The final tax bill

cartoon by Nate Beeler at the Columbus Dispatch

Help for the middle class or Armageddon and lots of dead people? I found a concise summary of what's in the bill at Reuters; click here.

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Blogging for the Cleveland Tea Party

photo credit: pinterest

photo credit below: zazzle.com

Everyone is doing their Year-End round ups, think pieces, retrospectives, and so on. Here is mine.

Back in 2009, I signed on to the Tea Party because I agreed with its 3 core values:  [1] Fiscal Responsibility (don’t spend more than you have);  [2] Constitutionally Limited Government (big government is not the solution; keep the accountability as close to your backyard as possible); and  [3] Free Markets (as little regulation as is possible)

But for me, there is another motivator. And I go back to President Trump’s historic address in Warsaw, in which he talked about America’s role in global society: one of things he said was “we write symphonies.” Some of the media had no idea what he was talking about, but his comment struck me right where I live. 

The great divide in America is now a crisis: it's about the magnificent culture of Western Civilization versus a nihilistic movement to destroy that Western Civilization. We (today’s generations) can’t claim any credit for its development, but Rome and Greece are not at the forefront today, Europe is collapsing, and America is the de facto or default flagship and guardian of Western Civilization. Or at least it was.

But how long can America lead the Free World if our citizens do not acquire the skills of critical thinking and logic; learn our language and history; and embrace the American culture? The collectivist left has infiltrated, quite successfully, our major cultural institutions: academia, Hollywood, and the media. And it is weakening our once robust can-do culture. It may even be that in 50 years’ time, classical music will be performed only in the Far East, not in Europe or the United States. I am thinking here of Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, etc. and dwindling support for the orchestras.  

I spent many years in the trenches employed by various performing and cultural arts organizations, and most of my erstwhile colleagues would be in the “left’ to “hard left” categories. I identify as a fiscal conservative. Not as a Republican, but as a fiscal conservative. Until I stood up and signed up for the Tea Party, I thought I was in some sort of socio-political Siberia. That changed with the emergence of the Tea Party.

All this ties into my thoughts about the cultural collapse of America, the disintegration of behavioral self-restraint, and why I am grateful beyond words that our President is Donald J. Trump. He treasures a culture that writes symphonies, and he wants to ensure that future generations inherit that culture. 

When you have a media that calls FLOTUS Melania’s Christmas decorations at the White House a “nightmare” that would scare little children, despite the grade-schoolers flocking to her for hugs, there is, I would say, something seriously wrong with that media and those who agree with their “narrative.” I am one of many observers who think we are witnessing some form of mass hysteria. When Morning Joe warns his viewers that Trump is "mentally unstable," Joe is exhibiting the phenomenon of projection: Accuse those with whom you disagree with what you yourself are doing.

What has all this to do with my cultural concerns? In the past several years, I’ve been involved in some projects that aim to preserve our cultural assets -- much as the early Catholic monks did. They labored in many ways, and some of them sat there in seclusion, attempting to preserve the artistic, intellectual, and literary accomplishments of their cultural heritage (not to say literacy itself), out of fear that the barbarians at the gate would destroy the flowering civilization.

Archival projects today tear off a page from those monks. Maybe the Golden Age of Musical Theater (think Rodgers and Hammerstein) is not your thing, but The Musical Theater Project here in Cleveland is dedicated to such preservation. Maybe your thing is the visual arts. Cleveland has a world-class Museum of Art that offers free admission. Maybe your thing is classical music. The Cleveland Orchestra excels in performing and preserving that repertory. Maybe you’ve heard them for free at Public Square on the Fourth of July. My work over the last 20 years involved research on Shakespeare and his biography. I am so lucky that we live in close proximity to the Cleveland Public Library – it is another cultural treasure trove. 

The point is: How long will these world-class institutions survive, whether in Cleveland or anywhere else in the United States? Where are their future audiences and readers? Many schools no longer require that students read any Shakespeare or Charles Dickens. Mark Twain’s masterpiece Huckleberry Finn is banned in many schools. I weep.

I was in a conversation about some of this recently with a friend and colleague who leans liberal, but we found ourselves on common ground when it came to our cultural history and traditions. I expressed some of my concerns, and he mentioned the monks. I took his point and mentioned them above. It is frightening to even have to think that we need those monks now.

So-called "Safe Spaces" are increasing, especially on campuses. The "Snowflake" population continues to insulate itself and reject critical thinking in favor of emotional self-gratification. Identity Politics are everywhere, and as groups like BLM and Antifa turn to violence, our cultural heritage is being destroyed. Attacked. Erased. Our historical monuments -- representing our very history -- are being destroyed. Literally.

Look at what’s happening to the legacies of George Washington; Christopher Columbus; and Robert E. Lee. We expect that sort of historical erasure from ISIS – destroying Palmyra’s sacred antiquities. But we do not expect it in the United States. Except that it is happening NOW before our very eyes. Even our language is being corrupted.

