Odds and ends number 103

The e-mail box is filling up fast these days, so after just a month I felt the need to relieve some of that pressure, as it were. Plus I just felt like writing something over the weekend (how’s that for honesty?)

As I have said probably 100 times or so in the past, these are dollops of bloggy goodness which aren’t promoted to a post but deserve some sort of mention, whether a few sentences or a handful of paragraphs.

The protectionist racket

I’ve referred to this man and group many times in the past, but the Alliance for American Manufacturing and their president Scott Paul are nothing if not consistent. After the February job numbers came out, Paul had this to say:

It’s good to see factory job growth resume after January’s slump, but the pace must pick up. At this rate, recovering all the manufacturing jobs lost during the pandemic will take more than two years.

That’s why it is so important for Congress and the Biden administration to speedily complete the short-term COVID-19 rescue package, and then shift to work on a sustained, robust public investment in infrastructure, clean energy, and innovation.

One thing to point out here: January goods imports were the highest on record. Made in America procurement efforts and the rebuilding of domestic supply chains couldn’t come at a better time.

Alliance for American Manufacturing press release, March 5, 2021.

I always appreciate their perspective; Lord knows their hearts are in the right place. But what has always concerned me about the AAM’s steadfast support of protectionism is what I call the Trabant effect, named after the East German car that vanished once the Berlin Wall came down and former denizens of that communist regime could buy other cars that were thirty years more advanced.

I believe we have better workers than China could ever have, although it’s worth noting that China didn’t start eating our lunch until they adopted a hybrid mix of totalitarian government with just enough capitalism to keep people from starving. There are certainly some in the wealthy category in China, but they aren’t self-made – they have to have some connection to the ruling party in order to succeed.

Even without taxpayer “investment” in infrastructure we have enough of a market to create massive wealth, if the government would just get out of the way. That’s where I often part with the AAM, which is an extension of several steelworker unions.

Illustrating absurdity

We all know that Joe Biden has made a mockery of a situation that President Trump was quickly gaining control of: border security and illegal immigration. But when you see things in graphic form, as the Heritage Foundation has put together, the changes are brought into perspective.

It’s sad that, out of 22 policy areas the Heritage Foundation has identified, that Biden and his cronies have made changes to all but two, taking us in the wrong direction. Once upon a time America was supposed to have 11 million illegal immigrants, but I would posit that number is twice that now and may be triple or quadruple that by the time Biden is through.

The problem with strategists

I’ve liked Bobby Jindal for a long time, but I think he has a poor choice in writing partners sometimes.

Perhaps I should have had a clue when the piece appeared in Newsweek, which isn’t exactly a conservative publication, but he and a “Republican strategist” by the name of Alex Castellanos opined there on “Separating Trump from Trumpism.” I had not heard of the latter previously, so when it was noted in the bio that he had worked on four different Presidential campaigns, I was curious to know which four – turns out he was busy for awhile since the list was Bob Dole, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and Jeb! Bush. So we’re basically talking a classic #NeverTrump personality here along with a guy whose behind was kicked by The Donald in the 2016 campaign.

I sort of gleaned the direction they were heading when they warned, “Unless the GOP creates an alternative version of Trumpism, without Trump, he’ll be back.” However, there is a little wheat among the chaff here:

Republicans must jettison Trump’s demeanor, but pick up where Trump’s policies left off. They should fight the concentration of political and economic power that has benefitted technology and financial giants, gather allies to force China to compete economically on a level playing field and reshape the government’s spending, immigration, trade and tax policies to benefit the working class. They can show how an open economy, bottom-up growth and limited government can empower and enrich working-class Americans more than any old, top-down, artificial program. These policies will benefit working-class and all Americans willing to invest their labor and talents towards living even bigger American dreams.

Bobby Jindal and Alex Castellanos, “Separating Trump from Trumpism is Key to the GOP’s Future,” Newsweek, March 1, 2021.

There was a lot about Trumpism that I liked, including the unvarnished patriotism, the willingness to be pro-life, and the complete honesty in dealing with the elites and media. Those of us in the heartland didn’t like either of those groups, but we weren’t seeing any push back from the GOP despite its goading by the TEA Party, among others. It almost makes you wonder who wanted him out more – the Democrats or the elites who still count themselves Republicans in the same vein as Dole, the Bushes, and Mitt Romney.

Stick to writing your own stuff, Bobby – that is, if you want to keep the little bit of relevancy you have. You have the lanes figured out correctly, although in this case I hope you eventually choose the right path.

Although, on second thought, since you’re now pushing for a huge federal infrastructure bill like Joe Biden is, maybe it’s too late.

Placating Woke-O Haram

To Erick Erickson, there is a new religion:

Secularism is, in fact, a religion.  It has sacraments like support for abortion rights.  It has tithing in which secular adherents give money to various political and social causes.  It has liturgies in the new speak of wokeness.  It has theological tracts and church services as rally and protest and Episcopal mass.  It has even spurred the rise of terrorist zealots and the new censorious social justice warriors I have taken to calling Woke-O Haram.

Erick Erickson, “Secular Indulgences,” March 11, 2021.

The initial comparison Erickson makes is the Catholic Church at the time of Martin Luther, which is somewhat appropriate. But the indulgences once sold to pay for St. Peter’s Basilica are now being extorted from businesses in a perverse form of wealth redistribution from industrialized nations to those on the other end of the scale – that is, whatever’s left after those in charge of the redistribution take their cut.

And the funny thing about this whole climate change enigma is that there is no control mechanism. We cannot predict with certainty how the weather will be a month out, so who can believe that doing whatever job-killing, income-robbing scheme Radical Green dreams up will make a significant dent? And when it falls short of predictions – as it always does – then the problem will be that we didn’t do enough, not that the whole idea we could have an effect was bullshit from the start.

It’s like the cynical philosophy I’ve come to embrace in my adult life: government is not in the business of solving problems, for if the solutions they came up with worked, there wouldn’t be a need for them. For government, job preservation is the true Job One. Believers in Radical Green are the same way, so they come up with wilder schemes and excuses to justify their beliefs.

The national impact races

Had I thought more about the post I did on the Laurel school board election, I would have quoted an e-mail I received from iVoter Guide:

Many of the problems that threaten our nation today can be traced to years of misplaced priorities in our public schools. Our children are not learning how to become citizens who appreciate, defend, and cultivate the values and principles our nation was founded upon. This responsibility and power rests with our school boards—positions largely overlooked by the general public, but captured by Leftist organizations and special interest groups who have exercised their influence over our children for far too long.

The good news is, with relatively few votes compared to higher office elections, the trajectory of our school boards and the nation can start to change when principled candidates are elected. This is why iVoterGuide is launching a trial program to equip Christian and conservative voters to engage in these high-impact elections. (Link in original.)

Debbie Wuthnow, “From the Classroom to Congress: Your Schools Matter,” iVoterGuide e-mail, March 4, 2021.

In this case, they are doing a test run of 20 Texas school districts to see how well their voter information program translates to that level. Yet, bringing it back to my school district as an example, it’s hard to find much on these races because the participants (particularly the incumbents) know the race is more on name recognition and who you know rather than on particular issues the schools are dealing with. Most of what information I found the last time I went through this a year ago came from a lengthy profile on the race in the Laurel Star newspaper.

Common sense and sunshine in Delaware?

I suspect he’s lining himself up for bigger things down the road, and he’s not even my representative, but State Rep. Bryan Shupe has a good idea.

HCR10 would require the Delaware General Assembly to stream and videotape proceedings, to include committee meetings. That’s important because those meetings are where the sausage is ground – legislation is generally massaged at the committee level and the horsetrading to get things passed should be a matter of public record.

The fact that the bill has a “modest” amount of co-sponsors, however, tells me the state’s legislative body would rather keep things behind closed doors. (In reality, the bill has five Senate sponsors and co-sponsors along with 11 from the House. Among the group, three are Democrats and the rest Republican.)

I get that the behavior may change because legislators may play more to the camera, but subsequent elections can correct that problem. We should have more transparency in the First State, not less.

One final Palm Sunday item

My original story for this last slot was Delaware-related, but I decided to promote it to a full piece. Instead, as our church was retold today, Jesus had a tough week beginning on the first Palm Sunday.

As it turned out, Erick Erickson wrote on the subject today, so I’ll close with him.

Today is Palm Sunday, the day in which Christians remember Jesus’s final entry into Jerusalem. He entered as a king with people laying palm branches before him. Given the population of the day, it is very, very likely that many who hailed him as a king on Palm Sunday were yelling “crucify him” on Good Friday.

(…)

The moral laws of Christianity are not the laws you follow to get eternal life. They are the moral laws you follow out of love for Christ as you feel him transforming you. As you become more Christ like through the regeneration he sparks in you, you want to be more like Christ. You become more Christlike over time, but you know if you fail you are forgiven. If you fall short, you have grace. Your sin fights back against the regeneration but the regeneration continues.

Two thousand years ago today, Christ Jesus entered Jerusalem a conquering king. But he promised no revolution of strength. He said the strong would be weak and the weak would be strong. He upended the secular paradigms and, for that, the world killed him.

Erick Erickson, “Hail the King. Kill Him.” March 28, 2021.

You may have had a bad week at some point, but just bear in mind that our Lord made flesh knew how his week would end yet still went through with it. This is a good piece because it’s yet another reminder that God has this.

2020 federal dossier: Immigration

This is the sixth part of a multi-part series taking a deeper dive into various important topics in the 2020 election. On the 100-point scale I am using to grade candidates, immigration is worth 11 points.

This section of the dossier has been revised and updated to reflect the general election field.

In perhaps the most extreme category so far, this subject has been the main focus of one of my Republican candidates, yet basically ignored by another. This study in contrasts should make for an interesting file within the dossier, particularly when you add everyone else.

Over the last sixty years we have gradually opened up the spigots on immigration after a comparative freeze during the middle of the twentieth century – a time we were preoccupied by war and economic depression. But reforms in 1965 and 1986 have created a ping-pong ball of sorts as we bounce between the interests of Democrats (as well as their GOP-backing Chamber of Commerce allies) who want more free and unfettered immigration against the border hawks who want to secure the borders and limit the influx, whether as a pause or more permanently – returning closer to a stance we had after our large wave of immigration in the early 1900s when we became very selective about who got in.

