CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES OF
5 FEBRUARY 2013
Meeting was held at the Golden Corral Restaurant in Morehead City, NC
Meeting was called to order at 6:00pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by BOB CAVANAUGH
Invocation by SCOTT CARPENTER
Attendance – 23
BOB said he guessed we all had heard about Karl Rove’s battle with the TEA Party. Well, we are fighting back. We just started a TEA Party group in Onslow County and the chair down there is TOM AUSTIN. He asked TOM what their strategy was down there. TOM said they had figured it would take about two years to take over the GOP….to bring it back in line and represent the people. One of their members is head of the GOP Auxiliary, and two or three are precinct captains, that are members of the TEA Party and then they got a phone call from the vice chairman of the GOP Auxiliary….on the hush hush…and she wants to meet with the TEA Party people because she wants the head of the Onslow GOP out. The lady that is head of it is not working with the people, not telling anybody what is going on. She makes the rules. If you do not like it, shut up and get out. It is starting to look like the TEA Party may just take over the GOP down there this year. The only tragedy is they are looking at him (TOM AUSTIN) taking over the position of GOP chairman. BOB said ‘nothing wrong with that!’ TOM said he is looking at Ben doing it. He is much more intelligent in this stuff, but he is a member of the Liberty Caucus, in addition to being a member of the TEA Party, so he did not know how far that would go. BOB said as long as it is a Republican Liberty Caucus, he is in the right party anyway. TOM said, ‘hopefully, if we don’t get it done here in the next few weeks, because their gathering down there is in March, we will see what goes on.
BOB said he did not know what was going on up in the DC area with the elites….why they are choosing to take on the TEA Party. We are the conservative core of the GOP. They want to keep blaming us because they keep losing elections when in fact they just keep putting up milk-toast candidates. They just don’t want to embrace the conservative branch of the party and yet they speak gloriously of Ronald Reagan. It is crazy. Anyway, if they want to have this battle, the TEA Party Patriots get a phone call every Monday and they are taking this serious. There is a battle brewing, so we’ll just have to wait to see how this thing plays out. HOWARD said, ’Those people in the so called ruling class, if they can’t rule, they want to spoil. They could care less about the Republican Party or any party if they are not in control. That is their only concern.’ BOB said he thought a lot of it has to do with them just trying to protect their jobs. They get all this money paid to be talking heads on all these programs they get invited on to and if they get kicked off to the wayside, they won’t be called up and talked to anymore or be speaking for the party anymore if the conservatives take it over.’ HOWARD said they get big fees for appearing. BOB said heck yeah.
FRED discussed events and activities of the Carteret County Republican party and it‘s members.
Precinct Meetings are on February 23, 2013. The County Convention is on March 16, 2013.
Each precinct has so many delegates and an equal number of alternates. A delegate for every 100 voters plus an extra one for over 50 of the last 100. If at the convention a precinct does not have its required number of delegates, the alternates of another precinct can be used as delegates for that precinct. BOB asked which meeting was the chairman elected…the precinct or county?
FRED said the precinct meeting. (In Onslow both meetings are held on the same date…precinct in the morning and county in the afternoon.) FRED said the Reagan Day Dinner is also coming up in February. They can only have 150 people there for the dinner due to fire regulations. So get your tickets as soon as you can.
TOM AUSTIN said that Onslow was going to have their Lincoln/Reagan Dinner in April. It is going to be in Swansboro. Senator Brown has said he was going to get the governor to come and be the guest speaker. Anyone wanting to get a ticket for that, see TOM. He will let us know once they get a confirmed date.
GLADYS SUESSLE wanted to know if someone had already picked who the chairman was going to be before the precinct meeting or would someone be nominated at the meeting. FRED said they would be nominated at the precinct meeting. GLADYS said so there will not be someone already designated who they already want. FRED said he had not heard of anyone announcing their interest. BILL GRIFFORD said he had been going to the meetings since he had gotten here in 2002 and no one has ever shown up except himself, and the previous chairman and she doesn’t go anymore, his girlfriend Pattie, and one other are the only ones ever there. So it is easy to take over a precinct. SCOTT CARPENTER said a couple of years ago they had held the precinct meeting for several precincts here at the Golden Corral. Are they still going to hold the meeting here again. FRED said you can hold your precinct meeting anywhere you want. SCOTT said, “Didn’t they put something in the newspaper of the listing of precinct meetings and location?” SCOTT said he thought they had had something like 4 or 5 precincts meeting here.
