Monday, August 12, 2019

MEXICANS CARTELS INVADE TEXAS - BETO "BETOMATIC" O'ROURKE SAYS THEY ONLY WANT AMNESTY AND ANCHOR BABY WELFARE



EXCLUSIVE: Gulf Cartel Infighting to Bring New Wave of Violence to Mexican Cities Bordering Texas

Reynosa 1
Breitbart Texas / Cartel Chronicles
2:44

A new faction within the Gulf Cartel is sparking a wave of violence in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Law enforcement at the federal and state level in Mexico expect the number of clashes to escalate dramatically in the coming days.

Federal and state law enforcement officials revealed to Breitbart Texas that the current spike in violence and the expected escalation are attributable to a rift within the Matamoros faction of the Gulf Cartel known as “Los Escorpiones.” Despite their turf war with the neighboring Reynosa sect aka “Los Metros,” the Escorpiones managed to keep most of the violence to the west and south of Matamoros, allowing the city to enjoy some sense of tranquility. In contrast, Reynosa and Rio Bravo report numerous large-scale gun battles between criminal rivals and government forces.
A new faction, calling themselves “CDG Nueva Era,” is trying to take Matamoros from Evaristo “El Vaquero” Cruz Sanchez. Nueva Era is believed to be led by Mario Alberto “Beto” Cardenas, who is currently in a Mexican jail but remains active. His second-in-command is Raul “Scorpion 2” Garcia.
The group is supposedly recruiting gunmen from the Escorpiones and others to overpower the larger Vaquero faction. The CDG Nueva Era offered a cash reward for Vaquero’s head via numerous banners posted throughout Matamoros.
In recent days, the warring factions from Matamoros have engaged in various shootouts in and around San Fernando, Rio Bravo, and others. Law enforcement sources consulted by Breitbart Texas indicate the violence will reach Matamoros in the coming days.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.     
Tony Aranda and “J.A. Espinoza”  from Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project contributed to this report. 




El Chapo Trial: Former Mexican President 

Peña Nieto Took $100 Million Bribe, Witness 


Says

The bribe was delivered to Enrique Peña Nieto, the former president of Mexico, through an intermediary, according to a witness at the trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo.

By Alan Feuer

The former president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, took a $100 million bribe from Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the infamous crime lord known as El Chapo, according to a witness at Mr. Guzman’s trial.
The stunning testimony was delivered Tuesday in a New York courtroom by Alex Cifuentes Villa, a Colombian drug lord who worked closely with Mr. Guzmán from 2007 to 2013, when the kingpin was hiding from the law at a series of remote ranches in the Sierra Madre mountains.

“Mr. Guzmán paid a bribe of $100 million to President Peña Nieto?” Jeffrey Lichtman, one of Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers, asked Mr. Cifuentes during cross-examination.

“Yes,” Mr. Cifuentes said.

Mr. Guzmán may offer more details soon. Shortly after the jury was excused around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Mr. Lichtman submitted his client’s name to the prosecution as a potential witness for the defense, confirming that the drug trafficker might testify in his own trial.

Mr. Lichtman said that adding Mr. Guzman’s name to the witness list does not guarantee that he will testify. It is simply “possible.”
“If I didn’t put him on the list, it would possibly foreclose the possibility for him to testify,” Mr. Lichtman said in an interview. “So, I was just being inclusive.”

Mr. Guzmán’s testimony would be a stunning development. While his lieutenants have shared details about the Sinaloa cartel’s operations, the kingpin himself could offer even more intimate information, such as how he possibly bribed a president of Mexico.
According to Mr. Cifuentes, Mr. Peña Nieto first reached out to Mr. Guzmán about the time he was elected president in late 2012, asking the drug lord for $250 million in exchange for calling off a nationwide manhunt for him.

But Mr. Guzmán made a counteroffer, Mr. Cifuentes added, saying he would give Mr. Peña Nieto only $100 million.

“The message was that Mr. Guzmán didn’t have to stay in hiding?” Mr. Lichtman asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Cifuentes said, “that very thing is what Joaquin said to me.”

Mr. Lichtman, quoting Mr. Cifuentes’s notes from an interview he gave to American authorities in 2016, asked whether Felipe Calderón, who preceded Mr. Peña Nieto as Mexico’s president, took a bribe in 2008 from one of Mr. Guzmán’s rivals, the Beltrán-Leyva brothers.

“I don’t recall this incident very well,” Mr. Cifuentes answered. He added moments later, “Right now, I do not remember that.”

Mr. Peña Nieto and Mr. Calderón could not yet be reached for comment.

While other witnesses at Mr. Guzmán’s trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn have testified about huge payoffs from traffickers to the Mexican police and public officials, the testimony about Mr. Peña Nieto was the most egregious allegation yet. If true, it suggests that corruption by drug cartels had reached into the highest level of Mexico’s political establishment.

After testifying about the two presidents, Mr. Cifuentes rattled off other bribes that Mr. Guzmán and his allies had paid to Mexican officials. On at least two occasions, he said, the kingpin gave the Mexican military between $10 million and $12 million to launch operations to “either kill or capture” associates of the Beltrán-Leyva brothers during his war with them.

Mr. Cifuentes also said the Mexican federal police not only turned a blind eye to drug trafficking, but occasionally took part in it. Once, he told jurors, traffickers gave the police photographs of several suitcases packed with cocaine that were sent by the cartel on an airplane from Argentina to Mexico. The police picked up the suitcases from the baggage claim, Mr. Cifuentes said, and sold the drugs themselves.

All of this came on Mr. Cifuentes’s exhausting second day as a witness at Mr. Guzmán’s trial. He has already confessed to a staggering array of crimes.

On the stand, Mr. Cifuentes admitted to hatching a failed murder plot with the Hell’s Angels in Canada. He acknowledged buying plastic explosives from the widow of a Honduran drug trafficker. He said he paid a judge in Ecuador $500,000 to throw out the case of an Ecuadorean military officer accused of working with the cartel, adding that he later helped kidnap the officer when it seemed that he was cheating Mr. Guzmán.

There were lurid hints that top Mexican leaders might have been compromised by dirty money from the start of the trial in November. In his opening statement, Mr. Lichtman claimed his client had been framed for years by a conspiracy hatched by his partner, Ismael Zambada García, in league with “crooked” American drug agents and a “completely corrupt” Mexican government, including two of its presidents.

At the time, Mr. Peña Nieto and Mr. Calderón released statements calling the accusations false. The judge in the case, Brian M. 
Cogan, later cautioned Mr. Lichtman against making promises to the jury that the evidence in the case would not support.

Then, as the first week of the trial came to an end, Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers informed Judge Cogan at a sidebar conference that a coming witness, Jesus Zambada García, Ismael Zambada’s brother, would testify, if asked, that Mexican presidents had taken bribes from the Sinaloa drug cartel.

But Judge Cogan forbade the testimony, citing the embarrassment it would cause to unnamed “individuals and entities” who were not directly involved in the case.

On Tuesday, however, Judge Cogan allowed Mr. Cifuentes to testify about what he knew concerning bribes to Mexican presidents with only a few interruptions.

At one point, under questioning by Mr. Lichtman, Mr. Cifuentes acknowledged that his personal assistant, Andrea Velez Fernandez, had worked for a political consultant, J.J. Rendón, who was hired by Mr. Peña Nieto’s presidential campaign. Mr. Cifuentes said Ms. Velez had once sent him photographs of “suitcases filled with cash.”

When Mr. Lichtman asked if the suitcases were “destined for Mr. Peña Nieto,” prosecutors objected on the grounds of relevance.
“Agreed,” Judge Cogan said.

After that, there was no more discussion of the suitcases.

Emily Palmer contributed reporting.

vicente fox of narcomex says “muck america!!! yOU BELONG TO US!


bUT DOES FOX BELONG TO THE LA RAZA HEROIN CARTELS?

"Also, Rubin did not mention the moral responsibility of the child’s father who brought her through the desert in an apparent effort to use the catch-and-release Flores loophole to get past border guards. The loophole was created by Judge Dolly Gee who has ordered border officials to release migrants after 20 days if they bring a child with them."


Mexican Presidents Deny 

They Took Bribes from El 

Chapo


  14 Nov 201898
3:02

Two former Mexican presidents publicly denied taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. The statements came after the legal defense for Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera made contrary claims this week.

The drug lord is facing several money laundering and drug trafficking charges at a federal trial in New York. In his opening statement, defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman spoke of bribes “including the very top, the current president of Mexico and the former.”
Soon after the statements became public, Mexico’s government issued a statement denying the allegations. Eduardo Sanchez, the spokesman for current Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said the statements were false and “defamatory.”

El gobierno de @EPN persiguió, capturó y extraditó al criminal Joaquín Guzmán Loera. Las afirmaciones atribuidas a su abogado son completamente falsas y difamatorias
— Eduardo Sánchez H. (@ESanchezHdz) November 13, 2018
Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon took to social media to personally deny the allegations, claiming that neither El Chapo or the Sinaloa Cartel paid him bribes.

Son absolutamente falsas y temerarias las afirmaciones que se dice realizó el abogado de Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán. Ni él, ni el cártel de Sinaloa ni ningún otro realizó pagos a mi persona.
— Felipe Calderón (@FelipeCalderon) November 13, 2018
Under Guzman’s leadership, the Sinaloa Cartel became the largest drug trafficking organization in the world with influence in every major U.S. city.
The allegations against Pena Nieto are not new. In 2016, Breitbart News reported on an investigation by Mexican journalists which revealed how Juarez Cartel operators funneled money into the 2012 presidential campaign. The investigation was carried out by Mexican award-winning journalist Carmen Aristegui and her team. The subsequent scandal became known as “Monexgate” for the cash cards that were given out during Peña Nieto’s campaign. The allegations against Pena Nieto went largely unreported by U.S. news outlets.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon.  You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.

 

Should We Invade Mexico?

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2018/07/05/should-we-invade-mexico-n2497140?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky2

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com.
  
One fact a lot of Americans forget is that our country is located right up against a socialist failed state that is promising to descend even further into chaos – not California, the other one. And the Mexicans, having reached the bottom of the hole they have dug for themselves, just chose to keep digging by electing a new leftist presidente who wants to surrender to the cartels and who thinks that Mexicans have some sort of hitherto unknown “human right” to sneak into the United States and demographically reconquer it. There’s a Spanish phrase that describes his ideology, and one of the words is toro.

CAN'T AFFORD SKYROCKETING HEALTHCARE COSTS? HERE ARE YOUR OPTIONS: 1.) COMMIT SUICIDE...2.) BECOME AN ILLEGAL AND VOTE DEMOCRAT


American horror story

Elderly husband kills wife, then himself, in desperation over skyrocketing healthcare costs

At 8:23 a.m. on Wednesday morning, 77-year-old Brian S. Jones called the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office near his home north of Seattle, Washington, and told the dispatcher, “I am going to shoot myself.” There was a note, he told dispatchers, which would explain everything. “We will be in the front bedroom,” he said, before hanging up the phone.
This was the final scene in a horror story that exposes the cruelty and criminality of American capitalism.
Shortly after hanging up, Jones took a pistol and aimed it at his 76-year-old wife’s head, firing once and killing her. He then turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger three times.
When police arrived, they surrounded the home and attempted to contact the residents via loudspeaker. After sending a robot-mounted camera into the home, they found their bodies lying side by side.
Patricia Whitney-Jones and Brian Jones
Police found the notes, which explained what had happened. Jones’ wife, Patricia Whitney-Jones, suffered from serious health problems, and the couple could not afford medical care. Jones, an apparent Navy veteran, wrote directions as to how police could contact their next of kin. Police found the couple’s two dogs and turned them over to the Humane Society.
The home was not located in a forgotten, impoverished area but in a semi-rural neighborhood near the Cascade Mountains where homes are valued in the $400,000 range. The bottom 90 percent of people in “the richest country in the world” are living under financial hardship that varies only in terms of degree.
The couple’s next-door neighbor, Sherrie Schulteis, told local news website My Ferndale News:
“This was our dear neighbor and all of us on Timmerman Lane are totally shocked as this man drove by everyday with his dog hanging out the car window. We talked often and knew his wife was very ill with Alzheimer’s. We all wished he would have said something, because we could have helped him and put him in touch with people could help them. Please anyone in this situation, you can call to start looking for help. He never seemed depressed, nor did he speak of anything he was going through. He also would walk his dog often down our tiny dead end street.”
A younger photo of the couple
This was apparently not the first time tragedy had struck the residential road located just a few minutes east of Interstate 5. Schulteis further noted:
“But here is the horribleness of this whole thing, less than 6 months ago our across the street neighbor shot himself, a young man with PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder], cops and SWAT all lined our street then too. He was young—in his 50’s— and this guy and the whole block knew and saw him riding his bike, or walking his tiny dog also. He lived directly across from our house and we talked with him everyday as we were outside a lot. We had no idea his PTSD would kick in and he started believing everyone was someone else and he was going to kill everyone.”
This man, Schulteis explained, was evidently also a military veteran: “The other veteran he lived with called the police and when the man saw the police approaching the house he shot himself. So, in 8 little houses on this road we have had this happen. I do go up and hug strangers after talking with them, I do everything I can, I love our human race, but sometimes we can’t do everything. We check on our neighbors, watch after their houses. I myself I feel so guilty, could I have done more?”
No, Schulteis is not to blame for the horrors corporate America and imperialist war have wrought on her quiet country block. Blame for the unnecessary deaths of Brian Jones and Patricia Whitney-Jones lies squarely at the feet of America’s healthcare profiteers, their bought-for politicians and a capitalist system which guarantees the power of corporations to kill people like the Joneses for profit.
According to the National Institute of Health, the average American over the age of 65 pays $3,000 in out-of-pocket healthcare costs per year, eating up over 40 percent of all social security payments. Studies show this is only expected to worsen. By 2030, 42 percent of Medicare beneficiaries will spend at least 20 percent of their total income on out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
As costs skyrocket, the ruling class complains that elderly people live too long and that their pensions and Medicare payouts cost corporations and governments too much money. One 2019 publication from the International Labor Organization laments:
“Population ageing adds another burden to the sustainability of existing social protection systems. The tax base may erode as the labour force decreases and expenditures for pensions and care services increase. In particular, health-care costs tend to increase when populations grow older since the elderly use more services and require more expensive treatment. For example, in the United States, increasing life expectancy is projected to lead to an increase from 15 to 29 per cent of GDP in health expenditures by 2040. Moreover, provisions for the elderly are expected to increase and be used for longer periods of time, which may overwhelm the pension system in the absence of later retirement ages or increased taxation.”
The moves in ruling circles to force elderly people to die sooner was expressed most bluntly by Ezekiel Emanuel, brother to former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who wrote a 2014 Atlantic article titled “Why I Hope to Die at 75.”
In the article, Emanuel complains that Americans are obsessed with efforts to “cheat death and prolong life as long as possible.” He advocates against what he calls a “manic desperation to endlessly extend life” which unnecessarily costs corporations money. He complains that advanced healthcare has “slowed the dying process.”
Whichever government agency or corporation was responsible for the Joneses health has succeeded in achieving what the for-profit system demands. And that agency or company will mark the couples’ death by removing any payments it owed to cover Patricia’s Alzheimer’s treatment from the expenses section of their balance sheet.
For over a century, Americans have employed the popular phrase “keeping up with the Joneses” to signify the struggle to appear as upwardly mobile as the family next-door. The deaths of Brian Jones and Patricia Whitney-Jones symbolize the harsh reality of capitalism today. For hundreds of millions in the US today, “keeping up with the Joneses” just means staying alive.



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:
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.

Though it is unclear the magnitude of a mass migration of sick foreign nationals that could be spurred by offering free healthcare to illegal aliens in the U.S., Breitbart News has projected that such a plan would cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars

 

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.
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.

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.

"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

 

 

 

Watch: All Democratic Presidential Candidates Say They Would Give Health Insurance to Illegal Aliens


By Craig Bannister | June 27, 2019 | 10:01 PM EDT

The 10 Democrat candidates participating in Thursday night’s presidential debate were unanimous in their response when asked to raise their hands if their government-run health care plan would cover illegal aliens.
Every candidate on stage raised his or her hand when asked:
“A lot of you have been talking about government health care plans you proposed in one form or another. This is a show of hands question and hold them up so people can see. Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants.”
The 10 Democrats participating in Thursday's debate were:
  • Joe Biden,
  • Rep. Eric Swalwell,
  • Sen. Michael Bennet,
  • Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand,
  • Sen. Kamala Harris,
  • Sen. Bernie Sanders,
  • Mayor Pete Buttigieg,
  • Andrew Yang,
  • John Hickenlooper,
  • Marianne Williamson

 

Free Health Care for Illegal Aliens Could Cost American Taxpayers up to $660B a Decade

AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
JOHN BINDER
 28 Jun 20196,634
3:35

Providing free health care for all illegal aliens living in the United States could cost American taxpayers an additional $660 billion every decade in expenses.

This week, half of the 24 Democrats running for their party’s presidential nomination confirmed that their healthcare plans would provide free health care to all illegal aliens at the expense of American taxpayers — including former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).
Center for Immigration Studies Director of Research Steven Camarotta told Breitbart News that only rough estimates are available for what health care for illegal aliens will cost American taxpayers, and though a comprehensive study has yet to be conducted on this specific issue, taxpayers can expect to pay a “significant” amount.
“If we offered Medicaid for illegal immigrants, it is possible the costs could be over tens of billions of dollars,” Camarotta said. “However, it would depend on eligibility criteria as well as how many illegal immigrants actually sign up for program once it was offered. So while the actual costs are uncertain, the size would be significant for taxpayers.”





8


Every 2020 Dem in Second Debate Supports Healthcare for Illegal Aliens




A reasonable estimate of health care for each illegal alien, Camarotta said, is about $3,000 — about half the average $6,600 that it currently costs annually for each Medicaid recipient. This assumes that a number of illegal aliens already have health insurance through employers and are afforded free health care today when they arrive to emergency rooms.
Based on this estimate, should the full 22 million illegal aliens be living in the U.S. that Yale University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have estimated there to be, providing health care for the total illegal population could cost American taxpayers about $66 billion a year.
Over a decade, based on the Yale estimate of the illegal population and assuming all sign up for free health care, this would cost American taxpayers about $660 billion.
Even if there are only 11 million illegal aliens living in the U.S., as the Pew Research Center and other analysts routinely estimate, American taxpayers would still have to pay a yearly bill of $33 billion a year to provide them all with free, subsidized health care.
Should only half of the illegal population get health care, it would cost American taxpayers about $16.5 billion a year — almost the price of what it currently costs taxpayers to provide subsidized health care to illegal aliens.
Today, Americans are forced to subsidize about $18.5 billion worth of yearly medical costs for illegal aliens living in the U.S., according to estimates by Chris Conover, formerly of the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at Duke University.
Nearly every Democrat running for their party’s presidential nomination has endorsed having American taxpayers pay for free health care for illegal aliens. Those who have endorsed the plan include Biden, Sanders, Gillibrand, Buttigieg, and Harris, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), author Marianne Williamson, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), entrepreneur Andrew Yang, and Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO).
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

 

 

California’s $215 Billion Budget Includes Health Care for Illegal Aliens

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
KATHERINE RODRIGUEZ
29 Jun 2019109
1:42

California’s Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a $215 billion budget on Thursday, which includes taxpayer-funded health care for illegal aliens.

Newsom signed the massive $214.8 billion funding bill into law, which includes a provision that would expand health care for people who are illegally in the U.S. and penalizes people who do not purchase health insurance, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The California Democrat had proposed expanding health care for illegal aliens long before he took office.
In an August 2018 interview, Newsom said he would use an executive order to give universal health care to those residing in the U.S. illegally. Once Newsom took office in January, he proposed expanding Medi-Cal, the state version of Medicaid, to illegal aliens up to 26 years old.
The plan sailed through California’s Democrat-controlled legislature, although there were concerns over how much money the state should provide for expanding Medi-Cal for low-income illegal aliens.
Newsom proposed that $98 million in the budget should go to expanding taxpayer-funded health care for illegal aliens between 19 and 25 years old, but one state Assembly bill proposed setting aside $3.4 billion to cover all illegal aliens over 19 years old.
The bill is Newsom’s first budget since he took office in January, largely helped along by a $21.5 billion surplus carrying over from his fellow Democrat, former Gov. Jerry Brown’s, administration.

 

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

KYLE MORRIS
27 Jun 2019408
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.”
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.

 

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

JOHN NOLTE
28 Jun 20198,096
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.

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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.

Expert: Healthcare for Illegal Aliens Would Drive Migration of Foreigners ‘with Serious Health Problems’ to U.S.

John Moore/GettyImages
JOHN BINDER
4 Jul 2019489
3:21

A plan endorsed by nearly every Democrat running for president that would give free taxpayer-funded healthcare to all illegal aliens would drive a migration of “people with serious health problems” to the United States, a health insurance expert tells the New York Times.

As Breitbart News has chronicled, a majority of the 24 Democrats running for their party’s presidential nomination confirmed that their healthcare plans would provide free health care to all illegal aliens at the expense of American taxpayers — including former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Corey Booker (D-NJ).
Health insurance expert Linda Blumberg with the Urban Institute admitted to the Timesthat a single-payer healthcare policy, like Sanders’ plan, which provides free, taxpayer-funded healthcare to illegal aliens, would drive a migration of sick foreign nationals to the U.S.
The Times reported:
But Linda J. Blumberg, a health policy fellow at the Urban Institute, argued that a single- payer system, such as the one proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, could indeed create “strong incentives for people with serious health problems to enter the country or remain longer than their visas allow in order to get government-funded care.” [Emphasis added]
The Times also admitted that should the U.S. provide healthcare to all 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living throughout the country, it would be nearly the only nation in the world to do so.
“If the United States were to begin providing comprehensive health coverage to undocumented immigrants, it would be an outlier, health policy experts say,” the Timesreported. “Even countries with universal, government-run coverage like Norway place tough restrictions on health care for undocumented immigrants. Most immigrants can get emergency care but have to pay other costs.”
Though it is unclear the magnitude of a mass migration of sick foreign nationals that could be spurred by offering free healthcare to illegal aliens in the U.S., Breitbart News has projected that such a plan would cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars every decade.


Free Health Care for Illegal Aliens Could Cost American Taxpayers up to $660B a Decadehttps://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/06/28/free-health-care-for-illegal-aliens-could-cost-american-taxpayers-decade/ 

Free Health Care for Illegals Could Cost Taxpayers Up to $660B a Decade



A reasonable estimate of health care for each illegal alien, Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camarotta told Breitbart News, is about $3,000 — about half the average $6,600 that it currently costs annually for each Medicaid recipient. This assumes that a number of illegal aliens already have health insurance through employers and are afforded free health care today when they arrive at emergency rooms.
Based on this estimate, should the full 22 million illegal aliens be living in the U.S. that Yale University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have estimated there to be, providing health care for the total illegal population could cost American taxpayers about $66 billion a year.
Over a decade, based on the Yale estimate of the illegal population and assuming all sign up for free health care, this would cost American taxpayers about $660 billion.
Today, Americans are forced to subsidize about $18.5 billion worth of yearly medical costs for illegal aliens living in the U.S., according to estimates by Chris Conover, formerly of the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at Duke University.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.



California Gives Green Light to Health Care for Illegal Aliens

Mario Tama/Getty
 10 Jul 2019314
1:34

California is the first state to allow taxpayer-funded health care benefits to go towards people residing in the U.S. illegally.

Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law on Tuesday which would allow low-income adults under the age of 25 to receive state Medicaid benefits through its Medi-Cal program regardless of immigration status.
Officials say the plan should cost taxpayers $98 million to cover 90,000 people, although the state already covers children 18 and younger through the state’s Medicaid plan.
The recently signed law would only cover illegal aliens with an income low enough to qualify for the program.
Newsom had been championing the policy long before he took office, and he and the Democrat-controlled legislature say they want to expand the state’s Medicare coverage to more adults over the next few years.
President Donald Trump and other Republicans balked at the plan.
“It’s crazy what they’re doing. It’s crazy,” Trump said. “And it’s mean, and it’s very unfair to our citizens. And we’re going to stop it, but we may need an election to stop it.”
California state Sen. Jeff Stone (R-Riverside County), also warned back in May of the problems this legislation would cause.
“We are going to be a magnet that is going to further attract people to a state of California that’s willing to write a blank check to anyone that wants to come here,” Stone said. “We are doing a disservice to citizens who legally call California their home.”