CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
10 APRIL 2012

Meeting held at Golden Corral Restaurant, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:02 pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by STEVE MILLER
Invocation by STEVEN BEST
Number in Attendance – 30

BOB introduced tonight’s guest speaker Bernard Bush, who is running for District Court Judge.  Those running for the same office, Judge Waddell’s seat, David McFayden and Kirby Smith, have already spoken to us.

Mr. Bush (Bernie) told us that he was the attorney for the Craven County Department of Social Services.  He started practicing law in North Carolina in 1994 with Pamlico Sound legal services.  “I handle landlord/tenant matters, employment matters, and subsidized housing matters.  In 2000, I got the job at Craven County Department of Social Services.  So, whenever there is abused children or neglected children that have to come out of their home in Craven County, I am the attorney that represents the county’s interest in court.  Over the past eleven years, I have seen Judge Waddell work with kids and he worked with families and he did a wonderful job.  He was very compassionate but firm.  Either the  parents would get their acts together or they wouldn’t.  And if they didn’t, they knew it was because they didn’t do it, not because they were run over.  And at that point we would look for grandparents, aunts, or other family members.  If there were none, then we looked to find an adoptive home for those children.  Judge Waddell retired recently and his seat became open and I’m running for it.  There is really not that much else to say about me.  I could go on and on but I will open it up for questions.  Some general things is – I graduated from Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville Tennessee in 1994.  As an undergrad, I started off in a community college which was called Camden County Community College in Blackwood, New Jersey.  After two or three years I transferred over to Gladsboro Community College in Gladsboro, New Jersey, a small town between Philadelphia and Atlantic City and got a bachelors degree there.  During that time, I worked my way through college at a super market, in the South Jersey area and also the United States Marine Corps, where I went in as a private and came out as a corporeal.  I was stationed at Trenton and I was in the artillery unit.  I ran the phone wires from the artillery batteries so that when they would mess up, they would break the wires to buy themselves some time and I would have to run out and fix the wires.  In a way I have had a whole lot of doubt working my way through college and met a lot of wonderful people and I think that would give me experience as judge because I’ve been there.  I’ve worked in the casino; the gift shop; I’ve worked in spaghetti factories and bread factories.  You know those Subway rolls, they actually come from a factory where (they are heated at the different stores but) they are actually made in a factory.  I’ve actually worked in those factories; spaghetti sauce factories…I’ve done them all.  You know the Marines…yes we fired guns, but I swept and mopped more than I shot at anything.  And learned quite a bit.  That’s about it for me.  While I was in New Bern, not only did I practice law but I worked in Habitat houses when they would have those habitat bills that they would have college students come out and since I was in town, I would go out and help them.  What I found were, for whatever reason, men in their 70’s have a whole lot more energy than I did.  I came out there in the morning I was ready to put them to shame, I’d be hammering, I’d be working and carrying things and by afternoon, they were working like nothing went on, my hands were sore and I was hitting my thumb more than the nails, but I was out there doing my part.  There is a community theater in New Bern, the New Bern Civic Theater.  I’ve worked with a number of productions there as well.  And I got to work with some really wonderful people.  The advantage of the civic theater in New Bern and in Carteret is we have the military base, Cherry Point, so you have some incredible talented people, who are in this area for a very short period of time and it is very humbling to be on stage with them.  I couldn’t sing, still can’t sing, so I won’t sing for you this evening, but in other parts of the stage I was able to do just fine.  That is about me in a nut shell.  Does anyone have any questions for me or about social services that I can answer.  I mean I might be able to give more information that way.’

KEN LANG said we have asked the other candidates even though it is a district court position, judges can advance into other positions from there, so what is your stance on judicial legislation from the bench?

Mr. Bush said, “It is not their job.  Their job is to take the law as it is written and apply it to the facts.  Leave the legislature to legislate and judges to their judging.  As a DSS attorney, I have social workers, it’s not my job to do social working.  You know sometimes it is a temptation or when someone makes it look easy, to jump in and tell them how they should be doing it better. They have their job and I would have mine.

BOB asked his favorite question.  ’What was your ’aha moment’ when you decided by golly I want to be a judge?’

