Civil War?

[Attributed to Dr. Jack Minzey, former head of the Department of Education at Eastern Michigan University; now deceased. However, some claim it is a shortened version of a speech by Daniel Greenfield, another conservative author, but whomever, it makes its points.]

How do civil wars happen?

Two or more sides disagree on who runs the country. And they can’t settle the question through elections because they don’t even agree that elections are how you decide who’s in charge. That’s the basic issue here. Who decides who runs the country? When you hate each other but accept the election results, you have a country. When you stop accepting election results, you have a countdown to a civil war.

The Mueller investigation is about removing President Trump from office and overturning the results of an election. We all know that. But it’s not the first time they’ve done this. The first time a Republican president was elected this century, they said he didn’t really win. The Supreme Court gave him the election. There’s a pattern here.

What do sure odds of the Democrats rejecting the next Republican president really mean? It means they don’t accept the results of any election that they don’t win. It means they don’t believe that transfers of power in this country are determined by elections.

That’s a civil war.

There’s no shooting. At least not unless you count the attempt to kill a bunch of Republicans at a charity baseball game practice. But the Democrats have rejected our system of government.

This isn’t dissent. It’s not disagreement. You can hate the other party. You can think they’re the worst thing that ever happened to the country. But then you work harder to win the next election. When you consistently reject the results of elections that you don’t win, what you want is a dictatorship.

Your very own dictatorship.

The only legitimate exercise of power in this country, according to Democrats, is its own. Whenever Republicans exercise power, it’s inherently illegitimate. The Democrats lost Congress. They lost the White House. So what did they do? They began trying to run the country through Federal judges and bureaucrats. Every time that a Federal judge issues an order saying that the President of the United States can’t scratch his own back without his say so, that’s the civil war.

Our system of government is based on the Constitution, but that’s not the system that runs this country. The Democrat’s system is that any part of government that it runs gets total and unlimited power over the country. If the Democrats are in the White House, then the President can do anything. And I mean anything. He can have his own amnesty for illegal aliens. He can fine you for not having health insurance. His power is unlimited. He’s a dictator.

But when Republicans get into the White House, suddenly the President can’t do anything. He isn’t even allowed to undo the illegal alien amnesty that his predecessor illegally invented. A Democrat in the White House has ‘discretion’ to completely decide every aspect of immigration policy. A Republican doesn’t even have the ‘discretion’ to reverse him. That’s how the game is played. That’s how our country is run. Sad but true, although the left hasn’t won that particular fight… yet.

When a Democrat is in the White House, states aren’t even allowed to enforce immigration law. But when a Republican is in the White House, states can create their own immigration laws. Under Obama, a state wasn’t allowed to go the bathroom without asking permission. But under Trump, Jerry Brown can go around saying California is an independent republic and sign treaties with other countries.

The Constitution has something to say about that.

Whether it’s Federal or State, Executive, Legislative or Judiciary, the left moves power around to run the country. If it controls an institution, then that institution is suddenly the supreme power in the land. This is what I call a moving dictatorship.

Donald Trump has caused the Shadow Government to come out of hiding: Professional government is a guild. Like medieval guilds. You can’t serve in if you’re not a member. If you haven’t been indoctrinated into its arcane rituals. If you aren’t in the club. He brought in a bunch of people who aren’t in the club with him.

Now we’re seeing what the pros do when amateurs try to walk in on them. They spy on them, they investigate them and they send them to jail. They use the tools of power to bring them down.

That’s not a free country.

It’s not a free country when FBI agents who support Hillary take out an ‘insurance policy’ against Trump winning the election. It’s not a free country when Obama officials engage in massive unmasking of the opposition. It’s not a free country when the media responds to the other guy winning by trying to ban the conservative media that supported him from social media. It’s not a free country when all of the above collude together to overturn an election because the guy who wasn’t supposed to win did.

Have no doubt, we’re in a civil war between conservative volunteer government and a leftist Democrat professional government.

Go Canada: Pork on Your Fork

[Attributed to the Mayor of Dorval, Quebec, Canada]

Muslim parents demanded the abolition of pork in all the school canteens of a Montreal suburb. The mayor of the Montreal suburb of Dorval has refused, and the town clerk sent a note to all parents to explain why. The note said…..

“Muslims must understand that they have to adapt to Canada and Quebec, its customs, its traditions, and its way of life, because that’s where they chose to immigrate.

Muslims must understand that they have to integrate and learn to live in Quebec. They must understand that it is for them to change their lifestyle, not the Canadians who, so generously, welcomed them.

