There was conflict, though, and it was not peaceful.
The topic was Israeli Security Policy. The attempted speaker was Dr. Barak Mendelsohn from Haverford College and the Israeli IDF
However at the beginning, members of various protest groups left en masse chanting loudly. though not always in sync. Then continued chanting outside of the auditorium.
They did not have identification on their handouts. It’s not like we did it in the sixties, eighties, or even this century. The chants were incomprehensible but they made speaker in comprehensible too.
We worried about Jewish students in the audience, who might of felt fearful.
We learned some background from the Swarthmore College Phoenix;
The best way to explain Visualizing Impact is that they provide the signs for Visualizing Palestine and would equally provide signs for a visualizing Israel group. They seem not to have any agenda except profit. For one of many critiques of this kind of group, see Pros & Cons of Data Visualization: the Good, Bad, & Ugly
Remembering Sal Maglie The Demon Barber For Italian-American Heritage Month
By Joe Guzzardi
When Sal Maglie was finishing his two years, 1956-1957, with the Brooklyn Dodgers, he gave advice to his two future Hall of Fame teammates, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Known around baseball as “The Barber,” Sal told the future greats: “Throw that second brushback pitch right away so the batter will know you meant the first one.” Koufax and Drysdale were quick studies, and with Maglie, rank numbers 3, 4 and 8, respectively, in the Top Ten among baseball history’s most feared moundsmen. The always-intimidating St. Louis Cardinals’ Bob Gibson tops the list.
Judith Testa, in her book, “Sal Maglie, the Demon Barber,” described Maglie as “a glowering, 6-foot-2-inch, 180-pound righthander whose game-day face bristled with thick black stubble.” Although Maglie looked fearsome and his high, hard one whistled right under batters’ chins – hence his nickname – off the field, he was gentle, courteous and good-natured.
Born Salvatore Anthony Maglie, he was his parents’ third and youngest child, and their only son. His father, Giuseppe Maglie, came from a prosperous Italian family, and he had earned a high school degree. But once in America, Giuseppe’s limited English meant he had to work as a common laborer. Sal’s mother, Maria Bleve, was from a peasant background and never attended a day of school. Despite their economic challenges, Sal’s parents worked hard. They encouraged Sal to be determined and to pursue the life that he wanted.
Sal’s first passion was baseball; he turned down a basketball scholarship that Niagara University offered him in order to play baseball at the Union Carbide plant where he worked, and also with local semi-pro teams. Along the way, Double A Buffalo Bisons’ manager Steve O’Neill, a former MLB catcher who managed four big league teams, noticed Maglie. In 1938, he added Maglie to the team’s roster.
Maglie struggled and was demoted to Class-D by 1940. In I945, he had pitched well enough to earn an invitation to join the New York Giants. After pitching in the Cuban Winter League and the short-lived Mexican League, Maglie had mastered the art of effective pitching. Banned for years from MLB because he had played for the outlaw Mexican League, Maglie returned to the Giants in 1950, where he posted an 18-4 record, followed by 23-6 and 18-8 for the next two seasons. Then, in 1955 at age 36, and plagued by back pain, Maglie was sold to the Cleveland Indians. The Indians, in 1956, sold Magie to the Brooklyn Dodgers for $100, a mistake General Manager Hank Greenberg rued for years.
Supposedly washed up, Maglie became the key figure in Brooklyn’s nail-biting 1956 pennant drive. The Dodgers edged out the Milwaukee Braves by one game, and the Cincinnati Redlegs by two. Maglie’s 13-5 record included winning two of the season’s final five games and pitching a no-hitter against the Braves. Maglie kept his hot streak going when he won the World Series opener against the New York Yankees, 6-3. In the series’ fifth game, however, Maglie faced Don Larsen, allowed only two runs over eight innings, but no pitcher could have outdueled the perfect game pitcher.
In 1957 and 1958, Maglie pitched ineffectively for the Yankees and the Cardinals before closing out his MLB career as a Boston Red Sox and Seattle Pilots pitching coach. In 1966, Maglie’s wife, Kay, died, and he became a 49-year-old widower with two young children. Sal’s life began a downward spiral. Although Sal happily remarried in 1971, his adopted son Sal Jr. became addicted to drugs and had frequent police encounters.
For a few years, putting his personal heartache aside, Maglie played golf, socialized with friends, signed autographs at card shows, and attended old timers’ games. But, Maglie’s good health ended abruptly in 1982 when he suffered a brain aneurysm. After making a remarkable recovery, Sal enjoyed several more good years. But tragedy struck again in March 1985. Sal Jr. fell from a window and died. Law enforcement, aware of the troubled young man’s drug associations, suspected foul play. After that, Sal’s physical and mental health declined rapidly, and he was placed in a nursing home in 1987 where, for five years, he struggled with dementia. “The Barber” died on December 28, 1992, at the age of 75.
Maglie is one of the most recognizable players in baseball history. He is the last to hold the distinction shared by seven others of having pitched for the New York Giants, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees. Few remember, however, how dominant Maglie was. His won-lost record was 119-62; a .657 winning percentage which ranks him 22nd on the all-time list just below Randy Johnson and just above Koufax.
The last chapter of Roger Kahn’s book, “The Head Game: Baseball Seen from the Pitcher’s Mound,” is titled “A Golden Dozen: a Listing of Armed Men.” Along with Bob Feller, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson is Maglie’s name with Kahn’s observation: “No one on any mound was any meaner. Like Iago, he didn’t know the meaning of remorse.”
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
During his Oval Office address to the nation about Russia’s invasion into the Ukraine and Israel’s offensive against Gaza, President Biden quoted former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who had once called America “the indispensable nation.” The reference to the U.S. as indispensable struck many viewers as curious since the president, starting on the first day he entered the White House, has worked with such determination to destroy American sovereignty.
Since Biden assumed office, about 8.6 million foreign nationals have crossed the border and settled in the interior. Their personal histories, health statuses and intentions are mostly unknown. Worth noting is that Albright is one of a long line of secretaries of state who can turn a patriotic phrase but are, at heart, devoted globalists. The line, post-Albright, includes Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.
As expected, Biden pleaded for more money to fund the two wars and will send a $105 billion package to Congress where it will face an uphill battle. The bulk of the funding, $61.4 billion allocated for Ukraine at a time when Americans have grown tired of sending their tax dollars, without accountability, toward what appears to be an endless, distant conflict. Within the $61.4 billion is $481 million to support Ukrainians arriving in the U.S. through the “Uniting for Ukraine” program which provides a two-year parole that includes work permission and other affirmative benefits. In other words, more immigration – another Biden policy that Americans are weary of, especially as they watch thousands of migrants cross the U.S. border unchecked daily.
Israel’s share of the $105 billion pie is a mere 25 percent of Ukraine’s – $14.3 billion. Biden’s proposed national security package will provide Israel with $10.6 billion in assistance through the Defense Department, including air and missile defense support, industrial base investments and replenishment of U.S. military stocks that have been drawn down to support Israel.
The $105 billion total also allots $10 billion for humanitarian assistance. Tucked into the $10 billion is $850 million for what’s referred to as “migration and refugee assistance” at the U.S.-Mexico border. Again, more immigration and more facilitating of immigration which voters oppose.
Biden’s address flummoxed viewers. The president passionately made the case for the U.S. to aid in defending the Ukraine and Israel, and few dispute that both embattled nations need U.S. aid. But Biden has created a U.S. border crisis and then continuously ignored the calamities that an unprotected border spawned; among them, migrant deaths, drug smuggling, human trafficking, sex trafficking and environmental damage. Key administration officials like Vice President Kamala Harris and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have rubbed salt into concerned citizens’ wounds by, in defiance of ample evidence, insisting that the border is secure.
While Biden, imploring Congress and the Americans it represents, to act as the “agents of democracy,” he never in his 15-minute address mentioned the border and the terrorism threats that leaving it unprotected represents.
Maybe – but only maybe – the latest Customs and Border Protect report will awaken Biden, et al, to the homeland dangers percolating. Border officials arrested 18 people on the FBI’s terror watchlist in September, making fiscal year 2023 a record year for such encounters at the southern border. The watchlist, now officially called the Terrorist Screening Dataset, is the U.S. database that contains information on terrorist identities and includes not only known or suspected terrorists, but also affiliates of watch-listed individuals.
CBP statistics released Saturday showed that 169 people on the FBI terror watchlist were encountered between ports of entry at the Southern border in the past 12 months, a number that exceeds not only FY 22’s record-setting total, 98, but the last six fiscal years combined.
