JOE BIDEN: ILLEGALS COME FIRST - That’s how we keep them coming and voting Democrat for more!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/joe-biden-our-illegals-come-first-gop.html
Nolte: GOP Rep Says Illegal Immigrants Receiving ‘Pallets of Baby Formula’
Smuggler Hid Pregnant Minor in Trailer with 79 Migrants
A federal jury in Texas convicted a truck driver from North Carolina for his role in a human smuggling organization, including stuffing an underage pregnant female in a tractor-trailer with 79 other migrants.
Late last week, a federal jury in Laredo, Texas, convicted 52-year-old Aurelio Barajas-Pulido on one count of human smuggling following a one-day trial. Barajas Pulido was working with human smugglers and his job was to drive a trailer full of migrants from Laredo to El Paso. Authorities presented statements from Barajas where he claimed he was previously unemployed and was offered between $1,100 and $1,500 for a week of work. Even though he was living in North Carolina, he operated between California and Texas and was notified when a trailer was ready.
His defense claimed that he did not know there were migrants in the cargo, but the jury ultimately did not believe him. His sentencing is set for later this year, according to federal prosecutors. He could face up to 10 years in prison. Barajas Pulido is a legal permanent resident, according to information provided to Breitbart Texas by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations. He could lose his green card and be deported in the future.
According to the criminal complaint, the case began on February 8, 2022, when U.S. Border Patrol agents first arrested Barajas Pulido during the failed smuggling attempt. Agents claimed that Barajas acted suspiciously when he tried to drive through a checkpoint north of Laredo. The agents asked Barajas Pulido for his documents, and he presented his permanent resident card and a bill of lading. When authorities noticed that the temperatures for the trailer listed in the documents did not match, they sent Barajas Pulido to a secondary inspection. A police dog alerted to 80 migrants in the trailer.
Among the migrants, authorities found three underage teens and a pregnant 15-year-old.
Luisana Moreno is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.
Watch: Parents Panic over Biden Baby Formula Crisis – ‘Bone-Deep Anxiety’
Parents are expressing their panic over the baby formula shortage that is gripping the nation.
“Never did I think I would ever be rationing formula,” said one mother.
The crisis has grown so desperate for some parents that they have to come up with creative ways to acquire baby formula. One parent had formula shipped in a wine box as a preventative against theft. Other parents have had to ask friends and family to travel across state and county lines just to obtain the product.
As Breitbart News reported on Friday, eight states have seen their baby formula supply cut by more than half.
In response to the baby formula crisis, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki suggested that parents “call their doctor.”
White HouseYou can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.
SHOCKING VIDEO!
Got Baby Formula?
Biden administration truly a total dumpster fire: Rep. Cammack
IS THIS NOT AN IMPEACHABLE ACT OF HOMELAND SECURITY?
EVERY NIGHT BUSLOADS OF ILLEGALS ARRIVE IN NYC.
Plane carrying more than 150 migrants lands in NYC: Fox News exclusive
A migrant woman living in Texas told a South Texas border rancher that she “expects” the federal government to deliver her smuggled child to her. A migrant woman, apparently unknown to the family, smuggled the child across the Rio Grande after being handed the child by human smugglers.
Fox News journalist Bill Melugin tweeted a video on May 12 showing a woman carrying a two-year-old girl she had just carried across the border river near Eagle Pass, Texas. The woman told the reporter that human smugglers handed her the little girl and instructed her to cross the dangerous river where dozens of people, including children, have died in the past two months.
A second tweet reported that the rancher whose land the migrants crossed onto, contacted the child’s mother after finding a note with her contact information. The piece of paper said the mother lives in Dallas — 415 miles to the north.
The rancher told Melugin the mother seemed nonchalant regarding the news that her toddler had just been smuggled into the U.S. by being carried across a dangerous river where dozens of people — including infants and other toddlers –drowned during the past two months.
The mother added that she “expects” the U.S. government to get her daughter to her.
The woman crossed with what Melugin called “one of the largest single groups I’ve ever seen during my border trips to Eagle Pass.”
Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 41,000 migrants during the month of April, according to unofficial statistics obtained by Breitbart Texas. Official numbers are due to be released in the next few days.
The severe shortage of baby formula across the United States continues to affect millions of families. Nationwide, there is a 43 percent deficit of infant formula, with some states and metropolitan areas seeing more than 50 percent of normal supply missing from grocery store shelves.
Prices have risen by an average of 18 percent with increasingly common reports of price gouging emerging around the country.
Baby formula is a critical food product for millions of infants. Around three-quarters of all infants in the United States receive formula within their first six months, and many require it as their primary form of nutrition.
The shortage has been developing over the past two years as the pandemic disrupted supply chains, resulting in a roughly 20 percent shortage at the beginning of this year.
The issue was made significantly worse though when Abbott Nutrition was forced to close one of the nation’s largest formula manufacturing plants in Sturgis, Michigan. The plant was shut down in February after a bacterial outbreak in baby food sold by Abbott caused illness in at least four infants, killing two of them.
Abbott issued a voluntary recall of products made at the facility and shut it down as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducted an investigation into the outbreak.
The company claims that the strain of bacteria found in the infected infants was not discovered at the plant. However, an FDA investigation conducted from January 31 to March 18 found multiple health issues in the facilities.
