Tea Party Patriots Ordinary citizens reclaiming America's founding principles.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Gridiron Dinner: Trump Meets the Press

image credit: pinterest.com


President Trump spoke at the Gridiron Dinner last night. Not televised. The full transcript of his speech is here. Here’s part of his opening remarks:

It’s been really another calm week at the White House. We finally have it running like a fine-tuned machine. It’s fine-tuned. It’s a beautiful piece of work. … But before I get started, I wanted to apologize for arriving a little bit late. You know, we were late tonight because Jared could not get through security. 
. . .

I know the Gridiron is really an old tradition in Washington, been around a long time, and one that’s important to many of you in the media. So, I was very excited to receive this invitation and come here and ruin your evening in person. 

… My staff was concerned heading into this dinner that I couldn’t do self-deprecating humor. They were worried about it. They said, ‘Can you do this?’ And I told them not to worry. Nobody does self-deprecating humor better than I do. …  In fact, Orrin Hatch, Orrin said that ‘Donald Trump is the best at self-deprecating in the history of America, better than Washington and better than Lincoln.’ … Thank you, Orrin.

More:

. . . Attorney General Sessions is here with us tonight. … I offered him a ride over and he recused himself. … But that’s OK. We also have some of the leading lights of the media here including some folks from the failing New York Times. That sucker is failing! … I know we have our differences, but I also know that you have a very special place … in my heart. … The other day they had five stories on the front page of the New York Times and every one of them was totally different and each one of them was bad.

After all, you the New York Times are an icon. I’m a New York icon, you’re a New York icon, and the only difference is, I still own my buildings.

I especially have a place in my heart for Arthur Sulzberger. … Our stories are almost mirror images. I inherited a million dollars from my father—had a great father—gave me a million dollars and I turned it into billions. True story. Arthur inherited billions of dollars and he turned his into millions. Hello Arthur.

More zingers at the TPM blog transcript here.
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Thursday, March 1, 2018

Where is the Attorney General?




“You know we talk about special prosecutors, but enough of that…I don’t want new prosecutors, I want prosecutions.” Fitton demanded.
 
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton was talking to the CPAC audience about the Clintons and other scandals that never seem to result in grand juries or indictments. Meanwhile, the Mueller investigation grinds on.


For those who are frustrated at Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s seeming invisibility or failure to take action, maybe it’s simply that we don’t know what is going on behind the scenes. Thomas Lifson at American Thinker makes a good point:

One other thing to never forget: Jeff Sessions spent 12 years as a U.S. attorney in Alabama and went on to spend two years as the attorney general of Alabama before becoming a United States senator.  He is a veteran prosecutor, and he knows that you keep evidence secret, and that when you bring an indictment, you must have all your ducks in line, not compromised by leaks and not requiring more investigation.

The rest of Lifson’s article is here.
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Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Precision Idiocy



 art credit: pixabay.com


As you file your taxes, try not to think too hard about the revelation that your hard-earned money is helping someone achieve their dream of becoming a clown. Because, apparently becoming a clown requires going to college, and going to college requires taxpayers footing the bill. Next time you're at the circus, demand a "thank you" from a clown.

CNS News provides more information about the bad news regarding the gross misuse of our taxes: "The federal government is funding a clown school located in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco-based congressional district that has classes and workshops on 'Precision Idiocy' and how to act like a 'Buffoon,'" CNS wrote. "The school, which is called the 'Clown Conservatory' and is part of the nonprofit Circus Center, received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that runs from June 2017 through May 2018." Clown Conservatory claims to be “the United States' only professional training program for clowns and physical comedians.”

The rest of the report is here. And in related news at the LA Times:


Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ohio Gov. John Kasich will headline an event to debut a new group seeking to reform the California Republican Party.

The pair will deliver speeches and participate in panels on March 21 in Los Angeles at an event for New Way California, a group formed by Assemblyman Chad Mayes (R-Yucca Valley).

“They will be focused on reminding the Republican Party we need them to be successful, but in order to be successful, they need to choose policies and messaging that helps them grow rather than continue to shrink,” said Daniel Ketchell, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger.

Cue: “Send in the Clowns.”
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Monday, February 26, 2018

Mark Levin debuts on Fox

photo / image credit: pinterest.com


Last night, Mark Levin debuted his Sunday evening program on Fox:

On the Fox News Channel premiere of "Life, Liberty & Levin,"Mark Levin sat down for an illuminating discussion with prominent economist and syndicated columnist Walter E. Williams.

Levin recalled that when he was about 20 years old, he spoke with then-Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.), a close ally of Ronald Reagan.

"One of the things he said to me that has stuck with me ever since [was] 'every day Congress meets, we lose a little bit of our liberty.' It wasn't supposed to be that way," Levin noted.
. . .

Our household reluctantly tuned in last night -- and with low expectations. Levin is often strident and irritating on radio, and we did not sign on to CRTV after his disgraceful treatment/firing of Mark Steyn about a month after they started operations. However, last night’s program was a pleasant surprise. The distinguished economics professor Walter E. Williams was on for the full hour, so there was a sustained discussion instead of the usual 2-minute sound bite, cut off with the host/hostess saying “we’re out of time.”

There is a short video extract at the link (scroll down).

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Thursday, February 22, 2018

More on House Bill 512 - Comprehensive Education Restructuring

image credit: yaf.org

Yesterday, I posted an Action Alert that is circulating among Ohio liberty groups concerning House Bill 512 -- a bill that is 2,430 pages in length! Today, I found more information at the Christian Home Educators of Ohio here. Here's their take :

CHEO LEGISLATIVE ALERT – February 16, 2018
From Melanie Elsey, Legislative liaison for Christian Home Educators of Ohio

Regarding: HB 512 – Comprehensive Education Restructuring

This legislation (2.430 pages in length), sponsored by State Representative Bill Reineke and co-sponsored by Representatives Blessing, Carfagna, Pelanda, Brenner, Riedel, Hoops, and Koehler, was introduced February 142018. It has not yet been assigned to committee.

HB 512 places the regulations for home education and regulations for non-chartered, nonpublic schools (08 schools) in jeopardy by pulling them out of the jurisdiction of the State Board of Education (partially elected) and placing these policies under the authority of a NON-ELECTED cabinet agency under the sole authority of the Governor.

At Wednesday’s press conference, Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger stated that HB512 will be the Ohio House’s mission for the rest of the year.”
It is intended to abolish the Ohio Board of Regents, abolish the Ohio Department of Higher Education, and strip the Ohio Department of Education/State Board of Education of more than 80% of their duties.  It creates an enormous state agency in the executive branch with authority over all the responsibilities of these abolished and diminished agencies. This new agency would be called the Department of Learning and Achievement (DLA).  In the language of the bill this “mega-agency” will have a blank check on their authority to set policy as described in 3301.07(D). 

There will be NO ACCOUNTABILITY to the public – only to the Governor. In various news articles, Governor Kasich has publicly expressed frustration for lack of control of the State Board of Education. This new agency would provide him with the desired oversight and authority in this area.

The bill’s sponsor, Representative Reineke stated, “This bill is about a lifetime of learning – crib to career – birth to work.”  He has served on Governor Kasich’s Taskforce for Workforce Transformation, which will become a department within the DLA and he is genuinely excited about the intent of this legislation to streamline how students are prepared for what he calls the “new knowledge economy.”

CHEO is working to review and analyze all of these proposed policies within the 2430 pages of this legislation.  It will absolutely affect every child in this state for generations to come.

IMMEDIATE ACTION IS NEEDED:

Home education is not the focus or intent of this legislation, but the shift in authority places ALL POLICIES governing home education in SERIOUS JEOPARDY. Speaker Rosenberger is making this a high priority and, as such, this legislation will likely be on a fast track – unless legislators hear from you!

1)  Please contact your own State Representative and urge him/her to OPPOSE HB512. In your own words, please express the importance of keeping policies that govern pre-K to grade 12 education with the State Board of Education, where you have an elected representative. There should not be transfer of power that will have ZERO accountability to the public. Please be respectful, yet firm, in all communications with legislators.

2)  Please contact Speaker Rosenberger (614-466-3506) and ask him to stop his efforts to take away your voice by moving most responsibilities of the State Board of Education to an unelected agency.

3) . . . You can visit the CHEO website at:  www.cheohome.org

You can find contact information for your state representative at www.legislature.ohio.gov

More details on yesterday's Action Alert concerning House Bill 512 are here.
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Wednesday, February 21, 2018

ACTION ALERT! Ohio Board of Education vs The Feds



One of the three core Tea Party principles is in support of "limited government," and here we have yet another imminent intrusion of the federal government into state business. This Action Alert is already on several Ohio liberty group lists. It’s all about The Feds' attempted overreach into the Ohio Board of Education and school systems, and it appears to undo the provisions passed in 2014 in Ohio HB 487, as summarized here on Rep. Brenner’s webpage and which include the following language:

No official or board shall enter into any agreement or memorandum of understanding with a federal or private entity that requires the state to cede any control of development, adoption or revision of academic content standards. (3301.07, page 12)

I am forwarding the Alert:

Oppose HB 512!


Ohio State Board of Education, Sarah Fowler, alerted us to something that needs our immediate attention.  

On February 14th, State Representative Bill Reineke (R – 88th District) introduced HB 512. This legislation would combine the Ohio Department of Education, the Ohio Department of Higher Education, and the Ohio Department of Workforce Transformation into a single department called the Department of Learning and Achievement. It would be organized under the governor. Not surprisingly, Governor Kasich and House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger have voiced their support for the bill.

What this legislation would mean is that our elected State Board of Education would no longer have any say in state education policy, including things like state report cards, educational standards in all subjects, public school operating standards, and home school regulations. All of these currently go through a public hearing process. This legislation would eliminate the public hearings and eliminate any transparency in the process. Further, it would concentrate more power and control in the Executive branch, giving it legislative authority.

If there is one thing that we do not need is to concentrate more power with the governor’s office, especially when it comes to the future of our children.

Call your state legislator this week
HB 512 is moving rapidly through the House, with its first hearing scheduled today. To stop this bill in its tracks, we need to move even more quickly. Start by calling your state representative and let your voice be heard. Tell your representative that you want them to vote NO on this legislation and that support of it will tell us that they are more interested in representing the governor and the House leadership than they are in representing their constituents.

Find your state representative here.

Call the committee members this week
Call every member of the Government Accountability and Oversight Committee and ask them to oppose HB 512.

1)      Chairman Louis Blessing III (Co-sponsor of HB 512), (614) 466-9091
2)      Vice-Chairman Bill Reineke (Sponsor of HB 512), (614) 466-1374
3)      Kathleen Clyde, (614) 466-2004
4)      Keith Faber, (614) 466-6344
5)      Timothy Ginter, (614) 466-8022
6)      Dave Greenspan, (614) 466-0961
7)      Brigid Kelly, (614) 466-5786
8)      Bernadine Kennedy Kent, (614) 466-5343
9)      P. Scott Lipps, (614) 466-6023
10)   Dorothy Pelanda (Co-sponsor of HB 512), (614) 466-8147
11)   Bill Sietz, (614) 466-8258
12)   Ryan Smith, (614) 466-1366
13)   Martin J. Sweeney, (614) 466-3350


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Tuesday, February 20, 2018

A letter to the boys & young men of America

Mr. Incredible

Amidst all the shrieking about toxic masculinity, I thought this column, by J. Ishiro Finney,  was worth posting in its entirety:


A response to the mass shooting in Florida.


The bodies aren’t even cold yet and already you are being blamed.

Yes you.

All of you.

The boys and young men who will grow up to become one half of America’s future.

Once again, due to society’s failure to raise you, to teach you, to properly guide you on your path to manhood, your mere existence is being held responsible for seventeen more deaths—this time in Florida, and once again, at a school. The headlines of the last few days say it all:

  “Guns don’t kill people; men and boys kill people, experts say”
  -USA TODAY

  “Michael Ian Black reacts to Florida shooting: Boys are broken”
  -New York Daily News

  “How Gun Violence And Toxic Masculinity Are Linked, In 8 Tweets”
  -The Huffington Post

  “Toxic white masculinity: The killer that haunts American life”
  -Salon

  “Toxic Masculinity Is Killing Us”
  -The Boston Globe

  “Toxic Masculinity Is Killing Us”
  -Harpers Bazaar

  “Don’t Blame Mental Illness for Mass Shootings; Blame Men”
  -Politico

In the handful of decades I’ve been alive, I’ve seen America shift from a culture of responsibility to one of blame. We don’t solve problems anymore. We cry, we pray for, we seek to find closure, and then finally, slaughter a sacrificial lamb for our sins. When I was young and Columbine happened, that lamb was Marilyn Manson and video games. Before that, it was D&D and Twisted Sister

These days, though, as body counts continue to rise and excuses continue to vanish, the lamb America has chosen to sacrifice is you. Rather than take responsibility for the seeds we’ve sown, the culture we built, and the disaster you’ve been left to inherit, we as a nation have chosen to lie to ourselves. To listen and believe those who claim that the answer is simple: “Boys are simply born bad.”

As an aging Gen Xer watching this tragedy unfold, I can’t help but look back at my youth and realize we were the dry run for this “crisis of masculinity” as the media likes to call it. In my time I’ve watched as fathers were pushed out of the home, separated from their children, and their role in society debased and devalued. Like you, I was taught male behavior was bad behavior. That I was broken and needed to be fixed. Drugs, therapy, mass socialization were required to save me from my most innate instincts—

—the need compete.
—the drive to create.
—the urge to protect.
—the desire for female affection.

Like you, I was told these instincts were not only wrong, but dangerous. That due to my Original Sin of being born a boy, I was destined to mature into a lustful monster and an oppressor of women. All this was burned into me before I even reached college, where campus policy actually assumed all men to be rapists waiting to happen.

It isn’t hard to see how we got here, to an age when America is more than willing to sacrifice its boys. To quote Fight Club, “We’re a generation of men raised by women.” And the women who raised my generation had a saying: All men are pigs. But there’s another saying those same women were enamored with and that is: The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

So here we are, coming close to fifty years of single mothers raising their boys as if they were animals. Two generations of young men raised to believe they’re broken, immoral, and dangerous. That their natural state, if left unchecked and unmedicated, is a sexual ticking time bomb of rape and abuse. Half a century of academia peddling a grim version of history that holds your gender personally responsible for all the wrongs ever to have happened in the world. And a press, that at this very moment, is blaming YOU for every school shooting to have ever occurred.

After all this, how could there not be a crisis of masculinity?

So to the boys and young men of America, believe me when I say it isn’t you who should be apologizing for the state of our world today. This mess was set in motion long before you were born.

You are not bad.

You are not broken.

You are not inherently evil or a sexual abuser in waiting.

You are boys who were robbed of your right to be men.

All your life you’ve been told to act, think, and behave like women. To suppress your passions, your pride, your need to compete and drive to achieve.

Now society is crumbling around us.

Feminizing boys didn’t make better men. It’s resulted in broken homes and shattered families and record suicide rates. It’s destroying any notion of a healthy partnership between men and women, and is pushing us ever closer to total collapse of gender relations.

Boys, we don’t need you to be like women, the world has plenty of women, already.

What the world needs now more than ever is for you to be men.

For you to grow-up, to grow strong, and do what men do.

For it is men’s strength and determination that tamed the wilderness, built civilization, and has kept the world fed despite all predictions we’d all die starving before the year 2000. It’s men’s curiosity that lead us to explore the oceans, to conquer space, and peer into the tiniest of microcosms of the human body. It was men who built the cities we inhabit, the luxuries we enjoy, the medicines that keep us alive. Men built the road, the plumbing, the electrical grid, the phone in your hand, the internet it’s connected to.

Men have always been innovators, explores, defenders, and leaders.

But most importantly, men have always been fathers.

So to the boys and young men of America, please read this and take every word to heart.

The world needs you.

-J. Ishiro Finney, Feb 2018
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My take-away: America has shifted from a culture of responsibility to one of blame.
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