Can a convicted felon run for president? Well, the New York Timessays yes, regarding a possible conviction of Donald Trump, so that answer would apply to Joseph Allen Maldonado (ne Schreibvogel), aka Joe Exotic.
These come from Maldonado’s 24-issue platform, presented as answers to questions that were sent to him.
On gun control: “I believe you have the right to carry a gun and protect yourself, but you can do that with a revolver. You don’t need an assault rifle to protect yourself
On felons: “I agree with you totally, that non-violent felons should be able to vote anywhere in America.”
On the LGBTQ community: “What the LGBTQ community has done to the progress we made for this new generation has destroyed our work by pushing the gay lifestyle in people’s faces.”
On homelessness: “But there should be housing for, like, six months, to give every homeless person a chance to get cleaned up, get a job and get on their feet.”
In brief — after coming out as gay and being estranged from his family, Maldonado attempted suicide. He moved to Florida for salt-water therapy and found himself working with animals, and then he opened a pet store with his brother Garold, who was killed in 1997 by a drunk driver. Maldonado and his then-husband Brian managed the Garold Wayne Memorial Animal Park in Wynnewood, Oklahoma, which he started with his parents. Brian passed away in 2002.
After that, Maldonado became known as the “Tiger King”.
Though he’s currently serving a 21-year sentence on 17 different federal charges, there have been various appeals, one of them based on recanting of testimony by a known fraudster, one James Garretson.
Ziegler And Leah And Greg Explain America’s Corruption Crisis At Bill Of Rights Banquet
By Bob Small
This year’s crowd at the Bill of Rights Banquet was the largest we’ve seen with about 200 from several states and and of all ages.
“I was greatly encouraged by the large attendance — about twice as many as any Bill of Rights Banquet in the last two decade,” Upland Mayor Bill Dennon, told me.
The banquet, Dec. 15, at Yoder’s Restaurant in New Holland, Pa., is presented by the Bill of Rights Bicentennial Committee led by Carris and Eric Kocher, and has been going on since 1991.
Stenstrom is also co-founder of Patriot.Online, a growing social media site.
Stenstrom and Ms. Hoopes led off describing how correct procedures were not followed in the 2020 election in Delaware County, Pa.. As their book explains, and as many of us long-term residents expect, this is not a Democrat or Republican issue, but a current government issue.
This left me wondering is how do we correct this problem for 2024 so every vote is counted?
Garrett Ziegler at the podium
Ziegler, who travelled from his home in Illinois, described his investigations into Hunter’s laptop via Marco Polo, the research organization he founded.
Throughout this part of the evening the thought came to me that what we were brought up to believe, whether you grew up in the 1950’s, 1960’s on through current times may have been/maybe is a false narrative. The teachings of Democracy, a free press, honest elected officials, etc. is no truer than our Mister Santa Claus.
If the above is true, and The Parallel Election and Marco Polo should convince you of that, then what is our plan, not to sound too radical, to reclaim our rights as citizens? Do we have one?
The crowd at Yoder’s Restaurant for the Bill of Rights Banquet(Photos by Joy Schwartz)
Finally, after the first three GOP primary debates wherein the moderators scrupulously dodged asking questions about the southern border invasion, immigration surfaced in the fourth. As part of his response to a query about the open border, candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis included in his answer an insightful observation about why the Biden administration has allowed millions of illegal immigrants to cross, and disappear into the interior: “I know the elites in D.C. They don’t care.”
In a nutshell, DeSantis summed up the challenge that Americans face. President Biden, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the Cabinet are at best indifferent to and tolerant of open borders’ consequences or, at worst, content and pleased to remake the U.S. into a nation unrecognizable to its citizens.
