Employment | It Only Makes sense

Merry Christmas! I refuse to let the America haters win this holiday season!

After I published my article last week, I needed to go to my local Home Depot to purchase some building supplies for a project I am working on for a friend. I pulled into the parking lot at about 10:45 A.M. on “Black Friday”. I am 71 years old and have never seen a Home Depot parking lot this full! I was driving my older heavy-duty Chevy Silverado hunting and work project truck and pulling a 5’ x 8’ utility trailer. With the trailer attached I had trouble finding a parking space! As I looked for a parking space, I noticed men, women and families loading shopping and lumber carts full of all sorts of merchandise including large stuffed animals, Christmas decorations, tools, and even live decorative poinsettia plants into a wide variety of vehicles. And yes, there were also people like me buying building materials, including those in line at the licensed contractor checkout loading area.

When I did find a place to park and got inside it was literally standing room only in some parts of the store. And, like the overflowing parking lot, I have never seen so many orange aprons (Home Depot employees). It was obvious that Home Depot had gone on a well thought out “hiring and training spree”. I had to wait in a queue for an employee to find me a lumber cart and help me load the materials I needed on it. Yet everyone I interacted with in this practically overwhelming retail environment was cheerful and professional. The young lady that checked me out even said “Merry Christmas” to me with a bright smile when she handed me my receipt and credit card back. The young man that helped me fill my order waited for me to check out and then pushed the lumber cart out to the parking lot, helped me load my truck and trailer and then said, “Merry Christmas Sir”. Note: this is a free-standing Home Depot building supply, appliance and garden center store in western Georgia! It is not in a retail mall!

As I wrote earlier, I had just published my weekly article where I listed a lot of very positive things I see happening in America, and how I had made a conscious decision to not let the America hating Left (Democrats, MSM, and RINO Republicans) succeed in making me be in a negative mood this Holiday season! There is too much GOOD happening in America now to allow the Left to suppress my optimism! This positive experience reaffirmed to me that I had made the right decision to focus on everything GOOD that is happening in America. And then over the weekend, and into the first part of this week, every time I turned on the TV or logged into the internet, it became obvious that I was going to need positive experiences like this if I was going to be able to stay on track with having a positive holiday season and trying to share it with everyone I came in contact with.

It is increasingly obvious to me that the better things get in America the ANGRIER the “America haters” become! In some instances, “ANGRY” is not a strong enough word to describe the Left’s behavior. It would also be inaccurate to try and use the words REASON or TRUTH when trying to communicate with the Left or understand how they can be so dishonest in their effort to distort the facts about what is really happening in America! Here are two recent examples of how dishonest and disgusting the Left is now:

Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith was in a Mississippi runoff for her Senate seat against Mike Espy, a former member of the Clinton Administration. Another Republican candidate got enough votes in the primary election to force the top two vote finishers in the primary to compete in a runoff (Mississippi has a “jungle” primary system where all candidates can run). When complimenting the host of a fund raiser that she was attending during her campaign Hyde-Smith said. “I think so much of him that if he asked me to attend a public hanging I would sit in the front row”. THE RACE CARD IMMEDIATELY CAME OUT ALL OVER THE COUNTRY! She was immediately accused of being racist and deliberately misquoted to support their ridiculous claim. The Left has constantly claimed that she used the word “lynching” instead of the phrase “public hanging”. Public hangings were legal capital punishment, lynchings were murder. She did use a poor choice of words, but this does not make her a racist. Unfortunately, deliberately misquoting someone for political gain is “standard operating procedure” for the Left. Update: Senator Hyde-Smith won the runoff by a comfortable margin.
When a large band of illegals tried to cross the border into California the Border Patrol agents working that section of the border were outnumbered “hundreds to one”. When the Border Patrol stood their ground and enforced the border the illegals became violent and began to attack the agents with projectiles like rocks, pieces of concrete, and even pieces of the border fence, while yelling obscenities at them. Several of the agents were injured and several of the Border Patrol vehicles were damaged by the projectiles. The illegals became so violent that the agents had to use pepper spray to try to stop the attack and then had to use tear gas to keep them from breaching the border. The Left’s immediate response was to loudly compare the Border Patrol to the Nazi massacre of the Jews and accusing them of “using chemicals of war against people who only wanted a better life for themselves, including women and children”. The last accusation came from a sitting U.S. Congressman. The Border Patrol supervisor responsible for that area of the border said that NOT ONE OF THE ILLEGALS APPROACHED THE BORDER AND ASKED FOR ASYLUM? The supervisor also said the group that tried to violently cross the border was almost totally male. A FOX NEWS crew that was at the border interviewed several of the illegals involved in the attempt to cross the border. They reported that no one that they talked to said they wanted asylum in the U.S. They all said that they just wanted to come to America to work for a few years. The FOX crew also confirmed that the group at this attempted border crossing was almost totally male.

