Corporate Charlatan's Supporting Sin Tax (Issue 7) Dismiss Proposed "Fair Share" Facility Fee

The Coalition Against the Sin Tax held a press conference yesterday to offer up an alternative avenue of funding to replace the proposed Sin Tax extension.

This "Fair Share" Facility Fee would be $3.25 per ticket for events held at Progressive Field, Quicken Loans Arena & First Energy Stadium. This proposed fee would generate an amount roughly equal ($13 - $14 million per year) to what is raised with the current Sin Tax on cigarettes & alcohol.

The hypocrisy of the pro-sin tax crowd is priceless.  Without even looking at it -- they immediately dismiss the Fair Share plan of being hastily put together.

Really?  This coming from the same people that did not consider any alternative funding measures and came directly to the people at the first opportunity they could.

It is time to come together to put a stop to this corporate cabal of charlatan's - The Greater Cleveland Partnership - that have been fleecing this area for far too long.  

For those that may not remember - always having their hands in our pockets - the Greater Cleveland Partnership is the same group that pushed the forced sales tax increase for the Med Mart too.  And the same as they did then they are doing now - looking straight to the residents to pay for their projects.

Vote No on the Sin Tax (Issue 7)

Below is a copy of the Fair Share Plan from the Coalition Against the Sin Tax.

Fair Share Facility Fee proposal, a preferable alternative to the proposed 20-year $260 million Sin Tax up... by Andrea Torres

The Legacy of Obama's Illegal Alien Aunt Zeituni

From Michelle Malkin via Townhall --

Zeituni Onyango, President Obama's illegal alien aunt, died this week of cancer and other complications. I hope she rests in peace. America, however, should be up in arms.

Auntie Zeituni is an enduring symbol of all that is wrong with this country's immigration "policy" -- or rather, its complete lack of a coherent, enforceable system of laws and rules that puts the national interest first. She was a beneficiary of the welfare state run amok, enabled by bipartisan fecklessness. To the bitter end, she bit the hand that fed her with predictable ingratitude and metastatic entitlement.

Zeituni's 14-year illegal overstay is a reminder that our temporary visa program is an abysmal joke. Like millions of foreign students, business people and tourists to this country, Auntie Zeituni obtained a short-term visitor visa in 2000. It had an expiration date. She was supposed to go back to Kenya in two years after traveling here with her son, who had been accepted at a college in Boston.

But like millions of other "temporary" visa overstayers, Auntie Zeituni never went home. And despite billions spent on homeland security and immigration enforcement, no one ever went looking for her to kick her out of the country after her time was up.

Auntie Zeituni had no job skills, no special talent, no compelling reason to keep her here in America as an asset to our culture or our economy. She didn't value the American Dream. She was a dependency nightmare. She collected $700 a month in welfare benefits and disability payments totaling $51,000. Somehow, Auntie Zeituni also drummed up money to apply for asylum and finagled her way into both federal and state public housing in Boston.

She contributed nothing to this country. The only "work" she did was gaming the system, complaining about her lot and blaming everyone else for her problems while they subsidized her 14-year illegal overstay.

Auntie Zeituni's ridiculous asylum application and what happened afterward are reminders that our asylum and deportation systems are appalling jokes. Auntie Zeituni's bogus request was rejected by the immigration court system. A judge ordered her to return to Kenya in 2003. She appealed. She lost. A judge again ordered her to leave in 2004.

But Auntie Zeituni never went home. Like an estimated 700,000 other deportation absconders, she evaded the judicial order for nearly a half-dozen years and continued to feed at the government trough. When the Bush administration had the chance to put the pedal to the enforcement metal in 2008, they caved. Pandering to pro-amnesty forces, Bush officials issued a 72-hour cease-and-desist order to all fugitive apprehension teams to spare Obama embarrassment over his auntie right before Election Day.

As an Immigration and Customs Enforcement source told me at the time: "The ICE fugitive operations group throughout the U.S. was told to stand down until after the election from arresting or transporting anyone out of the U.S. This was done to avoid any mistakes of deporting or arresting anyone who could have a connection to the election, i.e., anyone from Kenya who could be a relative. The decision was election-driven." Such stand-down non-enforcement orders are standard operating procedure in Washington.

