CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
MEETING MINUTES
OF
MAY 22, 2012
Meeting was held at Golden Corral Restaurant, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:05 pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH.
Pledge of Allegiance led by CLAYTON GILLIKIN.
Invocation by JERE GEURIN
Attendance – 28
BOB said every time someone gives a prayer, he always remembers “Catie” praying and slipping a couple of “etceteras” in. (Laughter)
No new attendees tonight.
BOB announced that we have a couple of visitations upcoming: On June 5th, Dan Forrest who is running for Lt. Governor is scheduled to attend our TEA Party meeting and when he is through here, BOB will escort him down to the Cape Carteret TEA Party group’s meeting, hoping to get him at both meetings on the same night. Also, some time in June Walter Jones is coming. He was scheduled for later this month (next week matter of fact); but other events have created a problem with his meeting with us then. Jones was kind of surprised that we wanted him to come speak with us, since we did not support him in the primary. It was pointed out to him that this was our first attempt with a primary and we didn’t support him because basically we thought it was time for a change – term limits. Now that he has won the nomination, we will support him 100%.
BOB said he had asked Jones to speak about a couple of issues. We are not going to ping on him for his voting record or try to box him into a corner but BOB wants to talk about Obama’s Executive Orders and ruling by decree essentially. He would like to find out from Walter Jones what he thinks Congress can do to put a halt to that. BOB doesn’t see any provision in the Constitution for the President ruling by decree. Executive orders are not a new thing – he is sure they go back before Abraham Lincoln. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order.
EULA PARKIN said she would like to say something in behalf of Walter Jones. She has a cousin who was in the Vietnam War and he had fought 20 years to get his medals he had earned. Finally when he moved from Mississippi to North Carolina Walter Jones took up his side and he got his earned medals. BOB said it would be nice if she would thank him in person while he is here. BOB said he was sure Mr. Jones would like to hear some GOOD things coming from us.
BOB said, then in July, Norm Sanderson wants to come visit us after the short session of the State Legislature. He wants to come and personally thank us for our support in the primary. He thinks we were really instrumental in his winning this election with our barrage of letters to the editor and our voter ballots. He is scheduled to be with us on July 10. Discussed whether that was Cape Carteret groups’ meeting night. If so, then Norm will probably show up down there also.
BOB said he had raffle tickets for $10.00 per ticket for GOP Third Congressional District. They are trying to raise funds to support candidates going into the general election. You get a choice of a Remington 870 Express Shotgun or a CalTech Semi-automatic mili-meter pistol. For the women, he would recommend the shotgun. (Laughter) The raffle is going to be held on July 28.
BOB brought up the letter to the editor from M. Olsen chastising the TEA Party for being rude, boorish, mean and unpatriotic on election day. Discussion among the group followed. It was decided we would not respond to mess like that. No sense in getting into a ’he said, she said’. We are above that. HOWARD said a ’lady’, who worked the Newport Precinct 2 on election day with PEGGY and I, told PEGGY she had worked a lot of polls, both in North Carolina and other states and she had never seen anyone that would go right up to the car doors and start a conversation prior to the driver even getting out his/her car. It was unheard of. PEGGY told her that the judge here at the polls had come out and told us that we were not to cross over the yellow tape, not even to go to the bathroom inside; and we should not start any fights in the parking lot. Other than that we were OK. Besides we lived here in this precinct and we knew just about everyone that came to vote. It would be