Then, in 1950, the Mattachine Society was established, founded exclusively by gay males.
Five years later, the Daughters of Bilitis was established as a lesbian rights organization.
For many years, these two organizations, singly and occasionally in concert, worked for gay civil rights. Unless you were involved “in the struggle”, you probably never heard of them.
In 1969, Stonewall happened. The Stonewall Riots changed the equation — now gays and lesbians began working together and “coming out”. They banded together in various groups, holding demonstrations and expressing their demands in other ways.
At some point many of these organizations began to embrace bisexuals as well, although not without some opposition.
In the 1970’s, “pride events” began occurring on a regular basis, in Philly and elsewhere, and June was designated as “Pride Month”. In Philly, The William Way Community Center began in 1974, and is now at 1315 Spruce St. Various media reflecting gay culture began to appear, such as the radio programs “Amazon Country” and “Gaydreams” on WXPN, and the gay newspapers “Au Courrant” and “Philadelphia Gay News” (PGN, which still publishes.
Poets and Prophets, the Philadelphia poetry reading series that I helped coordinate, was the first, to my knowledge, to present Pride Month readings.
There was much opposition, both religious and secular, from members of society who thought gays and lesbians would destroy the American family. Now, given that many of us believe that gays and lesbians should have certain human and civil rights, we also need to understand how and why others feel threatened by this idea, and by gay marriage. This understanding would require that both sides of the issue listen to each other, rather than making the assumption that each one has “God on their side”.
For historical context, let us consider the case of Christine Jorgenson
In 1952, Jorgenson became the first American that most of us had ever heard of to have had “sex reassignment surgery”. Somewhere in the 1970’s, transexuality went from being very rare to being a regular occurrence. And somewhere over the decades, the age limit for the right to undergo this operation seems to have been removed. Then transexual rights groups began to emerge. The addition of the letter “T” to the letters “LBG” is where this war begins.
The war is not between gays and straights, or between church and state, or between tradition and modernity, but one within the gay community. I am including bisexuals and lesbians.
To some, including transexual rights to the list of gay rights to be championed seemed to be a logical extension, but to others, this became a bridge too far.
The Lesbian Gay Bisexual (LGB) Alliance was founded in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2019.
The LGB does not include transexuals (TS) and sees TS as a separate group. Thie Alliance has spread to Australia, Canada, and, recently, the US, though not in state groups.
Recently the Alliance became a cause celebre in Vermont, and that is how I became aware of it. My long-term agitator friend, Scott Norman Rosenthal, sends me too many e-mails daily to even review, but occasionally, an e-mail piques my interest. The following all relate to the alleged attack on Fred Sargeant, a co-founder of the NYC Gay Pride Month and, more importantly, a verified participant in Stonewall.
Below are two of Fred Sargeant’s statements and a rebuttal.
Fred Sargeant is 73 and a retired police lieutenant from Stamford, Connecticut. Our local gay newspaper, the Philadelphia Gay News (PGN) has their take on it.
The current story on Sargeant involves the ever popular issue of “trans men” using women’s locker rooms.
Victoria A. Brownworth, a poet and writer whom I’ve known for at least 40 years, who currently writes for PGN, has been accused of being a lesbian transphobe.
To be clear, the LGB Alliance recently opened a chapter in New York called LGB NYC, although an LGB Philadelphia has not yet been established.
Since we all need to have a position on every question, mine would be to support the rights of gays and lesbians as one group, and those of transexuals as another. I believe that any man who has not made the final cut (that is, has not had transgender surgery) should be allowed only in the men’s locker room.
Scott, I beg of you, please go back to sending me only non-controversial topics, such as supporting the Palestinians or not supporting Antifa.
During World War II, 130,000 American soldiers and nearly 19,000 U.S. civilians were prisoners of war. In all but the worst circumstances, usually the Japanese camps where POWs lived in brutally inhumane conditions, a little recreation was possible, and baseball was the preferred pastime.
In his book, “POW Baseball in World War II,” author Tom Wolter tells the stories of baseball played behind barbed wire in the most unlikely places that included Central Asia, along the Baltic Seacoast, in Indonesian jungles and in Japanese cities where guards challenged prisoners to games. Refusal would have been dangerous.
