CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF
17 JANUARY 2012

Meeting was held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order 6:00 pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by BOB CAVANAUGH
Invocation by NANCY BOCK

BOB announced that Catie McCabe, who was supposed to meet with us tonight, was unable to attend.  She caught some bug while in Atlanta and couldn’t make it tonight.

BOB introduced a new face in the crowd, CRAIG ELLYSON.  Craig said he had not been to one of our meetings before, but had attended a rally at the Newport Flea Mall a couple of years ago.  He is a life long Republican and the aims of the TEA Party certainly coincide with his and his wife’s.  He belongs to the Lion’s Club and having seen us meeting here when they had their meetings, decided to come out and see what we had going on prior to the Lion’s Club Meeting being called to order.  He is originally from Wisconsin and currently remains a resident of Wisconsin.  Scott Walker is his governor.  He has done what he said he would do, and the unions are trying to hop all over him.  He prays that God will protect Scott Walker.  A lot of Amens from the group.

BOB wanted to know if we all caught the debate last night.  Most said they caught part or most of it.  BOB said he thought Newt knocked it out of the ball park.  He hopes this does him well in the primary down there.

BOB announced that we have an unfortunate problem that we need to nip in the bud before it gets any worse.  It has been brought to management’s attention that some of the folks that come to the TEA Party meetings are helping themselves to the food bar and not paying for it.  The manager said that if we don’t stop this we will not be able to use the facilities any more.  He said HOWARD had taken the phone call and wanted to know if he wanted to add any more to that.  HOWARD said that was about it without going into the details.  BOB said no need to call names out or point fingers, you all know who you are, I know who you are and management knows who you are.  So, if you are going to the food bar, pay for it.  Luke said if you can not afford the chow, he would buy your supper.  BOB said, yeah, if you are hungry with no funds, we will chip in and buy you something to eat.

There is not enough people here tonight to have a 50-50 raffle.  We talked about it last week about having a raffle or a donation jar set up.  Since there is such a few (maybe 14 or 15), there is no sense in having a raffle.  NANCY brought us a donation bucket so we can use it tonight for donations in lieu of a raffle.

BOB said STEVE BEST has started a new production company.  As a start to the new entrepreneurship, if you have kids you want to throw a Christian oriented birthday party, give STEVE a call.  He asked STEVE what else he did – he didn’t do weddings, did he?  STEVE said no and BOB said ‘he’ll work his way up to that.”  BOB said we have two movies that STEVE has procured.  (He bought one and the other was free.)  One is the “Iranium” which is about an hour long.  STEVE reviewed it last night.  BOB said STEVE thought it was the best thing since ‘Gone with the Wind’ and STEVE said ‘better’.  BOB read the back of the cover ‘As long as the revolution of 1979 the Iranian regime has been following the principles installed by Itolla Komini, and Iran citizens of the west have been held hostage of the Iranian leadership who have spread the revolution beyond Iran’s borders.  Now the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism and brutal human rights stands on the threshold of acquiring nuclear weaponry.  Utilizing rare footage, archive news reports and interviews of leading experts, “Iranium” exposes actions and  intentions of Iran and Iran’s leaders, and America’s response over 31 years.  The film presents the dangers Iran now poses to America, the middle east and the rest of the free world, and the options currently being considered to combat those threats.  The other movie “The Agenda” (which STEVE had purchased for $18.00).  ‘Grinding America Down’.  BOB said we need to sometime decide when we are going to take a look at these movies, if we want to look at them at all.  Maybe watch them at STEVE’s theater ‘The Cave” (his garage that he has converted into a 45 seat movie theater.  It can be expanded, if need be.)  He has a popcorn machine, and a hotdog machine also.  BOB wanted to know what kind of hotdogs and STEVE informed him ’all beef’.  Discussion on various types of hotdogs.  LOU KUKULINSKI said, best kind, ’they’re free’!! and then went on to discuss the best hotdogs he had ever eaten.  BOB wanted to know if there was any interest in getting together and watching these films or would we prefer to check them out from STEVE to watch at home, assuming STEVE would allow us to do that.  Question was raised what night could we have the showing.  STEVE said any night we wanted.  BOB said he thought most folks had things to do on weekends; that maybe we might want to hold one of our Tuesday night meetings at STEVE’s to also watch the movie.  Can’t do it next week, because that’s the night we go to the Train Depot here in Morehead for the meeting with Frank Palombo who is running against Walter Jones in the Republican primary.  He will be speaking there and Steve Miller, the boat captain that comes to our meetings, rented the place and he asked us to show up in our red shirts, if possible.   HOWARD wanted to know if we were going to meet here first.  BOB said the event over there was from 7 to 9.  He wanted to do whatever was more convenient to the folks here.  If you prefer to come here and eat prior (since there would only be minor snacks, not heavy hors ’d oeuvres, just chips, pretzels, and such).  He had no problem coming here and holding a short meeting and then everybody leaving here and going over there.  SCOTT wanted to know if we could put a sign up in case some did not get the message….something like ‘TEA Party people are meeting at the Train Depot, Morehead City, at 7:00pm‘.   BOB said he planned to come here next week to eat prior to going to the Depot, so he would be here to inform anyone not knowing about the meeting at the Depot.  Several said they planned to come to the Golden Corral for supper anyway.  If you prefer to skip meeting here, then just show up at the Depot about 7:00.  Discussion on where the Depot is located – Morehead not Beaufort – downtown with a small park next to it.  It will be inside.  STEVE said there were not many seats in there.

