Category: Guest Authors

Harvard Eddie Grant Was MLB’s First Fatality In WWI

Harvard Eddie Grant Was MLB’s First Fatality In WWI

By Joe Guzzardi

Eddie Grant, a Harvard Law School graduate and former Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds and New York Giants third baseman, was the first major league baseball player killed in World War I. In all, seven other major league players lost their lives in the Great War. They are Lt. Tom Burr, plane crash; Lt. Harry Chapman, illness; Lt. Larry Chappell, influenza; Pvt. Harry Glenn, pneumonia; Cpt. Newton Halliday, hemorrhages; Cpl. Ralph Sherman, drowned, and Purple Heart winner Sgt. Robert “Bun” Troy, shot.
 
Known affectionately among his teammates as “Harvard Eddie,” Grant debuted in the majors in 1905 after he graduated from Harvard where he starred at baseball and was the basketball team’s top scorer. Grant eventually would play 990 games as an infielder through 1915. An average dead ball era hitter, neither spectacular nor a detriment, Grant’s career average was .249 with five home runs. Grant’s best big-league season came in 1909 when he hit .269 as Philadelphia’s leadoff hitter and finished second in the National League with 170 hits. Opposition players considered him an above average fielder and particularly adept at handling bunts. In the 1913 World Series which the Giants lost to the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-1, Grant saw limited action. He pinch-ran and scored in Game 2, and in Game 4, he hit a foul ball pop up that the A’s catcher easily snagged.

Harvard Eddie Grant Was MLB's First Fatality In WWI
Harvard Eddie Grant

On April 6, 1917, two years after his baseball career ended at age 33, and with his law practice barely underway, Grant enlisted in the U.S. Army, the first major league player to sign up. In a letter to a friend, Grant proudly wrote: “I had determined from the start to be in this war should it come to us…I believe there is no greater duty than I owe for being that which I am — an American citizen.’’
 
Tom Simon, writing for the Society for American Baseball Research, recounts Grant’s fateful demise in his defense of America against the advancing Germans. On October 2, 1918, Grant’s 307th Regiment launched an attack in France’s Argonne Forest, a rugged, heavily wooded area with thick underbrush, deep ravines and marshes. Soon, Grant’s superior officers were killed, and Eddie took command. By the morning of the third day, October 5, Grant was exhausted. He hadn’t slept since the offensive’s beginning, and his fellow officers noticed him sitting on a stump with a cup of coffee in front of him, too weak to lift the cup.
 
One of Grant’s troops, a former Polo Grounds policeman, remembered: “Eddie was dog-tired but he stepped off at the head of his outfit with no more concern than if he were walking to his old place at third base after his side had finished its turn at the bat. He staggered from weakness when he first started off, but pretty soon he was marching briskly with his head up.”
 
When the Germans pressed forward, Grant yelled at his men to seek cover while he remained standing, waving his arms to call for stretchers. Grant’s courageous effort to save his fellow soldiers cost him his life. Maj. Charles Wittlesey, Grant’s friend who led the 77th Division in the battle historians call “the Lost Battalion,” said: “When that shell burst and killed that boy, America lost one of the finest types of manhood I have ever known.’’ When the battle ended, Grant’s fellow soldiers, realizing their leader had been killed, were overheard saying, “The best man in the entire regiment is gone.”
 
Grant is interred at France’s Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery along with more than 14,000 American soldiers. World War I historian Mike Hanlon has led tours of the war’s battlefields and the cemetery where he talks about Purple Heart recipient Grant.
 
Then-MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis wanted Grant added to the Hall of Fame for his service to the country. Although Landis’ fine idea was rejected, Grant had a Bronx highway named after him, and a ball yard in his hometown Franklin, Mass. The Giants, Grant’s last major league team, placed a bronze plaque in his honor on the center field fence of the Polo Grounds on Memorial Day 1921. The plaque identified Grant as Soldier – Scholar – Athlete, doubtless the order in which Eddie would like them listed.
 
 
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

All Ukraine All the Time, America Forgotten

All Ukraine All the Time, America Forgotten

By Joe Guzzardi

If only President Biden and Congress loved the U.S. with the same passion the federal government demonstrates toward Ukraine, then inflation-stricken, poorer-by-the-day taxpayers wouldn’t be saddled with $53.6 billion debt that has no ties to their national interest. While in South Korea, Biden signed a $40 billion emergency bill to help Ukraine defend its border against Russia’s incursion. The $40 billion, bumped up from Biden’s original $33 billion request, represents nearly three times the $13.6 billion that Congress approved in March for Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid.

