Remembering Pearl Harbor on December 7 * Gallery #1

Today marks the 76^th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Below are photographs taken a few years ago by Cleveland Tea Party’s Pat Dooley Photography at Pearl Harbor:

Gallery #1

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Confused about the two tax cut bills?

art credit: economiapersonal.com.ar

Joseph Smith at the American Thinker blog helps to sort it out, and he includes links to Forbes:

. . . With the House bill weighing in at 429 pages and filled with many arcane tax reform provisions, perhaps the best summary comparison of the House and Senate bills is found at forbes.com, page 1 and page 2.

Among the major issues to be reconciled between the two versions are:

·         The repeal of the Obamacare mandate is in the Senate bill only and should be included in the reconciled bill.

·         The new tax provisions for individuals are permanent in the House bill but expire after 2025 in the Senate bill to meet budget reconciliation rules.

·         The mortgage interest deduction is different in the two versions, with the home-building industry expected to push for the higher deduction in the senate bill

·         The tax treatment of pass-through business income, a major issue for Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and others, differs in the two bills.

·         The corporate tax rate is cut from the current 35 percent to 20 percent beginning in 2018 in the House bill but is delayed until 2019 in the Senate bill.  Why would the Republicans have their biggest economy-booster kick in after the 2018 elections?  

·         While both versions contain a property tax deduction up to $10,000, the state and local income tax deduction has been eliminated from both bills.  Expect blue state House members to seek further compromise on that issue in the conference committee.

The two tax bills, which no Democrats have supported, must now be reconciled in a House-Senate conference committee, with the compromise bill to be voted on again in each body before being sent to the president for signing into law.

With deregulation and a resurgent economy paving the way for tax cuts, the Trump economic train is leaving the station without the Democrats.

Read the rest here.

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More on DACA & Dreamers Amnesty

image credit: wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspot.com

Last week, Cleveland Tea Party blogged on the DACA / Dreamers’ Amnesty bill, urging Ohio AG Mike DeWine (now running for Governor) to stay away from the coalition of state Attorneys General suing the Trump administration and instead support the existing rule of law. That blog included phone numbers for an Action Alert.

Hans von Spakovsky at The Daily Signal outlines the pitfalls and downsides of DACA (useful analysis if you are making any calls now or later this week and needing information to counter the usual liberal talking points).

DACA had no requirement of English fluency either. In fact, the original application requested applicants to answer whether the form had been “read” to the alien by a translator “in a language in which [the applicant is] fluent.”

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that “perhaps 24 percent of the DACA-eligible population fall into the functionally illiterate category and another 46 percent have only ‘basic’ English ability.”

This is a far cry from the image of DACA beneficiaries as all children who don’t speak the language of—and know nothing about the culture of—their native countries.

In fact, it seems rather that a significant percentage of DACA beneficiaries may have serious limitations in their education, experience, and English fluency that negatively affected their ability to function in American society.

Providing amnesty to low-skilled, low-educated aliens with marginal English language ability would impose large fiscal costs on American taxpayers resulting from increased government payouts and benefits, and would be unfair to legal immigrants who obeyed the law to come here.

. . .

Providing amnesty would simply attract even more illegal immigration and would not solve the myriad of enforcement problems we have along our borders and in the interior of the country. Congress should concentrate on giving the federal government (with the assistance and help of state and local governments) the resources to enforce existing immigration laws to reduce the illegal alien population in the U.S. and stem entry into the country.

Until those goals are accomplished, it is premature to even consider any DACA-type bill.

Read more here.

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Supermoon Sunday

plain old full moon over the Terminal Tower by Pat Dooley Photography

Should be clear skies!

cleveland.com reports:

The year's last supermoon will rise into the night sky Sunday, and Northeast Ohioans may actually be able to see this one, with favorable weather conditions.

The full moon officially peaks at 10:47 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 3, but it won't reach perigee, or the point in its orbit when it's closest to the Earth, until 3:45 a.m. the next day. Unless you're willing to stay awake all night, the best viewing for you will be Sunday night. In Northeast Ohio, that happens to coincide when cloud cover is expected to be at a minimum ...

More details here.

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Stop Mike DeWine from Suing President Trump over DACA

image credit: discussionist.com

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was an American immigration policy that allowed some individuals who entered the country as minors, and had either entered or remained in the country illegally, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and to be eligible for a work permit. As of 2017, approximately 800,000 individuals—referred to as Dreamers after the DREAM Act bill—were enrolled in the program created by DACA. The policy was established by the Obama administration in June 2012 and rescinded by the Trump administration in September 2017.

(from Ralph King, Cleveland Tea Party):

Call Mike DeWine and tell him to put Ohio citizens first - NO MORE Kate Steinle's!

 Mike DeWine: 800-282-0515

To date Ohio Attorney General and candidate for Governor Mike DeWine has REFUSED to come out and support President Trump's ending Obama's DACA program. We must STOP the soft-on-illegal immigration AG DeWine from joining AG's in 15 other states from suing President Trump!

Seeing that Mike DeWine has used Obama's original DACA ruling in allowing illegal immigrants to obtain an Ohio Driver License -- suing President Trump over DACA is not far off! Tell Mike DeWine to put Ohio citizens first and don't be like his buddy John Kasich!

Call Mike DeWine (800-282-0515) and tell him to put Ohio citizens first and respect the rule of law!

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More maneuvering on taxes, spending, and immigration ?

art credit: crooksandliars.com

What Is Little Marco Up to?

Sen. Marco Rubio was interviewed yesterday evening on Fox’s Ingraham Angle. Sundance @ ConservativeTreehouse explains why his alarm bells went off:

There’s a big con job just over the horizon.  All of the elements are there.  The timing, the platform, the personalities, the discussion topics, etc., it’s a familiar script.  CTH would like to direct attention to this interview which took place last night on Laura Ingraham’s new Fox News show.  Listen carefully to three elements:

·         On Tax Reform – on one side of Rubio’s ‘full-throated‘ mouth he wants higher taxes on corporations 22% -vs- 20%. In the almost the same breath, inside the same argument, he says “it’s not their (the government’s) money”.  Try to reconcile that.

·         On DACA – [Remember, three months ago President Trump gave congress six months to fix DACA]  Rubio says the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA) program is not the “Dreamers”.  What? Yes it is. The childhood arrivals ARE the so-called ‘dreamers’.

·         However, much more importantly, listen to what is said on “chain migration“.  Ingraham asks if Rubio supports “chain migration”.   Rubio says no, then immediately says: “I’ve always agreed to limiting chain migration to immediate family members”. WHAT? That is chain migration.

. . .

Something is going on in DC that precipitated this interview.

The rest of Sundance’s analysis is here (includes video).

Here is what may be “going on in DC that precipitated this interview.” NumbersUSA, an immigration & amnesty legislation watchdog, sent out an alert today. It includes the following:

Congress loves to add unpopular provisions to must-pass spending bills, and that's why we're on high alert.

As most of you know, the Trump administration stopped accepting new applications for Pres. Obama's unconstitutional executive amnesty for young illegal aliens (DACA) in September. Since then, both Democrats and Republicans have introduced several proposals that would give a permanent amnesty to DACA recipients. The must-pass December spending bill provides the vehicle to do so.

We've seen this play out before. Congress has used massive spending bills to hide unpopular immigration provisions or tried to pass amnesty when voters were less engaged during the holiday season.

. . .

A handful of high-profile Democratic Senators have announced that they'll withhold support for the spending bill if it doesn't include an amnesty for DACA recipients. To support their efforts, the open-borders lobbying group Partnership for a New American Economy is investing heavily in grassroots lobbying efforts over the next few weeks.

So far, both Pres. Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan have said that they don't want DACA to be included in the December bill.

Which side wins could depend on how much opposition to adding a DACA amnesty to the spending bill lawmakers in Washington hear from their constituents.

And here is a NumbersUSA Action Alert:

Over the next several weeks, Members of Congress need to hear a constant beat of opposition to adding an amnesty for DACA illegal aliens to the must-pass spending bill. Here are two actions you can take to get you started:

1) Call Senate GOP Leaders

While Speaker Ryan has been vocal about his opposition to DACA's inclusion in the spending bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been quiet. However, the third ranking Senate Republican, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) did say over the weekend that he doesn't think DACA should be part of the spending deal, but fell short of saying it won't be part of the final package.

Please call the following GOP Leaders in the Senate and tell them that you oppose adding the DACA amnesty to any must-pass spending bill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- (202) 224-2541

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn -- (202) 224-2934

Senate GOP Caucus Chair John Thune -- (202) 224-2321

The NumbersUSA website is here. I expect more Alerts over the next couple of weeks.

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Geronimo!

My Favorite tweet today: 

Clock to embiggen!

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