Category: Guest Authors

Biden Agenda Excludes Black Workers Concerns

Biden Agenda Excludes Black Workers Concerns

By Joe Guzzardi

On his first day in office, President Biden signed an Executive Order to advance racial equity and to support underserved communities, an admirable goal, and one that most Americans share. Unfortunately for residents of those struggling communities, many of them African-American, on the same day, Biden signed several other Executive Orders that fundamentally changed how the new administration would deal with immigration. Those Executive Orders sent a message around the world that amnesty is on the table, and enforcement, for the most part, was off the table.

Although few could foresee how impossible to carry out Biden’s equity agenda would become once his immigration Executive Orders were implemented, the results are clear now. The huge influx of illegal immigrants at the border – an anticipated 2.1 million this year – legally admitted Ukrainian and Afghan evacuees, and more than 1 million legal immigrants admitted every year on autopilot have made employment conditions tough for underserved black Americans to find employment or to move up from their entry-level jobs into well-paid middle-class positions.

No president genuinely concerned about equity and black Americans’ futures could open the Southwest border and reward foreign nationals who have willfully and knowingly violated U.S. immigration laws with work authorization.

Since Biden took office through July 2022, about 4.9 million illegal immigrants, including about 900,000 gotaways, have crossed the border and entered the interior. For those among the 4.9 million who are working age, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics defines as 18 to 64, many if not most will receive work permission. Evacuees and legal immigrants also receive employment documents. Those who don’t could enter the underground economy, always fertile ground for unscrupulous employers.

Biden Agenda Excludes Black Workers Concerns

But the purposely porous border isn’t the only culprit that suppresses black, Hispanic and other minority workers from moving up in the social strata. The Biden White House allows unnecessary employment-based visas to persist. Dozens of visa categories displace or put at a disadvantage Americans seeking low- and high-skilled jobs in the areas of leisure, landscaping, forestry, technology and medical science. Neither the donor class nor whomever occupies the White House blinks when talented, experienced Americans lose their jobs and have to train their foreign-born replacements. Deeply-in-debt university graduates are behind the eight ball when they’re forced to compete with cheaper overseas labor. The donor class wins; U.S. workers lose.

But the uncomfortable truth is that establishment Washington prefers foreign-born workers. Writing in Newsweek, Pamela Denise Long, a descendants of U.S. slaves advocate, asked why black dreams don’t matter. “Are descendants of U.S. slaves not supposed to notice how we and our countrymen are negatively affected by yet another bastardization of ‘social justice’?”

In her opinion article, Long wrote that “the immigration industrial complex built up around legal and illegal migration has abandoned what is patriotic and pro-American.” She references the 2010 Commission on Civil Rights report which found that the abundance of overseas workers expands the labor market, which eventually led to a 40 percent decline in employed low-skilled, native-born black men. Long called the Biden administration’s policies “the most expansive federal giveaway to legal and illegal migrants since President Reagan’s amnesty of 1986.”

Although Newsweek categorized Long’s essay as opinion, she wrote undeniable truths about the devastating effect that persistent high legal immigration and unchecked illegal immigration have on American workers, especially those with only a high school diploma or less. Long’s essay concluded with this admonition: “By supporting brain drain policies [importing foreign workers], Democrats, and officials who are Republican in name only are traitors against the American people. We see you!”

In his book, “Back of the Hiring Line,” author Roy Beck titled his final chapter, “Prioritize Descendants of Slavery?” Beck concluded that the most helpful immigration policy for non-college educated blacks will also be the correct immigration policy for other vulnerable Americans, including recently arrived legal immigrants. To put all Americans on a path to greater wealth, mass immigration must be dramatically reduced.

View Online

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.

Biden Agenda Excludes Black Workers Concerns

Religion An Issue In Pennsylvania Races

Religion An Issue In Pennsylvania Races

By Bob Small

On June 14, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the law  adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.   This aligns with the widely held belief –backed up by history — that most of the Founding Fathers were Christians. They led the first successful rebellion of a colony against the British Empire.

Christianity aside, the Founders were fallible. They were adulterers, duelists, slave owners, and you name it. Most though professed to being Christians even those who didn’t believe in Jesus’ divinity.

Religion is playing a huge role in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial and senatorial Races. Both Doug Mastriano (Christianity) and Josh Shapiro (Judaism) have included their religion in their campaign ads.

