Category: Joe Guzzardi

Musk Wrong on Population

Musk Wrong on Population

By Joe Guzzardi

For number crunchers, July’s second week offered eyepopping data. To begin with, the consumer price index shot up to 9.1 percent year-over-year, the highest spike in four decades. Truth be told, consumers may be taking a bigger than 9.1 percent hit. The CPI is a controversial index which many economists insist is manipulated to reflect fewer alarming price increases and, conversely, a stronger GDP. Taken together, those two variables, massaged favorably, help to keep a lid on investor panic, and to underpay on cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients.

Since time immemorial, CPI was calculated based on a fixed market basket of goods. But in the 1990s, the Bureau of Labor Statistics introduced what it identified as geometric weighing – substituting lower-priced, lower-quality goods in the basket, while excluding more expensive, but still everyday items.

Most blue-collar, working Americans consider the CPI a government gimmick that purposely excludes their day-to-day necessities: energy, up 41.6 percent; gas, + 60 percent, eggs +33 percent; and public transportation, +23.7. A truer indicator of consumer pain showed up in the producer wholesale price index which hit 11.3 percent.

Inflation, which makes Americans poorer with each passing day, has an immediate and tangible effect on consumers’ psyches. But another report issued in early July is, taken over the long-term, more disturbing.

Inflation has its peaks and valleys, but the prediction by the United Nations that the global population will reach 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050 represents an ongoing, and perhaps insurmountable, challenge. By the end of the century, the U.N. estimates that there will be 10.4 billion people on the planet. Today, the world’s population is just a tick under 8 billion, and has grown at an unsustainable rate.

Not until around 1800 did the world’s population first reach 1 billion. But, only 130 years later in 1930, the second billion was reached, and the third billion in 1960, another 30 years later. Then, global population exploded. The fourth billion arrived 15 years later in 1974, and the fifth billion only 13 years after that. During the 20th century alone, the world’s population grew from 1.65 billion to 6 billion. For comparison, in 1970, there were roughly half as many people in the world as there are now. Every year, about 83 million people are added to the global population.

Eight nations will account for most of the growth between now and 2050: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United Republic of Tanzania. India is expected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country as soon as next year.

Musk Wrong on Population

Those countries are thousands of miles away, and their difficulties unfathomable to most Americans, but U.S. population also is climbing at an unsustainable rate. The nation’s population is about 332 million now, but will reach 424 million in 2100, about 25 percent more people than live in the U.S. today. The consequences of too many people are grave, both in terms of more difficult human interaction in overcrowded surroundings, and lasting ecological damage to dwindling natural resources.

Ironically, the U.N. released its frightening population projections at about the same time that Elon Musk, claiming the U.S. faces an “underpopulation crisis,” pleaded for an increase in births. “A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far,” said Musk, who cited himself as a would-be role model. One of his love interests, Shivon Zilis, gave birth to twins this summer, bringing Musk’s total offspring to nine. To Musk, replacement level fertility, normally considered 2.1 children per woman, is an outdated notion.

Unfortunately, Musk’s message to promote a have-more-children agenda, via his huge social media following, reaches more people than the communications of stabilization advocates. Don’t listen to Musk! Census Bureau data reflects a net gain of one person – births and international migrant arrivals minus deaths – in the U.S. every 26 seconds, far too many to protect the nation’s already crumbling, overcrowded infrastructure and its imperiled ecosystems.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Find more at joeguzzardi.substack.com.

Musk Wrong on Population Musk Wrong on Population

All-Star Game Few Saw and Fewer Remember

All-Star Game Few Saw and Fewer Remember

By Joe Guzzardi

In 1963, an All-Star game was played that few fans watched, and 59 years later, nobody remembers. The game, comprised exclusively of Latino players from the American and National Leagues, took place at the New York Giants’ historic Polo Grounds – the last game played at Coogan’s Bluff. The exhibition game, played before 14,235 fans, was a charity event to benefit a new Latin American Hall of Fame.

The Polo Grounds, temporary home to the New York Mets during their first two seasons, 1962 and 1963, had showcased some of baseball’s greatest players – 373-game winning pitcher Christie Mathewson, right fielder Mel Ott who came up as a rookie at age 17 and retired, still a Giants, 22 years and 511 home runs later, and Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid.” Baseball’s most dramatic moment, Bobby Thompson’s 1951 “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” thrilled Polo Grounds’ bugs.

