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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 7, 2026 at 12:29 am
On January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) withdrew from the European Union (EU).
The United Kingdom—England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—had been a member state of the EU or its predecessor, the European Communities (EC), since January 1, 1973.
The vote had been a long time coming—and a major reason for it lay in the unrestricted immigration—legal and illegal—of Central and Eastern Europeans, who are allowed by EU regulations to freely live and work in any member state.
The United Kingdom
So the United Kingdom decided it would no longer be an EU member state.
Britons believed that migrants were clogging Britain’s health-care system and schools, while also depressing wages. By leaving the EU, Britons believed they could gain more control over their borders and drastically reduce immigration.
Immigration, the economy and health care had long been the top three issues on British voters’ minds.
The number of foreign-born people living in the UK went from 2.3 million in 1993 (when Britain joined the EU) to 8.2 million in 2014.
By 2020, the non-UK-born population was 9.5 million and the non-British population was 6.1 million. Most of these came from other EU countries: Cyprus, Malta, Croatia, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were the top three countries with the highest number of UK passport holders.
Critics of Brexit have blamed xenophobia for Britain’s leaving the EU. While that may have been true, it ignores a vital truth: People feel most comfortable around others like themselves.
In schools and prisons, it’s commonplace to see white sitting among whites, blacks sitting among blacks and Hispanics sitting among Hispanics.
In addition, people feel most comfortable among those who speak their own language. In the United States, there has been widespread resentment over having to “Push 1 for English” when calling government agencies.
Two factors are driving unprecedented levels of world migration:
- The world’s population at 8.1 billion, which puts unprecedented stress on available food, housing, medical care and other essential services; and
- The rapid escalation of climate change has brought drought/flooding to major parts of Africa, Asia and Latin and Central America.
Added to these must be an insight into human character offered by Niccolo Machiavelli, the sixteenth-century historian and political scientist, in his work, The Discourses:
Niccolo Machiavelli
It was a saying of ancient writers, that men afflict themselves in evil, and become weary of the good, and that both these dispositions produce the same effects.
For when men are no longer obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition, which passion is so powerful in the hearts of men that it never leaves them, no matter to what height they may rise.
The reason for this is that nature has created men so that they desire everything, but are unable to attain it. Desire being thus always greater than the faculty of acquiring, discontent with what they have and dissatisfaction with themselves result from it.
This causes the changes in their fortunes—for as some men desire to have more, while others fear to lose what they have, enmities and war are the consequences. And this brings about the ruin of one province and the elevation of another.
In addition: Those who have spent their lives as law-abiding citizens resent it when immigrants—especially illegal aliens—gain advantage by breaking the law.
Such a case occurred on January 1, 2024.
That was when California became the first state to offer health insurance to all illegal aliens. All of these uninvited foreigners, regardless of age, now qualify for Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program for people with low incomes.
Previously, illegal aliens could receive only emergency and pregnancy-related services under Medi-Cal as long as they met eligibility requirements, including income limits and California residency in 2014.
In 2015, then-Governor Jerry Brown allowed illegal alien children to receive coverage under Medi-Cal.
The final expansion starting January 1 will give full coverage to at least 700,000 illegal aliens who have no right to be in the country.
At the same time, about 3.2 million California citizens remained uninsured in 2022.
Meanwhile, California faces a record $68 billion budget deficit. Tax collections are off by $26 billion, combined with the economic slowdown California has been facing since 2022.
News stories announcing this taxpayers’ giveaway don’t refer to the recipients as “illegal aliens.” That’s because “illegal alien” is—for all its accuracy—Politically Incorrect.
Instead, those who defend the wanton violating of American immigration laws prefer the term “undocumented immigrant.”
As though these lawbreakers had valid citizenship documents but somehow lost them during their swim across the Rio Grande.
It’s entirely natural that those living in abject poverty—as millions do in Asia, Africa and Latin/Central America—want to escape it.
It’s also entirely natural that those who have escaped poverty want to hold on to all they have worked hard to attain.
The refusal of liberal politicians—in England, Italy, France, Germany and the United States—to accept these truths has led to the rise of authoritarian, Right-wing movements in those countries.
By refusing to address rising anger over such invasions, liberal politicians throughout the world are endangering the very democracies they cherish.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 6, 2026 at 12:10 am
In May 20, 2010, Mexico’s then-President Felipe Calderon addressed a joint session of the United States Congress—and attacked a recently-enacted Arizona law that allowed law enforcement officials to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.
According to Calderon, the law “introduces a terrible idea: Using racial profiling as a basis for law enforcement.
“I have said that Mexico does not stop at its border, that wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.”
The hypocrisy of Calderon’s words was staggering. He was condemning the United States for doing what Mexico itself has long done: Strictly enforcing control of its own borders.
Felipe Calderon
World Economic ForumCopyright by World Economic Forum / Photo by Remy Steinegger
Mexico’s immigration laws state: Any foreigner that enters the country to stay less than six months is considered a visitor. To meet immigration requirements, you must:
- Have enough money to pay for your stay in the country;
- Have an invitation from a private or public interest organization.
If you want to stay more than 180 days, you must obtain a temporary residency visa in Mexico. This requires you to:
- Have a family relationship with a Mexican citizen.
- Have a job offer issued by a Mexican employer.
- Have an invitation from a private or public institution.