Neither John Fetterman nor Dr. Oz have made his Muslimism a feature of their campaigns, though I expect the Democrats to enter that territory at some point.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) was founded in 1978. Their purpose is to promote “the constitutional separation of church and state”.  According to the June-July 2022 issue of their publication, Free Thought Today,  they try to do this through legal challenges and pointing out the crimes of various religions. See the publication’s “Black Collar Crime” section.  

If you search under DuckDuckGo — or use any  search engine but Google — with Freedom from Religion Foundation, there are six pages of links.

Free Thought Today reaches 30 pages and there’s a lot in there to read and agree and disagree with.

For arguments against, a good place to start is Conservapedia.

Religion An Issue In Pennsylvania Races

Sanctuary Mayors Cry Uncle; No Más Migrantes

Sanctuary Mayors Cry Uncle; No Más Migrantes

By Joe Guzzardi

Sanctuary cities are once again in the headlines. But this time, sanctuary cities, the bane of immigration law enforcement advocates, have a different spin. Since five-time deported illegal immigrant Jose Inez Garcia-Zarate murdered Kate Steinle in July 2015 on Pier 14 in San Francisco, state and city governments have persisted in welcoming illegal aliens and protecting them from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. San Francisco is a sanctuary city in the sanctuary state of California.

Despite a federal immigration detention request to hold Garcia-Zarate so immigration officials could take him into custody, San Francisco authorities freed the seven-time convicted felon just three months before he killed Steinle. Eventually, Garcia-Zarate was acquitted and sentenced to time served on an illegal firearms possession charge.

Between January 2014 and September 2015, the Center for Immigration Studies reported that sanctuary jurisdictions rejected 17,000 ICE detainer requests – 17,000 individuals who should have been deported but remained to potentially pose criminal risk to U.S. citizens. Claiming that migrants are fleeing poverty and persecution, local leaders have been willing to spend their constituents’ taxpayer dollars on affirmative benefits for the newly arrived illegal immigrants.

Sanctuary Mayors Cry Uncle

Suddenly, however, with President Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas opening the Southwest border to foreign nationals from 150 countries and clandestinely flying them to faraway cities, attitudes are less welcoming. New York Mayor Eric Adams said that busing migrants from Texas to mid-town Manhattan, as Gov. Gregg Abbott has done, is “cruel.” About 4,000 unlawfully present migrants have entered New York’s shelter facilities since May, an ”unprecedented surge,” said Adams, who has unsuccessfully called on the federal government to intervene.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has made the same complaints as Adams, labeling the migrant flood “critical,” issuing identical rejected pleas for federal intervention. Since April, Gov. Abbott has sent more than 6,800 illegal immigrants to Washington. Bowser has begged for the National Guard to intervene “to help prevent a prolonged humanitarian crisis in our nation’s capital resulting from the daily arrival of migrants in need of assistance.” McAllen, Texas, Mayor Javier Villalobos mocked Adams and Bowser. Villalobos said: “The city of McAllen was able to deal with thousands of immigrants a day; I think they can handle a few hundred.”

Adams and Bowser should have known that pleading with the feds, especially Mayorkas, would be futile. At the January U.S. Conference of Mayors, Mayorkas tried to sell the assembled mayors on his new, mostly gutted ICE. But the attendees wanted to hear about border enforcement, a subject Mayorkas studiously avoided.

While it may be overly optimistic to hope for a change now that prominent Democratic mayors are experiencing first-hand the fiscal burden and public safety risks that sanctuary policies create, a shift is in the wind.

The mere existence of sanctuary cities is illegal. Local laws that protect illegal immigrants prevent routine cooperation among municipal, state and federal law enforcement agencies. President Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch realized the importance of keeping law enforcement apprised about any individual’s immigration status. Lynch warned sanctuary cities that they would not receive Justice Department funding in the 2017 fiscal year if they did not comply with 8 USC Section 1373, which prohibits any agency from restraining “in any way” the exchange of information among federal, state and local agencies regarding foreign nationals’ immigration status. Despite saber-rattling from Lynch, and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, funding continued.

With millions of border crossers already released into the U.S. interior, and millions more anticipated during Biden’s remaining two and a half years in office, sanctuary cities will come under increasing pressure to provide for their unlawfully present alien residents, an untenable situation for the already underfunded, overcrowded municipalities.

