Tax and Not Spend Democrats

California Governor “Moonbeam” Jerry Brown once declared that California leads the nation. Well, yes, it does. Most of the weird, wacky, political nonsense originates in this state. Take for instance Brown’s latest propaganda, the gas tax necessity.

Are California’s roads in need of repair? Of course they are. The whole nation’s roads are in need of repair. President Eisenhower created this wonderful Interstate transportation system but was a little shortsighted on funding the cost for maintaining it. If you think California’s roads are bad, you should try driving in the Chicago area some time. Repair crews constantly block those roads. They call it a constant state of destruction.

But our roads are not the only poorly maintained infrastructure. Many of our bridges are rated as dangerous too. Should we be taxed – again – for this maintenance, though?

We currently pay 18 cents per-gallon in gasoline taxes. Those taxes are supposed to be earmarked specifically for road maintenance. In addition, we have vehicle license “fees” that are supposed to go into the maintenance fund. In reality, that money is thrown into the general fund and spent on everything from the Bullet Train to nowhere to illegal alien assistance in this sanctuary state. Lord only knows how much is actually spent on road maintenance. I suspect it is in the neighborhood of hundredths of a cent per-dollar.

Now our not-so-illustrious governor and his Demoncrat cronies want to increase the gasoline tax from 18 cents to 30 cents per-gallon. It doesn’t stop there, though. If you drive a diesel, you are now paying 16 cents a gallon but that will go to 36 cents with this new tax. And… that tax will be adjusted annually for the cost of living just to make sure you don’t get a break if you get a COLA increase. Even after paying that extortion, you still aren’t out of the woods. Your vehicle fee will increase anywhere fro $25 to $175 depending on the value of your vehicle. This is on top of the monstrous registration fee increase we saw a couple of years back. And these are PERMANENT increases.

Altogether Governor Moonbeam wants an additional 5.2 billion dollars a year in taxes. What is not being said is that those funds are likely to go into the general fund too!

My question to these tax hungry politicians is, how do we know the money will be spent for road and bridge repair? Wasn’t that what the current gas tax and increased vehicle registration fees were supposed to be used for? What did you do with that money? Now you want more? I say not just no but hell no!

Why not take the billions yet to be spent on Brown’s folly, the bullet train-to-nowhere that no one will ride, and spend it on road repairs? Quit subsidizing illegal aliens in this state and deport them as the law requires. That would save a huge chunk of change. Better yet, spend the existing gas taxes and registration fees on what it is intended. Wow, what a concept!

It is a simple fact of life in our democracy that if you give a politician a dollar he will soon be back for five more… and still not spend it on what he promised.

Grilling Time

Well, Spring has finally arrived, time to drag out the barbecues. The US Senate Judiciary Committee has its own form of Spring barbecue; they threw Neil Gorsuch on the grill.

Our pistol-packing Senator, Dianne Feinstein set the tone for the hearings by denouncing the Republican’s denial of a hearing for Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. In effect, she was placing the committee on notice that the Democrats will do everything in their power to discredit Judge Gorsuch at every opportunity.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is made up of nine Democrats and eleven Republicans. Senator Chuck Grassly (R: Iowa) is the chairman and Dianne Feinstein is the “Ranking Member”. Other Democrats include Patrick Leahy (Vermont), Richard Durbin (Illinois), Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island), Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), Al Franken (Minnesota), Christopher Coons (Delaware), Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), and Mazie Hirono (Hawaii).

The Republicans on the committee include Orrin Hatch (Utah), Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), John Cornyn (Texas), Mike Lee (Utah), Ted Cruz (Texas), Ben Sasse (Nebraska), Jeff Flake (Arizona), Mike Crapo (Idaho), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), and John Kennedy (Louisiana).

It is going to be hard for even the likes of Feinstein and Al Franken to assail the character and integrity of a man of Neil Gorsuch’s proven record, but they are determined to try their worst. Feinstein is concerned that Judge Gorsuch is an “originalist”. In other words, she fears that he will not read between the lines of the constitution to find meanings that are not there. Apparently, Feinstein believes the original wording of the constitution no longer applies in today’s society.