Beginning Sunday evening and on into the week the Left (the Democrats, the MSM, and the RINO Republicans) literally filled the airwaves and the internet with nasty comments like the examples above. As I see all the good things that are happening in America now, I find myself wondering how there could be so much hatred like this for America? But I now accept the fact that the Left will stop at nothing to “fundamentally change America”. We cannot let that happen!

Note: From this point forward, I am going to say “Merry Christmas” to people I interact with, not the P.C. “Happy Holidays”!

Happy Holidays!

In spite of what the media is saying it is great to be an American and to live in America this holiday season! Everywhere I go I see good things happening and everyone I talk to tells me that they are doing better now financially than they have for many years:

I see huge new retail, manufacturing and distribution centers being built and large tracts of timber land being cleared for more construction, and some of these are huge speculative developments.
I have friends that own businesses who all tell me that their only problem now is having enough employees to handle the work that is available to them.
Recently I noticed that an entire block of an older part of a neighboring town had been leveled to build new commercial businesses.
In the area where I live two different older, but well-maintained homes were sold and then leveled so larger new homes could be built (and I live in a somewhat rural area of my county).
I see “Help Wanted” and “Now Hiring” signs everywhere I go and on practically every commercial vehicle.
Two different tracts of land in my county that had been zoned agricultural since the county started zoning in 1970 are being rezoned to residential, so new homes can be built on them.
Tracts of land that were being developed for new homes and an apartment complex in my county were abandoned when the Clinton Administration caused the housing market and U.S. economy to collapse. They sat idle all these years but have now been reopened and are being developed.
There is new commercial development on all four sides of the city that is five miles West of my home, and around the city that is nine miles North of my home.

As I see all the good things that are happening in America this holiday season, I find myself wondering how there could be so much hatred for America from the Left and the media?

Based on my observations of what I can clearly see versus what I hear, it looks like the vast majority of the media in America, broadcast, print and the internet, is “cheer leading” for the Left’s efforts to fulfill Obama’s dream of “fundamentally changing America”. Some of the media’s recent negative “reporting” (I use the term loosely here) was that:

Working class Americans are having a harder time making ends meet now than in previous years.
The job market in America is the worst it has been since 2010.
Trump’s tax cuts were only helping the rich and corporations.
In a published interview Laura Ingraham’s estranged brother said that she was “an angry monster”. Laura is a very successful Conservative writer and commentator. She is also a single mom with FOUR ADOPTED CHILDREN.
Rich people do not give anyone jobs, poor people create jobs by spending every dollar they get, while the rich get richer.
Many people on the Left, including in the media are still insisting that “Trump is a declared racist” because he publicly stated that he is a “Nationalist”. They refuse to acknowledge the definition of a “Nationalist”. Which means putting your country first! Being a declared “Nationalist” has absolutely nothing to do with being a racist. A “Nationalist” is a person who loves his country while a racist is a person who selectively hates!

As I thought about the good things that are happening in America, I made a conscious decision to focus on the holidays and do everything I can to make the holidays as positive as I can for everyone that I come in contact with. And to continue to do what I can to make people aware of how much opportunity there is in America now for people to achieve their dreams. That is why so many people from so many other countries want to come to America. We cannot let the “America haters” win!

Great Things are Happening in America and the Left Hates it!

Everywhere I go in Georgia I see commercial and residential development happening at a surprising rate. New commercial businesses, new warehousing and distribution centers and new manufacturing facilities are being built all over the state. Two different commercial developers are clearing land on the west side of Atlanta for two very large speculative warehouse and industrial complexes in an area that had been thousands of acres of timberland for many decades. There are new residential developments and new private residences being built all around the state and I see a lot of older homes being remodeled or expanded.

