The Rally had about 20-25 people mostly young college aged with a few older democrats who saw this as an opportunity to push their agenda. The biggest being Carol Lutness who showed up with a suitcase full of political propaganda and was really only interested in talking with the press. Obviously Lutness missed the entire purpose of this rally and the rally in Washington DC.  These Rallies aren’t for or against a particular view point but are against the polarizing of the American people which in the last two years has been over the top ridiculous.  If you voted for Barrack Obama you don’t just have opposing political views, you are some how a secret socialist mole hell bent on the destruction of the United States!!! Really?

Luttness isn’t the only person who missed the purpose of these rallies.  Take a look at Bill Reynolds (notaferryfan) comment on the Signal article.

this rally sounds silly especially since you’re not promoting an actual idea or suggestion. Looking for middle ground? Please help me understand by providing your opinion of “middle ground” and what you consider “progress”.

Well of course this Rally sounds silly to a Republican Wingnut extremist like Bill Reynolds, who is prone to just repeat a position repeatedly and end his posts with “idiot” or “moron.”  He is a person who is unable to support the merits of his position with facts or reason, rather creating video after video framing his opponent in a way that makes them look like they are saying something they are not.  Must have learned that one from Hannity who has been caught on numerous occasions framing Obama’s comments or even completely misrepresenting video all together.

Overall I think the rally was a success.  It had about as many locals as Roger Gitlin’s minute man rally back in February. Gitlin and Save Our State had to promote for weeks and get every wing nuts from Santa Clarita to Victorville to show up to make it appear they actually have some kind of influence.

What would a public rally be without Tony Miano who showed up with his amplifier so he could preach some fire and brimstone to the passing motorists. One of the Rally to Restore Sanity sign holders told me he changed his sign to read” I don’t agree with him but that is ok” and an arrow point toward Tony Miano. Wish I would have got a shot of that.

Overall I thought that Rally goers were in good spirits and had smiles on their faces. More of this type of thing please.

What if it is an entire political party?

“America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.” – James Madison

The World has mistaken American Kindness as Weakness.

The United States is facing serious challenges that desperately need solving if our nation is to remain a thriving world leader. Few issues spark more passion than illegal immigration. The problems illegal immigration presents are not going to be solved with one single solution. Many people focus on the problem of our unsecured border and believe fixing this alone will fix the entire illegal immigration problem. While this is a major component, we can’t forget the American businesses that are hiring and exploiting the illegal labor. With unemployment at 10 percent or more, I think those jobs former President George W. Bush dismissed as not being wanted by Americans might look pretty appealing these days. This is a sticking point especially for conservatives who are typically against any regulations on businesses. Carole Lutness said it best at a recent City Council meeting: If we want to solve our ant problem, we need to get the open bag of sugar off the table. We must enforce the current laws in place and adopt higher fines that far outweigh the risk of hiring illegal labor.

It was a little over 15 years ago when the citizens of California saw the financial writing on the wall and passed Prop. 187 – an initiative that would have prohibited Illegal immigrants from benefiting from social services, health care and public education. Soon after its passing, a legal ping pong match began between the state of California and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which ended in a great victory for freeloaders everywhere when Justice Mariana R. Pfaelzer put a nail in the proverbial coffin of California’s fiscal future. An excerpt from the ruling reads, “California is powerless to enact its own legislative scheme to regulate immigration. It is likewise powerless to regulate alien access to public benefits. Proposition 187 is not constitutional on its face. We will not act in a way unbecoming to a sensible and humane people.” So tax-paying Californians like my mother and father, who worked their hands to the bone to put food on the table for my family, aren’t sensible or humane people? Justice Pfaelzer thought it was sensible to continue to allow illegal freeloaders to drain money and resources away from hard working Californians? Now a decade and half later, the state with the largest economy in the union can’t pay its own bills.

According to a 2009 Los Angeles Times article, the children of undocumented immigrants make up about 10 percent of California students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Crunch the California Department of Education’s numbers and we have roughly 600,000 illegal-immigrant students in California schools which cost an average of $8,594 per student in 2009, which comes out to a “sensible and humane” total of $5.1 billion dollars. And this amount doesn’t even cover social, health care or welfare services that would have also been denied to illegal immigrants under Prop. 187. I think I figured out where that $20 billion in budget gap went, Mr. Schwarzenegger. Oh that’s right, instead of cutting off the freeloaders, our “sensible and humane” state decided to raise the cost of tuition making it harder for Californians to get educated, producing less educated people, less high paying jobs, and less tax revenues to pay for all these illegal freeloaders. Bravo! If this problem can’t be solved by the state coming up with a “scheme,” according to Justice Pfaelzer, then our only course of action is for the public to demand our representation in Washington to solve it.

Published in Signal February 13th

Our country also must show some teeth when it comes to illegal-immigrant crime. According to a 2006 news release by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an average of 12 Americans die every day at the hands of illegal immigrants and another 13 more are killed by uninsured drunk driving illegals. Illegal immigrants have a different reality in comparison to most Americans. They know that if they commit a violent crime, there is a good chance they will just be deported. Look at Adrian Guadalupe Arriano, the Illegal immigrant serial rapist who was deported twice before he was charged and convicted of 26 felonies. There needs to be more consistent consequences besides deportation for illegal immigrants. Illegal Immigrants should know if they commit a crime in the United States, they will face the consequences. No one likes paying to lock these violent illegal immigrants up, but what other choice do we have? The safety of American should be priority number one.