Gorsuch may be not just qualified for the Supreme Court seat but the most qualified person in the land for that seat. He has degrees from University College, Oxford, Columbia University, University of Oxford, Harvard University, and Harvard Law School. His Senate confirmation for the 10^th Circuit Federal Appeals Court was unanimous. His work history may be the most impressive of any person nominated to the Supreme Court. He has clerked for the likes of Supreme Court Justices Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy and was a Deputy Associate Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. Also to his credit, he has tried 2700 cases in the 10^th Circuit Appeals Court.

In his opening statement, Gorsuch affirmed his commitment to leaving the law making to the legislature and merely passing judgment on the laws as they are written. It’s going to be hard for the Democrats to discredit a man of this caliber. But I’m certain that won’t stop them from trying.

While the Senate Judiciary Committee may be a thorny patch to transcend, the full Senate will be the real test. Democrats know it will take 60 votes for confirmation. They will try to coerce as many of their party to vote no, but they also know that Harry Reid set a precedent for the “nuclear” option – simple majority vote – to get confirmation for Obama appointees. Although Supreme Court nominees were specifically exempted from Reid’s nuclear option, it would not be unthinkable for Senate Majority Leader McConnell to extend it for this confirmation.

The appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court may be one of the most important actions of the Trump term. It may even be the most important action of the century. Many of the Trump plans are destined to depend on judiciary review. We have already seen that in the two travel bans the Federal Courts have held up. The Progressives and Obama’s paid agitators are more than willing to subject any actions from the Trump White House to litigation. The Supreme Court is certain to have the final say, though, making it essential to have an ideologically balanced court. The addition of Judge Gorsuch to that court would bring it back to the days when Antonin Scalia sat on the bench.

The View From Across the Pond

My wife and I periodically visit relatives in Germany. Since we just returned from the latest trip, I thought it might be informative to share the view from that perspective.

The March 9^th edition of Rheinishe Post had an interesting piece on the front page headlined “Now 1600 Dangerous Islamists in Germany”. Well, gee, imagine that. German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomes a million “refugees” into the country with scant or non-existent vetting and they now find there are some 1600 dangerous people among them with the potential for mass terror attacks. What a surprise.

This seems to be a lesson lost on the open-border advocates in this country. You know, the ones paid to protest every policy our president tries to implement.

Our last trip to Germany was in October. The difference in customs procedures when returning to the US on our current this trip was amazing. Even with automated passport processing for US citizens and green-card holders we still had to stand in lines and show our passports a number of times. While this may seem to be an inconvenience, at least our government is finally cracking down at the ports of entry.

In this country, we hear about unfettered “refugee” immigration throughout Europe. The reality is that many, if not most, of those “refugees” are in fact “asylum” seekers whose homeland is nowhere near a conflict area, Romania, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Serbia, Kenya, Sudan, and Somalia, are only a few. Their only real claim for asylum is one of economic hardship. They come to Europe to take advantage of the supposed worker shortage in Germany, France, and England only to wind up on welfare and government subsistence because they have no skills to offer. They live in government provided enclaves and spend the day loitering in gatherings while wearing expensive sneakers and clothes. The women have numerous babies, new clothes, high-tech baby strollers, and free travel on buses and trains, all paid for by the working class in their host countries.

With all of this goodwill provided by host countries, you might think these “refugees” would want to assimilate into the culture of those footing the bill. No way! On the contrary, these asylum seekers who are fleeing the oppression in their homelands demand their new hosts bend to their “culture” and languages. The Muslims in the country demand to be governed solely by Sharia law. The bottom line seems to be that they want to create another crap-hole just like the one they left.

If any of this sounds familiar, it’s only because this is also happening in our country. Muslim migration is described in the Quran, Surah 4:100, "And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance, and whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him, his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah." It’s called Hijrah, and in effect, directs Muslims to spread their religion through invasion of other countries.