FRED said he understood that Broad Creek would be meeting with Newport this year. They normally only have about 3 show up and didn’t feel that paying the rent on a building was worth it. SCOTT wanted to know who puts this information out. BOB told him the party precinct chairman. It will be advertised in the newspapers. By law they have to advertise it 10 days in advance.
SCOTT wanted to know if the GOP Headquarters over by the Kountry Kitchen was ever open. BOB said he would like to know also. We are paying rent on it. It was part of Greg Lewis’ decision to keep it open. LUKE KUKULINSKI said they are having a poll watchers debriefing this Saturday over there. TOM AUSTIN said he got an email that that office was only going to be open part time. 2 or 3 times a week. BOB wanted to know how much we are paying for that space. BILL GRIFFITH said he thought it was $250.00 a month unless they get another tenant and then they give it up. FRED said Chuck Tyson owned the building and let them have it for half price.
FRED said he had talked to the chairman of the Pig Cookin’ and the pig was $150.00. Their meeting is the third Wednesday of the month at the Town Hall he thinks. BELVA MANNING said she had the cooks, cooker, and tent lined up. TOM wanted to know if we were planning to have an entry in the Cook off. BOB said, yes, we thought it might be good exposure for the TEA Party. We will have a table to pass out our literature and have an order form for tee shirts and hats. We can’t sell them there, but we can take orders. We will also have the donation bucket there. SCOTT wanted to know if we planned to hand out pocket Constitutions. BOB said if we have any. He will check with Nancy to see what our stock is. One of the things we will have to work out in the next several weeks is who is going to be there. This thing starts Friday night and runs all night long with the pig being judged and chopped for sale Saturday. BELVA said they bring the pigs about 10:00 for distribution at the sites. She thinks they put them on to cook about 11:00. They come and judge them about 8:00 Saturday morning, she thinks. VERNON wanted to know who he had to see about being there and was told to just show up. They have all kinds of entertainment Friday night….bands, singers, rides for the kids, etc. BELVA said Scotty Golden and his dad were going to be the cooks. BELVA said we might ask someone who plans to be there to bring a bag of chicken wings for snacking…maybe a pot of clam chowder… or stuff like that. SCOTT wanted to know if we needed a signup list of who was going to work the table and when or what times. BOB said we do not need to do that tonight, but he just wanted everyone to start thinking about dedicating some time Friday night, all through the wee hours of the night and Saturday is when they are serving the barbecue plates. BOB said he really would like to have some of us there while these guys are cooking the pig for us. He planned to be there most of the night and would like to have at least one other person to show up. LUKE said he would be there Friday night but could not be there Saturday. RUTH PARKER said she was taking time off from work to help and planned to help serve Saturday. It was explained that all the pigs, after judging, were chopped and mixed together, so you did not get chance to just eat the winning pig.
Someone asked if we still planned to hold the Rally on the next weekend. BOB said unless we come up with a whole lot of money before then, there was no way we could afford to hold a rally. It takes about two thousand to put it on and we just don’t have that kind of funds. It runs about eight or nine hundred for insurance, three hundred fifty for a sound system, several hundred bucks for porta johns. We will also have to buy constitutions, and other information that we will pass out, so, we are really short on funds to even consider a rally.
SCOTT wanted to know if there was anything else going on County wise that we could get involved with. Relay for Life was mentioned. BOB said the next thing he could think of was the 4th of July parade and we usually do participate in that. Depending on how this anti-gun furor goes, he would like to have a Second Amendment Rally of some sort. Discussed the rally held in Raleigh this week. BOB said he didn’t understand why they would have a rally during the middle of the week. VERNE said because that is the only time they can get with the representatives. They go home on the weekends. BOB said at a meeting some of us had attended in Goldsboro, a lobbyist that spoke said we could attract more attention and make a bigger impression by going to Raleigh in small groups (and wearing TEA Party pins) and intermingling. By the time you hit two or three offices word would pass that the TEA Party was there almost immediately. BOB told about HOWARD, PEGGY and DIANE LANG going up to the Legislature building and were recognized by the House by a standing ovation. HOWARD said we knew it was BS, but it still made us feel good.
