CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
4 DECEMBER 2012

Meeting was held at Roland’s Barbecue in Beaufort, NC
Meeting was called to order at 6:14pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by KEN LANG
Invocation by RO THOMPSON
Attendance:  27

BOB said he guesses that everyone has heard that Boehner is moving to oust all Conservatives on committees positions in the House of Representatives.  Walter Jones lost his position on the finance committee.  The moderates in the Republican party are having a war on the conservatives and the TEA Party trying to boot them out.  The only remedy he can think of is they all organize themselves and vote as a block on anything.  ERIC said he had talked to Walter Jones office today and Jones is not going to vote in favor of Boehner when he gets nominated for Speaker of the House again.  (Several attendees commented “Good”.)  So maybe if all these conservatives get their act together they can boot his butt out.

BOB said this coming Saturday there is going to be a regional meeting of….last count he had was 21 TEA Parties…will be attending.  It is basically the key organizers of the individual groups (one or two people per organization) and we will have just a general bull session about the election and about the future and maybe how we can work together on different projects.  He thinks everybody that he has talked to is in agreement that we all need to work together to get rid of Kay Hagan and put a Republican in there.  Hopefully the rest of the country …all the TEA Parties will organize to unseat at least five more Democrats…. because the Republicans need six more Senate seats to take control of the Senate and hopefully put a halt to Obama.  This meeting will be the 8th of December (this coming Saturday).

ERIC BROYLES said couldn’t we (the conservatives and TEA Party) run candidates against these Moderates who are trying to oust groups like us.  KEN LANG said “Isn’t that what we have been trying to do?”  ERIC said he didn’t know that we had totally targeted candidates.  KEN said that is what is happening all across the country.  The only thing we have control over is here in North Carolina, Carteret County.  We have to concentrate on what we do here like BOB mentioned Kay Hagan.  We’ve got to take care of her.  It is up to Ohio what they do about Boehner.  Other states have been running TEA Party candidates….like Cruz out of Texas that just won.  These things are going to topple one at the time and the problem is we are fighting the Republican establishment.  Everytime they have a TEA Party candidate like they did in Nevada, and Delaware and other states, the Republican party has come out against them….wouldn’t give them any money.  He (KEN) thinks we are doing exactly what ERIC suggested.  They either win primaries or they lose.  If  they win, that’s good.  We can keep pressing them.  Unfortunately the way our system is set up it is going to take a while to do that.  We’ve just got to get our TEA Party folks (the conservative patriots) to hang tough in Congress, and like BOB said, he thinks it is a good idea if they form a conservative caucus in the Republican party so they can at least resist some of these attempts to throw these people out like Walter Jones.  He is not always happy about the way Walter votes, but Walter is certainly more conservative than some of these jerks we’ve got up there running the place right now.  Question was asked when the vote would be conducted on the Speaker of the House.  KEN and BOB both said it would be right after the first of the year.  Probably will be the first order of business.  FRED DECKER wanted to know if we could find out how many in North Carolina voted for Boehner.  Both BOB and KEN said we would definitely find out.  KEN said one of the things we should talk about at this upcoming weekend TEA Party meeting  is to see if TEA Party groups across North Carolina will contact their congressmen and make sure they do not vote for Boehner for Speaker.  Hopefully if the rest of the country does that we can get him thrown out of there because he sure hasn’t…..right from the beginning on this fiscal cliff….even when they were negotiating fiscal cliff…people were saying the Republicans are going to lose the fight when it comes.  That is exactly what is happening.  They play us like a fiddle right down to the end.  It only takes a little bit of common sense to know you are going to cut spending as much as needs to be cut…that you can’t start talking about it a month and a half before the vote.  That is something that takes a year or more of discussion.  They sat there and put us on this path of a fiscal cliff without even enough time at that point to talk about real serious cuts of entitlements.  They knew from the very beginning when they negotiated it they would not be able to cut spending enough because they did not have anything on the table to talk about.  How in the —- are you going to do it in two and a half weeks.  You can not do it.  It just is not going to happen.  So the only thing that is going to happen is the same thing that happens every time is we agree to raise taxes or cut out deductions, every which way you want to do….they both do about the same thing.  The taxes go up with the promise of cutting spending down the road and that never happens.  They never cut spending.  They did that to Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W Bush.  They did the same thing every time.  That is the way the game is played.  The Republicans lose it every time.  They haven’t won yet.  You would have expected Ronald Reagan to win that battle but Reagan wanted his Star Wars program so bad that he caved on not getting the spending cuts promised.  That is why they ran deficits during his time.  They do it every time folks.  It is almost like they are in bed together.  They know what is going to happen.  They just go out there and play like they are on opposite sides of the team, but they always know where it is going to end up.

