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Posts Tagged ‘MEXICO’

CLOSING THE REVOLVING MEXICAN DOOR: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 2, 2016 at 11:22 am

Except in times of war, no nation has ever been invaded by so many alien residents as the United States.

Throughout 2014, tens of thousands of unaccompanied Hispanic minors–all of them uninvited–illegally entered the United States through the Mexican border.

They are backed up by an estimated 11 to 20 million illegal aliens now living more or less openly throughout the country.

Just as sheer numbers of Mexicans overwhelmed the defenders of the Alamo, this similar Hispanic tidal wave has overwhelmed immigration officials.

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Mexicans storming the Alamo – March 6, 1836 

It’s also forced the Obama administration to declare a humanitarian crisis and open three emergency shelters on military bases in California, Oklahoma and Texas.

The invasion is taking its greatest toll in cities that already have large numbers of immigrants–such as New York and Los Angeles.

Newly-arrived alien children and their relatives are flooding into schools and hospitals that are supposedly intended for American citizens.  No sooner do they cross the border than they aggressively seek legal aid in converting their illegal arrival into a lifelong legal stay.

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Mexicans storming the United States border – today

For years, Republicans and Democrats have clashed over the subject of illegal immigration. Each side has taken what seems to be an opposing position.

Democrats favor wholesale grants of unearned citizenship to the estimated 11 to 20 million illegal aliens who brazenly violated the law when they sneaked across American borders.

And Republicams favor beefing up security against future waves of such invaders.

But the brutal truth is that neither Democrats nor Republicans truly want to end these invasions.  Nor do they want to deport the millions of illegals who have already taken up residence here.

Each party has its own reasons for this.

Democrats, primarily governed by liberal ideology, believe it’s racist for whites to demand control of their own national borders.

They ignore the blunt reality that Mexico–America’s largest source of illegal aliens–strictly enforces control of its own borders.

Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:  

  • In the country legally;
  • Have the means to sustain themselves economically;
  • Not destined to be burdens on society;
  • Of economic and social benefit to society;
  • Of good character and have no criminal records; and
  • Contribute to the general well-being of the nation.

The law also ensures that:

  • Immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
  • Foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
  • Foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
  • Foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
  • Foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
  • Those who aid in illegal immigration are sent to prison.

But there’s another reason why Democrats are keen to grant automatic citizenship to millions of illegal aliens: They see them as a huge constituency.

They don’t care that these illegals’ defiance of American immigration laws:  

  • Floods the United States with millions of poor non-citizens who don’t speak English;
  • Overwhelms the public school system with children–who also don’t speak English–who require bilingual education;
  • Overwhelms the public healthcare system–especially emergency rooms–with illegal aliens. As a result, urgently-needed medical care is often denied to American citizens.

Click here: Cost of Unlawful Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayers

But Republicans are equally guilty of refusing to take a hard stand against deporting those whose presence is a blatant affront to America’s immigration laws.

There are two reasons for this:  

  1. Like Democrats, Republicans want to recruit them as knee-jerk voters.  
  2. Republicans want them as low-skilled, low-wage fodder for their major campaign contributors–such as corporate farms and retail outlets like Wal-Mart.

Unlike Democrats, however, Republicans like to feign outrage at the presence of so many illegal aliens within their midst.

It’s the Republican base that’s demanding an end to illegal immigration.

Those masses of alienated and angry whites who find themselves living in a nation that’s increasingly alien from themselves.

A nation where “Press One for English” is now the norm when contacting government agencies. A nation where illegal aliens can obtain free medical care that’s denied to native-born citizens.

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American citizens protesting illegal immigration

It was enraged citizens like this who, on June 10, 2014, cost Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor his bid for re-election. Cantor’s 14-year political career crashed on the fury of Tea Party opposition to illegal immigration.

Still, the question remains: What should be done about the tens of thousands of illegals now swarming into the United States?

Democrats hasten to defend President Barack Obama’s refusal to deport en masse these violators. They claim he is the victim of unpredictable circumstances.

But they don’t offer any solution that involves wholesale deportations of such invaders. It’s as if they believe this onrushing tidal wave will somehow recede on its own momentum.

Meanwhile, Republicans essentially take the position of Mitt Romney, their failed 2012 Presidential candidate:  Self-deportation.

This way, the party doesn’t have to actually come out in favor of forcibly returning unwanted foreigners to their respective countries.

But there is a way the United States could deal with this unceasing tsunami of foreign invasions. It might be called “The Zanti Misfits” solution.

WALLING OUT ILLEGAL ALIENS: A CHEAPER WAY

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 12, 2016 at 12:04 am

According to Donald Trump, stopping illegal immigration is easy.

Just build a massive, impenetrable wall along the U.S./Mexican border to keep out Mexican immigrants.

“Building a wall is easy, and it can be done inexpensively,” Trump said in an interview. “It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.”

Really?

Among the obstacles to erecting such a barrier:

  • The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles—and encompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
  • Environmental and engineering problems.
  • Squabbles with ranchers who don’t want to give up any of their land.
  • Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
  • Drug traffickers and alien smugglers could easily tunnel under it into the United States—as they are now doing.

Click here: Trump says building a U.S.-Mexico wall is ‘easy.’ But is it really? – The Washington Post

There are, in fact, cheaper and more effective remedies for combating illegal immigration.