According to the report, the FDA found evidence of the dangerous bacteria Cronobacter sakazakii “in medium and high care areas of powdered infant formula production” and that Abbott “did not ensure that all surfaces that contacted infant formula were maintained to protect infant formula from being contaminated by any source.” The FDA’s investigation has so far identified five different strains of Cronobacter sakazakii bacteria in the plant.
Additional revelations about the health violations made by Abbott were revealed in a whistleblower report provided to the FDA by a former Abbott employee at the Sturgis plant. The report accused management of falsifying records and health procedure documents, releasing untested formula for sale, taking active steps to prevent the discovery of bacteria in products during an FDA audit in 2019, and failing to take proper measures to resolve long standing issues with the safety of the products produced.
Notably, the report stated that Abbott insisted on using paper documentation rather than electronic in order to better falsify and hide documentation from regulators.
The closure of the Sturgis factory due to these persistent problems set fire to a manufacturing and supply chain tinder box in the United States.
Abbott is one of four companies that produce 90 percent of all baby formula sold in the United States. Foreign imports are aggressively limited, with a tariff of 17.5 percent designed to protect domestic producers, who manufacture 98 percent of the nation’s supply.
These producers are then offered near monopoly control over entire states through the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC. The WIC program provides affordable infant formula to families in need through a rebate program contracted between the state government and a single company.
Through a bid system, companies like Abbott compete to secure exclusive rights to sell baby formula to WIC participants, who are only allowed to purchase formula from one company. The contract is secured through a rebate to the state, typically upwards of 85 percent. This causes the company to take a loss on formula sold through WIC but is offset through the preference to place their products on store shelves and dominance over the market.
WIC sales make up about half of all infant formula purchases, meaning that any company able to secure a contract is virtually guaranteed to control the market in an entire state. A recent analysis of WIC programs from 2006 to 2015 found that when a company secured a WIC contract its sales of eligible products increased by 300 percent. The study also noted a “spillover” effect, where sales of non-related products by the same manufacturer also increased substantially. An additional 2004 study by the Department of Agriculture found that WIC-contracting companies raised their prices after securing the contract.
These programs have resulted in the extensive market consolidation in the hands of a few companies and in a few plants. Abbott currently holds contracts in at least 31 states, which it provides formula to from just five factories. With the Sturgis plant closed, its capacity to provide to all its contracted states has been severely limited.
Abbott and the FDA reached a deal Monday to restart production within the next two weeks pending the company meeting certain requirements. However, company officials have noted that it will take another six to eight weeks for formula to reach shelves once production resumes.
This time scale will leave millions of families without a critical source of nutrition for their children. Not only do many mothers have difficulty with breast feeding for various physical reasons, but the vast majority of working class mothers are restricted from breast feeding due to social and economic constraints.
The United States federal government does not guarantee paid family leave, and many employers do not even provide unpaid leave without new mothers risking losing their jobs. Without the time and structural support for breastfeeding, American mothers are made far more dependent on formula than in other Western countries.
According to the aid organization Save the Children, the percent of mothers breastfeeding their infants at six months in Norway is 99 percent compared to just 44 percent in the United States. Mothers in the US receive no paid maternity leave, while mothers in Norway are given at least 36 weeks of paid maternity leave.
Simply put, the more time a mother is allowed to spend with her child the more able they are to breastfeed. If they are not provided that time, they are forced to concede substantial financial resources to do so.
According to an analysis by the business news outlet Quartz, a woman working 50 hours a week and making $60,000 a year could lose up to $14,250 in order to breastfeed her child for just the first six months.
The response of the ruling class to this crisis has been woefully inadequate. The FDA took months to begin its investigation of Abbott and waited longer still to take action against the company. The Biden administration has issued only a terse list of promises to increase foreign imports and domestic production and to “cut red tape.”
President Joe Biden has stated that there is “nothing more urgent we’re working on than that right now.” This can hardly be taken seriously. While Biden has pushed Congress to approve $40 billion for weapons shipments to Ukraine, he has so far made no such demands to prevent hunger among infants.
For their part, the fascistic fear mongers in the Republican Party have concocted conspiracy theories that migrants detained at the Southern border are the cause of the shortage, calling on the Biden administration to cease shipments of baby formula to detention centers, in violation of federal law. Such calls are effectively demands for the forced starvation of migrant children.
THIS IS WHAT THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR OPEN BORDERS AND CHEAPER LABOR HAS DONE TO AMERICA
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/joe-bidens-open-borders-migrant-mom-in.html
Migrant Mom in Texas Expects Feds to Deliver Abandoned Child to Her
JOE BIDEN: ILLEGALS COME FIRST - That’s how we keep them coming and voting Democrat for more!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/joe-biden-our-illegals-come-first-gop.html
Nolte: GOP Rep Says Illegal Immigrants Receiving ‘Pallets of Baby Formula’
Lawrence Jones follows bus of migrants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv0HaWimrxs
Biden administration truly a total dumpster fire: Rep. Cammack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18W_YpbgXiE
1200 Migrants Apprehended in Single Day in West Texas near Border
El Paso Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 1,200 migrants in a single day over the past weekend. The apprehended migrants included citizens of four nations — including Turkey.
El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gloria I. Chavez tweeted images from four large-group migrant apprehensions in a single day along the U.S.-Mexico Border. The illegal border crossings led to the apprehension of more than 1,200 migrants.
Agents identified the migrants as citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Turkey, Chief Chavez reported.