Games were played, said one POW, to avoid crushing boredom, and to create a “Little America.” Within the camps, the players formed leagues, and rivalries were intense. Umpiring disputes were heated, and ringer roster-stacking allegations common. Prison-run newspapers detailed the games in prose that would have made Damon Runyon proud.
Among those liberated from POW camps was Army Air Force Sergeant Augie Donatelli, a future National League umpire. Stationed in England with the 379th Bomb Group as a tail-gunner on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, one of the Air Force’s most dangerous jobs, Donatelli’s plane, during the first daylight mission over Berlin, was shot down. Looking back, Donatelli said that “fighters [were] diving at us, 20-millimeter shells exploding all around. We flew into the clouds to hide. What action! That day 68 bombers were shot down.”
Donatelli, who previously had flown 17 successful missions, parachuted out but broke his ankle when he hit the ground. Trying to escape from the forest after his fall, Donatelli recalled that he heard a Nazi soldier yell, “Halt,” and was soon a Stalag Luft IV POW.
During his 14 months as a POW, Donatelli tried to escape twice, but was recaptured. Former National League umpire and friend Doug Harvey later recalled, “He always laughed when he talked about his second attempt. He was hiding in a haystack, but didn’t get all the way in. His rear was showing. One of the German guards got him out with a pitchfork.”
As a young boy, Donatelli, the son of Italian immigrants, worked in Western Pennsylvania’s coal mines. Donatelli told the Society for American Baseball’s Oral History Committee, “It was dangerous and hard work, but what else were you going to do? I started even before graduating from high school.” But Donatelli began his 24-year career, which ended with him universally regarded as one of baseball history’s best umpires, when he presided over POW softball games.
Before Donatelli enlisted, something he said that his patriotic spirit compelled him to do, he had played shortstop in the Class D league for the St. Louis Browns. But Gus, as Donatelli’s friends called him, sensed that his skills weren’t up to MLB snuff. After graduating from umpire school, his new career began, and soon, he was umpiring in the big leagues where he became famous for his quick hook and the dramatic gestures that accompanied it.
By the time he retired, Donatelli had worked four All-Star games, five World Series, two League Championship Series. Donatelli was also behind the plate for four no-hitters, as well as when Whitey Ford set the World Series record for scoreless innings, 32, when Don Drysdale got the single season consecutive shutout innings in a season, 58, when Stan Musial hit five homers in a doubleheader, and when “The Man” got his 3,000th base hit, and when Nate Colbert hit five homers and had the most RBIs, 13, in a doubleheader.
In 1970, Donatelli helped organize the Major League Umpires Association which eventually led to today’s umpires earning an average $235,000 salary. When Donatelli looked back at his career, he pointed with pride to missing only one game in 24 years, and his patriotic World War II service; “I felt it was something I had to do, not to escape the mines but because you just felt it was up to you to get into it.” At age 75, Donatelli died at home in St. Petersburg, Fl.
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
The arrival of the planet’s 8 billionth human inhabitant, which the United Nationsexcitedly announced in mid-November, was greeted in some circles as a joyous event. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed 8 billion people as an occasion “to celebrate diversity and enhancements.”
For other population growth enthusiasts, 2037 can’t come fast enough. By then, only 17 years from today, the world population will hit 9 billion. The Washington Post’seditorial board wholeheartedly agrees with Guterres. In its op-ed piece, disdainfully, the Post encouraged readers not to fret because population growth is “mostly inevitable anyway.” The editorial overlooked, perhaps purposely, other harmful population growth consequences, including, but not limited to, drought and its inevitable water shortages, megafauna extinction and ground subsidence, as well as pollution in its multiple forms.
