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Just a brief eight days prior to the city of Oakland, California reaffirming and broadening their 1986 “City of Refuge” ordinance to include any “undocumented immigrant” (illegal alien) regardless of national origin, the Los Angeles Times published an article that went largely unnoticed about an Alameda County, California Superior Court judge’s ruling that threatens to force the California Department of Water Resources into shutting down the pumping stations siphoning water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and sending it to the state’s Central Valley farms and the 17 million Southern Californians farther down the state.     

Alameda County Judge Frank Roesch has refused to back down on his preliminary March ruling in which he found that the California Department of Water Resources had not obtained the proper state environmental permits to operate the huge pumps siphoning the water stating that the California Department of Water Resource’s operation of the large pumps is not in compliance with the California Endangered Species Act and that they are killing threatened and endangered fish including the endangered native delta smelt, salmon and a variety of sport fish that have been introduced into the California waterways.

California’s water officials have warned that a prolonged shutdown could have a serious economic impact on Southern California which is currently experiencing the driest year on record and, managers for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have stated that a one year shutdown will empty the regions reservoirs, halt groundwater recharge programs and force mandatory water rationing.  Ultimately, an extended shutdown in conjunction with the predicted long-term drought that scientists have said is just starting could leave two out of every three Californians as well as 750,000 acres of Southern California’s farm land without water.    

Ironically, few of California’s Lotus land citizens seem to be capable of making the connection between the state’s uncontrolled population growth, the California legislator’s willingness to welcome the increasing millions of illegal aliens who are primarily responsible for that unchecked population growth and the state’s dwindling supply of water for drinking and irrigation.

When Los Angeles, California implemented Special Order 40 in 1979 prohibiting all city police from becoming involved in immigration matters and effectively making LA one of the first sanctuary cities in the nation for illegal aliens, the population of California was just over 23 million people.  When the city of Oakland jumped on the bandwagon seven years later the population of the state was over 27 million.  San Francisco, unwilling to be out-liberaled by anyone in the state, beamed on board in 1989 when the population was well past 29 million people and by the time National City managed to climb into the trough in 2006, the population of the once-golden state was rapidly approaching 36.5 million.  While the national average growth rate for metropolitan cities runs consistently at 1.1%, California’s annual rate of growth consistently runs at or above 2% and reliable predictions forecast that the population of California will double in the next 28 years to approximately 64 million people by 2035.  At an average rate of consumption, each individual human being in the state of California currently uses 232 gallons of water every day as they go about their daily tasks, bathing, drinking, flushing toilets, brushing their teeth and so on.  Common sense and elementary arithmetic tells us that doubling the population of the state is going to have a distinctly adverse impact on California’s already over-burdened water supply.  

Flying into the Los Angeles or Orange County airports while looking down on the seemingly never ending housing tracts running off into the horizon, the swimming pools, lush green lawns and plentiful shade trees of every size and variety, most people don’t stop to realize that what they are seeing is entirely unnatural.  Southern California is naturally an arid desert region, the average annual rainfall runs between 200 and 500 mm per year and, before the local inhabitants started pumping water into it like there was no tomorrow, the sand and hard-packed clay soil was primarily covered with sagebrush, cactus, scrub oak and mesquite.  As the pre-eminent historian of Southern California, Carey McWilliams, wrote in 1946, “God never intended Southern California to be anything but desert…Man has made it what it is.”

The principal indigenous source of its water supply is the 502.5-square-mile basin of the Los Angeles River. Its tributaries in the San Gabriel, Santa Monica, and Santa Susanna mountains drain their often meager flows into the extensive groundwater reservoirs of the San Fernando Valley.  As anyone that has lived in Los Angeles County for any length of time can tell you, the LA river is an unhealthy looking, mossy green wet spot, approximately twelve feet wide and normally around 10 inches deep.  It runs down a concrete channel created in the 1950′s as a flood control basin.  It would not provide sufficient water for the current population of Southern California for more than about two days and if it were not for the millions of gallons of water being pumped into the region from the Owens River, 250 miles to the north, the water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the Colorado River aqueduct and water taken from Mono Lake 334 miles from Los Angeles, the great Southern California entertainment capital of the world would be choking on dust and all of the lush green lawns would be taken over by sagebrush faster than you could say “What happened.” 