Muslims must understand that Canadians are neither racist nor xenophobic. Canada accepted many immigrants before Muslims showed up (whereas the reverse is not true, in that Muslim states do not accept non-Muslim immigrants).

Just like other nations, Canadians are not willing to give up their identity or their culture. And, if Canada is a land of welcome, it’s not the Mayor of Dorval who welcomes foreigners, but the Canadian- Quebecois people as a whole.

Finally, they must understand that in Canada (Quebec) with its Judeo-Christian roots, Christmas trees, churches and religious festivals, religion must remain in the private domain.

The municipality of Dorval was right to refuse any concessions to Islam and Sharia.

For Muslims who disagree with secularism and do not feel comfortable in Canada, there are 57 beautiful Muslim countries in the world, most of them under-populated and ready to receive them with open halal arms in accordance with Sharia.

If you left your country for Canada, and not for other Muslim countries, it is because you have considered that life is better in Canada than elsewhere. We will not let you drag Canada down to the level of those 57 countries.

Ask yourself this question — just once: Why is it better here in Canada than where you came from?

A canteen with pork on the menu is part of the answer.

If you came to Canada with the idea that you will displace us with your prolific propaganda and eventually take over the country, you should pack up and go back to the country you came from. We have no room here for you and your ideology.

[ To this I add an “AMEN!”; the same for the United States of America.]

Newspaper Giants

Do these names mean anything to you? Likely not. They are the giants of the newspaper industry in the mid-20th Century. This was at a time when there were about 1800 independently owned newspapers across our country. This was a time when newspapers were the source of about all news: local and national. This was a time when there were strong barriers between objectively reported news and editorial opinion. Unlike today, they were not mixed. These giants of journalism were at a time of truth news, not FAKE News.

Dolph C. Simons
John Colburn
Davis Taylor
Len H. Small
Charlie H. Peters
Harold W. Anderson
David K. Gottlieb
Allen Neuharth
Eugene Pulliam
Otis Chandler
Stanford Smith
William Armstead Jr.
Richard C. Staub
James L. Knight
John S. Knight
Bruce Clark
William Schmick Jr.
Richard H. Blacklidge
Joe D. Smith Jr.
Peter B. Clark
Joe M. Dealey
Richard C. Steele
Jack R. Howard
Crosby N. Boyd
J. Howard Wood
Nelson Poynter
Ben Bradley
Katharine Graham

This country owes much to these people. The were true bearers of the highest standards of journalism.

The News

“Yellow journalism is 112 years old today (now 123 years in 2019) and is still alive and well. The term was first coined in 1896 during a time of battle of the New York Journal and the New York World for domination of the New York city market. Critics attacked both newspapers for building circulation based upon sex, violence and crime sprinkled with emotionalism, inaccuracies, and exaggerations. What has changed?”

“Today’s yellow journalism finds fertile ground in would-be journalists whose motives have little to do with social conscience, disclosure of injustice, uncovering wrong doing or giving voice to the voiceless. These journalists-in-name only are self-seekers whose motives involve pride, profit and a program of abusing the standards of journalism. Today’s journalists, particularly those of the electronic media, are in danger of becoming entertainers, celebrities and spokespersons for the rich and powerful.”

“Too many contemporary journalists, in a rush to be first in print or on the air that has to do more with personal prestige than with informing the public, have overlooked two basic journalistic rules: 1) Find a second, confirming source, and 2) check, check again, and then recheck.”

[The above paraphrased from Allan Andrews, Former Editor of Pacific Stars and Stripes, Tokyo, Japan; 1996]

Today’s world has seen an enormous decline in the dominance of newspapers across the country as the source of national and international news. Electronic media like CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS, NBC, ABC and such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal pop up everywhere. In the old days, the Associated Press and United Press International were the “wire services” that gathered, wrote, and transmitted stories to newspapers all over the country. Those organizations were held accountable by the newspaper members. Cable News 24/7 did not exist. Local newspapers mostly were the source of all news, local and national.

At one point, there were about 1800 independently owned papers in the United States and scores of independent radio/TV stations. Now there are 1500 newspapers, 1100 magazines, 9000 radio stations, 1500 TV stations, and 2400 publishers owned by only 6 corporations. Those corporations are General Electric, Newscorp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS. All appear to have both a profit and political agenda.

With the incredibly huge consolidation of newspapers and the electronic media into fewer and fewer corporations, particularly at the national level, has come the trade off of accuracy and objectivity for profit and political bias. Allan Andrews had it right then and has it right now.

Richard Blacklidge, then President of the American Newspaper Publishers Association, said in 1972, “Eternal vigilance is the price of any liberty, and surely that will continue to be true where press freedom is concerned. But, more than being vigilant, the press must above all be responsible — which is to say professional, conscientious, discreet, fair and accurate — in discharging its cardinal obligation, its reason for existence: to serve the American public as a medium of information and entertainment.”

