Category: General

California expected the Janus ruling…

… and so quickly attached a bill to the budget as a rider (a review here, bill text here). This bill will:

1) Restricts employer communication with workers about their right to not pay agency fees

2) Force employees to contact the union directly if they want to stop paying agency fees or union dues

3) Requires employers to take the word of the union as to who is paying dues

Are California politicians in the pockets of the unions? I don’t know… what could it possibly mean that they had a bill ready to go that was designed to protect union interests in the wake of an unfavorable Janus decision?

You decide.

More (again) on Janus

Below is a quote from an NPR article that includes information on the Janus case. It is regarding the “free-rider” problem claimed by the unions, where those who are represented by the union but disagree with union politics will pay no dues or agency fees:

“I cannot imagine we would require Bank of America to provide services to folks that they do not charge any kind of reasonable fee. It would just be unheard of,” says Celine McNicholas, director of labor law and policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute.

Yes, Celine – but where is it required that customers only use Bank of America for their banking needs (as they are required to be represented by only one union)? And, if someone was forced to use only Bank of America (or only that one union), what incentive would the bank (or union) have to operate in the best interests of all their clients?

Comey is embarrassed…

… to be an American? Well, actually, I’m embarrassed that he’s an American, too.

Comey made the comment while he was visiting Ireland June 22, also joking that he considered calling himself Canadian at the border to avoid further embarrassment.

What’s tragic is that Comey is making this statement a stone’s throw (metaphorically speaking) from Italy, which is refusing entry to a ship containing recently-arrived potential migrants; their interior minister, Matteo Salvini, went so far as to state that these new migrants “will only see Italy on a postcard”. At least asylum seekers have a chance at the U.S. – Mexico border.

The fact is that mass, unlimited and uncontrolled immigration can be detrimental to a society. Don’t think so? Ask Angela Merkel if you get a chance (read about her troubles here and here). What the U.S. really needs to develop is an immigration policy that is compassionate to refugees but also fair to the American people. Simply opening the borders is not a viable option.

Please write your congressman and insist that they craft merit-based immigration reform now.

Asylum/refugee crisis

America’s immigration system is under siege as thousands of migrants attempt to use claims of asylum to sidestep United States immigration law. NPR has cited one such example in this story regarding an entire family from Guatemala that is currently awaiting entry to apply for asylum at the U.S. border.  Asylum claims have increased dramatically as the Trump administration ramps up enforcement actions against illegally aliens. Some also claim that the problem is being exacerbated by immigration attorneys coaching migrants on how use the asylum system to their advantage.

However, the asylum system was never meant to be an unlocked back door to the immigration process. In addition, people seeking protection from their own government or society should seek refuge in the first safe country they encounter; a claim of persecution should not grant the asylum seeker a guarantee to their choice of country for immigration. Note that the family referenced in the NPR article above passed through the entire country of Mexico, where they obviously felt safe, before reaching the border of the United States. Finally, no one should be granted asylum because of a danger resulting from their own actions. Note that the adult son in the family above seeking asylum illegally trespassed onto a narco’s property, resulting in the danger from which he now seeks asylum:

“…his boys made a living taking tourists to a place called the Blue Waterfall in the Peten province of northern Guatemala. But the narco owns the property and doesn’t like visitors.”

It’s time we fix our broken immigration system. Here are my recommendations:

  1. Close the asylum loophole and limit asylum to those seeking protection from government entities only. Also, require that asylum seekers petition for a preliminary asylum approval from outside of the United States, prior to their arrival.
  2. Continue to fully prosecute illegal aliens who violate our sovereignty to deter such actions in the future.
  3. Develop a temporary worker’s visa program for seasonal workers.
  4. Move to a merit-based system that encourages immigration by those with the skills and education needed to grow our economy and to provide the U.S. with an advantage in the world marketplace. This is in line with many other western countries, such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

It should not be the duty of American to offer sanctuary to any an all who are not happy with their country of origin. Instead, we should encourage those who want change in their countries to remain and make those changes. Perhaps the U.S. could offer aid to citizens of such countries to facilitate needed changes, but it is not reasonable to ask the citizens of the U.S. to absorb all these people – particularly when they are lacking the critical skills and education levels necessary to succeed in America.

Don’t leave this job unfinished!

Gary Lindsey killed four children he was holding as hostages, then himself. While we may not be able to hold Lindsey accountable for his crimes, there is a crime remaining to investigate.

Lindsey was on felony probation, which makes it illegal for him to purchase or possess a firearm. So where did he get the gun he used in this heinous crime? A large portion of prohibited individuals obtain their firearms from friends or family. If the party who supplied Lindsey with his firearms knew or should have known of his felony conviction, they might well have committed a crime.

I hope the police have the wherewithal to follow the gun to its origins, and prosecute the provider if possible. The laws designed to prevent the acquisition of firearms by prohibited persons only works when such violations are prosecuted.

Manipulation by the press

The press has shown a tendency to skew story lines by associating ideas from one person to another, or by equating terms, words or ideas that are in fact not equal. The pair of paragraphs below are an example from a single NPR story using both these methods; it involves a discussion of the origins for a proposed citizenship question on the next U.S. census:

In another July 2017 email, Kobach wrote to Ross that he was concerned that “aliens who do not actually ‘reside’ in the United States are still counted” in census numbers used to determine how many congressional seats each state gets.

Noncitizens have been included in past population counts used for reapportioning seats in the House of Representatives among states ever since the first census in 1790.

A couple of points to note:

1) In the first paragraph NPR is quoting an email written to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. However, someone expressing their opinion to you in an email does not make it your opinion. The fact that Kobach has this concern (as do I) is irrelevant to Ross’s opinion. Why, then, does NPR bring this up? In my opinion the purpose is to associate this concept with Ross, with the goal of creating opposition to him within their readership.

2) The second paragraph asserts a particular fact unassociated with the concern stated in the email, while at the same time trying to make a connection between them. The first paragraph references “aliens who do not actually ‘reside’ in the United States…”, which refers to illegal aliens who are not legal residents of the United States.  However, the second paragraph refers to “noncitizens”, which refers to people legally residing in the United States while being foreign nationals. Big difference; I am not concerned with noncitizens legally residing in the United States being represented in our Congress by the appropriate allocation of Representatives to their region. I am, however, concerned about illegal aliens who should not be here at all being used to inflate the voting power of some districts.

I find this type of reporting to be concerning. What ever happened to simply reporting the relevant facts instead of trying to manipulate public opinion?