Sanctuary Mayors Cry Uncle

July Labor Report Hides Truth

July Labor Report Hides Truth

By Joe Guzzardi

The July Bureau of Labor Statistics report was a blockbuster. The economy created 528,000 jobs, and unemployment dipped to 3.5 percent, well ahead of Dow Jones’ 258,000 new jobs and 3.6 percent unemployment estimates. Wage growth also rose; average hourly earnings increased 0.5 percent for the month and 5.2 percent year-over-year, higher than, respectively, the .03 percent and 4.9 percent Wall Street estimates. A .05 percent increase, however, keeps consumers getting poorer as inflation last month proceeded at an 8.5 percent rate.

But no federal government report merits more skepticism than the monthly BLS. If the jobs market were truly booming, then the labor participation rate should be climbing. Instead, the participation rate is falling.

The number of Americans not in the labor force, those who neither have a job nor are seeking employment, climbed past the 100 million mark again in July, hitting 100,051,000, a 239,000 increase from June. From May to June, the previous 2022 reporting period, Americans detached from the labor force increased 510,000. The July report showed that labor participation was 62.1 percent.

July Labor Report Hides Truth

A Congressional Budget Office analysis found that a lower labor force participation rate is associated with lower gross domestic product (GDP) and lower tax revenues, with larger federal outlays because people who are not in the labor force are more likely to enroll in certain federal benefit programs.

A deeper dig into the July statistics found that leisure and hospitality led the way in job gains with 96,000, although the industry is still 1.2 million workers shy of its pre-pandemic level. Professional and business services were second with 89,000. Health care added 70,000 positions, and government payrolls grew 57,000. Goods-producing industries also posted solid gains, with construction up 32,000, and manufacturing adding 30,000. Despite repeated alarm bells sounded by Walmart, Target and other big box stores that consumer demand is weak, retail jobs increased by 22,000.

Superficially, the job growth looks encouraging. But the wages that those jobs pay can’t support a household of four, or perhaps not even the individual worker. Leisure and hospitality workers, which BLS classifies as cooks, bartenders, waiters, hotel housekeepers and food preparation supervisors, earn an average of about $30,000. Professional and business services earn $40/hour; health care, $29,000; goods producing industries, $30,000, and retail workers, $29,000.

In order for blue-collar workers to advance into the middle-class lifestyle, they need the labor market to get tighter, a challenge since the border is open; temporary guest worker programs are expanding, and legal immigrants receive lifetime valid employment authorization. During the Biden administration, nearly 2.5 million border crossers have entered the U.S. Biden’s intention is to give most if not all parole status that includes work permission. Over the last 15 years, the State Department has issued millions of guest worker visas to foreign citizens who perform blue- and white-collar jobs. In fiscal 2022, the U.S. will accept 2.1 million lifetime work-authorized legal immigrants, a record number, that will swell the labor pool.

To help U.S. workers, the labor market should be tight. Fewer immigrants would push wages higher and move Americans up the economic ladder. People would become more productive and less welfare dependent.

When Congress returns after Labor Day, campaigning for the mid-term elections will begin in earnest. Most of the politicians will promise to elevate the electorate’s lifestyles. But few will mention the important role that reduced immigration would play in boosting wages.

July Labor Report Hides Truth July Labor Report Hides Truth July Labor Report Hides Truth

Look At Newsom Before Leaping, DNC

Look At Newsom Before Leaping, DNC

By Joe Guzzardi

Despite Washington, D.C.’s August heat and humidity – perfect vacation weather – the nation’s capital is immersed in politics. A thorny two-part question consumes political insiders. The first part asks whether President Biden should run for re-election in 2024. And if the answer is no, the consensus response among nervous Democrats, the follow-up question is who’s the best candidate to replace him?

Apprehensive Democrats want Biden to step aside gracefully, but the president’s choice may be to go for a second term. Biden has repeatedly said that he’ll run because his party wants him to. Time will tell whether Democrats convert their cautiously anti-Biden rhetoric into action by launching primary challenges.

Since 1980, serious Republican and Democratic presidential challengers have failed – Ronald Reagan vs. Gerald Ford, Ted Kennedy vs. Jimmy Carter and Pat Buchanan vs. George H.W. Bush. The most important takeaway from the failed primary efforts is that incumbents Ford, Carter and Bush #41 lost their general elections. Unless Biden voluntarily retires, the only course left open to Democrats is to force him out, an ugly scene that would hurt the party.