DAVID COX asked why do we always support Republicans?  If we have good conservative Democrats, why do we not support them?  Are there no good Democrats?  Brief discussion followed.  BOB said down in Onslow County they had supported a Democrat for County Commissioner, but he lost.  HOWARD GARNER said about two or three weeks ago Rufus Edmonson made the comment that you could hardly find a conservative Democrat in North Carolina any more.  There is the problem.  The conservatives have or are leaving the Democrat party cause they can not stand the mess going on.  That is why he left and became an unaffiliated voter.  BOB said the Democrats ran the conservatives off and now the Republicans are running them off also.

WAYNE WILLIS said last summer we had a meeting in Cape Carteret and there was a man who came in there from Johnston County.  He had a piece of paper that listed the last small portions of Acorn Organization and he passed them out.  There was 100 or so different corporations that were some parts of Acorn.  When WAYNE asked for a copy he asked the man where he was from and the man said he was from Johnston county.  WAYNE asked him how in the world did he ever wind up here tonight at a TEA Party meeting and you from Johnston County.  There has never been a Republican born in Johnston County.  Once in a while one will drive through but won’t dare stop.  He knows people from Johnston County and that is the way it was.  He said he had been a Democrat but he had changed.  WAYNE said ‘you left the Democrat party?’  He said, No, the Democrat Party left me.  That is probably why there is probably more here tonight than HOWARD who changed.  Maybe somewhere in your dark distant past you too had been a Democrat.  KEN said he thinks that is the way a lot of TEA Party members feel today about the Republicans Party.  The Republican Party is leaving the conservatives.  Where are we going to go to next?  KEN said that is one of the reasons why there has been some talk in the last few months (right after the election) about another party.  We talked about this last time…about you divide the country into three parties and there is just no way you end up winning anything.  BOB said that is going to be part of a discussion this weekend.  It may be a serious consideration for the group.  Some body from Edenton wanted to talk about it. BOB thinks that is suicide to do that.  Third party, he is willing to talk about it, but is not in favor of it.  KEN said it appears that the more discouraged the conservatives get, the less likely they will go and vote.  What you do, by doing that, you keep moving further and further to the left anyway because you are not out there supporting a candidate.  It is almost a catch twenty-two kind of situation.  There has got to be a solution, but he does not know what it is.  HOWARD said the Republicans are counting on that because they know that we can not find a more conservative place to go, so they figure in desperation we are going to choose to go with the Republicans.  KEN said that might be a good argument for a third party…to just let them know ‘you lost us’.  You will never win an election again because you lost us.  I don’t know if that would sink home to them or not.  PEGGY said she and HOWARD had been thinking and have about decided to change their registration from unaffiliated to Republican and get involved with the workings of the party.  If more of us would become Republicans and go to the meetings, really get involved and run for offices, and have a voice in the operations, maybe we could bring conservatism back to the party.  Right now she understands they normally do not have enough interest to even have the needed delegates to represent the various groups at  conventions.  She thinks this is something that is needed to improve the party.  Most agreed with her.  Something to think about.   BOB said true, if everybody here plus the group in Western Carteret would show up at the county convention we could actually take over the Republican party of this county.  KEN said he just sent an email to Greg Lewis, who is the party chair with a copy to Judy Wilgus asking them to give him the schedule for the precinct meetings and the convention and the 3rd District meeting.  He just sent it today.  As soon as he gets this information he is going to send out an email to all on his list.  He discussed sending out a mass mailing recently and if you did not get it, please let him know so he can follow up.  Sometimes with these mass mailings the service that you are with will block mass mailings and depending on who your provider is you may have to go in and put something in your address book or something like that.