All-Star Game Few Saw and Fewer Remember

Nearly six decades ago, on that warm and sunny October 13th day, a week after the Los Angeles Dodgers swept the New York Yankees in the World Series, the lineups were filled with Latin American and Caribbean nations’ players – Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Panama and Mexico. Black or multiracial, they endured the same bigotry as African Americans.

Among them were future Hall of Famers Juan Marichal, Orlando Cepeda, Roberto Clemente and Luis Aparicio. Others honored included a Minnesota Twins’ future three-time batting champion Tony Oliva, and his teammates MVP Zoilo Versalles and Vic Power, San Francisco Giants star outfielder and future manager Felipe Alou, the Washington Senators’ Minnie Minoso and the New York Yankees’ Hector Lopez, coming off his fourth straight World Series appearance. Unlike the 2022 All-Star Game, the Latinos played their game in obscurity – no television, no media hoopla and no promotional advertisement. Three of Latin music’s biggest talents, however, performed on field before the game – bandleaders Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez and Cuban bombshell singer La Lupe.

For the Latin stars, the game was emotionally charged. Marichal, the “Dominican Dandy,” remembered: “There was a lot of emotion among all the players, and you could tell the fans were excited about it, too.” Manny Mota, a Dominican and Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder then in his second major league season, stressed how proud the players were to represent their countries – “prestige and pride” were his words.

For all its historical importance, the game was a snoozer with the NL, who had won the official 1963 All-Star Game in Cleveland 5-3, pulled away by the ninth inning, 5-0. Alou, Mota, the St. Louis Cardinals’ shortstop Julian Javier, and the Pirates’ Alvin O’Neal McBean contributed the winning RBIs. Alou’s single came off the Twin’s losing pitcher, the Cuban Pedro Ramos.

Giants ace Marichal, a 25-game winner in 1963, hurled four innings of shutout ball, allowing just two hits, no walks and fanning six. But the win went to McBean who followed Marichal to the mound with four shutout innings of his own. After the game, the players lined up in the clubhouse to collect their $175 stipend, a far cry from what today’s ASG participants receive. While not paid in folding green, the 2022 All-Stars get six free tickets to the game and to the Home Run Derby, free first-class airfare and hotel, the daily $117.50 MLB meal stipend, and a swag bag. Don’t forget that the crème de la crème ASG players have negotiated into their contract’s bonuses for up to $500,000 just for being chosen.

But at least three of the Latin players had the last laugh. Cepeda, Clemente and Power were such unfamiliar faces that after getting paid the first time, they went to the back of the line, and unrecognized, collected a second time. Said Cepeda, “The guy never realized he paid us twice.”

This year’s game is 7:30 tonight and will be broadcast on Fox.

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

All-Star Game Few Saw and Fewer Remember

China Closer To World Domination With U.S. Help

China Closer To World Domination With U.S. Help

By Joe Guzzardi

The announcement that a Chinese company purchased about 300 acres of prime North Dakota property is the latest in an ongoing landgrab by one of America’s biggest threats. Historically, Chinese nationals are one of the largest purchasers of U.S. residential property, with an average of between 20,000 and 40,000 transactions annually.

On Capitol Hill, legislators worry that the Shandong, China-based real estate acquisition could create espionage opportunities with the Defense Department as its target. The property is close to the Grand Forks Air Force Base that houses sensitive drone technology. The base is also the home of a new space networking center that is the backbone of all U.S. military global communications. The Fufeng Group, which paid $2.6 million to three North Dakotans, produces flavor enhancers and sugar substitutes.

Despite the economic opportunities that the project represents – 200 jobs for locals and ancillary benefits to the community – the Republican and Democratic Senators are strongly opposed. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said he’s suspicious of the Chinese government’s intent. Cramer noted that the U.S. “grossly” underestimates how effective the People’s Republic of China is at collecting information and using it in nefarious ways. “And so,” Cramer continued, “I’d just as soon not have the Chinese Communist Party doing business in my backyard.”

China Moves Closer To World Domination With U.S. Help

In a rare demonstration of true bipartisanship, both the Senate Intelligence Committee chair and the Republican ranking member told the media that they oppose the CCP putting down roots in rural North Dakota.

Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said that his committee has been “loudly sounding the alarm” about China’s counterintelligence threat and its investments at sites close to military bases.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) agreed, calling it “foolish, dangerous and shortsighted” to allow the CCP to acquire land near military bases. Rubio reminded reporters that he’s cosponsoring legislation, the “Protecting Military Installation and Ranges Act of 2021,” that would give the Biden administration the power to block such CCP purchases.

