Wildfires Jeopardizes Dem Careers

Wildfires Jeopardizes Dem Careers

By Joe Guzzardi

Thomas Jefferson: “The government you elect is the government you deserve.”  Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is an excellent example of Jefferson’s warning. Bass is under withering criticism for mismanaging California’s Pacific Palisades and Eaton wildfires. Calls for Bass’s resignation are increasing and, in the meantime, a recall petition gathered more than 135,000 verified signatures through January 13 and is gaining momentum.

The petition demands:

     1. The immediate resignation of Mayor Karen Bass due to her failure to lead during this unprecedented crisis.
     2. A full, transparent investigation into the failures in disaster preparedness, response, and resource allocation that left our city vulnerable.
     3. Accountability for the mismanagement of taxpayer funds intended for disaster relief and recovery.
     4. A comprehensive plan for ensuring the safety of all Angelenos in the face of future disasters.
Closing sentence: “The people of Los Angeles deserve a leader who is present, accountable, and actively working to protect and serve our community. Mayor Bass’s actions—or lack thereof—have shown she is unfit for the office she holds.”

The “present, accountable, and actively working” reference is to Bass’ trip as part of a U.S. presidential delegation to Ghana to attend President John Dramani Mahama’s inauguration, a colossal waste of money with no tangible benefit to Angelenos. Moreover, three years ago Bass promised to cut back on her international travel to focus on Los Angeles. The former globe-trotting House Foreign Affairs Committee member vowed to limit her travel to D.C., Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco. As Mayor, Bass had also gone to Mexico for President Claudia Sheinbaum’s inauguration and three times to France for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. To Paris and back, to Paris and back, to Paris and back, three frivolous round trips that taxpayers funded.

Bass isn’t a major global player like President Joe Biden or Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Her place is at home trying to resolve Los Angeles’ myriad crises that include a budget shortfall,  a $22 billion homelessness dilemma, and a dysfunctional public school system where, because of grade inflation, in some subjects as many as four out of every five students receive A, B, and C grades, while only one in five met grade-level benchmarks, and thousands of struggling students are left with limited access to true academic help.

Bass deserves to be recalled. But, as Jefferson would agree, the voters who put her in the mayor’s office share the blame for the disaster that’s befallen southern California. Plenty of evidence of Bass’ colossal incompetence and radical political leanings were available to voters to scrutinize in the weeks that led up to her 2022 election. During her six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Bass embraced a far-left progressive agenda. In the 1970s, Bass worked construction for Fidel Castro’s Cuba with the Venceremos Brigade, a Communist group that for half a century has organized annual trips to Cuba for young, left-wing Americans. Bass made eight trips to Cuba as a California Assembly member from 2004 through 2010 and, when Castro died in 2016, Bass lauded him: “The passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba,” an insensitive remark that outraged Cubans living in the U.S. Bass later denied that she was a Castro-sympathizer.

In the so-called non-partisan election where party affiliation is not listed, voters had a credible alternative, Republican turned Democrat Rick Caruso, a former L.A. Department of Water and Power Commissioner, and unanimously elected L.A. Board of Police Chiefs’ president. Caruso’s hands on experience with water, power, and police officers would have been helpful during the fires. Too bad for Pacific Palisades residents that Caruso is a white billionaire; DEI triumphed as he lost to Bass in a run-off election.

A recall Newsom petition is also circulating and justifiably so. The wildfires have torched more than 40,000 acres, almost three times the size of Manhattan, destroyed more than 12,000 structures and killed at least twenty-four people. Newsom’s many critics note that wildfires are a common and well-known California issue. Yet Newsom has not been able to produce any realistic plan after six years as governor and eight years as lieutenant governor, which shows that he is completely unprepared and lacks the compassion and backbone to lead California any longer.

Bass kicked off her 2026 re-election campaign in July and proclaimed that we cannot “afford to stop our momentum,” a rallying cry she will have to revise. Doubtlessly, Bass has eyes on a higher California office and perhaps beyond. She’s seen up close and personal that gross inability is not a political barrier to bigger things. Look at Kamala Harris who went from being Willie Brown’s concubine to California’s Attorney General to U.S. Senator to Vice President to presidential candidate, in which the shallowness she displayed on a national stage caught up with her.

Good luck to voters on their recall effort. Given the outcome during the Newsom 2021 recall, victory will be an uphill battle. Diversity-crazed Californians rejected a more-than qualified black gubernatorial candidate, Larry Elder, and chose the pasty-faced, glam boy, illegal alien welcoming Newsom. Go figure!

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Wildfires Jeopardizes Dem Careers

Wildfires Jeopardizes Dem Careers Wildfires Jeopardizes Dem Careers

Laken Riley Act Passes House But Too Late to Save Innocent Nursing Student

Laken Riley Act Passes House But Too Late to Save Innocent Nursing Student

By Joe Guzzardi

In a refreshing change from his indifference to immigration enforcemen, House Speaker Mike Johnson, with all Republicans and 48 Democrats voting “Yea,” passed the “Laken Riley Act” (LRA) 264-159, Jan. 7. Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins had introduced the companion bill to the Senate legislation of the same name which will be voted on later in January. Johnson skeptics vividly remember that the speaker vowed not to send Ukraine one more penny unless HR-2, the strongest enforcement legislation ever written, was included in the next bill. Ukraine got its billions; HR-2 died a quiet death. Johnson, however, made good on his most recent promise to deliver LRA to citizens who want safe neighborhoods, free of violent criminal aliens.