- Have enough money to pay for your stay in the country.
- Own real estate in Mexico.
- Have investments in Mexico.
After being a temporary resident for four years, you can apply for permanent residency. To obtain this, you must meet these requirements:
- Be a refugee or under the condition of political asylum.
- Have a family relationship with a Mexican citizen.
- To have been a temporary resident for four years.
- Be a pensioner with enough monthly income to pay for your stay in the country.
- Be related in a straight line up to the second degree to a Mexican by birth.
- To have been a temporary resident for two years in the case of a conjugal or concubine relationship with a Mexican citizen or permanent resident.
Eight years after Calderon demanded that Americans repeal their immigration laws, Mexicans suddenly discovered they hated illegal aliens, too.
On October 13, 2018, a caravan of at least 5,000 men, women and children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras set out for the United States.
On October 18, President Donald Trump closed the U.S.-Mexico border to keep the caravan from entering the country.
By November 19, migrants had begun piling up in Tijuana, which borders San Diego.
Suddenly, Tijuana residents began carrying signs reading “No illegals,” “No to the invasion” and “Mexico First.” And marching in the streets wearing Mexico’s red, white and green national soccer jersey and vigorously waving Mexican flags.
“We want the caravan to go; they are invading us,” said Patricia Reyes, a 62-year-old protester. “They should have come into Mexico correctly, legally, but they came in like animals.”
The El Paso Times noted the resentment of many Mexicans toward the increasing numbers of Cuban illegal aliens in Juarez, which lies across from El Paso.
“They don’t get along with Mexican people,” said a burrito seller. “They get in a little group by themselves. A lot of people don’t like them here.”
And a business consultant complained, “There are people who are coming looking for a handout, who want us to help them, when they could also look for work.”
Over the weekend of October 12-13, 2019, a National Guard commander addressed his platoon before confronting the latest caravan: “No one will come to trample our country, our land!”
In the past, Mexicans comprised the largest group of illegal aliens entering the United States. But the Mexican economy has grown and developed to the point where fewer people see the need to emigrate.
Most illegals are now mostly from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. And there are growing numbers from Haiti, Cuba, various African countries, and even the Middle East.
During the first eight months of 2019, the number of asylum applications submitted to Mexico’s refugee agency (COMAR) more than tripled, compared to the same period in 2018. As a result, the refugee agency removed the how-to-apply video it once hosted on its website.
In the past, the Mexican Government refused to halt illegal immigration to the United States.
It remembered the bloody upheaval known as the Mexican Revolution. This lasted 10 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 lived in the shadow of another such wholesale bloodletting. These officials quietly decided to turn the United States border into a safety valve.
* * * * *
No other nation has ever allowed itself to become a dumping ground for the world’s unwanteds. And no law—religious or secular—obligates the United States to do so.
Space is limited in schools, hospitals and housing, and the more people who cram into limited spaces, the more frictions they inevitably create.
As native-born Mexicans are angrily finding out.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 3, 2026 at 12:06 am
“Good fences make good neighbors.”
Robert Frost penned those famous words in his 1914 poem, “Mending Wall.”
For millions of Americans, illegal immigration was the issue empowering the candidacy of Donald Trump to regain the Presidency in 2024.
For them, Frost’s opening line has become gospel: “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 aliens climbing over the border fence
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, then-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 May 1, 2025, Texas had spent more than $229 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 on April 13, 2024, 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, warned it could not 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 250 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.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 2, 2026 at 12:05 am
“Neither peace nor war—nor a policy” accurately describes the current state of relations between the United States and Iran.
On February 28, 2026, President Donald Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran. Suddenly he faced an enemy he could neither bribe nor intimidate.
And, by late May, definite parallels had formed between Adolf Hitler’s disastrous attack on the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s attack on Iran.
Operation Barbarossa erupted on June 22, 1941, swallowing at least two million dead and wounded Soviet soldiers and another three million POWs (most of whom died in captivity under barbarous conditions).
The Wehrmacht occupied the western half of the Soviet Union. But then the seemingly unstoppable Blitzkrieg ground to a halt—owing to unexpected and increasingly fierce resistance by Russians and the advent of the infamous Russian winter.
Adolf Hitler
Jonathan Trigg, in his vividly-written nonfiction book, The Battle of Stalingrad Through German Eyes, observes that when Hitler’s prediction of a six-week victory turned sour, he didn’t have a fallback strategy to win the war.
Nor did the General Staff have a solution. Every country they had invaded—Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, France, Greece, Yugoslavia—-had capitulated. Its government had sued for peace or gone into exile. When Great Britain refused to surrender, Hitler had no answer, and he had none for the Soviet Union.
Panzer commander Ewald von Kleist admitted: “There were no plans for a prolonged struggle. Everything was based on the idea of a decisive result before the end of autumn 1941.”
Like Hitler, Trump had believed that:
- He could force Iran’s leaders to submit to his demands: Surrender their uranium stockpiles and promise to never build a nuclear bomb.
- His war would end successfully in four to six weeks at most.
Finally, like Hitler, Trump had no alternative plan for a prolonged struggle.
True, he could turn Iran into a radioactive pile of rubble by using nuclear weapons. Or he could order an all-out invasion of Iran—a country 2.4 to 2.5 times larger than Texas—requiring tens of thousands of troops.