Mr. Bush said people kept coming to him, because he was happy as social services attorney, because he was going to different churches, he was able to play guitar since he couldn’t sing.  ‘Everything was good.  Waddell was retiring and people started coming up to me and saying why don’t you consider it.  Not saying anything bad about the opponents, but you know you have been doing it, we think you would make a good fit.  I poo pooed it for a while, but then a moment came where I said well, OK let’s give it a shot, because they were saying you have nothing to lose.  Give it a shot.  You have a great personality, present yourself, if you win that is great, if you lose, you lose nothing for doing it.  It has really been wonderful.  I was scared because I am familiar with New Bern and Craven County because I ride my little motorcycle and I know the people there.  But I will go into Carteret County and Pamlico County in the far reaches to meet people who hear stories and have fears, but people have been absolutely wonderful.  I’ll go into beauty shops, or just regular stores and see what is going on and everyone’s really been wonderful.  So, it wasn’t like I had some dying passion, just an opportunity that came up…and I saw what Waddell did in civil/juvenile court with kids.  I have seen what social workers do.  I’ve seen them at their best and I’ve seen them at their worst.  So what separates me from the others is I know the inner workings of social services.  So I can better determine what is real and what is not real.  And one other thing that separates me from the other two is they were private attorneys.  As a DSS attorney over the past 11 years I got to watch mental health be dismantled.  It is no longer a working entity.  What it is is Neuse Mental Health used to send people to Neuse Mental Health and they would assume responsibility.  They would provide the services, they would see that they got the adequate services.  If someone needed a guardian, they would act as guardians.  They had therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists on staff so they could be provided the help that was needed.  On a state level you had state hospitals for people who needed hospitalized care.   That is all being dismantled.  They want those people in the community… which is good in theory, but the problem is there is no place in the community; so recently there was a law suit where a disability rights advocate said ‘Counties and states you can no longer put people with mental health issues in nursing homes with elderly people.’  That was going on because there was no place else to put them, so they were looking for a bed.  And that is really a terrible mix.  If you have people in their 70’s and 80’s with Alzheimer’s or are frail, you don’t want some 30 year old with mental health issues who….people with mental health issues tend to be stronger than you or I because for whatever reason, their brains do not have a stopping device.  Where if you hit me hard enough, you win.  The fact that you ball up your fist, you won.  Someone with a mental health issue don’t have that so they would keep on going even where a normal person would stop.  The problem is that’s been taken away.  There’s this thing called ECBH where Neuse Mental Health used to serve just the area and a few outlying areas.  ECBH now serves a ten county area and the state is looking to expand that further.  They want these people to be regional providers.  And what they are to do, they are not to be responsible.  They are just to be the purse string holders so if you said that somebody had a mental health issue, they will say, OK, you say so, but we are going to valuate them.  We are going to determine what services they are going to need.  We are going to tell them what doctors to go to and we are going to tell the doctors how much we are going to pay them.  We will tell you when they have enough services.  Which in theory may look good, in a county like Mecklinberg county or Charlotte where you have a lot of therapists, that may work, but in eastern Carolina where you don’t have that many therapists to begin with it is going to work terribly.  ECBH covers there where you don’t have a lot of therapists.  When DSS has these conferences, DSS attorneys meet two times a year and we discuss matters that affect DSS attorneys, somebody from mental health came and they are basically apologizing and back pedaling the whole time because the questions were ’We hear what you are saying about trying improve but you are not even answering our calls, our telephone calls, and we are the attorneys.’  We have people who call us saying  they are not getting through.  We are trying to call and can’t get through.  And it is frustrating because, on a state level and on a federal level, they learn to talk the talk, so you can have them come in right after me and they’ll say we admit that we are learning some things.  We’ve got some bugs to work out.  But you are a stake holder and we are partners and together we can make this better, ignoring the fact that people on the local level can not get the services they need.  And it affects us in a very intimate way, because if somebody has a mental health issue, that person has a family member, a mother, or wife, or other families that have to deal with it, if there is no one else to help them deal with it.  If somebody has a mental health issue, and it is not treated, many of them can drive a car.  If you have epilepsy, you lose your driver’s license.  If you have a bad vision, your license can be taken away.  If you are an elderly person, your family can tell the DMV this person needs to be tested again and have their license taken away.  With mental health, if someone is on their meds and are doing well, they can be smarter than me and articulate and then come off their meds it is a totally different story.  There is no mechanism to stop them from driving a vehicle.  And that is a best case scenario where you have somebody who is on their meds and doing well.  You have others who need to be in a Dorthea Dix where they are saying send them to a community…we are shutting them down…we are taking them out and there is no place for them.  Many of these people are high functioning.  The stereotype is people who are low function, but there are a lot of people who are very intelligent, very savy, and they can work a car.  They should not be behind the wheels of a car and they should not be asking a county to take care of them only because the people at the federal level and state level…they want to act like they are cutting costs but they are not cutting…they are transferring.  If you are going to cut…cut.  But if you are going to transfer be honest and say it and instead of giving ECBH all the money, give it to the county if you are going to do it so that we can fend for ourselves the best way we can; because when you have a ten county area calling somebody…where before it was on Neuse Blvd in New Bern, it may be in Edenton someplace and they might not be in such a rush to help us when we are saying something is going on real bad here.

