Tuesday, January 29, 2019
I Just Got this Letter of Encouragement!
I just got this very encouraging letter in the mail today. It is time
for those of Judeo-Christian Faith in Tarrant County, all of Texas, and
the USA, to wake up and get plugged in. The Texas Republican Party
platform contains Judeo-Christian principles and even cites the Bible
twice, ***yet our leadership are selling out the Judeo-Christian GOP
base!*** Blessed is the Nation whose God is the LORD (Hebrew: Yahweh)
(Psalm 33:12).
Saturday, January 26, 2019
The Plain Truth About the Trimm Committee Appointment
One of the champions of the unsuccessful effort to oust a Muslim from Tarrant Republican Party leadership now has a new appointment.
James Scott Trimm now serves on the Tarrant County GOP Precinct Chair Recruitment Committee. He was a vocal supporter of the request to remove Shahid Shafi from the post of vice chairman.
“The point of this is to heal the Party,” Tarrant Republican Joel Downs, who heads the committee, posted on Facebook about the new appointment.
(Star Telegram Jan. 18, 2019)
The Dallas Morning News reported a day earlier:
His appointment, leaders say, is intended to be an olive branch to those who voted to remove Dr. Shahid Shafi from his position.
Joel Downs, chairman of that committee, announced the appointment Tuesday on Facebook, along with an explanation of why Trimm was chosen.
“Although James is a capable person and I appointed him for that the reason, I did it mostly to make a gesture of peace,” Downs told The Dallas Morning News. “We need to bury the hatchet and defeat the Democrats.”
(Dallas Morning News Jan. 17, 2019)
The public should know that Joel Downs and I discussed my possible appointment to the committee for the first time on Saturday January 12th, 2019. However after discussing the matter, we both agreed that I would not accept this appointment without Darl Easton's approval.
On January 14th, 2019 Joel Downs contacted me to tell me that Darl Easton had approved of my appointment to the committee.
On January 18th I was contacted by the Fort Worth Star Telegram for a comment about my appointment:
When asked for a comment about his appointment, Trimm responded: “I voted against Shafi because he was unwilling to publicly support Israel with Jerusalem as the undivided capital and oppose creation of a Palestinian state within the historic borders of Israel” which is a plank in the Texas GOP platform.
“The decision on Shafi has been made and we Republicans now need to work together to keep Tarrant County red.”
(Star Telegram Jan. 18, 2019)
Then on Thursday January 24th I learned that the entire committee had been vacated when the Star Telegram reached out to me for a comment. I had none, because that was the first I heard of it. Apparently Easton's priority was notifying the press rather than the committee members.
That day the Star-Telegram reported:
Tarrant Republicans trying to unite after an unsuccessful move to remove a Muslim man from party leadership have hit another roadblock.
An effort to “heal the party” has ended.
The idea was to offer a spot on a recruitment committee to James Scott Trimm, who vocally supported removing Shahid Shafi, a Muslim, from party leadership.
But the chairman of the committee has resigned and the entire committee has been disbanded, at least for now.
(Tarrant GOP’s effort to ‘heal’ after Muslim vote claims first victim: a whole committee)
Why did this happen? Because Darl Easton, who had approved my appointment just ten days earlier, had waffled and suddenly wanted me off the committee. The committee chair Joel Downs, unwilling to remove me from the committee without any real cause (short of Easton's inability to stand by a decision he had made just days earlier) chose to resign rather than to follow Easton's directive.
Darl Easton's goal was to "completely reorganize" the committee. The Star Telegram reported Easton as saying:
“The (committee) will be completely reorganized after the assessment,” he said in his statement. “The purpose of this re-assessment is to improve and expand our efforts to grow the Party and its outreach to every corner of Tarrant County as we approach the next election cycle.”
(Tarrant GOP’s effort to ‘heal’ after Muslim vote claims first victim: a whole committee)
Now, as a result of Easton's inability to make a critical decision, and stand by that decision for more than ten days, there will be no committee to recruit new Precinct Chairs until at least after the March Executive Committee meeting. Tarrant County Republicans need to be uniting to keep Tarrant Red, and Darl Easton's instability as a leader, has left us without this important committee. Moreover, as members of the party are trying to heal and unite to work together, Darl Easton is working to divide rather than unite the party.
The Tarrant County Republican Party is in shambles, and those of us working to heal the party and unite the party to keep Tarrant red, are finding our County Chair working against that goal.
This kind of waffling, of holding out the olive branch to unite the party, only to jerk it back and bring down our recruitment committee in the process was the last thing our County Chair needed to be doing with the Lincoln Dinner less than a month away.
Saturday, January 12, 2019
Can the Northwest Eagle Tea Party Save Tarrant County?
Can the Northwest Eagle Tea Party Save Tarrant County?
By
James Scott Trimm
There has been much written about the recent vote to retain Shahid Shafi as Vice Chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party.
A political party is a private organization made up of a group of voters who have pulled their voices together for a common cause or causes. The Republican Party is not a government entity, it is a private organization which has historically had an Evangelical base. As a result the Texas Republican Platform has many Judeo-Christian values in the planks in our platform (some of which conflict directly with Islamic values), which actually cites the Bible on at least two occasions.
Contrary to what many were led to believe, if the Tarrant Republican Party had voted to remove Shafi, it would not have violated the first amendment or the religious tests clause, neither of which apply to private organizations like the Republican party. In fact the Constitution, thru the right of freedom of association, guarantees the rights of political parties to choose their appointed leaders by any criteria that seems good to them.
Unfortunately many Republicans have been convinced to forfeit their right to freedom of association by those who have sold them on the idea that they are bigots who violate the Constitution if they organize based on a common cause of Judeo-Christian values, and then appoint leaders who agree with those values.
The Tarrant Republican party had every right to decide that Shahid Shafi was not the best suited person to serve as Vice Chair of their organization. This would be no more bigotry than a company not hiring a one legged man to serve as a runner. A one legged man is just not well suited to serve as a runner, and a devout Muslim is not best suited to champion a platform with Judeo-Christian values and ideology in its planks, some of which are at odds with Islamic values and ideology, for a Political Party with an Evangelical base.
In fact those who support Judeo-Christian values are effectively being lied to and told it would be unconstitutional for them to organize as a political party to support their values!
Meanwhile the Tarrant County Republican Party has effectively turned its back on Judeo-Christian ideology, And in fact Shafi was quoted in the Texas Scorecard as saying that ideology does not matter:
Shafi says Republicans all too often try to convert people to the party’s ideology, even though most people don’t care about ideology.
(Councilman Shafi Sounds Alarm for Tarrant GOP; Texas Scorecard; Robert Montoya)
The Tarrant and Texas GOP appear to be happy to see the end of the Evangelical base. In fact Warren Norred, who is both a member of the Tarrant County Republican Party Executive Committee, and the Texas State Republican Party Executive Committee, and who supported Shafi, wrote before the vote:
"...a decision to remove Dr. Shafi will be twisted to assert that the dying embers of the Christian Right that runs the Tarrant County GOP would rather lose than accept the help of Muslims and other cultures who actually agree with the GOP on many issues over the Democrats. That will be the message taken and spread, even if we adopted a long statement saying otherwise.
(Warren Norred; Be It Resolved: The GOP should expand beyond tribal boundaries)
Mr. Norred is anxious to read the eulogy of what he calls the "dying embers of the Christian Right".
Tarrant County has turned purple in the last election, is well on its way to turning blue, and has essentially shown its Evangelical Base the door. We could be looking at the post-Judeo-Christian era of the Tarrant GOP (and with it the nation). This is a huge problem, because the Tarrant County population is just 1% Muslim but 75% Christian (22% of whom identify as "Evangelical").
But there is still an opportunity to turn this ship around. The newly formed Northwest Eagle Tea Party may offer hope. This recently formed group describes themselves as follows:
The Northwest Eagle Tea Party is a local group of like-minded, Christian conservative residents living in Northwest Tarrant County. We will attend local events, hold monthly meetings, listen and participate in open forums, conduct in-depth candidate interviews, speak out against corruption, and combine our efforts to support the most conservative, trustworthy politicians. WE SUPPORT FREEDOM to include our right to free speech, the freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, and the right to petition our government.
During the last election cycle, we realized that Northwest Tarrant County didn’t have a visible conservative christian advocate for its politicians and elected officials. After several meetings and numerous request we formed the Northwest Eagle Tea Party.
Lets pray that the Northwest Eagle Tea Party can bring Tarrant County Christians back to the voting booth and and keep Tarrant County from from continuing this shift toward a Post-Judeo-Christian Republican Party!
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
NETTP McCarty: Darl Easton Represents Himself not the People
NETTP McCarty: Darl Easton Represents Himself not the People
by
James Scott Trimm
In a recent blog I reported that Northeast Tarrant County Tea Party (NETTP) President Julie McCarty had stated that she was embarrassed by the handling of the Shafi controversy, and that she now regretted getting Darl Easton elected as GOP County Chair (click here to read that blog).
In the days since that blog, there has been a great deal of fallout.
Darl's wife Janna Easton reacted by resigning from the NETTP board. Darl Easton replied with a public post accusing McCarty of stabbing him in the back and reminding her of the time and money he had donated to the Northeast Tarrant County Tea Party:
Julie McCarty posted a response stating that Darl had been repeatedly advised not to start the [Shafi] mess in the first place, and repeatedly advised on how to handle to controversy, but had ignored the advise, and even done the exact opposite at times. McCarty went so far to say that Darl had chosen to represent Darl and not the people, and that she was shocked by Darl's insinuation that his donations and service to NETTP had bought him a free pass on accountability.
Regardless of which side one takes on the appointment of Shahid Shafi as Vice Chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party, Darl Easton should have foreseen that such a controversial appointment would plunge the Tarrant County GOP into division and created a public relations nightmare for our party. The only press the Tarrant GOP has gotten with Darl at the helm is bad press. Instead of taking responsibility for his decisions, as a good leader should, he has tried to shift the blame on his advisers and his opposition. The Tarrant County Republican party needs new leadership if we are to unite and keep Tarrant red. Darl needs to be a man, and recognize that the party is best served with his resignation.
Sign the Petition to ask for Darl Easton's resignation.
(Click Here)
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