Happy Brexit Day

Congratulations to our cousins across the pond!

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Ad on immigration policy

Video of a "best ad" for the 2020 election cycle, forwarded to me by a buddy in DC:

I have not been able to find this elsewhere online, so it may be a sneak peek.

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Peter Schweizer on Sen. Sherrod Brown

Here’s more from Peter Schweizer’s chapter in Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite (HarperCollins) on Sen. Sherrod Brown (footnote numbers silently deleted) :

Sherrod Brown has always relied on a certain roguish charm when in the public spotlight. Described by the media as a “handsome, gravelly-voiced defender of the working class; perpetually mentioned in presidential conversations,” he has spent almost his entire adult life either serving in political office or running for it. The unique appeal to his supporters, in addition to that charm, is the fact that he viewed “himself as a progressive before it was cool.”. . .

. . .

Brown displays his working-class sentiments in his Senate office reception area, where he has a miner’s safety lamp sitting on the table, as well as a beer stein from the United Mine Workers. . . .

His wife, Connie Schultz, once sent an email to a colleague at the Cleveland Plain Dealer who had drawn a political cartoon critical of him. She wrote: “For 30 years, Sherrod has fought for those who would have no voice and no future without him . . . (and he) remains a hero to so many. . . .

But Brown himself, as we will see, grew up privileged. While he has campaigned with a hole in one shoe (and drawn the media’s attention to it with an early, infamous reelection advertisement), his roots are far from working class.

. . .Sherrod Brown’s friend John Eichinger jokingly explained at a Democratic Party roast back in 1982 that Brown’s approach is to “get money from the rich and votes from the poor by promising to protect them from each other.”

It is a formula that has worked in American politics for more than one hundred years.

However, a closer examination reveals a far more complex picture than that of a conventional progressive politician. More than simply using that political strategy to win office, Brown seems to have used his government office to benefit his family, in particular, his brother’s legal practice, which has engaged in what some might consider strange and suspect lawsuits. Additionally, Brown’s advocacy for “workers” appears to be far more about protecting union leaders who donate to his campaigns than rank-and-file union workers. Indeed, when the interests of union leaders and the union members clash, Brown consistently sides with the bosses who have underwritten his many political campaigns.

The chapter contains over 100 footnotes to print and online sources.  I chose the above extracts to provide a partial overview of chapter 6, and there is much more on Sen. Brown’s relationships with and activities involving labor pension funds and his association with his brother’s law firm.

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Trump rally today in Wildwood New Jersey

photo credit: The Hill

Pamela Geller reports:

People actually camped outside on [Monday] evening, for a Trump rally that is occurring today. New Jersey is a solidly blue state, but that means nothing to the people camping outside. They just want to see the #GOAT [“Greatest of All Time” – I had to look it up] president. It is going to be a wild rally in Wildwood, New Jersey.

Duke Reale, from Galloway Township, is so determined to see President Trump in Wildwood that he arrived two days early so he could be first in line. Soon, dozens showed up right beside him.

RECORD-BREAKER: 175,000 Requests For Tickets To Trump Rally In NJ Tonight; Hundreds Camp Out In Cold 

One America News will provide full coverage of the president’s “Keep America Great” rally, without interruption, this evening (Tuesday, Jan 28) starting at 7 p.m. EST. If you don’t have access to OAN, Right Side Broadcast Network (RSBN) will livestream it, and you can find the link at Conservative Treehouse (scroll down if necessary).  (Sundance usually posts the link an hour or two before the event begins, but he already has a link to the RSBN twitter video feed checking out the crowds. Click here.)

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Why this political nightmare never ends

image credit: medicalxpress.com

Victor Davis Hanson argues that the radical Democrats have boxed themselves in – they have no choice but to keep on their path to a “slow motion suicide” :

Democrats don’t talk up their alternate agenda because they know that more regulations, open borders, trade appeasement, banning fracking, and the green new deal, would be the very opposite of Trump’s plan and likely achieve the very opposite of Trump’s results. In this context, destroying Trump is not just the only viable trajectory for the Left, but it is also the only possible narrative. Again, to focus on the current left-wing agenda is slow-motion suicide.

The Democrats know that impeachment will not lead to a conviction. They accept that they are not gaining traction in the polls. They fear that Trump’s wounds heal quickly and what doesn’t destroy him can make him stronger.

