Next Meeting Thursday, June 8, 2023 | A Message From the Chair | Get Involved | INCONSEQUENTIAL ELECTIONS | Board of County Commissioners | The Cataclysm to Come | Precinct Committee Men & Women - Announcements | Volunteer Opportunities
April, 2023 | Hillsborough.GOP
The next Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 8, 2023, with social hour beginning at 6:00 PM and the meeting starting promptly at 7:00 PM.
Our Guest Speaker is Jaime Arellano, exiled Nicaraguan journalist who dared to speak out against the authoritarian regime of Daniel Ortega. Survivor of several assassination attempts and 13 years in prison, Mr. Arellano will discuss his horrific experiences under the brutal communist government of Nicaragua.
If you are interested in hearing Mr. Arellano story, but are not a member of the Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee, please make your reservation here, as space is limited.
A Message From the Chair
WE NEED YOUR SPECIAL TALENTS
Hello Team, as some of you may know, one day I decided to get off the couch and make a Conservative Club. The nucleus was already there. A few people were complaining about the downward trend of our country and commiserating on Nextdoor about the sad state of affairs after the 2020 debacle. So, our journey began, and I had no idea that we would see our over 55 active community put on their walking shoes and knock on hundreds of doors, drive canvassers, and open their homes and hearts in strong support of our local candidates. They sponsored meet and greets and reached out to all of their friends and neighbors and they are still very active today with an expanded membership of over 225 members. Fortunately, Maggie Lalk, our Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee (HCREC) Secretary, started this journey with me and we’ve been going strong ever since.
Now, here we are today serving you. Let me introduce the folks who are sitting next to me at that long table in the HCREC meetings:
Parliamentarian Chris Paradeis
Vice-chair Rick Kunz
Secretary Maggie Lalk
Treasurer Gina D’angelo
And over on the end are the Hillsborough County Committeeman Tom Gaitens and Committeewoman April Schiff
We are pleased to be involved and serving the Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee. We are a vibrant, strong, and growing committee. We’ve learned a lot and we still have a lot to learn. We are so much more than volunteers as this has become a full-time job for our board. But we work hard because we value our members, our volunteers, our county, our state, and our country.
But we can do nothing without you. As a matter of fact, this committee is all about you . We are Americans and we will not accept the left dictating to us what to think or feel and we definitely won’t accept anyone telling us what we can say. We are children of freedom – free speech being the top of the list of freedoms. Our adversary is the left. We must focus on defeating the left and NOT each other.
But in order to fight these battles and keep our Hillsborough County free and red we need YOU to volunteer. Everyone has special talents: writing, phone banking, canvassing, strong people skills, legal and parliamentary skills, artistic skills, media skills, research skills, cooking skills, the list goes on and on. We need your skills to fight this battle. We need you to help Hillsborough County and pick up a sword for the great fight that we have ahead of us. We MUST help and support our Republican party and our Republican candidates in every way possible. Time is not on our side, so we must begin canvassing and knocking on doors, making strategic phone calls, talking to small businesses and big businesses, doing demographic research, texting, and finding out what makes our communities tick. We MUST fight this fight together and with a united spirit.
Come join the fight because in the words of the great Larry Elder “We have a Country to Save”.
My Favorite Book of the Month: Great Reset, Author, Glenn Beck
Get Involved - Volunteer for a Committee
Whether you are an HCREC Member or a Concerned Citizen, your participation is needed. Contact one or more Committee Chairs and volunteer.
- Precinct Development Committee: Contact Carmen Edmonds [email protected]
-
Communications Committee: Contact Kathy Gallo [email protected]
Includes: Social Media Team, Military/Veterans Team, Faith-Based Team, Email/Texting Team, Community Engagement Team - Legislative Affairs Committee: Contact Teresa Miller @[email protected]
- Election Integrity Committee: Contact Jeff Lukens [email protected]
- Get Out The Vote (Elections) Committee: Contact Rick Kunz [email protected]
- Finance Committee: Contact Gina d’Angelo [email protected]
Upcoming Elections - Challenges for 2024
INCONSEQUENTIAL ELECTIONS
By Wayne Pickard, Precinct 127
A Presidential election draws near and the excitement builds up. Everyone knows who's running and most everyone has picked their favorite, and the turnout is the highest of any election.
Not so much for the primaries and "off-season" elections. Most of the time they come and go, attracting little attention. And the turnouts are small. In the latest Tampa municipal election, for instance, the turnout was 13.6%. Poll workers were able to finish novels, take naps, and play card games undisturbed in between voters. (Not really--but it was close enough to be a good joke.)
Speaking of naps, "You snooze--you lose." There is a price to be paid for sleeping through "unimportant" elections. It is these small, quiet, "unimportant" elections--the primaries, the school board, the city council, the judges, the district attorneys (Thank you Gov. DeSantis for your blessings upon Tampa!) where energetic activists are able to make their greatest gains. Why? Because excitement is low, the opposition is complacent, and the voter turnout is low. Which makes every vote count that much more. When the turnout is low, all the power of those who didn't vote flows to those who did.
If 75% show up for a Presidential election, and only 15% for a municipal election, each voter in the municipal election carried the force of five votes. Each door knocked on counted as five doors. Each voter taken to the polls counted as five voters taken to the polls. It is simple math.
The hard-left Democrats know this. It is how AOC ended up in Congress. She ran in a low-turnout primary against a Democrat incumbent, a moderate. While he snoozed, she and her gang worked the precincts. Because this was a solidly Democrat district, a primary election victory effectively catapulted her into Congress, where she gets to advance her preposterous ideas, much to the delight of the hard-left mainstream media.
Gotta hand it to the Dems, they know how to work the game. It's time for us to play with the same enthusiasm they have, and more. We should love freedom more than they love socialism.
Hillsborough County - Board of County Commissioners (BOCC)
In 2022, the Republican Party took the majority on the County Commission. Republicans now represent Districts 2, 4, 5, and 7, while the Democrats represent Districts 1, 3, and 6. We cannot, however, become complacent because Republican held districts 2 and 4 will be up for election again in 2024. Only one Democrat held seat, District 6, currently represented by Pat Kemp, is up for election. So our challenge in 2024 will be to maintain our majority by getting Republicans elected to Districts 2 and 4, and getting a Republican elected in District 6.
The map below shows the areas represented by our current commissioners. There is no doubt that the Democrats will work hard to win those Republican seats, and we must work even harder. That’s where our Precinct Committeemen and Women and our Volunteers come into play. We will need to work harder and smarter to achieve our goals.
News and Opinions
The Cataclysm to Come
By Jeff Lukens, Precinct 806
When nations die, they do so with surprising speed. Ernest Hemingway made a similar observation when a person in his novel was asked how he went bankrupt, and his reply was, "Gradually, then suddenly."
Nations are built upon classical values — perseverance, self-reliance, and honor. A great nation is one whose values have made it unusually prosperous. In its latter days, the nation becomes hollowed out and burdened with a costly, top-heavy government. The middle class is expected to provide generosity to the masses. Over time, traditional values fade away, and everyone seeks to live off everyone else.
The United States shows aspects of a once great power past its prime. It is socially and politically divided, aware of the necessity for changes, unable or unwilling to make them, and losing the conviction in the shared goals that earlier invigorated it.
The decay that started gradually decades ago is now metastasizing at warp speed. The United States, ripped apart internally, has become ever less willing and able to lead internationally. The doctrines that built the United States and Western civilization, assimilated from ancient cultures over thousands of years, are being methodically dissolved. America is entering an uncharted, revolutionary time. The foundation of American life, abundant food, energy autonomy, a sound economy, sound education at all levels, and enforceable and equal application of the law, are eroding.
Our society is "fundamentally changing," and these changes are not for the better. Hard-left fanatics have absorbed the Democrat party and are transforming the country with woke and equality-of-result agendas. Prosperity and leisure have misled a complacent society into thinking the modern age no longer needs to worry about law and order.
As we recoil from spontaneous street violence and looting, Americans are coming to learn just how degraded the foundations of their society have become. Criminals walk out with stolen merchandise without fear of the law or even the outrage of witnesses. Defunding the police has discharged a torrent of criminals into the streets. Downgrading felonies, no cash bail, and no jail time are spiking violent crime. Lawlessness has become a political matter where race, ideology, and politics decide how the law will be enforced.
At the border, millions of people enter our country illegally. Joe Biden is shamefully welcoming an unvetted third-world population into our country to dilute and displace native-born Americans. No country can exist without a border, much less allow foreign crime cartels to control it while killing 100,000 citizens with drugs yearly.
The FBI is more likely to go after parents at school board meetings than those threatening the homes of Supreme Court justices. CIA and FBI directors lie under oath without consequence. They mislead the public and deceive Congress with stories of fake dossiers. They contract private news organizations to censor stories they do not like and writers whom they fear. And the IRS is weaponized against political opponents of the Democrats.
Possibly a million homeless people now live on our streets. Our major cities are cesspools of human filth with open sewers, garbage-strewn streets, and drugged out drifters.
Grocery shelves are increasingly bare, and many food items are now beyond people's budgets. Fuel costs are reaching record levels, new cars and homes are unaffordable, and inflation is at a 40-year high. The necessary medicine of high interest rates to bring down inflation is nearly as painful as the inflation itself.
The federal government spends $1.29 for every dollar in tax revenues it receives, and a quarter of IRS revenues are now needed to cover interest payments on the debt. Economic doom, market collapse, and bank runs are not far from people's minds.
China is leading BRICS countries to replace the dollar's standing as the world's reserve currency. Any success they attain will lessen demand for dollars and possibly collapse the dollar's exchange rate.
Moreover, the Chinese Communist Party authorities think they have a chance to bolster their power and change the world order in their favor. Because China's broad geopolitical interests are on the rise, a pressing question is how to check China's ambitions at a time of division and discord in America. China's current foreign policy could not happen without its substantial military forces and three-decades-long economic growth, underwritten by its exports to America.
Sensing American weakness, the CCP may invade Taiwan before Joe Biden leaves office. Are the American people willing to fight over Taiwan or freedom of navigation issues near Chinese-claimed islands? What are we truly ready to fight for? When that happens, are we prepared for economic devastation to the U.S. and the world? Meanwhile, thousands of Chinese sleeper agents are crossing our open southern border to cause mayhem when called upon to do so.
Today's threat arises from a disintegrating world order. More than at any other recent time, many dangerous intersecting events are happening at a time when the United States is unprepared to deal with them.
And it all culminates with the elections in November 2024. Democrats can win only by cheating, and since they did it successfully in 2020, you can expect them to do it again. While some election integrity measures have been increased in some states, almost nothing has been done anywhere to require open-source computer programming code of voting machines so we can be assured they are counting votes correctly. Moreover, nothing has been done to prevent voting machines from being hacked to alter election outcomes. At this point, the left has become brazenly indifferent as to whether anyone even knows of its cheating. Court challenges almost always go the leftists' way.
Regardless of who is declared the winner, there will be unrest. There could be a breakdown in civil order nationwide. If the left loses, leftists will riot and loot in a replay of the 2020 BLM riots. If the right loses, this will be a turning point, as we can't go on being lied to and threatened by the left. Another stolen election will break our country.
The decay that began slowly long ago is now upon us in full force. The only election historically comparable to 2024 was in 1860, and that one was followed by a civil war. We must defend our freedom and our country and protect it with everything we have or lose it all. We must be involved and understand that if we lose the election in 2024, America, as we know it, is over. To save the nation, all constitutionally minded Americans must see the danger and gird themselves for what lies ahead.
Jeff Lukens is a West Point graduate, U.S. Army veteran, and conservative activist. He can be reached at [email protected].
This article appeared in the American Thinker on May 18, 2023
Committee Accomplishments / Events Highlights
Precinct Committee Men & Women - Announcements
WebElect Training
WebElect Training is the second Saturday of every month. To reserve your place for the next class, please call Libby at the office at 813-621-7909.
Precinct Development Training
Now that election season is over - it’s time to focus on election season. As crazy as this may sound, election season truly never ends. As Precinct Committeemen and women, our primary responsibility is to consistently be “farming” our precincts. Door knocking and getting out the Republican message never stops. With that, our Area Leaders will be ramping up extra training for all of you. So, whether you have been part of the HREC for 5 years or 5 months we want you to take advantage of this extra training to equip you to reach out to your super voters, motivate our Republican voters who rarely show up to vote and find NPA’s who lean our way.
We will be offering training around the County to break down “the next step” of our Basics 101 training. You will be given packets of information to take to your top super voters to help break the ice and get to know your Republican neighbors better. Not only will you be given valuable training, but it’s agreat way to get to know your Area Leaders and your fellow Precinct Committeemen and women. This can help you forge new friendships within the HREC and introduce you to like-minded people to help you canvass and “Get Out The Vote”. Even if you cannot or do not want to door knock, there are several other ways we can all pitch in to help during election season.
If you already attended the training on May 6th, there is no need to attend again.
Please RSVP to Carmen Edmonds, as snacks and training material will be provided. [email protected]
General Announcements
Volunteer Opportunities
The Military/Veterans Team needs a few good volunteers to help with the HillsboroughGOP’s table at the Gun Show on Friday, June 2, Saturday, June 3, and Sunday, June 4.
Help is needed to set up our display on Friday, or to provide information to attendees about our organization on Saturday and Sunday. You do not need to be an HCREC member to volunteer. Please send an email to: [email protected] for more information or to volunteer.
We would like to thank Harry Simon, owner of the International Event Venue, 6463 W. Hillsborough Avenue, Tampa, for his generous donation of the Venue for our monthly HCREC meetings.
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