WAYNE again reminded us about the “Imprimis pamphlet’.  It is excellent and everyone should subscribe to it.  It is free and the best piece of free information or paper you can get a hold of.

Discussion on attendance at the Republican party meetings…who usually goes…who is active and does the work, etc.  Meetings held at Cape Carteret are unhandy to attend since they are at the end of the county.  Meetings held in Morehead are more centrally located and they even use to have meetings in Harkers Island.  If they want to have more members attend they need to move their meeting place to a more central location.

ERIC wanted to know if at the meeting this weekend did BOB or KEN think there would be any discussion on holding a rally in Washington DC, considering what is going on right now.  It looks like taxes are going to be increased and there is not going to be any spending cuts or at lease very little spending cuts.  This TEA Party is about fiscal responsibility and he thinks our voice needs to be heard.  LUKE KUKULINSKI said he understood there was a rally planned, he thought on inauguration day.  Several said they had also heard about that rally.  GLADYS SUESSLE said she understood that AFP was planning something also.  She heard about it at the New Bern meeting.  They are getting a bus together for people that want to go and they are going enmass to see Kay Hagan.  It is $10.00.  They said if there were enough from the New Bern area, they would get a bus from there, otherwise it is going to be from Goldsboro.  BOB wanted to know how many buses had they organized to go there.  Is it a statewide effort.  GLADYS said she did not know.  KEN said he had not seen anything.  Bethany Hudson had made the announcement at the Tax Payer meeting in New Bern in November.  It is supposed to be December 13, which is next week.  BOB wanted to know what the purpose of the trip was…just to see Kay Hagan….about what?  GLADYS said she would assume about what our issues are and what we want her to address.  BOB said he didn’t think a rally would help matters any.  We put several million up there protesting Obamacare and they rammed it through anyway.

BOB said one of the things that was going to be discussed at this meeting this weekend was the formation of a Regional Political Action Committee of eastern North Carolina TEA Parties, where we can donate money into this PAC which can be funneled towards particular candidates regionally or statewide.

BOB announced that next Tuesday will be our last meeting in the month of December and the year.  The following week is Christmas and then New Years.  We will meet again next Tuesday and he and KEN will give us a debrief on the meeting of this coming Saturday.  This meeting is just going to be a toss around ideas type of meeting and out of that is supposed to be some sort of agenda developed and they will meet again some time after the first of the year.

BOB asked if those who had attended the Commissioners meeting last night had anything they wanted to report.  KEN and HOWARD said we stayed for the swearing in of the new commissioners, election of Chairman and Vice Chairman and then left.  They did not make any appointments last night.  They put them off until the 17th.

KEN said the same day that they were having their TEA Party meeting this weekend, December 8, the Republican Party is going to be electing a new chair for the NC GOP.  BOB wanted to know where that was taking place at.  KEN said Raleigh.  BOB wanted to know who would be casting the votes.  KEN said apparently they have invited delegated from various county parties.

BOB said he was looking at statistics for the voter turnout and Onslow County had the lowest voter turnout in all 100 counties.  Only 52% voted.  Everybody else in this general area had almost 70% turnout.  He doesn’t know how Carteret can improve on that.  That’s pretty darn good.  HOWARD said he worked in four different counties when he was employed by the Department of Agriculture and Onslow was so different from the other three, it was unbelievable and he was talking about the rural population (the farmers).  He felt they were way behind the other counties.  That may be ugly, but that is the way he saw it.  BOB said in studying the demographics of Onslow, it used to be mostly Democrat and then all of a sudden it was like the county went very solidly Republican and voting participation dropped off.

Discussion on the Home Owners insurance and where it appears to stand as of now….home owner vs. rental property.  ERIC said the way he sees it insurance rates are going up and it is going to hit senior citizens pretty hard….because he understands there will be a 15% increase this year, 8% the next year and 3 or 5% the year after.  So it is like about a 30% increase.  HOWARD said he thought the reason rates were rising is because the insurance companies are not making money on their money.  They are not getting any interest…the stock market has been up and down…so they are going to make it off of us.  HOWARD said yesterday he was in Marine Federal and the lady who waiting on him said they would finance a vehicle for six years for 1and ¾ interest.  He said you mean a new car?  She said a used one also if it doesn’t have over 100 thousand miles on it.  He said he was shocked.