BOB reported that he and KEN LANG were going up to Raleigh tomorrow. Do you all remember a Dr. John Dros, who spoke at a meeting in the Civic Center, on windmills, energy and all that. He has been an opponent against wind energy. There is a legislative conference tomorrow and Dr. Dros has been invited up to give a presentation to the legislative members. It is more a thing for them rather than an open public forum and they haven’t advertised it because they do not want the place to be descended upon by all the ‘green people’ who would be disruptive and try to shut down the meeting. Dr. Dros had asked KEN if he would like to come up and KEN accepted and BOB had asked KEN if there was room in his car for two that he would like to go. LUKE asked if we knew that Dr. Dros had once been the head honcho of the Sierra Club!!!! All were shocked to hear this. Apparently he had wised up and come to his senses. BOB said the guy that started Green Peace did a 360 also. The Roe v Wade lady did the same thing. She has totally changed her mind now.
HOWARD said he would like to change the subject. After the meeting last week he had received a telephone call asking if the TEA Party had taken a stand on the school security guards. He is a member of our group but is unable to come to all the meetings. He had seen where Dave Fowler, the mayor of Cape Carteret had a big thing about wanting to hire security guards. This member feels that the public in general is overreacting….to think we are going to hire guards and stop this school shootings. It seldom happens, but it will still happen regardless of how many guards you hire. He thinks that trying to hire security guards for all these schools the cost will be prohibited to the taxpayers. HOWARD said he had talked to a guidance counselor at West Carteret and they have a guard there but if he has a gun, it is locked in the truck of his car. He does not have it in the school. LUKE said (his wife, I think) used to work as a resource officer at the middle school in Newport and she carried a gun. VERNE said he agreed that it made no sense to hire security guards, when the simplest thing to do was to pass legislation to allow teachers to carry. That way you would have people trained and carrying their own firearms. You would not have the expense of hiring a bunch of guards. GLADYS said she thought if someone would offer concealed carry classes to teachers would also be a big help.
EULA PARKIN said she got an email some months ago and she copied and kept it. She said it said ‘it’s not the guns, a little easier to understand when you see a list of prescription drugs.’ She said there was a long list and they were all school things, so she decided to put it together in years. The very first children that were killed were killed by Indians in the 1700 but it was one of those deals where they killed everybody in the village. Anyway, going back to 1988, there was a situation of a 29 year old woman that killed a child. She was taking an antidepressant. Then in 1992, there were two incidences, one in Texas and one in Michigan, one fellow was made about a report card and the other was on Prozac and the teacher shot an killed an untold number of people. She went on to list several other incidences through the years. Her thoughts were ‘it was not the guns but the people with medical problems on antidepressants. BOB said the big thing there is ‘how do you find out if somebody is on some sort of mental stabilization drug like for mood swings or depression, etc?’ You can’t. You would have to violate doctor/ patient privileges. VERNE said you get into whether or not a certain drug poses a problem or not also. Then that gets political. HOWARD said as he understood it, the sheriff, even, cannot go to the drug store and find out. Only person allowed to obtain this information is an SBI Drug Agent and you have one for ten counties. So how much is he going to find out? BOB said ‘this whole gun thing, anybody that has any type of conviction or violence, whether it’s road rage, or spouse abuse, or even frequently getting drunk and starting fights, he thinks those would be a matter of police records. But a lot of these shootings were done by people who had no history of violence/just out of the blue, they go nuts, decide to go down to a school or restaurant, or movie theater and start killing people. What is there, a 160,000 schools across the country? Who is going to pick up the bill to pay for all the guards in all those places? There is no telling what those politicians up there in Capitol Hill are going to come up with. They are going to try hard to do something. The whole thing about assault rifles is just a straw man argument. They are just using that, cause if they can get the government to ban one type of weapon, then that is just the camel’s head under the tent. Then they will just start going down the list. VERNE said Finestein’s bill includes semi-automatic pistols. TOM said that bill includes everything except black powder single shot!! BOB said if someone is determined to kill, he will find a way and method. LUKE said he heard that the same day of the school shooting, some guy in China stabbed 22 school kids at a bus stop.
