Posts Tagged ‘NICARAGUA’
ABC NEWS, ALAMO, ALIEN-SMUGGLING RINGS, ALTERNET, ALVARO OBREGON, AMERICABLOG, AMNEXTY INTERNATIONAL, ANCHOR BABIES, ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA, AP, ARIZONA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BARBARA LEE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BREXIT, BUREAU OF CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, BUZZFEED, CALIFORNIA, CBS NEWS, CHICAGO, CNN, COLORADO, CORRUPTION, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID CROCKETT, DEMOCRATIC PARTY, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DREAM ACT, DRUDGE REPORT, EMILIANO ZAPATA, ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ERIC ADAMS, EUROPEAN UNION (EU), FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM (FAIR), FELIPE CALDERON, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA, FRANCISCO "PANCHO" VILLA, FRANCISCO MADERO, GOLIAD MASSACRE, GREG ABBOTT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HISPANICS, HUFFINGTON POST, ILLEGAL ALIENS, illegal immigration, IMMIGRATIONS AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JAMES BOWIE, JEFF SESSIONS, MEDI-CAL, MEDI-CAL INSURANCE PROGRAM, MEDIA MATTERS, MEXICAN REVOLUTION, MEXICAN WAR, MEXICO, MEXICO CITY, MIGRANT CARRAVAN, MOSES AUSTIN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEVADA, NEW MEXICO, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK CITY, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NICARAGUA, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, PANCHO VILLA, PAUL RYAN, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RACIAL PROFILING, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT FROST, SALON, SAM HOUSTON, SAN JACINTO, SCHOOLS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SLAVERY, STEPHEN AUSTIN, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEXAS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DAILY MAIL, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS HOMAN, TIJUANA, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, U.S. SUPREME COURT, UNITED KINGDOM (UK), UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UNITED STATES HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES DEPARTMENT, UPI, USA TODAY, UTAH, VENEZUELA, VENUSTIANO CARRANZA, WAL-MART, WASHINGTON D.C., WONKETTE
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.

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.

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.
"MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE", 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AUGUSTO PINOCHET, AUGUSTO SANDINO, AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI, ” 9/11, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BAY OF PIGS, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHIANG KAI-SHEK, CHILE, CIA, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, FIDEL CASTRO, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FULGENCIO BATISTA, GEORGE W. BUSH, GUATEMALA, HAITI, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HONODURAS, HUFFINGTON POST, IRAQ, JACOBO ARBENZ, JOHN F. KENNEDY, MAFIA, MAO TSE-TUNG, MEDIA MATTERS, MOHAMMAD MOSADDEGH, MOHAMMAD-REZA SHAH PHLAVI, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD M. NIXON, ROBERT MUELLER, RUSSIA, SADDAM HUSSEIN, SALON, SALVADOR ALLENDE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED FRUIT COMPANY, UPI, USA TODAY
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 3, 2023 at 12:13 am
The CIA, FBI and National Security Agency (which cracks codes and listens to the telephone conversation of foreign leaders) unanimously agree: Russian trolls and Intelligence agents played a major role in subverting the 2016 Presidential election.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, assigned in May, 2017, to investigate charges of Russian interference, believed there was collusion. He indicted or obtained guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies.

Robert Mueller
And about 58% of Americans believe that President Donald Trump tried to obstruct the investigation.
Apparently, most Americans don’t like having their elections subverted by enemy nations.
Subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. Among those regimes that have been toppled:
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.
- In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Czarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.

Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918
- From 1946 to 1949, the United States provided military, logistical and other aid to the Right-wing Chinese Nationalist Party of Chiang Kai-shek. Its opponent: Communist forces led by Mao Tse-Tung, who ultimately proved victorious.
- In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913. He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
- Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate. Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers.
- The United Fruit Company lobbied the United States government to overthrow him—and the CIA went into action. Arbenz was replaced by the first of a series of brutal Right-wing dictators.
- From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista.
- On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.
- Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island.
- Among the tactics used: Hiring Cuban gangsters to murder police officials and Soviet technicians; sabotaging mines; using biological and chemical warfare against the Cuban sugar industry. None of these proved successful in assassinating Castro nor overturning his regime.

Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende. Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking).
- In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
And how did Americans react to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—at regime change?
Through indifference or outright support.
The popular 1960s TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” regularly depicted a CIA-type agency supporting regimes “we” liked or toppling those “we” didn’t.
Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends usually turn out to be Right-wing dictators like Chiang Kai-Shek, Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.
Americans tend to favor intervention for the flimsiest of reasons. In 2003, President George W. Bush claimed Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had plotted 9/11 with Osama bin Laden. There was absolutely no proof to substantiate this, yet Americans overwhelmingly supported Bush’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq.
But now the shoe is on the other foot.
Except for President Donald Trump and his fanatical supporters, Americans are furious that a foreign power has dared to install “regime change” on them.
Americans are now tasting the medicine they have dished out to so many other countries. And they find it as repugnant as those countries have found the American brand.
"MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE", 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ADAM SCHIFF, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AUGUSTO PINOCHET, AUGUSTO SANDINO, AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI, ” 9/11, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BAY OF PIGS, BERNARD LAW MONTGOMERY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHIANG KAI-SHEK, CHILE, CIA, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, DAILY KOZ, DONALD TRUMP, DRUDGE RETORT, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, FBI, FIDEL CASTRO, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FULGENCIO BATISTA, GEORGE W. BUSH, GUATEMALA, HAITI, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HONODURAS, HUNTER BIDEN, IRAQ, JACOBO ARBENZ, JOE BIDEN, JOHN F. KENNEDY, MAFIA, MAO TSE-TUNG, MEDIA MATTERS, MICK MULVANEY, MOHAMMAD MOSADDEGH, MOHAMMAD-REZA SHAH PHLAVI, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NANCY PELOSI, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY, NBC NEWS, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, OSAMA BIN LADEN, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RICHARD M. NIXON, RUSSIA, SADDAM HUSSEIN, SALON, SALVADOR ALLENDE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UNITED FRUIT COMPANY, UPI, USA TODAY, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WINSTON CHURCHILL, WONKETTE, WORLD WAR 11
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 22, 2023 at 12:18 am
“I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.”
The speaker was White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. And in an October 17, 2019 press conference, he was trying to put the best possible spin on President Donald Trump’s latest outrage: An attempt to extort a “favor” from the president of Ukraine.
In July, 2019, Trump told Mulvaney to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine, which faces increasing aggression from Russia.
On July 25, Trump telephoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.The reason for such an investigation: To find embarrassing “dirt” on Biden.

Donald Trump
But then a CIA whistleblower filed a complaint about the extortion attempt—and the media and Congress soon learned of it.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., tweeted: “The transcript of the call reads like a classic mob shakedown: — We do a lot for Ukraine — There’s not much reciprocity — I have a favor to ask — Investigate my opponent — My people will be in touch — Nice country you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to her.”
On September 24, 2019, Nancy Pelosi, speaker to the House of Representatives, announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump.
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t hesitate to leverage the great economic and military power of the United States to gain concessions from Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Great Britain.
At Roosevelt’s insistence, for example, it was an American—General Dwight D. Eisenhower—who was appointed Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Had the British gotten their way, the post would have almost certainly gone to British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery.
Roosevelt’s insistence, however, had nothing to do with personally benefiting himself.
But the unpleasant truth remains that subverting the governments of other countries is a right that Americans have long reserved for themselves. For example:
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- Americans staged invasions of Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924 and 1925 to defend U.S. interests. These were defined as Standard Oil and the United Fruit Company.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- The United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. American banks had lent money to Haiti and requested American government intervention.
- In 1918, 13,000 American soldiers joined armies from Europe and Japan to overthrow the new Soviet government and restore the previous Tsarist regime. By 1920, the invading forces proved unsuccessful and withdrew.

Allied troops parading in Vladivostok, 1918
- In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913.
- He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi. Whereas Mossadeddgh had ruled as a constitutional monarch, Phlavi was a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate.
- Most infuriating to American Right-wingers: His agrarian reform law, which expropriated parts of large land-holdings and redistributed them to agricultural laborers.
- From 1959 until 1963, the United States government was obsessed with overthrowing the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Although not democratically elected, Castro was wildly popular in Cuba for overthrowing the dictatorial Fulgencio Batista.
- On April 17, 1961, over 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Cuban military forces crushed the invasion in three days.
- Infuriated with the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy authorized “Operation Mongoose” to remove Castro through sabotage and assassination. The CIA, wanting to please Kennedy, teamed up with the Mafia, which wanted to resurrect its casinos on the island.

Ernesto “Che” Guevera and Fidel Castro
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende.
- Allende’s crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking). In 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police.
- He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
Americans reacted to all these attempts—successful and unsuccessful—with indifference or outright support.
The popular 1960s TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” regularly depicted a CIA-type agency supporting regimes “we” liked or toppling those “we” didn’t.
Americans generally assume their Presidents and Congress know best who is a “friend” and who is an “enemy.” America’s friends often turn out, for the most part, to be Right-wing dictators like Fulgencio Batista, Augusto Pinochet and Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi.
And its enemies often turn out to be liberal reformers like Augusto Sandino, Jacobo Arbenz, Mohammad Mosaddegh and Salvador Allende.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, AGUSTO PINOCHET, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM, AMERICAN RECKONING: THE VIETNAM WAR AND OUR NATIONAL IDENTITY (BOOK), AP, AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, BIBLE BELT, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHILE, CHINA, CHRISTIAN G. APPY, CIA, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, CIVIL WAR, CNN, COAL MINING, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUG OVERDOSES, DWIGHT EISENHOWER, EDUCATION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS, GERMANY, GUATEMALA, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HISTORY, HUFFINGTON POST, INDIA, IRAN, ITALY, JACOBO ARBENZ, JAPAN, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDIA MATTERS, MOHAMMED MOSADDEGH, MOHAMMED-REZA SHAH PHLAVI, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MYTHS, NARENDRA MODI, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, OPIOD ADDICTION, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICS, POLITICUSUSA, PORNOGRAPHY, POVERTY, RAW STORY, RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVES, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, ROE V. WADE, RURAL AMERICA, SALON, SALVADORE ALLENDE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SMOKING, STEEL INDUSTRY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS EDISON, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, VOTER IGNORANCE, WORLD WAR 11
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 12, 2023 at 12:12 am
Americans live by a series of myths—myths they would be the wiser to abandon. Some are embraced by liberals, others by conservatives, and still others by both.
Myth 4: Americans take pride in their history.
Americans’ ignorance of history—their own and that of other nations—has long been a scandal.
- A 2018 national survey by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars found that only one in three Americans (36%) can actually pass a multiple choice test consisting of items taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test.
- More than half of respondents (60%) didn’t know which countries the United States fought in World War II (Germany, Italy and Japan).
- And 57% did not know how many Justices actually serve on the nation’s highest court (nine).
- Only 24% correctly identified one thing Benjamin Franklin was famous for; 37% believed he invented the lightbulb (that inventor was Thomas Edison).
- Twelve percent incorrectly thought WWII General Dwight Eisenhower led troops in the Civil War; six percent thought he was a Vietnam War general.

if Americans are flagrantly ignorant of their own history, they are even worse at the history of other countries.
A major reason for this lies in Americans’ belief that other nations aren’t worth bothering about except when they threaten us. During the Vietnam war, soldiers referred to the United States as “The World”—as if the rest of the planet didn’t exist.
Americans, protected from Europe by the Atlantic Ocean and the Far East by the Pacific Ocean, allowed geography to isolate themselves from the messiness of the rest of the world.
Donald Trump, as President, gave a frightening example of this during a conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “It’s not like you’ve got China on your border.” In fact, India does share a border with China.
Myth 5: The “Bible Belt” (the Deep South) is the spiritual capitol of America.
You won’t find these truths on “Green Acres” or “The Andy Griffith Show” but they form a stain on rural America that can’t be ignored:
- A 2015 study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that religious conservatives search more for online pornography on Google than anyone else.
- Educational attainment and college graduation rates in the Bible Belt are among the lowest in the nation.
- Smoking rates are high in West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi—and so are rates for smoking-related diseases and deaths.
- Heart disease, obesity, homicide and teenage pregnancies are among the highest in the nation.
Myth 6: Americans are health-conscious.
The United States is experiencing an epidemic of drug overdose deaths. In 2020, the age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths increased 31% compared to 2019.
Adults aged 35-44 experienced the highest rates of drug overdose deaths while young people aged 15-24 experienced the greatest percentage increase in deaths.

In 2019:
- 12 million Americans 12 or older used marijuana
- 9.1 million Americans used tobacco
- 14.5 million Americans aged 12 or older used alcohol
- 9.7 million people misused pain relievers
- 6 million people misused hallucinogens
- 5.9 million people misused depressants
- 5.5 million people misused cocaine
- 4.9 million people misused prescription stimulants
- 2.1 million people misused inhalants
- 2 million people used meth
- 745,000 Americans used heroin
Myth 7: Americans only support democratic regimes.
The United States has long supported foreign dictators—so long as they’re reliably Right-wing.
- Between 1898 and 1934, the United States repeatedly intervened with military force in Central America and the Caribbean.
- The United States occupied Nicaragua almost continuously from 1912 to 1933. Its legacy was the imposition of the tyrannical Somoza family, which ruled from 1936 to 1979.
- In 1953, the Eisenhower administration ordered the CIA to overthrew the democratically-elected government of of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. His crime: Nationalizing the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913.