“We do what we can with what we got!” She said in the tweet. “So much [love] & appreciation for my troops!”
On the same day as the tweet above, the chief sent another tweet showing the rescue of a migrant woman. Border, Search, Trauma, and Rescue (BORSTAR) agents responded to an incident involving a seriously injured migrant woman. The agents immediately began emergency medical services.
“With us, it will ALWAYS be about border security; but often agents step up & provide humanitarian response,” Chavez tweeted. “Well done BORSTAR.”
During the first six months of Fiscal Year 2022, which began on October 1, 2021, El Paso Sector agents apprehended a total of 113,281 migrants along the Mexican border with Texas and New Mexico. This represents a nearly 58 percent increase over the same period in FY21. More than 75 percent of these migrants were classified as single adults.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Face
Biden Subsidizes Business with 35K Foreign Workers to Hire for U.S. Jobs as Nearly 12M Americans Remain Jobless
President Joe Biden is subsidizing businesses with 35,000 more foreign H-2B visa workers to hire for non-agricultural jobs in the United States, even as nearly 12 million Americans remain jobless.
On Monday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that the administration would begin allowing businesses to hire up to 35,000 additional foreign H-2B visa workers for nonagricultural jobs in construction, hospitality, and landscaping.
“This preemptive move by Mayorkas lets seasonal employers off the hook from recruiting Americans by offering better wages and working conditions,” Robert Law with the Center for Immigration Studies wrote. “Instead, the federal government will subsidize bad business models or simply further enrich employers by giving them access to more cheap foreign workers than otherwise would be allowed.”
The administration announced months ago that they would help subsidize business by inflating the U.S. labor market even more with additional foreign H-2B visa workers to hire.
Specifically, about 23,500 of the H-2B visas will go to foreign workers who have previously come to the U.S. on the visa program, while 11,500 of the visas will go to Haitians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and El Salvadorans.
The move comes as 5.9 million Americans are unemployed and another 5.9 million are out of the labor market entirely, but all want full-time jobs. An additional four million Americans are underemployed, holding part-time jobs but wanting full-time employment.
Every year, businesses are allowed to import 66,000 H-2B foreign visa workers to take blue-collar, non-agricultural American jobs. Former President Donald Trump routinely brought in additional H-2B foreign visa workers for business to hire, and Biden is doing the same.
In December 2021 and January 2022, Mayorkas announced that he would allow businesses to import 40,000 more H-2B foreign visa workers.
The H-2B visa program has been widely used by businesses to drag down the wages of American workers in landscaping, conservation work, the meatpacking industry, the construction industry, and fishing jobs, a 2019 study by the Center for Immigration Studies finds.
When comparing the wages of H-2B foreign workers to the national wage average for each blue-collar industry, about 21 out of 25 of the industries offered lower wages to foreign workers than Americans.
Annually, the U.S. gives green cards to about 1.2 million legal immigrants, while another 1.4 million foreign workers are admitted every year to take American jobs. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are added to the labor market every year, many on work permits given to them by the federal government.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
CAN YOU NAME A SINGLE THING THE BANKSTER REGIME OF BARACK OBAMA AND JOE BIDEN EVER DID FOR BLACK AMERICA? THEY WERE TOO BUSY ESCORTING MILLIONS OF 'CHEAP' LABOR ILLEGALS INTO OUR JOBS AND VOTING BOOTHS.
Competition can be especially intense for lower-skilled jobs and the outcome has been horrible for African Americans. “Low-skill immigration between 1980 and 2000 accounted for 40 percent of the drop in low-skill employment among blacks without a high school degree....” Of these, Latino immigrants are the most numerous, but there are also many under-educated, low-skilled immigrants and descendants from Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Africa.
Male African Americans face especially vigorous competition from male Latinos. Male Latinos first outnumbered male black workers in 1995. In 2005, it was by 25%, and in 2020, it was by 60%. Latinos are competing well. Since 1980, the average Latino household income has been 20–25% higher than black household income. Workplace competition between blacks and Latinos will continue because there is a high degree of overlap in the skilled and unskilled positions members of both groups choose. Male African Americans face increased competition from many newcomers because their academic achievement has stagnated while the newcomers’ has been ascending.
'Annually, the U.S. gives green cards to about 1.2 million legal immigrants, while another 1.4 million foreign workers are admitted every year to take American jobs. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are added to the labor market every year, many on work permits given to them by the federal government.
The Democrats’ push for reparations will only make things worse
Under the guise of remedying historical sins, the government is stoking racial divisions at every corner. First, there was CRT, then equity, and now a revival of considering reparations. The first time the government tried to pass H.R. 40 to sanction a study and develop proposals for reparations for African Americans was in 1989. The timing coincided with stagnating outcomes for African Americans.
Now, the House is trying again. Then as now, the inquiry would prove more fruitful if the examination focused on government policy decisions, rather than investigating ties between stagnation, slavery, and post-slavery discrimination.
The government’s failure to contemplate the combined impact of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, and the Great Society (1964–1965) counts among the grossest acts of U.S. government negligence. This combo is the root cause of racially disproportionate outcomes that take the greatest toll on African Americans.
Since 1965, America has added over 80 million residents from Asian, Latino, and African immigrant groups. Throughout history, immigrants have brought homegrown biases and created competition for jobs and other resources. Because almost all immigrants come from nations that give no consideration to anti-racism, biases can be strong, and these affect Americans of diverse races and religions. Blacks bear the brunt of these biases, but this is unaccounted for in government reports and un-championed by social justice activists.
As competitors, immigrants have always forced Americans to up their game. In the case of post-1965 immigrants and their descendants, their competitiveness is enhanced because they qualify as minorities. This gives them the same considerations that African and Native Americans have had since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Before 1980, minorities were about 15% of the population. Today, they are about 40%, and all share equally in the extra reflection minorities can receive when accessing jobs and resources.
Image: Illegal aliens (aka competition for jobs) flooding into Texas. YouTube screen grab.
Competition can be especially intense for lower-skilled jobs and the outcome has been horrible for African Americans. “Low-skill immigration between 1980 and 2000 accounted for 40 percent of the drop in low-skill employment among blacks without a high school degree....” Of these, Latino immigrants are the most numerous, but there are also many under-educated, low-skilled immigrants and descendants from Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Africa.
Male African Americans face especially vigorous competition from male Latinos. Male Latinos first outnumbered male black workers in 1995. In 2005, it was by 25%, and in 2020, it was by 60%. Latinos are competing well. Since 1980, the average Latino household income has been 20–25% higher than black household income. Workplace competition between blacks and Latinos will continue because there is a high degree of overlap in the skilled and unskilled positions members of both groups choose. Male African Americans face increased competition from many newcomers because their academic achievement has stagnated while the newcomers’ has been ascending.
Newer immigrant groups have always motivated Americans to up their game, but this is not happening with African Americans. The explanation seems evident. In 1964/1965 the United States dropped the highly prized American value of self-reliance. Government subsidies and dependence have become options that lessen the motivation for academic achievement or working extra hours. Able-bodied Americans who are fine with receiving government subsidies will struggle to compete with motivated newcomers striving for self-reliance. African Americans are disproportionately represented as welfare recipients and government dependents.
Stagnating outcomes for African Americans have nothing to do with slavery or post-slavery discrimination. They have everything to do with haphazard policymaking. The government has made it too easy to receive government subsidies and they have been remiss in ignoring the challenges of legal and illegal immigration. Instead of making amends for detrimental policies, legislators are revisiting reparations that perpetuate black victimhood and stoke racial divisions.
Kathleen Brush, Ph.D. is the author of Reparations for All or None.
THIS IS WHAT THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR OPEN BORDERS AND CHEAPER LABOR HAS DONE TO AMERICA
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/joe-bidens-open-borders-migrant-mom-in.html
Migrant Mom in Texas Expects Feds to Deliver Abandoned Child to Her
JOE BIDEN: ILLEGALS COME FIRST - That’s how we keep them coming and voting Democrat for more!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/joe-biden-our-illegals-come-first-gop.html
Nolte: GOP Rep Says Illegal Immigrants Receiving ‘Pallets of Baby Formula’
THIS IS WHAT THE DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR OPEN BORDERS AND CHEAPER LABOR HAS DONE TO AMERICA
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/joe-bidens-open-borders-migrant-mom-in.html
Migrant Mom in Texas Expects Feds to Deliver Abandoned Child to Her
JOE BIDEN: ILLEGALS COME FIRST - That’s how we keep them coming and voting Democrat for more!
https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2022/05/joe-biden-our-illegals-come-first-gop.html
Nolte: GOP Rep Says Illegal Immigrants Receiving ‘Pallets of Baby Formula’
Things are looking very, very grim for the Democrats
Hart Research Associates, a Democrat-run polling organization, released a poll taken from May 5-10 that asked voters about various issues as well as their general feeling about how the country is doing. The numbers are spectacularly grim for Joe Biden and the Democrat party generally. These numbers do two things: They bode well for Republicans taking over Congress in the midterm elections and they make Democrat cheating more difficult because it’s impossible for Democrats to have final outcomes that deviate too much from the mood of the country.
It's not a random opinion to say that Hart Research is a Democrat polling organization. Aside from general polls covering all sorts of business and social issues, the company describes Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, the political division of Hart Research, as
[O]ne of the most respected and successful political polling firms in the country for Democratic candidates and progressive causes. [snip] Our history of accomplishments includes winning open seats, helping Democrats succeed in places that often vote Republican, electing women to statewide office, helping elect political newcomers, winning contested primaries, and winning initiative and referendum campaigns.
It was this group’s research that showed that, in battleground states, the phrase “MAGA Republican” was off-putting to voters. From that, Anita Dunn and the Center for American Progress Action Fund instructed the Biden administration to use the phrase “Ultra-MAGA.” It didn’t occur to them that, except for those who already hated the MAGA movement, others would find it complimentary and, moreover, that the idea of Trump as “King MAGA” would provide conservatives with a powerhouse meme.
My point in bringing up this information is that this group, even as it undoubtedly strives to be honest because of its professional reputation, may have a bias leaning toward Democrat success. That’s why it was amazing that its most recent poll showed that 75% of all voters believe that the country under Joe Biden is heading in the wrong direction.
Image: Charting downward by pinnacleanimates.
That number has been trending steadily downward since Biden’s first months in office (April 2021 was 56%, August was 63%, October was 71%, January 2022 was 72%, and March was 71%). As Scott Adams frequently (and wisely) says, it’s not just the numbers that matter, it’s the trajectory. Biden’s trajectory, as seen by how people feel about America during his administration, is disastrous.
Moreover, a majority of American adults blame Biden for their feeling about America in decline, with 56% disapproving of him. That’s bad. What’s worse is that the majority of those who disapprove do so strongly (45%) versus merely somewhat (11%). And again, if you look at the numbers since Biden took office, the trajectory has been straight down.
Indeed, 40% of those polled feel very negative just hearing the Biden name! It’s true that 42% feel negative when they hear Trump’s name but that’s actually a less interesting number. The media have been demonizing Donald Trump non-stop since 2015, castigating him as a racist, a Nazi, a rapist, a Russian stooge, a Russian activist, and an insurrectionist. Meanwhile, going back to 2008, the media have incessantly told Americans that Biden is a foreign policy expert, a unifier, a wise man, savvy, and the essence of normalcy. And despite that, huge numbers of Americans have developed a reflexive revulsion against him.
Even scarier for Democrats is the fact that those polled, when asked about the Republican party, have only a 29% very negative feelings about the party, while the numbers are very gently trending positive—and again, this is despite the media’s non-stop demonization of Republicans since Franklin Roosevelt’s administration. Meanwhile, 33% of Americans view the Democrat party very negatively, with very positive feelings dropping like a stone. (Kamala Harris gets a 36% for very negative.)
Voters are tied, 46%-46%, when it comes to which party controls Congress but, as Chuck Todd points out in the video below, that strongly indicates that Republicans will make strong mid-term gains.
The poll shows that abortion has become a matter of supreme importance to single-issue voters but the majority of voters still consider the really important issues to be the cost of living, the economy, and voting rights and election integrity. The war in Ukraine is low on the list and COVID is vanishingly low. As for those single-issue abortion voters, if they’re all in bright blue cities, they’re the same people who have always been fanatic Democrat voters, so they don’t reflect a meaningful shift in voter values.
All in all, Democrats have a lot to worry about. Meanwhile, the biggest challenge for Republicans is that they don’t form a circular firing squad and destroy themselves through internecine battles and sheer stupidity. They have a real knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
IS THIS NOT AN IMPEACHABLE ACT OF HOMELAND SECURITY?
EVERY NIGHT BUSLOADS OF ILLEGALS ARRIVE IN NYC.
Plane carrying more than 150 migrants lands in NYC: Fox News exclusive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNJYQ-DTgqk
Victor Davis Hanson’s Magnum Opus
Victor Davis Hanson is one of the most respected historians/intellectuals of the conservative movement; I have been an enthusiast of his work going back to my first experience with his erudition and eloquence—The Western Way of War (1989, 2nd ed. 2000), an explanation of why citizen soldiers are so effective and why Western Armies have been so lethal. Now he is past 24 books and hundreds if not thousands of essays as well as appearances regularly on TV that all provide sober, thought-provoking, and insightful political commentary. Any observer of VDH cannot help but be impressed with his solid and thoughtful analysis of political and social issues, probative and measured.
I reviewed Dr. Hanson’s book on WWII at American Thinker in 2018, but I am late to the party on his latest book The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America by Victor Davis Hanson 433 pages Kindle $17.99, Hardcover $21.37 ASIN : B08W4ZZTTP (Basic Books 2021). Two reviews have already appeared at American Thinker by Richard Baehr and Terry Scambray that are excellent, but when I read the blurb by the distinguished Roger Kimball that named Dying Citizen Hanson’s magnum opus, I was compelled to make the pitch again to readers about the importance of Hanson and his compelling argument for good citizenship as the basis for western civilization and the western ideal of elective self-governance.
Dying Citizen revisits The Western Way of War theme, the importance of the citizen in a western community/society. The importance of the citizen as opposed to the role of subjects of a regime, king, prince, emperor, chief, or khan, and the advance of society that is made when citizens govern. The beginning of Western Civilization is the city-state citizen-dominated political entities of Greece.
Dr. Hanson is a 3rd generation raisin grape farmer in Selma California, the Central Valley, just outside of Fresno. Classics trained at Stanford, he formed the Classics program at California State University Fresno and became an outstanding author, essayist, and commentator as a fellow of the Hoover Institute of Stanford University. He favored the presidency of Trump as a reinvigoration of American values and a rejection of dangerous elitist states and globalism. This book was written, I believe, to educate the reader on the unique nature of American citizenship and the importance of the development of citizenship through history.
Chapter One is about peasants (think subjects) and the importance of the development in society of an influential middle class. Without a vibrant middle class, citizenship cannot develop because the society is composed of the noble/master/oligarch group dominating the serfs/peasants/proletariat. He points out why the decimation of the middle class in America threatens the civic societal American unity. Welfare statism and dominance by the ruling class elites take the vitality out of a nation.
The Second Chapter borrows on the basis of one of Hanson’s other successful books, Mexifornia (2003), which warned of the destructive danger of unfettered immigration and the creation of a resident rather than citizen class because of immigrants who have no intention of assimilation and becoming loyal and contributing American Citizens.
Hanson raises the question: do these illegal and even legal immigrants have in mind becoming American citizens or are they just moving to a place that offers benefits and protections and looks better than where they came from? Sure, people want a better life, but will they become good citizens or just parasites?
Moreover, the open borders crowd sees the immigrant population as a political lever that will allow Democrats’ power with no end that fits with the non-assimilating parasitic nature of the immigration flood. In fact, Hanson points out the devolving situation of tribalism and ethnic/racial/religious divisions that will destroy the concept of American Citizenship and allow a growing group of people who refuse to become loyal and contributing citizens of their adopted country. (Think of the Mexican crowd booing the American Soccer team in a Los Angeles stadium or the La Raza movement.)
