Governor Christie Regains Poise

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie played smart yesterday and named NJ Attorney General Jeffery Chiesa to serve in the U.S. Senate, a seat desperately needed by Republicans in the upcoming budget and policy debates. It can make a significant difference in the result. To my detractors, who are myriad; it is always partisan Democrats and squishy Republicans that call for bi-partisanship. Democrats always want Republicans to be bipartisan but rarely offer the same unless forced. My squishy Republican friends will have to speak for themselves. In my view Politics is catering to interest groups, with a eye on The Constitution and balancing the three branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial.  The Democratic groups are those that place groups, social justice and anti-growth policies at the forefront and are based on the concept that all people should be equally poor and bereft except those that makes the rules. The Republican groups are those that believe we should all become as legally wealthy as we can and not do anything to kill the Golden Goose called the economy. Pick a side.

It's the easy ones that kill ya!

Well today is another one of those days. I get to test my prognostication skills against the Governor of New Jersey. Governor Christie: Your are done as the Republican nominee in 2016 because it's the easy ones that kill ya. All you had to do was appoint a Republican replacement to help your party in the U.S. Senate and you would have found a well of support out there, but instead you will now find the electoral rest stop. Sure you might win a few primaries, but your failure to support your party will hurt you more. If you were a Democrat you would have appointed Booker. Booker has learned the cost of disloyalty and will never vote against the Democrats in the Senate. As a Republican you have hurt your electorate, hurt your party and failed to do the right thing, the easy thing, the smart thing. Let's see how that effects your race in 2016.

America Drinks and Goes Home

As we enter this gorgeous summer weekend Washington is on fire and the President is out of town. Not much has changed with the Obama Traveling Medicine Show as we enter the second term of the Hawaiian Huckster. The Obama  numbing elixir is having its desired effect; The President uses the government as a tool to control, intimidate and eliminate opposition and America drinks and goes home. His mostly willing accomplices, the Democrats and the media, follow him blithely, tongues hanging, tails wagging, complying with his demand for obedience and heeling as told. There is a small, but hopeful sign that the flow of the elixir will stop, but it is very small and only slightly hopeful. Many people think the current supply of Obama Elixir will be renewed and the numbing effect will return. Are they right? It's up to you.

It's Not Just the IRS

Last February I wrote a column called Barack Obama: Government's Point Shaver. The "point shaver" reference was to a decades old college basketball corruption scheme and the theme of the column was out of control government. That theme resurfaced when the IRS apologized for scrutinizing 501c4 applications with names that included Tea Party and Patriot. A charge that was denied in Congressional testimony, but turned out to be true. As I noted in my February column we now have the various departments of the federal bureaucracy being run by political appointees and doctrinaire career public employees that support an agenda that is hurting the country. I invite you to read my February meme, which  can be accessed by clicking on February to the right of this column. America is being slowly crushed by a federal bureaucracy that the President should be protecting us from. He is either too preoccupied to be bothered or he is leading the charge. We can only hope the latter is not true, although many people believe it is; How about you?

Immigration Tsarnaev Style

The Tsarnaev’s are the prefect vehicle for Americans to judge the Immigration Bill under consideration by the U.S. Congress and supported by the Gang of Eight. The Tsarnaev’s came to America seeking political asylum. Immigrants normally get asylum when their lives are in danger in their home country or seek safety from persecution or prosecution. The youngest Dzhokhar (pronounced Zocar) Tsarnaev became a citizen in 2012. So the interaction with the family includes several federal and state agencies including Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), State Department, Department of Agriculture and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on the federal level. At the state level they interacted with Housing, Welfare and the Department of Transitional Assistance. So let’s see: They received welfare from Massachusetts, Food Stamps from the Dept of Agriculture, Legal Permanent Residence (LPR) status from INS and clearance to travel to a country from which they sought political asylum from the State Dept. INS failed to note the Tsarnaev’s were traveling to a country they sought asylum from. HUD, Agriculture and the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance failed to notice they were immigrants and not technically eligible for Food Stamps, Section 8 Housing or welfare. This doesn't include the failure of the FBI, who was warned about the older brother who is now dead. Basically all the departments that failed with the Tsarnaevs are going to be trusted to track the activities of 11 Million new immigrants that will be on the “path to citizenship” if the bill passes. Call or email your Senator and Representative or reap the whirlwind.

A Reply to Byron York and the Gang of Eight

After reading Byron York’s Washington Examiner article on the Immigration bill (A look deep inside the Gang of Eight Bill) I have a question for our elite group of Senators who so slavishly seek to enamor the Latino vote for the 2014 election and beyond. I would only add that such pandering is unlikely to provide the result they seek. First and foremost the bill requires that illegal aliens already in the country sign up to take part in the program. Question: What is the incentive for that? Immigrants who do sign up for the program will be finger-printed, background checked, pay a fine and required to learn English. If they are collecting benefits of any kind it will end and they will have been discovered to have further violated the law by taking benefits. Considering Congress has basically conceded they will not be deported, they are in no danger, so why bother? Once an illegal immigrant has joined the program and met all the requirements to become a Restricted Provisional Immigrant (RPI) what is the incentive to continue? It could take 13 to 22 years for an immigrant to become a citizen under the program. During this time INS will issue Green (Legal Permanent Resident) Cards , to no more than 2M a year. So in essence, while these 11,000 million RPI’s are waiting for Green Cards they will be working illegally as they were before the program existed. It takes much less time through legal channels to get a Green Card and citizenship so what is the incentive for it? This bill is a no-win for illegal immigrants. They are better served by the status quo. Their situation will be worse if they sign up then if they try to become legal citizens in a variety of other ways. Everything beyond these issues in the bill is even more complex and therefore even less likely to succeed. Complete reform of the INS and a more sophisticated and streamlined method of Immigration and Naturalization is what is needed. The Gang of Eight Bill is just a Band-Aid for a broken system that cheats the taxpayers that fund it and the immigrants forced to use it.

The Sunday Sermon That Wasn't

The Reverend Leon’s Easter Sunday homily took many by surprise. No such fiery rhetoric was heard at Obama’s inauguration or for that matter at the inauguration of George W. Bush either, which Leon also spoke at.  It was a surprise to all, the media, the attendees and yes, even the President himself. However, Obama probably liked it. It fits in with his Zeitgeist of America.  His anti-colonial, built-on-slavery perspective that makes high taxation, oppressive regulation and the squandering of the nation’s assets a perfect solution for the past sins of the oppressors; although they will never pay enough from Obama’s point of view. If we are lucky there will be something left when he’s gone and we can clean up the mess.