Hey Patriots! Captain America comes to Cleveland

In the midst of major concerns such as Medicaid expansion in Ohio, Common Core curricula, IRS and DOJ scandals, and on and on – well, here is a brief diversion.

Captain America comes to Cleveland

Captain America “is an American fictional character, a superhero who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. . . . Captain America wears a costume that bears an American flag motif. . . . [He is] an intentionally patriotic creation who was often depicted fighting the Axis powers of World War II.”

"Captain America: The Winter Soldier"  is being filmed in Cleveland this summer. From The Plain Dealer on May 31:

And so, the traffic nightmare for West Siders begins today as filming for "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" continues in and around downtown. The West Shoreway was closed around 4:30 a.m. [yesterday] for filming.

The filming on the bridge this afternoon involved over a hundred vehicles, including service and technical vehicles. The sequence will probably end up as a few seconds in a high-speed freeway chase with one guy beating up another guy on the hood of a car. All the cars in the scene were driven out into position across the bridge, ready to move in both directions. Lots of waiting. Then the stunt car, pulled by a truck with crew and camera, moved into place. When the sequence began, vehicles started crawling in synch at maybe 15-20 MPH. We watched two takes. Here’s a video of the not-yet-high speed action sequence, shot from a balcony with a bird’s eye view. Watch for the action behind the camera truck with the white screen, about halfway through. (There is an embiggen button bottom right on the video frame.) 

If it looks a bit grainy, try the one posted on YouTube here. 

Now back to reality!

Memorial Day: more than a parade or a backyard barbecue

From the Memorial Day website here:

Memorial Day used to be a solemn day of mourning, a sacred day of remembrance to honor those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms. Businesses closed for the day. Towns held parades honoring the fallen, the parade routes often times ending at a local cemetery, where Memorial Day speeches were given and prayers offered up. People took the time that day to clean and decorate with flowers and flags the graves of those the fell in service to their country. 

We need to remember with sincere respect those who paid the price for our freedoms; we need to keep in sacred remembrance those who died serving their country. We need to never let them be forgotten. However, over the years the original meaning and spirit of Memorial Day has faded from the public consciousness. “Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.” -- General Logan - May 5, 1868 

On Memorial Day we need to stop and pay with sincere conviction our respects for those who died protecting and preserving the freedoms we enjoy, for we owe those honored dead more than we can ever repay.

“If it is considered a holiday, why is it so? I consider it to be a national day of mourning. This is how we observe this day in our home. Because of what that day represents the rest of the days of the year are our holidays.” -- F L Lloyd West Chester, Pa USA - February 26, 2000

And from the home page:

To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the “National Moment of Remembrance“ resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans “To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to ‘Taps.”

The Moment of Remembrance is a step in the right direction to returning the meaning back to the day. What is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Set aside one day out of the year for the nation to get together to remember, reflect and honor those who have given their all in service to their country.

But what may be needed to return the solemn, and even sacred, spirit back to Memorial Day is for a return to its traditional day of observance. Many feel that when Congress made the day into a three-day weekend in with the National Holiday Act of 1971, it made it all the easier for people to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day. As the VFW stated in its 2002 Memorial Day address: “Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public’s nonchalant observance of Memorial Day.”

On January 19, 1999 Senator Inouye introduced bill S 189 to the Senate which proposes to restore the traditional day of observance of Memorial Day back to May 30th instead of “the last Monday in May”. On April 19, 1999 Representative Gibbons introduced the bill to the House (H.R. 1474). The bills were referred the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Government Reform.

To date, there has been no further developments on the bill. Please write your Representative and your Senators, urging them to support these bills. You can also contact Mr. Inouye to let him know of your support.

Remember and honor.

Lots of IRS Protests across the country - and in Cleveland

Today, Tea Party Patriots across the country protested the egregious abuse of power by the IRS, in particular its partisan targeting of conservative groups seeking 501(c)(3) or (4) classification and harassing contributors to the Romney campaign.

Among the blogs covering the protests in front of IRS offices nationwide, with photographs, are Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, and Gateway Pundit.

The Plain Dealer report of the Cleveland protest is here. Over 50 patriots gathered downtown, most carrying signs. Report your story or forward photos to Tea Party Patriots.

Benghazi, the AP communication records scandal, or the IRS's targeting of patriots?

Anyone who is paying attention is horrified at the outrageous abuses of power on full display in DC. But which of the three headline-making scandals (to which I would add Fast and Furious) is the worst? In his column “Last Week’s Conspiracy Theories are This Week’s Reality,” Erik Rush at Canadian Free Press has a good analysis:

It is now safe to say that if one cannot see the abject evil of the Obama administration as well as the endemic corruption and criminality in our federal government, it is only because they are refusing to look. Due to what some are calling a “perfect storm of circumstances, three scandals have rocked Washington, but these are only the grossest symptoms of the systemic infection that has been festering there for decades.

Those such as myself who suspected on September 12, 2012 that the Obama administration’s narrative relative to the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya, was a false one were mocked and ridiculed (as was I personally in 2008 upon claiming that a communist was in the running for the White House). We now know that not only was the narrative false, but that President Obama and his cabinet are probably guilty of criminal action surrounding their responses and subsequent coverup of the actual events in Benghazi that night.

On the heels of whistleblowers’ testimony before Congress last week, the monumentally egregious practices of the Internal Revenue Service pertaining to conservative nonprofit applicants, and the Department of Justice’s collection of communications records from reporters and editors at the Associated Press have emerged. These have given us the opportunity for an unvarnished glimpse into the machinations of the Obama administration—and into our possible future. 

While Benghazi is the most heinous on one level (since it resulted in the deaths of four Americans), and the AP scandal is a direct and unlawful assault on the First Amendment, the IRS debacle most readily carries the specter of totalitarian oppression, particularly since this agency is being tasked with executing many areas of Obamacare [emphasis added]. It may be the messiest, and the one with the most visible loose ends. Let us examine just a few of the established facts attendant to recent revelations about the IRS:

It has been established via The New York Times (no less) and other media that Senate Democrats pressured the IRS to engage in the very behavior that came to light.

It has been established via USA Today that during the period in question (2010-2012), the IRS almost indiscriminately approved applications for liberal nonprofit applicants (despite the number of these being lower than in the past) while denying applications from conservative groups.

It has been established that liberal activist organizations (at least one funded by financier and former Nazi collaborator George Soros) received documentation on the aforementioned conservative nonprofit applicants from the IRS.

It has been established via the Landmark Legal Foundation that untoward practices have been employed by congressional lawmakers and the executive branch, who have used the IRS as a weapon of harassment, for decades (the Landmark Legal Foundation has been integral in uncovering recent IRS abuses). One of these is third-party audits, a monstrous practice wherein government officials request or order the IRS to audit an individual or a business. Similar offenses were actually included among the Articles of Impeachment for Richard M. Nixon.

It has been established that the IRS recently seized the medical records of 10 million Americans during an investigation into the finances of one company.

It is essential that the IRS be abolished and the tax code shredded, but it is much more important that Americans recognize these phenomena as major symptoms of that into which our government has mutated.

Outraged? Join us on Tuesday, May 21 at 12pm Noon in front of the downtown Cleveland IRS office  to show the public this abuse of power against the citizens of the country will NOT be tolerated!

Date: Tuesday May 21, 2013

Time: 12pm Noon - 1:30pm

Location: IRS / Cleveland Office (Click for Map)

Address: 1240 E. 9th St. Cleveland, OH (west side of the street, just south of Lakeside Ave.)

TUESDAY MAY 21 AT NOON: STAND UP TO THE IRS

The public is finally learning of the tyrannical abuse of power emanating from this Administration from Benghazi, to the Associated Press wire tapping to the bias and unwarranted harassment of Tea Party, Liberty and conservative groups from IRS. 

Continuing to lead the fight against this rogue Administration and the abuse of power by the IRS, Tea Party Patriots flew a multitude of liberty minded group leaders from all over the country to DC this week to join Jenny Beth Martin for a press conference on Capital Hill to discuss the IRS scandal. 

 

Click here to view press conference.

To continue the pressure, Tea Party & Liberty groups are hosting a day of protest against the IRS at locations across the U.S. this coming Tuesday 5/21/13.

Make no mistake, the targeting of citizens by the government was no mistake and was done to silent a certain group of people for their beliefs. 

This is the United States of America and regardless of one's political beliefs or leanings, in the United States of America, nobody should tolerate any Administration using government agency's to target people for their beliefs and exercising their 1st Amendment rights.

Please stand united with fellow Patriots across the U.S. and join us this Tuesday 5/21/13 at 12pm Noon at the downtown Cleveland IRS office to show the public this abuse of power against the citizens of the country will NOT be tolerated!

Date: Tuesday 5/21/13
Time: 12pm Noon - 1:30pm
Location: IRS / Cleveland Office (Click for Map)
Address:1240 E. 9th St. Cleveland, OH (west side of the street, just south of Lakeside Ave.)

Please bring your flags, message related signs, etc.....

IRS commissioner for tax-exempt organizations now in charge of Obamacare enforcement???

The current administration fails to profile terrorists, while the IRS has been profiling patriot, liberty groups, and other related tea party organizations. It is not going to be enough to call for a few token resignations, such as interim personnel whose days were numbered anyway, such as IRS Acting Commissioner Steven Miller. 

 

This is this same IRS that will be in charge of enforcing key elements of Obamacare. And it just got worse. According to ABC News [emphasis added]:

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.

As bad as the appointment of Sarah Hall Ingram is, does anyone really think it’s a good idea for the beloved IRS to dictate to citizens on health care matters? (Postscript: Not that it will eliminate nationalized healthcare, but The House of Representatives voted again today to repeal Obamacare, mostly along  party lines in a 229-195 vote. There is no chance it will pass in the Senate.)

Stop Common Core in Ohio Weekly Action Items

From Ohioans Against Common Core --

       Hey Ohio Legislators…Have you heard?

It has been an action packed week! Common Core has become a top story, especially here in the midwest. Indiana Govenor Mike Pence signed the one year pause on Common Core implementation and Kentucky experienced first hand the ramifications of an untested, centrally planned, computer dependent assessment. How can our representatives chance the education of Ohio’s kids to an untested program? If it was really about the standards, why were they adopted before they were written?

LEVEL ONE PRIORITY – HOUSE EDUCATION  COMMITTEE CALLS

House Education Chair, Gerald Stebelton has scheduled a Pro-Common Core presentation to be made by Greater Columbus area superintendents for this Tuesday, May 14th at 4:00 pm, in Statehhouse Mtg Rm 116. Please make sure they hear from you before Tuesday’s presentation.

Please call each of the committee members listed below and ask them the following:

1. Did you hear that Indiana has put common core on pause to thoroughly vet the standards? National Review Online-Two Moms vs Common Core
2. Did you hear that four states including Kentucky experienced severe technical problems during online testing including a server crash that will require all tests to be retaken? Washington Post-Severe Technical Problems Raise Concerns Over Online Tests
3. Did you hear Georgia State Superintendent John Barge warn that Common Core will result in a federal curriculum? Marietta Daily Journal-Common Core Will Bring National Assessment and Federal Curriculum

Legislator switchboard – 800-282-0253

Gerald Stebelton-Chair (very pro-common core), Andrew Brenner, John Becker, Tim Derickson, Bill Hayes, Michael Henne, Matt Huffman, Stephanie Kunze, Kristina Roegner, Marilyn Slaby, Ryan Smith, Andy Thompson

LEVEL TWO PRIORITY – SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE CALLS 

Same action as above – 800-282-0253 

Peggy Lehner-Chair (very pro-common core), Cliff Hite, Troy Balderson, Bill Beagle, Bill Coley, Randy Gardner, Gayle Manning

LEVEL THREE PRIORITY – THANK YOU CALLS

Senator Grassley and Representative Luetkemeyer each solicited Common Core defunding letters within the U.S. Senate and House.  Neither of our Senators sign on but three Ohio Representatives did and deserve our thanks. Their acknowledgment of this federal intrusion lends credibility to our effort to pause Common Core and vet it through our state legislative process, particularly Rep. Jim Jordan’s. As a former Ohio House member, he is well respected and is a staunch school choice advocate. Representative Luetkemeyer’s letter with signers
Rep. Jim Jordan   202-225-2676
Rep Bill Johnson   202-225-5705
Rep. Brad Wenstrup   202-225-3164

SUMMARY

The massive effort to research and educate Ohioans on the implications of Common Core continues. We greatly appreciate your support and ask you to continue to spread the word. The powers that be will always take the path of least resistance. It’s now our job to make that path an exit from Common Core.

Yours In Liberty,

OACC