But as we are seeing, this is not simply a matter of Muslim invasion, people from many other countries are coming here and demanding we bend to accommodate the same conditions they left.

America may be “the great melting pot” – and many great customs and traditions have been imported with immigrants – but do we really want open sewers running down our streets and run-down shacks with dirt floors in our neighborhoods? Do we want young girls to be forced into marriage or women going around in burqas? Do we want to allow young girls to have their genitals forcibly mutilated simply out of cultural tradition?

The lesson is there if only our leaders would care to see. Open, unregulated, migration is not what made this country great. You can’t make a country great by forcing third-world values and traditions on it. It is a lesson those in Europe are painfully experiencing.

A Lingering Odor

You know that bad smell that lingers in the bathroom after flushing the toilet? That seems to be the case with the Obama presidency. It’s gone, but the smell still lingers.

Have you heard of the Organization For Action or OFA? No? That’s not surprising. The mainstream media, aka “Lying Media”, wouldn’t dare report this.

Keeping true to the only real job he knew, former community organizer Barrack Obama created yet another subversive non-profit 501 (c) 4 organization called the Organization For Action. I call it subversive because that is exactly what it is. The entire charter of this organization is to undermine the Trump presidency.

In effect, Obama has set up a shadow government. According to WND (http://www.wnd.com) news reporter Paul Sperry, “Obama will be overseeing it all from a shadow White House located within two miles of Trump. It features a mansion, which he’s fortifying with construction of a tall brick perimeter, and a nearby taxpayer-funded office with his own chief of staff and press secretary.”

Also in the New York Post, “An Obama-tied activist group [OFA] training tens of thousands of agitators to protest President Trump’s policies plans to hit Republican lawmakers supporting those policies even harder this week, when they return home for the congressional recess and hold town hall meetings and other functions...”

Obviously, this is not something George Soros could pass up. He is not only funding OFA, as he has Black Lives Matter, Moveon.org, and other anti-American organizations, he is working with Obama to ensure complete gridlock in the functioning of our country’s government.

Democrats aren’t one bit happy about this either. They have charged Obama with creating a shadow party that circumvents state Democrats. “This is some GRADE A Bull[*]hit right here,” Stephen Handwerk, executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party, wrote in a private Democratic-listserv email obtained by The Daily Beast. “Yes, it sure is,” Katie Mae Simpson, executive director for the Maine Democratic Party, replied. WND says, “Two Democratic operatives recently called OFA ‘The Devil.’”

The irony is astounding. These are the people who gave us Obama in the first place and again tried to foist Hillary Clinton on us. Now Obama is “the Devil?”

Well, what did we expect? Did we think Obama would do what other good presidents have done and just quietly advise his successor? We are talking about a man who made a career out of apologizing for America, one who hates American values and tried to circumvent the US Constitution with executive orders. This is the guy who rallied Democrats in congress to jamb socialism down our throats.

The next time you see a bunch of people protesting at a rally, town hall meeting, or blocking the streets, just remember who has trained and paid for them. In Weimar Germany they were called Brown Shirts, here they are merely paid minions of Obama’s OFA. Would someone please light a match and make that smell go away.

The Importance of the Trump Presidency

Yes, I admit it. I voted for Donald Trump. Actually, it’s not so much that I voted for Trump as that I voted against Hillary Clinton. There is much I don’t like about Trump, but there was far too much I disliked about Clinton.

Trump campaigned on a promise to undo much of the socialist damage eight years of the Obama administration had inflicted on our nation. That was a good thing. So far, he has mostly kept that promise, another good thing. It’s not often that politicians keep their campaign promises once they are in office.

Clinton… well, what can I say that hasn’t already been said. Suffice to say she would have been a total disaster as President.

Trump is crude, bombastic, rude, abrasive, pugnacious, and perhaps even unwise in much of what he says and does. All true, but this man took a small fortune and worked it into a huge multi-billion dollar enterprise. He manages or has managed, an enormous business empire. I suspect he probably knows what he is doing regardless of his personality.

