CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
14 AUGUST 2012

Meeting was held at Jing Gianni’s Trattoria in Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:01 pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by ROMA WADE.
Invocation by JERE GEURIN

BOB said, “For those who missed it, a bunch of us went down to the other side of Swansboro for the photo opportunity with the Moore County TEA Party, who were down to take pictures of the road side billboard.  If you want to see what it looks like then just look at the button ROMA has on.  Anyway we had a real good showing of 24 people.  The Moore County TEA Party group was blown away when they saw the crowd.  I got a phone call later on the during the day from the Jacksonville Daily News, Jennette Pippett.  She wanted to know what was going on.  She had gotten reports that the TEA Party or Wounded Warrior crowd were out there by the side of the road waving flags and signs.  I briefed her on the whole thing and I don’t know if she ran a story on it but I took one of those pictures that you sent me of the crowd with the sign, and sent it to her with an email.  I also briefed her about the start up of the Onslow County TEA Party and its first meeting, Monday,  September 10th at the Jacksonville Golden Corral on Hwy 70 this side of Jacksonville where Kmart is at.  VERNON THOMPSON wanted to know if it would be OK if some of us wanted to come down to that meeting.  BOB said, Yes, it would be great if you all want to come down.  I’ll be there.  KEN LANG and I are going up to Edenton to meet with Romney’s North Carolina delegation.  They are having an outreach thing to NC TEA Parties and conservative groups just to try to get us all organized and on the same page.  Anyway, we are going up and see what they have to say and find out to what extent we can get involved.  We are going to have our normal voter ballot on election day.  And the only other thing we can do to assist the North Carolina effort is, I guess, with phone banks and financial contributions.  We will brief you on that when we come back.  On the way back from the Edenton thing, KEN and I are going to shoot on down to Jacksonville and make the inaugural meeting of the Onslow County TEA Party.  We will decide on a name then.  There is an Onslow Tea Party registered with the TEA Party Patriots on their web site but it only consists of one guy.  TOM AUSTIN said they never do anything and he has tried to get in touch with him, but you can’t even get on his web site unless you join his group.  LUKE KUKULINSKI said maybe you could invite him to come to the meeting.  TOM said he could look him up in the phone book maybe and do that.  BOB said the problem that he saw was there was an invitation (on  Face Book) for help with the Marriage Amendment back in the primary and this guy responded back that they were a libertarian group and they did not get involved in social issues.  That is probably why he is the only member of this group.

LYN BAKER said she was thinking while we were at the billboard unveiling that maybe every so often we should put on our red shirts and stand on a busy corner and be visible because people don’t think we are doing anything.  Several said they like that idea a lot.  BOB said ‘put our red shirts on one day and go invade Wal Mart‘.  TOM HARMON said, No, Kmart.  A lot of those in attendance said, No to Kmart, that they had not been back to Kmart since they threw us off their parking lot.

BOB said, ‘The other big news of the week, I guess you all heard about Paul Ryan being picked for the VP slot.’  (Applause)  I predicted it way back in January.  Gingrich/Ryan was my dream ticket, but I moved away from Gingrich because he wanted to do everything by executive order.’

