#ncgop: A split decision on the ‘Haywood Five’
NCGOPe types were smelling blood this morning as they convened a “disloyalty” tribunal in Raleigh against five conservative activists from Haywood County: Eddie Cabe, Paul Yeager, Richard West, Jeremy Davis, and Monroe Miller.
I spoke with a number of sources in the room for the hours-long drama. Chairman Robin Hayes ranted about “leaks” to THIS site. Several officials not so subtly threatened the assembled with lawsuits if info from the day’s proceedings leaked out.
As the proceedings got underway, party attorney Tom Stark was actually advising putting off the tribunal and seeking some kind of mediation between the party and the Haywood Five — to try and settle things peacefully and maintain some comity among party leaders and activists.
Sources who were in the room tell me this move was likely inspired by two things: (1) blowback from party activists about how the matter had been handled up to that point, and (2) discovery of new evidence that made the accusations of disloyalty look a lot less severe than initially described by Haywood County and 11th district GOPe types.
Surprisingly, the suggestion by Stark to suspend the tribunal and move for mediation got slapped down. 
Sources in the room tell me the tribunal proceeded along the same lines as the meeting that led to Hasan Harnett’s ouster from the chairmanship — very little due process or debate and highly unusual flexibility on the rules (in party leadership’s favor, of course).
When all was said and done, and the smoke cleared, here is what we learned:
- Paul Yeager, who had been a passionate defender of Harnett during the coup, was found NOT GUILTY. (He and Davis were the only two of the five to attend the tribunal.)
- The vote on Jeremy Davis was a close one, but still resulted in a conviction. He is barred from holding a party office for “two to three years.”
- The three others — Miller, West, and Cabe — were convicted in absentia. They are barred from holding any party offices for five years.
My sources all had a similar observation: The NCGOP is caught in the clutches of a clique that has held power for decades, is not interested in ideology or sharing, and will do anything to ensure they and their fellow clique members maintain power.
#ConservativeBeforeRepublican they can feel free to kick me out also
what a sad day to be a Republican in this state
Thanks for reporting on this. I quit the party in 2010 because of the elitist BS they often pulled at HQ.
Goals for Tea Party Conservatives:
1) Oust the RINOS from the Central Committee in 2019
2) Replace Hayes with Jim Womack in 2019
3) Replace Tillis in the 2020 Primary
4) Elect Dan Forest or Mark Meadows as Gov.
5) Pick ourselves up after today’s defeat and gear up for goals 1-4
It should never have come to this.
Effective leadership at the district and or state level could have intervened to seek a resolution before it went to the Executive Committee.
Efforts by Hayes, Stark, and Woodhouse to negotiate a solution without trying the case before the Executive Committee were sadly too little and way too late.
Come on in the growing “unaffiliated” movement, the waters fine. It is thru such independent actions that conservative opposition to the likes of our current congressional and senatorial office holders will be identified. Remaining in the GOPe establishment and playing parlor games under somebody’s rules just won’t get it.
Your “movement” is useless unless you develop a mechanism to recruit and support conservative candidates. Are you doing that? Will we see some conservative Unaffiliated candidates filed with good support structures against some of the most obnoxious RINOs who act more like Democrats in 2018? Or will the conservatives Unaffiliateds be Missing in Action again in 2018 like they have been in previous elections?
Party warriors seem to have slayed all that stand in the way of Conservatism, now its a purge.
Will this push for purity result in a state wide resolution to close primaries?
I have a feeling windmills are less threatening.
Closing the primaries would be a solution that would only help everyone there is no downside to taking that action
Closing the primaries would make a lot of sense, especially after the runoff threshold was dropped with almost no notice to 30% (it really ought to be raised back to a simple majority as it was for decades). It also should end this sirens song of people trying to urge conservatives to register Unaffiliated, which is nothing but a dead end and plays right into the hands of the establishment.
So, if Republican office holders govern as big government Democrats working against the Republican Party Platform, that’s alright. But, if Republican activists point out the treachery and oppose it, that’s not alright.
Have I missed something here?
So, Senators Tillis and Burr are next on the NC GOP chopping block, right?
Because these two vote as though they’ve never even read the NC GOP platform.
Also, because fairness.
I propose we trade thoose two to Alabama for Roy Moore just not take-backs once the deal is done
Swap a proven conservative for two wormy RINOs? I’m with you on that trade.
But, we can bet a Cadillac to a mule collard Alabama’s too smart to bite on it. (They’ve probably read “Art of the Deal.”)
if we add Grandpa to the deal they are sure to take it
Some observations about what has just occurred:
1. This months long drive against conservative activists in Haywood County was essentially driven by a local clique and by two people at the state level – Woodhouse and Stark, both of whom have an outsized opinion of their own importance. The latter two may have started to comprehend the monster they have created in the final stages. Both Woodhouse and Stark have used their offices on matters generally to assert far more power within the party than previous holders of those positions or that the Plan of Organization intends, which is not healthy.
