Tea Party Patriots Ordinary citizens reclaiming America's founding principles.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Join the Counter Rally against Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants


On Monday March 31, 2014 a new national amnesty organization, Fast for Families, will roll into Painesville, OH for a rally in support of amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Painesville is one of the stops on the Fast for Families Bus Tour for Immigration Reform & Citizenship targeting the 14th Congressional District as they have/will done in over 100 other districts across the country.

Some of the sponsors of Fast for Families Bus Tour include America's Voice, National Council of La Raza and SEIU to name only a few.

To stand as a voice of opposition to this event please join our friends the Grassroots Rally Team of Ohio in a counter protest as they stand against Amnesty and in solidarity supporting our existing immigration laws being enforced and our borders secured.

Date: Monday March 31, 2014
Time: 5:00 P.M. - 7:00 P.M.
Where: 1 Victoria Square, Painesville, OH
Map: http://goo.gl/maps/A8VVU

Please bring your flags and appropriate signs if you wish, such as “No Amnesty”, “Enforce Our Immigration Laws”, etc..




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It should also be noted while this pro-amnesty event is being held in Painesville - a Sanctuary City - the Grassroots Rally Team played a vital role in helping to defeat a Pro-Amnesty Resolution being considered by the City of Painesville.

Yes - you read that right! A resolution in support of amnesty was defeated in a Sanctuary City by a conservative group(s) and individuals.  You can help continue this fight and join the Grassroots Rally Team of Ohio & other Patriots this Monday!



Saturday, March 29, 2014

Alert: College Board’s Advanced Placement U.S. history course



The 6th rule of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals is:
Education – Take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in school. 
Americans have ben waking up to the threat posed by Common Core as a means of control over K-12 curricula. OhioansAgainst Common Core are working to get our state legislators to reject it, as just happened in our neighbor state of Indiana. Bravo Indiana
As bad as Common Core is, there is another threat that is just as destructive: it's a frightening change in the College Board’s Advanced Placement U.S. history course. From Heartland.org:
A dramatic, unilateral change is taking place in the content of the College Board’s Advanced Placement U.S. history course. In fall 2014, almost half a million high school sophomores and juniors will learn a very different version of U.S. history from the course of study now in place. Currently, a five-page topical outline gives teachers clear guideline for their course. This long-established outline conforms to the sequence of topics state and local boards of education have approved. In contrast, the new, redesigned Framework is a detailed 98-page document that does far more than list required topics.
This change in format is best described as a curricular coup that sets a number of dangerous precedents. By providing a detailed course of study that defines, discusses, and interprets “the required knowledge of each period,” the College Board has in effect supplanted local and state curriculum by unilaterally assuming the authority to prioritize historic topics. This inevitably means that some topics will be magnified in importance while others will be minimized or even omitted. If concerned parents, educators, and elected public officials do not speak out, the College Board (led by David Coleman, generally considered the architect of the Common Core national standards) will continue to develop similar frameworks for its 33 other Advanced Placement (AP) courses and thus become an unelected de facto legislature for America’s public and private high schools.

Frowning at American History
The new Framework inculcates a consistently negative view of American culture. For example, the units on colonial America stress the development of a “rigid racial hierarchy” and a “strong belief in British racial and cultural superiority.” The Framework ignores the United States’ founding principles and their influence in inspiring the spread of democracy and galvanizing the movement to abolish slavery. The Framework continues this theme by reinterpreting Manifest Destiny—rather than a belief that America has a mission to spread democracy and new technologies across the continent, the Framework teaches that it “was built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority.”
The units on colonial America focus unbalanced attention on the conflicts between the colonists and Native Americans. While students will learn about the Beaver Wars, Chickasaw Wars, and King Philip’s War, they will learn little or nothing about the rise of religious toleration, the development of democratic institutions, and the emergence of a society that included a rich mix of ethnic groups.
A particularly troubling failure of the Framework is its dismissal of the Declaration of Independence and the principles so eloquently expressed there. The Framework’s entire discussion of this seminal document consists of just one phrase in one sentence: “The colonists’ belief in the superiority of republican self-government based on the natural rights of the people found its clearest American expression in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and in the Declaration of Independence.” The Framework thus ignores the philosophical underpinnings of the Declaration and the willingness of the signers to pledge “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” to the cause of freedom.