Both the House and the Senate bills will authorize Immigration and Customs Enforcement to issue detainers and take custody of illegal immigrants who commit burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting offenses. Jose Ibarra, a previously deported Venezuelan illegal alien was originally released from the El Paso port of entry into the interior. After he arrived in New York, NYPD charged Ibarra with “acting in a manner to injure a child less than 17 and a motor vehicle license violation.” Once in Athens, Ga. Ibarra with his brother Diego were cited for shoplifting at a Walmart before he later killed nursing student Riley. Ibarra was convicted of three counts of felony murder and counts of malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape and the sexual deviancy “peeping Tom” crime. To state the obvious, had Ibarra been deported back to Venezuela which federal immigration law requires, Riley would not have been murdered and today she might be a practicing registered nurse.

Kudos to the 48 common sense Democrats that voted for safety and security in the communities they represent. But in his post-vote press release, Johnson blasted the 159 Democrats who voted against the bill. Johnson wrote that it “is hard to believe after countless horrific stories like Laken’s, ANY House Democrats would vote against deporting illegal aliens who commit violent crimes against American citizens.” Earlier, Johnson said he viewed the bill as a key test of Democrats’ policy priorities after a resounding number of voters identified the border crisis as their top concern during the run-up to the 2024 election. Johnson may have been disappointed with the Democrats but certainly could not have been surprised. The Democrats are indifferent to ICE’s 2024 Fiscal Year Report which showed that 81,312 illegal aliens had criminal histories with a combined total of 516,050 charges and/or convictions which include the following serious and violent offenses:

  • 57,081 assaults.
  • 18,579 sexual assaults and sex offenses.
  • 12,895 weapons offenses.
  • 11,822 burglaries.
  • 5,462 robberies.
  • 2,894 homicides.
  • 2,766 kidnappings.

When LRA gets to the Senate, its prospects look good. South Dakota Republican John Thune, the new Majority Leader, supports immigration enforcement. The last Republican to precede Thune as Majority Leader was Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, an immigration enthusiast on par with many of the most supportive open borders Democrats. Thune, on the other hand, earned an A+ grade on strengthening border and interior enforcement, as well as Imposing more rigid standards for refugee resettlement and asylum petition approvals.

On X, Thune posted, “As the 119th Congress begins, the U.S. Senate will work to ensure President Trump has his team in place to secure our border, protect our homeland, and provide for our nation’s defense.” Thune added that Riley’s horrific murder at Ibarra’s hands “should have never happened. There is an urgent need to take action regarding the border crisis to protect the American people…. which is why I chose this as the first bill the Senate will vote on this Congress.” In March 2024, the House with 37 Democrats voting in favor passed the Laken Riley Act 251-170. But the Senate Democratic Whip, Illinois’ Dick Durbin, blocked the bill. Protecting Americans is not a partisan issue; Durbin’s action is incomprehensible.

Thune is entering his fourth term in the Upper Chamber where he holds the caucus’ most powerful position and has a majority; his job is to convert his words into actions by getting LRA passed. No rush, though. If LRA gets to the president’s desk before the new administration is sworn in, Biden will veto it. Years have passed since Congress has passed an immigration bill that improves Americans’ lives. LRA is a welcome step in the right direction to protect the nation but much more must be done starting with closing the borders, clearly the most effective way to keep criminals out.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Laken Riley Act Passes House But Late to Save Innocent Nursing Student

Ed note: Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa5), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa4) and Summer Lee (D-Pa12) again voted against it.

Remember Larry Sherry This Hanukkah

Remember Larry Sherry This Hanukkah

By Joe Guzzardi

Larry Sherry, the hurler who pitched his hometown Los Angeles Dodgers to a four-game 1959 World Series sweep against the Chicago White Sox, overcame multiple physical challenges before he excelled in high school basketball and professional baseball. Both sides of the Sherry family were Jewish immigrants from Russia; Sherry’s maternal great grandfather was a Rabbi. Born with club feet, Sherry endured several operations that began at age six. Young Sherry was fitted with special shoes which he wore his entire life. But Sherry overcame his physical trials to star on the diamond and to captain the Fairfax High basketball team.

Larry’s older brothers Stan, George and Norm were also standout Fairfax athletes; Norm became a Dodgers’ catcher who not only assisted brother Larry but also the greatest Jewish pitcher of all-time, Sandy Koufax. Norm, Larry and Sandy became fast friends.

Immediately after he graduated from Fairfax High in 1953 at age 17, Sherry signed with the Dodgers who assigned him to its low-minor league Santa Barbara team. Sherry was rarely used and wound up the season with a 1-2 record. The following year, he was with the Bakersfield Indians and the Great Falls Electrics with a combined 7-8 record. At Newport News in the Piedmont League, his next stop, Sherry finished with a 5-10 record and, based on his poor showings, appeared destined for a minor league career. The road for Sherry up to the parent Dodgers was long and arduous.

Pitching for Class A and Class AA minor league teams, Sherry still showed little promise. Nevertheless, the next to last place pitching-desperate Dodgers called Sherry up in 1958, and he flopped. In five innings, he had a 12.43 ERA and was promptly demoted. During the off-season, Larry and Norm headed to Cuba where the catcher taught his pitcher brother the slider. Armed with an effective new pitch, Sherry opened the 1959 season with the Triple-A St. Paul Saints. On Independence Day of 1959, the Dodgers called up Sherry again.

