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Sunday, September 23, 2018
Friday, September 21, 2018
A legal immigrant is now an American citizen
This morning I attended a naturalization ceremony for
foreign-born residents. The swearing-in took place in the Ohio District Court in downtown Cleveland, and there must have been at least 100 applicants present,
most with family or friends. The presiding Magistrate Judge gave the
proceedings a real sense of occasion. He began by leading the Pledge of
Allegiance, and then talked a little bit about America’s founding documents and earning the right to citizenship, before
administering the Oath of Allegiance. He also posed for photographs with each
and every new U.S. citizen holding his or her certificate of citizenship. Most of
those who were sworn in registered to vote before exiting the building.
I had not known what to expect, having read a report of a recent
and pretty dismal naturalization ceremony in Brooklyn, where no friends or
relatives were allowed in the room, and the presiding judge encouraged new
citizens to take a knee. Fortunately, the ceremony I attended this morning was a
joyful one, the courtroom lent the proceedings a formal elegance, and a
well-known painting of George Washington at the signing of the Constitution (see above) was projected on the screen behind the bench. I had brought with me an American flag lapel pin for the new United
States citizen, and my hanky. It was needed.
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Thursday, September 20, 2018
Tech Researcher Epstein Warns Conservatives: Get Off Gmail!
image credit: 4thmedia.org
I’ve been reading about the thumb-on-the-scale algorithms
built into searches and regular activities on Google, Facebook, YouTube, and so
on. A tech researcher, Dr Robert Epstein, was a guest on Fox News a couple of weeks
ago, so I recognized his name in an article today at Newsbusters. Here’s a
sampling:
Google has more power and control
than most people realize and a top tech researcher is warning about it.
In an interview at the D.C.
premiere of the Creepy Line, a documentary on the dangers
of Google and Facebook, Dr. Robert Epstein told the Media Research Center that
Google was building personal profiles of users mainly through Gmail. He warned
that Google was compiling information upwards of 3 million pages per user, and
said, “The more they know about you, the easier it is for them to manipulate
you without your awareness.”
Epstein explained what parts of
Gmail Google used to create these profiles: every single part.
“I can’t even begin to emphasize
how important it is that you not use Gmail. The problem is that it’s so
extensive it’s hard to condense into a sentence or two. But the point is that
they’re taking that information, not just from the emails you send, but even
from the drafts, those crazy drafts that you decide not to send, that all
becomes part of your personal profile. If you’re mentioning other people, that
goes into their personal profiles.”
He mentioned that it didn’t matter
if some users had emails outside of Gmail, those were on the profiles too.
. . .
[C]onservatives
have “special reasons to be concerned” based on the leaked emails and videos
from Google concerning the 2016 election. Detailing an article that he was
about to release, he said, “I describe 10 different methods by which Google and
big tech companies can shift millions of votes in the midterm elections coming
up in the U.S. I estimate upwards of 12 million votes.”
In the Fox interview I
watched, Dr Epstein made the point that the compiling of data and the manipulation of YOUR online activities to influence YOUR decisions, including your vote, are taking place and
leaving no paper trail. Scary. Read the rest here.
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Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Ken Blackwell: another look at Ohio Issue #1
image credit: sunrisehouse.com
A week or so ago,
Cleveland Tea Party posted a blog examining some pros and cons of Issue #1,
which will be on the ballot in November.
Today, Ken Blackwell, former Ohio Secretary of State, leads
off his article “Ohio’s ‘Issue 1’: A Dangerous and Deadly Proposition” with:
They are at it again! Liberal
billionaires George Soros, Mark Zuckerberg and Nicholas Pritzker are attempting
to force their left leaning ideology on Ohioans.
This time it’s by spending millions of dollars to weaken Ohio’s drug laws.
Soros, Zuckerberg and Pritzker are the lead funders of
state Issue 1, a dangerous state constitutional amendment that gives drug
dealers a get out of jail free card.
They want you to believe their proposal is in line with marijuana reforms
in other states. It’s not. They will say it’s in the interest of public safety,
and will lead to better treatment options for addicted Ohioans. It won’t.
. . .
Drug
abuse has had a disproportionate effect on Ohio families, and tragically, our
state is ground zero in the fight against overdoses. Law enforcement officials
are overwhelmed by the overdose crisis and we cannot afford, in terms of
treasure and human suffering, more of these drugs on the streets. But that will
be the legacy of Issue 1.
Read the rest here.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Debate scheduled: Sherrod Brown vs Jim Renacci
art credit: digitaltrends.com
The two major candidates for this
year's Ohio Senate race will debate in Cleveland next month, organizers for the
event announced Monday.
Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown
and his Republican challenger, Rep. Jim Renacci, have agreed to debate at 6
p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 14 in Cleveland, about three weeks before the
November election.
The debate will be held at the
Westfield Insurance studio theater at the Idea Center in Playhouse Square,
according to the nonpartisan Ohio Debate Commission, which is organizing the
event.
Two veteran journalists
-- Ann Fisher, of WOSU public radio in Columbus and Russ Mitchell, anchor at
WKYC-TV in Cleveland -- will serve as moderators. Tickets for the event are
free, and organizers say more information about how to attend will be
posted on their website, www.ohiodebatecommission.org, on Tuesday.
Stay tuned.
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Monday, September 17, 2018
Constitution Day and Citizenship Day
image credit: lauruscollege.edu
Today is Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, and “the act mandates that all publicly funded educational
institutions, and all federal agencies, provide educational programming on the
history of the American Constitution on that day.” Er, one day out of
the year? Nevertheless, Salena Zito reports some encouraging news:
"We must
not be afraid to be free," Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black famously said
in a dissent defending free expression. That appeal is germane today,
especially on college campuses, professor Daniel Cullen argues.
Cullen, a professor of political
science at Rhodes College, is working to engage liberal arts college students
on the critical importance of the First Amendment and free speech. It's part of
a program at 30 colleges and universities across the country [which] will be
marking Constitution Day on September 17, the 231st anniversary of its signing.
“It is a critical moment in
American society and culture to deeply reflect First Amendment traditions as
they relate to the Constitution,” said Cullen of the initiative sponsored by
the Jack Miller Center.
. . .
“There was a survey recently done
by the Knight Foundation that found a majority of American college students
today either believe incorrectly that the First Amendment prohibits hate
speech, or if it doesn't, then it ought to,” he says.
Simply put, it is an entire
generation forgetting that one of the proudest achievements of American
democracy is that we agree to tolerate the speech we hate.
“Nevertheless it's that proposition
that a majority of college students no longer accept. They don't think it's
something to be proud of. They think it's an error so the question is, ‘Why?’
And I think the best answer is that they, especially the iGen generation have
become highly sensitized to the harm that speech can do and the offensiveness
that often goes along with speech,” he said.
. . .
Yet Cullen remains hopeful, “What we do is we try and
separate truth from falsehood and truth from error, and students remain
naturally intellectually curious. They want to hear the arguments for important
moral viewpoints, even arguments for viewpoints that strike them as
fundamentally wrong.”
Read the rest here.
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Saturday, September 15, 2018
#WalkAway Campaign
Maybe you know one or two liberals who are having second
thoughts about the Democratic party platform, tactics, and Big Government values (the opposite of Tea Party values). If so, this information will be of interest.
The headline at The Daily Signal: “Rally in
Washington Will Urge Disillusioned Democrats, Leftists to ‘Walk Away’”
The organizer: actor, singer, hair stylist Brandon Straka.
The #WalkAway event: The march and
rally will be held Saturday, Oct. 27. The event will
start near the
Democratic National Committee headquarters building on Capitol Hill and end on
the lawn of the Capitol. The date is 10 days before the midterm congressional
elections.
On May 26, Straka released a
video of himself explaining why he was walking away from the Democratic Party
and building a platform for folks who shared similar experiences. Mr.
Straka can use all the help he can get, since a few days ago, his Facebook page
was suspended for 30 days but then suddenly reinstated under questionable
circumstances.
The full report on the October 27 #WalkAway rally in DC is
here. We Tea Party members welcome any #WalkAway red-pill takers into our
community.
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