The Sixth Congressional District Republican Committee met by Zoom on May 28, 2020 – the third meeting in six weeks with each meeting separated only by the fourteen days required for proper notice. We kept meeting because various parliamentary procedures were used to keep us from dealing with issues that the Committee should be addressing.

The primary element on the agenda for May 28 was a resolution to honor former Sixth District Treasurer Al Tucker – recently deceased – for providing solvency, transparency, and clarity to the financial affairs of the District Committee. Congressional State Central Committee representative Jeff Adams made a motion for which we could not get enough votes at a prior meeting to add it to the agenda. (Al died the day after the call and agenda went out.) The Jennifer Brown caucus did not like the language in Jeff’s original resolution that declared Al’s innocence in the matter of the frivolous complaints filed with the Federal Elections Committee just prior to the 2018 District Convention. Jeff introduced a substitute motion that removed much of the language that the Brown people found objectionable. However, the language he left in was necessary to help bring closure for Al’s wife and children. (The FEC complaints were truly hurtful to Al and his family.)

Craig Storrs’ substitute to Jeff’s motion was voted down by a narrow margin. Then Jeff offered to include several clauses from Craig’s version to his own version. The resolution, with those inclusions, was eventually adopted with no negative votes but a number of abstentions. The final resolution reads (as close as I can get it with all the amendments):

“WHEREAS, Albert S. J. Tucker, III (“Al”), served the Sixth District Republican Committee (the “Committee”) faithfully as its treasurer; and

“WHEREAS, Al died on April 30, 2020; and

“WHEREAS, Al supported the republican party with his vast array of talents and skills after a distinguished career as an audio engineer at the cutting-edge Maryland Sound International in Baltimore working with national, and international performing artists; and

“WHEREAS, Al was a generous friend, always willing to share his good humor and fortune with those around him; and

“WHEREAS, Al was devoted to his family, his faith and the fundamentals of the Republican Party of Virginia; and

“WHEREAS Al’s service to the committee was honest, above reproach, without guile, and worthy of praise; and

“WHEREAS, Al and the Committee were the subject of a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (the “Complaint”); and

“WHEREAS, Al always acted transparently, honorably and in good faith; and

“WHEREAS, tragically, Al did not live to see the final resolution of the Complaint, which this Committee has vigorously contested and which this Committee is confident will show no intentional misconduct by Al and the Committee and no harm to any person or the public weal,

“NOW, THEREFORE, this Committee resolves as follows:

1. To thank Al, publicly and without reservation, for his faithful service to the Committee;

2. To express the Committee’s gratitude for the life and condolences on the death of Al to his survivors, especially his widow Deborah Klipp Tucker, his children, Albert S. J. Tucker, IV and Rachel Josephine Rudd, and his father, Col. Albert S. J. Tucker, II, U.S.A.F (ret.);

3. To publicly repudiate the Complaint; and

4. To direct the Secretary of the Committee to convey an appropriately framed copy of this motion to Mrs. Tucker, and to cause it to be published in the official records and on the website of the Committee.”

We very much miss you, Al. Rest in peace.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

A friend of mine who was born in India and who now works in America sent a text to me this week that contained a list of “Nine Regrets People Have at the End of Life.” They are:

1. I wish I had been more loving to the people who matter the most,.
2. I wish I had been a better spouse, parent, or child.
3. I wish I had not spent so much time working.
4. I wish I had taken more risks.
5. I wish I had been happier and enjoyed life more.
6. I wish I had lived my own dream.
7. I wish I had taken better care of myself.
8. I wish I had done more for others.
9. I wish I had chosen work that was meaningful for me.

Many, many people would agree with this list. But the list got me to thinking about some other regrets we might soon have. Here is a list of “Nine Regrets Citizens Will Have at the End of America.”

1. I wish I had not taken for granted the God-given liberties our Constitution protected for us. Instead, I wish I had noticed the insidious, internal attacks on our Constitution and on our freedoms, and I wish I had gotten involved in defending them.
2. I wish I had not allowed certain players in our government and the media to use fear, lies, and intimidation to make me blind to their attacks on our legal rights.
3. I wish I had done a better job of fighting for our Second Amendment freedoms so that I would have been better able to protect our other freedoms.
4. I wish I had done a better job of fighting for our First Amendment freedoms instead of allowing social media giants and self-appointed government “saviors” to control what we were allowed to say and where we were allowed to worship at a time when we needed alternate voices and the presence of God in our lives.
5. I wish that instead of ignoring the dirty world of politics I had registered to vote, actually voted in every election, actually worked to get decent candidates nominated so I would have a choice worthy of my vote, paid attention to how my elected representatives voted, and held them accountable for voting the way they said they would when they asked me to vote for them.
6. I wish I had done a better job of teaching my kids about their God-given freedoms rather than letting liberal university professors and school administrators distort our history, denigrate our freedoms, and demean our way of life. As part of that, I wish I had made sure that my children learned “how to think” rather than just being taught “what to think” because once liberal academicians got control of “whether” our children think, our freedoms were lost.
7. I wish I had done a better job of standing up for myself, my family, and my faith and spoken with courage about the legal, social, and moral issues that mattered without letting taunts and threats and vulgarity make me shy away from these important topics.
8. I deeply regret turning a blind eye to the moral decay of America and thinking that how other people live and act and think does not affect the quality of my life.
9. I am so, so sorry that my children and their children will never be able to enjoy the freedoms that their forebears have enjoyed because my generation got busy, got distracted, got bored, got whatever… and because we weren’t paying attention, we let those freedoms slip away forevermore, never to be seen again, because there is no other beacon of liberty and hope in the world – now that we have lost America.

This list of regrets is written for a time in the future, but based on what we are seeing this year, that  time may not be very far away unless we, as Americans, wake up to what is being done to us by people who believe the government can do a better job of deciding what our lives should be than we can. Trust me. That just ain’t so. We can either start doing the things we need to do to preserve our freedoms, or we can start rehearsing our regrets.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

Thursday evening, May 14, the Sixth Congressional District Republican Committee met to again consider a new date and location for our quadrennial convention. This convention is important because not only do we elect a new chairman and three regional vice-chairs, but we also elect three representatives from the district to the State Central Committee (SCC),  nominate three delegates and three alternates to the Republican National Convention in August, and nominate a presidential elector to vote for Donald Trump should he win Virginia’s popular vote in November.

The committee met electronically via Zoom, and all voting members were present with the exception of one member who sent a proxy.

The first substantive discussion following the opening events and reports, was the election of a SCC representative to complete Nate Boyer’s turn. Nate and his family had moved out of the Sixth District earlier this year. Since our bylaws require that committee members live in the district, Nate resigned when he changed his residence. At our upcoming convention, we will be electing new representatives to full four-year terms. However, due to the Governor’s continuing executive orders, the SCC may meet again prior to our convention, and we wanted our district to have its full complement of representatives. As is required by our bylaws, the notice that we would be electing a replacement for this position went out with the meeting call over two weeks ago. The committee did not provide formal application forms as has often been done in the past, so nominations could be made “from the floor.”

Augusta County’s Mary Beth Swemba had served as a proxy to several SCC meetings, and she has over the years been very active in the Augusta County GOP committee. I had asked her several days ago if she would be interested in taking on that role for the few weeks left until the convention. In her usual gracious manner, she agreed to do so. No one else presented a candidate for the office. Mary Beth was elected unanimously.

The main order of business was to discuss our upcoming district convention. At our last committee meeting, 16 days ago, we had discussed a motion to set a time and place but decided to table the motion until this meeting to 1) see what else the governor would do with his executive orders concerning large meetings and 2) explore additional options for location. A few of us in the past two weeks looked at several potential locations. Two of the locations were just across the line into West Virginia, which is getting back to business faster than Virginia. Very few large facilities are available within our district due to quarantine closings. Following a brisk but cordial discussion, the committee voted to hold our convention on Saturday, July 11, at the Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC) in Lynchburg. As a caveat, we have a verbal agreement with the church, but have not yet signed the paperwork. Wendell Walker and I, who are both members of TRBC will complete the negotiations as swiftly as possible.

There are several advantages to TRBC. Registration will be done in the fellowship hall, which opens out directly on the main parking lot. Delegates can enter those doors and be in line to pick up their credentials. Once credentials have been received, delegates will go out the other side of the fellowship hall, cross a hallway and walk straight into the 5,000-seat auditorium. We plan to use the same social distancing regimen that the church has set up for their Sunday services. Delegates will sit in every other row and in every other seat in the occupied rows. This leaves us room to seat 1250 delegates which matches the number of delegates who have been certified. Since many certified delegates do not make it to their conventions, we will have more than enough room to social distance at the event.

Additionally, the cost of using the church is significantly less than what we paid to use James Madison University in 2018. We are able to use the church because three members of the district committee are also members of TRBC.

The committee then voted to set May 26 as the deadline for selection and announcement of convention committees. Those committees include credentials, nominations, rules, arrangements, elections, and registration, plus any other committees deemed necessary.

We were pleased to finally be able to settle on a new date and location for our convention. We need to make our internal leadership selections quickly so that we can get on with our real job, which is defeating Democrats.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, is the most prominent critic of the coronavirus models that have been used to paralyze the American economy and restrict American religious life. He has stated in national interviews that he has been “waiting for the reality and the data to start to hit people.” He accuses the governors of New York, Illinois, and Oregon [he could include Virginia] with creating “unrealistic benchmarks” for lifting COVID-19 restrictions, and he contends that the response to COVID-19 is not justified by the real data available on government websites.

Even that data is overblown. For example, coroners in Pennsylvania demanded that the COVID-19 death count be corrected downward after the deaths of hundreds of people were attributed to the virus even though they were never tested for it. The media will report that more cases are being diagnosed, while omitting to say that the increased numbers are due to increased testing.  Liberals push their fallacies and half-truths in an apparent effort to make as many people as possible dependent on big government. Destroying the economic base of the private sector will do that, is doing that, to our inevitable regret.

Universal quarantine is the wrong approach. A recent study in Indonesia of “780 cases with laboratory-confirmed infection” showed that the majority of deaths involved older males who had pre-existing conditions and who were Vitamin D deficient. This study, including the value of Vitamin D, was corroborated by an international study led by Northwestern University. Likewise, Berenson notes that the average age of those worldwide whose death has been attributed to COVID-19 is in the 80-82 range and that over half of the people who have died from it in the US are in nursing homes. Therefore, instead of a universal, economy killing quarantine, quarantine efforts should only be focused on older persons, those with respiratory issues, and those who live in nursing homes. Everyone else should just take Vitamin D supplements and go about their business.

So far, deaths in the U.S. caused by COVID-19 are on a par with an average flu season and is half that of the H1N1 flu of 2009 (150,000) and less than a tenth that of the Hong Kong Flu of 1968 (1,000,000). No country shut anything down in those years. No one panicked… then.

Lawrence Summers, Barak Obama’s economic adviser, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that the costs of “testing and tracing” would be far more effective and far less expensive than the quarantine approach. Summers noted that the cost of testing every American every week at a price of $20 per test would come to $6.6 billion, which is less than one-tenth of the weekly cost of the CARES stimulus program. And this is important since the federal government has borrowed over three times as much money in the past quarter than they borrowed in the entire 2019 fiscal year – and now Democratic Party leaders want another, even more expensive stimulus package that will likely bankrupt the country.

Summers noted that even with weekly testing, some people would still be afraid to go out in public. He noted that “fear is a far greater threat to the economy than the current lockdowns.”

The liberal media pap has worked well with the liberal take-over of our public education and university systems to create people who are only taught what to think but never learn how to think. They have been taught to believe that big government is good – without the ability to articulate why – and that big government will save them from all things bad so long as they just do what they are told. That is why so many “snowflakes” have to find their safe space when they face such massive adversity as a pro-Trump poster on a wall or someone expressing an opinion with which they disagree. These snowflakes have a “save me, save me, I have a sniffle” mentality. They are willing to do anything and give up anything so long as they feel protected. They are even willing to give control of their lives and their future to a government that promises far more than it can ever deliver.

Patriot and founding father Ben Franklin (1706-1790) famously said “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Sorry, snowflakes. He is talking about you.

And then there is Patrick Henry. His 1775 speech before the Virginia House of Burgesses in the run-up to the American War for Independence is considered one of the most brilliant, animated, eloquent, and important speeches ever given on American soil. In it he said, “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” What a far cry that is from snowflake timidity, which cries “You can take my liberty if you’ll just promise to keep me safe.”

It’s time for Americans to wake up to the truth, stop being timid, and start being patriots again.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.

The Sixth Congressional District Republican Committee met electronically on Tuesday night April 28 to discuss plans for the District convention. We used Zoom but encountered some technical difficulties. We finally got the meeting itself going by 7:20. All 31 current voting members were present, although eight of those members had to join us via telephone since their Zoom connections did not work well enough to use.

After the opening prayer, pledge, and reading of the creed, we adopted rules for voting at the electronic meeting.

The Chairman reviewed for us the additions to Article XII of the Party Plan that the SCC recently adopted to give official committees more latitude in dealing with the current quarantine.

At the end of her report, she opened the floor to discussion. Roanoke County Chairman Dan Webb offered a motion to limit debate to ten minutes. I pointed out that we already had a standing rule limiting debate on any one motion to ten minutes and one minute per person. However, I did not think that the topic could be adequately covered in ten minutes. Dan then modified his motion to allow twenty minutes of debate with 90 seconds allowed per person. That modified motion was approved.

Parliamentary procedure requires a motion be made before discussion begins, so I made the motion that we hold an assembled convention on our original date of May 30 at a venue to be determined. I knew amendments would be proposed, but I made the motion so we could have something to actually debate.

Central Region Vice Chair Craig Storrs moved to amend my motion to state we would hold an “unassembled convention” (drive through voting) on July 11. Roanoke City Chairman Charlie Nave raised a point of order that Craig should not be voting since he was no longer a resident of the Sixth District and by our bylaws is not eligible to be a member of the Committee. (He has taken a new job in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.) Charlie’s point was ruled as not being germane to the motion on the floor and was never discussed. Chairman Brown stated that she “checked” and that Craig was still a resident of Lynchburg – although no proof was offered.

Pro and con arguments were made for July 11 and for June 20 as well as for unassembled versus assembled conventions. Storrs’ amendment failed, and the original motion for May 30 was left open for discussion. State Central Representative Anne Fitzgerald then moved to table the motion to the next meeting and that the next meeting be called for the second week of May (14^th). In the meantime, we would have time to check for acceptable venues and also see how much King Ralph would loosen the noose he has on Virginian. That motion passed.

Charlie Nave then made a motion that there be three convention committees (Rules, Credentials, and Nominations) and that they each have two members appointed by Chairman (and candidate) Brown and two members appointed by chairman candidate John Massoud. The two chair candidates would then jointly pick a chair for each committee. Several amendments were proposed including my amendment to remove a set number and just say “an equal number” of members be selected by each candidate since some committees might need more than five members. We also allowed for more than three committees since the call we passed in December called for more than three committees. Those amendments passed as did the amended motion.

Anne Fitzgerald than asked that the matter of replacing State Central Committee representative Nate Boyer – who resigned from the Committee when he moved into the Fifth Congressional District, – be placed on the agenda for the next meeting. Her reasoning was that we wanted to have our full representation on the SCC during these times. Since we don’t know when we will hold our convention to elect our new representatives, we need to elect a substitute representative to serve in the interim. The Chair agreed to do that.

The meeting then adjourned at 9:35 p.m.

We would all love to have a definitive answer as to when, where, and how we will convene our convention, things are still too fluid. Hopefully, we will have answers in another couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

Cordially,
Steve “Doc” Troxel, Ph.D.