Larry started out with the Dodgers by losing two one-run decisions. Then, lightning struck. Sherry won seven consecutive games and was credited with three saves. Hurling ninety-four innings, he gave up only seventy-five hits, walked 43, and struck out 72. He appeared in relief fourteen times and pitched 36-1/3 innings with an amazing 0.74 ERA. Sherry then topped off his 1959 season with his spectacular World Series performance that propelled the Dodgers to a 4-0 sweep against the Chicago White Sox. Credited with two wins and two saves, Sherry pitched 12-2/3 innings with a miniscule 0.71 ERA and won the World Series Most Valuable Player Award. In 1960, then starting pitcher Sherry won fourteen games and on May 7, Larry and his brother Norm were batterymates. The Sherry brothers became the first Jewish brother battery in major league history.

Although only 25, Sherry’s effectiveness declined sharply. The Dodgers sold Sherry to the Detroit Tigers after the 1963 season. Sherry then moved on to the Houston Astros until he eventually ended up with the California Angels in 1968, his final year as an active player. Sherry’s 11 years in the majors ended with 53 wins and 44 losses, with an acceptable earned run average of 3.67.

After the Angels released Sherry, he signed on as the Pacific Coast League Seattle Rainiers’ pitching coach, and then moved on to coach the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Angels. Sherry retired from baseball in 1980 to pursue his other passion—golf—in Mission Viejo, California. Larry died from cancer at age 71. Norm’s final year in baseball was 1963 with the New York Mets. Before he died at age 89, Norm was the guest speaker at the San Diego Jewish Film Festival for the screening of “Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story.”

Larry Sherry’s career stats may be underwhelming but factor in that they were achieved with two club feet and they become remarkable.

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

Remember Larry Sherry This Hanukkah

Remember Larry Sherry This Hanukkah

Californians Vote to Accelerate Their Decline

Californians Vote to Accelerate Their Decline

By Joe Guzzardi

On November 5, the presidential election captured most of the nation’s attention. But few paid any mind to California’s U.S. House of Representatives election outcomes since the results were a foregone conclusion. A quick look at the re-elected individuals show a sorry assortment on unindicted felons, power-crazed subversives, anti-American worker proponents and fervently pro-illegal immigration advocates. Not only did this motley group win but their margins were staggeringly large.

Nancy Pelosi, who may have been the shadow president puppeteering Joe Biden for the last four years, won her 20th term representing California’s 11th congressional district with 81% of the vote. The 11th is mostly San Francisco, once known as the object of Tony Bennett’s affection in his signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” The “City by the Bay” is now recognized for rampant smash-and-grab robberies and widespread homelessness. San Francisco’s sanctuary city status makes it an ideal municipality for Tren de Aragua to set up shop to embark on its illegal alien crime sprees. Since 2019, 47% of businesses in the area have shut their doors, including 22 big-name stores in high-end Union Square, the San Francisco Standard previously reported.  Residents, especially among the high wage-earning Gen Zers have fled. With a terrible track record like Pelosi’s district has amassed, the 84-year-old should have been booted; instead, she won in a landslide.

Another Bay Area ne’er-do-well and unindicted felon, Eric Swalwell, breezed in the 17th Congressional District. Swalwell, who feloniously lied to Congress when he repeatedly insisted that he had conclusive evidence that then-President Donald Trump colluded with Russia, told brazen, shameless falsehoods. Perhaps Swalwell felt that lying about Trump would inject life into his moribund, short-lived, ego-fueled, three-month presidential campaign which began on April 14, 2019, and ended on July 8. Sleeping with a known Chinese spy, Fang Fang, who doubled as Swalwell’s chief 2014 campaign fund raiser, should have raised eyebrows among his constituents. No such luck, however. Swalwell sailed to a 68% victory margin over his Republican opponent.

No House representative has done more to assure that well-paid, white-collar tech jobs go to foreign nationals, mostly Indians and Pakistanis, than immigration lawyer Zoe Lofgren. Representing California’s 18th District, Lofgren racked up 65% of the ballots cast. Voters who want their representatives to work tirelessly on foreign nationals’ behalf chose the right candidate in Lofgren. At age 77, Lofgren, on the heels of her easy re-election margin, will begin her 16th term. During her 30 years in Congress, Lofgren scored an “F” immigration grade, consistently voting against border or interior enforcement and in favor of amnesty.

One of her most recent American worker betrayals: Lofgren sponsored H.R. 3194, the U.S. Citizenship Act, that would expand immigrant and non-immigrant worker visas. The legislation would have allowed approximately 600,000 non-immigrants who are, in Lofgren’s opinion, “essential” workers, to receive green cards. Additionally, the legislation would issue more than 11 million new employment preference green cards over a 10-year period, plus offer green cards to non-immigrants with an advanced degree in STEM. The green cards would give work authorization to any Bureau of Labor Statistics employment category, not just IT workers.

In the Senate race for Dianne Feinstein’s seat, temporarily held by Laphonza Butler, Adam Schiff handily defeated Steve Garvey, former Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres baseball star, when he captured 60% of the vote. Schiff, like Swalwell, is an unindicted felon who also endlessly parroted the Russian collusion lie.