But both options would be hugely unpopular among Americans—especially in an election year when Republicans were threatened with the loss of the House of Representatives and/or the Senate.
As a result, Trump could only threaten or deliver more impotent airstrikes.
Donald Trump
After a two-week ceasefire was announced on April 8, the following diplomatic activities occurred:
- April 11–12: Vice President JD Vance met with Iranian delegates in Islamabad for the highest-level diplomatic engagement between the two nations since 1979. The talks stalled over Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities.
- April 13: The United States launched a naval blockade on Iranian ports, suspending oil shipments.
- April 20–21: Trump warned that a lack of an extended deal would result in the resumption of bombing. The deadline was extended indefinitely while waiting for a unified Iranian proposal.
- June 17: Trump and Iranian President Pezeshkian signed a 14-point interim Memo of Understanding (MoU). The agreement established a 60-day negotiation window regarding Iran’s nuclear program and lifted the U.S. port blockade in exchange for the safe passage of commercial vessels.
- June 26: Trump announced that Iran violated the newly signed ceasefire after launching four one-way attack drones at cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
- June 26–27: The U.S. military executed strikes against Iranian sites in response to the drone attacks, placing the future of the diplomatic agreement in jeopardy.
On June 28, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched missiles and drones at United States bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Following the exchange of fire, the United States and Iran accused each other of violating the ceasefire agreement.
The IRGC said that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed gave Iran the right to control passage and navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, and from now on, violating ships would be dealt with more forcefully than in the past.
Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz had operated freely as an international waterway before the 2026 war. An estimated 110 to 160 commercial and oil vessels had safely transited the 21-mile passageway on an average day.
The Trump administration is demanding that it remain freely open to all ships. Iran, having discovered that controlling the Strait gives it leverage over the world’s oil-based economy, is determined to exact tolls from ships that pass through it.
After the latest American strikes on Iran were announced, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”
Given the conditions cited above, that is highly unlikely.
So long as Iran continues to exert its will against the world’s greatest superpower, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’ unguarded statement will prove highly accurate:
“The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skillful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result.
“An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so-called Revolutionary Guards. And so, I hope that this ends as quickly as possible.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on July 1, 2026 at 12:10 am
On August 1, 1914, Germany declared war on Russia. It did so after Russia mobilized its military to protect Serbia after Austria-Hungary declared war on the Serbian nation.
Four years later, Russia was devastated. After suffering massive casualties, its armies were in full retreat. Czar Nicholas II capitulated on March 15, 1917, after bread riots broke out in St. Petersburg, then the nation’s capital.
And the newly-installed Bolshevik government was faring no better in repelling the German invaders. Moreover, Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolsheviks, had made pulling Russia out of a disastrous war a major selling point of their propaganda campaign to win support.
Vladimir Lenin
Fortunately for them, the government of Kaiser Wilhelm II was equally anxious to end to its war with Russia. Doing so would allow it to transfer huge numbers of soldiers to the Western Front—hopefully before the United States could intervene on behalf of France and England.
On March 3, 1918, Russia and Germany signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, withdrawing Russia from World War 1.
Under the terms of the treaty, Russia lost control of Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and its Caucasian provinces of Kars and Batum. The lands comprised 34% of the former empire’s population, 54% of its industrial land, 89% of its coalfields, and 26% of its railways.
(The treaty was annulled when Germany signed the Armistice of November 11, 1918 when surrendering to the victorious Allies.)
The treaty was a humiliation for the new Soviet government. Leon Trotsky, leading the Russian delegation, at first refused to sign the agreement. But he also offered an end to hostilities, hoping to spark a proletarian revolution in Germany. He referred to this tactic as “neither peace nor war.”
The Germans were having none of it. Neither was Joseph Stalin, then a rising figure in the Communist government. Stalin’s scathing description of Trotsky’s phrase: “Neither peace nor war—nor a policy.”
Joseph Stalin in 1917
“Neither peace nor war—nor a policy” also describes the current state of relations between the United States and Iran.
Resuming the Presidency on January 20, 2025, Donald Trump threatened military invasions of Canada and Greenland and attacked Venezuela to snatch its dictator/president Nicolás Maduro. He ordered military strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats and cartel operations in the Caribbean, the Pacific and Ecuador.
Domestically he attacked such major universities as Columbia, Brown and Cornell for their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) polices and/or alleged antisemitism. To restore their frozen federal funding, Columbia agreed to pay $200 million; Brown paid $50 million and Cornell paid $30 million.
But on February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran. Suddenly he faced an enemy he could neither bribe nor intimidate.
Bombing of Tehran
To Trump’s surprise and dismay, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz—through which about 20%-25% of the world’s total liquid petroleum consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.
Overnight, gas prices surged. By late May, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.56, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.
On March 11, Trump had told a reporter: “You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the, in the first hour, it was over.”
On April 5—Easter Sunday, no less—Trump posted on his website, Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
This was followed on April 7 by another post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Donald Trump
But then Trump backed down after experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.
On April 8, Trump and Iranian leaders agreed to a two-week ceasefire—less than two hours before Trump’s deadline.
But then Trump ordered the United States Navy to blockade Iran’s ports—even after Iran officially declared the Strait of Hormuz open again.
In response, Iran declared the Strait closed as long as the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remained in place.