BOB said he would like to make a decision on when we planned to watch the movies at STEVE’s.  He would like to talk to KEN LANG about when he could get his group together to attend also.  He planned to leave our meeting tonight and go to Emerald Isle and talk to them tonight about when we could all get together as a TEA Party thing and try to maximize attendance.  KEN normally has about 17 to 25 folks show up down there.  They just started up and the word is slowly filtering out.  It is kind of like us.  We see a new face or two every week.

The web-a-nar call for TEA Party committee coordinators was last night.  Topic of conversation was this 1.2 trillion increase in the spending authorization that Obama wants Congress to approve and the majority of the coordinators who were in on the call (he does not have any idea how many attend these conference calls, but there are 3500 TEA Party Patriot groups around the country so it is probably several hundred.  Any way, over 90% of the coordinators want Congress to hold the line with no increase on the national debt limit.  It sounds good, but he just doesn’t think that is workable.  They can’t cut enough spending in time to effect the obligations between now and the next time they pass a budget which, by the way, he thinks Thursday is 1000 days since the Senate has passed a budget.  They asked us to bombard our Senators with emails and phone calls; basically shame on you for not passing a budget in 1000 days, which he doesn’t think will have any effect, since Reid doesn’t care not one iota.  LOU asked if that was in addition to the Impeach Obama emails.  BOB said that was a subject of conversation last night, but he couldn’t remember the name of the fellow that was there, but he was emphasizing that the appointments just made while Congress was not in recess was totally, absolutely unconstitutional.  The Senate needs to stand up and do something about this, otherwise it really opens the door where Obama can appoint Supreme Court Justices on a weekend.  LOU said ’nationalizing the car companies was unconstitutional also…everything Obama did was unconstitutional.  BOB said it is specifically written in the Constitution about the appointments.  The President can make appointments when Congress is in recess but Congress determines when they are in recess.  They were not in recess…matter of fact the Democrats used this effectively against George Bush for his last two years once the Democrats took over Congress they kept the Senate in permanent session so Bush couldn’t make any recess appointments.  And Bush honored the rule of Congress and the Constitution and did not make any recess appointments.  And Obama has chosen to ignore that and the Republicans are trying to do the same thing to block Obama appointments during recess.  They don’t want to load up the court with a bunch of liberal judges and stuff, the smaller appellant courts that is.  RUTH PARKER said he still appointed someone the Congress had already voted against and turned him down.  BOB said the President still has the prerogative to name him again.  He can submit the same person over and over again.  LOU said he still didn’t think it was legal for the government to take over a private enterprise and give all the money to the unions.  BOB said the TEA Party had made a big issue of that but none of the politicians would grab that banner and run with it other than Michelle Bachman.  HOWARD said as long as Reid heads up the Senate they are not going to challenge him.  BOB said he agreed, but unfortunately we can not do a whole lot (us, our TEA Party) this coming election, because neither of our Senators are up for re-election.  Kay Hagan is not due until 2014 and then Burr is 2016.  So we are kind of out of the senatorial race.  All we can  look at is the President and Congress this coming up election, plus all the state slots.  LOU asked, what did we need, (five ?) to take over the Senate.  BOB said yes, we get five and they lose five.  LOU said 23 Democrats up for reelection.  We should be able to do that.  But if the presidency can’t turn the base out, and Romney is unable to motivate, then the voters are just not going to show.  LOU said, ‘contrary to belief, regardless who is nominated, we are going to win by a landslide.  People are disgusted with Obama.  BOB said he hoped he was right, that he would vote for Howdy Doody, if he was the only one on the ballot against Obama.