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Illegal aliens crossing into the United States

(1) The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement” that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.

Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.

These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.

(2)  The most effective way to combat this movement: Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities who have actively violated Federal immigration laws.

In San Francisco, for example, former District Attorney Kamala Harris—who is now Vice President of the United States—created a secret and illegal program called Back on Track, which provided training for jobs that illegal aliens could not legally hold.

She also prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting even those illegal aliens convicted of a felony. 

(3)  Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile.

City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.

And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them. 

(4)  CEOs whose companies—like Wal-Mart—systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.

They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.  

Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least 20 years.

This would prove a more effective remedy for combating illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S./Mexican border. 

CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.

(5) The Government should stop granting automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.

A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.

A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those born illegally within this country.

If they’re not here legally at the time of birth, they should not be considered citizens and should—like their parents—be subject to deportation.  

(6) The United States Government–from the President on down–should scrap its apologetic tone on the right to control its national borders.   

First Lady Michelle Obama—accompanied by Margarita Zavala, the wife of then-Mexican President Felipe Calderon—was visiting a second-grade class in Silver Spring, Maryland. 

A second-grade girl said: “My Mom, she says says that Barack Obama is taking everybody away that doesn’t have papers.” 

“Yeah, well, that’s something that we have to work on right?”

Replied Mrs. Obama. “To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right?” 

The girl then said: “But my mom doesn’t have any….”

Obama: “Well, we’ll have to work on that.  We have to fix that, and everybody’s got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens.”

The Mexican Government doesn’t consider itself racist for strictly enforcing its immigration laws. 

The United States Government should not consider itself racist for insisting on the right to do the same. 

(7) Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language: English. 

In Mexico, voting materials are published in one language—Spanish.

Throughout the United States, millions of Mexican illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish.

(8)  The United States should impose economic and even military sanctions against countries—such as China and Mexico—whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens. 

Mexico, for example, uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.

Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unfavorably high price. Otherwise those dumpings will continue.

VICTORY IN DEFEAT–THE ALAMO: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on March 6, 2016 at 12:01 am

On the night before the final Mexican assault, one man escaped the Alamo to testify to the defenders’ courage. Or so goes the most famous story of the 13-day siege.

He was Louis Rose, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars and the dreadful 1812 retreat from Moscow. Unwilling to die in a hopeless battle, he slipped over a wall and sneaked through Mexican siege lines.

At Grimes County, he found shelter at the homestead of Abraham and Mary Ann Zuber. Their son, William, later claimed that his parents told him of Rose’s visit–and his story of Travis’ “line in the sand” speech.

In 1873, he published the tale in the Texas Almanac.

But many historians believe it is a fabrication. The story comes to us third-hand–from Rose to the Zubers to their son. And it was published 37 years after the Alamo fell.  

Even if Travis didn’t draw a line in the sand, every member of the garrison, by remaining to stay, had crossed over his own line.

After a 12-day siege, Santa Anna decided to overwhelm the Alamo.

Some of his officers objected. They wanted to wait for bigger siege cannon to arrive–to knock down the Alamo’s three-feet-thick adobe walls. Without shelter, the defenders would be forced to surrender.

But Santa Anna insisted on an all-out assault: “Without blood and tears, there is no glory.”

The first assault came at about 5 a.m. on Sunday, March 6, 1836.

The fort’s riflemen–aided by 14 cannons–repulsed it. And the second assault as well.

But the third assault proved unstoppable. The Alamo covered three acres, and held at most 250 defenders–against 2,000 Mexican soldiers.

When the Mexicans reached the fort, they mounted scaling ladders and poured over the walls.

Travis was one of the first defenders to fall–shot through the forehead after firing a shotgun into the Mexican soldiery below.

Death of William Barrett Travis (waving sword)

Mexicans broke into the room where the ailing James Bowie lay.

In Three Roads to the Alamo, historian William C. Davis writes that Bowie may have been unconscious or delirious. Mistaking him for a coward, the soldiers bayoneted him and blew out his brains.

But some accounts claim that Bowie died fighting–shooting two Mexicans with pistols, then plunging his famous knife into a third before being bayoneted. Nearly every Alamo movie depicts Bowie’s death this way.


James Bowie’s death

As the Mexicans poured into the fort, at least 60 Texans tried to escape over the walls into the surrounding prairie. But they were quickly dispatched by lance-bearing Mexican cavalry.

The death of David Crockett remains highly controversial.

Baby boomers usually opt for the Walt Disney version: Davy swinging “Old Betsy” as Mexicans surround him. Almost every Alamo movie depicts him fighting to the death.

"The Fall of the Alamo" by Robert Jenkins, 1903. Davy Crockett (with upraised rifle) fights off Mexican forces who breached the walls of the mission on March 6, 1836.

David Crockett’s Death

But Mexican Lieutenant Colonel Jose Enrique de la Pena claimed Crockett was one of seven Texans who surrendered or were captured and brought before Santa Anna after the battle. Santa Anna ordered their immediate execution, and they were hacked to death with sabers.

Only the 2004 remake of The Alamo has dared to depict this version. Although this version is now accepted by most historians, some still believe the de la Pena diary from which it comes is a forgery.

An hour after the battle erupted, it was over.

That afternoon, Santa Anna ordered the bodies of the slain defenders stacked and burned in three pyres.

Contrary to popular belief, some of the garrison survived:

  • Joe, a black slave who had belonged to William B. Travis, the Alamo’s commander;
  • Susanah Dickinson, the wife of a lieutenant killed in the Alamo, and her baby, Angelina;
  • Several Mexican women and their children.

Also contrary to legend, the bravery of the Alamo defenders did not buy time for Texas to raise an army against Santa Anna. This didn’t happen until after the battle.

But their sacrifice proved crucial in securing Texas’ independence:

  • The Alamo’s destruction warned those Texans who had not supported the revolution that they had no choice: They must win, die or flee their homes to the safety of the United States.
  • It stirred increasing numbers of Americans to enter Texas and enlist in Sam Houston’s growing army.
  • Santa Anna’s army was greatly weakened, losing 600 killed and wounded–a casualty rate of 33%.
  • The nearly two-week siege bought time for the Texas convention to meet at Washington-on-the-Brazos and declare independence from Mexico.

On April 21, 1836, Santa Anna made a crucial mistake: During his army’s afternoon siesta, he failed to post sentries around his camp.

That afternoon, Sam Houston’s 900-man army struck the 1,400-man Mexican force at San Jacinto. In 18 minutes, the Texans–shouting “Remember the Alamo!”–killed about 700 Mexican soldiers and wounded 200 others.

The next day, a Texas patrol captured Santa Anna–wearing the uniform of a Mexican private. Resisting angry demands to hang the Mexican dictator, Houston forced Santa Anna to surrender control of Texas in return for his life.

The victory at San Jacinto won the independence of Texas. But the 13-day siege and fall of the Alamo remains the most famous and celebrated part of that conflict.

In 480 B.C., 300 Spartans won immortality at Thermopylae, a narrow mountain pass in ancient Greece, by briefly holding back an invading Persian army of thousands.

Although they died to the last man, their sacrifice inspired the rest of Greece to defeat its invaders. 

Like Thermopylae, the battle of the Alamo proved both a defeat–and a victory.

VICTORY IN DEFEAT–THE ALAMO: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Military on March 4, 2016 at 12:28 am

Sunday, March 6, 2016, marks the 180th anniversary of the most famous event in Texas history: The fall of the Alamo, a crumbling former Spanish mission in the heart of San Antonio.  

After a 12-day siege, 180 to 250 Texans were overwhelmed by 2,000 Mexican soldiers. 

Mexican troops advancing on the Alamo

Americans “remember the Alamo”–but usually for the wrong reasons.

Some historians believe the battle should have never been fought.

The Alamo was not Thermopylae–a narrow mountain pass blocking the Persian march into ancient Greece.  Santa Anna could have simply bypassed it.

In fact, several of Santa Anna’s generals urged the Mexican dictator to do just that–leave a small guard to hold down the fort’s defenders and wipe out the undefended, widely-separated Texas settlements.

But pride held Santa Anna fast to the Alamo. His brother-in-law, General Perfecto de Cos, had been forced to surrender the old mission to revolting Texans in December, 1835. 

Santa Anna meant to redeem the fort–and his family honor–by force.

In virtually every Alamo movie, its two co-commanders, James Bowie and William Barret Travis, are portrayed as on the verge of all-out war–with each other.

In John Wayne’s heavily fictionalized 1960 film, The Alamo, Bowie and Travis agree to fight a duel as soon as they’ve whipped the Mexicans besieging them.

James Bowie

William B. Travis

In fact, the frictions between the two lasted only a short while. Just before the siege, some of Bowie’s volunteers–a far larger group than Travis’ regulars–got drunk. 

Travis ordered them jailed–and Bowie ordered his men to release them. Bowie then went on a roaring drunk. The next day, a sober Bowie apologized to Travis and agreed they should share command. 

This proved a wise decision, for just as the siege started, Bowie was felled by worsening illness–typhoid-pneumonia or tuberculosis.

In almost every Alamo movie, Bowie repeatedly leaves the fort to ambush unsuspecting Mexicans.

In reality, he stayed bed-ridden and lay close to death throughout the 13-day siege.

The Texans intended to make a suicidal stand.

Not true.

From the first day of the siege–February 23–almost to the last–March 6, 1836–messengers rode out of the Alamo seeking help. The defenders believed that if they could cram enough men into the three-acre former mission, they could hold Santa Anna at bay.

No reinforcements reached the Alamo.

Not so. On March 1, 32 men from Gonzalez–the only ones to answer Travis’ call–sneaked through the Mexican lines to enter the Alamo.

Meanwhile, the largest Texan force lay at Fort Deviance in Goliad, 85 miles away. This consisted of 500 men commanded by James Walker Fannin, a West Point dropout.  

Fannin was better-suited for the role of Hamlet than military commander.

Upon receiving a plea of help from Travis, he set out in a halfhearted attempt to reach the mission. But when a supply wagon broke down, he returned to Fort Defiance and sat out the rest of the siege.  

When the Mexican army approached Fort Defiance, Fannin and 400 of his men panicked and fled into the desert. They were surrounded, forced to surrender, and massacred on March 27

The Alamo garrison was fully prepared to confront the Mexican army.

