Month: May 2018

“I’m aggressive. I’m confident. I’m a gambler.”

One explanation is that older Californians with fixed incomes had increasing difficulty paying property taxes, which were rising as a result of California’s population growth, increasing housing demand, and inflation. Due to severe inflation during the 1970s, reassessments of residential property increased property taxes so much, that some retired people could no longer afford to remain in homes they had purchased long before. An academic study found support for this explanation, reporting that older voters, homeowners, and voters expecting a tax increase were more likely to vote for Proposition 13.^[9]

In our local paper on 5/23/18 there was a front page article about the Mexican Mafia and how the Federal authorities had capped a sweeping investigation with indictments in the Los Angeles area including the L.A. County jails. The article was written by Joel Rubin and Maya Lau who write for the California News Group, which is typically liberal news group. I applauded this type of front page reporting, but something seemed to be missing.
As background the Mexican Mafia was formed in the 1950s by young Latinos at the juvenile prison. This group has evolved into a dominant force that has near complete control of criminal activity inside the nation’s largest jail system, which has approximately 15,000 inmates including those awaiting trial. They are in charge of the area’s drug trade, both inside and outside of the jails. How many of these criminals are illegal immigrants? The article doesn’t say!
The Federal probe began in 2012 and has now culminated in the arrests of dozens of the organization’s members and foot soldiers. The charges were in a bid to disrupt the gang’s control inside L.A. jails. Interestingly, one of those arrested was a lawyer who was able to ferry messages into the prisoners in the jails because of attorney client privilege. Jose Landa-Rodriguez is “accused of running the Mexican Mafia inside the jail system for years. He is accused of ordering homicides, assaults, and kidnapping.” Another member, Luis Vega, is “accused of ordering a killing and directing assaults against those who showed disrespect or failed to follow the Mexican Mafia rules.” Are Landa-Rodriguez or Vega illegals? Again the article doesn’t say, but a betting person could probably make money by betting, “ Yes, they are!”
The article details that eighty-three individuals were named in two federal indictments. Of these eighty-three individuals about three dozen were presently serving time in state prison or in county jails, thirty-two were picked up from the L.A. area, while the remainder remained fugitives. How many of those indicted are illegal immigrants? The article doesn’t say!
The indictments allege that members of the Mexican Mafia “ run roughshod over the Latino street gangs in Pomona.” Are these street gangs mainly or solely comprised of illegals? The article appears not to state the obvious!

What is missing? Why does this article not specifically state if the members of this criminal element are illegals. Inquiring minds want to know!
To me there is only one reasonable answer to that question:
In my opinion, most if not all of the members of the Mexican Mafia in L.A. are illegal immigrants. However, since this goes contrary to the standard leftist line that all illegals are good hardworking people, this issue is not addressed. In fact I would go further and say that either the writers or the final editors were specifically told not to mention the immigration status of any members of the L.A. Mexican Mafia!