Assuming that the party either puts Biden out to pasture or he bows out graciously, one way or another, his name won’t appear on the 2024 ballot. The second of the two questions will then move to the forefront: Who will replace him? As of today, the polls have identified California Gov. Gavin Newsom as the leading candidate with Michelle Obama a distant second. Predictably, Vice President Kamala Harris is nowhere. But before Democrats rush to embrace Newsom, they’d be well advised to vet him vis-à-vis the national electorate.

If voters are tired of privileged, elitist government, then the multimillionaire Newsom, who cavorts with billionaires, will have a hard time appealing to the working class. Billionaires were the major donors to Newsom’s gubernatorial campaigns. More important than Newsom’s donor base, however, are his politics. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison should ask Newson for a preview of his campaign platform. For sure, Newsom’s stump speeches won’t include lines like this: “With your vote, I can convert America into 49 more California’s.”

Typically, candidates for high office point to their successes, and run on those accomplishments. In Newsom’s case, his feats fall into the negative column. For starters, California has the country’s lowest literacy rate. Only one in four Californians over age 15 can read and understand a simple sentence. Newsom’s open border’s advocacy contributes to sanctuary state California where 220 languages are spoken, and 44 percent of residents speak a language other than English at home. Seven million Californians cannot speak English well.

Look At Newsom Before Leaping, DNC

Math isn’t much better; about 40 percent of California’s public school students are proficient, but that pathetic ratio is explained away because math has been designated as racist, and its study is now based on critical race theory. Nothing is Golden about the state’s income and sales taxes; they rank with the nation’s highest.

Newsom ordered the first statewide COVID lockdown. Three protestors on a San Diego beach were arrested for violating Newsom’s stay-at-home edict. California is third in per capita homelessness behind Hawaii and New York. Median rent is $1,600 monthly, and homes sell for a median $538,500. Violent crime has spiked so high that the annual crime data’s publication is well overdue.

In fairness, though, Newsom’s candidacy would have, from the DNC’s perspective, an upside. Billionaires’ deep pocket donations and Silicon Valley’s censorship would be in play. Newsom would start out with 74 electoral votes in his back pocket, California, Oregon and Washington, and another 49 leaning his way, Illinois and New York. Conditions in Illinois and New York, however, are changing fast – so quickly that Biden is underwater in both states.

Weary from Newsom’s gubernatorial failures, Californians are fleeing the state, which should warn presidential voters that, if nominated, the slick, coiffed Hollywood darling is the wrong choice to replace Biden in the White House.

View Online

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.

Look At Newsom Before Leaping, DNC Look At Newsom Before Leaping, DNC

Statue Of Liberty Concerned Slavery, Not Immigration

Statue Of Liberty Concerned Slavery, Not Immigration

By Kevin Lynn

Given the numerous attempts to pack immigration provisions into current spending bills, there’s probably no better time to talk about the real meaning of the Statue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty has long been a beacon for immigrants, and not just any immigrants, but the poorest and most destitute around the globe. This symbolism of taking in the world’s impoverished is embodied in a verse from Emma Lazarus’ poem, The New Colossus, which proclaims as though speaking through the statue itself, “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!“

These often recited and famous words are a permanent fixture associated with the Statue of Liberty. After all, aren’t they inscribed on a bronze plaque below her feet?  Yet, the bronze plaque wasn’t originally part of the statue; it was added 17 years after the dedication. And, what’s more, the poem’s words and ideas obscure the statue’s true meaning.

As Roy Beck author of Back of the Hiring Line points out, the statue was meant to “celebrate the fact that the U.S. had finally abolished slavery and accorded full liberty, at least in principle, to all its inhabitants.”  What’s still ignored to this day, are the broken shackles on her feet, which signify the newfound liberty for formerly enslaved Black Americans.

The Statue of Liberty was not intended as a symbol for those who have yet to come, but a tribute to the foundational group of people who were already here. The intent was “to portray a form of government that could be copied by people in their own countries, not by leaving their countries.” Appropriately, she was named Liberty Enlightening the World, not Liberty Receiving Enthusiastically the World! 

