Chad Nesbitt calls for a counter protest to the Aug. 21 GoTopless rally

Former Buncombe County Republican Party chair Chad Nesbitt announced today on WWNC radio’s “The Matt Mittan Show” that he’s planning an Aug. 28 rally in downtown Asheville to protest the Aug. 21 GoTopless rally. He said the rally will be held at 2 p.m. in Pack Square Park and invited the public to attend.

Nesbitt and former Asheville City Council member Carl Mumpower filed a complaint with the Buncombe County Department of Social Services on Aug. 23 alleging that the GoTopless rally amounted to “child sexual abuse.” Organizers of that rally encouraged participating women to “exercise their right to be topless in public.” Several dozen women exercised that right, and hundreds of others attended.

In the radio interview with Matt Mittan, Nesbitt said several children were in attendance and accused their parents of abusive behavior for exposing them to nudity. In a letter sent to Buncombe DSS, Mumpower also charged that the City of Asheville, the Asheville Police Department and the Asheville Citizen-Times were complicit in child abuse for allowing and promoting the event.

Meanwhile, city and police officials maintain that the event was legal, as is being topless.

Nesbitt and Mumpower urged DSS to investigate. Asked about the matter, Tammy Shook, social work program administrator, told the Citizen-Times that, by law, the agency can’t comment on reports of child abuse.

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53 thoughts on “Chad Nesbitt calls for a counter protest to the Aug. 21 GoTopless rally

  1. Jeff

    Carl & Chad are arguably the most pathetic attention-whores Buncombe County has witnessed yet. And that’s saying A LOT. I have to guess they heard of HippyChickTopLessPalooza going down and they just peed their pants.

    How does one go about throwing an anti-topless event and claiming success? Count clothed people?

  2. kevin mare

    Haven’t Carl and Chad been going “topless,” i.e., headless or clueless, for decades?

    They always talk about how Asheville is going to wrack and to ruin, but really, the most embarrassing thing about the town is how self-important boobs like these two keep inflating themselves beyond all natural proportions and we let them get away with it.

  3. Dennis

    Nesbitt said that if DSS punished a family for having a child see this, that would be good. It’s on tape. And earlier he left the GOP leadership to potentially run for office (check the January story). Yup, using DSS to intimidate others. Just like when he claimed charges against him on that poker incident was intimidation. Not exactly the kind of person who should be trusted with power.

  4. bill smith

    They should call for people to show up exercising their legal right to wear shirts.

  5. The Trolls Troll

    Carl should consider himself lucky no one has filed a complaint with DSS about the short shorts he wears when working out at the Rush on Patton.

  6. LOKEL

    I find it hard to believe that “Nesbitt said several children were in attendance and accused their parents of abusive behavior for exposing them to nudity ….”

    To WHOM did those children accuse their parents of abusive behavior … Nesbitt himself.

    How can something that is legal be “abusive”?

  7. Reprinted without permissions. I sincerely wish the conservatives could present themselves in a manner that didn’t attract ridicule.
    __________________________________

    Regarding Mumpower’s and Nesbitt’s Issue with Child Abuse
    by Phillip Sanford Gibson on Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 4:07pm
    To Carl Mumpower and Chad Nesbitt.

    I am very happy that the two of you have now given focus and become loud voices to the abuse of children in our community. I am doubly thankful that you both have shown your confidence in the Department of Social Services in resolving child abuse issues within our community. Knowing that you both have taken up arms to stand along side those of us who have been working to protect children from abuse is commendable. My hope is that you will stay the course and will not allow any diversions to pull you away from this topic – child abuse.

    However, your article, while I am sure was intended to help protect children, presented a challenge for me as this episodic protest event is, in my belief, a non-issue as it relates to child abuse. It is a flash pan of an issue as related to child abuse. If you were to place this complaint alongside complaints with the magnitude of day-by-day physical and emotional abuse and neglect occurring in our community, your claim cannot take priority.

    As I am sure that you presumed would happen, you have succeeded in bringing your issue to the forefront of media and the community. True “child abuse” appears to now, for how long we don’t know, be overshadowed in the public eye by an event focused on a part of the female anatomy that is essential to child development rather than the direct emotional and physical abuses and neglect that is so prevalent today.

    As a therapeutic foster parent, I have become increasingly aware of the importance of the first six years of life and the vital role of basic needs for comfort, affection and nurturing. The female breast serves a significant role in the formative years of a child. To claim that the simple act of exposure is child abuse is contrary to the very function God hath provided. Peer reviewed articles cited by the National Institutes of health provide a number of epidemiological studies that provide evidence that breast feeding is associated with a reduced incidence of gastrointestinal and pulmonary infectious diseases in infants.

    I am confident that, like Mr. Mumpower’s war on drugs, you will both stay committed to this topic of child abuse for some time. May I take a moment and share ways that you can assist in addressing this issue:
    Become a Guardian ad Litem
    Become a Big Brother
    Develop a single parent ministry in your church that addresses the financial needs of children
    Contribute funds to an organization like Children First that provides direct assistance to children and families in our community
    Work with legislators to improve and develop legislation that will provide children with the healthcare coverage necessary when they are abandoned or in foster care
    Adopt a local child, an older child – that are often harder to place than infants
    In close, there are a number of ways to get involved and there are hundreds of children that need your help. Please get more involved. Apparently your heart says to do so.

  8. Dionysis

    “I sincerely wish the conservatives could present themselves in a manner that didn’t attract ridicule.”

    I don’t. Although I respect your magnanimity.

  9. boatrocker

    I hope he decides to call it “Moobfest”, as in man boobs. With only a one letter difference, there should be at least one electronic music fan who will mistakenly show up and have nightmares for the rest of their life.

  10. Ken Hanke

    We all benefit when all legitimate sides of any issue is discussed/ argued /hashed out.

    I’m perfectly fine with them making themselves look absurd.

  11. Legitimate! …. not bafoonary. No wonder the local powers here are so mediocre, they have no stiff competition. Conservatives need to man up, big time.

  12. Ken Hanke

    Conservatives need to man up, big time.

    You’re more fond of them than I am.

  13. dpewen

    I do not think it is possible for the conservatives to man up … they think they are doing the right things … imagine that! They do not have a clue!

  14. It has nothing to do with fondness..it has to do with viable alternatives to bring out the best in both sides. Why is that so had to grasp???

  15. Ken Hanke

    it has to do with viable alternatives to bring out the best in both sides. Why is that so had to grasp???

    You mean like that swell job they’ve been doing in Raleigh ever since they gained control?

  16. Now you’re being obtuse. You’re looking at what I’m saying within a very narrow range.

    Anyone with a grain of sense would know that over 100 years of one party rule leads to entrenchment and complacency.

  17. Ken Hanke

    Now you’re being obtuse. You’re looking at what I’m saying within a very narrow range.

    Anyone with a grain of sense would know that over 100 years of one party rule leads to entrenchment and complacency.

    And this has been an improvement? Really? The flaw in this argument is that the Democratic party of 140 years ago is not the same or even reflects the same values as the one today. The same is true of the Republican party.

    You see, here’s the problem — you look at people like Nesbitt and Mumpower as aberrations. I think they’re pretty representative — they just don’t know how to censor themselves.

  18. With one party rule in Buncombe we’ve had Bobby Medford brought to justice by the Federal Government. The Feds had to come in because local officials had looked the other way while Bobby and his minions carried out the 150 year old traditions of the “home guard,” which was really KKK.

    Then there’s all the more recent glaring issues which point to complacency, lack of oversight and general incomeptence, if not downright lawlessness. Such as:
    City of Asheville has experienced a number of troubling issues in the past year. The Human Resource scandal and what appears to be gross mismanagement, the Sexual Harassment lawsuit, that could have been nipped in the bud, when the young woman went through channels and then was forced to seek legal action. Amounting to $48,000 to settle a lawsuit that should have been effectively dealt with internally. The Pack Place overruns, Momentum’s $8,000,000 mudhole on N. Broadway, missing evidence at the police department, and $145,000 to audit the evidence room at the Police Dept. Unanswered questions swirling around the operations of the AB Community Relations Council and the City paying $18,000 in back taxes for that organization. There appears to be a severe shortage of oversight as evidenced above. What would potential Council Members do to assure the community that running the City will be handled more effectively and responsibly in the future?

  19. cwaster

    Who cares. If you don’t like it, don’t look or let your kids look. Besides, any kid that was breast fed has seen a breast or two. Big deal. There are lot more serious matters to worry about.

  20. Ken Hanke

    With one party rule in Buncombe we’ve had Bobby Medford brought to justice by the Federal Government. The Feds had to come in because local officials had looked the other way while Bobby and his minions carried out the 150 year old traditions of the “home guard,” which was really KKK.

    Excuse me, but wasn’t Medford a Republican? That seems a fairly unconvincing argument about “one party rule.” The “old boy network,” sure and that’s pretty much something both parties have.

  21. What part of good ole boy/girl/ backroom deals/ 100 years of single party rule, complacency due to no solid challengers, don’t you get?

    Sure Bobby was Republican, I think that was a quirk. You left out all the other happenings under the local Democratic leadership…why is that??? I am lamenting the lack of credible, smart, hopefully above board, straight shooting Republicans, which in my opinion are needed to combat the recalcitrance.

    That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

  22. Ken Hanke

    What part of good ole boy/girl/ backroom deals/ 100 years of single party rule, complacency due to no solid challengers, don’t you get?

    Simply that Medford is not an example of “one party rule.” Neither is Charles Taylor in a more rarefied arena.

    You left out all the other happenings under the local Democratic leadership…why is that???

    I have never said that Democratic leadership was without corruption of its own, though I’m not sure that everything you’ve cited comes under that umbrella. I find the “one party rule” concept little more than a conservative canard. As I said, the parties of 140 years ago don’t much reflect today. And I’m still saying that nothing good has come from the shift in power in Raleigh. I haven’t seen you any too thrilled with it when it comes down to it on a point by point basis either.

    That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

    I wasn’t trying to change your opinion, merely offering my own.

  23. “I find the “one party rule” concept little more than a conservative canard. “

    That is typical “yellar dog baloney.” If someone is critical of the local power structure, they must be a shill for the other side. B.S.!! I’m a longterm independent voter (since the early 80s). I try to pick what I consider the best candidates from the total field. But you go ahead and delude yourself I’m a shill. Frankly I don’t give a dam.

  24. Ken Hanke

    But you go ahead and delude yourself I’m a shill.

    If I thought you were a shill, I would hardly have noted that you’ve been very vocally against things done by the new Republican-controlled state legislature, now would I? I never indicated that you were the author and owner of the “one party rule” idea, merely that it is trotted out by conservatives on a regular basis, especially on the Xpress comments secton.

  25. Dionysis

    “I am lamenting the lack of credible, smart, hopefully above board, straight shooting Republicans”

    It seems to me that Republicans with those attributes and qualities are not too welcome in today’s radicalized Republican Party, and that by and large, they’ve been purged. I’d like to see a return of the kind of Republicans from previous decades, who tended to be fiscally conservative but relative social moderates (i.e. non-ideologues), and were actually able to work collaboratively with Democrats to get things done (particularly on the national level).

  26. And for running them off, the hard right bears a heavy load of responsibility.

    Instead, when the level headed old guard type have enough and are forced out, the response is usually “good riddance, you weren’t REALLY a Republican anyway.”

  27. Actually Mr. Hanke, I have not been very vocal on what’s been happening in Raleigh this past few months. I’ve been in wait and see mode.

    For me the emphasis is on local, as that is where I see anyone not satisfied with the Status Quo can actually have an effect.

  28. Ken Hanke

    Actually Mr. Hanke, I have not been very vocal on what’s been happening in Raleigh this past few months.

    I could have sworn that at least the new abortion regulations drew your ire.

  29. Those regulations are small part of the recent actions regarding redistricting, or adding a couple more seats to Buncombe County Commissioners.

    Anyway the time has come for you and I to politely agree to disagree….now go ahead, have the last word.

  30. sharpleycladd

    So we’ve had breast power, followed by Messrs. Nesbitt and Mumpower. Which exhibitionists are on tap for Pack Square the following weekend?

  31. Dionysis

    “Which exhibitionists are on tap for Pack Square the following weekend?”

    None that are known, but if they ever have albino midget mud wrestling, I’m there!

  32. M.Granpappy Pyle

    Attention….
    Dr.Carl Mumpower and Chad Nesbitt are clearly seeking to bring attention to themselves in this.They have a very great way of showing us what has become wrong with politics…they focus on non-issues,they point their little fingers and raise their obnoxious voices and bicker and argue….I for one think that the real issues are being lost….if the boob rally was meant to bring awareness to certain aspects of our society that have been taken for granted,and over looked…i think it acheived it.The equal rights of human beings…we all have the inherited right to live in freedom and protest how we choose…these two seem to think that they are this all mighty voice of moral values and good deed citizen ship…
    They are holding on to dying political careers and grasping at any thing that garners more attention than their blind crusade to save our precious little mountain town from drug crazed lunatics…and gays,fornicators…etc.Clearly missing it in every way every time…i wish they would just leave it alone.The future is on us now…Carl,Chad…listen go to your little lives and have your opinions but…you are not leaders,neither of you are solid leaders…it is time you faced the cold hard facts here. Are you both not fathers? Shouldn’t you let your children see you stop making fools of yourselves…Child Abuse??? Seriously,formal complaints against Asheville,the Police dept….i saw it on the news and i thought it was ajoke…Chad Nesbitt is a Joke!!! dude please wake up and pinch your little loverboy Carl on the cheek…you guys make this town more and more seem like some Mayberry on Acid…although i will give you two this…you are entertaining…i loved it when Carl rode to the crack spot…

  33. Ashevegasjoe

    As long as we’re avoiding any serious issues and dwelling on superficial ones, what’s up with Chad’s eyebrows?? Plucked, waxed, burnt off in a meth lab explosion? With a fivehead like that, let them bush up man!

  34. brebro

    A lawyer told him that if you grow your mutton chop sideburns to cover an increasing expanse of your face while the forehead continues to recede on each side, it will result in a net cumulative unchanged volume of hair on and around your head area and you can legally claim to have no hair loss, statistically speaking.

  35. Ashevegasjoe

    fivehead (n) when an individual’s “four” head is seemingly to big to be supported by their slack-jaw.

    “While watching Chad Nesbitt ramble on and on about how the world would be better, if only everyone were just like him, I couldn’t help but notice his enormous fivehead, and lack of any visible eyebrows.”

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