Category: Joe Guzzardi

LA Was Once Largest Farming County

By Joe Guzzardi

For the lucky few among us who grew up during the 1950s in Southern California, and specifically around the Pacific Palisades/Malibu area, the non-stop video coverage of the massive wildfire was impossible to watch. My thoughts took me back to when the state lived up to its golden image. In their book “From Cows to Cement,” authors Rachel Surls and Judith Gerberk documented Los Angeles County’s agricultural history which was once America’s largest farming county. Today, L.A., once a silkworm center, is the U.S.’ largest urban county. After World War II, around 1945, people moved to Los Angeles in waves to build factories, large office buildings, cookie cutter housing and other edifices that drove land prices ever-upward. Values slowly but inevitably rose; land boom followed land boom. As property assessments soared, farmers couldn’t resist the lucrative opportunity to cash in. A less esthetic L.A. survived, with farmland replaced by cement. By 2023, Los Angeles County had become the nation’s most populous, with nearly 10 million residents, more than about 25% of California’s total population. In 1950, the county’s population was 4.2 million. Today, L.A. County is one of the nation’s largest, covering more than 4,000 square miles. If it were a state, it would be the country’s eighth largest.

Underneath Los Angeles’ urban cement nightmare lay thousands of acres of once-productive farmland. Farming was Los Angeles’ hub from its 1781 founding into the mid-twentieth century. Over the four decades between 1909 to 1949, Los Angeles grew from a farming community into an agricultural powerhouse. Farmers experimented with a multitude of crops, from fruits and vegetables, to hemp, cotton, and flowers. Livestock was important too, with major stockyards that competed with Chicago and Omaha. Hundreds of dairy and poultry farms flourished.

Intrastate transplants went west for more than business opportunities. The sunny and warm weather was a lure. To mid-western arrivals, the beaches were unparalleled. California’s coastline which stretches out over 840 miles has over 420 public beaches, the star gem of which is Malibu. Beach Boys’ songs and movies like “Beach Blanket Bingo” drew a picture of non-stop fun in the sun. All age groups that in-migrated to California found their way to the beach to suntan, fish off the pier, dine in one of the popular just-caught fish restaurants or to hang out, but also to build homes as close to the beaches as their pocketbooks could afford. The celebrities and other wealthy elite built on the ocean’s edge unconcerned about the mudslides that heavy precipitation brings.

The recent Palisades fires followed by pounding rains have created an ecological threat to the Pacific Ocean. Debris and toxins released from the fires will damage kelp forests and lead to destructive algae blooms that snuff out ocean life. The much-needed rain will mark the beginning of the worst effects in the ocean. “The Malibu coastline is extremely unique,” said Dan Pondella, Occidental College biology professor and Southern California Marine Institute research director, “It’s probably the highest density of fishes throughout Southern California.” When rain mixes with debris from burn scars, a slurry of mud, rocks and rubble pour into ocean, which Pondella said acts like both sandpaper and a blackout curtain for the fragile kelp forests. “You’ll see anything from reduced light, which limits photosynthesis in plant and algal growth, to reefs actually being completely buried in ash,” he said. The ash layer remains in the environment for a long time. When the Woolsey Fire tore through Malibu in 2018, it dumped thousands of tons of ash into the ocean, which Pondella’s team was still finding in reefs five years later. More bad news: Wildlife officials reported that a toxic algae outbreak has left as many as 50 sea lions sickened and stranded on Malibu beaches in the past week.

For the next few years as clean up and rebuilding continue, Malibu’s good times are over. When friends ask what it was like to grow up near California’s beaches, I can’t come up with a description that would do my experience justice. I simply say, “I wish you’d been there with me to appreciate it.”

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

LA Was Once Largest Farming County

When Clemente And Mays Roamed The Same Outfield

By Joe Guzzardi

During the seven-plus decades that I’ve been a baseball fan, I’ve watched games at all levels— Little and Pony League World Series, high school, the NCAA World Series and countless major and minor league games. When friends ask about my most memorable baseball moments, I answer going to Puerto Rico Winter League (PRWL) games. I’m not alone in my judgment. Dick Young, a New York-based columnist who wrote about the Yankees, Giants, Mets and the Brooklyn Dodgers for more than 50 years said that the most exciting games he ever covered were between the San Juan Senators against its neighbor, the Santurce Crabbers.