Upon hearing the news that the huge U.S. funding package would be on the way, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, “The war will be bloody, there will be more battles,” which translates to “more U.S. taxpayer money will have to be sent.” One thing is certain: another round of funding for Ukraine will be rushed through Congress without a meaningful exchange with Americans who deserve to know what’s really in these bills, how Ukraine accounts for the billions of dollars, if at all, and the net cost to beleaguered taxpayers to fund a faraway war with no end in sight, and without a defined, tangible mission.

Examples of how rushing into foreign entanglements went awry in Iraq and Afghanistan should be burned into the memories of Biden and members of Congress. A fact sheet that congressional Democrats distributed said that the funding will be used to assist Ukrainian military, national security forces and to provide weapons, equipment, training, logistics and intelligence support. But, to repeat, no one truly knows how the billions of dollars will be spent or who’s accountable.

All Ukraine All the Time, America Forgotten

Equally as troubling as the failure to learn from the past and a high likelihood of no accountability, the U.S. is sending money it doesn’t have. The nation’s current debt is $30.5 trillion or about $91,500 per every single person in the country. Not only is the U.S. “leadership” saddling its citizenry with an enormous debt burden, America’s Southwest border is wide open to all comers from countries near and far.

Taxpayers fund every aspect of the Southwest border invasion – housing, transportation and much more. While record-breaking 8.5 percent inflation has driven millions of low-income families to the brink, Americans watch on their nightly television news broadcasts the embarrassing spectacle of ranking congressional officials bowing and scraping to Zelenskyy. On separate trips, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell traveled to Ukraine with their respective delegations to express their support. Pelosi’s office sent what it described as an “unmistakable and resounding message to the entire world: America stands firmly with Ukraine.” McConnell spoke about Ukraine’s defense of its sovereignty and its unity, ironic when the U.S. border remains open to foreign nationals, fentanyl-pushing drug cartels and human traffickers that earn $150 billionannually preying on the vulnerable.

The huge Ukraine funding packages made the headlines and drew the attention of many concerned, weary Americans. But in related news that provides enormous insight into where Congress’ priorities lay – hint: not with American citizens – look at the fine print in the “Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022” that authorized Ukraine’s $40 billion cash cow. Buried in the bill was a proposal to provide the 70,000 unvetted Afghan evacuees with green cards which would mean that, in all probability, they’ll never return home. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas improperly used parole to admit the unvetted Afghans into the U.S. The Immigration and Nationality Act permits parole to be granted only on a case-by-case basis, and not granted to 70,000 foreign nationals.

Green cards for Afghans were struck from the bill’s final language, but is certain to reappear in future legislation. In the meantime, another parole program, “Uniting for Ukraine,” sailed through. Congress allocated $900 million for a Ukrainian relief fund through September 20, 2023, for “Refugee Entrance and Assistance.” Tellingly, many Ukrainian parolees had already been safely resettled in Europe where they had received temporary immigration status, work permits and free healthcare. The Ukrainians had a good deal; now, the Biden administration has provided a better one.

Biden’s presidency is a bonanza for invading foreign nationals who Customs and Border Protection are forced to welcome. Drug traffickers and human smugglers, as well as Afghans and Ukrainians improperly paroled, are all welcome. Biden’s agenda excludes everyday Americans struggling to get along. Sixteen months into Biden’s presidency, most Americans would be encouraged to see the tiniest hint that the president cares about their futures, but they shouldn’t hold their breath.


PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
 

All Ukraine All the Time, America Forgotten All Ukraine All the Time, America Forgotten

Biden Is Bad Transformation

Biden Is Bad Transformation

By Joe Guzzardi

In March 2021, The New York Times published a commentary about President Joe Biden and referred to him as “transformational.” Columnist David Brooks heaped praise on Biden for his economic agenda, and concluded that the government’s role in American life is changing. However, Brooks continued, Biden isn’t causing the shifts in government philosophy, “but he is riding them.”

Today’s “Bidenism,” compared to the formerly moderate Biden, has spurred “large numbers of thinkers” to cast aside their concerns about inflation, as well as other pesky, nagging economic and emotional doubts about government’s place in the lives of citizens. If given the chance, and considering 2021’s rough ride, Brooks might pull back on his flattering column.

