The Reality of Immigration and the United States

When Grijalva and Progressives talk about amnesty and open borders, they are not thinking about the future. Here are the facts about the future if immigration stays where it is at:

Georgia Student Sues Over "Remediation" for Gay and Lesbian Issues

Jennifer Keeton just wants to be a school counselor. She also wants to hold on to her Christian beliefs. Those two things should not be inconsistent, at least not unless your on the board of Augustana University's School Counseling Master's Program.
Keeton is suing the college for requiring her to refute her religious beliefs before being allowed to graduate from its school counseling program. In an unprecedented move, school officials have informed her that she'll be dismissed from the program unless she alters her "central religious beliefs on human nature and conduct."
The controversy revolves around a statement in American School Counseling Association ethics code, referring to diversity:

The professional school counselor:
a. Affirms the diversity of students, staff and families.
b. Expands and develops awareness of his/her own attitudes and beliefs affecting cultural values and biases and strives to attain cultural competence.
c. Possesses knowledge and understanding about how oppression, racism, discrimination and stereotyping affects her/him personally and professionally.
d. Acquires educational, consultation and training experiences to improve awareness, knowledge, skills and effectiveness in working with diverse populations: ethnic/racial status, age, economic status, special needs, ESL or ELL, immigration status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity/expression, family type, religious/spiritual identity and appearance.

 Unfortunately, in the Intellectual circles of many counselor education programs, "improving awareness, knowledge, skills and effectiveness" is interpreted as wholesale acceptance of client values and orientation, a ridiculous leap of logic at best. What counseling education program would require its students to accept a clients' religious beliefs, no matter how different from their own? The code expects a counselor will be aware of their own attitudes and how these might impact a client, not completely throw them out the window in exchange for a "professional view" of diversity.
But that is exactly what goes on in counseling programs around the country. Progressive intellectuals at Universities interpret Christian students beliefs  "as indicative of... improper professional disposition to persons of such populations (gays and lesbians)," despite the growing research that supports the  (according to the University) "view that homosexuality is a 'lifestyle,' not a 'state of being.'"


Two points on this case:
1. The college is way out of line in their view of the codes of ethics here. According to the codes, counselors are not required to give up their personal beliefs in order to help others, just to be aware of the possible affects of those views on clients.
2. The arrogance illustrated here by the college professors is profound. To claim that they are able to determine a potential bias based on, "disagreement in several class discussions and in written assignments with the gay and lesbian 'lifestyle,'" as well as Keeton's belief that those "lifestyles" are cases of identity confusion." Furthermore, to create a "remediation" plan that will change a student's "fixed binary male-female gender, with one or the other being fixed in each person at their creation, and not a social construct or individual choice subject to alteration by the person so created," is hypocritical for "professionals" in counseling to propose.

This is what Progressives do: Assert that their view is the only acceptable one, Inform that "education" will make everyone agree with them, and label you ignorant and racist if you refuse to agree.
Take immigration. Despite logic that says our borders need to be secure, Progressives assert that illegals should be allowed to enter and mingle freely. They hold summits to "educate" and cite University "studies" that support this view (and run counter tho law enforcement statistics). then when laws are passed that make sense and are likely to help in solving the problem, they label it's authors racist and call the majority who support it "ignorant."
And the next step for these "enlightened intellectuals" when they don't get their way? Do they further educate? Do they debate the facts? do they try to enlighten the population? No. They take to the streets and fight the police. They boycott innocent business people. They bus in outsiders who share their views to make themselves appear "overwhelming," a "grass roots movement." And people will watch and say, "look how passionate they are. They must be right." They are not. They are merely arrogant and stubborn.

Eric Hoffer on the Intellectuals

 In the 1950s and 1960s a self-educated longshoreman from California began his commentary on American society and change. He had a lot to say about the intellectuals (Progressives as they call themselves today) that were rapidly becoming influential in his time. Here are a few quotes and predictions from Hoffer:

 The fact is that up to now the free society has not been good for the intellectual. It has neither accorded him a superior status to sustain his confidence nor made it easy for him to acquire an unquestioned sense of social usefulness. For he derives his sense of usefulness mainly from directing, instructing, and planning-from minding other people's business-and is bound to feel superfluous and neglected where people believe themselves competent to manage individual and communal affairs, and are impatient of supervision and regulation. A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.

The intellectual craves a social order in which uncommon people perform uncommon tasks every day. He wants a society throbbing with dedication, reverence, and worship. He sees it as scandalous that the discoveries of science and the feats of heroes should have as their denouement the comfort and affluence of common folk. A social order run by and for the people is to him a mindless organism motivated by sheer physiologism.

The Ordeal of Change, Chapter 12 'Concerning Individual Freedom'

The ratio between supervisory and producing personnel is always highest where the intellectuals are in power. In a Communist country it takes half the population to supervise the other half.

The Temper of Our Time (1967) p. 70

The attitude of the intellectual community toward America is shaped not by the creative few but by the many who for one reason or another cannot transmute their dissatisfaction into a creative impulse, and cannot acquire a sense of uniqueness and of growth by developing and expressing their capacities and talents. There is nothing in contemporary America that can cure or alleviate their chronic frustration. They want power, lordship, and opportunities for imposing action. Even if we should banish poverty from the land, lift up the Negro to true equality, withdraw from Vietnam (Afghanistan or Iraq), and give half of the national income as foreign aid, they will still see America as an air-conditioned nightmare unfit for them to live in.

The Temper of Our Time, Chapter VI “Some Thoughts on the Present” (1966)

Republican Candidates Debate Issues

The four Republican candidates for district 7 debated the issues Friday. If you didn't catch it, here's the video. The number of candidates shows the vulnerability of Grijalva this year:

Watch the full episode. See more Arizona Illustrated.