- He was succeeded by Mohammad-Reza Shah Phlavi, a dictator who depended on United States government support to retain power until he was overthrown in 1979 by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
- In 1954, the CIA overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz. His crime: Installing a series of reforms that expanded the right to vote, allowed workers to organize, legitimized political parties and allowed public debate.
- In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Marxist Salvador Allende from being democratically elected as president of Chile. When that failed, he ordered the CIA to overthrow Allende.
- His crime: A series of liberal reforms, including nationalizing large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking).
- in 1973, he was overthrown by Chilean army units and national police. He was followed by Right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet, who slaughtered 3,200 political dissidents, imprisoned 30,000 and forced another 200,000 Chileans into exile.
* * * * * * * * * *
Behind these myths: The belief in “American exceptionalism”—that the United States is unlike other nations in its innocence and steadfast dedication to human rights above all else.
Wrote Christian G. Appy, in his 2015 book, American Reckoning: The Vietnam War and Our National Identity:
“It was still unimaginable to most Americans that their own nation would wage aggressive war and justify it with unfounded claims, that it would support undemocratic governments reviled by their own people, and that American troops would be sent to fight in countries where they were widely regarded not as liberators but as imperialist invaders.”
For millions, that belief died a horrific death during the Vietnam war. Yet so long as millions remain convinced that America is guided by God and that its people are His faithful servants, these myths will remain vividly alive.
2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, ABC NEWS, ABORTION, AGUSTO PINOCHET, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM, AMERICAN RECKONING: THE VIETNAM WAR AND OUR NATIONAL IDENTITY (BOOK), AP, AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, BIBLE BELT, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHILE, CHINA, CHRISTIAN G. APPY, CIA, CIVIL RIGHTS ACT, CIVIL WAR, CNN, COAL MINING, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DRUG OVERDOSES, DWIGHT EISENHOWER, EDUCATION, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS, GERMANY, GUATEMALA, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HISTORY, HUFFINGTON POST, INDIA, IRAN, ITALY, JACOBO ARBENZ, JAPAN, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDIA MATTERS, MOHAMMED MOSADDEGH, MOHAMMED-REZA SHAH PHLAVI, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, MYTHS, NARENDRA MODI, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, OPIOD ADDICTION, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICS, POLITICUSUSA, PORNOGRAPHY, POVERTY, RAW STORY, RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVES, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD NIXON, ROE V. WADE, RURAL AMERICA, SALON, SALVADORE ALLENDE, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SMOKING, STEEL INDUSTRY, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS EDISON, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, UPI, USA TODAY, VIETNAM WAR, VOTER IGNORANCE, WORLD WAR 11
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 11, 2023 at 12:15 am
“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
—John F. Kennedy
Americans live by a series of myths—myths they would be the wiser to abandon. Some are embraced by liberals, others by conservatives, and still others by both.
Myth 1: Americans are highly educated.
According to the 2020 U.S. Census:
- In 2022, the highest level of education of the population age 25 and older in the United States ranged from less than high school to advanced degrees beyond a bachelor’s degree.
- 9% had less than a high school diploma or equivalent;
- 28% had high school as their highest level of school completed;
- 15% had completed some college but didn’t have a degree;
- 10% had an associate degree;
- 23% had a bachelor’s degree;
- 14% had completed advanced education such as a master’s degree, professional degree or doctorate.
Myth 2: Rural America is the repository of old-fashioned virtues.
Years of “hayseed” comedies such as “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Real McCoys” “Green Acres” and “Petticoat Junction” convinced millions of Americans: If you want to find the “real” America, move to rural America.
If rural America is where you’ll find the “real” Americans, the future of the United States lies in peril.

Marshall County, Indiana
Derek Jensen (Tysto), CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
- Rural Americans overwhelmingly support Donald Trump—who refused to accept defeat in a legitimate Presidential election, schemed to overturn the voters’ decision, and finally incited an attack on Congress to illegally remain in office.
- Rural America is home to fundamentalist Christians, who demand an end to legalized abortion and birth control—and thus hope to gain dictatorial control over women’s lives. They brand pro-choice Democrats as “baby killers.”
- During the 2020 Presidential election, Joe Biden won 91 of the nation’s 100 largest counties, but hardly anywhere else.
- Trump won about five times as many counties. Democrats are thriving in major metropolitan areas, but tanking elsewhere.
- Rather than being a Garden of Eden, rural America shares many big-city ills, such as crime, opioid addiction and a decline in life expectancy.
- Nearly all of the economic growth that occurred between the Great Recession and the start of the pandemic happened in a small number of metropolitan areas, making rural residents feel that the recession had never ended.

- Rural Americans refuse to abandon industries that are now dying out—such as in coal mining and steel. Trump promised—falsely—to bring those jobs back. Rural voters have forgiven him for this because he delivered on cultural issues—such as appointing anti-abortion Justices to the Supreme Court who overturned Roe v. Wade.
- Nearly half (46.7 percent) of all people living in rural areas are in the South. For a century following the Civil War (1861-1865) the South was accurately known as a Democratic stronghold. But that changed after Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act into law.
- In short: When Democrats went from suppressing black rights to protecting them, the great mass of white, racist rural Southerners moved to the Republican party.
Myth 3: Most Americans take a vital interest in politics.
Most Americans are dismayingly ignorant of politics at all levels—local, state and federal.
- The attempted coup of January 6, 2021, was largely fueled by ignorance. The rioters believed that Donald Trump was the real winner of the 2020 election, and that Joe Biden had “stolen” it through fraud.
- They clung to this belief, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including numerous court decisions rejecting GOP claims of fraud, many of them authored by conservative, Republican-appointed judges.
- And this ignorance continues: A large majority of Republicans still believe that Biden is an illegitimate President—just 21% say that he “probably” or “definitely” won.

