Announcement: First meeting of 2014

Please join us at our first meeting of 2014 to start the year off right and hit the ground running.

This year looks to be an action packed year and we will be gearing up to deal with issues at all levels of government from local councils & school boards to Cuyahoga County Council, Ohio State House, and Congress.  

While we deal with upcoming issues, we will continue to preach the mantra of "all politics are local" and how what we do this year all leads up to the 2016 Presidential race.

Leading off our initial meeting of the year will be County Councilman Dave Greenspan who will talk about the State of Cuyahoga County and the upcoming proposal to renew the SIN Tax to pay for FIrst Energy Stadium improvements.

We will also have Jesse Smith the N/E OH Regional Coordinator for Americans for Prosperity talk about what they will be doing this upcoming year and the renewed relationship with TPP and AFP in Ohio.

• Date: Monday Jan-06-14
• Time: 7pm - 8:30pm
• Location: Brecksville Library
• Address: 9089 Brecksville Rd Brecksville, OH  (Map)

We look forward to seeing you there!

Happy New Year

 from Cleveland Tea Party Patriots

The Budget Deal: Compromise or sell-out?

Socialism - 1

Free Market - 0

Over the Christmas holiday, our family was discussing the "compromise" budget deal as negotiated by Rep. Patty Murray and Rep. Paul Ryan - the deal that Tea Party Patriots - and veterans - are outraged about. One member of our family had watched Rep. Murray making the talk show rounds and was favorably impressed by Murray, who was touting the value of compromise. The Washington Times reported one of those TV interviews: 

Sen. Patty Murray said Wednesday the budget dealshe struck with Rep. Paul Ryan “wasn’t easy,” but it had to be done to rebuild trust in Washington and clear the way for work on tax and entitlement reform.

Mrs. Murray, Washington Democrat, said she knew both sides of the political spectrum would not be pleased with everything that went into the deal, but that’s the price of compromise.

“In order to deal with the long-term challenges that our country faces … we have to have the trust of the American people, we have to have the trust of each other in Congress — in a divided Congress — to do that,” she told CNN’s “New Day.”

Compromise rebuilds trust, so compromise is a good thing. Or is it? 

Here is another way to look at these "compromise" pieces of legislation. Imagine the United States is the football, and Congress represents the competing teams. The blue end-zone represents the Free Market, supposedly the goal of the conservative team (supposedly comprised of Republicans). The red end-zone represents socialism, the goal of the Democrats/Socialists/Progressives. One could make the case that the United States is already about 2/3 of the way down the field toward the Socialism goal line.

The "compromise" budget means that instead of Socialist/Progressive getting, say, a one yard advance, they got only an inch this time. But it is another inch in the wrong direction. These much-touted "compromises" (including tax hikes and elimination of sequestration budget restraints) end up being compromises for only one side: those who champion the free market. For Rep. Murray and her team, "the price of compromise" was pretty much zero.

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Nervous Nellie legislators

Speaker John "If I Only Had the Nerve" Boehner

Amidst all the recent attacks on Tea Party Patriots by Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, or American Crossroads architect Karl Rove, here’s an excerpt from an article entitled "Harvard Prof: Tea Party Not Going Anywhere, More Likely To Win," an analysis posted yesterday at Breitbart’s Big Government:

"At the grassroots, volunteer activists formed hundreds of local Tea Parties, meeting regularly to plot public protests against the Obama Administration and place steady pressure on GOP organizations and candidates at all levels," they found. "At least half of all GOP voters sympathize with this Tea Party upsurge."

Though Skokpol and Williamson have their typical biases and describe the Tea Party movement as a "radical" one that may not like minorities--without any evidence of that assertion--they acknowledge that "even though there is no one center of Tea Party authority—indeed, in some ways because there is no one organized center—the entire gaggle of grassroots" and outside groups that support the movement "wields money and primary votes to exert powerful pressure on Republican officeholders and candidates."

Skocpol observes that the "Tea Party clout has grown in Washington and state capitals" because "Americans are also losing ever more faith in the federal government." In addition, "most legislators and candidates are Nervous Nellies," and they have seen the Tea Party defeat establishment Republicans like Charlie Crist in Florida in 2010 and David Dewhurst in Texas in 2012 in addition to knocking off incumbent Republican Sens. Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Richard Lugar (R-IN). 

"That grabs legislators’ attention and results in either enthusiastic support for, or acquiescence to, obstructive tactics," Skocpol writes. 

So in 2014, let’s keep grabbing the attention of all those Nervous Nellie legislators!

Speaker Boehner and the GOP elite: stuck on stupid

On Christmas Day, The Wall Street Journal reported on the GOP Establishment's all-out attack on its conservative base:

Republican leaders and their corporate allies have launched an array of efforts aimed at diminishing the clout of the party's most conservative activists and promoting legislation instead of confrontation next year.

GOP House leaders are taking steps to impose discipline on wavering committee chairmen and tea-party factions. Meanwhile, major donors and advocacy groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads, are preparing an aggressive effort to groom and support more centrist Republican candidates for Congress in 2014's midterm elections.

"Promoting legislation instead of confrontation"? "More centrist" candidates? Most Tea Party Patriots would prefer the repeal of Progressive legislation and unconstitutional Executive Orders - even if that means confrontation with the socialist Progressives in both parties. Most Tea Party Patriots would prefer candidates who will put Tea Party principles before party. 

The WSJ reporter identifies several GOP-proposed measures that will do nothing to stop the downward spiral caused by runaway spending, regulations that strangle free enterprise, and job-killing legislation. Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker pounced on the report with some blistering criticism of Speaker Boehner's ham-fisted "leadership" - based on intimidation and marginalization of any members of the House who dare to vote against Boehner's party line, even when it means breaking campaign promises and breaking faith with constituents: 

This is a recipe for suicide. We saw in November 2012 how well it works when a party pushes a presidential candidate who alienates the base. The GOP turnout was far too low because Romney did not inspire the base. Does anyone think John Boehner does? Does anyone care how turnout will go in November next year?

The GOP Establishment lives and breathes the Beltway, where the combined weight of the media, government bureaucrats, and all those lobbyists leads them astray. They have no idea how their arrogance plays to their natural constituency.

The midterm elections should be a slam-dunk. But the Beltway Republicans, traumatized by the media campaign against the shutdown, are fighting the last war, completely unaware that the base doesn't want another shutdown, it wants repeal of Obamacare and sees it in sight with victory on 2014 and then 2016. If only the Establishment can stop attacking them while it sucks up corporate money.

It does look like Tea Party Patriots have to challenge a GOP party run by establishment and Progressive “elites” AND a Democrat party controlled by establishment and Progressive “elites”. And Speaker Boehner thinks the best strategy heading into 2014 is to alienate the conservative base. He is Stuck on Stupid. 

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Merry Christmas from Cleveland Tea Party Patriots

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!

President Obama's "Christmas" card

The BookwormRoom has a perceptive take on President Obama's family Christmas card:

There’s been a fair amount written about the Obama Christmas card. It’s a pop-up card, which has an expensive look that’s unseemly as millions lose their insurance and millions more have joined the ranks of the perpetually unemployed.  It’s colors are cool, not warm, which seems to refute the warmth that Christmas brings to people in the dark of winter.  It shows a vacant building, which seems symbolic when one considers that Obama invariable answer to all the scandalsrevealed in the past year is to disclaim knowledge or responsibility.  And lastly, despite going out at Christmas time and despite Obama’s claims to be a Christian, the card makes no mention of Christmas.  Keep in mind with this last point that the card ostensibly comes not from “the government” but from a man and his family.  George and Laura Bush were not ashamed that they celebrated Christmas and always sent out cards that included Biblical verses.

Amidst all the buzz about the Obama Christmas card, there’s one thing I haven’t seen.  No one is talking about the card’s peculiar message:  “As we gather around this season, may the warmth and joy of the holidays fill your home.”

Am I being a pedant, or is it bizarre to “gather around” a “season”? People gather around hearth fires and Christmas trees, and infant cradles and birthday cakes, and classic paintings in museums and street buskers making beautiful music.  That is, people gather around tangible objects.  People do not gather around something as abstract as a season.  It’s the same as saying “As we gather around this air” or “As we gather around this ambiance.”  Yes, those are nouns, but they’re not the type of nouns one “gathers around.”  In trying to create a card that is all things to all people (never mind that it coincidentally goes out at Christmas), the White House has managed to create nothingness. 

(To be charitable, it is possible to read the opening phrase as a muddy version of "As we gather around [tangible objects during] this season." Whatever.) Read the rest here. 

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