Creative designer dog costumes at the Warehouse District street fair

Just for fun . . .

Pekinese in ribbons

Cleopatra on her barge

Patriotic prize-winner for Cutest Dog(s)

  

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Trump and the Bottom Line

photo credit: CNN

 

It's Sunday, and as always, Clarice Feldman at American Thinker has a thoughtful perspective  ("A Consequential President in the Time of Pygmies") on President Trump’s first six month in office. Here are a few excerpts:

Once when my son was about 6 or 7 I took him to the circus with some of his friends. The acrobats, clowns, and lion tamer in the center ring enthralled the other kids. Not him. He turned to me and said, “How do you think they make money producing a circus? I think it’s the concessions.” It struck me then that among the people in the world, there are some -- too few, actually -- who are not distracted by spectacles, but, instead, keep their eyes on the bottom line.

That’s how I see the President. His stated goals have always been to make us safe, get the economy booming, enable a job-creation economy, and make life better and safer for all Americans.

As the news is filled with tittle-tattle about the phony baloney Russian collusion story and moronic punditry, the president keeps plowing on with his agenda. American Digest lists 220 things the President has achieved while in office, despite the vitriolic attacks on him and what appears to be a silent coup by the press, bureaucrats, and entrenched officeholders.    

This week, despite Democratic stalling, 78 of his nominees for office were confirmed. So the list should now run to 221 things the President has done to Make America Great Again.

With West Virginia’s Governor Jim Justice having ditched the Democratic Party for the Republican, the Republicans now control 26 state governments. Put another way, 48% of Americans now live in a state where Republicans have complete control. 17% in states with total Dem control. “

The stock market is booming although the NYT twists itself into a pretzel to deny the President’s role in this. . . 

. . .

As for the Russian nonsense, Edward Jay Epstein, a longtime credible sleuth, explains why the Russians had no particular interest in having Hillary win, but a great deal of interest in degrading our belief in the legitimacy of our elections:

. . .

In the meantime, pay attention to the bottom line. Trump is not losing. The media and the Democratic party they work for are.

She has quite a bit more to say (e.g., on Comey and Mueller, etc.); the whole article is here.

Meantime, I am wondering about the 17-day “vacation” that President Trump is taking at one of his golf clubs in New Jersey, while his staff camps out at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Apparently these temporary logistics are planned so that the White House heating and cooling systems can be upgraded and other repairs can be made. Hmmm. I hope a trusted team of experts takes out entire walls in the White House, hauls them over to some secure warehouse, and under surveillance, finds the bugs.  

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More obstruction from the Uniparty

image credit: ring of fire radio

From The Hill:

The Senate blocked President Trump from being able to make recess appointments on Thursday as lawmakers leave Washington for their August break. 

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), doing wrap up for the entire Senate, locked in nine "pro-forma" sessions — brief meetings that normally last roughly a minute. 

The move, which requires the agreement of every senator, means the Senate will be in session every three business days throughout the August recess. 

The Senate left D.C. on Thursday evening with most lawmakers not expected to return to Washington until after Labor Day. 

If anyone wondered whether the term "Uniparty" was hyperbole . . .

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Attention Cleveland Veterans: USS Cod Submarine Memorial event this coming Saturday

 photo credit: Trip Advisor

Vets getting thanks at USS Cod Submarine Memorial 

August 5 [that’s this coming Saturday]

For the veterans in your community, here’s an announcement via Brian Albrecht at Cleveland.com:

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A day of thanks will be offered August 5, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at the USS Cod Submarine Memorial, 1089 East Ninth Street, featuring free tours for veterans and their families, music and service information.

Visitors are encouraged to bring a picnic lunch and use the submarine's newly installed picnic grove, and spend the day visiting the other nearby attractions of Cleveland's North Coast Harbor.

In addition, veterans can visit information displays set up by private and governmental organizations that provide services to veterans and their families.

The city of Cleveland is providing free parking to veterans attending the event. A brief welcome program and deck gun salute is scheduled for 11:30 a.m.

"A beautiful day in August beats a dreary November day in Cleveland for celebrating the service of our veterans," said Cod Director Paul Farace.

The Memorial's phone is (216) 566-8770.

Mark your calendar and pass it on!

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Governor Kasich and Senator Portman on Obamacare

art credit: Conservative Review

The Washington Examiner reports:

Ohio Governor John Kasich said Sunday the collapse of the Republican healthcare bill in the U.S. Senate was a "good thing," but was adamant the policy debate was not over.

David Catron at The American Spectator blog named Portman as one of the six Senators whom he describes as liars, frauds, charlatans – well, you get the idea:

The following Republican Senators demonstrated [last Wednesday] that they are liars and frauds: Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), Dean Heller (Nev.), John McCain (Ariz.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Rob Portman (Ohio).

. . . if a Republican won the 2016 presidential election, the same bill [as an earlier partial repeal bill] or something very similar could be quickly passed by a GOP-controlled Congress and signed into law. Every single Republican who ran for the House or the Senate in 2016 made similar statements, including the six charlatans listed above.

These mountebanks, all of whom voted for “clean repeal” when Obama’s inevitable veto made it safe and politically expedient to do so, voted against a virtually identical bill [last week] — knowing full well that President Trump would sign it. In other words, they consciously betrayed their constituents, their party, and the nation as a whole.

At least we know where Kasich and Portman stand.

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Michael P. Ramirez ~ cartoon of the day

 Well, that partly explains the failure to repeal Obamacare.

Cartoon via Townhall

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Tony Madalone is running for Mayor

Tony Madalone meets a Cleveland Tea Party Person

Yesterday evening, Cleveland Tea Party Co-Coordinator Diana went to a meet-and-greet with Tony Madalone –who is running for Mayor of Cleveland. Tony who? There are nine mayoral candidates heading into the September primary, and Cleveland Tea Party just met the one who probably rates the lowest in name recognition.

According to Cleveland.com, the “elections records list Tony Madalone as a Republican,” but he is running as an Independent. What follows are this voter’s first impressions of this candidate.

Madalone is a 32-year old entrepreneur who runs his own business, Fresh Brewed Tees, and as such, he could speak to his own experiences with City Hall. For example, he spent months going through the head-banging process of attempting to propose a simple piece of legislation concerning business permits. As a result, he experienced first-hand the political foot-dragging and machinations that casual observers may moan and groan about – but he’s got a few battle scars. It’s a start. He’s also gotten to know many of the key players in the municipal government through that process and also by sitting in on City Council meetings. That perhaps goes some way toward compensating for the fact that he is not running as a sitting Councilman or Commissioner or School Board member.

Does he support of oppose sanctuary cities?  His response is that it is difficult not to obey federal law. OK, but that was not quite the forceful stand for law enforcement that I hoped to hear.

One of Tony’s priorities is education for all. Even, so, I was not quite sure where Tony stands on Common Core. He expressed dismay at the state of education in Cleveland, but pointed out that solutions are difficult to formulate, especially in the short term. Re: both Common Core and the teacher’s unions, I hope he refines his positions on these issues and gets more specific.

Tony talked about the crisis in Ohio with heroin and opioids addiction. His response focused on education, so that potential users would understand the consequences better and would be less likely to experiment. I agree that education is important, but I am not sure I entirely agree that education is, on this issue, the key. A relative of mine, now in early 20s, succumbed to drug use for (as near as I can tell as an unqualified observer) a number of reasons, including predatory drug dealers on college campuses, cheap hits, being convinced that smoking heroin was not addictive, individual personality, and family and social circumstances. So in my view it is not just about education. Education would have addressed the myth about non-addictive smoking, but not the other contributing factors. Cutting off the cheap supplies would seem to be a more do-able option. Just this voter's two cents.

Tony hates the dirt bike track project, especially since it was approved without any plan in place, and he was critical of the process by which City Council called its final vote.

On a first impression, he struck me as someone who is tossing his hat in the ring for a good reason – wanting a better deal for Cleveland, in part based on his own frustrations with city government from his experiences as a business entrepreneur. On the downside: he has not held any public office and has no name recognition. And running a small business is not the same as running City Hall.

I asked him whether he would run again if he didn’t get across the finish line this time – or whether he might run for another office, such as Councilman, or Commissioner, or School Board, and he had not thought about it. But he thought it was a good question (I knew to ask that question from my training with Ralph King’s and Joe Scarola’s Politics 101 classes.) Tony would surely have more name recognition in a second or third run.

Thanks, Tony, for putting our little neighborhood on your door-knock schedule. Message to other mayoral candidates: we’re happy to meet with you, too. Leave a comment below with your email details (or email clevelandteaparty[at]gmail.com, and we’ll take it from there.

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