So what do those running here in Delaware think?  I am going by party beginning with the Republicans for House and Senate, respectively, then proceeding through the Libertarians, Independent Party of Delaware candidates, and finally the incumbent Democrats Lisa Blunt Rochester and Chris Coons for House and Senate, respectively.

Lee Murphy (R) (House)

There is an interesting hodgepodge of ideas made on Lee’s issues page, where he states, “Congress has shirked their responsibility to find a permanent solution to our nation’s Border Crisis. I will support Customs and Border Patrol and ICE in their efforts to protect our sovereignty. I will support legislation that addresses the visa, permanent resident, and citizenship issues of those who wish to pledge allegiance to our nation legally. We must stop politicizing this national crisis.”

As I noted up top, Congress has “shirked their responsibility” because the issue has been a ping-pong ball for a half-century. Supporting Customs, Border Patrol, and ICE is nice (and necessary) but the second part of the statement leads me to believe Lee is in the “pathway to citizenship” camp that would reward those who came illegally at the expense of those who came the correct way as well as encourage more illegal border crossings – while the southern border has the reputation for being the conduit for illegal immigrants, in reality the larger proportion are those who overstay their visas. In either case, a path to citizenship should begin by them returning home.

In finding his 2018 campaign website among the internet archives, I found my suspicions were correct, to wit:

“Immigrants should be encouraged to come to the United States based on merit and a willingness to be assimilated into our culture.” This was the basic reason most immigrants came here 100 years ago, yet despite the latter many who couldn’t prove their worth were turned away.

But in looking at Lee c. 2018 this was the kicker:”Illegal immigrants who have lived in our country for years and who have been working or serving in the military should pay the penalty for breaking the law, as would any U.S. citizen. After paying the penalty, illegal immigrants should, if they meet all the requirements, be offered a pathway to citizenship. This will help ensure that families of illegal immigrants can stay together, protecting the innocent. The children of illegal immigrants who are born in America should, as U.S. citizens, retains all their rights as citizens per the Constitution.”

That’s a loophole which needs to be closed, pronto. 2 points out of 11.

Lauren Witzke (R) (Senate)

Honestly I could write half the night on Lauren and immigration. Sometimes I think she does.

Ask yourself, though: how many candidates for office in Delaware take a field trip to the Mexican border? She has. So to say this is her primary issue would be to sound like Captain Obvious.

Some of her ideas: a full 10-year moratorium on immigration, meaning we net zero immigrants (so immigants equal emigrants – although that number of emigrants will supposedly be pretty high if Trump wins again), ending DACA and commencing the deportation of DACA recipients, ending chain migration and birthright citizenship, and placing more restrictions on work visas. The result, she claims, would be that, “Delawareans and the rest of America will see a rise in wages, and American college students will compete in the labor market without being put at a massive disadvantage. This plan relies on the basic principles of supply and demand, and common sense. Beltway elites seem to understand neither.”

Obviously this is a harder line than most in Congress would take, so I imagine progress on her agenda would be slow and may take multiple election cycles as the Senate only changes partially each time. But then again, perhaps it’s time someone drags things in that direction. 10 points out of 11.

David Rogers (L) (House)

“I don’t know if we need to go back to an open borders policy,” he writes, “but we should ease immigration restrictions especially for those coming here to work.” I can see that to a point, but the problem is that people don’t just come to work and they don’t always go home. 2 points out of 11.

Nadine Frost (L) (Senate)

You’ll notice she was creeping up on the leader Witzke, so having nothing in this category is a huge unforced error. No points.

Catherine Stonestreet Purcell (IPoD) (House)

She’s also not taking advantage of recent gains. No points.

Mark Turley (IPoD) (Senate)

He likes the idea of strong immigration reform and believes DACA is a “good program.” I don’t. But I like the idea of strong immigration reform, just not in a sense of making it easier. 1 point out of 11.

Lisa Blunt Rochester (incumbent D) (House)

Her issue-free campaign continues apace. No points.

Chris Coons (incumbent D) (Senate)

On the other hand, we can count on Chris to get it wrong. “Chris is a leading voice for comprehensive immigration reform, and he has been outspoken against President Trump’s cruel policies, his nationalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and his proposal to build a wall along the southern border.  Chris has also been a champion for DREAMers, and he has fought Republican efforts to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.”

Being restrictive on immigration is not “cruel,” border security is paramount, and DREAMers should go to the line for citizenship after returning to the country they came from. 0 points out of 11.

Standings:

House: Murphy 22.5, CSP 10.5, Rogers 6, LBR 3.5.

Senate: Witzke 29.5, Frost 15.5, Turley 6.5, Coons 1.

Again, I’m looking at a rather sparse subpart to the dossier next as we consider foreign policy. Despite the fact our actual military operations may be winding down, we have a lot of adversaries to contend with and I want to know how they prefer to deal with them.

Considering the state of emergency

We have reached the point where the perceived inability of Congress to do something – anything – about stemming a tide of illegal immigration across our southern border with Mexico has led President Trump to declare a state of emergency, the preamble of which follows:

The current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency.  The southern border is a major entry point for criminals, gang members, and illicit narcotics.  The problem of large-scale unlawful migration through the southern border is long-standing, and despite the executive branch’s exercise of existing statutory authorities, the situation has worsened in certain respects in recent years.  In particular, recent years have seen sharp increases in the number of family units entering and seeking entry to the United States and an inability to provide detention space for many of these aliens while their removal proceedings are pending.  If not detained, such aliens are often released into the country and are often difficult to remove from the United States because they fail to appear for hearings, do not comply with orders of removal, or are otherwise difficult to locate.  In response to the directive in my April 4, 2018, memorandum and subsequent requests for support by the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense has provided support and resources to the Department of Homeland Security at the southern border.  Because of the gravity of the current emergency situation, it is necessary for the Armed Forces to provide additional support to address the crisis.

“Presidential Proclamation on Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States,” February 15, 2019

My reading of the actual directive – which is not long at all, just 629 words – is that, under the National Emergencies Act of 1976 (which would have been passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress under President Ford) the President is authorizing the use of military personnel and funds to build a border barrier in the most vulnerable places. I’m going to presume that it’s going to be the style of wall such as this prototype.

A prototype of the border wall preferred by President Trump. (Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images.)

Naysayers, of course, make the claim that such a wall could be cut through to go with the other claims that a wall can be tunneled under or flown over. Of course, these statements are true but unless the average person has superhuman strength or a MacGyver-like streak of ingenuity with objects carried on one’s person – since I don’t think most would-be border-crossers have a steel-cutting saw, extension cord, and a few spare hours to cut through several inches of steel nor did they bring a backhoe with them to dig a tunnel – I think such a barrier will keep most people out or (as they are really supposed to) funnel them to more easily-guarded ports of entry. It’s part of an “all of the above” border security solution, not the be-all and end-all for the problem.

(To truly solve the issue of illegal immigration, though, we don’t just need border security but also to eliminate the carrots that attract illegal aliens: an end to chain migration and birthright citizenship as well as a crackdown on those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. One would think there is a way to check whether they have duplicate Social Security numbers, forged work visas, or other phony documentation.)

The first question then becomes whether this state of emergency is Constitutional. (Well, if it isn’t first on your mind it really should be.) It took nanoseconds for this to be brought into court, so how should a court decide this?

In such times as this I lean on expert advice, so I looked at what those close to the Constitution Party have to say. This piece from KrisAnne Hall, who bills herself as a “Constitutional Attorney,” says, no, there is not Constitutional justification for the state of emergency. On the other hand, there is Constitutional justification for Trump’s actions in general, argues “Publius Huldah,” a pseudonym for another attorney, Joanna Martin. Thus, the answer would seem to be that a state of emergency wasn’t needed but President Trump couldn’t just capriciously move the money so he chose to use that route instead of citing some of the Constitutional points Publius Huldah did.

From the other side of the spectrum, you get this paranoid article in The Atlantic written by attorney and Brennan Center legal analyst Elizabeth Goitein, who posits that Trump would use these emergency powers to conjure up a reason to disrupt the 2020 election. More of a mainline, comparative view comes in this assessment by William B. Fisch, then a law professor at the University of Missouri School of Law (now professor emeritus, as this was written in the early 1990s.) Fisch argues that the courts have generally deferred to government during times of crisis, snapping back to normal if the subject is questioned and reviewed after the crisis has passed.

In this case, the crisis will likely pass when the first of two differing possibilities occurs: one, the barrier is built to President Trump’s satisfaction, or, secondly, a Democrat becomes President – in that case, the state of emergency regarding the border will be immediately rescinded.

This leads to the second part of the question, which stems from the threat made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that a national emergency could be declared by a Democrat to invoke gun control. (Fellow Democrat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver took this even farther on Twitter, as he considers climate change, income inequality, and access to healthcare as national emergencies, but not border security.)

It’s certain that a Democrat president would try these actions, citing the capricious nature of President Trump’s declaration – a declaration that in this case Democrats didn’t agree was an emergency. (Would it be their intention to encourage illegal immigration, then? You either are for border security or you’re not. Having an easily-breached fence at the border as is the current situation is obviously not doing the trick.)

Yet the effects of illegal aliens in this country are relatively quantifiable to the extent we have statistics on those effects. In terms of crime, though, statistics have suggested that the illegal alien population as a whole is not more likely to be in prison than native-born Americans are: although one piece of research I found is a couple decades old, a more recent Cato Institute study suggests that illegal immigrants are actually less likely to be criminals than native-born – but far more likely to be criminals than legal immigrants.

There’s also the claim that apprehensions are down, but apprehensions are those who were caught, not the total number crossing. Still, there are also costs in education and health care to consider, despite the fact that a large number of the children of illegal aliens are “anchor babies” who have, via a long-standing but improper interpretation of the 14th Amendment, birthright citizenship.

Yet in the other instances Pelosi, et. al., seek to consider as “national emergencies,” there are one or more obstacles in the way – some are legal and others are logical.