The Golden State of California is poised on the brink of disaster and every new illegal alien they welcome puts a little more weight on the edge of the cliff they’re standing on.  The farming communities between the source of Southern California’s water and the growing population of illegal aliens that need drinking water are facing a growing shortage of water to irrigate their crops.  Without the crops the cities in those areas are losing revenue and the metropolitan areas will face shortages of food.  Eventually it is going to come down to the point where the people of California will have to make a choice between the illegal aliens or drinking water and food.  My guess is, they will pick the illegal aliens.  California never has been a very pragmatic state.

The United States Department of State issued a public announcement on April 19, 2007 warning all American citizens traveling in Mexico against participating in or loitering near areas where political protests are taking place because the political demonstrations in Mexico can escalate into violence unexpectedly.  On October 27, 2006, a U.S. citizen was shot and killed in Oaxaca City as a result of the violence and disorder caused by ongoing civil unrest in the city.  During violent demonstrations or law enforcement operations in Mexico, U.S. citizens are reminded to remain in their homes or hotels, avoid large crowds, and avoid the downtown and surrounding areas.  The State Department reminds U.S. citizens to avoid participating in demonstrations and other activities that might be deemed political by Mexican authorities.  The Mexican Constitution prohibits political activities by foreigners, and such actions may result in detention and/or deportation.

Personally, I find it somewhat refreshing to discover that Mexico, at least in this respect, still retains the common sense that the United States has obviously lost when it comes to foreign demonstrators and protestors running rampant throughout the country.  Not only do we not bother to detain or deport protesting foreigners, we’ve spent the better part of two years discussing how best to reward them with free medical care, college tuition and amnesty for the numerous crimes they have committed in our country.  If the politicians in Washington weren’t so committed to the cause of destroying America we would probably have a few common sense laws like this.

The New York Time & the Associated Press Online carried a news item this morning in which the beleaguered U.S. Border Patrol chief, David Aguilar stated, that their proposed virtual wall would give the Border Patrol the ability to “identify, detect and classify more than 95 percent of illegal entries.”

While Aguilar further stated that the detention of illegal aliens along the U.S.-Mexico border already have dropped by 30 percent from October 2006 to this week and that along a 210-mile stretch in west Texas, detentions have dropped 65 percent.  While he claims that this is the result of the federal government’s increased enforcement most American citizens are now aware from a long history of less than accurate claims made by the federal government in this regard, that a lack of detentions is not verifiable proof of a reduction in illegal entries and even one arrest would indicate an increase in enforcement over nothing which, is exactly what we have had in the past.  While a few of the more gullible citizens in this country might incline to be impressed with the deployment of technological developments that allow Border Patrol agents the ability to “identify, detect and classify more than 95 percent of illegal entries,” the remainder of this country will only be impressed by a system that allows the Border Patrol to actually capture 100% of all illegal entries or, better yet, a barrier that precludes all illegal entry in the first place.

The high-tech, state of the art equipment necessary to do what David Aguilar claims is very expensive.  Furthermore, since the customer buying that equipment is the U.S. Government, that equipment is ten times the price it would be for anyone else.  Installing, networking, routing and maintaining this sort of equipment over thousands of miles of harsh desert environment creates numerous problems that haven’t yet been identified, let alone, resolved.  Analysts, technicians and operators will have to be hired and trained and eventually the entire system will have to interface with the agents that are required to scurry around the desert rounding up the illegal aliens picked up by the sensors and cameras.

At this point in time David Aguilar’s virtual wall is limited to one 28 mile stretch of Arizona that is to be completed in June if everything goes perfectly according to plan.  By next year this virtual wall technology might be extended into New Mexico and parts of Texas but, there is no assurance by anyone that this will actually happen.

 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Mexico-US-Virtual-Wall.html

The Washington Times reported today that U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham says a ‘no-confidence’ vote against Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar by leaders of the agency’s rank and file is ‘derisive, detrimental and blatantly unfair’ and wants to meet with union leaders to tell them the chief is the right man for the job.
 

I would like to know where Commissioner W. Ralph Basham spends his working hours.  Is he sweating his butt off in the Arizona desert hunting for illegal aliens or is he sitting in a plush Washington D.C. air-conditioned office far removed from the work that the Border Patrol Agents are doing?  When is the last time Commissioner W. Ralph Basham had an illegal alien take a shot at him?  When is the last time he rolled through the sagebrush trying to collar an illegal alien by himself?  For that matter, when is the last time that Commissioner W. Ralph Basham ever actually did anything other than tell his subordinates what to do and attend meetings?  He probably doesn’t have the foggiest idea what conditions these Border Patrol Agents are actually working under but he’s going to tell them that they’re wrong in their assessment?  They are on the front line, he isn’t, so how in the name of reason can he make this determination?   Even more so, why does he believe that anyone would even care what he has to say on the matter?

The gaggle of Democratic contenders stumbling over themselves in Thursday night’s debate was entertaining despite being somewhat less than informative.  There were a few instances of cheap shots being taken when one candidate applied the verbal cattle-prod to another but, for the most part the debating candidates unloaded a veritable cornucopia of hollow and very meaningless promises while trying to out-perform one another with the sort of nauseating smarmy political correctness that only liberals are capable of.  Ironically enough, in light of the fact that no opposing viewpoints were presented or allowed, the entire escapade was more like a liberal gripe-fest than anything remotely resembling an actual debate.  The time spent viewing the debate could have been put to more productive ends even if one sat in the corner bashing themselves in head with a hammer, however, it did provide the Democratic contenders with the opportunity to show a united front as they all joined in for a mutually supported gangbang of George W. Bush and the War in Iraq.

None of the contenders went to the extremes that Harry Reid has recently gone to, however, their continued resolve that the Iraq war is somehow separate from the war on terrorism remains unwavering regardless of the American military’s ability to capture and kill more al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq than anywhere else in the last three or four years.  Furthermore, how the United States can pursue the war on terror by leaving the country that contains one of the largest concentrations of terrorists anywhere has yet to be explained by any of these less than shrewd Democratic strategists.  If, by some exceedingly cruel twist of fate, the next U.S. President and Commander in Chief was hiding in and amongst these bloviating grandstanders then, may God have mercy on us all for we are surely doomed.

This week the leaders of the National Border Patrol Council made public a unanimous vote of no-confidence in Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar, the entire Border Patrol administration and their policies as well as Michael Chertoff of the Department of Homeland Security and President George W. Bush for implementing policies and maintaining philosophies that are counter-productive to the men and women of the Border Patrol whose lives are being put on the line to secure our nation’s borders. Their statement implies that Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar is bending over for the Bush administration’s desire for amnesty and guest worker programs instead of showing the integrity necessary for doing what is right for the nation, furthermore, they are accusing him of insufficiently defending the agents that have been prosecuted by the federal government in response to demands made by Mexico. Last year 4% of the Border Patrol agents quit their jobs; this year that number has increased to 12%. Representative Steve King of Iowa, the top Republican on the House immigration subcommittee has been quoted as saying, “When they see that aggressive kind of prosecution against law enforcement officers, I think we run the risk of a Border Patrol officer being killed in the line of duty because he hesitates to pull his service revolver or hesitates to take action,” furthermore, King stated, “the Border Patrol has been permanently damaged.”

Michael Chertoff, in a typically idiotic news release stated that he is monitoring the force to make sure there is no “chilling effect” that would inhibit agents from defending themselves.

As our nation’s gaggle of professional politicians gets closer to ramming home legislation that will give amnesty to the 30 million illegal aliens and create a guest worker program to allow another 30 million to enter our country, an increasing number of state legislators are beginning to realize that there is no provision in any of the new bills to assist them with the sudden burden they are about to experience. Not only that but the Immigration authorities have said that they do not have the manpower, the money or the resources to handle the number of expected requests for amnesty and many fear that this so-called “Comprehensive Reform” will result in nothing more than comprehensive fraud, forcing immigration workers to forego quality to increase quantity and, that millions of illegal aliens under assumed identities, including some with ties to terrorist groups will take advantage of the impending breakdown to become legal citizens as many of the 9-11 hijackers did.