I have also noticed a lot of new motor homes and travel trailers on the highways and parked at homes around the state. This coincides with a family I saw interviewed by a “Fox and Friends” “man on the street” reporter at a local cafe in Ohio during the breakfast rush hour recently. The family was the third generation to own and operate an RV park. They also own and operate an RV dealership. They said that their businesses were doing exceptionally well. The RV park is usually at full capacity and that they sold six new RVs the previous week.

As of July 31, 2018 3.75 million new jobs had been created since President Trump was sworn in. Minority job growth has been especially strong. The labor participation rate in America is higher than it has been since the 1960’s! In fact new job growth has been so good that businesses cannot find enough qualified people to fill all the new jobs. President Trump is already taking specific steps to help solve this shortage of qualified potential new employees:

He is encouraging voc-tech schools to be more aggressive in their recruitment efforts and student financial aid programs.
He convened a jobs training program conference in the White House with a wide variety of people in attendance that had the ability and resources to proactively help expand job training programs all over America.
He convened a work release program conference in the White House with a wide variety of people in attendance that had the ability and resources to proactively expand the resources that people who had been in jail needed to be able to get and hold jobs. These efforts were also to be coupled with the development of new sentencing guidelines that would remove some of the obstacles that people convicted of crimes must overcome when they are released in order to get a job.

A great secondary benefit of all this growth in America is that now many people who are currently employed are quitting their jobs so they can get a new job with better pay and benefits!

The Left absolutely hates all the good things happening in America! The MSM and the Trump Haters are constantly going to great lengths to try and focus Americans on anything but good news! Here are some recent examples:

Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York actually said in a recent speech that, “We are not going to make America great again, America was never that great”.
John Brennan and the MSM are furiously calling out the Trump Administration’s decision to remove Brennan’s U.S. Government security clearance and plans to review other former Federal Government employees’ security clearance status. There is absolutely no reason why people like Brennan who now work in the private sector, many work in the MSM, should continue to have access to U.S. secret data! Especially, people like Brennan and Comey who have a proven history of leaking information to the media in deliberate efforts to hurt the Trump campaign and now his presidency.
On his show earlier this week CNN anchor Chris Cuomo defended Antifa. He said, “Antifa should not be equated with white supremacist”. He went on to say, “in a clash between hate and those who oppose it, those who oppose it are on the side of right, even if they resort to petty violence”! In reality Antifa is the violent national organization that shows up in huge numbers at various public events in America wearing helmets, black clothes and mask to violently break up the event or prevent conservative speakers from speaking.

Those of us who want America to be “great again” must not be silent. We must continue to stand up and support President Trump’s tireless efforts to “make America great again”, especially at the ballot box!

836,000 New Manufacturing Jobs Have Been Created in America Since President Trump Was Sworn In!

Facts like 836,000 new manufacturing jobs being created in America in 19 months are why the Democrats, RINO Republicans and MSM are so frantically trying to destroy the Trump Presidency. No matter how hard they try they cannot continue to hide or twist the truth about all the good things happening in America since Trump won the Presidential election in November 2016! Their new strategy appears to be an attempt to literally flood the internet and the air waves with half-truths and outright lies to the point that voters do not know what to believe. Add this to the astonishing level of criminal activity the Clinton and Obama holdovers in every Federal agency are still allowed to get away with and you have a political environment where it appears that it is impossible for the Trump Administration to survive, much less be successful in his commitment to “Make America Great Again”. However, the Democrats, RINO Republicans and MSM have never had to try and deal with a total “non-politician” like President Trump who has an absolutely inflexible strategy, “WHEN THEY HIT ME I IMMEDIATELY HIT BACK HARDER”.

I have been following politics and current events for over 40 years and I have never seen a time where so many people hated the President, his staff and supporters so vehemently! Merriam Webster definition of vehement: marked by forceful energy, intensely emotional, deeply felt, forcibly expressed, bitterly antagonistic

I believe that what President Trump calls “fake news” is really that and worse in many instances. It is half-truths, out-right lies and even open criminal behavior. Unfortunately it appears that half-truths, out-right lies and open criminal behavior became the norm in the “Washington Cesspool” a long time ago and is so deeply entrenched that it looks like it cannot be rooted out, EXCEPT WITH SOMEONE LIKE PRESIDENT TRUMP, THE AMAZING PEOPLE HE CONTINUALLY SURROUNDS HIMSELF WITH, AND HIS LOYAL SUPPORTERS. The Trump Presidency is the “Washington Cesspool’s worst nightmare!