ERIC BROYLES said he had talked to Commissioner Bill Smith and he said even if they put police officers in the schools, people just walking by a school yard could pitch a Molotov cocktail over the fence creating much damage. So even with security guards there we can not provide a 100% safe environment. It is impossible. BOB said if he were planning on killing in a school, he would wander around the halls until he saw the guard and ’boom’ he’d be the first to go. VERNE said that’s what they do in bank robberies. RUTH said she thought the whole issue being touted now was about Universal Gun Registration. Once they have a list of who has guns…they don’t care what kind….they will be able to come and knock on your door and take them from you. BOB said that exact thing happened in Canada and Australia. PEGGY said the other night Ann Colter said “Registration, Confiscation and Elimination”. That gives you a lot to think about. MADELEINE SCHAW said she also was hearing about them trying to stop legal gun manufacturers from continuing to make guns. They are talking about getting banks to stop loaning them the money to operate.
HOWARD said (another subject), he talked to Norman Sanderson yesterday….the eugenics bill. He didn’t know how many knew what that was all about, but that is something that can throw a whole lot of money down a dark hole. He said he voted against it last term and right now he is planning to vote against it this term. Someone asked what it was. HOWARD said ’people that were sterilized to keep them from reproducing. Once you had over so many children, then you were sterilized so you could no longer produce. Now they want the government to pay them money. VERNE said he agreed with the bill. They are only supposed to pay those who were actually impacted by the sterilization which to date is very few remaining. It does not go to the survivors of the dead. The amount of money is not that great. HOWARD said his problem is, once you start something like that, it will open the door and many others will jump in and want ’their problem’ paid off also. You are just starting the ball rolling down hill. RUTH said Glenn Beck had a program on eugenics this week. He is opposed to it. He said it is currently being done in Oregon. TOM said it is going on all over the country. It is called ’planned parenthood’. That is what started the eugenics program in the late 1800’s.
FRED reminded us that JENNIFER HUDSON would be speaking at the County Commissioners meeting on the second amendment. Meeting to be held at the county courthouse in the commissioners meeting room, on February 18th and she would like as many of the TEA Party members as possible to attend.
HOWARD asked some of the ex-military to explain something to him. They don’t want some of these terrorists to be water boarded but it is alright to send drones in and kill them. TOM said he heard Lockwood say that we should not be sending drones in to kill Americans who are supporting our enemies. TOM said yeah, let’s use something even bigger to get rid of them. Discussion on pros and cons of waterboarding and drones. VERNE said now that we have gotten all the information from those being held at Gitmo, no need to capture and interrogate the enemy any longer, just eliminate them.
LUKE said did you all stop to think that since Osama’s death, 30 SEALS have been killed. TOM said the crash that killed so many. Something stinks about that. No one ever remembers that many SEALS being in one place at a time. One of them’s father lives over in Jacksonville, and TOM was standing outside the voting place and he actually believes that somebody in Obama’s team back channeled the information over to the Taliban to allow them to shoot that helicopter down, cause he pointed out to TOM that SEALS do not travel in one helicopter with that many and they do not use that type of helicopter. He believes that this was done in payment for us taking out Osama. Discussion on the killing of Osama and did it really happen.
Discussion on the decision to send weapons to Egypt and that Sen. Burr voted not to send them. Some understood his vote was not a cut and dried vote. Everyone in attendance was vehemently opposed to sending weapons of any kind to Egypt or any of the other countries over there that were against the US. The ones currently in office may not be there next week so any agreement we made we feel would be invalid. VERNE said the planes that we are sending to Egypt do not have the equipment that the planes Israel has, so they are not comparable. What the government is doing is trying to generate some money by selling these planes. TOM and several others said that was not so, that they were sending 200 (MlAbrams)? VERNE said he had not heard that. HOWARD said the lobbyists run our government…manufacturers who are making those airplanes are saying we (the government) already promised them the money. Once they get that money promised then all these lobbyists are up there trying to get their cut for their people. BOB said he would hope that when our government sells these planes and weapons that they have some type of method (like a kill switch) in there somewhere, to disable the equipment. A couple said as long as Obama is President he is all for the Taliban and Al Quada and he would not allow anyone to sabotage the planes and weapons. TOM said the military have no use for Obama and he would not be surprised if some of them didn’t install (on the sly) some type of equipment to cause them to detonate. BOB said Bill Clinton worked up a deal with China for them to build the missiles to launch our satellites for us by giving them the information and technology to build those missiles and save us the expense and burden to doing it ourselves. It would be cheaper to have the Chinese do it. BOB said he would hope that when they handed over all that software to the Chinese it would include a virus that we could activate whenever they wanted to.
