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AMERICANS AREN’T THE ONLY ONES WHO HATE ILLEGAL ALIENS: PART ONE (OF FIVE)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 3, 2024 at 12:14 am

“Good fences make good neighbors.”   

Robert Frost penned those famous words in his 1914 poem, “Mending Wall.”    

For millions of Americans, illegal immigration is the issue empowering the candidacy of Donald Trump to regain the Presidency.

For them, Frost’s opening line has morphed into something different: “Something there is that truly loves a wall.” 

A September 16, 2022 article in The Daily Mail headlined:

“America’s $78B Bill for Teaching Schoolkids With Poor English is Rising by BILLIONS in Biden-era Immigration Surge, Study Says, and 76,000 New Language Instructors Are a Tall Order in a Teacher Shortage.”

Among its findings: 

  • One million public school students—ranging from kindergarten to high school—need special training in speaking and writing English.
  • It costs $78 billion each year to educate them.
  • Texas, California, Florida and New York are among the states most burdened with such students.
  • Only three percent of these students are proficient in English when they graduate from high school.
  • These costs are raised by billions owing to an unceasing tide of illegal alien children at the southern border.

These alarming statistics were produced by a study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). 

The 5.1 million students lacking English language skills need help in all their classes.

As a result, it costs 15 to 20 percent more to educate them than American-born students who grow up learning English.

Illegal alien climbing over the border fence in Brownsville, Texas

With the United States facing a severe teacher shortage, some states have lowered their hiring rules to recruit teachers with only a high school diploma.

In 2020, the 5.1 million illegal alien students in public schools cost American taxpayers $78 billion—an $18.8 billion jump from the cost in 2016.

Of those students, 1.15 million were in California, costing the state $19.5 billion. One million more lived in Texas, costing that state $11.4 billion. And 278,000 lived in Florida, at a cost of $3.1 billion.

Only 370,000 teachers nationwide are trained to teach them, and 76,000 more will be needed during the next five years. 

Immigration remains a highly divisive issue among Americans. “Red” Republican states want to close borders. “Blue” Democratic states are more open to newcomers.

Yet even famously liberal enclaves of support for illegal aliens like New York are beginning to have second thoughts about taking in unlimited numbers of uninvited foreigners. 

On October 7, 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in response to the city’s migrant crisis, which he said would cost the city $1 billion that

fiscal year. 

Nancy Pelosi and Eric Adams at the Speaker's Balcony (cropped).jpg

Eric Adams

“We now have a situation where more people are arriving in New York City than we can immediately accommodate, including families with babies and young children,” Adams said.

“Once the asylum seekers from today’s buses are provided shelter, we would surpass the highest number of people in recorded history in our city’s shelter system.”

Behind this unwanted influx lies Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

By the first week of October, 2022, Texas had spent more than $18 million busing illegal aliens found in Texas to famously liberal supporters of illegal immigration: Washington D.C., New York City and Chicago. 

Abbott announced the program in April as his response to the Biden administration’s immigration policies. 

Abbott, 2015

Greg Abbott

In October, 2023, New York City had 90,578 people in its shelter system. Thousands of these are American citizens who are homeless. They are competing for assistance with illegal aliens who were bused to New York City from the southern border since April, 2022.

Three Communist-ruled countries—Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba—are responsible for this huge surge in illegal aliens and their continuing drain on America’s schools, housing and hospitals (among other facilities).

Rising levels of repression, food shortages and economic stability are motivating Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans to enter the United States. And assisting them is the longtime policy of the United States government to automatically accept those leaving Communist countries as refugees.

At some point, the United States must face the economic and social absurdity of allowing some cities and states to provide sanctuary to every illegal alien who appears.

Even Eric Adams, emphasizing that New York City remains a sanctuary city, warns it cannot cope with such an overwhelming influx of migrants:

“We are not telling anyone that New York can accommodate every migrant in the city. We’re not encouraging people to send eight, nine buses a day….We’re saying that as a sanctuary city with right to shelter, we’re going to fulfill that obligation. That’s what we’re doing.”

Abbott clearly believes he has the right to inflict thousands of illegal aliens on other states. And illegal aliens clearly believe they have the right to demand unlimited access to the United States.

At some point, America must stop allowing itself to be a dumping-ground for other countries’ unwanteds. 

* * * * *

An “open door” policy proved essential 200 years ago, when most of America was unsettled and largely unpopulated.

But the United States is no longer a largely unpopulated, agricultural country. Most of its population lives in coastal cities—which is where most illegal aliens tend to settle as well.

Space is limited in schools, hospitals and housing, and the more people who cram into limited spaces, the more frictions they inevitably create.

AMERICA’S CHOICE IN 2024: FREEDOM–OR FASCISM

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 2, 2024 at 12:11 am

On November 22, 2019, Mark Shields—a liberal syndicated columnist—and David Brooks—a conservative one for The New York Timesreached disturbingly similar conclusions about President Donald Trump’s attempt to extort “a favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky..

Trump had blocked a congressionally mandated $400-million military aid package to Ukraine to pressure Zelensky to smear former Vice President Joe Biden and thus jeopardize his presumed 2020 candidacy for President.

DAVID BROOKS: “What strikes me [is] that everyone was in the loop, that this was not something they tried to hide.

“This was just something they thought was the way politics gets done or foreign policy gets done, that there’s no division between personal gain and public service.”

MARK SHIELDS: “People talked about Lyndon Johnson being a fearsome political leader….[Trump] strikes fear into the hearts of Republicans up and down the line. And I think that….has been eye-opening in its dimensions.”

Related image

David Brooks and Mark Shields

Nor did the GOP try to reign Trump in.

In a November 14, 2019 column, “Republicans Can’t Abandon Trump Now Because They’re All Guilty,” freelance journalist Joel Mathis warned: “Trump’s abuses of power mirror those of the GOP as a whole. Republicans can’t turn on him, because doing so would be to indict their party’s entire approach to politics.”

For example:

  • At the state level, GOP legislatures have passed numerous voter ID laws over the last decade. Officially, the reason has been to prevent non-citizens from voting. In reality, the motive is to depress turnout among Democratic constituencies.
  • When Democrats have won elections, Republicans have tried to block them from carrying out their policies. In Utah, voters approved Medicaid expansion at the ballot box—but Republicans nullified this.
  • In North Carolina, Republican legislators prevented voters from choosing their representatives. Instead, Republican representatives chose voters through partisan sorting. In September, the state’s Supreme Court ruled the legislative gerrymandered district map unconstitutional.

The upshot of all this: “The president and his party are united in the belief that their entitlement to power allows them to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes….”

Republican Disc.svg

GOP logo.svg

On November 21, 2019, Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, attacked Republicans’ total rejection of the overwhelming evidence linking Trump with extortion:

Adam Schiff official portrait.jpg

Adam Schiff

“But apparently, it’s all hearsay. Even when you actually hear the President….that’s hearsay. We can’t rely on people saying what the President said. Apparently, we can only rely on what the President says, and there, we shouldn’t even rely on that either….

“We should imagine he said something about actually fighting corruption, instead of what he actually said, which was, ‘I want you to do us a favor, though. I want you to look into this 2016 CrowdStrike conspiracy theory, and I want you to look into the Bidens.’

“I guess we’re not even supposed to rely on that because that’s hearsay….That would be like saying you can’t rely on the testimony of the burglars during Watergate because it’s only hearsay, or you can’t consider the fact that they tried to break in because they got caught. They actually didn’t get what they came for, so, you know, kind of no harm, no foul. That’s absurd.

“The difference between [Watergate and Trump’s attempted extortion of Ukraine] is not the difference between [Richard] Nixon and [Donald] Trump. It’s the difference between that Congress and this one. And so, we are asking, where is Howard Baker? Where are the people who are willing to go beyond their party to look to their duty? 

“But the other defense besides ‘It failed, the scheme failed, they got caught,’ the other defense is ‘The President denies it.’ Well, I guess that’s case closed, right?

“….This President believes he is above the law, beyond accountability. And in my view, there is nothing more dangerous than an unethical President who believes they are above the law.”

* * * * *

The United States has indeed become a polarized country. But it’s not the polarization between Republicans and Democrats, or between conservatives and liberals.

It’s the polarization between

  • Those intent on enslaving everyone who doesn’t subscribe to their Fascistic beliefs and agenda—and those who resist being enslaved. 
  • Those who believe in reason and science—and those who believe in an infallible “strong man” who rejects both.
  • Those who cherish education—and those who celebrate ignorance.
  • Those who believe in the rule of law—and those who believe in their right to act as a law unto themselves.
  • Those who believe in treating others (especially the less fortunate) with decency—and those who believe in the triumph of intimidation and force.

Those who hoped that Republicans would choose patriotism over partisanship got their answer on February 5, 2020. That was when the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Donald Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.

