what is going on. BOB said the thing with ACORN was they had an advantage that we do not have. Someone said ‘yea, money’. BOB said really it was the allure of money. ACORN theory is, if you don’t get out and vote, you are going to lose your check. BOB said he knew some people who had never voted in their life, and they were in their 60s and even their 80s, and frankly he wouldn’t want them to vote, because he knew how they would vote. People who are too lazy to tune in and stay up with what is going on in the news and be informed, talk to other folks, get other opinions, and things like that; then they have no business voting. LOU said that he and that young lady over there in the corner (SUSAN RYNAS) get together every election and a whole bunch of us make phone calls to every voter in Carteret County. SUSAN said she had been here almost 8 years, so it has been at least that long. BOB said last election we had a TEA Party recommendation ballot that we ran in the newspaper and also handed out at the polls. He personally had sat at the Broad Creek Voting Place all day long, from the time the polls opened until they closed. Several of the people here tonight also worked the polls, and from his personal experience, over half of the people who showed up to vote, either asked for a copy of our recommendations, or had one they had cut out of the paper; so we had a big impact on the election and we plan to do the same thing at the next election. An attendee (didn’t get the name) said he had used one of the papers we passed out. He did not know the judges and our recommendations really helped.him decide how he should vote. BOB said don’t forget Judge Newby, who is running for Supreme Court Justice in this upcoming election. He is our type of candidate…very conservative. HOWARD said we need to make sure we get every precinct covered next time, also. We were not able during the last election to get every polling district manned. ERIC BROYLES said we need to be sure to get it on our web page that we are looking for volunteers. We need to talk to KEN LANG about that. BOB said we have a county election coming up soon on mayors and city councilmen. We have already had several speak to our group …. Jerry Jones, current mayor of Morehead City, David Horton, candidate for mayor of MC, and at the first meeting of the Western Carteret County TEA Party, Dave Fowler, candidate for mayor of Cape Carteret, and Richie Renna, candidate for town commissioner of Cape Carteret. Richard Hunt has been invited to attend one of our meetings to speak but doesn’t seem to be too interested in talking to us.
Discussion of the differences between the TEA Party meetings and the Republican Men’s meetings. BOB said the Onslow County Republican Party meetings included both men and women; whereas in Carteret the meetings are separate.
EULA asked how many here tonight were once Boy Scouts. Yesterday, she had a knock on her door and it was the Boy Scouts selling pop corn, $18.00 minimum. She was overwhelmed by the cost, but she did buy. LOU said wait until you taste it. It really is worth it. BOB said no wonder popcorn was so high; they use all the corn to make ethanol so they can put it into the gasoline to run our cars. HOWARD said that is why our groceries are going up so high because of using our corn for ethanol. We don’t stop and think of how many other uses we need corn for.
BOB said ERIC had gotten in touch with the League of Women Voters of Carteret County and they had let him know that they planned two Candidate Debate forums: (1} Morehead City, Friday, October 7, 2011, 6pm-9pm at Carteret Community College, Joselyn Hall and (2) Cape Carteret, Wednesday, October 23, 2011, 6pm-9pm at Cape Carteret Town Hall. He said he planned to attend both and hoped our members would attend also, wearing their red shirts and caps regalia. We need to let them know the TEA Party is out there watching and listening. He will be mentioning it again at the next couple of meetings and Peggy will also include the information in our minutes. ERIC said these dates give us very little time to decide who the TEA Party will recommend, especially the one on Oct 23, and get something printed up. BOB said ‘you remember last time I said we cannot use the word support, or vote for, but only use the word “recommend”; he thinks a better way of playing that whole word game is to say that “these candidates support the TEA Party principles”. Would someone please get in touch with the elections office, or a recent newspaper and get a list of all the candidates running in an opposed election. ERIC said he already had the information. Bob said let’s take a look at it at our next meeting and see if maybe we want to invite anyone else to come out and speak with us, so we can issue an invitation. ERIC said there were only a few races that are contested, 2 mayor races and 2 or 3 councilmen races (where they have more people running than councilmen positions). Any of the others are just guaranteed in. So the only ones we need to review are the few that are being contested. Maybe we could consider making up a questionnaire for them to fill out for us to decide which ones to recommend. PEGGY volunteered to type and print the handouts once we have made our decisions. HOWARD said we need to make sure that we are sure how we want to go before we make up and print the handouts, because last year after we had them printed, the membership changed their mind on one of the candidates and the handouts had to be redone. HOWARD said, incidentally, there is going to be competition in Newport for Town Board. He understands that a group (name requested not to be mentioned) who do not agree with some of the current conservative commissioners, have gone out and recruited their own slate of candidates who are more liberal. BOB asked who the conservative candidates were. HOWARD replied Ken Davis, David Heath and Chuck Shinn. Three can get elected. A member said he was glad this was brought up, because he didn’t know who was running and he lived in Newport. HOWARD said Frank Blunt is also running but while he contends to be Republican, he usually votes liberal with the Democrats. He is a rhino and while he is a good friend Howard cares more about how a person votes rather than whether or not he is a friend. HOWARD said Newport has the highest tax rate of any municipality in the county, except, maybe some of those on the beach that may have a sand tax which raises theirs. He said he did not live in town, but what happens in Newport affects him. BOB said if we want to change things at the top of the political ladder, we have to start at the bottom. We need to control spending locally, then carry up to state, and then to federal.