This left Trump with two unpalatable choices: Expand his unpopular war and watch gas prices continue to rise, or remove the naval blockade and appear weak.
By late May, the Strait of Hormuz remained closed and crude oil prices continued to rise throughout the world. And so did the prices of all goods transported to market.
And, by late May, definite parallels had formed between Adolf Hitler’s disastrous attack on the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s attack on Iran.
Hitler, confident in a swift victory over the Soviet Union in 1941, told his Chief of Staff, General Alfred Jodl, “We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”
Adolf Hitler
Operation Barbarossa erupted on June 22, 1941, swallowing at least two million dead and wounded Soviet soldiers and another three million POWs (most of whom died in captivity under barbarous conditions). The Wehrmacht occupied the western half of the Soviet Union.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 30, 2026 at 12:30 am
On October 4, 1943, SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler addressed SS officers stationed in Posen, Poland, about the ongoing campaign to exterminate the Jews of Europe.
He gave a similar speech two days later to an audience of Reichsleiters (national leaders) and Gauleiters (governors), as well as other government representatives.
Himmler intended to alert Reich officials of the extermination campaign the Schutzstaffel (“Protective Squads”)—otherwise known as the SS—and Wehrmacht (German army) had been waging since June, 1941.
The purpose: To make his listeners accessories to his monumental crimes—and to warn them there was no turning back.
Heinrich Himmler
Either Nazi Germany won the war that its Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, had unintentionally unleashed on September 1, 1939—or its topmost officials would themselves face extinction as war criminals.
Said Himmler:
“I want to also mention a very difficult subject before you, with complete candor. It should be discussed amongst us, yet nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public. I am talking about the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people.
“It is one of those things that is easily said: ‘The Jewish people is being exterminated.’…Most of you will know what it means when 100 bodies lie together, when 500 are there or when there are 1,000. And to have seen this through and—with the exception of human weakness—to have remained decent, has made us hard and is a page of glory never mentioned and never to be mentioned….
“But altogether we can say: We have carried out this most difficult task for the love of our people. And we have suffered no defect within us, in our soul, in our character.”
Fast forward 83 years—to June 26, 2026.
On that day, Mike Johnson (R-LA), Speaker of the House of Representatives, issued a warning about what Republicans stood to lose if Democrats won control of Congress in the upcoming November 3 midterm elections.
He did so at the annual Road to Majority Conference sponsored by the Right-wing Faith and Freedom Coalition:
“If we were to lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats, y’all, impeachment’s not even the biggest concern. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors and friends—half of you in this room will be targeted.”
Mike Johnson
Johnson expressed worry over recent primary wins by Democratic Socialist candidates in New York City, then warned, “This is a midterm unlike any other. Not only because of the threats that we face that are very real and must be confronted, but it’s because of a lot of reasons on paper why we should win.
“I run the protection program. I’ll take care of you, okay?”
This was clearly a reference to the Justice Department’s Witness Security Program for organized crime informants. But that program requires career criminals to serve justice by helping to convict their former accomplices.
Johnson’s “program”—if there is one—would protect career criminals from investigation and prosecution.
“It’d be nice to have a Speaker who’d say: ‘And let them, we have nothing to hide, and they’ll look like fools for doing it.’ But what he’s saying here is: They’re gonna uncover a lot of stuff, and you don’t want that,” tweeted Atlantic senior staff writer Tom Nichols.
“This is the most corrupt words to come out of a Speaker’s mouth imaginable,” tweeted Frederick Wellman, Democratic congressional candidate for Missouri’s 2nd District. “The job of Congress isn’t to protect the President and his family. It’s to provide checks and balances on the Executive Branch.
“You’re damn right we will investigate crimes and corruption. Who moved $180 million in oil futures 15 minutes before Iran announcements? Who has gotten sole source contracts because of their connections to the Trump family? Where did our social security data go when DOGE downloaded it into portable hard drives?
“Where are the rest of the Epstein files? On and on this Congress has chosen covering up crimes instead of stopping them. That ends in November.”
Fred Wellman
A February 27 – March 3 poll by the think tank Data for Progress found that an overwhelming majority of voters want the Justice Department and FBI to hold accountable those named in the Epstein files.
Voters are equally unsupportive of President Donald Trump’s series of planned vanity projects—such as a gigantic, $400 million White House ballroom and pretentious triumphal arch that will obscure views from Arlington National Cemetery.
His effort to “beautify” the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has turned it into a lake of stinking, unsightly green algae—and ignited national scorn and ridicule.
Meanwhile, Trump has refused to sign a newly-passed bipartisan housing bill until Congress passes the SAVE America Act, a sweeping elections bill that would disenfranchise millions of Democratic voters.
By following the same strategy as Heinrich Himmler, Trump has entangled Republicans in his own crimes.
His infamy is now theirs.
History has brutally condemned those Germans who, knowing the full extent of Adolf Hitler’s crimes, nevertheless signed on to perpetuate and conceal them.
History will render the same damning verdict against House and Senate Republicans who provided similar cover for the crimes of Donald Trump.
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In Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 29, 2026 at 12:10 am
Major Dundee is a 1965 Sam Peckinpah Western focusing on a Union cavalry officer (Charlton Heston) who leads a motley troop of soldiers into Mexico to rescue three children kidnapped by Apaches.
