We Should Declare War Against the Cartels

photo courtesy NY Times

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

Blowin’ In the Wind – Bob Dylan

Mr. Trump, I Wrote a Speech For You. No Charge!


photo courtesy Salon.com

photo courtesy Salon.com

My fellow citizens, if you elect me, Donald Trump, to be your president, here are my domestic priorities for the first hundred days of my term:

Government Accountability and Reform

Government sector unions will be eliminated or restrictions imposed, such as:  Unions would be prohibited from contributing to political candidates or having any involvement in political campaigns.  Government employees would be employed “at will”, empowering managers to hire, fire, and discipline without union intervention.  They would be subject to the same payroll and benefit laws as the private sector, including social security, 401k, and Medicaid coverage or private health insurance allowance.  We can no longer tolerate a government where nobody is responsible for anything or ever gets fired.

Congress will establish biannual performance and zero-based budget requirements for every department and agency, and oversight committees will hold agency heads responsible for meeting goals, with the authority to discipline or discharge failing managers.  Redundant and obsolete services and programs will be eliminated from agencies and departments.  This is basic economics, understood by every American.

All elected officials will be subject to the same ethics standards and prosecution as private sector corporate officials, prohibiting insider trading, personal gain from transactions and decisions, nepotism, payoffs for campaign contributions, and any other breaches of trust.  Why should elected officials get away with corruption that is not tolerated in private business?

Congressional term limits will be established.  The power structure must be brought under control.

Congress will be required to produce timely budgets; continuing resolutions will be prohibited.  The job of Congress is to budget and appropriate.  If they don’t do that, we don’t need them.

Law and Order

My new IRS and FBI commissioners will investigate Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation for tax fraud and improper quid pro quo deals with foreign companies and governments.  This kind of corruption must be brought to light and stopped once and for all.

Sanctuary cities will be denied federal funding.  Existing immigration laws will be enforced at the borders and ports, and in all government offices and programs.  Officials who fail or refuse to enforce any federal law will be disciplined or terminated.  Without borders, we have no country.  And without law enforcement, we have anarchy.

Federal involvement in local law enforcement will cease, including the use of consent decrees to impose federal control.

Health, Welfare, Housing and Education

The Affordable Health Care Act will be repealed and replaced by a congressionally approved plan which includes a provision for a federal assigned risk pool for pre-existing conditions.

Federal funding of all means-tested welfare and assistance programs and all educational programs will be limited to block grants to the states.  Our Constitution intended the power of the people to reside in state governments, not federal.  This is the United STATES of America.

Government funding of private health care providers specifically including Planned Parenthood will be prohibited.

The federal student loan program will be eliminated and restored to the private sector.  Any program for relief from student loan debt will include provisions for clawback of public losses from the universities who received the student loan payments.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other government subsidized home loan programs will be phased out, restoring the mortgage industry to the private sector.

Tax Reform

Estate taxes will be permanently eliminated – it is double taxation.  Corporate income tax will be significantly reduced to encourage repatriation of assets and domestic production.  Personal income taxes will be simplified.  Loopholes and carve-outs will be eliminated for businesses and individuals.

Businesses will receive tax incentives for providing modern technical training programs that meet their workforce needs and result in direct sustained employment of individuals, replacing unnecessary and unproductive college time and expense.

Immigration

Legal immigration rates and eligibilities will be revisited by Congress with impact analysis on jobs, the economy, security, and infrastructure.  Charity will not be a consideration, as it is not a function of government.  Illegal immigration will be treated and enforced as a criminal act.

These action items have the strong support of a majority of Americans.  If Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell fail to take action on these important tasks, I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to admonish and encourage and even embarrass them.  And if they still refuse to respond to the will of their constituents, as they have over the last many years, I will find other ways to give the people what they want.

Please vote for me, your humble servant, Donald Trump.


Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Well, it’s about time for things to get better
We want the truth, the truth and no more lies
We want freedom, justice and equality
I want it for you and I want it for me
Well, well
Give the people what they want!