With regard to gun control, there isn’t a true national emergency with regard to the tool as there is the attitude that makes those who use it as a weapon to kill (outside of self-defense) believe it’s okay. Having access to a gun does not justify its use to get even with a company that fired you or with someone who defeated you in a game. If there’s any national emergency in that regard, it’s the callous disregard for life our culture seems to have. The gun is not the problem, and leaving a situation where only government has guns will surely lead to abuse of that authority. (Hence the biggest obstacle: the Second Amendment.)

Nor is climate change a national emergency, mainly because there’s little we can do about it. Given the lack of actual accurate observation, we are only speculating what the climate was like until the last couple centuries, but the conventional wisdom holds that our planet has been both warmer and colder as a whole than it exists today. So what is the true optimum climate? We can’t say for sure – for all we know, this so-called climate change could be a return to normal.

Democrats tend to forget there are things bigger than they are.

And then we have “income inequality” and “access to health care.” I just checked, and nowhere in the Constitution are we guaranteed an income or health care. But let’s do a little math in terms of income.

According to the Census Bureau, U.S. median income is $61,372 per household. But over the states, the scale varies widely: Maryland happens to have the highest median income, while Mississippi is the lowest, with a difference of approximately $35,000. To achieve true income equality, a household in Maryland would have to send $35,000 to one in Mississippi. Of course, those in Mississippi would think that’s great but a Maryland family will protest the whole time – what did that family in Mississippi (that probably doesn’t vote the same way as us) do to deserve our $35,000 that we earned?

Now I know that “income inequality” is really a code word among the Left for class envy – a hatred of the so-called 1%. But what would its effects really be?

A rough estimate of CEO-to-employee pay disparity is that CEOs make up to 3,000 times the pay their employees do – that seems to be a favorite complaint on the Left. So let’s say there’s a company with 10,000 employees and one CEO: just to make my math easy we’ll say the employees make $1 and the CEO $3,000. Income equality means that employees share in a pool of $13,000, meaning they all get $1.30. Now a 30% raise sounds great to an employee, but the nearly 100% pay cut means the CEO quits. Then who runs the company?

Actually, this illustration of income inequality is a corollary argument to health care access. Using Maryland and Mississippi as examples again, those in Maryland are fortunate to have a hospital on the scale of Johns Hopkins in their state while some in Mississippi may be 20 miles from a rudimentary clinic. But would those in Maryland be willing to give up their access to help the poor people of Mississippi? Probably not. And just as in the argument about income inequality, given the finite resources the improvement, if done by force, will be minimal.

A capitalist system isn’t perfect for allocating resources, but what it does best is enlarge the available pool. People on the left often deride this as a “trickle-down” theory but in reality it’s a “rising tide” theory that lifts all the boats. Simply compare the situation in Venezuela to our system and you’ll see the result of the foolhardy vision of Democrats.

Maybe our national emergency is that we have lost our common sense?

Odds and ends number 91

It’s amazing how much stuff one thinks is newsworthy at the time and thus collects in an e-mail account, but by the time they think about writing on it the moment is gone. In this case, it’s items I thought were important enough at the time to keep around and still hold enough interest to me to make the cut days or weeks later.

As usual, it’s a sentence to a few paragraphs. So here goes…

Obama goes all-in on redistricting

Back in December I (along with millions of others) received an e-mail from our most recent past President telling us he’s joining forces with Eric Holder:

Next year, OFA is fully combining forces with the redistricting effort of my former attorney general, Eric Holder. We’re going all-in on the fight against gerrymandering — because for all the hard-fought progress we’ve achieved together, the lack of truly representative government has too often stood in the way of change.

Now, that structural gridlock has been frustrating, no doubt. But if we capitalize on the opportunity to reverse these undemocratic and unrepresentative maps, the bounds of what is possible will fundamentally change.

With maps that deliver on the promise of equal representation, our political leaders will be forced to actually prioritize the will and well-being of the American people on the most pressing issues of our time.

“What’s Next,” e-mail from Organizing for Action, December 20, 2018.

Traditionally the federal government has pretty much left states alone in how they apportion their given number of representatives, which means you get diametrically differing results: some states have it done by a commission, others by their legislature, and Maryland has the governor do it. (Obviously it’s no issue in Delaware as they get just one at-large House member.)

Since attaining office in 2014, Larry Hogan has tried to reform redistricting to no avail. Perhaps this is because Democrats have controlled the process for every redistricting since 1960, a census that led the state to having an “at-large” representative until the shape and placement of an eighth district could be agreed on. (The state was allotted an eighth representative in the 1960 census.) The dirty work of reform could be carried out by the Supreme Court, too, which is the hope of Democrats (like Obama) who think the GOP should blink first because they control more states.

But it’s certain Maryland’s situation is closer to the Obama-Holder idea of “fairness” than other, Republican-drawn states are. I notice they haven’t made a big deal about our state’s blatant attempts at shifting districts from Republican to Democrat – a case that led to the district court ruling mandating a redraw of our Sixth District before the 2020 election.

An Indivisible shutdown

Not surprisingly, the left-wing Astroturf group is taking credit for egging on the Schumer-Pelosi shutdown and calling on the Senate to consider no legislation until a “clean” continuing resolution is sent up for approval.

Just (Tuesday), Senate Democrats, lead (sic) by Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), backed our strategy to refuse to proceed with business as usual until Mitch McConnell brings a bill to the floor to reopen the government. They played hardball, and they won – blocking the first bill that Mitch McConnell tried to bring up.

“When autocrats abuse the tools of democracy,” Indivisible e-mail, January 9, 2019

But listen to the rhetoric they are using: did you know concrete and steel are racist? This is from the “Republican Senator” call script (there’s one for Democrats, too.)

Will [Senator] commit to passing the House funding bills that would reopen our government instead holding our government hostage over Trump’s racist wall?

Indivisible action page

Look, I get the argument about how more of our illegal immigrants are those overstaying visas than those sneaking across the border. So I know a wall is not a one-size-fits-all solution to the problem, since there also needs to be enforcement personnel put in place as well as measures to make being here illegally less attractive, such as an end to “birthright citizenship” and punishment for businesses that routinely hire illegal aliens. I would listen to an argument that allows those here illegally to become citizens, but it would involve them starting the process from within their home country.

First things first, though: pony up the $5 billion and build the wall. (Dude, in the grand scheme of our overly-bloated federal government budget that’s a rounding error.) The last time I checked the Constitution – you know, that document public officials swear to uphold – common defense was supposed to be provided for, and to me a wall would be part of common defense, even if it’s not in the actual defense budget. Every day the Democrats obstruct is a day they putting politics above safety.

Meanwhile, in news being ignored…

Americans keep getting hired to build things. Remember a few years ago when the Alliance for American Manufacturing had a monthly count comparing the actual number of manufacturing jobs created under Barack Obama to the million he promised? I think that ended about 700,000 short. But instead of giving Donald Trump credit for eclipsing the half-million mark in that category in less than two years, they want more trade enforcement. Stop and smell the roses, guys.

But can the good times last?

There’s going to be a two-front war on prosperity conducted by the Left. On the public front there’s the so-called “Green New Deal,” which has been ably dissected by Hayden Ludwig of the Capital Research Center. Corollary to that is the contrarian advice to Democrats given by Bobby Jindal in the Wall Street Journal. I won’t take you behind the paywall, but the upshot is that “(a) more effective strategy (than impeachment threats, abolishing ICE, or installing “Medicare for All”) would be for House Democrats to take Mr. Trump’s populist campaign rhetoric seriously and seek to divide him from his more conventional Republican colleagues on the Hill.”

I don’t know just how far Jindal’s tongue is in his cheek, but I have to question how serious he is when he says:

Populist Democrats can help the president make good on his promises – and make Republicans shriek – by proposing a financial-transaction tax and a revenue tax on tech companies. They’d be following Europe’s lead. Democrats can force the issue by ending the carried-interest tax break, another of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises.

That new revenue would reduce annual deficits and make a down payment on another Trump campaign promise: eliminating the nation’s debt in eight years. Contrasting themselves with supposed small-government congressional Republicans, who presided over a $779 billion budget deficit during the last fiscal year, Democrats can be the party of fiscal responsibility, expanding government while reducing the deficit. There is no law mandating they spend all the new revenue they raise.

“If Democrats Were Shrewd…”, Bobby Jindal, Wall Street Journal, December 30, 2018

Wanna bet they won’t spend the revenue? See “Green New Deal” above.

Behind the scenes, though, the die has been cast for a rerun of 2007-2008, when a Republican President saddled with an unpopular war let a Democrat Congress that promised to be reformers walk all over him. To that end, the first thing the Democrats did when they got the reins of power was change the rules. This link came courtesy of my old friend Melody Clarke – longtime fans of the site (like her) may remember her as Melody Scalley, who twice ran for Virginia’s House of Delegates and used to have a conservative talk radio program I guested on back in the day. (Geez, that was almost a decade ago. *sigh*)

But the House rules are important because previous incarnations made it more difficult to raise taxes or create new spending without offsetting it somewhere else. Now they favor bigger, more intrusive government for the well-connected special interests that attach to Democrats like ticks to hound dogs.

Creating more choices for Maryland

If you recall my postmortem coverage of the most recent past election, you will note I was corrected in one of my assertions by state Libertarian Party Chair Bob Johnston. I thought it was any statewide candidate who could get 1% to keep a party on the ballot, but he said it had to be governor (or President) and despite my last-minute support Shawn Quinn got well less than 1% of the vote.

But, thanks to a previous court case brought by an independent candidate for statewide office, the threshold for statewide ballot inclusion is now 10,000 signatures. (That helped Neal Simon run for U.S. Senate.) Using that logic, the Maryland Libertarian Party is suing the state to further relax ballot standing rules:

Maryland law requires smaller parties – all those other than the Democrats and Republicans – to renew their official status every four years either by attracting more than 1% of the gubernatorial or presidential vote or by filing a petition with the signatures of 10,000 registered voters.  In 2014 the Libertarians became the first smaller party in Maryland to reach the 1% goal, but in 2018 they fell short.  Now state law requires them to collect 10,000 signatures—even though the state’s own records already show that there are 22,338 registered Libertarians.

“The state’s interest in ensuring that there is a significant modicum of support within Maryland for the Libertarian Party is simply not advanced one iota by requiring Maryland’s 22,000 Libertarians to petition their non-Libertarian neighbors for permission to participate in the political process,” say the plaintiffs in their complaint.

Maryland Libertarian Party press release, December 27, 2018.

If the Libertarians are successful, they would qualify for the 2020 and 2022 ballots – although I’m not sure how they don’t qualify for 2020 when Gary Johnson received well over 1% of the Maryland vote in 2016. (Perhaps it’s only for the remainder of the state’s four-year electoral cycle?) This would certainly make the game easier for the Libertarian Party as they don’t have to spend money chasing petition signatures nor would they have to convince another 18,000 or so voters to join their ranks to get them to 1% of the registered voters. (Getting a percentage of registered voters is a criteria for both Maryland and Delaware, but the numbers are easier to achieve in Delaware, which only requires 1/10 of a percent – and subsequently has seven balloted parties.)

And with 9,287 registered voters and a “Green New Deal” to support, it’s certain that Maryland’s Green Party is watching this case (Johnston v. Lamone) as well.

Coming up…

As I mentioned in yesterday’s piece I have a special record review coming. I was actually listening to it as I did this post, so it was good background music I’ll take another spin at this week before posting.

I’ve also been putting together a short series of posts – ones that are long on number-crunching and research, which make them even more fun for me – on something I enjoy. My friends watching the Hot Stove League should really appreciate it, too.

It all beats the political, which has degenerated to me almost to mind-numbingly boring because it’s so, so predictable. When it strikes my fancy I’ll delve into it again, but in the meantime it’s the other stuff.

Point and counterpoint in Salisbury: some observations

Earlier today I spent a little time at the “No Ban No Wall No Registry” rally in downtown Salisbury, which was countered by a (more or less) silent protest on the outside. I was only there about 45 minutes, since I had more pressing family business to attend to, but I think my stint there gave me the flavor of the event. So I have some pictures and quotes I jotted down from representative speakers.

My obligatory crowd shot. I believe the event was supposed to begin at 1:00, so I took this about a half-hour into it.

On such an event as this my basis of comparison is the Tax Day TEA Party I attended at that very same location in 2009. Considering that prior event was held on a rainy, chilly weekday afternoon and this one was on an unseasonably warm February weekend (a holiday weekend to boot) the turnout seemed rather small – maybe 300 people. Also note that perhaps 75 of these people were there for the “Resist the Resistance” counter-rally, so my estimate is of about a 3:1 ratio of rallygoer to protestor.

This second crowd shot above came about 20 minutes later, from across the street. Notice the police car parked there, as there were perhaps 4 or 5 pairs of Salisbury police officers surveying the group from different vantage points. Overall, the gathering was rather peaceful and the event organizer only chastised the counter-group once when I was there for being disrespectful. This is a sampling of the counterpoint; however, they were more scattered around the outside. The cheers and chants weren’t coming from them.

As with any protest worth its salt, there were signs expressing a variety of points of view.

I’m surprised the bearer wasn’t asking for the birth certificate. Oh wait, wrong president. But this wasn’t necessarily supposed to be an anti-Trump rally.

Well, then again… but to be fair, this was spotted on a car in the nearby parking lot. I would presume the person who slapped it on wasn’t at the library, though.

True, but many do illegal acts, and in the case of our subject matter crossing the border without permission, identity theft – which many “undocumented migrants” do in order to secure work authorization – and overstaying visas are criminal acts.

I agree with this one as well, particularly with regard to the below sign.

Radical Islam is more of a threat to that light than a temporary pause in accepting refugees and immigrants from particular nations. Shari’a law is not compatible with our Constitution. And looking at the other sign in the top photo, I didn’t think global warming was a concern with this one. Today’s global warming feels pretty darn good, actually. And, by the way, spellcheck is your friend.

Rather than take a photo of the kids drawing on the posterboards (making more signs?) I took this shot. They’re not old enough to know better, although I fear that what they are exposed to isn’t going to lead them in a positive direction.

I did not write down the names of the speakers, so forgive me on that. More important than the names, though, was their sentiments. One high-school age girl who claimed she was brought up in a mixed home (Muslim and Catholic) was afraid she would be “hated and harmed by those misinformed” and that with continued scapegoating of various groups America will unmake itself.

I recall this girl talked about the internment of the Japanese in America during World War II, which was primarily because FDR considered them a threat as we were fighting their homeland. Yet no one is talking about rounding up Middle Eastern males and putting them in a camp – the idea is just to have more “extreme vetting” of a group which has been proven to have a propensity toward committing acts of terror both here and elsewhere.

Another woman (most of the speakers I saw were women, particularly college-age and below) exhorted the audience to educate themselves and not to believe various news sources, including blogs. Hey, I resent that remark – come tell me I’m lying. I certainly will cheerfully admit my bias toward limited, Constitutional government, and I believe Trump’s action regarding immigrants is within his purview. (The Washington judge and Ninth Circuit got it wrong. The law – which dates from the 1950s – clearly states Trump can take this action, just as the last six presidents have.)

I’m not sure if it was the same speaker, but it was noted as well that the Likovich family (the organizer is local college student Molly Likovich) has received “a lot of hateful words.” I don’t condone that tone, either, but please remember hateful words aren’t the exclusive province of the Right.

Something I noticed in further remarks was when a speaker was talking about having respect for all religions, including those who choose not to follow any religion, that last part got the loudest cheer. What someone does with their immortal soul is between them and God, but I found, sadly, I wasn’t surprised by that sentiment there.

I also heard the opinion that we all have blanket stereotypes of people as human beings. But by the same token, this speaker said “Ignorance is not bliss, and knowledge is power.” We had to admit to ourselves these stereotypes and try to change our behavior. The question I have, though, is change it to what? Should we just accept the false notion that all cultures are equal and just let things go? That’s not possible in a civilized society. And while she asked us to “never stop fighting for humanity,” the question becomes which behaviors and cultures are assets to humanity and which are detrimental.

But the last speaker I heard before I departed the scene took the cake.

Thanks to my erstwhile fellow WCRC officer Jackie Wellfonder, I found out this speaker’s name is Amber Green, and yes she is sporting a BLM shirt. Jackie had a video of Amber’s whole speech up on her social media, so I listened again.

Amber was very riled up, which is fine, but when she told the older generation “it’s time for you guys to sit down” and let the younger generation take over because “we have a lot to say,” well, from what they had to say I don’t think they have the maturity or common sense to take over yet.

To show how naïve these people are, remember that one of the speakers said humans have “blanket stereotypes” about each other. Young lady, that cuts both ways. Unfortunately, there is a group of relatively young humans out there who use the blanket stereotypes given to them by their religion as an excuse to murder and maim people, in the belief that dying themselves in the act is their surest way to 72 virgins in paradise. Again, I will admit that I heard only a portion of the remarks but I don’t recall any of the speakers condemning that behavior. Instead, we had to be tolerant of their beliefs because they have the notion that there is moral equivalence between all cultures and religions. So if someone came to the event with a Confederate flag, would they be as forgiving because – remember – all cultures are equal?

I also recall one of the speakers revealing that Molly and several of the other event organizers participated in the Women’s March last month. At least this rally didn’t feature the pink hats, which did little but make those women look foolish.

Good thing there was a little levity about the place, not to mention the bottled water on the table above the sign.

Maybe what we need is a beer summit, and apparently from what I read on social media several of the pro-Trump people went to this establishment to have a few adult beverages. Yet it’s the organizers who need it so they will figure out a little bit of common sense. Lord knows they need something to get through the next four to eight years because they’ll have to deal with Donald Trump and Mike Pence for that long. Despite Michael Moore’s fantasy, Hillary Clinton is nowhere on the succession list.

But do you know what was most silly about this rally? These people have already forgotten something I observed during the 2016 campaign: the more extreme the rhetoric and vitriol toward Donald Trump, the more people embrace him. All this affair did was sow the seeds of division in our nation deeper, but that may have been the goal all along. And despite the glowing coverage in local media, it will just take one terror attack in the name of religion to obliterate the points made today.

The uprising

Saturday could be an interesting day in Salisbury.

I’m sure you know I am writing a book on the TEA Party (more on that in a bit) so one restore point I like to return to in my political memory was the first Tax Day TEA Party we had out in front of the Government Office Building. On a rainy Wednesday afternoon there were probably 400 to 500 people in attendance. Three months later we celebrated Independence Day with a gathering of perhaps 200 to 300. (Sadly, I wrote great pieces on both events but the demise of my photo repository means the photos are dead links. Someday I will rectify that – but I have to find the photos on my old external hard drive, which I also have to find! *sigh*)

Anyway, Saturday could be the flip side of the TEA Party since there’s a completely different protest planned, called the “No Ban No Wall No Registry” Salisbury rally. And unlike the TEA Party of yore, this one will have a counter-protest called the “Resist the Resistance” rally. I’m guessing that the opposition to Trump will have the larger numbers, if only because they’ve secured a little bit of publicity for their event and it’s something that indeed unites certain segments of the community.

Yet I have to question their sincerity, since they haven’t batted an eyelash when the last six presidents have put up a similar ban of some type against particular countries, not to mention the recent change in policy toward Cuban refugees. (However, I may give them the benefit of the doubt if they chastise Trump’s predecessor for that change.) I also have to question their reasoning as to why we should not secure our borders, which is our right as a sovereign nation. Once upon a time we were more secure in the fact that two oceans and inhospitable terrain shielded us from the world, but no more. By the same token, is it not our right to know who is visiting the nation and for what purpose? If only they were against a registry for firearm owners, we may be on to something.

While I agree that Donald Trump is a lowering of the standard one should expect from the President, so was Hillary Clinton. (Thus, I voted for the Constitution Party nominee.) I can’t promise anything because I also have a family commitment that day, but if I have the chance I may wander down there to see what’s going on and maybe play reporter once again. Lord knows I haven’t been much of a blogger lately because I’ve spent a lot of time working on The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party.

So it’s on that front I’m going to make my final point of the night. I had envisioned the book being done by this fall, but recently I have had a different opportunity placed before me that I think is worth pursuing for some other personal and professional goals I have. At this time, it will take a significant portion of my already limited free time so in order to give this a fair shake I think a more realistic timetable for the book is now the first half of 2018. I’m going to put it on pause for a few months, with the hope that this opportunity may morph into something else that would give me the time back.