BOB then recognized VERNE THOMPSON, who had asked to talk a few minutes about Paul Ryan.  VERNE said right after he heard Romney had picked Ryan, he came out with the fact that he, (Romney) had his own budget but would incorporate some of Ryan’s ideas. That is a big plus, because the Democrats are going to be using everything they can to scare people about the Ryan budget, particularly seniors.  Some of you may know or not know the original Ryan budget was in 2008 and it didn’t even get the support of the majority of Republicans when it came up for vote.  Of course, it was brought up again in 2010 and did a little better.  The current version has been changed quite a bit since the original.  I think it will be much more palatable to Romney and the public in general.  I went on line to Ryan’s web site and printed out a copy.  It is 70 or so pages and I don’t think any voters are going to read 70 or so pages.  So, I started earlier this week trying to compile a condensed summary of the current plan, commonly known as a road map version, along with some Q&A and some talking points and stuff like that.  I’ll try to have it ready by next week’s meeting.  It occurred to me, tonight, that it might be possible that someone else was doing the same thing. So if anybody else is doing that, I would appreciate it if you would let me know so that we don’t duplicate efforts.  Are you all interested in having this information.  Audience voiced heck yes.  (Ro, tongue in cheek, said she was going to do it, but would let him do it now…laughter).  VERNE wanted to know if anyone here would like to have a copy.  When he asked about how many copies we would need he was told around 25.  DIANE LANG asked BOB if he could get a couple of extra copies and when he came to Cape Carteret next week he could bring them the information.  Someone recommended that we put in into an email or on our web site.  VERNE said it was going to be too long for that, even the condensed version would be fairly long.  RUTH PARKER wanted to know if he could just put in the highlights that are going to scare the seniors to death.  VERNE said it might be worthwhile to put the things that are new to the current version.  I think a lot of people are generally familiar with the earlier version but the current version has at least two very important changes;  one that would allow people on Medicare to continue on as it is now and also allows people on Social Security to continue also.  So people will have an option.  To quote our President ‘if you like what you got you can keep it’.  (laughter)  BOB said, ‘Do we all think it worth while if we take portions of the Ryan Economic plan and let VERNE lead a discussion on it so we can go in more detail rather than just a summary, so we can all get a more in depth education about the situation.  VERNE said,  “Let’s put that down the road a little bit and by the way if anybody else would be interested in a complete copy of it, I’ll print it off and bind it if anybody wants it if they will pay my costs for doing it.  It will probably cost me about $8 or $10 for materials and so forth.  I doubt anybody will want a copy of the whole thing.”  BOB said it is on Ryan’s web site if anyone is interested and really want it.

HOWARD GARNER said “A couple of interesting things to me about Ryan – he was Jack Kemp’s speech writer – which I think is a good background.  He has a dual degree, one in economics.  And generally today in government, economics are never considered.

BOB said he was listening to Herman Cain the other day.  He was substituting for Neal Bortz on the radio.  A caller called in and said one of the ideals about the Ryan pick is that Romney’s got experience as a CEO and what any good CEO needs is a good CFO (Chief Financial Officer) and Ryan fits that bill.

LYN BAKER said the thing she thinks is best about it is we are talking about policy right now instead of talking about all this other nonsense.  BOB said the Democrats are still trying to talk about all the other stuff.  KEN LANG said Rush Limbaugh said yesterday by him (Romney) picking Ryan that the Democrats had already come out talking about Ryan’s plans, so what it was doing was forcing the Democrats to talk the things that Obama has failed so miserably on because that is the only thing they have got to attack Ryan on.  It is actually forcing the discussion into the direction that is most advantageous for Romney and Ryan and they haven’t had as much time in the last few days to go off on these tangents because they keep talking about the budget and how it is going to hurt seniors and it is giving Ryan the opportunity (in fact he said today “I relish the opportunity for this debate).  Rush also said today that Ryan and Obama were both in Iowa today and he (Rush) said he thought it would be a really good idea that every time that Obama shows up in a town that Ryan shadows him and is there either the same day or the day after so he can go back and talk about whatever Obama did the day before.  Obama can’t keep his appearances secret because if he does nobody will show up (and nobody is showing up right now anyway).  I think yesterday they said something like 600 people that showed up. A couple in the audience corrected KEN and said the 600 was for Biden.  HOWARD said when Romney and Ryan spoke in North Carolina right after Romney announced Ryan as his VP, the building they spoke in held about 600 people but there were over 10 thousand outside that could not get in and then when Vice President Biden came to North Carolina Monday he only had about 700 people turnout.  VERNE said most of us realize that Romney is not a true conservative, so he is greatly concerned that he will try to weasel on the Ryan plan between now and the election.  He hopes that the conservative media will keep pressure on him to stay with it because the Ryan plan is not nearly as severe as earlier.  TOM HARMON said the other day someone was interviewing Romney and talking about the Ryan budget, Romney let them know that he had his own budget. He said just because he had picked Ryan for his VP doesn’t mean we will be using the Ryan budget.   BOB said he thought that was a key area where the TEA Parties across the country will become invaluable, pounding him with emails along with Congress.  PEGGY GARNER asked if everyone had heard what Erskin Bowls had to say in 2011 about Ryan…that he (Bowls) thought he was good in math but Ryan could run circles around him.  Bowls said he liked the Ryan plan and that Ryan was an honest man and his plan was an honest plan.  HOWARD said he thought someone should put that in a political ad for Romney.