VERNE said he heard today in the Drudge Report that Allen West is taking the election board to court . Several wanted to know if he needed donations. BOB said anyone interested in helping West, Google him and he is sure there is an address to contact for sending donations. It is not Allen West, himself, doing it. It is an organization called ’True the Vote’. They are going to court to compel the board to give up information on how they cleared the dead wood out of their rolls and a lot of other information that may have contributed to his loss.
BOB said he had mentioned about Beaufort County passing a resolution about not complying with any restrictions on gun ownership. The same resolution is being taken up by the Lenoir County Commissioners. He thinks it is next Monday. He asked FRED if this is what JENNIFER is planning to bring up at the County Commissioners meeting on the 18th. FRED said he thinks so.
Discussed the picture of Obama shooting skeet. Lots of laughs and comments.
ERIC brought up about the Health Care Exchange in North Carolina and where it currently is in the House. It is in committee. There is another bill going through that basically is the same as Obamacare…health care will be provided for all North Carolinians that will be paid for by those able to pay…and provided free to those unable to pay. ERIC said we need to contact our representatives and object to this bill. We need to refund the money we have received from the Federal Government and make them take over managing the Obamacare program. BOB said he would ask about these bills tomorrow, if he gets a chance while he is up there (in Raleigh).
TOM said he had been reading a couple of weeks ago that the governor was sort of backing off of the photo ID. So he had written him a letter and he gave him the information directly from the DMV about what it takes to get a photo ID from the state of NC. It costs $10.00. All you have to do is take proof of who you are and proof of where you live…birth certificate and a light bill. If you are over 70 it is free. If you are homeless, it is free. You just have to bring a letter from a shelter that you spend most of your time there. If you lost your license because of DUI, it is free. If you are mentally handicapped or physically handicapped, it is free. Someone asked why would a mentally handicapped need a photo ID because they could not vote due to their mental illness or if you were not a citizen you could still get a photo ID. TOM said this ID is not just for voting, or proof of citizenship. It is to be used anywhere you need a photo identification. A non-citizen can get a drivers’ license and they can show that when they need a photo ID. Question; how can we keep a non-citizen from voting then. TOM said because you have to come down when you register to vote and show proof of citizenship. This ID is to prove who you are when you come to vote (or need proof of identity maybe in purchasing an item from a store or cashing a check). He has not heard back from the governor yet. He recommends that others also write and let the governor know that we are holding him to his campaign promise of photo ID. TOM said he had talked to Sen. Brown and when he started backing off, TOM let him know that will not fly. That is not what the governor said he would do. ERIC said when he called the governor’s office on it, he was told by him office help that he was in favor of voter ID as of a week ago. ERIC said what concerns him is he has not seen a Voter ID Bill submitted yet. He understood that was going to be one of the first pieces of business. We were promised it would be one of the first things passed. BOB said the first session just started so they really haven’t had time to get too much done. Should be a whole lot of stuff rolling out of there soon.