Along the way they liberate Mexican villagers and clash with French lancers trying to establish Mexico as a French colony under would-be emperor Archduke Maximilian 1.
The Wild Bunch is universally recognized as Peckinpah’s greatest achievement. It has certainly had a far greater impact on audiences and critics than Major Dundee. According to Heston, this was really the movie Peckinpah wanted to make while making Dundee, but he couldn’t quite get his mind around it.
As a result, Dundee’s virtues have been tragically overlooked. It has a larger cast of major characters than Bunch, and these are men whose character an audience can truly admire and identify with:
- The charm of Benjamin Tyreen (Richard Harris), a Confederate lieutenant forced into Union service;
- The steady courage of Sergeant Gomez (Mario Adorf);
- The quiet dignity of Aesop (Brock Peters), a black soldier;
- The quest for maturity in young, untried bugler Tim Ryan (Michael Anderson, Jr.);
- The on-the-job training experience of impetuous Lt. Graham (Jim Hutton); and
- The stoic endurance of one-armed Indian scout Sam Potts (James Coburn).
These men are charged with a dangerous and dirty mission, and do it as well as they can, but you wouldn’t fear inviting them to meet your family.
Major Dundee (Charlton Heston)
That was definitely not the case with The Wild Bunch, four hardened killers prepared to rip off anyone, anytime, and leave a trail of bodies in their wake. The only place where you would have felt safe seeing them, in real-life, was behind prison bars.
The Wild Bunch
Dundee is an odyssey movie, in the same vein as Saving Private Ryan. Both films start with a battle, followed by the disappearance of characters who need to be searched for and brought back to safety.
Just as Dundee assembles a small force to go into Mexico, so, too, does Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) do the same, with his hunting ground being France.
Dundee’s men retrieve the kidnapped children and survive a near-fatal battle with Indians. Miller’s men twice clash with the Germans before finding their quarry, James Ryan.
Before Dundee can return to the United States, he must face and defeat a corps of French soldiers. Before Miller can haul Ryan back to safety, he must repulse a German assault.
Both groups of soldiers—Dundee’s and Miller’s—are transformed by their experiences in ways neither group could possibly articulate. (Miller, being a highly literate schoolteacher, would surely do a better job of this than the tight-jawed Dundee.)
Dundee’s soldiers return to a United States that’s just ended its Civil War with a Union victory—and the death of slavery. Miller’s soldiers return to a nation that is now a global superpower.
Of course, Ryan was fortunate in having Steven Spielberg as its director. With his clout, there was no question that Ryan would emerge as the film he wanted.
Peckinpah lacked such clout. And he fought with everyone, including the producer, Jerry Bressler, who ultimately held the power to destroy his film. This guaranteed that his movie would emerge far differently than he had envisioned.
Sam Peckinpah
In 2005, an extended version of Dundee was released, featuring 12 minutes of restored footage. (Much of the original footage was lost after severe cuts to the movie.)
In this new version, we fully see how unsympathetic a character the martinet Dundee really is. Owing to Heston’s career of playing heroes—such as Moses and El Cid—it’s easy to overlook Dundee’s arrogance and lethal fanaticism and automatically view him as a hero.
If he is indeed that, he is a hero with serious flaws.
And his self-imposed mission poses questions for us today:
- Where is the line between professional duty and personal fanaticism?
- How do we balance the success of a mission against its potential costs—especially if they prove appalling?
- At what point—if any—does personal conscience override professional obligations?
Whether intentionally or not, in Major Dundee, Peckinpah laid out a microcosm of the American history that would immediately follow the Civil War.
Former Confederates and Unionists would forego their regional animosities and fight against a recognized mutual enemy—the Indians. This would prove a dirty and drawn-out war, stripped of the glory and (later) treasured memories of the Civil War.
Just as Dundee’s final battle with French lancers ended with an American victory won at great cost, so, too, would America’s forays into the Spanish-American War and World Wars 1 and 11 prove the same.
Ben Tyreen’s commentary on the barbarism of French troops (“Never underestimate the value of a European education”) would be echoed by twentieth-century Americans uncovering the horrors of Dachau and Buchenwald.
And America would learn to project its formidable military power at great cost. Toward the end of the movie, Teresa Santiago (Senta Berger), the ex-patriot Austrian widow, asks Dundee: “But who do you answer to?”
It is a question that still vividly expresses the view of the international community as this superpower colossus hurtles from one often-disastrous conflict to the next.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on June 26, 2026 at 12:05 am
On October 7, 2023, about 2,500 Hamas terrorists launched coordinated attacks on Israeli outposts and settlements, firing over 5,000 rockets and burning houses.
They killed over 1,139 people, of which 695 were civilians—including women, children and the elderly. They also kidnapped over 250 others—including 30 children—to Gaza.
Most of those hostages were subsequently murdered.
Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel
Israel pounded Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers. By May, 2026, Palestinian health authorities claimed that Israel’s ground and air campaign had killed more than 72,000 Palestinians.
Among the reactions to this conflict:
- The World Court ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
- Liberal Democrats demanded that President Joseph Biden stop shipping military equipment to Israel.
- Three European countries—Spain, Ireland, and Norway—announced that they would recognize a Palestinian state.
- Across the United States, scores of university students protested Israel’s retaliation against Gaza.
- Among the universities targeted: Columbia, Harvard, Yale, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, Emory University in Atlanta, Boston’s Emerson College.
- Columbia University, Barnard College and the University of Southern California canceled their graduation ceremonies owing to fears of violent protests by terrorism-sympathizing students.
Such holier-than-thou attitudes ignore three important truths:
First: Soldiering is by its nature a brutal business.
- The purpose of boot camp is to “break down” the restraints of pacifism and individuality and turn “boys” into “fighting men.” This must be done in weeks, so the process is shockingly brutal.
- Recruits are repeatedly taught such maxims as: “Ambushes are murder—and murder is fun.”
- Denigrating the enemy is a time-worn habit in all armies—including the American army. During the Indian wars, soldiers referred to Indians as “Red niggers.”
- In World War II—the “Good War”—America’s servicemen fought “Japs” and “Krauts.” During the Vietnam war, Vietnamese became “dinks” and “gooks.”
Marine drill instructor
- Today’s servicemen and women routinely (but unofficially) refer to their Islamic enemies as “ragheads” or “sand niggers.”
- Soldiers who aren’t toughened by boot camp are by the battlefield. As General George S. Patton often warned: “When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friend’s face, you’ll know what to do.”
- Those who are demanding that Israel “pause” its offensive against Gaza ignore that when Allied armies were closing in on Berlin, the capitol of Nazi Germany, Americans did not demand that Nazis be given a chance to reorganize and counterattack.
Second: Atrocities in wartime are nothing new—including for U.S. forces.
- During the Mexican War, Texas Rangers accompanying the U.S. Army acted as commandos—and exacted reprisals against Mexicans engaging in terrorist acts.
- During the army’s wars against the Indians, soldiers and scouts—such as William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody—routinely took scalps as trophies.
- During World War II, Marines posted in the Pacific rarely took prisoners. The reason: Japanese soldiers often pretended to surrender––and thus lured American troops into ambushes.
Waffen-SS soldier
- GIs fighting in the European theater generally shot fanatical Waffen-SS soldiers—including those who tried to surrender. This was especially true during the Battle of the Bulge, when Germans dressed in American uniforms stirred panic among Allied forces.
- During the Vietnam war, some “grunts” made necklaces of ears taken from dead Vietcong. Vietnam Correspondent Michael Herr, in his book Dispatches, relates the story of a grunt who was “building his own gook” from actual body parts.
Third: Those who provoke war do not have a right to dictate how their opponents should defend themselves.
- In 1815, just before the Battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson ordered American snipers to harass invading British forces—and especially to take out officers. The British commander angrily protested this “barbarism.” Jackson sent back a message of his own: “You have invaded our country and we will defend ourselves as we see fit.”
- William Tecumseh Sherman, defending the conduct of his men during their legendary “March to the Sea” through Georgia, said: “Those people made war on us, defied and dared us to come south to their country, where they boasted they would kill us and do all manner of horrible things. We accepted their challenge, and now for them to whine and complain of the natural and necessary results is beneath contempt.”
William Tecumseh Sherman
- Israelis have learned to deter Palestinian suicide-bombers by the use of police dogs. Muslims protest because they consider dogs defiled—and defiling—creatures. Islamic terrorists fear that blowing up themselves near a dog risks mingling their blood with that of the dead or wounded animal—thus forfeiting their opportunity to enter Paradise and claim those 72 willing virgins.
- In early November, 2001—two months after 9/11—Muslims throughout the Islamic world demanded that the United States halt its attacks on Taliban forces in Afghanistan out of “respect” for Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.
- In short: Islamic “holy warriors” could launch attacks that murdered thousands of innocent men, women and children. But “infidels” were supposed to defend themselves according to Islamic rules.
- The United States wisely refused to bow to this Islamic version of “political correctness.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 25, 2026 at 12:05 am
On June 11, 2025, California Governor Gavin Newsom addressed not only President Donald Trump’s response to civil disorders in Los Angeles, but the threat he posed to California, every other state—and democracy itself.
* * * * *
Donald Trump, without consulting with California’s law enforcement leaders, commandeered 2,000 of our state’s National Guard members to deploy on our streets. Illegally, and for no reason.
Donald Trump
This brazen abuse of power by a sitting President inflamed a combustible situation … putting our people, our officers, and the National Guard at risk.
That’s when the downward spiral began.
He doubled down on his dangerous National Guard deployment by fanning the flames even harder. And the President did it on purpose.
As the news spread throughout LA, anxiety for family and friends ramped up.
Protests started again. By night, several dozen lawbreakers became violent and destructive. They vandalized property. They tried to assault police officers.
Many of you have seen video clips of cars burning on cable news. If you incite violence or destroy our communities, you are going to be held accountable. That kind of criminal behavior will not be tolerated.
Full stop. Already, more than 370 people have been arrested. And we’re reviewing tapes to build additional cases, and people will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Again, thanks to our law enforcement officers and the majority of Angelenos who protested peacefully, this situation was winding down and was concentrated in just a few square blocks downtown.
But that’s not what Donald Trump wanted. He again chose escalation; he chose more force. He chose theatrics over public safety – he federalized another 2,000 Guard members. He deployed more than 700 active U.S. Marines.
These are men and women trained in foreign combat, not domestic law enforcement.
Trump is pulling a military dragnet across LA, well beyond his stated intent to just go after violent and serious criminals. His agents are arresting dishwashers, gardeners, day laborers and seamstresses.
That’s just weakness. Weakness, masquerading as strength.
Donald Trump’s government isn’t protecting our communities – they are traumatizing our communities. And that seems to be the point.
California will keep fighting on behalf of our people – all of our people – including in the courts. Yesterday, we filed a legal challenge to President Trump’s reckless deployment of American troops to a major American city.
Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there. Trump and his loyalists thrive on division because it allows them to take more power and exert even more control.
By the way, Trump – he’s not opposed to lawlessness and violence, as long as it serves HIM. What more evidence do we need than January 6th?
I ask everyone to take the time to reflect on this perilous moment. A president who wants to be bound by no law or constitution. Perpetrating a unified assault on American traditions.
Gavin Newsom
This is a President who, in just over 140 days, has fired government watchdogs that could hold him accountable for corruption and fraud. He’s declared a war on culture, on history, on science – on knowledge itself. Databases, quite literally vanishing.
He’s delegitimizing news organizations and assaulting the First Amendment. At the threat of defunding them, he’s dictating what universities can teach. Targeting law firms and the judicial branch that are the foundation of an orderly, civil society.
Calling for a sitting Governor [Newsom himself] to be arrested for no other reason than – to use his words – “for getting elected.”
Look, this isn’t just about protests in LA. When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard, he made that order apply to every state in this nation. This is about all of us. This is about you.
California may be first – but it clearly won’t end here. Other states are next. Democracy is next.
Democracy is under assault right before our eyes – the moment we’ve feared has arrived. He’s taking a wrecking ball to our founding fathers’ historic project: Three independent, coequal branches of government.
There are no longer any checks and balances. Congress is nowhere to be found. [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson has completely abdicated that responsibility.
The rule of law has increasingly given way to the rule of Don.
The founding fathers did not live and die to see this moment. It’s time for all of us to stand up. [Supreme Court Justice Louis] Brandeis said it best: In a democracy, the most important office is not president, it’s certainly not governor. The most important office is office of citizen.
At this moment, we must all stand up and be held to a higher level of accountability. If you exercise your First Amendment rights, please do so peacefully.
I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress, and fear. But I want you to know that YOU are the antidote to that fear and anxiety.
What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty. Your silence. To be complicit in this moment. Do NOT give in to him.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 24, 2026 at 12:10 am
History is filled with examples of men—and women—who in moments of crisis rose to challenge a deadly enemy. One of these is California Governor Gavin C. Newsom.
On June 6, 2025, protests erupted in Los Angeles against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The demonstrations were triggered by ICE raids at multiple locations in the city to arrest suspected illegal aliens.
On the evening of June 7, 2025, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum deploying 2,000 members of the California National Guard to the protests for either 60 days or for a length of time “at the discretion of the secretary of defense.”
He did so without the request—or consent—of Governor Newsom.
If a Democratic President did so in a Republican state, Congressional Republicans would scream “STATES’ RIGHTS!” and accuse the President of being a dictator. But since Trump is a Republican, Congressional Republicans enthusiastically supported his action.
National Guard troops in L.A.
In a tweet, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that active duty Marines were on “high alert” at Camp Pendleton.
And Trump later threatened to “have troops everywhere” if the protests spread to other cities. “If we see danger to our country and our citizens,” the Marines would be deployed to Los Angeles.
Newsom retorted that the National Guard—and especially the Marines—weren’t needed. The LAPD and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were fully capable of protecting Federal property and dispersing the protesters.
He called on Trump to return control of the Guard to California—and withdraw the Marines, who are trained for combat, not handling civil unrest.
Thomas Homan, White House Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations, told NBC News that Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass could potentially face federal charges over their response to the ICE raids.
Homan had previously threatened arrest for anyone who obstructed immigration enforcement. When asked whether that would include Newsom or Bass, Homan did not rule it out.
“I’ll say it about anybody,” Homan said. “You cross that line, it’s a felony to knowingly harbor and conceal an illegal alien. It’s a felony to impede law enforcement doing their job.”
Tom Homan
Newsom quickly responded to Homan: “Trump’s border czar is threatening to arrest me for speaking out. Come and get me, tough guy.
“What the hell are they doing? These guys need to grow up, they need to stop and we need to push back and I’m sorry to be so clear but that kind of bloviating is exhausting. So Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”
Homan just as quickly backed down: “There’s no intention to arrest the governor right now. I don’t know if he crossed that line.” Homan said he would “leave that up” to the Justice Department.
When asked about the idea of arresting Newsom, Trump said, “I’d do it if I were Tom. Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing.”
On June 11, Newsom addressed not only Trump’s response to civil disorders in Los Angeles, but the threat he posed to California, every other state—and democracy itself.
GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM’S ADDRESS TO CALIFORNIA: DEMOCRACY AT A CROSSROADS ON JUNE 11, 2025
I want to say a few words about the events of the last few days. This past weekend, federal agents conducted large-scale workplace raids in and around Los Angeles. Those raids continue as I speak.
California is no stranger to immigration enforcement. But instead of focusing on undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records and people with final deportation orders – a strategy both parties have long supported – this administration is pushing mass deportations.
Indiscriminately targeting hardworking immigrant families, regardless of their roots or risk.