Do today’s news sources meet this standard or is there a dominance of “Fake News”. You decide.

Krull’s Folly

It is crystal clear: Dr. John Krull, Director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and author of the Statehouse File column in the January 10th issue of the Kokomo Tribune, lives on a different planet that the rest of us. He used his column to blast President Donald Trump for his position on a border wall claiming Trump proposes a solution to a problem that does not exist. The problem: Krull is dead wrong.

The Center for Immigration Studies recently reported that each illegal immigrant costs the United States taxpayers an estimated $82,191 over the time residing in this country. This accounts for taxes paid by the illegal immigrant verses the use of social services; this is a net cost. The Center for Immigration Studies estimated illegal immigrants are costing the United States taxpayers about $16.4 Billion annually. They did not count the $59 Billion sent back to home countries.

Then there is the drug issue with the Mexican border. There were close to 70,000 deaths in the US last year from drug overdose on illegal drugs. Over 70% of illegal drugs cross from Mexico into the United States.

And the weapons: example of rifles, assault weapons, knives, and handguns were displayed at the recent meeting with President Trump and the Border Patrol this week. The Border Patrol said the seizure of weapons is a regular event at the Mexican border.

And the make up of persons attempting entry includes criminals, terrorists, transnational criminal organization members, MS-13 and other gang members. And on and on. People we do not want in this country.

Then there is the human trafficking. The sex trade involving both women and children goes on. Children have died as a result of having been pushed into horrendous travel or kidnapped for selling. It is estimated there is a 30% chance of a woman being raped by a coyote or mule during the course of travel.

And disease. We already know that a high percentage of those in the caravans have required medical care. Medical professionals are seeing diseases that are rare or not present in the US population for years. Diseases like unusual strains of TB and Dengue fever and more are showing up.

We have the cost in human lives of US citizens. There have been a total of 127 Border Patrol agents killed in the line of duty. There have been countless lives lost at the hands of illegal aliens that should not have been in the United States in the first place.

The fact: a wall is effective. It is a deterrent to traveling to the border in the first place. The Border Patrol is asking …. maybe even pleading…. for a wall on our southern border. Even the Chief of the Border Patrol under President Barack Obama has gone public recently on the side of constructing a wall. In an unintended way, CNN Anchor Jim Acosta promoted the WALL by showing there was no chaos, no one trying to cross the border, and no hordes along the section of wall from where he reported.

Conclusion: A WALL WORKS. BUILD IT.

Citizenship and Census

There seems to be a big debate over a question proposed for the coming 2020 nationwide census. The question asks people whether they are citizens of the United States of America. This is a legitimate question if the count of folks in this country is supposed to be counting citizens; not illegal aliens, visa overstays, visitors, and others who happen to be in the country.

Those who are complaining about this question say it would worsen the undercount of Latinos and non-citizens compared with other groups. If they are in the country illegally, I would hope this would exactly be the case. This is the point. Do not count non-citizens.

Why is this important? Millions of dollars of federal funding, that is your tax-payer money, is allocated to areas of the country based upon population count. The money is supposed to be for programs and projects that benefit citizens, not those here illegally or temporarily. Too much of that goes on already.

The other huge reason is representation in the United States House of Representatives is based upon population count. Congressional seat apportionment is based upon population. The more people in an area, the more Representatives they are allowed in Congress. This is across the country but I think you probably can guess who is complaining the loudest about the citizenship question being included in the census questionnaire: Democrats in California and New York.

Democrats want illegal aliens to be counted. More voters for them and more Representatives in Congress for the Democrat Party. Not counting non-citizens would result in a shift away for Congressional representation from Democrat strong holds and back to states with citizens.

It must be noted a question about citizenship is not new to the census process. It was asked in the 1950 census, so a precedent was set. It was not declared un-Constitutional then and should not be now. It remains to be seen, however, given challenges have been filed in courts located where….. California and New York…. where liberal judges remain in the majority on the bench. Likely, the issue will wind up before the Supreme Court of the United States.

There is zero logic to support counting those in an official census that are not citizens of the United States. Congressional representation should be for citizens only. Monies allocated back to states by Congress should be for the benefit of citizens only. Citizens only should be the ones allowed to vote in elections. Citizens only should be the ones who benefit from tax-payer services and benefits.

This is not to say we should not know about all others who are in the country. We should. We must. Only then can the millions here illegally be held accountable under the laws of the USA. So, the question is a good one: citizen or not. Respond or not.