2. Much of the motivation has been factional. Stark and Woodhouse were promoting a local faction that backed their state faction and helping try to punish their enemies. The big question now is whether this will extend beyond Haywood County.
3. The main “Republican” the Haywood Five were accused of not supporting was a liberal county commissioner who had previously unanimously been censured by the Haywood GOP executive committee for going against the GOP Platform. If your party has publicly censured someone, are you still required to support him? That makes no sense whatsoever and would make the party look like a laughingstock to voters. If your purpose was to make an example of truly disloyal Republicans, then the NeverTrump crowd statewide would be a much better target, yet there has been no suggestion of throwing them out of the party for disloyalty. All of the Haywood 5 were solid Trump supporters but there are indications that at least one of the Haywood clique that Woodhouse backs is a NeverTrumper.
4. The party is now a totally top-down apparatus and the ”top” is a party bureaucrat, Dallas Woodhouse, This depressing state of affairs is due partly to having an old and tired state chairman who is content to be a figurehead and turn the real power over to the hired help, and to a group of insecure Central Committee members who think their own position is secured by backing up Woodhouse. It is also a result of a much less assertive Executive Committee that has too many “sheeple” who are content with being led from someone higher up and unwilling to think for themselves. Maybe too many of the activists of old have just gotten tired or disgusted and let a more complacent crowd succeed them, or maybe this is generated by “slating” these positions in some districts instead of free elections.
5. Conservatives need to beware of the “velvet manipulator” Billy Miller who is very effective in presenting a false image of being objective and fair while manipulating meetings in favor of the powers that be. We saw that at the 2016 state convention when Miller was instrumental in facilitating the stall ball of the establishment so they could change election procedure to a process that allowed them to steal the National Committeewoman’s race. This meeting, Miller made certain to keep the jihad against the Haywood 5 on track in spite of some disturbing flaws in procedure, so that his masters would not be disappointed in the result. From the back of the room, it was very clear that Miller was deliberately steering the debate by the pattern of who he recognized and who he ignored as speakers. Any time the establishment trots out Miller, conservatives need to watch their backs.
6. The Woodhouse mafia recommended a punishment for most of the Haywood 5 that was equal to that meted out to Richard Morgan, the only other person ever found disloyal under this provision. Considering the massive statewide damage Morgan did to the party, this is entirely disproportionate, but this is what Stark recommended and no debate was allowed to occur at all on this aspect. Of course, if debate had been allowed, it is likely Billy Miller would have selectively called on those who would steer the discussion the way the powers that be wanted.
7. When General Hal James brought his petition against David Lewis in front of the executive committee, Stark, who was Acting General Counsel at that meeting supported calling on General James to present the charges, but this time he asserted that it was himself as General Counsel who should do so, instead of those presenting the petition. Why the change? Was it that different factions were behind the two presentations?
8. Given the extremely deficient notice to the Haywood 5 of the substance of the charges, it is amazing that any of them showed up. That alone was a stark warning that a fair trial was unlikely.
9. This is not the way to settle disputes in the party or to try to unite it. It is instead a strategy to hollow out the party, which presumably some at the “top” must have intended. It is also not a way to calm the waters in the local area, and, in fact, what was done, probably just inflamed them more.
10. Very few legislators showed up at this meeting. It would appear that they were trying to get as far away from this fight as possible, which is sensible.
As a lifelong NC Democrat, who switched to Republican almost 3 years ago to campaign for Dr. Ben Carson (I want people of integrity above all in gov.), I am very dismayed to see such as this going on in the NCGOP. I will think seriously before making any financial contributions.
Here’s what I had hoped the NC legislature (led by GOP majority) would do – enact a “Liberty Preservation Act”. (I’ve emailed all previous NC legislators with this proposal and made 2 trips to talk personally to many of them.) As one who has personally dealt with same-sex attraction, but saved by God’s grace, I spoke both times at Charlotte City Council against a revised “non-discrimination” ordinance to add sexual orientation, gender identity (SOGI), etc. protections and was grateful when the legislature passed HB2. I am deeply troubled that the legislature is not taking Gov. Cooper to court for “legislating” via executive order to overturn the agreement last spring. I believe my proposed Liberty Preservation Act would constitutionally stop all this power playing and insanity.
Here’s what a “Liberty Preservation” should clarify:
Unlike Liberty, discrimination is NOT a constitutional principle and, therefore, all “discrimination” legislation must address it within the framework of Liberty. Liberty is, in fact, our constitutional right as individuals (persons and entities such as a business) TO discriminate, to make personal decisions irrespective of whether others like it or not.
EXAMPLE: If I walk into a restaurant, the owner/staff looks at me and says “Sorry, we don’t serve old guys here.”, that is a rightful expression of “Individual” Liberty. As long as I can readily be served at another restaurant, I am not being denied my Liberty. But for government to compel service by the restaurant or punish a refusal IS denying the owner their Individual Liberty.
Our founders declared that Liberty was among certain unalienable (God-given, not government-given) rights; hence, government may not deny Liberty. And “We, the People … in order to … secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Ergo, government’s first duty is to protect “Liberty for all”, not protect a specified group from other people’s decisions they don’t like by denying Individual Liberty to all others. Government prohibiting “individual” discrimination is unconstitutional.
“Societal” discrimination is the only form that justifies government action, because only “societal” (widespread, pervasive, gov.-sanctioned) discrimination denies “individual” Liberty. That was true for Black People before the 1964 Civil Rights Law justly gave them the Individual Liberty they had been denied via Jim Crow/segregation laws. They could not choose which water fountain, restaurant, school, etc. to use.
Therefore, before government can address claims of “discrimination”, there must be demonstrable evidence of “societal”, not “individual”, discrimination.
This means any present “non-discrimination” categories that do not demonstrate “societal” discrimination, must be repealed.
Please add your voice to mine in asking NC legislators to enact a “Liberty Preservation Act” as I have described.
Our legislators are going to have to work hard to get Christian conservatives motivated to turn out and vote in 2018 after what they did on repealing HB2 and enabling local governments to pass ordinances to discriminate against Christians beginning in 2020. I hope they are aware of the severity of this problem, as I would hate to see the GOP legislature shooting themselves in the foot on religious liberty cause Christians to stay home and give the Democrats back the legislature.
It is heartbreaking what has happened to the State GOP. I left the party after the Hassan debacle & was hopeful that Mr. Womak would be victorious in Wilmington so I could return. Sadly, not the case, and while I give great credit to those still in the fight, I’m afraid the establishment will continue to reign in our state….Hayes, Woodhouse, Burr, Tillis……. not a true Republican in this pathetic bunch.
May I suggest that you and certain others in this thread may find fulfillment by turning your energies towards helping the Constitution Party get ballot access? The General Assembly just made it easier than ever, now third parties only need 10-11 thousand supporters to make that happen.
I think the current way of the Elites at the NCGOP will prove highly effective in motivating a younger generation of Republicans to be involved at a state and local level. Just keep the state party out of it. Those charades were a complete waste of time and money.
Disregard-*highly ineffective
I agree with Toxhandler. Social conservatives and constitutional conservatives have an excellent option– the Constitution Party. We only need 12,000 valid signatures to get on the ballot. The Republicans will never allow the views of true conservatives to get a fair hearing and rise to the surface. It is now a progressive party, whether we like it or not.
I was involved in the movement to get the Constitution Party on the ballot in the 08 elections. The established leadership in both major parties squashed it like a cockroach! Neither sides established leadership wants a true constitutional conservative to hold office anywhere!
Hey look!
We put a big hole in their end of of the boat!
Hooray!
Their end of the boat is sinking!
Really??
2018 is coming,
Stark has always been controlled by Ms Bunn….
I read he he also won Hall of Fame last weekend thus proving Hall of Fame does not stand for anything good and is just a fundraising sham at least in my perspective maybe others will agree
Hall of Fame? This dude has only just come on the scene in the last few years. They are making Hall of Fame a joke if that is true.
well I saw in a list that someone listed of the winners on FascistBook but I could have read wrong but someone else reading this should be able to chime in and confirm
Tom Stark was induced into Hall of Fame Saturday night, 11/11/17. He was selected over four other candidates from the Fourth Congressional District: Henry Clay Taylor (Wake), Carlos Vidales (Wake). Donna Williams (Wake), and Evelyn Poole-Kober (Orange).
Tom Stark was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Seriously?! They picked that guy over someone like Donna Williams who has been in the trenches for years at every level for the Wake County and NC GOPs?
Lets look at the big picture folks. 2020 is coming. We have a solid conservative who is the frontrunner for governor, Dan Forest, and he will almost certainly suggest a solid conservative for state party chairman. 2020 also brings one of our liberal Senators, Tillis up for a primary, and hopefully Mark Meadows will step up to take that nomination. We may also need to defend President Trump in the primaries against some establishment hanky panky. How is it going to help these guys to put a third party on the ballot? That is almost like cutting off our noses to spite our face.
And is a Constitution Party candidate going to have a chance in any legislative races? They would have even less chance than a well supported conservative Unaffiliated, who might get some Democrat votes if running in a solid conservative district where no Democrat has filed.
North Carolina also does not have the cross endorsement policies of states like New York, where a candidate can run on more than one party line and the votes are totalled. That allows the NY Conservative Party to tell the GOP that they are going to run a Conservative candidate in a district no matter what the GOP does and the GOP would have a better chance to win if they made the same person their candidate as well. When the GOP would not play ball, the Conservative Party ran its own candidates. In 1970, the NY Conservative Party even won the US Senate race in a three way contest, electing Jim Buckley over liberal GOP incumbent Charles Goodell. Unless NC election law allowed what NY election law does, a third party is simply not a practical way to go.
The Unaffiliated option is also not practical as their is no recruitment and support mechanism for Unaffiliated candidates.
Our best play as conservatives is to endure what we have to right now in order to be in the best position in 2020 to support Dan Forest, Donald Trump, and (hopefully) Mark Meadows. There are some serious problems in the NCGOP, but the big picture is that we need to elect our conservatives in 2020 and staying engaged in the GOP is the best way forward to accomplish that. We need to look for opportunities in the party to move the ball forward in the meantime. We really need to get a handle on as much of the party machinery as possible in the 2019 set of conventions..
You guys have got that first graphic wrong because it does not reflect who really runs the NCGOP these days. It should say “You will obey the Outhouse”.
Since the holiday is approaching this seems even more fitting https://youtu.be/4fyS5CLBgyM
Can you imagine the field day conservatives can have with Tillis, Burr, or both if they follow the lead of Jeff Flake and Mitch McConnell and attack Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore? We will need a county or district to bring party disloyalty charges.
Putting our US Senate majority in peril is a lot bigger deal than an allegation of not supporting a county commission candidate in Haywood County.
They’ve already done it.
http://www.greensboro.com/news/government/elections/tillis-burr-call-on-moore-to-withdraw-from-alabama-senate/article_3397b33b-302a-55c5-8932-2bda4fd69d9f.html
F rated republicans have no moral authority to judge anyone else
this is still true
Roy Moore > (Tillis + Burr)
If Grampa finds out what you posted, here, he’ll elitesplain why he’s calling a special Christmas Eve session to read you out of the GOP.
And, since I completely agree that Roy Moore IS > Thilli$$$$ + Burr, Grampa and his Board of Harassocrats can read me out at the same time. Go ahead. Make it a two-fer, because I’m fed up with being lectured by morons.
Dickie and Thommy need to be concerned with North Carolina and stay out of Alabama’s business.
What Triicky Dick Burr ;and Amnesty Man Tillis have done is a far more blatant case of party disloyalty than that against the Haywood Five. They spoke to the real media, not the more private internet group of Facebook, and they did it with the intent to help the rest of the DC swamp swing a key US Senate race against the Republican nominee, putting the GOP US Senate majority in jeopardy.
The DC swamp’s animosity toward Roy Moore goes very much beyond the recent Democrat smears. It is part of McConnell’s “crush them everywhere” strategy against conservatives and why McConnell dumped $30 milliom into vicious attack ads against not only Moore, but also the other conservative in the primary, Congressman Mo Brooks.
We need to treat the big dogs the same way as the small fry when it comes to party disloyalty, and in fact need to do so even more because they do more damage to the party. Lets get the charges moving on Tillis and Burr.
What really showed Billy Miller to be less than a neutral chairman was his arbitrary banning of signaling methods the second day of the 2016 state convention. On the first day of the convention, the Cruz organization used colored lights, red and green, displayed on the front wall, and ping pong paddles in red and green color to signal their recommendation of yes or no votes to delegates. While Miller may not have seen the lights, he unquestionably would have seen the ping pong paddles on Friday, but did ot said nothing.
Early on Saturday, when the most important votes were to be taken, Miller arbitrarily banned the lights claiming they were lasers and banned the paddles, claiming they “could be used as weapons”! What he was really doing was banning a communications system being used by someone other than his own side. This was a wanton abuse of the chair. Saying the ping pong paddles could be used as weapons was an absolute absurdity. The chairs delegates were sitting on could have been wielded as more formidable weapons but they were not banned, as could the delegation signs. Every delegate on the floor likely had one or more ball point pens in their pockets which also made more formidable weapons than a ping pong paddle. Self defense courses teach how you can ram a ball point pen through as assailant’s eye socket and kill him. NO, this was NOT about banning weapons, it was about shutting down a communications system, and it was very, very wrong.
Since Miller did nothing on Friday about the communications system, but waited until Saturday, it is apparent he was given instructions by his handlers to do that between the Friday and Satruday sessions.
Paddlegate tells me all I need to know about Billy Miller and his “fairness”.
Another tendency of Miller is to shut down procedural points early by telling delegates to “suspend” before they get their entire point out. That puts him in a stronger position to enforce his rulings, since the opposing point never gets fully made. For a succesful challenge to a chair’s ruling on the floor, the delegates must understand both sides and Miller moves to prevent that from happening. That is also an abuse of the chair, and something Miller does all the time.
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Does repeal of 17th amendmend come to mind? Anyone?
Browny Douglas