Ignoring Cultural Giants
The Framework also sidesteps any discussion of the personalities and achievements of American giants whose courage and conviction helped build our country. It excises Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and the other founders from the United States’ story. George Washington’s historical contributions are reduced to a brief sentence fragment noting his Farewell Address. Two pages later, the Framework grants teachers the flexibility to discuss the architecture of Spanish missions, which presumably merits more attention than the heroes of 1776.
The Framework consistently highlights negative events while ignoring positive achievements. For example, although it does not mention the sacrifices U.S. civilians and armed forces made to defeat fascism, it does recommend that teachers focus on “[w]artime experiences, such as the internment of Japanese Americans, challenges to civil liberties, debates over race and segregation, and the decision to drop the atomic bomb [which] raised questions about American values.”
AP U.S. History should give students a balanced curriculum that acknowledges both America’s founding principles and its continuing struggles to be faithful to those principles. Instead, the new College Board Framework seems determined to create a cynical generation of what it calls “apprentice historians.” Is this really what we want our children to learn about America’s history?
The AP US History Framework is not a fait accompli. There is still time for parents, educators and public officials to closely scrutinize it and then demand a new curriculum that does not trump state curricular requirements with warmed-over political correctness.
Another topic to discuss with your legislators at Bring Your Legislator To Class Day on April 9.
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Sin tax: yes or no?



Photo credit: dyanvega.blogspot.com

The proposed “sin tax” that will be on the Cuyahoga County ballot in May drew pro and con comments from readers and voters on Cleveland.com. Andrew Tobias's full analysis is here. Here is an extract:
If voters approve it in May, the county's sin tax would be used to pay for maintenance for Cleveland's pro sports stadiums. It's assessed at 4.5 cents per pack of cigarettes, 1.5 cents per 12-ounce bottle of beer, 6 cents per 750-milliliter bottle of wine, 32 cents per gallon of mixed beverages, 24 cents per gallon of cider and $3 per gallon of hard liquor. Officials estimate it will raise around $270 million over a 20 year period, based on recent collections.
Will the price of my beer really go down if the sin tax fails?
moneymike posted:
“So all of you geniuses who want to vote NO really think the price you pay for beer or cigarettes is actually going to drop now that we do not have a sin tax? Its the same story with gasoline, why will we never see gas less than $3.00 again? Because everyone is still paying the price now. So instead without the sin tax we will pay the same price for beer and cigarettes but instead of that money going back into the county to generate more revenue, it is going into the pockets of your local convenient store owner... Makes sense lets vote NO and deprive CLE of everything.”
I hear this a lot. If the sin tax fails, should we expect a $5 brew at Market Garden to cost $4.98? Will a $5.50 pack of cigarettes suddenly cost $5.45?
This isn't scientific, but the consensus from those that I've talked to: not very likely. 
(UPDATED: March 29) I thought about this overnight, and decided I didn't address this issue well enough. It's a bit of an open-ended question, and if I get a better answer, I'll update it here. But a commenter on this post who identified him or herself as a tobacco representative says convenience stores likely would lower the prices of cigarettes if the taxes fails. I have not heard the same thing from bar owners or people in the liquor business. 
It's also worth saying the anti-sin tax people say regardless of what happens with the prices, the tax itself hits the poor the hardest. And, the money it raises isn't inconsequential, and could be used for something else. Finally, I should point out: many of the commenters here oppose the tax on principle.
Why can’t Cleveland just raise taxes on tickets?
In a post on Thursday, Gadgetking2014 wrote:
“Instead of a general sin tax they could use a per-ticket facility fee to raise the necessary funds. let the people who actually use the facilities pay for them.”
The Northeast Ohio Media Group’s Rich Exner addressed this issue, and set up a nifty calculatorto provide some rough estimates of how high the tax would have be to equal the sin tax. His answer: ranging between $3 to $7, depending on the team.
The pro-sin tax campaign argues that tickets are already taxed enough. The admissions tax in Cleveland is currently 8 percent -- a tax hike would discourage fan attendance and make Quicken Loans Arena in particular less competitive when attracting regional concerts and other events, they say.
Who decides what constitutes “maintenance” versus “enhancements” to the stadiums?
Again from Gadgetking2014:
“also they need to better define what is contractually obligated maintenance and what is enhancements (that the teams are responsible for). the tax does not expire for over a year so they have time to work this out before they lose this temporary tax.”
Here’s what we know about what the teams want:
The Cavs and Indians have submitted what amount to “wish lists” – that is, about $135 million in estimated stadium repairs the two teams expect to ask Gateway to pay for within the next decade. 
It’s up to the Gateway Economic Development Corp. – that’s the non-profit landlord created by Cuyahoga County and Cleveland to oversee Progressive Field and Quicken Loans Arena – to approve any requests for capital improvements greater than $500,000. Gateway will not approve anything it deems to be enhancements not covered by the lease. This determination is legal and complicated, and Gateway board members say they take their responsibility seriously.
But this review won't happen until the teams officially ask for the repairs. That likely won't happen until July 1, if not later.
As for the Browns -- team officials said they expect to ask for $23.7 million in repairs over the next 10 years. Their list is less detailed, in part because FirstEnergy Stadium is owned by Cleveland and is not entirely dependent on the sin tax.
The Northeast Ohio Media Group’s Leila Atassi dissected the Browns’ lease in November. In short, the city can be held responsible even for “upgrades” under the correct circumstances.
“Tax and spend Democrats”
“The dems never met a tax they didn't like.”
We hear this a lot.
The majority of elected officials in Cuyahoga County who have taken a public position on the sin tax support it. And of course, the majority of elected officials in Cuyahoga County are Democrats.
But some Republicans have lent their support to the issue. For example, County Councilman Jack Schron, the presumptive Republican candidate for Cuyahoga County executive, was among the three Republican members of county council that unanimously voted to place the sin tax extension on the ballot last January.