SCOTT CARPENTER wanted to know if they discussed the debate in Myrtle Beach last night.  BOB said, no, believe it or not, the TEA Party Patriots National coordinators do not take political sides and they encourage us not to also.  They leave it strickly up to the local TEA Parties as to how involved they want to get in the elections and if they want to throw their support behind candidates.  We are not organized as a non-profit; however if we get into advocating the people vote for a particular candidate then we fall under the campaign finance laws and we have to report all our income and all that stuff and we have to make quarterly state reports.  The way we get around that is we use the law.  The law says that you are supporting a candidate then you use words like vote for, or support, or endorse.  LOU asked then how could Valerie Jarrett get up in the pulpit in Atlanta and blame the Republicans; that that is why Obama can’t get anything done.   BOB said Atlanta is so thoroughly Democrat that you say anything.  FRED DECKER said we can say we recommend.  BOB said that is what we did in the last election in 2010, we had a voter recommendation list stating we recommend these certain people.  He thinks an even better way of wording it this time is ‘the following candidates support the TEA Party’s principles’.  That way they are supporting us, we are not supporting them type of deal.  That is a way to get around the campaign finance laws.  You have to be really careful what we write in any of our advertising and stuff like that.  He is sure Ken Humphries is aware of campaign finance laws and if he sees an opening he will dime us out just to cause hate and discontent.

DAVID R. BEARD and his son (a student at Croatan) arrived late.  BOB welcomed them to the meeting.

HOWARD said that we got something interesting today off the internet about Judge Newby, Supreme Court Justice.  It was covering basically a talk he made to a civic club in Raleigh.  He said it was hard to be a farmer and a gentleman.  Seems that he bought a farm near the Wake County line, and moved out there and raised animals, a big garden, and raised his kids to teach them what work is.  Of course now, as they have gotten a little older and gotten involved in so many things, they were running back and forth so they have left the farm and moved to town now.  He is a judge that we like.  BOB said he believed he is the only member of the supreme court that is up for election this time.  We certainly want to keep Judge Newby on the court.  What do we have…a 4 to 3 majority right now.  FRED said he did not think anyone had come out against him yet.  BOB said the judge election was in the primary he thought…not in November by in May.  HOWARD asked if anyone knew anything about this Kirby Smith, whose signs have just started popping up in our county.  Does anyone know what judge seat he is running for?  He had seen the signs over in Craven County a couple of weeks ago, and last week end there is some now up between Havelock and Newport.  FRED asked if he is the one that came to the reverse raffle?  No one was sure who he is.  FRED said he thinks he is a lawyer from Havelock.  BOB said PEGGY is in charge of remembering and wanted to know if she knew anything about him.   PEGGY said his name did not ring a bell as someone who had spoken at any of our meetings.  HOWARD said the other night on the way to New Bern, he had tried to get PEGGY to get out the car, after he had pulled over near one of the signs, and jump the ditch and read what was on the sign, but she had refused.  PEGGY said you all may think that is a joke, but he really did.  HOWARD said we need to find out more about him.  BOB said, ‘let’s track him down.  Is the office he is running for just in Craven County or what?’  Someone said they thought it was Carteret, Craven and Pamlico District Court Judge.  BOB said let’s get him down here and listen to what he has to say.  He asked FRED if he could track him down, tell him we meet on Tuesdays, (1st and 3rd Tuesdays is when the Emerald Isle group meets) and we would like to have him come and speak to us.  HOWARD said there was one of those fish doctors over at Pivers Island named Kirby Smith, but he did not think it was him.  The group told BOB we need a ‘meet and greet’ with Kirby Smith.  FRED said he would see what he could do.