One other benefit: it can give me a chance to see how this resistance movement pans out and how it compares to the grassroots TEA Party. So there is that, and Saturday will be the first chapter of that story.

A discussion on immigration

By Cathy Keim 

The topic of immigration is huge because we have so many areas to cover. Just for starters, there is legal immigration, asylum seekers and refugees, temporary visa holders for work or education, and illegal immigration. Then we could go deeper into family reunification policies, green cards, health issues, and security issues. Despite reading on the topic for years, I am not an expert, but I have formed some opinions and probably you the reader have too.

First and foremost, it is okay to discuss this issue despite the elites, the media, the politicians, and the academics trying to make it taboo. If you raise any concern, no matter how small, about immigration you are instantly labeled xenophobic, Islamophobic, and all the other usual epithets like racist, bigot, and hater.

It is the government’s job to protect its citizens. One of the ways to protect the citizens is to control who comes in and out of the country. For the open borders types, I would ask them if they lock their doors on their houses? I can remember when most of us didn’t bother to lock our doors, but that was a long time ago when I was a child. Today, most people lock the doors to their home whether they are home or away because they want to control access to their possessions and more importantly to themselves.

In most of our nation, a simple lock is sufficient, although security systems are popular if you go by the signs posted discreetly in front yards. In the Middle East, South America, and Mexico homes of the upper class are more like forts with walls, iron bars on the windows and even armed guards for protection. May we never reach the point where each of us must build a fortress to feel safe.

However, that day may come if our government continues to fail in its duty to secure our borders and control who comes into our country. So now is the time to have the discussion about immigration and to speak our minds freely without regard to the “pure of heart” liberals that try to impose their “religion” of tolerance upon us.

Christianity is hated by the liberals and yet they whip it out of the bag to beat us over the head with how we should be kind and loving to the refugees. They are hypocritically calling upon us to obey their interpretation of Christianity which just happens to mean open the gates and let everybody in.

Christians are called to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, but that is an admonition to individuals, not for government policy making. The liberals purposely blur the lines between the government’s duty to protect its citizens and the Christian obligation to be kind.

The Bible is clear that it is the duty of the Christian to take care of their own family, then to reach out to others. One way of taking care your family is to be sure that they are fed, housed, and safe. Even the liberals would call in child protective services if you left your child (or dog) in an unsafe environment, yet they want to turn the entire country into an unsafe environment by bringing in refugees that cannot be vetted due to the turmoil in their home countries.

There are an estimated 60 million refugees around the world. Exactly how many of those refugees do the open borders people want to bring to America? What are the principles that they use to select who should come? Why do they tell themselves that they are “pure of heart” for wanting to save the refugees, when they do it with money that is confiscated from taxpayers by force?

We the taxpayers are xenophobic, etc. etc. ad nauseum, if we do not cheerfully pay our taxes and watch them be used to bring in people that do not want to assimilate and live by our laws and customs. Why are the feminists that were so nasty at the Women’s March not protesting against Sharia law which says that women are not equal to men, that honor killings are fine, and the female genital mutilation is great? Why, as a Christian, should I stand aside so that these great evils can be brought into our culture on equal footing with our Judeo-Christian Western values?

All cultures are not equal. All religions are not equal. This must be acknowledged before we can have a reasonable discussion of how our nation should proceed. I absolutely want my elected representatives to have the backbone to state clearly that America is founded on Judeo-Christian principles and we want to continue to function under them. That implies that we should not import people en masse who do not believe in our country’s laws and customs and have no intention of assimilating.

Because we are a good and kind nation, we can most certainly send aid to war torn countries including doctors, nurses, teachers, and missionaries that volunteer to go. We have done exactly that throughout our history. At present, we are being hectored by the nine non-governmental agencies that bring in refugees to continue and even increase the number. If you will look at Ann Corcoran’s Refugee Resettlement Watch blog, you will see that Ann has documented over and over again that these NGO’s are almost completely funded by the American taxpayer and therefore, they cannot share the gospel of Jesus Christ with any of the refugees they help.

One of the arguments being foisted upon Christians by the left is that because we are bringing Muslims to America in great numbers, we can more easily preach the gospel to them, except that the supposed Christian organizations bringing them cannot speak the name of Christ due to the government funding. Besides, where does it say in the Bible that preaching the gospel should be convenient?

John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, spoke about Islam almost two hundred years ago. If we were more aware of history we would realize that this assault by jihadists upon Western culture is nothing new.  His observations are still worth heeding.

The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.

I will acknowledge that many Muslims do not want to be constantly warring with their neighbors, but that doesn’t change the truth that this is baked into their belief system.

I will close with an illustration from an incident I read about in Tampa, Florida years ago. You may remember Sami Al Arian, who was finally deported to Turkey for helping fund terrorists. Before he became a well known name for his terrorist activities, he came to Florida to teach at the University of South Florida. He and his fellow jihadists went to a nice little neighborhood mosque and beat up the faithful and took over the mosque. The Muslims who had started the mosque were forcibly removed from leadership and the mosque became the al Qassam Mosque as it is still named. Al Qassam was a Palestinian terrorist, an apt name for a mosque that was taken by terror from its rightful owners.

This article in the St. Petersburg Times states:

In May 1987, more than a dozen people stormed a Ramadan service at the mosque that would later become a spiritual and political base for Sami Al-Arian, accused of being the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The dissidents tried to drive out the worshipers, according to a Hillsborough County sheriff’s report. A woman identified as Hala Al-Najjar swung a large purse, knocking over a pregnant woman who later miscarried.

At the time, this newspaper called it a “scuffle between two Moslem sects.” In hindsight, the “scuffle” was one in a dramatic series of struggles at mosques throughout the country between fundamentalist and moderate Muslims.

(snip)

It is unclear whether Al-Arian would call himself a Wahhabist, but in taking over the Tampa mosque, his disciples appeared to follow the Wahhabi script. They drove out moderates, handed title of the mosque to the Islamic trust, and received secret funding linked to Saudi Arabia, documents show.

My point in relating this incident from almost 30 years ago is that when push comes to shove, it is the violent sect of Islam that rules. The bully rules the schoolyard. Thus by importing Muslims en masse into our country, no matter how peaceful the first ones are, we are opening our doors to increasing strife.

In fact, Nonie Darwish, the director of Former Muslims United, says:

Muslims need to know that the world does indeed have a justifiable and legitimate concern about Islam and actions done in the name of Islam by Muslims. Muslims need to look at themselves in the mirror and see the world from the point of view of their victims. Instead, the West is sacrificing its culture, values, laws, pride and even self-respect. Muslim culture needs a wake-up call telling them that, sooner or later, non-Muslim nations will close their doors to any kind of Muslim immigration if the jihad culture continues. That will also be a strong message to Muslims already in the West who still believe in jihad.

Unfortunately, Islam does not lend itself to a reformation.  To the jihadists, Islam still exists as John Quincy Adams described it:

In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE. (capitals in the original.)

The immigration debate needs to be held publicly and it looks like the Trump administration is going to do so. Each citizen needs to be informed and contact their leadership from the president down to local officials as to what they think the correct policy should be.

The Golden Rule

By Cathy Keim

So whatever you wish that others would do unto you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. –  Matthew 7:12 (ESV)

The horrific Facebook video of four people, two males and two females, torturing a mentally challenged man has led to a vigorous debate of whether the media reported the event correctly, whether it should be classified a hate crime, why did it take so long for the police to acknowledge that it was a hate crime, etc. etc.

Sarah Palin cut through all the nonsense in her excellent Breitbart piece where she stated:

My extended family discussed the tragedy last night. We concluded we do not care about arguing the legalities involved in categorizing this as a “hate crime” or not a “hate crime.” Obviously it is a hateful, hate-filled crime centering on politics and race. Proof is on tape. Debating the merits of categorizing the disgusting racist and political taunts vomited up by thugs during their brutal beating of a helpless young man is, to us, a media distraction. I leave it to others to focus on that.

We need to step back from the racial aspect of this crime and take the bigger picture. The torturers were abusing a mentally challenged man. This is like kicking a puppy. It is so obviously wrong that it is sickening to even think about. We don’t need to discuss whether it is a black puppy or a white puppy. You just don’t kick a puppy.

It is wrong to kidnap, torture, and abuse anybody, but the case is made startlingly clear when a person with no capacity to fight back is the target. How did the perpetrators become so detached from their own humanity that they could laugh as they tortured their victim? Why didn’t anyone call the police as they were watching the live broadcast of the event?

This event needs to call our nation to some serious soul-searching. The breakdown of our society is becoming harder to ignore. Chicago is teetering on the edge of societal collapse with its murder rate soaring, as are many other major cities. Our nation has lived off the religious heritage of our forefathers for many years, but we are at the end of those benefits. One can live on the faded memories only so long.

The collective ethos of our nation has frayed to the point that our young people have no understanding of what we were. The educational system is not teaching them their heritage and the popular culture has no concept of it. Families are broken so that the final opportunity for transmitting the story of our nation from one generation to the next is lost.

It is a good thing that most people were shocked and disgusted by the event. Sadly, we are becoming immune to the brutal scenes around us due to constant exposure.

John Adams, one of our Founding Fathers and our second president, said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

We are seeing the social covenant of our nation being ripped to shreds by the differing application of laws and expected behavior. The elites are above the laws and those designated poor and minorities are not held to the law. Only the middle class is still required to abide by the cultural norms, respect the laws, and pay the taxes.

Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote a spot-on piece explaining how California is bifurcated between the cultural elites on the coast and the rural inland areas.  The elites live a protected existence buffered by their wealth, while the middle class struggles to meet the increasingly stringent regulations pushed by the elites.  The final blow is that while the middle class is held to the letter of the law, the illegal immigrants are exempt:

On my rural street are two residences not far apart. In one, shacks dot the lot. There are dozens of port-a-potties, wrecked cars, and unlicensed and unvaccinated dogs – all untouched by the huge tentacles of the state’s regulatory octopus.

Nearby, another owner is being regulated to death, as he tries to rebuild a small burned house: His well, after 30 years, is suddenly discovered by the state to be in violation, under a new regulation governing the allowed distance between his well and his leach line; so he drills another costly well. Then his neighbor’s agricultural well is suddenly discovered by the state regulators to be too close as well, so he breaks up sections of his expensive new leach line. After a new septic system was built by a licensed contractor and a new well was drilled by a licensed well-driller, he has after a year – $40,000 poorer – still not been permitted to even start to rebuild his 900-square-foot house.

The middle class in America is not just made up of white people. The beauty of America is that the middle class consists of citizens of every race, religion, and gender. This is the strength of America and one of the unique qualities that sets America apart. Anyone can achieve middle-class status through hard work and following the rules – at least that was the belief about how it worked.

The full-on attack against moral values, religious beliefs, patriotism, civic duty, and even masculine and feminine virtues, have left the middle class exhausted and demoralized. If they don’t pay their parking ticket, they can be hauled into court and fined. They don’t want the hassle, they don’t want to miss work, they don’t want to be embarrassed publicly, so middle-class Americans pay their parking tickets and more importantly to the politicians, they pay their taxes. On the other hand, the urban poor living off their welfare payments don’t worry about parking tickets or kidnapping, attempted murder, or raising their children to know the Golden Rule.

Illegal immigrants drive without a license, drive drunk, commit rape, and care not about the consequences. One recent example came from Kansas, where it was reported that an illegal immigrant from Mexico now accused of raping a 13-year-old girl on a Greyhound bus had been deported ten times and voluntarily removed nine other times since 2003. So in the lifespan of his alleged victim, this man has gone on a merry-go-round of coming and going across the border 19 times. It is nice to know that this man has been charged with a felony for rape, but your average citizen would like to know why was he asked to leave 19 times and was still back in our country to commit rape?

One of the valid purposes for government to exist is to provide security for its citizens. The elite can afford to pay for walls around their mansions, private security guards, and private schools for their children. They are completely immune from the ill effects that the middle class must endure due to the reckless immigration policies and the uneven enforcement of our laws.

Sadly, the lack of law enforcement leads to even more violence and mayhem in our cities. David French reports in National Review that:

When a culture breaks, it falls to the police to keep order. When they pull back, people die. That’s the lesson of Chicago. On January 1, 60 Minutes ran an extended piece, Crisis in Chicago, that’s must viewing for those who believe black lives matter. An entire police department is in full retreat. The numbers don’t lie:

As killings rose, police activity fell. In August of 2015, cops stopped and questioned 49,257 people. A year later those stops dropped to 8,859, down 80 percent. At the same time arrests were off by a third, from just over 10,000 to 6,900.

As further evidence, the Chicago Sun-Times reports (in a now ongoing “Homicide Watch” online series) that “2016 closes with at least 780 homicides in Chicago, and three more reported on first day of new year. That was the highest total in more than 20 years.”

John Adams was correct when he stated that our country will only work when its citizens are a moral people.

I will posit that America still has a large percentage of its citizens that are a moral people capable of self-government. However, we have reached a breaking point where the hypocrisy of our governing elite has pushed middle America to vote in a game-changing president. Donald Trump correctly assessed that middle America was ready for a president who would champion their cause. His first big breakthrough issue was to stop illegal immigration. Law-abiding middle Americans want everybody to live by the same laws: no more sanctuary cities, no more ignoring illegal immigrants and the employers that break the laws the hire them.

Furthermore, middle Americans would appreciate an end to the assault on our values. The Planned Parenthood video tapes clearly showed that PP employees were harvesting baby parts for profit. Transgender bathrooms were not an issue until they were foisted upon us by the same parties that insisted gay marriage was needed. How are we to raise the next generation of citizens to understand how to live, when they see babies sold for profit, masculine and feminine virtues ridiculed, traditional families denigrated, and every perversion celebrated?

We do not need to settle everything by whether it is a black/white issue, a male/female issue, or a minority/majority issue. Instead, we need to practice the Golden Rule by treating our neighbor as we would want to be treated. We need for our laws to be enforced equally.

America was never meant to be ruled by tribalism. We are the nation that rose above tribalism to become the place where everybody could achieve the middle-class dream no matter what side of the track they started on.

It is my hope that middle Americans have voted in a game-changing opportunity to remember who we are. If we miss this chance, there may not be another.

Earning my presidential vote: immigration

Last week the Center for Immigration Studies came out with a claim that the number of those living in our country who speak a foreign language at home has tripled since 1980, now numbering almost 65 million. We also fret about the terrorism risk from those who would claim to be refugees or simply sneak across our border. In short, immigration is the hot-button issue that propelled Donald Trump to the GOP nomination – unfortunately, he’s since radically backpedaled on the issue to the advocacy of “touchback amnesty” that will likely lose its “touchback” provisions.

So the question is: are we a nation of laws or not? Illegal to me is illegal, not “undocumented.” So here’s my stance in five bullet points or less:

  • We are told that you can’t deport 11 million illegals. But you can create the conditions where they will leave on their own through stricter law enforcement.
  • We need border security. If the “virtual wall” doesn’t work, then we need to build a physical barrier.
  • There also needs to be a reform of the visa system. A large and growing part of the illegal immigration problem is visa overstays, so it’s time to crack down.
  • An end to “birthright citizenship.”
  • While testing for religious beliefs is illegal and quite impractical – since certain religions permit lying to advance them – one has to ask why we accept immigrants and grant visas to those from countries who are our enemies.

As always, if you want to back up and review this series on earning my vote from the start feel free to. But here is where my contenders stand on the immigration issue, for eleven points.

Castle: “I believe that immigration in all its forms should be stopped until we can vet immigrants properly and our borders are under control. We can’t be allowing people with terrorist ties, or who are carrying dangerous communicable diseases, to enter our country unchecked. But once we have regained control of our borders and the flow of immigrants, we can admit as many as we choose, in a controlled and lawful manner.

I do not favor asylum for those here illegally nor do I favor a path to citizenship. Welfare or entitlement programs, if you choose to call them that, should be strictly for American citizens. I have said that I would not deport wholesale but I would not hesitate individually if the need arose.”

Should not take in refugees, “I’m all for secure borders.”

Hedges: “We would deploy sufficient resources to stop all illegal traffic in people and drugs across America’s land and sea borders. We would not provide driver’s licenses, educational subsidies, or welfare benefits to illegal aliens, except that the medical conditions of gravely ill illegals would be stabilized before they are deported. We strongly oppose granting citizenship to ‘anchor babies’ born to illegal alien mothers.” (party platform)

Hoefling: We demand the immediate securing and continuous vigilant maintenance of our sovereign territory and borders. We oppose any private or governmental action that rewards illegal entry into the United States in any way, and demand speedy and full enforcement of our laws concerning all such activities. (party platform)

Johnson: Practical Reform. No Walls. Incentivize Assimilation.

Having served as Governor of a border state, Gary Johnson knows the complex issues associated with immigration reform first hand. Solving immigration problems is not as easy as building a wall or simply offering amnesty.

We should appreciate and respect the diversity of immigrants that come to the United States to be productive members of society. But we also need to recognize that everyone who comes here is not so well-intentioned.

Gary Johnson and Bill Weld don’t want to build an expensive and useless wall. The only thing a big wall will do is increase the size of the ladders, the depth of the tunnels, and the width of the divisions between us.

Candidates who say they want to militarize the border, build fences, and impose punitive measures on good people, ground their position in popular rhetoric, not practical solutions.

Governors Johnson and Weld believe that, instead of appealing to emotions and demonizing immigrants, we should focus on creating a more efficient system of providing work visas, conducting background checks, and incentivizing non-citizens to pay their taxes, obtain proof of employment, and otherwise assimilate with our diverse society.

Making it simpler and more efficient to enter the United States legally will provide greater security than a wall by allowing law enforcement to focus on those who threaten our country, not those who want to be a part of it. (campaign website)

McMullin: The story of America is the story of immigration. Evan McMullin’s family left Ireland in the 1600s to seek a better life in the New World. Part of his mother’s family fled Poland because of the Nazi menace.

The country we love was built by immigrants. Yet while we are a nation of immigrants, we are also a nation of laws. We must preserve our sovereignty, our security, and the rule of law.

We also need a president who will enforce the law instead of forcing through an illegal amnesty by executive order. Nor should “sanctuary cities” be able to refuse cooperation with the federal enforcement efforts.

The path to reform begins with securing our borders. Once they are secured, there should be a process of earned legalization for the illegal immigrants who are already here. There is simply no efficient way to deport 11 million individuals; doing so would break apart families and likely cost $100 billion. Furthermore, legalization is not amnesty.

While addressing illegal immigration, it is vital to remember that legal immigration is one of America’s greatest strengths. Immigrants and their children have a long record of hard work, starting businesses, and creating jobs. Still, we need to reform the legal immigration system so that it prioritizes American interests and security, including the protection of workers from low-wage, low-skill competition.

There should be a robust debate about immigration, but there should be no place for the kind of hateful and divisive rhetoric frequently on display in this campaign.

To secure the border, we need more manpower, better technology, and—in some places—walls. First, the government should hire 20,000 new Border Patrol agents. Second, the government should invest in advanced sensing and surveillance technologies, including cameras. Finally, there are several hundred miles of the southern border where walls are being built and must be completed. However, it is a waste of taxpayer dollars to build a wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

The incentive that attracts illegal immigrants to the United States is the opportunity to work. To reduce that incentive, employers should be required to use the eVerify system, which was designed to help them determine if job applicants are in the country legally. “Sanctuary cities” must follow the law as well, or face the cut off of federal funding.

Above all, the president must obey the law. President Obama’s executive amnesties in 2012 and 2014 sought to place more than five million illegal immigrants beyond the reach of law enforcement. This year, however, a federal judge struck down the amnesties and the Supreme Court deadlocked on the issue.

A president who respects the Constitution knows that only Congress can make the law; executive amnesties violate this principle.

Deporting 11 million illegal immigrants is simply not practical. It would likely cost more than $100 billion and force the federal government to act in an intrusive manner that would violate the privacy of both citizens and legal residents. Deportation would also break up families, hurting children who are not responsible for their parents’ actions. Criminals, however, would still be subject to deportation.

The first step toward earning legal status is for all those who are here illegally to come forward and register themselves. Next they would pay an application fee and a fine, undergo a background check, and demonstrate competence in English. If they do those things, they would get a temporary work and residence permit, but would not be eligible for welfare or entitlement programs. If they obey the law and pay their taxes for several years, they could apply for permanent residency.

This is not amnesty; amnesty is when lawbreakers get something for nothing. Evan’s approach requires every illegal immigrant to earn the right to stay here.

Our country’s immigration policy should serve its economic interests. The best and brightest from all over the world want to live and work in America, yet the current immigration system mistakenly prioritizes the reunification of extended families.

Immigrants founded forty percent of the American companies in the Fortune 500. They also founded one half of Silicon Valley’s most successful start-ups. In other words, they help create high-quality jobs for all Americans.

The effect of current policy, which focuses on family reunification, is to encourage the arrival of those with less education, fewer skills, and little savings. This creates competition for American workers who don’t have the advantage of a college education and already face the greatest challenges in today’s high-tech economy.

Another problem is the misuse of programs, such as the H-1B visa, that are designed to attract the best and brightest. Instead, companies may use these programs to find cheaper replacements for skilled American workers. We need to make sure that all our immigration programs are being used in good faith.

The way that we deal with immigration will have a profound impact on our identity as Americans. We must be careful to preserve our nation’s unity and commitment to fairness. At the same time, our debates and our policies should reflect the civility and tolerance that helped forge a nation out of immigrants from every nation on earth. By replacing divisive rhetoric with genuine action to secure the border, we can work towards immigration reform that makes America safer, fairer, and more prosperous. (campaign website)

**********

I like the idea Darrell Castle has regarding an immigration pause, but there is a legitimate argument that stopping immigration entirely will just convince people to try other methods. such as overstaying their visas or sneaking across the border until they are secure. One question is whether he would use the military to do so, risking violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Generally his is a solid approach, though. 7 points.

The approach from Jim Hedges (or at least his party) is very good, although as I study the candidate I question if he would follow through. It does provide necessary disincentives, although it doesn’t have an exit strategy. 7.5 points.

Secure the border and enforce the laws. The America’s Party approach from Tom Hoefling is beautiful in its simplicity, although it leaves some gaps as to detail. 7 points.

Gary Johnson criticizes the approach of his opponents as impractical, but what he comes up with is impotent for solving the issue. As I noted above, more Americans than ever speak a foreign language at home so the assimilation approach does not seem to be working. Those who come here legally and wish to assimilate aren’t the problem because they follow the rule of law, and to provide for those who do not follow the rules is a slap to those who do. No points.

Similarly, Evan McMullin argues “legalization is not amnesty” but paying a fine isn’t much of a punishment. He has some good thoughts in a number of areas, but I do not believe in amnesty such as he proposes. I may consider the immigrant who goes back and does things the right way after a significant period of time (measured in multiple years) has elapsed, but what McMullin proposes will simply be a magnet for more illegal immigration. 3 points.

I’m more inclined to hear arguments on both sides of foreign policy, which is my next topic.

So what is a flip-flop?

It predates my writing career, but back during the 2004 Presidential campaign much hay was made over Democrat John Kerry’s attempts to be on both sides of various issues, including voting for something before he was against it. If you ask me, though, Kerry was by no means alone in terms of trying to cover all the bases and be all things to all people – the truth is that the further you go in politics, the more likely it is you will run across situations where your current action may well contradict something you did 10 years ago.

People are allowed to change their minds on issues, and I can use myself as an example: for a time I held the orthodox libertarian view that term limits artificially restrict voter choice and should be eliminated. While that makes a lot of sense on a philosophical level, in practice voter choices are more limited by the amount of money that naturally accrues to incumbents and by rules about ballot access that tend to favor the two major parties, enabling them to get their message out more effectively (and in turn more likely to succeed.) In keeping with the idea espoused by our Founding Fathers that representatives were only supposed to stand for election and do that public service for a term or two before returning to private life, I now feel that making it more difficult for people to make a career out of elected politics through term limits would bring us closer to the original intention. (Nor should we forget that only the House was supposed to be elected by the people directly – Senators were appointed through the respective state legislatures until the 17th Amendment was adopted in 1913.*) There is a compelling argument to be made, though, which contends that if term limits were adopted then control of the government would be placed in the hands of the unelected bureaucrats that write the rules and regulations. But I also believe that if elected officials are relieved of the constant fundraising to stay in office they may come up with more bold ideas and real solutions to problems – not lip-service intended to keep government bureaucrats in place perpetually.

I could probably spend a couple thousand words pursuing that digression, but my real intention in putting pixels to screen today was to discuss the immigration “flip-flop” of Donald Trump in relation to other issues. I put the phrase in quotes because to me it was already baked into his campaign, and those who truly believed he would be a hardliner on immigration were being played for suckers. Early on I knew about the “big, beautiful door” and “touchback” amnesty so what was one of his strongest points when I analyzed all of the GOP Presidential hopefuls almost a year ago became more and more watered down as time went on.

The difference to me between a “flip-flop” and a legitimate change of heart, though, comes down to whether the words remain consistent and are followed by appropriate actions. Obviously as a challenger in a political campaign Donald Trump doesn’t have a record of votes to compare nor has he had to address the myriad issues that someone in political office is confronted with on a daily basis. As a case in point for the latter: a week or so ago I put up a Facebook post asking why utility trucks such as those operated by Delmarva Power have to go through truck scales (as I had observed that day) with my thought being: what if they were going to repair a major power outage? I can almost guarantee you that no other constituent had that thought in mind in the year or two my local Delegates have been in office, but to me the question was worth asking for the reason stated.

Let me use Trump as an example in two areas: immigration and abortion. As I see it, the recent statements from Trump on the prospect of amnesty represent a flip-flop of a rhetorical kind, although some may consider it the usual running to the center a Republican candidate is supposed to do after he or she runs right for the primary. It’s more magnified for Trump, however, because of the ferocity of his initial statements such as “(Mexico is) sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” In the weeks immediately after Trump’s announcement, the murder of Kate Steinle by an illegal immigrant who had been repeatedly deported yet kept returning into the United States buttressed Trump’s point. So the rhetoric remained hardline, thus, there is a certain element of Trump’s support base that probably feels completely sold out but will revert to reassuring themselves “he’s not Hillary” rather than admit buyer’s remorse from being sold a bill of goods.

It should be noted this Trump pivot, which may or may not bolster his standing among Hispanic voters, also comes at a time when he is also making a parallel push for black voters on a more legitimate question: what have the Democrats done for you lately – or for that matter since the Great Society era and civil rights struggles a half-century ago? Obviously he’s not going to the Obama/Clinton position of just letting any immigrant in, but this more recent concession is quite a different tone than the initial Trump “build a wall and make Mexico pay for it” stance. Those who wanted a “pause” to immigration are surely disgusted with the turn of events over the last week or so, but there are enough Trump skeptics out there who can say nativists were warned regarding Trump and immigration.

Yet on abortion I think Donald Trump had a more legitimate change of heart toward being pro-life, a move he claims came from a personal experience. Of course, those who are farther along on the pro-life spectrum still question Trump’s bonafides based on his support for Planned Parenthood, but that is not the be-all and end-all of the movement – Planned Parenthood is more of a symptom of the disease than the disease itself. Certainly Donald Trump is not one who has led a monogamous lifestyle – and only God knows if any of his trysts have led to pregnancies eventually terminated – but small victories are still small victories nonetheless. Over the course of the campaign Trump has not shifted a great deal on the issue, with the horserace watchers more focused on the aspect of which evangelical leaders are backing Trump despite his faults and which ones are simply sitting this election out or voting for a more strictly values-based candidate, either on the ballot or as a write-in, as I may.

But there remains a trust issue with Trump that makes writing pieces like this necessary. (Not being able to trust Hillary Clinton any farther than they could throw her was already factored in for millions of voters, simply based on the litany of scandal and questionable decisions she’s made over a quarter-century.) I’ve argued before that 2016 is the election of the flawed individual, but perhaps character doesn’t count in America anymore. While the Clintons, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama have major character flaws, only Kerry lost the popular vote on Election Day – and conspiracy theorists still blame Diebold for that 2004 loss. So perhaps Republicans now believe that “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” and selected their own person of questionable character just to pick up that long-desired W on Election Day.

And if you discount character, you quickly understand why there are people who walk among us that would say or do whatever is necessary, flipping and flopping on their beliefs and values, to get what they want – anything from the modest “15 minutes of fame” to the most powerful political office in the country. Upon that realization, it’s just a short step to pondering about the fate of this very republic we live in. America will survive, but with the leadership we seem to be attracting who will want to live there?

Women and men of values, character, and principle, please make yourself known. Your nation needs you, now more than ever.

*Ironically, Delaware and Maryland did not ratify the 17th Amendment until 2010 and 2012, respectively. In Maryland, only eight members of the House of Delegates properly voted against ratification – and one of the eight switched his vote to be against it only after it passed.

WCRC meeting – July 2016

It’s not all that likely people know that the woman who is probably Salisbury’s most famous widow – Mitzi Perdue – had such an interest in politics. We got to hear about that and her support for Donald Trump during our meeting Monday night.

Once we dispensed of the introductory business, we turned the meeting over to her and Perdue spoke for more than a half-hour on a number of topics – or as she called them, “things on my mind.” She was very pleased to see several younger people in the group, pointing them out as “VIPs” among us.

But after recommending the new Dinesh D’Souza movie “Hillary’s America,” saying “you’ll love it,” Mitzi revealed that she had been for Donald Trump “a long time.” She related a story that many were familiar with: the renovation of the Wollman Rink in New York City. It was a project the city had tried and failed to do for several years before Trump convinced the city of New York to give him a $3 million budget and six months to get the job done. Not only did he do so, but he made a profit. “I want somebody who is really competent,” said Perdue, “and cuts through the red tape.” It went along with her belief in smaller government and lower taxes.

Yet while Mitzi had a longstanding interest in politics, telling us “politics attracts me,” she could never take the step into running for office. It was so “incredibly tempting” though that she decided to enroll in campaign school. But there she learned that a candidate’s primary job was to deny their opponent’s identity, and she could not run under that condition. Perdue lamented the fact that campaigns aren’t about honesty or truth, pointing out the 65,000 negative ads run against Trump. As “a writer by trade,” Perdue thought “the amount of distortion was staggering.” She added her belief that Trump was “a product of where he came from,” as he grew up in Queens.