Suddenly, or so it seems, everyone is advocating for higher birth rates, and hence more people, but without mentioning the obvious negative effects on the already eroding ecosystem and depleted, irreplaceable natural resources. Elon Musk, father of nine, is sounding alarm bells about what he refers to as a crumbling civilization, inevitable without a population spike.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has joined the more people, the merrier crowd, and uses his advocacy as an excuse to defend the U.S.’s unprecedented and unlawful border invasion. Coinciding with the UN’s gleeful announcement that world population had hit 8 billion, Schumer urged his GOP congressional colleagues to join in the effort to “welcome” more immigration and to put existing illegal aliens, as well as, presumably, those pouring across the border every hour of every day, on a citizenship path. Schumer’s reasoning: the U.S. has “a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to.” Therefore, Schumer warned, without immigration, the nation’s economy is doomed.
The magnitude of Schumer’s distorted vision is stunning. The existing illegal immigrants’ exact population is unknown. It is such a mystery that Schumer himself refuses to take a stab at the total. In his plea for a citizenship path for aliens, Schumer referred to “all 11 million or however many undocumented there are here.” Eleven million is the conservative end of the range that, in some estimates, extends upward to 30 million.
A word or two about the border invasion’s totals that must be evaluated as part of Schumer’s grand citizenship plan. Eight weeks into fiscal 2023, which began October 1, a record number of illegals have crossed the border. The number of gotaways — those seen crossing illegally but not apprehended — are on an unprecedented pace during FY 2023 to date: 134,649 since October 1, per CBP sources. Overall migrant encounters also are on an unparalleled pace, FYTD23: 349,216 compared to 275,624 this time in FY22. Assuming those statistics continue indefinitely — and there’s no reason to expect otherwise — at least 2,496 illegals per day will get away, and border agents will encounter 6,467 aliens daily.
Given that more than 5.5 million aliens have entered since President Biden took office, the U.S. population will have increased by roughly 10 million when Election Day 2024 rolls around. Schumer has nothing to worry about; family reunification will be the impetus for the 10 million total to go ever-upward.
The worldwide migrant community has every incentive to keep coming. The administration gives free-to-them, but taxpayer-funded, airline tickets, train tickets, bus tickets, cell phones, welfare, public education and health care, purposely provided incentives that will help satisfy the seditious goal of Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to destroy sovereign America. For Musk, Schumer and other population growth deniers, Biden’s open borders are a dream come true.
Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts.
Iranians Show Solidarity In Philly, NYC And D.C. With The Oppressed In Their Homeland
By Olivia Braccio
The people of Iran have finally had enough.
It’s been 43 years since the horrific Islamic Regime took over Iran, and the desperately needed revolution that will hopefully topple the dictatorship is happening. Most of us, by now, are aware of the massive protests currently taking place in nearly all major cities not only here in the U.S., but around the world. We know that this uprising was set in motion by the senseless killing of Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16, when she was captured by the Iranian police force and subsequently beaten to death for “improper hijab,” meaning that her hair was partially visible beneath her headscarf. It is incomprehensible—a person was punished with murder for showing some hair.
Demonstrator in Stanton Park, Washington D.C., Oct. 15
I’ve been photographing these rallies in the three cities nearest to me—Philadelphia, New York, and Washington D.C.— and sharing the photos to social media as well as my own website in the hopes of raising awareness about and funds for the cause. Some have asked me why people on American soil are rallying on behalf of another country and how the situation in Iran concerns us at all. It’s a good question, one that deserves a thorough answer.
As per Middle Eastern news network Al Jazeera, “The Biden administration has announced a new round of sanctions against Iran, vowing to impose financial penalties on a ‘regular basis’ in an effort to ‘severely restrict’ Iranian oil and petrochemical exports. Since President Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018, various sectors of the Iranian economy have been under heavy US sanctions. In response, Iran has been advancing its nuclear program, including uranium enrichment, well beyond the limits set by the agreement. Biden is seeking a return to the pact, which saw Iran scale back its nuclear program. On Sept. 29, 2022, the Biden administration said it will continue to rigorously enforce sanctions until Iran returns to the deal.
“This is all happening while Iran is witnessing nationwide protests sparked by the murder of Mahsa Amini. Washington has expressed vague support for the demonstrators but said it is still willing to restore the nuclear deal based on mutual compliance. The deal would put money in the pockets of the Islamic Republic only; not the pockets of the people of Iran. It would strengthen the government’s power and ability to further oppress those protesting the regime. Vague support and a continuation of nuclear talks with Iran is unacceptable while the country continues to protest and riot against countless murders, human rights violations, and the continued suppression of women in Iran.”