BOB said this whole fiscal cliff thing, no matter which way it goes it is going to get stuffed up the Republican’s butt.  They are either going to cave and tax the rich and that is going to get spun as the Republican caved to Democrats demands….or he would rather see us go over the fiscal cliff since that is the only way we are going to get any budget cuts…but because all those major cuts (a mandated 10% over the board cuts in every department, the suicide pact where they are going to take another ½ trillion dollars out over a 10 year period) but all the pain and suffering that comes out of those budget cuts because people are going to take hits and lose jobs, the Democrats are going to turn it around and blame that on the Republicans also, because they wouldn’t go along with the tax hikes.  Never mind that the Democrats refused to cut spending.  No matter how this thing plays out the Republicans lose.  He believes that it was Obama’s intention all along.  BOB said he thought we should all join hands and jump.  KEN said he thought the Republicans in the House should just bring up the Obama plan for a vote and let half of the Republican abstain and the other half vote no.  That way they can’t say the Republicans opposed it all together and they can’t say it was a bipartisan bill.  The Democrats own it because it is their bill and their plan and I don’t think they like it either.  So now the Senate is faced with voting for the Obama budget/plan or not voting for it.  That to him is the only win that the Republicans have.  They can then say we are getting out of the way, you drive the train and it is now up to you.  He said he didn’t think the House was smart enough to do it, but it could work in their behalf.

WAYNE said what we are seeing right now is a repeat of Roosevelt’s second administration.  The difference is back then there was no 16 trillion dollar debt.  If you study history, you will recall when he got elected, that is when the depression started getting worse.  It kept getting worse the whole time he was in the white house.  And then World War II started.  What you have now is a far worse situation with Obama because he is not going to back up one second and he wants it to go over the cliff.  In WAYNE’s opinion it is already over the cliff.  We went off the edge of the cliff when Standard and Poors’ said your credit rating has gone down.  We have just not hit the bottom yet.  You can not sustain a 180 million dollar mandate five or ten years down the road with an over 16 trillion dollar debt right now.  There ain’t no such money folks, it ain’t there.

BOB asked how we felt about Obama wanting to take the cap off  and letting him have unlimited funds.  Hot discussion followed.  BOB said if Congress goes along with that, he guarantees there will be a rally in DC, a big one.  HOWARD said there is no point in having a Congress if they do that.

GLADYS said she didn’t know if anyone else heard this, but she heard that in the defense budget there is a lot of stuff in there that has nothing to do with defense….grants for all sorts of stupid experiments that they are doing….like do babies react to noise?  No body is looking at this.  Nobody is saying let’s cut those things out of the defense budget.  And it is billions of dollars.  BOB said these are called ear marks.  A congressman will say I will vote for your bill if I can get this….and once they allow the first guy do that then the other guys line up to get theirs in.

KEN said something else to think about.  This was on Rush Limbaugh’s program.  We have been talking tonight about the fiscal cliff and the new taxes that would go into effect.  What we haven’t talked about are the new taxes that are going into effect on January 1st because of Obamacare.  They are absolutely amazing and they are going to hit everybody.  They will not just hit the rich people and as Rush says all these new taxes are not going to be just for the rich either…but the Obama taxes are going to hit everybody.  By the time you take the Obama taxes and add on top of them (Rush was throwing around a number today) …..just the Obamacare taxes will increase each household’s tax liability by $2,600.00.  That is everybody.  It depends on your income bracket of course….but this is the average tax payer….so that hits most of us.  Plus all the new taxes that are going into effect because we know where this thing is going.  So there is going to be taxes on top of taxes….so your new tax bill for 2013 is going to be $2,600.00 plus above what you are already paying right now.  It is really going to hit the Obama voter right between the eyes because they think only the rich people will be paying.  HOWARD said the rich people just pass it on down.  KEN said it makes him so mad that the news media never tells you that by taxing the rich, they pass it down to the consumer.  Whenever you buy anything it is you paying those taxes placed on the rich.  They may write the check but they turn right around and add that onto the goods and services they are providing.  BOB said if he remembers his history right, the income tax started in 1913.  It started out as a rich tax.  It was 1% if you made over $10,000.00, 2% if you made over $20,000.00 and 3% if you made over $30,000.00.  Keep in mind that was a lot of money back then.  Look what the tax has done since then.  It has crept all the way down through the middle class.  This whole tax the rich doesn’t mean a hill of beans because it will only pay for about 8 days out of the year.  It is just a class warfare thing.  But to him it is the camel’s head under the tent.  There are more taxes coming down the road.  Cause at the end of 8 days they will be saying we are out of money, we need more.  We keep hearing 95% of all the taxes are paid by the top 5%  Do you know if your taxable income, after all your deductions is $60,000.00 or more you are in that 5%.