HOWARD reminded the group that four of us have pre-registered for the Civitas Workshop to be held in Raleigh this weekend (Saturday).  Weather permitting.  They have had so many to register, they have had to change the place of the meeting from their headquarters to a hotel a couple of blocks away.

BOB wanted to know if anyone planned to go to Raleigh tomorrow for the coastal insurance session.  He planned on going to it.  It is going to be at the legislative building.  It starts at 1:00.  They are going to hold hearings on C20 (the twenty coastal counties).  They are trying to get Raleigh to ease up on the insurance rates that they are sticking the coast with.  We are paying like five times the amount of wind and hail insurance that those in Raleigh and Charlotte, Hickory; all the places that got slammed with Hugo and some of the other storms and we have never had a Class 5 here and we have only had one Class 4 in all the history of hurricane information keeping.

FRED said there are five or six people running for insurance commissioner.  One is from eastern North Carolina.  (can’t remember his name).  BOB said it would be nice if we had someone from the coast.  We are having people not from this area making decisions on what we pay for insurance.  BOB said same thing on the fishing industry.  Not the same people but the same area making the decisions.  FRED said we do not have the population, and BOB said that is why the third district has grown landwise because (he didn’t know whether we have lost people but the population has grown so much more on the interior counties and we have had to add three or four more counties – went from 17 counties in the third district to 22 counties.)  We run all the way from Virginia down to Wilmington and inland as far as Goldsboro.  We certainly do not have to votes to protect ourselves.

LOU announced that tomorrow Sam Sanford will he packaging boxes over behind the plaza to send over seas.  Starts at 9:00, guys will get there at 8:30 to set it up.  Come on down and help.

BOB asked HOWARD to tell us something about the Civitas seminar coming up this Saturday.  HOWARD said it was supposedly on training how to run a campaign, organizing, financing, etc.  It covers about 4 or 5 subjects.  Starts at 9:30 (he thinks) and runs until 4:00.  BOB wanted to know if he planned on running for something.  HOWARD said nope, we want to get educated to help some others that we like where they stand.  His running days are over, due to age and physical condition, but hopefully we can help someone else.  HOWARD said he could never win any election, he is too outspoken and he says what he thinks.  That does not help you get elected.

BOB announced that SCOTT CARPENTER is now precinct chairman for the Wildwood precinct.  Wanted to know if he has decided to run for school board (was actually thinking of county commissioner).  He said still in discussion.

BOB then called on DAVID BEARD who arrived late with his son.  Wanted to know if he had gone on the last bus trip with them to Washington.  He said no, where BOB remembers him from is a year or so ago he came to talk to us about REID coming to talk over at the community center.   He was the president of the foundation of economic education which is a free market group and so he had come there to speak.  DAVID gave a brief introduction of he and his family.  They have been living here about five years.  They are from Hertford County.  (Murfreesboro)  He had just been retiring up there after about 25 years as judge and 2 to 2 ½  years after that.  Then they moved down here to and home schooled his son for a couple of years.  He was in a Christian School for the other years and came down here and started in public school.  He has been to so many things that you all may be familiar with like Young Americas Foundation, (the group that brought out Ronald Reagan’s ranch).  He has been to seminar camps at different places (Hillsdale – he went to a science camp there recently that you hear about on Rush a lot) – Foundation for Economic Education which is a really good group – he has been to one of their events this past summer).  He wanted to bring his son here, especially tonight.  They both watched the debate last night.  In fact he watched it twice to be sure he had it exactly right.  They wanted to come by here and say hello.  They want to go to the Depot next week to hear Frank Palombo.  BOB asked where they live now.  DAVID said they live in Pine Knoll Shores.  They bought a place over in Beacon’s Reach.  They were coming down here once in a while and DAVID Jr. got interested in basketball and stuff like that, and got to know some of the local boys, so they decided to move here.  He plays on the Croatan basketball team.  HOWARD wanted to know if DAVID Jr. would tell us a little bit about Hillsdale College.  He reads Impris, a magazine published by them, and is interested.  He said he understood from DAVID Sr, that Jr. had attended a session there.  Sr. said he had heard a lot about it from the Rush Limbaugh show and you may not know but it is not federally funded.  They will not accept any federal funds for student loans or anything.  HOWARD said he thought Sean Hannity might be on the board.  HOWARD said he would be interested in Jr. telling us about the session he attended there.  DAVID Jr. said it was not a political session, it was more of a math seminar…ran about a week.  Got the opportunity to go around the campus, meet some new people, get in touch with the teachers, and kind of get a feel for the area there.  After that week he learned a lot, not only about math, but also about the politics.  It is really a conservative school.  And like was said, they do not accept federal money, and really you don’t see that today obviously in most places.  They put on seminars all around the country.   HOWARD said that Impris Newsletter has some very good articles in it.  SCOTT wanted to know where the location of this institution is.  Jr. said it was about two hours north of Detroit.  Someone said they thought it was south/southwest.  Jr. said he was picked up at the airport and was not sure in which direction they went.  PEGGY asked Jr. how old he was.  He said he was 17 but would be 18 in time to vote.  She said she had a great granddaughter who was about the same age and she was supposed to be here tonight to speak to the group, but she had been in Atlanta over the weekend and came back with an Atlanta Crud, throwing up so decided she didn’t need to be around this older group and pass it on to us.

