Refugees Knockin’ At the Door – Don’t Let ‘Em In

(AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

(AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

Someone’s knockin’ at the door! Somebody’s ringing the bell!

President Obama sings, “Open the door, and let ’em in.”

Never mind that public opinion weighs heavily against allowing Syrian refugees to resettle in the United States. Or that one of the ISIS thugs who brutally murdered Parisians this week is thought to have used a fake Syrian passport, throwing question on whether refugees can be vetted. Or that thirty-one governors (at last count) are opposed to to importing Syrian refugees.

Other governors, like Republican Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Democrat Steve Bullock of Montana are doing the Kabuki dance on the refugee issue. They were for it before they were against it, and then for it again, kinda, but maybe against it. That kind of Charlie Brown leadership does not enhance political resumes.

Republican presidential candidates? Lock the door. Democrats? Let ’em in.

Refugee resettlement advocates would have us believe that this is not such a big deal – it’s only about a relatively small number of Syrians, most of whom are abused Christians, who are seeking refuge in the United States. If only that were true – any of it.

In the first six weeks of this year 98% of all Syrian refugees resettled in the U.S. were Sunni Muslim. At least 75% of the immigrants flooding into Europe every day through doors specifically swung open for Syrians are not Syrian, and are not refugees. They are opportunists from third-world countries all over Africa and the Middle East, seeking economic benefits. Why shouldn’t we expect the same in the U.S., especially since nearly all refugees here are on food stamps, cash welfare, and other government benefits, according to the Office of Refugee Resettlement?

Not mentioned by the refugee advocates are all the others who are arriving here – the unvetted non-Syrian refugees, the fake asylum seekers, or the illegals who overstayed visas or walked across our porous borders. The recent election of a refugee-happy prime minister to our north doesn’t brighten the situation.

Don’t fall for the crocodile tears. This is not a question of charity – those who clamor for more immigration and refugee resettlement are taking food from the mouths of our own hungry, jobs from our own unemployed, and the hope for a safe nation with traditional American values from our own children. There is no comparing today’s immigration and refugee situation with Ellis Island. This is nothing short of an invasion of our home by people who want to replace us, not join us.

If altruism demands that we help those truly in need, let’s help them in their home countries.  Let’s help them defeat their oppressors, if that’s the cause of their misery.  But if they won’t defend their own homes and families, and come knocking at our door demanding our food, shelter, and safety, we have no choice.

Close the door. Don’t let ’em in.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Someone’s knockin’ at the door,
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell,
Someone’s knockin’ at the door,
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell,
Do me a favor, open the door
And let ’em in!

Let ‘Em In – Paul McCartney

Stop Those Montana Extremists!

Montana BASE 2A group of “responsible” Republican Montana legislators, led by Sen. Jim Peterson, Sen. Llew Jones, and Sen. Ed Buttrey, has banded together to “stand up against political extremists.”  The group, Montana Business Advocates for Sensible Elections (BASE), is seeking donations from businesses, for whom they promise protection from the forces of evil.

Who are these extremist bad guys?  Democrats?  Environmental whackos?  Overreaching federal bureaucrats?  Al Qaeda?  Nope, Montana BASE says the bad guys are:  conservative Republicans.  I guess these would be the “irresponsible” Republicans, the other 93%.

The BASE website warns:

“. . .  an extremist group of outsiders has begun operating within the Republican community. These zealots rarely understand or even care about business friendly economic conditions or jobs, yet frequently choose to attack Republican Business Candidates over social issues, state militias, or other non-business issues.  We must recruit problem solvers as the antidote to extremism.”

The group’s website bullet-points say education is good, natural resources are good, infrastructure is good.  High insurance rates and frivolous lawsuits are bad.  Pretty fresh, out-of-the-box thinking, eh?  I guess they think this distinguishes them from the “extremist” Republicans.  Looking at the list of claimed legislative victories on their website, I have to question – how did those bills get passed without voting help from the “extremists” they want to eliminate?

What they don’t mention is any concern about federal overreach into state affairs, restrictive state administration and regulations, or Montana’s massive unfunded liabilities, largely due to union government pensions.  They don’t promote running the business of Montana using Zero Based Budgeting, as every private business does.  The tax reductions they claim to have supported were vetoed, yet they claim as successes increased spending on government projects.

Senator Peterson and Montana BASE joined forces with Democrat Governor Bullock against “dark money” after, according to the AP, “some Republicans were attacked in primaries last year as too liberal by anonymous conservative groups.”  No mention of unions (mostly government employees), and the corrupt kickback scheme that is the butter to Democrat bread.  And there is an unsettling similarity between the enforcement features of Peterson’s dark money bill and the actions of the IRS against conservative groups which are currently under intense national scrutiny.

Another strange bedfellow emerges, as Montana BASE has aligned with and frequently quotes the Center for Public Integrity, which claims to be “one of the country’s oldest and largest nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organizations.”  Nonprofit, maybe – but nonpartisan?  A quick look at their board of directors reveals a Who’s Who of liberal media bigwigs:  a half-dozen hotshots from NPR and the NY Times; a class-action tort lawyer extraordinaire; Arianna Huffington (needs no introduction); Steve Kroft (60 Minutes correspondent and Barack Obama’s favorite reporter), Henrick-Jan Laseur (UNICEF/Union for Conservation of Nature/SustainAbility/Agenda 21), Dr. Gilbert Omenn (associate director of OMB for Jimmy Carter).  Every business in Montana should want to be advised by Jimmy Carter’s Office of Mgmt. and Budget, wouldn’t you think?