ERIC BROYLES said ’On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the most conservative and 10 being the most liberal, how would you classify yourself?’

Mr. Bush said ’It depends on the issue.’  ERIC said ’overall’.  Mr. Bush said he would say 5 for this reason…‘I am not a fan of wasting money.  I did not get, you have heard my background, I basically had to work my way through school, so I am not into wasting money.  I am not into getting a free ride.  The problem we have as a nation though is we are bailing out other countries,  which is just fine, I understand that, but our American citizens have to borrow money to go to college and they are now coming out every year with at least a $60,000.00 debt load when they are in their early twentys.  This is when they should be having a family and it impairs their ability to get credit.  There is no jobs, so now the student loan people are on them.  They can’t get a good mortgage and they are behind the 8 ball and they will stay there for the rest of their lives.  That is what we are facing so when you say are you liberal or conservative, I don’t know how to answer that except to say we have to fix that.  If somebody is willing to work hard.  I’m not saying to give it to them for free, but don’t make them a slave because other people are going to look at them and what is happening now you have a lot of people saying to young people ’do not go to law school.  There is too many lawyers.  You can’t find the work and if you are going to come out with a $100,000.00 in debt you are better off doing anything else.  I’m not saying everybody should be a lawyer but it is happening in other fields…doctors…don’t be a doctor…you are going to be eaten up in medicine insurance and the first time somebody dies they are going to find fault and sue you.  Be an insurance person.  This way you can be in on the good side.  That part is broken, so I don’t know how you would classify it…I’m not saying give it away for free, but don’t do it so…….ERIC said ‘the TEA Party principles are fiscal responsibility, limited government and free markets.  Where do you stand on those issues?’  Mr. Bush said ‘Who in their right mind would be against that?  Here is the problem, the media has done a terrible job of telling the truth to the American people.  The politicians have done an even worse job.  I have been going door to door, business to business, barbershop to barbershop, meeting people saying Hey, I am running for judge, think of me.  And what I am hearing is ‘not only have I not seen the other two, you are the first person who has ever done this.  So you have black leaders, you have white leaders, you have Republicans, you have Democrats, you have Independents on TV speaking about what the American people want and they have never spoken to you.  It is a problem.  You have the media that is portraying the TEA party as a bunch of right wing Republican wackos.  But when you look at what you are saying ‘who is against it’ really? And why are they portraying you in that way?  How am I able to run into this guy (BOB) and not know who he is and we get along fine and then he says by the way I’m a TEA Party Republican.  Come on down and speak, we would love to have you.  If I had listened and believed everything I had heard on TV I would have run the other way.  Nobody has bit me yet.

