News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Politics is a noble activity William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 4-29-22
Hunly pz ulcly dpaovba h ylhzvu, iba zlskvt dpao h nvvk vul.
Iluqhtpu Myhurspu
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: Politics is a noble activity. We should revalue it, practice it with vocation and a dedication that requires testimony, martyrdom, that is to die for the common good.
Pope Francis
40K Killed In Mariupol Fighting Says Archeparch Gudziak — Al Kresta, of Kresta in the Afternoon, had an informative interview, April 26, with Borys Gudziak, Archeparch of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, regarding the Battle of Mariupol.
The Archeparch has been in Ukraine and says he has been told that the death toll from the fighting in the city is 40,000.
The Archeparch also says that most people in Russia are supporting the war. He said the Putin is trying to rebuild the world of genocide that was the Soviet Union.
Panama Betrayal, Mayorkas, Blinken Scheme for More Illegal Migration
By Joe Guzzardi
In anticipation of regaining a congressional majority after the 2022 mid-term elections, GOP leaders are drafting the game plan to help them achieve their goal. Not surprisingly, the Biden administration and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ immigration actions since Inauguration Day sit atop the checklist of items that Republicans consider ripest for criticism. A 60-page Guidance Memo drafted by Ohio U.S. Representative Jim Jordan and posted on his Twitter page emphasizes Democrats’ immigration vulnerabilities, especially the sieve-like open border that’s certain to worsen when Title 42 is removed.
Mayorkas admits that “significant challenges” will arise once Title 42 is lifted. But the DHS Secretary insists that his department is ready to meet the inevitable illegal immigration spike which he created. Speaking in Panama City at a ministerial conference on migration and protection and accompanied by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Mayorkas’ comments are best summarized as happy talk with destructive undertones that will irreversibly harm the United States.
At no time did Mayorkas speak with credibility about ending the illegal immigration surge through stronger border and interior security, or stepped-up deportation. Instead, Mayorkas identified his solution to the immigration challenges he correctly foresees as inevitable to include building “legal, orderly, and humane pathways so individuals do not need to place their lives, their well-beings, the well-beings of their loved ones in the hands of smugglers and traffickers who only seek to exploit them for profit.”
Blinken doubled down on Mayorkas’ so-called solution with nation-busting ideas of his own on how to manage, not end, migration. Said Blinken: “Here in Panama, we [the 22 nations represented] talked about some of the most urgent aspects of this issue, including helping stabilize and strengthen communities that are hosting migrants and refugees; creating more legal pathways to reinforce safe, orderly, and humane migration.” He added, speaking for himself and his craven administration, but not for U.S. voters, that finding a solution to illegal immigration is a U.S. “priority.” Translation: More immigration that U.S. taxpayers oppose but will fund as they watch, helpless and voiceless, in the nation’s destruction.
The total disregard for immigration law that Biden, Mayorkas, Blinken, Vice President Kamala Harris and others too numerous to mention have demonstrated over the last 15 months raises the point that, given open borders, DHS is pointless and should be dismantled. The department’s $52.2 billion budget is a waste, and too many of its 240,000 employees, starting at the top, have as their mission America’s subversion.
Enacted after 9/11 to protect the nation, DHS and the programs that it spawned – the Transportation Security Administration, the Visa Security Program, the terrorist screening database and the no fly list – are meaningless when unidentified foreign nationals can walk at will across the Southwest border, surrender to immigration agents and then be transported across the country secure in the knowledge that they’ll never be removed.
Based on camera traffic, drone traffic and sensor traffic that border patrol records but that the Biden administration prohibits responding to, in March, 67,000 gotaways entered the U.S. which brings the administration’s post-inauguration total to about 700,000. DHS doesn’t know and could care less where the gotaways are or what their intentions may be.
Capitol Hill scuttlebutt is gaining steam that should the Republicans prevail in November, a Mayorkas impeachment might be the party’s first matter of business. Given Mayorkas’ disregard for immigration law and public safety, an impeachment case against him is mandatory if sovereign American is to be saved.
PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts.
Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org. Subscribe to joeguzzardi.substack.com.
Panama Betrayal, Mayorkas, Blinken Scheme for More Illegal Migration
Panama Betrayal
Lost by not trying William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 4-28-22
Vurozoiy oy g tuhrk gizoboze. Ck ynuarj xkbgrak oz, vxgizoik oz cozn buigzout gtj g jkjoigzout zngz xkwaoxky zkyzosute, sgxzexjus, zngz oy zu jok lux znk iussut muuj.
Vuvk Lxgtioy
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.
Francis Bacon
Holy Myrrh-Bearers Spring Flea Market 2022 — Summer is right around the corner and now is a good time to plan getting that “extra stuff” out of or for your living area. To help, Holy Myrrh-Bearers Church will host a Outdoor Flea Market/ Craft Fair, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, May 14 at the church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, 19081 .
A space costs $25. Call 610-544-1215 or email at HMBChurch@verizon.net to reserve one. Deadline is May 7. Event is rain or shine. Food may not be sold by venders.
Holy Myrrh-Bearers Spring Flea Market 2022
Bert Shepard Was A One-Legged WWII Hero who Pitched for Washington Senators
By Joe Guzzardi
Between August 1 and August 5, 1945, the Washington Senators played five consecutive double headers. In a normal season, a scheduling burden of that magnitude wouldn’t have mattered much to the lowly Senators. But in 1945, the “first in love, first in war, and last in the American League” Senators were in a neck-and-neck pennant race with the Detroit Tigers.
The Senators won nine of the 10 double header games, losing the August 4 night cap 15-4 to the Boston Red Sox. Motivated by the lopsided score, and unwilling to stretch his exhausted pitching staff further, Senators’ manager Ossie Bluege summoned his lefty Lt. Bert Shepard to the mound. In his Baseball in Wartime account of Shepard’s heroism, Gary Bedingfield wrote that on his 34th European Theater mission and while his P-38J Lightening was bombing an airfield near Ludwigslust, east of Hamburg, Shepard’s plane was hit by enemy flak. The shells blew Shepard’s foot off and tore through his right leg. Shepard: “I could feel my foot coming loose at the boot.” The 55th Fighter Group’s pilot’s plane hit the ground at an estimated 380 mph.
Angry German farmers rushed out of their homes, wielding pitchforks, determined to kill Shepard, the American enemy. Luckily for Shepard, First Lieutenant Ladislaus Loidl, a physician in the German Luftwaffe, saw the wreckage’s smoke, and hurried to the site in time to hold off the incensed farmers. Loidl drove the critically injured Shepard to a hospital, but the “terror flyer” wasn’t allowed admittance. Eventually another hospital accepted patient Shepard, and his leg was amputated 11-inches below his knee. After recuperating, Shepard spent the next eight months in POW camps where a Canadian medic and fellow prisoner made Shepard a crude artificial leg from scrap iron, wood and rivets.
Slowly, Shepard, who as a youth moved from Indiana to California to play semi-pro baseball, began tossing the bulb around to get back a baseball’s feel. In California, Shepard’s skills were good enough to land contracts first with the Chicago White Sox and then the St. Louis Cardinals. His goal before and after his life-threatening WWII injuries was to pitch major league baseball.
A prisoner exchange returned Shepard to the U.S., and he was helped along the way to achieving his lifelong dream. At Walter Reed Hospital, Shepard met with Under Secretary of War Robert Patterson who asked about his future plans. Without hesitation, Shepard replied “to play baseball.” A skeptical but impressed Patterson contacted his friend and Senators’ owner Clark Griffith who agreed to give Shepard, now fitted with a new prothesis, a look.
As Shepard recalled, “Mr. Griffith did it out of sympathy more than anything.” But pitching in exhibition games, Shepard impressed – “got ‘em out each time,” he said. On the strength of his outstanding spring training, the Senators offered Shepard a contract with the promise that once he mastered his control, he’d be given a roster spot.
On August 4, Shepard’s big moment arrived. With the Senators getting hammered in game two 14-2 in the fourth inning and with the bases loaded, manager Bluege signaled for Shepard who promptly struck out George Metkovich for the last out. The 13,000 assembled fans, who had followed Shepard’s progress through the nonstop media coverage of the war hero’s progress, rose to their feet to applaud. Over the next five innings, Shepard surrendered only one run on three hits, and fielded his position flawlessly.
In a perfect world, Shepard’s saga would have continued to include his promotion to the starting rotation where he would have helped carry the Senators past the Tigers to win the AL pennant, and then defeat the Chicago Cubs in the October Classic. But the world is imperfect, and 5-1/3 innings with a 1.69 ERA were Shepard’s career MLB totals.
Bluege, hoping to eke out the AL flag from the Tigers, decided to finish the year with his established starters. In 1946, players returned from active WWII duty; Shepard didn’t make the team, but was offered a coaching job. Bored, Shepard asked to be sent to the minors where he pitched for several years at Chattanooga, Waterbury and Modesto. Along his minor league journey, Shepard returned to Walter Reed to have more of his leg amputated.
April is Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness month, and the Amputee Coalition is an organization that would celebrate Shepard’s rewarding life that included the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Metal awards. Before he died in 2008 at age 87, Shepard worked as a Hughes Aircraft safety engineer and an IBM typewriter salesman, played in golf tournaments with his buddy New York Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto, and walked 18-hole golf courses. He flew his own plane to visit amputees across the nation. Part of Shepard’s visits included encouraging demonstrations like effortlessly running the 60-yard dash and dribbling a basketball. In his later years, Shepard advocated for amputee workers’ rights and designed an artificial ankle that allowed those with severe leg injuries like his more mobility.
Shepard’s remarkable story of perseverance and achievement has a heart-warming footnote. For years, Shepard wondered about the German physician who saved his life in Germany, “Who carried me from the wreck? Who saved my life?” In May 1993, a third party arranged a meeting between Dr. Loidl and Shepard. After they met, an emotionally overwhelmed Shepard said: “I prayed for this. And after half a century, my dream has incredibly come true.”
Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.
Bert Shepard
Uncommon devotion to religion William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 4-27-22
Ymjwj nx st htrufwnxts gjybjjs ymfy bmnhm nx qtxy gd sty xzhhjjinsl fsi ymfy bmnhm nx qtxy gd sty ywdnsl.
Kwfshnx Gfhts
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
Aristotle
HMB 2022 Pierogie Schedule — Holy Myrrh-Bearers Ukrainian Catholic Church has announced its 2022 pierogie sales schedule. The potato and cheese delicacies are $10 per dozen and can be ordered by calling 610-544-1216.
Pickups are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays at the church, 900 Fairview Road, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081.
The schedule for order dates is:
April 27-28
May 11-12
25-26
June 15-16
July 13-14
August 17-18
September 7-8
21-22
October 5-6
19-20
November 2-3
16-17
December 1-2
14-15
Please order no later than the preceding Sunday to ensure availability that sale week.
Better H-1B Visa Is On All Thinking Persons Wishlist
By Joe Guzzardi
Polling shows that 72 percent of likely voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction. No other conclusion could possibly be reached. Inflation is up 8.5 percent since March 2021. At the pump, AAA calculates that the average price per gallon is $4.12, compared to $2.86 a year ago. The Southwest Border is a sieve; record high numbers of illegal immigrants, including single adult males and unaccompanied minors, continue to enter at will. Despite White House denials, rumors persist that the U.S. will soon send soldiers to the Ukraine.
Inflation, the porous border and Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine have kept another persistent problem out of the headlines – the continued displacement of qualified U.S. tech workers from their well-paid, white-collar jobs. Attribute the blame to the cheap-labor-addicted employers who significantly underpay their foreign-born workers. In December 2021, an Economic Policy Institute report coauthored by Ron Hira and Daniel Costa found that thousands of skilled migrants with H-1B visas working as HCL Technologies subcontractors at well-known corporations like Disney, FedEx and Google have been underpaid by at least $95 million. The victims are the underpaid H-1B employees, the displaced U.S. tech workers and others in related fields whose working conditions are downgraded when employment-based visa workers are underpaid without consequence.
For more than 30 years since the Immigration Act of 1990 created the H-1B visa, Congress has winked at users’ rule-bending year after year. By ignoring the deeply rooted problems in how the H-1B employment-based visa is acquired, Congress invites more of the same manipulation. To wit, during 2022’s first few months, criminal charges were filed against Bay Area fraudsters – two pairs of two individuals each – who gamed the complex H-1B rules for substantial financial gain.
The first case occurred in February when federal government officials accused two South Bay residents, Namrata Patnaik and Kartiki Parekh, of submitting 85 fraudulent H-1B visa applications. The visa scam was linked to other crimes that eventually led to $7 million in ill-gotten gains. The indictment charged that from 2011 through April 2017 Patnaik and Parekh submitted the duplicitous applications for foreign workers sponsored by PerfectVIPs, a San Jose-based semiconductor company. The company CEO was Patnaik, and the human resources manager, Parekh. Patnaik laundered proceeds of the visa fraud. In all, the indictment included three counts of visa fraud and one count of money laundering.
The second case, perpetrated by Elangovan Punniakoti and Mary Christeena over the decade that ended in 2020, involved 54 fraudulent H-1B visa applications that were sponsored by an IT staffing firm, Innovate Solutions. Punniakoti and Christeena were chief executive officer and president, respectively. The accused swindlers also were responsible for stating in applications that a foreign worker would be working on an internal project for Innovate Solutions, despite knowing that no such project existed. Visa fraud and money laundering carry ten-year, or longer, prison sentences, and hefty six-figure fines.
The solutions to a more functional H-1B visa, or at least guidelines to the remedies, may sound straightforward, but would be difficult to put into effect. The powerful, deep-pockets Silicon Valley lobby has Congress wrapped around its little finger. Nevertheless, here are a few starting points to consider should a pro-American worker Congress take over in 2022: end the current lottery, and replace it with a merit-based system. Specifically and unequivocally define what task a specialty worker performs to prevent marginal workers with average skills from taking an American’s job, and strengthen the Department of Homeland Security’s onsite enforcement powers so that agents can assure that an H-1B worker is actually performing the job identified on his application.
More important, end the H-1B’s dual-intent feature that allows what should be temporary workers – nonimmigrant workers – to apply for a permanent Green Card. And most important, to remove the well-earned, accurate perception that the U.S. government sanctions modern day, indentured servitude labor conditions, take control of the H-1B visa away from the employer. As the H-1B regulations currently stand, the employee is beholden to his employer because he, the employer, controls the visa and therefore foreign-born workers’ immigration status. If, in the employer’s view, the employee isn’t toeing the company line, whatever it may be, the employer can threaten him with a call to DHS, and recommend removal.
The wish list for cleaning up the H-1B visa is long, and while the Biden administration is in the White House, a pipe dream. But for GOP optimists who are looking ahead to November, and envision stumping on American job creation, an H-1B overhaul that benefits U.S. workers would be a good platform to adopt.
PFIR analyst Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Honest doubt William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit 4-26-22
E xcverx qywx tyx sr xli ettievergi sj yrgsqqsr hizsxmsr xs vipmkmsr. Wyfnigxw evi piww ettvilirwmzi sj mppikep xviexqirx jvsq e vypiv alsq xlic gsrwmhiv ksh-jievmrk erh tmsyw. Sr xli sxliv lerh, xlic hs piww iewmpc qszi ekemrwx lmq, fipmizmrk xlex li lew xli kshw sr lmw wmhi.
Evmwxsxpi
Answer to yesterday’s William Lawrence Sr Cryptowit quote puzzle: Honest doubt is better than faith in a pious fraud.
John Quigg