In addition, Mitzi related her opinion that in this election we are “up against an extinction-level threat.” While she asked the response of several in the room about their most important issues – and got solid answers such as illegal immigration, radical Islam, the economy, and so forth, she considered our national debt as the biggest threat. Citing a book by Reinhart and Rogoff called This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Perdue contended that when debt becomes too great, it brings about the end of nations. Because Donald Trump “understands balance sheets,” Mitzi believed he could best address the issue. “I want a businessman who knows how to say ‘no’,” she explained.

But when Perdue was asked about illegal immigration, she noted the research that shows all the new jobs this century accrued to immigrants, which led to stagnant wages. “Labor is a commodity,” said Perdue, who also noted that, while immigrants are paying $13 billion a year in taxes, they are using $100 billion in services. “I love that (Trump) is for our citizens,” she said, adding that’s in part because “we don’t protect our borders.” A border wall is “very doable” with modern technology, she added. As an further benefit, it would slow the drug trade. “My hatred of drugs is unending,” Perdue explained.

Her next campaign task was going to be difficult, though: she was seeking a position she had contemplated as a national coordinator of volunteers. This person would evaluate the skills and aptitudes of those who wanted to work for the Trump campaign and give them appropriate tasks. Since Mike Pence had a slightly different strategy, Mitzi thought the job may not pan out.

A final question dealt with coordination between the campaigns of Trump and Maryland’s U.S. Senate hopeful Kathy Szeliga, but it morphed into a discussion about credibility since President Bush had used up a lot of his during his term of office. “Trump is cut from a different cloth,” said Perdue. As for the coordination (in particular signage) that may be up to the state and local parties.

It was an interesting talk, more or less aimed at people not sold on Trump – that would be me. Perhaps I will address this at a later date.

As for the meeting, I was pressed into service to give the Central Committee report. So I updated the club on the Board of Education, an upcoming local fundraiser for Kathy Szeliga to be held on August 20, and progress in planning the Lincoln Day Dinner.

Delegate Carl Anderton gave us an update, assessing that “everything is going great,” and that his immediate agenda would be that of trying to get local priorities funded in next year’s budget as he meets with the budget secretary.

Other issues Anderton found important were the impact of the Maryland Department of the Environment and of Obamacare, particularly the “numerous issues” constituents were having if their Obamacare plans lapsed due to non-payment. If it was a choice between that and cable, “stretch the cable bill,” said Anderton. Overall, he believed “the Lower Shore delegation is busting their humps” for us.

Speaking on the Department of Natural Resources, Joe Schanno pointed out two upcoming issues would be Sunday hunting and controlling the deer population because our area was seeing more frequent car vs. deer accidents.

We learned that we would have a GOP headquarters in the same location the Trump headquarters occupied, with the opening in late August – perhaps coordinated with 3rd Friday. Speaking of that event, Shawn Bradley stressed the need for volunteers at the GOP table there.

We “may need more volunteers” for the Crab Feast September 10, added Jim Jester. The club also authorized a package for sponsorships, which will shortly be available along with tickets to the event.

Regarding our two local womens’ Republican groups, Michelle Bradley reminded us the Greater Wicomico Republican Women would next meet August 11 at Adams Taphouse, with Delegate Christopher Adams being the featured speaker. For their part, the Republican Women of Wicomico will come off their summer break with a Brew River lunch meeting on September 7 with county Chair Mark McIver speaking, then have their Constitution Day gathering on the 17th of September, said Ellen Bethel.

Nate Sansom gave us a rundown on the local Teenage Republicans, who will get back together in August and plot out their strategy to work with both the Trump and Szeliga campaigns.

We also heard from Don Murphy, who came to thank the Central Committee for its support in sending him to the convention as a delegate. He noted that he “had never seen as much contention and dissention” at any other convention he had attended as he had seen during the Rules Committee fight. And while he was one of maybe 7 or 8 from Maryland who voted against the rules, he was one of those who did so as a Trump backer. “What Ted Cruz did was wrong,” added Murphy.

Yet as contentious as the GOP gathering was, Murphy believed it was “not even close” to what the Democrats were experiencing. “Hillary is our common enemy,” Don concluded.

So it was a very interesting meeting. The next one is slated for August 22 with a speaker to be determined.

The case against Trump (part 2)

Since I finished part 1 last week, we’ve had a lot of developments in the race: Trump picked outgoing Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be his running mate (or did he actually make the selection?) and came up with an awful logo (that lasted one day) to celebrate. Meanwhile, the RNC apparently succeeded in binding their delegates to this dog of a ticket. (My question: how did our Maryland Rules Committee members vote? I believe Nicolee Ambrose, who has fought in that committee before, voted the proper way and against the RNC/Trump minions. Yes, they are shamefully now one and the same.)

Update: Indeed, both Maryland members voted properly, and Nicolee Ambrose is urging members to reject the Majority Rules Report.

So the question may be moot, but I’m going to press on for the record so I can point back at this and say “I told you so.” Not that it will do a whole lot of good, of course, but maybe people will listen to reason in the future. It’s worth a try.

Just as a refresher, the five issues I have left over are taxation, immigration, foreign policy, entitlements, and role of government.

Trump came up with a decent taxation plan during the campaign – maybe not all that I would want, but an improvement. But he later admitted that all of it was up for negotiation, so let me clarify: the rates will not go down for many taxpayers, but the increases that made the package “revenue neutral” in his words will remain. Those on the low end of the scale may get the “I win!” form but the rest of us in the middle will lose, again.

I’m tempted to save immigration for last because that was the first important issue for Trump and the one that propelled him from celebrity sideshow to true contender. Americans, indeed, want something done about the influx of foreigners and a large part of that is building a wall at the border. But it’s not my most important issue and I still run this blog, so it goes in order.

The first crack in the Trump immigration façade for me was the idea of building a “big, beautiful door” in the wall to promote legal immigration. Then I found out Donald was an advocate of what’s called “touchback” immigration, which is a fancy way of saying he’ll give amnesty. And I can see it already: in a “grand deal” to get the wall built, Trump will eliminate the “touchback” part – because it’s oh so hard for these immigrants to be uprooted and return to their homeland – for the promise that a wall will get built. News flash: we were promised this in 2006, but the Democrats (along with a few squishy Republicans) reneged on the deal. We see how Congress acts, and regardless of what Trump may say this is not a promise he would keep. Bank on it.

I know Trump did a sort of catch-all address on foreign policy some months back, but his criticism of the Iraq war (and accusations about soldiers therein) gives me pause. That’s not to say we are always right, but there is a little bit of hindsight he’s taking advantage of here. If Iraq were a thriving nation and American bulwark in the Middle East such as Israel is, I seriously doubt Trump would say word one about it being a bad idea. That’s the sort of person I take him to be.

It’s very possible to lump both entitlements and the role of government into one statement, reportedly made by Trump in New Hampshire back in 2015 and relayed by Andrew Kirell at Mediaite:

The Affordable Care Act, “which is a disaster,” he said, “has to be repealed and replaced.” That line drew applause.

“Whether it is we are going to cut Social Security, because that’s what they are saying,” he continued. “Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social Security, they want to do it on Medicare, they want to do it on Medicaid. And we can’t do that. And it’s not fair to the people that have been paying in for years and now all of the sudden they want to be cut.”

So will it be fair when the train goes off the tracks and millions of younger Americans are left with nothing? Trump is 70 years old, so (as if he really needed it) if Social Security runs out in 2030 he’ll likely be dead anyway. But I will be 66 years old and hoping to retire at some point, although thanks to the Ponzi scheme of Social Security all that money my employers and I grudgingly gave to the government over forty-plus years will long since be pissed away. And the more I deal with the “Affordable” Care Act, the less affordable I find it. The repeal is fine, but the replace should be with the old system we liked, not some new government intrusion.

In sum, it became apparent to me early on that despite his appeal as an outsider, Donald Trump is far from an advocate of limiting government. If he should win in November, conservative Republicans will likely be in the same precarious position they were often placed in by George W. Bush: it’s difficult to go against a president in your own party even if he goes against party principles.

The Republican Party I signed onto back in 1982 when I first registered to vote in Fulton Township, Ohio was ably represented by Ronald Reagan at the time: strong defense, lower taxes for all Americans, and a moral clarity of purpose that included the concept of American exceptionalism. Yet Reagan also intended to limit government; unfortunately he wasn’t as successful in that aspect because he always worked with a Democrat-controlled House (and usually Senate.) I often wish that Reagan could have worked with the early Gingrich-led House and a conservative Senate – we may have beat back a half-century of New Deal and Great Society policies to provide a great deal for all Americans who wished to pursue the opportunities provided to them.

I don’t know how we got Donald Trump as our nominee, although I suspect the early open primaries (and $2 billion in free media) may have helped. Democrats may have put together their own successful “Operation Chaos” to give Republicans the weakest possible contender. (And if you think that’s a recent concept, I have a confession to make: in my first Presidential primary in 1984 I requested a Democrat ballot so I could vote for Jesse Jackson, who I perceived as the Democrat least likely to beat Ronald Reagan in the general election. Not that I needed to worry.) It’s worth noting that the defeat of “Free the Delegates” also resulted in the defeat of some measures designed to reduce the impact of open primaries.

Alas, the GOP may be stuck with Trump as the nominee. So my message for the national Republican Party from here on out is simple: you broke it, you bought it. The mess is on you and I’m washing my hands of it.

Programming note: Over the next four days – in addition to her regular Tuesday column – I will run a special four-part series sent to me by Marita Noon, but originally written by John Manfreda, who normally writes on the energy sector like Marita does. She “spent most of the day (last Thursday) updating it, reworking it, and cleaning it up,” so I decided to run it as the four parts intended during the Republican convention.

I intend it as a cautionary tale, so conservatives aren’t fooled by a smooth-talking charlatan ever again. Don’t worry, I have a couple things I’m working on too so I may pop in this week from time to time if I feel so inclined. But I trust Marita and this seems quite relevant and enjoyable, so look for it over the next four afternoons…probably set them to run at noontime (how appropriate, right?)