During his campaign, Biden promised the nation a transformational government, and he’s delivered, although not quite in the manner some envisioned. Revoking the Keystone XL oil pipeline, halting development of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, rejoining the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accord, halting construction of the Southern border wall, signing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 and signing the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure and Investment Act are doubtless transformational. But they were not, as pundits like Brooks had envisioned, universally embraced.

On his pledge to transform America, Biden has delivered, more successfully but with greater damage to his presidency than his most ardent supporters could have envisioned. An NBC poll taken in mid-May showed the president’s approval rating at 39 percent, largely because for the year-long period ended April 2022, the annual inflation rate was 8.3 percent.

Biden Is Bad Transformation

Biden’s transformative immigration developments are never-ending. On back-to-back days, May 16 and May 17, two immigration-related stories broke that demonstrate how porous the U.S. border is and how indifferent the White House is to enforcement. First, the Department of Homeland Security announced that in April U.S.-Mexico migrant encounters hit a new historic high of 234,088; 110,000 were released into the U.S., while under Title 42 about 97,000 were returned.

On May 20, Judge Robert Summerhays, Western District of Louisiana Judge, granted a preliminary injunction blocking Biden from ending Title 42 on May 23. But Biden is defiant in his determination to end Title 42. The Department of Justice immediately announced they will appeal the decision. As Biden and his Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas know, without Title 42, about 500,000 illegal aliens will overwhelm the U.S. border each month and then move into the U.S. interior.

During a Texas border tour, Mayorkas admitted that the U.S. will continue to welcome aliens who make what he mistakenly called a valid claim of asylum protection under U.S. laws. But aliens who travel from around the world are, as an MIT study confirmed, overwhelmingly economic migrants and as such don’t qualify for asylum. The ultimate consequence of Biden’s willful refusal to enforce immigration law: Before his four-year term ends, millions of illegal immigrants will have been admitted, family reunification will begin, and a major demographic transformation of the nation will be underway.

In another recent immigration development, U.S. authorities discovered a tunnel equal to the length of six football fields that drug smugglers had used for an undetermined but doubtlessly lengthy period. When authorities located the tunnel, they seized nearly 2,000 pounds of cocaine, meth and heroin. Because of indifference to border enforcement, U.S. fentanyl deaths exceeded 100,000 in 2021. Cartels, confident that the federal government won’t interfere, also profit from human trafficking, including transporting underage girls for prostitution.

As enthusiastic as Democrats may have been during Biden’s presidential 100-day honeymoon period, today they’re proceeding with caution. Many involved in competitive mid-term elections this fall are hedging, as any watchful politician would, as to the feasibility of accepting the president’s offer to join them on the campaign trail. Giving the appearance of endorsing Biden’s unpopular American transformation will lead to their defeat.


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

Biden Is Bad Transformation Biden Is Bad Transformation

Fetterman Benefitted From Poor Lamb Campaign

Fetterman Benefitted From Poor Lamb Campaign

By Bob Small

Despite his hospitalization for a stroke, during Stroke Awareness Month, Lt Gov. John Fetterman won the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate with almost 60 percent of the vote. 

He won because of an inept campaign by his main opponent.  There may have been other factors restricting the vote totals of his other two opponents, such as homophobia and Islamaphobia.

Fetterman Benefitted From Poor Lamb Campaign
John Fetterman

Fetterman’s main opponent, Congressman Conor Lamb (D-17), was widely expected to mount a strong challenge, but not so.

“It’s one of the worst campaigns I’ve ever seen run,” Democratic Party strategist Mike Mikus said in an interview in McClatchy DC.

Lamb received around 26 percent of the vote.

“Voters told the New York Times they saw Conor Lamb as another Joe Manchin,” said political commentator Krystal Ball.  

So much for centrists.

State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-181), with 10 percent of the vote, was hoping to be the first Black man and first gay person to be a Pennsylvania senator.

His campaign promised to work towards abolishing the Electoral College and to establish a moratorium on new fracking sites. He often campaigned with his husband, Dr. Matthew Jordan Miller Kenyatta.

There’s a short documentary about Kenyatta’s previous election run called “Going Forward,” created by Seven Knots Productions.