Auntie Zeituni's illegal activity and ingratitude were rewarded time and time again. She got multiple bites at the immigration court apple, where it ain't over till the alien wins. Despite twice being ordered to go home, the feds allowed her bogus case to be reopened. After breaking visa laws, campaign finance laws (she donated illegally to Obama three times), deportation rules and judicial orders, she was allowed to have yet another hearing. Her manufactured claim of a "credible fear of persecution" in Kenya made a mockery of every legitimate case for asylum or refugee status.

"If I come as an immigrant, you have the obligation to make me a citizen," Auntie Zeituni demanded. She griped that America had "used" her and then cashed in on a book about her travails called "Tears of Abuse." And then, after a decade of doing absolutely nothing to enhance the well-being of our country, she received a coveted green card in 2010.

Neither Republican nor Democratic leaders in Washington had the will to kick this trash-talking freeloader (or her drunk-driving, deportation-evading, amnesty-securing deadbeat brother Omar Onyango) out of our home. Auntie Zeituni's story is a disgraceful reminder that the only thing worse than the ingrates thumbing their noses at our immigration laws are the people in power on both sides of the aisle enabling them.

Hypocrite Ed FitzGerald (P.O. #14) Conducts his own "War on Women"

From the phony cries of racism and voter suppression and now the so-called GOP War on Women - nobody owns being a hypocrite like the Ohio Democrat Party & Cuyahoga County Executive and Democrat candidate for Ohio Governor - Ed FitzGerald (AKA - Public Official #14 in the Cuyahoga County Corruption Scandal).

And consistent with FitzGerald paying women less then men, as we posted back in 2012, the Democrats have been conducting a War on Women for some time.

From Third Base Politics --

You’ll hear Democrats squawking quite a bit today about equal pay today. They love to quote that women make only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.

Today is National Equal Pay Day. Did you know women still make just .77 for each $1 a man earns? RT to stand w/us in the fight for #equalpay
— Ohio Dems (@OHDems) April 8, 2014

Of course, many of us know that that figure alone does NOT reflect men and women doing the exact same jobs. There are many factors that go into that 77 cent figure, and it is far more influenced by factors such as the careers that women go into compared to men, plus the fact that women often take maternity leave.

But let’s pretend that 77 cent methodology, taking all workers across all careers and job types, is a valid one to consider. Let’s do what the Democrats are doing, and NOT consider the type of work or career, and only look at raw numbers, even if it is comparing apples to oranges.

How would they fair in their own hiring practices?

Third Base Politics has acquired the salaries of Ed Fitzgerald’s county executive staff through a public records request. Below is what the county provided.

Ed Fitzgerald has 7 men and 5 women on his staff.

He pays the men an average of $94438.
He pays the women an average of $71011.

The women on Ed Fitzgerald’s staff make 75 cents for every dollar that the men on his staff do.

This is the same standard and methodology that Democrats are using when they claim that there is a “war on women” because women earn 77% of what men do.

Heck, in Ed Fitzgerald’s office, it’s even worse than Democrats are saying about the national average!

So, Ed. Why are you discriminating against women this way? We’ll be waiting for the Ohio Democratic Party to criticize the pay discrimination going on in Ed Fitzgerald’s office.

Illegal immigrants don't want to be Americans; they want money: Kevin O'Brien

Below is an excellent column by the Plain Dealer's Kevin O'Brien on the difference between immigrants wanting to come here here for a better life and to become an American citizen and illegal immigrants coming here and sucking the system dry....

From Cleveland.Com -- 

Back in 2008, before then-Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora’s world started to crumble in earnest, I penned a little song parody about his throwing a couple of Plain Dealer reporters out of a news conference. They were questioning him about a county employee whose hiring looked a lot like cronyism.

It was titled “That’s Dimora”and was sung to the tune of “That’s Amore.”

A couple of days later, a delegation of guys — most of whom you’ve probably at least heard of — dropped by the editorial writers' department to chew me out for disrespecting Italians. Every one of them was as American as an apple pie chaser after a big plate of lasagna. Solid citizens. Here for the duration. Completely invested in the United States of America.

In one particular case, American and proooooooud of it.

They obviously had great love for their ethnic heritage, but they weren’t straddling continents. Their lives were here. Their families were here. Their businesses were here. Their future was here. And the most meaningful parts of their past were here.

I’m confident that if someone ran an Italian flag up the schoolhouse pole above Old Glory, to a man they would have taken offense. Because, to a man, they love this country. Somewhere along each of their lineages, some gutsy forebear risked everything to come here — legally, one would surmise — and stayed to make a life and to contribute to a better, stronger America.

They didn’t forget their heritage, but they aren’t confused about where their allegiance lies.

Contrast that with the vast majority of “immigrants,” who arrive illegally and with no interest whatsoever in contributing to a better, stronger America. They’re immigrants only in the sense that they have entered from another country. They stay as long as it suits them, or until they get caught.

Citizenship is the very last thing on their minds. Money is the very first.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush got the money motivation absolutely right when he rhapsodized about illegal “immigrants” on Sunday, during an event at the George Bush Presidential Library. The rest of it, he mangled beyond recognition:

“The way I look at this is someone who comes to our country because they couldn’t come legally, they come to our country because their families — the dad who loved their children — was worried that their children didn’t have food on the table. And they wanted to make sure their family was intact, and they crossed the border because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family. Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love. It’s an act of commitment to your family.”

OK, Mexico is a hell of a mess. It’s corrupt. Its oil riches have been horribly mismanaged, and what hasn’t been squandered has been stolen by the people in charge. It’s drug-ridden, gang-ridden and poverty-ridden. Getting out of there has to have tremendous appeal.

But they can’t do it legally, so their lives stay there, even when their bodies are here. And going back with a bag of dollars earned up north in the land of opportunity has a lot of appeal, too.

Their apologists remind us constantly that the United States is “a nation of immigrants.” And so it is. But let’s not flatter today’s illegals by calling them immigrants. They’re just visitors, here on their own, individually conceived guest-worker program.

The immigrants of previous generations came here looking for opportunity and wealth, too. But the vast majority did so with no thought of returning. They packed what they could, booked passage on ships, said goodbye to everyone they knew and disembarked days or weeks later at Ellis Island. They were committed to being in the United States because they were convinced that the United States was the best place in the whole world to make a life.

They came to be Americans, not to be Italian or Irish or Polish people merely residing in the United States, with roots and plans no deeper than a mailing address.

That, too, was an act of love — love for the things they understood America to stand for.

They came to be Americans, not just to take what they could get and head for home as soon as they thought they had enough or felt the law closing in. They didn’t break the law to come, in hopes of being hired by an employer willing to break the law, under the nose of a government that declines to enforce the law. They came to learn and assimilate into the culture, not to change the culture so it resembled what they had left behind.

America, meanwhile, doesn’t exist because the Founding Fathers made an act of commitment to their families. Far from it.

America exists because of enormous risks — to lives, to fortunes, to sacred honor, to families — taken by people who believed strongly enough in the ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence to commit everything to them.

You won’t find any such commitment in today’s illegal “immigrants.” They’re here to use America. And while they’re here, they, in turn, are used to increase the political power of groups that cynically play on the emotions of good-hearted, soft-headed people — like Jeb Bush.

It’s good that he spoke up the way he did, because in doing so he torpedoed his already extremely slim chance at the Republican presidential nomination. That was a public service. So was giving Americans reason to re-examine the point of immigration.

If immigration is to make any sense, it must benefit both sides — the new arrival and his new nation. In no way does the scant benefit of cheap labor begin to offset the damage that is being done to American law and culture.

Kevin O’Brien is The Plain Dealer’s deputy editorial page editor.

Cleveland-area bingo players say No Dice on Sin Tax!

From the Coalition Against The Sin Tax --

Earlier this week, the Coalition Against the Sin Tax (C.A.S.T.) visited a popular Cleveland-area bingo game to speak with citizens about Issue 7 — the proposed $260+ million Sin Tax on alcohol and cigarettes that Cuyahoga County’s business and political leaders want to take from the County’s residents to give to Cleveland’s pro sports teams for improvements to their facilities. 

Not surprisingly, the bingo players were none too pleased with the idea of the sports owners reaching back into their kitty....

Unfortunately, there’s far too much doubt as to whether informed opinions of regular Clevelanders will be heard in this low-turnout May election, especially with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of “Keep Cleveland Strong” propaganda flooding the County like something out of an Orwell novel. 

Which makes it especially important for folks to inform themselves and stand up for themselves, including in Cuyahoga County on May 6 by voting no on Issue 7.

Join in the fight to stop the Sin Tax! (Vote No on Issue 7)

Click here or on the below photo and go to the Coalition Against The Sin Tax webpage & sign up for more info, volunteer sign up, fundraising info and email updates.  

Click here to "Like" their Facebook page and share it with your social networks.  Save the picture below and use it as your Facebook profile picture.

Tea Party groups unite around core conservative values

Art credit: politicaloutcast.com

PRESS RELEASE Monday, April 7th, 2014 For Immediate Release Contact:Barbara Gonzalez BayshoreTeaPartyGroup 908-902-5728  Ann Marie Ubelis  Beaufort Tea Party Group 843-473-7712

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE     TEA PARTY GROUPS CONTINUE TO UNITE IN JOINT STATEMENT - TAKE A STAND ON THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION   MIDDLETOWN, NEW JERSEY  -  April 7th, 2014       THE LIST KEEPS GROWING!  In less than a month, other conservative groups in the country have added their names as signatories to a Press Release sent in early March, stating that they will NO LONGER accept an RNC  'anointed' candidate who, more than likely, would be considered by these groups to be a moderate republican. In the original Press Release, the following was stated:  It is time for the GOP to choose a candidate who reflects the values and core principles that were once that of the Republican party, and propelled Ronald Reagan to landslide victories in 1980 and 1984 - namely: smaller government, lower taxes and respect for the rule of Constitutional law. In the event a moderate or liberal republican is nominated by the GOP in 2016, the TEA Party and Conservative groups that joined together in this statement, have pledged to refuse any support for that nominee and urge all concerned Americans who believe in liberty, prosperity, smaller government and fiscal responsibility, to join them in their action.  Rich Luzzi -  Morris County TEA Party, (NJ) had this to add:   "While the GOP symbol is an elephant, and elephants have long memories, the GOP establishment  has a very short memory.  The establishment continues to push left of center Presidential candidates and calls them "moderates".  But being "socialist-light" is not the way to reach the masses.  Most people want to live the American Dream, and pass a better life on to their children.  But both parties policies are doing the opposite, leaving us worse off and a darker future for our children.  Voter dissatisfaction with both parties can be seen in the steep decline in voter participation since 2008.  If the GOP wants engaged voters, and overwhelming victories, it needs to nominate and back a conservative candidate who can synthesize and communicate the conservative message, because the conservative message IS the American Dream." Ralph King, Co-Coordinator  - Cleveland TEA Party Partriots, said:  "The GOP has shown they are unable to win elections with weak candidates that do not embrace the values of the Tea Party movement that brought them historical & landslide victories in 2010."   "Mr. Priebus, Speaker Boehner and the rest of the GOP establishment elite, please be advised, that in no uncertain terms - should you choose to ignore the message from the undersigned groups - it will be at your own political peril." The following is the updated list of signatories as of April 7th, 2014:  - Bayshore TEA Party Group - New Jersey   - East Jersey TEA Party Group - New Jersey   - West Jersey TEA Party Group - New Jersey  - New Jersey TEA Party Caucus - New Jersey  - Ventura County TEA Party - California  - Aroostook County TEA Party - Maine  - Bakersfield TEA Party - California  - New York TEA Party Coalition - New York   - Beaufort TEA Party - South Carolina   - Morris County TEA Party - A NJ-non-profit corp.  - TeamNJ - New Jersey  - TPATH - New Jersey                                          - Cleveland TEA Party - Ohio  - Wood County TEA Party - West Virginia   - Skylands TEA Party - New Jersey   - CNY (Central New York) TEA Party - New York   - East Bay TEA Party - Contra Costa County California   - Firelands Patriots of Eerie County - Ohio   - Mansfield TEA Party - Ohio   - Cincinnati TEA Party - Ohio     As the election nears, more TEA Party and Conservative groups will sign this action and join their  website:  Check back on their website for updates: http://norino2016.webs.com/   Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/no.rino.75 Twitter:       http://www.Twitter.com/NoRino60085183                                                                    ###

Fire Mozilla Firefox

Art credit: blog.asmartbear.com

If you haven’t been following the firing resignation of Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, Investors Business Daily reports :

In Mozilla Case, The Left's Intolerance Is Out Of The Closet

Intolerance: The left hounded a CEO from his job over a 2008 donation in favor of a California measure opposing gay marriage. So much for free speech and job performance. This is a descent into mob tyranny and mediocrity.
 

Here’s more on this chilling development at American Thinker. 

There are lots of ways to let the company know that they lost your support. If you want to send Mozilla a message, uninstall their product. Go to your Control Panel. Choose uninstall for Mozilla Firefox. Before you do that, pick an alternative, perhaps Chrome, Opera, or Safari. 

Newt Gingrich emailed the following:

A Case of Liberal Tolerance

As the inventor one of the web’s foundational technologies, JavaScript, and the co-founder of the organization behind one of its most popular browsers, Firefox, Brendan Eich has done more than most people to promote a free society and an unrestricted exchange of ideas.

But that didn’t count for much when various tech and gay rights publications reacted with outrage to his recent appointment as CEO, on the basis that he had donated $1,000 six years ago to support California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

Eich had never advocated his beliefs on the issue publicly, and there was no question about his treatment of or respect for gay employees and associates at Mozilla. Yet that donation, indicating a sliver of difference with the left, was enough to force him out of his own company. He resigned yesterday.

Mozilla’s executive chairwoman actually took to the company’s blog to apologize, apparently for appointing someone as chief executive who had not acceded to every tenet of social liberalism. “Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard,” she wrote, “and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves.”

She's right, they haven’t. Having spent decades preaching diversity and tolerance of different beliefs, the left now refuses to tolerate different beliefs itself.

As Andrew Sullivan, a gay man himself and an advocate of same-sex marriage, points out about the Mozilla case, “What we have here is a social pressure to keep your beliefs deeply private for fear of retribution. We are enforcing another sort of closet on others. I can barely believe the fanaticism.”

“If we cannot live and work alongside people with whom we deeply disagree,” he argues “we are finished as a liberal society.”

The new bigotry is on the left, and as Sullivan points out, it isn’t liberal at all. It’s totalitarian. Consider that the Mozilla Corporation and those who screamed for Eich’s resignation assert that his deviation from social liberalism is not just a cause for criticism, but a disqualification for employment. They are literally arguing that his private thoughts about an issue like marriage should prevent him from holding a job.

The ability to kill a man’s job, of course, is devastating. Thousands of people donated to Proposition 8 and similar efforts, and their names are listed in public databases. Are all of their jobs now at risk? How about people who have contributed to candidates supporting traditional marriage? Are all of them unfit as coworkers?

(And if, by the way, having opposed same-sex marriage in 2008 is a disqualification for employment today, will the enforcers of liberal toleration be going after President Obama or Hillary Clinton as their next project?)

Perhaps most outrageous of all, these people have called for Eich’s resignation, most likely, for his religious beliefs. Anti-religious bigotry is as repulsive as any other form of bigotry. Yet it is becoming more pronounced on the left all the time.

Freedom of thought and religious liberty will be central issues of the next generation. Already both in government and in civil society, there are movements devoted to forcing Americans to renounce or to violate their consciences. Mozilla, along with the Hobby Lobby and Little Sisters of the Poor cases before the Supreme Court, are just a few of the most recent examples.

A lot rides on these cases. We can’t afford to shrink from defending our civil liberties, or we won’t have any left to defend. [end message from Newt]

# # #

Good reason to uninstall Mozilla Firefox.