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

Thursday, October 25, 2018

Optics and the mid-tern election

art credit: foxandhoundsdaily.com
[and yes, that's Janet Leigh in Psycho]


Here’s the inimitable Victor Davis Hanson on “Midterm Optics Are Bad for Progressives”:

For progressives, the looming midterm elections apparently should not hinge on a booming economy, a near-record-low unemployment rate, a strong stock market and unprecedented energy production. Instead, progressives hope that race and gender questions overshadow pocketbook issues.
. . .
The new caravan appears strangely well organized. The marchers, many of them young men, do not appear destitute. They do not seem to fit the profile of desperate refugees whose lives were in immediate danger in their homeland.

For many Americans, the would-be refugees may seem presumptuous in assuming that they have the right to barge into someone else’s country. Most Americans realize that if an organized caravan of foreigners can simply announce in advance plans to crash into the U.S. illegally, then the concepts of a border, citizenship, sovereignty or even a country itself no longer exist.

Then he considers the feeding frenzy around the Senate hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh:

Many Americans finally concluded that there was no reason to deny Kavanaugh’s nomination to the court. To find Kavanaugh guilty of Ford’s charges, Americans were asked to suspend the very ideas of due process and Western jurisprudence.

The furious demonstrations that followed Kavanaugh’s confirmation only made the optics worse.


Every country requires a border and the rule of law. Due process cannot so easily be thrown out in a moment. There can be no Senate without safety and calm inside its halls. Powerful, privileged Washington officials should be the last to game a system designed to help the underprivileged.

Many are speculating that yesterday’s pipe bomb scares were yet another stunt - even a false flag hoax -- to change the subject, stifle reasoned debate, blame President Trump, and prompt another round of media hysteria. DC Whispers asks:

Who would send out these fake bombs and why? Who might have anything political to gain two weeks out from the Midterm Elections by staging a fake bomb hoax against noted Democrat politicians that then generates Establishment Media hysteria? 

Already the bomb reports has shoved the caravan story to the sidelines, at least for now. At any rate, the Progressives have overplayed their hand. I just hope independent and liberal voters see that.

UPDATE Oct 26:  FBI Arrest made in “Package Bomb” Scare; Fox News Source – 56 Yr. Old Male with Prior Arrests - and a Trump supporter.
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Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Chuckle of the day


pumpkin pi
Cartoon credit: chucklebros.com at Bronnian Comics 
(The Week In Pictures: 1,024th% Edition)
click to embiggen or go here and scroll down

Monday, October 22, 2018

Preparing to vote / judicial candidates





With just over 2 weeks to go before the Nov 6 election, time to prepare to vote. You can find your sample ballot for Cuyahoga County here. You should have your Cuyahoga County voter registration postcard at hand with your precinct details. (For Lake County voters, go here. For Geauga County voters, go here.)

Most of the candidate lists with recommendations are focused on the top of the ticket races. But I’ve been researching judicial candidates and found some ratings, endorsements, and report cards. One source was the <Judge4yourself> website, which collects ratings from the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Associationm the Cuyahoga Criminal Defense Lawyer's Association, the Norman S. Minor Bar Association, and the Ohio Women’s Bar Association.

But it also specifies which candidates receive an endorsement from the Editorial Board of the PD / cleveland.com. Since there will be some Tea Party readers who would not consider a cleveland.com endorsement as a positive, I searched further.  

The <Ohio.ivoteconservative> website represents the collective recommendations of its signatories, many of which Tea Party members will recognize. If you visit their home page and fill in three boxes of info, you will get a list of recommended candidates who will appear on your ballot. It prints out on one page, so you can take it with you when you go to vote. Below is the list of recommended judicial candidates in a downtown Cleveland precinct (if you vote elsewhere, including in another county, you’ll want to go the website and enter your details to get your list of recommended candidates.):