BOB said if he, Sr,  knew anything about the law, while we are up here talking about legislative stuff, then jump right in.  He said the only thing he knew was criminal law.  Anything else, no.  SCOTT wanted to know if the Beard’s had any feel about the debate last night.  BOB said we will get to that in a second.  One other thing he wanted to remind everybody about HARRY THOMPSON briefing us last week on the John Locke presentation.  It is set for the 17th of March at the community college and it is going to be on a Saturday, four or five hour session on the Federalist Papers and the original intent.  He is not sure of the time.  We’ll have to find out later from HARRY.  STEVE BEST wanted to know if there was a fee for that.  BOB said not exactly a fee, but they would appreciate if everyone attending would donate $5.00.  It will be in the same place as the first session on the Constitution that this group put on for us and also same place as the Windmill lecture held recently put on by the Civitas.

BOB asked SCOTT if he wanted to talk about the debate last night and SCOTT said he was hoping the young man would give us his views.   DAVID Jr. said he thought Gingrich did a fabulous job.  He outdid everyone last night.  He thought when Juan Williams asked him the question about the work ethic of poor minorities, he thought Newt gave a great answer.  That was the hightlight of the whole debate the thought.  He also thought too much time was spent on the super pacs.  He was not very interested in the ads, he was more interested in the issue side.  He thought the foreign policy was interesting but he didn’t think Ron Paul did a very good job last night.  Unfortunately.  Overall he thought Gingrich did best.  SCOTT said, so if you were of the voting age who would you be inclined to vote for.  Jr. said he thought he would pay the highest admission to see Gingrich and Obama debate.  SCOTT and several others agreed on that.  HOWARD said if Gingrich could have an equal performance against Obama like he had last night he could bury him.

BOB said Rick Santorum said he is the real conservative.  Anybody buying that?  A lot of religious leaders in Texas apparently thought so.  LOU said Santorum did vote to allow convicted felons vote.  PEGGY said coming down tonight she was listening to the radio and she was surprised to hear ads from Michelle Bachman appearing to endorse Gingrich.  She had some really good ads talking about what a great person she thought he was.  That sounded good to PEGGY, because there are a lot of people who like Michelle Bachman.  BOB said he was waiting to see who Sarah Palin was going to throw her support behind.  HOWARD said Todd, her husband, had already announced that he is for Gingrich.  BOB said he doesn’t carry quite the clout that she does.  PEGGY said the only problem is Sarah can hurt or help, depending on who is listening.  HOWARD said he did not think he would come out in opposition of her.  BOB said he didn’t know, husbands and wives don’t always see eye to eye.  PEGGY was shocked and exclaimed “They don’t!!!”  HOWARD said really we fight it out, make a decision, prior to voting.  We are not going to cancel each others vote.  We decided at a young age that it was foolish for one to vote one way and the other another and kill one another’s vote.  BOB said he was tired of after every election his daughter telling him she had cancelled his vote out.  He sent her to UNC as a Reagan Republican and she came out a screaming liberal.  They have her convinced that Castro is the best thing that ever happened to Cuba.  GRACE and LOU both said he needed to send her down there to live for a while.  PEGGY wanted to know if she still wrote home for money and BOB said no, she got married and he cut her off.  If she needed gas money, see her husband.  HOWARD said we have a grandson that went to the University of South Carolina that they did the same thing to.  He thinks there is nothing like Obama now.