Here are just two examples of how the truth is being twisted. Nancy Pelosi said, “For every dollar paid in unemployment two are added to the economy” and Salon.com published an article titled, “U.S. Housing Sales are Slowing Down Which is a Bad Sign for the U.S. Economy”.

If you want to read facts about how corrupt the “Washington Cesspool” is and has been, there are two new books that were released recently. One is “The Russia Hoax” by FOX NEWS legal analysist Gregg Jarett. It is a long and detailed book that documents the thousands of times Hillary and her staff flippantly violated Federal Laws and the dozens of top level government agency people who repeatedly broke federal laws to cover up her blatant criminality. He also documents in detail how many laws some of these same people broke to create the fake Russia Trump campaign Investigation. Some of these people are still in top government jobs (Rod Rosenstein). Others are making a lot of money off of book sales or high paying jobs in the MSM or other liberal organizations. None of them are in jail, or even being charged with crimes! The second book is, “Liars, Leakers and Liberals” by Judge Jeanine Pirro. In it she also documents an inconceivable level of long running corruption and cover ups in the “Washington Cesspool”. One fascinating bit of information that she documents is that a number of honest professionals that specialize in internet security in several of the intelligence agencies SEPARATELY came to the same conclusion. It was that the DNC hack was an inside job based on the speed at which the hack was completed. According to these honest professionals the hack was a download to another devise, not an internet hack. I remember the rumor (that was quickly buried by the MSM) that the hack was the work of a young Bernie Sanders supporter who was furious that the DNC openly rigged the primary for Hillary. As I recall there was another brief story about a young man who was a Bernie Sanders supporter and an IT specialist who was shot in the back of the head in a convenience store parking lot late one night with no signs of it being a robbery attempt? The crime is still unsolved to this day.

Every day it becomes more obvious that the occupants of the “Washington Cesspool” will say or do anything in their desperate attempts to save themselves.

I firmly believe that the difference in “America Becoming Great Again” or being destroyed and forced into “The One World Order” the Left is so obsessed with creating, will be decided at the ballot box on November 6, 2018! Stand up, stay active and support our Constitution, our freedom and our conservative values on that day!

The Washington Cesspool is Still a Cesspool!

President Trump is working practically 24/7 at draining the “Washington Cesspool”, but the “Cesspool” is desperately fighting for its survival! It seems that nothing is off limits or too low for the occupants of the “Cesspool” to do or say as they try to save themselves:

Nancy Pelosi is leading the Democrat’s charge against the current tax cuts. She calls them “crumbs for the middle class while the corporations get richer”. The Democrats and the MSM are refusing to acknowledge that the take home pay for practically everyone working in America increased as soon as the tax cuts went into effect, and the Labor Participation Rate in America is at a record high level, including for women and minorities.
The Democrats and the MSM are screaming about President Trump’s new tariffs and how they are going to cost so much damage to America’s workforce. They are ignoring the fact that other countries have been literally ripping America off with unfair trade deals that were negotiated by previous administrations, especially the Obama Administration. An example was Canada charging tariffs up to 275% on American dairy products. America had an $817,000,000,000 trade deficit last year. To quote President Trump, “that is Billion with a B”! Update: ON JULY 25 PRESIDENT TRUMP HELD AN UNSCHEDULED PRESS CONFERENCE WITH THE EU TRADE COMMISSIONER TO ANNOUNCE A JOINT AGREEMENT TO WORK TOWARD ELIMINATING ALL TARIFFS BETWEEN THE EU AND THE US.
The Democrats and the MSM are screaming about President Trump being “too soft on Russia” at the same time they are screaming about President Trump’s ”harsh tweets” toward Iran in response to an open threat they made about destroying America.
A grossly unqualified 28 year old “Democrat Socialist” surprisingly defeated a ranking Democrat in a N.Y. city primary race. Some of the planks in her platform are free college for everyone, free healthcare for everyone and a $15 hourly minimum wage for everyone. She will be elected to Congress on November 6, 2018 because the voting district she is running in will never elect a Republican. She is now traveling around the country with Bernie Sanders campaigning for other Democratic Socialist candidates and giving TV interviews describing how bad the Trump economy is!
The Democrats and the MSM are all insisting that “the polls” show that President Trump is dramatically losing support among his base because “people are still struggling to make ends meet even though he has been in office for a year and a half”. Based on everything I see, hear and read this is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!

As noted above the occupants of the “Washington Cesspool” and the MSM will say and do anything to try and convince people that everything President Trump does is bad for America and the world. Real world facts prove them wrong. In previous articles I have written about how much commercial growth I am seeing in my area of the state. The same is happening in other areas. Last Saturday I drove down I-75 south of Atlanta for about 30 miles. I had not been down I-75 for about a year. I was literally astonished to see how much commercial development was happening in that 30 mile drive! As I drove by all this new commercial development south of Atlanta I had the same thought that I did the first time I drove by the two huge industrial parks being developed on South Fulton Parkway west of Atlanta. That was, “where are all these companies going to find the people they will need to fill all the new jobs they are creating”? It will be interesting to see how the Democrats and MSM continue to negatively “spin” this growth!

President Trump is very different from previous Presidents. He speaks, tweets and acts dramatically different from previous Presidents, and he is steadily generating positive results for America here and abroad. However he does still need all the help he can get from those of us who want to see him succeed in his efforts to “Make America Great Again”.

Trump Derangement Syndrome has Reached Epidemic Proportions!

Merriam Webster definition of epidemic: affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time

Trump Derangement Syndrome has become so bad this week that I have had to turn my TV off a number of times! This is a good indication that the “America Haters” are beginning to realize that their plans to destroy our Constitution and make America part of their “One World Order” dream are NOT GOING TO HAPPEN DURING A TRUMP PRESIDENCY! And they are also beginning to realize that:

They are not going to be able to destroy the Trump Administration or impeach President Trump.
They are not going to win control of the House or Senate on November 6, 2018.
They are not going win the 2020 Presidential election.

The “America Haters” are so obsessed with their hatred for President Trump that they prefer to cause really bad things to happen in America so it will hurt President Trump and his American values. Some of the “America Haters” have actually said this! The rest have loudly denied, and continue to deny, that anything good is happening as a result of Donald Trump becoming President. They simply cannot accept that he won and that he is “making America great again”.

When Trump won the election in November 2016 I immediately began to see things start to change. Initially it was just a renewed sense of optimism about the future of America. Then I began to see positive changes everywhere I went:

There are several new businesses, including a second Chic-fil-A, and more new construction, on the East side of the town where I live. All this is in a commercial area that had been stagnant for many years.
There are two huge new industrial parks being developed on the West side of Atlanta in an area that had been nothing but thousands of acres of timberland for decades.
People are returning to the workforce in astonishing numbers. During the Obama Administration the “Labor Participation Rate” dropped to a record low number. Now it is at a record high number. There are so many new jobs being created now that there are not enough people in our workforce to fill them! A great added benefit of this is wage increases for a lot of our workforce and some people are quitting their jobs so they can go to new better paying jobs.
Unlike previous Administrations the Trump Administration is actually talking to North Korea, while increasing sanctions against them. Previous Administrations actually gave them huge sums of tax payer money referred to as “humanitarian aid” in a feeble attempt to bribe them to reduce their efforts to expand their nuclear weapons program. Unfortunately this “humanitarian aid” was used to grow their nuclear program, not feed their people.
President Trump is talking to Russia about cooperating on issues important to the world, while increasing sanctions against them. Remember when Obama was caught on an open mike whispering to Putin that after his re-election “he would be free to be more cooperative” (whatever that meant, collusion?).
President Trump IS NOT openly meddling in other countries elections or attempting to “empire build” in other countries. Obama openly did this with American taxpayer money and people. Examples are when he sent people and money to try and prevent Benjamin Netanyahu from being re-elected as Prime Minister of Israel. He also tried to influence the elections in a number of other countries when he did not like the conservative right wing candidates who were running for top government positions. He even tried to influence the Brexit vote in England.
President Trump has actually succeeded in his campaign promise to make NATO member nations agree to begin to pay their fair share of the cost of the combined peace keeping forces, and provide their fair share of troops to NATO’s peace keeping efforts.

These are just some examples of the great things that are happening in America, and other parts of the world, as a result of Donald Trump being elected President. “Make America Great Again” was a brilliant campaign slogan, but it is even better as a description of what is actually happening!

How Can Trump “Drain the Swamp” When He Cannot Say “Your Fired” to Anyone in Washington? Here is How!