Give the People What They Want – the O’Jays

Here’s a great song by the O’Jays – from Soul Train, 1975.  Check it out!

Illegal Immigrants: Don’t Rock the Boat

rock the boatAt 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.

“It’s not just the testing that’s a problem, ” she told my daughter.  “I have a room full of kids who don’t value education.  That’s because they come from families who don’t value education.”  She said nobody at home speaks English, so the children have no interest in learning English, or much of anything else, at school.  They don’t see anything at home that connects education to success in life or anything positive.  “They act out all day.  Our classroom is chaos, and we are not allowed to discipline because the school is afraid of legal action.”

Another friend of mine is a kindergarten teacher who teaches entirely in Spanish.  Her students receive no English instruction.  She reports the same lack of discipline and respect in her students, and suffered a serious physical attack by one of them.  Her administration warned her to not report the incident to police or other authorities.

Both of these talented young teachers are now questioning the wisdom of their career choices.

After breakfast, I flipped through the Sunday morning news shows, landing on the Fareed Zakaria GPS report about discrimination.  He pointed out that many more schools are now segregated than were before Brown vs. Board, and went on to say performance and outcomes in these “minority” schools is much worse than in “desegregated” schools.  He carefully avoided one critical detail.  The segregation in today’s schools is English-speakers vs. non-English speakers.  American-born vs. (mostly) illegal aliens.

The other Sunday news shows all had the obligatory segments with talking heads explaining how Donald Trump has no chance to be elected president because he offended Hispanic voters by saying Mexican criminals have come across our open border. The news producers shelved the video showing protesters at a Trump rally assaulting police while waving Mexican flags.

My sensibilities were a little bit rocked by all this turbulence before my third cup of coffee.  I had to say: this is just not working.

We can not leave our borders unprotected any longer.  We can’t continue to pretend that these are only poor “refugees” wanting to celebrate America, to do the jobs we won’t do, and to help raise the tide that floats all boats.  The boats that were already here are taking on water.  We don’t have enough jobs for our own citizens.  Our schools and support systems are sinking under the weight of foreigners, many of whom have no intention of assimilating.

I’m not a bigot or a selfish meanie.  I’m not broad-brushing Hispanics or any other minority as terrible people.  I’m not saying no more immigration, ever.  All I’m saying is, what we’re doing now – unfiltered, uncontrolled mass immigration driven by liberal public benefit programs – is not working.  It has to change before the boats all tip over.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Rock the boat, don’t rock the boat baby
Rock the boat, don’t tip the boat over
Rock the boat, don’t rock the boat baby
Rock the boat

Rock the Boat – the Hues Corporation

 

Mixed Emotions When Mexican Driver Kills Mexican Child And Flees Back to Mexico

photo courtesy Charlotte Observer

I have been following a story in the Charlotte, NC news for several days now which still grips my attention for a variety of reasons.  I find myself wrestling with my reactions to each development, and trying to sort out the implications of the profound change Charlotte, and much of America, has gone through in recent years.

I write this post not to make any particular point, but rather to illustrate how our emotions are manipulated by the politically-correct news media.

The tragedy began when a mother was crossing a street in East Charlotte with her young son and daughter in hand.  The girl let go and darted across the street, and her six-year old brother followed.  He was hit by a beat-up white work van.  The driver, identified by witnesses as “a Hispanic man in his mid-thirties with curly black hair,” stopped briefly, saw the child lying gravely injured on the street, and then sped away.

Like any parent, my first reaction was horror at the sudden death of a child, and sympathy.  Immediately following that was my suspicion and anger that the driver is probably an illegal immigrant.

A year ago Charlotte’s political leaders chose to declare it a “sanctuary city”, one of hundreds  of cities across the country that refuses to turn illegal immigrants, including criminals, over to federal authorities for processing and deportation.  Since then Charlotte has attracted growing numbers of Hispanic illegals, and the crime statistics have tilted heavily in their direction.

