Ohio’s incoming elected officials

Cleveland.com has a handy reference page, compiled by Laura Hancock, to “Meet your Newly Elected Ohio Officials”; they’ll be sworn in next month. Click here.

# # #

Merry Christmas

from the Cleveland Tea Party

GOP obstruction

Rachel Bovard at American Greatness summarizes why the GOPe (that would be the GOP Establishment / Uniparty) never does what it promises to do:

the fight over funding for the wall has become a proxy battle between establishment Republicans who have no intention of helping the president, and the more conservative members who want to deliver on their campaign promises.

Establishment Washington has believed for years that it can run on platform issues like repealing Obamacare, defunding Planned Parenthood, and reforming the immigration system, but then provide dozens of excuses as to why these objectives can’t be met.

First, Republicans said, they needed the House. Then the Senate. Then the White House. But of course, once all of those were delivered, it still wasn’t enough. Now they need 60 votes in the Senate or nothing can happen! They believe that voters are, in fact, dumb enough to keep buying what they’re selling.

. . .

Whether Trump gets his wall funding or not, this shutdown will have the effect of making it very clear who the president’s obstructionists are in both parties. And, to paraphrase the ancient strategist Sun Tzu, it’s always preferable to begin a battle first by clearly identifying your enemy.

Paul Ryan (Uniparty-R) will be gone shortly, but Mitch McConnell (Uniparty-R) was re-elected in 2014. And as Sundance put it:

Nothing will change until Mitch McConnell is defeated. Nothing.

Assuming he runs again in 2020, McConnell is likely to be the No. 1 race to target.

# # #

Build the Wall

image credit: youtube.com

H/T Free Republic: A campaign aimed at raising money for a border wall on the crowdfunding website GoFundMe has raised more than $5 million of its $1 billion goal in under four days.

The page, called "We The People Will Fund The Wall," was started by Brian Kolfage, a Purple Heart recipient and triple amputee who lost his legs and an arm during a rocket attack in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The campaign was launched earlier this week with a goal of raising $1 billion to donate to the construction of a wall along the southern border of the U.S. Funding for the wall, a major campaign promise of President Donald Trump, has come under questioning in recent weeks as Trump first hard-lined funding negotiations, then retreated.

Trump threatened a partial government shutdown if Congress couldn't pass a budget that included funding for the wall, which Democrats staunchly opposed. He later backed down from the threat, saying he'd find funding another way and allowing for the passage of a funding bill that'd avert a shutdown. 

Kolfage said it's now "our duty as citizens" to raise money for a border wall. In three days, the campaign has raised more than $4 million from nearly 70,000 donors.

"Like a majority of those American citizens who voted to elect President Donald J Trump, we voted for him to Make America Great Again," Kolfage wrote in the campaign. "President Trump's main campaign promise was to BUILD THE WALL. And as he's followed through on just about every promise so far, this wall project needs to be completed still."

Kolfage said the cap is set at $1 billion because that is all GoFundMe allows. He said he is trying to get them to raise the limit.

"If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall," he wrote. "That equates to roughly $5 billion, even if we get half, that's half the wall. We can do this."

In some of the reader comments, several potential donors were waiting to learn how the funds would be managed, how long the project would last, and so forth. Most of these questions and issues are already addressed on the GoFundMe page at the link below. At the time I posted this blog, the total contributed stood at over $5,500,000. And counting.

For the most recent total on the GoFundMe page itself, click here.

[https://www.gofundme.com/thetrumpwall]

# # #

Update on the Uniparty

image credit: sol1776.blogspot.com 

Angry at Trump if he signs the Continuing Resolution? Sundance puts the latest headlines in perspective:

President Trump said he wouldn’t sign another CR that didn’t fund the border wall.  Right now Mitch and Chuck are writing a CR that doesn’t fully fund the border wall.  Why would Mitch McConnell do that? Because he wants to, that’s why.  UniParty !

Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan are working to put a take it or leave it bill in front of the President and force him to accept it.  Republicans currently control the House and Senate.  Why would McConnell and Ryan put President Trump into that position?  Because they want to, that’s why.

. . .

it’s not President Trump who is the issue here; it’s the people who oppose him.  Anger toward President Trump is misplaced; but directing all fire against their enemy is what these Machiavellian sorts are professionals at doing.  That’s exactly what this plan is designed to do.  This is politics.

Who opposes Trump?  The people who write the laws.  Mitch, Paul, Nancy and Chuck are the professional political team who do the bidding of the lobbyists and special interests.  It’s a big club, and we, along with President Trump, ain’t in it.  

Getting you mad at President Trump is in the DC interests.  The UniParty knows how to play you.

President Trump represents a second party in Washington DC.  The people who write the laws (lobbyists), and the people who sell the laws (politicians), cannot allow that.  They need to get back to UniParty political business.  They need to get rid of Trump.

Think about it as you direct your fire.

Your enemy is not President Trump.

The entire article is here (and it's long).

# # #

The End of Obamacare?

At his website Legal Insurrection, Prof. William Jacobson thinks the U.S. District judge who ruled the other day that Obamacare is unconstitutional may have the winning argument:

If the ruling holds up on appeal, Obamacare is dead. As a doorknob. Not just the mandate or some other particular provisions. He killed the WHOLE THING.

. . .

Here’s the short version. Texas and other states sued to declare the individual mandate unconstitutional because in the recent tax reform the penalty for failing to pay the mandate was removed. (2nd Amended Complaint here) With the removal of the mandate penalty, the mandate no longer was a function of Congress’ taxing power, which was the basis upon which John Roberts and the liberal Justices on the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the mandate in 2012. The Court conservative and Roberts had ruled the mandate violated the Commerce Clause, but Roberts broke with the conservatives on the tax power issue.

Architects of Obamacare are not happy, and that’s a good sign. Katie Pavlich reports:

Essentially, without the mandate -- Obamacare cannot stand.

Architects of the program, including the guy [Jonathan Gruber} who called Americans "stupid," aren't happy about it. Despite arguing for years the mandate was essential to the success of Obamacare, they're now backtracking in an attempt to save what's left. 

Let’s hope Jacobson and Pavlich are correct.

# # #

Border Security and Media Malpractice

Rick McKee cartoon credit: teapartyamerica.blogspot.com

Cleveland Tea Party often links to reports concerning illegal immigration issues. Failure to enforce border security and immigration laws have a profound impact on so many fronts, but Cleveland Tea Party points to the enormous costs, whether of welfare, healthcare and problems that accompany illegal drugs, all of which come under one of the three Tea Party platform plans, i.e., fiscal responsibility.

Cleveland Tea Party also regularly links to reports on media malpractice and the 24/7 propaganda we see on television and in the mainstream media. Today, Amalric de Droevig addresses both topics in an article at American Thinker titled “What a child's death on the border says about our country”. De Droevig begins his essay:

The mainstream media's treatment of a young girl's death while in the custody of the Border Patrol is a case study in how the mainstream media control the national narrative and manipulate public opinion to advance their leftist agenda.

The purpose of flooding the internet and the airwaves with propaganda about the death and life of Jakelin Maquin isn't to edify or inform the public; it is to make Americans feel bad about enforcing any immigration laws at all.  The real crime here isn't any wrongdoing on the part of the Border Patrol.  The real crime, according to our Cultural Marxist overlords, is that the Border Patrol exists in the first place.

He further elaborates on the media’s dishonesty and moves on to the grim consequences of opposing border control and law enforcement:

Defending our borders is arguably the most essential duty of government.  Moreover, the enforcement of every single law brings with it certain minor, highly attenuated risks to human life.  If the mere detention of criminals is considered too harsh a measure for our nation to stomach any longer, there is no hope for the rule of law or for the Republic's continued survival.  If our government is permanently unwilling or somehow unable to defend our borders, we should not shut the government down temporarily, as Trump is threatening.  We should shut it down permanently.

The full article is here.

# # #