CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
11 SEPTEMBER 2012
Meeting was held at Jing Gianni’s Trattoria in Morehead City, NC
Meeting was called to order at 6:03pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by RO THOMPSON
Invocation by STEVE BEST
Attendance – 33
BOB asked for a moment of silence in memory of those brave souls who knew they were going to die on Flight 93 but decided to take matters into their own hands and all those other poor souls in the World Trade Center (can’t forget the memory of those bodies jumping from many stories above the sidewalk to avoid the horrible flames) and the Pentagon (all those lives lost, may we never forget). And their families. Silence
HOWARD GARNER commented on the cost of the memorial of Flight 93 and the fact that right after the event the Moose Lodges and Chapters took that as a project and all donated at least $93.00 each, which amounted to at least a million or more in donations, but the people in charge of developing the memorial said they still needed something like $5 million to complete.
HOWARD also reminded everyone about the luncheon/debate Monday at the Sanitary Restaurant, September 17, 11:30 to 2:00 pm featuring candidates for NC Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey and Wayne Goodwin. If you do not already have your reservations, and would like to go, please email ncdoidebate@gmail.com to check if any spaces are still available.
BOB gave a brief update on some recent events: He and KEN LANG went up to Edenton last night to meet with the NC GOP and Romney counterparts who wanted to reach out to all the Conservative coalitions and they anticipated a lot of TEA Party groups being up there and it turned out that he and KEN were the only ones there that were not from the Chatham County TEA Party. KEN said there was only about eight of them, he would guess, there. It was a very small group. Turned out to be a meeting about phone banking so we quickly lost interest. We got there late because we allotted two hours for a two and a half hour trip. Edenton is a lot further away than he thought it was. KEN said HOWARD had said they were right in our back yard. (Laughter) HOWARD said, ‘When did I say that? Well you just caught me in a weak moment and unfortunately I have a lot of weak moments’. BOB said he set his odometer on the way back and when he got home it had registered 150 miles (one way). Some backyard!.
BOB said from Edenton they went down to Jacksonville where TOM AUSTIN had organized a bunch of people down there. LYN BAKER, VERNE THOMPSON, and ERIC BROYLES were there as well from our Crystal Coast group. KEN said Joyce Manley (?) was there also. Any way it was a pretty good turnout and we just about filled up that small room in the Golden Corral. Basically the meeting was to explain to the people what the TEA Party is, what we do, and try to lay out a plan about what we thought we could accomplish with the new group between now and November….which is essentially trying to man as many of the voting precincts as possible with a TEA Party table and TEA Party ballot. TOM has his work cut out for him going through the voter list, and instead of trying to vet all the candidates (all that was done during the primary) the people have a choice of vote between a Republican and a Democrat. So we are going to concentrate on trying to get some of the judges, running in both parties, so we can get some idea who they are. He was hoping Clint Rowe or David McFadyen would show up tonight so we could bend their ear on some of those candidates down there. If they show up tonight, we will cross that bridge when they get here.
BOB said we are going to have a short meeting tonight because several of our members have to go to an executive meeting at the GOP headquarters. That meeting is at 7:00.
BOB said ‘being the anniversary of 9-11, it is pretty amazing how that event is receding in people’s memory. They just don’t seem to be as motivated or caring as they once were. I guess we get bogged down in our own lives and family problems and other things. I have been watching the reruns on TV about remembering 9-11 and going through all the events as they were unfolding and it was like it was happening all over again. Kind of interesting, he heard on the radio coming here tonight that all the news stations had a moment of silence at the time of the impact into the World Trade Center, except NBC, and they had an interview with Kim Kardasian’s mother who was discussing her new breast implants. (What? Are you serious?)
BOB said we have another sad occasion here, one of our members is leaving us for Thailand. (never to be seen again!!!!) (Laughter and ‘he’s coming back ….in November….he’s coming back if the election goes the right way). Any way, TOM HARMON, come on up here, we have a plaque for you. The plaque reads “Presented to TOM HARMON. Thanks for all your support from your fellow Crystal Coast TEA Party friends.” (Applause) BOB said he thinks TOM has been with us since day one. Teased him about probably being with the original TEA Party in Boston or Edenton. TOM said he would not be here in November for the election but he would get up in the morning of November 7 at 9:00, have his breakfast, and by then should know who the president is. It will be 9:00 at night here and we should have already finished voting. If I have to crack open a cold beer and celebrate, I certainly will (even at that time of day). GLADYS SUESSLE said and then you will make a decision whether or not you are coming back here again. TOM said yep, then I’ll decide. He thanked us for the plaque.
EULA PARKIN told us about an article she had read today (Eula is our J’Hadist Watch reporter). This Muslim man married this woman and she presented him with a girl, twice in a row. Upon the birth of the third girl, the man tried to poison the woman and the baby. The man took another wife and she gave him a son so he tried to run off the first wife and three daughters. When she refused, he got some poisonous snakes and had them bite and kill the first wife and three daughters. (This report created a big discussion.) BOB asked EULA where this had taken place and she said in Cairo. This brought forth another discussion about the American Embassy being attacked today in Cairo, where they had torn down the American flag and raised a black Muslim flag over the embassy. GLADYS said, “Gee, and I heard we are better liked today than ever before all over the world!!!’. (This too created a discussion.) TOM AUSTIN said he understood the reason for the attack on the American embassy in Cairo today was because of a movie that had been made by an Iranian/American here in the United States that reflected badly on Mohammad. It is not even a movie being shown in the theaters and has only been seen on the internet. Just a little rinky dink movie. (discussion on protection of our embassies overseas, and our military and what it was allowed to do.)
SUSAN RNYAS said she understood there was going to be a program on FOX (Hannity, she thought) tonight about the growing Muslim/Islam threat. BOB said he heard today that President Obama had turned down a meeting with Netanyahu of Israel. He was too busy campaigning to make the arrangements for a meeting. Supposed to be in Vegas next week. BOB said the world is becoming a dangerous place because of the people we now have in charge. We have really got to do whatever we can do to get the voters out and vote. Biggest problem is a lot of people just vote for their check. Just as long as that check keeps coming in they don’t give a d–m about anything else.
BOB said he asked yesterday from this NC coordinator if there was any inside scoop on what the Ron Paul people are doing. SUSAN spoke up and said some people in Virginia that she had been talking to said Rand Paul was supposed to come out and support Romney and speak in Virginia and try to calm down the constitutionalist supporters. HOWARD said Rand Paul was interviewed on FOX last night and he gave what he (HOWARD) thought was a very intelligent talk. He said he was going to do whatever he could to get people behind Romney. LYN BAKER said she understood he was supposed to introduce legislation today to withhold funding to Pakistan until they free that doctor they were holding hostage that had helped us get BinLaden, and wanted to know if anyone had heard if he had done so. Several said they had heard talk about it but nothing definite. BOB said the reason he had asked about what the Ron Paul supporters were doing was the gal had said that they really did not know but she had heard some of them talking about not voting at all in the hopes that Obama would win, which would cause a huge economic collapse and then the people would go running to Ron Paul, as a savior, as a result. If they are thinking that they are totally out to lunch. (By then it will be too late for anyone to help us.) TOM AUSTIN said he heard on the radio coming up here today where they were interviewing some Ron Paul supporters and they were talking about voting the Libertarian Party rather than vote Republican. BOB said he expected a third of them would vote for the Libertarian Party, a third for Romney and a third will sit home on their thumbs. TOM said some how we have got to get it out to them, even locally, that a vote for anybody but Romney is a vote for Obama. BOB said there is a lot of talk about all the voter fraud that’s anticipated, and it makes it even more important that we get as many conservatives out to vote to overcome all these hurdles that are going to be coming at us. GLADYS said she is hearing more and more about 26 states votes are going to be counted in Spain (by a company owned by George Soros). STEVE BEST said that is not true. GLADYS said she is hearing both sides and the strongest argument is coming through that the votes will be counted outside the US. STEVE said the Christian Radio Station said it was not true, it was just a rumor that someone had put out. It was false. BOB said, It is important that we fact check any thing that may sound like a rumor coming off the internet. Just like that story that is still rolling around about that guy from the Canadian Free Press who has an insider that is high up in the Department of Homeland Security that alleges there is going to be a fake attempted assassination on Obama prior to the election and hopefully all the rioting and stuff would take place causing Obama to declare martial law and suspend the election. I don’t believe any of that but at the same time I read it I park it back in my mind in case something like that does happen, I’ll get my gun and ammo and meet you all in the Croatan.
BOB said ERIC BROYLES went to the Morehead City Commissioner Meeting tonight. They are discussing banning concealed weapon carrying in the city parks. (even if you have a concealed weapon permit). ERIC was going to argue on the Second Amendment grounds and BOB had told him he didn’t think he could win on those grounds. It is city property and they can restrict you from having a gun, just like they can restrict you in an airport. Even on your own property, if you don’t want someone having a handgun on your property, you are well within your rights to say no. Someone mentioned city streets and BOB said not necessary. Places where you conduct business, considered a place of work. If you are willing to spend a whole bunch of money and not win the case, fine. What you really need to do is ask them ’what is the new pressing need…what has happened that all of a sudden we have to have this resolution come through that impedes civil liberties. Has there been an increase in hand gun crime at the city parks? Has there been threats made at the city parks? What is participating all this? Or is it just something to feel good about. BOB said he didn’t know how ERIC would end up handling it, but he expected him to update him as soon as he could.
KEN said ’sort of related to that, he had gotten an email via the web site over the weekend he thought, from Essex County Virginia, and they were saying that the new city manager of Morehead City is an Agenda 21 supporter. KEN said he called the guy that sent out the email and spent about 30 or 40 minutes on the phone with him. He said they had worked over two years to get rid of this guy. I know you all want to strangle him, but can relate to his thoughts, but he told KEN that they knew he was applying for the job down here months ago but didn’t want to tell anybody because we were trying to get rid of him and they were afraid if they interfered with the process that they would be stuck with him. He said they really did want to let us know what this guy stands for and what he is working to promote and he said he will weasel his way into every county and city committee or commission he can get on (like planning commissions) to try to push Agenda 21 ideas. He apparently got the Essex County group to join that Iikley (?) group that works on Agenda 21. KEN fired off an email to ERIC, BOB and a couple of county commissioners about this guy and his ideas. He heard back from one of them that said they were aware of that. The good news is our county commissioners know and learned about this guy early and KEN thinks that they will abort any efforts he has to get on planning commissions as far as the county is concerned. The one thing he told ERIC last night was he needed to find out who in Morehead was pushing to hire this guy. They had like 49 candidates and they ended up settling in on this one guy. Someone had to really want to hire him. He felt like it was kinda urgent that ERIC find out who so they could start weeding out those in city government that were pushing this guy and Agenda 21. The more people we tell about it the better off everybody will be so they can keep an eye out for his actions.
HOWARD said another thing we needed to keep an eye on is ‘we are getting a new Emergency Management Director of Carteret County. He will report for duty October 1. For the last 4 years he understands he has been employed by FEMA, Washington DC.’
BOB said KEN had sent him an email about the NC Council of Government. He didn’t know how many counties were involved in it but they have something like a 6 billion dollar budget. Just the whole description, it is so ripe for corruption. HOWARD said we used to be the Neuse River Council, I don’t know what the name is now. And from what I have read recently there is some financial hanky panky going on there. To back that up, there was a council of government that recommended the Randy Parton Theater in Roanoke Rapids and the director that had his finger in it said that if it made any money, he was going to get part of it. So it looks like a good many of them are corrupt.
FRED DECKER said they had a meeting tonight over in Beaufort by the planning commission about the gambling machines they want to put down east by the library, down there in Otway. FRED said he thought it was in the same building, but HOWARD said it was next door. FRED said he believes if they will check it, Chris Chadwick owns that building. BOB asked if he was talking about poker machines. FRED said yes.
BOB said we had a bunch of folks sign up for manning the various precinct polls on election day to pass out TEA Party ballots. The ones that are still open are Atlantic, Sea Level, Cedar Island …a lot of the precincts down east, we don’t have anybody to cover. Most of the precincts down there have under 200 people…many have been combined.
LYN said the Republicans pass out lists for judges. BOB said, yes, but he had found that most people would wad up that ballot and ask for a TEA Party ballot. RO said it was very important that we remind the voters to please turn the ballot over and vote for the judges. If you vote a straight ticket – unless you do turn the ballot over and vote – then your ballot will not be cast for the judges. She said she had been working the Salter Path precinct for the GOP for 8 years and now it’s like everyone knows her even though she might not know them or their names. She said both Democrats and Republicans do not vote for the judges because they do not know them, so she passes out both our ballot and the GOP also, with the recommended judges and encourages them to please turn the ballot over and vote. They now tell her they are glad she is there to help.
BOB said everyone is wanting yard signs for Romney. They had a truck come in and they unloaded 25,000 lbs of campaign material and it was all palm cards. They got a few in today at GOP headquarters but there were almost none remaining when SUSAN left. They were going like hot cakes. They do have bumper stickers. It has been extremely hard to get our hands on yard signs. All feel like it would be more beneficial to print up yard signs and leave off some of the TV commercials. VERNE said the good news is they will have plenty of them by November 5. DIANE LANG said she understood that tomorrow they hoped to have badges. FRED said they were supposed to discuss yard signs tonight at the meeting. Since we have no one running in the county, they are going to recommend we use some of the GOP resources to have some printed up. LYN said everyday she gets flyers for Romney in the mail and it shows a phone number. She is thinking about calling the number and asking them to please put the money used for those flyers in yard signs. TOM AUSTIN said he got 10 envelopes (all alike) in one week. He wants to tell them that is not necessary, that they need to clean up their mailing list. BOB said he got 3 of them in one day.
EULA said she got an invitation to a big fund raiser for Pat McCrory but the cost started at $500.00. BOB wanted to know when that event was. KEN said it was a fund raiser rally and it is going to be on the 29th of September. The fund raiser part of it is real pricy (and he was the one who sent the invitation to EULA. He said he had tried to call her three times but had gotten no answer. She said she had caller ID and if she didn’t recognize the number she didn’t answer. KEN said well maybe that was the problem.) The rally part is open to everybody. It hasn’t been totally planned but there is going to be some music, maybe some food and drinks. He doesn’t know how expensive that it is going to be because it all hasn’t been planned yet. It is going to be at Holiday Travel Park at Emerald Isle….the one owned by Ronnie Watson. The fund raiser is by invitation only. The invitations start at $500.00 and work their way up. The governor of Georgia, Nathan Deal, is going to be the guest speaker. They said they would love for folks to come to the rally and if you feel like making a contribution of $5.00 or $20.00 or whatever, that would be great and appreciated. They would like to have a really good turnout. McCrory is supposed to be there, Pat McElraft, probably Jean Preston, maybe Norm Sanderson. By the way, Norm Sanderson is planning to have a fund raising rally early October, in Carteret County at the Leon Mann Senior Center. When KEN gets the date he will send it out to the members. They originally talked about doing it on a Tuesday … and he went back to Norm’s daughter and said he was sure the TEA Party could cancel that night’s meeting and she immediately came back with they would find another night. She didn’t want us cancelling our meeting. GLADYS said there is another one for Norm in New Bern Thursday night also at the Bridgepoint Hotel, right on the water.
Most of the members of the GOP who were going to the meeting all left at this point.
BOB said this Thursday, (September 13) the Republican Mens Club are having a speaking event at the Sanitary Seafood Restaurant. It starts, if you want to eat, at 5:30 and the speech starts around 7:00. Becky Gray from Civitas, will be speaker. Also reminder again that this coming Monday is the Insurance Commissioner’s debate at the Sanitary also. For this event you will have to reserve a seat. BOB said he would be there with his TEA Party shirt on and invited any TEA Party members who are planning on attending to join him. Cost of the meal is $10.00. Starts at 11:30 for brunch.
TOM HARMON told BOB that he had spared no expense in getting a present for him. Said it cost almost as much as his ticket to Thailand…..(an empty bottle or appeared empty). BOB read the label….Six Trillion Dollar Stimulus package hot sauce – only one Trillion Dollars….contains empty promises, hot air, nothing of any value, cause without substance, can’t prove where the rest of the ingredients are from. For use, mix with equal parts of redoric and media hype, serve with passion to hopeful masses. On the bottom of the bottle reads ‘insuring future generation misery. Net weight – more than we can bear. Only refundable by impeachment.’ (Got a big laugh).
BOB asked if there was anything from the floor, that tonight was going to be a short meeting unless they wanted to carry on without him. HOWARD said well since we aren’t doing too good with you……
BOB returned to the precincts poll workers. He needs someone at Morehead Precinct 1 where they have 1200+ voters, Pine Knoll Shores has 871 Republican voters and Otway/Straits.
He needs three more volunteers for these precincts. He told NANCY that they had combined Harlow with Wire Grass.
BOB asked NANCY for a Treasurer’s report. She said we have $1,575.00 but she has to pay for that ad in the School Insert which is about $300.00 and for the signs which we have received for use at our precinct voting polls. Those working are responsible for their own tables and chairs.
Reminded all about the meeting in Jacksonville on Monday. TOM would appreciate any of our members to come on down and give our support to his new group.
BOB said KEN had confirmed a rumor that the Golden Corral deal fell through so right now they are not going to be reopening unless someone comes up with some money and wants to buy the franchise. So we either stay here or look for someplace else. But we will talk about that later on.
RUTH PARKER wanted to know when we were going to have our TEA Party ballots ready. Already she is getting requests for a copy prior to the polls opening for early voting which starts the 18th of October. HOWARD said how about we go ahead and vote next week and that will give us time to get them run off and cut apart…in case we have some problems like the printer acting up. If the machine would go down, then we will have time to get it repaired and still get the ballots made up. BOB said next week would be good because the Cape Carteret group meets next week and so he can take our tally down there and combine them for a final count. HOWARD said after we finalize the vote then we can run some off to pass out at the next meeting. He is pretty sure as to how the vote will go but does not want to jump the gun and print them up and we change our minds and have to print them all over again. We had to do that once before. RUTH said several of her Cox’s customers were already asking about them. HOWARD said he got a phone call this week asking about the ballots.
NANCY wanted to know if she should order additional pocket constitutions. We are down to about 350. BOB said well, we have the Veterans’ Day Parade coming up and we had talked about getting them to the high school students along with the insert. Decided to order 1000 more copies since that was the cheapest way to buy them at a cost of about $230.00.
LYN wanted to know if we ever bought our own Armed Forces flags. NANCY said no we didn’t. BOB said where did we get the flags last year. LYN said she borrowed them from the church and they were returned with red paint all over them. She was embarrassed. She had managed to get most of it off before returning them, but did not want to borrow them again. Apparently they got rubbed against the float or something. BOB said he would check with the Town and Country IGA on 24. They used to have all kinds of Armed Forces flags for like $7.00 a piece. Maybe they still have some back in the store room.
LIBBY BROWN said she had gotten some stickup notes that read “Dear Voter, Did you know that when Obama took office on January 20, 2009, the national average for a gallon of gasoline was $1.84? Keep that in mind when you vote in November. Vote Romney.” She places them on the gas pumps when she gets gas. The stickups that she showed had Anyone but Obama in 2012 in lieu of Vote Romney but she had cut that off and added the “Vote Romney”. If anyone is interested, she can order more and bring them to another meeting.
RUTH wanted to know if early voting starts on the 18th of October are we going to be working them everyday until the election and are the early voting polls going to be at just the three places like the primary. BOB said he thought early voting would only be at the 3 places but he would find out for sure. We will take it back up again next week. RUTH said she heard they were going to be mailing out ballots early. TOM HARMON said only absentee ballots, not ballots for everyone, because he already had gotten his ballot since he was leaving to go to Thailand. You have to ask for an absentee ballot.
Meeting adjourned at 6:58pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.