The human and fiscal costs that the invasion has wrought are devastating. The list is long, ugly, and tragic. Included are drug trafficking that’s brought about an all-time high death total among mostly young Americans—106, 669 in 2021, up 14% from 2020; each day, 150 people die from synthetic drug overdoses. Human smuggling is rampant, and multiple federal agencies share the blame. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) identified Health and Human Services, the State and Justice Departments as complicit through their silence and indifference in the booming $13 billion human smuggling business. Thirteen years old is the average age at which a child is sold for sex. Blackburn introduced The Stopping the Abuse, Victimization and Exploitation of Girls (SAVE Girls) Act which she hopes will garner bipartisan support. Mayors of Democratic stronghold cities New York, Chicago, Boston, and the District of Columbia are on their knees begging for more federal funding to cope with the migrant surge that’s destroying their communities. Big cities aren’t the only victims. The alien surge converted tiny Lukeville, Aziz. into a “toilet.” A group of 900+ aliens, mostly from mostly from Senegal, Guinea, Liberia, and Mauritania recently overwhelmed Lukeville. Since the border patrol doesn’t have the capacity to accommodate the migrants, they roam, and while waiting to be processed and released, they’re defecating and urinating in the open spaces.
As a result of the lawlessness at the overwhelmed border, U.S. officials temporarily closed the Lukeville crossing, and released a statement which said that port of entry was temporarily closed “in response to increased levels of migrant encounters at the Southwest Border, fueled by smugglers peddling disinformation to prey on vulnerable individuals.” Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema and Gov. Katie Hobbs made a joint statement criticizing the decision to temporarily close the border and called upon the federal government to act. Kelly and Sinema have consistently voted with Biden for less border and internal immigration enforcement. Lukeville is the latest evidence that illegal aliens use border crossing sites as a dumpster. Center for Immigration Studies’ Senior National Security Fellow Todd Bensman reported from Brownsville that the Texas National Guardsmen who patrol the area call it “the mattress because the layers of discarded clothing and personal belongings here [are] so thick and rubbery.” Their trash will kill everything beneath it and destroy the area for wildlife.
Falling onto the so-called mattress could be fatal. Syringes, diapers, animal droppings, food, personal sanitation products full of chemicals, non-biodegradable trash, and human waste are left behind. Personal documents and identifications discarded, lest they tell a different story than the aliens will present to officials.
Ironically, in September, the Government Accountability Office issued a report that the 458 miles of border barrier erected between 2017 and 2021 damaged flora, fauna, water flow, and Indians’ sacred sites. The official GAO position is consistent with the Biden administration’s: the wall is bad; open borders, however, go full speed ahead. The invasion continues, proving DeSantis correct in his evaluation that establishment Washington doesn’t care.
A faint glimmer of hope has arisen. The Republicans, under House Speaker Mike Johnson, and with the assistance of right-minded GOP Senators have been able to get a squishy enforcement commitment from Biden. In exchange for another Ukraine funding transfusion, he would be willing to expel migrants without asylum screenings, expand the credible fear guideline to a more provable level, and restart immigration detention and deportations. The major pitfalls are that Biden is untrustworthy, and that many House Republicans have drawn the line on Ukraine—no more money. Without Ukraine in the package, no deal seems likely.
The House should remain firm on its insistence on immigration enforcement. Before authorizing more money for Ukraine and Israel, the House must demand that the immigration provisions included in HR-2, which it passed in May, be included. Key among those provisions is mandatory E-Verify which would end the jobs magnet that lure thousands of foreign nationals to the U.S. with employment expectations and curbing the administration’s parole abuse. Parole is intended for extraordinary circumstances, usually granted to one individual, and not intended to be given out en masse.
The road ahead to a fair and just immigration system is long, rocky, and uncertain. To begin the journey, with its destination protecting the sovereign American nation, the House must remain firm.
Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org
GOP Digs in On Border EnforcementGOP Digs in On Border Enforcement
In 1901, Hyman Solomon, aka Jimmie Reese, was born in New York City to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. After Hyman’s father died, the Solomon family moved to Los Angeles where the youngster worked as a newspaper boy, took his new name and fell in love with baseball. By the time Reese died at age 92, he had spent 77 years in baseball and is the oldest-ever person to have regularly worn a professional team’s uniform.
During nearly eight decades on the diamond, Reese threw batting practice fastballs to Lou Gehrig, roomed with Babe Ruth when the two were New York Yankees teammates, hit fungos to Nolan Ryan and gave fielding tips to Jim Edmonds. Referring to his time spent with Ruth on Yankees road trips, Reese memorably said that he didn’t room with the Babe in the traditional sense; he roomed with his suitcases.