A few days ago there was a comprehensive article describing the statistics on the homeless population in San Diego County. In the annual January tally, for this year there were 8,576 homeless people in the county including 1,312 homeless veterans and 2,171 chronically homeless. Granted this sort of count can’t possibly find every homeless person, but it does provide some useful data, although some potentially useful information is not provided by this simple head count. From my perspective
there are certain definite groups among these thousands of unfortunate homeless individuals, and perhaps it would be informative to know how many are in these subgroups, because it would seem to me that the limited resources should be directed to those subgroups that are most likely to be helped.
Three major questions:
1. How many of the 4,990 unsheltered homeless individuals who are living on the street actually desire help? On the night of the tally 630 sheltered beds were available but not utilized, and this was in January.
2. How many of the chronically homeless have some sort of mental illness? An article on 5/19/18 in the Wall Street Journal queried whether or not these mentally ill individuals are worse off now than they were in the days that they were housed in asylums. This is a good question, as it is hard to imagine that they would not be better off with a warm bed, regular meals, and medication to treat their mental illness in a controlled environment. To me the likelihood of helping these unfortunate individuals with the present laws and ground rules is quite low.
3. What percentage of the homeless have some sort of addiction, whether it be to alcohol or to drugs? To me trying to treat these individuals without completely changing their environment is futile. Converting them from the “non-sheltered group” to the “sheltered group” by providing them with a “roof” over their head looks good on paper, but again, to me, the chance for a successful escape from their addiction has to be quite low, as long as they remain in the same environment . . . close to their “friends” who can help them get the drugs and/or the alcohol.
To me, the group that we as a community should be directing our attention to are those with an addiction, and the only way to help them is to get them away from their present environment. We need to think out of the box. It makes no sense to me to continue to bring the necessary services to where these addicted individuals reside. Move them away from their present environment. Move them out to a rural area – the more rural and hence the more isolated the better. The necessary services can make the trip to the outlying areas.
As an example of “thinking out of the box,” read the following and decide whether or not this soon to be closed facility could be better used to house and simultaneously effectively isolate these addicted individuals.
A recent article in our local paper annotated the closing of a rural Juvenile Detention Facility because of both a decrease in usage and because of the deteriorating condition of the facility. Since 2011 there has been a change in juvenile justice with a shift from detention to rehabilitation by steering youths into diversion programs, and since then the juvenile arrest rate has decreased 53%, and the population in juvenile halls has dropped 48% since 2012. The soon to be closed detention facility has a capacity to House 125 boys, and recently has seen its population drop to between 60-70 boys.
One of the reasons noted as to why this location was not desirable for youth offenders was its inaccessibility for the parents, as it is in the middle of nowhere with no public transportation. This would be perfect for these addicted homeless individuals as they could not easily access drugs, alcohol, or “ friends.”

Today as I was listening to the radio while driving home, the headline on the news was, “Fatal hit-and-run accident on I-8.” Of course I knew nothing of the particulars of that accident, but my imagination is not a quiet place, and so my mind made up some unknown details as I continued home. These details turned out to completely wrong, but my imaginary scenario led to the following “what if . . .”

What if the person killed was just an innocent bystander who was walking up the exit ramp because he had run out of gas. And what if he ran out of gas because he was driving an old car, albeit the only car he could afford, and his gas gauge on his jalopy was nonfunctional. What if the reason that he did not stop and get gas, just to be safe, was because he was late for his second job, from which he could not afford to get fired, and what if the reason that he did not call his employer, was because he could not afford a cell phone. And finally what if his now widowed sick wife and their four young hungry kids were forced out of their small apartment because today was payday and his paycheck never made it to the bank.
Like I noted above, my imagination is not a quiet place, and it was the task of this imagination to make the dead man as sympathetic a figure as possible. I hope that I achieved that goal, because what if the driver of the car was drunk, and the car had been stolen. What if he had just been released from jail a few hours before. To make matters worse what if this intoxicated individual was an illegal who had a record of multiple past DWIs, and who had been deported multiple times before for stealing cars, and what if he was released from jail before the federal authorities were notified because the jail was located in a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state.
Whoa, you say, this could never happen. Balderdash, It’s only a matter of time before something akin to this happens, and I would wager that in fact, innocent citizens are already, and not infrequently, being harmed by illegals who should have been in the custody of ICE.
In this particular tragic situation as described above, who is ultimately responsible for the death of this innocent bystander on the I-8 off ramp? To me the answer is obvious. What if the widowed wife found a good lawyer, and sued because the city as well as the state both were in violation of federal law when they allowed the driver of the car to go free without contacting ICE. They certainly were negligent here as anyone could have anticipated that he would drive drunk again, as he had already done so multiple times in the past. Again something like this is going to happen, and what if with a good lawyer and a sympathetic jury, the deep pockets of the city and of the state are picked big time. What if ? One can only hope!