Donald Trump
- Most Americans don’t know the names of their state and federal representatives or even the names of the three branches of government.
- Only one third of Americans can name the three branches of our federal government: executive, legislative, judicial.
- Most voters overestimate the percentage of the federal budget spends on foreign aid (actually, about 1%). Yet they underestimate the amount going to entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security. As a result, they believe we can solve our fiscal problems without either cutting entitlements or raising taxes on the vast majority of Americans.
- Voters also often reward or punish elected officials for events they did not cause, such as short-term economic trends or droughts.
Such ignorance makes people more susceptible to lies and conspiracy theories, including those about the 2020 election.
Myth 4: Americans take pride in their history.
Americans’ ignorance of history—their own and that of other nations—has long been a scandal.
- A 2018 national survey by the Institute for Citizens & Scholars found that only one in three Americans (36%) can actually pass a multiple choice test consisting of items taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test.
- More than half of respondents (60%) didn’t know which countries the United States fought in World War II (Germany, Italy and Japan).
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUREAU OF CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, BUZZFEED, CALIFORNIA, CBS NEWS, CHICAGO, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ERIC ADAMS, FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM (FAIR), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA, GREG ABBOTT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, illegal immigration, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK CITY, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SCHOOLS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEXAS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DAILY MAIL, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VENEZUELA, WASHINGTON D.C.
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 29, 2023 at 1:25 am
Defenders of illegal aliens entering the United States often point to their paying taxes and performing jobs that native-born Americans don’t want to do.
What they fail to mention are the costs of maintaining millions of unskilled and semi-literate (at best) men, women and children for decades on end.
Fortunately, James Reinl, social affairs correspondent at the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, has taken the time to bring these truths to light.
This occurred in a September 16, 2022 article 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.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, almost 200,000 immigrants were intercepted crossing the southern border in July, 2022. Many of them are entitled to claim asylum, and all children in the United States have a right to an education—even if they arrived here illegally.

Illegal aliens rounded up by ICE
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 will cost the city $1 billion this fiscal year.

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, 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.

Greg Abbott
New York City now has more than 61,000 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.
Behind this huge surge in illegal aliens and their continuing drain on America’s schools, housing and hospitals (among other facilities) lie three Communist-ruled countries: Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Rising levels of repression, food shortages and economic stability are motivating Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans to enter the United States. And assisting them in this effort 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.
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUREAU OF CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, BUZZFEED, CALIFORNIA, CBS NEWS, CHICAGO, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, DAILY KOS, DEMOCRATS, ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ERIC ADAMS, FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM (FAIR), FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA, GREG ABBOTT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HUFFINGTON POST, illegal immigration, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK CITY, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, SALON, SCHOOLS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEXAS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DAILY MAIL, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VENEZUELA, WASHINGTON D.C.
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 11, 2022 at 12:10 am
Defenders of illegal aliens entering the United States often point to their paying taxes and performing jobs that native-born Americans don’t want to do.
What they fail to mention are the costs of maintaining millions of unskilled and semi-literate (at best) men, women and children for decades on end.
Fortunately, James Reinl, social affairs correspondent at the British newspaper, The Daily Mail, has taken the time to bring these truths to light.
This occurred in a September 16 article 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
A well-known joke illustrates the frustrations English-as-a-second-language teachers face:
A teacher asks her class: “All right, who can tell me the difference between ‘select’ and ‘choose’?” A Hispanic student raises his hand and, being called on, replies, ‘Uh, ‘select,’ like that means when you pick something, man. And ‘choose’ is what Puerto Ricans wear on their feet.”
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.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, almost 200,000 immigrants were intercepted crossing the southern border in July. Many of them are entitled to claim asylum, and all children in the United States have a right to an education—even if they arrived here illegally.

Illegal aliens rounded up by ICE
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, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency in response to the city’s migrant crisis, which he says will cost the city $1 billion this fiscal year.

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, 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.

Greg Abbott
New York City now has more than 61,000 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 of this year.
Behind this huge surge in illegal aliens and their continuing drain on America’s schools, housing and hospitals (among other facilities) lie three Communist-ruled countries: Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.
Rising levels of repression, food shortages and economic stability are motivating Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans to enter the United States. And assisting them in this effort 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, while emphasizing that while New York City remains a sanctuary city, 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.”
At some point, America must stop allowing itself to be a dumping-ground for other countries’ unwanteds.
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CENTRAL AMERICA, CHIANG KAI-SHEK, CHINA, CNN, COLUMBIA, COMMUNISM, CRIMEA, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, CZECHOSLAVAKIA, DAILY KOZ, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, GUATEMALA, GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HUFFINGTON POST, HUNGARY, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, LATIN AMERICA, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MAO TSE-TUNG, MEDIA MATTERS, MICK MULVANEY, MITT ROMNEY, MONROE DOCTRINE, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, PANAMA, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLAND, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, RICHARD M. NIXON, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOCHI OLYMPICS, SOVIET UNION, SPHERES OF INFLUENCE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOM COTTON, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UKRAINE, UPI, USA TODAY, VICTOR YANUKOVYCH, VIETNAM, VLADIMIR PUTIN, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on January 24, 2022 at 12:35 am
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the American Right felt dejected.
Accusing Democrats of being “terrorist-lovers” just hasn’t been as profitable as accusing them of being “Communists.”
Then fate intervened.
The torch had barely gone out at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics when Russian President Vladimir Putin began menacing the Ukraine.