EULA PARKIN asked how many were teenagers during the second World War.  She said she graduated from high school in 1943.  She went to work and worked 40 hours a week and made $18.50.  They actually took 25cents a week from that for taxes and social security.  That was the accepted thing to do.  Even worse that that her father-in-law during the depression worked in the swamps of Cherry Point, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for $5.00.  It was so bad there they had to take the mules out of the swamps who were dying from lack of blood but the men stayed there and worked.  Everything was relevant.  Movies were 25cents, cokes 5 cents (later 10 cents), a pack of cigarettes was 25cents.

BOB asked everyone to say what they want for Christmas.  EULA said she wanted peace and quiet.  RUTH – Obama impeach proceedings to start.  STEVE said he already had his gift, a big 47” TV.  LYN BAKER – for her daughter to accept the Lord.  MARY LOU – her children and family to have a peaceful Christmas.  WAYNE – the family to all get together with no fussing and no sickness.  ERIC – Fiscal sanity restored in our government.  PATTY – her health.  ED – People to get their morality and treat people like they would like to be treated themselves.  GLADYS – for their two boys and daughter in law to know the Lord.  HOWARD – that this country will get at least half way straightened out.  I don’t expect them to get all the way, maybe just half.  PEGGY – would like for the good Lord to show us why things are happening the way they are, and bring us all out of the funk that we are in right now.  RO – He is going to tell us when he gets here.  She said she is going to Duke tomorrow for her four year Hunnington’s evaluation.  So she only has one year left on her medicine so she hopes everything is alright.  (All said they are praying for her.)  KEN – something on the order of world peace, he guesses.  He would like everybody to be blessed with common sense.  DIANE – wishes that everyone could understand that we are only here for a short period of time and treat everybody the way they should be treated.  ROMA – his wife to be cured of cancer.  (Amen)  EDITH – her health and Roma’s health also.  DAVID – just to wake up and find this is all just a bad dream.  LUKE – how about some politicians with some integrity, honor and backbone.  MARIANNE – a lot less materialism at Christmas.  It is really getting on her nerves.  BELVA – for everyone’s wishes here to be fulfilled and an amen to everybody‘s wishes.  RON – to see his family saved.  FRED – actually he is looking forward to December 26.  And for the Good Lord to look after his family during the holidays.  BILL – he was thinking about a nice Rolls Royce.  PATTY – that we all have health and peace in the world and wishes we could get rid of some of those people in the White House.  BOB – you all took all my wishes.  He wishes for a better ankle right now.  He wishes he would win the lottery, get caught up on his taxes, (some he has owed since 2009). Wishes the TEA Party would keep growing and stronger and bring conservatism back as the main stream of America.  That his wife would be happy some day.  He has been married 28 years and 2 of them happily.  (Laughter)  Someone said they were glad she was not hear to hear what he said.  He would have more hurting than his ankle.

KEN said he would like to thank everyone for attending the Crystal Coast TEA Party Patriot therapy session tonight and we will see you again at the next one.  Bring lots of things to complain about so we can all feel better about it.

ED said he hoped we save the recording from tonight so we can compare it to next year.  Maybe everybody will be wishing for some coal in their stockings to stay warm by.

DAVID said he had one little tidbit…last year the royal family of England cost 50 million dollars to support.  All of their properties and everything.  Our president spent 1.4 billion dollars.

Meeting adjourned at 7:14pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.