Day: September 16, 2023

GOP Has Rare Opportunity to Secure Border

By Joe Guzzardi

Congress is back from its August recess, the weeks-long period away from its always-contentious, mostly unproductive business. The House and the Senate have less than three weeks until the Sep. 30 deadline to pass a federal budget. On Oct. 1, a new fiscal year begins. If lawmakers cannot push through 11 out of 12 separate spending bills, after passing just one before they left Washington, the nation will face a government shutdown.

With time short for congressional action, the more likely outcome, albeit a temporary one, is that lawmakers could pass a Continuing Resolution which would avert a shutdown and fund the government at its current levels until a mutually agreed upon date.

Some in the GOP caucus view shutdown threats, which would adversely affect only a small percentage of the population, as foolish saber-rattling. They suggest that a more urgent problem than a government services’ pause is the nation’s $2 trillion deficit and $33 trillion national debt. Writing in “City Journal,” Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Nicole Gelinas in her article, “The Permanent Crisis Economy,” observed:

“… (T)hrough the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, Congress has approved record levels of deficit spending, paid not through tax collections but via Treasury debt. In 2007, the government owed $8.6 trillion in today’s dollars. As of the end of 2022, it owed more than triple that, $26.9 trillion, including $4.8 trillion in pandemic-era borrowing. Much of this was printed by the Fed: its balance sheet went from $1.3 trillion just before the financial crisis to a high of $8.9 trillion in 2022, as it conjured zeros on computer screens to buy Treasury debt, thus financing federal deficits.”

While Republicans are intent on cutting spending, a Continuing Resolution (CR) would also provide Congress with an opportunity to rein in the raging, unlawful border crisis, which is overwhelming major cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Denver, as well as thousands of smaller towns. New York Mayor Eric Adams declared that the illegal alien surge into his city has the potential to destroy it. Adams’ prediction is dramatic, but spot on. The city, inconveniencing and displacing thousands of New York taxpayers who fund the invasion, is housing about 60,000 aliens in 200 sites, including more than 140 hotels.

At a press conference, the mayor did the math for his incredulous audience: “For each family seeking asylum through the city’s care, we spend an average of $383 per night to provide shelter, food, medical care and social services. With more than 57,300 individuals currently in our care, on an average night, it amounts to $9.8 million a day, almost $300 million a month, and nearly $3.6 billion a year.” Adams ominously added that these costs represent the floor, not the ceiling of potentially higher costs. New York’s Democratic congressional caucus that includes the powerful Sen. Majority leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have shown zero interest in border enforcement which would ease the ever-mounting pressure on Adams. Congressional Democrats to Adams: “Good luck. You’re on your own.”

For persons serious about ending the border crisis, now is the hour to use the upcoming spending battle to create meaningful border security and pro-American immigration reform. In May, the House passed H.R. 2, the Secure Border Act of 2023, which would end many of the immigration abuses that global migrants have unsurprisingly taken advantage of and that the Biden administration has fully encouraged.

Among many other positives, the bill would close asylum loopholes – the invasion’s main driver – and would mandate E-Verify which would protect American jobs. Other enforcement features include ending catch-and-release and parole abuse, while deporting visa overstays and tightening lax family unit and unaccompanied minors’ entry guidelines. H.R. 2’s most significant provisions, restoring credibility to asylum petitions and cutting the jobs’ magnet through E-Verify, would end the pull enticement that lures migrants.

The House, which holds the purse strings of Congress, has an opportunity to end the border insanity if it attaches H.R. 2 to the must-pass CR. “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,” said Herbert Stein, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. The border calamity has already lasted more than two years, way too long. Assuming the GOP can get its act together, H.R. 2 can be the key to ending the sovereignty-destroying invasion.

Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org.

GOP Has Rare Opportunity to Secure Border

Winningest Jewish Pitcher Ken Holtzman, A Rosh Hashana Baseball Story

By Joe Guzzardi

When the Chicago Cubs called up Ken Holtzman from the Rookie Pioneer League in 1965, some within the organization predicted that the lefty flamethrower would be the next Sandy Koufax. Both were tall, lean, Jewish flamethrowers.