HOWARD GARNER said Mr. Bush had mentioned a couple of things he would like to address.  He said speaking about running from the TEA Party….he was in Sam’s in Greenville, had on his Tea Party cap and there was a black clerk and he (HOWARD) said something to him and he (the clerk) was big enough to pick Howard up and toss him, and the clerk just backed away and said
I don’t want a thing to do with you.  HOWARD told him he had been listening to the main stream media too much.  HOWARD said he didn’t think he had harmed anyone in his life.  Going back to this mental health, he tried to keep up with it as best he could and he was able to determine when they went from Neuse Mental Health to the Onslow/Carteret thing.…things got worse instead of better.  A month or two ago there was at least four of us here that attended the County Commissioners meeting and this new group that is taking over had two people explaining to the county commissioners what was going to go on.  I don’t think I’m that dumb, but I left more confused on that issue than what I was when I went it.  Mr. Bush said if he knew the truth, he would be angry, not confused.  HOWARD said nothing tears him up any more than what he considers useless government paper pushing and it is running this country…that and lobbyists.  Mr. Bush said Yep, it’s terrible and that is why in my ad you see in the newspaper, one of the things is ‘go to church, any church.’  I go to church.  I play in churches.  I grew up in a church.  I’m not here to force my religion on you even though I think it would be good on a personal basis.  But watching mental health be dismantled I am seeing the same philosophy being applied elsewhere.  They are trying to get the county in other things.  Instead of seeing it as a failure, they are seeing it as a model.  They are trying to do it with other things.  They are trying to cut corners everywhere they can.  So, what I am telling people and what I will tell them when I become a judge is…in New Bern where Neuse Mental Health is disappearing there is this Baptist Church called Temple Baptist.  It is a large Baptist Church.  It has this group called Celebrate Recovery where the church is taking in people with substance abuse issues, working with them, turning their lives around, and putting them on the street in a safe way.   That should be supported.  What I am saying to all the other churches, we don’t need 15 Celebrate Recoveries.  If they got this, find some other need….foster parents, single parents, school teachers.   You pick it.  Find something to help.  If everybody does a little bit, the situation gets a little bit better and then when we meet again we can go from there.  That is what I will be saying.  I will be going to different churches, white churches, black churches, TEA parties, liberals, whoever will listen.  That is what we have to do and the reason I say go to a church and go early, a lot of times in court, people go to church after they get into trouble.   With Neuse Mental Health broken down, it’s just a matter of time before all of us are going to need some help one way or the other.  If you don’t have a mental health issue you are one guy swerving off the yellow line being in trouble, so instead of everyone waiting until after they got into trouble, if everybody went to a church , any church, any denomination, and help them out a little bit.  I’m not saying accept everything they do, work to improve the building, work to improve the fellowship so that you know someone, make the church a little bit better, a little bit stronger, a little bit more useful, so if you need it or somebody else needs it, it’s there.  The reason why I am picking the church is in looking what they did with mental help and looking at what they did with other things, the people, they don’t get it; they’ll say what you say and say that what they meant was just shut everything down. That’s not what he said.  But that is how they will interpret it.  They screw it up every time.  I don’t know what happened between the top and the bottom.  It goes through so many hands that by the time it reaches local, its unrecognizable.  The church was here before the mess.  The church will be here after.  I’m saying find a good one, work with them, and let’s get through this together.

A member asked ’Getting back to college loans.  I understand that we up to a trillion dollars in college loans.  That is more than home mortgages, that’s more than bank loans, that’s more than all this together.  You don’t feel like students have anything to do with it?’  Mr. Bush said ’They do, but the people who allowed that, just like you don’t give drivers license to 12 year olds.  If we have a system where the college knows going in that only 10% are going to find a job, the lenders know that all are not going to get a job, and everybody knows that all those entering class, 1/3rd is going to drop out before the second year.  Don’t put it all on the students.  Give them their share of the responsibility but when you have other things going on, just like the mental health system, as judge if somebody comes before me and they didn’t take their medicine then it wasn’t their fault that they did the crime they did.  But it wouldn’t be fair if I said, he is in jail, my job is done.  I have to speak to somebody and say you know this EBCH thing it’s really getting on my nerves because people who otherwise would not be in jail are in jail.  And one more problem with putting them in jail…say a 17 year old is acting a fool and they need to be taught a lesson, let’s put them in jail, see if they learn their lesson, come out and do well.  If that becomes the warehouse for people with mental health issues, instead of learning their lessons, they are fighting for survival and they are honing skills that you don’t want them coming out with….and all these people are coming out.  The gentleman said his point was they make the loans so available everybody uses it as a party and they go to school to party for four or five years.  Mr. Bush said, ’The schools allow it because the schools monitor grades and they can kick you out or put you on academic probation.  The only time they clamp down is when somebody gets killed.  Why?  Whenever there’s a frat party and somebody dies because they were intoxicated they will shut that frat party down.  Why stop there?  How much if you are not maintaining a B average we don’t care what you do in your free time, we won’t get into it, but if you drop below a certain level, because you are not going to be beneficial to the field you are studying and we have foreigners who are competitors and you are not going to buckle down, you got to go.  Why is that not in place?  Why does somebody have to die first?  That is the fault of the system.  DAVID COX said ‘when our president gives credit to…disavows these loans…excuses these loans by the thousands.  Mr. Bush said we are going to come to a tipping point as a nation.  I don’t favor that.  But it is getting to a crisis because these young people are making choices based on the fact that they have a certain amount of debt and they are not getting jobs.  As a society we are not going to be productive if they can’t get jobs, they can’t buy houses and cars because they are struggling under a debt load and foreigners don’t have that problem.  DAVID said ’How do you discourage it when you excuse the loan and they are getting ready to excuse some more?’  Mr. Bush said, ’Because they don’t excuse everybody’s loan.  It is not every ones.  I’m not sure how it is given out, but the bottom line as I understand….I’m writing some big checks every month and a lot of people I know are writing them too.  It is a broken system and it is not going to be improved by playing favorites with a few or grandstanding in front of a TV.  Again it goes back to the media.  I’ve heard nothing from them about forgiving.  So they are going to forgive a couple of million and they are going to have the TV cameras and show some lucky person, slap him on the back and talk about what a wonderful job they did.  Turn off the cameras and the other 99% have to deal with their loans because somebody’s making interest off those loans (interest and penalties).  So you can be paying on a loan and after 10 years you owe more than you did at the beginning.  That is going to stifle the American creativity that made us great.  You are right, but not enough people are being forgiven and I think it is just for show.