In support of the sanctuary city stance, Charlotte news outlets do not identify illegal immigrant criminals as such.   A respected African-American business owner was recently murdered in my Charlotte suburb by a Honduran laborer, and the fact that the killer was here illegally was never reported by the Charlotte press. But since the murder occurred on the South Carolina side of the lake, the Rock Hill (SC) Herald reported that federal immigration and customs officials were involved.

Here’s where the bouncing emotions and questions come in.  My “I’ll bet the driver is an illegal” reaction to the hit-and-run incident probably matches the vast majority of my neighbors. If he is here illegally, the driver likely has no insurance, perhaps no driver’s license.  Even though it was clearly an accident, and the driver is doubtless torn with guilt, his entire life in the USA is clandestine, so he had to run.  I feel sorry for him.  Wait, no I don’t, he fled the scene of a fatal accident.  I noticed that the child’s family is also Hispanic, and I can’t help but wonder if they are also here illegally.  But so what?  The child’s death is no less tragic.  The boy’s family told reporters they want the driver found and prosecuted.  Would the Charlotte police have turned him over to ICE if they had caught him?

The driver has now been identified as Juan Antonio Quintanilla-Garza, and the press will only report that Charlotte police believe he is “out of state.”  The words “out of the country” would be too revealing.  Quintanilla-Garza probably left corrupt, backwards Mexico to try to help his own family.  He became a criminal in the process.

The accident was not caused by illegal immigration.  It could have happened to anyone, by anyone, anywhere.  But it became more than an accident when the driver took off.  And the flood of illegal immigrants to our country, plus the disproportionate incidence of crimes by illegals, plus the inexplicable “sanctuary city” policies that enable and protect illegal immigrant criminals all combine to scramble our emotions into an omelette of anger, fear and frustration.

It’s not about racism. It’s about borders, and security, and economics and enforcing the laws. And in the middle of it all is a dead kid.

What a mess.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

You’re not the only one
With mixed emotions
You’re not the only ship
Adrift on this ocean

Mixed Emotions – Rolling Stones

 

Let’s Fix Immigration – Voters Demand It, And It Can Be Done

illegal_immigrationAmericans 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.

Most of our elected leaders, and some citizens, believe that it is impossible to solve our immigration and refugee problems, and we have no choice but to accept whatever happens.  As long as we have the current bunch of knuckleheads in Washington, DC, I agree, there is probably no hope.

Their standard line is, “Even if you could build a wall on the southern border, you can’t round up 10 million illegals at gunpoint and bus them out of the country.”

That kind of talk is shallow, cynical, and lazy.  Nobody in his right mind would attempt an armed roundup. And there are many illegal immigrants who have been here for many years, raised families, and have become responsible Americans – we can’t treat them the same as the border-hopping drug dealers.  It will take a little bit of time and work to straighten this mess out.

By the way, there are probably at least 50 million illegals in the country now, not 10 million (that statistic is at least ten years old and was grossly underestimated then).  Just wait until the birth rate of the immigrants and their extended families exponentially kicks in.

The DC knuckleheads can’t do it, but if we can elect some officials who will actually listen to what the American people want, and take some firm but basic steps, it’s not impossible.  Here’s what I, your humble correspondent, would do.

Stop Illegal Immigration

  • Build the wall.
  • Tighten security on the Canadian border
  • Abolish the TSA and turn security responsibility (including identity information technology) over to the FBI, who would  contract and oversee private security companies to protect borders, airports, marine ports, and any other egresses.  Build stiff financial penalties into their contracts for any security failures.  Make the contractors compete for the best performance at a reasonable cost.  Reward the successful contractors and terminate the weak ones.  Allow them to profile travelers and use any new technology or innovation that works.
  • Require any foreign nations with passengers/freight to the US to cooperate and meet our standards, or refuse them direct access to our ports.
  • Establish a security clearance process so that US citizens who travel frequently can be vetted one time and can then move through our ports easily.