BOB asked DAVID Jr. how old he was and was told he was 17 but would be 18 in time to vote this year.  BOB wanted to know if he was naturally interested in politics and he replied, yes sir.  BOB said ’you are not just doing this to make the old man happy?’ He said he did try to make his dad happy, but in this case he had always been interested in politics.  BOB said he noticed in his comments earlier that he seemed to throw a couple of coins towards Ron Paul.  Are you a Libertarian, more than Republican.  What do you like about Ron Paul?  He loves his free market policies.  He really thinks that Ron Paul over all the other candidates could do the most in cutting government spending and getting rid of the debt.  He does not believe the other candidates, although they say they would, would effectively cut off the spending.  LOU asked him what he thought of Ron Paul’s foreign policy.  Jr. said he had some problems with that; however, Paul did say that military spending is not the same as defense spending.  We should cut out our military spending but keep our defense spending.  He thinks the question they asked him was since so many people there were military from South Carolina how would Ron Paul keep their job if they cut out the spending, so he said there was a difference.  BOB said he thought Ron Paul had a good response to all that.  HOWARD said Paul wants to get rid of all military bases throughout the world.  Jr. said Paul doesn’t believe in supplying the world with troops when they are in trouble.  HOWARD said we can no longer afford it.  BOB said he hadn’t really articulated/sold his foreign policies on international affairs views very effectively.  He comes off sounding like a crackpot.  Not sure if he has enough of the command of the English language to use the words that he intends.  Jr. said he hopes he (Paul) gets his fair share on the news channels, but he encourages anyone that wants to hear Paul talk to go on his web site or UTube.  BOB said they have videos going back decades.  BOB thinks Paul’s son is going to pick up his mantle and eventually run for president himself.  HOWARD said, previously the Fox reporters, most of them favored Romney, but today it appears that some of them are switching over and supporting Newt.  BOB said he thought Rush Limbaugh has always been a Newt supporter.  They haven’t come right out and said it but just the way the conversation runs about the candidates and their views, it seem like that’s who they are rooting for.  HOWARD said ’actions speak louder than words’.  Someone said they had gotten an email that said Obama’s people (Axlerod for one) are hoping to have Romney as the Republican candidate because they already have stuff lined up to make him out to be another Gordon Geikko and he will have to defend all that stuff from now to kingdom come.  They can then make the whole election about Romney.  They are telling everyone they don’t want Romney, because they are worried about him.  When they start that, you can be sure that is the one they really want.  BOB said they do want to have the whole election about Romney’s wall street doings.  With the media behind them, they can just keep that thing on the front burner and keep Romney defending his record instead of pushing his positions.  They were talking about the two companies and not having enough money for both of them so they merged, so the unions could come over here and work with this company.  He should have just finished it  with sometimes you have to go out of business or close down and consolidate to stay in business if you can.  That happens in real life.  He needed to say that and not apologize.
The other candidates were pushing against Romney the same way Obama will do.  Sometimes you have to lose some companies to make others bigger.  You don’t wait until you use all your money before you close them down.  Sometimes you have to cut your loses early.  BOB said he is glad that the other candidates are coming at Romney from the left because it gives him a chance to really fine tune his responses because the Democrats are not going to come at him from the right.  He needs this type of exposure if he winds up with the nomination.  But he is so praying for Newt Gingrich but then you get into the whole electability thing – well Romney’s more electable than Gingrich.  It is unfortunate that we live in a very conservative cocoon here in eastern NC.  He has no idea what the rest of middle America feels like out there.  HOWARD said speaking of Axlerod, he is the one that hatched up that deal to drive Cain out.  He has used the sexual harassment deal before for Obama in a Democrat primary and in a general election charging the opponent with sexual harassment (even where there is not one, but forces the candidate to defend his reputation rather than concentrate on the campaign issues.  He is an expert on doing such underhanded shenanigans.  PEGGY said South Carolina had a steel mill in Georgetown that Romney’s group put out of business, so a lot of South Carolinians were laid off and are still unhappy about his intrusion.  BOB thought Romney handled that well, because although they were trying to rescue that company, China was dumping steel on the market and taking an unfair advantage which Romney went on to say he wanted to correct the imbalance.  Six steel mills went under because China was dumping.  He went to buy bearings for his commercial lawn mower.  They were like 40 something dollars a piece.  He told the guy, my gosh these were like $18.00 the last time I bought them.  Kind of ripping us off.  The guy said blame it on the Chinese and BOB asked what the Chinese had to do with it.  The guy said the Chinese have been dumping steel on the market, our steel plants have been closing and they are buying the plants, dismantling them and shipping them back to China and they are trying to corner the steel market.  He feels Romney handled the steel mill thing effectively.  DAVID said he thought he should have highlighted the union and that the company’s problems were also caused by union demands.  BOB said that was a paper company he was talking about there.  FRED said Hostess Cupcakes have filed for bankruptcy again and it is because of the union and their excess demands.  LOU said, Lord knows, if you can’t sell a Twinkie we are in real trouble.   GRACE wanted to know if anyone paid any attention when they asked Romney about turning in his income tax papers like everybody else?  BOB said he said he was going to file them in April.  Discussion on Romney’s income and amount of taxes he supposedly paid followed.  And the fact he is no longer a part of Bain Capital and hasn‘t been for probably 20 years.  He is getting residuals but no hands on the company anymore.   HOWARD said Georgetown Steel has not been closed 20 years, so that doesn’t jibe.  We used to go to Charleston several times a year and you go right by Georgetown Steel on Hwy 17.  RUTH wanted to know why it is thought Romney is so much more electable.  Several said they didn’t think he was.  PEGGY said the establishment thinks he is, not necessarily the man on the street.  BOB said Karl Rove decided he was the next in line.  HOWARD said Romney is being pushed by Karl Rove and Rove is probably one of the sharpest political operators in the country and has plenty of money to back up his ideas.  BOB said this is the same crowd that gave us McCain.  ERNIE GUTHRIE McCain was a week candidate anyway and that is why Obama won.  He thinks the average Republican was so demoralized by McCain, many did not even turn out to vote.  That is partly why Obama won, he thinks.  FRED said one of the problems is Newt, Perry and Santorum are all vying for the same people and keep splitting the vote.  RUTH said she thought Perry would be out after Saturday.  BOB said he thought it would depend on how much money he has left.  When these campaign donors give you a wad of money they expect you to spend it.  HOWARD said he lost one of his big supporters over some remark he made (about  vultures in capitalism).  BOB thinks he has enough money to at least go into Florida.  He did do well in the debate last night though.
BOB said this thing about cutting tuition for illegal immigrants that hurt him.  And then he couldn’t even remember his own program to cut.  And he had been emphasizing Energy the whole time and couldn’t remember the Department of Energy.