There are actually two distinct groups of people in Washington who cannot be fired, which is practically everyone there. The first group is our elected representatives in the U.S. House and Senate. They can only be “fired” (in an election) by the people they are supposed to be representing, which rarely happens because most of the people in Congress have gotten really good at staying in office. The second group of people who cannot be fired is Federal Government employees. Theoretically they can be fired but it almost never happens because they are protected by the most powerful, and corrupt work place rules governing employee discipline imaginable. Federal Government department and agency heads, managers, and supervisors DO NOT have the authority to discipline, much less suspend or fire subordinates. If someone in a position of authority in our Federal Government wants to discipline, suspend or fire a subordinate they must refer the employee to a committee of their peers to investigate the “alleged” misconduct and make recommendations for actions that may be taken against the employee. The committee’s review and recommended actions are then forwarded to a mediator for a final decision on recommended disciplinary action. There are three problems with this process. First, it takes too long for the process to be completed. Second, during this long drawn out process the person making the “allegations” against the employee and requesting disciplinary action is almost always subjected to various forms of workplace harassment and “work slowdowns” by other Federal Employees who want to prevent any future employee referral’s for disciplinary action. And third, the process rarely results in any recommendations for discipline of any sort because the process is corrupted at every level. For instance at least some of the people on the review committee will be people who are determined to maintain the status quo regarding Federal Government employee “job security”. Consequently Federal Government employees are rarely referred to a committee for disciplinary action.

Some time ago I actually watched the Head of the VA testifying before a Congressional committee regarding his total lack of authority to discipline, suspend or fire anyone in the VA. It was actually infuriating to watch politicians on both sides of the aisle putting on a loud show of indignation as they pretended they did not know that was the situation and insisting that they would do something to change the “Washington” work place rules responsible for this situation. The truth is that Congress is actually responsible for such ridiculous work place rules being a fixed part of the Washington “culture” so I will really be surprised if anything about this situation changes in the near future, but we did get Trump elected to the Presidency, so there is hope.

So here is how President Trump can “drain the swamp”.

> First he can sign executive orders repealing Obama’s executive orders that empowered Federal agencies to go on a new rule making rampage of their own.

> Second he can “request” the resignation of existing Federal department and agency heads throughout the Federal Government. Some will resist but some will comply allowing him to replace them with better business people.

> Third he can appoint strong, ethical, constitutionalist to head all Federal Government departments and agencies with a mandate to “root out corruption” with referrals to the FBI for investigation and the DOJ for prosecution for criminal action. Note, this will be the first time in approximately 24 years that we will actually have a Department of Justice! Bill Clinton turned it into a “Department of Injustice” so he could use it to carry out his personal agenda items. President Bush could not fix it because 911 happened seven months and 21 days after he was sworn in. As a result the efforts to fight terror while rebuilding our intelligence service and national defense capabilities consumed all of Washington’s time and efforts throughout most of his two terms as President. And then Obama immediately elevated it to a “Department of Injustice” on steroids with every other Federal department and agency immediately following suit. As soon as President Trump appoints a new Attorney General and Federal Government employees start getting prosecuted for criminal behavior, I feel certain that we will start to see some people in Federal government jobs begin to “clean up their act and others voluntarily resigning.

> Fourth, President Trump can begin to work with Congress on a serious Federal Government reorganization plan beginning with the elimination of the Department of Education.

Why do I think these four steps will begin to “drain the swamp” and continue at an accelerating rate? Because President Trump is a strong negotiator and the “mood” of the American electorate, which was initially visible in the 2014 mid-term elections and then made abundantly clear on November 8, 2016 sent a clear message to Congress that they want the “swamp drained” now!

Illegal Immigration

This quote is inscribed on a plaque on the base of the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.

We are a nation of immigrants. In the past we welcomed them. They assimilated into our society and became a part of the greatest nation on earth. There are three key words here, ”immigrants”, “welcomed”, and “assimilated”. These words do not seem to be used in Immigration discussions today?

Immigration has become such a controversial subject now that when we hear the word “immigration” we immediately think about “illegal immigration”. The situation has become so politically driven that it literally seems like we as a nation cannot solve any of the problems associated with legal or illegal immigration. The ideologues on the Left (with help from rino Republicans) are determined to use legal and illegal immigration to further their own “self-interest” regardless of the long term damage to America and the millions of lives that are negatively impacted every day by their actions.

Illegal immigration into the US happens two ways. One is legal immigrants who become illegal when they overstay their visa or do not use their visa for the purpose it was issued. One example is people who come here on a student visa but take jobs from Americans, usually at lower wages than would be paid to an American. In fact legal immigration has become so corrupt and mismanaged that some experts on the subject believe that the majority of the illegal immigrants in America originally came here legally. I detailed and documented this in my recent post, “Legal (?) Immigration”.

How our Government tries to manage Immigrants who cross our borders without our approval has also become so politically driven that it is totally corrupt and mismanaged. When you add these illegal immigrants to the legal immigrants who become illegal each year the actual number of illegal immigrants living and working here is probably closer to 20,000,000 than the 11,000,000 the Obama administration claims are here. And the number gets bigger each year due to increases in visa programs.

Under the Obama administration we now have:

“Catch and release” policies where people who are caught trying to cross the border are simply turned back. Does anyone actually believe these people will not keep trying until they make it across and stay? Another is people who are apprehended and released with an order to appear before a judge for a deportation hearing, without checking to see if they have a criminal record here in America! Does anyone actually believe these people will show up for a hearing to be deported? Even if they did the deportation courts are so backlogged that it will take years to clear the cases already on the books.

Young illegals who are encouraged to come here by the 10,000’s of thousands. When they get here they are housed, get medical attention and then are released to the custody of relatives, who are probably here illegally. When any of these “young illegals” show up at a public school that school is required by law to take them and attempt to educate them without asking any questions, even if they do not speak any English. If you look closely at the news footage of these ”young illegals” you will see that many are teen aged boys (young men). Some reports say there is a high incidence of these young men being members of Hispanic gangs or drug cartels.

Sanctuary cities, which is something that I find hard to believe has become so prevalent in America! These are cities that openly refuse to follow federal and state laws regarding illegal immigrants, even those with long, violent criminal records here in the US. Not only do these cities do this, they flaunt it because they know the Obama Administration will not do anything about it. Additionally President Obama has publicly stated that he will veto any legislation by Congress that attempts to address this issue. This is not just happening in declared sanctuary cites. I was eating breakfast at a fast food restaurant one Saturday morning with two Sheriff Department deputies in the booth next to me. One of the deputies was a sergeant and shift supervisor. The sergeant got a call on his radio from another deputy who had made a traffic stop in the north end of the county. There were five young illegals in the car, some with no ID, no one with a driver’s license, some under 16 years old. Ultimately the sergeant told the deputy (loudly and profanely) to tell them to turn around and never try to come back to this county again. I could not resist asking him about how he handled the situation. He calmly explained that some prominent Hispanic people in the county met with the (elected) sheriff and informed him that they would file harassment charges against him if his department prosecuted people whose only crime was being here illegally. In this case they also ignored the fact that the driver was guilty of driving without a driver’s license and most likely without a valid car registration or insurance.

Regarding my reference to illegals that have a violent criminal record being released, this happens on a regular basis, sometimes with horrible results. Here are two well documented cases:

Kate Steinle was killed in a random act of violence while standing on a pier overlooking the San Francisco bay with her father. Her father held her while she died begging him to help her. She was pregnant with her first child. Her murderer was Francisco Lopez Sanchez. He had been deported five times and had numerous drug convictions. He had recently been released from Federal prison to Customs Enforcement who then turned him over to the San Francisco County Sheriff Department. Instead of holding him for deportation the Sheriff Department released him. He randomly gunned Kate down with a stolen gun while high on drugs.

Edwin Ramos was an illegal from El Salvador and member of the violent Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang. He had a long criminal record (including felony weapons charges). In June 2008 in what can only be described as an act of unprovoked violence he murdered Tony Bologna and his two sons while they were sitting in their car at a traffic light in San Francisco.

While most of us feel compassion for the illegals who are only seeking a better life for themselves and their families, we as a country simply cannot afford to allow the current situation to continue. The illegals add to our already overloaded social safety net programs, dramatically add to the cost of operating our public school systems and hospital emergency rooms and take jobs from those in America who need them the most.Take a look at the unemployment rate in America for young men and men over 50 of all races who do not have a good education or job skills, especially young black men.

Bottom line is that our Government does not know how many people are here illegally, where they are, or what they are doing and is not doing anything to attempt to solve these problems. In fact the “Left” has done everything possible to make the situation worse so they can continue to profit from it politically. President Bush (43) and his staff worked with Congress to put together an immigration reform bill in 2007. There were compromises from all sides but the administration had enough committed votes from both parties to assure passage in both houses of Congress. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi deliberately killed the bill to keep it from passing so they could continue to use immigration as a wedge issue with voters.