Fix Legal Immigration

  • Revert to the proven effective legal immigration policies of the past that favor limited numbers of immigrants, based on economic conditions, who are self-sufficient, bring needed skills and talents, and will assimilate to our American language, laws, and customs.  No more floods of needy third-world, predominantly Muslim, refugees who end up in monolithic ghettos on benefits. Stop using immigration as a forced-charity program, and stop allowing asylum to anyone with a lame story who asks for it.  No more H1-B mid-skilled  foreigners who take jobs away from Americans.
  • Establish a sensible work visa system for needed temporary labor, such as seasonal agriculture workers.  Enforce minimum wage laws and appropriate working and living conditions.
  • Have the FBI contract and oversee private IT companies to establish an electronic control system that rigidly tracks all non-citizens on US soil.  Non-citizens do not have Constitutional rights and must comply with restrictions and monitoring, utilizing chipped ID cards, GPS, surveillance, or any other methods.

Deal With Illegal Immigrants or Visitors Currently Here

  • No more government-paid benefits of any kind to non-citizens.  Period.  This policy change alone would make a huge difference.
  • Non-citizens who are employed must obtain renewable work visas.  Perform rigid enforcement and stiff penalties against non-compliant employers and non-citizen employees, enforced by the FBI.  Foreign employees will pay income tax but not social security or any other benefit-related taxes.
  • Any non-citizen convicted of any serious crime will be deported, along with family members, and permanently barred at the borders and ports.

A few key points:  Our government has proven it can not perform any real work with efficiency and effectiveness, so we must turn over the critical tasks of information management and security enforcement to private contractors with firm oversight by Congress and the FBI who should publish performance statistics on the internet.  The TSA is a bloated, inept, expensive failure.  It must be eliminated.  Private businesses who compete with each other for profit have no problem finding process improvements and cost reductions at the same time.

It is metaphysically impossible for the United States citizens to even make a dent in the poverty and insecurity of the entire planet by bringing the poor to our country  – follow this link to an amazing video for proof .  Forcing taxpayers to participate in the dangerous and ineffective relocation of third-world populations to our own county in the name of charity is just plain crazy.  If we think it is in our national interest to help foreigners, it makes so much more sense to use our knowledge, wealth, statesmanship, and military capabilities to help eliminate poverty and oppression where it exists.

And (against my libertarian nature) I believe it’s time for everyone on US soil, citizens and non-citizens alike, to possess a national ID card and use identification technology like other modern nations do.

We have the opportunity to learn from the current and ongoing immigration disaster in Europe.  Let’s not miss it. Show me where I’m wrong.  Argue the details.  But don’t say there’s nothing we can do about the immigration and refugee crisis.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right SideI hear you knockin’,
But you can’t come in.
I hear you knockin’,
Go back where you been!

I Hear You Knockin’ – Dave Edmunds

 

Dave Edmunds still sounds mighty fine.

Don’t Feel Guilty If You Are Worried About Immigrants and Refugees

guilty-dogs-supercut-compilationI 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.

Don’t feel guilty.

We have been fed a steady diet of lies about immigrants and refugees by our government and the media for decades. This is not a new phenomena – the immigration myths and atrocious government policies date back to Ronald Reagan and Ted Kennedy.  But the problem accelerates as Democrats exploit their political advantage with left-leaning third-world invitees, and the world’s poor learn how easy it is to work the system here in the States.

Lies?  Here are just a few, from Ann Coulter’s brilliant immigration exposé “¡Adios, America!”:

•  In 1986 Congress passed a special agricultural amnesty bill that granted temporary legal status to any illegal alien who claimed to have performed seasonal farm work for 90 days in the previous year.  In the first three years 888,637 agricultural amnesty applications were identified as fraudulent, but of those, only 60,020 were actually denied.  One can only guess how many millions of applications were rubber-stamped with no scrutiny at all.  One of the fraudulent “farm workers” granted amnesty was “Mahmud the Red”, the murderous Muslim who helped the “Blind Sheik” bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.

•  Tech magnates Bill Gates of Microsoft, Craig Barrett of Intel, and others convinced Congress that the H1-B visa program was necessary to obtain brainpower from India that they just couldn’t find among America’s college grads. It turns out millions of H1-B immigrants are little more than indentured servants to their American employers, working for substandard wages in fear of losing their legal status, and displacing American workers who are often forced to train them in exchange for severance pay.  There is no shortage of qualified American tech workers.