So why continue? Again, there is little other alternative. Moreover, addicts do not act logically and the Left is hooked on Trump and cannot quit him. Finally, they hope to destroy Trump physically. He will be 74 in June. By the standards of senior medicine, they feel Trump is locked in a self-destructive cycle: little sleep, little exercise, poor diet, too heavy, too stressed.

Hanson’s column at American Greatness is here.

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Peter Schweizer on Fox/Levin tomorrow

Peter Schweizer has been making the rounds on the news shows, talking about his book, Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite (HarperCollins). I am partway through the book, and it’s both frightening and well-documented.  As I linked the other day, Rebecca Mansour at Breitbart reported that the

bombshell investigative book contains 1,126 endnotes totaling 83 pages of source material, Breitbart News has learned.

In addition, the book contains no unnamed sources. Instead, it is based on hard evidence and documents, including: foreign and domestic corporate and legal records, tax liens, lobbyist disclosures, property records, White House visitor logs, federal bankruptcies, and federal criminal trial records.

Anyway, Mr. Schweizer’s appearances on, e.g., Watter’s World, are frustrating, as most hosts do most of the talking. But Sunday evening (tomorrow), Mr. Schweizer will be on Mark Levin’s Fox broadcast at 8pm of Live, Liberty and Levin.  While I go hot and cold on Mr. Levin, his Sunday evening broadcasts on Fox are generally restrained, well-prepared, and designed to maximize the commentary by the guest. I’ll be tuning in.

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Still an uphill battle

Most of the metrics are up: the economy, employment, Main Street, jobs, etc.  And even though the impeachment charade should never have been validated by the Senate, many conservatives can be comforted by the fact that things are, indeed, getting better. Or are they?  Mark Bauerlein at American Greatness sobers us up again:

The election of November 2016, the elevation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the Mueller report debacle, the Iran turnaround, and other wins for conservatives may be satisfying, but they have not shaken the leftist lock on our institutions one bit. The simmering stew of LGBT rights, toxic masculinity, white privilege, disparate impact calculations, and Millennial social justice campaigns has become dogma in corporate America, media, higher education, K-12 public schools (and many private schools, too), Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Broadway, the art world, museums, libraries . . .

. . .

For the Left, outcomes trump procedure just as politics eclipses intelligence, conscientiousness, and competence. One thing I saw in more than 30 years in academia was that while leftists on the faculty were not always the brightest bulbs in the room, they often managed to populate university and department committees where policies were created and passed. While we were teaching and researching; they were reshaping the institution. We were getting on with our work, pushing our individual careers, getting our names in print, and believing we were advancing the field and the school. They were taking over. Put it this way: We were clueless, they were canny.

Donald Trump understands this. That’s one reason the Left despises him. He typically doesn’t bother to debate ideas and ideals, but this is not anti-intellectualism, as the liberal says. It is, instead, his awareness that politics is now, first and foremost, a battle of persons, not ideologies or tax rates or trade. The Kavanaugh episode proves the point, for this battle was all about the individual (which is one reason why Supreme Court appointments are so heated).

In recent times, conservatives have tended to focus on ideas. If, after President Trump leaves office, they don’t start thinking more about personnel, if they don’t consider the population of institutions as much as they do the structure of institutions, if they choose a leader who thinks technocratically instead of ad hominem-ly, we will indeed end up with the permanent Democratic majority liberal intellectuals have predicted for the last 20 years.

Read the rest here.

And a follow-up: One American News’s special report on FISA abuse (blogged here) is not at present scheduled for a re-broadcast.

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Dilbert watches the impeachment hearings . . .

…so you don’t have to. Scott Adams’s (Dilbert creator) tweet via Lifezette:

“If you can’t watch the Democrats’ impeachment argument, I summarize them here: Blah, blah, muh documents, watch this hoax video, blah, blah, muh documents.”

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Profiles in Corruption, including Sherrod Brown

Peter Schweizer’s book, Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite (HarperCollins), is out today, and Rebecca Mansour at Breitbart reported that the

bombshell investigative book contains 1,126 endnotes totaling 83 pages of source material, Breitbart News has learned.

In addition, the book contains no unnamed sources. Instead, it is based on hard evidence and documents, including: foreign and domestic corporate and legal records, tax liens, lobbyist disclosures, property records, White House visitor logs, federal bankruptcies, and federal criminal trial records.

Publishing giant HarperCollins has kept Profiles in Corruption under a strict embargo. The book will reportedly expose how five members of Joe Biden’s family—the “Biden Five”—scored “tens of millions of dollars” in taxpayer money and guaranteed loans. In addition, the book is said to contain never-before-reported bombshell revelations about Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, and Eric Garcetti.

Last week Amazon named the book its “most anticipated” nonfiction book based on pre-sale volume. Ten days before the book’s January 21 release, it had already hit #1 on Amazon across all book genres.

The book’s writer, Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer, is a five-time New York Times bestseller author who penned Clinton Cash and Secret Empires. According to Axios, Schweizer and his GAI team of investigators spent a year and a half researching Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite.

While Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders will likely be getting most of the headlines, there is a chapter on Ohio’s own Senator, Sherrod Brown. Several sections in that chapter may resonate with reports of Joe Biden's son and brother allegedly benefiting from the Vice President's position of influence:

[Sherrod] Brown’s congressional career—in both the House and Senate—is marked by a devotion to progressive causes before they become widely supported within the Democratic Party. Brown’s efforts in the minutiae of health and medical issues — those that seem designed to help put a lot of money in the pocket of his brother— are less well known.

More to come.

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President Trump is a threat?

It’s the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, so I was looking for some essays and think-pieces that might be of interest to Tea Party readers.  One that I found is J. B. Shurk’s somewhat wider perspective of President Trump, as published at American Thinker (and if you dislike President Trump, you still may find his perspectives interesting). The title: “What Do Democrats Fear in Donald Trump? Greatness.”  Here’s a sample:

Consider how many powerful ideas Donald Trump has cast into the national consciousness.  He has exposed both major parties as socialist globalist cults more concerned with government health care and foreign nation-building than a policy for American freedom.  He has exposed how free trade can never be free when based on slave labor.  He has exposed how the silent destruction of towns across the Midwest came not from China's comparative advantage, but from American companies' use of slavery by proxy.  He has redirected investment away from Wall Street and toward Main Street for the first time in over thirty years and has unleashed three decades' worth of pent up entrepreneurial energy in the very towns long deemed dead.  He has questioned how the federal government can have any legitimacy if it fails at enforcing its very own immigration laws.  

Not one Nobel laureate imagined this American renaissance of GDP and stock market surge, record-low unemployment, wage growth, and low inflation in one bubbling cauldron.  It took a change agent.  Not one foreign policy mandarin suggested unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit of the American oil man in order to destroy our enemies' power over us permanently.  It took a change agent.  Not one State Department official questioned why the United States was still subsidizing Europe's generous socialist welfare system seventy years after WWII.  It took a change agent.  Nobody wondered why we were enriching China at our own expense and preparing for a world where a communist dictator would lead.  It took Donald Trump.

Without worry or apology, Donald Trump stands before the world with a giant mirror, and the world does not like what it sees.  

. . .

What his fiercest adversaries [such as James Carville] are only now realizing is that Trump has shifted the trajectory of history permanently. 

Read the full article here.

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"FISA Spying on TEAM TRUMP"

  

It's about FBI and FISA corruption: Friday night at 7pm on OAN

Sundance at Conservative Treehouse has the report:

Few people have read the entire inspector general report on the FBI’s FISA misconduct, and fewer still have an understanding of the depth of troubling findings within it.  In an effort to provide information about the content, John Spiropoulos has produced a documentary going over many of the reports’ more important findings.

The exceptionally well produced documentary called “FISA, Spying on Team Trump” is an hour long broadcast created by John Spiropoulos, a former MSM journalist and producer for Channel 7 in Washington DC (1979 – 1989).  John spent a month going through every page of the report, pulling out some of the key details and overlaying information from IG Michael Horowitz congressional testimony.

The investigative report will premier tonight at 7:00pm EST / 4:00pm PST on One America News (OAN).

Click here for the rest of the report as well as a video preview.  (If you miss the broadcast, it will probably be accessible on the OAN website. I'll post an update.)

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Yesterday’s Democrat debate on CNN

The line-up looked so yawn-inducing that I didn’t even post the link to Stephen Green’s Drunkblogging at Vodkapundit.  Today, Mr. Green summarized the . . .

SNOOZEFEST: In Iowa Debate, Mild Feuding and No Fireworks. “Defying expectations, however, the gloves largely stayed on as the contenders appeared reluctant to take forceful shots and risk alienating some of their opponents’ supporters — voters they will need in the long run to have a shot of defeating President Trump.”

Or as I put it in last night’s drunkblog:

Here’s the big close, where each candidate promises that they’re the one who can take on Donald Trump on a debate stage.

But they can’t even take on each other. They can’t even get their energy up when thrown softballs by Wolf Blitzer. These folks couldn’t get it up with a hot tub, a platter of chilled raw oysters, some Barry White on Spotify, and a handful of little blue pills.

Limp debate, limp candidates, limp chances.

And:

I don’t know what my Democrat friends would say, if they were unguarded long enough to give an honest assessment. But I can’t imagine they would express much excitement.

Because how can you get excited about a bunch of contenders seemingly content with nothing more than a participation trophy?

The still-standing (D) candidates are in good company. When Cory Booker dropped out of the race the other day, he also got a trophy, as Babylon Bee reported :

Cory Booker Moved To Tears 

During Participation Trophy Acceptance Speech

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Today's feel-good (short) video

photo via Breitbart

Via DC Whispers:

AWESOME.

This President and First Lady are loved and appreciated by millions despite the 24/7 lunacy that is the far-left media and Democrat Party.

What a moment – one that you can clearly see meant a great deal to the both of them.

Click here for the blog and the video (30 seconds).

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Yet more evidence forthcoming

There's good news over at Breitbart; Ezra Dulis reports:

‘Profiles in Corruption’ Hits #1 on Amazon 10 Days Before Book Release

The highly anticipated investigative bombshell book Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite hit #1 on Amazon Saturday, despite the fact that the book’s official release is still over a week away.

When Axios and Breitbart News first reported about the book’s unveiling by publisher HarperCollins on Thursday, Profiles in Corruption was #822,128 on Amazon. Less than 48 hours later, the book zoomed to #1 across all book genres.

Very little is publicly known about the book’s contents. Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer and his investigative team spent a year and a half researching it. A source close to the publisher said the book’s contents will “upend official Washington” and that Schweizer’s prior bombshell revelations about Hunter Biden were “just the tip of the iceberg.” The book is said to contain brand new evidence that five members of Joe Biden’s family—the “Biden Five”—scored “tens of millions of dollars” in taxpayer cash and guaranteed loans.

Mike Allen of Axios, who exclusively announced HarperCollins’ forthcoming release of Profiles in Corruption, reported that the book’s table of contents includes chapters on leading progressives, including:

• Joe Biden
• Eric Garcetti
• Cory Booker
• Elizabeth Warren
• Sherrod Brown
• Bernie Sanders
• Amy Klobuchar

If Schweizer’s next book is anything like his four previous consecutive New York Times bestsellers, Washington will feel its shockwaves. 

Interesting to see Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown on the list. On the other hand, Mr. Schweizer’s previous books, Secret Empires and Clinton Cash, already dug up enough evidence to get indictments. Exit question: where are the indictments?

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Fantastic news from Brad Parscale…

photo via Citizen Free Press

Brad Parscale was the “digital media director for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. He now serves as the campaign manager for Trump's 2020 reelection campaign.”  Citizen Free Press reported Mr. Parscale's tweet: 

Big data from Toledo (those who attended the rally last week):

✅ 22,927 Voters Identified

✅ 18,210 Voters From Ohio

✅ 5,216 Registrants Didn’t Vote in 2016

✅ 21.9% Democrats

✅ 20.9% Independents

These rallies are opportunities for Team Trump to identify potential voters. Good.

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Ohio anti-sanctuary law: Action Alert

image credit: pagop.org

From Cleveland Tea Party’s Ralph King on Facebook:

Via USATODAY.COM

Trump changes in immigration policy slowed, but states are cranking out their own new laws

As President Trump and Congress remain deadlocked on immigration legislation, a slew of immigration bills are moving through state legislatures.

More and more states are passing Anti-Sanctuary City laws. Ohio needs to get moving!!!

OH HB 169 Anti-Sanctuary City Bill in Ohio! HB 169 would require state and local authorities to cooperate with the federal government in the enforcement of immigration laws, to sanction those that fail to do so. HB 169 is in the Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee awaiting hearings.

Please contact Committee Chairman Rep George Lang (614) 466-8550 and politely request HB 169 be brought up for Committee Hearings.

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Tom Fitton on voter registration

Tom Fitton’s update on voter registration is at Breitbart:

One of the most important things we can do in this election year is to continue to force states and counties across the nation to comply with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

And we are. We have sent notice-of-violation letters to 19 large counties in five states that we intend to sue unless they take steps to comply with the law and remove ineligible voter registrations within 90 days. Section 8 of the act requires jurisdictions to take reasonable efforts to remove ineligible registrations from their rolls.

. . .

378 counties nationwide have more voter registrations than citizens old enough to vote, i.e., counties where registration rates exceed 100%.

. . .

Our previous lawsuits have already led to major cleanups in California, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio – but more needs to be done. It is common sense that voters who die or move away be removed from the voting rolls.

Ohio’s been on the list.  (The full article by Tom Fitton is here.) Recently, Judicial Watch sent out a pamphlet titled “8 Things You can DO Now to Help Stop Voter Fraud.” I’ll be sharing some of those recommendations later this month.

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FB post by an Iranian

Seen on Facebook:

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No Safe Spaces update: northern Ohio showings

This blog has reported several times on Dennis Prager's and Adam Carolla’s documentary No Safe Spaces.  See here (includes review by Bookworm Room).  The website for the documentary now lists four Ohio theaters, including one in Richmond Heights.  For the northern Ohio listings, click here and scroll down to the Ohio listings.

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Dennis Prager on “leftism” and “meaning”

image credit: drray.com

Starting off 2020 on a philosophical note. . .  Dennis Prager recently published “Greta Thunberg: A Living Explanation of the Left” at Real Clear Politics. His article considers the difference between a “liberal” and a “leftist,” and why conservative and leftists are unable to communicate with each other.  He begins:

It is not easy to understand what the left -- as opposed to liberals -- stands for. If you ask a Christian what to read to learn the basics of Christianity, you will be told the Bible. If you ask a (religious) Jew, you will be told the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud. If you ask a Mormon, you will be told the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Ask a Muslim and you will be told the Quran.

But if you ask a leftist what one or two books you should read to understand leftism, every leftist will give you a different answer -- or need some time to think it over. Few, if any, will suggest Marx's "Das Kapital" because almost no leftists have read it and because you will either not finish the book or reject it as incoherent.

So, then, how is one to understand what leftism stands for?

The truth is -- it is almost impossible. What leftist in history would have ever imagined that to be a leftist, one would have to believe that men give birth or men have periods, or that it is fair to women to have to compete in sports with biological males who identify as females?

There are two primary reasons it is so difficult, if not impossible, to define leftism. One is that it ultimately stands for chaos:

-- Open borders.

-- "Non-binary" genders.

-- Nonsensical and scatological "art."

-- "Music" without tonality, melody or harmony.

-- Drag Queen Story Hour for 5-year-olds.

-- Rejection of the concept of better or worse civilizations.

-- Rejection of the concept of better or worse art.

-- Removal of Shakespeare's picture from a university English department because he was a white male.

-- The end of all use of fossil fuels -- even in transportation (as per the recent recommendation by the head of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization).

-- The dismantling of capitalism, the economic engine that has lifted billions of people out of abject poverty.

And much more.

The other major reason it is impossible to define leftism is that it is emotion-based. Leftism consists of causes that give those who otherwise lack meaning something to cling to for meaning.

Two things about Greta Thunberg, Time magazine's 2019 person of the year, embody these explanations.

Mr. Prager goes on to illustrate the emotional need for “meaning” by examining the strange case of St. Greta.  It explains why those who employ facts and logic have little chance of persuading those whose grasp of facts and logic are subordinate to their emotional needs.  But is also helps those who employ logic and facts to understand the rantings of Robert De Niro, Bette Midler, Cher, mainstream media hosts such as Don Lemon and Joy Reid, etc.  Read the rest here.

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Happy New Year!

gif credit: pinterest.com

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