Statue Of Liberty Concerned Slavery, Not Immigration

Immigration proponents’ understanding of the true meaning of the statute is entirely backward.  They don’t talk about its history or intent as it goes against the heart of the open border advocates’ narrative.  Much like the passage from “The New Colossus,” they focus on the poor coming from overseas and across our borders rather than the poor at home. The fact that there have been 1.6 million migrant encounters last fiscal year, and 1.6 million already, year to date is music to their ears.

Yet, more than three million immigrants a year, both legal and illegal, arriving in the U.S. creates colossal problems for everyone, and especially the poor. According to the Census Bureau, in 2020, the number of people officially in poverty was 37.2 million, and the depth of poverty has gotten worse. Deep poverty has increased to 45.6%.

And why do the poor continue to stay poor? One big reason is the oversupply of low-skilled immigrant workers, who depress wages of the native-born. Case in point, the bottom 20% of Americans’ income has remained largely the same ”and has only risen from around $15,000 to $16,100 between 1966 and 2014”. As a result, these lower-income households saw a twenty percent decrease between 1970  and 2020 in their income share compared to the middle and upper class.

Not surprisingly, the descendants of American slaves have been hit especially hard by the endless waves of migration. The National Bureau of Economic Research found that since 1970, actual earnings for the median black man have fallen from $30,800 to $21,000 in 2014, a 32 percent decline.

Declining wages have slowed people’s ability to move up financially in their lifetimes. This increasing economic inequality and the inability to get ahead is due, again, in large part to mass immigration.

Just look at the contrast between the upward trajectory of children born before the 1965 Immigration Act and afterwards.  It’s startling! Whereas”92% of children born in 1940 earned higher incomes at the age of 30 than did their parents, this share dropped to 50% for children born in 1980“. 

We’ve gone from a country where almost everyone could financially exceed their parents’ income to the odds of achieving that now are worse than flipping a coin. Of the children born into the bottom fifth of the economic ladder, 43% will continue to be stuck there, and for Americans born at the bottom, it’s clear the ability to move up is particularly low. 

With the recent influx of immigrants, Democrat mayors in blue states finally must confront the consequences of their policies. New York City’s mayor Eric Adams recently let out a few known truths on immigration, conceding the illegal immigrant influx was a “real burden” and that for New Yorkers, “our schools are going to be impacted, our health care system is going to be impacted, our infrastructure is going to be impacted.” He went so far as to say, “if there was ever an all-hands-on-deck moment, this is it.” Hopefully, Mayor Adams will realize the costs of immigration before it sinks his ship.

In Washington D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser told Face the Nation that newly arrived asylum seekers were filling up homeless shelters. These bussed migrants are straining the city’s social safety net, and “the local taxpayers are not picking up the tab and should not pick up the tab.” She believes it’s the federal government’s responsibility and they should pull out their checkbook. She’s right on that. By the same token, it shouldn’t be the responsibility of the U.S. to generously accommodate illegal aliens, either. 

The stone-faced Statue of Liberty and Americans struggling here share an uncomfortable truth: both the meaning of the statue and American livelihoods have been displaced. Prioritizing the needs of the impoverished from abroad over the plight of America’s most vulnerable ignores the fact that day after day the poor become more financially broke and economically immobile.

Reducing immigration will benefit those Americans struggling to make ends meet, as economic prosperity is very much possible. Between 1940-1980 when there was low immigration, “the real incomes of white males expanded two-and one-half fold” while “real incomes expanded four-fold” for Black men. By 1980, the Black middle class grew from 22 percent of African Americans to 71 percent.”

The U.S. has a duty and an obligation to pick up the tab for its citizens, not new arrivals from halfway around the world. It’s time we support our poor, our homeless, and our huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Only then can the U.S. live up to the real meaning of the Statue of Liberty. 

View Online

Kevin Lynn is the Executive Director for Progressives for Immigration Reform. Lynn writes about the unintended consequences of unbridled immigration and their impacts on the environment, as well as federal, state and local politics. A former Army intelligence officer and successful organizer of influential groups in Arizona, California and Texas, he is based in Pennsylvania. Contact him at klynn@ firdc.org.