On balance, all of this may have been enough reason for me to vote for Trump. What really pushed my vote into the Trump column, though, was the death of Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia.

I think it was safe to say that up to that point the Supreme Court was in large part balanced. Many decisions had gone both toward the left and toward the right, often hinging on decisions made by Associate Justice, Anthony Kennedy. Although Kennedy was appointed to the bench by our conservative icon, Ronald Reagan, he often sided with both the conservative and liberal justices and could not be counted on to always take a strong conservative position on cases.

For most cases, the nine judges of the Supreme Court usually split evenly with four conservative judges and four liberal judges, leaving Kennedy to tilt a decision one way or the other. The absence of Scalia actually gave the liberals an advantage or could place a decision in deadlock. Since the Supreme Court is the final arbitrator of the Constitution, it is imperative to have Justices that understand their role as upholding the Constitution as it was worded and not try legislating from the bench.

Hillary Clinton would most certainly have appointed a replacement for Scalia that would have permanently tilted the court towards her liberal, socialist policies. That would have given the green light to those liberals already on the bench to interpret the Constitution far beyond the actual wording in that revered document. Obviously, one of, if not the first, target for revision would be the second amendment. Clinton had already bashed Supreme Court decisions that stated the wording in the amendment clearly said that all citizens had the right to own firearms.

President Trump has forwarded to the Senate the name of Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy created by the death of Scalia. It takes 60 votes in the Senate to confirm Judge Gorsuch. There are only 52 Republicans in the Senate, which means eight Democrats would need to vote to confirm this appointment. Of course, now that Harry Reid set the precedent for using the “nuclear option” to elect most appointees with a simple majority vote, this may come home to bite the Democrats in the butt. If things begin looking bad, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell always has the recourse of invoking that “nuclear option” for this appointment.

Yes, this Supreme Court appointment was the single most important reason that I voted for Donald Trump. Had Scalia not died during the election campaign, I probably would have voted this way anyhow. This merely made Trump a crucial choice for me.

Borders

Good fences make good neighbors – 17^th Century Proverb

If you own real estate, it’s a good bet you have it at least partly fenced. New housing developments nearly always come with fencing these days. Maybe you want to keep your animals from wandering off or want to create a safe, private zone for your kids to play. It might even be for your own privacy, or to keep your neighbor’s animals or kids from indiscriminately using your land. In any event, that fence or block wall delimits the boundary of your property. It is a physical statement for others to keep out.

That fence denotes your sovereign right as a property owner to use that ground for your own exclusive purposes. You alone may decide who can enter that ground. Any unwanted intruders can be subject to arrest and removal. Your home is your domain.

Countries too have boundaries. Their borders denote the extent of their sovereign land. They have the right, even duty, to decide who can enter. Unwanted intrusion is called invasion and can rightly be repelled by force. Those entering without proper authorization can and must be expelled – and for the same reason you would have the police expel an intruder on your property – they are unwanted and do not belong there.

In this country, the individual states somehow abrogated the right to determine residence to the federal government. It is up to the federal government to determine suitability for individuals to reside here. As a matter of safety, security, and national well-being, our government has the duty to make every effort to ensure that any person entering the country will not become a burden, commit a crime, or inflict harm on this nation or its citizens. This is the same procedure you probably use when inviting someone into your home.

Those who advocate open borders would have you remove your doors, take down your fences, and let anyone do whatever they like on or in your property. How long do you think your possessions would remain safe? How long before those unwanted guests begin to fence you from your own property? Why should you pay a mortgage and maintain insurance for property you have no control over? How long would it be before total anarchy reigns supreme on the land you own?

In the United States, we have codified into law the requirements for entering this country. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) has the responsibility and authority for enforcing and maintaining Title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations. This code clearly defines the qualifications and quotas for every form of entry into this country. These include, reason for visit or stay, health certification, means of return to place of origin, criminal history, and determination of intent to not do harm while here. For long-term residence, the vetting is necessarily deeper and takes longer to make a sound determination of an individual’s suitability for life in this country.