The Iranian-American community is imploring this administration to stop funding the terroristic regime for the sake of oil. We need to work towards energy independence in this country in order to keep money out of the hands of murderers. Pennsylvania’s Governor-elect Josh Shapiro’s adamant resistance to fracking is contributing to the problem, seeing as this state has the potential to be one of our nation’s top oil-producers. His refusal to tap into this supply keeps us dependent on imports and continues the cash flow to the Middle East. We, as the constituents, must hold him accountable and impress upon him the significance of this matter in the hopes that he’ll change his mind.
When it comes to fracking, we have to think not only of ourselves. Of course, it’s infuriating that Pennsylvanians are forced to pay more for gas than citizens of all the surrounding states, not to mention the skyrocketing costs of heating our homes for the winter. But these struggles seem insignificant compared to what Iranians are facing in their country. Women, gays, and the disabled community in Iran are treated as subhuman and have been for decades now. The long list of things women aren’t allowed to do includes but is not limited to entering stadiums, traveling abroad unaccompanied by their husbands, riding bicycles, and showing their hair—women in the country have routinely been subjected to dress code-related violence after wearing a hijab was deemed mandatory rather than optional in 1979 under Sharia law.
At the Capitol, Oct. 15
Protests and riots having been going on throughout Iran for more than two months now. The death toll rises daily as protestors are captured by police and then tortured, or simply shot during demonstrations. Nearly five hundred people have been killed in just the two months since Mahsa’s murder. More than sixty of them were children—those as young as seven have been shot while walking home from school, after they were overheard singing anti-regime chants.
In the beginning of November, 227 members of the 290-seat parliament in Iran have called on the Judiciary to issue death sentences for people arrested during the ongoing protests. The number of people arrested so far is estimated at roughly 15,000. The Islamic republic historically uses the death penalty as a tool of repression and intimidation. Nine people have been sentenced so far; their charges are “assembly and collusion against national security,” “corruption on earth,” and “confrontation with the Islamic republic.” Oct. 31 is when they stood trial and had a short hearing—with no legal counsel. They will be executed soon. The other 15,000 or so people are at high risk of the same fate given that this authoritarian regime has proven over the past 43 years that they are capable of massacring their own people on a whim. They are currently being held in jail as political prisoners where they are subjected to rape and other forms of torture.
Demonstrator in Washington D.C. On Oct. 22 holding a photo of Mahsa Amini
It’s easy to mistakenly assume that Iranian citizens, being native to a country that was never a political ally of the U.S., are our enemies. Nothing could be further from the truth. The sad fact is, the main victims of any terroristic government are usually its own constituents. These individuals are no less deserving of the same rights and privileges afforded to those born in other nations. Those who have already immigrated to the U.S. from Iran are physically safe here, but the emotional toll it is taking on them to know mass death and destruction is occurring in their homeland is unimaginable. We can’t choose where we’re born. All humans are created equal and yet grow up in drastically dissimilar ways depending on arbitrary circumstances such as whose land we live on and how it is governed. When you get down to it, the only difference between myself and Mahsa Amini is that I had the good fortune of being born in the free world and she didn’t. The tremendous unfairness of this is not lost on me.
I’m in awe at the amount of people showing up to protest on behalf of Iran in Washington D.C. and other cities. The protest at the National Mall on Oct. 22 garnered an estimated 31,000 people. It was truly a phenomenal thing to witness and photograph as people waved the Iranian flag and chanted in both Farsi and English; some wept openly as they marched through the streets of our capitol city to stand on the White House lawn and let their voices be heard. They are warm and welcoming to their non-Iranian allies such as myself, seeing as support from other ethnicities is vital to the movement, and they thanked me for being there to document since the situation isn’t receiving much coverage from mainstream media.
Admittedly, I never thought a lot about Iranian people prior to the past several weeks. I didn’t even know there were this many of them living in the United States. Realizing this, I felt pretty ignorant. Forgive me. It is interesting to note how life shifts once you become aware of certain things. It’s a harrowing thought, but this is the reality of the world we live in: at any given time, while you’re eating breakfast, walking your dog, laughing with friends, or overspending at the store, someone is being brutally murdered by their own nation’s tyrannical government. Going about the business of daily life distracts you from this fact. Your own problems, which pale by comparison, almost shield your mind from having to acknowledge these types of things. But once you know, you can’t keep ignoring it. Those who have died and their suffering families will be in your thoughts even as you’re doing something unrelated to the matter. Attending to menial tasks will feel different as the gravity of other peoples’ crises weighs upon your soul.
I’ve read that energy, such as that which is found within a human being, cannot truly be lost. It can only be transformed. I hope this is the case, and that somehow, some way, in some other dimension, Mahsa and all the others who have been murdered at the hands of this horrific regime are witnessing the revolution their unjust and untimely deaths have spawned.
Proceeds will be donated to the Iranian-American community here in the Philly area in order to help them continue organizing events.
Iranians Show Solidarity In Philly, NYC And D.C. With The Oppressed In Their Homeland Iranians Show Solidarity In Philly, NYC And D.C. With The Oppressed In Their Homeland Iranians Show Solidarity In Philly, NYC And D.C. With The Oppressed In Their Homeland
Tech Workers Brace for Possible Omnibus Job-Killer
By Joe Guzzardi
Like the proverbial bad penny that keeps reappearing, lousy immigration bills are hard to kill off. Consider the EAGLE Act of 2022, also known as Equal Access to Green Cards for Legal Employment, or formally recognized as H.R. 3648. The newest proposed legislation is another iteration of the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act. Although it passed the House by a 365-65 vote, eventually it stalled in Congress.
Introduced by immigration lawyer, amnesty advocate, enforcement foe and expansionist champion Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the new and the old versions of her proposed legislation both share the same ruinous-to-U.S. tech workers’ feature: the legislation would rob thousands of U.S. tech workers of access to well-paid, white-collar, high-skilled jobs in the science, technology, engineering and math fields, STEM jobs for which they are fully qualified.
Along with her like-minded congressional allies that include Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who was just elected as House Majority Whip for the 118th Congress and thus became the third highest ranking Republican in the House, Lofgren has scheduled a vote on the EAGLE Act, which has bipartisan support, when Congress returns from its Thanksgiving recess.
Briefly explained, the EAGLE Act would dramatically revise portions of the Immigration Act of 1990. Almost any alien who has been on the visa waiting list for at least two years with an approved petition for an employment-based green card could apply for adjustment of his status which then wouldn’t count against existing numerical caps. Stated another way, employers can sponsor a temporary foreign-born worker for an H-1B nonimmigrant visa and convert that worker to permanent by merely sponsoring him for a green card. Aliens go from temporarily present to permanent residents. With the stroke of a pen, job searches become more challenging for U.S. tech workers – Congress’ twisted idea of sound legislation.
The bill also eliminates the per-country caps for employment-based visas, which means that within about a decade Indian and Chinese nationals will receive virtually all such visas, especially the H-1B; other countries’ nationals would have an uphill climb to obtain a visa. Under current law, no countries’ nationals can comprise more than 7 percent of any visa category. This provision ensures that skilled workers from around the globe have an opportunity to come to America. The EAGLE Act, however, seeks to entirely remove all caps from employment-based visas and more than double the existing family-preference visa from 7 percent to 15 percent, a hike that would, because of family reunification, ensure significant population surges. The proposed visa cap elimination is ironic because Lofgren and the EAGLE Act’s cosponsors claim to embrace diversity, but the bill heavily favors Chinese and Indian citizens to the exclusion of most others.
Moreover, dependent children of the aliens granted the new status would be allowed to retain their legal standing, a form of amnesty, as dependents of their parents for the duration of the green card application process; they would be protected from aging out while their parents move up in the backlog. An estimated 190,000 minors would be protected.
Time was when Democrats purported to care about America’s minority workers. But their empathy toward U.S. workers is long gone, and is now redirected to foreign nationals, particularly Chinese and Indians. Blacks, Hispanics and other minorities aspire to IT jobs, too. But they’ve had little luck in obtaining those coveted STEM jobs. Pew Research found that black workers make up 9 percent of the STEM workforce, while Hispanics also comprise about 9 percent. The low STEM representation among blacks and Hispanics is largely unchanged from 2016.