unfriendly not to treat them like we did everyday. HOWARD said he was guilty of hollering across the parking lot at someone he knew, since he did that everywhere he went. It was just his nature to acknowledge a friend when he saw them. BOB said he thought this may be the same woman, back during the early voting, that he had come in contact with in Beaufort. Norm Sanderson was there and she was ranting and raving about how mean the TEA Party people were down in Newport. JERE GEURIN said at the poll location the TEA Party he was with had set up , two teenagers came up and started posting signs in opposition of the Marriage Amendment Movement. JERE said he just walked over and asked them why they would vote against the amendment. The girl spoke up and started talking about women’s rights, and he just said, it doesn’t have anything to do with women’s rights. The young man with her started ranting about something else so he just walked away. He was just hoping to get a friendly conversation going with someone with the opposition. They were not interested in a friendly discussion. LYN BAKER said she noticed that the Pro Amendment volunteers also handed out the TEA Party recommendations. HOWARD said a few days after the election he was listening to the Phil Knight Show on the radio, (LUKE KUKULENSKI said he wasn’t just listening, he had called him) and he was talking about how angry the progressives were in general. HOWARD did call him and said that was also what he had experienced at the polls. They not only were angry, but unfriendly, and looking for someone else to blame. BELVA MANNING said that even those who did not take our list, when they came out from voting, we thanked them for ‘Voting’. DAVID COX said he had one lady over at the beach, that refused the TEA Party list and had said “No, she had been to one TEA Party meeting and she would never go again”. Come to find out she was one of the two ladies that came over (with FRED DECKER) trying to get the votes and support for their campaign. He also said most of those coming through were very receptive of our list. You could tell the Progressives/Democrats because they would either walk around or walk by with their heads down. There was a well dressed lady working the polls for Randy Ramsey and at the end of the day, she told DAVID he and the TEA Party had really cleaned her clock. She was expecting to get votes from the big boat owners, high dollar people and the social group, but it didn’t pan out. BOB said there was no doubt that the TEA Party had a big impact on the election.
FRED said we didn’t have anyone from the TEA Party working Bogue, but Judy Wilgus was there and handing out our listings. BOB said he had planned to work there but we had a cancellation at Morehead City 4 so he had moved up there. DAVID said he thought it was very important that we cover as many precincts as we possibly could. BOB said talking about manning the polls, in the Harry Taylor/Elaine Crittenton race, District 5, we only had 2 of those precincts manned. Harry lost by something like 157 votes. If we could have influenced 80 of those votes to Harry, he could have won. So it is definitely important we be there at all precincts on voting days. It was a good lesson to learn there where we had limited elections like the Taylor/Crittenton vote. We might want to concentrate on those precincts where we are needed. This election was different in some ways, because we spent a good part of our effort on hammering the hell out of Ramsey so it was more important that we concentrated on the higher populated areas/precincts.
BOB said Palombo’s Treasurer got to looking at the vote totals and the Marriage Amendment brought out a huge wave of people in the 3rd Congressional District, more than usually votes in a General Election…almost double. She looked through it and if you pull out the voters who only vote in a General Election and never vote in a primary, but showed up to vote this time, Palombo would have won the race. It was the Marriage Amendment that sunk Palombo. BOB said he also thought the Marriage Amendment had helped Norm Sanderson.
Clinton Rowe arrived to the meeting a little late but was welcomed hardily.