The majority of California’s congressional delegation has 0% immigration grades yet, like Pelosi, Swalwell, Lofgren, Schiff and dozens more, voters consistently re-elect them. Residents disgusted with the illegal alien invasion, widespread crime, out-of-control homelessness, and the ever-rising cost of living should remember those negatives the next time they go to the ballot box. As French philosopher Joseph de Maistre wrote in 1811 “Every nation gets the government it deserves,” an explanation of how California’s voters gave a green light to continuing the state’s crisis with their short-sighted ballot box selections.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Californians Vote to Accelerate Their Decline

Californians Vote to Accelerate Their Decline

Kamala Won’t Disappear

Kamala Won’t Disappear

By Joe Guzzardi

Despite the sound defeat that Vice President Kamala Harris suffered in the 2024 presidential election, she’ll likely remain in the public eye. In her November 6 concession speech, she admitted that she planned to stick around. Harris said, “I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign: the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity of all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.”

For high-visibility, vainglorious politicians who have held powerful positions like Harris—San Francisco District Attorney, California Attorney General, U.S. Senator, and Vice President—giving up 20 years in the limelight goes against the grain. Harris could follow the examples that previously defeated presidential candidates set. Her options are many. Harris might start a foundation like Jimmy Carter did after his 1980 defeat to Ronald Reagan. The Carter Center, which builds sustainable housing and prevents disease from spreading in developing countries, helped the former one-term president the win the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. After Al Gore narrowly lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush, in 2005 he established the Alliance for Climate Protection, renamed The Climate Reality Project. Foundations are nice but hardly the stuff of substantial public exposure.

Or Harris could follow President Richard Nixon’s strategy. After his 1960 defeat to President John F. Kennedy and a subsequent loss in California’s 1962 gubernatorial race to Democrat incumbent Pat Brown, Nixon spent years promoting GOP candidates nationwide and, by 1968, had accumulated political favors that he cashed in on. Another Harris presidential bid, theoretically possible, is not in the cards because it would end in a comparison to Adlai Stevenson, a two-time loser to President Dwight David Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. More Harris options: she could join a high-end law firm, become a lobbyist, or retire to private life and wait for book or Netflix deal advances to come in. The Obamas got $65 million from Penguin Random House to release both their memoirs. Harris and spouse Doug Emhoff are not Michelle and Barack, but they would still command a hefty advance.

A safe bet on Harris’ future is that she will run to replace termed out California Governor Gavin Newsom, a perfect situation for her. The gubernatorial election is in 2026, which gives Harris time to kick back before stumping again. Campaigning in California would be cake for Harris as opposed to trying to sell herself to a skeptical national electorate. Harris is a known quantity in California and would benefit from incessantly glowing media coverage. As of today, Harris’ likely competition, many of whom might drop out rather than face certain defeat in a primary, are Toni Atkins, Senate president pro tem, Eleni Kounalakis, California’s Lieutenant Governor, Tony Thurmond, California’s superintendent of public education, Xavier Becerra, Health and Human Services Secretary, Betty Yee, former controller and the California Democratic Party’s vice chair, and finally a name familiar to long-standing enforcement advocates, the pro-immigration Antonio Villaraigosa, once Los Angeles’ mayor and unsuccessful 2018 gubernatorial candidate. Harris has statewide name recognition while the others are, in many corners of California, unknown. One issue that Harris and her potential challengers share is unbending support for open borders and amnesty for already-present illegal immigrants.

The most interesting thing to watch in a Harris gubernatorial bid would be how she interacts with Newsom. For more than a year, Newsom displayed everywhere his naked ambition to displace President Joe Biden. When Harris took over as the nominee, Newsom vanished. Consider his snide remark about Harris after her coronation: “We went through a very open process, a very inclusive process. It was bottom-up, I don’t know if you know that. That’s what I’ve been told to say.” Insiders know that Newsom, confident that he would win, favored an open convention to replace Biden. No doubt secretly delighted that Harris absorbed a drubbing; Newsom is back as 2028’s leading candidate.

In politics, four years is an eternity. When 2028 rolls around, Newsom or any other Democratic presidential nominee may be campaigning in a California that, based on the right-shift towards Trump from 2016 to 2020 and finally in 2024 for a 12 percentage point gain, may be as red as it is blue.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Kamala Won't Disappear

Kamala Won’t Disappear Kamala Won’t Disappear

Pirates WWII Teams included First Drug-tested Player

Pirates WWII Teams included First Drug-tested Player

By Joe Guzzardi

During World War II, the Pittsburgh Pirates were less affected by the departure of key players than most other Major League Baseball teams who lost superstars like Bob Feller, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio to the draft. The Pirates were able to keep their squads mostly intact and added valuable players through trades. Between 1942-45, off to war went the Pirates Oad Swigart who pitched in 10 games in 1939 and 1940, Ed Leip with 35 plate appearances in three seasons, Ed Albosta, a 1946 Pirates twirler with a 0-6, 6.13 ERA mark, and Huck Geary, .160 batting average in two seasons.

Although the 1944 Pirates sent more players to World War II than they did in any previous year, they nevertheless enjoyed their most successful campaign since capturing the 1927 pennant. The ‘44 Bucs, led by one of their wartime acquisitions, All-Star first baseman Babe Dahlgren whom they acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies, posted a 90-63 record and finished a strong second to the St. Louis Cardinals. Dahlgren played in every game of the 1944 season, batted .289 and drove in 101 runs, sixth in the league.