In an interview after his loss, Kenyatta stated that “Allowing any one of these Republicans to become Pennsylvania’s senator will be the canary in the coal mine for democracy dying on our watch,” said Kenyatta in an interview after his loss.

Not quite a centrist.

The fourth and final candidate was Alex Khalil, a Jenkintown councilwoman and a long-time Democratic activist.  She has electrical engineering and law degrees from Temple University, and a library and information technology degree from Drexel.

“We really didn’t have enough help for small businesses in this country,” she said regarding government aid during the pandemic. Another issue of concern to her is the inclusion of more job-training programs for students.

She mentions some really innovative ideas, including “the right to farm”, PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes), which would affect the endowments of colleges and universities, and funding for high-speed rail in Pennsylvania.

Ms. Khalil was hoping to be the first woman elected to the Senate from Pennsylvania, as well as the first Muslim senator. She is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants. 

Fetterman Benefitted From Poor Lamb Campaign

Population Surges Drying West

Population Surges Drying West

By Joe Guzzardi

The grisly discovery of human remains at the bottom of Lake Mead is a grim reminder of the Southwest’s growing drought crisis. In early May, a family on a boating outing found, partially buried in Lake Mead National Recreation Area’s muddy banks, a four-decades-old skeleton of a man, a suspected homicide, stuffed into a rotted-out barrel. Skeletal remains were also discovered in May at nearby Callville Bay.

Asked if the victim might have been a mob hit, Geoff Schumacher, the vice president of exhibits and programs at Las Vegas’ Mob Museum, said: “I have a feeling that as this water continues to recede, we’re going to be finding more interesting things at the bottom of Lake Mead.” Schumacher may have been referring to the B-29 Superfortress wreckage found in 2015 in Lake Mead’s 130 feet of water; in 1948, when the bomber crashed, Lake Mead’s depth was 260 feet.

While Schumacher isn’t a climatologist, he like other Far West residents is aware of the inevitable and irreconcilable clash between too many people and dwindling natural resources, primarily water. Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States and part of a system that supplies water to at least 40 million people across seven states and northern Mexico. Today, it’s dropped to its lowest level since the Franklin Delano Roosevelt era.

As of August 22, 2021, Lake Mead was filled to just 35 percent of its capacity, and now is at 30 percent. The low water level comes at a time when 95 percent of nine Western states’ land is affected by some level of drought; 64 percent is considered extreme or worse. Shrinking capacity continues a 22-year megadrought that some experts consider the worst in 1,200 years. Megadroughts are defined as droughts that last two decades or longer, but they are not measured by their intensity.

Population Surges Drying West

Snowfall in the Rocky Mountains is Lake Mead’s primary water source. But Audubon Southwest’s policy director Haley Paul said, “Even when the Rocky Mountains get to near-normal levels of snowfall and overall precipitation, what we’ve seen in the last few years is below average river runoff.” Paul explained that drought and heat mean thirstier soils and plants that soak up more water before the precious commodity ever reaches rivers – a compounding domino effect that, because the West is on year 22 of an extended megadrought, will take 22 wet winters to climb out of the hole.

An underreported variable in Lake Mead’s water levels is the population explosion – not an exaggerated expression – in California, Arizona and Nevada. In 1950, the population of Arizona, California and Nevada were, respectively, 750,000, 10 million and 158,000. Today, Arizona, California and Nevada have 7.6 million, 39.7 million and 3.2 million residents. Their principal cities, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Las Vegas have, over the same 70-year period, grown from 221,000 to 4.7 million, from 2 millionto 12.5 million and from 35,000 to 2.8 million. Taken alone, the three states in the aggregate have about 40 million more people since 1950 bathing in, cooking with and drinking water. Housing complexes, luxury hotels, golf courses and mega-mansions are major water devourers.

No end is in sight to irresponsible water usage. The best California Gov. Gavin Newsom has come up with is a tepid, ignored suggestion that his constituents voluntarily limit everyday water consumption. The State Water Resources Conservation Board said that per-capita urban water usage rose 7 percent in March compared to last year, and rose 18.9 percent when compared to March 2020.

Although political correctness forbids identifying immigration as population growth’s major driver, Census Bureau facts confirm the reality. In their Center for Immigration Studies analysis that drew exclusively from Census Bureau data, Steven Camarota and Karen Zeigler predicted that, by 2060, immigration will add 75 million people to the U.S. population. In 2017, the U.S. had 35.8 million legal and illegal immigrants. Those immigrants had 16.9 million U.S.-born children and grandchildren.

