So it was the second Monday of the month again tonight, and as I have done for every second Monday for the past three years or so, except when my father passed away, I got off work and went to the monthly Sussex County GOP meeting. Now I have often been asked by others why I go to these, what happens, and what is accomplished at these meetings?
Well any of you who have been followers of my writing for any amount of time probably knows, I go, because I am a member of the Sussex County Executive Committee (more on this later), what happens is usually not much, and what is accomplished is less than that.
So what was accomplished tonight? Not much of anything, we had the usual secretary’s report, which someone always makes a motion to waive the reading because it is meaningless, we have the treasurer’s report which is just sad, always seems to be less at the end of the month, than at the beginning. One point of interest was that after last months dust-up over the email, sent by Chairman Rieley to County Councilman Vance Phillips, stating that the Advisory Board had voted a resolution of non-support for him in his re-election bid, an email that informed Mr. Phillips that the GOP felt he should reconsider running for re-election, and even so, the Sussex County GOP Executive Committee, the same committee that said they didn’t support Mr. Phillips campaign, had no problem at all taking his $1097.00 filing fee.
Which only further demonstrated the hypocrisy that I pointed out in my blog post here at Delaware Right last month. http://www.delawareright.com/can-vance-phillips-run/#comments
Which brings me to what tonight’s meeting was really about, me. I know how self-centered that sounds, but when you hear what happened I think you will agree.
So as always we had the usual waste of time of the formalities of reading reports that have no real use. Then we heard from Ken Curry about same day registration, which at least was relevant and timely, but twenty minutes was tiresome. Then we heard from the state vice-chair of the Delaware GOP Committee, Nelly Jordan, and while it may have been a coincidence, she talked about party unity. I recorded her speech, however the audio is garbled and I can’t understand anything she said. I will work on it, and if it becomes clearer I may share it at a later date.
Then came the real point of the meeting, at least for some. Election District Chairman (you gotta love a man with a title), and Committee Communication Director, (and he has two) Duke Brooks rose to make a motion to call the committee into executive session. Now again, anyone who has been following along lately knows that Mr. Brooks and I have had a public debate about the posting of the email. And since Mr. Brooks has a habit of finding himself between the dog and the fire hydrant quite often, he may have felt that since he couldn’t honestly debate me, that he would do the only thing he could do that he felt would harm me.
In waiting for the room to empty of the guest who are not part of the committee, Mr. Brooks became so agitated at a women who was folding up her table she had been selling flowers from, he actually snapped at her that “they didn’t have time to wait.”
Duke Brooks then rose in all his splendid glory to make a motion to remove me from my position on the committee. Imagine creepy scary movie music here for effect.
Mr. Brooks claimed that by my writing here on Delaware Right, that I had brought shame and ill-repute upon the Republican Party, as if they don’t manage that all on their own. He insisted on calling me the “accused” as he read the “charges” against me. (Some people really think way too much of themselves).
It seems as though by my posting the email, along with several other critical pieces, I had embarrassed the party, (again, when you have elected Republicans slap-boxing at GOP Headquarters, and being charged with sex crimes, not one but two, you have elected officials ranting about constitution this and constitution that causing the tax payers to pay for their personal agenda to battle law suits, can my blogging even begin to compare to the embarrassment brought on this party?), Mr. Brooks quoted the titles of those pieces, but failed to actually quote anything written within the articles.
I was then afforded a chance as the “ACCUSED” (more scary music here), to give my defense. My first question for the committee was how many people had actually read any of the articles that Mr. Brooks had listed? Only four people raised there hands, (I really need to work on expanding my readership among those advanced in years), I then pointed out that they were being asked to pass judgment on something that they had not read.
Well it seems that they had no problem with the hypocrisy of passing judgment without knowing the facts, they voted me out, 33-13.
So let me get this straight, they were angry that I exposed their backroom deal, and so they went into executive session (think backroom deal) to cast me out? Okay no irony there,. huh?
So I ask again, what did Mr. Brooks and those who voted me out accomplish? First of all voting me out will not win any elections, it will not find opponents to run against Pete Scwhartzkopf, or Matt Denn. It will have no effect on any campaign what so ever. So the answer is nothing?
As for me? What did they accomplish? Nothing? Was it intended to silence me? (Okay now imagine loud canned laughter). No, I will be at every monthly meeting on every second Monday of the month, pen in hand, or maybe some live blogging, that is unless they choose to hide behind closed doors once again and hold every meeting in executive session, but no they are the party of transparency, right?
Maybe they thought by voting me out no one would see the flaws of the party, because no one outside the party would know how irrelevant the GOP has become if I didn’t write about it. Let’s face it, they are mad as hell because they know that one among them exposed the email to me, and they don’t know who it was, so they will punish me instead. They are mad that I pulled down their pants and showed the world the skid marks in their underpants. By the way, those skid marks are TEA.
So what does this mean for me? Not much. I will get up tomorrow and go to work, I will continue to provide for my family. I will pay my exceedingly high taxes. I will write for this blog about the things I find important, I will work to help elect people who can actually accomplish something beyond sitting around talking about how important they think they are. So in answer, not much.
Although I have never met anyone (including me) who does not like Frank personally, there are limits to what an organization can take, and Frank, sadly, breached those limits on at least 6 separate occasions, which were fully documented in writing, and handed out to members during Monday’s meeting. Chairman Rieley warned Frank during the last year that his continued attacks on the Committee were intolerable. (One could point out that such internal events in the state or county Democrat committees are never publicized at any level, but, I digress.)
As Republicans, we are virtually desensitized to constant attacks from the press and outsiders, but no organization would, or should, endure relentless public assaults from its own membership. Frank attacked not only his own Representative District Chairman, Matt Opaliski, but the Committee Chair, the Advisory Board and the Committee as a whole itself. Publishing the email was, under generally accepted journalistic ethics, fair game, but publishing people’s personal email addresses and phone numbers was most certainly not. The accusations he leveled, which seemed intended to portray himself as a sagacious, lonely beacon of restraint and self-sacrifice in a squall of smoke-filled-back-room-good-old-boys, were not only shrill and wallowing in a torrent of half-truths and outright falsehoods, but reeked of the “angry young man” syndrome. If the Committee was not run exactly the way Frank thought it should be run, then it was corrupt, crooked, utterly wrongful and no-damn-good…in his jaundiced view. News flash: No one person has a monopoly on judgment, truth or ethics, which is one reason why committees are formed (“No one of us is as smart as all of us.”) and leaders are elected. To be sure, virtually every member of the polity has disputes with elements of the overall decisions made, but simple common sense (and good manners) dictates that those disputes are either kept to themselves, expressed internally or given voice when elections are held. One can reasonably presume that if a person attains a leadership role (Election District Committeeman) in an organization, that person must be in general agreement with, and interested in advancing, the overall goals of that organization. Seeking out, displaying or manufacturing dirty laundry does nothing to further the cause of that organization and, quite obviously, harms it. You don’t see the Democrats doing this sort of thing, but their little leftist minds were certainly drooling with delight every time Frank’s screed blared “Corruption! Perfidy! Back-room shenanigans!” If that isn’t giving aid and comfort to the enemy, I don’t know what is. Frank, under the rules, which were followed in Monday’s meeting, was given the opportunity to defend himself and to give direct testimony; he did both things. But he obfuscated facts and downplayed the results of his actions. When he did rise to defend, the first thing he said was “You all know that I have a big mouth.” That’s fine; many of us do. But using a megaphone to insult and harm one’s own organization is unacceptable. If Frank had used his soap box to attack liberals and Democrats with as much fervor as he attacked his own committee, he would have risen in the ranks and attained a position from which he could have effected the sort of change he appeared to advocate. My text Monday night to Steve Grossman, the publisher of this blog, (and a good, knowledgeable Republican) was “Nothing personal.” That applies to Frank, too. And, in the interest of party discipline (which is as essential to any organization as its own membership is), it should, and will, apply to those who seek to harm it from the inside. Frank will doubtless continue to assail the Sussex Republican Party; the rules call for meetings to be open to registered Republicans (but not the general public) and Frank’s parting words were, “I’ll see you next month.” Now, he will take on the aura of a disgruntled outsider, which is the way he acted all along. Chairman Rieley publicly thanked Frank for his service as an E.D.C. after my motion was carried in a landslide.
Presentment of a unified front to the public is a basic skill the Democrats, and their allies in the media and academe, have mastered. It is my hope that Monday’s action, which was as regrettable as it was necessary, will restore solidarity within our committee. Ultimately, that’s the only reason it was taken.
Frank,
Welcome to being a ” private citizen “. I find it refreshing to not have ” curb my tounge”, you will to. This action just amplifies the underlying problem of the party. It is to busy worrying about things that do not matter, to focus on what really does:
Getting Republicans elected
IMHO this action shows the drift of the far right into the historic pitfall of focusing on controlling its populace, over caring for it’s poulace. Can the party really afford to turn out members willing to serve? This is truly ” little tent thinking” . I was nearly stoned to death when I asked why the committee used such veiled language in its ” so called manifesto, I mean platform/mission statement”. I asked why they were scared to to exclude people and actions outright if that was the intent. In my world if they are the principles you live by, then stand up and it say it out loud in plain english, not double talk.
Hypocrisy is Karma’s brothers.
Well at least now Don Ayotte and yourself have something in common after all. You were both tossed from the R party. You could always join the IPOD and become Don’s press guy?
OK, who wants to continue to play basketball, now that Frank has been SLAM DUNKED!!! YEA, I can’t help but to say, “I TOLD YOU SO.”
Thank you WP, as always. And your view of the far right is spot on.
Now to “Mr.” Brooks, or as I like to call him Herr Goebbels the propaganda wing of the Sussex GOP.
Let me first address a fact, what happened last night is that I was voted out of the Executive Committee, that is public record. However, it happened in executive session, and by the rules of any organization, what is discussed in executive session is supposed to stay there, the members are not to talk about the particulars that are spoken, or by who. Mr. Brooks could not wait to run to the media, he was on with Dan Gaffeny of Delaware 105.9 radio at 6:30 this morning saying exactly what he came here to say. So Mr. Brooks, is it okay in your world of hyprocisy for you to break the rules after you organized my ouster from the committee?
He states above that I continually air the dirty laundry of the Sussex GOP, and then can’t stop himself from publically talking about the discontent within the GOP, that he lays at my feet. I know that Mr. Brooks knows a lot of big words, but maybe he should look up irony. And if you don’t like your dirty laundry aired, then do the wash once in a while.
He talks about the fact that I posted the “PRIVATE” email addresses of the people CC’d on the Phillips email, well many, if not all of those emails are the public contact info for those people, in fact I saw one of them recently posted in the Cape Gazzette as contact info.
Mr. Brooks throws around words like treason, which is nothing but bluster and buffoonery on his part.
Now back to irony for a moment, Mr. Brooks uses the liberal Democrats as an example, or the enemy as he calls them, of how we as Republicans should behave. So like so many of the far right fringe Mr. Brooks would have us become that which we oppose.
Mr. Brooks’ use of war terminaology, like enemy, and treason, I believe, discloses a deep seated desire to have been a war hero, unfortunately he is little more than the last clown out of the car.
I look forward to my new role outdside of the official GOP machine, I know that many think I was heavy handed in my criticism of the party, but in reality I often pulled my punches out of respect for some involved, and becuase of my position. We will have to see what comes my way in the future, and how the GOP will deal with it since they have used the only arrow in their limited quiver to deal with me, they voted me out of an organization that has no relevance within politics, OH! MY! How will I go on?
Frank goes full circle and walks out once again. (Video below) Duke, you’re irrelevant and you just like to hear yourself talk, about anything, anything at all. John Reilly has no balls, and the Sussex GOP is at it’s most disconnected place in years. The Cheer center is the perfect place for your meetings, as the attendees dont have far to go. The only better place would probably be a one of the nursing homes. There is a reason that Sam Wilson, Vance Phillips, and Cindy Green are the ONLY elected officials at your one ring circus. You may have to expand though, as your clown roster continues to grow. And Duke, every time you open your mouth we lose another vote, so please, stop communicationg. Stay irrelevant my friends!
Normal Republicans, are we ready for a revolution yet?
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=iQZyU7vlOKizsQSz0ID4AQ&url=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DlFC9upMYbDM&cd=1&ved=0CDMQtwIwAA&usg=AFQjCNG_cvbTE7_1hkpYFtHZBaD9nJgsVw
@Frank, I heard Dan mention this story, which was based on your blog post, on-air. As you have acknowledged, I am the communications director for the Sussex Republican Party. In other words, it is my job to communicate to the public and the press about issues that are important to the Party, the voters and the public at large. Nothing in the Rules of the Sussex Republican Party prohibit me from discussing ExComm actions with media, the public or innocent bystanders. Frank, if you had an actual understanding of the rules, apart from the evening Tom Bain was elected Chairman of the 20th Rep. District, I suspect you would have gotten along better with the Committee. The ONLY WAY to effect change in an organization is from the INSIDE. It may take time, but if your ideas have merit, and you are POLITELY persistant, you have a better chance of accomplishing what you want to than if you keep tilting at windmills and setting fire to straw men.
@Told Ya So!: I can tell you’ve not been to any meetings lately. And that’s okay, since it seems you have little, if anything, to contribute. In a county where Democrats outnumber Republicans in voter registration, the GOP holds four-out-of-five County Council seats, four-out-of-five State Senate seats, and seven-out-of-nine State Representative seats. It seems to me that we’re pretty “relevant” after all.
@WaterPirate: Those rotor blades are putting out enough static electricity to light up half of Chicago.
Why is the spokesperson for the Sussex GOP going on a media tour to trash a Committeeman who was removed from his seat during a Executive Committee meeting that was so secret that the non-establishment Republicans had to be thrown off the premise?
When Frank publishes an email from the “ExComm” that shines sunlight on what the ExComm has been doing behind closed doors, Frank has to be stripped of his leadership position and publicly humiliated. I see nothing in the SCGOP rules that prohibit a Committee member from doing what Frank did, nothing.
Label it “intolerable” but to many of us so is having a convicted drug offender acting as the SCGOP spokesman.
Grand OLD and that is all!
Are people on here just empty minded or just born stupid?
http://youtu.be/nauLgZISozs
If Frank hadn’t put everything he knows out here on a stupid ass blog site, he still would be a EDC. If Frank hadn’t wrote an article on this stupid ass blog site about what happened last evening (OK that’s nothing new) advising the world including DAN (INTERNET TRAVELING TROLL) GAFFNEY where the TROLL felt compelled to air it on his morning ego show (BTW, he is no more Christian than I am POTUS) Duke wouldn’t had to call in and explain AGAIN what is TRUTH and what is GENERAL STORE FODDER!
OKkkkkk People YOU all can come back to the GOP meetings NOW!!!!!!
http://youtu.be/aopdD9Cu-So
I’m glad Mr. Brooks agrees that disrespecting the committee will not be tolerated.
Have there been applications for the new commissar positions yet? We obviously need a way to enforce party loyalty.
““Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing… They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. “
Duke,
As much as I would enjoy trading lines from that epic again, I can not. I find it offensive that a party EC that has strayed so far from what it hoped to accomplish is claiming the sitting R’s as their own. When I left the EC I used to keep track of the stats, I grew tired of it. How many vaccancies exist in the EC right now out of a possible what? I count myself amoung the loyal and sensible Republicans who have relavance in their lives elsewhere to still make sound decisions about good R candidates regardless of party shenanigans. It is the party that has failed the citizens of Sussex, not the elected officials who still have the courage to run as R’s.
The manifesto I spoke of earlier was the lynch pin of deception by the EC. The far right went to far and do not have the grace to admit it. It is not 1950 anymore and no matter how much the EC leadership and members opine for days gone by, they are gone.
We still need fiscal and moral responsability in our schools and communities, however that needs to come with temperance and understanding. Big tent party politics, not narrow minded views expressed by a bitter few.
Oh woes, the DR ship is sinking with no life boats or preservers on board. Hate to be at the helm! I don’t think it’s going to be remembered as the Titanic.
Oh, what will the crew on board do? Try knitting, that’s an isolated hobby! I am sure you can’t tick off anybody that way.
There’s a reason 80% of the EDC positions are vacant. It doesn’t have a thing to do with Frank Knotts. The level holier than thou attitude is suffocating when in attendance at the meetings. Steel Remington stooping so low to attack a man’s Christian beliefs what a class errrr ass act you are.
sussex gop is a clown show that will continue to provide material for frank to write about as long as the current leadership is breathing. such a narrow view of not just the world, but the very county they live in. they are above nothing and wallow and wrestle in the mud with anything. no sense of humility or tact. no original thought. they have, in fact, become franks hobby.
Duke Brooks stated earlier this evening : “@Told Ya So!: I can tell you’ve not been to any meetings lately. And that’s okay, since it seems you have little, if anything, to contribute. In a county where Democrats outnumber Republicans in voter registration, the GOP holds four-out-of-five County Council seats, four-out-of-five State Senate seats, and seven-out-of-nine State Representative seats. It seems to me that we’re pretty “relevant” after all.”
And inquiring minds want to know, how many of them come to your meetings , other than to humor you. In fact, several of them were the targets of your ‘lack of support’ or primaries? Do you not remember Urquhart v. Lopez, Simpson v. Opaliski , ?
The ability of the State Senators, State Representatives and County Council majorities to win is , as you say, ‘relevant’ but I would suggest the 40 people in the room are NOT representative of the ‘rank and file’ registered republican.
BTW Duke, while you and your band of merry men were deciding who can and who cannot sit at the big boy table, several small groups of RINO’s , registered GOP, I, and Dem, were electing school board members. If Common Core can’t be stopped in the State Legislature, then where would you think the best place to stop it…DUH.
Stay relevant My Friend.
Mr. Brooks, you once again have proven that you may be the most unintelligent smart man I know. Do you even know the difference between “executive committee”, and “executive session”? You should since you took great pleasure in standing up and making a motion to move the executive committee into executive session and then hollering at a lady because she didn’t leave the room fast enough for you.
Once that committee went into executive session all that was spoken within is supposed to stay within that session. You are not to talk of the charges against me, or who may have spoken for me or against me. That is why you cleared the room genius. Plus, while you were making your motions to expel me from the committee, you were acting in your capacity as an Election District Chairman, not the Communication Director (maybe you have your own conflict of interest), and so you are bound by the same rules as the rest of the EDs.
Also the vote was not a valid vote, you may go into executive session to discuss the issue of my expulsion, however, the committee should have come back into regular session to cast the vote publically.
But you and your ilk were so determined to oust me you couldn’t be bothered to follow your own rules, no wonder considering that your parliamentarian didn’t even know how to handle a tie during the RD elections, wouldn’t want to actually read the rule, even though he was on the rules committee that wrote them,what a joke all of you have become, I want to thank you for releasing me from my determination to never quit anything.
And for you to take credit for any of the Republicans who currently serve is beyond laughable.
How many hours did you spend standing the pole for any candidate? I show up at 6:30, and stay until the counting is done.
We all have to laugh at the fact that you showed up at the Lopez kick-off considering that you called him a liberal interloper when he ran against you choice Glen Urquhart, but hey there was free ice cream, right? Have you stubbed out any cigarette butts in any public parks lately?
Oh, I almost forgot, Steele Remmington, if this is such a dumb ass blog site, why don’t you take a walk! Oh I don’t know for say around 93 miles!
Told Ya So! wrote that Sam Wilson, Vance Phillips, and Cindy Green are the GOP’s only elected officials in Sussex County govt. You forgot George Cole.
Uh Honi, no I didn’t. Don’t be a Duke, read what I wrote, not merely the words you want to see.
I have never seen George Cole or Mike Vincent at a GOP meeting in the last few years.
Public forum. As your logo at the top says, “GOT SOMETHING TO SAY? GO FOR IT!”
GONE FOR IT!
Aside to Told Ya So!: Apologies for not reading as carefully as I should have done.
I like Frank personally, too. But, he’s in the wrong party- he’s a Democrat.
I found his attack on Sam Wilson to be particularly distasteful. All Wilson did was point-out the obvious- that at a time when the ideal is a colorblind society, an organization that promotes racial preference is itself inherently racist. Wilson is a proven conservative- I suppose Frank would prefer to have another Joan Deaver-type on the Sussex Council.
Rick, here is a link to the article I posted about the controversy involving Sam Wilson. http://www.delawareright.com/sam-wilson-no-strnger-to-controversy/#comments Could you please point me to the part that was not factual and which part was an attack.
As for you saying that I don’t belong in the GOP, well that is exactly what the establishment Republicans were saying back in 2006-2010, that if I didn’t like the way things were, then I should leave the party.
So I am consistent in my views and principles and I am voted out of a meaningless committee, but tell me Rick, how does it feel to have become just like the people you opposed in 2010?
Well Rick, if Frank’s a democrat, he’s done more to get republicans elected than yourself and Brooks & Dumm. I have yet to see out of any meeting where an actual strategy is developed to elect Republicans. There should be absolutely nothing under new business but planning election activities, solicitation of new republican registrations, and fundraisers. Anything else is complete BS. Until some the leadership finds new direction or hopefully, they move in the direction of new leadership the SCGOP will continue to be a rudderless ship.
They could probably start with a new PIO who attacks a worker for the party instead of elected officials who turn away needed voters. Is the SCGOP leadership incredibly inept, it couldn’t be much worse if the Democrats had infultrated the SCGOP board and were trying to run it into the ground on purpose.