•  We are told that most immigrants are here to “do the jobs that Americans won’t do.”   But once here, most immigrants and refugees latch on to public benefits and are either unable or unwilling to find jobs, largely because they lack employable skills and make no attempt to assimilate to our customs and language.

There are so many more lies.  Most Syrian refugees are not from Syria.  Most asylum-seekers are not threatened in their home countries.  The majority of “relatives” of immigrants allowed into the USA to reunify families are not related to them.   Immigrants do not elevate our economy by paying more dollars in taxes than they consume in government services – not even close!  Immigrants are not more likely than native-born Americans to be peaceful, law-abiding citizens.

Many third-world immigrants come from cultures with values that are appalling to Americans, including abuse of women and children.  The legal age of marital consent in most of Mexico is 12.  Hmong culture considers the rape and prostitution of young girls ordinary, and most of it goes unreported.  Muslims practice female genital mutilation, and accept the stoning and murder of women for perceived misbehavior.  Illegal border-crossers trash national parks and deface native American antiquities, and continue their littering habits in their new home cities.  And while it is human nature for poor people to want the good life that others worked and died for, that does not mean it must be relinquished to them.

Are all immigrants awful people?  Of course not.  But many are, at least by traditional American standards.  The tsunami of legal and illegal immigrants and refugees must stop until we have the ability to keep the awful ones out and invite only those who bring something to the party.

If you have a hinky feeling that the United States is in trouble, don’t feel guilty.  You’re right.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

And we got nothing to be guilty of
Our love will climb any mountain,
Near or far , we are
And we never let it end

Guilty – the Bee Gees

 

 

National ID or Uncontrolled Immigration – Make Up Your Mind

CurveballAs 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.”

He was right of course. The more spin you put on the ball, the more it will curve.  With less spin, the ball will go straighter, and faster.  Watch the “jugs” gun at a professional baseball game.  A good pitcher throws a 95 mph fast ball, but his curve ball will come in at about 80 mph.

I think of that lesson whenever a news story reveals the trade-off between security and freedom.

Conservative Americans tend to guard their anonymity.  They don’t think the government has any right to know a lot of details about their lives.  Many just don’t trust the government to keep our information confidential, and recent examples of sloppy data security and failure to prevent hacking would seem to support that skepticism.

Others worry that corrupt government officials might actually use personal data to harm us for political purposes. Again, there is recent evidence that this kind of stuff happens; the IRS has become a weapon of personal destruction. It’s not hard to see why many Americans would prefer to be invisible to their own government.

But many of the same people who want to fly beneath the government’s radar also demand that the government provide us optimum security, which would require the feds to know a lot about everybody who is inside our borders. Here’s the hard truth:  you can have security or anonymity, but not both.  Speed or spin.

The United States has a serious problem with immigration in all varieties: legal, illegal, and refugee.  Unskilled and under-educated illegals, mostly Mexicans, flow across our southern border, wreaking havoc here that would not be tolerated in their home country.  USA Today  reported this week that 76% of immigrant families with children are on welfare.   Media sources say about 30% of inmates in our federal prisons are illegal immigrants, but that number is based on “self-reported” immigration status by prisoners and is likely much higher.  Criminals who are illegal immigrants are routinely released by law officers in our sanctuary cities.  Illegal immigrants have made a multi-billion dollar industry out of tax fraud – the IRS is totally indifferent to the outrageous refunds they receive, using fake tax returns and fake social security numbers.

Immigrants who are legally admitted to the US with temporary visas for work, education, or other purposes, often overstay their visas or take up permanent residence.  Vote fraud by citizens and non-citizens alike is a growing problem, largely due to the failure of precincts to prove that voters are legitimate.  Identity theft losses continue to accelerate.

Homeland Security, ICE, and the other federal agencies all say there is nothing they can do about any of these problems because they just can’t keep track of everybody.