What’s happening right now is very different than anything we’ve seen before. On Saturday morning, when federal agents jumped out of an unmarked van near a Home Depot parking lot, they began grabbing people.
A deliberate targeting of a heavily Latino suburb.
A similar scene also played out when a clothing company was raided downtown.
In other actions: a US citizen, 9 months pregnant – arrested.
A four-year-old girl – taken.
Families separated. Friends disappearing.
In response, everyday Angelinos came out to exercise their Constitutional right to free speech and assembly. To protest their government’s actions.
In turn, the State of California and the City and County of Los Angeles sent our police officers to help keep the peace, and with some exceptions, they were successful.
Like many states, California is no stranger to this sort of civil unrest. We manage it regularly … and with our own law enforcement.
But this, again, was different.
What then ensued was the use of tear gas. Flash-bang grenades. Rubber bullets. Federal agents, detaining people and undermining their due process rights.
Donald Trump, without consulting with California’s law enforcement leaders, commandeered 2,000 of our state’s National Guard members to deploy on our streets. Illegally, and for no reason.
This brazen abuse of power by a sitting President inflamed a combustible situation … putting our people, our officers, and the National Guard at risk.
That’s when the downward spiral began.
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ILLEGAL ALIENS–THE WORLD’S UNWANTEDS: PART THREE (OF FIVE)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 7, 2026 at 12:29 amOn January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) withdrew from the European Union (EU).
The United Kingdom—England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—had been a member state of the EU or its predecessor, the European Communities (EC), since January 1, 1973.
The vote had been a long time coming—and a major reason for it lay in the unrestricted immigration—legal and illegal—of Central and Eastern Europeans, who are allowed by EU regulations to freely live and work in any member state.
The United Kingdom
So the United Kingdom decided it would no longer be an EU member state.
Britons believed that migrants were clogging Britain’s health-care system and schools, while also depressing wages. By leaving the EU, Britons believed they could gain more control over their borders and drastically reduce immigration.
Immigration, the economy and health care had long been the top three issues on British voters’ minds.
The number of foreign-born people living in the UK went from 2.3 million in 1993 (when Britain joined the EU) to 8.2 million in 2014.
By 2020, the non-UK-born population was 9.5 million and the non-British population was 6.1 million. Most of these came from other EU countries: Cyprus, Malta, Croatia, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were the top three countries with the highest number of UK passport holders.
Critics of Brexit have blamed xenophobia for Britain’s leaving the EU. While that may have been true, it ignores a vital truth: People feel most comfortable around others like themselves.
In schools and prisons, it’s commonplace to see white sitting among whites, blacks sitting among blacks and Hispanics sitting among Hispanics.
In addition, people feel most comfortable among those who speak their own language. In the United States, there has been widespread resentment over having to “Push 1 for English” when calling government agencies.
Two factors are driving unprecedented levels of world migration:
Added to these must be an insight into human character offered by Niccolo Machiavelli, the sixteenth-century historian and political scientist, in his work, The Discourses:
Niccolo Machiavelli
It was a saying of ancient writers, that men afflict themselves in evil, and become weary of the good, and that both these dispositions produce the same effects.
For when men are no longer obliged to fight from necessity, they fight from ambition, which passion is so powerful in the hearts of men that it never leaves them, no matter to what height they may rise.
The reason for this is that nature has created men so that they desire everything, but are unable to attain it. Desire being thus always greater than the faculty of acquiring, discontent with what they have and dissatisfaction with themselves result from it.
This causes the changes in their fortunes—for as some men desire to have more, while others fear to lose what they have, enmities and war are the consequences. And this brings about the ruin of one province and the elevation of another.
In addition: Those who have spent their lives as law-abiding citizens resent it when immigrants—especially illegal aliens—gain advantage by breaking the law.
Such a case occurred on January 1, 2024.
That was when California became the first state to offer health insurance to all illegal aliens. All of these uninvited foreigners, regardless of age, now qualify for Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program for people with low incomes.
Previously, illegal aliens could receive only emergency and pregnancy-related services under Medi-Cal as long as they met eligibility requirements, including income limits and California residency in 2014.
In 2015, then-Governor Jerry Brown allowed illegal alien children to receive coverage under Medi-Cal.
The final expansion starting January 1 will give full coverage to at least 700,000 illegal aliens who have no right to be in the country.
At the same time, about 3.2 million California citizens remained uninsured in 2022.
Meanwhile, California faces a record $68 billion budget deficit. Tax collections are off by $26 billion, combined with the economic slowdown California has been facing since 2022.
News stories announcing this taxpayers’ giveaway don’t refer to the recipients as “illegal aliens.” That’s because “illegal alien” is—for all its accuracy—Politically Incorrect.
Instead, those who defend the wanton violating of American immigration laws prefer the term “undocumented immigrant.”
As though these lawbreakers had valid citizenship documents but somehow lost them during their swim across the Rio Grande.
It’s entirely natural that those living in abject poverty—as millions do in Asia, Africa and Latin/Central America—want to escape it.
It’s also entirely natural that those who have escaped poverty want to hold on to all they have worked hard to attain.
The refusal of liberal politicians—in England, Italy, France, Germany and the United States—to accept these truths has led to the rise of authoritarian, Right-wing movements in those countries.
By refusing to address rising anger over such invasions, liberal politicians throughout the world are endangering the very democracies they cherish.
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