ERIC said, ‘We see court rooms filled because of continuances.  Cases are continued time after time, after time.  There are some people that have had continuances for up to over a year.  I’m not talking about murder cases.  I’m talking about driving without a license because you got DWIs.  A third of the people are driving on revoked licenses and most of those are DWI’s.  This is tying up the court system.  It is costing the taxpayers.  It is because the judges allow it.  What will you do as a judge to tighten that process.  I understand that you have to be careful what you say.  Mr. Bush said, ‘No, he would be totally honest.  The law will only allow how much punishment you can prescribe for someone, just like I told that gentleman…if you put somebody in jail with mental health issues, eventually they are both coming out.  The legislature has to deal with that.  People coming out and doing it repeatedly, the legislature has to deal with that and as a judge, he will apply those laws as they come down.  The problem with continuances in this area is that you have a small number of attorneys and they are trying to be in several courts at once.  So, like you have attorneys in Havelock, today they could be in Carteret, tomorrow they may be in Pamlico.  Add to that witnesses.  You have therapists, doctors, witnesses who were at the scene of the crime, forensics experts, DNA testing has to be done, psychological exams and various others.  The problem is that it is real easy to say I’m going to crack the whip and I am not going to allow it to happen but the truth is…and I deal with this with my social workers, they get upset because cases are continued until they need a continuance….their car is broken, or they are sick, or it’s their vacation, and then all of a sudden they want a continuance.  And it happens.  We are limited in this area because of the number of attorneys we have and the fact when you have a lot of moving parts…yeah, they can work it and give a colorful excuse, what are you going to do from the bench?  Go by their home to see if they are sick or go to the golf course to see if they are there.  Again you have a lot of moving parts…the attorney may be there but the witness isn’t there.  If they are in the hospital….a lot of what you have is DOC problems.  If somebody is in the Department of Correction you do what is called a rig(?).  So it is up to the Department of Corrections to bring them, so sometimes they bring them, sometimes they don’t.  Again there is a lot of moving parts.  I’m not saying I am going to excuse it, but it is really hard to get up.  If anybody promises you that they are going to eliminate it…. (Several people offered their comments.)  Mr. Bush said you can do the best you can but when you are one person and you have all these different people and you have a docket of 400 cases with 400 different excuses, I can do the best I can to move things along.  ERIC said he just wanted to make the work easier.  Mr. Bush said he did not want it easier, but if you can’t do it, you can’t do it, because what every judge is looking at is if you say OK, I don’t care what is going to happen, I don’t care, we are going to try the case regardless.  And they do it.  It gets appealed.  Now it goes to the Court of Appeals and that takes about a year and a half to two years, so you saved no one anything.  So that is another thing they are looking at because the District Court Judge doesn’t have the final say.  The Court of Appeals is a more final say and it takes longer.

STEVE MILLER said, Basically the Crystal Coast TEA Party and the TEA Party in general is based on fiscal responsibility (Taxed Enough Already – TEA).  What is your opinion as a citizen, not as a judge, but as a citizen, with Obamacare (the affordable health care act)?  Mr. Bush said, ‘I didn’t study it closely enough to say (you know this chapter and that chapter).  Here is the problem…he did not get everybody on board.  They sort of ran it through and they got it because they could at the moment.  Now the Republicans, if or when they get in power because we know the power shifts, they are going to undo it.  The problem with doing anything that way if that you get people dependent on a system that is going to go away and you create another set of problems.  Our welfare system, our subsidized system, housing system, all these systems have become corrupt because they have been in place too long.  They hadn’t been well thought out so when somebody just says we are going to cut out or cut them off, they do not understand the ripple effects.  For example, with food stamps.  Fiscal year 2011Craven County alone, was I think, 24 millions dollars worth of food stamps issued.  It ranges from like senior citizens getting $10.00 (why they bother) to a family getting $600 worth of food stamps.  There is a myth that it pays off, but it doesn’t.  But what the individual gets is an EBT card which gives them the right to purchase food stuffs.  If they sell that for money, they can be arrested and jailed for fraud and I would do that if they did.  The problem with saying all these people should be cut off but when you take 24 million dollars and take it out of the economy, two lobbies are going to come right at you.  And it is not the poor people’s lobbies.  The farmers, because it is distributed by the USDA.  The farmers depend on that 24 million dollars for their crops.  Also the end user, the super markets in Craven County, there are 69 super markets that accepted these EBT cards and I guarantee you one of them got the lion’s share…WalMart.  So if you just say we are going to cut it out and the system will correct itself in five years, your WalMart lobbyist will shut you down.  And I guarantee you they are Republican and that is why when we start talking Republicans and Democrats, instead we need to look at rich and poor…the have and the have nots.  Everybody here and the folks who are doing well because it crosses lines.  The media portrays the folks as right wing whacks, but you describe what you are about and I say ‘who is against it?’.  Who is against fiscal responsibility?  Who is for fiscal irresponsibility?  No one, but you all got tarred.  And I think it was for a purpose.  It keeps the little people separated.  As long as people are jumping back instead of saying ‘brother’ the people above can do whatever they want.  They have been and they will continue.  That is a problem.  As a judge I will go from community to community, group to group, and just be honest with you.

ERIC said, ‘The good thing is you will be able to cut back on the fraud in that area as a judge.  You will know how that game is played.  Mr. Bush, said ‘we do, we have fraud investigators, and what has helped us more that anything is technology.  Where 10 years ago, food stamps was like in a little book, you ripped out the ticket and you gave it.  It was hard to track that.  With an EBT card, I don’t know if I should be telling everybody, is computerized and you can tell fraud, based on the pattern.  If somebody buys like say they got $600 worth of benefits.  They buy $400.00 worth of benefits here and they go across the street and buy another $200.  You know, if it doesn’t make sense, that is a red flag.  But it is computerized so now you know who is buying what and where.  You can not buy dog food or beer.  Now that it is computerized.  Before you shouldn’t have been able to either.  Back when I was working in a supermarket we had to (forgive me, I’m telling my age) we had these things called cash registers and you had to type the dollar amount in and there was a button you had to hit to let you know whether it was a food stuff or non-food stuff.  And then the total based on that would tell you how you could use the food stamps.  Now because it is all computerized when they ring it up and the person says it is $90.00 and you have a EBT card, the lady will hit a key and it will say like $80.00 is eligible.  So they will swipe the card and it will take $80.00 off and the customer will have to pay the $10.00 for the dog food.  The dog food will not come up on the EBT stuff.  Question was asked was the EBT card limited to a geographical region.  Answer, No.  Anywhere in the country.  HOWARD asked will this stop them from using two carts?  You see that.  They have one cart with food stamp stuff and one cart sometimes with stuff that I can’t afford and they are going to pay for and then they go out and get into a fancy car that I can’t afford.  Mr. Bush said he was not defending them but as far as cars go, you never know who the owner of the car is.  You may have someone’s parents who say I have carried you long enough, you’ve got to do it on your own, so they are living across town and now they have to go shopping and Dad says here take the car.  You get your food and you bring the car back and if you scratch it you and I are going to tangle.  I’m not saying there is not fraud, but you can’t say looking at the car and also about two years ago Hatteras laid off 200 people.  So people went from making $60,000 to nothing so I don’t want to hold it against them if they qualify for food stamps and they show up with that year’s Silverado.  Up until that point they were working and they had actually earned it, so I don’t want to be one to say well for you to get food stamps, you have to drive what I drive, a 1998 Camry.