I can’t criticize the “responsible” Republicans for any position they take on bills or issues.  They are elected representatives and their votes should reflect the wishes of their constituents and their best individual judgments.  But I can see why some constituents are alarmed when their representative campaigns one way and then sides with the opposition after the election.  The voters in Sen. Peterson’s own district did not view the redistricting loss of their elected Republican seat to a Democrat from a distant district as “responsible”.   As Senate president, Peterson had, or should have had, considerable influence over redistricting.

Senator Peterson and friends have been roundly criticized for voting with the Democrats and against the majority of Republicans in the Montana Senate.  How does voting against the majority of one’s party, on its own, make one “responsible”?  Would any Democrat break ranks to vote with the Republicans?  Who are the extremists?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Rockin' On the Right Side

Darling, I don’t know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low, there ain’t no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It’s all or nothing at all
Darling, I don’t know why I go to extremes

I Go To Extremes – Billy Joel

Come On, Bullock! 78,000 Duplicate License Plates?

The Montana Dept. of Justice sure has a beautiful new website.  The first link on the DOJ’s main web page takes the user to a slick advertisement for Steve Bullock, Democrat candidate for governor, paid for by Montana taxpayers.  Beneath a huge photo of the handsome, smiling attorney general are glowing reviews like this:

A native Montanan and father of three, Bullock aspires to make Montana safer, especially for children and families. At the beginning of his term in January of 2009, Bullock identified four priorities and has worked with lawmakers, local law enforcement officers, therapists and others to turn his ideas into results.

His employees sure did a top-quality job on that web page.  And how nice that he cares about the children (see this post).

Wouldn’t it be nice if Bullock’s staff would work as hard at keeping license plate numbers straight?

A year ago at a meeting of the Legislative Audit Committee, the DOJ admitted that even though they were “aware” of numerous data integrity problems in their new (2009)  $28 million Merlin computer system,  they had not yet made an effort to correct the errors.

The performance audit for 2012 included transaction testing and interviews with staff, county employees, and patrons.  The auditors reported that many errors occurred during the conversion process from the old system that were still not fixed at the time of the audit.  Other problems resulted from  a program “sequencing error” in 2011 which was subsequently corrected, but the bad data remains.

The auditors pointed out that the lien information on many vehicle records was faulty – the MVD had failed to remove liens from registrations when they were paid, or when a vehicle registration was transferred to a new owner.  Nice.

But even worse, the audit identified over 78,000 duplicate license plates in the Merlin system.  State Senator Eric Moore found that his gooseneck trailer was identified as a red Chevy truck – stolen, by the way.  One can only imagine the havoc these duplicate plates and numbers have created for vehicle owners, insurance companies, and law enforcement officers.   Still, Bullock’s staff isn’t in any big hurry to get the problem solved.  They hope to have “a substantial part of the project done by November of 2012.”

In his defense, I guess Bullock doesn’t have a lot of spare time to supervise his Dept. of Justice operations.  I mean, there are all of those Democrat fundraisers to attend.

Hey, I know!  Let’s get the state employees who designed the “Bullock for Governor” web page on the DOJ website to work on the Merlin system!  They obviously know what they are doing!

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
(thanks to M for the tip on this story)

Jive talkin, you’re telling me lies, yeah
Jive talkin’, you wear a disguise
Jive talkin’, so misunderstood, yeah
Jive talkin’, you just ain’t no good

Jive Talkin’ – the Bee Gees

How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

Last night I got an amusing “push poll” telephone call from the Democrats about the Montana governor’s race.

From Wikipedia: A push poll is an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. Little or no effort is made to collect and analyze response data. Instead, the push poll is a form of telemarketing-based propaganda and rumor mongering, masquerading as a poll.

The use of push polls as a political tactic has grown tremendously in recent years, as campaigns have realized that direct marketing calls on behalf of their candidates just don’t work.  Depending on the political orientation of the receiver, honest political messages either “preach to the choir” or are summarily rejected.  So the campaigns must rely on deceit to win votes.

I rather enjoy receiving a push poll call, especially from “the other side”, because it gives me insight into how stupid the political organizations think we are.

Would you say this call makes you annoyed, disgusted, or homicidal?

I always ask the telemarketer (usually a young, oh-so-polite female) if she can identify who commissioned the poll, knowing that the answer will be:  “I’m sorry, but I am not allowed to know who is requesting this information – I just work for the XYZ Research Company.”

This call started out with the usual classification queries: do I consider myself a Democrat, Republican, or Independent?  If I had to vote today, would I vote for Hill (the Republican) or Bullock (the Democrat)?   Then came the obligatory effort to feign neutrality by asking a few mildly provocative questions about each party’s candidate.

And then the fun began.  “Please state the level of your concern when you hear the following question:  It has been reported that Rick Hill has supported euthanizing all senior citizens and wants to cut education budgets by eliminating cafeterias and making children eat insects for lunch in the school restrooms.  Would you say you are very concerned, somewhat concerned, concerned, not very concerned, or not at all concerned?”

It’s tempting to “mess with” the caller.  “Well, it depends on how much we have to spend on those insects . . .”   But the girl on the other end of the phone is just a kid making minimum wage, totally oblivious to what she is doing, or why.  I usually try to gently educate, but I can’t claim much success.

The “poll” questions are always multiple-choice.  Just once I wish I could answer fill-in-the-blank.  My answer would be:  “How stupid do you think we are?”

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

What kind of fool
(What kind of fool do you think I am)
Do you think I am now
(What kind of fool do you think I am)

What Kind Of Fool (Do You Think I Am) – the Tams