What If Our Elected Representatives Were as Smart as Dogs?

What would happen if we elected our dogs to replace politicians? Here's some ideas:


They MIGHT Listen to instructions:


 They Might WANT to spend time with us:


They Might REMEMBER who pays their salary:

Just a thought.

Arizona's progressives: A Who's Who of the Opposition to SB1070

Who are the Progressives in Arizona who are fighting against SB1070? Let's start with three of the most influential:

Alfredo Gutierrez is probably the smartest political mind in the Arizona Progressive cadre. Gutierrez, a paid political consultant and former Arizona congressman, organizes for Somos America a radical immigration rights group. Guiterrez is a close associate of Grijalva and claims that groups have plans for civil disobedience and disruption of law enforcement when SB 1070 is implemented.

Sandra Castro, an transplanted college student from LA and regional leader of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), has an ongoing vendetta against Sheriff Joe Arpiao and his efforts to enforce Arizona laws in Maricopa County. Having lived in Arizona less than two years, she has organized some of the largest hate rallies in opposition to border and immigration enforcement and forced baseless lawsuits against Arpiao. Castro is organizing to bring thousands of protesters from across the country to boycott SB 1070 and she promises to lead larger and larger protests until SB1070 is repealed and Arpiao resigns.

Phil Reller, of the Center for Progressive Leaders, Arizona, characterizes the ignorance and folly of Liberation Theology and the Progressive movement. Another newcomer to Arizona, Reller, former pastor of Rincon United Church of Christ in Tucson, seeks to involve liberal and mainline churches in the fight against SB1070. It is no coincident that Reller is a big supporter and organizer in Grijalva's "grassroots" organization among liberals in Tucson and Phoenix.

"I believe that Arizona is currently moving into a unique opportunity to move from regressive and inhumane systems (where people earn profits) - from health care for the mentally ill to immigration needs, from corporate vs. workers' rights to water usage - and progressive organizing and action (protests and extortionist boycotts) can make ours a healthier state."

- Philip Reller, 2007 Arizona Political Leaders Fellow

These are the movers and shakers against SB1070. all are directly a part of Arizona's Progressive Movement. They are full time workers, highly trained, with almost limitless funding. But they do not represent a majority of Americans. That is their weakness. They want you to believe that their education and training is better than your common sense. They will try and make their numbers seem larger than they actually are and they will not stop until you stop their funding from federal grants and social programs and vote their patrons in Congress out of office. Start with Grijalva.

Bill Ayers: Weatherman and the Progressive Manifesto

According to Ayers and the 60s radicals that now control our government, the primary question is one of ending the role of the US as an "oppressor nation" and redistributing it's wealth to those we have "exploited" over the years:

So the very first question people in this country must ask in
considering the question of revolution is where they stand in
relation to the United States as an oppressor nation, and 
where they stand in relation to the masses of people throughout 
the world whom US imperialism is oppressing.
The primary task of revolutionary struggle is to solve this principal
contradiction on the side of the people of the world . It is the
oppressed peoples of the world who have created the wealth of this
empire and it is to them that it belongs ; the goal of the revolutionary
struggle must be the control and use of this wealth in the interests of
the oppressed peoples of the world.

Thus, when Mrs. Obama claims that for the first time she is "proud of being an American," it has little to do with race, but with the view of the United States as an "oppressor nation." When Raul Grijalva calls Border Patrol agents and police officers "Racist" it has less to do with honoring the Constitution than with identifying the "strawman" or in the words of Ayers, the "pigs" who represent the Oppressors of people worldwide, the unenlightened capitalists who must be overcome for the socialist revolution to continue:

A major focus in our neighborhood and citywide work is the pigs,
they tie together the various struggles around the State as the enemy,
and thus point to the need for a Movement oriented toward power to
defeat it.
The pigs are the capitalist state, and as such define the limits of all
political struggles; to the extent that a revolutionary struggle shows
signs of success, they come in and mark the point it can't go beyond.
In the early stages of struggle, the ruling class lets parents come down
high school kids, or jocks attack college chapters. When the struggle
escalates the pigs come in; at Columbia, the left was afraid its
struggle would be co-opted to anti-police brutality, cops off campus,
and said pigs weren ' t the issue. But pigs really are the issue and
people will understand this, one way or another. They can have a
liberal understanding that pigs are sweaty working-class barbarians who
over-react and commit "police brutality" ...Or they can understand pigs as

the repressive imperialist State doing its job. Our job is not to avoid the issue of the pigs as "diverting" from anti- imperialist struggle, but to emphasize that they are our real
enemy if we fight that struggle to win.

To the radical elite, America IS the enemy, they have fashioned it in their minds since their radical youth years, whether at Woodstock or La Raza protest rallies.  This is why they will NEVER admit that the Bush administration accomplished anything: Bush was THE MAN, his administration, border policies, and militaristic "expansion" similar enough to Vietnam to label them "Pigs." In the minds of the elitists in the administration, everyone will rally to their cause because they fight for the oppressed (even if they themselves are now the oppressors):

The masses will fight for socialism when they understand that reform
fights, fights for improvement of material conditions, cannot be won
under imperialism. With this understanding, revolutionaries should
put forth a line which fosters the illusion that imperialism will grant
significant reforms. We must engage in struggles forthrightly as
revolutionaries, so that it will be clear to anyone we help to win
gains that the revolution rather than imperialism is responsible for them.
This is one of the strengths of the Black Panther Party Breakfast for
Children Program. It is "socialism in practice" by revolutionaries with
the "practice" of armed self-defense and a "line" which stresses the
necessity of overthrowing imperialism and seizing state power. Probably
the American Friends Service Committee serves more children breakfast,
but it is the symbolic value of the program in demonstrating what
socialism will do for people which makes the Black Panther Program
worthwhile.

 So, it doesn't matter that capitalism (imperialism) feeds more, houses more, helps more people, or that the Black Panthers intimidate and oppress. It only matters that "symbols show" how socialism works. Again symbolism over substance, power over freedom. They will force socialism on us for our own good. Viva La Raza! 
Bill Ayers titles his manifesto: You Don't Need A Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows, quoting a Bob Dillon song from the same year. Well the winds have changed. Dems who put in their lot with these "Change Agents" are now swimming against a current of anger and resentment. Twenty three years later Bob Dillon wrote another song which probably applies to this bunch:
Gotta Serve Somebody.

Thomas Sowell on Why Washington Intellectuals Don't Get It

When listening to Obama administration officials, their intellectuals, and the elected officials who listen to them, I sometimes feel like I am listening to people who reside on another planet. Part of the reason for that, I have come to believe, is that these people are enamored by the "experts," college professors and think tank mouthpieces that feed policy initiatives to them. Unable to think for themselves, they listen to and depend upon policy experts to make their decisions. Thomas Sowell, in his book, Intellectuals and Society, explains the role these intellectuals have played in creating disastrous policy in American history:





Sowell explains why Raul Grijalva and Barak Obama are convinced that extending unemployment benefits and increasing taxes will somehow help "stimulate" the economy. It also explains why Grijalva's largest donor is the University of Arizona faculty organization. They are applauding the Failed stimulus, the failed bank reform, Obamacare, and Cap and Trade, despite the fact that these initiatives, together will bankrupt our nation. I have something to say to our elected and soon to be elected representatives in Washington: Stop listening to these morons!

the Washington Elite and You: They Don't Get It

Have you ever wondered why Washington insiders continue their spending spree, despite poll numbers that are completely against them? Angelo M. Codevilla of the American Spectator has published an amazing analysis of Washington's "elite," The upper crust of East coast liberals and the politicians who want to be like them. Here are some excerpts from the article. You'll want to read it in it's entirety here.
In the article, he describes how the "elite" was formed:

Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the "in" language -- serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.

Who are the elite?:

Professional prominence or position will not secure a place in the class any more than mere money. In fact, it is possible to be an official of a major corporation or a member of the U.S. Supreme Court (just ask Justice Clarence Thomas), or even president (Ronald Reagan), and not be taken seriously by the ruling class. Like a fraternity, this class requires above all comity -- being in with the right people, giving the required signs that one is on the right side, and joining in despising the Outs. Once an official or professional shows that he shares the manners, the tastes, the interests of the class, gives lip service to its ideals and shibboleths, and is willing to accommodate the interests of its senior members, he can move profitably among our establishment's parts.  

Agenda?:

Our ruling class's agenda is power for itself. While it stakes its claim through intellectual-moral pretense, it holds power by one of the oldest and most prosaic of means: patronage and promises thereof. Like left-wing parties always and everywhere, it is a "machine," that is, based on providing tangible rewards to its members. Such parties often provide rank-and-file activists with modest livelihoods and enhance mightily the upper levels' wealth. Because this is so, whatever else such parties might accomplish, they must feed the machine by transferring money or jobs or privileges -- civic as well as economic -- to the party's clients, directly or indirectly. This, incidentally, is close to Aristotle's view of democracy. Hence our ruling class's standard approach to any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government -- meaning of those who run it, meaning themselves, to profit those who pay with political support for privileged jobs, contracts, etc. Hence more power for the ruling class has been our ruling class's solution not just for economic downturns and social ills but also for hurricanes and tornadoes, global cooling and global warming.

By taxing and parceling out more than a third of what Americans produce, through regulations that reach deep into American life, our ruling class is making itself the arbiter of wealth and poverty. While the economic value of anything depends on sellers and buyers agreeing on that value as civil equals in the absence of force, modern government is about nothing if not tampering with civil equality. By endowing some in society with power to force others to sell cheaper than they would, and forcing others yet to buy at higher prices -- even to buy in the first place -- modern government makes valuable some things that are not, and devalues others that are. Thus if you are not among the favored guests at the table where officials make detailed lists of who is to receive what at whose expense, you are on the menu. Eventually, pretending forcibly that valueless things have value dilutes the currency's value for all.

Superiority over the rest of society:

While the unenlightened ones believe that man is created in the image and likeness of God and that we are subject to His and to His nature's laws, the enlightened ones know that we are products of evolution, driven by chance, the environment, and the will to primacy. While the un-enlightened are stuck with the antiquated notion that ordinary human minds can reach objective judgments about good and evil, better and worse through reason, the enlightened ones know that all such judgments are subjective and that ordinary people can no more be trusted with reason than they can with guns. Because ordinary people will pervert reason with ideology, religion, or interest, science is "science" only in the "right" hands. Consensus among the right people is the only standard of truth. Facts and logic matter only insofar as proper authority acknowledges them. 

Why they don't care about the facts:

That is why the ruling class is united and adamant about nothing so much as its right to pronounce definitive, "scientific" judgment on whatever it chooses. When the government declares, and its associated press echoes that "scientists say" this or that, ordinary people -- or for that matter scientists who "don't say," or are not part of the ruling class -- lose any right to see the information that went into what "scientists say."

Angelo M. Codevilla, a professor of international relations at Boston University, a fellow of the Claremont Institute, and a senior editor of The American Spectator, was a Foreign Service officer and served on the staff of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee between 1977 and 1985. He was the principal author of the 1980 presidential transition report on intelligence. He is the author of The Character of Nations: How Politics Makes and Breaks Prosperity, Family, and Civility.

Calls to End Boycott Ignored by Grijalva

Since his call for a boycott of Arizona tourism in April over SB 1070, Grijalva's call has been bolstered by radical liberals with travel voucher power around the country. However, in the state of Arizona, Democrats are running from Grijalva like anathema, asking him to withdraw his boycott and the subsequent supporting lawsuits, calling it a mistake that further threatens the state's weakened economy:

Attorney General Terry Goddard sent a personal letter to Grijalva: "I ask you to join with me in calling on businesses across America to give Arizona a chance, and help us to rebuild our economy instead of engaging in hurtful boycotts," Goddard wrote. “In the absence of a new and comprehensive federal immigration law,” Goddard wrote, “it is just wrong for this administration to fight state efforts to address the effects of our broken border.”

Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) pointedly disagrees with Grijalva's position, including speaking out for Arizona tourism at the National Governor's Conference recently. She has written Grijalva several times:

“I believe that a boycott would hurt Arizona’s families and businesses at a time when our state’s economy is taking the first steps toward recovery after a devastating recession,” Giffords said in support of Arizona tourism.

U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick and U.S. Rep. Harry Mitchell, both Arizona Democrats, joined the criticism. Their response to the Obama administration lawsuit, sought and supported by Grijalva:

“This lawsuit is a sideshow, distracting us from the real task at hand. A court battle between the federal government and Arizona will not move us closer to securing the border or fixing America’s broken immigration system. The legal fights and boycotts are drawing focus and attention away from what has to be a policy-driven, substantive debate,” Kirkpatrick said.

“Washington failed us on this issue again today, and Arizonans have had enough. The White House and Congress need to start developing a better approach to border security and immigration reform, working with us instead of against us. Our law enforcement and communities are at risk right now – this is a time for solutions, not new obstacles.”

Mitchell added, “The only thing this lawsuit will do is demonstrate to Arizonans that Washington still doesn’t get it.”

And from Arizona's neighbors:
Diane Feinstein of California:

“I don’t think that boycotts or things of that nature really help. They just polarize people,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on Thursday. She was responding to a question asking if she supported a resolution in San Francisco calling for the city to boycott companies that do business in Arizona. “I do not think that is a smart thing to do,” said Feinstein, a former mayor of San Francisco.

A spokesman for Sen. Jeff Bingaman of neighboring New Mexico said the senator believed a boycott decision was up to others, but “welcomes” the tourists and businesses that “no longer feel comfortable going to Arizona.”

In all, Grijalva, in his call for a boycott, has revealed his true colors. Brian Johnson, spokesperson for Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson said the industry has twice sent Grijalva letters about his calls for a boycott, asking him in one case for an apology. There has been no response.

"To me it appears that he's turned his back on our industry," Brian Johnson said. "That has been very, very disappointing."

Grijalva's response to these criticism is that his boycott is "about sending a message.” He calls the law "racist" even though it asks state law enforcement to do LESS than what federal authorities are required to do by law. Send Grijalva the message. Vote on November 4.

Immigration: Ray Stevens Invite

How Democrats Twist Their Facts and Blame Opponents for Their Faults

A recent "discussion on Fox News between Megyn Kelly and an administration mouthpiece highlights the way Democrats choose to enter the debate going into midterm elections. As you watch this observe the threefold strategy to refute all arguments posed by voters to their elected officials that seem to criticize Democratic policies since gaining complete control of our government in the 2008 elections. Here are the "talking points" responses:

1. Deny. When constituents ask about Democrat policies and "what is in the bill," belittle them by saying they get their information from Rush Limbaugh or the internet even when they have their facts straight and you know it.

2. Ask a question that deflects away from the issue. When a reporter asks about Justice Department policy, Ask them why they didn't question the whistleblower about their sources.

3. Blame Bush. Apparently all the problems that the Obama administration has faced are the fault of Bush and Conservative policies despite the economic, legal, and budgetary facts in the hope that people are too lazy to do their research. It's getting old for most people, but the liberal base still buys it and hey, it worked in 2008, why not now?

4. Call them racist. This is also getting old for most people, but again, it gets the hair on the necks of the liberal base up and, since no one likes being called a racist, thoughtful people will pause and self evaluate, "Was I being racist?" Liberals assume they are not, because, well, they are liberals and liberals are NEVER racist.

Unfortunately for liberals, people are becoming tired of their excuses. Megynn Kelly's catfight with Liberal Kirsten Powers is an example of the sort of thing we are likely to see more of in the coming months:

 


Is Raul Grijalva different? Hardly. He has denied responsibility for deficit spending he voted for and a boycott that has hurt Arizona's economy. He deflects questions about oversight of White House complicity in the BP disaster. He blames Bush for everything from the trillions in deficit spending Grijalva himself voted for to gray hair on coyotes in his district. He has called everyone racist who is not Grijalva or a Grijalva supporter. And he refuses to represent anyone who does not share his point of view. It's time to stop listening to liberals and start confronting them with the facts until THEY listen.

Ruth McClung; Winning Alternative to Grijalva

Arizonans in District 7 are finding a respectable alternative to Raul Grijalva in Ruth McClung. largely written off by both Tea Party and Republican fundraisers alike, Ruth has built an impressive grass roots campaign by . . . get this, talking to people. Young, inexperienced, under financed, McClung has turned her upstart campaign into a viable threat to dethroning the Community Organizer Grijalva.
Jim Kelly of the Tucson Citizen, had this to say about her in his endorsement:

My knowledge of Ruth McClung began a week after Mother’s Day in 2009. I had met her at an LD 29 District and precinct committee meeting when she announced she was running for the US Congress in CD-7. For the next three months, I bullied her, berated her lack of political polish and derided her fundraising efforts. I was an absolute jerk to her and she remained unflappable. I am surprised that her Mother and Father, Gini and Tom Crawford, didn’t hit me. (Well Gini did once but I deserved it). Her husband Michael gritted his teeth when I would walk in the room but they all stayed the course.  I never thought her supporters would stand by her and yet they did. Bruce Webber is her most loyal volunteer and has walked more neighborhoods and put up more signs for her than any other precinct committeeman in her district. Her campaign has taken a much decentralized approach, letting the independent volunteer campaign managers in the counties of her district run their own organizations. Ruth has held car washes and bake sales to finance her campaign. When she first started doing radio interviews she was downright shy and I kept thinking, “Raul Grijalva has nothing to worry about.” But she kept campaigning. And she got better and better. She has stayed on message; she has articulated her core issues of Defense, Border Security, Free Market Economies, Science and Technology, and Healthcare. She truly is an elephant with momentum.
 She is also a rocket scientist and knows what she is talking about when she says climate change is a result of natural occurrences based on sun activity, orbits, spin and axis wobbles, ocean currents, polar activity and topographical reflection. It is not human caused. She said “Poverty and corruption has more detrimental effect on the environment than the use of fossil fuels. I want independence from foreign oil and I believe we can safely develop nuclear power within Arizona. I will vote against any scheme designed to tax carbon emissions just to subsidize an unmarketable an uneconomical alternative energy. No Cap and Trade.I am disgusted by my opponent’s lack of concern for the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Instead of watering holes for smugglers, he should have been empowering our Border Patrol and law enforcement to stop the drug cartels and terrorists from taking over the park and denying access to American citizens. What is he thinking? Is this his way of letting Aztlan get a foothold on sovereign American soil?”

Ruth McClung June 16, 2010

But does McClung know what she is talking about in regards to the economy?

Her economic views are free market based and follow a Milton Friedman model of spending based on a percentage of GDP. ”We have a budget at home; We have everything prioritized from the mortgage down to whether or not I buy new shoes. We pay the priorities first, when we run out of money, we stop spending till we have new revenue. The only time we should go over budget in this country is for catastrophes, civil emergencies and self defense. I see the Border as a National Security and self defense issue and should be paid for in the Defense Authorization and Appropriations.”
“We have got to let the market rule with regards to the economy. No one is too big to fail and the bailouts shouldn’t have happened. But we are stuck with it for the moment and now it’s all about us holding the spenders of the bailouts accountable for results. Yuma has 20% unemployment, Pima County over 10%. We can do better in removing the roadblocks that stifle entrepreneurship. Whether it is environmental regulations or various departmental policies, I will work to remove those roadblocks.”

McClung still does not have the attention of the national Republican party. She is ignored by pollsters and Republican fundraisers. She is an inexperienced candidate in what is considered a Democratic stronghold. But remember, Grijalva's first win in District 7 was by less than 5% over a Yuma conservative who was unknown in Tucson. McClung has campaigned heavily in both Tucson and the more conservative Yuma and has the yard signs and billboards to show it. And this is not 2000.  It is also my belief that there are no Democratic strongholds in this election. It is in these "strongholds" that viable, conservative candidates, ignored by the media and party, might just turn the tide of Obamanation. Jim Kelly thinks McClung is one of those candidates. Grijalva just might also. A final word from Kelly:

Ruth McClung is the frontrunner in this GOP primary. Faith and family are very important to Ruth. She is a Christian and believes that faith and reason go together.  Every time Raul Grijalva opens his mouth on national television, her fundraising increases. Keep talking MEChA boy. His boycott of Arizona will destroy his candidacy and he knows it. His hubris has finally caught up with him. A woman of unshakeable faith in the values of church, family, and country, the core moral compass of the people of Southern Arizona, will prevail in November. I asked her what kind of cactus she would be. She said she would be a prickly pear, the purple one with the yellow flowers. Perfect.

Life Break

A hilarious video sent by a friend. Thanks James:

Grijalva Press Releases Miss the Point: Government IS The Problem

Raul Grijalva is spending most of his time heralding the Progressive New World Order while criticizing Americans who wish to put the breaks on the Obama spending spree. Take a few examples from his recent posts;

Congratulations to Abengoa, which is going to build the world's largest solar plant about 70 miles southwest of Phoenix. This is exactly the kind of investment in green energy and jobs we need to be making.

 Wrong. We don't need partial solutions to energy problems and solar is a partial solution. Granted, solar can provide surge power for Arizonans, but You can't put solar power in your gas tank and it is unavailable for 12 hours of the day. We need investment in nuclear power and our vast gas and oil resources. This will produce far more jobs and lower prices sooner than panels and windmills in the desert. But Dems are beholden to environmentalists, so nuclear and gas are off the table for Grijalva.

A new look at state budgets shows how hard our economy is hitting people at the local level. As the article says, "Over 40 states have cut back on services like education, health care, and help for the elderly to help balance their budgets."

 State problems are a direct result of lack of revenue from lower home values, small business bankruptcies, and corporate cuts, particularly in Arizona. The solution is not, as Grijalva's simplistic Progressive Caucus proposes, more deficit spending by the Federal government. The solution is stimulating business growth. Grijalva, Obama and liberals in Congress have done nothing to incentivize business since taking control. On the contrary, they have done everything in their power to spark fear among business owners, causing entrepreneurs and investors to hold on more tightly to their money, reducing profits and tax revenue.

More than 300,000 rebate checks went out this week to Medicare recipients who fall in the "donut hole" where prescription drug costs are not covered. These checks will help retirees afford medicines they need to manage chronic pain and other conditions. We shouldn't make them choose between their needed medication and other living expenses.

The "hole" is a direct result of Obamacare, left out of the original bill to keep costs under $1 trillion dollars. It is because of the flawed healthcare fiasco Grijalva supported that has Medicare patients spending more on Depends undergarments. The bill allows insurers to pass on their costs for the "donut" to you and me in the form of increased copays and drug prices. Seen your copay go up on drugs? Doctor not taking patients? Blame Obamacare.

Congratulations to Arizona for a new $1.6 million job training grant from the Department of Commerce. This kind of Recovery Act grant is helping people get back to work, especially in economically hard-hit areas.

Millions for job "Training" is useless when there are no jobs. Studies throughout the last 50 years show the ineffectiveness of this approach. Remember, despite what Dems will tell you, this is now Obama's economy, and it is NOT recovering. It is stagnating, and government spending for overpriced "jobs" programs are just making hard-working Americans more nervous with each new Billion in unaccounted spending.

The search for an AIDS vaccine has made good progress, although more remains to be done. An antibody has been identified that neutralizes 91 percent of HIV strains.

 Work has been going on for twenty years, mostly in the private sector and mostly funded during Bush I and Bush II administrations, not by the vocal but less appropriating Clinton years. The fact that a breakthrough comes now in a government lab is testimony to years of International and private groundwork which deserves most of the credit.

 Ever the politician, Grijalva continues to shade everything in partisan rhetoric, influenced by his years of reliance on the federal government for his salary and a conduit to his power. He needs some experience in the private sector. Give it to him in November.

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.

Ronald Reagan

Nugent on Border Security

Like him or hate him, Ted Nugent has a plain and simple answer to border security:

Ted Nugent on America

What America is Losing, What the Rest of the World Wants

Market Economies With Churches and Market Economies Without Churches

by Zhao Xiao

Roaming in North America was for the purpose of reading a wordless book, to have the chance to gaze at the heavens from a foreign land. In the country that has the most prosperous material civilization in the history of human society, the question that frequently occupied my thoughts was this: where does the greatest difference between China and America lie?

The greatest difference between China and America

What makes the deepest impression on our countrymen about the US is the forests of skyscrapers that this country puts up, representing the high development of America's material culture. But skyscrapers are no longer scarce in China! It is evident that skyscrapers are not the greatest difference between China and the US.
Then, what about wealth? Without a doubt, the US is the world's richest country. In 2000, China's per-capita GDP was US$840, while America's was US$34,100; there is great disparity between the two. But considering that China's personal income levels are swiftly increasing, the wealth gap, though large, does not amount to the greatest difference between China and America.
Perhaps someone may suggest the gap in science and technology. However, China also possesses a great deal of high technology: for some time it has had the hydrogen bomb and the atom bomb, it sends rockets to the heavens, and it is developing a spaceship. So while a gap remains between the science and technology levels of China and the US, it is not an astronomical one.
Perhaps someone will suggest the financial gap. The pinnacle of the market economy is finance, and this is a weakness of China's market economy. In comparison, the US has the world's strongest financial system, and was the earliest to implement relaxations of financial controls to invite financial innovation. To date it has attracted 75% of the world's financial resources, making finance one of America's three superlatives (the others being sci-tech and political power). However, while China's financial system lags behind, looking across the country one finds banks as common as rice shops, securities firms promoting themselves everywhere, and ads for funds airing one after another during prime time on CCTV. So the financial gap between China and the US, while large, still does not amount to the greatest difference.
Then it must be a difference in the political and legal system. To be sure, there is a noticeable difference between China and the US in this area. However, the particular national conditions of the US and China are not very similar, and China is currently involved in a rapid transition and transformation. It is possible to imagine that a modernized China will inevitably move in the direction of an improved political and legal culture, and the prodigious experience and techniques of the US, as the the world's most developed country, have been taken as a model by the Chinese, who absorb everything. From this perspective, though reference can in fact be made to many areas in politics and law in China and the US, this still cannot be called the greatest difference.
Then where does the greatest difference between the US and China ultimately lie? My personal opinion: churches. Only in this area is the difference between China and the US not a question of numbers, but rather an essential difference between presence and absence. In the US, the spires of churches are more numerous than China's banks and rice shops. On a street near Harvard Square, I once stood and looked around to find that in three different directions there were three churches. Truth be told, from the east coast of the US to the west coast, from towns to cities, in any place you look you will find that this country's most numerous structure is none other than the church. Churches, and only churches, are Americans' center; they are the very core that binds Americans together.

Churches and the market economy

Americans are not idiots. Their need for churches is overwhelming, and churches provide something in answer to their call — there is definitely some principle at work. During my time in America, the relationship of churches with America's economy, society, and politics became the issue that most often occupied my mind. I came up with many interesting ideas; because of length, I will only address economic issues here. At its heart the problem could be stated as a comparison between market economies with churches and market economies without churches.
Ultimately, why is it that we need a market economy? It is because the market economy has one major advantage: it discourages idleness. The planned economy is different — its faults are faults of having no system of encouragement. Good work and poor work are identical. Under a free market system lazy people cannot live. So the market economy will force competition; it is an efficient economic system. However, the market economy can only discourage idleness; it cannot discourage people from lying or causing harm. This brings to the market economy a certain danger; that is, it may result in an unsavory situation: it may entice people to be industrious in their lies, industrious in bringing harm to others, and to pursue wealth by any means. Some people may say that this is because the market economy is imperfect, and that a perfect market economy would not be this way. However, a market economy that relies solely on the individual will never be perfect, since it can only call people away from idleness but cannot discourage lies and injury.
Indeed, repeated game-playing in the market may minimize dishonest and injurious actions, and legal punishments may be beneficial to normal trading actions. However, in conditions where information in the market is unbalanced and incomplete, contracts are forever deficient. Completely relying on repeated gaming and legal punishments to achieve normal market actions is not only impossible, but is possibly even uneconomic — the implication here is that the market may have unlimited costs, so expensive as to be unusable, and may ultimately come crashing down. To a degree, China's market economy currently has fallen into this trap. In the mind of a majority of Chinese people is a simple understanding that the market economy means getting rich, and to get rich any means may be used.
Hobbled market ethics have already lead to two chronic ailments in Chinese society. First, becoming rich without relying on labor or on the creation of wealth for society, but rather relying on collusion between government and business and the malicious repurposing of public finances to gain wealth. Second, dishonesty in market trading: backing out of promises and gaining wealth through swindles. So we can see that the market economy in China has brought out a group of "freaks": day and night they ceaselessly seek personal profit through lies and harm. Naturally, this kind of market economy has a exorbitant cost. And naturally, what causes the exorbitant cost of these market operations is the widespread lack of self-restraint among Chinese people.
These days Chinese people do not believe in anything. They don't believe in god, they don't believe in the devil, they don't believe in providence, they don't believe in the last judgment, to say nothing about heaven. A person who believes in nothing ultimately can only believe in himself. And self-belief implies that anything is possible — what do lies, cheating, harm, and swindling matter?
However, market economies that have churches are different. Perhaps it is difficult for Chinese people to understand what Christians are like. Here, I can only say that they are rational beings, just like ourselves, and it is sufficient for you to avoid thinking of them as monsters.
It cannot be denied that there are swindlers who go in and out of churches, but the majority of people are not going to church to fill their stomachs. The majority of followers go to church because they truly have a devout faith. Confucius said, "A true gentleman seeks out wealth according to the Way." To the average person, this may be difficult to achieve since the average person is not a true gentleman. In comparison, it is people who turn their eyes to church spires who generally respect financial norms and integrity. Why? Here is the secret: Puritans, though they may be called the most fervent people in the world in their drive to accumulate wealth, nevertheless do not pursue wealth for personal benefit but rather "to the glory of God," and to ensure that after they die they can enter heaven. This monetary ethic renders inseparable the motive and means of the Puritans' pursuit of wealth, and those whose only thought is to create wealth for God will naturally be able to become true gentlemen — gentlemen among gentlemen. In passing, the following thought occurred to me: I suddenly have a new understanding of why Bush required his CEOs to swear according to the Bible when signing their financial statements: Bush was not only raising the the Damoclean sword of the law over his CEOs, but he also placed them under the threat of hell's lakes of fire. The sword of the law together with the eyes of God is evidently more effective than the law alone. For this reason, the unity of means and method in acquiring wealth is able to remedy the market's insufficiencies. From this standpoint, the market economy has an instinctive need for some kind of matching market ethics before its true force can come into play, just like horses have an instinctive need for the whip. From the perspective of human society, the most successful model is church + market economy. That is to say, the happy combination of a market economy that discourages idleness together with a strong faith (ethics) that discourages dishonesty and injury.
Is it not integrity that you are pursuing? Then you ought to know: places with faith have more integrity. For China's crawling economic reforms, this ought to be an important inspiration. Market economies with churches are different in another respect from those without: in the former, it is much easier to establish a commonly respected system. The reason is simple: a people that share a faith, compared to people who only believe in themselves, find it easier to establish mutual trust, and through that to conclude agreements. However, where is the cornerstone for the American constitution? In fact, as early as the first group of English Puritans who came over to the New World on the Mayflower, there was the Mayflower Compact, which would become the foundation of autonomous government in the separate states in New England. Its contents comprised civic organizations as well as working out just laws, statutes, regulations, and ordinances, and the first line of the covenant was "In the name of God, Amen." So shared faith is the foundation for shared law. Otherwise, a legal system, should it arise, will not be respected.
Market economies with churches are comparatively open. The reason for this is perhaps explained thus: In the sight of God, all people are equal. It is easier for a core spirit of fraternity to extend to outsiders openness, acceptance, and respect.
Are there other uses of market economies with churches? Yes, and they are relatively important: guiding spending and modulating the close relationship between the poor and the rich.[**] In the case the wealth of a devout Puritan, the situation may be different. This is because his religious faith will tell him: gaining wealth is only for the glory of God; personally, he must use that wealth reasonably, for being forever humble is a virtue favored by God. So in the United States we can see that people with money must donate 10% of their wealth to the church for other church members to share. We can also see that the ranks of the richest people and the ranks of society's largest donors overlap; the relationship between rich and poor is fundamentally unlike the antagonism found in mainland China. Some of the spending and handling of wealth on the part of the rich may violate the law, while others may not violate secular law, making legal oversight difficult. But I know that this malconduct does not please God. However, in the absence of God's oversight, all of this is possible and even common.

Faith: the soul of the market economy

Modern economics—modern politics—modern culture form the trinity of the market economy. Seeking the fruits of the market economy, Chinese society ultimately will travel the road of cultural reconstruction, investing in market ethics. It is fortunate that in Chinese society there is already recognition that integrity is the cornerstone of the market economy, but establishing a good cornerstone is no simple matter.
Looking back at China's recent history, what China has learned from the West stretches from superficial to deep, from externals to internals. From the power of the gunboats we learned to understand the enemy's technology to defeat him; from the continual improvements to their military might we understood that we needed to develop our science, technology, and education; and because government-directed sci-tech and economics failed, we took a new road to the market economy, one that we have been on for 160 years now. However, this road to modernizing transformations is still far from finished. From the groans of present-day China's market economy, we can see that danger draws near: we have already bid farewell to humanity's most costly planned system, but because we lack a reasonable set of market ethics, we may be trapped in humanity's most costly market system.
Reality unquestionably requires us to move forward another few steps. The first is cultural transformation. We must find a cultural framework compatible with the modern free market economy. To achieve this, we may unearth from our own long-standing traditional culture a set of ethics that are compatible with modern economics, or we may use absorption and introductions from elsewhere to recreate our cultural DNA.
From Boston to Indiana, traveling through North America's vast lands, I could hear the serene sounds of church bells ringing in every church, and I recalled a poem by an angry poet that I wish to adapt as follows:

Be in awe of the invincible might,
Be in awe of the lightning,
And be in awe of the thunder in the sky;

Only through awe can we be saved. Only though faith can the market economy have a soul.

Grijalva: Among Worst Attendance, Voting Record in Congress

Raul Grijalva has the third most liberal voting record in Congress, and was absent for 20% of votes in the first quarter of this year, according to www.govtrack.us.
Grijalva in red--

Your friendly neighborhood Congressman, hard at work . . . on CSPAN, promoting the Progressive agenda.
Wonder why Grijalva is so out of touch with you? Checkout
http://www.progressivestates.org/
http://progressivemovement.net/
 Give Raul the opportunity to work for Progressive PACs full time. Boycott Grijalva in November.

Cut Spending? Congress Laughs at President

Stimulus, Bailouts, Reform. After promising a "new era of accountability," president Obama is now stuck with a Congress without any. A recent proposal by the President to send wasteful spending passed by Congress back for a "do over" was met with a chilly rception on Capitol Hill this week. Daniel No-Way as much as called the proposal unconstitutional.
Having pushed and had passed more spending than FDR (including World War II years), Obama has pretty much wasted his credibility with this Congress. In fact, there is increasing concern of a "Lame Duck" spending spree, in which liberals in Congress, voted out in November elections, might force through a laundry list of social spending that Obama could be stuck with for the rest of his presidency.
It is ironic that we have gone from a representative body that couldn't bring itself to pay for blankets for soldiers during our War of Independence, to a group addicted to spending. Send them back to their home states permanently.

A European and Chinese Perspective on America

For this 4th of July, two quotes about America from outside. First, from Heritage.org, a quote from the 2001 publication of Ronald Reagan's radio addresses:

All of Reagan’s scripts are worth reading.  But this 4^th of July, one is particularly appropriate.  In a broadcast on September 21, 1976, “The Hope of Mankind,” Reagan returned to one of his favorite themes.  As the editors put it, “Reagan believed . . . that America is unique among nations – ‘the hope of mankind.’  He felt we had a duty to protect what we had inherited. . . .   In these essays, . . . the guiding star is always individual liberty, how lucky we are to have it, and how to preserve and protect it.”
To that end, Reagan quoted Ferdinand Mount.  Mount later ran the Policy Unit in Number 10 Downing Street for Margaret Thatcher in 1982-83, and wrote the tremendously successful Conservative manifesto for the 1983 general election, when Lady Thatcher won her most smashing victory.  On July 5, 1976, Mount wrote a memorable column for the Daily Mail.  Here, as quoted by Reagan, is what Mount thought it important to say, that day after the 200^th 4^th of July:

What the world needs now is more Americans.  The U.S. is the first nation on earth deliberately dedicated to letting people choose what they want and giving them a chance to get it.  For all its terrible faults, in one sense America is still the last, best hope of mankind, because it spells out so vividly the kind of happiness which most people actually want, regardless of what they are told they ought to want.  We criticize, copy, patronize, idolize insult but we never doubt that the U.S. has a unique position in the history of human hopes.  For it is the only nation founded solely on a moral dream.  A part of our own future is tied up in it and the greatest of all the gifts the Americans have given us is hope.

Reagan closed with three sentences of his own: “Thank you Mr. Mount – we needed that.  This is Ronald Reagan.  Thanks for listening.”

 Fast forward to 2002 and Zhao Xiao, a Chinese economist. according to Zhao, America's foundations, especially Christianity, are what keeps the US economy the strongest in the world and the hope for others to follow:

We know that America is a country founded by Puritans. And Puritans, their dream of coming to America was the need to establish a city on a hill, to let the entire world see the glory of Jesus Christ, whom they believed in. So their purpose for doing business was for the glory of God. If my motivation for doing business is the glory of God, there is a motivation that transcends profits. I cannot go and use evil methods. If I used some evil methods to enlarge the company, to earn money, then this is not bringing glory to God. Therefore, this is to say that it [ bringing glory to God] can provide a transcendent motivation for business. And this kind of transcendental motivation not only benefits an entrepreneur by making his business conduct proper but it can also benefit the entrepreneur’s continued innovation.

Pray this Fourth of July that American can continue to be that City on a Hill representing Hope and Faith to the world.

Grijalva Shows Patriotism:Votes to End War to Pay for Social Programs

Having voted for more deficit spending than any Congress in history, Raul Grijalva is now becoming frugal. Joining 100 liberal Democrats in voting against spending for American troops in harms way, Grijalva called Republican calls for budget cuts "hypocrisy," saying it will "take money away from Social Security and welfare programs."



It would seem to me Raul is the hypocrite. Saying he supports the troops, then making political hay over his own contempt for war is absolutely two-faced, not unlike his called-for boycott of his home state. Balking at supplemental military spending for a war he voted for while passing billions in "supplemental spending" on labor union kickbacks and expansion of unnecessary government intervention in health care defines hypocrisy. Some of us remember Grijalva and Pelosi making these same comments about the Iraq War, calling Petraus a liar and opposing funding. But it is not American troops in foreign lands who are betraying us. It is an overspending Congress with their own political agenda.
Send THEM home.

The following would never be heard at a Grijalva Rally: