Ron Paul fans bullied in Pasco

Congressman Ron Paul’s supporters in Pasco County are complaining about Bill Bunting, Pasco County's GOP chairman who is also known for his work on guns issues. Bunting hauled three Paul supporters to the front of a room at a recent GOP meeting, publicly questioned their party loyalty and wouldn’t give them precinct appointments they had applied for.

“He questioned what our intentions are,” said Sofie Lefebvre who blogged about the experience Saturday. “He felt that because we support Ron Paul, he doesn’t believe we would support John McCain.”

Bunting’s response: So what?

“That’s their problem, not my problem,” he said. “The Republican Party of any county works together as a party. Once we’ve secured all the votes necessary to designate the nominee, that’s the candidate all of us should support.”

-- Chuin-Wei Yap, Times Staff Writer

Comments

[TOP JOE Orange GOP]

To the Rp people in orlando. ask mr oliver about the republican party principles and its platform in relation gays. Is HE in lock step with it? I dont think he CAN be, Can he?:)

[Desperate for Democracy In GOP Pinellas]

Same thing happened here in pinellas. They fixed the straw vote at the debate! Chairman dimattio did it! He's a slime ball.

Lets rush the meeting in pinellas next Monday night. We have to make a stand, and now! lets make NATIONAL NEWS and post everything on You Tube!

at one meeting, dimattio threatened to ahve one of us arrested!!! can U f in beleive that sh t?

[Proud CFR member]

The Ron Paul goon squad is at it again. Ron Paul lost, get over it. He only secured 14 delegates and it's obvious that his ideals in favor appeasing Islamic radicals were rejected by Republican voters.

The straw poll prior to the CNN/YouTube debate was a meaningless poll. It was a fun event. I didn't attend the rally because I was at the debate. Mitt Romney's campaign bought 20K worth of tickets. It was 1 vote per ticket, so if you have 20 tickets you got 20 votes. It wasn't that hard to understand. Tony DiMatteo is an excellent chairman and good man. Kudos to Bill Bunting for dealing with the Ron Paul goon squad in Pasco.

[Abraham Lincoln]

April 7, 2008, Monday: Boy, has the party on whose banner I ran for president in 1860 sure changed! What a bunch of raving, right-wing, racist, thuggish, church-state-separation-violating reactionaries! I'm turning over in my grave! I oversaw and conducted a socially revolutionary WAR to OVERTHROW a racist, class exploitative system, slavery. The people who spent all their lives fighting slavery in my era in the 1830s, 1840s, 1850s, also fought for WOMEN'S RIGHT TO VOTE, and EQUALITY FOR WOMEN, fought for the 8 HOUR WORKING DAY FOR WORKERS, fought for STRONG FEDERAL GOVERNMENTALLY SPONSORED CIVIL RIGHTS LEGISLATION FOR FREED BLACK PEOPLE. Anyone today who calls himself or herself a "Republican" should change his or her name to "Nazi" or "Ku Klux Klanner," for I keep reading how in Pinellas County, they drove pro-choice women out of the Republican Party, and here, they drive anti-war Republicans from Ron Paul's campaign out of the Republican Party. These totalitarians call themselves "libertarians" but the only thing they're "libertarian" on is, taxes, to protect them and their greedhead fat cat friends.

I remember in my day when Charles Sumner, the great U.S. abolitionist Republican Senator, favored women's voting rights and equality, favored strong governmental legislation for helping and aiding black people, favored the 8-hour working day for laboring people. I remember how the Republican Party editor of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley, was even willing to employ as his European correspondent the German and Jewish revolutionary socialist exile and writer, Karl Marx, and how Greeley, a Republican, and Marx, a socialist, both favored the North in the Civil War and both favored abolition of slavery. I remember how the great black abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, was lifelong friends with the great white revolutionary abolitionist, John Brown, and how Douglass voted Republican his entire life.

What has this party become today? It's become a bunch of raving, imperialist and pro-imperialist, bigoted woman-hating and bigoted gay-hating, theocratic totalitarian right-wing racist reactionary jerks.

Boy, I'm turning over in my grave, virtually spinning at that!

fwiw, the Romney campaign did not pay for a single ticket to the straw poll. The tickets were purchased by Romney supporters.

The Ron Paul people are ignorant and have displayed an obnoxious self righteousness. They are not interested in being a part of the local party. They instead wish to turn the local RECs into little debate forums. They don't understand, i.e., they are ignorant to what exactly the local party function is.