If Warner, Rubio and others who sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee have heightened awareness of the danger the CCP poses to the U.S. interior, they’re unfashionably late to the dance. The reality is that Chinese national spies are everywhere, including U.S. Representative Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) bed, and, for 20 years, driving U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, then Senate Intelligence Committee Chair, around San Francisco. Journalists wrote that the Bay Area is a hotbed for Russian and Chinese espionage. As proof of Congress’ indifference to China’s infiltration, Swalwell kept his seat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Feinstein remains on the Senate Intelligence Committee. No one knows what secrets Fang Fang learned during her pillow talk with Swalwell or what Feinstein’s unidentified driver, never charged with a crime, may have overheard.

The Swalwell and Feinstein cases are high profile. But a closer look confirms that thousands of Chinese nationals, possibly well-intentioned, but perhaps with dubious intentions, are in the U.S. at the federal government’s invitation. Chinese student enrollment, according to an overview of international enrollment at U.S. universities, “far exceeds” that of other foreign nations. Although the COVID-19 pandemic created a 72 percent decline in international enrollment, 382,561 Chinese students attended the most prestigious U.S. universities during 2020-2021. Aggregate international enrollment hit a pre-pandemic high of 1.1 million in 2017-2018.

International students arrive on F-1 visas for general coursework, M-1 visas for vocational programs, or J-1 visas for cultural exchange students. A large number of Chinese nationals return home after completing their academic course work. No one, however, knows what proprietary information the students may be taking back with them. Some who stay take advantage of the fraud-ridden Optional Practical Training Program that displaces qualified U.S. graduates. International high-skill employment has increased sharply in recent years.

The White House and Congress are strangely indifferent to the obvious risks like property theft that a significant Chinese presence in U.S. universities and employment in high-tech fields create. China makes no secret of its goal to become the world’s dominant superpower. As long as the federal government extends such a helpful hand in so many critical ways – education and white-collar employment – China will easily reach its objective.

China Closer To World Domination

Congress Tries to Slip Immigration Into Must-Pass Defense Bill

Congress Tries to Slip Immigration Into Must-Pass Defense Bill

By Joe Guzzardi

With a final vote soon to come on the must-pass fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), expansionists have filed a slew of immigration amendments unrelated to national security.

Backdoor immigration amendments that have no ties to defense spending are an annual distraction practiced by Republicans and Democrats alike. Time is running out for immigration advocates to get their pet legislation passed. The August recess is at hand, and after Congress returns, mid-term election campaigning will begin in earnest, which will minimize the chance of passing controversial immigration bills.

This year, two immigration amendments are front and center. The first is Rep. Deborah K. Ross’ (D-N.C.) that would grant amnesty to who she referred to as “documented Dreamers,” an estimated 200,000 young people who grew up in the U.S. as dependents on their parents’ employment visas. When DREAMers turn 21, they’re at risk for deportation. While Ross’ amendment has bipartisan support, and is said to be under Senate consideration, it hasn’t advanced in either chamber.

Ross’ proposal, if enacted, would send a message to smugglers and coyotes that Congress’ priority isn’t enforcement but to create more economic incentives for migrants and their families to risk their lives with dangerous border crossings. Congress’ urgency for deferred action for childhood arrivals must be to protect future young migrants from falling into the same immigration limbo status that has, for years, bedeviled current DREAMers. Such a plan would include mandatory E-Verify to eliminate the jobs magnet that lures illegal immigrants. Family-based chain migration should end. Adults shouldn’t be encouraged to use their minor children as anchors to keep them in the U.S. Since the White House has ceded operational control of the border to criminal cartels, strict enforcement laws are required to protect future migrants.

A second untimely and harmful amendment is Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s (D-Calif.) proposal to remove the numerical caps from certain science, technology, engineering and math degree holders (STEM) in national-security related fields. Lofgren, an immigration lawyer, chairs the House Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee. If Lofgren’s amendment is included in the 2023 NDAA, high-skilled immigrants would more quickly become lawful permanent residents and the labor force would expand significantly. A larger labor pool creates a more challenging employment market for U.S. tech workers with STEM degrees, including recent university graduates, to obtain the white-collar jobs they’re qualified to hold.

Congress Tries to Slip Immigration Into Must-Pass Defense Bill

Ross and Lofgren’s wished-for amendments read as if they were drawn up by the donor-based elite and immigration lawyers, both categories of which would profit immensely if the proposals became law. With 54 million working-age (16-64) Americans neither working nor looking for work, and millions more who are underemployed workers – they hold part-time jobs, but want full-time employment – proposed immigration laws should benefit them, and not foreign-born nationals. The most adversely affected when immigration expands are those without a college diploma, most often blacks, Latinos and women, but also white males.

Increasing immigration is the dominant talking point in the roiling immigration reform debate and has reached the point where advocates maneuver to include amendments in a must-pass defense bill. Few in Congress, and no one participating in the NDAA hearings, speaks on behalf of the millions of Americans whose jobs and livelihoods increased legal immigration threatens. Scholars from the University of California, San Diego and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond found that the H-1B visa led to an Indian tech boom – in India! At the same time, U.S. tech workers at Disney, Southern California Edison, Met Life, Wal-Mart and myriad corporations have been displaced by mostly Indian H-1B visa workers.

Immigration doesn’t belong in the NDAA. Advocates like Ross, Lofgren and others can introduce stand-alone bills to advance their agendas, not slip amendments into must-pass legislation. Congress should always protect Americans from an overage of legal, employment-based visa workers, but especially during this period of open borders and high domestic unemployment.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Read more at joeguzzardi.substack.com.

Congress Tries to Slip Immigration into Must-Pass Defense Bill

Amnesty No Laughing Matter for Cornyn

Amnesty No Laughing Matter for Cornyn

By Joe Guzzardi

No sooner had Texas Sen. John Cornyn finished taking bows for delivering the 15 Republican votes to pass the bipartisan gun safety bill, 65-33, than he began talking up amnesty.

Cornyn, a Judiciary Committee member, was overheard promoting amnesty with fellow senators and immigration advocates Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). Cornyn to Padilla: “First guns, now immigration,” meaning amnesty. Very quickly, however, Cornyn backed off, calling his comment a “joke.” Attempting to cover his tracks, Cornyn said, “The Democrats and their allies in the media really can’t take a joke.”

Nevertheless, the take-away among the GOP is if Cornyn was so quick to cave on the Second Amendment, and to deliver a major legislative victory for the opposition Democrats, more tent-folding, perhaps on amnesty, may not be far away. Because of the pride he took at cooperating with Democrats, at the Texas GOP convention, Cornyn was roundly booed.

Skeptics wonder about Cornyn’s immigration and amnesty credibility. Raising doubts regarding Cornyn’s duplicity and providing validity to his amnesty remark is his chummy relationship with Padilla, the former California Secretary of State who Gov. Gavin Newsom named to replace Kamala Harris as U.S. senator. The son of a cook and a house cleaner who migrated to the U.S. from Mexico, Padilla, immediately appointed as chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee, is an avowed immigration expansionist who pledged to work on behalf of aliens to obtain citizenship. Padilla’s self-admitted mission is to make immigration reform “as bold as we can make it.”

Amnesty No Laughing Matter for Cornyn

The Padilla-Cornyn coziness includes having worked together successfully on a bill which will speed up the admission process by which Afghan interpreters and translators who allegedly assisted U.S. troops can enter the U.S. The odd couple also joined up to write a transportation bill seeking to use relief funds for natural disaster cleanup on roads, trails, bridges and transit systems. For true immigration enforcement advocates, Padilla should represent the enemy.

If Cornyn studied immigration history, he’d know that official amnesties, passed by Congress and signed by the sitting president, only encourage more illegal immigration. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Actgranted amnesty to about 2.7 million unlawfully present aliens, and promised to resolve a wide range of immigration problems like hiring aliens, and resolving the ag labor shortages. Today, 36 years later, about 15.5 million illegal immigrants reside in the U.S., one million of them arrived during Biden’s first year in office, and immigration-related issues are more vexing than in 1986. IRCA was a colossal failure, yet amnesty is always a primary congressional goal.

Unless Cornyn is living in a vacuum, he must know that under Biden, amnesty is constantly ongoing although through executive fiat. Thousands of migrants released into the interior have received parole, an immigration benefit that allows aliens to secure work permits. Biden has abused parole – normally issued on a temporary basis to individuals to assist in cases of urgent, humanitarian need. Under Biden, Temporary Protected Status protections have been granted to or extended for  Afghans,  Burmese,  Cameroonians,  Haitians, Somalis, South Sudanese, Ukrainians, Venezuelans and Yemenis. In the aggregate, the TPS population under Biden increased by several hundred thousand foreign nationals. All will receive work permits, and few will ever return home.

At a minimum, whether he was joking or not, Cornyn’s reference to amnesty demonstrated extremely poor judgment. Open borders and illegal immigration have spun out of control under the Democratic White House and Congress. Because of open borders, fentanyl and human trafficking have reached epic proportions, and Americans are deeply concerned about the nation’s future, and overwhelmingly oppose amnesty.

Cornyn’s next re-election bid comes in 2026, enough time for him to wise up to what his constituents’ priorities are. To Texans, many of whose counties declared the border crisis an invasion, amnesty is no joking matter.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration and its consequences. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org. Read more at joeguzzardi@substack.com.

Amnesty No Laughing Matter for Cornyn

Secure Border And Save Lives

Secure Border And Save Lives

By Joe Guzzardi

San Antonio officials last week reported the deaths of 53 migrants, a total that includes 40 men and 13 women. The senseless deaths are an international tragedy that plays out year after year. Migrant deaths near the border are common as people attempt to cross rugged terrain without adequate water, food or clothing. Before Monday, the worst smuggling-related mass fatality in recent Texas history was in 2003, when 19 people died after being trapped in an unrefrigerated dairy truck for hundreds of miles. The International Organization for Migration calculated that at least 650 migrants died crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021.

In the latest heartbreaking incident, the migrants were trapped in a tractor-trailer; 46 were dead at the scene, and another five expired from heat exhaustion and dehydration, gruesome ways to die, at local hospitals. Five children were among the dead that included 22 Mexicans, seven Guatemalans and two Hondurans. Officials are working to identify the nationalities of the other victims.

The list of parties responsible for these needless deaths is long, and includes at its top the United States President, Joe Biden. Texas Governor Gregg Abbott tweeted, “These deaths are on Biden. They are a result of his deadly open border policies. They show the consequences of his refusal to enforce the law.”

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also was highly critical of the Biden administration. Obrador placed the culpability on the U.S. border and interior failures which, he said, encourage trafficking. But Biden was quick to deflect blame. He called Abbott’s remarks “shameful” grandstanding, while he denounced “exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit.” Incredulously, the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said after the incident that “the border is closed.”

Secure Border And Save Lives

Biden has company on the most culpable list. Among them are Vice President Kamala Harris who has steadfastly refused to travel to the border even though the president specifically gave her that responsibility, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. On social media, Mayorkas promised that he’ll “take action to disrupt smuggling networks.” But Mayorkas’ inaction on border security is the very reason smugglers have thrived under his period as DHS secretary that has seen more than 1 million aliens, exclusive of got-aways, released into the interior.

The only smattering of good news is that four perpetrators, including Juan Francisco D’Luna-Bilbao and Juan Claudio D’Luna-Mendez, are in federal custody. Documents filed on June 28 confirmed that police went to a San Antonio address listed on the tractor-trailer’s registration and stopped a Ford pickup truck that was leaving the property. Police arrested both D’Lunas and charged them with illegal possession of multiple firearms. Both are Mexican citizens in the country illegally after overstaying their tourist visas. Visa overstays are another failure of the government. Department of Homeland Security statistics indicate that in 2020, there were 684,500 visa overstays, up about 1 percent from 2019.

The U.S. border with Mexico has essentially been open, albeit to different degrees, for decades. When the White House and Congress get serious about securing America’s Southwest border, and enforcing the immigration laws that provide citizens with a safe interior, then the smuggling business will slowly die out. The most humane, most life-saving border policy is one that rigorously secures the border.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration and its consequences. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org. Find more at joeguzzardi@substack.com.

Secure Border And Save Lives

John Philip Sousa Baseball Ace, Happy 4th Of July

John Philip Sousa Baseball Ace, Happy 4th Of July

By Joe Guzzardi

In the mid-19th century, John Philip Sousa was one of America’s biggest “base ball” bugs, as fans were then called. In his autobiography, “Marching Along,” Sousa, born in 1854, described the joy baseball had imparted to him since way back to the Civil War. Abner Doubleday, the sport’s mythical inventor, was a Union general in the war who fought at the decisive Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.

Throughout the war, when soldiers on either side weren’t marching or engaged in battle, they played “base ball” to break up camp life’s monotony. Commanders and army doctors encouraged “base ball” believing that it kept the soldiers fit, healthy and out of trouble. While soldiers frequently took part in foot races, wrestling and boxing matches, and occasionally even cricket or football, “base ball” was the most popular of all competitive sports in both army camps. Historians noted that baseball came of age during the Civil War, and entered mainstream American culture during those years. Note: in 1884, The New York Times style guide changed base ball to baseball, and it has been written that way ever since.

As a Washington, D.C. youth, Sousa watched the game evolve from its earliest days through the Dead Ball era that showcased baseball’s first inductees: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner. Starting in 1857, the 21-run endpoint was eliminated, with games instead ending after nine innings. Foreshadowing modern-day baseball, other rule changes were introduced, including called strikes — previously, strikes were only the result of missed swings. Also, cricket-style flat bats were banned, and a white line marked the boundary between fair and foul territory; the umpire no longer had to guess where the ball landed.

Sousa was more than a fan. Through his years as a bandmaster, Sousa often pitched in games which pitted his band members against local nines. Eventually, his band grew large enough so that intra-squad games between the brass and woodwind sections were played. Whenever the opportunity arose to promote the band in front of a large audience, Sousa, often called “The American March King,” would pitch an inning or two. His band members referred to Sousa as “Ace,” and he pitched until age 62.

John Philip Sousa Baseball Ace, Happy 4th Of July

In the February 1909 issue of “Baseball Magazine,” Sousa, in his essay titled “The Greatest Game in the World,” wrote effusively about playing the American Guards on Independence Day, 1900 at the Paris, France, Exposition Universelle, the World’s Fair. “What,” asked Sousa, “could have been more appropriate for two American organizations in a foreign land to do [play baseball] on the glorious Fourth?” The All-American game that Sousa loved was one of the first baseball games played in Europe.

At the behest of Baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, and to celebrate the National League’s 50th anniversary, Sousa in 1925 wrote “The National Game” that combined his two greatest passions, baseball and marches. The original performances featured four baseball bat solos.

As rousing as “The National Game” march is, Sousa’s classic, “Stars and Stripes Forever,” is more uplifting. Written in 1896, and congressionally approved as the nation’s official march in 1987, Sousa’s lyrics have inspired patriotism in generations of Americans:

“Red and white and starry blue

Is freedom’s shield and home.

“Other nations may deem their flags the best
And cheer them with fervid elation

“But the flag of the North and South and West
Is the flag of flags, the flag of Freedom’s nation.

“Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.”

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

John Philip Sousa Baseball Ace, Happy 4th Of July

Challenges Await Resettled Afghans

Challenges Await Resettled Afghans

By Joe Guzzardi

Rental costs across the United States are rising at the fastest rate in decades. Because the COVID-related, federally mandated eviction moratoriums have been lifted, landlords can boot out existing tenants, increase rents and find new occupants. Landlords can reap windfall profits from the new ground rules, but at the expense of the many people who find themselves either homeless or anxious about the possibility of becoming homeless.

In some of the most sought-after destinations, rent has soared faster and higher than the national average. Record high rents, some as high as 40 percent above previous listings, have been seen in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami and Austin. Recently, prospective Manhattan renters waited more than an hour to view an East Village, 371-square-foot, one-bedroom, third-floor walk-up listed for $2,337.39 a month.

Among those caught up in the dramatic rental price spike are the recently arrived Afghan evacuees. The Department of State’s Reception and Placement Program provides the paroled Afghan evacuees – they don’t have refugee status – with initial resettlement services for up to three months. This includes $2,275 per refugee resettled, with $1,225 of that money going toward food, shelter and clothing. The evacuees are eligible for a long list of affirmative social services programs that include Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income, Head Start, Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC). Some Afghan families range in size from 6-11 persons which means they require more expensive and harder-to-find three- or four-bedroom units.

As challenging as finding short-term rentals is, long-term housing is more difficult. Evacuees are, for the most part, unemployed, have no credit history and generally are required to provide the first and last months’ rent in advance as well as a security deposit, an aggregate sum that can total several thousand dollars. In Minneapolis, where rent for a 778-square-foot apartment averages $1,621, Gul Rahim finds himself, his family of 13 and his pregnant wife facing eviction. Rahim doesn’t have a job and, since he doesn’t speak English and is caring for his ill and pregnant wife, can’t look for one either. Of Minneapolis’ 1,200 evacuees, 600 like Rahim are confronting a housing crisis and may soon join the city’s substantial homeless population.

Challenges Await Resettled Afghans

As grave as the affordable housing shortage is for the evacuees, adjusting to U.S. K-12 public schools will present equally weighty problems for their children. Afghanistan has a dual education process that differs significantly from the U.S. In Afghanistan, two parallel systems ongoing at the same time. First, religious education is the responsibility of clerics at mosques, and second, the government provides free academic education at state schools. As for U.S. teachers, helping the Afghans will add to their already-substantial responsibility to instruct other international students. Overcrowded schools are coping with millions of English language learners and will now have to instruct Afghan speakers whose native languages are Dari and Pashto. Teacher time spent on English language learners detracts from the instruction that citizen children should receive, the lack of which harms their quality of education. The greater the number of students in a classroom, the less attention each student can receive from the teacher. This particularly affects students who are struggling and need the extra attention.

The housing emergency that many Afghans are dealing with and the K-12 tribulations that lay ahead are the predictable outcomes of the Biden administration’s hasty, botched withdrawal. Moreover, the open border will create the same set of housing and schooling problems for more than 1 million foreign nationals that have arrived from 150 different countries. They’ll all need places to live and education for their children. The question that Biden and his inner circle never asked is what comes next after millions of illegal aliens and evacuees arrive and need nurturing. If the question were ever asked, no one thought to consider the obvious answer – America has enough affordable housing and education woes without compounding them by importing millions more needy people.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joeguzzardi.substack.com.

Challenges Await Resettled Afghans

Most Endangered River Provides Water to 40 Million

Most Endangered River Provides Water to 40 Million Residents

By Joe Guzzardi

At a June 14 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee meeting, environmentalists warned that the Colorado River’s reservoir level drop might bring dramatic cuts to water deliveries provided to the seven states dependent on the river. Those states are Colorado, California, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona and Nevada. Alarmingly, given its importance, the conservation group American Rivers ranked the Colorado as No. 1 on its list of the nation’s most endangered rivers.

Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton told the committee that maintaining “critical levels” at the largest reservoirs in the U.S. – Lake Mead and Lake Powell – will require large reductions in water deliveries. Touton advised the committee that, in the next two months, her agency is negotiating with the seven states that count on the Colorado River to develop a plan for apportioning the water supply reductions. The Reclamation Bureau is the federal agency charged with assisting the western states, Native American tribes and others to meet water needs. An estimated 40 million residents throughout the region rely on the Colorado for water.

Most Endangered River Provides Water to 40 Million Residents

The committee’s witnesses were unanimous in their predictions that acute water shortages are in the near-term future. John Entsminger, the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s general manager, said that the slow-motion train wreck that’s been accelerating for 20 years has created “the moment of reckoning.” Said Entsminger, “We are 150 feet from 25 million Americans losing access to the Colorado River, and the rate of decline is accelerating.”

Because the Western United States is suffering through a relentless drought, analysts predict that next year the affected states will cope with a decrease of between 2 million and 4 million acre-feet of water. Scientific Americanreported that 2021’s exceptionally dry year created a record-breaking drought, or mega-drought. The last 20 years have been the driest two decades in the last 1,200 years. To date, 2022 is the driest year on record in California. Researchers predict with a 94 percent degree of certainty that California’s drought will continue for at least one more year.

University of Colorado, Boulder climate scientist Imtiaz Rangwala has observed drought conditions increasingly worsen in the western and central U.S. “The last two years have been more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 Celsius) warmer than normal in these regions. Large swaths of the Southwest have been even hotter, with temperatures more than 3 F (1.7 C) higher.”

But neither during the hearing nor in the media writeups was population growth in the seven western states mentioned. The 2000 populations for Colorado, California, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona and Nevada were 4.3 million, 33.9 million, 1.8 million, 2.2 million, 494,000, 5.1 million and 2 million, respectively. And in 2022, the states’ populations are, respectively, 5.8 million, 39.5 million, 2.1 million, 3.3 million, 579,000, 7.6 million and 3.2 million. In slightly more than two decades, about 12 million more people have become dependent on the Colorado for water.

The link between more people and more water consumption is undeniable. Yet Congress, the White House, the media and academia refuse to have a rational discussion about reducing the flow of 1 million-plus legal immigrants which, with their offspring, drive population increases. Knowing that the nation’s western states are in a water crisis, opening the border to millions, as the Biden administration is doing, is ecological suicide. Nevertheless, the status quo on adding population continues on autopilot, consequences be damned.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org and joeguzzardi.substack.com.