BOB said the other big events coming up are the 4th of July Parade which we will discuss shortly, and manning the precincts for the run offs July 17th. According to Judy Wilgus, all the precincts are going to be open. EULA pleaded for some one from the TEA Party to please come and help her at the polls. She has had to man her station all alone for the primary and early voting. JERE GEURIN said he would try to help her out. SCOTT CARPENTER wanted to know who was involved in the runoff. KEN LANG said all of the seats that did not have enough votes to win the majority, so the top vote getter was being challenged by the second place candidate. Lt Gov is one of them, Insurance Commissioner (Mike Causey and Richard Morgan), Secretary of State (Goodwin and Beitner), and Public Instruction (Tedesco and Alexander). KEN thinks the biggest thing with this run-off is getting people to vote. Primary elections are usually low turnout (even though this primary was higher than usual because of the Marriage Amendment) and so therefore the runoffs will probably be extremely low. He thinks there is a need to do some letters to the editor encouraging people to get out and vote. Talk to your friends and neighbors and tell them how important this runoff is, especially the Insurance Commission race. Richard Morgan was kicked out of the Executive Committee for violation of some of the guide lines of the Republican Party. He is also being funded by the trial lawyers association. He is not somebody that we want to have determining Insurance rates. The most aggrieved thing KEN knew of was a blurb that Morgan had put on his face book page during the primary election that he felt that it was unconscionable that big cities like Raleigh, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, etc was penalized on their insurance rates because of the hurricanes down here on the coast and that we (eastern NC) ought to be paying the brunt of the insurance. Obviously he doesn’t know we already are. Does he want to make it even more? This is what it sounds like. KEN said he thinks this is one of the things we can use to get people interested and get out the vote down here. Do you want an Insurance Commissioner that is going to raise your insurance rates? SCOTT wanted to know how soon would we have the suggested voter lists ready and scheduling of manning the polls. HOWARD said Richard Morgan also made a deal with Jim Black and became co-speaker of the house. He literally sold the North Carolina Republican Party out. Information on Morgan is on our Face Book page. It is extremely long, but anyone wishing to write a letter to the editor can get a lot of good information from it. Frank Rouse convinced HOWARD back then that Richard Morgan was a scoundrel and Frank normally didn’t talk bad about any Republican. STEVEN BEST wanted to know the hours the polls would be open and was told they thought it would be the same as any election.
RUTH PARKER said there was someone who ran for the school board who wanted to come and talk to us that was told he couldn’t. BOB said Mark Mansfield came and talked to us, but his opponent Mike Mann did not. KEN said he was not told he couldn’t come; in fact he had talked to Mike at the polls on election day. (RUTH said he told her that BOB did it and SCOTT said he also had talked to Mike and he was really upset at the way he had been treated by the TEA Party. STEVEN said Mike had also told him that BOB had refused to allow him to talk to the group….that Mike had gone to the church where BOB was working. BOB said they had stood there and talked at the church on Hwy 24 but he never said anything like that to him. FRED DECKER had talked to him about a week or so earlier and not heard any such thing. BOB said we wouldn’t have voted to support him even if he had come and talked to us, because he was a former school principal and we were trying to keep school employees off the school board. BOB said he had not met Mr. Mann prior to him showing up at the school on election day. FRED said he had sent him several emails, inviting him to come to our meetings, and he had told FRED that there were three Mike Manns here and maybe he had missed the emails. He had told FRED that he was not upset about it. KEN said he talked to him; he thought it was at the men’s Republican Club meeting; about 10 or 15 minutes, and he told KEN that he was unable to get to the TEA Party to talk to them because his daughter had passed away and he had been spending time in Fayetteville taking care of his grandkids because his son was in the military. He had been unable to get back to Carteret and do much politicking. He further told KEN that he had great respect for Mark Mansfield and he wished the two of them were not running against each other but that was just the way it worked out. Apparently neither one of them knew the other was going to file. KEN told Mike that Mark had told us that if he (Mark) wasn’t running, he would vote for Mike because Mark was in school when Mann was teaching and so they knew each other. KEN did not get the feeling there was any animosity between Mark and Mike, plus he told KEN that he, (Mike) held no animosity toward the TEA Party. RUTH said that was a different story than he gave them at the polls. HOWARD said he thought Mike may have gotten surprised because he (Mike) did not think the TEA Party was as effective as we turned out to be. He probably got blind sided.