In his two years as the Buccos’ first sacker, Dahlgren hit a respectable .271. Dahlgren, after burning up the Pacific Coast League, broke in with the Boston Red Sox in 1935 when fellow San Fransico native and incoming manager Joe Cronin thought Babe had a chance to be the BoSox starting first baseman, mostly because of his peerless fielding. In an interesting twist, and paralleling the New York Yankees’ Lou Gehrig, Dahlgren played consecutive PCL games from 1931 through 1934.

On the fateful May 2, 1939, the day that Gehrig asked manager Joe McCarthy to scratch his name from the line-up, Dahlgren substituted for the Iron Horse, hit a double and a homer. Dahlgren recalled Gehrig’s kidding reaction after his 2-for-5 day: “He grabbed me when I got back to the bench and shouted at me, ‘Hey, why didn’t you tell me you felt that way about it. I woulda got out of there long ago.” At Lou Gehrig Day, 1941, McCarthy whispered to Dahlgren, “If [a dying] Lou falls over, catch him.”  While baseball historians can quickly respond to the not-very-tough trivia question: “Who replaced Lou Gehrig,” few recall that Dahlgren was the first player ever drug-tested.

Unsubstantiated rumors that Dahlgren smoked marijuana plagued his career and after baseball, his family’s lives. In the 1940s, smoking marijuana was a major scandal. McCarthy and Branch Rickey instigated the rumors and other baseball gossips fueled the fire.  The New York Times writer John Drebinger, who wrote the lead story for every World Series game between 1929 and 1963, a total of 203 tilts, said that McCarthy had told him that the Yankees would have “won the pennant in 1940 had it not been for an error Dahlgren made against the Indians late in the season.” The Yankees’ pilot continued, “Dahlgren doesn’t screw up that play if he wasn’t a marijuana smoker.” When Dahlgren volunteered to test for marijuana, a Philadelphia doctor administered a series of examinations and declared him free of any drug use. Still, the chatter persisted.

Years later, then-MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent told The New York Times reporter Murray Chass that, “People railroaded him [Dahlgren] for illegitimate reasons. It’s a sad story. He was accused of being on drugs when I doubt very much that he was. It’s not one of baseball’s prettiest stories, and I regret that it didn’t get fixed before he died.” [of natural causes in 1996.]  Dahlgren’s grandson Matt wrote an acclaimed book titled “Rumor in Town” that debunks the baseless marijuana allegations. Matt also provided some comforting details about his grandfather’s last 25 years. “Babe continued working with young prospects and eager-eyed players. He had compiled hundreds of rolls of film dating back to the early ‘40s when he used his first 8mm movie camera to capture the likes of Joe DiMaggio and other stars from the past. Little could he have imagined back then that his idea of using film to help struggling ball players would…become a mainstay in modern baseball and coaching.” Unfortunately, these historical and priceless films were lost to the fire that engulfed Babe’s home in 1980.

Safe to say that Babe would be aghast at the common use of performance enhancing drugs in today’s baseball and the wrist slap that passes for punishment. The use, possession, and sale of performance enhancing drugs is a federal felony punishable by a jail sentence and/or fines. If Dahlgren had played in a more tolerant drug-usage baseball era, his and his family’s lives would have had been more peaceful.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Pirates WWII Teams included First Drug-tested Player

Pirates WWII Teams included First Drug-tested Player

States Join Immigration Enforcement Battle

States Join Immigration Enforcement Battle

By Joe Guzzardi

The national frustration over President Biden’s immigration agenda was reflected not only in the presidential election’s results but also in Arizona, outside of the spotlight. Proposition 314, a border security measure that makes it a state crime to enter Arizona from Mexico and outside of a legal port of entry, passed overwhelmingly. The Associated Press called the race Wednesday morning after the early returns Tuesday night showed a strong advantage for a yes vote on the measure, officially known as the “Immigration and Border Law Enforcement Measure.” Prop 314 led 62.7%-37.3% with a more than two million votes reported, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office results page.

Opponents have compared Prop 314 to SB 1070, Arizona’s “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” which passed in 2010 and was partially struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States. Only four of SB 1070’s provisions went before SCOTUS, and the court left one of those intact, Section 2 (B) which requires Arizona law enforcement to make an attempt, when feasible, to determine a person’s immigration status during a “lawful stop, detention, or arrest” if there is a reasonable suspicion “that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States.” Lawful stops would include, among other crimes, traffic violations, home invasions or drug sales. Prop 314 has similar restrictions. Before law enforcement personnel could begin the removal process, it would have to capture on video and identify the illegal immigrant crossing or articulate based on their professional experience that the suspected alien dressed in camouflage or was part of a large group packed into a van, or other actions consistent with unlawful entry. The proposal covers more than border crossing requirements: also included are Increase penalties for fentanyl sales that results in death, a requirement that legal immigration status be confirmed before welfare benefits are granted, and that legal employment status be confirmed through E-Verify. Arizona judges could, after reviewing the evidence presented to them, issue deportation orders to any illegal alien who refuses to leave voluntarily.

