“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.

“When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?” ~Eleanor Roosevelt

This blog was written in response to Steve Lunetta’s colum entitled “Eric Holder’s bad decisions” which appeared in my local newspaper the signal.  Steve Lunetta is smember of the 38th Assembly District’s Republican Central Committee.  You can read his column here.

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Being a Just Society is the greatest challenge America Faces!

In reference to Mr. Lunetta’s column entitled Eric Holder’s Bad Decisions:  Mr. Lunetta’s fear and misguided logic comes shining through in this poorly executed conservative talking point stew he attempted to pass off as a column.

On March 5, 1770, British troops opened fire on a crowd of unarmed civilians in Boston killing five people.  This incident became known as the Boston Massacre, and it pushed anti-british sediment to its near boiling point.  Britain wanted the soldiers to be extradited back to Britain to ensure their soldiers would get a fair trial.  Acting on a new sense of self-identity and independence, the American colonies refused.  The American colonialists were angry and wanted justice for this tragedy. Many wanted to forego a trial and just hang the soldiers from the closest tree.  But John Adams, our second president and quite possibly our most influential founding father, saw this as an opportunity to set an American precedence by representing these soldiers.  Adams saw this as an opportunity to show Britain and the world that American principles were just and fair and that America could take care of its own problems.

John Adams, unlike Mr. Lunetta, never tried to rationalize why it was OK to deviate from American principles.  Some conservatives, like Todd Akin (R-MO), are the first to talk about how much they adore the pledge allegiance because “liberals hate it” since it says “under God.” Conservatives of course conveniently forget, and in the case of Todd Akin literally forget, that the last phrase in the pledge says, “And liberty and justice for all.”  In Todd Akin’s defense, that last part does sounds pretty liberal, the pledge of allegiance after all was written by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist Minister and socialist.

So let’s do our best to understand this logic (or lack thereof): Conservatives like Mr. Lunetta and Todd Akin will fight to make sure their children say the pledge of allegiance everyday to remind them every day before school they live in the United States of America, a land of “Liberty and justice for all.”  They then turn around in the same breath and start to qualify who deserves this liberty and justice.  This behavior actually isn’t new. Francis Bellamy wanted to put the word “equality” in with liberty and justice, but the racist and sexist school boards during his time wouldn’t have it.  Conservatives forget the principles that our country were founded on. They work so hard to turn the home of the brave in to the land of the cowards and whiners.

Americans pride themselves on being the most principled people in the world.  Those principles seem to have been lost sometime after September 11, 2001.  We now allow fear and over-active imaginations to take over and justify the discrimination toward Arabs of the world. This is the same kind of fear humanity justified during World War II which fueled the hatred of the Jews in Germany.  Even the men who systematically killed six million Jews, ordered carpet bombings that killed thousands of British civilians on a daily basis and attempted to take over Europe and then the world got their trials and dates with the hangman’s noose.

Mr. Lunetta quoted Senator Lindsey Graham’s September 18th questioning of Attorney General Holder and just like Graham, totally forgot about Zacarias Moussaoui who was put on trial in Virginia and convicted of six counts of various terrorist offenses, including planning the 9/11 attacks.  Where was Graham on that one?  He also forgets that our socialist friends Spain and Britain have tried and convicted every terror suspect who went through their system. These countries have also had major attacks and al-Queda cells operating in their countries.

Published in the Signal - December 10th

Mr. Lunetta’s argument that it will be too expensive to conduct the trials in New York is laughable. How much money are we spending now paying to staff these prisons in Gitmo 24/7?  Besides, when does America put a price on its principles?  Perhaps it was around the time we threw out the constitution, signed over most of our rights and spent trillions to illegally invade sovereign countries with faulty intelligence without the approval from congress.

The fact is these terrorist trials in New York are governed by international law and will most likely resemble military tribunals.  In no way is this a slap in the face to New York. The trials and convictions (and most likely executions) of these terrorists will help bring closure and healing to this chapter in our country’s history.

I do hope that conservatives stop making bad decisions and find some principles and maturity along the way – maybe even stop exploiting the  memory of the 9/11 terrorist attacks for political gain.  I hope conservatives can find something to offer America besides more of the same cowardly, fear mongering that has spoon fed the red, white and blue for the better part of this decade.

“That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular.” ~Abraham Lincoln

This blog is my full unedited response to a local conservative commentator named Lynn Vakay who lives in Acton, California and is a Santa Clarita Valley school teacher and a member of the 38th Assembly District’s Republican Central Committee. Her Commentatary titled “Lynn Vakay: To whom should Americans be giving thanks?” which was written in my local newspaper the signal. http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/21079/

Enjoy

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Hey Norman, You Forgot to Paint Jesus!

Isn’t it refreshing that Mrs. Vakay saw it fit to use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to push her political and religious propagandas while simultaneously launching a preemptive strike against the Obama White house? She does not know what President Obama is going to say, but she has already determined she does not like it. Talk about hitting two birds with one stone. Bravo. It takes a lot of practice to type 753 words and not say much of anything.