BOB said for the upcoming runoff and election, we will probably stay pretty much with the candidates we had supported during the primary. But like with Randy Ramsey, he thinks we need to do the same with Richard Morgan. Members in attendance all agreed. We need to pump up the letters to the editors. This is a statewide race so we will have to hit a lot of newspapers, not just the News Times and Jacksonville to try to maximize our impact. KEN said there has already been some coordination between Lisa Marley, Nancy Murdock, and others in surrounding counties, as well as Moore County up in the western part of the state. He thinks that network will probably expand a little bit between now and July 17th. KEN said he had been receiving information about District 6 (Beaufort, Dare and Hyde Counties) and their runoff. Art Williams is running against Matty Lawson. Williams is a former Democrat and had been recruited by folks from Raleigh, just like Randy Ramsey. They are trying to do the same thing in District 6. BOB said the reason Williams changed parties, according to what he had determined, having been a long time Democrat, he was lobbying Perdue to get Basnight’s seat when Basnight retired. He didn’t get it, so he turned around and changed his registration to Republican. Now he is trying to run as a Republican to get a seat in the legislature. KEN thinks probably in Art Williams case, probably some letters to the editor (he has a whole list of newspapers, blogs, etc in those counties that he had gotten from Matty Lawson). Matty is also looking for people to make telephone calls for her to get people out to vote; so if anyone would like to help and support her, (she will provide a call list via Judy Wilgus who is a long time friend of Matty‘s) please contact KEN for information. Even if you only call 10 people, that will be a big help.
This is a race that Ken would like to have some impact on, since it is becoming obvious that it is creating a rift in the Republican party in that county.
HARRY THOMPSON referred to an email he had sent out the other night about the upcoming Military Appreciation Day. They are needing a few people to help serve lunch and dinner on that Saturday, June 2nd. If you are interested in helping please contact HARRY (by email will be the best way – (hthompson1@ec.rr.com) and he will get the word to those in charge. BOB asked where it was going to be at, but HARRY was unsure right now, but would find out and let everyone know.
BOB introduced Clinton Rowe, District Court Judge Candidate. He said he was just stopping by to say Hi. He would appreciate the TEA Party’s vote in November. BOB said “Row, Row, Row your vote”. A good way for everyone to remember Mr. Rowe. HOWARD asked him if he was as surprised as many were at how bad McFadyen beat Kirby Smith in the primary. Mr. Rowe said he had thought McFadyen might win but not by the majority that he did.
KEN said this Thursday the Americans for Prosperity is having a gathering in Raleigh at the State House to encourage the Legislature to pass a couple of bills, both of them deal with annexation by cities of property around them, (Forced annexation without any input from the surrounding community. They are being drawn in so they have to pay city taxes, many times with no bennies/services for approximately 5 years.) One is basically to turn back the Clock on seven annexations that have already taken place and (2) is to prevent future annexations without having a vote that is passed by 60% of the people involved. Even if you are unable to attend, it would be worth at least a telephone call to our representatives, just to let them know you support the bills. He feels it is pretty important to protect people’s property rights. HOWARD said over by Rocky Mount they are taking in a lot of farm land that belongs to the elderly and then they slap them with $3,500.00 a piece tap on fees for the sewer they have put out there.
BOB asked if we remembered the big event we were involved with last year on the 4th. Wasn’t that when we were passing out our Constitutions and a couple of people referred to it as TEA Party propaganda. PEGGY said that was the parade in Beaufort. RO THOMPSON said couldn’t we make up a list of suggested candidates and place them in the booklets since it occurs just a couple of weeks before the runoffs. Several thought that would be a good idea. BOB said we need to get some Constitutions, since we are about out. We need to get with Nancy and see about ordering some. BOB said our Treasurer (NANCY BOCK) is not with us tonight but he thought we had about $600.00 left in the treasury after paying for the lists posted in the newspaper (cost of about $1,100.00). We need to start putting money aside for the November election. BOB wanted to know if we wanted to take part of the remaining funds we had left and buy some more Constitutions to pass out or did we want to throw candy. All thought we should have both. PEGGY recommended that since money for the group was so tight, maybe each of us could volunteer a couple of bags of candy to toss at the parade. All agreed this was the best way to go. KEN said one of the things we did last time was we had a table set up and sold tee shirts and hats, and ROMA WADE said he would be glad to do so again. ROMA said he would talk to NANCY tomorrow when he gave her a check. BOB asked FRED to get a hold of TIM BUCK to see if he would be Uncle Sam again. FRED said he had run into the guy that had sang and played the guitar at the Morehead parade about 2 weeks ago in Havelock at McDonald’s. He didn’t think about asking his name or where he live but would try to find out how to get up with him and ask him to join us in the Beaufort parade this year. EULA PARKIN volunteered her driveway to set up our float again this year. Some suggested we invite the candidates to ride on our float – Rowe, Sanderson, McFadyen. Most were in favor of inviting them.