False.  When the Mexicans suddenly arrived in San Antonio on the morning of February 23, 1836, they caught the Texans completely by surprise.

The previous night, they had been celebrating the birthday of George Washington. The Texans rushed headlong into the Alamo, hauling all the supplies they could hastily scrounge.

Santa Anna sent a courier under a flag of truce to the Alamo, demanding unconditional surrender.  In effect, the Texans were being given the choice of later execution.

Travis replied with a shot from the fort’s biggest cannon, the 18-pounder (so named for the weight of its cannonball).

Santa Anna ordered the hoisting of a blood-red flag and the opening of an artillery salvo.  The siege of the Alamo was on.

San Houston, who was elected general of the non-existent army of Texas, desperately tried to relieve the siege.

Not so. 

At Washington-on-the-Brazos, 169 miles east of San Antonio, Texan delegates assembled to form a new government. When news reached the delegates that Travis desperately needed reinforcements, many of them wanted to rush to his defense.  

But Houston and others declared they must first declare Texas’ independence. On March 2, 1836, they did just that. Houston spent a good deal of the time drunk.

Sam Houston

Did Travis draw a line?

Easily the most famous Alamo story is that of “the line in the sand.”

On the night of March 5–just prior to the final assault–there was a lull in the near-constant Mexican bombardment. Travis assembled his men and gave them a choice:

They could try to surrender and hope that Santa Anna would be merciful.  They could try to escape.  Or they could stay and fight.  

With his sword, Travis drew a line in the dirt and invited those who would stay to cross over to him.  

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The entire garrison did–except for two men.  

One of these was bed-ridden James Bowie. He asked that his sick-bed be carried over to Travis. The other was a veteran of the Napoleonic wars–Louis Rose.

VICTORY IN DEFEAT–THE ALAMO: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Military on March 3, 2016 at 12:05 am

On March 2, 1836–180 years ago this year–Texas formally declared its independence from Mexico, of which it was then a province.

Sixty-one delegates took part in the convention held at Washington-on-the-Brazos.

Their signed statement proclaimed that the Mexican government had “ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people, from whom its legitimate powers are derived.” 

Meanwhile, 169 miles away, the siege of the Alamo–a crumbling former Spanish mission in the heart of San Antonio–had entered its ninth day. The Alamo.

The mission that became a fortress. The fortress that has since become a shrine. 

By Daniel Schwen – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

The Alamo Chapel 

The combatants: 180 to 250 Texans (or “Texians,” as many of them preferred to be called) vs. 2,000 Mexican soldiers. 

On the Texan side three names predominate: David Crockett, James Bowie and William Barret Travis. “The Holy Trinity,” as some historians ironically refer to them. 

Crockett, at 49, was the most famous man in the Alamo. He had been a bear hunter, Indian fighter and Congressman. Rare among the men of his time, he sympathized with the Indian tribes he had helped subdue in the War of 1812.

David Crockett

He believed Congress should honor the treaties made with the former hostiles and opposed President Andrew Jackson’s effort to move the tribes further West.Largely because of this, his constituents turned him out of office in November, 1835. He told them they could go to hell; he would go to Texas.

James Bowie, at 40, had been a slave trader with pirate Jean Lafitte and a land swindler. But his claim to fame lay in his skill as a knife-fighter.

James Bowie

This grew out of his participating in an 1827 duel on a sandbar in Natchez, Mississippi. Bowie was acting as a second to one of the duelists who had arranged the event.

After the two duelists exchanged pistol shots without injury, they called it a draw. But those who had come as their seconds had scores to settle among themselves–and decided to do so. A bloody melee erupted.

Bowie was shot in the hip and then impaled on a sword cane wielded by Major Norris Wright, a longtime enemy. Drawing a large butcher knife he wore at his belt, he gutted Wright, who died instantly.

The brawl became famous as the Sandbar Fight, and cemented Bowie’s reputation across the South as a deadly knife fighter.

William Barret Travis had been an attorney and militia member. Burdened by debts and pursued by creditors, he fled Alabama in 1831 to start over in Texas. Behind him he left a wife, son, and unborn daughter.

William Barret Travis

From the first, Travis burned to free Texas from Mexico and see it become a part of the United States.

In January, 1836, he was sent by the American provisional governor of Texas to San Antonio, to fortify the Alamo. He arrived there with a small party of regular soldiers and the title of lieutenant colonel in the state militia.

On the Mexican side, only one name matters: Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, president (i.e., absolute dictator) of Mexico. After backing first one general and would-be “president” after another, Santa Anna maneuvered himself into the office in 1833.

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna

Texas was then legally a part of Mexico. Stephen F. Austin, “the father of Texas,” had received a grant from Spain–which ruled Mexico until 1821–to bring in 300 American families to settle there.

The Spaniards wanted to establish a buffer between themselves and warring Indian tribes like the Comanches. These imigrations continued after Mexico threw off Spanish rule and obtained its independence.

But as Americans kept flooding into Texas, the character of its population changed, alarming its Mexican rulers.

The new arrivals did not see themselves as Mexican citizens but as transplanted Americans. They were largely Protestant, as opposed to the Catholic Mexicans. And many of them not only owned slaves but demanded the expansion of slavery–a practice illegal under Mexican law.

In October, 1835, fighting erupted between American settlers and Mexican soldiers.

In November, Mexican forces took shelter in the Alamo, which had been built in 1718 as a mission to convert Indians to Christianity. Since then it had been used as a fort–by Spanish and then Mexican troops.

Texans lay siege to the Alamo from October 16 to December 10, 1835. With his men exhausted, and facing certain defeat, General Perfecto de Cos, Santa Anna’s brother-in-law, surrendered. He gave his word to leave Texas and never take up arms again against its settlers.

Most Texans rejoiced. They believed they had won their “war” against Mexico. But others knew better.

One was Bowie. Another was Sam Houston, a former Indian fighter, Congressman and protégé of Andrew Jackson.

Still another was Santa Anna, who styled himself “The Napoleon of the West.”  In January, 1836, he set out from Mexico City at the head of an army totaling about 7,000.

He planned the 18th century version of a blitzkrieg, intending to arrive in Texas and take its “rebellious foreigners” by surprise.

His forced march proved costly in lives, but met his objective. He arrived in San Antonio with several hundred soldiers on February 23, 1836.

The siege of the Alamo–the most famous event in Texas history–was about to begin.

TRUMP: THE LORD OR THE DEVIL?

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 22, 2016 at 9:48 am

Ironically, Right-wingers, who support many of the same policies of Adolf Hitler, often attack liberals as Nazis–especially President Barack Obama.  

But now a genuine authority on Fascism has come forward to assess the front-runner for the Republican Presidential nomination.

“If Donald Trump become[s] the next president of the US it would be a complete disaster. I think he is acting like another Hitler by inciting racism.”  

So says Eva Schloss, the stepsister of Holocaust victim Anne Frank. As a survivor of Auschwitz, Schloss should know something about Nazis.

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Eva Schloss

Now 86, Schloss met Anne in Amsterdam as a fellow refugee.  Both their families had taken refuge there after fleeing Nazi Germany.

Anne Frank spent four years hiding in an attic and keeping a diary. But in 1944 she was discovered by the Nazis and sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.  

She was 15 when she died there of typhus in March 1945. After the war, Eva Schloss’ mother, Fritzi, married Otto Frank, Anne’s father.

Image result for Images of Anne Frank

Anne Frank

Eva was detained at the same time as Anne and sent to Auschwitz. She survived when the camp was liberated on January 27,1945.

In a January 27th essay for Newsweek, Schloss warned of dire consequences if Donald Trump became President.

“During his U.S. presidential campaign he has suggested the ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,’ as well as pledging to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out.”  

She was 11 when her family immigrated to Belgium after Hitler forcibly Annexed Austria in 1938.  

“We were treated as if we had come from the moon. I felt as if I wasn’t wanted and that I was different to everybody. It is even harder for today’s Syrian refugees who have a very different culture….

“I am very upset that today again so many countries are closing their borders,” said Schloss, who lives in London. “Fewer people would have died in the Holocaust if the world had accepted more Jewish refugees.”  

And on February 18, Pope Francis also waded into the 2016 Presidential race with his own assessment of Trump.  

The comment came in answer to a question by one of several reporters who were accompanying the Pope to Rome from a six-day trip to Mexico.  

What, a reporter asked the Pontiff, did he think of Trump’s campaign pledge to build a wall along the entire length of the U.S.-Mexican border and expel millions of illegal aliens now living in the United States?

“A person who only thinks about building walls, wherever they are, and not in building bridges, is not Christian,” replied the Pope. “This is not the gospel.” 

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Pope Francis

Francis said he would “give the benefit of the doubt” to Trump because he had not heard Trump’s border plans independently.

But he added: “I say only that this man is not a Christian if he has said things like that.”

Trump, a Presbyterian, responded minutes later: “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.”

Trump has repeatedly accused President Barack Obama–a self-described Christian–as a secret Muslim.

Donald Trump

On February 21, for example, he tweeted: “I wonder if President Obama would have attended the funeral of [Supreme Court] Justice [Antonin] Scalia if it were held in a mosque.”  

Obama had paid tribute to Scalia at the Supreme Court on the day prior to the funeral. He declined to attend the service because his heavy security detail might disrupt the ceremony.

“I am proud to be a Christian,” added Trump, “and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened.”  

Nor did he stop there: “If and when the Vatican is attacked by the ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president.  

“ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians.”

Trump thus implied that the Pope’s future security depended on the United States generally–and on Donald Trump in particular.  

And he clearly ignored the fact that, since September, 2014, the United States Air Force has been bombing ISIS convoys in Iraq and Syria.

Trump has long been critical of the Pope’s stand on immigration.

As the Pope undertook his trip to Mexico, Trump told Fox Business Network that he didn’t think Francis understood “the danger of the open border we have with Mexico.

“I think Mexico got him to do it because they want to keep the border just the way it is,” he said. “They’re making a fortune, and we’re losing.” 

A Vatican spokesman replied: “The pope always talks about migration problems all around the world, of the duties we have to solve these problems in a humane manner, of hosting those who come from other countries in search of a life of dignity and peace.”  

For millions of Jews and Catholics, the election of 2016 may turn on how they answer the question: Am I serving the Lord–or the devil?

WALLING OUT ILLEGAL ALIENS

In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 27, 2015 at 1:17 pm

According to Donald Trump, stopping illegal immigration is easy.

Just build a massive, impenetrable wall along the U.S./Mexican border to keep out Mexican immigrants.

“Building a wall is easy, and it can be done inexpensively,” Trump said in an interview. “It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.”

Really?

Among the obstacles to erecting such a barrier:

  • The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles–and emcompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
  • Environmental and engineering problems.
  • Squabbles with ranchers who don’t want to give up any of their land.
  • Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
  • Drug traffickers and smugglers could easily tunnel under it into the United States–as they are now doing.

Click here: Trump says building a U.S.-Mexico wall is ‘easy.’ But is it really? – The Washington Post

There are, in fact, cheaper and more effective remedies for combating illegal immigration.

Related image

Illegal aliens crossing into the United States

(1) The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement” that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.

Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.

These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.

(2)  The most effective way to combat this movement: Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities who have actively violated Federal immigration laws.

In San Francisco, for example, former District Attorney Kamala Harris—who is now California’s Attorney General—created a secret program called Back on Track, which provided training for jobs that illegal aliens could not legally hold.

She also prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting even those illegal aliens convicted of a felony.

(3) Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile.  

City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.

And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them.

(4) CEOs whose companies–like Wal-Mart–systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.

They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.

Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least twenty years.

This would prove a more effective remedy for combating illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S./Mexican border. CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.

Without employers luring illegal aliens at a fraction of the money paid to American workers, the flood of such illegal job-seekers would quickly dry up.

(5) The Government should stop granting automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.

A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.

A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those born illegally within this country.

If they’re not here legally at the time of birth, they should not be considered citizens and should–like their parents–be subject to deportation.

(6) The United States Government–from the President on down–should scrap its apologetic tone on the right to control its national borders.

The Mexican Government doesn’t hesitate to apply strict laws to those immigrating to Mexico. And it feels no need to apologize for this.

Neither should we.

(7) Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language: English. 

In Mexico, voting materials are published in one language–Spanish.

Throughout the United States, millions of Mexican illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish.

(8)   The United States should impose economic and even military sanctions against countries–such as China and Mexico–whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens. 

Mexico, for example, uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.

Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unaffordably high price.  Otherwise those dumpings will continue.

A MEXICAN APPROACH TO ILLEGAL ALLIENS

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 14, 2015 at 1:20 pm

On January 2, thousands of illegal aliens in California flocked to their local Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office to do what they had previously been forbidden to do.

Apply for a driver’s license.

California thus became the 10th state–and the largest–to allow illegal aliens to drive legally in the United States.

An estimated 2.6 million illegal aliens–most of them Latino–in California will now be eligible to get a driver’s license under the new law.

Assembly Bill 60, signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown in 2014, allows illegal aliens to get a license without proof of legal United States residency.

“Millions of immigrant families have been looking forward to this day,” said Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo, who sponsored the bill.

“It will allow them to go to work, go to school, take their kids to a doctor’s appointment without fear that they are going to have their car taken away from them, or worse, be put into immigration proceedings.”

But many American citizens believe that those violating the immigration laws of the United States should not have the privilege to drive.

“Their vehicles should be impounded and if they don’t like it, they can go home,” said Don Rosenberg. Rosenberg started a website–Unlicensedtokill.org–after his son was killed by an unlicensed and illegal alien in 2010.

Click here: UnlicensedToKill

Two decades ago, California voters tried to bar illegal aliens from public services, including education. But now the state allows college students brought into the United States as children to pay in-state tuition at California public universities to help ease the costs of higher education.

Meanwhile, Mexico takes a far different approach to illegal aliens.

On May 20, 2010, Mexico’s then-President Felipe Calderon addressed a joint session of the United States Congress–and attacked an Arizona law that allowed law enforcement officials to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.

Felipe Calderon speaking before Congress

According to Calderon, the law “introduces a terrible idea: using racial profiling as a basis for law enforcement.”

The hypocrisy of Calderon’s words is staggering.

Racial profiling?  Consider the popular Latino phrase, “La Raza.”

This literally means “the race” or “the people.” Its meaning varies among Spanish-speaking peoples. In the United States, it’s sometimes used to describe people of Chicano and Mexican descent as well as other Latin American mestizos who share Native American heritage.

It rarely includes entirely European or African descended Hispanic peoples.

So when Latinos say, “The Race,” they’re not talking about “the human race.” They’re talking strictly about their own.

In his lecture, Calderon condemned the United States for doing what Mexico itself has long done: Strictly enforcing control of its borders.

Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:

  • in the country legally;
  • have the means to sustain themselves economically;
  • not destined to be burdens on society;
  • of economic and social benefit to society;
  • of good character and have no criminal records; and
  • contribute to the general well-being of the nation.

The law also ensures that:

  • immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
  • foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
  • foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
  • foreign visitors who enter under ralse pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
  • foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned are deported;
  • those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.

Calderon also ignored a second well-understood but equally unacknowledged truth:Mexico uses its American border to rid itself of those who might otherwise demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.

The Mexican Government still remembers the bloody upheaval known as the Mexican Revolution. This lasted ten years (1910-1920) and wiped out an estimated one to two million men, women and children.