Quotas ensure that immigrants from a single country do not flood into the country and reduce the ability to take in people from another country. Quotas are also necessary to ensure that our citizens are not impacted by people coming here that cannot find jobs and be productive members of our society.

There are no qualifications in Title 8 or any other immigration or visitation policy that would deny entry of an individual based on their religious preference.

Of course, criminals, terrorists, unskilled labor, unemployable people, or undesirables are and should be excluded from entry, and those here illegally should be expelled. You would expect the same for your own property. That is why you have locks on your doors, fences on your property and police to enforce your right to your own property.

A Promise is a Promise

Politicians are terrible at keeping campaign promises. I think we have actually grown to expect that from politicians. Donald Trump is no politician. We knew that when we elected him. We also knew the promises he made to “Make America Great Again.”

So why are so many people surprised that he is actually doing what he promised? Sure, the Democrats didn’t like his campaign. They didn’t like his stands on issues like immigration, trade agreements, the XL pipeline, energy policy, climate change, plans to defeat ISIS, accepting refugees, and national security, to mention just a few.

That was not what the campaign was about, however. The campaign between Clinton and Trump was mostly lacking in debate about issues and devolved into a campaign of personalities and the need to elect a woman as President. Why the Democratic Party chose to run one of the most untrustworthy persons available is a mystery that may never be revealed. In classic Donald Trump style, he managed to push her buttons and shift focus from his bombastic statements to force the campaign into a battle of personalities.

Were Clinton’s campaign advisers listening when Trump would blurt out promises that were completely anathema to their “Progressive” platform? If so, why did they not force debate on those issues? Instead, they seemed to think that no one would ever accept such outrageous position in a President, and simply let those statements pass with only cursory acknowledgment of them.

Now, yes only now, do they amass in protest at the actions our duly elected President takes on those “outrageous” promises he made on the campaign trail. That those promises were made completely devoid of detail was never brought to the attention of the public. The sound bites and hollow promises had an appeal to those fed up with “Progressive” platitudes and political correctness.

We knew Donald Trump was not politically correct when we voted for him – probably why we voted for him. Why, then, is it such a surprise that he is keeping those hollow promises? Why are there such protests now? It’s too late folks; Trump is our President!

I watched on television when President Trump signed his executive orders. They appeared to be written on a single sheet of standard sized paper, in large font, with very few words. Well, that might be expected from a man whose campaign and public announcements are mostly limited to 140 characters on Twitter.

Unfortunately, orders of that size are bound to leave out much in the way of detail, and, as they say, the devil is in the details.

Can we simply chalk this up to the act of an inexperienced Chief Executive? Maybe, but Trump is not an inexperienced Chief Executive. He has managed a huge, successful enterprise for a very long time. Perhaps this is just his management style. Not being familiar with the Trump company, I can’t say with certainty, but perhaps his style is to issue top level orders and let those under him flesh out the details. I call this focusing on the big picture and is common in top-down leaders. This seems to be what he has done with his recent Executive Orders.

Sadly, focusing on the big picture alone is not focusing at all. An executive – any executive – must understand the minutia of the details before placing a stamp of approval on the idea. Sound bites and  “tweets” do not make for good Executive Orders.

While I wholeheartedly approve of the principal Trump’s orders are based on, the development and execution of those orders leave very much to be desired.

Obama sowed the seeds of discontent and racial divide. Grown in poisoned ground fertilized by long decades of progressive socialism, those seeds are now growing into monstrous trees ready to bear evil fruit. The slogan “Make America Great Again” is about chopping down those evil-fruit trees and removing that poison ground. Those who voted for Donald Trump believe he can and will reverse that evil trend toward progressive socialism.

Can Trump get that job done? I dearly hope so, but he’s not off to a very good start. Let’s hope and pray he can get things turned around. After all, a promise is a promise, and it is obvious President Trump intends to keep his promises.