Today when I picked up the local paper, something struck me about the articles on the front page. Of course the paper had the usual anti-Trump article about basically nothing, but it was the remainder of the “front page” news that caught my attention. At first I did not think much of it, but when I went to the “Local” section the same pattern struck me again.
Am I just a rightward leaning nut job? Partially true except for the “nut job”part. You decide. I am going to state the headline for both the articles on the front page and also the ones in the local section . . . you tell me if anything strikes you.

Front Page:

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– “Flow of Central Americans Continues Across Border”
– “Lawsuit Alleges Albertsons Violated Rights” (The U.S.                     Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Albertsons, a grocery store chain, because they
have a policy forbidding workers to speak Spanish around non-Spanish speakers)
– “Assemblyman Requests State Audit of Hepatitis A Response” (the San Diego area had a recent major hepatitis outbreak that killed 20 people and sickened close to 600; this outbreak was centered on the city’s growing homeless population.)

Local section, page 1:
– “Caltrans Workers File Grievance Over Cleanup of Camps”( here the union is stating that the clearing of homeless areas requires safety gear because of picking up used hypodermic needles and cleaning up human wastes)
Local section, page 2
– “Escondido police investigate fatal shooting, suspected to be gang- related” (Escondido is a suburb of San Diego, and it is well known for its illegal Hispanic gangs)
– “Phone tip leads to arrest in attempted Old Town sex assault” (Jail records show that a 31 year-old was arrested and booked on a parole warrant, assault with intent to
commit sexual assault, and possession of a controlled substance. Almost assuredly this suspect was homeless.)
– “One hurt in freeway crash during Border Patrol pursuit into La Mesa” ( the driver and the six passengers were believed to be Mexican citizens who entered the U.S.A.
illegally.)
– “Trolley riders not guilty of seat-soiling charge.” (Homeless couple was found not guilty because the arresting officers did not have their body cameras turned on.)
– “Program that employs homeless extended.” (albeit at a cost of $140,000 annually)

To me the moniker of the paper that day could have been “consequences of homelessness for a city that fosters homelessness,” with a subtitle of “consequences of illegal immigration for a city that encourages illegal immigration.” If it wasn’t for the news stories stemming from the homeless problem and stemming from illegal immigration issues, how would our local newspaper ever fill its pages?

In December, 2017 while on a cruise to New Zealand/Australia, an English gentleman, Ken from Liverpool, started praising President Donald Trump while we were all sitting around our dinner table. Ken was very religious and started quoting certain parts of the Bible while talking about Trump’s decision to move the capital of Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Keep in mind that Ken is not a Republican . . . he is not even an American.
Admittedly I am very very far from a being a biblical scholar, but this is what Ken said, “According to the Bible, Jerusalem has been the capital of Israel since King David made it that way. The Bible calls it the apple of God’s eye and promised to Abraham that everyone who blesses the Jews (His descendants) will be blessed. God will bless America because of the actions of Donald Trump.” He went on to cite 1Corinthians, 1/27-30, Ezekiel, chapters 36-39, and Zachariah, chapter 12 to bolster his position.
At that point I knew little about Jerusalem, the U.S embassy, and Trump’s position. The following is from Wikipedia:
The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995[1] is a public law of the United States passed by the 104th Congress on October 23, 1995. The proposed law was adopted by the Senate (93–5),[2] and the House (374–37).[3] The Act became law without a presidential signature on November 8, 1995.
Despite passage, the law allowed the President to invoke a six-month waiver of the application of the law, and reissue the waiver every six months on “national security” grounds. The waiver was repeatedly invoked by Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama.[5]President Donald Trump signed a waiver in June 2017. On June 5, 2017, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of reunification of Jerusalem by 90-0. The resolution reaffirmed the Jerusalem Embassy Act and called upon the President and all United States officials to abide by its provisions.[6] On December 6, 2017, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital,[7] and ordered the planning of the relocation of the embassy.[8][9]

So finally on 5/14/18 the U.S. Embassy was officially relocated to Jerusalem – 70 years after President Truman (D) recognized Israel, just 11 minutes after it declared its independence in 1948. This was a day of celebrating in Israel, and in the U.S. it should have been a day of co-celebration with our longstanding ally, Israel. To commemorate the occasion five U.S.senators and ten members of the House of Representatives were on hand in Jerusalem. One of the senators, Joe Lieberman (I-C), said “this is a pro-U.S.-Israel partnership, alliance rally.” I would surmise that the 14 Republican members of the U.S. Congress that were actually in Jerusalem probably agreed with Senator Lieberman, who, as I am sure that you recall, had been a Democrat Vice Presidential candidate in the past.
Amazingly, the Democrats in both the House and in the Senate did not rise to the occasion, as no Democratic congressman/woman chose to appear in Jerusalem for this historic event. Does this boycott by those in Congress demonstrate the true feelings that the Democrats in office have towards Israel!
Disgusting, Embarrassing, Mortifying, Shameful!
Hopefully, Jewish Americans, who typically vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, will be paying attention to this slap in the face of Israel.

“Well my mom ‘n papa told me, son, you gotta make some money
If you want to use the car to go ridin’ next Sunday
Well I didn’t go to work, told the boss I was sick
Now you can’t use the car ’cause you didn’t work a lick.”

Perhaps some of us seniors can recall that these lyrics are from the song, “Summertime Blues,” written and performed by Eddie Cochran in 1958. The original rockabilly rendition peaked at #8 on Billboard Hot 100, and later “Summertime Blues” was a #1 country hit for Alan Jackson. This song was also performed by a myriad of other groups including The Beach Boys and The Who.
What the lyrics clearly outline is the following logical sequence: Faking sickness led to no work which led to no money which led to not being able to use the car on Sunday.
The reason that I bring up this song is because the lyrics clearly demonstrate the concept of what I call, “linkage,” which is the somewhat ubiquitous concept that things that at first glance seem unrelated are, if you think about it, often related. (Here for example “faking sickness during the week” and “not being able to use the car on Sunday.” Obviously related and linked.)
This concept of “linkage” should be common sense, but sadly, as most of us are aware, common sense is sadly lacking especially among those on the left, and thus we end up with “non-linkage.” For example, this concept of “non-linkage” is one of the reasons the Obama/Kerry’s Iran Nuclear Deal was such a foolhardy exercise.
Imagine: “Even though your word has not been good in the past, we will take your word that you are going to stop doing A. In addition we will give you a ton of money, and trust that you will not use this to extend your support for state sponsored terrorist groups, like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the rebels in Yemen. Even though we realize that you spend a lot of your resources supporting such terrorist groups, we are not going to link these two things together. . . WTF!! Doesn’t common sense dictate that Iran will cheat, and that a lot of the “ransom money” paid to Iran will be used against our troops or those of our allies? Classic Non-Linkage!
Here in California one of the major problems is the unaffordability of housing with the median price of a home being $565,000. So of course what’s the first thing those on the left try to do to try to remedy this problem? Obviously the illogical leftist thing to do is to make new houses even more expensive! So in a classic non-linkage way, last week a five member board of the unelected California Energy Commission ruled 5-0 that staring on January 1, 2020 all new houses will have to be fitted with solar panels. From the Washington Free Beacon it is estimated that this will add $8000-12,000 to the cost of new houses, and will cut emissions in the state by only 0.32% over 3 years compared to 2015! . . . WTF!!
Questions for the lefties on the California Energy Commission:
Won’t this just raise the cost of new houses? “Err . . . Yes.”
If new houses become more expensive, isn’t it likely that this will make all houses more expensive? “Err . . . Probably.”
If housing affordability is already a big problem for many who live in California isn’t this new edict just going to worsen this situation? “Err . . . Yes.”
Classic Non-Linkage!

Well I knew it would ultimately happen and today it finally did! After almost 16 months in office, I finally disagree with President Trump. Of course, I have disagreed with him on inconsequential things – like did he wait too long to fire Comey? . . . has he already waited too long before firing Mueller? . . . or did he mis-speak with some of his Stormy statements? But since these are the inconsequential non-real news tidbits that the Mainstream Media wants to focus on, I have ignored them.
However, now I am going on record as disagreeing with something substantial. I disagree with his decision to end the Temporary Protected Status for approximately 86,000 Hondurans that were granted TPS after Hurricane Mitch slammed into Honduras, killed about 10,000, and devastated the country. As background, TPS was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. It was meant to be a temporary haven for those around the world affected by natural disasters, and this law has enabled some 435,000 people from 10 countries to live in the U.S.A.
So what’s my problem with President Trump’s decision to end TPS status of approximately the 86,000 Hondurans? The program was designed to provide temporary help for those in need, and when the situation had stabilized, those people were supposed to be returned to their home country. Certainly the disastrous situation in Honduras that existed an an aftermath of Hurricane Mitch is no longer the case, as Hurricane Mitch occurred in 1998, and these people were granted TPS in 1999! 1999, that almost 20 years ago! What possible benefit can be realized by the U.S.A. by forcing these people to return to Honduras by January, 2020?
These people did not come here illegally; they are here as our guests; we invited them! Granted the past two presidents (Bush and Obama) both dropped the ball by allowing these legal refugees to remain here without clarifying their status, and I do believe that in the future, the people who benefit from TPS should have an endpoint . . . 2 years, 5 years, but not 20 years. Forcing these people to go back in 2020 can only lead to further turmoil as we move down the road, as these Hondurans with protected status have 53,500 U.S. born children and 85% participate in the labor force at a time that we have a record low unemployment rate of 3.9%.
Granted President Trump is just living up to the letter of the TPS law. He is not doing anything unlawful . . . but why send these people back to their native country?
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps this is just another bargaining chip in the ongoing battle over illegal immigration and The Wall. Those who know Donald Trump well insist that he has a sensitive and tender side, and I say, “This is the time to demonstrate that side!”

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The California News Group, publisher of the San Diego Union and the L.A. Times has apparently expanded its editorializing to the Business section. Last week it tried to convince its readers that a new record low unemployment rate (3.9%) was bad (see “Tales from Two Cities”, 5/8/18), and today, Don Lee (“Sanctions on Iran could be felt in U.S.”) claims that rising gas prices (since March) has something to do with Trump getting out of the Iran Nuclear Deal on 5/8/18. Blame Trump!
Oil is now priced at $76 per barrel (compared to about $50 per barrel a year ago). . . so blame Trump!
Venezuela’s oil production is in chaos and Saudi Arabia recently said that their goal was to have oil at $80 per barrel . . . so blame Trump!
Although in fairness, in the body of the article, it states, “As analysts see it today, there is as much chance that gas prices will go down from here as it is that they will go up.”
However, Mr. Lee apparently thinks that here in California, the safest thing to do is to blame Trump.
If you aren’t already use to this type of obviously slanted “reporting,” you better get used to it, as from now on the Main Stream Media will be blaming any economic fluctuation on Trump withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal. What you won’t be reading is, “If Barack Obama had called this deal what it really was . . . a treaty, then President Trump would not have been able to pull out of it.” Back then there were many Democrats who did not think that this Iran deal was good for the U.S.A., and so B.O. knew that it would probably not pass in the Senate . . . ergo, he never called it a treaty, and thus never presented it to the Senate for confirmation.
As an aside we have a similar situation with D.A.C.A. If President Obama would have have presented this D.A.C.A. proclamation to the Senate Democratic majority and House Democratic majority back in 2009, we wouldn’t be in the present D.A.C.A. quagmire.
I predict that this Iran “deal” will not be the last non-legal Obama-dictum to be reversed by Trump. When this happens, the liberals will only get madder and this will rev-up the “blame Trump train!”