It’s natural to regret that the United States has become a sharply divided nation. But those who lament this should realize there is only one choice:

Either non-Fascist Americans will destroy the Republican party and its voters that threaten to enslave them—or they will be enslaved by Republicans and their voters who believe they are entitled to manipulate and undermine the country’s democratic processes.

There is no middle ground. 

LIFE LESSONS FOR 2024—AND EVERY NEW YEAR

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Military, RELIGION, Social commentary on January 1, 2024 at 12:49 am

New Year’s Eve, 2023, will soon lie behind us.

And for many people, saying “Goodbye” to 2023 can’t happen soon enough.

New Year’s Eve is traditionally a time for people to reflect on the major events of the previous 12 months. Some of these are highly personal. Others have been shared by the entire country.

Some of these remembrances inevitably bring pleasure. Others bring pain.

And 2023 has been a year of pain for millions.

  • Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to violently assault Ukraine. Despite a series of military setbacks, he continued to hurl missiles at Russia’s “brother nation.” Many Ukrainians spent a second Christmas without electricity or running water.
  • On October 7, the Hamas terrorist group launched an attack on Israel, slaughtering 1,400 men, women and children and kidnapping at least 250 others. Israel responded with massive airstrikes and ground assault on Gaza, killing upwards of 20,000.

Emblem of Hamas

  • In the United States, Donald Trump continued to lie that he had been cheated of victory in the 2020 Presidential election. His lie resonated with millions of Fascistic Americans, including members of Congress.
  • And he prepared to run again for President—even as he faced 91 felony counts in four criminal cases. Determined to make himself “President-for-Life,” he posed the single greatest threat to American democracy in its history.

But 2023 also brought reason for hope:

  • Republicans remained lethal but divided, ousting Kevin McCarthy, their own Speaker of the House and threatening to cannibalize others in their quest for dictatorial power.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic had been largely contained, although the virus posed a lethal threat to those refusing to get vaccinated.
  • Conscious of the dangers of climate change, Americans made wind, solar and hydropower more than 20 percent of the power supply.

Every New Year’s Eve celebration brings the fantasy that you get to start fresh in a matter of hours. And with that fantasy comes hope—that, this time, you can put your sorrows and failures behind you. 

And each new year comes with lessons to be learned—and applied.

Each year gives us the chance to learn from history—our own and that of others. Try to learn from your mistakes—and especially those of others. With luck, you won’t repeat your past ones—or those of others. But don’t expect to lead a mistake-free life. 

There is a time to be bold—and a time to be cautious. As Niccolo Machiavelli put it: “A prince….must imitate the fox and the lion: For the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.”  Learn to tell when is the appropriate time to be which—and to play that role to the hilt. 

Niccolo Machiavelli

There is image—and there is reality.  J.P. Morgan once said: “A man always has two reasons for doing anything: A good reason and the real reason.” This is never truer than when a corporation or politician is asking for your money / vote.

When trying to decide whether to commit yourself to either, ask yourself: Who benefits? For example: When studying a proposed law that claims to aid the environment, find out who supports it. That will usually tell you what you need to know.

Learn how to evaluate others. Once again, Niccolo Machiavelli supplies the answer: “The first impression that one gets of a ruler and his brains is from seeing the men that he has about him. When they are competent and loyal one can always consider him wise, as he has been able to recognize their ability and keep them faithful. 

“But when they are the reverse, one can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.” 

Don’t confuse wealth with virtue. Too many Americans believe that God bestows wealth on the worthy. If this were true, every Mafia boss would be a candidate for sainthood.  

Each year is a journey unto itself—filled with countless joys and sorrows. Many of these joys can’t be predicted. And many of these tragedies can’t be prevented.

Learn to tell real dangers from imaginary ones. Computers are real—and sometimes they crash. Men who died 2,000 years ago do not leap out of graveyards, no matter what their disciples predict.

Don’t expect any particular year to usher in the Apocalypse. In any given year there will be wars, famines, earthquakes, riots, floods and a host of other disasters. These have always been with us—and always will be. As Abraham Lincoln once said: “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.” 

159,687 Fireworks Stock Photos - Free & Royalty-Free Stock Photos from Dreamstime

Don’t expect some Great Leader to lead you to success. As Gaius Cassius says in William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”: “Men at some time are masters of their fate. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.”

Don’t expect any particular year or event to usher in your happiness. To again quote Lincoln: “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

If your life seems to make no sense to you, consider this: The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once noted: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”