VERNE said he felt sure that we all had heard about Chris Kyle had been shot and killed. For those who may not know, Kyle was a member of SEAL TEAM 3, a sniper, and he had pulled 4 tours in Iraq and he was the American sniper credited with the most kills. He is also the guy that made one kill from 2100 meters. Just to give you an idea of how difficult that is…he was shooting at a guy who was on a hotel balcony that had taken up this high spot in order to shoot at the American troops as they came through the streets. In order to hit this guy, Kyle’s aiming point had to be 14 feet above the man himself. That was how much scope adjustment he had to make. He said that was more than he adjusted for so he just included some Kentucky windage. VERNE said he had read his book and it might be interesting to know that in the middle east, snipers go in and try to get the high ground. Then they try to take out the enemy snipers who have set up on balconies and rooftops in the area. Once they establish a protection zone the ground troops come walking through and take the open areas, the streets etc. Once the troops take the open areas, the snipers come down and help them kick in doors. So the snipers are not just sitting in high protected areas. They are often the first guy through the doors when they are going house to house. He bought Kyle’s book and he is going to try to remember to bring it next week and donate it to the TEA Party library if anyone wants to read it. The name of the book is ‘American Sniper’ by Chris Kyle. He said he had left the military in order to save his marriage. He retired and did charitable work.
EULA wanted to know how those who had military backgrounds felt about putting women on the front lines. Most were opposed. BOB said he had no real problem with it, but when it comes down to hand to hand combat she would be at a disadvantage. VERNE said he had no problem with say like pilots, where physical strength is not an issue. But ground combat is just political correctness, plain and simple. TOM said he works on base and he sees troops daily with 100 lb packs plus weapons on their backs going out full bore. Others gave their reasons for opposing.
GLADYS wanted to know if we had any literature made up that we can hand out at the pig cooking. BOB said we are probably going to have to gin something up. BOB wanted to know if she wanted to be on the committee to make something up to hand out. She said she would be glad to if someone would give her the information she needed. BOB said she would need to had when and where we meet…GLADYS wanted to know if we had a mission statement. BOB said that is on the web site. Also SCOTT had made something up a year or so ago, she might want to touch base with him. TOM said he had made up a handout of our three core principles that he gave to the new members of the Jacksonville TEA Party. He also uses them as door hangers for members who canvas their neighborhoods. GLADYS wanted to know if he had a copy and if not where she could get it. He said it was on the web site.
BOB introduced a new face in the crowd tonight. AL SHEPARD, who said he had been here a couple of years ago at the rally. He is a veteran, (Viet Nam Vet), and was on the force in New York City. He was here in Beaufort during 9-11 but went up afterwards and spent two weeks up there. BOB wanted to know if he had any ideas or solutions for all the gun battles in the cities. When he retired in ’94 they had had 2300 gun fights in the city in one year. Discussion followed that was unable to understand.
VERNE wanted to know if anyone knew why the government is buying so much ammo. He understood they had bought a billion rounds this past year. TOM explained why the government used so much ammo….one for training guards on the borders. Part of it was being delivered down in Glenn County Georgia at a training facility. That is a federal law enforcement training center. They have a dozens agencies and all are required to carry hand guns. When he was there they spent hours every day for weeks out on the range, in addition to the day time classes. It was nothing for him to drop 2,000 rounds in a week. This explains where a lot of the ammo is going.
When you figure you have the air marshals, federal marshals, border patrol, immigration agents, homeland immigration personnel, and several other groups which are down there you are talking a lot of people….might even be 100,000. A discussion as to how much ammo is being bought and how it figures out per shooter. TOM said the only thing that really bothered him was FEMA. Up until recently FEMA has never had armed personnel. They had a recent class of 200 graduate. What the hell does FEMA need armed personnel for? They go around with pieces of paper and national guards next to them. Someone asked why do we need 16,000 more IRS agents. TOM said that is for Obamacare.
GLADYS asked BOB if he would consider cancelling our meeting here on the 19th so those who would like to attend their meeting at the Bridgepoint Hotel in New Bern will be able to go. It is the one on gun control with the various sheriffs in attendance to speak. BOB said it was up to the group. VERNE said he would like to go as did a good many in attendance. BOB said all in favor of meeting at the Bridgepoint Hotel on the 19th of February (we will not meet but will actually attend their meeting) please raise your hands. Most of those in attendance raised their hands. GLADYS said park in the side lot and go towards the door closest to the river. They meet in the room that overlooks the river. LUKE wanted to know if we could take our guns. GLADYS said most who would be there would be packing. RUTH volunteered that we meet here and car pool to New Bern. She said she could take 6 people. HOWARD said if PEGGY was not in the hospital then he would like for RUTH to pick them up maybe at Food Lion in Newport. Will discuss further next week.
Meeting adjourned at 7:25pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.