CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
Meeting of
31 January 2012

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:08pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by DIANE LANG
Invocation by HARRY THOMPSON

BOB introduced the new faces….BARBARA RAWLS (who had attended a meetings in the past.  She said there hadn’t been very many people at the meeting that night.)
He then introduced DON HOLLISTER.  He said he and Don go all the way back to the very beginnings of his career in the Marine Corps.  Neither was 21 yet when they met.  They spent a good part of their time trying to find ways to skate out of work.  He welcomed both and said he hoped to see both of them on a regular basis.

He welcomed WAYNE WILLIS back (from exile or wherever he had been)  /WAYNE said he had had to hire a body guard, and Santa Claus (CLAYTON GILLIKIN) qualified.  He said he was glad to be there tonight though.

BOB said there was a little news on the local coordinator’s internet call last night.  Tea Party Patriots is organizing a DC rally on March 24th.  It will be on the East Lawn of the Capitol Building, directly across the street from the Supreme Court.  They are still lining up speakers.  He wanted to know if we wanted to participate in this, if so then we need to organize a bus to take folks up there.  More that half those in attendance raised their hands as interested in going.  Question was raised if we knew anything for sure yet.  BOB said it was still all in the planning stage, but he would let us know more as it became available and they started publishing the speakers.  LOU KUKULINSI wanted to know if we were to take the tar and pitchforks.  BOB said if you like, but you can’t take them over to the Supreme Court, though.  If you want to go and stand in front of the Supreme Court you can not have any yelling or shouting, no cheers; you can have some signs and that is it.  KEN wanted to know if we could bring our tents, like the OWS crew did.  They were more welcome than we have been.  ERIC said that’s good “TEA PARTY OCCUPIES”. Good slogan.  KEN said the Occupy group in DC was ordered out a couple of days ago, but are still there.  The Park Service said they were going to take a measured approach.  Which means they are not going to do anything.  LOU said ‘Speaking about tar and feathers, did you all see what Allen West said about Pelosi and Harry?’  He thought he would send West a couple of hundred bucks just for kicks.  KEN said ‘it really ticked Bob Beckle off.’  BOB said if we are going to DC, then he thinks the smallest bus we can get is 45 seats.  He will talk to the gal we normally deal with try to get that locked in…get us a price.  Need to maybe check with Americans for Prosperity to see if they are providing buses for $25.00 a seat again, which would be great.  WAYNE wanted to know if it would be over night.  BOB said the rally starts at noon and normally lasts until 2 or 3.  WAYNE wanted to know if it would be on a Saturday and BOB said yes.  BOB said there will be events all week up to Saturday, so if anyone wants to go up there and spend a week and take in all the events.  They are going to have different training seminars and training sessions, and they are going to block off a set of rooms and the Hyatt Regency right there in down town DC.  WAYNE asked if that would be within walking distance of where we want to be.  BOB said it was a little more expensive and then they hoped to get something out around Arlington a little cheaper for folks who can not afford down town DC hotels.  WAYNE asked if the bus would put us out right where the rally was and BOB said yes and pick us up right where he put us off.  BOB said ‘if you haven’t been on one of our bus trips before, he thinks they are a lot of fun.’  A lot of discussion followed.
BOB advised that you not take the seat next to the restroom as he had had to do last time. They cut the air conditioner off, because the driven was cold, and his seat was right over the heater and engine. He said it was miserable. Someone said we might bring a sweater for the bus driver.

BOB said, as you all know several county commissioners are not going to run for re-election.  He said he had entertained the idea of his running for Holt Faircloth’s seat, so he had called him today and Holt told him that Terry Frank (of Frank’s Doors in Newport) is planning to run and Holt gave him a solid endorsement; so BOB said there was no since in the two of them burning up money against each other.  If Frank is a good man in Holt’s opinion, it was good enough for him.  BOB went over and introduced himself to Frank in his office and told him about us (the TEA Party) and invited him to come down some Tuesday and introduce himself and let us throw some questions at him.  He said tonight is out, he had business things to take care of, but he wrote the time and dates of our meetings.  BOB said on the way to our meeting tonight Pam Hansom called him and started lobbying him about Terry Franks.  He told her not to worry, he had already talked to him and Holt.  Anyway, she said he was a very early supporter of hers and she thought he was a real stand up guy and very conservative.  BOB said he had seen him at some the Republican men’s club meeting occasionally.  HOWARD GARNER said there was another potential candidate that he had heard of.  BOB asked if he was talking about Larry Land?  HOWARD said yes.  BOB then recognized KEN LANG, since he had a whole list of possible candidates that he has been networking and trying to get information out of people.
KEN said some of these people, the names are kind of being thrown out, so he was not even sure if they were really interested, and some he didn’t even know who they are, nor whose seat they would be running for.  BOB said if anyone knows any of the people he mentions, please speak up.  He said Larry Land and Terry Frank were on his list for Holt’s seat.  BOB said Pam told him that Larry Land was a Republican of convenience.  KEN said that was kind of what he heard also.  However, we still may want to vet him.  Doug Harris’ seat, the name Jimmy Farrington’s name was thrown out.   Jimmy lives on Emerald Isle.  He runs Yard Works.  KEN said he knew him and he was a hard worker.  His mother is Beth Stone.  Both she and her husband are very active in the Republican party and they have been to some TEA party meetings.  In fact they were here this winter (early) at one of our meetings here.  She has not been as active lately because she had some heart surgery, but he thinks she is coming back.  BOB said he had known Jimmy about 20 years and he is a hard worker.  He does not know what his politics are.  KEN said he is a young man, conservative, can vouch that he is a hard worker.  He has built a company that has been around now for roughly 15 years or so (BOB said he thought more than 20 years because he and Brian Watson, who started Carolina Gardens, and they split up.  BOB said he knew because they had asked him to take care of the Surf Shop and he had encouraged them to start their own business and they did.)  Several people spoke up as knowing Jimmy and all spoke favorable.  KEN said he would work with Jimmy and try to get him to come in and talk with us also.  KEN said another name that he doesn’t know is Randy Ramsey.  ROMA WADE said he was the owner of Jarrett Bay Boat Works.  WAYNE said, Actually his daddy is.  His daddy is where the money comes from.  Roma said, It doesn’t make any difference, the Ramsey family is where the money comes from.  KEN wanted to know who’s seat would he run for.  Would that be Pat’s seat?  HOWARD said he thought it would be Doug Harris’ seat the way he understood that district went, but then again maybe it would be Pat’s seat.  Discussion on areas of Districts.  KEN said he didn’t what those districts looked like.   BOB said he did and gave the boundaries as he understood them.  HOWARD wanted to know if anyone knew where Randy Ramsey lived. HOWARD said when the Ramsey family first came here they lived on Harkers Island.  WAYNE said his daddy still lives on Harkers Island. He continued with a short history of the Ramsey family since they came to this area.  HOWARD asked where the money came from for the business since he had known Cab (Randy’s daddy) since the 60’s and he had gone bankrupt prior to coming to Carteret County.  KEN said the question he would have is what their politics are.  He also brought up that we have three Board of Education members up for re-election.  He did not have any name for those other than we have talked about previously.  He was kind of hoping that Scott Carpenter would be here tonight so we could continue to encourage him to run for one of those.  We do need to talk to him some more about running.  FRED DECKER said he was trying to get Bob Harden to run.  He is an investment banker for Merrill Lynch.  His office is in the Bank of America.  KEN said FRED had told us that last time, so has he (Fred) made any progress yet?  FRED said he would do it tomorrow.  KEN said ‘don’t let it slip too long because he has to file and his filing date is the 13th.  Not quite  two weeks.  LOU said he knew someone who was running for Pat Joyce’s seat …Randy Feagle. HOWARD said he works for the school system.  LOU said yeah, he’s a teacher out there at East Carteret High School.  KEN asked, Can’t he run for County Commissioner if he is a teacher?  HOWARD said he was just scared of him because he was connected too close to the Board of Education.  KEN said just because he works there doesn’t mean he isn’t a conservative.  LOU said all the principles around there hate him, so he must be a good guy.  PEGGY said she lived almost next door to and  went to school with his mother and she hopes he has changed since he was a kid.  LOU said he had retired as a Lt Col in the National Guard.  HOWARD said his mother and step-father used to run Walston’s Hardware in Cape Carteret.  CLAYTON asked how old is this lad.  LOU said he thought about 52 or 53, somewhere around that.  KEN said 20 years in the military will change you a little bit.  KEN said he would recommend anyone here that knows potential candidates to go talk to them and if they express and interest then we can broaden that out and talk a little bit more and see if there is someone we can recommend.  BOB said if we found anyone interested to invite them to come out and talk to us.  KEN said we need to replace the three people who are up for re-election on the BOE.  FRED said he had talked to Judy Wilgus about Scott being precinct chairman of Wildwood.  Since then he has asked him to run for School Board.  He is President of the Home Owners Assoc.  and a few other things over there in Brandywine.  Judy had called Scott back about being Precinct Chairman so he was going to take that.  FRED asked Judy what was more important Precinct Chairman or School Board.  She said School Board.  KEN said he agreed and was hoping Scott would be here tonight so we could talk to him about running.  There was some discussion on Linwood who lives on Hwy 101 running first for Pat Joyce’s seat and then for BOE.

BOB said he guessed we had all seen in the newspaper where the School Board is asking for more money…4.5 million dollars for construction/maintenance.  KEN said every week they have a little article where they are asking for money for something else.  They needed more money for bus drivers about 2 weeks ago.  They blamed the County Commissioners for that.  They said the County Commissioners didn’t give them enough money and they had to lay off all these teachers aids.  BOB said he had put in a call to Dave M (?) Finance Budget guy for the school system and as of yet he has not returned his call.  HOWARD told BOB if he would back up a few years the schools got into real bad shape because they spent the maintenance money for something other than maintenance.  This is a theory of his, it is kind of hard to turn down money for new roofs and windows, etc; but he has a feeling that they think the Commissioners won’t turn them down for maintenance, and once they get their hands on it they will spend it like they please.  BOB said he had seen that the school board can submit a budget and the county, state and feds all send them money, and once they get it they can move those piles of money all around the dang place and then yell well we need money for this and money for that.  HOWARD said he feels that is what is going to happen to this maintenance money if they get it.  BOB said they play games with the school budget and anybody we vet for county commissioner we really need to hone in on the education department in the county and how the money is being spent.  We need somebody who knows something about budgets.  That is why this Terry Frank may be good because he runs a pretty good size organization, so he should know money and budgets.  KEN said he thought we need in the Board of Commissioners to do that, but we need people on the Board of Education who are willing to do that; at least to be able to look into the budget and understand where the money is being spent and whether or not it is being spent wisely; because right now we have a rubber stamp in the Board of Education.  The County Commissioners is actually doing the job that the BOE should be doing.  He knows the commissioners that he has talked to would love to have a BOE assume that responsibility and do their job.  They are not.  They are playing politics and just asking for more money.  Part of the conversations that he had on the County Commissioners also overlapped into the school board and he has been working a little bit with someone else to help him try to understand what is going on in the budget and it was suggested that he ask the school board for the last 3 years of their end of year reports.  So he did.  This dates back over a month or two now.  He got an email back that said that their end of year reports were on the web site.  So KEN went on the web site and found them and they are the comprehensive annual financial report.  That is the report that is put together by the independent auditors and they only have two years on there 2008/2009 and 2009/2010.  They do not have 2010/2011 on there yet.  They do not approve that audit report until February 7th. That is when they have a BOE meeting and have an extended public comment session during the BOE meeting, usually it is like 30 minutes.  He thinks they have either an hour or maybe an hour and a half allocated for public comments at this meeting.  Of course it is going to be swamped with C4 people,  BOB asked what would the public comment session be about if the budget is already over and done with.  KEN said they are planning the new budget.  After the meeting on the 7th, they should have the 2010/2011 budget ready to be posted on the web site.  Anyway, he down loaded the first two reports and sent them to someone to look at and he said that was not exactly what we need.  We need the school system end of year report, not the auditors.  That is where you are going to find the information you need.  So, KEN went back to the school board official he had spoken to before and said ‘don’t you have an internal end of year report that you guys prepare and that the auditors use.  They said yes we do but that is an internal document.  KEN asked why he could not get a copy, hasn’t the BOE approved that document.  They said ’Oh, no, we just send that internal document to the auditors and that is what they prepare their report from’.  KEN said ’you mean that you send a fiscal report of what you have done the last year and the BOE hadn’t even looked at it!’  He said ’yeah’ that is what we do.  KEN told him he couldn’t even imagine that.  So right now it appears our only option is to wait until this other auditor report comes out and see if we can analyze it.  The auditors report is very complicated.  It may not contain all the numbers that would have been on the internal report.  Anyway, Commissioner Comer is going to be meeting with the school board in about a week and they are going to discuss this issue of the budget and he told KEN to send him whatever information that he had and the conversations that he had had with the school board, which he has already done.  He is going to ask those questions at that meeting.  Also at that meeting they are going to propose to have an open meeting that will be attended by school board and commissioners and he asked KEN to ask TEA Party members, who were interested in the budget, to come to that meeting.  No date or time has been set yet.  His rationale was that from his experience we (the TEA Party) are more likely to ask questions that may not be asked by other people.  He wants to have some input from the TEA Party as well.  KEN told him there was no doubt in his mind there definitely would be some people from the TEA Party there.  He will let us know when the meeting is set up.  Hopefully, he will have some additional information from Commissioner Comer that he will be able to disseminate before the meeting.  This will be a separate meeting from the previously mentioned Feb 7th meeting.  As you know when you go to one of those meetings they are very tightly controlled.  You get up and say your piece and they really don’t address what you have to say.  Then they conduct their own meeting and you are not allowed to speak.  Commissioner Comer’s meeting is during the week sometime off anybody’s agenda.  He is not sure how they will announce this meeting but KEN knows he plans to have other people there. PAT NALITZ asked if the budget figures was available.  KEN said yes, you could get it off the web site.  Go to the BOE web site menu and on the side, go to finance, it will bring up a screen and the very last item on the bottom right are the two comprehensive end of year audit reports.  Does it show the line items.  KEN said yes, but it is an extremely hard report to work with and to print it out is several inches thick.  That is why we want the internal documents it should be a lot smaller and a lot easier to understand.  He is going to try to keep working on getting the internal report.  He asked Commissioner Comer to see if he could get it for us.  He does not see why we can not have that document.  BOB said at one of the last Commissioners meeting Commission Harris did a power point presentation about how the schools were getting more money each year than they claimed they were getting (utilizing the BOE’s own figures).  There were some ugly things said in the newspaper anonymously condemning Commissioner Harris.  To BOB it was one of the most transparent, where you could see where the problems are, and the things the commissioners have to deal with.  Wish we had more government like that where you can see what is really going on behind the scene and how they play games with the numbers.  PAT asked has it gotten this way because over the years they have not had anyone overlooking and demanding these budgets; so they have just gotten to the point that they say no one is asking or interested so why bother.  HOWARD said as far back as he can remember, and he has been here all his life, t
he board of education has been a rubber stamp to the Superintendent.  They did not make decisions, just said yes sir.  He also wanted to point out on that power point presentation by Commissioner Harris, the school superintendent stated to Comm. Harris that those figures he had used were all wrong.  So Comm. Harris says ‘you show us where we are wrong and we will correct them.’ Two months later, they had never carried the commissioners any new figures.  They publicly stated they were wrong and that they would provide the correct figures but they didn’t.  KEN said today Commissioner Comer told him they still haven’t received any corrected figures.  HOWARD said then it’s been about three months now, right.  KEN said yes.  His guess is and Comm. Comer agrees with him, that they have no intention of ever giving him any explanation on last year’s budget.  They are already moving on toward their ‘smoke and mirrors’ next year’s budget.  HOWARD said they think it is all forgotten.  KEN said yes, so they just ignored that and are moving on.  DENNIS said he hated to beat a dead horse, but who is in charge.  Doesn’t someone have the authority to make decisions and follow through.  KEN said it is convoluted, really.  He doesn’t know why it was set up this way, but as he understands it, it is the same in every county.  The state board of education and the local board are somewhat independent of the county; however, they receive money from the federal government, the state government and the local government, so basically what the county government did last year and maybe they have done it on occasion in previous years but last year they said ‘before they approved our local tax payer dollars for education, we want to see the federal dollars, the state dollars, and what you intend to spend our money on.  They tried to get to the bottom of how all that money was being spent.  Well the BOE kept changing the numbers.  They gave them at least four sets of budget numbers.  Partially they claimed because, well, they didn’t have as much information as needed from the state and so with Gov. Perdue threatening…you know they put blame all over the place.  Each set of numbers went up every time—by about 3 million dollars each time.  So from beginning to end they had an increase of about 12 million dollars.  At the beginning they asked for 3 million more than what they had put in their first budget.  At the end they were still asking for 3 million more even though they had gotten increases all along, but they never explained what that 3 million was going to be used for.  BOB said ‘save teachers jobs’.  KEN said that was one of the explanations.  Several comments about no one ever really got fired that they had heard about.  If they had they had gotten hired back.  Someone said we seem to be dancing around the same pole trying to get answers and we will continue to dance around
the same pole.  We control the county government, we control the state government don’t we.  Why can’t we seem to get anything done.  KEN said the only thing he could see to fix this for Carteret County is to elect some school board members who will work in concert with what the county commissioners want.  Right now they are stonewalled.  That is why it is so important to find people right now who will replace the three that are up for re-election.  Someone asked who approves the budget?  KEN said both the BOE and County Commissioners approve the budget, however, the real kicker behind this is the county commissioners can approve the budget and the day afterwards the BOE can change where that money is going to be spent.  But that isn’t the real problem.  The real problem is trying to understand what the budget being submitted to the county is in the first place.  The county was very adamant this last time that they had to be given certain information in order to understand the budget and it ended with the presentation that Commissioner Harris did where he showed a chart and said all your numbers do not add up.  Chairman of the BOE, Al Hill, said yes it does, you don’t have the right numbers and Harris said give me the right numbers and we will work together to figure it out and the BOE three months later has never given any numbers.  They basically ignored them.  CLAYTON GILLIKIN said there is only one way for the County Commissioners to get the numbers they need, and that is when the time comes to give them the money, they not give them one red cent.  Then they will have to come up with what the Commissioners need.  BOB said you remember they withheld $500,000.00 pending the school board providing some sort of quarterly statement and the quarter wasn’t even over yet and the County Commissioners released the funds.  BOB said he told Terry Frank that one of our objectives is get rid of  the current Superintendent of Schools and put a new one in there.  This guy is interested in nothing but building an empire.  ERIC said, unfortunately his contract has just been renewed.  HOWARD said we got a copy of a report put out by Civitas.  They got their figures from the State Department.  Perdue claims we have lost teachers.  North Carolina has more teachers on the payroll than they had last year, so Bev lied too.

BOB said talking about the school stuff, ERIC has been doing a little research on a slightly different angle.  ERIC said this coming year we are going to be up for another battle for our funds.  Last year they advised the county during one of these meetings with the county that there was going to be some major shortfalls in the following year.  He thinks a lot of it was capital expenditures.  We just all saw the article in the newspaper announcing that they were asked for 4.5 million.  Someone told him that our county ranked number 12 in support of our school system (how much money we the taxpayer give to the county per pupil).  Number 12 in the state.  Out of 115 school districts, one being the best, 115 being the worst, we ranked number 12 in the financial support we give per student in the state of NC.  He decided to do a little fact finding in all this and he found a wonderful website that is put out by the school government.  It is called schools.nc.gov.  Boy is there a ton of statistical information there.  It was a hay day.  Right now in the state Carteret County ranks 96 in the amount of funds we get per pupil from the state.  Remember 1 is good, 115 is bad.  So that means there is 95 counties that get more money than we do per student.  Currently our students get $4,992.00 per student from the state.  We all pay taxes and we would expect all of our children get an equal education, right?  In order to get an equal education you would have to spend equally on each child.  Right?  No?  Should but we don’t.  Logically you should OK?  Hyde County gets $13,000.00 per student.  $8,000.00 more than our students get.  Terrell County gets $11,108.00 per student.  Now to add insult to injury the same scenario exists with federal funds, which he believes is probably controlled by the state and how they distribute it.  Again Carteret County is 89 in ranking on that (funds from the federal government).  Hyde County is number 1 and Terrell County is number 2 in funds received from both the state and federal governments.  What also makes it painful for us is per capital income in this county we are number 12.  Per capital income is $37,000.00.  So we are paying more taxes but we are getting less of it back.  Our kids are being slighted by the state in the quality of education that they get.  Just think about this, if the state just increased our amount by $500.00, making it $5500.00 per student, we might move up to about middle way in the scale there.  That $500.00 equates to 4 million dollars because we have 8500 students.  On the federal funds, the same way, even if they just increased it by 2 or 3 hundred, then we would have another 3 million so the issue that the school board has is not with the county, it is with the state and federal governments and how those funds are distributed.  BOB said you said Hyde County got the most money for their schools per student.  What was their per capita rank?  ERIC said $28,251.00.  BOB asked which is where on the scale?  ERIC said 72.  ERIC said he tried to see if there was a correlation between per capita income and the amount each county got per student.  There isn’t.  There are some counties that have high per capita income and they get more than we do.  They are getting 6/7 thousand dollars per student.  He is now beginning to think it is more a political thing than based on capita income.  CLAYTON wanted to know if he could check to see if it was a Republican county or Democrat.  ERIC said he didn’t know that.  HOWARD said Hyde County was represented by Mark Basnight, he was pretty sure.  HOWARD said he was the head man in the Senate and probably the most powerful man in the state, running the show like he wanted it.  ERIC said well, that would explain why they are getting the money.  In the old days, the way teachers got appointed, so if you had a Democratic government in the county most of the teachers were going to be Democrats.  BARBARA RAWLS said students should be getting additional money for attending schools in those areas with military.   ERIC said OK, let’s check Craven County.  They get less than us.  They are ranked 101.  On the federal level they do rank 37.  Now you would think the Gov would take care of her own back yard.  VERNE THOMPSON said the only reason why it would be different from one county to another in educating the number of students, so there is not reason to expect that the amount per pupil should be the same in two different counties.  ERIC said he had thought that through himself and then he went and looked at Wake County.  They are 113.  Now you would think Wake County, one of the highest cost to live in, would be getting 8 or 9 thousand dollars per student.  No! They get $2,700.00 per student.  VERNE said that was sort of the point the was getting at.  A lot of factors go into the amount of what is to be spent to educate a given student.  For example: Using Hyde County.  Hyde County gets a lot because Hyde County area wise is very, very large, so on average the students are sparsely dispersed.  Which means they have higher per student busing costs, and fewer schools because they have less density.  On the other hand Wake or Mecklinburg County have dense population so they are able to have bigger schools.  They are able to have a lot more students in each of those schools and the transportation costs are also a lot less.  He is not saying that there is no element of politics involved, what he is saying is that there is a host of legitimate reasons why there will be quite a bit of difference in the educational costs from county to county and the per student cost.  ERIC said our county runs what 60/75 miles from one end to the other and how far does Hyde County run?  VERNE said he had no idea.  BOB asked if he had ever driven up to Manteo.  It is a long lonesome drive.  ERIC said the point that he was trying to make – VERNE said he suspected by what you had seen in Hyde County, you will also see in Perquimmons County and Pasquetank County because they are large areas and sparsely populated.  BOB said before you check them out and go any further, the money from the schools comes from the ad valorium tax  base.  The more prosperous and the more intensely built the county is the higher the revenue is going into the county so you will have x number of dollars available for the school system and will be based on how—-ERIC said he understood that—-BOB said Hyde County is probably 90% swamp and wilderness and very rural and there is no major towns up there.  They just don’t have the ad val tax base where the county can step up to the plate and contribute any significant amount to the schools so the state tries to level the playing field so that all the schools are the same… in other words the Chemistry Class that is taught in Hyde County is the same type of Chemistry Class taught in Carteret County with all the same equipment, microscopes, etc.  Items that Hyde County would not be able to afford on its own.  So the state steps up and tries to level the playing field.
Discussion among the members (all talking at once).   KEN said he still thinks you need to know how the formula works in distributing the funds.  HARRY THOMPSON’s wife wanted to know if free meals were considered.  If you get free meals, you get free dental care.  That sounds crazy, but it is the truth.  If your kids are going on a field trip and you are going to let them buy their lunch somewhere else they still want those free lunches so they can get the money for the lunches they don’t get.  It is ridiculous.  ERIC said the point he was trying to make here we are looking a maybe a 7 million dollar request by a school board this year and we want to harness as much of the money as we can get from the state, because the reality is we are going to need it.  Otherwise, everybody’s taxes are going to go sky high.  BOB said that is what our state legislatures are for.  ERIC said he had emailed Pat McElraft and Jean Preston on this issue, because he wanted and explanation as to why we are 96.  The other concern he has is we have about 1100 students that they classify impaired, blindness, deafness, mental, physical and all that.  You probably have a low teacher ratio in order to train these kids.  Probably 100 or more teachers are devoted to these kids.  LOU said what does it matter how much money we get as long as the school board has not accountability and we have no idea where the money is going.  WAYNE said in ERIC’s quest to find sanity in these figures remember this, one person’s name that has already been called, Mark Basnight.  He has been until very recently the most powerful man in NC and he still has a whole lot more influence than he has any business having.  That is why the money and it is not just for education.  They have been trying to do something that can’t be done with Oregon Inlet for 50 years.  You can not get there from here.  Hwy 64 was paved from Oklahoma or somewhere across NC so they could get there to Basnight’s hotels.  ERIC said he still thinks we need to look into this data he was presenting tonight.  It is worth pursuing.  We know our school board is going to be asking for a lot of money this year.  HOWARD asked to explain something on these special needs kids.  He doesn’t know how much it is now, but if they can get a kid on Ridlelan or some mind altering drug, the state gets extra money.  Several years ago it was $1,700.00 per student classed as special needs.  Catie’s mother is a Nurse Practitioner.  She worked for a Pediatric and Adolescent Practice.  Teachers will pressure parents to put kids on these mind altering drugs for the money (and make their job easier).  An example was this mother came in to Dawn just about begging to get her kid on this drug.  So Dawn put the kid on a small dosage and just a few days later the mother came back in saying the teacher had said another kid had acted just like hers and that kid was on twice the dosage her kid was and wanted her to get the doctor to increase it.  Dawn told the lady she did not practice cookie cutter medicine.  That is what is going on.  It is a financial advantage.  They won’t admit it.  He had a school teacher asking for donations and he questioned her.  She said she didn’t know they got extra money.  This has been 7 or 8 years ago and he dug into it and at that time they were getting $1,700.00 extra for every kid they could get on these drugs.  ERIC said he didn’t know about that, but if it were the case, he thought we would get more than $900.00 per student, because we’ve got 12% of our kids that are impaired in some fashion.  HOWARD said the County Commissioners do not find out about this extra money.  The BOE does not tell them about this.  ERIC said he was waiting for some answers from our representatives to see if they can tell us how they are calculating the distribution of our funds.  He thinks every one of our children are entitled to an equal opportunity in an education.  If that is not happening, then we need to stand up.  LOU said we still need to start with our School Board.  No matter how much we get from the government unless we get the school board squared away it is all for nothing.  BOB asked HOWARD didn’t he say the charter schools only spend something like $4,000 per student?  HOWARD said at Gramercy (a Christian School) it is a little over $3,000.00 per student per year, whereas Carteret County is right at $9,000.00.  Gramercy’s test scores exceed those of any public school in the county.  BOB wanted to know if Gramercy received state funds.  HOWARD said no.  ERIC said he could pull up charter schools and see how they are being treated.  We only have two in the county.  He is hoping we can get some of the attention of C4 and the school board because our argument is going to be if the state and federal distribution is not fair then why are you all beating up on our County Commissioners and county citizens when they have already paid the taxes.  It strengthens our position to say no, as a county, we are not going to give you any more money.  You have to go to the state and beat them up or take them to court or whatever you have to do to get your money.  BOB said let’s get our numbers so we can have the facts when we talk to them.  Someone in the meeting said until we get a good accountability of where the money is going we are spinning our wheels.  BOB said the problem is you don’t know how they misspent the money until the end of the year when you get the auditors report and then it is too late, and by then they are asking money for the new school year.  CLAYTON said the BOE was wanting to get away from the county setting the tax rate and let the schools set the tax rates as they see fit.  Some places have done that…..and they are in worse shape now than they were.

Meeting adjourned at 7:20pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS
Minutes of
23 January 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by
Invocation by JERE GEURIN

BOB reminded us that tonight’s meeting would be a short one.  We will adjourn  not later that 6:40pm in order to get to the Train Depot before 7:00pm for the Meet and Greet with Frank Palombo (hosted by Captain Steve Miller).  We would like for as many, as can, to go (hopefully in your red shirts) to show our support for Palombo, who is running against Walter B. Jones for the Republican Congressional seat for the 3rd District which has grown by 5 counties, basically because the center part of the state’s population has grown so much.  BOB said he understood Frank was doing pretty well in raising money, however, he can always use more.  BOB said he had invited some of his friends who had deep pockets to attend and he hopes they will turn their pockets inside out.

BOB introduced Catherine (Catie) McCabe, who is with and will speak to us tonight on “Eagles Wings Ministries”:
Catie said she had passed around a brief overview of what Eagles Wings Ministries does.  She runs one of their programs which is called ‘Youth for Abolition’, but they have several different things going on.  She said she usually did a power point presentation, but was just going to give a brief overview of what her project was.  What they usually do is ‘combating human trafficking in North Carolina‘.  Usually when you hear of slavery, you think that was abolished back during the Civil War when in fact today there are more slaves in our world than there ever was during the TransAtlantic Slave Trade.  Human trafficking is modern day slavery.  In the United States the average age in forced prostitution is 13 years old.  It is estimated by the Youth Department of Justice that a minimum of 100 thousand United States children are being trafficked and exploited in the US each year.  Some estimate those averages to be more around 300 thousand.  The modern day slave auction is electronic whereas local (?) can examine and purchase via email. Women and girls from wholesalers in other countries where retail customers can order up the prostitute of their choice via email.  Whereas before it was kind of a long process, now it is very easy, almost immediate, and is constantly going on.  It is estimated that at least 27 million people are currently enslaved around the world according to the US Department of State.  The trafficking of humans is the second most lucrative crime in the world.  Approximately 80% of the people trafficked are female and of those ½ are minors.  So 40% of the people being trafficked are little girls.  There is a big market for trafficking of children.  At any given time 50 thousand predators are prowling for the children on the internet in the US.  One point two million children are estimated to be trafficked around the world each year.  That is two children every minute.  During the first three hours of being on the street one in three kids will be forced into trafficking.  When we run into a foreign victim of sex trafficking we instantaneously sympathize with her course into sex trafficking.  But when we encounter an American girl on the street, we think why did she make this choice.  Surely she can walk away anytime she wants.  One survivor says ‘I was 14 years old when I was forced into prostitution.  Like many teens at that age, finding my identity, and defying my parents were on the top of my list.  Consequently when a man came into my life and showered me with attention and listened to me when I complained about my parents, I did not think twice about the fact that he was 10 years my senior.’  That is what is going on.  Unfortunately I know several girls that will talk to anyone on Face Book and there are other guys, girls and other teens other than the ones I know, and that is how the predators are getting in touch with these kids.  They are talking to them on Face Book, they are talking to them through social media.  They are being their friend, they are listening to them when their parents and other adults are not.  They are showering them with the love they are hoping for and then sex happens.   Yes a lot of kids are directly kidnapped but a majority are being more coerced into sex trafficking.  The reality of the ’pimp’ game.  Pimps have a great marketing tool, the media.  You can turn on TV now and see pimps glamorized on TV shows, music and movies.  Now the term pimp is so commercialized where Americans do nothing.  It has become incorporated into our vocabulary.  Teens use the terminology every day with statements like being pimped out, or your clothes are pimping.  We do not understand the reality behind this term.  Pimps prey on women and children by finding out their weaknesses and attacking them. It is easier to manipulate children because by the time they become adults they are dependent on their pimp.  After the pimp gets into your mind it is easy for him to maintain control.  From that point you have to call him Daddy and he will punish you if he feels you have stepped out of line.  You are required to bring home between $500 and $2,000 every night.  If you do not want to follow the rules he may sell you at any time to another pimp or he may just kill you.  The pimp game is not anything like the drug game because it is not territorial.  With drugs you buy and sell it once, but with people you can buy and sell them over and over again.  This is why they move you around from city to city and state to state so you can have no one to run to.  That way they can keep making money off of you.  So, local slavery is happening in our own back yard.  This past year North Carolina was ranked number 6 in the nation for human trafficking.  That’s right out of 50 we ranked number 6.  It is not just in the large cities like Charlotte.   Less than 2 years ago there was a little boy, 5 years old, in New Bern, and his adopted father was selling him over the internet.  Men were flying into the New Bern airport; having sex with this little boy; and then flying out.  It is happening here in Carteret County.  She has talked with a lady that about 20 years ago was being sold right here in Carteret County for about 15 years.  It is happening here.  What Youth for Abolition does is we educate middle school, high school and college age students about what is going on because they are the ones being targeted.  We raise awareness among them so that it is like a peer to peer type of thing of ‘let’s stop this because this is why it is happening – people do not know.’  People are not educated.  She did not know until about a year ago.  She was like ‘human trafficking is something that happens in Tai Land?  And Europe, (?)… it doesn’t happen in America.  We also raise funds to support Eagles Wings Ministries.  There are less than 100 beds in the entire US for victims of sex trafficking once they have been rescued.  When we have over 100,000 kids being trafficked and there is less than 100 beds for them when they have gotten away from their pimps.  So often in the event they are rescued they go right back because that is all they know and there is nothing out there to help them.  We say, ‘you’re free!’.  ‘Now go support yourself’.  Since the only way they know how is what they have just been rescued from, they go right back to that life because that is all they know.  Also, in teaching teenagers that the messages that the media sends all the time is not right.  It is not a good thing.  Being a prostitute is not a good thing.  She has talked to a whole bunch of teenagers and they are like ’oh yeah you can just be a prostitute to make money and do whatever and it doesn’t matter.  That is what the teen culture says now.  That is not a good thing.  It is not OK.  And then they talk to people in your generation (adults) because you all are the ones raising us.  You are the ones taking care of my generation right now.  So, if you all don’t know, how can you protect her generation?  And that is why we come and talk to groups like you.  That is pretty much where they are at right now.  What she does with Youth four Abolition is she runs their state wide program.  They have groups all over the state.  They meet once a month or so and they are getting educated and educating their peers.  They are raising funds to go into other places.  They are working with other organizations to develop programs to take into schools.
ERIC BROYLES wanted to know what the local churches are doing and are they involved.  CATIE said yes, many churches help with the funding, since Y4A does not take any federal funding.  That is the biggest principle that this organization was founded upon.  So everything they do is through donations from individuals, churches, and organizations.  It is a lot of money to have home school and psychological care in taking care of these girls. For 4 girls it is about $100 thousand dollars a year.  By the time you have the facility, help and special needs they have it can become very costly.  ERIC wanted to know if they tried to recoup some of the costs from the kids parents.  Many of the parents are poor, or the kids come from broken homes, and the parents would not be able to afford to help. The kids would just be on their own, if the services were not available.  BOB asked if this was a North Carolina based organization.  CATIE said it was.  HOWARD asked if all the help was volunteers.  CATIE said no, they have one paid employee per home because by law they have to.  BOB wanted to know where the homes are located right now.  CATIE said right now there are two, one in Asheville, and one in Boone.  The long term goal is to have one here in eastern NC.  BOB wanted to know what the current plan was.  CATIE said they were looking at Greenville.  BOB asked what was the current bed situation between Asheville and Boone.  CATIE said 8. BOB asked if they were all filled right now.  CATIE said ‘as of last week all but one bed, because one girl just finished the program two weeks ago.  Last week they got a call from the FBI office in Charlotte and they have 3 girls that they need beds for.  So as of now they are filled to total capacity.  BOB said CATIE had mentioned one girl had completed the program…how long is the program.  CATIE said ‘about a year and then they continue to help these girls afterward but some do go home or to a relative that will take them in and in some cases they will go into the foster care system.  They have a lot of connections with Social Services in the areas so they try to keep the girls near by and are very careful with them.  HOWARD asked ’was not Glad Tiding Church here involved.’  CATIE said yes sir.  KEN asked how CATIE tried to get the word out.  She said ’multiple ways, either churches a lot of times will pass the word or individuals will contact them because there are not that many organizations doing what they are doing right now especially in NC.  They just reach out to the churches for like ’hey, here’s what is going on.  Can we come speak to your youth groups or speak to your congregation.  KEN wanted to know if they call like the minister or send them literature or what?  He knows that she has been on the radio talking about this project.  CATIE said ’in the beginning of December she was up in Charlotte speaking with elevation church.  KEN asked how many folks, besides herself, did they have talking to churches and such.  CATIE said there was her, Emily, and Kim.  There are three of them for the most part heading up the various parts of the organization.  KEN wanted to know if this was all teens, young adults.  CATIE said she was the only teenager right now; the other two are adults.  Emily has been doing this for about 20 years, working with survivors, working with getting girls off the street.  They have the prevention part, the rescue where they actually go out on the street and talk with girls.  They also basically look up the ad and call.  In the past year they have called almost 3000 times and have rescued 8 girls.  But that is 8 girls that are off the street.  BOB said what do they tell the other 2998 girls.  CATIE said you cannot rescue someone who does not want to be rescued.  BOB said ’you said they called’.  We call them.  LOU wanted to know why they could not rescue someone just because they didn’t want to be rescued.  CATIE said ’ if they are minors, that is one thing, but often they will not tell you that they are minors because they have been trained to not say anything unless a customer is specifically asking for say a girl that is 12 years old with blond hair.  Then it is ‘oh well, we just happen to have what you want.  Even if she looks like she is 9 she says she is 18.  She was talking to a lady in Charlotte about the detention center there.  They know there is a lot of girls in there that are in for prostituting and they know a lot of them are there because they are being trafficked.  But proving it, getting to trial, or getting the girls to trust anybody and get them to talk is a very long process.  Until 2000 in the US the fine for trafficking was $50.00 and 6 months in jail.  She thinks it is now something like $50,000 and 10 years in federal prison.  They just renewed that law last year.  BOB said he thought that came out of the illegal immigration and border control – with truck loads of dead Mexicans in the desert.  CATIE said in other countries one of the prime markets for people trafficking others is Americans.  Over 90% of people who buy in other countries have already bought in their own.  PEGGY asked CATIE if she wanted to tell them about the dinner they had planned; that is if she had any tickets left. She said that they are having a fund raising banquet not this weekend but next weekend, February 4th,  at the Glad Tidings Church.  She has about 8 tickets left.  They cost $10.00 and that includes a four course meal.  She is going to be speaking and the founder and president of this organization will also speak; as well as a survivor sharing her story.  Representative Pat McElraft will be there also.  BOB said if she had any tickets left to bring them next Tuesday, that he would like to have one but did not have his checkbook with him tonight.  PEGGY said if anyone would like to get a ticket next Tuesday, she will get that many tickets to bring next Tuesday.  BOB said put him down for one ticket – anyone else? KEN said he would have to check his calendar, but he thought he and DIANE would probably like to go.  He would call PEGGY or CATIE and let them know.  BOB wanted to know if this banquet was to raise funds to help build a house in this area.  CATIE said this would probably be going for education right now and have programs to implement.   KEN said it costs to provide councilors and other needed providers.  CATIE said most of the personal support received was donated but there was still a lot of costs involved.  BOB said a lot of sex slavery takes place in Asia.  Families sell their daughters mainly because they don’t want daughters.  HOWARD said one thing he found interesting was there are a whole lot of operations, but everyone is small, normally only no more that two working girls and they ARE in Carteret County.  Anywhere there is a military base and/or beach.  CATIE  said ’tourist areas’.  She said at the bottom of the sheet she had passed out were some Hope House statistics:  ie 1005 of Hope House residents have had PTSD; 20% have had personality disorder; 100% have been victims of childhood abuse; 40% have been involved in gang activity; 100% have struggled with substance abuse; 100% have been chronic runaways; 100% have been involved in the legal system; 80% have been referred by law enforcement; 20% have been trafficked by their own parent; and 80% have had at least one abortion.   One of these girls will be speaking at this banquet (many will be there) but they have worked with this girl to help guide and give her the strength to tell her story.  CATIE said the lady has been working with this young lady, encouraging her to tell what has happened to her because she is going to have to testify and if she can share her story with people outside of Hope House then hopefully she will be able to testify.  But we have to be careful – there can be no recordings or pictures while she speaks.  They have had to really work with her because you can not use the ’f’ word and many others not suitable for public use, and this is a big part of her vocabulary
.    CATIE said thank you for your time and interest.

BOB then called on KEN to tell us about NC20.  NC20 is an organization that is composed of the 20 eastern counties on the coast.  They have been doing some pretty decent work.  They’ve most recently over the last year, year and a half, there was an effort by the Governor and her ’quote’ science panel to establish some criteria on sea level rising that would have really devastated eastern NC from the standpoint of resale of property, being able to ensure property, etc.  NC20 was successful in having that panel basically disbanded and their report blocked because it was not scientific.  They were going in and talking about how global warming was going to cause flooding of the coast up to 3 foot level which would have devastated this area, but they had no scientific evidence.  Since they were successful on that, they decided another issue that is extremely important and hard to deal with right now on the coast is wind insurance.  Some of us went to a meeting with the Insurance Commissioner and 10 or 12 legislatures.  NC 20 gave a presentation and they had asked that citizens turn out to support them while at the meeting to let the legislatures know that we are interested in this down here on the coast.  He, Diane, Gus and Judy Wilgus, and Shirley went to the meeting and NC20 gave a really good presentation.  Pat McElraft and Norm Sanderson were there from our area but there were 10 or so other legislatures there besides.  Just to give you an example of the difference in rates it costs somebody who lives in Charlotte (Mecklinburg County) about $360.00 (+ or -) a year for their wind insurance.  People down here are paying anywhere from $1,700/$1.800 to $3,000.00 depending on the value of their home.  So we are paying 3 or 4 times more than what other parts of the state are paying.  But yet, the amount of money spent on repairing homes in the state is higher in the western and middle part of the state.  Wind damage includes tornadoes and thunder storms as well as hurricanes.  As you know we also have inland hurricanes that do a lot of damage inland.  Another statistic that was interesting was that the $300 and some dollars that they are paying in Mecklinburg County now is less than they paid in 1995.  Our rates have continued to go up while theirs have gone down.  There was a lot of discussion about the beach plan.  If you don’t know what the beach plan is; it is a plan that was created by the legislature that was supposed to actually supplement the insurance companies in case of a catastrophic hurricane like Katrina or something like that.  Anyone know how many category 5 hurricanes we have had on the coast of NC?  NONE!!  Zero.  Hazel was a 4.  We have never had a category 5 hurricane since records have been being kept and named.  We have only had 3 category 4’s and Hazel was the worst.  Most of the insurance companies will come along and tell you “well, one of the reasons why we are doing this is because we have to protect ourselves from a Katrina event when we have never had one in eastern NC.  The other thing he asked NC20 afterwards is ’wait a minute, Katrina was a bad hurricane but the insurance companies were down there telling people they could not cover them because they were only covered for flood insurance and not wind insurance or vice versa.  They were scooting away in trying to figure out a way in not paying anything.  The US tax payer paid most of the cost down there.  It wasn’t the insurance companies.  What is happening with the beach plan right now is all big insurance companies are dumping people into the beach plan and what is happening when you go to renew your insurance…a friend of his was with Nationwide at the time and they told him that they were not going to write him any wind insurance, he would have to go to the beach plan.  His insurance State Farm did the same thing to him last year.  What happens when they dump us in there (in that category) that means they are not responsible for paying insurance claims due to wind damage any more.  That means they get zero risk against wind damage claims; however they make 15% of all the premiums paid into the beach plan.  The idea behind it was the insurance companies were going to have to service those claims.  It is not the insurance agents, your local neighbors who are selling insurance and writing policies that are getting that 15%.  It is going to the big guys in the insurance companies.  Another statistic.  The insurance industry in the US has cash reserves, investments, and things like that …5 trillion dollars.  You have all these real rich companies now.  The other thing they do with the beach plan is it is common with insurance companies that when they insure a high risk type of event they do what is called ‘re-insurance’.  That means they’ll go to some company like Lloyds of London, (all are overseas), or some place like that and they will buy the insurance policy so that if they have a devastating event that causes so much damage that they get reimbursed out of this re-insurance plan.  That is our money paying for that re-insurance out of the beach plan.  They do no buy that insurance themselves they use our money to buy insurance to cover their loss in the case of some catastrophic event.  If you think that is bad .. They are investing in re-insurance companies, so they are buying insurance from companies that they have investments in using our money to make more money.  It is pretty sad.  In 1944 Congress passed a law in the US that absolves insurance companies from anti-trust suits.  They are the only company in the US that is not prohibited from anti-trust and that means that the Presidents from State Farm, Nationwide, etc can get in a room together and set prices for insurance.  It is a terrible story and very complicated.  There is a board (can’t remember the name) an insurance board in the state of NC.  The way it works (he should have brought the piece of paper where he had written all of it down)…you have insurance companies that sit together and decide what the risks are, what the rates are going to be based supposedly on risks.  Those risk assessments are determined by computer models.  Guess who writes the computer models?  The insurance companies write them.  Then they make a recommendation to a board, and NC is like one of three states that has one of these boards.  The board reviews what the insurance companies have proposed as a rate increase.  Guess who composes the board under NC law?  Over half of it is made up of insurance executives and then some other part of it is also made up of other people tied into the insurance industry one way or the other and then you may have a few normal, regular citizens.  They are appointed by the Governor.  They make a recommendation on the proposed rate increase to the Insurance Commissioner who is an elected official and right now he is a Democrat.  There is no prohibition in the state of NC that this guy can’t himself be a former executive.  However, this one is not.  He is a lawyer.  He could be a retired insurance executive and most of his friends and contacts are within this group.  Someone sent him a real nasty email, because he is posting some of this information on our web site.  You can read it on the web site.  Basically they said that our current insurance commissioner is a really nice guy and what Ken had said in his article he felt was an attack on him, which it wasn’t.  All he did was express the facts as they were presented at this meeting.  They basically said there is a statute that requires a public hearing for a rate increase.   Well, the current insurance commissioner has had one public hearing for a rate increase on insurance.  And he did disapprove the rate increase, so he gives him credit for that.  All previous insurance commissioners have never had a public hearing.  They ignored the statute.  He did not hear anyone at the NC20 hearing state that there was a statute but he is trying to find out whether on not he had heard right.  It is irrelevant since they never had one until
the current commissioner.  So the public had no input in these rate increases.  What NC20 is doing is they are trying to convince the legislature that we need to fix the beach plan.  And we need to do a scientific analyses of how insurance companies are setting rates in the state and why the rates are different on the coast.  Write your representative a letter, or if you have some friends in Pamlico, or Craven or Onslow Counties, get them to write letters to their representatives also.  Harry Brown had a representative there too.  That is what they need.  They need support from the people down here on the coast because we are outmanned.  The 20 counties down here are outmanned by 80 counties on the other side of I95.  It is going to be an uphill battle but he will give the legislature credit they are looking into this and hopefully, if we keep a Republican Legislature, maybe they will do something about it.

A member (Verne Thompson) I think, said they have a house in Pitt County.  His insurance there is 3 or 4 hundred dollars.  We have a smaller house down on the coast and the insurance there is 14 hundred dollars.  KEN said what the insurance companies are doing are beginning to move inland.  It is projected that more and more counties will be dumped into the beach plan because there is nothing prohibiting them from right now dumping other policy holders into the beach plan.  If it is east of I95 it is considered coastal.  Just because you have it now it doesn’t mean you are going to keep it unless something is done.

EULA PARKIN said she had some good news and some good news.  The good news is, remember when she first came here to the first meeting and told us ‘wow, between January and February $35.00 had disappeared out of her survivors benefits plan.  Well, she got a pay raise this month, and much more than the $35.00; plus if you look at your Social Security, she got a pay raise in that also.  Combined together was almost $100.00 a month.  As for insurance she doesn’t know how many of you are military but she has been with USAA for 57 years and they cover you everywhere, (Europe, Asia) everywhere but New Jersey.  They couldn’t get insurance there.

JERE GEURIN asked to speak a few minutes before we adjourn.  He said he had passed out information about the Marriage Protection Amendment which will be on the ballot in May Primary.  Of all times, they put it on the Primary ballot.  He doesn’t expect anyone to memorize the data he had handed out, and we did not have time to read it, but please read it in your own time and pick out the main points so you can be ready to tell others about what is in this handout.  He has some other information (4 other handouts) but will not be bringing them all at once because there is just too much to swallow all at one time.  HOWARD told JERE that he had been approached by a Community Baptist Church in Newport that is having an outside speaker come in to speak on this defense of marriage act.  He does not know the date yet.  It will be on why churches need to get involved in politics in this day and time.  The guy that told me about this meeting is going to tell me the day and time because he is planning to go to listen to him.  JERE asked if it was the Community Baptist Church up on 70?  HOWARD said yes it was across from the Oceanside Auto Sales.  JERE said he had been to their worship.  He asked HOWARD to let us all know as soon as he finds anything out.

BOB called on ERIC BROYLES.  He said he did not know if we had heard about it Iowa did vote for the ‘right to work’ state.  Much applause.

KEN said he had a lot more information to share because most people were not aware how much their insurance was going up.  Most are not aware of the increase, because they pay it in their escrow and only know the escrow went up.  People who are renting are also paying because the landlord is just passing it on to you.

BOB adjourned the meeting so all could get to the Train Depot down town to meet with Frank Palombo.  Capt. Steve Miller has rented the building to enable those who are interested in finding out where Palombo stands can have an opportunity to meet and talk with him tonight.  He had requested the TEA Party group to please attend and wear their red shirts, to make Palombo feel among friends.

Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary Crystal Coast TEA Party Patriots.

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF
17 JANUARY 2012

Meeting was held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order 6:00 pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by BOB CAVANAUGH
Invocation by NANCY BOCK

BOB announced that Catie McCabe, who was supposed to meet with us tonight, was unable to attend.  She caught some bug while in Atlanta and couldn’t make it tonight.

BOB introduced a new face in the crowd, CRAIG ELLYSON.  Craig said he had not been to one of our meetings before, but had attended a rally at the Newport Flea Mall a couple of years ago.  He is a life long Republican and the aims of the TEA Party certainly coincide with his and his wife’s.  He belongs to the Lion’s Club and having seen us meeting here when they had their meetings, decided to come out and see what we had going on prior to the Lion’s Club Meeting being called to order.  He is originally from Wisconsin and currently remains a resident of Wisconsin.  Scott Walker is his governor.  He has done what he said he would do, and the unions are trying to hop all over him.  He prays that God will protect Scott Walker.  A lot of Amens from the group.

BOB wanted to know if we all caught the debate last night.  Most said they caught part or most of it.  BOB said he thought Newt knocked it out of the ball park.  He hopes this does him well in the primary down there.

BOB announced that we have an unfortunate problem that we need to nip in the bud before it gets any worse.  It has been brought to management’s attention that some of the folks that come to the TEA Party meetings are helping themselves to the food bar and not paying for it.  The manager said that if we don’t stop this we will not be able to use the facilities any more.  He said HOWARD had taken the phone call and wanted to know if he wanted to add any more to that.  HOWARD said that was about it without going into the details.  BOB said no need to call names out or point fingers, you all know who you are, I know who you are and management knows who you are.  So, if you are going to the food bar, pay for it.  Luke said if you can not afford the chow, he would buy your supper.  BOB said, yeah, if you are hungry with no funds, we will chip in and buy you something to eat.

There is not enough people here tonight to have a 50-50 raffle.  We talked about it last week about having a raffle or a donation jar set up.  Since there is such a few (maybe 14 or 15), there is no sense in having a raffle.  NANCY brought us a donation bucket so we can use it tonight for donations in lieu of a raffle.

BOB said STEVE BEST has started a new production company.  As a start to the new entrepreneurship, if you have kids you want to throw a Christian oriented birthday party, give STEVE a call.  He asked STEVE what else he did – he didn’t do weddings, did he?  STEVE said no and BOB said ‘he’ll work his way up to that.”  BOB said we have two movies that STEVE has procured.  (He bought one and the other was free.)  One is the “Iranium” which is about an hour long.  STEVE reviewed it last night.  BOB said STEVE thought it was the best thing since ‘Gone with the Wind’ and STEVE said ‘better’.  BOB read the back of the cover ‘As long as the revolution of 1979 the Iranian regime has been following the principles installed by Itolla Komini, and Iran citizens of the west have been held hostage of the Iranian leadership who have spread the revolution beyond Iran’s borders.  Now the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism and brutal human rights stands on the threshold of acquiring nuclear weaponry.  Utilizing rare footage, archive news reports and interviews of leading experts, “Iranium” exposes actions and  intentions of Iran and Iran’s leaders, and America’s response over 31 years.  The film presents the dangers Iran now poses to America, the middle east and the rest of the free world, and the options currently being considered to combat those threats.  The other movie “The Agenda” (which STEVE had purchased for $18.00).  ‘Grinding America Down’.  BOB said we need to sometime decide when we are going to take a look at these movies, if we want to look at them at all.  Maybe watch them at STEVE’s theater ‘The Cave” (his garage that he has converted into a 45 seat movie theater.  It can be expanded, if need be.)  He has a popcorn machine, and a hotdog machine also.  BOB wanted to know what kind of hotdogs and STEVE informed him ’all beef’.  Discussion on various types of hotdogs.  LOU KUKULINSKI said, best kind, ’they’re free’!! and then went on to discuss the best hotdogs he had ever eaten.  BOB wanted to know if there was any interest in getting together and watching these films or would we prefer to check them out from STEVE to watch at home, assuming STEVE would allow us to do that.  Question was raised what night could we have the showing.  STEVE said any night we wanted.  BOB said he thought most folks had things to do on weekends; that maybe we might want to hold one of our Tuesday night meetings at STEVE’s to also watch the movie.  Can’t do it next week, because that’s the night we go to the Train Depot here in Morehead for the meeting with Frank Palombo who is running against Walter Jones in the Republican primary.  He will be speaking there and Steve Miller, the boat captain that comes to our meetings, rented the place and he asked us to show up in our red shirts, if possible.   HOWARD wanted to know if we were going to meet here first.  BOB said the event over there was from 7 to 9.  He wanted to do whatever was more convenient to the folks here.  If you prefer to come here and eat prior (since there would only be minor snacks, not heavy hors ’d oeuvres, just chips, pretzels, and such).  He had no problem coming here and holding a short meeting and then everybody leaving here and going over there.  SCOTT wanted to know if we could put a sign up in case some did not get the message….something like ‘TEA Party people are meeting at the Train Depot, Morehead City, at 7:00pm‘.   BOB said he planned to come here next week to eat prior to going to the Depot, so he would be here to inform anyone not knowing about the meeting at the Depot.  Several said they planned to come to the Golden Corral for supper anyway.  If you prefer to skip meeting here, then just show up at the Depot about 7:00.  Discussion on where the Depot is located – Morehead not Beaufort – downtown with a small park next to it.  It will be inside.  STEVE said there were not many seats in there.

BOB said he would like to make a decision on when we planned to watch the movies at STEVE’s.  He would like to talk to KEN LANG about when he could get his group together to attend also.  He planned to leave our meeting tonight and go to Emerald Isle and talk to them tonight about when we could all get together as a TEA Party thing and try to maximize attendance.  KEN normally has about 17 to 25 folks show up down there.  They just started up and the word is slowly filtering out.  It is kind of like us.  We see a new face or two every week.

The web-a-nar call for TEA Party committee coordinators was last night.  Topic of conversation was this 1.2 trillion increase in the spending authorization that Obama wants Congress to approve and the majority of the coordinators who were in on the call (he does not have any idea how many attend these conference calls, but there are 3500 TEA Party Patriot groups around the country so it is probably several hundred.  Any way, over 90% of the coordinators want Congress to hold the line with no increase on the national debt limit.  It sounds good, but he just doesn’t think that is workable.  They can’t cut enough spending in time to effect the obligations between now and the next time they pass a budget which, by the way, he thinks Thursday is 1000 days since the Senate has passed a budget.  They asked us to bombard our Senators with emails and phone calls; basically shame on you for not passing a budget in 1000 days, which he doesn’t think will have any effect, since Reid doesn’t care not one iota.  LOU asked if that was in addition to the Impeach Obama emails.  BOB said that was a subject of conversation last night, but he couldn’t remember the name of the fellow that was there, but he was emphasizing that the appointments just made while Congress was not in recess was totally, absolutely unconstitutional.  The Senate needs to stand up and do something about this, otherwise it really opens the door where Obama can appoint Supreme Court Justices on a weekend.  LOU said ’nationalizing the car companies was unconstitutional also…everything Obama did was unconstitutional.  BOB said it is specifically written in the Constitution about the appointments.  The President can make appointments when Congress is in recess but Congress determines when they are in recess.  They were not in recess…matter of fact the Democrats used this effectively against George Bush for his last two years once the Democrats took over Congress they kept the Senate in permanent session so Bush couldn’t make any recess appointments.  And Bush honored the rule of Congress and the Constitution and did not make any recess appointments.  And Obama has chosen to ignore that and the Republicans are trying to do the same thing to block Obama appointments during recess.  They don’t want to load up the court with a bunch of liberal judges and stuff, the smaller appellant courts that is.  RUTH PARKER said he still appointed someone the Congress had already voted against and turned him down.  BOB said the President still has the prerogative to name him again.  He can submit the same person over and over again.  LOU said he still didn’t think it was legal for the government to take over a private enterprise and give all the money to the unions.  BOB said the TEA Party had made a big issue of that but none of the politicians would grab that banner and run with it other than Michelle Bachman.  HOWARD said as long as Reid heads up the Senate they are not going to challenge him.  BOB said he agreed, but unfortunately we can not do a whole lot (us, our TEA Party) this coming election, because neither of our Senators are up for re-election.  Kay Hagan is not due until 2014 and then Burr is 2016.  So we are kind of out of the senatorial race.  All we can  look at is the President and Congress this coming up election, plus all the state slots.  LOU asked, what did we need, (five ?) to take over the Senate.  BOB said yes, we get five and they lose five.  LOU said 23 Democrats up for reelection.  We should be able to do that.  But if the presidency can’t turn the base out, and Romney is unable to motivate, then the voters are just not going to show.  LOU said, ‘contrary to belief, regardless who is nominated, we are going to win by a landslide.  People are disgusted with Obama.  BOB said he hoped he was right, that he would vote for Howdy Doody, if he was the only one on the ballot against Obama.

SCOTT CARPENTER wanted to know if they discussed the debate in Myrtle Beach last night.  BOB said, no, believe it or not, the TEA Party Patriots National coordinators do not take political sides and they encourage us not to also.  They leave it strickly up to the local TEA Parties as to how involved they want to get in the elections and if they want to throw their support behind candidates.  We are not organized as a non-profit; however if we get into advocating the people vote for a particular candidate then we fall under the campaign finance laws and we have to report all our income and all that stuff and we have to make quarterly state reports.  The way we get around that is we use the law.  The law says that you are supporting a candidate then you use words like vote for, or support, or endorse.  LOU asked then how could Valerie Jarrett get up in the pulpit in Atlanta and blame the Republicans; that that is why Obama can’t get anything done.   BOB said Atlanta is so thoroughly Democrat that you say anything.  FRED DECKER said we can say we recommend.  BOB said that is what we did in the last election in 2010, we had a voter recommendation list stating we recommend these certain people.  He thinks an even better way of wording it this time is ‘the following candidates support the TEA Party’s principles’.  That way they are supporting us, we are not supporting them type of deal.  That is a way to get around the campaign finance laws.  You have to be really careful what we write in any of our advertising and stuff like that.  He is sure Ken Humphries is aware of campaign finance laws and if he sees an opening he will dime us out just to cause hate and discontent.

DAVID R. BEARD and his son (a student at Croatan) arrived late.  BOB welcomed them to the meeting.

HOWARD said that we got something interesting today off the internet about Judge Newby, Supreme Court Justice.  It was covering basically a talk he made to a civic club in Raleigh.  He said it was hard to be a farmer and a gentleman.  Seems that he bought a farm near the Wake County line, and moved out there and raised animals, a big garden, and raised his kids to teach them what work is.  Of course now, as they have gotten a little older and gotten involved in so many things, they were running back and forth so they have left the farm and moved to town now.  He is a judge that we like.  BOB said he believed he is the only member of the supreme court that is up for election this time.  We certainly want to keep Judge Newby on the court.  What do we have…a 4 to 3 majority right now.  FRED said he did not think anyone had come out against him yet.  BOB said the judge election was in the primary he thought…not in November by in May.  HOWARD asked if anyone knew anything about this Kirby Smith, whose signs have just started popping up in our county.  Does anyone know what judge seat he is running for?  He had seen the signs over in Craven County a couple of weeks ago, and last week end there is some now up between Havelock and Newport.  FRED asked if he is the one that came to the reverse raffle?  No one was sure who he is.  FRED said he thinks he is a lawyer from Havelock.  BOB said PEGGY is in charge of remembering and wanted to know if she knew anything about him.   PEGGY said his name did not ring a bell as someone who had spoken at any of our meetings.  HOWARD said the other night on the way to New Bern, he had tried to get PEGGY to get out the car, after he had pulled over near one of the signs, and jump the ditch and read what was on the sign, but she had refused.  PEGGY said you all may think that is a joke, but he really did.  HOWARD said we need to find out more about him.  BOB said, ‘let’s track him down.  Is the office he is running for just in Craven County or what?’  Someone said they thought it was Carteret, Craven and Pamlico District Court Judge.  BOB said let’s get him down here and listen to what he has to say.  He asked FRED if he could track him down, tell him we meet on Tuesdays, (1st and 3rd Tuesdays is when the Emerald Isle group meets) and we would like to have him come and speak to us.  HOWARD said there was one of those fish doctors over at Pivers Island named Kirby Smith, but he did not think it was him.  The group told BOB we need a ‘meet and greet’ with Kirby Smith.  FRED said he would see what he could do.

HOWARD reminded the group that four of us have pre-registered for the Civitas Workshop to be held in Raleigh this weekend (Saturday).  Weather permitting.  They have had so many to register, they have had to change the place of the meeting from their headquarters to a hotel a couple of blocks away.

BOB wanted to know if anyone planned to go to Raleigh tomorrow for the coastal insurance session.  He planned on going to it.  It is going to be at the legislative building.  It starts at 1:00.  They are going to hold hearings on C20 (the twenty coastal counties).  They are trying to get Raleigh to ease up on the insurance rates that they are sticking the coast with.  We are paying like five times the amount of wind and hail insurance that those in Raleigh and Charlotte, Hickory; all the places that got slammed with Hugo and some of the other storms and we have never had a Class 5 here and we have only had one Class 4 in all the history of hurricane information keeping.

FRED said there are five or six people running for insurance commissioner.  One is from eastern North Carolina.  (can’t remember his name).  BOB said it would be nice if we had someone from the coast.  We are having people not from this area making decisions on what we pay for insurance.  BOB said same thing on the fishing industry.  Not the same people but the same area making the decisions.  FRED said we do not have the population, and BOB said that is why the third district has grown landwise because (he didn’t know whether we have lost people but the population has grown so much more on the interior counties and we have had to add three or four more counties – went from 17 counties in the third district to 22 counties.)  We run all the way from Virginia down to Wilmington and inland as far as Goldsboro.  We certainly do not have to votes to protect ourselves.

LOU announced that tomorrow Sam Sanford will he packaging boxes over behind the plaza to send over seas.  Starts at 9:00, guys will get there at 8:30 to set it up.  Come on down and help.

BOB asked HOWARD to tell us something about the Civitas seminar coming up this Saturday.  HOWARD said it was supposedly on training how to run a campaign, organizing, financing, etc.  It covers about 4 or 5 subjects.  Starts at 9:30 (he thinks) and runs until 4:00.  BOB wanted to know if he planned on running for something.  HOWARD said nope, we want to get educated to help some others that we like where they stand.  His running days are over, due to age and physical condition, but hopefully we can help someone else.  HOWARD said he could never win any election, he is too outspoken and he says what he thinks.  That does not help you get elected.

BOB announced that SCOTT CARPENTER is now precinct chairman for the Wildwood precinct.  Wanted to know if he has decided to run for school board (was actually thinking of county commissioner).  He said still in discussion.

BOB then called on DAVID BEARD who arrived late with his son.  Wanted to know if he had gone on the last bus trip with them to Washington.  He said no, where BOB remembers him from is a year or so ago he came to talk to us about REID coming to talk over at the community center.   He was the president of the foundation of economic education which is a free market group and so he had come there to speak.  DAVID gave a brief introduction of he and his family.  They have been living here about five years.  They are from Hertford County.  (Murfreesboro)  He had just been retiring up there after about 25 years as judge and 2 to 2 ½  years after that.  Then they moved down here to and home schooled his son for a couple of years.  He was in a Christian School for the other years and came down here and started in public school.  He has been to so many things that you all may be familiar with like Young Americas Foundation, (the group that brought out Ronald Reagan’s ranch).  He has been to seminar camps at different places (Hillsdale – he went to a science camp there recently that you hear about on Rush a lot) – Foundation for Economic Education which is a really good group – he has been to one of their events this past summer).  He wanted to bring his son here, especially tonight.  They both watched the debate last night.  In fact he watched it twice to be sure he had it exactly right.  They wanted to come by here and say hello.  They want to go to the Depot next week to hear Frank Palombo.  BOB asked where they live now.  DAVID said they live in Pine Knoll Shores.  They bought a place over in Beacon’s Reach.  They were coming down here once in a while and DAVID Jr. got interested in basketball and stuff like that, and got to know some of the local boys, so they decided to move here.  He plays on the Croatan basketball team.  HOWARD wanted to know if DAVID Jr. would tell us a little bit about Hillsdale College.  He reads Impris, a magazine published by them, and is interested.  He said he understood from DAVID Sr, that Jr. had attended a session there.  Sr. said he had heard a lot about it from the Rush Limbaugh show and you may not know but it is not federally funded.  They will not accept any federal funds for student loans or anything.  HOWARD said he thought Sean Hannity might be on the board.  HOWARD said he would be interested in Jr. telling us about the session he attended there.  DAVID Jr. said it was not a political session, it was more of a math seminar…ran about a week.  Got the opportunity to go around the campus, meet some new people, get in touch with the teachers, and kind of get a feel for the area there.  After that week he learned a lot, not only about math, but also about the politics.  It is really a conservative school.  And like was said, they do not accept federal money, and really you don’t see that today obviously in most places.  They put on seminars all around the country.   HOWARD said that Impris Newsletter has some very good articles in it.  SCOTT wanted to know where the location of this institution is.  Jr. said it was about two hours north of Detroit.  Someone said they thought it was south/southwest.  Jr. said he was picked up at the airport and was not sure in which direction they went.  PEGGY asked Jr. how old he was.  He said he was 17 but would be 18 in time to vote.  She said she had a great granddaughter who was about the same age and she was supposed to be here tonight to speak to the group, but she had been in Atlanta over the weekend and came back with an Atlanta Crud, throwing up so decided she didn’t need to be around this older group and pass it on to us.

BOB said if he, Sr,  knew anything about the law, while we are up here talking about legislative stuff, then jump right in.  He said the only thing he knew was criminal law.  Anything else, no.  SCOTT wanted to know if the Beard’s had any feel about the debate last night.  BOB said we will get to that in a second.  One other thing he wanted to remind everybody about HARRY THOMPSON briefing us last week on the John Locke presentation.  It is set for the 17th of March at the community college and it is going to be on a Saturday, four or five hour session on the Federalist Papers and the original intent.  He is not sure of the time.  We’ll have to find out later from HARRY.  STEVE BEST wanted to know if there was a fee for that.  BOB said not exactly a fee, but they would appreciate if everyone attending would donate $5.00.  It will be in the same place as the first session on the Constitution that this group put on for us and also same place as the Windmill lecture held recently put on by the Civitas.

BOB asked SCOTT if he wanted to talk about the debate last night and SCOTT said he was hoping the young man would give us his views.   DAVID Jr. said he thought Gingrich did a fabulous job.  He outdid everyone last night.  He thought when Juan Williams asked him the question about the work ethic of poor minorities, he thought Newt gave a great answer.  That was the hightlight of the whole debate the thought.  He also thought too much time was spent on the super pacs.  He was not very interested in the ads, he was more interested in the issue side.  He thought the foreign policy was interesting but he didn’t think Ron Paul did a very good job last night.  Unfortunately.  Overall he thought Gingrich did best.  SCOTT said, so if you were of the voting age who would you be inclined to vote for.  Jr. said he thought he would pay the highest admission to see Gingrich and Obama debate.  SCOTT and several others agreed on that.  HOWARD said if Gingrich could have an equal performance against Obama like he had last night he could bury him.

BOB said Rick Santorum said he is the real conservative.  Anybody buying that?  A lot of religious leaders in Texas apparently thought so.  LOU said Santorum did vote to allow convicted felons vote.  PEGGY said coming down tonight she was listening to the radio and she was surprised to hear ads from Michelle Bachman appearing to endorse Gingrich.  She had some really good ads talking about what a great person she thought he was.  That sounded good to PEGGY, because there are a lot of people who like Michelle Bachman.  BOB said he was waiting to see who Sarah Palin was going to throw her support behind.  HOWARD said Todd, her husband, had already announced that he is for Gingrich.  BOB said he doesn’t carry quite the clout that she does.  PEGGY said the only problem is Sarah can hurt or help, depending on who is listening.  HOWARD said he did not think he would come out in opposition of her.  BOB said he didn’t know, husbands and wives don’t always see eye to eye.  PEGGY was shocked and exclaimed “They don’t!!!”  HOWARD said really we fight it out, make a decision, prior to voting.  We are not going to cancel each others vote.  We decided at a young age that it was foolish for one to vote one way and the other another and kill one another’s vote.  BOB said he was tired of after every election his daughter telling him she had cancelled his vote out.  He sent her to UNC as a Reagan Republican and she came out a screaming liberal.  They have her convinced that Castro is the best thing that ever happened to Cuba.  GRACE and LOU both said he needed to send her down there to live for a while.  PEGGY wanted to know if she still wrote home for money and BOB said no, she got married and he cut her off.  If she needed gas money, see her husband.  HOWARD said we have a grandson that went to the University of South Carolina that they did the same thing to.  He thinks there is nothing like Obama now.

BOB asked DAVID Jr. how old he was and was told he was 17 but would be 18 in time to vote this year.  BOB wanted to know if he was naturally interested in politics and he replied, yes sir.  BOB said ’you are not just doing this to make the old man happy?’ He said he did try to make his dad happy, but in this case he had always been interested in politics.  BOB said he noticed in his comments earlier that he seemed to throw a couple of coins towards Ron Paul.  Are you a Libertarian, more than Republican.  What do you like about Ron Paul?  He loves his free market policies.  He really thinks that Ron Paul over all the other candidates could do the most in cutting government spending and getting rid of the debt.  He does not believe the other candidates, although they say they would, would effectively cut off the spending.  LOU asked him what he thought of Ron Paul’s foreign policy.  Jr. said he had some problems with that; however, Paul did say that military spending is not the same as defense spending.  We should cut out our military spending but keep our defense spending.  He thinks the question they asked him was since so many people there were military from South Carolina how would Ron Paul keep their job if they cut out the spending, so he said there was a difference.  BOB said he thought Ron Paul had a good response to all that.  HOWARD said Paul wants to get rid of all military bases throughout the world.  Jr. said Paul doesn’t believe in supplying the world with troops when they are in trouble.  HOWARD said we can no longer afford it.  BOB said he hadn’t really articulated/sold his foreign policies on international affairs views very effectively.  He comes off sounding like a crackpot.  Not sure if he has enough of the command of the English language to use the words that he intends.  Jr. said he hopes he (Paul) gets his fair share on the news channels, but he encourages anyone that wants to hear Paul talk to go on his web site or UTube.  BOB said they have videos going back decades.  BOB thinks Paul’s son is going to pick up his mantle and eventually run for president himself.  HOWARD said, previously the Fox reporters, most of them favored Romney, but today it appears that some of them are switching over and supporting Newt.  BOB said he thought Rush Limbaugh has always been a Newt supporter.  They haven’t come right out and said it but just the way the conversation runs about the candidates and their views, it seem like that’s who they are rooting for.  HOWARD said ’actions speak louder than words’.  Someone said they had gotten an email that said Obama’s people (Axlerod for one) are hoping to have Romney as the Republican candidate because they already have stuff lined up to make him out to be another Gordon Geikko and he will have to defend all that stuff from now to kingdom come.  They can then make the whole election about Romney.  They are telling everyone they don’t want Romney, because they are worried about him.  When they start that, you can be sure that is the one they really want.  BOB said they do want to have the whole election about Romney’s wall street doings.  With the media behind them, they can just keep that thing on the front burner and keep Romney defending his record instead of pushing his positions.  They were talking about the two companies and not having enough money for both of them so they merged, so the unions could come over here and work with this company.  He should have just finished it  with sometimes you have to go out of business or close down and consolidate to stay in business if you can.  That happens in real life.  He needed to say that and not apologize.
The other candidates were pushing against Romney the same way Obama will do.  Sometimes you have to lose some companies to make others bigger.  You don’t wait until you use all your money before you close them down.  Sometimes you have to cut your loses early.  BOB said he is glad that the other candidates are coming at Romney from the left because it gives him a chance to really fine tune his responses because the Democrats are not going to come at him from the right.  He needs this type of exposure if he winds up with the nomination.  But he is so praying for Newt Gingrich but then you get into the whole electability thing – well Romney’s more electable than Gingrich.  It is unfortunate that we live in a very conservative cocoon here in eastern NC.  He has no idea what the rest of middle America feels like out there.  HOWARD said speaking of Axlerod, he is the one that hatched up that deal to drive Cain out.  He has used the sexual harassment deal before for Obama in a Democrat primary and in a general election charging the opponent with sexual harassment (even where there is not one, but forces the candidate to defend his reputation rather than concentrate on the campaign issues.  He is an expert on doing such underhanded shenanigans.  PEGGY said South Carolina had a steel mill in Georgetown that Romney’s group put out of business, so a lot of South Carolinians were laid off and are still unhappy about his intrusion.  BOB thought Romney handled that well, because although they were trying to rescue that company, China was dumping steel on the market and taking an unfair advantage which Romney went on to say he wanted to correct the imbalance.  Six steel mills went under because China was dumping.  He went to buy bearings for his commercial lawn mower.  They were like 40 something dollars a piece.  He told the guy, my gosh these were like $18.00 the last time I bought them.  Kind of ripping us off.  The guy said blame it on the Chinese and BOB asked what the Chinese had to do with it.  The guy said the Chinese have been dumping steel on the market, our steel plants have been closing and they are buying the plants, dismantling them and shipping them back to China and they are trying to corner the steel market.  He feels Romney handled the steel mill thing effectively.  DAVID said he thought he should have highlighted the union and that the company’s problems were also caused by union demands.  BOB said that was a paper company he was talking about there.  FRED said Hostess Cupcakes have filed for bankruptcy again and it is because of the union and their excess demands.  LOU said, Lord knows, if you can’t sell a Twinkie we are in real trouble.   GRACE wanted to know if anyone paid any attention when they asked Romney about turning in his income tax papers like everybody else?  BOB said he said he was going to file them in April.  Discussion on Romney’s income and amount of taxes he supposedly paid followed.  And the fact he is no longer a part of Bain Capital and hasn‘t been for probably 20 years.  He is getting residuals but no hands on the company anymore.   HOWARD said Georgetown Steel has not been closed 20 years, so that doesn’t jibe.  We used to go to Charleston several times a year and you go right by Georgetown Steel on Hwy 17.  RUTH wanted to know why it is thought Romney is so much more electable.  Several said they didn’t think he was.  PEGGY said the establishment thinks he is, not necessarily the man on the street.  BOB said Karl Rove decided he was the next in line.  HOWARD said Romney is being pushed by Karl Rove and Rove is probably one of the sharpest political operators in the country and has plenty of money to back up his ideas.  BOB said this is the same crowd that gave us McCain.  ERNIE GUTHRIE McCain was a week candidate anyway and that is why Obama won.  He thinks the average Republican was so demoralized by McCain, many did not even turn out to vote.  That is partly why Obama won, he thinks.  FRED said one of the problems is Newt, Perry and Santorum are all vying for the same people and keep splitting the vote.  RUTH said she thought Perry would be out after Saturday.  BOB said he thought it would depend on how much money he has left.  When these campaign donors give you a wad of money they expect you to spend it.  HOWARD said he lost one of his big supporters over some remark he made (about  vultures in capitalism).  BOB thinks he has enough money to at least go into Florida.  He did do well in the debate last night though.
BOB said this thing about cutting tuition for illegal immigrants that hurt him.  And then he couldn’t even remember his own program to cut.  And he had been emphasizing Energy the whole time and couldn’t remember the Department of Energy.

BOB wanted to know what everybody thought about Obama’s idea to consolidate the Department of Commerce and elevate the Better Business Bureau to a cabinet level.  Anybody been following that at all?  RUTH said she thought there was something crooked about it.  HOWARD said he didn’t trust anything Obama tries.  Someone is going to benefit from it you can bet.  ERNIE said nothing happens in government without someone benefiting from it now.

BOB asked what did we think about Obama cutting a trillion dollars from the defense spending over the next ten years.  DAVID said he didn’t think anything Obama did can be trusted.  RUTH asked DAVID Jr, what did the people he went to school think about Obama.  There are some who agree and others who do not.  RUTH wanted to know if they realize that all this debt which is going to fall on you and your children.  DAVID said he really thinks that is why Ron Paul is kind of looked up to right now.  RUTH said her daughter is 28 and she realizes that this debt is hers, her nephews and his children.  BOB said he hoped they were all saving up their money so they can pay off this debt.  Discussion on the debt and the problems it is causing….. And all the taxes that are being placed on us.  Do away with the income tax and just pay sales tax.  Only pay income tax during war time.   ERNIE said that is why Paul is doing as well as he is because he wants to do away with taxes and go to a flat rate tax.  HOWARD said Connie Mack had a good plan also called the Penny tax.  He really didn’t know enough about it to explain it, but it sounded logical.   Also discussed things currently involving ethanol and the gas tax.

Meeting adjourned at 7:10.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF
JANUARY 10, 2012

Meeting was held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting was called to order at 6:00pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by HARRY THOMPSON
Invocation by HARRY THOMPSON

Chairman BOB started with a “Happy New Year” to all.  He is looking forward to some political changes in the local landscape this year.  ’I presume you all have seen the local paper where we have three county commissioners who are not going to run for reelection, so Fred is going to keep us up to speed on  what is what and who is who’.  He then asked for a report from FRED DECKER.  FRED said he thinks the biggest problem is Gregg Lewis.  He has been hearing that Mr. Lewis is going to back Renee Coles for County Commissioner.  If he does, then we are going to run Scott Carpenter against her.  He has already agreed to it.  FRED said Pat Joyce had told him about a year ago that being commissioner was interfering with his business and he was going to have to give it up (commissioner).  He guesses Holt Faircloth and Doug Harris just got tired.  Did anyone ever hear of a Larry Land (?) that ran for school board last time?  He ran against David Carr.  FRED is going to try to get hold of him (he lives in Beaufort) and see if he might be interested in running for commissioner.  As far as the school board goes, he is trying to talk ERIC BROYLES in running for the Morehead position.  He has been talking to a guy in Newport, Bob Harden (?).  He doesn’t know if anyone here has heard of him or not.  He is an investment banker for Merrill Lynch, office in Bank of America.  Everybody in Newport knows him and he is trying to get him to run.  As for County Commissioner, David Horton would be the same area as Scott would be.  KEN LANG asked FRED about the seat he was proposing for Scott; that would be which commissioner’s seat he would be running for?  FRED said the same one Rene Coles would be.  KEN said he thought we should encourage SCOTT to run for that seat regardless of who else would be running.  KEN said as far as he had been able to determine that other than the potential of Rene running, he had not heard of anyone else mentioned.  He said some of the commissioners had told him they did not think she was going to run.  He did not know if that was true or not, but only what he had been told.  Regardless of whether or not she does, he feels we should keep talking to SCOTT and encouraging him to run.  We definitely need someone, of the TEA Party persuasion, in that seat (either Pat Joyce’s or Doug Harris‘s).  FRED said he was not that familiar with people in Beaufort for who to encourage to run for Holt’s seat.  HOWARD GARNER said he had heard that Doug Harris might be encouraged to re-file, but he believes in term limits.  KEN said he believes we can probably encourage him to stay on  using the argument that to turn three commissioners over at one time, without some assurance we are going to have people running that will maintain that conservative voting block that we have.   This would be a bad time for him to leave.  BOB said we will not know for sure until the end of February (end of the filing period) who is definitely running.  BOB asked SCOTT what was his opinion on all this.  SCOTT said the bottom line is he is here for the younger generation.  That was why he got out of the Army and came back to Carteret County with his family.  After serving 26 years in the Army in combat, he saw where his life was at and he is here now to try to help out his community.  He has already served as President of the Home Owners Association where he lives in Brandywine.  He just put his name in today about serving on the big board there in Brandywine.  Bottom line is he is here to serve.  He has had three commands and gone the extra mile and he is here now to go that extra mile for his family (number one) and his community (number 2).  BOB asked SCOTT’s wife how she felt about this.  She said she supported him in any way he needed and with anything he wanted to do.  She knew he was capable of doing whatever was necessary.  BOB said to SCOTT that he had said he was here for the younger generation, but to us, he was the younger generation.  HOWARD said being here for the younger generation was fine but not to forget us old folks.  We have fought a lot of losing battles along the way.   FRED said he had one more thing.  We had talked about not backing Walter Jones, but unless we can find out his voting record for the last three or four years, we have no talking points.  We can’t just call someone and ask them to vote for someone else and not be able to explain why.  We need something he has done or voted on that will convince voters to vote our way.  The main thing he (FRED) had gotten upset with Jones on was he had voted with Charlie Rangle so many times.  He was the only Republican that campaigned for Rangle.  BOB said Lisa Marley (?) recently had written a good article on her blog, announcing her support for Frank Palombo and had a whole list of bills that Jones had voted for.  FRED said that is what he needs.  If we are going to make phone calls, he needs that type of information to pass out to our callers.  HOWARD wanted to know who Lisa was.  BOB said her blog was “Truth or Dare” and she was from Dare County.  She is also precinct chairman in one of the districts up there for the Republican Party.  She is also Frank Palombo’s Treasurer.  BOB had introduced them down in Wilmington at the Republican convention.  She has a lot of pull up there in Dare County.  FRED said if he could get a line on that type of information he could do a write up to pass out to our callers, so we will all be on the same wave length.
BOB said while we are talking about Frank, he wanted to know if we all remembered Captain Steve Miller who has attended several of our meetings and writes letters to the editor.  He is doing an in kind type of contribution and has rented the Train Depot here in downtown Morehead on the 24th of this month, which is on a Tuesday, two weeks from tonight,  and is going to have a rally there for Frank Palombo.  Frank’s campaign chairman called BOB today and wanted to know if we could get organized and get some TEA Party members down there.  BOB said he would be willing to convene our meeting there that night.  Because of all we need to cover, he is not going to be able to attend the Republican meeting tonight and asked FRED to pass on to them about Frank being down at the Train Depot on the 24th, from 7 to 9, and Lockwood is going to advertise it on his radio program.  Frank has a new press secretary, Ingrid Johannson, and she will be networking with her press cohorts to get  publicity also.  FRED said another thing he needed to mention…the Republican Party is having a Reagan Day Dinner down at the Senior Center he thinks on a Saturday evening (somewhere around the 20th of February).  The speaker is going to be a former Marine from Wilmington who ran against Mack McIntire.  KEN said it was on a Saturday  because precinct meetings are on Saturdays.  FRED said it might be on the 13th.  ( Secretary’s note: Saturdays in February fall on the 11th and 18th, not 13 and 20).  HOWARD said he thought the speakers name was Pantero.  KEN and FRED said yes that was the man’s name.  Belva wanted to know where the event was going to be held and was told at the Len Mann’s Center (Senior Center).  FRED said if anyone needed a ticket to please see him, he would have the tickets with him at our next meeting.  STEVE BEST asked how much the tickets were and FRED said $20.00 each.  While some may think this is high, we need to know this is the only fund raiser the party has.  Also, if he could get someone to take over the party leadership, he would like to do that and get rid of Gregg Lewis, but he hasn’t found anybody to take that on.  KEN asked when Gregg’s term was up that it seemed to him he was elected not that long ago.  CLAYTON GILLIKIN said ’not long enough as far as he was concerned’.  KEN said he had been told they thought he had until 2014, but he wasn’t sure.  FRED said he wasn’t talking about county commissioner but Republican Party Chairman.  KEN said he thought we needed to find out what that time was, before we start looking for a replacement.   FRED told about a gentleman from Harkers Island that asked who did you have to talk to around here to volunteer.  FRED told him he’d better shut up before someone heard him. (Created several chuckles.)
BOB reported on the death of Walt Shaw who came to our TEA Party rallies, and was a real strong conservative.  BOB said it seemed to him that more people than usual died around the holidays.  HOWARD said he had always heard ‘a warm Christmas, a fat grave yard’.
HOWARD reported that on the 28th of January, the Civatas  is conducting a campaign training seminar/workshop in Raleigh.  The fee is $25 per person and lasts from 9 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon.  Four of us, (Ken, Diane, Peggy and Howard) have already pre-registered.  KEN said he thought it was the 21st.   NANCY BOCK checked and said it was the 21st.  Howard had written it down on the wrong day in his calendar.  BOB said we need to come up with another voter recommendation list like we had last time.  We had such great success with that.  Maybe we can learn more ways of making a difference at this workshop.
BOB asked HARRY if he had gotten any more information on the John Locke thing.  It is supposed to be part two of the workshop we held last year.  Workshop #2 is ’What would the Federalists and Anti-federalists say about the current political and economic crises?’  They have several ways to deliver their workshops and would like to discuss the option that will work the best for us.  (1) A four or five hour workshop that takes place on a Saturday; (2) Two separate evening sessions of about 2 hours each and (3) an individualized schedule that works best for our organization.  Harry said he thought what we had last year worked good for us in the auditorium.  Everything they needed to make the presentation was available.
Plenty of room and comfortable seating.  Consensus was: option (1).   HOWARD told HARRY that he had done a good job organizing the workshop last time, he felt he should handle this one also.  HARRY said that Michael Sanera (the one he is corresponding with to set up the workshop here) told him they would provide the workshops free of charge to the hosting organizations, but donations to assist this effort would be gratefully appreciated.  Our organization will be responsible for any costs associated with the meeting room.  It is their experience that participants are more than willing to pay a reasonable amount for these expenses.  The John Locke Foundation has a secure online registration system for this purpose.  They also ask the local contact persons to work with like-minded groups in their area to ensure a regional outreach and an audience of at least 50 people for the workshop.  BOB said we had about 80 last year.  HARRY said yes we did; but we had a long time to work on that one.  This time we will not have as much time.  BOB asked how we publicized it last year…letters to the editor, radio interviews, (John Locke had some of their people available for the interviews on Lockwood’s show)…we had it pretty well covered.  He was going to try to set up the same thing this year.  Michael had told HARRY that dates in January will not provide enough time to organize and publicize a workshop.  They had the following dates available…February 11 or 25 or March 17.  BOB said he felt the further we could push it out the better attendance we will have.  HARRY said he would check to see if the 17th of March is still available.  PEGGY GARNER said the email he had sent to the officers stated that they had reserved February 25 for us.  HARRY said at the time he sorta  was looking at a tentative thing  and hopefully Michael hasn’t already made hard plans on that yet.  HARRY said he would get hold of him tonight and see if we can get it changed to March 17.  BOB said the 25th was his birthday.  HOWARD asked how much the room costs.  HARRY said he was not real sure.  He thought it was less than $100 last year.  He has a call in to the office over there and they were supposed to call him back, but haven’t yet.  BOB posed the question ‘As the TEA Party, do we want to go ahead and sponsor the event?   Reserve the hall and everything?’   HARRY said yes, that was what he had in mind.  BOB wanted to know from NANCY BOCK if we had the money in the bank.  HARRY said he couldn’t tell us what it was going to cost; that he had hoped to have all that information for the meeting tonight.  KEN said he thought we needed to find out what we spent last year and come back and say ‘this is what we estimate the cost will be’.  NANCY said right now we have $1100.00 in the bank and she said she thought it was $448.00 last year.   They had to have a minimum amount of people, remember?  And she thought it had costs something like $5.00 to attend, but that was to cover the hall and all.  BOB said he thought one of our failings about getting the word out for such things is, we are not taking advantage of the churches and the use of their church bulletins.  It would be nice if we had a master list of all the churches with their mailing addresses where we could contact them.  STEVE said he could get that for us.  BOB said good, that is yours for action.  All the churches in Carteret County mailing or email addresses that we can send a file or advertisement of what is going on for them to include in their Sunday bulletin.  He thinks that will really get the word out in a big way.  Probably hit more people than with the News Times.  BOB told HARRY to set it up and STEVE the addresses.
BOB said he wanted to take a brief moment to introduce VERNE THOMPSON.  He asked if VERNE had been to our meetings before, where was he from and how did he find out about us.  VERNE said he had been around for a while.  He had bought a place down on the sound in the late 80’s.  He still had his place up near Raleigh up until recently.  He had been dividing him time but finally managed to sell the place up there and move here full time.  BOB asked him if he had registered to vote here yet and he replied Oh, yes, he had been registered here for some time.  BOB told him we were glad to have him, that we meet here every Tuesday,  (5:00 dinner/social hour and meeting at 6:00).  He explained that KEN ran another group up at Emerald Isle.  The county is so long we decided to split it up so the members would not have so far to travel.  The Wild West Group meets the first and third Tuesdays at 7:00 pm.  Eventually we hope to get a third group organized in the eastern part of our county (the DownEasters).  He introduced all our officers…him as Chairman, PEGGY, our secretary (so be careful what you say, because she records every word into our minutes),  KEN, our communications director, (he runs the web site), NANCY, our Treasurer, and who else have we got!!!  Several said don’t forget ERIC BROYLES, the vice chairman.  BOB said Oh, yeah, ERIC.  CLAYTON told ERIC ‘now he knows how Biden feels’.
BOB showed his latest bumper sticker….picture of Obama with the words, ‘does this a– make my truck look fat?’  He plans to place it right below his ‘you lie’ sticker.  The man that runs the land fill on Hibbs Road saw BOB and his TEA party shirt the other day as he was dumping his trash and  gave it to him.  KEN said he had sent an email out to a half a dozen people with that bumper sticker plus several others that he had thought were really entertaining.  There are a few web sites that as we continue our meeting tonight he has a proposal that will involve that bumper sticker plus some others.
BOB reported that STEVE has a new movie coming up at the Cave Saturday 28 at 4:00 called the Paper Clips.  He said for those who do not know, STEVE has converted his garage into a “Christian movie theater”.    STEVE said he had not seen the movie yet so could not tell us what it is about.  He has heard it is a very good movie.  He is preparing (? Could not understand what he called it, but did determine it was a Greek food from a cook book he got in the mail and it sounded good so he had tried it.)  He is preparing it for those who come to see the movie.  LYN asked if everyone had heard of the movie ‘Fire Proof’.  This movie was about fire departments, and they now have another movie out about the Police Department.  They are showing it at the First Baptist church next Sunday at 7:00.  BOB said while we are talking about movies, STEVE has procured a free movie called ‘Iranium’.  It is all about Iran’s push to acquire nuclear weapons and their international threat.  BOB asked STEVE to let us know when he planned to show this ninety minute documentary.  BOB asked him to read the cover on what it is about.  STEVE said it is about how the government is trying to take over and run everybody’s life.  KEN said it is a really good movie, that he had screened it for STEVE and he had wanted to show it at his Emerald Isle meeting but the folks there thought it ought to be done at some other time rather than a meeting.  He recommended that STEVE show it over at his place.  It goes through the history of how various governments have taken over and draws parallels to what is happening in the US now.  It is kind of scary.  It is not just about Obama’s term in office, it also talks about both parties.  BOB said every president we have had has grown the government.  It even grew under Reagan.
BOB recognized KEN to speak on several issues (billboards, Spokesman for the Rally/Fund Raiser Committee etc.)  KEN said he had passed around a sheet of paper with a couple of ideas for the Billboard Project and wanted to know if everyone had seen  them and marked which they preferred.  Those are drafts of proposed ideas for the Billboard Project that he had brought up several months ago.  They are probably going, in the next three or four days, to decide which one to go with.  There is very little difference in the two, with the most obvious being the ‘enough’ that is coming out of the eagle’s mouth is white on one and yellow on the other.  Slight difference in the size of the eagle’s head also.  The billboard project started with the MooreTEAParty group in Moore County.   In 2008, they put out several billboards in the Moore County area that were pro-TEA Party messages.  There are probably 15 or so TEA Parties represented in the committee that is looking at selecting a billboard design that will be posted around North Carolina between July and the election.  Billboards cost on the border for discussion about $400 per month.  So right now they are looking at definitely 4, or maybe 6, plus a mobile billboard to be used around Charlotte during the Democratic National convention.  So they are trying to collect money from individuals and TEA Parties to build up enough money to be able to put these billboards up around the state.  On the website (nc4TEA.com or net or several other .’s which will all lead you to the same place)  will give you a little bit more of the background of the billboard project and where they are proposing to put them.  They currently believe they have enough  money, or soon will have enough, for four billboards.  Most of those are located in the middle part of the state (higher populated area and on highly traveled roads).  The next two on the list (if he is not mistaken) are around Jacksonville but they need additional money to be collected to be able to fund those.  One of them is down near Swansboro at the intersection of 24 and Belgrade Road and the other one is somewhere on the other side of Jacksonville on 17.  He is not sure exactly where.  VERNE said it appeared that this was just a ’get out the vote’ type of advertisement not endorsing any particular candidate, so what is the basis for the choices about the locations.  Raleigh has a very high turnout rate.  He did not see much need for a ’get out the vote’ campaign there.  KEN said it is advertising the website also, which promotes fiscally conservative candidates, limited government, and pro free market.  It is basically to stimulate awareness that we have had enough of our current government; that we want people to reclaim America and; we want people to get out and vote.  Implication in there is that we want people to vote conservative because it is sponsored by the TEA Party.  There is only so much you can say on a billboard that people can read when they are going down the road at 60 miles per hour.  So you have to make sure that the billboard is flashy enough to catch the eye  and the message is concise.  Believe me we have gone through a ton of slogans and stuff like that.  The purpose is not to endorse a particular candidate because we typically do not endorse, but do make recommendations in the local areas as far as this TEA Party is concerned.  We do not back any particular candidate, only suggest or recommend.  BOB brought up a situation in Onslow County with Americans for Progress (AFP) that explains why you do not pick a dog in a fight because that is what brought the AFP down.  They had backed a couple of candidates which created a fight among members, getting really nasty and totally split the group apart.  It disbanded.  We have at the Emerald Isle group a guy that is currently coming from the Hubert area, that was a member of that AFP group and that is how KEN knows what happened.  What happened to that group is a good example of what we should not be focusing on so that we don’t get split up.  Our message is to elect fiscally conservative candidates.  Anyway tonight when he gets home he will probably notify the billboard committee which sign we think is best.  They will cast their vote and probably by the end of the week they will have all the votes counted from the members of the committee and will have finally made a selection on what they are going to do.  What he would like to do is, for purposes of discussion, to make a motion that this TEA Party group fund a billboard for $400.00 which will cover a month for one billboard.  HOWARD seconded the motion.  BOB said we have a motion and a second so let’s vote on the motion.  Do we want to sponsor a billboard for one month?  Is anyone opposed to the motion?  No.  Motion carried.  BOB said he wanted to know if anyone had any ideas on how we are going to collect this money.   KEN said he suggests we write a check for the billboard project and then discuss how we are going to pay back what we had gotten from our treasury for the billboard project.
KEN said that kind of leads him into another topic.  About three or four months ago  BOB appointed a committee to look at fund raising.  That is especially important now since we really don’t have too long before the November big election and prior to that the May Primary.  NANCY had reported earlier that we had something like $1100 in the Treasury.  We just voted $400 for the Billboard Project; then we have the John Locke Workshop which is going to cost; and if we have a Tax Day Rally, as BOB suggested, that always costs us money because at the very least we have to have insurance.  Last time the insurance cost us $940.00.…so now our money is gone.  So it is important to have some mechanism to raise money to be able to have money to do stuff we have to do between now and the elections; cause we know none of that stuff is free.  I think we can take advantage of some free advertisements like with the John Locke thing we can  get on Lockwood’s show, public service announcements, the community calendar in the Carteret News Times; but when you start advertising in the paper or pay for advertising on the radio, we are talking about fairly good chunks of money.  So we need to take advantage of as much free stuff as we can to stretch the little bit of money we do have.   Anyway, the fund raising committee met (as well as discussed over the internet/email several times), we thought a good fund raiser might be like a barbecue dinner.  Then we got to talking about where, and when we would have it.  We discussed the park in Newport where we had our picnic last year or the Fort Benjamin Park.  KEN had suggested a few days ago that we have it on Tax Day, sort of with the rally.  Well, one of his esteemed colleagues, HOWARD, informed him that that was like 3 or 4 days (a couple of weeks actually) after the Newport Pig Cooking contest.  So it was decided by the committee that that was probably not a good idea to have a barbecue so close to the Newport fund raiser.   He said HOWARD thought a barbecue would likely be more successful in the fall rather than during warm weather.  However, that might be an idea for raising funds later but was not compatible with us raising funds now before the fall.  We’ve got to have some money earlier on, so he wanted to kind of throw out to you folks or you throw some out to us, on what we might do beforehand.  He knows BOB wants to do a rally, and that is a good thing but $900.00 for insurance, we will have to sell a lot of tee shirts to cover that.  BELVE MANNING said how about instead of  a barbecue dinner, have a chicken (barbecued or fried).  She said the alumni association does that a lot.  KEN said that’s a good idea.  Several of the fire departments have barbecue chicken dinners (or fish frys) to raise money.  (KEN checked to make sure PEGGY was taking notes and as HOWARD said  also recording).  BOB said he was not SET on having a rally, that he would like to have a rally or a fund raiser or both.  He was not totally set on the TAX Day Rally.  KEN said he understood that BOB was not demanding a rally, but he was just saying the pig barbecue would not work out to be held in conjunction with the TAX Day event.  A chicken dinner might work fine.  We could do something like that.  He asked the members if that sounded like a good idea?  And it could still be in conjunction with the TAX Day, since that is traditionally when we have our rally.  BOB said April 15 is on a Sunday, so did we want to think about Saturday, the 14th or Friday the 13th?  Several thought Saturday would probably work best, especially for the rally.  ERIC asked how many names did we currently have on our emailing list,  he figured somewhere around a thousand.  KEN said maybe close to that.  ERIC thinks we should come up with something  where they could send money in to help support our events and fund raisers when they are unable to attend.  KEN told ERIC he was getting ahead of him, that he hadn’t gotten to that yet.  Our list the committee had come up with was more than just a barbecue dinner fund raiser.  That was just one of the items.  KEN said what we will do then, at least for tax day or there about, is sort of formulate a little bit more about the menu and schedule and stuff like that.  He really likes the idea about the chicken cause that is not hard to handle.  The four of us (committee) will talk some more about plans and get something back as soon as we can  so we can make a decision on what we are going to do.
In addition to that, as ERIC led into, we have some other ideas also.  He is going to give an example, (not saying we are going to do it this way or whatever), but the Republican Women’s Club made a lot of money this year and they had a raffle for a couple of guns.  He can’t remember exactly what they made off of it but it was their biggest fund raiser that they have ever had.  (BOB said ‘we can raffle off the bullets for those guns).  KEN said his thought was that we ought to consider a raffle of something like a gun or something that will appeal to people in this area.  That is something  we don’t need to decide, but if you have some suggestions, please either give them to us now or at a later time.  He would like to suggest that we consider having a raffle as a fund raiser where we would presell tickets and then have a drawing, at sometime, didn’t have a time determined yet.  HOWARD suggested we hold the drawing at the Tax Day Rally on April 14th.  Most agreed.  KEN asked if anyone had any suggestions.  BOB said he had one, not necessarily Tax Day, but maybe sometime around Easter time frame.  A lot of organizations have Easter Egg Hunts and he was thinking that we do an Easter Egg Hunt and ever how many eggs their kid collected would pay a dollar an egg.  It not only would be a fund raiser but would get the family out.  HOWAR D said he wasn’t sure how that would go, since there are at least two big free ones here in Newport.  BOB said we could bill this as a fund raiser for the TEA Party.  It was just a crazy idea he had.  KEN asked that we stay with the raffle right now.  He asked if everyone thought a raffle was a reasonable thing to do?  Some minor discussion followed with most saying  they thought it would be OK.  Someone volunteered HARRY’s truck.  KEN said maybe BOB’s truck, but decided that might not sell too many tickets and BOB said no, he needed his truck to haul all the TEA Party stuff around since he had burned his shed down and had not other place to keep it.  PEGGY said since TOM HARMON was out of the country, maybe we could raffle his almost new truck off.  He wouldn’t miss it for a few months anyway.  HOWARD said TOM wasn’t to sure about this crowd and had carried his truck out of  the county.  KEN said we could knock it around a little bit more, he was just trying to find out if anyone had any experience with raffles.  The only one he has a first hand knowledge on was the gun raffle and he knew that was very successful.  LYN said some organizations that hold annual raffles will get a business to donate a motorcycle.  HOWARD said to raffle a motorcycle you are talking a whole lot of tickets you have to sell cause that Harley Davidson costs big money.  LYN said usually a dealer donates it.  CLAYTON asked ‘in this economy, they will donate a motorcycle?’  LYN said maybe they can’t sell them so they donate them and take a tax deduction.   KEN said we’ll knock that around a little bit more, but if you come up with any ideas, please let us know.
One of the other things that he thought of is kind of a combination of expanding the items that are available for sale from our store on the web site and that we sell at rallys and parades or anywhere we can set up a table.  Some ideas he has …right now we have tee shirts on our web site and that is really it.  Part of the reason behind that is we got hats now, but he doesn’t have them on the web site.  And the reason for that is he does not know how to work that into the web site, so he has to get up with the guy that does it, so he can find out how to do that.  We have short sleeve  and long sleeve tee shirts ,  and hats.  Some of these, from conversations with NANCY, we need to buy some more of different sizes.  We also have now that POP game that WAYNE WILLIS said we could sell on the web site and receive some revenue from that.  So that is another item to be added to the web site.   We have some bumper stickers “Crystal Coast TEA Party” bumper stickers.  And we have plenty of Cain bumper stickers at a very reasonable price!   Collector items.  BOB said he had gone on the web site and clicked on the store and there was nothing in it.  You can click on the home page and tee shirts and get an order form from there, but if you go to the store there is nothing there.  KEN said he knew it was kind of messed up but he figured if we add some things to the store (and get the store working properly) then maybe we could earn a little bit of money that way, but it also would give us a repository of supplies that we could take to put on a table and sell like we did at the 4th of July parade in Beaufort.  What he is suggesting is we pick out some bumper stickers, in addition to the Crystal Coast TEA Party stickers, maybe like the one BOB has and some others we think will attract attention and sell and put them on our web site also.  We need to look for someone local to make them.  These things are not copy writed.  There is no sense in us going and paying $3.00 a bumper sticker and then having to sell them for $6.00 (and not selling due to cost).  If we can have them printed locally and make up our own bumper stickers.  So if you see a good bumper sticker let us know about it.  Then we need to ask NANCY or somebody else to talk to some local people, because he would like to see our business stay here in the county/community for printing these things.  Someone mentioned coffee mugs.  KEN said some of the website TEA Party stores do sell coffee mugs.  If you go to TEA Party Patriots, they have all kinds of junk on there.  However they are pricy.  LYN said she had not followed through but had looked into ‘car fresheners’ maybe shaped like a flag, something inexpensive.  She thought they might cost something like 70 cents and maybe sell for $2.00.  KEN said he thought that would be a good idea.
Another things we thought about was ‘TEA Party Patriot’ buttons.  Some people like to wear buttons to meetings and rallys,   As an additional use for the buttons…  if we can get people interested this year in doing this, remember that workshop that we went to in Greenville on lobbying they talked about wearing a name tag when you go to the State House and meet your Senators and Representatives,  then we could wear our buttons.  They don’t want you running around with a whole bunch of signs, but a small button identifying who you are will look better than a paper name tag.  NANCY proposed including a pocket Constitution with every order for free.  We already give those out at the various events, so when somebody orders something we just put one in with their order.  LYN said we could also let them know they could pick their order up here every Tuesday night (which might bring them out to our meetings).  KEN said he would send out an email with some suggested thoughts for the bumper stickers (not to the whole list he has, but to maybe 30 or 40 people, mostly to the active members) and get their input and then you all will have his email address so you can keep him informed as to what you think.  Don’t treat it as SPAM.  It will say it is from Ken.  As he was saying, in addition to having these items for sale on the website, we will have them for sale on tables at various events also where we can promote the TEA Party.  Discussed the problems we had at the Morehead City parade and not being able to find out where we might could have a table.  LYN said the Pope’s would always let us set up in front of their restaurant.  KEN said we need to keep that in mind.  Some other venues that we might could use, but would probably cost us, would be like the St. Paddy’s Day at Emerald Isle, because they have a real good turnout there, but you do have to pay for you space.  Does anyone remember what that cost.  We have festivals, like SeaFood Festival, Mullet Festival, etc, but we have to commit to paying for the spot, and having people who are going to be there for an hour or two taking shifts.  PEGGY told KEN we could probably have a space at the Newport Pig Cookin’ also, but she thought it costs also.  ERNIE said we didn’t want to have anything there.  There were fights and everything else there and we didn’t need to be involved in something like that.  The majority of the members in attendance disagreed with ERNIE.  They had never heard of any problems like that at the Pig Cookin’.  It was watched too closely for any problems.
KEN asked if there want anything else he was supposed to bring up from the committee tonight.  PEGGY said yes ‘about the drawing and the 50-50’.  KEN said that some of the other TEA Party groups he had talked to always put out a donation jar at their meetings.  Anyone attending that would like to help out, can put whatever they would like into the jar to help raise needed funds.  HOWARD was going to get a big jar and PEGGY was going to print up a design with the TEA PARTY PATRIOTS Donation Jar.  NANCY said she already had several jars made up that we had used at the rallies.  KEN asked her to please bring two to the next meeting (one for here and one for the group in Emerald Isle).  We can give the one for here to BOB to put in his truck along with all the other TEA PARTY supplies he has in his truck shed.  Does that sound like a good reasonable idea to the group?  SCOTT said how about like the Republican Men have something where you buy tickets and they have a drawing and you get some money.  PEGGY said that is the 50-50 she had referred to when KEN had asked if he had forgotten anything.  HOWARD said he still had most of the box of tickets we bought for the rally in Newport.  He had such grand ideas for how much money we were going to make, he bought a whole case of tickets.  We have enough tickets to last a looooong time.  Some thought we should have the 50-50 every Tuesday.  BOB wanted to know how many would commit to buying 50-50 tickets every Tuesday.  Almost everyone there said they would.  BOB said do we want to decide if we want to have a donation jar or buy tickets for the 50-50 and how much would we sell the 50-50 tickets for.  One for $1.00, three for $2.00 was recommended by DIANE LANG and all thought that would work.  BOB said he was all for having a donation jar, and having a 50-50 raffle, but he did not want to discourage anyone from attending the meetings.  HOWARD said he did not think we needed both on the same night.  He said he had a certain amount of money that he is willing to throw in and he is going to throw it one place or the other.  KEN wanted to know if we wanted to do one or the other.  Discussion followed.  BOB said he wanted to make one hard and fast rule if we do the 50-50 and that was the winner cannot turn around and donate it back to the TEA Party.  A lot of people do that at these organization feeling like they have to or feel guilty for getting the money.  If you win it, you take it home.  DIANE said and then next week you can bring it back and put it into the jar.  KEN asked how many thought it should be a 50-50 raffle and how many a donation.  “Thanks a lot, it was split evenly”.  KEN told BOB that he would suggest if he didn’t think it was too complicated, a couple of nights a month we have a 50-50 and the other two nights we put out the donation jar.  SCOTT said we should keep a record of how they are working and after about 6 months whichever is doing the best for the group, then use that system.  KEN said he agreed that was a good idea.  BOB said as long as the donation jar did not cut into the tips we leave for the waitresses, he had no problem. CLAYTON wanted to know if we couldn’t send out to the other 900+ members who do not attend our meetings and ask them to please donate something to the TEA Party.  KEN said he could put that into the next email he sent out.  CLAYTON said a lot of people will send you 5 bucks or so, just to not have to spend all that money for gas just to get to the meetings.  HOWARD said just be sure to give them an address where to send the donations.  KEN said the money should go to NANCY because she is the Treasurer and she needs to keep up with how much money is coming in.  ERIC said he feels that all these people who consider themselves members of the TEA Party because they are on our mailing list, do need to get some skin in the game.  And the way they can do that is we just say look we need your help.  KEN said he agreed and he would include something in the next email he sent out.  BOB wanted to know if the ‘donate’ button on the web site works.  KEN said that was a real good question.  He would check it out tonight.  He did not know.  NANCY said didn’t we used to get PayPal payments  but KEN thought that was specifically set up for that particular purpose.   BOB said it said you could pay by PayPal or send in your check, but nowhere could he find an address to mail his check.  KEN said there is no where on there about shipping either.  He promised to fix all these problems as soon as he could.  ERIC said he thought we should take advantage of our 900+ email addresses.  KEN said something like that had come up at their Emerald Isle meeting where they had about 18 or 19 attendees, so he thought they were doing pretty good there.  Not gang busters, but OK.  Discussion about donations and stuff like that came up and he and DIANE had talked about it afterwards and you know like pushing too hard for donations scares people away.  He agrees you have to mention it and make it easy to donate, (the donate button has to work), but if you push too hard then you scare people away too.  You don’t want to make people feel they have to donate, because this is a pretty much a put your money where your mouth is, but you have to be delicate about how you do this and not push too hard.  You don’t do anything related to politics for free.  Unfortunately everything we talk about in here, rallies, fund raisers, work shops, costs money.  You got to pay for it if you are going to do it.  KEN asked if we had noticed his truck when we came it.  He has painted it up – on the back window he has TEA PARTY and the shortened web site www::cctpp.info.  On the two side windows, it says ‘November 6, 2012, The End of an Error!’.  He is getting a lot of thumbs up and a lot of positive comments.  ERIC said he thought KEN should include in his email about donations ‘Your support of your TEA Party in 2010 and the election of 24 conservatives made a difference and we need your help in 2012.’  DIANE said she did have some bumper stickers that are collectors items, (Cain) and if anyone is interested in them she will bring them to the next meeting she comes to and she will let them go for a small donation to the TEA Party.
PEGGY reminded KEN about the TEA Party business cards.  KEN said that is another expense.  We need to order some more business cards.  We are running low on those.  He thinks we should modify them and put the web site on the front instead of the back and that we include the Western Carteret meeting on the back of the card along with the Morehead City meeting data.  He would like to see us include the TEA Party principles of ‘Fiscal Responsibility’, ‘Limited Government’ and ‘Free Markets’.  He said he would talk to DENNIS later about printing.
BOB called on PEGGY to make an announcement about CATIE coming to speak to us.   PEGGY said first of all CATIE misses everybody but is so busy right now with school, the Sex Trafficking Program and working, she can not work us into her schedule right now.  BOB said for those who do not know CATIE, she is HOWARD and PEGGY’S granddaughter. PEGGY said no, she was our Great Granddaughter.  BOB said you’re older than I thought you were.  HOWARD said he would be 77 Thursday.  DIANE wanted to know if we were going to celebrate this year like we did last year.  PEGGY said no, CATIE did not have the time to plan something like that now.  HOWARD said he was going to the Newport Town Board Meeting Thursday night to stir up hate and discontent.  That for him would be fun too.  PEGGY said, to get back to CATIE, she has gotten interested in this Sex/Slavery Trafficking and is a state representative for the program.  They are hoping to build a home for the girls they rescue from the houses of prostitution they are held in.  When the police find them now they have no place to put them so as soon as they are free, they go right back to those houses and their pimps.  The organization that CATIE is associated with’s  goal is to help these girls learn about God and His love for them;  how to make a living in another occupation; and help build them self esteem so they can function in the real world.  CATIE drove all the way to Charlotte a couple of weeks ago to speak to a ‘mega church’ congregation (one than has over 2000 members) to raise money for this home.  She and another girl raised over $5,000.00 for this home  I’m not sure about all that she would like to talk with you about, but since she feels you are the inspiration for getting her started in trying to change the world to a better place for all, she would like to tell you all about what she is involved in today.  She would like to come next Tuesday, the 17th.  She wanted to come both the 17th and the 24th but since we have the Palombo event on the 24th,  I plan to bring her with us to that also, because she would like to see Palombo,  He asks about her every time we run into him.  HOWARD said her mother, Dawn, figured it up and in addition to her school she is working about 30 hours a week also.  She is also a member of the group that Lockwood has on Monday nights discussing various subjects of interest.  So she is kind of busy.  And we all need to remember our CATIE is only 17 and a Junior in High School.  To be able to drive to Charlotte and speak before that big crowd of people, the TEA Party can pat themselves on the back, because they gave her her start at the rallies that she spoke to for us.  HOWARD said he understood she had been invited to come and speak to this church.  He’s not sure how it came about but she actually had been looking forward to it.  As for me, I would have been terrified.  BOB said she is aware that we cannot compete with that church and come up with $5,000.00, right?  PEGGY said they are planning a dinner at Glad Tidings Church, that she is in charge of organizing, to raise money so she will probably tell us about that also.  CATIE is involved in their youth activities and HOWARD thinks that is how she got into this program.  PEGGY said she did not want to go into any more details, that she would leave that up to CATIE.  SCOTT’s wife asked if she was involved in the Atlanta program on slavery that raised so much money.  PEGGY said she thought that was a different program.
BOB called on EULA PARKIN for her report on J’Had Watch.  She said it boggles her mind that our government  is aware of the fact that there are 35 Terrorist Training Camps in the United States.  They know where they are, how big they are, how many are involved in it and nothing is being done.  A radical J’hadish group responsible for 50 attacks on American soil, is operating these camps.  The government refuses to recognize the organization as a terrorist group on the list of foreign terrorists they have compiled.
They have purchased hundreds of acres of land from New York to California in which the leader is conducting the training of the most horrific Islamic warfare.  In a recruitment video captured from them he states in English we are fighting to destroy the enemy.  We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America.  And though he and his troops are suspected of committing assassinations and fire bombings inside the US, it is also suspected of the beheading murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl, in Pakastan.  The terrorists camps spread through the country and they continue to expand in numbers and population.  Their goal is the purification of Islam.  She said this just boggles her mind that the Department of Justice knows all this and has done nothing to put a stop to it.   BOB said we have to get rid of that Muslim in the White House first.
PEGGY asked if everyone had seen the letter from Chris about fishing.  Anyone that has not, she would like for you to take a copy and read it and try to help Chris by voicing your opinion to your representatives if you will.  KEN said he would  post that on the website.   Also did you all read ERIC’s letter to Rep. Pat McElraft.  It was a very good well written letter.  BOB asked ERIC if he would like to say anything.  He said as you all know for this past year he has been paying close attention to all the editorials being written in the Carteret County News Times.  A lot of people have stood up for the TEA Party especially in reference to Ken Humphrey’s.  He has now come to the conclusion that Ken Humphrey is just trying to suck our energy off by getting us to respond to him and his radical views.  ERIC feels that now in this election year we need to focus our attention and articles on Gov Beverly Perdue and Obama.  We need to put Mr. Humphrey aside…if you have read any of his articles and letters you know he is a far left nut case.  So let’s just ignore his ranting and focus on Perdue and Obama.  If you prefer to attack Walter B. Jones, so be it, but those are the ones we need to get rid of, not Ken Humphrey.  He means nothing to us.
Question was raised on the gas tax increase.  Discussion as to how it worked followed.  How the tax  gets increased with the increase in gas prices and the fact that it was voted to be rescinded by the  House but  the Senate refused to consider it.  The increase for the designated period of time denoted an increase of 3.9 but as you know, it gets upped to 4 cents.  By the Senate refusing to rescind it was like voting for the increase.  GRACE GILLIKIN said we have one of the highest gas taxes in the country and our Republican Senate voted for the increase.  HOWARD said no they didn’t vote for, they just didn’t vote and let it go.  GRACE said a non vote was the same to her as a yes vote.  HOWARD said he guess in a way she was right.
KEN said before we close he would like to discuss more on Chris’s letter.  Lockwood Phillips had a show on last week about the proposed game fish ban on three species of fish for commercial fishermen.  They want to reserve those three species strickly for recreational fishermen only.  BOB said this whole thing is driven by those out in the western part of our state (Raleigh west) who come here on the weekend or vacation .  KEN wrote, even though he is not a commercial fisherman, it seems to him that whenever government gets involved in picking winners and losers and destroying an industry that is as old as …. There is something wrong with that.  People don’t realize it impacts us the consumer as well.  If those fish are banned from commercial fishing, you won’t be able to go to a fish market and buy those fish or go to a restaurant and order them either unless they come from China or some other foreign country that are not imposed with this ban.  This ban will affect 3 % of the fish that commercial fishermen in the state catch and will just multiply all the other regulations they are having to fight against.  Recreational fishermen claim that the amount of money that is brought in by these commercial fishermen is only a few millions of dollars whereas the amount of money brought in by the recreational fisherman will, based on this ban, will be in the trillions.  His question to Lockwood was how could just 3% of fish account for such huge amount of money/income on the recreational side.  He does not believe it.  He thinks their numbers are made up.  They are not based on actual scientific data.  He sent an email to Pat McElraft, Jean Preston and Senator Harry Brown because they are the three on that commission that represent this part of the state.  Pat wrote him back almost immediately, it was the day before the commission had their first hearing, and she said, Ken, you are the first recreational fisherman that has come to me and spoke on behalf of the commercial fishermen.  She said she had not heard from any recreational fishermen except those who are opposed to it.  Those who are opposed to it, Ken feels they have some skin in the game.  That means they are going to make some money either through boat sales, boat rentals, charters…they are going to make money somehow.  The recreational (quote) fishermen are not the guys like him that go out there and throw a line out in the water and feed the fish.  Also those guys from Raleigh that come down here and charter a boat from one of the captains and go out an catch fish.   He doesn’t believe that those people coming here from Raleigh and the western part of the state are going to benefit us in the billions of dollars that are cited with only 3% of industry that is curved and limited by the state government.  It does impact you so, he would urge us to look into this (go to McCaffity’s website …Ken will post the addresses on the website, he can’t remember them right now).  Please write an email to Senator Preston and Rep. McElraft and let them know what you think about  this, because it does affect you.  If you eat fish it is going to impact you because the only way you will be able to catch or enjoy one of those three species is you buy a boat, get a license, and get out in the water and catch it yourself.  GRACE said that she understand s that NC grows those little fish, especially the red drum and send them to Florida, and put them in rivers (their breeding grounds).  They are all tagged and if you catch one of those with a tag, you are to send that tag in and they will pay you for it.  So North Carolina is supplementing Florida’s income by two different ways.  Ken said Lockwood is going to have another show on this.  The show he already had had a guy from Harkers Island (actually from Rocky Mount originally) and he is associated with a recreational fishing organization called NCFish.  They are very pro this fishing ban.  This guy called in Lockwood’s show and filibustered.  Lockwood could not get a word in edgewise.  Ken contacted Lockwood and said what do you know about this guy and Lockwood said he had talked to him before but really did not know anything so Ken looked him up on the internet.   He is a life member in this organization called CCA, which has something to do with environmental groups who are anti-commercial fishing.  He is also on the board of this NCFish .org organization.  His daughter is a lifetime member of that organization.  Ken has found audio of him being interviewed on various radio programs where he was basically giving fishing reports.  He is tied into the money end of this somewhere.
HARRY wanted to know if KEN knew how much of the catch made here remains here.  KEN said he did not know.  When Chris came in and talked to us a few months ago, it just hit KEN wrong that government should not be getting involved in any industry.  BOB said Bill Hitchcock interviewed Chris a few weeks ago and Chris said basically everything he had in the letter.  GRACE said these recreational fishermen go out and catch these fish and if they don’t want them they will come back and sell them to the fish houses and make enough money to pay for the chartering of the boat they used.  KEN said from what he understands when these recreational fishermen go out and catch the fish, and release them, something like 80% of them die because of the way the fish were handled.  The fact that they are charging the commercial fishermen kill a lot of fish, doesn’t stand up to what they are doing to the fish either.  At least some of you that care, please drop an email to Pat and let her know how you feel about this.
One final note.  Don’t ever ask BOB directions to the rest rooms!!!!
Meeting adjourned at 7:50pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.

CCTPP Newsletter-12-1

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
Of
13 December 2011

Meeting was held at Golden Corral Restaurant, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:07pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance was led by RUTH PARKER
Invocation by JERE GEURIN

BOB announced that this would be our last meeting of the year.  Our next meeting will be on the second Tuesday of January (10th).
In the interim EULA PARKIN will be celebrating her 85th birthday on December 31st.  (Early Happy Birthday EULA!!!!)  BOB said she had told him she was born in a garage, and he wanted to know if they had garages back then and if so, for what?)  She did not get her birth certificate until she was 20 years old and it showed her mother and father’s correct names but the certificate was for a male born on January 1.  She finally got it straightened out around the time she was to get married.  BOB wished her 85 more, to which she said “Woo”, but she did just get her life time girl scout card, and it expires in 2091!  Are they trying to tell her something?  BOB wanted to know if she would be able to get it renewed.
BOB called on ERIC BROYLES to tell us about “Huba, Huba”.  ERIC had handed out business cards (or really informational cards).  He had also put up sign/s/posters he had made up to advertise his web site had had made up.  He had gotten tired of people telling him that we could not do anything about putting Americans back to work and about the illegal immigration situation.  Effective today, he is announcing the launching of “Huba-Huba-Huba”.  Even though it is just going official today, it has already had 7000 hits,  It is “Hire American, Buy American”.  It is time to put Americans to work.  (Or US citizens because you can also say Central Americans, South Americans, and even Canadian Americans are American citizens also.)  Besides being an informational web site, it has been designed to be very easy to use; it has a volunteer section where you can download graphics for signs, and postcards right now, but shortly a business card will also be covered.  We do not currently sell products on this site because he does not want to make it a non-profit organization.  He just wants it to be a grass roots movement.  The way we promote this is through word of mouth; just like ten or fifteen years ago we had a ‘buy America’ program in this country.  As a result of that ‘buy America’ program China opened plants here and now employ 371 thousand Americans, because they were afraid of being locked out of the market.  LOU KUKULINSKI asked “Didn’t 60 minutes just have a documentary on Buy America?  Someone had a website where they had all American companies producing all over the world?”  ERIC said he had not seen that website but had seen some others similar.  LOU said there was one website where the guy had you could buy anything you wanted made in America.  He did not have any nail companies; however there is one nail company someplace in Indiana.  LOU said it was on last Sunday night or the Sunday night before.  PEGGY said ABC news with Diane Sawyer had had a segment on where they had gone into homes and removed everything that was not made in America; which had surprised everyone  because, when they had finished, the rooms were almost totally bare. It had been almost impossible to refurnish the homes totally with made in America products.  ERIC said he had decided not to list companies that support hiring Americans, because he is afraid he may miss some and make them angry.  Wanted to avoid law suits.  The less you say about a company’s hiring practices the better off you are.  That does not mean the citizens should not be aware that there is a business in Florida or wherever, that is using illegal labor, that you can just boycott by word of mouth.  Just say, we are not going to buy your products until you change your business practices of hiring illegals.  LOU said he went to the website he was referring to right after the 60 minutes program and there were hundreds of people saying ’I’ll buy all my products from these companies (products made in America) even if I have to go out of my way for it, even if it costs me a couple of extra bucks to purchase it.  The night he logged on there was over 7000 hits.  WAYNE WILLIS asked ERIC if he could redo his calling cards with a different color.  The dark background made them hard to read for him, especially the web address being in red on the blue.  ERIC said he would see what he could come up with.  He had been trying to do ‘red, white and blue’ for America. ERIC had samples of postcards that you could call up when going on his website.  You can also run off copies of the posters he had printed up and had posted behind BOB tonight.  You can put them up in your yard or wherever you can find a suitable place.  The thing is to get the word out.  LOU said he goes for tee shirts.  ERIC said he was trying to get the price on having some of the cards made up at Staples, because he is also going to try to work a deal where you can buy business cards like these, at a cheap price, so as a volunteer you can just hand them out as you go through grocery stores, or wherever, just everywhere.  LOU said he thought he should put on the other side of the card “Abolish the EPA”.  ERIC laughed and said he was only going with the ‘Hire American’ thing.  The website is up and still going through some changes.  Right now he has decided not to list the people or businesses that support it.  He does not want a law suit over something he is trying to do as a private citizen.  He reminded us that he had some more cards for anyone wanting more to pass out.  ERIC said he had called Sen. Burr and Rep. Jones’ offices today and they both told him they had already received several inquiries even though he had not officially launched the website.  He had only been handing out the calling cards wherever he had gone with people being very receptive to taking them,.  His time grocery shopping had doubled for him with all the stopping and talking with interested people he met and gave the cards to.  We already know Congress is not going to do anything about it.  But now we can say ’do you support this?’  This way you are indirectly forcing their hand on it.  What are they going to say “No, I don’t support hiring Americans”.  This way they have to take a stand.  ERIC believes this thing is going to spread like wild fire.  NORMAN KENT asked ERIC if he had done his own website or had hired it out.  ERIC said “no, he had done it himself”.  BOB said “A made in America website”.  ERIC said ’Yep, American made by American labor.”
BOB said he had already been doing his part.  What has built this country is over decades of generations the US has been an exporting nation.  In other words we had a positive balance of trade going on, so the wealth of other nations kept coming in to our country in the form of profits and the taxes on those profits that built our infrastructure (our roads, bridges, sewers, canals, and all that).  Then sometime in the mid 70’s we became a net importer as opposed to an exporter.  Anyway back in February, he started an Ebay Store.  He has had a hobby of collecting butterflies since he was ten. He has collected all over the world; even as a Marine,  so in February he began selling his exotic/tropical butter-flies that he has mounted on driftwood under glass domes and he is selling these things all over the world and he sold $1,400.00 worth to a guy in Germany.  Therefore he is bringing the wealth of the world back into the US (and to Broad Creek).  FRED DECKER said we had so much oil in this country, we should be oil exporters.
BOB recognized WAYNE WILLIS for an update on his POP game.  WAYNE said the website that he had talked about is in the process of being developed by his IT girl from Harkers Island, because he does not have sense enough to do what ERIC did and develop his own.  She is in the same class room as the young man who helped with writing the software for the game.  She is going to set it up so she can put over versions in there.  He got her started this morning on getting the website up and it will be when she gets through with that, he is going to take it to the radio station and get him to polish it, because it may have some barnacles on it, since it was made in Harkers Island by an IT girl.  When he gets through with it, (come to think of it, he is from Harkers Island and he did the cover).  If anyone needs some of that kind of stuff done, he recommends Shane Willis at the Talk Station.   He does an excellent job, and is cheap (that is part of what excellent means to WAYNE).  Anyway that will be available and when it is done he is going to get with KEN LANG and he is going to put it on the TEA Party Patriot website.  Hopefully from there, it can spring on to the other TEA Party organizations that have websites for stuff like that.  Maybe we can pick up some loose change for the TEA Party treasury and keep him from losing his house.  He said he had not been back to the school board with it; not had the time because he had other business to take care of.  He does plan to go back to the Superintendent of Public Instruction in Charge of Curriculum and maybe they will start using it.  Wanted to know if anyone who bought a copy last week had any questions, criticize it or whatever?  The reason he wanted us to buy first, and use them and spread them around was to get us to ask why did you do this, or what was that for?
LOU said, ’speaking about making waves – did you all see Captain Steve Miller’s letter to the editor this week on Ken Humphrey’s letters?’  WAYNE said, ’he’s been good the last few weeks’.  LOU said Miller’s been kicking old Ken’s butt all over the county.
Discussion on Jerusalem, King Solomon’s Temple, Muslim religion, etc. (Too many talking at once to be able to get any semblance of order as to what was being said.)
BOB said ’Some of the things going on with the TEA Party Patriots – they are not sure if they have all the problems corrected or not, but they have a straw pole on presidential picks (he thinks it is this weekend).  Check teapartypatriots.org (Sunday night) and keeping in mind that the TEA Party is not going to endorse one candidate or another regardless who wins, but they will let it be known who won the straw pole.  The other thing is they are talking about a couple of rallies in the spring.  One is in March in front of the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court is going to be working on two very important issues – the Arizona Law and the Obamacare Law.  They are talking about having a big rally up there – and then they are already starting to talk about a tax day rally in DC.  Nothing is firmed up yet, just talk right now, but keep checking in on the website for any breaking news on that.  He will keep us up to speed on anything he finds out.  Nobody on any of the conference calls has seemed to be pro-Romney, or pro-Gingrich, or pro-anybody.  It is so far being pretty much left up to the folks to decide on their own.  The TEA Party is a bottoms up not a top down organization.
ERIC said he would like to bring up two subjects.  Since he had missed a couple of meetings, he did not know if we had already talked about it, but Bill 1867, he thinks it is a bill for the military.  The language in it seems to give the military a right to arrest US citizens and detain them without trial.  Several said that was the Defense Authorization Act.  NORMAN (I think it was) said he had heard something about it on the radio, that someone said the language was leaving it open to ’what is the definition of a terrorist?’ and he does not have anything in black and white but he has been told if you have seven days of food storage, you can be defined as a terrorist.  The thing is it does away with passe-comma-tat-us (please excuse the spelling, did not know enough about how to spell it to even look it up in the dictionary) (you know that is where US troops are not supposed to be used against US personnel.) That is the number one crime that the pro-illegal people would use.  You can’t put our troops on the borders, because that would violate that act.  It seems they are not worried about the illegal aliens.  They are worried about us and so not they define where like they said you got seven day of food storage, own guns, you can be considered a terrorist.  So they can detain you and not give you your Constitutional right to a speedy and fair trial.  BOB said ‘that ain’t going to become no law.  What is the other issue you have.”  NORMAN said the Defense Authorization Act has been passed in the House if he remembers right.  It went to the Senate.  RUTH PARKER said it had not been passed yet.  LOU said if it has been passed, then all those people up there know the people are really upset.  ERNIE GUTHRIE said they will not release the names of those who voted for it.  LOU said ‘imagine that!  That should be illegal in itself’.  BOB discussed the various websites you could go to to find that information.  ERNIE discussed the Home Grown Terrorist Act.
BOB asked ERIC what was the other bill he wanted to talk about?  ERIC said he had received an email from Walter B. Jones and the email was basically talking about a bill that was passed in 2009 when the Democrats were in control that could be used as  bailout funds.  As you all know it is melting down.  They are not looking at possibly using that 108 billion to rescue Europe.  Discussion on how far that 108 billion would go today with all the problems in Europe.  JERE GEURIN said we had already rescued Europe – it was called World War II.  PAT NALITZ said yeah and they didn’t appreciate that.  ERIC said they point is he would recommend that everyone call their congressman, senator and tell them that you are against that money being spent.  BOB said didn’t all the World Banks get together for that.  ERIC said that is why the market is up 200 points one day and down 200 points the next, because they can’t settle their differences over there.  NORMAN said there is so much debt, that no one wants to buy all that debt when you know it is going to be worthless.  Look at the unemployment situation going up.  Whoever gets stuck with the hot potato last – LOU said just look at the American economy.  BOB said it is one of these deals where everybody says I’ll buy your worthless papers as long as you keep buying mine.  At some point along the way someone is going to say ‘I’ve got enough toilet paper, I don’t need anymore of that’.
WAYNE asked ‘what did we think of this guy that has more money than Donald Trump?’  The one that is going to run against Putin of Russia.  PAT said she heard he was only running to take the heat of Putin.  In other words the people that are unhappy with Putin will have another choice.  NORMAN said it is all a ruse.  It has all been bought and paid for.  ERNIE asked if anyone had ever noticed how Putin walks with his hands by his side.  That is his training with the KGB.  His hands are always ready to grab his pistol if he needs it.  Like the cowboys of the west used to do
JERE asked how many were members of the NRA?  How many of you own guns?  In the latest issue of the American Rifleman is a very interesting article about Obama’s secret undercover campaign to take away our guns.  LOU said actually that was what that Fast & Furious really was all about.  Discussion on Fast & Furious.  JERE said Obama is after our guns and they are going to do us just like they did in England.  They go one step at a time and before you know it the only ones who will have guns are the criminals.  LOU asked if we had seen where all the major gun and ammunition makers and suppliers are being bought out by George Soros.  Much concern was displayed.  WAYNE said one thing you didn’t ask while ago is ‘how many in here have a permit to carry a concealed weapon?’  BOB said he didn’t want the cops or any law officer know he even had a gun.  If they pass a law, the first thing they’ll do is pull out that list of permits, and say ok let’s go this his, and his, and his.  I don’t want them to know I have a gun.  ERNIE said even if you don’t have a concealed weapon permit your name is still in the system for buying a gun.  Comments of ‘only if you bought it legally – and not on the black marker’.  LOU said as a retired Marine, BOB’s name would be on the list anyway.  ERIC said he looked at it this way – they are going to pick up 80 million people, the prisons are going to be overcrowded and so they are going to have to start releasing some of us again.  BOB said they would let the illegal aliens out first.  LOU said that all the sales of hunting licenses in all the states was more than the largest two armies in the whole world.  There are more hunters in the US than the two largest armies in the world.
WAYNE asked if we heard what they asked Hirohito after the war was over…how come they didn’t invade the US.  He said because you are talking about invading a place where everybody there has a gun.  BOB said the Supreme Court would have to overturn the Second Amendment first before they took our guns.  There will be enough people to rise up like the TEA Party.  Discussion on the Supreme Court and the recent appointments.  ERIC said you can tell where they are going with this – to a Nazi-type government.  NORMAN said in the late 1990’s they asked Military personnel, you know part of the interview process, ‘if called to, would you be able to arrest your parents, cousins, grandparents, family members, etc.  What they found out was that most of them would not.  They would have to form a totally different government controlled militia, because they could not rely on the current military.  LOU said yes because about 85% percent of the military is against Obama.   HOWARD said maybe that is why he has talked about establishing his own rather than the military.  ERNIE said he thought what we were going to see was a force put together, an anti-terrorist force.  But you are going to see that one day, you will look at them and say I’ve never seen a uniform like that before.  And they are going to have the power to do anything they want to.  The people we are up against are willing to do anything to anybody to maintain their power.  We say oh, we outnumber them, but our military is a killing machine if it is worked just right.  LOU said not just the military, Code Pink said they were coming down and desecrate the Viet Nam memorial on a Saturday, so all these idiots when they came, were met by 300,000 bikers.  Do you know how many bikers there are in this country.  You won’t be taking guns or nothing else away from them.  There’s over 150 motorcycle gangs just in NC.  NORM said you know what you made me think of….about the 2000 election.  He went down to Florida and they were talking about the proving grounds where they had all these wonderful tools that they had been using.  What it was they could make jet sounds (2 jet engines going off).  It was so deafening that all you wanted to do was cram your fingers in your ears.  They had hot laser, where you felt like all your skin had been burnt off and this was on the national news.  This was during that time you got Iraqi freedom (or a little after that)….he was thinking ‘what are you going to do…you’re after Osama Bin Laden….you’re going to drop these on the mountains there.  No!  This stuff was not made to go to combat, against a foreign opposition.  It had been made for here.  BOB said all this sounds like conspiracy to him and he does not believe any of it.  LOU said ‘one more thing, Code Pink did not desecrate the Viet Nam memorial.
HOWARD said RUTH had brought up something before the meeting started, that we may need to discuss and that is to try to stop DOT from desecrating this highway out here by taking out the turn lane.  Doug Harris was meeting with the Transportation Committee yesterday afternoon.  Sammy Turner, former police chief in Morehead told him Sunday, that Doug had figures that proved DOT wrong about the accident frequency here.  He had called Doug and left him a message on his answering machine for him to please use all the power he had to try to stop them from spoiling this highway, because those arrogant bureaucrats need stopping.  And he had also called Pat McElraft, and left a similar message on her answering machine, saying also that he hoped they had the power to do something about it.  He thought by telling them he hoped they had the power that maybe it would kind of put them on the spot and see if they wouldn’t exercise their power.  It is going to hurt every business along this road, he believes.  LOU said ‘look at Havelock, they’ve destroyed their road also’.  HOWARD said he thought it was the arrogant bureaucrats that had to show they were in power.  LOU said right there in front of that Tire Store just the other side of Bojangles there is a turn lane there and both arrows are pointed at each other.   Now how do you make any sense in that.  HOWARD said when they first put that traffic light at 70/24/and Bridges Street, he was there waiting for the light to turn green so he could make a turn from 70 onto Bridges Street.  When the light changed he almost had a head on with a car making a left turn from 70 onto 24.  The first time it happened, he thought he had screwed up; but when it happened again later, he discovered they had both left turns moving at the same time but with only one turn lane to travel in.  So he called Highway Patrol and in a day or so, they got it corrected.  PEGGY said there is still only one lane there but they changed the light to only let one left turn at a time go through.  BOB said he told RUTH before the meeting about being down there at the new cigar store next to the old Subway that closed, and was waiting to turn left to come towards the Golden Corral and letting the traffic clear.  And he is looking at a lady coming from the right and another lady coming from the left, both with left turn signals going, and both are in the turn lane.  They are looking at each other and ran slam into one another head on.  ERIC said well that is just dumb a– stupidity.  A change in the road can’t correct stupidity.  BOB said that’s true, but that is why they want to put a median in the road here, to keep them people out of the turn lanes.  BOB said neither wanted to give.  RUTH said it is going to hurt business.  HOWARD asked if anyone there remembered the jug handles that used to be there when they first built those highways?  You had to pull over into the right hand turnoff (jug handle) and then cross all four lanes to get to the jug handle on the other side of the road.  You pulled into that area and then pulled out onto the highway again, just to turn left.  HOWARD said it looked like to him that these traffic engineers are probably trained as morons.  You look at this new shopping center (where Michaels’ is), how screwed that design is in trying to get into the shopping area.  BOB said he is sure that this job out here is one of Obama’s shovel ready projects.  HOWARD said not it is some bureaucrat in Raleigh wanting to get him and his Raleigh buddies to the beach faster.  RUTH said she thought we should get up a petition, and she will go from business to business getting support opposing the change.  PEGGY said she would be glad to make up the petitions for her to get signed as soon as we decide what to put on the petition.  If you’ve got people sitting looking right at each other and still run smack into one another, why should the businesses along that portion of the highway suffer because of people’s stupidity.  NORMAN said the sickness that has overtaken DC has trickled down.  HOWARD said supposedly Doug Harris has got a study from somewhere, and he has not talked to him yet, that contradicts what DOT is claiming on 70.  BOB asked ‘where is the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce”?  Where are all these organizations that are supposed to be looking out for businesses.  He doesn’t think the TEA Party should take this problem on.  Obviously the business community is say “Oh well”.  LOU asked JIM NALITZ his opinion on the matter since he had been so quiet tonight.  JIM said it didn’t affect him, he lived in Cape Carteret.  He was told ‘you better, they may be coming after you next.’  The people in Havelock probably thought the same thing before it hit them right between the eyes.  HOWARD asked if anyone had ever been to a so called public hearing put on by bureaucrats.  What they do instead of asking you, some wheel gets up there and tells you what they are going to do.  That is considered a hearing.  The decision has been made and here is what we are going to do and they want you to amen it.  That’s the way it works.  He has been to some put on by the Corps of Engineers.  The Colonel steps up and (here’s the biggest lie in the country) says, “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you!!!”.  BOB said ’being a state highway, he is sure they posted it on the public comments state website, just like they tried to ram that sulfur plant through.  They said it had been posted on the website.  People have got to plug in.  Who wants to monitor the state website everyday to keep us up to speed.  WAYNE said ’in case you didn’t know that bridge across Galant’s Channel, they’ve already started, and he has not seen anything about it in the paper or what have you.  Talking about redundancy in the government, the last time I got that ticket for passing that school bus that wasn’t there, Beaufort was trying to pay for that water line that went out there to East Carteret.  It was on the west side of the road, so the ticket he got three weeks ago for failing to yield right of way is to help Beaufort pay for another set of water lines that is going out there because they have to use the ones on the other side of the road to keep from using the ones they put there four years ago.  So that’s what is going on, they are doing that because the new road when the new bridge is built, it is going to take up there at Oak Wood Acres (5 miles or so, east of Beaufort).  So they are having to put in 5 miles of new water lines because the other one is on the wrong side of the road.  He hopes they hurry up and get through with it because he going to get another ticket before it is over.  WAYNE was asked what the difference was in a white pipe and a green pipe.   WAYNE said one was water and the other sewer.
BOB asked if anyone here belonged to the Chamber of Commerce?  LOU said ’indirectly’.  ‘The Republican Men’s Club does.’   It seems to him that to fight the highway thing there, the ones that are affected are all those businesses along there, so it has to be their battle.  And if they don’t want to fight that battle then we will all have to suffer the consequences of whatever it is.  This fight should have been fought a long time ago before it even got to this stage.  Apparently the money has already been appropriated and they had got their plans laid, so he doesn’t know what they are going to do.  WAYNE said they have already blocked off a place down where the old Sears used to be.  They just placed pipes blocking  the prior crossover and did away with it without anything ever being said.  No; ‘do you like it or don’t you‘.  They just did it.  BOB said the other thing he had seen out there was people using the turn lane to pass or accelerating.  BOB said he wouldn’t know how to address that.  You would have to look at the public safety study as to the number of accidents/fatalities occurring.  Like when the doctor’s daughter died there by Kittrell’s (Friendly Road), and they put in a stop light.  JERE said DOT’s answer to every traffic problem is more asphalt and concrete.  They will not be happy until the entire earth is covered with asphalt.
LOU told BOB he knew it was just going to devastate him, but this is probably his last meeting until the end of March.  He is going to Carteret Community College.  BOB said maybe he’d be back in time to help with the rally/fundraiser.  Said if we need him to call him.  (No parades between now and then)
HOWARD reminded all about the Board of Education seats becoming available in the next election.  Both seats in Morehead and one in Newport.  We need to be looking.
BOB announced that Richard Hunt’s father passed away and the memorial service would be tomorrow in Cape Carteret.
STEVE BEST said this coming Sunday he would be showing The Nativity Story at the Cave.  He would have chili and popcorn.  5:00pm.
BOB offered the advice that could save you a lot of time on the internet – if it has could, might, maybe, possibly, in the title, it is all just made up stuff, just trying to make a story;  ignore it.  HOWARD said ‘well with all these environmentalists, it is could, maybe, might, etc. That is their whole thing.
HOWARD said there is going to be another session on wind power and looking at who is conducting it, it is going to be a totally 100 degree slant from the one we saw.  Everyone agreed that the seminar put on by the John Locke Foundation was excellent.
The speakers were all well informed and held their own when challenged by some in the audience.  WAYNE said he had been unable to attend the seminar and it was not mentioned in the paper or in the letter that Fred Fulcher wrote about that meeting after it was over with.  Fred is a representative on the Carteret Craven Electric Board and he had a real good letter and WAYNE said he was going to tell us something that should have been said in that meeting – that a year and a half or two years ago Progress Energy and Duke went down here and did a study on the pros and cons of putting wind power, solar power or any other kind of power (renewal resources) one in the north end of Pamlico Sound or Currituck Sound and another study about putting wind mills off shore.  Close to the shore and off in the ocean just like all this stuff they were talking about over there last week.  When they got through doing the math, what it figured out to was no matter what they did or how good it was, or how cheap anything was installed, or maintained, serviced, it would cost 25 cent a kilowatt more for what electricity they got from it.  On the retailers’ end of the light bill.  250% of what you are paying right now. BOB said they did have charts that showed statistics relating to that.  He wasn’t exactly sure of the figures but those sounded about right.  BOB said one of the things he got out of it was not so much about making money, it is about getting government subsidies.  WAYNE said that is where the money came from to start with.  Just like Solendra.  BOB said when you start getting subsidies, you pay yourself a couple of million dollars a year or whatever, and if the thing goes bankrupt, it’s alright, you’ve got your golden parachute.  LOU said (a professor I think) said no matter how much energy you produce you can not get more than 25% of the needs.  You still need another 75% of fossil fuel to provide all the power we need.  HOWARD said one of those in opposition brought up how much fuel the windmills were going to save.  The speakers told them there was not electricity generated by petroleum (natural gas, yes).  So then one of the opposition said ’well, they cut the top of the mountain.  LOU said every time there is a hurricane, his electricity is furnished by fossil fuel, when he cranks up the generator.  HOWARD said one of the things that caught his attention was how many bats the windmills would kill.  He said he was sitting there thinking ’so what’.  Then the speakers brought out how the bats control the insect population and doing away with the bats how much more per year it would cost for chemicals to tend crops to control the insects.  It was a tremendous cost.  He could not remember the exact amount.  WAYNE said the next thing you are going to hear is not having windmills is the reason there is no skunks anymore.  If you have been around here a while there used to be a lot.  Now there is none.  HOWARD said ’they cycle’.  LOU said he had one under his house last year.  WAYNE said ’that was the last one there was, then’.  FRED said there used to be a lot of wild boar but there ain’t none now.  WAYNE said but we now have coyotes and wolves now.
BOB wanted to know if there was any more TEA Party to be brought up.  HOWARD reminded BOB to inform Golden Corral management that we would not be meeting for the next three weeks.
JERE said don’t forget the May primary and the Marriage Act Amendment.
BOB adjourned the meeting at 7:10 pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF 6 DECEMBER 2011

Meeting called to order at 5:10pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge led by WAYNE WILLIS
Invocation by Dr. Mark Creech
No. Attendees – 33

SURVEY POLITIAL CANDIDATES:
BOB said that a few weeks ago we discussed vetting the candidates for the upcoming primaries and CAPT STEVE MILLER has come up with a proposed/potential vetting questions.  He has brought copies for you to review.  Following is the survey Capt. Miller has presented:
2012 CARTERET COUNTY TEA PARTY SURVEY OF POLITICAL CANDIDATES
Energy:
1) Should the US artificially raise the cost of fossil fuel to stimulate and allow for
alternative fuels?
2) Do you support offshore drilling off of the North Carolina coast?
Health Care:
1) Do you support repealing Obamacare?
2) Should Insurance Companies be allowed to compete across state lines?
3) Do you support Tort Reform?
Spending:
1) Should a national sales tax be used to pay down the deficit?
2) Should Social Security be taxed at all levels of income?
3) Should we cut Foreign Aid?
4) If so, how much:, 10%, 20%, 30%, More than 30%, or Completely?
5) Would you support a balanced budget amendment to the US Constitution?
Immigration:
1) Do the states have the right to enforce the federal immigration laws when the
Federal Government will not?
2) Should we build a fence and secure all of the borders of the US?
3) Should all illegal immigrants be deported or just the lawless ones?

Captain MILLER, asked us to look them over.  This is just a start and will appreciate any suggestions anyone may have.  The idea is to keep it to one page.
BOB said in the primary last time when he ran against Jones, he had not realized the number of questionnaires you get from organizations all over the place.  It was a full time job just filling out that stuff and getting it sent back.

POP:
BOB said we have heard about it for months now, but we finally have a finished product for sale.  WAYNE WILLIS finally has his History Game (Patriots or Potentate) ready for market.  WAYNE said it is on a CD ROM that you play on your computer, not on the TV.  He said it has been a year and change since he first proposed his idea to us.  It has taken him that long to find a ‘child’ (17 year old) that could write the software.  WAYNE said he had children a whole lot older, but that is what you have to deal with now; if you want to do something with the computer.  He has come up with retailing them for $15.00 each.  There will be discounts for volume purchases.  He plans to get in touch with the Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, Republican Parties, and NANCY BOCK, he hopes will follow through with our agreement (that was made so long ago that we have probably forgotten) of… if we put an ad on our TEA Party web site, all sales produced, will mean 10% going into the Crystal Coast TEA Party Patriots treasury and if we can connect with a lot of TEA Parties, this TEA Party group will not have to worry about selling tee shirts and hats.  He hopes that’s the way it is going to work out.  He’s going to get with NANCY and work out the details about handling the money.  He sold several copies at the meeting.  He only had 50 made up and has already sold around 10 of those, not counting what he sold here tonight.  If you would like to have copies to give for Christmas presents, please contact him as soon as possible.  It will be a while before he can get another batch made up.  For those who were new to the group, he explained that this is a History Teaching Tool and went on to explain how it works.  Ten people can play it at the time.  It has patriotic music, one liners, pictures of the subject matter, etc.

NEW FACES:
BOB asked Catfish Williams what he was doing here tonight, and Catfish said he understood there was free food here tonight.  He introduced Ray Muns, former County Commissioner and asked what brought him out tonight.  He said ‘Catfish’ and a chance to see a lot of old friends. BOB requested anyone that we do not have their email address to please include it on the sign-in list, so we can put them on our mailing list.

GUEST SPEAKER DR. MARK CREECH:
Dr. Creech said he was honored to be asked to speak to this group tonight.  He has had the opportunity to speak to three or four TEA Party groups before but this is his first in this county.  He wanted to talk to us very briefly about the ministry of Christian public policy organization and the Christian Action League of North Carolina and then he will talk to us about the urgency of the Marriage Protection Amendment.  He has to confess he is a little apprehensive about giving the speech, after a recent experience he had where his car had broken down and he had taken it to the shop and the mechanic was bent over looking at the motor and he raised up, and with a very disturbed look on his face said to him, “Mark, it’s really bad, and it’s going to cost you.”  Dr. Creech said ‘Please don’t tell me that, I’m just a poor Baptist preacher’.  And do you know what that mechanic said to him?  He said “I know, I heard you last Sunday!”  (Laughter)  ‘I hope you won’t feel like that after I talk to you tonight.’  “For those of you who don’t know the Christian Action League of North Carolina is a Christian public policy organization that has been in existence in this state since the 1930’s and today represents conservative evangelicals from seventeen denominations in the Tar Heel State.  We are in the NC General Assembly with a full time presence promoting legislation that is consistent with Christian World views.   We advocate for those measures that strengthen the family and we oppose any legislation or public policy initiatives that would erode the family structure.  If you consider yourself a conservative evangelical Christian then I am your lobbyist.  I am there in the NC General Assembly whenever they are in session whether the long session or the short session or special sessions that they call.  I am there representing your Christian values in that political process.  The Christian Action League is on the front line combating the gambling industry and all of their highly paid lobbyists and their efforts to bring more legalized gambling to this state.  We discourage the promotion of alcohol beverages and other drugs, pornography, sexual immorality, and all the other evils that undermine our culture.  We also provide educational material as well as help communities like yours to form coalitions to battle such influences.  I want to take the opportunity to invite you tonight to personally become a part of our efforts.  One of the ways you can do this is simply by allowing us to put you on our email list.  If you have a personal computer our email will send to you every week a report about the latest and most significant culture war events and how they specifically relate to the state of NC.  Many times what we will do is suggest some action that you can take to make a positive impact for righteousness sake upon our legislators or some other situation.   Further more, I would like to encourage you to visit our web site that you can find at www.christianactionleague.org or christianactionleague.net.  If you go to either address you will get to our web site which will keep you updated on state wide concerns.” BOB asked could we sign up to be included on their email list.  Dr. Creech said yes, some of the handouts he has for us here tonight include a signup list.  He had neglected to put that one out that gives the option of signing up for that email service as well as getting on their email list but did so as he spoke.  He would very much like to get everyone here signed up tonight before you leave.  “You will forgive me if I boast a bit, but I am convinced that there is nobody in NC who is covering the social concerns better than we are.  I think that anytime you get our report you will find it to be a very thorough report.  We want you to be thoroughly informed.  Whether you have a personal computer or not we would also like to start sending other critical mailings to you via snail mail, so please give us your mailing address as well.  I would love to tell you more about this ministry, but I have so many things I want to talk about like what we have been doing in this year’s session of the NC General Assembly and then focusing my remarks for the remainder of our time together about what I believe to be the most important public policy matter before this state and that is the approval of a Constitutional Amendment that will protect marriage as one man and one woman.  The Christian Action League had high hopes heading into this last legislative session and we were not disappointed.  With the General Assembly under new leadership now and an aggressive agenda on the table, the League had innumerable opportunities to advocate for family values and help law makers understand proposed legislation from a Christian World view.  The passage of several vital pro-life measures, getting the marriage protection amendment on the ballot and stemming the tide of dangerous alcohol consumption rates, predatory gambling in the Tar Heel state made this one of the best years the Christian Action League has ever had.  The Woman’s Right to Know bill which ensures that women seeking an abortion gets an opportunity to view an ultrasound, to have a twenty-four hour waiting period to carefully weigh all of their options.  The passage of that legislation is expected to save hundreds, possibly as many as 3,000 or more unborn lives in this state every year.  Abortion forces feverously fought this measure as law makers voted to approve it.  And then voted again to override the governor’s veto.  Passage of that legislation in this state under those circumstances was no small matter.” (Applause).   FRED DECKER asked ‘wasn’t Pat McElraft one of those who introduced that bill.  Dr. Creech said she was and she did an excellent job arguing on the House Floor favoring that legislation.  “You can be proud of her, I can tell you.  One of the sad things that happened was a judge in court blocked the ultrasound provision of the bill which has been misrepresented.  Actually that provision in the bill simply requires that a women be availed of an opportunity, to see her unborn child and hear its heart beat.  But she is not forced to look at anything, not forced to listen to anything.  It only requires that that abortionist avail her of that opportunity.  The judge knocked that provision of the legislation down but it is in appeal and we are quite confident that in time the courts will re-establish that provision in the appeals process.”  BOB asked why did he think the judge ruled the way he did.  Dr. Creech said the judge had said he thought it was too invasive.  (A lot of ‘do what’s -taking a picture is invasive?)  Dr Creech said  “Yes, how is it invasive to simply avail someone an opportunity.  It would be an invasive matter if you were forcing her to look at it and if you were forcing her to hear it, but simply to avail her of the opportunity if she should choose to take it is another matter altogether.  So I don’t understand that ruling except to say we think that in time the appeals process will restore it.  This session of the Legislation also approved Ethan’s Law; that is legislation that establishes when a pregnant woman is murdered or injured seriously/maliciously/purposely enough to lose her baby; there are two victims and not just one.  That bill was modeled after the Federal Unborn Victim of Violence Act and I am happy to say that bill passed.  Further, a bill that would authorize the production of a choose life specialty license plate, which would benefit pregnancy life centers, was also passed.  That bill, too, unfortunately, is currently tied up in the courts.  A court case brought by our friends of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  I speak facetiously.  But once again we feel confident it too will prevail in the appeals process.  A banning of so called Spice Drugs (have any of you seen those in stores – that is synthetic marijuana – sold as incense – but smoked by users.)  Methroyl (?) sold as bath salts, but also used for a quick and d
angerous high – we wanted  approval from law makers for that to be banned.  That took effect in June of this year.  We also helped secure the passage of legislation that tightens controls on medications containing pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient used in the production of methamyphetamines for the meth industry.  The Christian Action League also successfully battled bills for legalized video sweepstakes, full fledged charity casino nights in hotels, as well as the push for Las Vegas- style gambling at Harrah’s Casino in Cherokee.  As for the issue of expanded gaming at Harrah’s Casino in “Cherokee, the Governor’s office and the Eastern Band of Cherokees reached an agreement that throws the door wide open for dealers and virtually any and all table games, allowing class three Las Vegas style gambling, something always previously been frowned upon in this state.  Those new games which will be allowed are also tied to another failed government policy like the lottery extending 8% of the profits to school districts.  I hate that mess.  That means that the carrot of gambling is going to now be attached to government – it is always going to be dangling before law makers, tempting them to loosen further the restrictions on gambling in the state with the hope of eventually garnering more revenue for the state.  Already the Christian Action League is urging folks to contact their law makers and ask them to oppose any expanded gambling on the Cherokee Reservation.  The governor has made this compact but the Legislature will have to seal the deal by voting for it if it is to become effective.  Finally after nearly a decade of unsuccessful attempts to get a marriage protection measure heard before an NC Legislature; law makers not only heard the proposed initiative in committee but they also passed it allowing Tar Heel voters to decide whether to amend the state’s Constitution to affirm the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.  The Christian Action League was in the very vanguard of garnering the 3/5th majority for the vote.  Now, until and unless voters approve this Constitutional Amendment which will be a ballot measure in May during the primaries, North Carolina, the only state in the southeast without such protection for traditional marriage, will remain a target for the legalization of same sex marriage.  You know some years ago I had just finished a sermon on the pleasures of married life and on the way out of the church that morning I overheard one man say, to the chagrin of his wife, I wish I knew as little about the subject of marriage as that preacher seems to know.  Well, I would argue that I know more than he contested that I do.  Listen carefully folks, I believe that I am discussing with you the most important subject perhaps, one of the most defining subjects, of our time.  The union between one man and one woman, marriage, is timeless, universal, and special.  Throughout history diverse cultures and faiths have upheld marriage as the ideal.  Marriage is the fundamental building block of all human civilization including our own state.  The life giving foundation of marriage is the very thing that creates and sustains our civilization.  Marriage benefits society, especially children, in ways that no other relationship possibly can.  The life long faithful union of a husband and wife promotes healthy natural families for the common good today and for future generations.  Sixty-three million Americans, thirty states, have voted on the definition of marriage.  Nearly two thirds of the electorate have affirmed and preserved marriage as a union between a husband and a wife.  And as we approach the Constitutional Referendum of the definition of marriage in our state, we can see that the public here largely agrees that marriage should remain as one man and one woman.  According to public policy polling, which is not known for espousing conservative principles, votes in a poll last October showed that 61% of likely primary voters in NC support a marriage protection amendment and only 34% are opposed.  The marriage protection amendment is also supported by a margin of 63% to 30% of voters who say that they think same sex marriage is something that ought to be illegal.  According to a Civitas poll, also provided in October of this year 61% of likely voters support and only 31% opposes the marriage protection amendment.  Protecting marriage is society’s time tested way to bless as many children as possible with both a mother and a father.  You know, people often argue that the opposition to same sex marriage is much like our culture’s opposition to inter-racial marriage was many years ago.  But that comparison, I would suggest to you, is untenable, because race is irrelevant to marriage while gender is essential to it.  Moms and Dads are both necessary.  Neither is replaceable by a generic adult.  Many men make good dads but no man, would you agree, would make a good Mom.  Many women can make good moms, but no woman could ever make a good dad.  Marriage sustains the great truth that children need both a mother and a father.   It discourages the establishment of good homes that purposely exclude one or the other.  But you say, Rev Creech, is there really a genuine threat for the potential of same sex marriage in the Tar Heel state?  The answer to that question is that same sex marriage is now legal in six states; Conn., Iowa, Mass., NH, NY, Vermont, as well as the District of Colombia.  Same sex couples that reside in our state could marry in anyone of the above states and then file suit in a NC court to have their same sex marriage recognized in this state.  But by placing an amendment in our state Constitution, it will protect marriage from being re-defined by a judge or by future Legislatures that might seek to legalize the union of same sex couples.  Should same sex marriage be legalized in this state the short and the long term effects would be devastating.  Allow me, if you will tonight, to list for you some of those consequences as mentioned in the testimony prepared for the NC House of Representatives in favor of the marriage protection amendment by Peter Sprig of the Family Research Council.  First some of the immediate effects would include:  Tax Payers, Consumers, and Businesses would arguably be forced to subsidize homosexual relationships.  Currently some employers already offer domestic partner benefits to same sex couples as a matter of choice.  But as homosexual couples are granted the full legal status of civil marriage then employers who do not want to grant spousal benefits to homosexual partners whether out of principle or simply because of a prudent economic judgment would be coerced by court orders to do so.  They would have to, because they would be considered discriminatory if they did not.  You as a tax payer, consumer, or a small business owner, would arguably be forced to bear the expense of subsidizing homosexual relationships, including their higher health care costs.  Second: Schools would teach that homosexual relationships are equal to or identical to heterosexual relationships.  Just months after same sexes were legal to marry in Mass. In 2004, National Public Radio interviewed D. Allen,(?) a lesbian, who teaches eighth grade sex education.  Allen now says she can boldly teach the gay curriculum.  According to NPR her lessons include descriptions of homosexual relations, thoroughly and explicitly with a chart.  Allen declared if somebody wants to challenge me, I’ll say ‘Give me a break, it’s legal now!’  Third:  Freedom of conscience and religious liberty would be threatened.  Religious liberty applies not only to formal houses of worship but to parent church ministries, religious educational and social service organizations and individual believers trying to do their work and live their lives in accordance with their faith.  For example: Charities in Boston who stayed true to principle and refused to place children for adoption with same sex couples, were told by the state of Mass that they could no longer do
adoptions at all.  When a faith based  organization  refused to rent for a same sex union ceremony, they were stripped of their tax exemption.  Religious positions, psycologists, marriage counselors, etc, could be denied licenses if they treated opposite sex couples different from same sex couples.  Religious educational institutions would be at risk.  A Jewish school in New York City was forced to allow same sex domestic partners to live in married student housing.  These are some of the more immediate effects that occur when same sex marriage is legalized.  How about some of the long term effects?  First:  Fewer children would be raised by a married mother and father.  Legalization of homosexual marriage would mean, for the first time in history, society would be placing its highest stamp of official government approval on the deliberate creation of permanently motherless or fatherless households for children.  It should be limited to a mother and a father who are committed to one another in marriage.  Children raised by their married mother and father, the evidence demonstrably shows the experience of lower rates of numerous social problems.  A closely related harm is that more children would grow up fatherless.   Most children that only live with only one biological parent will live with their mothers.  This is true both of single parent households, and of homosexual households of couples raising children.  Same sex marriage would thus result in an increase in the number of children who suffer the specific negative consequences of fatherlessness.   For example, researchers show that boys without fathers suffer higher risks of incarceration while girls without fathers are at elevated risks for early sexual activity and adolescent pregnancy.  Or as one scholar summed it up ‘Fatherlessness results in more boys with guns and more girls with babies.’  Some lesbians are deliberately creating fatherless children through artificial reproductive technology.  In a recent study of children conceived through artificial methods, it was found that they are more likely to struggle with delinquency, substance abuse and depression.  And then finally, birth rates will fall.  The most fundamental task of any culture is to reproduce itself.  And that is why virtually every human society until the present day, has given the privileged social status, that is called marriage, to male/female sexual relationships.  The only type capable of resulting in natural procreation.  Extending marriage to homosexual couples would eliminate any incentive to form life long potentially pro-created relationships.  The long term result would be that fewer such life long relationships would be formed.  Fewer such couples would choose to pro-create and fewer babies in the long term would be born.  There is already evidence, my friends, of at least a correlation between low birth rates and the legalization of same sex marriage.  Four of the five states that permit same sex marriage rank within the bottom eight of all fifty states in both birth rate and fertility rate.  We are now being warned that declining birth rates lead to an aging population with negative results such as threats to solvency of Social Security, Medicare, and other such important programs to the nation.  These are just a few of the many concerns that we can raise and I wish I had time to expound upon more.  Indulge me to mention just one more, one that has to do with the short term nature.  The vast majority of homosexual relationships and how that would impact marriage as an institution.  Homosexual partners are less likely to remain committed for a life time.  Laurence Kirk, a homosexual psychologist, a gay psychologist, has declared that after extensive research, and I quote, ’it is safe to conclude that gay and lesbian couples dissolve their relationships more frequently than heterosexual couples, especially heterosexual couples with children.’  A study of same sex couples in Mass found that after only a year, only one year or less, of marriage, more than a third of the male couples and nearly half of the female couples had seriously discussed ending their relationships.  A study in Sweden found that the divorce risk in partners of men is 50% higher than in heterosexual marriages and the divorce risk in partnerships of women is double that of men, thus making lesbian divorces almost three times as likely as heterosexual ones.  Now what do these factors mean?  Well the so called conservative argument for homosexual marriage suggests to us that granting marriage to homosexual couples would somehow make their relationships change to resemble heterosexual.  But jurisdictions that have recognized these relationships, that even the open declarations of many that say they are in, they can see just the opposite is what would occur.  If homosexual relationships are held up to society as a fully equal part of the social ideal that is called marriage then the value of commitment, sexual fidelity, and permanence in relationships will further erode, even among heterosexuals.   The long term result would be basically a threat to our society.  Fewer people would marry, fewer people would remain monogamous and sexually faithful to their partners, and fewer people would remain married for a lifetime.  Friends, this is not just the ravings of a Baptist preacher; it is the result of the research that has been done.  Make same sex marriage legal and over a matter of time the entire institution of marriage will largely become irrelevant.  Finally allow me to address one argument that is made against the marriage protection amendment that I think will be of great interest to the members of the TEA Party who I think are more often concerned with fiscal issues facing our state and our nation.  By the way, I would relish the opportunity to come and talk to you again about other issues, not just the marriage protection amendment.   The argument is sometimes made that the marriage protection amendment will somehow be bad for our state’s economy.  Well the truth of the matter is there is no study economic or otherwise that has ever shown that the protection of marriage has yielded negative economic consequences to even one state.  The fact that 30 states have already protected marriage in their Constitutions affirms that it does not hurt business.  The amendment will not prevent businesses that offer benefits to same sex couples from continuing to offer those benefits on a private level, including health insurance; because this amendment has no legal impact on private businesses in any way.  The amendment will not keep NC from attracting new businesses/corporations to the state.  North Carolina has consistently ranked as one of the top places in America to work, to do business and to live.  Our state marriage laws, which already limits marriage to one man and one woman, have not in anyway hampered those ratings in the least.  But are one of the very reasons that NC is currently ranked so high.  In fact, all of the top ten economically healthy states, identified in a report by the American Legislative Exchange Council in 2011 have laws affirming that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.  Nine of them in their state Constitutions.  By contrast the ten bottom ranked states for economic health, all undermine marriage in their laws.  This is no accident.  I hope that what I am about to say is emblazoned on your memory…Strong marriage laws lead to strong economies because marriage produces future workers, who are balanced, stable, healthy and good citizens.  According to Forbes magazine, eight of ten states ranked by that magazine as the best states for business have a Constitutional marriage amendment.  According to CNBC four out of the top five states for business rankings in 2011 have marriage protection amendments.  The National Chamber Foundation says that nine out of the ten top growth performers for 2011 recognized marriage as the union of one man and one woman, seven of them by a constitutional amendment; so this idea that protecting m
arriage of one man and one woman is somehow going to be bad for business is absolutely ludicrous.  You all know something, I’m convinced, and may I say this as an admonishment to my TEA Party friends, so many of your values of which I embrace and am with you on, I am convinced that we must, in this country, stop ignoring the elephant that is in the room.  We can have the best economic plans that could possibly be made but with the family in disarray, when the family structure is in serious decline, the strongest hope that we have for a good economy is lost accordingly.  Strong economies are built and sustained by strong families who produce strong citizens who contribute.  It is not all about the economy.
In the Huffington Post, published this fall, I quote, ‘marriage is quite literally the life blood of the economy.’  Citing a report from the National Marriage Project from the University of Virginia and its findings seven sectors of the economy experience tenable growth when people get married and have children and consequently suffer when marriage and fertility rates flounder.  The Brookings Institute, in a research study that it released in August, showed that, quote, ‘Women and Men who get and stay married are more likely to accrue substantial financial assets and enjoy good physical and mental health.  In fact married men enjoy a wage premium, compared to their single peers, that may exceed them by 10%.  I think that is significant.  The economic benefits of a strong marriage carry on to the next generation.  A skilled and educated work force flows most efficiently from the two parent state of family.  These families, as I have mentioned, raise good and responsible citizens who in turn drive our nation’s future productivity.  This is why any economic program must include policies that encourage and do not hinder family formation and marriage.  That is why I hope that many of you here who are so concerned about this issue, just as I am, join the Christian Action League as well as other groups, to campaign to protect marriage by helping us to educate the electorate on this issue and get out the vote between now and the May primary.  We are going to need your generous donations.  We are going to need for you to be a ‘ready, set, go’ volunteer as the campaign begins to ramp up.  I hope that you will take our information, get on our email list, and be prepared to be a part of this very critical campaign as it develops.  We are going to need your help and this is a battle, I suggest to you, that we can not afford to lose.  Thank you.”
BOB asked where their funding came from.  Rev. Creech said 85% of their funding comes from churches across NC who have written them into their annual budgets and supports them in that manner.  The other 15% comes from individual donations.  We have always had struggles for raising funds for our organization and I will tell you why…it is not because people do not believe in what we believe but because our lobbying activity in the NC General Assembly is considered too heavy under the IRS code to fall under a 501C3 Non-profit status.  We fall under the 501C4 Non-profit status.  We have greater leverage than a 501C3 would have.  We can be more involved in the political process than they can.  Our lobbying activities are unlimited and we can either support or oppose a candidate for election as long as such action is not a  substantial part of its ministry.  But what makes that difficult, the down side of all that is there have been occasions, few as they may be, where I may talk to a wonderful group like yours and someone comes up to me and says we really believe in what you are doing and my wife and I want to give you a $10,000 check right now.  But I have to be transparent to that donor and say we appreciate it so much, and you cannot realize how much we need that gift, but you must know that your gift will not be tax exempt.  Because of that we lose some of the larger donations that would normally be given to us.  I don’t know how to say it without boasting, but I want you folks to know that we are in the very vanguard of these social issues that are so critical to our time.  We are very strategic to the moral climate of this state.  And for those of you who hold dear to your heart Judeo Christian values.  We are your witness in the Legislative process bringing those principles to bear upon what law makers will do .  I know your law maker representative Pat McElraft.  I know everyone of them personally.  I have been with all of them in the House and in the Senate.  Many of them refer to me as their pastor.  I have a good relationship with them, whether they are Democrat or Republican.  I have good relationship on both sides of the aisle, because our focus is not on Democrat or Republican, but what we believe are biblical values, truly Christian values, and we try to keep that moral focus in front of us as they deliberate the legislative process.  I can’t tell you because I do not have the time how many bad bills we have stopped.  And I can’t tell you without sounding like bragging (and we really are bragging) how many good bills we have helped get passed.”  Someone in the group asked it there were any one person we could contact that would help you, who would that be?  Rev. Creech said ‘go back to your pastor and get your pastor to get your church engaged.  I believe it will be the churches that will pass this amendment.  And certainly we do want the TEA Party’s support.  We really do.  I would like to talk to you another time about what the Bible says about the role of Government.  You’d be surprised at how much what you believe in is supported by the Holy Scripture.  Because the values that you have embraced are not simply Republican, Democrat or even TEA Party values.  They are eternal values.  They come straight from the mouth of GOD.
BOB said we are in the process of planning an event in the spring.  We are not sure if it will be a rally, a fund raiser or both, but we normally get a pretty good size crowd.  Would you like to come and speak at that.  Rev. Creech said he appreciated the offer and would love to speak.  He thanked us again and said he was so honored to be invited.

Meeting adjourned at 6:30 pm so those interested could attend the Wind Power Workshop at Joslyn Hall at 7:00.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF
29 NOVEMBER 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00 pm by Chairman BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge was led by HARRY THOMPSON
Invocation by NANCY BOCK

BOB told the members that next week we were going to convene the meeting and then adjourn and all go over to the Community College, Joslyn Hall.  The John Locke Foundation is hosting a wind power work shop and Dr. Droz will be speaking as well as Daren Bakst and David W. Schnare. He asked HARRY THOMPSON if it wasn’t Dr. John Droz that he had talked about going to Raleigh.  HARRY said Dr. Droz was local and had spoken to us a few meetings back.  His passion right now is the hoax about ‘wind power’ that they are talking about putting up here off the coast.  It is a very expensive thing to try to do.  It is not efficient at all and it will cost lots more than what it costs to receive our electricity like we do now.  It is not only wind, but solar as well.  He has some really good presentations on his web sites and if you ever had any doubt about it, just read through some of those articles he has written and look up on the web site that he has put out there.  He has a slide show presentation that will just absolutely convince you.  Anybody with a half way open mind will understand this mess being touted is just a big joke.  BOB asked “What was this meeting in Raleigh Dr. Droz attended with the Legislature?:  HARRY said “Yes, he met with the legislators.  He had been invited by the  Speaker of the House, who had been informed by a member of the House, who had a friend that knew Dr. Droz.  Dr. Droz said they had about 100 people in the audience. They said he put on a good presentation there and the John Locke Foundation is using him now in conjunction with one of their presentations to talk about this subject.  He is fairly well known around the country and is getting better so.  He has done a lot of studying on this stuff.  Anyway, it is on Tuesday, December 6, he will be at Joslyn Hall at 7:00pm for a workshop presentation by the John Locke Foundation.  So if we can work it out so we can attend, he thinks we will find it most interesting.  HOWARD asked if HARRY knew Dr. Droz’s web site address.  HARRY said he could not remember right off the top of his head but he would get it to us.  HOWARD said he thought we should get it and include it in tonight’s minutes.  BOB said ‘it might be in the old minutes back when he spoke to us’,  but no one was sure of the date.  NANCY said we may have a link to it from our web site if anyone wanted to check it out.
JERE GEURIN spoke up and said ‘apparently we had forgotten that, for next Tuesday’s meeting he had arranged to have Dr. Mark Creech, Executive Director of the Christian Action League of NC come and speak with us.’  He wanted to know if BOB wanted him to contact Dr. Creech and try to get a different date.  Dr. Creech is scheduled to meet with various groups next Tuesday on the work of the Christian Action League, present a Legislative Update, and most importantly discuss the Marriage Amendment, which is scheduled to be voted on in May; and he had included us in his agenda.  BOB, at first said ‘yes’, but after considering, he changed his mind.  NANCY BOCK wanted to know how long JERE thought he would need for his presentation.  Maybe we could meet early, like 5:00 or 5:30 and if we left by 6:45 we could still make it to the Convention Center by 7:00.  JERE said he needed to know so he could let Sarah Bowman know, so they could adjust their schedule if needed.  HOWARD asked JERE what he thought about starting early.  Did he think Dr. Creech would need more time than say an hour or an hour and a half?  He didn’t want to cut Dr. Creech short.  JERE said he frankly thought the Marriage Amendment to the NC Constitution was probably more important, and more exigent than the wind mill issue.  The Marriage Amendment is going to be on the ballot in May and we need to know about it so we can tell other people what it is about and support it.  He knows it is outside the purview of the TEA Party because it is not one of the three main values.  Never the less it ought to be important to anyone who is a Christian or Conservative.  It is an important issue.  HOWARD said ‘Let me make a suggestion that we meet next week at 5:30, if no one has any objections, and we can tell Dr. Creech that we are going to have to leave by 6:30, so we will only have about an hour.  BOB said we could be out by 6:45 at the latest and still make it to Joslyn Hall by 7:00.  NANCY said since a lot of people are here by 5:00, why not start the meeting at 5:15 (until 6:45)  and that would give him an hour and a half for his presentation. Would that be more acceptable?  JERE said he didn’t know how much there was to say about the topics Dr. Creech would be talking on, but he thought that was surely be enough time.  HOWARD said the only thing that bothered him on the time was not how long Dr. Creech would speak, but there probably would be a lot of questions asked; since most of us are very interested in the amendment.  JERE said his main question was ’what do we say to people when they ask us about the amendment?’  He hopes this is one answer he will be able to give us.  HOWARD said it appears to him now, and he is not up on it like JERE is, but it seems to him that Christianity is under attack from every direction.  All agreed.  JERE said we have been under attack for many years and HOWARD said it is getting worse he thinks, isn’t it, or is he just noticing it more?  All believe it is getting worse daily.  BOB said, ‘well are we meeting here at 5:00 or 5:30’?  All agreed on 5:00pm.  BOB asked PEGGY to get the word out to as many as she could.  JERE said he would call Sarah Bowman tomorrow and let her know of the start time.  BOB said we would meet here at the Golden Corral at 5:00 for Dr. Creech’s talk, adjourn no later than 6:45 and reconvene at Joslyn Hall by 7:00 for the second half of our night.  JERE said if he could not work it out with Dr. Creech, he would call BOB and let him know.  BOB said he was hoping it would work, because he would hate for Dr. Creech to be here in town and we not be able to get with him so he would have to make a return trip just for us.
BOB wanted to know if anyone here heard ’Saltwater Catch’ on the radio today?  Chris McCaffity, (our local fisherman member) was on maybe an hour (or maybe a little less) being interviewed and he, boy, he just really carried himself well on that program.  Covered all the issues, sharp as a whip, expounded on some good ideas, and the moderator, Hitchcock, BOB thinks was won over by Chris and his knowledge and expertise.  Hitchcock had said he would definitely have Chris back on again.  He was very excited about some of Chris’s ideas.  Remember the last time Chris was here, he was talking about Governor Perdue asking for ideas from the public about how better to use state facilities down there, and Chris proposed a co-op fish house on Radio Island.  The co-op idea really got Bill Hitchcock excited.  He thought it was one of the most worthwhile ideas he had heard for use of the facility.  Chris’s passion really comes through when discussing the commercial fishing industry.  He is totally dedicated to his cause.  He has been to Raleigh and to lots of federal industrial meetings.  He is really involved.  PEGGY said ‘remember he had all those cards already made up, ready for mailing, the night he was here.  All we had to do was include a short comment if we wished, sign our name and address, stamp ’em, and drop them in the mail.  He was very organized she thought.  NANCY told about the big “blue fin tuna” (I think it was) that was huge, and it was taken away from a commercial fisherman by a government official because it was supposed to have been caught on a hook and line and not a net.  When the fisherman said he had never been told that (although he had all his legal papers to fish, etc.) and the official told him he was supposed to know.  You are supposed to know all the fishing regulations, before you do any fishing. GRACE GILLIKIN said a fish the size of the one the fisherman had caught was probably worth several thousand dollars, so the official saw money signs when he saw that fish; which is why he took it from the fisherman.  They may have had someone report the catch and that was why they were there waiting for him when he came into dock.  NANCY said she wondered if there would have been a difference if the man had been a recreational fisherman?  Discussion on the policy of having to throw anything, considered illegal to catch, back overboard to die.  It makes more sense to keep everything caught and consider number of pounds caught rather than number of fish caught.  It seems stupid for example: if you catch, say a red drum that is over 27 inches, it is illegal to have it, so you have to throw it back overboard.  Chances are the fish has been injured (or dead) from being caught.  So you have now wasted a perfectly good fish that could have been used for food.  BOB said it was a shame what they were trying to do to the commercial fishermen.  They are trying to drive them out (and are doing a pretty good job, it appears).  Now it looks like they are going to try to make game fish out of speckled trout, striped bass, and red drum and stop the commercial fishermen from being able to catch them.  CLAYTON  GILLIKIN said he used to be a commercial fisherman but the regulations got so ridiculous he got disgusted and quit.  He would set swing nets for flounders and if a crab got in the net and ate the belly out of a too small or illegal fish, he would take the fish, clean it right there in the boat, put it in his cooler and take it home to eat for himself.  Every week they would stop him just to find out what was in that cooler.  He told them to go ahead and write him up, he didn’t care.  He did not believe in wasting what GOD had given us to eat and use.  BOB said one of Chris’s ideas that he really likes is, getting rid of the size limit, instead use weight limit.  Instead of throwing all the by-products away, weigh your catch, bring it in where it can be used, instead of letting it all die.  GRACE said another problem is our fishermen are supposed to stay within a certain limit of shore; whereas the Japanese, and other countries are just outside the limits assigned to American fishermen and they are catching anything and everything and never throwing anything back.  CLAYTON said and the sad part is they are selling their catches back to us…catches that would be illegal for us; and our fishermen are sitting here starving to death because of all the regulations placed upon them.  BOB said he could not understand why anyone would want to destroy the commercial fishing industry.  What is the advantage.  Several said the recreational fishermen have the money to get the rules like they want and could care less about the poor fishermen trying to make a living.  BOB said don’t they have to abide by the rules like others, ie you can only catch so many fish (per species) a day?  CLAYTON said where a commercial fisherman has to abide by the size, for example, of a flounder and is not allowed to keep it under a certain size; the recreational fisherman can come along behind him with his ‘stupid stick’ and gig him.  The government does not want the fisherman trying to make a living get him; they want that idiot with his ‘stupid stick’ to have the honor.  The officials will not go out and check the recreational fisherman, but they will sit on the shore and wait for the commercial fisherman to come in with his catch.  CLAYTON said you can sit and watch those game wardens watching the shrimpers with night binoculars checking out where you can and can’t shrimp.  You let one of those shrimpers cross over that imaginary line (even with their nets floating) and they are on them like you would not believe.  How in the world can the game warden tell exactly where that shrimper is when the game warden may be a half mile away; but it is the shrimpers’ word versus the official’s and you can bet that shrimper will get a several hundred dollar fine every time.
HARRY THOMPSON said he had gotten an email today from the John Locke Foundation about the next session on the Constitution.  They had presented the first portion a few months ago that many of us attended. When HARRY  sent the information requesting their coming back for the second workshop, he had asked about Troy Kickler getting something set up for us in January.  Mr. Kickler told HARRY in the email today that  they were currently trying to make arrangements for January.  HARRY will let us know as soon as he hears something.
BOB said the last time we met we talked about having a rally or a fund raiser or something in the spring.  He said PEGGY brought up an idea before the meeting, that he thought was a good one, of assigning a committee to research, organize and coordinate the effort.  So, he was going to appoint HOWARD and KEN LANG to get together and devise a game plan for us, because we can’t seem to reach any kind of decision during the meetings.  We are like the house of representatives, doing more talking than acting.  HOWARD said he hoped they could do better than the super committee did.  BOB said he went down and looked at that Fort Benjamin Park and he thought it was quite a facility.
BOB asked STEVEN BEST if he had some kind of extravaganza going on at the cave for Christmas.  STEVEN said, yep, on the 18th at 5:00 (after all attending eat soup and sandwiches) they were going to show the movie “Nativity”.  That is on a Sunday.  BOB asked how the attendance has been there.  STEVEN said the first time was pretty good but the second was not as great.  They will have plenty of popcorn available on the 18th.
BOB called on EULA PARKIN for her weekly report.  Once again she asked how many had watched J’Had Watch today.  Only one responded yes.  She wanted to suggest to all that when we go home tonight look up J’Had Watch for today and you will be surprised, because, it is one of the best programs she has seen yet.  As you open it up, it starts right in with a presentation by this fellow named Bosth Bostom??? Who is a Muslim that speaks perfect English.  He talks about 40 minutes and then there is someone from England that speaks about what is going on in all the countries, including Africa.  There are several speakers, and you just have to keep hitting up on the pictures to bring up all the different segments.  They each run 30 to 40 minutes each.  The one that really got her attention was about the voter fraud of Al Franken.  It was brought out that there had been voter fraud in his election.  He was the one vote they needed for Obamacare.  Discussion on number of recounts they had before finally getting the vote the way they wanted it.  It was pathetic.
HOWARD said he didn’t know how many had gotten the email, but KEN did some research and in the 2012 election there are two commissioners and three members of the Board of Education up for reelection.  So we need to be looking.  He had made one contact today.  He did not ask for an answer right then, since the man needed to talk it over with his family.  (He has run against Cathy Naegle twice in the past and lost. HOWARD feels with our support, he just might win this time).  HOWARD said he had not thought about it until this morning when PEGGY reminded him that he had said he would check into trying to get a map that outlined the Board of Education districts.  BOB asked what was the map he had last week, and HOWARD said that was the County Commissioners.  He feels that the Board of Education district map may change also, but he wanted to know what the boundaries were now, anyway.  BOB asked was there the same number of BOE members as there were county commissioners.  No one knew for sure.  BOB said it would make sense to have one map of the county for everything.  You’ve got your federal districting, state districting, county districting and a Board of Education districting; then fire districts, voting districts, etc.  HOWARD said he had made several calls, hoping to find someone who could help him get a copy of the map.  He had called the Board of Education office and the lady who answered said they were all out (and that was 9:00), but she would have someone call him when they came in.  She did and the lady who called gave him a number to call, (the tax office).  He then asked to talk with a friend who worked there that had helped him in the past.  The info had to come from the GIS Department at the tax office, and his friend was going to go over and try to get it for him, but PEGGY had checked prior to us leaving today and it had not come in yet.
BOB said he had been talking earlier with RUTH PARKER and she said the Iranians had taken over the British Embassy today.  BOB said does anyone know what brought this on?  Someone’s understanding was that the British were friends of the Americans and therefore they wanted the British out of there.  Discussion on whether or not we have an American Embassy there now.  Decision was that it was closed.
HOWARD asked if anyone was keeping up with what was happening in Richmond.  The TEA Party requested that (since they had had to post bond and pay for  permits, etc, to hold their rallies there, and the OWS had not had to pay) the money the TEA Party had been forced to pay be refunded.  Now the mayor is demanding the TEA Party be audited.  They have to provide documents on how much money they had received from food, lodging, etc. complete audit of books, anything to do with finances.  BOB asked were they going to audit the OWS group also.  No, just the TEA Party.  PEGGY said the reason they wanted to audit the TEA Party was because they had complained about them being charged and the OWS not being.  They were just retaliating against the TEA Party having the audacity to complain.
GRACE said apparently we have scared a lot of the Democrat politicians.  Did we see where a lot of them were not going to run again?  BOB said ’praise the Lord, Barney Frank is not going to run again’.  (Applause) His reason though is because his district apparently has been redrawn and this time he may have competition and that will mean he will have to get out and campaign and that is something he cannot really lower himself to do.  Someone said the only thing wrong there is when Barney retires, Maxine Waters is in line to take over his chair.  BOB said no need to worry about Maxine getting his chair, because if we can get the Republicans back in power, she can’t do anything anyway.  HOWARD said she doesn’t have the brain power, even Barney has, to do too much damage.  RUTH said ’she is an idiot’.  Just think about all the stupid things she has said recently about the TEA Party.
LOU KUKULINSKI said Sam Sanford will be packing boxes tomorrow morning.  Same time, same place.  If you want to help set up, come at 8:30.  JERE said they would probably do 100 boxes and he and Sam would take them to the Post Office Thursday, provided the weather is good.  BOB said last time we had over 40 people show up and they did the 100 boxes in 45 minutes.  The last time we talked about “We Care”, he didn’t know whether it was in a private conversation or not but the general idea was if we were going to support any charitable organization (we were considering Hope for the Warriors, Carolina Canines and We Care) the comment was we ought to do it locally and throw our support behind Sam Sanford’s “We Care”.  Was that at the last meeting?  Answer- yes.  BOB said he would like to go ahead and vote on that today unless someone thinks there is more to discuss.  HOWARD wanted to know if we had enough money in the bank at the present to start donating or do we need to raise more money first.  BOB said our money we donate comes from profits generated on the sale of tee shirts and hats.  Any other place we get monies, he asked NANCY?  NANCY said we got a lot of donations last year to help.  HOWARD told NANCY that we had 48 pounds of candy left from the Veteran’s Day Parade.  It is currently under lock and key and only he and PEGGY have keys.  Since he is diabetic he can’t eat candy anymore, so it now is safe from him, and PEGGY eats very little candy.  HOWARD recommended that if we could find somebody who is participating in a Christmas parade and would like to buy what candy we have, we can let them have it at a reasonable price, just to get rid of it.  He said we could offer it at a $1.00 a pound which is a lot cheaper than what they can buy it for in the store.  PEGGY said we should not take less than $1.00 a pound, though.  Discussion on who would be interested in using the candy in the upcoming Christmas parades.  PEGGY said RUTH had said something about donating part of the candy to Sam to put in the boxes.  What did others think of that idea.  JERE asked how many here tonight would be willing to donate on a monthly basis to ’We Care’…like maybe $5 or $10.  If we are willing to do that he will bring his mailing address to us and we can donate through the mail and he will send each of the donators a receipt for whatever you send and that receipt is tax deductible.  That money is tax deductible.  He is a 501 organization.  BOB asked him to get Sam’s address to PEGGY and she will get it out to all our members:  (WE CARE, c/o Sam Sanford, 1603 Fairfield Ct., Morehead City, NC 28557).   HOWARD said let’s settle this about what we want to do with the candy.  Do you want to donate the hard candy to We Care and then try to sell the chocolate and chewy type candy.  PEGGY said if we use the hard candy for We Care, then you will need it tomorrow morning, right?  JERE said if we want it to go in this week’s shipment, (this will be the last shipment of the year) then yes, they need it early in the morning.  PEGGY said she would go home and sort through all we have and have the usable candy to them for packaging in the morning (by 8:30).  (NOTE: Sam told Peggy Wednesday morning that he could use chocolate and chewy candy during the winter months while it was cold since it would not melt then.)  BOB asked ‘all in favor of donating the hard candy to Sam’s We Care, please raise your hand.  Carried.  For those who are interested, Sam sets up behind the new Furniture Distributor Store across from Trucker’s Toy Store on Hwy 70.  PEGGY said she would take care of sorting the candy and she and HOWARD would make sure the candy was at the location prior to 9:00 in the morning.  EULA wanted to know if we could just give JERE the money for mailing a package  – $12.95.  JERE said sure he would see to it that Sam gets the money before he gets to the Post Office.  A couple of members gave JERE enough to mail a couple of packages.  BOB asked GRACE what was the status of the candy they had.  GRACE said they probably had about 5 bags at least.  GRACE said another thing that was good to mail was ink pens and pencils.  BOB said when he was overseas, it was truly great to get a care package from the states.  It was like celebrating Christmas.  GRACE said when she went to stores that had stuff like that marked down, she would usually try to buy some for use later.  LOU said he liked getting those big old sticks of pepperoni,  nuts, and chocolate chip cookies.  GRACE said don’t send those little bottles of Tabasco Sauce, because she had tried that one year (making sure she thought that they were well cushioned) but by the time they got to their destination, every bottle was broken and mixed with all the other items enclosed.  BOB said he thinks Sam sends Tabasco Sauce, but he thinks it comes in plastic bottles now instead of glass.  BOB asked GRACE and CLAYTON to remove all the chocolate and soft chewies and get them to Sam by morning.  She said she would just drop the bags off in the morning since they had to go by anyway.  BOB wanted to know if Tootsie Rolls would be alright.  JERE said no, they melt.  PEGGY said we will save them just for BOB since he likes them so good.  JERE said the boxes will probably set out on the tarmac in the sun, so any candy that could melt it is best not to send.  EULA said she used to buy boxes of cross word puzzle books, but her problem was getting them to the troops.  She finally found some people in Havelock that could get them over there for her.  She said you could get like 60 cross word puzzle books for around $25.00.  She just recently bought a box of them.  JERE said he thought they would rather have something to read, because they could pass them around.  One magazine could possible reach 100 GI’s before it wears out and falls apart.
BOB asked NANCY what the treasury looked like.  She responded $995.00.      BOB asked if there was anything from the floor.  Discussion on Gov. Christy and his comments on Obama; and the fact that Obama had prayed a Thanksgiving prayer without mentioning GOD’s name.  Several said ‘what’s new’?.  MARIAN MERRILL said he sure could come up with some stupid remarks, like when he said we had 57 states.  PEGGY said wouldn’t it be something if the news media would have a field day over
Obama’s blunders like they did with Dan Quail‘s ‘potatoe‘.  BOB wanted to know if anyone still thought Herman Cain still had a chance at the presidency.  Most thought it was all over for him (innocent or not).  HOWARD said don’t count anyone out – it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.
Don’t forget 5:00 next Tuesday, meeting early!!!!
BOB adjourned the meeting at 6:50pm.
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
OF
22 NOVEMBER 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:00 pm by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by KEN LANG
Invocation by STEVEN BEST

BOB said he was listening to Glenn Beck this morning and he endorsed Michelle Bachman.  He said he had made his mind up and he would vote for Michelle and his second choice was Rick.  Someone in the audience said “he did not endorse her, he said he was going to support her.”  Bob asked “what was the difference?”  The reply was “he said he was going to vote for her but it was not an endorsement.”  Bob said “sounded like and endorsement to him.”  KEN LANG said it was kinda like splitting hairs to him.  Glenn thought she was the most Constitutional, conservative and had not changed in any way.  BOB said “true but she is probably the least electable”.  KEN said “Rush Limbaugh said today that she was the most consistent of all the candidates.  What she said ‘back there’ she says ‘right now’.  She has stayed the same pretty much all the way through.”  LOU said he thought she could save American in a heart beat.  She will definitely get in there and fight for the United States of America.  Some of the others said ‘let’s don’t count her out just yet’.  BOB said a couple of weeks ago he thought she would drop out and she and Sarah Palin would support Herman Cain, but now he didn’t know.  It is all up in the air now.  DAVID COX said “just curious, how many here tonight have already made up their mind how they plan to vote.”  RUTH PARKER asked “if we had to vote tomorrow”.  DAVID said yes.  LOU KUKULINSKI said “Newt, Newt Newt”.  Several agreed with LOU and said “I’m with you”.  KEN told us to go on the Web Site and it was probably further down now since it had been there a while, and there is an article about Newt Gingrich.  It raises a lot of questions about the various positions he has taken (something like 8 questions that are raised about these positions).  For instance he endorsed the individual mandate for health care and he hasn’t backed off on that.  He also supported, if you remember the famous commercial with Nancy Pelosi, global warming, renewal energy and green sources.  LOU said “he did say he wished he had never done that.”  KEN said he said he wished he had never appeared with Nancy Pelosi.  He didn’t say he had changed his mind on the position.  RUTH said she heard him say it was one of the dumbest things he had ever done.  BOB said Hannity asked him about that and Newt said he was just trying to show that conservatives do care about the earth and environment.  He said it didn’t go over well and was the biggest mistake of his political career and he definitely would not do it again.   BOB said he was still the smartest guy or candidate to debate Obama.  It appeared that everyone in attendance agreed with that statement.  DAVID asked how many would change their mind if at the end of the run just to defeat Obama.  ‘OH YES’ from all.  STEVE said “anybody but Obama”.  All in agreement.  LOU said he would even vote for “BOB”.
BOB said we have several items on the agenda for tonight: SCOTT with a recap of the Veteran’s Day Parade; EULA PARKIN on her ‘Publishers’ Clearing House’ request for readers interested in the list of books she has (buy 25 for a $1.00 each or $3.00 per book if can not reach 25 interested in any one book) and PEGGY GARNER with a fund raiser she would like to discuss.  He thinks it is overly generous of her, but he will let her tell us about it and then we can beat her up about it.  We want to discuss what we want to do in the spring time regarding either a fund raiser, rally or combination of the two.  Also we want to talk about the primary campaign and our involvement in that.  LOU asked “What is with the Ho Chi Minh shoes?”  BOB said he had been working hard today trying to get all his work done so he could leave town tomorrow to have Thanksgiving with the in-laws, so he had worked just as long as he could and prior to coming here, he had ducked into the pool room and changed him clothes and realized he had forgotten to bring any shoes.  These (showing his sandals) are $98.00 Ho Chi Minh shoes. HOWARD said “there must be good money in grass mowing.”  CLAYTON GILLIKING said ’either that or sheds’  (inside joke).
BOB asked EULA what she had.  EULA said she had a question.  She understood there had been 3 or 4 photographers filming the entire parade; but they had only shown just the very beginning of it.  BOB said he saw photographers all other the place videoing but had seen almost nil of the parade on TV news.  EULA said a female veteran told her that it had meant a great deal to her that they had been recognized finally.  BOB said he understood the feeling.  He had not had a very good homecoming in New Jersey when he got back.
BOB said he had tried to spare us from the following as long as he could but SCOTT could just not be held back any longer, so he entroduced SCOTT CARPENTER, asking him to man his DI hat and go over the pro and con report on the Veteran’s Day parade.  SCOTT said he always liked to go over a project and try to improve on what we do.  Always want to do better, that is what we like to do personally.  The purpose of this is go over these bullets.  Let’s look at them in the positive.  Hopefully no one will be offended.  That is not the purpose of this.  The next time we participate in a parade or event we will do better.  The first thing we want to talk about is a banner in front.  He didn’t remember us using a banner in the previous parade – 4th of July.  Do we need a new banner?  Maybe a generic banner or something like that?  BOB said for the 4th of July parade we had a couple of folks dressed in period costume carrying a banner.  This time we just had them on the float.  Either way, the crowd knew who we were when we went by, so he thinks the banner we have is sufficient to let the crowd know who we are.  He does not see any need to improve upon it or have a bigger one.  NORM KENT said he was new here, but he was curious did we have a motto or something like that.  BOB said we just use TEA PARTY PATRIOTS.  NORM said maybe something like Freedom Forever, Socialism Never?  He said each parade was for different causes.  PEGGY had made the signs we had used in the Veteran’s Day parade.  SCOTT said we would talk about that later on, but thanks for bringing that up.  KEN said on the banner, several folks suggested at the parade (NANCY BOCK was one) that we have a banner but not say TEA Party Patriots on it, but saying something like “Thank you to the Vets”.  If we are going to do a Veteran’s Day Parade again, we might consider this.  PEGGY said STEVEN had walked in front of our float carrying a poster that said “GOD Bless or Country and The Troops Who Have Defended It”.  BOB said that was true but you could only see it from one side.  STEVEN said no, he was walking straight and turning the poster from side to side.  KEN said that the suggestion by NANCY was the only comments he heard but to do this we will need a new banner for each theme of  the different parades.   SCOTT wanted to know if we shouldn’t get a banner just thanking the vets.  BOB said it would depend on what parades we get involved in.  A sign thanking the vets would only be used for a Veterans’ Day Parade.  If we decide to march in next year’s Veteran’s Day Parade, we should consider having one made then.   SCOTT said he had heard the same chatter that KEN had heard and that is why he had placed it on the discussion board.  SCOTT wanted to know if we couldn’t form a committee to decide what to put on the banners or signs prior to the next parade.  He wanted two people to volunteer to report back next week with suggestions.  Thanked ERIC BROYLES (who had just walked in) for volunteering and also TOM HARMON for (not raising his hand) volunteering.  TOM said, sorry he was not going to be here.  He was leaving to go to Thailand and would not be back until May.  Anything we wanted from him would have to wait until then.  SCOTT said, moving on to the next subject (bullet) Fliers.  He thought the flier we used in the Veterans’ Day Parade went over well.  However, next time we need to have them already placed in the Constitution rather than trying to place them during the  parade.  BOB agreed saying it was all NANCY could do to keep up with stuffing the flyers while walking in the parade.  SCOTT  wanted to know if anyone else had any comments about the flyers.  ROMA WADE said he thought the Constitutions went over better than the candy did.  So much candy was thrown from so many floats, that a big majority was left laying on the ground after the parade.  The kids wouldn’t even pick it up.  He said as he walked down the street, he saw all the candy left lying on the ground, but never saw the first Constitution that had been thrown away.  SCOTT said not only do we want to have the flyers printed and put in the Constitutions early but we needed pre-printed stickers to place on the backs of the Constitutions.  He said that was something we missed this time.  TOM, RUTH and EULA all informed SCOTT that the stickers were on the backs of the Constitutions we handed out.  TOM said he did about 300 prior to the parade.  (All that we had that had not been fixed previously.)  SCOTT said, Sorry, he did not know that.  LOU said “didn’t you do any research here Colonel?”  SCOTT said no he was getting ready to go to Thailand with TOM.  SCOTT asked if there was any more information on the Constitution, besides putting the flyer inside prior to the parade and having a sticker with TEA Party information on it stuck to the back.  BOB said we need to get some more prior to the next event.  SCOTT asked did he mean the booklet or the flyer.  BELVA MANNING said she had a small box of Constitutions in the back of her car.  BOB said a small box held about 200 copies.  Wanted to know if being the new fiscal year, could we get some from our congressmen like Jones, Burr, or Hagan.  Asked if anyone knew where DENNIS TOMASO  was, that he was the one that usually got us the Constitutions.  LOU said he thought NANCY got them last time.  BOB said ERIC got some from Jones and ERIC said they told him that it was too close to the end of the year and they were almost out of stock.  CLAYTON said maybe we should order them from the Democrats.  They should have tons of them, since they never read them.  Several recommendations were made.  LOU said he thought the last ones came from the Heritage Foundation.  SCOTT asked who would call the Heritage Foundation to try to get some Constitutions for us.  He needed a volunteer to call.  BOB said it was not a matter of calling, you had to order them and it was about $200.00 for 1,000.  All agreed that for us to order them we need to go through and authorized NANCY to order them.  She is the one to write the checks.  SCOTT said OK, then how many do we want to authorized NANCY to order for us.  Agreed on 1,000 at $200.00 but was not officially authorized to order.  No vote taken.  SCOTT wanted to know if there was any comments to be made on the trailer we used, positive or negative?  Everyone agreed it worked great.  KEN said only problem he saw was we needed to cut down some tree limbs along the route.  (streets of Morehead City)
HOWARD said NANCY and her husband had cleaned and painted it prior to our use for the 4th of July; it was handy; and we it looked like we could depend on them to furnish it for us.  FRED DECKER said he thought a big plus for our float was the guitar picker (Jeff from Havelock and was  retired Coast Guard.)  All agreed.  HOWARD said he added a whole lot and we all noticed that the viewers would join in singing GOD Bless America when we sang it going by.  SCOTT said one thing being on the left hand side was a safety concern.  There was a lot of movement around the trailer, with the double axle, and he was concerned that someone might get their toes run over.  TOM said there were some close calls a couple of times.  SCOTT said we need to be careful about throwing candy.  Make sure to throw it at a distance.  If you throw it too close to the trailer, some kids could come up to pick up the candy and get too close and get hurt.  His concern is about the safety around that moving vehicle.  We need to be extra careful.  BOB said a lot of kudos go to NANCY and Ken, her husband for painting that trailer, making it available to us, and Ken’s volunteering to pull it for us this time since BOB’s truck had been in a wreck.  TOM said he would volunteer the use of his truck next time if we needed it.  SCOTT said if we use TOM’s truck next time, what about the ball and trailer hitch.  TOM said he had one.  TOM asked if it was a 2”?   HOWARD said ‘no, it was more than 2”.  2 and 5/16 or as commonly known a mobile home hitch.  SCOTT then asked about the candy.  Did we have sufficient candy this time – enough to last the whole parade?  HOWARD said we have a lot of candy left.  We carried it home with us and it is in an air conditioned room.  Have not weighed it yet but there is lots left.  (We have since weighed it and there is about 48 pounds.)  If we could find someone that could give us a reasonable price, that might need it for the Christmas parade,  he thinks we should consider selling what we had left rather than hold it until the next parade, which could be July 4th.  All agreed.  We could put it into the refrigerator, but would prefer to get rid of it if we can.  EULA wanted to know how much money were we thinking about getting.  HOWARD said we needed to weigh it prior to deciding on a price.  EULA said she would contact someone she knows who may be interested.  HOWARD said if anyone gets a nibble to please call us or let us know and we will see what kind of offer we can get for it.  SCOTT said ‘moving right along – our posters.  Did we have sufficient posters?  Do we need to make new posters?  What about people’s comments on posters?  KEN said the ones we had that PEGGY had made were excellent.  DIANE LANG said we need to get them framed so they do not get messed up.  HOWARD said we had already bought two frames and if they work, we plan to frame the others.  PEGGY said WalMart carried the frames like we had discussed and they ran right around $12.00 each with plexiglass instead of real glass which could break in usage.  SCOTT wanted to know if there was any further discussion or suggestions on posters or examples.  TOM said posters need to be appropriate for the event and KEN said they were for this parade.  BOB said these were appropriate for the Veterans; maybe next time we will need anti-Obama posters.  Any further positive or negative comments on the posters we used. BOB said he didn’t know anyone that made prettier posters than PEGGY.  He was so impressed that he thought we should auction them off as a fund raiser.  Most disagreed.  Said we should keep them in our archives for later use. SCOTT said OK now let’s talk photos.  He understood we did have some good photos this time.  Are there any comments on photos?  Do we need more that one photographer?  Is one sufficient?  BOB said he noticed that he was barely visible in any of them.  TOM said there is a reason for that.  Lots of laughter.  TOM said when we got up to the reviewing stand he wanted to get on the other side and all of a sudden his lens went in and he realized his battery had died.  So he was standing there running along side of the trailer, moving the batteries around and he put the bad ones back in and by the time he realized it we had passed the viewing stand.  SCOTT said we need to talk about the photos being put on our web site.  KEN said he had not had time to get them posted yet.  He had not gotten around to it.  SCOTT said then let’s put a line in the sand to shoot for.  KEN said he would give it a shot by next week but did not want to promise.  SCOTT said he would give him two weeks then.  He would be lenient this time.  SCOTT wanted to know if the meetings times and locations were clear on our web site.  Do we need to tweak that?  Does everyone feel comfortable with the way it advertises our meetings.  He said NORMAN brought up last week that he had checked the web site and it said 7:00 but that was for the meeting in Cape Carteret and he was interested in the Morehead City group.  KEN said the very top of the page talks about the new group of Cape Carteret that was just organized.  You have to go below the picture of George Washington to see the information on the Morehead City group.  SCOTT said somehow we need to clarify that right up front.  KEN said he didn’t see how it could be more clear.  It did say Western Carteret County TEA Party right at the top as opposed to the one at the Golden Coral.  He didn’t know how he could clarify it further.  KEN said if he had any suggestions, please email him and he would try to make it more understandable.  SCOTT said he would take that upon himself to contact KEN.  PEGGY jokingly said “We need top billing”.  KEN said since it was a new group, he felt it needed to be at the top.  SCOTT said since we have the web master with us, is there any more comments or suggestions on the photos and meetings; write ups updated; or clarification on our web site.  LOU said he thought KEN was doing a d— good job.  Got a round of applause.  SCOTT wanted to know if we felt comfortable with our email mailing list.  BOB said aren’t we still supposed to be talking about the parade?  SCOTT said he felt this pertained to the parades.  Is our list updated sufficiently enough to notify everyone about the events upcoming.  Do we need to do anything with that?  KEN said every new email that is placed on our sign-in list, he adds to our list and we currently have somewhere around 950 addresses.  He would like to see it over a thousand.  One thing he does do at Western Carteret is a lot of the people there are new so he tells them if they have any friends who are interested in getting information on TEA Party activities, tell them to get him their email addresses.  Now a year or so ago we had some who felt like they were getting too many emails, and others not frequent enough.  He is a little uncomfortable about sending out everything to those too frequently.   He sends out a blast every now and then so people don’t just totally ignore us.  One of the TEA party groups that he is on their list, he gets 2 or 3 things a week.  Listed a couple of them.  So a lot of the time you see them and just delete them; so he prefers not to do that.  SCOTT said “Thank you for those comments, I appreciate them and other peoples’ feed back.  Back to discussing the parade.  Next is the booth.  We talked about it, but apparently we did not get the necessary paper work.  Is that something we need to write and push next time?  Having a booth set up and selling Tshirts, hats, stickers, free literature, etc.  BOB said we need to look into it a lot further ahead of time.  This time we never got a positive answer on whether we needed or did not need a permit.  As it turned out it was such a windy day, I would have hated to have to been sitting there at the table trying to hold on to everything to keep it from blowing away.  We would have had to have a sheltered area, and then you are out of the traffic flow.  If we were going to have
a table at the parade where would have been the most advantageous spot to have had it, because the crowd was pretty evenly distributed and they were static.  So the whole idea of having a booth there for the Veterans’ Day does not make a whole lot of sense, plus he did not think it would be appropriate for that parade any way.  That parade was to honor the vets, not for making money.  SCOTT said ’So what I heard then we don’t think we should have a booth for next year’s Veterans’ Day Parade.’  All agreed.  SCOTT said, ’moving right along, sale of Tshirts, hats, stickers, (ie bumper)’.  Any further comments.  TOM said “on our Tshirts, when we run out of these, we are going to have a new shirt with new logo.  Has anyone come up with any design or made a decision on what organization we plan to sponsor?”  BOB said no, we still have not decided on who we are going to donate a portion of our proceeds to.  We have heard from the Wounded Warriors (actually meant Hope for the Warriors), Carolina Canines, and Jere Geurin is working on getting Sam Sanford down here to speak about his program, “We Care”.  It is really between these three.  He does not know if we want to give to all three (which will not amount to a whole lot of money) or if we just want to pick one.  If we go with the one in Jacksonville – Hope for the Warriors – we can keep the same logo, because they have a logo very similar to the Wounded Warriors.  NORMAN asked what about the USO?  BOB said that is such a large organization already and he did not know what kind of funding they have.  One of the reasons why we have left the Wounded Warriors is because the guy that is running the thing is getting over a million dollars a year salary; so we felt that instead of donating money to the Wounded Warriors, we were actually helping pay his exorbitant salary.  35% is being sucked up in overhead in administration; whereas with Hope for the Warriors, the guy running that only gets $35,000.00 a year.  LOU said that is one reason he thinks we should support an at home project like Sam’s.  TOM said you look at Sam’s and it is grass roots, man.  Sam does not get a penny.  Everything he gets, he puts back into items to send to the troops.  LOU said just one thing, we definitely do not want to put a picture of Sam on the back of our tshirts.  BOB said if anyone wants to look at Sam’s operation, here is a whole bunch of pictures that TOM took during the last mailing.  About 40 people showed up to pack the boxes to ship overseas to service men.  TOM said they did 100 boxes in about 45 minutes.  LOU said that is great, he remembers when they only had 5 or 10 people to help.   RUTH PARKER said ’with all the troops leaving and coming home, she didn’t know what Sam was going to do.’  BOB said we will always have troops deployed overseas.  PEGGY asked “what he packs up to send, does it come from donations, or how does he come up with all that he sends.  LOU said most of it is donations.  PEGGY wanted to know if he had a list of items he wanted donated?  Maybe we can help him out that way.  LOU said anything that someone away from home would like to get in the mail; like chewing gum, deodorant, chapstick, magazines, hot sauce, pepperoni, etc.  BOB said to get with Jere and see what he recommends.  Asked PEGGY what she wanted to give “Collards”?  (Picking on me for sharing our collards with a lot of our members.)   SCOTT rapped and asked about the TEA Party hats and stickers (ie Don‘t Tread on Me), any comments on those.  BOB said as far as inventory right now we have 31 hats.  (listed our inventory).  BOB said we do need some Crystal Coast TEA Party stickers (like address labels) to go on the back of the Constitutions.  We probably need about 1000 of those.  HOWARD asked “Didn’t DENNIS make the last ones we got?”  TOM said DENNIS had made 600 and TOM had used 340 or so and gave the rest to NANCY.  LOU said the print shop would probably make some for us and it probably would not be too expensive.  Several said we could make them at home on our computers and it would not cost anything except for the box of labels.  TOM wanted to know if we wanted them any bigger.  Consensus was no.  Do we need any further information on them?  No.  BELVA MANNING said they worked just perfect on the back of the Constitutions.   SCOTT asked if he saw any hands go up to volunteer to make the stickers or at least procure the stickers?  BOB said he thought he saw SCOTT’s hand go up a few minutes ago.  SCOTT said let’s run back over what we have decided here tonight.  ERIC and TOM are going to come up with some suggestions on banners (TOM will mail us his input from Thailand or when he gets back).  NANCY is going to be ordering some more Constitutions (1000).  Also SCOTT is going to come up with a suggestion on how to write up the TEA Party meetings to be more coherent.  Also volunteers to make up the stickers to go on the backs of the Constitution.  Anything else he missed?  Any further questions or comments.  BOB wanted to know what he planned to put on the stickers.  SCOTT said he would show him (an example) next week.  BOB said just as long as it has our name and web site on it.  BOB thanked SCOTT for the presentation.
BOB introduced NORMAN KENT who spoke to us about the Council on Foreign Relations.  He said he had attended our rally that we had originally scheduled to have in the Kmart parking lot that got moved to the Flea Mall.  He had run across a book called Shadows of Power (author James Perloff) that describes in detail the CFR.  It came into being in New York.  It started with Woodrow Wilson, the Rockefellers, Carnegies, (Trilateral Commission which came later).  It had your industrialists, financiers, and bankers involved.  So many on Wall Street were tied to this.  What they decided to do was create a government within our constitutional government.  More or less power brokers.  In the past the whole thing was kind of clandestine.  They would meet in secret.  In order to become a member of the organization, you pretty much had to take an oath that whatever is said in the group, stays in the group.  There was one that kind of broke that oath.  His name was James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy (back in the Eisenhower days he thinks).  He was a member of the CFR and after being in the group a little while, he started to realize that it was a conspiracy.  This is not promoting our Constitution.  In fact it is taking us away from that.  What happened to him was “they found him kind of incoherent, possibly drugged, so they put him into a hospital.  Finally they got permission to get him out of the hospital, and the night before he was supposed to leave; around 2:00 in the morning, they found him dead, hanging outside his 16th floor window.  The official ruling was ‘suicide’.  When he was reading this book, he found everything was very well documented.  You can check it out elsewhere also.  In later years the CFR got involved with the media.  How many know who Rupert Murdoch is?  He owns Fox News.  He is one of the biggest Socialists on the face of this planet.  You know how it is today.  We don’t get mentioned because we are not part of their involvement.  Even though they say they are just there to help us with our foreign policies; so most of the world can understand America.  From what he has been reading, they are trying to lean towards ‘one world government’.  (Socialism)  You cannot ask to join and become a member.  They are the ones who do the picking.  They determine who is going to become a member of the organization.  Now some of our politicians, who want to get noticed, will write articles for publishing in behalf of the CFR and its agenda,  in the magazine called “Foreign Affairs”.  Examples of membership:  William Jefferson Clinton, (ERIC said he bet there was a teleprompter that was a member also; but Norman said he had heard that but when he checked Obama was not listed as a member), although George Herbert Walker Bush was.  (Commented that haven’t you ever noticed that whoever is in office, the same garbage runs downhill. Things do not get better, we get further in debt, lose more of our freedoms, sovereignty goes by the wayside, and we wake up and find illegal aliens have more rights than we do.)  The whole reason he is presenting this to us is for us to be more aware of the backgrounds and philosophy of our politicians (aka candidates for president).  You have heard of wolves in sheep’s clothing?  Well, you can draw parallels.  You can have sunshine patriots, who are not the right guy.  They are not going to protect your individual liberties, or the Constitution.  Look at the Vietnam War and  Lyndon B. Johnson…..Dean Achison (?)  and another man (but he could not remember his name) – they were considered the wise men.  Dean was the first one that wanted to get out, but Johnson didn’t want that so he increased the numbers deployed there.  When things started going a little sour and started to go wrong, the wise men told Johnson, you were right we need to get out of this.  Just drop it.  This was after Johnson had put his neck on the line and afterwards Johnson cited his famous words, “I will not seek the nomination for my party to run for president or seek reelection”.   So you have the CFR, not suggesting, but influencing.  Then you have the CFR in the media repeating what the CFR wants us, the public, to hear.   (Discussion of authenticity, and research of facts, the author, etc.)  This country was founded upon the ideals of ‘of, by and for the people’.  Before that you had feudalism, monarchy’s, ruling with iron fists.  When our forefathers seceded from England, somehow miraculously we got democracy.  We had not had that before.  Now some are trying to return us to the old system of feudalism.  Their perfect system is to have a ’one world unity, peace, feudalistic system’.  Some other members of the CFR: Collen Powell, Secretary of Defense under George Bush, Conga Lisa Rice, many of our ambassadors, senators, (John McCain, Newt Gingrich,) a ton of these folks that are all CFR members.  To belong to that organization and hold yourself to those goals and ideals, runs contrary to what our forefathers created for us in the Constitution.  To sit there and say I want to help you people, and belong to an organization like the CFR, he draws that equivalent to Barrack Obama sitting in Jerimia Wright’s church for 20 years and saying ‘gee, I didn’t know, that doesn’t affect me’.  Where do your loyalties lie?  Norman said he was not telling us who to vote for; personally he had like Michelle Bachman at first, and was now wavering and getting the fear ‘we don’t want Obama, but do we want to be manipulated by the power of the CFR?’  We had a choice between Obama and McCain.  All it was was a skid downhill, just one is not as fast as the other.  This brings him to Romney and he sees him wavering back and forth and kissing up to the CFR, even though according to the list he has, is not a member of the CFR.  But for whatever reason the CFR doesn’t like him, because what did they do in 2008?  They did not trust Romney enough so they strong-armed the delegates to get behind McCain to win.  That is the picture that lies before us.  If you know of a real good conservative candidate, now is the time to get behind him.  But the time may come when you realize ‘my candidate doesn’t have a chance’, so we don’t want to be manipulated in going ‘oh, yeah, I got a CFR man, and he’s got to be better than Obama.’  No, we lose on both ends.  His goal is to impress upon us that whomever you go for make sure that person is not a member of the CFR.  HOWARD GARNER asked ‘how can we confirm that he is or is not?’  Norman said we should go to the CFR membership list because they have it posted on their web site.  Other than that, if you do not see it, he would even suggest that we write and ask them about whomever you are interested.  (Other members on the list he has: Isner, Walt Disney, NBC, George Soros) Anybody associated with that group he doesn’t want to touch them.  Rupert Murdoch and George Soros have nothing against making a buck.  They are socialist capitalists and if you are willing to play the game with them, they will throw you a few crumbs and let you be in on the ballgame.  But if you are not, sorry, but you are too far beneath him.  Unfortunately our government is so deeply ingrained with this organization that now who cares what the people want,  they are going to do whatever they want.  That is why they liked Newt Gingrich.  He had the Contract with America, and whatever happened with that thing?  They worked on it supposedly, but when push came to shove, they shut down the government.  It was good for show, but what was the end result?  Nothing!  They all caved.  HOWARD said he was exposed to the CFR back in the 60’s or 70’s. This guy who was active in the John Birch Society,  gave him a couple of his little brochures, and since he was a federal employee, he was afraid of being caught with them, so he gave them back.  The brochures warned us against the CFR.  The John Birch Society was doing that way back then.  Here recently someone has put a couple of Robert Welch’s
speeches on the internet, and if you will listen to what he says in those speeches, everything he predicted has come to pass.  People thought he was a total crackpot.  At least the media tried to make him out that way.  Norman said, Exactly.  That is how the media deals with you today.  If you stand up and say something they disagree with, they just call you a right wing lunatic,  on the outer fringe, he’s got problems, etc.  You got that right.  By all means, investigate what he has brought up to us tonight.  He hopes he has given us enough motivation to do so.  BOB thanked him for his presentation.
STEVEN BEST said “A lot of this is on the video that we have not watched yet (Agenda 21)”.  BOB said, ’it will have to be after the holidays, but he wants to have one of our meetings at ’the cave’ (STEVE’s theater which will hold 45, but he can add more seats if needed) and show the movie, which is about the movement of Socialism/Communism into our way of life.
ERNIE gave a brief dissertation on what he knew about the CFR and the extent it has involved itself into our political lives.  Just about every Obama cabinet is headed up by a member of the CFR.  The CFR is the American branch.  You have the Royal Institute of International Affairs which is the British branch, which appeared after World War I.
EULA PARKIN said for us to go to ‘frontpagemag.com’ and key in ’George Soros’.  Ten pages long of the organizations that he supports.  He is the one that wants ’one world’.  Several spoke up and said he was not the only one in support of one world government.  EULA spoke up about the books she had available for us to order for $1.00 again.  BOB asked if anyone is interested, please sign your name next to the book we are interested in and as soon as we can get 25 requests for that book, we will order it.
BOB asked what are we going to do about the fund raiser and/or rally coming up in the spring.      FRED DECKER said he had mentioned last week about getting a phone committee set up.  If anyone wants to participate, please give him your name, precinct you are in and phone number and he will give you some other people to help you.  It is going to be up to us to cover the whole county.  This will be for the primary.  You do not have to be registered Republican to work on the phone committee.
BOB said HOWARD and KEN LANG have been discussing about our need to become involved in the upcoming Primary.  HOWARD said a few years ago in Carteret County whoever won the Democratic Primary was guaranteed the election in the fall.  Well now, Carteret County has shifted enough that he thinks whoever wins the Republican Primary is going to win in the fall.  So we need to decide who to get behind in the primary.  We won’t know who until filing is over, to decide where we stand.  Another thing they are going to elect members of the Board of Education in the spring.  Now here is where we need to work hard for our candidates.  There are enough employees in the school system that they can turn their families and friends out and they can elect whoever they want.  They are going to want to elect whoever will spend the most.  So we need to get involved in supporting people that believe in our philosophy or as close as possible.   We may need to recruit some members if we can to run as candidates for the Board of Education.  I’ll almost bet you, that Rene Coles will be a candidate for the Board of Education or County Commissioner.  Rumormill has it that Commissioner Greg Lewis will recruit her to run for Holt Faircloth’s position.  Holt told him that he didn’t care who ran, because he had had enough and he was not going to file.  We do not want Rene Coles in any seat in county government or anyone like her.  Not that he has anything against her personally, but against her personal philosophy in spending.  KEN said if he was not mistaken there was at least two people who were not going to refile for county commissioner.  One is Holt Faircloth and the other Pat Joyce.  There are three positions that will be open, the two above and Doug Harris.  Pretty sure Doug will run again.  We need to really think are about people who will serve in both of those positions.  Not just one.  He doesn’t know if that will involve talking to the other County Commissioners, but we need to make sure that the right candidates and certainly not someone like Rene Coles, who is a registered Republican.  They are big donors to the party but she is involved in C4 activity, wanting to spend a lot of money on education without knowing what is will be spent on.  That is his main objection to her.  BOB said he understands both her and her husband come from money, so to her money is not an issue.  FRED said he had talked to some of the County Commissioners and he understands that is why she was at the reverse raffle.  The other Commissioners know that Greg Lewis has been meeting with the school board and that he is supporting her for County Commissioner, from what he was told.  Evidently he thinks that will give him two votes on the board.  HOWARD said it looked like to him that Greg had his eye on a higher office.  Maybe Rene can funnel some money his way.  That may be his game.  FRED said if he is planning on running for State Senate, he may as well quit because as long as Jean Preston runs, she will win and if not then he plans to support the man from Craven County that has mentioned being interested but will not run as long as Jean does because they are friends.  He cannot support Greg Lewis, because he thinks Greg is in it for Greg and not the people in the county.  FRED said he was working on getting enough Republicans to run for offices in the party, that he can hopefully get Greg thrown out as Party Chairman.
He’s wanting enough candidates to attend the Republican convention to have the vote.  He’s not sure we can get enough votes to get him out as commissioner, but hopefully they can as Republican Party Chairman.
HOWARD said we were to the Commissioners meeting last night and this (showing the county map passed out at the meeting), is the proposed district plan now.  It has not been approved but was done up by the county manager and Rob Wheatly, county attorney.  The second page gives the numbers based on the recent census.  There was some discussion.  Part of them do not like it, but he suspects any plan you come up with will have disagreements.  Basically they have come up with about 9500 in each district.  They are pretty equal in representation.  BOB said it looked like they had not gerrymandered the lines, but had used highways, and rivers/streams as boundaries.  HOWARD said he may not completely understand the underlying concerns, but it looks like a pretty decent distribution to him.  He had told Rob they had done a pretty good job.
Another thing they had brought up last night was they had a lot of positions on the various committees in the county and were having trouble finding people to volunteer for them.  Bill Smith told us to go to the county web site and find out the vacancies, and they would like to have people to volunteer for nomination to these committees.  Most people today only want positions that are paid, the political plums.  Discussion on those positions and their bennies.  HOWARD announced that PEGGY had been asked by Bill Smith to volunteer and was appointed to the Senior Center Advisory Board last night.
BOB said getting back to the Primary…this coming May is when we elect the school board.  From the time of the filing until the election is about 10 weeks to vet the candidates and publish our recommendations.  If we are going to get everything done, we are going to have to bust our butts to get hold of these folks who are running for the offices and press them to come on down here.  It is going to take a lot of coordination on our part to get them here to answer our questions and make our decisions on who we want to recommend.  He asked FRED if he had any names in mind for the school board.  He said he had been talking to ERIC BROYLES and was trying to talk him into running.  We need to get someone from Newport.  HOWARD recommended Doc Westbrook.  He said he would contact him and see what he thought about running.  BOB said the first thing he would like to see the new school do is get rid of Novey.  We need a little more transparency with the school board and county commissioners than what we have had under Novey.  HOWARD said the board picks the superintendent, so we have got to pick a board that will pick a different superintendent.  It is that cut and dried.  Does anyone here know of anyone that will run for school board.  Maybe we should advertise on the web site. (Several recommendations were offered with reasons why not to support them).  Mainly we do not want someone who has been connected with the teaching profession involved on the school board.  They have already been corrupted by the system.  FRED said he did not think you should be on the school board and teach in Carteret County.  Even retired school employees had been brainwashed by the system.  That is all they know.  Bill Blair was a shining example of that.  KEN said he didn’t want to sound too negative about this but we have been talking about replacing some of the school board members and then we leave the meeting without making any real progress.  Maybe tonight we have made a little progress because some have learned about who is not going to run again or we think they may not run again.  We need to find out definitely what they plan to do.  We need to find candidates more than anything else.  Sitting here talking about who are not going to run and it would be nice to have someone else, just doesn’t get it.  If we do not have someone to go into the position that is like minded with our group then we are just spinning our wheels.  It is frustrating because I think we have people here who know a lot of people in the county.  To be sure we can come up with somebody who will be a candidate in some of these areas.  He agreed with BOB that we need to be looking for those without pre-vested interest in the school system, because they are already tainted.  You know how they are going to vote.  NORMAN asked what kind of candidate were we looking for.  What scrutiny is important.  BOB said he felt we needed someone who is retired and has time on his/her hands.  Probably newly retired, but not from the school system.  Maybe financially well off enough they don’t have to have a second job.  Working people are just too busy to devote the required time.  KEN said, ideally you want someone who knows something about budgets, because the problem with the school board that we have now is that they rubberstamp whatever the school superintendent presents to them.  They do not know how to critically evaluate a budget, so therefore when the superintendent comes in and they rubberstamp it and take it to the commissioners.  He thinks the commissioners this year have done an excellent job in examining what is in the budget, why it is there, and if they can do without it.  But there should be people on the school board who are doing that before it gets to the county commissioners.  CLAYTON said most of the stuff on the budget is coded so no one knows exactly what it is.  KEN said the superintendent does that intentionally.  That is why we need a new school board and then we need a new superintendent who will be more transparent with all.  KEN said he feels that the current school board does not put the amount of time actually needed to do a good job into it and just lets the superintendent do as he wants.  BOB said FRED had mentioned ERIC and he thought ERIC would be a good candidate.  He has a banking background and knows about budgeting etc.  HOWARD said Doc had run for school board years ago against Cathy Neagle and he was pretty sharp on figures.  Maybe he should go talk with him.  FRED said he had been talking to Richard Hunt about the school board.  BOB said he had just been elected on the town board at Cape Carteret.  FRED said but the one he would be replacing position does not run out until 2014.  HOWARD said by that time we will have a better understanding of how Richard thinks and handles things.  A track record is a good thing to go by.  KEN said he didn’t think Richard would be interested in leaving the Cape Carteret board since he had just won election there.  He thinks he will stick with the Cape Carteret seat based on what he had talked to him about.  If he had lost that election then he probably would have considered running for the board of education.   BOB wanted to know if anyone had any suggestions for Beaufort.  Since there is no one here tonight from Beaufort (other than EULA).  A few names were bandied about but no final recommendation was made.  Betty Bell’s name was mentioned, but no one knew if she would even consider getting back into the fray.  BOB said we only have about two months or two weeks to get everything done…basically from March 1st thru April 30th.
That is once we have the candidates in place, to vet, decide who to support and prepare our recommendations and line up our manning of the precinct voting booths, prior to the May primary.  We need to get to work and stop the talk.  He still thinks if we had gotten involved in the Morehead election for mayor that David Horton would have won.  HOWARD said he still thinks that Sunday advertisement from Jerry Jones with all the untruths in it that David did not get the opportunity to refute.  BOB said he still thought if we had had a couple of people sitting down at the Morehead precincts passing out TEA Party recommendation lists, that would have carried more weight than anything in the paper.
Last thing, real quick, do we want a rally or a fund raiser or a combination.  With a rally we need speakers, sound system, insurance, portajohns, tshirts, etc.  HOWARD said if we decide to use the Fort Benjamin Park, they have restrooms, so that would eliminate the portajohns.  They have a stage.  BOB asked HOWARD if he remembered how much the rent was.  HOWARD said $50.00 for the event (use of band shell) for a non-profit.  The county manager has to make the final decision whether we can use it or not.  We can talk to some of the county commissioners in advance and maybe they can support our usage.  BOB wanted to know if he meant the county or Newport manager.  HOWARD said, the county since Fort Benjamin is a county park, but we may want to contact the Newport manager as a courtesy type thing.  He doesn’t think Newport really has anything to do with it.  BOB said we were all familiar on what it takes to put on a rally.  It is no small thing, but neither is a fund raiser where we will be serving food.  There is a whole lot involved.  HOWARD said they have a kitchen there but there is an extra fee of $5.00 per use for non-profit.  BELVA MANNING said they also have a covered outside shelter that has picnic tables.  BOB said using the Flea Mall for the rallies has been nice, but it has been kind of limiting to some extent since we can not have food vendors there in competition with the Mall.  Also at the big rally we had there were over 700 cars just for the rally. So if we have a combo rally/food service fund raiser we are going to need plenty of parking.  Fort Benjamin can supply what we need.  (Discussion on the use of Pat Joyce’s open field without electricity and borrowing of generators.  Also discussed the possibility of getting Joyce to allow us to put up signs advertising our event near Hwy 70 even if we have it at Fort Benjamin)  BOB asked what do we want to do folks.  TOM wanted to know what time factor we are talking about.  BOB said he figured we were talking sometime in probably April.  TOM said he had the Don’t Trust the Media signs in his truck and since he would not be back until sometime in May he would like for someone else to hold them.  HOWARD said he would put them in his truck and store them for later use.  Discussion on date for the event.  HOWARD wants to do a little more checking things out and will get back with the group as soon as he can.  BOB said we need to start getting our ducks in a row and start making some decisions soon, before our time runs out.  We also need to be ready to announce our vetting of the candidates early.  For that we will also need a better venue than the Golden Corral.  FRED mentioned the Newport Town Hall, which he said would seat maybe 40 or 50.  BOB said apparently we need more time to put our thinking caps on, so let’s go back home and think about it some more.  BOB asked that we come better prepared next week with at least some firm propositions.

Meeting adjourned at 7:57 pm
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary

CRYSTAL COAST TEA PARTY PATRIOTS MINUTES
November 15, 2011

Meeting held at Golden Corral, Morehead City, NC
Meeting called to order at 6:04pm by President BOB CAVANAUGH
Pledge of Allegiance led by NANCY BOCK
Invocation by JERE GEURIN
No. in attendance: 28

Introduction of New Attendees:
JOHN and LEDA LARSON –  They found out about us through their son-in-law, who attended one of our meetings.  They live in Morehead City.  BOB asked if they voted last week and they assured him they did.
BLAKE BEADLE – Group creator of the Young Professionals, new title for the Young Republicans.  Officers not yet elected.  Age group is 18 to 40, so if you have children or grandchildren, neighbors or friends, that are interested in getting politically active, please have them get in touch with Greg Lewis or the Party and they will direct them to Blake or others now involved.  (Bob jokingly said “they cancelled the parade the other day for the Young Republicans; one got sick and the other one didn’t want to march alone.’ —- Boos from the audience.)
FRANK PALOMBO – Candidate for US House of Representatives – running against Walter B. Jones.
BRIAN MULLAS – Friend, supporter and Campaign Manager of Frank Palombo.
Late comer – NORMAN KENT – Apologized for being late.  He had read on the website about our meeting but had misread the time.  When he rechecked and discovered the time, he had gotten there as soon as he could.  He said he lived in Newport.  BOB explained that we (those who wish to) meet at 5:00 to eat and socialize and the meeting starts at 6:00 pm and runs until he gets a sore throat.  He explained about the Western end of the county recently starting another group for those who live in that end of the county.  They meet the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month.  We meet every week.

Budget Report –  Jan 1, 2011 – Nov. 15, 2011
Beginning Balance Jan 1, 2011                                                   $1,997.82
Income:
Donations:                    $1,090.00
Sale of Tees/hats                874.41
4/15 Rally                          694.50
Insurance Claim
(Bob’s Fire)                    610.00
7/4 Parade                           451.25
$3,720.16                             +        3,720.16
Expenses:
4/15 Rally                      $1,488.43*
Hats                    800.00
Banners                               549.53
Ad for JLF Seminar            447.84
T-Shirts                348.00
Flags, Buntings            270.91
Veterans Day Parade            231.26*
Pocket Constitutions            198.81
Bumper Stickers                  169.95
Business Cards                    113.13
Carteret Literacy                  100.00
Islamaphobia Booklets           25.00
$4,742.86                 –   $4,742.86

Ending Balance Nov. 15, 2011                                                                 975.12

*4/15 Rally Expenses:
Ad            $ 622.00
W. Montague           360.00 (plane ticket)
Sound System           323.25
PortAJohns           183.18
$1,488.43
(Does not include $940.00 special events insurance paid 2010 for 2 events in a calendar year.)

*Veterans Day Parade Expenses:
500 ea 4×6 flags    $  129.87
50’ Fringe              51.39
Candy                  50.00
$   231.26
(Gave out approximately 800 pocket Constitutions, 400 small flags, and 500 flyers.)

INVENTORY:
78   –   s/a t-shirts
11   –   l/s t-shirts
31   –   hats
100  –   4×6 flags
600  –   Pocket Constitutions

OBLIGATION:
$216.00 donation to Wounded Warrior Project
Candy purchased by Clayton Gillikin for Veterans Day Parade ($75.00?)

UPCOMING:
Ad for second session of JLF Seminar
Ad for 2012 Elections.  (The Voter Recommendation ad we ran in 2010
Cost $1,592.32 for 8 times.)

We feel it was well worth the money.  BOB said he had worked all election day at the polls in Broad Creek.  Many, coming to vote, came to his table and took a copy of the recommendation form or showed they had their copy, they had cut from the paper, as they arrived to vote. TOM HARMON, HOWARD GARNER, and several others who had worked the polls, reported the same results.  SCOTT wanted to know ‘if we do another Voter Recommendation, at what point do we need to start having it published in the paper.  BOB said he did not know when the early voting would begin this coming election, but in 2010 we had early voting for probably two months or so.  KEN LANG, who is at the Out West TEA Party tonight, worked the Stella or Cape Carteret Precinct every day they had the early voting and he found the same thing.  We certainly want to have it ready for next year by the beginning of  September at least.  LOU KUKULINSKI asked were we thinking about having one for the primary.   BOB said there are so many running in the primary that it is hard to vet them all.  Do we discriminate with just the Federal Elections?  Hard to vet these people in person.  State Elections….Jean Preston, Pat McElraft, and folks running against them.  Problems occur with trying to coordinate between all their schedules, and finding time to pencil us in to come and answer specific questions we have.   Discussion on methods of vetting….paper questionnaires, email questionnaires, face to face interviews, etc.  Think we should wait out the primary and wait to see who is left standing when they are over with and then we will make our recommendations for the election…Republican or Democrat based on which is most conservative and meets our core values best.  If anyone has a way to vet all those various candidates in the primary, you are in charge of that committee right now!!! And give us a report by next meeting!!!
HOWARD said we need to find out who files before we can do anything.  BOB said that’s one of the problems.  The filing date is in February and the primary is in May. That’s only about nine or ten weeks. Anyone think we can get it all coordinated and get them all down here so we can vet them and then publish the meaningful data in that time frame to have an impact on informing the public.  HOWARD said most of the time you pretty much have figured out who is going to run.  BOB said yes, most of the time, but he knows of a couple of occasions (like Craig Weber) – who filed during the last hour of filing.
BOB said any way we go, we are going to have to raise some money.  He had asked us at the last meeting to put our thinking caps on so when we met tonight we could talk about the Spring Rally, which has always been a good fund raiser for us.  He said he was talking to KEN LANG and KEN recommended that maybe we should have a pig picking or something like that.  BOB said he didn’t think we could do that at the Newport Flea Market, since they sold food and would not want our competition.  HOWARD said they have let several organizations hold barbecue or chicken dinners to raise funds for various things (especially for those with large medical expenses).  FRED DECKER said maybe we could use Gracelyn Park (meant Fort Benjamin Park).  STEVE BEST said he understood it would cost $75.00 an hour.  BOB said we need to decide are we going to do a Rally, or are we going to do some kind of fund raiser like a barbecue.. (roasting a pig) for example.  SCOTT wanted to know why we couldn’t do both.  Some others agreed.  BOB said it boils down to ’parking problems’ then.  When we had our Rally there in Newport year before last, we had 700 cars and 2000 people.  He didn’t know if there was that many parking spaces at the Fort Benjamin Park.  HOWARD and TOM both said they thought there was plenty of room to park by utilizing the road sides just on the perimeter of the park.  BOB said to do both it was going to take a lot of long term planning…cooking pigs (how many needed), hush puppies, coleslaw, baked beans, etc., are we going to need some kind of County Health Permit? We need to really look into are we really able to do both.  We usually have the same crew to plan, organize, coordinate, etc.  The day of the event we have a big turn out of members, but most of them are unable or do not show up for the planning stage.  There is never a problem of shortage of people on the day of the event, setting up and such.  Another thing with serving food is the need for more tables and chairs.  He can get some from the base but not sure how many we will need.  HOWARD said several of the fund raisers serving food at the Flea Mall were mostly drive through and you didn’t need tables.  Some that he knows about have gone well.  BOB said the drive through would be a whole different thing from the Rally/Meal combo because with the Rally going on you will want people to get out of their cars and listen to the speakers as well.  Everyone think about it and decide what we can pull off and what we can’t pull off.  We won’t make a decision tonight, but be prepared to discuss it further next week.  TOM said he hadn’t had such grand ideas, maybe something like the scouts have…sandwiches along side of the road.  No Rally or anything, maybe have a big yard sale and sell sandwiches, cookies, brownies, cakes, etc.  BOB said that sounded pretty good also.  Hopefully we can come up with some good ideas and firm plans for next week and make a decision as to how we are going to raise funds.  Other locations were mentioned to hold whatever we planned.  BOB said we need to also consider when talking location about availability of electricity, especially if we go with the rally.  SCOTT said he thought we needed to stay with Highway 70 venue where there is more traffic.
Next week BOB said he would like for us to do our review of the Veteran’s Day Parade, dids, didn’ts, and should haves.  SCOTT is going to put his drill instructors hat on and walk us through our paces.
BOB said he would love to see us do something for the primary, since Frank Palombo is running against Walter B. Jones and he would like to see us provide him support.  He is going to need a lot of help.  He is here tonight to talk to us.  BOB said he told him we had already drank the Koolaid so we didn’t need the whole stump speech.   Mainly we needed to know how we could help him with his campaign.  Also sometime maybe in the spring, he, BOB would like to have a fund raiser to help Frank get some last minute advertising money prior to the primary which is around May 15.
STEVE MILLER (I think it was) said he would like to come up with a vetting plan and present it to the members at our next meeting.  He thinks it can be done with today’s electronic devices.  You get the right questionnaire, put a strong letter together that says ’here is what we did last time, all those we recommended won.  It would behoove you to pay attention to our survey and tell where you stand.’  BOB said one of the things he found out when he ran for Congress in the primary season, no one told him to expect a dump truck to back up to his house and unload all those surveys and things from all these groups that are trying to vet you.  You spend hours filling these thing out.  Some of them are like essay tests.  STEVE said it may be two weeks or so before he gets everything worked out, but he would come up with something.

He then turned the floor over to Frank.
Frank said he wanted to tell us why he came here tonight.  It is the TEA Party’s fault that he is running.  Everyone that was here the last time when he said he was thinking about running, remember?  Several said ’vaguely’.  Frank said it was because of “you all” and the reception we gave him that day, and the encouragement he received then and since, gave him the determination to move on in this process; making him realize there is so many in this district that want good representation.  They want real leadership.  He said he didn’t know about us, but for himself, he had had politicians up to here.  He just can’t take it anymore.  People have told him, you know if you run and win, you are going to be a politician.  He said ’No, I am not’.  You can send him to Washington in November and you can send him back again and again but he will never be a politician, because he is already what he is going to be.  He is a leader.  He knows it from his years of experience.  He knows it from the skills that he learned from the military and from his years with his law enforcement career, to dealing with folks like those here tonight.  And he knows this.. career politicians are people who have spent their entire life in Washington, DC or Raleigh.  They have no idea what we are going through.  None.  Because they live in a world that doesn’t even exist for us.  And our world doesn’t exist for them.  We’ve got to change that.  We have to put people up there that actually know what is happening down here and care about what is happening here.  And are willing to do something about it.  And not worry about being there year after year getting  re-elected and re-elected.  He is only going there to do a job and then come home.  His wife has already imposed term limits on him, so we don’t need a Constitutional Amendment as far as he is concerned.  She has already told him how many terms he is allowed.  So that is that – the Supreme Court has ruled.  Understand when he says ‘It is your fault’, and when he wins and goes to Washington, ‘You all can blame yourself or take the credit, whichever you prefer’. ’If I don’t do a good job, then kick me out’.  ‘Make that, tell me first so I can fix it and then if you’re not happy, kick me out. Impose your own term limits.’ He said BOB had told him he should tell us what he needs.  It is so obvious what he needs,  ‘I need your help, and a couple of things from you.  I need you to not be afraid to talk to 10 of your friends, each one of you, and tell them about Frank Palombo and about this campaign and about how important it is to change the leadership in Washington, DC, who will make a positive impact and make things happen with real change to all the things we know are a real problem.  So I need you to talk to 10 of your friends, get them to go to our web site “palomboforcongress.com”.  Take a look at it and see what is on there.  Look at the position on different issues.  Look at the buttons that say volunteer and contribute.   If you want to help, click volunteer.  There are lots of things you can do.  Find sign locations for us – have a little fund raiser at your house – a little meet and greet type.  I’m not talking about 100 people, maybe 10 to 20 of your friends.  Bring them over and tell them to bring their check book.  If you like what you hear from Frank, then leave a check for him.  So talk to 10 of your friends and get them to talk to 10 of their friends.  Oh, and please write a check for us.  Doesn’t have to be a $100 check, or a $500 check, please let it be whatever you can afford and get your friends to do the same  thing.  If you get 10 and they get 10 and they get 10, we are talking some serious financial help for us.  And keep our message going.   We do not want to wind up broke at the end of the campaign.  So we are pushing hard for this.  If anyone here wants to have a little fund raiser at your house, let us know.  Brian will take your name and we will get our fund raising director to come and talk with you.  The two things we need most is your hard work, which I know you are capable of, and your resources, your finances.  We need your help.  I know times are tough, I know they are.  I’ve talk to a lot of people who got hit by the hurricane, besides the down economic times we are in, but if we are going to make it better you got to invest in good government.  You gotta invest in making a change up there in Washington, DC.  So, help me if you can…  palomboforcongress.com
Check it out as soon as you can.  Click on one of those two buttons.  Send me 10 bucks or whatever you can afford.  You have heard of 999, Cain’s plan; well, our plan is 10,10,10; one better than the Cain plan.  It is 10 of you, getting 10 of your friends, and all of you contribute $10 a piece.  That is the plan.  Thank you all very much for getting me into this, I think!   You all are great and I appreciate what you do.  Thanks for your time tonight and this guy here (BOB) – he works hard as any 10 guys I know, which fits into my 10,10,10 plan.’
BOB said he could iterate how important financing is to a campaign.  Them little stupid yard signs, like you stick in your front yard with the wire hoop, they are about $4.00 a piece.  When you are trying to blanket 22 counties, trying to use a 1000 signs even here in Carteret County they would be so stretched out you would hardly see one here or there.  So it runs into money real fast.  Just look at our advertising in the local paper for the Voter Registration data – 8 times was almost $1600.  These guys running for office, they have to get their message out and keep it out.  You can’t just run an ad one time and assume everybody in the County read the paper that day.
Frank asked if he could do a “Did you know kind of thing?”  We talk about my capabilities as a candidate and that is really important when we talk about my background and history and all that.  But one of the things we talk about too is a ‘did you know’.  When we talk about Walter Jones’ voting record – and we talk about did you know about this and that, sometimes even people who strongly support Walter didn’t know because they didn’t follow and the latest did you know is (and you have to hear this because I don’t think you are going to believe it).  Any of you heard of the Veterans Opportunity to Work Act?  It was passed by the House 418 to 6 – (6 no votes). A bi-partisan bill.  Went through the Senate, zinged right through and is going to be signed by the President.  No problem.  Know who voted against that bill?  Walter B. Jones.  This is strong on the military – there’s over a million GI’s out of work right now and this bill will do a lot to help those people get work and this is one of those did you knows.  The reason Jones voted against it is there is a provision in the bill that was supposed to reduce fees on home loans, (filing fees, and some other fees),  It wasn’t going to increase them – it was supposed to reduce them and because of the budget and because of financing, that fee stayed the same, it didn’t go up, it stayed the same.  His thought process was ’because that fee did not go down, he voted against the whole bill’.  That bill is going to put people back to work.  We can not worry about the minutia of some of these things.  This is ridiculous and I just wanted to give you another did you know.  Thanks.
JERE GEURIN wanted to know if anyone knew where Jones stood on the HR2 (Right to Carry Act – Concealed Weapon across state lines).  He said he emailed Jones today but had not heard back yet.  TOM HARMON asked ‘didn’t they vote on that today?’  JERE said it was on the floor, but he had not heard anything yet.

BOB asked if everyone had seen the latest edition of Crystal Magazine.  Maybe the guys hadn’t since it was a sexist magazine ‘for women only’.  Several comments were made jokingly.  Anyway HOWARD and PEGGY’s granddaughter (actually great granddaughter) Catie, is featured in an article.  He asked PEGGY to tell the group about why Catie has been honored by the magazine.
PEGGY said “CATIE McCABE” started out with us when we started with the TEA Party.  She pretty much grew up with the TEA Party.  She is now 16, has her drivers license, so you all don’t see her anymore.  As long as she was riding with us, she was here.  She started going to a Church here in Morehead and she went to a session in Atlanta where she got interested in ‘human trafficking/slavery’.  It sort of touched her and got her to really thinking about it so she started doing a lot of research on her own about the subject, (magazines, internet, etc) and really got involved in the subject. The lady at the Church has encouraged her a lot.  What she has found out is- they take these young girls and young women also, and turn them into prostitutes and that is all they know.  They are normally in small homes with usually no more than two girls, not big brothels like we usually think of, and keep them captive.  BOB asked if they were girls brought into this country, runaways, or what?  PEGGY said she imagined it would be anyone they could control.  Recently, a woman who was from the mountain area in North Carolina was enticed to come to this area, with the promise of a good paying job, cleaning homes, who was locked up in a trailer/home and used  to make her captors money.  So it is not just illegal girls who have come to the US, it is anybody they can control.  If they are found by the authorities, they are usually placed into foster type homes where as soon as they can get away, they go right back to the pimps who had had control over them; since that is all they know.  They have been brainwashed.  So, CATIE and some others are in the process of trying to raise enough funds to build a home where these girls can learn a trade and find out there is more to life than what they had known, make them feel good about themselves, so they can turn their lives around and become good productive citizens of the community.  CATIE has been named ‘State Coordinator’ for the project.  We are very proud of her and we thank the TEA Party for starting her off on the right track, because you are the ones that gave her her start.  I don’t believe she would have ever come this far without your encouragement.  Something you all do not know is – when she was born she was born with club feet and a speech impediment.  You could turn her feet from facing forward all the way around to facing backwards.  A doctor put her in casts and we were supposed to leave them on for three months.  We finally got her into the Shrine Hospital in South Carolina.  When they removed the casts, gangrene was just before setting in.  If we had not gotten her to that specialist when we did, the probability of her losing both legs was a very strong possibility.  They scrubbed her legs almost down to the bone and told her mother to not put anything on them and keep a close eye on her.  (CATIE’s mom is a Nurse Practitioner.)  As soon as we could we got her into dance lessons, which according to the doctors, was the best thing we could have done, since it strengthened her legs.  I’m sure not one of you here ever noticed anything different with the way she walks.  Right?  And the speech impediment was helped with a speech therapist.  They did a wonderful job – you all have heard her speak at almost every rally we have held.  Didn’t know she ever had a problem, did you?  We are so proud of her.  BOB said ’you should be, we are all very proud of her’.  We feel she belongs to us also.
BOB, speaking of leg problems, asked TOM HARMON  how his wife was doing.  TOM said she was on the mend.

BOB said he guessed we all have heard the news interview with Herman Cain, where he was asked if he thought President Obama had done a good job handling the war
in Libya.  Herman said he didn‘t think he handled it very well, and then he said ‘well wait a minute, let me back up there…rolled his eyes and said he had all this stuff jumbled in his head here…then a long pause, and BOB said he was thinking ‘holy geez‘..  He said Herman was a hell of a nice guy but it is now definite that he is not ready for prime time.  The problem is he is probably trying to remember all the practice and rehearsing of data and rehearsed answers rather than actually listening to the questions.  SUSAN RYNAS said no she thought he was listening to the questions, but just didn’t know the answers.  TOM said ’like Perry, he froze’.  BOB said yeah, it made Perry look intelligent.  It was really a soft ball question.  There was no real reason to screw it up.  BOB feels that put the final nail in the coffin for Cain, what with all the bad publicity (true or false) about the sexual harassment.  The media is going to show that clip over and over.  Everyone seemed to think Cain can not bounce back from this latest faux pas.  BOB said he is now back in the Newt Gingrich camp.  He had said from day one that Newt was the smartest one up there but carried a lot of baggage that the media would expound on as he moved up in the polls.  LOU said he had never left Newt’s camp.  BOB said he was curious who Newt would pick for his running mate… Rick Santorium or Michelle Bachman.  LOU said he would prefer Mark Rubio.  It didn’t have to be one of those running now.  BOB said Bachman had already been tainted badly by the press, so he thought Rick would be the next logical choice.  Several comments were made about the subject of who would be the best candidate.  There are three primary states you have to think about.  Ohio, Penn. And Florida.  From what he could find out, Obama had already lost Florida.  Ohio is going to be a toss up.  If someone gets the nod and puts Santorium (from Penn) in as VP, that could made the difference in carrying the state of Penn.  BOB said he had not thought about it from that angle, but that was a good point.  BOB said up north they do things differently.  They break a big city down into blocks and put someone in charge that knows everyone.  They meet with everyone regularly, give a lot of them like team captain jobs, etc,  and they know how everyone is leaning. They keep everyone in that block involved and on election day they knock on everyone‘s doors and, they will even carry them to the polls, just to make sure they vote. You don’t see that in the south.  Precincts up there are pretty small, not compared to the size of the counties here in the south.  For example Carteret County is like 75 miles across.  FRED said he knew a little about this precinct business, he had about 1400 Republicans in his.  BOB asked where he was hiding them.  LOU said that is because you try harder FRED.  FRED said he had been working on it since 1984.  He said he had told them they needed term limits on Precinct Chairmen.  BOB asked how many of them were dead and still voting.  LOU said you don’t want to go there.

BOB said he was really surprised that David Horton lost his bid for mayor of Morehead City.  He thought that the sulfur problem would work as a sure thing for him.  He wanted to know how the voter turnout was.  He was told it was very small.  BOB couldn’t believe it, as riled up as so many people were over that deal at the port.  HOWARD said Jerry Jones’ ad in the last paper before the election was kind of hard hitting and in his opinion there were some untruths in it.  But apparently people believed it.  BOB said Jones and Horton had been going back and forth for weeks with a newspaper war there.  He really thought in the final run the people would remember the sulfur smell and vote Jerry Jones out.  HOWARD said Jones claimed in the ad that if David  got elected, he, David, was going to resign, get Ballou installed as mayor and David take the job of Town Manager.  There were several things in the ad that he thought were down right untruthful.  NANCY BOCK said she understood David only lost by 80 votes.

BOB said while he was thinking about it, Frank Palombo was going to need a phone committee later on to make calls reminding people to get out and vote for Frank.  Frank told FRED he was going to need all 1400 of his people.

BOB asked STEVE how his movie thing went this past week.  STEVE said he was going to have a matinee this Saturday for young kids or even anyone young at heart.  It was going to be an animated movie ‘The Miracle Maker’.  PEGGY said she had heard that ‘Atlas Shrug’ was now out on DVD and she was thinking about buying it and wondered if everyone would go to STEVE’s to watch it; that is if STEVE would agree to show it.  He said he would.  NANCY said if you have not read the book, you need to.  The movie is nothing compared to the book.

BOB told us that on December 6, at our regular 6:00 pm Tuesday meeting, that Dr. Mark Creech, Executive Director of the Christian Action League of NC will be our guest speaker.  He also will be hosting a luncheon at the Golden Corral at noon that day for pastors and also will be available to meet with individuals from 2pm to 5pm.   This is a valuable opportunity to learn more about the work of the Christian Action League, receive a Legislative Update, and discuss the Marriage Amendment scheduled to be on the ballot May 2012.  RUTH PARKER wanted to know if we could get Lockwood to announce that on the radio.  BOB said yes.  That was another thing he had been thinking about – if we decided to do a pig pickin fund raiser, maybe have Lockwood do a live broadcast from there and interview people coming in.  All thought that was a good idea.
BOB said that would be a good way to get free advertising by getting Lockwood to push it for us.

BOB asked JOHN LARSON what he thought of our meeting tonight.  He said he had come to see what we were doing but he still was not quite sure exactly what we stand for.  He had not heard anyone say tonight.  He was going to go to the web site and see what else he could find out.  BOB said ‘before you go to the website, what do you think the TEA Party stands for?’  JOHN said ‘Smaller government’, ‘cutting spending so you do not have a debit’, ‘a balanced budget’, ‘more representation that represents the people’, than the ones that are in office now.  BOB said this whole primary process, you have seen a lot of people rise to the top only to get knocked down.  A primary is like a big boiling cauldron where everybody gets tested by fire.  Some can not take the heat and they get burned up.  Herman got chewed up, Michele Bachman (forgot what her early flubs were but she had John Wayne Gacey (the serial killer) and John Wayne the movie actor mixed up.  RUTH said she wished Elvis Presley a Happy Birthday on the anniversary of his death, which was an unpardonable sin.  Someone said he had been looking on the website for a national TEA Party association.  Are we like a subcomponent of it?  BOB said ‘good question’.  There are several umbrella groups that call themselves TEA Party.  You’ve got the TEA Party Express that has the bus going all around and Dick Army is the Chairman of that group.  They are more of a top down organization.  They have someone in charge that sends out the word to all the other ones.  Then we have the TEA Party.Net, another group.  We belong to a group called the TEA Party Patriots.  It is the largest TEA Party group in the country.  Right now there is about 3500 parties around the country organized under the TEA Party Patriot umbrella.  You can go to their web site (teapartypatriots.org) and it will have a link at the top that says groups, click on that and all the states will drop down and then you can go down and click on North Carolina and all the North Carolina groups will drop down and you will find us there.  If you click on our name it will go to our dedicated web page which we have never used because we have our own web site.  The TEA Party Patriots is an upward organization.  We do not have any leaders at the top.  BOB is a local coordinator.  The state coordinator is Russ Finchum and then we have national coordinators.  These are essentially the eleven people that first started the TEA Party Patriots the day after Rick Santori had his rant on wall street.  Every Monday night we have a call-in web-a-nar for all the local coordinators to call in and they get a legislative update.  They have different members that are tracking what is going through the House and Senate.  Someone else is tracking other things coming down the pike.  They have guest speakers that speak on different things like the Marriage Amendment, Immigration and things like that but one of the things he wanted to emphasize is the TEA Party Patriots have the three core elements; one is fiscal responsibility in the government.  (we understand that we have to pay taxes to the government, but we want the money spent in a fiscally responsible manner.  Don’t waste it.  He just heard today that in Obama’s stimulus package, something like 700 million dollars went to some university to create a computer software program with this intelligent machine that makes its own jokes.  It is a joke machine. (how apropos)).  The second tenant is limited Constitutionally endowed government.  (The Constitution sets up the framework of how we are supposed to be governed.  There is nothing in there about the Supreme Court legislating – they interpret the law, they do not make the law.  All these different agencies creating and over interpreting the law and Congress not doing anything about it.  This also goes into the government overreaching their Constitutional authority.   Health Care Mandate is one example)  The third tenant is promotion of  Free Market Capitalism.  (This is keeping government regulations of our free enterprise system to a minimum.  It is true we have to have some regulations, otherwise we would have 10 year olds still working on assembly lines and a lot of needless deaths because of worker accidents but OSHA has gone over and beyond; as has the EPA gone over and above their intent.  We are a free market capitalistic system and it works best with the least amount of government involvement.)  Those are the three things the TEA Party is based on.  We are not an anti-Mexican group; nor an anti-Gay group; nor an Islamic J’Had group nor an anti-abortion group.  We are a conservative group and most of those things are handled through meeting discussions, with some defending one side and some the other; but they are not what we truly get really involved with.  It is just a forum where we can actively vent what we feel or think on the issues.  Those are the things that will divide us; whereas the three core principles we can all unite around, and they will keep us together.  You are certainly free to bring up any issues that might be on your mind  when he, BOB asks if anyone has anything they wish to bring up from the floor.

Anyway, we meet every week and it has become sort of like a social event for most of us, giving us a reason to get out of the house (and not have to cook that night for some), have a little camaraderie and share an evening with like minds.  LOU – peace, justice and the American way.

TOM brought in a couple of signs and fans “Don’t Believe the Liberal Media”. web site StopTheBias.org.  We got them free of charge and they only ask if we use them maybe at a rally, or something similar,  to please take pictures for their website and promote the organization.  Now is the time to go around and find those campaign signs and “recycle” the wires.  FRED said he had a bunch.  TOM said he would need about 35 or 36.  He had gotten 10 of the big signs and 25 of the small ones.

Don’t forget Dr. Creech will be our guest on the 6th of December.  Everyone please try to attend.

Meeting adjourned at approximately 7:30 pm
Minutes submitted by PEGGY GARNER, Secretary.