Including encounters between northern border entry ports, the total for FY 23 rose to 172. Thousands of “special interest aliens” from numerous countries, including the Middle East, have been arrested by Border Patrol agents while attempting to cross the U.S. southern border illegally over the last two years. Special interest aliens are people from countries the federal government identifies as having conditions that promote or protect terrorism or potentially pose some sort of national security threat. Iranians, Syrians, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Afghans, Egyptians, Chinese and other nationalities have been stopped.
If the administration wants to avert what looks like the inevitable – a major terrorist attack on the homeland – it will have to get immediately busy shutting the border and deporting illegally present aliens.
We attended a “meet and greet”, Oct. 19, for the two GOP Candidates in the Swarthmore Borough Special Election, Nov. 7.
This election was necessitated by the resignation of two Democratic Borough Council members, Sarah Graden and Francine Halderman.
It’s been many years since the Republican Party has meant anything in Swarthmore. There was an enthusiastic audience, despite the Phillies playing in the NCLS.
The Republicans are Rob M. Jordan and Bill Pearce. They explained why they were running in a letter published in the Oct. 20 Swarthmorean.
“Our Council’s financial decisions are causing great concern. Overspending, a draw down of reserves, and the Mayor’s ominous warning of a looming budget crisis have left us burdened with a 9 percent tax hike in 2022 and a 10 percent tax hike this year – with an even higher jump possibly to come shortly.”
They also mentioned “the erosion of civility and accountability in leadership”.
They noted that the GOP is not merely the “party of grievance”. The candidates said they want to “preserve our cherished Tree Canopy from PECO Deception”.
They said they also want to“increase the exceptional quality of life that defines our community,” and to embrace “intelligent zoning and forward thinking planning.”
They said at the event they feared Swarthmore would turn into Lansdowne if the current board’s agenda was not checked.
Rob Jordan is a Villanova University Economics Graduate and has worked as a senior healthcare executive. He is a member of the Don Guanella Park Master Plan Advisory Committee and is president of the Board of Directors of Saint Joseph Family Hope emergency housing center.
Bill Pearce is a graduate of Drexel in Chemical Engineering. He also has a masters of education from Rutgers, and an MBA from Tulane.
After a 35 year career in what he describes as “global business development”, he moved to Swarthmore. At the time of COVID, he joined the Widener University SBDC(Small Business Development Center) where he is a business consultant and international trade specialist.
He recently joined the Goldman Sachs 10 K Small Business Program at Community College of Philadelphia.
We’ve had two decades of one-party rule in Swarthmore. As long as there’s only one choice, whether Democrat or Republican, this feels more like dictatorship than democracy.
Green Cards Given To Migrants From Terrorist Sponsoring Nations
By Joe Guzzardi
Speaking in San Diego on October 14 to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that, after the Islamic terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel, the U.S. needed to remain on high alert.
Wray said that the FBI has seen an increase in reported threats. He advised citizens “to be on the lookout,” especially from lone actors who may be inspired by the Middle East warfare to commit violence on their own initiative. Online anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim posts have increaseddramatically. New York, home to 1.3 million Jews – the largest Jewish population outside of Israel – has emerged as an epicenter for hate.
The following Sunday evening, during a “60 Minutes” interview, President Joe Biden concurred with Wray that the Hamas war against Israel precipitates a greater likelihood of a terrorist attack on the homeland. Biden said after conferring with Department of Homeland Security and FBI officials, he was confident that a major effort has been made to deter terrorists and to dismantle plots against America that they may have developed. For the Americans taken hostage, Biden vowed to find those still alive and free them.
Neither Wray nor Biden’s words comfort Americans. The threat to the homeland is real, and Biden’s three-year welcome-the-world agenda has put citizens directly in harm’s way. Since October’s first week, two Iranians were apprehended at the Southwest Border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection found they had terrorism ties. Both were on the Terrorist Screening Database. In fiscal 2023, 659 known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) were apprehended attempting to illegally enter the U.S., according to CBP data.
Even countries listed on the State Department’s “State Sponsors of Terrorism” are welcome. During fiscal year 2022, nationals from Iran, which has been accused of aiding Hamas in its recent attacks on Israel, and is listed on the State Department’s State Sponsors of Terrorism, secured 9,400 green cards. More than 1,600 arrived as chain migrants, and more than 980 arrived through the Diversity Visa Lottery (DV). Syria, also on the State Department’s list, is another recipient of Biden’s largess. Syrian nationals received 3,200 green cards. About 720 came to the U.S. as chain migrants, and more than 150 arrived through the DV.
In all, in FY 2022, the Biden administration invited about 63,000 legal immigrants from nations previously travel-banned from the U.S. and rewarded them with permanent residency green cards. About 7,300 arrived as chain migrants, while more than 4,300 arrived through the DV. Chain migration, which allows permanent residents to petition nuclear and nonnuclear family members to join them in the U.S., and the annual DV are heavily criticized immigration policies that their opponents claim serve no national interest. Other banned countries included Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela, North Korea, Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania and Kyrgyzstan.
With the historically high number of KST encounters, the president and the FBI director warn, correctly, that the likelihood of a major terrorist act committedon U.S. soil is high. Nationwide, heightened security measures have been taken, including around the U.S. Capitol where metal barriers were installed.
Alarmed realists who have watched the border crisis devolve into a free-for-all aren’t surprised that panic is setting in. The Secretary of State during the Nixon administration, Henry Kissinger, 100, commented on rioting Palestinian supporters living in Germany cheering for Hamas’ assault on Israel. Kissinger: “It [mass immigration] was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts.”
Kissinger’s words come too late to spare the U.S. from an inevitable assault. Too many legally present Middle Eastern immigrants, and too many unlawful border crossers, have already infiltrated the U.S. interior.
But Kissinger’s cautionary words shouldn’t be too late to fend off a congressional push to grant refugee status to Palestinians, a total that could reach 1 million. Since President Jimmy Carter’s Refugee Act of 1980, both sides of the political aisle have supported higher refugee admissions, and more than 140,000 Palestinians already live in the U.S. Although Republicans insist that no such plan to bring in Palestinians is afoot, don’t be surprised if it happens.
The U.S. has been lucky since 9/11. Despite the nation’s open borders, the country has so far avoided another major attack on the homeland. The operative words are “so far.”
Look at the large number of unvetted people flooding into America, and the surprising reality is that the nation has, at least to date, avoided an attack. August numbers from the Department of Homeland Security are the latest publicly available monthly data and show an all-time record number of illegal alien border encounters. August encounters totaled 304,162, up from July’s 245,286. During fiscal year 2023, more than 2.9 million illegal aliens were encountered; most were processed and released into the interior.
In all, the number of known aliens who entered unlawfully and are still living in the U.S. under temporary or conditional status is a record 3.6 million. President Joe Biden’s administration, in violation of established immigration law, uses humanitarian parole as a major component of its lawless border abuse. Parole, which includes work authorization, is intended for emergency case-by-case bases, and not for collectively green-lighting thousands of illegal immigrants.
The 3.6 million paroled migrants is exclusive of gotaways which since January 2021 totaled nearly 1.6 million. Also excluded are the thousands who have arrived through the CBP One app, an entry-facilitating mechanism outside of immigration law, but nevertheless illegally implemented by the Biden White House.
In January, DHS promised that the newly created app would be limited to (unlawfully) admit 360,000 foreign nationals; in July, CBP announced that the program would be expanded to 522,000 admissions. The administration originally designed the app to minimize bad optics and the critical press that border overcrowding generated during the Haitian surge of 2021 at Del Rio, Texas. Because of technical malfunctions and user unfamiliarity, however, migrants often disregard the app in favor of illegal immigration’s traditional crossing method — they wade across the Rio Grande unimpeded.
No checklist of how aliens arrive is complete without mentioning the middle-of-the-night flights from the border into major hubs like New York City or to less populated cities like Scranton, Pa. Those destinations may or may not be jumping-off points to join relatives, also often illegal immigrants. At taxpayer expense, and using a transportation system described as a “breathtakingly complex network,” Boeing 737s flew as many as 240 passengers per journey under cover of darkness.
When analyzing the unprotected border, and the terrorism threat it represents, add “no one knows” to “so far.” Since the arriving aliens are unvetted — their past histories, their intentions and current locations unknown — “no one knows” sums up what the future may bring. The migrant-sending nations include countries that have unbending anti-American sentiments. Arrivals, mostly single adult males, originate in China, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Mauritania, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Turkey.
Terrorists determined to perpetrate death and destruction on U.S. soil play the long game, undeterred when their early efforts fail. After 9/11:
· On 5 November 2009, the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting: U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, who served as a psychiatrist at Fort Hood and was the son of Palestinian immigrants, opened fire on his fellow service members, leaving 13 dead and 29 wounded.
· On 15 April 2013, the Boston Marathon bombing: Dzhokhar, 19, and Tamerlan, 26, Tsarnaev planted two bombs near the Boston Marathon’s finish line. The explosion killed three and injured more than 180 people.
· On 2 December 2015, the San Bernardino Attack: Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 29, shot off more than 100 rounds during a holiday event. The Islamic-inspired terrorists killed 14 and wounded 22.
· On 31 October 2017, the NYC truck attack: ISIS-inspired Sayfullo Saipov, 29, used a rented Home Depot flatbed pickup truck to drive down a bike path which killed eight and injured 11.
As of July, Homeland Threat Assessment alarmingly reported that immigration officials encountered what they described as a “growing number of individuals” who appear on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist and were detained while trying to enter via the U.S. southern border. Compared to fiscal year 2022 when CBP apprehended 100 individuals whose identities matched those on the Terrorist Screening Dataset, as of 30 Sept. 2023, the total had increased to 160.
Given the sovereignty-breaking reality about alien arrivals, their numerical totals, their countries of origin and the always-welcoming Biden administration, the odds are increasingly high that, as long as the border remains unguarded, terrorism attacks against U.S. citizens are a near-certainty.
Mark Stewart Greenstein (MSG) is a Connecticut Democrat who posits himself as an “anti-left” Democrat. On his web site, he lists reasons for Republicans to vote for him, including, but not limited to the following: “elimination of the income tax, faster dismantling of Obamacare, faster immigration reform, and forced socialism”.
But he also lists reasons that Democrats should vote for him, such as his dislike of the two-party system, the fact that he “likes Bernie but prefers he stays in the Senate” and the fact that he is “not enamored with any of the staged candidates”.
Lastly, he seeks the Independent vote as well, stating that he’s a candidate “who prefers small government” and “who wants to return to Constitutional governance”.
Mark Stewart Greenstein
It’s pretty evident that his stances — only a quarter of which are stated above –are fairly contradictory. Many, for example, would say Bernie Sanders stands for “forced socialism”.
MSG takes so many contradictory stances that he could probably debate himself.
In an insanely long meet-the-candidate article from his run for the Connecticut State Senate — 26 pages printed out; take on a train ride to read — we learn that MSG is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley School of Law. He founded and currently runs Ivy Bound, a company that helps prepare students for the ACT and SAT college-entrance exams and does academic tutoring.
During this state senate campaign, one of MSG’s goals was to bring an NHL team back to Hartford, Connecticut — previous home of the Hartford Whalers, as you no doubt knew — and the slogan was “Make Connecticut SKATE again”.
Greenstein was the first Democratic candidate for the presidency to file in New Hampshire.
Most of the time, I read about history, but a week ago, Oct. 9, I was at the National Constitution Center as history unfolded.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. generated excitement among the highly diverse crowd in attendance, many, like me, returning to Philadelphia for the first time in many years. It felt like a combination of rock music, politics, and sports. It was a time to let hope overcome fear and regain belief. It was a new time feeling like some old times.
We may think we know about this Kennedy but on his website, you will discover how many times he has fought big corporations including Ford, Mitsubishi, Mobil, along with various departments of our own US government, while representing the under-served American Indians, family farmers, Mexican fisherman, and migrant workers.
One part of his philosophy is to disengage from empire building.
“We have to stop seeing the world in terms of enemies and adversaries,” his website says. “As John Quincy Adams wrote, ‘Americans go not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.'”
RFK Jr. will revive a lost thread of American foreign policy thinking, the one championed by his uncle, John F. Kennedy who, over his 1000 days in office, had become a firm anti-imperialist. “
The speech was a good hour long and we spent almost two hours standing, cheering, singing, talking, listening, and hoping. When was the last time a candidate spoke and gave you hope?
Mostly, people vote for better than, the “lesser of two evils”, “he won’t start a nuclear war”.
There was a saying among us Greens “vote your hopes, not you fears”, knowing that Ralph Nader, etc. could never win but we wanted to hope.
Now here was a candidate that giveas us hope and whom we think, just maybe, could win.
This is not to say that he doesn’t have some negatives, but we’ll leave that for the Democrats, and Republicans to point out.
Just for now, for one bright shining hour, hope is allowed.
The troubling news that U.S. veterans hoping to see the Army-Navy game in Foxboro, Mass., had their hotel reservations canceled to provide illegal aliens shelter could be a blessing in disguise, assuming the vets vote in unison to preserve the country they’re sworn to defend.
Kicking vets out of their lodging to reward aliens with coveted hotel rooms represents the latest afront to Americans by open borders advocates. Open borders are a continuing, shameful offense and assault on U.S. sovereignty. Most offended are veterans. Data that the Department of Veterans Affairs released showed that the veteran population is 19 million.
Imagine the 19 million plus their spouses, children, siblings, friends and neighbors disgusted by the audacity of federal and state officials sanctioning the unceremonious booting of vets from their rooms, leaving them to fend for themselves to find alternate housing for an event that’s sold-out months in advance. Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey claimed to be “distressed” when she learned that a New Jersey travel agent had displaced the vets to make rooms available to the migrants. Healey’s “distressed” claim cannot be taken at face value. Like most of Massachusetts, Healey is an immigration expansion advocate.
Massachusetts’ migrant crisis is so acute that Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll urged Bay State taxpayers to open their homes to illegal aliens. Reacting to Healey’s declaration that migration has put the state in emergency mode, Driscoll asked residents who might have “…an extra room or suite in your home, [to] please consider hosting a family. Safe housing and shelter is our most pressing need.” Driscoll said that Massachusetts is spending about $45 million monthly in taxpayer dollars on migrants’ shelter needs.
Some support Driscoll, and cited Massachusetts’ history as one of the first colonies founded by European migrants. The supporters have ample chance to back up their words with action. Massachusetts has 5,600 illegal alien homeless families that include infants and pregnant women, an 80 percent increase from the 3,100 families a year ago.
The governor could also step up to the plate. Healey has a four-bedroom, single family home in Arlington, Mass., that she shares with her partner. Healey’s living arrangement frees up three bedrooms, and would take some of the burden off the state she governs. Or, Healey could make sheltering aliens a condition of continued employment for the state’s 438,000 workers. As long as the northern and southern borders remain open, and unchecked migration continues, no solution that immigration advocates dream up is, in their view, asking too much. Remember Driscoll’s overview of the role residents should play in the state’s right- to-shelter crisis: “Everyone has something they can share.”
As long as the federal government welcomes millions of unvetted, impoverished aliens, including convicted criminals and FBI terrorist suspects, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis might as well shut their doors. The mission of the graduates of the institutions is to protect the homeland, a goal that the White House actively undermines. Under Biden, the homeland is wide open for the world to access. A House Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement report found that through March 2023, 99 percent of the arriving 2.1 million foreign nationals remain in the U.S. Only 6 percent have been thoroughly vetted, showing a complete disregard for citizens’ “safe housing” that Driscoll rhapsodized about.
In the Biden administration’s latest nonsolution to a state’s migration catastrophe, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will send a team to Boston to, in government-speak empty words, “assess the current migrant situation and identify ways to improve efficiencies and maximize our support for communities that are addressing the needs of migrants.” The feds have already sent $2.8 billion in taxpayer funds to help Massachusetts out of a problem that has no monetary resolution.
New West Point grads, new Annapolis grads and veterans, along with their relatives and friends, might total 50 million, a large enough bloc to swing the election toward a much-needed candidate committed to enforcing U.S. immigration laws.
In the 2024 presidential election, other simmering issues will be hotly debated – abortion, the economy, crime, war in the Ukraine and the Middle East – but nothing will be more important than restoring U.S. sovereignty.
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.
Even a Kennedy from a long-term Democrat Dynasty has come to terms with the demise of the Democrat party. No Camelot, it’s a party unrecognizable from earlier times. Robert Kennedy Jr., who was running for the 2024 presidency as a Democrat, announced Monday, Oct. 9, to a large crowd in Philadelphia that he will continue his run, but as an independent. He intends to “wrest power from both parties and return power to the people” with a populist movement that cuts through left/right division.
This is a wise decision by Kennedy. Although some may see his exit from the party as slow in coming, no one can begrudge Kennedy the time to process his former party’s abhorrent treatment of him. Coming to terms with the reality of the moral collapse of the Democrat party that his family had been so closely connected to for 140 years surely requires processing. This was the party of his father, who might have been the 37th president of the United States, had he not been assassinated, and the party of his uncles, President John F. Kennedy, also assassinated, and Sen. Ted Kennedy.
One of the legacies of Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy was a sense of unfulfilled promise and hope. What RFK’s son most definitely conveys in his campaign is hope – not the faux hope of Barack Obama’s “Hope,” but real hope to bridge the tremendous chasm in America and heal.
In watching many of the long-form interviews Robert Kennedy Jr. has given in recent months, he is grounded and centered. This may be the basis of his skill in addressing issues without attacking others. Given the frequency with which we hear Joe Biden attack those not bowing to party narratives, it’s a welcome change to hear Kennedy engage calmly, respectfully and with common sense. As well, like when listening to Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, there’s no disputing how smart Kennedy is. He peppers his responses with historical details that show a wide knowledge base, and he has many relatable lessons learned as a scion. Add on a very active and long career as an environmental lawyer committed to the protection of waterways and the rights of indigenous people, as a writer and as the founder of Children’s Health Defense and the Waterkeeper Alliance, and Kennedy has a commanding presence.
To a rational, thinking person, Kennedy would seem The Choice to be the Democrat nominee for the White House, similar to 2020, when Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard ran for the Democrat nomination. Of the long, weak list of Democrats running in 2020, Gabbard was also calm and respectful. Sharp as a tack, she exuded the most presence, composure and command, and she spoke common sense. Two strong Democrat candidates for the presidency in two different elections have been sidelined and maligned by their own party. Instead, the Democrat party’s new standard is to look for the least competent.
Not only did Kennedy’s party abandon him – Biden would not even provide Secret Service protection for this candidate – members of his family have been ugly. Apparently not the recipient of the brains in the family, sister Kerry Kennedytweeted on the morning her brother announced his independence:
Perhaps the fortunes of the Robert F. Kennedy siblings are so closely connected to The Borg that is today’s Democrat party that they had to toe the line for “the party.” Stay with us, comrades.
“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything” might have been a better path for the siblings to take. With a family like that …
Of course, being family, they may know more. Kennedy has not been without his failings, including drug and sex addictions. We used to be more forgiving and open to redemption, but now all failings are used as weapons. Look for an increase in attacks on Kennedy’s personal failings as his popularity mounts. For those who commit to his candidacy, hopefully his demons are well at bay now at age 70, and he won’t disappoint followers.
Heading into the 2024 presidential election, anyone concerned about the direction of our country who is voting should listen to any of Kennedy’s long-form interviews with Tucker Carlson, The Joe Rogan Experience, Elex Michaelson, Russell Brand or others, and top it off with the Philadelphia speech. I considered recapping the Philly announcement, but decided it’s most impactful to listen to it in its entirety.
While media has downplayed the momentum of Kennedy – not surprising given the number of corporate media that act as the PR arm of the Democrat party – it’s clear there’s growing enthusiasm for Kennedy who is inspiring those beaten down by eight years of pronounced polarization in America. Kennedy believes, “The people are ready to take back power.”
It’s always interesting to read the comments after video, and Kennedy’s Philly speech is no exception. People are encouraged by Kennedy and see possibility of shifting the current trajectory of ever-growing rancor, division and ugliness in the country, which would be a significant achievement in our current environment. In one interview, Kennedy was asked what leadership lesson he’d learned from family. Kennedy responded that his dad wanted his children to understand that the path to happiness is through service to others. Kennedy is committed to service, and this is one reason people are drawn to his campaign.
As well, from his uncle and former U.S. President JFK he learned: “The primary job of a president of the United States is to keep our country out of war.” Kennedy in his Philly announcement said, “Peace and diplomacy first.” This is essential for the 2024 election, as current U.S. leaders – after dumping more than $124,000,000,000 into the Ukraine war – want more money for the proxy war and undoubtedly will start asking for more money for Israel (on top of that country’s annual $3 billion they receive from the U.S.). A Biden official said the U.S. can address the needs of the Ukraine, Israel and – should China make a move – Taiwan. Big talk for a country with $34 trillion in debt.
America cannot stand four more years of the tyranny and totalitarian rule of this corrupted, broken iteration of the Democrat party that is completely disassociated from its name, headed by a mentally incapacitated puppet. The power in Robert Kennedy Jr.’s run for the U.S. presidency can be assessed in a number of ways. On a numbers level, 63 percent of Americans want a third party, the highest percentage in 20 years of Gallup asking that question, and Kennedy appears to be the one who can deliver. Most telling for me is the view from my partner, a man who has never voted for a Democrat. He told me he’d consider voting for Robert Kennedy Jr. Now that’s something!
Maria Fotopoulos writes about the connection between overpopulation and biodiversity loss, and from time to time other topics that confound her. On FB @BetheChangeforAnimals and givesendgo.com/calliescathouse.
