
The United States has committed more than $75 billion to Ukraine, ostensibly to defend them from Russia, Russia, Russia. We can speculate how much of that taxpayer funding finds its way back to the Biden crime family and others, but that’s another story.
It is an enormous sum considering we have to borrow every penny of it. And for what? What is our national interest in the dispute between Ukraine and Russia? How many Americans have died in Ukraine in the last two years? Answer: Six.
Meanwhile, in the same period, how many Americans have died of fentanyl overdoses? Answer: 220,000.
Almost all of the fentanyl in our country comes through our open border with Mexico. And this only happens with, through, and by the Mexican drug cartels.
I join a group of friends every Wednesday morning for a men’s prayer meeting. Last week we were gathered at our fast food meeting place as always, and we invited a nearby diner named Philip to join us. He listened quietly as we complained about how badly things are going in the USA. Then he said he had a “miracle” testimony that might make us feel better, at least comparatively.
Philip said he had met his wife over 20 years ago in Matamoros, Mexico just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. She was a native Mexican translator at a Christian conference he attended. And even though she died a few years after their marriage, Philip still keeps in touch with her family, their son, and the church they supported in Matamoros.
On a recent phone call with his former father-in-law he learned that conditions in Matamoros are getting desperate – the drug cartels have taken over every aspect of daily life. It is now unsafe to venture out of your home at any time, and if you do, you must pay a bribe to the cartel for everything you do. There is no law and order and the economy is in shambles.
Philip told the story of a young member of his church in Matamoros who made a living buying cars in the USA and selling them in southern Mexico. On a recent trip he and two friends got caught in a cartel roadblock. They were robbed of their car, money, watches, and even their shoes. Then they were dragged into the ditch where his friends were both executed point blank. When the pistol was raised to his head he prayed for his life, and as he did the murderer’s cell phone rang. The thug turned and ran to his car, leaving the young Christian shocked but unhurt. With his miracle faith aflame, he soon became the new pastor of his church.
Just south of our border is a war zone. While we send endless billions to the Ukraine war where six Americans have died in two years, we do absolutely nothing to stop the war in our own backyard that kills over a hundred thousand young Americans, and countless other souls, every year. Quite the opposite, the Biden administration supports the cartels by enabling them to extort billions of dollars from their victims who have been invited by Biden to enter our country illegally.
Former presidents GW Bush, Obama, and Trump all tried minor military solutions to solve the border problem, without much success. During his term, Trump investigated more aggressive military options, even up to firing missiles into Mexico, according to Mark Esper, former defense secretary. But our current president, sheltered by fawning news and social media, clearly prefers sending military money and equipment to Ukraine, where he gets a cut returned to him, while the Mexican drug cartels run amok on our border.
Fortunately, most GOP presidential candidates are hawkish about the cartels. In addition to Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Tim Scott agree that we should take unilateral action against the cartels if Mexican president Obrador refuses to. Asa Hutchinson and Mike Pence remain soft on the cartels. Vivek Ramaswamy has said he would use our military to “defend our borders”.
I have a hunch that $75 billion would buy more than enough whoop-ass to eliminate the cartels and finally establish immigration control at our border.
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, ’n’ how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind


At breakfast this morning my daughter was relating a conversation she had with a neighbor-friend who is a third-grade teacher at a predominantly Hispanic public elementary school. They were discussing the problems caused by the extensive federally-required testing of third graders – the loss of instruction time, the stress for students and teachers, the declining scores. Then the teacher made a startling observation.
Americans are worried as hell that our country, like many other Western nations, is hurtling headlong toward third-world status or worse by failing to control our intake of legal and illegal immigrants, asylees, and refugees. I attended a Trump rally last night at a jam-packed arena, and when he promised to deal with the immigration crisis the place exploded. It is unquestionably the priority item on voters’ minds this election year.
I know you are concerned about the exploding levels of legal and illegal immigration and refugee resettlement in the USA. You are worried about the high crime rates among these foreigners, the declining number of employed Americans and falling wage rates, and the destruction of our uniquely successful American economy and culture. But you probably keep your feelings to yourself because the leftists and the media (sorry, that’s redundant) call you selfish, cruel, racist, and hater. They want you to feel guilty.
As a teenage baseball pitcher I had a pretty good fast ball, and liked to throw everything hard. But my curve ball just wasn’t working. Then I got a physics lesson from my coach. “Son, ” he said, “you can either get speed on the ball or spin. But not both.”
My wife and I are building a new home. We are doing some of the work ourselves but the majority of the work is done by subcontractors, mostly hired through our general contractor. Working on a major project like this brings many current political and economic issues from the big-picture level down to the up-close and personal level.
There is, of course, physical labor to be done. For that the Saudis have imported legions of hungry, foreign workers from Africa and East Asia. An estimated 6.5 million foreign laborers toiled in Saudi Arabia a year ago, before rioting against inhumane treatment brought a government crackdown on illegal immigration and a slight reduction in their numbers. The few and vague immigration laws, however, are still not well-enforced.