Although voters approved Prop 314, the border-crossing provisions would not necessarily immediately become law. The text says that Prop 314 cannot be enforced until Texas’ SB 4 is approved. Other states have taken action similar to Texas’— Iowa’s Senate File 2340, signed by Governor Kim Reynolds,  and Oklahoma’s House Bill 4156, signed by Governor Gov. Kevin Stitt. A federal court is challenging the Texas proposal, a process which could take years. The good news is that, after Arizona completes its November 25 state certification, the added penalties for fentanyl-related deaths, and identity misrepresentation, become law.

Even though Prop 314 may be years away from becoming law, pro-immigration advocacy groups and the discredited ACLU are taking steps to block it. The ACLU made the familiar claims that it would “break families apart, exacerbate racial profiling, and increase criminalization of immigrants and communities of color.” 

Residents in states that have seen their schools, hospitals and police forces adversely affected by the entry of millions of illegal immigrants are imploring their local governments to assist the feds in restoring a rational immigration system. Nationwide, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations and Enforcement Removal Operations have about 35, 000 agents. Stacked up against ten million or more illegal aliens, the odds against meaningful enforcement are unbelievably bad indeed. The enforcement agencies need the help state governments can provide.

Former Texas U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan and keynote speaker at the 1976 Democratic National Convention gave the best guideline for immigration policy: “those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.”

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

States Join Immigration Enforcement Battle

By Joe Guzzardi

The national frustration over President Biden’s immigration agenda was

States Join Immigration Enforcement Battle

Consistently Wrong Pollsters Try Again in 2024

Consistently Wrong Pollsters Try Again in 2024

By Joe Guzzardi

In 1964, I cast my first presidential ballot for Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. I preferred Goldwater’s more aggressive solution to end the Vietnam War, at the time heating up and poised to get even hotter. Goldwater promised “a choice, not an echo.” Voters will never know how successful Goldwater’s plan might have been. But the documented facts are that although Johnson positioned himself as more moderate than Goldwater, he became the quintessential warmonger. After Johnson’s landslide victory, LBJ escalated President John F. Kennedy’s commitment from fewer than 20,000 U.S. troops to more than a half million. Following the election, the war waged on for longer than a decade as more than 58,000 U.S. service members and millions of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotians were killed.

Since the 1964 election, 15-four-year cycles, I’ve been a registered Republican, a registered Democrat, and a registered Independent. I have lived in New York, California, Washington, and Pennsylvania. At no time did I ever miss in-person voting which must, I assume, qualify me among pollsters as “a likely voter.” Yet during the last six decades, I have never received a telephone call from a pollster asking me for whom I planned to vote. Moreover, after I inquired, I learned that no family member, friend, neighbor, or work colleague has been polled. Who, then, is polled? Given my long-standing experience as a confirmed but never polled voter, I wonder what the non-stop fuss in print media and television is all about: “Harris is up two points in Wisconsin, but down two points in Michigan!” or “Trump is up four in North Carolina and gaining in Arizona.” Comparable stories not only have headlined but consumed most of the print ink or broadcast air with one talking head after another chattering predictable points that depend on their political leaning.

Since the 2016 and 2020 polls were dramatically off the mark, no one should put any credibility in the 2024 election predictions. In 2016, Donald J. Trump’s victory shocked many Americans, especially pollsters who showed his opponent, Hillary Clinton, leading the race up right up to Election Day. All data they were looking at seemed to predict her victory. Clinton’s campaign, confident she would win, had the champagne ready to pop. But Trump, who disdained data gathering, carried swing states Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania which Democrats thought were in the bag. After the ballots were counted, Trump had won 306 electoral votes, compared to Clinton’s 232, securing him the presidency. The pollsters offered weak excuses for their embarrassing failures including a farfetched claim that the results were skewed by whether a male or female picked up the phone.

The 2016 misfire was supposed to serve as a wake-up call for pollsters, but it did not. The 2020 election would be, according to the polling, an easy Joe Biden victory. But Biden won by only three points versus his projected margin of eight—another humbling for the touted polling industry. Pollsters have spent the years since 2020 experimenting with ways to induce hard-to-reach voters to participate in surveys and testing statistical techniques to improve accuracy. But expert opinion is mixed on whether polling outcomes are due for a repeat of 2020, which a professional association of pollsters called the most inaccurate in 40 years. New developments, such as the shift of black and Latino voters away from Democrats and toward Republicans and the increase of online surveys that use unproven sampling methods create additional potential for error. Referring to 2024’s polling reliability, Stanford University political scientist Jon Krosnick said, “We are headed for more disaster.”

Pollsters do a better job of identifying the core issues that worry voters. The numbers one and two are the economy and immigration. But neither the polling organizations nor the candidates have comprehensively linked the two. Immigration directly impacts federal, state, and local economies. In March 2023, three years into the ongoing four-year invasion, the Federation for American Immigration Reform published its study, “The Total Fiscal Cost of Illegal Immigration.” FAIR estimated that, at the time of its report, 15.5 million illegal immigrants resided in the U.S. Beginning in 2023, the net cost of illegal immigration to the U.S. including K-12 education, emergency medical care, and other affirmative benefits is at least $150 billion. Subtracting the tax revenue that illegal aliens pay, just under $32 billion, from the gross negative cost of illegal immigration, $182 billion, FAIR arrived at its $150 billion total. Eighteen months have passed since FAIR’s report, and millions more illegal aliens have entered with taxpayers funding every step they take once inside the U.S.