Oh Supreme Court (1/1/19)
  Craig Baldwin

Oh Supreme Court (1/2/19)
  Mary Degenaro
  
Ohio Court Of Appeals #8
  Raymond Headen

Cuyahoga Cnty Cmn Pleas Court (1/1/19)
  Jeffrery C. Sindelar Jr

Cuyahoga Cnty Cmn Pleas Court (1/2/19)
  Bradley Hull IV

Cuyahoga Cnty Cmn Pleas Court (1/3/19)
  Lorraine Coyne

Cuyahoga Cnty Cmn Pleas Court (1/5/19)
  Lon Cherie D. Billingsley

Cuyahoga Cnty Cmn Pleas Court (1/6/19)
  Wanda C. Jones

Cuyahoga Cnty Cmn Pleas Court (1/7/19)
  Kathleen Ann Sutula

Cuyahoga Cnty Cmn Pleas Court (1/8/19)
  Jarrett J. Northup

Cuyahoga Cnty Cmn Pleas Court (1/9/19)
  Brian Darling

Cuyahoga Cnty Cmn Pleas Court (1/11/19)
  Lori Anne Dyke

Cuyahoga Cnty Cmn Pleas Court (1/1/19)
  Denise Nancy Rini

I’ll re-post this information shortly before Election Day.
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Sunday, October 21, 2018

And the censorship goes on






Four headlines reporting censorship on social media and at movie theaters -- just in the last week:

From Newsbusters:

From Steve Green at PJ Media:

From Beth Baumann at Townhall:

From John Stossel at NWF Daily News:
            Shut up, they explain

UPDATED 5pm
From Scott McKay at American Spectator:


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Saturday, October 20, 2018

We Tea Party people

photo credit: historynewsnetwork.org


The unhyphenated American Lloyd Marcus posts at American Thinker. Here’s the last two paragraphs of his article titled “Not Guilty: The Tea Party and Violence”:

We Tea Party people never beat up our opposition. Desiring the best for all our fellow Americans, we reach out to Democrats/leftists trying to educate them. Democrats/leftists have become super-hostile to facts and truth. They now seek to silence, punish and jail anyone daring to disagree with their agenda. Tea Party people are the opposite. We highly respect our constitutional right of free speech. So don't tell me that Tea Party people are just as guilty of incivility as Democrats/leftists. That is a lie.

Trump's swift dismantlement of Obama's anti-America agenda and successfully placing another conservative on the Supreme Court has caused Democrats and the fake news media to suspend any pretense of civility, honesty, and respect for the law. The Democratic Party has morphed into an angry insane mob. Their enforcers, joined by fake news media, are determined to beat the American people into submission. The Democrats' Trump resistance mob bears no resemblance to the Tea Party which is dignified, patriotic, and good. The Democratic Party has become the home of pure evil and must never be allowed back into power, controlling the house, senate or White House.

It’s a good article to keep in mind as we head into November. The entire article is here.
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Caravan crossing the U.S.-Mexico border


From today’s NumbersUSA newsletter:


Thousands of Central Americans joined a caravan this week, originating in Honduras, with hopes of reaching the U.S.-Mexico border where they plan to claim asylum, illegally enter the country, or both.

Pres. Trump has already issued warnings to Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, and has threatened to back out of the USMCA trade pact with Mexico if the country doesn't do its part to prevent the caravan from reaching the U.S. border. There are reports that Mexico is willing to cooperate.

The President has also said that he plans to move troops to the border to help prevent the caravan from entering the country.

So far, the Administration has responded well. But how it responds if, and when, the caravan reaches the U.S.-Mexico border remains to be seen.

If there's one thing that we've learned from past caravans and border surges, should any of the more than 4,000 economic migrants successfully make it into the United States, they'll be released to the interior of the country and never be heard from again.

Therefore, the best action the Trump Administration can take is to prevent anyone from the caravan from actually entering the country. Pres. Trump could even use his executive authority to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent the caravan from entering the U.S.

Handling Asylum Claims
Many in the caravan have told reporters that they plan on claiming asylum once they reach the United States, hoping to take advantage of loopholes within the process. 

They've said they'll claim asylum because of the criminal violence throughout Central America and/or the lack of decent paying jobs. But under federal law, those are not reasons for claiming asylum.

Under both U.S. and international law, an asylee is someone who claims that they fear persecution from their government if returned to their home country because of the their "race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion."