Statue Of Liberty Concerned Slavery, Not Immigration Statue Of Liberty Concerned Slavery, Not Immigration

Amendments Would Limit Abortion Funding, Extend Statute Of Limitation For Child Abusers, Other Things

Amendments Would Limit Abortion Funding, Extend Statute Of Limitation For Child Abusers, Other Things

By Bob Small

Recently the local Town Talk newspaper carried a full pager to inform citizens about the status of two proposed amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution.  We should explain that if these two resolutions are approved for a second time during the 2023-4 Legislative session, then they will graduate to ballot questions.  The resolutions are 2021-2 and 2022-1.  One might want to ask the various State Representative and State Senate Candidates for their stance on these issues in order to consider that for your decision on voting.

Resolution 2021-2 basically extends the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse by two years. Institutions which have a historic history of sheltering child abusers may try to sidetrack this bill.

Whether there should even be a statue of limitations in these cases, which if not murder, are a form of soul murder, is another question entirely.

There are four separate issues on Resolution 2022-1. 

Firstly,  “This constitution does not grant the right to taxpayer-funded abortion or any other right to abortion”.   Obviously, this would be the most contentious issue of all those mentioned.

The second issue would be that the gubernatorial candidates who win the primary –assuming they mean the two major party candidates — will choose the lieutenant governor running mate.  This would eliminate the current system, where the lieutenant governor candidates have their own primary.  The current system has helped to generate many candidates with many voices.

The third issue is a discussion of voter ID for both in-person and mail-in ballots.  The question of what qualifies as valid Voter ID would need to be clarified.

Lastly, and I’ll just quote here:

The General Assembly shall by statue provide for the auditing of elections and election results by the Auditor General.  In years when the Auditor General stands for election to any office, an Independent Auditor shall conduct the audit.

Again, we would want our elected officials to “vote with their conscience” on these issues.

Amendments Would Limit Abortion Funding, Extend Statute Of Limitation For Child Abusers, Other Things
Amendments Would Limit Abortion Funding, Extend Statute Of Limitation For Child Abusers, Other Things

Jackie Robinson Museum Opening Sept. 5 In New York

Jackie Robinson Museum Opening Sept. 5 In New York

By Joe Guzzardi

After a 14-year delay, the Jackie Robinson Museum will open to the public in New York on Sept. 5. For baseball fans, the 20,000 square foot museum at One Hudson Square Building, 75 Varick St. will offer interactive exhibits including one of Ebbets Field, 4,500 rare artifacts, and other displays that evoke Robinson’s baseball and civil rights activist experiences. The Jackie Robinson Foundation, founded in 1975 by Jackie’s wife Rachel, will oversee the museum.

Every year, Jackie’s heroic tale is told nationwide in classrooms, and he’s had schools, parkways, streets and apartment houses named in his honor. While Jackie’s story as Major League Baseball’s first black player is well known even to non-fans, Rachel’s biography is equally compelling and inspiring. Her life serves as a universal example for young women who want to succeed.

On July 19, 2022, Rachel Annetta Isum Robinson celebrated her 100th birthday; she was only 50 when Jackie died from a heart attack brought on by acute diabetes. Writing in the Society for American Baseball Research, journalist Ralph Carhart told of Rachel’s early upbringing in Los Angeles. Her mother Zellee took Rachel to violin lessons, museums and the Exposition Park Rose Garden. Rachel attended the acclaimed Manual Arts High School, which included among its notable alumni three-time Oscar winner Frank Capra and California Governor Goodwin Knight. Zellee and her husband Charles provided Rachel with opportunities that paved her way to accomplishment.

Jackie Robinson Museum Opening Sept. 5 In New York
Rachel Robinson

Rachel enrolled in UCLA where she met Jackie. Sparks didn’t fly! Rachel thought the popular Bruins football star was “cocky, conceited and self-centered.” Eventually, however, Rachel’s opinion softened, and on their first formal date, Jack took her to the Bruins football homecoming dinner, an affair at the exclusive Biltmore Hotel. While Jack was serving in the U.S. Army, Rachel studied at the U.C. San Francisco School of Nursing, and worked eight-hour shifts in hospital wards. After graduating and earning the Florence Nightingale Award for excellence in nursing, Rachel and Jack married in Los Angeles in 1946, and the couple had Jackie, Jr. in November. Two other children followed, Sharon in 1950, and David in 1952.

Rachel later earned an M.S. degree in psychiatric nursing from New York University, became a Yale University Assistant Professor of nursing, a researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and directed the Connecticut Mental Health Center.

