Cleveland Tea Party Goes to Washington

Meeting Sen. Jim DeMint

Good news, bad news. . .

So there we were last Tuesday, sitting in the lobby of the Trump Old Post Office Hotel in DC, minding our own business, when who should walk by but Rep. Jim Jordan and Rep. Mark Meadows. I gave Rep. Jordan a thumbs-up, and they both stopped to shake hands with us and exchange pleasantries. Unfortunately, I missed the golden opportunity to ask Rep. Jordan a question that is probably on all our minds, and they carried on.

But then, who should I spy at the next table but former Senator Jim DeMint. So I went over and barged into his conversation. And I asked him point blank: will there be any indictments?  He responded that he had just had lunch with Reps. Jordan and Meadows and that they had discussed that very issue.  Sen. De Mint told me that they were guessing that some indictments would be coming down in 2 to 3 weeks, but that there would not be enough indictments. And he gave my husband a copy of his and Rachel Bovard’s new book, Conservative: Knowing What to Keep.  

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Ohio HB 6: keep it or repeal it

Is this mailer true or false?

The other day, I was asked to sign a petition to get a Repeal of Ohio HB 6 on the ballot. You may be asked also. Here’s one report from about a week ago posted at JD Supra:

. . . a group called “Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts” (OACB) has begun the process of placing a referendum on the November 2020 ballot to repeal the law. OACB took the initial required steps of submitting at least 1,000 signatures along with a summary of the proposed referendum to the Attorney General, and after revising and resubmitting the summary it was approved as of August 30, 2019, as “fair and truthful” with the necessary valid signatures as required by law. The petitioners must now submit 265,774 signatures of registered Ohio voters (from at least 44 of the 88 Ohio counties, with at least 3 percent of total voters from each of those counties) by October 21, 2019, to place the referendum on the November 2020 ballot. If OACB meets these requirements, HB 6 is stayed until Election Day 2020.

Read the rest of the JD Supra report with some analysis here. The ads and mailers about this controversial legislation are confusing – especially the claim that

China’s Communist regime could gain control of Ohio’s electricity grid if voters repeal House Bill 6

Both sides are spending a ton of money, the media is making a lot of money, and Cleveland.com concluded its editorial on the subject as follows:

The aggressive tactics and scaremongering by those who want to deny Ohioans a statewide vote on HB 6 must stop.  Now.  Chinese business loans don’t threaten Ohio. But demagogic campaigning unquestionably does.

Yes, but if the Editorial Board of cleveland.com is in favor of something, I am usually against it. Still, I found the comments section somewhat helpful. And I expect the campaigning will only increase over the next few weeks.

I’ve read through five or six other reports/analyses, pro and con, of the repeal vs enacting HB 6, and I confess I am still not clear as to which side has the better argument. This may be an instance when neither HB6 nor its repeal is good for Ohio. At any rate, I'll post again if I find a more accessible analysis.

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Sen. Portman votes to obstruct again

cartoon by Michael Ramirez

  

Sean Moran at Breitbart reports:

Senate Passes Democrat Motion
to End Border Wall National Emergency

Senate Democrats passed Wednesday a motion to end President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to build a wall along the southern border.

The Senate passed S.J. Res. 54, 54-41, which would terminate President Trump’s national emergency declaration on the southern border. The resolution was created by Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) and co-sponsored by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

Sen. Collins said the bill is not about “whether you’re for or against a border wall.” The Maine senator, who is up for a tough reelection fight in 2020, claimed that she has “consistently supported” funding for physical barriers on the southern border.

However, Congress has failed to provide significant funding to help secure America’s southern border by building a border wall. With Congress’ failure to provide funding, President Trump declared a national emergency to build the border wall, which diverted military funding so that the president can build a wall along the southern border.

The Republicans that voted for the resolution to end the national emergency to build a border wall are Sens. Collins, Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rob Portman (R-OH).

. . .

Congressional Democrats failed to pass the resolution to override Trump’s national emergency in March, which failed to override the president’s veto.

This latest attempt will probably also fail despite the RINOs and the media’s best efforts.

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Ultimate dumpster fire

Tom Stiglich cartoon at Townhall

Four Health Care Whoppers

Betsy McCaughey's analysis of Democrat candidates' proposed healthcare "plans" is at Real Clear Politics:

When it comes to health care, Democrats are selling snake oil. Americans are grappling with rising medical costs. But if they fall for the phony solutions the left is offering, they'll pay with exorbitant taxes and shorter lives.

Whopper 1: Obamacare is affordable. Joe Biden's running a television ad in Iowa pledging to stand by Obamacare because "every American deserves affordable health care." Iowans aren't going to buy that. They're not hayseeds.

Truth: In Iowa, 90% of Obamacare customers who paid their own way in 2014 have dropped their coverage. Obamacare is affordable only if you qualify for a subsidy. Middle-class people who earn too much to get taxpayer-funded help can't afford to stay enrolled. They "have taken it on the chin," reports Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Why is the number of uninsured in America suddenly rising again? Blame Obamacare for pricing the middle class out of insurance.

. . .

Pols are scapegoating drug companies and insurance companies. Here's what they're not telling you: Medical costs in the United States are rising just as fast in other developed countries. Major culprits are the obesity epidemic and inactive lifestyles, not America's capitalist health system.

Health costs are a top issue in the 2020 election, and every candidate has a "plan." These plans are mere shell games, shifting the costs from one group of people to another. No one wins but the pols.

For all 4 Whoppers, click here.

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Lloyd Marcus and the Tea Party

Lloyd Marcus is the “Unhyphenated American” who performed at the 2009 Taxpayer March on DC and now contributes regularly to the American Thinker blog. Here’s an excerpt from a recent column:

The recording session for my "Trump Train 2020" song could not have gone better.  If you remember, my music producer is based in Baltimore.  I asked him to gather singers to form a choir for the recording of the song.  He reported back to me that all the singers he knows do not support Trump or are passionately against him.  This prompted me to launch a clarion call for pro-America/pro-Trump singers.  The response was tremendous.

Saturday, September 7, 2019, singers from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, and Florida trekked to Blue House Productions recording studio in Silver Spring, Maryland to record the "Trump Train 2020" song by Lloyd Marcus.

The singers were an enthusiastic, racially diverse choir ranging from age 14 to the mid-70s.  It was thrilling to have teenagers who have not drunk fake news media's anti-Trump Kool-Aid performing on the recording.  Everyone was happy, upbeat, and excited about contributing to the re-election of our president, keeping America great!

Despite the singers being strangers meeting for the first time, the recording session felt like a family reunion.  Everyone was of one accord.

I posted this not because of the Trump Train, but because those last two sentences describe exactly the same reaction I felt at my first Tea Party meeting back in 2009. 

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Democratic Party has gone rogue

A.F. Branco cartoon credit: Communities Digital News and Legal Insurrection

Karin McQuillan at American Greatness considers the lurch to the far left in the Democrat party. She concludes:

. . .All the Democrats have pledged to destroy America’s energy industry. Many have pledged to outlaw private health insurance. All have pledged to open our borders to all. None of them respect the Bill of Rights. 

This is all so bizarre in American terms it seems impossible. It is not only possible—it’s here. 

Campus culture, after eight long years of Obama’s interference, has come of voting age. They live in a hive-mind social media society, policed by mobbing, with censored sources of information. Through blacklisting, they have monopolistic control of our schools, colleges, media, and the high-tech corporate giants. They have won hearts and minds. It’s easy to do when those who don’t go along are destroyed. They enforce the diktats of their ideology ruthlessly. That’s their American dream.

Politics is very emotional for Democrats. They don’t care about jobs and national security, the two basic duties of the president. According to the Democrat primary, the fate of the world is at stake with the climate change crisis. Minorities’ existence is under threat by Republican “white supremacism.” They don’t want prosperity if it means some people—the hardest working, smartest, luckiest, most entrepreneurial, most self-sacrificing—can earn fabulous wealth. They see differences between people as unfair. They want sameness. They want to be given things, not to earn them.

There is no returning the hard Left to a harmless fringe. Their voters do not test their ideas or their policies by debate. They demonize Republican ideas instead of engaging with them. Far worse, they totally ignore real-world results. America’s success under President Trump, based on freedom for individuals, property rights, and free enterprise, only makes them angrier. 

These voters live in a subculture that tolerates no differing opinions. They are righteously determined to impose their values on the rest of us. 

This Democratic Party has gone rogue.

The entire article is here. Recommended.

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