So I continue with my little contribution to the Cleveland Tea Party. Most of what I blog on is related to the three Tea Party core values, often to post Action Alerts for legislative initiatives at the local, state, and federal level that affect those three core values. But for me, it also impacts the heritage that has been entrusted to us, and I speak as a senior citizen who is so grateful to our forebears for our cultural inheritance.

I stand for our National Anthem. I recite the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag. And I blog for the Cleveland Tea Party (deferring always to Ralph King, who is my mentor on whatever is going on in the political world). For me, being a Cleveland Tea Party blogger is also about a devout reverence for our Judeo-Christian traditions and values; a profound gratitude for our freedoms; and a sense of responsibility to preserve and pass on to future generations our cultural endowment, history, and yes, symphonies.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

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Losers and more empty seats

Making the rounds . . . 

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Action Alert: Amnesty Again

image credit: americanmexorist.wordpress.com

RE: H-2B visas for 2018 and DACA amnesty

NumbersUSA sent this Alert out today:

NumbersUSA has learned that Congressional Leaders may include an H-2B visa increase in the year-end spending bill. The H-2B visa is the low-skilled guest worker program used to fill seasonal or temporary jobs in landscaping, food service, hospitality, and more. This program adds extra job competition for low-skilled American workers and adversely affects the wages for these jobs.

In past year's spending bills, Congress has exempted returning workers from the H-2B program, having the potential impact of quadrupling the number of these guest worker visas issued each year. For FY2017, Congress didn't exempt returning workers, but gave the Department of Homeland Security authority to issue visas beyond the annual cap. DHS ultimately increased the number of visas available by 15,000.

This new threat adds to the continuing threat of a DACA amnesty being part of the spending bill. Despite rhetoric from leaders of both Parties, Congress could still include this amnesty in the must-pass bill.

The ALERT:

Please call your U.S. Representative and two U.S. Senators and tell them to oppose a DACA amnesty and an H-2B visa increase in the must-pass, year-end spending bill.

Sen. Sherrod Brown  ~  (202) 224-2315

Sen. Rob Portman  ~  (202) 224-3353

Rep. Marcia Fudge  ~  (202) 225-7032

If Marcia Fudge is not your Representative, call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 255-3121 to reach your Rep.

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2017 official White House Christmas Portrait

Via Conservative Treehouse: 

The White House released the official Christmas Portrait – President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are seen . . . in their official 2017 Christmas portrait, in the Cross Hall of the White House in Washington, D.C.

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Judge Roy Moore vs RINO Mitch McConnell and the Uniparty

image credit: sol1776.blogspot.com 

Mark Steyn is a favorite of mine, and here are a few of his post-election thoughts:

[Judge Roy] Moore lost narrowly enough to suggest that it wasn't the accusations that did him in. He could have survived those, just about. What killed him was that he was running against both the Democrats and the Republicans - including Alabama's own senior senator, Richard Shelby. (Trump post-Billy Bush was in a similar position, as the likes of Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte, etc, stampeded to distance themselves.) But Roy Moore was the nominee only because the smart guys over-invested in Luther Strange (just as in 2015 they over-invested in Jeb Bush). In the first round of primary voting, Mitch McConnell's priority was to prop up Strange by taking out what he regarded as his principal threat, Mo Brooks. Congressman Brooks would have made an excellent senator, and would have been elected in a walk, and he can also claim more plausibly than Moore to be a populist conservative aligned with the Trump agenda. But McConnell didn't want him in the Senate and, as he saw it, once Brooks was gone, Luther Strange would have no trouble walloping Moore in the run-off.

Unfortunately, Strange owed his eminence in Alabama to the patronage of a corrupt and discredited governor. As I wrote three months ago, given the disposition of GOP primary electorates in the Age of Trump, they were unlikely to turn to "a creature from the Alabama swamp ...to drain the Washington swamp". So, thanks to McConnell and the ten million bucks he blew through, Moore won the run-off and became the candidate. And thus, of all preposterous outcomes, Alabama is now a blue state.

. . . 

A final thought on Moore: Yes, he's a kook, and an insufficiently nimble one to dodge the incoming schoolgirls. But as I wrote three months ago:

Whatever one feels about Roy Moore, he's principled enough to be willing to lose his job over the Ten Commandments and same-sex marriage. That's unusual in American politics.

Read Steyn’s full column here. I think he is correct to place blame on Mitch McConnell and the GOPe Uniparty. 

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Catching up on last week’s news: Mike Gibbons running for U.S. Senate

map image credit: cleveland.com 

Last week, Jeremy Pelzer at cleveland.com reported (h/t Ralph King):

COLUMBUS, Ohio--U.S. Senate candidate Mike Gibbons was endorsed by the Franklin County Republican Party on Wednesday by an overwhelming margin, giving the Cleveland-area businessman a high-profile win in his underdog bid to snatch the GOP nomination from Treasurer Josh Mandel.

The county party's central committee vote was 85-16, according to Gibbons. It's the first time Gibbons has been endorsed by a county party; the Cuyahoga County GOP previously endorsed Mandel.

Read the rest here. Mr. Gibbons's website is here.

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