Well, people, it’s time.  It’s time for all legal American citizens to have a micro-chipped USA identification card, and the federal government must update its technology to be able to identify every human being within our borders.   Our government should collect DNA, retinal scans, palm scans, or any other physical individual identification from everybody who lives here, visits here, or is discovered to have arrived here.  The technology is readily available, and the cost should be more than offset by savings.

Scary?  Yes.

But so is the reality of thousands of Muslim refugees arriving on our shores unvetted at a time when Iran is on the verge of receiving $150 billion and a free pass to build nuclear weapons which it will share with its aligned Muslim terrorist groups from all over the Middle East. So is the prospect of a US economy crushed under the weight of an exploding population of needy, unskilled third-world immigrants and refugees, reproducing at a much greater rate than native-born Americans.  So is the loss of our national identity, our character, our traditions, our heritage, and our sense of unity, as American-born citizens become outnumbered by foreigners who don’t speak the same language, don’t understand our unique system of government, don’t recognize our laws, and don’t intend to assimilate into our common culture.

It may be hard to trust the government after what we have been through the last several years.  Under the circumstances we have no choice but to trust, and we’d better be careful who we put in power.  I don’t see how we will ever get this hot mess back under control until we know who is who.

Speed or spin.  Security or anonymity.  Time to make up our minds.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Did you ever have to make up your mind?
And pick up on one and leave the other behind?
It’s not often easy and not often kind.
Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind? – the Lovin’ Spoonful

 

A Pat On the Butt for the Democrats

Jayhawk Perry Ellis dunks

photo by Rich Sugg – Kansas City Star

Point guard Frank Mason of the Kansas Jayhawks took the outlet pass and pounded the ball down the left sideline on the fast break.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw teammate Perry Ellis racing for the basket behind the TCU defender.  Mason lobbed a perfect pass over the rim to Ellis and BOOM!  With one hand Perry caught the ball and hammered it down through the rim, even while being fouled.  “That’s gonna be on Sports Center,” chuckled the TV announcer.  Wide-eyed fans howled as the cameras panned their faux-shock-and-awe faces.

One of the TCU players passed behind Perry at the free throw line and gave him a pat on the butt.  Even though they are mortal enemies, a great play like that has to be recognized.

This morning I have to give the Obama administration a little pat on the butt.

Don’t get me wrong, we are mortal enemies too.  I am furious and frightened by almost everything this administration does.  But I have to admire how well they execute their game plan.  Nothing is left to chance.  No player on the administration’s team makes a free-style move.  Every statement is carefully coordinated.  They all get the memo, and they all follow the script.

Following Obama’s claims last week that poverty is the root of terrorism, the administration sent out State Department’s Marie Harf to explain why young men become terrorists, behead Christians, and burn victims alive in cages.  Harf said, “We need the media to go after the root causes that lead people to join these groups, whether it’s a lack of opportunity for jobs … ”  And this: “They are using social media to get converts to their cause and to spread their hatred all over the world.”

Today Jeh Johnson, director of Homeland Security, was the administration’s point guard, running the offense from the same playbook.  He, too, blamed social media – repeatedly – for ISIS’s organizational success, along with poverty and joblessness.  And he threw in, for good measure, the need for Congress to fully fund Homeland Security while disregarding the president’s executive amnesty edicts.

Absurd.  Blaming social media for the ISIS atrocities is like blaming Hitler’s World War II barbarity on the telephone.  And, as George Will pointed out, singling out poverty as the cause of terrorism is “an insult to poor and jobless people all over the world who don’t strap bombs onto their women and children and send them into shopping centers to kill innocent strangers.”  Not to mention, most ISIS terrorists are far from destitute, according to CNN’s national security analyst Peter Bergen.

But here’s why I have to give the “pat on the butt”.