For rational thinkers, few and far between in Congress, a push for liberalized immigration laws and amnesty in light of the border surge and its 2 million-plus encounters in 2022 is beyond the pale. But those sound-of-mind types don’t understand the congressional mindset; nothing stops its amnesty drive. And if the EAGLE Act doesn’t get Senate approval, Lofgren always has the option to attach it to a must-pass Omnibus bill. With the 118th House about to transfer into GOP hands, EAGLE Act supporters view December as their last chance to subvert U.S. tech workers.
Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Tech Workers Brace for Possible Omnibus Job-Killer
Alternative history can be a tricky concept. I suspect both major parties, if they had use of a Tardis would want to redo the 2022 PA Senate primary, and select different U.S. senatorial candidates. Dave McCormick comes to mind, and you can fill in any name for Fetterman. Watching the one lone debate between Fetterman and Oz made me glad we only had one to watch.
There were any number of alternative-party and write-in candidates, who, unfortunately, had the same chance as any Republican running in Swarthmore — that is, zero to none.
However, when I came across one Everett Stern, I had to stop and wish it were possible. This is the same Everett Stern who blew the whistle on his employer, HSBC Bank which was discovered to be only aiding drug dealers and terrorist groups. The story was profiled in the Netflix documentary “Dirty Money” and in a Rolling Stone article.
Stern is also the founder and director of Tactical Rabbit, a private Intelligence agency.
Stern’s postions were:
On gun control: I believe in keeping weapons out of the hands of criminals and in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
On national defense: It also means not getting into wars that are not in the interests of the U.S. and its allies, which he sees as “a waste of blood and treasure”, that diverts “funding and investment” from our critically important problems and challenges”.
On personal responsibility and rights: It is not the responsibility of government to pressure corporations like Facebook and Twitter to restrict the speech of those of whom they do not approve.
However, Stern “decided” not to run, in favor of endorsing Fetterman. Undoubtedly, there is some hidden history there.
It is to be hoped that some of the better candidates who were defeated, such as Frank Agovino and too many others to mention, will choose to run for office again.
Full disclosure: I saw the line “a better man than Fetterman” on a Dr. Oz sign.
There were five incumbents who won’t be returning to the Pa House after the results of November’s election. Two of them, one from each party, were incumbents of three decades’ standing.
Democrat Paul F. Friel, Jr., won 55.6 percent of the total votes, while incumbent Timothy F. Hennessey garnered only 44.24 percent.
Timothy F. Hennessey was first elected to Pennsylvania House District 26 in 1992. Bob Casey, Sr., was then the governor. The newly redistricted PA House District 26 now covers Phoenixville and 10 other Chesco municipalities.
Friel cited many factors for his victory, including the redistricting of House seats to favor the Democrats, the importance of the abortion issue, and the appeal of the individual candidates at the top of the ticket.
Timothy F. Hennessey has been active throughout his terms in office. Most recently, his safe-driving bill was signed into law. In addition, along with others, he advocated for funding for Montgomery County’s New Missions Child Advocacy Center, and he has been involved with other issues including the issue of driverless cars. See his website for more details.
On Dec. 4, 2021, Hennessey was one of the 64 Republicans who signed a four-point objections bill challenging Pennsylvania’s electoral votes in Congress on Janury 6. Hennessey was later quoted as saying he was “shocked and appalled by” the violence of January 6. He went on to say “the election is over, Biden won”.
Friel is a member of the Owen J. Roberts (OJR) School Board. He says OJR hasn’t been caught up in CRT (Critical Race Theory) or gender and trans issues. In fact, OJR hasn’t changed its stance on these policies for at least a decade.
The other long-term State House incumbent to lose his position on Nov. 8 was Democrat Chris Sainato of Lawrence County in the 9th District.
Emboldened by their better-than-anticipated mid-term election performance, the Democratic Party is entering the Lame Duck session with an aggressive agenda that includes one of it favorite goals – amnesty. Democrats will control the Upper Chamber during the 118th Congress, but the GOP by the narrowest margin – a handful of seats – will have the edge in the House.
The Democrats’ strong showing inspired President Biden to unequivocally pronounce that he plans to do “nothing“ differently during the two years that remain in his first term. Biden interprets the election results as an endorsement of his policies, especially at the border and with his quest to legalize as many illegal aliens as possible.
The status quo, especially as it relates to enforcement, is exactly what’s happening. Just days after Biden’s stand pat commitment, the Border Patrol reported that agents had at least 230,678 known October encounters, exclusive of nearly 1 million known gotaways, compared to 159,113 last October and 69,032 in October 2020. The October 2022 total, driven by Cubans and Nicaraguans, is the highest in Department of Homeland Security history.
Immediately after the Thanksgiving recess, all eyes will be focused on the Lame Duck session that will provide a chance for Biden to finalize his legislative objective. And Republicans may be willing to lend a helping hand, a possibility enhanced with the re-election of pro-amnesty Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Although amnesty goes against most Americans’ wishes, Congress dismisses voters’ concerns, and presses on.
Common sense dictates that already present illegal aliens shouldn’t be granted amnesty until, at a minimum, the DHS seals the border against the new illegal alien wave that includes thousands of unaccompanied minors. But looking ahead to a possible 2024 re-election bid, the president’s advisors are scratching together a possible slogan, “Promises Kept.” Since immigration doesn’t fall into the “kept” category, at least in the White House’s view, Biden’s advisors perceive the need to forge ahead on amnesty.
Earlier this year, the House laid amnesty’s foundation when it passed the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, amnesty for about 2.1 million illegally present farm workers. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals – DACA – and farm workers are the two top amnesty priorities. Democrats have already written a game plan to send DACA legislation to the Senate that would amnesty more than 4 million illegal immigrants before their House majority expires. A sidebar: legislation to grant amnesty to deferred action recipients has, since 2001 when it was first introduced, consistently failed to get congressional majorities.
Just behind deferred action legalization’s priority are the farm workers who would be tied, if the amnesty passes, to agricultural employment for years – indentured servitude – with the carrot being eventual citizenship. Despite the bill’s title which suggests modernization, no such feature is included. Modernization means using artificial intelligence, the bane of donors who support keeping the ag industry dependent on cheap, stoop labor.
Both DACA and the farm act require ten Senate yeas which the House is unlikely to get. Without the ten necessary upper chamber votes, amnesty advocates could attach either or both DACA and the farm act to must-pass, omnibus legislation – the landmine that immigration restrictionists most fear.
Nothing stops the amnesty lobby – not 9/11, not the mortgage crisis and not dismal employment markets. When amnesty advocates have friends in high places such as the White House, the Senate and the House, pressure for passing amnesty is, as proven during the days leading to the 2022 Lame Duck, intense. Amnesty recipients obtain lifetime valid employment permits, a coveted affirmative benefit that expands the labor market and hinders blue-collar Americans, including blacks, Hispanics and other minorities, the constituency that Congress deceivingly purports to care about.
Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
PECO is planning a $12 million investment in Swarthmore as part of a larger statewide electricity initiative that calls for removing lots of trees.
You can call the plan “We Kill Trees To Go Green”
The current utility poles are 35 feet tall, and PECO wants to replace them with fifty footers.
The assessment at the Nov. 15 borough council is that 124 trees must go, most of which are decades old. PECO promises to replace them with 2-and-a-half-foot saplings
PECO refuses to use underground electrical lines it was revealed despite their use in Springfield and at Swarthmore College.
PECO cites higher costs as among the reasons they don’t want to tunnel in the dirt in the borough.
Swarthmore Borough Council has been in negotiations with PECO, but has not found a way forward as of last night’s meeting.
In keeping with our tradition, Swarthmore residents are beginning to organize, with letters and phone calls as the first salvo in the battle.
While PECO has not approached my block yet, but we don’t know that they won’t. To be clear, my household is not involved with the organizing.
There are numerous other examples of PECO’s attempts to destroy trees in a similar fashion. A few are listed below.
Elon Musk, Twitter’s new chief executive officer, and the firings he immediately called for that included H-1B visa holders, as well as the tech industry’s mass, across-the-board layoffs, raise a three-decade-old question: should the H-1B visa be eliminated, and should U.S. tech workers be put first in line for the white-collar, well-paid jobs?
Musk, who completed his $44 billion Twitter takeover last month, declared that he would end lifetime bans from his platform and tweeted that diverse viewpoints would be welcome. He has a golden opportunity not only to end censorship and restore free speech as he’s promised, but to also hire U.S. tech workers when workforce needs again grow.
Going forward, Musk would have a chance to replace the Twitter employees that he’s fired with U.S. tech workers. The firings – about half the Twitter staff, or around 3,700 employees – are allegedly a cost-cutting measure. He summarily dismissed big earners like CEO Parag Agrawal, $30 million annually; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, $18.9 million; Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, $17 million; and General Counsel Sean Edgett, whose salary is unknown, but likely in the same range as his peers. A class action lawsuit was filed against Twitter in San Francisco federal court claiming that the employees were not given the mandatory 60-day notice prior to the layoffs.
Many of the fired Twitter workers may be in the double-whammy vortex. As H-1B employees, unless they find another job within 60 days or successfully change their immigration status, they must leave the U.S. or risk deportation. H-1B holders who are legally required to leave must depart and not overstay their visas which the federal government clearly identifies as temporary. The U.S. Immigration and Immigration Services estimates that about 8 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 employees, between 625 and 670, have H-1B visas.
Tech and social media are either laying off workers by the thousands or imposing hiring freezes. With Intel’s 20 percent slash, Snapchat’s 20 percent cut and hiring freezes at Amazon and Apple, H-1B holders are on edge. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, cut 11,000 jobs, 13 percent of its staff, after Mark Zuckerberg admitted that his so-called metaverse project was a $15 billion bomb. Meta/Facebook is in a tough spotvis-à-vis its H-1B layoffs. Per the Department of Labor classification, this means 15 percent or more of Meta’s full-time employees are H-1B nonimmigrant workers.
For more than 30 years, Silicon Valley and other employers have falsely claimed that without nonimmigrant H-1B visa employees, their businesses would suffer. Yet now, with widespread tech layoffs that include H-1B holders, admitting 85,000 international workers in 2023, the visa’s annual cap, would further hurt U.S. tech workers who are either displaced and forced to train their replacements or denied interviews. Because H-1B employees are cheaper to hire than U.S. tech graduates, the corporate elite prefer them over more skilled, more well-educated Americans.
The Wall Street Journal hosted a panel discussion that featured two advocates who favor expanding the H-1B program and one critic who urges major reforms. The advocates, David Bier, the Cato Institute’s immigration studies associate director, and Theresa Cardinal Brown, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s managing director of immigration and cross-border policy, argued that the H-1B visa cap should be increased and that their labor market presence makes America a more prosperous place.
The critic, Dr. Ron Hira, Howard University, political science associate professor and Economic Policy Institute research associate, countered that the rigged H-1B system is a transfer-of-wealth scam that makes the employers wealthy winners, and the workers, low-wage losers. Dr. Hira added that employers aren’t required to prove that a U.S. worker shortage exists before hiring an H-1B, that H-1B workers’ wages are set too low, and that the compliance system doesn’t hold employers accountable. “Guest-worker programs are supposed to fill domestic labor shortages. The H-1B program does not fill shortages,” Dr. Hira said.
The Journal debate represents the challenge that H-1B critics face. No matter how many H-1B visa holders lose their jobs, or how economically depressed the tech sector is, the demand for more visas will remain. Pro-immigration media supporters like the Journal, immigration advocacy groups, lawyers, corporate America and the powerful Chamber of Commerce will incessantly lobby Congress for more, more, more H-1B visas.
Ray Marshall, President Jimmy Carter’s Labor Secretary and University of Texas Professor Emeritus, gave a no-frills summary of the H-1B that its advocates should heed: “One of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems…H-1B pays below market rate. If you’ve got H-1B workers, you don’t have to do training or pay good wages.” Musk has an opportunity to set an example for Meta and others to follow: hire U.S. tech workers.
Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