Thomas E. Van Hyning’s new book, “The Caribbean Series: Latin America’s Annual Baseball Tournament, 1949-2024,” transported me back to those wonderful days in the mid-1950s through the early 1960s, when as a Puerto Rico resident, I watched some of MLB and the Negro National League’s (NNL) best “peloteros,” as the fans referred to them. Among the league batting champions were Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, and Orlando Cepeda; NNL stars Willard Brown and Buster Clarkson won the runs batted in titles. Crabbers’ mound stalwarts were the Giants Ruben Gomez, a 28-year regular in the PRWL and Chicago Cubs ace and Sam “Toothpick” Jones, the first black pitcher to toss an MLB no-hitter. Santurce fielded the most successful PRWL teams of the 1950s. Author Van Hyning compared Santurce to the New York Yankees, “a franchise with a rich history and a winning tradition.” The Crabbers were all of that and more in the first season I watched them, 1954-1955. Most thrilling of all, in the Crabbers’ outfield, Clemente played left field with Mays in center, a fans’ delight as the duo roamed the deepest recesses of magnificent Sixto Escobar Stadium to snag long line drives. Well-traveled fans called Sixto Escobar the Fenway Park by the ocean. Clemente and Mays played together in numerous All-Star games, but the only time they played side-by-side continuously was as Santurce teammates.

Clemente respected Mays, with whom he had friendly competition, but Roberto didn’t worship the 1954 NL MVP. Instead, Clemente admired Monte Irvin, his childhood baseball hero who played for the Giants and, earlier, the NNL’s Newark Eagles. Mays played only one season with the Crabbers, 1954/1955, but what a season it was: batting average, .395, with 12 HRs and 33 RBIs in truncated season. “Ole, mira,” came the chants for Mays, the Spanish translation of, “Say, hey.” Clemente captured the 1956/1957 batting crown with the decade’s highest average, .396. During his 15-years-long PRWL career, Clemente played for the Crabbers, the Caguas Criollos, and the agaSenators, and against topflight MLB pitching, had career total of hitting .323, with thirty-five homers, and 269 RBIs. Clemente also had two managing stints with the Senators and guided the team to the playoffs twice.

Clemente was destined for stardom from the day that Brooklyn Dodgers scout Al Campanis, who had managed Cuba’s Cienfuegos Elephantes that winter, attended a tryout at Sixto Escobar. Campanis graded Clemente, then 18, as either A or A+ in the essential five-tools category—hitting, hitting for power, fielding, throwing, and speed. In his report to Dodgers’ management, Campanis wrote, “Has all the tools and likes to play. A real good-looking prospect.” On Nov. 22, 1954, the Pirates selected the 20-year-old Puerto Rican prospect from the Brooklyn Dodgers in MLB’s Rule 5 Draft. The Dodgers didn’t need Clemente that first season — outfielders Duke Snider and Carl Furillo hit .309 and .314 respectively, combined to hit sixty-eight home runs and helped Brooklyn win the 1955 World Series. But letting Clemente get away was an obvious Dodgers’ mistake when he won the ’66 NL MVP Award, four NL batting crowns and led the Pirates to World Series championships in ’60 and ’71. Over the course of his 18 MLB seasons, Clemente slashed .345/.382/.466 against the Dodgers with seventeen triples and twenty-one home runs in 291 career games. He didn’t hit higher than .330 against any other MLB team and is the only Hall of Famer to have been selected in the Rule 5 Draft.

The Crabbers, led by Mays’ .440 average and Clemente’s series-leading eight runs scored, topped off an excellent season by winning the 1955 Caribbean World Series. I moved back to the mainland before I would have seen a long string of Cooperstown Hall of Famers like Bob Gibson, Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, Robin Yount, and Reggie Jackson. As I read Van Hyning’s book, thoughts of those great evenings I spent in Sixto Escobar Stadium, enjoying the warm Caribbean trade winds and top-flight baseball came back to me as though they happened yesterday.

