Chuckle of the Day

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Take the quiz: Who am I?

photo credit: examiner.com

Guess who? Reader <georgiafl> at Conservative Treehouse provides the check list:

• Harvard educated
• First term junior Senator
• No leadership ability
• Career lawyer-politician
• Considered Constitutional scholar
• Lecturing, talking down to others
• No executive, private sector experience
• Questionable citizenship, eligibility
• Records sealed to prevent investigation, proof of eligibility
• Parent/s with questionable citizenship
• Parents questionable bigamous, illegal or non-existent marriage
• Lies constantly, brazenly, without remorse
• Use of dirty, dishonest tactics to win elections
• Relationship with non-mainstream Christian religious figure (Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Cruz’s Dominionist father)
• Amnesty, foreign worker, Muslim/Cuban immigration advocate
• Work to diminish American identity and sovereignty
• Trade and immigration deals favoring foreign interests over American worker interests 

Choose either:

A.   President Barack Obama

B.   Senator Ted Cruz

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Rent-A-Mob Alert for Cleveland

art credit: noethics.net

Rent-A-Mob Alert!  And the July GOP Convention in Cleveland is on the target list. From Kevin Mooney at The Daily Signal:

Calling community activists: If you’re a committed, left-leaning activist who’d like to take part in “grassroots campaigns to protect the health, economy, environment, and livelihood of Ohio communities,” then Ohio Citizen Action has got a job for you.

And it’s one that pays reasonably well, with benefits on top. This could be an especially nice deal for recent college graduates looking to help create a little drama in Cleveland when the Republican National Convention convenes in July.

Just google Craigslist and Ohio Citizen Action, and you get an advertisement that declares: “Change the World and GET PAID … $80/day (Downtown Cleveland).”

You’ll learn the nonprofit group seeks candidates who “possess strong communication skills and a genuine commitment to the environment, progressive politics, and the empowerment of our fellow OH residents.”

The ad, specifying Cleveland, says positions are full time and pay $80 a day, with bonuses available at 20 days.

Applicants should expect to work from 2 to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. And yes, they should be committed to community organizing with an eye toward “environmental justice” and “sustainable energy.”

“Getting paid to participate in a supposedly ‘grassroots’ campaign is a contradiction in terms,” quipped Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, in an email to The Daily Signal.

The Craigslist ad explains some of what makes the 37-year-old Ohio Citizen Action tick:

Community organizing is the backbone of OCA and each year it allows us the opportunity to continue building the strength in numbers that has won so many of our campaigns. We are looking to add highly motivated individuals with good communication skills to our already effective and professional campaign staff. Also, if you are truly looking for nonprofit grassroots organizing experience, we do it all year, and not just when it gets nice out in the spring and summer!

Perks and benefits apparently are available for those willing to stick with it.

“Health insurance, paid vacations and personal days to employees that show longevity and proficiency with the organization,” the group’s ad promises. “Travel opportunities within our nationwide network of nonprofits for environmental and social justice causes.”

What the ad says is revealing, but what it doesn’t say is perhaps more so.

Donors to the nonprofit get tax deductions, skeptics note. Is Ohio Citizen Action really the employer? Is it legitimate for a tax-exempt charity to use donations to protest and engage in political activism?

Ohio Citizens Action has received $30,000 since 2006 from Tides Foundation and $20,000 since 2013 from the William B. Wiener Jr. Foundation, according to data compiled by the Capital Research Center, a Washington-based nonprofit that tracks charity and philanthropy.

In addition, the affiliated Ohio Citizens Action Education Fund has received almost $3.9 million from left-wing philanthropies since 2003. Major funders include the Joyce Foundation ($1.4 million since 2003), Rockefeller Family Fund ($595,000 since 2010), Energy Foundation ($422,000 since 2008), Winslow Foundation ($425,000 since 2007), and George Gund Foundation ($525,320 since 2003).

Read the rest, including reference to an earlier incarnation of the community activist outfit, ACORN, here.

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New York Primary math

art credit: ddrichswier.com

In case you missed it, here’s the bottom line from elections.ap  on the GOP race for the nomination:

Donald Trump is now the only Republican candidate with any chance of clinching the nomination before the convention.

Ted Cruz was mathematically eliminated Tuesday after Trump's big win in the New York primary.

Trump won at least 89 of the 95 delegates at stake. John Kasich won at least three and Cruz was in danger of being shut out.

There aren't enough delegates left in future contests for either Cruz or Kasich to reach the 1,237 delegates needed to win the GOP nomination. Their only hope is to block Trump and force a contested convention.

The AP delegate count:

Trump: 845.

Cruz: 559.

Kasich: 147.

Is Tea Party Patriots going to continue to endorse Ted Cruz, whose only shot at the nomination is to somehow influence the first vote at the convention, whether by dishonesty or outright theft? (I don’t think Cruz would stand a chance in a contested convention; he’d be thrown over in favor of other more “electable” candidates. Romney? Ryan? More of the same ole same ole…)

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"Voterless" elections

art credit: plymouthministorage.com

Okay, Ann Coulter is a bomb-thrower, but she also can hit the nail squarely on the head. Her column the other day was about the “voterless” primary elections, in which GOPe “leaders” are giving delegates to candidates whether the electorate likes it or not. Wisconsin. Colorado. Wyoming. Is West Virginia next? Here are extracts from her column

Another misconception sweeping the nation is that when state Republican parties disregard the voters and give all their delegates to Cruz, they are merely following THE RULES, and Trump is an idiot for not knowing THE RULES. 

That's what the Colorado GOP did, what the Tennessee and Louisiana parties are trying to do -- and what many other states may do, all under the careful tutelage of Tracy Flick Cruz.

I keep asking someone to send me a copy of THE RULES that direct state parties to ignore the voters and pick their own slate of delegates, but no one can cite such a rule. So I read through "The Rules of the Republican Party" myself -- and guess what? There's no rule instructing state parties to ignore the voters! 

To the contrary, the rules were recently rewritten so that delegate selection would "reflect the results of statewide presidential preference elections," according to a statement by Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus. (The nerds will tell us, that's "legislative history," not THE RULES.) 

Apparently, what people mean by THE RULES is that there is no RNC rule specifically prohibiting a state party from giving all the delegates to a single nominee, even if that is demonstrably at odds with the will of the voters. 

The state parties are given a lot of discretion, so Cruz harasses and cajoles the local party until it awards all the state's delegates to him. Trump keeps winning elections, and Cruz keeps winning sneaky procedural victories. 

Until Cruz won a primary in mean-as-a-snake Wisconsin, he hadn't won a single primary -- i.e., an "election" -- outside of his home state, a sister state and a state where Trump didn't campaign. In fact, until cantankerous Wisconsin, the only primary where Cruz managed to surpass 34 percent of the vote was his home state of Texas -- where he got 43.8 percent. 

(Contrary to lies you read in The New York Times, Trump has not complained about any of those races. And you know why? Because they were elections, not corrupt backroom maneuvering. Hey - does anyone know if the general election is won by influence-peddling with tiny groups of insiders or is it by winning elections?) 

It's as if Cruz and Trump are playing different sports: Trump keeps belting home runs, while Cruz is berating the umpire until he calls a balk, then prances to home base, telling everyone he hit a grand slam. 

True, there's no rule explicitly disallowing a state party from rigging the delegate selection. There's also no rule explicitly disallowing a state party from giving all its delegates to Kim Kardashian. 

Cruz is bragging about winning delegates in “voterless” elections, as the Drudge Report and other media dub them. Trump's “campaign strategy is to win with the voters. Ted Cruz’s campaign strategy is to win despite them.”

Does anyone really believe GOPe chairman Reince Priebus when he says “It's not a matter of party insiders. It's a matter of 2,400 grassroots activists, and whatever they want to do, they can do.”

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Rooms for rent?

photo credit: broadviewheights.blogspot.

Three patriot delegates from the Lakes Area Tea Party in Michigan will be attending the GOP Convention July 18-21 here in Cleveland, and they are looking for affordable rooms to rent or courtesy housing. If you are in a position to host these individuals, please email clevelandteaparty@gmail.com 

and we will forward your email to the leader of the group so you can work out details. 

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When Your Vote Doesn't Matter

The other day, this blog referred to Ted Cruz's dirty tricks in Colorado. The backstory is still unfolding, but it looks like Team Cruz worked with the GOP elites in Colorado, within the framework of their rules. The net result is that Colorado voters are disenfranchised by those rules. The GOPe takes full credit for getting delegates for Ted, an establishment insider. As the Drudge headline said, it was a "voterless victory."

American Thinker reproduced the resolution to exclude Donald Trump as a candidate for Colorado GOPe delegates. From another tweet from "Former CO GOP Chair: "The Message We're Sending Is Your Vote Doesn't Matter and Doesn't Count." 

The Colorado GOPe party controlled the selection. It followed the rules, and Colorado voters are going to protest those rules on Friday. 

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