TOM HARMON wanted to know if anyone heard Biden today firing up the audience saying we’ve got to work together so that we can take North Carolina back…..and he was in Virginia talking to the people there.  Several commented that there was supposed to be two Vice Presidential debates.  Can you imagine how Ryan will tear Biden up.  Someone said if Biden makes it to the first debate, there probably won’t be a second.  In fact the Democrats might even block both debates.  RUTH PARKER said she hoped not, she was looking forward to that comedy show.  BOB said the debate he had wanted to see was Obama vs. Gingrich.  A lot agreed.  He said he thought Dennis Miller said they could put that debate on pay per view TV and pay off the national debt.

KEN said Lockwood Phillips had called him and asked if he wanted to talk on the radio that night.  KEN asked him what he wanted to talk about ….. Maybe Paul Ryan?  And Lockwood said that might be a good topic, so he had KEN and Hal James from the Coastal Carolina Tax Payers Association (New Bern) on.  They got chance to talk about Ryan and why we thought that was a good choice.  One thing that caught KEN’s attention that was a little bit separate from the discussion on Ryan was when Lockwood was talking to Hal James, Hal went out of his way to point out that they did not endorse candidates.  KEN and BOB had been talking after the second primary that we started recommending candidates back in the 2010 election and did it again this time and we have really been successful.  The Outer Banks TEA Party, under the leadership of Lisa Marley, noted our success, and they started endorsing candidates this year and had success just like we did.  The Beaufort TEA Party and Little Washington (I know you are not supposed to call it Little Washington) TEA Party started endorsing this year and the Moore TEA Party also endorsed this year.  He thinks there was another group up in the western part of the state but not sure which one….thinks it was Gilford County.  So it is beginning to catch on and becoming a TEA Party type thing…in North Carolina at least.  The Republican and Democrat Parties do not normally endorse a candidate during the primary; but the primary is when you select the candidates that are going to represent the values, especially those that we have, and so that is the time you really want to get out and push for the candidate you want to push for and get the vote out. BOB said that is how we got our candidates elected.  The key word there is endorse.  Dare County TEA Party formed a PAC so they can actually do endorsements.  He told them he was glad that they were willing to take on all that extra paper work, with possible audits by IRS.  We recommend candidates and if you will recall on our last ballot we had the statement “the following candidates support the TEA Party principles.  The election campaign finance laws are very particular.  If you use the word endorse, or vote for, or support, you have to place a monetary value on what that support is and the candidate has to claim that as part of their in-kind contributions.  It can really turn into a nightmare when the lawyers get a hold of that especially if there are challenges in the race.  When you are talking to people please avoid the above words.

Discussion on the fact that Kirby Smith’s signs are still up and have not been taken down even though Kirby has announced that he is no longer running.  David McFadyen said he was still running like he had opposition, because Kirby’s name is still going to be on the ballot and people can still vote for him.  If he were to receive the most votes, then he probably would say, ‘the people have spoken’.  When we are passing out our ballot at the polls, we need to be sure to remind people that, after voting the top portion of the ballot, to go to the bottom of the ballot and vote for the judges; otherwise those votes are lost.  The most important name to mark is Newby for Supreme Court.  If we lose him then the liberal will gain the majority on the supreme court and it will not matter what Gov. McCrory or the conservative legislature do; it will be challenged in the courts.  HOWARD said that was a big name running against Newby and we needed to work hard to get Newby reelected.

ERIC BROYLES gave a report on the seminar held in Wilmington this past weekend that he had attended.  It was called Impact IIIMPACT (illegal immigration impact).  They had a movie called “They come to America” and he got a CD that we might want to view when it got a little cooler for a movie night.  He and his wife attended the Sunday session and met several notables.  It consisted of several different topic sessions.  It was very informative.  What he got out of it was we have about 700,000 of these immigrants.  North Carolina is number 6 in the country in illegal immigration.  Just in the month of June 46,000 DUI arrests of illegal immigrants in this state.  They talked about some of the things that we could do.  We need to put pressure on our representatives or senators about the amount of benefits we offer to illegal immigrants.  They do have control over that.  40 percent of the illegal immigrants received some sort of or level of welfare.  They come to our country and say they want to work here and then end up on welfare.  Thirty three states right now have some sort of Voter ID.  We do not.  So we need to keep pushing for that.  The one thing they did point out is Thom Tillis and Phil Berger are not our friends.  At least on the immigration.  They have squashed the bills, altered bills, and he heard one story where on the Voter ID thing before it came up for vote that Thom Tillis carried his own bill in, put it on the table and said this one will be voted on today and no one had even seen it.  They did advocate that we get those people removed from the positions of power that they have.  If you all remember we talked to Pat McElraft last time and she spoke in their favor.  We need to keep pressuring her.  They also had a town hall meeting hosted by Curtis Wright, from the Washington DC area.  They did have one heckler there who tried to disrupt the meeting by saying we have to protect the illegals.  We allow them to come here because of what is happening in their country.  To come here for asylum is one thing but to sneak across the border is another.  It opened your eyes to how serious the illegal immigration situation is in this state.  We spent 2.3 billion extra in tax dollars and we could really almost balance the budget…..they keep talking about a 3 billion short fall…that 2.3 billion would really take the pressure off the budget and the tax payers in this state.