BOB wanted to know what everybody thought about Obama’s idea to consolidate the Department of Commerce and elevate the Better Business Bureau to a cabinet level.  Anybody been following that at all?  RUTH said she thought there was something crooked about it.  HOWARD said he didn’t trust anything Obama tries.  Someone is going to benefit from it you can bet.  ERNIE said nothing happens in government without someone benefiting from it now.

BOB asked what did we think about Obama cutting a trillion dollars from the defense spending over the next ten years.  DAVID said he didn’t think anything Obama did can be trusted.  RUTH asked DAVID Jr, what did the people he went to school think about Obama.  There are some who agree and others who do not.  RUTH wanted to know if they realize that all this debt which is going to fall on you and your children.  DAVID said he really thinks that is why Ron Paul is kind of looked up to right now.  RUTH said her daughter is 28 and she realizes that this debt is hers, her nephews and his children.  BOB said he hoped they were all saving up their money so they can pay off this debt.  Discussion on the debt and the problems it is causing….. And all the taxes that are being placed on us.  Do away with the income tax and just pay sales tax.  Only pay income tax during war time.   ERNIE said that is why Paul is doing as well as he is because he wants to do away with taxes and go to a flat rate tax.  HOWARD said Connie Mack had a good plan also called the Penny tax.  He really didn’t know enough about it to explain it, but it sounded logical.   Also discussed things currently involving ethanol and the gas tax.

Meeting adjourned at 7:10.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary