Saturday, June 29, 2019

IMAGES OF THE INVASION OF OUR BORDERS, JOBS, WELFARE OFFICES, HOSPITALS AND VOTING BOOTHS By Invitation of the Democrat Party


What a Border Crisis Looks Like

·          
Migrants from Central America cross the Rio Bravo river to enter illegally into the United States at El Paso, Texas, June 11, 2019.(Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)This is a similar border crisis to the one Obama faced in his second term, with similar challenges.
News flash: There’s a crisis at the border.  
This was discovered again over the past few days when immigration attorneys talked to reporters about appalling conditions at a Border Patrol facility detaining migrant minors in Clint, Texas.
According to the lawyers, many of the kids had to sleep on the concrete floor, failed to get proper adult supervision, and didn’t routinely take showers or brush their teeth. The details were hard to read. 
Assuming the account was accurate, one wonders how we could treat anyone this way, let alone children? But a lawyer who talked to the New Yorker mentioned a telling fact: The facility previously had a capacity of 104 and had never held children before. Yet it held roughly 350 children, apparently accommodated by placement of a new warehouse at the site. 
All this is consistent with vast numbers of migrants, many of them families and children, flooding the border and overtaxing facilities never meant for these kinds of numbers or this demographic of migrant. 
Indeed, the immigration lawyer mentioned to the New Yorker that the personnel at the Border Patrol facility were constantly receiving children and constantly transferring them over to a Health and Human Services site, and stipulated that the guards believed the children don’t belong there and should go someplace more appropriate. (Under the glare of publicity, they did.) 
The broader problem is that HHS, which is supposed to get custody of migrant children from Border Patrol in short order, is itself overburdened and backed up.  
Since it’s 2019, what should be properly attributed to dire circumstances and limited capacity is instead taken as evidence of President Donald Trump’s malice. 
If what’s happening at the border is a product of Trump policy, it would have to involve an intricate and well-executed plan. The White House would have to convince the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security, Kevin McAleenan — who served as deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection under President Barack Obama — to send word down through the bureaucracy to treat children as callously as possible and not to leak word of this explosive guidance.
In the real world, a migrant influx will test even an administration more favorably inclined toward immigration. The reason that the Left can’t keep their viral images straight — often misattributing to Trump photos of kids in steel-cage holding pens during the Obama years — is that this is a similar crisis to the one Obama faced in his second term, with similar challenges. 
A viral video of a Justice Department lawyer arguing before a panel of judges last week that kids don’t need toothbrushes and soap to meet the standard for “safe and sanitary” detention under the so-called Flores settlement has caused outrage. But few have stopped to note that the underlying case had to do with a district court finding that the Obama administration in 2015 was in material breach of the Flores standard (or that the DOJ lawyer was offering a technical legal argument — not a defense of mistreating kids).
All that said, once these migrants are under our care, it is our responsibility to make sure they are treated as humanely as possible. The border needs more resources. The Trump administration has been asking Congress to pass a funding package, and it should do so forthwith. To address the root cause of the crisis, it should also change the bizarre asylum rules that have forced us to release family units from Central America into the country, creating an incentive for more to come. 
As long as that’s the case, we aren’t going to be able to control the border or process people coming across it in an orderly fashion. What we’re seeing is what a border crisis looks like. If we don’t like it — and we shouldn’t — it’s time for Congress to act to begin to bring it to an end. 

 

 

 

The Border as an ‘Attractive Nuisance’

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection border-patrol agent talks to people on the Mexican side of the border wall in San Diego, Calif., November 28, 2018. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)
If you have a swimming pool, you can be held liable if a trespassing child falls in and drowns unless you’ve taken reasonable steps to keep children from getting to the pool, like a fence. An unfenced pool (or trampoline or a discarded refrigerator that locks from the outside, among other potentially dangerous things) is thus called an attractive nuisance.
The loopholes in our asylum laws make our nation’s borders an attractive nuisance, as well. Of course, no matter what we do, there will always be people who will try to illegally infiltrate our borders, and it’s inevitable that some of them will die in the process — whether by drowning, exposure, dehydration, or other causes. But when we fail to take the most elementary steps to dissuade people from trying to sneak in — heck, when we reward people for sneaking in with kids in tow and making bogus asylum claims — we share the responsibility for those deaths.
The heart-wrenching photograph of a Salvadoran father and daughter who were found drowned Monday on the banks of the Rio Grande forces us to face this issue. Julian Castro was right when he said at last night’s Democratic debate, watching that image of Oscar and his daughter, Valeria, is heartbreaking. It should also piss us all off.
But once pissed off, how to respond? How do we make our border not be an attractive nuisance?
Castro’s answer — and the approach of virtually all Democratic candidates and elected officials — is open borders. And I no longer mean that Democrats are, in effect, calling for open borders. At last night’s debate there was no longer any pretense. Castro took the lead, followed by the rest, in calling for repeal of the criminal law against border infiltration, ending the practice of making asylum claimants take a number at ports of entry and wait their turn, the complete abolition of immigrant detention, and amnesty for every foreigner who manages to get past the border so long as they don’t commit a serious” crime (whatever that means today).  Though she wasn’t on the stage Wednesday, the party’s leader, House speaker Nancy Pelosi, made clear that she’s on board, asking at an event Monday What’s the point? of enforcing immigration laws inside the United States. What all this represents is the abolition of immigration limits.
This would certainly end the attractive-nuisance problem. It would also lead to a rush for the border that would make the 2015 border crisis in Europe (sparked by the photo of another drowned child) pale by comparison. Gallup reported earlier this year that 42 million people in Latin America want to move here, and the share that would actually follow through would be a lot higher than now if we were to formally convert the Border Patrol into a welcome wagon, as the Democrats propose. And that’s not counting the AfricansMiddle Easterners, and other extra-continental migrants we’re seeing.
The other approach to ending the attractive-nuisance problem is to fence off the swimming pool, as it were. In some places that might actually mean a literal fence, but that won’t address the reasons for the current surge. At the very least, that would require plugging the three most serious legal loopholes incentivizing people to cross the border. It also would entail actually deporting people who’ve exhausted their due process, been turned down for asylum, and received a deportation order from a judge; until people in Central America see their fellows glumly stepping off the plane, their asylum ploys having failed, they’ll rightly figure the trip is worth it. More broadly, mandating the use of E-Verify, at least for new hires, is imperative, to fence off the labor market.
There are two ways the United States can limit its responsibility for deaths on the border: Unlimited immigration, or limits that are actually enforced.  The Democrats have made their choice. They should be made to answer for it.


AMNESTY or CONTINUED NON-ENFORCEMENT... Is there a difference?

How U.S. Is Encouraging Illegal Immigration


June 27, 2019
. . .
https://cis.org/Nunez/Commentary-How-US-encouraging-illegal-immigration

The Border as an ‘Attractive Nuisance’

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection border-patrol agent talks to people on the Mexican side of the border wall in San Diego, Calif., November 28, 2018. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)
If you have a swimming pool, you can be held liable if a trespassing child falls in and drowns unless you’ve taken reasonable steps to keep children from getting to the pool, like a fence. An unfenced pool (or trampoline or a discarded refrigerator that locks from the outside, among other potentially dangerous things) is thus called an attractive nuisance.
The loopholes in our asylum laws make our nation’s borders an attractive nuisance, as well. Of course, no matter what we do, there will always be people who will try to illegally infiltrate our borders, and it’s inevitable that some of them will die in the process — whether by drowning, exposure, dehydration, or other causes. But when we fail to take the most elementary steps to dissuade people from trying to sneak in — heck, when we reward people for sneaking in with kids in tow and making bogus asylum claims — we share the responsibility for those deaths.
The heart-wrenching photograph of a Salvadoran father and daughter who were found drowned Monday on the banks of the Rio Grande forces us to face this issue. Julian Castro was right when he said at last night’s Democratic debate, watching that image of Oscar and his daughter, Valeria, is heartbreaking. It should also piss us all off.
But once pissed off, how to respond? How do we make our border not be an attractive nuisance?
Castro’s answer — and the approach of virtually all Democratic candidates and elected officials — is open borders. And I no longer mean that Democrats are, in effect, calling for open borders. At last night’s debate there was no longer any pretense. Castro took the lead, followed by the rest, in calling for repeal of the criminal law against border infiltration, ending the practice of making asylum claimants take a number at ports of entry and wait their turn, the complete abolition of immigrant detention, and amnesty for every foreigner who manages to get past the border so long as they don’t commit a serious” crime (whatever that means today).  Though she wasn’t on the stage Wednesday, the party’s leader, House speaker Nancy Pelosi, made clear that she’s on board, asking at an event Monday What’s the point? of enforcing immigration laws inside the United States. What all this represents is the abolition of immigration limits.
This would certainly end the attractive-nuisance problem. It would also lead to a rush for the border that would make the 2015 border crisis in Europe (sparked by the photo of another drowned child) pale by comparison. Gallup reported earlier this year that 42 million people in Latin America want to move here, and the share that would actually follow through would be a lot higher than now if we were to formally convert the Border Patrol into a welcome wagon, as the Democrats propose. And that’s not counting the AfricansMiddle Easterners, and other extra-continental migrants we’re seeing.
The other approach to ending the attractive-nuisance problem is to fence off the swimming pool, as it were. In some places that might actually mean a literal fence, but that won’t address the reasons for the current surge. At the very least, that would require plugging the three most serious legal loopholes incentivizing people to cross the border. It also would entail actually deporting people who’ve exhausted their due process, been turned down for asylum, and received a deportation order from a judge; until people in Central America see their fellows glumly stepping off the plane, their asylum ploys having failed, they’ll rightly figure the trip is worth it. More broadly, mandating the use of E-Verify, at least for new hires, is imperative, to fence off the labor market.
There are two ways the United States can limit its responsibility for deaths on the border: Unlimited immigration, or limits that are actually enforced.  The Democrats have made their choice. They should be made to answer for it.








PELOSI, FEINSTEIN, KAMALA HARRIS and GAVIN NEWSOM'S STATE



"The California dream of taking care of everyone's 

needs is undermined by the California dream of 

open borders. State lawmakers were forced to 

choose between them, and they chose open borders. 

One must hope that one day the state's voters 

choose different lawmakers."

Nolte: Dems Promise to Take Away Our Health Insurance and Give It to Illegal Aliens

Democratic presidential hopefuls (fromL) US attorney and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, Mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg, former US Vice President Joseph R. Biden, US Senator for Vermont Bernie Sanders, US Senator for California Kamala Harris, US Senator for New York Kirsten Gillibrand, US Senator for Colorado Michael Bennet, US …
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty
JOHN NOLTE
  8,096
3:54

We will have to wait and see how and if the debates move the needle within the Democrat primary. But what these last two nights have done is clarify a Democrat Party that is bound and determined to confiscate our guns, our money and our health insurance. Oh, and then Democrats are going to decriminalize illegal immigration and give our health insurance to illegal aliens.

That is my long way of saying President Trump was the winner of the Democrat debates, because he is the only person standing between us and this:
  • Tax increases.
  • Gun confiscations.
  • Slave reparations
  • Decriminalize illegal immigration.
  • No more deporting of illegal immigrants.
  • Abolish the private health insurance currently held by over 150 million Americans.
  • Give free health insurance to illegal immigrants.
Three of the four Democrat front-runners, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders have committed to abolishing our private health insurance plans.
Almost all of the candidates, including those listed above, support forcing law-abiding taxpayers to pay slave reparations.
Every single candidate raised their hand Thursday night, including Joe Biden, when asked if they would offer free health care to illegal aliens.
And all of them, every one of them, promised to stop deportations, this includes Biden — who is supposed to be the sanest of the bunch.
“Should someone who is here without documents, and that is his only offense, should that person be deported?” Diaz-Balart asked Biden.
Biden’s answer was clear, “That person should not be the focus of deportation. We should fundamentally change the way we deal with things.”
Harris was even more strident: “Absolutely not, they should not be deported.”
Buttigieg: “That criminalization, that is the basis for family separation. You do away with that, it’s no longer possible. Of course it wouldn’t be possible anyway in my presidency, because it is dead wrong.”
Man alive.
Oh, and then there is legalizing abortion right up until birth at taxpayer’s expense — which the sane one, Biden, also supports.
This kind of “take” is now something of a cliché, but how did President Trump not win last night’s debate, when he will almost certainly be up against a Democrat who has promised to raise taxes, open the border, give illegal aliens he will not deport free welfare benefits for life, and decriminalize entering the country illegally while criminalizing gun ownership?
Not to belabor this point, but Biden is supposed to be the sane one, correct? And yet, he went on the record Thursday night promising to outlaw every gun that is not a smart gun, meaning every gun that only operates when it reads the owner’s handprints, meaning every single gun being sold today.
“No gun should be able to be sold unless your biometric measure could pull that trigger. It’s within our right to do that. We can do that. Our enemy is the gun manufacturers, not the NRA, the gun manufacturers,” Biden said.
So much for that housewife being able to fire off a couple of shotgun blasts to scare away an intruder. If her husband or son owns that gun, she will have to use it as a club.
The Democrat Party’s vision for America, and I say this without exaggeration, is one where floods of illegal aliens can legally enter our country to enjoy free health and welfare benefits for life while American citizens are stripped of their health insurance, not allowed to defend themselves, forced to pay slave reparations, and hit with massive tax increases to pay for other people’s student loans.
How will our hospitals, doctors, and schools handle this influx of millions of illegals?
Only Trump stands between us and this madness.
While it is true that not many people are paying attention right now, what is also true is that these video clips, quotes, and positions will live on forever, are now cemented in the 2020 election.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNCFollow his Facebook Page here.















Fact Check: U.S. Taxpayers Pay $18.5B a Year for Healthcare for Illegal Aliens

AFP/Getty Images
JOHN BINDER
27 Jun 20193,321
3:05

As 2020 Democrat presidential primary candidates advocate having American taxpayers provide free health care for illegal aliens, U.S. citizens are already paying billions every year for the expenditure.

During the second night of debates for the 2020 Democrat presidential primary candidates, every Democrat — including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg — said they supported having American taxpayers pay for free health care for all 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the country.
The latest research by Chris Conover from the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at Duke University reveals that every year, American taxpayers pay nearly $20 billion for healthcare for illegal aliens.
Conover wrote the analysis in Forbes:
Current federal policy is to prohibit federal tax funding of health care to unauthorized immigrants through either Medicaid or Obamacare. Nevertheless, rough estimates suggest that the nation’s 3.9 million uninsured immigrants who are unauthorized likely receive about $4.6 billion in health services paid for by federal taxes, $2.8 billion in health services financed by state and local taxpayers, another $3.0 bankrolled through “cost-shifting” i.e., higher payments by insured patients to cover hospital uncompensated care losses, and roughly $1.5 billion in physician charity care. [Emphasis added]
In addition to these amounts, unauthorized immigrants likely benefit from at least $0.9 billion in implicit federal subsidies due to the tax exemption for nonprofit hospitals and another $5.7 billion in tax expenditures from the employer tax exclusion. [Emphasis added]
All told, Americans cross-subsidize health care for unauthorized immigrants to the tune of $18.5 billion a year. Of this total, federal taxpayers provided $11.2 billion in subsidized care to unauthorized immigrants in 2016. [Emphasis added]
Analysis conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) finds that American taxpayers are forced to federally subsidize about $17.14 billion every year in free medical coverage for illegal aliens and about $12.17 billion in state medical costs for illegal aliens.
On the federal level, Americans pay about $1.2 billion for illegal alien births through Medicaid, about $3.4 billion for annual Medicaid fraud by illegal aliens, and about $4.2 billion for Medicaid births by the U.S-born children of illegal aliens.
Every year, Americans are forced to pay about $116 billion in total expenses for the millions of illegal aliens living in the U.S.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

 

 

Republican Lawmakers React to $100 Million Budget Towards Medi-Cal for Illegal Aliens



California Governor Gavin Newsom’s first budget, estimated at $213 billion, has set aside nearly $100 million for illegal immigrants residing in the state, ages 19-25, to receive Medi-Cal coverage.
The Medi-Cal extension will make California the first state to provide health insurance for illegal aliens.
Supporters of the move, such as president and CEO of the non-profit organization California Health Care Foundation, Sandra R. Hernandez, MD, said it was only one small step in a vast progressive movement to provide health care to all Californians.
“While today is surely a moment worth celebrating, we must also acknowledge the work ahead,” said Hernandez in a statement. “We must find a way to cover all Californians, including the low-income undocumented adults and seniors who remain ineligible for Medi-Cal.”
Jay Obernolte (R-Big Bear Lake), California Assemblyman for the 33rd District and vice chair of the Budget Committee told The Epoch Times that he’s not in favor of using Californians’ tax dollars in this way.
“The big problem with the expansion of Medi-Cal is that we are already failing in our commitment to the Californians who are on that program,” he said.
“I represent a fairly rural part of the state. [Many of] my constituents are unable to access Medi-Cal when they are ill. So many physicians in my district are unable to accept the low reimbursement rates that are provided under Medi-Cal. You need a very large practice as a doctor to accept those reimbursement rates, and I don’t have many physicians [in my district] that are able to. When my constituents get sick, even though technically they’re covered, they can’t see a doctor.”
Obernolte argued that the state has an obligation to fix these problems before addressing healthcare for illegal aliens.
“We are trying to do what’s best, from a public policy standpoint for the people who already live here,” he said.
While Obernolte voiced his disagreement with the legislature’s passage of this provision, he did point out that many liberal lawmakers did not get everything they wanted.
“They were seeking to expand Medi-Cal eligibility to senior undocumented immigrants and that is something that the governor did not agree to,” he said.
When asked how his constituents felt about the budget allocations, Obernolte said they were overwhelmingly opposed to it.
“People [are] concerned about the overall costs, and [there are] constituents that are unconvinced that providing services to people who aren’t here legally is a good use of taxpayer resources,” he said.
The state budget, which also includes an individual mandate on health insurance, would obligate residents in the state to purchase health insurance. This measure was enacted as a means of countering Congressional Republicans’ removal of the national individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Revenue from this statewide mandate would be used to fund insurance premium subsidies for middle income people, including illegal aliens residing in the state.
State Senator John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) also weighed in on the controversial budget proposal.
“I am an immigrant,” he told The Epoch Times. “I came here in 1960 from the Netherlands. I am one of those legislators that tend to get a little offended when those that have not come through the front door are receiving benefits from the state.”
Moorlach further weighed in on the costs to the taxpayer as a result of this provision being enacted.
“The federal government has failed miserably at controlling our borders and now we have [these individuals] here and they are in our hospitals, in our emergency rooms. We have an industry that has been [weighed down] by subsidizing undocumented individuals. I understand maybe helping out a hospital association, but I think it’s a little offensive to most citizens that this is the approach that the governor wants to take.”
When asked about whether this allocation of Medi-Cal would attract more illegal immigration, Moorlach believed it possibly would.
“The question is Governor Newsom doing this out of exasperation or is he doing this [to try and] be hospitable to anybody that walks through the door? I tend to think it’s the latter, and that’s why it’s frustrating to my constituents. We’ve been getting a lot of calls from constituents arguing against medical benefits for undocumented immigrants.”
When asked as to whether this provision would add to the debt, Senator Moorlach pointed out that Betty Yee, the state’s Controller, highlighted the significant increase in the state deficit for this fiscal year.
“In the middle of the budget conference committee meetings, the State Controller, Betty Yee, released the comprehensive annual financial reportfor the year end of June 30th 2018. It was finally completed in the middle of June, a year later. [The report] will show you that the retiree medical liability for health benefits for state employees has increased by $44 billion and our unrestricted net deficit went up from $169.5 billion to $213 billion. The state not only this last week approved the largest budget in its history, but it’s also been notified that its unrestricted net deficit is also the largest in its history as well,” he said.
Moorlach also shed light on the statewide individual mandate and as to whether the penalty citizens will have to pay for not being insured will go towards paying for illegal aliens’ insurance.
“Ironically that seems to be the case,” he responded.
Senator Moorlach suggested that instead of being obstructive towards D.C., Sacramento should try to find the middle ground on this issue. “I think what the Governor should really be focused on is not just being antagonistic to the President, but maybe sending a blue-ribbon committee to work with D.C. to figure out how to get a pathway to citizenship.”
Governor Newsom’s budget was passed on June 13, sending it to Newsom for his signature. The Senate vote was 29-11, and the Assembly approved it 60-15, largely along party lines.

 

 

 

Bill Cassidy Proposes to Prevent Americans from Subsidizing Health Care for Illegal Aliens


SEAN MORAN
16 Jun 20196,195
4:02

As California remains poised to adopt a bill that would give full Medicaid benefits to illegal immigrants, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and other Senate Republicans proposed legislation to block leftist states from forcing Americans to subsidize programs that expand benefits to illegal immigrants.

The bill would offer illegal aliens full Medicaid benefits as part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to create a universal healthcare system.
Sens. Cassidy, John Barrasso (R-WY), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), David Perdue (R-GA), and Roger Wicker (R-MS) introduced the Protect Medicaid Act (S. 131) to ensure that leftist states cannot bilk Medicaid to subsidize programs that expand Medicaid benefits to illegal immigrants.
Federal law prevents illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid; however, states such as California exploit a loophole by using state funds to extend Medicaid benefits to illegal aliens. Newsom’s plan could allow up to 90,000 illegal immigrants to receive Medicaid coverage. California plans to use an exploit to offset the new expansion using Medicaid — roughly $24 million of the
$98 million in the first year will be offset in the first year.
Sen. Cassidy’s Protect Medicaid Act prohibits states from using federal money to administer state Medicaid benefits, paid for by Americans citizens, to illegal immigrants. If a state such as California chooses to give Medicaid benefits to illegal aliens, the Lousiana senator’s bill stipulates that the state does so on its budget.
Sen Cassidy said in a statement Sunday:
Governor Newsom’s plan is a giant magnet for more illegal immigration, and it will hurt California citizens who depend on Medicaid. Simple math says you can’t add the entire population of another country to Medicaid and still take care of the American citizens who need it. In addition, the plan is unfair to vulnerable Americans and it’s not fair to middle-class families paying taxes—taking care of them should be our priority. Compassion that cannot be sustained is not compassion.
Sen. Cassidy’s legislation also requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) to review and report on:
  • How states that provide Medicaid benefits to illegal immigrants keep federal and state dollars separate.
  • Whether states providing health benefits to illegal aliens use budget gimmicks to bilk the federal government, such as provider taxes and intergovernmental transfers, to launder federal dollars to offset the cost of providing benefits to this population.
  • Whether illegal immigrants benefit from covered outpatient drugs purchased under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program and the 340B program, and whether this impacts the prices American citizens pay.
“Tennesseans and the American people do not want their tax dollars subsidizing Medicaid for illegal immigrants,” Sen. Blackburn said. “At a time when Medicaid is being stretched to the breaking point, the last thing we need are liberal states like California circumventing federal law to give those dollars to illegals at the expense of vulnerable American citizens.”
“This is absolutely outrageous and only underscores the fact that California continues to put politics over the safety and security of American citizens,” said Sen. Perdue. “Ultimately, this kind of abuse of entitlement programs contributes to our $21 trillion debt crisis. We will not stand idly by and watch California and other sanctuary states skirt federal law to dole out taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal aliens.”
“Medicaid is an important program for millions of patients,” said Sen. Barrasso. “Congress must focus on improving care for Americans in need. Taxpayers need to know that their hard-earned money is not expanding health care for illegal immigrants.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.

 

 

Gavin Newsom: GOP Headed ‘Into the Waste Bin of History’

JOSHUA CAPLAN
 17 Jun 20191,421
2:40

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), one of the most progressive governors in the country, predicts the Republican Party is headed “into the waste bin of history.”

In an interview released Monday with Politico, Newsom drew comparisons between the GOP in California during the 1990s and the national Republican Party today, saying that the latter will soon see its power evaporate as it did in the Golden State in the last twenty years.
Republicans “are into the politics of what California was into in the 1990s… and they’ll go the same direction — into the waste bin of history, the way Republicans of the ’90s have gone. That’s exactly what will happen to this crop of national Republicans,” Newsom said.
“America in 2019 is California in the 1990s,” the governor continued. “The xenophobia, the nativism, the fear of ‘the other.’ Scapegoating. Talking down or past people. The hysteria. And so, we’re not going to put up with that. We are going to push back.”
Newsom reaffirmed his support for Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) in the 2020 Democrat presidential primary, though when asked if plans to hit the campaign on her behalf, he tersely replied: “I’m campaigning for her right now, it sounds like.”
According to the California governor, Harris has “consistently been in the top five, that’s an extraordinary achievement with eight months to go before the first vote is cast.’’ Newsome said he believes the senator “has shown a successful ability to navigate the white waters…and continue to be part of the conversation against powerhouses — Sanders, Biden, and some of the most well-known brands in American politics.”
During the course of the interview, the California Democrat attacked President Donald Trump on multiple occasions, while dishing out praise for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “What’s so remarkable about someone with the experience and temperament of Speaker Pelosi is that she’s seen a lot of movies,’’ said Newsom. “She’s been there. She’s got a better sense than a lot of folks. So I think we should stay the course. What we’re doing is working … I think Democrats are winning right now.”
His remarks come as California’s Democrat-led legislature voted to move forward with a $213 billion plan to use taxpayer dollars to fund free healthcare for illegal aliens. Under the plan, illegals with an annual income of $17,000 between ages 19 and 25 years are eligible to join the state’s Medicaid program

Who's coming in and getting that instant customer service legal immigrants don't get? Well, people like Mirian Zelaya Gomez, a single mom with two kids and a fondness for Instagram luxury-life glamour shots who got her name in the news as "Lady Frijoles," the Honduran caravan migrant who disdained donated Mexican food in Tijuana, and who told the press she was migrating to the states to get free medical care for her kids. She's since been arrested for assaulting a relative who had given her housing in Dallas. Here she was, being booked:
Where To Go When Your Local Emergency Room Goes Bankrupt?"
*                                      
During the past ten years 84 California hospitals have declared bankruptcy and closed their Emergency Rooms forever.  Financially crippled by legislative and judicial mandates to treat illegal aliens have bankrupted hospitals!   In 2010, in Los Angeles County alone, over 2 million illegal aliens recorded visits to county emergency rooms for both routine and emergency care.  Per official figures, the cost is $1,000 dollars for every taxpayer in Los Angeles County.  

(LA RAZA, DEM INVASION)

 

THE CONSPIRACY TO SABOTAGE HOMELAND SECURITY

The Democrat Party’s secret agenda for wider open borders, more welfare for invading illegals, more jobs and free anything they illegally vote for…. All to destroy the two-party system and build the GLOBALISTS’ DEMOCRAT PARTY FOR WIDER OPEN BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.

https://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/11/frontpage-hidden-agenda-of-pueblo-sin.html

 

Demonstrably and irrefutably the Democrat Party became the party whose principle objective is to thoroughly transform the nature of the American electorate by means of open borders and the mass, unchecked importation of illiterate third world peasants who will vote in overwhelming numbers for Democrats and their La Raza welfare state. FRONTPAGE MAG

 

3 Key Facts About California’s ‘Medicare for Illegals’ Plan


Justin Sullivan / Getty
JOEL B. POLLAK
16 Jun 2019218
2:28

The State of California is about to pass a new healthcare plan that attempts to support and expand Obamacare, partly by providing free health care to some adult illegal aliens.

The new plan is covered in a budget passed last week, as Politico reported Sunday. It has been the top priority of the new government of Governor Gavin Newson, whose first act as governor was to propose using Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, to cover “young undocumented adults.”
There are three things to know about the forthcoming plan.
1. California will become the first state to provide free health care to illegal alien adults. California already provides Medi-Cal to the children of illegal aliens up to age 19. The new plan is estimated to cover 90,000 people at a cost of $98 million annually. The new benefits create a new incentive for illegal aliens to come to the country and to California in particular, which already has nearly a quarter of the nation’s illegal alien population (but only 12% of the total population).
2. California will restore the individual mandate in Obamacare. Californians will face a penalty if they fail to purchase health insurance — the same penalty that President Donald Trump and the GOP eliminated in their tax reform of 2017. As Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association told Politico, that means legal residents will be forced to subsidize illegal aliens.
3. Even California can’t afford “Medicare for All.” The California plan is ambitious: as Fox News reported, “Families of four earning as much as $150,500 a year would get help paying monthly health insurance premiums.” But even far-left California does not go as far as providing “Medicare for All,” despite the fact that Democrats want such a plan (and even passed one in the California State Senate in 2017). The problem: even California cannot figure out how to pay for the proposal.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

 

 

Paying for illegals' 'free' health care by fining Californians who can't afford Obamacare



The leftists running California's one-party state have done it again. They've rolled out a $312 billion budget that includes $98 million for free health care for illegal immigrants under the age of 26. That's a dinner triangle to all able-bodied foreign nationals working off the books that the free ride is about to arrive.
According to the Sacramento Bee:
The expansion will take effect Jan. 1, 2020 and cost $98 million in the upcoming fiscal year. It will make California the first state to allow undocumented adults to sign up for state-funded health coverage.
The budget includes a fine on people who don’t buy health insurance known as an individual mandate. The fines were initially implemented as part of the federal Affordable Care Act law known as Obamacare, but Republicans acted in 2017 to roll them back. Newsom and legislative leaders say re-imposing the penalty at the state level will shore up the state’s health insurance marketplace and keep premiums from rising dramatically.
As if that $98 million is really going to cover it as migrants from Central America and beyond surge into the U.S. in record numbers, and five million from Latin America alone planning to enter the U.S. with or without papers.
California, remember, was quite convinced $39 billion would cover the cost of its famed bullet train up and down the state in 2008. The price tag now, with just a tiny portion of it out in the Central Valley to be built? $98 billion.
Given the incompetence of those numbers, you can bet the surplus that the money is about to be taken from is ... not going to remain a surplus.
All this, while the burned-out city of Paradise remains un-rebuilt due to all the state's environmental concerns. Priorities, see...
But it's not just that which makes the measure so objectionable. 
The free health care - and Medi-Cal is very, very, free, with no deductibles for anything - is going to be paid for out of a new program of fines for California citizens who don't qualify for free health care, yet can't afford Obamacare - quite possibly due to the high cost they are paying for keeping a roof over their heads, for one. 
The Associated Press reports that the few Republican legislators remaining have tried to make exactly that point in their objections:
Republicans on the legislative committee negotiating the budget voted against the proposal, arguing it was not fair to give health benefits to people who are in the country illegally while taxing people who are here legally for not purchasing health insurance.
A subsidy program is going into place, supposedly to "help" them, but you can bet it won't cover the average Californian who can't afford Obamacare. As for the illegals, well, when you work off the books, you can pretty well claim anything as your income, so rest assured that all those who want the free health care, no matter what they earn, are going to be able to get it.
 So what we are about to see now is the fining of Californians trapped in the high cost of living brought on by leftist policies, in order to bankroll the state's abundant illegal immigrant population, which now stands at a quarter of the nation's count.
And the little claim at the bottom of that last cited paragraph from the Sacramento Bee suggests even more trouble on the horizon for Californians who can just barely pay those gargantuan Obamacare premiums: "keep premiums from rising dramatically."
What's the takeaway on that? That bankrolling illegals is going to make premiums rise on Californians who are stuck in the individual market, but rest assured, the hikes won't be dramatic.
Sound like a recipe for flight from the state? You would be insane if you didn't think so, and the state already is bleeding people. Fifty-three percent of the state's citizens, according to one poll, want to leave, and more than one report shows that the state lost more people than it gained, even with the border surge bringing new supplicants in. Voters know their votes don't count in a state where ballot-harvesting by illegal immigrants is routinely done now, so any discontent is virtually impossible to telegraph at the ballot box, and the leftist mafia running the state insists that this is what Californians want. Color me skeptical on all fronts.
The one thing worth watching for in this is not the cost overruns, though that should be an interesting topic. It's whether Californians will finally switch their voting patterns in sufficient numbers to finally get this crew out. The odds are against them with ballot-harvesting, yet still, still, one expects something to eventually blow. Maybe this will be what does it.

 

CALIFORNIA UNDER MEXICAN OCCUPATION: Private hospitals are forced to provide more than $1.5 BILLION in “free” healthcare at emergency rooms. You wondered why you were billed $80 dollars for an aspirin you last hospital visit?

 

Taxing Americans To Give Illegal Aliens Subsidized Health Care

 By SPENCER RALEY  

California is likely bringing back a version of the “individual healthcare mandate” in order to help pay for the healthcare of low-income illegal aliens who are under 26 years old. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and state Democrats have agreed on a budget that would institute a new tax on those who do not have health insurance in order to help cover the nearly $100 million in additional costs. The budget must still be approved by the state legislature, but it is expected to pass by a wide margin.
The Golden State is home to more illegal aliens than any other state. It is estimated that 90,000 of the state’s 2.6 million illegal aliens will immediately become eligible to receive taxpayer-subsidized healthcare once the new budget takes effect. There is already discussion about expanding the provision in the future.
Illegal immigrants and their U.S.-born children already cost California taxpayers more than $23 billion every year. That amounts to approximately $1,800 per household, annually, or $150 per month. For the average Californian – or anyone for that matter – losing that much of your monthly budget to help subsidize public services for illegal aliens is already a major financial setback. These taxpayers deserve better than to have more piled on to this fiscal burden.
There is already an alarming crisis at the southern border. Last month, more than 144,000 migrants were apprehended or deemed inadmissible at the United States’ southwest border with Mexico – a nearly three-fold increase from last year. Reckless actions by California and other states offering free or subsidized benefits to illegal aliens are only going to make this crisis worse.

Spencer joined the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 2015. He conducts research, and writes content for FAIR’s publications and website. He brings previous experience in state politics, gubernatorial and district campaigns, and D.C. political non-profits. Spencer holds a B.A. in Government from the University of Texas at Austin.

///


POLITICIANS MUST FACE CONSEQUENCES FOR CRIMES THEY ENABLE

Malfeasant politicians must find no “sanctuary.”

June 12, 2019

Michael Cutler

The phrase, Failure is Not An Option served as the title of the book written by Gene Kranz, Flight Director for NASA who helped create the U.S. manned space program and was instrumental in successfully returning the crew of Apollo 13 to the earth after their spacecraft suffered a catastrophic explosion half-way to the moon.
In most professions, especially where lives are on the line, failure to do the job is not an option.  This is particularly true where law enforcement and the military are concerned.  
Politicians, not unlike members of the military and law enforcement officers, take oaths of office where they swear (affirm) that they will enforce our laws and defend the Constitution.  While law enforcement officers and members of the armed forces may face dire consequences for violating their oaths of office, politicians generally do not.
Their oaths of office do not provide an “escape clause” whereby they may opt to ignore any of the laws that are not to their liking.
Unlike the entries on the menu of a restaurant where the patrons order the food that they find palatable or where they may substitute one item on the menu for another, their oaths of office demand that those who take that oath agree to enforce all laws and honor and defend all of the provisions of our Constitution.
Dereliction of duty is a serious offense for members of the armed forces and for law enforcement officers and one that carries significant consequences.
We will not delve in the specifics of this ongoing case, but it is important to note that the deputy sheriff in this case has been charged with multiple crimes, some of which are felonies, all emanating from his alleged failures to act to protect the children who were killed in that school.
Contrast how that deputy is being prosecuted for alleged failures to act with the politicians who, with impunity, demand that law enforcement officers not act to cooperate with immigration law enforcement personnel - even when those actions result in the death of innocent victims.
The outrageous assertions that “Sanctuary” policies protect immigrants from immigration law enforcement are blatant lies.  Law abiding aliens, immigrants and non-immigrants alike, need no protection from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents..
Aliens who violate our immigration laws, however, pose a threat to national security and public safety.  The 9/11 Commission was crystal clear that the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 and other such attacks conducted by aliens in the United States were only possible because of multiple failures of the immigration system.
In fact, I would argue that violations of our borders and immigration laws must be seen as violations of our Constitution.
Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution provides:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.
Invasion is defined, in part, as an incursion by a large number of people or things into a place or sphere of activity or an unwelcome intrusion into another's domain.
My recent article, Sanctuary Policies Kill, included a link to a May 21, 2019 ICE press release, ICE seeks custody of teen murder suspects for a second timeLocal jurisdiction failed to honor previous detainers which began with this excerpt:
BALTIMORE – Following the recent arrest of two unlawfully present teens suspected in the violent murder of a young girl in Maryland, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers in Baltimore are again seeking to take custody of the illegal aliens through the ICE detainer process following the Prince George’s County Detention Center’s (PGCDC) failure to cooperate.
Josue Rafael Fuentes-Ponce and Joel Ernesto Escobar, both Salvadoran nationals, were previously arrested on May 11, 2018 when they were arrested by Prince George’s County Police Department (PGCPD) for attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder, participation in gang activity, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted robbery, and other related charges. ICE officers lodged a detainer with PGCDC, however both were released on an unknown date and time without notification to ICE.
On May 16, 2019, PGCPD arrested the same individuals and charged them with first-degree murder.
That girl who was killed was stabbed and bludgeoned to death was just 14 years old, roughly the same age as some of the children who were shot to death at the Parkland school massacre.
She is no less dead than are the victims of the school shooting in Florida and her life is no less valuable.
Had the officials of Prince George’s County honored the ICE detainer, that young girl would still be alive today.
Tragically and infuriatingly, this is not an isolated case.  This refusal by “Sanctuary” jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE occurs across the United States with sickening regularity and all too frequently with innocent people being killed.
Malfeasance has been defined as the performance by a public official of an act that is legally unjustified, harmful, or contrary to law.
It would certainly appear that the promulgation of “Sanctuary” policies constitutes malfeasance.
Furthermore, when the political leaders of a jurisdiction order law enforcement officers who are under their command to ignore immigration laws, they are inducing/coercing malfeasance by those sworn law enforcement officers.
Our nation’s borders and our nation’s immigration laws make no distinction about race, religion or ethnicity.  They were enacted to prevent the entry and continued presence of aliens who pose a threat to public safety, national security and the lives and livelihoods of Americans.
A review of one of the sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S. Code § 1182 that enumerates the categories of aliens who are to be excluded from entering the United States dispels any doubts about the nature of our immigration laws.
Additionally, multiple failures of the House and Senate to fund a border wall, provide funding for enhancing the enforcement of our immigration laws from within the interior of, and provide legal remedies to failure of the immigration laws particularly where political asylum and the Flores Decision are concerned, further exacerbates the immigration crisis.
Adding fuel to the blazing fire that is the obvious crisis along the border, the Democrat-controlled Congress just passed a new version of the DREAM Act, as reported by CBS News on June 5, 2019, House passes latest DREAM Act, hoping to place millions of immigrants on path to citizenship.


Rather than deter illegal immigration, these legislative actions incentivize illegal immigration.
A section of the INA, 8 U.S. Code § 1324, establishes crimes that relate to the smuggling of aliens into the United States as well as the harboring, shielding such aliens from detection.  
That section of law also deems it to be a crime to encourage or induce aliens to enter the United States illegally or remain in the United States illegally or otherwise aids or abets these crimes or crimes relating to conspiracies to commit these crimes.
This law seemingly only applies to “mere” citizens but not to our political elites.
Either through litigation and/or elections, those politicians who obstruct immigration law enforcement and thus fail to adhere to their oaths of office and Constitutional responsibilities, must be made accountable.
///

Kamala Harris: Medicare for All Includes Illegal Aliens

Harris, a guest on CNN's "State of the Union," said "I support Medicare for all. It is my preferred policy." She said she supports the bill introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Rising US “deaths of despair” driven by health care costs, lack of access to care

A new report reveals that most US states are losing ground on key measures related to life expectancy, which has declined in each of the last three years. The Commonwealth Fund’s “2019 Scorecard on State Health System Performance” shows that “deaths of despair”—premature deaths from suicide, alcohol abuse and drug overdoses—continue to rise in nearly every state. The report further shows that these deaths are tied to rising healthcare costs that are placing an increasing financial burden on families across the country.
The Commonwealth Fund’s Scorecard assessed “deaths of despair” in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as ranked states on 47 measures of access to health care, quality of care, health care usage, health outcomes and income-based health care disparities. The report found that Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act has been a central factor leading to meaningful gains in access to health care.
The reasons behind the decision of a person to take his or her own life, to take drugs resulting in a fatal overdose, or to drink alcohol in excess leading to health problems and death, are complex. But this new study shows that one of the major underlying causes of such tragedies is social inequality, in particular lack of access to health care and the associated financial struggles.

The opioid crisis, suicide and alcohol-related deaths

While the study finds that deaths from suicide and alcohol and drug abuse are a national crisis, it notes that states and regions are affected in different ways. Opioid use disorder has fueled a rise in drug overdose deaths with tragic outcomes for families across the country. The emergence of highly lethal synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, in the illicit drug supply has contributed to this national crisis.
The opioid epidemic has hit states in New England, the Mid-Atlantic and several Southeastern states particularly hard. West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Delaware and New Hampshire have the highest death rates from drug overdoses.
In Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio, death rates from drug overdose were at least five times higher than from alcohol abuse and about three times higher than suicide rates. In Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Oregon and Wyoming, death rates from suicide and alcohol were greater than those from drugs.
Source: Commonwealth Fund. Data from National Vital Statistics System
West Virginia has been the state hardest hit by the opioid crisis, with 58.7 deaths per 100,000 residents—a staggering two-and-a-half times the national average. This was 25 percent more than the state with the next highest rate of opioid deaths, Ohio, which had 46.3 deaths per 100,000 residents. Opioid-related deaths in West Virginia increased fivefold in 12 years—rising from 10.5 deaths per 100,000 in 2005 to 57.8 in 2017.
The rate of death from drug overdose more than doubled across the US between 2005 and 2017. These deaths surged by 10 percent just between 2016 and 2017.
Suicide rates nationally have risen by nearly 30 percent since 2005. Parallel to the sharp rise in the death rate from drug overdose, the national suicide death rate rose more sharply between 2016 and 2017 than during any other one-year period in recent history. Similarly, the alcohol-related death rate rose by about 2 percent per year between 2005 and 2012 but increased by about 4 percent per year between 2013 and 2017.

Health insurance, access to care, cost

The Commonwealth Fund notes that the reductions in the uninsured population following the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) expansion of health coverage in 2014 have now stalled or even begun to erode in some states.
The ACA, commonly known as Obamacare, while expanding some access to health care coverage, has never challenged the domination of the for-profit health care industry. It required that individuals without insurance from their employer or a government program purchase insurance from a private insurance company.
Nearly all states saw substantial reductions in uninsured rates between 2013 and 2017 with the opening of the ACA’s insurance marketplaces, with fewer people citing cost as a barrier to receiving health care.
As the ACA was written, Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor jointly administered by the federal government and the states, was to be expanded to cover all US citizens and legal residents with incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty line. However, the US Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that it was up to the states whether or not to expand their Medicaid programs.
Almost all those states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA saw a reduction in rates of uninsured through 2015. However, after 2015 any progress in reducing the rates of uninsured had stalled in most states. From 2016 to 2017, more than half of states were simply treading water. Sixteen states saw a rise of 1 percent in the uninsured rate, including both those that did and did not expand Medicaid.
States that adopted Medicaid expansion have seen lower rates of the uninsured. As of January 1, 2017, Massachusetts had the lowest rate of uninsured, at 4 percent. The states with the highest rates of uninsured—Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas—were among the 19 states that had not expanded Medicaid as of January 1, 2017. In Texas, 24 percent—nearly a quarter of all residents—were uninsured.
Uninsured rates were particularly high in states with large African-American and Hispanic populations. In Florida, George and Texas, about 20 percent of black adults were uninsured in 2017, compared to the US average of about 14 percent. In Texas, more than a third of Hispanic adults were uninsured in 2017. Undoubtedly contributing to the uninsured among Hispanics is the denial of Medicaid and access to the ACA marketplace for undocumented immigrants.

Health care costs

In addition to the lack of health insurance, the high cost of coverage for those who are insured is contributing to the crisis in accessing health care. The report notes that as of the end of 2018, 30 million adults remained uninsured and an estimated 44 million people had insurance but were considered “underinsured” due to the high out-of-pocket costs for health care in relation to their income.
People with individual-market plans under the ACA were insured at the highest rates. However, the cost of private, employer-sponsored health care plans is rising, exposing workers and their families to increasingly higher deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. In most states, the amount that employees contribute to their employer coverage is rising faster than median income.
A key contributing factor to the uninsured and underinsured rates is the overall rate of growth in US health care costs compared to the slow growth in US median income. Workers face rising costs as insurers increase deductibles and other cost-sharing for enrollees. As workers in both ACA and employee plans are covered by the insurance industry, these private companies raise costs for the insured to boost their bottom lines.
The Commonwealth Fund’s report explodes the myth that people’s use of health care services is the primary driver of cost and premium growth. The report notes that there is growing evidence that the prices paid by private insurers to health care providers, particularly hospitals, are responsible for this growth.
The report notes, according to the Health Care Cost Institute, that “between 2013 and 2017 prices for inpatient services paid by private insurers climbed by 16 percent while utilization fell by 5 percent. The analysis found similar patterns for outpatient and professional services as well as prescription drugs.”
In other words, while workers and their families are struggling to obtain decent health care and to pay for it, the entire system of health care delivery in America is geared toward enriching the hospitals, pharmaceuticals and insurance companies. Those succumbing to “deaths of despair” are the victims of a health care system and a society that values capitalist profit over the health and very lives of its citizens.

SUICIDE IN AMERICA
May 29, 2019 
The Social Order
Kay Hymowitz joins City Journal editor Brian Anderson to discuss a challenge facing aging populations in wealthy nations across the world: loneliness. Her essay in the Spring 2019 issue, “Alone,” will be released online this Sunday.
“Americans are suffering from a bad case of loneliness,” Hymowitz writes. “Foundering social trust, collapsing heartland communities, an opioid epidemic, and rising numbers of ‘deaths of despair’ suggest a profound, collective discontent.”
Evidence of the loneliness epidemic is dramatic in other countries, too. Japan, for example, has seen a troubling rise in “lonely deaths.” The challenge, Hymowitz says, is to teach younger generations the importance of family and community before they make decisions that will further isolate them.

Audio Transcript

Brian Anderson: Welcome back to the 10 Blogs podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. Joining me on the show today is Kay Hymowitz, the William E. Simon Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a longtime contributing editor at the magazine. Her latest piece in City Journal is called “Alone: The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness.” That's the subtitle. It's one of the great pieces she's ever written in City Journal and I encourage you to find it on our website. Lastly, just one more announcement. We created a new email address for the show, so if listeners want to get in touch and drop a comment or share an idea, you can now email us at podcast@city-journal.org. That's podcast@city-journal.org. That's it for the introduction. We'll take a quick break and we'll be back with Kay Hymowitz.
Brian Anderson: Hello again everyone. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal and joining us in the studio now is Kay Hymowitz. She's a contributing editor at City Journal and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. You can follow her on Twitter @KayHymowitz. And she's the author of many books, most recently the New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back, which came out in 2017. And prior to that, Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys, which came out in 2011. We're here today though to talk about her latest piece in City Journal called Alone. Kay, thanks very much for joining us.
Kay Hymowitz: I'm happy to be here, Brian.
Brian Anderson: So let's just start off. What made you want to write about the topic of loneliness, and what is the state of loneliness in America?
Kay Hymowitz: Well, let me start by saying I didn't actually set out to write about loneliness. I knew it was a great topic, but I wasn't exactly sure how to approach it. And I stumbled across an article that inspired me by two social scientists, I think they're demographers. And they described something called a rise of kinlessness, that is a rise in the number of people who have no kin, older people who have no kin. And it was very eye opening and I began to see that the breakdown of the family that I've been studying for maybe 15 years now and that I had mostly talked about in relation to its impact on children was also having quite an impact on older people, particularly aging adults. And that some of the despair that we were hearing about, the deaths of despair, the opioid crisis and so on so forth, are actually disproportionately made up of divorced and single, well, of men, in particular. So I realized that we're looking at something big here in terms of the family breakdown and its ultimate impact is something that I hadn't quite foreseen or thought of.
Brian Anderson: It's probably worth rehearsing some of the numbers in terms of this breakdown in family. Divorce rates for married couples, I think, are probably double what they were back in the 50s.
Kay Hymowitz: They are indeed.
Brian Anderson: But in some ways the picture's even darker. You have a 40% of kids, I think, are born to unmarried mothers now. That's up from 5% in 1960. And strikingly the rate of women who don't give birth at all, I think, has doubled or is much higher. Yeah. And you could go on and on in this vein. This is obviously the core of your argument that's having a big impact on loneliness and kinlessness and this whole phenomenon. So say a bit more about that and what do you think is driving it?
Kay Hymowitz: Well, I think that a lot of what's happening is due to a change in our understanding of what the family is, what its purpose is. I talk a lot in the article about the beginnings of what I see is the unraveling of the family, or shall we say, a kind of assault on, on the traditional family. I want to clarify that as we go on. I see the beginnings of it in something that demographers call the Second Demographic Transition. We sometimes talk about the, in ordinary parlance, we talk about the 60s or the Sexual Revolution. But those were actually an American reflection of something that has, as I said, demographers have been studying. The second demographic transition they believe is partly the result of affluence as he, as the societies in the west in particular, but also over time Japan and others, as they got richer, families were not as essential to mere survival as they had one been. Now this was intensified this fact by the introduction of the birth control pill, obviously because you could control sexual reproduction without worrying about whether you're married or not. And what the theory is that this would introduce a different set of values, anti-authoritarian, and little bit of anti-tradition. Individualistic. As people began to see they could be freer to find other ways of living than to depend entirely on family or depend mostly on their families. And in fact, following the second demographic transition, um, there was a huge increase as you, just as you just pointed out in your numbers in the percentage of divorces, the percentage of non-marital births. And this by the way, is not just true in the United States, but in other developed countries. Not all of them, but many. And also of fatherlessness. So I think that these ideas that emerged with affluence and the second demographic transition made it possible for people to think very differently about how they were going to live. And I should say now, because I'll be talking about the downsides of this, what followed from the second demographic transition. But it did really give people a lot of freedom. And there's no question that there were many people for relieved from very miserable and even violent marriages. As a result of the second demographic transition. There were many different ways to think about letting the people, it was possible to not be married if you really didn't want to. Which I think has worked nicely for some individuals. And of course it opened up the door to gay marriage, for much more freedom for gays and lesbians. So there is a tremendous upside and I don't want to discount that. But what I try to do in this article or show that there's some real downsides that we haven't quite understood.
Brian Anderson: What are some of those downsides? Why is it a problem for society that people are increasingly alone? And what are some of the manifestations of that that are negative?
Kay Hymowitz: Right. So one of the things that I try to do in the article is to remind people that kinship, those close family relations, blood and marital relations, have been kind of the linchpin of societies practically since we came out of the caves. It is absolutely fundamental to every society. The relationship between kin and what it does is... Those relationships define certain kinds of obligations. We tend to be more protective of kin and to understand our roles better when in relation to kin. Everything else, all of our other relationships may be very important to us, but we're making those up pretty much as we go along. And the kinship... As we've sort of gotten rid of that basic building block, or we've sort of undermined it through the divorce revolution, the sexual revolution in the second demographic transition, we've undermined the way kin work. So one point I make is that there's been a huge rise in cohabitation and particularly among less educated and lower income people. Cohabitation has become a kind of substitute for marriage. And the hope among, social scientists and sociologists and economists was always that gradually people would realize that you could cohabit, but you really ought to stay together. That it would be a kind of it, that it would be a kind of marriage or marriage light. But in fact, that's not what's happened. What's happened is that the, the norm of cohabitation is much more transitory, impermanent, fragile, and unpredictable. And those couples who were cohabitating and do not go onto marry tend to break up much, much more quickly.
Brian Anderson: This is even true when they have children?
Kay Hymowitz: Oh yes, definitely. The children of cohabiting couples are having a very, very different upbringing than the children of married couples. Now, it's true. we do have higher rates of divorce than we used to, although it's stabilized. And one of the reasons it's stabilized is that so many people are not getting married anymore, they are cohabiting. The upshot is that there are an awful lot of children, as I've pointed out many times before growing up in very unstable environments, but then an awful lot of parents, particularly men, who are losing direct contact with their kids. Now most men, after a divorce or after a child out of marriage, try to maintain some contact. But that tends to, it's not always true, that tends to fade out over time. Remember a lot of the people who are cohabiting, having children as their cohabiting are young, and understandably if that relationship doesn't work out, that go on and seek out another one. Well, what often happens is that there is a new family that develops out of that second union and possibly even a third or forth. So the child is faced with a, and fathers too, are faced with this rolling cast of people, none of whom have quite the connection of the kin of the old fashioned can relationships so that those men are frequently on their own as they get older. And if I could just add a little personal observation here that some people might not agree with, men just don't make homes or, you know make even make friends quite the way that women do. And we do have some data on this as well.
Brian Anderson: Looking around the world, and you noted this earlier, we know that the US isn't the only country facing problems of loneliness. One of the most striking examples in your story is Japan, which was seen just an incredible rise in what they call "lonely deaths." Maybe you could describe a little bit the situation there and how Japan is dealing with it?
Kay Hymowitz: Japan is an interesting contrast. to the United States in some ways in other western countries because non marital childbearing, single motherhood is relatively rare, unlike here. And also divorce is, relatively rare. It's getting, it's getting more common. What's happening instead is that an awful lot of people are not having children, so therefore their fertility rates are very, very low.
Brian Anderson: Well below replacement rate, I believe?
Kay Hymowitz: Well below replacement. Ours are low, but this is lower. I read one a social Japanese social scientists who said that the basic concept of the family in Japan is dead. So there's an awful lot of elderly people on their own, living alone. And by the way, dependent on the state to support them because they don't have any family to speak of. Or their family has moved away, or is extremely busy with work. We know that the Japanese are workaholics. But they started to see this rise in lonely deaths, which, we're beginning to see here too. And it became such a phenomenon in Japan that the newspapers started to cover, local newspapers would start to cover these stories that were happening very frequently. And in addition, this was the part that kind of, caused me to sit up and wonder. There are businesses now, there are cleanup companies, to take care of apartments after a lonely death because what happens is that when somebody dies and they're alone and nobody's really watching out for them, they often die in their apartment. Nobody knows they're dead. Nobody finds them until the telltale smell of decaying body. And it makes a huge mess for building owners or landlords. So they've started these companies, these cleanup companies. And I believe I mentioned the name of one of them, which is kind of grim. It's called Next.
Brian Anderson: Yeah.
Kay Hymowitz: But these companies, there are a fair number of them and they've become an essential, essential part of Japanese life.
Brian Anderson: It's a very, very grim reality. I've been reading a book by Cal Newport called Digital Minimalism, and it's an argument against being immersed in social media and other forms of technologically driven distraction. He says, we need to set more time for our sanity sake to be alone or at least off of the Internet and this constant bombardment of, of connection with other people. In other words, he's saying technology is making us constantly exposed to other people in ways that can harm us. At least if it goes too far. How does social media and the constant judgment that people sometimes feel themselves under through social media if they're participating in it, how does that intersect with the argument that you're making?
Kay Hymowitz: Well social media, I'm thinking of Facebook in particular was supposed to bring us all together. Right? It was the social network. We were going to create all these new social networks and you know, I think some people have been able to use it that way. I have ordered up to make contact with old high school friends or whatever, but it has also added to a sense of anxiety as people post pictures of their happy family occasions. They can look like things are just so wonderful and peachy keen for everybody else while you're feeling down in the dumps. So what does that expression, "fomo," fear of missing out? You're missing parties that you might've been invited to... People are taking wonderful trips that you, you know, don't have anybody to travel with or whatever. So I think it can exacerbate loneliness in that way because you're constantly comparing yourself to other people at their peak moments because that's when people post their pictures. And there is something about, aside from the fomo, aside from that, the kinds of connections you make through social media don't seem to be the same as those should make in real life. I haven't seen wonderful research on this yet, but it seems to me an area ripe for exploration. It seems so clear somehow that you can be online, communicating, even playing games with people, from all over the world, and seemingly making new friends and still feel quite lonely and be lonely because you turn off the computer or walk into another room and you're alone.
Brian Anderson: A lot's been written, especially since the election of Donald Trump, about the state of rust belt communities. The opioid crisis, which you mentioned earlier. How much in your view is the family breakdown you're describing having an impact on those communities? And is it part of what's causing the problem or is it an outgrowth of the breakdown in those communities? Economic breakdown.
Kay Hymowitz: Yeah, there's no question that family breakdown exacerbates and intensifies the loss of these communities, or rather the jobs, the factories that have left. If you lose your job and you lose your wife or husband because to opioids, or they've just left, then you've got real trouble. You don't have anybody to support you through difficult times. One of the things I argue in that piece is that the breakdown in the family has not affected educated and well off people anywhere near to the extent that it has... well, blacks, and also now the white working class that came a little bit later. And I think what we underestimated, we who lived through the second demographic transition and played a role in pushing it actually because I was in college in the 1960s when a lot of these ideas were being tested out and promulgated. If the educated classes, the more well to do classes, were able to figure out a way to maintain their families, what they didn't anticipate, or that none of us anticipated, was that it would be much harder for people who were living more on the edge, who had evictions to worry about or layoffs or a factory closing. You need, in those cases, a culture that really supports, a cultural environment, that really supports the idea of the family and of kinship as people... as people that are there for you in hard times.
Brian Anderson: Providing a network of support...
Kay Hymowitz: That's right. That's right. And in those communities instead, we saw a more and more of a collapse of the family. Now was it possible that, we could have, in a different cultural environment, it could have been different? Maybe, maybe. It's very hard to disentangle the cause and effect here, but there's no question that they go hand... the loss of the working class or the manufacturing jobs, has definitely been related to the breakdown of the family in the working class. Now I should mention that one of the things that's happened as a result, well, related again to the breakdown of the family in those communities, is this opioid crisis. Opioids, as you may know, is now killing more people than traffic accidents, than car accidents. And I was amazed to see in a recent study that the victims or the people who die of opioid death are much more likely to be single, unmarried or divorced men. And that speaks of exactly what I've been trying to describe. I think that women are better at creating their own social networks. This was something that the sociologist, Eric Klinenberg, who wrote a book called Going Solo, about people living alone. It's something he noticed as he started to interview people who were living alone. Even among the elderly women were more likely to want to live alone. They didn't want to remarry if there were widowed or divorced. But who kept fairly rich lives, they were still able to... they volunteered. They had friends, networks of friends that they could go out with, and that sort of thing. So, and if there were children, they were closer to the kids than a single father. So they had all those supports. Men seem to suffer much more loneliness than women. And you know, we can debate from here to eternity why that is. But there it is.
Brian Anderson: Well, to ask a final question, and it's how you conclude your piece: What might be necessary to start re-knitting the social fabric in a way that might address this problem. You mentioned Tom Wolfe's idea of a "Great Re-learning." Say a little bit about that?
Kay Hymowitz: Well first, I should say that there are a lot of government programs for seniors, a lot of, on the federal level and the city and local level. There are all kinds of ways that civil society jumps in. Seniors Helping Seniors is one group, Meals on Wheels, organizations like that. They are absolutely essential and beneficial and I don't want to knock them at all, but they don't begin to address the loss that a lot of people are feeling, or the loneliness. So one of the things that struck me in thinking about all this was how much joy and pleasure so many of my friends, and I should say I'm 70 years old, so many of my friends now with grandchildren, would mostly worry when their kids were growing up about their careers. They would focus so much on their education. Starting from early on, we were the beginning of helicopter parents, not quite as bad as today, but it did begin quite a while ago. But never talking about this other, what I consider to be the other big goal in life: to find a spouse, a kind and reliable and giving spouse who will make a good mother or father for your children. Because most people are going to want children. And society's depend on them wanting children. Those parents didn't talk to their kids about these things. And yet here I was going to weddings and watching these grandchildren being born and the parents were going nuts. I thought, well, why wouldn't they ever talk about the joy of this stage of life and of the connection that we now have with our children. And this is one lovely thing of the that has followed the second demographic transition is, I think, there's a much, much less of a generation gap between me and my kids then there was between me and my own parents because,
Brian Anderson: Yeah, I think that's true.
Kay Hymowitz: And there's a kind of companionship and friendship that I didn't see in my day so much. We have that, and it's a source of great comfort and pleasure. I think for most of the people that are able to experience it. So I note all that because I want readers to realize that this is something we don't talk about to our kids very much. And so we have another generation, growing up, who have never heard those words or any of those concepts from their parents or from anybody.
Brian Anderson: Well maybe it's a time for a different kind of conversation. In any case, don't forget to check out Kay's brilliant essay in City Journal, it's called Alone. It's in our latest issue you can find it on our website and we will link to it in the description. You can follow Kay on Twitter @KayHymowitz. You can also find City Journal on Twitter, @CityJournal and on Instagram @CityJournal_MI, and always, if you like what you've heard on the podcast, give us a nice rating on iTunes. Thanks for listening, and thanks, Kay Hymowitz, for joining us.


"Eligibility would be determined by the same rules of Medicaid, based on annual income. As many young illegals are working off the books, for cash, they will have no official reported income regardless of how much they actually earn, insuring their eligibility for Medi-Cal." BRIAN C. JOONEPH

California Says: ‘Go West, Young Illegals, Go West’

 


Doctors and hospitals are in the gunsights of many Democrats who want Medicare-for-all as a draconian price control scheme by government over all medical care in the US. Hospitals are told they charge too much and doctors are vilified for earning too much.
What a relief that a sugar daddy has appeared, a rich boyfriend, a benefactor with a fat wallet, ready to bestow his financial largess on financially strapped healthcare providers.
This sugar daddy is named Gavin, tall and handsome with good hair. I speak of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who finalized a deal with the California legislature, “to provide full health benefits to low-income illegal immigrants under the age of 26.”
California is the first state to provide such benefits to illegal or undocumented immigrants, depending on which term you prefer. Specifically, this group of adults, age 19 to 25 will have access to the state’s Medi-Cal program, California’s version of Medicaid.
California anticipates providing coverage to 100,000 people. I’m not sure how they arrived at this number since I’ve always heard that illegal immigrants “live in the shadows,” meaning we really don’t know how many there are. And when word gets out to the rest of the country, expect that 100,000 number to grow exponentially just as it would if California announced it was giving away cars to this same group of people.

BLOG: THE MEXICAN TAX-FREE ECONOMY IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY IS ESTIMATED TO BE IN EXCESS OF $2 BILLION YEARLY. THIS SAME COUNTY HANDS ILLEGAL ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS MORE THAN $1 BILLION  IN WELFARE!

Eligibility would be determined by the same rules of Medicaid, based on annual income. As many young illegals are working off the books, for cash, they will have no official reported income regardless of how much they actually earn, insuring their eligibility for Medi-Cal.
This scheme is to be funded by taxing those who do not have health insurance. Who might that be? Not the young illegals who how have free insurance. How about the small businessman who earns too much to qualify for Medicaid but can’t afford an Obamacare policy with massive premiums, copayments, and deductibles? Or the struggling wannabe actors and actresses in the same financial boat as the small businessman? Or the 60-year-old retiree, not yet eligible for Medicare but unable to afford private insurance given the higher premiums at her age?
How nice of California taxpayers, those American born or here legally, having their earnings confiscated to pay the medical bills of those not here legally. Who pays the medical bills of those Americans who can’t afford their medical care?
Interestingly undocumented elderly are not covered under this new plan. Sugar Daddy Newsom opposed this, preferring the young over the elderly, likely due to the much higher medical costs for those over age 65 compared to those under age 25.
This may have to do with voting preferences. It is unknown how many illegals vote, but younger voters tend to vote Democrat compared to older voters who lean Republican. Is this healthcare scheme a form of voter outreach?
Why are doctors and hospitals across America so grateful for their new sugar daddy?
Americans subsidize health care for illegal immigrants to the tune of $18.5 billion a year according to Forbes. Imagine being able to now offload some of this care to California?
Hospitals are required by law to render emergency care to everyone, regardless of a person’s ability to pay. A pregnant woman illegally enters the US, and when she goes into labor, the hospital is required to deliver the baby, caring for both baby and mother, at an average cost of $32,000.
What if the baby is born premature and needs a few weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit, or is born with a heart or bowel defect, requiring additional surgery? The costs quickly escalate into 6-figure sums.
Labor and delivery is certainly common in the 19-25 age group. So are injuries that may require non-emergency treatment, such as a retinal detachment or a ligament tear in the knee. For the doctor, these patients are considered self-pay. Despite promises to pay all of their medical bills, some patients, once reasonably stable after surgery are gone with the wind, with no way to contact them, and no payment made for rendered services.
What if doctors and hospitals, when discussing costs of medical treatment, can now give the patient a map? A few hundred years ago, newspaper editor and author Horace Greeley advised the 19 to 25-year-olds of the day to “Go west young man”. The same phrase may become popular again, particularly in states adjacent to or close to California.
When faced with patients with non-emergent medical problems, direct these patients to the nearest east-west interstate, I-40, I-70, or I-80, and drive toward the setting sun until seeing the “Welcome to California” sign. Go west and allow generous California taxpayers to pick up the tab.
Hospitals won’t be stuck with bad debt and physicians won’t be stiffed after offering their time and expertise without compensation.
Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said this about an open-border immigration policy. "It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state." Which is exactly what California offers, providing free healthcare to living in the state against the law.
While at the same time, California has an out of control homelessness problem, many of those homeless being American veterans. They are living legally in their own country yet living on the streets, in squalor, with rats and other vermin bringing back historic diseases like typhus and typhoid fever. Where is their sugar daddy governor? Busy pandering to those here illegally.
Down on their luck Americans are told to pound sand while illegals are lavished with drivers licenses, welfare benefits, and now healthcare. California cannot care for its own residents, but is opening its doors to the world, promising goodies that will do nothing but attract more of the world, regardless of laws.
When does it end? I’ve suggested that the Trump administration send refugees and illegals to sanctuary cities, so those cities have the opportunity to live with the consequences of their virtue signaling. Now doctors and hospitals can do the same. If California wants to be an open borders welfare state, it’s the least the rest of the country can do to help out by sending young undocumented immigrants to the land of milk and honey.
Instead of “the doctor will see you now”, expect to hear, “go west young man.”
Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn and Twitter.


California could use a management change





Over Sunday lunch, a friend was saying that he just got back from Los Angeles.  He added that he had not seen that much filth in some of the third-world countries that he visits for business regularly.  He looked at me and asked: " How do the voters put up with that?"

My answer was that voters have been voting with their feet for years.  In other words, they leave the Golden State.

California is a mess indeed, as Jim Bredo wrote:  

It has the worst ranking for homelessness, 8th worst for roads, and worst for teacher-to-student ratio. Its prisons are so crowded that the Supreme Court determined them to constitute cruel and unusual punishment, and it suffered the worst budget crisis of all the states during the Great Recession.
But residents are so mesmerized by the amazing weather and beauty of the place that they tend to overlook the quality of the services. And as a result, management does not change. The state has been under the same Democratic Party management for years. Their monopoly on power is so safe that they now hold supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature despite California’s worsening condition. Management has no incentive to change when it keeps getting re-elected.
Californians may not be voting out Democrats at the ballot box, but they have been voting with their feet. While California’s population has grown from 29 million to 39 million over the past 30 years, in each year during that period the state has seen a net loss in migration to other states.
So will things change?  I don't see any change for now, although the article points out that Latinos get more conservative as they get more prosperous.  
California will continue until they hit a financial wall or when the last taxpayer leaves the state.  In the meantime, be careful when you walk the streets of LA, and I'm not talking about thieves.
P.S.  You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.

 

California Lawmakers Plan to Give Health Benefits to Illegal Immigrants


HANNAH BLEAU

Democrat state lawmakers in progressive California have agreed to a plan that would extend health benefits to qualifying illegal immigrants residing in the state.

The legislature has a June 15 deadline and is expected to approve the deal in the coming days. It essentially extends eligibility to California’s Medicaid program to young low-income illegal immigrants between the ages of 19 and 25. The move is part of a broader budget plan, which clocks in around $213 billion.
Expanding California’s Medicaid program to low-income illegals would cost the state about $98 million per year. According to the Associated Press, roughly 90,000 will qualify.
“California believes that health is a fundamental right,” State Sen. Holly Mitchell (D) said, according to the news outlet.
A number of Democrat state lawmakers wanted to take it a step further, offering coverage for all illegals in the state, but Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected the proposal, citing rising costs.
The agreement also includes assistance for middle-income families. A family of four making $150,000 could qualify for a $100 a month subsidy from the government to help cover the cost of their insurance premium.
Democrats in the state plan to pay for the handouts, in part, by taxing those who do not have health insurance. This is, in essence, another version of Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty, which the Supreme Court upheld as a tax in a critical ruling in 2012. However, it has remained a point of contention in lower courts. Republicans in Congress worked with President Trump to scrap what they deemed to be the unconstitutional penalty in 2017.
California lawmakers say these moves are all part of the state’s wide-ranging effort to get everyone in the state – including those residing there unlawfully – covered. This comes at the time of a severe homelessness crisis in the state, particularly in Los Angeles County.
The number of homeless individuals on the streets of Los Angeles has skyrocketed during the last year.
As Breitbart News reported:
The newly released data revealed that nearly three-fourths of the homeless population, which includes 58,936 people, are sleeping in cars, tents, and other make-do shelters.
Released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to the Board of Supervisors, the data found that the majority of homeless people were residing in the city of Los Angeles, which saw an increase of 16 percent to 36,300.
About 3,800 are estimated to be veterans.

San Francisco’s homeless population has also experienced a spike, rising 17 percent in the last two years.

Tomi Lahren: Health care for illegal immigrants is here in California

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tomi-lahren-illegal-immigrant-health-care-is-here-in-california?utm_source=E-mail%20Updates&utm_campaign=2b91c1eed1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_06_14_02_35&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7dc4c5d977-2b91c1eed1-45100901


Tomi Lahren: Illegal immigrant health care is here in California

California leadership is on the brink of signing a new piece of legislation that will put taxpayer dollars toward something Tomi has warned us about time and again: health care for illegal immigrants.
Well I warned you and here it is – California will become the first state to offer health care to illegal immigrants.
A lot of stupid legislation has come out of Sacramento, California in the last 10 years but this, THIS is a giant slap in the face to all hardworking Californians and LEGAL immigrantsbusting our butts to live and work in this state.
Meanwhile, our lawmakers are more concerned with doling out perks, brownie points, and benefits to people who have NO legal right to be here.
This is absolutely stomach-churning and yeah, I have some "First Thoughts."
Almost $100 million a year. That’s how much California lawmakers have set aside for illegal immigrant health care. If all goes as they planned, which it will, this will be set in stone come midnight on June 15th, and it will start January 1st of next year.
Do you want to know how we – the Golden State taxpayers – are going to pay for it? Partly through additional taxes on individuals who choose not to have health care.
Wait, I thought President Trump and Republicans reduced the individual mandate? Think again.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing for a state mandate to revive it.
We have over 130,000 homeless people in this state and yet, our lawmakers, our DEMOCRATIC lawmakers, have agreed on a plan to cover health insurance benefits for some 90,000 plus illegal immigrants.
Thanks to the Democrats in this state, illegal immigrants between the ages of 19-25 will now be eligible for the state’s Medicaid program.
California ALREADY covers illegals under age 19 and all pregnant women under Medical-Cal!
And you know what’s worse, some Democrats in the state legislature are unhappy this plan doesn’t cover ALL illegal immigrants in the state. That would cost us an estimated $3.4 billion but just you wait, that is where we are headed.
If you’re not a Californian you might not think this applies to you but be warned, this isn’t just the platform of the California Democratic Party, this is the platform of the Democratic Party, at large.
What is happening in California is just a prototype and pipe dream for the rest of the nation and if a Democrat wins in 2020, this is coming to you, to all of us, nationwide. Mark my words.
So if you don’t want your hard-earned tax dollars going to illegal immigrants, if you think incentivizing illegal immigration is downright un-American, if you believe Americans come first in our own country, get ready to fight to keep President Trump in office in 2020.
The truth is, he is our only hope. The Democratic Party along with the Democratic primary race has become little more than a try-out for the illegal immigrant cheerleading squad.
In recent months, we’ve averaged a little over 100,000 illegals flooding into our nation through our southwest border.
Sadly, The Republicans in Name Only or "RINOs" sitting in Congress don’t seem to care, either. If they did they wouldn’t have sat back for two years when we controlled Congress and did nothing.
No one in the swamp is bold enough to tackle this issue. No one except the Mr. Rooter of the Swamp, President Donald Trump.
Our elected representatives won't fix the immigration system and meanwhile, we have governors like Newsom and their respective Democratic legislatures dangling benefit carrots to entice even more people across our southern border.
This next election is bigger than 2016. It’s bigger than four years in the White House. The future of our country is at stake. Get ready to dig in and fight like you’ve never fought before.
Those are my "First Thoughts." From Los Angeles, God bless and take care.

///

What's the matter with California?

California wants to look after its people, so it keeps expanding its social safety net. It also wants to welcome all comers and so embraces illegal immigrants and protects them in sanctuary cities.
To see how this is working out, visit Skid Row in L.A. or neighborhoods in San Francisco or elsewhere where homeless camps are spreading.
Caring for all Californians is made harder by the state importing as many non-Americans as possible.
It's almost incredible, but also entirely characteristic, that California lawmakers have now decided to give healthcare free to nearly 100,000 illegal immigrants aged 19 to 25.
California has covered illegal immigrant children since 2016 under MediCal, the state’s version of Medicaid, at a cost of some $360 million. Now Gov. Gavin Newsom has agreed with state lawmakers to add another $98 million to California's spending by expanding coverage to young adults.
Just as California lacks enough homes to house its inhabitants, so it also lacks enough doctors to care for them. The additional budget bloat on healthcare will worsen that shortage.
The promise of unlimited free stuff from the government isn't just an unfunded liability. It’s also a magnet for illegal immigration. California already faces a border catastrophe. In the past year, its San Diego and El Centro border sectors have seen respective increases of 611% and 345% in family unit apprehensions. MediCal expansion creates incentives that will make that problem much worse.
If the damage were confined to California, one might be tempted to shrug and suggest that Californians choose themselves a better government. But the problem will spill over to the rest of the country, and to Americans who did not elect the irresponsible Sacramento government.
Border enforcement is mostly a federal responsibility, and we will all have to live with and deal with the consequences of an influx of illegal immigrants and a further strain on detention facilities' ability to cope.
When California raises taxes to pay for foreigners' healthcare, it weighs down on the federal budget because state and local taxes are partly deductible from federal income taxes. The rest of the country must subsidize more than $100 billion of spending by the Utopians in Sacramento.
When the Golden State's finances deteriorate, watch for Sacramento to beg for a bailout. Even before then, the rest of America must foot the bill for California’s overstuffed classrooms, decaying infrastructure, and everything else funded federally.
The California dream of taking care of everyone's needs is undermined by the California dream of open borders. State lawmakers were forced to choose between them, and they chose open borders. One must hope that one day the state's voters choose different lawmakers.








New York Post Cover on Democrats Promising Illegal Aliens Free Health Care: ‘Who Wants to Lose the Election?’

MIAMI, FLORIDA - JUNE 27: Democratic presidential candidates (L-R) former tech executive Andrew Yang, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) raise their hands during the second night of the first Democratic presidential debate on June 27, …
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
KYLE MORRIS
  408
1:27

The Friday cover of the New York Post mocks 2020 Democrat presidential hopefuls who vowed to give free, taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrants.

The New York Post cover title, which features five of the presidential hopefuls raising their hands at the second night of the first Democrat presidential debate, reads: “Who wants to lose the election?”
The cover’s subtitle reads, “All major Dem candidates raise hand in favor of free health care for illegal immigs.”
New York Post Cover on Democrats Promising Illegal Aliens Free Health Care: ‘Who Wants to Lose the Election?’
Featured from left to right on the cover are South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).
As reported by Breitbart News’s John Binder, “During the second Democrat presidential primary debate on Thursday, every Democrat candidate said they supported giving American taxpayer-funded health care to all 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the United States.”
Binder also reported, “Americans pay about $116 billion to subsidize illegal aliens living in the U.S. — providing them with free education, free healthcare, and public benefits.”
Follow Kyle on Twitter @RealKyleMorris and Facebook.

No comments: