Rick started us off by observing that in his 1971 book, Rules for Radicals, Saul Alensky (sp?) coached the left to make a small number of people seem like more by raising a din.  He went on to say that William Barbour (Moral Monday) and Bob Hall (Democracy North Carolina) had used that tactic in NC, and pointed to recent events when the left stacked the responses to a Board of Elections hearing, and that led to new rules which Rick believes will have the effect of discouraging citizens from calling out cases of voting impropriety that they observe.  Rick believes we (conservatives) need to get better at influencing such things.

We talked about Grass Roots North Carolina’s planning a demonstration in Raleigh (which we observed would be over by the time the program airs) to call out RINOs in the NC Senate for sitting on HB-746, the Omnibus Gun Changes bill which would remove some of the infringements on our 2nd Amendment rights and whose primary sponsors are Chris Millis, Larry Pittman, Michael Speciale, and Justin Burr.  We talked about the committee the bill is stuck in, who the chairman is, and how to use the General Assembly website to send email (or get phone numbers to make phone calls) to ask the chairman and committee members to report the bill out for a full senate vote.  (Timing should be great for doing that.)

We talked about how Article 1, Sections 9 and 10 of the U.S. Constitution forbid the federal government and state governments from issuing titles of nobility and how modern day politicians use the title that comes with their office as if it were a title of nobility for the purpose of making themselves seem superior to the citizens they should be serving.  A couple of examples were given.  One was national.  The other was an action by the mayor of an eastern NC town.

We got into the Raise Act and discussed the various ways passage of it would affect the issuance of future green cards and what that would do to future legal immigration.  We talked about a now deceased CCTA member who was the first member of her family to be born here (her parents were from Ireland), and how passionate she was about stopping chain migration, and how pleased we though she’d be if the Raise Act is passed.

Finally, we just started on the 17th Amendment and what it is, plus the fact that Mike Huckabee has tweeted an appeal to repeal the 17th Amendment, and what Alan West has said on the subject recently.  We ran out of time at that point, so next week we’ll discuss our views on the 17th Amendment and the reasons for them – among a bunch of other things, I can just bet!

We touched on the fact that we’re still stuck with ObamaCare so far in spite of all the promises made during campaigns. 

We discussed the 3 town hall meetings held by NC House member, Michael Speciale (one in each county he represents – Pamlico, Beaufort, and Craven). 

Hal talked about CCTA’s efforts to cross-pollinate and work with people in many coastal counties (plus a few inland counties where we have friends), and how boards of commissioners seem to do the same kinds of bad things in every county, and what kinds of questions need to be asked and answered to evaluate a county’s financial situation and it’s reasonableness, or lack thereof.

We moved on to people’s being fed up with things going the way they are and being serious about wanting the swamp drained.

Then Rick moved us into what CCTA does, and watchdog activities, candidate vetting, legislative action, self education and 5,000 Year Leap classes and willingness to help start them in any nearby area, plus public meetings with speakers were discussed.

We briefly discussed Amendment VI to the U.S. Constitution.

Then we talked about our August 15 speaker, Simon Roche.  Simon is from South Africa and is currently touring the U.S.  He’ll tell us about what has happened there since apartheid ended, and draw parallels with things that are happening here.  I expect it’ll open some eyes.

5th Amendment

2nd Amendment discussion.