Ukraine vs. Russia
Even while the Olympics played out on television, Ukrainians had rioted in Kiev and evicted their corrupt, luxury-loving president, Victor Yanukovych.
And that didn’t sit well with his “sponsor”—Putin.
Yanukovych had rejected a pending European Union association agreement. He had chosen instead to pursue a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia.
And that had sat well with Putin.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin had yearned for its reestablishment. He had called that breakup “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”

Vladimir Putin
Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Russia has long resisted Ukraine’s move towards European institutions—especially NATO.
So it was almost a certainty that Putin would retaliate.
And since late February, 2014, he began moving Russian troops into Ukraine and its autonomous republic, Crimea. Russia annexed Ukraine’s southern Crimean peninsula and backed separatists who captured large swathes of eastern Ukraine.
On December 3, 2021, the Washington Post reported: “The Kremlin is planning a multi-front offensive as soon as early next year involving up to 175,000 troops” against Ukraine.
And where there is activity by Russians, American Rightists are eager to turn such events to their own political advantage.
Right-wingers such as Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR): ”It is a result of a year of Joe Biden’s impotence and incompetence towards Russia in particular and in foreign policy more generally.”
Cotton had vigorously defended President Donald Trump’s attempted extortion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the face of Russian aggression.
In July, 2019, Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to withhold almost $400 million in promised military aid for Ukraine.
Then, on July 25, Trump telephoned Zelensky to “request” a “favor”: Investigate presumed 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had had business dealings in Ukraine.
Clearly implied in the call: Produce “dirt” on Biden—or you won’t get the military aid.
All of which overlooks a number of brutal political truths.
First, all great powers have spheres of interest—and jealously guard them.
For the United States, it’s Latin and Central America, as established by the Monroe Doctrine.
And just what is the Monroe Doctrine?
It’s a statement made by President James Monroe in his 1823 annual message to Congress, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
It has no legitimacy except the willingness of the United States to use armed force to back it up. When the United States no longer has the will or resources to enforce the Doctrine, it will cease to have meaning.
For the Soviet Union, its spheres of influence include the Ukraine. Long known as “the breadbasket of Russia,” in 2011, it was the world’s third-largest grain exporter.
Russia will no more give up access to that breadbasket than the United States would part with the rich farming states of the Midwest.
Second, spheres of influence often prove disastrous to those smaller countries affected.
Throughout Latin and Central America, the United States remains highly unpopular for its brutal use of “gunboat diplomacy” during the 20th century.
Among those countries invaded or controlled by America: Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Columbia, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
The resulting anger has led many Latin and Central Americans to support Communist Cuba, even though its political oppression and economic failure are universally apparent.

Latin and Central America
Similarly, the Soviet Union forced many nations—such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia—to submit to the will of Moscow.
The alternative? The threat of Soviet invasion—as occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Third, even “great powers” are not all-powerful.
In 1949, after a long civil war, the forces of Mao Tse-tung defeated the Nationalist armies of Chiang Kai-Shek, who withdrew to Taiwan.
China had never been a territory of the United States. Nor could the United States have prevented Mao from defeating the corrupt, ineptly-led Nationalist forces.
Even so, Republican Senators and Representatives such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy eagerly blamed President Harry S. Truman and the Democrats for “losing China.”
The fear of being accused of “losing” another country led Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to tragically commit the United States to “roll back” Communism in Cuba and Vietnam.
Now Republicans—who claim the United States can’t afford to provide healthcare for its poorest citizens—want to turn the national budget over to the Pentagon.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Ukraine—even though this would mean going to war with the only nuclear power capable of turning America into an atomic graveyard.
Before plunging into conflicts that don’t concern us and where there is absolutely nothing to “win,” Americans would do well to remember the above-stated lessons of history. And to learn from them.
ABC NEWS, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, APALACHIN RAID, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUGGING, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CLYDE TYOLSON, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, FACEBOOK, FBI, FEDERAL BUREAU OF NARCOTICS, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HARRY ANSLINGER, HUFFINGTON POST, ILLEGAL ALIENS, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, IRAN, IRAN-CONTRA, J. EDGAR HOOVER, MAFIA, MEDIA MATTERS, MEYER LANSKY, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, OLIVER NORTH, ORGANIZED CRIME, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, ROBERT F. KENNEDY, Ronald Reagan, SALON, SANDINISTAS, SEATTLE TIMES, SENATE LABOR RACKETS COMMITTEE, SLATE, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TOP HOODLUM PROGRAM, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WAL-MART, WILLIAM ROEMER, WIRETAPPING, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 20, 2022 at 12:13 am
In 1959, J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the FBI, declared war on the Mafia.
He set up a Top Hoodlum Program and encouraged his agents to use wiretapping and electronic surveillance (“bugging”) to make up for lost time and Intelligence.
But planting “bugs” demanded illegal trespass into mob hangouts.
Making this even more hazardous: Hoover imposed restrictions on these assignments that could destroy an agent’s professional and personal life.
William E. Roemer, Jr., assigned to the FBI’s Chicago field office, was one of the first agents to volunteer for such duty.


William Roemer
In his memoirs, Man Against the Mob, published in 1989, Roemer laid out the dangers that went with such work:
- If confronted by police or mobsters, agents were to try to escape without being identified.
- If caught by police, agents were not to identify themselves as FBI employees.
- They were to carry no badges, credentials or guns—or anything else connecting themselves with the FBI.
- If they were arrested by police and the truth emerged about their FBI employment, the Bureau would claim they were “rogue agents” acting on their own.
- Such agents were not to refute the FBI’s portrayal of them as “rogues.”