Read the rest here

Friday, March 28, 2014

Bring Your Legislator To Class Day : Ohioans Against Common Core

Art credit: OhioansAgainstCommonCore.com

MARK YOUR CALENDAR:
COMMON CORE FORUM
Bring Your Legislator to Class Day
Common Core 101
Wednesday – APRIL 9th – 6:00 to 9:00 pm
Capitol Theatre – 77 S. High Street - Directions 
·         Common Core is a fundamental change in education for every child in Ohio, yet it was never put through the legislative process. Why are legislators refusing to debate it?
·         A large majority of Ohio lawmakers had never heard of Common Core before parents and citizens brought it to their attention last April. Why the covert implementation?
·         Education is the largest state appropriation. Why were no cost projections done?
·         Why does every organization supporting Common Core have a funding tie to Bill Gates?
·         Why are Republican legislators supporting Common Core if the RNC has condemned it?

It is imperative that your State Representative and Senator attend this event. 
Call them now and explain your insistence and expectation that they attend. We have reserved their seats.
Presenters will include -
·         Jamie Gass - Director of the Center for School Reform, Pioneer Institute
·         Stan Hartzler, PhD. - Mathematics Educator, an original employee of (John) Saxon Publishing
·         Megan Koschnick, PhD. - Child Clinical Psychologist
·         Terrence Moore, PhD. - Professor of history at Hillsdale College, Classical School advisor
·         Jane Robbins, J.D. - Senior Fellow, American Principles Project
Don’t miss this opportunity for you and your state representative and senator to hear and discuss the implications of Ohio’s adoption of Common Core Standards with the nation’s foremost experts. We’ll address the issues parents and teachers are experiencing and their destructive effect on our children, including developmentally inappropriate standards, explicit and biased content, inane mathematics instruction, elimination of classical literature study, loss of teacher controlled classrooms, incessant testing, intrusive data mining and corporate influence. Hold your representatives accountable.

PLEASE REMIND ALL REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS THAT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE PASSED A RESOLUTION CONDEMNING COMMON CORE.


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When Government Makes Your Business Theirs



From Tea Party Patriots --

For those who believe in personal freedom, Tuesday’s oral arguments at the nation’s highest court hold significant value. The outcome will have profound implications on the government’s say in private businesses. Through Obamacare, Washington has sought to tighten its grip on companies through higher taxes and more regulations. Never before has the government made such an effort to force owners to comply with laws contrary to their religious convictions.

The two high-profile cases – Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius – have stirred the Right and the Left to action, resulting in thousands of people to brave the cold, snowy weather and rally outside the Supreme Court.

The Left, remaining true to their political playbook, turned the issue into a rally cry for women’s rights. Their theme: it’s “not my boss’ business.” What they fail to recognize is that it isn’t government’s business either. If we believe in choice, then we must afford Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties the right to choose what’s best for them and their businesses.

To help put this issue into proper perspective, we asked those within Tea Party Patriots to share why it was important to be at the Supreme Court on Tuesday and stand with Hobby Lobby.

“The First Amendment states, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ Hobby Lobby has all the right in the world to express their beliefs, and they can do that in their business and in their private lives. It’s not up to government to determine how they express their beliefs,” stated Bill, who oversees Tea Party Patriots’ Constitutional training.

Chris, who is part of the organization’s national healthcare working group added, “Religious liberty is foundational. If you go back and look at the history of freedom and how we got to be a free society, a self-governing people, you will find that the major fight was over religious freedom. It’s why the Settlers came to these shores.”

If our constitutional rights are subverted at the whim of government, the impact will go far beyond the loss of personal freedom as Gregg, a member of Tea Party Patriots’ national support team, pointed out.

“If the Supreme Court rules against Hobby Lobby and Conestoga, then in essence they are destroying the incentive for citizens to pursue their American dream. Why would anyone be compelled or have hope to start their own business, if the government is going to mandate how they spend their money or run their company?”

For the last five years, Tea Party Patriots has championed the cause of personal and economic freedom; however, this newest court case over the mandate hits close to home.

“We have seen firsthand what happens when the First Amendment is trampled on and infringed with the IRS targeting that has happened to us. We wanted to make sure we were here today as Hobby Lobby is inside the court standing up for the First Amendment and for their right to freely exercise their religion,” explained Jenny Beth, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots.

As the Justices decide on the two cases, we hope they will realize that there is no place for an overreaching government that seeks to violate businesses and individuals’ First Amendment rights. There is only freedom, which should be equally enjoyed by all.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Repeal the 16th amendment: get rid of the IRS


Art credit: netrightdaily.com



Tea Party Patriots are gathering signatures on a petition to get rid of the IRS:

Tea Party Patriots has thrown its full support behind Congressman Jim Bridenstine's (R-OK) HJ Res 104, a bill to permanently repeal the 16th Amendment and dismantle the IRS.

The 16th Amendment grants the federal government the power to directly tax the hard-earned income of each and every American.

And that means that this important bill repealing the 16th Amendment could instantly save us from the oppression of our monstrous federal tax code!


Among the horrors of the federal income tax...
·         Last year, Americans spent a record 6.4 billion hours complying with the labyrinth of regulations in the federal tax code.
·         The budget of the Internal Revenue Service has increased by 58 percent since the year 2000.
·         The federal tax code nearly tripled in length between 2001 and 2010.
·         And investigations have revealed that high-ranking officials within the Obama Administration have used the IRS as a political weapon, violating the First Amendment rights of peaceful Americans like you and me!
The Washington "ruling class" is addicted to the federal income tax. It's the fuel for their out-of-control spending and reckless big government debacles.

They're determined to keep this bill from ever even coming to the floor for a vote. They're terrified of having to stand before the American people and actually defend the income tax and the IRS!

And that's exactly why we MUST pressure Congress to bring this bill to the floor. If we can pressure them to bring it up for a vote, there's no way these politicians will be able to defend this corrupt system.

They'll have no choice but to repeal the 16th Amendment!

Congressman Bridenstine has taken a very bold step by proposing HJ Res 104. He did so only because he believes the American people will take up the mantle and join the charge against our fundamentally corrupt tax code.


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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Newt on The Destructive Food and Drug Administration



Photo credit: couriermail.com.au

Newt Gingrich emailed the following report on the outdated and bureaucratic FDA. If you have an interest in subscribing to his list (which sometimes include sales pitches that you can just delete), go to GingrichProductions.com to sign up.

The Food and Drug Administration is destructive of the health of the American people. It is an obsolete bureaucracy with obsolete rules that do more harm than good.
The time has come to think through a 21st century replacement for a 108-year-old bureaucracy.
Two people, Joshua Hardy and Ron Woodroof, personify the problems with the FDA.
Joshua is a seven-year-old boy who became a national story this week seeking compassionate relief for a drug that might save his life but was not available because of the current bureaucracy, which takes 10 to 15 years to approve a drug.
Ron has been dead since September 1992 but he is currently famous because of a remarkable movie, The Dallas Buyers Club, and an extraordinary Academy Award winning performance by Matthew McConaughey as Ron Woodroof.
Both stories illustrate fatal flaws in the current FDA system.
In Woodroof's case he was told in 1985 that he only had 30 days to live. By breaking out of the system he found a series of drugs (many of them vitamins) that helped him live for 7 years -- 84 times longer than his doctors thought possible.
Instead of seeing Woodroof's remarkable achievement as something worth studying and learning from, the FDA and the medical establishment found his activities a direct threat to their authority. The movie is painful to watch both because people are dying and because our government is making their lives harder as they struggle to survive.
In effect Woodroof is told he can't try new solutions because they aren't approved -- even though the approved options will mean certain death.
He keeps pointing out that people are dying but the bureaucratic urgency is reserved for enforcing the establishment's authority.
This same passion for propping up the old order became apparent when seven-year-old Joshua sought help.
Joshua became famous when concerned citizens launched an online petition and got over 20,000 signatures. The drug he needed was available but the small company that developed it was heavily invested in the lengthy, expensive FDA approval process. A bad result for a single high-profile case like Joshua's would be a significant risk to its investment.
The FDA bureaucracy has become so cumbersome and so demanding that hardly any inexpensive drug or drug aimed at a small market (people with a rare disease) can overcome the cost of getting through the process.
FDA approval can easily cost $1 billion dollars.
Small companies literally bet their existence on getting their first drug approved.
This was the situation when Joshua needed the new drug. Technically the FDA might approve compassionate use but the company was afraid to risk its investment in the FDA trials.
A woman named Andrea Sloan encountered the same lethal bureaucracy when she tried to get a new, experimental cancer drug last year. I talked with her oncologist at M.D. Anderson, the largest cancer center in the world. He was totally frustrated by the system. She never got the drug and she died at 45.
Similarly Nick Audin got more than 500,000 signatures through an on line petition. He had three children and yet he never got the drug he needed. He died at 41.
The current system is destructive, arbitrary and at times heartless. Yet the reaction of the establishment is to defend it. The opposition to seven-year-old Joshua getting compassionate relief was captured perfectly in the Washington Post headline "Ethicists Worry Josh Hardy Case May Set Bad Precedent".
The Post described a "backlash" against helping the young boy:
"Is it rite to save 1 child an[d] not the rest?” wondered one commenter on a news forum. “It’s really not fair to the thousands of others that were turned down just because they didn’t make a big public outcry,” said another.
"The Herald-Sun newspaper in Durham, N.C., where the company that makes the drug is based, said it was glad for the boy’s sake that he was able to get the medicine. “But the process leaves us pained,” the editorial board wrote. “This is no way to make health-care decisions.”
"The story of how Joshua Hardy — a first-grader from Fredericksburg, Va., who is fighting off an infection after getting a bone-marrow transplant — got access to an unapproved treatment when others with similar requests were turned down highlights the ethical conundrums facing doctors, companies and regulators in the era of Facebook and Twitter."
The Post quoted one expert who managed to get the problem exactly backward. Consider his line of reasoning:
“You couldn’t get a more troubling and impossible-to-resolve moral dilemma than this one,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Center.
From the perspective of the public and future patients, it’s best for the company to focus on getting the drug approved as soon as possible so that the largest number of people can be helped, Caplan said. But from a patient’s point of view, getting immediate access to the drug is what’s important.
“It’s a trade-off between the public good versus self-interest,” Caplan said. “They conflict. There is no way of getting around it.”
Yet Dr. Caplan has the problem exactly backward.
The focus should not be on the ethics of getting drugs through the slow and outdated system.
The focus should be on systems changes that would accelerate access to the newest, best, and most effective solutions.
Rationing transplants, for example, should be replaced with a dramatic acceleration of regenerative medicine so you can replant your own organs grown from your own cells in a manner that will eliminate rationing and waiting.
People faced with terminal illnesses should have informed-consent access to any drug which has passed a stage-one safety test. If the drug won't kill you and you have been told you are dying, you should have the right to experiment if you choose to live out your challenge (the opposite of the Dallas Buyers Club experience).
The use of placebos (where half of a test group is knowingly given something which will not work) should be ended. First, it is immoral to give people in desperate circumstances a false medicine. Second, with forty or fifty years of clinical trial data and new continuous, real time medical monitoring possible through mobile devices, it is possible to imagine a dramatically different model of testing new therapies. Many more people can be involved, the costs can be dramatically less, and the volume and speed of information flow can be enormous compared to the pre-smartphone, pre-wireless, pre-computer world.
A largely paper-based and slow moving FDA bureaucracy is simply incapable of this kind of modern, personalized model of developing new solutions in healthcare. That is why it needs to be replaced rather than reformed.
Instead of having compassionate access as a rare event requiring massive publicity, we should redesign the system to lower the cost of approval so companies can afford to share breakthroughs even during the testing phase.
Every American deserves compassion and we should design a system to achieve that goal.
Finally there has to be a very inexpensive approval process for breakthroughs with small but important market potential. A drug should not need to be worth billions to merit FDA approval.
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The FDA is not the only federal agency that should be eliminated or radically changed.