FRED DECKER said he talked to a man from the New Bern hospital and he said they had so many illegals coming in there that it is almost bankrupting the hospital.

ERIC said another thing mentioned at that meeting last weekend was that we get up with our voter registration board and make sure that they scrub their lists.  They do have ways of scrubbing dead people, and they need to make sure their lists are updated.  The Democrats are finding out who are dead and sending someone in to vote for them.  They can compare the register with any ID and drivers license and run it against the list too.  He thought everyone should have some sort of ID and it would eliminate a lot of prospective problems.

BOB said there was information on our face book page inviting anyone who wanted to help out with the voter integrity program.  They found 512 dead people on the Wake County voter registration list still listed as eligible voters.  If you want to get involved, scroll down to the VIP section and follow the data supplied.  One of the best things that we can do is push the legislators on the Voter ID Bill which he thinks will become law once we get a Republican governor.

BOB asked ERIC to check out the Voter ID Bill that was passed and vetoed by the governor.  He would like to know who sponsored it and who voted for it.  ERIC said he thought that the reason Thom Tillis was opposed to the Voter ID Bill was because he was from a large farming county and illegals were a big part of the harvesting of the corps and he probable felt they were needed.  TOM AUSTIN said we put out a list of candidates that support our ideals.  Maybe we can start another movement where we start screening people that do our yard work or household repairs and we let them know ‘if you have an illegal alien working for you we don’t want you coming to our house.  We are not saying don’t let him come and work at my house, we are saying ‘if YOU have illegal aliens working for you, go elsewhere.  We don’t want to do business with you.’  If we start this in Carteret County, hopefully it will spread.  Also if you find a business that uses illegals, then report them to the IRS and have them go through their books because chances are they are filing false tax reports.  You do that with 3 or 4 companies, that will scare them and put the fear of GOD in them and put a stop to this.  BOB said it still upsets him when he sees all these Mexicans working for all these companies, some of which had slipped in and cut him out of several jobs he had had for years, some for as long as 19 years.  That one had cost him about a $1,000.00 a month… that instead of being spent here to pay his bills and buy his groceries, in this county, was now being sent to Mexico.

RUTH wanted to know when early voting started.  BOB said he thought it was 6 weeks prior to the election.  There was some discussion on that possibly having been changed.  Someone will check and find out.

TOM AUSTIN said in starting a TEA Party group in Jacksonville, he had already ordered 150 copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.  That is about as far as he has gotten.  They will be having the kick off meeting at the Golden Corral (near the Piney Green Road) on Monday the 10th of September.  The time will be different from here.  They will have the dining and meet and greet at 6:00 and the meeting will start at 7:00.  This was done so that the Marines down there could get off of work, go home and get cleaned up and come to the meeting.  To begin with they will be meeting on Mondays.  Would love to have as many of this group join them as possible.  The night may be changed to Tuesday or Thursday if need be.  Since there is already an Onslow County TEA Party (although inactive), they are going to be called the Jacksonville TEA Party Patriots right now.  It may change depending on the situation and what happens.  This guy might decide to join us, but we intend to make it well known to him that we are Conservatives not Libertarians.  TOM is going to see what else he can do to get the word out and get things started.  He said if we want to bring some shirts down (short sleeve without Crystal Coast on them), to sell, it would be fine.  We may want to separate ourselves later but it would help in getting started.  BOB said Lockwood was interested in helping get them started, so TOM said he would get up with Lockwood and see what they could work out.  TOM is planning to take out an ad in the Jacksonville paper, probably a couple of Sundays prior to the initial meeting.  If anyone has any suggestions on getting this group started and getting the people out to the meeting, please let him know.  Several suggested writing letters to the editor.

Meeting adjourned at 6:55.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary