CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
27 NOVEMBER 2012
Meeting was held at Roland’s Barbecue in Beaufort, NC
Meeting called to order by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH at 6:00
Pledge of Allegiance was led by PEGGY GARNER
Invocation by LYN BAKER
Attendance: 26
BOB told how down in the dumps he had been since the election. He said TOM HARMON, in Thailand, said he had been unable to talk to anyone for four days after. KEN LANG said he guess TOM must have liked his posting on TOM’s face book….”Gee TOM, you leave the country, go over to Thailand to get away from Obama and then he and Hillary, both, follow you over there. Maybe you need to come back home and hopefully he will stay over there.” Someone said ‘no such luck’. EULA PARKIN asked if anyone had heard if the plane that went down, carrying the absentee ballots of the troops overseas, had ever been found. BOB said he thought that was probably just another rumor. He didn’t think there were planes only used to carry ballots. They also probably carried other mail, payments of bills, packages, etc., as well as pilots and co-pilots and he had not heard of any such event. LUKE KUKULINSKI said he still didn’t think Romney lost. BOB said he did feel there was a lot of hanky panky and fraud that went on during the election and that the election was stolen. He didn‘t know how. He didn’t know if the Republicans were tech savy enough to figure out how they did it, but he just can’t wrap his mind around how Obama got re-elected. How in the world did all those precincts in Pennsylvania have a 100 percent vote for Obama and not one for Romney.. Possible but not probable. Also how about all those precincts that had over 100 percent of registered voters voting in Ohio? LUKE said he understood they had all kinds of lawyers standing by to stop any such mess, but they didn’t. They all said there was no evidence of wrong doing. Something really stinks but how do you prove it. HOWARD said from what he was hearing and reading, a lot of Republicans want to move more to the Democratic side, away from the conservative side, and that really concerns him. BOB said, yeah, they are talking about wanting to go along with amnesty for the illegals and stuff like that, we are going to have to fight tooth and nail to block that. If the Republicans go along with that, the Democrats are going to get any credit for it. The story is going to be the Republicans caved under Democrat pressure. GLADYS SUESSLE said she saw on TV or heard about some computer expert testifying in front of some senate committee, she thought, and he was asked if machines could be fixed and he said absolutely. They could put a code in it that you can not detect and it will default to whomever you want. Discussion by the group on various things they had heard and all wondered what can be done about it. Most agreed that the Carteret County method of voting (marking the ballot by hand) was probably the best method…at least you had a backup to look at and count later…even if a machine was tallying the votes. Using touch screens to vote does not leave any paper trail and is a good method for stealing votes. However, nothing is foolproof. Someone can always find a way around it. ROMA WADE said while we think Carteret County is so good, then why in the world in a small precinct like Wiregrass, can’t they find out who worked the polls there that manhandled EDITH, his wife, on election day. No one will come forth with a name. He has hired a lawyer and is taking out a law suit against the county shortly. BOB said there is no way they do not know who is the guilty party. There is only just so many poll workers working that precinct, so it is obvious someone does know who did it and they are just protecting them. ROMA said, should he start at $100 thousand or should he start at a million. All agreed he should start at a million and if he had to he could come down, but to start low, didn’t leave him an option to go higher. Several advised him to at least pay his bills and mortgage off.
BOB said on a more positive note, he had gotten an email that Norman Sanderson was having a special swearing in on Sunday, January 6, 2013 at 3:00 pm at the Havelock Tourist and Event Center. The oath of office will be administered by North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Paul Newby. The newly elected Lt. Governor Dan Forest has also been invited to attend along with a number of local dignitaries. NC Representative elect Speciale, Republican of Craven County will also be receiving his oath of office at this event. Speciale is the one who won the seat vacated by Norman Sanderson. Norman said he had wanted this special swearing in in order to have his friends, and loyal supporters in attendance. The swearing in in Raleigh will only allow about 3 persons per inductee to attend and he wanted this special event for those who had worked so hard for his election. Question was raised where the Havelock Tourist and Event Center was located. It is just over the small bridge on the west side (New Bern side) of Havelock…on the left where the two new hotels are located and the stationary airplanes are on display. Regular oath of office is taken late January in Raleigh, but the newly elected were given the opportunity to hold an early oath of office in order to give those unable to attend the event in Raleigh a chance to ‘be there’ for Norm. Norman would like nothing better than to be surrounded by his family and friends, and constituents as he takes his oath of office. There will be a reception with cake and punch immediately following the ceremony. Everyone wishing to attend, please come.
Ruth wanted to know if we should wear our TEA Party shirts. BOB said it might be a little cold for our short sleeve shirts on the 6th of January. Ruth said, those of us who have the long sleeve ones can wear them. Besides it is going to be inside, not outside. The agreement was that we would wear our TEA Party shirts.
BOB announced that STEVE BEST has an event coming up at his “Cave” on Saturday, December 15, 2012, at 3:00pm. STEVE announced that it was the “First Steps of the Messiah”. It is a family that goes around and sings and tells the story with a video presentation. It lasts about an hour. Everyone who wants to attend, please do so and bring some snacks. We will eat first and then have the presentation.
A big meeting of the local coordinators on December 8th in Kinston. He and KEN LANG are going to attend. So far there are 21 TEA Parties in the region. They want to come up with some ideas as to how they can all work together. The senatorial race (Hagan) is coming up in two years. We want to try to work our buns off to try to defeat Kay Hagan. Republicans need to win six senate seats across the country in order to gain control of the Senate. So if we can deliver Kay Hagan on a platter then we have done our job. We certainly did our job on November 6 in Carteret County and we can do it again with Hagan. Hopefully the Voter ID law will have passed by then so maybe some of the fraud can be eliminated. Let’s just hope the Republicans can find someone to run that we can all get behind and support. The closest race we had in the November election was Clint Rowe, and he still got a 60% to Spencer’s 40% and that 20% is what carried him over to win his race, since he had not carried Craven or Pamlico. He ended up winning by 3800 votes.
BOB recognize KEN LANG. KEN said he too was still in a real big funk about the election. The saving grace was to see people like Dave McFadyen, (who had just come in) walk in and that made him feel good. Several said Dave’s mother should be here. She was the star this last election. (Many favorable remarks and comments were made as to how she had devoted her time and effort working for Dave and how he should be very proud of her.) Dave said she would definitely be here at either the next meeting or the one after. KEN said when he thought of how hard we had all worked and given our all, to see it “stolen”. He said he agreed with LUKE about the voter fraud…something has to be done about it. Our focus has to be on the state of NC though. He is sure that after the first of the year NC is going to have a Voter ID law. We now have the House and Senate, the Governorship and Lt. Governorship as well as our Supreme Court Justice. KEN wanted to know if we had seen the posting he had put on our Facebook page about the Democrats demanding that Judge Newby recuse himself on any re-districting bills that came up. They say he was bought by the Republican party. Course they didn’t comment on how much money the Democrats had poured into Sam (Jimmy) Ervin’s campaign. That never applies to them anyway. KEN said our biggest problem right now is that we have a Republican party that is trying to become more Democrat-like. He told about how a few years ago Glenn Beck had a really good show that taught history to his viewers. He considered that a high point of Glenn’s show. One time he showed a chart with a line going across the middle. On one side you had the Anarchists and on the other you had the Totalitarians and in the middle was your balance point. He said the problem is that that middle point keeps getting shifted over further and further to the left. What happens is that the Republican Party follows right behind that. They don’t stay anchored. Why don’t they have an anchor. They don’t have any principles and have nothing to stay anchored to. They keep drifting over to the Democrats…keep nudging over to the left. They (the Democrats) propose absurd things. 20 years ago they were proposing gay marriage. Now a lot more people do not think that idea was absurd as it was when it was first thrown out 20 years ago. They don’t let go of an issue. They keep throwing it out there and after a while people start thinking of it as the norm…and the Republicans just keep on nudging over to the left with them. We are so far left now to Ronald Reagan, it is absolutely unbelievable. There are no Ronald Reagans left in the Republican party any more. Who is there now to even pull them back to that middle ground…much less the right. It bothers him to hear the Republican party talk about ‘how do we attract younger women, how do we attract Latinos, how do we attract more blacks into the party? Even how do we attract the gay and lesbian community? KEN said ‘wait a minute if you are going to do that, why don’t you just change parties and join the Democrats…that is their way of thinking. Leave the remainder of the Republican party to those of us who want to see it stay to the right. If we can’t survive on our own, since all you guys are moving over to that other party, that is fine, but quit screwing our party up. He said he has not heard a single one of them say since the election, say what can we do to keep the conservatives in our party. Most of them will say, they don’t need to worry about the conservatives, because they are going to follow us anyway, since they have no where else to go. It is becoming so antithetical to what we stand for that people are either going to stop voting, or go to a third party vote, (which he thinks is a game killer also). These are the thoughts of everyone he has talked to and he thinks this is part of what will be discussed at the December meeting he and BOB are going to in Kinston. The one thing KEN thinks we need to focus on is our principles. A lot of these other issues are important but they are side issues. That is all we are seeing from the Democrat party now is distractions. The Bengazi affair was all afire right before the elections and then they threw out this mess about Petraeus. It was all a distraction. He’s not saying we shouldn’t care about them or complain about them, but they are still distractions and we have to keep that in mind. The way they keep moving ahead is by keeping us distracted from the real issues. The real issues are our principles…Fiscal Responsibility, Limited Government and Free Markets. I believe if you support those principles that they are rooted in a lot of the social issues that many of the ‘elite’ Republicans say are splitting us apart. I’m not saying the social issues are splitting us apart…because if you think about it, that is a distraction also. There is no way you can support those principles without supporting a lot of the conservative and social issues.
These are the things we need to focus on and how we are going to do that. That is the real hard part. For us it is at the local level….and our next important race is Kay Hagan. She has voted straight down the line with Obama and the Democrats. We have got to replace her. The Republican party is already lining up some candidates. That is fine but we want to make sure that those are the candidates that we can support also. We have got to make sure we get a good conservative candidate in that is going to help NC.
BOB said Kay Hagan already has her PACs lined up and operating with commercials running. She is already in gear and off on the campaign trail and we don’t even have a candidate yet. We do very well here in Carteret County, but he feels the next step is to go beyond the county lines because there are a lot of counties in the area that did not do so well. His understanding is that this upcoming meeting is an opportunity to discuss how we can do better and if we can even work together on a coordinated effort. Example: Onslow County with a 180 thousand residents vs. about 60 thousand here in Carteret, have only 97,000 registered voters down there and only had a 52% voter turnout on election day. The surrounding counties, Jones, Pender, Duplin, Craven and Carteret all had close to 70% turnout. Jacksonville sticks out like a big eyesore. BOB did some research and downloaded some maps which showed during the primary they only had about a 22% turnout then. Jacksonville precinct which has a population of about 70,000, had a less than 10% turnout during the primary. There are a lot of problems down in Onslow that need help.
Question was asked if Onslow had early voting this year. KEN said yes but it was a lot less than ours. Swansboro only had 3 early voting days. It varies depending on the local board of elections. Craven County had early voting…in fact they had 2 Sundays of voting, but that was up to them. Carteret County’s early voting, he felt was too long. It is terrible for the volunteers, the poll workers, the candidates, and costs a lot of money. Consensus was if you shortened the hours, the voters would come out anyway. The early voting costs come out of the county’s funds. LYN BAKER said some of the statistics she heard indicated too many registered voters were not voting. These are the ones we need to work on.
KEN discussed thoughts of the voter, why he no longer feels impelled to vote. He feels his vote does not count any more so why should he even bother. Last night on Lockwood’s show he had an interview with DeLuca of NC Civitas and apparently he has been having quite a feud with the Chairman of the State Board of Elections and he had called the Chairman a liar. Last night he told Lockwood why he did so and why he was right and went through the details. KEN volunteered to put the article on Facebook for everyone to read. What fascinated KEN about the radio show was the explanation of how complicated the State Board of Elections has made voting in NC. DeLuca said what they have done is they are lobbied by all these liberal Democrat groups, like Acorn, when they were still in existence and others similar to Acorn, to pass laws to make voting appear to be more accessible to people like early voting and stuff like that; but which really complicates the voting process. He said voting in NC is just so convoluted that it is hard to keep up with it. When you vote in early voting you are not casting a secret ballot. Your ballot can be read by the people at the board of elections and they can tell and record who you voted for specifically. An absentee ballot and an early voting ballot are almost the same thing and are not secret ballots in NC. Another thing he said which was interesting, when you cast a vote during early voting, you are not, as many think, put into that category of provisional voter, you are put into the absentee category. So say you go in to early vote and you register when you early vote which is legal in NC, the NC law reads that the county board of elections has to send you a letter at the address you gave. If that letter comes back as undeliverable, they have to send you a second letter, validating that address, to see if that letter is returned also. By the time that happens in NC (checked by Civitas by sending out a survey testing the system for time taken and Civitas is still getting them back today from the primary), the election is over and done with. Even though those ballots have never been validated, those votes were counted in the election. This is only one example of how mixed up the whole NC system is. The new governor and new board of elections have that challenge in front of them to sort that mess out and come up with changes to make NC voting fair. It is very easy to get people registered during early voting, but hard to verify that their vote was legal.
GLADYS asked Dave McFadyen about opting out of Obamacare and could that become the camel’s back. Approximately 16 states have already opted out, but she understands Perdue put us in the mix. Is there anyway we can get out or should we? He understands that we would have to return any monies we had received for McCrory to get us out of it. The fact that only so much money had been allocated for this (Obama never dreaming anyone would opt out, so not enough money was allocated to cover those who preferred to opt out and let the federal government take care of it for them. These states have told the federal government they refuse to increase their medicare any more. Federal funding is how the federal government controls the states.) Dave said this could possibly be the straw that broke the camel’s back. We all wish so.
Discussion on how the system works with a new governor and new board of elections….how the system works its way down to the counties. Who appoints who. A lot of questions but no real answers…other than the governor can’t just wholesale replace every board of elections in each and every county at one time….that would mean 100 new chairmen. Apparently there is a schedule of how and who get appointed. It would be nice to have someone who is familiar with the system to come and explain it to us. Maybe Sue Vernon.
Discussion on getting involved with precincts and districts, serving as delegates, running for offices, attending meetings, conventions, etc.
BOB recognized Dave McFadyen, our newly elected district court judge. He said he would be remiss if he had not come down to talk with us tonight and thank us for all we had done for him. He said this was his first visit of not being a candidate running for office (maybe again in 2016 but not right now), He said we had really enlightened him. As a first time politician, when he went to the polls to vote, he felt like he knew who he was going to vote for and if someone tried to hand him something or wanted to talk to him, it was ‘oh no, I know what I want to do‘. I did not understand the value of having boots on the ground and now I am doing a couple of political consultants to people to explain to them about the value of boots on the ground. I just wanted to let you all know about that and how important it was. Election day was the nastiest, rainiest day and just seeing you all out there braving the elements really warmed my heart. We could not have done it without you. I just wanted to come down and thank you and let you know that it became more important as we got closer to election day, because my ‘opponent’ and most do not know this, but he got himself back into the race. Therefore, it was that much more important that we had people working the polls and getting the message out. Thankfully, things turned out the way they did, and Carteret not only pushed Clint over the top but also helped me to counteract my opponents last minute drive. Just want you to know, and there will be a more formal announcement, like Norm and Mike’s announcement today, I can be sworn in January 1. (He wanted to put it off so that his supporters could also be there. He was told if he was not sworn in January 1 then he wouldn’t get paid for a full month.) So, my official swearing in will be January 1, but will have a ceremonial swearing in January 4th at 3:00 in New Bern in the Superior Court Room in the courthouse there. You all are certainly invited. There will be a more formal announcement coming out. Clint, I think, will be sworn in the 3rd and I will be sworn in on the 4th, that Friday. I hope you all will come and we will have some refreshments. And as for my mom, she was going to come down two weeks ago and I was sick. Last week was my birthday as well as my grandmothers. I was 42 last week. Hopefully she will come down next week. Thanks again. This is not a good bye. This is just me coming down to say thank you. I’ll still come down to see you guys. Thank you again. Look forward to us meeting and eating again…maybe I’ll come and eat here with you sometime soon. Couldn’t have done it without you. KEN said the good thing is in 2016 you will be running as incumbent. Dave said ’if I do a good job and win 71% of the vote, hopefully I won’t have an opponent.
BOB said a couple of ideas got kicked around during our ’little get together’ last week. One was the suggestion that we sponsor a pig at the Newport Pig Cookin’ which is the first weekend of April. Maybe we can set up a table, pass out constitutions, not sure if we will be allowed to sell our TEA Party shirts or not, but if we follow that up with possibly a Tax Day Rally at the Newport Events grounds, the following weekend (just before April 15) we could promote the rally at the pig cooking to boost our attendance. All in attendance were in favor of sponsoring a pig at the Newport Pig Cookin’. Great idea. LYN said she was looking into finding us a cooker (the grill). We will need to find a good cook also. FRED said we would be able to find someone. There is always those who are looking for a sponsor. Howard and Peggy are going to check into finding out the details and what is required to sponsor a pig. HOWARD said he thought it would probably cost us between $100 and $125 to sponsor a pig. They, the Pig Pickin’ group, gets the pigs, brings them in in a refrigerated truck and passes them out to the cooking teams. (We will not be out buying our own pig to cook.) We will need to buy a bottle of gas for whoever cooks. We will also need to find someone with a tent we can use, just in case it rains. BOB said we are going to have to look into getting a stage, because he was not sure what ever happened to Tom Smith and his trailer. FRED said he could get someone to talk to him about using it again. Question was raised as to who gets to keep the prize winners money, the sponsor or the cook. HOWARD said he thinks the cook usually gets to keep that unless we can work out a deal in advance.
NANCY BOCK, Treasurer reported that we have about $500.00 and we owe about $165.00 for the ad in the paper. What about event insurance …sound system is about $325 unless they have gone up on the price, tables and chairs, another $100 or so….so everyone dig deep and feed the kitty. We are going to need it. BOB asked HOWARD to talk to the owner of the Flea Mall and see if he could work out the arrangements of us having a rally there again. We need to talk to him early to make sure he hasn’t already booked the field for something else. BOB asked HOWARD to confirm that Saturday, April the 13th prior to the 15th. If it is open then we will move forward from there.
LYN asked if anyone remembered us looking into various events around the county where we could set up a table to sell our TEA Party items. It doesn’t have to be a big event, will just need 3 or 4 people to help at each event. BOB said we will need someone to let us know of the various events occurring at least a month in advance so we can make arrangements. LYN said at the Visitor’s Center, their schedule is published way in advance. LYN said she would go down there and get the information and bring it to the meetings.
GLADYS wanted to know if there is a gun show in Carteret County. Answer – No. Craven has a great one. The Tax Payers Group there always has a booth and receive a really warm welcome by the visitors. They give out constitutions. They talk to the visitors about their values and that sort of thing. KEN said he had talked to Lynn Childs at the last gun show and he had brought it up to BOB a couple of weeks ago. It will cost us about $50.00 to put a table up similar to what they do. They sell various items, (Tshirts, bumper stickers, etc) pass out literature, for their group. It will be a great venue for us and he thinks BOB ought to get with the Onslow County group also. The weekend before the Craven County Gun Show Jacksonville has the same gun show. This could be a big kick up for the Onslow TEA Party to get their name before the public. KEN said he thought we ought to do that in Craven. He thinks it is the second week in January for two days. All we would have to do is come up with the $50.00 fee for a table and come up with volunteers to man the booth. We could do like Lynn and put out a Donation Jar. She says she always gets enough to at least pay for their table expenses. It is a two day event. Maybe we could pick up some additional members or maybe help those who are looking for a TEA Party group in their area and we can lead them to someone there who will assist them.
Meeting adjourned at 7:36 pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.