Reese’s baseball life began as a boy when he finagled his way into the Pacific Coast League’s Los Angeles Angels practices, becoming at age 12 the team’s batboy, a job he gleefully carried out for six years. Chicago Cubs first baseman and Hall of Famer Frank Chance managed the Angels and worked with Reese to develop his skills. Reese was recognized as his high school’s most valuable player.
From high school, Reese moved up to semi-pro where his slick fielding impressed the Oakland Oaks who signed him in 1924 and launched him to the big leagues. In 1928, the Yankees purchased Reese’s contract from the Oaks. The year prior to Reese’s promotion to the star-studded Yankees, Reese hit .337 with one homer, 65 runs batted in, 24 stolen bases, and led all PCL second basemen with a .979 fielding average with 622 putouts in 190 games. Reese’s peers recognized him as one of the smoothest fielding second basemen in the game with near-acrobatic skills at the keystone corner.
In 1932, the Yanks sent Reese to the America Association’s Triple-A St. Paul Saints. The St. Louis Cardinals quickly picked him up to fill in for the injured Frankie Frisch. In 90 games with the Cards, Reese batted .265, hit two homers and drove in 26 runs. And so ended Reese’s three-year major league career; 232 games played with a respectable .278 batting average, eight homers and 70 RBIs.
Litle did Reese realize in 1933 when the Cards sold him to the PCL Angels that his baseball career still had six decades remaining. Reese enjoyed outstanding seasons with the Angels and San Diego Padres. He compiled a PCL career batting average of .289 in 1,673 games and holds the league record for most putouts by a second baseman, 4,771, and most assists, 5,119. In 1937, Reese was chosen as the starting second baseman on the All-Time Pacific Coast League team, and in 2002 was elected to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
Between 1938 and 1994, Reese worked for minor and major league teams as a coach, manager and scout. With a one-year baseball hiatus in 1944 when he served in the U.S. Army during World War II, Reese was continuously in baseball’s employ. In 1972, at age 71, Reese asked the Angels for a job and was hired as conditioning coach – a position he held until his death in 1994. Angels’ owner Gene Autry had given Reese a lifetime contract.
After the 25-year old righty Nolan Ryan was traded to the Angels from the New York Mets, he befriended Reese. Years later, Ryan said, “He’s the finest human being I’ve ever met.” Ryan’s second son is named Reese in Jimmie’s honor.
At the time of Reese’s death, he was still on the Angels payroll. A year after Reese passed, the Angels encased his locker in tinted Plexiglas. Inside were his beloved fungo bat and his uniform. His number 50 was retired, joining Ryan, Gene Autry and Rod Carew whose numbers no future Angels player would ever wear. The Angels retired number 26 in Autry’s honor. Baseball rosters had 25 men; Autry became the Angels “26th man.”
Today’s big baseball news is Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million, ten-year contract – “a record” as the headlines blare. But Ohtani’s mark won’t last long. Owners are printing money and, since they can jack up ticket prices at will and indefinitely, have no qualms about laying out cash. Reese’s 77-year baseball longevity record, however, will endure for ages and is a testimony to his love for the national pastime.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
Remembering Hyman Solomon ’s 77 Years in BaseballRemembering Hyman Solomon ’s 77 Years in Baseball
The endless college football bowl season is upon us. Beginning on Dec. 16 with the Mrytle Beach Bowl, and mercifully ending on Jan. 8 with the CFP National Championship game, 43 games will be played. But no football game ever played, or ever to be played, will exceed the drama surrounding the Mosquito Bowl, played on insect-infested Guadalcanal in 1944. The 4th and 29th U.S. Marine Corp regiments faced off before their next stop, Okinawa.
The Mosquito Bowl evolved from a bold claim that Brown University and eventual New York Giants superstar John McLaughry made to his father. McLaughry claimed that the 4th Regiment could go toe-to-toe with the NFL champion Chicago Bears. McLaughry backed off a bit but still maintained that the 4th and the 29th combined could beat any team, anywhere.
To lift the Marines’ spirits, the brass okayed a football game between the 4th and the 29th for Christmas Eve 1944. The regiments had long debated which would prevail if they ever met on the football field. By kickoff time, there was a regulation-size field with goalposts, programs with roster information, a marching band and more than a thousand spectators. The excitement was so high that the Marine Corps radio network broadcast the game, and wagering was at a feverish level.