What he takes issue with, is you take Obamacare.  I am going to agree with you there is probably doing things wrong, but what I want to point out to you is that it happens under every administration, whether it is Democrat or Republican.  Because you have a lot of lobbyists that are writing legislation for both sides.  You have a lot of career bureaucrats  that are doing everything.  So avoid heaping everything on the figurehead.  For the job of President of the United States that pays $300,000 a year, I believe, (several said over $400,000 or close to a half of a million) what does that tell you? (Several discussed the issue further)  Mr. Bush said what he was asking everyone to do was point fingers at everybody.  Call a spade a spade, so when you say Obamacare, Romney is doing the same thing.  Call a spade a spade because as long as we on the ground (several interrupted).  The thing is don’t get comfortable when he leaves office.  Even if he wins the election, he is not going to be in office forever.  Democrats will not be in office forever.  Republicans will come in.  Like the Who song, Here’s the new boss, same as the old boss.  Do not allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of security because you happen to like the person who is up there because you don’t know them …. more discussion by the audience.  Mr. Bush said the part that is frustrating is the way we seem to fall for it like sheep.  Not just college or high school dropouts, but people with doctorate degrees, just as foolish, just as easily led, just as thoughtless, it is scary.  When he went to Vanderbilt, he thought Vanderbilt was this ivy league school, I am going to be with the best of the best, the smartest of the smartest.  I started off in a community college by gosh I am going to be with some real smart ones now.  Not so.  There were some smart ones,  There were some brilliant ones.  But there were others, the rest of them, but what are you going to do, so you just turn to your books and do what you did to get you where you are.  As people get higher, there is an expectation to do more.  The frustrating thing is as an agency attorney in the Craven County Department of Social Services, we go through a hiring process.  You post the job and get all these applications.  People interview very well.  They present very well.  They put on their shirt and tie.  They give you this paperwork to show they are as bright as can be.  You give them a job and they can’t write a simple paragraph.  And they have the degree….with honors.  And you are looking at this…what school.  Just like when I was in the Marines and going through boot camp and I saw them throw some out and then when I see some Marines do something absolutely asinine and it is obvious that it was not a bad day, that this person is just a pure idiot, I’ve going ’how did they get through, how did they not screen them out at the first base, how was this person able to wear the uniform.  It is not enough for the media to say ’Ex-marine shot wife and buried her in the back yard’.  No, no, no, how, who’s letting it go on.  Same thing with government.

A member of the audience said he gathered Mr. Bush was from up north.  How did he end up in Craven County.  Mr. Bush said the police didn’t look for him here.  (Laughter)  He said his car broke down, the police helped him opposed to arresting him, so he decided to stay here.  Seriously, the Legal Services Cooperation of North Carolina gave him an internship when he was in law school and they put him in New Bern.

HOWARD said you are talking about people with a degree but no education.  Mr. Bush said no sense, just stop there. Howard said he saw in the paper recently where the UNC School of Journalism is going to quit teaching spelling.  No more education that I have, I see all these misspelled words in print and the grammar is wrong, punctuation is wrong; it has gotten to be pathetic.  Mr. Bush said ’it is. And we have computers that are supposed to correct and they can’t even do that right.  When I was coming up through school the big debate was like during the 70’s, and NASA and calculators were new, so there was this big debate about whether calculators should be allowed in school where kids could use them or not.  Now my kids are younger than what I was then and they are getting like the scientific ones.  So even in math, not just reading and writing.  Social skills, everybody is tweeting each other, they are not going to be able…their table manners are horrible, their social skills are horrible, manners, forget it, you know you just want to spank all of them when you hear them in a group in WalMart in a public setting you have older people there and if you are going to curse, have the decency to do it outside in the back, not in the supermarket where you are showing off how manly you are.  I have a problem with that.

ERIC asked Mr. Bush if he was a Democrat and he replied yes he was a registered Democrat.  To the extent we are taking sides, like we are taking sides in a super bowl, you know, like I don’t like Obamacare, which sort of implies you are in favor of what the other guy is doing and it is just as problematic.  Watch both of them.  Demand the best from both of them.  Make your Republican representatives at least hear you.  Make them come and speak to you.  The Democrats should do the same.  And they should do like you do, OK this guy is a Democrat, we don’t know who he is.  He is elected to represent all of us, let’s have him come in and say a few words.  If I become Judge, invite me back and I’ll come and speak, maybe less, but invite me back.  And if I don’t win, if I lose, you still want the Craven County attorney come in, I’m just a drive away.  It is a nice drive.  He said ‘Thank you all for your time.