If the caravan was actually fleeing persecution, they would apply for asylum in Mexico.
The U.S. should take all legitimate asylum claims seriously. But it is critical to deny the caravan admission into the United States while their claims are being considered. Again, once anyone from the caravan steps foot in the United States, they're here for good. DHS is already running short on detention space, so there will be no way to detain illegal border crossers and asylum seekers while their cases move through the process.

Preventing caravans and surges
The Trump Administration has already taken steps to strengthen the asylum process. Earlier this year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a ruling that moved the adjudication of credible fear claims more in line with federal asylum law. DHS implemented the policy this summer. However, if the Administration does not take the necessary steps to prevent this caravan from reaching U.S. soil, this dangerous and unlawful migration will be the new norm.

But Congress also needs to act. The House Judiciary Committee has already marked up and passed H.R. 391, the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act. House Leadership should bring the bill to the floor during the lame-duck session.

H.R. 391 would close the asylum loopholes by requiring that asylum adjudicators only approve credible fear claims when "it is more probable than not that the statements made by the alien in support of the alien's claim are true" and the alien is likely to be granted asylum in the U.S.

[The NumbersUSA website is here. You can sign up to access their Congressional Alert boards.]
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Friday, October 19, 2018

Calling all deplorables!

image credit: first posted on conservative treehouse by keln



Alicia Colon is one of my favorite columnists, and she recently posted on American Thinker here.

Sometimes it's important to preach to the choir, because I'm pretty sure only the choir shares my political opinion.  It is absolutely imperative that the deplorables come out in force in a few weeks because they will be able to do the impossible.  Just imagine what will happen in the midterm elections if the most powerful Democrats are ousted from office.  In California, that means Dianne Feinstein , Nancy Pelosi, and Maxine Waters; in New York, that means Andrew Cuomo and Kirsten Gillibrand, and New York State would then have a Republican governor and senator.  Impossible, you may say, but if all who voted for Trump in 2016 came out in force and voted straight Republican, this might happen.  Unfortunately, with less than a month left, the RNC still hasn't admitted that it hasn't worked hard enough for GOP candidates in New York and California.
. . .
I get frequent calls from the RNC urging me to donate, and I patiently explain that until the RNC starts supporting candidates in my state, I will continue to donate directly to their campaigns, not the RNC.
. . .
Since we can't depend on the GOPe to drain the swamp, it's up to us deplorables and...what was it Biden called some of us?  Oh, yes: the dregs of society.  That means we have to do our homework by supporting with donations those good candidates who need to air ads to combat the lies the Democrats are airing.
. . .
So how does one combat that lack of knowledge?  Television ads on the networks that the low-info voters watch should have some impact, but these are highly expensive.
It's up to us, to the millions of us, to donate even a little to the brave candidates opposing the swamp.  Here are their names and websites:
·         Gov. Andrew Cuomo vs. Marc Molinaro
·         Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand vs. Chele Farley
·         Rep. Maxine Waters vs. Omar Navarro
·         Rep. Nancy Pelosi vs. Lisa Remmer
·         Calif. Gov. Race – Gavin Newsom vs. John H. Cox
·         N.J. Sen. Bob Menendez vs. Bob Hugin  
·         Florida Gov. Race – Socialist Andrew Gillum (supported by Soros and Steyer) vs. Ron DeSantis (Floridians should take note: if Gillum wins, no more tax-free income.)
·         Sen. Claire McCaskill vs. Josh Hawley

And wouldn't we love to have this man in the Senate – John James?
. . .
It's up to us deplorables in each state to hunt down the worthy candidates to drain the swamp. 
Read the entire columns here. She’s singled out (IMHO) important races, with candidates worthy of whatever you might have contributed to various GOP organizations.
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Thursday, October 18, 2018

Richard Cordray and Operation Choke Point



image credit: americaswatchtower.com

Here’s some information about what Ohio gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray was up to at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Ken Blackwell at the Washington Examiner reported yesterday:

Operation Choke Point was a plot by President Obama’s Department of Justice, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and other government agencies to cut off banking and financial services for small businesses and industries that they deemed to be political enemies or otherwise undesirable.

Some of these businesses included gun stores, ammunition shops, fireworks stores, small dollar lenders, and home-based charities.