Most Endangered River Provides Water to 40 Million Residents

Biden DHS To Distribute Illegals To Stop Bad Optics

Biden DHS To Distribute Illegals To Stop Bad Optics

By Joe Guzzardi

Just five months before mid-term elections, the Biden White House is concerned that ugly border optics may cost Democrats both congressional chambers. Border shelters in Texas and Arizona are bulging at the seams. Customs and Border Protection lack other options to address the border crisis and are releasing illegal aliens onto city streets. With this situation, the Department of Homeland Security is preparing, at taxpayer cost, to transport migrants deep into the interior.

The latest DHS plan comes during a record illegal immigrant surge that includes 234,088 aliens in April alone, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Religious and nongovernmental organizations at the border, which typically house illegal immigrants after CBP releases them, are overwhelmed.

In El Paso, for example, CBP recently freed dozens of migrants, penniless non-English speakers, who then sat on street corners. The El Paso Times reported that the city’s resources to help have been depleted. Agents release more than 1,000 immigrants a day despite El Paso only having enough room to house 1,700. Neither the DHS nor any other federal agency contacted El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser to warn that, because of the border surge, large numbers of aliens were on the way. The Biden administration’s policy is to operate arbitrarily, and let the local communities fend for themselves.

Sources with knowledge of the DHS plan said that taxpayer dollars would be allocated to reroute aliens to shelters around the country. The first city DHS targeted is Los Angeles. Then, future migrants will be sent to Albuquerque, Houston, Dallas and other cities. The effort to relocate migrants involves the Southwest Border Coordination Center, which comprises officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, CBP and other agencies.

Despite the assembled experience that the multiple federal agencies assumably have, their decision to initiate the program in Los Angeles is baffling. No city in the nation is less prepared to accept mostly poor, mostly unskilled illegal immigrants than Los Angeles with its 20 percent poverty rate. The city and Los Angeles County’s populations are, respectively, four million and 10 million. Both the city and county struggle with a homelessness crisis that the aliens will exacerbate. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s latest numbers, which were gathered in 2020 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, show that the county’s homeless population increased by 12.7 percent to 66,436 over the previous year, while Los Angeles’ homeless population spiked 16.1 percent to 41,290.

Biden DHS To Distribute Illegals To Stop Bad Optics

Within the general Los Angeles homeless population, a Hispanic subset revealed their dashed hopes about coming to California to find a job, only to eventually be left without shelter. KQED, Northern California’s NPR and PBS member station, spoke with homeless illegal immigrants about their lives post-border crossing. Jobs were lost, illnesses occurred, rents increased to unaffordable levels and connections with family back home grew infrequent. A day laborer, who goes by “Alonso,” said that if conditions in Los Angeles don’t improve, he’ll return to Mexico.

For all the other Alonsos located in California, Albuquerque, Houston and Dallas, Mayorkas is ensuring that their lives will remain unfulfilled. In Albuquerque, the poverty rate is 18 percent, and homelessness is rising, quadrupling since 2013. In Dallas, which has a 22 percent poverty rate, shelters are full every night. And in Houston, with its 21.2 percent poverty rate, homelessness is up 5.8 percent in 2022 in year-over-year counts.

For those who point out that the administration has broken virtually every border and interior enforcement immigration law, and by so doing jeopardized a sovereign America, Biden has the audacity to equate patriots with domestic violent extremists.

Since terrorists with murder on their minds can enter the U.S. effortlessly, Biden’s insult is laden with irony. An alleged ISIS operative, Shihab Ahmed Shihab, already inside the U.S., plotted to smuggle fellow terrorists through the open border. Once safely across, the terrorists planned to surveil former President George W. Bush’s home and his institution to develop an assassination plot. Despite Mayorkas’ claim that the border is secure, the FBI warrant application indicated that Shihab claimed to have smuggled two individuals associated with Hezbollah into the U.S. for a fee of $50,000 each. Shahib, an Iraqi national, had an asylum application pending.

Biden’s immigration agenda, after 18 months as president, includes dismantling immigration law, opening the border and importing poor, limited-skilled individuals, relocating them to communities that can barely keep afloat. As well, the agenda includes disregarding terrorist plots to assassinate former presidents and encouraging fraudulent asylum claims. Little wonder the White House is apprehensive about the upcoming elections.

Biden DHS To Distribute Illegals To Stop Bad Optics