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

When Clemente And Mays Roamed The Same Outfield

Dems’ Roadmap Out of Their Funk

By Joe Guzzardi

If the Democrats are as battered, bruised and confused as has been repeatedly written, then the party should act immediately to remove Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). After the 2024 drubbing that Democrats were on the short end of, and with defeated presidential candidate Kamala Harris permanently out of DC politics, Schumer is an omni-present reminder of the party’s failure. When last seen, Schumer was protesting in front of the Treasury Building alongside Maxine Waters (R-Calif.), “We will win. We won’t lose,” a reference to Elon Musk’s DOGE. Yelling and arm-waving is a bad image for Waters, age 86, Schumer, 75, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA.), another shrieking protester, age 75, and the floundering Democratic Party. Waters has been a congressional fixture for 36 years, Schumer, 45 years, and Warren, 10 years although she has been hanging around Washington in various capacities for 30 years. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), 80, Senate Minority Whip, is a 42-year congressional veteran who will assumedly run for a sixth term in 2026. Durbin’s signature issue, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the unpopular and unconstitutional DACA, has been stuck in legislative quicksand for two decades.  Some DACAs are now over forty, have protection from deportation, work authorization, jobs, and families that include American citizen children.

When the American Federation of Government Employees gathered on Capitol Hill and rallied “to save the civil service” and to oppose President Trump’s push to reduce federal government’s workforce size, Maxine Dexter, (D-Ore.) said, “…we have to f… Trump.” Free speech rights may protect Dexter, an M.D. and first term U.S. Representative, but her vulgar comment could be construed as a threat to the president, a felony that carries a maximum jail sentence of up to five years and a fine not to exceed $250,000. As President Teddy Roosevelt said, “Profanity is the parlance of the fool.”

Whether engaged in free speech or felonious behavior, the Democrats’ strategy is wrong. Insistence that the Trump administration represents a “constitutional crisis” does not resonate with voters, too reminiscent of the endless pre-election assertion that fascist DJT would be a “threat to democracy.” Tennis players’ comportment could help guide Democrats to get over their automatic hysterics of all-things Trump. In tennis, after the match, the loser and winner meet at the net, shake hands, and pat each other on the back. The loser returns to the locker room, not grousing but committed to reviewing the match tapes, identifying strategically what led to his loss, and dedicating himself to practicing longer and harder to win next time. Before the upcoming tournament, the loser fires his coach, his trainer, and his dietician; he sheds deadwood. Getting rid of power-obsessed, entrenched Schumer and Durbin would be hard unless former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is summoned. Pelosi put the skids to President Biden, her friend of 50 years, to end his re-election bid. Even if Schumer and Durbin retire or are pressured to resign, New York and Illinois will remain blue, but the rest of the 2026 Senate election calendar looks grim for Democrats, especially after Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) announced their retirements

Looking back at November, woeful Kamala Harris deserves the lion’s share of the blame for her landslide defeat. Harris was a bad candidate who ran a horrible campaign. Her candidacy was, as Democratic strategist James Carville said, like starting the seventh string quarterback in the Superbowl. But the Democrats’ bench is wafer-thin. California Governor Gavin Newsom, Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) or any of the other possible candidates would have fared worse than Harris. They all shared the impossible task of winning while saddled with President Biden’s burdensome baggage—an open border that admitted more than 10 million unvetted illegal aliens, national debt increases of more than $6 trillion, and brazen disregard for the Supreme Court’s ruling that he could not forgive student debt, a decision he disobeyed when he subsequently discharged  multiple billions in indebtedness, and then bragged about his defiance of SCOTUS.  Not for nothing did President Biden have a 35% approval rating among likely voters.

On a nationally televised interview, the host asked his guest Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson if Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had knocked on his door to present the Democrat plan. In the imaginary conversation, Jefferies would say to Johnson, “We agree that government waste and fraud must be eliminated. But we have produced a better plan you should consider.” Johnson replied to the interviewer that no one from the aisle’s other side had, at any time, reached out to him. The Democrats undertaking—to forget about President Trump, he won, you lost. Make a sound plan, promote it nationwide, sell it to the voters, a task that is within your reach. Statistics compiled in 2024 show that of the 210 million registered voters 38.8 million are Republicans and forty-nine million are Democrats. The new and improved Democratic roadmap should be to stop harping about President Trump and instead explain why Americans deserve your party’s vote.

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

Pam Bondi Onslaught Righting Old Wrongs

By Joe Guzzardi

When President Donald Trump talks to his pillow every evening, he’s thanking his lucky stars that his original Attorney General nominee, the controversial Florida U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz, dropped out. Trump’s second choice, Pam Bondi, is off at break-neck speed to right many of the wrongs done by the prior administration. The same day that the U.S. Senate confirmed Bondi, she issued several memos including one to put DOJ employees on alert that if they allow their personal political views to interfere with defending federal priorities, they could be fired. Another memo Bondi distributed to her staff created what the new AG called a “Weaponizing Working Group.” The group will, among its other missions, investigate special council Jack Smith’s part in two federal criminal cases against President Trump: one over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, surge on the U.S. Capitol and another on his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Bondi directed the newly created group to examine potential federal weaponization cooperation with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s and New York Attorney General Letitia James’ offices.

Most important to voters who voted for and support President Trump’s commitment to removing criminal aliens, Bondi ordered a pause on distributing funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, cities or counties that refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or abide by federal immigration law. Enforcement advocates have for years urged both Republican and Democratic administrations to stop funding self-appointed sanctuary cites that are, in truth, a refuge for criminals. San Francisco and other sanctuary cities and states sued the Trump administration; Bondi’s overdue actions against immigration lawbreakers have been temporarily enjoined, but better times are coming. Sure enough, Bondi has also sued for their immigration crimes the States of Illinois and New York as well as AG James and DMV head Mark Schroeder. “We sued Illinois. New York did not listen, now you’re [NY] next. This is a new DOJ, and we are taking steps to protect Americans,” Bondi told reporters. “New York has chosen to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens.” As an example, Bondi pointed to New York’s Green Light Law that prohibits the state’s sheriff’s department and other agencies from sharing motor vehicle data with federal authorities for purposes of immigration enforcement. “They have a ‘tip-off’ provision that requires New York’s DMV commissioner to promptly inform any illegal alien when a federal immigration agency has requested their information,” Bondi added. “It’s tipping off an illegal alien. And it’s unconstitutional, and that’s why we filed this lawsuit.”

Not only has Bondi expressed her determination to end the practice of harboring criminal illegal aliens, but border czar Tom Homan has strongly stated that governors and mayors who obstruct ICE in its mission or any other party that interferes could be prosecuted. Neither Bondi nor Homan could have imagined that, after her forceful and specific memos, FBI agents would have leaked information that allowed Tren de Aragua gang members to avoid capture. Allowing personal political views to interfere with federal law enforcement is punishable by, at a minimum, dismissal. Last week, Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested that the FBI leaked information about when and where the raids would occur. “Some of the information we are receiving tends to lead toward the FBI,” Homan said in a nationally televised interview wherein he also vowed to recommend to the Justice Department that the leakers be prosecuted.

Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, strongly pro-law enforcement, promised Homan that not only will these persons lose their jobs and pensions, but they will also go to jail, adding that the leaks about ICE raids targeting Venezuelan TdA members are “giving the bad guys a heads-up so they can escape apprehension.”

Once Noem and Homan identify the traitorous agents, the soon-to-be appointed new FBI director Kash Patel can start to root out the abundant rot.

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

Pam Bondi Onslaught Righting Old Wrongs

US Workers Lost Ground to Immigrants In January

By Joe Guzzardi

As always, the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report requires scrutiny to uncover the nuances that obscure the truth. On February 7, the BLS released the January 2025 economic report. Throughout former President Biden’s four-year term, analysts cast a skeptical eye on what they claimed were inflated job creation totals. Last Labor Day, the BLS confirmed a significant error, and confessed to overstating job creation numbers from March 2023 to March 2024 by at least 818,000, the largest miscalculation in 15 years.

In January, total non-farm payroll employment rose by 143,000, with job gains concentrated in low-paying sectors including health care, retail trade, and social assistance. Conversely, employment declined in higher-paying industries such as mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction.

Immigration experts have long speculated about how the Biden administration’s border policies would manifest in monthly BLS data. During Biden’s presidency, millions of illegal aliens crossed the border, most requiring employment to support themselves. The CBP-One mobile phone app—an illegal Biden maneuver—was officially announced in 2023 but actually had begun in 2021, providing a means for illegal aliens to fly to their preferred U.S. city. The administration unconstitutionally granted them parole, an immigration status that includes employment authorization. The impact of these newly admitted millions on the workforce was inevitable, though it was unlikely to be highlighted during Biden’s tenure. Immigration, typically a taboo subject for Biden and his staff, was rarely discussed except in positive terms.

The Center for Immigration Studies’ (CIS) Director of Research, Steven Camarota, analyzed the January 2025 Household Survey, which finally accounted for the substantial legal and illegal immigration surge since 2020. The significant population increase predictably influenced the labor market. The new BLS data revealed that since January 2020—the period just before COVID and the immigration surge—88 percent of all employment growth has gone to legal and illegal immigrants, often referred to as foreign-born. Immigrant-dominated employment occurred simultaneously with a near-record share, 22.1 percent, of working-age U.S.-born men detached from the labor force.

As CIS previously noted, earlier surveys’ failure to fully account for the illegal immigration flow resulted in an underestimation of the total U.S. population. Good news for American workers appears on the horizon. President Trump’s commitment to securing the border and his immediate cancellation of the CBP-One app have dampened prospective illegal aliens’ enthusiasm for entering the U.S. unlawfully. In January, the U.S. manufacturing sector expanded for the first time after 26 months of contraction, as the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI)—an indicator of prevailing economic trends in manufacturing and service sectors—registered 50.9 percent, 1.7 percentage points higher than the seasonally adjusted 49.2 percent reported in December.

Of the subindexes that directly factor into PMI, new orders, production, employment, and supplier deliveries were in expansion territory compared to only two subindexes showing improvement in December, the last full month of the Biden administration. PMI has surged since President Trump’s November election, as manufacturers and buyers anticipate more business-friendly policies.

The remainder of the first calendar quarter will reveal whether Trump’s presidency truly represents an America-first agenda or if his current popularity is merely a temporary blip on the four-year political radar.

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

Noem to Terminate Venezuela TPS

By Joe Guzzardi

The list of misguided federal immigration policies is extensive, making it challenging to identify the most detrimental one. Among the most harmful to U.S. citizens is the H-1B visa program, which has displaced tens of thousands of skilled U.S. IT workers and denied recent college graduates fair access to high-paying, white-collar jobs. While employers claim a shortage of U.S. engineers without supporting evidence, the visa has been continuously issued for over three decades. Carter administration Labor Secretary Ray Marshall called the H-1B visa “the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the public.”

Optional Practical Training (OPT), another concerning program, lacks congressional approval yet offers employers significant benefits. OPT employees are exempt from payroll tax, providing employers roughly 8% savings per hire. The program has expanded to become the nation’s largest guestworker program, with an estimated 300,000 participants annually—far exceeding the H-1B’s 85,000 cap.

Also prominent in current headlines is Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a quasi-amnesty that under President Joe Biden’s administration expanded to include seventeen nations, including those hostile to the U.S. like Somalia, Syria, and Venezuela.

TPS prevents deportations for 18-month periods and can be renewed indefinitely. Historically, terminating the program has proved challenging. In 2017 and 2018, the first Trump administration announced plans to end TPS designations for El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua, concluding that conditions in these countries no longer warranted protected status. Honduras and Nicaragua received their original TPS designation 27 years ago following Hurricane Mitch, while El Salvador’s status dates back 24 years to a 2001 earthquake—hardly “temporary” timeframes. However, in June 2023, then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas rescinded these terminations and granted 18-month extensions for all five countries. In one of his final official acts, Mayorkas extended Venezuela’s 2023 TPS designation from April 3, 2025, through October 2, 2026.

The new DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem, has given TPS critics hope for reform of the entire program. Of the estimated 600,000 Venezuelan TPS recipients currently living in the U.S., 350,000 will lose their employment authorization documents when their designations expire in April. The remaining 250,000, whose authorizations expire in September, will also see their TPS and employment privileges terminated under Noem’s direction.

The Federal Register’s notice regarding these changes highlighted how TPS has enabled thousands of inadmissible aliens to settle in the U.S., straining local resources and maxing out city shelters, police stations, and aid services. DHS also noted the increased presence of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA), a state-sponsored transnational criminal organization now active in at least seventeen states.

The notice cited the “potential magnetic effect” of anticipated 18-month extensions on illegal immigration. “The anticipated designation or extension for TPS and resulting benefit to access [work authorization documents] have been pull factors driving Venezuelan nationals to the United States.” Given President Trump’s January 20 executive orders, Secretary Noem determined that extending Venezuela’s 2023 TPS designation “is in fact contrary to the national interest.” DHS noted that while some challenging conditions persist in Venezuela, improvements in the economy, public health, and crime now allow for safe repatriation.

Though the State Department reissued a Level Four “Do Not Travel” Advisory for Venezuela in September 2024, U.S.-Venezuela relations show signs of improvement. Venezuela has agreed to accept deported illegal aliens, including TdA gang members, and President Nicolas Maduro released six American detainees. Over the past decade, more than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled their country, creating one of the world’s largest migration crises. Regarding DHS’s immigration agenda under her leadership, Noem stated simply: “We’ve just gotten started.”

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

Emmett Ashford Was First Black Umpire

By Joe Guzzardi

For Emmett Ashford, Major League Baseball’s first black umpire, his many challenges to succeed might have deterred others. But Ashford overcame, did an outstanding job, and entertained fans with his colorful, animated on-the-field calls. Los Angeles-born in 1914, Ashford was on his Jefferson High School track and baseball teams. Ashford, the senior class president, graduated in 1933 and then attended Los Angeles Junior College and Chapman College. After graduating, Ashford aced a civil service exam and landed a post office clerk’s job as a clerk where he remained for about 15 years.

In his essay, baseball historian and author Mark Armour wrote that as a young man, Ashford was skilled enough to play semi-pro baseball, but he mostly rode the pine. In 1941, the scheduled umpire didn’t show up, and the players asked Ashford to fill in. Ashford complied— “kicking and screaming.” As the season continued, Ashford established himself as a better umpire than a ball player. “I gave them a little showmanship and the crowd loved it,” he later remembered about his flashy style behind the plate.

After he finished a three-year U.S. Navy stint during World War II, Ashford umpired regularly, moving up to topflight college baseball. Ashford took a leave of absence from his post office job in 1951 for a two-month Southwestern International League trial and became organized baseball’s first black umpire. Les Powers, the league president, observed that “Ashford has the making of a big-league umpire.” After the season, SIL offered Ashford a full-time job; he quit the postal service, thereby forfeiting 15 years toward his pension.

Ashford moved up to the Western International League in 1953, before his promotion to the Pacific Coast League in 1954. During his 12 years in the PCL, Ashford became the minor leagues’ best-known umpire, sprinting down the right field line, constantly interacting, and doffing his cap. Before his first MLB season, Ashford reflected, “I feel proud being an umpire in the big leagues. Not because I am the first Negro, but because umpires in the major leagues are very select people. Right now, I just want to vindicate Mr. Cronin’s [American League president] faith in me… But first, I’ve got to buy me a pair of eyeglasses,” he joked.

Ashford’s first regular-season game occurred on April 11, 1966, in Washington D.C’s Griffith Stadium, the traditional American League opener which pitted the Cleveland Indians against the woe-be-gone Senators. His first major-league challenge was getting into the ballpark. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey attended so he could throw out the ceremonial first ball, but the skeptical Secret Service doubted that a black man could have been assigned to the umpiring crew. Humphrey later kidded Ashford, who had worked at third base, that he had not had any plays to call. “No plays, no boots,” kidded Ashford, “but it was the greatest day of my life.” Cronin told his new employee, “Emmett, today you made history. I’m proud of you.”

Even Ashford’s peers were often hostile. Pitcher Jim Bouton described Ashford’s travails in Ball Four, his 1969 season baseball expose: “Other umpires talk behind his back. Sometimes they’ll let him run out on the field himself and the other three who are holding back in the dugout will snigger…. It must be terrible for Ashford. When you’re an umpire and travel around the big leagues in a group of four and three of them are white…well, it can make for a very lonely summer.”

By the time Ashford made his MLB debut, he was over fifty and some of his questionable calls enraged American League managers, many of whom, The New York Times George Vecsey wrote, had “rarely been confronted with black authority in their lives.” After umpiring in the 1970 World Series, Ashford retired, officially because he was past the mandatory 55-year-old retirement age although some in the media speculated that he had been nudged out.

In his post-retirement years, Ashford worked as a public relations adviser to then MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, he umpired an occasional minor-league or college game, called old-timers’ games in Dodger Stadium and, for three years, was umpire-in-chief for the Alaskan summer league. Ashford also earned money doing TV commercials and occasional screen appearances. Looking back on his pioneering role, Ashford said: ““It wasn’t easy being an umpire, let alone being a Negro umpire. But since the game is the ballplayer’s bread and butter, all he wants is for you to make the right calls. He doesn’t care if you’re white or black, Eskimo or Indian. In turn, I worked like hell. I was an umpire, not a black umpire.”

After a heart attack Ashford, age 76, died in 1980 in Marina Del Ray, Calif. Ashford’s body was cremated, and his ashes are interred at Lakeview Cemetery in Cooperstown, New York.