Massacres were common on all sides, with men shot by the hundreds in bullrings or hung by the dozen on trees.

A Mexican Revolution firing squad

All of the major leaders of the Revolution–Francisco Madero, Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranza, Francisco “Pancho” Villa, Alvaro Obregon–died in a hail of bullets.

Francisco “Pancho” Villa

Emiliano Zapata

As a result, every successive Mexican Government has lived in the shadow of another such wholesale bloodletting. These officials have thus quietly decided to turn the United States border into a safety valve.

If potential revolutionaries leave Mexico to find a better life in the United States, the Government doesn’t have to fear the rise of another “Pancho” Villa.

If somehow the United States managed to seal its southern border, all those teeming millions of “undocumented workers” who just happened to lack any documents would have to stay in “Mexico lindo.”

They would be forced to live with the rampant corruption and poverty that have forever characterized this failed nation-state. Or they would have to demand substantial reforms.

There is no guarantee that such demands would not lead to a second–and equally bloody–Mexican revolution.

So Felipe Calderon and his successors in power find it easier–and safer–to turn the United States into a dumping ground for the Mexican citizens that the Mexican Government itself doesn’t want.

END THE “REVOLVING MEXICAN DOOR”: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 10, 2015 at 12:25 pm

Republican Congressional candidates like Kentucky U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell have long demanded an end to illegal immigration.

In 2012, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum made illegal immigration a major issue of his failed campaign for the Presidency.

The Republicans’ chief proposed weapon: Wholesale deportation of millions of illegal aliens from the United States.

But even if a future Republican President dared to take such a politically controversial step, could it actually succeed?

Let’s assume that the Federal Government could identify and arrest all or most of the estimated 11 to 20 million illegal aliens now living in the United States.  Then what?

Sending them back to their native countries would prove a colossal failure.

Most of America’s illegals come from neighboring Hispanic countries. Which means that as soon as they are deported, most of them cross the Mexican border again.

Case in point: Francisco Sanchez, now accused of shooting a woman on a San Francisco pier. With  a history of seven felony convictions, he’s been deported to his native Mexico five times, most recently in 2009.

Click here: Report: Most Illegal Immigrants Come From Mexico – US News

More importantly: The governments of those Central and South American countries use the United States as a dumping ground–of those citizens who might demand reforms in their political and economic institutions.

There is only one approach that could strike a meaningful blow against illegal immigration.  And it might well be called “The Zanti Option.”

Viewers of the 1960s sci-fi series, The Outer Limits, will vividly recall its classic 1963 episode, “The Zanti Misfits.”

In this, soldiers at an American Army base in a California ghost town nervously await first-contact with an alien race that has landed a space ship nearby.

The soldiers are warned to steer clear of the ship, and they do.  But then an escaped convict (Bruce Dern, in an early role) happens upon the scene–-and the ship.

The Zantis, enraged, emerge–and soon the soldiers at the military base find themselves under attack.

A “Zanti”  

The soldiers desperately fight back–-with flamethrowers, machineguns or just rifle butts.  Finally the soldiers  win, wiping out the Zantis.

But now the base–-and probably America–-faces a wholesale invasion from the planet Zanti to avenge the deaths of their comrades.

So the soldiers wait anxiously for their next transmission from Zanti–-which soon arrives.

To their surprise–-and relief–-it’s a message of thanks: “We will not retaliate.  We never intended to.  We knew that you could not live with such aliens in your midst.

“It was always our intention that you destroy them…We are incapable of executing our own species, but you are not.  You are practiced executioners.  We thank you.”

A future Republican President could deal with the tsunami of illegal aliens by launching what might be called “Operation Zanti.”

Rather than deport them to nearby countries–from which they would easily sneak back into the United States–-the Federal Government could ship them off to more distant lands.

Like Afghanistan.  Or Iraq.  Or Syria.

It’s unlikely they will sneak back across the American border from the Middle East.

Such a policy change would:

  1. Close the Mexican revolving door, which keeps illegal immigration flowing; and
  2. Send an unmistakably blunt message to other would-be illegals: “The same fate awaits you.”

Although this might seem a far-fetched proposal, it could be easily carried out by the United States Air Force.

According to this agency’s website: “The C-5 Galaxy is one of the largest aircraft in the world and the largest airlifter in the Air Force inventory.

“The C-5 has a greater capacity than any other airlifter. It [can] carry 36 standard pallets and 81 troops simultaneously.

C-5 transport plane 

“[It can also carry] any of the Army’s air-transportable combat equipment, including such bulky items as the 74-ton mobile scissors bridge.

“It can also carry outsize and oversize cargo over intercontinental ranges and can take off or land in relatively short distances.”

Click here: C-5 A/B/C Galaxy and C-5M Super Galaxy > U.S. Air Force > Fact Sheet Display

Instead of stuffing these planes with cargo, they could be stuffed wall-to-wall with illegal aliens.

The United States Air Force has a proud history of successfully providing America’s soldiers–-and allies–-with the supplies they need.

From June 24, 1948 to May 12, 1949, only the Berlin Airlift stood between German citizens and starvation.

The Soviet Union had blocked the railway, road, and canal access to the Berlin sectors under allied control. Their goal: Force the western powers to allow the Soviet zone to supply Berlin with food, fuel, and aid.