Ultimately, in order for any illegal immigration reform to succeed, it must come up with creative solutions to curb the above problems, as well as give a reasonable path to citizenship for those illegal immigrants who have something to add to our country.

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear — John Lennon

War Is Over (if you want it)

You can imagine my annoyance when I read about the controversy in Chambersburg, Pa., this years battle ground in the “war on Christmas.” At least that is what Fox News would have you believe with their headline, “Atheists Trigger Nativity Scene Ban.” One might get his or her veggie tale printed underoos in a bunch at the thought of those pesky God hater’s crusade against baby Jesus! The Christians began complaining that Pennsylvania Nonbelievers Inc. was going to display a sign next to the nativity scene that listed the names of atheist veterans. The city council responded by unanimously voting to stop all displays. This sent Christians over the edge in protest and conservative news outlets spinning the blame on the nonbelievers. The nonbelievers said nothing about the nativity scene which has been on display for 20 years. What did these nonbelievers really do but try to participate and enrich their community?[*]

My pastor growing up had a saying: “People who want to be offended always find a way.” Here is the holiday season and Christians, who should know the meaning of Christmas, are working overtime at becoming offended. When did the holiday season turn into boycott season? Would baby Jesus be organizing boycotts because stores didn’t greet him the way he thought they should? I guess so, because who should come to the rescue but moral majority champion James Dobson and his posse, conservative champion Focus on Family trying to accomplish something with its Web site StandforChristmas.com. This Web site gives an outlet for grinchy Christians to express their outrage at corporations that are not Christmas friendly. This Web site encourages Christians to go into stores looking for things to be offended about. Where is the grace and humility of Christ in that? How does writing a rant about JC Penny not playing Christ-centered music help nonbelievers become Christians? Do you think the retail manager who just got an earful from you is going to be willing to come to your Christmas program at your church?

It is nothing short of pure arrogance when another Christian group called American Family Association organized boycotts of retailers like Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic [*] and Best Buy for acknowledging Christmas as well as other holidays such as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Eid Al-Adha or the winter solstice.[*] Christians get offended and declare a “war on Christmas” when corporations take a purely secular “Happy Holiday” approach to their advertising and decorations. They get even more offended when corporations take a more ecumenical approach and acknowledge all religious holidays. It really boils down to them wanting preferential treatment, which means they arrogantly want corporations to decorate and celebrate only Christian holidays while completely ignoring the religions and cultures of the rest of their customers. American corporations can’t win with Christians. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Let’s try and remember this holiday season isn’t about forcing people to give the proper greeting or getting offended at a store playing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. No, Christmas is really about appreciating the people around us. It’s the time of year when we should be looking for ways to brighten others’ days – not tear down and focus on ways to get offended. Let’s remember the true meaning of Christmas this year.

“I’ve always believed that America’s government was a unique political system — one designed by geniuses so that it could be run by idiots. I was wrong. No system can be smart enough to survive this level of incompetence and recklessness by the people charged to run it.” -Thomas Friedman

Ahhhh A Wise Guy

I was all giddy with anticipation this evening waiting to see what playbook Mrs. Vakay & friends would run to spin this scandal their way. The sky is the limit with these 2009 Republicans, so my money was on, “He is an angry Kenyan citizen, show us your birth certificate pal” or “He is secret socialist Muslim sent from the past by Hitler to give us all free medical”, Sadly to my disappointment and boredom they went with, “he said I could plagiarize it” and “he is a sexist Democrat”. Really? Why is it most politicians sound like pathetic 13 year old kids with every excuse in the book why it isn’t their fault? I really think, “No Comment” would have been the best course of action in this situation. Instead they did everything in their power to prove their guilt by making several shots in the dark about my motives, political stance and personal character.

What is most disturbing to me about this article is that Gary Wolfram another teaching professional with a Ph.D in economics is defending what is obvious plagiarism of his own work. How do two teaching professionals not know what constitutes plagiarism? Would this fly if two of their students were giving these same lame excuses why their papers were nearly identical? Absolutely NOT, they would be expelled for academic dishonesty in half-a-second. These two know better. What is it about political parties that make grown adults act like unreasonable, spoiled brats?

I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, that neither Republicans Nor Democrats want to bring up, let alone take responsibility for the real cause of this economic depression we are going through. It pretty much all boils down to a Republican controlled congress with much help from the Democrats passing the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. This BIG GOVERNMENT legislation broke what was already fixed and made Subprime lending go through the roof and allowed financial institutions like Citicorp to become “Too Big” to fail. I guess Mr. smarty pants elitist and his PH.D in economics must have missed that day when his beloved Republicans robbed America and the Democrats drove the get away car. This is what happens when people are more in love with their brand of political ideology then working together to make a better America.

In the end I think The Signal and its readers are the real victim. When it comes down to it Mrs. Vakay knowingly deceived and betrayed their trust as a regular columnist. She broke one of the cardinal, career ending rules of journalism! I very encouraged to see The Signal looking for opportunities to improve and do things better to make our small corner of the world better. Thank You

Oh, one clarification I wanted to make is I was a Youth Pastor not a Pastor, slight difference.

This was written in response to the article entitled “Plagiarism accusation touches off battle” in The Signal December 19th.

SCVTalk Vakaygate Article