With its six early round professional draft picks, the star-studded 29th took the field against the 4th which had players who had professional careers with the Detroit Lions, the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Cardinals. Among the players were George Murphy, Notre Dame captain, a South Bend, Indiana clerk’s son; Tony Butkovich, a Purdue All-American, and one of seven sons of a central Illinois Croatian coal miner; McLaughry, a blocking back, and Brown’s heavyweight boxing champion; Robert Bauman, a Wisconsin Badgers tackle and punter. As a kid, after his father died, Bauman worked in onion fields near Chicago. David Schreiner was a Badgers All-American end whose German immigrant grandfather had established a prosperous family business.
The gridiron was dirt and gravel without a blade of grass. Two-handed tag, the official rule, was ignored. The Marines played in t-shirts and torn-off khakis. Although they came away battered and bruised, no one complained. The game, which ended in a 0-0- tie, distracted from training for the Okinawa invasion which they correctly described as being “bound for hell.”
Of the 65 Mosquito Bowl players, 56 played in colleges, including Notre Dame, California, Purdue and Wisconsin, and five were team captains. Fifteen died during the fierce Okinawa fighting, the Pacific War’s bloodiest battle. After 82 days of brutal combat, more than 240,000 people had been killed, a 3,000 daily average. The American loss rate was 35 percent of the force, totaling 49,151 casualties. Of those, 12,520 were killed or missing, and 36,631 were wounded in action.
Wisconsin teammates Bauman and Schreiner were among those killed in action. Heavy Japanese fire blindsided Bauman’s platoon, and a bullet to his head shattered his skull. Bauman, age 24, became the 12th Mosquito Bowl player killed. On the day before Okinawa was declared secure, Schreiner was shot in the upper chest. Schreiner had weathered 81 of the 82 days that the battle lasted before dying in the hospital on the 82nd day. Schreiner was the 15th and final Mosquito Bowl fatality.
Ironically, Schreiner could have stayed behind. He rejected a medical school deferment and instead enlisted. Schreiner wrote in a letter to his parents: “I’m not sitting here snug as a bug, playing football while others are giving their lives for their country…If everyone tried to stay out of it, what a fine country we’d have!”
After learning of their sons’ deaths, the mothers of Schneider and Bauman corresponded. Bertha Bauman to Anne Schreiner: “Our two darling boys were real pals and went through everything together and seems they could not be separated and for that reason, God took them both.” Anne replied: “Are your days and nights getting any better, Mrs. Bauman? I find mine are getting harder and harder.”
In 1947, Anne wrote to Bertha again after Bauman and Schreiner’s fiancées had married. Although Anne was happy that Odette, a WAVE and her faithful friend throughout, now would have the chance “to build another future for the one that was taken away,” she was saddened because “she [Odette] had been David’s, and oh, oh, doesn’t it hurt?”
During the same year, the University of Wisconsin renamed two dormitories for Bob Bauman and Dave Schreiner. At the dedication, with family and friends present, tears flowed. Two years later, the U.S. military closed its Okinawa cemeteries, and Schreiner’s remains were returned home and buried in the family plot. Anne lived until age 105, and to her the Badgers were always “her boys.” Before she moved into a nursing home at age 99, she kept David’s room exactly as it was the day he left for the Marines.
The lucky, living 50 Mosquito Bowl competitors returned home, but most were never the same. After receiving a telegram her son John sent from San Francisco that read “short time, then home soon, love,” his mother picked him up at Grand Central Station. Gone was the Brown University swagger, replaced by, in his mother’s words, a reclusive, jittery man who was an “empty shell that held empty eyes.”
The three and a half hours long Mosquito Bowl that the 65 Marines reveled in may have been the last and longest sustained joyous moments the brave young soldiers ever experienced in their war-shortened lives.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
Marines Play Mosquito Bowl on Christmas Eve 1944Marines Play Mosquito Bowl on Christmas Eve 1944
One signpost of the holidays has always been our loaf of bread from French Camp Academy (FCA) in Mississippi.
In 1810 Frenchman Louis Lafleur built a trading post and inn on the Natchez Trace between Natchez and Nashville. In 1855, the Mississippi Institute was established, and later, a school for boys. The schools were combined as French Camp Academy after a fire in 1915.
Among the school’s special features are the radio station WFCA, the Rainwater Observatory and Planetarium (largest in the state). There’s also the Council House Cafe and their annual Harvest Festival, both of which we’ve attended in years past.
A few of the many student activities are construction, fishing, Camp of the Rising Sun rock wall, The Children of God Pottery Studio, cutting sorghum, grounds crew program, The Ministry of Bread, photography, the trail ride, and zip line at Lake Ann. Of course, there are many religious activities besides services at French Camp Presbyterian Church.
According to Private School Review, it’s one of the “best Boarding schools in Mississippi”, serving “Young people who need a fresh start in life”, and is “Christ-centered”.
Here’s more information about Skylyr Effler, mentioned in the article.
My late mother-in-law grew up in rural Mississippi and attended FCA in the 1930’s. Her 10 brothers and sisters also attended.
During the times we traveled to Mississippi forging relationships with her family, we naturally visited FCA and decided to become a donor. FCA sends the loaf of bread, made in their bakery, as they consider Jesus as the Bread of life, as they say in the donor letter. This was started in the 1950’s under then FCA president Sam Patterson.
Disclaimer; Though we are birthright Jews, we feel free to support good works by any religious or non-religious group.
E. W. Jackson, who was born 71 years ago in Chester, Pa., has certainly done a lot and now he’s seeking the Republican nomination for president.
He credits his achievements to his biological father reclaiming him when he was 10 years old. A Marine veteran and a Harvard Law School graduate, he practiced law in Boston for fifteen years, and later became a Strayer University adjunct professor.
Jackson went to Harvard Divinity School and was ordained as a pastor. He hosted “Topic Religion” on the radio station WEEI, then ran Boston’s first gospel radio station. Later he was forced into bankruptcy.
He has said, “given the opportunity to do it all over again, I would gladly give nine years of my life to broadcasting the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Though descended from slaves, Jackson is proud to be an American. He is the co-founder of a group called STAND, which started the Forgotten Children Project. Forgotten Children Project
Of the Democrats, he says, “their attitude is they own black people; they own the victim classes they set up”
In the about section of his website, he adds “We patriots do not pretend America is a perfect country, but we are a noble nation”
In the “issues” section, he lists 10 top issues, which are twenty pages but well worth reading.
Under “Patiotism” (Issue # 10), he promises to declare September “American History month” as opposed to the various “hyphenated-American classes”, which he sees as divisive.
Pastor Jackson is another candidate with some original ideas. Sadly, these will only exist as long as his candidacy does.
TIE says that Comprehensive Sexuality Education commonly taught in public schools “is an assault on the family and the health and innocence of children.”
Of course, this brings back the old problem of parents, as many are, who are reluctant to have that conversation and doesn’t account for the addition of the internet.
Another issue they oppose is Critical Race Theory (CRT)
“Simply put, instruction in Critical Race Theory as presented in Black Lives Matter curriculum and The 1619 Project pushes American students down the road of hate,” says TIE.
As long as the totality of American History is taught, including slavery, emancipation, including both US Support for Israel and Operation Paperclip in the curriculum, there would not be a CRT or the 1619 Project. One wonders if most students even know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, not a Democrat.
Under the “what can you do” section, they list many good suggestions, including “attend school board meetings and know what is being taught in your school”.
One wishes there would be a line about running for the school board.
Most local school boards do not require “professionals.” What we need more of are carpenters, factory workers, waiters and waitresses. In 2005, Mary Gay Scanlon ran for the Wallingford Swarthmore School Board and lost.
She eventually did win an election.
And how about we teach students to question authority, especially government authority, such as covid mandates and election results that seem unrealistic?
Teachers rarely let their students challenge the things they teach.
“Critical thinking” lessons is too often teachers playing pretend.
“The Socratic education begins … with the awakening of the mind to the need for criticism,” it is said. This is another way of saying always question.
Dr. Kesha Moore of LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute is quoted: All children have a right to know the truth, to know who they are, to know who they live with, and what their community is like.
The Sacramento Bee thinks that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Garvey has a chance to qualify for the November 2024 ballot. At first blush, the idea that the nation’s bluest state could possibly elect a Republican to the U.S. Senate is too far-fetched to take seriously. Not since 1988 when California voted in Pete Wilson to represent the state for a second term has a Republican held a U.S. Senate seat.
But California’s primary system has quirky guidelines that could favor Garvey over his three Democratic opponents. In 2010, California passed Proposition 14, a ballot initiative that created a top-two primary election system. Gone were the historic Republican and Democratic primaries in which voters from each party chose their winning candidates, who then face off against each other in a general election.
Today, all candidates, regardless of party, run in the same primary, and all voters, also regardless of party, may vote for any of them. The top two vote-getters then move on to the general election. Political insiders rate Garvey’s chances of reaching the final two March 5, 2024, primary slots in what’s currently a four-way race, at about 50-50.
In addition to Republican Garvey, the leading Democratic candidates are the collectively unimpressive U.S. Reps. Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee and Katy Porter. Leeand Porter are little known outside their districts, the Democratic strongholds of Oakland, and south-central Orange County, respectively. Schiff, on the other hand, is well-known, mostly for his highly publicized false promises that he had evidence which would prove that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. Subsequent House Intelligence Committee investigations found that Schiff knowingly lied about his Trump-Russian collusion allegations.
If the three big Democratic contenders – Schiff, Porter and Lee – each win significant blocs of votes while Republicans rally around a single candidate, that could be enough to boost Garvey into the top-two mix. Garvey is already close. In the November 11-14 Emerson Polling Institute/Inside California Politics survey of 1,000 registered voters, Garvey was third, with 10 percent, ahead of Lee, 9 percent. With the poll’s margin of error plus or minus 3 percentage points, the former Los Angeles Dodgers’ and San Diego Padres’ All-Star is competitive with frontrunners Schiff, 16 percent, and Porter, 13 percent. A plurality remains undecided.
Garvey’s biggest advantage is that the popular, high-name recognition baseball star could motivate GOP voters to turn out in big numbers. In California’s most recent U.S. Senate elections, Republicans haven’t had a horse in the race, e.g., in 2016, then-Attorney General Kamala Harris routed U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, and in 2018, Dianne Feinstein beat California State Senate pro-tempore Kevin de León. With liberal Democrats facing each other in the general election, registered Republicans stayed home.
History confirms the pattern that without two top candidates, Democrats don’t turn out as heavily as Republicans. In 2008, when Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama competed for the presidential nomination, Democratic turnout in California was 63 percent, 20 percentage points higher than the party’s 20-year average. But in 2012, when Obama ran unopposed, Democratic turnout plunged to 31 percent, then increased again to 54 percent in 2016 when Clinton battled with Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. Paul Mitchell, vice president of Political Data, Inc., a California-based analytics firm, said “Democrats have a tougher time turning out their voters when there is no top of the ticket partisan battle in the Democratic primary side. On the Republican side, we don’t see the same drop in turnout.”
If Garvey prevails in his bid, he still will have the formidable task of winning the general. But Garvey would have plenty of fodder if he made the surviving Democrat’s immigration voting record a campaign issue. Schiff, the likeliest to reach the final two, has, during his two decades in the House, unwaveringly voted against enhanced border and interior security, against ending asylum entitlements, against reducing unnecessary employment visas, and against ending chain migration. Schiff has favored an illegal alien amnesty and higher refugee resettlement levels. Much like in Europe, tolerance for unchecked immigration has waned in California.
Schiff’s votes are a tangible. But a huge intangible will also be a factor: the “I’ve-had-enough” variable that would play especially well among older voters who remember California before smash-and-grab thieving, homelessness, unaffordable housing, soaring living costs, overdevelopment, environmental degradation and woke schools.
Californians recall 2003 when disappointment with incumbent Democratic Gov. Gray Davis led to his recall and to Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election. Schwarzenegger then, like Garvey now, was a political neophyte who voters deemed vote-worthy. Only three months remain until Primary Day; the results of Garvey’s quixotic U.S. Senate bid will soon be known.
Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org.
Garvey Gains Traction in California Senate Primary
Even the lowest hanging fruit is beyond the hapless Grand Old Party’s reach. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ impeachment, a ripe peach waiting to be picked, never happened.
Since prior to the 2022 mid-term elections in which the GOP dramatically underperformed, Republican legislators have promised to restore border security which, under Mayorkas’ criminal, anti-constitutional, impeachable refusal to enforce immigration law, has devolved into chaos. At the time that then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy released the Commitment to America, Mayorkas had allowed 3.8 million illegal aliens to cross, and 900,000 gotaways to escape into the interior. In all, foreign nationals from more than 160 nations had been processed and released. There are 195 countries in the world.
The invasion continues unabated. Over the past 12 months, Customs and Border Protection has encountered 3.2 million illegal aliens, and the gotaway total has likely doubled. A closer look at the 2023 statistics reveal more criminal disregard for Americans’ safety and security. In FY 2023, CBP caught 52,000 Chinese nationals. China is America’s greatest threat, according to the FBI directorand others. CBP also encountered a record-high number of aliens who appear on the FBI’s suspected terrorist watch list: 172. Of this number, 169 were attempting to evade capture at the southern border, and three were apprehended trying to sneak in through the increasingly porous northern border.
The DHS guideline for a secretary’s competency is whether his agency has “operational control” of the border. Operational Control, as defined in the 2006 Secure Fence Act, Section 2 (b), mandates that the secretary “achieves and maintains” operational control which means “the prevention of all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband.” The statistics cited above, and thousands of online and nationally broadcast videos, prove that unlawful entries have flourished since President Biden’s inauguration, January 20, 2021. Because aliens keep arriving, and continuously accessing costly affirmative benefits like medical care, education, housing and transportation, pinpointing the precise cost to citizen taxpayers is impossible. The House Committee on Homeland Security provided a dollar-cost range. But what a staggering range it is – from $150 billion to $451 billion annually.
Before Congress left on its Thanksgiving recess, the GOP had a golden opportunity to impeach Mayorkas, but it punted. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) brought Articles of Impeachmentagainst Mayorkas to the House floor as a privileged resolution which means that members would vote on it within 48 hours. But eight Republicans joined with Democrats to vote 209-201 to send Greene’s resolution to the House graveyard for possible consideration at some undefined future time.
Mayorkas gets off, free to keep the status quo of wide-open borders alive and well. The eight who joined with Democrats are Colorado’s Ken Buck, North Carolina’s Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry, Oregon’s Cliff Bentz, Ohio’s Mike Turner, and California’s Darrell Issa, John Duarte and Tom McClintock. Colorado, North Carolina, Oregon, Ohio and certainly California have felt the fiscal burden of Mayorkas’ criminal neglect. All except Duarte have strong pro-enforcement voting records, but on the Mayorkas matter, they chose to join the other side.
The most curious nay vote was from McClintock, the influential Chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee. If the GOP can’t count on high-ranking officials like McClintock to support the overdue Mayorkas impeachment effort, then border security is a fantasy. McClintock’s defense of his vote overlooked the national crisis that Mayorkas has encouraged and enabled.
While McClintock acknowledged that Mayorkas had opened the border to drugs, terrorists and criminals, he concluded that those crimes represent policy disputes and didn’t rise to impeachment level. Then, traveling far afield from Mayorkas’ malfeasance, McClintock said the Republicans must not “allow the left to become our teachers,” a reference to the Democrats’ two unsuccessful impeachment attempts made on President Donald Trump. In McClintock’s view, drugs, terrorists and criminals are okay, but the sanctity of the House impeachment process is more important than protecting the homeland.
Even though the Senate would never have upheld a House vote to impeach, the opportunity missed was huge. Impeaching Mayorkas would show that the Republicans are serious about protecting Americans from the danger that unvetted migrants represent. A related takeaway from a successful Mayorkas impeachment would be that the GOP also has its eye on the soaring costs of funding illegal immigration, a concern that taxpaying Americans share.
The most devastating outcome: shelving Mayorkas’ impeachment means that, over the coming months, hundreds of thousands of aliens will be processed and released into the interior – not an exaggeration. In South Texas, to select one example among many, border officials reported encountering 1,200 migrants daily, exposing the treasonous handiwork of Mayorkas. By the time Inauguration Day 2025 arrives, likely more than 8 million people from locations across the globe will have been released into the general population in cities and towns across the U.S.
Joe Guzzardi is a Project for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org.
