Amnesty / Immigration "Reform," Obamacare, and Common Core

UPDATES July 17

The Tea Party Patriots Sunday evening weekly webinar was lengthy but very informative.  Ohio Co-Coordinator Marianne Gasicki summarizes below the critical points regarding the amnesty bill and the plan of action on Obamacare. There will also be an action item regarding repealing the Common Core Standards in education.

The Amnesty Bill

Republicans are Doing the Dance

Last week I had asked you to forward a letter to your Representative regarding key provisions on a proposed immigration bill.

I received a quick response from Rep. Gibbs Click Here to Read and a list of legislation that had passed out of committees Click Here, but nothing from Rep. Tiberi.  I will be stopping by his "office" tomorrow morning to hand deliver the letter. 

None of the five bills have anything at all to say about establishing a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to be here already. And at his regular Thursday press briefing following the Wednesday Conference, Speaker Boehner specifically commented that while he believed a majority of his Conference wants to see action on the immigration front, he's not at all sure there's a majority in the House for a pathway to citizenship.

There is also question as to the constitutionality of the Senate bill because it raises revenue, which is something that can only be done in the House.

This is good news, but we must keep the pressure on.

A letter was delivered to Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy yesterday, that was signed by 24 state coordinators and co-coordinators from Tea Party Patriots, representing 17 states Click Here to Read.  I will include that in my delivery to Rep. Tiberi and will email a copy to Rep. Gibbs.

We must also remember that it looks like we may have achieved our short term goal, and that was stalling the bill so that nothing was voted on in July.

On the Obamacare Front

Using the President's Actions Against Him

As you are probably aware, President Obama unilaterally acted in his recent decision to delay implementation of the employer mandate in Obamacare (ACA).  There was no involvement from Congress whatsoever.  

In response to that, there are two bills moving through House committees, one that would delay Obamacare employer mandates until 2015 and the other would delay the individual mandate.

Only 12% of Americans support the individual mandate, but Obama has chosen to grant waivers and delays to big business and special interests over the American people.

Obviously, the decision for any delays only emphasizes what a trainwreck Obamacare is.

Call Today

Please make your voice heard by calling your Congressman! Tell them to support HR 2667, The Authority for Mandate Delay Act , and HR 2668, the Fairness for American Families Act. 

You can call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or Click Here for individual Rep numbers and their district numbers.

Stop Common Core in Ohio

Legislation to be Introduced in State House

Representative Andy Thompson has a bill ready to be introduced to the House that would repeal Common Core Standards in Ohio!

There are now 17 states with anti-Common Core legislation pending, and Texas has flat out outlawed it!

I have yet to meet a teacher who supports Common Core, but they are being pressured by administration and fear for their jobs if they speak up.  We need to stop the implementation of a system that removes parents and teachers from the education process by nationalizing and standardizing education.

Click Here for the Text of the Bill.  It addresses the data collection issue, the loss of local control, eliminates ties to funding, etc. 

Please call your State Rep. and ask him/her to support this bill, and please thank Rep. Thompson for addressing the Common Core.

Click Here for Contact Information.

Tea Party Plan: Primary Challenges for Republicans Who Vote For Amnesty

Could Speaker John Boehner face a primary challenge?

[photo h/t Daily Caller] There was a rally in DC yesterday - specifically to express opposition to any Immigration "reform". Betsy Woodruff at NRO reports:

The crowd of anti–Gang of Eight activists that marched through Washington, D. C., on Monday encompassed a fairly broad swath of political factions. But the tea-party presence was substantial — and it wasn’t surprising. The Senate’s recently passed bill, which includes a path to legalization for illegal immigrants, has galvanized conservative grassroots activists, and tea-party leaders nationwide are working to organize the opposition. If Monday’s protesters are any indicator, they’ve got one top target: Senator Marco Rubio. 

Jack Oliver of Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, who carried a bag full of “AMNISTIA!” buttons featuring the face of the Florida senator wearing a sombrero, told me that he and others hope former congressman Allen West will primary Rubio when he likely runs for reelection in 2016. To them, his status as a tea-party darling is finished. 

[Don Smith] . . . guessed that more than 5,000 people attended the event.

Andy Ramirez, the president and founder of the Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council, says he noticed a new tone at the rally that suggests an important change in the way grassroots activists approach immigration. For the first time in a decade, he tells me, members of the conservative grassroots are itching to primary Republicans over their stances on the immigration issue. He also said the crowd was thinking in terms of how to elect an anti-amnesty president in 2016. Attendees, he recalls, said things like, “Imagine a ticket with Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions, or imagine a ticket with Jeff Sessions and Allen West.” 

Ramirez adds that grassroots activists are also eyeing House speaker John Boehner as a potential primary target. [emphasis added]  

Ken Crow of TeaPartyCommunity.com agrees. He says that more than a few are eyeing the speaker. “Boehner already knows that if he brings this to the floor in any shape, form, or fashion, he’ll be unemployed,” Crow says. “I’ve made that perfectly clear. I will do everything in my power to unseat that man . . . We view him as, for lack of a better word, a marshmallow. He’s weak.”

Boehner and Rubio, though, aren’t the only targets. Crow says Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is up for reelection next year, is also on anti-amnesty crowd’s radar, and that some groups hope conservative Nancy Mace, a business woman and the first female graduate of The Citadel, will challenge him.

. . .

Rubio, Graham, Boehner, and other pro-reform leaders should take note: The Tea Party, long focused on fiscal issues, has added immigration to its ambit. Activists are marching on the capital’s streets once again, and getting ready to drive supporters of legalization out of office. “Give it about six months, and you’re going to see how well organized some people are,” Ramirez says.

Question for John Boehner's 8th District Tea Party Patriots: how many patriots are waiting in the wings? 

Immigration “Reform,” Core Conservative Values, and The GOP

So when it comes to Immigration "Reform," who’s on the side of United States citizens and Tea Party Values? We know that Senators McCain, Graham, Flake, and Rubio are RINOs. Rubio is falling in the early Iowa polls, an early fall from grace that MIGHT be noticed by Representatives in the House -- all up for re-election in 2014. Who can we count on? Speaker John Boehner? Paul Ryan? Eric Cantor? Kevin McCarthy? Is even Trey Gowdy going wobbly? 

Breitbart’s WyntonHall identifies some of the money spigots that are corrupting these protectors of the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law:

House Republicans looking to continue collecting campaign donations from high tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft will come under increasing pressure to pass the immigration bill that Silicon Valley has pumped millions into promoting. 

Reps. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Paul Ryan (R-WI), and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) have all visited and met with Silicon Valley gurus at Facebook, Google, and others. And this year, Facebook has made campaign donations to GOP leaders like Cantor, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Indeed, Mark Zuckerberg’s Fwd.us pro-immigration advocacy group has even cut ads backing Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).But the computer world’s cash and backing may be threatened if House Republicans stand strong against the Senate bill’s comprehensive immigration package. The Senate immigration bill includes almost everything the tech industry wanted, such as more green cards for high-skilled tech workers and a substantial increase in the number of annual H-1B visas allowed for foreign engineers. 

 “It would be a very different reception for them in the Valley if they were to go out there without having been able to accomplish this, which is an item high on the priority list for Silicon Valley, and it’s seen as doable,” one tech lobbyist told The Hill. 

 In recent years, Silicon Valley has increasingly put its money where its politics are. Last year, tech companies spent a record-shattering $132.5 million on lobbying, and Facebook spent 20 times more on lobbying than it did just four years ago.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg’s group Fwd.us aims to raise $50 million to push the immigration bill’s passage. 

Silicon Valley tech gurus will likely ratchet up House GOP enticements and threats as the immigration bill’s fate hangs in the balance. Already, however, some Republicans are trying to save face with Silicon Valley. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has advanced a proposal that would designate 55,000 green cards specifically for foreign graduates with advanced degrees in high-paying technical fields and boost the H-1B visa ceiling from 65,000 to 155,000.

This is a good time to send postcards with brief messages to some of these RINOs or wobblers. Sending postcards (instead of letters) to their state offices instead of DC reduces the security check delays. My own message was: 

No Amnesty. No Immigration “reform.” 

Secure the borders and enforce existing laws.

Here are some addresses:

Speaker John Boehner

7969 Cincinnati-Dayton Road, Suite B

West Chester, OH 45069

Rep. Paul Ryan

216 6th Street

Racine, WI 53403

Rep.  Eric Cantor

4201 Dominion Blvd. #110

Glen Allen, VA 23060

Rep. Kevin McCarthy

4100 Empire Drive, Suite 150

Bakersfield, CA 93309 

Rep. Trey Gowdy

104 S. Main St.

Greenville, SC  29601

Rep. Darrell Issa

1800 Thibodo Road, #310

Vista, CA 92081

STOP the Amnesty Bill S.744

From our fellow patriots in Pittsburgh (h/t Pat Rowlands):

Thanks to Chris Fromme for his summary of a call with Tea Party Patriots regarding the immigration bill (S. 744).  

PLEASE call your representative!!

On July 10 the Republican caucus will have a closed-door meeting on immigration, Leadership will speak: John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, Trey Gowdy, Sub-committee on Immigration, and Bob Goodlatte Judiciary, Chairman. After that it is OPEN MIC where any Congressman can voice his/her opinion on S. 744 or any bills that the house has passed through committee.

The first reason to oppose S-744 was pointed out by Rep.  Steve Stockman (TX) here and here: 

Not only is the Senate amnesty bill an abuse of taxpayers and immigrants, it's unconstitutional. The Senate cannot invent its own amnesty taxes. I hope Speaker Boehner will immediately kill the amnesty bill through a constitutionally-required blue slip. As long as the amnesty bill sits in the House it poses a threat to taxpayers and immigrants.

Several provisions of the Senate amnesty bill create new taxes, a violation of the "origination clause," Article I, Section 7, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution, which states: "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."

Section 2102 of the amnesty bill requires the payment of certain taxes, and forgives the payment of other taxes as a condition of receiving amnesty and other benefits. The Constitution prohibits the Senate from approving bills that raise revenue.

The Congressional Budget Office flatly states "enacting S. 744 would have a wide range of effects on federal revenues, including changes in collections of income and payroll taxes, certain visa fees that are classified as revenues, and various fines and penalties. Taken together, those effects would increase revenues by $459 billion over the 2014-2023 period.   

S. 744 is all pork and Amnesty first --- and security maybe. In short, 744 should end up dead on arrival.

Steve King (R-IA) points out that the House should pass no bill that could ever be made to become part of S-744, because any such bill would go to a compromise committee that could get passed with a few RINO votes + 201 Democrat votes needed for passage.  And then Americans would be stuck with this monstrosity of a bill. That's why the House should pass NO immigration bill. Period.

Congressmen should be looking out for the people that cannot find work, most of all the veterans, not law-breaking illegals.   Another horror in S-744: as a perk to the Chamber of Commerce, the Senate bill provides that newly minted green card holders taking the place of a fired US citizen will not get Obamacare and the employer will not pay the $3000 fine.

Call GOP House representatives!  Contact info here. 

Call Ohio GOP representatives. Contact info here.

Do Not Pass ANY Immigration Bill

Updates from Tea Party Patriots, Ohio Tea Party Patriots, and The Mansfield Tea Party (h/t Marianne G):

"Needless to say we are focused and working hard to stop the monstrosity of an amnesty bill that passed out of the Senate, and was supported by 14 Republicans.

The House has said that this bill is "dead on arrival", but where there's a will, there's a way.

Even if the House passes a one page border security only bill, it can be mutated into something disastrous and unrecognizable when it goes into conference with the Senate.  The goal is to convince our Representatives to Pass Nothing before the August recess, creating a "cool down" period. 

When Congress convenes in September, the focus will then turn to the Debt Ceiling and the Continuing Resolution, once again.

What More Can We Do to Stop Amnesty? 

Tea Party Patriots has provided another tool kit to help us in our fight.

Today we are asking that you write a letter to the editor, and have provided talking points and samples Click Here

"Tweet it Tuesday" - Do you tweet?  Tea Party Patriots has provided messaging for Twitter and Facebook Click Here

Wednesday we are asking that you write postcards to your Representatives, Speaker Boehner, Rep. Paul Ryan and Rep. Kevin McCarthy.  We have provided sample letters, but it will get to them faster if you can make one or two points on a postcard. Click Here."

# # # 

To the US House: NO immigration “reform” bill

The House Republican Conference meeting focusing on immigration "reform" is this Wednesday, July 10th. Please contact your House Representative (note: if your Rep. is a Democrat, you may want to dial GOPs from Ohio instead) – and Speaker John Boehner - to tell them you want no amnesty bill – NO immigration “reform” bill - brought to the House floor. You can read more on the ramifications of a House Amnesty Bill from prior blogs here and here.

Speaker John Boehner

Ohio PH 513-779-5400

Email here

DC Fax 202-225-0704

Find an Ohio GOP Representative and contact details here.

Cleveland Welcomes Tall Ships

The Parade of Tall Ships sailed into the Port of Cleveland this afternoon, the day before Independence Day. The Rotary Club of Cleveland sponsors the Festival, today through July 7. Check out the Tall Ships website here. There's a page of invited ships that you can match up with some of the photos posted above and below.