EULA PARKIN told about seeing a van in the Lowe’s parking lot with a big sign that read “The TEA Party and Republicans are a greater threat to America than the Taliban”.  She said she was very insulted.  Several others told of seeing it here the night of the precinct meeting and another time here also.  It is shameful.

BOB read an announcement of “Meet the Candidate Norm Sanderson, who is running for NC Senate 2” which is going to be April 14 from 12:30 to 3:00 at the vacant field at the corner of Hwy 24 and Broad Creek loop Road across from the fire department which is by Mike Lawrence Electric.  Free hotdogs and lemonade.  Hosted by Jennifer Hudson and Tim Buck.

HOWARD said we were all aware of the beautiful colorful brochures that Randy Ramsey is putting out.  Norman Sanderson would like to be able to get out one if he can raise the money for it.  He does not have the money right now.  So any amount you can afford to help him out, will be greatly appreciated.

BOB said he understood they had a fund raiser last week in New Bern at Mark Chestnut’s house for Randy and raised he thought he heard about $20,000.  He had all the car dealers and attorneys there.  RUTH PARKER said but he won’t come and talk to us.  BOB said we have sent an invite.  ERIC said Randy had responded that he would have lunch with BOB and ERIC but did not have time to meet with the group.  BOB told him we vote as a group and the group deserves to hear him.  Randy told them he was not able to make arrangements to meet with the group.

BOB asked NANCY BOCK, Treasurer, for a Treasury Report.  She said we have $1600 in the bank.  BOB wanted to know if she ordered those TEA party signs.  She said yes.

BOB introduced Butler Bennett and wife Ann who had met with us a couple of years ago.  He came tonight to thank the TEA Party for what they do.

Mark Mansfield, who is running for school board and spoke to us at a previous meeting, was with us again tonight, as a participant in the group, not campaigning.

BOB said there were four voting places for Early Voting:  Fort Benjamin Park in Newport, Davis Volunteer Fire Department, Davis, Western Park Community Center, Cape Carteret, and Beaufort Square Shopping Center, Beaufort.  Early voting starts April 19.  We need people to man each polling place.  Newport appears to be well covered, but concerned about Davis and so far only EULA has volunteered for Beaufort.  If you can work it in, please help out.  Where ever you plan to work you need to contact the judge at the polling place and ask where you can set up so you will be legal.  It has to be 50 feet from the entry way.  We have signup sheets for every day of the week.  BOB said he would be the roving patrol.

HOWARD said he had gotten a tip that they were going to have a fund raiser for Randy at the end of Front Street in Beaufort.  That new boat place, sponsored by the ‘What’s in it for Me Party’.  BOB said he can’t repeat some of the things he has been told about Randy, but he feels we are fortunate that we did not jump on his band wagon.  There is going to be some real ugly stuff coming out later on, he is afraid.  HOWARD said he has had a couple of phone calls on some of the stuff on Randy also.  BOB said we do not want this guy in the Senate, that is for sure.  HOWARD said ‘if he won’t meet with us now, if he gets elected, do you think he is going to  meet with us then’.  BOB said he thinks Randy believes he can raise enough money and with advertising, he doesn’t have to meet with anybody.

BOB said we do not have time tonight, but next week we are going to go through the TEA Party ballot and the folks that we are going to put on our ballot.  He has worked the wording on it to say the ‘Crystal Coast TEA Party Patriots believe the following candidates best support the TEA Party principles of Limited Government, Fiscal Responsibility and Protection of the Free Market’.  We have been trying to get as many candidates in here as possible to talk to us. It was decided that we would only list one candidate per office and the vote would be secret.

There will be a Republican meeting Thursday night (5:30 to eat), at Ribeye’s Steak House in Cape Carteret.  Guest speaker will be Mike Bietter, North Carolina Secretary of State candidate.  Many of the candidates will be in attendance.

Saturday morning (7:30) there will be a ‘Meet and Greet” at the Emerald Golf Club in New Bern.

Meeting adjourned at 8:00
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.