The Biden/Harris administration has given the green light to millions of unvetted illegal aliens who have unlawfully crossed or, unprecedented, been flown into the interior via the unconstitutional CHNV program that admits 30,000 foreign nationals monthly. Voters who consider the economy their main concern should realize that unchecked immigration contributes to high living costs including the tax hikes necessary to pay billions for illegal aliens’ resettlement.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Consistently Wrong Pollsters Try Again in 2024

Consistently Wrong Pollsters Try Again in 2024

Consistently Wrong Pollsters Try Again in 2024

Illegals Swamping US School System

Illegals Swamping US School System

By Joe Guzzardi

The news agency Reuters published a story about how the border surge has crushed, from coast-to-coast, the public school system. Titled “An American Education: Classrooms Reshaped by Migrant Students,” Reuters sent a survey to more than 10,000 school districts to gauge immigration’s impact on public schools nationwide. Of the responding 75 school districts that serve 2.3 million children, 33% said the increase in illegal aliens has a “significant” effect. In the real academic world, significant translates to negative.

The Reuters story did a respectable job of outlining the challenges schools face—the problems of integrating foreign-born students into traditional American education. Since 2022, more than half a million school-age migrant children have arrived in the U.S., according to immigration court records that Syracuse University collected, exacerbating overcrowding in some classrooms; compounding teacher and budget shortfalls; forcing teachers to grapple with language barriers and escalating social tensions in some communities.

Andrew R. Arthur, the Center for Immigration Studies Resident Fellow in Law and Policy and who held several important Capitol Hill positions advising on immigration legislation, estimates that the actual total of migrant children enrolled is closer to one million. Arthur searched Syracuse’s TRAC website but could not find the cited statistics. Then, Arthur turned to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics. He concluded that counting unaccompanied alien children plus the released family units’ minors who crossed with their parents and are now in school, the more probable enrollment total is between 700,000 and more than one million school-aged migrant children.

Reuters pointed out the obvious—that teachers across the nation face the nearly-insurmountable task of educating non-English speaking students, a challenge that will intensify since foreign-born nationals from more than 150 countries speaking dozens of languages have either crossed the border or have been flowing into the interior via Biden’s unlawful CBP-One app. Districts will have to hire more budget-draining English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers, assuming they can be found.  In Charleroi, the district will have to recruit Haitian Creole speakers, no doubt in short supply in Western Pennsylvania. But tiny Charleroi, population about 4,200, will have to find the instructors since in a little over a year, as many as 3,000 Haitians have moved into town, almost doubling its population. In 2021-22, the number of Charleroi’s non-English speaking students in area schools was 12; now it’s 220, an increase of more than 1,700 per cent. Finding suitable ESL teachers is made more difficult because, ideally, the job’s candidates will not only speak Haitian Creole but also have a teaching background. Very few who fit the bill can be found locally.

As a former ESL instructor during the Southeast Asian refugee resettlement into California’s immigrant-heavy San Joaquin Valley, I have some from-the-front observations about how the unanticipated arrivals put a school district and its long-time teachers into a state of controlled chaos. Much like the U.S. cities that are coping with huge arriving migrant totals, Chicago, Boston, Denver, etc., my district had to accommodate legally present refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand as well as itinerant laborers from Mexico and Guatemala. For teachers who had no trained background in international student instruction, the burden of managing so many kids from so many non-English speaking countries was overwhelming. One unsuccessful method of coping was called “pull outs.” A translator fluent in, for example Cambodian, would enter the classroom, take the Cambodian students to a corner, and instruct them in the lesson given to him by the teacher. Multiple problems arose—did the Cambodian aide fully understand the assignment? Did the aide convey the lesson in an effective manner? The teacher doesn’t speak Cambodian so he wouldn’t know. All of this took time away from the teacher’s responsibility to educate his traditional students. Multiple other language-related problems were ongoing—the often-transient migrant students enrolled after the school year started and left abruptly before it ended. Office personnel could not communicate with parents about important school issues. Finding and paying for appropriate language textbooks was a lengthy and expensive process.

The existing system harms everyone. The international students learn little and miss out on building a solid educational foundation. Teachers and other administrative cannot keep up. U.S. kids miss out on important classroom time. And taxpayers foot the hefty education bill, an estimated $800 billion in 2021 pre-invasion costs.  As long as the border remains open, citizens and international students will continue to fall behind and taxpayers will fund every open border consequence.

Illegals Swamping US School System

Illegals Swamping US School System

Virtue Signaling MLB Spends $$ In DR But Not In Poor America

Virtue Signaling MLB Spends $$ In DR But Not In Poor America

By Joe Guzzardi

With a single stroke of his pen, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred rewrote a century of baseball history. Before the ink dried, the Pittsburgh Crawfords’ and the Homestead Grays’ Josh Gibson replaced Ty Cobb as baseball’s all-time batting champion, took over Babe Ruth’s career slugging average record, and is now officially the last player to hit over .400 in a season. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when baseball’s suits, a 17-man, John Thorn-led commission, met six times to evaluate, despite incomplete data, incorporating Negro Leagues’ statistics into the existing record book. Notwithstanding Sabermetricians’ best efforts, they only located about 75% of Negro Leagues’ box scores.

The commission marginalized icons Cobb, Ruth and Ted Williams. Cobb, the former career batting average leader, won 12 titles during his 11,440 at bats compared to Gibson’s 2,164. Displaced also is Ruth, who amassed his .690 slugging title in four-times Gibson’s plate appearances, 10,628 to 2,526. Yet Gibson with his .718 mark, post-Manfred’s edict, now holds Ruth’s old title. MLB’s ill-conceived revisions anointed Gibson as the last player to hit over .400 in a single season, .466 in 1943, which displaced Williams’ .406 in 1941. Gibson did not have enough at bats to qualify for the batting title. As ESPN’s black Senior Writer Howard Bryant described Manfred’s ahistorical pronouncement: “The decision was met with great applause, but in addition to being reconciliatory, it was also a spectacular display of historical distortion and institutional arrogance.” An unanswered question that Manfred left hanging: if Gibson established records in 1943, will the April 15th annual Jackie Robinson Day celebration of his 1947 breaking of MLB’s color line be canceled? Confused fans should consider the source. Manfred is a labor lawyer, not a baseball historian

More statistical revisions will come soon; the commission is still digging into decades of Negro Leagues’ games that involve hundreds of players. Questions about which games and feats should count will be endless. Satchel Paige’s 50 no-hitters, the total he insists he hurled, might replace Nolan Ryan’s seven as the new career record. Anything is possible. The commissioners have their computers and their new-fangled analytical methods. But Monte Irvin, who played for the Newark Eagles and the New York Giants, noted the obvious: unless the players compete in the same league, no meaningful parallels can be drawn. Irvin’s on-the-record opinion is that the Negro Leagues, because the teams had shallower pitching staffs, can’t compare to the majors.

Manfred claims that his baseball ideological history makes amends for the terrible biases that kept talented black players out of the major leagues because of their skin color. “Correcting an injustice,” is how Manfred attempted to explain the inexplicable. Beyond the clear fact that the leagues were separate entities, the inherent suggestion that MLB’s stamp of approval validates the Negro Leagues is an insult to Gibson, Paige, Irvin, Robinson and hundreds of others. The Negro Leagues do not need validation.

The commissioner’s gesture does little tangible for the black players’ families that suffered through decades of the shameful treatment and does even less for today’s black kids yearning to reach the major leagues. If MLB wants to do something productive for black youths, it should build a network of baseball camps like those it has spent hundreds of millions to develop in the Dominican Republic. Envision this: Manfred summons the thirty MLB owners and demands that, since baseball is an $12 billion industry, part of that revenue should be allocated to developing U.S. black players.

Originally, MLB promoted the camps as an option to a life spent in the Dominican sugar cane fields. For the few Dominicans who made the big leagues, they could send money home to lift their families out of poverty. But MLB was the big winner because teams could sign several prospects for the same cost to ink one American player. MLB originally paid its academy players little, $600 per month, but the cash plus a green card that would give prospects and their families legal status in the U.S. was too inviting to pass up.

The Pittsburgh Pirates built its first Dominican academy in 2009 and has added to the 52-acre facility every year thereafter. Pirates’ camps have multiple playing fields, cafeterias, classrooms and the most complete weight room among the camps. Pirates’ director of international development Hector Morales called the facility “unparalleled.” Nothing remotely similar exists in the U.S. And while the Dominican Republic offers the advantage of year-round good weather, determined multi-millionaire owners could work around climate handicaps by training in Florida, Texas or California and making use of indoor facilities during the winter months. Owners lack the will to find raw U.S. talent and develop it. The California Winter League, baseball’s first integrated league, played from 1900 to the mid-1940s. The greatest baseball stars competed in the CWL — -Walter Johnson, Cool Papa Bell, Andy Pafko, Bob Elliot, and Jackie Robinson, among others.

Miserly billionaire owners point to the NCAA baseball teams as the best source for future stars. But few blacks can afford college. Consider how Pirates’ great Andrew McCutcheon viewed the challenges for increased black players’ participation in MLB In his 2015 Post-Gazette op-ed, “I Could Have Been Left Behind.” McCutcheon wrote about growing up in Central Florida, poor and unable to get rides to the big showcase tournaments. He envied Dominican players that MLB could, because of the local camps, sign, develop, and nurture. When Cutch wrote his op-ed, Josh Harrison was his only American black teammate. In the decade since Cutch’s op-ed, the only change is that Ke’Bryan Hayes has replaced Harrison as one of two other Pirates’ American blacks. Florida-based The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport found that African American players represented just 6.2% of players on 2023 MLB opening day rosters down from 7.2% in 2022. The totals were the lowest since the study began in 1991, when 18% of MLB players were African American. Dominican players comprise about 30% of MLB’s active rosters.

McCutcheon suggested that MLB build camps, scout high schools, Pony League, Nebraska’s cornfields and Chicago’s South Side. If MLB wants to “correct an injustice” to African Americans, as Manfred insists, give them an equal opportunity to earn the lucrative contracts that abound in baseball today. Every year, owners wring their hands and shed crocodile tears about its shortage of black players. The penurious owners should put their money where their mouths are. Right now, their money is in the Dominican Republic. The inescapable conclusion: MLB owners use the billions their teams generate from ticket, merchandise, and TV revenue to fund Dominican academies whose players that will eventually displace American kids on the baseball diamond.

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

Virtue Signaling MLB Spends $$ In DR But Not In Poor America

Virtue Signaling MLB Spends $$ In DR But Not In Poor America