And then there are the “REFUGEES”! That will be the subject of another future post.

We have ONE LAST chance to save America in November! Get involved and choose wisely.

Information for this writing was compiled from a variety of internet news articles, cable news reports and published books including, “Sold Out” subtitled, “How High-Tech Billionaires and Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasils Are Screwing America’s Best and Brightest Workers” by Michelle Malkin and John Miano , “CON JOB” subtitled “How Democrats Gave Us Crime, Sanctuary Cities, Abortion Profiteering And Racial Division by Crystal Wright (conservativeblackchick.com), and, !ADIOS AMERICA! .subtitled, “The Left’s Plan To Turn Our Country Into A Third World Hell Hole” by Ann Coulter.

Its The Economy Stupid

It’s the Economy Stupid

Some of you may remember the phrase “it’s the economy stupid”. It was coined by James Carville as a campaign theme in Bill Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign. As I was researching and writing this article it just seemed right to use it as the title since it seems even more appropriate today.

When you ask people in America what is most important to them they will almost always say the economy, security, and immigration are the things they are most concerned about, with the economy being by far the number one concern. I firmly believe that if you do not have a strong economy nothing else matters .It takes money to fund a strong national defense; to enforce a reasonable immigration policy, and to do anything else our Government tries to do. I used the term “tries to do” because Government does almost everything badly and spends more money doing it than any private enterprise would spend to do the same thing. Consequently as Government grows it spends more which adds to the downward pressure on our economy.

Here are some of the economic issues in America today:

The actual unemployment rate is not 5 per cent! I was “annoyed” when the Obama administration took a victory lap earlier this year when the monthly net new jobs report indicated that 151,000 jobs had been created the previous month and the unemployment rate was lowered to 4.9 per cent. I and a number of other people believe that it is probably around 10 per cent and that does not include all the people who are “under employed”. There is a lot of data available on this topic, including a number of US Government websites that indicate the unemployment rate is being manipulated to support the Obama Administration’s agenda. I will post a complete article on this topic in the future.

Our national debt is now more than $19,000,000,000,000 (yes, that is the correct number of “0”s). It will be more than $20,000,000,000,000 before the end of this year! At one point while we were getting to this unimaginable level of debt the Obama administration was taking a victory lap and saying, “we are reducing the deficit at the fastest rate since the end of WWII”, and I did not see anyone in the media call the administration out on that? I will post about this in more detail in a future article.

NO actual wage growth for years. In fact some reports indicate that median household annual income has fallen by $5,000 since 2007.

Here are some real life examples of what has been, and continues to happen around me (note, I live in an urban middle class area):

There are still a lot of abandoned homes and business locations sitting vacant.

People of all ages and races are walking on the side of the road and it is obvious that they are walking because they do not have any other means of getting where they need to go.

Panhandlers of all ages and races in places I have never seen panhandlers before.

Shelters, soup kitchens and food banks still have a high demand for their services.

Some restaurants and fast food locations tell me that they have people come in every day, say they are hungry and ask for free food.

Companies are outsourcing and cutting jobs at an accelerating rate. One recent example is a national company that outsourced, dramatically cut jobs and liquidated facilities in August 2015.

Cars left sitting along the highways and freeways because they are out of gas, have flat tires or they have mechanical failures. This is still happening in spite of the huge drop in gas prices, which means the money they are saving on gas has not raised their standard of living.

Increases in monthly housing rental cost. There are so many people who cannot qualify for or afford home ownership now that rental property owners are able to continually raise their rental rates.

Increased food prices while the size of the containers is decreasing (what was a half a gallon in the past is now 59 ounces).

What can we do to make things better? First, stop and take a good look at what is happening around you and listen to what people around you are saying. I do not believe you can do this and really believe the “Left’s” insistence that life has gotten better under the Obama administration. Not only have they not made life better, they are not telling you the truth about what is really happening.

Second, try to engage people in rational, fact based conversations about what you think needs to be done to make things better. People who have an ideological mindset are not usually open to discussion so do not waste your time trying to have a conversation with them. There are other people that can be positively influenced so do your homework on issues and share your knowledge with them.

We have one last chance to turn America around in November. Electing a Socialist or Progressive Democrat as the President will not solve our problems!