In sum, immigration added 52.7 million people to the U.S. population between 1982 and 2017, accounting for a little over 56 percent of overall population growth. A related Camarota-Zeigler study, which also drew from Current Population Survey’s monthly data, found that in November 2021, 46.2 million legal and illegal immigrants lived in the U.S., the largest number of immigrants ever recorded in a federal government survey or census dating back to 1850.

No one controls rainfall, but the federal government can help alleviate the worsening water crisis by managing immigration to levels consistent with the available natural resources. If officials continue to shirk their responsibility, then an increasing number of West Coast communities will eventually run dry, and civil disruption over water’s absence will likely ensue.

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

Population Surges Drying West

Ex Officials Lobby For More Foreign Stem Students

Ex Officials Lobby For More Foreign Stem Students

By Joe Guzzardi

In early May, nearly 50 former U.S. officials who held prominent federal government positions sent an urgent letter to Senate Majority and Minority leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, and to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Also copied was the Bipartisan Innovation Act Conference Committee, a group that will reconcile differences in the Senate and House versions of separate bills which address America’s global competitiveness.
 
Included among the letter’s signatories are the former secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and the Department of Navy, as well as the former U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, a CIA director, their assistants and undersecretaries and a two-term U.S. representative. The letter’s tone is alarmist.

Ex Officials Lobby For More Foreign Stem Students

Summarized, the letter bemoaned what the writers called “immigration bottlenecks” and their “self-inflicted drag…on American competitiveness.” Their predictable solution: more immigration in the form of attracting an ever-higher number of science, technology, engineering and math students, the so-called STEM fields. The House version, America COMPETES, exempts numerical limits and country cap quotas for green cards for international students with advanced STEM degrees. Without the green card lure, the writers warned, the U.S. will be unable to attract the “best and brightest” foreign-born STEM talent and will lose its innovative edge. The House bill also would create new but unnecessary visas which translates to more immigration, including the “W,” for start-up business owners, and the EB-4 for South Korean foreign nationals.
 
The bombastic letter indicates that none of the DHS, CBP, CIA or U.S. representative signatories have any concern that their panic to attract international students, including Chinese nationals. China is the U.S.’s leading rival for worldwide tech superiority, and importation of more Chinese nationals could lead to more national security breaches, intellectual property theft and stolen personal data. Evidence of China’s threat is abundant. A sampling: more than 24 Chinese nationals have been convicted of spying against the U.S., and the offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) have been infiltrated by People’s Republic of China subversives.
 
International students’ path to STEM degrees begins with an F-1 visa which allows them to enroll in a U.S. university. In the academic year 2020-2021, China was the leading contributor to overall international enrollment in U.S. schools with 317,299 students, a figure that COVID-19 reduced from the previous year’s 372,532 total. Nearly 40 percent of the Chinese 2020-2021 class studied STEM disciplines. A 2020 Center for Security and Emerging Technology study found that in pre-pandemic academic year 2018-2019, an estimated 122,000 Chinese nationals were pursuing STEM undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. degrees.
 
How worrisome the high Chinese STEM enrollment depends on whether an analyst considers China friend or foe. President Biden has made conflicting statements about the China-U.S. relationship. On one hand, Biden called President Xi his “old friend.” On another day, however, Biden said that China believed it would eventually “own America” within 15 years.
 
If Biden believes China’s goal is to conquer America, then inviting thousands of Chinese nationals to study STEM at the nation’s most prestigious universities is self-defeating and would accelerate the nation’s demise. Chinese status as students gives potential agents cover, and if the PRC orders them to spy, they know that it’s in their best interest to comply.
 
But congressional elites are oblivious to the growing danger that Chinese international students represent to the homeland.
 
In 2020, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) proposed that Chinese nationals be banned from coming to the U.S. to study STEM. Cotton suggested that in the interest of world harmony, young Chinese would be better served reading Shakespeare and the Federalist papers instead of mastering skills that they could use against America. Cotton called granting foreign students STEM degrees from U.S. universities “a scandal” because they return to China “to compete for our jobs, to take our business, and ultimately to steal our property and design weapons and other devices that can be used against the American people.”
 