Holtzman had an outstanding 17-year-long career that included two stints with the Cubs, and one go-around each with the Oakland Athletics, the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees. During his time on the slab with the A’s, Holtzman peaked. From 1972 through 1975, Holtzman won 19, 21, 18 and 19 games. In the World Series, when the chips were down, Holtzman excelled on the mound and with the lumber. Against the Hall of Fame-stacked, powerful Cincinnati Reds — Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez — Holtzman won the 1972 World Series opener, and would eventually record a 4–1, 2.55 ERA during the five fall classics he participated in. As if to mock the as-yet-unheard-of universal designated hitter, Holtzman had a career World Series .333 batting average that included two doubles.

Upon joining the Cubs, Holtzman soon became the rotations go-to guy. In 1966, in his first-ever major league start against the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Don Drysdale, Holtzman earned a 2–0 victory. One highlight that year was a late-season matchup between Holtzman and his boyhood idol, and the hurler he had been compared to, Koufax. The matchup took place at Wrigley Field on Sept. 25. The 24th was Yom Kippur, and neither Holtzman nor Koufax was in uniform; both were observing the Jewish Holy Day.

The Cubs scored two runs in the first inning against Koufax, all the support Holtzman needed. He entered the ninth inning with a no-hitter before giving up two harmless singles. Holtzman got the complete-game 2–0 win, striking out eight. In 1969, Holtzman notched his first no-hitter, 2–0 against the Atlanta Braves, and 318-game winner-to-be Joe Niekro. Holtzman’s masterpiece included a peculiar footnote — he didn’t strike out a single batter. Since 1901, a no-hitter without a strike out had happened only four times. With today’s 100-pitch limit, the baseball oddity will never happen again. Holtzman pitched his second no-hitter against the Reds in 1971.

After Cubs manager Leo Durocher directed anti-Semitic slurs at Holtzman, the pitcher demanded a trade, a fortuitous development for the lefty. In exchange for outstanding Cubs outfielder Rick Monday, an Arizona State All-American, Holtzman went to the A’s, a team on the cusp of winning three consecutive World Series championships. One of Holtzman’s new teammates was Mike Epstein, a one-time University of California fullback and defensive tackle. The irreverent, bombastic A’s nicknamed Holtzman and Epstein, “Jew” and “Superjew.” Neither took offense at the crude clubhouse labels.

On Sept. 5, 1972, during an off day in Chicago, when news reached Holtzman that Palestinian terrorists took 11 Israeli Olympic athletes hostage, and killed two, he sought out Epstein. They walked the streets, comforting each other, wondering what the Israelis had done to precipitate such hate, and why the Munich Massacre happened. Explaining their long walk on Chicago’s empty streets, Epstein who had once drawn the Star of David on his mitt, said to a Pittsburgh Press reporter: “I put on tefillin at different shuls in different cities. I was Bar Mitzvahed. I can read Hebrew. I’m a Jew.” The next day, in remembrance of the deceased, Holtzman and Epstein donned black arm bands on their jerseys’ sleeves, and kept them on through the playoffs. Remembered Epstein: “It was an emotional period. I’m glad we did something.”

After Epstein went hitless in the 1972 World Series, A’s owner Charles O. Finley dumped him and his 26 home runs to the Texas Rangers. Two years later, Epstein ended his nine-year career with the California Angels where he hit .206. Out of baseball, he began a successful batting school on the West Coast. Now retired, Epstein is 80.

Holtzman never achieved the Koufax-like Hall of Fame success that some had predicted for him. But he was elected to the 1972 and 1973 American League All-Star games. Holtzman finished his career with a record of 174–150, and a 3.49 ERA. He won nine more games in his career than Sandy Koufax’s 165 total which made Holtzman history’s winningest Jewish pitcher. In 2007, Holtzman briefly returned to baseball when he managed the Israel Baseball League’s Petach Tikva Pioneers. His experience with the league was an unhappy one, and he left the team before the season ended. Holtzman, now 77, is retired and lives outside St. Louis, his birthplace.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Winningest Jewish Pitcher Ken Holtzman, A Rosh Hashana Baseball Story