Ceding American sovereignty

More AF Branco cartoons at Creators Syndicate

The other day, this blog posted the link to the White House Declaration of North America, which effectively cedes American sovereignty and constitutional values to global communism, partnering with Mexico and Canada.  David Strom at Hot Air has a follow up, and he somehow managed to have some fun with the Declaration, more than this blog could manage.  Here’s an extract:

. . . America has a new DNA, I guess. Liberty used to be in our DNA, but apparently Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has been injected into the country using a new mRNA vaccine or something.

The statement is a wonder to behold. And yes, that DNA reference was actually to deoxyribonucleic acid.

Today, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, President Joseph R. Biden, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met in Mexico City for the 10th North American Leaders’ Summit (NALS). The leaders are determined to fortify our region’s security, prosperity, sustainability and inclusiveness through commitments across six pillars: 1) diversity, equity, and inclusion; 2) climate change and the environment; 3) competitiveness; 4) migration and development; 5) health; and 6) regional security.

North America shares a unique history and culture that emphasizes innovation, equitable development, and mutually beneficial trade to create inclusive economic opportunities for the benefit of our people. We are not just neighbors and partners. Our people share bonds of family and friendship and value – above all else – freedom, justice, human rights, equality, and democracy. This is the North American DNA.

What is it about government folks being so incompetent when it comes to doing anything catchy? Bad acronyms and metaphors always.

Look at the priorities. Regional security. Nice to see it came in at #6. Immigration made it all the way up to #4.

DEI, and climate change, numbers 1 and 2. DEI is actually #1!

For God’s sake, make it stop! . . .

The rest of Mr Strom’s commentary is here.  The Declaration of North America is here. It's unconstitutional and will never be subject to ratification in the Senate.  So it is just another Biden Administration give-away of our freedoms and sovereignty.  

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President Donald J Trump Announces for 2024

 

The whining RINO headline at Hot Air:

Sununu at RGA: No one cares about

2024 campaign announcements right now

The real deal at Conservative Treehouse:

He’s Back, President Donald J Trump Officially Declares
His Candidacy to Run for President in 2024

I have written and deleted a thousand words, repeatedly, in an effort to encapsulate what this moment means to me, and perhaps to others.  However, when you boil the essence of the thing down to its important part, you are left with a question: Which American politician loves this country more than Donald John Trump?

The honest answer is ‘no one’.

There’s not a force of man or nature as strong in its devotion to a mission, as Donald Trump is to this nation.  That’s the core, the heart, the genuine essence of the thing, that separates President Trump from all others.  Within that love of country, is a strength of determination that is almost uncanny to witness; and from that love of country an authenticity emanates that is impossible to duplicate.

Donald J Trump is, quite simply, unapologetically American – and tens of millions just love him for it.

Tonight, with his family by his side, President Donald Trump announced his intention to seek the GOP nomination in 2024 and run for President of the United States.

Yes, I don’t give a flying flip what any detractor of this nation might try to say, Donald Trump is exactly what we need.

Many people are exhausted from the battle to save this republic.  Many people are frustrated and despondent from the scale of the effort it takes to push back against the metastatic corruption that has infected our entire body politic.  Even more people are sick and tired of having to constantly look behind the duplicitous motives and conniving schemes of the professional political class who falsely claim to represent our interests.  For all of those people Trump kneels and says, ‘get on my back and rest for a moment’.

We don’t have to question his intentions; we do not have to doubt his motives; we do not have to worry about his goal with the America-First agenda.  We know when Trump succeeds, our lives and the lives of our family improves.  Period. 

Read the rest here.  It’s the feel-good read of the day.  Sundance's closing image:

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Update: Ohio Primary on Tuesday

 

It is likely at this point that either Nina Turner or Shontel Brown, both Democrats, will win the primary on Aug. 3 for the US House seat formerly held by Marcia Fudge in Ohio’s 11^th Congressional district.  John Sexton at Hot Air has

written a couple of times about the battle in Ohio between the socialist wing of the Democratic Party, which is supporting Nina Turner, and the more establishment wing which is supporting Shontel Brown. Today HuffPost reports that establishment money is pouring into the race now that Brown seems within striking distance:

Moderate Democratic groups, donors and even some Republicans are flooding Ohio’s 11th Congressional District with millions of dollars in a bid to elect Shontel Brown and defeat progressive favorite Nina Turner in Tuesday’s special primary election.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), along with Democratic Reps. Joyce Beatty (Ohio), Gregory Meeks (N.Y.) and Bennie Thompson (Miss.), are headlining a get-out-the-vote event for Brown this weekend as well.

I was aware that Jim Clyburn, the 3rd ranking Democrat in the House, was supporting Brown, but I hadn’t been aware of why he decided to get so involved in the race. According to HuffPost, Nina Turner made a big mistake last month when she appeared on a panel with well-known rapper named Killer Mike. (Killer Mike had some interesting things to say to rioters and to CNN last summer).

Speaking on a panel with rapper “Killer” Mike Render, Turner appeared to express agreement when Render said it was “incredibly stupid” for House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) to have endorsed Biden without demanding more in exchange.

Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, endorsed Brown days later and was soon featured in one of her TV ads.

. . .

Bringing the heavy hitters off the bench to oppose your campaign seems, well, incredibly stupid. But this type of blunt talk about the Democratic Party is what Nina Turner is known for. In fact, there’s a new anti-Turner ad which basically argues that she’s not really a Democrat at all.

. . .

More at the link here, including some videos.

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A local union is cutting pension benefits

image credit: aarp

Yesterday, Jazz Shaw at the blog Hot Air reported (via the WaPo) on a development in Ohio:

In Cleveland, the Iron Workers Local 17 union has approved cuts to their pension plan to avoid having it become insolvent. The cuts will affect different workers by varying amounts depending on their individual circumstances, but everyone will be feeling the pinch.

. . .

The first thing to remember is that we’re talking about a private sector labor union, not one for government workers. The effects on retirees are going to be serious to be sure, but what are the other options? The union made promises to the workers which it wasn’t able to keep. This is a system which is much like any sort of general entitlement program in that it always requires growth, or at least stability. You have to have more people paying into the system than drawing out of it and if the numbers contract, the math immediately ceases working. (It’s the old question of how many people can ride in the cart as opposed to the number who are pulling it.)

[Shaw] pointed out the private sector aspect of this because the premise of the government guaranteeing these pension funds was always dubious at best. How is it that the taxpayers are on the hook for these shortfalls when the system becomes insolvent? I realize that’s not a solution, but the problem wasn’t created by the government in the first place and the taxpayers had no seat at the table when the deals were originally negotiated. But that’s not stopping Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, who is still pushing for a federal bailout of the plan.

The problem gets even more complex when we look at state pension plans which are hung around the necks of taxpayers.

Read the rest of the report here. 

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Gov. Kasich’s Medicaid Expansion again

art credit: KUT

Legal Insurrection reports [original links retained]

Full repeal or “roll back parts of ObamaCare”?

The ObamaCare Medicaid expansion is a horrible deal for low income Americans; it’s also where a large number of “newly covered” Americans get their new coverage.

Not only does the expansion include “automatic” enrollment in Medicaid through ObamaCare even if it’s not wanted, but expanding Medicaid to slightly higher income levels includes many who have managed to acquire a home or other assets.  Their home and assets, however, go to pay for their Medicaid bills after they die.  In essence, then, Medicaid functions as a loan from the federal government just as it always has, but because the income level has been raised, more Medicaid recipients than ever will have their assets seized to cover the cost of their Medicaid expenses.

Despite this, some GOP governors are fighting their own party to keep the Medicaid expansion in their states.

Politico reports:

Republican governors who reaped the benefits of Obamacare now find themselves in an untenable position — fighting GOP lawmakers in Washington to protect their states’ health coverage.

. . . .  President-elect Donald Trump heaped more pressure on lawmakers to find a resolution of the issue this week when he vowed to “repeal and replace Obamacare essentially simultaneously” after the Senate confirms Rep. Tom Price, his pick for Health and Human Services secretary.

But Trump’s push comes as at least five of the 16 Republican governors of states that took federal money to expand Medicaid are advocating to keep it or warning GOP leaders of disastrous consequences if the law is repealed without a replacement that keeps millions of people covered. They include Govs. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Rick Snyder of Michigan, John Kasich of Ohio, Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas and Brian Sandoval of Nevada.

The governors explain why they want to keep the Medicaid expansion in their states.

Politico continues:

“We are now able to provide health insurance to 700,000 people,” said Kasich, who circumvented his state Legislature to enact expansion in 2013 and who was the sole GOP presidential candidate in 2016 to defend that portion of Obamacare.

“Let’s just say they just got rid of it, didn’t replace it with anything,” he said. “What happens to the 700,000 people? What happens to drug treatment? What happens to mental health counseling? What happens to these people who have very high cholesterol and are victims from a heart attack? What happens to them?”

. . .

Part of Kasich’s argument is that the federal taxpayer dollars his state gets for Medicaid expansion is “our money,” that of Ohioans.

Hot Air explains this is not exactly the case:

Expanding Medicaid, Kasich has said, allowed him to “bring Ohio money back home,” preventing other states from getting $13 billion of “Ohioans’ federal tax dollars” in the first seven years. He circumvented a legislative ban on Obamacare expansion, waving off concerns about the cost with appeals to his experience in Congress in the ’90s.

In just three years, Kasich’s Obamacare expansion cost $11.3 billion, and not a penny of that new federal spending was “Ohio money” that would have otherwise gone to another state.

It’s not clear what President-elect Trump or the GOP Congress plan to do with or about the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion should they indeed succeed in repealing the entire law rather than picking and choosing what parts to to keep and what to “roll back.”

This report can remind voters why they should push Columbus legislators to pass the Ohio Health Care Compact, so that Ohio citizens can decide if they want to maintain or reject Obamacare. Recall that in 2011,

State Issue 3, a public vote on passage of the Healthcare Freedom Amendment in Ohio, passed overwhelmingly in all 88 Ohio counties.  In Cuyahoga County, the Amendment passed 202,010 votes (58.24%) to 144,908 votes (41.76%). [Source: Ohio GOP] 

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Chuckle of the Day

Art credit

Even The Onion can't make this stuff up. The headline from Allahpundit at Hot Air says it all:

Blast off: 

Shaky Jeb Bush campaign 

ready to soar 

thanks to coveted 

Eric Cantor endorsement

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Photo ID law in Wisconsin is upheld

Earlier this week, Cleveland Tea Party Patriots learned about the initiatives to require Photo IDs in order to vote. Chris Long addressed the issue as it concerns voter fraud as opposed to voter integrity. Ohio voters can take a look at a recent development on a voter ID law in Wisconsin, via Hot Air:

Surprise: SCOTUS upholds Wisconsin voter-ID law

POSTED AT 12:01 PM ON MARCH 23, 2015 BY ED MORRISSEY

Or maybe not such a surprise after all. The path to today’s Supreme Court decision to refuse an appeal by the ACLU against Wisconsin’s voter-ID law has been strewn with appellate decisions that supported its implementation, although a last-minute stay by SCOTUS kept it out of play for the midterms. The law will fully take effect for the 2016 election, which may complicate efforts by Democrats to keep the state blue:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left intact a new Republican-backed law in Wisconsin that requires voters to present photo identification when they cast ballots.

The court declined to hear an appeal filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the law. …

A federal judge blocked the state’s voter ID law in March 2012 soon after it took effect and entered a permanent injunction in April, finding the measure would deter or prevent a substantial number of voters who lack photo identification from casting ballots, and place an unnecessary burden on the poor and minorities.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the decision and subsequently ruled in October that the law was constitutional. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court upheld the voter ID law in a separate ruling.

The SCOTUS stay in October had more to do with the timing of the law, thanks to the scheduling of the challenges through the courts. Regardless, the election still went in favor of Scott Walker and the GOP, preventing Democrats from repealing the voter-ID provision before it could come into effect.

This will put a huge dent in the Obama administration’s efforts to squelch voter-ID laws in other states. In order to grant certiorari, the ACLU would have needed four justices to vote to add it to the docket. The fact that they couldn’t even move the liberal wing to unite against a voter-ID law shows that the justices consider the issue settled. Requirements for identification at polling stations are legitimate, in the eyes of the court, as long as enough options for no-cost qualifying ID exist to keep the poor from being disenfranchised.

The dismissal of this challenge to the law will also help boost Walker’s efforts outside of Wisconsin. He’s known for reforming the public-employee unions, balancing the budget, and most recently for signing Right to Work legislation even if he advised the Republican-controlled legislature to move more slowly on the latter. Some forget that Walker backed the voter-ID legislation as part of his reform package that got him elected in 2010, and then reconfirmed in 2012 and re-elected again in 2014. It gives Walker an argument to position himself as the reformer who has a real track record of conservative change in a purple state, change that could turn the state red for good.

However, the Supreme Court decision isn’t keeping the ACLU fromdemanding yet another delay, on the same basis as the last one:

The Wisconsin state elections board says it is awaiting direction from the state Department of Justice about what comes next now that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a challenge to the state’s voter identification law.

The American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal appeals court to block implementation of the law for the April 7 election.

If the ACLU gets its waiver, it had better enjoy it — because it will be its last.

Update: It’s more accurate to say that the refusal to grant cert in this case upholds the law rather than approves it, although functionally it’s the same thing. I’ve changed the headline from “approves” to “upholds.”

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Unity Rally in Paris: World Leaders lock arms

This report from Hot Air, in case you missed it over the weekend:

The President sent Eric Holder. I know he was there because he was doing all of the Sunday shows from Paris. Then cable news ground to a halt for one of the more impressive shots you will ever see; one of the biggest collections of world leaders to be found anywhere, and they were outside in the cold and the rain, locking arms and marching in unity with the people of France as they stood up to Islamic terrorism. Above is just one of the many media shots which captured the rather historic moment.

But wait… isn’t somebody missing from this picture? In what is possibly one of the worst games of Where’s Waldo in history, the fine folks at Weasel Zippers notice that Eric Holder doesn’t seem to be on the scene.

There’s a photo at the link of Holder with some of the leaders standing on the steps of a building for a photo op, but he was otherwise busy for the actual rally.

Attorney General Eric Holder is in Paris this week to attend a meeting on fighting terrorism, but did not participate in a march with world leaders Sunday to honor the 17 people killed last week in France.

More than 40 world leaders marched arm in arm through Paris to rally for unity and freedom of expression and to honor the victims of the three days of terrorist attacks.

Swinging back to WZ for the full list, here are the world leaders who actually showed up and walked the walk.

Left to right: Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Union President Donald Tusk, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Jordan’s Queen Rania, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenkoand other guests...

Oh, man. We didn’t even manage to qualify for … and other guests.

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Also in this report is a Tweet from Dana French:

CNN just reported Eric Holder did not attend #ParisMarch because he was attending high level meetings. With whom? Everyone was at rally.