KEN asked if anyone here had seen Atlas Shrugged when it came out. He said if you didn’t you missed a good movie. That was part 1 and they are in process of shooting part 2 now. PEGGY said she had bought the DVD and had it if anyone wanted to see it. Maybe we could get STEVEN to show it at the Cave. KEN said they were also doing a movie on Obama called 2016 when it is released. It is going to be about what makes Obama tick and what is going to happen in 2016 if he is reelected in 2012. This is not some shoddy pic but the guy that directed Shinler’s List is directing this one. It is a Hollywood production, not something done by a bunch of college students.
Discussion on information coming out now about an article from Harvard about people to watch in the future and there was a little short bio on Obama which said he was born in Kenya and lived in Indonesia. Several comments were made about some states removing Obama’s name from the ballot in November. LYN BAKER said maybe he had used that to get a foreign student scholarship. Some said if that were true then he had perpetrated a fraud. Sherriff Joe has just sent two people to Hawaii to check out the validity of that birth certificate that had been given to the media. The Attorney of Arizona is thinking about dropping Obama from the ballot in November also.
BOB said he was watching Hannity last night and he had Dick Morris on. He was talking about sometime this week Congress is going to be voting on called the ‘Law of the Sea Treaty’ (LOST). One of the provisions is if oil is drilled outside the 200 mile limit we have to give half of it to the UN for redistribution. LUKE was in favor of just deleting the UN and get rid of it or at least drop out. (Applause). BOB said we need to get in touch with our representatives and let them know we are opposed to this. HOWARD said if he understood correctly that if we entered into this treaty, it was irrevocable. RUTH said it was the Senate that would be voting on this. BOB recommended we all Google ‘Law of the Sea Treaty’ and educate ourselves on it and then notify your Senators of your opinion.
GRACE GILLIKIN said she talked to a guy in Kinston that was with the Wilson TEA Party and they are having a great big rally October 13th and invited us (all of our group) to attend. BOB said we would take a look at that after the 4th of July. One of the other things we want to take a look at is having a fall “Get out the Vote Rally” ourselves. Several said they had been asked when the TEA Party was going to have another rally. We also need to be thinking about raising money, especially for ads in the paper prior to the election.
KEN asked if we remembered the bill board project. Moore TEA Party (and us too, since we donated to the project) got a grant, actually two grants, from the TEA Party Patriots and it was enough to fund all of our billboards. Plus they are now considering doing a mobile billboard in Raleigh. They had already contracted one for Charlotte. Now they are thinking about a mobile billboard for a bout a week or so in Raleigh as well. We should see, down here in eastern NC, several billboards …. One just outside of Kinston on 70. The other one is just outside of Swansboro where Swansboro, Bellgrade and 24 meet. Those are the two that he knows of and there may be another couple in this general area. We lost a couple of signs we had hoped to get due to funding coming in so slow that the sign company has already rented them out, like they had selected one on Hwy 17, but lost it, but we are still hoping to find another location in that area.
LUKE said Biden today attacked the TEA Party saying it was responsible for the recession. Without them everything would be cool. And he saw an email today where the Democrat Party already has ‘Obama/Hillary’ bumper stickers made up. A whole warehouse full of them.
FRED said on the pocket Constitutions that we passed out on the 4th of July last year, there was this guy who asked if he could have three of them. FRED said sure. The guy said he was from Wilson and was a high school history teacher and they did not have access to those pamphlets. CLAYTON said he too, during the election, had had a teacher ask for copies. He had told Clayton that that was a forbidden book in the school system. CLAYTON said he had about 20 or 25 left and he gave them to him. This teacher was using them to teach in an after school program. BOB told about one of the first rallies we had in Newport a guy about 30 came up and wanted a cup of TEA. BOB told him we didn’t have any tea. He wanted to know why we called ourselves the TEA Party and BOB tried to explain what the TEA Party was. He offered him a copy of the Constitution but the fellow had never heard of the Constitution. BOB was shocked that at his age, he knew nothing about the Constitution.