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

Emmett Ashford Was First Black Umpire

Birthright Citizenship Headed to SCOTUS

By Joe Guzzardi

For decades, birthright citizenship has vexed Republicans, Democrats, and constitutional scholars. President Donald Trump’s Executive Order described both birthright citizenship’s history and its purpose:

 From Trump’s EO, Protecting the Value and Meaning of America Citizenship: “The Fourteenth Amendment states: ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.’  That provision rightly repudiated the Supreme Court of the United States’ shameful decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), which misinterpreted the Constitution as permanently excluding people of African descent from eligibility for United States citizenship solely based on their race.” Trump’s EO would also deny citizenship to foreign nationals legally but temporarily present in the U.S. such as holders of student, work, or tourist visas.

The heated controversy centers around two Fourteenth Amendment phrases. Supporters of the status quo cite “all persons born or naturalized in the United States” which has come to mean illegal aliens and temporary legal residents. Opponents argue that foreign nationals are not and cannot be considered “subject to” the U.S.’s jurisdiction. Predictably, the ACLU and 22 blue state governors and attorneys’ generals immediately challenged the administration’s EO set to be effective in 30 days but would not be retroactive.

When birthright citizenship’s broad scope is considered, the potential negative consequences must be weighed. Start with the 2021-2023 non-immigrant I-94 admissions category to the U.S.—millions of individuals, which includes temporary workers and their families, NAFTA professional workers, specialty occupation workers–mostly H-1B visa holders—and intracompany transfers and their spouses, all of whom could grow or start new families with their children born on U.S. soil automatically becoming American citizens. An estimated 300,000-400,000 citizen children are born each year to mothers who have no legitimate ties to the U.S.

Another temporary visa category, the B, intended for tourism and business purposes, stood at eight million total issued in 2023. The B visa has spawned the most blatant, egregious federal immigration abuses and stands out as the best example of why birthright citizenship should end. Granting automatic citizenship to foreign nationals’ children is a lure to come to the U.S. to deliver a citizen child. President Trump is right to end this practice because, among its other inherent flaws, the birthright citizenship industry encourages illegal activity and threatens national security. The State Department documented that, based on reporting from U.S. embassies and consulates, trends showed an increasing number of B visa applicants whose primary purpose of travel is to give birth in the U.S.

Birth tourism is a criminal enterprise that involves complex schemes and yields millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains. Shady overseas businesses, approximately 500 in China alone, promote birth tourism on the Internet and on social media. As an example of unlawful activity, on January 31, 2019, federal prosecutors announced indictments against 19 people operating three Southern California birth tourism schemes. The “maternity” or “birthing houses” principals charged their clients tens of thousands of dollars, and, in one case, “more than $3.4 million in international wire transfers” were received within a two-year span.

Operators also coached their Chinese customers on how to lie to U.S. officials and hide their pregnancies. Furthermore, “the indictments allege that many of the Chinese birth tourism customers failed to pay all of the medical costs associated with their hospital births, and the debts were referred to collection.” The charges also included making false statements to immigration officials, contempt of court, marriage fraud, visa fraud, and money laundering. The craven perpetrators fled back to China and are now fugitives from justice.

Because birth tourism, per se, is clandestine, there is no definitive breakdown by country of origin. Evidence points to many birth tourists originate from China, Taiwan, South Korea, Nigeria, Türkiye, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico. Russia and China have long histories of anti-American espionage activities while others may harbor anti-American sentiments. The State Department warned that such a practice could allow foreign governments or entities to recruit or groom U.S. citizens who were born through birth tourism but raised overseas, without attachment to the U.S. could threaten national security.

As anticipated, challenges to Trump’s EO came immediately. The ACLU and twenty-two blue states filed lawsuits. On January 23 in Seattle, a federal judge heard and temporarily blocked President Trump’s executive order. Appeals will eventually reach the Supreme Court, which will have the opportunity to finally resolve the birthright citizenship conundrum. In the meantime, the administration must toughen up. Visa fraud is a crime. Airport Customs and Border Patrol agents should be more aware of pregnant women attempting to enter. ICE agents can visit birth hotels, put the squeeze on the proprietors, demand to see registration and visa documents, and let all criminal parties involved know that immigration authorities are aware of fraud. The bad news that will get back to China that enforcement is looming, a step in the right direction regardless of how the Supreme Court may rule.

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

Birthright Citizenship Headed to SCOTUS

Birthright Citizenship Headed to SCOTUS

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