BOB said he read in the paper recently that the Phosphate Company was back in the news again trying to finagle some new deal at the port. ERIC gave us an update on the subject. He had attempted to get up with Jerry Jones, but was unable to make contact, but he did get up with David Horton. The deal with it is that they are trying to use this as a storage unit until they transport what they call solid pellets (or krills) to the Aurora plant, because he understands they are now going to build the smelting (or melting) plant there on the site of their plant there. So, the product comes in to the port, is stored temporarily, then barged on up to Aurora. Right now, they are saying it is safe. There is no expected health residue from this; however the group that was opposed last time has gotten them to agree to an environmental study. ERIC said he told David, they also need to do an economic and environmental impact study for the county. David told him that as far as he understands it, this new proposal is as safe as what they have been doing all along. The pellets will be going down a conveyor belt, exposed, but will be wetted down so there will be no dust. BOB asked ‘Aurora is digging the phosphate out the ground there. They process it somehow and get sulfur out of it?’ ERIC said no, they are importing sulfur to make their products. The stuff we are talking about will be loaded on barges and shipped up to the Aurora plant. ERIC said he thinks it is put on rail cars there and shipped out. ERIC said they make several products out of it. HOWARD said KEN should be able to explain it better to us at the next meeting. (He is at the Western Carteret Tea Party meeting tonight.) ERIC said the thing is they are all on top of it now and monitoring it very closely. They say that PCS is actually working with them on a very open basis, because what has happened here has probably cost them millions of dollars, and they don’t want to go through that again. HOWARD said if they had been open with us to start with it would not have happened. ERIC said that’s true, but they are trying now to act like good neighbors. BOB said so, now, we can all sleep easy. ERIC said no, not until the environmental studies come back. We have a lot of seniors in the Morehead area, and some of them have lung ailments, and if this thing does anything to bother them, then it will not be good for the community .
WAYNE explained why the Morehead Port would never become a large port and make a profit. Thirty or forty years ago, when discussion was ongoing about building the new bridge (hi-rise), it would have made sense to build it further upstream, and not right there at the port. If this bridge had not been built there and deeper water was available… these two things are what is going to keep this port from ever becoming profitable. It is too small and not deep enough. He went on to describe other ports and their depths available. It’s not the tourist trade and the condos being built, but the layout and shallow water that will stop our port from ever making a profit. Some said they really did not want a big port here like Charleston, SC. WAYNE said so we have to settle for that building at the port that has been expanded a couple of times. He is referring to the one in the middle. Texas Gulf Sulfur started that whole thing when they discovered this Aurora project and started digging a big hole in the ground. They were trying to determine how to get that product out and North Carolina, in their infinite wisdom, decided to come down here, build a big storage building with no contract with Texas Gulf Sulfur to use it and spent 11 million dollars of the tax payers money. Texas Gulf was the only possible customer they had that could use it. That is the kind of decisions the State Ports Authority has been making all these years. Now you have tourism built up, condos on the beach, and people not wanting anything stinking southwest of their abode. He is in favor of industry/capitalism, but that is a state funded disaster just like the Global Transpark in Kinston. HOWARD said when you go to Charleston SC and you go across the Mark Clark Expressway, you look and as far as you can see on each side of that bridge are big cranes for loading ships. Morehead can’t even compare to what you see there. (It is like little league and the majors) He doesn’t see anyway in the world NC thinks Morehead can compete with Charleston. ERIC said the port is only used for plants like Aurora. WAYNE said if we could get the sulfur plant to foot the bill, bravo, but not likely to happen, so Morehead Port continues to go in the hole, big time. HOWARD said you talk about that big building, well how about the other big building there. The state didn’t have the money to build it, so they got a private company, Duke Realty to built it. Then the state turned around and bought it. Now it appears to be some kind of shenanigans there. Now there are three buildings there. Looks like there ws some contention about what to build there to start with.