Mrs. Vakay starts off by repeating the outrages seen on conservative news outlets, about President Obama’s comment on how, America is not being just a Christian nation only. She neglects to ask herself why the President would make such a comment? Could it be that he is aware the Muslim world as well as the Christian world view the two occupations as Holy Wars? Don’t believe me? Just look at the comments Republican VP Candidate Sarah Palin said June 2008 while addressing a local graduating class: “Our national leaders are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God.” Former President Bush also stated in June 2003: “I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,’ and I did.”[*] Add Donald Rumsfeld putting Bible verses on Presidential War Briefings[*] and the 700,000+ Arab Civilians who have perished as a direct result of our military operations[*] and it is no wonder the Muslim world is a little annoyed at us. Mrs. Vakay’s beloved conservatives do not even attempt to hide their real motivations. They act as if Al Queda does not know how to read the newspaper. Muslims of the world read the above quotes and get their “jihad juices” flowing. Obama has the wisdom enough to try and temper these notions and make it clear that he is not waging war against any religion.

Mrs. Vakay goes on to support her belief that America is a Christian Nation by citing a poll from Pew Research Center, which I was unable to find or verify. Either way, I am not sure what it really proves, especially since a recent University of Minnesota study put Atheists as the most hated and distrusted minority in the country, even hated more than the dreaded Muslims & Homosexuals. [*] A Gallup poll done in 2008 showed that only 40 percent of people surveyed said, “Yes” when asked “Would you describe yourself as a “born-again” or evangelical Christian?” [*] Not quite the 79% that Mrs. Vakay claims, although 92% believe in at least a vague form of God or a Universal Being, which really doesn’t hold much significance as far as religious commitment goes. In fact, Evangelical Christianity has been on the decline for the past 20 years, falling nearly half a percent every year since 1989. [*] Mrs. Vakay is trying to label and put people in the same category that would say “Well, my family is Catholic”, but I have not been to mass since Reagan was President and those hardcore evangelical people that never miss a church service, then gather together to rally against gay marriage at their local intersection.

Republican continually force feed Americans a believe that we were founded on christian principles. They forget Thomas Jefferson, who had such disdain for Christianity that he said in 1782, “Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.” Ben Franklin said “I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life I absented myself from Christian assemblies.” & “Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.” John Adams said “Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?” and “God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.” I can go on forever!

The point is President Obama, like most Presidents and politicians of the past including the founding fathers who would pay homage to a vague concept of God and religion, just to satisfy the religious zealots of the land, give the impression they are trust worthy. This does not mean any of them were overtly religious men. Even if it were true that most of the founding fathers were religious men, what does that really matter? They also believed bleeding people with yellow fever would help cure them.[*] They were wrong. It is amazing what a little education and science can do.

So Mrs. Vakay made a premature assumption that President Obama would not uphold the foundational belief that, “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” I make the assertion that President Obama’s statement, which Mrs. Vakay is so upset about, actually holds more to the meaning of the constitution than what she is asserting. President Obama’s statement when taken in context essentially said America is a melting pot of religions, all of which are Created Equal in the eyes of the constitution. Mrs. Vakay’s entire argument, that somehow Christianity should get some kind of preferential treatment in our country, is completely opposite of the constitution core concept she is claiming to love so much. She has quite the cognitive dissonance on her hands.

The end of Mrs. Vakay’s attack of Obama was reserved for more Republican Talking points, where she claims that freedoms are being stripped of Americans. She might have more creditability in her charge, if she wasn’t a supporter of the Bush administration that stripped more liberties away from American then any period of time in HISTORY. Just look at their so-called Patriot ACT! Here is a list of freedoms that were striped from Americans with little to no resistance!

1. FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigations.
2. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records questions.
3. FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.
4. RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.
5. FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES: Government may search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation.
6. RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.
7. RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.

Published in Signal - December 3rd

But remember you were either for us and a patriot OR against us and an enemy of the state. Amazing how quickly these Tea-baggers handed over their freedoms and started pounding the drums of war!

Mrs. Vacay goes on to say, ‘Remember, Man can take away your rights; God has graciously given them to you as a birthright.” I found this especially entertaining coming from a talking head of a political faction that had no problem eliminating same-sex couples of their right to marry. It didn’t even send up a red flag to this liberty loving Republican when she read the official title, “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry”? That means they had the FREEDOM and their personal Freedom was voted away! Since when do AMERICANS vote on citizen’s civil rights? If Lincoln held a vote to free the slaves, it wouldn’t have happened! I can’t help but laugh every time I hear Republicans claiming a public OPTION is an attack on their freedom. How dare the Government give their people more choices! But it is ok to take choices away from Americans we view a “ICKY”

I think Mrs. Vakay needs to take a long hard look at what she really believes and start coming up with solutions to America’s problems rather than making an already difficult job for President Obama that much harder.