Some government officials tried to deny the existence of the program. That includes former CFPB director, Richard Cordray, who dodged questions from Sen. Mike Crapo in 2014 as to the CFPB’s participation in Operation Choke Point. Yet in that same year, Cordray warned banks against doing business with “… unscrupulous lenders and their payment processors.”

Cordray was not alone in trying to hide the truth about this operation. Officials from the DOJ and FDIC all worked to keep the program’s existence from the public and to bury the truth. Finally, however, the truth is now being unmasked.

Government documents were just unsealed providing evidence of just how far reaching and destructive Operation Choke Point really was to small businesses.
. . .
With this new evidence, it has become even more clear how invested the Obama administration was in Operation Choke Point. If an industry stood against their political agenda, it was only a matter of bringing the full force of the administrative and regulatory state against that industry as a means of coercion and punishment. Operation Choke Point was “Chicago-style politics” brought to Washington, D.C.

Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., and Sean Duffy, R-Wis., have been leaders in exposing Operation Choke Point. And I cannot agree more Luetkemeyer’s reaction to the latest revelations when he said, “I am appalled by the blatant intimidation and bias employed by unelected bureaucrats to play partisan politics with the livelihood of our citizens. No matter your ideological leanings, the American government should not be able to destroy all that you have worked for.”

Read the rest here. Pretty ugly.
# # #

#WalkAway with Brandon Straka



The #WalkAway march is scheduled for Saturday, October 27. Many speakers are confirmed, including Dinesh D’Souza and Wayne Dupree (and by remote, Herman Cain and Diamond & Silk).

You may or may not have heard of Brandon Straka. The Heavy.com blog reported that

Brandon Straka is a New York hairstylist who gained fame as the face of a new #WalkAway movement urging people to leave liberalism, which he says has become too intolerant.

Straka gained fans among conservatives when he appeared in a video denouncing the left and saying that he was switching political allegiance. In the wake of that attention, he says he has been denied service while trying to buy a camera and other equipment. Conservative celebrities like Sarah Palin and websites then highlighted Straka’s effort, which has turned into the hashtag #WalkAway.

Breitbart reported on the #WalkAway movement last July – see here. In September, Davis Richardson at Observer reported on Straka’s temporary suspension from Facebook.

The #WalkAway march in Washington DC will take place on Saturday, October 27 (time and location not yet posted on the website). The website is here. I could not find any buses scheduled for this event from the northern Ohio area. I’ll update if I find any details.
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Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Elizabeth Warren's family tree :^)


Doug Powers's blog is The Powers That Be. He ran this image of a tweet by Jack Kingston (click to embiggen or visit the blog site here:

Heh.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Cuyahoga County tests voting machines

image credit: wccftech.com
 

Yesterday, I posted updates on potential voter fraud, including in Cuyahoga County. Here's the "This is a Test" announcement from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website:


The automatic tabulating equipment will be tested to demonstrate the accuracy of the vote tabulation system. The test will be conducted [Friday] October 19, 2018 at 9:30 a.m. [to 10am) in the Ballot Tabulation Center of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Warehouse, 3951 Perkins Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44103. The test is open to the public.

It’s near E. 40 St, a block north of Chester. Map here.
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Monday, October 15, 2018

Voter fraud in the millons

art credit: omnithought.org



At least 3.5 million more people are on U.S. election rolls
 than are eligible to vote. 


Elections: American democracy has a problem — a voting problem. According to a new study of U.S. Census data, America has more registered voters than actual live voters. It's a troubling fact that puts our nation's future in peril.

The data come from Judicial Watch's Election Integrity Project. The group looked at data from 2011 to 2015 produced by the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, along with data from the federal Election Assistance Commission.

As reported by the National Review's Deroy Murdock, who did some numbers-crunching of his own, "some 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America's adult citizens. Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud."


. . .

In his spread sheet, he listed Delaware county as the Ohio county with the largest number of “ghost” voters. Delaware County includes heavily red Columbus. His chart did not list Cuyahoga County, so I did a little search of my own and found the following at a blog called End of The American Dream, by a blogger named Michael Snyder, reporting on the 2012 election:


Barack Obama received more than 99% of the vote in more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio on election day.  In fact, there were a substantial number of precincts where Mitt Romney got exactly zero votes.  So how in the world did this happen?  Third world dictators don’t even get 99% of the vote.  Overall, Mitt Romney received 30.12% of the vote in Cuyahoga County.  There were even a bunch of precincts in Cuyahoga County that Romney actually won.  But everyone certainly expected that Cuyahoga County would be Obama territory.  And in most of the precincts that is exactly what we saw – large numbers of votes for both candidates but a definite edge for Obama. 

However, there are more than 100 precincts in Cuyahoga County where the voting results can only be described as truly bizarre.  Yes, we always knew that urban areas would lean very heavily toward Obama, but are we actually expected to believe that Obama got over 99% of the votes in those areas?  In more than 50 different precincts, Romney received 2 votes or less.  Considering how important the swing state of Ohio was to the national election, one would think that such improbable results would get the attention of somebody out there.  Could we be looking at evidence of election fraud hidden in plain sight?

Perhaps if there were just one or two precincts where Obama got more than 99% of the vote we could dismiss the results as “statistical anomalies” and ignore them.
But there were more than 100 precincts where this happened in the most important swing state in the nation.

Maybe there is some rational explanation for the numbers that you are about to see.  If there is, I would really love to hear it.

What makes all of this even more alarming is that there were reports of voting machine problems during early voting in Ohio.  It was being reported that some voters were claiming that they tried to vote for Romney but that the voting machines kept recording their votes as votes for Obama…


Lots more here, including specific data on precincts in Cuyahoga County.

Some Cleveland Tea Party readers often volunteer at the polls as observers. Glenn Reynolds has argued for a return to paper ballots. I wish.
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Sunday, October 14, 2018

At the movies




Diamond and Silk made their regular appearance on Jesse Watters’s show last night, and if you didn’t see it, they promoted their new film Dummycrats:

As President Trump continues to drain the swamp, social media stars Diamond & Silk are on a mission to expose what’s left of it. Americans cannot trust the mainstream media to report about the Dummycrats. If the media won’t report the truth…Diamond & Silk will.

It sounds like more of a documentary, and those gals are always fun to watch. I can find only one showing tomorrow, Monday, Oct.15 at the following Cleveland area movie theaters:
Cedar Lee at 8pm
2163 Lee Road, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118

Cinemark 24 at 8pm
6001 Canal Road, Valley View, OH 44125

Regal Richmond Town Square Stadium 20
631 Richmond Road, Richmond Heights, OH 44143

I posted about Gosnell, Free Speech, and Free Markets a few days ago. Just to follow up, the Gosnell film is still showing at the AMC Classic Solon 16 (6185 Enterprise Parkway, Solon, OH 44139) and at the Cinemark At Valley View.

Please check the websites for showtimes, which may be subject to change.
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Saturday, October 13, 2018

Jobs or Mobs?


By nearly every possible metric the Trump administration is succeeding across the board—success which in turn is benefiting tens of millions of Americans all across the nation regardless of race, gender, religion, or political affiliation.

Meanwhile, Democrats now seem to only offer character assassination, threats of violence, actual violence, and promises of further chaos. 

Jobs not Mobs—coming to an election result near you…

So - today’s meme via Chicks on the Right:



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Friday, October 12, 2018

The Medicare-for-All Hoax

photo credit: magnoliabox.com

Cleveland Tea Party was one of many liberty groups and organizations that fought hard to prevent Obamacare from becoming law. We prepared and participated in delegations that visited offices of our representatives, made phone calls, organized rallies, etc. The GOP members of Congress have still not made good on their campaign promises (years of promises) to repeal Obamacare -- and now we are looking at yet another destructive proposal from the Democrat Party to take another wrecking ball to Americans’ access to their healthcare plan of choice.

Two days ago, President Trump published his op-ed and call-to-arms to stop the “Medicare For All” madness in USA Today. The mainstream media pounced on it, reproducing big chunks of it on their websites, so I decided to paste Trump's entire columns below (skip to the end if you’ve already read it to see links to the counter-counter arguments):

The Democrats want to outlaw private health care plans, taking away freedom to choose plans while letting anyone cross our border. We must win this.