This would have given the Soviets control over the entire city.

Air forces from the United States, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa flew over 200,000 flights in one year, dropping more than 4,700 tons of necessities daily to the besiged Berliners.

The success of the Berlin Airlift raised American prestige and embarrassed the Soviets, who lifted the blockade.

The Berlin Airlift

A similar triumph came during the Yom Kippur War after Egypt and Syria attacked Israel without warning on October 6, 1973.

A Watergate-embattled President Richard Nixon ordered “Operation Nickel Grass” to deliver urgently-needed weapons and supplies to Israel.

For 32 days, the Air Force shipped 22,325 tons of ammunition, artillery, tanks and other supplies.  These proved invaluable in saving Israel from destruction.

So the mass deportation of millions of illegal aliens lies within America’s technological capability. Whether any American President would be willing to give that order is another matter.

END THE “REVOLVING MEXICAN DOOR”: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on July 9, 2015 at 9:27 am

Except in times of war, no nation has ever been invaded by so many alien residents as the United States.

Throughout 2014, tens of thousands of unaccompanied Hispanic minors–all of them uninvited–illegally entered the United States through the Mexican border.

They are backed up by an estimated 11 to 20 million illegal aliens now living more or less openly throughout the country.

Just as sheer numbers of Mexicans overwhelmed the defenders of the Alamo, this similar Hispanic tidal wave has overwhelmed immigration officials.

Mexicans storming the Alamo – March 6, 1836 

It’s also forced the Obama administration to declare a humanitarian crisis and open three emergency shelters on military bases in California, Oklahoma and Texas.

The invasion is taking its greatest toll in cities that already have large numbers of immigrants–such as New York and Los Angeles.

Newly-arrived alien children and their relatives are flooding into schools and hospitals that are supposedly intended for American citizens.  No sooner do they cross the border than they aggressively seek legal aid in converting their illegal arrival into a lifelong legal stay.

Mexicans storming the United States border – today

For years, Republicans and Democrats have clashed over the subject of illegal immigration.  Each side has taken what seems to be an opposing position.

Democrats favor wholesale grants of unearned citizenship to the estimated 11 to 20 million illegal aliens who brazenly violated the law when they sneaked across American borders.

And Republicams favor beefing up security against future waves of such invaders.

But the brutal truth is that neither Democrats nor Republicans truly want to end these invasionsNor do they want to deport the millions of illegals who have already taken up residence here.

Each party has its own reasons for this.

Democrats, primarily governed by liberal ideology, believe it’s racist for whites to demand control of their own national borders.

They ignore the blunt reality that Mexico–America’s largest source of illegal aliens–strictly enforces control of its own borders.

Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:

  • in the country legally;
  • have the means to sustain themselves economically;
  • not destined to be burdens on society;
  • of economic and social benefit to society;
  • of good character and have no criminal records; and
  • contribute to the general well-being of the nation.

The law also ensures that:

  • immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
  • foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
  • foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
  • foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
  • foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
  • those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.

But there’s another reason why Democrats are keen to grant automatic citizenship to millions of illegal aliens: They see them as a huge constituency.

They don’t care that these illegals’ defiance of American immigration laws:

  • Floods the United States with millions of poor non-citizens who don’t speak English.
  • Overwhelms the public school system with children–who also don’t speak English–who require bilingual education.
  • Overwhelms the public healthcare system–especially emergency rooms–with poor illegal aliens.  As a result, urgently-needed medical care is often denied toAmerican citizens.

Click here: Cost of Unlawful Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayers

But Republicans are equally guilty of refusing to take a hard stand against deporting those whose presence is a blatant affront to America’s immigration laws.

There are two reasons for this:

  1. Like Democrats, Republicans want to recruit them as knee-jerk voters.
  2. Republicans want them as low-skilled, low-wage fodder for their major campaign contributors–such as corporate-farms and retail outlets like Wal-Mart.

Unlike Democrats, however, Republicans like to feign outrage at the presence of so many illegal aliens within their midst.

It’s the Republican base that’s demanding an end to illegal immigration.

Those masses of alienated and angry whites who find themselves living in a nation that’s increasingly alien from themselves.

A nation where “Press One for English” is now the norm when contacting government agencies.  A nation where illegal aliens can obtain free medical care that’s denied to native-born citizens.

American citizens protesting illegal immigration

It was enraged citizens like this who, on June 10, 2014, cost Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor his bid for re-election.  Cantor’s 14-year political career crashed on the fury of Tea Party opposition to illegal immigration.

Still, the question remains: What should be done about the tens of thousands of illegals now swarming into the United States?

Democrats hasten to defend President Barack Obama’s refusal to deport en masse these violators.  They claim he is the victim of unpredictable circumstances.

But they don’t offer any solution that involves wholesale deportations of such invaders.  It’s as if they believe this onrushing tidal wave will somehow recede on its own momentum.

Meanwhile, Republicans essentially take the position of Mitt Romney, their failed 2012 Presidential candidate:  Self-deportation.

This way, the party doesn’t have to actually come out in favor of forcibly returning unwanted foreigners to their respective countries.

But there is a way the United States could deal with this unceasing tsunami of foreign invasions.  It might be called “The Zanti Misfits” solution.