If he had been arrested by the Chicago Police Department and identified as an FBI agent, Roemer would have:
- Been fired as an FBI agent.
- Almost certainly been convicted for at least breaking and entering.
- Disbarred from the legal profession (Roemer was an attorney).
- Perhaps served a prison sentence.
- Been disgraced as a convicted felon.
- Been unable to serve in his chosen profession of law enforcement.
If he had been intercepted by the mobsters, he would have likely been shot.
Given the huge risks involved, many agents, unsurprisingly, shunned “black bag jobs.”
The agents who took them on were so committed to penetrating the Mob that they willingly accepted Hoover’s dictates.
In 1989, Roemer speculated that former Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North had fallen victim to such a “Mission: Impossible” scenario: “The secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions….”

Oliver North’s mugshot
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan’s “arms-for-hostages” deal known as Iran-Contra had been exposed.
To retrieve seven Americans taken hostage in Beirut, Lebanon, Reagan had secretly agreed to sell some of America’s most sophisticated missiles to Iran.
During this operation, several Reagan officials—including North—diverted proceeds from the sale of those missiles to fund Reagan’s illegal war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
In Roemer’s view: North had followed orders from his superiors without question. But when the time came for those superiors to step forward and protect him, they didn’t.
They let him take the fall.
Roemer speculated that North had been led to believe he would be rescued from criminal prosecution. Instead, in 1989, he was convicted for
- Accepting an illegal gratuity;
- Aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry; and
- Ordering the destruction of documents via his secretary, Fawn Hall.
That is how many employers expect their employees to act: To carry out whatever assignments they are given and take the blame if anything goes wrong.
Take the case of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world’s biggest retailer.
In March, 2005, Wal-Mart escaped criminal charges when it agreed to pay $11 million to end a federal probe into its use of illegal aliens as janitors.
Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided 60 Wal-Mart stores across 21 states in October, 2003. The raids led to the arrest of 245 illegal aliens.

An ICE raid
The illegal aliens had been hired as janitors at Wal-Mart stores.
Many of the employees worked seven days or nights a week without overtime pay or injury compensation. Those who worked nights were often locked in the store until morning.
According to Federal officials, court-authorized wiretaps revealed that Wal-Mart executives knew their subcontractors hired illegal aliens.
Once the raids began, Federal agents invaded the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, seizing boxes of records from the office of a mid-level executive.
Of course, Wal-Mart admitted no wrongdoing in the case. Instead, it blamed its subcontractors for hiring illegal aliens and claiming that Wal-Mart hadn’t been aware of this.
Just as the FBI planned to have its agents take the fall in “black bag” cases, Wal-Mart meant to sacrifice its subcontractors for hiring illegal aliens.
The only reason Wal-Mart couldn’t make this work: The Feds had, for once, treated corporate executives like Mafia leaders and had tapped their phones.
Which holds a lesson for how Federal law enforcement agencies should treat future corporate executives when their companies are found violating the law.
Instead of seeing CEOs as “captains of industry,” a far more realistic approach would be giving this term a new meaning: Corrupt Egotistical Oligarchs.
Their phones should be tapped, their boardrooms and bedrooms bugged, and their closest associates should be given immunity to testify against them.
A smart investigator/prosecutor should always remember:
Widespread illegal and corrupt behavior cannot happen among the employees of a major government agency or private corporation unless:
- Those at the top have ordered it and are profiting from it; or
- Those at the top don’t want to know about it and have taken no steps to prevent or punish it.
ABC NEWS, AL QAEDA, ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM, AP, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BASHIR AL-ASSAD, BBC, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHILE, CNN, CROOKS AND LIARS, DAILY KOZ, FACEBOOK, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOUSE UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES COMMITTEE, HUFFINGTON POST, HUMAN RIGHTS, IRAN, JOHN BOEHNER, JOHN MCCAIN, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEW REPUBLIC, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICARAGUA, NPR, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REUTERS, RUSSIA, S.I. HAYAKAWA, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SYRIA, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UPI, USA TODAY, VLADIMIR PUTIN, WONKETTE
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 1, 2021 at 12:10 am
On September 11, 2013, the New York Times published an Op-Ed (guest editorial) from Russian President Vladimir Putin, entitled: “A Plea for Caution from Russia: What Putin Has to Say to Americans About Syria.”
No one should be surprised that Putin came out strongly against an American air strike on Syria.
Its “President” (i.e., dictator) Bashir al-Assad, is, after all, a close ally of Russia. Just as his late father and dictator, Hafez al-Assad, was a close ally of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991.