They are ten times worse than the normal grassroots losers... No, I'm not exagerating.

7:11...

I know you're going to call me a nazi for saying this, but, well, that's the kind of bat sh*t crazy stuff that these RECs are trying to avoid. I pray you receive the help that you need.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/31/Pasco/E_mail_goof_leaves_pa.shtml

You should not be surprised with Bunting.

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/28/Pasco/GOP_s_power_couple.shtml

Before he was 21, Bill was arrested - for criminal mischief, indecent exposure, burglary.

As to the first arrest, he said he was the driver the night his buddies frightened ferryboat passengers by splintering the boat's seats with fire axes.

He spent five months at Rikers Island Penitentiary,

"you have to go through this humiliation.

"It hangs over your head, no matter what."

Bill has a life-sized tattoo of a .45-caliber pistol near his left shoulder blade.

I wish the Ron Paul people would behave. I have never in my life seen such rude, crude and just plain crazy people in all of my life. Are they scientologist? No one could possibly take them serious. They are only interested in shaming our service men and protesting against the war. If Ron Paul came out tomorrow and said he changed his mind and we need to finishing helping the people of Iraq gain political freedom, they would come out in favor of Fidel Castro!! They hate America and should be considered terrorists!!!!!

Do the Ron Paul people know how much people are laughing at them? Do they know how stupid they sound and how unimportant they are? Ron Paul got no where in the election! He is a total laughing stock and his goofy followers are insane! HA!

This is happening all around the country. Here are some suggestions:

Write Florida Party Chairmen Jim Greer and your Republican representatives complaining of your treatment.

The state chair can remove any county chair "for cause." Make sure you CC a letter to the county REC also.

Make sure you are polite and say all the right things "Party Unity" "GOP in White House", you know the talking points.

The tired old and dying men of the GOP are aware of the infiltration tactic. They will resist not embrace you; however, they are old and will forget if you are cunning..

Use stealth, be patient, and keep the "powder dry." This means peeling the RP stickers off your car and buying a blazer to wear. Learn to tie a tie and fit in. Be personable. You are no longer a Ron Paul Republican, you are a Taft/Goldwater/Reagan/Gingrich Republican

Once viewed as a member of "their" group, they will accept your ideas more readily. Be silent for awhile and listen. Learn the dynamics of the group.

In four years, these tired old men who have not passed away will be glad to that your enthusiasm for core conservative principles has "shown them the light."

Moles and trolls are in all the forums, message boards, and meetups.

Use anonymity on the boards. That's what the internet is for. Change your user name and remove your pictures.

Move all "sensitive" discussions into private forums with trusted people using google/yahoo groups.

You guys have got to be much smarter than this.

Speaking strickly as an outsider, between Bush, Cheney, McCain, Rubio, and Ron Paul, you Republicans have a really scary bunch of little napoleonic fascists on your side of the aisle.

[Lt. Dan]

Watching and listening to the Paulistinians plan and plot their takeover is like watching Forrest Gump do algebra.

[Flo]

I am so glad the GOP is showing all the american citizens watching how controlled our elections are.

Independents are increasing faster than either party. Soon and very soon.... We will put our country back in sane hands.

Ron Paul was cited riding commuter rail in DC. Paula Dockery is now against Ron Paul. Unless Ron Paul supports her bullet train.

If any of you bloggers have Ron's ear, could you please ask him to get the word out that its OK to take the campaign signs down already? Or do you guys think that if people look at those eyesores for the next four years they'll be willing to vote for him in 2012 just to see them come down?

[UF Alumni]

Voting in members at REC meetings is only used to fill a vacancy between elections. Its a presidential election year, that means every precinct committeeman is up for reelection in September. If there is opposition for the seat, the election actually goes to the primary ballot where every Republican in that precinct gets to vote. Not that I'm a fan of the Ron Paul people, but maybe its time to make these precinct committeemen actually work for the title.

Not true!!!!!!!!!!! Dockery is NOT against Paul!!!!!

Since Day One the Ron Paul loyalists have been an embarrassment to the Paul campaign...I guess they were emulating their leader. The campaign is over and Ron Paul lost...don't try to tear down the Republican Party because you are cranky your candidate lost. Put on your Big Girl/Boy panties and grow up!

[SolDevVB]

"don't try to tear down the Republican Party"

Like voting for the liberal McCain?

RonPaul2008.com

[Naitch]

Congratulations go out to the GOP women, both Federated and Network organizations. You gals are no longer the most absurd members of the GOP. The Paul people make you all look reasonable, competent, and effective.

Congrats, ladies!

[Betty Bowers]

Thanks, Naitch, we have tried so hard to clean up our act. Now we can only hope that that brainless Laura Bush remembers where she hid all the empties before that dreadful Obama woman moves in.

[Charles Sumner]

April 8, 2008, Tuesday: You jerks. I replaced Daniel Webster as Massachusetts U.S. Senator in the 1850s. Webster supported the Fugitive Slave Act. What a jerk he was! I opposed it. I supported abolition of slavery. I was instrumental in forming the Massachusetts Republican Party. Don't you idiots realize that the program of IMPERIALISM was originally the program of the SOUTHERN SLAVEHOLDING POLITICIANS who were DEMOCRATS? You guys are IDIOTS. I supported women's right to vote in a time when women couldn't vote. I supported immediate abolition of slavery. I supported national and federal governmental-sponsored civil rights legislation after the Civil War to insure freed black people could actually USE the freedom they got from Emancipation to get some land. I supported land being distributed to black freed people. I supported the 8-hour work-day for laborers, which was supported by infant labor unions and infant trade unions in New England and in other parts of the U.S.A. I supported Abraham Lincoln's Homestead Act, but favored making sure it EXTENDED to BLACK FREED PEOPLE in the South so they could get some land, after they had worked farming the land of SLAVEOWNERS for FREE and WITHOUT PAYMENT for 250 years. The RIGHT-WING of my time OPPOSED THAT. My party of the 1850s had an editor, Horace Greeley, who edited the "New York Tribune" who EMPLOYED REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST KARL MARX as his "European correspondent." And you modern-day "Republicans" call yourselves "Republicans". I'm spinning in my grave, as is Abraham Lincoln, and HE wasn't even as RADICAL LEFT as I was.

[Charles Sumner]

April 8, 2008, Tuesday: Oh, yeah, you so-called "Republicans" don't think I'm telling the truth? Check out these books on history:

"Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War," by David Herbert Donald;

"Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man," by David Herbert Donald;

"Frederick Douglass," by William McFeely;

"Lincoln," by David Herbert Donald;

"All On Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery," by Henry Mayer;

"Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War," by Eric Foner;

"John Brown: Abolitionist," by David S. Reynolds;

"The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass," by Frederick Douglass;

"Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era," by James McPherson.

That's for starters.

Charlie, you can attempt to reform the GOP and bring it back to where it was 130 years ago, but wouldn't it be much easier to just vote Democrat? That's where all those ideals you hold so dear have migrated to. You're trying to appeal to the conscience of a group who's corporate loyalty to the bottom line practically guarantees that they don't have one.

[Dems are clueless]

Ron Paul is no Republican and all of his supporters are non-thinking bullies who are clueless. IMHO - He and his supporters are the biggest sore losers.

[NH]

How can we have 'party unity' when we don't even have a bona-fide GOP candidate to vote for?

McCain is a one-world trotskyite. He's no better than HillBama

Ron Paul and all of his people have been hired by the Democrat's to cause trouble in the GOP so the media attention turns from their joke of an election. We won't fall for it and are on to them "WAY TO GO BILL!!!"

I would be more inclined to support the Ron Paul crowd if they would rally for eliminating the Income Tax, Securing the Border and deporting illegal aliens as well as elminating illegal drugs. Unfortunately, they are mostly just anti-war folks trying to stir the pot on the Republican side of the divide. They did not succeed but they did blow a great opportunity because many Americans do support a lot of the Constitutional, Small Government ideas Ron Paul the candidate talked about. Too bad he and his followers were not willing to walk the walk...

Paul may pick Dockery as his running mate. They're both whacks.

“That’s their problem, not my problem,” he said.

That pretty much sums up the attitude of the Republicon Party when it comes to our economy, national debt, and the death of Americans in Dubya’s war.

[Buzzard]

Hate to admit it, but Bunting's right. I voted for Paul, but now he should step aside, perhaps run as an independent. (Between him and Nader, I think the votes they steal could send the leading "parties" a message.) It will be an interesting race after Rice signs on as McCain's VP. Considering his age, we may get an African American AND a woman for president in one swell foop!

[Buzzard]

By the way, 9:50 - how would you know? Did you see him at a meeting?

[Rp ALL THE WAY! Jeff Adams]

I am a Ron Paul supporter and I am going to run for Pinellas County Republican STATE COMMITTEEMAN! This way I can be on the state committee which is the only way things will change.

If I have to, I am going to run against the incumbent pinellas person. Everyone else in florida do the same. And yes, file for the precinct positions too in July. everything in July!

I too will be at the meeting in pinllas next monday night.

I am not out to make trouble, but yes I beleive I am going to return our party to its conservative credentials.

The RPOF AND the RECs are out of control, trying to "control" everything and anyone who calls themselves a Republican. Either of which lost sight of true Republican values a long time ago. If Ron Paul people want to become involved, what is the harm? What are you so very afraid of? Lack of "control"? That is a true Greerism.

Crazy people! Have you seen them hang around together just waiting to make trouble? They are goofy looking also. If you want to be involved try working together. If you try to over take you will not only fail you will make yourself look more foolish than you already to. By the way Jeff, are you a scientologist?

10:29...

You go, boy! You're going to change the world! You are a leader for our times! Thank goodness you have decided to lend your talents to saving us. How we have survived this long without you is a mystery. All who oppose you will bow in reverance of your greatness.

Yes, Jeff is a Scientologist. So what about it?

[Buzzard]

Jeff, I admire your courage. Get used to the sniping. Unfortunately, you'll get it at your home address as well if that's your real name. Good luck.

[Anti-war, Pro-First Amendment]

April 8, 2008: Some Ron Paul enthusiasts are crazy. But some Ron Paul enthusiasts are not crazy at all.

The anti-war activists among them are not crazy. They're onto something.

I think the ones who think you're going to solve problems by going back to the gold standard are nuts. Going back to the gold standard would lead to most people in this country being unemployed.

However, the Pinellas Republican Party has a history of totalitarian behavior toward anybody it hates.

Back in the early 1990s, pro-choice Republican women were literally driven out of the Pinellas County Republican Party. Why? Because they had bumper stickers on their cars reading "pro-choice" on the reproductive rights issue. The Pinellas County Republicans are owned lock, stock, and barrel by the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Christian, fundamentalist Taliban here in Florida, and they are totalitarians.

In 1994, a black atheist cop named George Starkes was driven out of his post of deputy to then-Republican sheriff Everett Rice because Starkes got up on his own time, his off-time, before a Pinellas County Commission hearing and said it was a waste of taxpayer money to have police monitor and shut down night clubs where attractive women danced scantily clad.

Later in the 1990s, Sheriff Rice teamed up with gay-hating bigot David Caton, with Catholic Charities, and with some Protestant right-wing extremist organization, possibly either Christian Coalition or a splinter from them, to get magazines like Penthouse, Playboy, Hutler, and similar magazines, off newsstands in Pinellas County. They didn't succeed, but they went part-way toward success. Caton, in the 1980s, spent a good part of his time trying to get women's legal reproductive rights abolished here in Florida. When he failed, he went over to the gay-hating agenda and got the civil rights ordinance for gay and same sex people abolished in Tampa. At that time, Ku Klux Klanners were picketing in support of Caton's agenda even though Caton, embarrassed, tried publicly to distance himself from them.

In Pinellas County, a 15-year-old high school kid was indicted on adult pornography charges under the sheriff's regime of right-wing Republican Rice because the kid published a high school newsletter called, "Boiled Angel." The only organization at that time that gave the kid legal defense was the ACLU, but it didn't help, and the kid ended up doing time because he published a newsletter in his high school. And that was due to Rice and his cronies. Rice is now an assemblyman.

Later on, they went apoplectic because pretty girls in thong bikinis were selling hot dogs from hot dog vending machines in Pinellas County, and they abolished that.

I notice they go after those who are most vulnerable.

In 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, I stood at various times with peace protesters against the Iraq War in St. Pete, from the St. Pete for Peace. Chuck Harmon, a hardline right-wing Republican ally of North Baptist Church member and St. Pete mayor, Rick Baker, who puts on a pretty face and pretends to be reasonable, but, with Harmon, is really a totalitarian right-wing religious extremist faking being reasonable, instigated First Amendment-trashing and Bill of Rights-trashing aggressive tactics against the entirely peaceable and mainly pacifistic St. Pete for Peace people who were simply vigiling against the war at Bay Front in St. Pete.

I personally witnessed cops going out of their way to ticket cars who honked their horns in solidarity with the peaceably vigiling peace activists.

At one point, there was a St. Pete City Council sub-committee hearing where Baker and Harmon showed up, and Harmon was the real hardliner pushing the aggressive police tactics against people who harmed nobody and who were fully within their constitutional rights to peaceably vigil on public property. Baker consistently deferred to Harmon. Harmon is a smallscale police state dictator, and Baker is his civilian crony and has been since day one. They don't tolerate the First Amendment in St. Petersburg, and they are part and parcel of the Pinellas County Republican Party.

They also love invocations before St. Pete City Council meetings, slapping in the face who knows how many people are nonbelievers or agnostics here in the city of St. Pete. Again, they trample on the First Amendment.

The St. Pete Times fakes being a "reasonable" and "liberal" paper when, in fact, it has a long history of burying its head ostrich-like fashion in the sand when atrocities have been committed by the Republican Party of Pinellas County and their lapdogs, the Pinellas County Democratic Party, in power in the past 20 years. I laughed out loud at the Jim Smith property tax scandal because forever, the St. Pete Times has prostituted itself for the bipartisan County Commission of lookalikes and thinkalikes who have no internal opposition and who act entirely in unison on all questions, Stalin-fashion or Hitler-fashion. As I said, these people are totalitarians, and the St. Pete Times has acted consistently as their lapdog media. But suddenly, when it finally was too hot an issue to handle -- the property tax scam and the blatant abuse evinced in that scam -- the big shots at the Times, whose own personal tax dollars were now at stake, suddenly got very interested in how cronyism and corruption is part and parcel of the Pinellas County Commission.

But in prior times, when these bipartisan right-wing totalitarians on the Pinellas County Commission perpetrated all kinds of atrocities against the civil rights and civil liberties of the vulnerable in this County, the St. Pete Times, lapdog fashion, said and did nothing.

And it's primarily -- primarily -- the Pinellas County Republican Party who are behind all this totalitarian activities of both county and city governments in Pinellas County.

I've been here 20 years and seen it all. They're like little Hitlers.

How does Bunting with these three felonies conviction in New York, is able to register to vote? Own gun permit? Its time that the voters here in Pasco County start asking questions?
And for this man to bragged about it in the St Pete Times, is something else?
How can the Republican Party put there trust in this man? How can the RPOF accept this man, with the above felonies? I thought the Republican Party stood for unity, truth, less government and more freedom.

Before he was 21, Bill Bunting was arrested - for criminal mischief, indecent exposure, burglary.

As to the first arrest, he said he was the driver the night his buddies frightened ferryboat passengers by splintering the boat's seats with fire axes.

He spent five months at Rikers Island Penitentiary,

Bill Bunting stated: "you have to go through this humiliation.
Will Bill you did the crime,its time to pay for it?

Bill Bunting stated: "It hangs over your head, no matter what."

Will it must not be hanging too far, your register voter, you carry a gun permit. How?

12:59 pretty girls in thong bikinis selling hot dogs are the most vulnerable?

Little Hitlers? As far as I know Pinellas County has not exterminated any Jews and they have not invaded Hilsborough County, Pasco County or any other neighbors.

Rice is an Assemblyman? Where?

Your manifesto has a Unibomber quality to it.

12:59 please get help.

[no one]

The incumbent pinellas republican committeeman is not running again is he?

PASCO COUNTY REC = DUNDER MILFLIN

[anantibillbuntingpascorepublican]

ALL REAL LEGITIMATE PASCO REPUBLICANS
KNOW BILL BUNTING IS A GLORIFIED THUG.
He does not represent the majority of us and we all know it. Too bad Tallie doesn't know it yet. Has nothing to do with Ron Paul supporters.

As far as his record...he is just as corrupt as Rubio....go back to the Pasco superintendent's election and see how he threw in a pathetically unqualified 3rd candidate into the ring just to eliminate the democratic vote on that suprtdt election.

Anyone who thinks his hands are clean is in lala land. He is very capable of bullying and many have been victims and witnesses to his tactics here in Pasco the past 20 years. His homeowner's association cannot stand him nor his wife.

Even the Rep. Fasano and Superintendent Fiorentino know to keep away from affiliations with him because of his "dirty" tactics, even though they benefit.

His criminal record alone should show that his is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Hey Bill, want I should talk to tees people that are against the family

Da Boysss

[ACUTS]

That's it, you fucked up now... I am coming to the meetings..

You did not want that to happen old men.

I am going to kick each and every one of your asses. I don't care if you like me... you are dead men walking because your time is over, you handed the GOP keys over to fascistas and people who could care less about our country.

We are the new GOP, which oddly enough is just like the old GOP.

Sorry old guys.