On April 15, 1947, Rachel was at Ebbets Field with Jackie, Jr., to watch her husband make history. Rachel later commented on how much Jack’s elevation from the Triple-A Montreal Royals to the Brooklyn Dodgers meant to “Black America, and how much we symbolized its hunger for opportunity and its determination to make dreams long deferred possible.”

After Jack died at age 52 in 1972, Rachel immediately took over as the protector of her husband’s legacy. Within weeks of his death, Rachel resigned from Yale and managed Jack’s various financial interests. One of Jackie’s dreams was to start a construction company that built affordable housing for underserved families. Although Rachel didn’t have adequate funding to pursue that project, she founded the Jack Robinson Development Corporation. Working with the Halpern Building Corporation, the JRDC built and managed more than 1,300 units of low- and moderate-income housing in New York City and Yonkers. Rachel supervised the property managers’ training.

Since the Jackie Robinson Foundation’s inception nearly half a century ago, Rachel has received 12 honorary doctorates, including one from her alma mater, New York University. Her first alma mater presented her with the UCLA Medal in 2009, the university’s highest honor. In 2017, Rachel was given the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, presented every three years to a person who enhances baseball’s positive image in society.

In 2020, Rachel and daughter Sharon moved to Delray Beach, Fla. where she’ll continue to provide a guiding hand to the museum curators and to promote Jackie’s legacy to all who visit, old fans and new.

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

Jackie Robinson Museum Opening Sept. 5 In New York

Curt Weldon Addresses FBI Corruption; Bureau Is Being Undermined

Curt Weldon Addresses FBI Corruption; Bureau Is Being Undermined

By Curt Weldon

I never met Donald Trump but I do know our most trusted agencies are being undermined! Raiding anyone’s home is the ultimate attack on a persons reputation and character. It’s extremely difficult to reverse!

Let me share my personal story about a “raid”!

As a young teacher, my first vote went to Carter because Ford pardoned Nixon.

I served as assistant fire chief in 1975 at one of America’s largest disasters when two oil tankers collided at my hometown refinery in Marcus Hook, Pa. killing 29 and threatening our people.

I was elected mayor of Marcus Hook twice as candidate of both parties to defeat a major gang. I led local partnerships with the FBI/ATF.

My first legislation in the House held the Soviet’s accountable for violating the ABM Treaty. As vice chair of Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, I worked closely with Intel and was even hosted for a private breakfast by CIA Director Tenet offering full support.

Curt Weldon Addresses FBI Corruption; Says Feds Not All Bad But The Bad Is Very Bad

As a member of the Cox Commission on China Technology Theft and Speakers Task Forces on Russia and North Korea, I worked with agency experts to strategize our security. I also witnessed, however, rogues and unscrupulous bastards only concerned with selfish interests.

I was leading three investigations that absolutely embarrassed the Intel rogues and bastards and White House leaders in both parties.

I dared publish a book in 2005 challenging these rogues. Next in line to chair Armed Services — which granted unlimited Subpoena Power — my 2006 election was deliberately maligned. Two weeks prior to the election, agents went to my child’s home where cameras and reporters were waiting. Headlines screamed scandal! To this day, NO ONE talked to my child – nor me! That same day agents were sent to the law offices of a Democrat friend who, at the time of the raid, was working for FBI Counter Intel that I HAD ARRANGED two years prior. Imagine, two sets of FBI Agents in the same office doing their jobs not aware that rogues and bastards had corrupted the process.

My friend received an apology days after the raid. We now know every detail of the abuse – we even found evidence that my opponent’s TV ads had been decreased for the week of the raids 6 weeks prior to the date of the raids.

At the request of my friend Dennis Kucinich, I briefed a top investigative journalist who agreed not to publish. After a four-month review with his Deep State sources, he verified every detail of what we now know.

It can shake the nation! Our agencies aren’t broken or corrupt but rogues and bastards manipulate the system, sometimes operating at will. They must be held fully accountable!

Many of my best friends in Congress were Democrats! In fact, after my 2006 defeat, my friends Biden, Hoyer and Pascrell called to tell me how sad they were at “what had been done to me”!

Our country is more polarized today than ever! People who do wrong – regardless of stature – must be held accountable. But our collective effort must focus on removing bad actors from the agencies that guarantee our freedom and independence!

Curt Weldon represented Pennsylvania’s 7th District (mostly Delaware County) from 1987 to 2007.

Curt Weldon Addresses FBI Corruption; Says Feds Not All Bad But The Bad Is Very Bad

Mail-In Voting Devoid Of Security

Mail-In Voting Devoid Of Security

By Sam Faddis

Democracy is built on the principle that all power derives from the people and that they should rule. Our new technocratic elitists reject that principle. They believe that there are among us those who are somehow, smarter, more capable, and more enlightened. Call them the experts. We should simply concede power to them and do as we are told.

“Listen to the experts.”

The pretense is that this is rational and “fact-based.” It is not. It is almost a religion.

We were told for years that the “experts” knew best about how to deal with COVID-19. We were assured experimental vaccines would save us and render us immune to the disease. None of this was true. The vaccines don’t prevent you from getting the disease at all.  On the contrary, the spread of COVID-19 now is almost exclusively among those who have been vaccinated, in some cases many times.

Nevermind. The “experts” somehow remain infallible. Also, you should definitely not pay any attention to the mounting evidence of medical complications from the vaccines – blood clots, heart problems, and the like. You are not qualified to judge.

The same phenomenon can be seen in regard to elections and mail-in voting. After literally centuries of reliance on in-person voting, we scrapped that system and placed our faith in a brand-new system virtually devoid of security procedures or mechanisms for confirming the validity of ballots received in the mail.  The system is riddled with weaknesses and holes you could drive a Mack Truck through.

Point these out, however, and you are a ‘conspiracy theorist’. You are a mad man. The “experts” have assured us the system is foolproof. Only an idiot would presume to question our new high priests.

In the real world, at ground level, the gap between this fantasy of infallibility and what is really happening in our electoral system could not be starker. Consider some notes from a recent meeting of the Luzerne County election board in Pennsylvania. This is from a single meeting, in a single one of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.

The chair of the election board, a Democrat, admitted out loud during the meeting that tampering with ballots placed in drop boxes in the county is and has been a serious issue. He noted that the boxes are so insecure “ballots can be removed by sticking your hand in and getting ones close to the edge out, or by pulling out ballots that are sticking out of the top of the drop box from too many in the box.’“

Ballots are being dumped into unsecured boxes on the street. They are sitting there unattended until picked up. Access to the ballots is not controlled in any meaningful fashion. Yet, we are required to assume that they are valid and pretend that the legally required chain of custody for ballots is intact.

Also discussed at this meeting was a new proposal to allow ballots to be mailed to a P.O. box at a post office. After being received, the ballots would be stored “behind the counter” or “somewhere” until collected by “building and grounds crew, or some other staff” for sorting. There will be no security of any kind for the ballots received. There will be no effort to control access. Again, we will simply be required to pretend that there is anything remotely resembling the legally required chain of custody in place.

At this same meeting, the chairman also recognized that recently 67 voter registrations had been mishandled but characterized that as “not a bad number” and dismissed any suggestion that this was a serious problem. It remains unclear precisely what was meant by “mishandled.”

In the same county, citizens pointing out problems with the accuracy of the data in the voter rolls have been told that their complaints will not be considered. The county’s official position has been that only the family of a person who is deceased or has moved out of state can inform the authorities of the necessity for a change to the rolls. Just for good measure, the county has added that any effort by an average citizen to bring such an issue to the attention of the authorities will be considered an act of “voter suppression.”

In fact, none of that is true. Under Pennsylvania law, any qualified elector (a voter) can make a challenge to the Secretary of State of the Commonwealth by filling out a challenge affidavit, to challenge a voter’s status. This means that in Luzerne County the authorities have been actively working to guarantee that the voter rolls remain inaccurate and continue to contain the names of the deceased and those who no longer live in the jurisdiction.

One county. One meeting. These are snippets.

Pennsylvania’s election system is broken. Third-world nations do a better job of guaranteeing the integrity of the ballot box than the Commonwealth does.

Where is the legislature? When will the people’s elected representatives act to clean up this mess?

Charles S. (Sam) Faddis heads UnitePa. He is a former US Army officer and retired CIA operations officer, who took the first CIA team into Iraq in 2002, almost a year in advance of the invasion of that country. He is the author of several books. This article originally appeared on his Substack account.

Mail-In Voting Devoid Of Security Mail-In Voting Devoid Of Security
Mail-In Voting Devoid Of Security