MIKE PRICE said he started off here, but is now out of Norfolk, but works from New York to Miami and there are three things that make money for a port, oil, coal and containers. He knows no one wants refinement here or coal here, but containers would make money. What we would have to do is push all those warehouses down. You need three cranes per ship, and that dock will hold 4 container type ships. It will need a deep draft. Norfolk is currently dredging 50 feet draft. Wilmington, he thinks has 42 feet but it is all rock and very expensive to maintain. and it is 17 miles up the river from the ocean. Container ships work on a tight schedule. A lot of times they are not even in there 8 to 12 hours, so Norfolk just built a container building that is almost fully automated/computerized. That port can make a profit with container business. Two things here at Morehead you would have to do are – dredge a deeper port; and our biggest problem there is right between the jetties and Fort Macon and Shackleford Banks.
Orland(?) Beach has a pipe/dredge that sits on the north side of their inlet and pumps that sand right underneath the channel and it goes on down the beach. Just pumps it from one side to the other cause the sand moves from Cape Lookout to Swansboro. The thing about Morehead is there is no bottom, so you could dredge as deep as you want to. Matter of fact this would be a good place for a settlement base. Because we are so close to the ocean, it would be quick in and out for container ships. At Norfolk, from the time the ship enters, it takes 2 to 3 hours for the ship to get in. Here it takes less than an hour. The second thing for this port to profit, would be you would have to build a bridge, and get the traffic so it would not have to come through the town. That bridge could even be a toll bridge and it would make money. They built a bridge in Charleston SC from the Isle of Palms (about 3 miles across the marshes) and they went out there and drove steel pilings and put I beams on them and run overhead cranes; hardly did anything to the marshes. They built that bridge in one year. Most bridge will take 5 or 6 years to build. What he is saying is this port could make money especially in containers, because they take short turnaround time. WAYNE asked who was going to pay for that dredging he was talking about? The Corps of Engineers has nothing in their budget. Their budget has been cut away to practically nothing. When Ronald Reagan got elected there was a big movement to dredge a harbor and a lot of money was spent for about ten years. Harbors were dredged that didn’t exist before 1980. Companies were started to do nothing but bid on the contract for dredging work. Those companies have all gone out of business now and all that is left is the pipe line dredges. One or two of these dredges are in dock now because the Corps of Engineers doesn’t have money enough to fix them. Just a handful of little companies are all that are left. The Corps of Engineers have all the experts in the world but they would make a mess of it wherever they go, so to get anything done right you have to get someone (a private company) in to do it. He said he had worked with them for years, so he knew what he was talking about. There is no money to do the dredging. There are too many organizations today, like CAMA, so there is no way you can get there from here today. Question was raised ’Where does the goods come from for those containers and where do they go to?’ They are redoing the Panama Canal that will handle big ships, and the Chinese are the ones doing the Panama Canal. The Chinese are the ones that we are trading with. Those containers come in and leave on trucks. Are the roads and infrastructure to the port able to support all that? MIKE said yes, we have a four lane highway all the way to 95, but we would have to put in bypasses, like Goldsboro and Havelock. They just built a two and a half mile bridge around little Washington and it just runs over the marshes and through the woods and it is not very high, so there is money to do stuff. Right now, if we don’t go broke as a nation, you will have to get someone in there that understands business. He said this port was for shipping items like tobacco, paper; but there is no longer any business for shipping that type of material. Everything can go on containers except bulk cargo like phosphate. The state has said when we get enough ships backed up then we’ll get more cranes. That is a ridiculous statement. That’s like WalMart saying ‘when all the people are standing in line to get into a WalMart, then we will build one out here’. ERIC asked about Cruise Ships. MIKE said there is not enough business to support that industry. Norfolk can’t even support one. The travel industry is in dire straits right now.
EULA asked if anyone was checking out Jhad Watch as she had asked us to do. She wanted to show us a picture of what was on there today. Someone had raised an Islamic flag above and to the right of an American flag in a school. Don’t know who did it yet, but there is all sorts of consequences to this. They don’t know whether it was an adult or a student. (A member commented that there would be nothing done about it as long as Obama was in office.) She also reported on several recent items she had read about, ie Palestine, MI 5 (British Intelligence), Released prisoners from Gitmo (number who returned to fight again), Ramadan (Muslims are not allowed to wear jewelry during month of August and Obama’s watch and wedding ring were missing in photographs – it was said his watch was in for repairs), a Saudi father shot his daughter who had just recently given birth to twins because her marriage was over and she could not remarry, however he could get out of premeditated murder if the family asked for him to be forgiven, the Lockerbie aircraft bomber who was released a few years back because he was dying; well he’s still alive and now some want him returned to finish his prison term, so he is dying again. Ghadaffi said if he were to die in Scotland then there would be blood spilled. Blair and Brown buckled and requested he be returned to Libya. Muslim Brotherhood is sponsoring Family Day at Six Flags in San Antonio Texas, in celebration
of Ramadan. As many as 3000 Muslims from around the state will converge on Sunday, September 11 (9-11) in celebration of Ramadan and spread the message that most Muslims are peaceful and mainstream.. But….Ramadan ended August 31, not September 11.
SUSAN RYNAS said Hoffa said the other night that the TEA Party members were not workers; only the members of the unions are workers. The TEA Party is made up of those who have lots of money, and don’t do any labor. Actually, those union leaders don’t really care about the workers, just about their power. BOB said this next election (2012), we have a lot of ground to cover to regain some turf/territory that has been lost. We do have to get out the vote. How do we get the vote out? We have to keep talking to people. JOHNNIE said he got 3 out to vote at the last election and he pledged to get at least 10 for the next election. He is hoping that those 3 that voted the last time, will help this time. He hears people complain about Obama, or Bush and he asks them if they vote and they usually say no. HOWARD said our waitress tonight is not even registered. He had been talking to her earlier tonight. He is hoping he and the TEA Party can get her turned around. BOB said anybody can go down to the Board of Elections and purchase a CD of every registered voter in Carteret County; by party (Republican, Democrat or Independent) and by voting district. It is all laid out on an XL Spread Sheet with the alphabetized name, address, phone number, of everyone in your district. LOU said he felt like we would see more voters out next year than we have ever seen in our lives. He thinks it will be a landslide. Several said they hoped he was right and was speaking in terms of the Republicans having the landslide. SUSAN said she was not sure how up to date the information was. BOB said it may be a little off (maybe 90 to 95% accurate) but still usable. They teach a class on working the polls. BOB said maybe we should work a deal with the college and get our members trained. LOU said he got his at the Republican headquarters. RUTH PARKER said you could go on line and register for the free class on the Constitution. It is an online course. Go to Rush@Hillsdalecollege.com. HOWARD said they put out a very outstanding and interesting paper called Imprimis.
ERIC said right before the hurricane, Obama issued the statement that they were going to start issuing permits to illegal immigrants. If they have not committed a crime (being here illegal, I guess, is not a crime), they will be allowed the right to work in this country. Let’s see if he talks about that Thursday night in his talk about his new jobs program. ERIC said he recommended that we all call our congressmen and senators and let them know how we feel. Obama has basically gone back and is trying to institute the Dream Act by executive order. What Congress has said we will not do, Obama is saying he is President and we will do what he wants. ERIC said he has talked to several of our congressmen and senators (ie Ron Paul, Rand Paul and some others). Obama also wrote an executive order the other day giving college tuition and health care to illegals. RUTH said remember that Wilson was condemned for saying ‘you lie’ when Obama said he would not do this? Well, Wilson was right. Obama did lie. ERIC said he was wondering if Issa had enough data now to call for impeachment. LOU said he sent a letter to Senator Burr and he wrote back that there was not enough to impeach Obama. LOU wrote him back and said everything he had done was either unlawful or unConstitutional, what do you mean there are not enough grounds for impeachment. And….guess what, LOU has not heard back from Burr since. RUTH said this Fast and Furious should fall right on Obama’s desk and that should be his ticket out. ERNIE said the reason Obama did that executive order on the Dream Act is because he is wanting votes. And the Fast and Furious…there is never going to be anything done on that. It will be swept under the carpet. The head men involved in that just got pay raises and jobs in Washington. Protection of gun rights is one of the first things ERNIE wants the TEA Party to take care of when we win. (Not if but when) We need to do away with the ATF.
STUART said he didn’t know if the TEA Party had a national platform, but one of the platforms should be that we adopt the same policy the unions have. That is; if you don’t pay dues (taxes), you don’t vote. ERIC said that was the way it was set up originally. Under the Constitution you had to be a property owner to vote. Land owner and tax payer. Then they did away with it. If we institute that you have to pay your taxes before you vote, guarantee it won’t be 43% that no longer pay taxes. BOB was concerned about the committee of 12 who will decide the future of American while the other 400 plus sit back and do nothing. Will be able only to vote up or down. This is ridiculous. If nothing is done by the deadline then it triggers the massive reductions in military, social security, etc. He believes this is what the Democrats have wanted all along so they can blame it on the Republicans.
LOU said the scary part is when Obama loses, the cities will burn.
ERIC wanted to know if anyone else had been to the School Board site to look at the results of the testing of our students. Two or three years ago all the schools met the AYB standards. This last year only five met the standards. We are seeing a decline in the quality of education. (C4 would say this is because of budget cuts). This decline came about somewhere around the time Novey came in. He would leave it at that.
Discussion on Democrat Convention in Charlotte and the bringing in of out of state union workers to work the convention rather that have our NC non-union employees do the job. HOWARD said something similar has happened right here in Carteret County since the hurricane. FEMA is bringing in workers from away from here to clean up on the beach and will not allow local businesses who have been doing the work to continue.
BOB called last call for anymore rants prior to closing the meeting. Several more various items were discussed before BOB closed the meeting.
Meeting adjourned at 7:45 pm
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary