Frequent readers know about the scurrilous attacks I have endured from some of the radical religious fanatics that are involved in running the GOP lately and many have asked why I have not done something about it.
For a good reason, we needed to wait until cracks had appeared and indeed they have. Some folks have figured out they laid down with dogs and have offered to cut a deal if it saves them from bankruptcy. There were other issues, but you learn to be patient and let the bad guys hang themselves as they usually do.
There was a recent case down in Garvin County, Grimmett v. Mitchell, and after about a year Grimmett walked away with a $4,000,000 judgement, half for actual damages and half for punitive damages. Mitchell called Grimmett a wife beater, said he was slapping around his wife and adultery to boot. Which pales in comparison to what the radical religious fanatics accused me of doing. Although they did accuse me of battering women they left out the adultery and added child sex trafficking, all with zero proof or even serious suspicion, just the desire to libel and slander and diminish another human being on the other side of the political fence. These are big Christians don't you know?
Personally, I would much rather people make things right on their own and stay out of the court system but the letters to the GOP, to Chairman John Bennett, Vice Chair Shane Jemison, and the two National Committee members Pollard and Curry have drawn no response other than one short phone call and a letter from the current GOP counsel saying I cannot use my lawyer in the case. You see that libel attack is deeply rooted in the current administration of the GOP, we know that some GOP staffers and officers had a hand in writing the anonymous letter and distributing the hit piece that a few useful idiots posted.
Then you have the massive corruption in the Bennett administration, removing people from the email list, closing State Committee meetings for no discernible reason in violation of the rules, sabotaging donations and in kind work and donations to the building while sending out constant emails begging the little people for cash. You have to ask yourself; why would anyone donate to the GOP when they are sabotaging efforts to raise donations and get much needed repairs done? And after what, five months, we still haven't seen a budget committee or a budget, right? Pretty sure that is right from what I have been told. Why? Because you can spend like a drunken sailor or be unaccountable to anyone if you ignore the State Committee and the budget committee. Even the State Committee has been denied the actual books and a discussion of improprieties from the former administration.
It is hard to guess the motivation of Chairman Bennett to turn on a decade long supporter, one of if not the most influential supporter in getting him elected, keeping him in office, and even keeping a committee chairmanship on one occasion. It is even harder to understand how an ordained minister could allow a long time supporter to be slandered without doing something. What ever the reason it must be important, someone or something must have enormous leverage on Bennett or perhaps he just looks the other way and lets bad people do what they do and think none of it will reflect on him.
It might be difficult to ascertain why the others on the Central Committee have done nothing to head this off. Shane Jemison, Pam Pollard, Steve Curry... well the answer is simple, maybe in their minds this will strengthen someone that has tried to hold them accountable as well. In their minds perhaps if I force change, they become weaker and I become stronger. Somehow forcing the GOP to follow its bylaws is not quite what they desire or need. Perhaps this needs to hit them in the old pocket book?
Perhaps Bennett and the others feel nothing will happen. Not so. Sometimes next week there will be a $2,000,000 lawsuit filed against the GOP and its top officials. And if you have never been sued, discovery is brutal. It is impossible to keep the Plaintiff out of your phone, computers, emails, text messages, online social media accounts, even your tax returns. Sitting in deposition isn't fun, you are under oath and face perjury charges if you lie and one of your co defendants or a witness rats you out. Anyone that you have communicated with or talked with are fair game to be pulled in, forced to hire an attorney (and they will if they have any sense at all), and subjected to written questions, subpoenas, and downloading their entire Facebook page to deliver to the Plaintiff so they can see if it matches up with what the Facebook subpoena turned up, or what the phone records turned up. You see you can delete things but you also leave behind a trail of deletions that are discoverable during discovery and everything is still there that you thought you deleted. And internet search history? Yeah, that is fair game in some cases.
What do I expect to gain out of this? A very good chance of a multi million dollar reward. Grimmett asked for in excess of $75,000 but the award was $4,000,000. Collecting it is another matter of course. But without any doubt there will be injunctions from the court forcing the GOP into obeying their own bylaws. We will have a Republican Party that will share the financial information as both the law and the bylaws require. Candidates will be able to get the delegate list even if the Chairman and his cronies don't support them. State Committee meetings will once more be open to any Republican in the state and business will not be done behind closed doors and people will not be forced to leave meetings by for hire deputy sheriff thugs doing the dirty work. We will have a Party that once the election at the state convention is done still includes everyone that wishes to contribute and the Party itself will have a chance, indeed a requirement, to clean up the rules and set some practices required by the bylaws in iron hard stone.
Some might say "Gerhart is out to line his pockets."
My answer will be this "Were you at the July 17th State Committee meeting to stand up for those that were ordered out or walked out by deputy sheriffs?"
If not or if you were we know you did nothing, so STFU. If we cannot depend upon decent people to step up and fight tyranny when it costs them little then everyone needs to stay quiet and out of the way while a few men and women end the tyranny for you.