These is plenty to be suspicious about when it comes to the labor union demands for eliminating the Democratic process when seeking to certify a union.  The legislation further erodes the worker’s right to associate or not associate with whom they choose and can only result in more workers getting ripped off by big labor’s thugs who already contribute as much as 85% of every dues dollar taken to the Democratic Party when nearly 30% of their members wouldn’t vote for a Democrat on a bet.  If they are so concerned about giving the workers the ability to make a free choice then they should allow them the choice of paying dues or not paying dues to a group that is dedicated more to a lack of productivity than one advocating the rights of the workers they purport to represent.

In a victory for employee free choice, workers have forced Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 49 to abandon the coercive “card check” union organizing process in Oregon and Washington for six months because of repeated and widespread abuses by SEIU officials.
The settlement stems from federal unfair labor practice charges filed by Ryan Canney, a Portland-area Siltronics employee, and removes the unwanted union from his workplace Somers Building Maintenance –Siltronic (SBM). It also requires SEIU union officials to inform workers that the company will not bargain with union officials unless the employees so choose through a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) secret ballot election. The settlement also forbids Siltronics from recognizing a union based on a card check count for at least one year.
In October 2006, SEIU Local 49 union officials tricked Canney and his coworkers into signing “information flyers” that were later counted as votes favoring unionization. Soon after, SBM recognized the SEIU union as the exclusive bargaining agent despite the fact that a majority of SBM employees signed two separate petitions to the NLRB – one prior to the SEIU union’s recognition and one after – stating their wish to remain nonunion. Canney also charged that Siltronics overlooked out of date cards, promised benefits, and otherwise deceived and coerced employees into supporting unionization.

Mike Ivey, a Materials Handler for the Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation in Gaffney, South Carolina, has complained of pressure from the United Auto Workers. He pointed to conscious misrepresentations by union organizers saying that, “Employees are told at off-site meetings that signing a card only certifies that they attended a meeting” and are offered t-shirts for signing, without being told “that these cards are a legally binding document.” Unwilling workers are called and visited at home multiple times. Ivey complained, “In the work place, the employees running the organizing campaign for the UAW are relentless in trying to get the employees to sign union cards. This has created a hostile work environment,” a situation which, if caused by the employer, would result in a lawsuit.

Karen M. Mayhew, an employee of Kaiser Permanente in Portland, Oregon, tells of similar fraud and abuse, through which she and her fellow workers were able to get the union decertified because of its misbehavior. The cards, said labor organizers, merely indicated interest in receiving more information. She adds: “Throughout this whole ordeal, my colleagues and I were subjected to badgering and immense peer pressure.”

Secret ballot elections limit the opportunities for abuse.  This is the primary reason why organized labor insists on elections before a union can be decertified. In a 1998 case the AFL-CIO and two individual unions cited the U.S. Supreme Court in asserting “that a representation election is a solemn occasion, conducted under safeguards to voluntary choice.” Furthermore, the unions added, the “representation election system provides the surest means of avoiding decisions which are “the result of group pressures and not individual decision.”  If its good for a decertification election then why is it a problem for certifications?  The fact of the matter is that labor unions attempt to undermine “individual decision” through “group pressures,” and Labor activists regularly intimidate workers into signing cards and supporting unionization; whether those workers willingly buy into becoming union members or are forced into it by union thugs threatening to mash their heads is not something they are overly concerned about.  After all, the NLRB determined in a 1996 case that “threats of violence, even when made in the course of card solicitation, cannot be construed by any reasonable person as representing purported union policies.”  With a license like that, who could resist a little arm twisting and leg breaking to further the aims of their union brothers?

Ultimately the reason organized labor desires card check recognition over Democratic elections is that it is a lot easier to browbeat 50 percent plus one of the employees to publicly sign a card than to get the same number to vote for the union in a secret ballot.  The union’s chances of getting caught fooling workers into thinking that the signup cards have no legal effect, or telling workers that signing the card is a lot better than getting their ass kicked repeatedly by union thugs is not that great and there is a good chance that even if they are caught there will be no consequence to suffer.  Realistically, however, the elimination of the Democratic election is nothing more than an unethical payoff to labor by corrupt Democratic politicians whose campaign chests were filled with the union dues of unwilling members and American workers would be better served with the elections instead of allowing them to be preyed upon by unscrupulous union leaders who have to resort to bribery to get politicians to enact legislation in their favor that would never be allowed if it came to a vote by the people.

Former governor and Republican Presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee was quoted in the Arkansas News as saying that illegal immigration is an important issue in the Republican presidential primary, but it is not the only issue.  He views the really big issues as being the traditional Republican ones such as pro-life, pro-family, lower taxes and strong support of the Second Amendment.  Admittedly, Mike Huckabee’s right about illegal immigration not being the only issue for the Republican primary but the last time I looked, this country was not being invaded by thirty million abortion doctors threatening to destroy the social fabric of our country and try as they might, the politicians haven’t figured out a good way to legislate stronger family bonds while prohibiting all forms of religious expression in public (these two goals seem to work against each other).  Furthermore, I checked the news tonight and gun rights aren’t being attacked any more than normal.  The way I see it, other than illegal aliens, the only other real pressing issue at hand is the war in Iraq which Mr. Huckabee failed to mention.  All things considered, maybe it slipped his mind or, he could have been having an off day but, I get the sense that he may be trying to minimize the illegal alien issue and for many Americans, it is the single most important issue in decades. 

Higher taxes threaten to throttle the life out of many American middle class workers, on top of federal income taxes you get state income taxes, property taxes, an assortment of energy taxes, liquor taxes, cigarette taxes, death taxes, entertainment taxes, sales taxes, inheritance taxes, licensing fees, permitting costs, filing fees and so on.  However, while taxes are undeniably a big problem for those barely making end meet as it is, the agents of the Internal Revenue Service are not flooding into our neighborhoods by the millions and taking over, they don’t drive down the street playing IRS music with full-bore bass pumped through speakers the size of microwave ovens and rattling the caulking out out of our windows.  They don’t party down at the end of the street until three o’clock on a Wednesday morning when everybody else has to go to work.  99.9% of them speak English the same as everybody else. They don’t drive their cars recklessly and take off after sideswiping someone because they have no insurance.  The majority of them are not belligerent gang members carrying guns and willing to shoot you for looking at them with less respect than they feel they are due.  They didn’t violate U.S. immigration laws to get here.  They don’t steal your identity and, even though they might screw you up financially, they usually leave you enough to live on so you can keep paying them and, they aren’t selling drugs to your teenagers in front of the local high school. 

Even though taxes and the IRS are a problem, it is a problem that we associate with the high cost of electing morons to political office, a characteristic many American citizens seem to admire in politicians, so we are obviously inclined to make the best of the situation regardless of the pain it brings us and, as problems go, higher taxes is a problem we have brought on ourselves.  Politically speaking, while it may be an issue, it is not much of one because, as most realistic American well understand, taxes go up, not down and, despite the well-sounding promises of politicians, really significant tax decreases just aren’t in the cards and we all know it. 

On the other hand, illegal immigration is a problem that is ripping this country apart and solutions do exist regardless of what we are being told and, the most credible of those solutions do not include amnesty, guest worker programs, increased immigration or open borders.  Without the implementation of legislation that gives more benefit to the illegal aliens than the citizens of this nation ever had, we could begin to enforce the immigration laws that already exist; that would be a step in the right direction.  We could enact harsher penalties for companies that encourage illegal immigration by hiring the illegal aliens and thereby eliminate the economic incentive that beings them here.  We could elect to finish the fence in a manner that was both expedient and cheap by allowing local companies to bid for sections of construction all along the border and allowing them all to work simultaneously so the work was done quickly and within a defined deadline.  We could refine our current immigration standards so that only individuals with a demonstrated skill or a proven ability required for gainful employment would be allowed entry.  We could allow local police to inquire about a prisoner’s legal immigration status.  We could even encourage the IRS and the Social Security Administration to share their information with the Immigration authorities in order to reduce identity theft and fraud.  These ideas have a ton of potential when it comes to reducing and/or eliminating the illegal alien problem, unfortunately, few, if any, are being discussed for possible inclusion in the “viable” solutions now being discussed and most of us just can’t figure out why this is. 

How are we going to solve the problem by drowning the immigration authorities in amnesty applications?  How are we solving the problem by giving away free college educations to illegal aliens?  How are we solving the problem by reducing the number of identity documents needed to defraud the social services and welfare departments?  How are we solving the problem by giving away free health care to illegal aliens?  How are we solving the problem by forgiving nearly thirty million illegal aliens for violating our immigration laws, for evading income taxes and stealing the identities of legal citizens?  How are we solving the problem by allowing the extended families of amnesty recipients to enter the country at the head of the line when so many others have patiently waited for years?  How are we solving the problem by not enforcing the laws, by ripping down a fence that we just started building and by pushing American citizens out of the large metropolitan cities so that illegal aliens can move in? 

Illegal aliens may not be the only issue for the 2008 Presidential election but, there is no other problem facing American citizens that threatens more to destroy our future health and chances of prosperity so completely.  Besides, if we took care of the illegal alien situation properly, we would be well on the way to reducing the growing deficit by reducing the billions of dollars in American tax money now being wasted on these foreign invaders every year and, since illegal aliens become pregnant without benefit of marriage at a higher rate than American citizens, it might even reduce the number of abortions and, less illegal alien gang bangers would mean less gun related crime.  Sort of seems like we could solve quite a few issues by deporting the illegal aliens from our society and stopping them from returning in the future.
   

WASHINGTON —  The ranking Republican in the House Armed Services Committee called on House Majority Leader Harry Reid to resign Wednesday over his declaration that the Iraq war is “lost.”

Rep. Duncan Hunter — a 2008 presidential candidate — wrote in a letter that Reid’s comments “can have no effect but to demoralize the brave men and women, who are honorably fulfilling their mission in Iraq, and to encourage our adversaries.”

“Even if you sincerely believe it to be true, your pronouncement of failure will undoubtedly be used by terrorist leaders to rally their followers — inevitably leading to increased attacks on U.S. and coalition forces,” Hunter wrote.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,268563,00.html

With the 20008 Election season closing in the Republicans are still all over the road when it comes to immigration issues and amnesty.  The White House and some GOP allies now say they are willing to lower the steep fines and shorten the waits the nation’s roughly 12 million illegal immigrants would face if they sought legal status as the U.S. Senate now tries to close the remaining gap on an immigration deal that will greatly benefit the nearly 30 million illegal aliens now in this country, kick out the stops to the next 30 million that are already heading this way and leave the citizens of the United States completely out of the loop by ignoring what they have demanded of their elected leaders and sticking them with the huge tax increases that will be required to pave the way for all of these unskilled and illiterate laborers, their wives, children, aunts, uncles and grandparents, the majority of whom will likely end up needing financial assistance from various state and federal agencies because they are essentially unemployable.

In the meantime, attempts by private citizens to pin down the GOP Presidential Candidates on their positions regarding immigration and amnesty are not going very far.  The top three contenders, all of whom have expressed support for amnesty in some form or another, are now suddenly reluctant to speak on anything other than border enforcement.  The obvious reason for this has more to do with who is filling their campaign coffers than what is right for the Nation.  The top contenders can’t deny the demands from their big contributors in business but, on the other hand, they don’t want to alienate their potential voters by telling them that, if elected, they will work to ensure that amnesty is given to every push mower operator who manages to sneak across the border.

At this point in time, the only GOP candidates that have publicly demonstrated the huevos to directly and consistently speak out against amnesty for illegal aliens is the Colorado congressman, Tom Tancredo and California’s Duncan Hunter who has promised that he would finish the border fence in six months if elected to office.  While both of these gentlemen are still considered long shots for the 2008 race, the Republicans should be listening and wondering if they think that they can successfully win the Presidency with any of the top three contenders who are obviously so full of hot air and hollow promises that they’re starting to make Hillary look appealing.  Maybe this would be a good time for the Republican Party to try a completely new track by choosing honesty, integrity and good old law enforcement over the same old meaningless BS and political graft that lost them the control of Congress in 2006.