Putin, of course, is a former member of the KGB, the infamous secret police which ruled the Soviet Union from its birth in 1917 to its collapse in 1991.
He grew up under a Communist dictatorship and clearly wishes to return to that era, saying publicly: “First and foremost it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
So it would have been unrealistic to expect him to view the “Syria crisis” the same way that President Barack Obama did.
(A “crisis” for politicians is any event that can be exploited to increase their own status—and thus power. Few politicians really care about the “human rights” of other nations—unless promoting this issue can empower themselves and/or their own nation.
(President Ronald Reagan, for example, often wailed about the Soviets’ oppression of the Polish union, Solidarity—while firing hundreds of unionized air traffic controllers who went on strike.)
(A “crisis” for the media is any event that can be exploited for higher ratings.)
In his September 11, 2013 guest editorial in the New York Times, Putin offered the expected Russian take on Syria:
- Poison gas was used in Syria.
- It wasn’t used by the Syrian Army.
- It was used by “opposition forces, to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons.”
But it was the concluding paragraph that enraged American politicians the most—especially Right-wing ones. In it, Putin took exception with American “exceptionalism.”

Vladimir Putin
This is the belief that the United States is unlike other nations in its innocence and steadfast dedication to human rights above all else.
Citizens of nations whose governments have been overthrown by the United States—such as Chile, Iran and Nicaragua—and replaced with brutal dictatorships would strongly disagree.
Referring to then-President Obama, Putin wrote:
“And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is ‘what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.’
“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.
“There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too.
“We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
Putin had never publicly shown any interest in religion. But by invoking “the Lord,” he was able to turn the Christian beliefs of his Western audience into a useful weapon.
“I was insulted,” then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters when asked for his blunt reaction to the editorial.
“I have to be honest with you, I was at dinner, and I almost wanted to vomit,” said U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey).
Putin had dared to question the self-righteousness of American foreign policy—and those who make it.
Making his case for war with Syria, Obama had said: “America is not the world’s policeman….
“But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act.
“That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.”

President Barack Obama
* * * * *
In short: Because we consider ourselves “exceptional,” we have the divine right to do whatever we want.
It’s not necessary to see Putin as a champion of democracy (he isn’t) to see the truth in this part of his editorial: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.”
From 1938 to 1969, the House Un-American Activities Committee sought to define what was “American” and what was “Un-American.” As if “American” stood for all things virtuous.
Whoever heard of an “Un-French Activities Committee”? Or an “Un-German” or “Un-British” one?
The late S.I. Hayakawa once made an observation that clearly applies to this situation.
Hayakawa was a professor of semantics (the study of meaning, focusing on the relation between words and what they stand for).
In his bestselling book, Language in Thought and Action, he observed that when a person hears a message, he has four ways of responding to it:
- Accept the speaker and his message.
- Accept the speaker but reject the message.
- Accept the message but reject the speaker.
- Reject the message and the speaker.
Americans might want to consider #3 in the recent case of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
ABC NEWS, ALAMO, ALIEN-SMUGGLING RINGS, ALTERNET, ALVARO OBREGON, AMERICABLOG, AMNEXTY INTERNATIONAL, ANCHOR BABIES, ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA, AP, ARIZONA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BARACK OBAMA, BARBARA LEE, BBC, BLOOMBERG, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BREXIT, BUREAU OF CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION, BUZZFEED, CALIFORNIA, CBS NEWS, CHICAGO, CNN, COLORADO, CORRUPTION, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, DAILY KOS, DAILY KOZ, DAVID CROCKETT, DEMOCRATIC PARTY, DEMOCRATS, DONALD TRUMP, DREAM ACT, DRUDGE REPORT, EMILIANO ZAPATA, ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ERIC ADAMS, EUROPEAN UNION (EU), FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM (FAIR), FELIPE CALDERON, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FLORIDA, FRANCISCO "PANCHO" VILLA, FRANCISCO MADERO, GOLIAD MASSACRE, GREG ABBOTT, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HILLARY CLINTON, HISPANICS, HUFFINGTON POST, ILLEGAL ALIENS, illegal immigration, IMMIGRATIONS AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JAMES BOWIE, JEFF SESSIONS, MEDI-CAL, MEDI-CAL INSURANCE PROGRAM, MEDIA MATTERS, MEXICAN REVOLUTION, MEXICAN WAR, MEXICO, MEXICO CITY, MIGRANT CARRAVAN, MOSES AUSTIN, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NBC NEWS, NEVADA, NEW MEXICO, NEW REPUBLIC, NEW YORK CITY, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NEWT GINGRICH, NICARAGUA, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NPR, PANCHO VILLA, PAUL RYAN, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RACIAL PROFILING, RAW STORY, REPUBLICAN PARTY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT FROST, SALON, SAM HOUSTON, SAN JACINTO, SCHOOLS, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SLAVERY, STEPHEN AUSTIN, TALKING POINTS MEMO, TEXAS, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DAILY MAIL, THE DISCOURSES, THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, THOMAS HOMAN, TIJUANA, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWITTER, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, U.S. SUPREME COURT, UNITED KINGDOM (UK), UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UNITED STATES HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES DEPARTMENT, UPI, USA TODAY, UTAH, VENEZUELA, VENUSTIANO CARRANZA, WAL-MART, WASHINGTON D.C., WONKETTE
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:
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.
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.
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.
Share this: