Gov. John Kasich on immigration

I missed Gov. John Kasich’s appearance on CNN, but Chris Pandolfo at The Conservative Review reports:

John Kasich is cheerleading the rise of a group of Republicans in Congress who are willing to challenge GOP leadership on immigration. No, he’s not supporting the House Freedom Caucus’ fight to get a vote on president Trump’s immigration priorities. The outgoing governor of Ohio and deluded would-be 2020 presidential candidate is siding with the liberal House Republicans who are trying to force a vote to give illegal immigrant DACA recipients U.S. citizenship.

Kasich went on CNN Thursday to praise House RINOs who are threatening to file a discharge petition to trigger an automatic vote on amnesty. He thinks it’s a “really cool thing” that these Republicans are working with Democrats to override GOP leadership to pass a policy that will nullify U.S. sovereignty and encourage the importation of more vicious gangsters and deadly drugs into the country.

. . .

“I think the Republican Party has gone dormant,” Kasich said.

The Republican Party has gone dormant, but not because it won’t pass amnesty legislation. The Republican Party is dormant because of tedious, power-hungry, two-faced puny weasels like John Kasich who shun conservative principles, spit on the Republican Party platform, fight to end-run around the conservative base and help Democrats, and then sycophantically suck up to the liberal media for a few minutes of TV time in exchange for trashing fellow Republicans for acting like Republicans are supposed to.

The rest of the report (and Pandolfo is just getting started in this extract) is here. 

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Memorial Day

Via Conservative Treehouse:

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Happy Memorial Day Weekend

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Ohio House speaker update

image credit: georgebrikho.com

The Pajamas Media headline: 

FBI Agents Raid Home of Former Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger

From Paula Bolyard’s report:

FBI agents raided the home of former Ohio House speaker Cliff Rosenberger in Clarksville on Wednesday, and also searched a storage facility in Wilmington, Ohio.

“We are conducting law enforcement activities in those areas,” said FBI spokesman Todd Lindgren told the Dayton Daily News, declining to comment further.

Rosenberger, a Republican, resigned in April after learning that the FBI was investigating him for possible corruption charges. He announced at the time of his resignation that he had hired a criminal defense attorney.

. . .

Work in the Ohio House is at a standstill while Republicans bicker over who should become the next speaker. 

Sounds pretty much like a version of the DC swamp. More details here.

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Becoming a United States citizen in 1903

The document above granted United States citizenship to a German immigrant named Matthias Moskopp, and it was handed down to his descendants. It was one of his prized possessions.

I can only imagine the sense of pride, gratitude, and reverence that this man felt when he recited his first Pledge of Allegiance [correction: the Pledge was not made until 1942. In 1903, the applicant would have recited the Oath of Allegiance.] This man was my great-grandfather. And he would have been horrified at the illegal immigration that we are all trying to stop.

According to NumbersUSA, Congress is inching toward putting amnesty back on the legislative agenda (Update here). NumbersUSA VP Jim Robb reported yesterday that only 5 more GOP representatives were needed to fulfill the requirement for the discharge petition, which would increase the risk of a vote on amnesty that most Americans do not want.

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Rainbow over Cleveland

5:50 pm ~ photo by Cleveland Tea Party’s roving photographer, Pat J Dooley

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Socialism on the rise

image credit:thedebtweowe.com

The disconcerting headline (disconcerting to Tea Party people!) in Rick Moran’s piece in American Thinker:

"Socialism is going mainstream, and Millennials are the cause"

From the article:

A headline in The Hill captures a significant moment in American history: "Four socialist-backed candidates win Pennsylvania legislative primaries."

The Democratic Socialists of America supported all four candidates, who will almost certainly win in November, given their lack of GOP opponents.

The DSA itself thinks socialism's time has come:

The DSA hailed the legislative victories as a huge moment for the socialist movement. 

Arielle Cohen, co-chair of the Pittsburgh DSA chapter, told HuffPost that she feels a "monumental shift" after the victories, noting DSA's growing membership since President Trump's election.

"We won on popular demands that were deemed impossible.  We won on health care for all, we won on free education," she said.

"We're turning the state the right shade of red tonight," she added.

The "right shade of red" is due to a growing acceptance for socialism, especially among Millennials, and outright hostility and opposition to capitalism. 

. . .

How did this happen? The short answer is that the American people are ignorant of the dangers to human liberty posed by socialism and have been propagandized by our educational system, our culture, and our media to hate capitalism.  If you are told capitalism is evil for your entire life by teachers, movies, TV, and news media, you are going to believe that capitalism is evil. 

The rest of the article is here. If you go to the link, you will see more than the usual number of reader comments - over 400 when I posted. 

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Book Note: Why Trump Is a President Like No Other

Historian Victor Davis Hanson reviews historian Conrad Black’s new book Why Trump Is a President Like No Other at American Greatness. Here are a few paragraphs from the review:

Conrad Black’s erudite biography of Donald J. Trump is different from the usual in mediis rebus [the middle of things into which one jumps] accounts of first-year presidents. He avoids the Bob Woodward fly-on-the-wall unattributed anecdote, and “they say” gossip mongering. Nor is the book a rush-to-publish product from former insiders of the Trump campaign or administration. Instead, Black, a prolific and insightful historian, adopts the annalistic method in carefully tracing Trump’s earliest years in business through his various commercial misadventures, financial recoveries, and sometimes wild antics. Black’s aim is to illustrate how much of what Trump has done since announcing his presidential candidacy in summer 2015 is hardly mysterious. Instead, Trump’s methods are fully explicable by what he has always done in the past—in the sometimes troubling, but more often reassuring, sense.

. . .

Black’s final third of the book is magisterial, as he recites nascent Trump achievements—tax reform, deregulation, the end of the Affordable Care Act individual mandate, superb judicial appointments, curbs on illegal immigration, expanded oil and gas production, a restoration of deterrence aboard—against a backdrop of nonstop venom and vituperation from the so-called “Resistance.” He is certainly unsparing of the Left’s desperate resort to discard the Electoral College, sue under the emoluments clause, invoke the 25th Amendment, introduce articles of impeachment, and embrace a sick assassination chic of threats to Trump’s person and family. Some element of such hysteria is due to Trump’s ostensible Republican credentials (the Left had devoured even their once beloved John McCain, as well as the gentlemanly and judicious Mitt Romney), but more is due to Trump’s far more conservative agenda and his take-no-prisoners style.

Trump’s friends and critics assure us that his incessant twittering and carnival rally-barking are suicidal. Black is too insightful to settle for such a one-dimensional critique (while often lamenting that Trump’s bluster and rhetorical excess are hurting full appreciation of his otherwise solid accomplishments). Instead, Black sees much of Trump’s targeting as comeuppance and long overdue—given a sanctimonious, corrupt media, and a gatekeeping political class that weakened the country over the last two decades of fiscal, social, cultural, and military irresponsibility.

. . .

The rest of Hanson’s review is here. It’s pretty much a rave.

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Amnesty Threat. Again. Alert!

image credit: www,cafepresscom

Late yesterday, NumbersUSA sent out an Action Alert. Below is a lightly edited copy of the Alert:

RED ALERT!
AMNESTY THREAT!

Republican faction working with Democrats to force vote on Amnesty-only bills, need only 7 more GOP signatures

Majority Whip Scalise pushes Goodlatte bill instead.

… some renegade House Republicans are … trying to force votes on an Amnesty-only bill, using a "discharge petition." If they can get one half of all Representatives to sign -- all Democrats plus just twenty-five Republicans -- they can pass an Amnesty-only bill, despite Speaker Paul Ryan's objections.

Already 18 House Republicans have signed the discharge petition that will force a vote on several Amnesty bills. They have only 7 Republican signatures to go!! We have to intervene right now!!

Make your calls [phone numbers appended below]. Send your messages. This fight could be over in just a few days.  

If these renegade House Republicans get their intended outcome, there will be no end to chain migration. Annual migration will continue at one million per year. 

Businesses will be able to hire illegal workers. The Trump administration will be forced to continue catch-and-release, while migrants play games with our asylum system. The visa lottery will continue. And enforcement of our immigration laws will likely continue to be handicapped by open-borders activist judges.

Remember, people who want amnesties are ever watchful. If we nod off for five minutes, they're on us.

You may be asking yourself, "How could something this awful come up so quickly?" A little background:

For a couple of weeks, Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) has said he would try to force a vote on Amnesty bills. Why? He may lose his re-election race this fall, and he and other immigration-expansionist Republicans are anxious to burnish their Amnesty-loving credentials. Just about every House Democrat appears ready to support this move, if there are enough Republican votes.

[NumbersuSA’s] Rosemary Jenks denounced the discharge petition in the press: "There is a small group of so-called Republicans in the House who are willing to destroy the Republican Party in a delusional attempt to safeguard their own seats. It is lunacy, absolute lunacy," she said.

She continued, "How is assisting a big fat amnesty with zero enforcement -- while we are in the middle of a border crisis! -- [going to] help them get reelected? They are delusional. It is a slap in the face to [GOP] leadership, assuming that leadership does not want to pass a big fat amnesty and that is not a very safe assumption."

The discharge petition would force a resolution to the floor that would allow votes on several proposed DREAM-style Amnesties. Even if a good compromise bill were to get a majority, the bill with the most votes would be sent to the Senate.

The good news is that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise is pushing back against the insurrection. "We have a regular process that we've been working through and Goodlatte-McCaul, I still think, is the right answer to the problem -- I'm a co-sponsor of the bill," he said.

As reported in Politico earlier today, Speaker Ryan urged fellow Republicans to draft a bill in line with the White House's immigration priorities: "We actually want to solve this problem, so that's why we want to come up with a solution that the president will support."

<snip>

Here are the numbers for GOP House Leadership team:

House Speaker Paul Ryan -- (202) 225-0600

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy -- (202) 225-4000

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise -- (202) 225-0197

House Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers -- (202) 225-5107

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The Connecticut Compromise

image credit: www.forbes.com

Coming soon to a state near you?

From Tara Ross at The Daily Signal:

Opponents of the Electoral College achieved an important victory last weekend when Connecticut’s legislature passed the so-called National Popular Vote compact. Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is expected to sign the measure.

Most Americans have never heard of the National Popular Vote compact, but it is shockingly close to causing a major political and legal firestorm. It is a clever scheme to change how we elect the president without the bother of having to pass a constitutional amendment.

States that approve this legislation enter a simple compact with one another. Each participating state agrees to allocate its electors to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of how its own citizens voted. The compact goes into effect when states holding 270 electoral votes (enough to win the presidency) have agreed to the plan.

With Connecticut’s vote, 11 states and the District of Columbia have now approved the measure, giving the compact a total of 172 electors. It needs only 98 more to reach the 270 mark.

The Constitution State has drifted far from its roots. What would Founders such as Roger Sherman think? That Connecticut statesman was an influential delegate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The Great Compromise—sometimes called the Connecticut Compromise— which gave Congress its bicameral structure, might never have been brokered without him.

Moreover, Sherman was one of many delegates from small states who refused to go along with the idea of a direct popular vote for the presidency. He knew that little Connecticut would be outvoted time and time again. The people at large, Sherman told the Convention, “will generally vote for some man in their own state, and the largest state will have the best chance for the appointment.”

His words reflected the sentiments of other small state delegates.

. . .

Now imagine what Clinton—or any candidate—could do without the restraints inherent in the Electoral College system.

If Clinton reaped a reward from those landslide victories in Los Angeles and New York City, wouldn’t she have worked even harder to run up her tallies there? Why would she make extra visits to Rust Belt states if she could make up the votes with massive voter drives in the big cities?

With the Electoral College, the Democratic Party received a firm reminder not to take those states for granted. Without the Electoral College, such states — which make up vast swaths of the electorate — could simply be ignored.

Read the rest of the article (“Connecticut Subverts the Electoral College, Rejecting Its Own History”) here.

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Election results

image credit: theexaminer.com

ICYMI, Cleveland.com has the Ohio (state and local) election results here. 

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It’s Primary Election Day

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2018 Ohio Primary Races

Ohio Primary Election is tomorrow Tuesday, May 8. Your mailbox and Inbox are probably both as stuffed with campaign literature as mine are. 

It seems as though just about every candidate running as a Republican for any office – from Governor to GOP Central Committee member -- wants to be seen as conservative, an outsider, and a supporter of President Donald J. Trump. 

Can we trust the campaign claims? And do any endorsements enter into the calculations in this election, or do they start to cancel each other out?

Regarding the Governor primary - both Mike DeWine and opponent claim to have been yuuge supporters of Donald Trump during the Presidential election.  That is NOT true.  During the primary both stayed away from any and all Trump events.  During the General Election - support was lukewarm at best.

The Cuyahoga County Republicans has endorsed the DeWine / Jon Husted ticket. Many conservative and religious groups across Ohio have endorsed Mary Taylor.

In the primary race for Ohio Treasurer between Robert Sprague and Sandy O'Brien - Sprague has been endorsed and supported by almost every relevant group across Ohio ranging from religious right, Tea Party, County Republican Party groups and the Ohio Republican Party.  

Sprague has a rock solid record during his time in the Ohio House and has shown the fundraising ability to compete against the Democrats in a statewide race.

The US Senate primary between one of the Finance Chairs for the Trump campaign in Ohio and successful businessman Mike Gibbons & Congressman Jim Renacci to take on Democrat Sherrod Brown is turning out to be very contentious.

NumbersUSA is all about legal immigration, and it rates candidates and current members of Congress based on voting records and/or expressed support for enforcement of existing immigration laws. It rates Senator Sherrod Brown with an “F minus.” 

It rates Rep. Jim Renacci with a “C.” It describes US Senator candidates Melissa Ackison and Mike Gibbons as “True Reformer.”

The National Rifle Assoc. (NRA) has endorsed numerous candidates based on Second Amendment rights. Among the endorsed candidates is Jim Renacci for US Senate. But this year, Ohioans for Concealed Carry & Ohio Carry have both rejected Renacci as they have previously and endorsed Mike Gibbons for US Senate.

Donald Trump has recently endorsed Jim Renacci. Many of the Delegates and original Tea Party leaders that supported Donald Trump have come out and are supporting Mike Gibbons.  Gibbons has also been endorsed by Senator Rand Paul.

Many of these supporters of President Trump believe President Trumps endorsement of Renacci, who is also supported by Mitch McConnell & has received donations from his PAC, will turn out like President Trumps endorsement of the McConnell favorite Luther Strange in Alabama - which resulted in a loss to the Democrat in the General Election. 

Most importantly - regardless of who you vote for -- make sure you vote!!!

When you vote, you will need to select a Democratic party, Republican party, Green party, or “Issues only” ballot; you can view a sample ballot online at www.443vote.com . NOTE: Cleveland Tea Party does not endorse primary candidates.

President Donald Trump and the liberal media

Just returned from a month overseas, where I encountered considerable anti-American and anti-Trump sentiment. So it was something of an antidote to read Chet Richards’s assessment of President Trump, published today at the American Thinker blog. Here’s a brief extract:

What is important is not the handicap.  What is important is the human spirit that propels someone above his handicap.

. . .

As long as Trump is president, the liberal media will continue their campaign of hate and lies.

Despite his enormous handicap, Donald Trump is succeeding far beyond the expectations of most people.  How did he overcome his handicap?  He tapped into something powerful.

. . .  He has tapped into the Spirit of America.  He has done this through his great love of this great nation.

Did Donald Trump anticipate the venomous, nonstop, ferocious opposition that he would face in announcing his candidacy?  Probably not.  If he could have foreseen what was going to happen, would he have made a different decision?  Probably not.  It is likely he would have relished the combat.  Donald Trump is a man of iron will.  There is steel in that man.

The full article is here. Glad to be back home.

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Out to lunch

Image credit: www.etsy.com

Cleveland Tea Party blogging will be light in April. I’ll be overseas all month and will post from foreign soils when possible. Back first week in May.

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Richard Cordray

 image credit: americandigitalnews.com

From the L.A. Times:

The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau formally called on Congress to sharply reduce his agency's authority. Among the suggestions he delivered Monday: Any major new rules the bureau makes should be subject to lawmakers' approval.

Mick Mulvaney — who has been an outspoken critic of the consumer protection bureau since before President Trump appointed him as its acting director last year — also wants Congress to change how the bureau is funded, make its director subject to dismissal by the president for any reason and create an inspector general specifically for it.

"The bureau is far too powerful, with previous little oversight of its activities," Mulvaney said in submitting his first report to Congress.

"The power wielded by the director of the bureau could all too easily be used to harm consumers, destroy businesses, or arbitrarily remake American financial markets," Mulvaney said as he sent the bureau's semiannual report to lawmakers ahead of hearings next week, adding that the changes he proposed would "establish meaningful accountability."

Can't Mulvaney and Congress just shut the thing down?

Note to Cleveland Tea Party readers: This is the agency that Richard Cordray ran for over five years. Now he is running for Governor of Ohio.

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Happy Easter from Cleveland Tea Party

image credit: zazzle.com

From Cleveland Tea Party

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The GOPe Uniparty wants to balance the federal budget

image credit: giphy.com

Chris Pandolfo at Conservative Review reports:

Fresh off of passing a 2,232-page monstrosity of an omnibus bill that spent $1.3 trillion, House Republicans now say they want to take up a balanced budget amendment (BBA) when they return from recess.

. . .

So what’s really going on here is that after fundamentally betraying conservatives in the omnibus bill, Republican leadership figures they have to pretend like they’re fighting for conservative principles so that GOP voters show up in November and they can keep their majorities. They’ll vote on the balanced budget amendment, it will fail, and they’ll turn to you and say, “See, we need more Republicans up here in the swamp; otherwise, we’ll never get the things you want done. There are just too many Democrats.”

  

It’s all Kabuki theater. The rest of the report is here.

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Omnibus spending bill: it’s not over till it’s over

cartoon by Alexander Hoffman at dailyreckoning.com

Quite a few conservative bloggers and columnists have been throwing up their hands in despair over President Trump’s signing of the god-awful Omnibus spending bill last week. Headlines such as “Art of the Fail” or “Trump Fought the Swamp and the Swamp Won” were everywhere. But perhaps we are watching another Trump negotiation. Since the Omnibus bill is not a budget, the Executive branch has some flexibility on how (and if) funds are allocated. For example, Ann Coulter suggested he fund the wall using Defense Dept. money.

My own outrage is directed at the GOPe members of the Uniparty, who ran on - and raised millions on - promises they had no intention of ever keeping. They did not expect to win. Some might conclude that they wanted to lose. And we now see them, out in the open, blocking Trump’s agenda at every turn, including this latest maneuver.

As I see it, The GOPe has tried hard to stop Trump from the day he announced his candidacy right up to today. The Omnibus bill was just another opportunity to obstruct and undermine. They don’t want to be in the majority. They want to keep their noses in the trough and raise money by making more empty promises that they can whine about if they are in the minority. And the gloating Democrat leadership would love nothing more than to see Trump’s base lose heart. 

For some more optimistic/realistic takes, try Don Surber, Kurt Schlichter, or Sundance at Conservative Treehouse.

Related: at American Thinker, Joseph Smith asks if it will be “Time for Republicans to stay home in 2018?”

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Ohio governor’s race "up for grabs"

Albert R. Hunt at Bloomberg reports (h/t Rick Moran at American Thinker):

Of 36 gubernatorial seats up for grabs this year, 26 are held by Republicans. The Democrats' top targets are Ohio, Florida and Michigan, where they have been out of power for years. 

. . .

In recent months, in part reflecting a national tide, Democrats have become more optimistic about contests in Ohio and Michigan.

Richard Cordray, who clashed with Trump as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is the party's preferred candidate in Ohio. He should be a strong general election candidate if he avoids getting beat up in the primary by left wing provocateur Dennis Kucinich, the former congressman. That probably would set up a rematch with Attorney General Mike DeWine, who narrowly won in 2010, in a climate friendlier to Republicans.

. . .Terry McAuliffe is upbeat: "The future of the Democratic Party will be decided in state capitals and it's looking very good."

Meanwhile, still no debate set between GOP candidates Mike DeWine and Mary Taylor.

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Varvel's D.C. Swamp

Back by popular demand
Gary Varvel's Cartoon of the Day 

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Rob Portman supports out-of-control spending

cartoon: Michael P Ramirez

The omnibus spending bill passed the Senate. Ohio Senator Rob Portman voted FOR the bill. His fellow Uniparty spineless wonders are named here. Full roll call is here.

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More out-of-control spending

image credit: redstate.com

Yesterday, the House passed the bazillion dollar omnibus spending bill 256-167. Roll Call reports:

“Is the president going to sign the bill?” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said of the president and the omnibus spending bill. “Yes.”

Conservative Review reports:

On Thursday, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the omnibus spending bill, clocking in at more than 2,000 pages, is “not even close” to what Republicans told the American people they would do if elected.

…

“It’s 2,200 pages that funds sanctuary cities, funds Planned Parenthood, restricts Second Amendment liberties, and grows the government at a $1.3 trillion price tag … which will lead to a trillion-dollar deficit,” Jordan said.

“This may be the worst bill I have seen in my time in Congress, the worst bill our leadership’s ever allowed to come to the floor,” he added.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) listed his objections (via Red State):

- Record spending levels

- No wall/border security

- Obamacare intact

- Funds Planned Parenthood

- Sanctuary Cities funded

- Barely 24 hours to read a 2,300 page bill

This Omnibus is so far from what the forgotten men and women of America voted for. I will oppose it.

Hard to know whether Jordan and Meadows are in earnest or are playing good cop. I'll update when I have located the roll call.

UPDATE 5:54pm: The roll call vote is here.

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Mark Steyn on Fox about the weather

via YouTube

If you did not watch Tucker Carlson's show on Fox yesterday evening at 8pm, you'll want to set aside 5 minutes to watch this video clip. If you did watch this segment, here it is so you can watch it again. Author and blogger Mark Steyn is at his most politically incorrect, lampooning insane theories about climate, weather, microaggression, and the Land of Opportunity. 

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