Cotton’s straight talk, ignored by his colleagues and mocked by his detractors, is irrefutable. Weaponizing the enemy is folly. Yet, the letter’s signatories, officials supposedly well-trained in homeland security and once entrusted by the electorate to protect them from harm, insist on aiding the enemy which would accelerate America’s decline.


PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Ex Officials Lobby For More Foreign Stem Students Ex Officials Lobby For More Foreign Stem Students

 

Victory Lap For Scaredy Cat

Victory Lap For Scaredy Cat

By Arlene Gilmore

A jump off the bed and she pads downstairs. Scratch, scratch, scratch. The sound of litter. Ah, a space. Crouching over the box, Scaredy cat does her business. She climbs out, turns and smells the long, brown log. Yes, it’s good. That means .”POO RUN”.

Nails scratching on the wood floor, she takes off to the basement. Thump, thump, thump. Downstairs. Around the carpeted floors. Reverse.

Victory Lap For Scaredy Cat

Thump, thump, thump. Up the basement stairs. Nails skidding on the wooden floor, she skids to a stop and dashes upstairs to the bedroom. Thud, thud, thud, thud.

Door! Crash! The door bangs open and she skids to a stop on the carpet. “Meow, meow, meow.” Then, she dashes back down the stairs. Thud, thud, thud,
thud, thud.

An exasperated sigh. “Dammit. Do you have to do that all the time? Can’t you just cover that shit up.”

Victory Lap For Scaredy Cat

Victory Lap For Scaredy Cat

Border Admissions Staggering Mayorkas Admits

Border Admissions Staggering Mayorkas Admits

By Joe Guzzardi

For immigration lawyers, these are heady times! Since January 2021, when the Biden regime moved into the White House, the Department of Homeland Security has, by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ own shameless admission, released 836,000 illegal aliens into the interior. The staggering total includes 398,861 let go since October 1, the fiscal year’s start, and also counts 80,116 admitted in March alone. Excluded are the got-aways; estimates vary, but several hundred thousand fall into that category. This astounding admissions’ total exceeds the population of each of the cities of San Francisco, Denver, Seattle, Boston and Washington, D.C., and each of the states of Wyoming and Vermont.

Imagine the eager anticipation the immigration lawyer community must have when thinking of the fees those aliens might generate! At some firms, $1,000 an hour buys only a preliminary consultation. And the good times will keep on rolling! Once Biden removes Title 42, as he’s determined to do, an estimated 18,000 aliens are likely to cross into the United States daily, most in need of legal counsel.

Enterprising immigration lawyers could make a handsome living from Haitian alien applicants alone. Most Haitians, like others eagerly awaiting their post-Title 42 admissions, will apply for asylum. But a considerable percentage of Haitians who will file claims have already been granted asylum from South American nations like Chile, and have been long-time residents of those countries. But for the Haitians/Chileans, Biden’s lure to foreign nationals to live in America is irresistible. On their trip north, after reaching the bridge at Del Rio, Texas, the duplicitous Haitians/Chileans ditched their asylum documents into the river. The low-risk, but nevertheless fraudulent effort to eliminate any clue that they had already been granted asylum by a democratic, stable country may pay off one day with U.S. citizenship.

Border Admissions Staggering Mayorkas Admits
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Unbeknownst to the general public, asylum fraud is one of the biggest hoaxes in a U.S. immigration system where almost anything goes. The simple words “credible fear” spoken to an immigration official can be the first step to life in the U.S. Few, however, are fleeing true persecution or life-threatening violence. They’ve been coached, often by the smugglers to whom they’ve paid thousands of dollars, to say the magic words that will bring them, figuratively speaking, the keys to the U.S. kingdom.

The harsh reality is that among the thousands assembled at the border, and the thousands more on the way, few legally qualify for asylum. They are economic migrants seeking to improve their lives, and not as the Refugee Act of 1980 spelled out, persons with a well-established fear of persecution “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

Under the current administration, as voters head to the mid-term polling places, knowing the difference between refugees and legitimate asylum seekers is important. Refugees are – or were until Biden allowed admissions to mostly unscreened Afghans and Ukrainians – screened in depth before coming to the U.S. If found wanting, they can be denied refugee status before they step foot into this country. On the other hand, aliens who enter illegally and falsely claim “credible fear” have not been vetted or have been only superficially screened before physically entering the U.S. The current process is easily vulnerable to fraud and abuse. Fraudulent asylum cases, in addition to generous benefits given to those who may not deserve them, undermine and delay processing legitimate appeals from individuals who truly have credible fear.

The soaring numbers of migrants whether they’ve legally or illegally entered the country is a preliminary total. Once inside the U.S., chain migration – immigration’s major source – will increase the number by at least a factor of three. In 2018, The New York Times published a remarkable, but unexaggerated, story about one-single Indian immigrant who arrived in 1968 at age 23, and 50 years later, counts 90 family members who have joined him. Consider too that many of the resettled migrants will either add to their existing families or begin new ones.

Since citizens fund every penny of the migrants’ multiple and costly resettlement expenses, Americans justifiably wonder why, assuming border enforcement, they’re forced to underwrite their gradual but inevitable displacement.

PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.

Ron Vogel Smeared Because He Wasn’t Establishment’s Choice

Ron Vogel Smeared Because He Wasn’t Establishment’s Choice

By Nicole Roman

Observing the political arena during the last decade I have learned politics is an industry that is ethically challenged.  I believe it is fair to say many citizens have witnessed the depths of what some self-serving, motivated folks will stoop to for political gain. Due to the manipulation of personal videos, the manipulation of personal media posts and publishing of fake news there are too many immediate “rush to judgement” verdicts despite not having the facts. For example, the attacks on Nick Sandmann, the Duke Lacrosse case, the Jussie Smollett fiasco, and the despicable treatment of Judge Kavanaugh. In the end, the facts presented in court would prove to expose the accusations as wildly false.

The complete facts in Ron Vogel’s case were never fully exposed by certain high ranking members of the Republican Committee. If they were, it would have been clear to the members that certain high ranking members of the Republican Committee were building a house of cards for the sole purpose of taking down the leading candidate because he was not their “establishment” choice.

Ron Vogel Smeared Because He Wasn't Establishment's Choice
The Vogels

Accusing anybody of antisemitism, racism and sexism, is a very serious claim, especially for a public figure and one who will be representing the citizens of his district. Therefore, it is essential that the facts be completely uncovered and deeply studied to be absolutely certain that claims are accurate. This is especially true before you take the serious step to censure a candidate.

In the case against Ron Vogel, it is clear to see that the full facts as presented were not examined in total, and if they were, the full facts were not explained or considered because, if they were, if would lead to total exoneration of any accusation against Ron Vogel. Because there was a rush to judgement in this case and because the accusations clearly don’t match the full facts, the obvious conclusion is that there was a political vendetta against Ron Vogel by certain members of the executive Republican Committee that voted to censure him.

Fact: About ten years ago Ron watched a video parody, a clip from the movie Downfall, that had Hitler in it and he thought it was funny.

Full Fact: The subject matter of the video consisted entirely about a hockey playoff game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Philadelphia Flyers. This is one of many similar videos on YouTube and has been on there for years. Youtube monitors their site and deletes objectionable/racist videos. How can this one have been on there for a decade? Simple, it is not anti-Semitic in any way.

Under these new standards of racism, if you watch a parody with Hitler in it, you are a racist. We’ve all heard of the film Jojo Rabbit. It was a comedic film which included Hitler. The film was chosen by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute as one of the ten best films of the year. It won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and was nominated for Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards. Millions of people saw this movie. Are we to believe that all of these people are anti-Semitic? We know that is nonsense, just as is their claim against Ron as being racist.

Fact: Ron is being accused of being racist because somebody sent him a message using an offensive word.

Full Fact: Ron DID NOT use the offensive word and it was in no way being used in any context in an offensive manner. So, if you believe the claim against Ron, the new standard is that if anybody decides to send you a message containing an offensive word, YOU are now a racist!  Again, this is another nonsensical claim against Ron Vogel. 

As far as the sexist claim, it is even weaker, if that is possible.

Fact: Ron posted a link to a song that he liked.

Full Fact: The artist of the song goes by a name that could be offensive to women. The lyrics of the song are not offensive. So, this new standard is that if you listen to any music from an artist who has a name that can be construed as offensive, you are now sexist. Another poorly thought out, false claim against Ron!

So when full truth is known, the whole house of cards against Ron comes tumbling down. But why was this house of cards built in the first place? Was there some sort of hidden agenda??

Consider some of the timing of the politics involved. An original date had been set for the Chester County Republican Convention. Mysteriously, the convention was rescheduled just days before that was to take place. And then, it was rescheduled yet another time. At this time there were five candidates campaigning for the position and straw polls had Ron Vogel as the leader. However, somewhere in this extended time period, Guy Ciarrocchi announced that he is terminating his failed campaign for governor and is running for the U.S. Congress Representative position in District 6. Question.  Does this give the appearance that the Republican Committee changed the dates of the convention to accommodate and allow Guy Ciarrocchi the time he would need to enter the 6th District race?  Did you know when the Chester County convention finally took place, Ron Vogel finished as the top candidate, beating Guy Ciarrocchi by a wide margin (190 votes to 137 votes). This must not have sat well with the “Establishment” Republicans.

In fact, Ron Vogel was the ONLY candidate to come out of both the Berks County and the Chester County Conventions with a recommendation by the Republican Party.

It’s no secret that Ron Vogel has been running as an anti-establishment “common sense” candidate and that likely stirred ire and discontent among the Republican establishment.  It’s no secret Ron is not a politician.  Ron has answered the call from respected citizens and leaders throughout our local communities asking for hard working non-political figures to run for office. 

It’s been known in the Republican circle that the Republican establishment wants Guy Ciarrocchi to win. To what means can they tip the scale? Does the end justify the means?

Just after their Chester County Republican Executive Committee “secret” meeting to discuss these bogus claims against Ron Vogel, there was an article about it in the local newspaper the next day with “facts” that would only have been known to the participants of the “secret” meeting. Why would anybody from the Republican Executive Committee leak that info? The plausible explanation is to hurt Ron Vogel, the candidate who was the front-runner.  Did they follow it up with their “hurried and “before the facts” censure to help their “chosen” candidate, establishment Guy Ciarrocchi, along?  So, to them, it appears as the end does justify the means. 

But, the voters will not see it that way.

Why can’t there be honest elections?  Why does campaigning take such unethical turns?  Why do “connected” individuals continue to win these congressional seats?  Why does our community continue to wonder and ask how was this representative elected?!  Common sense voters will consider all of these questions and in the end the voters will demand justice and justice is seeing their chosen candidate, Ron Vogel, being voted in as the next Representative in District 6.

Nicole Roman is a resident of Norristown.

Ron Vogel Smeared Because He Wasn’t Establishment’s Choice

Charlie Gerow Says Wolf Policies Inspired Run

Charlie Gerow Says Wolf Policies Inspired Run

By Bob Small

Charlie Gerow is one of the nine GOP candidates running to replace Gov. Tom Wolf this November. He has been criss-crossing the state this primary season with radio and television interviews, and attending events and forums.

He finds the people at his meet and greets particularly uplifting.

“(I like) their optimism, their spirit and their spunk,” he says.

It was the policies of the Wolf administration that led Gerow to run for governor, and he was encouraged to do so by many including Congressman Glenn “G. T.”  Thompson (R-PA15).

Charlie Gerow Says Wolf Policies Inspired Run
Charlie Gerow on the campaign trail

“We are in a battle for the heart and soul of America,” he says.

He says he would repeal “in a heartbeat” ACT 77 — which legalized no-excuse mail-in voting.

He would allow trans-sexual surgery for those under 18 only with parental consent.

He would sign HB 904 that would limit access to abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.

Gerow said that it is presumptive Democrat gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro and his fellow party members that have the radical position abortion.

He said he supports changing the law to allow the sale of “small amounts of recreational marijuana”. He said that many of his friends in law enforcement think that “now is the time”.

Wherever possible, Gerow would work to find common ground with Democrats on various issues.  He says he’s been dubbed “the conservative happy warrior”.

He feels that Pennsylvania should use all its natural resources to work towards energy independence including coal, gas, solar power, and rather than being dependent upon people who hate us.

Though Gerow is polling rather low, he still sees a path to victory.  He’s been running a positive campaign and feels he can beat Josh Shapiro.

He mentioned his “small-business experience” as the CEO of Quantum Communications. He shared his personal story, starting life as a impoverished child in Brazil, where he was adopted by American missionaries. He is proud to have worked on the campaign staff of President Reagan and to have been involved in the arrangements for Reagan’s funeral.

Gerow is the vice chairman of Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and the American Conservative Union. He lists Newt Gingrich and Michael Reagan as among his supporters.

Charlie Gerow Says Wolf Policies Inspired Run