The third chapter hits on the most serious threat to American Unity: tribalism and racism in the populace energized by Marxist ideologues. The content of the chapter traces the negative impact of tribalism through history and how it destroys national and societal unity and the spirit of effective citizenship. Hanson puts a deft touch on this discussion because of his deep and comprehensive erudition and his orientation in the foundations of self-governance, Classical Western History, and the legacy of the Greeks and Romans. But he also offers some examples of how things fall apart due to divisions created by nascent tribalism and racism. America is now in the squeeze created by tribalism and racism and Hanson properly exposes the elements of danger and the consequences of failing to extinguish the fires of division.
In this chapter, Hanson also provides an insightful look at the dangers of the modern “equity” political movement that is just reverse racism and allows state action to impose limits on individuals that should not exist in a free society. Statism, collectivism, and racism all act in concert to destroy the American Iconic Land of Opportunity. Moreover, the ideological tenets of the movement are founded on the assertion that America is evil and flawed and deserves nothing but condemnation and destruction—not a good foundation for promoting citizenship.
Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the impact of what Angelo Codevilla and Hanson have both put on the front burner, the development of an elite and arrogant oligarchic ruling class both elected and not, and the division between the country class and the ruling class. In Chapter 4 Hanson exposes the negative aspects of the administrative state. In Chapter 5 he discusses the poorly disguised collectivist socialist evolutionists who would discard the America of the founders, all the founding documents, and the republican form of government in favor of a mobocracy.
Chapter 6 goes after the mostly American globalists who are now ensconced as elites and would endeavor to push America to become a pawn in the globalist agenda. I can’t go on. These jackasses are advocating a move for the American surrender of their sacred constitutional rights and the Constitutional Republic created by the founders.
Hanson wrote a final chapter (epilogue) to this Magnum Opus that cannot be ignored. He explained that Trump advocated for the principles that underlie the Constitutional Republic, support of nationalism, the citizens, the middle class, and rejection of the deep state that is anti-American, concern for the middle class and the American occupants of that middle class, an effort to straighten out the tax and economic and foreign policy/trade situation that would restore an American Middle Class that would also restore citizens to their rightful position as rugged individualists, the foundation for American success.
A few accolades are appropriate, considering the inadequacy of my book review—and I am not uneasy in this effort, I enjoy it:
“Mr. Hanson, an accomplished classicist and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is one of the great amalgamators of American political writing. He has a particular gift for bringing together a dizzying array of events, controversies and ideas and making sense of them by advancing a coherent argument that incorporates thousands of years of history---Wall Street Journal
“As Victor Davis Hanson shows in his learned, powerful, and troubling new book, The Dying Citizen, the steady devolution of citizenship speaks volumes about where we are today and where we seem to be heading… Hanson lays out this grim diagnosis with his usual clarity and brilliance, moving easily from his deep specialized knowledge of the ancient Greek and Roman world through savvy observations about present-day politics and American society.”―The New Criterion“Hanson is well-positioned to describe the evolution of citizenship from ancient times through the modern era, and especially the assumptions about citizenship underlying America's constitutional order…. Hanson presents, clearly and concisely, a case that critics will struggle to refute. His troubling argument has far-reaching implications. The Dying Citizen is a book that all Americans should read, then discuss with friends and neighbors.”―Claremont Review of Books
“Politicians often speak to “my fellow citizens,” implying a kind of common project among all citizens. In America, that project is our shared devotion to our founding principles. Victor Davis Hanson explains in The Dying Citizen, however, that this uniquely American concept of citizenship is imperiled—whether from ancient threats“. .. . Victor Davis Hanson shows how so many contemporary problems—identity politics, the border crisis, bloated government, etc.—have only worsened for the lack of a vigorous and clarifying idea of citizenship. In this deeply democratic idea, Hanson points to a way beyond what ails us.” ―Shelby Steele, author of Shame“The great glory of the democratic revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was extending the blessings of citizenship to anyone and everyone who embraced the principles and responsibilities of self-governing nations. As Victor Davis Hanson explains, by subtle degrees we’re reversing course, the hour is late, and we have Hanson to thank for this capacious account of what we need to recover.”―Steven F. Hayward, author of Patriotism Is Not Enough
“This is not a drill—this is the real thing. If you don’t believe that the survival of the American republic hangs in the balance, you must read Victor Davis Hanson’s relentless exposition of the facts. America’s free citizenry is at imminent risk of defeat at the hands of an unelected Deep State allied to globalist elite that flouts. . Get this book into the hands of everyone you know.”―David Goldman, deputy editor of Asia Times and author of You Will Be Assimilated
“. . . Victor Hanson is deeply educated in the classics, where knowledge of regimes was first developed. It also requires a close observation of what is happening today, about which he writes insightfully and in profusion. In this book, Hanson demonstrates yet again his command across time and for our time. This book and he are a treasure.”
―Larry P. Arnn, president of Hillsdale College.
Who am I to praise this great man, this patriotic American? My praise is inadequate.
John Dale Dunn is a retired emergency physician and inactive Lawyer in Brownwood, Texas
Ingraham: The city of Lightfoot is devolving further into lawlessness
Pirro: Biden 'doesn't have a clue' on crime prevention
The Silent Invasion and War at Home
It has been chilling to watch the steady number of deaths, the territory invaded, the executions and rapes, the fear and the flight. It is especially shocking because we had peace for so long, but now we see all the possibilities of evil coming out.
I'm not talking about Ukraine — I'm speaking of an invasion right here in the United States. Migrants, mostly Hispanic, are entering the U.S. at the rate of at least 2 million per year — or 20 million in the next decade — and with them come hundreds of thousands of violent gang members. Meanwhile, our own inner-city gangs are spreading out into affluent suburban areas, invading high-end shopping areas and stealing from stores and individuals, often at gunpoint and with deadly consequences.
I am not being alarmist or racist. I am simply describing what is happening and pointing out the future state of affairs if we do nothing. If anything, my numbers are low, and my words cannot describe the horror of what is happening.
The most numerous victims of this invasion are blacks and Hispanics who are attacked by young men of their own race. These are the forgotten men and women in our society, and this is a topic that mainstream news won't cover because the killers are mostly black and Hispanic. Just in 2020, the year of the "defund the police" protests, murders of blacks soared by 32%, and they're only continuing.
We're seeing an explosion in the number of carjackings and car thefts, along with murders, home invasions, rapes, assaults, and other violent crimes, not just in our cities, but in suburban areas as well. And authorities cannot or will not do anything to stop it. There has always been violent crime in Chicago, but now there seems to be a crime wave, and it includes the murder of children, police officers, and the elderly. The authorities mumble about "root causes," but social work won't reduce the numbers. We are at war, and war requires the use of force.
The perpetrators are largely the same in every location: young black and Hispanic men, heavily armed and with no apparent conscience or morality. They prey on the weak and take what they want, which seems to be money, sex, drugs, and a certain kind of street cred that they mistake for status.
These thugs now control the streets, even in many smaller cities. Mayors like Lori Lightfoot seem to have given up. They attempt to change the subject and ignore the problem, just as the Biden administration does.
Biden ignores the fact that we have been invaded by a powerful army of young men of similar backgrounds and natures — ruthless gang members and repeat offenders with the same teardrop tattoos signifying their having committed murder, the same cold, haughty stare, the same hostile swagger and domineering speech. These criminals have become so familiar that even some middle-class whites, through popular culture and rap music, have mistaken them for Robin Hood–type heroes.
They are anything but heroes. They inflict suffering and death on everyone around them. Like half-starved lions released into the Coliseum, they exist only to murder and prey on the weak.
More Americans have died in this war over the past decade (some 200,000) than Ukrainians who have died in their war (13,000 according to a recent count), and American cities are beginning to resemble the bombed out shells of civilization we see in Mariupol and Kharkiv. The difference is that everyone notices the destruction in Ukraine, but few understand the magnitude of violent crime in the U.S. If the media coverage were honest and proportional, Americans would demand change.
We have been invaded by an army that is worse than that of Russia. Unlike the hapless conscripts who constitute those Russian forces, the thugs who roam America are remorseless. If anything, they enjoy killing since it inflates their sense of power, especially their power over whites, and particularly white police officers, though black victims are hardly exempt. They are lean, muscled, and street-tough, and they are not afraid of getting caught since in most places there is no real punishment for "common" crimes like stealing cars or home break-ins, and little punishment for violent crime as well.
The invaders we face are violent and lack all compunction, but they are not all that numerous. They fit a similar profile — a certain type of young minority drop-out, stealing or selling drugs — but according to several estimates, they constitute at most one quarter of their demographic and a smaller percentage of Hispanics. Indeed, most blacks and Hispanics live in fear of these invaders, just as most whites do.
The Ukrainian army has repelled Russian forces in many areas. If the Ukrainians had been properly armed, they might have turned back the Russians at the beginning and saved their country so much suffering and destruction. In America, we don't even realize we have been invaded, or else we refuse to admit it. It's not "woke" to say that young black men commit murder at 18 times the rate of the general population. Not woke to say, as is true, that twice as many whites are murdered by blacks as are blacks by whites. Not woke to point out that fully one quarter of black men "end up in the criminal justice system," as Bernie Sanders has it.
One does not defeat an enemy by allowing it to murder, steal, and rape without resistance. The only way is to recognize that we have been invaded, and we are at war. War requires its own way of thinking and its own tactics and strategy. At present, we arrest criminals (a few of them, since 54% of reported violent crimes and more than 75% overall go unsolved), charge them with a lesser offense, release them (in many places without bail), and watch them go right back to committing crimes. That is the wrong strategy for a state of war.
It is possible to defeat our enemy, but it will take a change of attitude. We must be willing to fund our police at maximum levels, support our police in their dangerous work, and indemnify them against unreasonable prosecution in their use of force, and we must elect prosecutors who actually prosecute this army of invaders. The recall of L.A. district attorney George Gascón might be a good start.
We are under attack, and the situation is getting worse. The only way to defeat an invading army is with greater force. We need to provide that force so that we can live safely once again.
Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).
Image via Public Domain Pictures.
FAIR: Keep Migration out of Anti-China Bill
Legislators should exclude migration issues from the multi-billion dollar bill to help U.S. companies beat China’s state-backed corporations, says a letter by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
“American competitiveness legislation should help, not hinder American workers in STEM fields,” says the May 17 letter. ” We respectfully ask that you oppose the inclusion of … anything on the [immigration] matter in the final conference report,” said the letter, signed by FAIR president Dan Stein.
Both the Senate and House have passed their own versions of the China bill.
But the House bill includes several dramatic immigration measures that would deeply damage the careers of very many U.S. college graduates.
Legislators met last week to begin negotiating a joint bill. Several Democratic legislators touted the House immigration measures, but Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) slammed the massive migration expansions added to the House version:
I’d like to emphasize that this is a China-centered bill. It’s not an immigration or climate bill. … The final bill must be laser-focused on countering the Chinese Communist Party … As a result, I will oppose the inclusion of any of the House immigration provisions in the final bill produced by this Congress.
The FAIR letter said:
First, [the House’s] America COMPETES Act contains an unrelated immigration provision that grants Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and refugee status for qualifying residents of Hong Kong and their families. It also provides 25,000 special interest visas for “highly-skilled” Hong Kong residents. However well-intended, the inclusion of this provision will not preserve freedom for Hong Kong. It will instead empower Beijing by emptying Hong Kong of talent and dissenters, and thus undermine our goals for their freedom and prosperity.
Second, and even more troublesome, the America COMPETES Act creates a new, unlimited nonimmigrant entrepreneur visa program that includes: entrepreneurs with an ownership interest in a start-up entity; essential employees of said entity; and the spouses and children of both the entity’s owners and employees. All of these individuals can adjust their status and pursue a green card. This is nothing more than another “investor visa” category similar to the controversial EB-5 and E category (E-1, E-2, and E-3) investors. FAIR has long opposed these programs. Congress would be better served finding ways to encourage and build upon American entrepreneurial ventures, rather than establishing another “golden visa” program that degrades American citizenship by relegating it to a dollar amount.
Lastly, the America COMPETES Act provides an unlimited number of green cards for high-skilled foreign nationals – such as “outstanding professors and researchers,” a well-known source of Chinese espionage. Not only is this dangerous, it does nothing to assist American-grown STEM talent which is alleged to be the entire point of the bill. Isn’t it time we stop undercutting future American talent in this manner?
“These provisions would undoubtedly reduce wages and job opportunities for Americans in STEM fields while both increasing labor competition and discouraging American students from pursuing careers in these same fields,” the letter says.
Amid the backpressure, the lobbyists backing the China-migration push recently suggested Congress pass a smaller-scale immigration inflow.
However, several migration programs — such as the H-1B program and the Optional Practical Training program. But they were quickly expanded by lobbyists and regulations — and those expanded programs were quickly endorsed by judges who deferred to their peer lawyers hired by business groups and university groups.
Since the 1990s, many U.S. companies and investors have discarded their foundation of U.S. workers in favor of a population of at least 1.5 million indentured, compliant, and lower-wage foreign visa workers.
The corporate policy ensures that many U.S. technology experts are kept out of technology jobs by foreign-born managers and that foreign workers from China and India — fill up college training slots, science laboratories, intern opportunities, and careers.
The inflow of visa workers also steers investment away from the Midwest.
The population replacement also reduces the focus on long-term research, quality, security, accuracy, and safety at companies such as Intel, Boeing, and Theranos.
Biden Subsidizes Business with 35K Foreign Workers to Hire for U.S. Jobs as Nearly 12M Americans Remain Jobless
President Joe Biden is
subsidizing businesses with
35,000 more foreign H-2B visa
workers to hire for non-
agricultural jobs in the United
States, even as nearly 12 million
Americans remain jobless.
On Monday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that the administration would begin allowing businesses to hire up to 35,000 additional foreign H-2B visa workers for nonagricultural jobs in construction, hospitality, and landscaping.
“This preemptive move by Mayorkas lets seasonal employers off the hook from recruiting Americans by offering better wages and working conditions,” Robert Law with the Center for Immigration Studies wrote. “Instead, the federal government will subsidize bad business models or simply further enrich employers by giving them access to more cheap foreign workers than otherwise would be allowed.”
The administration announced months ago that they would help subsidize business by inflating the U.S. labor market even more with additional foreign H-2B visa workers to hire.
Specifically, about 23,500 of the H-2B visas will go to foreign workers who have previously come to the U.S. on the visa program, while 11,500 of the visas will go to Haitians, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and El Salvadorans.
The move comes as 5.9 million Americans are unemployed and another 5.9 million are out of the labor market entirely, but all want full-time jobs. An additional four million Americans are underemployed, holding part-time jobs but wanting full-time employment.
Every year, businesses are allowed to import 66,000 H-2B foreign visa workers to take blue-collar, non-agricultural American jobs. Former President Donald Trump routinely brought in additional H-2B foreign visa workers for business to hire, and Biden is doing the same.
In December 2021 and January 2022, Mayorkas announced that he would allow businesses to import 40,000 more H-2B foreign visa workers.
The H-2B visa program has been widely used by businesses to drag down the wages of American workers in landscaping, conservation work, the meatpacking industry, the construction industry, and fishing jobs, a 2019 study by the Center for Immigration Studies finds.
When comparing the wages of H-2B foreign workers to the national wage average for each blue-collar industry, about 21 out of 25 of the industries offered lower wages to foreign workers than Americans.
Annually, the U.S. gives green cards to about 1.2 million legal immigrants, while another 1.4 million foreign workers are admitted every year to take American jobs. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens are added to the labor market every year, many on work permits given to them by the federal government.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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