ONE MORE THING –
HOWARD said the latest report by Civitas, the high school graduation rate in NC has increased; but at the same time, high school students being taught in Community College now, about 60% is having to take remedial courses. KEN said he read where it had gone from 65% to 69%. The number of students requiring remedial training has gone up. BOB said the man teaching Photography at Carteret Community College said 70% of the students of CCC have to have remedial courses. BOB asked him where were most of these students from….Carteret County High Schools? He said yes, just about all of them. BOB said and they keep wanting more money for the schools!!! Maybe we should do away with the high schools and just send them to the Community College. KEN brought up about the teacher in Rowan County telling the student he could go to jail for bad mouthing the president. Here again she was not teaching the truth to her students, only her opinion. She has been suspended ‘with pay’ which is not any punishment, since she can go home, watch TV and not have to worry about her pay. PEGGY said but she probably has tenure so she knows she is safe. Discussed end of grade tests and the fallacy of them. HARRY said Florida is lowering the threshold because so many of the kids are not passing so they are lowering the passing grade. As if this will solve the problem. BOB said the question is how do we turn all this around. RO said she taught at a Catholic school and the way she sees it we have to go back to the Bible and GOD in order to win this fight. BOB said we can’t teach the Bible anymore. LUKE said first thing we need to do is get rid of the Department of Education. Amen. EULA said when she started teaching here in Carteret in 1974, 42% of Carteret County people read at a 5th grade level. NC was 49th in education and she understands that after all these years we are now 48. KEN said we could save a lot of money if we just issued all the students a diploma since they are all having to take remedial classes if they want to go further with their education. Someone said ‘Go to college and learn to read’. BOB said the biggest problem with education is the Federal Government got involved. What with all the paperwork they have to fill out and rules and regulations handed down. RUTH said that is what is going to happen with the Health Care system also. LUKE said if we did away with public schools and turned education over to charter schools, our education would be squared away in 10 years. (All agreed) Discussion continued on schools and education.
Meeting adjourned at 7:30 pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.
Richard Morgan was thrown out of the NCGOP Executive Committee and finally defeated in 2006. However, in 2008 he ran for Superintendent of Public Instruction, a council-of-state seat. Now, in 2012, he’s running for another council-of-state seat as Insurance Commissioner. Morgan has never apologized, recanted, or acknowledged his error. To this day, he defends his actions. He must never be allowed to hold the reigns of power again! Don’t let your neighbors unwittingly vote for him – support 
Harold Brubaker conspired with Morgan, yet remains a member of the NC House in a seat he has held since 1976! In fact, the new Republican leadership under Thom Tillis made him head of the Appropriations Committee as well as the House Select Committee on State-owned Assets. Being a long-serving Republican in the Democrat-controlled Legislature for 36 years is not an indictment by itself, but it sure makes you wonder how he survived through nearly four decades of Democrat re-districting when they notoriously ousted effective Republicans by drawing them into unwinnable districts. His partnering with Morgan reveals his true nature.
Julia Howard also conspired with Morgan and remains in the NC House occupying a seat she has held for 24 years. Like the others, she survived numerous Democrat re-districting efforts as well as any repercussions by Democrats after Republicans had a majority for four years in the mid 90′s.
Danny McComas conspired with Morgan against other Republicans, yet still served in the seat he has held since 1994. He is Chairman of the Commerce and Job Development and House Select Committee on Tort Reform, and is Vice-Chairman of the Banking and Finance committees. (Note: McComas announced in February that he would not seek re-election to a 10th term. He did not rule out running for another office, but has not done so in this election cycle.)