This week Congress will have a hearing and likely a vote on whether to turn control of the Internet over to the FCC by classifying it as a public utility.  The “Net Neutrality” issue has been misrepresented, misreported, and remains totally misunderstood by most Americans, and unfortunately by most of our legislators, who swallow the warm, fuzzy claims that we poor citizens must be protected from the money-hungry huge corporations who want to deny us fair access to the internet.  Government good!  Competitive free internet bad!  In reality, it is yet another federal power-grab that would result in poorer internet access and performance, loss of privacy to government snooping, and huge profits for a select few crony corporations at taxpayer expense.  (Is it any wonder Time Warner / ComCast is a huge supporter of net neutrality?)

Concurrently, the Obama administration is pushing for a new blowout budget with higher spending on social programs, and they want Congress to release its hold on funding Homeland Security and allow Obama’s executive amnesty edicts to continue unfettered.

The administration is using the “ISIS Crisis” to drive home their real domestic agenda:  Pass Net Neutrality and give the government control of the web.  Pass the budget and give the government more taxpayer money for the ‘poor and jobless’ (mainly more government jobs).  Fund HHS without restrictions so we can open the borders and give full rights and benefits to illegal immigrants.

More government control.  More dependence on big government.  More Democrat voters.

I hate it.   I hope to hell enough thoughtful people see through it.   But Democrats, I have to give you a patt on the butt for executing a great play.

Tom Balek, Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right SideFrom Piston Pete to Doctor J,
Michael Jordan’s fadeaway,
Hip hop is the way I live
And basketball’s the game I play

March Madness is around the corner, and then the NBA playoffs!
Here is the very indiscreet, racist, misogynistic, nasty, politically incorrect and mostly funny original by Cheech and Chong – watch at your own risk, you will be offended, and I am not responsible for content!   1975 was a very different time!

 

Made in the USA – By Mexicans

mexican concrete crewMy 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.

Today, as our driveway was being installed, I had quite a discussion with the owner/operator of our concrete finishing company.  Alex (not actual name) is a legal Mexican immigrant and has been doing business in the US for almost twenty years.  He went through channels, got a green card, and studied English for two years.  Alex pursued the American dream, and got it.  He has handled several segments of our construction project, and does top quality work at a fair price.  Working in the same space every day we got to know each other and today we spent some time discussing business and politics.

Alex’s business is doing well.  In fact, there is much more demand for his work than he can fulfill.  He would like to hire more employees and expand his business, but he can’t see a way to do it and still maintain quality.  As a retired corporate manager and business owner, I offered some growth strategies and personnel practices that have worked for me.  But his circumstances are quite different than mine were.  You see, all of his employees are (probably) illegal Mexican immigrants.

In fact, almost all of the residential construction work in the Carolinas is being performed by illegal Mexican immigrants.

Why?  Have Mexican immigrants taken all of the construction jobs because they will work for lower wages than American tradesmen?  Are American men now too lazy or pampered to take on the difficult, physical work required in the construction trades?  Have our schools convinced every American student that anyone who doesn’t pursue a college degree and a desk job is a failure?  Did our government over-regulate our traditional construction businesses into extinction, so that only “under-the-radar” groups of illegal immigrants can function at a feasible cost?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

But there’s more to it than that.  I talked with another general contractor today who was interested in hiring Alex and his crew for some of his projects, only to learn they are over-booked.  “It’s a shame,” he said.  “Most of the (American) subcontractors went broke during the housing bust five years ago, and they aren’t coming back.”

Alex and many entrepreneurial Mexicans like him are able to seize the market opportunities because they are connected to the available army of illegal Mexican immigrant workers.  Alex can find them, hire them, manage them, communicate with them, and help them with the considerable personal challenges they face working in the shadows of American life.   Still, his business growth is limited because he employs these men.  “My business can’t grow,” he said.  “None of my workers can advance to be managers because they don’t even try to learn to speak English.”  He would employ English-speaking American construction workers, but there just aren’t any.  It’s a very complex business model.

I had heard that Latinos are being barraged with liberal propaganda, painting conservatives, Republicans and especially Tea Party guys as hateful monsters to be avoided and feared.  So I made it a point to tell my new Mexican friend Alex that I am a conservative.  Tea Party, even.

Alex winced.  “I’m not a monster,” I said.  “I’m not a racist and a hater.  You know me.  You can’t believe the stuff you hear in the media.”

“Well, the conservatives don’t want to allow any immigration,” he said.

“Not true,” I countered.  “We want LEGAL immigration for people who can bring value to our country.  What we don’t want is  dangerous, uncontrolled borders, or slackers coming here to take advantage of taxpayer-funded benefits.   And we DO want our legal immigrants to assimilate – to become patriotic, law-abiding, productive Americans, not Mexicans who just happen to live in the US.”

Like you, Alex.  Without you, and men like you, there would be no new homes under construction in my neighborhood right now.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Save me from this prison, Lord, help me get away
‘Cause only You can save me now from this misery
‘Cause I’ve been lost in my own place
And I’m getting’ weary, how far is Heaven?
And I know I need to change my ways of livin’
How far is Heaven?
My favorite Mexican band – Los Lonely Boys! (this song is also on my set list)

Workin’ in the USA – the ‘Saudi Way’

The United States is looking more like Saudi Arabia every day.  Check out this week’s headlines:

Labor Participation Rate Drops To Lowest Since 1978

 

Natives accounted for most of the growth in population,
but all employment growth went to immigrants

So what, you say, does this have to do with Saudi Arabia?

Saudi Arabia was a poor country until the 1930s when the world developed a thirst for oil and discovered that this desolate desert nation, barely more than a collection of loosely-related tribes, had a lot of it.  In the years since, the demand for oil increased exponentially, and so did the wealth of the ruling families who controlled the land from which it is extracted.

It wasn’t long before these wealthy Saudis no longer needed to perform any physical work.  There was so much money flowing into the country that the ruling families shared it liberally – first with anyone who could claim to be a blood relative, no matter how distant, and later (in smaller increments) to anyone who had family roots there.  Eventually most native Saudis could choose whether or not they wished to work.  Many didn’t, and those who did were far removed from anything that resembled physical labor.

photo by Vocativ.comThere 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.

In Saudi Arabia, the second-class immigrants do the work, enduring slave-wages, appalling conditions and all forms of abuse, while the native-born and well-connected enjoy a leisurely lifestyle.  Children and women get the worst of it.  But Saudi Arabia’s gravy-train won’t last forever.  Their oil reserves are depleting, and other nations are learning to develop their own energy sources.  Saudi Arabia will soon face some major challenges and changes – the current path is not tenable.

Does this sound familiar?

Go to any residential construction site in the United States.  You will see few, if any, native-born Americans in the craft or labor jobs.  Here In the Carolinas, most are illegal immigrants from Mexico.  They are working hard, and some do high quality work (many don’t).  They earn substantially less than American-born construction workers did ten years ago.  Twenty years ago.  Thirty years ago.

You see, native-born Americans, like the Saudis, can now choose whether or not they wish to work.  Many don’t, and those that do are usually far removed from anything that resembles physical labor.  Where the Saudis’ wealth comes exclusively from oil, our American wealth was built up by the sweat and skill of our parents and grandparents, and is further being borrowed from our children.  We are racking up debt and printing fiat currency so that right now half of us no longer have to work.  Like the Saudis, we are bringing in legions of hungry, foreign workers to do our labor.

At some point they, too, will tire of slave-wages and bad treatment, and will rebel.  The United States, like the Saudis, will soon face major challenges and changes – the current path is not tenable.  But fortunately, we have options the Saudis do not.  We still have rich, untapped energy resources.  And we have many other opportunities to create wealth, if our liberal government will allow it.

Our liberal friends, including our president, would love to erase the borders and bring in hordes of cheap immigrant laborers (and, they hope, future government-dependent Democrat voters).  I hope they will look at Saudi Arabia’s predicament and get a grip on the immigrant labor situation before we completely forget how to work.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

 

Some days won’t ever end,
And some days pass on by
All be workin’ here forever
At least until I die

Workin’ For A Livin’ – Huey Lewis

 

A favorite from my very own set list – rockin’ live version by my man Huey!